 At 633, we will call the Rochester Stockbridge Unified School District Remote Public Informational Hearing into session. Notice an agenda for April 27, 2021. And May 3, which is the voting day, 2021. All to order. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Not hearing any. We'll go to. So I just think I need to explain Jamie. There are public comments throughout this, but we're not necessarily taking public comment after each article. Well, I think there will be an opportunity for questions or comments after each article, which comes later in our slide presentation. OK, good. So you want to just go right to that? Yeah, I shot you an email. I saw your email. I think if we do our presentation, it should flow nicely. And at the end, it does allow for questions and comments on each article, as well as folks could definitely ask questions and comments on the budget. Very good. I think that's the way to proceed. Looks very nice. All right. So our principals are going to take the lead on the majority of this first part. So Bonnie and Lindy. Yes, so welcome to everyone. And we're glad that you're here with us on this really gorgeous spring evening that we haven't had very many of. So thanks for joining us. And just some introductions in case you're not familiar with everyone. Ethan Bowens here and he's the chair of our Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Board. Amy Wilt is here, and she's the vice chair. Jenny Austin is our clerk, as well as a board member. We have Carl Grappi, Justine Kalakis, and Megan Payne, who are also board members as well. We have Superintendent Kanarney or Jamie Kanarney, myself and Bonnie Born. And then Tara is here as well, I believe, as the business manager for the entire SU. So some details, because this is unique again this year about our budget vote is we have two informational meetings. It's not like there's different content. Either night, it's the same content. But in case you couldn't make one, you can make the other, or you're welcome to join us for both. Our second informational meeting will be next Monday, May 3rd at 6.30 PM, and it'll be remote as well. In each town, we will be voting by Australian ballot on Tuesday, May 4th, beginning at 10 AM and ending at 7 PM at both town offices in Rochester and Stockbridge. You can request an F&T ballot online or by calling the town clerk's office in your respective town. They are not mailing ballots out this round, like was done in our general election for town meeting day. If you have an outstanding F&T ballot that you've requested, but you don't think it'll get there in the mail-in time, feel free to drop it off to your polling place, your respective town office, by 7 PM on May 4th. Whenever you're ready, Ray. So there are similar yet different ballots. And the reason they're different by town is because in March, it was voted that each town will vote for their respective board members. And that is the only difference is for the seats on the board. And we'll go through the specific articles, like Jamie said, at the end to talk about how much our budget is for and what you're voting on, specifically. And I'll just add, I know there's been some confusion because there's a lot of write-in for candidates. And so the issue with that is, is that we needed candidate consent forms completed within 30 days of the election. And Bill Egerton did complete his in Stockbridge. So he is on the ballot for the remaining two years of Carl's seat, which Carl will be vacating. But do know that folks can definitely pursue writing campaigns. We've had successful writing campaigns in the past. And we know that this is part of the clunky part of going to an Australian ballot when folks are used to nominating and electing folks from the floor. So we do apologize that there's not more names on those ballots. But certainly, you can write folks in on those ballots. And we encourage you to do so. And I'm not aware of anyone who's planning to pursue a writing campaign yet in Stockbridge for the three-year seat. Do you know of someone, Lindy? I believe Patrick Hudson put his name out there for the three-year seat. Great. So Patrick Hudson, the spelling is important for Stockbridge residents. And I believe Amy Wilt plans on putting her name out there once again for Rochester. So please make certain you spell those folks correctly so we can get them elected and get them on the board. Is it my turn now? It is your turn. OK. So just some welcome thanks again for joining us tonight. We've done some changes at the WRBSU offices. One of the things that we've been hyper-focused on is ensuring that we're being fiscally responsible and trying to ensure that we're running surpluses across our local districts and at the SU offices. And so we are projecting surpluses in almost all of our districts. I think I'm optimistic that we are going to realize surpluses in all of our districts and at the SU. Folks have been working incredibly hard. We did do some restructuring in the central office for next school year. And what we did is we did eliminate several different admin positions that are here within the central office with a focus on trying to get those consolidated federal grant funds out into your buildings to provide an increased intervention and supports for students. I've been hyper-focused on and when we've analyzed budgets is to do zero-based budgeting where we didn't look at what we had prior, but focused on what do we need and look through the lens of how is that going to impact students in increased student achievement. And that's been the compass in regards to how we've guided that work. And so there are some things that will be covered via both our recovery effort funds through the ESSER funds and through the consolidated federal grants. So I know that there's been concerns about some reductions in like winter wellness and things that ties beautifully with our recovery fund efforts and ESSER grants. So I want folks to know that we are gonna continue to fund those things. Those things just are not funded through your local district budget. They will be covered though via those recovery funds. And we also are looking to bring you in an additional 1.0 FT math interventionists to support your students in both campuses. And so we didn't currently have anyone devoted to math intervention and we were looking to bring a board math interventionists in all of our buildings next school year. As I said, we've been hyper-focused on being fiscally responsible and continuing the work that had already begun in creating a comprehensive system of supports that we call a multi-tiered system of supports where we're trying to get early intervention and support to students. It's critical that we get that intervention in place in the pre-KK one, two years because we know more and more research is showing that students are making decisions about their future in grades four and five. And we can actually start to predict high school completion in grades four and five. And so, yeah, big predictor of that is is students being able to read on grade level and the on grade level in mathematics in grade three. So when we look back at no child left behind and the work that occurred there, even though that was a punitive approach, one of the things that I think that really speaks to me from that is is that we do need students on grade level by the end of grade three. And so we're doing a lot of investment at work. On that, we've also been focused on increasing significantly our PD for teachers. And so there's gonna be a hyper focus on an investment in teachers and not necessarily programs. And what I mean by that is, is I'm looking to really increase teacher expertise and content area knowledge so that they can better meet the needs of our students through differentiated instruction. They definitely need tools, but I don't believe that a program replaces high quality instruction. High quality instructions where it's at and teachers or experts and we need to support them by investing in them. And so we are looking to leverage a great deal of investment in professional development for our teachers. And we've continued to increase our interdependence throughout the eight schools. I'm proud to report things like our principals meet on Thursday mornings. Every Thursday morning just to think tank things. There's no one from the central office involved in those meetings. Those are opportunities for them to just plan and work together collaboratively. We were able to open schools five days a week or five days a week across the entire SU now even at our middle and high school. And I don't believe we would be there if we didn't learn and work together. So I'm incredibly proud by the effort that's been put in to bring our schools together, share resources, share ideas and we'll look to continue to foster that. So thank you. So the strategic direction or the direction we're having in right Chester Stocksburg to Unified District is where as Jamie said really trying to strengthen our universal instruction which means every kid is receiving high quality instruction from all our teachers. And that comes through professional development, training, coaching of our teachers, all models that help support and make sure all our students are receiving the highest quality of education in literacy, mathematics, science, social studies possible as well as our essentials. We're also creating our robust multi-tiered system of supports for students. One of our celebrations later on is about how great our students have succeeded socially and emotionally as we've come back to in-person learning and the benefits from that. And we continue to build on those systems that we have in place to celebrate student success whether it's through meeting learning expectations or academic expectations as well. And we're continuing to improve our educational programming opportunities for all our students. Meaning within this budget, it will support next year the addition of outdoor education programming as well as world languages programming in addition to what we already offer all our students. We do work on something that's called a continuous improvement plan. It helps with our grant funding. And one of our big focal points has been looking at the data to really make sure data just driven school-wide goals for preschool through sixth grade across both campuses. And we see that our current goals are focused on student success in mathematics and literacy as well as succeeding socially and emotionally so that they feel like they have the appropriate supports or adults they know they can reach out to within the building as well as interact with their peers. And so we've used that data specifically Star 360 which some folks may have heard us talk which is about recently. It's an assessment tool. It's an online test that students take three times a year in mathematics and literacy and it really helps us drive some of our decision-making. So some celebrations that come from our data as well as things we've just seen in our buildings and our communities. Despite COVID, all our elementary students have maintained the reading levels that they maintained or exceeded the reading levels that they had when they left in-person instruction last March. And we see this in our data across the school years. We have seen students flourish with our return to in-person learning and we've seen that in a couple of ways. The first is the number of offers referrals or people that kiddos who are struggling to learn or follow direction has decreased dramatically from year to year in both campuses. And we're seeing many more celebrations of meeting those learning expectations increasing as well as we've seen this rapid growth rate so to speak of our students who have been in-person and have been attending. They've been closing some great gaps and working really hard as have all our teachers. So the other great celebration, like Damie mentioned, is we've been five days a week of in-person learning for all preschool through sixth students for 133 days so far, knock on wood if we're gonna keep that going. And only 10 days of the school year have been virtual. We're really proud of that and know the benefits that that brings to our students, our staff and our community. We do see that mathematics is an area that needs and deserves our focus and that is something we're looking forward to in our work with Bonnie Bourne next year as she transitions to a mathematics instructional coach for the SU as well as adding a math interventionist. But like Damie said, that doesn't fix all our problems. What we need to do is really focus on our professional development training to strengthen that universal instruction that all students receive. And we'll continue to practice this with coaching throughout the 2021-2022 school year. And then through community and PTO support, we've been able to continue our learning outside through multiple tents as well as our Ryan trust structures that are now up on both campuses. And I can't express enough how much I think that truly means we've been able to stay in-person longer because our students have been able to be outside to receive their instruction for larger chunks of time. And like I said, we are shifting to more outdoor learning and that looks a lot of different ways. All of our students across both campuses have been able to access outdoors throughout the entire year. That could be in the woods, that could be under a tent or in a trust structure. And we look forward to adding specific outdoor education to our curriculum next year to help teachers really embrace these positive shifts in learning. And then while we haven't been able to get together across campuses this year or going together for large school-wide celebrations because of COVID, we have been building a strong sense of community within its buildings. And some of the examples we've seen through that is we are really excited to band an instrumental lessons. We're able to begin again in March, as well as we have had like virtual speakers come in and work with students, you can see a picture here where students in Stockbridge were building their own schools for the outdoor tents. And that was through a parent volunteer who taught them how to do that. So we have been able to still embrace what's so great about being our small school. And then just a few action shots. Now I believe I'm turning this over to Amy. Yes, you are. All right. Okay, so to start with our budget, the Rochester Stock Exchange Unified District's financial position. So we started FY20 with a general fund surplus of 101,260 dollars. We ran a deficit in FY20 of 40,063 dollars. This leaves the general fund at the end of FY20, $461,197. We put $142,987 towards the FY21 revenue budget, which left us at 318 through 10. We have put 173,600 into that towards the FY22 budget, that towards the FY22 budget, budget that we're devoting on this proposed budget. This leaves the general fund balance of 144,610. As of today, we are projecting that there's going to be a deficit for this current budget that we're in the FY21 budget. It's a small deficit and it's projected at 7,566. That leaves the estimated general fund surplus for the 2021 of $137,44 that you see at the bottom there. Ford has decided to keep that general fund surplus in the general fund because of concerns of future deficits of this year. Okay. Spending changes and the priorities. So what this budget represents is a reduction onto one principle, reduction of 1.5 support staff and a reduction in the intervention. And that is because it is being moved to the SU to be funded through ESSER funding, which is elementary secondary school emergency relief, which is part of the Corona virus aid package that was available to us. What we have done is reinvested into bringing a foreign language program into our schools and to increase the reading intervention locally and to increase outdoor education. So we were able to do all this and in the meantime save $43,199. It's really great that we were able to save and as everyone knows, the cost of everything just continues to go up. The healthcare, salaries, tuition, all continues to increase in cost, but yet we were still able to find these savings. So proud of that. All right, so Avenue changes. So on this chart, compares the FY21, which is current year's budget with the proposed FY22 budget. So these are local revenues and some things to note are that we're getting grant funds from the SU have increased to $75,150. And another grant from the SU of $86,000. $13,000, so has really increased our revenue. And by having these additional local revenues, it reduces what is needed to be collected from the Education Fund and essentially your property taxes. I'm going to take over here to explain the equalized people. So if you're not familiar with equalized people, it is based on your two years average daily membership. And then there's a factor that adds weighting into the different groupings of students. So pre-K, high school, elementary, secondary. So the agency of education provides to us the equalized people number for each of our districts. And over the course of the last couple of years, as you can see outlined in the chart, we continue to have a reduction in equalized people which has a direct impact and what your per pupil spending is. And then ultimately results in additional tax that you have to collect from the town. So for the FY 22, your equalized people dropped from 177.03 to 172.19. And we'll go over that impact later on in some slides to explain how that impacts the per pupil spending and then again, the tax rates. So this here is how your tax rate is calculated. I see a note that if someone can please mute. So if you have your speakers on, is that better, Justine? So you take your per pupil spending, which is your spending minus your revenue and you divide that by your equalized pupil. From there, you take the per pupil spending and you divide it by your yield, which is also a number given to us by the Vermont Department of Taxes. We are in the last year of the merger incentive, so that gets reduced. And that gives us the final tax rate and we get an equalized rate for the district. And then each town gets their own tax rate, which is then adjusted by their common level of appraisal. And again, we'll go over that in detail in the following slides. Okay, so what has changed from FY 21 to the FY 22 proposed budget? We have reduced spending. So the top line is the spending line. We've reduced that by $42,198. You have to increase the revenue by $50,246. This reduces the ed fund spending, which is also your taxes. You have had a decrease in the equalized pupils, as Tara just said, and that is a reduction of 4.84. And we're still able to reduce the per pupil spending from last year. So that's again impressive. So the yield has been, I'm sure if you've heard in the news and if you follow any of the notices that come out from the Vermont Department of Taxes, the yield has changed significantly throughout the course of this fiscal year, which makes budgeting at times challenging because the yield obviously has a direct impact on how your taxes base comes out. So in the beginning of the budget process, we used the FY 21 yield, which was that $10,998. In December, we received the notification from the Vermont Department of Taxes that they actually projected the yield based on the reduction of state revenue to 10,763. And then in January, we received notification from the Agency of Education that we could use a projected yield of $11,385. The final yield is set by the legislature towards the close of the session. And there is a bill that is out there that just needs to go through the approval process through all the different levels of the house. So right now, all of the budget and all of the information that you see throughout your mailer and through the rest of this presentation is based on using that yield of $11,385. So again, where does this come into the equation? Is your equalized tax rate, is your per pupil spending that we just went over in the previous slide divided by your state yield? You can see when you look at the resulting tax rate change, can you go back one slide, Ray, please? That the change in the yield could adjust the equalized tax rate up to 10 cents. So that is a really big factor in all of our budgeting process. Now you can skip ahead, Ray. So this is the tax calculation. So we take your per pupil spending, you can see from the slide, you got your 2020 or 2021 is at $18,755.83. The proposed for 2122 is $18,740.04. Divide that by your yield of $11,385. That gives us a preliminary tax rate of 1.6460. We reduce the merger incentive of two cents. So that brings us to an equalized tax rate of 1.6260, which is a reduction of 0.0394 over the 2021 equalized tax rate. The common level of appraisal of the CLA, another part of this equation is the comparison of unappraised values recent actual sales prices. It converts the equalized rate to the final tax rate. So we take that final tax rate from the previous slide, which was $1.6260. And then this gets divided by the individual town's CLA as it's shown here. And you can see the comparison of a 21 and 22. And then by town. But as you can see, each town's CLA decreased from last year. And CLA is set by the state, is again, the difference between the property values are raised at and what they actually sell for. So as you can see, it decreased. If you go to the next slide, it will show historically how over the course of the past a few budgets, how it has changed. Rochester is in blue, it started at 115%. And went down to 110, leveled off a little bit. And then went down to what it is today. Dark bridges started a little lower, dip down 100%, went back up to 105 and has settled out where we are today. And so it's another piece of the equation that really affects the bottom line for taxes, but that we don't really have a lot of control over. So this slide here is just a review of the breakdown of your actual projected tax rate increase in each town. So if we didn't have any other factors change and we only impacted the budget based on the expenditures and their revenue, that gives us the net spending changes. There would have been a reduction of your tax rate of 0.0437 in Rochester and 0.456 in Stockbridge. With the equalized pupil dropping, that actually reduced the savings to 0.0424 and Rochester and 0.0442 in Stockbridge. And then the merger incentive dropping the two cents. And then you put in the yield factor and then that would also impact the savings on the tax rate and that gives us a savings of 0.0358 for Rochester and 0.0374 for Stockbridge. And then you add in your CLA decreases which then ultimately is the factor that increase the projected tax rate in each of your individual towns. In Rochester, that would be 0.0635. And in Stockbridge, that is 0.02288. And if you have your budget mailer available, I do recap that in the business manager report and actual verbiage, so that may be easier to follow. But also the tax rate sheet gives you the chart for each individual town. So you can see it there as well. Okay, so we're getting into articles that are actually on ballot. And I'll go ahead and read them and then maybe Ethan can field questions if this. So article four is to fix salaries in the amount of $2,000 for the chair. $1,350 each vice chair and clerk, $1,100 for all other members of the school district officers for the 2021-2022 school year. Do we go questions for article or? Yeah. So if there's any questions, raise your hand. I will look, yeah, put your hand up or do we have phone calls? We only have one phone call. So that phone call, come on in. But if you want to put your little hand icon up, Robert Franks question. Do not, I believe that we have to make sure that members are voting members. You have to be a voting member of either Rochester or Stockbridge. And I believe you're in Bethel, Robert. So it's just for voting members here. Are there any other voting members who have a question? On article four. On article four, which is the salary of the... Okay. I think we're good. Moving on. Go ahead, Ray. Hey, article five, again, this is on your ballot. Fix the salary, the amount of $750 for the school district treasurer, the 2021-2022 school year. Any questions on article five? Again, if you're a voting member of either town, I see none. Let's move on. You can go to the next, yeah. All right, article six. Shall the voters authorize the school board our own money by issuance of notes, not to exceed, not in excess of the anticipated revenue for the school year, July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022. Any questions on article six? I would just like to add some commentary to this, Ethan, if that's okay. Absolutely. So this is your tax anticipation note. This allows the school board in the school district to fund payroll and all other expenses that the school district acquires prior to receiving your tax revenue in your payments from the ED fund. So this carries you through July and August. Your first ED fund payment comes in September and then it's broken out after that throughout the rest of the fiscal year. So this money is used to help during those times where you have a decrease in revenue coming into the district. Any questions about this from voting members? Seeing none, let's move on. Article seven. Okay, article seven is the article to approve the budget. So shall the voters of the school district approve the school board to expend $4,328,752, which is the amount school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year. It is estimated this proposed budget, if approved, will result in education spending $18,740 per cents for equalized people. This projected spending for equalized people is 0.08% lower than spending for the current year. And questions again from voting members on the budget number. Tim, go ahead, Tim. I've got a question about the surplus. When did we stop voting on carrying the surplus forward for the current year? I can remember you used to have to vote on a surplus and not just give it a designation. Who has an answer for that historical? Amy, you've been around on the board. I'm not sure what Tim's question is. When we were creating this budget, the board approved a certain amount to be put forward into the current budget as revenue, and it is a revenue line. That is something that the board votes on and not the electorate believe. I'm saying that correctly, but is somebody, and I'm not sure if I'm answering the question. Hold on, Tim. Carl has an answer for that. Go ahead, Carl. So in the past, if we've put funds into a restricted category, if we've taken surplus money and we said, we're going to set it aside, we've talked at various times about tuition funds, there's a Stockbridge Building Fund that has restricted money in it. Those questions have been put to the electorate because that's what we're supposed to do is to say, okay, we wanna restrict this money to be used for tuition or to be used for building repairs or whatever. So we've done that in the past. The other thing that has happened, and I don't know if it's happened in Rochester, but it's happened in Stockbridge, has been that in the years where it's been bitter cold or there's been a surprise repair or something like that, we've run a deficit, and then we've had to take that and we've had to break that out over three years because we're allowed just to take a deficit and amortize it over three years. And that's been something that the board could just do by itself and has done and kind of gotten public comment on back when we all could get together in a room and kind of argue with each other for a bit. But in general, the only time we've asked, we've talked to the electorate about how to use a surplus is when we wanna restrict it for something or another. Tim, do you have a follow-up? Nope, okay. Further questions from the electorate? Robert, I see you raising your hand, but as I said, we're focused on the Stockbridge Rochester community here, asking questions. There being no more questions, let's move on, please. Is that, are we there? We can open it up now to if you have general questions toward the board on this evening. Do web surfing data, like your interests, demographics? Ethan? Yes? I just wanted to add to Tim's question, if that's okay. That'd be fine. I was looking at the statute because I'm at home and I don't have my statute book here with me, but under the fail 16, something's just breaking in. The control of your data. Beth, you need to, thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'll get the bell to hear from you. Kara, yes, would you like a follow-up? Title 16, chapter nine, sub chapter four, Vermont statute is how we deal with surpluses. And if an audit reveals that a school district has surplus funds, the school board shall carry those funds into the next year as revenue, unless it's authorized by the voters to put it in special revenue funds as Carl indicated. So that is the way the statute reads for school districts. So you voted to do something different with it other than just to roll it over? So what's the roll over? Gotcha. Correct. Good, thank you very much, Tara. All right, Beth Dolly, are you from Stockbridge? Yes. Thank you. This is sort of a general question. How much of our budget do we actually have control of that is not contractual obligations, that sort of thing? I know at one point, and this was quite a few years ago, the school board put together a nifty little pie chart and what we actually had control of, there's the thing was 10%, is that where we still are? That pie chart is indeed in the current pockets on page 37. And I'm assuming the only thing we have control over are buildings and grounds and other expenses, would that be correct? That is indeed a percent. The buildings and grounds is 4%, all other expenses is 6%. All other, so that's not salaries. Not salaries, not benefits, not tuition, not the SQ assessment, not transportation, it is on page 37 of the annual school bulletin reference. Yeah, I think that that year it was put in in such a way that it was like field trips and that sort of thing. It was kind of the, I guess you could call it the fun things. But you, Beth, yes, so about approximately 10%, you said page 37, is that correct, Amy? That is correct. Page 37, okay. Page 37 is where that pie chart is for anyone who wants to see it of what the percentage of what our number says. Thank you, Beth. Thank you. Karen Rubin. Hello, good evening. I do have some questions. My first question before I kind of start down my list and then I promise you won't have to hear from me the next time we have this meeting is the questions that we're allowed to answer this evening. Is that on the report that was presented to us or just the articles in the budget themselves? I would say the report. Okay. I think we've talked about the report. Awesome. So I'll try to be quick, Ethan, on page five. It is the last year's annual meeting minutes and 3.4, question two from Leslie. She was talking about the public funds, sorry, just watched her speak earlier, the microwave's beeping on you. She was talking about the Rochester Public Funds last year and we responded to her that they need to go to probate and that they were specific to the Rochester High School as well as the fact that we needed to understand the funds and have visibility of them. So can someone tell me where we stand on that? That's just one question, by the way. Do you want to, let's take them, Karen, let's take them one at a time and answer them one at a time. That would be awesome. Okay. Amy, is that your expertise? Yeah, I can try. So we do have visibility of these funds. They are indeed in this, you'll look and it gives their balances. What is different about the Rochester funds is there is one fund that is specific to scholarships from high schoolers. So that one we does need to be dealt with separately. The other ones will have restrictions that they cannot be used as line items in the budget. So it can be used at the discretion of the principles for certain things which is specified in the will. But we can't actually put a line item in the budget like you're able to with the Stockbridge plus use of public funds money. Amy, is there intention to use those funds for any of the building upkeeper management or use or anything that has to do with not having gotten, excuse me for saying it this way, but rid of that building yet? No, those funds are restricted that they cannot be used for brick and mortar. Okay, thank you. On page eight, article eight with the election coming up. And thank you, Jamie for giving us Bill and Patrick's name. Do we know who is maybe on the ballot for the Rochester position? Yes, I'm willing to run again, Amy Wilt. Thank you, Amy. And for right ends, what's the percentage and maybe this is something that we need to hear from the town, but what is the percentage of the voters or is it majority vote over anyone who is actually on the ballot? I believe it's 30. It's actually, Jenny, you have this down pat. We worked with Lord. Go for it. Jenny. For Stockbridge, it's either 30 or 10% of the registered voters. And there's 590 voters in Stockbridge. So for right end for Stockbridge, it would have to be the minimum of those, which is six votes. I don't know what that number is for Rochester. I think we have to check with the town of Rochester for that. Okay, thanks. Karen, what I can do is I can reach out to both town clerks and solidify that number and definitely have that information for our next meeting. That would be excellent. I'm asking these questions, not because I want to do what you guys are doing because I praise you all for doing it. But I think that the questions need to be asked to the community understands. Thank you. Page 27. So now getting into a couple of line items I have questions about. Line 101, the teacher salary. I see that that's a difference of negative $30,000. Is, do we know what the root of that is? I mean, obviously you do, but as a community member, I'd like to know, are we losing a teacher, shifting teachers? Some of that change was because we're bringing in additional grant revenue, which offsets what you need to collect on your budget. Okay, thank you, Tara. I'm off. Karen, I would also just say changes in personnel and certain personnel just cost more in regards to anticipation of what we might know in regards to retirements. Okay, line 103. I guess I'm really kind of confused by this number. It seems to me like we, for some reason are not getting it right. If you look at the line just across the 2018 budget was 15, but we spent 57, then 15 and 35, and then 17 and 28, like what, why do those numbers play like that? So- You had a long-term substitute for one year, which is why that number was inflated in the 2019-2020 versus budgeted. So that impacted there. And as far as the increase for the 21-22, that is to have a long-term permanent sub in your building that knows your students, knows your teachers, knows your process, knows your procedures so that they can easily matriculate between classrooms when you need a sub. Okay, that's really good to hear. Line 320, the contracted instructive services, we see the reduction of 35,404. And I'm wondering if that was the instruction that Lindy referred to that was gonna be available to the staff? Because you had talked about it's increasing, our staff instructions are increasing. That number doesn't, isn't relevant to that, is it? So it's a tricky title, Karen, because it says contracted instructional services, but what it also includes typically in past years has been those really big guilt trips like winter wellness, things that Jamie mentioned, we're gonna fund through grants. So that's the decrease you see there, is not professional development for staff or bringing anyone in to help with universal instruction. It's that we've learned through grant funding that we can fund parts of our winter wellness program and other like larger field trips in different ways. And that's a great way to build your resources. So thank you for doing that hard work because grants are no fun at all. I can add to that if you would like, that was also back in the budget presentation when they were reviewing the re-investments. This was moving the intervention, reading intervention locally versus having that be a contracted service. Okay. The line 640 with the books and periodicals, do we just have a really awesome library right now that we got back in 2000, what is it, 2019, 2020? Is that the reason for the reduction that large? Especially when we had our problem area, one of them. I would say last year, Karen, specifically we invested those funds in purchasing the next very classroom materials for classroom libraries and classroom literacy instruction, which comes in the format of interactive read aloud, guided reading books, all those things. So we really focused our funding to help support that instruction that we are asking teachers to put in place. That being said, now that they have all these brand new materials or year old, depending on the cycle that we are on every classroom, pre-K through six, excuse me, in both campuses has those materials. And what is in there for this coming school year is really just there's a couple of classrooms as grade level kind of shift configurations that potentially do still need some additions added into their classroom libraries for students to pick from. Yeah, well, that seems a reasonable investment if it means we're gonna turn out some better readers. Okay, Karen, this is Bonnie. Another piece that I would add, Jamie mentioned that we're doing zero base budgeting. So zero base budgeting, you will see some more fluctuation in your numbers because instead of taking last year's numbers and just increasing them by two or 3%, which you may not need to do at all, we actually sit down and say, okay, where are we and where do we need to be? Some years we will need to add additional sums of money in areas. Other years we won't need to add much at all. So you will see some of that fluctuation. Yeah, and I appreciate that explanation, Bonnie, but I think it's important to ask the question if we see some kind of pattern within the budget so that we understand how our kids are benefiting from it. And I agree completely with asking the questions. Thank you. So I have one more question to ask and then I'll leave you guys alone. On page 30. This is important work. On page 35, line item 624. We are looking at a $24,500 reduction in that. I am assuming and I don't want to make an ask of myself, but I'm assuming it has something to do with the high school and not having that expense. Are you expecting to move into the 2021-2022 season being able to maintain that item at that level in the event that the school does not go away? In the event that the school is not sold, I should say it that way. Not that it's gonna go away, but in the event that this town, from what I understand who is not necessarily gonna take that opportunity right now, and we are not able to sell that on the open market, what is your expectation for that line item and have you included that in the number that you're proposing to us this evening? And thank you very much for all the work you guys do. Karen, we have included that. The expectation is that the building would be, the term they use is shuttered so that there wouldn't be fuel oil expenses in it and the costs for doing that has been included in this particular budget. So it's more likely that in the event that the school sells, we will see that number reduced. Correct. Okay. Well, again, thank you everybody for all the hard work that you put into it and taking the time to listen to all my questions. I really appreciate that about this school board. It is one of the things that you make sure that you do and that is super, super important for our communities. So thank you. Thank you, Karen. Karen, really excellent question, much appreciated. Janie Feinberg. Just a quick one. I saw that there was a reduction in support staff by 1.5 and I was wondering who that was or what position that was that was being eliminated. Yep. Janie, so we reduced secretary, half of the secretary or part-time secretary position that was in place on the Rochester campus and we also reduced a paraprofessional or support staff member from the Stockbridge campus for next year. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Janie. Janet Whitaker. I just wasn't sure on the energy fuel oil was some of that because we pooled our resources for purchasing power some and consolidated into one supplier. Yes, that also helped reduce the cost as well. Thank you. Yeah, I would just add here, Tara and Jamie have done a good amount of work in terms of bulk purchasing, purchasing across entities and we actually have a lower fuel rate thanks to their endeavors. Good to know. All right, Leanne Isaacson. Leanne, I think you're still muted. Yes. Sorry. That's so I don't make noise. What I shouldn't be, hi everybody. This is a general question because I've been tracking the book and the articles and all the information that's going on. So this is in the White River Valley Herald, there was an article on the 22nd that the comment was made about the public info meetings and it said that Jamie, Superintendent Canardy noted there will be two public informational meetings and that information was inadvertently left out of the school bulletin booklet that was mailed. And I tried to dig around to find out what that referred to. Can you enlighten me at all? What that comment's about? Don't actually recall saying that but maybe it was about the only thing I could think that could have been inadvertently left out was just reminding folks of the dates of these two meetings. They could have been referencing that because I tried to emphasize making sort of these meetings. Jamie, could there's been a quote about the Stockbridge school, a Stockbridge town report that was something left out? No, I think it probably was about emphasizing wanting to get the information of these two meetings. Okay. Okay. Well, and he does all of that information. So it was just misleading and so I just was, I couldn't explain it, so I thought I'd ask. Yeah. That was a really good interview, but. Well, and you know, it's how they proceed and what how they report it. So thanks, that's really all I had to ask. Ethan, you're muted as well. My apologies. I think I'm being so efficient. Are there any further questions from Stockbridge or Rochester voters who are attending tonight on the report or on the articles tonight that we'll be voting on next Tuesday? Janet Whitaker, another question. Go ahead. Yes, I just was wondering about the food service line where it goes down to 20,000 when it was consistently 56,000. Why did it get moved? This is a good question because there's a big a big change of a foot. Jamie, you want to talk about this? Yeah, we've had a lot of conversation about that actually. So the WRBSU is taking on food service starting July one. And so food service will move under the WRBSU umbrella. And so we did that to try to play off folks strengths to try to solidify more of a team play. We talked about the interdependence across the SU. Currently our food service staff have been meeting about monthly. We're looking to increase that to every two weeks. And we're looking to identify some folks in regards to like folks who have strengthened all the paperwork that's required to be filed with the state. Folks who are really interested in menu planning. Folks who are really interested in how do we increase the use of our fresh fruits and vegetables that we grow in our gardens and increase that approach across the SU. So we're going to look to capitalize on those folks. We're also looking to do more bulk purchasing across the SU to increase savings. And so Janet, the plan with that is, is that, and especially now that we know that the USDA free food for all will continue is that we will run food service and then we will retroactively assess that from year to year. So you will see an assessment just like you see an SU assessment for special ed and for the SU in general around my office which is the fiscal office, myself, curriculum. And you'll see an assessment within food service for the SU starting next year. And so we don't know what that assessment will be yet. I can tell you that we predict that we will have savings across the supervisory union based on this work. Not enough to not run a deficit. We do project that we'll continue to run deficits because just the cost of labor is such that we can't turn a profit. But so I'm not gonna tell you we're gonna run in the black but the idea is to decrease that deficit and hopefully that you're not having to contribute that sum of money annually. So this was the board decided to keep some money in that budget for food service. Other districts didn't across the SU and they're gonna wait until we assess it back out next year, but that assessment won't occur until next year. So I hope that answers it. It does, it does. It sounds like a good move and we'll see how it plays out. Thank you. Good, thank you, Janet. Very good. Further questions from Rocktrister Stockbridge voters on the bulletin or the articles. There being none, I think we move on. What's just checking my, sorry. Next thing on our agenda. It's a motion to adjourn. I think that's it. Thank you all very much for coming out. That's always very nice to come. But thank you all very coming out. Thank you very much for your pointed questions and clearly indicating that you're reading this report. I just wanna put out Jenny Austin, put an enormous amount of time and energy into making this look as good as it did. She also Amy Wilt had a big hand with along with help from staff getting this out to you. We're very proud of our report, we're proud. I also just wanna point out how that we dedicate this report to Bonnie Bourne who will be leaving us and has made an incredible change in the Rochester campus in the time she's been there and we will miss her greatly. Thank you all very much for coming and maybe we'll see some of you again on Monday. Otherwise, please spread the word and tell people that they can come and who are open for business. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I move we adjourn. Seconded. Second. Second by Amy. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye.