 So while everybody is sitting down, I wanted to start today by welcoming everybody. But I also had a small story to tell. Today in Guatemala, not today, but on the 14th, we celebrated a great victory in democracy. And why I bring up that today is because I think we are all interconnected, just as we are interconnected in the state. So you have a small country that goes from colonialism, dictators, genocide, corruption, dictatorship all through my childhood, the poverty persecution of the press in a country where the elite, usually a very small group of people, is who ran the elections and who ran the country. So it's a miracle of civic engagement. So this gives me so much hope. And that is the mindset that I want us to have today, the mindset of hope. And we are here today in service of others. And our actions will have an impact in our communities, but also in the statewide, right? Not just in our communities, but in our state. The state has a pattern right now of escalating budgets and by districts protected by the 5% cap on the tax rate. So let's remember that we're looking for progress together. And we are using an equity lens. And equity usually implies a call to action. And I just lost my other paper. It's here. I can spread out again. But we have spent the past year developing a strategic plan that prioritizes five core beliefs. Transparent and responsible governance, community engagement, and relationships, rigorous curriculum and instruction, well-being, humanity and justice, community and belonging. And with this, I want us to use those five beliefs for us to ground our conversation today and also remember our three pillars and our responsibility as a board towards the generations to come and as a district to make this district a sustainable district. So with that, if there are any members on the public or here on the computer or here that would like to speak now, please raise your hand. And if you're going to be able to be here through the budget presentation, you can also speak after the budget. But I have, let's see, just to see. OK, I see one. I see Ruben online. We have one. Hi. Welcome. OK, what happened? OK, so we're going to do our usual two minute. Yeah. Maria, have her do enough. OK, there's two more people. I don't know if people will raise their hands. Oh, sorry. I thought you were here. Oh yeah, Maria raised her hand online. Do I see you now, Maria? OK, so I'm going to go ahead and start online and then we'll move into here. And I just want us to remember that there's to have our listening ears and we're here for everybody and to respect everybody's opinion on today. So Ruben, please go ahead. OK, put me on the hot seat. First, I apologize that I can't be there in person. I have other engagements that I have to go to. So thanks for letting me spend some time with you. My understanding is that this budget is reflecting about a 12% increase on a little bit fewer students with fewer students projected still. Last year, this board and actually if my recollection is correct the year before, this board made a very clear commitment that structural changes were coming that would bring students spending down and that you just need to stick with us for one more year. And I did last year and I'm hearing a backing away from that again. And I believe this is the second time, which is incredibly frustrating to me. So my paycheck didn't grow by 12%. When I look at the impacts of this budget, it looks like the median house value in Eastmont Pillar is about $327,000. Means median tax increase for those homes is about $1,500 a year. That's a lot. And yeah, that's just a lot. So one of my frustrations last year is that the administration made proposals for changes that they believed as professionals that they could endure and that would not negatively impact the education in the building. My understanding is that a similar set of changes is being made. And I would very strongly encourage this board to follow your administration's recommendations this year. Thank you so much, Reuben. Thanks for being here. Maria. Thank you. Hi there. My name's Maria Malecos. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. I'll just do a brief introduction for those of you who don't know me. I've worked for the district for six years as a school nurse. I was your COVID coordinator two years ago and your school nurse leader for the district last year before that position was cut. I am also a taxpayer in the town of Calis, and I am a parent of a U32 student. I did send the board a packet last week that had some information about school nursing and what the recommendation is for full-time nurses, as well as the recommendation from the UVMMC pediatrician group to keep full-time nurses. More than willing to answer any questions that may have come of that, but what I wanted to use my time tonight is to talk briefly about delegation. Everybody seems to feel like if a nurse isn't in the building, we can just delegate her duties. Delegation is for a very specific task. As in, I can teach a one-on-one how to recognize signs of asthma exacerbation, how to use an inhaler, and then when to come and talk to me. What I cannot delegate is nursing judgment, which means that if a child goes to the nurse delegate and says, I don't feel well, I have to go home, that child has to go home. Nobody there can make a clinical assessment or offer interventions, because that is practicing nursing without a license, and that is illegal in the state of Vermont. So two schools, Calis and Dodie, are going to have attendance issues without nurses in the building, because if a child says they need to go home, they must be sent home. Nobody can say, I think you'll be OK. Drink some water and come back in 15 minutes. That's a clinical assessment. I have concerns about the equity involved in that. Would anybody like to ask any questions? No, thank you. No, thank you. Thanks, Maria. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Amber? Hi, yes, I just wanted to piggyback on what Maria is saying. I have the letter that the pediatric office from Center Vermont Medical Center sent us in regards to the care that we give in our schools. So first of all, I'm one of the nurses at U32. And so they wrote that the pediatric group at Center Vermont Medical Center has greatly appreciated our collaboration with local school nurses and the support they provide our mutual patients. We agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for a minimum of one full-time professional school nurse in every school. We rely on our partnership with the school nurse to help keep children with chronic conditions in school. At a time that we are facing unprecedented rates of pediatric mental illness and acute respiratory viruses, decreasing school nurse staffing would exacerbate a crisis. Please do not hesitate to reach out to any of them with any questions or concerns. And they thank us for all that we do. And that was from all the providers at CVMC Pediatric Office. Thank you, Amber. Okay, hey, we're gonna move to go ahead into the third video. Okay, I'm Tendi, microphone here, please. I'm Lydia Fasey, the school nurse at Jody School and taxpayer in Eastmont Failure. I know three of you on the board from my kids also being in your kids' classes. So this feeling very personal. My day's full of compliance reports, charting, paperwork, but also addressing children's ears, lungs, throats, hurt ankles, abdomens, helping parents determine if they need to leave work, pull their kids out of school and get them to their doctors. I'm also at school to manage emergencies. Last week at Jody Elementary, I was out for the day and there was no nurse at school when a child had a health event. The ambulance was called appropriately and it took 30 minutes, 30 minutes for that ambulance to get to Jody School. Those were some pretty tense 30 minutes for the parent who was on the telephone line with their child down, for those responsible adults at school who did not have a medical support and especially for the student. I care for the safety of these kids and this type of incident will be a regular occurrence if no nurse is present to assess and manage an emergency like this. Please think of our children's safety first. Liability as well. You're setting up rural, isolated schools without a nurse. I opposed your cutting nursing positions for this district that could have been your child and it could have ended tragically. At the same time, I'm a taxpayer. I agree with Ruben, but I think that there's gotta be some other place where you're cutting this budget not with safety of our children. Thank you. Thank you, Leah. Any other, Ainsley? Yeah. I can't see everyone, sorry, I can't see them. Yeah. You can ensure this yourself. All right. My name's Ainsley. I am a Calis Elementary School teacher as well as an administrative parent. I want to first of all address my concerns to the Pre-K program at Rummy and at Doty Elementary School. For me, the proposal to merge these programs is problematic for many reasons. Pre-School is oftentimes a child's first exposure to their school. By asking these youngest learners in our schools to do something that we don't ask with any other elementary school age student to get on a bus, go to a different community, go to a different school, maybe their siblings aren't, we're not giving them the opportunity to start becoming a part of their school community. While I understand that we are in a rock and hard place in these small schools and we don't have a lot of students, in my class, we might have nine students, this can be hard at times, but there are opportunities for us to think creatively and collaboratively to create diverse peer interactions. The proposals are concerning for me beyond just this preschool problem that I as a parent am undergoing. I'm very concerned as a parent and as a teacher about the proposals to cut guidance. This is scary to me. It seems now more than ever is time to be investing in our students' mental health. For the first time ever, functional skills is an adverse effect for special education. Who's going to be doing these assessments? Who's going to be providing these services if we don't have guidance counselors? Instead of cutting these positions, could the board look at the 31.7 million dollars in their fund balance and consider funding these positions until we know how we would like to move forward with our restructuring? Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. Any other public comments? Okay, seeing none, we're going to move to our agenda and we're going to start with our final budget presentation. Sure. And we'll, wait a minute. Laura, Lorely, did I miss your hand? Lorely, can you hear me? Are you there? You have your hand raised. We're going to move on otherwise. Okay. Oh, sorry. Rikki, can you hear me now? I can hear you now. Yeah. Do you have a comment? I do, sorry for the delay trying to manage my device. I wanted to reiterate some of what Ainsley just spoke to in regards to any cuts in the guidance counselor positions with the new act coming through that allows students to qualify based on mental health and other social emotional learning challenges. We as classroom teachers could only find the best support through our guidance counselors. And by reducing those folks, you're taking away the people that support some of the most neediest students in our building in a lot of ways. And those students also impact my classroom as a teacher and can impact it in significant ways as well. And I'm a mom of a child who goes to U32. I'm a taxpayer in Berlin and I'm a Calis teacher. Like I have multiple roles. The health crisis, the mental health crisis, you know, clearly isn't just within schools, but working with the youngest populations to help them become healthier mentally and emotionally is where we really need to focus some time in order to grow those kids into better citizens in our communities. And so I'm strongly advocating for not seeing the guidance counseling positions be cut. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now for Real Megan. Sure. Sorry about that. All right, so we're here to go through the final budget presentation. So this is where we are in the process. And this is the opportunity for the board to approve the final budget for a warning. This, because this is a presentation that is designed to draw the through line, there's a lot of repetition in here. So the board will see a lot of information that they've seen before and the most updated numbers. So just kind of a heads up on that piece. Today's the final budget meeting. We would have our annual meeting on March 4th and town meeting day budget vote. And this is what we'll do tonight. So this is the through line. We're gonna start again with what our community is asking us to support. What are our vision, our core values, and what is our input talked about? Then we will talk about instructional program changes, which is really talking to you about what will achieve the parameters you've set and allow us to achieve our district goals. And then we will get into the numbers and look at the most updated tax rate projections based on the proposals that you have seen. So this is, and the caveat here is it's still in draft form because we're still in the process of developing the strategic plan. This is version 3.0 of our core beliefs. But this is at the root of what we want to do with students in the system for the next several years. If we take that down a grain size, you've heard us talk about our pillars. This is really what guides the work within the district on the educational side of things. So clearly we have a focus on academic achievement. This year's primary work like years past is around multi-layered systems of support and implementing Act 173, zeroing in on assessment. We have a focus on safe and healthy schools, which is the social emotional learning component. We've also got a significant amount of district safety teamwork. And then our humanity and justice work, which is both standalone and a lens through which we look at all of the things. So we knew when we started the budget process that we already have existing work and priorities that we have to continue. So that is both requirements from the agency and from law. It's also this board's focus on the achievement gap and it's our identified district work. We've had some opportunities, some new this year, some are things we've done before to keep staff informed about the process. The community has had several opportunities and then obviously the board meetings. And we find ourselves here towards the end of the process. Just a reminder, these are the parameters that this board set. This is the direction you give the administration to be able to bring you back a budget within your parameters that achieves our work within the system. And just noting that this board did take away the parameter that was there originally around attempting to bring the budget under the inflation rate. Because it became pretty clear early on that that was a pretty unrealistic ask. So those are your parameters. One of your parameters is to use these three lenses to do the work of budget development. So we look at education quality and evidence-based practice. We look at how we distribute resources across the schools in our system and we look at student need. So through those lenses, as a leadership team, we have to figure out how will we approach this work? So the direction we gave ourselves based on the board parameters is we needed to prioritize our ability to achieve our vision within our current configuration. We understand that that puts some constraint around us. We know that the board has asked to bring our staffing resources consistent with ed quality standards. And this year in particular, we wanted to make sure that individual schools could make recommendations based on the needs in their building. And in order to approach this, we asked them to respond to revenue loss because of our ESSER funds within their building and then respond to enrollment changes but still maintaining education quality standards. So now I'm gonna run through the instructional program changes. These are not changed since the last time you've seen them. So I will go somewhat quickly through the slides. Again, for folks that are interested, the electronic version of this has links if you want to peruse the ed quality standards. These are Vermont rules around how schools need to be resourced. So frankly, even if the board didn't want us to follow these, we would have to stay within these. This is part of Vermont rule. And they're designed to help schools understand how to resource themselves in order to provide a quality education. It is also helpful because it gives us consistent guidelines across the system. You have seen this chart before. It's small on the screen. Those of you who have the copies that went around and it will be posted on the web. This is how all of our schools compare against education quality standards. The highlighted areas are the areas where there are proposed changes. So we are still within education quality standards. You will see a yellow highlight. That simply means that Eastmont Pealier is at the top end but still within education quality standards. This is an overview in case it is helpful for the board to see it this way. This is all of the proposals wrapped up into one slide. So across the entire district. Again, these are not changed from previous proposals. And then I'm gonna go through the next several set of slides you have seen before, but for those that are coming to this process fresh, I just wanna remind folks at a building level what the changes are. So we have been looking at our pre-K and kindergarten numbers, particularly between Dodie and Rumney. And combining these two programs into a single program allows more consistency for afterschool and childcare. Right now the small numbers don't allow us to staff afterschool childcare components. So there is a recommendation to combine Dodie and Rumney pre-K. And there is a budget change associated with that. And one of the things that we've talked a lot about and you've heard us say before, our primary goal is how do we provide good instruction to students. And our biggest concern in these two areas, pre-K and this next slide, is we actually don't have enough students to provide robust education. So this board would be seeing these proposals regardless of whether or not you had given us a direction to reduce. This is really about program quality. You can see very similar rationale. Numbers in kindergarten are projected to be very, very small. And on their own, we don't believe these class sizes are big enough to have quality instruction. So we would be combining them into a single class. As the board knows, we have a number of factors. Two major ones are transportation and sort of classroom space. But there are a number of factors that we'll be looking at when we determine finally where those will be situated. But we know that we need to combine them for effective instruction. These are the summary of changes within Calis. So again, the direction given to all principals was respond to the reduction of ESSER funds in a way that makes sense for your building and respond to our enrollment changes. And these are the slides from the earlier presentation where the board asked for more information about just how we support students. So I'm not gonna read through these because you heard it last time, but it is in your presentation. Jodi, the changes are in the area of nursing and counseling. In Berlin, the reduction of a classroom teacher, this is related to enrollment, the reduction of a school counselor, and the addition of a behavior systems coach, board certified behavior analyst. And that is partially funded. We have received the project serve grant. It is a 12 month grant. So the budget has to support about half of the position. That's why that number looks that way. In East Montpelier, there is an enrollment related classroom teacher reduction in Rumney support staff. And there's a reduction of a school-wide behavior professional. That is not a net budget reduction. There's a decrease in Medicaid grant funds. And U32 would be looking to reduce a school counselor, but add a student assistance professional, substance abuse professional. That will be partially funded by an SAP grant. And there's a reduction of paraeducators. The board has heard us, reminds them that these are currently unfilled. They are perpetually unfilled positions. And we still will have vacancies. So that is a summary of information that you have seen before. Those are the changes being proposed. And I'm gonna turn it over to Suzanne for the numbers portion. So last meeting, we went over several definitions for a variety of factors that impact attacks projections. We've left this slide here to reference if we need to at any point. And they'll also be on the website for people to reference. Again, you've seen this list of factors impacting the FY25 budget development. And I'm sure you've heard them repeated on the news as statewide issues impacting school districts around the state. Tonight, we'll also discuss the impact of the changes in the CLA and possible changes to the property yield. So the increase in the local education spending for this budget is 15.57% up 4.9 million from 31.6 last fiscal year. 4.9 or 4.7? Up 4.9, 3, 4, 0, 7, 9. Thank you. Long-term weighted average daily membership provided by the AOE is an increase of 8.81% from 21, 84.51. Up to 23, 76, 88. The state excess spending per equalized pupil is suspended through FY29. And the FY25 spending per long-term weighted average daily membership will be compared to the FY24 spending per LTWADM. If the district increases the spending per pupil by more than 10%, the tax rate will be subject to a review by committee. The local spending per pupil is a 6.2% increase over FY24 from the 14.510 to 15.412. Equalized tax rate is using the $9,452 for property yield is an increase of 0.1397 or 9.37%. The equalized homestead tax rate is the rate a district would have for resident homes if all properties were assessed at fair market value. The equalized tax rate is then divided by the common level of appraisal to develop the individual town tax rate. All five towns in the district saw a drop in their common level of appraisal, which ranged between 11.56% in Worcester and 22.62% in Berlin. The CLA decreases mean tax rate increases. The chart above illustrates the estimated property tax rates for each town. If the 5% cap on the equalized homestead tax rate did not exist this budget year. So I'll just pause to give you a minute to look through the chart. And just a reminder, board, this is what you asked us to show you so you would see what it would look like if we didn't have the cap. And we hope to have made a good distinction so it's clear to people what the actual rate is, but this is without that cap. Do we have one with the cap? Yes. Okay. Sunsets in what year? 29. But that is all in flux still, so that could change this year. So, you know, there's a lot of conversations happening up in the state right now, so I wouldn't count on that. And also, and that's not just free money, but we pay that at the end of the sunset. Yes, we'll kind of talk about that. Exactly, exactly. So this slide illustrates the estimated tax increase that homestead property owners would see in each town based on homes valued at $100, $200, and $300,000 using the equalized tax rate of 1.6305, which does not account for the 5% cap that the district will benefit from. So this is before the cap. Hence the word simulation as opposed to projection. So as mentioned earlier, the equalized homestead tax rate is capped at a 5% increase before the CLA is applied. The capped equalized tax rate is 1.5653, which is a reduction of six and a half cents from the calculated tax rate shown on the prior slide. This table provides the estimated tax rates by town after the 5% cap is accounted for. When the new CLA's are applied to the capped equalized tax rate, we see an increase in tax rates ranging from 24 cents in Worcester to 43 cents in Berlin. The current tax rate calculation uses the property yield $9,452 from the tax commissioners November 30th letter. Again, this property yield may change during the legislative session. The estimated tax rates project education tax rates seen on a property tax bill of a resident homeowner in the individual towns. Again, this table provides a picture of the estimated tax increase for homestead properties valued at $100, $200, and $300 in each town. The estimated increases for a $100,000 house value range from $235 in Worcester to $431 in Berlin. I'll give you all a minute to look at it. And this graph shows the distance between the capped equalized tax rate and the tax rate without the cap. With the current property yield projected at $9,452, the district would need to reduce the budget by more than one and a half million dollars to reduce the equalized tax rate below the 5% cap and make any change to the individual town tax rates. Operating with the current school configuration, this is one and a half million dollars that will be a burden that the district will start the FY26 budget cycle with. This burden doesn't go away from FY25 to FY29, it accumulates, which will create an even bigger tax cliff when the cap goes away in FY29. So that's Keeley, what year, what year we're going to be at. So in FY29, each year, should we go over the cap, we'll have to pay that, we'll be on the hook essentially. Unless we've made cuts to get those expenses down, those expenses will still be there in FY30 when the cap is gone. But we're not having to pay for FY24, 25s over it. It's not like they're not gonna go back. No, it's just that budget will still be there to pay for an FY30 unless we make those cuts, the $1.5 million cut plus whatever next year's cut is, plus the year after that. It's a little bit like when the board chooses to use fund balance, it benefits you in that year, it feels the next year like you're starting up with the need to reduce. It's kind of the same concept. We know that the state's final property yield will likely change before the legislative session is over. Information received last Friday suggests a new property yield of $9,171 may be announced instead of the $9,452 that we've used for projections. This does not change the capped equalized tax rate or the estimated tax rates by town. It increases the amount the budget would need to be cut to make any impact on the tax rate for each town. With this change in the property yield, the district would actually need to reduce the budget by more than $2.6 million to make any impact on individual town tax rates. It would require approximately 2.7 million just to reduce the town tax rates by 1%, 2.8 million for 2%, 2.9 for three, and so on. Throughout this budget development process, we have encouraged the board to focus on the budget. We provide this information to the board to help connect the tax rate projections to the budget that needs to be worn for town meeting day. The only thing I would add, and one of the reasons we put this on here is just to reiterate that last point, which is the board impacts, the board can impact our spending. The tax rate is something that is largely happens afterwards. The board should know that the General Assembly is likely going to be talking about the number of districts who are hitting this cap because it's an unfunded burden on the education fund. We have expenses that are gonna draw from the fund and we are capped in what we can raise in taxes. So the General Assembly will have to reconcile that in some way, and you won't know that way until long after the budget is put to bed. So it's just sort of a reminder. The slide, this slide, where you see if we didn't have that cap, then you would see, you potentially would see it. That's if the cap stays in place. But that's, it's just another one of the pieces of information that the board should have. Does the change in yield impact our local spending? You know what I mean? Does it bring us any closer to the 10%? Yeah. That's based on our long-term weighted average daily membership, the budget divided by that number of features. So is there a chance that the 5% cap will go away this year? There is a chance. It won't, you know, we don't know because it was, it was said to protect the districts that were gonna be hit at worst date and it was just that Sun set it in 2029 to help them. But right now there's a lot of information that some districts are sort of padding their budgets. So it's making an unstable situation for the ad fund. Right? Because all of what we spend adds up, right? So it's collective impact. So what we spend here, what we spend in very, what we spend, you know, it just all adds up and that is the cost of education across the state. And then we all split it up, right? So it's just, what we're worried right now is that then there could be, and this is a speculation at this point, right? But something needs to happen. It's unstable. We can, many, many, many districts are hitting the 5%. And some, like us, it's like, you know, there's, we still are a year away of being able to do more change, but you know, others are also been put in in possible situations because of PCBs. So it's not all, you know, there's all reasoning. There's gonna be some action needed, but we don't, we have to be prepared, you know, and make, and they're giving us a lot of great, telling data today, so we need to make an informed decision. And this is the last thing I would say from this presentation. We need to make an informed decision tonight about setting our district in a sustainable way for the future. So are we able to revive on that 5% cap and representing to our communities what we anticipate the tax burden will lead? Or can that, after the budget passes and go away, the legislature says, by the way, we're not doing respect the 5% cap because everyone was tapping into it and it's gonna overwhelm the plastic system. So it, our tax burden's being much different than what we anticipate. I would say it is impossible to predict, but that is a possibility. I don't wanna say it's a possibility and because what we can share is the facts that you just described are true. More districts than anticipated, many more districts than anticipated hit the cap. The system is gonna need some resolution from that. Whether or not the solution will be to remove the cap, that I don't know. But anything is a theoretical possibility, including other fixes that would move money into the ED fund. I mean, Vermont in the past has asked for budget reductions from school districts post-budget. That was a very challenging thing for school systems. So in other words, anything is on the table. Go ahead. Because that's what we're done. So one thing though that I wanna say is that all that I've heard from the community, from other board members, whether I agree or not, I trust that those coming forward are using our new standards that we're moving forward. Whether I agree with what people are saying or not, what I'm hearing from people does have children in the center does have. So I just want us as a board to understand that even in disagreement, I think all people coming forward even around this table are putting those pillars into place. I believe that's what's directing us. And so, and if COVID taught us nothing, it should have taught us that while we are planning with configuration study and with everything, how we're proceeding these next five years, I cannot be daunted by what might happen in five years because we certainly, five years ago, didn't think we would have a pandemic. So again, I'm not saying willy-nilly, woohoo! But what I am saying is that right now I need to understand the reality of if that cap isn't there, what those increases look like, and also how turbulent it is. But to be honest, I can't put my thinking into five years from now. And I think at this point we're not, and the board will have time to discuss actually, let's follow the order right now, let's see if the public has some questions and then we'll move into discussion so we can ask more questions. This is the time for the public to ask any questions from the budget presentation if there's any. Otherwise, we're gonna continue down our agenda. I don't see any hands up. Okay. There's one on the screen. Oh, one on the screen. Lorely? Lorely, no, no, no, I'm saying that wrong. You're right, no, you're right. Okay, Lorely, go ahead. Do you want to know yourself there? Yes, hi. Budgeting is not my forte. Can someone explain to me about this 30 plus million dollar fund balance and why that exists and what, if there's any way that can impact any part of this budget? I'm curious about that. I am too, I don't have a $30 million yet I was like the report about. I'm not sure where that number came from, yeah. I can explain fund balance in general. Suzanne will jump in and correct me. Fund balance is unspent money from a budget that gets carried forward and only the board can decide how to use fund balance and sometimes boards choose to use it to defray tax impact so they use it to support a budget. That has to be a board decision and a little earlier in the presentation we talked a little bit about one of the things boards have to have in mind when they use fund balance is it is a short term solution that puts the budget behind the eight ball for lack of a better word the following year because you effectively have to find that reduction. So fund balance is money that is what's budgeted for in a given year and not spent. Okay, so a couple of follow-up questions. One is, so if you don't see this 30 plus million dollar fund balance I'm curious what it is. And secondly, I lost my train of thought. No, I don't know. That was my follow-up question I guess. Okay, thank you. Look, you didn't answer the question. The question is what is our fund balance amount? Oh, the question is what is the fund balance amount? I can look it up and yeah. And then while Susanne is looking for the fund balance I also want to put into, oh you remember your question. Go ahead. So then I guess another piece of this that I think about is how the school district is looking at reconfiguring in terms of buildings and grades and just really looking, big picture. And so if that plan is to make that happen in a few years down the road then I imagine that goal is really centered around a few things like saving money being a large factor in that as well as probably resources and such that all impact money and budgeting in the end. So I just wonder about how we can muddle through I guess this unknown time in a way to where we know that the goal is to look at everything in a big picture and bring the budget down through restructuring. And I'm curious about the fund balance question. Thank you, Lerlie. Are you able to find that? I'm not there yet. Yeah, okay. We took a note, we'll let you know what that is. I do want to clarify a couple of things that as a board we have set the culture of not using fund balance just to, it's a one time artificial thing that we could do to offset tax. And we have over the years have created that culture of not doing that. There's a certain amount of the fund balance that we put into our capital plan to be responsible and to be able to not have to go into a bond boat in order to maintain our buildings. But we have had this culture of not using fund balance to offset the taxes because it artificially does it and it's a band-aid. It's not a real solution to our problem. So we just wanted to put that out. And then the other question that was about the cost containment is the main factor. Cost containment is not the main factor just the main factor for the board. And like we explained through the budget slides what is most important and why we've been having the strategic planning of this year is to have strong core beliefs to start to have a strong understanding of what we want as a board and as communities for all our kids. So that we're not based adjusting cuts but in what is best for all of our kids. Lisa Hanna. Hi, just a quick clarifying question in the agenda. It said public comment. Is this only specifically for questions right now? It's really common. Comments for the budget. Yeah. A couple of quick things. One is when we've heard administration express that the cuts would still ensure robust supports for students. I think something I just want to point out is that when we've heard from staff, from teachers, from counselors, from nurses we don't hear the same level of confidence. I hear a lot of anxiety. I hear a lot of worry from those people who are most student facing. So I just want to highlight that when we've heard from staff at meetings and in other public forums. And then the other pieces, just with reconfiguration of pre-K and K, I guess my question would be, is there any more information that we can get for community members like myself in Worcester and Middlesex of what that would look like? I think for voters, that's important to know what that's going to look like for our communities and whether that might disproportionately affect one community and our youngest children more in terms of travel, in terms of where they're going, in terms of staffing. So I think that's a question that still remains for me and that I wish we had that information before we voted. And then finally, in the end, I've said this before at meetings, but I do think that it's time to be honest with the public. I understand we're in between a rock and a hard place here. But if we need to make these cuts to lower the tax burden, so be it, but we need to be clear that there are sacrifices that we will be making for the students in our district, for the staff members whose positions will be cut. And it might be time for districts to be sounding the alarm rather than ensuring the public that everything will remain the status quo because I'm not so sure that that is the transparency that's needed right now. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Lee. So I have two questions. One, I was looking through this packet and thought I had found that for years. So first of all, I'm sorry if I was spreading my misinformation on the fund balance, is there information on how much we do that balance? Because it does seem, at least to me, like we are in this time of restructuring. We're looking at some income plans when we move into a new plan. So this could be a good opportunity to use those funds. Funds position short term and totally down what that restructuring looks like. I'm also wondering separately, to give you back what was just said, the cost associated with asking these students to travel, have we thought about what it's gonna look like to supply buses with five way premises for preschoolers and how we're going to staff having someone on each and every bus to get our students on and off and what it's gonna look like, but not only we're having a bus driver shortage but also an additional staff member shortage on the buses. Thank you, Nancy. So I do have the fund balance. Coming into FY24 is 2.7 million. And just as a reminder, the auditors will recommend that you maintain a certain level of fund balance and Suzanne in an earlier slide had shared in order to actually impact your tax rate, you're looking at two and a half million dollars so that would exhaust our fund balance, which is not something, frankly, our auditors would let us do to the extent that they, that would be, there is not enough fund balance to cover an impact tax rate. Okay, seeing no more questions, we're gonna move on into the rest of the budget and the rest of the packet and then the board is gonna do the board discussion. There is one more hand. One more, Lauren. Hi, sorry, I joined in late. I don't know, there we go. We can see you. I had a couple either question comments. My student, my kiddos go to Doty and I guess a concern I have about reducing the nurse and the guidance position is, I'm also a school educator and I know when our school nurse is out we kind of err on the side of caution and just send basically send kids home because we aren't medical professionals. And I am concerned about having a nurse only half the time my kiddos and the kiddos of Doty being sent home more frequently than at schools where there are a full-time nurse. I mean, this is the side obviously from the, not having someone there with medical if there's an emergency with medical training but just the, I know my kindergartner has been to the nurse many times this year but she's always been able to stay in school because she is well but needs a check-in. But I think when there's not somebody with that training we err on the side of caution and just suggest that the student go home and their parents can make that decision. So that is a concern that our Doty kiddos are going to be losing out on educational time because of that. And I guess also a concern with the information that I would like to know before voting with combining the kindergarten is the impact that has on the Doty first and second grade class of next year. Cause I know the first grade class is kind of a bubble class this year and it's quite large and they had to combine K1 and 12. And so I'm wondering what that I would like to know what the one two situation will be next year at Doty before finding voting on agreeing to combine kindergarten if that's gonna leave a class of like 24 first and second graders for the teacher. So I'd like those questions answered, please. Thank you. Can I ask that question? Thank you, Lauren. Yes. Yeah. So I don't think the community gets to vote on whether we're combining this. So we should make that clear because what I hear your question to learn is that the community will have an opportunity to actually vote on whether we combine the preschool and the one two at Doty and Romney. We're giving information but that is really a board decision and it won't be a community vote. Just to clear up, cause that's what I heard in your question and I didn't want you to have a misperception about that. No, I guess that would be part of the budget proposal though, correct? Right. Yeah. So I think that if I were to be voting, I would not support a budget where I'm not informed as to what that, if this is part of the budget, moving the kindergarten, combining those two kindergartens, I wanna know as a parent and person voting on this budget what the snowball effect is for the rest of the kids who are not in kindergarten. So I understand that I'm not voting for that particular item, but it's part of the budget proposal. Thank you, Lauren. Okay. Thank you. Do you want us to deal with your question? Yeah. Go ahead. So this year at Doty, we currently have a K-1 and a 1-2. We have a K-1 because our kindergarten numbers are small and because we have the 13 first graders, we were able to, that's a large amount of n to split so that you don't just have two first graders in each class. So next year we're looking at having 20 or 21 in the 1-2 next year. So that's within, by Doty's standards, that's a large class, by Eastmont Pillar of Standards, that's a regular class. Thank you, Killing. Okay. We have a lot to cover tonight so we're gonna move into the student report. We don't have our students with us today. I'm looking at Steven, we're our students. They usually text me, but I don't, I think they probably are, yeah. So we're gonna, if Willow or Linaya come, we will, I guess one thing that I could share on their behalf is that a bunch of us came to and did school visits last week and that was really impactful and it's great to be able to see the kids and see their classrooms and we're gonna continue to figure out how we can best share that information and how we can create a system so that we can actually have some outcome out of the visits, but that was great. Will you agree, Steven? Yeah. Sorry, I didn't hear all of that. Oh, you didn't? I don't know if I'm hearing what you said. Oh, okay. I'm gonna project to this side because I was projected to that side but that we were visiting last week, the classrooms. Yes. Is that Linaya and Willow invited us and that was something that we really appreciated for. Yep, yep. And it was five, I thought. Five? Yeah, because Zach, Ursula, I can, Natasha and myself were here at different classrooms and that was, you know, we really appreciated their effort or it was really great. Willow was very excited. Willow and Linaya, yeah, Linaya. I shadowed Linaya and that met with Willow and we all had a chance to meet with Willow too so thank you, we appreciated that. So since they're not here. Linaya, I have a hockey game in the stove. That's what I'm gonna do. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, I imagine that there's something going on. Okay, Superintendent and Central Office, the report was part of, I'm gonna give it to you, Megan. Yep, there's a few different things. I'm happy to entertain questions. There's a couple of your initial procedure report outs and then a number of just miscellaneous Central Office updates. So happy to answer questions. I know you have a lot of discussion tonight, so. I have one quick question. I had a chance to look at it. I'm curious, so if there's any progress related to the HR director position? So there was in the previous, in last, actually December's Colt report, yes. So Heidi Gimmick joined us in December. She actually started the one, no, a little bit before. Yeah, so she's been here for a little over a month. She's great. She's making her way around the district to meet with principals, spending time in Central Office. And is development of a stronger sub-list part of her? There are lots of things on Heidi's scope of work, yes. But that's one. Many, and I think one of the recruitment is at the top of her list. Great, thanks. Yep, any other, go ahead. One of the things I had mentioned and I think tonight would be to, I mean, it would take too long. I mean, I think that would take long, but it would be helpful for me as a board member to just hear the ongoing work that's happening in terms of the PCV impact and just how the spaces are being utilized and the plans around that. So, I mean, that's just something to put down the road. A regular report? Yes, well, there is a report in this Colt report that talks about, well, because I think what you'll see in the Colt report is we've secured the contractor, they have started their work and we don't know the scope of what happens until they come and report to us. Right now where they are is there, they give us a proposal that, or how they will approach the analysis and then the Department of Environmental Conservation has to approve that proposal. They had it, they bounced some questions back, the firm is in the process of answering those questions and then also in there that I do think is important for the board to remember is the cost of this, which is not remediation, this is just the cost to find out what to do is about $215,000. We can and will partition the agency of Ed for some reimbursement for that. It is not clear at all how much reimbursement we will get. So that's the PCV update. I guess my question is, are there any spaces that were impacted and not usable? No, okay. None of them are usable. Yeah, exactly. Ian, the firm has replied to the DEC's questions and it's now back at the DEC to approve. Once they approve, I can submit the request to the AOE for money and I plan to request all of it. The whole amount. It's how much is in the fund. I don't know who's come ahead of us in line and sort of first come first serve. We know at least one very large one because I'm ahead of us in line, yes. We have to pay out of fund balance, I'm assuming, and then get reimbursed if the agency of education will reimburse us. Yeah. Okay, so that's how we're gonna do that. We're gonna pay out of the fund balance. Over at the capital. If we need to. I mean, we might not need to have it come out of the fund balance, but yes. I'm just assuming these guys want to get paid as they go along as opposed to we need to be paid for education. My hope is that the AOE will pay for all of it and that is what the AOE says that we can put in for all of it. And the assumption is that all of it will be paid, but there is a fine amount in that fund. The law actually says that we will be reimbursed for the entire cost, but the allocation that was given does not match the scope. I'd be short. Does it match the scope? Yes, yes, exactly. Since 1974. Yeah, efforts. Okay, anything, any other questions from the Colt report? Just want to thank you guys for a very thorough report that was really helpful. Then next we have the Central Vermont Career Center report. I included the superintendent's newsletter for you guys to see if there were any questions. And I also, in between that and the packet being sent last week, we approved our budget and the tuition for next year for the career center is $18,901. The sending school district tuition, what we actually pay is $7,537. Like we have been saying before, make sure to ask for your ballot for pay for the career, to vote for the career center. It's not in addition, that it's already included on your, on the allocation for the budget, okay? So it's not extra, like we've been saying. So just remember to vote for the career center. Are there any questions on this for the superintendent report from Jody or otherwise we'll move to the next item. The next item is the principles report on page 10. Any questions? Other questions, just a comment? Yeah. I liked that we put the ed quality references in at the top for our three priorities. Thank you. That was an ad from the ed quality committee's request to say, I know that there's lots that you do connected to ed quality, but we don't know. So I would give the thanks back to the ed quality committee. That was a good suggestion. Happy to see you. Okay, I don't see any other hands up. And again, just thank you to the principles. Really helpful to see what is going on in each of your schools. And then the BSBA report, we included in the packet what I thought you guys possibly could have missed from one of our updates first. But if there's any questions on that, otherwise the only other update that I have from Vermont School of Association is that tomorrow there's a webinar and communication about budgets. If you haven't signed up, you can just sign up and listen to it later or sign up. We share some of our documents in there. There will be three other board members. I won't be there, but there'll be two other board members sharing resources and it's a great thing to get involved in as learning for new and old board members. And the last thing is that the update from today, it would be worth it for all of you guys to read it and it talks about all of what we were talking today about the impact of 127 and all the work is pretty dynamic in the legislature right now. There's a lot going on for the impact of Act 127. And we don't wanna undo Act 127, right? So we all have a responsibility to make sure that equity stays at the center of public education in the state. So read that update. Other than that, any questions? Seeing none, we can move on into our own discussions of the budget, which is where we were saving most of our time for today. So what I was gonna suggest that we do is that we have a motion on the table and then we can all discuss and I'll just go one by, you know, one by one in just making sure that we understand or have any questions or we're hoping to be able to pass the budget today. I don't know if any of you would be willing to. Go ahead, Kari. I'd like to move that we adopt the draft budget before. Thank you, Kari. Could I have a second for that, Ursula? Okay, and with that discussion. So now we open the discussion. I thought that we would just start and then if you wanna pass. I'd like to use the restroom before we get to. Okay, so why don't we take a five minute break and then we come back and settle in. Okay, guys, we're gonna get started one minute or a little less than a minute. It's 19, it's 729. 1929, the rest of the world. It's pretty dark, it's a thing. I don't know what it is. It's a glee. A glee. All right, okay, but it looks like everybody's quiet so we can get started. I'm not gonna bore you with that criteria. I just, it's one simple question. Does this budget advances us towards our desired state? And we will start in the corner and just go, if you're not ready, you can pass. But let's just get started with the motion that is on the table right now. Am I allowed to share a letter, an email that came through? Yeah. From a constituent before and your staff member. So this is from Danielle Barclay. We all just received this. I don't know if everyone's read it. Everyone's read it and I'm not sure. Yeah, we all shared it. Everybody read it. Yeah, we all read it. I'm ready. I'm here. I'm ready to share it. Okay. So the subject is full-time nursing position letter to the board to whom it may concern. This letter is to advocate for a full-time nursing position at Calis Elementary School. I was hired as an administrative assistant to the principal at Calis Elementary at the beginning of the school year. When I was hired for this position, I was aware that I would need to fill in as a substitute teacher in all areas of the school and look forward to getting to know the students better in those opportunities as they came up. I was not aware, however, that the nursing position may potentially be cut in half and then I would be asked to fill in on a more consistent basis in that role. While I am always willing to be flexible and cover whenever it is needed in the school, I feel as though it would be a disservice to the students and the families of Calis to have someone covering in the health office consistently who is not a qualified healthcare professional. The thought of needing to make decisions regarding a student's health and well-being consistently and without extensive training and background in that area is overwhelming. It also feels overwhelming to think of how often I would be pulled away from the office. We talk a lot about safety and making sure that we are increasing our situational awareness and it feels like safety would be taking a back burner if someone in my role were to be running back and forth to the health office throughout the day. Additionally, if we were in an emergency situation where we needed to evacuate offsite, having a nurse to help manage the crisis would be imperative. Thank you for your time and consideration in keeping a full-time nursing physician at Calis Elementary School warmly, Danielle Barkley. Did I say her last name properly? Barkley. Barkley, thank you. Danielle Barkley. So Maggie, while you were at it, then we received another email that probably people haven't been able to read. Right after that, there was that email from Sila Gilbert. From Priscilla Gilbert. Yeah. Budget subject. Dear school board members, you have a daunting task in front of you tonight to preserve the quality of education in the district while also making necessary cuts to our expenses to ensure that our district can continue to best serve our students. Making budget cuts is always hard and we all have priorities that we think are essential to the quality of education. Unfortunately, increasing costs and declining enrollment is not a sustainable model. I have no doubt that various constituents are lobbying that we not cut X or Y, but I ask you as a board to remember that your dual mandate is to provide for quality education in a sustainable model. Last year, the board and the community made a commitment to reducing expenses in pursuit of sustainability. I ask that tonight you remember that commitment and do what is best for the long-term health of our education system. As a mother, a taxpayer, and a former board member, I believe strongly in the importance of a strong public education system. The strength of our schools is part of what led my husband and I to buy a house in East Montpelier 21 years ago. I hope that we will continue to be able to offer an excellent education to all students by strategically reducing our expenses to ensure future viability. Thank you, Priscilla Gilbert. Thanks. With that, do you wanna talk to the question? Yeah. So I'm not supporting this budget. I've been uncomfortable with reductions in nursing and counseling from our first discussions. I'm especially concerned about readiness for accessing academics if kids have unmet health and social needs, social support needs. And as an educator, I also see classroom educators, some of whom from Calis have reached out to me directly to express concern about these reductions, approaching in public to talk about concerns about reductions in the staffing. For both of those advantages, I think that it puts an undue responsibility on classroom educators to do more than they can do, even with all of the beautiful social-emotional learning systems that we learned about are existing in our schools currently. I don't think that the needs of children presently are the same as they were pre-COVID. And I think we will see that play out in research in the future. There is no going back to the way things were before. And while I understand that we functioned previously with less than full-time staffing in our smallest schools for nursing and counseling previously, I don't think that it's in our kids' best interests and I don't think it's equitable, even if it's within educational quality standards. You could have a smaller number of students, but if there isn't someone there all day, they're not there all day. It doesn't matter how many students there are in the building. So that really stood out for me from a conversation we had several board meetings ago. And additionally, from the nursing standpoint, really concerned about academic access and the time when attendance is incredibly challenging, kids are still learning how to participate, like sustained attention in a classroom environment, their perseverance and endurance for academic challenges is not the same as it was pre-pandemic. So to me, if there isn't a nurse in the building and the designated person is assigned to send that child home, those are in many cases kids who may have symptoms of anxiety that they can't express yet. So we're talking headaches and stomach aches and things that as a nurse working with a counselor and classroom teachers might be able to identify and bring them back in the class. And now we're gonna send those kids home and they're not gonna access their education. So if we're really committed to being a district of high excellence, which is our reputation and we wanna maintain it, I see those cuts as impossible from a standpoint of education quality, not like an educational quality standard minimum, which is a minimum, it's adequate. Do we wanna be adequate or do we wanna be excellent? So that's why I can't support this budget. Thanks Maggie. Karin? Karin, can I ask you a question? If we don't approve the budget, what's the process going forward? And should we have people who are saying they don't support the budget, say what would need to happen to support? Like would you just raise the budget and then propose that to the taxpayers? Is that what would make you make it palatable to you, Maggie? Yeah, that is it. So my understanding was that we moved up this entire process so that we could have these robust conversations in the earlier point in the year and these concerns have been raised and we haven't really had that conversation. We've just moved forward. So from my perspective, these are conversations and plans we should have been making several meetings ago, not at this point because we would have had time to do that. But in terms of funding, I would like to see those positions reinstated at a minimum. Like that's something that I could get behind if the nursing and the counseling positions across the schools. We had Linnea say here and expressed to us how important that was to her and I think student voice is another component here that we've heard from, from a representative on our own board about the importance of counseling even with the addition of the counselor focusing on drug and alcohol, SAF, is that acronym, which as a board we know from our meetings, emergency meetings that like we need both. We don't need to eliminate one and I also appreciate that the administration was in a position of identifying what they could conceive of cutting and we heard from you, please do not ask us to do more. So you did what you could. But I challenged the assertion that these are like necessary cuts and that people, like that we're gonna function just as well after the fact. So nursing, counseling. And I wasn't challenging you. I just wanna like, I've been very clear on what the next steps are or how we move forward. So that was like, which is problematic that we as a board don't know what the next steps are and here we are so close. Yeah and I think one thing to clarify so I think we can express if we are, right now we have a motion on the table, we're gonna vote the budget up or down tonight. So that is the next action that we're taking. It is helpful to know, just as a consensus part of and learning more about each other, why would it take for you to be a yes vote? But let's just be clear. There's a motion on the table. That's what we're doing right now. Kari? Yeah, so I just wanted to reflect a minute on what a wild process this is about. I highlighted in the packet, I thought the materials were really good, really nice job. I highlighted the word volatile, but the word that kept coming to my mind was bewildering because I thought about it there, have been at least five factors that are just way out of the norm this year. The first one is just the local spending climate. You know, we anticipated that this was gonna be hard and we identified $900,000 in reductions and that's not an easy thing to do. And yet, here we are with almost a 16% net increase. I mean that, I mean, we all know the reasons, but that is just staggering. And then there were two factors that actually were kind of benefits. One was the new student count methodology. We thought that was gonna be very painful and somehow it increased our student count by 200. I mean, it's kind of amazing. And then the tax rates being capped at 5% with a bunch of caveats. For a while there, it looked like we might be in okay shape this year. And then the other two factors washed over like a tidal wave, that the projected yield, property yield, I mean that's just staggering, the decrease there. And of course that's related. None of these things are isolated, but it's related to the ADM. And then significant drops in the CLA in all five of our towns. Just leaves us in this, in this no man's land where we're not prepared to reduce by one and a half million or maybe it's even two and a half million now as we're understanding. That's just not tenable. And yet that leaves us asking our voters to support massive increases. We're talking 13 to 25% increases. It leaves me feeling like we're always thinking about the sustainability of quality education with our budgets. This year, I'm thinking about the sustainability of life as we know it in Central Vermont for all of us. So that's my preamble that I just see one way forward. I get, it would be a lack of imagination, but one way forward out of this, we need to, as a board, adopt the least expensive budget that we can tonight. I assume that that's the one that's on the table. And then we need to do our best job of explaining this to the voters, helping them understand where this came from and why we think they should support it. And then once this passes, we need to get on with the work of finishing a strategic plan and doing the reconfiguration. We need the strategic plan because it reaffirms our values and it sets the strategies for how we approach education. And we need the reconfiguration because we have to reduce our overhead and significantly reduce our operational expenses. We just don't have a choice at this point. So, yeah, those are my comments, thank you. So you support the budget? I do. Yeah, okay. Jonathan? Yeah, thanks. So the concerns that I have remain that I've had for some time now and many of those concerns really are similar to what Maggie's expressed, which is that we're in a place now where things are different post-pandemic with children, I think, with mental health, with children, with mental health across the board really in the country, but particularly with young people. And so the cuts specific to nursing and counseling I cannot support. And because they're part of this proposed budget, I can't support the budget as it is. So if I were to make a suggestion, my suggestion would be to add those positions back in. And then I would have to reassess whether I would support the budget at that time. But I'm just very concerned about those things. Everything that I read or much about I read and what I see about the status of mental health among young people is really quite concerning. And so it just doesn't jive with cutting those positions in my mind. Thank you, Jonathan. Yeah. Dan? So I'm not quite there yet, as I'm trying to balance everything that I'm hearing and the questions that are coming up, especially since the cuts that we're talking about those of what they are. I was trying to find my document that shows the number of students currently at each building. This some? Is it? QS. Yeah. It's kind of confusing, not really. I mean, are there, so is it? Can you expand on the question? Well, so I'm sure I can't remember how many students are at each building. So. I think I have done a few presentations before. Right, yeah, and I was trying and of course I cleaned up the bags, so I didn't have that. So while, and I appreciate it, because I just need to be looking at that as I'm thinking of other things. The other thing that it does remind me, as you're saying, Kari, is that we're talking about life as it exists and how do we advocate? I really feel that we need to be very in tune. Thank you, Shadmikam, on the scale of that. My best friend, Kailin, found it. What? So thank you, I'll write this down real quick. So it reminds me that we need to be very aware of what's going on in the legislature and especially that one-step removal of what we know is needed and that we understand the decisions that are being made. Thank you, Ursula, I see yours too. And also, we need to be working with our communities and our families to be sure that they also know the tax abatement options that are out there, that that is also part of our job, regardless of if we pass the money that we don't have. I mean, whatever this board puts forward, we need to be sure we're working with that. I need to take a look at these numbers and hear a little bit before I can state yes or no about. So you're passing right now? Yes, okay. It's a long way to pass it. I support the budget draft that we have in front of us. I, sorry, we've gotten really thoughtful, although difficult cuts proposed by our administrators. And they're difficult because these are people that they've worked with for a long time and they are community members sometimes. And so that makes them family. And it's difficult to consider making cuts, especially when we hear people come up and talk about the importance of nursing and counseling. But we need to remember that we have a fiscal responsibility to all of our community members. And these tax increases with the five or so years and cap are going to strain a lot of our families, which are gonna see a negative impact to kids in those families. I think we need to remember we've been visiting each of the schools at the beginning of the month and we've been getting the social emotional learning presentations from each of our principals. And they integrate the social and emotional learning into their whole school system right now. And it just really think we need to pay attention to the fiscal responsibility that we have to have in that these are cumulative increases. So last year we looked at a almost 13% increase to our budget and we said we're gonna look at things next year and we need to make cuts. Now, even with cuts, we're looking at a 15% spending increase. I can't imagine costs are gonna go down considerably next year and we have this cap that's gonna artificially hold money that's just gonna keep increasing as we go along that we're gonna feel five years down the road that can make a lot of this reconfiguration study and work that we're trying to do very difficult if we don't have the money to actualize it. So I am in support of the budget as it stands. Thank you, Eversa, my kid. Well, in the beginning of the budget presentation, we always talked about the why, you know, the well-being of the state and healthy schools, student need, equitable distribution of resources. And I agree with Maggie in that cutting the nursing and counseling, especially from Caledon and Dodie, does not, to me, fit into that framework. Those are the two towns that, you know, the median gross income is below the Vermont State average. Those two towns in our district, those are the town, you know, those, if we're gonna be not having a nursing house, be sending more kids home, be having more parents have to take off from work in those towns, I just, I can't support that. I would not, I totally hear the concern, the fiscal concern, and I don't want to ignore that. It does just, I do have a problem thinking five years down the line because we're, you know, in the next year or two, theoretically undergoing a reconfiguration process, which will change the landscape completely. So looking at this one year, I just can't support those specific cuts. I'm not saying we have to add them back in and not take anything else out. I think part of it is my frustration too, because I've brought this up, read every presentation and I've made some suggestions, other people have made some suggestions as to where it would maybe feel better to make some changes. And I can be more specific if you want my suggestions again. But, you know, thank you, McKaylin and Natasha. I'll echo a lot of what McKaylin and Maggie said. Looking at our three pillars, these cuts go against what those three pillars stand for. So it seems kind of counterintuitive to say that this is what's best for kids and we stand for these things, yet the cuts we're making are gonna directly impact those services. Over break, I ran into some people I went to high school with. Two of them said that one of the guidance counselors at the school saved their life. So the idea that we were talking about like cutting guidance counselors when they have that kind of impact on students does not feel responsible to me in terms of what is what's best for our students. Also just looking at, I know we've been talking a lot about nurses and the counselors, but even with library and media, when we talk about equity being one of our pillars, our library media specialists in this district have been spearheading so much of the equity work that our students are experiencing. And so to cut those positions is going to cut the ability of our students to continue to participate in that kind of access to various types of media, which will support what we claim as a district is important to us in terms of equity. I do have a question and this kind of goes with McCallan said is we keep getting the same proposal, even though the community and board members have expressed concerns about cuts, what would happen if we didn't make those cuts? What impact would that have on the tax rate for the towns? And let's just say we just stick with nurses and guidance counselors. What impact would that have? The tax rate does not change. So we're making cuts, but it doesn't change the tax rate. So if the tax rate isn't going to change, why would I as a taxpayer want to lose resources for my students if it's not going to impact my tax rate? And that's not a question I'm expecting anybody to answer, but I mean, that's something that I'm thinking about, that if it's not going to impact my tax rate, why would I want to lose resources for my kids and other kids in the system? So those are just some of the thoughts that I have. So as of right now, I would not support this budget as it's prevented. Can I just clarify that statement because of the 5% cap as it exists? Okay, thank you. In this current year. With the current context. But that's what we're dealing with. Is this current year with the current context? And I am in agreement, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be looking down the road, but down the road, we are going to have finished our strategic plan. We're going to have finished our reconfiguring. And in theory, that reconfiguring of our district is going to help address some of these things. So to me, it makes sense to think about the budget for the district that we're dealing with right now, knowing that it's going to be changing. And then we can think about the budget once we know what those changes are. I'm also afraid that if we start making changes now and we reconfigure that, depending on what their reconfiguration looks like, what if we need to have some of those positions back? So I just, I would not be able to vote yes on this. I want to let everybody know I'm not going to try to answer. Go ahead, Denny. Yeah. I want to thank Silla and Ruben. I think they were who called us out and asked us to be accountable to our statements last year about fiscal responsibility. And just for the public records, for those who aren't keeping tabs on our configuration work, we are working towards a configuration plan that is in the works. It's, it can't be ignored as far as I'm concerned in the context of this conversation. And I think without the configuration, my vote would be different, but I think I will dissent. I think, you know, for me, I think there's a lot of truth in what Lisa said. I think people in good faith are coming out that's from different directions. And our administrators did a lot of hard work and made a lot of hard choices. And I think they can run their schools with the cuts, but we also see counselors standing up together and we see nurses standing up together saying that, you know, there's, there's harm to the student bodies from losing those positions. I also think, you know, Takari's point, I think the specter of, you know, affordability in central Vermont, ceasing is a scary prospect, but I think, you know, to other points, you know, so is the mental health crisis. And that's real for me. Yeah. I'll just start there. So, did you support the budget? I'm dissenting. Dissenting. Kilian. Oh, sorry. Do you want me to let that go first or do you want me to go? Whatever it is. I need to pass for just a minute for that. Thank you. Thank you, Kilian. Is that? Overall, I would support this budget. I think as we look at the challenges that are facing, and that face students is a lot, as we look at sort of the thing, all the non-educational things that come through our doors, a lot of them have roots in economics. And I think to keep, to keep, you know, to sort of keep pushing this into not, sort of to keep not worrying about the commitments we've made in the past about bringing down costs, you know, really bothers me. I think, to address what Natasha said, I mean, I think we're in a tough, I think the legislature's put us in a really tough spot, honestly, with this question about how the 5% cap works. I think it makes sense for any given school district to say, let's get someone else to pay for things. But that money has got to come from somewhere. It's coming from us one way or the other, even if we're not sure where they squirreled that money away. And so I'm not, that's why I'm not able to think of this as why would, why wouldn't we just give, you know, just take the extra positions. If there was one thing I were to add back, I think I could see myself agreeing to add the nursing back in. I think that, I think there is a substantive difference there where there's an element to where the capacity service. I worked in issues with healthcare capacity. One of the big problems we have is with labor and delivery of you have to have an OBGYN and you have to have an anesthesiologist and it doesn't matter how big your program is. And so in that way I could see it with nursing. I could also frankly see, there's a lot that you can do by picking up the phone and getting an opinion and you know, and I think we need, I think there is, if we do pass the budget and I don't, I would want to hold the administration accountable to make sure that the nurse doesn't belong to the building that they are in, that they are providing advice, that they are providing counsel, that someone, you know, when there's not a nurse in a physical building, that building can pick up a phone and get on the phone with a nurse to get an input on that and I think that's a doable thing. But if that's a thing that's going to get a budget on the table, that's a thing I could agree to. I think looking at some of the other things, looking at your library meal, looking at counseling, you know, when I look at these ratios, I think it looks like, you know, we're really bringing, we've been bringing you know, cows and dodie more in line with some of the other schools. You know, if my kid needs the counselor, if they're a larger school and because they're more students, they're with another student, they're still not available and so I think those ratios have a lot more to say about the equity of the services there. So I'll stop there. Thank you, Sack. Chris. Did I hear an amendment? No, he said, he supported the budget. I didn't make an amendment, but I, I certainly don't know where I was. Lawyer Chris, go ahead. So we're talking about, I think, primarily about nursing and counseling. Sorry, I have a question on the counselor. Does the Berlin position that was hired have any role in substituting for counseling at Berlin? And the same question for you, Therita. Substituting? No, I think there's a, I think, and Celia might be on the screen, but I'll, oh, somehow I popped up. The analysis of what the system needs to support students is that they need the lens of a counselor and the lens of this behaviorist. And so it is a trading of resources because they feel like that better meets the needs of the system. And Steven. Oh, Celia's there. Oh, Celia's here. She can answer this better than me. You can answer this better than me. Celia, thank you. Thank you. Good, so she's gonna answer for you. Megan said it beautifully. I, in looking at our system, I think that the having the lens of a BCBA and the school counselor will best meet the needs of all of our students. And so. Thanks, Celia. Thank you. Steven, how about the position of U32? So we're going to reconfigure the way that our school counselors, I mean we have several, so we have a lot of different options. So we're reconfiguring in a way that will provide a different service through our drug and alcohol counseling and be able to still provide services to students for school counseling services to students as well with the existing staff or the remaining staff. And I would just offer as well a little caveat is that this is also some of our beginnings of our long term, how do we reduce the overall number of FTEs in our building as we reduce the number of students in our school? Because over the next three years, we're going to be almost 100 students small. And so those decreases are already in the elementary schools. And so in looking at the numbers, it seems that we're in terms of the nursing. We're talking about a budget that would reduce the caliber nurse by 0.4, all right? In the Doty nurse by 0.5. In no other nursing introduction than Amora? Correct. Okay. And then we had the counseling of a reduction of 0.6 at Calis, 0.2 at Doty. And then a full at Berlin, but it's kind of substitute, at least we said, we were reorganizing how that service is provided. And then a reduction of one at Youth Abuse Counselor. So the numbers, to me, the numbers are not, especially for the nurses, is not significant. I mean, we're talking about 41,000, 42,000 at Calis, and I think 51,6 at Doty for nursing services that we hear are pretty important for not only students, but I think staff help. Because it's an overall picture here. And that number just, doesn't seem like something that could not be found in this budget such that we are cutting these positions. You know, I would say the same thing would apply, at least for me, for the Calis and the Doty counselors, because again, you're talking about an amount that's about maybe $90,000 for the two of them, maybe 98,000. And so a combination of those two items, I mean, we spend more on a ball field, reconfiguring a ball field, and I know people would say that's the infrastructure project, but we're talking about our human capital here, our human infrastructure, which is equally, if not more important, than the physical infrastructure that we have. And we also don't see any administrative cuts, not one. And that is problematic for me, because if it's community, then the burden, and it really does fall upon Doty and Calis, the two of the more needy, I think, and I can say I'll get hate mail from the Doty and the Calis community, but the more needy community schools that we have in our district. So unless we're gonna reinstate those minor, cost items, I will not support the budget as it's currently, I support the number, I don't support the allocation, and unfortunately, I cannot support the number if I can't get a different allocation of the resources in that budget. And I think it's minor, very minor, so thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna go back to the queue. Yeah, this has been a really, really good discussion. The last time that we met, I asked people to not frame the nursing as underserved because of the ratio, but rather whether we needed to have a nurse in the building every day for all the hours of the day. And that came back very clearly tonight. And through emails that we got that is a real issue. And it has an issue on parents having to come and get their kids from school. It's a safety issue. And my heart just breaks with the amount of tax increase that we're gonna get. And I feel so much anxiety that the 5% cap is not gonna stick for some reason. And that we're just building up this debt and I think that if it weren't for the reconfiguration coming where I see hopefully some restructuring and some money coming back in, and I'm so glad that we have that and we're not a district that's dealing with this that doesn't have that sort of out in those options. And I'm really grateful for that. And so I also think that I kind of stand by the ratios for the guidance counselors, for the counseling positions that the ratios are actually bringing Dodie and Romney back into the line with the rest of the elementary schools. But I think for, I would propose that we put nursing back in. It's $93,000. I don't see it being a significant enough amount to have it so that kids don't have a nurse in school, especially in the rural and as you're saying, kind of, yeah, underserved areas. With the caveat that like next year with reconfiguration we need to make sure that we are making those cuts and that we reconfigure in a way where that's possible. So just to clarify, so you're not accepting the budget as it is? Yeah, okay. I'm gonna go back to Diane and then go to our clerk. Yeah, I'm gonna go back, I just said, Ms. Joshua, is it okay? I'm gonna go back to Diane and then, and good job. Chris is trying to show on my hand. Either way. Are you ready now, Diane? All right. Is that me? Yeah, I know, I know. So again, you know, being from Berlin where the changes are different, it is helpful for me to hear because I'm a board member that's, my responsibility is to all communities. And so it's really, what I was also reminded about too was our discussion when our, well, ESSER monies made it possible. ESSER and the need due to COVID for us to increase nursing, that I remember the conversations about the relief that was there, not just because of COVID but because of the nursing needs that you can't plan and schedule them. So that's the long and the short of it is similar to what you're saying, Chris, is that I agree with the numbers, but I don't agree with the cut in the nursing. And I think that that's, you know, if it means that we vote down the budget in order to have a change in that allocation. I'll be quick. I support the budget, the motion as it is. This conference station feels very familiar from last year to me. You know, we start talking about, oh, well, this money really isn't that much, more of an increase. And, you know, again, I feel like we're not following the advice of our administrators when we ask them to do this work. I think that has an effect on them, has an effect on the way they can effectively govern their schools. Yeah, I just think we need to start practicing getting our spending in line with the realities of our community. Thank you, Joshua. So I got an email from Amelia. She's sick and she couldn't come today, but she wanted to make sure that we knew that she supported the budget. So he sent us an email so she could have a vote on the budget. I think the last one left is me. I think that would be no surprise that I support the budget. I feel really, you know, first, I want to thank the administration for all the work. I really feel like they were listening to us in a way that they ask the question differently to their principals so that they are the experts and know what the student need is and they propose the cuts that they felt would meet student need. And I feel like we are undermining our administrators by not yet, again, listening to the information. And I get it, it's difficult and it is. There's a lot of emotional stuff with the feedback that we're getting from some of our own teachers too, but I think that we have to understand that that's why we hire experts, right? That's why we hire a superintendent. That's why we hire the best principals that we have, right? They are proposing a cut that would get us in that path to sustainability. And adding the, to answer that question that has been, you know, adding for us right now that back to me, like cutting our budget, right? Again, with money that we do not have, even if it doesn't impact the tax right now, we are adding to the burden on the state. So what we are gonna get to have a nurse here, Winooski is not gonna get to have the resources that they need for a much more, like really much more students and with higher needs. We are gonna be responsible. And I don't know, I see the faces. I can send you the, there were three letters sent today from the Winooski district to the state house. And it's just, they did not add $200,000 that they needed and they knew that they, because they don't wanna have their budget in order to serve their kids. Mount Mansfield has added money to their budget. Milton has taken out of their money, out of their budget because this is something that everybody's saying in the state, we are not being responsible. So the consequence of that is that we can, the legislative legislation could come back to us that is sort of similar to what happened with that 46. We would be forced, instead of us having control of what to do, we would be forced to make decisions that we might not wanna make. So we were taking the risk of putting a budget out that might not be voted. That would be my biggest concern. We are putting out a budget that might be voted down by our own district. And what are we gonna cut next? So I would just say, so that was a long way to saying I support the budget. So let's see if you had your hand up one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I have concerns about using Winooski and Milton, which are two communities really struggling with educational equity. And dynamics in their school districts that if we're gonna be leaders in equity work, these positions are critical to that work. And I don't want to be in Milton or Winooski's situation with the issues that they are struggling with. I would like us to be doing what we're doing, which is getting on the path towards meeting the needs of all students and being inclusive. So, yeah, I'm sorry that they didn't include those funds because those are critical funds. I would imagine for them to be moving forward. So what I'm saying is that they did not include extra money so that they're making sure that they are meeting student needs, right? They're making sure that they're meeting student needs. They could have, because of the tax impact, added money because they would have more money to work with the budget. So I guess the comment is if it's about equity, it is with the allocation of resources that we're doing right now, and I'm looking at our administrators, we are being equitable to our students, to our staff. And yes, we are rural. Some of our communities are more rural and we are gonna have to be more flexible and how we provide services. But we're not gonna make any impact again for next year. So right now the vote fails. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And one, two, three, four, five, six, yeses. So I do think there's just a couple of statements I would make. So when I apply my thinking, my understanding of this, and I can honestly say I came here tonight thinking I was going to vote the budget in. It really is the dialogue in the conversation and it is looking back at these core beliefs that for me, this is what resonates and it resonates about the communities and it resonates about those. And I guess I take exception to statements that I am trying to undermine the administration. I am not, but my job here is to balance what I hear from community members with also what your recommendations are, with also what we know. And it is not to be disrespectful at all and it is not meant to undermine. I realize if we come to disagreements or decisions that aren't the same, then that is potentially how it feels. But again, as I said before, all of us are applying the pillars, are applying the core beliefs, but these do not come with this, you do X, Y, and Z. We are individuals who come to this applying what we're learning and knowing and into that. I'm going to echo that because having a different opinion than our administrators is not undermining them. It's not disrespectful. When we go to our doctors and we get an opinion, we say, well, that's not good. I don't think I'm going to do that, doctor. Are we undermining the doctor? If we go get a second opinion, no, we're not. It's an adult conversation and we can have different views of things and we can reflect that we want at least a different allocation and it's not undermining. It's democracy, actually, to have that type of conversation and unless we're just going to be rubber stamps, because if we're going to be rubber stamps, we don't even get to have this budget discussion. We just, whatever the administration presents, we approve and that's not what we are. And that's not what we should be because then we don't, the community doesn't have direct input into this budget and process. So I don't like when the commentary views cast as undermining the administration so that I don't think it is. I think we're very supportive of our administration, Franklin. And I didn't mean to say that you're not supportive. There's one thing, like, we are supportive of our administration. It's a different lens when we're working on a budget and trying to move the work forward towards the budget. So I'm not saying that you're undermining because you don't respect or you don't honor I know that you guys will do. We are all doing this work together. It's complicated work. So how do we advance it together? We are back in the same place where we were last year. Natasha and then Ursula and Megan has. I just, I want to piggyback on what Diane and Chris just said because this is something I've been thinking about for a couple board meetings now. And it also, when Lisa mentioned transparency that struck a chord. Because I feel like when the comment is made, our administrators are telling us what they, this is how they can run their schools. They're telling us this is how they can run their schools after they've been told to have to make cuts. So that's, it's not an accurate statement to say, this is all they need. It's not. It's what they can make do with knowing that they have to make cuts. So I just, I just want that. I want to make sure that if we're gonna be transparent let's be transparent. Our administrators did the best they could with the parameters that were given to them. I do trust that our administrators thought very long and hard and considered all of the possibilities when coming to the conclusion of this is what we can run our school with. But again, it's within the framework of what can you run the school with knowing you have to make cuts. So I just, I just feel like that needs to be said especially in light of the comment from the community saying this needs to be transparent. I have very real concerns with the democracy that we're upholding when not all of the voices have been able to come to the table. There are people who have not been able to come and voice their concern with the increase in the spending for a variety of reasons. They could be working right now. They could be working two or three jobs and they can't make our meetings. But we have not heard from everybody and we have a responsibility as this board to everybody in our community, including the ones who are not going to be able to afford the increase that we're projecting this year with the cuts. This is going to affect their entire household. When you look at these not so insignificant increases it affects their kids which are our students. So we need to be fiscally responsible and I understand that we're looking at reconfiguration and we've had the strategic planning that we are doing but we can't think that it is a magic bandaid that is going to cover every expense that we make now. We're going to find ourselves someplace five years from now that reconfiguration cannot fix and we cannot afford and we will cost people out of our communities. People will not be able to live here. It becomes an inequitable community because they can't afford to live here. Thank you. Wonderful. Sorry. I can also hold my, I have a request for the board listening to the conversation. So if it's better placed at the end of the board comments that's fine. Okay. We've talked a lot about how reconfiguration is going to solve all these problems and I remember a couple of months ago I was talking about sort of what I'd be willing to if we could find a future board that generated some laughter and I acknowledge that that was a weakness in my argument. Looking at what I saw as an audience member last year and what I'm seeing this year it makes it really hard for me to put faith in a future reconfiguration. Based on what we're seeing now. I think that if I'm gonna go back to the thing I know we can't do if we could find a future board I would support a lot of the things we could do to create a bridge. But given that last year it was next year it's going to be the big changes and this year it's next year it's going to be the big changes. I don't, I have a really hard time supporting something that is based on something that we can't actually find ourselves to in the history of not following through. Maggie. I thought, and perhaps this is just the piece that I'm remembering most significantly that one of the things we committed to last year was moving up this process in order to have these robust conversations and not be pushed up against the deadline. And as other folks have spoken to I think this vote reflects that we have expressed concerns and not necessarily felt heard. And so that it's twofold it's, you know when are we be getting these conversations? What are we considering? What is being explored in addition to what administration might recommend? Is there, and heard from the community at earlier budget, at the budget forums? I think it was, was it a East Montpelier or am I blaming that last year? Our community about the face-to-face budget forum we heard, you know, think creatively and I think the nursing, the remote nursing access, telehealth is a great example of that. It's not just the fiscal piece, it's having the opportunity to discuss the fiscal piece and I thought that was what this was supposed to accomplish by moving the schedule up this year to start the conversation earlier. Can I just say something? I remember two meetings, at least, when Megan was like, shall we readjust our parameters? You know, one of them, there was crickets. One of them was get rid of the, you know under inflation spending. And that was our opportunity to talk about the parameters and we knew, and we had already received the information about the proposed cuts and still the parameters weren't adjusted. And I don't know, it just seems like this, it's a little late to be having this conversation, like what do we do, like I support the money but I don't support who's getting cuts. And I don't know, we could have put that in a parameter. It just feels like a little late now. Well, I guess this maybe speaks to board education because when initially asked our feedback, I was under the impression that you're being asked to inform the future budget draft. And then that wasn't the case. So maybe it just speaks to board education about the process, because I don't think I'm the only one who was somewhat confused by that. I think my comment, it makes sense now and I'll put my comment and then the request. So I've heard in a few different ways, actually I'll pull a thread, kind of use your comments in a similar way. I've heard a few different times, how come nobody brought us other drafts? So administration is charged with giving you all the information and our recommendation and each budget meeting, we do listen. We do hear all the feedback from you, from the audience and our leadership team is coming back to you with the same recommendation. So it isn't kind of to Chris's point, it's not that we're not listening, it's we are taking in the information and this continues to be our recommendation and that is with all due respect to the comments and so it goes the other way as well and I think that is why you have not seen changes recommended because we maintain that this is our best recommendation within the board's parameters to deliver what you wanna still deliver. So that's why you haven't seen changes. My request or my ask, because this budget does need to be put to bed, in various different ways there's been a question around changing the number at the end and it is specific around counselors and nurses. I don't think it would be fruitful to vote the budget down and ask us to come back with a different plan because I think that you will hear continued recommendation. The board has the prerogative to change that bottom line number and say, we would like you to put in exposition and I would just ask that the ask be that specific as opposed to go away and bring us another proposal because I think what you are then doing is asking us, you have asked us and we have taken it in and we have deliberated and this is still the recommendation, you are the board, you can still give us direction. So my ask I guess is more just don't ask us for another proposal if you are disagreeing with what we are recommending and I use disagreement with no judgment involved, then just be clear about that because I don't think we have time and I don't think it'd be a useful exercise. And that better explain sort of what I was trying to say is not necessarily undermining but we keep asking the experts and this is what they keep sending us back and we did not ask for a draft too. We gave them their input and said, this is what we're saying, come back to us. Danny. I just wanted to say I'm extremely uncomfortable raising the local and spending number. I think probably the other people who opposed the budget feel similarly, it's just what are we comparing it to? You know, not having full-time nurses in our schools feels like a pretty uncomfortable ask as well to us. I guess I'm gonna say this with eyes wide open as a member of the finance committee and not make eye contact with my fellow committee members. Like, don't worry, we're gonna stare at you. I think it's worth considering a one-time use of fund balance. We could stay well above the 5% of annual operating budget by putting in at least the nursing positions if not also the counselor positions. We, if by my back of the on-blow math anyway, we would stay above, so I think somewhere around 2.3 million, Suzanne, please correct me, would be 5% of our operating budget. We're at 2.7 now, so if we took 100,000 out of that, we would still be well above the 5%, which I think was referenced as a recommended amount. We're not gonna raise tax rates more tonight by doing that. We can more or less preserve the budget as it was recommended, just adding those nursing positions back in. That's my suggestion. Would we stay under the 10%? The other student? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would support adding the nursing positions and I don't think we should take that out of fund balance. I think we just add that to the budget. Based on the incentives that the state has given us, which are not a very good set of incentives, taking it from the fund balance is just giving the fund balance to the state. And so I would support adding, by my calculations, restoring those nursing positions would be $93,546 to the budget to have that be the sole change. Thanks. Yeah, I would go along with that. So I would... Could you do a quick math on that? I don't have a calculator in front of me of what the increase would be then from the 15% would be additional 90 degrees. Oh, on the percentage increase? Yeah, thank you. So, Suzanne, we're gonna have to do another calculation of that. Sorry, Chris. To amend the budget to add $182,495, which would restore nursing at Doty and Calis and counseling at Doty and Calis only. And my calculation for that is $182,495. And I tend to use that when I'm not taking that fund balance because I could be right at home. First question is 15.57%? So it's 15.57% now if we added just the 93 in for nursing. How much would that change? That's with the 93? Oh, it's just the 93. Yeah, maybe it doesn't affect the percentage anymore. And then what about the 180? All right, sorry, put it in the wrong box. Chris's answer to Chris's question, it makes it 16.14% increase. I'm gonna rewind and go back to 15.8% Put it in the right box. Thank you so much. Keeley's answer was just nurses. And Chris asked for nurses and counselors at Doty and Calis. Does that ripple into that local spending increase, does that? It increases the local spending by that percentage. Well, you know, this one under the eight, you know. How much does it increase per long-term period? Per pupil, yeah. It's not gonna be enough to hit 10%, okay. So we should be clear on what the, there's two proposals. A couple from the amendments being proposed. Yeah. I don't know which one. You are the only one who's said amendment. You're the only one who's said amendment. Well, we can have, I'm not trying to, not a recent courthouse here, we can have, we can do both. So we can, can we discuss before we. Yeah. So could we just. We have to have one amendment. We need a second. We need a second. Yeah, we need an amendment. Yeah. I move to amend. To amend which. The budget to increase by the 184, 182, 495. Which is the 16.4%, 16.4. 16.14. So now we can have a discussion. Can we, can we have two amendments pending at the same time? No, no. No, we have to put down one amendment. So, so we did both this one up or down. Well, why don't we do this one? You do yours. I'll withdraw mine and then if that passes, then I'll add for the council as a separate amendment. That's a good question. Yeah. So it's two pieces. Okay, so you withdraw your amendment. I withdraw your amendment. Lizette, did you get that? No, I'm not sorry. Sorry, we were really, and it's getting late. Sorry about that. So don't write what Chris just said. Seth, he said it's making an amendment on the motion on the floor. I move that we amend the budget to restore the nursing positions that Dodie and Callas took to full time, adding $93,546 to the budget. Okay, sorry, Zach. So to restore the nurse positions at Callas and Dodie, and then what was the dollar amount? $93,546. Thank you. Seconded by Keeley. Is it seconded? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Discussion or? Yeah, I have a comment. So I'm going to vote against that. And I think that politics is all about expectations. And I think that when you're asking voters to accept, say, a 20% or a 25% increase in their property taxes, they're expecting that we're at least trying to bring the tax rate down, spending down, not increasing it. So I think there's a good chance this budget won't pass anyway. But I think we seal the deal by adding. I think that's a mistake. So there need to be more discussion or should we just vote in order to speak? Go ahead, Daniel. I'll agree and I'll vote for it, for this amendment. I do think that using fund balance is maybe less responsible for our district, but I think there's a symbolic difference between using fund balance and adding to the local ed spending, because we're further exploiting that 5% cap protection rather than, you know, using our own resources and putting ourselves on the line in that way. But yeah, it sounds like it's sort of the will of majority to maybe support this. I think it's important to add them back into the budget somehow. You want to add them from the amendment as would be funded at fund balance for the nurses? No, I'm just going to wait and see what happens here. Any other discussion? Okay, all those in favor of the amendment as read by Zach and second by Kili, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So I'm going to meet race of hands. So if you, if you're for it, please raise your hand. Oh, seven, eight. Oh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So the motion carries. Okay. Now I'll move the budget to add $28,955 to restore the counseling services that are being cut at Calis and at Doty. I mean, technically there's no motion to amend. Yeah, because, well, yeah, we have the first motion. Yeah, yeah. So now we can go back the first motion carries. So we are okay. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Wait, I'm sorry. Can I stop? I'm having a hard time following. So you just voted in favor of an amendment, but you haven't voted on the actual motion. Yeah, cause we are trying to amend that again. Oh, so now you're voting on it. So you're going to have two different amendments kind of on the floor. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry to confuse you, but yeah. No, it's okay. That's just never happened. So I don't understand. Okay. They actually are not big problems. Chris, can you review what you said again because I wasn't hearing it. Sorry. I moved to amend the budget to add $88,955 to restore the counseling services that were proposed to be cut at Calis and at Doty. Second to that. Who's second? Sorry. It was Natasha. Natasha, okay. If you get that, Lisa, that's the second one. Yeah, okay. Yeah, thank you. All right. Ditto. Second. Same as the first. This is good. Just to elaborate on my last point. I think if this does fail and approving this amendment and voting for this would further increase the risk of it failing. If it does fail, we're going to be looking at much bigger changes, much bigger reductions than these items. So in a sense, this is setting us up for possibly even, even larger reductions than in this point. And I just want to point out, out of $900,000, we just cut away almost $200,000 from this. That's just, that's like, I don't know. That's not an insignificant amount. That's like, just a little top corner. That's not an insignificant thing. I don't see any. That's the point. I don't know. That's a good point. Can I ask a clarifying question? Because I wasn't on the slides tonight. The current school counselor, FTE at Calis, is one. So this would take it down to a point four, I believe. And the, I think my, so I would vote against this and my reasoning for it again is that after hearing, I do believe that there should be a school nurse in the schools each day because I think it's a safety issue. And also I think it's gonna cause a lot of attendance issues. I think parents are gonna have to leave work. When we look at the student ratios to the counselors, that I think that we are being more equitable with these reductions. Doty is a little, is higher than the rest of the schools. Calis is lower than the rest of the schools. I think there's just a little give and take there. But I don't see this as much of a necessity. And I think to Kari's point, you know, the, I think the least that we can do is the most that we can do. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's late night, I feel like I might have to go. Yeah, thank you, Kelly. Maggie. I sit in on a lot of IEP meetings and a lot of evaluation meetings and access to counseling services in our community is incredibly challenging for school-aged children, let alone adults. And it's unfortunate that that is a situation that community providers are very limited. And if this is the only place that they're going to access them and during the school days, the only time and place that they're gonna access them and that's going to afford a child an opportunity to access their education, I'm 110% for it. I see kids underserved on a routine basis and I do not think that there is a, that it is, that we are likely even meeting the needs of the kids who could benefit from accessing counseling services in schools so that they can be regulated and participate in the social-emotional learning focus is fantastic, but what if they can't access that learning and they need something additional because of extenuating certain circumstances? So SEL is great as a general ed, everyone gets access to it, but not everybody's needs are the same and some kids need more. And thinking about longevity, like the cost of the system is gonna occur at a later point if we're not providing kids with the supports they need in their developmental years and I hope that we're all thinking from that framework as well, that it's gonna come somewhere later if kids don't have what they need in order to achieve adulthood in a way that they can at least have the tools to be balanced if they aren't naturally or through the classroom, general education opportunities able to achieve those skills. Thank you, Maggie. Any other comments? I totally agree with everything that you say, but I think that that is an argument for having more counselors in all of our schools and not in these two in particular. And this motion is for these two in particular. So right now the highest ratio, like the worst ratio that we have is at East Montpelier. So with your argument, we should be adding a counselor there. So is that what you're proposing? No, no, because that wouldn't pass, that would pass. But I don't think your proposal is equitable to the schools. That's how I feel about Spanish at Romney. Yeah, no, totally, I know, I get it. We want like, kids are going to middle school with inequitable levels of access to a foreign language. And we just tiptoe around that one. So, I mean, this is what's on the table. But yeah, I do think we need more counselors in every school. Or we need to funding for shared the Digger article that was compiled by a variety of people who are in education, challenging the governor to prioritize education and counseling access, you know? So yeah, I mean, absolutely. But that wouldn't, yes, I would like to see increased counseling in every building for sure. But that wouldn't pass. But I don't think taking away is a solution either. The equity is not just a number, it's not a ratio, it's a need. And I haven't heard that the need is not there at Calis or Cody and other places. So, to say we're not going to do it here because they need it there too. It just, that doesn't equate for me. And I think there is a need. We've heard, I mean, you have social emotional structures in the school now and they never existed years ago. And then it's there because it's in the state and so we can support that as much as possible. Any other? Orza. I wanna do a dress up point because Maggie brought up our kids who need more supports than our general education provides. And there are state laws that require that we fulfill those needs, regardless of what we have for a counselor in that school. So I think that it's very artificial to say we're not going to be meeting those students' needs. We have systems in place and we have laws that we follow and procedures that we follow for those students who are not gaining or not able to access their education in the general ed classroom. And so that is a separate system from a, I'll say general ed counselor. Thank you, Orza. So all those in favor of the motion as presented, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Although supposed, please say nay. Nay. Okay, we have the same, can the, I raise their hands? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, four, seven. Did I have that right? Seven. So it's a tie, no? Do it again, everybody who said a raise your hands high and let floor count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And then I thought we had 14, oh no, Amelia's not here. So it'd be six, nay. So the ayes have it. Okay, so now we're back to the motion. So. And the budget? The budget. And the budget motion with the new number. New number is $43,810,548 dollars. Or article six in the morning. Sorry, wait a minute. Sorry, $43,810,548 dollars is the amount that the school board needs to be authorized to expend, so, okay. That's, so we'll, yeah, we'll do the word separate, but that is the number so that you're voting informed on the budgets, so now we need to, yeah, we'll do the word separate, but that is the number so that you're voting informed on the budgets, so now we need to, can you read it one more time please? 43,810,548 dollars. I think we've discussed and we still have a lot of forward work to do, so all those in favor of the budget. All the discussion we have with the amendment has approved to signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay, I think just raise your hand because we're gonna end up in the same place. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Okay, seven ayes, all those opposed please say five by saying nay. Okay, raise your hand, one, two, three, four, five. So motion, five, the motion carries the budget. It's approved with 43,810,548. Let's move into the, thank you everybody. That was a rich discussion. So I'm gonna just move through that. I'm gonna change the order and approve the budget warning while we have it fresh, so article six. If you need a copy it is here. And then please remember before you go, we gotta sign this, so before you go, please step to sign there. And it got changed slightly, or she says we don't have data one, right? Is that the updated one? This is the updated one, I'm pretty sure. You're gonna have to come at, well, no, well. If you're comfortable, you sign the back page. We've signed a back page and we'll attach it to the updated one, where the number. Yeah. Okay. Could I have a motion to approve the budget warning? You can put the budget one. Thank you, Chris, second, my passion. All those in favor, please sign by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. I would just double check that this is the updated one because she told me she was gonna fix the capitalized C in my name and so on. Okay, we're gonna have to change the, we need to have the number anyway, so if, like Megan said, people are comfortable, we're gonna just sign one sheet and then we're gonna update the warning to make sure that. She might not just miss that piece because it looks like she has updated the amounts on the front. Yep, we can fix it. But that's the signature page. Oh, that's the signature page. Oh, so then the board, I mean, board members can stop by the office. Which is what we've done in the past. We've done it in the past, yeah. So we're gonna stop by the office to sign? By when? By when? By when? By when? By the morning at 8 a.m. Just because of my name, I don't care. No, I don't tell them unless I didn't care. I just wanted to make sure that the right one's printed for whatever else you have to correct it. It is correct in the front, but we can, I mean. I don't care. Are you sure? Are you sure? It's still legally binding with them. Yeah, there would be enough signatures, so it would be. No, I don't care. Okay, that would save everybody a trip. I don't wanna dismiss it, but it would be just we would have it put it in the, yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mikaela. Of course. Sorry about that. Okay, so we have. I can't seem to get your first name right. We have a lot in here, so it starts down there and just get it up. So we approved the warrant. Then I made, we're gonna go back to the pre-qualified contractors and I'm gonna count on my finance committee to make a motion. It's on page 30. Go ahead, Ursula. I move that the board pre-qualifies local electric LLC, safety systems of Vermont, and ENE security LLC as bidders for the WCUUSD 2024 security system projects. Second. Thank you. So moved by Ursula, seconded by Sack. Any discussion or questions? What happens if we get less than three bidders? We, Suzanne said, said letter to the AOE and we get an exception. Yeah, it happens. Fill-in form, ask for a waiver. Takes a couple weeks for them to respond. Yeah, it happens more often than we would like in this situation these days. There's not enough people in industry. Okay, it's 5.4 budget communication. I think we. Did we vote? We didn't vote on that. We didn't vote? No. Oh, we didn't. Oh yeah, we didn't vote on that. Motion and exception. Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. Okay. By the communication, I think we need a little bit more time if people would be okay with delegating that to the steering committee next meeting. Right now we can just share what we shared before with the trifle has been finalized. We have that. We need to change the numbers, obviously. And we will send that out. And then we need to start. We will own this presentation at our next meeting. We have a community forum and then we'll go from there. That's the speed way of moving that along. Is that okay? All right. We're gonna move right into policy. Chris, I'm just gonna ask for a motion because it's a second meeting to get moving. So, would you be willing to make a motion? We have to approve policy F-26. We're gonna excrete cameras in the booth. Okay, could I have a second? Oh, everybody, I'm gonna give it to Keely. She's right next to me. And I already gave what to precious. So, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. Okay, moving into... Sorry, who seconded that? Keely. Keely. Okay, thank you. Okay, now we're gonna move into page 36. Approve new teachers' resignation, sleeves, and changes. Who's gonna speed up to that? Looking at Ursula? I'm working on it. I'm so pasted, I think. Who's gonna do it? I'm moving. Approve the extended leave of absence for purchasing McGrath from ever 20th to May 28th or May 24th. Thank you. Thank you, Zach. Thank you, Chris. Could you hear that, Lisa? Yes, thank you. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. All right. There's one more. There's two more. There's a couple more, a couple more. I will be approved here. Patty Gapson has a long-term sub for EMS. Sir. What did you say? Chris, seconded. Okay, so Zach and Chris. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. And then we have one more. I move we approve a change of position for carry fits for interruptionists, a special educator at EMS. I think there was a Chris, two seconds. Yes. No. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. So in the next part, we have the superintendent's search, but to have that conversation, we need to go back and accept our superintendent's resignation. So I need a motion for that. Ursula? I move we accept the resignation of Megan, who I are superintending with. The motion is valid for like a second. Maybe for democracy, that's all. Procedural advice here. Who's seconding it? Oh, so good. Diane, Diane is going to second it. And I'm going to make a little amendment to that motion. I think that what I want to say is that we accept the resignation. We are both pleased and saddened to announce that you are resigning. And but we're announcing that Megan Roy has been offered and has accepted an opportunity to work with St. Michael's College beginning on July 1st. We're excited for her and for the opportunity this position will provide to her. And we're grateful to her work in our district over the past couple of years. Over the coming six months working collaborative, can everybody hear me? Collaborate. We will complete our strategic planning process, continue our efforts to bring greater equity into our schools, prepare a fair and responsible budget, and position ourselves for the challenges that lie ahead. Thanks to her hard work and vision, we feel confident in our district ability to continue to move forward while maintaining our values, sense of community, and positive student outcomes. Thank you, Megan, for the time, expertise, and the care that you have shared with our communities. We wish you the best in your new endeavors. And we're excited about the impact you're gonna have in the future generations of educators. So, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Oppose? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. Almost there. Approved the minutes. Could I have a motion? Do we need to do the Supervisor's abstention? Yes, so I think because of the time, I included the both proposals in the, in the, we included both proposals in the budget in the packet. We, if you guys would be willing to approve that the steering committee could decide who of the two consultants to hire and start spearheading the search that would facilitate the moving the process. Sorry, I lost the words, it's been a long night. So I need a motion to basically just allow the steering committee to move forward with hiring a contractor, a consultant, not a contractor, but trying to consultant. These two proposals are pretty equitable. One thing that I, one is more expensive than the other one, obviously. One thing that I did wanna say, Mike DeWeese sent me an email just yesterday or a text that I can't remember right now. In their proposal, it's within those $12,000, I think it is. It is included three visits here and the stay here, which was not clear. It felt like it was additional. So if it's, so that is included within that proposal. And if you would allow with that, sort of those parameters between the nine and the 12,000 to the steering committee to hire a consultant, then we would come together again and move ahead with creating a committee and being able to post, we just need to move quickly. But the steering committee doesn't meet again until like the, Yeah, but I will call the steering committee to meet sooner than that, right? So it is a lot easier to bring the steering committee together than it is to bring the whole board together for a special meeting. So, and then that doesn't mean that the steering committee is the only composition of the new hiring committee, right? We would have a hiring committee that is represented just like we've done before by the board, by community, by staff, by the association, not just, you know, so that it was equally represented. The main thing that we need right now is to secure a consultant in order to move ahead with the process. So who do we have last time? Mike DeWeese. Mike DeWeese, no, since he did it last time. Yeah. Yeah, just want to know if this is Mike tonight? Can you just pick one? Yeah, can't we just vote for it? Or what do we do? We can vote tonight. Are we expecting any more proposals? No, those are the only two proposals. So I'll make a motion that we... Wait, don't we have, isn't there one on the floor? Oh, is it? To have the steering committee... No, nobody has made a motion yet. Yeah. So we... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's fine. Yeah. Just wanted to make sure. He was trying to make a motion that... I'm channeling Ursula to carry it to me. I didn't call her earlier. Okay. I'd like to make a motion that we accept the proposal from DeWeese and DeWeese. Okay. Just a second. All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, so we have a consultant and we'll move ahead. Okay. Who seconded that? Sorry, explore. Who seconded it? I did. Chris. We're up here. Yeah. Okay. Wait, who? Chris. Chris McVeigh. Okay, thank you. Sorry, Liz, I didn't mean to. Okay. Approved the board. Okay, now it's moving to approving our minutes. Ursula. I moved it. We approved the minutes of January 3rd, 2024. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Sorry. Sorry. Ursula moved it and Natasha seconded it. Yeah, thank you. Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion carries. Approval of board orders. Who's going to jump at that page? We just signed them. Who's got it? I'm looking at the board orders with an amount of $830,000. We're going to give you $1.40, $10,000. Second. Okay, moved by Chris, seconded by Daniel. Wait, the number, go ahead. I know it's late, but there's one item that's extremely large. It's almost like a test. Who would you say? It's just a transfer from Community Bank over to Union Bank. It's Union Bank won the tax award this year, and so our interest rate is much higher, so we did a nice transfer to put it in and get some more interest. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I was right because I kind of knew that one was going to be questionable for you, so. Next to visit there. Yeah. And there may be more of that in the weeks to come. Thank you. You said the amount one more time, sorry, guys. $8,030,381.41. Did it get it? No, I'm sorry. I'm having a really hard time. Give me one second and then say it again. I just have to switch tabs. Okay. Okay, $8,030,000, 381.41. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. It's okay, no worries. It's a long look for you. Future agenda items. Work plan, work plan. Okay, we vote. Oh, thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris. All those in favor of the signify by saying aye to approve our board orders. Aye. Aye to approve. Any opposed? Any abstain, the motion carries. Next meeting is February 7th. We are here as U32's host of the first meeting, not to be confused with when we are all been here. So there will be a SEL presentation and some business item. And then we'll probably do some budget. We will do some budget communication that day and hold a budget forum that day. And we had added something on learning. Our budget forum? Yeah, budget forum. Oh, superintendent search. Yes. So we need to go out of the United States to present a performance evaluation survey. Yes. I checked earlier today and two of us. Oh, nice working again. You all know me. I finished. Two. Well, you said two of us. Oh, well, we're a team, right? Yeah. I won. It's open on my computer right now. Okay. Have you heard of the summit? No. I've started before. You're at the summit. Okay, but don't let it, let it. No. It's open to you now. It's just a membership. 20 years. 20 years. It's just a membership. That's what it is. That would just be it. Yeah, that would be it. We should have started 30 just in case. I'm looking forward to that one. But it's just not, oh, we certainly could. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm going to move to the executive session. I know, but I'm not sure. We're going to do an board reflection? Yeah, we have a... That was not here. Yeah, Joshua. It is. I move that we enter into executive sessions and conclude Megan Roy for a student residency request. Second by Daniel. Thank you. Since they won't let you make the motion. Okay, sorry. There's a guy over there. Sorry, it was just like we... No, it's fine. It's fine. Do we go left? Let's go right? We have to go to the left. Yeah, all those in favor of placing a five by saying aye. Aye. Sorry. He said it's to me. Are we prepared to make a motion? I move that the board grants a residency request for students. Does that make sense? Yes. For the remainder of the year. The remainder of the 20th year. Oh, we want to say yes. Yes. For the remainder of this school year 2024. Yeah. Second. Okay. All those in favor of placing a five by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. And there we have... So I just want to say thank you to Megan and to... for moving forward, providing meals. I think it's great appreciation for that and for Melissa for holding this. And thank you to Brian. This is new 32 school service tonight. It's the first night. Yes. It's great. So great appreciation for that. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. I'll move your adjourn. Second. So move to adjourn. Joshua, bye. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Bye, Diane. Second by Ursula. He's a scruffy reviewer. A little more color in it. Okay. I move to... Wait, who's the next one? I'm for a vote before people watch out the door. Diane, move to adjourn. And Ursula, second. I second. And everybody said aye. Aye. Because they're leaving right now. Yeah, I'm sorry. Thank you. We're going to write that one.