 All right, we're recording Bob. Please go ahead. Okay. So we, we do have a quorum of the, the finance committee. So I'm calling the finance committee to order at 203 p.m. On April 2nd, 24. This is a virtual meeting will only be held via zoom. And there's no in person public access at this meeting members of the public may attend. Via zoom or by phoning in if you have a question when for, or we wish to make public comment rather. Please raise your hand during the public comment period. And I will call on you in time in sequence. I just wanted to do a little bit of housekeeping before we start. That we, we had a discussion at the end of last meeting about timing of when we would be reviewing various pieces of, and we did get the school budget last night. You know, so we are going to start today. We're going to do a little bit of just have some questions with just initial review of the of the school budget. Our next meeting on April 16, we will go into the school budget in depth. And we will have the public hearing on April 25th in the evening. And if it's okay with the committee, I would like to invite the council as well in general so that we have all the counselors who wish to attend in the audience. Is that all right with everybody. Okay. And then finally, we'll make a recommendation on May 3rd, which we have a, I think we have a scheduled meeting in the morning that Friday. Are you talking about the regional school budget? Yes. So I think the, what we had discussed was for the committee to continue a meeting after the hearing to, to deliberate so that the council could potentially vote on Monday, the 29th. Okay. All right. That's what I've had in my notes, but. Sorry, if I didn't update our. That's planning. Yeah. I think there's been a lot of things. Could you just, could you just give me those states again. So April's today, we're going to begin the begin budget review two weeks from today, April 16th. We're going to have an in depth review. Of the school budget. And then on April 25th, which is a Thursday. Even the evening at 630, we'll have a public hearing. And we will then. We'll have a public hearing on the 25th. And then we'll have a public hearing on the 25th and then also on the 3rd, I see. I had duplicated that it should be the discussion and vote recommendation on the 25th. Okay. And then. Right. So the council could potentially act on Monday, April 29th. Okay. Okay. So heads up everyone. There will be a very short turnaround for your report that week. Okay. So anyway. I think we're going to start that on the 25th in terms of the committee recommendations. Question about the 25th. Yes. Is that going to be zoom only or have we considered doing a hybrid model where people can come in person and we meet in a room. Like the town room for. In-person testimony. I don't know. Only zoom, but I'm open to everyone's suggestion. Assuming we can get the, the town room that night. I don't know. Are we talking about 630? Yes. Okay. May I ask a question? Yeah. Yeah. When, when is JCPC supposed to be wrapped up? Is it that night? Well, in theory. No, in theory, it's next week. But we were thinking, and I can't meet on the 18th. So if we're not finished by the 11th, we'd have to wrap it up on the 25th. I mean, we're, we're, we're at the point. It's a good question. So, you know, I talked to Athena. We might have to add a meeting to get, get to a point where there's a report. We'll see how far we get tomorrow on Wednesday, on Thursday, this Thursday. Thank you. There's also the budget coordinating group meeting on Friday. That's this Friday. And four towns on the 20th Saturday. Right. Um, Bob, if, if I may speak to Mandy's question about holding the in-person meeting. Sure. For the hearing. Before the committee moves forward with. Definitely doing that as a hybrid meeting. I would need to check if there's other staff members who are able to, to staff that because I can't that night. Okay. So please don't. Don't, don't advertise that we're going to do that yet. I was planning on just having a zoom meeting, but. It was just a question for consideration because there were some audience members that. Thought it might be useful to have. To be able to show up somewhere and speak in person. That's fine. I'm, as I said, I'm all up to that. I just want to make sure that we've got coverage. Okay. Alicia is not here. Anyway, let me go around the room and make sure people can hear me and I can hear them. Andy. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Councilor Hanneke. Present. Kathy. Here. And I'm here. So. We do have all of us. And when, when. Alicia joins us. We'll bring her in. Let's see if we have. Okay. I'd like to open up to public comment now. If you have any questions or comments. If you're interested in providing a public comment, please raise your hand now. And I will bring you in and. Hear what you have to say. Would you like to provide a time limit? Yeah, let's, there's only five people in the audience. So we can do three minutes. Okay. So I think a leg or Clark is the first person. Mrs. Clark, Ms. Clark, please. Can you hear me? Hi. My name is a Lycra. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. I am a resident of district. And I am. Zooming in today in support of the regional school budget. That was presented at last night's town council meeting. I think that it includes. Position restorations that would help support our students. And I would like for the town to work with the other towns. To find the funds to provide those supports for our students. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I don't see any other hands up. Does anyone else want to wish to make a public comment at this time? Okay. I think. Well, I think we'll just close public comment then. So let's move on to the next, which is the review of the audit. How did you want to provide any information? So your present. Hello. Sorry about that. Yeah. So no, I just, I mean, I think the audit speaks for itself. We had a clean audit. We had no findings. There was no management letter. The, you know, the numbers are what the, what the numbers are. I think that at this point, what we, what we used to do in the past is we would set up a meeting time with the actual. Lead auditor on our. On our team to come in and do a presentation and a discussion. So I think that's a good point. We could try to schedule that probably for your next finance committee meeting. My understanding now is instead of having an actual audit committee, which is a separate committee that the finance committee is now. The audit committee. So I think that what I would. Likely suggest is that, you know, I mean, I did not get it until very, very late in the day on Friday. I mean, I didn't. So I apologize for the, which was our, our pretty much our last day to get the audit. So I'm sure that folks have not had a lot of time to go through it. So I would, my suggestion would be that we schedule the actual lead auditor to come in during the next finance committee meeting. If we could fit that in the agenda and have them do a presentation and go over, you know, the most pertinent numbers. And that folks have the time to, you know, review it and gather their questions. And then we can have a more depth discussion at the next meeting would be my suggestion. Okay. Thank you. The only question. I did have a chance to read through things. The only question I had. And, and pardon my, my ignorance of accounting practices, but we could, it says that, we converted to a modified accrual basis. In during the calendar year, June 30th. And I didn't know what a modified accrual basis. And accrual basis of accounting is so. I don't know if you can answer that, but. Well, I would likely have the auditors explain that a little bit better, but so we, we operate on a cash basis, but the way that the auditing standards are is they convert it to an accrual basis. So they do some adjustments to the financial statements. Basically for any revenues that came in during the, you know, say that I believe it's the first 60 days of the following fiscal year. Those were likely bills that went out in the prior fiscal year. So they do some adjustments on their books to get to an accrual basis. It's, it's not something that. That we do. You know, on our books for the state reporting, but it is something that the auditors do. To adjust it to be more of a, like a business type practice where if you sent all these bills out, they should have been collected and they do some accruals, but they can, they can certainly explain that it is something that typically happens every year. So. At the end of the fiscal year, they will make some, what they call audit adjustments. And I'm assuming it's just referring to that. Okay. Thanks. I, I, my wife had a business and it would, there's not an accrual basis for that. It was just simply a cash basis. Andy. Comment. Yeah. I had a, I'm. I encourage us to have a meeting actually with the lead auditor. For a couple of reasons. One is that. Appearance. The format and presentation seemed a little different this year than it has in the past. And actually. Maybe to the benefit because it. Had a little bit more. Just written language that was readable. Understandable. As opposed to. Just pure numbers, but the other thing that. Was helpful in prior presentations. Is that the person who was making the presentation. Who we asked that they switch so that we could get some freshness. But she would go through and point out. With presentation that she prepared in advance. What are the key numbers to look at and why they're the critical numbers. And. What does it, and why. In every case, they were. Good information. And said good things about how our. Town is being administered financially. So I found the, that the presentation was very helpful. Also, since. We have one new member of the committee might be helpful. You know. To. To do it for that reason too. So. I would encourage it. Yeah, I think, I think that's a great idea. So. If we can invite them, that would be great. Else on the audit. You're muted Holly. You said something. Sorry. Yeah. So if you. Athena. And or Bible is the next. Finance committee going to be two weeks from today. Yes, this is 16th. Okay. So I will see if they're available for that date. And if they, if you have time in your agenda to do that presentation week, I can certainly. Try to schedule that for us. Yeah, we should, we should try to do it early because the, I think the, we're going to review the, regional school budget. So that'll probably take a while. So. And just to respond to Andy as well as comments is. So it is the same auditing firm. What used to be Melanson. They were. You know, bought out or merged with Markham. So there was a slightly different format. Some slightly different. Procedures and. Just a minimal changes in the way that some of the data was collected and presented. So those changes are due to their new name. They are now. Part of Markham. And they did make some changes to their standards. So. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else have any other. Questions about the audit. Okay. Move on. The. Regional school budget review. We got a presentation last night. From Doug and Sarah and Sarah Bess. And. I know that we had a discussion. Last, at our last meeting about. We should deal with this sooner rather than later. So we're dealing with this sooner rather than later. So. I do want to just. State something. This is just my personal. Thoughts on this. And that is, I believe we all share the common goal. To provide a strong education for every child in Amherst. Our challenge is that the fundamental. Landscape of education has changed in recent years. We now face. Challenges such as reduced state aid. The growth of charter schools. Growing special ed. Education population. Decreasing student population. And. As we learned last night, aging infrastructure. Technology also brings significant changes in the way children learn. And how we prepare them for the future. Additional funding by itself. I do not think we'll fully. Address these concerns. Rather. We need to think about how we structure our educational system. So we can achieve the common goal. Within limited school budgets. We won't achieve this today, but we owe it to the children to find a sustainable solution. So I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself on that, but I do feel very strongly that. We want to support public education. We want to support public education. My kids went through the public schools. In Amherst. They got a great education. They were well prepared for college. And I want to make sure we maintain that. On the other hand, we've got a very different situation than when my kids were in school. So we have to adapt to that as well. So I don't know. Does anyone else have any questions, comments about the school budget? Andy. Yeah, I guess. I do. And. See me in these hands. It's up to me. If you want to go first. You know, I think that your observations are absolutely correct. Then. We value education. Amherst. When you look at the audit, you look at the percentage of our. Funds that go into the school budget. Andy. Yeah. I guess I do. And. The percentage of our. Funds that go into education. We're not different from most other municipalities. It is by far. The largest expense. And I think that it's the largest expense because of. You know, decisions that have been made that were absolutely correct over a number of years. And I think that the. The question that we have to grapple with. In part is that. You know, what are our limits and. How do we deal with the limits because if we get it, are we at a point. Where it will. The continued increase in the school budget, which is running at a rate that is greater than our revenue is growing. Is in danger now of eating away at. Other expenditures. You know, somebody in the audience last night during public discussion. You know, the suggestion that. We look at the police department. Well, I think that those of us who. Had experienced the police department know that. We're at. A minimum staffing level now. To be able to. Provide response. Provide response on a 24 seven basis. And if we shrink shrink the force greater. We won't be in a position to provide response on a 24 seven basis. And that's. You know, it's hard when you look at the rest of the budget. To figure out where there is give. To take away. So I think the one of the things that we really need to do is have this discussion. Have a more intense discussion. At our next meeting. That's what we might want to have Sandy join us. And talk about that and. Sort of say. If you were going to. Make a decision or if you were forced to make a decision. To increase our funding for the education programs. What are the options that he sees from his perspective as. Some. Someone was extraordinary experience and financial expertise. No, I guess Collie the same question. But I would not. I think that. That's one to. Flag for two weeks from now. When we have our more intensive discussion. The other thing that concerns me is. That. It seems. Possible. And I almost go to the extent of saying. Extremes. It seems highly likely. That we would be in a position a year from now. If we have taken the money from. One time source like reserves where we can't do that every year. If we were to make that choice. Then. A year from now. We're going to be in the same position with them making the same. Decisions and. If we're going to have to make those decisions. What is to gain by postponing it for a year. If we're going to be in the same place a year from now. And I think that. That's a discussion that I. Really. Hope that. Sarah and Sarah best take back to. You know, the school committee as a whole and the administration. And bring that back for us to talk. To talk about when we have our. More extended presentation in our next meeting or discussion at our next meeting. So. Those are my two initial comments. Council. I second everything that. Andy just said, but I kind of want to go a little bit farther with it. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mandy. Before you do. Can we please just confirm that Alicia. Can hear us. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Sorry, Mandy. No problem. I was still thinking in my head before I really got started. It seems clear from last night that. The school committee with this budget proposal that is. 700,000 above our financial guidelines and $900,000 above. What the four towns had sort of given the school committee as guidelines. I think that the budget is intended to be a permanent. Add to the budget. If you want to call it an ad or a permanent less. Cut to the budget depending on how you reference it. Meaning that if we find the 700,000 this year, we have to find it next year and the year after and the year after along with the percentage above it every year after that. So this is not something like. The school, the elementary school asking for a one time. Half a million dollar outlay because they need to get from one school year to another before their budget gets cut, because they will have savings in utilities, say an FY26 when a new elementary school opens or something like that and savings in utilities and, and potentially staffing and all because of the combination of schools, we're not looking at like a one time bridge type fund. So when I think of the funding from their comments, it appears to me that this is a permanent funding request. Well above where we thought we could pay it could fund next year. And so that to me says we can't fund it or even consider funding it out of reserves because it's not. it's not sustainable, as we heard the superintendent actually say last night when they, when he indicated that they've moved some stuff into revolving funds and our Councillor Griesimer asked, well, is that sustainable? And his answer said, no, that just delays some more cuts a couple years down the line because you can't sustain it out of something that is spending more than comes in. And so in my mind, if we were going to fund the additional increase above the 4% guidelines, it has to come from the other three areas of the operating budget, the elementary schools, the general government and the library. The library received an increase of, I don't know, $80,000 is their 4% increase or something this year. The entire increase among all four for operating budgets was $2.9 million. And right now the schools with this additional 700 requests are asking for $2.43 million of the $2.9 million of the increase to our budget, our operating budgets as a whole, leaving, you know, $400,000 less than $500,000 for all other salaries at the general government and library and all. I want to know what that cut to general government looks like or what the cuts that would need to be made to the elementary, the library and the general government budgets below that 4% financial guidelines would look like in order to shift the 700,000 from those three budget increases to the regional school budget. How severe is it as Andy pointed out last night? It's the entire Crest Department plus. I'm also worried, you know, is any reduction in say public safety where we've had a lot of requests over the last couple of years to reduce mean we're not a 24-7 system anymore just like Andy. I think we're operating right about where we couldn't be 24-7 anymore. What do those cuts in specifics look like? I want to know what the plan is going forward. The council's been asking the regional school committee in particular for plans for the last three or four years knowing hard choices were coming. It doesn't appear from my vantage point as a counselor that plans were made. They seem to be one-year reactions including what the superintendent said last night about reallocating to revolving funds or ESSER funds while ESSER disappears next year completely. What's the plan for where that half-million-dollar loss is coming from? What cuts are being planned for that or are they just going to ask the towns for another half-million to make up for the ESSER funds? What's the plan for when the revolving funds can't sustain the more outlay than income that's coming in in two or three years as the superintendent said they were? Where's the plan for all of that? It's clearly some sort of structural thing that I will say is also created by some state stuff but I'd like to see a plan or at least some thought of what could be done in the next three, four, five years or what needs to be done for it. I'm curious what the E&D balance at the region is right now. A couple years ago the region had to return money to the towns because the E&D balance exceeded 5%. It seems like that money probably should have been used for some operating funds to make sure it stays under 5% as we look things now. So how close are we to 5%? I would hate to be having to cut stuff because we can't fund it out of operating and then halfway through the years see that the region's handing back a half-million dollars to the towns because E&D was exceeded by 5%. So I'm curious what the plan you know where that stands right now. Those are some of my more immediate questions and answers that I'd like. Sarah, you had your head up. Yeah, just process really. Are you relying on me to be writing down all these questions and taking them back or will you develop a list yourself to convey to Doug or the committee? We'll develop a list. Okay, thank you because I wasn't writing fast. No, it's not your responsibility. Okay. Councilor Walker. Thank you. I just have a couple of things. I think Mandy had a lot of really good questions. I just wanted to make one comment in that like yes, I would also like to see like what planning has been happening at the school committee and regional school committee level. However, also just want to acknowledge that turnover just in terms of how our government is set up makes that really difficult because half of the people we're asking this question to were not even on the school committee last year and also our situation with the superintendent. So I just want to acknowledge that that definitely adds some difficulty to what's happening here. And then I also wanted some confirmation as to whether or not our police department is actually functioning at the minimum because I think I heard Mandy say that and maybe caught the end of Andy saying that, but I never heard that that was the case. So I'm wondering if we can get more information as to what that like what our current state is actually there with the police department and other safety services? Like are they actually operating at their minimum right now? Kathy? I won't repeat. And Sarah, yeah, I'll send these questions also in so Bob can compile them. When I look at the way the budgets are presented, they're always presented first as current services mean, more or less it means everyone who's currently working is still on staff. I would and I'll send in specifics. I'd like to see enrollment trends and staffing trends over the last I went back and looked at desi data and I don't know whether it's 10 years every five years. I'll just look at it a little bit more, but I'd like it to come from you also. I'm not doing numbers. So enrollment and staffing because I think some of what is happening is because of covid adjustments in staffing didn't follow changes in enrollment the way it might have. And if any case, it might have gone in a different direction. And I did pull out the disability status on trying to figure out whether we disability number of kids as desi measures then has gone up or not. And depending on what year I look at the answer is yes. But it's sometimes been as high as we now are and sometimes been lower. So is there a blipping up and down? Because I know that what that would mean is more of the staff was related to disabilities, but it doesn't necessarily mean we need more staff. If the number of children didn't go up, if it's just the proportion. So I was looking actually at numbers like, for example, we're below where we were a decade ago in absolute numbers of children as desi counts them. So I'll send some in on that. And I think Mandy's question about the school's equivalent of the reserve fund, where is the money that is not being spent and what's been budgeted in the next year in terms of is there a good chance that it'll be on the high side. My last comment is when I kept making the point that both Bob and Andy made about our property taxes are not increasing at a rate of cost of living or of what we're paying our staff. And this just drew across the way. And that's that it's a fixed tax. The tax that is increasing is the income tax, the state income tax. And the place we get the income tax is Chapter 70. And the place we lose the income tax is the charter, the way the charter formula works. And then the other place we haven't seen what we thought would be a flow of funds into K through 12 is the millionaire's tax. And when you look at the distribution of what the governor did with that, there is a K through 12 line, but a lot of it was capital. And there was nothing, I have no problem with that because some of what it did is funded more money from MSBA to build our school. But it in the meantime, the legislature is looking at offstudying student debt and other things all drawing on that same base. And I think we need to unite with other towns. So aside from this call for us doing internal planning that goes more than one year, these are cross cutting South Hadley, Northampton, Amherst, and then even a few Boston schools get hit got hit by the Student Opportunity Act formula are facing steep layoffs as they lose their extra money. So I would like to see what to what extent we're starting to build a group. And the library, the libraries around the state did that to get more money for the library funding. The schools did that to get more money out of MSBA. I think we need to do something that organizes around charter formula. So I know that's I know that is not a fix for this year. So so my last question is if you if there were more money from some source from Amherst and it was not 700,000, but it was 200 or 300,000, if we name a couple things, what could be done without amount of money? And do we think the other towns would be coming up with an equivalent share, knowing everything what Mandy said is true that this would be not solving the problem, it would just be giving a safety net for someone to figure out how the following year one solves the problem. And we're so I will be raising the question of did we go too high on the capital allocation when we went to 10.5? We knew it would be a squeeze on the operating budget. Both Bob and Sarah are on JCPC. And right now, there are more asked than the money we have, but there are a few could be either not done at all or moved to a different year. And if we freed up some capital money and designated it for the regional school, might that be possible, but contingent on a plan for the following year because the next years on capital keeps looking worse, including Crocker needs some major capital expenditures and we didn't have big school. So I'll put that in writing on if there is some, but not all of what you asked for what could be done with that money in a much lower transt than 700,000. So those are going to be my questions starting with enrollment data. And I just want to say, Sarah, when I send that through to Doug, in the past we've been told you can go find it on desi. I think it's much healthier to have the schools just send us a table and say, you know, this is the desi table, but this is this is the numbers we send to desi, and we also believe these numbers are accurate. You know, it just somehow better than Kathy going and downloading data from a table. It's not even easy. It's yeah, it's not it's not easy. I do know how. The administration should provide that. I support that. Okay. And and and Charter, I can get the Charter and I've also been looking just so people know I'm putting, I've said this before, but our share of kids who are disabled by desi numbers is around 24%. As Doug said, Chinese immersion is 11. And so we're sending an average an average amount we spend to the school, but they they are not serving the same kinds of children. And Amherst gives them a healthy profit margin compared to other sending schools in the immediate area. And they're expanding and renting new places because they've had they've actually had been making money. So it's just another way of saying there's something wrong with the formula. And it's it's a lot of money that's coming out of the regional school system. So that's it. I just want to add that, you know, special education is not well done in Charter schools. And they cut on my wife is a clinical psychologist has done a lot of consulting with schools and and, you know, IEPs and they don't really provide much at most of the Charter schools. So and Bob, when when you get the desi number that's 11 versus the 24, it doesn't say what are those children? You know, are they they are some behavioral problem kids or they the kills on inhalers in wheelchairs with, you know, I mean, severely on the severe end rather than more. Yeah, so yes. Anyway, Councilor Walker. Thank you. Just two other quick things. So one, I'm not extremely familiar with how free cash works. But I'm wondering if that's something we can look at, like, if there's a pattern to where our free cash is coming from each year, or if it's generally just different places, because I think if we're identifying like, consistent, consistently, we're having free cash coming from this place, like, maybe that's a place we can look at moving funds from. And then my other just wanted to acknowledge that we have a hand in the audience who is also a school committee member, a regional school committee member and seeing if we might be able to bring them in. Got two, actually. Jennifer and Deb. Sure, do you want to bring them in, Athena? This isn't a regional school committee meeting, so I'm not sure that would be appropriate. And I think you're going to take a public forum of the Amherst School Committee. Well, this is not, you're not talking about Amherst School Budget, just the regional budget. And that quorum is five. I think we'd be okay. Well, I'm not sure why I was excited. That was going to be my question. I just assumed because Sarah was here that it might be appropriate because they're all equal parts of the regional school committee and it wouldn't be a quorum. Right. Or I'm happy to get stuck in the, you know, attendees. If you're advising against that, then let's just leave them in the audience. I see there's hands up in the audience. I do want, I'll open up public comment again, but we just remember we cannot respond to public comment. So if you want, if you do want to make a public comment, I will call on you shortly, but we've got some counselors here who I need to hear from first. Thank you. Andy? Well, a couple of things. One is the Leesham A.D. Councilor Marker made a comment earlier that is worth following up on because she was asking a question about confirmation of the whether or not the police department is at minimum funding to provide 24-7 service. And, you know, my understanding is, is that because we've asked this question in prior years that there's only two police officers on patrol at any time, plus a backup sergeant available at most of that time. And that if there's any kind of situation that causes severe concern and they need two officers, they've taken everybody who's available. But I think that it is worth having a presentation. And I would suggest, Bob, that you or Athena talked to Paul about who he would want to come and make that presentation. And the, you know, it is sort of an awkward time because the acting chief is also interviewing today for the permanent chief position along with one of the candidates. So we're in a somewhat of an awkward time as is the school when you ask about our next superintendent sort of the same place. But the other thing that I wanted to follow up on is Kathy's, Kathy was saying about the state funding because I have been working that issue from the MMA side for the past several years and I've been spending a lot of time at it and in talking to our senator and representative about the issue. I've been talking with the mayor of Northampton and others who have been referenced in this to understand what's going on with their budgets and their schools and why they're in the crisis that they're in in comparing it to our experience here. There's no question and, you know, Doug brought it, Salada brought it up last night that the Student Opportunity Act is taking so much chapter 70 funding over that the implementation period that it has created this minimum funding dilemma. And if you look at the Student Opportunity Act, it actually comes up with the $30 figure. The $30 figure isn't made up by the governor entirely because the Student Opportunity Act assumes the $30 is the minimum funding. And so every time that the legislature agrees to an appropriation that's greater than $30, whether it be usually the last two years, they've doubled it to $60. They've in effect, you know, appropriated additional funds so that they could do the Student Opportunity Act, which is taking lion's share of the increase. So there's no way to avoid that. And of course, fact that we have falling enrollment then takes away for whatever the $30 or $60 has been because it's based on enrollment and it has that additional effect to it. And as far as fair share, I have had that conversation with legislators and I've gotten an awful lot of pushback that I've made the argument because it's so obvious that but I've also been somewhat interested in the fact that the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which represents our teachers, but also represents faculty and community colleges and the university, seems to be in a conflicted position as far as I can tell because they're asking for money for the community colleges and community colleges have done much better out of the fair share than have K-12 schools and how they're dealing with that conflict question. So these are difficult times, so difficult issues that and I think we do need to do the best we can, but I don't want to build on a happy assumption that we're going to solve the problem in a year. Thanks. Councilor Hannake? Yeah, a couple other things that come to mind along with Kathy's request for data. It might have been, what I'm going to say might have been sort of included in that, but staffing numbers split by the payroll lines in the budget that we get. So it doesn't have to be staffing for math department versus this, but the general education, the special education, the administration, the support staff, you name it, things like that. Staffing numbers at those five-year intervals maybe for the last 20 years or so, comparing that to enrollment numbers, comparisons of budgets, staffing, and enrollments for schools with similar sized seven to 12 enrollments. I was reading an article recently and Hadley's per pupil costs are 18,000. Our regions are 24,000. Our elementary school was 28,000 per pupil cost. We always seem to be an outlier and all we get when we ask why are we an outlier is we spend more on SPED, but I'm not so sure we do as more, not so sure we do as compared to the percentage we're spending on SPED versus the percentage we're spending on Gen Ed within any district. And so I'd like some comparisons to other districts and their spending numbers when our administration says, well, it's because we have more SPED enrollments and we spend disproportionately more for that or whatever it is. I think we need to drill down a little bit more as to why we are so much higher on a per pupil basis than many schools that have similar enrollment numbers to us in those grades. I'd like to know overrides potentially have been mentioned. I don't know whether it will continue to be mentioned, but one thing I'd like to know is things like if Amherst were to find the money in the other three towns weren't and so our percent, what we were passed on a budget or gifted to the schools was more than the 4%, but everyone else did 4% and we found a way to do 6% or something. How does that translate to other obligations for Amherst as compared to the region? I mentioned E&D excess of 5% gets returned to the towns. Well, if we're contributing in a budget year more than the statutory formula, then the statutory formula says and E&D happens to come back. Do we just get the statutory formula back or do we get the percentage we contributed the year as compared to the rest of the assessments? How does if we become more generous than other towns to our regional budget, how does that affect other things that happen in the region as it relates to four towns' obligations or refunds to four towns or things like that? Maybe we'll never see an E&D payback again, but I wouldn't want to see if the statutory assessment method has Amherst paying 80% of the assessment and suddenly we're paying 85% and then E&D comes back and we only get 80%. We basically just gave 5% to three other towns and that does not seem right from my fiduciary duty to Amherst's taxpayers. So I'd like to know some stuff like that. I'll try and come up with a way to ask those questions in a more logical manner. But I'm just trying to look forward of in the end, we already with the guardrails sort of had a skewed assessment method to begin with that wasn't straight out of statutory. And I'm worried that if it gets even more skewed, how does that how does that obligate Amherst's taxpayers as compared to the other three towns' taxpayers given other budget constrictions? Are we in some sense subsidizing Pellum, Schützberry, and Leveritz DPW or their capital projects to the detriment of Amherst's capital projects or DPW or public safety? Thank you. Cathy? This comment is less for the school folks. And by the way, if we look at past precedent on bringing people in when we were dealing reparations, we brought the whole committee and so there has one we're just having a discussion rather than voting. So I don't really see a problem with bringing the other two school committee members in. But I do think we should be hearing also from the administration on all of these questions we're asking because most of these questions can't be answered directly by the school committee. I just want to put on the table one other place Alicia wanted to know about free cash and where its origins were. The one we've put in our guidelines that is money is that the cannabis money. And we've so far said each year in the fall we'll put that into reparations. That's a discretionary allocation of that and those funds were never allocated before. So if you know in Mandy's question if we came up with some money how would it work with all the funding formulas? My question is there may be some different ways we could come up with some money if the finance committee thought it made sense. So I'm just going to put one more on the table. It's not Andy's if we went from $30 to $100 which is what MMA has been proposing on chapter 70. Lynn's right and saying last night that gets you about $80,000 or $84. It's not a big chunk of money. We need a change in that formula. There's something wrong with these formulas. People are not looking at them before they put them in and then we're learning about the consequences. So I don't know who's doing the modeling. Before and after but there's a large flaw and some of these show up so quickly. You ought to have been able to anticipate the flaw rather than see it 20 years later. So it's just something I would like us as the finance committee to be talking about if we're talking about money at all conditions and answers to these questions and that's it. Okay. I see that Athena has departed. I'm a co-host but I don't know how to bring somebody in. I know how to do it. Okay. Do you want to allow Deb and Jennifer to talk? Yes. Okay. Let me see them. I'm not. I am so I can do that. Okay. Thanks, Manny. I'm not. Sorry. So I've just allowed both Jennifer and Deborah but you'll have to recognize them so they know who's up. Okay. Jennifer. Hi. Thanks. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. So I see that you have Sarah Marshall in the meeting as a panelist and Sarah is chair of the Amherst School Committee but as you've said this is not an issue with the Amherst Elementary Schools. This is a regional school issue. And Ms. Marshall herself has said that when it comes to the regional school committee she's just another member like the rest of us so I hope you'll allow me a little leeway and not cut me off after three minutes which it didn't sound like you were going to do. So I have a few responses to some of the things I've heard today and I have some ideas as well. First Councillor Steinberg said earlier something to the effect of like what is to be gained by delaying delaying the inevitable like if we need to make this cut this year if we if we don't make it this year and we'll need to make it next year what's the point of or what's to begin by delaying and my answer is there's a lot to be gained. There is a lot to be gained by whatever however way you can fund it this year even if even if it turns out that next year we're going to have to make the cuts. What's to be gained is another year of middle school students who will be able to complete a full year of high school language in middle school and what is to be gained is another year of a restorative justice coordinator who's helping students with issues you know overcome those issues so there's a lot to be gained by delaying it for one year. There was a question last night and it's come up again today sorry I'm moving on to a new topic about whether this additional funding would get added to the base and I think the superintendent answered but I'm going to push back a little on the answer and I think this is not a clear a clear topic and the fact that town councillors are asking the question means that I don't think it's a clear topic it's it's not I don't think it's the district's job to tell you whether it's added to the base or not I feel like that's the town council's decision and purview to decide if you're going to add it to the base or not because come next year if let's say you know a miracle happens and state funding goes up a whole lot and the town doesn't have to give as much I mean I'm I know that's wishful thinking but then then you wouldn't you wouldn't just give it the 700 000 dollars again next year because you give it this year it just next year is going to be next year so I don't I don't know that that's I don't know that that's a necessarily an answered question as to whether this gets added to the base or not and in fact when I first this this idea of proving a larger budget than the guidance given by the towns this was originally brought forth as like a what if the towns could just give a one-time gift for this year and and to bridge us to next year and I know Manji Joe mentioned that this isn't a bridge situation but I think it is because well first of all this is this this year that we're talking about fiscal 25 is the last year we're going to have us or funds so we do have us or funds this year next year is going to be even harder than this year so I see this year as a bridge to next year's fiscal cliff or however you want to call it it's going to be even worse and so my thought originally was we need to figure out what we're going to do for next year and my original idea was like a thought was crazy idea was to do a proposition two and a half override to to to get us settled for fiscal 25 and then for fiscal 26 put together a multifaceted effort however that looks to do a proposition two and a half override and we don't even have to think that it's going to pass or know if it's going to pass we just we just have to try so whether you think it would pass or not is irrelevant right now we just we would have to try so when it comes to a plan for the future my plan is going to be to suggest that the regional school committee put together a revenue subcommittee a subcommittee to think about what what what can we do to raise more revenue for next year is it talking to emmer's college and we already have a subcommittee dedicated to that is it UMass is it a proposition two and a half override is it advocating for more state funding is it the fair share amendment funds like I you know once we hire a superintendent that's all I can think about right now but once that's over which it should be soon I'm going to focus on what are what are the sources of revenue that we can push for so that we can climb out of this hole for fiscal 26 so um I think that's all I wanted to say in terms of responding to some of the things I've heard oh I started just one last thing the question was what have they been doing for the past few years to plan for this and I guess my answer is we haven't done a lot we haven't been proactive but but as I said this year we this this fiscal year we're talking about we have ester funds and we didn't know that despite those ester funds we'd still have this big large shortfall we didn't know that until this year and so I I guess for me I wasn't thinking that this would be the terrible year I was thinking next year would be and I think next year is going to be pretty terrible but I didn't expect I didn't anticipate that we'd have a such a big budget shortfall for this year also honestly the school committee's been in a little bit of crisis mode a little bit of survival mode for the last year and we've been doing basic things like appointing a superintendent and like filling vacancies like I I'm sorry we've been in survival mode so we haven't been able to do the proactive things that we need to do but for me once the new superintendent is is at least identified and hired I'm going to shift my attention to how can we raise revenue and how can we address this budget crisis thank you Jennifer let me just uh respond to your issue about revenue um and and I encourage you to talk to Amherst College and to UMass however there is another way that we could use those resources and that is to have more kids more students attend classes at either place my son for example took an advanced math course at UMass when he was in high school and got college credit for it so that would be very beneficial but it's not you know dollars exchanging hands so to speak um so just bear that in mind as well as one of the ways that we can ask for help is to is to increase that the number of students that have opportunities to attend classes at those institutions okay thanks for that idea Bob I would add UMass and Amherst because our kids did chemistry physics and math at the three different places I mean they they use them instead of AP they just went on and took a college level course yeah right Deborah did you want to say anything sure hi um I guess that's my personal profile I guess I'm logged on as uh Deely Leonard can you hear me okay yes yeah I actually did speak to Sarah best Kenny about um being available to answer questions for the region since she wasn't unable to attend um so I'm I'm blending roles a little bit I don't really have um a general statement to make on behalf of the region um I do have my own personal observations um sort of in the lines of what Jennifer spoke to that there is something to be gained um and we don't know if we're going to be facing this situation again in a year's time but the tone has changed with the APEA um and I think that's beneficial one of the things that that came up during campaigning is how are you going to build trust how are you going to repair relationships and um its advocacy it gives us a year to advocate at the state level at the local level it gives us a year to do some analysis and I have to say that yes we've been in survival mode but if you look at the budget book and you try to generalize there's we get columns there's fiscal year 2024 fiscal year 2023 both of which had ESSER funds I don't even know when ESSER began this is a three-year program or what but you know there's those budget lines from fiscal year um 24 23 22 and 21 are impossible to interpret because because of COVID and because of um we're still emerging as as superintendent Sotter said there are still needs that are being met trauma magically go away so students experience trauma during those years and um some of those those issues are still being addressed and I have to say I don't know about other schools but I do know that um guidance is hopping every person is very very busy there so one of my concerns in looking at the the budget with the 1.6 million dollar cuts is if we're taking um a caseload of 210 per guidance counselor up to 240 where the maximum limit recommended by the school counselors association is 250 where does that leave us um if we're really focused on as the state expects us to be making students able to pass the ELA the um the math and and the science and cash regardless of the in order to achieve a not a a high school diploma um where where does that come out of the needs of our students um the the proposed cuts for two special ed teachers we we have very low enrollment in certain biology classes for good reason um ELL learners as well as students with with special needs need to pass the same level of MCAS with some exceptions in order to get a high school diploma so there's there's places in which um I don't know how to and I can I will go back and look at numbers and do comparisons but there's places in which we're doing the best to meet our needs and um what that looks like a year from now I don't know but I do know that regardless of the status of the budget and the lines that we're looking at I don't have the data that um to make to make decisions informed decisions about the budget right now uh I pulled up this this uh best practice sheet by the MASC the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and I was um humbled by the ways in which our district has not been able to report on the cost effective resource management of our programs and and we owe it to our taxpayers we owe it to our students we owe it to our towns to be able to look at these programs from a proactive way all we right now have is anecdotal evidence we have very strong opinions in the public about what's essential and no other data to balance that out so we have nothing to gauge it gauge our decision making on besides what we hear from individuals so I would love a year of advocacy but I would love a year of analysis I would love to see what resources are available to us if not in terms of checks in terms of perhaps our partners in the town helping us make these decisions our communications is is is is lacking we got this amazing grant from MIT and it's lost in the noise of the gray of our website and and and we get into this cycle of only the news that people hear is bad news we have amazing teachers doing phenomenal things innovative programs and yes we're in competition but yes we're we're still really really strong and to build that confidence and build that trust it is a process and I recognize and we all recognize that we were looking at our mission statement and we were looking at this budget and we couldn't align the two so we chose to align what what we asked for with our mission with the understanding that perhaps that couldn't be supported and we would have to have those hard conversations with our community but it would take a year it would take time to say I'm sorry we can't provide this and maybe the community does want to support the communities do want to support a two and a half override or maybe they don't maybe they want to be they would have to be part of the process in which we look at how our existing financial constraints can match what we say we provide for our students so that's what I have to say thank you councillor hannacky thank you um I guess some of the information that I know cannot be provided now or even in the next couple weeks but but in response to some of the statements that were just made um you know it sounds like some on the school committee are asking for funding for this year to really be able to do planning on budget stuff next year but but there might be a disagreement as to what that planning is um Ms. Schout talked about revenue subcommittee of looking only at revenues um Ms. Leonard talked about and analyzing expenditures and and other things and maybe curriculum stuff too I I think what given the multiple towns have been asking for strategies and plans for multiple years not just this last year um I think I would need a concrete plan for what the school committee would be doing and would be producing um and not just on a revenue advocacy side um at least many of us on the town council know how hard that is um and that it many times takes multiple years and and is sometimes successful and sometimes not um that that uh uh I'll hope for changing the fair share allotment by a governor or upping um chapter 70 funds is just that a hope no matter how much we do sometimes um and we can we need to keep doing that advocacy but it's on its own is not a plan for staving off the the multiple fiscal cliffs that we're seeing um I think we need that analysis but I would need to be confident that that in a year that would happen and there would be a multi-year plan that is doable um similarly going back to kind of where my ramble was before if there were a two and a half override it what happens if only one town passes it or two towns pass over rides again how does that work with formulas and assessments and and uh let me say fairly sharing the burden of a four-town regional school system amongst the four towns um I'd like to hear a little bit more about things like that too and and not all of this can be answered now or even before we have to vote a budget but but that's some of the questions that go through my head as a town counselor thank you Jennifer you wanted to say something um yes thank you I let's see I wanted to react or respond to some of the things that my colleague miss Leonard said first that I thought she said she wasn't didn't know enough about the budget or wasn't prepared I don't remember exactly what it was but but it was about not knowing not knowing things and only knowing things because individuals have told us but I think that the the outpouring of support for the for example for the world languages program and the restorative justice program like that that tells me what I need to know about the value of those two programs it may be individuals who were sharing with us but I think that there was enough of a of a mass outpouring of support for those programs to tell me that those two programs work so I um and in addition this this idea that communication and the and the district is lacking and I I won't argue with that but we've heard from for example from from W. S. Moreland who's the director of communications that the central office staff is stretched really thin like it's even hard to get updates to the website because they're stretched so thin and and and we're cutting or we're the you know the proposed budget has a cut of 2.0 fds in the central office so like we're making sacrifices and and those are resulting in some things not being as ideally communicated as we want them to be but I think everyone's doing the best they can as for Mandy Jo's questions I mean those are all great questions and I'm glad you said at the end that some of them are going to be unknown before you have to vote on this budget I think this is this is all very complex and I know I don't have to tell you as the finance committee that like you it's okay that things are complex and we should embrace the complexity and work with it and there are going to be things that we don't know and and but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try like we should if if we think if if you know if if we do get a revenue subcommittee and or if people decide to do a proposition to and have override and we don't know if it's going to pass and then we don't know what the outcome will be if one town passes and the other others don't that's not a reason not to try we still have to try and do the best that we can to support our schools and our students yeah I I'll be working on a multi-year plan I don't I don't know that I'm going to get you anything before you guys need to vote on the budget but you have at least my word that the once the superintendent search is final I'll be working on a multi-year plan and the fact that different school committee members have different areas different ideas and areas of focus that's okay too like it's it's a democracy and we're individuals and I think together as a school committee we're going to have to come up with both a spent a spending plan and a revenue plan thank you hey thanks anyone else have anything okay well well if you can send your comments or questions to me I will compile them and then send them on to uh through Athena to Doug's water excuse me Bob I'm sorry could I ask could I ask you one more question could you clarify like what are the next steps in terms of timing like what what happens now okay uh you've probably missed the earlier part but we are going to review the regional school budget in greater detail uh in our next meeting which is April 16th and then on um Thursday April 25th at 6 30 p.m there'll be a public hearing and after that the the um finance committee will continue on and come up with a recommendation to the council and then we'll the council will vote sometime after that we don't know when we can get it on the council agenda thank you Andy yeah I think that what Athena said and what I've heard uh from the council president is that the um thought is to do it on April 29th at the council meeting uh to have the actual vote which would put us after two of the smaller town meetings but before the last of the town meetings um I think that Shootsbury is last and that Hallam and Leverett are the Saturday before that Monday um the other thing I was going to respond to that had been brought up earlier is that there was a lot of questions about how the chapter 70 formula works and why it was designed the way it was and there was a MMA presentation that was made that was extremely complex I actually had this discussion with another counselor um and uh who attended it um there are actually a couple of spreadsheets that are available desi has a spreadsheet that I can forward to anyone who's interested um that um is a little bit simpler to understand than the presentation but I thought that the presentation was good in that the uh finance officer from the Worcester schools really did explain what the um goals were and why it was constructed and that's I thought that he did a very good job of talking about um how um you look at town's ability to pay um and uh what the how that factors in in looking at both the property in a town and the amount of income that's available in the town and that those are the key factors that work into the formula that uh because it is built when uh both establishing a foundation budget uh what is a basic budget what percentage of the basic budget should come from the state and then the town would be responsible for um what was going to be above that amount and the amount would be very varies by community based upon those factors of property value and um income available to the town so that the very rich suburbs uh have uh get get um less in the way of state aid and that that's but you have to sort of understand that there are those principles that work in favor and then anything above the foundation budget um is it is a decision of the local community in his uh local community share and Amherst has historically had a substantial a budget that's substantially greater both for the region and for the elementary schools above the foundation budget because we believe that uh in education I think that we have a long history of believing in education um but uh you know there what we're we're finding is is that uh we as a community have to come to grips with what the limits are and you know our override is possible but um you know we just did a debt exclusion in order to build an elementary school and uh I think that a lot of people are going to be looking at what they can afford at this point having made that decision to build the elementary school so I'm not sure how how it would work out if we did make the ask and it's a political decision that the council will have to make as to whether it wants to make an ask um and I think that the uh the other thing that I just uh thought about is we were some of the comments were coming in early on there was a discussion about some of the cost savings that are going to that could come on the elementary level but I think that the way we are structured we have to keep the two separate so that if we save money because we built a new elementary school um you know how does that we have to come to grips with on the question do those savings um get used in the elementary school level or do they get used in the shared with the other towns and used on the on the regional level that's going to be a uh a tough conversation to have when it comes about because I think the school committee them have to um grapple with the fact that they have dual responsibilities as chairs of two different school committees and um are they going to have to make that decision which gives me to a concluding comment and that is that I think that we as a community have tried several times over the years to try and encourage our neighboring communities to join us in creating K-12 school system because K-12 school systems have more flexibility than what we have there's costs that come from having two separate districts for two separate levels of K-12 educate two parts of K-12 education and we lose the flexibility and incur the costs and the other towns have um in the end um not always been supportive and at least have been sufficiently unsupportive to block it from happening on on several different attempts because uh you know they're afraid of a decision being made to close their elementary school or um a decision made to move sixth grade students to the middle school which would they think destroy something that they think is important in their communities and uh so it's uh there's a there's a lot of history here and um as this person who is chair of the last committee that was the last attempt uh to work as a four-town committee and see if we could solve the problem I can tell you we scored a lot of time for about a year and a half into that process to end up going nowhere because one town just couldn't abide by the result because they didn't want to put their school at risk so um that's sort of my concluding comments that there's a lot of history here a lot of complexity and uh we have to live with the history and um figure out a path forward and I'm not sure that Amherst can do it alone um I think we have to do it with our regional partners and we have to rely on uh the state to okay any other comments okay um the last thing we want to well I don't think I don't think we have any minutes I certainly haven't seen them so we're not going to get a chance to review the minutes um and I didn't I didn't get them from Athena um the last thing that I have on the agenda is the town budget review process discussion so um okay I was going to suggest that other folks leave um so last time we had a very good discussion I thought we had talked about I know Mandy had suggested that uh that that um we uh look at whether or not the budget matches the the guidelines um and I thought that was a good idea I also thought um we you know we toyed with the idea of bringing in um not everyone necessarily but the bigger bigger you know uh pieces of the budget to to ask questions um and I know we we talked about the school budget a lot as being the biggest one that we should be looking at so it seems like we're going to be looking at the school budget um in pretty good detail before we get to May um so uh I don't know I I'm open to suggestions about how we kind of go forward I I mean I think you know the question is do we really want to you know do we want to focus in on on whether or not budget meets the guidelines or do we want to you know also ask specific questions about um specific you know budgets you know by the people you know bring in the head of the you know the police chief and all that so anyone any thoughts this is not well thought out right now but I'm sort of going to be thinking out loud um what about if we start sort of with a focus on does it meet the guidelines and then you know right now it's sort of all theoretical we don't know what kind of budget's coming in we don't know whether Paul's going to propose a lot of cuts because the personnel costs and everything rise more than you know that four percent can hold too right we don't know and so so why I feel like maybe first focusing on does it meet the guidelines and then seeing what the budget is and from there potentially going to are there any particular departments that are overly affected by the budget one way or another that we need to specifically discuss you know sort of then focus maybe department um invitations to if there's an outlier or if you know say the budget comes in with big cuts to x department I'm just going to pick recreation you know like well maybe we need recreation in to see to to explore that a little bit further than maybe we would normally need to talk to recreation or something and I again it's not a really well thought out comment because I'm just thinking about it now yeah I I I I I see where you're going I thought unfortunately I think if recreation is cut we can either just reject the entire budget or cut it more so I don't think we have a lot of choice when it comes to the budget itself so anyway Kathy I like Manny's idea of starting with it's basically the whole book is what she's suggesting you know um and where we have I mean it puts more burden on us because we can't read just a chapter ahead if you're knowing police is next week or you know we can get to enterprise funds later but you know trying to look big picture down I do think we should get the safety group in together um and with enough lead time at least enough lead time that we can focus on answers to questions rather than pure presentations you know so that we get the budget book and then we can send out very focused questions um the enterprise funds as a set right several years ago we had a surprise and I'm hoping that will never happen again but after we reviewed the whole budget we thought we understood what was going on in the middle of June we found out about an 11 million dollar expenditure that we hadn't been told about that turned out to be an 18,000 million dollar expenditure so you know just make it making sure we do that um within understanding I mean in that we've always done as a set um library I don't feel like needs as much time as we've devoted to it and so I would rather get the library budget and then just send questions and get them answered in writing um then have that we usually get a very a slideshow and a bunch of other things and just one thing I've heard is that there's a shortfall in uh the uh friends of friends of the library friends of jones money but I don't know how much they've already figured out how to adjust that because they're going to be quasi closed for a year I mean they'll have some kind of operation I I've no so I think my questions are going to be more about how are they planning to operate during the time they're not downtown um so I would cut down on the number of total meetings and I'm forgetting something I mean mandy mentioned recreation but I think we've got the the little ones you know the recreation we have the one person sustainability department we have planning planning and we have the rob more plus chris breastruff plus dave zomac it's sort of a cluster and I in recreation I would I know but the only hesitancy you're hearing from me is to some extent these are the times that people we don't hear from very often get to talk about their beloved departments but um those of us who are on jcpc know that the time can expand to the amount of time allotted to it even if there's not much the projects are small you know so I'm trying to think of how to be efficient but not make anybody feel like we stepped over them we and I only I've only mentioned a few of the smaller departments human resources you know dei a few of them I think we could just read the budget book and ask questions so I don't know how many fewer meetings that gets us to um but the big ones we need time you know elementary school we're going to need some time to look at what they send us to be able to figure out what our questions are um yeah I think if we set expectations that you know that we won't necessarily bring everybody in um then people shouldn't hopefully won't feel like they're being ignored and then again we we I think we should we need to talk to paul about how we do this but I think we should say we're going to reengage in the fall with everyone um and and you know make it more meaningful make input more meaningful so um but again we have to coordinate that very closely with paul because we don't want to step on his toes so um you know and I have a question that's not related to the budget per se but uh the regional schools that we just came off of um um we had allocated some money to them from upper funds we the town paul for the sixth grade transition and some of that was to redo bathrooms to get the rooms in order and they said they're not ready to take it however they have no money to do it if they don't take it so I'm a little worried that we how we how we opened a school that is going to take two schools and put them in one under the assumption the sixth grade is moving up and uh so I don't know who we put maybe that is outside the normal budget cycle but um the offer money would have to be obligated by the end of this year but if it's something like redo I've sent a note into paul but I'm just a little worry about sleeper issues we've got here that uh in 2026 the new school opens its doors and the sixth grade is still planning on coming to the new school and there is no there is no classroom space for it or the middle school says we can't take you yet because we haven't done the following things to it so how we when bandy says planning this is this is a rather little large issue um that is a difficult one and one school committee said maybe we should rethink it I said no no you can't re you can't rethink it I mean they have to move um so whether they move in 2025 or at the same time the school opens but but that's what I just I just want to reopen at some point because it's part of the plan for the school um and that's one where desi asked for it to be a school within a school with an administrative structure that made it more expensive but our state rep Mindy said if if we knew what we wanted and we wanted to counter it there's a new head of desi and we could go in and say we think it should work this way so I'm just worried that with the with the lack of the the turnover at the top we're not closing some of the doors on issues that will come back to us as the council um you know do we have to keep wildwood open because there's no place for the sixth graders to move you know I mean there these things like I go oh my gosh we someone has got some we have to figure this out um um so that may not have to be in May but it feels like it has to be before the summer um yeah I agree anything else so you want us to send um if we're doing Holly still on I see or she's got her camera on so if we I didn't get a chance to look at the assessor report on any level so if I see anything I have questions usually I I don't have any questions because this kind of a report is I shouldn't say it's easy for me to read but I know where what I want to look at and I just zero in on what I want to look at um so we should send them through you bob to to go to holly if we have specifics or yeah send them to me and I'll I'll send them to holly via Athena okay the simplest way that way I'll have them all and and you know we'll coordinate okay great same thing with the any any questions on the on the school budget that you want to send on to to Doug okay I'll try to write mine in ready ready to understand language rather than my dream of consciousness and Mandy I did I did I'll send it you can trust me to do the years with the breakdown like this FTE total and then regular and special um so just we can see the staffing changes or lack of change over time yeah okay uh okay is there uh Kathy Kathy after the can you hang on after our meeting just for a second you need a motion to adjourn I need a motion to adjourn yes I make a motion to adjourn anyone second I'll second okay so there's a motion on the table uh I'll just go through uh Andy yes I'm a yes Kathy yes Mandy uh counselor panicky hi counselor walker yes all right I adjourn the meeting at 342 p.m. thanks a lot everybody thanks holly don't it's a colleague it's one of us if she leaves I think okay just very quickly