 May I just remind everybody that there's a sign-in sheet. If you have not signed in, would you mind please signing it so that we can make sure we have all of the sort of dramatists per signing here? OK. Thank you, Lori. Thank you. This is basically sort of the overview of what we have in the slide deck. But what I'm thinking, can I just ask, are there any of you who haven't yet decided how you're going to vote tomorrow? Alan, really? OK. Wow. OK. But Alan, you were here last time, right? I was watching this. The reason I'm asking this is in case you don't necessarily sit through the formal, thank you, the scripted part, even though there's no script. But I would rather jump around and ask questions or look at things that interest you, focus on specifics. Does that sound OK to my colleagues? Yeah. What do you think? It's fine with us. Great. Does anybody want to sort of lead off with a question or an area of interest that you'd just like to hear about? I would appreciate, just from my own mindset, of refreshing the amendments and how they bear on the subject. Wow. This is going to be exactly in reverse order from last time. That's great. OK. Thank you very much, Larry. But we don't have handouts. But we don't have handouts within the amendments, if that's OK. But I think we can hit them one by one. So of course. Now, this is the most forbidding looking ballot that I've ever seen. It's no. But it's actually pretty straightforward. When you look at article, first of all, the numbering of the articles. The big article one, as you've probably figured out, is the ballot article. It's numbering in the ballot. When it says underneath, article four, closure of buildings, that fine print article four is what it is in the articles of agreement. So the ballot question consists of articles one, two, three, four, five. I believe records? Yeah. Could you get something to say? Yeah. Just an overview of the faulted articles and what these amendments are to. Oh, actually, you're the man to do that. But you're standing up. So the amendments are to the state ordered input into affecting the faulted articles of agreement that are basically governance documents. I kind of liken them to our constitution that will run the governance for the school district and the school district. But also from the opportunity for school with the district to amend them through a procedure like this one that we're presenting to the voters. So the amendments that are being voted upon are to certain articles in that default article packet. I think there's 14 of these default articles. And what Scott was talking about is that when it says article four, that's the one in the default article is that's being proposed to be amended. And so these came about, these proposed amendments came about by an articles committee that worked through various proposed amendments to the default articles and then came to consensus on, I think, four of them to present to the voters to determine whether the voters thought the default articles would go into effect on July 1st if we don't do anything to change those somewhat. So that's kind of the background of what we're amending. So Chris, can you just back up one more step because I wanna make actually sure I understand this. I thought I did but I'm not so sure anymore. So the voters will never get a chance to review the articles that have been given us, right? That is correct. But not right now. I mean, the board can propose a new set of articles at some point in time but in terms of, if we didn't do anything, the default articles would take, will go into effect in these amendments. Let me back up. The voters of this district will never have the opportunity as the voters have an annual meeting, an open annual meeting to stand up from the floor and say, I want to amend article 27. It's only the board that at this point can propose a method that the voters can then vote up or down. The voters will have no say unless they come to meetings in the wording of amended articles. I think it is correct. Yeah, yeah. So not like a school meeting you're saying like a school meeting then? Yeah, an open and traditional school meeting where we don't have Australia bounding, we have floor votes. And so this is really another consequence of what we gave up by not voluntarily merging. Is that right? If we voluntarily merge, we would have adopted our own articles. We actually could have done it this year as well. But the timeline was so short. It was like after, you had 90 days, you had 90 days after the state board order in which to propose articles and adopt them. But then I think through the time, the timing was going off somewhat by getting the extensions that we did related to the lawsuit. And so that 90 day deadline, which was tight, passed. I don't think there's anything actually that would prohibit a school type meeting kind of constitutional convention of sorts to deal with articles. I don't think there's anything that prohibits that. I guess speaking for myself, I continue to stun myself at how we are being manipulated in ways that I didn't even understand until literally two weeks ago about the taxation system. I mean, I just didn't understand that until last week. And I just didn't understand about the articles until I started looking at this again and trying to figure out, well, when am I going to get a chance as a voter to suggest other amendments or a floor meeting? And now I'm realizing that's never gonna happen. So I just feel like we've, as voters, we've really been shoved out into the cold when it comes right down to it. And we have to get used to having a much more representative democracy in the way the school system is run. I mean, that's what's... Well, the closest... Four representative democracies opposed to direct participation democracy. But the closest we're going to get to influencing decisions is attending school boards and suggesting things. We're never gonna be able to stand up on the floor of a general five-town unified union district meeting and say, I don't like articles 27. I've got a great many to this. Unless you folks would call such a meeting. We as voters can't call the meeting. We can't call the general meeting of the unified union school. But there was an opportunity for that during the organizational meeting, at least in part, to have a school-type meeting to vote on things like the budget and that was voted down. It went for Australian ballot. Because you had the opportunity to say that we can do things for Australian ballot or the... And it didn't say, or by school meeting, but the alternative, if you wanted to do it by school, or Australian ballot, was the school meeting. And we actually had to debate about that during the organizational meeting that I'm going to enter. And that was voted down pretty decisively, I thought, actually. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Again, I'm getting clearer here, but this is hard. And I just worry that a lot of people don't understand what's happening today. I mean, it's really to, at a very fundamental level, things, a lot of things are changing. I don't think we all grasp it. You'll just... I think the, you know, Worcester may be in a unique position, but you maintain the school. We usually are. And everyone else cannot, in terms of maintaining, they'll have to deal with it. So, but we, you know, that's intended. You know, Middlesex, when... Because then it isn't, you know, the time clearly comes with this research. And it was, like, 1998. I didn't realize it was that long ago, but we went to a... Or strung down for the budget, because that's what things are gonna happen. So, anyway, good point, sir. Yeah, so... Did that help? Yeah. Did it help? So, David, do you wonder why these specific articles are on the ballot? I think I'm getting a clearer picture of that these amendments came from, essentially, the state. But actually, on the default articles came from the state, the amendments are changing those default articles within the very narrow margins of maneuver that we're kind of permitted to work within. And, Chris, would you mind explaining why these particular articles, why these particular amendments, I mean, to the articles? With overall? I would say overall, because I think it was a sense of, I mean, that they were very crucial, particularly when we wanted to close in school. Yes, yeah. And how that should happen. And that was hotly contested. It was not, you know, it was not a uniform decision to go with this method. Because with the original article, the default articles had is that no schools would be closed for two years after the operation, after July 1, 2019. But then after that, a school could be closed by a majority vote of the entire electorate of the new district. And what this article does is it mentions so that you have to have a positive vote of the town in which the school is located and a majority vote of the entire district. So it is safeguarding the town's interest in maintaining a school. And that was the goal here. Right. So effectively, if I understand correctly, the town has, the town in which the school being targeted for closing and setting has a veto power over that decision to close. Is that fair? I agree. Positively, you see, yeah, we wanted to close too. Right. So the town says no. The town says no. Does it close? Right. Question. However, along with that, you look at already, I mean, next year and the next session, they're looking at laws that will encourage funding. I mean, they'll prioritize funding for four districts that close schools, which means they'll probably withhold a lot of maintenance-type dollars and things like that. They're basically strong-arming. And this is our legislature and this is the Agency of Education. I mean, we need to change seriously that. I mean, this is not what this state is about. No, no. And this is a bottoms-up state and they're responsible people in these communities and they are being shoved out of the equation. This is what we call a dynamic situation. Yeah. Themistically, yeah. Things are happening in different directions. So that first one, I agree with Chris. That's one of the key ones on the voting regime for closing schools. Yes means veto power for the host town. No means just a combined five-town vote. The second article on the ballot is about this board, the representation on this board. The question is, should there be three per town or do we stick with the default two? And yes means go for three as of 2020, I guess, correct? No means stick with the current two. The third article, the remaining. I have a question about, yes. I remember in the early discussions, there was talk about a lot, a certain weight to some of the board members. You know, a small like, Lister would get one third of a vote, two thirds, you know, it's kind of ridiculous. That is stolen by the wayside, that's kind of by the wayside. Yeah, so it's three, two or three votes. Three votes from Lister. But in the context of voters in all five towns will vote on all the open positions for the board from whatever town. So Berlin voters will be voting on Lister designated slots, so that in a sense, the idea is that although they're coming from Lister, they live in Lister, they'll be representing this, you know, pentatown or whatever it is. So you really don't have local representation theoretically, I mean, essentially one or two towns could elect your officials, represent from cows. It's theoretically, theoretically possible. At the moment, I don't think it's happening just because nobody knows anybody at this point outside their own town. That may change, you know, over time. But article three is basically about public participation. So encouraging the board to take early and strong steps to set up, for example, school advisory committees, and other mechanisms to allow for active public participation in the board's activities. Yes means, yeah, go for it, board, make that a priority. No means don't care. Before we go on to Lister, that's the word tentative. Yeah. There's some confusion about that the last meeting. Right, very good. I will defer to our, so tentative is, it's not effective yet, is what it means. Doesn't mean if you vote, doesn't mean that if you vote for it, it might not happen. It just means that it's not an article. Yeah, because you'll notice the numbering is 15, and then 16, and then 17, which add on to the previous 14 articles that already part of the default article. These are not amendments, two articles, these are new articles. Right, man. Good. July 1st is when they will go into effect, is that correct? Yes, if it passes. And once these amendments are voted, they stand, the state does not have an opportunity to say, oh, I'm sorry, you've overstated. They're not subject to the Department of Education review for an up or down, a thumbs up or a thumbs down, they'll go into effect. Yeah, basically this is, this is sort of our playpen, where we're allowed to do what we want. It's, there's a lot else where we're not allowed to do anything. So, number four is sort of a legal thing, the whole severability business in case some part of the article's agreement is declared to be unconstitutional or illegal in some way, then that part can be sort of precision cut out of the whole article's without carving a gigantic crater in them by lifting an entire article out of those articles. Too many articles. Okay. And number five is the amendment that basically says that our doing this does not mean that we have waived our rights to continue pursuing legal action against forced merger in the courts. So yes means, yeah, we want to maintain those rights to pursue action. No means, no, don't want to continue. Don't want those rights. Okay, Scott, or Chris, can you tell me the use of the term competent judicial authority? What exactly does that mean? Can it be anything other than a court? That's a great question. I'm just wondering, is that- A hearing officer is a competent judicial authority in non-court. So if there was something for the Board of Education that went through the hearing before it, that's why it's broader than a court. And that's a legally acceptable way of constructing an article like this? I hope so. I think it is actually a very difficult word, but it's more than a court. That's why it's a broader definition than competent. When I first looked at this, I was focusing on the word competent, thinking what if it's said incompetent, and then I realized competent must not be the operative word of phrase, it's traditional authority to the operative phrase. Because that's broader than a court, is what you're saying. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, thanks. And if I understand quickly, although that's the same thing that sort of ran through my mind as well, I think it refers to judicial authority with competence and sort of with jurisdiction. With jurisdiction, more than jurisdiction. Yeah, yes. Good. So these are the amendments to the articles. Thank you. You're very welcome. We've made them consider them as slightly higher degree of protection. Yes, definitely. Yeah, so worth supporting. Rick. I just want to say, I really put my hands off to all of you. Chris and Scott and Dot, everybody who really, I didn't do much contributed to that whole process because these are the best protection we can kind of get when the hands were tied, but these are, I mean, it clearly shows that respect, you know, for, kind of that bottoms up, local representatives, local governance model. And I know we're really limited in what can be done with this, but I think it's better to be really dead as best than we appreciate it. I mean, yes, for all these articles, you know, at the point of view. You're trying music to our ears, right? I hope others feel the same way. You're exactly right. I'm going to give you another question. This question may not be answerable at this particular time. I don't want you or anyone else to get necessarily political here, but I'm not a clue. This is my fault, my ignorance. I'm not a clue how our own representatives feel about this whole process. You mean like the day in Auburn? Yes, exactly. I spoke to Auburn and he's not thrilled about the way things have gone. I think that there's a lot of, I talked to Janet. She's not happy about the way things have gone. I think there's a lot of, in the state house, I think a lot of, there's a lot of anger at the agency for rigidity, right? For not being flexible with alternative government structures for not giving more time and allowing towns to delay more and more. I've seen reporting in Digger that a number of representatives who sponsored the bill originally have changed their minds and now are not sure it's a good idea. That's the sense that I've gotten. I'll also say that I've gotten the sense from some of the people that I've talked to in the state house now and used to be in the state house that they just want this thing done, right? And to move on to the next step. And because that's a terror of the legislature and human rights. Yes. I'll control my rage. Honestly, I mean, we've been watching this for five years since the beginning and we've been in those court, in that legislature, in those committee rooms. And there are a few people like Kim Jessup who've really fought at Heidi Sherman, you know, Democrats and Republicans. But I mean, our Janet Ansel and Cummings, they've just let this happen. At the times when it was critical for their support, they say they know their constituents are against it. But when it comes down to those critical points where it's a vote and a voice, right to the back row, you know, and that's, there's something that engenders the least amount of respect to me. That's it. You've got your core values that you're supposed to be reflecting and you've got to have the spine to do it. You don't take your orders from your leadership to the point where they're damaging the public and our basic governance system. So they had, believe me, people like Ann and any one of those, Ann or Janet or Ann have heard them, have the power to really stop this and they wouldn't do it. And believe me, we were having those conversations with them all along. And you know, that's, you know, that's a bad thing. And those are just the ones we've got here, but you know, they're, and they're in the process of enabling more, you know, once this kind of gets established, they're just continuing to put the squeeze on. And the irony is actually clever the way this was set up because it allows them to disavow responsibility and basically put it on this group. You know, oh, that's their decision to close, but they, you know, this is in my opinion really insidious. And also what Scott was talking about, you know, the people that kind of turned, I don't know, they're now saying they're against it after the fact. I mean, who is running that show? The agency of education works for the executive and works for the legislature. You can't tell me that they did not have the power to reel that in. If AOE is asserting authority over them, then we've got to be, there needs to be some serious decapitation done in our, in our, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't mean to talk about politics. This is what we, I have to say completely, say this is the best of times, this is the best of times. This is about, you know, about respect and they are running the show. They are not elected a peak of officials. And, you know, that has been very clear in this process that they have been running the show. Really, it wasn't the legislature that wrote this. It was Donna Russo Savage and the AOE, you know, and it's the legislature, essentially, and that was an issue in the appeal whether it was cuts, whether the legislature acted constitutionally by delegating essentially some of its legislative powers to the executive branch to come up with these default articles. But anyway, the board, of course, that was, thank you, Rick. I put that in the op-ed category, op-ed page. The board, of course, has no political position. We've barely met three times or whatever it's been. But anyway, again, the dynamic situation, I have no idea what the next session will bring, you know, beyond some of what you've been, what Rick alluded to earlier about the change and the support for construction and the possibility that that might be used in order to facilitate the closing of schools. David, hello. Welcome. So, articles, can I ask you, how many, do you think most people understand these who are gonna be voting tomorrow? No? Yeah? We're not. Yeah. They don't have the context. The greater the real, they won't have the context of all of the articles understand how this is, I mean, you've only been given a very narrow line of two to actually amend these things. And then you've done the best you could. But that's the context of the default articles. You know, we, you know, that's, you know, I don't think anybody can possibly really understand this. That's why I suggest that even having one liner is explaining, not saying yay or nay, but really, or that one liner has been something very, very, very great at the funding plate. Yeah. They've got to tell you what it means. At the polling place. Yeah. We did issue a kind of a cheat sheet, that, you know, I don't know if they can take it out on your phone or what, but hopefully it will help a little bit. But yeah, my concern is too, because it's sort of an imposing ballot to have to contend with. Most of the folks who I've heard from there would know if you got a vote. Really? Yeah. There seem to be a lot of people that are angry about it. Yeah. You know, just, but this gentleman's been talking about one time and what Alan, you know, there's been so much feedback around this state. You know, and we all see by example, me and these other states where this is done, it's failed, you know, for the smaller rural community. It's not all, it works for the Chippendon Tech County type, the bigger, wealthier communities and not inverse the smaller communities. And that was most vulnerable. And, you know, I, you know, to me, the fact, they're not acting out of ignorance. They've had it laid out for them very clearly. You've laid it out. I've laid out hundreds of us talking about the legislation and the legislation. Yeah. And this whole process and the AOE, you know, the process, they've taken that information and used it instead of to correct and improve this, they've used it almost against us to put holds so that they, we didn't have ways to get around. And to me, that is, you know, where is our democracy? And I realize this equity, everybody tells them, they look at this budget. I totally get it. Just, you know, but we need to, yeah. We were stuck. Yeah, our situation on the board, we have to deal with these facts on the ground, basically, and maneuver in such a way that we serve our people. I get it. And support schools that give our children the best education they can possibly get. And the facts on the ground are not necessarily favorable to that effort at this point. Well, let's be very polite. But yeah, I think, you know, we have to approach it, at least we on the board have to approach it with maximum degree of objectivity, even as we, you know, have our own personal opinions at the same time. Thank you. Yeah, Dave Lawrence in the sex. It does bring in kind of an interesting point though, that because of just the anger about what's being done to us, like this might all, the articles, for example, might get voted down, not because people are actually objecting to the soundness of the article itself, but just as a protest against the entire process. Yeah. Just say no, there's many times it's possible. Yeah, to as many things as possible. Well, you know, honestly, in the end, there's likely to be quite a backlash when people actually do figure out what's been done to them in a couple of years. And so, and if you've even got more stringent articles, that hurts us now. It's probably gonna put more of a nail in the coffin on this thing when there starts to be a public revolt around it. Yeah. So I mean, I support these, I know what's gone into them, but I know, you know, the intent. I would never support the budget. That's, you know, because honestly, like, you know, it's so unfair and it's just wreaks of inequity. But you remind me of it, the budget. That's what this is supposed to be all about. So we can, we can, I think it was Scott Thompson right now. He said, well, you know, it's a budget. I don't know. Yeah, so thank you, Lori. Can you tell me the tax consequence for Worcester, because the article in the paper didn't spell it out. Who let them tell Worcesters? Oh, sure, would that be possible, Lori, to jump to them? Thank you very much. And Lori is not only very adept at moving around within powerpoint presentations, she also basically knows more than any single human being about all of this stuff. So she's sitting there very demurely while I kind of do all this, but okay. This is from town meeting though. This is from town meeting. But you should use this as a baseline to understand with a comparison. So the combined impact on the residential tax rate from the budget that you voted for, I guess you voted in April on the DOE budget. Yeah. It is minus 2.3 cents. So minus 0.023. And if you quickly swing. And the merged impact is plus 0.55. So that the difference would be plus 0.078. Which is roughly what would be predicted. And this is sort of the crux of the opposition that is, that there is to this budget, certainly in Calis, where there is a similar sort of jump. 12 cents tax rate. 12 cents, but minus, yeah. So it's really about eight or something. So it's in the same ballpark basically. And this is the result of the kind of averaging everything out between higher spending counts and lower spending counts. The difference, much of the difference being accounted for by debt service. So, you know, it's just what's going on. Well, I mean, again, look at this. The proofs and the numbers, though, too. Your two poorest sounds are paying the biggest increases. And yet they've got, if you go to the equalized spending per pupil, they've got the lowest spending per pupil in their schools. Now, you tell me in what world that that reflects any kind of equity for students. You know, I'm sorry, but I don't know. I'm fairly good with mathematics. Maybe according to the U32 math program, that ends up, boy, in my book it's... Yeah. If Laura were here, let's imagine Laura sitting here. She would say, well, if you subtract that portion of debt service, that debt service line, then the actual amount that East Montpelier is spending on educating its children is in the same vicinity. I've never even seen that. But you can't subtract... I know, subtracting something like that is a bit of a kind of intellectual exercise that doesn't have a corresponding reality. The reality is that debt is there because of incompetence of management of that facility. They had to be rebuilt. Carlos and Worcester did not do this. They've maintained their constructors. And we're being penalized. I mean, that is a lot of money for the next 17 years or whatever that debt service is. I mean, that is a huge burden on the pool of people. Whenever I hear that word equity, I can't tell you how that makes me want to do. I totally don't understand it again. Yeah, it's a lot. But again, facts on the ground. It's just a fact that we're dealing with. But you're right, Rick. One of the reasons why there's so much opposition is not just because it's a one-year thing. But effectively, it gets sort of structuralized if you want to pick into the structure of the finances. You know, it's $123 on $100,000 property. Although remember, it would have been a four-sense increase under the town budget. So I mean, it comes a little bit. But I don't know. It would have been $42. It would have been $42. But when you see the proportional drops and the wealthiest town that needs some appeal here, and the towns are seeing drops because we're absorbing their debt. We don't have debt for a reason. Because we deferred it. And we capital fund. It's because the capital plan, and that's something we talked about last time about a priority of this board would be to get a tight grip on a big-ticket capital spending so that we can try to keep up with it. You know, one of the most interesting figures to emerge from all this, and I'm still chewing on this one. I'm not quite sure what it means. When you look at education spending per equalized pupil, that's on another chart that Larry has. The average spending of all the sixth schools, U-32 and the five-mile lefties, is $18,709. Yeah, that's it. And U-32 is at $18,809. So it's just $100 above the average. What's interesting is high schools, I think I mentioned this last time, high schools are supposed to be spending on average 13% more in elementary schools. That's why we get a premium from the state. The high school gets extra funds. So if my math is right, if you add 13% under that $18,809, you bump it up to $21,241, which is, that's higher than anybody. So the question in my mind is how have we been doing high school education on the cheap for so long? Actually, Helen, I just wanted to clarify. When the state increases the school, they do it through increasing the pupils. I don't know if you remember the phantom pupils. Yeah. And so it's already considered when you look at this amount. So you shouldn't do it a second time. It's already considered when I look at what you know. The pupils have been increased by the 13%. So it makes the cost for spending $18,809. Had they not been increased, it would have been higher. So is that to follow that through, it's using phantom pupils to increase the number of pupils against which the total educational budget is being divided? True. So what would it be if you just used real-life in-school buddy students? I don't have that. Yeah, you can't do that. But it's statewide. So I guess the best way to compare U32... One of the reasons I brought this up, and I still don't understand the math that Laurie gave, I mean I do, but I don't, there might be lessons to learn what U32 has done for what 35 years. It might be educating kids more cheaply than any of the elementary schools is doing. And obviously providing a much greater array of courses. And I don't know what that suggests. I mean let's assume that U32 is operating pretty efficiently. Why? When it's doing more, doesn't mean we should maybe have one elementary school for the whole district. Are there really savings in numbers? I've never wanted to believe that, but maybe there really are. Because I think moving forward, we're going to try to equalize things. We're faced with three choices. One is to bring everybody up to the highest level on spending. The other is to bring everybody to an average and no spending higher. You don't have to think about how to deal with it. The third option is to find efficiency somewhere that allow us to keep spending equitably on kids, but doing it at a cost that is not as high as it currently is at some times. I mean, I don't think that would be a job key, folks. It's a real, nobody in this, in our five counts has ever had to deal with issues like this. Given these constraints, especially, your hands are tied, your feet are tied, I had concrete anchors put on your feet and you can't over-court them. That's back to me. Believe me, dealing with Act 60 to my mind was easier than dealing with this stuff. Because it was straightforward and applied to everybody in the same way. This isn't working that way. And you have the weights, the weight of the high school kids or the family students kind of stuff. This is hard stuff. Well, how many people, I don't know, I have an ancient year, I've been trying to bring advancement for most of my life. At any time I see a system that is this complicated and no one understands, I'm questioning what's driving it. You know, I've seen very few things that can't pretty easily be to just usually, things are made to be confusing because they intend for smoking mirrors to be there. I'm very distrustful of this type of calculus theory and I don't mean that in terms of mathematical calculus, but I have a hard time thinking that we can't have something that is much more transparent. I mean, you know, this is real, I think that's part of what's going on in this whole, I actually think this is about a consolidation of power and not at all about kids, not even at all about cost of education. If they were interested in cost of education, every town in the state would be capital funding to begin with. You eliminate binding and you eliminate a huge number of the spikes as we've talked about. I've modeled that. You know, you can, that's where you can, then taking those all, those should be first steps. Instead of drastically going at the core of what's actually kept efficient, you know, cost constraints going and working in the state. Part of the fund that we're going to have is trying to sort this out. The Ingemenace was asking some of these questions about budget development and I mean, do you know Lori? Do you have already, have you thought through how you would like to see the budgets developed for next fiscal year? Well, I can go back to the chart that we have for the week with the current processes. Okay. Before you go on now, let me make one suggestion. I suggest I suggest that the unified boards should start really talking to one another. I mean, there are going to be some major breakdowns in this system because we have to have a political force. You know, the Secretary of Education is studying his or her time sitting in that legislature lobbying council. In Singularity, you're not going to be able to you're not going to be able to overcome, be able to apply the pressure in that sense. I think you should read more. Just like we talked about in the Regional Planning Commission model, we used to have the carousel meetings here. Maybe once a year or something you guys should be or maybe more often than that. You know, talking about at least on a regional level, maybe on a statewide level, getting together and hammering through this. Because I mean, we know what the outcomes are going to be. We've seen it in the other states like Maine and, yeah, Chittin County is going to do well at Millbury to do well. Like, most of the towns in the state are not connected. Well, yeah, I think So do you want me to kind of discuss your process for us? What currently happens is we issue contracts right now for next year. So what I typically do is once we have all the staffing online it's about August. I usually roll up what would that cost this year and what inflation indices do we know about next year for health insurance possible contract negotiations. In addition to that I would take into consideration any contracts we have like our bus company, auditors, any contracts that are going to go into the next year. So I roll up what I call a baseline budget where there's absolutely no increases to staffing or changes and it just basically kind of gives us a status quo model. And that seems to work with the board so they could say what would happen if we do nothing different. And then at that point we would like to know what it might be to change something. It could go from a percentage across the board to program changes. And we roll up multiple scenarios at that time and I actually started process as I said in August. The superintendent myself and the principals do this as a group but it's been because it's been seven budgets we do it separately with each principal and not as an entire group. Once we get the separate budgets compiled then the entire group meets and talks about it. The other thing that you may or may not be aware is the special education budget is a major component. So in the fall we need to report to the state a projected budget for the following year. And in doing so Kelly Bush works with the principals and myself and going through what is this current scenario in each school needs on IEP's who's moved in who's moved out. So we consider that and that information usually isn't here until October. So while we've already started the budget process that's a huge piece of it. You cannot really update until then. The concern at the time is that you're forecasting 18 months out with which students will be in our district or out of our district and it's a highly volatile group. So having said that you see all the scenarios what's similar is you 32 used to have a finance committee and I'm wondering if this board will end up with a budget committee or a finance committee in the elementary schools they didn't really have a finance committee because it was such a small board that the whole board would be the committee. So that would be the group of people who would review the budget. There would be open meetings and public information common opportunities usually between December and January when the state gives us the state information on financial components that impact the tax rate. So we don't really have the revenues until then so even if you start in August you're really just building a budget that you don't know but if you could afford it I guess it's the best way to say it. Tax is going to go up significantly with the change in the legislature. So what we learned by January we also have what we call the common level of appraisal which then impacts the tax rates as well. So it's usually between the first and second week of January that we in the past have had marathon meetings so the board can consider the entire budget rolled up with the tax impacts and make an informed decision on the budget that would be born. Did I go too far? I know it's a great night but you know one of the things you did wonderful budget I mean I've never done anybody to do so their budget spending time I know them so that too and you know we've taught them to find the time you thank you. What people will be important in those as a reader and as a citizen I've been on the board you know as a citizen I think it's really important that we not allow those budget members to completely be disaggregated I mean to be aggregated I think we need to keep it we need to know what's going to the individual schools in real time you know we need to know how what resources are being allocated or not being allocated and we will need even though we're acting as a unit I still think you know if we can if it's just a big big single pot there will be no way to vet you know to get some sense of what kind of research space whether there's any equity or not and I know that it's not money that defines equity but it does in a way it's a critical resource in that pot and so you know I already have plans to keep this disaggregated I listen and listen to Nicole Mays and Donna Russo Savage say with a direct question from one of the senate education board members I quote he said we all know this was all about the money now tell us what savings you've incurred I mean you're realizing with the consolidations that are already done and he froze like deer and said we don't have a way of telling you and they said well when can you well we probably can never tell you so the only way you can do this is separating those you know I want to see you know we need to maintain sufficient detail of these budgets but I think especially at the beginning for confidence building I think the beginning is a long time and I guess we're going to sort of be figuring this out I mean I'm sitting here with a blank piece of paper and what is my role and what is what I would direct you this would be the board I would ask I would direct you this is something that I tell you if that transparency is not there it won't be a pretty picture there might be a way to ask it differently and get an answer to your question Gloria are there any any of the reports you have to file to meet do you need to know how much a specific school is spending for people would that be maybe for either free and reduced lunch reasons for ESL reasons for any of the reasons like that where the feds require you for example to have a per people spending amount for a specific school as opposed to the whole district as I mentioned at the last meeting the agency is right now trying to come up with a uniform chart of accounts which will help differentiate and define what goes into each category I have been told that for example I need to track electricity by building I have been told I need to track fuel oil by building I have been told I need to track instructional teachers by building but we don't have it all in writing at this time state-wide and uniform system well what I am saying is based on people who had merged before us they had to ask the same questions down in Randolph the business manager there was one of the first ones with a voluntary merger so she said well why am I keeping track of seven electricity accounts for instance and she thought that it was going to be less bookkeeping associated with a merger and found out that no it was almost identical so one of the things at least two of our schools will continue to do every year is to apply for small schools grants because we are a non-voluntary merger we have to apply rather than receive it automatically and if I remember it was what it said state-different criteria I think and one is efficiency and certainly my understanding is to be able to answer the efficiency questions you have to know exactly how many staff work in your building and my question is whether you also have to know how much you are spending for people because once you start getting the staffing levels you are kind of asking the same thing so they do collect information in some way for staffing my building but I have yet to see exactly in the future what collections would be the same or different it's all in getting defined at this time stage I think the ones that have merged out of us I haven't the budget submission is like you know I put in 10 different numbers that's it for the budget submission it's all aggregated up and it hasn't been for years it doesn't give it to me by building what happens to the small schools grants that get received by the schools that apply for them do they stay with those schools or do they just mash into the whole budget into the whole budget but when you saw Alan that was in from the outset even the voluntary murders it's it's not dedicated talk about transparency it doesn't get off to the school no I know I'm not as important to you guys believe me that's just awful but that was another reason why the cost for people was cheaper at Doty and Calis because that considered those individual towns having their own small schools grant so you're right the right inside work at the cost of your people has it all embedded in the entire so now what it's doing is a small school grants are bringing down the cost for people for all families at the school that's true some minimal right they were originally projected to be gone this year if we were encouraged so originally it was intended to be a tax increase at each of the towns and we had had them was it two districts this year would have been subjected to the penalty because of excess spending and now we have none because of the average at the time yes well I don't um we have avoided the penalty zone I don't think there were people who were in the penalty zone although I will say that one of the selling points from the budget season was that oh if we were all together there wouldn't be a penalty zone but we from a budgetary standpoint we were not in the penalty zone we mean in the different town budgets nobody was in the zone of excess spending not the final budget is likely they cut it the last it's great I'm noticing the clock is hitting 7.30 and I wonder if maybe we should um just do a quick recap by actually going through the slides and um before we do that the third step there in flowchart finance committee local school board review and community comments when we figure out how we're going to do this for you know all six schools that looks like a place where the local advisory committees would have very very important role in having meetings and doing it locally having people who are involved with the schools every day doing that locally so it's not being driven by the top it is the bottom up process I disagree advisory committees have zero power but in japan that's not so if we need to go to school board right and you know people don't they are just not educated on this budget process I mean you can't show up in a meeting and understand the complexity of these budgets and then if they're not able to really dissect them that was actually the point I was trying to make but you know actually I think we may have a cunning plan that I haven't had a chance to to kind of part of this year but I think I will be interested in your reactions but informationally in terms of right in terms of getting votes on the ground from the local school and the school communities in a way that really kind of indicates that you do have that budget for each school because you have the local input and say this is what we think we need to run this school and probably felt by the principal I would think primarily and so that is a informational point you're right it may not be the committee can vote yes this is our budget and we need to respect it but it will provide I think you you've got to have the disaggregated data to be able for that group to work with any degree of certainly on their community level I mean you if you don't know what's coming in your schools sort of don't how the heck can you but I could this is in the way that I think we're about this is what we need to run our school as opposed to this is what we're going to do for addition now go figure out how to work for your school I think it's as opposed to a top ten I get the effort I also know the reality you know when I was in college I was executive director of facility operations I did all the budgeting myself I didn't have secretaries I didn't have any money I had 13 dollars I managed it very very carefully and you needed that data you know direct you know to be able to assess what everything was at how it was performing and you know that's we're not going I don't know I've been in this world too and I don't know how I would be able to excuse my French but how I could do that if I was even if I didn't have that disaggregated data I'm talking about efficiency you can't I do this for the state of Vermont 1700 buildings you can't assess efficiency of operation without disaggregating data you've got to have it very specific they otherwise you don't know what's performing well and what is not and so I don't know how anybody can what glory I mean how can how can she predict that if you can't how can she predict that and I also think that it can be done pretty easily I mean given you know I don't think it's all that big a deal to keep even if you aggregate you know to have those separated I mean I certainly dedicated programs myself to do it I don't buy software to write my own you know that's maybe doing more I'm just worried about decision but if you don't have good data and information you can't make a decision that's and I'm worried when it talks what we're going to take I mean we're going to do everything we can to get that good data I think the only one left who hasn't been here before who's not a repeat of that is there anything that you're interested in if I were to run through the the sort of the main headline items on the budget would that be of interest or I think that it's actually been extremely helpful to hear all of this for me as well so it would be helpful to the viewers on workah that would be great maybe any viewers on workah who have managed to sit through part one and are interested in seeing how it turns out see the sequels that need to see the sequels, yeah the reboot you should make some material to amplify the board so far just read it the people that ask questions or the question and answer that was really helpful this has also helped on a much higher level rather high level understanding of the budget so you guys have been amazingly transparent as far as you could be with this process this is the graduate seminar on school budgeting right here yeah so anyway voila that's sort of the top line of spending and this is the overall spending correct Lori so this is not the amount that we're taxed on that comes right so here the expense change is on it's not that great it's under 2% but because our enrollment is going down our equalized pupils are going down so the overall increase is higher then it is almost double the net impact on taxes is that an average the 1.83 that's an average of the tax rates into five different how do you get to that that's the if you add up the total education spending that we submit to the state it's comparing it to the prior review so that's the penthouse level of the tax formula then if you add the second floor or the second floor down from the penthouse the equalized pupils that fraction is up 3.7% and this is just a breakdown to refresh your memories okay going let's keep going and this is a really broad breakdown of direct higher salaries and benefits and then that little sliver that little pie slice of debt servicing capital spending and then the non salary which is a lot of contract stuff if they bought you to head mental health or different programs for students on the EPs or bus contract so one of the important things is that we're supporting a lot of people there are a lot of people who are getting paid and who are then supporting stores working, no the money is circulating locally a lot of the money that gets paid to people and smoke within so what's the economy I also wanted to ask Laura I don't mean to belabor this but that 54% for staff and benefits that's lower than most figures I've seen it's just schools that spend between 60-80% of their budgets on staff costs what do we do that has us so low do you know I don't know where at the top of my head but if you look at the $13 million that was contracts a lot of that is service provision which includes staffing and benefits that are being paid to a contract as opposed to credit so that's how we bring it there's a lot of drivers as a percentage of course it would go down as other sides go up so maybe the question is how did we get that so low but why are the other sides so hot and I'm not saying they necessarily are but that is one possible interpretation I think it's an artifact of the classification that a lot of what other schools may have under direct hire we're contracting for it's considered non-stallar because it's indirect hire I guess just to finish I'm finally realizing is having this kind of discussion makes me think about things that we should be thinking about looking forward when we see an anomaly in statistics what is this number telling us and I think it's quite instructive the whole business of asking questions is crucial can I go ahead with the information to the point exactly I think administration costs seem high to me too I don't know about education but I know this is operation and that seems very high but remember from last time Rick if I'm not mistaken right please once again correct me if I'm wrong but there are a lot of classification issues here where some of what's counted in administration here they're actually working with students they're and I guess that's part of what they're doing is try to clarify all of that we're all using the same calculations so like that number is very easy and when you get statewide 10% what's the average statewide? for education I guess certainly across sectors I mean I look at administration as administration in operation and it really does probably doesn't differ very much from area to area and that's these are very high compared to those so now if there are things that are related to teaching they should not be in administration that's and is that being corrected again this is that smoking mirrors if you don't know what you're looking at how the heck can you make a responsible decision this is yeah hopefully we'll be able to get more and more clarity as we go along the key thing about this chart though is the continuity that the two the two pies are practically indistinguishable in the way they're sliced so there's nothing really dramatically changing I think the next slide is one more to see yes yes and this shows in the major categories of the budget what the percent changes are from the present year to the to the next school year and you can see that most of them are within a range of between minus one and five percent except for the capital fund transfer which is dramatically lower and that I think was again because of this is a minus nineteen percent that was because of as Lori explained to me the need for a couple of schools to get underneath that excess spending cap so this however this is the sort of thing that Alan is talking about the kind of anomaly that might otherwise raise a flag because if we're suddenly not spending as much on refurbishing our capital fund then maybe we're running the risk of having deferred replacements and you know all the other things that go with that yeah there's my name Roman we live in an era of population decline for now you know for now well for now for here for here yeah for now for here for here we will tell you about this one the only safe place that you can be we will probably be over there where you have no word where you know here's an option that says so we've looked at this with Alan before this this chart yeah this is basically the outline of the tax formula Should we scoop over? And the common level of appraisal, everybody's favorite thing to not understand, certainly mine. And basically the common, this chart shows that everybody is getting, everybody is having to pay more because of the common level of appraisal. Our houses are worth more according to the state. Yeah, and then they're assessed that. State-wide tax rate, in another ripping narrative here, should we continue? Or any tax rate plans? OK. And then here, again, is the tax rate impacts from the town-by-town votes and then from the merge vote with the merge budget with sort of the predicted variations. Any common sensitivity? That's something that we didn't talk about. Is there something that interests you? Yeah. Yeah, OK. So this is sort of the numb of it. There are basically three, I don't know, trials of income. Below $47,000, between $47,000 and $136.5,000. And then the subtotal is the third column of those two. Those are the two columns. Those are the two income segments that are income sensitized. And then the subtotal of those, and then the properties that pay full frame on the far right. So you basically see that Callis and Wister have the largest segment of population below $47,000. But by the same token, they're getting more income sensitization. And then in the middle, they're roughly grouped together in the 40% so they're partially income sensitized. And then you get the people who pay so they get some property on the far right, ranging from a low of $32,000 and Wister to a high of $44,000. So now this income sensitivity only counts in my wrong correct now, it's in my wrong. For the homestead in two acres, correct? So I mean, then beyond that, that's not the plan. It's not that it's true. That's true. So I mean, yeah, that can be very deceiving, especially for if you've got somebody who's got, let's say, farm, because apparently no farms left, but some, and you come out on land and things like that, these numbers are actually deceiving. I mean, there is no sensitivity on the rest of that asset sitting there. So unless you want to be in a complete postage state. But this is a little bit of a break, sort of an Advil for the higher tax fairs in the new arrangement. Is that good? We'll continue the summary. That's right. Basically, I think all of us, even those who don't mind the budget, think it's in terms of what it does for the schools allocating money to the schools, it's well-balanced and solid and responsible. The problem and where it breaks down is where it's sort of how the costs are allocated to the tax payers. And that's more controversial. So, is there any of Berlin? No. No? Sorry, no. That may not. OK. You guys have done a great job, honestly. I don't know anybody who's done this good a job of what you've done, trying to make honey out of this vinegar, but your hands are tied somewhat. I get that. So after being in this as long as I've been in it and hearing nothing but equity, equity, equity, and I look at these numbers, there's no way I could ever support this budget. Nothing to do with you. It's the base ethic of what is behind it that's on our legislators. We'll take that battle to the election box later. And that's the only place we have left to sort that problem out. But we can still, I mean, I'm doing my conscience. I could not support something like that, but Kurtz is so generous on the poor's communities. I mean, it's robbing from the poor. Kill to the rich, you know what I'm saying? It's wrong. It's wrong. As a devoted reader of the palace front, for sure, you know that you're not alone in that sentiment. I was hoping that the budget passes. I get it. I am. I right now, where this battle wasn't fought early enough to stem this, and now we're in that situation where we only hurt the kids if we don't have to hurt the kids if we do. I'm one of those, you know, I think about George Washington and Ethan Allen and just about everybody else that actually stood up against Long Islanders. I actually fought and said, no, you know, and I've noticed the complete absence in all of these meetings of Janet and Anne Cummings. I recognize the only one who showed up, and she's the one that supported us, you know, where this is really bothersome and that's indicative of that. Well, we can send them to the market link. Oh, I'll be talking to them in person. Anyway, Janice, Jeff, do you have anything that you'd like to add or comments? We've been through it. We've been through it, though, right? Thank you, John. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, thank you for coming up. Yeah, we're really. And thank you for voting tomorrow. Well, thank you guys for all the work. I don't know what you've done, but really, you're thanking us. But the person, Lord, is wonderful. I wonder who's behind the curtain. One who's stressing out the most. One who needs $160,000 to spend here stressing out. I know. Well, there's good actually. It's so crazy because it's not like, you know, if it's budgetary to go down, there's a lot of room to cut. And honestly, it's not like anything. You know, it's about the inequity of distribution of tax across the town. That's something you cannot do. You know, this is a no-win situation. You know, that's the crazy thing about it. And this is the, this is, I mean, I can't believe the incompetence of involved in the way this was constructed. And in the face of the data, and the information that the public, and a resounding voice came out, you heard, you saw it with those hearing rooms, you know, close to 1,000 people sometimes. There are certainly many people in it now. And everyone creatines it. Yeah. Yeah. Just one more question across this. Yeah. This was a meeting tonight. Is your corner five? Our corner is six. But I never called it to order. This is taking notes. It's not a formal meeting. Yeah, okay. I figured it doesn't need to be. Yeah, I was looking at Robert's rules and there's great, great quote. It's actually Robert's rules for dummies, you know. The corner is, quote, as large as can be dependent on for being present at all meetings when weather is not exceptionally bad. So I believe that we have more than even six at most meetings. This is going to be a lot of work for 10 people. But for only six people, it would be irresponsible. Yeah. I continue with that. I think we're, it's just a function of sort of summer. Yeah. It wasn't a meeting, meeting anyway. No, it was. But what's really great and what I really much appreciate, again, the Graduate Seminar thing is very informative and you're putting all kinds of ideas and throwing out all kinds of questions that we're going to have to contend with. Well, number two, you know, when you hear me and other people talk, what do we do? We don't. This isn't only you guys. Somehow, we have to come together. And the boards, and the boards, and they've done it already, but I intend that when I find my keywords connecting with other, you know, find boards. And, you know, this is going to unfold itself. And, well, we can look at each other and the people that you have, the legislature is taking to drive decisions which are going to fall in your laps. You know, that's the intent of this, I'm sure. And part of it is to get the pressure off of the legislators. They need somebody to point to. And unfortunately, you guys, you know, if you see these local boards or these merged boards, there are going to be phone guys in this. And, you know, that's why they are another industry. Well, you know, we're smarter than that as a public. I think, yeah, we'll sort of manage to kind of come that way through. Yeah, you're one way or another. We'll run good schools. We'll run them responsibly. We'll take care of the taxpayers' money. And we'll have good outcomes. As far as you can, right. I get that. I know that. Are you happy with your school as it is now? Parts of it. Not unless with the high school, the board with the elementary schools. And there's always room for improvement. But, you know, the farther you get from your decision, the farther the decision makers get from that school, the more blind they become to the problems. And, you know, I have a lot more trust in community members than I do. You know, they are community members really deeply care about what's going on. They may not always agree completely, but they put them in a room together and they will figure it out. And always don't, you know, make the decision. I think that's what we intend to do. As far as you can, and you promised you weren't the only decision makers, you're more and more that authority is rapidly being bled up to a place where it's more just a political maelstrom. They aren't really looking down at all. But within our scope, I think that's what Genesis says. I get it. You are. I know. You know, Chris, everybody's sitting and reading articles that were constructed to best support us. You know, that shows that intent. I worry beyond you too. You know, we've, you know, I've watched people somewhere just change in time and become more apathetic. And this completely can unravel if now the importance for really good members is air-mounted. You know, this attention and probably, you know, a lot more pushing back. I mean, we haven't pushed back from this bureaucracy. It's run over us. And so... This is, these are all, these are all very pertinent to what, you know, what we'll be dealing with in the coming weeks and months. So not just years, not many years, but although I hope to have handed off to some point else by that time. But I think... We never started. So we're never done.