Yes. We are recording now. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everyone. And welcome to the end over elementary school board of education budget planning seminar. It is Tuesday, Wednesday, January 17, 2024. And we are here today to talk about the budget this year's budget. Just some ground rules to go over. The purpose of these meetings are to keep everybody informed, to keep the board informed as well as the town of the budget and what goes into every line item. We've decided to kind of break down the budget intersections and we're doing these workshops to, for everybody to get a better understanding of the budget. What goes into the budget and, for importantly, what goes into those line items. Our goal is to have a budget to go on on our regular board of ed meeting, which is going to be on February 14th. We have a 90 minute stop. So these meetings will end at, you know, in 90 minutes. This particular budget meeting, we are going to talk about special education supplies and preschool. And if anyone is interested or has further questions, we have a dedicated email address, AES budget at and over elementary ct.org. So with that, I will hand it over to Valerie, who I believe will kind of recap what we talked about last time and then go into what we're going to talk about tonight. So thank you Shannon. You're just joining us. You didn't miss anything. I opened up the meeting. So if you could just help out with taking the notes, that would be great.
Oh, yes. We've got about that part. Thank you for reminding me. You're welcome. All right. Valerie, without further ado. Okay. Can you see me? We can see you or we can see your presentation. Yes. Right. You can see the screen. That's the most important part. All right. So this is the budget seminar informational for the 425 budget. Mostly in this section. You'll see it's special education. Some supplies. And I'm going to talk about pre-cave. And though some people may be looking at their budget right now going. I have to see pre-K in here. Nope. You don't. But I thought that we need to have a conversation during this particular information about that. So that's where I'm starting. Okay. So to recap session one. We talked about curriculum and instruction in session one. The actual dollar figures very small. It's less than 1% of the overall general funds. So we were really informing more or less what was driving the curriculum and instruction, mandate, special education, things like that. But the overall cost was only about $29,000 in the budget for that section. We talked about the fact that there is a new reading program and that there will be enhancements.
And that they're mandated. But that we're very lucky because looking at the 2425 budget. Those mandates are granted funded, which you never see. So that was something that was a nice change. The curriculum remained robust and strong at every level. We talked about professional developments and the fact that those opportunities are embedded in our calendar for staff and they reflect mandates and new initiatives. SEO related as well as curriculum and instruction. And that all staff were subject to professional development. And I wanted to keep that block in there from session one. Because when we get to talking about salaries that then would definitely be something that comes up again. Simply because more professional development for staff that are 10 month staff is going to mean something in the next session. So because of grant funding in the current year. We had ended our first session with no increase potentials to the curriculum instruction line item. So now when we start to talk about special education, everybody knows this is one that varies from year to year significantly. It's not one that we truly have much control over special education services aren't optional. And of course, we want to provide everything that's needed for our kids. But quite frankly, we really have to look at this from the point of view of the fact that we are legally obligated to. So when we look at our itemized potential expenditures for next year, that's really not an area that we have much control over because of our obligation.
We don't get to look at those lines and say, perhaps we can eliminate a service a supply or a resource at will here, that just isn't one of those that we can do. And all of the services that we currently provide are required services. We don't have any extra things like that that are not something that we use on a daily basis. Without giving too much information away of our students, I can give you some statistics about what our special education looks like here at AES. We currently have 25 students who qualify for IEPs. There's three referrals in the process doesn't necessarily mean we'll go up to 28. It just means that at any given moment in time, when we look at those numbers, we oftentimes are looking at what's called a referral. Which is completely normal in every school district. We have 22 students that have what are called 504 plans. Now, if anybody doesn't know what an IEP is, an IEP is an individualized educational program. It means that it was decided by a team that included parents and educators, other support services. It was decided that there were services that were required for a particular student who had a disability. That's an IEP. And so once that document, which is a legal binding document, is created, again, we're required to provide those services. Now that we don't want to, we do, but we are required. The difference in a 504 plan is a 504 plan and we do try to cover this every year for those people who don't know. The 504 plan is also a legal binding document and it has modifications and accommodations in it for a student who is in need.
But it isn't the same because it's not a student that has a particular label of special education. It could be a situation that's temporary in nature. If a child breaks their right arm and they are right handed when they write. We may potentially have to go to 504 and say, how is this person's program going to look different because they can't write for the next six weeks or eight weeks or maybe it's a severe situation and it may be longer than that. So a 504 plan is again a legal binding document that requires services, but it is not necessarily a child that has been labeled special education. We have 40 kids that also participate in something called SRBI, which is scientifically research based interventions. And what that means is that the particular student may be having a little hiccup in their curriculum or instruction. Maybe the majority of the class has moved on to something and they just require a little extra. I people spend their whole careers really investigating SRBI and knowing the ins and outs, so I don't want to narrow it down to a minute, but in short, I will say that SRBI is kind of like a short term. The situation where we give something that's usually less than 26 weeks where we give something that is extra curriculum and instruction at a higher level to a particular student to kind of get them over that that hump to get them over this situation where they're just having a difficulty. Again, I feel terrible trying to, you know, wind up saying what SRBI is on a matter of a minute or two, but those students, this is the reason why I mentioned that those students are going to change from time period to time period.
So if I had a list right now of 40 kids participating in 26 weeks, it could be 15 kids, it could still be 40, but they're different children. And so we do have to have staff that address those needs, but again, case load could vary from time period to time period. And we do have to plan for that. So although not all preschooler kindergarten students require remediation or intervention, the other thing I feel I need to point out is that it is during preschool and kindergarten that we oftentimes do more screenings observations, consultations just simply because they're younger, they're new. And oftentimes this is what drives us to see, is this a child that might need an intervention?
Is this a child that may need something more, or is this a child that potentially winds up red flag for potential learning disability? So I say that because a lot of times people don't understand when we look at kindergarten and we say we had 10 screenings, but we didn't wind up with 10 students that required an IEP or 504, they're like, hmm, explain what happens here, why do you have somebody that. And had that many tests to do, it's because it's it's us doing our job here within the building to make sure that the identified red flags are addressed. We also do receive students in our pre K and. Next year are our our pre school and our pre kindergarten program, we do receive students through program called birth to three let me close this door one second just so you don't hear the vacuum. birth to three is a program where families might have already sought out. Some services for their infant or toddler and the birth to three program then will make recommendations to the school when the child comes in at three years old. And we then would implement them and continue with monitoring and servicing the child from birth to three on through early intervention we've always said is vital and I think one of the best things and overdid was to make sure that we had the capacity to address our kids earlier. So what types of services do we provide I think this is important for people who either don't have school-aged children or have never had a child in their home in need of services.
General academic services to meet the goals with a regular special education teacher a regular teacher math reading any sorts of those things. So sorry for the interruption at least we know the custodians working on cleaning the room. Sorry. We require in some cases social work services and so we definitely have to provide those to our students here. We have occupational therapy which we call it OT that's what occupational therapy is physical therapy. We provide psychological services and testing. We provide speech and language and SLP is a speech and language professional. Paraprofessional assistance to students who need that. Busing would fall under here because very often times that is part of a program for a child and it could be through an IEP and it could be through the 504 process. Either way, busing is often something that falls under the umbrella of special education services.
Whether it's to another facility or to our own. Out placement services when they are necessary. Adaptive technology which means that sometimes there are students that need specialized things specialized pencils specialized computers specialized desks. Anything where we have to adapt the technology that we currently use with our traditional students. And I put nursing services on here. We won't be looking at the nurses specifically until we get to the salary section, but we do have certain students within the building that require things of our nurse that other students do not. And therefore that would be a special education service. So when we look at, you know, how do you figure out Valerie year. Um, exactly if you have the right mix of ours for these professionals like how do you know if you need a full-time person, a part-time person. Um, somebody that you hire out. We look at those IEPs. We look at the 504s. We look at who the students are that are currently being serviced by our professionals. And we say, we'll next year bring about the same thing.
We'll bring about more hours, less hours, a different professional kind of where we are with this. Currently, if I look at our legally binding documents or 504s and our IEPs, I know that there's a total per week of 81.5 academic hours where they need to work with somebody other than the classroom teacher. We know that there are 23.5 hours right now anticipated for next year where they need to work with a speech and language provider. 12 hours where they need to work directly with the psychologist. 6.5 for a social worker. 8 hours for occupational therapist and 4 hours for a physical therapist. Now, I put this slide first. These are the direct service hours.
And no matter what field you're in, you all know that there are the hours where you actually do your job. And then there are the hours that you have to do all of the other things that are associated with your job. And for these service providers, what does that look like? They look like this. In addition to the time when they are physically one on one with the child or two on one, whatever it is that that they have on the binding document. These are the other things that those providers need to do to prepare to service the children. They have to attend those meetings, the PPT meetings, the planning and placement team meetings. Now to particular student, there could be one year, there could be multiple year, there could be 80 year depending on whether or not it's it's a new student here, depending on if changes need to be made to accommodate those students. Screenings. Evaluations and testing. Written documentation and reports. Classroom observations and communications to parents or to other service providers. Other responsibilities. And then things like to train classroom staff on implementation. So if there is a particular method that they are utilizing to address a student that accommodation or modification, they need to make sure when they aren't there with the child. That everybody else that comes in contact with them knows exactly what the game plan is and that if there's adaptive technology, for example, that they know how to utilize the adaptive technology.
And so all of these other hours. They can vary from student to student depending on the needs, but all of these other things are worked into and in addition to these hours. So somebody could say, well, Valerie, I see only 12 hours for a psychologist. Why do you have a psychologist three days a week? Well, because when you add those 12 hours to these things, that would be the amount of time that we need to provide. I can assure you that we absolutely don't have a single service provider. That is not utilized fully to their capacity. I think we actually could. Could easily say we need lots more hours for any of them, but realistically speaking, you know, they have a lot of other things that they need to do over and above just service the children directly. Okay, so jumping right in what areas or where can we find special education in the general fund budget and we all know every month.
You know, as I said, every month last time we get this document, this is our financial report and when we look at the financial report, we see it in two ways. We see the short version that Terry gives us, which is only two pages and that's just like the headlines, the highlights categories. And then she gives another one, which is roughly 10 or 11 pages long and that one then breaks it down a little bit further. This right here, because I want to kind of give anybody who's interested in looking a little bit of tidbit of information as to where they could see it. So you'll notice that it all starts with numbers 002 throughout our whole budget in and over elementary school, the first three numbers are 002. The next row in the account ID tells you kind of the overall category if it's a 101 it's salary. That's going to be no matter what the next numbers are that follow it the 101 is salary. If you look at the third column in the fourth column on the umbrella here, it's 0000 or 00. But when we get a little bit more specific, you will see hang on one second, let me go back, you will see that the third column really will tell us. With a little bit more certainty looking at that is a special ed item is it something that is maintenance related. Is it something that is insurance related. So as we go through here, I'll point that out to you so that anybody who is looking at our budget at home will certainly be able to pinpoint those and not have to go back to this to find the exact numbers.
So this is page one the yellow highlighted ones we had talked about last time the orange highlighted ones on this slide are where you would find things related to special education. And the second page there's only one and that computer section might include things like that adaptive technology or specialized applications that need to be put on certain students devices. So let's take a peek. These would be the categories. If you're looking at our budget, you'll notice 002's word starts. We have two sections of 101 and you'll see one of them, the third section I highlighted here in reds that you can see 1200. 1200 is always special education in our budget. So the 1200 spot there, if you're looking at our budget, those are special education teachers. Because we're talking about some things that's like I said adaptive technology, which falls under tech first and then adaptive. That next number would be different. So if you look these up, you'll see that I have more than half of them here than are 1200s. But then I have a few in here where there are some special education stuff, but it's not a 1200. But as we go through if anybody has any questions when I get to the end, let me know, but I gave you this slide so that you could find them without a problem in our current budget. So the things that we always say it's an itemized expenditure is what a real budget is for the following year. It truthfully is us trying to take what we know the information that we know and plan for the next year, even though we all know that sometimes unexpected things happen. One of the ways we did that as I said was to look at those IPs and say this is what we definitely know unless the child moves or unless we get a new one or unless they're planned changes.
Here are some other things that we have to look at as well. Those IPs, those individualized educational plans, they renew on an annual basis, which means every single year, we have to have a meeting by law. We have to sit down as a team with the family and not only update them, but look at how well this plan is working. Doesn't need to be adapted in some way. Every three years by law, we have to have what's called a triennial review. And a triennial review requires us to do a lot more comprehensive testing than we would any other year. And I mentioned that because the school is small as us, we don't have all of those test takers necessarily on staff. And so sure, if there's psych testing the needs to be done, we do have a psychologist that works here part time.
If it's social work, testing the needs to be done, again, we have somebody part time. But every once in a while, the comprehensive testing will require us to have something that's not necessarily the norm. And we will have to go out to consult and say, hey, we don't normally do that. So we will have to go to somebody and it's usually somebody that we've consulted before. And that may be something that will be added to our anticipated expenditures for the next year. So this special end department works really hard to make sure that going into the planning of this budget. We absolutely have those numbers. They say, hey, you know, Holly, Val, Taylor, don't forget this person's triennial review is coming up. And it's going to require this and this and we say, got it. New equipment this year. We do know that we have some visually impaired students and that there is some equipment that will be required for them. Some of it, we actually rent some of it. We can get with no cost through a state agency. But other times it's stuff that we again are required to purchase to make sure that those students have the resources that they need.
Also do have a physically handicapped student that we can anticipate not necessarily every year, but certain years sizing out of equipment. I say it's like when you have the little tiny chairs for the preschoolers and then they get older and we have to give them bigger chairs and then bigger chairs when they get to sixth grade. Unfortunately, same thing happens with some of our equipment, especially if it's adaptive in nature for special education students. It will require us to replace that because the child or children using that equipment has sized out of it and oftentimes that's expensive. So we do our best to try to get that on loan or to rent it if that is more cost effective, but it's not always the case. And then we do have to anticipate that because those service hours increased, there's going to be some slight increases to some of our service providers just simply because of additional time not necessarily their rates going up, but because there's additional time required. Salaries are contract, but we know that the teachers contract, they have one more year left to their contract. So that line is fairly easy for us to anticipate for next year because the 2425 budget year we do already know that contract is set for teachers to be renegotiated in the fall. So at the end of next school year, this time next year, when we are anticipating what the budget will look like for 2526. Then we may see some estimated changes because we're not going to be sure we're going to have to go by whatever the trend is.
We do have the non certified which is paraprofessionals nurse secretary and custodians that contract is going to be. Negotiated fairly soon and that one is for the 2425 school year budget. So the ones we know here when we look at the 101 1200 special ed teacher line, all of our special it says teacher or single singular, but it's plural. So our special ed teachers we know what the increases contractually to that line. It's $7,090 for next year for everybody who falls under that line combined. We do know the 102 line there, which is the next block down. Will be an anticipated increase of 2620 and when we go down to the 106 line, which are the subs for those people. The anticipated increase would be a thousand dollars. Now understand we do have a very set rate for substitute teachers. However, we kind of do have to estimate based on the information that we have because when a staff member has a life event hypothetically has a life event and they're going to be out.
If they have sick time vacation time personal time, they still get their regular paycheck and in addition to that, then we are covering a person to come in and substitute for them. So if you make $500 a week and you are out all week, you still get paid $500. And then somebody else coming in to cover for you receives a paycheck. So if we know of anyone who will be out on leave due to a family circumstance due to medical circumstance due to a child birth, those are things that we do have to anticipate for the long term, not a day or two, but for the long term. So that always plays a factor as well. Okay, so sometimes people like kind of get confused with summer school versus summer camp during the summer cool program, things that we've gotten grants for summer school, it's called yes why extended school year extended school years for only a few students. Going back to those IEPs, their students that for whatever reason in their IEP, it is required that we continue some or all of their services over the course of the summer otherwise it would be detrimental to them to come back in the fall with that big of a gap from the end of the school year to the start of the school year.
This is every school district, this is not unique to end over and so we do have to make sure that those services are provided during the summer and again you'll see we've always had a very small budget of 2260 because our needs were not significant for yes why. We do have a few students that their IEPs now require us to have some more services in the summer for them and they are mandated that isn't optional for us. We also because it's required even if we have a grant for like everybody knows we did last year we will this year to have a camp with cool. That isn't a service that can go through that grant you can't put through somebody who is offering speech services to a student once or twice a week it's it's two different things we still have to provide the speech services for that particular student whether they participate in that program that's funded.
Through a grant or not so it does require us here in that 109 section to put a small increase in there. Three I need students have a $3900 increase in our estimation to the 109 line item and the total increase then would make this 6940 so if we added the 2260 and the 3900 this is where we would wind up so. And that is to our best guess let's hope that this is I'm going to be enough but if I look at what I know right now I think it will be. Okay, contracted service providers contracted service providers are not in one of our unions so they're not under the instructional salaries where teachers are located in the budget so we're looking at the 320s here so there's there are two 320s. You'll notice under the 1200 which is special education we have the professional ed services but then we also have psych services OT PT and I didn't highlight the bottom one because their professional services for the board. These very significantly when I first came here we actually didn't have many students at all at that time four years ago that required physical therapy and I know that. My the very first budget which was the former super budget that I came in working on that line was less than $3,000 but since then some of the needs of our special education students that have come in that we've been able to service within district instead of outside of the district.
And so when we look at those IPs we're looking at. respectively here five thousand eight thousand and seven thousand dollar increases to three of those four lines the only one that won't require an increase. is psych services and the reason being our school mental health grant that we received this year will cover that through next school year so I say that because I do want you guys to understand that it's not that we have no increase to psych services. is that they're being funded someplace else and so next year that would definitely when the grant is over at the end of next school year that would definitely be an area that you could expect to see increases they're just covered right now and so there isn't a reason for me to add them in. When we must consult or hire a particular service provider that's not on staff that's that line right there that you just we just talked about in terms of 1200 it's 340 1200 and it's special ed other professional services. BCBA which is a behaviorist we don't have one on staff we don't normally need one on staff. Somebody to come in as I mentioned adaptive technology we don't have an adaptive tech person on staff full time so that may be a potential consult.
It's 4,000 a year that's about a thousand every quarter and so it is not a significant increase but it is an increase for us maybe something down the road that we do have to consider potentially seeing if maybe one of our neighboring towns who has a part time person. We may consider some kind of a contract to share service with them if that number comes up but now for $4,000 a year it didn't seem prudent for us to. Try to sign a contract for a whole school year so we do this on a case to case basis. In increase of $1,500 you'll see transportation here it's the same line item but it's 0000 or regular transportation in 0009 for spend transportation.
If a student attends an out placement program we do have to provide transportation. If there is a student with handicap needs that attends AES we do need to provide transportation as well and we currently rent one of the towns buses we pay the driver we pay the gas and we rent one of the vehicles for the wheelchair accessibility. So this line is for multiple children but it does need to go up by $1,500 to accommodate that because we hadn't had a fully signed contract with the town to know what that cost was going to be a year ago. And so now that we do know this line does need to go up by $1,500. Good news is that this next section we have a big savings too so I've had to give you a little bad news along the way that we're going to have increases here and there.
The magnet schools I know we talked about this at a town meeting either last year that year before there was somebody that was actually surprised they didn't realize. If there is a student that is an and over resident and they attend a charter or magnet school not a Catholic school or appropriate school not a private school but if they opt to go to a charter or a magnet school. It is our responsibility to pay the tuition that's again universal across the state and so I've heard people say well that's silly we would have had to educate them if they came to AES so we are still responsible for educating them their tuition cost in another district. Their regular education and special education costs we are responsible for just like we would if they came here to AES. I've seen these budgets huge in in small towns before and it's very difficult right now we have 18,000 in that line for magnet schools and charter schools fall under it as well. Normally I would say that we would have to go up but there is a piece of legislation right now that could make it so that it's a zero increase for us with the goal at the state level of actually allowing us to get a reimbursement for that hasn't passed yet.
But whether it's you know our budget or ramps budget next year that will be an area that we'll look at as potentially a reduction if that legislation passes. The out placement and special ed costs we knew that we had a couple of significant tuition payments here for various students. We had a reduction to this line for next year of 96,000 so it won't be 170 in there it will be 74,349 so this was huge for us in this particular line. And you'll notice another twelve hundred under travel for three hundred dollars down there it's five eighty twelve hundred that won't change. That doesn't need to stay in there even though some years we don't use the three hundred dollars people say that's silly why isn't in there then because by contract. If one of the special ed teachers and tens a workshop outside of AES they are allowed to put in for that and so we do have to keep that in there because if it isn't covered by some other source so grant or something else. We would have to provide that and so for accuracy we've kept that in there. So the six tens here all the way down these are supplies and I know we wanted to take just kind of a quick look at the general supplies area as they pertain to special ed. So we looked at the instructional supplies but there are some special education that are in the general supplies. We need increases for them but I do want you to see where they are I know Terry and I have talked before to the board about kind of consolidating some of the grade ones the K one two three four five six.
I've been 400 dollars and put it all together because so often we buy things for the school but I wanted to just point out to you that. Partway down in the middle I put an X next to it because it didn't come out orange I don't know why. It's six ten twelve hundred zero zero zero zero zero that thirty six hundred dollars now that cannot go into curriculum and instruction. However because at the end of the year we have reports that need to be filled out for the state where we have to itemize what our special education costs are. So the instructional supplies for special ed even though it's only thirty six hundred in the budget they have to remain separate.
The same thing there with social work and you'll see a little further down psych and speech and OT. They seem like not that large of supplies but we do need to separate it so that when we run that report we can give an accurate number to the state of what our excess cost was as a result of special education so those will always remain there. Okay so preschool. If you look to the whole budget you know that there are no line items for preschool. We've been very lucky since the inception of preschool full time here at AES that we were able to take advantage of school readiness grant funding. And smart start school funding. That's huge not every district has school readiness and smart start some have one some don't have any. We also are a tuition based school sliding scale but a tuition based program so. Historically we had no expenditures for preschool in the general fund budget at all in other words it was self sufficient it ran itself at paid for itself. This year we added back a third preschool out of need to accommodate our own and over children. We knew that we were going to be full and we were getting some of those as I mentioned before birth to three students and we had no place to put them. So we knew that we had to add back a third classroom and that is the largest growing population of and over students in the town all the way through grade 12. We are looking potentially to expand again however it is way too early for us to know if we would be able to expand and still be self sufficient with tuition alone.
So him didn't hold on this one didn't know if it was something that we wanted to put in as a potential expenditure but I didn't even know what we'd put in there. So instead because we won't really know until late spring when registration comes in it'll be more accurate than but it won't even be 100% accurate until the school year starts. So we'll already be you know two months into the budget season I mean to budget the new fiscal year. If we had unused slots that were available to our extended program we could fill them without a towners and those out of towners would be full tuition rate. Our current rate is $600 so that would be $6,000 for a student if they were here full time for the whole year. So we really can't you know with full transparency add that line item right now because we really do not have enough information or data to know what we would put in there. I know we've talked to the board about what the worst case scenario would be this year in our current year. If between now and the end of the year we aren't able to secure more grant funding or we don't have full tuition payers so we've talked about that at another meeting.
If next year we face the same thing and there are no other revenue sources if need be that is an expenditure that the 2% nonlops can account could be used for. So rather than putting in a number that we really do not have accurate information for and going to leave that out. And I feel confident that next year then in the 24 or 25 school year we would have a good trajectory of where we're going with preschool to know. This time next year if we needed to add that section or not so I didn't want to put it in for the sake of putting it in. So the overall anticipated increases now that we've looked at this section is if you add together all of the areas that I told you we would have potential increases due to the increase of service hours due to the salary increases for the special education line items. That added up to 44,550 dollars roughly. You want to hold me to that number till we run them perfectly. But then if we might as that $96,000 decrease that we will definitely have in that line item for out placement and special ad tuition.
This particular section to the budget we should see it overall decrease of 51,450 dollars. So that's the good news because the first section that we looked at with our first informational budget seminar. We're anticipating zero percent in terms of those increases. This one we're anticipating a decrease of 51,000. So I hate to have a spoiler alert but the most expensive things are always in every budget salaries and insurance. So that'll be at another time here but we're in good shape. We really are in good shape here and so we've gotten a little bit of less in terms of loss of expenses not being replaced with other expenses. So that's what that looks like. I can go back to any slide if anybody has any questions.
This once again, as Celeste mentioned at the beginning and I'll have it at the end of every workshop here, AES budget, any end of elementary CT.org. I can tell you that we didn't get any correspondence from the last one to this one. I looked five minutes before we started tonight and so I welcome anybody to send whatever they need to do this particular one. So is there any questions where I need to before I stop sharing where I need to go back to a slide. I'm not sure if any of you have specific questions. Do you have a couple questions? I don't know that we need to go to a slide but I guess my first question is. On the preschool I know you said that's generally self sufficient. We're not adding it into the budget but I guess my question is for transparency. Why I guess why wouldn't we include the costs of the program and then the money that we're getting from the grants and tuition. Into the budget. Yes, I mean, yes. Well, the budget is itemized expenditures from the general funds and the reason why it's never been a part of this budget. I understand like we're not voting on it but I would just think that we would want to show. The town like what we're doing to offset costs as well, right?
Actually, it's funny that you say that because you're our newly raised on to the school readiness council and I see Taylor smiling over there. That is actually one of the things that you guys do at those meetings. So you'll have those reports to bring back to the board. Because remember, we didn't have a school readiness liaison from the board last year. So now that we do, bring those reports are given at those monthly meetings and if you want. If you bring them with you or I can get a copy for you, we'll start adding them to the minutes every month when you do an update for the school readiness liaison and that's a great idea. So we'll just add those school readiness reports, redacted if they spoke about a particular student or family. But yeah, absolutely we could do that.
All right. Like their financial report. Yep. Go ahead, Bram. Sorry, go ahead. No, you can go. I'm good. Okay. What is the 90, what is the reduction? What is the 96,000 dollar reduction? What is that? Special ed tuition. Remember, every time a student is. So was that student timed out or aged out? I know you can't speak. We know. We have to pay that tuition. Okay, we no longer have to pay that tuition. Okay. Okay. Any more. Got it. Okay. For next year. Okay. And then. I know that we were. I know that for the certified teachers, we know exactly what they're going to be making because that's contractual. So we know that for this year's budget. And I know that we are going to be negotiating the non-sert. So we are. I'm assuming that we're not going to know what those numbers are going to be by the time we vote on the budget or is that wishful thinking.
We probably will not know because negotiations begin after February 14th. Okay. We may know prior to the town meeting in the referendum. And if you're trying to be a significant difference one way or another. That's something we could talk to the Board of Finance about making an adjustment on. Okay. But she was really speaking. We didn't. Terry and I didn't put no increase into this budget. We looked at what their increase was last time. What the trend is right now in the state to the region. And we looked at what the teachers increase for this year was because most of the time they mirror one another. For the most part, not necessarily always, but. And we, we use, you know, the the best accurate estimate that we could there. Union has. Team people in it. And so. Thankfully, that's not as large as the teachers union. So if they're. Okay. I haven't see it's not going to be as big. Okay. So, but if there is if there is a big discrepancy, once things are negotiated and settled, then we'll have to bring it to the Board of Finance to adjust it. Okay. So it's just based off of trends, what you're seeing, what what their increase was last time and then it was made an estimate and educated estimate if you will.
Okay. And then just getting back to the the the 504s and the IEPs. And this is just just for my own kind of education. The way you explain to 504 and it kind of sounds like it's almost kind of circumstantial like that 504 like like the example you gave if some if they broke an arm. And but eventually that arm's going to heal and then they won't need those those services. So so yes, that is. That is some of the. Okay. Okay. Other 504 students that. And I'm not speaking about even just AES now, so as I'm just speaking in general, so that we're not, you know, giving away any any nation. In the past 30 years, I have had students that were actually given a label from a doctor. But because whatever disability was they had it could have been an academic situation, it could have been a social emotional situation, it could have been a physical handicapped situation. Because of whatever it was they were diagnosed with it didn't interfere with the acquisition of the curriculum instruction in the classroom, it didn't necessarily require.
The depth of an IEP. Is the best way that I could describe somebody so you could have a student for example that has a label of 80D. They could have an IEP because of other circumstances, they could have a 504 they could have nothing. It depends on each case, it depends on whether or not they're able to access what was on in the classroom. Whether or not they're able to access the curriculum and instruction without assistance or it's a smaller level of assistance. I actually 10, 15 years ago my career I had somebody who was diabetic who had a 504 because the the accommodations and modifications that they've required with that particular diagnosis were extreme. And so I probably didn't even know that I had 50 other kids in my career that were diabetic that didn't ever require a 504, but this one did. Because you don't care feared with this right in a daily basis. So can a student can a student come off of an IEP or come off of a 504? Okay, so it's not forever, it's not forever. So with that though then it's really you know you do obviously you know the students that you have now but there might be students that are coming in and then there might be students that are on one of those, but then doesn't need it anymore. So those costs fluctuate from you know during the year okay and then just the the the triennial review so you said all IEPs are reviewed annually and then there's a triennial review. So is the triennial review all of the IEPs like together or is it or is it. So and so let's say your child Mary is this year put on an IEP.
They go through the process the referral process it's determined that because of your child's disability they require these accommodations modifications additional services and an IEP is given to you. During that process the last we will have tested your child to determine that three years from now we're going to use that as our baseline and test your child again three years from we're going to do it again. Every three so the dates are different so there are. Yes so there are. Who's triennial review of the 25 kids with an IEP some years maybe is only two if you're like okay we're not going to require a whole bunch of maybe this is the year we have 20 of them. So that's you have to look because oftentimes they do require extended more comprehensive testing that maybe we don't have on staff. Because so. Okay and what and and that leads me to my next question what what would be some examples of that testing that we that we don't have. So and again we look at those dates so before we did these numbers we looked at the dates and said how many kids have triannels this year. So I'm how many do I'm sorry. I have that okay okay okay okay but what are some of the examples of like the testing that we don't have like in house that that that we need to outsource that we need to contract with. Behavioral assessments at higher level you know if we need somebody in the building to do. What they call FBA functional behavioral assessment we can do that here. If we have a situation where which child is exhibiting.
Behavioral needs that are beyond the one person here that could do testing they may say it's kind of like a doctor you go to your your physician your general physician. And then they say hey I've been doing this 30 years but this is your heart so last you got to go to a cardiologist and you may need a cardiologist once in your whole life so. There's not one in your doctor's office you're going to have to go see somebody else. So behavioral things. Students with physical handicaps it may require. As I said we don't have a person here who's primary job is dealing with students with visual impairment and blindness. So that would be another situation where we would have to get somebody from the outside. Sometimes it is a situation where the testing has to be performed for on a student in another language if they're first language is nothing. So I have to do know what I mean so. Yeah, every situation is different if we knew 100% sure everybody would have those people on staff so. It does vary. I would say that during the course of a given gear tell sugar head yes or no during the course of a given year here at AES we probably have three to four situations where we might have to go outside and have somebody.
Come in and do some kind of ten. That's not about right Taylor three to four here. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Not two percent. Okay. Just just curious. Okay. Those were all the questions that I have. Mike or Shannon, do you have anything. This is Shannon. I just was curious. I know that we used to have an idea that or just an average that an average cost of a magnet or charter school tuition was about $5,000 a year that we would pay for that student to go. Do you just I know we can't say per student but do you have an average of what that looks like so is 18,000 three students going or five students going. So it would be if that average Shannon that's a good question that average would be three for 18,000 because a couple years ago you're right tuition was pretty much a flat five depending on where the kids went. Now it's pretty much a five to seven and again understand that if a child requires anything else while they're at that school we also have to accommodate that. Yes, 18,000 would be for for it estimated three. Thanks. And if a child from and over goes to a private school or a profile school we don't pay for the tuition because that family assuming that family's paying the tuition the private tuition.
Yes, I don't do private school tuition. Okay. Okay. But just know the magnet murder schools start in kindergarten. So there are and over residents that attend charter magnets schools that are in kindergarten and I say that because sometimes people look at our budgets and say well their numbers never seem to change in that line item. Right. Because they're hanging in there. They're there. Yeah. Second third. Right. Right. Jerry, do you have any questions or might you have any questions and then I'll open it up to for public comment. Can't hear you, dear. How's that? Perfect. Thank you. I have no questions. I think Valerie did a great job of explaining it and unfortunately it's nothing you can fool around with.
Right. You you have to supply that service if it's required. Right. And so it's really it is what it is. Right. Yep. I'm all said. I don't have any questions. I've lived through them. Thanks, Jerry. Mike. Mike. Mike. Are you there? Do you have any questions for Valerie? Yeah. I'm also in my end. I think I'm I'm I'm good in regards to the section. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Make it a little bit easier. Understand. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Mike. Okay. I saw Kimberly person. But now I don't see her now. I'll open it up to the public comment. Okay. I don't know where she she went. Okay. One last thing. But before we go that I didn't mention in the beginning is that all of these slides will be posted. I will be posted on the school website under the DOE under budgets. I know that Valerie and Taylor are working with our web page designer to put that tab on, to put these slides on because there is that they have to go through and make sure that they're ADA accessible.
So there is some finagling that has to happen. So it's not as easy as Valerie and Taylor just opening up the website and putting it on there. They're working with the with east kind of do that. So but if anybody were to send it email to the AES budget at Androbra Elementary CT dot org and request those slides. I'm sure Valerie you would you would give them to them. So does anybody hearing no other further comments? I think we're good. Valerie. Thank you for your time. And we will see everybody next Wednesday for our next budget meeting and the topic will be. We'll be at that point. We'll be salaries and benefits and insurance. So thank you everyone. Have a great evening. What's that? The tougher. The tougher one. Thank you everyone. Have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you.