the cloud. Huzzah. All right. Thank you, Kate. Appreciate it. All right, all sorry about all of that. a little technical difficulties. I'm still admitting people, by the way. So, I'm going to give it a minute even though we're late. I'm sorry, but I'm going to give it one more minute. as I admit people because we had a little snafu here. just FYI, as as board members know, you know, Liz is on a cruise. She can't make it, but also Jeff Magcguire texted to say he's traveling and has flight delays and cannot make it. So,
just one of those nights. it is. And because of that, I I think I stupidly didn't think to myself that I had to sort out all the credentiing thinking Jeff would be here. You know,
my fault. So, we'll we'll sort it.
In any event, I think it looks like we've got people admitted. Hopefully, that's everybody. We're recording. So, I'm going to say at 7:17 p.m. our special board meeting on March 4th, 2026, we'll begin. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag states of America
nd to the republic stands,
one nation,
one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
So, as you know, our meeting is very simple. We're going to do a round of public speak and then we will get to our presentations. we're going to go Wall-E first and Val second. So, okay. So, let's look here. let me just go through this. I'm going to go through the people for public speak just based on what I see on my screen here with participants. So, I'm going to start with Jerry Cr.
Hi everyone. It's good to be here. Thank you for keeping with the meeting and even though it didn't fly right for you to start with, thank you, Robert. Appreciate it. I'd like to be here just to listen and I want to support the board of education buck budget and I also since Molly is here, I assume he's here for the fire department,
correct? And I I also support what the firemen need, the fire department, and I trust these people who have put together the budgets and hope that you will support them.
Thank you, Jerry. And you got anything while you're here?
I'm just here listening to see what's been going on.
Okay, fair enough. Anna, I'm not going to take the chance of trying to pronounce your last name because I know I'll screw it up.
You might be you might be muted.
yeah, for those who want to speak. Oh, there you go.
There we go. It was taking a while to load. Hello. I'm some of you may know me, some of you may not. I'm a new resident in town. I've been living here oh gosh, is it almost two years now? I think it will be. almost two years. And I'm just here to listen, I guess. see what's going on with the school. I have two little ones. I I did have some questions on the proposed school budget. So, I don't know if I should ask now or just general questions or if I should ask after the superintendent speaks perhaps. I just don't know what would be best.
The difficulty is our our our agenda only has public speak at the front end. Normally, our meetings have it before and after. So, I would suggest if you could encapsulate them as quickly as you can to throw them out there now and hopefully Valerie could take notes and respond to them.
Sure. I I guess I had a question about the school psychologist. I don't know
hat's being recommended. And then yes,
that's listed as a salary for for 90,460. and then later on in the actual budget previously I think it says it was listed as psychological services at like 45 and 46 in 2025 and 2026 adopted. So, I'm just looking for an explanation on that on what those entails compared to what it is for 90 and where the numbers are coming from. and then we had a question actually about superintendent actual salary and cont.
Can we mute people?
Sorry, not you. Cool. I just had a general question about just the superintendent salary and contract and increases and I guess when that was approved or went before a public vote. I just so there was that. I you know there's an increase it looks like in a public librarian for the school by like 35,000. Just basically explanations as to why certain things are increasing. okay.
I guess I could go line by line, but it's just in order for me to go line by line, it would take me a long time.
It would take too long. But I think we're going to get some of that from Val. And then
you know, at the end of the meeting, I may I may see if I may check in again, but right now I think we get the gist and
I'm just open to hearing. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. So, we have some some other folks. Caitlyn, you're here, the chair of the board of ed. Do you have commentary at this point?
Hi. Can you guys hear me? Okay.
Yep.
Okay. so a couple comments back to what you mentioned, Anna. I don't know if you've been able to listen to the board of ed budget meetings, that are recorded. but answers to a lot of your questions are explained in that and have gone over in detail at our budget meetings that were prior to this. I'm here to support the school board budget. and also to support our superintendent. also wanted the board of finance to be aware. I know you guys have had discussions about, you know, how how do we get more money for our town and and potentially looking at
increasing tuition costs for people that pay tuition. I think that it's a slippery slope and you as a board probably need to think about how you approach and look at ECS dollars and how they are applied. in the past they have been applied to the town budget so that the town budget comes out $2 million less. and I think potentially maybe as a town you guys need to look at applying those on a per student level to both RAM and AES. but that's obviously not my purview. So just throwing that out there. Thank you.
Okay. okay. So, let's go on.
May I follow up quickly? I'm sorry. I just know Caitlyn asked just I'm happy to go listen to those board of ed meetings. If I do have follow-up questions, do I direct them to the board of ed to the board of finance? Who do I direct them to specifically?
I would go boards and the board of ed and the superintendent.
Yeah. And and the other thing to mention and this is this is a very simple thing but people may not know this fully the board of eds meetings are when you want to look at them on YouTube or what have you. They're on the andover the AES website.
Yeah. The schools.
Yeah. No, it's not always clear. So on the town side, you'll have our meetings and the board selectman.
Yeah.
And if you want to look at a board of ed meeting, you got to go to the town school website, which bizarrely, as somebody who has been involved in this so long as I have, I messed up one night. So, just FYI. okay. no worries, Joanne.
Here to listen. Thank you.
Cool. All right. Let's see. Linda.
All set. Just here to listen.
Okay. we have our town treasurer, Lisa. I mean, I I I'll open it up to you, but I think you're here to to to help us out more than to speak, but go ahead
Okay,
I was muted. Sorry. I just didn't know if you are
I don't have any questions right now. I am here to listen, but I did get a call from the library, so there's a little bit of a change. just to let everybody know that called and there's a little bit of a library change. I think it goes back to that the process of putting the grant before the be the before the horse and the cart before the horse kind of thing. But I guess you guys have to tell me where you want that grant money to come out of because there's two line items and I don't know which one to take it out of what they want. So,
okay, we may get to that. We'll see.
Yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to let you know they called concerned and and so you know just to let you know there's a little bit
we got to get the library right. We we have we have messed that up before and I don't want that to happen again for sure.
Yep.
Ron
othing to comment on.
Okay. Thank you sir. Sharon.
Hi just here in support of the AES budget and our superintendent. Thanks.
Thanks, neighbor. All right. and then we have Valen Wallally, who we'll be hearing from shortly. So, I'm gonna skip you guys because you're going to be talking to us at length. I If anyone here want you know that I missed, I've gone through the the list here, but if you want to raise your hands if I missed you, go ahead. Otherwise, I'm going to move on with the meeting. 5 4 3 2 1. Okay. Mr. Wall-E, let's talk about the fire department.
Well, let's call it the fire commission budget.
Fair enough.
Okay.
our increase this year is very small. It's 1.5%. We've basically moved some money within the budget. You did get the breakdown of the budget that I sent through to Kate. So you don't just have the bottom line figure.
Yeah, I I got a bunch of emails today, so bear with me. But yes, I believe we do have it.
Okay. I'll get down with the changes basically and then if you have any questions specific to any of the line items, I can address those. We reduced the vehicle maintenance line item since we have a truck that's less than 5 years old and one that's brand new. So, we figure our maintenance costs are going to be down this year. And we moved that money, the 5,000 basically to office supplies. And that is because our reporting system, the national fire incident reporting system, Eners, is gone. And there's a new system that has taken over and that is for reporting all fire responses and handling all the EMS reports for all the ambulance calls. And
that has significantly increased. The fire department, I believe, through the ambulance billing fund is paying for half of that and we're going to have to pay for the other half of this new program to be installed, all the software that comes with it. And it's a lot more expensive than what we were paying for the regular NFERS. And the other item that we increased was training. We've got some new young people that are very enthusiastic and they're willing to take the state sponsored courses and these courses are not free. The other part of this is that we've taken advantage of the Eastern Connecticut Fireman's Training School to work with other departments and share the cost of a day or a night at the training center for training. And those are basically the changes from last year's budget. we think electricity, we're good.
Propane, we're good. The cost of gas and diesel, we don't see a need for an increase. Building maintenance, staying the same. Equipment maintenance, that's the portable equipment testing, and that's basically host testing, extinguisher testing, Scott bottle testing, air testing, communications that involves what we have to pay for Talon and other things, protective clothing. Basically, right now we're in good shape with turnout gear, but we're replacing pieces and parts. Somebody's boots have a problem, we replace them, a coat, gloves, helmet, coat, but not a full set. So, we're good with that figure. firefighting, office supplies, I explained the increase there. firefighting supplies. Basically, most of that is for hose that either fails annual testing or has reached its 10-year life limit. Hazmat stays the same. The hazmat equipment we get 550. We increase training cost recovery, which has not changed in probably five years. And then fireman's physicals again remaining at $6,000. So, at this point, any questions anyone has, I'm glad to answer. And if I can't,
that's why Ronnie Mike is on the line as well.
Okay. So, I have two questions. Well, one is that I was going back through my emails, and contrary to what I said before, I don't know that I see a detail email. I we were having some communications issues earlier today. treasure was sending out various things and maybe it's in my personal email and my not my account, my town account, but I don't see I don't have it either. I don't I don't have it either.
I don't have a a line by line breakdown of what you're talking about. I I mean, all of that sounded fine, but I I don't have the the detail.
Okay.
I'm not sure why it went to Kate.
Okay. I will tomorrow go in the office and resend it to Kate and ask that she get it to all members of the board. As far as the town is concerned, we get a form that just has our bottom line of the budget.
And I've been asked in the past to provide the breakdown and I did send it to Kate and ask that it be passed on and that's beyond me once I've sent it. And I will send it again tomorrow and ask that she pass it on.
Okay. the other question I have is actually a little sideways from that, which is, as you know, I pro I missed the last CIP meeting. I couldn't make it. I was out of state. And I know that you brought forward a request for about $100,000 for a compressor. Can you just tell me because I mean, I've been on CIP a while and I've been on board of finance a while. what the story is with the compressor. Is the old compressor breaking down? or is it just aging?
Two things. One is aging and parts are starting to become hard to find and we are starting to have maintenance issues. The third thing that I explained to CIP is that our present vendor that services it has two people that service compressors because of the age of our compressor was purchased in I believe 1991. The technology has changed dramatically and the older gentleman that does the service is fine, but if he's not around, we have to wait for service because the other gentleman is totally lost looking at this old technology. The other thing I have to tell you is that since that meeting, I've got two other quotes which are substantially less than the $100,000.
Okay? both are somewhere in the ballpark of $60,000 and again the age of the unit and now the reliability is starting to go away. That's why we're looking to make with the replacement.
Okay. And that's obviously for everybody on the board that's that's a capital request, not an operating budget issue. But when we get to capital, and this is something I've mentioned to Lisa before, you know, when we evaluate capital, we got to figure out what's in the fire equipment fund now, visav what the fire equipment what what is needed. And this would be this would come out of that fund if if we were to approve it. So, we need to know that there's in fact $60,000 or so in there. And if it's not, aside from what we have to do every year, which is now to pay for the the new truck, we have to make sure we have the amount of money there if we're going to approve this to fund that. So, that's something TBD,
I've been asking about fund balances, we're going to get there. Lisa's working on it, you know, we'll get we'll get there. But thank you, Wally. I appreciate that cuz I I missed that meeting and I just, you know, I normally be there and and would have listened and everything and I was just in Boston. So, thank you for that.
I do have a question, Rob.
Go ahead.
Is are you looking to fund this for the next budget year or
the compressor?
Yes,
I think he is.
Yes. Normally,
okay,
it's for July one that we're looking for the expenditure. We're not looking to take it out of it during this budget year. The present unit is functional. It's not an extreme emergency, let's say, to replace it now. And if there was a problem, we have a backup utilizing mutual aid department where we could take our bottles to be filled,
right? So, it's one of these things where we have to decide as a board at some point whether we kick the can here or to me the the the first the the way to start with that question is what's our balance? What do they have in there? Because if the fire department fund has the money and they say they need it, then my inclination would be to say okay. But if we need to load money in in order to make this happen, it becomes more difficult. So, well, we'll get back to you on that. And and obviously when you get those you have those new quotes, obviously you're going to take those to CIP. I assume the next Yep. And I'll be there. So, we'll talk about it. But that that's great. Thank you. okay. So, we're looking at a 1.5 increase. does anyone else have any questions regarding the details of that? I mean, we don't have a spreadsheet in front of us to look at for every line item, but Wally kind of ran us through it. Do we have any questions there as to those increases and whether or not you know what the justifications are? I mean just speaking personally 1.5 is not doesn't strike me as crazy. you know and and the capital thing is a separate issue. So thank you. I mean, unless there's questions, I'm going to thank Wall-E and let him go for now. We can always, you know, have a further discussion with him. But,
all right. If there's questions once I get this paperwork to you, I'll be glad to come back. And I thank you. I truly appreciate being first on your agenda tonight rather than after the board event.
Oh, wow. No, that was that was clear, Wally. I knew it was going to be a lot faster. Thank you so much. And
Thanks,
Yep. Thank you. And we'll let you go, sir. Unless you want to hang out and and enjoy the board of ed stuff with us.
I'm going to move on and I'm going to turn the table over to our superintendent, Valerie Bruno, to present to us the board of ed budget. Val Val, you're unmuted, but I can't hear you.
There's some weird audio stuff going on. Does everyone hear that?
Yeah, it's like a weird robotic noise.
Agreed. I hear nothing from Val, which is unfortunate. So, okay, we'll give you two minutes. I can't hear a word you're saying. I'm a really good lip reader. She's joining from her iPad, I think. So,
yeah, of course, we couldn't get through this without a second technical technical difficulty, right?
well, yeah. Yeah, Val, if I see a popup saying let you join, I will. I don't see one. And in the past when we've had people logged in in two different ways, it's caused an echo. So be aware of that. It says the host has joined. I don't see Hold on. I'm looking. I see no way to let you in. You know what? You may want to log all the way out and I'll let you back in. Maybe she can call in.
Yeah. Well, she's trying through her iPad. She's trying through through through different methods.
Yeah.
Which fair enough. I feel like we had this once before. It was bizarre. And normally we don't have this issue. but I have it. I would think I'd be getting a popup. I mean, as I let people in at the beginning of this meeting, I got a popup every time and had to approve sight in. So, I just don't see any additional pop-ups. Admit. Admit. I think I just found it. Bal.
Still muted.
Yeah, she's still muted. I know. Try again though. Yep, there you are.
Huzzah.
It's funny because it says you're muted, but we could hear you. I don't know what's going on.
Okay. Are we good now?
Yes.
Okay. So, the only thing I have to make sure I do then, Rob, is
let's see. Make sure that I can get to it on this this device. The stuff I want to share. Okay. So, you do have to, I think, make me a co-host and allow me to share the screen. Is that Hold on. Let's see. Yes,
let me work on that because again, I'm new to this.
Yep.
I will work on that. if you want to start and I'll I'll work on it. Host tools probably.
Yeah. so I did send a couple of things to the board members today just because I wasn't sure kind of how many. I know you guys don't have a whole lot of time right now, so I wasn't sure which meetings you were able to watch and attend and which meetings you weren't able to watch and attend. So, I just kind of sent you everything. I sent you the budget that was passed as the proposed budget by the board of education. and then I sent you some information on enrollment summaries. kind of anything we've talked about at the board of ed up till now. let's see. Does it let me share my screen?
I just made you co-host, so it should hopefully work.
Okay, let's see if it's going to allow me to do that. Let's see if it's going to allow me to do that. All right. Is it going to let me do that or not? We're we're we're batting a thousand here tonight.
I know it's I'm sorry, everybody. This is new to me and apologies.
Can you see some Can you see something on my screen right now?
I just see you,
Rob. Sometimes it takes a few minutes for the co-host thing to show up, you know, to to share and show a photograph or whatever they're sharing.
Oh, really?
Yeah. Sometimes there's a delay.
I definitely did.
Okay. So, we're going to try this a couple of times, but you know, in the interest of time here,
can I suggest if you sent it to Rob? Rob, can you share the file that she wants you to bring up because you had
That's the other possibility.
So, which folly would you like him to bring up first, Valerie?
Okay. So, let's Rob do this. Hold on one sec.
Let me go back through my emails and find the thing. Well, actually, let's see. h all of these difficulties. I'm trying to get you to the PowerPoint that was on here. Let's see. Let me go back.
All right. If I go to your information shared email, is there one of those that I want to use or those that's background info?
Email you sent at six o'clock tonight.
We're now sharing somebody here.
All right. So, if we are sharing
Oh, it's you. It's you. Okay.
You're up there, kiddo.
You're up there finally. Okay, good.
Let's see. I'm up there. But now, let's see. So, we need to share screen. Hold on. We need to share.
Can you see?
Huzzah. Okay, we're good.
All right, that was the very long way. So, all right, we're going to do it this way. If I do this, I obviously I can't see any of you guys at all on my screen, but can you see what's on my screen right now?
All right,
launching the operational budget.
This is kind of weird for me only to see this, but we're going to do this. All right. So, this was the budget. I'm going to go through this fairly quickly just because this was the budget presentation for the board of education that is already recorded and available for anybody to see, but it'll give us, you know, a little bit of review for anybody who didn't have time to do them. Oh, and the purpose of this one was just to remind people that the school only has an operational budget. So in fact this is the school and everything else related to 35 school road facility because we in fact do not have an operational and a capital budget. So just everything related to 35 school road. We had talked about enrollment data. I sent you guys tons of enrollment data. But two of the things that I pointed out when I did this at the board of education meeting was K6 we have 200 kids. Although we really aren't addressing preschool that what do we anticipate in the building next year? We anticipate 70 kids being in preschool and by the end of the school year 270 kids total within the walls of the building and three that we financially support at other facilities. We are growing. I had pointed out that this year the new Andover POCCD which
is the plan of conservation and development document came out which is going to give us 2026 through 2036 and in that document we were able to let's see right here in that document that looks like this the plan of conservation and development for the town it was able to confirm that in fact we've made a 26% growth in the last 5 years. and moving forward, we should have a slow and steady anticipated growth. I know you saw a chart that kind of looks like that one down there with the blue bars. When RAM did theirs, there was like a yellow bar that showed you this year and then the rests were fairly even.
we do anticipate moving that bar up. This one is through 2025. And the reason why I put this in here is because this is the one that was in the POC to show you that when they took a 10-year average, it wasn't fair for the last time because we saw a decline and then it started to come back up. So, the incline that you will see this year in the new PC will show that it was a 26% increase moving forward. I know that some of those numbers were looked at for planning purposes for the next five years. enrollment reports I gave you guys all the way back that I sent you those enrollment reports all the way back through the last 15 years. That was part of your packet. There's no reason for us to put it up on the screen now. Those are available online on the board of education website as well. But this is this year's. And when you look at the enrollment reports on the board of education monthly reports, you see it just like this. This was January's. You see how many classes there are in every grade. You see how many kids there are in every class. And then you see every grade to the right there. The reason why that's important for us is because as some people pointed out, they said, "Well, what do you need a second sixth grade for?" Those 29 kids, which yes, we have 29 kids in one class. this year
will be moving up to RAM. But if you look at grade five, there's 26 kids currently. So trying to squeeze the genie back into the bottle and move them into one class is just not feasible. And the grade behind them that's going to be fifth grade next year, there's 37 kids in that grade. That's impossible. That must be two classes. So last year we did have that second fourth grade and the second fifth grade class. And where sometimes that number looks misleading is sure you can see large fourth grade classes 18 and 19, but sometimes people look at the fifth the the fifth grade class and they go well 13 and 13 is manageable. Remember we only have two choices. It's 26 or it's 13 and 13. We don't get to kind of split it in between. So that's the dilemma. What's right for kids, 13 and 13 or 26? And you guys have heard me talk about this before. the ideal numbers to be under 22 no matter what study it is that you look at. So okay and this was just that quip that was in the POCCD draft from January at the board of selectman meeting and it does explain there is the increase and that they should be considering the fact that we are rebounding when we plan for the next 10 years. You lose my voice. I'm sorry. I put this slide in here. This was in our board of
education budget proposal presentation. I left it in here for a couple of reasons. If you hadn't seen this, you'll see that hein was highlighted on here instead of Andover. That's cuz I took these slides right from their presentation because they put together a slide that shows you the dur. And a dur is a district reference group. It means the state has determined all of the other towns that are like us in every way, shape, or form. District reference group. and you will see that there's 22 to 23 and 23 to 24. What you normally see is the this is per pupil expenditure. And what you normally see with per pupil expenditure is they go up every year. You'll notice in the first one in 2022, if you find us, we were 22,832 there. The average was $22,332. you'll see that we are number 11 in 2223. And most of these numbers are fairly close. it that's true. If you look at the last published one, which was 2324 on the right there, you will see that the average was 23,670. We dropped we dropped from 11 to 17. And that's because we were the only one on this list. If you're comparing apples to apples here, every town, Cornwall, Canton, Colombia, we were the only town that went down in our per pupil expenditure. And that's because as our student population rises, if we're not spending at the same level on each student as the other districts, we're going to go down. We are the only one on this list that did not go up from 22 to
23 in our per pupil spending. So that is that that that's significant. Now I know that at when Colin presented there were some questions on I believe it was NC versus NCE versus per pupil expenditures and Colin even had said to you guys all of those numbers are legitimate numbers and there are formulas but they are relative and they are mostly relative to larger districts not really to us. To me it's not really relative because it's not a per pupil. We're not just buying crayons and paying for teachers with this money. We are taking care of the largest piece of property in the town with this. So when we look at this, this is everything. This is, you know, the the new snowblower, a little piece of that is in here with the
pre-approval spending as well. so the number is kind of irrelevant to me. It's irrelevant because what the taxpayer really needs to know is the bottom line. here's what it costs to educate the kids. Here's how many taxpayers we have. You take the total and you divide it by you know the the number of kids and that is what it's costing them per pupil. And for us that number is significantly lower. the other thing that we pointed out when I made this presentation to the board of education was that one of the reasons why we're going to continue to go down on that list that I just showed you is that last year we did reduce by 160,000 yet our number of students went up. So where we dropped from 11th place to 17th place, I guarantee that next year we're going to drop even lower on that list. Remember
to clarify, by the way, Val, this is all the some of the numbers that we're looking at here.
I think everybody should remember there's a lag time here. We're getting
the stuff you get from the state and everything like that. There's a lag time of a year or two. So, we're talking about stuff,
you know, and then we do things in our budgets and it doesn't show up until next year. That sort of thing. So, that's where I think a lot of people can get confused. So, I just want to point that out.
Yes. And that's why those numbers, Rob, too, they're they're a little off, especially for me. They if our let me think of a town, Marorrow, Marorrow's town population, their Ksix population is actually very consistent. They really in the six years that I've been here anyways, they don't really waver. Their blue bars, so to speak, remain fairly constant. So whether you're looking at NC or NCE or per pupil expenditures, they do play stay very steady you know in planning as does their budget then every year as well because there aren't big dips or increases. So I do anticipate as I said next year that we'll fall even further down on that list. So this was past budgets and what the taxpayer saw as our budget. I went back 10 years. I did 2015 through until last year 2526. And where we're falling behind and and this is part of the reason why this year it's a bigger ask than people are used to is in 2015 you'll see we had 4.32. That had been a reduction from the year before and then no increase and then it was reduced and then it was reduced again and then it was reduced again and then it was reduced again. And if you want to know by how much it's the number on the right. it was reduced by 45,000 and then 120 and 90 and 162 and then a 0% increase. And so we did get increases those last four years, but we were back in the hole. And so when you take 2015 to 2025, the two bolded numbers on there, and you add up the pluses and the minuses, in the end, what you're getting is $244,000 over this 10year period. Keeping in mind that every year
there are contractual obligations and salary increases, there's cost of living adjustment, there are things that needed to be fixed. Here at 35 School Road, we had a lot of expenses. And so I do know that there are some people that said, "Well, see, we cut we cut the school." And and they somehow managed, but I I want to tell you, but they didn't manage during those five years. during those five years in the middle there, the red ones, there was a cut to a reading support person. There was a cut to an assistant principal because enrollment was going down, so they didn't necessarily need to keep that assistant principal. There was cut to a classroom teacher. There was a cut to the IT manager. there was a cut in hours or reduction to the business manager. There was a reduced hours for the speech and language pathologist. There were reduced hours to the librarian, the art teacher, the Spanish teacher, a custodian. So how did they manage that? They managed that by simply losing six and a half people. So that's
a tough one. That's a real tough one. They didn't manage it. It wasn't that there was extra money that they were able to come up with. Those losses cut deep. Now, Caitlyn mentioned ECS dollars, and I don't think we've talked about ECS dollars in my six years here enough because that is a revenue source that offsets the cost of K12 education to the taxpayer. So, when we look, for example, at the budget this year, which we'll look at in just a second, and we get to, well, it's 5.063 063 million val actually it's it's not that much to the taxpayer because when you take those ECS dollars so for example this year we're asking for $499.91 for ECS dollars sure if you took that and you divided it by 200 kids you're looking at $25,000 a kid but if you take that $1.2 $2 million in ECS dollars that would be credited to our 200 kids has to be credited to educational cost sharing. The town cannot spend that money that they receive on anything else. Our budget then gets offset and this current
school year it was 17827 and next year it would be 19,227. And if you go back to those slides that I showed you what the average spending is in each of the towns in our DUR, it's 22,000. So we are well below the average. And I know a lot of people say that can't be, but it but it is the truth. and so when we look at what goes into our budget, as I mentioned on page one, in addition to everything school related, 35 school road, all of these things are in that budget as well. Every academic need for
each student, the mandated special education requirements, the contractual obligations to every employee, insurance and benefits, all board of education expenses, legal fees, transportation, including transportation to other facilities, tuition for Andover residents that attend other schools, all the supplies, whether they're instructional facilities, etc. technology, utilities, the use of the town vehicle for special ed transportation, repair and maintenance for this large building, and remember our gym is used every night and weekend in the summer. so half the time the gym gets used by town events, and that's fine, but there is no different budget for that. Last year it was over $10,000 in oil for the tank that services just the gym. And so there
are some significant costs. And again, I'll remind you that our big drivers, not the only things, but our big drivers are obviously contractual salary obligations, the need for that second sixth grade classroom to return, special ed services, and our insurance consortium is 15% for the premiums for our employees. Now, someone mentioned not necessarily this year, last year. So, I'd really try to take a second and explain this. Well, why don't we go someplace else for insurance then? We can't. We are part of an insurance consortium. It is the town of Andover, which I think has five or six people in the insurance. and so it's a lot less than ours. So, that increase does not affect that budget as much as ours, but it's still 15%. the town of Andover, the town of Marorrow, Marorrow Board of Ed, the town of Hein, Hein Board of Ed, RAM and AHM. So, the eight of us are member of it. We've been in this consortium for over a decade, so we don't have the option, and usually it's not 15%, so the the rates are lower, so we we usually feel lucky. This year just happens to be one of those years. but I can't shop
around. So, that's a non-negotiable for me within the budget. So, if there was ever a cut to the budget, I can't cut this line item. Nor can I cut the contractual salary obligations once the board of education enters into that contract. That's it. Okay. So, before I put up the actual line item line item, the percentages where they were 6.6% 6% of our increase was human expenses. Those were salary. All the benefits was about 2.9. Transportation was about.5 and that was the 10% and everything else combined equaled that other one.
when we looked at
Can I just ask a quick question? Sorry. When salaries of all staff combined, that's that's your contractual.
Yes. because
but also this new teacher too, right?
Yes. Yes. and we took the median on that one.
Okay. Just want to be clear on that, you know. So, you have you have two things going on in terms of your human expenses, right? You have your your 3% or whatever. It's roughly 3% mandated increases. I think that contract's two years old now, right? but it's 3% a year.
Contract the teachers.
Yeah.
Okay. So, that one actually, no, we settled it last year and they're in year one and we
don't settle it for three more years. It's a four-year contract,
right? And and they're basically 3% a year, right? Roughly
roughly and again, I'm sorry not to look right at you, Rob, but I can't see anybody. we have roughly sometimes what happens is is they have three and a half one year two and three/4ers another year but in the end if it's 12% over four years we're going to say it's average of three. Same thing with the nonert contract because we have two unions. they have a four-year well they had a four-year contract. So we know for the next three years exactly how much we can anticipate on a yeartoear. And if somebody doesn't know what those contracts are, they're online on our website. But we know because it's a chart and it says if you're on this step and you have this degree, this is what your salary is regardless of what you teach. So you could be a math teacher, third grade teacher, whatever it is. If you're in the teachers union, that's our salary scale,
right?
Okay.
All right. And that could obviously be affected by somebody getting their masters and and getting that stuff up.
Yes. Yes. So, there's a line in the budget that'll say tuition reimbursement and that one tells us because every year they have to tell us before we put the budget together if you're taking classes and if you anticipate moving up to a next step during the next fiscal year. So, so we have a good handle on that.
Okay.
Thanks.
Yep. anybody else from the board? You'd have to just chime in and stop me because I can't see you. so none of the expenses that can be cut. so we already reduced to the bare bone for our known expenses. A lot of federal grants have dried up and I know that one of your guests here had a question about one particular line item and spoiler alert, I'll answer it for her now. it was a grant that dried up where we had to put it back in the budget. So state grants moving forward, they're scant. most of them are going to be limited to early childhood because in 2027 the state will be going to universal preschool and so a lot of the state money right now is tied up there. So what we're really down to is title grants and IDEIDA grants. and those
are really the only ones that we're 100% sure are going to remain intact and the town's ECS dollars because when I say there's $2 million in ECS dollars that does go directly to the town. it does not go to the school. So, those are the ones we know about. And just so that I don't forget to say it later, if we have a salary that is paid by a title grant or an idea grant, it's not in the budget. We've already left it out knowing that we're going to get that. So, what happens if we don't get the money we need? we will have to cut teachers. there will be a pink slip. It'll be inevitable. we are going to have to look to merge classes. And those
numbers would mean the largest classes not only in Andover history, but in the region and the state for the most part. and I know you guys know we've looked at numbers at our middle and high school for grades 7 through 12. We've looked at numbers in Hebrin. So that's a fact. no matter what grade we merge, if it was first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth, it would mean that our classes would be 24 to 28. And again, that's important because it is true that sometimes people look at our enrollment numbers and they say, "Well, but you have two classes of 12." It's true, but the alternative is one class of 24. And that golden number is always 22. Once you hit 22, there is a detriment to elementary school kids to have that class. and keep in mind that isn't just, oh well, that makes it difficult for a teacher in a classroom. There are lots of other reasons why we actually can't have classes that large. there are special education students in every grade and oftent times then you would not be satisfying the needs of those special education students within the least restrictive environment if you have too many children in there. Hypothetically, if you have students with physical handicaps, you physically can't put other children in the class if you've met the maximum that fit in there while they're still able to get around in a classroom. So, there's a lot of things that we do have to consider there. yeah, and so I want you to understand that I was a former special ed director, as you guys all know. I've mentioned that before. It is a fact that
you very oftentimes increase special education costs when you have these classes that are larger. Because if a teacher has 28 kids in a classroom and your block of time is 60 minutes, they average 2 minutes per student of individual instructional time as needed. And if there is a larger number, if there are a larger number of special education students in the classroom that they are tending to, that's oftentimes when somebody will say,"I can't do this particular group of students on my own. There's too many. I can't provide tier 1, 2, and three instruction." And we wind up having to add a pair of professional to the room. And I know
they did do that years ago, and that was very common place in a lot of districts. But the problem is is nowadays with the retirement pension package and insurance we just saw 15% increase and the salary a paraprofessional can be more expensive and not less qualified in the sense of their love for children but less qualified in the sense of their ability to have the background knowledge for special education services and tiered interventions. And so that is not necessarily where people go anymore. So
Valerie,
yes,
it's Louise. Can I can I interrupt for just a second? Okay. I have a question about when you say you get to the 22 limit, are there regulations stating that if you get to that limit, then you do need to add a pair of professional.
So not for 22. No, there's not. That is just good practice. That is just every study that you see. and that is why Louise, since I've been here, and I had sent you guys the enrollment data, like I said, all the way back. Since I have been here, I have it right here someplace. since I've been here, it has happened six times that we have gone above and beyond the 22. But, oh, I have it right here. But that's because Louise oftentimes it it didn't start out the school year that way. So maybe the class started off with 20 and then during the course of the year a third grade just happened to get two more kids and they were both third grade in our our school. So that wouldn't be a situation where we would say, "Oh my goodness, we have 22. We have to open a second class." That would be silly and ridiculous. but if we know that going in you do have to plan for the special needs of the students and what if more kids move in. So a while back when the enrollment numbers were going down eight years ago if it happened it was a rarity. currently we have only the sixth grade right now because we have two in every other grade. But prior to that the year before we had three classes 22,
27 and 27. The year before we had 22 and 24. The year before we had 22. and so two years before that we had two at 22. because we were trying to keep the numbers keep from opening a second class when we weren't sure at that time how quickly we would be increasing enrollment. So we couldn't take that chance. What if we opened a second class and then enrollment didn't change at all? and so if you guys remember at one point we did have for two years a combination two three class and you know we were able to pick the right students to to go into that combination class. We were able to pick the right teacher. We were being very very frugal with the budget that year and saying we could
do this. So I'm not opposed to having classes of 22 if it's appropriate. but we've got classes now that are well over that. and that that's just that's just not viable right now for us.
Okay.
I'm just going to pipe in here just really quick and mention that you know what Val just said about the hybrid classes. That was my kids class one year. you know, my my kids are now both at RAM, but my youngest daughter, her fifth grade experience was that hybridy kind of thing that AES did where they had one class of 22. I believe it was 22, might have been 23, somewhere right in there, low 20s. And then there were breakouts where the advanced math kids went and did stuff with Mrs. Frraasier and then other kids did something else and I had a whole conversation with my 12-year-old about this about retrospectively about her experience. The next year she went to sixth grade and I think it was 22 or 23 kids and it was one teacher and there was no support. There was no extra support, right? And she has very very definitive thoughts about this that actually surprised me to be honest with you. I had this conversation with her driving her to gymnastics one day and I was kind of blown away by it. She was very definitive about it that fifth grade was vastly superior to sixth and that was
that was not two teachers that was you guys kind of adding in not I won't say ad hoc but you were you were kind of plugging in what you could to that grade and it mattered to my kiddo. I can tell you that. Well, that's that, you know, I've I've had an amazing 30 years of experience. and before that, I can tell you some of you might know this because I' I've shared this at board of ed meetings. I'm a twin and my twin was it's a boy one of those students that had lots of behavioral issues and I was actually quiet and shy as a kid. And I went to a school district where it was a large school district, but in those days back when it was common place if you had that extra five kids in each grade to create combination classes. They did this in the 70s and into probably like 80 81. And so I was always in a combination class. My brother was in the traditional class which was larger but they had support and I was in that combination class. I had been the youngest of the grades. I had been the upper of the grades and so I had teachers that did it right and I had teachers that didn't do it right. So I had a lot of experience between that and my special ed when we did that here Rob when we had to do that and a lot of families were nervous about that. it worked at the time. And actually, the last group is that group that's in fourth grade now where there's 37 in those two classes. That's the last group that would have, you know, had that
kind of mix. It's just not appropriate for the number of kids that we have now. it just isn't. But I did utilize that before. So, I'm not I'm not afraid to do outside of the box things if it's appropriate for kids. I I bring it up both to kind of support what happened in the past, but also, you know, to bring it up when we look at that sixth grade number and people have questions and, you know, you're looking at 25ish kids in that grade. you know, which is like three more people than were in that that hybrid group. and I bring it up only for that reason.
Yep. But we do have to just do what's right for every group of kids, too. And sometimes, like I said, if if you have a handicapped child, that classroom cannot exceed a certain number and have them be able to get around the room. So, for that room, it wouldn't be appropriate to be over however many we can fit in there with the desks or the tables. there are other classes that I've had throughout the years that, you know, it would have been entirely appropriate for us to keep 23 in there and not split it. You guys might remember the year we reopened for COVID. we had kindergarteners that second year that had not had preschool and they'd been wearing masks and we found the communication difficulties with those children starting to cause a lot of referrals for special education. And we
fought really hard that year. Just that year, we had 30 kids and we needed three kindergartens. And people said, "Three kindergartens? You're going to have 10, 10, and 10?" The needs of the children meant we had to because they were not they had lost so much. They were not getting what they needed and those classes needed to be 10. We did it for that year and that was it and it worked out fantastically well. So, okay. And so, I put this slide in here because there had been some stuff on social media a couple weeks ago where somebody had asked a question about, you know, basically a comment that I made, at a board meeting where I said like, "It's our turn." And, somebody I I think was a little, taken aback by that, with what I meant from it because it was out of context. This is what I meant by it. Andover has had a lot of great commitments to the town in the past 10 years. I've been here six years and I've seen some fantastic things happen here. this is a list of them. I mean, Andover should be thrilled and everybody would tell me the
same story. Value have no idea how it was. We hadn't put money aside for this. We hadn't done that. We'd been promising to build a community center. You know, our public works equipment was just awful. We didn't have enough. They would tell me these stories and I'd say that's terrible. But that level of commitment by the boards, by the town, by the taxpayer, that level of commitment's been there. We have not asked for that level of commitment to be K6. And that's where I say it's time. It's time for us to recognize that I showed you a slide before. We lost $418,000 in five years. Our numbers are going back up. Younger families are moving in. I am just asking for that same level of commitment this year to the K6 that we have made. And and it's been a great level of commitment. but that's what I meant when I said that the same level of commitment, not choosing one or over the other. It's just in different years there are different things that need to be done. Sometimes it was public works, sometimes it was the mower, sometimes it was the community center. And I feel that this year it is a bigger ask than normal. But I do think that the taxpayer should consider all these wonderful other things that we've been able to do that are finished and in a little focus meeting to go there. Now, I'm going to go back to ECS dollars for a second. I know Caitlyn brought that up, but the proposed operational increase for AES is is shell shock for somebody. 200 kids brings us up to you know, 5.063 million. after the offset of ECS dollars, as I mentioned before, it would
bring us to 3.845. Same thing with RAM. And I know I'm not here to to to preach for RAM, but if we start looking at our educational costs in the budget, not as RAM, not as AES, not as the town side, and we say we have a responsibility to K12. And so that responsibility in the general fund budget, if we added them together, there's 129 kids at RAM, there's 200 kids with us, and we look the total after the ECS dollars, the $2 million would be 7.315. And if we're looking at that, we're looking at percentages. This was I know it's a little bit blurry. I just noticed that this was what I pulled out of your draft budget. and I know you guys are still working on it, so this is, you know, not a permanent number, but Lisa the treasurer had put this out in the draft. And right now, if you look at RAM and AES's, it's about, and I won't hold her to these numbers because you guys are still working on it, but our two combined would be about 7.16%. and about 7% for us to have a K12 level of commitment I don't think is is a bad starting number and then when you take that $2 million that we have in ECS dollars and you offset it now we're talking more about like five and a half so I do think that if we consider those yeah that that's actually it on this one so I'm going to stop sharing this screen Rab, if I can do that. let's see. Stop share. Okay. if we can consider doing that and really kind of taking a
look at it from that perspective, saying yes, when we look at what's the educational cost to the community is, and we say, let's look at everything together. I I think that that really helps us to say our level of commitment to K12. and and and it it is a lot. Rob, do you have that budget that you can now pop up that I sent you guys? Because
one moment, Val, I'm sorry.
that's okay.
The
the line item because I'd like to address some of the things that I know that one of your guest
Which email was it? I'm sorry. I have an email from
I sent I sent to your board today. Yes. And there are three attachments.
There are three attachments. Which one do you want? I want the one that is the proposed budget.
Okay. Because they're all named. They don't have
I know. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were going to have to share them. I thought I was going to be able to share.
All right. Hang on. Hold on a moment. recommend.
The first one that of the three.
Yeah, the first of the three. I just got to get it. I have to spin it around. It's It's coming up sideways.
hang on a minute. normally in a PDF I can right click and and get this thing to spin and I cannot do it. So, this is I mean unless you want to turn your head 90 degrees to the side, this is not super helpful. here I'll show you guys. Hang on.
You should have one of those little
There should be a little circle there somewhere that you can click.
Yeah, I I'm trying. I'm trying. I really am. my it may be settings. It may be that I don't have like the full Adobe system, you know, program on my on this old laptop. This this laptop has been it's been through some things. let me let me just try something here. Hang on.
Let's see. The other thing I can try to do, Rob, is let me
I can back to you, but
let me try to see share the screen
here. Let me let me show you. Hang on. If I share my screen, all right, you guys see my screen now?
It's coming through.
Okay.
All right. So, the thing is this is what I see, right?
No, we're not seeing it yet.
Okay. Let me know if you see it when you see it because I've got it up. It started to come through. But view modes. I got this this thing is sideways and I can't
This is when we need our kids for this kind of stuff.
This is I know. I I swear to God I used to be the kid who changed my parents VCR clock and now I can't do anything. this is super frustrating because I in at work I have zeroed out the program. Can you see this?
I could scroll it.
Can anybody see mine now?
All right, hang on. Let me let me stop sharing, Val. how do I stop? All right. No, I see nothing from you, but I'm going to try and see if I can do something from the host. No, you're still co-host. You're able to do it. I don't know.
Oh, goodness gracious. We're not We're batting a thousand here. Rob,
I know. I'm really sorry. I'm gonna turn that off. One participant can share at a time. You got it.
I think it's starting.
Go ahead, Rob. Now you try again. Rob,
try again.
You want me to share? Because again, mine's vertical. It doesn't It's You don't want mine. It's garbage.
If you download it, then can you turn it? That's what I have to do.
hold on.
I downloaded it.
Great question. and then flipped it around.
Oh, you did, did you? Oh, all right. All right. Hold on one second. Goodness gracious.
can I just ask a question?
Yeah,
sure.
Val, I you made that comment so fast I didn't exactly catch what you're saying. So, what are you saying? Because I have the the school the two schools combined being 7.1% increase. Is that Yes. Is that what you said? Okay,
that is what I said. At least thank you.
Cuz I didn't get any. Whatever you sent them, I didn't get. So I absolutely
if you could send that to me.
I absolutely took it right from your numbers. You had seven something.
Yeah.
And then if we credited ECS revenue to that is where I came up with just over five.
Okay. All right.
The issue with that same page. The issue with that obviously is everybody as everybody probably knows the ECS funding has been constant for about five years,
right?
and it is
o that's just something to be aware of like they haven't changed the ECS funding in some time. The other thing that people should be aware of, and this is something Valerie and I have talked about, is that in the past, well, up to the future, up till right now, we have never as a town, I don't think, sat down and calculated a split. oh, this much goes to REM, this goes to as it's not how we do it. We just kind of take it off the top and cumulatively deal with it. So,
and that's been an issue
and this is a potential issue going forward if we get into
if you take if you take the rest of the intergovernmental money. This is my thing with the grant money too is if you take that in those two revenue sections and then you start take oh well this comes off of public works this comes off of here this comes off of there it becomes very complex
and does Lisa
nd that's something and that's something Lisa that we need to talk about some more like does it make sense or is it stupid for something like for me like town a road right we don't put town a road in the budget do we
ll you know it's funny. We didn't where I last worked. So, this is news to me just the other day. And I said, "Where is this?" And they said, "It's in a different like funding." And I was like, "Why?" It's like,
"It doesn't make sense to me."
right.
Of course, there's a lot of stuff like the way capital is done that doesn't make sense to me either.
But,
welcome to Andover.
Keep things simple and clear, but I'm not finding that.
No, no, no. Lisa, you're not wrong. And that and that's just it. Well, we do things like town a road. I mean, people see our budget in our capital budget. For instance, last year we put $385,000 into the road budget, right?
And it was it's an important piece of what we do in this town. Yes,
we did not spend 385,000 on roads. We spent like way more than that because we get town aid road money and we spend that money and it's all off budget right now. And I have always been like, okay, but the thing is that's not clear to me that's the right way to do it. So there are a lot of things here that you could question. Now back to the issue of me sharing the screen. I literally
So I'm gonna I'll start to talk about the line items while you're doing that, Rob, so we're not waiting.
Because I cannot figure it out, Mal. I cannot figure out how to spin this bloody thing.
If so, Heather apparently figured it out, but I can't.
Maybe you could let Heather share it. Yeah, let Heather share it.
Yeah, let me go to Heather.
Okay,
so Lisa, one last thing, Lisa,
you're a co-host now, Heather. Huzzal,
one last thing, Lisa, on your point, Lisa,
would be
the only difference is, and this is why I mention ECS and not the other ones, is
we don't do the townside budget on a per resident e expenditure. Traditionally, they do expect that that number is going to come up for schools because it's just out there, whether it's that NCE, NC or per pupil expenditures. The problem is is that
people look at that number and they say per pupil. And so then you have to say, well, to the taxpayer, it's minus that money that's, you know, earmarked for schools. That's the only reason why I say that. And I know exactly what you're saying, but
yeah, because I've had other departments like let's say the library department, you know, it's like they get friends of the library and they want to list their budget, which I've never done before, but they want to list their budget is almost $4,000 less than what their budget really is because they get that money from the friends, but their budget really is 4,000 more, right? So, it's really hard to draw the line with revenue and with your actual expenditures. There's a lot of that in this town if you start to notice it, Lisa, where we do we we have a lot of stuff that's off budget because it's like offset.
But
you can do the same thing in the building department, the clerk's depart department. Look at the tax collector's department.
And I mean, if we if we delve into this enough, we're going to find that the budget's wildly different because if you get $800,000 in Town A Road, right? If we're spending 1.1 million, not 385,000, that changes the budget quite a bit, doesn't it? Although ultimately, there's no zero no zero difference to taxpayer, right? But
yeah, we're getting a lot less than that, though.
Yeah. No, no, I I made that number up. I I just Yeah, I'm just saying there's a like that.
Yeah.
So, okay. So, I I'll move on to the other one then. And I realize and I realize that we've already done this at the board of eds. So you know you you most almost everybody on this call has this in front of them. So if you look through the first sections the 101 section there I know there was a couple of questions. The questions that were brought up had to do with the school psychologist as well as the librarian. The librarian did she's four days a week. She's not five. and she did have a portion of her salary that was covered by a grant that we no longer have. And so that has to go in. that's why it looks like it went up dramatically for her is the the the one day which is
a 0.2 FTE that was covered by a grant is no longer. the school psychologist the school psychologist had been almost completely covered by a grant for 2 years with the exception of 45,000 which is further down. When we get to it I'll remind you and we minus that 45,000 from that line item further along in the budget. So the 90,000 that you see up here is not really 90,000. We are minusing 45 someplace else later on in the budget. So, you'll see that, but that was an issue of a loss of grant as well. I know the other day, and I'm going to bring this up now because I think it's appropriate. the the other day there was a conversation at one of the board of finance meetings. and I apologize I wasn't on it, but I know Louise is on here now and so is Linda Fish and Kim. And somebody brought up the question of why we don't use AHM for school psychologist services,
right? going to get to that. That's exactly It was on my list of questions asking.
Well, I'm going to beat you to the punch there. Mr. Chair, AHM did not provide psychologist services. AHM is a youth mental health resource. They are wonderful. I agreed with everything you guys said as I was watching this on on on my screen the other night going, they're right. They are wonderful. I Tresa does a great job. We love AHM. But AHM is a mental health program facility that provides like counseling services. they are not licensed school psychologists. And the difference is is when a student just needs a group to talk about a crisis. You know, mom and dad are getting divorced and they need somebody to talk to. Perfect for an AHM person. But when it's in somebody's IEP that this person, this child rather, has service hours that need to be given to them, oftent times it has to be the school psychologist.
hang on one second, please.
There are there are tests that are done annually. It's called an annual for a student with an IEP. that testing that needs to be done annually has to be done by a licensed professional. trianually every three years all special education students have a full battery of tests and those tests are provided by a school psychologist. So what was happening was back in 2022 23 at that time we had as you guys know you were talking about the new AHM contract which is 112. Back then we had two contracts. We had one contract for AHM services where we paid 30,000 and then and and we were in getting a day and a half a week of this wonderful professional that we loved from AHM. but then we had an additional contract for a day and a half a week of services. And that additional contract cost us 30,000 back in 2022. And now we're in 2026. So that year we saw a decrease to our at our ask to our budget. And because we had a decrease in our ask, we had to make some choices. And because our testing for our special education students, annual and trienal
reviews had to be done mandated by somebody who was a licensed professional. the wonderful AHM person that we had here. They were family and mar family and marriage counseling was their specialty and it was perfect for mediation for our students but it didn't meet all of our needs. So we could not get rid of the then contracted services that we had with I think we used at the time for psychologist and we had to then eliminate that second contract with AHM. So that was the reduction because although it was wonderful to have that person, the extra day and a half, it did not meet our mandated requirements and it was 30,000. So we did cut that. We're still happy to have the day and a half that we have that comes with the towns and all three towns get it. There's somebody in Hebrin, somebody in Marboro, somebody in Andover and we're very happy to have that. Four years later, flash forward to four years later, and we'd been using for a little while now our school psychologist a grant to pay for the bulk of their services. when we add on up the amount of hours that we need to have them, this person was a little bit more than four days. So, they were switched to the teachers contract. And being in the teachers contract actually saves that little bit of a difference for them because we're not paying them as a contractor anymore. but the long and short of it is we couldn't continue to use AHM's services for the testing because it it it they they couldn't do
it and we lost the grant. So in that line there, I hope that I've answered the two questions that were asked. Louise.
Yeah, I was going to tell you that I did ask Tresa that question and she did relay that same information you just said because they you need specialized people to do the IEPs. was the psychologist that you had a independent contractor when she was hired
back in 2022? Yes. when we when we were utilizing the one that we have now less a couple of years ago when she first came to us, she did come to us and we were paying her as an independent contractor. Yes. Now to pay her as an independent contractor 5 days a week would be well over the the price to have her in a teachers union. And so it's a cost savings to us.
Okay. So, are you also adding benefits because she's now an employee?
if she were to need benefits at some point, yes. But that was factored into the cost because an outside school psychologist for us to bring in hourly is between 90 and $140 an hour. And so that was a factor for us in putting this person in the teachers union. they had been in the teachers union in their other districts before they came to us because that's common place. And so when she came to us and she was part-time and we said no because obviously as you mentioned there's the potential that a person would need benefits, we kept her originally when she was part-time as a contractor, but to do that five days a week Louise would would be instrumentally more money. So
Okay.
I'm glad Yeah, I'm glad you did the math on that. That's good.
We did.
Okay. Perfect.
Yes. Yes. So, ideally, if there's a position, and usually in a district, it's those contractors, speech language, OTP, school psychologist, a social worker, a guidance counselor. In a district that's a little bit bigger than ours, all of them are in the teachers union. For small districts, I would never hear put OT or PT in a teachers union contract in Andover. Never. I've had years here with PT, for example. My first and second year here, it was months before I even met our PT because we didn't have any kids my first year that required it. I think she did one hour a month because it's the needs of the the particular students. So, I would never put those in a union contract. The only two that are appropriate for us to have here in a union contract would be the speech language pathologist because elementary school, you know, prior to sixth grade, a lot of speech and the one school psychologist that we have because we don't have other support staff here except for the day and a half that we do have some support from AHM. So, okay. the PAR educators. The next one down
there, you guys will notice that there's a difference. from the last budget season to this budget season, there was an increased need per somebody's PE IEP for a PAR professional. so that's the increase there. They're not it's not a huge contractual increase per PAR. It's it was a different PARA, a new PAR that was needed. I won't go specific line by line because we did that at the board meeting, but I will note some of the areas for you that would be of interest if you were reading it for the first time. coaching and clubs because I remember this came up at a finance meeting. That is the extra things that teachers do by their contract where they get paid for them. in their contract, for example, there's the Memorial Day parade. there was if they did the drama club, things like that that are just the the yearbook. We've minused that over the years. If I had to contractually put in to our budget everything that's in the teachers contract, it would be 12,000. However, in multiple years, we wind up with afterchool grants. I've only had one year in the past five that I haven't been the recipient of one. And when that
happens and there are other after-school activities for children to participate in, the teachers generally don't run the other ones. So that's the reduction there because of the afterchool grant. The next large increase I see on that first page there that might be of interest is where it says pension. Just so you know, we do not pay anything for teachers pension. Teachers retirement benefits, they pay. The town does not pay at all. However, MURF, which is the municipal retirement that's paid to town employees, is also paid to our non-certified staff. That's an Andover that's the whole town. So, that increase there, it is for the non-certified union, pair professionals and the kitchen staff, the nurse, anybody that's in that union. we don't expect any retirements. So, we eliminated that line this year so that that money could be put toward the sixth grade teacher. So, that's why it's zeroed out because we're hoping that there isn't anybody that's retiring this year. If you Heather can move that to the next page. you'll see the big increase there is Thank you. is benefits line item. The medical benefits are in this line item. And as we talked about before, there's a 15% increase. We've also already adjusted it to include any of our known changes. So if the fourth grade teacher had a baby yesterday, wonderful, beautiful baby that was eight and a half pounds, by the way, and they wound up hypothetically adding that child to insurance. We've already added that in for next year. the things we know. Some staff members whose children who turn 26 who go off their
insurance, ones we know are being added. That's Jod's job is to go through and do that and figure out all of the potential changes to insurance. And that's built into the line item. So, we've already done the math on that one. You'll also notice here in the middle where I said you're going to see it empty out. I think her name was Anna. Yeah, that Anna mentioned. you'll see the $45,000 reduced there for psychological services. It's not zero. It's moved up to that first line item where you see the 90 now. That's why I said it's not $90 new. It is half of that. we were lucky to have that grant for a long time. I'm I'm grateful for that. There isn't anything else on this page that is a glaring increase or decrease. There's a couple that go down, a couple that go up. You see a minus 18% on the middle section. A lot of things
moved from here and there. The one change that we did make was let's see is it in this section here? Lunch. I'm looking for lunch. yes. You will notice two years ago there was $20,000 in that line item. The $20,000 in the line item for lunch standard for 10 years. the understanding that that was the worst case scenario for what could happen with our responsibility for lunch. We use Coventry Food Services. They are a very good partner for us and they're a good partner because they have buckets, hypothetically speaking, buckets. they keep an Andover bucket and a Coventry bucket and all of the expenses related to running our food service goes into our bucket. So, if it's an Andover cost for ordering something, if it's a salary for the lady in the kitchen, whatever it is, an expense goes in and they're going to charge us for that. All of our credits are whenever somebody buys lunch, the money that we get from the federal government for free and reduced lunch, they put it in our bucket and at the end of the year, we either owe them or there's a little bit of a surplus. During COVID, they were wonderful. They said if we got this money as a result of handover, we put it in their bucket. We were able to buy a few things for the kitchen. We bought a refrigerator. We bought a stove because at the end of that year, our bucket was flowing over with extra COVID money because there was an increase. Worst case scenario, if we don't sell enough hot lunches, is that we would have to pay a bill at the end of the year. And I
looked at the trends over the past decade and said, did we really ever get to 20,000? And we did not. So, I've left it at five because that's been our worst case scenario. And so I can't guarantee next year. So if there's a a difference, I don't want someone to say, "Why all of a sudden is she going back up?" I think five is safe for this year. So I've left that. on the next page, the glaring Thank you so much, Heather. on the next page, the glaring numbers, and I mentioned them in my presentation, are transportation costs. So we have our buses, that we pay for. We also have special education transportation costs. If we have any children that attend an outplacement facility, a special education outplacement facility, we not only have to pay their tuition, but we have to pay their transportation as well. We do also pay to rent the town vehicle. We have one resident in town that requires a handicapped vehicle, so we pay the town of Andover to rent theirs. $3.50 a mile. We also have a student that attends RAM for a period a day for accelerated studies. So we pay $3.50 to drive them to and from RAM as well. That is built into this transportation cost and that would be the increase there. The only other one on this page that I would warn is volatile is the special ed out placement and the magnets down at 560. If you look at 002-560 and those are volatile because we sometimes get a bill for a child as a
resident of Andover that we've never met before. this happened twice in the last couple of years where we get a bill for a child that's attending a magnet or a charter school and it's like I don't even know who this is. Maybe they're in kindergarten or fifth grade and they moved in. Whatever. It's our responsibility then to prove residency and if that child does in fact live in the town of Andover, we have to pay the tuition for the charter or magnet school and everybody does. It's not different in Andover. that would be built into this cost the the 560 line item just like our outplacements would be as well. So that's a little volatile. The other volatility to this is when we have a special education outplaced student sure we attend the meetings and we are a part of their planning but if that school decides the child needs something we get charged for it. So we really do have a limited amount of say in that. Likewise, if a child attends a magnet school and then is deemed special education, we will then receive a bill for the services for that child. So, that one we should keep in mind is volatile depending on when people move in and what the status of their children
are. Couple more and then I think I'll be almost done here. you'll see we have a lot of the separate supply line items. None of them have changed. we've kept them as is. doesn't mean that we always at the end have enough in the general fund to cover those costs, but we've been fortunate in the past few years where there are extra supplies, for example, from the afterchool program and we can utilize those. and so we're we're okay keeping it where it is as status quo. And I will say the teachers are fantastic. I do have to give a little kudo to them on a daily basis. I see emails back and forth between staff members where they'll say, "Hey, anybody have 10 straws for a project I'm doing?"
And they do they share. There is no excess in their rooms that they're not sharing with one another. and you'll notice this was another concern I think for people when you look at our utilities. We didn't go up on the utilities. We kept them the same. We kept them the same because as you guys know, we have done a lot of energy efficient things going into this next year. We are in the process of finishing the solar which should be up and running if mother nature will stop snowing. that that will be up and running and we're hoping to see a small difference. you know, but remember the bulk of where we're going to see the difference and be able to to to make sure that we track the trend data is going to be June, July, and August. So, we're going to have to wait and see what we, you know, get from June, July, and August. The other thing is the board
just approved an Eversource incentive program where we're going to for going forward next year have the pipes wrapped and things of that nature. So, we are hoping at the end of next year, even with a 0% increase, that we won't go over any line item and maybe see a savings, but we won't know what that savings is. the oil line item. The reason why we didn't increase that is because we lock in every year and we locked in at $249. And seeing what's in the news now, I'm very glad we did lock in at $249 so that we don't have to worry about volatility there. and then the last page just shows you at the bottom how we wound up with the $499.91. So that's the quick version if you wanted to see anything a little bit more detailed. as Caitlyn said at the beginning, we definitely do have a fair number of our meetings that are all posted that people could turn to.
Robert,
I am here. Thank you. board members, you know, questions. Let's let's do this. first of all, thank you. That's an excellent explanation.
You're welcome, Bill.
Thank you.
I I had a I had a question. This is Heather. Go ahead, Heather.
the benefits,
which I know I no doubt are going up 15 to 18%. I work in insurance, so I don't question that at all. that's
everybody in including preschool teachers that have benefits.
So, it's everybody that's that here. Yes. That signs up would be in there.
Okay.
If they take it. Not every employee does,
right? But it does include the prek even though so everything else for prek is covered under their thing but not the b under their budget but not the benefit.
if they take it then it would be and heather the point with that that we've discussed before is what we don't do is remove the other items from prek that would need to be in the town's budget. Let me explain. There are special education mandatory services that are required for our preschoolers. I'm going to speak hypothetically so that no one thinks I'm talking about one particular case. If there is a prek student that has a onetoone paraprofessional, that ninth salary is not in preschool. I mean, it should be in the general fund. That should be where it is. That's what it should be. That's not the case right now. We have not separated out what is the town's mandatory responsibility when it comes to preschool and say, let's create a line item in the budget for what our mandatory expenses would be if we didn't have any other rooms, no tuition, no anything. So, we don't nickel and dime back and forth in that case because when we looked at those numbers, they would even out. Does that make sense, Heather?
Yep. Thank you.
Okay. So, someone once asked me that, well, if you didn't have preschool, we wouldn't have Nope. If we didn't have preschool, those mandatory required services for those kids would actually cost us $300,000 in the budget because we would have to provide services to those special education kids and put it in the general fund and special education students don't pay tuition. So, we would have no revenue coming in, but we'd be providing services to those special ed kids. So, I would actually have to put $300,000 in the budget. And so this works out better.
That that makes sense. But I thought of another question. You were saying that how do how do we determine what the prek how do you determine what you charge for prek or is it a set like by the something?
So nope. So that's district by district. our tuition I actually have a list someplace and I'll give it to you year by year. Our tuition right now is set at 6,000 and for the time that I've been here it's been 6,000. And that's because our reimbursement through what used to be called school readiness, which is now called smart I mean early start is 6,000 a kid. So that's our number that we use for that figure. then what happens to and we have a certain number of slots for that grant and we have a certain number of slots for smart start. So we have two grants. those two grants combined with the tuition that comes in is $440,000 and that's why the eight salaries are
paid with the $440,000. But to qualify for one of those grant slots, they have to meet a criteria currently. for tuition we do also get andover residents from time to time that when they fill out their applications they qualify for a reduction in tuition that by law we have to do and we would reduce their tuition. so every single child does not pay the same amount if there is financial need or if they're special education because the law does say if they're special education, they don't pay for the service time. I'm trying to be careful just not to say things that I'm not supposed to say like about a specific case. so in 2027 when the law changes, what will happen is they will set the tuition rate. Anybody under $100,000 will be free. It's called universal preschool. Any family over $100,000 will have to pay 7%. That's what the district will be allowed to charge is 7%. They're thinking of going up to eight. So in 2027, the whole conversation will be move. Anyways, Heather, one of the things I want us to be set up for is they're kind of almost
building this plane as they fly it. Unfortunately, all of these changes. I've been to three meetings a month on this this whole school year. They're talking about incentive money for districts if, for example, they don't have a tuition rate currently over 6,000. They're talking about incentive rates if the empty seats are filled with outoftowners who would come with that universal money by the way like a voucher so to speak because there's a desert in northeastern Connecticut here of availability of early programs. So we're watching that. I know that there are people that say, "Well, why don't you just charge more in tuition, but that's not in the general fund." So, that extra money there, sure, there are are other preschool related expenses that could be put there, but in a year, if we're not careful, we would lose the early start funding and the smart start funding if we change our requirements and then we don't meet the criteria necessary to keep funding.
I have a question, Valerie.
Sure.
On the first page of the budget, it goes through the salaries and you had mentioned that most of them are like around 3% based on contracts. and I noticed that your salary is requesting like a 11% increase. Can you speak to that?
Sure. the board of education we did my contract what two meetings ago, three meetings ago. They will visit it again because we realized that the vote on that was not on the recording and so they will have to do that again. in my contract I am the lowest paid superintendent. I am. and so when we were renegotiating the contract, there was a conversation with the board about it being not not where it should be. we did look at contracts in about 15 other towns to see what the average when I say per day, I don't mean like March 3rd. I mean if a superintendent is a 5 day a week superintendent each one of those days qualifies as a 02 I am a 6. So looking at that, if you looked at somebody else's contract in another district and said, "What do they make per day per 2, what would that equate to? What would it look like here in Andover?" We did also look at the town side and we said, "Sure, not only
do we want to compare salaries to other districts that are reasonable in size to us, but we also want to compare it to again that same level of commitment that we have here in town. We are currently hiring a town administrator. We had contracts from the former town administrator and we said, "Let's make sure that our level of commitment is fair." And when I spoke with the board, they did also agree. And this one was starting to write that salary. And the reason why I say that is not just because it's Val Bruno and Val Bruno is the lowest paid superintendent, but also it is fiscally responsible moving forward. If I were to leave next year,
and I'm not. I'm staying for a while. I'm not not old enough to retire. they they would have to replace that, Louise. They would absolutely have to replace that. And to be able to replace it, they have to have a salary that's not thousands of dollars off from what the average salary is. You know, we're hiring a town administrator now. And if Eric's contract when he was here was 103,000, there isn't anybody that is going to come into that position for 80. A town administrator with experience is going to come in and they're going to expect a range. This is still the bottom of that range. And so
when they look when they looked at that comparing it being the lowest, did they also look at you being three days a week?
Yes.
Versus five, they did. Okay.
Yes. That's what I mean, Louise. That's a great question. But that's that's what they look at. They say if there's a a full-time superintendent, you know, makes 210,000, what would that look like pr-rated to three days a week? And they did go through many towns and say, "What would that look like?" And this is what she would make if we used the same formula as ram, as Coventry, as hein as marble. And they went through those. And this is still significantly lower. It just so happens that it was way lower before. And when we do a contract and you do a three-year contract, you're looking at comparability. Robert,
that was my next question about this is a three-year deal. So,
yes,
your last contract was what? 22 to 25?
No, it hasn't expired yet. The contract that I'm in right now 90 that expires June 30th.
23 to 26 then.
Right. Okay. But because we had talked about myself and the board the next time we did a contract trying to not make it equal to the other districts, but trying to kind of bridge that gap a little bit. That's why we really had to talk about it in October because what if the seven board members their idea of bridging the gap wasn't the same. And so we had to talk about that pre-doing the budget because we had to know was it going to be 100 110 what was it going to be? and so it was important to me that we do that prior to this budget so that I knew what the seven members felt comfortable approving to start bridging that gap. Any other questions?
Is that comparison between salaries and towns?
I'm sorry, who's speaking?
This is Anna. I just Is that comparison?
I'm sorry.
hang on a minute. so public speak, I mean with respect to
I can ask one of the members to ask then that's fine.
Yeah, that's no worries and we can put it in chat or maybe or what have you. I I just we don't have a vehicle for doing
Bob. Can I ask?
Yeah. Go ahead. Can
is that comparison made public? Do we all know?
No, because I can give you those numbers publicly. that's not a problem. But the problem with putting the town next to it, Kim, is then I am sharing without w without disrespect to colleagues, I am sharing their names in essence if I'm sharing the names of the town. So the board of education did get them. But I would say that if somebody is interested to go to the websites of all the towns and look them up individually. I'm not comfortable saying this is Tom's salary, this is Colin's salary, this is Holly's salary. I did that for the board of ed in in in our executive session, but when you're talking about somebody else's contracts, I'm not comfortable putting them on the spot that way.
So,
I mean, that said, it is it is public, right? I mean, ultimately, you can find it. So
that's why I'm saying if somebody wants to look at a contract, they can go to any
website
for a town near us, look at the superintendent contract.
Yep.
Yeah.
I guess the issue the issue is, of course, if it was nicely aggregated in one spot, it's easier to look at, but
it is.
It is. You also all have full-time jobs as well. So
yeah, it's it can be tough. so understandable. yeah, that that would be helpful. if we could get Yeah, but you can in fact Google around. I mean, I I did this with the looking at various town charters and it took me hours. So, you know, it's it's a time investment is all it is.
I would I would say anybody that's interested look at the towns that just border us and that would give you a lot of information. The average
commentary, Columbia, Hebrin, Bolton,
Rob.
Yeah,
I don't mean to interrupt you.
No, go ahead.
Hi. Can we please get the specific list of the towns?
Do you mind?
The specific list of the towns that were used for the
Yeah. Actually, that that's really
we just could we just get like the towns. We don't We can look it up ourselves, but like
Yeah. Yeah. We don't need That seems fair. We're not looking for anything confidential, private,
protected. We're just looking for the names of the towns.
Yep. That's That's
I really appreciate that, Rob. Thank you.
Seems reasonable. Yes, agreed.
You know, because I mean, it's easy to look around and just say geographically, right? It's Coventry, it's Columbia, it's Hebrin, it's maybe it's Marorrow, maybe Bolton.
Perfect.
You know, right? But what is it exactly? What are the what are the comps? Because the other thing is, and we've, and I know I've talked about this with Valerie before, in terms of budgeting and and school costs and everything like that, is that sometimes, yeah, geographical proximity is one thing. on the other hand, you have comparable towns which may not border you, right? Our town is 3,300 people. We have a certain level of what have you. And then you might have a town that borders us but it's three times our size or whatever and it may not be the same. So that's why you know some we have Val was talking about it earlier. I forget the acronym but our like our town group for a particular calculation might be different because it's trying to calculate based on the size of town you know and sophistication of the town and it may not be our immediate borders. So that's that's one example.
So I could give you the names of the towns. I just pulled this off my desk since I'm still in my office. Hein, Coventry, Lebanon, Colchester, Bosra, Salem, Ram, Franklin, and Marboro. And I will mix up I will mix up these numbers for you so that you don't have the name of the person. But what they did was they took the 0.2 two rate the board of ed and I assisted in helping you know with the names of the towns that were comparable. If you took the tw rate, multiplied it by three since I'm 6. my salary would be in any of those towns, this was the comparable list that they had. 150, 126, 115, 111, 117, 153, 125, 17, and 107. So those are the comparables for all of those town towns in different order. So that was what they looked at. That's what the board looked at.
I I think what would help Val if after the meeting if you have a chance to just email us the list of towns because you know you just rattled them off and that's great and I've already lost half of them. So Bos, you know these things. if you could just get us that later that would be helpful. So people can just go look it up and make themselves comfortable.
Nick, do you have a question?
No. Oh, no question. Thank you.
Okay. He He turned his thing on. I thought he was like, "Wait, call on me."
No, I'm I'm going through. I'm trying to keep everybody on the side here. make sure I'm not missing anything. So, by all means, speak up, people, if I'm not seeing you. so, I guess the only other question that occurs to me is, you know, how much of this if you looked at this from the perspective of just the the mandated increases, the health care costs, like you can't really do anything about all the stuff. you can't really do anything about, you know, are we still in the high single digits? Like where are we in terms of where would you be if you said to yourself, well, for by some miracle I I I don't need the extra teacher or I I don't need this or that. Is is there anything in here? And also and the other question I guess I would have is and I think people know about this you know you may be able to tap into at least for one year your what remains it's not a lot of money but there's some money in the 2% non-lapsing. If you were to do that what would this come down to do you think off the top of your head? I know I'm not asking you to do all the math right now.
She's still sharing her screen just so you know.
Yep. Okay. Because I know she's typing something in. I don't want her to.
No, I I knew. I knew.
Okay. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't Google search something there, Heather, and you went, "I didn't know they could see that." just giving you a heads up. so here's the thing, Rob. Those of you who have watched my budgets for six years know that I I don't do a budget like some superintendent do where I say in the end, I could cut that. I'm just going to put it in so that it's cutable. I don't believe in that personally. So if you're saying what expenditures are in here do you not need none of them. There are none because even I know even that sixth grade teacher
like it or not if someone says we think you should just leave 26 kids in there. I will need a paraprofessional then which means that that class that teacher salary turns into a Paris salary. So, I still need it. And so, then we mentioned the 2% non-lapsing account. The issue with that is even if there's $10,000 left at the end of a year, we put that in the 2% and it starts to build just like the funds do for the fire truck, for the roads, for the level of commitment that everybody knows needs to be done when we spend a million dollars funding those funds every year. For us, the only thing we have is the 2%. And last year, we asked for eight and a half. We did not get eight and a half, but those expenditures did not go away. So, we're three and a half in the hole that we're going to have to take out of that 2% at the end of this year. I promise you, we will not end this year
with a surplus. We will end this year behind, which means we're already going to have to take out of that 2%. Because we had that fourth and fifth grade teacher last year and they were not funded at a 5% increase. So Rob, I hear you. And on any other year, if I didn't know that I was already going to dip into the 2% non-lapsing account for this year, I'd say you're right. There's money in there and at the end of this year, we're going to have a surplus and we'll have more money in there. That's not true. So if we use what's left in there and we have nothing to put in there this year because we're in the hole. And then you say, "If there's anything left in there, use it next year." Val, I'm already two years without being able to refund it. And the 2% non-lapsing account is not an account that the town funds at budget season.
So that's the appeal of
So that account that fund would be empty and then not there for three years.
So we would have zero.
No, look, anything you pull from that is a oneshot deal. I understand it.
Right. And these expenditures are not oneshot deal expenditures. So it'd be different if I was saying to you, well, what I have in here, Rob, is a oneshot deal where I need this one thing for a kid that's in sixth grade and we've got to buy a, you know, a $50,000 wheelchair for them and to use for a year. Well, that would be a one-year expense. None of these are one-year expenses. That's why I say we started the year three and a half in the hole because having to hire the fourth and fifth grade teacher last year was not a oneshot deal. They're now in the budget. So that's why it's a tough year and I know that. but these are not oneshot deal expenditures and they're required expenditures. There isn't anything in here I would have already taken it out. There isn't anything in here that I could say we can live without that. We've already pulled out those things.
May I ask a question?
Go ahead.
It's Louise again. Okay. with the solar panels, when the company sold those to you, did they anticipate some sort of a They generally do some sort of a savings for you coming up each year?
Yes, Louise, great question. I don't know if you remember from our meeting and they didn't sell them to us. Remember, we're doing that Eversource program. So, there's no charge for them in our budget. So, they originally had anticipated we'd have about a $32,000 savings. And then, if you remember right, Louise, the town decided that we were not going to utilize the same number of solar panels because there was a question about whether or not in the future one of the roofs would potentially need to have work on it. So, we reduced those solar panels in half and now the estimation is potentially 7 to 8,000, but again, it's not even up and running yet. So, we have no data to go on to say, is it really going to be a 7 to 8,000? Maybe next year we're having a different conversation and we're saying they were spot on. It was exactly 8,000, but we have zero data and they're not even up and running yet. And
so that's not that's not incorporated into this budget then the savings.
Well, it it is Louise in the sense that we did not increase our utilities at all.
We kept them exactly the same in this budget because to your point, we're going to keep our fingers and our toes crossed that there is some savings to it. We just don't know what it is yet. So that's where we said we're going to hold our breath and keep those lines exactly even. And we do
you're you're hoping for like a 10% decrease if you're lucky.
Yes.
If we're lucky.
Yes. But we'll know more this time next year. Obviously, we'll know more. I guess I would say, you know, just from my own personal experience with solar, I mean, I did my own calculations because I don't trust contractors, but mine worked out really really astoundingly well. They were bang on. So, if you're, you know, I I I I think we all agree you're going to get some savings. It's just a question of is it five,
is it seven,
right?
You know, is it in there? you're going to get some savings, but when do you know when it's going to go live?
Well, if we didn't have mother nature snowing on us continuously and we could get to the roof, Rob, she'd be up and running by now. But
I still have snow sliding off my panels as we speak. but no, yeah, I mean, my system went live in July, which was in the, you know, kind of the middle of the year, but hopefully you guys are up and running in April or something. It'll be better. Is there a date for when Eversource is going to put their meter in for the solar panels?
so they're actually they're almost done with all of that now. They were here today, as a matter of fact, to try to clear the snow. They've already done their two Was that Kim? Kim, they've already done their two shutdowns, too, so that they could check and make sure all the electrical worked. We did the last shutdown on the last Monday that we had off for the holiday. So, they're there. Now it's just mother nature cooperating so that we can we can go on board. and so that's why to Rob's point I actually think it will be April. but they're they had been moving along before the snowstorm. Kim,
by them you mean Eversource or the solar company?
The two of them are working obviously the contractor is the solar company but there is an Eversource
part. The metering Eversource has to do the metering.
Correct. Correct. And they're very strict about their
Yes. So, I want to circle back to the psychologist.
Is it Am I correct in understanding that the $90,000 that we're going to pay that includes the benefits for the psychologist as well?
The No, the 101 line is their salary. And Kim, I not that I would because we've had this conversation before. I couldn't answer you right now to tell you if that person even had benefits. I I don't know the answer to that in this moment in time. it I don't but no person's benefits are in the 101's because the 101's 002101 those are their salaries.
Okay. Okay. Thank you Valerie. And I I want to circle back to the the HVAC. do you anticipate any HVAC improvements in the school, air conditioning, heating, etc. in this coming year? because it seems like there's been a lot of work done on that in the school in the last year.
So to which to which you say HVAC so the the air conditioning
right the the air conditioning is that's not on our radar right now. Those were installed and they were the individual ones in the classrooms were installed with COVID money in 21 to 22. So, that's not, you know, we have regular repair and maintenance, I mean, regular maintenance contracts on those, but we haven't had a lot of anything with that. The, the heating system, regular ongoing maintenance, but we have had a few. There's a pump in the the pump room down there that had, a fitting and pipe that need to be fixed. The Skidmore pump that's going to be about 3,000 to fix that. that's already, you know, in the works there. There are a few smaller things, Kim, that that we're working on there. We are definitely going to have to make sure that if there is that small leak in that
pipe that that's fixed for the 3000 that package because part of the Eversource incentive program is going to be wrapping the pipes for more energy efficiency. So, we do need to make sure that that's done before the pipes are wrapped. we're about 18 months out. So what the head custodian Jod and I will be working on in the coming 12 months is looking at exactly and we've gotten one you know in in mind that we're waiting for a quote now on what would need to be done with the the boilers that is probably 18 months out. So we could see that as a a capital conversation this time next year for the budget but not this year. Rob.
Oh, I'm just just seeing if anybody else on the board has further questions.
I just have one more quick question.
how how many staff do you have at the school right now?
well, that one you're throwing me. So, we have just under 50. so don't quote me if it's 48 or 52, but I know that when we we have to put things in mailboxes, it's 50. So that would include everybody that works here. So it's 50.
So between 50 and 52.
No, between 45 and 52, Kim, because if I get that number wrong, someone's going to try to hold me to that. but roughly 50. Yes. All right.
I had a quick question, I think. Go right ahead, Heather. Heather,
is there and this might just be because I'm new I'm new on this board. Is there a place to see like all the I guess the revenue like the grants that we've had or the board of ed has had but now doesn't have or just kind of something a summary. So the board of finance receives and then it's also attached to our monthly financials for the board of education. They see the the grants that we have
in that sorry that's that monthly summary that we get on the board of finance meeting. Okay.
Yes. And what you see on there, Heather, when she does it, because we had changed about a year ago. I think it was might have been Joanne actually that you know, had asked for that when she was on the board of finance. That actually also lists and so does our financial. It lists what came in that month for that grant. So if if an if a Title 4 grant is a $10,000 grant for the year, what you might see that month in revenue coming in might say 2600. It doesn't mean that's the whole grant. It means that's what came in that month to offset whatever was the expenses that that she put in for for reimbursement because remember all of our grants are reimbursement grants. So we spend the money first, we turn in the receipts and then they reimburse us. So, yeah, if if you look, Heather, on the financials, you'll see them. And again, next year, what you'll expect to see are our title grants, which the salaries that are covered out of our title grants are not in the general fund. They're reflected in the title grants. IDEIDA, which is special education, so it can only be used for special education costs. Title and special ed, title and IDA grants are what we can expect for next year. Separate from the general fund, you also
see that number on the bottom. revenue to the preschool program is tuition, smart start, and early start.
You know, it occurs to me, Val, it might be useful from the perspective of explaining things to the public if we had an aggregate of okay, look, last fiscal year we got a total of this much in grant money. Forget the preschool. I'm talking about pre I'm talking about K through six. and then this year we're looking at receiving this much because you know you as you walked us through your your budget summary you mentioned we lost some grant money. There are some people like the I think it was one of them was the psychologist where we lost a significant chunk of money that is no longer funding a salary. And that might be helpful to have that data just to say you know to have it aggregated. You don't have to I don't know if we have to have chapter verse but we had this much now we're anticipating this much and there's your gap and that helps explain one of the big cost drivers in this budget. One of the cost drivers in this budget. So that one might be a useful infographic to try to create and and maybe we can work on that. That's one of the reasons why we did keep stressing the loss of that grant
because I didn't want people to think that you know it was all of a sudden we needed a psychologist. We always had a psychologist just we'd been keeping it out of the budget because we had that grant. I will talk to Jod about making sure that she can fill you guys in on those lost grants. just understand title grants, title one, title four and idea grants are fairly consistent, which is why I say we we know that the amounts may change a little bit. We might lose a couple hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, whatever, but for the most part, those are consistent for us in budgeting. So, us taking somebody out of the general fund and keeping them in idea or title is not as big a risk. the mental health grant that we used for the school psychologist for example those are grants that pop up in egrant management system it's what's called entitlement grants just like entitlement programs on a government level Medicaid social security those sorts of things and then there's competitive grants and the competitive grants are the ones that pop up that you have to apply for that you don't know if you're going to get it
and then when you get it you're like great but when that's gone it's gone it's one and done and Those might come that those might come mid year.
They absolutely come at odd times because the state legislature has to approve money to put aside for something or the federal government approves money to put aside for something and it almost never coincides with July 1. And so those competitive grants rarely rarely you know have a specific time frame, a specific time period. But yes, I will ask Jod to come up with the short list of the grants that were lost for you guys so that you can see it and they would include the mental health grant.
I think that would be helpful honestly. And you know, I think everybody here should understand the uncertainty that is involved with grants that might show up 3 months from now that we don't know about. I mean that
just like postco Rob postco we got lots more. I did all the air all the air conditioning in the building without a capital budget because I had COVID relief money.
HVAC for CO makes total sense. no that that makes sense. I I just I am thinking ahead to a budget hearing. I'm thinking ahead to town meeting. I'm thinking of how to explain all of this to our town people. So, it just occurs to me that helping people understand how the grants work a little bit better. You know, a lot of it's under the hood and I think that to the extent that we can explain it a little better, it might help. So yeah, whatever you and Jody can come up with, I think would be would be helpful there.
Yep.
Do we have other members of the board with questions on line items here? Anything in specific? I mean, I look at the benefit totals and what I see is 18%. And I'm like, okay, well 15% of that is probably the healthcare and then the rest is your salary increase. I mean, I don't know if I have anything really to because
no in benefits.
Salary doesn't doesn't benefits key off of salaries. So if you increase your salary 3% you get decrease.
No
no no there are other benefits contractual benefits
oh okay
like life insurance if somebody has another benefit that's in there you know those sorts of things
visibility whatnot.
Yep.
Any of those longevity those sorts of things that are in people's contracts which is why it just says benefits. So it it if a salary increases, it doesn't automatically
kick over to because this is in retirement. I'm thinking I'm thinking private sector. I'm thinking about if I get a raise, my benefits go up because it's my everything keys off my salary. this is
that would be that would be the one that I told you is down there in pension for the non-serve,
right? The non-served pension,
right? their municipal pension would change because their salary goes up. But remember, back to teachers and admin and myself, we're all in teachers retirement. which means that our TRB is paid out of our paychecks.
So, nope. That that doesn't, you know, if a teacher goes from making 80,000 to 90,000, there is no increase in benefits for that teacher because they pay their own TRB. So they'll be charged more TRB, but it comes out of their paycheck,
right? So just looking at at on this page here, the the teachers salaries and everything like that, you know, looking at the increases, the significant increases here are the the obviously the overall, but that's contractual. The speech teacher, the library, and obviously the psychologist, we've talked about the psychologist already, so don't worry about that. So the the library and the speech was that were were either of those affected by grants?
The library was because one of her four days had been in a grant.
I see.
so that's why that one was kicked back in there. The speech, however, the speech teacher, let me see how I can say this. The speech teacher when there was less need with the students was split between two districts
and so every cost associated with her was split by two districts. So that was a huge savings to us because if you are splitting a person, you're splitting all of their expenses. If they take insurance, you're splitting that as well. We've been kind of milking the schedule in terms of we knew we had too many days that we needed, but we weren't quite at full-time in the past before. And so our split went from 5050, which was two and a half days and two and a half days to then three days here. Like we've been inching that up, Rob, as the need goes up because the other thing we do with our special education population is I work with the special ed
director and pre putting out this budget, we go through everything. How many kids require speech services per their IEP? How many hours do they require? How many direct service hours and nonirect PPTs, meetings like that? So, you need a speech teacher, how many hours a week? And then we move to OT and PT and mandated hours for the psychologist. We do all of that when we're putting together a budget to make sure that all the students needs. Now, anybody who has had a child that was special ed or worked in the special ed field like me, that gets thrown into the wind sometimes during the year because when you have a meeting on a special education student, it could go well and someone could say, "Oh, they actually don't need five hours anymore a month. They're going to need three." or it could go the other way where they say we now need five hours a month and it used to be three. So, there is volatility in those lines as well, but for the most part based on the information that we have when putting this budget together, based on the number of special education students, these are real needs.
The short short answer is you're taking your speech up from two and a half to three, right? No, they were already at three this year.
Oh, okay.
And they are moving up.
Oh, okay. Even further. Okay.
And so that's that's that's that's an issue. Again, something that we put off for as long as possible. definitely that had been reduced I believe in 2018. they had reduced it back then a little bit and then a little bit more in 2020 when we had less students and it's just been climbing up as the number of students
I'm sure postco you need speech help y that makes sense
okay
Rob I have two more quick questions sorry
go ahead Kim please go right ahead
Valerie do we have any out of town children in our K through six schools school
this school year. Yes.
Okay. And and are they paying the agreed tuition that is in your policies?
They have an agreement to pay the agreed upon tuition at the start of this school year. They won't be out of town for the whole rest of this school year. which is why next year they will not be considered an out of town. They will be considered an in town.
Okay. So, they're not paying the agreed upon tuition.
That's not what I said.
I guess my next question said
that's not what I said.
I'm not sure.
Okay. my next question when you
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
What is the agreed upon tuition? Like
Well, there's a certain amount of money that we and over charges for kids who come from out of town.
Correct.
Is this Are we We're talking K through six here.
Yeah, K through six.
So, this is like the conversation we had with Colin about, you know, Colombia kids paying 15,000 or rather Colombia paying 15,000 a kid to go to RAM.
Okay.
Yes. And Rob, perfect example. If that child,
I'm going to use your example because I don't want us to get personal. if that child becomes an Andover resident in March, Colombia is not going to pay the agreed upon April, May, June to Colin because then they would be a resident of Hebrin, Andover or Marorrow. Follow me? The money that's being paid is because they are a Colia resident. If they were a full-fledged Ram student, there would be no tuition
because they pay their town taxes.
Correct.
Gotcha.
So, the idea would be that if we have people right now that are in the process of moving into Andover,
it happens. Or or Yes, it happens all the time. I can tell you three years ago,
we had a preschooler that paid out of town who paid tuition. they were out of town and they then paid tuition for September, October, November, and December until a house was purchased and then they stopped paying kindergarten tuition because they became an Andover resident. So yes, that happens all the time.
Okay,
we currently only have one family that falls under that category,
right? And so that idea is basically a transitional phase essentially like no if you're
do we ever have do we ever have somebody who for whatever reason K through six the whole year they're out oftowner like and they don't is it all transitional like that or is it situation where somebody for whatever reason attends the school all year like that?
I mean again hypothetic I don't want you to get into any
specific no I I think I can answer it without anything private but say it again. So
so if you have a situation so we have a situation right now where we have a student or what have you that is out of town now but we anticipate them you know moving in.
No they were charged tuition until they moved in
and they moved they get charged tuition on prided essentially on a prated basis right until they moved in. not pro prate is the wrong word, but I know what you're saying. They pay partial payments. Y.
So, has there been a situation ever where we've had a student that was out of town and paying tuition an entire school year? Is that a thing that we do?
Absolutely. We've had before I got here, we had staff members that worked here and wanted their children to go to school here. Like that's why there's a tuition rate and they paid for their children to go before I was here. They paid for their their children to go here.
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
That's every town and that's why there has to be a board of ed policy that determines what that tuition rate is.
I see. Is that is that a flat is that a flat rate or is there an adjustment for like,
you know, family income or anything like that? Once a year the board has to redetermine what that rate is by policy but then that's it you know you know we don't we don't
so this is along the lines of RAM deciding okay it's 15 grand if you want a Columbia student to come to our school
correct
hey pick that
and they have a policy rate where you could have a Mansfield kid that'll say you know what I want my kid to go to RAM and there's a policy in RAM's board of ed policies that say Well, we're not one of your sending schools, so the parents are going to have to pay that instead of the school district. Colia Colia pays the 15,000 for their Colombia kids because Ram is a choice school,
but if a kid in Mansfield wants to go to Ram, the family would have to pay,
okay?
Because it's not a choice school for Mansfield.
And and so we have a policy that says
every school district does.
Okay.
Correct. All right.
I appreciate that answer. I just have one more quick question. So, in 2023 24, we increased our prek program by two more classrooms. And I'm just curious, not on a bigger level, did we have to increase our insurance policy for the town or the school due to a much bigger group of children? That's just a something that I was personally thinking of myself and would like to know. I know we have a massive insurance policy,
but I'm just curious, how did that affect that? Because that's a lot of kids.
It it doesn't affect it. Okay. And I can tell you that since that time, our four preschools and our two kindergartens have the fantastic accolade of being NYAK accredited classrooms, which means that we had an even higher than OEC. department come in and those six classrooms were scrutinized. Our policies and procedures were scrutinized. our handbook, our everything was scrutinized for those six classrooms and we scored above 97 and 98 in those six classrooms. So, I can tell you personally, we were very proud of that. Our six classrooms have everything they need to for compliance and then some, which is why our four preschools are considered so sought after. Rob.
Yeah. So, I mean, just on the insurance angle, just so I I understand it better, you know, I'm an insurance guy, you know that, but I'm not this kind of insurance guy. So, bear with me. you know, you have this situation where I'm sure the the school has a variety of insurance policies. You have commercial general, well, not commercial, but general liability. I'm sure you have work comp for your employees. You have this and that and the other. So, are those kind of in in one pool? or I mean, I assume you're not disagregating this to to literally like every grade. That would be crazy.
No.
but
yeah, I mean, I guess what it boils down to, and this is as sort of an old school insurance guy, it it would be tricky to figure this out, but you'd have to think about it how the policyy's rated. We we don't pay based on the number of classrooms that we have.
Yeah.
You don't you don't pay based on headc count.
No, there isn't a policy that we pay based on
So that's what it boils down to. So, you know, for those of you who are not in insurance, there are various ways of rating an insurance policy. And I've seen many of them in my time in insurance. And a lot of the times what I'm doing is going back and looking at historical insurance policies and trying to figure out what in the world we were trying to do 30 years ago. And one of the things that we look at is the ratings page. On the ratings page, you can rate things on payroll. You can rate them on square footage. You can rate there's like a million different ways you can rate an insurance policy and decide the premium. And if it's not based on headcount in terms of the number of students, you know, maybe it's if it's based on remuneration, which is salary by the way. that's then yeah, sort of kind of it it involves how many kids you had in the school because obviously if you have more kids in the school, you have more employees. But there may if they're rating it off of other things, then it's kind of irrelevant how many kids you have in a given classroom. So that's what I would go to. And I I have to be careful here because I work for insurance companies. So I don't want to get too closely involved in these discussions. It's not my I'd have to recuse if we got too close to it. But basically, just for those as
anformational matter, the way that underwriters go about this, it can be done a variety of different ways, and it may or may not be have anything to do with the number of children in a given classroom or a given program. I totally agree with you. I wanted to ask the question, Rob. Thank you, Valerie.
Oh, yeah. You're welcome. Kib, by the way, no, no problem at all. I'm just trying to be informational. I'm just trying to help,
you know, as somebody who actually
knows like this much about insurance.
And I'm glad that I don't have to worry about any insurance based on the number of kids in classrooms. So, no, don't give anybody any ideas, Kim. We don't have to do that.
Down this rabbit hole too many times. I'm not an underwriter. Thank you.
I don't need to do it. I wish I, you know, but every once in a while I have to try to figure out what an underwriter was thinking and it's always a great deal of fun. By which I mean not at all. Anyway, okay. So, Kim, are you set or did you have more?
Bob, I'm all set. Thank you very much.
You're all set. Heather, are you good?
I think so. I had a I I was reading back through one of the emails that we got and I had a question. about how the budget's presented like are we supposed to be able to see like the the actual and then what they've what has been spent so far this year. Do you remember that email we got from someone on our board?
Oh, about which columns and and
yes, we adhere we adhere to the five columns. but the only difference is the last year's actuals aren't done yet because the audit's not done.
Yeah. The tricky bit here and I've been and and this is something that I recognize as a difficulty across the board is that so everybody understands when we do an audit in theory in an ideal world right the fiscal year closes January not January June 30th 2025 and between that time and the end of the year in theory if we were had all everything was firing on all cylinders and we had all our ducks in a row. We'd have our audit done before we started the budget process and we would know everything up to June 30th, 2025. Unfortunately, and as has been the case many years in this town, we are not done. We have sometimes been a full calendar year behind. We have been chipping away at that and getting better and better, but we're not there yet. So the the budget year that ends 2025 2425 is not audited yet. We can
have ballpark figures, but we do not know we don't have an audited figure yet for that that last budget year. Not the budget year we're in now and still haven't finished, but rather the one one back, which gets frustrating when you want to look back and try to figure out what's going on. It means that you don't have accurate to the penny information for even seven months ago. this is something when I ask Lisa for instance, hey Lisa, what what's going on with all our different town funds? I recognize that she's in dealing she's dealing with the same problem. So just so everybody understands that's one of the constraints we're under. But I mean, we also have to try to make decisions regardless. And and that's the tricky bit. We have to be able to maybe find a ballpark that we can live with and and make our best guess because at some point we have to make decisions and we may not have I don't think that audit's going to be done tomorrow. I mean, I don't remember about when we finished last year, like the budget, the last audit. Well, you know that six months ago, we were still doing the graduate plan. So, four four months ago,
we were still
I mean, it was done but for the plan to be fair, right? We had our numbers basically, but we had to do the plan. Right.
So, it was just before that. Right.
But it was it was definitely after we passed our budget, wasn't it? Right around when we passed our budget.
Yes. Right.
Yeah. So, ideally, guys, we'd be four or five months ahead of that. And we haven't been there in Oh, I I can't even tell you how long. we've had a lot of problems with audits over the years.
Just so you know, it's 8:02. and in 8:02, Rob, in the town charter, that's where it tells Jodie what her five columns need to be. the actual which we don't have. The actual itemized expenditures is one of them. The original budget allocation the estimated expenditures to be incurred for the next year which is the 26 27 in there. So yeah, the only thing that's missing is the actuals that we don't have yet. I mean, I guess I guess in theory, the best that could be done is you could put it in actuals, but they're not audited actuals.
They're not actuals then, right?
They they'd be gueststim they everybody would have to understand that they're guesstimates. That's the answer. I mean, for instance, Lisa is trying to do that for us right now with our current budget year where she's got a column in her chart, and I think I hope everybody understands that that's her best understanding, not an audited figure. you know, but she's got a column there that goes from June 30, well, July 1st rather, 2025 to present to, no, sorry, to the end of January. and that's her going through everything and and doing her best. But it's nobody should take that as gospel truth because the reality is until it's audited it could be off by by a little bit. Not that I no disrespect to Lisa. So that's that I guess is the question whether we
Yeah.
whether it's realistic or reasonable to ask for the unodudited info. I guess
I think that's dangerous. I mean at a board of ed meeting they can see by looking at the last they can go back to our June board of ed packet and they will see where we ended the year out.
Yeah,
I think it's dangerous to put them in as quote actuals. They are not audited. But I would say that if somebody is interested absolutely look at the last financials from June and look at them you know they would have come at the July meeting and that will show you where we ended. So if somebody is interested in saying well how much did they spend last year before the audit comes out. It's the the June financials and those are online. So it's yeah eventually we'll get the audit earlier. Yeah, eventually we will get there. I I swear at some point during my tenure, we will get there. No, it's also it's also the issue and we will always deal with this is there will always be some difference between the audited figure because it's the end of June and even if we get it done real quick there's going to be at least four months right of the new budget going into place and expenditures happening and everything right when we're looking at for instance on the town side fund balances the thing that I keep trying to focus on because if you get a snapshot, the audits a snapshot at the end of the fiscal year
for this for the school Rob it's actually a little bit more accurate and different because we're a separate account. Yeah.
So when July rolls around,
yeah,
when when we do the reconciliation for June and pay all the bills,
July one is our account is empty except any outstanding June bills that haven't gone through yet. As well as if it was a year that had a surplus, that's in there. It's not going to be the case this year, but so we know.
And again, you're also just doing an ops budget. We're on the town side. You know, I keep thinking and it's important not to get these confused when I think about our various town funds. That's capital stuff and that's not something you have going on.
We don't have that in that account. Right.
That's right. So,
well, you have you have your capital account, which is a whole another discussion.
That's on the town side. Yeah, that's on the town.
Whole another discussion. But,
anything else from you, Rob?
Does anybody else have questions about, you know, the kind of the line items and and everything that Valerie walked us through? Does anybody else have anything they want to bring up, discuss? Board members, now is your time.
I just would like to say that I do think it would be good if we got the actuals in that budget. We asked for it on the town side and as close as we can get for the board of education.
Again, I will gladly re bring up the financials from June. That's the best that we can do is to show you our June financials where we ended because when I show you those you will see as of June 30th what was spent in each line item.
But so from from there till now
right
is that's the I mean I think that's what Kim is
correct
alking about. That's what I'm asking for Rob
this year so far. No, we've never done that during budget season. We've never said, "Well, let's show you the current fiscal year and where you are in spending." And if you want to see that, that is monthly at the board meeting as well. But that's that wouldn't be accurate for us. It wouldn't be accurate for us.
If we went looked at the last finish, let me finish. The reason why it wouldn't be accurate for us is, for example, if right now somebody says, "But Valerie, you've only spent 50% of your teacher salary line item. you're going to have a surplus." No, I'm not because I run five payrolls on the last week of school.
So that's why Rob, that's not accurate. It's never done that way with a school district for that reason. It's not accurate. We have a heavy set of expenditures that occur April, May, and June. And the town only pays us our allowance until April. So we don't get any money toward those expenditures in May and June. So it would be absolutely a a moot number. The number that would help Kim would be and because we don't have the audit yet would be to look at June's financials and say as of June 30th what had the school spent on everything. That would be a number that would be worthwhile for a Kim. And I'm happy to pull the June financials and send them to you guys. Again,
the only the only disagreement I have with you about it's minor is this on the town side. When we look at year-to- date expenditure information, it is understood and we talk about it all the time that there may be expenditures that look wrong. They look wrong, right? Like we're seven months into the year, but we've only spent 25% of the budgeted amount. Oh wow, we're going to come in under budget. No, we're not because there are four payments a year and we just haven't triggered the thing. We have that all the time.
I I know that it would be tricky for us to go through the whole set of
or the most part. You don't have the degree of variance of when things are paid. So, for example, if I were to say to you, Rob, in Thanksgiving, tell me what percent of your salt budget is spent, and you say zero. And I say, you're gonna have a surplus.
Yeah, it's meaningless.
No, because December, January, and February, that's an easy one.
That's meaningless. Yes, we know that,
right? Of the majority of our expenditures that are seasonal would require us to sit here for another four hours and go over why that's not an accurate number. And that's why school districts don't do it is because, like I said, we have five pay periods that happen from June 15th to June 30th because they get their balloon checks. We have $400,000 in salary that's distributed during the end of June. So, we should be, you know, behind the eightball in terms of the percentages. So, like I said, I'm very happy to take June's and send that to you guys so that you can see where we ended the year. That's that's absolutely something that would help Kim out, but it's not accurate for us to even look at the what we've spent to date this year and try to make gobble goo out of it. It's it's not accurate
when you do it on when you talk about it at your meetings at the at the sorry, not your the board of ed meetings.
Yeah.
monthly. Do you talk about it in those terms? like in terms of okay so if somebody looked at your
I forget what your last meeting was the end of January
somebody looked
they might not have discussed it in January it's as it comes up so if somebody had a question on the financials if Caitlyn says this month when she looks at Jod's financials hey Jod why are we only at 45% spent and we're halfway through the school year for salaries Jod then would address the question but a fair number of the board of ed members because they see it every month and they've been there for years. That one's an easy one for them. They know that. why are we going to be 100% spent on a line item on the first day of school for summer school? Because ESY is already done. Why are we going to be 100% on a line item for dues and fees? Because dues and fees are due at a certain time. So again, the audit should
be done soon. but I will gladly take again June's financial reports and send those along to you guys. They're online. It's easy. I can get that for you. you know, it's a tough year. I I don't have further questions myself. I think I appreciate your presentation. I appreciate you answering our questions. Again, board members, if if anybody else can think of anything, now is a great time. Otherwise, we will maul we will consider and you know, I'm sure we'll have more to discuss at our meeting. I know we're at the same time as you guys as the board of ed our next meeting overlaps with yours. I'm sure we'll discuss it some more then. For now, I'm good. Unless anybody has anything further for the board on the board? Anybody? Anybody? Okay. Now, if I can only Well, I can only
apparently open one PDF at once, which is extremely irritating. This is an older computer. but I don't believe we have because this is a special meeting. I don't think we have anything beyond budget discussion on this agenda really. So, is there anything else that anyone would like to bring up that if we're done with the school, we could let Val go u and we can talk about anything else anybody has thoughts on. I have my own and you know, Lisa knows this. I I've talked to her a couple times. I keep trying to get at because I'm worried about the capital budget. I'm not worried about I'm I'm worried about us being able to evaluate the capital budget. I'm still attempting to get a sense for what's in our capital funds under the understanding the audit isn't complete. Same exact constraints. that's my big thing right now is trying to figure out what we have in our various town funds. We actually have quite a few of them. If you look at our audit, there are many funds. I'm trying to get an arm around that. beyond that, you know, I haven't seen, thanks to Lisa for sending us a new spreadsheet. It's not dramatically different than the last one we got. I am not aware that the board of selectman has had a chance to meet this week. I know they need to make some decisions. I don't know if anyone's
different. beyond that, I I don't really know that there's much for us to take action on tonight. I think we have to digest this and think about also, you know, think about the fire budget as well that was presented to us and we'll talk about it next week. We have some other presentations coming in, but I don't have anything in particular I want to take action on tonight. Does anyone have other thoughts on the board? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody?
No.
A motion to to adjourn.
Yeah. I mean, I think that's where we're at.
I think that's where we're at, Rob.
I think that's where we're at. I I just want to be sure. I never want to shut anything down. just FYI, like again, we do have a couple of presentations coming in next week. I I encourage everybody to try to look at We got some emails this afternoon. you may not have all seen them from the town treasurer to try to look at the stuff that's in there. And if there's you have questions, things that arise, think about that for our meeting on the 11th. That would be helpful. I haven't even had a chance to look at every one of those PDFs. So, you know, I'm right there with you. Try to do that. In the meantime, I will continue to attempt to gather information for the board from the town side as best I can. But yes, if we would like to entertain a motion to adjurnn, I'm all ears.
I'll second that.
Motion. Okay.
All right. So, Bill makes the motion. Louise seconds.
All in favor? Yay.
I I
That sounds like 70 to me. We don't have seven. All right. All, thank you very much. I'm going to figure out how to turn off the recording and you know, go from there. Have a have a good night, everyone.
Thanks, Rob. Okay. Bye-bye.
Bye.