 districts to order. The first thing I'd like to begin with so we can have an accurate record of attendance is if our calling callers could all identify each other taking turns and then mute themselves so that we don't have feedback. And star six is how you unmute so you can speak. Carl, this is Kim Robertson. I'm on the call. Thank you. With Matt Robertson. Excellent. Kim and Matt Robertson from Stockbridge. This is my reinstant. If I'm on the call with Craig Cole. And you are. This is Rob Gardner from Rochester. Hello, Rob. Thank you. This is Charity Colton from Stockbridge. Hi, Charity. Thank you. Hi, Mark. How are you doing? This is Keith Spalecki and Lisa Spalecki from Stockbridge. Hi, Keith and Lisa. Go ahead. Was that you, Joanne? Yeah, Joanne and Jeff Mills, Stockbridge. Thank you. Anyone else? Jim Shant, Stockbridge. Hi, Jim. Welcome. Thank you. Greg Piccarillo, Stockbridge. Hi, Greg. Thank you. Anyone else that hasn't both signed in yet? Did you get Nancy Bowling? I did not hear Nancy, but thank you. And the name that was also from Stockbridge, when I was talking over you, I'm sorry. Hi, Carl. It's Lori Scott. Hi, Lori. Thank you. Hey, it's Tim Pratt. Hi, Tim. How are you? Good, you? I am well. Thank you. Anyone else? Hey, Lynn McKinstry from Stockbridge. Hi, welcome. Thank you. Did we get everyone? I know one of these numbers is Orchimedia, and that's OK. Hi, Wade. Or Mason. OK. I think we've got everyone a Pimperial E tag. So we will go with adjustments to the agenda. I have two. I'm thinking through further. So I can save them for there. Do we have any other adjustments to the agenda from administration or board members? Carl, I need to add executive session. OK. We're going to add an executive for personnel, but contract? Sorry, personnel. Thank you. We could add executive session as item number eight to the agenda. Any others? Bonnie Bruce? Tara? No, I'm all set. Board folk? OK. So we now have a public comment. We really haven't done public comment in this format before. I feel like I should remind everybody that to be able to comment at a municipal board meeting, you need to be a voting member of one of the two municipalities, or you need to be formally recognized to have such comment. In general, my suggestion would be we also have a public comment session after we've had the discussion items around the budget and the annual meeting. So I think in efforts to try to make this go as smoothly and as cleanly as possible, you are certainly welcome to comment in the initial public comment session. The formal bylaws of the Rochester Stock Exchange Unified Board allow everyone to comment for up to five minutes once during a public comment session. We generally are kind of fast and loose with that, but I think the point I'm trying to get at here is having public comment before we've had a board discussion around the budget and the annual meeting and those sorts of things. I would ask that if you want to discuss or weigh in on those sorts of topics that you wait till after you've had the board discussion. And in general, normally we're more free wheeling about participation during the parts of the meeting that are not public comment. We are going to try to ramp that down a little bit just so the board can move through what the board needs to do. We certainly, again, there's a public comment session before we go into executive session. So there is ample time for people to react. So my suggestion would be that, if possible, we take notes and save the comments for after the board deliberation, but we do have a public comment session that's going to begin in just a minute after we do, because Ethan is here. Are you not? Ethan, didn't I see you come in? I am here. Okay. Ethan, as our de facto timekeeper, let's go through and break down some of the information. So how much time do we want to allocate for a public comment, the first public comment? 15 minutes, 20 minutes? I mean, what have we done in the past? I think usually 20 minutes. Yeah, I was going to say 20. I was going to say 22. Okay. So then let's do item number three, public comment, 20 minutes. Item number four, board comment, 20 minutes. Discussion items, annual budget and annual meeting, 30 a piece. Knowing that we may well get in the weeds and go longer than that. Does that feel good or do we want to add more? Okay. I think that should work. That sounds good to me. Okay. So let's at least pencil in the idea that 5.1 and 5.2 budget and annual meeting will each be 30 minutes. So then act to approve budget, act to set an annual meeting date and act on colonial, custodial. I think probably those will just be the formal acting and moving. So five minutes each for those. Another 20 minutes for the public comment and then another 20 for the executive session. If that, it's not that long. Okay. Okay. So does that sound good to all the board members? Yes. Yes. Okay. Then we will go into the first 20 minute public comment session. Does anyone have anything they'd like to bring to the table before we discuss the budget and the annual meeting? Okay. Remember it's star six. Hey, Carl, it's Tim Pratt. I do have a question. Sure. Go ahead, Tim. Are these final audited numbers or not? The numbers in the budget are not final. We do not have final audited numbers yet, Tara. Do we? Have they resolved that? Tara, are you there? Sorry, I couldn't find my button. No, the audit is not 100% complete yet. Still a work in progress. Do we have a timeframe for when that would be available to Tim and others? I am hoping very soon. I've got to finish up my final review of the reports and then if I have any additional corrections, I got to get them back to the auditors. So they have given you a draft for you to go through question and glass. So we are nearly close to the light at the end of the audit tunnel. Yes. Excellent. Tim, I can say that Tara has used the draft numbers that have been provided to help inform the budget entries that are submitted. We have not been able to match the audited numbers. We hope to be able to, if we do go forward and set a end of June meeting date, Tara, what do you think the odds are that we would have audited numbers to be able to mail out to people at that time when we send a report as opposed to when we warn them? You as a board have to approve the audit. Once I get the draft final audit and I agree with what the auditors are saying is when I would then submit it to you as a board to review and accept. And then once you have accepted it, then it could go out or be available, I should say, to your public by request. Okay. So the protocol for us to be able to put a column in the booklet that we're going to send out, the budget booklet that we need to mail, for us we would have to get the numbers and sort it out with the auditors. We would have to have a special meeting where we accepted those numbers so then we could release them and plug them into the spreadsheets we're sending out in the budget booklet. Is that accurate, Tara? The numbers that are in there would just, you would just disclose that it's there on unaudited numbers at this point until you've confirmed your audit. So we would confirm the audit, then we could say that these are audited numbers and we would adjust them to reflect, but the majority of the numbers that are in there while labeled unaudited are from the draft audit, so they're pretty, pretty correct. Yeah, there's just, I mean, there's only a few things that we're really questioning on the audit still at this point that I just need to pass over finally, so. Okay, Tara. I'm okay with the rest of it at this point. Tara, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is for our entire, it's SUY, is that correct? Yes. So you're all waiting on me. Do not have audited numbers yet and neither of them. The only one that I have approved and released is for one district, otherwise all of the audits are sitting with me right now waiting for my final blessing before I send them to the boards. Thank you. Okay. Jim, I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Does anyone else in the public have another question? I do. Kayla McKinstry. Yeah, go ahead, Kayla. So my question is, so the budget that's going to be voted on, does this include separate operating expenses for the elementary school in Rochester and the high school, or are they just lumped together? I believe they are blended numbers. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. It's blended numbers for all the Arizona schools. Okay. My question is, why is the high school still being included in the budget because we're supposed to have only one building in Rochester? That was part of the agreement. Why are we still supporting this building? Because we're obligated to support it so we can dispose of it, which we haven't been able to complete that process of. It's an ongoing affair that has been like most everything else derailed by our inability to have meetings. I'm hoping that once we deal with the most pressing issue, which is the budget, we can resume the building conversations as to how we can move on from having a ton of space and a ton of expenses. This is my recent test. I don't attend a lot of these meetings, but every time I do, I'm hearing the same thing once again. I would prefer you not use COVID-19 as an excuse for this. Why can't we have high school numbers separated out from the elementary school numbers? I'm not sure. Well, Tara, could we produce a report that shows cost by building? For budgetary purposes, we need as a board for the unified district to pay for electricity, for fuel oil, for internet, and we have not, in general, I don't believe Rochester ever separated those numbers out when they were just Rochester district. Well, they're not Rochester district anymore, and anybody who's ever done a budget knows that if you've got two buildings, you should have them as different line items. This is just an excuse that I hear. There's no reason why you folks cannot break that out. Tara, is there a reason why we couldn't produce a report that showed that? I could attempt it. I'm not making any guarantees. You're still using portions of the high school building for your elementary school, correct? I believe that is correct. The building itself is still being utilized for elementary, middle school purposes. If you're just looking to know how much money we're spending on electricity and fuel oil for that building, then yes, I would think that was something that we could break out based on the service and delivery tickets, but we're building to be utilized for elementary and middle schools, so it's not really a separate expenditure for the usage of our school. Why are you using the high school for the elementary school? I thought when I voted to merge the districts, I voted based on the fact that we were each going to have an elementary school. I didn't vote for the fact that Rochester was going to have a campus environment, and so I feel like I've been duped, and now you're telling me that you don't even break out the budget line item per each building, so I'm being double duped. I'm sorry you feel that way. Your opinion and feelings have been noted. We can certainly try to produce a document that shows where the expenditures are for which building. We certainly have different electric meters, I believe, for all three buildings, for example, but for the purposes of the budget, we have to move forward with the expenses we have. Certainly, we hoped that we'd be farther along in the process of dealing with right-sizing the Rochester campus, but it's a complicated issue. I really don't think you can find online all the minutes for the various meetings we have. I think we have not a kick hand down the road. I'm sorry that you feel that you're being double duped, but I can assure you that that's not our intention. We're trying to look through the problems as best we can, but thank you for your opinion. We will certainly take it into consideration. Can I interrupt for just one minute? This is Jenny Feinberg, and I'm going to be really honest here. My focus is, and I won't hide at the academic part of it, the finances. I really lead to Amy and Carl and all those people who know that much better than I, but one thing I do know, this is an honest board. This is a board that has tried to do the best we possibly can, especially under these circumstances and getting a building that we didn't know what was going to happen. It was the first time, and the one thing we have not done is try in any way to fool or dupe the public. I'm sorry that it seems that way, and I do see how you would want the different expenses, and you obviously know a lot more about I do than line items and things like that, so I can't speak to that, and I hope we do take your suggestions because obviously it's not where it should be. One thing I can tell you, we did not try to dupe you. I am proud of this board and I've worked with many school boards in my educational career. This is a good board. This is a board who wants to do the best, and if we've made mistakes, I hope we listen and I hope we take what the experts have to say, but we did not try to dupe anybody. I have another question. What happens if the budget does not pass? If the budget does not pass, the board is entitled to spend 87% of last year's budget and continue to move forward to go to budget. Other things that happened in the meeting, for example, voting for the person that my seat is up for election, I believe, is it Amy? Are you up for election this year on the Rochester side or is it Megan? I'm not sure, but if the budget was defeated, the results of the election for my seat and for the matching Rochester seat would still hold forward. The board could, you know, warn a second vote, I think 10 days, depending on how the meeting is handled. Robert Sewell is order-wise. The board can warn budget meetings 10 days or 30 days after to try to resolve and put the budget together. 87% of our current budget would certainly mean cutting staff. I shouldn't say certainly. I would assume that we would not be able to maintain current staffing if we had to work with an 87% budget come September, but I can't say that for certain. So you would rather cut staff than cut the building is what you're saying. If the budget does not pass, you would prefer to make staff cuts than cut a building. You're putting words in my mouth and we're getting near the five-minute Right, because you and Genie have taken up most of the public comment. I cannot, the reality of Brown cutting staff is that you can, that is a thing you can do in an immediate way. We can't wish the building away. The building has to be, I mean, if the town of Rochester... Okay, okay, Carl, I know, but to be the you and Genie talking, taking up a lot of public comments. So the point is, is we were promised this building would, what would be done with it. You guys would, that Rochester to the building after the building study came out. Well, the building study has come out and now you guys are talking about, well, now we need to wait until the end of the audit process. We are years into this merger, years. And we're about to lose some of these from the state for the merger. And we are still paying for this building, which quite frankly, if you look at Stockard School versus Rochester Elementary School, we utilize every inch of that building. The building in Rochester, you have so much space in there, but it is being refused to relocate space and turn it into different purposes. And we're still paying for a building under the guise that it's, oh, we need the space for the music and the art. Quite frankly, you need to relocate space. On top of that, children enrolling, enrollment is going down. So, and we're still paying, what was it, 30,000 a year to keep this building open? So when are you guys actually going to fulfill on the promise that, yes, we are going to choose a building? When is that going to happen? We need to know now. Because at this point, I'm going to vote no on the budget and I'm going to tell everybody who listens to me or wants to hear what I have to say to vote no until the building goes away. Thank you for your opinion. Does anyone else have a comment? Okay. Hearing none, let's move into a board comment. I had two things that I wanted to point out for Lindy and... Hello. Hello. Yeah, this is Keith Spilecki. I was trying to make a comment. Okay. I'm sorry. Keith, go ahead. That's quite a right. I have to say that I am in total agreement with the prior speaker. I'm not sure I understand the concept of the consolidation. We went into this with three buildings. We still have three buildings. Was there not a plan in place to address how we were going to consolidate this district? Because it certainly doesn't sound out like it. It sounds as though we're looking to put a plan together after we voted to consolidate. I'm not sure I understand. Okay, Keith. That's a good question. In the articles of agreement, which I don't have in front of me, but one of the things the board committed to was to undertake a study to figure out how to consolidate in Rochester from one building to two buildings. We have not been able to... We've gotten a study together that tells us some things that are hard to wrap our heads around in terms of the cost of renovating either of those buildings going forward. We have... Versus the costs that are necessary to reconfigure and make appropriate changes in the stock bridge. So we have not... There is a... As I understand it, a group in Rochester that is approaching it from the Rochester side of wanting to assimilate one of those buildings. I believe they're leaning towards the high school, but they have not gotten together enough of a... Or done enough work to have made the board a proposal because the cleanest way to divest one of those buildings is for the town of Rochester to buy it for a dollar. They would have to choose to do that. We can't just give it to them for a dollar and say, here's your building, thanks for the dollar. We have... So we're trying to work on that from the community side. There's a group in Rochester that's working on that piece. We're trying to work at it from the educational side, but we've been... The biggest piece for us has been trying to properly educate the kids, which has meant that we haven't been able to completely get out of the high school building because we haven't made the decision that that's the building we're going to get rid of, and we haven't made the decision that the elementary school building is we're going to get rid of because the engineering study, quite frankly, showed us pros and cons for each building. There was not a clean move to this building answer from that study. So that's where the board is. The board is trying to work through it as best we can. And you have the right to vote the budget down. You have the right to vote me out of office. Rochester voters have the right to vote, whichever Rochester person out is up for re-election and install someone that feels differently. But this is where we are, and I echo what James said. We're transparent and honest and trying to work through it as best we can, keeping a building of education as the most important piece. Well, in addition to the committee piece, the board created a subcommittee which includes both members from the public and members from Stockbridge and Rochester that had some meetings earlier this year, and they hadn't quite come to a conclusion on sort of wrapping up their findings until the current situation with not being able to have public meetings came into place. So that's also put a pause on our work from that front. Carol, this is Kim Robertson. Can I say something? Sure. I think we're probably well over the 20 minutes we had. No, we got about two minutes left. Ah, okay. We can probably run a few minutes. When we're all finished, the board is taking over more of the time than the public is. All right, so this is not Robertson, and I just want to say, if Rochester is making this decision and they have a committee to look at this, why is it that we're going to shell it for a dollar to them when we're paying $30,000 to keep the tool running or something like that with insurance and oil and everything? Why can't we benefit? Why can't we say, look, if they're going to keep this open for year after year, why can't we up the price from a dollar to $30,000? And if they don't want to for $30,000, find a buyer. I find that this is a burden on Stockbridge, and I think, I know you guys do a great job, but we can't keep this up year after year. We make it do in Stockbridge with the art in the cafeteria and no gym. They can certainly stay in the room if they want to get that tool open, but I think we need to make it a deadline. Thank you. I have to tell you, I'm going to vote no on this budget, and I'm going to continue to vote no on the budget until I see a concrete plan from the board on how they're going to move this process forward because it just can't continue where we kick the can down the road and we have another committee and another committee and another committee. Maybe we should have had these committees prior to the consolidation because I haven't seen consolidation, and I'm going to try to rally any troops I can to vote no on the budget because it's just open. Okay, thank you for your opinion, Keith, and thank you for your opinion, Kim. We are, does anyone else have a public comment before we move on? If someone else that has not yet chimed in would like to get to you now for the time. This is Charity Colton. I'm sorry, Rob, go ahead. Rob, then Chair. I want to make a couple of points. I'm from Rochester and I have complete sympathy for the folks in Stockbridge wanting to pay for all this stuff, not wanting to pay for this stuff. I understand it, but Carl, I think you're not being entirely honest with everybody and talking about what happened to that abortive meetings, series of meetings we had to try to solve this problem, which as far as I know just died like a dog. I don't think you're being honest with the folks in Stockbridge about what happened, nor did I ever hear any follow-up or closure on that meeting, so that's one. The second is that if I lived in Stockbridge and I wanted to get rid of the cost of this high school, I would do everything I could to encourage Rochester to buy the thing. Instead of complaining about Rochester all the time, I would look at that as the shortest and simplest way to get out from under the cost of that high school. And I don't blame you guys at all. I think you're right. I'm signing off. Okay, thank you, Rob. I can do this. Okay, I think you're bleeding in. The building committee meetings, we had intended, if you recall, to have one more because we're still trying to reconcile those drafts. We talked about that at our March regular board meeting in Rochester. Then everything got locked down mid-March and that meeting got put aside. And I would like us to go back to having those meetings. I would like us to figure out what we're doing with our budget and then I would like us to figure out what we're doing with our building. I don't feel like we did not have materials, the materials in your draft and in my draft were at that most meeting. The board hasn't voted to accept one. As a matter of fact, the committee doesn't feel it submitted the final report. That seemed to be where we landed. And then it's been, it quite frankly has been at the wayside. I don't believe that there was perfection involved. Go ahead. I think it was Rob and Charity. Charity is going to be the last public comment before we go into the budget. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So this is Charity Colton. I have a suggestion based on that every time I've been participating in a meeting, whether it be in present or over the phone, there's always a constant conversation of transparency. And I've mentioned this before, but I think given the time that we're in right now, it would be extremely beneficial to both the board members and the public. I'd like to request that if you guys could please create a template for your budget document that color codes or delineate items that are set formulas that are set by the state, the federal government, another entity, including those SU assessments, color code those in a way so that they are differentiated from the items that are what I would call active budgeting items. So every budget works a little bit differently, but this budget per se, you have your primary account number and you also have your sub-account numbers within those primary account brackets. If you were to create a legend that has both that color coding explained and also examples of print expenses that go into those individual line items, it would help prevent some of the duplication of questions that you guys get because one person doesn't quite understand that the way they're phrasing it is the same as someone that asked the question five minutes earlier. It would also present a much more transparent budget. And if you were to create that template and use it as your living document, it's going to be hugely beneficial to you because it's going to maintain historical information. For instance, between the 2019 budget 20 and 21, it looks like there are some line items, some budget lines that they were done one way in 2019 and then in 20 they started to change and now in 21 those expenses have been completely moved over to a different line item, a different sub-account. Those examples, you could literally put the historical information of how and why that moved with one single sentence and it makes it, it's just a higher level of transparency because for instance, if I as a taxpayer were asked to vote on this budget right in front of me, I would have to say no for the simple reason that it just does not provide enough detailed information with the account and sub-account description for me to feel like I understand what's in each one of those line items. Not because I want something one way or the other, it's simply because I don't feel there's enough information on these pieces of paper in front of me to make an educated decision. That's my request, that's it. Stephanie, this is Ethan. Let me just take a moment to address that. We heard this very clearly from both Stockbridge and Rochester voters last year after our annual meeting that we needed more clarity in our annual report and I have been working as much time as I can put on it to put a lot more information in because I too looked at these pages of numbers and realized I didn't make sense of them, including some explanation of special education which is incredibly complicated budgeting for that. Also the being very clear and your color coding idea, we're going to do that. What will actually be voted on, what we're voting on at the annual meeting or for that on our budget will be separated from what has already been voted on for the SU and the Special Ed budget which was voted on in January by the full board of the White River Valley Supervisory Union. So we are working on that. We're not going to have it all right but I certainly would welcome all of your input when you do see the bulletin. If there's anything you need to have explained more, I want to keep making it a living document that gets better and better every year so that it is clearer because I hear you. I really do hear you and we've been working on it. Is that going to be mailed to all the residences or are we going to have to find that somewhere? It will be mailed in the past. It has to be 10 days before any kind of vote. I'm working on it. So I guess that's why I have a question about it is if you were to create it as your living document template and that's the document that you work from at all times. Sorry this is charity again. If that was your working template then at any point in time if someone were to ask you a question and for instance I've got a copy of a proposed budget in front of me but that would come with all of that color coding because your template that living original document has all of that already built into it. Yeah I've not just the booklet that gets mailed out for voting. I hear what you're saying and I agree. I think it's we're a little behind in this idea of making things online where it's much easier to have a flow of information attached to budgets. It is also and this is just literally what I've learned in terms of trying to put Excel budget documents into pages and finding ways to put information around there. It makes it a little tricky but because you know Tara's giving us the budget they're working on the hard numbers they understand it all so I am trying to translate that but I hear you that it should be an ongoing process that every time a budget's out it should have that explanation. It's a very good suggestion. I'm wondering though if charity is referring to this document to being a living document for the entire year as we go forward and not just at the at budget season the one piece that's in the booklet and I don't believe we can create this as a document that is updated throughout the year each time there is an expense report because that is mandated by the state the chart of accounts and that is the accounting system that our that Tara uses that our SU uses on so I think we have to take the information from her and import it into this document that provides us with more information and I do believe that that is going to be at a annual meeting. Okay if there are no more questions yeah for a time. All right we are going to move on now the next thing on the budget is the discussion items of the budget and you know you had board Carl board comment you had two I had two things I wanted to point out number one um I wanted to talk to our administration around so as I understand it Vermont has gotten the USDA waiver to continue the to continue the summer the summer food program so that that we will get we will get compensated for running for running summer meals in Vermont um so I wanted to hopefully our um you know I'd like to know are we planning to do you know knowing that we we're going to get the the the federal support for that I'm assuming we're going to keep the program going is that still in the works or thought about Bonnie and Lindy. That's the goal um there's more we started a conversation around that today as an admin team and we're supposed to follow up again on Friday we have to circle back and find out to make sure we have workers and things like that okay one of the conflicts uh Carl is that a number of folks um who work in the food service program during the year have other positions in the summer that some have had for a number of years um so the question would be as Lindy said um can we would there be adequate staffing we certainly would be and are you talking about this as a summer food program similar to the program that is currently being running or or addressing more kids than just summer camp kids yes yeah I should also add to all of you that there is some concern as to whether or not we're going to have a summer program at all um the southwest southwest Vermont school districts have canceled it and they've written a position paper around uh the fact that they don't believe it's safe enough to have a program yet um Barry has canceled theirs for the summer central Vermont which is Williamstown and Northfield are looking into it and there's going to be a discussion with the new Wenuski Valley folks and that'll include me or Jamie about the status and it's not really my deal because it'll be after Jamie takes over but there is some concern as to whether or not it's uh we're going to have even a summer one planet program at all for the summer Bruce this is Jamie would there be um is there any chance of the academics the instruction being continued during the summer especially for spec add we would have to come up with something ourselves there would be an um the alternative is to keep going the way we are which is doing uh the virtual uh work all summer um that doesn't handle really all the needs we have but this is a discussion that's happened around safety it's not around the need at all um and that's that's a movement that just started a week and a half ago um the southwest Vermont folks came up with their position on the 15th of May now other regions are considering it and I know that some of the folks over in Bonnie's neck of the woods are are looking at it uh Jeannie Collins and David Yance who are uh superintendents over on that side um are talking about and we're quite frankly talking about it as the whole state now um I can imagine this is going to create quite a quite a pickle for all the parents who are being called to return to work as the they're trying to open reopen the economy but they are now have no place for their kids I hear you I don't know what to do with it uh I was just kind of bringing the message uh today with the administrators uh and they heard it for the first time today too um I am concerned about the summer meals and us having a labor force uh to be able to carry it off not just in Rochester and Stockbridge but all over the SU many of these people are very very tired because they haven't stopped at all so that's just news I'm I don't know what else to tell you I don't have any so many how many meals come out of Rochester Stockbridge a day or how many meals do we do a week you saw those numbers today Lindy and Bonnie didn't you uh 50 meals 50 lunches breakfast is a little bit lower but 50 lunches uh per a day and we're on a Monday Wednesday Friday schedule which means really they're putting double that out in lunches a day plus uh whatever breakfasts are I don't remember what those are off the top of my head in Rochester's numbers cars go between 65 68 sometimes 70 back to 65 so I'd say mid mid 60s every day same as Lindy saying breakfast and lunch because we deliver every other day so our district has 110 yeah approximately and it's growing that number every week per day per day we've we've served your whole few uh population how much percentage of our population that we're feeding if we're sending out 110 meals a day and we've got how many kids well it's open to zero to 18 right we've also got some kids Carl that come from other schools who are eligible to come and get lunch they're not a lot but there's a few of them like kids to go to Middlebury that's just too far to go to get a lunch um so we can't really do a percentage for you just we're feeding a lot of kids and our fear is if we don't find a way to continue this you know there's a lot of kids that might not have uh have you know they're getting now so I mean they can you know I my general feeling is that if we've got that sort of if we're filling that sort of need and we have the opportunity to continue getting the federal funding to fill it over the summer we need to still be feeding these people if we can yeah we're not gonna get argument from Bonnie and I on it it's just about staffing to is it possible is it possible to hire um higher staff just for the summer that's an idea we put on the table today Ethan because I certainly understand like Bruce said the people that have been doing this they've been doing it right out straight and one of the reasons they haven't asked for volunteers is they felt safer just knowing the same group of people came in every day you know to work on lunches so I understand that they're tired and the question we didn't have time to reason today but we did bring up the idea of uh could we hire and train other people uh to do the summer lunches we've uh we put out uh su wide 21 000 meals since we started this on the 18th of uh March um so it's and we've paid 71 965 dollars up until the end of April was the count we don't have the May totals yet because May's not over but uh we put out an awful lot of food uh to families um over that amount of time um but these people served right on through vacation and everything else so and they do have other jobs they go to so okay um yes well I think you know hiring uh if necessary um understanding how uh to make sure that uh as soon as the the policies uh for for COVID-19 reimbursement CARES Act money reimbursement for these COVID related expenses are there and we we get that you know we we we properly file that that that paperwork can we get that funding uh reimbursed I think is is important as well and I'm sure Tara is on that um the second thing I wanted to point out and this is something that I don't know how we're we're communicating to our families but um from the the the VSBA uh sent in uh sent information from the the the secretary that included the farmers to family food box distribution program that's been put together with the Vermont food bank um if we can let you know the the two the two dis uh disbursements near us are Middlebury on Wednesday and Fetford Academy on Thursday 10 to 2 at both at both places if we could let our our our families know um you know it's it's the the the National Guard with non-pair big boxes and non-perishable along with produce and chicken and dairy so I mean it's it's it's I mean it's we're just a tad ahead of you we we sent that out to folks already as soon as we saw it we sent that out excellent thank you and Wendy what about the veggie van go I know you and Bonnie were yeah we're gonna we're gonna bring that up in in June um Gifford has reached out to us they would be the applying entity um they would basically just like to use um our parking lot and stock bridges parking lot to make fresh uh produce available on a drive-in basis so uh you'll hear more about that in June but they are very very interested in partnering with us um and getting those resources to our families excellent that's awesome is there any other board comment okay just one other quick thing um Lindy and I um we sit on this group that's made up of representatives from Stockbridge, Rochester, Hancock, Randville, and Pittsfields joined us around um food availability so one of the things that Lindy and I felt was very important is that we had our thumb on what was available for our families as as we head into this so um we're really happy to to get any ideas that anybody hears about but we thought it was important that we sit on that group so we could stay on top of it ASAP thank you so much for doing that you guys that is that is awesome because you know the the everything I've seen you know that we you know the the more we can support social emotional well-being the more we can support uh you know food security and um you know wellness activities outside you know and and and the more we can support the whole child and not just the stuff we can cram at them through a google hangout or or through a screen I think the better um Bonnie and Lindy that group because I've sat in on it as well that group meets Monday at nine o'clock am I correct yes and and I was tasked today with asking you if you'd like to find someone else from Stockbridge to join I told them I thought you were I would love to I've asked select people so maybe I think there are some of them on so maybe they would yeah I've asked I would love that okay well just let me know if someone volunteers okay okay um we are now moving into a 5.1 uh a discussion of the budget um you all should have gotten uh the most recent uh revision uh was from uh Tara uh at uh 230 uh 233 to be exact uh this afternoon um you also got earlier from Tara uh some comments on expenditures and uh up to the expenditures and I wanted to uh uh briefly touch on that because I think some of those questions will inform um where we are uh a budgetarily when I look at you know some of the areas in our uh in that end of April expenditure report that are uh uh kind of out of whack with with where our our budget was last year and I want to make sure that we're adjusting for it in this budget going forward so the spreadsheet that that she sent out the the couple questions I had around that were around um first of all our food service the uh um when I look at the the buy program tab of that um it shows you know us bringing in the $56,000 um uh this year that we budget out can you say line number please um I'm looking at the uh um the rsud expenditures as of 4 30 2020 the uh the uh there was two documents that she attached to that one was a spreadsheet oh that spreadsheet has a tab that's called buy program and when you scroll down to to uh row 239 it's uh it's uh program 150 food service so this is not in the budget this is not in the budget right this is this is us this is me looking at our our current expenditures and big big areas that are are are seem to be very out of whack with where our proposed budget is how did did you download that excel sheet or or anything because when I'm looking at it through the google doc through that through that um um link there there's only data in the raw data and the cleaned um areas do I took that spreadsheet and I opened it in uh and I just opened it in google sheets okay make sure you enable the macros Amy or none of the formulas and macros are going to carry over to the other tabs okay thank you I've had no idea I was like why is she sending me a sheet that's half empty so I would have told you that I just was like oh that's what it is the question that I have is that we we we we show the fund transfer the balance uh the the budget transfer the 56 grand that we budgeted for but we show that so far this year we spent um like 117 and we're budgeting 56 again going forward is that am I missing we have a revenue item that I'm missing the revenue that you get for food service Carl is your state and federal reimbursement and then what your students pay for the ones that don't get free and reduced meals um and as far as what's in the budget that is just a general fund transfer that's showing up there okay you as a board move from your general fund to your food service fund right right I just wanted to make sure that when I look at when I look at the expenditure side and I see that we've spent all all that money I wanted to make sure there was federal reimbursement that was backfilling that $66,000 um a deficit that our expenditure sheet shows and that we're not just saying okay well we're running $56,000 knowing that we're just gonna have it we'll just run a you know we'll let's run a giant deficit I came to ask for a deeper dive into where your food service budget stands currently it's not something I've looked in great detail okay um we also um when you look at the schoolwide programs we had budgeted um $83,000 and we're we're closer to uh 100 in the long in the in the title one the 440 same spreadsheet row 257 or that collection of of information did we budget appropriately for for title one going forward we have dropped your grant revenue substantially as you saw in my email that I sent out this afternoon okay so does does that mean we're just going to we'll we'll just have less services or are we going to need to to to to to put more money in and then lastly um when I look at our expenditures um in uh row 230 for our secondary uh tuition private and and leas we seem to be we we seem to have expended like 300,000 more than we had budgeted and I thought we had a pretty firm handle on on where where our kids were going in last year's budget and do we hope if we did not do we have a better handle in this year's budget your budget this year I can't speak too much as to what happened last year but the budget this year was based on where student enrollment is and projected where students were going to go for tuition okay I'm just I guess I'm just used to that being aware where were you looking at that number from because I'm not seeing I was just trying to find it too can you if you do you're in the budget are you still in that expenditure I'm showing me expenditure sheet okay I'm with you which tab I'm on the program tab okay okay groups everything neatly by program yeah no I'm just looking there what what's the line then I'm I'm down at row uh uh 229 and row 230 or 231 that's why I'm struggling 229 I don't see a 229 Kyle are you are you in the oops are you in the expenditure for this year or last year girl I'm in the I'm in the spreadsheet that says rsud expenditures as of for 30 2020 so this year okay so where is that number I don't see it for what line because 229 is tan interest and 230 is hra administrative services in my in my pop you expand all the other upper ones I expanded I expand that's fine where I get to see tuition okay so you need on your excel file expand next to where the little plus sign is and then it will break them down further that's why we can't see what he's I couldn't hear that word yeah Austin they're going you have to hit the little plus yeah and you might have the object code and you might have for an example 140 pre-k regular ed there's a little plus sign right before that if you hit that then that will expand on that roll up and if it doesn't let you do it you might have to hit refresh I just lost everything right quick refresh okay so now what number are we on um I was looking at uh row 230 tuition-secondary private and row 231 tuition-secondary vt leas 231 row that normally in past years the amount the amount we've budgeted has been maybe a kid or two off but not not that many off and I wanted to make sure that if you know that that we're we're we're closer and being accurate what we're putting into this this is going forward Carl what did you say you're reading it's deficit what 300,000 yes 308,484 dollars and 63 cents okay something has to be wrong there week week I think that's all right maybe the prior year tuition expenditure that's going to show up there too because it was paid in this fiscal year as a prior year expense so that's part of it but then if you look down hello that's that's 87,000 of it I'm sure that's probably coded in the other column I have to go back and pull the expenditure report the detail on it to see okay my deeper dive on the tuition okay Carl you're accurate last year when we when we created came to that not created when we arrived at that tuition number we did it student by student just like we did it this year we did actual accounts of kids and where they are going the only guess we made were on the sixth graders because they can all change their mind you know in July in terms of what pool they're going to right you said at the last minute we had a pretty good idea where they're all going except maybe one so we're we're correctly dialed in correct so that number Carol's gonna have to take that number apart for us but I'm very confident that number is not I don't need to have a giant explanation tonight I just wanted to make sure when I was looking at that I was like these things seem out of whack with we both did and it looks like it's close to what we budgeted for this coming year forward I wanted to make sure that we that what we were being we're being as accurate and as dialed in as we can be this year going right we did it the same way this your youngster my youngster excellent thank you so then I don't know what you're doing more to say about about the expenditures I'm done talking about I don't know if anyone else wants to talk about expenditures I know Jenny had some questions yeah I had a few questions not on the expenditures but on the budget are we moving on to the budget part of our first budget yeah um so Wendy actually answered some of my questions um the first one was about the um the art salary decreasing I don't know Lindy if you wanted to talk about that now or later it's part of executive session Jenny okay um and then the PE salary decreasing Wendy explained that that was um last year some of the Rochester was billed to contracted services so this year um not sure of charities on the phone but one of those things that was billed differently last year and I think it's it's not an sg thing I think um it's more correct me if I'm wrong Tara but more of a state issue and a past business manager you know things coding in differently than what needs to get coded in this year um but answered that question um let's see I was wondering and I wasn't at the last meeting I apologize if we already discussed this but um had a question if we're carrying over all of our surplus surplus into this coming budget here I think you muted I'm not sure if you're talking or not it is not the full surplus there's about $29,000 roughly left out of the FY 19 projected surplus and that was based on the conversation that we had in the last board meeting just moving things around and how we wanted to do that so that was why this budget draft represented that increase in the surplus usage and then on sheet well kind of where it really gets into main numbers um I just looked at this really briefly today so I didn't really think about it much but the um the education spending per pupil per pupil cost was 1886385 and then I was thinking last year but I could be wrong um it has the adjusted per pupil spending for calculation um do we it looks like we don't um reduce it by the less exclusions number is that correct you still have to disclose what your education spending per pupil cost actually is and if you have exclusions those are then deducted which helps off so you don't get the tax penalty okay so the reason we're not over the threshold is because if you were to reduce that 18863 by 494 then below that number is that right then correct okay um I think that maybe just for the can I just comment on that maybe just for the uh public that's listening Kara can explain why we get to reduce um that we have those deductions let's do that the teachers retirement fund that the state's not going to penalize us on rebuilding that fund so we get credit for it for that expenditure of that um you can use your bond payments that you pay as a offsetting exclusion and then um any we can the SPED excess offset that we get as a supervisory union I can apportionate a portion of that to each of the member districts which helps okay thank you those are my main um questions since there's so many people on the phone I'm not sure that would be worth doing like a brief summary of major changes from last year we put some of those I'm sorry Jenny was that you I can't tell who it was yes that was Jenny okay Jenny we we put some of those on the cover sheet with the budget now a couple changes have happened since then which one of which we're going to talk about in the executive session but we can um we can certainly highlight whatever anyone thinks uh you know is missing but that's what we tried to do in that cover sheet we sent out with the budget that was not sent with this draft though is that correct no that was with the the first draft the first one that Tara sent out not the first draft but the first expenditure cut that was sent in this one is the one of the executive session discussions right right no but I'm the extended for the changers that she's talking about is um that was sent to us um at your last meeting right for the last meeting okay right so that meant those management management notes don't change or don't need to be revised yeah okay it's probably good that we we have those with ever with this budget draft though to be able to see what those what are that is it's probably a good idea that Lindy and I redo that after executive session tonight so that we can show everything that's changed from last year to this year I think that'd be very helpful I I do before we go further I mean there there definitely is a discussion about that surplus that we need to have and um I don't know if now's the time to discuss it or not but we need to kind of get our heads around what it is and and where we're going with it and how it um affects our budget yeah that's a good that that's an important piece of the discussion I wanted to does anyone have any general questions about about the budget itself before we we start talking about um reserve funds and and and surpluses and things this budget does represent um it's it's like 17 000 less than last year is what I'm showing for expenditures is that correct yes yeah it's 17 less in in uh expenditures 41 000 left at less in revenues yeah okay so that has caused though we were spending less it still causes the um tax rate to go up right the tax rate is going to go up uh four cents in Rochester and 3.3 cents in Stockbridge to remember that two cents of that is the loss of the uh uh uh merger incentives money the merger incentive money uh goes down and the uh percentage of of uh uh contracted salary increases and uh health insurance is like 12 percent isn't is that correct but then we had a lot of increases that we needed to incur in this budget so we've actually probably done quite well to keep it out there's a projected 3 increase in salaries and the health insurance is 12 point a projected increase of 12.7 yeah you haven't settled on negotiations yet so that three percent is merely a placeholder okay which I think is quite commendable that we were only only went up um would you say like two percent or something when we um had you know this this um larger percentage of insurance and possible salary indeed another significant increase in there was funding the uh uh the HRAs at 65 percent right um so Tara as far as as as far as the surplus goes I want to make sure that uh we're we we all understand what's going on we made in in in fiscal 19 while we set up three um free restricted funds that the taxpayers approved a Stockbridge Fund a Rochester Fund and a secondary tuition fund the only fund of those that had funds in it is the Stockbridge Fund and that's like around 177 or something I show in the FY 19 audit a capital reserve fund that has 109,572 dollars in it okay so because I I don't have that obviously I don't have that audit I have the FY 18 audit which is that $117,000 that I showed so we spent six we spent down six thousand bucks of it on something or other around Stockbridge that was building building related I would have to go back and check Carl all I have is just the ending balance on my notes okay I got put in around that time or something was that it was there possibly a furnace or something the furnace was before that was it the soundproofing lindy in the gym no okay um but I didn't even know this fund existed until like four months ago I have no clue what could have been taken out of that yeah um no we've it's uh it paid for roof and furnace uh we've we's Stockbridge put away um surpluses uh no it makes complete sense I just don't know what would have been pulled out of it okay um but and and and correct me if I'm wrong Tara the the mistake that was made was that while the the funds were made we never we never took and formally told the taxpayers put this much money from from the the the disposal of dandelion daycare or from whatever into that particular fund is that accurate Tara correct so the sale proceeds from the dandelion daycare building have lived in your general fund since the proceeds were paid out in July of 2018 okay that money has been part of your general fund surplus for the last two years but it's never been spent down spending down the general fund surplus part of your general fund surplus right but so I guess what I'm confused about is legally we're supposed to either let the taxpayers to tell us put that money away or we have to return it to them correct and you would have used part of your general fund surplus that that money is included in when you did your budget last year and you used your prior your surplus to offset your tax revenue right so I think you're doing again this year it's sitting in your general fund it is part of the general fund surplus okay so what what you're saying is is that the the the actual funds were expended in fy 19 and then where we we can say okay well we had another surplus in or they're expended in was sold in in fy 19 so they're expended in 19 and then we could still say some of this year's surplus could be that because technically I mean my my concern here is I want to make sure that we're not we didn't violate the laws by not returning all the money we should have returned we did return it we can just call part of this year's surplus that same funds and put it away right because it is part of your general fund surplus it is not separate money so when you're using your general fund surplus to offset tax revenue the proceeds were part of that surplus no you did not use your entire surplus to offset your tax revenue nor have you done so in this budget cycle at this point okay and this budget that you sent out this morning that 142 um thousand dollars is the um is you know it includes all the would that's us giving back everything we we that that's us not having the ability to allocate any money to a reserve fund if we were going to out if we were going to have worn in this in this you know in this uh uh annual meeting that we were going to put money away into any reserve fund we would have a projected surplus say that again right now the projected surplus after we paid the fy 18 tuition in a voice that just came in was a hundred and seventy one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars right and we're we originally leave seventy one thousand out of the surplus which was roughly what your dandy lion proceeds were so that you could then ask your voters if you could move that money this fiscal year but then last week when we met or two weeks ago when we met we discussed the need for upgraded computer equipment and depending on when that equipment is purchased depended on what funds you were going to use to pay that so if you pay for that in fy 20s budget it would come out of fy 20s expenditure budget if you were to purchase these after town meeting after you hadn't approved budget and after your voters said yes you can create this special reserve fund yes you can put this amount of money in it you could then use those reserve funds to pay for those computers that we talked about before so this is where you as a board need to make the decision as to how you want to move forward you authorize the purchase of the computers correct that it's an absolute necessity at this point in time to continue distance learning correct that is what that twenty nine thousand dollar difference is correct and so that's where we came up with the 142 987 because we took the 29 grand out of the 171 exactly um and we also think and we had we still don't have more guidance on this but we're also pretty confident that because this is a covid related uh purchase their computers were fine when they were used for classroom instruction they fail when they're taken out and then used for these these group google meets and so on and so forth um where you gave us guidance that you were pretty confident and you couldn't obviously guarantee it because we don't have the the rules yet but you were pretty confident that this would this would fall squarely in the you know getting all the getting all the at&t hot spots and and getting the equipment this would definitely be included in my submission as a covid expenditure now the last guidance i heard and i you know i think it was friday when we heard it is that the covid funds are probably not going to be released until after july 1st so unless something changes in the state that's where we're at right now that is correct right we would still i mean you would then have to you know we would make things more complicated accounting wise for you correct because we would get the reimbursement we'd have to you know credit it as a prior year and and do a couple more for every business manager in the state of vermont so okay so but so again your guidance is that the the cleanest and most conservative way to deal with getting these computers is to uh is to to knock down our surplus that we're bringing forward so we're only bringing forward the 142 by the computers now and then when we get the reimbursement um we can use it as a surplus going forward um but we're not we're not buying equipment to put us into a deficit position now correct okay you have funds available based on this year's budget projections for f y 20 it does look like you are trending today this year if everything goes as i you know as we had projected but we all know how that's been working lately um things change on a day-to-day basis with the state so yes as of the last report that we ran you were continuing to trend in in a surplus so you could purchase the computers now we would include it in our co-vid extra expenditure claim to the state to get reimbursement out of some of that cares money that's coming back to us excellent thank you for for clarifying clarifying that does anyone else have any other questions around reserve funds and revenues and and uh things going forward tarot in previous and a previous meeting i uh we i believe and i correct me if i'm wrong that you had put forward a surplus that was not the total amount of our surplus because of the concern of lingering expenditures after the fiscal year yes amy i always err on the side of caution of not using your full surpluses because you do not know what could come up just like we didn't know that huge tuition bill was going to come up that is a risk that you as a board take if you use your surplus and this is you know one of the things that the auditors talked about as i had said before to all of us business managers when we went to our annual meeting in december was that that is the issue with the statute allowing you to use surplus funds basically two years and not really knowing if they're accurate or not because the very first step in every fiscal audit is to reevaluate your prior year accounts receivable and your prior year accounts payable which offsets what a projected surplus could have been so yes i always would continue to caution you not to use a full surplus just in case so in this scenario though are we using our full surplus there is twenty nine thousand dollars left okay left thank you um so uh and that basically we we have taken the proceeds from the dandelion set seventy one thousand dollars um from from the sale of dandelion is basically being infused into this budget um to be able to get to where we are today the proceeds for jenny lyon daycare are in your general fund you are using a general fund surplus to offset your tax rates and tax revenue right so it we are using that money to offset our taxes we we are funding the budget it was definitely not the original intention but it is what it is well certainly if the you know if the board i mean board the board wants to you know i i certainly agree with you amy in the sense that that money was uh i mean well seventy one thousand was the gross i think fifty five was the net no seventy one is what it was sold for yeah there were no realtors cost yeah i thought i remembered her saying something about a fifty five thousand dollar number tarred in one of her letters but um you know whatever that number can be you know the it's using it uh or or or putting it aside is the will of the board in order well actually my decision what you do it is you as a board what you decide to use i simply put the numbers in the spreadsheet for you based on the request that was made well you know the the Rochester board had under all guidance that they were given at the time set up a fund and had created a reserve fund on you know i i'm not you know should we be asking Stockbridge to take a portion of their building fund to put into this budget to help offset it so it's a little bit more forty six d put in i don't not not necessarily saying that's the right answer um yeah well that i it's important to note that you cannot take uh that that money was been set aside for the Stockbridge building um we can't take it to we can't take it to do if there was some sort of improvement that was being done at Stockbridge that was being paid for out of general funds you could you could replace that with funds from the building fund but i don't believe there you can't just you can't just say okay we're just going to claw that back and i think the same from from the Rochester the original Rochester board point of view is that we had through all the guidance that we were given and all we had done the same had created a building reserve fund and we actually the the sad thing is you actually did there there there is there's there's three official funds that are made i know just from the Rochester fund and the tuition fund just david uh or previous uh previous business managers forgot the step of once you make the fund you got to put the funds into it right so that's you know that's that's the that's the the the sad the sad place that this is in this girl hi yeah yeah that's my man Ethan so i guess the question is what guidance do you want to provide if around that Amy i hear what you're saying well it's all about it's about if this is you know Amy if you think this is make or break i mean if this is really the will of the board that we have this money set aside then we have to go back and look at this budget again and and find a way to get it out because it's not being used as it should i mean this is what happens as things come up and we just grab from wherever the funds seem to be sitting around and and um if if that's not what we want to do Jenny and Janie and um then we need to make decisions about that i i appreciate all the hard work that our administrators have done to create this budget and i trust fully that they have done what they they need to be able to educate our kids and for us to have successful educating kids it sucks it's but i'm not going i'd no i'm not going to say that the money should go into a reserve fund when it could be used for our kids right now no but i i i do hear you i really do hear you as i yeah and maybe that's all is i just need it to be hard i just need well i i mean this is a i have a lot of feelings right now about a lot of this whether it's the building or the but building funds or you know the high school building or what reality we're going to be facing this fall um i there's a part of me that thinks all these discussions while we have to go through this because we're going forward are are completely uh unreal in some ways um uh because we we we don't know in so many ways what we're facing in the fall in terms of revenue projections in terms of deficits to the education fundings um right so the bank account kind of hurt i i certainly would say that it's not about it's not a bad idea to have have a rainy day fund right now um and um and and may i and may i address a question too that has to do with the budget that was brought up in one of our questions by our public comment um if if this budget got voted down and it was um cut a cut a faculty member or cut a building well no that's not a black and white question um it's not like well of course we cut the staff member um uh you know we we need to make a decision and if we're faced with a lot of uh we're going to have some tough decisions coming up so i found the email that terra had sent terra says that the ddc sale pro pro proceed 71 000 um less 17 000 and change for expenditures paid less 29 000 for the replacement technology for uh res so that would mean she says you could move 24 775 dollars um to to a reserve fund that's her that's her looking at um the uh uh figures around the debt this is where this is her breakdown of the danieline acres figure but those haven't happened yet carl remember that was these are if you use these funds for these expenditures that are currently covered through your general fund they have not been covered yet they are still paid out of your general fund the black river the atc right um and we've the those funds you you said that those funds or the the the buildings the building study the engineering study is coded in the contracted services right now as i set it up under its own project code so that we had it so the two invoices that are in there are the black river and the atc and then we offset the expenditure by 7500 dollars because we got that efficiency vermont grant correct so right now those pros those expenditures are just sitting in your general fund that was based on the questions you all had asked me before if we decided to use the dandelion daycare funds for those expenditures this would be what your balance is but that is not a completed transaction so i just want to be clear there right i and i i i understand that the seven but the 17 000 dollars 17 129 for expenditures paid that is not is is that the that that's the black river in the atc correct yes less the 7500 dollar offsetting grant right so so what what to understand what you were what you sent to me first of all we have we have in the budget that you've presented you've got 29 000 dollars that you've kept that you've kept out of the surplus correct um you say when you break it down if you say okay we sold dandelion acres and we use those funds like we talked about plates to pay for black to pay for the engineering study and then we used more of those funds to pay for the rochester teacher computers we would have still remaining from the from the ddc sale you show a balance of 24 775 that's in our general fund somewhere right so you would have to drop your surplus down right but we we have the 25 the 28 the 29 000 dollars of off-budget surplus we would be left with a 5000 dollar budget budget a budget cushion of unapplied surplus if we put the 24 if we said okay we're going to put the 24 775 into the rochester rainy day fund well that would depend that would be what was left if you used the dandelion daycare proceeds to cover the 17 000 if we transferred that out so you would have to get step one you would have to get your voters to agree to allow you to create a special revenue fund step one step two you would have to get your voters to agree to allow you to move 70 904 dollars from the general fund surplus to this special revenue fund step that's what the voters would have to agree to then you as a board once the special revenue fund has been established the only way those funds can be used is you as a board have to authorize your building administrators the ability to access those funds so then you as a board would have to say yes we want you to pay the black river invoice yes we want you to pay the atc invoice out of that special reserve fund if you did that then you would have that balance if all of that was done prior to this purchase of 29 000 of the computers you would have the 24 000 if you authorized the computer purchase to also come out of that special reserve fund okay so but that paragraph represented was if you paid these three expenditures out of the dandelion daycare proceeds you would have 24 775 dollars left out of that 70 904 dollars correct but riddle me this batman um hold on a sec carl just so you know we're 10 minutes over our time okay um the thing that if the if the dandelion see that would that would going through all those steps that you talked about would certainly be the way it should have happened when the money got put aside first and then we drew it down the point is that they never got put aside first so it's a general fund so we don't need to move all 70 000 to it and and then debit it down we can buy the computers we can pay for the uh some building studies and we can say okay what's left over we're going to move 24 775 out of the general fund into into the existing rochester building fund and we end up at the same place do we not you are absolutely right and we could do that leaving five thousand dollars of of surplus available for unexpected expenses because we are four thousand two hundred and twenty five dollars because we've booked the rest of the expenditure the the rest of the surplus the 143 surplus doesn't include that 29 000 so we use 24 775 to to make the rochester dandelion daycare area or daycare sale whole and and kind of achieve what rochester wanted you know we we put aside some money for rochester we we pay for the sale the way we talked about it and we um we pay for the computers uh as well wouldn't that get us to the same place yes in a roundabout way okay um so that's something we can think about we can we could we could put it you know we could warn an article that says we're going to fund 24 775 um which is the remainder of the dandelion daycare sale into the rochester building fund without without changing the tax rate in the budget you presented correct we just would be have a much tighter margin um for the upcoming audit i'm gonna run my numbers carl you know how i am yes while you do that i want to be mindful of the fact that we're over time i wanted to talk next about what we've heard from the secretary of state around um around our vote coming up i'd sent i believe i forwarded everyone the note that i got from uh uh our attorney's office carl are you talking about what you sent last week no i'm talking about what i sent um i thought i forwarded this to everybody um let me send i i will i will i will send it uh send it out i guess i did not send it i was asking a question um but so we have a couple things we need to do to make this to make this happen um we need to we need to have um another you know if we if we assume to we we need to have another vote to approve a ballot um we would then be mailing to all voters um with uh with a uh a return uh a self address return envelope to be sent uh to be sent back to us um is that the method you're gonna pick because there's two choices in the way you're gonna you can do this and you might want to ask lori um scott but right um you can as the the the state was saying their their guide or the guidance from the attorney is that is that we should mail everyone a ballot and we we apparently at this point still need to have a physical voting location and carl let me chime in there um the select board as as the board knows asked to come over and look at uh the high school to see if there was a place they could find for the august primary and then the presidential election in november they felt that those two northern the two classrooms on the northern corner of the building one face is the parking lot one face is the skate space i think it easily set up a voting procedure that they were comfortable with in terms of distancing and people not passing each other etc etc when i talked with with the town clerk her preference for the school board and she was just weighing in on what she thought would be best would be that if if at all possible we follow for the school budget the primary and the presidential election we followed the same procedure so it's not confusing to voters what they're doing so they're doing the same thing three times whatever it is we decide okay but they felt very comfortable about having adequate space in there to to set up in person voting at it has the same assessment been made at those at stockwood central school uh lori and i haven't talked about that aspect um so lori if you're still on feel free to speak i mean we could we could make it work on the multipurpose room but you would have to do it on a tuesday or thursday i can't have people in there while they're doing food for families okay that makes sense i i i i certainly hear you there we can't having people pass the multipurpose room while we're making sandwiches is probably not the most uh the best way to distance ray uh carl sorry you did have somebody on mute i wondered if it was the person lindy and vote they're ending in on 11 they've muted again ah i don't know uh i i'm not sure what lori's uh phone number is no that that was that was me um i i kind of agree with julie i'm on the right treasure side whatever we do we have to be consistent election to election just so as not to confuse people so that makes a lot of sense i don't know the whole setup in the school as far as the distancing and all that kind of stuff so lindy and i maybe need to have a conversation maybe tomorrow sure we can do that so i could i could speak intelligently about it we can use any house as well okay yep but i think you you really got to have that um separate in and out so you don't have people passing each other and all that kind of thing so just i think we just have to okay um beyond that because so uh if you recall in april we passed the resolution that allowed us to uh uh if the board so desires to have a australian ballot um uh and we would obviously uh be being invoking that piece of it what that means that's different for us is we need to uh hold a public information hearing on the ballot items it needs to be presided over over by the board that needs to occur within 10 days prior to the vote it has to be publicized by being warned um the way that most towns seem to be doing this the attorney says is by uh zoom or or uh webex or or google meets um the uh uh the warning and the booklet you know obviously need to be to to be mailed as well and if we do uh if we do do a um a uh a mail out ballot where we the the current guidance from the secretary of state is that that can be done we can we don't have to wait for people to request a mail ballot regardless of if we decide to mail a ballot out as i understand it we are required to have a mail in ballot available because that by vermont statute is a requirement of of an australian ballot is the ability to vote by mail so we have to have we we we have to have a uh an ability to vote by mail um and we have to have places uh polling places open the guidance that we heard from bruce on friday at the the the meeting bruce and that's still the case you know sorry i it took a while for me to get my button um if we do an australian ballot bruce we we have to have a mail option because that's vermont statute and we have to have a polling place as well correct yeah and and some of the towns uh telsen tonbridge are doing two different polling places they're going to do one in each town and then pro mingle votes i think it's important for people to have the ability to vote by mail because of their own personal situations of not wanting to come out into the public or or or not um and then yeah for people to be able to come if if they're able to it kind of makes sense to me to be able to have both but are you gonna trafford and first branch are both doing a drive up uh drive up drive up and um so grandville and handcock are voting by mail so by doing um a uh the ballot vote kind of vote by mail um well either way it's going to cost this quite a quite a bit more though isn't it that's the that's the big issue is the expense yeah so if we had to drive up then we wouldn't be paying for the return the mail coming back to to the school but you have to think about this more as an absentee situation are you going to if you're going to offer a polling place then people would just call and request to have the ballot nailed to them versus mailing a ballot to every registered voter or are you going to mail to every registered voter a ballot and let them have the opportunity to come to a polling place right and then how could that be a lot of verification of and you already mail one in that's what happens when the vote lori correct me if i'm wrong but that's what would happen when the votes are counted because when you fill out an absentee ballot you sign off who you are you say you know my name's lindy stepton and you sign off on it um and then you also have to check in and check out when you do australian ballot seems like it wouldn't be more cost efficient if we just had people request a ballot rather than sending it to the everybody in town because it can't be sent at the same time as our annual book is that correct correct it has to be a separate mailing has to be a separate mailing and normally normally uh for for absentee ballots they have to be requested the secretary of state is making an exemption allowing them just to be just to be be turned out to all registered uh to all registered voters we also were told on friday that extraordinary expenses of the election if we mailed everyone a ballot for example that's a covet eligible expense um how much money is going to be out there uh million dollars for uh lea lea covet covet related expenses um but you know i i think what we need to think about is is you know if our if our clerks are comfortable holding uh holding an election we can we can do that we have to have a ballot that needs to be available to be mailed to people and so we have to have a mechanism in place whether that's the town clerks that would be mailing that or uh uh there's someone at the school i i don't know i mean we don't usually do we we we don't ever do it uh australian ballots i'm assuming it'd be the clerk i'm assuming that i would see because they would need to go to our residency yeah i was going to say it would it would seem to me like it would just be a typical absentee ballot that you would like because somebody has to confirm i mean i can't go to rochester or stockbridge and request a ballot so i deal with the residents in case correct but i mean it's uh they did i i'm sure there's you know towns that do australian ballots know how to do this we do not so i don't know i i i i'm loathe for us to be driving you know driving the bus on how to to conduct the ballot i don't know you know do i know australian ballots so we should know the somebody in the town i know we have a new town clerk but traditionally it's always been a australian ballot so the the our attorney will create the ballot uh you tell us what they're going to what you want on it they're doing it for the other towns as well so that would be bob fletcher in fletcher or stitzel pageant fletcher he is the one that's working on the ballot right now for the other towns that have already approved it um as far as the mechanism the working you have to establish what you want to do and then work with your town clerk to make sure that that takes place so well it sounds like our town clerks will want uh consistency between all the different elections that are happening and it seems to me that they're doing in person in rochester or what are they doing in stockbridge for the primary and the general election are they providing polling you're a quarry just unmuted or something polling place that's what bruce said about minville handcock when they were trying to do everything by mail he was bruce was very clear that there has to be a physical polling place that's the guidance that he's getting from the state the department secretary of state is that correct bruce yeah because you're going to miss people um and they need to have a place to go to be able to be included yep so we haven't fully decided what is what the the polling places are going to look like for both the primary and the presidential election um however um there are certain requirements as far as you know disinfection and sanitizing and all that kind of stuff that that still needs to be worked out and we've got a little bit of time from you know for august november but i think the school the school vote is probably going to help give us some guidance and how that's going to work the issue uh is that you've got to get your materials out 10 days before the vote you've got to have a information meeting five days before the vote under 10 days so pardon the informational meeting can be under 10 days according to the attorney yeah well within five you know five or more so according to dina okay the the letter from uh the letter from bob or whatever says uh that that uh the um uh of uh public information hearing has to be presided over by the board and occur within 10 days prior to the vote so and then it has to be warned at 10 days prior to the public information meeting but we still have to record it out to everybody else we still have to warn 30 days out that actual warning correct that has changed right so i think the key at least to me is sounds like lori and i probably need to set up some time to see if the school is a viable option or i said i heard joanne offer the meeting house as well but sounds like we need to kind of look right now and start to work backwards calendar wise to give some deadlines assuming that you're going to take some action on the budget tonight so f blood is uh going to do um the 20th uh strafford's going to do the 20th of june uh and so is f blood and then um granville and handcock are going to do the 30th which is a saturday uh of june so the 30th is a tuesday bruce oh i'm well i'm sorry i'm looking at the may calendar i'm sorry uh so those are the dates that have been picked okay if we wanted to do a tuesday or a thursday perlindy's request we'd be warning the meeting for the 23rd or 25th or the 30th those are the last three tuesdays and thursdays of the month of june and historically you would want to keep it on a tuesday because tuesday is naturally a voting day right and that's why people's brains are wired um so you get a larger turnout right um obviously the 30th gives us the biggest window um on the other hand you know people start going away after school wraps up and that graduation's like over the 19th or the 20th so maybe we want to get nowhere anywhere yeah so if the summer program is to start then we really need to do the 23rd because the summer program starts the 29th at stockbridge okay if there is one but let's let's let's try to be be uh consider and assume there's going to be there's going to be something and let's let's plan for that so if the 23rd so if the 20 we would we would need to warn this so that's the 23rd we would need to warn this by may 24th because mays got 31 days or wait no so 23 seven days back in may we'd have to warn it by the 25th if i'm doing my math right so today do we think we could do we do we think we could have a a a plan together to be able to warn you know warn a document that uh uh describes howler voting by uh by the end of this week yes yeah okay so we would need to we would need to get the recommendations from uh lory and lindy and then circle back to to to approve correct right because we need to have the location and everything for our warning right i believe that the international meeting as well at this time or that we can set a separate warning for we can we can we can warn that separately it would be a virtual meeting anyways right so we need to we need we need the location of the voting to be able to warn to be able to complete the warning is that what you're saying i believe so uh for the 20 we always have where we're meeting for the 23rd we're assuming that the bulletin would need to be mailed by the 11th is that correct that would that would sound good in on the following time i'm sorry i couldn't hear you is that in is that acceptable for spalled in to be able to to print by them she said if we could get her something by um the first week in june yes she said she could do that because i gave her that ballpark um that it's about a week turnaround for them but you know it could be less depending on what they have they may not have a lot of business so um but we have a quite a bit of work to do to create that oh boy um yeah any volunteers i'm doing my best but i mean this is not you know this is primarily numbers and explaining them i'm sitting down with special ed people anyway we'll talk about that some other time um well i think that's the best we can do isn't it so we're approving the budget tonight um we can do we need to we need to approve the budget to have to to approve a warning yeah we can certainly we gotta get these things done we can certainly look at the budget we have and i mean the only open question that i think we still see i mean everyone's pretty comfortable with the the the numbers that that lindy and bonnie and tara have given us right the only open issue still is what are we doing about uh a reserve fund a contribution uh i'd like to yeah go ahead Ethan sorry well no it just sounds like we have to decide if we're actually warning a reserve fund or not what is your thought on on uh carl's idea um of of we're putting like that 24 000 into a reserve fund you know i understand both sides of it i'm a little torn because you know it is we could potentially have expenses you know at the end of the year but we're kind of sitting at uh our expenditure reports are showing that we might end up with a surplus anyway but so i don't need to worry about it plus the rainy day fund because we're going into some hard times we're gonna be in some serious trouble here soon i mean here's the other thing is that to be quite frank if we put the budget the item in the warning we're a special fund we're gonna have to explain you know where this money went and how it got there but i think everybody's quite aware of the sale of dandelion and have as we all have the kind of question where where that sale money went and what happened what was i know it took a lot of digging from terra and that was the all the change over in the office to really track down i'm just saying we just need a good answer yeah that it was just handled differently than anybody expected it yeah just so we're prepared for that we're gonna need a good answer yeah that's gonna be another good explanation for our book thank you yeah there's a lot of writing on this book thank you very much i hope you don't have any other big projects going on right now oh just many many not like your teacher or anything now either of course not no no um so are we approving the ball do we can we do some motions here um sure do we want i mean the the the the first piece is we can approve i mean we can approve a budget so we have to do we would have to have a motion to approve the budget as presented that would leave the tax rate where it was and then we would have to have a motion about whether or not we wanted to add a article that would an article five which would uh because here actually so i did not ever forward the thing that i wanted to forward so i'm doing that now now what details let's take it one at a time what details do we need to have an emotion that approves the budget is it the total amount to be looked at by taxes i'm sorry i'm flipping to find the i've got so many tabs open i'm trying to find where the budget is we would need a motion to uh approve a uh a budget for the fiscal 2021 year uh in an amount of four million four million three hundred and ninety one thousand one hundred and twenty five dollars and forty cents i second it a motion has been made and seconded to approve the uh uh fiscal 2021 budget as presented today by terra uh in an amount of four million three hundred and ninety one four million three hundred and ninety one thousand one hundred and twenty five dollars discussion uh hearing none all those in favor of approving the budget signify by saying aye aye aye um uh anyone to poll you should do a roll call on it yes you should um sure uh uh ethan bowen how do you vote yay or nay yes janey feinberg how do you vote yay or nay yes uh on the screen just jumped around jenny austin how do you vote yay or nay yay uh amy wilts how do you vote yay or nay yes uh as the chair i abstain um or i'll vote yay um motion carries uh five to zero next we have to address if we wanted to um and this would we can do this now or we can do do this when we have the warning we would need to when we approve the warning we need to put the actual articles on it which means we need to know um you know whether uh we need to know who the candidates are because we have to put the names of uh of uh candidates that have filed paperwork so there's a a document that you're supposed to sign with the town clerk whose name i forget bruce what's that called stacey was talking about is it a ca w i'd have to look it up carl it's not something that that yeah i'd have to look it up right there's no floor nomination so the suggestion is that you know the board the you know the board at least put a candidate forward and then other people can file file paperwork with the town clerk to uh uh uh run as well or you know they'll be right in lines and people will be able to write in on a ballot uh uh who they might want but the advice is that we have we have a candidate uh uh from each town for each seat the board the board has put a candidate forward um i am certainly willing to put my name on the stock bridge line unless uh someone else wants uh you know is uh really convinced that uh there's there's a someone else that should be there obviously anyone else can go in and get with the town clerks and um add their name to the ballot as well so it is uh indeed you carl and uh megan pain whose term expires in 2020 okay so megan would have to fill out a piece of paper assuming she wants to continue she should fill out a piece of paper with the town clerk um and i like i said i think it's a ca w form that stacey peters was talking about but i i don't have i don't have those notes in front of me and uh she is not president at this meeting can somebody take responsibility for all letting her know this information i will thank you i just wanted to tell you that dina sent a annual warning meeting warning to carl i think and i got a copy of it at uh 458 this afternoon that's the thing that's the thing i thought i had forwarded and i'm trying to find it again to send it yeah 458 carl and it was sent you forward to the board please bruce i'm i'm i'm trying to talk and read six things and and i have not been able to to send that on yet but yes there's there's the spot where um you know we have to elect a town clerk we have to or um not a town clerk we have to elect a board clerk we have to elect two board positions we have to pass the budget um we have to have the language about uh bridge loans and then the fifth piece would be the uh would be the uh a piece about if we decided to add it about moving that 24 775 uh into the rochester building reserve fund is is i'm sorry i'm confused is this something we can approve tonight or do we need a special meeting to do it before this day we do not we could not um approve a warning without improving the without without approving the whole warning we can't just approve question five of the warning so we need a special meeting we will we have to have the information about the polling places in the war right so we'll need just looking at the calendar we have to have it warned and doesn't need to be posted warned yeah what are we looking at uh by by this friday correct i thought it was day 25th my monday i thought is what um bruce had just said is that not correct right but you have to get the warning out by then 21st do you think you guys can talk with the town clerks uh lori and i have already scheduled a time for tomorrow like friday or thursday i mean what do you still need to hear from rochester well how is it we just need to have the polling places right yeah i'll put it on so i'm just gonna confirm the high school because she's already told me that's her preference right that's what sandi haas was saying that there's a corner of the building that they did she and the select board walked through and always was was the the the best location i'm going to with the building one door out the other yeah right in the door to the room and out the door from jen's room did we decide on our method of voting i wasn't clear on that there was a lot of conversation but i wasn't clear we made a decision that we're doing mail-in ballots or drive-by voting you have to do both ethan because it's not a brilliant ballot we have to at least have a ballot available for a voter to call up and get absentee okay we have a physical polling location for bruce yeah just to clarify though it's not a drive-by they're gonna actually go into the building and vote okay i just want to be clear that's what they're recommending right and i would assume that i would assume that lindy and uh and uh lori will come up with a similar recommendation whether it's going to be a drive-by with people sheltering under the portico in front of the in front of stockbridge school or whether it's going to be you know you you walk in the front door and you know take spaces you know you're spaced down the hallway to uh socially distant polling places in the multi-purpose room and you're going out that door some such some such you know in one side and out the other arrangement right and uh i would in that type in a drive-by type situation they would need to uh what pick up a ballot on one end of the parking lot and drop it off at the other end you have to have a spot for them to park you have to have a spot for them to be able to turn around they have to check in as they pull in and they have to drop their ballot out and exit out check off that they voted the other you love sending everybody a ballot i mean i think that's more of the question of clarification we're not mailing every single registered voter a ballot right that's what we've decided and then we can figure out the logistics i don't think we should honestly i mean it is i i kind of do feel that it's up to the town clerk so what they feel is going to be the most logistically work for them but it just seems like they would do have to do a lot more work trying to figure out did somebody have two a ballot that they walked in with plus they mailed one in um Amy the other issue is with drive-up balding is that they have to have a couple of ADA spots people yeah voice recognition hearing issues so go in the building then and notice a lorry unmuted herself yeah so you really don't want to mail yeah i mean a lot of discussion in the clerk's group is that you don't really necessarily want to mail to an absentee ballot to every single voter because it's just it truly is a waste of money because not everybody will vote and you really want to make sure that if people need an absentee ballot you've got a way and a mechanism for them to get one but um also that there is the ability for them to come in and vote too so i think lindy and i can have that conversation tomorrow and come up with a recon recommendation that makes some sense both financially and and logistically for the for the folks in town one well thank you so much um just a question i'm sorry is it leslie lory lory sorry excuse me for that um lory would it be useful for you to have a conversation with julie so we have some consistency between that or is that between bonnie and lindy that conversation no sure i can i'll give julie a call too that'd be great thank you so much i just sent you the warning uh that bob fletcher sent i hope you got it uh lindy and bonnie i sent you copies as well thanks first thanks bruce so are we at the point that we are either a approving more to go on the warning or be moving on um we wouldn't we again we don't really uh if we're not going to do the entire warning today and we can't okay move on and we're moving on we need to move on we can't i'm sorry too many people what go ahead lindy sorry i was going to say when are we trying to meet thursday the same thing i was i figured we were probably talking about the same thing and is it a meeting uh tarot like what's terrorist calendar like and bruce's calendar like too if they need to be present for this i don't know if they do i'm just asking i don't believe i believe that if they have any concerns i think they know our direction and they know that we're going to be you know taking a document that that you know and filling in you know polling place x polling place y um and can we at least email it to them in the day so they can one of the things that we can do that i've seen before is that we can draw up a draft of that warning we have one from the attorney what are you doing this carl everybody that's what i was asking chair we have to do it by friday so i have board meetings every night this week except for friday good no date night thursday night if you wanted to do it you would have to do it after the full board if you want my participation which is about 645 so you could schedule it for seven to be safe because we've got some issues bruce don't you think that are going to take up some time this week i don't know of any issues i'll send it to you again my email right now no i'm not in my mouth carl raise got his hand raised i'm not seeing anything on the board calendar for wednesday are we missing on wednesday that i know of terrible we can't i have a meeting wednesday night ray for another board who's trying to get their books together for their annual meetings remember i have four budgets that still need to be approved so i'm doing the same thing for four boards um just no i understand that it's just not on the board calendar is all i'm saying because it's not a full board meeting it's a committee meeting um we are also trying to give till friday to our town clerks and our principals to pull this plan together is that correct yep or can we get information sooner than that and we have to have it written out and who is doing that writing i mean i can write what's going to come out of stock bridge what lori and i managed to come up with warning is the the warning is that is the only thing that really needs to be done by friday and that's that's a template who's doing it i'm doing and who's presenting it um the attorney has done it and we would be we would be reaching back out to the attorney again and get it getting a you know giving him that information and then they would produce the the the document for us and we just say i mean the that we like it or we don't we can probably i will probably say we want a version that talks about putting 24 775 into the rochelle building reserve fund and a version that doesn't and then we can make that decision we'll have the document we'll have both documents okay so so we're we're good then we could meet on a thursday night after the full board meeting to approve this does that seem feasible bonny lindy and lori it does to me because all we're doing for the warning is determining where the place is going to be the the plan will get worked out later who sits where who stands where are you adding other articles to the warning carl because if so we're going to want to get that language down to robert right that's what i was saying add them i'm going to i'm going to write to him and say you know we want one that has a version that moves 24 775 to the rochester reserve fund and one that doesn't because i'll need to be a separate article that'll be article five okay everybody sent has four on it so i'm gonna i'm going to reach out to him we have to have two articles first you have to have the article to create the fund we already created the one you have to have the article to move the money we already created the fund there's a bill we created a building fund for stock building fund for rochester and a building fund for tuition tuition that was all passed in the uh i could send you the minutes but that's in joanne's minutes from our very first uh very first meeting the part that david left out was the second piece of that where you actually this is not the special revenue the special education revenue fund that you created as a board that you wanted to move those monies to this is you're putting in an already created fund yeah carl for the warning you just need to know the location and the times uh yeah okay so i needed to know you know and when the just the so by and by time because it's it's it's an australian ballot it's a it's a fixed window we would need to know the start and the stop time great so um does everybody want to think a little bit more about that building reserve fund or is there any reason why we shouldn't just do it right now and then we don't have to make him create two documents and spend more money um i don't think it's gonna be too much more money but we can certainly if we want to just want more time that's fine i just you know i was trying to make thursday night's meeting as quick as possible okay um if i i am uh you know we can certainly do it ten to nine okay what is i mean what is what do we want me do you want me to just get the warning that has that fifth article on it um my two cents is that at this point and with the uncertainty of the future of finances um i really don't know that it makes any difference where the money is right now okay that is certainly we are you know the the best guidances that were 20 some cents uh is going to get added to to our taxes and i guess here's amy and my question is is it important that that fund be funded to carry on the lineage or is it important i mean what what is the importance just because it was said to be done and thought it was done that it should be done to complete it or is it you really feel that that money should be there um i think it's probably a multi uh faceted question there um you know it uh so why maybe we should just table it for now okay yeah i mean i want i mean i i really do hear you i just think you're right i think maybe that's all i need is to be heard and understood because that this side is not often heard or understood this this this this building was sold um as part of our our initial merger agreement and it was not necessarily what we wanted to do at the time but we did um so it was a sack kind of a little bit of a sacrifice and so you know all right well table it i'll i hear you i understand what you're saying too though like we need yeah i understand that way and so that's what's kind of tough so all right yes now understand that uh before we completely walk away from this question understand that um you know it's a separate article so you know it could be voted up or down uh uh you know independently voted up or down right people could people could easily say no to funding this building fund that's correct exactly maybe we want to leave it up to them you know that's another way to do it let the voters will be spilled spoken that's always a very good uh premise you know that we put it out there and we have to sell it when our in our informational meeting and that's why i said we need a good answer yeah i think that's something that between now and thursday you could do is come up with if you have a really convincing answer i'll totally support you right and i but you do kind of make up a good point of that this is maybe we do need to just put it out to the voters to the voters of rochester and the voters of stockridge that they know the history of it they they know the idea and are where are we going forward and how are we going to get forward um yeah and i don't know if this helps or if this just muddies the water but the the conversation somebody made reference to it a bit ago that we're just in the beginning of some very very difficult financial decisions this is not a one year and then it's gone probably this is not the worst of it um right exactly absolutely i think that's why there's a lot of things that are going to be forced our hands going to be forced in ways we have no idea of right now it's why last meeting i asked that question are you prepared principles for significant cuts right and what that means do you have any plan because i do believe that's what we're facing and and and we're going to have some very tough decisions ahead of us right and i mean this goes to your point and i i i do understand what you're saying because you guys were setting that up just as i came in and i understood the intent of what you were trying to do but principles on this side of the mountain that i've been chit chatting with they're all talking about hoping they don't have to deplete their reserve funds and building reserve funds and ed reserve funds this year because they know they're definitely going to have to start down that road next year so i think if we looked at this a bit more long term the reality is we're going to be in the same situation i don't mean to be gloom and doom but that's just what the numbers are telling me i think it's absolutely it's very realistic of us to be thinking that way and and yeah it's gonna you know thinking about being able to put just a little bit of money and savings no matter how much it is because we're gonna need it i don't know it's there's so many parts of the of it you know i hear you okay all right so then we're going to uh we're going to we want the two versions on it we're two versions we're going to talk about it okay thank you uh i'm uh i'm going to talk to the attorney so i'm good um that brings us to we need to uh act on uh um a uh uh uh well we can act on well no we can't because we can't pass the morning we have to act on a custodial resignation bonnie you're muted there we go i'd like to let the board know that after 11 years of very fine service to the rochester and then the arsad school district that uh lenny settlers has decided to retire and his retirement is effective uh it was a few days ago he was going to use out his a vacation time and then um was going to happily head into retirement so uh he's done great service for our kids and i just i wish him all the best and the board needs to just act on accepting his retirement statement i would have a resignation because it's not really a resignation it's a retirement i would entertain a motion to uh that the board accept with uh uh regret the retirement uh of the uh of lenny and rochester did i hear a second yes i say janey okay uh any discussion um let the let the let the minutes reflect that the board uh the the board is very grateful for all his service and all the work he's done with our facilities and and and for our kids thank you oh thank you bonnie you're welcome all right we now have uh uh the second period of public comment uh again this is a 20 minute block of time we're going to ask everyone to speak once and to keep any comments to uh five minutes or under um we are at two and a half hours uh of this meeting um so uh if anyone has a public comment uh star six to unmute this is joanne hi joanne hi um i don't know if anyone's left on this meeting except for board members because it's been a crazy meeting but um i'd just like to say no there's 20 people here 20 people on all right i would just like to say that for the folks that didn't know the the meeting committee um worked real hard up until january and we came up with a couple of different plans we begged for meetings and beyond that we could never seem to get a meeting date so i don't want people to think that we failed at our project we worked hard at it we had good numbers and we did have some disagreements and we needed one more meeting but we were never we never got that meeting um from our chair so i'm just saying that other thing is um comments tonight amy said we are going into some hard times and even said um significant cuts are going to be needed and i agree with all of that so you know where this is going it's time it's time to be respectful to our the original uh plan when we were going to vote on merging just like some of the other stock bridge folks have said let's stop insulting the stock bridge voters by pretending that didn't happen and that wasn't promised to us it is it's ridiculous that we can't figure this out and have one building in rochester and one building in stock bridge and the other thing i'm going to say that by saying that it was a sacrifice to sell the d and the line daycare building maybe it was a sacrifice for rochester to do that but we have a lot of sacrifices as well like taking on huge debt so that's all i'm going to say for now you know i have a lot more to say but i am not comfortable with this budget it seems like there's a lot of uncertainty it's not been audited that's insane they hear we are in may and it had we don't have an audit like i i don't understand that um the other thing i would like to say is that um that i think there was a lot but you know what i'm not even going to say that now because it's just going to cause a few people to come after me and i just can't deal with that so that's all i have to say and thank you for the opportunity thank you for your comments joanne thank you for your patience with this meeting and and i appreciate you sticking it out to uh to say your piece uh two and a half hours later thank you for your interest in stock bridge in our community as well hope you listen i really hope you listen it doesn't seem that you do the people in this town are tired of paying for this point taken thank you hi this is keith again i have a couple questions that maybe you can clarify sure keith okay so we just uh you just voted on a four point or nearly four point four million dollar budget um as it was pointed out by the prior speaker uh it is unordered uh have steps been taken to avoid a repeat of last year uh i believe so our business manager has it has assured us that she's had more time to be working with the numbers and to be uh in particular um tracking all the uh secondary tuitions and making sure that we are getting the appropriate uh equalized people count that uh led to the the the the tax bill debacle of last year okay and the state has confirmed he the state has confirmed those numbers the state locked down the numbers on february 14th and they have not revised them again last year the state continued to revise the numbers through may okay and what's preventing the audit from being completed at this point in time you're waiting on me to finalize the final draft of the audit to make sure they're accurate and i agree with the auditor's statements and when did you get that from the auditor this year because the auditors had to come in and re-audit the closeout of fy 18 um due to the business manager trans transactions or transfers that happen three business managers within the year and a half time frame so it caused a long delay for the audit process to occur and they had to do it for all seven of our entities and if i understood correctly um we're going to be running a surplus this year as well my projections based on the end of march was that we are trending towards a surplus yes in what amount i don't have that report right in front of me okay but yeah the the the the the our side expenditures report as of 430 2020 uh shows a uh hundred and thirteen thousand dollar surplus i'm sorry you they got blanked out i missed when i look at the uh this is i'm sorry this is carl when i look at the our side expenditures uh report as of 430 2020 it's projecting um it's an encumbered projection so it shows what we expect to be spending through the end of the year um that shows a uh current surplus of uh projected surplus of 113 418 13418 dollars 113 sufficient enough round numbers and what's our current uh i guess for lack of a better term what's the current reserve fund right now because there's so many numbers thrown out i sort of lost track um stock bridge stock bridge has a restricted building reserve fund of uh $106,000 109 109 that money uh that money is uh restricted for uh building repairs and maintenance uh in on the stock bridge campus only okay okay and that 113 is the stock bridge only as well no the 113 surplus is both is uh is the unified district surplus okay and how does that money get applied to each of the two uh different districts um well it's it's the one district and it gets by statute um the audited uh the audited surplus or the the the draft surplus from uh uh two years ago is available as a top-line surplus or deficit uh in this year so this year for example we are we are showing the budget we just passed uh returns $142,000 uh to stock bridge and Rochester taxpayers okay and is that done proportionately since the stock bridge taxpayer pays more um no the only reason the stock bridge taxpayer pays more is because of the common level of a diesel um the the the tax rate is the same the the difference is that the grand list of Rochester uh is is uh valued at 109 percent of the state average and the grand list in stock bridges is valued at like 101 or 107 percent of the state average so that the the tax is the same until you adjust that that that property applyer for the for the for the town's grand lists right so as a stock bridge resident uh penalized by the state because that's how the state does its taxes i get that but i also then it's disproportionate because there's two buildings in one of the uh areas and one building in another area the budget does not take the budget does not take that into account the budget treats all the assets of the unified district uh equally oh so in other words you spend $10,000 on the stock bridge building repairs you won't spend more than $10,000 in Rochester we spend uh the we we we spend the building repairs that uh uh the administration asked us to spend based on the the the needs of the building okay um and also i there was like somebody said something about a 3.3 cents uh was a 3.3 cents increase in your tax rate is that correct uh there is a uh uh three point uh three point three four cent tax increase in stock bridge and there is a 4.1 tax increase in uh Rochester okay so so that the tax rate is projected to go up 3.34 cents for the stock bridge residents yes and two cents of that is the loss of uh mergers merger incentive the merger incentive was six cents uh last year it's four cents this year so the the real increase in spending uh in tax rate is 1.34 cents in stock bridge and 2.1 cents in Rochester okay and how does it work when a school district floats a bond how do the obligations pair out um the obligations pair out to the district um they do not pair out they do not pair out to the town so we could not uh you could not have a separate bond for uh uh Rochester residents you cannot have a separate school bond because you could have a municipal bond you cannot have a separate school bond for Rochester residents versus stock bridge residents okay and at the point in time came where stock bridge decided they just wanted to break away from the union how would the bonds be handled uh yes you can uh um you can uh there can be a vote to uh to dissolve um it has to take place and I'm I I'm remembering what the attorney said about this so I may not have these steps exactly the first the first uh stock bridge in this case would uh if stock bridge shows to uh to have a vote to uh remove themselves from the uh unified district once that passed uh the same question would then get put put to uh Rochester voters okay so how would uh how would that be initiated um you would need to uh warn a special meeting and I want to say I I couldn't tell you off the top of my head I can get back to you Keith but I can't tell you off the top of my head the percentage the percentage of voters that would have to have a special meeting Keith I can uh email you I've been in contact with some of the state education boards and I ever her emails have step by step what it would take to get out of the merger okay but letter from Donna Rousseau Rousseau Savage the the AOE attorney yeah yeah then that's the yeah that's that's that's bible then that's that's that's the proper information okay but and if I understood what you just said earlier if the top bridge community voted to uh want to leave the district it could only happen if Rochester agrees yep yep basically and they have votes okay so basically if the union benefits a portion of this union more than another portion dissolving the district really isn't feasible under the current contract well it's important to say that the state board is also going to be involved in this if you remember in some of the cases they forced boards to merge and that wasn't in the case for us but that was in the case for some of the ones that were late like very city and very town and others so they're going to get a say in this as well it's not going to be just what the town does and they and they get that because they believe that they give educational funding through the Ed fund to the towns and have some stake in this so that's a part of the process okay I only have these questions because as time goes on we just seem to be stuck in the same position and eventually somebody needs to take a stand where you know we either have to get out of this or move it forward and times are getting difficult not just for the school district and the children times are getting difficult for the people who live in Stockbridge and Rochester I mean they're suffering too and all of these considerations you looked at and every year you know this goes up two percent this goes up five percent this goes up 12 percent same thing happens to me my medical insurance went up 15 percent last year I get it things cost more but you can't just constantly come to us taxpayers and say well cost us more so you gotta pay more where do we get the money from that is that is a a very valid point and one that many you know that we hear from all sorts of people all the time and so you're not you're not you're you're not alone in your sentiment and you know it's it's it's this is the these are are difficult times as I said the Ed fund shortfall is expected to to perhaps reach 20 cents all right and you know and if things aren't taken you know if you don't take all these things to account when you're doing this hurting the children because people are going to vote no to the budget and you're going to be down to an 87 percent of where you were last year correct and it's it's you know you need to take the leads to control so here's where we're going to cut so we're going to put forth a budget that is palatable to the residents otherwise the residents are really going to reach a point where they're just going to say enough enough and it's going to hurt the kids more if you let it go that far as I said your your your point is very well taken it's the these are very difficult times and our budgets are you know it's it's it's tough to make it to make the budgets work in the best of times so you know we are we definitely hear what you're saying about the buildings we're trying to move forward it with that as best we can you know we uh we're we're trying to put forth I mean in dollar for dollar expenditures this budget is you know it's $20,000 less than you spent last year yeah we got in $50,000 less income than than than we got last year because grant funding has been cut but you know we're trying our our our best to be as you know to to balance the need of giving our kids a good education and you know making that education affordable for the people that live here and the budget goes down 20,000 but my taxes are still going to go up 3.3 cents that's right okay it doesn't make sense yes well again the state the the state where is the it's always a third party we need the responsibility has to stop somewhere I mean I have to tell you and I said it earlier and I don't mean to repeat myself but based on on what I'm seeing here there's no way in good conscience I can vote positively on this if I have to take out an ad in the local box bridge stand up it's time open your eyes I mean how much would it cost what's the cost of mailing a ballot to everyone to make it easy for everyone to vote how much does it actually cost what's the physical cost I would assume probably about you know it's it's postage there and back printing costs maybe a buck let's just you know let's the printing cost really shouldn't count we've got to print it anyway correct uh you'd have to print more of them but you know it's like I said I I at the high end I think it can't be more than a dollar but because I also think you probably get you don't have to put stamps on it but okay and how many residents do you have to send it to uh we have how many we have 800 no we have 400 voters in stock which I think I couldn't tell you off the top my head um is is Lori still on the call Carl we're on time okay but see that's part of the thing that bothers me people said earlier oh the cost it's going to cost us so much but you don't have the real number and if it's 200 households or I don't know if it's 200 households of or 400 people I'm not sure it is but say it's 200 households of three I don't even think we have 200 households that's costing at 50 cents that's a hundred dollars probably I would think I like I said I think we have 200 some registered voters in Stockbrook so yeah it'd be a couple hundred bucks and probably another three or four hundred dollars to do the same thing in Rochester um they're they're sending ballots to everyone in Granville and Hancock because they're concerned about uh they're they're uh the the the elderly of the population uh coming into to to polling places and I think we should do the same thing so maybe we can get a better reading on how our constituents really feel about this budget you know and the other thing that bothered me I'm going to be very honest and I'm trying I'm you know I granted you guys are doing the best you can and you're trying to do a great job and I appreciate all of that but you want to warn and you have that extra 24 000 there should be no doubt that you want to put that out there so the voters know not that oh maybe we shouldn't you know put it in the warning maybe we should you put it in 100 it's taxed by your money right the the the the guidance that our business manager uh has been giving us is that um when you're not especially when you're not uh absolutely sure of of of audited expenses if the audit if the audit uh uh uh swings the other way then you're you're now uh you're now looking at a deficit um but we shouldn't be voting on a budget a budget if that's if that's what you're concerned is okay uh again point taken um we will be having uh you know the conversation Thursday night um and it'll be warned so you can certainly uh you can certainly uh uh participate in that meeting as well definitely I think we are uh uh Ethan you just how we made aware of the meeting like the dial-in numbers and all of that how can I make sure I'm um on a list or I can at least go someplace and find it because if it wasn't for a last minute call from a neighbor I didn't even know about this uh the warnings are uh posted where do we post our warnings Lindy so um well typically they go in the post office in the town office but that's kind of difficult right now in the school that's kind of difficult right now Keith um so I've been posting them on the school facebook page and then someone pointed out that not everybody accesses the school facebook page so I also posted it on stockbridge connections as well this time and it's also available on wrvsu.org the school calendar there you can see all the the the meetings now you have to you have to look for the ones that say rsud because that's the that's the su wide calendar but they're all it is all available online there okay do you post in the pitchfield post office as well to stockbridge we do not we do not that's uh pitchfield uh uh pitchfield puts their their meetings there but we just post in stockbridge in rochester okay because there's a whole contingency of people who live in stockbridge but have mailing addresses in pitchfield just because of logistics uh like I hardly ever go I don't go to the stock bridge post office because come on yeah all right well thank you Keith um does anyone else have any public comment thank you thank you mckinsey yes I just want to address uh when I you know a point was brought up in the middle in the meeting that my comment about building versus staff uh the board yes it is that black and white because in the end the board who has voted to represent the voters has not made the decision that was agreed upon by the voters when they voted for the merger to keep this building which means that the voters are not happy so we vote down your budget that includes a third building this means that it is directly your choice to risk jobs because you are forcing us to vote down your budget because we were not delivered what we were promised so that is the only way that at this point we can get the board to listen to us because if we shut down your budget and force you to look and listen to what we're saying my second point my question is are there any more incentives that are going to be disappearing from the budget um what do you mean any more incentives you mean well you said we are losing an incentive yes the the way the the way the merger worked the first year of the merger we got an eight cent discount the second year of the merger this current year we got a six cent discount the budget going forward has a four cent discount and then the fourth year of the merger the 21-22 year we will have a two cent a two cent merger incentive so out of the four cents that the Rochester budget went up two cents of that was because of the loss of that incentive okay no that's fine i don't i don't need that information i don't care that much about that so but my point is um were the loss of the incentive calculated out and shown as what it what the merger was actually going to cost was that actually represented in the merger when the merger was presented as being a more affordable option there was yeah there was a there was a whole lot more expensive so we're done good okay documents show that at this point we would have been up over i would need to find it to give you exactly but it showed i believe we were up to a dollar seventy already at this point you can't go by that well if you're you can't have it both ways yeah but that is ridiculous that was not that was that was that was part of the time and we've also tried to let everyone just speak once thank you thank you for your thoughts does anyone else have any well if you'd let me speak i have one more question how far the threshold are we monetarily uh this but where do you have that here give me a minute i can that she doesn't subtract out i believe all of the possible um deductions that we have it she only reduces it up together there you see if you go down if you add them all together of what are all possible uh deductions for the teachers retirement and all that it was a simple question how much under the i mean the budget you've all approved it how much under the threshold are we the threshold is eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty six dollars and the per people spending with this budget is eighteen thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars and eighty five so two kids could move in two high school kids could move in and we're done we're over the threshold yep am i right um you know it doesn't exactly work like that because when they have high school kids move in they also raise the adm uh actually a little bit higher than uh than their actual because a high school kid houses like one point three as an equalized student or one point two rather carl i actually think they set whether you're in the penalty or not at the base on the budget that you approve i don't believe that expenses you incur after a budget is set such as pupils moving in push you into the penalty answer the question that way what i was trying to say was that was that uh going forward is that yes we are we are very close to the uh to the threshold um you know going forward if someone moved in that would not necessarily put it into the panel you're absolutely that was a bad example but we need to spend eighteen thousand dollars or nineteen thousand dollars which could happen very easily with a broken type or something like that then i mean this is a tight budget it is because we want to have the we we we want to uh you know keep the spending to do a minimum wow so this yeah okay this is rob partner is uh have i got a space you do rob go ahead so i i don't want to say two things first that uh it's it's great to hear from joanne again my partner on that committee and i would disagree with her as to her big surprise impression of the um of the success of that committee i thought it was a failure and second of all i just want to thank you guys for working on this difficult this difficult work i know how hard it is for you i appreciate all the time and heartache you're putting into it that's all i have to say and good night to you too joanne god love you yeah i love you too rob okay thank you everybody i think uh i think uh unless there's someone else that has has not spoken and has something uh to to add uh we should adjourn this meeting or we have a special meeting uh uh that we will warn for 7 p.m on uh uh thursday the uh what's that's the first is that a non-public too i think yeah we have to uh we have to uh finish with the public and tell them when we're having our next meeting and then move into our non-public yes part of thursday is the 21st okay so we will have a uh a meeting to uh approve the warning on a special meeting uh via zoom uh or via uh google meet at 7 p.m on thursday the 21st um we're going to go into uh non-public sessions so thank you everybody for participating i hope we uh we'll see you then um rey let us know when uh when uh we are just you know orca is gone and we are uh boards we're to i'm sorry actually the first thing i need to do is we need to entertain a motion to enter executive session to discuss a personnel matter do i do i hear a second second motion has been made in second to move into non-public uh uh session to discuss a personnel matter thank you everybody for attending the open portion of our meeting shortly we have come out of the executive session um you know yes everyone is everyone is is really really uh at edge about this building i'm just not sure i personally don't you know don't know how we can how we can handle the situation in a timely fashion and be and be realistic short of just you know saying it's you know we're going to knock down this building for the for the cost of this uh uh you know here and we're going to just put everyone there and i think that's that's that's that's a tough sell and you know understanding the bonding and understanding how to do that um you know is we're going to have a hard enough so once we do decide on a building of raising the money to fix whatever building we choose um so that's a whole nother part of it but um i i i think we've sort of run out of polite alternatives i mean you say flip a coin and in some ways there's arguments you can make either way you know you can say the future of school education in this valley is the high school building um and we should hold on to it for dear life which is what i think we've sort of been doing is this sort of you know sort of back door um but it's definitely not um and we you know we we got shot in the foot of we going to do all this community engagement we had all these plans and it's just too slow that's what we're here and again it's too slow i think you're we are in a crisis i mean you know we were a crisis is going to force us to make a decision i don't have the right answer but some of the decision may happen naturally and that quite frankly all specialist teachers may for the foreseeable future be traveling into kids classrooms and kids not traveling through the hallways so that might make a decision and maybe it's time to approach uh rochester town uh to see if they even really have an interest in that high school building with the idea that maybe we would still use the music space and we would pay $500 i don't know making up a number um from the meeting that that one meeting that we were really hoping carl said to it today to get up and running was a group of community members who were excited who wanted the building there were multiple groups there was the seniors that wanted the building there was child care that wanted the building we were so excited about this unfortunately we met we were getting ready to meet again and and suddenly covid happened and so you know that just really threw everything out the window right i have a hard time with that we need more i hear what you're saying lindy of that possibility that we're going to be going into classrooms more i'm actually wondering do we are we going to need more space so the kids are sitting farther apart or we're going to actually need to have more square footage you know and it's just well that's not possible in stockbridge it is through the use of multipurpose room and different we we divide kids up in the library i just want to say any you like froze i i don't know if you had more to say if you froze what were the libraries i just i'm so just don't know about the future and you mentioned about things coming into the classroom existing classrooms and i'm wondering if now with we're going to need to social distance more and we're going to need bigger classrooms or we're going to divide the class up more and we're going to actually need more square footage to be able to teach them all at once to only have five kids in a classroom um i sent you the article that was enclosed in some of the european schools that are opening up and what they're doing and they are ahead of us um and that's the purpose of it just to be able to see what's going on over there um um but i agree we do need to figure out a way to Bruce i mean i can i know what my doctor's and jesse is doing in taiwan but what are they their social distancing their testing temperature um they have masks what else are they doing um well you can see actual pictures in some of the articles uh of them the classroom rearranging uh rearrangements that have been done um and there's i think france is in there i i think maybe italy uh and one of the scandinavian countries maybe it's denmark um you know and what what each of them are doing if you take a look it's an odds and ends uh um okay carl i really want to let rey go home uh do we have to uh i agree we have to know what we did in non-public cook no action or whatever it is i guess right um we we took no action in non-public um we've set our next meeting time for thursday at seven i would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved seconded this was not fun it was not um all right we will uh gather again on thursday good night everybody thanks thanks rey thank you rey thank you rey thanks carol pick care for me and bonnie board members thanks