 So thank you. I'm in the color finance committee meeting to order at this is two o'clock and Appreciate your being here and We're here is our continued budget review to Your presentations on two sections of the budget that are Not part of the town specific functional areas the libraries and the elementary schools and So the library directors here, too I think that the one thing that I would hope that you will be able to cover in the Presentation without my having to ask the question later, but I can ask a question later is Touch on changes from the current year and What you've perceived to be the hardest decisions that had to be confronted in Developing the budget because I think that's the kind of insight that would be helpful So Thank you Thanks for the preview because I think we can adjust it's similar to what we were thinking of presenting We're also conscious of time and that we have someone behind us who also wants to share with you her budget But we thank you for having us. We thank you for talking through the Amherst elementary school budget And my quick overview would be just two quick statements and I'll pass it over to my god Oh, the first of which is that this is an unusually positive budget a year for the Amherst public schools We are not in a place where we are having to reduce which is a novel thing for us a very pleasantly novel thing for us Some of this we knew potentially was coming with enrollment Shifts in terms of sixth grade students moving to seventh grade and some of the needs that would then travel to the region and some are due to health insurance savings and other Efficiencies that we've tried to realize we also don't want to get used to it because we know it won't happen again in the Past in the future Excuse me in the same way it is now and the second is we've taken the opportunity this year to think about both Sustainability but also to make sure our budget reflects our values. And so when I talk about budget ads cuts and Adjustments, I'll be able to speak to what I mean when I say that trying to make sure the budget reflects our values But that alternative mr. Mangano can go for more the detailed financials. Hello everyone So the you have a packet in front of you. I'm gonna go through that packet and touch on The key points. I apologize the cover page that's presented to town council should say finance committee But you're all counselors, so it's not completely inaccurate But I'll start going through that So this packet are just selected pages from the full budget document So everything that's in front of you are just again specific cutouts from the full budget document So I'm gonna go to page five in your packet so the Budget that was approved by a school committee. That's in front of you is for 23 million 838 thousand eight hundred fifty four dollars Which meets the guidance we received from the finance committee or like a dollar off Dollar under I think we came in slightly under actually Sonya was very upset There is a pie and this is a sorry 2.6 percent increase over the FY 19 budget If you remember the guidance for all the departments was a 2.5 percent increase But because of the way the charter tuition Works between the school budget and the town budget. We actually came in a little bit above the two and a half The pie chart below is hard to see on the screen But this is a breakdown of our budget into different functional areas the large blue, which is the largest section is Regular instruction and then we have special education instruction and red, which is the second largest Noteworthy is that the green section and the purple section are retiree health insurance and active employee health insurance So those two percentages combined 18% of the total budget just they have a sense of what that comprises and also worth noting Pension costs are not part of the school budget Directly so all the pension costs get paid out of that general pot of money that the town takes off the top before they issue Guidance to the town or the departments so pension costs are not held here Unlike the region where they are held in the budget I'm going to move forward to page six So on page six, it's just a little sort of informational chart for you all to look at that shows some of our non chapter 70 state aid reimbursements for the elementary school really the two of the bigger ones Our charter tuition and homeless student transportation and neither one of these are fully funded both of them get Again only partially funded and so you can see there's different fiscal years there What the the funding would be sort of under the law if it was fully funded? And then what we've actually received and then sort of a sum of the difference. So the biggest one is obviously charter tuition Or about a million dollars under over the last Six years what we should have received if that was fully funded and homeless transportation is one that's sort of growing As a cost for us And it's very volatile from year to year. We don't know what our costs are going to be but they're not fully funding that It's about I think they're like 30 percent to 40 percent reimbursement for those costs. I Think it's also worth noting that as you know, we build our budgets before the state solves their budget Discussions or resolve their budget discussions and there's certain certainly indications that in the current budget That's being debated between the House the Senate and the governor. They're actually is neutral to negative impact Possible in the elementary school budget particularly as it relates to charter tuition with the proposed change that the governor made That was supported in the house and not quite in the Senate that would Potentially have a negative financial impact on our budget for next year and then moving forward. So that's not resolved We tried to take a conservative approach when we're budgeting But I I don't want to go serious to of course But I think you know budgeting is an estimate and you know, we're estimating our own costs We're also estimating the revenues that we've come in from the state And we have no indication that any of the bills being Actively considered by the House and the Senate or the governor right now will will do much in the way of positive Fluctuation from what we're estimating and potentially could go the other direction Yeah, and the school committee is actively working with the local legislators to do the best they can to sort of make that heard But it's a it's a tough one Do you pause for a second on the subject and see if the Understand where we're at. We're in the very Strange thing where the legislature passes a law saying that it is our intent To fund something and then the same legislature comes in and doesn't appropriate the money to say what they intended to do And that's where those gaps occur Sun you you may be the one to help us with this too is when If these changes happen they're actually Money we don't receive because of the cherry sheet And so we have to figure out How we're adjusting for that but where in where that falls and that's a discussion that We need to have as a committee at some point to understand how that works I Don't think necessarily now, but I just wanted to bring it up There are any questions on this or shall we go forward? I Have a question if it goes in a positive direction. So there is some whether it's the charter or Transportation, there's some discussion of the foundation budget being enhanced if it goes better That money means more state money than what happens Locally, you know to the school budget you run a surplus. What what happens? So that money doesn't go directly to the school as it goes to the town and I Won't speak for Sonya, but I'll just say what I think happens and then she can tell me if I'm wrong There's gonna be some accounts that coming over some accounts that come in under Whatever that difference ultimately will probably Go into free cash at the end of the year doesn't affect the current year's budget Okay, so I'll spread it to what does the town do if we get more than we thought Okay The expense side once you vote the appropriations that's that's cemented in what with your votes But the revenue side is not complete or balanced until we set the tax rate So if more money comes in from state aid, we would probably reduce our local receipts estimates To balance that out because we have to have a balanced budget zero Expenses and revenues and if more money comes in of our local receipts do better That just comes in as excess and closes out to free cash Or reserve or and then we put it into stabilization Yeah Is my last comment because we could spend we could shift and spend a lot of time on this But in terms of what's being proposed now and I'm not here to critique any legislate the legislature There's been a lot of Articles about what's been proposed the last few weeks and and none of that would have a positive impact on the Amherst public schools In terms of what's being proposed right now So I just want to I think you know you could see a headline and then if you drill down into specific cherry sheets and the impact on us There really isn't any Yes, I guess I'm very surprised to hear that because I thought that there was Common through the towns that the formula was very bad and discriminated against the Major public schools. What is the reasoning that for this new possible worst formula? So that would probably take us down I mean, I think we could have that conversation I get I guess my reservation is that Things aren't settled yet. They're still being discussed But what the intent has been the stated intent has been is to support and increase the funds for Low-income communities of which while we do have a significant low-income population We're certainly don't fit the Gateway City kind of piece I think as I look at the data as it's come in and I have shared this with the town manager. I See trends that way. I honestly have some concerns about districts getting above The $30 per pupil where our district is and some of them significantly more wealthy than this town So we could I'm you know, whether mr. Mangano myself or town manager We could certainly follow up offline and I'm happy to share with you What's been proposed in the impact on all the communities in the Commonwealth? Thank you keep on Our special education Budget seems quite high is that normal relative to other neighboring towns or It's hard to say we have a higher percentage of special education students in most of our neighboring towns And we try to keep special education suits in-house So just general observation what I've noticed is our in-district special education spending is higher than Average for our neighbors, but our out-of-district spending is lower because we keep more kids in district. So It's always one of the challenges. We have is trying to find a very comparable district, but Sure a lot of people say this but it's very hard to find a comparable district to ours because we have a large percentage of special education Students we have a large percentage of low-income students and we have a large percentage of ELL students I think Dr. Morris has said this is we're very close to the state average and all those but No individual community is very similar to us at least out this way in this side of the state, but I'd say it's it's it's similar to what it's been and it's Reflective of the number of special education students we have in the district It is it all so driven. Do we have Differentially or notably lower class sizes than some of the other districts? I don't know which which ones you would be calm, but I'm thinking the two things. It's the mix of students and Student ratio, which could be also because you've got special needs kids that are in smaller class size I Can speak to it. So last year did an analysis and we had the lowest class size of districts in western Massachusetts We didn't I didn't do a Full just a full comparison to all districts, but our class size was lower than our neighboring districts and Hamden I look particularly a hamster and Hamden County Franklin County because there's so many tiny schools like Class size means something different when you've got 120 kids and trying to figure out which school You know it really it's so variable, but for districts our size Little smaller a little larger in the two counties That I mentioned we had the lowest class size and that does influence, you know, the per people spending significantly On the next page page seven I'll just quickly highlight some of the things we've been doing to try to control costs many of these are In conjunction with the town or the town is led on a lot of these the first one is joining the Maya Health Trusts group So we'll talk about this in a little bit, but our insurance rate for next year is going up less than a percent That's one of the major factors why the the budget next year is in good shape The next one is we did a competitive procurement. Thanks for a procurement officer in the town hall staff competitive procurement of our liability insurance and so there was a pretty large reduction in our liability insurance costs We ended up switching carriers and that's reflected in this budget as well that that that cost has dropped We brought our food service program back in-house and I'll point that out later that our food service program is performing At a really high level right now in particular financially And so that's at least at this point looks like a good decision And some other things over the past, you know, ten years that we've done just to reduce costs Yeah, I just wanted to go back to this special ed question for a second Just the one thing I think worth noting is in 2013 We had a what was then called a coordinated program review of our special education services And they had a four findings that we needed to actually create a correct corrective corrective action plan for And so our spending did go up after we received that state review We've recently it happens on six-year cycles So we just recently had our state review and and we're very proud that we had no findings Which means that everything was was met not just from a client compliance perspective But from a programmatic perspective to be what Desi would want We heard anecdotally very strong feedback although the report just had to check boxes in the right place Right because that's the way they they do it So we did have an increase in spending to address the needs and from 2013 and then there was a midway report in 2016 But some of these were the state identifying areas and significant need For mediation and we've done that but that hasn't did increase costs over those over that time So the last thing I'll say on this page is so there is a net addition proposed to this budget of which again is unusual But of 261 thousand five hundred seventy six dollars in a few pages. We'll get to the breakdown of what goes into that number So next page is page eight. This is a breakdown of our summary of our full budget Operating budget and I'll just highlight some of the key areas that are changing so Total salaries are going up six hundred seventy five thousand eight hundred eighty eight dollars. It's in the light gray column Under the line where the total is That's a really combination of two things. It's steps and colas for all of our staff The cost of living adjustment for most of our collective bargaining agreements next year is one point five percent And in addition, I'll point this out on the grants page We're also shifting there's a shift of our one of our special education grants from the elementary level to the secondary level And I'll point that out as well Substitute costs are going up as well twenty nine thousand six thirty Our some of our substitute rates were right at minimum wage And so we're we have a plan to increase those incrementally each year for the next few years to make sure we at a minimum Keep pace with minimum wage, but try to get a little bit above that to attract staff The next one if you go down to special education, which is in the expense accounts Where it's a seventy one thousand dollar seventy one thousand nine hundred fifty five dollar increase So that's sort of the largest increase in our budget outside of payroll And that's because we went from expecting zero placements In FY 19 we had to we ended up having two out of district placements And so those two placements have been budgeted for next year. And so that's why you see that significant increase in cost Down below in the health insurance sections you'll see those again This is really the impetus for why we have a good budget year a pretty two pretty large drops in health insurance rates It's a combination of two factors one are the health insurance surcharge went away completely Is it still frozen? Is it gone? It's gone Not coming back so so that surcharge going away dropped our rates from what they were budgeted for an FY 19 The rate increase of less than a percent So the surcharge going away more than offset that and in addition we saw some drop in enrollment When we changed health insurance Went from self-insured to the trust fund we saw drop in the number of people enrolled in our health insurance as well So the combination of those three factors really dropped their health insurance cost significantly Which is good because remember the year before it was a really large increase So I sort of just got it back into line with where we were And I think the last thing I was point out is To mr. Steinberg's point in the beginning. What is What are the changes in next year's budget? so the way we do our budgets is Everything that's in the expense accounts that payroll counts in these top two sections of this table. That's what we call level services So we basically take this year's level of services. We project that forward one year and show you what it would cost So when we're able we include Contractual cost increases, you know changes in usage data things like that all that's reflected up above Any proposed reductions additions or other types of adjustments to that level services budget are captured in that one line Where it says additions and reductions and you'll see it says two hundred sixty one thousand five seventy six there So that number and we'll talk about that more in a second is really what captures the changes from this year's programming To what we're expecting for next year's programming Any questions on the this table I had a question about the substitute salary sure I guess part of me is very shocked at the thought that it's at near minimum wage What what is it per day? I'll get back to you So it's not all the substitute rates the teacher rates are different But our lowest rate which I think was for a para substitute was around eleven dollars an hour So that's why we're increasing the lower rates But when we increase the lower rates we're trying to increase the whole scale sort of proportionally But I can send that information to the to the council What about somebody who's a licensed teacher who's a sub there's so again? I don't have the exact amounts, but there's different rates whether you're a licensed teacher whether you're a retired teacher from the district Whether it's a short-term sub versus a long-term sub. There's different rates at each of those levels and The rates are not as high as we would like them to be As any of us would probably like them to be but I can send those different rates to you all So I look at this year's budget and Then I look at the projections out and It makes it concerns me That will start for instance some new programs and then not be able to support them and That raises the question for me as you look the years out Are there things that we should be more cautious about in this year? I'll start So one of the things that will really impact our ability to fund the out years is the charter and choice tuition Again, this year's in really good shape because we the school's got the full two and a half percent increase That we could apply to our the schools in Amherst In prior years that hasn't been the case when the charter tuition was rising Significantly that gets taken off the top of what the schools here get to to use for the budgets So this year that's another reason why that was such a good year So if we can keep that flat and we can continue to get the full increases that are given out to the departments That'll help us in the future Some of the additions and reductions we can point out on in a couple pages or maybe on the next page Our short-term things are one-time things keep in mind that again This is a really good year. So we didn't want to invest everything in sort of permanent fixed types of things So we'll point those out as well some of the things that are just one-time Investments that we think will go away, which will help offset some of the costs increases in the future This really follows up on the special observation and Maybe I'm jumping ahead by looking at the translation of This into the chart where you compare FY 20 to F10 FY 10 and You see basically that we've Increased special ed almost as much as we've had to decrease regular instruction Yeah, the regular instruction. I did want to note this one thing the regular instruction The decrease is a little misleading there I believe there still would be some decrease but overall it's a little misleading because in FY 10 we didn't We weren't a participant in the school choice program We now are a participant in a school choice program and so I'll point this out on the revolving fund page but five hundred thousand dollars of Really classroom teacher salaries which fall under the regular ed section are not in this proposed General fund budget because they're in the school choice revolving fund budget. So if you It's always hard because it's different program or it's a program that we decided to participate in But really if you wanted to compare apples to apples, you would have to add that five hundred thousand dollars that we're currently removing You'd have to add that back in The other thing I'll say is the I think some of the regular instruction drop is because our enrollment has continued to drop over The years and where we see that mostly is in the classroom number of classroom teachers We have which again are in the regular instruction area I'll let dr. Morris probably has a better hand on this whether the number of special education students We've had have dropped as significantly as our overall enrollment over the years Yeah, so so the quick answer that is no so there are special education percentage if you look at the percentage of special education students I'm gonna change the language. I'm using if you look at the wrong number of special education students From now until 10 years ago. There's not nearly the same drop as there is of students on the whole So that also is reflected in the budget I think mr. Manganos point is is worthwhile because the school choice piece we use that to fund the regular education to fund You know generally classroom teacher salaries So if you added that to the line for regular instruction, you'd see it almost the same I mean it would increase at about 2% so when you see it at about 29% it would essentially be at about 31% So it would not be as significant a shift because of how we fund our regular education student Staffing really comes from the school choice program that didn't exist for the district in 2010 Yeah, and I'll just add to that where we apply those school choice funds is always a There's always a point of contention for some people because in the school choice funds we Receive some of that is for special education students The practice that has existed in the district as we try to apply it To as few aligns as possible so that we're not like breaking it up into a thousand different accounts And so we've picked classroom teachers with the thought that right classroom teachers sort of handle the most number of students So let's focus it there Some districts do it differently and when we may review in the future too if we want to do it differently In terms of where we apply those school choice funds so that it doesn't create that weird Just makes us with a comparison isn't as good as you'd want it to be And the chair can just say to me this is really not a finance question It's more of an educational Leadership question decision-making question. So as we moved into school choice, would you observe that? some people choose our programs to Choice to option choice in if you will because we do offer better special ed programs, so I think Here's the way to answer it I I Think we have a positive reputation in the area and beyond for doing right by kids Because I don't think about it the programs I think about what a kids need and what's the district's ability to respond to them. So our special ed director I know I'm on camera now, but my special ed director always says that you know It'd be great if special ed was the best kept secret in the district, right? But that's not how things work in the real world and she knows that it's it's kind of a throwaway line So from a choice perspective I don't think it's the case that we get our highest need students because we do have the ability if it's going to go into a Specialized program to not take choice students based on space. We have space has been a consideration There's also as recently as last Friday We got a memo which actually has pretty significant impact on choice program not so much at the current time But over time it will that they are Amherst elementary school students who enter as choice students starting next year So everyone is a choice student now as grandfathered in but will no longer have Access to the regional schools without entering another choice lotteries. There's a legal advisory that desi gave It's going to be interesting how that affects Families choices about whether to choice into the district or not in the future. We won't know till we get there But I think as it relates to choice, we don't see necessarily the most Challenging students necessarily in terms of needs meeting their needs coming from choice But I think it is there's definitely families who say, you know, we understand that you take care of children And we think that our child would be best served in this district So follow-up Is it also possible that by doing that we actually by having more students and therefore more fat more staff We can offer better services to our own kids Absolutely, so I mean I would I would say that I said this at the school committee that we have a policy It's not a policy school community policy But if we have a practice in the district of never accepting choice students that require the addition of another teacher So in other words, we're never in the place where we say, oh, we we take six more kids We can add another classroom and lower class as we we just expressly do not do that So it's the case that if we have let's say 14 students enrolled for kindergarten class Making this hypothetical up. We may say well 14 students is lovely Financially that's going to be hard to maintain if we take three or four students and we get that size to be upper teens up to 20 Financially, that's a benefit it pays for part of the teacher would be teaching them But that teacher was going to be there already so absolutely I feel like it's a net financial benefit and net and thus a net educational benefit You know, we have full-time specialists for relatively moderate sized elementary schools Which is a huge benefit to our students if you look across at other similar sized elementary schools There are things that they just do not fund My belief is we would not be able to fund those and not because we will want to but Financially if we didn't have choice funds coming into support them. Thank you the district. Thank you Just to give us a context. How many Choice in students roughly do we have in the element in our elementary schools? I would ballpark around 90 this year K-6 and does the scale issue you just talked about on being supportive if We Go from the current three schools down to two does that change some of the way you look at Potentially change the way you look at scale, you know some of it if we're splitting among three schools versus we're splitting among two schools Yeah, I think it's a good five-year problem to have five-year ago Five-year from now, but absolutely. We've had some internal conversations about that. I think the same Thought process would go the same practices of not adding Not adding students in a way that we have to add a teacher Via the choice process would still hold Exactly what that looks like in a different configuration I think remains to be seen we do have some schools that accept a lot more choice than others Just frankly because that's how their enrollment patterns work for instance for River We started the choice program had a lot of choice students They have now gotten to the pattern just based on the enrollment trends that we have of having two classes for a grade level Without much room for choice. We've seen a decrease there where some of the other schools Parker from for instance between two and three classes and Variably we have to make a call and once you make that call it influences how many choice students you take So I think the same Same type of attention would need to be placed on a two-school model to see how does that change the trends? And how do those trends play out over time? Yeah, Dorothy Can you in terms of the cost and expenses? It's not quite clear to me yet So if you have a special ed choice and a non-special ed choice What money do they bring in versus how much they cost as you figure it out? So a non-special education choice student brings in $5,000 per student and that's been the same rate forever and a special education School choice student if they have additional costs associated with their IEP I believe there's a Workbook basically that our special education department completes each year called the school choice claims form And so all the special education students who are school choice They basically plug in the additional costs of them attending and that calculates an additional increment beyond the 5,000 So when we get our revenue every year from school choice There's sort of the base tuition and then there's the additional increment that we get for special education students And that can vary based on the level of need that that special education student has But it's not always clear to me how this can add the result in a positive budget impact So so for example on the the non-special education students side If we're gonna have two classrooms and there's 15 students in each classroom We're gonna pay for those two teachers anyway if we accept two school choice students each for those classrooms We can bring in an extra twenty thousand dollars We're still just paying for those two teachers There are some again very marginal cost increases of supplies things like that nature, but there's not a there's not a The same proportion cost increase of accepting those students. I mean just to put a finer point on the materials So our textbooks are there so it's not like we have to buy additional textbooks So there are some workbooks, but we're talking about per student in the two-digit variety of costs We're not talking about something that has a major impact on the budget And I think I mentioned this in the past There are studies that and we will do these periodically where we have somebody look at our choice program more detailed as they get some outside advice We did that the secondary level and they affirm that our program was really well run at that time And we'll probably do that again in the future So the next page are the proposed additions and reductions and Dr. Morris is gonna go through some of the highlights Yeah, and I'll I'll try to I Think because of time I'm not gonna go through each line in particular But certainly there's questions I'll answer them But I want to go back to the statement I made at the beginning which we use this opportunity to make sure our Values were reflected in our budget and so I want to speak to two or three values in particular. So one is that Sorry, I marked it up thinking of one-time costs because of Miss Grease, Miss Questman before so I'm gonna shift I have two documents and I'll try to go back and forth on the same document different markups I should say so one was about the facilities needs You've certainly heard a lot about facilities needs and some of that's a JCPC in a capital budget issue And some of that frankly was a staffing issue that We wouldn't need to add staff if our things didn't go wrong as much as they do But our facilities needs are such where it's very difficult for us to be proactive So you'll see two positions that were suggested that our Assistant facility director I think what's worth noting is that typically our central office positions are shared between at least two if not three districts This is solely for the elementary schools to take care of the needs of the building and the other is a school van driver Which also provides some HVAC support because we have a lot of problems with our heating and cooling systems So that's a major theme So I know you've heard a lot about that because of a statement of interest process those of you on JCPC and the capital discussion, but there has to be Humans who are doing all the work that need to get done and that's part of it. Oh, yeah The assistant facility director position again, that may be a temporary position Until we get our buildings at a place where we feel good about them We have a lot of projects coming up that are gonna need sort of project management oversight on the ground And so once we feel the buildings are in good shape, hopefully in the next four to five years That is a position that could potentially be shifted out Thank you. So the second thing second bucket of Items that I want to highlight are bilingual psychologists bilingual special education teacher and Spanish courses now Ironically my third bucket is going to be dual language. This is not actually related to the dual language program This is reflecting the needs of our students So the number of students who come in who are English language learners particularly with Spanish as their first language has grown It's actually the demographic that's growing more significantly than any other demographic that you could cut not just actually raise ethnicity in our district We're up to at the elementary level 25% of our students coming from Identifying as Latino Latino heritage Not all of them are Spanish speakers for sure But but a significant number are and one of the ongoing challenges as it relates to special education that we've been doing a lot Of ongoing professional development on has been how do we distinguish when an English language learner may also have a special need? And it's it's a puzzle many districts work on we've had outside PD We have internal PD and we've come to the place where we need to add staff who can help us work through that Who can assess students bilingualy to understand not through a translator but literally bilingualy to understand students strengths challenges Across two languages. So that's really reflective of our demographic It is the case that as other staff members retire We will be able to replace them with people who are in these roles So over time we feel like it's going to be financially sustainable to do that But we do have some really significant needs that need to be addressed and that's what those two positions are connected to Finally, you'll see a pretty modest Dual language materials line of $12,500 and part of that is that we don't need to add saffing for the dual language program We do need to add materials We were very fortunate to receive we applied along with the holy of public schools and received a $300,000 grant for dual language Implementation this spring. So we feel like we're in very good shape. We're actually those funds We'll be able to look to future years of the implementation. We're ahead of that. We don't need to use that those funds Perhaps even for the next year, but we want to always be ahead of it so that when we do have those difficult fiscal years We're ahead of purchasing the curriculum that we'll go along with the program, which is starting next year Certainly I can answer any questions on any of the other topics, but I just wanted to highlight those particular buckets of Work and and budget additions in the next year's budget Maybe actually before I since our hands flying up. I'm just to respond to Ms. Riesmer's point. So if you notice One of things we're suggesting is a contribution to the special education stabilization fund for those of you who aren't familiar with that And Mr. Morgano can go into more detail is if we do have unanticipated special education needs we are allowed with the Modernization Act two years ago to build in some ways a reserve that would actually come back to this group as well as the school committee So because we are having this positive financial fiscal year putting that money in and we'll have a healthy balance So that can be an easy reduction from next year I think some other things as we have some math social studies and health curriculum We need to purchase those are also one year, you know, if you look up It's the probably fifth or sixth line under budget additions $30,000 Those are some that's those are one-time costs that we need to address We need to make some purchases. We need to update our curriculum We wouldn't imagine needing to continue that line moving forward And I think the only other one I was going to mention Yeah, thank you the math professional development. So we are Shifting our math curriculum at grade 6 through 12 So in our situation 6 through 12 is typically what sort of middle school and high school like if you look at publishers They produce Curriculums that are grades 6 to 8 9 through 12 would all produce K to 6 Curriculums anymore So our sixth grade for since I've been in the district 18 years has been using a different curriculum than the K to 5 population and so as we're making that shift Well, you'll see that reflected more you did saw that more reflected at the secondary level That's a one-time cost looking at sixth grade for new materials and professional development that we wouldn't anticipate needing in future years budget So we are highly conscious that this positive variance won't continue forever And we try to build the budget in a way that would be sustainable knowing that fact Yeah, and I'll just point out a couple at the top as well under budget adjustments. So the way this is configured is Budget adjustments are things that are not really programmatic Changes, they're just maybe enrollment shifts or other types of efficiencies that we found then there's programmatic additions and budget reductions Again, you'll see the classroom teacher reduction that's driven by enrollment and the paroch educator Reduction as well as driven by enrollment and that's actually if you remember back to when we came and presented the Regional budget there was an ad of roughly the same number of para educators and it's because they're going from sixth grade to seventh grade And this is why when I talk about like if we had one budget like this wouldn't show up on either Just be a natural shift But because we have that line between sixth grade and seventh grade it's a reduction here and an ad there Small amount, but I'm just very interested in the planning and exploration to expand preschool Yeah, I'm hoping that mr. Bach will be able to stay for that point. I know he's sitting with the press box, but Yes, so this is actually a joint effort and he knows I'm going to say this. It's in the town budget as well for a small amount One of the frustrations we've had in my time in the district frankly has been the inability to meet the demand for High quality and low to no cost Preschool seats. We know the research is very clear on students who enter kindergarten We have data locally. We know that there's national and evidence-based data on the impact And we've tried multiple times within the Amherst public school to do that and not been successful so I had multiple meetings with the community actions a community action is the local head start organization and Where we came to is this would be a big endeavor to take on You know, how could the community not just the schools but the community be engaged in this ongoing need and what would it look Like for community action, which I think is a fabulous program. I visited there multiple times Increase the number of seats because they already have full day programs. They already provide transportation They already work very heavily with communities that may not have access to fee-based preschool programs. So We wrote up a proposal for a study. So this will be funded some by the school district and actually some by the town That the town manager felt strongly that this was worth exploring So it's almost like a planning grant for all three organizations to partner with Julie Fetterman will be the contact from the town and we're trying to set up a meeting Obviously contingent on budget approval for later this month to be able to sit down and plan what that would look like I know the community action folks have they're aware of consultants who do who work with Head start programs and towns and school districts to see what partnerships would look like But I think it's the most promising approach if we're really going to take this on It's the most promising approach to work with an already successful Preschool program that has the same mission that we're all talking about in mind that happens to be located in town with two sites So that's what that amount is. Thank you for pointing that out and nationally In many states you see Combined head start early childhood programs preschool programs, you know where some kids are Labeled and funded by Head Start and others are not so I'm glad to see this They've been wonderful partners today. Yeah, anything else Okay, okay, we're almost done. I'm just gonna put out a couple more things So I gave you the summary of our major grants and revolving funds as well So the one thing I'll point out on the well two things I'll point out on the grant side The our inclusive preschool grant so in line with preschool we were just talking about You'll see our inclusive preschool grant has been Significantly reduced over the next few years. I believe it's being phased out for next year I can't remember if there was a change to that but that may be the last year that we actually get the inclusive preschool grant and Then earlier I spoke about the increase in payroll and part of that being related to a grant shift And that grant shift you can see is in the special education IDA The amount of funds we had available for fy-19 versus what we have available for fy-20 and it's not a grant reduction It's just a realignment of how much is being used to support the secondary schools and how much is being used to support the elementary schools And trying to get that more in alignment with the the students that attend those schools and Then on the just a net so you'd see that set you'd see a plus yeah I'm a regional school region the same table literally a region Yeah, and it actually supports Palom as well. So there's a little piece that goes to Palom and Then on the revolving funds Summary so you can see some of our major programs Circuit Breaker is the reimbursement for special education We have a before school program the school choice program is listed here. So you can see It's broken into expenses on the top and then revenues on the bottom You can see the expenses are basically how much of the budget general fund budget We're saying we're gonna support from the school choice monies And then the revenues is how much we actually brought in that year and so we try to We're building up a little bit of a reserve in the school choice fund because it's a relatively new program I think now we're in our fifth or sixth year, but we were building up a balance But usually those are pretty close what we're bringing in versus what we use and then we have a preschool revolving fund which takes in the tuition fees for our preschool program and then the one thing I did want to point out was our food service program from FY 17 if you look at the revenues and you look at FY 17 revenues versus FY 18 revenues One of the things we're proud of again is bringing that program back in-house and seeing it do very well financially And you can see that in the revenue numbers our enrollment did not increase between FY 17 and FY 18 But our revenues went up about $40,000 From really the prior two years. So again so far. That's programs going well And we have a great new food service director. Who's gonna keep it going? Any questions on anything you've heard today This is just a question to show I don't completely understand what circuit breaker is but To the extent I understand it when I see those numbers jump around a lot. That's student related Yeah, so specific student you've got in yeah, I'll just give you a brief Overview because it's related to that's very high cost student right and then yeah, so we do report same thing Is for school of choice we do report of any of our students who have high special education costs We put in the actual services we provide and in order to get any reimbursement for those students Their cost has to exceed four times the state foundation level So that's roughly $40,000 So the cost has to hit $40,000 and then above and beyond that we get a partial reimbursement Which has floated somewhere between 65 and 75 percent over the past several years If the foundation budget rises and that threshold that we have to hit before we start getting reimbursement also Theoretically rises as well So that's one of those possibly negative impacts that might occur from the foundation budget going up Remains to be seen at the state will do anything to prevent that Once a student comes in to the school district through choice If it's deemed that they then need to be tuitioned out for more specialized services Are we liable or is their home district? that's happened maybe once or twice since I've been here and I built At least the example I have it was not us that was liable if they can't be served in our schools Then it sort of reverts back to the the sending district and they have to really it's ultimately they're part of the decision-making body Well, thank you very much. It's been very helpful and The Council is a new process and we're all kind of Learning the process and we have counselors that have not been involved before and so appreciate How you've approached it and the help that you've been giving us to make this move forward As you're exiting. I noticed this doesn't have the capital requests for the elementary school So just does that come back up when we're looking at the capital that that comes in the capital plan and the Jays the requests that are then presented to the Okay, because at that point I just want to get your feeling about the adequacy of what you've got Or what is potentially in the budget? So it's not showing up in this. Yeah, and in the future again It's a new process. We haven't historically included the sort of the capital as part of the the operating budget presentation But if that's something that you all want in the future, we can certainly do that It's just in the past it's sort of and I'm partly asking that and I mean it's a longer term But you've got contingency funds that could be drawn on if something some system failed So I think of them as interactive. It's you know a dysfunctional Roof that needs repair right now So just so we can think about it, but it's noticeable that it's not in It's an operating budget in a capital budget in two different buckets. Yeah So I I will know the the town though for the municipal departments. It's true to what you just said and So that's not that we're distinguishing between Schools library in town in that regard municipal departments completely, but you know the issue of 120 degree days in a school because the chiller broke, you know, just It splitting the conversation may long-term not be advisable if yeah, but I said that's a little different discussion We can certainly move in again some of the major themes because some of these themes are more Front and center than they've been in the past so we can we can do that. Yeah Just to finish out something cats and then see what Lynn was looking at ask the joint capital planning committee is Mr. Mangana knows it's going to be meeting one more time and we are going to review the process And the calendar by which we ask for Proposals and consider proposals and try and come up with a process that Can be improved on now that we have the year-round government flexibility That we didn't have before so you don't need to do this now, but Both from his share is here and for you if you have any recommendations for us to consider Certainly we would welcome hearing those suggestions Lynn Andy I was just going to ask Given your experience in the past with town meeting and finance and the charter could to just for the purposes of the committee and also The public explain what's different in terms of how we have to look at the school budget and the library budget So Question yeah, I thought it was question. It was actually a question to and yeah Okay, I wasn't sure I don't think that there's I hoping that there's not a substantial difference and maybe I should turn it That's why I'm turning it back to you a little bit, too I think that what we've been trying to do this year is to have as much continuity in process as we could possibly have in Order to move from a budget process that had been in place for forever until this year and The Because we couldn't redesign a process instantly and I think that's what I was getting out with capital The next piece for the operating budget will be and I think that that was why I was a little bit of what my first question was about is How we go about establishing the Guidelines as what we used to call the guidelines and know what we're going to call them Next but they still be the same But you know the initial stages of the budget process for next year because this year We were concentrating on a budget process that would work in overlapping two forms of government next year We're going to have to do it all within a single form of government and So that'll be state the next stage But there is a difference between what town meeting could do with the budget and These budgets and what the town council can do the the big difference is that in the Charter and I can give a very specific example Members of town meeting several years ago We're very concerned and got lobbied very hard about Library paraprofessionals and You had to bring that one up well, but it was the example and so that an effort was made at the time of town meeting to do an amendment to To Make that change on the floor of town meeting the Charter doesn't give the council the same that Degree of flexibility that existed before yes. Yeah, so I just two thoughts and I want to be really clear I'm speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for the Amherst original school committee on the matter in this case The Amherst school committee So I think what's similar is that we used to we typically made presentations the finance committee So that this structure feels really natural in terms of being familiar and and I think on your end Then the next step feels different, right? But we always did ask the finance committee's recommendation, you know when it went to town meeting and I think that looks the same So two differences or one difference in one consideration is that the timing? So we're still operating under the same timing as we did in the past I've said this before and I'll say it again from my perspective from the staff perspective If we you know the school committee voted this budget two months ago roughly So we have a lot more state information out. So, you know whether the school committee can consider Slightly different timeline, you know the region can't change but the Amherst public school timeline could change given this and I would find it beneficial to be having some of the Conversations the financial conversations a bit later when we have more information from states So we put out our initial budget and documents in January before the governor's released this budget and That feels not that the governor's budget ends up being holding But it's a guidance document that gets discussed. So I think there perhaps is an opportunity For conversation between the finance the finance committee here the town council and the school committee to adjust timelines moving back So that we have we're undergoing less changes. I think that the consideration I wanted to share is this was a particularly positive buzzer year as we said It's a really different process when we're making cuts instead of ads. And so I can't say that It's hard for me to assess the differences because this is a really atypical year a typical year financially It's a typical year that there's really significant changes being talked about the state None of them as I were not to repeat myself necessarily have positive impacts I might have some slightly negative or slightly some negative impact on the district The range of what's being discussed in school funding this year at the state is is a broader and the range is wider than it is Typically so that's I think the other thing to note is just this is an atypical year in multiple fronts And I think next year odds are will be more typical one way or the other and I think we should continue the conversation Yeah, the Charter Does have a date in there? I think for that you were to provide to the town manager, which is different from prior years And so I don't know if that gives any more flexibility And allows you to to reexamine your process, but we're gonna have to rethink the timetable all the way through because we want to make it as beneficial to Everybody who's involved in the process to get to the best end result that we have and I guess the last thing I'll say to you Dr. Morris is that a this year was particularly difficult for figuring out how to work the regional budget process into The council process and it's actually something that I spent time with the Charter Commission about when they develop the charter to make Sure that there was some flexibility built in there and You know it but it did create a confusing year, and I really thank you for your help in making it work Question The how the different levels connect for example, there's been a decrease in students and nationally I guess because of the budget 2008 I'm not sure Whether people just didn't get married and didn't have kids So how does that translate from the elementary school to the middle school to the high school? Is it or is there kind of jumps and gaps? Sure, so I think what we have now in our our current elementary school It's not budget next year, but our current is that our fifth and sixth grade are Larger cohorts of students and then we see a pretty significant drop After that so one of the budget adjustments that mr. Mangano spoke about is we need fewer classroom teachers next year because we're gonna fewer classrooms Because our sixth grade cohort is larger than the incoming kindergarten cohort We may have a little bit of that next year. This is sixth grade cohort. It happens to be a significantly large cohort When we look at grades current kindergarten through fourth grade they look pretty stable So we will have this wave of students, you know rather large Roops of students going to the secondary level in two years from now I think you know it looks and all our projections show us kind of Stabiling stabilizing where you know the grade levels are pretty well aligned in terms of quantity of students And eventually that'll hit the regional level as well And if anyone is interested, you know, I can share with Paul or you can get in touch with us directly You know Nezdek does our enrollment projections and their their projections But they are helpful to look through and what they project is kind of a leveling off of the decline at the elementary level that we've seen and just again What I basically what I summarize a kind of stabilizing and plateauing of enrollments look going forward Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you So Well This year is continuing to do the setup I do need to just as a matter of annual statement that I have to make is that my wife is a employee of the Jones libraries works part-time at the North Amherst Library and I have forever been In conversations with the State Ethics Commission about what the rules are that apply Which turnout has some fluidity to the premier to yours to what you get and back in the way of answers But in any event I have filed a disclosure statement what I have been advised is that I can be involved with discussions where the discussion is the budget as a whole and That is what our responsibility is is to vote a bottom-line budget approach for the library if the Discussion at any point starts evolving towards something that would affect As opposed to the entire bottom line a piece of the budget that might involve Something having to do with her salary or position I may make a choice during the course of the meeting to accuse myself and turn this over to the vice chair of the committee So thank you. Thank you so much. Hi everybody having me Let me start by introducing The library trustee that has joined me today. This is Tamsen Ealy and I thank her for being here today I'm So I did not print the the actual presentation out for you It's it's taken from the budget packet that was given to you But I'm happy to email this to you as well so you can so you can have it It's primarily the same thing But much smaller but much smaller So up on your screen is the library's mission statement It was written four years ago after a year-long community engagement process And it states that we will be a community hub to a diverse population of Amherst residents Where the community can enhance their lifelong learning pursuits and in order to complete this mission We need engaged staff Adequate funding state-of-the-art technology Mutually beneficial relationships with the other town departments and the full engagement of Amherst residents Our current goals include to provide pleasant safe and up-to-date buildings To maintain exceptional customer service to expand our funding sources and to provide quality materials and programs to our patrons Right now we have three immediate priorities The first is to secure additional sources of revenue so that we can continue to attract and retain Motivated staff as well as continue to provide high quality services materials and programs Second we are working to secure capital funding for the expansion and renovation of the Jones library building and Third we're in the process of reexamining the roles of the branch libraries Including evaluating their collections and programs technology and capital needs So the Jones library system has so much to be proud of Starting with the staff the friends and the volunteers They are the reason the Jones is as successful as it is and then there's our incredible patrons almost 19,000 Amherst residents have active library cards over half of them fall into the 18 to 59 year-old Bracket, but interestingly college students use the Jones more than people over the age of 60 22% of our circulation is to college students and 15% is to patrons over 60 staff accomplishments include participation in a year-long series of workshops on collection diversity to help ensure our collections represent people of all backgrounds We received a $15,000 grant to help us celebrate the Jones Centennial and we provide all types of programming such as one-on-one Drop-in technology support early release events for teens Every second grader in town is given a tour of the library and in many cases their very first library card. I Added this slide about our information desk accomplishments because it tells a story Specifically the graph on the right it attracts the different kinds of questions We are asked we categorize each question as either being a true research question a Book search question a question about the library using the library's technology or a question about using the patrons personal devices and We thought it was really interesting that even in this world where Google is Queen The number of true research questions. We were asked was at as high as the last year One piece of data that we do not have is wireless usage We know more and more of the people are using their own devices at the library such as their phones and tablets But we can't tell you how often they're logging on to our Wi-Fi the town's Wi-Fi and using our printers to print from Because they can they're just coming in with their phones and hitting print and it prints on our machines So these are services we have always provided, but we're no longer able to track so just as we're seeing a shift in use from hard copy books and To digital sources and reference we're seeing the same shift in holdings and circulation And of course, this is industry-wide The number of electronic items that the Jones owns and the number of electronic items that the Jones circulates Continues to increase exponentially and our collection of physical items as well as their circulation is basically leveling off And it leveled off from FY 17 to 18 So what we do is we assign a dollar figure to each item borrowed each question asked and each program attended And so when we do this and add it all up the value totals almost 8.7 million dollars At a cost of only 1.9 million and I joke but that's really a great use of tax dollars Challenges so just as is the case for all-town departments that always comes down to funding Our buildings specifically the Jones and North Amherst buildings have needs Personnel we are unable to fill two full-time positions. They were left vacant last summer due to retirements And we have just decided to not fill those positions Programming demand this is a really great problem to have actually but I just we don't have enough staff and Money to be able to offer enough programs to meet the demand The same thing goes for our open hours additional open hours It's another great problem to have patrons want more hours that we can afford specifically nighttime and weekend hours So next I wanted to talk about the library's three separate revenue buckets Everyone always says the library is different and I wanted to explain why we are one of the state's Hybrid libraries. We are part town department and part our own 501 C3 So there's the legal piece of the puzzle where the town Approves the amount of funding which will go to the library and then the trustees determine how that money is spent But with this slide is showing you is in regards to the actual money and how it's handled It gets complicated because we rely on many different sources of revenue And we are paying our bills through these three different institutions We have the town the libraries corporation and the friends of the library So the town of Appropriation all these accounts under the town's logo on the left-hand side of the screen. These are all held by the town the town Appropriation JCPC CPA funds. They're voted on by the town and then they're spent accordingly by library staff Our annual state aid award is also held by the town But it is not subject to appropriation Library staff determines how that money is spent But when we spend that money the bills are processed first by our business office And then they go through the town's accounting department who cuts the the final check State and federal grants are applied for and spent by library staff But they are received and processed by town accounting. We have two Trusts where we are only allowed to pay To you spend the interest income earned on books. They're called the Adams and Westcott trusts They are also held by the town library staff are responsible for determining how that money is spent and Then there's overdue fines. I wanted to do a little clarifying here So patrons pay their overdue fines to the library But we turn these town these funds over to the town monthly and so overdue fines are not spent by the library They're not used to buy books for example as some would believe and this is the library Corporation which is in the center of the screen. It's overseen by the six elected trustees We are the corporation is audited annually by an auditor completely separate from the town's audit annual audit The funds listed in the middle of the screen They are received processed and spent by the library staff in conjunction with the board of trustees Our corporation undergoes the same set of checks and balances that the town does and the third bucket belongs to the friends of The Jones library system they take in donations to support the library and the friends in conjunction with the staff receive process and spend the money on programs and circulating materials on to our specific Revenue sources as you can see the library's primary source of revenue is by far at the town appropriation at 75% Followed by the endowment draw at almost 12% State aid at six and a half percent and then fundraising at almost 6% Regarding the town appropriation It's important to understand that this money is only used for two things It pays the majority of the library's personnel costs and it pays the Munton Memorial Library rent So because of this every year the library has to turn turn over to the town approximately $80,000 To pay the remainder of our personnel costs the town appropriation is not used for anything else such as Insurance and inspection fees and auditor fees utilities HVAC maintenance vehicle maintenance Supplies materials programs you get the point. So this is why the endowment is so important From FY 12 to 8 FY 18. We have increased our reliance on fundraising by over 850% so that we can decrease our reliance on the endowment draw by 33% so far as Of FY 18 last fiscal year the library's reserves were entirely spent due to the increase in health care costs Combined with the decrease in the endowment draw rate, which I'll talk more about in a minute But by not filling these two full-time positions We hope to be able to grow our reserves again. Well at the same time keeping the draw rate low We we just don't feel comfortable relying on fundraising for staff costs and I don't want to hire somebody new and Not be successful in fundraising and then have to lay somebody off So a bit of our endowment history so in 08 and 09 the economy was in decline and as a result the trustees at that point switched from a strategy of passive management of their portfolio to active management and That's the first hit that you see that the endowment took and then in FY 10 We received a very large bequest from the Wood Berries in the amount of $750,000 and that's the uptick that you're seeing there in FY 10 and FY 11 We separated the Wood Berry front fund from the rest of the endowment purely for bookkeeping purposes and so that's the slight decrease that you see And then in FY 15 through 16 the current set of trustees returned to a strategy of passive management And and that's the uptick that you're seeing after that. So now we're again in an excellent position. We're paying much less for our Endowment for Vanguard and then we were paying before We are back to eight million dollars in the endowment with a goal of ten million dollars so that of four percent draw Rate will give us the funding we need to operate comfortably I want to highlight the Friends of the Jones library system. So this organization was established in 1997 It's not that old it is its own 501c3 Corporation run by a group of volunteers and supporters and their purpose is to focus public attention on the Jones library services and special needs Until now fundraising for the Jones library has been undertaken through separate annual fund appeals by both the Jones library Corporation and the Friends of the library and for many supporters donating to each Organization as it has seemed confusing redundant. And so this past year we merged these two organizations The financial appeals specifically under one roof So now it's under the Friends of the Jones library system and with this joint venture the library the corporation and the friends We're just seeking to simplify your giving and now all donations are solely solicited by the friends and Gifts will continue to be used for all three buildings for books and programs Onto our expenses. So as you can see from the chart the library's primary expenses are salaries and benefits at 78 and a half percent and as I said before the town appropriation is covering 75 percent of those costs That and that's followed by materials at 8 percent from FY 12 to FY 18 Utilities costs have only risen 7 percent and Materials expenses have only risen by 12 percent, but our programming expenses have risen by over 200 percent These are all great things So our materials expenditures this slide also tells a very important story and the past decade Materials purchasing has been greatly reduced in order to help close our budget gap I want you to focus on the yellow line Specifically where it's circled in red from FY 10 to FY 11 So in order to remain certified by the state all public libraries have to spend a certain percentage of its entire operating budget on books Once upon a time before the economic downturn The Jones was able to spend as much as 63 percent more than our required amount on books but last year and You know since FY 11, we were only able to spend 7 percent more than our requirement And that difference is what you're seeing circled in in red there It's a 57 percent cut or seventy three thousand dollars to the materials budget in terms of excess over the requirement You can buy a lot of books with seventy three thousand dollars And so we're talking on an annual basis and so the reason I point this out is you know We're meeting our requirement and that's and that's great, but this is a very well-read community I do believe that this is one of the reasons that our circulation has leveled off and Slow down is because we just don't have as many books on the shelves as we used to This is the big game. Here is the budget summary This is the format that the library and most of the other town departments have historically used where expenses equal revenue sources This summary was approved by the board of trustees on March 26 2019 And so above you can see it will it shows two million six hundred and fifty five thousand six hundred and ninety nine dollars worth of expenses for FY 20 and It shows which accounts down below we will use to pay those those expenses Overall, it is a 1% decrease to our operating budget from FY 19 to 20 So in the top section under expenses Under salaries is a two point one percent decrease Benefits is a seven percent decrease for materials. There will be an eight point seven percent increase And the programming line maintains last year's budget cut Down below under revenue sources. That's where you see circled in yellow our request for the two and a half percent increase to the town appropriation Then there is a four point six percent endowment draw rate which equals a six point four percent decrease Then we have budgeted for a thirty four percent decrease in reliance on gifts and annual fund fundraising But this is only because so once our six are fundraising efforts are successful Depending on the level of success It could mean additional staff may be or additional programs or some combination thereof There will also we were also expecting a point five percent increase to state aid Lastly are our budget concerns We have four of them The first one because our anticipated outside funding sources. They're based on historical amounts We may or may not meet those anticipated levels Number two the trustees approved a four point six draw rate for FY 20 in order to meet our immediate needs It is a decrease from last year's five percent Number three in order to help close the ongoing budget gap over the past several years We have made very severe cuts to materials program purchasing Supplies programming staff training. There is there's just no more fat left in the library's budget And number four without additional open hours, especially nights meeting room availability continues to be limited and I know So Tammy Tamsen Ely is the only trustee that's here This is the email address you can reach out to them anytime or you can send it questions to me They're happy to chat with you My colleagues let's go Kathy okay I'll try to organize my Comments because I had some comments some questions when on the reduction of two full-time employees Did you turn them into? Four part-time people no is it a total so? Two people are just gone out of the but okay I also when I'm looking at sources of revenue the It looks like you or you've got a decrease in the amount that the friends are bringing in and It's your budgeting for next year at about the level of FY 18, but lower than FY 19 Do you have a sense of FY 19 is going to hit the 54? It's about $4,000 difference So do you have a did you go lower for FY 20 based on revenues are coming in at less than you expected? So awesome question. So, you know when we when department heads put these these charts together and and projections when we put this together the friends and the trustees fundraising had not merged yet and and We had not yet decided to not fill those two positions So the friends over the past few years Their efforts their fund raising efforts have been dwindling They have been relying more on the Woodbury fund for programming and so yes I took a very conservative guess as to how much they would raise But now that we're almost starting FY 20 I'm actually thrilled to say this merger has been very successful We have a group of dedicated volunteers who are soliciting new donors and We were hoping to raise a hundred and fifty two thousand dollars for FY 19 That was in part to cover those two full-time positions but since we're not Hiring when since we're not filling those two positions We do not have to reach that hundred and fifty two thousand dollar goal and we are already at a hundred and thirty thousand dollars So long story short is we are very successful and I do think that for FY 20 That that these fundraising figures both from the friends and from gifts sammies and grants I think I think those numbers are low okay, so you're mentioning a hundred thousand and then what we're looking at It's in fifty four thousand or fifty so there's another line somewhere on fundraising So under friends in Woodbury it goes from fifty four to fifty, but then under gifts sammies and grants There's a hundred and fifty two down to a hundred for FY 20 and Now that so historically until the merger those lines have been separate, but now Now after the merger exists those two lines will become one Okay, I'm just when I add the two lines it looks lower than it was before if I add both of them So are you saying that it's coming in more positively? But yes, so when we put these numbers together I So FY 19 hasn't finished yet So when I put when we put these numbers together for FY 20, I was being much more conservative I was much more nervous than I am now and then I had a question on your Your hypothesis that circulation is down because you're buying less fewer books How much can you assess that people are using? electronic more So that the circulation is coming in and because you all were also linked to Boston Public Library Person and Amherst can be getting books either Especially the way you set up CW Mars or what's the woman's name that we're now in Libby, you know Libby I can check either the Amherst regional Circulation or Boston and put myself on the list for an audible or a book It's I think we're for a certain generation of people that are Comfortable with that can can you assess that because it seems to me that we're moving away from having a book in our hands or some of us or So Two pieces to that so yes the electronic resources that the that the Jones Library pays for Contributes to we get statistics for that and that is included in our circulation statistics And so Libby is included in that but what is not included is So the stats that we get are through Central and Western met CW Mars but if you Go on to Libby and choose the Boston Public Library or a different network. We do not get those search stats So that's certainly a piece of the puzzle. Yeah And I was just saying that it may not be that because you have fewer books on the shelf fewer people are Coming in to get books. It may be that they're getting access to Books because they can go to different electronic resources It is multiple reasons and so in you know my previous two times chatting with you all I've given other theories and this was this was another theory This has Nothing and yet everything to do with your budget and that is you have an impressive growth and volunteers Over the last couple of years Congratulations on that. Are your volunteers are people who? Can work to our provide volunteer services to the town in lieu of paying some of their taxes Are they allowed to do that for the library? Yeah, there we do have a few senior tax tax work off Volunteers not many most of them are not those. Okay. Thank you, but people are allowed to yeah So one thing I'm hearing from people is that We are spending More on capital invest capital projects and reducing our services And that was one of the challenges you showed in your slides where the staff for more Programming and you know, so that seems to be a big problem. How do you foresee? Balancing that so we may you know get a new building, but if you still don't have the staff to You know to do the programming and to stay longer and open, you know that MD building is not really helpful I don't know and that's a great question. So one of my one of my biggest problems is the building itself So because I've got so many rooms and no step no sight lines I actually have to have more staff in the building than I would if it were like one big studio apartment for example So the way the building will be able to be designed with the new addition will be to have clear site staff sight lines So and then B is the the use of the technology the RFID automated materials handling system So that we do not plan on adding any more staff and we'll let the machines do you know the work where you're just checking in It's a scan and it's it's not We'll be able to use staff for the customer service aspect of it. That's that's what's important. Thank you You know When we look at the other aspect, which is the capital Project which requires a lot of fundraising. I guess it's a little worrisome that your Present fundraising is down when you've got to do a major fundraising effort. What are your plans for that? So that's what I'm saying is I Believe wholeheartedly that these figures here under fundraising are too low. They're very conservative this year We have been extremely successful In fact, if you had told me last year at this time that we would be this successful I would have said no way And so this this incredible group of people which keeps getting larger that is working on our annual fund Giving or they will take it to the next level and turn it into a capital campaign Then See any other questions I've been trying to limit my role for the reason that said is the beginning and not ask a lot of questions Now you've done a good job so no this has been very helpful I think that You know And yet it's not really a new question just building on Shalini's because I'm the question of Staffing in hours with the space and the circulation we now have it's We've been cutting back because of a tight budget and it to me we've got a tight budget out for several years You know my understanding is the under 20s where there's a lot of staffing they they get no benefits Is that correct or they get no they yeah, they all get prorated benefits throughout the town Oh, did they get prorated all so they get some part of health insurance some part of not health insurance a sick sick personal Vacation but no any retirement at so that now when you're When you're under 20 hours a week, that's That's Oprah I think Yeah, you'd have to talk to HR about that but that's that's town line It's a town line, but I'm not sure that there's any money putting into a firm So they're a less expensive employee because of the benefit structure then two of them would not equal one FTE if it was a full-time person correct in terms of total cost Can you ask the question what is your question, okay? you've been able to To meet some of the demands of operating by going to under 20 which saves you in the fringes I The fringe costs no, I would disagree with that statement. No, we have actually been increasing the number of hours that our full-timers have And Are the number of part-timers have reduced as well as you you can see in them in the packet It's not in this slide, but in the packet you'll see the number of Part-timers has actually maintained the same so no we don't we're not cutting positions and then hiring more part-timers and Regarding you know the open hours people have asked about that and so in my mind That's such a dream scenario that I put it there kind of as a placeholder But I don't see I see the town of Amherst having so many other needs that I Being able to add open hours is is not is Not gonna happen in my lifetime According to what I'm seeing because there are so many things going on So whether there's a building project or not we won't be getting more hours On your value of Jones services the value of the service in other words like the $20 for this or whatever are those benchmark statewide nationally regionally It's a it's a statewide chart. Yeah, that that libraries and Matthews. Thanks If not I Think that we can Thank you very much. I appreciate you having been here and I guess the question that I had asked before Dr. Morris if you have any thoughts Is to what we might do differently in the budget Process as we go forward to the next year and do a first full year Is it as it being a council process as opposed to this hybrid year? Please share them Do you mean now or later? It can be late I actually wanted to say how much I've appreciated the process. So in five months. I've already seen you all Three times and it's been so helpful I've loved the process and so I think it it's only gonna keep getting better because now we have this You know baseline understanding and then You know you all will get to know me more and I'll get to know you all more and I think it will only get better and as far as the timeline It's not we don't have the same constraints that the schools do so Your deadlines are our deadlines. It's We're good Thank you, so to the committee Think that we Probably have nothing else that we need to discuss today unless somebody has something that they didn't anticipate requests From previous is anything else Kathy that you think of we have them? No, I I think I already got my answer when I emailed you since The decision was made at the council on Monday night that okoh will be doing the interviews For the non res the residents who are joining us I'm assuming you will be sending the draft we did of potential interview questions to them We haven't had a request from them, but just we we we worked on that set Yeah, we can we'll I'll work with you to make sure we got there We have the right one and get that to them and and could I just get clarification Lynn? Will we as part of the council ever see Everyone who has applied for those non resident physicians since this is a we decided it's a council Appointment rather than a president, so it's it's a question And I have no idea whether you know there are three slots. It may be we only have four people You know, I don't know what's in the queue. I Believe that the way it's now been left is they are council appointments recommended to us by okoh and Therefore you will receive as a council, but as a confidential document the caps Okay, so Okay, that that is was a clear answer. Thank you. The only thing I think we need to communicate is that according to the charge That the finance committee, I mean that the town council passed Finance committee then debated and went back to town council and that is that we would like the appointment of the resident members to be effective July 1 just and I Guess the other thing is for Next Tuesday we have now posted The Amended agenda and so we will be taking up in addition to what was previously Planned for the meeting the matter that was referred to us, which I'll refer to is the Airbnb Tax And so if you have any questions that would be Helpful to have an advance I would say you know Since a small committee just Send them to either Paul or Sonia whoever seems to be the more appropriate person because I'll be away for the weekend And I don't want it. I want to have a useful discussion I think the only thing that would be helpful is if there's Anything more on the specific questions That are underlying because we have actually I Think several questions there one is do we want to? Impose have the fee imposed a fee do we want it to be 3% or Because the amount is open and then there was To whom it is, you know to which Establishments it's applicable and whether there's any information that would help us make any of those decisions Of course, that would be nice to have but otherwise I think we'll just have the discussion. Yeah The other issue that was brought up was whether or not as a finance committee we see Dedicating this revenue stream to anything specific There was a great it has it has at least 35% has to go And there was a recommendation that all of it go to affordable housing correct, you know So it just want us to understand what that's a part of the discussion. Yeah, I think that that's Yeah, it opens up a Huge problem for future things I think that we need to At least be aware of what the consequence of that would be as well as the benefit Since we know that somebody threw out a benefit, which is to the population that He was advocating for right. I just want to make sure that we don't We that as a committee we address that okay, it was not to suggest it one way or the other But to just make sure we address it Okay, I have a question and a comment. Yes question. When are we going to discuss the matter of the $500,000 bond issue for the CPAC? That will be under the 20 that'll be on the 23rd. I believe when we discuss the Community Preservation Act proposals. Is that the one of the bangs? No That's our regular finance committee meeting. It has that see back is scheduled for that day All right, the 21st is our public hearing at the banks. That's at 630 The 23rd is our regular well our regular finance committee meeting Okay meeting one of our two per week and it's at that meeting that JCPC Proposals will be discussed. Okay So then my my comment is that when trying to read the numbers up there. I knew I hadn't received Excuse me for being horse a copy of the this of her report and Kathy showed it to me that it was on the town page I would never have known that I Don't I I look at the web page I'm now looking at it. Maybe once a day, but You know when I looked at it again, it wasn't there because it's on a revolving thing I wouldn't have noticed it was there. I just I think you have to assume It's just let us know when something is there where it is There's some people that don't need to be told but Sometimes I do I need to be directed. There were a whole series of documents that were the budget with the budget when the budget was presented and It was all in one Folder that was I have that but in able to look to be able to look upward online I didn't I didn't know where to look Now there's if you look at the finance committee, you won't find it there You you would have had to download it. So I think the point is that we didn't necessarily attach it as a Packet are you saying it wasn't you didn't look at the packet for today for finance? I'm saying that when I wanted to to look at it here I didn't know where to find it and I this this seems to be kind of like there's all kinds of stuff everywhere But how do you know where it is when you want it? Well, perhaps this is just a matter of adding the Link in the agenda so that it takes us directly to the part of the budget Yeah, the So on the transmission document that I delivered to the council on May 1st There's a link to the website at Amherst MA gov slash budget The budgets for the library the regional school districts the elementary school district and the town and in addition to CPAC and JCPC are all in that one page Amherst MA gov slash budget It hasn't changed. It's been there since May 1st. I but I didn't realize that okay So I just I'm just saying that the staff transmitted that information to you multiple times At least on May 1st. We did and so that where to find it. Yes, okay The link was in that and we put it in our press release and the material that went out to the public and And we put it today for the first time I saw Your your big thing you had an ad saying budget and then I saw the little words budget that I could click But I didn't know it was so there there and so handy. Yeah We did that in addition to that to let after your meeting on Monday We did that so the public can find it easier to so appreciate your note pointing that out. Yeah We'll try and do that outside of the course of the meeting and just make sure that we sit down together with On where we're to find things So we have a member of the public who's actually here Janice. Do you have anything? Okay, I Have one pure housekeeping thing on minutes Um, I just want to make sure that the way I've been doing it Sonya works for you that once I looked at it I put it in an approved folder or would you prefer I actually? Link it to an email and send it to you I think the last time we decided you were going to email it to me because I don't I have no training in SharePoint I have no where no idea where to look okay, so I'll keep once it becomes an approved document I'll send it to you and at some point we need discussion about minute taking because Some of us have more time than others to so I've been I've been volunteered as well as I was willing a willing volunteer to do final approval minutes But when people don't have time to complete the minutes or had questions I've taken on it to go back and look at the tapes to fill in because I wasn't taking minutes So we're just going to figure out because if it gets down to only a few people Andy doesn't take minutes and if only a few are taking it's going to become time consuming So we'll just have to figure out some some way to make an adjustment Yeah, so it's just an alert, you know, so one meeting I couldn't figure out anyone who took minutes So I just went and watched the tape and did minutes, you know But but that's time-consuming. So Also, I believe on the agenda for next week is supposed to be looking at the Goals not just the goals, but the activities that are and I sent an email to you and Kathy With the latest draft on that earlier this week This is the goal sheet and the goal activities in timeline So you looked at the goals and I've made the adjustment and sent you that for final approval But then there's still the activity sheet We need to make it an agenda item for next week Lynn or should just Andy and I look at it How do you want to I think if Andy and you want to look at it and then bring it to back to us? That would be fine We should look at that and make sure and see if we need to amend an agenda to add it But if there's nothing else that I guess shall I just add a comment for the town manager Is it possible what I'm hearing from the public is that when they see the agenda and they want to see the agenda packets Could there be a link in the agenda itself to the agenda packets so people can find it easily Generally for all all meetings So I but at least the town council meetings and so for the so I'm not sure if our system allows that In terms of because the links can change around so if you put a dedicated link in it might go to a dead-end page I've discovered this with the school department's budget actually But the organization of the website is that for every meeting? There's a packet. There's a click Just go to the meeting date in the council page and go to the packet and the packet is there and every item is in the packet so We try to do links to the agenda from the Meeting posting time. It's it's the system isn't as flexible and I understand it exactly what people are asking for and it's how Intuitive it would be to just say oh, I want to click on this agenda item. It doesn't work as easily that way unfortunately So could we just send them to the town council page where all these agenda item packets are like even if it's not going to the individual agenda packet, but Maybe it can just say okay go to this that would be a standard link We can add for all that just go to the town council page so so one of the challenges is that the system only allows you to use a certain number of characters when you post the Agenda and so we are already people are already sort of putting in abbreviations and all kinds of stuff into the agendas Went on the official meeting postings So to add a link to it is will will limit the amount number of characters It's think of it like Twitter allows you a hundred and twenty characters and you have to do all these things and some some people some committees agendas are very complex because they like to have lots of Charter references and things like that and then it gets jumbled so it's It's not as easy. I understand what you're saying It's just the system doesn't allow us to do it very easily but If I think of just finance now with the rest of the meetings in May maybe our agenda Can it won't be a hot link, but just a link back to the page that you can do that it when you set up your agenda Yes, yeah, so if we do that people will know okay public works Here's the link, and I'm gonna find the town budget here's On the 23rd so people won't wonder where it's here. They just have to know where to look for it So we will also if we haven't already we also break out the town budget by department So it's easier for they don't have to scroll through the whole gigantic document, right? So every section is like public works will be you can click on just public works if you just want to see that So I think that's there's a link to that that subset of documents, which is The full budget broken up into smaller sections sure exactly And I'm just thinking that that some of these issues are gonna come up when we've got JCPC and CPA Like where do I find those two things unless we upload those in our packet? But we can just put it in the agenda that here's the link to those again every one of those documents is that Amherst I may gov slash budget. Yeah, we put it all on one page You know I found them all but I didn't think everyone might find them So I make a suggestion of something that's lower tech because I understand this thing about links They kind of expire just a sentence Telling people where they would find the agenda items that Shalini was asking for To to to get the packet the agenda packet go to this page or whatever doesn't have to be a link just a sentence That's what we're saying, you know, do I think that we probably exhausted this for what we should do an open meeting Because we've got I think we've identified a Set of problems and we need to just try and work together to think them through as to how to resolve them but We're going to let the committee adjourn if it wishes I move that we adjourn I second it. Okay, so in all in favor Everybody agrees so we're adjourned at 345. Thank you