 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you So we're gonna start. Thank you for being here I'm superintendent Mike Morris of the Amherst Palm Regional Schools on behalf of the school committee who you hear from in a little bit We really want to thank people for attending today's four town meeting Just have some typical business to do at the beginning a little different than typical business We usually do when we're upstairs at the middle school But I want to let people know that I want to thank Amherst media for waking up early on a Saturday morning And being here it is being shown right now streamed to online. So anyone can access the meeting as well as being shown on Channel 17 Amherst media channel 17 in Amherst. So thank you Amherst media for doing that. I wanted to let everyone know that that was happening and Before we get into some of the logistics, we're not going to do a roll call vote because with this many boards and people I think it would just it's impractical But I'm going to go town by town just if people want to call their rep if they have a quorum call their representative boards to order And we'll go and reverse alphabetical order today just to mix it up a little bit. So I'll start with shoots very so for folks from shoots Are there any quorums of elected officials present on the call? Yes, yes, the shoes bracelet board is got a quorum. So I'll call the shoes bracelet board to order And yes, the shoots very finance committee has a quorum. We'll call that meeting order Great. I'm guessing that school committee probably does not in shoots very But if I'm mistaken someone can pipe in and let me know I'm wrong So then we'll go to our good friends in Pelham. Mr. Tricky There are no quorums in Pelham today Okay, very good and in Leverett then Leverett school committee has a quorum. We'll call that meeting to order now, right? Any other boards or committees have quorum and Leverett Leverett finance committee can call to order Great. Thank you, and Any other Anything else in Leverett? Okay, and then I will go to Amherst I can look at Miss McDonald because I think I do see a quorum of Our committee Yes As far as I can tell we have full attendance from the regional school committee So I'm calling to order the meeting of the Amherst Pelham regional school committee. I think you know one other committee to Order this meeting of the Amherst school committee. Thank you. Sure. Miss Griezmer Mike could we identify the people who are on the phone because we have six? Oh That's a good point. Thank you for that So I do see a number of people on the phone. I think I see too, so You're on the phone to identify We are and what town and what role you're playing Thank you, Steve And I see one other number on the call who's a one other person the call who's a phone in I'm not sure Lynn and And I help with that. Okay, Julie shyly from Leverett. Can you hear me now? I can Thanks, I don't know if Tom Hankinsen isn't is in the meeting But if he is then we have a quorum for the select board if he isn't I guess we don't I See him in the call Okay, so then do you want to hold on? You're more certain. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mike Thanks, so again before we get into details I just want to do a little bit of Google Meet orientation I know some people are more familiar than other people with it The sort of four things I want to go over one is if you want to see the 45 people And if you would like to see all of them You can click there are On the lower right and if you click on those and go to change layout Something will come up and I see that there's a hand up. I'll get to it one second And if you click on tiled Probably the default one At the bottom of scroll all the way to the right where it says the maximum number of tiles You'll get it'll let you scroll all the way or click and drag. I should say all the way to form 9 And Everybody very small boxes Uh, you don't have to do that But I know some people like seeing everybody in the room and so you can eat again don't need to do it But you do like to see everybody that's I see there's a hand My next thing I was going to go over Lauren was actually about how to raise hand and you've already showed how that works But why don't you go ahead? Shoots for a school pretty nice great I Think Dorothy just joined the meeting. I don't know if that pushes you to quorum It does and so I would like to call the town council of the Amherstown council to order So the second thing I want to go over is I'd request that unless you're presenting or speaking you need yourself So the way you do that is if you look at the kind of center of the bottom There is a little microphone Like I just did and if you if it's unclipped it won't be the other sneaky Hey Sneaky fast way is if you do control D that'll let you toggle on and off from being muted or unmuted So if you're a point-and-click person click on the microphone If you like the shortcuts and you're on a computer control D will let you Meet yourself or not meet yourself The third thing I was going to go over which Lauren just showed is there's a raise hand feature Given the number of people on the call I think for the rest of the call if people do want to jump in and there'll be lots of opportunities to do so If you look towards the bottom of your screen, there's an icon of a raised hand It says raise hand under it. If you click on it, you can see that the hand goes up hopefully you can see that on my screen and Dr. Slaughter myself will be able to track that and we'll try to go in the order that we see Raised hands. I think just given the size of the group would be hard if people are jumping in without using that mechanism The last one and perhaps most important one We don't need it now and maybe we'll hold to dr. Slaughter's presentation. There's a way that what's called pin something And if you what that allows you to do is make one thing cover either most or all of your screen Certainly, you don't need to do that for me right now You can look at my office, which is like way less cool than some of the backgrounds. I'm seeing in other people's Sarah best. This is a little of my favorite. Sorry. She did specifically for the pandemic and painting and lovely background But at some point when dr. Slaughter is presenting and there's lots of numbers on a screen It's gonna be pretty important to be able to Look, you know that presentation was I think emailed yesterday by dr. Slaughter to some folks But I think as we're following along When we get the presentation up we can pin that if you want to try it now You certainly can if you hover over anybody Just put your mouse over anyone could be yourself You'll see like looks like a to me a thumbtack if you click that it says pin to screen and It will show up larger. So it's more visible than everything else And so I think it is gonna be something that is useful for you Later in the meeting. I don't think it's it's super useful now But I wanted to just preview that because I think later on we'll be talking about it The last thing I mentioned a little earlier was about breakout rooms. There was an email this week From Sasha Figueroa asking Towns to set up their own breakout room. We thought that that might be a better way If if a town is struggling with that, please let me know we certainly can do one for you It just seemed like you know people it made it made sense to us that each town would have their own Unique breakout room that they could use Lastly, this is an instruction just acknowledgement that our state representative mini Dom is here Thank you Mindy for being here appreciate it and state senator Joe Comerford is here So thank you Joe so much for joining us. We know you've been doing tremendous work at the state house on you know the current fiscal year as odd as that sounds and You know got to the end point it sounds like this week of Working between the house and the Senate so we're deeply appreciative of your ongoing support and you know Mindy was a Joe Excuse me with email me this morning with have you seen this and you know, that's the kind of support we get from our legislators We are kept in the loop, you know our school committee certainly is very active in reaching out and advocating on On all of our behalf's our towns our schools and so we just appreciate your responsiveness and spending a Saturday morning with Us because we know how busy you all are so thank you both for being here I think You did the call to order just going down my list of things So I want to the same thing I say every year is this is a public meeting But it is not there's no public comment on the agenda. There will be no votes taken. It's an opportunity for the towns and the school district to share fiscal realities Both from the school side and the towns. This is the first of multiple four town meetings this year The short preview I'll offer is that it's it's highly likely That we may need more than two four town meetings this year because of the complexity of the situation We find ourselves in some of that's COVID related and as you're going to see some of that's just You know, there's new EQV and values change and some years the relationship between the towns fiscally Works better and some years it works worse and the short story is this is not one of the years it works better Through no one's fault. It's just when we plug in the formulas with the updated information and enrollments Some years it sort of evens out and smooths out between the towns and some years It leads to some disparities that need lots of discussion and this is really one of those years So the combination of having less certainty For very understandable reasons on the state front in terms of the next fiscal year As well as having some challenges that are unrelated to COVID and unrelated to the state Probably are going to require us to have some additional meetings this year So not that anyone wanted to hear what I just said, but I figured I'd want to preview that at the beginning So everyone was aware of that I think at this point I'd love to turn to allison mcdonalds who's the chair of the regional school committee Who I know also wanted to offer a brief welcome before we get into the details Thank you. Dr. Morris. Um, and I'll just echo I think a sentiment that dr. Morris expressed earlier on Really really deeply appreciative of everybody um, coming on this dreary saturday morning, um, this uh, this is an unprecedented year of challenge and um, the challenges are not insignificant or few um, and I really am appreciative that this many people are committed to quality um And are willing to give so much of our time Um to that effort. So thank you very much for um being here today Thank you allison and and for some people it's raining and as we heard earlier some people it's snowing right now So, uh, we're glad that we're in a virtual environment because the drive back up the hill might have been a pretty tough one for some folks Uh at at 10 30 or 11 o'clock this morning Uh, last kind of ground rules we've held you in the past as we will end this meeting by 11 o'clock I actually think today there's a high likelihood. We'll end well before 11 because the information we have today Is so preliminary and there's there's more variables than normal. This is a typical timing early december when our four towns would get together Um, but the number of variables is much greater now than it typically would be so We're viewing this as an initial snapshot initial dialogue Then to be followed up with much more, uh, conversation as we head into the new year Uh, and my last introductory comment. I know no one came today to hear me Talk but I do want to really thank the region the four towns for continuing to come up with compromises continuing to support our regional schools It's it's my fifth year in the job. It feels like every year. There's some new New thing that we're managing a new financial element. We haven't thought about before It's not easy. Uh, it's never been easy. It continues to be harder and harder In many ways and yet I really want to appreciate all the work that everybody has done To come from their town's perspective as they rightfully should But to come together to support a regional school district that um is performing very highly as very good ratings from external bodies And that's only because of the support of the four towns I think I do see before we get into sort of the meat of the Presentation, I think I did see a couple hands go up or at least one Um, Darcy, did I see your hand go up? And if so, you you know, you can certainly jump in I just put my hand up because I'm off camera, but there's no indication that I'm here Um, I see you, um, you know, or maybe we can see ourselves That's a setting that you could control locally whether you see yourself or not, right? And there's no judgment or no statements about whether that's Something that's advisable or advisable I've gotten some feedback that some people love not they only see themselves in a tiny screen in the upper right hand corner Uh, and they uh, they they appreciate that Other folks, uh, you know would like to see themselves. So that's actually without getting into too much detail That's a local setting that you can set on your own computer Whether you want to see yourself in the grid or you prefer not to Okay, thanks. Sorry Thanks, Darcy, and I saw a question come through in the chat about the presentation emailed and once I turn it over to Doug, uh, I think I should be able to email that same listserv who got the invitation with the presentations That's no problem at all Are there any other before we get into again the the majority of the agenda which is looking at financial projections for next year and Are there any other clarifying questions before we I turned it over dr. Slaughter and He runs through some slides Okay, I'm not seeing any, um, you know, I think the last thing I didn't mention before is I think there is the chat feature, uh, which um has been used a couple times If you want to use that towards the top upper right ish of your screen Uh, there's a little icon that um has three lines across it and that allows you to chat My recommendation is we only use chat how it's been used for clarifying information, you know Could we get this presentation? This is the shortcut. I think for content based dialogue My my request is that we we use the old fashioned way and we raise hands and we do that orally and not get into Something where the content of the presentation is is done on chat So if that's agreeable to everyone, I hope it is if it's not, you know, you can raise your hand But the norm I would like to set is that is for purely informational pieces not for for content or a real discussion So for those of you who are the first time at the 410 meeting, uh, typically how it works as a finance director In this case, Dr. Slaughter will go through Uh an update on financials, uh, both in terms of operating budget and capital with anticipated needs and requests There's clarifying questions at delineated points Uh, and then at the end each town is able to go into its own meeting Uh to talk about from its only its own perspective. We come back Today, we're not asking for any decision. Um But we uh, you know, we want to come back and just let people be able to share what they want to share We have received public guidance emails from the town of leverett not to exceed a 1.5% financial increase and percent increase And from the town of amers, um to be flat in terms of the assessment that is being requested these I know our initial, um, but you know, as we typically do we shed those publicly so that the other towns are aware Uh consistent with past practice shoots very and palom is not sent sent a specific Uh guidance in that way that comes more organically in those communities through discussion and dialogue at four town meetings And with their finance committee and select boards With all that said 19 minutes in sorry, Doug. Uh, I'll pass it over to Doug slaughter I'm going to just take one minute to email this presentation out to the group which can take me about 90 seconds. I'm sure Doug can fill that with some background information before we start start showing slides Absolutely, thank you, Mike. Um, good morning and welcome to everyone. Uh I've been in these meetings for a number of years typically in a different role having served on select board members before the changing government And on its finance committee previous to that and so Um, I've I've been in your chairs as it were and so I appreciate your time and effort to come in and listen To us sort of paint the picture this year I'll just reiterate from what the superintendent just said that that This is preliminary. There's a lot of open questions. Uh, no one's fault. No one's You know lack of due diligence. It's just the nature of the circumstance We find ourselves in and so we're trying to give you an order of magnitude sort of sense of Of where things sit at the current time So you can start thinking about it and and have some information as you start to go through the process Of constructing the budgets in each of your towns and thinking about how you're going to support our schools Um So I'll I'll start with that. Well, just to lay out the agenda a little bit That's actually this first slide. I'll I'll first talk about sort of what we think's going to happen revenue wise Things that are coming into uh Into our schools to help support our budget Then I'll talk about what we think is going to happen relative to expenses Um, then we'll we'll get into some scenarios around assessment methods a little bit um Then I'll get into capital and sort of explain that that'll be the more straightforward piece Um, and then we'll have an opportunity to to discuss uh at some length, you know, sort of where each of the towns Sit relative to their budgets and and what we've presented to you um So we might give you advanced actually two slides to the to the third One in the slide I want to make sure checking on two things one is I'll do that in a second But this is the time when we talk before about pinning where if you do hover over The presentation it should give you the option to pin to the screen And that's going to make the presentation more visible Taking the suggestion. It's also been emailed to everybody who received the invitation of this meeting So if it's easier to follow in any direction, you can but I just wanted to do the tech minute for a second But doug, I'll I'll go ahead to This slide. Yeah, that's the one. So um superintendent mentioned this earlier This is an outside rating agency. It's uh niche.com. You know, they rank school districts And so the good news I'll start with the good news today We have a very very good school district We should be proud of that and it takes a lot of work and effort to uh to make that happen by a lot of different people in a lot of different ways And so that you know, we still continue to have a very very good school system And I think the thing I've been thinking about recently in in working through the numbers and stuff is is that We're always in a state of change You know, whether we're you know working within financial constraints or or financial opportunities Or we're trying to advance the way and what we teach and how we teach The children of our communities We're always in an evolving modality And so we're we're trying to get Better at what we do and we're trying to do that in a financially responsible way and so We've had success obviously as as demonstrated on this slide, but we're going to continue working and and continue to try to get better Um next slide, please mike And so we have a vision for schools. This is a slide. I didn't write this slide. Mr. Mangano wrote this last year I think it excellently captures what we're trying to do here. We're trying to be cooperative in our process We're trying to have a lot of opportunity for our children Uh and and do it in a way that that we can afford and it is is uh cost-conscious as well as uh You know creating a series of programs that kids Want to participate in and get a lot of rich educational experience from And so this is this is sort of what is our uh foundational or or uh Centering, you know philosophy that helps guide us whether we're working on it from a educational side or a financial side um, so next i'll step into our financial Our revenue projections for next year. So next slide, please Hold on if we could hold for one second Um, so two things one is I just want to note Uh, and I know dr. Slaughter will in a minute um that it's been You know the challenge has been that two of the last three fiscal years have been particularly hard for the regional schools We appreciate the four towns coming together, but maintaining the vision in an era of um significant budget budget reductions has been Been a challenge. So I think I don't want to go to the negative place dug But I also just want to reference that is um, we have had to make reductions in like child study Program which no longer exists at the school and somewhere home back and and some other programs Cooking that that no longer there. We've done that through efficiencies. Um, but it is a challenge The other thing I want to stop you is I believe tom hankinsons in the room So I don't know if that is going to cause someone to call a meeting to order Yeah, I'd like to call the leverage select board to order Great. Thank you. Julie. All right. Sorry dug and I'll turn it back. Yeah, all right So we'll head to that next slide. So you'll notice, uh, just to orient you a little bit. I've got a sort of three color system Uh, while yellow tends to be caution. It's actually sort of neutral. Uh, can be a little cautionary Certainly red is an area of concern. And so you'll see a lot of red on these next few slides Uh as sort of a stoplight system. Uh, and it's mostly because there's so much unknown Um, so starting with chapter 70 these that's our primary source of state aid Uh, we're at this point projecting no change from our current year. Um, You know, this, uh, is, you know, subject for debate at the legislative level And so, you know, we're hopeful that that even though there's some enrollment decline this year There's a lot of unknowns for a lot of school districts about their enrollment for next year Next year's aid is based on this year's enrollment as of october And so that that could have an impact on us. Uh, but right now we're we're projecting a level funding from from the state regional transportation aid regional school districts because they tend to travel more miles getting students bus to school get support for that By virtue of regional transportation aid that was one of the things when regionalization happened in the 50s That they use as an incentive To help the these districts, uh, afford to transport the kids It varies year to year of how much the state's able to support that and what level it is One of the key pieces though is how much transportation costs we have to report We're going to have less transportation costs this year. It's not zero But it is it is less by some degree and that will create less Transportation aid to us. We've projected about $20,000 less And when we get to the charge, you'll see that instead of $800,000 for the support will be about $780,000 of support We'll refine that number as we go along Charter tuition reimbursement, uh, when we send kids to charter school or when kids go to charter school They choose to go to charter school We have to pay tuition for that In the first years that they go the state helps ease the burden of that shift And so they give us a reimbursement to help ease that transition For us financially We have currently about $350,000 projected for this year in in reimbursement Obviously on the other side of the coin is what that costs and we'll get to that in a bit But we think as best we can guess at this point on what the states told us what they think Is going to happen We're going to hold that number flat in other words by virtue of number of kids We think we have and how the reimbursement works We think that that reimbursement level will be fairly steady from this year to next year Moving on excess in END is excess in deficiency. It's in the town parlance. It's called free cash It's essentially savings anytime we have a residual at the end of the fiscal year can go into END There are caps on how much we can hold And so, uh, you know, we try to manage that we want to have some of that resource available to us We did a more significant spending from that savings account to support this year's budget We did some You know, we didn't have as much carryover from fiscal 20 So that will limit how much of of that we can use to support our budget In fiscal 22 So that's a cautionary And concerning area as well that could change as well a little bit as far as what's able to support the budget but we want to be conscientious of using our savings account because that money isn't recurring. It's a one-time availability of use Medicaid we provide services to students that are eligible for Medicaid reimbursement They've changed the mechanism by which we file and and receive that and so it's it's a little more complex It's reduced our our our income from that a little bit Also being in a more remote Circumstance we provide fewer of those services. So I've made a $50,000 decrease in that estimate of of revenue It it is also an area of you know, sort of high unpredictability about how that will play out In previous years, we could have counted on generally about $120,000 worth of that kind of revenue I think it will have a A pretty significantly smaller amount this year And so that's just another another piece of the puzzle from an income standpoint that that Makes it a difficult financial year coming up Next slide, please Before I roll forward just one thing to note because I know it'll come up that No, the charter tuition reimbursement no increase in charter. Well, that's negative on the revenue side That's that's actually a good thing on the cost side. So that it just It comes up a lot because you're you know, when we lose charter school students It's a net negative for sure financially But we it actually looks good on the revenue side because we get more reimbursement. So We have seen a flattening Of charter school out students and that's overall a good thing for a budget It plays out not so well on the revenue side, but on the other side, it's a net positive So I just wanted to I know it's a it's a cumbersome explanation. So sorry to do it, but I just think hopefully it Some of you've heard that before but if wanted to clarify that but I'll I'll forward the slide Thank you So on the expense side You know our payroll accounts we are of course Because we just don't have enough complexities in our schedule this year all our contracts in june 30th of Uh 21 actually our food service contract is is in a single year continuation from from last year So all of our contracts are are due for uh renegotiation So that makes projecting out a little bit difficult We've certainly taken a you know Our staff is getting a little bit younger. We've had a fair number of retirements over the last few years and so More people get steps in our you know shower grid But then also we we will have to negotiate uh whether you know Whether and how much there will be a cost of living increase for the coming year And or you know negotiate the contract as a whole And so that's one thing that it's working on our on our budget a little bit and and has been factored into the The things i'll show you but it's a bit of a big unknown and as that plays out will We'll uh continue to refine that projection the other thing to keep in mind and this influences our budget in a more subtle way more along the lines of substitutes um tutors that we have come in for uh ELL services that sort of thing is that the minute statement of wage is going up to Ultimately to $15 per hour Each january over the last couple of years. It's gone up Last year went up 75 cents per hour this year will go up another 75 cents per hour following year ago another 75 cents. So it's it's progressing at a relatively aggressive rate, which is fine. I think it's a you know the appropriate thing to do You know morally for sure and and so it does put pressure on our budgets in sort of subtle ways That that don't get thought of a lot but we have you know a a Number of employees that that are hourly that are at will type employees That minimum wage change has an impact on those on those salaries. Um It's a sort of rising tide lifts all boats circumstance Which is the intention of changing and setting the minimum setting the minimum wage and then changing it in a positive direction So that also impacts our budget and we have to account for that Um, so regular intuition So this is where we come back to where we get charged for some of our charter and and the other piece of that is our Choice out students students who have decided to utilize the option of school choice and attend another school Or to choose to go to a charter school and so we get charged a tuition there Um, we think there's going to be you know a modest increase in what we're currently being charged That doesn't you know with 102,000 that we're predicting there's a five percent increase Um You know, that's not the total bill. That's just the increase in the bill So it's a it's a pretty significant expense line in in our budget. Uh, and and uh, you know You've heard regal school community members talk about this about the whole of of uh, How the charter schools are funded and we can spend a whole day on that but I won't go into that But nonetheless, it is an expense. We have to you know, keep that in mind Uh, if there are increases in our number of students that decide to do choice for charter, uh, they do have a relatively They they have a negative impact on our on our budget Oh That sorry is that uh, we'll know more uh in theory in about a month Uh, so this is a conservative estimate and that's one of the reasons we want to come back because typically Uh in late december we get the charter counts. Um Being that the year it was the state gave School districts including charter school districts more time to fill in their some of their enrollment information this year So we may not have that usually we come to the january meeting in that number It's not fixed. It's still a projection, but we have a lot better sense right now I think very appropriately dr. Slaughter's having a conservative estimate on that. The reality is this is a huge variable and we just don't know Um, because we don't even have the can't the counts for this current fiscal year let alone for next year So again, these this is one of the variables by which we're suggesting Uh, this is a very preliminary Discussion today because we the number of variables is huge that we don't know That's right. Just to to paint the picture a number of things are driven by what are called You know the october 1 numbers So all school districts in the state are required to report student information as of october 1 It's typically due by about the third week of october That guy delayed significantly. I think uh well into november By virtue of the complexity of this school year, you know remote learning and attendance and you know There's a lot of factors that they capture in that data and so it's it's delayed that which then delays the ability of the state to To to sort of run the numbers on these other aspects like charter and choice and and those sort of things So we're hopeful they'll still be able to to get information to us by the end of december But it may bleed into january a little bit um Moving on in special education tuition, you know, it's always uh An interesting circumstance here. This is something that can change significantly by virtue of a single family moving into the district Or moving out of the district. Um, but we think that it's going to be a fairly modest Uh, you know our projection to this point is the number of kids we have and the cost that we have associated with that Is going to stay fairly steady and so we're dealing with mostly an inflationary type increase in that so it's it's not as You know Difficult as it might be in in some circumstances. Um, you know, there are years when we know we're anticipating Some kids moving into our regional district and and significantly impacting that number But I it is not the case this year Those moving in and those moving out are going to kind of balance each other out And so it's really how the cost of the programs change that we're trying to factor in there So it's a fairly modest increase for next year If you move to the next slide, please so um Continue with the expense projections transportation, uh, you know, uh fiscal 21 was was is the first year of a new contract so the We typically do a five-year transportation contract with our with our busing vendor as well as having our own buses in in the system um That increase from one contract the next is pretty significant usually it's about 10 was the boost Um, but from a year over year once you're in the contract, we typically use a cpi a basically an inflationary factor um Projecting that's going to be out of one percent inflation for for that So it's a fairly modest increase in our in our transportation cost Very modest in a lot of ways It it could be I mean it depending on the nature of how the you know economic factors play out for this year It could be and we've had years where this is the case where it's actually a negative number and actually we Are going to spend less, but we'll see how that plays out But we're we're projecting it's likely to go up a little bit and so that's that's a a modest increase in our transportation costs our health insurance You know, we always take a very conservative approach to what we think is going to happen with health insurance from one year to the next It's a it's a fairly large item within our budget To offer that benefit to our staff and our and our retirees We think you know, we'll start with a five percent increase From what we have right now We're hopeful that that will get better as we as we move along And and hopefully that you know, that will will be something that will be moderated a little bit as we go through the process And help ease the burden of our Our projections of our costs Our pensions, you know the hampshire county retirement pension is is one we we get you know I don't want to say dictated to us, but in a sense they've they've produced their numbers for the coming year And what our assessment is to based on our retirees and and the folks that we had worked for us and and earned that retirement pension The the increase is seventy three thousand dollars and about a four percent 4.6 percent increase That's the probably the firmest number in the entire presentation because that's literally they printed sent it to us This is your number. So that's probably the most confident Number I have in the whole the whole of the projections, but it's it's pretty typical to be in that four and a half to even as high as six and a half percent sometimes but it's it's it's You know a number we can hang our hat on for one of those numbers So if we could move to the next slide, please We'll talk about what and I've mentioned some of these since I've gone along What are the things that are are likely to change? Well, the simple answer is everything except for our retirement pension costs for hampshire county retirement Um, I think the one that's likely most likely to improve and be a little bit better for us is health insurance I'm hopeful that we're not going to be as high as a five percent increase in our rates. Um We had low enough claims during the latter part of of Last fiscal year that the insurance company gave us a uh a one half month premium discount So the the employees and the district benefited from the the cost of The premium was reduced in half one month So that was a helpful thing for our budget this year and for our employees in their own personal finances But I'm hopeful that you know our continued Good health of our employees will keep our insurance rates steady and not Increase as much and so that's an area that could get much better And you know the difference in a percentage point can be you know Pretty significant on our budget Things that could get worse or or just are really in some ways. Some of this is is more It's just a high level of unknown more than worse necessarily Chapter 70 is one that's really open-ended at this point. I think we're we're uh, you know hopeful that we'll be able to maintain the the level of funding that that we got this year. Um Obviously we'd appreciate if they could give us more but at the same time We're hopeful that they won't That it will turn out that we don't have a reduction in that but it's it's a bit of an open question still as as we go along and hopefully Uh, it'll be to our favor Our regional transportation aid again. I think the question here is sort of what is our Um, you know, there's always the question of how much they're going to to fund that how you know What level they're going to fund that but also it's our what are our costs going to be? Um, and and our costs will vary considerably depending on how much Uh, transportation we do during the course of the year so as we go through the spring and and uh And have in person school or don't have in person school and how much of that we have will all influence how much Cost we have and therefore how much we can ask for and reimbursement um And of course special education tuition like I mentioned before this as you know can change significantly by you know A single family moving in with with a particularly high need student. Um That's just the nature of what we have. There are of course Uh, you know some remedies in this in the state. They have a program called circuit breaker Um, and they have an extraordinary circuit breaker. So if you really have an Truly high cost circumstance come up. You do have some relief in the even in the Uh current fiscal year, but nonetheless, that's one that can change Uh pretty dramatically at times Uh and and have a profound impact on our budgets And so I wanted to keep those things in people's minds that there's a lot that can change and will change Uh even over the next, you know, a few weeks is as more clarity comes in into the picture here um So if we could move to the next slide where we're going to get to uh The assessment methods and so we take those um, you know those uh Revenue projections well, we start with you know, what do we think it's going to cost to to run level services and others? Taking the programmatic Programming that we have in hand and the people that takes to do that We essentially roll that over to the next year and say what's that cost to to do our our work in the same way We did the previous year and that's where we start. Um, We'll often make adds and cuts to that based on the needs of of our students and and our financial needs We take into account the revenues That we're receiving so that transportation aid chapter 70 etc etc And then, you know, the difference between those those inputs of revenue and the and the expenses that we've calculated We get an amount of money that we're going to assess to each of the four communities And we have to determine a mechanism a mechanism for doing that um in the original of Uh schools regional schools agreement the regional regional agreement is a five-year rolling average of our of the students Of the number of students and we use that for a number of years um and You know based on the conversations amongst this group of of towns and and fiscal needs and advocacy and and uh, that's our thing We have gone to a modified mechanism of using a statutory method the statutory method uses uh, a complicated formula quite frankly, but it involves both The ability to pay in other words income of individuals within a community as well as The property values within that community or or the eqv as they call it And it uses a combination of that to come up with with What the state recognizes as your level of contribution um And so we we created a split system where we use partly that statutory method and partly our traditional regional agreement method We were in a 30 statutory model With the rest on the regional agreement in in fiscal 20 This current year. We we've moved to a 45 statutory method And and the regional agreement method And so we're going to continue to have this debate and discussion about What's the right way to pay for things? How does it work? What are the constraints under which we all operate? I think we're going to keep ourselves motivated to do the best we can for the students that are attending our schools We're going to you know, i'm i'm hopeful that we'll all listen carefully to each other's Concerns and constraints. There are differences of opinion. I fully expect that And uh, you know, we'll we'll have a few scenarios here that i'm going to lay out as Using this sort of mixed model in a perfect world. We'd get to a place where we have a new Assessment method that we can all agree on for a while. I think this is probably not the year that that's going to happen Way too many things are moving way too much for us to to have that kind of a depth An agreement I think but nonetheless, I want us to to keep in mind You know, we're all trying to work for the same thing Which is an excellent school district and and and operate within the realities of all our fiscal constraints and so I'll uh, I'll ask the superintendent to switch the next slide and so this is this is um And this is going to be a little tough to see. I hope you can make your way through and i'm gonna I'm going to sort of orient you to the the slides a little bit here Each of the colored columns Are representative of different mechanisms to Pay for the the coming school year. So the left two columns are the last two fiscal years And so So fiscal 20 the very first column Is at that 30 uh statutory and the remainder of the assessment done by our our A regional agreement method based on rolling average The second column is fiscal 21 the one we're in now, which is at a 45 percent Statutory method and so as we go from left to right The first column presented for fiscal 22 is at the 45 percent The next column is at 55 percent the third column is at 65 percent The fourth column is if we were to go fully to a hundred percent statutory method And when we use the statutory method in each of those four columns We're using a five-year rolling average of that statutory method And the reason for that is it mitigates any spikes And that's part of why we we originally Had the method of using a five-year rolling average of of of students Because it tends to you mitigate any peaks or valleys by virtue of a sudden shift in in enrollment in the Classic assessment method and even in in the statutory method the statutory method you know you sort of think about your towns The value of the property and the incomes of the people that live there don't tend to change Significantly year to year but it's it's interesting and surprising sometimes to see how How dramatically those those numbers can shift year to year for any of the member communities And so by using an average over five years we tend to smooth that out a little bit makes those differences a little less dramatic the fifth column Sort of light peach color is the 100 percent statutory based on a single year of of statutory numbers and then the final column is this the classic five-year rolling average of of enrollment And so that's our sort of you know In the regional agreement method that's the method we used in in years previous to the last few So going sort of down by rows at this point the very first row is is The overall budget for level services We we make an assumption about cuts we will need and part of the choice there is arbitrary There's no cuts that have been identified. This is and i'm going to show another slide with a different level of cuts um, but the idea here is We recognize Understanding what the next section includes which is our revenue so that middle section is the revenues We expect chapter 78 transportation reimbursement, etc. I spoke of in our in our Uh previous slides with that middle section with the revenues reduces You know cover some of the cost of our operating budget and then we we get down to to that assessment required line Which is you know about five from the bottom and that line Across the board is is sort of what we're asking each of the communities to to contribute And so as we change the number of cuts Involved it changes that assessment required And then the various methods of portion that cost in those bottom four lines to each of the four communities and so um as we Dr. Morris has switched to the to the second slide here, which has a one million dollar amount of cuts by the district And you can see how that changes the the assessment and the you know The percentage next to the assessment is the change from fiscal 21 right Before we transition slides, I just want to note and emphasize for everybody that um On the first set of slides and this is what I referenced earlier. It's going to be a very difficult year Trying to balance the percentages of the towns out was not easy Um, but I'll do my education piece, which is this is a 1.4 million dollar cut to the schools Um, the schools will not look like the regional schools that people have known With a 1.4 million dollar cut, you know, we've we've we've I think done thanks to dr. Slotter mr. Mungano You can also think for the shading of these boxes because I think they're the same as the past so um, but but more seriously, um, we've made Over a million dollar cuts a couple years ago Last year was over half a million or in the neighborhood of half a million dollar cuts There's no, you know, we've done everything we've tried to not we've just administrative staff We've reduced, you know curriculum budget lines all those pieces There's really not much to cut other than programs and people Working with children So I'm going to be really blunt about that that, you know, we I think we've gotten through When Sam skates because we have cut programs we reduced athletic schedules We have course offerings that no longer exists for our students at our middle school and high school At 1.4 million dollars. We're looking at a radically different school system And so I don't mean to deter Doug because he's doing exactly what he should do Which is talk about the financial reality reality I have to do the part that I have to do which is talking about the educational reality and This this will involve pretty significant cuts huge impact on class sizes Programs and I think the viability of our schools in terms of a very competitive market We've already seen significant reduction of enrollment this year Some of that has to do with COVID related items and people making different choices But at some point, you know, we're well under 900 students in our high school right now. It's the lowest we've been And you know, we're it's in everyone's best interest that we're attracting those students back And so I just wanted to do the thing that I have to do Doug. Sorry to interrupt you Um, which is uh, I can't look at slides with numbers like this and not emphasize the impact it would have On the schools and the viability of them. So Doug can now I'll go on to a slightly But not particularly better version which looks at 1 million dollars of estimated cuts. Um, But that's a nice segue for you Doug. I think hope Right and and so the idea is that you know, I mean The the first slide was, you know Trying to look at, you know, how do we Given the guidance we've gotten from a couple of communities, uh, sort of, you know, how do we make that work? Obviously, that's in the abstract and so in the concrete when when You start to you know, when when dr. Moore starts to think deeply about what That level of cuts starts to mean as far as what what happens in the buildings It it gets to be very very very uncomfortable in that regard even with this one, which is a million dollars That's a very large number of cuts. And so you think well, you know You know, how is it that we're trying to do the same thing and it costs so much more and and there's a number of pieces there There, you know factors outside of control, you know, the cost of things we have negotiated contracts That involve steps that are are And and colas that that have an impact here, you know the cost of health insurance, etc etc that that impact that that cost of doing business And it's expensive to teach kids, you know, just is um and and that's okay in some ways But we you know, we will have to make some really really tough choices about what and who and how we do what we do As we go through trying to, you know reduce our our expenses by a number of this size And so, you know, we're hopeful that, you know, some of the news in the middle section around revenues gets better Or some of our expense lines, uh, you know come in less than we're projecting This is, you know, like I said a fairly Order of magnitude kind of conversation. I think, uh, you know, the specifics are going to change quite a bit But I think what you see in in these slides, you know with the 45 percent, which is where we sit currently Um and a million dollars in cuts to to what we do Um, you know, that's going to increase amorce assessment by about Less than three and a half percent if i'm reading it correctly Um, but but pelham gets hit with about a five and a half percent increase and then um You know leverant and shoot spray have a very modest about levered about 20 About a point two percent increase and and and shoot spray about a point five point six percent increase over over the previous year um And so that's you know, uh an indication of sort of how this this plays in and and how the numbers change from year to year um You know, one of the things that happens, uh, you know just talking about, uh, the averaging an example of such Is is this is that your enrollment may drop, but it depends upon Not only that but how the other town's enrollment has changed as well And so, you know, if you drop your if your average drops by two students, you think oh great I've got a smaller percentage, but if other communities had a larger drop uh your percentage of of You know the uh assessment may go up actually even though you had a reduction in students So it's not a it's not a guarantee if you have fewer students that you'll necessarily have less Likewise, if you think property values in your town have gone down or stayed steady and not gone up or the incomes of your individuals in your community Have stayed uh Have stayed flat, uh, you know the interaction with the other four, uh You know has an impact on on sort of what piece of the pie Uh each each community is is bearing. So that's that's the complexity of of You know any assessment method regardless of how we do it It has that interdependence among the the four communities That that interplays and changes, uh how these look over over time and also Even between different assessment methods um So I think I want to I'm going to pause for just a second see if anybody has questions about this let people digest the The information on this a little bit. We're going to go into capital in a moment, which is going to be a fairly straightforward I think conversation But I want to give a moment because we we've put a big pile of numbers on the screen And I want people to take a second look at it if they have questions about these assessment methods, uh, or or You know Or about any of the assumptions we've talked about, you know I would I would love to to to take those questions at this time for a moment Yep, and just I do want to while we're giving people a chance to potentially raise their hand Do you want to apologize that it took me a little while to Email this presentation correctly, but it should all be in people's inbox as well I see Kathy Shane from Amherst has a question as well. So when I start with Kathy and we'll go to gene Hi, um, can you hear me? I turn my icon high So I I wanted to know with when you get to the numbers dug, um, that you're projecting So on enrollment, um, how much We're down in enrollment, you know, you might talked about the number and how much do you think that's because the school's not physically open Do you have any indication, you know, so would some of those people come back if we were Doing in-person classes so and and and related to that That question about in person versus not in person um, you said in Medicaid That part of the Medicaid projected fall office because we don't have an in-person contact and How much does that matter? So then my my third I'll just give you all three With the operating budget at a level service since we will have contracts open Can you give us some sense as if if there were no new increases negotiated? How much would steps alone increase the budget? and and then what if what have you assumed in that budget, um, about The wage side you've already told us about the health insurance side the wage and salary side just a sense of what's under the operating budget Before you take the 1 million offer before you take the 1.4 million So those are my I think those are my three higher level questions Sure. I can start Doug. Yes, but um, so we did a survey for families who have left the district And this was presented last week. Kat that could send it to you It tried to get at that. I think you're right in terms of the in-person is having an influence But it was pretty mixed in terms of whether families will return or not. I think I think your assumptions that You made we're we're we're born out in the data that we got back But I can share that with you or anyway, it's on our it's on our website But I'll share it with you specifically because I think that question Doug can definitely answer the question about steps in terms of contractual You know any potential impact of colas That's something that we Can't talk about in this public meeting because that would be something that you know The school committee would talk about and then go into negotiations, but the step question I think is is a cleaner one for Doug to be able to take a take a try out Right. Um, just one follow-up on the on the enrollment question. I think, you know, uh, certainly we've experienced, uh, you know Some kids not coming back and part of the rationale for it might be because we're More remote than not I think charter schools have experienced that as well choice decisions have changed for families as well So it's complex on on the reasons why people have made the choices they've made and which ones they've made And it's also going to be a Fairly unknown what decision I'll make next year As to whether they'll return or not. I think it's that's one of the hardest things for us I think it's also hard for our legislators because they're thinking about well, you know, how do we fund chapter 70 which has an enroll You know enrollment as of october is a pretty significant component of that of that calculation Um, and if it's not, you know, uh, reflective of what's going to be, you know, on your doorstep the following year It's a difficult thing. So, uh, I don't envy any of us relative to that and and it's you know, we're trying to sort of plan for, uh Some of those students coming back for sure and hopefully, you know, a number of them do on the on the medic k question, um You know the uh You know, we're doing some of that kind of work I mean, we do provide some of that kind of work even in remote environment We can do it remotely we can do we have some people going in home and doing some work But it's a much more modest amount, which is why I took a fairly conservative estimate about what we think will generate for revenue It's obviously a lot easier for us to provide those services that are reimbursable When we're in our buildings There's an economy of of scale as it were when we have uh, you know Building pool of children and and staff that are in that those buildings They can go from one to the next and and create those those available services essentially Um, and so it's a lot harder when we're when we're remote Um, so we try to to uh estimate sort of that that decline as best as best we can Um relative to the steps, uh, you know, it's about from one step to the next is typically about a four percent increase Roughly, I mean, it's you know, it's not a perfect four percent, but it's about four percent And then how that impacts the whole of the bottom line across the board You know sort depends on our staff and uh, how many of those we have That are not at the top step So once you're at the top step your salary stays the same unless there's a cost of living change, which As a superintendent case is a is a point of negotiation and therefore something we can't really discuss Um, but it but it does have that impact So, you know, it's probably uh, the just the steps alone Pushes the overall salaries up You know, I'd say about three percent. I think we've got a younger staff than we've had so You know, the the early numbers are are pushing in that direction a little bit If you get all way to four some, you know, some steps are more than four percent some are less than four percent. So, you know Three plus is kind of the the neighborhood Of where I think that impacts that piece of of our of our expense there. So I think that's a It's pretty, you know, it's a profound difference, you know from when you're next. I mean, that's a pretty significant cost That that impacts, you know About 80 of our total operating expenses are people You know the people and and and the benefits Of those people whether it be retirement, uh health insurance, etc So that's a, you know, our our, you know lights and utilities and and uh heat and those kinds of things are are much smaller percentage and and as the superintendent indicated We've we've trimmed those we continue to work on on ways to to do those things and be as efficient as we can and And cost effective, uh in those areas um And for example, you know all the school supply lines that we have for you buying clay for art class and You know those types of things, uh, you know in projecting next year Those were held level. There was no change in those those were held at a at a flat number And so there's, you know, no change from the current year in those in those areas Thank you I see three other questions And it's 10 or two you can do the time check. So I think we'll do those three questions Uh, my advice then would be dug to very quickly go through capital because we want to make sure we give time for each time Time for each town to get into a breakout room And we'll have conversation, but next uh was Yeah, just a quick question, uh As far as the town assessments go When you talk about house values and income, is it median or average? Oh, you asked a separate question. Uh, I'm not sure how the factor income exactly All right, because it's a big difference Right, you know, I appreciate that and and uh, you know, it's it's essentially an ability to pay factor I would have to look that up. I don't know about my end. Okay. Thanks And gene we can uh dug can get that and he'll email this whole group on the listserv that I just sent the presentation to So everyone gets the answer to that question. Thanks. Thanks, uh, Mandy. Uh, so you were next Thank you. Um, I just have two quick questions. Um, the first one is Related to the charter not necessarily the reimbursement, but I guess it would be in the budget category Which is with our decline in enrollment this year the cost per student in our In our budget is is increasing and charter tuition directly relates to the school district's cost per student so has that You know, that will increase the number the charter tuition going out to charter schools Even if the number of students going to charter schools doesn't increase has that been Uh factored into the operating budget line Um, so that's my first question and the second one is Given that the students are not in school this year I have to assume that the costs for things like supplies as Doug just said and some other things are Not as high as budgeted and therefore I would expect there's going to be a surplus in this year's budget That would end up in the e and d line into the income for next year. How much of that What is the projected surplus for this year's budget? How much of that is larger than normal projected surpluses? And did you factor that into the use of e and d for next year? okay, so relative to the first question on on On change in per people expense and how that impacts You know I would say at this point, it's not that explicit a calculation relative to that I think the the You know, obviously it is, you know, how that all works and and yet at this point. I think the unknown on how many students Even is is such that it's it's hard to sort of really crunch that number more specifically. So we're still doing a sort of Round estimates of those those numbers Start ahead, but that's about all we know at this point On the second relative supplies, absolutely. We're our budgets are currently frozen So the expenses that we are incurring relative to supplies and that sort of thing is is Is being held in fairly tight hold right now But at the same time we're still going to you know buy things for for kids to use and we do still have supplies and materials that are are Going out to kids, you know, we're spending money on different things Is is the other way to put it so i'm not sure from a surplus standpoint, you know, where we're going to land at this point I'll come back in a second But just to sort of paint the picture supplies, there's still a lot of materials that we get out to students and and are incurring those costs, you know workbooks and and Middle schools, you know You know doing science stuff they're getting, you know science materials out You know, they use more commonplace things, you know that c-mod like chocolate chips and tea bags and marshmallows But that's part of how they teach You know that science to the kids firsthand It's it's more, you know real world sort of stuff that they can deal with less abstract But at the same time we're taking on some expenses in other areas in other words the way in which we have to get that material to folks You know, we're getting some support from some federal programs You know, i'm hopeful they keep you know on the news talking about a second coronavirus relief Bill which would be really good news for us. Um, but their expenses we're taking on to continue to operate and and And and teach schools. So from a surplus standpoint, I think it's going to be Very modest and if if there isn't a second relief bill or if it doesn't include, you know, some pretty substantial support for us Uh, there are there are going to be, you know, virtually no, uh surplus at all. I think, um You know, we have charged a number of things in the hope of being reimbursed by virtue of uh, FEMA reimbursement funds or or the original cares act funds They may get rejected and if they do Uh, we have to eat that cost with our regular budget. So, you know, some of our supply budget may be buying masks or gowns or You know air filters or whatever Um, so there's some some other things that sort of eat it at our at our potential for a surplus this year but any that we have obviously we will carry over into e and d and And help us support future years Yep, and I'll just add one thing quick and then we'll go to senator cumberford. Um, but thank you for the questions Mandy joe I think the other thing if you look at like first quarter budget, which has already been presented We're we're at a not so wonderful level as it relates to facilities. Um in terms of spending that's gone on so far but the other one is about Services related to special education. I think Doug talked about that a little bit earlier that in a remote setting for some students We've had to to look at alternative alternative ways Around educating and access to the curriculum and that that comes with the cost And so, you know, we're keeping close tabs on that and that's why our budget's frozen to be extra cautious in all the ways You suggested we know that any dollar we spend this year particularly as it relates to e and d means a larger cut next year and that's why about Looks like three weeks ago or so Doug. I think we froze the budget Um because we are already thinking towards f y 21 and while that's challenging in the current fiscal year We think it's the right thing to do and it's the sustainable model that We're trying to institute and keep our fingers crossed that washington and other places are able to help a little bit more because we need And the last comment or question we'll take before we go to capitol senator comford again Thank you for joining us. Oh my goodness. Thank you to everybody for your service Um, I know that Mindy's in here rep dom is in here very deep as well I just wanted to let you know on the senate side talking about enrollments And the fluctuation of enrollment during covid and the impact or potential impact of that On the next year on the f y 22 budget. It's very much top of mind It's top of mind in the senate again I know rep dom's in this up to her eyeballs as well It's also top of mind at desi as you likely know superintendent and and all So I think this is going to be something we're going to have to be super vigilant about as we go into the fiscal year 22 budget On behalf of communities like yours The other two very very quick things Thank you to so many of you who participated in a d o r d l s desi Study of how we contribute to our schools. That was forced as folks know in the student opportunity act budget through Um legislation that we filed and then got it into that That study has come out. I'll make sure to get it out to folks While it's not overall perfect It does open the door for us to have a conversation about regional equity in the way in which we Contribute to schools again not perfect by a long shot But the conversations happening and the last thing I'll just say super quickly is I know that many of you share the fact that the student opportunity act was not an overall win for amherst In the way that we want it to be a win one of the places It really fell short with was with regard to special education and that's an area that I particularly have become significantly interested in File the bill that didn't make it. We're working on another bill now and Because I do think that Towns are bearing a burden of special education again. I know you want to do excellent education and you are But that could be much more recognized by the state in equitable ways So I just want to point that out and it's legislation that's going to go in again In the next session and I'd love to work with you on it Thank you Appreciate it. And so I'm going to set a goal for dr. Slaughter of Rolling through capital in five minutes or less. Just because I think otherwise We're not going to give towns enough time and again. These are very preliminary numbers Preliminary numbers for capital, but we want again you have these in an email But we wanted to at least share what some of the thoughts are so sorry to push you on that But I just want to make sure the towns are able to have conversations. They need to have That should be that should be the perfect amount of time. So Uh, this is a preliminary capital proposal for the coming year of things we would like to do need to do You know maintain our buildings and and grounds Um, and I won't read the list. You can read those yourselves. Uh, the the good news about what you see on this list There's about $400,000 here Is that What we would do is if this moves ahead and we have these sort of identified is that we will uh, we'll have the school committee Approved that list and and get authorization for borrowing that borrowing would happen During the year next year and so this wouldn't hit your books. Uh Till fiscal 24 So that's that's the good news about this list of things is you don't have to start paying for it until fiscal 24 Most likely. Um, and it'll probably change significantly like everything else this year It's it's uh, we're still fairly early in the process of identifying these things and and wanting to to take care of those You know, you'll learn the objects around our ideas projects, I should say around, uh, you know air quality and heating and cooling but also, um some safety things and some, uh ADA work that is necessary at the buildings And continue to happen. So some of the idea worked just because uh, that isn't something that was Pretty significantly understood to be a need for the district. Um, there are some of that work being done with with operating, uh resources so some of our maintenance budget is is being applied to some of those, uh, You know easier to fix, uh, ADA compliance issues. Uh, so we're doing that work both with our operating and then also through our Our capital planning process So that's a brief outline of of the projects we're we're expecting to try to work on in fiscal 22 If you go to the next slide, please Um, this lays out sort of where our debt schedule is looking at. Uh, and so you can see that that the you know, the things that are projected um From fiscal 22 and you know fiscal 21 will hit in fiscal 22. So the stuff that got authorized last year will hit the books in fiscal 22 that's showing up in the Third column and the sort of fourth block down And then the things from that that I just showed you would show up in the next row down and and and so you see at the bottom the sort of overall ask of Of each of the communities And if you go to the last slide, please Of course, so this is actually how this those, you know borrowings, uh, you know Will impact our our ask of each of the communities the assessment method for for uh, for debt is prescribed and not under debate for for A different method. Um, and it is driven by the the eqv And that it's updated every two years So it just got updated in in 20 It would only be so all our pre-existing things that we have taken on debt for are charged at previous years eqv ratings and and the appropriate proportion that is associated with each community And then uh things that would be approved this year would use the fiscal 20 So that would hit your financials and change the numbers in in the in the out years of fiscal 23 and beyond And so the the um, the other thing I will mention here is that Most of the debt we are carrying, uh, not all of it, but most of the debt we're carrying Is we're doing what's called a ban, which is a bond authorization note. It's a short-term borrowing. It's a one-year borrowing Um, and so we're just doing that borrowing on a one-year basis pay the entire thing and then borrow it again And so, uh, the the interest rates on that will change year to year as opposed to a bond Which is where we get a fixed rate for the entirety of the of the borrowing The current ban that we have that will come due in february is at 1.54 percent We're hopeful we can get that I used a much higher estimate, uh, because you know Who knows what markets will do in the in the ensuing couple of months So, you know that that will also be an area where this this number will change ever so slightly based on on that assumption And so I think with that, uh, I take any questions on on capital, but you know, um, it's it's not terrible exciting I think the amounts that we're asking for people for next year versus this year Are you know a little bit less because we have a little less in our in our sort of Q, uh, so we're kind of pulling steady for folks as far as the burden of capital Barrowing for for the coming year Yep, and uh, before we get to Kathy, uh, just one quick note is that, uh, we had a lot of discussion in the past about athletic fields Um, and you may notice that there's not an athletic field budget item Some of that so it was funded to think about a study Or feasibility, but part of it's also just an understanding of the town's fiscal reality right now that, um, You heard me make my statement before about what a one one million dollar 1.4 million dollar cut to the operating budget would do Um, and uh, so it's not that the fields issues have gone away, but the athletic issues, um Have gone away. It's just kind of for me an acknowledgement of the reality That, uh, we're gonna have a hard time on the operational side and making a huge capital ask While I understand they're separate, um buckets to a certain extent It's still coming from the towns and we're trying to be reasonable and responsible Because you know, we know that the operational side is going to be really hard For the district for each of the communities Um, so it is some acknowledgement of of those challenges. Um, because we're not, you know It's going to be hard. We're going to be hard pressed to propose a budget that that has a huge Cut on the operational side with a huge ask on the capital side It would feel very uncomfortable to us, but Kathy, I'm sorry with that long-winded Qualifier, uh, why don't you go ahead with question? Okay, I I have two questions and Mike and you raised one But I'll I'll do an unrelated one. Um, this past year we At the uh, capital side of emers were asked by some high school students To begin a study for solar panels over the middle school and the high school And it was a fairly low cost. We're talking, you know, 25 and maybe 40 for a more and it's one that I think I don't know whether the regional schools want to put it on their list, but Doing it and it's still open on maybe we'll be able to afford it out of the emers capital reserves and get it started It would lower operating costs So it's thinking of ways to look forward, you know, aside from what it does for sustainability So it it has an impact and it's not much money So it's it's a question of something missing from the list on that one To think about and then the second is on community fields Those are it's a big chunk of that is eligible from the community preservation act and On the emers side this year. We had a pretty robust CPA set of funds available and I was somewhat surprised not to see An ask for community fields and last year you were very modest on the ask But it's a question on how much In terms of next year you could go for a fairly big ask from CPA that wouldn't would be the study but beginning to get some Work done on the fields that wouldn't affect What we're looking at here because it comes from a different revenue source It comes from that surcharge. So those are those the two pieces so With regard to the solar Yes, I was updating the slide I had seen that and and was thinking about it a little bit and I I didn't have a conversation with our facility directors to see if If he wanted to include that it may very well be as we come back through this a little more with a fine tooth come We'll we'll get that added back in But uh, you know, it's it's also a piece of with something like that where it sort of, you know, would lay out the Work that could be done You also have to then be prepared to do the work because if you wait too long I've mentioned this and this is also true with fields work is that if you do sort of a design or engineering work But then you wait a period of time You kind of have to go back and redo some of that because there's some some aspects of it that that don't have a Long shelf life Some things, you know do and and other parts don't So it's it's a matter trying to be conscientious of that component as we go through a plan and you know So when can we execute a second thing I will say about solar is Another thing that we have done and this is Amherst going as well as regional buildings. We've partnered with The utility company to do lamp replacement. So we've switched out a large number of of Lamps in and switched to a higher efficiency lower energy consuming Bulbs in in our buildings, which is is hopefully going to impact our our electric bill In a positive way the other good thing about that project is that because it's funded through the You know, there's a surcharge on your electric bill at your house that helps pay for programs like this So out of pocket for the district there was nothing and and so it it Was just a matter of coordinating, you know having the electricians come in and do that work And so that's a positive for the for the district as well On a financial sense relative to that And the one thing I'll add and then I think I'd like to unless there's other questions that come in like to A lot of towns that go into groups is that uh last year for the second time we applied a couple years ago The the towns approved the middle school roof replacement They approved the full amount But there was the expectation we were going to go to msba and apply for subsidy So we did that And it was rejected now for the second year in a row and it's just because there's so many roofs It's not because our roof is not in need of replacement. It's because there's so many old roofs in massachusetts that We qualify when we applied but when they looked at their money They raised the the age of the roof that you need to have to qualify I think the same thing happened. I believe in either shoots fair levered. I apologize But I know they're in the same queue for their elementary schools with the same age roof I think is our middle school and we keep on applying and if you look at how we apply We should qualify but when when push comes to shove they say no, it's not 25 years It's 27 years that we're we're only taking and then you know, so we aren't getting a little concerned over time Thank you Jennifer. Sorry. I thought it was shoots fair. I just didn't want to be wrong is um We want to We are, you know in that process and we will be reapplying at some point You know, we've patched together things actually pretty well. Thanks for our talented facilities department, but But we're going to have to do something at some point With that but I did want to let you know that money that funding was approved as not been accessed And the school regional school committee voted for when that project happens To have that design study include the potential for solar because that that will increase the cost but You know for all the reasons that were mentioned earlier by our students and community We thought that was really important and that was about that was taken over a year and a half ago It's just we're stuck in the msbaq and as they keep on raising the age of the roof Our roof only gets one year older each year, but unfortunately the msba expectations is this You know, we need to get older quicker to qualify. Hopefully that Levels off, but I see there was one more question and I apologize But I think that's the only Additional question we'll take before we get groups going, but I think Darcy Dumont Counselor Dumont had a question. So you have the floor Sorry, I just wanted to Bring up the the solar issue again. Thank you Kathy and Mike for mentioning that On the issue of the district offices parking lot resurfacing at the middle of school You know part part of the Resident capital request was with regard to Putting canopies on the middle and high school parking lot. So I would hope that that whatever is being planned there Factors in the possibility of How it might end up being canopies there rather than just straight parking lot resurfacing Thank you Um Feedback on that and we can we can talk about that that's helpful Absolutely. The other thing I'll mention just about that resurfacing is it it really becomes uh, you know The the reason why it is on the list is is is not because it's about People's cars as much as about when they're walking from the car To the building. Uh, it's a it's sort of health and safety issue relative to the lot It's and it's got some areas that are pretty rough shape and uh, but nonetheless the the feedback around the solar is certainly something We'll keep in mind. I don't think anything we were planning on doing would preclude that but obviously Um, you know, if we have in mind that that's a potentiality that may impact our how and what we do So at this point I want to do a sort of I'm gonna Also can see each other a little more now. Um I want to pause us and just check in about whether each town has clarity on a breakout group Again, if a town needs help from me, I'm happy to step one up But we thought each town would be able to do that. So I'm going to turn to paul for the town of amherst Do you have any directions you want to give? I see a thumbs up You can definitely put it in the chat if any of the member boards, you know, didn't get that information For pelham, is there any assistance needed to set up a breakout room? No, thanks. We're all set. Okay, and for the town of leverett I think we're all set Very So paul just I would make sure that the school committee also has the amherst school committee members also have that link Um, there is all set Okay, so I'm going to hang out on this line If you want to put it in the chat for any town, you know, we'll just all respect that we don't go to each other's town, right? We're all mature here and we'll we'll make sure we do that Um, but I'll be here if anyone's having any trouble so I can connect Can connect anyone their way, but I think if you can't put a zoom link or whatever the link is In the chat that might be helpful for everybody But I see there's one question and I'm assuming it's on this topic of uh, how to get there bethany Uh, dr. Morse, I'm just curious. Uh, I know the breakout rooms are a chance for our towns boards to talk What feedback are you hoping for today? Are you hoping for any feedback? Sure. So, um, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Brittany. So bethany, excuse me. So I don't um, I think at this point, it's more just reaction response You know, again where we started there's too many variables We believe right now to be looking for yay. Nay, you know, I think if there's creative ideas that people want to have Could you look at this method or could you do this? That's the kind of thing But we're not looking for any thumbs up thumbs down even thumbs to the side today Because we don't feel like we've given you enough information For folks to respond to that way So it really it's just a chance to process the information from a town by town perspective And if there is feedback or ideas you want us to do next time you please come back with x method or what would it look like? That's the kind of feedback we're looking for not really looking for anything more than that Hopefully that helps, but thank you for the question. I should have been more clear and reconvene. I would like us to reconvene I was going to say 205, I think that's probably the reason for what I'm talking about Okay, so this meeting will be open. You don't need to exit it unless your computer tells you You need to that's up to you and your computer, but I'll stay on this meeting It'll stay open for anyone who's struggling and let's come back at 10 50 And really we're just going to hear very briefly from each town and close at 11 So I'll be here if someone feels like their town's ready at 10 45 you can let me know But let's know later than 10 50 and we'll end by 11 If you need to leave this meeting that's fine, but that's up to your device not not because it's a problem for me Thanks, everybody Appreciate it And so, you know, again, we only have 10 minutes left. What I'd love to do is just Give each town an opportunity to go around the room Or go around the room to the different towns And just a quick, you know questions you have responses you have that we'll take notes on We're not going to do dialogue back and forth today because of the timing and because of the Kind of scarcity of hard data that we were able to present today And then we'll close and we'll be back again. I would imagine sometime in late january mid to late january Would be the next four town meeting again. We'll follow up with you via Email on that one, but we started backwards at the beginning. We'll start forwards this way alphabetically. So Uh, I'll turn to Lynn or paul. I don't know if any who who wants to share a bit from the town of amherst perspective Now, this is andy. I was selected by the Council to be the presenter for amherst and so I'll just proceed with Making several different points One is it was reported at the beginning of the meeting that our guidance was level funding not level services and I'm going to ask the our finance director participate for a moment to explain that but I want to Do start by just saying something on process and that is that You know, we're in a very different form of government now and have a very different process that we started the process with the Finance director and town manager making recommendations on what we could anticipate in revenue and expenses and Then it goes to the finance committee of the council the finance committee of the council will Take all of the information we have including consideration for this meeting make a recommendation to the council on budget guidelines and the council will adopt budget guidelines It is late december or early january But the preliminary recommendation which we have gone over in great detail And shan can explain a little bit more on Is the that we are not in a position to Do more than level funding For all Areas and it's not just regional schools. It's all town departments. It's library. It's elementary schools And we recognize that those are Have significant impact across everything it affects what we can do for our homeless population The public safety What we can do in public works But it is a significant across the board thing and The schools Including the regional schools were not treated differently in that preliminary recommendation Other things that we have And this gives to the recognition that level funding and level services are significantly different Um, we did have some discussion in our breakout meeting about capital And uh, we want to have more discussion in a future four towns meeting about that including community preservation act And how CPA from all four towns might help address the serious situation in the safety of our athletics program using current fields and I think that when we come back for the next meeting We're looking for a lot more of a description and a real understanding of how the cuts the That were proposed in what you said dr. Morris about The their real impact on education that we really need to have Are looking forward to a more robust understanding of that and then The final point that was made in our breakout meeting was that The lack of in school Teaching is really affecting How we can get support for schools and The we really need to get back to in school Teaching in order to make sure that we have support dr. So Mr. Mangano, do you have anything that you can say real quickly on this subject? I'll be I'll be super brief We have three major challenges that we're dealing with and some of the other towns have the same ones In summary unique to amherst The first one is our our local revenues and the impact of the college depopulation on our enterprise funds on our You know all the the local economic revenues that we get from hotel usage restaurant usage parking We saw, you know, roughly a 30 percent reduction in our budget for that area for FY 21 And we just don't know where that's going in the future until we get more stability The second one is capital. We one of the ways we were able to get our FY 21 budget Move forward is by reducing capital and we really pushed a lot of capital needs off to FY 22 And so that's an area that's a high priority for us is getting back on track for capital which affects all departments Including the regional schools So and then the third one, which I know everyone shares is uncertainty around future state aid You know, I've heard just uh, Tom Andrew Bachman say several times, you know Towns are really a lagging indicator The revenues would get our lagging indicator of what's going on in the state And so the potential for future state aid to be less than what it is now or very limited Growth is something that we consider when we put together our initial projections So I will end it with those those three things that we're we're thinking about a lot Thank you, Sean. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. I'll go now federal order. So I'll go to lever it next And I want to actually before lever jumps in I want to say the same thing And it's a good correction that the the guidance to receive both from Amherst and lever it was across departments It wasn't specific to the regional So my apologies and that the same should be said of lever it and my apology for the lack of clarity on my statement Um, and but we'll go to lever it. Sorry about that I'm Julie if you're trying to speak, uh You're not muted from my end, but we can't hear you. You also happen to be upside down and I'm not quite sure Why that is We still unless it's something me, but I don't think it is from the faces. I'm seeing I think we still can't hear you Sorry, Julie She might need to exit and come back Yep, so Julie an idea might be to exit the meeting and come back or have another representative from levered share thoughts Well, while Julie's doing that, why don't we go to Pelham and then we'll come back to levered after Pelham When hopefully the technology problems are resolved for Pelham John tricky. I'll speak for Pelham at this point um The numbers that are presented for the budget Uh, I think Pelham would be could fund The 55 or 65 percent statutory um You went we went down 24 000 this year From the budget and we did not we took it off the whole budget for the town. We did not replace it. So Uh, the 24 000 we had originally budget On top of that would put us about where we need to be anyway So those two numbers 55 percent or 65 percent statutory would work for us Thank you, john. I appreciate it. I see julia's now Let's see if julie julie. Are you ready to share more? Let's see if we can hear you this time On my screen. You look right side up but frozen um If there's Um While we're waiting for that there are some comments from dug and shawn To answer a question that was asked earlier in the meeting Uh, bethany. Do you want to um jump in here? Um, I don't want to speak for levered um Rather julie or tom do but what I was wondering just for poem when they say 55 or 65 percent stat uh Is it for the 1.4 million cut or the one million or does that not matter? I'm just curious about that If you can clarify We would prefer the one million, but if it's the one four to keep the school going Um, we need to keep the regional school functioning. So really up to the all four towns agree what the cut would be But I think moving the statutory to the 55 or 65 is important Thanks john is Julie are you with us now can I think so? Yep. We can hear you. Thank you. Great. Um, so we really have nothing to add at this point until there's more data um So that's basically it. We really have no real comment. Um, we just go along with the The current assessment method at the 45 percent and um, You know wait to weigh in when we have more information Thank you. Julie. Thanks for levered and chutesbury Hello, i'm bob groves. I've been selected to to to speak to you about this We have some we have all the pressures that the rest of the towns have I will go into that except we do have some Rather unique pressures, uh in chutesbury Our tax rate was bumping up against the ceiling of over $24 a thousand and last year we were able to provide a little relief to our taxpayers by um putting some pre-cash against uh the levy so that we Uh reduced the tax rate from $24 and I think 35 cents to 2251 But that is not sustainable. We can't continue to to do that For various reasons. One of which is that we have major capital projects Uh that are coming up very soon the school roof as was mentioned and a big culvert project up in the lake Which are going to total somewhere north of two million dollars. So Given all that, uh, we um continue to support moving significantly towards the statutory method which our taxpayers want us to do and um We we've gotten plenty of news about that and we are happy to have made incremental change in that department Last year, but we expect and hope to make further changes this year uh Towards that goal I guess that's about all we have to say at this point Thank you, bob. So 1102 not terrible. We try to end on time not too bad. Um So the next steps are we'll take all this feedback We'll we'll let people know we'll be back sometime in late january at that point We'll have more information both locally and and potentially at least initial information from the state We'll also to the point of having more A clearer picture of what budget cuts of this magnitude would do And how they would affect the regional school experience for the students from all four communities And really, I just want to thank you for spending now. It's really snowing here even in the middle school So I'll let people off to their snowy saturday But again, thank you where we started Thank you for all the work that you're doing and all the thinking you're doing in very precarious times fiscally To support the regional schools and to support each other in this venture of a regional school system I think we'll just I'll I'll with your permission assume that all the elected bodies are going to End their meeting now. So you don't have to do the formality of it I see nodding heads so people are comfortable with that And go out and enjoy the snow this afternoon. Take it easy. Thanks, mike. Thank you