 Are there any adjustments to the agenda? We will have an executive session. We do have an executive session tonight, guys. Approve the minutes of Monday, November 22nd. Do I have a motion? So moved. And a second. Any discussion on the minutes? All right, hearing none, so moved. Board correspondence hearing none. Board development series. That's just a placeholder. That's just a placeholder, OK? But I can give you a quick update. So the VSBA indicated that their trainer would be up and ready to begin again in March. So I expect it will be ready to roll again with board development in March, just so everyone knows. Yeah. Yeah, and if you read about it, his name is Phil Gore. And he's been in the educational business for a long time, Seattle, Texas. He's got a phenomenal skill set that I think is going to be what this whole state needs. And I'd like to be in the front of the line and to get him working with us again, because we've got a lot of good business and important business. And he sounds like somebody that could really add a skill set that would be helpful. So that's a real positive note to me. Nice. All right, are there any public comments? I think there's only one. The phone number's the only one on, right? All right, hearing no public comments. Moving right along, Jamie. Oh, we get one. Ethan. You're muted, Ethan. You're muted. Yeah, I missed board comment. You went right by it. Is this a, can I jump in on here? Well, it was public comment. But go ahead, what do you got? So we don't have, why is it just a board correspondence and communication? So it's not really board comment like we have in our local meetings. Right, well. No, it is. Do you have something? It's board correspondence. Just a, it's a nitpickly little thing that I noticed is not really bothering tonight so much. The last poll meeting we went through, almost all the board members who were virtual had their video cameras off. And I just think it's a sign of respect when we're asking our staff to show up in person with masks that we at least be so they can see responses and see us that we're actually there. I mean, obviously if you have to hand it off, but just as a courtesy, I ask that people keep their video on and that we, you know, we attend the meeting. Thank you. Thanks, Ethan. Okay, now it's your turn. Reports. So you have my report in hand or we, I just want to add, Honda and I both attended the VSA sponsored really good informative informational series for the task force that did the waiting study. And so we spent two hours today hearing an overview of that and some questions and answers. My takeaway from that is, is that, you know, they've put a ton of time and effort in to the waiting study for equity. And of course, free and reduced lunch is going to impact the weight, the waiting more so. And they're looking at really two proposals. One that's going to change the weight of students for equalized pupils. And in general for our SU that is a benefit to us when you look at tax rate, almost overwhelmingly in each district will benefit from that. The other one, Stratford is a slight adjustment for you not to the positive, but it's like, it's like very, it's like very small, just so you know. It was looking larger to begin with and Granville Hancock, they did a nice job of making certain they reported your free and reduced lunch rates in the new draft. So that was a huge benefit for you. The other one is more of a like a mainstream, mainstream grant where they'll fund students based on a dollar figure for just different like areas where they believe it costs more to, to educate students. So free and reduced lunch rate is an example, middle school students. And so with that funding mechanism, I would tell you that there's a little more of an impact at Granville Hancock, Stacey. And, but in general for the rest of the districts, you would benefit from this proposal. So Rochester Stockbridge, First Branch Unified District, Sheeran, and White River Unified District, you would benefit on both proposals. And so the next step is, is this report will go to the legislature, they'll continue to take more feedback and they'll see if they'll look to act. The other big takeaway for me was, they do understand it's gonna, they're proposing the concept of a five year phase in. It wouldn't be an immediate, you know, this is the new funding mechanism. They would have some type of way to phase it in. So I think it's just important for us to continue to follow the conversation. You know, certainly there's some districts that this really does impact their funding significantly. For us in rural communities, where we're trying to do a really good job of building an MTSS and best support our students. For us, it really is looking at equity and how to better support our tax base. And so I'll continue to give you guys written updates now monthly on this too. But I would say I left there feeling optimistic in what this can mean for our supervisory union and for most of our districts. And again, Stratford and Granville Hancock, either way, it was not one way Granville Hancock benefited, the other way not, but it wasn't a significant change, Stacy. And Stratford, you guys will not benefit from this in either proposal, but it's not significant. It's less than a percent impact on tax rates. So, but in some districts, we could see it impacts tax rates to the positive by upwards of almost 13% in certain districts. So it could be significant. So just stay tuned. You know, some questions were asked about just ensuring that these calculations took into effect for us that are sending districts, which most of us are. Based on what I saw in the second draft, it seemed like they got their figures quite right versus the first draft. I had a lot of concerns with the first draft that came out of the second draft. It seems to be much tighter. The other thing I wanted to just add is, of course, there was a lot of discussion around social media about Friday, December 17th. I met with my colleagues, many of which who did put out information about Friday, December 17th. And a lot of that was based on actual indications that they had around threats, possibly to the schools within their SU or district. We had no imminent threats. There was no directed threats at any schools within WRVSU. And on top of that, it was identified that this was not a credible threat in general by our police and actually the agency of education had done a great deal of work too. I did give your principals talking points that they could speak to parents and staff about and chose not to put out a mass communication because number one, I'm learning quickly that not everyone reads my communications fully. And so I was worried that I could create more panic by that if folks didn't read it all the way through. And I would actually say, hindsight, some of my colleagues said that that actually is what had occurred in their SUs is that more panic was created based on the communication. And again, I don't know if everyone reads all the details in the communication. And so I did talk to a couple of families personally who just had questions as to the why and I explained my reasoning like I'm talking to you about not wanting to create more panic and or upset and are already stressed, you know, community as it is. And so therefore knowing that there was no imminent threat, I didn't, I chose not to communicate it. So I just wanted to address that. And, you know, it's the final couple of days before break, we're looking forward to it. The other thing I think we got to watch closely now is COVID. Our numbers continue to be pretty significant across the SU test to stays working. We're keeping our kids in our buildings. We're not seeing spread again within the buildings when we do test to stay. So our mitigation efforts are working, but certainly you can see community numbers are high. And so, you know, my hope is, is that our vaccination numbers will continue to increase because when we have students vaccinated fully, it results in if they're asymptomatic, we don't have to test to stay. And so the capacity figure is the issue right now. You should be very proud of all your schools. We have test to stay teams up and running in all of our schools now. And we've implemented tests to stay in all but one school at this point across the SU. And so, and it's gone without a hitch. So those are the updates I have in regards to COVID. The other thing I wanted you to know, and we'll talk more about it in the budget, is that the curriculum development position that we have been talking about previously was removed from the budget. What we did do is we provided leadership stipends for different content areas in the budget. One of the things I don't think we have to discuss tonight, but I'd like us to discuss in the future, is do we consider adding an admin position using ESR money knowing we would fade it in two years? That's when ESR money would fade. And so what I heard was this idea of, you know, how do we fund it? Number one, two, I did hear folks acknowledge our curriculum needs work. But three, I went back on my team and really said, well, we don't need this position forever. This is more of we need to get our curriculum addressed and get it secured and have a really strong transparent curriculum that our students and families deserve and teachers for that matter. And so I believe that work can be accomplished in the next two years. And then the idea would be what you'll see in your budget are these leadership stipends for content areas like you folks had suggested. That work would be ongoing for revision, reflection and refinement on an annual basis. So that's why we budgeted those funds locally. And again, I think the side from the budget would be us discussing that other position, but that decision, we don't need that tonight by any means. So I just wanted to highlight that as well. And take any questions folks have. I have a question. I've heard rumble that legislature is gonna vote to change how we do town meeting again this year, possibly. I have not heard that. On January 4th, it's supposed to be one of the things that they take up. It was talked about in Tumbridge to possibly be able to vote in like May when you can do outdoor meetings again instead of in person because of the uptick in COVID. Has anybody else heard about that in their community? You too, okay. And I just wondered if we were gonna think along those lines too after they have the vote to talk about doing that in the different communities? I mean, I think if Tumbridge decided to, then as a town, I would think that we would want to in the school board as well. I think we should discuss in all your local districts. At each local district, okay, Stacey. Yeah, she put in the link to. There was an article in Digger, Stacey? Yeah. I missed it. You know, they're talking about having again two options, the Australian ballot or being able to delay it until the weather is more moderate so that people can be outdoors and that sort of thing. No, thanks for the heads up. And I think we should take it up in each local district meeting. It's important to note right now that we have no authority as a local district or board to warn an Australian ballot. That legislation has sunset. So right now we would plan to act in person and then each district, you can decide if you want to delay your warning of the meeting pending that legislation. We'd be tight around warning it for those that warn in town meeting, but if they take an act quickly and swiftly, then it probably could give us. I said January 4th. January 4th, I thought that you said 24th. Fourth is great. Nope, January 4th. All right, yeah, so we'll take it up at each local district. Yeah, I have two questions. One is, I heard on the radio that there were extra rapid tests in a statewide kind of way and that they were looking to, that were going to expire and that some districts were gonna be sending them home with families. And I wondered if that's something that might happen in our SU. Great question, Meg. We were actually barely gonna make it through Wednesday without running out of test. Just because we have so much testing happening right now. Actually, we borrowed from Sharon Academy where Gracious and Ashley lend us a bunch of their kits over the weekend. So now we won't have extra kits. What I will do though is send home PCR tests with students and certainly promote the PCR testing. We have mail home test. And so that is something that we've indicated to the nurses to certainly support. Awesome, thank you. And then the second question I had was about the waiting study and I'm mixing about which meeting I'm in when but I was wondering if you could bring that up at our local meeting. Absolutely. You might have already done it. I just didn't confuse about. Yep. Now that we have the figures, I'll be talking about how it impacts each local district at your local meeting. That's all for me. Anything else for Jamie before we move on? Bill. I just wanna commend Jamie and his team. Third to the end paragraph talks about community outreach and having an aggressive program to inform the community about what's happening at the SU level as well as in our schools. And I just think and the creation of a new website, an enhanced website where more user friendly website. And these things are very important. If we're gonna exist and excel, we've gotta grow. And I see every student that's out there and the parents are going, gee whiz should we have our son or daughter go into the elementary school of public or should be private or should be home school. They're influenced by what they read and what they know. And we cannot assume that they're totally informed when they make their decision. And I think it helps all our students and our faculty and our bottom line, and honestly if we can encourage every potential student and parent to look at us seriously. And I think the outreach that Jamie's talking about is a real strong building block for that end. Did Don have a question? John, did you have a question at one point or maybe I answered it? I thought I saw your hand go up, no? Thank you. You all have my report as well. I don't think there's that much to repeat just to say we've had report cards and progress reports head home in the last bit of time, which has been a really, it's another helpful reflection on where we are at this point in the year. And a little bit more I guess as to what Jamie was saying about the work we have to do around proficiencies and standards and just making sure that those are as consistent as possible and match up to what our expectations are for students at this point in the year and at the end of the year. And so that's a continued part of work that we'll be doing SUY. I'll talk about the thing that both, Annette and I, I think both talked about because I get to go first, but we had this great, we had a great session, I think two weeks ago with our special educators and hair educators and interventionists around math. And again, you've heard a lot of math from me, but it was a really excellent opportunity to see sort of how we can use some of the consistent tools we have out there for kids who are a variety of different places with their knowledge and skills in math and really try to serve them with something that's really consistent for their own learning. And we got really good feedback from everyone who was engaged and interested in commitment for them to come back in six weeks and review and say, here's how it's going. Here's where I need a little bit more support. Here's where my questions are. Here's where my a-has where this are. And so we're really excited to see that. I think previously the burden has been on them to sort of pull and find different things that might match kids and the hands-on inquiry approach with a lot of visual models and a lot of manipulatives is really, I mean, it's great for all kids and can be especially great for kids who may have some gaps and need a new way of seeing something to understand it. So we're really excited about that. And I think that's it. So I'm happy to answer any questions. Everybody good? Easy crowd tonight, Angel. All right, your hands. My report is, well, the last month, we didn't quite have our December one child count done yet. It's now complete and handed into the AOE. So our December one, 2021 child count number is 253. Which December one 2020, it was 240, so a difference of 13 students. So our overall exits from July one to December one was a total of 27 students. Exited in very different ways and different reasons, whether they moved or they transferred out of special education back to the general ed population, whether they graduated or what you'll see in my report is a column that says dropped out of school. That doesn't mean that they came in and filled out paperwork to drop out of school per se. If we have students that don't attend school, they're absent for a long consistent period of time. We send home what we call a fake letter saying your IEP and your services, your service providers are waiting for you to come and attend school, let us know if there's any way we can assist you if they're 18 or we send it to the parents and say, we would love to help your family. And if we do not hear back from them, then they do get exited. So that's part of that number. The next part was that we did. We had a wonderful day from math intervention. It goes back to that the service delivery model that we're trying to create where a pair of educators can get specifically trained in programs, the same as with our special educators so that we have more interventionists and people supporting our students. So that was really exciting. Also, special educators had their first session with Jennifer Pattonode talking about barriers with very specific disabilities and ways to kind of open up and provide access within the classroom and also within our interventions. So they had the first session this past in service day and that was fantastic. We have two more to go. I had a great feedback with that as well. Nice. Ethan, you have a question? Yes, yes. With this, I just to make sure I understand. You're saying we have 27 less students in special ed across the SU, is that correct? That is correct. Correct. How do we know, one of the things Jamie's really emphasized is that we want to be bringing kids out of special ed and getting them into the classroom or taking care of their issues in the classroom. How do we know if some of these students are moving because of that? Or is it all because of other related issues or family issues or whatever? So from July one to December one, we had four students exit out of special ed and transfer back into gen ed. So we do track that. And maybe I said that again here. I'm sorry, if that's what you said. I apologize. Any other, go ahead, Bill. Thank you for this report. And so you're comparing December 1st, 2020 to 2021. And we had a special ed, 240 in 2020 and we have now 253. So that's a growth of the year 13 that you mentioned. Our goal of course is through our teaching and everything else with our curriculum and our staff and our programming to decrease the number rather than increase the number. So it would help me think about how that extra 13 has our enrollment overall, enrollment grown as well so that it's not a meaningful percentage change or how do we look at that 13? Yeah, that was one of my questions as well. I'm glad you brought that up because I was wondering about how many students moved into our SU that came with needing special education services because it did feel like a pretty grand number. So that's one thing that I've asked my administrative assistants when new students move in that we track that for this next August because that was something that was really significant for me as well. And we just don't have a way to track that nicely and cleanly but it's definitely something on our radar. So I was curious out of the 13 how many were students that moved in? We did have a significant amount. I know in terms of the long we had a significant amount. Yeah. Yeah. Stacey. I think Don beat me to the punch. So Don, you can go first. Sorry, Don. Thank you. I think you might be able to find that information you're looking at by reviewing the IEPs where they originated in the years that they've been in place. You might be able to get the information where they moved in. Let's move in from New Hampshire and I'll give you can see how they compare to the general population over time would be great. Also, you know, five students dropping out understanding that that has a broader meaning but five students dropping out of school of 240 is 2% or something. And so I would want to know if that is the same throughout the general population or if that's actually a little higher and just to continue tracking it in percentages so that we can see kind of what more broadly reflects will be helpful. But thank you very much. This is great to see. Anything else? All right. Director of Pathology. So Ray actually has the night off. He took the day off and he was gonna come back tonight and I said, absolutely not. He took the day off. So I told him I would entertain any questions folks may have about his report. Very glad you told him not to come back. He deserves a whole head. Thank you too. All right, Tara. You all have my report. It outlines our January due date for both business office and the school for food authority. We did also have a release for the federal equipment grant that we will be applying for also under the SFA that came in after I did this report. So that's my only actual update there. And then my discussion items are later on in the agenda. Any question about Tara's report? Sorry. I'm a newbie here. The first item here, end of open enrollment. Yep. Help me here. What does that mean? That's our benefit system. So our benefits we knew as of January one. So our staff can choose to change their health plans if they want to as of January one. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Policy committee, we haven't had a meeting since our last. We haven't had a new meeting. I think we're working on getting another one on the schedule or we may have one scheduled. We don't have one scheduled. We got to work on it. If you guys go to the SU board calendar for January, now that we're in negotiations and special meetings for budgets and things, it's pretty full. So I got to try to figure out where we can land this policy committee that may be that we're back to trying to meet before this meeting possibly. Just because it's that worked fairly well for us before. To get some work done. We just changed it because we had that. Yeah, we had that other policy, the anti-racism policy that was taking more time. So we may need to look at getting back to that. Superintendent's Evaluation Committee, I just received a contract from the BSBA that we approved. So, and I've asked them when they can do their first meeting date. So I will be in touch shortly. I just got it Friday and emailed them back. So as soon as I have that, I will let that committee know. Negotiations Council. We have a meeting scheduled for January. Well, we get a meeting scheduled for tomorrow night for our work group. Right. And then we will plan, we'll meet with the teachers on January 6th. So tomorrow night work group teachers, first official meeting is January 6th. Yes, second. Second official meeting. So it'll be the second official meeting, I believe. Yeah. We had one. Yep, second official meeting. All right, discussion items. Audit. So I sent to you all the FY21 draft audit for review. And I also provided a memo that just outlined a few of the highlights. So I'll answer any questions that I can off hand. Anybody got questions on the audit that they were sent? Otherwise, I have to say that this audit cycle has been the best since I joined right River Valley Supervisor Reunion. We got a lot of work done and I'm very happy with the results. Bless you. Go ahead, Bill. Yeah, I want to compliment Tara and her team. Page 99, section one, summary of auditor's results. And Tara summarized it by saying shows there were no findings in our financial statements. I'm familiar with auditors going way back before some of you were born. And they love, they feel it's their duty to find something wrong. And if they work for the overtime, it's this goes like this, but they'll always find something. That's their auditors. And have none is an amazing accomplishment. So we had a bottle of champagne. This is the time to pop it open and drink to the team. That's not easy to do. Their job is to find problems. And so that I just want to compliment the team on that. That was amazing. Yes, nice job Tara. Go ahead Meg. Hey, I just want to say thanks to Bill because I look at these things that's they're really confusing. So it's great to have that full tidbit of context. Is it Bill? We haven't actually met in person. Bill, yeah. To kind of have an understanding of where we're at. So nice job team and thank you for that context. All right, 23 budget. Okay, so Parker, if you could put up the PDF for SU, it is the FY23 SU budget. So Jamie has outlined the change that I made right up at the top there, taking out the salary for the position and adding in the leadership stipends. St stipends I should say. Yeah, it's great. Thank you. I didn't make any changes to the English language learners section. That continues to be the same. We didn't make any changes through technology nor in the superintendent's office. Not in the preschool, but down in my department for fiscal services. We did make an adjustment to the other contracted services for paychecks because we are going to start rolling out the electronic time card system with them. So that's another monthly fee that we will have to pay and also a one-time implementation fee. So I've added that into the FY23 budget and this will continue to make our payroll more efficient and more accurate, which is our ultimate goal, and will reduce processing time and room for manual errors because we're still currently doing paper time cards and paper time off request. And by going to the electronic system, it will save on that and also save on our administrator's time from having to process paper cards and just going into a system reviewing and approving electronic time cards. So now this time, you also, so overall these changes results in a increase at central office of $95,091 or 5.26%. And this time I gave you the revenue side. So Parker, the next one that we need up is the WRVSU FY23 SU assessment. Can you give me the questions if you want to explain? Okay, Meg? Just a quick question. Jamie or Tara, if you say you're in, imagine you're in a town meeting and a community member asks you for like a one census description of what that 95 represents. Could you rattle that off for us just real quick? Yeah, I mean, I look at it, strengthens the curriculum department, right? By providing those teacher leader stipends. We're trying to strengthen still our business management. And so it's an investment in the paycheck system for automated time cards. And then the rest is really just anticipated health insurance and things of that nature increases. We didn't add any other additional FTE. But I think that that really speaks to it. And again, more investment in technology. I think it's an area that we were underfunding for a while. And it's an area that, you know, we now have a plan just so everyone knows to be able to turn over our devices every five years. So Ray's worked hard to ensure we have a proactive plan with technology that all devices are turned over every five years. Now Chromebooks is what we leverage. It's at a cost point that we can do that, but we continue to invest in technology infrastructure. For the paycheck, how much of it was one time money and how much is ongoing expenses? Is $11,700 for a year for all seven of our entities and a $1,000 one time implementation fee? So it looked like it went up from $10,000 to $60,000. So a lot of that was just what we've already kind of corrected for her. Correct, because I used to have a payroll clerk and so in 22 that expense was under my salaries, where now that is a contracted service. But I didn't, I don't have to go back enough. Okay, thanks. Well, the support, the, if you look under fiscal services you'll see support salaries are down and health insurance is down, Andrew. And that's that payroll clerk that was removed. Okay, thanks. Ethan? Yeah, now I get to remember what I was gonna ask. Oh yeah, what's that, can you just remind me what the difference is now with these teacher stipends as opposed to, I remember it was about 100,000 last time you looked at the budget for the new position and what's the number now? So instead of budgeting for a full time FTE and benefits which would have been close to 100,000, we've budgeted an additional 20,000 to provide a leadership stipend in all content areas. And when we say all, we're looking to make certain we have teams working in all the performing arts, physical education, health, science, math, English language arts, global studies. We wanna have a teacher leader facilitating those groups on a regular basis across all areas. And so that's where that 20,000 comes into play. Good, okay. So basically roughly 100,000 down to 20. Yup. Good, thank you. All right, any other questions guys? So I'll just say as Tara walks you through the revenue and she'll explain this, I don't wanna take her thunder away, but when you see Medicaid funds disappear from the revenue side, that is to make certain we're leveraging Medicaid funds for all of you locally. And what we've been finding since Tara and I started is that we were budgeting all of our Medicaid funds mostly at the SU level and not having corresponding expenses to align to them. And so what that means is we didn't have a way to use the revenue you were budgeting. And so you're gonna see that the Medicaid funds are gone as a SU wide revenue source. You will then see those revenue funds pop up into your local districts to cover things like school counselors and your nurses. Those are clearly areas we can use Medicaid funds for budgeting purposes. So you'll see those Medicaid funds now in your local districts. So I'll turn it over to Tara on the revenue side. So we're gonna focus on the bottom chart first. So Parker, if you wanna blow that up, just the last two columns is really what we need to focus on so they can make out the numbers if they don't have it in front of them. So it starts right off with the budgeted expenditures which is from your first page, that $1,902,017. We have removed indirect rate which was a cost that I could take to offset financial expenses for the business office, for the administrations of the grants and we're not gonna be pulling that down anymore because we want, again, like Jamie said, we're trying to refocus all of our grant funds into the member districts rather at the SU level. So that's been removed, that was the 24,000. Our interest I've maintained at the $2,000 and that's the interest that we earn on our bank account. The Medicaid of $180,000, as Jamie explained, we've removed that as well as the EPSDT MAC fund which is just another different funding source from Medicaid that's based on moments and times that our school nurses and guidance counselors have to file with the federal government. And then down at the federal funds, we have reduced the Title II from 48 to 46. We reduced the Title I pre-K from 25 to 10 and then the 25, sorry, the Title I pre-K reading math intervention from the 77 to the 75 and that's just based on our FY22 grant funds that we used to budget for the next fiscal year. So overall, the change in revenue is $345,091 which then if we go up to the top chart, that breaks down each of your individual district's assessment for that 345,000, Ethan. Could you just, and maybe it's important, could you just scroll down again please? For some reason I'm not finding the reports this time. I'm not sure what, not finding the right email for finding all these. Could you just explain that 75 and 2000, the bottom line again, I didn't quite understand what that was. That is the Title I funding that we have for our preschool reading math interventionist that's fully funded by the grants and it went from 77 to 75,000. Oh that's all, okay, got you, okay, thank you. Any other questions? Hey Parker, if you want to move to the WRVSU FY23 SPED budget. So on this draft of the special education expenditure budget, when I was working on the assessments I couldn't get my FY22 assessments to balance. I was off and I realized that my budget was off in FY22. I inadvertently deleted both FY22 and FY23 columns for our restorative classroom teachers. So I've added that back in. But wait, the budget you approved was accurate. Yes. And you say that in case it's not like. Yes, no, it was just in my first draft that I provided to you. No, the budget was right. Just the comparison wasn't. So it actually resulted in the special education budget being a reduction of $266,732 or 3.32%. So the question may be why. And so the big why was is that within our alternative programming that we have instead of hiring our own folks to be like school-based clinicians in each program, which then results in you paying full salary and benefits for folks. We've contracted with Claire Martin this year and it's working quite well to have that they have case managers who push in and who are there to service our students all day. We can build down, they can build down Medicaid for those services. Much like many of you have heard me talk about school-based clinicians that we have master's level therapists in many of our districts across the SU were able to get those folks for right around like $36,000, which, and that's because they can build down on Medicaid. It's a contracted service. We don't have the benefits to pay. So instead of having folks at about 80,000, we're able to get them for about 36. And so that was a pretty significant savings. And I would say that in general, Annette and I and the principals continue to meet with Claire Martin to strengthen our work and relationship with them. I would say that they have, they're still struggling with some of the difficulties we have around hiring, but I can't say for these programs, we're fully staffed now, but I can't say that it'd be any different where we're sitting, right? Like I can't say that's because it's Claire Martin versus us. I think that that's just the labor shortage we're all dealing with right now. So I wanted you to know, this is not a decrease in services. By any means, it's really just looking to leverage our community and mental health partnership with Claire Martin. And that's what we've done this year. So we actually are recognizing savings this year as currently as well as it's gonna help offset expenditures for next year. So I wanted to give you the why. You know, and I also think in general, my hope is that you'll continue to see our special ed cost stabilize because we are working really hard for early interventions and supports and making it more of a team approach. Another big thing that I think Annette would speak to is that our alternative programming here at the high school is serving, it's like probably a 15 students, not all old day long, but 15 students who are being served now here at our school versus us possibly having to tuition them out to more restrictive learning environments. So that's pretty significant. And certainly that's why you're seeing some savings too in your special ed expenditures. Last meeting, the SU Board voted support and for achieving academic achievement goals consistent with the better than the state of Vermont. And it was gonna be a multi-year program led by our able team sitting to my left. And with interim goals and everything else, one goal was that not only were we gonna achieve the average proficiency in math and English and reading, but we were going to have approximately have the number of students or the percentage of students, I can't remember which ones, of the level one, the ones that have the furthest distance to travel to get to proficiency. And so my question is a simple one, does this budget plan that you're proposing allow us at least this next year to move in that path that we're all committed to? I would say yeah. Are you comfortable with that? I am very comfortable, yes, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that we still struggle with right now is this budget, budget is budgets for more FTEs than we currently have in place. Just like you currently have budgeted, our issue has been finding high quality special educators. And so we've done some contracted services to ensure that kids are getting their interventions, but our plan is to put a hard press on hiring. I know that Annette's starting to get resumes already for next year. I have people waiting for us to open positions, so I'm very excited about that. The plan is that we'll be fully staffed and really be able to implement those intensive interventions. I wanna make sure we have an obligation that's a board that we set that goal that we're established and laid out. There's a simply that you have the resources to be able to do it. We're not saying that you've just loaded up the guild. We know it's gonna be hard work and diligence. But I think that's very important. So if you hear the thumbs up from you, it's very important to me and I'm sure for the whole entire SU board, thank you. Any questions so far? Okay, so we'll move on to the special education revenue, which is that next chart down, Parker. So Act 73 goes into effect July 1st, 2023. As you, those who have been on the board for several years may remember that that was supposed to go into effect and was delayed. And what that is, is it changes our funding sources from the state for special education. So you'll see on the chart below, I've highlighted in bold that first row, which is the Act 73 census block grant. So we will get based on the information provided from the AOE on October 1st, 3,279,465 dollars. That takes place of the second line, which is our expenditure reimbursement that we used to have to file multiple times throughout the fiscal year. So that's been zeroed out. And then our second revenue stream is the extraordinary reimbursement. And they have changed the funding formula for that, which results you'll see for us 1,375,594 dollars. We lose our block grant. We lose the local share contribution of the block grant. We continue to have our idea B basic flow through, and that number is based on this year's funding and what our projections are going to be for next year. That's also a grant through the state. And then idea B pre-school, we have some increased funding as well there, which will help offset some of our CODAS and SLPAs up in the expenditure budget. We continue to have our triple E funding, which has remained pretty consistent. So we kept that the same for next year. And I have removed the $35,000 for IEP Medicaid, because again, that expense is paid through the Medicaid fund and not through the special education fund. So that's just cleaning up that revenue. So the total SU special education revenues are up 42,676 dollars. And your member town assessment is down 309,408 dollars. So Parker, if you could put up the document titled WRVSU FY23 Sped Assessment. So this outlines for each of you, what each individual member district's assessment is projected to be for FY23. The top box is a comparative of the FY23 proposed assessment as it compares to your FY22 assessment. And then the lower box is just each individual district's assessment divided out over what your monthly payment will be. Any questions on the revenue side for special education? So, I mean, just to summarize, if you look for some districts, you actually due to the drop in special ed cost, some of your districts, your actual SU assessment between special ed and the SU office will be down for next year. There's a, you know, first branch unified district, their actual percentage of the SU in general is up because your ADM is up, which is good. But that does mean you take on more percentage of the bills at the SU. So you'll see that, for example, your guys' assessment in special ed will be down 28,640, but your general assessments up 92,432, Kathy. So the difference is about 70,000, but what I would tell you is not to forget, you didn't have Medicaid funds budgeted at your local district as a revenue that we can now budget for your nurses. So what I'm saying is that the plan would be to ensure that we spread Medicaid funds out as revenue to make this a wash so that essentially your SU assessment will be offset via hopefully Medicaid funds where you are up a little bit. GHA doesn't get Medicaid. GHA doesn't get Medicaid, correct. But in general, the rest of your operating districts, that's what we'll look to do for this. Well, I think the way to explain it too, is you're growing. Any questions about the budget overall? Hearing none, are we ready to vote on the budget? Add it to first, Kathy. We'll come to action on this. I don't know if I want to change the order of doing this. You can do action items, you can do audit first. Okay, we're gonna do action items for audit and budget. So we'll do audit first. So we talked about that first and that's what's next on the agenda. And then we'll do the budget. So do I have a motion to accept the audit? I move. Do I have a second? All right, so we'll do a roll call vote. I can't put the list of names. Can you put the list of names? I'm sorry, can you tell me who seconded that? Andrew. Andrew. Oh, all right. Thank you. Erin. Yes. Andrew. Yes. Don, did you hear me, Don? I did not. Voting on the audit. Yes or no? Yes. Okay, thank you. Yes, on the other end. Thank you. Ethan. Yes. Meg. Yes. Mike Gray. Yes. Rodney. Yes. Shannon. Yes. Stacy. Yes. Bill. Yes. And Kathy Z, yes. So audit passed unanimously. Thank you. All right, now on to budget. So I have a motion to accept. We're gonna make it specific. Okay, tell us how you want it worded, Shannon. Okay. Shannon, give me the wording for the budget. A motion to. We need the actual figure. Yep. The motion is to approve the FY23 budget of $1,902,017. So moved. Tara, can you read back the figure again, please? One, 902,017. Thank you. Do I have a second? No, thanks. I'll second. You motioned already, Don, correct? Yes. Bill seconded. Seconded by Ethan. Okay. And is there any discussion? How many are there? I'm gonna do a second motion. Your special application. Can we approve it? Okay. All right, so roll call vote. Here we go, guys. Aaron. Yes. Andrew. Yes. Don. Yes. Ethan. Yes. Meg. Yes, did you say, yep, Michael. Yes. Rodney. Yes. Shannon. Yes. Stacey. Yes. Bill. Yes. And Cassie, yes. Budget pass, Shannon. So the second motion will be to approve the FY23 special education budget of $7,844,018. So moved. Hold on, can I read that back? Yes. 7, 844, 018. Perfect. So we have moved it. Ethan moved it. Ethan moved, Bill seconded it. Is there anything else? Stacey needs the number again. She's got it now, right Stacey? That was right. 7, 844, 018. Yep, okay. All right. Can I get these guys on? And that was moved by Ethan and seconded by who? Bill, Bill. Bill, thank you. All right, guys, here we go. Go to the top, please. Go to the top. That's okay. Aaron. Yes. Andrew. I'm a yes. Okay. Dawn. Grudgingly yes. Ethan. Yes. Meg. Meg, did you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Michael. Yes. Rodney. I'm Rodney. Rodney, your turn. Yes. Thank you. Shannon. Yes, if that was my name. Yes. Casey. Yes. Bill. Yes. Kathy, yes. Also fast unanimous. Thank you. Thanks guys. Thanks for being patient with me getting through all the names. Resignation you hired. We do have one resignation. So I have a resignation in the business office. Rosa's last day will be with us on Friday, December 24th. At this point in her career, the quantity of accounting work that we need in our business office is not what she wants to be doing. So with deep regret. Can you speak to what that means? Yes, I mean I can speak to what that means. We have, our accounting work is primarily reconciliation of our bank accounts, which we currently have 28 of them. A lot of adjusting journal entries, booking revenue and reconciliation of our liability accounts. So at her capacity as an accountant, these roles are better suited for more of an accounting clerk where she wants to be doing what she has done for us since joining us is basically that more in-depth auditing, review and research. And it's a lot of work. We have a very large quantity of accounting work for seven entities. And it's just not what she wants to be doing at this point. So are you, you'll be posting a job soon? The job is posted. Tara, are you confident in finding a replacement? We all know what the market is right now. So I hope yes that it'll be filled quickly, but. I'll let the board know that I did hold an excellent interview with Rose and saw if there's anything that we could change to have her stay. We really value her as an employee. And I'll say she did really speak to wanting to pursue other opportunities that are less about staff accounting and more about like analysis. And so, and more like forensic type accounting. So she has served us really well, has helped us go a long ways to cleaning our books up. And certainly we're gonna miss her a great deal. But the job is posted. I also had Tara reach out to our accountants to ensure that they would support us with anything we may need in the meantime. Now Jason and Tara are getting up to speed quickly on the accounting piece. So I don't think there's gonna be a ton of support that we will need in the meantime, but they were agreeable to do that. So I just want you to know that this, I see this as certainly a loss for us, but not something that should sidetrack us on the great momentum we have going in the finance department of the SU. So no, we're still committed to continue our trajectory forward. Motion to accept her resignation with regret. So moved, so moved. Here we go, Aaron? Yes. Andrew? Yes. Don? Don Shaw? Yes. Ethan? Yes. Meg? Yes. Michael? Yes. Rodney? Yes. Shannon? Yes. Stacy? Yes. Bill? Yes. Okay, so moved. Accept her resignation. And exactly, is there any other business before the second session? We just want to change your next meeting date. Well, Stacy will be moving to the location. Yeah. That's about confused what happened last time. Okay. Because it's still sub-wild on campus. All right. And we will meet at the SU office on January 24th. Stacy, if you can, I don't know if you heard that. If you can change in your minutes the location to the SU office. Okay, so... Are you there? I'm done. I just got this in the executive session. Right, so you do need it. I need an executive session too. So there's two executive sessions, though. All right. So we will have two executive sessions now? So just work your stage for that. No. So we're all done except for our executive session now. So we're back in the main hall and speaking here. Yep. Okay, correct me if I get this wrong, but... I'll make a motion to come out of executive session so I can interrupt. Thank you. No, good, good. So moved or seconded? We're recording again, so we're good now. Okay. So the board moves to extend the board's share of the health benefit for Pam Creenow as for 20.11 of the master agreement for a period of 60 days. Is that good? Do I have a second? We'll second it. Any discussion? We'll have both of us. We'll look back up. Karen? Yes. Yes. Go on. Yes. Yes. Michael? Yes. Rodney? Yes. Yes. Yes. And I'm here. Thanks, guys. So moved. And we need to go into another executive session is Karen, is it first now? No, it is auditor client communications, it's not public to public. Executive session. Make a motion to the auditor and management. For a privilege communication between the auditor and management. I'll make a motion into executive session for communication between privileged, privileged communication between the auditor and the board. Inviting Tara, I imagine. And Jamie. And Jamie. Do I have a second? Second. All right. Second. Okay, just a minute, we'll stop recording. I think we'll be fine. Do we need to go right now, Mom? I think we'll be okay. No one seems to be jumping on and I can monitor, but Parker will need to see it. Is Orca? No, Orca is still here. We gotta go to a breakout. All right, we're gonna go to a breakout guys. Orca is still in the group from now. No, she can go from Parker. No, that's fine, that's fine. Can you guys go to the breakout now? All right guys, do I have a motion to come out of executive session when the act is taken? So moved. Seconded. All right, we're out of executive session. Move to adjourn. We have a motion to adjourn. Merry Christmas everyone if I don't have Happy solstice. Days getting longer. All right, so the negotiations should be a short meeting. We pretty much talk about it. What time is it again? 5.30. 5.30. It'll be a quick.