 So, hi everybody I'm Paul Backelman town manager I'm calling this first meeting of the budget coordinating group to order. This is January 27 at 830 am pursuant to chapter 20 the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. The questions are included on the agenda that was posted, no in person attendance of members of the public is permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access to proceedings in real time via technological means this meeting is being recorded. What we will do is verify who's in the room and if they can hear and can be heard so I'll just go through my screen, Sean mangano. Yes. Lynn Griezmer present Doug slaughter. Yes, I can be Andy Steinberg present Allison McDonald. Sonia. Yes. Austin. Present. Mandy Joe. Peter. Mike. Sharon. Bob. Thank you all for being here. If you want to show the agenda, Sean. So the first order of business and then hopefully my role will be finished is to select a chair, and then the chair will will conduct a vice chair selection. Are there any nominees and the way we will do this is we will ask for nominations and then see if that person accepts and then if there's, and we will continue that process until there are no more nominations and then we will go around the room and vote for the chair. So are there any nominations for chair. And I'm going to use my. Andy Lynn, do you accept the nomination. So many we won't meet too often. Yes. Okay. Are there other nominations for chair. Okay. So, given that I will go around the room at the members and ask for, if you approve of Lynn Griezmer being the chair. So, talk with start with start with Andy. Yes. Allison. Yes. Austin. Yes. Mandy Joe. Yes. Peter. Yes. And Bob. Yes. And Lynn. Yes. Okay. So you are the chair of the BCG, which maybe this. We may have one other meeting, but hopefully this is your, your solo role. So I turned the day us over to you. Okay, I'm the floor is open for nominations for vice chair. I'll also take volunteers. Are there any other volunteers here? Allison. Is that you? Are there any other volunteers? Then I'm going to quickly go through the voting for Allison for vice chair. Then Greece Merse and I Andy Steinberg. Hi. Mandy Johanna key. Hi. Austin Serrat. Hi. Bob Pam. Hi. Peter Demling. Hi. Okay. Then we're going to start with a fiscal update. Am I correct in that, Sean? And I know you probably sent us that, but would you send me the agenda? Yes. Thank you. Do you want me to go ahead and share my screen now and start going through it? Sure. Yes. So there was an email sent out last night. Yeah, the agenda was part of that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and go through it. We'll find it right now. Just go on, Sean. Okay. All right. So we're going to look at updated. Projections that include the. Governors. The information from the governor's budget. And I'll just go through and highlight. Mostly what has changed from the last time. We presented this at the financial indicators. And we're already in the previous meeting. So. In local receipts, one thing that did change that's outside of the governor's budget, but it, it has an impact. Is PBTA. We received the. FY 21 PBTA letter. Thank you, Doug. And. Our assessment went up quite a bit. It went up about 10%. Most of the increases actually. So the way our PBTA assessment works is we pay a portion. We pay the whole thing, but then we get reimbursed by UMass five colleges. And then we pay a residual portion of our transportation fund. And they break it down for us based on the routes of who, who owes what. And so in this particular case, our assessment, our assessment from them went up quite a bit. But it was almost exclusively UMass. Their share that went up. And I think the way they described it to me is. That a lot of people's routes sort of scaled back where UMass had to maintain a lot of their routes last year, especially during the second half of the year. And so that's why their costs went up quite a bit. So you'll see an increase in our. Revenues, which is shown here in special assessments. That's the, you'll see, that's quite a bit of an uptick from the previous year. But you'll also see down below in our state assessments, that's where the cost going out is shown. So for local receipts, I think that's the, the only major change from last time. And state aid, we saw chapter 70 go up. Very small amount. I think that correct me if I'm wrong. I think it was $30 per pupil, which is, you know, almost as low as they ever do. I think the lowest they ever do is maybe $25. So we're hoping to see that number get better. Again, Amherst and region only get minimum aid for chapter 70. We don't ever get any foundation aid or any of the benefits from all the things that you hear on TV about. All the new money going into schools. Because of the wealth level of town and the other factors, we only get the minimum aid every year. So that's really the most important number for us when you're, when we're advocating is what that minimum number is. Charter reimbursement went up. I'll let Doug speak to whether there was an enrollment increase. It did look like the governor put quite a bit of more money into charter reimbursement and that may be part of it as well. The unrestricted government aid went up 2.7%. We knew that a couple of days ago. We were hoping for more. You know, the governor technically is keeping to his promises around increasing local aid the same as whatever the consensus revenue forecast is for the state. But, you know, there was a year where the consensus revenue forecast was zero and I think they have had a 20% increase or 15% increase or something way above what that that was. So, you know, I know Paul and many others are advocating for much more than what that was this year and that would make a big, big impact on our financial picture. Veterans benefits went up a little bit. These are the ones sort of just fluctuate a little bit up and down state owned land. It's another one that's very frustrating to us. Our value of our state owned land went up, but not more than what other towns state owned land percentages went up. So ours actually goes down relative to the pot of money that's available. And this is what we get from the state for, you know, the land that's owned by you, you know, mostly UMass, I think for us. And this is another area where we're advocating really for a formula change or something significant to happen here because it sounds like Hadley bring in, you know, as much or more in state owned land revenue as we do and we have the flagship campus for the state. So it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And I got a really long description of how this program got to be where it was from somebody at the DOR last week, but yeah, it just doesn't seem like a fair formula the way they do it. And then the last two things here, school choice and public libraries, those, that revenue comes in, but then it goes out because we give it to the schools, the school choice tuition revenue. So that goes, we have to receive it because it's on our way to the school's account. And then public libraries, Sonya correct me if I'm wrong, but same thing, it goes to the library. And then the last piece here on the revenue, sorry, on the revenue side are other financing sources. So ambulance fund, Sonya and I have been looking at the activity in that fund. It dipped way down during the pandemic. There were a bunch of, there's been some pretty significant changes to the fund. We lost the Hadley routes, which decreased revenue quite a bit. That was a big chunk of the activity, but then to try to offset some of that loss, fees were increased are the billing fees that come out of the ambulance department or ambulance to our third party biller. And, and then the pandemic hit. So we never really saw the true impact of losing Hadley and then what the, the increase in revenues would be from the fees going up. So we're still not really, it's hard to separate what's related to the pandemic, what's related to our fee increases, what's related to losing Hadley. But what we, we have been looking at the activity through the first six months of this year. And the way this fund works is we have to have the money in the fund. Sonya will be proud of me for saying this. You have to have the money in the fund before you can appropriate it for the following year's budget. So, so we're looking at this and we feel pretty good about this number. CPA is just the debt. So it comes in and goes out. That doesn't really have any impact. Enterprise funds continue to be an area that we're concerned about. You can't really tell looking at these three years, but if you go back prior to FY, prior to FY 20, our reimbursement from enterprise funds were much higher. So that's an area we look, we hope improves as we come out of the pandemic. And then another adjustment you'll see here that just as throw makes things look a little strange is that in FY 22, you'll see this is FY 22 recap now. So this is what Sonya has submitted to the state as what we think our revenues are going to be. And it also includes the free cash transfers that we made. The council approved transferring so much free cash to the stabilization fund. And so it shows up here. So if you take that number out, you kind of get back to where we were during the financial indicators report, but because we have to include that number because it's part of the recap. It makes it look like our budget's dropping, but it's really not in reality. Should we pause here and take questions? Sure. Any questions? Okay. See none. Then let's go on to. Oh, Allison's got a question. I'm sorry. Yeah, Allison, go ahead. Real quick. Sean, can you restate that last bit that you were saying about it, the budget looks like it's going down, but it isn't. Can you. Yeah, so if you go back to the financial indicators report. That's the number that we gave in November. That was before the recap was finalized. And so this number here and free cash is 5.9 million. That wasn't in there. That's a number that comes in as part of the recap. And it's really just a transfer. It's not a true revenue source coming into the budget, but it's something that has to be part of the recap. And so if you take this number out, we were somewhere around 86 million. If you go back to that presentation. And that's really sort of the true budget. Again, this is because the recap is in here. It makes it throws it off a little bit. Andy, you have a question. Yeah, I was just curious about the. Charter reimbursement and how that compares to the charter. Assessment for. The act on the other side of the coin. So I can pull. After I stop sharing this, I can pull up the. The cherry sheet so you can see both. If you want to have that pretty. Let me ask Peter. If he is a question before you do that. Okay. Peter. Yeah, it doesn't have to be now, Sean, but could you just give me the, the, the one on one version of, of what a recap is. This is the first time I've seen this term and on budgeting and. Sure. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. Yeah. Sonya is the expert. She's been doing it for the last. I don't want to guess how many years. Yeah. It's the form we set our tax rate with. So when we vote our operating budgets, those are set in stone. Once the council votes those budget, but revenues are in flux until our tax rate is set. And we have to balance. We have to balance. We have to balance. We have to balance. We have to balance now. In stone as well. It doesn't mean we can't take in more. We won't get less. It just means those are the numbers that are tied to our budget at this point. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on this sheet before we take it down. Then let's go back to go to that next sheet or that other sheet you were talking about. For charter. Yeah. Around charter, right? Sure. Can you, is this super small on your screen? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's. For this hour of the morning. Doug, I might have to rely on your, your former IT skills. How do I zoom in on this? Control plus. Control plus. I know something easy like that. Thanks. All right. So this is the. All right. So this is the estimated receipt side for charter. So there's the reimbursement going from 107. 841. And this column here to 236. The reimbursement side. Our charter is going up from. 1.6 million to 1.8 million. And again, I don't know if Doug, you may, you may not have dove into the numbers yet. I know these will go up if our charter enrollment stays the same year to year. These numbers will still go up. Somewhere between three to 5% because. The tuition rate goes up. So every kid will cost. 3 to 5% more. And when you're talking about millions, it adds up pretty quick or, you know, 1.5 million or so. I see Mike's got his hand up. Just on that note, the projections show basically the same number of charter students as we have this year as next year, actually in both districts, but I know this is reflecting the Amherst district, but at the regional level too. I think it's within the range of one kid difference. So essentially flat. I think it's important to note that the increases you're talking about are based on the inflationary factors, not on more kids going to charter. And Mike, I don't know what you think or Doug, but it seems like the charter schools. Have sort of hit their, hit their enrollment numbers in terms of growth. It doesn't seem like they're growing as much as they were in the past. So now it seems like it's more shifting between towns sending there, but it doesn't seem like we've had those big, big increases that are really��� there. Doin it seem to could compare whether others of the fully dedicated kids increases per year, like we did when, when the PVC, ICS LS was expanding. We're not seeing kind of big trends either way. So my understanding is they are taking more classes at certain grade levels, but they don't seem to be taking as significantly more kids from our community. That's good. No, that's really good. Peter. So yeah, two quick points on that as it relates to budget planning for this year and future. So there is a pending lawsuit for the PVC SCS is suing the state to expand. So that, that is probably the biggest variable that could affect. Amherst elementary charter in the future. There's a 9% cap. Right on, on what we can lose to charter and we're at about 6% ish. So, you know, that 1.8 could go up another, you know, X hundred thousands of dollars. The other thing to note about so Mike is correct that we're, we're starting to stabilize in the enrollment. And who knows, you know, what happens in the future, but the way that relates to the charter reimbursement is the reimbursement is only for a portion of the change in enrollment from year to year. So, if, you know, once you get into steady state enrollment numbers, your reimbursement will will will trend to zero. And it's, it's, it's true that the initial pot for the reimbursement amount to fill that line item for the governor is is higher than normal as Sean mentioned a few minutes ago. But that number for us if our enrollment stabilizes will will will pretty much go down to nothing over time. I assume you mean when you say go down to nothing you mean no increases. So you're right so there's since the reimbursement is for the change from one year to the next year, if your enrollment stays the same that eventually you're not going to get reimbursed for for anyone. Thank you. Are there any other questions about this or the previous chart. Okay, seeing none. Then we're going to go on to budget updates and we're going to start with the schools then go to the library, and then to the, I'm sorry, there is one other. That's right. Yeah, anything about health insurance. So, health insurance we have the bands unless Paul has gotten some inside information this morning which crossing my fingers he does. But we are bands for health insurance where if we were at the minimum, and it would be a 0% increase. If we're at the average, it would be a 3.7% increase. And if we were at the max, it would be a 7.5% increase. You know we don't want to speculate too much but when we've looked at our numbers. At least the last time I saw the numbers. There was nothing that indicated we would be at the max for example, the numbers seem to be trending where you know, PPO HMO, you know, have some differences in their experience but on the average we seem to be in an okay place. So we're crossing our fingers that we're below the average but again we don't want to speculate too much. Paul did you any have any whispers this morning. No, but they understand that we're very anxious on it and might be wise I think for Sean to go through this side of the budget as well. And just for all everyone here to know to we've taken a number of measures to try to get our health insurance rates is down as low as we can we've taken advantage of some different programs that Maya offers that then produces discounts on our overall rate. And so we've implemented a number of those the last couple years. So yes. Yeah, go ahead. So this is the expense side so operating budgets haven't changed in terms of what we're, we're looking at so we've got the two and a half percent for everybody. And then additional funding for the town to help fund the implementation of the Cres program, and then the adjustment for charter and choice tuition boosts up the elementary schools to 2.73% So that section hasn't changed much that will continue to fluctuate. As we dive into the capital plan and meet with JCPC. But this is still the main thing here is that we're proposing 10% of the tax levy for capital. And this will this section I'll just say it will change. This will change quite a bit before the final version. One of the big variables here is when we borrow for the library. We have the library project moving forward. So we can choose to borrow this year which would make our first step payment and FY 23, or we can borrow in the future which would push the first step payment out a little bit. And there's pros and cons to both. But if we do decide to borrow this year and try to take advantage of low interest rates, that would put the first first step payment into FY 23. Again, the overall won't change in terms of the 10% for the levy but you know how much is for projected debt and current debt and what's left over for cash capital will probably change or will definitely change. In the miscellaneous section. We have a retired pension assessment again this is pension for both the elementary schools the town the library. This is piece parts that are related to the enterprise funds get carved out and paid by the enterprise funds since they're supposed to be self sustaining so that. So it's the net after the enterprise fund pension costs are backed out. We have OPEB back to 500,000 which is sort of the ongoing level we'd like to keep increasing that into the future was really what our original plan was was to increase $100,000 per year until we got to our annual required contribution. But we want to at least keep it at 500,000 and make those ongoing contributions. Then reserve for abatements and exemptions that's always just 1% of our, our levy, we might see that go up a little bit we did send a flyer up this year to make people more aware of the exemptions opportunities available to them. But generally the 1% of the levy is is enough for what we need. That's going up 10% again that's related to charter tuition going up and PVTA going up those are the two big drivers that drove this up and then we have some increased revenues to offset. These cherry shade offsets are just the, the equal to the money that we give to the schools for choice and the money we get to the library. So that just nets out. And so the bottom line is right now, I think this is a, you know, a balanced budget that we could move forward with. There's going to be some variables that change up and down but we're, we're in a balanced place at this point. So I have my hand up to ask a question on the data set assessment does that include the two items that will come before the council on my the seventh, which is the increase for the fire. Pumper and the second one is moving forward with the OPM and the architect for the schools for the elementary. And I'm going to include those because we're proposing to use free cash to pay for the increases of that so that will take some burden off of the debt and and you know any future override it'll takes a little bit of pressure off of that because we're proposing free cash. The, but the pumper the original pumper obligation the 450,000 that the council approved that is part of our projections here. And then, does this include any change based on numbers that were presented at the last four towns meeting for regional debt. No, because the regional debt didn't change and again correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't look like it changes for FY 23 it's when you get past and some of those out years, when a roof and the fields potentially kick in. That's where those increases start to come in. Other other questions with regard to this budget. Okay, so are we ready to go on to the next. Not seeing any objections. So this is the budget updates and I know we have a four towns meeting on the 10th, I guess it is 10th. And also, but we're talking about both elementary and secondary here. Mike Doug. So I will take it Doug may jump in Sean has encouraged me to be brief and to set a good dynamic for that. I'm not sure I'll be successful but I'll do my best, but there's no visuals at least so. So really just want to talk about five things. I will mention as Lynn said both Amherst region when I'm not being explicit assume that it applies to both districts when I am being explicit I think it'll be more clear. So I just want to start that we have a lot of challenges running school in a pandemic right any newspaper you have will describe the challenges, and they're ubiquitous right it's not like site specific but we've got students who struggled to live in the social emotional toll of the pandemic, not just the safety measures that we have in place but the challenges that existed that exist with families being, you know, greatly affected in all sorts of ways by COVID restrictions and COVID itself on the illness. Soon academics we definitely like most districts saw significant gap in achievement levels, based on the separate from in school not in school just the nature of last year, you know, starting in 2020. And we saw those exacerbated in ways that include race, gender, socioeconomics and disability. And so we're working our hardest to both support students social emotional well being but also ensure that they have successful options as they leave so you know, I know we're talking finances but this all connects so I promise again the section brief otherwise Sean will send me darts and I don't want that. And the last challenge we have like every organization right now is staffing. You know, we went through the fall we have an online tracker of all of our COVID cases in our schools it's updated every day. And what you'd see is in the month of January we've far surpassed any number of cases that we've had the entire pandemic up until now. And so we've kept our schools open. We've virtually never had to do the sort of warehousing of students like oh go to the cafeteria and, you know, hang out and do some work because we don't have teachers for you but that has a cost to it. Right that adds you may thought ahead via permanent substitute teachers, our staff have been incredible about being flexible and covering for one another. And there's a real cost and there's a cost when we say don't come in if you're feeling sick. Our teachers are the folks who are so dedicated and I'm sure the same is true at the library in the town who, yeah I've got a sniffle on fine and and now we're saying, okay I don't know for a couple days we really not fine don't come. But we have to pay people for you know they're certainly entitled to sick time we want them to take it and we have to pay people to cover for them. So I think that's one of the essential implications of all three of those. I'm incredibly proud of the level of quality of education we've offered this year despite the pandemic. I mentioned, you know that we've covered classes and health and safety measures have been part of that as well so you know, just getting emails and pings from newspapers around you know what kind of master we supply for staff and we've recently talked about just applying a high quality mask for students we always had surgical masks available but higher quality mask with Omicron and you know we have you some grant funds for that but there's it's been a primary focus of schools this year. So then connecting it to the fiscal challenges and the unknowns right health insurance was recently talked about so we're eager to get that number. We're in a competitive environment, so when we are not providing the services and options that families to request. It means that they have options to go to other schools it also means that we have to attract students and track students back so for instance the last couple years we've added Chinese and that's worked out to be worked out well fiscally but it didn't at first right so we were hearing from folks in our community we want to come back from middle school or high school, but we've, we want there to be a robust Chinese we're continuing to hear that maybe even needs to be more robust and you know we're struggling with the financial implications of that so all that to say we're in a competitive environment the same is true the performing arts as well. Where, you know we have to have additional factors that we didn't used to have to think about in terms of retaining students but the financial implications of charter schools are so great that it does affect our thinking and it affects our finances. So if we're not meeting the needs of our students students are going to find a place other place to go and that has a pretty big sticker shock. And so our desire to stay competitive affects our fiscal challenges. This year we have a fiscal challenge with our bus contract our bus contract like most bus contracts operates off an inflation factor inflation as you know is that higher levels and it's been at in recent history. So it means we're going to have to pay more for our busing, you know, we've done very well with that. Over the past five years where inflation was incredibly low. And now we're on the other end of that so our, because we have a new bus contract but the inflation factor is going to push up the cost significantly there. I think as Sean mentioned before so the governor's budget had $30 per pupil, which really doesn't move the needle in terms of our budget in terms of year to year costs and that pushes it off on to municipalities. So we have a fiscal challenge as it relates to and I'll speak this is an elementary issue Wildwood and Fort River, because we had to close up the quads for airflow and safety and ventilation. It means we lost 12 classrooms at each site. It means that classrooms are taking place in cafeterias, which have been converted art rooms music rooms, and the particular cafeteria is particularly important to note because it means we can't use it for students to eat students are eating in their classrooms, which means we can't use staffing to cover lunch periods. And I know this sounds like a small detail but it's not a small budget amount that we're having to cover with staff over just to make sure that staff have their duty free lunch which they're contractually obligated to, and that student students eat in a supervised environment our cafeteria is the elementary level generally, you know, on average would host four to six classes at a time with one person supervising and we don't have that option now. So we've had to increase staffing to support students because of the nature and the infrastructure in our school buildings right now. And the last one is our Esser funds we continue, you know we have gotten three rounds of Esser funds which are from the federal government related to their stimulus package funds related to the pandemic. We've tried to be very thoughtful and how we approach the use of them and try not to build bridges that there's nothing on the other side of as much as possible knowing that it's a multi year grant. I know my professional organization as recently written to the federal government to advocate and there were other co signers to extend the use of those funds they're slated to end in September 24 to push them out two more years so that we can wean off them a little more gradually I'm highly supportive of that but at this point it's, it's that that's the timeline that we have right now. So now I'll just make just a couple Amherst specific comments public region specific comments and Sean hasn't kicked me off I haven't gotten the hook yet so I think I'll try to be rather be done soon Sean, but on Amherst, you know we're involved in a green project which is townwide I want to thank Kathy Shane and I'll do that at every opportunity for me sharing that project she's doing a fabulous job. And, in addition to the sustainability like the green sustainability of use of energy will have operational savings when that project comes into place and significant and significant waves. I know that's 2026 but we are trying to build a bridge to when we will be more efficient right now in our three buildings we are very inefficient, and it causes financial as well as operational challenges for us on multiple fronts. We are slated based on boats of the Amherst school committee and the regional school committee to move sixth grade to the middle school, not for this fall but for the following fall. I will do my one little deviation I got to spend time in every sixth grade classroom and Amherst, in the last two weeks asking the sixth graders what they wanted to think about what middle school should look like for sixth grades. It's awesome. They have a lot of great ideas and a lot of things for us as a community to think about because they're not just about school. It's really what does the community look at, as it thinks to a sixth grade sixth eighth grade middle school and how do we position young adolescents in our larger community the conversation went a number of different ways I wouldn't think and it's something I'm looking forward to sharing with the Amherst school committee and the larger community in a week and a half. There will be some, you know, challenges and savings along the way, but really when both those projects take place when sixth grades at the elementary at the middle school level and the building project is in place we're working with one less school and a whole lot more efficient staffing models, operational models and so we really it's for me it's often how do we get to 2026, where we can realize significantly more savings than our current current setup designed I know. In the past we've looked at regionalization, you know that would have had a lot of savings didn't end up going forward we looked at regionalization actually twice one with Pellum at the elementary level one kid at 12, you know the communities were not in support of those measures. We've looked at combining schools we've looked at a whole variety of things over the last five years and we've settled on these two is providing the operational savings they're they're occurring. They're not synchronized and they're occurring less quickly than we'd like a former building project also would have netted significant operational savings, but now we're back in that queue. So, you know was really trying to get to a bridge where our infrastructure can support a much more efficient model of schooling for students at the regional level we're presenting our initial budget on Tuesday we had a four town meeting. We received feedback from our member towns they didn't align, which is no surprise and no new news right that towns were looking for different assessment methods and preferring different things. We also heard from our school committee at the regional level that they were comfortable with adjustments based on enrollment, but they requested a budget with no cuts and looking at sustainable funding sources. So we're trying to take all that in that pie doesn't all add up at the moment but Doug and I are working really hard to how to come up with a model that meets the competing demands and interest to the to extend possible. And so we're looking forward to that four town meeting that Lynn mentioned which is in the evening. So it's a little shock for those of you have been to a number of four town meetings. In the evening on Thursday the 10th it supported that Amherst town council I believe has a retreat on the 12th which would have been the logical date we would have had it. So Lynn thank you for letting me know so we didn't just let that conflict happen. Really helpful to have that communication. And the last thing I want to share is that you know just we we see a drop in enrollment starting in our current fourth grade. And this is what predict that trend will continue. So we have realized some savings of the elementary level it's hard to realize it now because of our infrastructure but will, but that that that will drop will occur when those students get to the middle school and high school. That will affect the assessment for the member town because you're we see a pretty significant drop, starting in that current fourth grade it also will make other efficiencies more realizable in the future so you know we are looking at the long view on this not just a year to a year but how do we get more sustainable over time and I think our enrollment will help us. We've made some changes before we've moved some of the academy to the high school and the limited use of that building. Sorry, I'm going to have overhead. This is a good time to stop because you can't hear me anyway, but I'm happy to answer any questions folks have. Any questions can I just have one clarification just my memory is clogged. Absolutely middle school moving to the sixth grade in 2020 fall of 22 or fall of 23 fall of 23. Thank you. Yeah, so it's not the next year. Next academic years that you're after. Got it. Are there questions. Mike, thank you for that very concise Doug I think you did a good job please make sure you tell him that that was very putting it all together. I do have one other question then Andy I saw your hand so why don't you go ahead. Yeah, I was just, you mentioned about enrollment trends in the elementary school, and I was curious whether the, there's any way to project whether the enrollment of the number of students who are in special education. There's projections there or that's none number. We do have some of that projections. We are seeing an increasing share of special education students when you look at our preschool level because all students with special needs in the community, you know get assessed by a preschool coordinator. We are seeing students with significant needs in our preschool environment so I don't see a downward trend that way. So there's some thinking about what it meant for a generation of students to miss a significant amount of time in preschool and the implications that has. I'm not an early childhood expert but I've heard early childhood experts talk about the implications in the pandemic at different age spans, playing out differently, not better or worse just differently. There's some thinking about the implications and kind of what that does there but as it relates to to early learners who weren't able to get early intervention for long periods of time. There is some thinking that that will have a negative effect on those students and will kind of by effect increase the special education load particularly at primary grade levels over the next few years. Andy Joe. You talked about the staffing challenges in a pandemic year and all and as we move out of sort of pandemic as pandemic and move into endemic situations is what I would say. Do you foresee those staffing challenges lessening in terms of if testing decreases and quarantine and isolation decrease such that it would affect the budget I know it's affected the budget this year for a number of reasons but do you see that at a point where that may decrease or put less stress on the sort of subline on the budgets in the coming years. That's a great, great question so at Fort River and Wildwood, you know that the at the elementary level that's really based on at this point more the infrastructure of the schools and the challenges but the six word moves that'll ease. So we have one more year of that. I think more generally, your guess is this is mine where the pandemic goes both of us probably read a lot of the same articles Mandy Joe and and you know you can look at the optimistic scenarios. You could look at people like Bob Washler out UCFF who who you know recently wrote pretty and he's pretty moderate. I find him his opinions often moderated compared to others and he just said I think this is going to be like the weather. Right. When the weather is good, things are going to be all right, but the weather is going to be more variants is going to be, you know, it'll be seasonal component to this. We, you know, he was interestingly arguing for, you know, really he was using weather as an analogy to say, you have to adjust your measures consistently, like you adjust your, what you wear consistently based on that and in places in the northeast he was predicting spring to early fall looking pretty good and with a seasonal respiratory illness that's significantly more significant than many others that we may be in similar places through winners over the next few years so it's hard to, it's hard to know it's hard to budget for to your larger point. And that's true across departments that were, I mean by, not my departments but I think the train would be true for Sharon and Scott and Tim that you know we're all anxious to get back to more predictable levels of that and not yet ready to counter eggs or I'm terrible expression but you know what I mean. It tells me I should never do that at meetings and she's right. But, but, you know, so I think, I think it'll be better right I think we have vaccines we didn't have them a year ago. We know a lot more now than we knew then but even the question of like masking which has been the social media cause this week about masking in schools right. You know, it's hard to know exactly how that'll play out over time. What we know is what we've done has been pretty effective at reducing and eliminating spread in schools. And I think as it relates to staffing and what the quarantine rules are what the spread is. It's just it's hard to plan for, you know, and I'd love to be internal optimistic I typically am on this one. I've learned one of my lessons the pandemic is don't always come out with your optimism in a public meeting and I'm going to choose not to right now. So Mike. I know that transportation is reimbursement from the state based on formula. We don't do as well because we're not completely regional. Do you see any possibility the state might add relief in transportation based on inflation. Sorry, I chuckled because the governor's budget actually pretty significantly reduced regional transportation reimbursement. I think it was to the order of 8% or something like that. And we would just be it's it's not it's based on a per mile it just not like based on one district gets more or less it's not like circuit break or something like that. So that I do hope that our colleagues in the legislature will track that and that's not the first time he's tried to reduce regional transportation so he being the governor and oftentimes representatives push back and at least get it back to being level. But there's there's a literal reduction in transportation federal regional transportation aid in the governor's budget. Peter. I'll follow up on that so. So, first, I'm here as a delegate from the Amherst School Committee but just since the question of transportation came up so that. So that's right that line that subject to appropriation line was significantly decreased in the governor's budget and so this is a real emphasis point of advocacy that if you all want to get involved in please read out to me that we've tried to do it every year but this is one of those things where regional school districts across the state band together and we try and generate pressure. But of course we have this systemic structural problem that we're outgunned by the Boston reps right in the suburbs, and they just don't get why it's it's just to fully fund regional transportation they forget about the broken barriers that are on us that you know back in the 50s when this our region was constructed it was one of the carrots one of the main financial carrots is that we're going to fund your regional transportation and they've never ever funded that fully and and it's it's never risen to the level of of a commitment. So that's the advocacy thing that happens every year. The local reps are totally on board with it, but you know they are two voices among many and so something will be putting some effort into it to the degree that we can from our small humble soapbox out here in Amherst but anybody really wants to get into that please contact me we can just Facebook groups and you know organizations and and there will be budget amendments that will need to be, you know, advocated for and whatnot so something that that you can spend some time on if you if you have it. Sean. Thanks Len and thanks Mike for letting us get a word in. So, rural school aid Mike, it looks, I think we're going in like year three of rural school aid. I know it's not a huge, huge amount but I don't know the answer to this I mean when when do you think you you'll get a comfort level that it's something that's reliable and ongoing and could potentially be budgeted if you haven't budgeted for it yet I don't know if you guys have incorporated that in. I know it's, it's new so it's always a little precarious. Given given your response I'll let Doug answer that one, Sean. Yeah. So we get that really only at the region not per Amherst. It has varied in its size. And so that's part of, you know, the, the concern I have for you, you know strictly budgeting for it. It tends to kind of be, I don't want to say found money but it provides some relief in that regard. But if it becomes I think over the next couple of years, you know, were consistently funded. There'll be a lot easier sort of predict what that what that size is in the current years about 90,000 but it's been 65,000 so you know you don't want to. I just don't think it's been consistent enough yet to budget, but I think in the next couple years if they continue to sort of fund that line in the budget and then we'll be able to be more programmatic and how we do it. Peter. Yeah, just real quick so that line originates from Senator Adam Heinz he's the senator state senator from Berkshires. He's currently running for lieutenant governor. I'm not telling you who to vote for but you know the reality of all this advocacy is that politics matter, you know, a big reason why a lot of these things have been funders because who's been in the governor's office in the last X number of years, you know, so pay attention because whoever wins governor lieutenant governor will have a major impact on how our school and town line items are funded over the next several years. By the way, Adam Heinz now lives in Amherst. Just to be clear. So, I do have one other question going back to Essar funds. You said you're on the third round the multi year this slated to end in September 2024. Are you thinking they're going to add more funds or you just want to stretch existing funds out. I'm sure that they would love my professional organization would love more funds but that the request was not actually around use, adding more funds was around stretching the use so that it could cover multiple budget years, more than it currently does. Okay, any other questions of the schools. Then let's move to the library. Sharon Austin. Oh, I'm sorry Paul. We thought this meeting was going to be over earlier but so is there anything you want to say before you have to leave Sonia just so we don't lose your wisdom. You're muted though. No, I'm sure you and I have it covered. Thanks Sonia. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. You're coming to join us today. Okay, we're going to library. Okay, well Mike, I always enjoy your presentations. I don't think you're long winded at all. So, so COVID for the library. We're having the same problems that the schools do with staff shortages. Yeah, you know their staff are getting it during their family get togethers and yeah, thankfully we don't have to gosh worry about the psychological issues and and well being of our patrons the way that the schools have to do with the kiddos I'm you know my heart breaks for this whole many generations of these children that they've been through these past couple of years. So I think our patrons our biggest problem is masked on compliance. For the most part, patrons get it they're on board this is Amherst, they're educated yay. But the other day we had somebody come in with a, I'm an a proud anti vaxer jacket on and he refused to wear a mask and that's really hard on staff and you know we don't want to call the police we don't want to make things worse. Do we serve them but that just encourages them that it's okay do we escort them out which of course is just going to anyways. So that's that's COVID for us. The next few years are kind of going to be weird for the libraries because we have the North Amherst library building project going on. Well that will go on soon and then the Jones building project so we will be for the North Amherst library project we're going to move North Amherst services down to the months and open hours that's where the staffing will be computers materials and all of that. So that's great. And then when the North Amherst building building project is done will move them out and then the Jones project will begin several months later and and we will move all of the Jones stuff out will be able to increase the hours at both branches staffing will will go there materials collections programings that and and we will also be looking for other interim locations. I love what Mike what you said about you know operational efficiencies once once the Jones project, especially is done you know not only staffing efficiencies you know better sight lines that kind of thing but the utilities. So we're expecting savings there. I'm really excited about that. Financially speaking, where the library is is for FY 23 going to be where we always are so the town appropriation covers most of the library salaries it only pays for salaries, but it doesn't cover 100% of our salary so it's not going to be in the whole, let's say 60 grand 70 grand. I'm, it very much depends on the coal is you know union negotiations those health insurance increases. So until I get that information I'm kind of, I'm kind of up a creek I can't. My whole budget is around, you know those figures so until I, until I get those numbers I can't give anybody anything concrete, but that's, that's pretty much where we are now, I beat you Mike. Thank you. My serious amount but that's okay. Any other questions for the library. Austin. This is a question from the library not for the library and it's one that is raised all the time. I just want to raise it again, and that is. Is there a prospect in our lifetime that the town and the library will reach a new understanding about the contribution of the town to the salaries of people at the library. I don't want to try to answer that. Yeah, so I will. Okay, usually Sony usually likes to answer this one. Right, Sharon. Yeah, I mean, right now, unless there is a realignment of the budget, there aren't, you know, you're looking at the numbers that we're looking at. And unless there's a new influx of cash or anything, I think that relationship is sort of stable. And I understand the point that the library makes but I don't see that changing in the near future at least. So I'm raising it as a, not for. You know what you said the near future, I just think that we need to get involved in a long term in a conversation about how to deal with this problem over the long term. Because it and the failure to deal with it year after year puts the live I mean again we're all in the same team but puts the library in a very difficult position. Yeah, so I'm just asking that the, you know, the numbers don't work out which is, I get it, that we think together about how to think about this over the over the long term, rather than just saying, you know, every year the same thing the numbers don't don't work out which I understand. So, since we are a budget coordinating group, I think it's appropriate that we together think about this as a long term problem for the town, and not just say it's a library problem. By the way, that was a good speech. Okay. Any other questions for the library. And then I'm moving on to the town and I assume this is Paul and Sean. Yeah, so I'll start. Much of what what Mike said and Sharon say I just sort of add on to all going through the same things. You know, pandemic increased workload for many, for many of us because we had to reconfigure everything as finance I just want to shout out to that department with Sean and Sonya in particular. We have major new grant programs that they've had to manage cares grant program now the ARPA program. These are huge management challenges because there are not. It's understanding the rules, and then there's also the whole reporting piece of it, which is really intense, because we have to document everything every time you see all these money coming in, but we have to document everything and get our departments who are spending money to make sure they're doing everything properly. So, big piece of that DPW police and fire public safety 24 seven their works hasn't changed that much I mean it's gone up and down. We are experiencing the same kind of the great resignation is real. We're seeing a lot of turnover people choosing to retire earlier or at a certain point. There's the HR department is handling a lot of work different levels, along the same lines in terms of where we stand our major budget driver is our, our, our people and that means collective bargaining. We are in arbitration with our fire department fire fighters union right now we have all the other unions for for other unions are up for negotiation right now. And for those refer and then ends and the climate has changed in terms of what the with the pressure on wages right now is really becoming more apparent as we start to go into these negotiations. Recruitment is also a challenge because, especially as we're working to diversify our staff. We, you know, we're people are bringing us competing proposals, especially in certain professions like wastewater, any kind of licensed profession, people can catch, you can just see the market what's going on with those jobs and it's really, we're so working through that. The big thing for us, I mean, as we go through our budget. Everything, you know the council has established two major lenses that they want us to look at everything through. Through racial equity and through sustainability and that we are trying to incorporate that into all of our decision making the council approved the establishment of two new departments which is the major driver in our budget for the coming years, which is the DEI department, which includes two people, and then the crest program, which we're still in the implementation phases of we've been very successful at getting grants for these for this program, but it was the long term impact is will will be long term. It's a big, it's a big, big new program and that's why you see that the funding the way it is. And in terms of the other things economic development, high priority for the town and then the other thing it's going to change that we don't really know yet, but it's we all know it's going to be different is that our little sort of health department of one and a half people with is not going to look back that going future in the future. We know that public health has much higher profile now, and needs more investment to move that forward we are having regional talks about how to look at health, not on a town by town basis but on a region by region basis that's the only way to really attract the quality and the level of staff that we expect, while maintaining our own sort of authority over what we need to do in our community. So, Sean, what would you like to add. Sean's good. Are there questions about the town's issues budget. Peter. Oh, Paul did I understand you correctly so for the, for the first years of crest, you're funding that operational line with with one time grants that you don't expect to be there in the future. No, Sean. No, so. So, the operational side of crests is, we're trying to incorporate into our 2.5% increase that you know part of that will go towards that, and then that's the reason why we're asking for the additional 300,000. There are some things that we view as one time costs related to crests vehicle, I mean, sort of one time cost vehicle purchases outfitting space. You know, software works that the software is super expensive training and legal support to kind of get things up and running because you know this is very novel. And so, so those types of things we're funding out of the grant, but the operating costs in terms of the responders the director and the, the other position. We're trying to fold those into the existing operating budget, or the proposed operating budget. Any other questions about the town budget. Okay, seeing none I think the. I want to make sure we cover two things before we finish and I know we're pushing up against time limits we probably exceed them. One is, if we need a second meeting and when we think it would be best will pull for it we won't try to come up with the date today. So we need to be some need based on whatever we find out about insurance or other things as we move along. And the second thing is I want to make sure we designate somebody who will approve the minutes on case we do not meet a second time because I don't want to have to meet just to approve minutes to approve minutes. So, with that Sean you were going to do the calendar. Sure. All right so I won't go through all the dates but I sent this out to everybody. And I guess it's mostly if there's any questions or anything people saw that jumped out the upcoming important dates around CPA and capital are the things that are coming up in the near future with the presentation of the CPA recommendation to finance committee and then JCPC starting up pretty soon. We have the, I guess the second page here is probably the easiest to look at, which is splitting it by type of budget. So, for operating budgets, like always the library and the schools budgets are due by the end of March so that Tom manager can then incorporate them into his budget proposal to the council. And then we've got presentation to the council all the, you know the month of May is always very busy with finance committee and reviewing the budget. And then there will be council have at least a couple of meetings likely to decide what they're going to do with the budget. On the capital side, we start JCPC in a couple weeks. That will, they'll provide a recommendation to the town manager by the end of we tried to do that by the end of March. So the town manager has the month of April to finalize his capital improvement program, which will then go to the council again by the first business day in May. Finance committee will review that and then same thing council have a couple meetings to discuss. CPA we don't. This timeline is probably going to modify a little change a little bit this is sort of a rough estimate at this point we know finance committee is going to discuss it on the eighth of February. Not sure if they will be able to make a recommendation at that point or not. So, so that could be there could be another meeting from finance committee. We tentatively have it with at the town council on the 21st. In the past CPA went along the same path as the operating budget but because we moved CPA up early in the earlier in the year. So we knew what they were going to recommend by the time we got to our capital planning or capital improvement program. So we had one summer quest to get the CPA recommendation voted sooner, so that people don't do the recommendation December then have to wait till June to find out if it's approved. So tentatively for the 21st, but that could change. And then the regional schools you know certainly split for input from Doug and Mike on on timing of when the other four town meeting or when the other town meetings are, but their budget come at the end of March. We usually will do an early, earlier timeline for the regional schools of their budget can be approved around the same time as the other towns. So there would be a presentation to the council sometime in April. At least a couple of finance committee meetings finance committee meetings to review and make a recommendation, and then it would go back to the council. Sometimes it could be the 16th it could be the meeting before that as well. If the council decides to bring it up earlier. And that's the timeline. Are there questions or clarifications on the budget timeline. I just, hey, Sean, I just have one question. When do you think I know union negotiations are going to be settled I don't know when you're going to get the health insurance numbers but when do you think the town will be able to get out to us our salary projections. So we are going to try to do that. Pretty soon actually we're going to try to do that on the next couple weeks. It's going to have an estimate, but we're going to try to do that. Holly and Sonya and I are going to sit down next week and go person by person through the salary projections. And then, as you said, it'll have an estimate for the outcome of negotiations but we should have that up to you then a couple weeks because yeah, I know you need it to. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other questions about timeline or things that relate to timeline, like Sharon just asked. Okay, then let's take this down and ask if there are any other general questions or comments that people would like to make. I'd like to start out by saying I have found this very useful. It's delightful to be in a civilized conversation with each other about where we're all coming from and what we are all facing. And I hope that in the future, we might even think about doing something like this routinely, not just when we think there's a problem. So, are there any other comments or questions in general. Yes, Paul. So you had asked about a minutes and I maybe I would suggest that the chair and vice chair approved the minutes, the committee out delegate to the chair and vice chair to give. Do I need a vote on that. I think it's everybody nods or had I think you'll be fine. Everybody give me a thumbs up yes. Okay, got it. Great. We're Allison and I will take care of that. And Paul or Doug or Sean or Mike or Andy with all of your experience, do you see something that will come forward that could bring us the need to meet again. Mike. I think, you know, the thing that is really for you Lynn and the council and perhaps Fincom is that, you know, I don't know if there's going to be a need after the four town meeting the next four town meeting. When we get a little more clarity, perhaps on, you know, you'll get more clarity from Doug and myself where we're sitting. But also the other towns, I can't predict to shoot spray how you're going to react I can't predict to you how shoot spray is going to react or palom or leverage. That obviously has implications that nature of regional districts other than being the main superintendent business managers existence is that they're they don't fit well with, you know, not to exceed or not to be below however you want to frame it because that's a relational assessment method, relational assessment that changes year to year and in this district district. The method changes year to year, we haven't had the same method for years on end so that whether you want to handle that through the full council through the finding finance committee through this group that from the schools that's probably the big the reason that I could see coming back together and maybe the goal would be that that folks here where the reality is but you know I can't speak for the library I can't speak for you on this group from the town side of whether that this is the right group or a different form is the right one but that's that's probably the most volatile thing on the school side is is relates to you where we are getting four towns to agree on this that's method and a budget level. Okay, Andy. Based upon experience with prior budget coordinating group. I think that the major reason that we would need to reconvene is if there is a factual change in projections that we didn't anticipate and need to adjust to given what the situation is currently in the state budgeting process. I think that it's really depends upon what happens within the House and Senate whether they reach any consensus amounts early about stated to schools and localities municipalities, or whether we have to wait until we see something out of the House poison means committee in April. That would be the biggest driver that might change at this point that I can see anybody else's thoughts on it. And I guess the only other one I picked up from conversations with Paul was the insurance. And just not knowing that one Andy you have another comment. No other other comments. Yes, Peter. I mean, I guess I would just note that process wise the Amherst school committee has hasn't had an initial budget presentation from superintendent or finance director yet that's that's coming very soon. So as of right now, we don't know if two and a half percent is going to be able to cover our budget without cuts. We also haven't had a discussion. A full discussion on the Amherst school committee since since the election or since the newly elected members took over came on about what people's feelings are in terms of budget level. So that could be another variable that affects the items here, but so I mean, I'm not offering an opinion one way or another about what it should be but I just, if you just, you just check marking you know unknown variables that could change I would probably put that one on the list. Thank you. Are there others that anybody wants to raise. If there are any other comments, seeing none, then I want to just note, we do not have anybody in the audience, and therefore we do not have any public comment, we would have public comment. If we had somebody in the audience, Allison. I was sort of picking up on your, your comment earlier about making this more regular which might also connect with Austin's comment about sort of thinking long longer term as well and just sort of wonder about setting up a meeting of this group and thinking about that. When, when should it convene right we were thinking about just this particular FY23 budget year, whether we might need to meet again. And I think there's opportunity for us to talk about and think about bringing this group together at another point to have those conversations on sort of, as you said a more regular basis and what does that look like and what is sort of the charge of this group. Okay. If there are any other comments, then seeing none, I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 945. Thank you everybody. Absolutely, thanks.