 I'm going to turn it over to you, Mark, so you can kind of fill us in. Great. Sure. Well, nice to see everybody. I have another murky day here in Washington County. So Matthew and Floor and Chris asked that I come in and just share a brief overview of the steps taken here before in our search process. We're moving from the search process to the actually hiring process, which is good news. So I've got a list of things I'll just sort of mention that we've done together. And then any questions that this board has of me that this would be a great time to ask to get clarity kind of going forward. So first off, just hats off to Floor and Chris and to Matthew for all of their support. They're strong leaders and we're committed to a process that's executed with integrity. And you should be thankful that they're representing the SU board and the communities of their good works. And thanks to you guys. We approach this process a little bit differently because it is an interim search process. And one of the things that was probably most outstanding was just the condensed timelines. So the steps that I'll share tonight reflect trying to get a big decision made in a short period of time. And I think as I mentioned to you some time ago, a month ago when we first met each other, that we're going to have to not integrate into this process things that are typically found in an overall search process and we have several months to conduct it. That said, I think we've made good progress and I look forward to a positive outcome. So what we've done up to this point is we met Floor and Chris and Matthew and I soon after we met as a larger board. And made sure we had agreement on what we were looking for for the most essential qualities and characteristics and attributes and skills you're looking for in the next school leader in an interim position. We just wanted to check our assumptions before we framed the school spring, which was where we posted the ad up. We wanted to make sure we had agreement around the table. And again, as your peers they reflected what they believe the SU board was looking for. So that was our first time together and we immediately put that on school spring and ran it for nearly a month, I believe, nearly four weeks. It ends tomorrow, May 3rd. So it's been up for about four weeks in duration. We've also had the opportunity to meet with a number of different stakeholder groups including Bill's leadership team comprised of school-based leadership and district leadership. And we went through an activity identifying what they felt were the key priorities, ideally that we would find in an interim superintendent. And that was very instructive and helpful for me to think about as we were leading up to the point of having to frame the interview process and what the reference check process would look like going forward. I also had a great opportunity to meet with Bill's central office team. Again, outstanding leaders in their own right and very committed to executing this process in a really thoughtful way. And their input was helpful as well, not too different from what I had received in the leadership team. And I can let you know what those qualities are that they're looking for if you're interested. And finally I have an invitation that I put out to the leadership of the labor management team, the educators who reflect the needs of their colleagues in the field as well as support staff. Asking them to provide me input or actually meet with me and they'd love to but they're really busy and I did that. So we came up with another option for them and that is just to let me know directly by email on things that they're looking for. And I've gotten not a large response but whatever, it's helpful as I thought about and what types of questions again in the interview process we wanted to just construct. So we've taken care of that piece. I have framed, I drafted interview questions which I've run by several times to Chris, Floor, and Matthew and they provided me some good feedback on trying to shape these questions that reflect the needs of the Supervisor and Union Board and the needs of the five communities and staff. So that is, that's a document sort of ready to launch and gets more feedback on the leadership team and central office team next week. We have assembled a 10 member interview committee. I know it's not a committee really because it has, it's kind of a team, committee group of people who want to come around the table and invite candidates to come forward and have a conversation with them. It includes again Matthew, Floor, and Chris. It includes two central office team members, two leadership team members and two educators yet to be decided. I'll confirm that hopefully by Monday at the latest in one student who attends E32. So that is a 10 member team that will join together on the 13th and 16th of May, which is a week from next Tuesday or Monday and Thursday next week, week from next week. I have to introduce three candidates so I'd like to move forward to the committee to be considered as first round candidates. We had 12 individuals who applied for the job, which I thought was a good response, all things considered. Six folks were from Vermont and six were from away, five of whom from New England and one person from the Midwest. It was important that when we first met as a group, Floor and Matthew and Chris and I, that we identified what the must-haves in their background to be able to be eligible for consideration. One was a licensure. The majority of the people who applied from out of state, actually all of them, with the exception of one fellow from the Midwest did not have a Vermont super tennis license. And I think we felt it was critical to have that license so the board's not wondering if the AA was going to issue because there's no such thing, I think I may have mentioned before, as reciprocity just because you've been practicing in Rhode Island doesn't mean that you can get a license in Vermont. And I think it's important that you have someone licensed by July 1st. But more importantly, they didn't have the requisite experiences that I think that you were looking for, which was a minimum of three years of relevant experience. Practicing as a school leader at a district supervisor or union level was important. Someone who had an advanced graduate degree showing that they've got scholarly work in their curriculum vita. And someone who had at least familiarity with the evolving governance structure in small communities, especially the idea of what they knew was happening in Vermont. And that didn't preclude me thinking of bringing forward folks who didn't practice in Vermont, but again the license should have gotten away with all of those candidates. Out of the six folks from Vermont who applied, two of them are literally new to the game. They aspire to be super tennis someday and I didn't feel this was a good match for them in their early part of their thinking. The three folks that I'd like to bring forward for the community's consideration are three Vermont educators. One is the current practicing superintendent in Vermont. One is the retired superintendent who's been out of business for four years. And the third has been a superintendent in two different locations. And currently as a principal is hoping to get back to the superintendent this next year. It's not why I selected them, I happen to know them as colleagues because as a bill would know them as well. But I think that they meet all the things that you're looking for and present as exceptional candidates who hopefully would match up with what you're looking for in the end run. I'm calling all three of the candidates. They have phone interviews or conversations with them scheduled for tomorrow. To ask the question again, are you interested? I think they are. I'm quite certain of that. And to again review the things that I believe are most important for them to be thinking about as they consider applying for the job and entering into a first round interview. And to ask to answer any questions they might have as well at that time about sharing too much information about not wanting to make the playing field on the evening in the South Fair to give one candidate a lot of information and two others not as much. I'll be judicious in that regard. Matthew and Chris and Flora asked that your attorney review the current superintendent contract and modify that to reflect the inner nature of the job. I thought the attorney did a good job in doing so. So it reflects not only the practice but state statute. And I believe that that's a bonding work that needs to happen. It needed to happen so that when you do meet the prospective candidates and they have questions about like, what's the contract look like? You'll have that ready to share. I will start reference checking, first round of reference checking next week. What I'll do tomorrow on the telephone is to ask from these three candidates in addition to the letters in your curriculum data, names of three or four other people that I can speak to directly offline. Now again, these are people who are chosen by the candidate, so they're probably going to choose people who are going to have favorable things to say, but that's okay because I've got a line of questions that I can go a little bit deeper and I need to know a little bit more about their background. So when the interview team meets on the 13th and 16th, I will share that information after the interviews because I don't want to bias people going into an interview. If finalists were to emerge from this process, and I hope we're hoping that there would be two, that's not being presumptuous, that's just hoping there'll be two, there'll be a period of time where anybody can call references, you can call it whoever you'd like, and that's typical. So the candidates tomorrow have to know that they're going to become public every suit. And on some perspective, I'd just like to keep things quiet because they don't want that knowledge to be disruptive to the field, families and communities, but in light of this interim position, we're going to have to know more quickly than usual. Did I cover everything, you guys? Yeah. So Chris, Floor, and Matthew, anything else you want to share or open it up to any questions you guys might have? I want to tackle some of the sort of scheduling and kind of role issues that we've identified, but if Chris or Floor, if anything else they want to add. So I also wanted to thank Mark, and I think it's been, you know, we're pleased, I think it's safe to say, kind of where we've gotten to, the fact that we had a decent applicant pool and have three candidates that they feel are sort of very qualified to interview and just making sure we have all our ducks in a row and that things are moving forward both expeditiously but also carefully. So I'm going to appreciate his help with this. So there's a kind of question of what happens after the first round interviews, and there's some different aspects to that. One of which is that at our working session last week, we got to do a little bit of a discussion about kind of not being sure, really, who has the hiring authority to ultimately hire this superintendent because the contract will start on July 1st, and, you know, this body and the SC board will, assuming no court action or legislative action, would have no operational authority at that point. And so we kind of went back and forth and the new boards, the board of the new district is going to be elected on the 21st. So we talked about who should be doing the hiring and should we be recommending a candidate to the union district board that would then actually issue the contract. And afterwards, Bill actually reminded me that there's some language in the default articles of agreement that addresses contracts and it says that, you know, any contract that one of our forming district boards signs or that the SC board signs, you know, stays in effect essentially going into the consolidation. So in essence, from a legal standpoint, really I think the answer is that anybody could do that hiring. I think that my personal recommendation would be that our existing SC board actually make the offer an issue, the contract. The rationale for that is that, you know, we're already doing the work. It's quite difficult, I think, to ask a new board that's elected on the 21st to kind of come up to speed and make a sudden decision about, you know, who's going to be the superintendent for a year. The second reason is that, you know, I think as everyone is aware, a lot of the folks that currently serve on our SC board are likely to be serving on the new union district board as well. Absent some kind of never-before-seen right-in-candidate movement. Folks are going to end up getting collected to that board. So there will be some continuity in the sense of, you know, a handoff from the SC board to the new board. And then, yeah, there was another reason I had as well. I think it's something to do with the fact that just, you know, noting that the school system as it's currently constituted basically is in favor of hiring whoever may choose and, you know, it's just a good way of handing it off to the next board as well. So if someone wants to advocate differently, I'm open to that. But I guess, unless there's an objection, I would propose that we kind of proceed with that idea behind the current SC board would be the one to eventually extend an offer. Do they meet before the 21st? That's the next question. Let's first see if everyone, generally there's consensus on that. There's no objection. I think that's the one. I can say that, Mike, I had some reservations because I wanted the new board to start, you know, like we're meeting that board, like full authority, but we talked about it. And I think it's fine. So that does lead to then a scheduling question. I think there's two questions. One is the, let's call it a working group of 10 is going to be conducting these first round interviews. It seems to me though that if we identify finalists that this executive committee probably ought to conduct a second round, possibly a site visit and or a second round interview with the finalist candidates. Since we're doing the first round interviews on the 13th and the 16th, we'd be looking then at doing those interviews preferably the following week. So just looking at the calendar, we're talking about the week of May 20th, essentially. Maybe tentatively speaking, we're looking at May 22nd or something. That's the Wednesday that week. So we would need to possibly talk about and try to figure out when we can schedule, you know, a site visit and second round interviews with finalist candidates that week, possibly that Wednesday. Then the next question is that I would assume that if we want to, if the executive committee wants to recommend to bring forward a finalist candidate or recommend someone to the SU board as a whole, that board would then need to meet and at least have some kind of conversation or interview with that candidate and then, you know, authorize someone to make an offer and sort of carry that through. Our next SU board meeting is officially scheduled for June 5th, which is the first Wednesday in June, which is typically how we've done it the last few years, according to our board meeting calendar. I would kind of suggest that there would be some real value in thinking about bringing that meeting forward a week earlier to the 29th of May, Wednesday. Because the timeframe is so short, we would need to make an offer and possibly negotiate and hire someone hoping I'll start July 1st. So there's that element to it. There's also the fact that we will essentially lose Mark on the 7th of June when he will jet off to Montana for much more enjoyable activities, I'm sure. But if we weren't to meet to the 5th and we wanted Mark to be involved in sort of reaching out to a candidate and an offer and whatever, then that might prove problematic timing-wise as well. So that was my thinking about it. That said, it's logistically sometimes no easy thing to move a carousel meeting because it involves every board member and the leadership team. So that's where discussion is, I guess first, can the executive committee meet the week of the 20th, possibly the 22nd for a second round of interviews and a site visit, and then do we want to try to have the carousel meeting on the 29th of May instead of June 30th? Just a quick question. When you say site visit, is it because of the whole day that the candidate is visiting? Yeah, that's right. So at the end of the day, we would have the interview? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. None of them? Yeah. I'm still trying to move it. I'm all for doing the final interview as soon as reasonably possible. Is there any sense in having a special board meeting instead of moving the carousel but devoting a meeting on the 29th? Not that I want more meetings, but... Then that would just be a board member. Clear the deck. The leadership team schedule, necessarily. If carries. It's true. But then we are asking people to show up for two meetings instead of the one. Plus we have the new union district board. We'll be meeting at a pretty brief neck pace. Probably on the 27th. Oh, yeah. And we're right now for the WCUS... Group. For the new board, it's going to be... We're going to have to meet on the 22nd. We have to meet. Okay. We may, depending on if what the board approves that night, if they do then there won't need to be meetings for the 23rd or 24th, but if not, by the 24th we have to have warnings to get to an election for the 25th of June. So we have to go pretty fast. Right. For the union, the five union district work. So we're really... That week it gets to be a real crunch that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I just don't... And we'll know more. I mean, as we talked about, we just talked about here, the transition board is made up of... Seven or eight, I just have to do the count of the folks who are running. And as you said about the writing piece that there goes somewhere unopposed, we can get a sense out of the transition board or two of where we're at. And we're going to ask some... Lauren and I are planning to ask that in the next meeting tonight about the sense of where we're at with budgets and other things. So we... Because there's other work to do besides just get that budget. After that budget, there are two things that have to be done by July 1. Budget, passed. And policies in place. Those are the two pieces of big work talking with my colleagues who have been through mergers and the ones who have done it really fast. Like within three months, they think you can do everything else on the other side. But you've got to get Paul... Mark's been through this himself as a superintendent. The policies and fiscal pieces have to be ready to go in July 1. And that's... I mean, Lauren, as we talked about all year, we learned how to strip and stuff down to the minimalist. And I've really been using no river because Dave Gauss went through it really fast. Yeah. I guess my sort of preference of all things being equal is thinking on this in any way is that it's probably better to move the carousel meeting to the 29th if we can because there's so much else going on that, you know, having... meeting two end days in a row for like every... all the boards or, you know, whatever. It just seems like a lot given all the other meetings. So I think some of the things we need to talk about there's some other pieces that are going on, the local boards that are going to influence that carousel. And just times where we can provide information back to boards to make some of the decisions the local district boards want to make before the end of June. And we're not going to be ready for some of that. I mean, I was hoping we get to agenda for WCSU Board and I want to talk a lot more about that. Okay. And I don't know if you want that now, but that helps if we just do this kind of all naturally so that... so all the information is on the table to make a decision. I guess for the purposes of this conversation and thinking about Markstein as well, I guess we can figure... we'll figure that there'll be part of that conversation maybe there'll be some conversation after this meeting to know about when we make this work or not, but what I'm going to... there's a way of trying to tie this with a sense of the executive committee is that we should try to have a committee meeting on the 22nd and the CARES level on the 29th if the logistics and... Yeah. And I would... I would ask you because of the work the transition board has to do on the 22nd. Yeah. That you move that site isn't one day. And you... Yeah. The new unified union board needs to do that 22nd. That you move the superintendent hiring and site because it's the 23rd. Yeah. Just, I think because I'm hopeful that we can do most of the work of the new union board. We have to take care of all the organization but then we might be able to get most of that work done that night. And that way you have... But you're just concerned about what the timing would be sufficient to... I don't want to wait. I would have... You could decide to do this but I would not want to wait for the unified union board to meet until Thursday because you're going to be overlapping with a lot of people sitting around this table right now. Yeah, I understand. I was just... I guess I was thinking like we're doing tonight we might be able to piggyback the meetings but it sounds like that union decision meeting might be... So Mark, tell me what your thought is but I'm not. I'm thinking that you're going to be an hour to an hour and a quarter each with each candidate. Makes sense. So now you just got to a three... And then you're going to talk. You're in a three to three and a half meeting. It's a three hour meeting. So let's say Thursday to 23rd then is what we will shoot for for the executive committee to sit around the site visit and all that. And then to be decided maybe the 29th with the care itself we'll figure that out. The other thing that you could say is you could go the other way to the 21st and try to get off the 22nd. Yeah, I prefer the 23rd. The 20th person is the election. Yeah, we need to wait for the election. Not for the work you need to do as an executive committee. I'm just thinking about polls being open and stuff. You know, we can all vote early. You don't have to wait to let they vote. No, I understand. But people are... Yeah, but I'm not going to tell people they don't know. Got you. So the 29th is the full board meeting. Potentially. Potentially. Potentially. So in terms of... And Mark, let me just be... Is that most of the kind of outstanding things that we needed to kind of touch on? Yes? Yeah. Are there any other questions that the executive committee members have for Mark or for Chris going myself about how this is going or where it's going? A couple. I do anticipate the interview committee or working group will make its decision. It's not the formal I think we saw it as their recommendation. So just talk it through and... Yeah, so I've got a couple of protocols I'll use to try to get to yes. Yeah. And also about the contract. I'm curious how it might be different from our current specifically separation. How that would be handled if it doesn't work out. On your side and that is hey, I presume it will be a negotiation but... Chris, could I ask you to circulate the draft superintendent contract to the executive committee? May I? Sorry about that. Advise you that you go into executive session and you do that there. Okay. Let's do that then. Yeah. And you can have whoever you like in that executive session but then you do that there. Fair enough. I have clarifications that when we put it in school spring we put a range that we needed to be out front from the very beginning. So are we that spend? That's already big. The range has. Yeah. The range is out. Yeah. We don't need to go into the executive session. That's not a question. I mean at some point we need to... We need to make a good point about if separation doesn't work out in the way we need to state that it would be a problem for a year that we couldn't know what. But you never know. We want to have a negative session to discuss. Yeah. I think this is a good point. We should... Okay. So if there are no other questions then we can set more free... Release me. Thank you, Mark. Well nice to see you again. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Hang in there. Really looking good. Thank you. I'll be in front of you. Yeah. I know when I saw you laugh. Yeah. Okay. So 2.2 is WCS before we just talk about the timing of the next meeting. So let's talk about the agenda. So I know that the School Quality Committee wanted to do some work on hearing a report back on data for June. We wouldn't be ready for the... With the snow days all our whole assessment windows have been pushed for a local assessment. So we're not going to hit June 5 for our assessments. We have some stuff from March to the end of the year. Okay. So it's been suggested to me by my colleagues and I'm going to talk more of the leadership... I say my colleagues in the central office, colleagues, administrators and I talk more of the leadership team on Tuesday but some of that almost wait as for coming in of this is where the current state is at right now and that would be happening. It would be the end of June to all that's ready. Just remember with the weather. The other thing that's been suggested and it's been suggested by quite a few people to me between board members and staff is that there'd be some sort of celebration of the good work boards have done over the years for Washington Central. It's the last meeting of the SU board that there'd be some sort of celebration activity and budding old members should say old members former members. Please strike that from the record. Can you delete that for me? Former members to attend and be recognized for the great work they've done to help lead this supervisory union over the years. And that'd be a celebration of the great work that's happened in Washington Central over 44 years. So and I think that's the right tone. I know that I have a feeling there might be dare to say it but I think it should actually be done in a second carousel somewhere in the end because boards are talking about what they might want to move to their capital funds because of the ability that we all learned about from Chris Leopold that for money put into the building capital fund they'll stay there for that intended use. And Laura is not going to be able to hit the end of the year financials with what fund balance is going to even look like with a pretty solid projection until the middle of June. Laura, you think I'm too late? No. And you like come on we can get yeah, we got the big deep breath. That's a good way of putting it. So I know folks are going to want to have that conversation. So it might be something the week of the week after U32 graduation and it would be easier for Laura and I if we actually had everyone in the same place to say if that's what you want to do that we'll give you your financials and kind of talk with everyone here they are you know we're going to let you know what has to stay in the general fund because there's going to have to be money that goes to the locals that's got to stay in the general fund to roll over because we haven't finished receiving everything we're supposed to receive and collecting it doesn't all end magically on a certain day in June. So things checks have to clear and things like that. So those are just things that are in my mind about thinking about that carousel meeting and thinking about what I do. So Well let me ask then almost I'm just sort of brainstorming here it almost sounds like there is a rationale for having two carousel meetings one at the end of May one at the end of June I think it seems whatever June fit it seems fast to click together like a celebration and I'm also a bit uncomfortable with the idea of trying to go through a superintendent came in an interview in discussion and possible action with the SU board and to kind of be on top of that be spending a celebration Yeah I don't think we'll shoot those two shooting together I agree with you there So but in terms of this so maybe it makes sense to try to plan it out that way So we have a special meeting and one carousel meeting we don't need to have two carousel meetings Are there things that the district boards need to do either on the 29th or on the 5th? We're all meeting in May What are the local boards that are meeting in May? Most of the local boards are meeting in May and most of this stuff is I don't feel like I can answer that because I think those are I just think of looking at all of you and your difference like East Montpelier has really narrowed down their agendas so far some have really broadened it because of conversations you have different conversations going at each board that you actually want to try to do before June 30th So I can't answer that for you but I think that they're I think you're going to know more by the end of May frankly because I think really what June's going to be about is how do we set up what goes into capital funds and what has to stay in general funds and we're going to we don't have it right now but at some point we're going to say this is what we think the fund balance needs to be for Washington Central UUSD which is a lot less than the combined capital fund balance that we have across all the entities that's one of the positives of coming together there's one answer because there's just you don't need that 4% that's across all of it you know so it's it's going to be one of the so we don't have a number for that yet we'll work on that so for the 29th then do we want to just have an SU board meeting it sounds like the district boards are in different places possibly so we can't make a blanket statement about sort of the necessity of their meeting that evening yeah I don't I wouldn't try to meet I think with my recommendation from talking to Sruin thinking of my own head here at the table so I'm kind of brainstorming so take it as that the 2019 meet for the interview of the interim superintendent right you have one agenda on you well unless there's something unless there's something else where there's something else we'll put on it but that right now that's the first thing and then that you move the June 5th carousel carousel to I'm going to give you a date here right to June 19th and there might be some graduations there is yeah see you're already I mean because some of the graduations on that Wednesday that and that's where we're going to start hitting the 8th grade graduation do you prefer the 19th over the 26th uh there are some graduations on the 19th some on the 20th and some on the 21st what about the 18th is anyone graduating on Tuesday the 18th so right now so right now I don't know about learning the schools what is going on I can tell you there will be something going on every night from June 10th on that's just the way it is at the closing of school we always have something going on somewhere and that's so it's not going to be just graduation I mean there are events and you could try to do it the 12th you know I don't know just try to think a bit but um alright well let's plan on the special meeting on the 29th then for the purpose specifically of recruiting and and such and then you know 10 of them will be in the 20th and then you know 10 of them will be in the 20th and then you know 10 of them will be agreed that we'll move the date for the carousel meeting later in the month of June try to find a date for that and if people are comfortable with it I will work with Bill I'm trying to identify possible dates and then we can pull the I'm going to pull the buildings right now and say for Mondays and Wednesdays tell me what's going on for June because that's and the principles are going to know and there might imagine something might appear yeah okay I also just wanted to mention quickly something I should have done under 2.1 but it's probably time for our next communication out to the WCSU staff about the status of the search process so again unless there's an objection I will draft something and work with Chris and Floor you know just saying where we're at and kind of what's next and get that out on Monday okay anything else on agenda? yes specifically anything you cover most of the stuff I just want to make sure we sorry Bill I'm sorry I was writing I'm trying to make sure I get this done so no I think that that's the piece and I think our colleagues around the table gave you permission to kind of work on this with me and we'll try to put something together along with thinking about what a celebration like look like and we'll put that together okay 2.3 WCSU update I mean just to be transparent I really was wanting to take Act 46 update off our agenda so I did that all of this I will briefly try to give you what I know about kind of where things stand with the legislature and the court case so my understanding is that the senate has voted to disband the conference committee that was trying to work on reconciling the differing bills in the house and the senate regarding possible delays to the murder timeline that's currently in place they could not the congress committee could not reach an agreement and so the senate specifically has voted to disband that committee and reform it and appoint new members my understanding at least as of yesterday is that the house has not followed suit and that the senate cannot force the house to take that vote or to take that action so currently that's kind of I guess I describe it as a statement and not I guess my editorial coming out was it doesn't seem promising in terms of something actually happening in the legislature to provide for a delay that being said the legislature is always a mysterious force I can both think of it at the last minute as well so I read somewhere that Baruth attached it to some other bill H129 or he did you're right and I but who knows what will happen or what that will happen interesting okay so that's the current status as up to the minute the court case other people probably know more about it my understanding is that filings second round of filings happen on Friday with regard to the with regard to now sorry it's with regard to the the things that Judge Malo has not yet ruled on the sort of causes don't the non-constitutional related causes for bringing the suit there's another round of filings that are happening and that is Dorothy all I know about it I don't know the I know that and then I did hear from somebody that basically said when he dismissed those other parts of the suit it wasn't that they were quote amusing citizen language ain't good it was that he thought more than one person needed to make a decision about those heavy topics and so the Supreme Court allowing us to get to the Supreme Court sooner rather than later was a smart thing to do that's just a comment which makes sense to me so that's kind of the backdrop of you know things turning that could possibly change the the order we're currently under the timeline we're currently on in terms of that timeline everyone's aware I think that the the election is set for the 21st we have candidates for all ten positions that are available you know from all towns there is a candidate forum which is scheduled it's being coordinated or put on or sponsored by the League of Women Voters it's from six to eight it's going to be at the Berlin Elementary Library and all the candidates have been invited I don't have any sense if they have confirmed their attendance or not there's no one in this room I'm not sure we just got the emails out today because we knew the time and place what day is that? Tuesday and May 7 Tuesday and May 7 but she said most people have got that she's got a reminder oh and director Dorothy and Scott I've been working with Susan on making that happen I believe that I'm supposed to be communicating actually or drafting something for front porch forum kind of describing the current state of affairs I was supposed to have done that I realized today earlier this week but haven't done it yet so hope that I will get it done and get it out maybe on Monday also so that there's a bit of additional heads up about the forum and then also some additional information about the election and why is there a force of it is there is there so that's sort of because that the website she updated the website with the profile so great okay great she's missing some but she everybody yeah no that's not so that's kind of like from a contextual and from you know maybe you know board side from an administrative where we're really running along we talked last week about getting things ready so we're making a smooth transition we'll be talking about that again later tonight getting you know we're getting down to some of the operational pieces Laura's done an awesome job of getting the fiscal systems and HR system is just about ready to go today they've been she's been working with NEMRIC to move everything over into one merged entity and the systems up and running for a general not payable accountable and HR went yesterday yesterday Payroll's almost done Payroll's almost done so we're just about ready to be operational for one system which is she's spun it up in three weeks just a miraculous time job with her team thanks they've been they've been going we're going to be bringing some things tonight I've been getting queries from the heads of maintenance of every building we have to be able to get summer work done and professional development that teachers have as a benefit that they're contractually obligated to they want to know if they can start signing up for courses how we do that so we'll be talking about that in the next meeting tonight but you know those good piece of work is going and we started this week we're doing a second analysis we have one already across the system and hoping to have a big slate of those ready to go for the new board so we can say this has already been done in common they're exact same words take this one and then we're the ones that are similar wardings different and then obviously let the board decide which they want to go that and we're the ones where their policies individualized by schools and how they want to deal with those so that's actually that's a huge piece of work for that it's the work of the policy committee and we really should thank them for the past couple years the work they've done and getting things aligned it's our recommended policies to consider where we've got some variances other than the borrowing issue one of your biggest concerns the borrowing issue we think we have a way out it took about Monday we still don't have it all written we have it verbal so we're we're confident we'll be with the banks if we're going to we're going to have some we'll be losing some revenue that's projected in the budget because remember we make money we'll leave far on that we invest so we'll be losing some revenue but Lawrence forecast and I've checked it over this afternoon I agree with her it's something so so then on the business side what are your biggest concerns at this point my biggest concerns are getting set up for summer work because we really don't stop I mean we're right now usually by now we already have stack of PO's for next year we're ready to go so we it seems like we have people that we have outside folks that come in and help us with cleaning carpet cleaning cleaning the ducks you know that's why the maintenance people start making the pile and so we're going to be asking tonight for authorizations to start releasing PO's because we've got to do it and it's just keeping the operations going summer extended year services professional development we have plans for people to you know work with summer you know like the project-based learning it's going on at U32 or the different learnings that you know different things teachers have been doing we're so far we've had very little turnover in staff compared to other years so that's making things a little easier right now usually right now we're up to our years and turnover you know hiring processes and things going on but contracts are due back in 15th of May so a little bit more then I really just want to thank you both especially for navigating this extraordinary situation you know with incredible skill and we really appreciate it and I hope that you'll pass that along to the folks that are most most impacted by it as well yeah thank you for sure yeah yeah and we're lucky the thing that I said earlier with Mark was here he has been one of the people I acquired I just said there's probably 10 superintendents I'm constantly querying through email or on the phone saying so how'd you deal with this and I know Larry's doing that with her colleagues who are business managers it's like okay you guys have been down this road what you do and you know we've really taken a minimalist approach that's what our project plan is it's like what's the minimum to get to operations so there's going to be a lot of work still and I want to say that there's still going to be a lot of work after July 1 and really for the new board it's going to be and I'll wait for that board to see what they want to do in June but they're going to need to start talking about how they want to operate and that governance piece is going to be big to talk about you know everything from student issues to hiring to budgeting just figuring out that governance piece and I'm going to recommend to you that you think about in the summer and the fall that you hire someone as a governance coach to come in and facilitate those conversations not to tell you but to and that's what quite a few new boards have done is for us to decide you know they help help that conversation thanks and we can move to 2.4 so this is I'm going to have Laura go through the you've seen this for several years now this comes from the auditor all the local boards U32 it's the first one to see it last night we do it in May it's a financial operations questionnaire that's on page 4 and I think Laura from why I reviewed this with U32 I'm going to review this one particularly but not much has changed from last year absolutely nothing has changed and this has to go this board needs to have a discussion about it needs to be in the minutes Matthew you'll need to sign it and it goes to our auditor when they do their audit to say you know and worse we're basically doing a self assessment Laura does it of where we are in our procedures and it was actually this is a requirement by the state auditor and so that they haven't asked for copies to be sent to them but statewide this is something that every school in the entire state has to do once a year somebody you want a couple minutes to look this over and if there are any questions or discussions we can do better I'm sure it's not significant but some are capital Xs and some aren't is that distinctive I know I think it's just a print thing okay I looked the same on the screen and the you said here are they directed to you or are you the you where is that like when it says on the second page do you participate in any business which does business with the STU I'm sorry which line is it it's up if you're one, two, three, four, five five up from the bottom do you there are a couple that say you and so I wonder who it's directed the you is directed to you and like for the embezzlement that's really the the STU like the second one down have you experienced that for embezzlement it's not me okay it's the entire Washington Central supervisor union so that's what the you is typically meaning yeah an accountant wrote this just saying I could have heard it differently any questions about the the intro questionnaire what do you do for that one where it says does any employee that you know of participate in any organization as a vendor how would you find the answer and I'm assuming the other one how do you find the answer to that because it's a a lot of I'm assuming it's all the teachers or they're just the central office it's mainly from looking at our vendor master who we will pay bills to yeah okay thanks because if a vendor typically they would have to run through payroll they would not be a vendor they would be an employee so you you catch that because you can't send the IRS two different tax forms for an employee so that's how you would catch it is there a conflict of interest policy in your employee handbook actually you guys created a policy because we had that missing and it is in the state required policies so there's a conflict of interest for everyone all the way I had said it was only for the board and they'll wrap that forward and we updated it a couple years ago yeah thanks for asking let the record reflect that the committee has discussed the annual financial question here the as mountain people you got just washing last one there you go nobody can sign it nobody has a kind of a good hurrah it's a pepe party Okay, so Bill, are we going to need to go into executive sessions for contract approvals? I hope not, but if you would like to, you can let me know. I don't think we need to either, I'm just checking, but I guess let's do the other things first, and if it happens to come up, then we'll have it at the end. So we're accepting a retirement, which is on-page, we can start with the board order, sure? Oh, okay, I'll read it. All right, I'm over with the amount of 676,254.69 cents and 437,822.87 cents. Second? Second. Good discussion. Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the board orders, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? So Jane Caswell, who has been a special educator, a half-time special educator with us for three or four years now, she was up in Berlin as cashier, she's been doing all the out-of-district placements, is retired, and she's done a great work for us, she's got her resignations on page. I'll move that we accept the retirement of Jane Caswell. Oh, second. Any discussion? Just to thank her for her service and for the appreciation. Thank you. All those in favor of accepting the resignation of Jane Caswell with our appreciation and thanks, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Accepting a new hire. So we have, yes, as you remember, the last meeting or two weeks ago, I don't remember exactly what was in the past month joining the NCAP for Tire, and so we're presenting with Deborah Gale as teacher for Triple E, replacing Joanne's position, and then we're doing a little bit of reconfiguration because we're finding more speech, language, and all of the services needed. They're happening with our student needs out there, and so part of Jane and part of some savings that's overall on the special ed budget is allowing us to bring to the second SLP. We have quite a few needs in this area. Is that Emily Heckler? That's Emily Heckler. Thank you. It's interesting that she's a speech and language person with the name like Heckler. Yeah, I guess it's over right now, Crystal. Thank you. Perfect. And what have we accepted with that meeting? Yeah, it's news. Yeah. And what have we accepted? The hiring of Emily Heckler? Yeah, you can say both. Emily Heckler and Deborah Gale. Is there a second? There's a second. Early discussion. All those in favor of approving the hire of Deborah Gale and Emily Heckler, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Thanks. So we'll go to 3.2. So this is something we've been doing at the four districts that have an association representing their education support personnel. It happened at U32. It will happen that it's happened at East Montpelier, Berlin, and Calis. We have a couple folks that are ESP that might, sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Usually a behavior interventionist that we hire through Washington Central. So I'm asking for approval of the ESP contract. It was 3.5% salary increase. There was a few changes in working conditions and it started to recognize their behavior interventionist and personal care attendance were some of the big changes. Dave wrote a summary that was in the paper. I'm just giving you the quick highlights on it. The other pieces that were the association asked for access to Vermont Municipal. Not municipal. Yeah, it's Vermont Municipal Retirement Association. I was just thinking it was being immersed. And I should say that. For retirement, if they so choose as employees to be part of that. Steve was part of that negotiation. I would encourage you to approve the contract. Is that enough? So we have a motion to approve the ESP contract for Economic Year 2019-2020 as negotiated by the community. Is there a second? Any further discussion? There are none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Thanks. 3.3. So for 3.3, I would recommend that for the central office administrators, which are the curriculum director and the business manager and the technology coordinator, that they have the same salary increases the teachers had in their contract negotiations, which is 3.1%. And for the rest of the office falls the ESP increase, 3.5%. We have a motion that we have an increase for the non-volume administrative staff at 3.1% and all others who are not administrative staff, but in the central office have an increase of 3.5% for the 2019-2020 school year. That was a second increase of what was the second percentage? 3.5%. Okay, thanks. I'm just trying to mirror the contracts. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Okay. We have reports to the board. We have time for them. Well, I haven't done anything beyond what most of you have seen in the superintendent and the transition reports. I've just focused on that for anybody. So what we're putting here were other memos that you've seen and also memos that have gone out to the employees. You've all received these in the emails earlier. So I don't think there's anything. I'd be glad to take it if you have any questions on this or any details. But just trying to keep people up to speed as we can with what's going on. I was actually a little... I had to take up people's time, but I was a little curious about the educational benefit and review. Yeah. So I was at that today. It was great. It was amazing listening to teachers that are actually taking our own IEPs, individual education plans, that have been redacted. We've got to use that word here. Here's that word again. For our student names. So we didn't know who the student was. And we look at where their three-year continuum between evaluations and say, did what we do in our IEP have any improvement in the education? That's why it's called education benefit. What benefit did the IEP provide? There were a lot of haas and a lot of... A lot of what? Haas. If you could give a little bit more detail. Yeah, I was going to. A very imbalance of services across schools. A very imbalance of how much service is given to kids for how much need. Not much data used in the IEPs. They're saying we need to have... It was said yesterday, it's a two-day training. One day was half. We don't want to take all the special ed teachers for a day out of school. So it was two days. There were general classroom teachers there, and administrators. So we all participated. Those are... The big thing is we need progress monitoring. It needs to be in there. We need to get it so that we're monitoring kids a lot more regularly. And using a common... Common assessments to do that. A lot of it is nice anecdotical data that talks about... That we review there were a lot of times there were comments about the kid, but not to how they were performing. You know, about the kid's character, and who they were. Great things. But the IEP is about tracking and seeing how we help students get back to good grade level targets. And we also saw some kids that were on IEPs that probably shouldn't be on IEPs. And there were questions from teachers about why didn't we stand up more to that. And really honest back from... I know for myself, I said to the group, I said, there's political pressure to provide services at times. And... Does that mean more political pressure or parent political pressure? Both. All. Was there a sense as to why the... He said that there's variability across the issue in terms of was there a source as to why there's variability and was it just... And who was determining the level of services and how was the variability... They're trying to develop standards of practice if a student is here and has this need. This should be the type of service they should get. And there hasn't been those standard of practices. Plus there's... There isn't proof of this. But there was wondering about ensuring people have full jobs at certain sites. And that came out to teachers. To justify someone's role. In terms of monitoring... What was there a sense as to what the monitoring is now in terms of what intervals and what it should be? So there's very little intervals right now. It's a lot of anecdotal data instead of saying we have systems in place. We talk about Star 360. It can be used as a monitoring tool to do what's called progress monitoring. We're monitoring every three to four weeks understanding where the student's at and seeing is they're making progress. So what happens is when you go over... There are sometimes here's the initial evaluation assessments but there was no tie back into any other assessments for the whole three years. So we're going back to 2014 we pulled cases. We've got to start really monitoring and it's got to be something that's common that's crossing because we have some of those cases for crossing schools. The kid might be in a school for one year because it's based on the personnel because of the personnel structure that we have for special education instead of... And so there was a talk and I saw a lot of nodding ahead of the folks about we've got to talk about moving the structure of the special ed staff to what the student need is not based on the building elevation. How does all of this align with our data wall set buildings and interventions? Or because we see it with students so does that data reflect at all in the IEPs? It's not in the IEPs. Now remember we're going back through years so a lot of times this is not being written in the IEPs it should be. So it's a lot more of aligning the IEP process with the MTSS process and we're being pushed here from 173 at 173. So this is where we're going to have to go and we should be going here. There are some eye-opening things for me that I didn't understand because I'm just not down those weeds nor should I be as the superintendent. I mean I've got Kelly and that whole team and they should be doing it. But I thought we would have had more unproversed monitoring assessments in there in the IEPs and in there the two or three times a year that there's an update to the IEP process where kids, you know, you write an objective and it's reported at least twice a year on how the kids mean the objective. They're not written in a smart goal way where you're saying by this measure I'm going to know it might just say that it will be 80% accurate by what measure. You know? And so it makes it hard to really be able to say is there growth? Is there growth over time? And what we were seeing was things were pretty flat across. Flat across growth over three years for kids. It's a great training and it's something that has come because of 173, the Agency of Education contract was working with the Education Support Agency out of Connecticut. Stephen had done this work when he was down in Connecticut so it's something he's familiar with and it's something that we really need to do and to be it sometimes can see a dichotomy when it really isn't it can be a both but how do you do the individual needs when you have to think about the system needs and you can do both at the same time. And it's actually easier to do the both when you think about it as a bigger system than if you're in small parts. What is there any highlights from your financial experience? Actually I have. It's the same until last month. Next month. There should be more news to share. Do you have any other issues or future agenda items? I'm going to have a few more hires. A couple more hires. They'll be around in Special Ed. So if you need to do an interview, I may be asking you I won't be here for that meeting. Obviously if I would ask that you will make sure there's something written that you can appreciate. Sure. Then without objection we will adjourn at 5.15. Okay. We're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order at 5.33. Thanks everyone for being here. We will receive guests. Jody. Hi Jody. Okay. Nothing specific to address or account on? Just checking. Thanks for being here. Any agenda revisions or board comments? I would ask if 34 could go before 33. We want to make sure we have that discussion and we might even ask for a motion that's not on here in the sense that the transition board is not on here. Okay. Without objection we'll switch the order to 33.3. Any agenda? I'm going to step out and grab a couple things I'd like for the first piece of discussion. Can we do a first round of introductions for the board? Yeah, of course. Sure. Would you like to start? Sure. Of course. I sat next to you before. Yes. Susan Culver. Matthew DeBro, Worcester. Carl Wickey, Worcester. Nicole Furrier. Berlin. Yeah. Hi, I'm Lisa. I'm nearly the minute taker. I'm not on the floor. This is the same. I'm a beer. A beer. Our spectacular minute taker. I'm your comrade. You are. Nice to meet you. Yeah, welcome. Nicole. Thank you. Congratulations. Are there any public comments and correspondence? Is there a motion to approve the minutes of April 25th? Discussion? I had some. So under 3.11, Lisa, I think that needs to be reworded. I guess for the first sentence, I would want to put that I share that the following positions have been received in Worcester seems important to put there. Okay. And then the second sentence is inaccurate actually. Sorry. So board members shared the names of candidates from their towns that have submitted petitions to run for positions on the WCU U.S.D. Nobody's been designated. It's just that they've been nominated for that they've submitted petitions to be on ballot for the election. I just don't want any sense to be that we feel like we've appointed these people or something like that. Okay. So I changed it to board members shared the names of candidates from their towns that have submitted petitions to be on the ballot for election to the WCU U.S.D. board. Thank you. Are there any other comments or changes to the minutes? All those in favor of approving the minutes of April 25th as amended, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Yes. Is that on call? Yeah. Lots of abstentions. Lots of abstentions. I think with all the abstentions we need less votes to pass it so we should be fine still. Okay. 3.1. After that point of budget. So I have you turn to page 5. We said that there were a couple things when we looked at last meeting and a couple things I want to talk about is for the actual budget itself and then the format of President and to the community. So the first thing I do is have you take a look and we'd like to have any questions but as I said last week we wanted to get a success of making steps to get to here so we showed you two different versions last week that now this is how the budget would be presented to the voters in just the budgetary piece of the lines and the different functions that are in the budget for consolidated Washington Central Unified Union School District budget. The numbers haven't changed what the big pieces that came out from the second birth we gave you remember I handed one out that had still had zeros in assessments and we deliberately did that you won't see those in here and those have been taken out. That was really the big change from the second one I gave you last time where the first one was by town. It had the town allocations so you could see the steps of how we rolled it up from the individual budgets to a merged budget and if you remember the big thing that I said happened to the difference if there was a difference of the $29 million to the $33 million it's because we need to account for the revenue that comes in it doesn't change the educational tax rate but we need to account for the revenue that comes in that comes into the central office or offset mainly transportation and special education. So there's something to break down on so that you if the President changed the tax rate then the $29 million the budget is $33 million. No it's still on the back we have to follow the tax the tax form and the tax calculations and Laura you can jump in here soon you know when you see and the reason I went and grabbed all these off it I'm going to pass this out in a minute is for how we calculate taxes you may remember in old form we used to get from the state the educational revenue that you minus off of it so and then that was your education spending which is still the same in this as it was in the locals you have what's been spending and doing something like this in front of those people it's going to need to appear like it's $4 million increase and the in just until we should be able to so I think we actually we just have to clearly articulate that and keep a track for what we're offsetting revenues that were at the central office that because the net costs were passed along to the districts before and we now have to show that in this budget where does that where is that apparent to voters because if I look at this I don't see like 20 I understand kind of where it is but I don't see the 29 to 33 comparison so I don't know people are I think that's when we talk about how we want to present the budget so right now I said I want to talk to you about what you see here for this private budget I think there's going to be containing documents that you're going to you're going to want to recommend to the Merge Board that they put in there and I'm hoping we'll have to get that narrative written in the next narrative or some sort of it might be some sort of small spreadsheet that shows that I could almost see how does this come in and what was it before and where is it now to explain why there's a 4.5 million dollar 4.4 or something like that something like that I'm doing it without watching my numbers and coming down I know you talked about this at the last meeting or maybe it was before that but this increased I mean I guess we're just looking at that on a system-wide basis and just not that we've had before I understand I get it I'm just confirming for my own sake and Bill did have me fill in in the budget 19 the same comparative so it is apples to apples so we increased the 4 million in both years for comparative purposes it's 4.4 million though you're welcome I just want to double check I mean personally it's a roll up of all of our existing environments there's not a lot to like I know but it's not because I think the roll up is 29 and then you're ending in the state expenditure so that's where and you know that's I get it so can you explain it for people that don't get like when I see this already I see it when it was spelled out but right now when I see it both this is where the voters are getting where do so that's what I'm saying so I think we're going to have to have an explanation of I think there's going to need to be an explanation that I can see usually in most of when we hand these out and maybe this will help so this is I'm handing if you get this one it's just a U32 I'm going to have you use because I didn't have enough of them when I went out there to grab I have the other towns remember I sent these out to the local budget vote and the second part is U32 so I'm going to have you turn to that so just take one and pass it around I'll put two over there you can take and look at the second half of what's coming around to each other so I'm just I'm going to hold that question for a second Chris don't lose it but let's talk about how we present information to the voters and this might help us answer your question so when we look at the report in previous years about what and we present the budget remember we usually do it in a town report this year we had to do it in this one so if you open up to the first page there is a report from the board I don't know if we're going to have that but I'm literally going to walk you through this so we know what each page is and then we can talk about what we want to do things the next page is the warning I think you're going to want the warning for June 25th and the AmeriCorps is going to want that warning and the next page if you go to the next page for U32 this treasure report is something that U32 had to do it's in the you're going to see that on page 18 if you've got the combine and then for the combine we have a student enrollment projection we just do that for U32 I don't know if that's something we want to do for the Merge District we have it then you start getting the fund balance we don't have a fund balance we're starting with zero am I going too fast? then you get into the summaries of changes we showed you a summary of change last meeting okay we didn't give you one in this report we should put one together with it but we have a summary of changes that's where we would show the results you're used to seeing just something just like that we gave you one last meeting okay that isn't changing then where it says U32 detail budget is what you have right here that's in this packet so that goes from page 7 or page 22 thank you Vera all the way through page through page 11 on the U32 and page 26 I don't know if we have this which is this WCSU budget allocation kind of explains what services you get from that the individuals districts got from the central office that's combined within the budget that was in our last board packet that was in our last board packet we gave you something like that and then we showed you some Washington Central information budget which I don't think would be in this next one now but those are things in there so that's what's we're going to have to decide and I think this is not going to be just tonight a conversation it's probably going to be a conversation for a little while how we put things into the budget but if I were going to go back to that narrative I would see that opening page being Chris what you were asking about how did you get a history of how we got to the budget we're presenting and an explanation I could see there being a little table that showed hey they total 29 but because of accounting rules that were required to follow we've got to show before we only transferred the net cost of Washington Central we have to show the gross cost so there was a revenue increase of 4.4 million therefore the overall budget went up 4.4 million you'd seem to be equating of that and that would be somewhere I think right up front with the history of I'm going to go right back to the I'll give to the board to approve we'll go right back to the August Executive Committee meeting that said as we were preparing for this the plan was to roll up all the budgets you know I might even do a table if you guys thought it was a good idea and I'm looking for suggestions Lauren I've been talking about this here's what each local budget was here's what the total was and just to get to help people walk through that if I might make a suggestion make a suggestion I know this is my favorite my favorite chart I think it's really good and really useful and it has just the right degree of resolution for not just for myself as a board member but I think also for voters if something along these lines can be incorporated it's sort of one admittedly long page but if it weren't something, bless you I think it would be really helpful in giving the birds eye view so that's why we gave you the first budget we did last week that showed you each school so I think that's one of the things this week we should talk about and then the marriage board should make a decision on is do you want something that does that that kind of puts them together that what I worry about with that is the confusion of the four point of how the revenues and expenditures come in with bringing in the Washington Central budget because only the net has been charged to the in this chart but it's potentially doable with the gross yeah that's the question with a short window to not make a mistake because I'm a perfectionist just being honest yeah so I mean Lori is the expert on accounting codes and the gap generally except for procedures and handbook too she says to me hey or our honor says to her or to me we got to do something this way that's where I take my advice from yeah I understand I just you know this was a great creation and I think it's it's worth building on because when people look at this immediately they can start sort of seeing things and understanding how things fit together and they the density of information at a again at a level of resolution that is see what that has on it I think it's useful for board members and I'm not sure you tell me how much it's useful for the public but is you know the the percentage of the different overall budgets and I think that that's something good to talk about but I'm not I don't know what that does for the voter where the one that we showed you the first version that we showed you last week showed you the overall that's coming from each budget and kind of shows how that built together I don't know if you have more to add I was just going to say that I think this year we were thinking that people are confused and less is more so if we gave them numbers that they were familiar with and then this time report type of thing isn't a document that can't change in the future you may want to add 20 more pages I don't know but we were honestly thinking what is it that the voters need in the future to put together budgets and to support the budgets the format is not stagnant it would be evolving so just in the spirit of not confusing people any further they've already voted on all the budgets ones what could we give them that's a minimal that shared to keep it going and then have a finance committee work toward future reports you explained so much more that we were trying to take ease of the work of since all the budgets were adopted once and that's why I answered Chris the way I was let's show how those have been adopted this is where we're at why is the number different here's the accounting reasons for it to be different it doesn't change overall tax rate concluding with that and show them why it doesn't because otherwise people have to say wait I added a whole individual budget since this and now you're trying to add something that's much higher that's one of the things that well Dave you tried to do the best you could out of the last meeting you could read that article that was in the Times Argus as the increase was due to the expenditures coming in that haven't been there if you misread that article and Dave tried to be as thorough as he could to explain that I called people coming to me and say hey you could read this a couple different ways and really and if something can't be misread it will be that's right, I've learned how much I agree I think keeping it simple such that these budgets have passed this is the accounting reason that the number looks different but it's not affecting tax rates is what people care about I guess one thing I might suggest along the lines of the in terms of the report is that it seems like this board ought to draft that front section because given the timing so thank you that's what I was going to suggest you that either the next meeting on the 9th or the 15th that we bring you a mocked up report as I asked the last meeting was it's not so much the budget it's how we present it we need some feedback from this group about what should that look like so we have that ready to go well that's even better than what I was actually suggesting I think that's a great idea but I was really more referring just to the narrative piece at the front that Adrian essentially wrote for this particular report the board chair usually does and I guess the board chair of the new board will really have to put their name on it but they're going to have very little time to possibly come to grips with writing about the budget so maybe we should provide that along with you know some of the documentation and our recommendation of the budget I think anyone would be honored to sign I'm not volunteering to draft I think you can't just sign so Scott, Scott I heard by the way he was talking I know who's dragging it it'll be up for edits it'll be up for edits I wasn't going to volunteer someone else on the board I think that's it in my I mean it's going to be more historical how do we get where we are today I think you know your suggestion about including the explanation in the narrative I would suggest possibly just for the sake of transparency even putting that part in old face because it is the educational change that people might trip on look here is the reason what we would show that is in the Washington U32 report but Laura and I we're going to get to an overall education tax rate that's what we have to do if you look at the individual tax rates if you have one that has both an elementary and a U32 if you have one of those towns you're going to see it has an educational tax rate we're not going to have any history of it we're the first year but we're going to have an educational tax rate got the question but going back to a point that Lindy made just a moment ago that tax rates won't change they actually will but is there an award this four million or whatever isn't it a change that's what I'm going to say you see something if Vera can hold this up you see something that looks like that you've never seen this tax rate that had history it has all this history in and everything with CLA and up in the top left-hand corner it has what's the end spending per few years which is a calculation because you've got to combine U32 and the elementary schools in each of the towns so we'll be doing something like that I don't know what it's going to look like and Laurie would not want me to get her down right here but we're going to get to something that has some sort of educational tax rate information like you had given us those charts before with budget information development even just that upper part I have an idea I just need to give you some samples so basically your suggestion Bill is that you would come to the next meeting with as much of a mockdown report as you can manage to cobble together we'll get you a mock-up piece but we'd like to get to a place where if we're feeling good with this budget then this is what spurs us to do everything else so this is the budget then we'll start producing the other supporting documents so do board members have any questions about the budget or changes they want to suggest? I'm assuming not we'll throw that out there because again this is just a little the budget we already approved locally right would this be your recommended budget? I'm being a little bold right now yes we should have had a motion we should have I mean do we need to vote on it today? I don't know you need to vote on it but I kind of like just a feeling from the table I would say the sense of the board this was the one given your the comments we heard earlier about the educational benefit issue is there something I wouldn't want to go into that right now I just don't know the answer to that if there's I think we were talking about the end benefit review which is a professional development side of the past two days and there's been some good odds for those who weren't at the table here to have something up in two weeks to really know I don't think I'm not so sure it's extra money as it is and we're even figuring out what we have okay I think it's within here so I think the answer to your question is okay a formal motion but Laura and I were we were talking just before the meeting we said hey if we can get a really good sense that we're solid we can start creating other things just do the all move off this bottom line the sense of the board is that you are solid okay thank you I appreciate it very much okay I'm going to be very short here because Lori is the expert on this but she and I want to give all credit to the Lori for everything that's in here about the cash flow from last time that we talked about I'll just start I'm going to give a big announcement we think Lori through all her work with the lending institution thinks there's a way through for cash flow with a pass by day and the caveat right now so would you like the information first and then go through this chart because I can give you the good news so the good news is we were kind of ahead of the curve out of the gate with the bank and so after your meeting we had the bank meet with us again and they reviewed the situation with legal counsel and the opinion is that we could if we have a voter approved budget on June 25 that Washington Central Unified Union School District could borrow money for July 1 okay what would be different usually we do go out to bid and we usually borrow money for July 1 but what would be different about it is due to the 30 day possible consideration for a re-vote the first 30 days of a loan well it's actually 25 because some of them would be in the month of June would be what we call a line of credit after the recension period which would be July 26 then we could award a bid for a regular arbitrage to occur similar to what it is now okay so if there isn't a successful vote we go out to vote and the voters say no then what we would have would be a line of credit until such time as a successful vote happens and the 30 day period has passed okay and the line of credit is more expensive right so from a logistical point of view what I was looking at was we typically go out to bid we don't award this to anyone bank we have six banks in the entire state who bid on governmental banking because this is a special type of financing so we go out to bid every year we ask and if there's any new banks and I think one just approached our office then we would invite them to all bid on our borrowing and investing what I was going to suggest was that I would go out to bid a week before the vote so that the day after the vote if it was successful a board could approve loan documents and award the bid that was the special meeting that was talking about earlier I was one of many so I was going to suggest that the new board the regular whatever you want to call it not transitional but that they would meet on June 26 to review the situation so we would either need to say oh the vote failed and we lines of credit or the vote was successful and we would authorize the bid with 25 days of a line of credit and then the rest of the days for the full year at the arbitrage okay when we did the budget we were conservative because we knew that the feds had changed rates and tax rules that were going to result in a less favorable bid this year so I've confirmed that that's still true it's about a quarter of a percent different than what we got last year on the net operating we will not make as much interest income in the month of July you're right but other than that that's great news what you're seeing here is the actual required document that is usually completed for each school district so this is the sum of them added up just kind of walking me through it the total receipts and expenses need to equal the voter of budget someone Bill said do you support the budget you'll see the $33 million do you see that $33.854 okay and then the formula and I won't go into it because you could roll your eyes is that they look at how you collect and receive money by month and there's a certain number of months that after you hit that point you cannot borrow more than that so our highest debt month is November which would be $8.8 million is the current projection and when you look at that and you get a 5% increase to that for the prior year spending and I was told again by the legal that we could add that in using the sum of our old budgets that means we would borrow the $10 million and then there's another formula to double check it is what I call it and it takes all the taxes assessed for the prior year at 90% so you can't borrow the $16 million you can only borrow the $10 what we need for the line of credit was a question Bill asked me to come prepared and it would be if it's a successful vote we'd need about $2.7 million for the first month based on current spending projections and I guess that's your last tutorial I wanted to you address the bottom line there about what happened for tax collection we did this last week but I think it's good to just review with everyone because it's going to require extra work of the town clerks so what happens currently is every town votes their tax collection dates at town meeting and that's when they send out their bills for both municipal and school taxes to be paid I think you probably didn't realize we're voting on those every year and what the bank told me I needed to do because we're now a conglomerate is I needed to put in every single date that currently taxes are collected at every town added up so some of you have like November 15 maybe two or three towns have November 15 but one might have November 17 so long story short if we have a successful vote on June 25 it is highly likely and the way that I'm seeing it is expected that we would be sending out tax bills the tax bills probably couldn't go out until around mid to end of August and currently they go out in the month of July so I was even talking to Sandra for work today just as a what if and what we came up with was for an example would be Callis's taxes for the town would go out and the taxes for the school would go out later so that means that the date typically the money would come in from August to October and then she was just saying well she needed to consider that because technically they float some of the school money for a month because they can and the towns might need to borrow money so she was thankful that we had the conversation and I think I might call the other town clerks tomorrow and just check in on Monday and let them know this is an earlier date correct November 15 and March May 15 they use they can use the school tax collection so they don't have to go borrow money for indecible needs and now they're going to have to go borrow money because they won't have those school taxes because some people might pay early I know it's hard to believe but I hit it from a blue Berlin, Callis and Worcester were three towns that had August dates you were right because my pillar has November and Middlesex had September 20 roughly so they might be bumped a few days but I think just as a courtesy I would like to call them and just kind of talk things through but that's how it's been in the past for schools that did not have a successful school vote by June 1 it's not just unique to us Thanks Matthew I have this schoolboy understanding of the system where the tax receipts were somehow transported into the education fund where they were put in a big blender and then came back from the education funds to the towns but it sounds as though they're going to the towns right so that blender actually is true what it is is actually a piece of paper so the state says the town must collect and give so much to the school if the town has extra money they get it to the state on those dates and as they need extra money because you're not fully funded you get money from the state because you don't get the money the town doesn't get the money tell me if I'm right on this mark the town doesn't get the money from the state until they've gone and collected taxes the school the school doesn't get the money we're what we still call a receiving town I know back in the day it was paying towns and receiving towns all of our towns still receive more money than the taxes that are collected at the town so we receive state aid three times a year at each town school district currently because non-residential taxes go straight to the state so they take the blender and give you part of it thank you yes I was in the same place Scott and the more I was like Bill I need to give you a tutorial about how the tax flows not how it seems to flow we need sort of like education spending rock with a song and a little kind of tax check so let me understand the towns that normally collect their education tax before October I don't know what people want they are going to be on the hook to have to borrow money to spend more money to go into debt I would use the word might it depends on the town I'm talking about our town your town told me she might but it's still might she said she's going to re-look at her numbers and that's why I think I should give them a heads up so that each town could look at their arbitrage they might have to do one of these sheets like I did and some of them do that already it's all do also to delinquent taxes is another component so I can't speak to everything for every town but yeah so Sandra said she was going to run one of these sheets to see how it would look if she didn't have the school cash available to use did that town clerk mention anything about compensation for an additional mailing and time to do that what people might not realize is that the state gives every town I think it's a one or one and a half percent compensation for doing this already so whether it be separate or together the state gives every town compensation for doing school tax collection I know kinds of new things they're used to doing it once like last year the last year the income sensitivity adjustments weren't ready by July 1 several towns had to do a second round of the state compensated the towns for sending an amended tax bill they did? see I'm not told about that I just see the formula where they get off the top percentage it's on the sheets that I see I think it's like 20,000 or 30,000 that the towns gives for doing tax collection so if our town had been forward thinking and never mind I mean it well the state won't reimburse us for a second tax bill Calis I'm talking about because the first tax bill will simply be the town tax it has nothing to do with education the next bill is the one that will be the education tax correct? true I think it's a good question to ask I'm sure Sandra will get right on that tomorrow I'll see if she could get some kind of double check double check they get the flat rate give them another postage reimbursement and who would pay that if the state is willing to do that there's a lot of education probably for us most of us so did I cover that where you understand it I guess I just want to double check that was all I had to say could I miss something Bill? no I think you will you and I have had any conversation every day since a week goes past Tuesday on this topic so I feel like I'm not a good judge does everyone understand around the table so I would almost, Matthew you might want to just ask if anybody has any further questions or needs more explanation or plenty willing to give it I just feel like I'm too deep into judge where you wrote Lori let's assume I've asked that question I just have one question these total taxes assessed prior to the year the 18 million rather 600,000 is from the prior year and the 16 million 743 is 90% of that it's 90% that's the formula that's required can you say again exactly why the tax rates won't be ready by so the way that education works now is if you have a voter approved budget by June 1st we send that information to the state the state doesn't process it until July 1st because of the 30 day recension for some towns now your towns used to do the vote in March so we were already past the 30 days so on June July 1st in that scenario then they would then calculate the taxes and send it to the towns so typically the towns would hear about it around July 15th they would have the select board meet approve the tax rate and then send out the bills so that's what's different is that the date system gets kicked down the road other questions? thanks Lori and Bill again for she's the one on this one thank you I for one am happy not to be talking about how to deal with the lack of power issues true to say this is purchase orders for the WCUSD so every year about now we start writing purchase orders for the following year and they go on in July 1st but we're starting to make commitments and Lori is going to give you she has a laundry list in front of her for things that we need to do over the summer I've been I'm going to sign a bunch of memorandum of understanding to give you an example for staff that work our extended year services for students that get summer services that are required in their IEP so I have to write an agreement that they'll get paid X amount for doing that work through the summer that's one example of many things that Lori will go through with you that we need to start getting things so that we we do a lot of work in the summer as you know buildings technology, there's a lot of things kids still get services that we roll through the summer to get ready to start school in August so maybe Lori you can go through what some of those things are so you mentioned special ed contracts like to Washington County Mental Health or Green Mountain Behavior or anyone providing services for summer programs for pretty much special education IEPs other things our staff put together orders of what they need for the following year they usually get a discount if they place the order early and then the order comes in over the summer so all of our teachers usually are putting together purchase order requisitions we have technology items equipment that they get ready for staff to use we have things just as simple as electricity, phone bills, our landline bills software licensing renewals this year we're required to do a phone system update so there will be a bid and a bid award on that let's see what else they have capital projects the U32 tracks going on right now but it's going to cross entities and then other capital projects like everland paving paving I think might get done ahead of the 30th but I'm not sure it's pretty close but we're taking everything and we usually sort it into two piles does the work begin before June 30 if it is then it's the current entities does the work happen July 1 then it would be the new entity do you see what I'm saying and for teachers taking courses it's in the union agreement that they're entitled to take summer classes and a lot of them sign up and their classes might start July 2 and they'll need a purchase order to secure their spot for some things another example is we streamlined a lot of clots like the cleaning of area rugs and classrooms and so we have one outside provider that all the maintenance folks got together with and this one provider just gets this little leak and comes in and cleans all those area rugs the cleaning of the air ducts and so I when I was actually for the meeting we were at the house Chris Tullard asked me how soon can I start cutting P.O.'s so I can be scheduling people to come in this summer to do the work that we need to do and I said I'll be asking that for the transition board but not this week but we already knew the issue was there we we talked about this through the leadership team too the leadership team was considering about the education that extended your services and the professional development that you're planning to go forward with so I have designed a new purchase order form for the new entity with different chip to addresses that's the technical thing that would need to happen so it's ready to be printed and utilized but what I think we're really seeking for is approval from this board to go forward with purchasing using the new forms and the new entity starting July 1st in fact the dates of service for items that are dated July 1 forward so we need to make a motion to do that the purchase orders for July 1 be under the Washington Central UU SB thank you that funding will come from the budget the budget it's budget for my budget for 25 days you guys this is how it's all linked together true this is all my new entity but we've got to start making commitments is there a discussion of the motion is there a second of it yep that's a good idea I think it's a good idea I just I'm hoping that we not order too much stationary with WC, UU, SB on it because that is just an abomination I think there's every likelihood that that name will be looked at at some point there's another WC, UU, SB at the same time I had to spell it all out Washington Central because there's a Windsor Central and a Windom Central so we don't abbreviate it we spell it right out and we have to put on our tax ID number so that the sales are tax exempt so it's unique to us doing over a million sheets I guess it's all electronic we don't buy anything it's all camera and it's showing my agent everything else thank you further discussion of the motion on the table all those in favor of the motion please say aye thank you that will allow us to start doing some things we'll alleviate this in a second so we'll go to 3.4 previously 3.3 so through staff members for questions down there that's probably under yes I'm actually spending what I think I'm doing I just want to this is important please ask me a good question it's important for all of you here the boards that I go right now I'll give an example I was given a I sign off on all course requests for any teacher in the system on the final piece of that after the principles and then I was given a request just past week that a course starts let's say the 15th of May somewhere in Manor exactly and it goes until July to the July 20th we're charging that to this year's account okay so it's going to hit so that type of stuff I'm signing off on right now work if we're doing cleaning that's happening and we're going so late to school right now we're having to put things off but if there's something that's going to happen in June we're starting June we're signing off on to this year's budget two reasons we're not going to get bigger funds use as much of those as we can we're coming forward with zero so we know that most of the local budgets want to put those into capital reserves which I'm totally supportive of but let's use that money we're not trying to get bigger we will come to the board if we're going to spend past the budgeted authority I would come to you I never spend anything that's past that's in that fund reserve general fund balance for that school and we also compared with the auditor if the service starts this year it's this year if it starts next year it's next year it's kind of simple he's like okay that's how it's working so otherwise it's an audit it's an audit it's this year's work okay okay 2.4, Margo's agreement okay so in the packet it was the old one and I added I got to build it today I'm going to talk to Chris Wibble we had sent this draft was missing you know we had said that we needed to discuss the greater policy for school choice so it's shown here but I'm not the lawyer so I just put this little thing here as a reminder for everybody what we talked our last transitional board meeting was on the second page Bill is going to talk to Chris Wibble and see what it will take to draft amendments to evaluate and do the warning right well yeah I had a meeting scheduled with Chris tomorrow via the phone I think we're like the amendment said he's already looked at he doesn't need to do more work on that what I'm looking to get from Chris is the amendments I feel like we still have to come to resolution on article 4 tell me if I'm wrong here yeah that's what it says here and we have to get the wording right for recommending a policy so that might just be a recommendation and not an article agreement that I don't know how that I have talked with Chris a little bit and then Chris I want to do big things I want to do for Chris because this board you could do this without the merge board is adopt a warning to go out so I want Chris to public to write that warning so it gets everything that you want there are the amendments that that is reflected in a warning that's correct you can go out to be on the same day as the 25th so we don't have multiple lunches going to try to help our town clerks at least a bit yeah so the hope would be that we vote on June 25th along with articles along with the budget yeah so obviously you know there the only thing that I'm saying there's an article the new board this article is not ready until the new board reaches that consensus on the final yeah so it's good because we have the new board you know because we have not the new board we can do it originally we thought it was the new board that had to say they had the ultimate say and we were going to transfer to them but it would be us that can decide just to clarify are you saying that that article can't be included in the warning until the new board those two consensus so you could put that article on the warning because this the transition board or the new board can call for the election for the amendments for the amendments and you can so this board can decide or you can give it to the merge board to decide they still want to do that I want to have the warning ready to go either way you right now for article you don't have a conclusion by this by anybody any body yes two words on article 4 so if you come to conclusion then we would write that up and put it on the warning you could decide you didn't want to come to conclusion on that and you didn't do it and we do the other ones that have already been done it's up to you I understand yeah by whether it be this one or the merge board to propose something to the voters I think it's great to ask Chris to prepare the warning so that we have it in that format we're going to want a ballot but it's great my only purpose was to clarify that we can't put article 4 on that warning or ballot unless and until somebody as you say takes a decision that allows it to be put down right and then I would transfer what your decision is and what you'd like to Chris and have him write it which should be written but I'm waiting for somebody to make a decision so part of what we're going to put in here is that we're going to talk today about you know future agenda items so we would have to vote I don't think we can resolve it tonight but we would have to just agree that if we want to do this there's just two options I would try to not move us away from that conversation that we already had had because a lot of the same people are sitting on the table we can review what we said before but we're really just looking at either a town approval or an extended moratorium to come to some consensus on that decision so knowing that we have to figure out what that amount of time means for the next meeting knowing all the other things that we have in place if you want to think that I see Lori and I know we'll be bringing you at least a beamers action item I don't know if this helps you can tell me to be quite I'll be bringing you we'll be bringing you a draft of what something like this might look like and Lori what else I'm pulling my leg okay just one if there's any bidding awards for computer to technology anything like that that might be a bid that's over $15,000 and at some point the new board or this board would have to discuss the assumption of debt that's all I have on my list but it doesn't have to be next time the beamers is next time the beamers in the booklet is I think what Lori and I think we would be bringing to you from our end well we do our next meeting at the same time next week on the 9th you know we could schedule at 5.30 to 7.30 if we wanted to allow for some extra time to discuss doesn't mean we have to use up that time just to have it we need to candidates at 7 that's on the 7th we know we want it at the same time we're trying to get a meeting every day next week quite hold on yeah, yeah Friday to Friday but yeah now I would suggest this is sort of like the other major category of business that the transition board is supposed to be looking at really delivering significant time to so it seems like we should allocate that for the next meeting is there for the new members here who weren't on the articles committee I think we should circulate the prior discussions just for educational purposes yeah and what I did was in the last part we had a lot of minutes from different meetings but really truthfully it's 3.14 and our last meeting really kind of summarizes those discussions you know the minutes are right on the website I'm happy to talk to anybody but especially the 2.27 we go at length in each in each category would you be willing for to ask Kristo to include them in the packet on the meeting for next week yes yes send them to you and Kristo ready it's in my email that I sent to you today 2.27, 3.14, 10.28 got it now I just make checkboxes to make sure it's from my topic yes Scott may I share it may feel like I'm throwing over the chess board but in reality I'm just sort of pushing it gently to the side I've observed in the couple of meetings that we've had so far the big district meetings that sentiment has been predominantly against the force merger you know by as much as a 2-1 margin the sentiment of the people attending these meetings the audience the electorate at these meetings is that what others have which meetings are you talking about like the organizational meetings all kinds of meetings the organizational meetings in particular those are the ones who have been recruited and other people feel like I'm for this why do I need to go I think in fairness a lot of people who are for something are out protested but this I think that's an important point because the question is who is going to take the trouble to show up and vote in an off-cycle election look at the last ones for the budgets not for the people my expectation is that it will be once again predominantly the same source of people in other words predominantly anti force merger representative sample of the electorate my big concern is that they're going to want to vote no on something and I don't want them to vote no on the budget because that would really mess things up so basically when I'm currently where I'm headed with this we need something like a lightning rod that people can vote no on or vote yes on to send their own message so what I was thinking of doing is preserving all of this but as you were saying Flora since many of us are going to be our repeat offenders on the next incarnation of this what can I say karmic sleigh ride we save this for them and instead have one article that would be voted on and that article would say something like sort of self-referential the electorate consents to state-ordered consolidation of Berlin, Calais, Montpelier, Minnisex, Wister and U32 school districts under state-issued default articles of agreement period and then that would be the one article that would show up on the ballot and voters would be able to either, yeah, I agree with this let's do that or no there's no box for hell no but this would at least have that sort of safety valve effect so that presumably they would vote no on to make the statement to make a clear statement and vote yes in favor of what I hope will be considered the responsible course of action to approve a budget for this combined district I think we already saw with the original votes that they were supportive of the budget I don't think we need to give them a release valve I think it's a I think that's something that doesn't carry any weight there's no reason to muddy the water and put that on I don't see the value and I don't see the need I respect the thoughtfulness of considering what people are thinking clearly but I think we've already seen full support of the budgets they supported the individual school budgets and these numbers and if we are publicizing that's the same we're putting them together and they're being distributed by what schools need it's a different political vote it's a different political vote because there will be folks who are I have a couple of other different concerns about and this is my first time hearing it so I'm just sort of reacting I think my first concern would be I'm not sure your assumption about how the electorate will act faced with those two questions is necessarily um obvious because I think if you're presented with a question and say you're going to vote no I don't consent to this and then be like yeah sure let's spend $33 million on the schools I'm not sure that those actually logically follow it seems like if you're given the opportunity to say no I dissent to this and I'm not going to agree to this budget either is the more likely sort of outcome so that's one concern sure the second concern I would have is and I am really concerned about this in general is the the near very prevalent rhetoric about how this our school system cannot succeed in merging that it just is impossible that none of us want and we're in it and to provide a sort of opportunity for people to express that via a vote which will have no material effect it's only then real effect kind of bitterness and discontent and determination to undermine something which has to happen but do you think it will be any different if if some kind of possibility of expression is not after it will just go underground potentially become seething resentment instead of yeah I got that out of my system now we've got a hard job ahead let's just do it I think it's a question worth discussing I think my sense is that the resentment is already seen I'm not sure again what if you sort of vote on an item like that how does that expiate or exercise or solace to those whose resentment is already seething I just don't really see it I guess the last thing that I interesting point that you brought up that sort of was maybe tangential to your point but seems to me interesting is that it's likely that likely that very few voters will come out for this election and yeah I don't know I guess that sort of your turnout is what it is I guess but that just makes me uncomfortable in general and I guess for the articles of agreement I wonder how comfortable we feel about having two and a half percent of the electorate possibly voting on not to glorify it but the constitution of the new school district or something that's sort of the side from your main sort of idea yeah but that would be potentially an objection to having any articles of agreement voted on I see the articles two things I see the articles of agreement as providing that that you were saying you know yeah okay there were people that disagree and they had to go ahead with the force merger because there are some I know there are minimum they do have two articles that very much says what you're trying to say in the dissent those two articles that were including and that one those two we can kind of do them legally without waiving confusion and second I see it as our responsibility and you us and you know I see it as our responsibility and why it's important to vote we can't tell them how to vote but why it's important to vote you know your group each of us to be able to bring people to vote and say this is important please show up and vote and this is why it's important to vote you know what I'm trying to say we agree so if you think that you know we know people that have that sentiment that and they know you do you know like how how do you bring them to the table and this very important crucial moment that we are right now because anything that we're doing right now doesn't mean that the loss of this not going on right we need we need to vote can I just give you a point of view oh sorry we'll go to our hand though um I part of me likes the idea but the other part of me that I've been thinking about before is that when you have all these things written on the ballot and somebody who's already cranky gets the ballot and says what is all this um I think right now our job is for me is to make sure we get the people out and make sure they understand that for the kids and for you know we're a business and the best part of a business is their employees so we need to support our employees to get that budget voted so that we can take care of them and so getting people out to vote is important to me to get that budget passed so we can take care of those people and I don't think many of the people who are against um the merger want to hurt our employees myself included I think everybody at this table so I think there are two different issues really and I I think my job um is to make sure this budget gets voted and what happens for the articles happens for the articles uh personally I don't know what I would do but I would feel good being able to vote no on something to be honest but and I would feel good to vote yes on something that was really really important um and I I disagree with you Matthew that people think the merger is impossible and we can't do it I disagree with that that all those people think that I think the big big issue is the debt and the property transfer and I think if that gets taken care of I think this district can get itself together and do a good job that's what I feel so just a point of information I think some of you know this and I'm just not sure everyone knows it um that each amendment will be voted on it's not a slate and it needs to be combined with what's in the draft articles of agreement so it will read as that amended article to read so you would have to see so when you're touching one of the existing articles that would be voted on you would have to have all that and all that will be on the ballot so the ballot will get quite lengthy and there will be a vote for each one it's just the two of them as it is on this draft that would be amended it would form our amendment and it won't follow it would be what the new article is shall article 4 read as the article 4 will be all printed there does it have the original and then the new for comparison I do not think so David might know from watching Barry I didn't watch Barry but what they did with their amendments but um they were more searchable about it but they didn't go as deep as you want I mean they only changed the board composition yeah I mean that's why we need Chris because he's going to write what the warning looks like and what the ballot is going to look like but from the conversations he and I have had you need the article I understand that the board composition was like he wrote it I from that conversation I want to have, that's why I want him to draft a warning so you can all see it and a ballot so you can all see it and get to the point from seeing that it's either too complex or let's go with it you know so I think you're going to learn more as you see those things which we would hopefully have next week is that too soon I think that's too soon and I think you'll have it by the 15th but not the 9th but isn't it 15 when we have to make the decision yeah sorry I just don't see Chris having time I know what he's doing he's got a lot of other client work to decide next week on what we're going to do so he can get I'm trying to get a second you're going to get him what we have already it's already before but I've got to get him ready so he's starting to reserve time that was just a thought I just want to think I think there's any in Berlin that would have that seen as what Dorothy was saying just to say no on that and I can picture so many of my neighbors that are going to vote on absentee ballots that might not know all the information that they could just vote no on something to make them feel better I know that doesn't seem like a sensible thing but I can just so picture I guess the question is when voting on everything make them feel absolutely wonderful you know what I'm saying? that's one of my questions they could just say no to the whole thing everything they see but I think it's our job or if I'm on the board if it's your job all of our jobs even if I'm not on the board to say we need you to pass this budget to take care of our staff and our children and I think that's our job to take care of our communities and not just but we got to keep the business in business I guess I just want to clarify really my question comes less from about the rhetoric piece less as a board member and more as a constituent because the new board isn't going to be working with me it's going to be working for me so it's kind of a question that I have actually for next Tuesday's forum is you know a lot of the you know folks with respect who are running for the board are quite you have been staunch and vocal anti-purger advocates representing the constituent I understand but nonetheless are running to serve on board which will have to end the school system as it is constituted and do their utmost for its success and I have great confidence and the candidates in this room and elsewhere that's what they will do I worry about the disconnect I worry about the kind of idea or the off-express attitude that this is so bad we don't consent to it all these things sort of becoming a self-fulfilling process negativity I guess or something I don't really know how to express it well but that is a concern it's interesting I see it more as you have truth and reconciliation process so sorry but anyway yeah I agree with that so in terms of just thinking of lines of authority here the transition board can warn the article of the agreement does that mean the new board cannot they could too right they could too either one what I said to you I wonder if it can be both is there anything that prohibits both you're going to have confusion in your election I would recommend it they wanted twice to probably two ballots I'm just wondering my sort of I think what I said before was that I hope it would be that the new board would do it so that it would all be out of one ballot budget and we want it separately it has to be separate I don't even know I think the people are so confused now if we do that they just throw out their hands and not vote I just go back to my point I've seen a body whether it's this body I understand heard loud and clear I just want to be clear we will make a decision at some point either to warn it or recommend to the new board that they want it or not to yeah that's true the board will do what it will do does this board cease to exist as of the swearing in that's my understanding it's called for that in the articles our articles that are right now say that that will happen once that board is seated which we have set up for the 22nd and we have Rosie let's do Rosie's last thing I want to make sure to be there I just want everyone to have a 22nd have I missed a conversation that this board has had whether or not this board puts out the morning it came up last week but I didn't really hear one way or another I don't think we made a decision I was just curious as to the deep conversation as to what would the benefits be for this board not to warn them we didn't really have a deep conversation unless it was somebody else it came up in the context of there's language in the articles about how the transition board has the powers that the new board will have until the new board exists so we could warn an election I guess budget it's a weird thing this is all in the article the benefits each this is my opinion I felt like it's somehow cleaner to have one word warn everything that's going to be voted on on that day but that doesn't mean I have the prevailing opinion it's just my opinion okay so were any other future items for next week? I've got three things that's fascinating do you want to read them? I have a draft budgeted report for Washington Central University we're going to bring you at least an action on the not retirement system with another by them and maybe a couple other notifications and then the discussion of the articles of agreement there it is I will let you know that next meeting tonight I may be calling in if I know I can't physically be here tomorrow will be here I think that will be on 5.30 to what's the schedule? 7.30 5.30 to 7.30? 5.30 to 7.30 last meeting I took for did somebody have some articles on the deck? did anybody answer that? yeah I heard it I was tired I didn't want to did you say anything? was she talking about Alan Gilbert's thing from I think she just messed up I didn't ask her about it that's what I think so for number 6 board communication I just want to note that the board asked me to communicate something out about the state of things and the election and I didn't do that I was plain forgotten so I'm going to try to work and hopefully on Monday we'll get something posted about the forum the election on the 21st I think it's happening there was one about the forum it's gone out I was just supposed to be posting a general update about I'll go back to the minutes I just realized I didn't do it so anyway that's all so without objecting we will adjourn