 Hello, my name is Claire Wool, I'm the board chairperson of the Burlington School Board and I also represent Ward 6. I'm here tonight with fellow colleague Senator Martine Gulick, who also, I'll let you introduce yourself. Hi everyone, I am Senator Martine LaRoc Gulick and I'm also a school commissioner who I represent Ward 4 and of course the entire district. And I'm happy to be here today to talk about school, our school, and our school budget and yeah. Yes, thank you. I wanted to remind viewers that we, as a school board, really cherish this opportunity to speak to the public. Every month we are fortunate to appear in the North Avenue News, a newspaper that gets delivered for free to every Burlington citizen. And our column, we follow up our column with this CCTV opportunity to again reiterate that theme of what we've discussed. And our December column, Commissioner Gulick, Senator Gulick and Commissioner Kendra Sowers spoke about the budget, the finance and facility committee of the Burlington School District and this year's FY25 budget. So tonight we're going to talk about a number of things that relate specifically to the Burlington School District and also statewide and the impacts that we'll have on our FY25 budget. We'll begin tonight with the process. As chair for the last seven years I've been involved in seven budgets. What happens is our responsibility is to the oversight of the superintendent and most importantly the fiscal responsibility and the welfare of our city and our public schools, our 11 public schools. We take this job incredibly seriously. We are taxpayers ourselves. We are volunteers. And we spend not only the year doing work in this development, but we work specifically from October to January with our school communities, our administrators and community members that make up an advisory at each of the schools. So tonight in giving you an overview of how we develop our budget, the budget development, I wanted to talk first about that process at the school level and reflecting on our past spending. And then talk about the state and the impacts and the overall ED fund, how we are funded throughout the state. Everyone contributes to one ED fund at the state level and therefore our taxes are based on the incomes or excuse me, taxpayers' contribution to that ED fund, sorry. So tonight, Martine, if you could talk a few minutes about the things that you know at the state level and having been on the board now for seven years as well. And more importantly, most importantly, not more, most importantly the impacts that we should see taxpayers should know about in its simplistic forms to a certain degree that are going to impact this year's FY25 budget. We'll do. Thank you so much for that great introduction. And thank you to you, Claire. You are such an incredible advocate for our kids in our community and in Burlington. And for seven years you have led us and done such an amazing job in your role as school board chair. So thank you. It's not easy as we know. We read in the newspapers and magazines. It's a hard job. So I am, I sit on Vice, I'm the Vice Chair of Senate Education. So I'm wearing, you know, multiple hats at one time, but I am getting a little bit of insight into the greater state landscape that we have for education. And it's been really interesting in eye-opening. But I am a strident, strong supporter of public education. I speak to it all the time. I think it is one of our, if not our most important institution here in Vermont, but also in our country. I think having an educated population of people is just critical to everything from workforce to healthcare, childcare, not to mention just a healthy democracy. We need to have folks who can question things in an intelligent way, vote and get involved. You know, democracy is a team sport. People need to get involved. And the best way to do that is to have a solid education. So I'm a huge advocate. And I love our Burlington schools. My kids went through the district and as well as my neighbors' kids. And it was just, we had a great experience. And I know it's hard. It's hard work, but it's, as I say, I can't stress how important it is. So just generally, I would say when I'm in Montpelier doing this work on the Education Committee, some of the things that I've seen in terms of education, and by the way, there are thousands of incredible stories that we could tell every day about the wonderful and incredible things that happen in our schools. And I just want to highlight that because we don't always hear that when we're sitting in committee. But some of the challenges just generally that I've seen, one, just being that the agency of education over the last maybe 10 to 15 years, they've really lost a lot of positions and they've lost resources. So generally I see that they can't perhaps do the best job possible just because of the lack of resources and staffing. That said, there are incredible people in the agency of education and they do wonderful work. So I want to highlight that. I sometimes feel as though the administration is not as supportive of education as it could be. I know that the Board of Education sent a recommendation for a new Secretary of Ed a few months ago. We haven't heard anything. So we still have an interim Secretary of Education. Heather Boucher is doing a good job, but it must be frustrating not knowing if she's going to be the Secretary of Education or not. Because again, we really just haven't heard. So that is hard. Do you want to jump in at all or do you want me to keep going? No. Okay. Great. So some of the stresses on the Ed fund this particular year, I know a lot of folks are talking about the CLA, the common level of appraisal. And I think you're going to get into that a little bit more. That obviously is one of the biggest drivers that we're seeing. And by the way, this is not just in Burlington. It is across the state and Chittenden County in particular is really feeling it. I was on a Zoom meeting this morning with a bunch of administrators and legislators in the Essex Westford district and we were having this exact conversation. So everybody's feeling it to some degree. So CLA aside, we've all talked about declining enrollment. That's just something that's real. It's happening across the state. It's happening across the region. Families are smaller than they used to be. So even as we're building more housing, we're seeing fewer kids. Now again, Chittenden County doesn't see it as strongly as the rest of the state. It's not as acute here in Chittenden County. But it is something that we need to be thinking about. We've talked about the end of the COVID relief funds. The federal government was really helpful when we went into the pandemic into this crisis. They gave us money to support us and those Essar and ARPA funds were really helpful. We were able to hire folks and create new positions to support children, whether it be mental health or connections at home. And ARPA funds that were more specifically targeted to infrastructure, so like fixing HVAC systems. This was huge. And losing that money means that we have to adjust. And it's really hard on a lot of districts. I can tell you that much. I know you're going to go into medical costs a little bit, but we're seeing a 17% increase in health care costs. Folks, we have a for-profit medical system and we have numbers like pharmaceutical numbers that are just through the roof. Until we can get a handle on it, I think we're going to keep seeing these increases and it's staggering and frustrating, but that's the reality of our system. I believe it needs to change. We'll see what happens down the line. And if I could interject, you and I attended the annual conference for superintendent, for school boards. And Viha, we did go, I mean school boards voted for a statewide bargaining for health care. We felt that instead of every individual school district jockeying for the best health care and shopping around, if we went to a statewide bargaining, we would have reduced more cost-effective rates. To have double digits, the explanation that was given to us, you know, a 16.4% increase in health care in one year, 16.4%, that impacts our wages and benefits, which is in most districts 80% of your budget. So specifically speaking to Burlington, that's a $4 million increase to our budget. We are proud to serve and vote on bargaining units, our unions, and give good salaries and obviously give good benefits. But to your point, a for-profit system without any pushback from the state or the citizens of Burlington or throughout the entire state, how can we justify those increases? And what was said to us at that meeting was that it was based on people didn't go to the doctors during COVID, and so an increase in use and then costs for health care professionals went up that were on demand. So understandably, those two factors but can't comprehend how every school district is going to fold into almost a 70% increase in health care. Exactly, and that is beyond our local control. We do not control that. Another thing I wanted to bring up is the statewide PCB program, and I want to preface it by saying that I really believe as a state our North Star needs to be toxin-free schools. Absolutely, that is where we need to go. But folks do need to realize that there are millions of dollars being spent on the testing program right now with results that are varied, frankly, with the mitigation and the remediation. So it is a program that I think started with the best of intentions, but it's a very complex and complicated issue and it wasn't given the time, it wasn't given the vetting and the resources to create a really strong structure. So it's been really hard on a lot of school districts and it's harmful to kids if they can't go to school or if they can go to school but they can't run their heating or they lose their gym space, they're not able to exercise. Some folks say that we've got problems with kids not having enough free time to exercise and be kids. So be concerned about that. So yeah, so this is something that I think folks need to keep an eye on and I think they need to be vocal. First of all, they should do some research, but they should be vocal in their either opposition or support of this program because it's important that legislators and the governor hear from people. But it is a cost, it is something that is driving up costs. Universal school meals, which a lot of folks think is an absolutely great program and it does a lot of good but it is also adding a stress on the Ed fund to the tune of probably about $26 million this year. So that's something to keep in mind. School construction, we were so fortunate to have the voters of Burlington support our new high school which was long overdue and very, very much needed and I honestly, the day the school opens is just going to be such a joyous day for all of us. But the bottom line is that those construction costs, they do affect the Ed fund and it's a problem around the whole state. We have had deferred maintenance across the state ever since 2007 when there was a moratorium put on school construction. Municipalities and districts were no longer getting any help from the state. It used to be about 30% and that went away. So it's really hard to pass a budget where a large portion of it is deferred maintenance when what you really need is a teacher or a school bus or so. Anyway, the school construction issue is a big one. I served on a school construction task force this summer and we just, there is right now a big assessment that came out which is in the billions of dollars. So that's something that we're going to have to do something about it and it is putting another stress on the Ed fund. You talked about Act 127 which is the student waiting formula which was again something that was long overdue. But that 5% property tax cap for some districts is also putting a stress on the Ed fund. I'd be happy to speak with folks about this at another time since we don't have a lot of time tonight. And then just generally there's a lot coming out of the Ed fund that didn't used to necessarily come out of it. Retirement and other post-employment benefits, they weren't historically in that fund and they are now. So these are all things that put a stress and I also just have to say, I've said it before, I'll say it again. You know, public education right now is under threat across our country. Many, many states are going to a voucher system or some kind of system that really takes public dollars and really funnels those dollars into private schools. And it's scary. Here in our state it's important for folks to know that we have sort of this bifurcated system that's been around for a while. Some people say as long as 200 years, I have not researched that. But they should know that somewhere between 50 and 100 million dollars a year goes out of our Ed fund and into private schools. That's a significant amount of money. Some of those schools are in Vermont but some are out of the state and frankly some of them are out of the country. So this is problematic in something I believe we should change. But that's just a broad overview of the Ed fund. Great. Well that is exactly what we were looking for to give viewers an opportunity to hear from you because that is timely. I mean it's an overview but these items that you've talked about have been only in the last two to three years. So it's not historical problems, it's current problems. So the here and now is discussing how it impacts this year's F-25 budget because as you said the good news is we are out of the COVID pandemics. And those one-time funds that every school district knew they had from the federal government are going away. But through that transition I know it is challenging because some of the behaviors or the issues that we face in our schools which are very real, you know, are still, we're still facing them. So to have to work with our educators and our administrators. Can I just say, Claire, that when it comes to the Esther and Arpa funds and the federal dollars that came in during COVID, they were very helpful. What I find, what I think is a little bit sad is that although the pandemic might be over, the effects of the pandemic are not. And they will probably be around for another 10 years. We were in a system to begin with that was fairly fragile and the pandemic just threw us, you know, just threw us for a loop and really changed the stability that we had. And we were seeing the effects of it. And so it's too bad that the funding couldn't have even, you know, maybe like weaned us off the funding over time or given us a few more years because again, it just to have it end like that when it was so useful to so many schools in so many ways is just hard. Absolutely. What I want to go over again as I spoke to are talking now specifically about Burlington. So our budgetary assumptions each year we start with wages and benefits. And we have seven bargaining units here in the city of Burlington. And over the fortunately in the last seven years, we had been working on a yearly contract, which was I felt unhealthy constantly and bargaining was not cost effective with our legal teams for the BEA, which is the educators fund and our para educators and our ASME. But during that time period over the last three years, we as a district supported our faculty staff at the Burlington School District with competitive wages. We wanted to make sure that we retain and also attract in a very competitive market in Chittenden County our educators. And by doing so, we were giving over the three year raises six between 6% and 4.5 this year raises to our educators to stay and work in Burlington and choose Burlington. Again, we talked about that health care that 16.4. So all in all our wages and benefit on this year's FY 25 budget is a $4 million increase. We also I brought our signage here tonight to remind you that it wasn't a want. It's a need. So we still need a high school. You voted yes. And your vote yes was a vote to borrow $165 million. The vote was just to borrow. Now in this FY 25 budget, we are borrowing $130 million. We are already almost complete with our demolition. And as we begin spending this $130 million to build our new high school and our regional technical center, that has a major impact on our budget. That is a $9 million impact on this year's budget. No other school district is absorbing $9 million like Burlington. No other school in the state has been shut down like Burlington. And so we recognize as citizens of Burlington this incredible cost, but we have to communicate that to the state level. How like Martin spoke about that moratorium on construction aid is absolutely hurting Burlington taxpayers. That being said, without a high school, our home values are the health of our city. We are spending money now on rent at Macy's and all of our other ancillary school sites for displacement. That is coming out of our ed fund. There is no other school district that is spending rent outside of our budget, academic budget funds. So that's a big increase. So when we just talk about those two impacts alone, that brings us to our budget. The ESSER funds we talked about going away, but as we look at this year's budget, when I add those two items together, our wages and benefits and our increase on our bond, bond authority, that brings us to a $15 million increase in this year's budget. We have done some investing in our schools and have certainly done some reductions. The school board has been specific with Superintendent Flanagan that things that are not working, we don't want to keep spending money on. If our enrollment is going down, there may be some reduction in teaching staff or support staff. Those are real discussions. Those are happening with our district and they're happening within this year's budget. But there is also good news. Your Burlington School District and your Burlington School Board, led by Commissioner Sowers and former Commissioner Fisher, Commissioner Goulick, Commissioner Allwell, we were instrumental in following the State Act 127 for equalized pupil. I'm trying to think of the word. The weights. Excuse me, waiting. And it's a longer conversation and we're happy to explain it to you, but basically it's defining the cost of what it takes to educate every student, every pupil. And certain students are, there might be more funding needed to educate certain students and then there might be more in the general population that are all meet a certain criteria that are a certain weight. But for years, there was no empirical data on our Vermont weighted pupil system and we received support throughout the entire state. Many people on many school districts, rural and rural communities as well throughout the state that helped us in this task force to bring to legislation and to pass it and make it into law. And we understand the impact from those heavily weighted districts that received more funding than us in the past that are now going to have to manage their budgets more stringently based on how that law impacts their budgeting. But without that, our budget would have been incredibly more challenging this year. So I'm so appreciative of all the work of all the school boards that participated throughout the state to pass Act 127. And the cap, the 5% cap as a bridge to help those heavily funded or districts that received more funds that are now will receive less funds, if that makes sense. I think that is a nice idea. I think potentially five years is too long because it could just ultimately hurt taxpayers in the long run by not addressing the true costs of things. But that is what we're working with now at this time. So, R, go ahead. I was just going to say, just to follow up with what you said about Act 127, I do, having now spoken to a lot of folks across the state, I think there's general acceptance and just feelings of really understanding it. And they're glad that Act 127 passed. I think folks understand that it was time to write those weights, and either lower or raise taxing capacity for certain communities. I also think we do have a complicated ed formula here in Vermont, but one of the outcomes of having that complexity is that we have a pretty great equity landscape. So we are much more equitable in our ed funding than many, many states, and that is wonderful. And this Act 127 just brought us even further. We know high school kids, for example, cost more to educate than elementary school kids, so they are weighted differently. And that's a really important piece of the conversation and the equation. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. So we have, in closing, we talk about our next steps of communication. The school board and the superintendent present our budgetary assumptions to the city council this month, this week. Then we go as a full school board this week. We vote on the budget that would appear on the ballot. Burlingtonians will receive their ballot in the mail by February 14th. We ask for your vote of support, your vote of yes. We will be out as we are every year at our neighborhood planning associations, NPAs, our superintendent plan. Again, our superintendent is robust in his communication to community through the front porch forums. We will have another column in the North Avenue News. We are open all the time on email, accepting your comments and input and your support. Every year we put out a budget one sheet that gives an overview of what is involved in our budgeting and how the tax increases will impact you based on your income, if you're income sensitive or depending on your income or your home value, what your taxes will be on the price of your home. And we ask for your support. We have a strong district. We have a five-year plan. We unveiled a strategic five-year plan here in Burlington under the leadership of Superintendent Flanagan. We have stuck to this plan and its priorities and its strategic areas. There's clear vision from our board and good governance. There's clear vision from Burlington School District Central Office. I hope at each of our schools families feel informed and through our leadership at our schools and mostly our faculty and staff that are in the classroom teaching our public school children here. We have only over 3,600 public school children that they feel informed and empowered by our leadership and our budget each year. And we also do an annual report where we have budget comparisons for everyone throughout the city and state to look at our budgets throughout the year and the impact that they've had and what we've spent our money on. So thank you very much for spending time with us, learning more about our school budget here in FY25. Thank you, Martine, for your service on the boarding and partnership in this. And we look forward to seeing you either at the polls on March 5th or when you vote through the mail, please consider your continued support in building our one and only high school, Burlington High School and our one and only regional tech center, Burlington Tech Center. I brought our hard hat when we originally started the construction, but please drive by and see the progress that we're making and the Vermonters that we're employing to build our one and only high school. Thank you for your support. I just want to echo everything you said, Claire. Chair Will and just say thank you to our teachers. Thank you to our administrators. Thank you to the voters in our community and our families. I am so proud of our district and when I go to the state house, I go to Montpelier. I cannot stop praising the work that is done in our district. It's hard work and we do such a great job. And again, it's just thanks to our community. So I can't say thank you enough. I really appreciate your support. Great. Thank you. And please vote yes on this year's school budget.