 The board is not voting on anything. Okay. Let me see how many we have. There's three of us here. So we don't have a quorum, but they're not. This is voting from the floor. This is all. Okay. We got four, actually. This will, since this is Google, it will generate the list. Yep. And Chelsea. Megan, I've got three board members. Good evening. I'm going to unmask so that hopefully my voice projects and if people see my mouth, they can lip read me. Good evening, everyone. This is the annual meeting for the Orange Southwest Unified Union School District. I am Peter Nowlin. I am the moderator of the district. Lane Millington, superintendent is here. As is Ann Kaplan, chair of the board. Chelsea Sprig and Megan Salt, two other board members are participating remotely. Before we begin, I would ask each of us take, say the Pledge of Allegiance. The flag is to my right. Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and liberty and justice for all. I'm going to ask each of us to take one moment to reflect on the need for a good meeting and for good government and civil discourse as we go forward. Thank you. I will try and recognize anyone who wants to be heard before the meeting. If I do not notice someone at first, please make sure you bring it to my attention, particularly those of you who are joining remotely. The voters of the Orange Southwest Unified Union School District are gathered now for its annual meeting. To begin the annual meeting, I'm going to notify you that the voters will also attend the annual town meeting day vote on Tuesday, March 1 to vote on Articles 7 through 14 respectively, inclusively. The Braintree voters will go to the Braintree Town Office from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Brookfield voters can vote at the Brookfield Elementary School from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Randolph voters can vote at the Randolph Town Hall from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The polls will be open for voting on those articles. Tonight, from the floor, we will take up Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4, Article 5, and Article 6 on the warning. I will read each article allowed to the assembly at the time we begin that article. Are there any questions? Article 1, to elect a moderator for one-year term beginning on July 1, 2022. What is the pleasure of the meeting? Nomination. Roger Evans. Thank you. Peter Nowlin has been nominated and seconded. Any other nominations? Hearing none, I'll declare nominations closed. Does anybody want to discuss the nomination? All in favor of Peter Nowlin being elected as moderator for a term of one year, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes appear to have it. I declare the ayes do have it, and Peter Nowlin is so elected. Article 2, to elect a clerk for one-year term beginning July 1, 2022. Linda LeBold is the current clerk, and that is said without any suggestion, but as information. Are there any nominations? Second. Randall President. Linda LeBold has been nominated and seconded. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, I declare nominations closed. All in favor of Linda LeBold for a clerk, please signify by saying aye. The ayes appear to have it. Sorry. Any opposed say nay. Now the ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and Linda is elected. Article 3, to elect a school district treasurer for a one-year term beginning July 1, 2022. Teresa Godfrey has been nominated. Aye. Second. And seconded. Any other nominations? Hearing none, I declare nominations closed. All in favor of electing Teresa Godfrey as school district treasurer for a one-year term beginning July 1, 2022. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Contrary minded say nay. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and Teresa is elected. Article 4, to fill any vacancies existing or occurring on February 28, 2022. The moderator is not aware of any vacancies. The clerk is not. The superintendent is not. The chair of the board is not. So shall we proceed to article 5? Article 5, to hear and act upon the reports of the officers of the school district. Happy to say any words. We'll begin with the superintendent. Thank you. I'll just be here. It's okay. Am I getting too close to you? No. Actually, I should probably take my mask off as well. Our district, as folks know, is in the third year of responding to the COVID crisis. And during that time, we've done our utmost to keep students and staff safe while advancing learning under the most difficult of conditions. The budget we have developed and the ballot articles that support it through the use of surplus funds are designed to do three things. First, to allow us to adapt to the new needs created by COVID in the form of unfinished learning and to respond to a host of new trauma-based behaviors that impede learning that have been caused by the pandemic. Second, to allow us to make accelerated progress towards the district goals in terms of student achievement and mathematics, English, science, and student resilience. Lastly, it is designed to allow the district to begin concentrated work on the last of the district's goals which encompass achievement in social studies, life skills, and the fine in performing arts. I refer everyone to the annual report. There are copies here in the town offices, and it has been emailed out to everyone within the community. As it contains all the information people need to make informed decisions at the polls tomorrow. It begins with a statement from the board that outlines its commitment to the achievement of the district's goals for students through its ends. It moves on to my statement, which outlines in detail the 2022-23 budget and its impact on taxpayers, as well as a detailed description of our financial surplus and our request to voters in ballot articles 11 through 14 on use of the year-end surplus to decrease your tax burdens for the next three years and to cover needed expenses that are likely to materialize due to legislative actions. It then relates statements from our principals that outlines the various good works their schools have been engaged in on behalf of students, and the report ends with a line item detail of our budget request. The OSSD annual report contains everything needed for voters to go well informed of the polls tomorrow, especially the superintendent's letter on pages four and five, which focus on the proposed budget. Since ballot articles 11 through 14 deal with the use of surplus funds, which can be confusing, I ask voters to please review the section what voting yes means, as this will explain what we are asking voters to approve in terms of surplus funds. On behalf of the students and staff, I thank the communities of Braintree, Brookfield and Randolph for your ongoing support these many years and during these difficult times. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any discussion of the report of Superintendent Millington? A question. The question is, when is an appropriate time to ask questions about the budget itself? And now it's going to be about your only opportunity. Please go forward. And this is Mrs. Richardson. Ms. Richardson. First of all, what happens to that money when it goes to the operational reserve fund? So what we did last year is similar to what we are asking voters to do this year. The 826,000 that went to the operational reserve fund is there to help offset taxes for the voting public for the next two years. So half of that 826,000 is supporting this year's budget. The next half of that 826,413,000 of it is supporting the Budget Year Act. I should say next year's budget and then the Budget Year Act. What strikes me is that from fiscal year 20 when there was an 826,000 surplus and then fiscal year 2021, it looks like 1.7 million surplus. Two point, a little over 2 million. You're looking for, I guess what I'm not understanding is I understand what reserve funds mean. What I'm not understanding is over the last from 20 and 21, there's somewhere around two and a half million dollars in reserve in surplus. Does that sound accurate? So surplus, yes. 826,000, it was 916,000 per that you're looking to put to the operational reserve fund this year. 524,000, almost 525 to the facilities maintenance reserve fund. 48,000 of legal reserve, 250,000 of special ed. Am I missing anything? Legal reserve, 48,000. 48,000 and 250,000 to the special ed reserve fund. So I think my numbers add up to two and a half million. And my question is with two and a half million dollars in surplus over those two fiscal years, how is it that the budget has gone up by a million dollars? So a lot of it, if you recall, and make me think back a little bit without my notes in front of me, is that we received an enormous amount of money from the federal government over the last couple of years that came in, you know, last year after the budget was already in place. So we had the SR1 funds and a lot of that funding was used to do a lot of the material work that was needed to keep the district cleaned and disinfected to buy the materials and supplies. Some was used, actually came in from a different grant to upgrade the HVAC systems within the district. And then a lot of it was used to offset a lot of our normal operational expenses. So what you were seeing a year ago was the benefit of the SR1 funds, right, that came in after the budget was developed. Right now, this current year, we have been spending the SR2 funds, which is why we have such a significant surplus for the coming year. That was an enormous amount of money that came in from the federal government. We still plan for a lot of the things that we needed to do, but this is reimbursed with money. The money has come in. A lot of it was spent on mental health personnel. It was spent on helping students that have unfinished learning do work after school, in-during school, outside of contract hours, and on those sorts of things to get our students back up to speed as we could as we transition out of code. We also have another round of money that our payment plan, not our planning plan, but our spending plan is due on March 29, which is SR3, which is about $3 million that will be coming in supporting the school for the remainder of this year and for next year. Once that spending went, it's pretty close. What we've been doing with the surplus monies that we have is a lot of it has been pumped back into. It's rolled over into the next years. It's money that the taxpayers do not have to pay out in a tax year. It's subsidizing. What we did that very first year was we used it, we kind of split it up so that it subsidized the next three years in terms of budgets, and then we're taking a million of the $2 million surplus and we're doing the same thing. Spreading it out so that it's subsidizing taxpayers and what they're paying for the next year. I probably have a graphic of it. When this budget comes in now. Can I interrupt just a minute? Sure. Are there remote participants hearing that discussion? Okay. Make sure you speak up. But we have additional revenues that have come in too. We had an exceptional year in the Ed Fund, as well as we've got revenues that are coming in about $350,000, $360,000 that come in from school. Possibly. Yeah, we usually before, before COVID hit, we typically had a surplus around $400,000, $300,000. That was the norm in this district. And so what would happen with it, and that's what we asked the voters to do, is to put it into the reserve funds so that we can plan for longer term periodic things that happen, like replacing the roof on this building, which happened about five years ago last year. We used the facilities reserve fund money to replace the roof and all the HDAC equipment on top of Randolph Elementary. And so what having the money in reserve allows us to do, is that when those big bills come up, a million, two million, we don't have to go back out to the taxpayers and ask for it or go out to bond and borrow the money. Is there a cap on those reserve funds? Not that I'm aware of in terms of state law. But one of the things that we are trying to do is not to have too much in there. We are trying to spend some of it in support of students. Like the board is actually a lot of its access to the reserve funds this year. One of the perfect examples is for outdoor classroom spaces. We did a lot of renovations last year in the tech center to help build up and get our enrollments up there up from 109 students to 150 people. So yeah, it's very good questions. But make sure that I'm answering what you would like. But I do have a graphic I think is probably, I have two moments to throw up here since we got a little time and there's only a few of us, that I think would be important for folks to see. So that you understand what's happening in terms of subsidizing taxes for folks. Just a moment. I'll have to sit down with you in just a second. I can actually show you that from the slides. Give me just a moment. So these slides are from what I want to share. Look at this. Yeah, I wasn't planning on doing a big presentation today because that was last Monday. That's okay. Just give me a moment here. I want to make sure I'm not, otherwise I would have had all this stuff pulled up. Presenting, let's make sure we've got the right thing. We have a window. That's what I want to share. Do you have some good questions? We'll be talking about it in case other folks are looking. There we go. So you were asking about surplus. So here we are, 2021. So $2,072,997,000 in surplus at the end of last year. What we're trying to do with this budget is a couple of things. We want to take a million of it, and we want to use that to subsidize taxes for the next 20 years for the 2022, 23, 23, 24, 24, 25 school years, and then have the remainder go into the various reserve accounts that you just mentioned and the amounts that you just mentioned. So if you take a look at what we've done to try to subsidize taxes for folks, it's right up here. So you'll see the current year that we are in. We took 826,000 of the 1.6 million surplus from the previous year used it to help subsidize this budget. And then we took half of it, this is the top line up there, that will subsidize the next two years. What you're seeing on the second line down is what we're doing or planning on doing with $1 million is splitting it up equally over the next three years. And so we are effectively using the surplus money to subsidize about $746,000 a year for taxpayers. No. We adjust things right now how things are working is if we did not have this extra money, we would not be asking for some of the things that we are asking. Some of the things that we are asking for are temporary in nature for a couple of years because we have needs that were generated by COVID that we have to address. COVID hopefully is temporary, right? Hopefully we're coming to the end of it right now. There will always be some in there. But as soon as we get the students back up the skied over the next couple of years, a lot of staff that we brought on board to kind of help that and hopefully address some of the mental health issues that have come about because of COVID, hopefully over the next couple of years, those things will be able to be addressed and then we'll be able to pull back on that staff. Some is permanent, some is not. But we create the budget based upon what we have in terms of providing the maximum that we can for the students. So what you're looking at for the remaining million or so, and this also, this slide also shows you what's currently in the reserve accounts. So in our transportation account, we currently have a million, $86,000 in it. That's used to replace our fleet vehicles. We also typically replace two buses a year so that none of our bus fleet gets more than seven years old. We don't need to add anything to that. I'm not recommending as the voters go to the polls that they add anything to this reserve fund because we have more than enough money in there to cover what we need. In terms of building and maintenance, I am recommending that we take 524,000 of this surplus to add to the facilities reserve fund because we have a big unknown in terms of PCBs. It was a wise idea after what happened in Burlington, the legislature put in place that we should be testing for PCBs in buildings. We don't know what we're going to find until that testing happens, and we have two schools that are old enough that it is likely it is possible that there will be some PCB hits and we need to have money available for the remediation because that was not planned for yet, at least to the legislature. So the 2.8 million in the region. What's in there prior to the 524? And a lot of that, like I said, replacing that roof on Randolph Elementary is about a million dollars. We are currently seeing increased enrollments in our schools. We're talking about expanding some of our schools. We are talking about the creation of the STEM Center for Students. So there are lots of good uses that we can put this to on behalf of. We do want to be careful. I don't want to see, at least from my perspective, I don't want to see that facilities line probably get below about 1.5 million because that's what it costs to replace a roof. And that's kind of the purpose. I think the original reason that it was set up in terms of the special education fund, we knew for a while that Act 173 was coming along. I think it was 2018 that it was voted in. And that changes how the state funds special education. And so because it was changing from kind of more of a reimbursement system where you take a look at what we've got and they reimburse us for what we've got even if the students come in in the middle of the school year, it's switching in a lot of ways to what's a grant law. We get a chunk of money at the beginning of the year. Yes, there is some reimbursement if we get some really expensive students that come in in the middle of the year. But for the most part, we need to make due with what we receive in that block grant. Because in 2018, we didn't have an idea at that point in time of what things were going to look like. We decided to start putting money away in this reserve account so that if we had an unexpected cost, a very expensive or two or three very expensive students that moved in in the middle of the year, we could cover the needs for their services. And that scenario happens quite a bit in this district. The reason that I'm asking for 250,000 to be placed into that this year is because, excuse me, with Act 173 affecting next year's budget for the first time, we were one of the districts based upon the formulas that were given that were hurt. We lost about $200,000 in money that we would normally expect. So this was just, again, to kind of bolster that funding, make sure that we have what we need. The operational fund pretty much is there to hold the monies necessary to subsidize taxes for the taxpayers. I did ask for 250,000 as part of that 916 to help us out with a couple of initiatives that we need to work on. One of them has to do with the financial software. A while back, they had passed a law that the financial software would be the same across the state and the state was going to provide that. They started work on rolling out that financial software and it was not functioning. So we are now at a position where folks are trying to decide what is going to happen. My guess is, I'm anticipating that what will happen is that the AOE will look at each district and say, hey, as long as you purchase a software package that feeds into our main database, you will be okay, but we will probably be on the hook for buying that software. I don't know, but that is my guess. So part of that money is to help provide that software. That software is extremely expensive. We have a website that was developed with proprietary software that we don't have control over, great access to. So some of it is to develop a new website that we can control in-house is a part of what some of that money is used for. So there's quite a bit here in terms of the reserve funds and why they're important. I do want to recognize Senator McDonald is here with us tonight and I want to thank you for attending our meeting. So other questions that I might be able to answer? Yeah, you're welcome. It takes me a minute to change gears in my mind, so I apologize if there's a little choppy up front. Thank you. Are there any other questions about the oral report given by Superintendent Millington or about any of the reports that have been published? Or any other questions generally? Actually, I just have one comment. We are asking for about a million dollars in new money for this budget, but it is offset by an increase in revenues. If it were just the school side of things and not common level of appraisal, which we don't have any control over, that has to do with how the values of real estate goes up and down in pounds over a year. The budget, the taxpayer tax rates would be going down by almost four and a half cents for a hundred dollars in the cents value. So again, it's a matter of balancing our revenues against our rate increases and we did a pretty good job. Check page five, I believe. Point at what percentage... I think page five. When does that usually get triggered by what percentage? I'm not sure what the percentage is that's on the books. There is a percentage on the books that triggers an automatically appraisal. That's more on the town side. I focus on the school side of taxes. So I'd have to actually look that up. Senator McDonnell may know. If you have a response, please get back. When property values are not appraised at what they are selling for and it drops below 80%, you've got to consider reappraising. Most towns reappraise. They reappraise to around 120%, and that gives them several years before they'll have to do it again. And the purpose of that is if you have a statewide property tax, everybody has to be... we have to know what everybody's rates are so that when they make assessments, they can be equalized throughout the statement. And that equalized thing is a three-year rolling average of the transfer tax return sale amount as opposed to the appraised assessed amount, is how it works. And 80%, I thought, was a little lower than what I remembered, but the town is forced to reappraise if it gets too out of whack. And I believe there's a penalty if it gets too out of whack that they penalize your tax rate. Which is why people don't get too far out of whack. And I'm relying on a fading memory, so I'll shut up on that. So if I remember, I think Braintree reappraised last year. So they had a small shift. Randolph, what you see is based on the state assessment, obviously, is that the real estate value, the real list value, went up significantly compared to the assessed value, which is why. My guess is that COVID purchasing probably threw a lot of towns out of whack. But that's my guess. Any other discussion at all? People participating remotely, are there questions or discussions that you need to bring up at this time or want to? Then I am going to ask, and I'm going to go in the order of publication, what is the pleasure of the meeting on the report of the school board? Any questions? Shall we accept it? Motion has been made to accept the report of the school board as published. Is there a second? Maiden seconded. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all in favor of accepting the report of the school board as published, please signify by saying, aye. Any opposed, say nay. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. That is accepted. I now ask the pleasure of the meeting for the report of the elementary schools. There are published the report of the brain tree, the Brookfield, and the Randolph elementary schools. Are there any questions about any or all of those in the report? Any discussion? And I would entertain a motion to accept the report of the elementary schools as published. Motion has been made. Hearing none, all in favor of accepting the report of the elementary schools as published, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. Those reports are accepted. Next in the annual report is the report of the Randolph Technical Career Center, published on page 10, to thank you. No, I'm sorry. I missed the Union High School. Next is Randolph Union High School, published on 8 and 9 of the annual report. Any questions or discussions? Hearing none, I'd entertain a motion to accept the report of Randolph Union High School as published. Motion has been made. Your second. Thank you. Discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion carries. Then on pages 10 and 11 of the report is the report of the Randolph Technical Career Center. Any questions? Comments? Discussion? Is there a motion to accept the report as published? The motion has been made. Is there a second? I'll second. There's a second. I can't. Again, I ask for a discussion. On the motion to accept the report. Hearing none, all in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. And that report is accepted. I completed all the reports. Oh, I missed the superintendent's report. Which was given orally here at the beginning. Or summarized orally. It's on page 4 and 5. Any further discussions, questions or comments on the superintendent's report? Hearing none, is there a motion to accept the report as published? Motion has been made. Seconded. And seconded. Discussion on the motion. All in favor of accepting the superintendent's report as published, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Contrary minded, say nay. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. And that report is accepted. Article 6. To see whether the school district will authorize the school board to borrow money pending receipt of payments from the member towns by the issuance of notes or orders payable not later than one year from the date thereof. What is the pleasure of the meeting? I'll accept the motion to. I move to accept. Is there a second? Second. The motion has been made and seconded. To authorize the school district. For the school district to authorize the school board to borrow money pending receipt of payments from the member towns by the issuance of notes or orders payable not later than one year from the date thereof. Discussion on the motion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Any contrary, please state nay. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion carries. Articles 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 are articles for the election of school officials, school directors, and for budgetary items. Those articles will be voted in the respective towns tomorrow by Australian ballot. Braintree town office will be open for voting from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And I believe that's at the Braintree town office, not the town hall. Like Rick, town office, the town clerk's office next to the garage. The Brookfield elementary school will be the place where Brookfield voters vote. And that will be open for voting from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Peter, that's going to be at the town clerk's office and not the school. All right. Sorry. I just wanted to. That is amended. The Brookfield voters will go to the Brookfield town clerk's office situated in Fawn Village. And those polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Randolph voters will vote at the Randolph town hall. And those polls are going to be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Now, is there any more business to come before the meeting? This is the open forum. There's no warned articles. But if anybody has a question or a comment, you are free to do so at this time. Mr. McDonald, our senator is here. I don't know if he wants to make a comment. The pleasure to be here. And there is a lot of additional money that's come to this state. And it was to help with the COVID issues. And the advice from the legislature has been, use the money to buy things that you wouldn't ordinarily buy and pay for them. And when COVID is over, you've got the new roof. You've got the new ventilation system. You've got the investments that you need. But you haven't built your base budget and you don't have an ongoing cost. It was interesting to hear how this evening this school district has worked to achieve those goals. So, thank you. Thank you for speaking to us. I trust the superintendent and the school board heard the advice to spend that money wisely, but spend it. Anything else? Anything from the people joining remotely? Hearing nothing? Seeing nothing? I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion's been made. All in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.