 We're recording. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good evening. It's April 1st, 2024, and this is no joke, okay? Thank you. That's the last joke for the night. This is the regular meeting of the town council. The open meeting law allows us to continue holding meets remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at a meeting location while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and live stream. In fact, there are 10 counselors in the town room at this time. I mentioned that specifically because I've gotten some comments that said, when are you going to go back in person? We've actually been back in person since the beginning of January, 2023. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the April 1, 2024 regular town council meeting to order at 6.32. I'll call upon each counselor. Please unmute your mic, say present. That means we can hear you and you can hear us. When we're done, make sure you mute your mic again. Patty Angelis. Present. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Councillor Ate. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Councillor Haneke. Present. Bob Hagnan. Present. Councillor Lord. Present. Pam Rooney. Here. Councillor Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. I'm here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taube. Present. And Councillor Walker. Here. We are all present this evening. There is no chat room for the meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. To make a comment, use the raised hand button. If technical difficulties rise as a result of utilizing technology, Athena and I will decide how to address the situation, including the possibility of having to suspend the meeting until we get the technology working again. There will be one general public comment period at this meeting immediately following the announcements. The order of the agenda is the same as posted. I want to call attention to three meetings coming up. April 8th, again, one week from today, we have a regular town council meeting. April 25th, which is a Monday. At 6.30, we will have a public hearing on the regional school budget. That will be virtual. On April 29th, if needed, we will have a special town council meeting. Anyone wishing to speak, we're getting ready for general public comment. I'm gonna wait for the audience to enter. While they're doing that, if you're on Zoom and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. I will, not to worry. Anyone wishing to speak who is in the town room, if you have not signed up, please do so with Athena O'Keefe at this time. At this time, I also would like to remind those people who have brought signs into the room. It is fine that you have signs, but you may not hold them up in a manner that obstructs other people's view. We're waiting for people to finish signing up for public comment for those of you that are not in the room. Athena, how many people have signed up that are in the room? 14, 14, thank you. And there are six people who have raised their hands that are on Zoom. Public comments are a matter within the jurisdiction of the town council. Residents are welcome to express their views. In this case, we're going to go for up to two minutes. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. Public comments are not reflective of the opinions of the town council. The First Amendment broadly protects individual rights to address the government, to speak and to express themselves, including their rights to say hateful and unfortunately offensive things. I am generally unable to shut those commenters down under the First Amendment to the US Constitution unless their level of speech falls within an exception articulated by the courts, such as fighting words, true threats to a particular individual, harassment of a particular individual or incitement of eminent lawless activity. If a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging in unprotected speech, I must defer to the principles of freedom of speech. We'll recognize speakers in the order in which they have signed up, rotating between Zoom and in person. Let's start with in person in the room. Did you say two minutes or three minutes? Two. Two, thank you. First is Deb Leonard, please come up. State your name and where you live before you begin your comment. Hi, my name is Deb Leonard. I'm a resident of Amherst. Like to make it clear that I'm speaking tonight to share my own personal thoughts. I do not speak to represent any other committee or group of people I'm part of. So I'm just gonna really try to stick to I statements. And I'm just looking for the opportunity to make informed decisions about the policies and the budget that I'm facing as a voting member. So I don't, it's my third month on the job and I just have more questions than answers. The budget that we had initially considered voting had a lot of questions that I had that I didn't have the time to answer. So I just wanted to share some of my thoughts regarding those. I know I don't have a lot of time. I'm just gonna run down the line. I wanna know what the implications of cutting department head time, release time is in terms of our ability to support the variation initiative that the department heads do during that release time. I wanna know if 0.5 FTEs are hard to fill. How does that look in terms of filling fractional positions in the middle school? Well, that's about it. So let me just make, Deb, please submit your comments to us in writing. You can send it either to the town council through our agenda. To the town council through our general email address which is town council at amherstma.gov or through the general public comment. Okay, okay. I guess in some, I'm just asking for time to make proactive decisions rather than reactive ones. And I don't feel. Thank you. I've been able to do that. Thank you. Okay. We're going to go to Zoom. The first person is Ian, our IAN, Rod Welt. I apologize for mispronouncing your name. I think I've done that before. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. My name is Ian Rod Welt. I'm the organizer for the Western Mass Area Labor Federation, coalition of more than 60 public and private sector unions, including the Amherst Pelham Education Association. I wanted to, from my remarks tonight, highlight two sentences from the town council's June 13th, 2022 resolution and support of the fair share amendment. And that is, whereas all children deserve equal access to a high quality, well-rounded and well staffed public education with a rich and varied academic curriculum, ample opportunity to explore the arts and athletics and social emotional resources to support their overall wellbeing. And whereas school districts across the Commonwealth have been forced to cut central programs due to budget shortfalls resulting from years of inadequate levels of state funding for public schools. So those are the two sentences I wanted to highlight from that resolution. I urge the town council to advocate with the legislatures for any chapter 70 increases that may be needed to fully fund the school budget and fight for what is needed by APA teachers with the recognition that this may require an override. Please find the funds so that cuts are not made to the budget and cuts are not made to teachers. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Back to the audience, Athena. Amala Fahani, please state your name and where you live before you begin your comment. Thank you. Yes, hello. My name is Akma Esfahani. I actually live in Greenfield. I'll be very brief. I'm here mainly for the minutes to inform the town of Amherst that I'm seeking nomination signatures to run in the upcoming primary for district two for the congressional election as a Republican. And I just wanted to notify the town and be in the minutes. That's okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Going back to Zoom, Meg Gage, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi everyone, this is Meg Gage. I live at two of the Montague Road in North Amherst. My comments are a little unusual now that I'm hearing what this meeting is about, but I'm here to support the CPA proposal for the Mill River History Trail Project. It's an incredibly exciting community organizing project. We made really good use of the first CPA grant that we got two years ago, $12,900 and a 200 page report covering the four initial historical sites, the two Roberts Mills, the one just west and one just east of the Francis Bridge, the Cushman Clam Club, which was a men's club that had a lot of exciting family dramas we found out and the Mill Canal that went from, it goes along the whole north side of the park. There was a huge amount of industry that's gone on in North Amherst, but there was also a lot of indigenous activity and we've discovered that an indigenous, probably Nipmuk Trail, a major trading trail went right along pretty much where the river is and we're reaching out to people from that community to help with this project. The current proposal is stage two, which will look at 15 additional sites and it will also launch greater outreach to the broader community website development and addition, as I said, outreach to targeted constituencies like high school students and so on. Some of the aspects of this stage are not sponsored by the Historic Preservation Guidelines of the CPA and to that to support those activities like website design and community organizing, we're doing additional fundraising. We've raised $10,000 of which 5,000 is a match and toward that we raised 1,000 so that additional 15,000 will help us with those activities. If anybody should be interested, let me know. And also, if you'd like a copy of the report of the first research, I can email you the link. Most of these sites are on conservation land and we're working really closely with the conservation staff and actually have invited them to appoint someone to join our planning committee. I'm gonna skip some of what I had here. Sites not on the conservation land include the North Amherst Library where there used to be, where the addition was just built, there used to be a blacksmith and Catherine Stryker noticed as they were digging the foundation, these horseshoes were coming up out of the dirt and she pulled them out and through an agreement with the town and right builders, they've been saved and we're hoping to have an exhibit. My time is just about up. There's a whole bunch of other sites, the factory housing on some streets and so on. Thank you, Meg. Okay, one last, can I say one sentence? This is in the spirit of community archeology which is about engaging the community not just experts. Thank you. Better at preserving historical things than experts in government. Thank you. Bye, thank you. In fact, the audience. Tom Irwin. My name is Tom Irwin. I live at 54th Central Ave in Dalton, Massachusetts. I appreciate this opportunity to comment about the paint stewardship legislation presently before the House Ways and Means Committee. While a member of the Dalton Ways Management Recycling Committee where we were facing the same daunting waste crisis that Amherst faces, rapidly increasing hauling costs and tipping fees and we were looking for a solution. After a careful study of ways to address this issue, paint stewardship seemed like the perfect first step and after confirming it was working well in the eyes of residents and retailers in Vermont, New York and Connecticut, I became an advocate for this law. Paint stewardship is a program where unwanted paint can be returned to any participating paint retail store transfer station whenever they're open without a disposal cost and without regard to where the paint was purchased. The cost to consumers is simply 75 cents to a dollar fee per gallon of paint at the time of purchase. 80% of collected latex can be reprocessed to original specs and sold at 50% of the original cost, relieving our waste burden. The benefits Amherst will see at first that it's going to be a service Amherst residents will value. This is quickly apparent by noting that 92% of 735 mass residents dropping off items at household hazardous waste days event signed petition asking their legislator to become co-sponsors. This suggests that 92% of Amherst residents with unwanted paint and likely there are many would support this bill. And second, it will present no cost municipalities and will decrease household hazardous waste day costs. Although 28 reps and 12 senators including Representative Dom and Senator Cumberford sponsor or co-sponsor this bill, significant municipal support through resolutions is critical to compel serious consideration by the Ways and Means Committee. To take this matter up, view it favorably and send it to the floor of the legislature for a vote. Hence, I respectfully request the Amherst town council put paint stewardship on an upcoming agenda to make possible adding their valued endorsement of paint stewardship through passing the supportive resolution. Thank you for your comments. You all have a hand. Thank you. We're going back to Zoom. Tony Cunningham, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, this is Tony Cunningham, district one. I have the parent of two children in the Amherst public schools, one in eighth grade at the middle school and one in fifth grade at Wildwood. And I'm speaking in favor of the town funding the fiscal year 2025 budget that was recommended by the regional school committee. A large part of this ask is for costs that are out of the control of the school committee. For example, employee health insurance has increased by almost 10% this year, representing approximately $150,000 over and above the 4% allowance from the town. Utilities have gone up 22% since FY23, an increase of $126,000. Transportation costs too has increased significantly. Our children's education should not suffer to cover these types of cost increases. Our students access to foreign language instruction in middle school should not be on the chopping block. Restorative justice programs should be preserved. Many of the proposed cuts would likely result in further enrollment decline in our school district, further exasperating budget challenges. The decision to dedicate 10.5% of property tax receipts to pay for capital projects is squeezing operating budgets and will have long-term lasting impacts on our school system. I would also note that the amount of additional funding being requested by the regional schools is similar to the amount you agreed to pay in interest on the temporary borrowings with on the anticipation notes to front the Jones Library share of the expansion project over and above the town share of the project. Please find the funds to cover these costs so we do not have to lose teachers to pay for it. We cannot afford to lose more students to charter and private schools. We need to remain competitive. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next, Athena. Amber Cannell-Martin. Hi everybody. My name is Amber Cannell-Martin and I am an Amherst resident. I live in district two. I have two children in the Amherst public schools. I'm here tonight, all right, a little congested, to talk to you about the school budget. So a couple weeks ago, the regional school committee restored about 15 positions, teaching positions to the regional school's budget that otherwise would have been lost based on the superintendent's proposed budget. So these cuts were gonna come from things like the World Language Program and the middle school, the restorative justice coordinator at the high school, someone who's really highly trusted and good at working with students and families and really helps out some of the most vulnerable kids in our district, paraeducators who help kids who have special education needs. So we were basically cunning from some of the most vulnerable in order to balance the budget. And I think it was clear to a lot of us there, to the unions, to the parents, to everyone that this budget proposal was totally unacceptable. You can't run a school that way. You can't take the money away from the people that are actually working with the students, right? Like the direct support staff that works with students is the absolute worst way to balance the budget. And I'm so happy that the regional school committee did its job and went ahead and restored those teaching positions. Even though that leaves us with about $800,000 that we need to make up in the gap, I believe that it's worth it. And if we want to live up to our values around education and the importance of public schools and public education, we need you all to find the funds to cover that gap. It's really, really important and crucial. People come into this town for the schools. I bought my house here for the schools. I'm sure many parents did. And you guys do have no money. Like Tony mentioned the capital budget and how that's squeezing our operating budgets. This can't continue. I don't have children in the middle school yet, but I'm not sure what's gonna be left for them. We need you to. What I do. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Nina Mankin, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Nina Mankin and I live at 91 Summer Street in North Amherst. I have a child who's in sixth grade at Wildwood. And I'm also writing about our calling in Zooming in about the budget. Our family has lived in Amherst for nearly six decades. And in that time we've witnessed our school district go from one of the best in the state to its current state as average in the state, a little above average. And I'm deeply grateful for all of your work. I know how hard it is to do this job. Most of you are volunteers and those in town who are also, who are working in a paid capacity have to balance budgets. I understand this, but I question the current ethos that I see in our community and that I also see in our country that things that average is acceptable and average is less and less impressive. And when I say that, I very much hope I'm not heard as talking about privileged people but about all of our students that excellence must be exhibited on all levels of our education system. And that that is our, not only our value system but our highest goal. So above all, I'm asking you not to accept the status quo and to move heaven and earth to show our children that we hold to a value of giving them everything that we can. And I also ask you to look at the savings you're going to see, we're gonna see from these new schools in ways that other people have talked about the costs costing us now and to bring some of those savings forward by tapping into our reserve funds. Thank you so much for all your time. Thank you for your comments, Nina. Back to the room. Allegra Clark. Hey, my name is Allegra Clark. I'm a resident of district two. I am a parent of a Wildwood student and I'm a graduate of Amherst High School and I graduated in 2003 when we were number two in the state. So I have fond memories of the school. I also moved back here because of the school system when my child was born. I knew that this was a great place to raise a family. So we came back here. So I think this is the first time I've been in front of the town council asking to approve the budget that the regional school committee is putting forward to you because it's one that does not include devastating cuts. It in fact restores the cuts that were proposed. So I think that we need to be bold and brave and we need to find the funds. I think there's reserves could be a possibility, especially if some of the planned energy savings at the new elementary school will come forward. Hopefully they could be replenished in some way. I know there are ARPA funds and there was a presentation at the last town council meeting about how they are possibly going to be used. But I think that in terms of child mental health that is a big byproduct of the pandemic and seeing the restorative justice coordinator positions be cut really would have a negative impact on students and their mental health. If you look at the tape of the last school committee meeting they, there were some students that spoke about the importance of that program to them. So I think that's important that the youth themselves have identified that as a really important thing in the school and a really important person to them in the school who's also an Amherst alum. So I think that we have some possibilities for funding and we should take them because our students don't. Thank you. Thank you, Allegra. Deborah Ferrera, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Okay, great. So I'm Deborah Ferrera. I'm not gonna say my address because, even though I'm all about First Amendment I've heard some of the hateful things that others have said in the past at these meetings. And so I'm very afraid to say my address. But anyway, co-chair on the community safety and social justice committee, but today my opinions are my own. I'm a parent, I have a child in the middle school and then my oldest son went through the public school system. And as the other folks who have already talked about the school system, I wanna also talk about that. I'm calling to ask that the town council fully fund the amount that our school committee is asking for in order to avoid the cuts to teaching positions. If the cuts go through our most vulnerable students who'll be impacted, which include BIPOC students, special education students, students who need the mental health support in our schools, our language programs and many more marginalized student populations that these teachers serve. I'm hoping that you all see the importance of this and won't let that happen. If the funding does not go through, one of the positions being proposed is the restorative justice position that is held by a black male teacher who is doing an excellent, and I say that again, excellent job as well as it serves to educate our students with different ways to approach resolving problems as opposed to punishment. This position stems the adverse effects of discipline on BIPOC students. Hope you do the right thing like the school committee did because they heard us and I hope you all hear us today and all subsequent days, because we're gonna continue to let you all know how much this is important and send a message to all our children that they matter. And second, I just wanna urge the town manager to disperse the ARPA funds fairly by including a disbursement to the Black Business Association of Amherst area. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Back to the room. Lemiko McGee. Good evening. I'm here to support the regional school committee and requesting that you put the money back into the school budget. When we look into the future 10 to 20 years from now, what do we wanna see? Do we want highly educated residents, exceptional public schools in a thriving community, beneficiaries of the education provided because we value our schools now or will another picture be painted? Plumming property values, reduction in high school graduation, residents trying to get by, not academically strong enough to attend university, not being able to get the skills they need to get to the next level. Will we see a floundering community suffering from the decisions that we make right now? Our future is in our youth. We must invest in them and they'll show a return to our community. The regional school strategic plan has committed the district also to greater diversity and dismantling white supremacy. We cannot continue this work without with the deep budget cuts. For our last hire, they will also be our first fired and we know those are educators of color, our staff of color. Do we value our students? If so, let's give them the education they deserve. I believe we are obligated to provide our students with an education, a well-rounded education. That means we keep world language, the arts, restorative practices, counseling, special education services, everything they need because we love them and want them to thrive. We want this community to thrive. These cuts won't heal easily. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Pat Anabaku, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Good evening. Can people hear me? We can, Pat. My name is Pat Anabaku, district two. The Chair for Black Business Association of Amherst area. I am speaking on behalf of my group. So I was cruising our town website a couple of days ago and how ironic that our town has launched kindness campaign, but our town manager, town council, finance committee have not shown kindness and empathy to my group, BBAA, regarding apper funds distribution. I want to remind the town manager regarding his conversation with Representative Jim McGovern in July of 2023. Rep McGovern made a phone call to our town manager at the request of my group members after he met with my group at my place of business in Hadley. And Rep McGovern got back to me and said that he has spoken to the town manager urging him to allocate some of the apper funds to black businesses. So I just want to say this publicly and it has not happened. We will continue to advocate even if it involves protests. We're not going anywhere. I want to conclude by supporting what everybody else has said about school budget. You can find the money. Reduce police budget. Use some of the apper funds. Please conclude your comments. My name is Ella Stocker. I'm a resident of Northampton and I'm the librarian at Amherst Regional High School. Whatever comments I do not finish, my colleague Amy Coleman will pick up when she speaks next. Last month, the department heads of which I am one at Amherst Regional High School were asked to speak to the regional school committee about how budget cuts would impact current and future students at the high school. We are grateful for the advocacy of our school committee in passing a higher budget that would prevent these initially proposed cuts, but we want to make sure that you are aware of how those cuts would have impacted us or will impact us if you do not find the appropriate funds for our schools. These cuts impact our individual departments in specific ways, but all of our work is fundamentally interconnected. Collective cuts across departments diminish the culture and spirit of the school in ways that are hard to quantify but no less essential. We know as experienced educators that these changes put students who struggle at greater risk, imperil our ability to provide enrichments for our most academically advanced students and widen the cracks for students who are on the bubble by removing effective interventions. Among the proposals put forward was the option to significantly reduce the overall amount of release time for department heads. This limits the amount of time available for writing and managing significant grants, managing staff and special programs, developing curriculum, all while increasing teaching loads. This also impacts other teachers, because when teachers and department heads increase their teaching loads, other teachers are bumped into part-time positions. It is very difficult to retain the same level of experience and exceptional teachers for faculty who are qualified to teach full-time elsewhere but can only read a part-time position in Amherst. Indeed, there are current open positions that have been open all year at the high school. Staffing reductions are also proposed in guidance at a time when student mental health and emotional needs have never been higher. These programs ensure that our budget would also reduce, eliminate or fundamentally alter successful interventions such as the Restorative Justice Program or PREP Academy. These programs ensure that we can meet the needs of vulnerable students. History has shown us when we cut tier two interventions, increase class sizes and reduce guidance. Please conclude. I'll conclude right now. These result in higher cost to the districts over time when students end up needing and qualifying for special ed. Thank you. My name is Amy Kalman. I'm a speech language pathologist at the high school. I'm a parent of an alum of Amherst High and also a 10th grader. And I forget if I mentioned it. I live in Amherst. I've lived here for many years. So let's begin. All departments are impacted by proposed cuts of two FTE positions in special education. I'm a speech language pathologist. So those are my students and my colleagues as well as paraeducator positions particularly through the reduction of the discrimination of Kotak courses. These courses pair a special education teacher with a general education teacher enabling more students to access general education classes and inclusion. The loss of these courses when combined with larger class sizes will reduce the accessibility and availability of both introductory and advanced courses. There are also wholesale cuts to programs at the middle school that will dramatically impact how courses are sequenced and taught at the high school, most especially in performing arts, dance and world language through the gutting of the middle school language and dance programs. The retirement of the computer science teacher at the high school will also illuminate computer science classes at the high school in this era. These cuts reduce the attractiveness and competitiveness of the town of Amherst against our peer communities and charter schools and limit our students' opportunities to express themselves and discover their passions. We retain students in our district from leaving for charter or private schools because of the depth and quality of our electives and the variety of offerings in our core curriculum. The cuts across elective departments in languages, core subject areas in guidance or in interventions in co-teaching and departmental leadership all these are devastating on their own. Collectively, they are catastrophic. We love our students, our colleagues and the communities we serve. It's exhausting that on top of doing our job year after year, we also have to fight for a budget that we fully or even adequately provide them with the kind of schools they deserve. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. Thanks. Michelle Prindle, please. Good evening. I'm a resident of South Amherst. I have three children in the public schools. I have one child who is on the autism spectrum receiving special education services through our schools and I'm here to ask you to approve the school budget. Today, I want to make clear to you the situation at the middle school. Our eldest child is an eighth grader at the Amherst Middle School. The current physical state of the middle school is unacceptable. Last fall, a high volume rainstorm caused ceiling tiles to collapse in six academic classrooms rendering them unsafe for learning. Our son is a musician in the school's orchestra and choir. In January on the eve of the eighth grade concert, another rainstorm caused water to accumulate above the ceiling of the auditorium. Black sludgy water flooded the auditorium from the ceiling and from beneath the stage. The students who had remained after school for pizza and a pre-concert rehearsal found themselves assisting school custodians in mopping the disgusting black water from the floors before guests could enter the auditorium. On March 23rd, our two younger children performed in Lion King Junior with Starlight Youth Theater. An ice and rainstorm overnight and on the morning of the 23rd again caused flooding and water to rain down from the ceiling of the auditorium during both performances. My parents in laws from Connecticut were in attendance and they were shocked at the condition of our middle school auditorium. This is a venue that is unsuitable for children to be learning and performing in. I want to show you about the state of the auditorium during those performances. And this is not the only example of schools in our town being unfit for learning. In a town such as Amherst, which pledges to value the education, value education, equity and diversity, it is an absolute embarrassment that our schools are in such failing condition and yet both funding costs are continually proposed. Funding cuts. I urge you to find the money to fully fund the town and the educational district's school budget. It is also your responsibility to engage UMass and Amherst College to make really meaningful financial contributions to this town. Our students deserve better and it is your job to do better for them. Thank you for your time. This is just a picture so you can see what it looked like while people were visiting. Next is Kathleen Mitchell. Next to the lights that water was pouring down from in the auditorium at the middle school. Thank you. Your time is up. Kathleen Mitchell. My name is Kathleen Mitchell. I'm a resident of District 5 in South Amherst and have two children in the Amherst schools who will enter the middle school in the next two years. I'm here tonight to ask the town council to prioritize our children by fully funding the regional schools budget and I want to speak specifically about two programs at arms. If forced to make cuts to the world language program, middle school students would get insufficient hours of instruction to move beyond the beginner level and would have to start their chosen language all over again in ninth grade. There would be little chance of reaching the AP level in a world language. This would be an unfortunate outcome for a community that has demonstrated its belief in the value of language acquisition and diversity by supporting a bilingual program at the elementary level. If the regional schools budget is not fully funded, the restorative justice program would be eliminated at a time when we know that adolescents are struggling with social and emotional skills and need this type There has been so much talk in the community about how crucial it is that there is healing at arms and that the culture of the school improves, but this will not happen by magic. As a community, we either care about arms or we don't. I think that if you choose to fund this budget, you will find a significant amount of community support and many families and individuals willing to partner with you to roll up their sleeves and advocate for funding and think creatively about solving this ongoing problem. I have often heard members of this council talk about the importance of families in Amherst of ensuring that our housing and zoning makes it possible for families to live here, but families also need thriving public schools not just at the elementary level in the form of a new building, but also in the form of an adequately staffed high quality middle and high school Many of you in various contexts have spoken about the value you place on our public schools. You have mentioned how your own families chose Amherst or because of the quality of the schools or how your own children thrive during their education here. All we are asking is that our children have the same opportunity. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I think it's May Vicente. Sorry, I can't read your handwriting. Is it May? Mari, thank you. Yeah, my name is Tensu. Throw people off. My name is Mari Vicente and I'm a Spanish teacher at Amherst Regional High School and I want to tell you that the cuts in the language curriculum that were instituted at the middle school about 10 years ago cost us a little more than half a year in academic achievement for our students. On top of that the pandemic cost close to a year, another year in academic achievement and the block schedule is absolutely horrible for language teaching. So the students that I have now in intermediate Spanish, Spanish 3 are about a year and a bit behind of where they used to be a few years ago. So it's become really difficult to prepare students for the advanced placement in Spanish, which is one of the crowning jewels of the high school and the caring proposed cuts will even further delay our students' achievements in world language. These cuts translate into having the students the fact to start their language careers at the high school instead of at the middle school and that is also on top of we being the only country that starts language teaching as late as 12 years old just in time when the part of the brain language starts to shrink it's still possible but it's not as what most countries do. So as a result of this extra even further cuts kids would only have four years of their chosen language. At that point it would definitely be impossible to achieve the advanced placement course. Furthermore our district recently started a dual language program at Ford River and how would these do a language program. Thank you. Please fund the word language. Thank you. Olivia Blaise. Hello. My name is Olivia Blaise. I'm a resident of Northampton and an Amherst educator. I teach Latin at the middle and one class at the high school and I'm here today to ask you and fully fund their budget. Our students love our classes speaking as a world language teacher. It's the high point of some of their days. It's a chance for them to make choices in their education to learn about how to communicate with others, how to share about themselves, how to think about themselves as citizens in the world. To reduce their time when they are most eager, enthusiastic and ready to soak up that knowledge would be a real shame. A couple weeks ago at the regional school committee meeting many, many members of the public came and advocated against gutting our program and the school committee listened and restored our positions in the budget. I ask you to support our community and fund the budget. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. William Roundy. Hello everybody. I'm William Roundy. I'm the department head of world languages at the high school. My colleagues have made great comments about what we're losing with the budget already. I'm just going to make a few separate points. The cuts if we cut deeply are not just extraneous programs that feel like add-ons to some people. For instance, we're deeply cutting our academics and even with the budget that the school committee passed we're cutting pretty deeply almost to the bone. We're losing central office positions custodial positions and other things that aren't directly impacting students but are impacting our building pretty deeply. So what the school committee is asking for is I think what we should do I don't think they are asking too much for a strong opening bargaining position or anything. It's already pretty tough. The mood is pretty bad in the schools right now. When we started talking about these budget cuts I was pretty devastated and I'm a normally pretty happy guy but I'd have to say I haven't been happy in about a month and people don't show up in numbers like this unless you're really hitting a breaking point of some kind to get this many people politically activated is really a sign that something is wrong and I'd like you to really seriously consider what we're asking for. Thanks. Thank you for your comments. Georgia Malcolm. I'm never at a loss for words but I'm so tired. I just put my name down because I really wanted to acknowledge the school committee for advocating and putting the money back in. I mean I really I would say to Mika back there I'm going to say the opposite, don't approve it because what is it going to mean for you guys. I mean I think in terms of statistics right the demographics of the schools are changing. It's almost I mean in terms of when you combine all the people of color it's probably almost pretty close to white kids and I think without you guys even knowing it it's just some kind of you know it's kind of racism this kind of white and you know you're not seeing I think the school committee has a vision right because you're living in Amherst you want to put up this 40 million dollar library you know yes we're going to cut the schools and we're kind of raising the flag saying hey you know everything is going to be not great and you guys really aren't paying attention and I say fine don't put the money in and see what happens in a couple years because Amherst is going to be like this garbage pad so I mean I'm not going to beg you you guys figure it out you're elected to do the right thing the school committee has done the right thing but I am just saying don't do it and see what happens thank you for your comments Irene LaRouche Hi Irene LaRouche I've been teaching at Amherst Mill School since 2003 please support the school committee's budget with the wide variety of students each of our program meets different needs the arms program is already operating under substandard conditions due to previous budget cuts in recent years the arms program has four core subject areas organized into teams as a special education teacher these core classes are heterogeneous with a wide variety of needs serving students on IEPs and 504s in an inclusion model the core subject classes have experienced a 20% increase in class size in the last few years as core teaching positions have been cut these cuts accompany changes in special education support we no longer have general education paraprofessionals assigned to each team who used to be able to provide support in those classes is that special education students who need support are moved into one core class with one special ed teacher which tips the balance of that class to create de facto tracking the general education math and ELA classes in 7th grade are 30% IEPs and the general education social studies are over 40% high need students each part of our school program is integral in having a high quality education and meets the needs of complex learners English language arts ELL, counseling, restorative justice world language exploratories all of them are essential a student with a reduced experience in exploratory will struggle to engage in required core classes a student in an exploratory class who might have a conflict with another students to resolve that conflict without a restorative justice coordinator a student who has reduced world language classes will have a harder time accepting their role as a global citizen which is a hallmark of our social studies curriculum the connections are limitless each part of the program is essential we help students build the skills and the content they need to understand themselves and their world a world that is connected diverse and interdependent please restore the budget that serves the whole child thank you thank you for your comments Patton Tupsky my name is Patton Tupsky I'm from Holyoke please move to the mic please I'm from Holyoke but I am a special ed math teacher at the middle school and before that I was a special ed parent educator at Fort River for seven years you have heard from much more eloquent and smarter colleagues so I'm going to keep it short but we are holding it together with duct tape and bailing wire at the middle school you are potentially considering a budget that will put the money back in for schools I think that's important right now you all have a choice to make because we don't get to decide but you can either take from and cut from our most vulnerable students or you can choose to build them up I know it's a hard decision we are doing a lesson right now on balancing equations but you all have to find the money somewhere else otherwise the other side of the equation is cut services and I don't know that we are going to make it if we cut more services I don't know that they are going to make it if we don't cut more if we keep cutting services I hope you make the right choice and thank you for your time thank you for joining us Vincent O'Connor Vincent O'Connor 175 Summer Street I've distributed to the council a proposal for a refugee and asylum applicant resettlement commission in writing and I look forward to meeting with the appropriate committee of the council to discuss this matter on the matter before us as councillors you are operating in a political structure developed in medieval Europe to govern its illiterate rabble we are not in Europe this is 2024 and your constituents are not illiterate rabble in a prepared statement at a previous meeting in March a councillor spoke of the need of time for dialogue the dialogue the community needs between the council and its citizens and its school committee is not just listening for two minutes but engaging in real discussion at the finance committee not just having a presentation and then having people have to listen to people talk about things that maybe they have gotten wrong but the same thing should happen at your April 24th or 25th public hearing I think it is important for not only the substance of of understanding the appearance of understanding by listening but the substance of understanding by having dialogue at the finance committee and your public hearing so that whatever decision you make is a decision that the public will feel is a informed decision as the result of dialogue between you and the school committee its professional staff people and the public thank you for your comment that is everyone on the register thank you that concludes public comment we are going to move on to the consent agenda after that we will be moving to a presentation about the regional school budget and some discussion and a vote to refer it to the finance committee let me begin with the consent agenda its pretty straight forward to move the following items in the printed motions they are under and approve those items as a single unit 9A1 approval of extension of temporary police chief appointment 11A adoption of March 4, 2024 special town council meeting minutes is there anybody that would like anything removed is there a second to the motion second thank you we are going to move on to a vote I will begin with pat d'angeles anna devlin goth here councillor atay Lynn greesmer is an I councillor hannacky bob hegner hi pam rooney councillor ryan kathy shane andy steinberg jennifer tov yes thank you I just want to point out for clarification purposes that this tonight we were approving the full set of minutes for march 4 when we held our meeting on the 13th we were only accepting the record of the meeting from a certain time in the meeting to the end of the meeting you had your hand up andy yes I don't know if anna wants to report this but there was an amendment to the minutes made at my request there was a correction on page 3 I corrected the error and reposted the minutes that are in the packet now have been corrected okay thank you we have no resolutions or proclamations tonight we have no presentation or discussion the reason that the Amherst Pellum regional school budget appears under action items is because eventually it will be an action item we are going to begin with interim school superintendent Doug you can come in good evening Dr. Slaughter and we also then have comments from regional school committee chair Sarah Bess Kenny and Amherst school committee chair Sarah Marshall I do want to note that both in the room and in the audience on zoom are various members of the school committee as well of the regional school committee as well as the Amherst school committee thank you good evening so I'm just going to take you through the budget a little bit in the process we went through to get to the budget that the school committee voted in and has submitted to the town for approval let me go to the next slide please so what we usually do is as part of our process is we make estimates for the coming fiscal year on what's called level services which is to take estimates of what we are doing currently and trying to project that forward into the new fiscal year so for staff that involves steps and colas we project those for the coming year with the same level of FTE we look at our various expenses and the ones we know we try to estimate what those will look like for the coming year and so with that estimate of level services the budget would be $36,496,441 and that utilizes $500,000 in ESER funds and it's about 8.29% above the fiscal 24 budget really the big things that are driving our cost increases from the current year to next year are a reduction in the number of ESER funds available so current budgets being supported by over $1.1 million and so a reduction of $500,000 of ESER funds will have a $650,000 more than $650,000 decrease in funding that's supporting the budget we are a people business most of our costs are driven by employees and the benefits that they have and so that's a pretty significant impact on our budget year over year in the ballpark of 80-85% of our costs are related to employees so when we have things like health insurance close to 10% it's a pretty significant expense in our budget and then the inflation that's been persistent over the last couple of years is continuing to impact our budget in a pretty significant way and so it pushes those numbers higher and so we see that large increase of just under 8.3% overall we use an alternative assessment method for the regional schools just to give you a quick background on that there's a statutory method that we use as a regional school district is called an alternative assessment method we use an alternative assessment method we've worked with the four towns in the regional school district to try to come to an agreement about how we assess each of the towns their portion of the cost the current method we have uses a five-year rolling average of what's called the minimum local contribution as well as a five-year average of the student population and then we have an additional sort of guardrail applying over the last couple of years of 4% sort of set the maximum amount that any given town could increase or decrease in a given year but if we look at that revenue using that assessment method we've used the last couple of years and other sources of revenue from Chapter 70 to regional transportation reimbursement to interest, etc the gap between our level services budget and our funding using that assessment method is almost $1.7 million and so we set about trying to find what it was we could adjust or change or reduce from our budget in order to meet that number if you're the next slide please and so we create a list as we see up on the screen now of adjustments additions and reductions to try to meet that number so the first section at the top of this is our adjustments and some of these are refinements in estimates for expenses from where we started so we start this process back in November we're making our best guesses is what we think our health insurance is going to cost us we make our adjustments to what we think our support from costs for utilities are going to be etc etc and as we go through the process we try to refine those numbers and make adjustments accordingly there's several things you'll see on here where it shows a negative which is the parentheses around the FTEs and generally with that what we're doing is we are shifting the cost from appropriation type funding to revolving fund type funding there are opportunities for a regional school district to have revolving funds to hold resources and support certain programs there are very specific rules about what revolving funds can or cannot be funded with and the purpose of those funds are very specifically defined but there are a few programs that we run that allow us to collect money and then use it to support the programs and so over the last couple years with extra funding being available we've made it a decided effort to push and or retain I should say funds in our revolving accounts so that we'd have them available to us in a year like this and so for example we take in students to some of our programs in special education we have a tuition revolving fund that we collect those tuitions from those other districts and then we use it to support the programs so you have to with a revolving fund if it's allowed then you have to use it for the program that it's supporting and so in this case we're going to shift and put four staff on to that revolving fund and so it takes them off of our appropriated funds and so it reduces the burden on the towns to meet that expense with assessed money and as you see there are a couple other places where we have shifts of custodial staff when people rent our facility we charge them for the use and then we use those funds to help support our custodial staff and then the last one is we have an intensive needs program again that one also collects tuition the same revolving fund as the one at the top there but both of those are able to support some of the staffing that's in those programs and so those adjustments are ones we make that don't although it looks like we're cutting 4.7 people we're actually shifting them off of the appropriated part of the of the budget so those are staff they're still going to work for us they're just going to get paid from a different resource than our appropriated funds in the section under budget reductions that's when we're actually taking things out and doing less things and so you know there's a number of things we looked at our central administration we're making some reductions there we've got some smaller adjustments where we're taking out just some expenses to try to meet that number of almost 1.7 million we're reducing some of the professional development with the custodial staff the circumstance there as we added staff during the pandemic we're phasing into an area where we don't need as many staff as we've had and so we're able to reduce our staff in that area and then you get into the much more significant changes where we're really having to reduce a significant number of staff relative to trying to meet this target of almost 1.7 million and you know when we do this process I work with the administration in the buildings to go through and think about this and work you know we try to leverage retirements and and open positions and and also just you know what programming our kids signing up for as far as classes and what things aren't they signing up for and other ways to be efficient by virtue of trying to leverage our schedule to our advantage and you know there's some other restructuring of how many departments we have so department heads have released time and so if we have fewer departments that's fewer people getting released time to do department support work you know that does have an impact I mean all of these things have impacts on what we can and do offer to the kids there's some changes in the middle section there where it talks about our summer programming the because of how we've shifted our schedule over the last few years there's opportunity to provide summer school in a little different way so again that that's a change to how we'll probably do our summer support work and credit recovery type work there's opportunities during the school year for kids to make that up and so the need for summer school is much much less and so it's a much more sort of focus program that we're expecting to run this summer but then you see the next section where we talk about middle school changes the class the clerical staff reduction is in addition we did this year to help out a little bit with the with the changes to the middle school and the and the administrative structure we've got in place this year and staff turnover is a generic sort of category that we look at it's you know when we reduce the number of staff there are associated costs that go with staff like some of them have health insurance some of them don't you know and so on and there are other reductions just separate from just salary that we can you know apply to the budget you know so in speaking with the you know presenting the school committee getting public comment the school committee tasked me with with you know adjusting this and not making this level of reductions and effectively you'll go to the next slide please to essentially not have the teaching and paraprofessional positions reduced from the budget to do that it's about 15 staff a little over 15 staff or 941,000 975 dollars in expense that it added back to the budget if we do that and so the resulting reduction from a level services budget instead of being one point almost 7 million it's about 750,000 dollars or 747,996 to be overly precise there and so we go to the next slide this is sort of what happens to the ads and cuts or additions adjustments reductions that we have and so what I've done here is the exact same slide is earlier except the places where we had teaching staff or paraprofessional staff we've zeroed those out and so those don't reduce our budget and that's where you get to a target of the 747,896 in reductions that we have to make now many of these are ones we would do regardless you know if we just don't have an expense or we can project that we don't have an expense like the reduction in our health insurance cost from our original estimate that sort of thing those are actual real changes regardless we'd want to make that reduction in what we're having in our budget because we just don't we're not going to incur that expense because of the reduction cost from what we were originally projecting but nonetheless there's still pretty significant reductions in other areas within the budget even with this modification from a $1.7 million in cuts to $750,000 worth of cuts and so if we go to the next slide please so what you see on this slide is a summarized you know appropriation budget what we've done in the in the not the shaded column all the way to the far right but in the two columns just proceeding that we have the proposed budget from fiscal 25 that's where we started before we started doing you know sort of additions reductions etc and then in the adjusted we've taken some of those we've taken those reductions that are spelled out on the previous page and applied them to the areas of the budget and made the adjustments in the budget and so what the school committee voted at their meeting on the 14th of March was a budget of $35,748,545 which is a little over 6% from the current year and that's the total the bottom of the next to last column on the right there and that's just a little over $2 million of increase in costs from the current fiscal year and its estimates so the next question sort of well how do we pay for that what are our resources what did we assume or what can we assume relative to that go to the next slide please and so on this slide this sort of lays out what we think our our revenues look like for the coming year so if you look at the blue columns in particular so the sort of middle two columns that have a highlight to them I have to say the header on that says 100% stat is not truly 100% statutory method that's the it's vestigial from when we were transitioning to the method that we're using currently but more importantly what you see there is a level services budget which is the $36,496,441 which is the same one we started with the beginning of the presentation currently we're projecting our chapter 70 to be $9,793,627 that increase of 0.78% from the current year I will say is actually less than that in some respects so the chapter 70 number that's shown in the first column there that says fiscal 24 is what we were projecting and what we voted what actually happened when the fiscal 24 budget was finalized at the state level chapter 70 number was a little bit higher than that and so the actual increase you know over the actual revenue that we'll receive this year in chapter 70 is less than 0.78% but the thing to keep in mind is we've got a $36 million budget and we're trying to fund a pretty big chunk of it with chapter 70 and when it goes up by less than 1% that puts a lot of pressure on our assessment methods and our other other sources of revenue to try to cover those costs so as we look down through the remainder of those revenue sources we get a transportation reimbursement because we're a regional school district that has been over the last couple years strongly they've been improving the reimbursement rate we think that's going to kind of hold steady for this year our current year estimate for that is around the $950,000 mark our budgeted number for fiscal 24 was lower than that but I think our actual projected reimbursement for the current year will be $950,000 and we're going to hold that steady for fiscal 25 Medicaid reimbursement about $120,000 we provide services that are eligible for Medicaid reimbursement so we do certain OTPT speech services that are eligible for Medicaid and so we apply for that funding and we get that about $120,000 is a pretty typical amount from one year to the next it varies charter reimbursement that's our estimate of what we think we'll get for our brand new students that are in charter so when a student goes to a charter school there's a reimbursement as you transition to owning that cost and so with the regional schools any seventh grader that's going to a charter school is in their first year relative to us and so we get about $300,000 in charter reimbursement that's our estimate of that what you don't see here but it's in the expense side of things is that the cost to us for those charter students we carry as an expense line that number is around $2 million roughly speaking so the reimbursement is a transitional funding source from the state to ease you into covering that cost but charter costs are pretty significant out of our resources interest revenue with interest rates being up and we have cash on hand for a variety of reasons and so 32,000 is kind of in the right neighborhood for what kind of interest we earn in the course of the year E&D which is the same as sort of reserves or free cash and symbolization for municipality we generally budget 280,000 as a contingency we try not to spend that in the course of a fiscal year we hold that as in case of emergency type of funding but we do have additional funds available to us that we do leverage from one to the next and so we've got $600,000 of that funding budget and the way we get E&D is the same way the town gets reserves in other words when you finish your fiscal year if you're under budget that falls into the sort of reserve category one difference is that in a regional school district there's a maximum amount that you can retain in E&D and that's 5% of your operating budget so we have some obligation to use those resources and not sort of stack them up and hold them so we're supposed to spend that funding in a timely way to support our budgets and so we try to carry that from one year to the next and use a little bit each year and so when we finish under budget one year it helps support that E&D for a subsequent year and it helps sort of smooth out our funding picture a little bit from one year to the next but the totality of those other sources of funds besides assessments to the town it's a little over $12 million we subtract that from our 36 496 441 and so the amount to be assessed to the four towns falls in the 24 million 420 814 and because of you know either no change in those estimates for revenue or small changes in those estimates for revenue that's why that increase from fiscal 24 this year is 11.62% so it's a pretty big increase to cover the costs that we're anticipating and so if we use the assessment method and with the five year rolling average of minimal local contribution and the remainder of that amount to be assessed based on a five year rolling average of students this series of numbers the 19 706 938 for the town of Amherst would be the sort of full assessment you would have to bear in order to hold us at level of services and likewise you can see the impact on the other three towns you know in in the most recent years we've had a set of guardrails of 4% as a maximum increase and so as I started in the presentation to do that we would have to cut about 1.7 million the regional school committee asked me to restore the teaching and paraprovision positions and so that's a much smaller amount of reduction and so the guardrails of 4% we're going to support that so essentially I modified the guardrails in order to to meet that level of reduction that we had been able to identify that it did not involve teaching in paraprofessional positions so that just shy of $750,000 and so that creates an increase above the current year assessment of about 8.2% for every every one of the four towns and so that's a little more than double the increase from what we spoke about in February but that is the budget that was passed by the regional school committee on the 14th the final slide and I'll do this quickly just as a reference and so if you that last slide is the capital projections so capital is another part of the budget the regional school committee reduced the projected projects for the coming year and so the debt authorization that they went through was much smaller they took $300,000 out of that doesn't impact fiscal 25 but it would have an impact on fiscal 26 those numbers are not shown in the chart at the bottom of the page there where it has the assessment the fiscal 24 and 25 numbers are accurate 26 and above have not been modified relative to the capital project and debt authorization that was approved by the regional school committee so we're trying to be forward thinking and saying all right we're going to push out some of these projects we can hold off on those we'll take a little less debt on and potentially have a positive impact on some of the subsequent years of the capital planning from a financial request in assessments so the assessments for capital are in the column labeled 25 those have been consistent throughout the budget season but I did want to share those with you but the larger conversation is probably much more about the operating budget and the assessments there and the additions, reductions etc that match with that so I think I'll stop there because I blitzed through that really quickly I'm sorry if I went too quickly and I'm sorry if anyone has this is very familiar to me and so I go through it relatively rapidly and I'm sorry if I skimmed over something that wasn't familiar to anybody or has provoked some questions I'm happy to answer anything so why don't you just stay right where you are and Sarah Bess why don't you come up this is Sarah Bess Kenney Sarah Bess is the chair of the regional school committee so Doug we asked Doug to go back through please yes sorry so our original budget that was presented which we dubbed the Tuesday budget in our meeting for clarity we reviewed and many of the cuts that were proposed were student facing and greatly going to change the student experience in our schools and as the school committee our job is to approve a budget that supports our students the best we can and honors our district mission which includes high quality education multicultural, multi-ethnic and floristic societies and keeping our schools as healthy and robust as we can and so we asked the business office to put back in the student facing positions we are still making cuts that still affect students it still includes two FTE from central office, two janitorial staff and one clerical and then as Dr. Slatter presented in the last slide we reduced our capital proposed capital projects okay just take a moment and Sarah Marshall did you want to say a few words? thank you Sarah Marshall member of the Amherst and regional school committees my role as chair of the Amherst school committee however doesn't I'm just another member of the regional committee all the speakers during the public comment part of this meeting were spot on very articulate in outlining the damage that might be caused will be caused we hope will not be caused by the cuts that would be needed to limit the assessment increases to 4% but I'll give my written remarks education has long been a priority and economic driver for the Amherst area the significant portion of the area population lives here specifically because of the educational offerings not only at the college and university level but at the elementary and secondary levels as well unfortunately the ability of the regional schools to offer the high quality programming that so many people demand and that our children surely deserve is threatened by inadequate funding chiefly at the state level Dr. Slaughter just pointed out and after years of whittling away at programs and staff at administrators and classes we were faced this winter with the prospect of devastating cuts amounting to 1.6 million dollars cuts that cannot be made without significant changes to student learning and staff responsibilities we implore you to fund the budget that we have submitted even though it will require significantly more funding than was offered at the four towns meeting we know it's a big ask but parents, students, educators and staff tell us loudly and clearly that a shrinking and mediocre program is unacceptable please also understand that our regional schools are in competition with private and charter schools and that more students will go elsewhere if they need to to get the language and music instruction the arts, the counseling the academic supports that are no longer available at the Amherst middle or high schools and that they take significant taxpayer funds with them please strengthen and do not weaken our schools thank you thank you I think the three of you can just sit there in the hot seat we're going to start with comments, questions from the council I want to remind people that this is just the beginning of the conversation for this council with the regional school budget we have a hearing scheduled on the 25th at 6.30 it will be totally virtual it's a meeting of the finance committee that other members of the council may join in with that and our vote tonight is to refer the budget to the finance committee where it will rest until they come back to the council with their recommendation and then as each of you knows then it becomes a decision making process across four municipalities and that involves three town meetings and our town council so we're again just at the beginning of that process so with that Kathy go ahead I'm just going to focus on two elements that Doug went through quickly and I know this is more long term but I'm also thinking we should be putting pressure on the state I just did a quick math of chapter 70 had gone up by 4% rather than less than 1% it would be another roughly $400,000 I can't understate what the charter formula is doing to devastate our schools and it's year after year we're sending a net Doug showed the amount we get off the top but we're sending a net of over $20,000 for each of the 82 students that leave we only send $5,000 if they go to another public district school if we send $10,000 rather than $5,000 it would be the million you're asking for year after year so I think we need to organize with our state legislatures a change in the formula but more immediately chapter 70 we talked about the fair share amendment very little bit went directly into school budgets a little bit went into some capital or K through 12 we had a discussion about student debt at the college level but we're buying for the same part of money and I think people really need to say that at the most basic level we need to protect K through 12 and in this case we're talking about regional you know because it's our kids so I just want to focus on those two because there's such big numbers you know on the Amherst side I was looking at the amount more money that it would be for Amherst where we had 4% and this would be 8% so just calculating that and we can start to talk about that at the finance committee it was pointed out by one public comment that we went up to 10.5 on the capital budget 10.5% that extra 0.5 rather than 10 is about $400,000 you know so there's there's pieces of money that cause pain somewhere else there's not a little pocket somewhere that we can just dip into but it's and Sarah is on the Joint Capital Planning Committee I mean taking a hard look at what needs to be spent it might mean we have to re-look at our guidelines so I'll stop there rather than looking at some of the detail because I haven't had a chance to look at the underlying detail but our two kids went through the middle school and the high school and I have to tell you when they hit college they were so well prepared and beyond that they had this extremely diverse experience of friendships across all these different programs and I was just they're 44 and 40 now so we're talking about a long time ago but they look they treasured the time in our middle school in our high school for what that experience brought to them and I as a counselor would like to have that continue to be an experience in Amherst thank you all very much Pam Rooney thank you if I were looking at the chart which is it says FY 2025 proposed budget and it has the payroll accounts and the expense accounts at the top if maybe we could look at see that a couple basic questions if someone would take the time to explain how our Amherst vote affects other towns first question second question is does choice in payment for special ed it was mentioned a couple of times that we get tuition for special ed and we get tuition for regular ed choice in does choice in for special ed tuition cover the actual cost of special ed education when I look at when I look at the any of the proposed numbers the payroll accounts for special ed exceed that of regular education and I don't know how many students are supported in special ed as opposed to regular ed in the expense accounts just the top oh five or six lines which is regular education special ed student programs school administration if someone could describe what expense accounts means it's in the realm of five million dollars so it's really becoming real money it's anyway that's the question what does that consist of thank you Doug there's a couple of things so there's school choice and tuition in so for when I was speaking earlier about collecting tuitions from special ed students those are into our specific programs which is different than school choice it's an actual placement like we have there are some students that we have that we don't have programming for special ed purposes and we will send those kids to what we call out of district placements we are receiving district in a similar way so when we go through that we are trying to estimate when we set up the billing technically with them we're trying to charge for what we're incurring separately school choice which is we are school choice district we do accept school choice students the base amount for any student it's a school choice student so it's five thousand dollars if they have special education costs those are then calculated and we do a process called school choice districts that send to us and so we do recover those costs one-to-one so special education costs definitely in both of those circumstances are ones that are covered by those sending districts see if I can remember all the questions so how does the Amherst vote affect the other towns so the way it works is yes and I'm just going to get a little technical about how the budget process occurs so there are really three parts to getting a regional budget pass there's a capital assessment that all four towns have to agree to in the operating budget side of things there's really two pieces to that there is the assessment method itself and then there is the actual numbers the operating budget itself and so both of those have to pass for the regional schools to have a budget because we use an alternative method all four towns must agree to that that alternative method for the budget to pass so we can have on the other hand on just the dollars and cents part of the operating budget three of the four have to pass it but with the assessment method because it's an alternative method all four must agree to it so if anyone town rejects the assessment method we don't have a budget and if two towns reject the sort of numeric part of the budget that also would have us not be able to have a budget for the coming years so that's so each of the towns has a fair amount of power to reject a budget by virtue of that you'd ask a little bit about special education costs so payroll accounts at the top are all about salaries basically that's just all salaries up there expenses are a variety of different things some of it's you know instructional supplies it's you know whiteboard markers and workbooks and paper and things of that sort but it's also things like replacement equipment for Chromebooks or technology in particular kids need and so in special education might have an adaptive type of technology someone needs that's an expense accounts sometimes it's for services that we need that we can't provide ourselves so sometimes we have to contract those out if we have difficulty either hiring staff that we'd like to have we'll contract out services or if it's something specialized that we don't offer or we don't have or need it on a regular basis we'll often contract out for those services so it's a whole host of different things that fall into those categories a little over you know probably in the 23 I don't know the number exactly it used to be more closer to 20 but it's it's crept up a little bit in recent years number you know the percentage of our students that have special education needs is about 23% or so it's not quite to 25% but it's it's gone up over the last few years but special education services are often expensive and they're and they're largely compulsory in other words we when an IEP or an individualized education plan gets written it's something that's agreed to between the district and the families relative to how best to meet their students needs so they can access the curriculum and so it is intended to be the least restrictive form to for those students to access curriculum but it often involves a variety of staff that provide a variety of services depending on what their needs are and so it's just on a base level it's more expensive than kids that don't have IEPs it just requires a higher level of specification and staffing to do that and sometimes equipment too I think I got, hopefully I got all the different pieces you asked about Mandy Jo I'm sorry, Councillor Hannake thank you a couple of questions to hopefully take advantage of the fact that we have Sarah Bass Kenney our regional school committee chair here and two members of our regional school committee because I don't know whether they'll be of finance or not um does the regional school committee intend that the FY25 budget as they passed so the higher one than what we had been looking at is do they intend it to be the base for the FY26 budget and all future budgets or with the original one that would 900,000 lower be the base in other words is this budget as passed that increases what the four towns we're looking at by 900,000 a permanent increase in the budget by 900,000 or is this a one-year adjustment I'm going to ask all my questions, they're kind of all related why did the regional school committee wait until April to relay their concerns to the four towns through passing a budget higher than what was discussed at any of the four towns meetings and guidance instead of making the case at either the January four towns meeting when we knew 20 positions would need to be cut or calling an additional four towns meeting in February or March what has the regional school committee done over the past three years to strategize for the fiscal cliff that we knew was coming and talked about that is here in FY25 what did you do to prepare for it how did you talk about it and related to that of the level services budget the presentation indicated that 600,000 of this quote 1.7 million reduction or now 0.8 million reduction is because there is $600,000 less in ESSER budget support than there was in the current fiscal year budget but ESSER money wasn't was always known to not be permanent so did you have a plan for the loss of that ESSER money I noticed also that 500,000 in the FY25 budget ESSER money that will not be there at all next year and where is the strategy for making up that loss to incoming years I can answer the first one so the first question is around a one year adjustment or not if we adopt the budget as pass so it involves an assessment method of 1.2% that essentially sets the base because it is the base of assessment that gets charged to the four communities so it would to my mind be the basis of the budget for the coming fiscal 26 you know if that additional funding had been asked for in a different way than it potentially sort of external to the budget then it would be more of a one time version because it's an adjustment to base thank you I would say we did discuss whether to pass a budget with a lower base and ask for one time extra money that wouldn't then be part of the next year's base and that did not fly so I think it's pretty clearly or it's clear to me the intent of the committee to just build this right in sir best did you have comments please speak to the mic so we have actually after the four of our people have talked to our four towns and one of the things we have asked the business office to create and present for us is a three year look ahead we'll do exactly what you're asking about how will this look for our future and sorry one of my questions was about four towns meeting we knew these 20 cuts positions were presented in January's four towns why did you wait until April to tell the towns it was unacceptable instead of calling four towns meetings in February or March to discuss this I think we didn't know exactly what was going to end up being cut and that's why in addition to the look ahead that we've asked the business office to do for us one of the other things is we would like to have another four towns meeting so the four towns can come together and hopefully review the three year look ahead and have more discussions about how to not only manage for this year but also to manage for our future years there is a four towns meeting at this point the tentative date is the 20th of April that does not answer the question it just answers the question what are the places that piece of information out there did you have follow up I guess three year look ahead looks to the future one of my questions was what in the last three years have you done to plan for the cliff that we're in now since we knew it was coming that might be more for Dr. Slaughter as finance or business whatever his title was before acting superintendent finance director essentially there's a few things we've done certainly we knew that this was coming and there's a certain limit to what we can do certainly I hinted at it a little bit a number of revolving funds we've intentionally school choice being another one of those where we've allowed the funding to grow a bit in order to have a little more resource available over the next few years so our tuition account which we're using a little bit of this next couple of years this sort of adjustment section of that adjustments reductions and ads we're starting to leverage those resources that we've want to say stacked up but we stacked up over the last couple of years so we used there's a few things there that we've done and as you'll note from that you know the idea being that we can sustain some of that support you know for example the tuition support is for special education it's about 125,000 if you take the sort of top and bottom one we think we can sustain that for a year or two and obviously that gives us more time we're sort of spreading this out over a longer period of time to not make it as abrupt but nonetheless it's still a pretty abrupt change to be honest in the fiscal 24 budget it was you know we would have had to have leveraged less S or funds to in the current year to make next year not look quite so bad but then we'll also have you know as you noted a $500,000 sort of difficulty to overcome when we start to plan for fiscal 26 so I think there's a few things we've looked at with regard to that you know we have limited limited tools to do that I think the you know there will be some reductions that are coming it's a matter of when and how abruptly we do them and so and I think that you know that's the other thing in looking at a three-year sort of forward production is sort of see what what what kind of reductions we have what kind of reductions in enrollment we have over those next period of years as well and it gets difficult to sustain the variety of programming we have if we have a continuingly a continuing decline in enrollment so that's it's there's going to be some trade-offs here we're going to have to make because you know we're currently under 400 students in the middle school under nine under 900 students in our high school it's difficult to sustain the wide variety of things with with that few students and so do we start to look at more school choice do we look at other kinds of options as we move forward and and I think that you know we've as much as these are difficult conversations to have relative to these these budgets I think there there are other districts that are in tougher shape than we are I mean not that that matters when we vote our budgets but I think that we've tried to leverage the funds in a sustained and tapering type of way and yet it's still pretty significant sort of step down between each of these last few years to mitigate that and and not everything that we've had to put in place over the last few years is able to be removed just yet I think we see some higher needs and in some aspects of our our students that that require continued additional support so it's difficult to make those reductions in around sort of mental health supports and and the impact that has on on some of our special education needs and and that sort of thing so we'll continue to have these difficult conversations I think over the next couple years because I think that there's no I I'm not aware of any sort of major shift in funding sources that that anyone's I think there are ideas about what can happen what will or will not come to fruition over the next couple years going to be difficult to to with any certainty because I think there's a I think there are a large number of districts that are like our districts that are that are in this minimum age circumstance and when it's such a big chunk you know it the other way to look at it Councilor Shane mentioned this but I I looked at the funding level it you know is 2014 versus now for chapter 70 is percentage of the budget was like 31% of the budget well if it was still 31% of the budget we wouldn't have this conversation about a million dollars you know we just wouldn't not that it was going to sustain or or has ever sustained it at inflationary rate but nonetheless even if it was approximating that so this is sort of the reality of the student opportunity act and we all voted for it I think the resources that it's applying to districts like Holyoke and Springfield and Lowell and places like that are well placed resources but it it puts a burden on on communities like ours to carry that for the rest of the Commonwealth so that's that's a piece of this too Andy Steinberg I first want to acknowledge to these people who are still in the audience that were here before and spoke that I appreciated all of your comments because it really does put the context on a very difficult decision that ultimately has to be made but I there are a number of troubling aspects that have been raised in the discussion that has taken place already and part of it is that we're not alone there are 218 minimum aid districts in the Commonwealth including regional and town districts so it's a fairly large it's a large number there are more that are minimum aid districts than are not as far as I'm aware and so that the other thing that's happening to all of the districts is that everybody had us or funds some used differently than others everybody has their us or funds being eliminated it's happening at the same time that the Student Opportunity Act is being implemented which is where that minimum aid number comes from so there's a lot of challenges that we face but there's one long-term challenge that I think we also need to recognize and that is that even before this all happened the inflation annually in school budgets was greater than the revenue increases that was available to districts because districts ultimately rely strongly on property taxes which have a two and a half percent cap and what the legislature can provide and in the best of years we were seeing two to three percent increases so that when the school budgets were continually going up and if you look back at what was happening each year there were small cuts being made each year and what I think is really tragic this year in addition to the cumulative small cuts that have happened over a great number of years is that now we're facing a cliff as opposed to you know just to you know a hill this is really making us look at a cliff so I recognize all of those things and I've been working as you know with Massachusetts Municipal Association to look into the fiscal policy issues but they're not easy solutions best we can do is to continue to work together to present to the legislature now the other thing that I want to turn to is the local side of it just to put it into context and why it's going to be a very difficult decision that this council is making as the other three towns are making these decisions at town meetings where we in Amherst have our community will speak to us and then we will make the best decision that we possibly can but the amount of additional reduction that we're being asked to look at because of the change in the budget from what was discussed at the four town meetings Grammarist is about $740,000 and to give that $740,000 a little bit of context if we're going to do that by shifting from other expenditures that we envisioned for the budget and I'm not picking on this one program I'm going to mention because no decision has been made but it's greater than the entire budget of the Crest Department by about $100,000 so I just want to give you a context what it means to ask us amongst with $740,000 somebody during public comment mentioned the possibility of taking it from reserves most of our reserves we've been setting aside for the capital projects to still remain rebuilt fire station in which a lot of we need to be built to serve top-famous future flights a very antiquated station that is unhealthy for the community non-healthy for the staff to be working there and the department of public work which is one of the most affordable buildings that we have staff for in the entire town so there are consequences and then just one other which is everybody points out on a regular basis how deplorable our roads are and that the other piece that has to be put into play and there's no question that it's going to affect the amount of money that's available all afternoon so I encourage through the process that you're from the community Councillor Steinberg would you please use your microphone you're not able to be heard I lost it there my finger fell off of it the I'm just concluding now but what I was saying is that we really need to have our community understand the depth of the problem and the depth of the cost of the solving the problem if we're going to come up with the money and we're going to have to make that decision I assume that the other towns in the region are having similar discussions going forward it's going to be a tough one thank you Jennifer top yeah pardon me I'm just thinking out loud but it's such a catch 22 I mean we know for Amherst to remain a viable community we need to sustain and expand our year-round population especially of families with children to send to our schools and we need to maintain a robust student body at a certain level in order to have a robust curriculum and have enrichment classes and if our schools aren't top notch with that kind of robust curriculum then we can't we're challenged to entice families to move here and pay our high taxes so I mean it seems I know this isn't going to help us for fiscal year 25 but long and short term that our colleges and university really need to step up and provide more support because our current economic model of only residential property taxes you know supporting the town is just not cutting it I also just wanted to ask in terms of anticipating we knew that the you know ESSER funds would be that they had a life span but are you finding that the academic setback and other kind of fallout from the pandemic and students not being in person in school for almost two years that the fallout from that is exceeding the life span of the ESSER funds so it's hard to cut back when you need to still make up for that definitely. Please speak into the mic. Yes. Thank you George Yeah I don't know if you can answer this right now maybe this is something that's going to come to FINCOM but I would be two questions I'd be curious to know how much of ESSER money was spent for one time expenses as opposed to recurring costs I really like to know I think that's going to be an answer down the road I mentioned that because there's a town right next to us that's going through the same process we are and they're not having a fiscal cliff and that's because they spent all the ESSER money on one time costs I was thinking of that leaking roof that was mentioned earlier maybe anyway so I'm just curious how much of that ESSER money was spent on recurring costs how much was spent on one time costs the other has to do with the impact of the new contracts I'd just be curious how much of the gap is reflected in the new contracts that have been signed I assume that had a substantial impact I just don't know so I'm curious I can answer that one a little bit so there's a couple pieces to this puzzle one thing I would broadly suggest and as we head to the Port Towns meeting we'll get into this a little bit more but as an organization we've gotten younger so most of our contracts certainly all of our union contracts are structured with various lanes so depending on in the teacher contract it's educational level but in others it depends on the type of work you do and we have steps and so when you come to workforce you get placed on a given lane and step and then over time you get a step plus a cola but then at some point you get to the top of the scale and you just get a cola so when I first started working for the district many years ago the staff were at the top step or close to 70% of the staff that's a much lower percentage now which puts a lot more inflationary pressure from one year to the next so the raw dollars are less but you have a step and a cola for a larger number of staff so that's one piece that plays into just generally speaking regardless of what the cola is or anything else we've just gotten younger as an organization and most organizations have particularly with the pandemic necessarily age but younger in their crew with us relative to the great concept so that's one piece so the second thing is what you negotiate for a cost of living increase so a percentage point makes a big difference but maybe not as much as you might think it would so if we were to say broadly speaking if most of our union agreements had a 3% cola for the current for fiscal 25 not all of them some of our negotiations now but broadly speaking if we take those that had that sort of 3% if it was zero at the regional schools that's about a half a million dollars a percentage point is in the 150-160 range generally speaking is a broad metric of that and yet you know the counter to that is those were fully you know fairly negotiated contracts and so we had to come to agreement and you know inflationary pressures are real so when we have when we talk about health insurance going up 9.74% this year the district has their cost of 9.74% but all the employees that pay their piece of that also has that go up 9.74% so you know they're getting hit with some of those same costs we are and that's not to diminish the impact but it is a factor I think that the fact that we've gotten younger is putting a little more inflationary pressure on our budgets year over year and that's the nature of having contracts that have steps and colas as a part of how they're structured but I think a lot of districts are in the same boat as we are because you know maybe boomers are retiring or have retired that's sort of tapering to the end and so they're coming in and are not at the very top of the salary scale the other thing you have and it's not as much a factor in say our teaching category but some of our other contracts with the minimum wage going to $15 you get some compression between the bottom and top of the salary scale but it does tend to put pressure on the entirety of the scale to move everyone's salary up as well so those are all pieces of the puzzle no real straight line connections between some of them but at the same time they're there and they are factors in influencing our labor costs and since we are so labor intensive as far as our costs are concerned anytime those things impact labor it's a much more profound impact on our overall budgets and back to the question on how much for one time things versus ongoing things we had a mix we did some one time funding for a short period and we tapered those out of our budget there's some things we've been we've been supporting and we thought we would be tapering more of them out and we haven't been able to yet so it's kind of a mix would be the sort of broad answer at this point I can look more closely at the specifics of that there are some things that we definitely bought that were one time sort of things leveraging the SR funds for capital expenses was a bit involved in it to do a fair amount of effort to allow to be used for capital expense so it had to be kind of a careful structuring there so we didn't do as much of that as much as we have capital needs as you know you've probably seen in some of our documentation and given the ages of our buildings but it was it was a non street forward process to do very much in the in the realm of capital with SR funds I'm concerned about how I heard you talk about revolving funds so you built them up in over the period say from COVID and now you're using them as a way to help make it not be as bad but even that has a limited life correct correct so the idea is to make the shrinking happen over a longer period of time as opposed to severe sort of steps got it I just want to make sure I understood that one because it's kind of like SR I mean it's not going to be there forever right and you built up some reserves in those and now you're using those to make it slightly less painful okay the other there's a couple other realities out there some of the eastern mass towns actually are gaining some population but we're not and as much as I hope and would love embers to be able to attract more young families to it the reality is the birth rate isn't there we know already who is in kindergarten today and where they will be in 12th grade and so we need to be planning in a way that understands what the school population actually looks like in addition to that people are migrating out of the northeast not to the northeast and if we think this looks bad wait for about three years when it hits higher ed and they start seeing the real problems even in our own town so that's a reality I just have hope I have serious hope that we can find creative solutions to continue to offer the best possible variety of courses to a shrinking high school population so that in fact we can continue to be very proud of not just where our kids go to college but for those kids that don't go to college the kinds of future they can look at and I really urge that no matter how this budget comes out this year that that planning process needs to get serious and it needs to have some real expertise brought into it and it has to involve conversations across the commonwealth because the solutions are going to have to be across the commonwealth we're not alone you've said it many times so somehow or another as we as amourst put our faith hope in our schools we've got to ask that you not put off this really serious serious planning for the future any longer I know we're looking for a new superintendent etc let's hope they're ready to take it on because we can't be sitting here every year asking for an 8% increase in our budget for the schools and there is no way that I see the state making it up somebody said at one point Chair Sarah Marshall and I discussed oh let's do a campaign for chapter 70 and then I realized we'd be going to the state to try to get about $80,000 more and I said how much time can I spend on trying to get $80,000 more from the state you know it isn't killing us it's killing and it's really hurting of wide variety of school districts but amourst has to figure out our future and it has to be a future where we stay invested in our kids and we figure out using things like technology to make sure we can continue to offer the variety of classes that we are able to offer now I don't have a question I'm sure I'll have more but you answered the one about revolving funds Pat DeAngelis Thank you, you know how when you have a pebble in your shoe it can be really small but it keeps bothering you I have a very minor question in this very large structured budget the reduction of capital projects and we're being told not me for the first time about leaking ceilings or pipes that have flooded auditoriums and rooms so is that being addressed this year as a capital project what's happening with that specific pebble so we've you know we knew we were needing a group at the middle school for a while we have been applying every year for several years to to get support from the state through their MSBA projects called accelerated repair program which is different than the one that the town of Amherst is getting for the school building and you know we're in a group called everyone because districts across the commonwealth built schools like we did in the late 60s and early 70s so all of them have school groups that need to be replaced at the same time so the program and the funding source for MSBA funding is kind of highest need first and so you know each year that they sort of award projects like roof replacement we tend to be sort of one year up of the cycle of cutoff for that so we've been planning and working on that and we have actually a debt authorization to which we'll probably have to get a larger one in a couple of years because a number of years have passed and the costs have gone up so we've been continuing to work in submitting to that program and have not yet been successful and last fall we did take some of that debt authorization to do some repair work on that roof and yet it's not a complete repair by any stretch you know it is a bit of a whack-a-mole problem with the roof that's at that over 25-year-old sort of place I will say that the sort of weather event I mean we do have and have had for several years issues with regard to the roof and we have a variety of ways we've tried to capture that water in ways that are least harmful students and least disruptive to the educational program however we had a circumstance the early part of the winter where we've got three or four inches of snow and then it rained for two days and so that's basically put a sponge on top of the roof and then fill it with water it doesn't matter you know if we'd had a new roof we might have still had leaking problems in that circumstance and that's not to diminish the need is very great there we've been trying to find a mechanism to get our roof funded from MSBA they cover roughly about half the cost and and we've also been waiting and they put the program on pause during the pandemic for a year and so that's the late another year so we did submit again this year and we're hopeful for that if it degrades much further we're going to have to just cover the cost on our own and figure out what that is but it's going to cost all four towns twice as much and so when you look at that last slide and you look at those out years where the numbers start to get really big really quick there's a number of projects like that that are in the mix there so it's a real conundrum there are a variety of things talking about sort of strategizing to the future and thinking about well how many students do we have and how do we structure ourselves and do we still maintain two buildings the middle school building was built in 1969 the high school building has a portion building from 55 part of the building from 64 part of the building from 96 so the newest part of the building is pushing 30 years roughly about half the building is from 96 renovation and then about 20% from the 50s and 30% from the from the 60s and so all of that building needs some work as well and so do we look at different ways to structure both the buildings and where we put the kids as part of the longer term planning and thinking about how to be most efficient with the number of kids we're going to have and the space we have and the infrastructure we have so all of those things are simultaneously components we have to evaluate and think about in the coming years because any project of any significance of a capital nature requires some real forethought and planning and gathering of resources to cover it because so an idea that we looked at a few years ago and then sort of was looking at whether or not if we go a little bit smaller maybe we do a small addition at the high school building and put 7 to 12 all in that sort of space but that kind of stalled pretty quickly because once you make that level of addition to the building you have to bring the remainder of the building up to code and so the lowest in cost on that was over 30 million dollars and that was five years ago so all of those are in the mix as we think about these kinds of things and we're endeavoring to maintain those buildings as best we can and strike that balance between leveraging state funding to help us out and just needing to do some of the work fully on our own and we're trying to find that right balance in doing that but it makes for challenging spaces for kids to be and that's unfortunate Thank you for all sharing the funds to do the budget I have it on So ARPA funds I believe could be used for that kind of repair Thank you Councillor Hannacky This question may be more for our town manager but potentially also our acting superintendent negotiations with Amherst College for potential pilots have been ongoing for a number of years and we have not received a lot of updates about those but my question is specifically regarding funding for schools from Amherst College. Has Amherst College during those negotiations offered any specific amounts of funding specifically for either elementary or regional schools or any capital projects related to them and if so what is the town's response to the specific funding that may or may not have been offered So currently is my understanding that Amherst College provides about $85,000 a year $75,000 goes to the region and about $10,000 goes to the elementary school They have discussed a slightly larger number over a long period of time which I have determined well well well below what needs to happen from the college Pat did you have your hand up? No more hands I'm going to make a motion in accordance with and seek a second in accordance with Charter Section 5.5a to refer the Amherst Pellum Regional School Budget to the finance committee for a public hearing and recommendation to the to the council within 30 days Is there a second? Second Thank you Andy Are there any other comments or questions? Seeing none I'm going to begin with Anna Devlin-Gothier I Councillor Ate Lynn Greismers and I Councillor Haneke Bob Hegner I Councillor Lord Did we lose her? Okay I'll come back and see Pam Rooney? Yes Councillor Ryan? Aye Kathy Jean? Yes Andy Steinberg? Aye Jennifer Taub? Yes Yes Patty Angelis? Aye And Councillor Lord She's there but she may have taken a break All right It's unanimous except for one Councillor who is absent Thank you We are going to take a 10 minute break which is long overdue Thank you all for being here Thank you for your time Thank you for those of you that have hung out in the audience as long as you have Thank you all very much for taking it Please make sure you mute and also turn your picture off turn it back on when you come back We need to reassemble Thank you As you return please put your video back on so I know you're back I just want to make sure people are back I'm Okay You're back All right Thank you Thank you You're back All right The next item on our agenda is the Community Preservation Act appropriation for FY25 Before we begin I'm calling on Jennifer Taub and then I have a statement to make as well. Please go ahead Jennifer Yes, I just want to make the statement that one of the applications for the CPA is from to the CPA committee is from the local historic district commission and my husband is a member of that commission but neither of us have any material interest in the application so I don't feel I need to accuse myself but I just wanted to share that bit of information Thank you In a very similar vein my husband is on the group that is applied for the Mill River Historic work and his name is on the application as one of the members again neither he nor I have anything to gain from that and so I see no reason why I can't continue to vote Pat I guess I need to say something about Carol I guess you do It's what happens in small towns we're all related My wife is one of the co-chairs of the Amherst Community Housing Trust but that is not affecting my vote to support it or not Thank you Are there any other confessions Any other related complicated relationships please don't talk about them Thank you This is I'm going to place a motion on the floor and that is in accordance with Charter section paragraph I guess it's section 5.6 having been published on the Town Billage and Board for a minimum 10 days on February 23, 2024 a public form held on March 18, 2024 and having been reviewed by the finance committee with a report on April 1, 2024 to adopt council order FY25-07A an order appropriating the FY20-25 community preservation act budget as shown on page 7 of the motion sheet Is there a second Second Ernie Thank you comments Kathy Yes could you just show the motion that we're looking at because there's one line that's been amended in the original of financial order and I want to make sure that that's what I wanted to see Thank you I just wanted to make sure that's what we're voting on It is Are there any comments or questions Yes, point of order actually If the motion deleted the $20,000 for the East Historic District how would one reinsert that you would have to make a motion to amend the motion This is the motion act Let me begin first of all by saying I'm going to ask the finance committee to comment and then we'll go to the rest of the council Bob We considered all of these projects and the finance committee was perfectly fine with this particular project the $20,000 project it was just there was some wording in the application itself that we've had problems with so what we were proposing was just to send it back to CPAC to get them to change the application I don't know what the process is for them to do that but only to then have it come back to us and then we would be prepared to it's we don't have any problem with the project itself it's just some of the wording and it's in our report for the council some of the wording was such that we didn't want to have that be establishing our positions on certain things the council has its own positions on development and other issues the other thing is that in the original in this order the name of the project is the East Amherst local historic district and it's not a study committee that word it should read local historic district study committee we don't want to have this by de facto establish a district by voting to approve this so it's again issue with the project itself it's just the language in the application and then how it was entitled on this order that we objected to I just want to acknowledge that Sam McLeod is on zoom with us he is the chair of the CPA committee and Sam you raise your hand so I'm going to call on you and then go to the other councillors thank you Lynn and thank you all for all you do again I did watch the portion of the finance committee meeting I am familiar with the applications I thought it would be relevant for me to make a couple of comments regarding the project in question which is the East Amherst historic district one point I wanted to make was that the report that our committee sent to finance the town council the names of the projects reflected the exact names that appeared in the applications that we received that is to say that the specific name for this project application as submitted was East Amherst local historic district line it was submitted by the East Amherst local historic district study committee so the study committee was the organization that submitted the request the title of the request was East Amherst local historic district whether or not that would have been a desirable title to use for that project is a different question if I were to if I were to have gone back to the time period where we created the descriptions in conjunction with town staff that we sent to our committee I probably would have placed adjacent to the title of their project in parentheses the word study so that their title as submitted I might have made an asterisk amendment titled East Amherst local historic study so that was one point I was going to make the other point I wanted to make was regarding the concept of the CPA making alterations to the applications we have a particular form that's utilized at present as a standard process that was open from September 1st through September 30th of 2023 that application is closed so we as a committee don't have the capacity to alter the phraseology words or perhaps bad words you know editorializing words that might have been submitted as part of an application so I don't know what our committee might do if something comes back to us I would offer the since you've asked me to or been kind enough to let me speak then I would suggest the following that the applicant could conceivably submit some comment seeking to retract it I'm not sure logistically if our committee can address the existing application and or they could resubmit again in the following cycle which is in September most likely of 2025 this 2024 this summer so I wanted to clarify the name of the application it reflects that title even though it might be a misnomer and secondly I'm not sure what our committee can do in terms of altering other than to have a discussion related to the application and possibly get a comment or a desired statement of attraction for the council those are my comments so thank you the opportunity to say my thoughts out there having to listen to what was discussed thank you before I go any further Pam did we answer your question okay Councillor Hannacky yeah I may raise my hand to speak on this matter particularly but on the order that's on the motion sheet that has the red lined out and the numbers fixed under the appropriation order chart the order itself in the paragraph above has a number that was not fixed and so I don't know whether I need to make a motion to amend the line that says order to appropriate one million eight hundred fifty five one thirty six to one million eight hundred thirty five one thirty six at the very second paragraph of the entire order that follows right after order if I need to make the motion I will make the motion I don't think you need to I think we'll just make the correction Athena thank you Anna so I was a bit surprised that finance committee came out saying that they didn't want to recommend a project even though they agreed with the project because of the wording in an application and I want to be clear I didn't appreciate the wording in the application either for example there are some things that I just felt were inaccurate if we had quote-unquote student hotels we'd be getting more lodging tax money than we currently are so that's just not true but I'd like to I'd like to hear what the committee specifically recommends in terms of the wording that they'd like to see because it seems like my my understanding of our role is to approve projects not direct wording in applications and you know it feels like a slippery slope to sending back applications for I'm being a bit dramatic but sending back applications for typos right if we start with wordsmithing applications where's the limit that there would need to be changes the council or council members find objectionable before it triggers that project not being taken under consideration if people find the project objectionable or not in compliance with CPA law it would make a lot more sense to me to strike it from the recommendations the council makes but this feels like a very slippery slope which leads me to two questions which one is for Sam and one is for town staff which is the first Sam did this can you tell us if this conversation occurred in any sort of way when this project was being discussed at CPA and then second is what would be town staff involvement with this project and I apologize I have read the application but I don't have it up in front of me because I again I think that personal opinion does come in on any CPA proposal people care about a project that's their opinion that that project should be prioritized I personally do find the language in this not something I necessarily agree with but I agree with what the money is funding and for me that is what we are voting as a council so I'd love to hear if CPA did discuss this specific issue as well and what town staff involvement would be with this project Paul is this something David Zomek might speak to yes David also with us on zoom David would you unmute and perhaps speak to that sure thanks Lynn are you are you talking specifically to what role Councillor Dublin-Gothiers question about what role staff would play yes yes so with most CPA proposals there would be staff support as the council knows so whether it's something related to recreation or planning or whatever category affordable housing there's always staff support so staff would work closely on this study of the East Village the historic structures if there was a consultant to be hired to do the work with our procurement officer the procurement office to hire that consultant etc etc so there would be close you know close supervision and involvement by planning department staff Nate Maloy is one of the folks that we often lean on for these kinds of projects and he would be directly involved with this one is there any other question on I think that clarifies the reason why I wanted to know was even if the initial application had a bias one way or another or some of the applicants or one of the applicants did have an interest in doing this to a certain end the fact that it's town staff that are deeply engaged in it who do not have a stance on the issues who are seeking to do the historic preservation without a stance on future development for me that again leads me to trust that application in this project is deserving of CPA funding thank you Jennifer yes so I didn't was just maybe a half hour before the meeting that I read the finance committee report and saw that the word incursion had kind of raised a red flag and so I just wanted to clarify before I was on the council I heard the local historic district commission and incursion is a historic preservation term and it's actually a term from the massachusetts historical commission it's in their handbook on local historic districts and a study you have to when you apply when you're just doing the study as the first step to even thinking about whether an area would be appropriate for the local historic district designation the first thing you have to do is survey all the historic structures and document the history for them and then now they're digitized and I believe that the CPA committee thought it was important because the East Amherst the area around the East Amherst common is the oldest part of Amherst that it was be worth the you know the small amount relatively small amount of funds to just have a digitized record of the history of all these 40 or more I think is what it is historic buildings and structures that are around and adjacent to the East Commons to the East Commons so that is really what this study it would has value in and of itself it's just the first step in applying to be for local historic district designation it would have to go through many steps have to survey the property owners in the area to see if they would be interested in having the designation it comes back to the council and then it ultimately goes to the Massachusetts historical commission and they're the ones who ultimately accept the application and they in their instructions of how you sort of categorize buildings and structures in the area some are called incursions it's almost like nonconforming structures but it's not a pejorative term or a subjective term and that's where that word comes from so I just want to clarify that thank you thank you Andy Joe so I will address as a member of finance committee and honest questions because I was the one that initially got this forward and struggled with whether I could support the project based on the application because to me supporting a project is also supporting the application and the application I had extreme problems with even though after speaking with the chair of the CPA committee I understood the potential benefits of the act getting the historic structures reports but I had concerns about does supporting that mean we support a local historic district the creation of a local historic district it was not clear and given the wording on all of this it implies if we're passing this that there might even be a historic district but my bigger concern was by supporting a project where the application says quote the construction of prefab shoddily built student hotels which detract from and devalue the town and benefit only a handful of landlords is something I cannot support and so I was not sure what to do about a project where I cannot support the wording in the application and after speaking at finance finance came through with this sort of solution of essentially asking the applicants to reapply with wording that is not so divisive that is not necessarily accurate and that frankly devalues more than half of our student our population in town by the wording that it has and so the application also indicated that they were actually applying for this at least the historic district because they're concerned about development and want to stop it and that's another concern I have they quoted quote rapid changes are occurring in the area including a new school and a proposed adjacent overlay district that are impacting its historic character and integrity and as the finance report indicated talked about the protections that a historic district potentially give to slowing or stopping redevelopment or development in an area so I couldn't I had concerns that voting the project equates to supporting the application and the wording in the application is not something I can support Jennifer I'm going to go over to Andy since he's not spoken Andy yes I would make a suggestion and that what we probably should do is initiate an inquiry with the Department of Revenue Division of Local Services as to whether they would consider it appropriate for the applicant and the CPA committee to agree on a modification of the language in the elimination of a sentence that is not central to the application itself or the merit of the application and if we can get that kind of clearance then I think that it might make everybody comfortable to just change the application by eliminating the sentence and get it back for the end of the fiscal year which is what we want to do so that we can adopt it and be a budget item that can be where work can be done during FY 25 which ends to life first and if DOR Division of Local Services comes in with an answer that we hope that they won't but that says that you can't change the application that they would object to are doing that even under the limited circumstances then we still could have the council make a decision as to whether or not it wants to fund it on the application submitted. I have a clarifying question and I'm going to look to Paul and Dave Zomek and that is do we have to go to the state for that kind of a ruling? No I don't think we need to go to the state I think we can make a judgment I think the controlling document will be the contract that we enter into to expend the funds so I think we can put in the contract whatever the council we usually don't get into the detail of the application we set a contract with a consultant say to spend $20,000 to do the work to explore this historic area. Okay Thank you it didn't seem to me that this would require going back to the state but I am going to trust your judgment on that Pat go ahead she's spoken once so I was going to give you a chance Given I understand you can correct the language and then that makes it all okay and I can't if this were here right now not removed by the CPAC committee I cannot support it I understand you stated some of the reason it's clear we design this district which is in my district and near where I live it really is to stop development that we need and the language is the true language of the people who are forming this committee so you can change the sentence and make it sound better but the goal of this particular group is the same so I would not be able to support this now or in the future Jennifer yeah so I wanted first of all in terms of development so I live in a local historic district we have had the library is in the district we're doing a major renovation expansion we built one of a townhouse development is in the local historic district commission before they did have to go before the commission to get a certificate of appropriateness which they got the project does look like it's contextually belongs in the general in the neighborhood but there has been a lot of new development and building in the local historic the north prospect sunset Lincoln local historic district and then the other reason the Amherst media building that is in the Dickinson local historic district destination Amherst is I mean people come to Amherst to visit our you know if they're they have you know children that are visiting our colleges and universities and then parents come to visit them here and the other reason people come to Amherst is our history and there are a lot of buildings that we never become a local historic district but there are a number of buildings from the 1700s it's the oldest part of town which we would do well to ensure are not taken down that there and it doesn't mean that you cannot have development I mean that in the district the East street school it would be built there so they're trying to help Amherst retain a destination Amherst in large part is all about is in no way precluded by having a local historic district there is development and new building in local historic districts all the time but you it would be harder to take down you know the 1700 I'm forgetting the name of the tavern where the bacon or the JCA building in no way precludes new development or expansion of currently existing structures Anna so um the goal of the group can be what it is but my question for I guess I'm going to just put it out to the group and I think it might be Jennifer is the most experienced in this aren't the qualifications for determining whether something is historic or not and should be in this registry based on state or national standards it's not something that this group gets to pick thank you Jennifer is nodding for the record so it's not something that this group is going to be determining qualifications that something will then count as historic and can never be touched and I am supporting putting this back on the list for exactly the reason that was stated which is that the governing document is not the application but the contract that is entered into that the town is a part of and town staff are part of historic protections don't prevent demolition of historic structures my house is a really prime example of this I live in a really old house no historian is going to fight me if I said I wanted to knock it down because it's just not it's cute little spot but it is not going to be you know in the history books here so I think that I'd like to hear I would like to hear from I think Dave maybe about the benefits or drawbacks to this from a town perspective without agenda for development or non-development but I if you're able to do that David I'd like to hear it or Paul I'd love to hear that but I just again this group isn't going to get to decide whether something's historic or not that's that's not what this group gets to do no matter who's in the group I'm going to call on the town manager thank you so many of you may know that I previously had worked at the Cambridge Historical Commission which is a local historic preservation commission I walk through this area a lot and I'm I think that this area needs to be examined it's the historic center of the town of Amherst there are a lot of buildings built in the 1700s and early 1800s in that area that are constructively being demolished because they're not being maintained this this so I think that the town should be proactive in looking at this area and that's what this is a very very very first step is to examine the buildings that are in that this in that area ultimately it could become a local historic district that's again a vote of the council to even begin that process in terms of establishing a history if we're going to a local historic district a local historic district study committee and there are rules about who has to serve on such a committee so I think that I totally understand the concern about the language historic preservation it should not be used as a tool to prevent development but there are every historic district commission every historical district has what they call intrusions in national registered districts they're called contributing or non contributing buildings and those are generally just exempt from regulation in that situation so but the goal of this is to look at the assemblage of buildings that are in that geographical area and provide a modicum of preservation for them but this isn't even there yet we're just saying like what's there that's what this money will do is like inventory the buildings to a survey of architectural history on this area and see what's there and see if it's if there's enough evidence historical evidence to support the next step which be to establish a study committee David you had your hand up I gather you don't feel you have anything you need to add at this time the only thing I would add Lynn and Paul said it very well just a moment to go you know that staff is squarely behind the proposal for the assessment for the study of the buildings it's unfortunate that some of the village in the proposal has has you know you know and it does here here tonight and brought us to this point but essentially this is really just this is a study of the building of the architecture of the history of these buildings the land you know how we ended up with the land use and the the buildings in the configuration they're in in this village and that's will lead to other work in this long process so staff is squarely behind the study itself and as Paul said the contract will determine the scope of the work for the consultant George so just to clarify if that's possible um if this motion goes ahead this particular item is going back to CPA then they're going to go back to the sponsors to see if they'll change the language and then it will then come back to us for a vote is that at the moment where we stand that would be the at the moment that is where we would have to stand because the way the motion is it excludes this project if we were to put this back in since what we're hearing from staff and from a number of other speakers is that there is general support for this in spite of its intemperate language then it would just go ahead could we make a motion to I would like to make a motion to reinsert this item back into the original motion and have it go ahead as it originally was presented to us could I do that yes you can Athena is there any particular way you want that motion worded not the way I said it I know I'm going to amend to change the appropriation amount to 1,855,136 to reinsert the East Amherst local historic district under historic preservation in the amount of $20,000 with the funding source of CPA UDFB and to change the less projects recommended above to 1,855,136 dollars and the remaining UDFB for debt service to be voted in the general fund $520,250 George so moved is there a second second by Rooney who would replace would be proud to replace her original second thank you may I speak to the motion please I understand that some people are offended by the language I too have a language but I think it's really not the point here this is a good thing it should be done staff sees it should be done and what really has pointed out what matters is the contractual language so I think we should just go ahead and I hope you'll support the amended motion are there any other comments at this time is there anybody that Kathy I'll just make a quick comment because I was on the finance committee I support what George has just said and particularly the fact that staff will be writing a contract I think it doesn't matter what the original proposal wording was that there is a body of work to be done and there's a need for it to be done thank you are there any other comments yes Pat I'm going to quote Humpty Dumpty Humpty Dumpty said when I use a word it means exactly what I choose it to mean nothing more and nothing less and those words carry meaning and intention that I think is inappropriate are there any other comments there's an amendment on the floor the amendments been made and seconded the amendment would restore this project to the financial order I'm not going to go through the detailed wording of the amendment I'm going to leave that to the clerk of the council are there any other comments okay we're going to vote on the amendment and after that come back to the original motion Councillor Ette aye Lynn Griesmer is an aye Councillor Haneke no Bob Hegner Councillor Lord I'm going to say absent Pam Rooney yes Councillor Ryan aye Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg aye Jennifer Todd yes Councillor Walker yes Pat DeAngelis no Anna Devlin-Gothier aye it passes unanimously ten in favor two opposed and one absent thank you ten in favor two opposed and one absent I didn't I'm sorry about the now we're back to the original motion and I have my hand up yes I would ask that we split out that particular project from the original motion we pull it out from the original motion so that it's two votes okay so that the original motion is going to be passed the financial order the way it is present and then we're going to vote separately on the financial order on a motion to yes you want to split the motion sorry it's a motion to divide is that possible so Mandy is making a motion that we will then vote on yes she's making a motion to divide I don't think we need a second and a vote to divide okay thank you that's exactly what I wanted to do but we need to know which part the council will vote first okay Mandy Jo did you have your hand up I'm asking to divide out the east Amherst local historic district line understood do you want the council to vote on that one line first or the rest of the funding first yes go ahead and vote on that line first do you have a motion for that one point of order I really say point of order but don't we have an amended financial order on the table don't we we do have an amended now we have to vote on whether or not to divide we have a financial order amended financial order on the table the request has been made to divide that financial order into two votes and are we going to vote on that motion no we do not have to vote on according to Athena we don't have to have a second order vote on the motion to divide not on a motion to divide so basically a request to divide so the council can vote the appropriation the order without the east Amherst historic district and then it would be another vote on the east Amherst historic district I'd need a minute to change the order to have two separate orders if you want to do it that way or you could just vote and I'll create two separate orders afterwards let's do it that way please okay so let's do the first one on the east Amherst historic to just local historic district point of order I don't know what we're voting on okay we voted first of all we did vote the amendment the amendment put that back into the financial order then councilor hannacky has requested that we divide the vote on the financial order into two votes one is a vote for the east Amherst local historic district by itself and the other is for everything else okay but the original its order was amended that there's a motion to write for the amended version of the order correct to be divided the current order that's in front of the council that's on the floor the motion that's on the floor is a motion to adopt the order appropriating the community preservation act budget with the east Amherst local historic district line because that was the amendment was to add it back to the order that's what's in front of you now councilor hannacky has requested that those things be separated that's what's in front of you now council vote on everything but the east Amherst historic district and then the east Amherst historic district line is a separate motion there's a motion on the floor that we're going to take as two separate motions okay and so are there other questions George you have your hand up I don't think so okay so let's vote on the east Amherst local historic district the same page I just want to register when I checked a motion to divide should be voted on when I just looked at the general rules out there but I'm willing to do this for the purpose of time but okay I frankly chaffee I thought a motion to divide had it be seconded and voted on and just so everyone knows in our packet we have the original financial order not just the one with the strikeout so okay I'm willing to do it because I want to move on crazy okay are there any other questions or comments yes George sorry I understand a motion to divide is a courtesy to another counselor so I think that's why it's probably not debatable so it's just a courtesy if someone asked to divide the motion as a courtesy you allow them to do that the motions are still before you to vote on but as a courtesy you do that thank you all right we're going to move on with this time we are voting on only that line item of the financial order okay yes the east Amherst local historic district in print study committee okay Lynn Griezmer is an I counselor Hanna keep now Bob Hegner I counselor Lord absent of Pam Rooney I counselor Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg I Jennifer top yes counselor Walker yes pat de Angelis no Anna Devon got here I counselor Ette I the vote is ten in favor to oppose one absent we go back and now we are voting on all the rest of the financial order okay any questions George your hand is still up all right this time we're going to begin with counselor Hanna key I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 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