Meeting transcript
BOE Meeting Part 1
January 11, 2023 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
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Hi, everyone. It's 07:00, and I'm calling to order the 01/11/2023 regular meeting of the Andover Connecticut Board of Education. Thank you to all of you for being here this evening and giving up your January evening to spend the time with us. I thank you for volunteering your time to the town of Andover. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, folks. K. Comments from the public. Jenny. Nothing for me. Thank you. K. Thank you for coming this evening. Erin?
Hi there. Happy New Year. None for me. Thank you. Thank you, Erin. And that's it. Oh, man. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Not now. Later.
I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Hey, Gretchen. Thank you for coming via Zoom and being our board clerk. Let's see. Communications. Does anyone have any communications to share? Hearing none, we need to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of 12/14/2022. Do have a motion? Move to approve the minutes. Thank you. Is there a second? Alright. Any discussion? Anything anybody wants to change? K. Hearing none, then take a vote. All in favor of approving the minutes of 12/14/2022, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? Respection, that'd be a seven zero zero vote for that one. I'm sorry. Who seconded? I did. Shannon.
Okay. And, Caitlin, for, motions. Right? He fussed by Steve.
Thank you. I don't care which that's why I was doing it. Opportunity to add or delete agenda items. Anyone wanna add anything or subtract anything? K. None. Celebrations. Does anyone have any celebrations they'd like to share? We don't have get that reports.
K. Hearing none, we'll go to reports. Share person's oral report, I have none. However, our superintendent has a report for it. So I'm gonna defer to her. Yeah.
I'm gonna go light on it since some of the things that we're gonna be talking about are already in here. The budget will be in here. A few other things. In terms of, things that have changed from last month to this month here within the school, I don't wanna cover too many things that were in, Taylor's report because we definitely wanna step on that. The the grant has come out. We were awarded a grant, an after school grant. I have it in when we get to the budget stuff that we're talking about at the end, but it was a competitive grant. So I've been waiting for this. You guys know that. It's, a two year two school year grant. It's called the after school the SR after school innovation grant, and it allows us to provide things for the kids that we just can't put in our budget. Absolutely can't put in our budget. I partnered with the cool program rather than have us do it, the application, independent of it. I still would have needed a partner. It allows the kids who are, participating in the cool program to also be a part of it so that you wouldn't have to decide. It allows us to have access to, the pool staff, because sometimes it is hard to get people to, volunteer for after school activities. So it's a wonderful program. I spoke with the seniors on Friday at the senior luncheon, and it's kinda threw it out there and said to them, hey. Listen. You know, we're gonna be looking for,
opportunities for the kids. If anybody's interested in teaching any mini lessons after school or providing activities, let me know. And we got Okay. Somebody who wants to teach needlepoints to kids, somebody wants to crochet with the kids, somebody who wants to teach wood burning with the kids, somebody who's gonna do an intro to photography. I mean, it was it was they were absolutely thrilled. So between now and the end of next school year, I imagine that a fair number of the seniors who would like to share their skills are gonna wait till the warmer weather, and not come out to the school after school in colder weather. I know Kathy Palazzi was thrilled that the seniors were able to share this because part of her grant, where she gets the money for aging, is by doing intergenerational, activities. So it's really a win win. The grant was, we left a minus 19% since it, starts in January now. They're getting the money now. But well, not all of it. We'll be able to draw it down. But the grant for two years is 221,000. Wow. And so I know that sounds like a lot, which we all know once you start paying the salaries of people and the supplies and stuff. But, you know, we we really, really will I did not wanna run it just like a homework club. I did not just wanna say, oh, we're gonna have drop in. I wanted it to be things that you couldn't do with your kids and that we did not have available in our budget opportunities for all sorts of kids. There's gonna be some athletic related stuff. There's gonna be some arts related stuff. There'll be academic related stuff. I also tied some things into the
in August hundred seventy fifth. So the January would it be one calendar at the start of the month, and it will tell parents what's available, if it's available for every age group, if it's available for certain age groups. We will repeat the popular ones. So if there is a sign up for 20 kids for something and, some of these kids didn't get in, we'll repeat it. And preference will be given that the kids that didn't have, an opportunity the first time. And so we're going to also try a variety of days too. Let's see what's more popular, Monday and Friday, Wednesday, and Thursday, keep going through. And so we you know, moving forward, we'll be creating a calendar at the start of the month, and parents will get it for Taylor. And so if they can sign up earlier rather than later, that will also let us know how many staff members we need to to to work that. And there will be one person that directs each activity. Maybe it'll be myself that's there that day. Maybe it'll be Taylor that's there. Maybe it'll be Knox.
It will be because all of her kids will be participating. But there will be a person that's directed to be in charge, and we'll know at the start of the month who's gonna be in charge for that particular activity. So it won't just be, like, the the the teenagers that work for cool or a para, or there will be somebody that's assigned to be the daily director. Do the kids have to pack a snack or anything that are gonna be activity, you'll be told. Okay. Because, like, when we have the after school movie days, we provide popcorn. Okay. You know? So they'll they'll be told. So, like, on the days that are the four, forty five days over to the museum, there's fifteen minutes. Normally, in an activity, there'll there'll be fifteen minutes between, when it starts because there's bus duty and things like that. So the kids would do what the cool kids do, which is in the cafeteria, they'd eat their snack if they brought Okay. But we'll have things on here when the kids are gonna come here later. So Do you think that within that, there will ever be funding for, like, the late bus type transportation so kids that otherwise couldn't participate? It's believe it or not, it's not right now anyways,
just so much a part of us,
coming up with the money from there for transportation. It's the availability of us. Okay. I just know that for a lot of parents, that probably is a factor in them not being able to participate.
Yep. And so I would like to do the monthly calendar because let's say, you know, your boys are saying, I really wanna do this, you know, twenty fourth of the month activity. At least that gives you time to call Celeste or to call Steve and call another parent and say, hey. My boys really wanna do this. If your kids are doing this, can we figure out a way for you to get them at 04:45 as I can? Yes. Now if they're already signed up for pool, they would go back to pool and stay in pool until the parent picked them up. Mhmm. So if the activity ends at 04:45,
but you're a parent that normally picks your kid up for pool at six, then your kid would go there. Is there opportunity for people who don't attend school to have their child go to pool after the activity or not? Talk to pool about that, especially as the time I don't think there would be that many, but but potentially offering something like that might help other, like, later work Your your boys have already had people work on file with pool because they go there at some One of them goes in the afternoon. The other one only goes So she might say to you, we would need to have people work on file if you were still 10 sometimes. So I'll talk to her about that for those kids. But it's gonna be a great opportunity. I'm really excited. For the for the monthly director, when the person's in that role, they would actually be reporting to you or reporting to the they'd be employee technically at the board of education
Because they're Right. Now the only three possibilities that it would be would be Taylor, myself, or Amy. Because Amy currently is the director of COOL. She's the principal, not the super. But in in her role as COOL, that's an independent organization. That's nothing to do with us. In her role overseeing this, she would be technically still Correct. Under legal rights for it. Right. But, like, that's why I say we don't know. We'll know ahead of time. But, like, if there's an activity that I know every one of the cool kids in the afternoon is going to, and Amy is the one that's there and neither of the two of us are here that day for whatever reason, then it would be appropriate because we're adding kids to that after school and an employee, but then she would be the point of contact just case of purpose.
So, yeah. So absolutely. And the grant was written to be a a grant that was, working with, an in a secondary agency. So, yeah. So we're really excited about it, and I think that the kids will be and so will the parents. Yeah. So that's that. Will that and then will that be just strictly during the school, or is there a plan? It is just the school year after school because it's after school. Okay. Any of the other grants that we got the past two summers that we also had partnered with school, those are separate grants.
Those are summer grants. And would you guys be able to work into that? Like, I know prior to COVID, there was, like, chess club or technology club. So the the clubs that are already in our budget from years before,
if those resume, those will be a part of the school. So So they wouldn't be part of this. Correct. Okay. So, like and and the reason being is, those are already in the teacher union contract. There's only four of them that are in the teacher union contract already. So, like, I mean, I'll use yearbook just because I mean so yearbook. We wouldn't have a yearbook club because there's already an adviser to the yearbook that's already part of our budget. She already takes care of that. We wouldn't take that away from Yep. From And if we were to lose the grant, we aren't gonna get rid of the yearbook. So we wouldn't want that variation in Right. So so it'll be interesting. It'll be fun. So that's what's going on with that. We're going to cover obviously, we're start covering budget stuff tonight. I know there's a few other things that are in Taylor's, update there, so that's really all I have. And just real quick. Wait. Like, for example, like, if I sign SOPA for the January,
I'd let you know, and then and then you would email the people that are signed up to say this is the schedule. You need to bring a snack or whatever. Okay. So I did January just because it's kinda just starting. Like, I literally just found out, and I was like, okay. Let's get something going. Okay. Taylor and I will work on February together, and then we'll see from there. Maybe she does March or whatever. But it'll always tell you who you have to email to sign up. Oh, okay. And then you'll get a response once what you need to do. Alright. Great. So absolutely. And so and sorry about the delay that we had this week too. What was the calls that we didn't have?
So it would He even called the two hour delay, and then that's what I thought. Actually, no. Skip. What so so the way that works is there's four of us that have that conversation. Ram, he would hand over Marlborough. And the superintendent at Graham checks with public works from the other three. And I don't know exactly, all of the details to what happened in Marlborough, but for something that happened in Marlborough, he needed to at Maria quality. I didn't intend that quality delay because and two years ago, I would have had to if it was just a problem in Hebrew I mean, in Marlborough. However, now with bus driver shortages, I went, you know, kinda twenty minutes, and they were great. The two guys from Dako, Steve and Eric Thompson. And they really did try to work with me and figure out how we could make that work, and they just couldn't because of the fact that everybody was short drivers. And so they said going forward, we'll try Valve, but we just can't today. So we just had to we just had to do that this time. And I felt bad because I don't put parents some parents probably had to call out because it's 10:30, and I'm sorry about that, but we didn't have choice. So It's what it is.
K. Thank you, Valerie.
Thank you for putting together that after school program. Yeah. I was I was so excited. Only one other small town got it, Orange. Everybody else was a big, big town. Thank you, Valerie. That's exciting. Happy for the kids. I'm looking forward to it. Let's see. Principal's report.
Emma, it's up to you. Yes. Happy January. We're we're rocking and rolling back into it. I think we're all a little bit you know, it's coming back from the holidays and that crazy December. It's like you you take a breath, and we're kind of back to the normal routine with rhythms. Doing our mid year assessments are going now, so the second I Ready assessment. So we'll get some good data from that over the next month and then some additional kind of mid year assessments. So that's good news. And then we also have some good events in addition to the after school events. We have our annual spelling bees coming up, which is big news in elementary school. And we'll do classroom bees next week followed by a whole school bee at the end of the month. Our inventors for invention convention, are really picking up some steam, so that's exciting. That will be on March 8, and we're, that is the night of a board meeting. So we'll hold the,
the kind of, like, an expo style before the board meeting, and we'll have the award ceremony because the judging will be during that day. So you'll be certainly invited to come a little bit early if you'd like to kind of see how that ends and and who our finalists are that will move to the state semifinals. So we can move six forward. We just got word of that today, so we're excited about that. And they're working on that in between tech and library and and those kinds of those kinds of times. We also have a winter concert this month, so we're excited because it's our first kind of regular concert that we've had in a couple of years. So Julie's years. Yeah. A lot of years. So Julie's really excited. It's really her first kind of AES concert in that kind of setting, so she's busy getting those students prepared, and we are excited for that. We also are excited actually on Friday. We have some reptiles coming. PTA has sponsored for us a great extracurricular assembly. I'm blanking on the name of them. CKZ reptiles, I believe it is. But they Yeah. They'll do an informational kind of half hour, and then the kids get to come and, like, touch and hold. Yeah. Yes. Keyword the kids get to, so we'll see how that happens. But that way, we we kinda had a test started second and third today. We had a volunteer came in and did some lessons on snakes and brought a snake. So it's very exciting. Good good stuff happening. Had one on her. Yep. Uh-huh. Very exciting stuff. And then my well, also, just wanted to share, we were
renewed for our grant through AQIS that helps with our NIAC recredivation and new accreditation for kindergarten, so that's exciting. That will carry us through next year, which is actually when our accreditation happens. So they support our program monthly and come out and and help just kind of in the process and and fine tuning what we're doing and what we need to do better or differently. So that's good news. So that'll do kindergarten and pre k the next week? Okay. Yep. So that's our goal is to reaccreditation for pre k and then a new accreditation for kids. But they'll stay sorry. Don't wanna miss people. They'll stay on the same kinda year. Yeah. That's together. Yep. And then lastly, I just want to share. I know you may have heard, but for anybody tuning in, we were at channel three, came last Friday. We had our second CPR, first aid AED training for our sixth graders. We did our fifth graders right before break, but that other snow event we had had moved our sixth grade out. So we invited channel three to come back. They were happy to come. And
so I'll share that with you now. It's about a minute and a half clip for those of you who missed it. Okay. Let's see. So this one, screen. Right?
And then you another same lesson today. Channel three, Iowa News reporter Audrey has the story. A
plastic CPR dummy in a colorful cafeteria can still bring an active imagination to a life or death scenario.
It's kinda scary. This could actually, like, bring one of my friends.
And over elementary school students know I'm kind of imagining it in my head. Because they sat through a two hour CPR course. One, two, three, four, five.
Learning the basics from instructor Madison Lurch. It makes them feel more confident when they learn how to do it in this kind of setting. When When it comes to learning this life saving skill, Lurch says these are some of the youngest people she's ever taught. It's great. I like that we teach our younger generation how to do this, especially if they are at home alone with an adult who does go into cardiac arrest or even a friend. Even though many of the students don't know someone personally with heart problems
Coach says the recent jarring instance of cardiac arrest during Monday night football just goes to show it can happen to anyone. All of a sudden, I know where it can be someone who is considered healthy, and down we go. And you're never too young to know how to save a life. I think just everyone should know how to do this. Be prepared. In Andover, Andre Russo, Gentle three Eyewitness. We got another important lesson today. So
that was exciting. The kids did such a great job. They were you know, even when they interviewed the student, they said the kids it was five minutes. You guys can just chat. Oh, no. They were like, like, you've never seen sixth graders quieter than that. Jamie Weber was like, I I invited them to math class today, actually, just to get that kind of attention, but they did a great job. And then Celeste just reminded me that we have sonar coming to visit as well this month, the eighteenth through the lunch and, recess waves to promote. We are the PTA is sponsoring selling tickets to the, wolf pack Yes. Games. So families can do that, and we kinda have a section blocked off, so that's exciting as well. So we'll kind of after that visit, we'll resend, that information. So a lot of exciting things happening in January. Yeah. Any questions for me? Thank you. No problem.
And now we have a financial report from Terry, our Okay. New money person. Yeah. Financial.
If you'll turn to your the back of page four in your packet, you'll have you'll see the summary of we just did a expenditure report as of January 4. That was probably, like, my second day here. So if I don't know if you any of you had a chance to review this before the meeting tonight, but if there's any questions, I will make every attempt to answer them. As you will see that there are some encumbrances that have been thrown in there since probably the last time you saw this report. Laura and I have that's a work in progress. Those numbers are not hard and fast. So we need to I need to look, take a deeper dive, and tweak those numbers. And I guess my question is is these encumbrances weren't being done previously, but I I don't wanna assume you wanna see encumbrances. Do you do you I guess the question is is do you want to see those encumbrances every month? Yep. That's money that's allotted that we can't spend. So yeah. Absolutely. Right. And it'll give us a better idea of where we are in the next month. Yeah. Because I'm They've always well, long as I've been, they've been on there. So Okay. Yeah. Good. Mhmm. So that's good to know. So Any questions? Yeah. 98% expended or percent used under teacher salaries. That's encumbered. That that was Encumbered, but for
I mean Everything that we know. So everything that know that's in the building. So that's through the resident of the year. This is what we're going to have to pay them to date by the end of the year is what they've built in there. Okay. Now there's still a couple little things. I mean, like, it says 98%, but there might be, a couple portions to the to the teacher's salary or longevity or something that's not in there that's so that might eight,
but I I told her it's okay if it's not exact. Yeah. No. No. That's fine. Last year because I that's what I pulled up. Last year at this time, it said that we were 37%. Because they didn't use to write
I mean, it's still they still said encumbered, but they weren't doing it. But they weren't doing it properly. Right. So, no, that's And once I do a deeper dive and I understand what's in there and what still needs to go in to the encumbrance, then we'll have probably a better number by the next time we you very much. Yeah. Oh, and, Terry, don't forget the one thing we talked about too was
some of the ones that had been potentially covered by a grant previously. Yes. They may pop up on Terry's radar about and have to get put in here, but they weren't part of it because it had been in the grant before. Correct. So We did everything for that. We've put that grant to this line, and I don't believe that's No. It's just it's what we know of. And so we can at least look at and have a pretty good idea that, okay, we're not gonna go over budget point. Something that, frankly, we haven't been able to do
since I've been on board. Do we need to do something in regards to, like, this speech teacher specifically?
What do mean do something in regards to speech? I don't why does that say negative? It's
it's Oh, we know why that was in there, and they'll see it, Taylor, when we talk about the what do you call it later? She wants a spoiler alert. Spoiler alert for what happens when we get to the discussion about the budget is there are extra expenses associated with preschool already on initial referrals for speech and things like that. Yeah. Yes. And so that they were probably already paid out there, but we have to make sure Terry knows when we get through all the grants that that the it's called an enrollment based addition to school readiness,
and that's where that would come out of. So so spoiler alert. We'll talk about that. So that will get fixed from Another another And I don't think for on our end, as long as the object stays under a 100 Right. They can move the numbers within the object as necessary.
I know. I was crashing from, like, Yeah. For a 100.
Uh-huh. Why do I make terry garbage? She's like vinegar. No. Not you. No. I understand. I saw that. I'm like, wait a minute. You're already more comfortable than I have been in a year. That's a good thing, Steve. But I I haven't gotten to everything
with her yet. I know. I've been here a little over a week, so, you know, I I I have really jumped right in. Laura and I were transitioning over the last week, but I I feel like I have a good grasp on which direction I need to go in. So I I feel very confident that next month, the the numbers will
be tweaked even a little bit more. So Awesome. Okay? You're welcome. She's been great. Thank you, Tim. Alright. Thank you. Val, I'll just ask you. Is there anywhere that you do expect potential transfers or any thoughts where you think we might run into any talking about that because, again, she'll have been here a week, but we've got deep That's right. Numbers. Yeah.
From, like, object to object Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Because and, again oh, well, we're gonna get to this in a minute. But there are maybe from one section to another, but it would still be the same scenario. So for example, we have a medically fragile student that, wasn't in the budget last year. They're in the budget now. There's gonna have to be money that's moved to transportation or to, professional services or to supplies that were needed for this child. And so they'll be moved to different objects, but when we get to that point, I'll be able to explain to you it's all related to that one student. So am I worried about things, like, significantly not at this point, because we've talked through the other scenarios. Remember, and I've mentioned this over and over a few times. Thankfully, fingers crossed, some of the unexpected things that we know aren't in this budget occurred over the summer
and gave us warning. So Taylor and I have not had anything since September that's happened either with the property, with facilities that we didn't know about since September, with students new students coming in that we didn't know about. We knew about it all between July 1 and the start of the school year. So that helps because we knew it was in the budget, and now it's given us an opportunity to say, as we go along, okay. We can put that here. Okay. We can put this there. Like I said, as soon as we got that other grants, that extra funding for the preschool, it was like, okay. Because we knew that something existed for that. So, Steve, no. There isn't anything if you ask me right now about, you know, what are the odds you're gonna go over budget? I would say the odds of us staying below budget are very good right now.
Do I think it'll be close? Sure. It's always close. Yeah. But there isn't anything that we're sweating right now
in January. Speaking of sweat, the other thing that I know we had talked to Sherry about it last year, just as a reminder right now, which January, and it's 50 something degrees outside, so we're lucky. But just to keep us updated as to our on fuel oil. So if we get low start being low and have to go purchase that. Started with this one because
my goodness. It's like this is like our our honor class where everybody asks me all the questions before we could get them. Well, Well, I'm looking for this. Last
year, we got very lucky, as you know, when Sherry, for us in the town, got us into dine at 02:23. It was on the front of no. I mean, I'm on with 40 towns on a regular basis between here and Scotland, and none of them in my region there or here, they're all like, you got what this year? Like, nobody can believe it. I'm almost embarrassed. Like, you know? But nobody is really most towns are not locking in right now in our region. I'm I'm talking about for this year, the a lot the number of gallons we have. We're doing okay there. The struggle that we're having for next year right now, and it's gonna happen it's gonna happen for the town as well, is the price for next year. Mhmm. So I have not locked in because it's ranged now from one day, it was a low of three zero eight, and that happened for about twelve hours, to a high a high of, like, three eighty nine. And since we will use anywhere between twenty six and thirty six thousand gallons of oil, town only uses between fifty five hundred and sixty eight hundred over there. But for us, that's a huge difference. I can't lock in at a dollar more than what we were at the $2.23 now because for us, that could be almost $40,000.
No. I don't understand. I think I'm getting confused here. What I'm at what I just wanna look at is last year, we when we logged in, we logged in at so many gallons. And at the end of the year, we went over that, and then we had to buy at a market price Yeah. Which was a significant amount. So I just wanna keep No. We're doing okay, and that's a market. And, again Keep us it's been warm, but just kinda keep us updated if we start to get close. Again,
the two towns that I do know of that had a lock in only because they didn't lock it for this year. They locked it midyear this year for this year and next. So if we get close to that, I will speak to them Mhmm. At some point in the end and say, can you at least lock give it to us for whatever our lock in price turns out to be for the next year? So I'm not worried about this year because we got such a good price. I'm really not. Even with the number of gallons and things like that, we're on track. What what my concern is every day is locking us in for next year because this is very late that people have locked in. So we're doing well with the usage, though. Except for tonight.
I wasn't. Okay. We're gonna move on to items for discussion and action. Item number one, solar contract. Exactly. And
Yeah. Everyone should have received a copy of the contract via email. Many, many pages. I believe it was 80 plus. Wondering if anybody has any discussion points, comments, or questions. Adam is here. Hi, Adam. Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here, Adam.
Yeah. Absolutely. I'm, I'm particularly glad it's a Zoom meeting because as I'm sure all of you know of young kids, there's a lot of illness going around these days, and my kids gave me hand foot mouth. Oh, jeez. So
as you can My husband gets it every time. I
heard that if we were an adult, you couldn't get it or some ridiculous thing like that. So that They say that. Debunked that myth. Do
you have anything that does he have anything that he needs to share with us or just take your questions?
Well, I I do. I I do have an update on the project generally, you know, so before anybody, you know, wants to ask questions just to get this out of the way and address. We did the site visit just to, you know, try to confirm exactly what the install costs are going to be. And the really strange thing that we found at the school is that it's actually single phase power. Most commercial buildings, schools, etcetera, all have three phase power. Single phase power is generally more what you see for, like, residential, system. So, basically, what that means in layman's terms for us is about three times as many inverters are gonna be required for this project, which is just labor, equipment, more wiring, etcetera. So we did have to adjust the power purchase agreement rate. I just got that information back from GreenSky's pricing folks today. I updated the model. So, basically, the the PPA rate and I I don't know if if folks have a copy of, what I provided to Elaine who then, my my colleague here, Titan Elaine. I'm not sure if she had a chance to circulate that to everybody, but I I did rerun the numbers for everybody, so you could see, you know, what the impact that is on the project.
And share it, Adam, because, no, we didn't get that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll bring that up right now. And
this was this was highly unusual. I don't think I've ever encountered a a commercial slash municipal What is it? That only has single phase power, you know, residential's two zero eight volt. Really unusual. So the annual savings on the previous estimate of the job was about 27,000 per year, and that actually we we had an escalator on that. We so we we got rid of the escalator, which was was good. So we have a a fixed price now, and that fixed price is 8¢ per kilowatt hour, and the annual savings is about $21.05.
So what we're looking at is the one that would be applicable to us?
Right. This this is the this is the revised project based on the site visit and the added cost to basically, do a single phase project instead of a three phase project. So the the net difference over time Same thing.
Is, you know, when we get when we got rid of the escalator on the PPA rate, so that's a fixed price now. That helps. So the the the total savings over the twenty year period on the first proposal, if memory serves, was about, you know, $7,700,000, 701, somewhere around there. So we're just shy of 6 with with this. So, you know, in in our view, it's still a really good project. It's just, you know, we do have to account for that unexpected added cost.
From a time to install standpoint, is there any concerns that you saw or anything that would delay?
No. I mean, you know, when when, you know, did the site visit, walked the roof, saw the electric room, I mean, everything really checks out. It's just it was that single phase item that we uncovered that was a surprise.
So there's still no additional cost to the we had a zero cost. So there's no additional cost that would be added on at the beginning. It's still a zero cost to us to do this. It's just the total savings is the reduction.
Exactly. The the project cost increased by about 20%. Okay. So the PPA rate had to be adjusted. But the fundamental terms of what we discussed last time are still, you know, still in effect. It's, you know, out of pocket cost, you know, nothing to maintain or install. We, you know, we'll handle that. Simply selling power back at a fixed price. Thanks.
So I do have two questions. So, on the first question, I I I read through the contract. And on the the access piece of it, where where we you have access to the facility, which, of course, you need to have. Do you know if the people that will be coming out go through any sort of vetting, or or, you know, or Background.
Background check for anything? Yep. So they they they all, undergo background check process to screen for, you know, the obvious things that you'd wanna screen for in advance of having anybody set foot on a school. So if you like, I can reach out to the the maintenance folks at GreenSky's and just have them, you know, give me the the exact, you know, criteria that they follow. But I I do know that is it is strict. There are background checks required for anybody who does maintenance and and works for green skies on-site, you know, simply by virtue of the fact that the vast majority of their projects are on school rooftops. Yep. I know that's an important point.
Absolutely. Thank you. And my second question is, so just kinda walk me through how how things work, like, over the summer because we're purchasing all the energy. I suspect I know how it works, but just for everybody else. Mhmm. We're purchasing all the energy. Obviously, in the summer, our power production should be greater than our power consumption. So that just gets banked into into Eversource, or do you do you do the the quote bank? Or how does that that work exactly?
Yeah. Sure. So Eversource is going to install a a revenue grade meter or electric meter, two way electric meter as part of this project so they can measure not only energy that's being created by the array, but any that gets pushed back out means that you couldn't Set the single face power off.
Wait. See if he can get it back. Who's it? We lost you for about the last time it was generated. Oh, really? Sorry. Yep. Am I is this okay? Yeah. We got your own. Yeah. My inner Two way meter out of two way meter after that. Yeah. Yeah. So Eversource will have their own meter at the site to measure the energy that's being created that's being used and also the energy that's being pushed back out into the street. So whatever energy is being pushed back out onto the street, that just means you couldn't use it at the time it was generated. So what they do is they have a mechanism called net metering, which, as you mentioned, it basically is a way to capture that that energy generation that you couldn't use, but then electronically bank it so that it could be applied to your next month's bill as if you had used it when you needed it. So it's a way to give folks full retail rate credit for that energy production even if you couldn't use it at the exact moment it was generated. And so, you know, from a month to month standpoint, I think it's pretty typical in the summer that you'll see some overproduction. You know, most schools still maintain some level of programming, usually keep the air conditioning on. Maybe the set points are different. You know, people tend to use the building still. So it's not like the energy consumption at the building drops off a cliff, but it's usually lower. Coincidentally, you know, when the energy production's higher. So Paul's here again. So
if you stop sharing this. Yeah. I don't think I can do. Stop sharing.
I make him not a host now. And that's the case with a lot of a lot of buildings, homes at a two Can you hear me now? Yeah. We we have One sec. I'm gonna relocate to a different room in my Alright. Yeah. If you wanna stop relocate to a different room in my house, I think, might be helpful.
I'm wondering do you know while he's going back to is there a rolling twelve? Was there a certain time within the like, if we don't use if we just have low consumption or we have a COVID thing where or is it throughout the entire period of the contract? I know mine rolls in, I think, March.
So if at that point, you haven't used all the extra generation
comes out of it for like Well, actually, no. I think they actually write check back But I like, for residential. I thought for Okay. Alright. Is it This is different. Ask your reader. So
on that, in regards to kind of the net metering, understanding how it works, you know, we're Yep. Thinking of specifically, like, when we had the COVID thing where we had to shut down for a number of months, is there a rolling 12 that we have to use those credits in, or is it through the life of the contract? Or
So it is generally it's it's for a rolling twelve month period. But if you have any excess beyond that, Eversource will write you a check for the value of that energy. Okay. So, they really try to design it the you know, even if, you know we don't wanna produce generally. You know? And and we're I think we're about 80% of the building's consumption. I have to double check the exact ratio, but we're not at a 100%. There's just not enough roof space there to to to actually do that. But, you know, what we found during COVID, which was kind of interesting, is that, generally speaking, like, the building's energy consumption didn't tank as much as people thought that it it would have. A lot of things just can't be shut down. But, again, you know, we live in a strange world, I guess, now where anything can happen. So, you are protected on the back end if we have another COVID type event, where your energy consumption just plummets and the array is still producing. You would just get a check back from Eversource at that point.
Awesome. And guess I do have one rather technical question you might not know the answer to, but I'll ask anyway. So there's Ethernet connection required at the equipment, so so you can monitor the equipment. Does the equipment phone home? So does it call out, or do you call in? And I guess call loosely.
Yeah. Yeah. So remote monitoring is is part of this process because, you know, the the revenue aspect of this project for GreenSky's is, you know, predicated on the system functioning as it's supposed to. So, they have software that monitors the performance of of every asset that they own. So if in the event there's an issue, they get the first call. You can choose if you'd like to have access to the same dashboard that they do. You know, some people wanna do that. Some people don't really care one way or another, but, that's how they they monitor the equipment. And, you know, if an alarm gets tripped for a failed piece of equipment, that's how they figure it out. And hence hence, the need to have it be essentially essentially Internet, connected at all times so they can maintain that
that line of sight to the project. Yeah. I guess yeah. My my question was just, does it send the data out from here, or do you have to have remote access? Because not getting really cool. That requires us to push holes in the firewall, which pose security risk to the institution.
That's a good question, and I don't know, but I can find out. Yeah. If you have an IT special, that might even be you. Yeah. Who the you know, I I can gladly, you know, get me in touch, I can get you the answer to that question. K.
They typically do schools, though. So I I hate to think that all of the schools have a folder firewall. No. I know. I I Well, I need said again. It's okay. You just I was just curious. Yeah. So, yeah, I I might be in information security position at my real job. Okay. That makes sense. Absolutely. Anyone else have any questions for Adam? Time
on you. What do we need? What's next steps? How do we move forward?
Sure. So the the next pivotal kind of moment for us is, you know, we'll get the the contract document executed, and that'll line us up to submit for the incentive when it becomes available at the start of February. It's first come, first served. So if we're teed up ready to go for early February, shouldn't be an issue getting the incentive for the project. At that point, when we lock in the incentive, the project will go to the engineering design and permitting phase. And, you know, I think this is kinda where, you know, the the million dollar question of when do you guys prefer to have the project done? Because if we can work only in the summer, that kinda limits us a bit.
If if there's some flexibility I think maybe we talked about this last time. If there's some flexibility about when the work can be done, then, you know, for us now today, fall twenty twenty three, if and and I think a lot of, you know, the the concern we usually get with working at schools is that is you're gonna have six weeks of banging on the roof, etcetera, etcetera. And that generally is is just not the way it goes. Most of the work does not require the kind of, you know, heavy foot traffic on the roof. I think a lot of people thinks think that it does. But can you guys give me some feedback in terms of, you know, what your thoughts are and when you'd like the work actually performed?
What kind of footprint are you talking? How many people are you talking? A ton of trucks? Like, what's the actual footprint of when you guys come in to install those? Because that would Yeah. So so the staging the staging another project. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So the staging of the equipment,
you know, usually three or four days to get everything in unloaded. Getting the panels from the ground to the roof, that's usually the the the loudest part. You know, the racking would go up first. The idea here is to do a ballasted system without roof penetration. So I think a lot of times, you know, the idea that people have is that the act of, you know, the of, like, penetrating the roof is is the thing that makes the most noise. If that's, you know, not the case here, that certainly helps a lot. In terms of boots literally on the on the roof, walking on the roof, assembling the racking, probably looking at about two to three weeks of that work. That tends to be the the the most, I guess, know, the the the noisiest of all of the work. The rest of it is simply just wiring and a lot of electrical work, which is not, you know, lifting and and moving heavy objects on the roof. So, you know, most of the time when we do these projects, they are done during the year. Sometimes, you know, they have to be done during the summer because there's a reroof project or something of that nature. You know, we can, certainly work with that too. But, you know, we could get this project done in fall of this year if, you know, we are allowed to The
one question that I guess I'm asking is I'm not looking at your actual, like, lay down area that down off the how much space are you taking up parking lot? How many trucks are gonna be here? How many we have a limited space. Right where that's coming in is where our buses go. That was Sure. My concern. I think we can work around those. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, it it might make sense to actually, you know, have our construction folks reach out to your site manager just to identify what the ideal place is to to stage the equipment. You know, it's it's probably pretty tight. I mean, I I find that, you know, these these the smaller schools usually are pretty tight. You know, I think it would generally be about a crew of six to eight people. And as far as lay down space, I mean, if we have, like, a 10 by 20 That's not too
Could that could that space be, like, on a field as opposed to a parking lot?
Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't necessarily have to be on the parking lot taking up spaces. As long as it's relatively relatively close to the building that, you know, the access from the
I'm not concerned because as long as and they'll work with us. Any project that's built on the property, as long as they're working with us and giving us the heads up Right. As to what to expect so we can inform parents as to what to expect so Taylor can make accommodations. Sure. Yeah. All we ever need is that collaboration so that they're telling us ahead of time what's gonna happen, And that way, we can make our adjustments. Because if there's a day or two where the lower playground can't be used simply because that 10 to 12 foot area, is down there, we have an upper playground. Right. And so I'm very confident that collaboration can take place just as long as we know the timeline. So the only thing we would need, Adam, going into it would be before the work started for your guys to be able to Zoom with us or come down and talk to Taylor or myself and just say, hey. These are the days. This is what to expect. This is what it would look like. These are the accommodations we would need. And and there's there's no problem there.
Yeah. So I think, you know, what what for any project and, you know, this one certainly not being an exception, you'd have a dedicated project manager who's responsible for all of these details, making sure that all the work that gets done on the premises is is coordinated with with your folks, your facilities team, and that, you know, there there aren't any surprises. So, I will loop him in, and and let's make the appropriate connection between him and and and the person from the school who would most likely be working together on this project kind of, you know, one on one. And then in addition to that, you know, if we wanna set up a meeting just to walk through well, what we would definitely do before any construction happens is a project specific kickoff meeting. But I think if if you wanna do something like that sooner,
you know, we can arrange that so you've got, you know, plenty of visibility in terms of, you know, what to expect and when. And I can also I can also get you a more detailed chart of of the actions that are going to occur between, you know, contract signature and then the actual construction of the project. So you can have that as a reference just, you know, over the next couple months. We'll obviously keep you updated as as things move along, but, you know, I think it's important for you guys to have something too that you can look back to reference and say, okay. Here's where we are in the process.
Great. Thank you. I have I have one more question. So you how many inverters are we talking since you said there are a large number more?
Do you know off the top of your head? I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but I was told by our construction team that in instead of, you know, the one for every section that we anticipated, we need three now.
And are those all going in the main electrical room, and do we have space?
So the construction folks that were out and doing doing the site walk, they didn't mention anything to me about a concern about the space. I can check and see if they intend to put them in the electric room or if they intend to mount them on the outside wall. Okay.
Yeah. I think that's a that's an important clarification we need. Yep. Make a note of. Questions for Adam?
I I don't know if this is so much a question for Adam or if it's a discussion item, but I'm just curious. What is, say, you waited till summer twenty twenty four. What's what's the harm in weight? Like, just to play devil's advocate. Like, what would we lose? Gonna be that. What would we lose waiting till 2024?
Do we lose that? With the applications, the intent $27,000.
Well, I would say from my perspective, the potential of the twenty seventh for $21,000 But, also, as Adam said, there's only twice a year that you could apply Right. To be the recipient of this. And so getting it in in February so that it can be done at the end, it's as Adam said last time, you know, there's the consideration in February for, like, round one, and then there's consideration. When is the other one? It was February. What was the other date of consideration? September. September? September. So, you know, that that that would be the reason why I personally
would ask. Well, the question is is does it matter when you start the project if you've been granted the Yeah. The incentive? No.
So you could you could do you could build the projects in '24 if you lock in the incentive for 2023. You once you lock in the incentive, you basically have three years to to put it to use. That's what I'm just curious. Thanks. So It's just a matter of, like, if we're gonna save $20,000.
Yeah. Yeah. I I wouldn't it sooner rather than My question would be the opposite of why would we wait. Right. If you've already locked in the incentive. We have the incentive. Why would we wait to garner the Were there concerns, Mike, that
No. I just you know, I'm trying to think of the You know, I I get the financial benefit. Yep. I get you wanna you wanna recognize that as soon as you possibly can. But, you know, thinking about what's going on in the school with the kids, with the daily operations of life side just as much in the summer with pool, the pool camp, the rec programs.
I think there's more that's what and that's why I was just asking you that because I would think that there's just as much of that more outdoor use of our I know we've come there out there pretty much all day. Right. So I would be more concerned that they could use the outside
Right. Because there's work because you're not gonna play underneath there. Do you But like you said, we're gonna have a meeting with the that team. So if we if Yeah. Any point, the administration says this interferes with our daily operations,
then it gets pushed. Right. Yeah. Adam, if we if we were to wait till '24, would that is there a possibility? I know you can't forecast this. But if we were to get the the incentive now and lock in the contract now, does that lock in the price component and the cost component knowing that you probably wouldn't buy hardware for a year? Or would we be possibly looking at possibly price increase?
Generally speaking, if if we know when you wanna do the project and it's it's a contracted project and we have the incentive locked in, likely go ahead and order the equipment now and probably warehouse it and just have it be part of a general pool of other equipment that would be used to build projects. So that's typically how how we would do it. You know, we wanna try to lock in our cost as quickly as possible and and the main two. The the the two hurdles we need to clear are, you know, the executed contracts itself and then locking in the incentive. And from there, that really frees us up to, you know, start spending significant money on the projects. So I'm not as concerned about that. You know? So I think if if it came down to it where we couldn't we couldn't put together a path to building the project that integrated well with, you know, the school calendar that, you know, the sooner that the the school district could tell us, the better, I think. Just just so we could plan.
Totally not on the same topic, but does GreenSky's or or, like, do you guys do anything in terms of, like, classroom programming to get the kids involved with or understanding like, do you have any classroom plans that would go along with this in terms of, like, the kids being able to learn about it from a science or math perspective?
Yeah. So we we've done this before. Yeah. It's you know, if if you guys have a particular, age of of of kids that you wanna try to, you know, have us work with and and do that, that's something that we've done before. And it it actually one of the more fun things, in in in my day to day life. So if that's of interest, yeah, we can real world for them. So Yeah. And I mean, that's you know, there's, I I am I never ceased to, how much interest, kids really of all ages kinda show towards this stuff. You know, you wouldn't think it would be, like, terribly fascinating, But, you know, everybody understands, you know, what the sun is,
and it's, you know, kinda just, like, tangible for them and stuff. So, yeah, it's it's it's something that we'd be happy to do. Right. That would be awesome. I find that kids are hyper aware of what's going on with climate climate change in general, which is kind of interesting. My my wife's a seventh grade teacher, and it it comes up a lot as subject matter in her English class. So, it it's definitely on kids' minds. Yep. Alright.
Adam, we thank you. Yes. No problem. I appreciate it. Yeah. It is to make this work is collaboration Yeah. Communication. The fact that we have somebody to go to if we have questions, if we have any concerns, and that you keep the lines of your company keeps the lines of communication open with us. I think that's the primary thing that we need. 100%. Yep. That's what we're here for. Great. Who else have anything for Adam? Is
there a motion on the floor to accept the solar contract as presented?
I'll move to accept the solar contract as presented. Second.
K. Steven Fuss makes the motion, and Caitlyn seconds it. Any more discussion? K. We'll move to a vote. Everybody in favor, say aye. Aye.
Any opposed? Any abstentions? So the vote to accept solar contract as presented passes 700. Thank you, Adam.
Yep. Thank you, everybody. I will be in touch, get answers to your questions. Feel better, Adam. Thank you very much. Feel better. See you. Bye. Next one's. Item
number two. For items for discussion and actions, it's board education policies, updated policies of the 7,000 series, as you know. Last time we went through them, does anybody have anything they want to modify, change in this series 7,000.
Make a motion to accept the updated policies on the 7,000 series of the board of education policies as presented.
Shannon has made a motion that we vote to accept the revisions, review of the 7,000 series board of education policies. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shannon. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any extension? Okay. So it passes 700. Gretchen, to accept the revisions to review of the 7,000 series board of education policy. Okay. Next item. I
went through this next item very careful, and I tried to present this in a way that would be understandable because I'll be honest with you, it took me a while and many readings to understand this. It's the discussion of our attendance at January 23 planning and zoning Zoom meeting. We have to start off with the trigger. Eric Anderson, on behalf of the board of selection, has submitted an application to the Town Planning and Zoning Commission requesting a change in the zoning regulations, which will impact the Firehouse 11 School Road, Town Hall 17 School Road, and AES 35 School Road. The current regulations state the following. The land for this entire area is zoned, rural design district. Permitted uses as listed in the town of Andover zoning regulations five point zero are single family homes, farms, accessory apartments, home occupations, public parks, and playgrounds. By special permit listed in section five a, schools,
churches, libraries, and veterinary hospitals, childcare centers, farm stands, rear lots, bed and breakfast, and private recreation areas. That's the current regulation that they read. There's nothing in there about town halls or fire houses, and schools by special permit. The request to change is as follows. Under the special permit uses to remove schools and replace it with municipal land uses. This would be okay for 11 School Road, Firehouse, and 17 School Road, the town hall. This is not okay for 35 School Road, AES, and here's why. The problem with this change is the Connecticut general state statute 10 dash two twenty requires that the board of education, quote, shall have charge of the schools of its respective school district, shall make a continuing study of the need for school facilities and of a long term school building program, and shall have the care and maintenance and operation of buildings, lands, apparatus, and other property used for school purposes, unquote. This requires that school property is kept separate from other town owned property. Hence, the need for including the schools as a separate special permit use. General state statutes supersede all local action. Another concern with the removal of the school identifier and lumping it in with the municipal is that while the school is a municipal building, that does not mean it's public access as would be expected in other municipal buildings as included in the proposed definition. Today, there is great need for safety and security of the school building and property. Hence, the need for including schools as a separate special permit used once again. As we have seen with other laws, some examples include when masking mandates for issue with laws pertaining to smoking, carrying of weapons, other legislation.
There's often a diff difference between school and municipal buildings. As the Connecticut general statute requires the board of ed to have charge of the buildings and the lands, there is a definite requirement for a separate identifier to be in the special permit usage. As the Andover Board of Education, we must insist that the identifier of schools remains in the list of special permit zoning uses in addition to the words municipal land uses in the revised regulation. It is for these reasons that I encourage people to attend and get other people to attend the planning and zoning public hearing on 01/23/2023. It's a Monday night next Monday night. We need to get other residents to speak out about this at a public hearing. Two two Monday nights. A week and a half. Oh, two Monday nights. Okay. Our goal is to have the commission commissioners on the PNC to preserve the word schools in the zoning regulation. I tried to write this out to explain it in a way that everybody does anybody have any questions?
No. Look. Just clarification. I'm trying to figure find out in here, and is it not in here where they actually call out 35 schoolwork, but I don't see anywhere in here where it says our address.
No. It it doesn't split the land by address. It does. I did that for illustrative
purposes. So it just groups ours and it. So Because it was lumped all Yeah. So together. But and if you're saying it's covered under general statute, I feel like this is something that we should be talking to the attorney about to find it. Is this even legal? Can they do this? If because if the answer is no, then it will. What's that? I don't think that it is. Yeah. I know. But I think this is a discussion that we need to
have with our attorney. We have an executive session. Yeah.
So the only other thing I would I would add is and I agree with everything you said, Jerry, is in addition to us showing up, are we going to issue a notification to the planning and zoning as to the board as a whole's
objection to the change? I I would like to get a letter from the board. I agree. Approved by all of the board. I I would like to confer with our attorney before we go in and say anything. But but before we get that letter, I wanna get what she says. Make sure all of the lies before we go over and, you know? Think I believe I think I'm a 100% on board with this. Like like, makes no sense to zone this as something other than the school. It's a school. Well, especially when they're changing design. Yeah. But it it sounds like if they're going against statutes and things like that, I don't wanna just go over and go, well, the board doesn't like this. I would like to have our I representation.
See if I don't think I mean, I mean, I'm I'm surely fine with that, but I don't think it's us saying we don't like it. I think we have definitive reasons. And and very specifically because I reviewed this a while ago. And very specifically, I I am concerned about labeling school as a public building.
Well, as am I. I think that is But I'm my question is I don't even think they can do it. I don't So they legally can't do it. It's not even a discussion. At that point, it's not the board saying you guys shouldn't do this. That becomes an attorney saying you guys can't do this. You are not legal to do this. Yeah. And, yeah, that's a you know, forgive me if the wrong term injunction or whatever saying you you don't have the right to do this. I don't wanna muddy the waters, but I think all all of that may get to
the survey that the town had asked for about the property, the property description, finally, maybe getting access to any kind of indication as to what the actual property is on which like, the property description, the deed. And that's what I No. I'm just gonna say it because if there's any question with that legally, then PNC does have authority. So in other words, it's a question of school property versus municipal property and and whatnot. So I would agree with you that our PNC doesn't have the authority over state statute that says it can't be superseded by municipal zoning, municipal regulations.
But so I basically agree with you that we need legal Yeah. I think yeah. Just before we go in there and potentially, I don't wanna accidentally say something or do anything. I brought it up to the attorney before and make sure that we're And the bottom line on board with what the zoning is. That's why we're paying that. Bottom line is what the zoning is. Yep. But before showing up to VNZ and just starting to, you know, I I raise a rock. Yeah. Well,
the interesting thing is here is is what the town is asking for is to change something that already provides for us. So why are they changing our zoning instead of simply applying it to the town's properties
that excuse me. As far as the fire department and town hall that aren't properly zoned right now? No. I mean, yeah, don't think any of us would Why are they show up to a planning zoning meeting where they change the town hall and the fire department Right. To municipal use or whatever they wanna put it on. They can put it into the circus. Ours is the only Ours is proper. Ours still have proper use currently. Right.
So we can further Further discuss in executive. Executive session if that's okay with the rest. Yes. Let's go on. Number four, ABS 2023, 2024 budget. Discussion of initial space on finances. So, Valerie, can you give us an overview of where we stand going into our budget discussion? So this is our precursor,
and this was Terry's first task with me. So nothing like get her feet wet there. I almost didn't have a chance to have dinner a couple nights, but we managed to feed her. So she's back, and she's ready. We did put the, just a little, note. We did put in the reveries, Steve, I know that you wanna make sure it had run properly. It has already run the agreed upon timeline, that we it will mark next week as well, for our budget that had tonight's meeting on there as an overview and then the individual nights. So if you look up there, that is our budget schedule that we agreed upon that has actually already been printed, in the newspaper. The next week's session, the topics that we'll do, similar to last year just so that we could break it down and have smaller amounts with special education curriculum post,
initiative changes. The twenty fifth, it was salaries, insurance, facilities, and maintenance. Roughly, there's, like, small, sub, categories under there, but these are the major ones. February 1 is what we decided, would be the public input session and budget workshop, and then February 8 would be the next board meeting that we hope by then, the board would be in a position to be able to vote to approve a budget that would then move forward to the board of financing. As we mentioned, if it wasn't ready that night, we would have to, schedule a special meeting to fit in with the timeline, of when it's due to, the town, to the board of finance.
Well, we move on with the meetings just real quick. Last time we had the public input and the budget workshop with anyone else other than the board of education, we held it in the gym, and I think only three or four people other than the board of education and administration showed up. Are we intending to do that by Zoom as with all the other workshops?
Well, we had spoken about that, and I think the board decided that that one, you definitely wanted in person. Correct? And Zoom. They said similar to this. I I want it this or him. Or Well, the I think here here is fine. Right? The eighteenth and the twenty fifth, you had guys that decided it was just Zoom. Yep. Yes. Yep. Mhmm. And for this board as well, just so that the people who are here know, all of you will or won't be here first, the eighteenth and the twenty fifth. Was it Zoom for everybody? Zoom. Oh, it was Zoom. Zoom. Just wanted to say publicly for everybody wanted to know. Ninety minutes. Yep. That was it. So eighteenth and the twenty fifth, there is no in person option. The first, there is the in person option and Zoom. Yep. And then the eighth is obviously our regular meeting just to be out right now. The idea is prior to the first
that we have Yes. A Budget. Basically, budget to look at so to get input on so we can take What is the timing for all of those? Are they all at seven? 07:00.
Yep. And and that was printed in the newspaper as well. I know. Yep. Yep. We just wanna make sure everybody knows that so they could see it in there. Trip run this week as well. Can you can you put it on, like, the AES parent and the Facebook
group? So we're gonna show now Thank you. The idea of when the actual budget itself will be presented as a budget.
What do you mean? To the Before February 1. Between now and February 1. This is the date of birth, sir. So we no. We won't have those numbers together until after the meeting of the twenty fifth. Right? Right. And then prior to February 1, we'll have one with our numbers so the public has a chance to look at it prior to February 1, as Steve said, and come with their input to the first so that then as you guys are deciding final numbers where we need to move this, that, the other thing, you'll be able to do it on the first. I was asking when that might be available to the public. It'll be I know before. Posted prior to the first. February 1. That's how we're gonna go with. Okay. So Thank you. Alright. Right there. Okay. So categories that this is kind of a little bit of an overview because tonight was to be able to give you a precursor of kind of what to expect as we move forward, changes and things.
When we're looking at those many sections of salaries, we look at those line items, whether they're teacher salaries, non cert salary salaries, paras, admin, finance, everybody related to a salary. We definitely know that some of those positions are contracted, and they're union. And so that part is fairly easy for Terry and I to figure out as we go through. We look through the respective contracts, and we know that all of them have increases in the contractual obligations. I say about 3% because depending on which union, some of them split it so that one year was two and a half, one was three and a half. So we will provide those exact numbers. Jerry will be able to tell you specifically what the percentages were and in each individual contract, and then our numbers will go in there. So that actually, Shannon, to your answer there, we might have billed that fairly early. Next time we talk about that Yes. Whatever the contract is, that's the percentage of payments. About 70% of our budget anyway. With benefits. Yes. Subs, we can expect to see an increase. That's kind of a post COVID in some respect, post COVID related increase. We're not really sure where we stand right now with that. However, remember, this board was gracious enough to increase the sub rate from 90 one twenty. And we are still seeing when there are teachers or staff members in general that are out for we know it's not one day than if they're out with the flu or with COVID. Yeah. And when that happens, an illness like that, we know it's multiple days.
And so at that point, Taylor doesn't have an option knowing that it's gonna be four or so days. She has to fall in a sub. And in the past, if somebody's fall out sick and we've been able to, patch through for one day, not knowing that was different, but we certainly can't leave classrooms without. So we do know that that's the section that we're going to have to plan going forward. We also know that we were lucky enough to have younger staff that took positions here this year, and so we do have some planned leaves, for example, for maternity. So these are definitely things that we have to consider in next year's budget. Because if a teacher's out, let's say, for twelve weeks for something and we know that ahead of time, Obviously, we wanna properly plan and make sure that that additional amount would be in there under the subline, and we'd be able to tell you why. We know there's planned outage of a particular staff member for that. They sometimes will appear in varied areas of the budget because as Steve showed us before, when you look, you see teacher salary, noncert salary, then you see teacher's substitutes, and you see the paraprofessional substitutes. However, if you have a sub that needs to be, brought in for somebody else, a custodian, that would be the custodian's line item. And so those, salary changes, we may have to explain to you when we do that two weeks from now that they are varied lines because substitutes are required in those different areas. And then, for example, since the preschool teacher's salaries are part of school readiness
grant, Smart Start grant, the substitutes for them are oftentimes placed in that grant as well. So we'll explain that when we have those actual numbers there, but we are aware that that is one area that we're going to have to look at, be able to explain to this board. So another area is curriculum initiatives, instruction, and supplies. It's always an evolving area because they ask you to plan a year out for changes that we're usually about 70% sure of except this year when the state decided that we were gonna have a k three mandatory change to the reading program. And, unfortunately, in our school here, Taylor and her her her first year here gets to be the one that has to figure out how she's gonna successfully not a lull not a luller, but, how to successfully fill out a waiver, because we don't currently have the programs that are required to put exist yet? There is a template, but they're basically questions that you then narratively or with quantitative, or qualitative, information you write out, and then you fill in charts with quantitative information. So just because there's six questions or something on there doesn't mean she's gonna get this done in in ninety minutes.
So we are working on that. So we've talked about really, taking a good hard look at, what doesn't have a whole lot of, I'll use the word foot traffic. What initiatives do we currently have here that may be utilized, but they're not utilized as high a percentage in the school as, we had hoped. And in those cases, she's actually working with Christina because some of it can be tracked with tech to figure out who logs on, for example, to specific, licenses that we have for the classrooms. And if most of the classrooms aren't utilizing them to agree that would make to a degree that would make a difference within a classroom, we'd have to make the tough decision to say, we're gonna forego that one because we're bringing in this. So we've talked about replacements,
and that's gonna be really important because we know that number can't. We we just don't have the money, when it comes to curriculum and initiatives to bring in a whole lot of new things next year when we did pilot this year. So if the pilot isn't working, then the pilot has to be looked at to potentially pull back to add in something supplemental. And that's where, when we get to this section, I'll rely on her, in our budget meeting two weeks on the Zoom to really give you the data on that because she's been very instrumental in kind of filling me into this point with, yes, they love this component. And this component's not quite working, but we think we have a solution. And so we're looking at and, of course, you know, I I say, what's the solution? And she's great at being able to explain what the pros and cons to either adding something else or taking something away are. So that will be part of the budget workshops, those two budget workshops as well.
The accept grants will be sought for other new initiative programming. It's early in the year. I'm gonna show you what we're gonna have to work with in a minute. But like the after school grant, the after school grant can assist us in offering opportunities and enrichment, but that grant won't be able to help us with curriculum and instruction on a day to day basis. And so where someone says, hey. Did you just get 221,000 for two years? We did. And we will be able to offer opportunities that might enhance our curriculum, but we won't be able to replace our financial obligation to curriculum because we got that. Normally, we want to because if we did, we'd have to make it up a plan. Absolutely. But I just wanted to be clear because somebody who made a half kids in the school might think, why can't you just do that? And I would think that too if I wasn't an educator.
If you could offer this after school, does that count? Or they think that all of the after school stuff is coming from money within their budget. Right. So That's just a goldfish. K.
So special education and professional services, we have spoken before about having, you know, a a a wonderful, student that moved in over the course of the summer that we're enjoying a great deal, but, this has come with an increase in some costs. And, we just need to make sure that that's budgeted for this year, coming up because we're absolutely gonna take care of it in this current year, but we wanna make sure that that's properly placed in for next year. Absolutely. I did mention briefly when we were talking about, like, a few minutes ago that some of the preschoolers, we never know. We do have information on our littles when they come in. We know what screenings were done. We know through birth to three, but we don't necessarily know students who, I say, come in off the street and register. People who move into town or we've had no interaction with prior to them enrolling in preschool. And so very oftentimes, we do have, some things that need to be done to make sure we're meeting the needs of the littles as they come in. And to do that, we have to have a professional do that. And so,
that has been a little bit of an increase this year to us, as I mentioned. What we're trying to do is to properly make sure, that if that's something that has to be budgeted for because it won't fit into where we usually take the money for preschoolers, which is school readiness smart start tuition. If it requires us to take something else, we have to plan for that. So we're really looking to see how much over and above what we're given in terms of a grant would that be for us. And to do that, we look at service hours. Once child is identified with either a five zero four or through the PPT process with an IEP, that's easy. We have one page that tells us, and all we have to do at that point is go through the old page elevenths. And there's a service grid, and it says this child receives, speech one hour a week. This child receives occupational therapy. And so we go through those, and that is where we come up with the numbers for next year. And so we've started to go through those. We, gone through all of the existing prescriptions, I'd say, but now we just have to anticipate. Because remember, we're only in January. We're coming up with a budget for next year, and some of the meetings on those children won't take place until March, April, May, June, or into September, October, November, December. So we do have to kind of anticipate with those situations. And it may not sound like a large difference for us to anticipate,
but if you are going from, let's say, three hours a week of a service and now you're gonna increase to five hours a week, That could, give you an increase of potentially, if it's a a contractor, a $150 over forty weeks. And so that then adds up, in costs, and so we have to make sure that we do our due diligence to try to plan those as closely as possible. We don't wanna over plan them because then, you know, we're asking for money that isn't needed. We don't wanna under plan them because then we have to take it from someplace else. So we're there now. In terms of new staff needs, we are very confident. Taylor and I have worked together. Holly and I in special ed and, the conversations that I've had so far with Terry, we are, fairly confident that when it comes to special ed, there are those professional services that we shouldn't have, new staff needs, which is good. So in other words, if we have OT needs, we already have a contractor that we utilize. If we have PT needs, we already have a contractor.
And so those particular needs, we wouldn't have to go find specialist for. We already have a person that we work with for all the needs of our students. Benefits and insurance. This is always a tough area, and I I think you're in the town of Andover, Hebring, Marlborough, and at RAM, and AHM. We're very lucky. We have a very strong insurance consortium. You know that I'm part of an insurance consortium in the other district, and I have not seen one that runs as effectively, efficiently, and smoothly as ours. Most of them are talking about costs that we mentioned this last year, costs of, you know, 9%, 12%. I had 15% last year with my other budget. There are right now, there are companies that are, talking twenty, twenty five, 30% increases simply because of the uptick post COVID of people now getting things done and the number of claims coming in. And there isn't a darn thing that most school districts are gonna be able to do about that. We're very lucky. With our insurance consortium right now, we are talking about a 5% potential increase to our health insurance benefits.
That would be 5%, obviously, in the town's budget, 5% in ours because we we don't share that. Is there a chance that could go up? There always is, but we feel very strongly that five right now would be the worst case scenario. And, depending on what occurs in this next quarter between December, January, February into March, it could go lower than that. But we have already had a motion with our board at our consortium, and we are saying we are using 5%. And so that means that the chances of it going above that are slim to none. So, Terry, that'll be slated to be coming up with the exact numbers,
for those people. We did have multiple changes to those covered. Last year, if I remember correctly, at the end of the year, those changes were not in our favor. We had to do some maneuvering and and moving around of within the line item of money because there were people that had been added midyear, for example, and we had to bank down that. So we do have to be cognizant of that in making sure that, again, we don't over plan, but that if we know ahead of time for example, if somebody has already said to us, I'm getting married this year, and I need you to know I'm adding my spouse. We would plan for that. If someone says, I'm having triplets, which they're not thinking of this, but we would plan for that. So that's personnel matter. We would share that when we're talking about our planning at the next workshop, but that's something that Terry with HR is slated with as well, and that is make sure that you know what those potential changes are because and we'll give you the exact numbers of what it costs. But as you know, one person one single person on our insurance averages 10 to $12,000
as a board cost plus their cost. A family average is almost $30,000. So average of what yes. So you don't tell us who it is, but you when we get the numbers, if you know it, it's already been factored in. Correct. But, Steve, that takes time for us to sit down. Yes. And look and say and, again, we don't share people's personal information and nor did you ask for it. But that if if if our number of last year to this year goes up by 30,000 and someone says, why is it up 30,000? We know that it's because we know there's a family plan coming this year that we didn't have last year. I know Taylor won't mind me using her as example, but for example, our former principal was on here as a single. When Taylor came aboard, she's got children and a husband. That was factored in already. We knew that. But going forward this year, when we're doing it, we automatically put that in there. We also know, for example, last year, one that did work to our favor actually was we had someone who we knew already they had a child that was over 26 that was coming off.
So we were like, okay. We know that that will go down. So that, you know, kind of back and forth game we have to play with each other and say, well, there's this employee and there's that employee, but we're gonna get that as close to, you know, the exact number as we can for the next for when we talk about benefits knowing that that could change. But Brown and Brown has told us, if you use 5%, I promise you you're safe. So that's where we're gonna go with that one. Next. One. Someone's coming to it.
Are you stuck? People are There we go. Oh, because people are coming in. Yes. When we talk about facilities and then tech, I put them both in here together for a reason. We know that Steve and I have talked. We've looked at some of the contracts to see this about the time of the year that you get your contracts, and they say, for example, you know, facilities related Willy Waste. Willy Waste is now Casella Waste, and we've already gotten this letter from them that says, oh, you know, due to tough times, our contract's going up by this percent, and we factored that in. We looked at PerfectTemp who said, hey. This used to be our hourly rate. Now if you need us, this is gonna be our hourly rate. And they're all again, I I should stress, they're not large increases by contract. But when you add up a few thousand for this contract a year, a few thousand for this contract a year of potential use, I mean, even one bill coming in from each of those contractors and a $100 difference
adds up. And so that's the tough part to go through and say, do we have substantial changes this year that we really need to to look at? And then if need be, if we're talking about substantial, we go back and say, let's find another vendor. And so that absolutely is something that we're we're we're very cognizant of right now. I'm working with Steve on that. The last of the there were the two rooms upstairs, 203 and 205. Yeah. 205. Those two rooms upstairs were part of our phase four AC and never put them in because we were moving around. They were not, at that time, used classrooms. So we put that on hold and said, just in case we need that money, we didn't put that into, for those of you who don't know where 203205
are, that would be, past the nurse's office in the wing over there. The first room is OT, PT, and speech. And then if you go around the corner, there's two rooms. One, we do use for when comes and when the school psychologist needs rooms to work with the kids, but then after hours, it's used for a pool. And then the other room is not part of the AC project. That is the other pool room. So the one room that we do utilize, because it wasn't a regular classroom at the time and it wasn't part of the first phase, we held off. And we held off in case because that was a grant where we could reallocate it to another project. And so we said, let's wait. And now that room actually is utilized with a couple of our high needs children for OT, PT, and speech. They do do a lot of service work within that role. And so since we were able to breathe a sigh of relief and say, the because the grant will be done at the end of this school year, '23. So we said, okay. Now we're into the final stretch here. Let's get it done because it needs to be done. And, thankfully,
we didn't need to use it on another project.
That was just So clarifying. The AC you're talking about will still be covered by the ESSER grant prior to its expiration. Yes.
But like I said, Steve, we we held out on that one because we were like, okay. Right now, currently, there's no classes in there. I just wanna be very clear when I say that air conditioning was put in put it in there. Esther. And Esther runs out, June 2023. So, we wait until the end there. Let's see. And then we do have new. We had applied, for a rebate. We pay to be part of Erates, And Erates is, a group that we we pay to be part of those, but then they find us rebates and, connectivity rebates. We will have 14,000 to use on tech, which is why I put this in here, to use on tech related things. It was not part of the budget. It was something that we received because we went through jumped through a lot of hoops to get that back
on some of the work that was done and the Chromebooks. And so we obviously are gonna use it for the same thing because then where it does help us is we do not have to. I know Christina. She's like, some of the things need their self life's come to an end. We need a few Chromebooks. We need this. We need that, and that's what we're gonna use it for. So you won't see the $14,000 worth of equipment in this year's budget as an addition, but that doesn't mean that we're not doing the upgrades that we need to to make sure that our line of Chromebooks is well taken care of because we're gonna use this. That's great. Yeah. So we're very grateful for that, and we're putting every dollar of it to good use. And I know Christina had a nice sigh of relief there because I think she thought, where are we gonna get this money from knowing the other expenses? And we said, we're we we we're okay. We have this. And so, again, we'll be careful as we spend it because 14,000 doesn't go far as mister Cap could tell us. But, you know, we're gonna do our best so that we don't have to add anything in there. And the last thing there would be fuel. I told you spoiler alert before, we are doing very well this year because of the price, but we we are gonna have to face the fact that line item's gonna go up. And it'll go up for the town. It'll go up for us. We don't have a choice. I do I am in touch literally daily with Tracy from Dine. And, the other day, she sent an email, and at the time, she said it was, what did she say? Was $3.15.
And I sent her a big smiley face with, like, a happy birthday thing. And I said, great. I said, now we only need to go down 11¢ because I said to her, you know, I know we'd be very lucky to get a lock in at $3. But we are waiting to try to get there, and this is we're doing this every day. So we'll update you, you know, next week on where we are, but that that's the goal for me, is that still gives us quite a substantial increase over what we're paying this year, and we will have to watch our dollars and cents. But, I think that that's the best that we're going to get for spring lock in here. And if I recall, the the guesstimate number we had used was 30,000 gallons. Is that A little bit more than that. If you go up I use five year trends Yeah. For this school because of COVID and because they were closed for a while. But if I look at five years, the lowest of five years was about,
28,000 at one point, and it was a very low one, and the high one was 39,000.
So, you know swing of a dollar is a $30,000
dollar, right, from this year's price thousand dollars of 02/23. If we went to 03/23, it could be $40,000 Yeah. If we did that, and we can't take that chance. Because for cold winter next year, we use 40,000 gallons. That's $40,000. So that's why even, you know, a quarter or less, down, you know, would help us significantly. So I'm very grateful to the lady from Dine because every day, she oh, there's the email from Val again. But, it's she's she's been great about it. So this, I know it's hard to tell, and I put this in here just for one reason. When we file the grants this is the eGrant system. This is where all of our grants are monitored by the state to the state grants. We have to they they put out offerings to entitlement grants and to competitive grants that you can apply for. When they put them out, all the paperwork's done on the eGrant system for that year. I put in all of the, information. I write the grant. I put in the narrative. And then once it's approved, they don't just send you the money.
Then there's the hoops that you have to jump through to get the money drawn down. Once the money gets drawn down, you have to give them the documentation. Teresa Terry does the expenditure reports, and she does the end of the year reports. And, you know, it's it's a process. But if you see how long that list is, we've we've been very lucky that rolled over from 2021 into '22 there because they were two year grants. You'll see we were working on some money, not a great deal, but I was fortunate that we had some money from all of those grants there, the AARP IDEA, which was special ed on the top there, the consolidated title grants all the way down. Those we had access to some funds for.
They were for specific things. In some cases, see school readiness stuff there. You see smart start. Those are just preschool grants, and there's guidelines on using them, but we had them. The highlighted yellow ones are the ones that I will not have access to because this is 2022, and those are gonna go away and not be part of the next budget. And so even though they're not a lot of money, we still have to understand some of the things, whether they're enrichment programs, whether they're supplies, we've been able to pull out of these revenue sources. And so if you take away the yellow ones and you look at 2023, this is my list so far. And I put little notes on there to mostly remind myself there. If you look, the top one, for example, I can't even apply for it because the top one is called the Alliance District increasing educator diversity. And our we were given an allotment, and they said you are eligible to receive I think it was $3,000
that could be used for teacher training for teachers that are minorities, and we don't have it. And so that first one, not able to apply for. The second one, we're grateful for, but that's only $3,900. So, you know, that's what we've planned for before. The third one is $544. The next one, IDEA, is solely for special education. The title four grant is remedial reading, 10,000. We use that every year for, a portion, and that's been continuous. So that 10,000, my point to that is we've used that for our remedial reading teacher. That 10,000 has never appeared in our budget because we've always put it in the grant. The competitive ones on the bottom, that ESSER Innovation after school grant that was just awarded, as we've been saying, it'll only be able to be used to after school enrichment. I am waiting to hear on the second one, and the second one could make a difference for us. We should hopefully find out within the next couple of weeks. It's very competitive. They had 93 applications. That one would be the only one that could help Terry and I out to take something out of the budget because that is for an additional school,
mental health worker. And, if that is the case, that would allow us, you know, a portion anyways, not necessarily fully, but a portion of, a psychologist. Psychologist. Yes. So, that's if we got it. And if we do get that one, that one helps. But, again, we're about two weeks out on the awards, and there were 93 applications for that. So not holding my breath, but if we get that one, I'll let you know. I figure I used all my luck with the one above it. All over the country or just in Connecticut? It's only Connecticut, Shannon. This is the state department. Connecticut State Department of Eds. Just wanna make that So 93 out of the whole state? Yes. Okay. The third one down there, like McKinney Vento, we don't qualify for that because that's to fund students that have needs as a result of homelessness. That's what McKinney Vento is. So we can't even apply for that one. And then the other ones we currently get almost completely fund our special ed I mean, our preschool program on the bottom. We talked about that for years. We're very lucky here because we get smart start and school readiness. We fill out the forms every year, and even though it's competitive, we've been lucky. We get them every year, and that has really made a difference. And when we get to the actual numbers, if you remember from last year, we had zero in there because all of our expenditures are either tuition
from the families or through these. So we're district that is lucky that we do not have to put pre k into our budget. And so as you see, it's early in the year. This is when we do the budget. We cannot possibly anticipate if the state will give us offerings further on down the road. So right now, when we budget, we have to budget knowing this. And if something else comes up later on, it'll be great for us. Maybe it'll make a difference, but we won't be able to bank on it. And so we have to keep that in mind. And then this was just if anybody was interested, this was just the list of the towns that received, the, innovation after school grants. And as I said, I'm very proud that we are up there because you'll see Orange is the only other two. And the grant I mean, you know, it was well written, and they awarded us, if you look, almost what everybody else $20,000 less in Bridgeport. Right. So I'm really proud of the fact that we got this grant because, you know, we are small, and we are usually overlooked. And they do usually go, as you can see, to much larger districts and schools, charter schools, magnet schools, places like that. So our kids are very lucky, and I'm so excited for them. That's it. The next time, we'll unpack the actual numbers. But this gives you something, in case you between now and next week, this right here, if you wanna be able to write notes on here, this is the
full hard copy version of, this year's budget. Line item by line item,
step by step. So if you have any questions, here is another one. And forgive me if I missed the one kind of overarching. And I know it's I know it's super early, and everything can change. But if we, you know, throwing a dart at the wall and doing our best guess, are we projecting stagnation in regards to enrollment numbers?
Well, we are. Because when we say stagnation, you'll notice if you look at the enrollment We dropped one. We dropped one. But what happens is, in the spring, remember, we say every year with birth to three, you usually get a a little guy coming in, you know, for preschool. So I anticipate if we use that number between one ninety seven and two zero two. Right now, that's a fair number. One or two kids usually doesn't make a difference for us in our planning here unless there are needs or unless it throws a class over something. So we are planning. That's one thing that Kelly and I look at. We are planning in terms of, student enrollment. We are planning when we make any changes,
you know, within the building with for curriculum for things like that. It's name status Yeah.
Yeah. Again, it's a best guess because a town like ours, a family can move out. They can change things. Absolutely. Or move it. Yeah. And so,
but I think if we stay, you know, just roughly, like I said, five below or five above the 200 number, that's safe for us in planning for the budget. So if you have any questions that pop up on these numbers and you can that way, you'll be able to write them on there, and we know the topics because we've already posted the topics for the two nights. And that way, if you have specific questions, you know, we'll be able to address them there. Are
we gonna be getting further communication with the person about what you're gonna talk about that night? No. No.
I mean, I wasn't planning on sending additional love letters to me. I I love to. Just like to be secure.
That's why the The pre k enrollment, is that all Andover? No. What? How many are non Andover? One. Right? Oh, no. Two. Two. Right. Just looking as Yeah. That's an approximately how many are moving up,
what the split is? It falls usually about half. It is right about half. Yeah. Don't know the exact number, but it's it's about our threes and And then without giving details to particular students, there are a couple of students that could move up, but due to plans, may not. Individualized plans. So, that's Taylor, I've discussed those and theirs. She's gonna come up with a plan. Like, she's gonna come up with a plan based on what she knows, with those, but, yeah, usually about half seats what we plan on moving up. We usually wind up with, you know, two kindergartens regardless because the split of of, pre k, is usually about half. So
Do you do you guys anticipate having a multiyear classroom again next year? We have talked about that because,
depending on how the final numbers come out for us in terms of, the rest of the budget, We we have talked about the fact that up until this point, we're halfway through the year, and it is working well. I guess I was I was just curious. Right? And and we'll talk about that when more people are on that night, but, it is working well. We do think that there is potentially another two grades that may have the similar situation with this month. Remember, we wound up with the three first grades because of the hump of the big large number of kids, and we talked about possibilities of these things having to happen again. Yeah. So I think the biggest thing, and you guys know we did our due diligence with it last year, would be for us to look and see
in terms of regular ed, special ed, and enrichment of those kids, would it be advantageous for them? Could we make it work? And so, again, first year rookie, but we've she's been working a lot on that and sitting in. I think she's on maybe the third look now at showing me, well, how about we look in this way? Let's talk it through. Well, how about let's look at this way? Let's talk it through. So it's not there yet, but it's not off the table, Kate.
So just to provide Jerry and me with comfort, could you tell the specific, areas that are gonna be addressed next Wednesday? Yep. I know they were up there. Absolutely. Thanks. So the ones that were printed in the paper as well,
the eighteenth, which is next week, it'll be special ed, everything related to curriculum, and proposed initiative changes. So everything instruction, everything curriculum, and everything special ed. Thank you. The twenty fifth Oh, I'm good. I know. But for those people listening care about that. The twenty fifth will be salaries, insurance, and facilities maintenance, those things. Right.
And that should cover almost every section in some way, shape, or form. Okay. Is the presentation that you gave us gonna be included? Sure. Yep, to find out there or anyone else wants you on and get it.
Thanks, Bob. And we'll make sure, Steve, after each of these special meetings that anything that we utilize in,
slide form, PowerPoint form gets printed as well. And they did start on 2023 budget tab on the website. Just so that you guys are aware, it's very easy to access on the website. I already took a screenshot of Taylor's gonna show you right now. Schedule.
So if you're on the AES website and you go under board of ed Yep. It says budgets. It's got the budget. And so see 2023 right there, and the schedule is already on there. Great. Yeah. Awesome. Our just so you Sounds good. Our our website
developer did leave EastCon for a new position. So they are prehiring, so we're just doing a little you know? So
Oh, we have this up. They're taking leaps and bounds where we were here. Yeah. So we're we're working as fast as we can, but I definitely wanna keep, obviously, the budget stuff. How do you do? That's great. Happy to see it there. Good. Thank you for the work you do for this. It is
a really big job. I can be sure that it takes a number of hours, many hours, and
you hope your crystal ball is right. We do. But I will say and she'll probably blush when I say this, but Terry's only been here for a week, and we have had hours of conversation already pertaining to this budget. And, I know that we're on the same page with her background. So some of the things that we've already talked about, some potential changes, some potential that's the good thing. There's already a mesh there. There's already, an understanding, and I I want you guys to have that sense of knowing that how we usually do our budget is how she's used to doing things. Right. And so so far as we've gone through them, you know, it's a nice compliment for her. As we've gone through it, and I say, well, how about you? She said she does things very andoverish, which is good. So I think that this budget process, you guys and myself and Taylor and Terry working together, I think that, we're all on the same page. Great. Great. It's good.
Taylor and Terry, thank you. It's both of too. You're welcome. They're awesome. The amount of work you put in. Bring your Christmas ball with you or
your winning lottery ticket. I was gonna say we're good. Uh-huh. No. We're gonna play the ladder.
It means it works. Are you ready? Comments from the public on agenda item. Jenny, you're out.
I'd like to thank the grant superhero that is seated with you all. Thank you, Val, and I'm sure Taylor gives her input as well to apply for so many grants, and it was so great to see our little school of Andover listed in that list of all those other big towns in Connecticut. So thank you. Erin.
I'm just glad to hear that the board is gonna be speaking with the attorney in regard to the potential for the zoning, or re I guess, redistricting or or whatever the verbiage is in relation to the school, especially with the potential of a community or senior center possibly being built in the town's property. I worry about that encroaching on the school and the school building and facilities. So I'm glad to hear that there'll be conversations about that. It seems like a very slippery slope, so I appreciate it. Right. Thank you very much for your comments, Erin. Christina?
No comments at this time. Thank you. Hey. Thanks for being on with us.
Thanks for having me. First time, I'm really listening in and learning a lot, but I have no comments at this time, just that I will continue to be on further meetings. Great. Thanks for being on tonight.
Are there any other people there that I missed? No. That's not. Okay. Anne? Don?
Better. No. You have to get out of it. He walked us off. You wanna ride home? Yeah. Alright. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Your executive
session. I make a motion that we enter in second session for the purpose of discussion of the attorney recommendations or action regarding the legal statute, Connecticut general statute 10 dash two twenty, mandating the oversight of property by the board of education.
K. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Time is? 08:55.
08:55. And we're gonna go to executive session, so we have to clear the