 First of all, we'll welcome our guests. You want to introduce yourself? Phil Pines. Next on the agenda is agenda review and revisions. Are there any revisions to the agenda? None. Public comments and correspondence. I'll just note that I did receive an e-mail from Corinne Streisberg with some feedback on the website. More specifically, the school board meetings and where they're located, as well as looking for policies to be online. And I forwarded that to Bill and to Erin and asked you to just take a look at that and give some feedback on what you think and what might be possible. I think it depends on priorities of all the work that we're doing around here for the level of change. It's not that much of a level of change, but I think that it's back to several conversations we have with everything that we're trying to do. I believe that they're duly warned as needed, but that's my belief. Any other public comments or correspondence? We'll just note for the record here and for the video, future meetings we have on December 5th is an SU board meeting and December 10th is our regular Berlin school board meeting. On the consent agenda, the approval of the minutes of October 24th, that's on page two of your packet. If everyone's had a chance to take a look at the minutes, I would entertain a motion. Second. Is there any discussion? Those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Those opposed, no. The minutes are approved. Next, we'll go to our discussion agenda. In the interest of accommodating our guest, we can move that, I assume Phillip that you're here for 3.6, the sports recreation program discussion. Yes. We can move that up and talk about that. That's okay with everyone. So we're going to take on 3.6 first here. We were just looking for some information. You had asked for this item to be placed on the agenda. And I was wondering if we could just get, I think the board was wanting to have more information about the athletic director position for Berlin. Erin was kind enough to send along a job description. You made some copies of that. And I think we're at this point when we're flipping together some information because it is a possibility of learning the recreation program. So yeah, the conversation is asking, Eastmont players are you on the rec program? And Phillip can speak a little more to exactly what that looks like at Eastmont player. But so, I think some of the struggle that we have always had with the sports program is every school runs a little differently, whether it's rules, field size, school size. Some schools have consistent graphs. Some don't. Some is just literally pulling somebody off the sidelines. And it always causes issues every year. And there definitely was some about this year with the whole, yeah, all those things. There are also a lot of scheduling changes. I think we should speak for Mike Noyes that his three, four girls program were affected probably the most where they showed up for games. There was no games. A principal canceled the game 40 minutes before the game was supposed to happen. Mike, nor his other two coaches ever knew about it. Regardless, I think there's just, there's so many inconsistency that the best way as we try to do with everything else is to all be under one umbrella. So I think that's where Eastmont players trying to get everybody on the same playing field. And also at the same time, this would be my vision. I think it would help the schools that don't maybe have enough numbers, which is typically the callous and always Worcester. And Eastmont players up and down depending on the program. But from year to year, some boys, teams they can't have because of the numbers. In some years, it's the girls. So I think if we all went into one central rep committee or something like that, which Eastmont player already does, it could solve some of those issues that we have. So that's kind of... Yeah, I was going to ask if, Phillip, could you tell us a little bit about what Eastmont player is doing and what you see as the benefits of that? So Eastmont Piliar rep board. The brief history is that's like Berlin, which is a rep commission or something, was property management. And the property is beside the school. It involved youth sports being played on it. There's other properties around town that we under our umbrella. The youth sports element came in as Eastmont player wanted to let go. It was very easy flow. The school wanted basically the same thing that the parents and the folks in the rep board were looking at. How the actual jump made, I don't remember, but what we do now is we manage the fields, we manage the property, and then we run youth pro... three primary, up until now, three primary youth sports, soccer, basketball, and then we endorse Little League Baseball. We don't actually... We have teams, we coach teams, but the program is run through Little League. We're adding something, and that's always been open to any kid in the district that wanted to come play, whether it's Orchard Valley student, one of your students were always welcome if there was a shortage. And we've put that out there a few times. The youth sports has become more of a primary as far as the day-to-day function because there's always something going on. We charge a fee. We charge a $35 fee per sport. It was lower at one time, and we have had ambitious plans with the property and the programs that have put that fee where it is. I think of other things that set us apart. There's no direct schools supervision. There's no direct school involvement, but there is a very cooperative relationship between the board and the administration in the school. We handle the scheduling of the games on that, on the soccer field that is on the school side, so there's a property use agreement. We use the basketball court, same idea, property use agreement, and in that we've contributed at least two of the basketball hoops that are in the gymnasium, or something that we put up. I think we might have something to do with the scoreboards. We keep complimenting the equipment and resources that are needed, again through the fees and through some money from the town. We're always flush. We're always in a black position as far as our finances. We are planning ahead more now than we have in the past so that we get through approval, final approval through the select board of the town and we're under their liability. Thank you. They also host wrapping clinics. They're wrapped, which are very helpful because then they're consistent with what they're going to call at what age. So on that level, I've had an effort going for a while with soccer in particular and the Zylingas have been very involved in the program flow there and we're moving more and more towards a spelled out progression. We did it with K2 this year. My wife Jessica helped run that program and we put together a program where the kids were progressing and we added on to the development throughout the year. That's been done in the past but it's been more formalized and I hear a call from other programs for consistency across, whether we do one program or one progression across that everybody shares and it makes complete sense. There's a lot of athletic success coming out of the kids from East Montpelier and a lot of... We get enough... I don't want to say a lot of... We get enough volunteer participation to make it work and when we don't, I stand in front of the parents at the opening day and I say, hey, that team's running, that team's running, that team doesn't have a coach. We'll see them as soon as... We'll see them on the field as soon as someone steps up. I never go one practice without having someone step up. We do... What else? Do you do background checks? We do a different background check system than you guys do. We don't do the level two. We run names through the Vermont sex offenders and I believe a level one. So we don't require fingerprinting. We've never had anyone else that wasn't a parent step up to be a volunteer either. So I don't know if that would be handled differently if volunteers came from outside the district. Any other input or concerns that you want? I know. I live in a district. My kids do... It's all rec-based in at the Morrisville. LaMau County's been rec-based for a long time and then my kids went to Wolcott Elementary that had something that was done through their after-school program. So I've lived in both worlds. My only piece is the safety piece and I had been told as of this afternoon there weren't any background checks in Eastmont Pillar but I didn't know that for sure. Where did that come from? I say that came from within the system. My board? Phillip, I'm not going to... We have a system in place in our... That's the only thing I want you to know as a board that you, even though you aren't responsible for kids' safety, and it's your decision on what level you... If that happens, how you'd like... It's not your decision once it goes to a municipal piece. The standard in Washington Central is level two. Background checks with anyone who's alone with kids. And I'm not saying that to stop it. I'm just letting you know pieces of information. I'm trying to be really clear here. So I think as this rep board is trying to regroup within the towns, it would have two representatives from every town on this. That's agreed upon for formation of the board when we went from a kind of a pool of coaches working together to a more formalized one. We went to two, two, two, and then we had an individual working as the leader of that group or facilitating. Bill has Travis doing it more formally now. I did it for a year. Principles have done it. The principal was the preferred. Then we had someone that was sitting in the administrative position because four of the groups were... Actually, at that time, three of the groups were schools. Callus was record one. And Callus came back to the school because of the background checks. Yes, that's where I was going with that, is I do think it's an option if that would be something that we say, okay, that is something we will not give up. We want level two background checks. I don't see that stopping a town if the background checks were to be continued on as part of... So, Vera, I need to give you some information about VCIC. There's certain sign-offs that have to be done and there are certain organizations and I don't have it all committed to memory, so I'm not just giving you some information. I know they're very strict with who has access to get to a level two background check. You have to be able to go through Vermont Criminal Information Center. Yeah, I know Dynamo Soccer Club does it and they're a rec soccer in Norfield and they do the level two. And I'm not sure about... Can I ask a clarifying question? Yeah. I'm confused. Are you... If it's no longer in the school, we answer not to the school and our reliability doesn't go to the school, it goes to the town. Anything that happens on that soccer field for us, maybe your experience... You own the field as the town owns the field. Currently, I'd have to go check liability with our legal team. We would have to have the town include us as a co-insured through the town's policy. And then... So if Onion River uses the spring... They have to show us they have insurance and they do. I would have to check. I'm not 100% sure. It used to be the town of Berlin has the rec committee because they are the ones that also subsidized the swim lessons in the summertime. Half of that runs through the rec committee on the town budget. Which I'm assuming would have insurance for their portion of that. Right, I'm not saying they don't. And this is all doable. I'm just trying to get you information on the table. Again, so the... When we have someone come in and use our site that's not being run by our staff we have to have them show us their insurance with a co-insurance rider on it. It doesn't really cost them anything but it says if something were to happen their insurance would cover first before our insurance would. So like when Onion River comes we ask for them to do that. They give us a letter from their... I have to ask Michelle exactly what she wants to do with the certificate of insurance that shows us it's co-insured through their policy. It's not doable. I'm just telling you what the pieces are that are part of the puzzle. So the town developed the piece of property over by the mall and put a couple ball fields in there that removes the problem for you guys completely. It's not on our property, that's correct. I don't see it as being a big deal. I just want to be sure that the board's aware of these issues. I mean they aren't... This is nothing that's a deal breaker right here. We'd have to talk to the select board about that and get that done. So Phillip, is it just East Montpelier? Is there more than one town right now? East Montpelier is the only remaining rec board. The town of Calis no longer wanted the liability. It occurred to me if I'm wrong. The town of Calis no longer wanted the liability that the sports programs were bringing so they said school, you've got to take it back and because the school has their liability system with the district it had to be school based again. So they're in the opposite situation because their fields are owned by the town. So does the school provide coverage when those students are on that field? Yes, wherever we go with the field trip we're covering ourselves. So they have a... There's some use agreement. I do not know the details between the school and the school program and you might know that too. I've never even looked at it. So there's probably like the reverse of what I'm doing with East Montpelier is we say we're going to use the basketball court while the law hears our insurance. They're probably doing it just in reverse. Bill, does it matter where the program is based if we had a centralized program as far as liability? If it was based in one particular... It is administrated from one particular... It doesn't matter where the accident happens because what happens is if someone were to sue they're going to go after... a good lawyer's going to go after whoever's involved and part of it would be the property holder. So we've got liability and insurance and both are doable? They're doable, yeah. It's all doable. It's just a case of crossing T's. My recommendation is... Well, I think you're going on the same line. I was just going to say as much as you can remove the school from the picture, the easier it is to cooperate in my experience with the school. Well, I have a question about... In that regard too, Bill, in context of Act 46, will this be a moot point in a year? No, no. It doesn't matter whether the governance is one way or another because you need to know that the school district is its own municipality and then this town is its own municipality. The school district, the Berlin Elementary School District will remain its own entity? No, but it doesn't matter. You're your own entity from the town right now anyway. There's two merged boards. Our courts would be on a central rec board, per se, and then the Act 46 merger would be the school board. Yeah, I mean, it really doesn't matter whether you're merged or not. You still have the same problem. But we would have one policy instead of five for five towns, one policy for one unified district? This is not a policy level. This is something to do with liability. I don't mean school policy. I mean insurance policy. We already have one insurance policy for the whole SU. Insurance is bought, centralized already. So it's just a matter of stipulating the wording for the certificate of insurance for this purpose? Yeah, it's exactly. We all bid all our insurance together and do it all together so it would be just, yeah. You're talking about they have two programs. The program would have to come here with their own insurance. You're not talking about covering the program through Berlin, are you? No, no, no. What Peter was asking is if there was a different governance, or there was one district versus the six districts, doesn't matter for this between a rec entity, which is under the municipality and something happening at the school. There is no difference no matter what the governance is. I was looking for a silver lining that maybe something would be simplified by 46. No, the problem here is, I mean, it's not really a problem. It just makes the complexity because when you go to something that's governed, I mean, at East Montpelier it's governed under this town. Even though there's a rec board, the town has the ultimate responsibility. Yeah, we have to justify our budget and go and do our budget requests to the select board and any major projects like right now we're reading down trees and whatnot goes through the select board. But as Vera points out, we have a rec board in Berlin. And that's what ours was born from, the same basic entity that may be the swim lessons. Another activity. We still do the swim lessons. We just have sports now, too. And so tell me, Bill, what are the advantages of the rec structure versus the school structure? My perceived advantage is, and I don't know if maybe I'm, I don't know all the legalities that I'll have to deal with, is just the freedom of not being tied to the logistics of the school. You have programs that are in conflict with sports, you have money issues with sports. You know, I don't know what the budget is in Berlin, but I know that my soccer program pays for itself and its equipment and referees. And these are goals that I'm hearing from all the other programs. We want trained referees, we want coaches that are trained. I do all that. And I do it all within a budget that is always in a positive position. We're having control over funds. The advantage for us is we have our own property. We can manipulate it in any way that the town agrees versus having to go through whatever hoops it would take to redo a ball field here. I don't know. Freedom and flexibility, I guess, is the two, or the big ones I perceive. I have one more question in the same context. You mentioned budget paid by fees, you said earlier. We have a property management. If children are unable to pay the fee, is there a means to subsidize those costs? Absolutely. In that $35 fee that we're taking in, we are able to take care of any scholarship that we need and we do it without ask. You don't have to fill out a financial form. If someone asks for a scholarship, the kid plays. If someone doesn't ask for a scholarship, I'm going to ask them to need one. There's never been a kid that hasn't played at East Montpelier and it's never been a problem. That's easy to manage. Thank you. Peter, just to give you a little history too. Berlin was at a point where a few years ago when we had the fields redone, the soccer goals and nets were destroyed. We went into our soccer season not having anything and no budget to purchase anything. Craig and I had reached out to Barry Shenard at Comfort Collars in Northfield. He was very generous and offered to help out with buying, giving the money to buy two of the goals which we purchased from East Montpelier, buying the new nets for all four goals that are out there because three, four has smaller goals than the five, six. We were able to buy six ball bags which all contained ten soccer balls, a set of cones, pinnies, a game ball, and goalie gloves. So right now we're in that situation again where some of the bags have been kept very neat, everything's together, other bags are not and we're in that situation where we had six. There's three upstairs right now. Some haven't been returned, some have obviously. And we're in a situation now too where we have very few jerseys that are left and some of the jerseys that are up there have been up there for years. Whereas if you have a program that even if a kid needs a scholarship and that is provided first, you would hope after a year or two of having a rec program that you would have enough money to purchase that equipment that you need. Because that's usually not one of the things that is in the budget. And I think doing the fundraising during the basketball season has been more beneficial but we don't have the space out here to do a jamboree like Eastmont player does because they have four fields that they do the jamboree on. So it's easier to host a Eastmont player so they do it out there. It also makes you eligible for different types of grants that are specific to recreation. She spoke really well to the flex. She described about $3,000 that she would have to spend to be able to get back to four teams at par with all those balls, bags, jerseys and updating your goals. Actually if we update all four goals it would be more like $4,500. So that's not a jump in the school budget kind of number when you have to do it. In rec we have the funds because we planned ahead for that and we know when we have to do the nets next and we've got funds set aside. So I appreciate all the information. I think we need to try to move along in our agenda. Do you have any recommendation or proposal going forward? Vera, any action? No action. I think it's one of those that we need to continue the conversation as far as, you know, if this is something as the Berlin board as much as it would be Middlesex and Worcester to have the same conversation as the benefits pros the cons, you know, issues both ways. I think it's one of those that's been talked about multiple years for multiple different reasons. I can remember having the same conversation whether to stay as rec or move over. I think the thing right now I see as a struggle with all the schools is the inconsistency across the board. And we say every time at all of our meetings that there's so much inconsistency from school to school whether it's the Allied Arts or programs offered for language, whatever. And it's the same thing with the sports. I think if they were all being done under one unified board and one unified rec committee there are benefits first and foremost for the kids. And that's what I see as the biggest benefit is the benefits for the kids because right now for a school to have three, four, and five, six all play on one team is not beneficial to any of those kids. Nor do I think having a co-ed team is always beneficial when they're very much at different levels at different ages. So that would be my first and foremost is what's beneficial for the kids for each group. That's what it's all about. It is. The only other question I did have which was listed in your list of questions and I never got a clarified answer. The last I knew the AD position was a stipend position and it was either $1,000 or $1,500. And now that we don't necessarily get a line-by-line in the budget, I was, I could not find if that is still $1,000 for the stipend. Yeah. I would have to go look at it but I think it is $1,000. But I think it is $1,000. And the same is true for the SU for what Travis does to coordinate to the $1,000 stipend. It has been since I've been here. It's never been changed. That's why I wasn't 100% sure. Right. So, I mean, part of that is, a lot of that is goodwill for the amount of hours. Yeah, that's it. All right. Thanks for coming, Phillip. Absolutely. I've been available for this line of thinking and I would like to make myself available anytime I can because this has been a project of mine for 10 years to find this window opening and I think it's a really good opportunity and I think he's on a pillar's board in general can bring a lot of experience to the table. So, we're there. Stick your hand out. Let us know if other schools take this up. Honestly, I'm hoping that a little swell that's happening here will be picked up and interested. I'm not trying to force them on any one program. So, two towns didn't come to the last meeting at U32 and I'm not sure Travis was going, my understanding was, Travis was going to reach out to make sure they have representation at the next wreck. We're coming back to two representatives from each program. So, at least what we have right now can make representative decisions across. There's two for me. One person representing two schools and Romney when he shows up, Dodie, the principal's representative and I know his times that he's busy. So, that would be a goal that I would ask you guys to set was to help get back to that board of 11 people coming Travis. Thank you for letting me. Thank you. Thanks. Matthew, is there anything in particular you're here for? Nothing in particular I haven't seen your agenda, but it's okay. I just came because I'm interested in the conversations boards are adding about education goals and stuff like that primarily. All right. Going back to our discussion agenda budget draft number one, which can be found on page 5 of your packet. Yeah, I'm going to actually, and I should have done this when we went over the agenda, Chris back and forth. I'm going to talk to you a little bit all about a little bit of timeline as reading your minutes from when Lori was there. And I need to correct some things that Lori said in the last meeting. And then I need to go, I'll go to page 9 which is similar to your budget information packet and then I'll go to the budget on page 5. All right, sounds good. So what I wanted to do is talk to you a little bit about the budget process going forward from where we are right now and the implications of Act 46 in the ruling of the State Board. Chris and I have talked about this but I wanted to make sure and the Executive Committee has talked about it and most of the boards have but I wasn't sure that Berlin and when I went through the minutes prepping for tonight I was like, oh, I need to correct a couple things. So let's, you know, as you all know the State Board has made a provisional ruling for Washington Central as we go forward through this they're meeting this Thursday on the 15th and then meeting on the 28th of November possibly. And I wanted to make sure that one of the things that with us figuring out what's happening with Act 46 and where we'll potentially be I want to make sure that the budget process stays as transparent as possible and does not even, I think more transparency is needed now than what we've done before. So in that I should say than what we've done before but to ensure that we have that transparency I saw Chris, you just pulled out the timeline for Act 46, I didn't bring that with me but I kind of have it in my head here I'm fine, I'm fine. If I say something you can be my check for me, okay? But in the draft articles of agreement right now the State Board's going to discuss this next Thursday there is a provision that once the State Board rules there are two different transitions that happen there's a warning that will take at least 30 days because it's a school district meeting so like your town meeting day that means within 30 to 40 days a new transition board will be brought aboard and their primary responsibility is to repair a budget to be recommended to a new board that will be elected on town meeting day so if we were forced to merge that means there is not a budget vote on town meeting day and that there will be one at a later date. Because the new board is elected on town meeting? The new board is elected on town meeting and the new board has the responsibility of presenting a budget to the new district electorate to vote on that budget before ultimately before June 30th the recommendation is before May 1st because if the budget were to be defeated you'd want at least one time to be able to have a re-vote. So with that being said one of the things I want to make sure is that we're still in back in August when the Executive Committee met we determined that the best thing to do was to develop the budgets the way we have been developing the budgets by city or by school and bring those together and not look for possible savings but just bring all those together to the transition board and bring the information to the transition board then the transition board would bring that information and present that information to the new board. So as when, if the State Board rules as they provisionally ruled as let's say the date is November 28th and the schedule in Peter you can take a look at the one copy that's there is that there would be as of that date the responsibility for FY20 which is our next fiscal year resides with the new board all the way in March. So anything that has to do with FY20 goes all the way to there. I still think it's good for us to bring budgets to this board this board still has operational responsibilities to June 30th and then probably one or two board meetings after that because this board needs to accept the auditor's report. In the draft articles it says that the local boards would need to stay standing until December 31st 2019 after that if they're not and we're still waiting for audit reports they can go to the new board. So my plan I've presented to the chairs and to the executive committee and I've received favorable feedback but like your feedback as well is that we would bring we're going to present you a budget tonight that's level service with adjustments for student needs that's what you have in your packet we'd love feedback on that I will do the same again in December would like feedback January we won't need to if you remember January means get pretty compact because usually it was a town meeting day report so there probably won't be a report in the town report if we get merged because they'll need to be a new report made of the whole entity still trying to figure that one out and I really won't have that decision for a little while so then we would be giving all that information to a transition board for whenever they see and they would take it from there so I'm trying to gather the feedback so it all goes to the transition board and then the transition board would take it up from there and get it to the new board so realistically we could be great with this budget you've presented tonight as a Berlin board recommend it it gets handed to the transition board it gets handed to the new board new board could just go in and change it they could I don't foresee that happening because in Bill's mind and I want to say it that way in my mind I see the transition board is made up of the clerk and the chair from each board and then I have a feeling but I'm not sure because I can't predict the electorate that probably the new members on the new board will come from a lot of the members we have seated already I can't say that that's going to happen but my intuition is telling me that's probably what will happen I don't know what to degree and what percentage are any of that but I would think that many of are the same people sitting there around the table throughout so I think doing the work as we go is that's what I can foresee that's been my assumption until recently the more I think about it I wonder if we'll have candidates out there running not against us but as people that are just totally dissatisfied with the old business and end up with 10 new people that's a policy that's a possibility not a policy a possibility that's out of that too Peter it's really hard to imagine what could happen but I think we have to deal with what we can deal with that's the pragmatic part that I've been trying to deal with what can I deal with, how can I help advise the boards and move forward and keep the system moving forward but that's been my thought so it's probably not helpful to spend hypotheticals like this what might happen if one just trying to imagine one town being way out of line in spending and increases as compared to the other four towns and how that plays out so let me tell you where we are right now so I think actually that should play into your articles of agreement and hint hint I would go look at Champlain Valley Unified Union because they have a nice way they talk about doing budgets there and spending and not necessarily what the spending is out of alignment students and they have a nice policy there of things that Superintendent has to put in place for when they do their budgeting and their program has been accepted oh yeah they've emerged for a year over a year now that line at the debt committee I hate that term but I think you mentioned somebody mentioned that we would receive information on CBU yeah and I haven't given it back so thank you for reminding me yeah I gave it to the Articles Committee I forgot to get it to the debt committee so thank you Peter for that reminding that Champlain Valley District Articles to Debt yeah so what I was going to say Chris is as an expenditure budget right now every school is around 3% or below and I say around like within like 2 tenths of a percent at most 3% the low is East Montpellier right now they're below 2% so is the SU budget is below 2% so we've got I asked the principal when looking at your level service budget tell me if you can't do it outside of that now the impact on taxes is different because two of our towns are losing small schools grants both Dodie and Calis and on top of that Calis is losing their eligibility for Title 1 funding so they're going to lose quite a bit there they actually lose more on that than they do in small schools grant because Title the students they serve are no longer have the percentage to be eligible for Title 1 funding like Berlin is and the way Dodie is so their net impact on taxes is different but their overall expenditures are under that 3% and that doesn't take into account any of the redistributed debt well there's that but here's the other thing we've had some shifting students and I don't have that finalized but we have shifting student enrollment so that even if we didn't have the shift in debt we'd have shifting assessments and costs and all that because of just student population changes you're talking shifting debt based on the Act 46 yes so those are all the I just want to give that timeline Barry you've just been quiet so I wanted to give you a chance if you had any questions oh I'm just it's so hard to live in the hypothetical of what because I feel like it's all going to be a moot point in the end to have this regardless of what we support and put forward it really is up to the new board and it's hard to make a decision here now with what's going to happen in March and April but I think I believe that all three of you and if Carl were here I'd say with him too him as well that all four of you are influencers at least in the town and I know that and you're big supporters of education so I think it's worth to get your feedback I'm good with the budget I go back to our board goals in my own personal philosophy with our kids here at Berlin that I just I would love to see the progress moving more especially in math how we do that and how much money we're willing to spend to do that is a question so the executive committee asked us about that in November that's right you were there you heard that discussion but I should for Peter at least and Chris has heard it before we brought a budget that was 1.96 from the SU and we know that the consumer price index right now for September was 3.3% for the past 12 months and that the government and government and educational services is 2.9 this is all known in the region so after saying those for context pieces which I was going to say to you as a board as well I was asked to go back and look at what needs are needed to increase student outcomes I mean you all just had a student outcome we do it purposefully this way so you can see that before you get into the budget discussions so from that the leadership team is actually working most of tomorrow on that we're working from 8 to 2 to answer that question for what more is needed as in resources and then we're going to come back on the 20th to say that to the executive committee but I think that will probably influence even some on the 5th of what is it that we need is it money, is it time time is a cost we all know that and then or is it a way that we reconfigure how we look within our buildings and I think it's going to be A, B, and C in different ways so is this an area that we might in ordinary circumstances be recommending perhaps a greater expenditure for math you might whereas right now we're trying to maintain a level of budget because of going into Act 46 I'm not saying that because of Act 46 I want you to know what those costs are and what are they and some of them aren't cost money wise but they're cost in changing the system which sometimes takes some political it takes some education for everybody to understand why we're making those changes would you say changes just for my own? so like say we're going to change the schedule say we're going to change teaching assignments say we're going to change classroom loads and all of this is hypothetical ok say we're going to change unified arts say we're going to change time of the school day we have 9.30 to 3.30 so that's 6 and a half hours we deal with a 37 and a half hour work week for teachers it's actually really nice that we have it as a work week because that allows us to be flexible with teachers more flexible and actually meet needs so we might staffing patterns all that those are the different ones that aren't time but are educational because school is one of the big community grounding places it's a rock for the community and so when you try to change something you have to work with people about that change and it takes time to do that anything else you want to present on the budget? not on the overall I would say on page I'm going to not do I'm not going to walk through things that you can read but I want you to tell you on page 19 there's some big and you might remember these from years past where big keys that we use into building the budget so there's like what's one penny on the tax rate for Berlin in the current configuration what's one percent on the expense budget we'll get this more defined because I don't really want to give you taxes right now Laurie always when I push her in November she's like come on we need to get some of these things clear before we get we need to get into December bill these are helpful keys though so I wanted to point out that page to you I think I believe on page 5 you have a 3.04 and there are some shifting student needs that are shifting some changes in parent educators that were needed for this year so we were able to put those into this budget they weren't in the past budget we were able to absorb them in the past budget but the reason I need to tell you that these changes are a comparison of this year's budget with next year's budget so it's not actuals we already have that 1.6 FTE parent educator as you can see FY 1819 we hired those this year we're expecting more revenue because of that but they weren't in the budget so the budget to budget comparison is $106,000 increase or 3.04 and that's with healthcare in there salaries there's an estimate in there for negotiations for that salaries and then assessments for Washington Central we had 3% as you know VRU were there at the meeting we had recalculated assessments we will be doing that for you in December with a new distribution of students because last year if we call all assessments now are based on the child count the percentage of child count based on ADM so we'll refresh that for the December budget that's about a short budget presentation I've ever done I'd be glad to take questions anything you want but I'm giving you where we're at so I'd like to bring up some things that are would also fit under the hack 46 discussion and I know you'll have a perspective on these that may differ from what I think we have a responsibility to consider as Berlin school board members as opposed to looking at the best interest of the entire district and we might decide things in a way that are in the best interest of the district but I think we also have to take a look at our capital fund and our reserve fund I'm curious as to whether you know if other boards are considering spending that before consolidation so they're talking about it it's the actual can you do it and I've had this conversation with two boards and someone said well we'll just pay up front and I said well you can do that if you'd really like to but I don't advise it as your superintendent because whenever we have work done you want some money to make sure the work has happened and that's correct so I think and I would tell you that most of the big ticket items that are that you might want to do under your capital fund and I have a report based on closing out the construction that I need to give you which I was going to give you under your fiscal but I mean we've had this conversation at DOTI we've had this conversation at Middlesex and I'm like you can't do the work with kids in the building so you've got to get to a point where you don't have kids and usually that's summertime and what's your understanding of when time runs out on this board's ability to direct funds from its budget to be spent on something like a parking lot or a driveway June 30th, 2019 yeah invoices must be in Laurie would like me to say the shutting down the budget starts May 1st that she likes to have all the invoices in usually by June 1st is what the buildings get told if we know it's something coming like a field trip or something like that we flex for that but we're in shutdown mode starting May 1st and we shut down everything June 1st again speaking in hypotheticals of this board we got an RFP for the driveway and committed that money in May or whatever it was even though it wouldn't happen until school was out the kids were gone wouldn't happen in June or July or August even after June 30 could the new board put a stop on it yep they could but I think there are ways to do things I mean this is what I've been trying to say to everyone I think we're getting too nervous might be the right word and it's that how do we put trust into the work in which we're doing going forward sure it is that yeah I think that's difficult even though we're being forced to do it I think it's we're putting trust in the unknown in the unknown who's I think that's the hard part I mean it was known for the first year definitely beyond that next board and not just going out for reelection I think that's a discussion you should have frankly I'm just going to be really transparent with you I think we have a lot of fear just as you said of the unknown how do you make a process that says we're trusting of the work because here's what the principals have said to me quietly they're like we're rushing to do things that won't be done well and so if we go how do we every year we've always had it this district has done a great job of saying we're trying to build capital plans which we've been doing we're trying to get work done to improve our buildings we've been doing that really well over the past five to eight years across the district some more than others how do we ensure a system that does it thoughtfully going forward so there's a piece you know and that has been considered by other districts when they've done merging how do you do that some have just gone to the we're going to spend every penny some have said you know we're going to find a way to do that and maybe make agreements in how that works to the best of your ability for comparison what does each of the schools have for a capital fund already if you gave me I would like to get my laptop up and I can look at my budgets so maybe while Bill is doing that we can take a look at the my office so I just kind of threw that out there I don't know what people are hearing about things about use of our capital fund or reserve fund prior to merger I can tell you that it's something that I think all these schools have talked about in the context of the debt community because there are varying levels of you have to log out of capital funds and they all have different ideas whether they will, whether they won't and what they would use it for what they would like to use it for you know what I mean my thought process with you let's do something consistent like if we're all going to spend it then that's all it's too hard if one comes with X amount in their capital fund that they're contributing now as you would and all the other four schools decided to spend all theirs I think there needs to be some consistency there and some agreement so either we're all going to spend or we're all going to save it and pull in one pot I think when you have that's one of the pieces of any equation that we come up with as a district for customizing our our consolidation plan we talk about trying to equalize budgets and account for capital funds and different tax rates and different so at the debt meetings do you feel like you're getting closer to a point where you guys are I think we're still gathering information and we have time I believe for two more meetings before our deadline which is not a whole lot to put together three different plans so we're trying to gather as much information as possible and taking significant amount of Lori's time but capital budgets have been talked about but no decision has been reached on how we might we gave the overall assets and liabilities to the last meeting we had that information right but that didn't have just capital it had all the assets and liabilities without any kind of appraisal I think you know it's it's best numbers available today without an appraisal of the property without the professional appraisals which might be very different from any other numbers we have but if our thought I think is safe to say if we all use the same criteria then at least we'll have relatively equivalent numbers so when you talk about agreements Bill are you saying that the schools could agree on how to use the capital funds how to use the reserve funds? In theory I want to go check out I have to check with our attorney when you move from one org to another can the org say hey like Calis they just looked up has $145,000 in their capital fund can they designate that that amount of money is for the Calis elementary school building yeah I don't know the answer to that I go ask Patty Patricia who works for Scott who's starting to take over some of this work and has with other merged districts I don't know what happened in the back if you can make those type of agreements I mean that's going to do a lot I would think for trust under the financial piece of the articles if it's in there the new board doesn't have to follow what is in the agreed upon articles like the articles the articles the new board has to agree about what's in the articles themselves unless there's a way to change those and the draft articles of agreement say which ones can be changed and which not and then any new articles are you talking the interim board or the new board? the new board but we've been told many times that articles cannot cannot deal with the debt right the debt assets and debts assets and debts sir so you can't put a dollar amount to be spent within one school district that I don't know the answer to that if you're coming in with assets if you can say reserve assets like in East Montpelier there's a Jonathan Miller fund for and if it specifically has been designated by the voters that has to be used in that method I do not know how that works on the capital funds because originally there was voter approval to set up these capital funds so you see that I don't know and I haven't as far as trust if we here are talking about the possibility of for example a paving project that we could let out before into the school year but which can't be completed until after the school year then this current board would be trusting the interim board if I'm not mistaken sign off on that well I think if it was a paving project and I could be wrong with this schools out by June 20th the hardest part right now is getting the contractors they're already setting up their work they're so busy right now because you do service right you don't install no we do installs what we're seeing we're going for bid right now for an elevator at U32 and we're about to go out for a boiler bid for middle sex for next summer well there are contractors and there are contractors we're talking paving contractors here they're just finishing this season and if all things being equal we decided promptly to get on their list for end of June is what you're talking about possibly before July 1st you know I think it's feasible my question was beyond that was somebody expressed a concern about the new board changing the decision of this board but I would be comfortable because I'm looking at the new board transition board transition board okay but the bills can come before March the other part that's there is that you have to the new board has to honor all contracts either HR like my personal contract or contracts are already set in place so here's an example middle sex has got $144,000 thank you Erin in their capital fund they were supposed to replace their oil boiler which they didn't do in their bid this past summer they got really high bids so they decided to go because they went out really late so we're going out in the next month for an oil boiler replacement at middle sex I'm going to tell them don't try to squeeze it in get it done during the summer so right now Cal says $145,000 in their capital fund these mob players $768,000 Dodie has $91,000 and middle sex has $144,000 you have I didn't look yours up because it was here in the report you currently have $183,000 which there'll be another $6300,000 coming in off of interest earned through the construction project closing out the bond this always happens at the end of a bond there's money flowing one way or another and really that's left from the interest income so you'll have about $190,000 let's say there's also, I didn't say in these and I didn't look them up I'd rather take some time to do some research there's a million dollars at U32 in capital they're about to build a new track which is going to cost that much that's coming there's what's the yearly contribution out of the budget to transfer to capital where most of these funds have been done is, have been funded is in what's left over at the end of the year and that's pretty common in schools that most capital funds, the electric makes a capital fund and most of those are excess above what's needed for cash flow what you always hear is the 4% carry and you have excess money in your current budget of you're about $108,000 $109,000 right now over the 4% piece which I was going to suggest you put into your capital reserves as you're looking at a driveway, I mean the middle sex is doing the same thing, they didn't get everything that they wanted to do through their bond project so they've got some roofs that they finished pretty much this year they have a big gym project that needs to be done they didn't tackle the gym the way you did new floor, they need new painting in there they need new lighting I threw driveway out there but we've got we've got kitchen work all that stuff so I mean if you wanted to say hey there are things we want to do next summer just as we've done every other day and Bill Ford asked me the other day because he works for the Burlington school district and they just passed a $70 million bond so he's like how full are you going to he does, he only services our school districts right now because he's getting consistent work and he likes to work for the people he does, you need a clerk of the work for these types of things that was useful there thank you Matt did you have something or not I was going to ask a question I think since we're talking about hypothetical I'm going to throw another hypothetical out which is we don't know who's going to be on a new board but it's at least in theory it could be two of the three Berlin board members in this room it could be certain knowing that Romney's setting aside $140,000 for a boiler project 65 for the boiler 65 for the boiler, okay and he's got some other things on his list Doty's got siding work and windows things he wants to do I'm sure every school has certain things that are on the docket that you could tell a new board you're on the new board it's July, you're at your first meeting what do you do you say well screw their capital plans we're just going to do whatever we want with this money and figure out from here how we go I don't think that's really how it's going to play out I just don't see a board coming in and even the AOE's default articles of agreement envisioned nothing really changing in the school system for at least two years in terms of grade served and building and operating and all that kind of stuff and by the time you get two years down the line you know probably whatever we see right in front of us at the moment for capital projects there's going to be all new things on those lists anyway so I just don't, when I think about it I don't really sort of I often fail to find sort of a rationale for like panic or concern I guess where another group of people is going to do you can't but I mean it stands to reason that it would probably play out pretty much how you've got a plan now or whatever is on your pipeline that's just what I because it's come up at Doty we've had people, we've had board members suggest that it's our responsibility to we love the taxes to raise money to do capital projects which are our taxpayers to see that that happens here but I just don't see a board going in a radically different direction you know right off the bat any questions for Bill on the budget any comments or feedback we'd really like to have some but if you don't that's fine too I guess I gave you my feedback but I think that's going to come at the next executive committee and then a follow up at our December board meeting when do you need feedback for example on on the capital fund or transfers into it well I like this well the transfers in we should we should do soon I think because I think that's only prudent money management to say that we're putting it in there for capital and that somewhat locks it to me there's somewhat of a commitment there you know as your superintendent and whoever I'm serving whether it's one board or all six boards I've heard pretty loudly from the communities keep these buildings in good shape and do it in a really responsible way I believe the money that's there in my own belief talking for myself my own belief is the monies that come in at this point are really dedicated for that school I also think that we can actually probably do some better money management in the future as one combined board because there's less of a rainy day fund we have a high rainy day fund right now so we're it is it's called our it's called your when you look at the bottom of your financial report it's called the projected ending fund balance and the target we want for the current year I don't believe that we need 4% of the total SU budget and that's kind of what we're holding right now across all the buildings which that was another question that came up at the last executive committee right I believe is the right percentage right and I said to you in my response to you well I need to go back and work on that I don't know what that is right this second but I don't believe that when you look at the combined report that you give when we have carousel meetings that's a pretty high line I don't think we need all that what I want to do is go back and look at some trends and spending this kind of brings us into the next discussion of budget meeting planning and the community engagement and I do think it's it's so important to try to inform our communities as much as possible and I feel like over the years as much as we try it still windows down every single year to nobody attending but I do think there's so many changes that are coming about that it's so important to have a couple of budget meetings to try to decide just to talk about budgets and even the timeline of like the act 46 stuff and how the act 46 stuff is going to affect our budgets and educate people as much as we possibly can as a collective group I mean I can go door to door hand out flyers or tell people but I want people to be informed from a group of us that they are getting the same information and not different information from going door to door so I do think it's really important to have a couple of those budget meetings slash some act 46 timeline timelines and how that's like where that's at because even the day I went to go I had a few people I came up and said what's going on I'm not on the debt committee and nor am I on the other committee that you're on so I don't I know what I know from our big meetings but that's about it so I can't really answer those questions for people like where we are at this moment and it changes do you think we need do we need to do that before the I've been kind of waiting as a superintendent just with the staff because I've had I asked the principals the other day I said hey do I need to come out and do you weren't there actually this was a different group but just not because we were at the training last week and there were three principals so like do I need to come out and do an act 46 update an hour and they said no wait until you know what the board rules on yeah and I'm thinking like after December like after our next regular board meeting doing something yeah because I was right down thinking like somewhere December 5th through like the 15th I was thinking that timeline document you just looked at we'll have it down to one column but what are the implications kind of an FAQ document that's maybe one or two pages that says here are the implications and by then you'll have more consistent members for the yeah budget so that's just my thought I feel like that's a huge part that is on us to take care of so you're not talking some budgets ramping up for town meeting by way of explanation you're talking about when we arrive at a budget kind of informational act 46 budget forum I think in this moment I'm saying both but I think we'll know more once we know where we are after that timeline December November 14th it's now 15th or 20th they just moved it the other day to one day later I think it's important for people to know though that they might not have most likely won't have a school budget on town meeting day to vote on like it will be later on this is what we're looking at for our town but you know that's going to change as other towns but they do yeah that's a significant change or potentially I think having those meetings where people can come in you know hear about the changes that are coming down the pipeline the more we prepare our town the better off we will be great that's a difficult time of year to get anybody together I'm afraid I do I agree with that but I think at the same time knowing that there's so many changes I think people will will come because it's a hot topic especially knowing very city and very town just voted theirs down again so I think it's so important for us to make sure that people are as educated as we can definitely worth knowing trust me I don't want to be at any more meetings in December than I have to be but I feel like it's my role as the school board to do as much as we can but you think that the timing on that is going to be December wait until the rolling is out I do I I mean people can start requesting absentee ballots like right after the town report is printed and that's January so here's the thing I don't know if we'll be in the town report that's one of the questions I still have right so I think we have to get something out that says where we're at because if you open the town report and don't see a school section that you're used to seeing like what's going on is going to be the question so there needs to be some sort of letter and understanding they're voting to get it done they just want it done off their list so I there's at least a letter in there or something but I I mean that's what I've been trying to think about like what is the town report that's a question I still have half of it's a school budget school report so that would be a really key topic for that kind of a meeting just to let people know if in fact there won't be a school budget in the town report why and what we have in lieu of that and we might have to do that again in April of February I think it's a couple of times so we have an agenda item down here for budget meetings planning do we want to try to set a few dates or is it too early at this point so your next meeting I just want to go over the calendar here on the traditional way that we're set not because all we have is you just see December 10th but let me get up my calendar so in January the normal the regular schedule meeting would be January 14th and then usually February is a carousel but that might be you need another one on the 11th yes I think so yeah you know so not that there can't be other I'm just trying to give some what the normal routine is normally there would be a carousel on the 20th but you know the transition board is that you can look at the dates there I don't want you to remember without looking at that document Chris but you know the transition board gets spun up somewhere I would if I were going to be a betting person I would bet the state board is not going to rule until the 28th but I don't have any inside knowledge which way they're going to go so right now we'll hold the January 14th and February 11th the community forums for the budget and we will hold January 14th and February 11th there are regular scheduled meetings here alright and Bill just in terms of general feedback I find with this draft level service right around 3% so far so good no one we might want to have some additional focus on what it might take to improve not scores I know Aaron's been thinking about it he did some things but anything else on the budget alright we'll move on to item 3.2 board member vacancy update I had one person reach out and express interest and I followed up and that person did not get back to me after that so as far as I know we don't have any candidates for the vacancy I can put out another front porch forum reminding folks that there is a vacancy and encouraging someone to step up and do it but I don't know what kind of luck we'll have with that item 3.3 the SU board goal 3 community engagement and the communications plan strategy I think I'm trying to remember at the last meeting I think we tabled that item I think the executive committee was going to take that up at some point maybe that's dropped down on our priority list it wasn't taken up at the last executive committee meeting not when I was there but I actually thought the way we left our last meeting when we had a carousel meeting at the U32 is that we would I thought there was going to be a subcommittee of some kind and maybe it was the executive committee for the communications piece so that everybody was getting again the same consistent information but I'm not sure that that came up at the executive committee the status that is the last time I remember is October which we were kind of saying hey, things are on hold right now let's get the work level we have when we adopted the goal we kind of said well who's responsible, we said the board's so nobody's really in charge of driving this forward and putting it here in way and I remember from the last time the executive committee touched on it was that we have so much other stuff going on right now we probably can't make this a priority to adopt something consistent system-wide maybe that was our October 24th meeting before that the week before that so does anyone here on this board have a desire to work on a strategy at this point in time either specific to the budget or act 46 or more in general I just I any suggestions, any discussion we'll leave it at table for the moment if there's not then we'll move on to item 3.4 warranty work update yeah before we I'm going to let Aaron talk to most of this because he's been looking at things but I just wanted to give you a couple things from the contract there are two different things talked about in the contract there's the warranty which says we as the owners will go back to the contractor within the first year or two I can't remember which one it is for any items that need to be adjusted in the building the other thing is what is the general contractor what how far are they to how long do they have to repair defects and that's the second part of the contract we your attorney that does construction wrote our contract for us and the general contractor is on the hook for six years for any defects that happen under construction that should that came as a result of the construction not of use but because they weren't installed correctly so say these lights stopped working we could go back to them and say you need to fix this and they need to do that that always the contractors always like to talk about warranty but we actually put a defect clause in we don't have to go back to them to fix it but we can and they're on if it was because it was done wrong during construction and items like a roof would have a longer warranty that's a different piece you're exactly right Peter we have a warranty this came in and Aaron got it through email for how long this roof was warranted I forget the terms I haven't had to deal with it I hope I never do but it's good to have that warranty if you go back to those folks and those you get separate things like roofs you get separate warranties because of what water can do to the building and we asked for that under the construction so I don't know what's left still on the punch list do you want to go through that Aaron? I'd like to talk to Bill directly before the renovation project that was done before I came is clearly done the roof project is complete that's been signed off the heat a couple of outstanding things that were still lingering outstanding was a the heat register in the main office which was actually done today and then there's a bank of lights in the kind of the primary wing that since the summer since I started has been out and I don't think it was noticed right away until I think after school started when I was like how come these lights are this bank is always out so when we looked into it TMI TMI is coming back not lighting TMI is some good mechanical yeah no TMI sorry electrician that's the only thing that is left everything else has been done and Wayne's been really good to work with and we call them and ask them to get down here take care of it the flooring might be the thing that we might be thinking of because we've seen somewhere on the floor and did some of that work this summer that was my question there were some flooring spots and I had asked if it was done over the summer but Lori was sure right and those are things that were because we've had some issues with the floor and the flooring subcontractor they come back and take care of it Lynn's room and the another reading intervention room was done before school started I think it'll be obviously spring and summer what happens to those tiles in every room to see what might be happening what might continue to happen that's not good and we can fix it so the three big things that I've been taught through different building renovations are roofs, floors controls other things you're tracking down for a little while and you hope you never get to the roof but that's why I really liked what we did for this roof which is just put it right over move it down we had talked at one time about trying to document some of the savings from the renovation we did last year when we were talking about just the energy savings and then we've turned that into your transfer into the capital fund of $30,000 I just think it's good to keep that in mind and remind the taxpayers what benefits we have gotten from the renovation and you said there were 6,300 or something like that so that was the interest we never budgeted for so we just transferred that into your capital fund so is there anything left on the bond? money is spent down to the last piece in there tonight because it has to be spent by December we're doing the last piece any other questions on the warranty work very good we'll move on to 3.5 which is Act 46 but maybe Peter if you could give a quick update on the work of the debt committee you've already done some of that and I can give a quick update on the articles committee although I missed the last meeting I did read the minutes today okay we we discussed our charge again at the most recent meeting last week and it's clearly for sharing of assets in hopes that those can be entered into an agreement as an amendment amendments are permitted and we're working with information on assets and liabilities for each school and I personally think we're spending a lot of time talking about what if we have to pay more and we have to pay less and we all recognize that I think that's a given and that's probably why we're having the conversation but I think we recognize at our last meeting that we have to look at the numbers that we have available to us and any others that we're able to gather that are information that we can cite and stand behind and develop these three options and we will be meeting this week I believe it's the 19th after when I talked to Krista I know it was either the 19th or 20th is what she said she goes which one do you like I said I like the 19th and the following week and then 12-5 I have this WCSU board decision so we would have to give them the three options by prior to that date that sounds right I think it's reporting back to the board that's what you were asked to do by the 5th is to bring three options if I remember the 24th by the 5th so there is a printout that came from WCSU Central Office with assets and liabilities that we've been working from for every school my capital fund line doesn't agree with the numbers that you cited tonight but this is from the 8th that's from it was given to you on the 8th but those are all the fund balances as of June 30, 2017 so the end of last fiscal year mine are more current mine were taken off the latest reports given to boards and I think there are as many questions at the committee level about deferred maintenance items as they are and the capital fund is what it is for each school we can determine the value for that but deferred maintenance is more subjective we have things like paving that I would consider deferred maintenance that we could conceivably put a value on we could put a guesstimate on it from your earlier conversations from the project and the other schools likewise for boilers and siding and whatever which may be factored into one of these or all of these equations so on that list when it's assets do you have a dollar amount I know they haven't been assessed as far as the true assessment but what is the number that is on Berlin for the building and land so Berlin is a little bit of a it has not been reassessed by the town and it hasn't been done through our audit yet it's just not there yet because of the renovations that have been here and it's not separated land and building it's just total value so far it's all together right it's a replacement value and this is one of those values I spoke about earlier that if we use that value consistently across all the schools we have a relative comparison and that shows as 7.2 million 7.191 583 and that for insurance purposes it's everything, the contents of the land so when Berlin did their town-wide reassessment in 2008 the school wasn't done at that point so we haven't received information from the town offices yet Berlin and Middlesex are the two town offices that haven't sent in their assessor values so you're thinking that they might be available we haven't received them we were told they only work on Wednesdays and it's taking a couple weeks to get it so we could use a little help maybe in making sure we get that information all you have to do is ask for the assessor's card and send us the copy of it which the whole town was reassessed in 2008 so it should be, I mean I realize it's still 10 years old but it's still something that's what we're trying to do is get all the cards that was part of the project, let's get all the everything that's owned by within the supervisory union entities and get all the cards for everything and we talked earlier about Champlain Valley or Chittenden Southeast or whatever it is that information is going to be valuable to us no I'm glad you reminded me Peter I'll make sure I made a checklist that tomorrow we just send out, I have it right in my email I know exactly what it is apparently it's a viable model well they looked at budgets and they also looked at they had some districts that had deferred maintenance and some that had just been renovated yeah which is kind of what we're up against so it's a puzzle but that's where we are so in the end now that you guys have something to go by when you're taking the assets and the liabilities do you feel like we're all pretty equal across the board because I mean other schools that maybe have deferred maintenance have some larger fund balances do you feel like there's someone close or the way I don't think I think it's going to be very difficult to equalize there are some suggested formulas out there to try to do that and I think there are probably as many opinions as there are people on this committee and I think that's probably why we were asked for three different scenarios so I think it's almost impossible to equalize and probably that's why the board state board is saying everything goes on the bottom but because of recent bonds and these bonds extend out over 17 years I think yours is the longest to go it has three payments have been paid at the end of this year that is another moving part so we're going to try to come up with something and I don't have the WCSU board when they have to try to plug that in somewhere but I think it's worth trying to do and it could be moved because it could be the board of education may say we're not willing to entertain this amendment you're talking about amendments to the article articles of agreement I thought that was very clearly shut down already in the draft articles it says that article 5 the debt cannot be changed so we could come to some kind of agreement but it would be an agreement among the schools it's not an article it's not legally binding right see this is the things you have to pass the muster of what conforms with statute but at least I think this serves to give us an idea of the assets and liabilities which I think is important for the towns to understand well I think if nothing else it will help us in explaining it to the voters on the articles committee and Bill or Matthew can correct me if I get any of this wrong because it wasn't at the last one it was on election day so I wasn't able to go on election night I should say the committee has been looking at the default articles of agreement the committee ranked them in order of easiest to deal with most difficult to deal with and then at the last meeting it looks like they all started going through some of those articles of agreement to get at least a draft and try to knock off some of the some of the easier articles of the transition board where it will go next would you mind giving maybe a quick summary of the work from the last meeting? yeah I mean we started with those easiest ones some of them like what are the towns that are part of that was one of the easy ones what are the schools that are school districts that are part of it and we I think got seven or eight so I want to say out of about 20 we did seven seven or eight and I went pretty quickly and I think we stopped right when it was going to start okay there were ones that would take three or four minutes Holly could put in the notes what the suggested changes were and they're more fill in the blank type articles I think we're just starting to get to the ones that are going to take a little more discussion there were some questions about to what extent certain articles could be amended and I think you got a response from from Donna Russo side where the agency interpreted that and that was sent out to the committee members and to the timelines and what's and we're meeting again tomorrow night yes any questions anything else? I think you got it oh you had asked the board had asked about property transfer because of what you heard Barry had done I just wanted to let you know I talked to John Pandolfo took him three years to separate the land from to give it back to the town and it wasn't so much the willingness of the select board or the willingness of the school board it was the time it took to go through all the attorneys and land transfers and surveying and all of that I don't imagine it would take us three years I think that sounds a little long even in my mind but I don't think it's something that's done in three months I know some other other towns are considering it and I'm just reaching out to try to get some more information also just to see what's involved and what the timelines would look like you know it's not a short process the first thing is just getting a title search which usually when you go to sell a house it's what four weeks for a title search yeah it's usually a while and that's one step of many in there I haven't even thought of what all the steps are it's not that I'm if you need more time I'd have to research some more with one of our attorneys theoretically a title search should not be an issue here because the land was donated to the school for school purposes and hasn't changed chance since then in theory I when I theory and practical when it comes to these things can be the same or sometimes not any questions no discussion I think I think as we have our town forums I do think that question is going to come up and I don't want to speak for Carl but I think getting his input because I think he's the one that brought it up at our last board meeting he did and we have had contacts from the mall developer visionary whatever you want to call him has reached out to me a couple of times to inquire about coming to speak to the board about it they are interested in some of the property perhaps a land swap for some of them some of the land bordering the mall property and again just spinning out hypotheticals if if in the future the mall developers want to buy some of that land and it belongs to the district not to the town anymore we can trust we can imagine that that benefit will endure to the town of Berlin but it really is to the district at that point so I think we still have a responsibility to take a look at that I do and I think that question will come up from the townspeople to whether it's an option or not and explain whatever the timeline might be or what that would look like with doing that even if it didn't happen during this board how to move forward that could be something that happens not even with the transitional board but the newly formed board so I don't want to put more work on Bill on this I don't know if you have any easy way to obtain what those steps look like and what a timeline would look like but if not I've got a couple of feelers out with people who I think will be able to answer those questions what the steps involved would be what the time frame would have to be so we can have a better sense of what's involved even if that's just to be able to tell the Berlin voters that this is something that would take a while it might not be feasible I do have a question about the mall developer my understanding is they can't continue with their project until they have the right of way land swapped agreed upon like that doesn't go through they no longer have they're not within their right of way with the development project they have projected to do there am I correct? I don't know that for sure but I could invite someone from that group to come and talk to us I'm not sure that we want to bring another egg into the basket until we figure out the other pieces I can ask them about that but it just makes it very different if they cannot do that project without some kind of a they need an additional right of way involving school property that's my understanding is with what they have planned right now what they need to swap land isn't necessarily to build on but it's part of the right of way that they would need but it's more of a question I'm not 100% sure I can reach out to them and see what they're willing to come and talk to us about in a public forum I don't know if they'll want to but if they are willing we can see what they're thinking is right now just to have that information do they have a local rep at this point? they do so to answer your question that you had before I can't remember which partner Scott Cameron's it is but I would get to that partner who deals in real estate because we've used them before and just say tell me the steps and what would that be because you're going to want to know what does the municipal government need to have as well the problem is you're getting in a private transfer it's a lot faster than a public transfer I mean this was a two minute conversation with John Pandolfo I said just tell me how long this was last Friday we were having lunch together he said tell me how long he took us three years and he said it was getting the public boards together because there's different places where they're sign-offs just as you can think about Bonn when we've done the building project here and he said it took us three years and I don't know to what extent Barry would be the specifics would be different no I don't either has anybody had the conversation with a select board member about the town retaining that has that conversation even happened? and I will tell you at the middle sex meeting last week the middle sex a middle sex board member I don't want to say the board because I want to make sure to only hear it from one person especially interested about talking about community access as being parts of an additional article which I would say for me sitting in the chair I'm in right now to deny community access to the school buildings is not a good is not a smart move to make I can't imagine someone sitting in my chair and doing that but because you want your community and your schools someone was concerned that they might have limited access because it might become because it's one big district I said I would support you in that I mean I think you want to say you want the community using your facilities just as long as we do it in a safe and appropriate way let's do it I mean so I do have a quick question it's kind of off the subject but I'll make it quick and short so if somebody came with a preschooler that was just preschool age but not in our preschool program and wanted to come in and be in the library during the day they have access to come in to the library with an adult with them at this point is that correct? it's never come up but I would say that people wanted to come and use the playground during the day I don't know what the intent of this library was at the onset I wouldn't be comfortable just people milling around and using the library during school time just as I wouldn't have people wandering around back during recess but the intent for this library is to be used whenever by the community whenever during the school day but I'd be hesitant to be honest I mean we have people, we have kids here and you don't know who's coming in you might think it's parents with a preschooler it sounds very innocent but you know what that person's going to do you don't know what they're going to hear or anything it's tricky for me it gets into the place of a pupil privacy it's the piece of it's have their right to their privacy and how they're being educated and one of the things that's hard to do in small communities is when students have certain needs it's trying to keep that protected for kids and that tends to open it up it's a delicate balance it's a balance of parents and volunteers in the building it's all of that it's unique having an open area like this comes with these challenges of course some schools some schools have their school library is there a public library for their town and so they've actually had to make sure that when it's the public library there aren't kids in there I live in a town that has that so there are hours for adults outside of the school day for the adults to access the library and there's a separate entrance that sometimes it gets closed off during the day it's able to go for like using the gym to cover it I'll come with my kids during the day that are younger than or pre-K age the gym it just gets a little bit tricky plus this is the learning center it's not just the library it's the learning centers activities and classes in here as well wouldn't be any different than allowing a teacher or a parent with their kid to go into a classroom whenever they want to go to a classroom in a sense would it be uncomfortable I don't know well if you can get a quick summary from a lawyer who specializes in that I think that would help us I appreciate that Bill I hope we don't come under act 250 if we're ready we're going to be on that too it's probably like minor subdivision one or a lot and I will reach out to the mall developer every once in a while to see if he's willing to come and talk to us and what the status of their intentions might be at this point in time would that be a legitimate you mentioned a concern but you might have a concern they might have a concern about public forum is that an executive committee topic no not unless you were in contract negotiations I believe not unless we were negotiating with the state executive session for that the last item that I have under act 46 is the act 46 lawsuit that we voted to join a couple of meetings back and what they're asking from me is to sign off on a letter of engagement for the group to in anticipation of possible litigation I think I described one of our previous meetings there was a gathering of potential plaintiffs for the act 46 lawsuit it's a group of attorneys who are acting pro bono as well as some being paid but they're being paid from a fund and donations so I guess the important things to point out here are that there's nothing obligating us to stay in the lawsuit and there's nothing that would require any payment from us to be a part of this lawsuit and so they're asking board chairs to sign off on this letter of engagement other boards have voted to join the lawsuit and then the board chairs have signed on right after that apparently and I just want to make sure that's still the understanding of the board members here tonight that we agreed to join this lawsuit and that you're okay with me signing on as board chair to do that and would we be notified if the equation changed and charges would be forthcoming that would be another agreement I would say so this letter of engagement says there will be no charges to the board I would move that we accept that or that we authorize Chris to sign for us is there a second? I will second and just to make sure you've read through that Chris you feel comfortable signing it no charges to us and there's nothing else that's a red flag for you no it's very flexible there's no real obligation on our part we can withdraw at any time this doesn't say anything about the approval school board or select board is asked to guarantee that any part of these bills get paid we're asking that a plaintiffs and their supporters do their best to make contributions to the defense fund and all payment comes out of that defense fund I would suggest that we bring it back up at our December meeting when Carl is here so if we decide at that point to withdraw we can he's part of our board now he was a continued part of that decision instead of just the three of them Bill do you know of any legal problems anything we should be aware of and signing on to this? I have stayed away from this so I can't advise you on it anyway I don't believe it's my role to advise you on this very good so I'll send that back in the motion was made in seconded by any further discussion just my other comment let's bring it back up at December so if we choose to withdraw at that point those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye as opposed to no and the ayes have it and the motion carries anything else on act 46 alright 4.0 reports to the board administration that's on page 20 of our packet principles report but there's a few things to talk about in that report hopefully I had a chance to look at it I wanted to mention first that one of the things I've been doing with the staff here is something called collective commitments and these are really a list of values that will hold each other to these are things that we worked on together towards the beginning of this year that we hold ourselves accountable for doing this work together it's just really a powerful thing when you experience it where everybody has some voice and just collaboratively coming together to come up with a set of values and things that we commit to so a lot of the things that I won't read the whole list but things like communicate, collaborate role modeling, growing and changing accepting responsibility for all students embracing the whole child approach experience, taking risks being honest and open minded being professional and flexible these kinds of things that we seek in each other but also hold each other accountable for so I just wanted to share this list with you just so you can see some of the things that as a staff we talked about and that we feel strongly as we move forward in our work together things are going to be pretty powerful keep coming back to those commitments jump in at any time with questions one of the things that we had recently here at Berlin is a Vermont Feeds and Farmer School press event a lot of folks come from different agencies and different organizations and we all gathered in the garden area and went through a number of different celebrations and just things about our school garden and about farm to school and Channel 5 news did come into a bit of a story for us and there's some things out there on Facebook that are really positive highlighting a lot of the great things that we do here with our garden and just how kids get involved and some of the educational pieces behind it really good stuff and we were happy to have hosted this event out of any school in Vermont we were the ones that they wanted to come to so that was really great a couple of the things further down my reports just a couple of celebrations some of you might know this but Kim Farone who is our math teacher and interventionist or math coach and interventionist was nominated for the 2018 presidential award for excellent in mathematics and science teaching so she was chosen there were two folks that were chosen from Vermont and she was recognized recently at a math conference so I think we're still waiting to hear if she'll go to the national level but it's pretty cool that she was recognized for the work that she does here we continue to do a lot of work around our positive behavior and support we have a lot of things that hopefully are communicated strongly to everybody about some of the celebrations that we do, some of the recognitions one of the things that we do here at Averland is something called community bobcats and students that are recognized for going above and beyond in ways that serve the greater good we share those recognitions school wide students get a button or a pin and then I contact parents that their child received a community bobcat recognition just how proud we are of them for stepping up and going above and beyond so we really have a lot of kids that obviously are recognized for this so I just wanted to share a little bit more about some of the things that we do here we've been having parent-teacher conferences these last couple weeks one of the things that I've asked teachers is to import to me on how many parents actually attend and I don't have everybody's attendance yet there are still some evening conferences that will probably happen this week so for the next board meeting I'll share that with you on our percentage of attendance and even in the spring do the same to see what the involvement for that looks like a couple of other events that are coming up that I just wanted to note we have our harvest dinner this week which is an annual lunch event where parents can come and have a wonderful meal with the whole school looking forward to that this week at the end of the month we are actually hosting a benefit for Julia Chase it's a bingo benefit so what we're going to do is this is all school initiated it's going to be $5 per card some prizes we'll have refreshments and staff are going to be helping run this event for the Chase family so I hope to see folks there can play some bingo that's on the 30th a couple other cool things so we initiated this year a Berlin school clothing apparel line if you will and with PTNA's help any money that's raised that is after the purchase of the clothing we'll go to PTNA there's a link on our web page I have a link here in the report and this is some really great items that families can get for their kids or themselves or even if there's community members out there that just says Berlin on it be really cool to be a scarf for a headband nice stuff on it set up to like it see you at the next meeting selection of different kinds of things actually got a golf shirt for my dad so a little bit extra that you might want to do for your family for Christmas time are they soccer scarves like this soccer team KMLS and World Cup teams it's kind of spectator scarf that looks like one there we go so that's really cool in terms of school spirit and community spirit it's just a great way to show our colors and show our school name on clothing so we're doing this for the month of November orders will come in and then we'll do it back up in the spring in terms of just a couple of maintenance things that were removed this fall we had a gentleman come in that I guess has been doing this here for a while that we've been consulting with and just noticed some trees that were definitely needing removal some that were a safety issue but some that were just definitely dying and needed removal so I think there were six that we removed another thing that has come up recently is our refrigeration unit in the kitchen we've had repairs over the last few years and just thinking that it might be time to think about some of the bigger cooling units in the refrigerator for the walk in obviously not replacing the whole shell and the whole casing but just the refrigeration machinery parts I think we guys updated on that the big one obviously in terms of maintenance the driveway something that I definitely support before that Chuck's doing his best to patch the holes with patch one thing that I don't know if this is something I mentioned before but at my previous school the town was able to get a wastewater grant I don't know if I mentioned this to help with water flow in the school parking lot driveway parking lot and it allowed us to have to repave most of the parking lot through this grant which you know addressed grades and some other drainage kinds of things might be something to look into considering we have a bit of a wet spot that is out as you're coming in where the driveway kind of dips down it seems to be kind of marshy through there I'd be curious to see if we might be able to get or do something through some sort of grant because of that issue it seems to be a direct correlation with water pooling there so might be something to think about you also have the wetland out beyond the actual parking lot right right we can't touch that parking lot because of the wetlands but that's what everybody tells me it's been on previous budgets for paving but I think you can it's just a matter of what it takes to do it there's so many square feet I was actually just in this conversation this morning at U32 there's certain amount of square footage that you have impervious on your land and then you get to different stormwater runoff regulation and at U32 they're at it it's gotten smaller in the past couple of years they've been over a square feet so you have to treat on site your stormwater runoff which usually just means a settling pond and just the last thing it's not in my report but just thinking about some of the budget discussion we've been having and obviously really taking the time to get a sense of how things operate here in just a few months as I learn and absorb more about the workings of the school looking at previous budgets seeing just the structure of things when it comes right down to even schedules and who does what who's licensed to do what and we've definitely been talking about math as an area of need so even though we only have draft one I definitely have some ideas for how we can tackle this math instructional problem that we have here so this a big area and as we look at budgets for the future just I have some ideas and I look forward to sharing that with you at some point as well some other things in regards to the budget that I've gathered from folks is some things that as we talk about not only academic needs but needs around trauma and looking at all aspects of taking care of kids programs around social emotional learning is something that I think is also needed I'm sure we'll have some discussions at the admin level at some point as well but there's some things in that area that I think we could strengthen here at Berlin and other kinds of things that are more curriculum based around science have a bit of a science background in my educational career so I do support the teaching of science pretty strongly and then we have some outdated things we've done some scavenging in the attic and there's definitely some old stuff up there that's no longer useful some that is but as we've working to incorporate the new science standards teachers are saying I need certain science materials and we just don't have it so if I were to advocate for any bigger areas those would be ones that are running through my mind as I get to know how things are working around here so I don't know if you have any questions for my reporter just anything else about what's been going on here in school I'd like to know what kind of pie you use a little probably just be whipped cream yeah yeah the in regards to these recognitions that we have the principal challenges I think the kids really like and the next one is going to be pies in the face so we will actually it's next next next week on Tuesday we'll pick some random kids too in the face with the pie more power to you lots of good stuff there Aaron thank you any questions I have a question on whether we will have an opportunity or want to take an opportunity to implement some of Aaron's budget suggestions math in particular for our next our next budget no we will Aaron and I were talking about this is a list that I've heard from him past week and I said well we're bringing a level service this time we come in December we'll have price tags for those pieces that he just talked about so I asked him tonight to come and tell you the pieces deliberately we haven't costed them out yet we want to hear back your feedback on this and then we'll bring those pieces and what does that cost so you'll get that piece in December very good thank you finance report so on page 23 I pointed this out earlier but there really hasn't been any change things are moving along the way they pretty much plan to you are the total fund balance is 248,000 almost 249,000 7% that's about 109,000 over the 4% target I would like to ask that and I think it's right for December to put some of that into the capital fund if not all we might put that on the action agenda for the next meeting your capital I gave you the quick piece on construction when we were going through earlier so I'm giving you a very short I'd be glad to talk anything about it but you know we're closing down the construction and what have your capital fund well it's at almost 184,000 there'll be another 6300 going in that from the interest earned off the bond project any questions for bill and finance report executive committee for the portion I was there bill had proposed the budget draft one which was at the 1.96% the conversation came up about having addressed one of our goals as a WCSU board with adding another math coach within the district and how that was within each school and the other conversation was brought up about what is the appropriate fund balance bill already kind of talked about that and working towards what is the right number as gathering the information that's needed to provide us with what that number is or what that percentage is and that's really all I had time that was basically the meeting to meet it so it was it's under 2% it was a level service budget that was brought to I didn't hear any other questions or comments from other members so it was pretty clear, very cut and dry thank you is there any update from the policy committee? policy committee didn't meet they're not being until December and the school quality committee we meet next week this Thursday negotiations that's fair as well come again we met so I've actually gone to two of the meetings we've had three the last one I actually went but had something come up so I had to leave before I actually went inside so I missed the one that was on the 8th which was last week and that was just board members coming up with a list of common issues which I'm assuming I just got my packet you just got your packet that's not the actual issue list it's on top Chani wrote one in the form of questions there were 8 or 10 issues and issues have been exchanged between the boards and the association and there's a lot of meetings coming up January, February 26th the first negotiation meeting thank you we can move on to our action agenda 5.1 is a point of board member we do not have anyone to appoint we'll skip over that one 5.2 was a point of vice chair I think we had forgotten about that at our last meeting that Eric Chase believe it was the vice chair so looking for volunteers Peter is that something you'd be willing to in the event that I cannot fulfill my duties as chair this is as distinct from the clerk I hope so you're not a clerk right near as the clerk are you a treasurer no we don't have a treasurer we don't have a secretary no clerk is all that so my thought was that the chair and the clerk would become the temporary members under the new configuration that is just to stand in if you are not available that's right so I'll make a motion for Peter to be vice chair I'll second you'll have to second any discussion he said all he has to say on that those in favor signify by saying aye aye I suppose no the ayes have it and congratulations approve board orders I can give you the amount if you'd like there's two figures on this so I add them together one hundred seven thousand five hundred sixty three and forty seven cents I had seventy three did I write it down wrong it was seventy nine thousand nine thirty six ninety seven plus twenty seven thousand six thirty six and fifty cents yeah it's seventy three right yes you're right seventy three yes here would you make a motion yes I'll make a motion the one hundred seven thousand seventy three forty seven I'll second it any discussion those in favor signify by saying aye I suppose no and we've approved the board orders thank you for checking my math I'm not the math guy for sure future agenda items so Bill you've asked me to put potential capital fund transfer on there if possible I will have a mall property update potentially someone will come and talk to us potentially not of course we'll have budget items budget on there I think we should have an item to discuss communications around Act 46 and the budget at our next meeting on December fifth December oh I mean at the carousel meeting I was thinking the tenth but oh I apologize that's just an SU meeting fifth is the SU meeting so maybe December 10th right December 10th is our local board meeting any other future agenda items I don't think this has to be put on like this any time soon but I think feedback maybe and Bill probably would have this as to what conversations other boards are having about moving the sports to a rec committee versus leading in school because I think it was one of those either we all move or we all stay in status quo is probably the feeling I guess so maybe just an update on that as to what conversations other boards are having I really don't know of any any other conversations that's right I know where Calis feels because they just did this a year or two ago moved it back moved it back but I'm not saying that they still do either I just that's all I know if you have any updates if I hear any I'll let you know okay yeah of course we'll have this our standing act 46 where we can discuss I think property we'll have some more information hopefully for us at the next meeting any other agenda items I wanted to say on the school versus rec it may take someone like Bill to to I don't know how much he's been involved but he said 10 years so I may take him going school to school to see what level of interest there is today and to come back to us I don't know if that's going to happen any other way I'm not sure I'll just be really really honest I haven't put any energy into it I'm not seeing you do that and I don't see you telling me to do that I'm just asking if you hear if I hear stuff I'll let you know but I'm not really and I'm not as I said at the beginning I'm not wed one way or the other I just tried to point out areas that need to be advised as a board that there is any other conversations that's happening that's all I'm asking of Bill and at that point that will either progress us to make another future agenda item to have more conversation about it or any board communication that the board feels should be going out between now and our next meeting on December 10th I'll put a notice out there again for seeking a board member to fill the vacancy but other than that I wasn't planning to do anything else before that I think we need to put something out after our December meeting about the act 46 but again that's a month away we'll have an agenda item on there for that good anything else? thank you everybody we'll adjourn at 750