 This is the Montpelier Public Schools Board of School Commissioners. We have been in executive session for the purpose of discussing contract negotiations. We are now back in public session. And I would love to hear a motion to adjourn. So I second. Call those in favor. Aye. All righty. Over to Jim. OK. So I need to call the order. The Wednesday, January 17, 2018, at the Montpelier Respiratory Public Schools Board, 7.07 PM. And although the board doesn't technically run the school yet, I do want to echo what Michelle said at the opening of the Montpelier Public School Board. Yesterday was a very tragic and heartbreaking day for the school and the community. Life was lost very sadly. But I do want to express my deep gratitude to everyone in the community, and especially the people at this table and in this school who work so hard to make sure that everyone was safe and that a very difficult situation was managed with real grace and calm. And I think we have a lot of wonderful people who really were heroes yesterday in terms of making sure the situation was handled well. And again, it's a heartbreaking moment for the community. And I know there's going to be a lot of grief and further discussion. And I also want to encourage students and faculty and teacher and everyone else who was part of that very stressful day to make sure that they reach out and talk to people if they're feeling they need to. So again, thank you to everyone. You cover your jobs, not expecting these things, but everyone really stepped up to the plate. And this is why our teachers and principals and superintendents and our amazing people. So thank you. So the first item on the agenda is public comments. So anyone have any comments for the public? We have a few in attendance. Great. Moving on to item number three, we're going to discuss and approve the FY19 budget. And I've done this a few times before. Sometimes Brian starts, sometimes Grant starts. Grant's going to take it this time. And I'll give the table to Grant. So tonight is an abbreviated version of the slides. I only am highlighting the things that change since last week. So we bypassed the district overview slides, which basically cuts this in about a third. So here's the outline of what we will discuss. So a much shorter list. And I'll just go right into the changes. Not many changes. Unexpectedly, I got notification of a few announced tuition rates for career centers, specifically an increase in Barrie, which I didn't know was coming. So I did have time since I got that notice to roll in their higher tuition rate into the budget so that we won't have a finish under budget net line. So I increased career center tuition $7,200. We discussed at the board meeting last week to reduce the amount of the bond, which reduced the bond interest in year one by about $5,600. I got the updated small schools grant number, which I alluded to last week. So that was an increase in revenues of about $8,000. So you can see there's a very small changes. Whenever I recalculated the tax rates, it didn't change the tax rates. It wasn't significant enough to. But those are the changes for last week. And we'll spend more time probably on the bond slides than any others. So the attic glance slide, it's in green are the numbers that changed. The operating budget a little bit higher because of career center tuition. The proposed bond line is a little lower. It was $123. Now it's $118. And the non-tax revenues is a little higher because of the small schools grant. That's why those are highlighted in green. So on the expense side, this slide is just used to show the number that I'm tracking to, which is that 23.084.695. The pie chart didn't really change. I think tech center tuition was enough to go up 1-tenth of a percent. But the other numbers didn't change. And this slide, you can't really see the difference in. The program expenses detail, the only number that's really highlighted at all is the career center tuition line that's changed. All the other numbers are the same as they were. So just wanted to be transparent in showing the changes, but they aren't real significant. On the revenue side, there's two highlighted areas. In green is the small schools grant, which is up from the last time and is very close to what we originally estimated. What's in yellow is the transportation aid. I still don't have a number from the Agency of Education. But when I do get that number, I'm confident it's not going to be much different than this. And it wouldn't be enough to make a change to it actually anyway. So I think we're OK with going forward with the budget with that one unknown. For the bond, so I expanded a little bit on the bond slides. Hopefully it's useful. I decided to start with a little bit of background to discuss what Michelle had brought up, that what's on this list are things that were on the long range plan and have been there for a while. We've done the preliminary work, so they're ready to go for a bond. The second bullet is just an explanation about Main Street Middle School. We have projects. We have done projects. But the way we built this bond was to try to limit the number of locations so that we could get the highest value in negotiating contracts. So once again, the less locations means less overhead, more value. The sub-bullet there for MSMS work is just highlighting the fact that we are not ignoring the middle school. We've spent about a million dollars or will spend about a million dollars between items that were taken care of from 2015 through what you have seen previously in the capital plan for 2020. The bathroom renovation that will happen in the summer of 2019 is probably the same time that a lot of the work for the bond is going to happen. So the timing is the same. It's just those requirements are in different places just to try to be able to negotiate a better price. The third bullet is talking about the fact that the board decided to reduce the bond by $145,000. So it is now $4.9 million. We assume we can absorb that $145 without changing the scope of the bond. And the sub-bullets kind of go into that. If we can save on general conditions by packaging all of the high school projects at one time in one contract, then we should have less mobilization supervision costs. It would also allow us the most optimal time to get a competitive bid is January, February. So if we do the rest of the work that we need to do, hold until January of 2019, put that RFP out, we should get a really good price. And we would be doing all the work next summer in one location at one time and get the biggest bang through the buck. So that is the hope. If we're still coming in high, then we could look at what's called value engineering where we could decide if we could change some finishes, those kinds of things, just minor changes, but don't change the scope of the projects. So that's the approach. I also have on this side, slide the estimated FY19 interest cost of $118,000. And that amount, just as a reminder, is part of the budget already, part of the tax rate calculation. So it's already in there. In FY20, it shows what the principal and interest amount is, you can see 391. I believe that number was 405, something like that. So that number came down as well. And then this is a different breakout of the projects. If you remember last time, there were about, I think, five or six lines. So we broke it out a little bit to give a little more insight into what these projects are, especially on the high school side. I think the union elementary projects are the same as what they looked like before. But we broke out auditorium, which was already broken out separately, but it included some other pieces like roof replacement, which we decided, you know what, let's take the roof replacement pieces from the gym and locker room and the auditorium, and just capture that as roof replacements and get a cost for that. The lobby restrooms was buried in I think the gym and locker room project before. So we broke that out separately, so you can see that. Heating and ventilation was part of the gym, which is really part of the whole space that we're talking about. So I think this is a more accurate and understandable way to break out the projects so that people know what's in there. And of course the total now is 4.9 million, as opposed to the 5.045. The next few slides go into a little more words about each of those line items. Nothing changed on this slide for the union projects. Those are what was there last week, and I'm sure you're very familiar with those. For the high school side, there's a couple of slides now that break this out. Auditorium renovation, I think we've already talked about what is included in that. The wellness center, training room and storage. So that's broken out separately and you can see kind of what that's talking to. I did try to put in here some associations with kind of a driving force behind some of these things, like safety, access, access meaning one of the weight rooms is on the second floor, so it's not handicap accessible. So those are some issues. Personalization is because this would allow for personal wellness courses, which are wholly personalized PE classes. The training room and storage, that's self-explanatory. Storage would go up on the second floor, so we wouldn't have to worry about accessibility. That would just be staff that would be utilizing that. The locker rooms as well as some offices and the family restroom, which is accessible from the hallway and would be a nice added touch for when you have basketball games, those kinds of things. So you can see, refigures the locker room space, which is safety and equity because it's a very large space with a lot of blind corners, so it's more easily supervised. And from an equity perspective, there will be more, there's not gonna be what's referred to as a gang shower. There will be personal shower spaces, personal areas for restrooms with stalls, changing areas. So it's not all out in the open. So I think from an equity perspective, it's more user-friendly. FIZED and athletic director offices are redone a multi-purpose space with bathrooms so that could be used for officials or any faculty member that, as a matter of fact, we were talking about lactation space, perhaps those kinds of things. And there is a ski storage area. Which we currently have, it's just relocated. And the family restroom will be gender neutral, like I said, right off the hallway, kind of across from the lobby bathrooms. Classrooms, we talked about this a little bit. There's gonna be a classroom on the PE side, which can be used for PE classes, health classes, team meetings, or other requirements as they pop up. Another classroom will be on the hallway. That hallway across from the auditorium, which can be used for classroom space. And it also can be used for, as a green room for performances. The lobby restrooms, you all know that those are in dire need of renovation. So I don't need to go into that. Roof replacement. If anybody's confused about the fact that we have roof replacement in the general budget, and then I'm showing roof replacement here, it's different segments of the roof. In the general budget, we have basically the hallways over the hallways, that big area done, and over by the superintendent's office. These areas are directly above the gym and locker room, directly above the auditorium. And those are also at the end of their useful life. But they will be associated with the project, because as the project's done, they may be going through the ceiling, punching holes in for ventilation, that kind of thing. So it makes sense to do the roof at the same time as those projects. And then the heating and ventilation, most of that equipment is original to the building. So obviously it doesn't have variable speed engines, those kinds of things. So it would definitely improve efficiency and comfort. And it's something that all of those items, obviously are at the end of their, beyond the end of their useful life as well. So we're on borrowed time with those. I'm gonna just power through the last few slides, and then we can have any questions that you might have. Tax rates are still on here, just because some of the numbers changed, the expense budget, the bond and the revenues. But as you can see, the bottom line numbers, the bottom line tax rates are exactly the same as they were last week. The changes were not significant enough to change the tax rate. Residential tax rate impacts are the same, obviously, since the tax rate didn't change. Non-residential didn't change. And as a reminder, these are not dependent on the budget. So they wouldn't change. Grant, I know we've all seen this six times now, but if people are just tuning in for the first time, would you mind going back to the tax rate slide just to make sure we... The calculations slide. Yeah, for folks who are seeing this for the first time. Sure. I'm sorry. No, no problem. So this presentation, along with all the other budget presentations, is on the NPS website under Board of School Commissioners, and you'll see a dropdown that says FY19 budget. So all of these briefings are posted, including this one. And if you see the slide, you'll notice that to the left, you'll see the signs, whether it's plus, equals, divided by. So this walks you through how the tax rate is calculated. So it's the operating budget plus the capital plan, which is being proposed this year, plus the bond, which is the first year interest payment. That then equals your total general fund budget, which will be on the budget article. So the budget article will be 23-452-706, if the board adopts tonight. You take out non-tax revenues, things like special education revenues, facility use, and then you end up with what's called education spending. That education spending is divided by your number of pupils to get spending per pupil, and that is what basically calculates into the tax rate. You take that, divide it by the dollar yield, which is a statewide figure, and you come up with your equalized residential tax rate. That is one equalized tax rate for both Roxbury and Montpelier. And then what makes it different between the two communities is, one, how do I explain this? There's, in the statute, there's a limit when you merge that tax rates can't go down by more than 5%. So that's why Roxbury's tax rate is highlighted in blue, because it is capped at a decrease of 5%. If it wasn't for that, then the equalized tax rate for both communities would be identical. And the only difference then would be when you divide by the common level of appraisal, which is how much houses are worth in the communities. So that's how we calculate the tax rate. That's why there are still two. Well, and there always will be two because of the CLA, but at some point, there will be one equalized rate for both communities. So that is the tax rates. On the next slide, I take those tax rates for Montpelier and Roxbury and show the impact. And you can see it's just looking at if your house value is 100,000, 200, or 300,000. And it basically just shows how much your tax rate would increase or decrease. So for every $100,000 in property value, a Montpelier resident will pay $43 more than they are this year. That's 2.6% increase. I think it's 2.6. Yeah, it is, it's 2.6. Roxbury, it's $25 less for every 100,000, which I think is one and a half percent decrease. And the note that we've been highlighting at the bottom here is that most people in the state of Vermont do receive an income sensitivity credit. So those impacts that I'm referring to are basically worst case scenario because if you receive an income sensitivity credit, then your impact would be even lower than that. When you said that this was on the website, is this newest one on the website? Yes, yes, posted it right before I came here. Non-residential tax rates, we show it, but it does not relate to the budget at all. That is very much easier math to do. There's a statewide non-residential rate of $1.629, it's divided by the common level of appraisal in each community, and that's it. So the budget could be a million dollars higher, a million dollars lower, it doesn't matter if the non-residential tax rate is what this chart shows. And it has a fairly significant increase based on the statewide base rate. And I should say that both the dollar yield and the non-residential base rate are the best guess that we have right now, but they could change, because those are set by law, but they won't change between now and town meeting day. And these are the numbers the tax commissioner has proposed. So we believe this is as good as that is. The outlook slide hasn't changed, but it's just another reminder of kind of what we're looking at. We're not just looking at FY19 tax rates. We're trying to figure out how we can stabilize tax rates well into the future, especially given that the tax incentive of the merger decreases by two cents every year. So as that tax incentive drops, we need to figure out ways to either increase other revenues or decrease expenses to try to stabilize that tax rate so that we're not seeing large increases every year from now and for the next four years as this phase is out. And in that light, you can see some expenditures. We're talking about tracking some of these decreases that we're gonna see. Grade nine through 12 tuition for Roxbury students who are grandparented. Every year, there's gonna be less students that are gonna have school choice and more students that'll be in our schools. So we won't be paying that tuition. We increased one-time facilities projects significantly this year in the budget. Those one-time facilities projects can come out in future years. It helped us to take care of some deferred maintenance, but it also helped us to build in some expenses that we know we could strip away in the future. Bond expenditures, the existing bonds are pretty level as this mentions. The new bond will create a large increase in 20, but then every year after FY 20, it will go down as interest goes down. So what we're tracking right now is looking forward to FY 20. How can we reduce expenses to offset the two cent tax incentive drop and the increased bond? And we think we're there. We think we have a good plan to keep the tax rate stable. The budget summary hasn't changed 1.3% increase in for pupil spending. I will warn you that when you see the budget article, you won't see that 1.3 in for pupil spending because legally, they wouldn't consider us to be able to compare because we didn't exist last year. So we've done the math and looked at Roxbury plus Montpelier equals X and then compared to FY 19, but legally, since we didn't exist as an entity, there won't be that reference that you're used to that says an increase in education spending of whatever percent there'll be some note in there saying there can't, we can't do it because we didn't exist. Residential tax rates increased 2.6% Montpelier, decreased 1.5% in Roxbury. Like I said, based on final equalized pupil counts, I think we're probably safe to take the words final and quotes out of there. We were concerned that at the last minute, we might get a new number from the AOE. We kept getting new numbers last year. I think we're good at unequalized pupil count. Once again, the dollar yield is set by law. The local common levels of appraisals are set, so that should be safe as well. So that's it. The last slide is just giving you the numbers so that if somebody wants to make a motion, you can hopefully you're comfortable with this version of the presentation. But before you make that motion, I will turn it back over to you to see if there are any other questions or concerns. Yeah, thank you, Grant. Again, excellent presentation. Very clear, a little of the way that it was laid out and the information presented. Very understandable and good level of detail. And I also really appreciate that you break down of the bond, you break down it explains it a lot better. Gives a better picture of what's contemplated and what that money is intended for. So that any discussion or you probably need a motion or make a motion to adopt the budget? I move to approve the FY19 budget as presented. Second? Discussion? This is just a motion on the budget, not the bond, right? Yes, just on the budget. Although the budget includes the interest for the bond. But don't we have to do two motions, one for the budget and one for the bond, for example? No, one for the budget and one for the articles, one of which is the bond. Yeah, so we don't have to separately approve the bond. Let's separately approve the bond. Yeah, let's separate the budget and then the articles. I can't get us in trouble. It might not be required, but I can't get us in trouble. I think in the past we've just approved the articles, honestly. That's okay. I saw a hand motion. Well, I was just suggesting we could approve the bond than the budget, than the articles, if we wanted to go through that detail. Okay. We already have a motion on the table. A motion on the table for the budget. Is there further discussion? Is there further discussion? Can we table that and then do the bond or? Oh, I was going to say. So we were back to my question of, does that motion include the bond? And so now you're saying, no, that's a budget. It includes money for the bond, but it doesn't include the bond. Okay. Got it. I just want to know if we're making three votes. Is there a concern that people want to, do one before the other? It's not clear to me whether we're just talking procedure or if there are substantive concerns that people want to talk about one first and then the other. I'd like to separate them, the budget and the bond, but I don't care what order you're going. I don't care, I don't think it makes any difference. If we're going to separate them, we should do the bond first. Let's do the bond first. So do we have to make a formal motion to table your motion? Or can you draw it? Or can you? She's not allowed to just withdraw it from her. I don't know. Are you allowed to just withdraw it? It's moved and seconded. Let's make a motion. Someone want to make a motion to table. Sure we can table it. It'll be approached. Motion, that's what we want anyway. I move we table Michelle's motion. A second. Second. All those in favor? I tie. I make a motion, oh, sorry. And I make a motion that we approve the 4.9 and the data bond offers. A second. Second. Discussion? All those in favor? I think the presentation is improved. I think the presentation is improved. Great. Yeah. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Now, Michelle, we've pulled your motion back. Do you want to put it back on the table? Is that my job? I said it, it kept your job. I'm offering it to you. I'm just checking. What's the procedure for untabling a motion? I don't know. Yeah, I think it's a chair. The chair that was in back. I think I believe so. Do it on the meeting. OK. Can I just laterally put it back on the table? Michelle's motion is back on the table. It has been seconded. It has been seconded. Further discussion? So further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? I oppose. And I wish to say I oppose only because since we are asking the community to approve a bond, which will cost a good deal of money, I think we should have been really conservative in our budget. And I feel that adding the equivalent of eight full-time people for only 40 new children is not conservative. We need a motion to approve the articles, correct? Yes. There's a typo in the fourth one. Yes, Michelle caught that as well. We will fix that typo. Instead of it, it should say is. I apologize. And just as clarification, these articles will not be labeled A, B, C, and D. They will be whatever the numbers are for each municipality. On the ballots. Right. And there will be, also for a point of clarification, there will be articles to vote for a school district clerk, a school district moderator, and a school district treasurer, which need to happen one more time. Do we have to approve those at some point? No. I move that we correct the typo on the articles. I'm just going to go straight to a vote. Oh, is it fair? Can I ask you a question for your first, Jim? Oh, I see how he's questioning that one. About the typo? Really? I'm assuming no, and if I had that one, too. I'm assuming that it's awarded correctly. But so article B starts off, shout the school district approve the school board to incur the bonded edictness. Is it the board or the district? It's the board. It is the board. Yeah, this was checked by our attorney. I kind of assumed as much, but I just wanted to make. We'll be debiting it. It's yours. The nine of you will divv it up. Good luck with that. And what is in bond font has to be in bond. It's in bold, sorry, in bond. Bond font. What's in bold font has to be bolded per statute. Statute. And then another quick kind of semantic question. The conclusion of article C, the school commissioners for the purpose of operating the school, we have multiple schools. It's not school district there. We would check that as well. It was vague, but it carries the weight for all of the schools. Tell you further discussion about what the meaning of is is. All those in favor? Aye. Both. And we can approve the actual articles. I move to approve the articles to be warned for town meeting day. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Before I leave you, I just wanted to say thank you very much. I know going through the same information has been trying, but I appreciate your work. I just got to say thank you, Grant. You were amazing. Every time we open our mouth, it's way more work for you. You came back every time and hit a home run. And Brian, too, both of you guys are an amazing team. This budget process actually cannot be happier. So thank you. And Grant, I want to add to it saying this project description is much easier to explain to the community what they're paying for. And I think that was why we wished it. So thank you very much. Well, thank you for having me do it, because it kind of forced the issue. And I think it is a big improvement. So thank you very much. Have a good evening. Thanks, Grant. Thanks, Grant. Yeah, and just a reminder to the public that while this is a new district or a new board going for a new district, this budget that we're approving will apply for the schools within Montpelier and Roxbury. So for the Roxbury residents, this will be the budget for the Roxbury Village School. And for Montpelier, this will continue to be the budget for the three schools in Montpelier, but obviously under one umbrella. So just in case there's any confusion in the public out there that this budget will cover the Montpelier and Roxbury schools for the next fiscal year, when these two will come. And it will be voted at town meeting day, the same way that, at least in Montpelier, has been typical. And the same in Roxbury. And it will be one vote. The votes will all be counted. But they will be broken out separately. So the towns can see how each town vote is. But the votes will be counted, excuse me, with the back of the camera. And again, thank you. Thank you all for the great work on the budget and the bond. So item number five, I think, is pretty quick. We have discussed a few meetings ago, putting together a transportation committee with some members of the public. Lisa and I have done some reach out to the community. We have four community members that we would like to propose beyond that committee. And then also we have a first state for the meeting of that committee. The four members are Anne Watson, who's a civic council member, and also a teacher at the school. The Ken Jones, who we all know and love. But in addition to being a former member of this board, he right now is working very closely with the net zero Vermont insustainable Montpelier initiative, which is obviously very concerned about thinking about Montpelier's transportation sector. Jim Hutton, who is a resident of Montpelier and has, with a middle school student, has been very interested in the transportation issue. And he also lives in a section of town where walking and biking to school is difficult. And with high school students, transportation is an issue. And the final person is Kara Robacek, who is the executive director of the Vermont Energy Education Program, who also has children in the district and is very concerned about sustainability and finding ways to connect children to educational experiences that improve energy use and the environment. So I think those are four great people. We also have Chris from Green Mountain Transit, who has agreed to attend meetings and help us work with Green Mountain Transit. Unless people feel differently, in part because I don't believe he's a Montpelier city resident. I think just having him attend is an advisory capacity rather than as an actual member makes sense. But he said he'd be willing to be an actual member if that's what we wanted. So that's the slate. And I would need a motion on the slate in some discussion. Michelle? I move that we approve these transportation committee members. In a second? I'll second that. And I just check in with you about Kara because she's going away. Kara and I have discussed that. We're going to try to structure the meetings if she participate by Skype. And she said she's willing to do that from Scotland. She is coming back. Yeah, she's coming back at the end of this. It's six months, but it's sort of like the term in which you're doing the work. She said she is willing to participate by Skype if she misses a meeting or two. I figured you guys had a figure to add. Yeah, we had a figure to add. So I'll check. Thanks so much for being willing to serve. So we need a vote. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Thank you. And I believe that we could do a time for that meeting that you wanted to be set at a time because I know we need to mourn it. It was in my hand. OK, I'll double check. Yeah, I think it's 5.30. We also need a location. That I can get. OK. I think it's 5.30. I'll go back and get it. Sorry. So the 5.30 set is 3.35. I think it's 5.30 set. Motion to adjourn. I may adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye.