 Brexbury Board of School of Directors, so the first item is, let me just check to make sure it's right on this, so we're going to have two public comments tonight, just so folks now we're going to have a public comment at the beginning and then a public comment after a further discussion on the budget strategy that is going to present us with new numbers and some scenarios for us to get our brains around how we want the administration to approach a budget given the constraints we're under. So as always the public comment is a very important part of the board's decision making process. We value it hugely. It is not a forum for back and forth. We don't respond in time, which I know can be a little conceivable awkward for people who come up and kind of watch us listen. But it's super important we appreciate it. We also understand that sometimes coming from the board involves personal matters, it's gonna be hard and we appreciate the effort at the time put into it and again we consider it and then we ensure that it gets addressed in some manner or fashion. So again we're gonna have two periods of public comment beginning and then at the end if you speak at the beginning you're not prohibited. The second one if we have a tremendous amount of people. So I'm just going to ask people at this time if they do speak to keep it to a reasonable amount of time, which I would say in a minute or two range. But I don't think we need to do a timer. But if you do drone on too long I may ask you to wrap up at some point. So if anyone in the room would like to speak just go ahead and step up to the front. Otherwise we can go to the folks online and see if anyone online would like to speak if you want to speak online it looks like no one's jumping up in the room. If you want to speak online please use your raise hand function and if you don't know where that is you can just pop on video and wave your hand physically. I've not seen any takers from the online either. Okay with that said we just had someone out of the room we're just about to close public comment. We have a second public comment. Thank you. Moving to the consent agenda. Well we got from 6.30 to 7. Quickly. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that we approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion or questions? All is in favor? Aye. Are you opposed? Okay I'll turn over. You look before. All right. Share my screen. Okay. Okay well can you can you get that to go? Oh that is not me. Is that the white computer? Thank you. There we go. Thank you very much. Okay so here's the board update number three at this point. We have a different looking chart to show the board in the community. This is one that the folks at the agency of education have asked us to use. So the columns on the left that says description general budget that is a piece that the board is should be familiar with. You've seen that before that's the math calculations for how the budget is created. The middle green column is our FY 24 budget that's the budget we're currently in right now for this school year. After the yield was set and the CLA was adjusted for reappraisal. So this is what actually was on our citizens tax bill this year. Okay and then they've asked us to show FY 24. So again this year's current budget. If Act 127 were in place last year. Okay so these numbers are not true numbers. This is as if Act 127 was in place. So you see our general budgets the same. Capital plans the same. The total budget is the same. Non tax revenues is the same. Education spending is the same. The equalized pupils is different because Act 127 counts more people. So that would be our equalized pupil rate with the new weights set in. And then the dollar yield is also very different because if everybody's calculating more pupils which they are with the more weights the dollar yield. We're drawing more from the education fund. So the dollar yield decreases. And so our tax rates if 127 were in place would have been a dollar two and a dollar four. I guess a dollar 21 almost and dollar 41. So this is a new calculation. The reason why we're showing you this is because of this next slide. Maybe this FY 24 budget of Act 127 were in place is what we need to compare. What we need to compare to get the 10% number to get the equalized pupil member. That's those are the numbers we need to use. And I'm sorry for those in the room. I actually made photocopies of this for you but I left them in my office. I apologize for not having them. Is it unlocked. Christina. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry about that. Thank you Christina. So the green column in the middle there FY 24 budget if Act 27 were in place are the numbers we're using to compare FY 24 and our potential FY 25 budget now. So our FY 25 budget needs to meet Act 127 goals is that we can add up to 31 to have our general budget at up to 31 million two hundred seventy thousand dollars with the non tax revenues that we have. And we're underneath the 10% marker for increase per equalized pupils which is right here which I'm pointing to with my cursor. Yeah. Following so far. So that's the number for a general budget or thirty one thousand two hundred seventy minus the non tax revenues. So education spending could be around twenty six million three hundred ninety nine thousand six hundred fifty three in order to stay below the 10% mark. Reminder that if we go over the 10% mark that could trigger a jury of our peers to look at our budget to see if it's excessive or not. We I I would highly recommend that we stay away from that and stay under the 10%. So that's what we can do in order to get there. Now it says here that the equalized tax rate would be 18.67. However that equalized tax rate is what's capped at 5%. So it would be if we come on under 10% just a reminder that that tax rate would not be 18.67. It would be 5% and the Education Fund would be making up the difference. Any questions so far on that from the board. Okay. Keep going. That's okay. I don't even. I'll be okay. Okay. Thanks Christina. I appreciate it. So our needs to remain under the 10% increase per pupil. We need to lower our general operating budget by approximately eight hundred thousand dollars by either cutting costs or increasing a revenue source. So in other words now that more and more numbers are coming in to Christine in the business office more and more numbers are getting real by the day. We actually need if I go back to the last slide we don't need 31 million dollars to operate next year. We need 31 million dollars 800,000 to operate next year. Okay. So we're over what the 10% would be as just to remind the board in the community that the budget season goes on for a while and Christina gets more and more real numbers as we continue things that she has to add in things that she has to take out things that we've talked about with the administrative team that need to be added or taken out. And so that need changes as of today November 29th that need is an additional eight hundred thousand dollars to what you see right here. So that's the number we're working with today for this slideshow. So it's an important number to remember set clear for everybody. Yeah. There are still many factors and expenditures and revenues that can influence this $800,000. It is not written in stone. It is not one that's a finished number. When we come back next week we could have a slightly different number but it is getting more and more real as the days continue. Yes, Jake. So for things getting more and more real, do we know what Fi 25 long-term weighted ADM is going to be for us? Is that on the last side? Did you get that yet, Christina? No, we don't have that yet. So are we still carrying last year's number forward? Okay. Which is another thing that could change, Jake, because we have less kids in seats this year than we did last year. So most likely this number right here, 1802.99 will go down a little bit. Okay. But is there the change to how they measure poverty? You know, with the indirect certification, do you think that's going to increase our poverty counts? It could, or it certainly increased our numbers. So it could. Yeah. Okay. So tonight, the conversation of the board is another need. Direction from the board regarding how to do this. And before we look at the next three slides, I put this in capital letters and yes, I mean to be yelling for my text. Please do not take the three following ideas as written in stone. They're meant to be examples for the type of direction the administration would like the board to provide. They are not okay, let me go with idea two, right? They are just ideas for you to pontificate on and discuss and that you could pull from lots of different things. You could go off of these ideas, but it's just tonight. They're just our ideas, Jill. So the lowering it by 800,000 is to keep us at that nine point. Yes. Okay. Yes. As of today, we are going to need to do that. Even if we get more real numbers, we will still need to cut our budget or increase revenue by some number. That is a pretty big number. Yeah, just to clarify, especially the bolded letters. Yeah. Let me be and I discuss this. I mean, we three, I think, feel very strongly that in order to be responsible and not gamble with other people's money that stay below the 10% is the responsible thing to do and it's in compliance with the law. And it's the policy that's been set whether we like it or not. And we also think it's doable. I think the only thing we do by going over 10% is play text pair roulette with some pretty big numbers on the table. Obviously, that's the sentiment of two board members and our administration. This board could decide to do differently. I would caution the board not to, but I just want to put it out there that that these following options are made with the understanding that we do not want to blow past that 10% number and enroll that place. And can you clarify the 10% is 10% increase in budget or 10% change in tax rate? Neither 10% increase per weighted pupil for people. Okay. You want to go back to that one other side to show the highlighted which is actually I think quite less than a 10% overall budget. It's an 8%. So it's the the number in the blue that's highlighted nine point. I know it's kind of fuzzy for us here, Jill, but it's the number from education spending per per equalized pupil. See it? So that has to stay below 10% in order to not trigger the review, the tax review board. Okay. So idea one reminder. So the pie chart represents the 800,000. Okay. So the whole of the pie chart is 800,000. I do not have dollar figures in here. I figured out the dollars figures, obviously, to figure out the percentages and anybody who knows simple math can do it too. But there I put it with percentages, a reminder that our general budget is 80% salaries and benefits. Okay, so this idea one in this pie chart to get to $800,000 or very close to it would be to cut salaries and benefits by about 65% to increase revenue. When I say increase revenue, the board should remember that we have already said that we are going to use $400,000 of our fund balance in the FY 25 budget. So when I say increase revenue here, that's to add an additional amount of money on to that $400,000. We, Christina and I figured out today, we can't go really above another $200,000, according to policy, without making some other decisions. We could decrease transportation by about 7% and we could decrease the facilities budget by about 3%. Just to clarify, 800,000, you're not saying cutting salary and benefits by 65% of what they are right now. No, you're saying they would take up 65% of the 800,000. Yes, thank you. And then same for the other decisions. Okay. Does that make sense to everybody? But so this is, there's an infinite number of combinations. But you chose this one. There are three. Okay, those three, but I mean, like, how do you use 65.2% instead of 65%? Well, it's just the way the math worked out with the numbers that we came up with for the salaries. So we have ideas as to, as to which positions this would be. The administration obviously has talked that through. And so it equals out to that. So to do, sorry, to do idea number one, you'd need to cut a few positions and also increase revenue somewhere and also do something in transportation and facilities. Yes. And those things you're gonna say what they are, or maybe not during your budget presentation, they would Yeah. Yeah. These are broad ranging ideas now. So these broad ranging ideas you have, you can, you're not doing it right now, obviously, but you could, you can find a pathway, you know exactly what, how, where that revenue comes from, and where you're going to decrease the spending in each of these areas. Yes. I mean, not that we're going to do it, but this is a pathway that you Yes. But these are general buckets that we could take from in order to get to 800,000 and how they could make up the 800,000. Yeah. And Jake is right. There's infinite ways that we could slice this pie. We chose three to just give us something that is like to spark the conversation and then take the board is going to take it from that. Because like the next idea might have salary and benefits being a bigger percentage or something. It's kind of like you read my mind, Jake. It's kind of like you read my mind there. When you talked about the fund balance that we can use and other revenue, is that included or not included in this increase revenue would be taking more from the fund balance to put it towards our that's where that came from. Yeah, more than we're already planning to. Yes. So another idea for the board is that we could leave facilities alone and cut a smaller portion of the transportation budget, increase the revenue about the same and decrease salaries and benefits by 72.5%. The board could direct us to do that. A third idea would be to increase the decrease to further decrease the facilities budget by around 18%. We could make a large cut in our transportation budget by 28%. We could cut our school based budgets by 4 to 5% and have a smaller cut to our salaries and benefits and not touch your fund balance. More than we would already plan right more than we've already planned on the 400,000 so not put any more from the fund balance in can I just ask a quick question? The percentages that are presented in these bar graphs are the percentage of the overall budget for the percentage of change of the 800,000 that we need to find. Yeah, so where where those cuts? Could you clarify for me what cuts and facilities or transportation might mean? So with facilities and just be the facilities budget as a whole. So for instance, in why my cursor is not moving. So in this one where facilities is pretty small, that probably equates to about $22,000, right? So it means that we wouldn't do classroom renovations. Every year we do like three or four classroom renovations to get a new paint, new rubs and that kind of thing. We probably wouldn't do that for a year. You know, that's where that money would come from. If you did if we decided to do a larger cut from facilities, then it starts to talk about larger projects that are in the facilities budget. Committed funds or not like track? Are you talking track? Are you talking windows? Neither actually. They're in different they're in different pieces. None of these ideas touch the capital fund piece. And I'll tell you why. Because we're protected by that 5% cap. If we come under the 10% the windows need to be done. The roof on this building will probably need to be done. Those two projects are major capital expenditures. And so we believe for the next five years, we should keep that capital fund in place and then use it in FY 30 to save some money. But keep that capital fund going so that we can do those major renovations. But the board could say, actually, don't do that, don't do that. You know, we could say rather than cutting any school based budgets, let's not contribute to the capital fund in FY 25 is an example. I don't know if that I don't know if those are the exact same numbers, but the board could make that decision. So for this budget, we're looking at an $800,000 decrease in per people spending or however we want to say it. Did you guys come up with anything for the following year? No. Or and so is there is there a likelihood that there will be a similar cut for each year over the next five somewhere in this ballpark? Is not sure exactly what the ballpark will be. But yes, the board will be discussing. I think we need to get through this budget season. And then the board will be need to discuss a plan, a strategy for the next four years after that. But it's not it's not 800,000 from FY 24. It's 800,000 off of what you're thinking a couple weeks ago of what we need to function as of right now, your plan, your previous plan for FY 25. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you don't know the exact projections. I don't understand. But can you remind me what the trends and demographics are and what we're looking at in terms of numbers of students coming into our schools for the mean demographics or enrollment? Like number of kids? Yes. So number of kids right now, the trend is that we're decreasing slowly. We're not decreasing precipitously. We're decreasing slowly. And so the per pupil spending will slowly go up as the number of people slowly most likely depending on the kids that move in and the kids we lose and thinking about every year, we can pretty much guarantee that health insurance benefits are going to go up. And so far, we've made a commitment for not just FY 25, but FY 26 as well. I think Jim on our teacher, what our teacher's compensation is. In the contract that we just negotiated. No, we'll be renegotiating next year. Looking over Joe right there to make sure but we'll be renegotiating next year. So we obviously want to be in a position to we would like to, of course, but my point there being that in addition to pupils going down a little bit, our costs are going to keep going up, even the ones that we don't really have much control over. Yeah, and you know, and by the large the people count the downward trend there is this is a statewide event. I mean, for a while, I think it was one of the two districts that were either stable or increasing. Yeah, at our neighboring district, watch central is seeing a of actually a much steeper decline. Rep that decline. This past year was approximately 40. But that that's a bigger jump than is anticipated in the next couple years. Or is that that's about it's probably pretty simple. Something similar. That's that's a small trend. And another quick clarifying question. Let me think I heard you say something in reference to the fund balance. If we were to increase by more than 200,000 of a draw, there's something about policy that impacts that and that piece I didn't follow. Yeah, in one of the board's policies, it has a percentage of your general budget that has to remain that your fund balance has to remain at. And so I had Christina do the math on that today. And so in addition to the 400 with everything encumbered as it is, because that's what we have to work work with. The board could add an additional $200,000 ish to that $400,000 and you would be at the policy percentage with the incumbrances as they were three months ago. Yes. And is there any do we have any projections? I know the per pupil cost depends on the needs of the students. I mean, that's why it was established, right? And so what's our direction in that? I mean, we're not a Winooski. So we're, you know, they're getting a lot of high payment for students. Where are we on all of that? Where are we in terms of our students needs and what we're projecting our students needs to be or where are we in terms of our in terms of the weights? Well, the weights are determined by who moves moves or is in the district. Yes. And so do you expect that to be similar or do you expect any big changes on that in one direction? You know, I really couldn't tell you. I don't know if I could predict that or would feel comfortable predicting that. I don't I don't I don't know like Montpeliers and I feel like one Montpeliers in the state of flux right now and I'm not sure how it will all sugar out because of the flooding. Has it been fairly stable historically? Yes. Are English language learners have a big impact and even just losing a few or gaining a few can students remain English language learners after they've been in the system long enough to learn English? Not necessarily. So it's based on their score on on the Wida test, which is the English proficiency exam. And students fall in different categories and that the most basic, you know, is that they need a lot of support from an English language instruction to they're on watch or monitoring, you know, because they picked up enough English and they're they're doing pretty well with that to they no longer need services. So just because a kid is multilingual, for instance, we have lots of kids in our system who speak French at home and speak English in school and they don't qualify as a multilingual learner. So just the kids who need support with that instruction. I just wanted to do a little reminder of timeline and sort of process. And then it might be a good idea to open up public comment to see if members of the public have questions before the board continues discussion. I was thinking. So we have until mid January to vote on a budget. We're hoping to get a budget presentation like this is going to be this is the budget now the actual budget, not just pie graphs with big picture. Yeah, exactly. Draft one on December 13. Is that right? That's our goal. And which means that the administration could really really needs direction from the board by next Wednesday on in terms of like what are the big chunks? What are the big buckets and roughly how much should we go for from those buckets? So tonight's the night as board members and to hear from the community. What's off the table? What seems like the most reasonable and also questions like Miriam, I thought your question about like, well, what does that slice of the pie on transportation? What does it really represent? Could really help board members conceptualize to be able to next week give the administration the direction they need in order to actually put together draft one of the budget. Right. Oh, and then Emma had her hand. Let's give this to the board a few more minutes for questions. I think that basically the initial impression of the impact of Act 127, whatever that was now five weeks or something like that presented numbers to the community that cause a great deal of fear and dramatic responses. Is it possible for you to explain the difference between that prediction that there was going to be a whatever it was $3,000 tax increase on a $300,000 house if we did nothing or we went over the 10% and we gambled and lost with taxpayer money? That idea and then where we are now so that as we're talking about this, I feel like this is a it's a challenging to present. It appears that this looks like a 72% cut in salary and benefits. It doesn't say of the $800,000. I feel like it's really easy from the community for people to look at this and still really see red lights, red lights, red lights. So can you possibly take us from where we were when we were in real panic mode to kind of where we are now with the with the I mean, I know that's really tough. That's a hard one to ask for. But if it's possible to go from where we were there, which we're not at now kind of, we still have a lot of worries for the next four years next four budgets, but we're not nearly at that place where we were, I think. Yeah, I mean, I can get a little I mean, as I understand it, you know, yeah, I think big things like, I think, you know, from Roxbury's perspective, I think we are in a position where we can obviously have some time to think about what that means. You know, over the long term, I think we're going to have to have that discussion. I think we're going to put this in the year. But something like Roxbury is not hidden in these numbers. I think that's very fair to say. Yeah, my understanding is, you know, kind of from a from the, you know, kind of salary and benefits. We're talking bodies. And it's probably going to be not replacing some people and, you know, not making some hires for some positions that we have out there. And it's probably in the like, that'll be three to five, six range in terms of, of bodies. You know, transportation, I think, is anything from, you know, on the smaller end, the the after school bus to Roxbury, the one for, you know, for Roxbury students at MS or MHS that participate in extracurricular activities. And while that impacts some students, my understanding is that the ridership is pretty small and it's like 25 thousand for I think about three or four people. You know, and I think all these cuts are unfortunate because if that means that someone from Roxbury isn't able to participate in something that's really enriching their lives, that's a big loss. On the other hand, it's $25,000 for a low ridership cost or for the ridership bus to reducing busing, basically just UES in Montpelier. And then the bus that takes, you know, the Roxbury kids from MS, MS to MHS, you know, during regular school hours. So and, you know, from the revenue side, it's kind of the $400,000 that I think we're already planning to move over into the budget to place that. The other, what's the other piece? Facilities. I think that just means kicking some projects down the road, which you're going to have to happen. Yeah. Well, I think the other piece of your question, Rhett, is that when we started this project, when we started this process, it's kind of is a project too. But this process, Christina and I were given information about which numbers to use. And that information changed from one week to the next. And when it changed, then numbers change, right? So in any budget process, our numbers are going to change throughout the process. We get good news, we get bad news, we get a mix of medium size news, we get all kinds of things. But the first time we presented to the board, we had been told to use numbers that were very drastic to our budget. We got asked for and got clarity between that board meeting and the next board meeting to use a different number, which was the chart we showed you today. So that is the major change. I do want to say though, that as numbers keep coming into our budget, the original estimate was that we were having to cut 1.2 million. Now we have to cut 800,000. Still a lot. That's still a lot of money. Yeah. And one other number changed just before we go around. When we came last week, originally thought we're going to have two million of baked in costs. When we recalculated and kind of looked at it, it was largely kind of a salaries and benefits thing, just looking at where people were on our scale. It turns out we actually had a lot more baked in costs. So it was more like 2.8 million. So that 1.2 million could actually be 2 million with a new number. So we had our baked in costs increased while our need to cut decreased. I mean, I don't want to take too much time and I apologize. I just I think the original, the idea that there were these dramatic cuts that needed to happen was based on a scenario where, and I just want the public to be aware of this because I've heard people have written, if my taxes go up this much, I'm going to have to leave my failure. And that was based on a scenario that was pretty unlikely in the first place. And then we've heard things that from Roxbury, I heard that there are closing schools in Stowe. I mean, people take small bits of information and they get blown up. And so I just want the community to be aware that the most dramatic cuts that we were talking about for this budget cycle a couple of weeks ago were based on a situation where we would essentially gamble, right, allow the budget to increase as it normally would without making any adjustments. And then the Board of Education would review whether or not our spending was excessive. And in that case, the community members would be responsible for all of the increase there. And that was never very likely. And so I just want people to be aware that that scenario was was was very much a very much worst case possibility that is also part an important part to think of to guide our thinking. Because I don't want anyone to sort of and it's impossible to completely prevent. But I think that the worst case scenario was always very, very unlikely. And now is much less likely. But we still have a very dramatic problem over the next five budgets. I can appreciate that. This is complicated. Yeah, it's not. It's not. This is kind of where we came to at the last meeting. The red flags went up because there were really frightening prospects out there. And what else can you or we do then be as transparent as possible. But I also want people to be aware that those those were very, very unlikely scenarios that were going to lead to those very, very dramatic tax increases for people, even then, and far less likely now, although we do have a lot of hard work to do. I think we received the clarification we needed in order to use the numbers that the agency was using and the tax department was using. We didn't have that clarification. Well, yeah, and we still have this situation that if we were to not cut enough and or put enough extra revenue in and we were at we did end up more than 10% of in per people spending above this year's scenario using the new numbers, there is a chance that all of our taxpayers would hold the entire bill and would not have the tax rate capped by the state, which is why my encouragement is that we don't go there and we just stick with they gave us they gave us the instructions. Let's follow the instructions. Let's understand the assignment, as the kids say. So I mean, I struggle with making, you know, giving direction now on a one year, a one year projection, not taking into account the other four years. And so I want to understand better sort of what is likely to happen to these numbers next year and the year after and the year after before being able to signal to the administration, which direction we should head in, including the thought experiment of what does it look like if we just present a budget that is we have added nothing new except for these few grant positions that were grant funded. And if we go over by the $800,000, which would put us above the 10%, did we run numbers on what how that would impact the tax rate? So I see 1.548. If we stay under the 10%. Yes, we have run those down. So one thing for the board to consider is, and Christina jump in here, if I say it wrong, with Christina's understanding, if 127 had been in effect last year, our budget would have had to be $2 million less to have the same tax rate as we did last year. So if you think about it that way, we're starting in a $2 million hole, essentially, right? So we're adding to our tax rate was this way this year, where the difference is $2 million dollars each year, we're going to be adding to that to keep. And if we want a similar ish tax rate, which I don't know if it will be possible or not. But if we want a similar ish tax rate, then we're going to have to have a plan to continue to decrease that increase lower the increase over time in order to do that. So if we were to put what everything in, we needed the tax increase. I mean, I hate to even say this based on what you know, just the conversation rat was saying because it it makes it more scary would be around 22% increase if we and that would be a 13.26% increase per equalized people. So can you tell me based just so that I can compare apples to apples? So the number that I'm looking at is $1.55, basically, if we round up. Did you run the numbers on what that tax rate would be? We didn't go all the way down to the bottom for that. Okay. Because it's basically like an 18.67 versus 22%. Yeah, right. But it's not because the 18 would be capped. Yeah, so that 18 would not come true. The ad fund would make up the difference between whatever the money is for 5% and 18%. So my understanding is that there's this trajectory out five years, and that at some point, we're going to have to see that bump, the 18% bump ish. So that's in the charts and you are spending in the way if we continue the same amount of spend. Right. So it feels sort of like a now or a later proposition, like we either accept that, you know, we pay more in this first year, or we're going to pay more in the fifth year in 2030, or we're going to cut our budget by an amount of money that nobody really wants to talk about or stomach. Want to give your three scenarios that you were giving to the legislators? Oh, yeah, the way that the map works out on the broad level is we either and we probably have to do all three of these things cut, cut a lot from the budget, increase taxes, or get more students in the into our classrooms. So those are the those are the three things we have the next five years to do right at the at the very high level. Yeah. I mean, I think the risk of just doing that now are several one. I think if we do it more gradually over time, it's less dramatic to everything. It's less dramatic to the school system is less dramatic to the tax payers. Three, it doesn't give the legislature any time and other being count on this, but certainly if we cut our heads off now, we can't count on it doesn't give the legislature any time to deal with the problem. They've got five years to do this problem now. There's many districts that are in the same place. And when one of the big one of the interesting things laws is what the law is doing, and I hope the legislature understands this. It's not just putting our district in a bad position, but the advantage districts are looking at this, this, you know, drop in the yield drop in the end fund. Yeah, and they're getting money for the purpose of spending more money on pupils. But some of them are saying we're not going to spend any more money because this this bump is going to hit us too. So we're just going to keep things level. So that way, you know, we don't have a tax hit either. So the law is very poorly designed. And we've got some smart people in the legislature who I think are going to look at this and try to put something in place. So I think if we, if we roll the dice this year with that, we could have a huge hit that we might be able to avoid the whole time. I do find it unlikely that the secretary of the agency of education would see a budget that has no additions other than the grant funded positions and call that unreasonable spending. So it feels, you know, the analogy is a gambling analogy, but it feels like a pretty safe bet that it would not be deemed excessive. I think that I'm not going to even venture to guess what a secretary who has not been hired yet would say in administration that has not been education friendly, they could be looking at some, for instance, which was mentioned to us by a legislator. Oh, the teachers received an 8% increase that could be considered excessive. Do we consider it excessive? No, we gave the teachers or the board rather gave the teachers that 8% salary increase. But that's a major part of this challenge right now, right? So but that could be deemed excessive. Because that was within the board's control. Jill has to. Oh, I just real quick, I really appreciate how you have laid this out, because it's not line by line item by item, which starts to get really we start to get in the weeds. This is like very much suggesting the big picture and I can I can easily figure out how much of 800,000 each of these are. So I just I wanted to say that I really appreciate how this is written out. And I do want definitely want to put my stake in the ground that my position, I feel like we need to leverage that cap. And so I like bumping as close up as we can to the 10% realistically, we're still having to make up an $800,000 cut. But I think we need to leverage that cap that is in place for the five years. I think it would that's that's where I'm at. Yeah, basically, same thing. The 5% cap. We really want to be in that group. Because it provides some protection that fund can all kinds of things can happen. Non property tax sources to that fund can tank real estate for some reason could dive and that that would expose anyone who's not protected. So if you're protected by the 5% rate change, a year over a year, it actually gives you some some protection. And it's a it's a super weird situation this year, where, you know, the disadvantaged districts actually may be advantaged, because they're getting this protection, whereas the disadvantaged districts such as Burlington and Winooski, they're actually going to be exposed over the next four years to all kinds of things that are outside of their control. And the reason why you say that, Jake, and correct me if I don't have this right, if we if our tax number came in at 4%, like right now, it's an 18%. But if it came in at 4%, which is really easy for an advantaged district to do because of the amount that they could add, then the 5% rule doesn't exist anymore. That protection goes away is what you're saying. They don't need it. And you have to join the group in year one. That's the only time you can join. That's right. You can't join it later. And if you ever don't reach the 5%, you're out of the group. So there is some weird stuff in the law. Meaning we couldn't go over. We couldn't go over the 10% this year without the 5% protection and then next year decide to stay within. Correct. You're not eligible for the 5% cap after we go over if we go over the 10% it's usable is it? Gotcha. Can someone explain to me that so I'm not understanding how we would have to cut a similar amount or or not spend a similar amount every year, like let's call it $800,000. So next year, wouldn't the 10% cap be based on this year's number? Yeah. And so why why is it likely that we would have to reduce the budget by $800,000 again next year? Just cost of living $800,000. But because of cost increases, we'd have to decrease again and people decreases. But we dug ourselves out of the $2 million sort of whole that from last year. If we if we do it according to this plan, we dig ourselves out of the deficit. Why would we then be looking at how we dug ourselves out of the deficit? By cutting $800,000. That doesn't get rid of $2 million, though. So so we're going to be cutting until we hit a $2 million point and then we would be sort of level funded with fiscal year 24. The way it's your speaking is in absolutes. So I worry about that, right? Because I don't want, you know, information. I don't want misinformation to get out there. We don't know exactly what we have to cut. But the $2 million dollar piece that I was referring to. Yes. Or earlier is from FY is 24 budget. It was $28,608 dollars in change, right? So in order to have the same taxing impact from this year's budget, FY 24, that number would need to be 26,608, right? But it's not. It's 28. And so if you think about it going from 26 to 30 million is a $4 million increase in we're still having to cut $800,000. Right. But our whole list now $4 million dollars, not to. So the $800,000 cut isn't making up any of the difference that we quote unquote lost if, if Act 127 was in place for FY 24. It's not making up any of that 2 million. It's simply getting us below the 10%. So it would be interesting for me to see and I know that it's all hypothetical and based on a lot of unknowns, but it would be interesting for me to see at least one more fiscal year of like comparing what would it look like to move into the next fiscal year if like FY 26, if the 10% you know factoring in the 10% I just really don't think we could give you even a hypothetical other than it would be so hypothetical. We don't know what the raises would be for the teachers. We don't have an idea of who will be here and who will not be here. It would be very hypothetical. I mean, simple exponential growth idea will tell us that our budget will continue to grow and we're going to, you know, we're starting in a whole. Basically, what you're saying there's a $4 million hole to dig out of over the next five years. And if we do $800,000 a year, it's roughly, it roughly gets us there. I didn't say $800,000 a year. I said we're going to need to think about cutting or increasing revenue across the next four years in some sort of strategy. In the way you're working out there, Emma, I think the uns, the implied part there is if the tax rate were to remain the same. Yeah. That's the, because that's the reason that we're giving this sort of like scenario of it last, this current FY24 budget needed to be, would have needed to be $2 million less than it currently is in order for the tax rate to be the exact same in FY24 as it was, as it is actually. And so the other reason that it's hard to do the hypothetical is that the tax rate is actually going to increase every single year because it's just a 5% cap. It's not a 0% cap that the state is offering us. If we stay below that 10% per pupil increase, we only will increase our taxes by 5% before the CLA. So no matter what, for the next five years, our taxpayers are going to see their taxes go up. We're just the reason that we're focusing on this 800,000 for this year is because it's the numbers that we know that will keep us to a 5% tax rate increase rather than an 18% or bigger. And let's be honest, we have not raised taxes 5% for five years. And remember, it's not 5%. It's 5% divided by the CLA. 5% divided by the CLA. So it could be even a little bit more than that. It could be more than that. But I think that's why, Emma, it's hard to do. I think it's why it's hard to figure out what you're trying to figure out because it's not just that 800,000 dollars is chipping away at the whole. It's if we did it every single year, it's more like when we look at this year in order to be able to meet those rules that are in the law, that's why we've that's why the 800,000 dollars matters. So it's not quite, we can't quite project out. Oh, OK, it's going to be 800,000 dollars every year for the next five years because we don't know it yet. Yeah, I'm not asking for like an exact number. Just sort of like more of a like how Christina presented a graph a couple of meetings ago and there was sort of this like projected trajectory of how it could look. And I mean, I'm happy to look at numbers that are very hypothetical just to get some sense because I feel like I'm operating at a deficit. And that graph was incredibly hypothetical. Yes. I was adding two million dollars in each year. Come up here. They can't hear you online if you're sitting over there. Yeah, the graph of the tax rates has added two million dollars to the budget each year. Right. As a rough guess. Sowering benefits. And we must have some historic data on like roughly what the increase is there. I've looked at that and it's tricky. You can stay right there. That's fine. So you can participate. You might have some more questions. We need you. That's what she's trying to say. She loves that I've gotten to know her better in the last two months of school. So I have looked at that and it's tricky because we were in COVID for two years of it. So the average is tricky. We average, I think, about 1.4 million additional each year to our general budget. Without any added positions or anything like that. No, that's with what we've decided. What what budgets we made, which added positions and things like that over the over the last six years, certainly, it averages out to be about 1.2 to 1.4 million a year. Yeah, we are also in a year where it's very old-served and we're very happy about it. The teachers have gotten an adjustment more than kind of the, you know, yeah, I mean, we've usually we've usually had teacher salary increases in the three to 3.5 range and now we have an 8% increase. So we're more than twice what we've historically had. Christina, the health insurance alone, you told me that number today. 16%. I know, but what did it equal to for dollars? It was like 3 million or something like that. Just on the health. And dollars, just on health insurance. Just for health care this year. Just paying health insurance. So look for that point in the morning. Yeah. Scott, could you give your hand up and then Jill has her hand up. So I just wanted to pause for a moment and say to Rhett, I'm very sympathetic to the concerns that you raised. I think it's very, it's difficult because of all of the uncertainty, right? There's a lot of things that we're not sure of. We're trying to make our best guesses. And then there are other things that we're very sure of, right? And I think it's important for us and I'll throw myself under the bus and say like it's important for us to choose our words carefully. I think I was the one last time, or two meetings ago talking about pitchforks, which again in hindsight was poor, very poor choice of words. But I'm not gonna wanna point fingers, but to make statements like an increase, will impact all of our taxpayers is just we know to be incorrect, right? Many of our taxpayers are cushioned by the, thank you very much. But they'll still see an increase. It'll just be a mitigated one. I think that's important to say. Like just because you have income sensitivity to your property taxes does not mean that it stays static. Absolutely, but it's an oversimplification to say someone with a $300,000 house will pay an increase of X number of dollars because there is no single amount that will change. It's not based on the value of the house alone. And so it's more nuanced. And I think, again, I and we all can be very careful in the words that we use to describe the potential changes so that we're not setting up a scenario where we're misquoted by saying, so and so on the board said that my taxes are gonna go up by $10,000 next year. So and so on the board said we're gonna close Roxbury, right? When I know nobody said we're closing Roxbury, yet that was a perception held by some of our residents. And so yeah, it's a challenge I know. And I know we're all balancing a lot of difficult and complex scenarios. And so yeah, I appreciate it. And I will be the first one to say, I'll choose my words better next time. I had a question also. There are currently positions that in this year's budget that are unfilled, if I remember correctly. I think we have one math position that is unfilled at the middle school. I believe that's it. And so you made reference before to not filling anticipated openings. And so I'm curious, like if we're talking about cutting salary, but we're not talking about cutting everyone's salary, we're talking about particular positions that may not be filled. And so yeah, I think it would be helpful as we move forward to get a better understanding of when we say we're gonna reduce X number from salary benefits. But that simply means not replacing people versus cutting it. That's not what I would say. I wouldn't say that absolute. That is a possibility for some positions. There are some, we will fill the math position. We couldn't this year. That's not a choice for us. So in the first pie chart I showed you, that number represents approximately 5.5 FTE across three unions and non-unionized staff. So it is not directed towards one union. It's not directed towards, it's across our entire staff. And that's 5.5 FTE of people that would be in those positions if not for the cuts, or it's just not replacing 5.5 FTE. I'm not suggesting we have the answer tonight, but for me- There are lots of scenarios. So there are some scenarios that there are positions that the administrative team could say we could riff that position. For instance, the board has known since last year that the way enrollment looks at Union Elementary School, we will have one too many teachers there. So one position that's in that 5.5 is a K6 licensed educator because there isn't a need for it with our class size policy. And that was known last year. We riffed one FTE last year there. We knew we were gonna riff another one this year. So that is a position that is currently had right now and it would be ripped. There's another position in there that we could potentially not fill. There's retirement savings in there. There's other pieces we had and salaries and benefits. There's reducing some from a 1.0 to a 0.5 potentially. There's lots of different scenarios in there that they admit. If we know the ballpark from the board is to like do this kind of ballpark pie chart, then we've got our priorities in place and we're ready to move on it because Christina's not gonna have a whole lot of time to put it together. So we've got our priorities lined up. We just need the direction because it's $800,000 is a lot of money. And that's the nuance that I love. And so knowing that whatever 65.2% equals five and a half FTE, that's the piece that- Plus retirements and that kind of thing. Yeah, those are the additional pieces that will be really helpful as we get further into the budget building process. I think you can ask those questions tonight. Yeah, I think this is the night to ask those questions. So you could go through that whole pie chart and go, what does this represent? Please, because next week we have to give the direction. Next week we don't have time to be like, I need more information. But we also did promise the public we would open up to public comment but Jill also had her hand open. Yes, no, Jill. And then I think we can open up. But just before I go, that's exactly- That's a great question. Like, when you think about the remaining time tonight, what do you need conceptually to come in and kind of feel comfortable? Like, you know, if we're gonna say, hey, cut as much from transportation as you want because you've thought about it and said, you know, hey, I think at this period of hypothetical, this is not representative at all, I think at all. But I've decided that I would rather have middle school kids walk than take, you know, another teacher out of the class or out of the school. You know, those type of things. Like, I am okay deferring facilities for a year if it means we have another year to have a teacher and kind of think about what that means. So, you know, think, you know, ask those questions so you can kind of get the clarity. So it's just not little colored wedges on a graph. Joe. Yeah, that's sort of where I was going. I want us to kind of move on and start to actually give you because I think we know what we know is what we know. And so I'd love to sort of dig into this. And I found it helpful to translate the percentages into dollar amounts, so I'm not thinking about it. You know, like it's really easy to conflate the two. And I'm liking ideas one in three to my, you know, quick review. I don't like any of this first. We don't, cutting is not the nice part of the budget, but in the one hand, you know, idea one sort of spreads the pain a little bit, but I'm not sure we would have continued money to take from the FUDBAN balance similar to how the legislature had money in the ed fund. And so that's how our tax rate stayed a little lower last year, but that's gone, I think, or is about to be gone. So I don't, so that might get us through this year with less pain because we'll have that, but I'm not sure that's a five year solution. So that's one question I had. And then three, you know, similarly, it kind of spreads the pain a little more. I really don't want, I think a priority for me personally is I don't want to cut direct instruction positions if at all possible, but I am very curious to know what cutting over 200,000 of transportation looks like and what the facility's 18% like what that looks like. But that being said, in contrast to the first one where there's the fund balance, 200 grand from the fund balance, if we cut transportation in year one drastically, then that's, am I right understanding that we're not gonna then put it back next year, and then two years. So like that would be a continued, I don't want to say savings, but it would be a continued change in our budget for the five years, because we would be cutting that out of our budget this year and it would not be back in the future, right? Okay, thank you. So for that, for idea three, that chunk of money from transportation, transportation's easy to think about because there's not many options there, right? So what that would represent is Roxbury Village School Transportation, the Roxbury Lake bus, not the bus to get kids to and from Montpelier from Roxbury, but the Lake bus and middle school transportation that was added in sixth year. The first one you said, you. The Village School. There's one that takes Roxbury students within the village, as opposed to the one that just goes back and forth. Oh, okay, that's gonna say. I don't know how we're gonna get all of them all here. No, no, no. That stays, that's what that big green chunk so it represents the village route, the later bus for Roxbury students and then all of middle school. Yes, okay. So it's here from Jake. Lynn, let's open up to the public and let us come back and. You know, I, if I might say, I'd love to hear what all your questions are before you ask for a public comment. I don't know what the rest of the public, that would give you more information. Let's do that. Let's get with kind of the note of like some specific, why don't we ask questions, but let's try to direct our questions to like specific things you'd like to know about these pie charts. I mean, can Libby just read off like what each scenario is? So it's like starting with the first one, 2.8% in facilities, what that represents? Is that? That's basically my question. There's stories behind all these. I can't make any decisions based on the pie charts, although I do love pie charts, but I need to know what like the 5.5 FDEs, here are the possibilities. I need the qualitative stuff to make any decision and based on the pie charts, I don't have any direction to recommend. I'm not gonna go into detail around people's positions because each one, like I won't, I'm not gonna go into exactly what the position is for each of those because there's a person behind that position that could cause undue stress and I don't wanna cause that. So I can say F.5.5 FTE across the district. That's great. That's better than 65 or whatever percent. But also you said that there was declining enrollment at UES, which we knew about and that we did a reduction in force, a riff last year in the budget and that it was sort of, the writing was on the wall to probably do another one this year. And so that's something that we already sort of were grappling with. And then you said there might be some retirement. So if people retired, there would be savings there and that would be included in that 5.5? Yes, and we are offering our retirement incentive to our AFSCME union members and our hopefully MREA union members, but Joe and I haven't actually come to agreement on that yet so we've offered that for the last couple of years. So Joe and I are talking about that tomorrow. And then I think, would you be able to tell us if they were like instruction position? You know, like Jill said. I'm not gonna go there. Because they're all over the place. Right. And every position we have, I would say is an important position. And it's somebody who works very hard in that position. So it's about 5.5 FTE across our district is what? 65%? Yeah, scenario one. Yeah. And then what are the salary and benefits for idea two? What does that slice of the pie represent? I still have a question about. I have a salary and benefits question in general, but I can wait till you do pie two or whatever, but I wanna go back. I wanna go through the pie charts and again, I think. Okay, so if I'm sticking in idea one there, I can share my screen again. Yeah, that would be great because then the folks at home can see it too. Okay, so if I'm on idea one, again salary and benefits there equals around 5.5 positions. Some of them we've known as Emma just pointed out some maybe from retirement savings. And others the administration has kind of prioritized just thinking about the situation that we're in. Facilities equals about $22,000. That would probably be, as I said earlier, kind of a couple of room renovations that we do every year. They just wanna be done. We'd save that money, we just wanna do it. In terms of transportation, that is mainly the Roxbury late bus and the Roxbury village school after school bus, which has low ridership as the board sees in the policy monitoring document on transportation time. And then the increased revenue is approximately $200,000 from the fund balance that is in addition to the $400,000 Christina's already, or the board I guess is already encumbered for FY25. There's a bus that leaves the after school program. Is that what you mean? No, after school is out in between after school and school. There's consistently low ridership on that. When school ends to take kids home. This doesn't include the one that brings them to school but it includes the one that would bring them home at the end of the day because maybe some of them stay, probably most of them stay at the after school. It's a very low ridership. Because the after school program in Roxbury is extremely important. I mean, not for our budget, not for these purposes, but for families in Roxbury, it's a big deal. That's what I mean. There's low ridership in the after school bus, or afternoon bus. Libby, can you give the amounts in money for transportation and salary and benefits? $2,200 for transportation and a little over $521,000 for salary and benefits. Sorry, what was the salary again? $521,600. Anyone feel free? Thank you. Is this the time to ask a question about salary and benefits or do you want me to wait? Go ahead. Okay, so I'd like you to talk about buyout. And I don't know how beneficial that is to a district, except I do know that you can, for a fee, you can get rid of a very high salary person. You can encourage a person to reach a higher salary person. Like, go to the district for many years and offer their blood sweat tears to us for many years. Yes, Lynn? But I don't know about the, you know, how actually beneficial it is to a district in the short run to do that. So by our numbers, it is a little bit more beneficial in the long run, you're correct there. But by our numbers, if everyone took the buyout deal that we offer to MREA and AFSPY, then we were talking approximately $100,000 of savings this year. And how many positions is that? I mean, you had to guess something to get that number right. Yeah, I don't have that right in front of me. And is that on the table as an option? AFSPY has already agreed to the thing. And as I said, I have a meeting with Joe just tomorrow to talk about the one to MREA. Knowing my colleagues in the MREA, I don't know if we'll get that kind of. Enthusiastic. Yeah, yeah. Kristen has a question, she's... Oh, we can't see it. Hi, you ready? Oh, hello. I'm sorry, I'm not in the room. It's really challenging not to be there tonight, but that's just reality for me tonight. So I just wanted to get a clarification. The decrease in transportation ideal line of advice at 0.9% involves the rock spirit, the RDS bus that takes kids home at the end of the school day. Okay, and that's the old... Nope, in addition to the late bus from Montpelier to Roxbury. Okay, thank you. Yes, one thing is this will ridership at the end of the school day currently. And then also my understanding is the after school program is being currently run via a outside grant that is only through the end of this school year. And at this point, we don't have a known funding source to continue the after school program next year. And I think what we've heard from part two who offers the program in Montpelier that RDS isn't considered a viable site for them. So that's just something I would certainly wanna keep in mind that that bus would likely become extremely relevant if there's no after school program at the school. Yes. The other idea for an after school program at RDS is that it could run as it is now, but parents would have to pay for it. Parents currently don't have to pay for it. So the revenue would offset the costs. Yep, got it, thank you. And then just as a follow up, I think it could be helpful online and on our computers and paper if after the meeting, is it possible for us to get these ideas kind of with these more built out details in terms of costs and just specifics so that we can really sit with this open in the next seven days. I'm gonna say again that I really hesitate to do that because then things become etched in stone in people's mind and that's how misinformation spreads. So I wanna reiterate that these are just ideas of what a kind of spreading of cuts and revenues could look like. And that's really what we need from the board is an idea of where to look at, to look more in facilities, to look more in transportation, to look more in salaries. Where would we look the most, you know, that kind of thing? And then I feel safe offering this up because you've mentioned it so many times. Any board member could do a follow up conversation with Libby because we are the ones who are going to need to be giving this direction in a week. Any board member between today and next Wednesday could have a follow up conversation with Libby to be like, walk me through this one more time. Yeah, absolutely. If I move to idea two. Can I just ask one, I have one more question. Sorry, has there been any calculus in terms of what the cost of the after school program would be and the cost to families? Yes, there has, but I'm gonna hold off on that, Kristen, because that's not the purpose of this meeting tonight. I understand it just feels definitely connected to, you know, in terms of access and how if it's a prohibitive cost, which I imagine the effort would be that the cost would not be prohibitive, but it certainly seems connected to, you know, the value of that. Yeah, we understand that. And we've done that math. We're just not prepared to share it today. Okay, so an idea to the increased revenue is the same. It's approximately $200,000 additional to the $400,000 we've already planned. Transportation would be smaller. So what that transportation slice represents is just the late bus from Montpelier to Roxbury. And then the salaries and benefits would be greater and that looks at approximately eight positions, seven positions, seven, eight positions, and is also starting to look at things like clubs and co-curriculars to do that largest flight. Not all of them, obviously, but some of them, yes. What does it mean to look at clubs and co-curriculars? Like there wouldn't be a position available to oversee the club or the co-curriculum. Right. On the salary and benefits, I know that you can't do details, but could you just say if you're envisioning, like if it includes a classroom teacher versus an administrative position, you know, non-classroom teacher. That's the differentiation that I'm interested in. The, this would have a potential cut in non-unionized positions and unionized positions. Is that true about the other one too? Yes. Are unionized positions classroom teachers? Yes. Okay, and what's the balance? Also, there are instructional assistants that are unionized, custodians are unionized, technology integrationists or technology people are unionized, administrative assistants, all of those positions are unionized. Yeah, most of the folks in our building are unionized. We have actually very few people who are not unionized. Like, who's not unionized? Administrators, certain people like the people who work in Christina's office, Anna is not unionized, Heather's not unionized. So there's other people around. There are very few of those. I don't know, I feel like I'm asking you to say something that you're not allowed to say or something, but like. I don't have the exact number you're looking for. Oh, okay. So I can figure it out, but I would rather not. I'm not prepared to do that tonight. So I know exactly what you're asking me. I don't have that information exactly because this is a large chunk. And we have a dug, like for idea two, we haven't dug that far into it. At some point in the budget process, like once we sort of give you a nod in one direction or another, you're gonna be presenting numbers that do show a little more detail about like which positions would be cut, like if it was at UES or if it was at middle school, if it was a classroom teacher or, right? You hear them based on the unionized category, not the building necessarily, but sometimes it matches. And at that point, if there was some huge red flag for the board that we disagreed with, there would still be time to change that. Yeah, in draft, in draft number one, good point. You will see the bulleted list done in the language that they're called in the contract. So I personally feel comfortable with more broad strokes in terms of the information that we're getting tonight, 5.5 FTEs, it's across the board, some of it is retirement, some of it is classroom teacher where enrollment is low, and then in the next iteration of the budget presentation, we'll have more information that we can then. You will, yeah. That's a good point. Yeah, thank you. And that's the idea, and I think not to project what I think is in Libby and Christine's head, but I think that these are kind of, I think they have rough sketches of where some of these cuts are gonna come from, but don't have the exact details. And I don't think are prepared to share the exact details for a writer's one. I'm not sure they've totally settled on them to, as soon as you start to throw out things that get specific, then we get in the situation, I think we were in last week, like, oh my God, they're doing X. Yeah, and when I'm talking about reductions in force, I keep mentioning Joe, not just because he's in the room, but Joe is the union president, and I will have those conversations with him, and with Corey Pulsifer, who's the instructional assistant union president, and Catherine, not only is, like I will have those conversations prior to that information becoming public, because the community is not the first to know that, right? The people who are most affected is the first to know that. So when you say clubs and co-curriculars, that there's, those are, those are, there's an extra, like, let's say we have a Quidditch club. And this would be- Please don't give any ideas. That's a good example. We would not be paying Professor McGonigal to coach the Gryffindor team for the Quidditch club. We'd be taking the McGonigal cycle away. Right, Oliver Wood would have to do that as well. I think he could do it. That's the most relatable analogy I've heard all the time. You're right on. So I think we're on the 25% increase revenue, or no, we're down lower, 18% facilities. Yeah, so we go to number three. So 18% facilities would be, again, renovations and classrooms. It equals out to 144,000? Approximately 140,000. Could be 44 with my chicken scratch. We'd also be deferring maintenance there. But again, not things that are within the capital plan. Right? Things that the regular budget pays for. Yes, the local budget. Yes. That's a really quick question about facilities. Whatever happened, was there ever infrastructure as our money, or is that old news now? The infrastructure bill that was supposed to come that was promised to us, and promised to us, that is not, okay, that is not come to fruition. Sorry. The salaries and benefits, obviously it's about 50%, so it's about $400,000. It's back to the same kind of thing. Same kind of idea that we were in from idea one. School-based budgets, so each principle is in charge of a school-based budget, so that 4.4% would be about $10,000 coming off the top of any school-based budget, so principles would be in charge of figuring out what that means. Rock Spurs would be $5,000 instead of $10,000 because their school-based budget is much smaller. And then the transportation, the big chunk in the transportation would be Roxbury's late bus, the total bus at Roxbury Village School, as well as Main Street Middle School Transportation. So it would be moving back to, for Montpelier, it'd be moving back to where we were when I took this job. Montpelier Res student, Main Street Middle School Transportation, Roxbury students would still get, I have a bus to Main Street Middle School. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And deferred maintenance potentially has... Serious consequences. Yeah, costs down the road. So unlike some of these transportation cuts, which continue to be sort of helpful in the next couple budgets, that one can potentially deferred maintenance, the specific aspect of the facilities part would potentially come back to hurt us more within the five years, even potentially. Yeah, exactly. So this is exactly the transportation. You can stop busing middle school kids and then the financial situation changes in five years. You can start busing them with no cost. If you don't do that like $10,000 repair and like the rot spreads, it could become like a $70,000 repair in five years. Yeah. So in the first two ideas, we've got an additional, the increased revenue exists and it's an additional 200,000 from fund balance to basically general budget. It's not in the third idea. If we're talking about $800,000, there is the option of saying the board could vote to unencumber the money to update the track. And use a little less than half of it to fill this hole. It's something we could decide to do. Yes. But we probably don't wanna do that just in year one because it would be, then it's gone. We don't get to use it again. It's sort of like the inverse of what Rhett just said. Whereas if we do deferred maintenance, then the costs are creeping up. But if we throw a bunch of savings, if we throw a bunch of money at the problem right now is basically use up our savings, then we can't do it when we no longer have that 5% cap. So I'm guessing that's why that's not option four. Well, the two reasons. One, the board hasn't given me the direction that that's possible because that money's encumbered right now. Right. And two, I firmly think that there's going to be a tax increase in five years, some sort of cliff, if you will, in five years and we're going to want to have that money available to strategically use it. Then. Then, yeah. Can you explain why, if we were to, so it's two things, and I hate when I get garbage mouth and say too much because it dilutes my points. But first of all, if we're looking at one budget at a time because we can't predict what the circumstances are for the next year's budget, then it's tough. I don't know how to make a four year plan. Number one. Two, why is it that if you cut something like 800,000 to a million dollars essentially in a year by year basis that you would be looking at a cliff at the end of the five years? Because we're starting in a $2 million hole. And the 5% cap goes away. Yeah. I'm still. Yeah, it's the other thing to consider and Jake, jump in here. It's really hard to wrap your head around. Jump in here if you think I'm saying something wrong, please to correct me. So my understanding is that as of right now, with the information we know right now and I know just enough to be dangerous about the revenue sources that go into the Education Fund, okay, I do not know all the things that go into the Education Fund or all the possibilities the legislature could use to make sure the Education Fund is solid. Jake probably knows that way better than I do. The, as the Education Fund is being used for more pupils, because there's more weights, and for this five year hold harmless kind of clause that they put in there, right, so we're not the only districts that's gonna be using more of that Education Fund. Lots of districts around the state will be. The Education Fund could potentially, unless there's some action taken, start to deplete. When there's less money in the Education Fund, the dollar yield continues to drop, which is what you saw between last year and this year. And so when the dollar yield drops, taxes go up. So right now we, being superintendents and boards, quite honestly, have not been given reasons to believe that that Education Fund will be solidified in some way through legislative action, which I believe is the only way it can be. Things can be changed through legislative action. Is that accurate, Jake? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So we don't know what that could be. That could happen, right, in order to keep the dollar yield kind of stable, right? Which would be delightful. Which, that's what we want. And when we met with legislatures, Jim, me and I, that was one of the things that we talked to them about was that we need your commitment to stabilize that Ed Fund to stabilize the dollar yield. Like that's what we need you to do right now. And so without understanding how the legislature's going to do that, however, I need to assume on your behalf that the dollar yield is gonna continue to drop, which means that's the other factor in the five-year cliff, right? It's not just our general budget that's gonna influence it. The dollar yield's gonna influence it, which could be much lower than it is now. The other thing that's gonna influence it is CLA, and I'll look to Jill this time for CLA accuracy, it's that CLA's are done every 10 years-ish, no? No, what is it? What is it here? Re-appraisals are done every 10 years-ish. Re-appraisals, thank you. Re-appraisals are done every 10 years-ish. Montpelier's reappraisal was just done. So five years from now, we will be halfway through that reappraisal, which we can assume will decrease. The CLA will decrease. Across the five years. And so that is also when the CLA decreases, taxes increase. That is another factor that all of those will be in play, that it's another reason why when Emma says, I wanna see numbers like that, like it's another reason why we can't predict it, because I can't predict what the dollar yield and the CLA are gonna do. Is that accurate? My tax experts at the table? I'm the only superintendent, by the way, who has not one, but two tax experts at the table. Lucky. Really quick, I just, there's been a couple of folks asking about like the four years, five years looking, and I think what we do have, I do think depending on which idea we gravitate towards, we are picking a lane a bit, right? So if we, the positions that we would end up being cut are not gonna come back next year, the transportation is not gonna come back. So I do think we do have that level of like, for knowing what we do know, we are gonna have to make that kind of lane we're not gonna wanna do, well, this year we'll do this and then next year we'll do something else. Like, I do think that is kind of us taking a step because we're not going to get back in the coming few years, whatever we do cut this year. That we do know. Thanks. Did you have another question? Hi, hello, can you hear me? We're not doing, we're not, yeah, we're not doing public coming out, we'll get there in just a minute. You actually said you were gonna do that quite a while ago, so I'm eager to do that. Thank you. No, did. Yes, we wanted to have the board decision. Are we ready for public on that anymore? I just heard Brett say he had two things and I wasn't sure if he got the rest of them. Well, I mean, the first thing is, it's just an observation, from what you're saying, you can only do it year by year. And as we, like Jill just said, if we, you know, the savings from the transportation cuts, if we choose them this year, we'll essentially be there next year as well. And so, you know, and it's a year by year thing. And like, it's hard to, And yet the FY26 budget is gonna get compared to the FY25 budget looking at, did you increase it by less than 10%? So every year we have to make sure we pay attention to that number. Per people's spending. Per people's spending, thank you, thank you. And the decrease in spending from acts, from one, or the decrease in people count in the district from 127 applies at, when? Because. For FY25. Okay, okay, so good, yeah. So the biggest hit is now. Potentially. But it continues to be there. Potentially. Or an FY30. The capital space. So I think we have some relative clarity on what these numbers mean in a rough sketch sense. Let's open it up to the public. How many people in the room wanna comment? One, two, three. How many people online? Please use your raise hand function. One. I see a physical hand. Just two anymore. There's decent amount of people. Okay, so five people total. He could change their minds later, but this is a good number, yeah. That looks like a hand. Just having your hands on it. So three, and I'm just gonna guess the two or three might also jump in. Try to keep to around a minute. If you go, I'm not gonna keep strict time, but I will watch time if it starts to drift into long land, I will probably give you some sort of signal to Rob. And please introduce yourself by name. Folks, Jim Ikenberry, Montpuy resident. Gonna be fast as I can. So number one, you were looking for directions. Stay under the 10% cap. I think we just have to be fiscally responsible, even though none of us wanna do any cuts. That's just, we're all adults here. It stinks, but we gotta do it. Two, I think we need to support the unions, and I like the idea of looking at incentives for retirement, so if somebody voluntarily wants to move on to something else in life, great. But if we could avoid other avenues that would affect staff, I think we should try to avoid those impacts. Two, maybe it's a process thing, but I know that our geography as a more urban school and then Roxbury's more rural school kind of mess with how the legislature came up with their numbers and waiting. GIS exists, there's great folks who work for the state who can break down the geography of Roxbury and the geography of Montpuy. Let's nudge them and see if they can do that, and if that might actually get us a little bit of a benefit in our student count. Why not ask, right? It's not hard to recognize that Roxbury's a rural school and there are some weights that should go to those kids, so let's fight for it and get every dollar, maybe save ourselves some cuts if we can. Obviously, you all know I support the track. It's a huge benefit to our students and to the social emotional learning that we know they need and that's where we've had learning loss in our district. Let's not forget that. What I know won't affect your current thinking, but what I hope we can survive the triage of this budget and then think for the next budget is what are other sources of revenue that are out there? Let's form a subcommittee, let's come up with crazy ideas. There's friends organizations for national parks, there's foundations, God only knows, but let's go at that so that we can survive years, you know, two, three, four. So that's it and thanks again. Take care. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Hi, I'm Tina Munsee and I just wanna thank you because it's a hard go and it's not gonna get any easier. So I appreciate what you're doing and actually I want a ray of sunshine because I was just thinking that this is very exciting. The administration knows I love a plan and so after you get through this year and you're gonna get through this year, then you're gonna have to think, I was thinking of Emma's question and Rat's question about the next few years and I love this in that that's the way you can do it is make some decisions about where are you gonna take the money you need to take? And it's a big, I mean you'll trust the administration of how they will do it in that category but I like the idea of going forward to say after you get through this budget then we'll look at the long-range plan of even though we don't know the figures exactly, we know we're gonna have to do something and we can cut or determine where we're gonna get that in this sort of category. Does that make sense? Thank you again for all you do for our kids. Thank you, Tina. Thank you, Tina. Joe. Joe Carroll, MREA president of Montpelier. Thank you all. I wanna invoke article 10.3 of our negotiated agreement which kind of empowers the association to meet with the board to discuss the need for rifts and I think once y'all have that lane picked out, lane one, two or three, I would be very eager to see that happen and I think the best way to do that would be to meet with my MREA board leadership. So whenever that happens, I would love to kind of make that official by email or doodle polls whenever that happens. I think it'd be really helpful to continue the collaborative clarity vibe that I think y'all are really interested in doing. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Joe. Thank you, Joe. And we would invite that. And just, it looks like we will likely have to go down some sort of scenario with salary and benefits and we absolutely wanna do it the way that has the least in fact, the least people. Great, thank you. That's it for the room. Online, I see Lisa Burns has her hand up and if other people could just raise their hand, we'll just go. Nancy, I think her name is. Why don't we do Lisa and then Nancy and I saw a couple other people with their hand up. Oh, Lisa, are you muted? We can't hear you. We can't hear you. Indeed, I was muted. I was say thank you and especially thank you to Mia for bringing up the elephant in the room of the track. Currently, or last year, our special education got a F in the independent audit. 44% of our kids can do math. You haven't closed the door on closing Roxbury School in the next five years. It sounds like that's on the table. You're cutting busing, you're talking about cutting five to eight staff and it just strikes me and Ms. Bonesill, you just said that you want to, that tax cliff that's coming in five years, you wanna have that money available, not spend it all this year so you can use it to help with the tax cliff. The simple point would be you have $1.9 million sitting there for a track that a year ago the lowest budget was 2.3, I think, or 2.4 million since the site has flooded. I wonder if any of you would just consider that maybe if you have to balance educational quality, cutting teachers, cutting buses, cutting whole schools, if it might be reasonable to consider cutting the track as well because though our previous speaker points out that it definitely benefits the 30 high school students who tend to run track and the middle school students that come over, I think more children will lose much more by losing teachers, losing transportation, losing schools and so on. So I would just wonder if anyone is considering actually D funding the track and putting that money to not only help right now with our school but also with the tax burden. I look forward to the answer. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks, Lisa. Nancy Bruce. Nancy Bruce, for some reason we just have... Well, it's just that... Yeah, and I just wanna clarify that what Libby was proposing was keeping the money currently allocated for the track, basically holding it and then using it in five years to mitigate a tax cliff. We're not talking about building a track. We're not saying we're not going to but we're also certainly not moving forward with it this time or our idea is to keep that money on hold and use it the wisest way possible. But in the end, that would be a board decision. It would be absolutely be a board decision, yes. I think that... But spending it all now is not going to avoid everything we talked about for the next five years. Great. So we have more public comment coming up. More public comment. I just wanna make sure there's not any misconceptions coming out of the meeting. Nancy. Can you hear me? Yes, loud and clear. Okay. Thank you, board. Wow, you've got a lot on your plate and I really, I can't imagine all the hours that you're putting into this really hard work and I'm just gonna just quickly go through a couple of things that stuck out for me when at the beginning of the superintendent's presentation where she, they mentioned about being counseled to use drastic numbers for that first presentation. I'm not quite clear the context or maybe it's even mood at this point but that's something that was really present for me. The other thing too is that the other folks that are not unionized in the district are food service people. So they are included in the non-unionized employees of the district. So the other, so listening to all of these numbers that I, there's, I wonder if the board actually has an understanding of the median income of Montpelier residents, not the average but the median income, meaning where everybody falls, the vast majority of incomes fall in this small town of ours. And if you're talking, I mean, I'm on a fixed income. So you're talking about a tax increase, that's huge. And so your enrollment is declining, then you're talking about a tax increase. Have you also put that into the equation that you're gonna lose more families as a result of this projected tax increase because we're maxed out, we are so maxed out. And where I wanna go, and I really appreciate the point that Lisa brought up about track, you know, co-curricular, extracurricular versus academics. It feels to me right now with the inflation pressing so hard on working class families. We want to educate our children. We want a solid education for our kids. Golf lessons, ultimate frisbee, tennis, that's great. But have those things also been put on the table. And I know that that means someone's job. I understand that it is not easy, but I'm asking you all to just, well, as you've already done, just hear my thoughts and opinions and thank you for your time. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you. And I think we had Paul, and I think we had one other person as well, but I see Paul's hand up. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, so I would just suggest that perhaps the transportation to the middle school might be an easy one to put on the list. As the superintendent said, it's a relatively new benefit to the community. I hate to speak like an old fogey, but we did, a lot of us lived through a lot of years taking kids to school at the middle school we survived. Seems like it's a much better option than some of the options you're looking at. I know it's not gonna get you all the way there, but hopefully the pie charts one, two, and three can sort of be combined. I don't know that I'm endorsing the entire pie chart in which that was an option, but sort of a mix and match scenario, I would think that that would be one of the things that would be easy to put on the list. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. And I think we had one other person at least to... Angela. Angela, yes. Sorry, we're not allowed to use Zoom at school, so I'm unfamiliar with it. So my apologies for the weird reactions with the hands and stuff. So I wanted to respond. I think it was Jim, maybe it's hard to know all the board members at this point who said, and as a teacher, this resonates with me that you'd rather have students walk than lose a position, which I understand, but our Roxbury students don't have that option. And geography limits them a lot. The late bus doesn't currently bring students to the community. It brings them part way. It brings them like halfway back to the community. So the idea that they can have the bus to get to school so that you have the per pupil numbers, so you have the butts in the seat, but not get them home is problematic. So I just want to make that clear. And wonder, I just, sorry. Okay. The connection that my kids make because they're able to stay after school is critical for their mental health. And just their connection to the community. And it just feels like a huge equity issue that our small community, like we merged and I understand that it was an unconventional merging situation. And I understand all of the components that make this a challenging situation, but it just feels like they're not treated the same. And that equity issue keeps coming up for me. And I feel when they come home discriminated against because of where they live. So I really urge you, I hear all the numbers and I hear all of that, I get it. But they're real human people in the situation that need the transportation in order to have the connection with their peers in order to contribute and learn contributors. So just keep that in mind when you're thinking about the numbers, there are people behind them too. Yeah, absolutely, thank you, Angela. Thank you, Angela. Do you have any other folks online in the gallery? Well, thank you everyone. That was very, very helpful and very thoughtful. Do we need more decision time or do we think we have what we need to come back and remember this is an iterative process and this is step one? What's involved in the school-based budget? What's covered in that? Lots of things. Different department budgets, furniture budgets, some stipend money like summer work money. What are the other big buckets, Christina and those? Field trips. It's like anything a principal needs to run the school. That's not a district-wide expense. Does that make sense? That's very specific to that building, yeah? Supplies, yeah. And is 10,000 per school and 5,000 at Roxbury the biggest you think that could go? No. I want my principal's sister yelling at me. None of them are here today. You're kidding, they're all up there texting. Right. I'm sorry. I said if 4% of it is 10,000. No, it's 10,000 per school. With 5,000. I just want to point out that some of them are here tonight. No, I know, I was kidding. And Jason is also watching. I know. I was kidding. So I think it was maybe Paul who suggested that there's idea one, two, and three, but in reality, it's going to be mixing and matching. Just a way to give the board an idea. Yeah, exactly, and we can do that to six. We can kind of come back and say, well, some combination of one and three is kind of worth it. You can make your own pie chart. Yeah, you can make your own pie chart. Exactly. Go for it, Jason. Take size, look at the pie chart. I hate pie charts. I have a question about the track money. Is the plan that we were discussing to leave the track money allocated for the track project with the intention of not building a track but using that money to help with the cliff? Because I totally understand the need for that money. It just seems a little strange to leave the money allocated for that. And especially because of the importance to a lot of members of this school in particular, of the track. I'm not saying we need the track. I understand the necessity of that money, but I think we would probably be better off communicating with the community our intentions of not actually building a track than leaving that money allocated. I agree with you, Miriam. I think that I completely 100% agree with you. We've had this conversation. Jim and I have had this conversation. I think my thinking right now is that if we're not using that two million, whatever it is, 1.9 million or whatever, for this year's budget, let's have that conversation, get through this budget season and have that conversation when we're done because then the board can spend the time to actually have the conversation and not make it a rushed decision because so many other decisions need to be made. Yeah, and remember we have a facilities process going on right now too. I mean, we may need to use that money to floodproof our basement or our current school. So we're gonna have a lot of information at the end of the year just about what our facility needs are. And a facility needs, unfortunately, they're clashing with this process, but this building came within eight inches of not being usable. I remember Jim. And the rains will come again. So we have to be cognizant of that. That makes sense, thank you. Well, I do appreciate what she's saying though. Absolutely. It's ingenious. It is. Very thoughtful. It is very thoughtful. I think it's also reasonable to, well, I'm just optimistic, but to hold out hope that this is hitting the state really hard and it's not folding out the way people kind of thought it was in that there's going to potentially be a legislative response or adjustment that may occur. It's not necessary, it's not, it's very possible that there could be a legislative adjustment somewhere in here. And who knows? You know what I mean? Maybe Roxbury doesn't have to close and there's a track. I don't know. I mean, I'm just optimistic, but I just think that there are always possibilities that that could happen. I do wanna ask, is it possible to do a four year plan when you have such incant, in unknowable numbers? I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is that the only way to do it is year by year. I would just say that every year, it's even hard to build the budget by January first because we're still getting numbers, numbers are still changing. So to make any kind of estimates for even two years is really challenging. You just never know what's gonna happen. I think the thing we can think about however is that right now, right now in this moment, we know that the commitment the board in the community has made to social emotional learning and mental health in this district, which is incredibly large, is working for our students and is necessary for our students. Like that wouldn't be a place I want to cut. We've put in place human resources around our academic intervention and remediation that we didn't previously have and that is starting to work and we are starting to see benefits from it for our kids. We don't want to go there. You know, like so there are places that personally as the superintendent, I would argue and argue and argue to say we need to hold tight to these services for our kids so that we can get them all learning at grade level or higher. And so, and there are certain human resources we need, there's systems we need for that to happen that simply can't go away, right? So there's a line that I would draw around staffing and benefits. None of the positions that we're referenced today are in those categories. Does that make sense? So we can predict that, yeah. And I think that's something we need to think about is, thanks, Beth, is what do we hold true to as the people responsible for the education and social emotional health of our students? And I just want to add to that. I mean, kind of the way I'm thinking about it is, we have some, I think, very distinct values and goals and it's been a long time the last year, the hashing those out. And I want to hold as true to those as we can, kind of given what we know, trying to make these cuts as painless as possible as true to those values as possible, realizing that we do kind of have to go year by year and realizing that we do know, what we do know right now over four years to some degree, we are not going to have the type of wiggle room we need. So how can we kind of responsibly year by year do what's best for next year without putting us in an obvious bind down the road? And I think it would be great to have a four-year plan we could count on. I don't think we're going to have that, but I think we can kind of know that this is not a one-year thing. It's a four-year thing. Each year we're going to probably have to make some tough choices. Hopefully red is right and the legislature steps in and some other things happen and that trajectory goes up, but we can know that stick true to our values. Let's try to be as responsible as possible. Let's make each year as painless as we can and as kid-focused as we can without doing something that's really going to put us in an obvious bind down the road. And you can do a pie chart. As guide reels. As you find out, Jim just really quickly. Absolutely agree with the need to sort of take it one step at a time in a yearly process. And I do think there are some decisions in this year's budget that we can make that will have impact way beyond the next few years. One example I'm thinking is to the idea of incentives for those folks who may be ready to move on to the next step in their life. Taking money from the fund balance to pay those folks an incentive then helps us way more than the amount in the fund balance five years from now. So those are the things that I think I'm hearing when people say like a strategy, like those are the things that I think are important. Not trying to project what the budget's gonna be in three years, but thinking about what are those lanes that we've put ourselves in now that position as well for the future. And Jim, I concur is 100% accurate of what other revenue sources can we find. Can we pull in more exchange students who pay tuition? Can, you know, like there are, there are not many for schools, but there are other places that we can find revenue that we can put some effort into. No, and you're totally right, Scott. I know that Jake wants to get in here. But you know, if we can find the cuts that don't, that don't cut to the core of what we want to do as Libby was saying, don't undermine our successes and create future savings instead of future costs. Jake. Yeah, I was just gonna basically agree that using one-time money, we definitely want to use it for kind of like one-time applications and not to reduce ongoing expenses because it just puts you in a hole. And that's actually what the situation the state is in this year and Education Fund use of huge surpluses from the last two years to buy down rates, really problematic. So if we did do something like take, you know, unencumber the track money, you know, the only application that's reasonable is like something major that's one-time that's finite and not to buy down tax rates or whatever because that would just dig you a hole for the next year. And same with the reserve funds that we're looking at right now in the pie chart in yellow. You know, you want to be strategic with them. Yeah. Libby's out of hand? No. It's 8.35. We've got a lot to think about. We've got two more meetings. Yeah, I just want to reiterate we've added extra meetings so we can keep this conversation going and make sure that we're at a good decision point. So next meeting is, you know, give some thought again, you know, take this week, reach out to Libby if you have questions, you know, use it to get clarity. You know, this is not the end of question time. We'll come in on the six. We'll give them some direction. Then the 13th, we'll get more specifics. And let's break for executive. Oh, let's do policy monitoring and then break for executive session. Do I have a motion to approve policy monitoring reports? B-5, employee unlawful harassment. C-3, transportation. And B-4, drug and alcohol testing of transportation employees. The three policy monitoring reports. No, second. Any discussion? Yeah, this is Christian. Can you all hear me? Yeah. Yeah, I just want to bring up some discussion around policy C-3 transportation and just, you know, take a look at the RBS late bus. I know that's been a topic of discussion tonight and it's something that we might be looking at in terms of a cut for next year's budget. I know that there is, and I think everybody at this point received an email that came in from a community member out here in Roxbury. I think, yes indeed, the number show that we've had low ridership. I don't think that can be argued. I think folks in the community have contacted folks in leadership and kind of more recently have reached out to me that the value of the bus would be hugely optimized and increased if the bus was to extend to the village of Roxbury. So while we're seeing low ridership, I think there is sentiments and feelings that that ridership would change should the route be extended to the village. So I just want to bring that up. I know it was an initiative that I very much, you know, put in front of the board and advocated for and it was, you know, and Jim was present in the time of the merger. My understanding is, you know, that group did a lot of thinking and talking about how access to extracurriculars was going to be a key component of community building among the students, you know, of Roxbury and Montpelier. You know, we have talking a lot about belonging and wellness. And I think, as Angela said, you know, the ability to access sports and clubs and theater and things like that is highly valuable to students and their wellness. So I know a group of Roxbury folks are coming together to discuss and try to make some recommendations about how that current busing option could be optimized to increase the ridership. I don't think anybody wants to see us hemorrhaging $24,000 a year for no good reason. But I know folks are coming together to make some recommendations about how that bus could be better optimized. And just to be clear, increasing the route increases the cost because it's a per mileage cost. So there, it doesn't become $24,000. Then it becomes more. So just to say everything on the table there. Yeah, that would be a great detail to understand. And then the driver, there was a driver question as well. Yeah. Further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Post. I have a motion to enter executive session for the purposes of personnel. I got it. I moved to enter executive session for the purpose of discussing the evaluation of the superintendent under the provisions of Title I, Section 313, A3 of Vermont Statutes, the evaluation of a public officer. Do I have a second? All in favor? Aye. I have a motion to move into that. Oh, OK. We already moved to executive session. So we have Kristin, who needs to join us in a breakout room. Do you want Zoom? I'm on Zoom. Put her on Zoom or we could call her, which is the easiest. Do you have? Oh, OK. Anna, can you make Mia the co-host? And Orca can leave at this. Yep. Yes. Just like that.