Meeting transcript
Andover Town Budget Meeting
June 2, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
All right. Good evening. How's everybody?
We're going to get started.
Again, before we get started, I'm going to ask everybody
nice. be nice, right? I'm required to read this. The electors and citizens qualified to vote in town meetings in the town of Andover are hereby notified that the Andover that the Andover Elementary School budget meeting in of the town of Andover be held at the Andover Elementary School and gymnasium Tuesday, June 2nd at 7 p.m. for the following purposes. Number one, to choose a moderator for set meeting. Two, for review and discussion only, but no action taken upon the budget of Andor Elementary School for the fiscal year July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027 as prepared by the board of finance and voting will be deferred to the subsequent budget referendum at the Andovertown community room.
I believe that date is June 16th. Is that correct? Yeah, it match
June 16th. Okay. So, the first order of business is to choose a moderator for said meeting. Do we have any nominations?
I'll second.
we have a nomination from Wally Barton from Jerry and a second from Scott Soyette. Are we all set for that? Any any other nominations? I'm just going to come around to the mic to help people make sure they're speaking right into it.
There's only one mic.
Oh,
that's okay. Any other nominations? All right. Hearing none. The only is said moderator.
Okay. Couple of housekeeping things. This is the open market. It's functional tonight. So, anyone that hasn't wants to come up and speak, you're going to have to come up here and it'll be used by We're good. The board has selected the board of finance and whoever wants to speak. At this time, I'll turn it over to the chair of the board of finance to give his presentation.
Yeah. Thanks for All right, everybody. Since this is the third time we're going through this, I somewhat focusing on the change. So, this is a recap, right? This first page is everything that's happened up until the last referendum. So, we've been through this already. as you can see, you know, there's been a lot. We originally failed at referendum. Board of Finance made a $50,000 cut to AES. That was also rejected at referendum. So, here we are. At our last meeting, the day after the last referendum, we voted to decrease the AES budget increase request to 6%. Down from the 9.82 I think we were at. It's about $175,000 cut. That puts their budget request at 4,839,38972.
Ram's operational budget also their capital task their operation which is much larger failed. They met last night. My understanding is that they made a reduction to their operational budget of about 254,000. I've got info from their finance office as to our levy. The resulting decrease for us is 32,187. If you put those two together, that brings the total expenditure number. If you guys picked up the handout, it's reduced by that 32,000. We already baked in the border of finance change, but of course since what Rand did happened last night, there wasn't time. So that's why you might see a mischiev 13 million 306225 for total expenditures 3.1 3.15. Now, we have this year, as we've discussed in private past meetings, and I can go through it again if people have specific questions, if you want to hear if you're curious, but we have some offsets, some additional revenue, some oneshot deal kind of things, the RAM offset for our levy because they had too much money built up, the state aid supplemental, etc. The result of this means the amount that we need to raise by taxation is just over $10 million. 10,99,572 which is just shy of a 1% gains due to increases in the grand list. What this works out to for the mill rate is that we're basically flat. We were 31.59 last year. I'm getting 31.58 as things stand today. This is just a snapshot of where we are in terms of the various expenditures. As you know, the town budget passed, so that's baked in. And what remains is RAM
and the end of a BOE. Those are the numbers as up to date as I can get them. So this is just the how we calculate the mill rate. As you can see here the taxable grand list if you look at that number it's up a bit this year presumably some new construction and such like and that is why you can have the amount raised by taxation go up 1% but have them already flat so your individual tax would be flat if your assessment hasn't changed we don't have a reval till next year so this is just my I reid this as my little fiveyear look back chart of what the amount to be raised by taxation, which again isn't necessarily exactly your taxation level because changes in the grand list, but this would have us, if we were to pass this combined budget now, we would be at 7.3% over 6 years. That's where we stand tonight. And that's it. I I wanted to pair this down and keep it short and sweet. If you want, you can go back and recap something that you're curious about from past meetings. I'm happy to do that in question and answer time. But I'm going to leave it there and I'm going to leave and see what's for the best. We'll leave it there. And then what I'd like to do since my presentation was so short is I know that the remaining question is about the budget. We have the end over BOE here and Caitlyn, their chair, asked if she could have some time to address that budget. So, I'd really like to do is bring Caitlyn up and then we do the question and answer after. He said he doesn't have the software.
I have a discountility because I'm sorry.
Okay. So, there should be hard copies of our budget that are outside there by the door. Does anyone need one that didn't get one on the way?
so we've been here a couple times already at town meeting. we definitely can answer whatever questions that you guys may have specific to our budget since it's the only thing that didn't that has yet to pass, right? So, it's what we'll be voting on in addition to RAM. but really just wanted to say there there will have to be cuts with the 6% increase to address any parents that are in the room, like real real substantial cuts for us to get to that number. So, if you're going to ask if it's going to affect students directly, 100% it will. We don't have a way around that. so if anyone has specific questions about line items within the budget,
can you give more information about how it will affect?
So, I can't. the superintendent might be able to. We haven't met as a board yet and we wouldn't make those decisions until after this budget passes if it passes.
Okay. but I think the way you're supposed to do this is to say your name and then ask the questions. Yeah.
Hi Ashley Johnson. Lake Road 191. I was just wondering if you could give us more information about how this will affect students with the budget changes because I mean honestly I kind of like the 6%. but yeah, I would like to know how is this going to affect our students? How is this going to affect us moving forward? And what can we as a community do to help make up the difference through volunteer or anything else?
Well, as the chairperson said, this will be a decision that the board will have to make. There will be a list of proposed ideas for the full board at the board meeting this week. I'm working with the principal, the special director, the teacher union for us to look and figure out what they would be. What's on the table so far, again, in no particular order because there's a lot of things that we're going to have to look at on the table is the loss of two parent educators. have spoken with that union. that that is on the table. the not hiring of a new teacher for sixth grade and
having to reconfigure existing staff because there does need to be attention to those sixth graders. on the table is the loss of the library. On the table is the loss of Spanish. We've already spoken. on the table is the loss of the addition of art back down to potentially two to three days. on the table is the collapsing of one of the grades in first, second or third. it would be second or third. we have to look at the not only number of students but the needs one of those three grades. I won't tell you which one at this point, but one of those three rates has a student population of 50% of students with particular programs. When I say individualized programs, I mean some that are special education with an IEP or 504, some that are talented and gifted, some that are ELLL. All of those are individualized needs for those particular students. So, we have to reevaluate which grades we would be looking at, but beyond a shadow of a doubt, there's loss of staff. Just not sure where that loss of staff will be. That's not a maybe at this point. That's a definite. and I know that sometimes people are like, well, they're just saying that. Well, that's a definite because that's what was budgeted in to the budget and something has to give. And as we know, we can't take from the medical benefits. you
know, we can't take from, you know, a lot of other existing staff. So, those are all the things that are on the table. Again, I'll present them officially on Wednesday next week to the board. but there aren't any decisions that will be able to be made at this point until the number comes through and the board has to weigh all of the factors surrounding that. Luis Goodwin 91 Lakeside. I wanted to read a letter an email that I received from Linda Der in regards to the I can open the petition. she sent to us actually a copy of the
petition 87 people says please find a petition that spoke to at the 527 BOF meeting. This is a group of thoughtful, informed, longtime Andover community folks voters. The intention of the petition was to be helpful in guiding the process towards an optimal outcome. People were dedicated to sign and contribute the voice and there were some who felt some concern of retribution from the school board and reg and requested that emails phone numbers be deleted. I have respected that concern here. We collectively subtitled the petition vote yes just for the just for less. All support the school in the greater context of the town financial well-being. Thank you each of you for your all your efforts on our behalf. Linda and just want to make sure that was recognized. Thank you. Donald. first of all, we all support education. We have a great school. We have good enrollment. We have terrific thoughtful superintendent. But obviously 11% was too much and 9.82% is still too much. So, we have reasonable class sizes, we have limited means, but at the same time, this has been a difficult economy for a lot of people, and it's time to tighten the belt a little bit. So, the board of finance presented a 7.5% increase suggestion initially. Is that correct?
No, we recommended 7.5. So, which I think that would be reasonable. So, I'm just like to know where the 6% came from. And we certainly know that the board of education will do whatever they can to minimize student activities and student participation as far as budget decreases. But, I just like to know where you guys got that number from.
All right. I'll address that and maybe I'll let my worst board have their thoughts but we had a finance meeting and right after the meeting at that meeting there were various proposals for I believe the low end was 3.5 there was a lot of discussion and debate
and ultimately we had four votes for six it's by its nature arbitrary you know it's an attempt to get attempt to get it passed and at the same time try to preserve serve, you know, a functional school
so you know we were we went at it for 2 hours and that's when we ended up basically because we had competing ideas. We talked about 3.5, we talked about five, we talked about 5.5, we talked about 7.5 and we ended up at six. Best I got for you.
You have any further?
Yeah. So, yeah. So, we know we have reasonable class sizes. We have a I mean I've said this in previous meetings that our superintendent kept kept the school open during the pandemic. Teachers worked hard. Our teachers are they're they're well paid but they don't just work 180 days. So, I would have been comfortable 7.5, but 6% I think it's time to pass this budget and with them go to work to trim it down and carry on. Thank you. Anyone else?
Yes. You're all raising your hand and then pointing.
Hi, I just thought I'm Linda Fish Towns and Road. just a simple question. I was looking at the educational budget and there were two things I couldn't find anywhere on the budget sheet. one was legal fees. Does the school have legal fees included in there and where are they and how much are they? And the other one is Andover Hear Youth Services. I couldn't find a line item with that. I was wondering what that song is. That's it. Thank you. So, AHN is in the town budget. It's not in the school budget. so, that's why you can't find AHM. as far as legal fees, we definitely have legal fees. we've had to do contracts for the bathroom capital project this year. We've had FOI requests. there's there's been a numerous amount of things for legal fees. Just trying to find you the exact line item number for it. It's line 2310.
And what' you say? and
sorry. So, it's under the section that has professional services on page two. so, it's 340 and then it's the third one down that says other professional services board. All right. My name is Betty Parish and I'm the 151 website. so I have two issues and then one question. The first issue is is what is the real tuition for AES? We're being told that it's about 19,0002 per student, but that might be a few years old. Using most recent enrollment figures from the May board of ed meeting and advancing the grades to reflect the next school year, it looks like we're going to have about 185 students K through six. At 19 per year, that should give us about a $3.5 million budget. At $22,000 a year, that would give us a $4 million budget. So to get a $4.8 $8 million budget, our per people pupil spending is going to be about 26150. so we we keep being told that we're so much less than everybody else, but we're really not. So what does it cost for the pre per student for preschool? At 65 students and a budget of 436,000,
the cost per student is about $7,000. And when you add the employee benefits for the preschool that are within the AE AES budget, the cost is closer to $10,000 per student. So why is our tuition only $6,000? If you increase the tuition to about $7,500 per student, using only twothirds of those students because not all of whom are paying full tuition, that would add about $60,000. while it would not completely pay for the cost of the preschool teacher benefits, it sure would help. So my second point is is the Connecticut general state statute section 9-369B prohibits the expenditure of public funds to influence voters by a superintendent on a pending referendum. The three-part test includes was the communication made while the referendum was pending. Does the communication advocate? And was the communication made with public funds? Section 9369B is not limited to traditional out-ofpocket expenditures like newspaper advertisements or printed flyers. The statute also prohibits an inind expenditures of public resources. An inind expenditure occurs whenever district resources whether tangible or intangible are used to support advocacy. Examples of this would include use of district supplies and equipment, use of district personnel during work hours, preferred use of district space or facilities, and the use of districts website, Facebook pages, parent email accounts, and other electronic communication platforms. I believe that the online YouTube communication that our superintendent schools put out to the parents on April 29th is in
violation of this statute and any use of school resources for this purpose should be addressed. My last one is a question. When it's agreed that the solar panels would be added to the roof of AES, the town administrators stated in writing that it should decrease the electric bills by about a half. In the current year budget, we have $80,000 almost in electric costs. And in the proposed budget, that line has not decreased. It looks like there's at least $40,000 of padding in this budget line. And and I want to know why have we not decreased that? So specifically in regards to solar because we have talked about this a few times. the solar panels were recently activated what about a month or a month and a half ago. it will take one full year before they start to actually earn us money that's reflected in our costs. So you'll see that line item actually decrease in another year. myself personally having solar on my house, it's that's exactly how it worked for us as well. So that that will start to see reflected after another year.
We also have solar and like it's like almost immediately.
Yes. But so if you're doing it privately on your home and you're and you have that with Eversource, that's different than being a leased program through a contractor. It's it's affiliated with Eversource, but we don't own those panels. we didn't pay anything for them. it's a lease agreement. So, the the way that we get that money back in energy savings works a little bit different than as a private homeowner.
I just wanted to say one one thing about the peripheral costs because this is something that I think can be confusing to residents and I think it's helpful to just talk about that a little bit. There are different ways of calculating that. The state has a website where they calculate the figure, but they do things under the hood that are frankly, I think, confusing to a lay person. They do things like pulling down special education costs and not counting. So, that's why you'll get a figure on one figure, you'll look it up because it'll say 19,000 or something like that. Okay? When you do the basic math, you know, about 190 kids in the school, this is the budget, you get to
about 26. And that's the total the real total cost, right? not that kind of bespoke state way of calculating it. Now, we've bounced around between about 25 26k per student per year. We've for some I think we bottomed out around 24 and a half. So, it's not like, you know, 26 is wildly different than in past years. The other thing you have to keep in mind is, you know, we we're always talking about this in nominal dollars. If you go back five years and you see that we paid $25,000 a kid and we're looking at paying $26,000 a kid this year, just keep in mind that's nominal figure that is not adjusting for inflation. So I just want to throw that out there that there are at least two or three different ways of calculating per cable costs and people get confused by this all the time. I know I did it. So the way I always default to doing it, you know, is the dumb math way. Frankly, I just take the number of students divide the budget, you know, instead of pulling out things like spent because that just complicates the matter. I think it just confuses people.
Hi folks, Scott, Boston Hill. I may be part of the reason you're confused about that 19,000 versus other numbers. 19,000 is what the state does to compare districts. It and this isn't the special ed thing. This is a really really simple. How's the total number of students in the school? What's the total budget divide? That's it misses things. the 25 or 26 is more accurate in terms of K through six preschool because we have a large preschool that lowers the number
yeah so that that's that's where those those numbers come from this is the states things they do for comparison they give you these numbers they say here's all the students and divide by and it really ends up with 19 something I don't the details the but the other number the 26th number is is more accurate absolutely reflects what we spend for the K through six because the preschool program actually it is self-funding. There's about there with the grants and so on and I've got reports I can show to people that that explain this and I'll hand out this showing people where where to get them if they want. but it is it's about9 $92,000 approximately. And u tells me I'm I'm being conservative, but it's actually less than that. I can't we can't verify that because that includes money that she can't she can't tell us what what the
the benefits are for this program. It's illegal for her because it's such a small group and that's according to for for Ben Hipple law. She can't do that. But I an estimate of the benefits that's the program costs about $92,000 and to the town beyond what it what it it takes in. But there's $200,000 that we are saving because we would have to pay special ed costs for these preschoolers regardless. That's that's the law we would have to spend. And 200,000 is an estimate. it's a pretty standard estimate. and I did some comparisons. The lowest I saw was 150 something and the largest I saw was 480, I think, something like that. 200,000 is a reasonable guess. the other thing I wanted to say is I I didn't see the flyer you talk about, but if this flyer just urges people to get out and vote, this is actually quite legal. That's in fact encouraged by the Secretary of State and the Connecticut General Statutes 9369B explains how that works. And if people
want one of my reports actually explains points you to an explanation from a law for firm, it's a lot easier reading the statute. So I think that's it.
Anyone else? Anyone else for the third and final time?
All right, Jeff, Lake Road. I I have to speak directly with Scott's comments and what really upsets me the most is that every time we look for information, we get Furpa and HIPPA and this and that rather than get appropriate information provided to the board of finance so they can make a logical decision because everybody understand this is emotional. I get it. It's emotional. No one here is looking to hurt the children. The superintendent is not looking to hurt the children. The board of sele of of education isn't going to hurt the children. There's teachers who aren't going to hurt the children. What may have to happen is you might have to have larger class sizes. And Don, I don't know what you consider reasonable class sizes. But when you're talking between 12 to 15, is that reasonable? Not an educator. I don't know. But those are the decisions that have to be made. But every time that we sit there and try to get information, do you know how this board
decided 6%. Do you know how they did it? They didn't get any information from the board of education or the superintendent. They sat there and took the current expenditures for health insurance and did some math. No cuts, no nothing. They just did some basic math and said to live with what is currently being explained to the community that they need that the that the superintendent needs and the the board of education needs to educate our children. They came up with 6%. I understood the math. I know we're the two individuals who the newest members who I God bless them. It's unbelievably difficult for what they have to do. But let me tell you, if we could just get real information and use logic, not emotion, logic to make decisions, it will help this town of measurement. And please understand where I'm coming from, right? Last year, I saw this happening and I didn't say anything
really. I said some stuff to the board of finance. I said, "This is this is not working. This isn't going to work. Everybody go home and do the math. Take a $5 million budget and take 6% every year and compound it and determine where you're going to be in five years. It's not a good situation for us as a community. I'm just telling you like and I understand they have expenses. I do. The health insurance terrible like they they can't control it. the union contract three and a quarter percent to the teachers. The teachers reserve every dollar they get. What they don't what what what is not done correctly. And I'll sit there and I'll look at the board of five head of education and I'll look at the superintendent. Look at the contract. Don't look at what the teachers get paid. Look at the contract. Compare it to Hebrew. Compare it to Marble. Right? You'll sit there and see that the extension of the years before you get to top seven in andor is 10 years. In the other other towns, it's 17 years because there was no understanding of well they they did it for the benefit of the teachers and my wife's a teacher. God bless them. They they deserve more money. But you have to balance everything you do. You have to balance the needs of the children and the financial ability for the town to pay. Right? It's a balancing act. And if you don't get any information, this group has an incredibly difficult job to do. And if you hide behind Furpa and you hide behind every other rule and
it's all just talk. It's talk. I'm just telling you if you want to show the information to this group, they get it. So balance. And I'm begging you, please just look at where we're at. And if you think that's okay, Don, God bless you. But do you think where we're heading in the the amount of money that's going to be required year after year after year is okay? Like, and I tell you here, I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to ask a question. Dr. Greenhouse, how many children are going to be added this coming school year?
I don't know the answer to that question.
Give me an estimate. reason
in in the current school year
coming up next school year. How many children are going to be adding?
Okay, I'll tell you. Well, I'll tell you what. The superintendent every year files a report with the RAM superintendent. I got that report this year because the superintendent from RAM did a meeting for the board of finance, you know, and I looked at those those numbers and I'm telling you, we're not going to add that many children every year. That's information you all need. That's information this board needs to decide how much to spend because this year you're looking at $273,000 increase in spending. And and the other thing that you all have to do, focus on spending, not how we're going to pay for it. [clears throat] Don't focus how we're going to pay for it. It's not about paying for it. It's every year how much we're going to spend.
No, it's not. It's It's about what we spend. We can all figure out how to pay for things if we determine that the spending is is the right amount.
Anyway, if you look at it, you need to be concerned.
Can I try and share? One thing I would just say to that is there is not a track record of going up 6%.
There isn't. You go back and you look at the budgets going back 5 years and it was -4 was like flat and it was at 1%. Okay, we are the last two years dealing with these increases and that's true. And you know there's a part of you talk about emotion talk about psychology there's a part of me that thinks man they just come in at 2.5 every year we wouldn't be this having this conversation we'll be at the same table so you know let's if we want to talk about emotion let's talk about how people process 0000 boom that's part of the issue I think too also in terms of expenditure very important line to look at Jeff's not all about that I think there are three numbers that I look at that I very important total expenditure total be raised by taxation which is not your tax bill and the mill all three of
those are important to me that's something that I work on every year now as to the number of students we got about 190 I think the snapshots every October 1st right and it fluctuates throughout the year you might have a kid leave town you might have a kid coming to town but we're about 190k through six kids personally I guesstimate we'll be in the same place next The last thing I'll leave you with before I shut up is I'll take my little or finance hat off for a second and just talk as a parent. My youngest is now in seventh grade at night, which meant last year she was in sixth grade and yes, I asked her a question driving home from
gymnastics a few months ago. When I first got word from Valerie that we were going to be looking at potentially a big increase request, I was a little worried about it for good reasons. And I said, "Hey, Ned, do you remember fifth grade your class, your class was about 24, 25 kids, you guys got had some little bit of a hybrid thing that they cooked up at the school. There were some additional specials that they did. Christina Frasier, the math specialist, was brought in to do breakout sessions with some of the more advanced kids and and that sort of thing." They had one class, but they had more resources from it. And how how did that differ for you? You know, with sixth grade where it was just a sixth grade teacher, right? None of that. I was just done. She talked my ear off all the way home about how much fifth grade was great and sixth grade sucked. I was so bored in math, Dad. I have to sit there and listen to Emily explain something I got the first time three times because there was no break up for the more advanced kids. That's
good stuff. I didn't expect that actually. All right. And so when we talk about when you remove resources, you know, oh, it it doesn't have an impact. Well, it probably will have an impact. Whether you decide that you want to fund a certain level, that's up to you. But I can tell you from firsthand experience from my own kid that there was a difference between those two grade years that really mattered. LA this year, we rolled in with a sixth grade class of 29. I wonder how their experience went. next year I think it's 25ish for sixth grade. 23 1.5 something like that. And that was the issue is do we bring in a second teacher or not? Well, decisions have been made. There's no way they can I can't imagine
you can hire that teacher anymore. Well, that's going to have an impact. You may think that's fine. That's okay. I mean, look, you split that class, you're looking at 12 class size. Okay, I get it. That's unfortunately that's and if I could snap my fingers and say 18 per class, believe me, I'd do it. We don't get that. we have to make a decision between the two or do some sort of other thing. Cook up extra staff to throw us. So anyway, that's my parental experience. That's the feedback I got from my own kid. And I'm going to shut up. Thanks.
Do you guys all know what the average class size is at RAM in the middle school?
Does anyone know?
13.
Eight. How many
B?
15. 15. So 12 to 15 students is the average class size at RAM. That's the regional school that our go our kids go to when they leave Andover. My kid was in a class of 21. He's in 8th grade this year. Okay. The class of 29 that's graduating here this year is the largest class out of all three towns. He has a cap to their class size of 22. They don't go over 22 students in a class. it's actually in their board of education policy. So when we talk about class size and you guys talk about that we need to have a normal class size and you're saying normal is 25 to 30 for our area for our region that our kids go to school to that they metriculate into that is not the average. Okay. It's really hard when we talk about enrollment for the accusation to be that you know the numbers just aren't given because we all know even if it's the population of a town you never know you never know how many people are going to move in going to move out when I got
here in 2020 thank you Don for again acknowledging that we were open then I remember I met you first the difficulty is I looked at the budgets from 2015 15 to 2020 when I got here in 2020 and every year they had been slashed and I understood the population had decreased. They got down pretty low from what they once were. So every year they were cut cut and the elected officials saying well less kids less money. If the numbers go back up we'll expect there to be a rise again. Well, the numbers went back up and when they went back up, we were fighting year after year for the budget to go back up. In my first year, the numbers had gone from 175 all inclusive preK through six to 190. And we got a 0% increase that first year. And everybody said, "Boy, you're lucky. You're lucky that they didn't cut you again." And ever since
then, we've been fighting to the nail to get back the six and a half staff members that were decreased from 2015 to 2020. And we don't make up the numbers. We don't decide who's going to move in with how many children when they move in. But I will also say look at the plan of conservation and development because the board of education is not not giving you the information regarding enrollment. We don't know. We don't know how many babies are going to be born that aren't accounted for already. we're given those numbers from the town and we hold spots for those kids assuming they still live here. But then if they don't, we have to look at who moved in, who moved out, when the houses go for sale. We know who moved in if they come to enroll their children. So we can't control that enrollment. And as we said, this year sixth grade rose to 29 at one point. We didn't anticipate that class was going to be 29. We knew it was going to be higher though. So I urge you to look at the plan of conservation and development because it was put together by the town by the town's person and it says that yes from 2015 to 2020 there was a drop but that it went back up 26% and on page I believe 94 or 95 of that new document it says to the town plan
for a slow and steady increase because they saw a 26%. And it doesn't matter if the argument is, well, it's preschool. It's early preschool, which it's not. But let's even pretend it is. They're going to be kindergarteners and first graders and second graders. So, even if somebody is convinced that there's only 15 kids or 18 kids in K6, there are the rest of them moving to kindergarten next year, the following year. So I think that we do have to be cognizant of the fact look at the PCD please the new one it's the brand new planning conservation development we may be moving slowly up in that direction but we are and we can't guarantee which new kids will move in and which kids will move out but these are our numbers now these are our needs now and yes you heard people say our class sizes we can't determine I mean if you have 28
kids you only have two choices a class of 28 or you split them and you have 14 and 14. And I know 14 is not ideal, but we only get two choices. That's it. That's all we get. A couple of years ago, last thing I'll say is a couple of years ago, we had very sketchy numbers. The numbers were rising to the point of 26 and 27 and 28. So instead, we had accommodation class two years in a row so that we didn't have to come to the taxpayer and say we're going to add a class because we weren't sure if those numbers will continue to rise. The last thing is we can't forget ECS dollars. The town receives $2 million a year from the state to put toward educational expenses. And no one talks about that. And it's important because that's $2 million of our four and a half grand that you do not pay in tax dollars. So you can't take that number, the 4.5 million, and divide it by the number of students and say that's what I'm paying. That's not what you're paying. There's over $2 million in the town offers that has to be used for education. Thank you. [clears throat] right. Michelle runs 149 link road. Okay. So, I have a huge problem with belittling HIPPA and verbal. When you go to the dot, you sign your HIPPA forms. How would you like it if the town said, "We're going to collect all of your
personal medical information, take it and review it to judge how much money you get." Okay? So when someone who makes a lot of money says that they want the HIM information of my child, please please be prepared for a lawsuit because I will not give you the medical information of my child. Even if I have it, there's no reason for me to do that. So, I would like you to reconsider who's leading us when they're asking for fura and hip information to our children and really really think about who's in charge and what they're saying to you. That's really important to know that he's saying divulge your personal information to strangers so that they can judge on whether or not your children deserve the educational needs. That's that's wrong on so many so many levels. Thank you. Because that's why those of us that's why we live in Ano is because we can come to meetings like this and have a voice and vote how we spend our money and how our children go to school and all our roads are fixed because most towns in the state we can't stand out here and tell my first selection that I think that 22 students is a reasonable And I can tell my board of finance chairman that he is correct. If we did 2.5% increase even when they didn't need the money, we wouldn't be sitting there today. And I would say to our superintendent that she was maybe a little misguided, they needed a 11% increase in spending is going to pass. It's all about what is what can pass
what is how much do people want to spend on a particular year and this school is a well-run school always has been lived here for 30 years. So I would just like to say that good to see everybody and hopefully with a $13 million budget we can afford more than one microphone at our next town meeting. Thank you. Hi, I'm Miss Lope for finance. I just want to clarify something. at no time has anybody that I know asked for any kind of HIPPA related information about children. The information that we have been waiting since January for from the school is aggregate the the aggregate cost of the health insurance benefit benefits, taxes and other ancillary fees for the preschool teachers because we know that we are responsible as a as a town to pay for the special education needs of birth through five and then
then you know birth and pre.
So by law we should know how much FTE is required to educate the preschool children that we have in our town and we don't know that. So, we know we learned that the grant money and the tuition money covers salaries and then we learned that other expenses are covered by the general fund. So, all we asked was what is the aggregate amount of those expenses? Maybe it's only $100,000, maybe it's $300,000. I don't know. And you can shake your head all you want. That is what we ask for. protected information
that is not protected aggregate information is not protected and I will I will move forward with that request formally because I'm tired of
so just so you guys understand aggregate data would be for the entire school so there are 30 let me let me finish
aggregate data for benefits would be for the entire school. So for benefits, for example, the town and the school are in the same consortium. There are 36 people at the school who are in that benefits line. In the town benefits line, there are three people that are in that benefits line. You don't see that separated out on either budget. If we were to give you aggregate data specifically only for preschool, it is such a small number of people that it does violate what is it? Furpa
nd Furpa. I'm going to say the names wrong.
Information for state. Just talk on this.
Salary information for teachers, any of our workers in town is all public information.
yeah, it is.
It's public information. It's not protected.
You're asking about benefits.
I'm I'm asking about Yeah, I'm asking about all the expenses which you can also get from the town. There's a whole spreadsheet that indicates line by line, person by person, and how much it all costs. And I'm not asking for a line by line. I'm asking for those eight employees. We have a request for those eight eight employees. How much is the medical benefits? How much are the taxes? and other ancillary expenses. That's all. And that is not intended.
That's a problem.
Other question.
Hi, Megan. Pine Drive. So I'm not a lawyer, not an accountant. In this whole budget season, I've seen a lot of people present themselves as professions that they are not. We seem to have a legal question before us. We have legal line items. Has anyone asked for a legal opinion on this question and share it with all sides so that we can just get pass this in one direction or another? So, someone asked if we had a legal line item in the school budget, and we said that we do, in fact. And we did in fact ask our lawyers this question, and we're told it is too small of a number of people to share that information. It is illegal to do so
and we shared that with the board of finance. So we we go around town and we see the yes votes, we see the no votes and we ask you see I've seen a bunch of them board of education to open their books be more transparent. So, and I I don't maybe did you did the board of ed not sit in the same meeting as the board of finance, you know, going over these reductions knowing you were going to cut the budget. I mean, can I ask my
So, did the board of ed you they knew your guys were meeting and you were going to reduce their budget and you and you had offered them a 7.5 at one point they rejected it. So, did was there a conversation between these two important boards in our tile to try to come to some kind of resolution? And did the information that you apparently needed was there information you didn't get? Well, I think as you just heard, there's some substantial speaking [snorts] about who wants what and exactly whether or not they feel that they can turn it over. So, to be frank with you, that's to me a bit of an open question. The other thing is whether they sit with us. Well, a number of board of ed people typically will attend our meetings, but they're not joint meetings except for one. We do try to have a trial meeting once a year, but it's way back in the fall. And that's actually when we first got that we might be in trouble this year because of the healthcare cost increase tipped us off in like I want to say October. and at that point it was 15%, it went up to 21. We got really hammered. so no, I mean they don't it's not a
general need. The board of finance is going to do what we did. They did the principal certainly we got a letter from the principal about the impact of potential cuts. The board of ed repeatedly told us about how much they really feel felt they needed the increase but at the end of the day we had to make the call as a result of the referendum results. So that's I mean no we didn't sit down with them in a joint meeting and say okay guys if we cut you to six what's the impact and the the honest answer even tonight is they don't they haven't determined that
yeah that's that's that's a little that's a little disconcerting that I mean you knew you're going to see reductions and you didn't make any an effort to come and I guess negotiate would be the term now the other thing is and I ask our superintendent and I've heard this in the audience. I've heard it in town hall and the preschool seems to be a controversial subject. So, maybe you can explain to us are there people in and in Manchester or Andover that are using different addresses or do we do we check to make sure that everyone is paying what they're supposed to pay whether they pay in and because And residents pay pay less, right? No, no. If you explain because I I want to do I don't want to say the wrong thing here. Thank you, dear.
so preschool in every town is that only program where you can take non-residents without going by the policy. in it's it's separate in almost every town in terms of the requirements for the state. special ed preschool is a requirement. Your towel is responsible for your students from you know the the age that they are three all the way until they exit the system. In most cases it's graduating from high school. In some cases it's afterwards until the 26th. So, so preschool is considered three.
2.9 is when they can start, but three, yes.
And two, two years of preschool.
Three for many kids because they changed the law and you have to be 5 years old as of September 1st to enter kindergarten. So, for us, that also changed the number of preschoolers that we had. Now, in terms of what it costs, the tuition here is in fact $6,000 a year. I know a number of people have said, "Why can't you raise the tuition?" notice a couple of things. I mean, that is not there's no line item in the budget for preschool. All eight of those salaries are paid from the other revenue sources, which are grants and tuition. Now, if we did increase the tuition for you, right?
Sure, we could. That money would stay in preschool. You're not going to offset your other building expenses with the tuition. The tuition stays with preschool program and it has paid those eight salaries. We've explained on multiple occasions that the state right now is in influx. They are changing the state program for early start. And I've said on multiple occasions, they're kind of unfortunately sorry, state of Connecticut. They're building a plane, so to speak, as it flies. And they haven't quite decided what the trajectory is going to be moving forward for universal preschool, but they have determined that the preschool program will be universal by 2028, so the 2728 school year. They've also told us in the numerous meetings that we've been in that in terms of funding moving forward, the slots, the grant slots that were given, we have 22 and 13 for our two different grants. They currently reimburse $6,000 for each student that fills one of those slots. Those slots are determined by a couple of factors. You can be a child
that takes that slot. if you're special education, you can be a child that takes that slot for that funding from the state grant if you have a reduction in income in your house. There's a number of qualifications to be eligible to fill that slot. Doesn't mean you're free unless you're special education, but we get that money. We had four classrooms this past year, the year before. those programs were not fully full with the handover residents. So let's say the room holds 18 kids and you have 15 kids in there. Why didn't you fill those other three slots with eligible kids that are not special education that are going to pay full-time tuition to continue to offset the costs of those rooms as long as it's appropriate for that mom? It would be silly not to. And we've done that. We've done that to serve the public well so that we can bring in that extra $6,000 for each of those seats. Now, moving forward, I know it's easy to say just increase tuition and bring in more money there. We don't know what the rules are going to be on this plane that they're building as they fly. And I can tell you because I sit on all of those meetings weekly that the incentivization is if you're going to 2.9ers, if you're going to build your program to take out of towners, [clears throat] if
you're considered a workplace care program, meaning you service your employees, teachers, children, all of these things are on the table. If you're full-time, if you can offer six to six, which we can because the pool program is housed here. We don't control it, but we have an opportunity to say to families, working families, we can be a six to six program for you. All of these things are boxes that we're trying to check so that moving forward, we're going to be eligible for more money when it comes in in the 27 28 year. I don't want us to be ineligible. I'm doing everything that I can as an expert in the field with the help of the
people from the state to make sure that I set us up right. So, it's disconcerting when our whole school is working really hard on this to make sure that we are set up to continue to get the funding to have people say, "We'll sabotage it. Change the rules now." We we can't change the rules right now because if we do, we risk the funding moving forward. And so since we can pay those eight salaries right now, we can wait another 12 months to stay at the state. What do you think we should do so that we can continue to qualify for that money? I've already been told potentially in November that $6,000 will already go up to 6450. Why? because the way our program is designed, the fact that we're NYAK accredited, the fact that we are an early start program and a smart start
program. So, it's working. Not going to change that now because we need that money moving forward. So, I I don't know what else to say on that. is we are the ones that are sitting on these meetings and if that money comes in we increase tuition and said we're going to move it to 7,000 are they going to say to us well I'm sorry because you now are charging $7,000 and the state reimbured 6,000 you don't qualify your tuition's too high I don't know what the answer is going to be to that and need to set us up for success and since we can pay those eight salaries now we're going to do that this year those eight salaries are not in budget. And again, aggregate, aggregate means the whole school. It doesn't mean one class. It's like saying, "Okay, you have two first grade. Can you tell me, you know, which kids in first grade got a two on this back?" That's only about 20 kids. I'm not going to say that I can give you that data. I'd be identifying them. So, when we're
talking about the insurance, I know you don't don't agree. insurance talk about insurance.
We are we are talking about insurance and in insurance the aggregate number is what the chairperson said Dr. greenhouse. We have 36 people in AES that take insurance. That I could tell you. But if you want me to say which of the first grade teachers take insurance, which of the preschool teachers take insurance, that's not aggregate data anymore when you're talking about two or four staff members. So, and I know they said on the town side, it was given. There are three people that take insurance on the town side. I don't see in the budget anywhere where it says which three people because they're not going to give you that information. I'm not saying they should. So, it doesn't say which three people take insurance. You wouldn't ask me road. the question that that Miss Loren didn't understand me was I was
sitting there saying that furpa and I did say HIPPA are being used to deflect and not provide information to this board. I didn't ask I don't really I I don't need the information. Jeff, you said we're highly violent.
You are.
We are not. We're not legally.
You're the the person the person in this room that has more information has more information than this broadcast or I know sat there and said you can't get it because for and what was the other one? Scott
I said what was the other person?
No for there's two other but listen it's hiding. It's deflective. And and let me tell you, let me tell you, Scott Soyette sits on the RAM board of education. Scott should be focusing on the $34,000 a year that we spend on RAM to send our children there. That's the number that we spend to go to RAM. It's a monster number. And we all passed it. Why did this town pass that budget? Because it was only a small percentage, right? was only a small percentage that ran that we had to pay. It's not the right thing to do. It's it's you got to think about it. It's it's it's we cannot get the numbers. So, listen, let me go back to what the superintendent is sitting here saying in your 411 message. I think it was your I think you did three. I think the finance person did it wrong, but the one that you did where you explain the children that are in preschool that need services, right? There are children that need services. Correct. Okay. Did she mention any of those costs being included in what she said was covered? She didn't. So why can't we even consider because you know she sat there and said they're trying to do something with the flying the plane. Let me tell you federally then statewise. If you sit
there and don't think that the Department of Education is in trouble, we're not living in the same country. Cuz right now in Washington, our current president is trying to take apart the Department of Education. Oh, a person from our own state is destroying Department of Education. Do you think that we're going to get more money coming forward? Do you think that the state who's going to take a billion dollar hit from monies not received right from the federal department of education is going to take a hit. Listen, I'm I'm begging you all just to think about it, right? And I I sit there with this group and I go, they need more information to make better decisions. That's the truth. Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't matter. But I will tell you, I will tell you that we got $82,000 out of $160 million of funding. That equates the total town got $30 per residence. That's terrible. $30 per resident out of 170 million or whatever number of million dollars the state gave. So, I'm I'm just telling you, you got to think about where we're going. So, Mr. D Roer thinks I've taken too much time, and I will yield the floor. All right, everybody's complaining. Let me make a point for you, please. If one speaker comes up and talks for five minutes, evidently, it's okay. And another speaker, you want me to cut them off. I'm trying to be fair to everyone. This meeting probably should have ended a half hour ago,
but it didn't.
So, we're still here and we're still taking comments. Scott Sawya, you have your hand up,
okay, some quick comments. asked if the board of ed was committed to the board of finance meetings. Most ones I've seen, there have been a number of board men meeting members there and and and superintendent almost all of them. last one it was and there were not as many there at the last one because there was a concert in the school at the same time. Most of those people were at the concert. the what else? for him. if if somebody wants it, the the actual sections of federal law are titles 34 section 99.3 and it specifically says groups this small, they can't give aggregate information even and that's HIPPA is title 35 section 164.504 regarding the children not not employees.
It's both HIPPA is employees. Well, HIPPA is most important.
But I'm pretty sure that law has to do with the children and not the public employees.
The HIPPA law in this case is dealing with employees, what benefits they take, the FA laws, the students. there is some HIPPA stuff about the students as well. I I read that a couple months ago. I don't remember all the details now, but those are the those are the things and I guarantee you sele if you want. I had two more things. but one quick this and talk about lies. This came out passing out lies to everybody intentionally showing stuff that he anybody who's seek has to know is total nonsense. and a whole bunch of us came together to try to
respond. it's I do research. I spend a lot of time looking up the loss, looking up the charter, reading everything I can. I got a whole lot of reports out there. I I'll pass out those things if people want them with the links to all those those documents. But I spend a lot of time on this. I'm not sleeping much because I'm doing this because I think it's really important. I'm 3 four hours a night right now and I got to get back to actual sleep. But I'm doing this because I think getting the truth out there is what's important and we can make decisions based on that. And Furpa. Yeah, that is Furp and Hippa are it is straightforward. If you look it up, read the laws, they are there. And it's if there's board, I'll do them on the board with that those numbers, those those
sections because they're real. And Dr. Bruno is a professional who knows her job. And I [sighs] I didn't ask him where these sections were, so I did I wanted to find them. I found them. I looked them up. I found the purpose section. I found a hypo section. I read them and they say exactly what Dr. Dunell has told us. She can't give us that inaccurate information. And the fact that our first selectman wants it, the fact that members of the board of finance wants it, it doesn't matter. She's not allowed to do it. To say fura is just talk is I'm sorry. That is that
is not leadership. That is mis misleadership. So Anyone sun says I expect my taxes to go up. My gas has gone up. my insurance has gone up just like everyone else's. I would expect however that in going up it's something reasonable that we can justify we can point to and say hey medical insurance is going up by 5% this year. I have x amount of people were going up by x amount of dollars. That makes sense to me when I hear that there is not enough transparency. That just makes all the numbers not credible. And that's a thing. [snorts] I feel like if there's something specific that isn't transparent or information that somebody needs to get this thing done that they should say, "Hey, I'm missing insurance. I'm missing the electric bill. Whatever it is, whatever it is, this is what I need in order to do my job. It's your job to provide it to me." I don't understand why this thing has gone on since January.
That's crazy. None of us have jobs that we could just sit here and go. Sit here and wait another 5 months. This is a huge bone of contention with whether you're able to provide it or not able to provide it. Whatever. I'd like to be educated tonight about what the importance is of the number that you're looking for in order to understand why this is important and how it affects this budget so that we can all make better decisions when we're watching vote no and vote signs go up in every yard.
You want to explain that why that number is important?
Yes, I I would love to know that. Are you bring speaking or
thank you to everyone and all the work you do. I know this
we have been under the understanding that the preschool is self-funded and I don't know if you know what that means. I mean I think that means it's fully covered and we're up to something better understanding. And in January, we asked the board of education about that. And what it turned out to me was that the salaries were covered by the grants and by tuition. And I said, "Well, what about health insurance? What about the taxes?" And all the ancillary and we got yep, salaries are covered. Bottom line is the answer was because we're responsible to pay for special special needs for special needs preschool children. They don't put that in the budget. They put the healthc care in the budget and that could be perfectly fine. We asked can we get an aggregate number of what that is. I'll tell you most schools in their budget will show FTE
and how much FTE is reflected for a preschool teacher for special ed could be 1.2 1.5 it could be two depending on the side size of the school. We don't we don't get that. So my ask was, can we just get the aggregate dollars of the health insurance for those eight employees, the health insurance cost, no names, and other ancillary fees? Like how much are we paying? Because if we needed to pay for two full-time teachers for special needs children at $160,000 or $120,000 or whatever it is, then we have to do it. But if if we're paying more and we don't know it, then what does self-funded mean? That's the reason we want to know. And Furba is has to do with the families doesn't have to do with employees of public schools or municip municipalities. And that's why it's important cuz I know what we're paying in the general fund for our supposed selffunded preschool because we are not free like $60,000 and that's all you want. It's just one number.
Like it could be there's eight employees. Maybe none of them take healthare. Maybe maybe half of them. So yeah, pensions, healthcare. yeah, it's not a difficult question and it's also not confidential. Caitlyn Zimmer Windrush Lane. I am a preschool parent with and I pay my tuition widely for a wonderful program. I'm also a public school teacher not in Andover in another town. there was a lot of talk about like worrying about where the budget is going. But I think you also have to consider where we're coming from. I was trying to quickly look up on my phone what the previous teachers contract was. Did the teachers not get a step increase in the previous contract? That's what I thought. So it looked like for those three years which was pretty standard postcoid like 2020 2021 2022 that teachers took big freezes and that wasn't a standover that happened in many districts. So if you look at the current contract yes they are getting a step increase every year for these three years but it's because they did not get a step increase for the previous three years. So you have to kind of consider where that's coming
from. when you're saying you know we only have the 10 steps to get to the top. It doesn't take just 10 years to get to the top. I've been teaching for 12 years. And I think in my district I'm on step six. So I'm about halfway for the number of years of experience that I have. So just for people to understand how that works in education, you don't increase a step every year of experience. That's not how that works. also the reason you see the budget increases over the last two years is because of the loss of funds from during COVID time. we had a lot of grants and a lot of money that was coming from the state during those years and now that money is disappearing. so schools are trying to make up the difference. so I just wanted to advocate from someone that's not an employee of the school district but I've worked in two other districts and I've seen where this is coming from and why those increases are happening. And it's not just happening here, it's happening everywhere. but before we jump on, okay, they're getting a pay increase every year and all the concerns are changing, I think we also have to consider where it's coming from when they weren't getting those increases.
Thank you.
Hi everyone, Joanne Swamp Road. I just, you know, I've been to all these meetings. I've been on the board of finance. I do think it's important that the board of finance has all the information to consider when they're making all these important choices and decisions and where to set set rates. The only thing I can suggest from listening to the audiences and the people asking for information, I made the comment at a meeting, we don't want to know a teacher's name, a teacher status, what they're doing, how much insurance they have. I made a point of can we just could they I'm no longer with them. I'm kind of participating by going to meetings this year, breaking away, but could they have a list of just teacher one, teacher two, teacher three, just say salary so that they can look at the biggest item on the budget of over $2 million to just make sure that it adds up. not asking for anyone's name, just a total. The town does provide that information. They do have spreadsheets that they look at so they can verify salaries and insurance. Again, not the personal information. one other thing I had, you know, I do work in a school system myself too. teachers are the hardest working people you're ever going to see. So, no one is taking that away. So, we support them. I I would never want to advocate for class sizes over 25 ever. I think Andover's been blessed, you know, to have such small classes and everybody that lives
here is so lucky. My children benefited on the back end, you know, went to RAM and everything did well. But again, what about looking at the total number of teachers and deciding what grade needs what support different years? So that's just an idea. yeah, I think it's we need to be transparent with getting totals, not names. Thank you.
I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I think we gone around the room. I think Marcy spoke to you.
Thank you. Is there a second to that motion?
Oh, I wanted to say something.
Seconded by Don Demo. All in favor of judgment, please signify by saying I. I.
Those opposed.