 I'm going to call this to order at 6.07 p.m. Welcome our guests this meeting is called recently for the purpose of figuring out what our next steps are going to be with regard to budget timeline but let's see if there's any is there any interest in other agenda items I'd ask Scott to provide an update if you could on the going on over to Calis that I've been made aware of the part of the Articles Committee right and I would be interested in maybe making a motion about the budget okay well that will come under the action section works for you of course anything else you guys want so back to our guests welcome was there anything that people want to talk about specifically were you just here to observe okay great well let's get to it then so discussion item need for advice regarding next steps on budget and teacher contracts build you have an intro to this topic I do I handed out I'm sorry I only had a few of them so they're out there but I'm left in the audience and we have any issues you get them out there I provided a timeline the possible timeline to ask just to kind of say what are the timelines that we're looking at for possible either a local budget if you 32 were to put a budget forward for a merged budget but before you made that decision I the reason I in consultation with Adrian said I think that you as a board should have selected an attorney that you get fiscal and fiscal guidance on fiscal statutes and on timing of warning statutes to confirm what I put together here and and regard with what's going forward with that 46 I think you as a board should choose who you'd like I have names of folks that we've worked with for the past three years who have advised us through act 46 but you could use someone else as well and I think that that's something you should consider as a board you may or may not want to do that so that's what I bring you is that you have some important decisions one of the things that's a critical date that's at the bottom of this timeline is by April 15th the board needs to notify teachers either by offering them a contract if you don't offer them a contract they're free to to look at other places and other positions and along with ESP as the same requirement for that and if there are any reductions in force for the next fiscal year you need to take them by April 15th so you will see that either you can look at those usually the practice in Washington Central has been that we wait for a budget to be adopted a town meeting we usually have the contracts all ready to go we hand them out as quickly as possible and teachers have 30 days to return contracts there is a hiring crunch in Vermont right now for certain endorsed positions special educators math or language speech language pathologists if we're not hiring now we won't be after after April 1st there aren't candidates so I wanted to make you aware as a board the timelines the pieces that play out of this if you have questions for things I didn't cover I'd be glad to answer them but those are kind of where he says so in terms of the two scenarios the merge budget there's nothing to do at this stage we're waiting for the injunction before you can call the organizational meeting yeah in the case of just want to correct you we're trying to figure out who calls that behavior right now I do not know because the agency called the issue one and next question has been asked back to the agency but we have not heard about it okay okay it's an important detail in the case of a U32 only budget we could potentially call more in a local budget other schools have for town meeting we're not sure of the legal legalities that that's why I think that's why you're recommending I'm recommending counsel you choose and and the four people that we worked with have been we've worked with Scott Cameron's firm we've worked with the age or Lynn's firm we were Chris Leopold's firm and we had Paul Giuliani and some of the schools the four districts that are in the suit of Kelly Kelly and that's really thank you other questions sorry just to be clear then the action is to ask for advice that's Bill's recommendation at this yeah are you is this because we're so uncertain of the legal yes I'm uncertain it's your choice is aboard we want to see who fights from I'm asking you to make that determination on who you'd like counsel from we so different scenarios at this stage we could disregard Bill's recommendation and go forward with no action or proposing a budget or we could seek legal counsel I guess the question is in the states eyes 46 is you know we are a unified union and we're to move forward on a merged budget but we don't have a way to do that right now so is the you know is a is a vote on a U32 budget proper does it have legal standing and it's but as far as I understand it the other statutes like the ones I mentioned no no I want to say to you that this is why I think you need legal counsel to talk to let that through and you should choose someone that you like to use to do that you may choose not to do that that's fine okay is there any what if we were to for example as I shared with with Karen Adrian and you and Stephen the idea of warning the U32 budget then we can we can at least you know lay down that marker and then you know consult with attorneys along the way it just seems to me that I I have this sense that there's this weird game of chicken going on in which our budget is kind of the the piece in play and I would like to take it out of play because it's just too important to to have it slip with you I've said to the association last week my main goals protecting their jobs right now but I think you need advice that can be happened pretty quickly I think you can still hit what you said in your email you like to have an April 9th election you could probably still do both I mean have the legal advice then decide to warn it do any of the firms on your list have particular expertise in this arena except for Paul Giuliani and Paul Giuliani's work when he has worked with schools he's usually been on bonds and finance not so much on 49 46 area the other three firms that have listed our work with school districts and there are others as well Steve's work with him there are others that there are three there's really about four or five down right there they're making those in the five that I know they do school Chris Leopold has worked with us specifically on that 46 he's been invited to be articles of agreement committee selected to work with I guess you haven't had I've been on a couple conference calls with him I would have no hesitation consulting with him based on the little I know definitely have some expertise in this particular law yeah um I hate to say this this is not a comment on the legal profession at all but it just seems to me that we've had pretty steady stream of of legal advice through this process and we don't seem to have really gotten anywhere and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the quality of that advice which undoubtedly is very professional but I think at a certain point you know it's our job to do our job and I feel confident enough that if we follow the existing statutes that the worst that can happen is that the preliminary injunction is not issued and we go forward with the merger and the morning is superseded yes well we can't yeah at this point the transitional board is adjourned to an event certain as I understand it the issuance of the preliminary injunction or non issuance of that so that date is nobody knows what that date is however we do know that there's a critical date of April 15 so to me the just the sensible and safe thing to do is to warn at least our local budget so we have that covered in case the judge in this you know sort of either or a situation in case the judge does issue the preliminary injunction that okay we've got that set where we're on track and if he doesn't then we just you know it's plan B or plan a whichever you know it's merge budget versus the school budget I know it it's not pretty it's not elegant but I just I just want to build in that redundancy so that we don't get stuck in a bind without a budget with everybody sort of saying this is what a mess so okay now I'm hearing four options one is we could do nothing two is we could seek a recommendation before we do anything else three we could warn as you say and take a vote and see what happens and fourth would be I also heard you suggest this warn and get a recommendation yeah and the recommendation comes back that this has no legal basis don't do this then we really have to consider well then we would have to reconsider the warning but I mean is there any reason that that fourth option couldn't be seek advice and then one the problem is time and also I mean I have to confess when this was originally though there's an emergency meeting and I guess it's since been sort of tamped down to a special meeting I thought oh great we're gonna do something because it's an emergency and an emergency you do something seeking advice doesn't really rise to that level for me I I mean I think advice is really important but I think the sense of urgency is correct the reason why we're here on a on a lousy night on school vacation week I think there is there there is important work to be done so I would just say let's go for it and do it and if we if in the you know in the course of time we discovered that we need to shift something then we do that but but at least we have something scheduled that would give us budget see the logic of that why did you pick April 9th it's a Tuesday I briefly looked at the schedules of the towns and it didn't appear there didn't appear to be anything it's a week or it's one week before the April vacation is that correct or two weeks so it doesn't coincide with April vacation and it's 42 days from now not including today about including April 9th which gives perhaps I might just sort of mention my one concern about this is that it becomes a bit of a forcing event for two towns that Middlesex and Eastmark Pelegor they might feel obliged or kind of dragged into doing the same thing on the same day why not Worcester doesn't Worcester vote from the floor they don't have an article on their town meeting to talk about budget so so interesting so they could they would vote we would have to have a special town a special school district meeting tap a floor yeah right and that would not work I would not imagine on April 9th but Worcester would be able then to do it because people work we've had public meetings of Ilk week day night okay I think it's a good point that we should be thinking about the other towns two of them are going to meet later this week Eastmark Pelegor met on Friday yes what did they do they decided to see the council of Chris Leopold they're willing to work with others as long as on the limited scope that they wrote their motion which I brought those minutes with me Middlesex is meeting on Wednesday night at six o'clock and Worcester is meeting at six o'clock on Thursday night and have you reached out to Chris Leopold do you have a sense of his time yeah he's willing to make his time as soon as we can as soon as we can get people together I said I talked to him today and he's not there's not looking at dates yet before in terms of they said that on Friday at their meeting they were willing to work with others so they said let's try to pull this together so we can share the expense but they also understood if it didn't work it didn't work so they were being a little flexible but felt you don't want to get this done as well um tell me more about 30 to 40 days is that really a window it's the window for posting the warning you can post the warning 30 to 40 days so the the drop dead date in a way is somewhere around April or mid March 14th if you want off what date off April 15th if we want it we want to have a vote so you want it if well let's can we go back to scott state so we don't get so confused here sure April 9th should be the Tuesday before the 15th yeah right would you be the Tuesday before the 15th you would have to have a date of the 10th or 11th because there's 31 days I literally like to count these things to make sure yeah problem I did the same thing yeah it's like I literally made a math problem too much with you know I thought I think I'm pretty good at math say again so it would be March 10th or 11th 10th is a Sunday 11th is a Monday you would have to post it by I don't want to count that just to be sure and if you want me to do that right now I can do that why don't we say March 8th just and then for the 15th you'd be looking at you know the that's a Monday so you wouldn't be looking at the 15th or 16th of March there's 31 days of March so so so what I'm hearing is that we could still make this mark or it's April 9th which I think makes a lot of sense make that date if we make a decision by March 8th which is what end of next week Friday next week and if you were going to go with the budget that you were presented and recommended we can spin that up pretty quickly into a warning yeah how long would that take a day no hour an hour where that was we've had dual as we as we talked about these things we need to carry back in August press dual dual objects it's been practiced both ways practiced both ways um speaking for myself I would not be comfortable going forward without legal counsel no I do I don't mind the idea of warning just to get get the ball rolling and then get a recommendation and go from there however I do see the logic of syncing up with the other schools in terms of of the legal advice if we all choose the same counsel and the the vote date yeah I concur me too and I think that um using the the attorney that we used prior like Chris may have might expediate the process well yeah especially if each one of the players already selected there's that would at least be two school so then if we went that's with that scenario we would be calling another meeting of this board Eastmont Piliar hopefully and and maybe others within the next 10 days another emergency meeting well I'm going to use the emergency these are special oh sorry yes according to the statute uh-huh emergency is one that you have to have within 24 hours you don't necessarily post as soon as you can uh-huh if you get some nice play and that's hesitate to name them in the process because we can't speak for them but yeah right yeah my I mean if it if it all works out in that wonderful um I hesitate to say utopian way but um I would just like to know that if there are any glitches along the way if that we have to do this that we need a budget um and I mean maybe possibly can't get a quorum together in the next 10 days that that could happen yeah so is there any logic to calling the warning the April 9th now sort of holding it I would I would feel much better just of course information I'm not trying to stop you from either way or just point of information you have immediate schedule for March the Wednesday after town meeting and we do this group on March 6th yeah yeah it's still it's still kind of feels wrong to me that even such a basic step as warning our budget we have to seek legal counsel it's just something that we've done that's one of the basic most elemental functions of the school board things have changed though yeah but they started you started off the comments speaking to I remember how you were speaking to acting under the law as we understood it that law has changed the law that used to have us call that meeting it's no longer the law of the land for for the time being but it is that's the time being it hasn't been revealed it hasn't the the new law the land is is like hanging there in the air whereas the statutes are are there there and as far as I know nothing has changed there well as far as I know I don't know enough to be confident moving forward without the advice of East Point yeah I think I think most of the board is there but I mean I did I am sympathetic the idea of getting it on the in the books however if we are if we have a meeting I didn't realize we had a meeting on March 6th I mean that my suggestion would be let's go with that date if we were the attorney I'm quite sure we're going to have a quorum and we could even potentially you have to bring a warning ready to go Scott and I we need to bring you back together to have you approve the warning I would like you to do that I don't think you want to just give me my first possibility to do that and I need you all to sign that it's not in my authority to approve a warning and I would wait I mean if even if you said we want a warrant tonight I that might have something so when the next time we're getting together to approve the warning yeah like I'm serious when it'll take us an hour to prep the warning but I need all of you to approve it and authorize it to go out so are these the instructions that we're getting billed then to it could be I've heard a motion yeah but I I would move that we instruct Bill to prepare a warning for our next meeting on March 6th did you say I can do that um for uh an April 9th date and that will provide a chance for the the others the other towns these those that are meeting between now and then will um have a chance to react to this initiative sort of gets them will be able to kind of say hey that sounds good or well wait a second what about another day that will serve better sure like that I guess okay um you want to say a little more about the warning the warning of the of the U-32 budget for 20 for the school year 2019 2020 as as what did we do did we pass it did we transmit it did need to we've done that most usually you'll prove it to the same meeting okay when we've got the budget to you you um recommended to the transition board it's all here we recommend to the transition board it's all you did at that time right you didn't approve the budget no it wasn't yeah we raved it on with our blessings yeah okay I will I will be asking you and not necessarily that meeting but somewhere before April 15 um where you stand on authorizing contracts to be sent out and you'll probably want to talk to the attorney about that as well okay it was that part of the the brief for your attorney yes because you have a mixture of teacher master agreement and statutes and fiscal requirements within the state which are all statutes as well that you need to make decisions as a board we have a motion can you please read it back I just have that he moved to instruct superintendent to prepare a warning of the U-32 budget for the school year 2019 20 for the next board meeting March 6th for an April night vote okay we're not at this point dealing with the legal counsel piece but maybe it's cleaner to just believe it that for the is there a second discussion we kind of did okay all those in favor okay so that passes is there a motion on legal counsel potentially also for March 6th it may be another time so I don't want to give you that okay okay because I'm trying to coordinate calendars right now for it I think what I've heard from east volunteer and talking with chris mcbay the chair of middle sex and a little bigger the chair of uh Worcester they want to do it as soon as possible okay so okay I just want I don't want any illusions of they want to do what as soon as meet with the attorney as soon as possible or if there's a collaborative approach if not right is there a motion about seeking legal counsel yes I'm not sure what to say we're so we've got those two bodies seeking legal counsel also guess what we're looking for is to seek legal counsel around the legion of us so before you make a motion may I read some to you yes please the east Montpelier board in their motion they said was to seek legal counsel for advice regarding next steps on budgets and teacher contracts um Rumen made the motion to select chris leopold as legal counsel for advice ensuring east Montpelier elementary school remains operational including vice a teacher master agreement and presenting a budget for Kawhi 1920 motion passed unanimously I would mimic their motion replacing me and u 32 for ruben and east Montpelier a second day okay second discussion should we think about the um actually a second opinion like we've seen double the legal counsel from the guy who said he didn't want to seek any yeah the reason is because um lawyers are not unlike doctors and I understand and um it might be nice to have a stereoscopic view and and to spread the wealth so that you know no we spread all the lawyers and double the cost I look at it as we're in uncharted water right so I agree with that second opinion so the question would be who in that case is there sort of uh I don't really know these lawyers and how they um when they come out there are the material from what kind of perspective we're not seeking uh legal I mean a written opinion it sounds like this more is is that what he's Montpelier's no they're not seeking a conversation call and hopefully be on site okay be here I I mean we didn't really get into it that much I would highly suggest that you have attorneys it seems pretty unusual to have two two attorneys in the room yeah I'm just raising it as as a consideration well um there is a motion on the floor who seconded it sorry I did so need to be amended or have a second a second action yeah I sort of wanted to flush out yeah opinions I guess you like it I do but I'm thinking about the timeline prior to having two attorneys in the room um so that they could flush it out and come back to us with something legit but I'm genuinely curious as to what they don't find and recommend thank you Carl understand the drive to seek out there are two opinions for the sake of strengthening our understanding I guess the reason I'm seeking out the legal information to begin with is really sort of the safety net to our assumptions to the course of action we're taking and to my mind having you know being able to point to a legal opinion in terms of my decision making is representative Worcester that's adequate to me I have heard enough concern about expenses over lawyers from our populous in the last couple weeks that I have not inclined to spend twice as much as I need to feel comfortable moving forward myself you know so there's an aspect I want to air on I want to air on my own safety net and the frugality of the taxpayers again I guess that solves the court meeting two lawyers yeah I think what Carl says is very sensible revisiting my experience of of working on a lot of these issues where there has been legal advice from time to time I've noted that the legal advice tends to be in the form of I really can't do that this is really kind of problematic it always seems to be in work in the direction of suppressing action what I would be very happy to have is actually an attorney advice us how do we make sure given the universe of possibilities that is out there that we might have to face how do we make sure we have a budget going into the next screw and that's what I think that's my number one question without the voters we can't guarantee anything so I don't know the legal thing you match at that point if we can't if we can't get a bunch of voted on I just think you need to be advised and that's what you should have advice on you're meant the board is going to make the decision yeah and that's right and and that's what we have to do and you're exactly right we should be asking for what our options are and what the risk associated with the various options are because attorneys are risk averse and you know you just have to keep that in mind so we have a motion and a second yeah it's just it's the same for which that is not for you so Carl what can you just select personally uphold as legal counsel for advice on ensuring you 32 remain operational including advice on the teacher master agreement and presenting a budget for FY 19 morning any further discussion okay all those in favor say aye aye any votes abstain okay so that passes anything else on this topic so you'll be in touch about I'm going to be talking with Chris tomorrow so I told him today that tomorrow I'm going to start talking about dates because I want to find out where this board landed so at least I give away two boards so you know we have at least two I'm going to start putting dates together you know we'll see if we're middle sexing Mr right what are the other meetings Wednesday and Thursday Wednesday and Thursday I'm really shooting for Monday or Tuesday it's actually going to be some people here on Monday night right in this room it's that's the possibility as well that's what I'm saying you shoot it from Monday or Tuesday Tuesday's don't mean I understand what it is all right trying to get to use okay so I'd ask Scott to bring us up to speed if you could about what's happening in Calis with regard to the property there right well I think members of the articles committee which is just one of us are aware of this but Calis the Calis select board and the Calis school board have been meeting together to look at securing once again securing rights of Calis townspeople to use of the property after you know a possible consolidation so there are basically three documents that the town that the municipality of Calis's lawyer has drawn up his name just for your info is Jim Barlow one of them is an easement one of them is a school use agreement and one of them is and is a purchase option is our call and Bill please feel free to correct me if I if I say anything unclear or incorrect the easement would essentially allow the town of Calis to continue using the Calis elementary school for the same purposes that Calis elementary is used for now say emergency shelter location for town meeting for different town board and commission meetings that sort of thing what the easement does is essentially and this is why the the lawyers were brought in to kind of scrutinize this it would the easement would convey with the property to the new consolidated district and my understanding is that the lawyers found nothing wrong with such an arrangement per se the issue was equity with the other towns that the other towns know by rise ought to have something comparable or a chance for a chance for that exactly the school use agreement is does not well I guess the agreement goes with the school but there's a certain term to it I believe so I have to tell you Scott did I stay a little I stay out of it okay try not to trip it up that's absolutely fine I know that Scott Cameron has given back advice and his his partner has done the advice as well as a real estate attorney um so right he you know I don't have his advice in front of me so I don't want to paraphrase from what I don't really sure I know that there were some concerns that Scott Cameron brought up to the Calis school district right the the way I recall I might be getting this wrong that the easement was basically you know as you say there's it seems fine on a surface as long as the other towns are aware of it and have the similar option to create something the other two pieces seem like that there was actually a diminishment in value of the property and was a more problematic from the attorney's point of view on this so I don't but yeah that's the first option the school the option to purchase agreement that would convey as well these are these are all issues that we deal with in the articles committee right that the town is proposing to kind of incorporate into the property prior to consolidation so it's it's essentially dragging the what what might otherwise be articles language into the sort of the property that's what that's where Scott Cameron got his piece about property value because if ever they couldn't strip him out of the easement right right right can't strip it out of deed so if the town never wanted to sell it because the town has first refusal they would still have a hard time so I guess I just wanted to make sure that other other board members were aware of this it seems significant and wanted to get a sense of what were the next steps for Cal so they are they planning to vote on this ah well um there seems to be some thought that it could this this could be done without a without a town vote just between the school board and the select board but I don't my understanding is um that the callous school board is not yet ready to do that they want to make sure that everything's on the up and up and and kosher this was at least my communication with Susanna yeah um to that effect and you know do they have a plan to reach out to other school boards or other towns I I think so I think um Dorothy in particular wanted to share this methodology with the articles group um to make sure that uh everybody was aware and was able to kind of think about it card can I ask a question please um does this have anything to do with you 32 in the property here I it shouldn't it shouldn't affect the property so this is a matter for our school board no this is this is sort of uh that's right I just I was that's fine I just wondered why our school board was considering oh because we consider everything okay it was informational it's informational and and because there's a representatives from other towns here yeah yeah target of opportunity yeah understood okay any other questions about that or discussions all right is there anything else enough if not um may I just ask how we're communicating the results of this to our community I'm just asking for board communications sake I mean I feel like I'm asking as a community member right now actually I'd like for our communities to know what's happening so that they're aware is something beyond our normal front porch forum no I mean I just called for this where we actually have town meeting when yeah but I do you think a front porch forum posting yeah you're always writing stuff card you want me to do something yeah be happy with that you want to drown something and we're gonna find me I won't get it out by the end of the week I mean a few sentences I appreciate that yeah yeah it's gonna get and it will be our talking points for town meeting right because we're all going to town meeting and talking about something well I'll be going to town on this all right Scott thank you volunteering for that anything else our guests do you have any final comments or questions for us thanks for I certainly appreciate hearing the conversation and the deliberations that you're going through it's really challenging and thank you very much thank you for coming on such an awful day I wish we could drive safely on your okay if that's it then we'll adjourn by consensus at six