 The first thing on the agenda is public comment. Any public comment tonight. Hearing no public comment. Hearing no public comment. We'll turn to the consent agenda. I saw one item on the consent agenda, which was a resignation. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I moved to approve the consent agenda. I second it. Okay. Any discussion. All those in favor. Start with. Anacet. Jill. Hi. Hi. Hi. Okay. Let's see. Going back to my agenda here. Okay. So the next thing on the agenda is board action requested to approve. The COVID retirement options. And we have two of those that have been presented to us by the administration. Yes. So I can give you a quick background. We have approximately four employees where if we can, we can accommodate them in a way that I think this board wants to. I have grant here to answer any financial questions if you need. And notice Grant is still in his office at 633 at night. And I know he was there before I got there this morning at 7. 15 this morning. So Grant needs to go home. However. This is a situation that Grant and I have worked on. With our teachers union. And I think it's beneficial for four of our employees. That does little. Doesn't hurt the district. Very much at all financially. And is a, is a good move for us. So I would recommend we. Or the board approves these items, but we're happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. And thanks. Thanks to. Libby. And Grant and the union and the rest of the administration. Clearly have put a lot of work and effort into this. And we all appreciate that. Grant, could you briefly address the financial impact on the district? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's still a bit of an unknown because we don't know. Of those four. We don't know if, if they've got one year to go to meet VISTA's retirement eligibility or eight months to go. So the specific dollar amount that this is going to cost us is still a bit up in the air. But as all of you know, we do have a very healthy fund balance that can absorb this. The other thing is, and Libby maybe can address this now that we know for specific teachers, whether or not we will need to backfill all four of those positions this year. If not, that would. That would also save a chunk of that money. And the other thing is there's a longer term savings because we undoubtedly will have new higher savings. And that would also save a chunk of that money. And the other thing is there's a longer term savings because we do have new higher savings whenever we do replace these positions, which won't just help us out in the near term, but will help us out for several years. So yeah, there is a near term investment that we would absorb. The specific dollar amount I'm not sure of, but I would. I mean, I hate to say any, any guesses, but I can't imagine it would be, you know, much more than maybe $150,000. I would have to find out for sure whenever we, we would have to contact vistas, find out how much is required to buy them out to get them to the vested point. But I mean, we're not talking about a million dollars. We're talking about something that's probably more in the 100,000 range, which I mean, right, but right now I'm thinking we have probably about 1.6 million or so. And if you subtract out what we're going to use as a revenue source for the next three years, we're still looking at maybe 900,000. And our guidance is to try to keep that at about 2% of our budget, which is only about 480. So that's 420,000 that we still have available. And I think I'm being conservative, which Libby always accuses me of. So I think we have plenty there. And honestly, I'm starting to get a little nervous because the AOE is starting to collect fund balance information on all school districts and whatever their reason, it can't be good. So if we end up reducing that fund balance in the near term, that might keep the wolves at bay a little bit. And then we would benefit from that savings in future years, which, which could be very good for us. So I'm on board Libby brought me into this right off the bat. So I think it's the right thing to do for the teachers. And I think it helps set us up for future years. I'm sorry I don't have more specific, but we'll get more specific information fairly soon. Once we enter into these agreements and begin to talk to vistas and the employee has to give us authority to talk to vistas, that's what's kind of holding us back now too. And as I think about it, we have five employees. So for, so you got two different retirement ideas. Four of our employees are within a year. So when you look at the one that's within a year, that could influence four of our employees who could retire mid year. They could retire in May. That's the amount of time they need. We've already budgeted for those people. We've already done that. We've already done that. And not all of them will, we'll try to replace. Three out of the four of them. I, one of them will be very hard to replace. And we don't know if we could. So we probably wouldn't replace her. One teacher is potential for the actual buy out of the retirement that we're still not sure if she would take that position. So we'll try to replace her. And then we'll try to replace her. And then we'll try to replace her with one person left after the people I've talked to. I've found an accommodation for everybody else in our district. So everybody who is high risk in our district. Assuming these hire, these retirement deals fall go through. We have found an accommodation that works for everybody in our district to keep our high risk employees or those who live with somebody who is high risk. In a safe space. And that one. That one teacher that you are saying is not within the year. So that is somebody who's already fully vested, but it's just retiring earlier than they anticipated. Which in, in that case is that one package that says we would give them. 40% of their last year's salary, which. You know that. You don't have to worry about all the benefits package too. So if you're talking about someone who makes a $70,000, last year, that would cost us maybe 25 to 30,000 for that one. And then the others maybe in that same kind of ballpark, depending on what visitors tells us, we have to. Contribute to buy them out. So. Yeah. And then if we have a position that we don't fill, that's probably a hundred thousand dollars worth of savings right there. So. I don't think we're talking about a huge net. Amount of money. Other questions from the board. Jill. Grant, you keep saying, is it disters? I'm, I'm not familiar with what that means. I'm sorry. No, that's, that's fine. I apologize. The vistas with a V. It's the Vermont state teacher retirement system. So teachers are part of that Vermont state teacher retirement system. And they obviously want to be fully vested. And if they're going to leave the state, they're going to leave the state retirement system. And they obviously want to be fully vested and if they're going to leave. And so we are offering to contribute whatever that shortfall is. If they're, maybe they, they use up their sick leave and they still have a month more to go to get to that vesting, then we would have to find out from vistas, how much will it cost us to buy a month of service time? So that's what we're talking about. Thank you. And, and do we need to get their permission? Or do we have permission to do this without, if the board approves this, we can go forward with offering us to the teachers. Whose permission are you asking about, Jill? Anybody else's vistas or anybody else? Or can we do this? Yeah, Mr. Anybody can buy out the rest of vistas. So, um, Pam Arnold did that last year. She bought a year. Right. So we, you can do that through retirement. So you can buy whatever time is left. Um, with the teachers, if the board approves these two deals, we would make individual, you know, kind of MOUs with teachers that this is what the, the district is agreeing to do. This is what the teachers agreeing to do. And, um, as of this date, which is their retirement date, they are officially retired. Um, so essentially for the people who still have a year, we're allowing them to use their sick time and continuation for that year, which also, which will pay them a paycheck and will, uh, put money into vistas for that time period. It might be helpful. Um, maybe I should have done this earlier for the public to understand that the teacher's retirement system is a statewide program. It is not a district by district program. It's defined by state statute. Um, and the system has its own board and it's basically attached to the treasurer's office, the state treasurer's office. And all of those rules and regulations of the retirement system are based on the state statute. And they're enrolled in it. And we're paying, you know, a contribution for them. Um, as an employee of the district. So this is about helping them buy out, buy, buy out of that system. I think did, did Anna can have a question. I did raise my hand, but I had the same question Jill had about, you know, how we talk to this person. Uh, has this been done before? Yeah. And we've already talked to vistas, a preliminary discussion about what this is and how we would go about it. Whenever I say we need permission, whenever we start talking about a specific teacher, how much time they've got left, how much it will cost to buy that time. That's where we need the employee, the teacher to contact vistas and say, it's okay for you to talk to my employer about this so that we can get into the details of exactly how much money we're talking about and to go ahead and make those payments. Because right now the teacher pays a contribution and the district pays a contribution. Um, so this would basically, um, be us paying both sides of that, uh, to get them that time that they need. And we will know specifics. Once we have signed agreements and we ask the teacher to contact vistas and give us permission to talk to them. And we'll be able to do that. But we have already talked to vistas about the process, what we're trying to do. And, um, I don't think there's any kind of problems with, with what we have planned. I got confused, uh, the grant. You mentioned that we were paying both sides of it. And then, um, maybe you mentioned that we'll use a sick time and they'll get paid was. So, so the vistas contribution from the employee side, um, wasn't, isn't part of the, uh, um, the, the, their salary. Is that. So, so it's kind of two pieces. So like if an employee has six months to go to get vested and they have enough sick time that they have maybe like four months worth of sick time. And then they're like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It would be as if they are still here working and they would make their contribution would make ours like normal. But once they run out of any kind of accrued leave. And they have nothing, then we would then pick up both sides as opposed to just the one side. So that's that time remaining. Yeah. Yeah. There's time remaining until the, until the sick leave, um, the work is done. So that's the time remaining. Yeah. Yeah. And just to the point where it gets them to that date that they retire, they can retire with full, full benefits. But then they don't get. Are we paying the salary beyond the sick leave time? Um, no. So it's sick leave time. It becomes the retirement date. Yes. Okay. Make sense. Is there, um, I know you've mentioned that there's five teachers identified. And then you've mentioned that there's a number of, um, there's a number of teachers identified. Do you have a number of teachers identified. Do you have a number of teachers identified to qualify for these? The way we wrote it is that your, you have 25 years of service in Vermont public education. Um, and so that's a limit. I know the list of people who have served in that capacity. Um, and I've talked to every person. Who is close. And those some who are not close. Um, they're not close to that number. Um, just the ability because, you know, we had some people who are about four years out from retirement and they talk to retirement and it's just not financially feasible for them to do. So, um, I, we're pretty confident in that number. Other questions. And Libby, did you say you, you would need to fill these positions by the start of the school year? Some of them we would try to fill. We would post them. We would say we can fill them. Some of the positions are hard to fill. So, um, we would try for some. And if we got a good candidate, then we would go for it. But, um, I'm not, we have other plans. I think some we will fill. Yes. With a person who does not have an as much experience as that. So it'll be a person who does not make as large a salary. Um, we will have to. Um, we already have candidates for some of those positions just because we've been putting our feelers out, but, um, others we will not try to fill this year. Um, because of either the position or because of the lack of what we know will be a lack of candidates because on a regular year, they wouldn't have a whole lot of candidates. I got another question. Um, the sick time in the normal case, if this employee would have retired. Um, they get paid for the sick time. They cash in for the sick time. So, so, so we would have had to pay the sick time anyways, right? No. So by letting them use their sick time and a kid, it's basically like saying we're letting you work. We're letting you work with a paycheck. So we're, we're allowed. We're. What it, what it's essentially saying is that I am part of our contract is that after five days of sick days, they have to give me a doctor's note that says they're actually sick, right? Um, and we can argue that and we can send them to other doctors and all that kind of stuff. What we're essentially saying is I won't do that. You can take as much sick time in a row and continuation as you need to, to get to that doctor's note. So there isn't an expectation that you're working for that period of time. It's to get to that retirement date. Sorry. Um, so there isn't an expectation that they will be working during that time that they can take all of their sick time. So for instance, one person needs 85 days to get to her retirement date. She has a hundred days of sick time. So she will use her entire sick time to get to that day 85. And at day 85, she will officially retire. We will no longer pay her. She will especially retire and get her full retirement benefits. And during that time, I won't ask her for a doctor's note. Yeah, I get that. The part that I was confused about is in this example, what happens to the, those 15 days that nothing, nothing, we're not, we don't have anything in our contract where we pay people sick time. Okay. So that's not written in either of these deals. So nothing happened. They just lose those six, those 15 days. Okay. So it's not like that, that this 85 days we would have had to pay anyways. If. No. Okay. Okay. Any other questions for us? Okay. So there's two. There are two options. We should probably. Have a motion for each one. I'm looking. So the, I'm looking first at the one that's dated called the early retirement incentive agreement. Dated August 12th, 2020. And this one, let's see if I'm, if I'm understanding it right. This is the one that applies if an employee would have been vested for a full pension, no later than June 30th, 2021. Correct. Yeah. Sorry. If you're waiting for a verbal, sorry. Is there a motion to approve the early retirement incentive agreement. They did August 12th, 2020 between the Montpelier. Roxbury public school district and the. And the union. So moved. Second. Any further discussion. Seeing none. All the, well, all the, all those in favor, we'll take roll. Aniquette. Jill. Jill. I. Mara. Hi. Jerry. Hi. Going back to the other one. The early retirement agreement. This applies to teachers with 25 years of experience in Vermont public education who wished to retire prior to the beginning of the. 2020 to 2021 school year. This is also dated. August 12th, 2020. And would be an agreement between. The Montpelier Roxbury public school district. And the teachers union. Is there a motion to approve that agreement? Second. Second. Any further discussion. For all those in favor, I will take a roll. Aniquette. Jill. Hi. Mara. Hi. Jerry. Hi. I realize we have a quorum, but there are only five of us. So just in case it matters. For the record, I will record my vote as I on both votes. So that we have five votes in favor. Normally the chair doesn't vote, but. Just in case. I think you all, this is going to be huge for these five employees. And it's. It's a good move for our district. Thank you for putting it together. Thanks for doing this. Union leadership was huge too. So. Can't. Can't take all the credit on this one. That Chris was a big factor in. And making this happen. So thank you. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Union and to you guys, many much appreciated. And I'm glad that there was a path forward that was found. Many paths forward. It sounds like that you've. Like I, that's. That's impressive. And I, um, I'm, I'm, I feel very grateful. I just want to express gratitude for getting to work with, um, For, uh, you know, The admin and the folks who work around you, because this is bananas times. Which is a technical term. And I'm deeply impressed with the way that you've done care taking and responsibility in the same. Yeah, I promised them they self identified as high risk. And I promised them that we'd make something work. And I think we have something that works for all of them. Um, who have identified as high risk. So we're, We're in a good spot right now in that regard. Um, Still have to get people. Comfortable with coming in the building, some people, but we're, we're working on that too. So next week starts in service and we'll have a full update of what that looks like for y'all next week. Thanks. And really, you know, thanks to our teachers too. This is, This is unprecedented in times to come back to the classroom and all of us here appreciate them so much. For doing that. Yep. All right. Thanks. I need a motion to adjourn. I move that we adjourn. Second. All right. Take the role. All those in favor, Anacet. Jill. Hi. Mara. Hi. Jerry. Hi. All right. We're done. Good night, everybody. Go home. Go home. All right. All right. All right. We're done. Good night, everybody. Go home. Go home.