sent an email earlier wasn't going to be able to make it so we will go ahead and call this meeting to order this is the town of Andover special budget Workshop meeting for Wednesday March 20th so welcome everybody we'll start by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance a pledge of allegiance to the flag the United States of America repu nation God for all thank you first agenda item is public speak guess we'll go ahead and go around Eric I don't know if you're on well I can go ahead and call in either way either way Mark you want me to I will if you want to you can why don't you go ahead and do it you usually have you do it okay we'll do it in order of my screen first up is Celeste Willard OH thanks Eric I have nothing at this time thank you okay next up Jerry and an CR we're here to support the board of education budget and the superintendent's needs okay thank you very much and that cover you also okay next up Shannon L nothing fur than to indicate my support for the board of education's budget also thank you okay last up Valerie brunau yep ditto we're here to support the budget well that would be everybody that's on my screen okay we will go ahead thank you everybody so just a couple of housekeeping things this is a special meeting meaning we cannot change the agenda we can only talk about things
that are on the agenda the business that was listed in the agenda I think most of you heard me say that before so that is rules there one thing that we would like to do just is rearrange the schedule a little bit and and talk about the budget we'll just go through the a have the AES budget review at the beginning so we can talk about that and you let anybody who wants to leave after that review can can leave on their own the other thing that I'm going to suggest and this is for I know Joan and I have talked about this but the rest of the board of Finance may not be aware so it's our understanding that the while the audit needs to be submitted the actual corrective action plan does not need to be submitted for another 30 days once the audit submitted so we really do not need to take that up today and I would propose that we table that until there's some separate discussions maybe happening over that some reviews of the corrective action plans it's up to the board it's on the agenda so we would have to opt to to move that out to another time but I would propose that we do that and same probably with the with the
discussion over the Capital expenditures policy U we could potentially hold you know have some separate meetings about that but again it's up to the board if there any specific questions and things we can we can talk about it there anybody have any concerns over that at least the change to the agenda schedule and any of the board members I should say okay okay well that yeah go ahead Joan I just wanted to add thank you for bringing that up initially we thought it would be a good idea since AES was presenting their budget tonight to add a few AES related topics to the you know to the agenda while they were there like you said I am in agreement to to kind of when you leading the meeting to kind of maybe push them off and thank you for letting the other members of the board know that there have been a couple couple things that probably have to be reviewed and then we can add it to another agenda in the future so but I'm I'm happy that you know everyone's here to present the AES budget to us tonight and and that we're moving forward with that because you know they're taking time out of their busy nights to do that so that's that's great thank you yep thanks just another housekeeping thing too I should mention I depending on how long this meeting rolls I may have to leave early to pick somebody up at the airport kind of
unexpectedly or but as Joan said we can talk about things separately we do have no shortage of meeting schedule our schedule so so yeah just same thing I have to go to the airport tonight myself so i' like to get out of here by nine o'clock if I could because yeah I would thinking maybe a little early but we'll see yeah okay maybe we should ride together yeah right okay very good I guess nothing else relative to that so what we'll do is we'll let the the superintendent and school Personnel go ahead and present the budget talk about what's entailed I know some of you have attended or reviewed some of the budget Workshop meetings that the School District held so I think that's those are very helpful but we'll go ahead and and let them do their presentation valer Celeste did you wanna did you wna present on using your screen is that what you want to do if
you could share your screen I I don't know if I have the the rights to share my screen sometimes the I think Eric as The Host can give you right share it or if it's easier Eric if if you could just share your screen with the budget that would be helpful I could do either but the way it's set up right now you should be able to share your screen directly okay okay all right let's see here all right give me one okay I did have it pulled up now I don't know what I did with it all right sorry folks I was however if you if it's easier for me to share it if thank you because okay I appreciate it thanks just no no problem give me two seconds all right I've got it up to if you want okay you should be looking at the opening page of the BB proposed budget thank you yes okay thank you everyone good evening for those of you who don't know I'm Celeste Willard I'm the chairwoman of the Board of Ed I am joined here tonight with Valerie Bruno our superintendent just in case if I leave any information out but my plan
is to is to present the budget to all of you so as you can see on your screen we have the Board of Education proposed budget for 2425 you'll see at the top our actual budget from 20 3 the adopted budget from 24 for 24 and then the recommended budget for 2025 the first portion of that deals with the teachers these are our increases for salaries these are contractual increases we still have one more year on the certified teachers but again these are our contractual obligations so those are our increases for the the 3% going down again we have an increase for instruction for our special ed we do have some increases with special ed and I'll I'll get to those when we get to that section but again those are contractual increases and that is the the 3% scrolling down a little more you do see in line item
1091 109 1,200 that is the summer school and tutoring for special education that is an increase of $3,900 that is for our extended school year this is different than regular summer school so to speak this is mandated that we have to offer special education in the summer so this is an increase you know we've we've worked hard in the last couple years to keep it at $2,600 but due to increases in the providers that we use and increases in what we as a school are mandated to provide that line item went up so that is the $3,900 and that is the reason for that below that is the noner section those are the noncertified teachers they are up for negotiation their contract is up we have not started the negotiations so those increases are an educated forecast if you
will of of what those increases might be educated estimate estimate of what those increas increases might be and we base those we base those estimates on prior negotiations in the past and what prior contracts have yielded due to those prior negotiations unfortunately those negotiations could go way past the town meeting so we weren't in a position to to not put something in there just because of how long those negotiations take so again those are an educated estimate as what we feel those noner increases will be the getting below to the superintendent C administrative staff and financial services again those are all contractual increases based on the negotiated contracts for our superintendent for our principal and for our Financial Services for our Financial Manager Eric can you just scroll scroll down or scroll up okay thank you you'll see there under benefits we do have an increase of 12.99% you know we are in a the the teachers I'm not but they are in a a healthc care Consortium so the overall increase is 16.5% however their their increase our increase is going to be 12.99 we did factor in people coming off the plan coming on the plan know we do have there might be you know people that are coming on and off the plan so we did factor that in there but that is for the health insurance for the benefits so that is an increase of 12.99% scrolling down just just a little bit Eric can you just scroll just
a little bit yep perfect thanks we did have an increase for our board clerk we have 12 months in a year so we pay her $200 a meeting so that that is why it went up $200 to to pay her for the the 12 meetings that we have so that is for that this is the professional Ed the the special education services that I kind of touched upon again these are these are our mandated Services and we have some of the services that are increasing with what we have to offer are certain testing that we have to increase new equipment and some of the contracted providers that we use for those Services their costs have gone up the only thing that we did not have to increase was the Psychological Services because we do have a grant to cover those increases but that is the the
special ed increases that again that we are that that we are are mandate mandated to to to provide to to our students again the specialed other Professional Services that that's also another increase but again that that goes into the explanation as far as what what needed to be increased with special ad if you you can kind of scroll up now Eric just a little bit actually so still on page two if you look at line item ending in 2621 that is the r&m building the HVAC we did sign we did sign into a service contract with them so it did go up $5,000 we were we were working with this company and then we we were having other services by other companies so we decided to kind of bundle everything into one service plan so by doing that we are are we did enter into this contract we can re-evaluate it in two years but we felt that we were paying a little bit more having other services kind of allart if you will and
by bundling we went with this provider this this this hbac company so that is a an increase of $5,000 on that line item scrolling you can just scroll up just just a little bit Eric we did have so in line item if you see there it's 432 2580 that is the admin technology repair and maintenance that is our contract with Eon they provide they they provide the the technology and the service to the technology for the school we have been very fortunate to subsidize this contract with a grant so although their their contract didn't go up the portion that we have to pay went up because we are now paying the the full amount whereas before we had a grant to kind of help us pay it so it's not that their contract went up it's just that what what our
responsibility now to them went up so now we are paying the the full amount so that's why it went up $116,000 because again we were fortunate enough to have a grant but now that Grant is no longer available so we're we're on the hook now for for the full amount all right transportation we did just sign a a contract with dco and that is why that we have an increase there it's $6500 that is it's a five-year contract with a with a a variable rate if you will so this year the amount that it went up is $6,500 we also have special ed transportation we lease a van through the town and we also have to pay a driver so that cost went up $1,500 because we do have we we have a special ed transportation that we use so that's why that is there everything else if you scroll down just a little bit yep stay right there Eric thanks there's the line item 5601 1200 that is the outplacement outplacement specialed we were paying us $96,000 a tuition and we are no we no longer have to pay that out
placement so we are now saving $96,000 because of that and because of that savings we were able to temper some of other expenses in the budget with that savings so that is that was a big win for us this year that we that were no longer on the hook for that outplacement so we were able to save $96,000 which definitely helped us overall keep our our increases down you can kind of keep scrolling you'll see here that we really don't have any increases to supplies we're very fortunate you know we do get grants we get a r to write Grant we've gotten an after school Grant you know summer summer Grant and with that you can you know obviously get supplies and if you don't use all of those supplies we're able to still reallocate those supplies so that's been been helpful so we were so we didn't see any increases to any of those line items because again we were able to kind of re reallocate supplies that we were able to purchase through a
grant you can kind of keep on scrolling down there Eric if you will I appreciate it yep keep going keep going okay so right here you'll see that we did keep our heating oil which is a line item 624 261 zero we did keep it at 107,000 we did have discussions about this as a board we felt that it's tough I mean it's tough to forecast fuel it's tough to forecast heating oil you know we had a somewhat mild winter this year we had a somewhat even milder winter last year but that's not to say that next year it you know we we won't have a a a a very cold winter we were able to lock in our heating oil price at $22.97 which I we we were very fortunate to do but we really felt that keeping it the same was conservative and it was also also reasonable to do that and if we lowered that and we we have a very cold winter next year we didn't want to have to you know tap into to someplace else to try to cover that so we kept that line item the same and if you keep scrolling keep scrolling down Eric keep going keep keep going I and just kind of just touching upon real quick the superintendent fees and dues those stayed the same you know we're fortunate that Val can split her fees and dues among the the two schools of you know so she splits it with us and she splits it with Scotland the other Student Activity fees and other fees that we have did not increase either so that is the that is our budget you'll see that it's an increase of $3,262 69 which totals out to a 2.67 increase
I think if anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them but those are that's our budget those are our increases and and the explanations as to why any questions from the board members Mark I just had a question so last could you touch on the if there's any changes anticipated in Staffing or just the enrollment side of things I mean great job on presenting the budget and the expenditures it's it's easy to follow so I appreciate that I don't know if either you or Valerie have any thoughts on that I didn't know if I I mean yep and I mean enrollment is increasing it it is but we have not it's increasing at a rate where we don't have to add another teacher or you know add another classroom so it it is growing but we're we're in a good situation where the the class sizes are aren't getting that big but we we are seeing an increase pretty much every every month in enrollment MH no thank you I missed that budget Workshop where you discussed that and sometimes they talk about the number so yep I appreciate that sure Mark can I ask you a question am I allowed to bring up a point I know if am I allowed to do I have to wait to item C under number four I was just going to make an observation because it was discussed a lot tonight
or do I wait till you pinpoint item C under number four under oh forc so the yeah I think you can go ahead and ask about it yeah I mean I think that really relevant I mean we've had the presentation for all tens purposes right so the presentation was great and I mean it and Celeste and I know Valerie has said in the past it's you know some of the expenses they're able to keep down with the hard work they do with achieving grants and and getting grants for the school so we had talked about this a little bit last year so I I understand all of this it might be good in the future if we can all meet together and come up with a template where we kind of say the grants you know and present the grants and the revenue that comes into the school from that versus the this I want to call the gosh there's a word it's not the capital budget this is the the operational budget than you got it week the operational budget so just to kind of see how much there is quite a bit being saved so then you have to roll it
kind of back into the budget and you with all of us you answered it very nicely and presented okay well this and now I totally understand okay this is going up because we used to have a grant for this or so it might be nice to come up with a template that we all agree on it doesn't have you know and I met with Valerie and Terry one time and we had a little piece of paper that we were going back and forth Mark's been involved so hopefully we can do that in the future but I I understood this great but I'll just touch on that as an as an item so maybe we can come forward especially now that we'll have we won't talk about the whole thing but that will have Capital expenditures and so keeping track of those grants and just knowing the town what's coming in that would be great okay absolutely thanks Joanne other questions or comments from the board no just thank you celest that was very well presented and very clear thanks well thanks Bill appreciate it going once yeah I mean just to Echo kind of what Joanne brought up about the about the
grants you know okay I raised this before and I'll say it again but you know the the standard way to present a budget in the financial statements is to show all of your revenues and all of your expenses and that would include any grants you know just as a illustration the U the Yukon technology services that you showed this huge bump in your expenditures it really wasn't a bump in the expenditures or the cost it was a change in the fact that you didn't have that offsetting Grant so normally what would you do is show you know consistently every year 39,000 39,000 39,000 and then you would show in the revenue section an offsetting Grant or however you wanted to show it to show that hey we're really spending close to 40 Grand on this but we're look at us we got this grant it's cool you know sort of offset so that's kind of the value of that of that particular Arrangement it just kind of makes a lot of things clearer and I think it's just you know all around this designates kind of where sorry about hat you're oh where the money's going Etc so that's all okay understood understood other comments from the board questions okay I mean hearing none at this point I think there's really no
particular action to take at this point for us is just really primarily review so it is part of our oversight duties I think it's the board of Finance to review that question things that don't make sense or if if we want to see things differently or we think it would help the town to do something you a different way but you know generally I don't see that we have any concerns at this point I think we're all very fortunate that we're able to keep this increase to less than 3% given inflationary pressures and obviously I think if you if you parse it out it's really probably about a 5% increase in the overall operating expenditures except that it was offset by the decrease in the special ed out placement which you know will take it right because right doesn't always break in our favor still given the inflationary scenario that's that's fairly reasonable I think I don't really have anything else to say if none of the other board members have have any further comments and we can we can move on and if if something should come up Mark I'm available by email you know Valerie you know again if if you think of something you know tonight or tomorrow and you know I'm I'm I'm happy to to answer any questions so I just appreciate everyone's time and thank you for moving this up on the the agenda I appreciate that too thank you yeah appreciate it yeah that goes
for any of the board members obviously you can reach out share any any correspondence in our in our meetings so okay all right I'm gonna log off thank Youk youone a great evening thank you too so going back to the board so we do have the audit review and corrective action plan as I mentioned Eric had a conversation with the auditor separately and learned that we can submit the audit which I think we should do because neither the Board of selectman or the board of Finance had any concerns about the audit itself and then we have up to 30 days to submit the corrective action plan now that's obviously been a little bit of a bone of contention know there's disagreement over the some of the corrective actions that have been proposed there's some discussion about putting in some an outside like a working committee or something to review this and try to come up with a compromise that works for everybody working with the auditor potentially that's still you know under discussion but I think it may be makes sense for
us to kind of table this until we until we get further along on that process does anybody have any questions or comments about that Mark I was just goingon to comment once I appreciate you bringing that to our attention today I think that it's great that we go ahead and submit the audit I mean our town as a whole for the whole audit is moving a lot further ahead I think I mentioned at the last meeting so this is a lot quicker I mean we keep wanting to move forward work all together to come to some kind of resolution that you know everyone can live with and I like you saying there's you know with whatever the reasons and all of that I think it's good if we do have a meeting of certain parties to meet with the auditor because I really do listen to every you know I go to many many Town meetings so like to soak that in and and I'd love to hear what the auditor has to say too about just resolving it and you know putting a few of us at a table I don't you know I would love to be there because I take such an interest and I listen to all the meetings so thank you for that however the compromise is reached and everybody coming together to to make it work I think is a great idea along with the auditor because he's the important one that's going to say
what you know rather than secondhand so that would be great so thanks for that it should be some good gu yeah Kimberly did you have a comment or question I just agree with everything that Joanne said I I think it's a great idea yeah B so would that be another special meeting that we get together to meet with the auditor because I would love to hear what he thinks of the proposed you know action plan so how would that be handled or would that be a like a separ the concept right now is not necessarily to make it a broad public meeting at this point but just kind of a smaller working group to try to you know throw on some ideas so you know I'm not sure how when or if it'll take place but that's that's the concept right now so I I don't want to speak out a turn until you know had a chance to talk to the auditor and the other parties U Board of selectman Board of Education it
was just it's again just potentially part of the approach that would allow us to to do that so you know we'll I think once we kind of get this formulated I'll I'll reach out and let everybody know and then we can kind of figure out who's who's going to step in there and participate okay okay Mark can I can I just add for Bill that's great I mean I think eventually we'll have the auditor at one of our meetings as well Bill like he did the last time you know now that like you said now that we're a little deeper in the process and have been on the board for a while it is good to just
keep increasing the knowledge and having him like you said as the point person so that so I I can appreciate that too like you know we're just we're increasing our knowledge with the process and everything as we go along and we get to hear what he thinks is the best too so yeah sure yep any other input questions from the board yeah I was just gonna say what Joanne just said is that in addition to that I think you should bring in the auditor at some point and just have a a a recap review and probably invite the Board of Ed to that also and have a discussion with the auditor on on that final audit that's something we normally do as part of the the audit process once the audit has been submitted to the state yeah it's true was was that long ago we did it but I guess because we were so late with the last thought and it took we're getting there you know we got to keep this going yeah yeah yeah yeah well as you pointed out it's progress right so better yeah okay y okay well if nobody else has any other comments and you know the next thing on our agenda was the review of the policy
and capital expenditures you know I don't know if anybody has anyut or comment on that you know I think that that's something that again probably want to discuss separately Rob I don't know if you guys had talked about it anymore you know we keep trying to we keep trying to find a time to get together and we haven't been able to yet so I absolutely think we should table it for now because that we really haven't made any progress since yeah that you know prior meeting yeah I mean ideally end up with a work in agreement that everybody's already primed for and understands and is in agreement with so okay anybody else any any comments on that opic sorry here I go again but I just think I think it's good to table it for tonight I think eventually we'll get there on this I know that now that there's going to be a capital Improvement line for oh maybe I'm going this kind of is General is this you know it doesn't are we review discussion on policy on Capital expenditures in general but more or less okay I won't comment then yeah I'm I'm good with tabling it I know we had a few illnesses going around this week so I I don't mind a short you know I'm recovering from something I don't mind a shorter meeting you know once we have open discussion yeah yeah do we need to move to taable it Mark no I don't think so we just let it ride and then you know it's like making a negative motion typically you don't you just you don't
take action and then we can just add it to the next agenda or two weeks or whenever we decide we we're prepared to talk about it right you know we don't have an infinite amount of time so we're going to need to address it but I I don't think we neily need to do take any action on it at this point okay okay well I guess if there's no further action on that topic or discussion then the next agenda item is adjournment are we allowed this will be our record meeting for us but are we allowed to ask about our topics for our next well I guess we have a regular meeting coming up next then we go back to the budget meetings I believe right am I correct the 27th should be a regular Board of Finance meeting is that right oh yeah I guess that would be right right we had hoped that AES and we glad that they were able
to come tonight yeah yeah next week's regular meeting well yeah and then we have a regular meeting I don't know if you want me to wait and then send topics well you can suggest them I mean but you we can do it just as readily to by email or whatever if and that goes for any of the board members just if any of you think about things or you think hey we really haven't talked about this we really need to I'd really like to get this on an agenda or hey something came up that I thought about or somebody asked me about that you know you just want to have as part of an actual agenda item versus a board open discussion you can always email what I would say is to is to email probably myself and Joan and maybe copy Eric and then we'll have some discussion and we can have Kate added to the to the agenda am I
allowed to ask era a budget related question or we stick to because we didn't have budget open discussion well ask your question's it's a real we do a budget workshop on the agenda so I yeah it's pretty generic yeah yeah it's just a a simple question then Eric with the ram I'm I don't have the spreadsheet open but with the ram return of money this year correct to Andover did we I and and I apologize I don't have it open we just have this time so did we see the figure that you have on our budget spreadsheet is it the figure for next year or did you go ahead and already minus that returned money from that figure I would rather see it as two items if we could so if I understand your question what you're saying is that Ram is returning approximately $119,000 last year Surplus to our budget correct that is incorporated in their number and the Ram Board of Ed also so that is the number you see on your budget worksheet already includes that 119 subtracted because basically that's Tak they on their part I I thought maybe you did it but you're saying when they came forward and and I should have studied that a little so you're saying when they presented the number to you they Incorporated it wasn't us taking it out I just well yeah no what you see in
the budget is me subtracting that out based on the final report that they gave us yeah it's in the notes there too it says it includes that so well I did see that but I wanted to know if you know I did see the notes and that's what alerted me to it I'm more of a real figure you know you see it then you say okay they gave because it's thank you think on it no you know additionally Colin replied to me this morning on the basis of the latest Ram meeting they have decreased their budget versus their original ask so their budget as it stands right now is 4,1 15,16 total between their capital budget and their operating budget minus the 119 that's returning to the towns and the way they return it is basically just to reduce it from the levy oh so they don't give us $120,000 and then charge us for it over the year they just reduce their ask in as I recall I I don't study it as much as I used to because it doesn't usually change and I used to spend way too much money on questions but I mean May way too much time but you're right they do though they do show it you're right they have a lie they they do show it there okay did didn't didn't Colin say at the meeting too our last meeting I thought he said they were making more reductions so you're saying they actually added to the budget no I'm saying they did make more reduced okay they add more reduction I just got it this morning so I didn't reshare a new spreadsheet with
no no that's fine but the bottom line is the ram budget item has gone down which right now our percent increase of the mill rate as it stands is about 68 so the mill rate would go up by .21 Ms as it stands currently which is a little bit of a reduction from what it was before thank you I'm assuming since you didn't mention it that he didn't get back to us on the enrollment projection andover's percentage question that I hit him with no no and and funny enough I had asked him that question before and he hadn't really answered me so I'm not I don't know how detailed the information they have from there because they use a service to provide that information for them okay and I know he's gone back to the service and ask
but I don't know you know I'm not from his perspective that's an under the hood question and they have to they would have to give it to him yeah they're yeah so it may take him a little bit of time to generate that but I will follow up with him on that because obviously that is something we have to to sweat a little bit in future years right y sweat more than a little bit maybe y home before the storm sort of stuff right okay anybody have anything else and just one addition I do have some things that I do want to bring up in our next meetings kind of to set the stage for you know when we do look at the we've had our overviews we've we've heard from the school systems now we already know about oh gosh I'm so sorry I'm getting over being ill but the service that we have provided to us that provides us me mental health and different things we know about that budget so yeah I'll have some particular questions that I might want to ask but I'll definitely provide them by email so that when we have our next budget Workshop we can talk about them okay yeah right I move to ajour have I'm gonna give this one to Kimberly because I saw our hand go down same as you Bill and I think that'll probably be one of our first first motions okay first second any discussion okay all those in favor say I I any opposed any extensions okay hearing none thank you very much everyone we'll rejourn next week for a regular meeting hope everything go