Meeting transcript
Budget Seminar #3
January 24, 2024 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
All set. Alright. Thanks, Taylor. Alright. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome everybody to the Andover Elementary School Board of Education, Budget Workshop. It is Wednesday, January 24, and the items to be discussed are going to be for this particular workshop, we're gonna focus on salaries, benefits, insurance, and the bus contract. But before we get started, I just wanna go over some ground rules. The purpose of these workshops are to keep people informed of what goes on in what gets put into these budgets, you know, specifically every line item. It's an opportunity for the board to get a good understanding of the budget, to ask questions, and also for the members and, you know, people that live in Andover for them to also be educated on how budgets get put together and what goes in each line item. Our goal is to vote on this budget at our next regular board meeting, which would be on February 14. There is a dedicated email address that we have, which is aesbudget@andoverelementaryct.org. We have a hard ninety minute stop, so this meeting will end at 08:30, And Valerie will post the slides up on our website. And know we I know, Valerie, you're gonna discuss what we what we talked about last week, but the last budget workshop was special ed pre k and general supplies for the school. So, Valerie, if you wanna take it away.
Thanks. So, Celeste, just a little side note there. The slides only because, you know, we've been waiting, for them to be posted with the links, Taylor said, hopefully, tomorrow. But the slides only so that people can see that are on there. All you have to do is go to the AES page, and they're gonna be moved to the a separate, spot that just says, budget seminars. But right now, if they go to the board of admits, on the top, it says seminar
two. Just the slides for right now, though, if anybody wants to see those. Okay. So they are up on the school website under the b okay. Got it. Under BOE, under the budget. Okay. The slides are. But just The addicted minutes section.
So Okay. And tomorrow, we can put these up there, but then
once Taylor is able to, they'll all appear with the links too. But To the slides that Okay. The links to the section. Yes. Yep. Yep. The Zoom links. Yep. To the to the meetings. Okay. To the recordings. Okay. Alright.
Thank you. So let's see. Sharing screen. Can you see it? Yes. I can see it.
Alright. Thanks. Okay. So as Celeste said, the topics for us to look at now are salaries, benefits, insurance. And I tacked in the new bus contract because we are just about ready to sign that. I know, you know, we had talked about the terms of that in a, private session with the board of ed. We are literally at the TA, which means that, all the four, parties need to do is to sign it. So now I have an anticipated, number, so I'll share that tonight. Okay. So a little recap of the other two sessions. The first session was curriculum and instruction. In that one, there were slides that showed exactly what, we do here for curriculum instruction, what's included at each grade level for reading, for math, for science, and social studies. It's very robust. It does include a new reading program and assessment initiatives. Remember, we had talked about the fact that there is a new reading mandate. And so we have our existing programming, and we will be piloting whatever the, the team, Taylor's, curriculum team decides for next year. I think they're almost in their final stages of deciding, what they will be next year. However,
the new reading program initiative, because it's a mandate, that is funded grant funded through the state. So when we looked at the final numbers at the end of session one for the twenty four, twenty five year for curriculum and instruction, the increases were zero. We were gonna maintain status quo. The second seminar that we, looked at was special education services and supplies. We weren't decreasing special education services, but what we had a decline of was a cost for outplacement. And because of that, things were able to be moved around. And so they are slightly on the incline. Our enrollment's also on the incline, though, so, those two correlate to one another. And we had a loss of $96,000 in tuition from last last year till this next year. So we we're able to shift that, and that will be covering the majority of the costs and well, all of the costs, I should say, with an estimated savings at the end there of about $51,000. So as soon as those numbers are run, those numbers will be in there. But so you can see the difference there. It's about a $44,000 increase to the services, but with the $96,000 in savings, it's $51,000 there. Okay. So salaries. This is the largest percentage of the budget. No matter what budget you look at, it doesn't really matter what district budget you look at. You're gonna see that the salaries and the benefits are always the largest. In any given district, it runs from 70 to 85% of the budget. It depends on, the the district itself. Here, I highlighted a couple of ones of note for tonight because we did look at the, other ones. If you look at the zero zero two one zero one section, one zero one always denotes salaries.
And we had already looked at special ed teacher line item, and we had looked at the speech teacher line item when we talked about special education. So in the one zero one section of our budget, the three that we would be looking at would be the teacher salaries, the library salary, that's a person in the teacher's contract, and the instructional tech salary, that person is in the teacher contract as well. That is not the people who service our building. That is the person who has that title instructional tech salary. They do do other things. That's why that one's a little bit misleading. That's also our math specialist. So, that they don't just do tech. I hope that we could potentially change the name on there, to reflect the fact that that person doesn't just do tech. So when we look at this, the thing to keep in mind is that teachers' contracts are negotiated for three or four years depending.
We are mid contract now. We still have another year on it. So we've known for the past two years and then this year and into next year. We know exactly what we can anticipate for the salary increase because it was, already negotiated. Next school year, we will be renegotiating the teacher's contract. So the 2526 budget, would be the one that we would put a question mark next to now because we we don't know yet until that contract next year is negotiated. So the increases there are the 3%. That's across the board. We're very lucky in the one sense that we have, very skilled teachers. A lot of them have been here. We do not have a problem with turnover with teachers. We're very lucky that, most of our teachers, they come here, they join our family, and they stay. And so that's the good thing. That's good for our children. That's good for, the school itself. It's good for our achievement. The only thing when you're looking at a budget then that it's not a negative, but that is noticeable then is when you have a large number of staff that have been here, they tended to be then on the top step. So it's something for us to consider in budgeting,
but we wouldn't change that for the world because we have the best teachers. So we are not adding to the k through six classes for next year, so there isn't a reason to add to the pool of teachers that we currently have for k through six. And so, again, because we don't have that dilemma this year, our our enrollment has gone up, but we don't have to, at this point, consider increasing the number of classes. We're still fine with the number of classes. So for the teacher line item there, we would just expect the 3% increase. The library salary, one thing to note there, because I know this has come up in past years. Our librarian, she does serve two purposes. Our library salary is a point six. It's a part time salary. We do not have a full time librarian. Depending on the different years, that particular person has also happened to fill other, needs for us. During COVID. It was the person that, also served as our, liaison to the families that were home I mean, remotely, schooled, not homeschooled, remotely schooled. And this particular person has had to pick up a day, twice in the four years that I've been here to assist us with other things, but it wouldn't be reflected in this line item if whatever it is they're doing, it would be reflected elsewhere. As I said, they were the distance learning coordinator, and that was grant funded.
So that library salary, just know, that's a point six there. That is not a one point o salary. The instructional assistants, we did talk a little bit. Those are paraprofessionals. In our building, paraprofessionals are a little bit different. We don't categorize them simply as a special ed or a regular ed paraprofessional. They kind of go back and forth. So that line item is slightly deceiving because, it is the instructional assistants. The only ones that wouldn't be included in there are the ones that are in the preschool program or ones that are completely funded, whether it's this year, next year, last year, completely funded elsewhere. But for us, since we have such a small number of them, they are all considered instructional assistants, and they all, in this building currently work with special education students. Normally, when we look at the substitute line,
for teachers, we have to make sure too that we are looking at circumstances for the following year. For example, hypothetically, if we knew that someone was going out on leave, maybe maternity leave, that person receives their salary if they've accumulated enough days, and then we have to cover their position. So because we have to cover their position, it would be a substitute teacher, regular ed there. And so that's why if someone looks at that number, they would say, that doesn't make sense. How do you how do you have substitutes in $26,000? That's been very consistent in this building. And so that number, will not be increasing for next year because the person that is utilizing leave is utilizing leave out of this year's budget. Right now, we don't know of anybody else scheduled to go out on FMLA or on maternity leave for next year, but that number would change if we did find out that there was somebody that was taking a leave, especially since, maternity leave in Connecticut is, twelve weeks. It's three months. So that would be a hit if we wound up having a couple of people because we do have some younger staff, but if we wound up having a couple of people. So that would be the only thing that would change that line item for us next year. We are not anticipating right now increasing that line item. And then we've talked about the other ones in here as well. Okay. Other salaries. So you see at the top, the one tens, still. The zero zero two, one one zero, still salaries. These are the support salaries. We've already talked about special ed administration.
We've already talked about nurse. And keep in mind, we have one nurse in the building. But if the nurse were hypothetically to take a leave as well, the coverage would go in that line as well. So, if the nurse was out for two weeks and it required a a sub nurse, that would be charged to this line because there is no line for sub nurse. It would all be our nursing expense. The noncertified superintendent office salary. You'll notice two above that, it says noncertified special ed administrator salary. That's actually the same person in this building. That's the person that, their job title is administrative assistant, And so they assist with board of the ed, minutes and agendas that post you know, keeping the documentation in our books. They would be the administrative assistant, that sits outside my office that would take care of reports. They also are the person that does the special education administration. So a lot of hats because,
we're we have a small administrative team. We don't all have, an assistant. She pretty much does everything. So it is split. It does need to be split in those two lines because, once again, there are certain reports that we do for the state where we have to report, for example, special education costs. And if there's somebody that does the entering of the IEPs in the system and the upkeep of CT SEDS, that's a special education administrative cost, and so it does have to be separated out. So you'll notice it's exactly the same number there, thirty two five seventy three, thirty two five seventy three. When we consider a 3% increase to that salary, it will be divided between those $232,000 lines, but that is the same person. Okay? The noncertified admin salary underneath it, that is one person, and that is the person that is, serves as the school secretary and the, person that, you know, would take care of, any
classroom related things, the school secretary. That's what that one is. The custodian salaries are all of our custodian salaries combined. We have two full time and one part time custodian. The only thing not included in the custodial salaries line item would be overtime. And so that one, we could expect a 3% increase this year as well. Keep in mind, the reason why we don't know exactly what the increase is gonna be and we have to go with anticipated is we are getting ready to start negotiations soon for the noncertified union. So in this section here, the one one zero support salaries, everybody in that line with the exception of the administrative assistant is in that union. So the administrative assistant is the only one that's not unionized there. The school secretary is unionized. The custodians are unionized, and so is the nurse. The next object control for one eleven, this would be something that has to be considered in salaries as well. These are, the three administrators for the administrative team.
Here, the increase, for all three is already again defined by contracts. The superintendent contract is a three year contract that was just renegotiated, this past year. The, principal contract is a three year, contract, and they are in their second year now. So next year is the third year. It won't be renegotiated till the end of next year. And the finance service contract, that particular contract was a year and a half. They were hired midyear, and so we did a year and a half to be revisited at the end of, let's see. I'm sorry. In February of of next year. So we'll be doing that during the course of next school year. The superintendent's salary goes from, 80 to 85. The administrative, salary for the principal goes from $1.24 to $1.28, and the financial services goes from 74 to 77. So we will see those increases. They're not the same percentages. They were negotiated separately, which is why we can't just budget for the 3%, but we have the exact numbers. Custodial overtime, we did not, put put an increase on this one. We didn't put an increase on this here because, once again, we also are renegotiating, the noncertified contract. Not really sure what, if anything, could happen to that in their contract, so, we will keep that, right now at the same number. So group life insurance. Group life insurance is two ten there. We have the same number of employees on our group life insurance, that is offered as part of, almost all of the full time employees here. This is probably the cheapest of all the insurances that the board of education has to consider. It's not a terribly large expense.
But whatever somebody gets within their union as part of the negotiation, they all get the same thing. So let's just pretend the noncertified staff renegotiate, and it's a $30,000 life insurance policy. You know, whatever the cost is for that, we pay for every single employee that's in that union. They do not pay for their life insurance. We do. FICA and Medicare costs, I did ask Terry to run that number based on what our current, increases are for next year. And because we do have an anticipated retirement, in both unions, that number should remain very much the same. Remember, 75 looks like a lot, but that's for all of the employees. So when you divide that out and you divide it out by, employee, there is not much of a difference if there's a slight change from one, employee to another. I think it's, like, 0.765 or 0.756 is the percentage per employee. So it is the largest percentage of the budget. On some levels, it's the most difficult for us to talk about because it's the usually the largest number in terms of, what we have to ask for. But in terms of considerations, it's the most consistent. Because as I mentioned, we, know as long as the contracts are negotiated, we know for almost everybody in the building exactly what we can expect for the following year before the end of this school year. So that's actually helpful. As I said, you know, pointed here, considerations, new noncert contract, still have one more year on the teacher's contract. All admin contracts are mid contracts, so already established, so we know what numbers to put in.
We have all that one anticipated short term leave, but that shouldn't affect from September on through for next year. We do have a potential retirement in each of the unions, And 63% of our staff are veteran and near the top step. So we also know what the longevity numbers are that need to be added in because once they've, by contract, worked here for a certain length of time, longevity payments are not huge and not significantly large. The majority of them, fall in the range of about a thousand. Let's see. Yep. A thousand eight hundred, fifteen hundred, a thousand, a thousand. So we know that there's three, four, five, six of them, in the teachers union that we currently pay longevity to, and those are already built in. The longevity payments, once they've maxed out at that top, so it's 800, a thousand, and 1,500 by contract, it doesn't keep adding to that. So, you know, if 15 hundred's twenty years, you know, twenty one years isn't higher than that. They just maintain that same number. So it's good for us because we we know what to expect when we're budgeting. Okay. So insurance, you'll notice these are in the twos there. We have $2.30 for pension, $2.40 for the retirement. That's a contractual buyout, A $2.60 for unemployment, a $2.80 for medical benefits, which is our most,
significant. And, I left board clerk down there just because I just wanted to, make one note on there even though it's not really salaries. It's something that we pay them as a contractor. So pension. The pension itself, again, there's a formula number. Yeah. It's not a specific increase. I wanted to point something out because I remember I don't know if it was last year or the year before we were at the town meeting, and a couple people, I guess, had always wondered kind of how pensions work for teachers and for people in the noncert union. Anybody who's an educator. So that would be the teachers in the building. That would also include administrators. When we retire, we collect a pension from the state of Connecticut called teachers retirement benefits, TRB. The board of education pays nothing into TRB. The educator themself, whether it's a teacher in the classroom, Taylor, or myself, that comes out of our paychecks. There's no match to that, like Social Security for certain other places where people work, where the employer has to match certain things. All of the TRB that comes out of people's checks, if you're an educator, is their money. It is not something that the board matches. Because I do know I think it like I said, I I can't remember if it's last year or the year before someone said, well, let's just not give the teachers as big of a pension. And I thought, wow. I never realized that, we hadn't explained that before. So that's why I'm explaining it now. So it costs us nothing toward pension for teachers or educators. Other people, the paraprofessionals and the people in that union, they have what's called MRF,
which is a municipal retirement fund. Everybody at town hall has that as well. Municipal meaning you work for municipality. And so we do pay that for people in the non CERT union. They have a pension, and they pay a portion of it, and the town matches it. Whether it's board of ed side or the town side, it's in those budgets. You would see it at the the high school level as well. Anybody who works for the municipality, in Andover anyways, has that as one of their benefits, and so there's a percentage that we pay. That percentage has ranged from 12 to 17%. They tell us at a state level what that percentage is for the following year. And so that's where that number adds up quickly because anybody that's not a teacher, who works for the school, for the town, we have MRF for them. It's called MRF. The teacher buyout, as I said, we we always look at this every year because by contract, if they've stayed with us a really long time, there is a certain amount of a perk to days that they haven't used or the number of years that they've been here, that they get as a compensation when they leave. And sometimes we can play with that number. Sometimes we can't. We do have an anticipated, retirement this year, and so, that, can't be reduced because we're probably gonna need it.
But on the flip side, we don't need to increase it either assuming that we were gonna have two or three. But I mentioned this line for this board especially because at some point, when we're doing the budgets, next year, the following year, there will be multiple people retiring at one time, and that line, which hasn't been adjusted in years, will have to be adjusted. Because at some point, you're gonna have that one year where everybody goes at the same time because they all came at the same time, and you may not, have enough with 15,000 in there. Again, unemployment compensation, small number. That is a figure that Terry figures with the state. It's not something that is negotiable. The biggest one, two eighty. Two eighty is the medical and dental benefits, and benefits. Up until this year, in the four years that I've been in Andover, we have had this amazing success with our consortium. The consortium actually, let me go to the next page and see if it's here, and then I'll go back. Yeah. The consortium consists of, it's like a partnership amongst ourselves between RAM, the Hebron Board of Ed, the Marlborough Board of Ed, AHSM, the town of Hebron, the town of Andover, and the town of Marlborough. We're all partners in there. The only one that has a little bit more of a say is RAM. They get two votes to the rest of our one vote because of the number of participants that they have that require insurance.
So this, is a self funded insurance plan. It's not a partnership with the state of Connecticut. It's not a partnership with, other districts where, our costs are based on the number of claims we have. We are self funded, which requires an amazing, amount of of oversight and preparation. We're very lucky. We are overseen by Brown and Brown. Our agent's name is, Chuck Petriconi. We meet monthly every month, and a representative from each of those entities there is given the, financials, is given, the number of claims. We are abreast of whether or not we have high claimants. We're obviously not given their names or anything. We're just told, hey. Right now, you guys do have three high claimants. We have an amazing amount of stop loss and insurance. It's it's it's actually quite impressive with how they've built this consortium up over the past ten years. It's probably one of the most successful self funded ones in the state.
However, with that said, the past four years, we've been able to maintain 0% increases. One year, there was a negative increase. One year, there was a small increase of only a couple of percentage points. This year is not going to be kind to any of us in terms of the increases for a variety of reasons. But this year, we can expect that we're gonna have probably, at our last meeting within the last two weeks, probably upwards of 16 and a half percent. 16 and a half percent would get passed along to, board of education, but the teacher's contract were in the last year does show that they are slated to have their insurance percentage increased by point five, a half a percentage of what they need to pay.
And so our burden then for the board of ed is 16%. So what we need to do is we need to take and we pay this monthly. Spring group, we receive a bill monthly, and it's, you know, $55,000 that we receive for just the basic medical insurance, not the dental, and that's paid in those increments. And, again, out of the, employees' paychecks, their percentage is taken from that. Anybody who doesn't really deal in insurance a lot, just to understand why that number is so high and it's that high every place. You could look at a town budget, a school budget. You'll see, that's the the big chunk of change there. That's because the average responsibility from the board of education, for a single person, for example, single person that doesn't have a family on there, even though the teacher side or the other employee side is about 16%. I mean, I'm sorry. They're, yes. They're 22%. I'm sorry. 22%.
The average, cost for the board of education for one person is between 10 and 11,000. That's for a single person. Then you move up to two people in a family, and, the board's share, in some cases, is upwards of 30,000. So I bring that up because, not to be a Debbie Downer, but because I know that sometimes, there are people that will suggest, well, if we can bring in employees that are cheaper salary wise, it would save us money. And I always caution that. Most recently, a couple of years ago, I know that there was, somebody at a town meeting that had said, well, maybe we should just, you know, increase class sizes and put Paris in the room. That would save us so much money. It would be $20,000. Because they were looking in, our information in our financials and seeing that the average paras salary might only be, you know, 28,000.
But remember, then we have to pay the MRF, which is the pension, the, retirement benefits, and we have to then pay the board's share of medical insurance and the dental insurance. And if that is a new person coming in and they have a family, there could be $30,000 there for the insurance. There could be our share of the MRF, the retirement, and their salary. So that would put that position, which is, not a teaching position, so they don't have that classroom, degree, that would put that position in some cases, close to 70,000. So, depending. So if they have a family. And so I do caution people when we are talking about insurance to understand we're no different than any other town when it comes to that. It's not that our insurance is any more expensive. That's just usually what a board of education's share is. So with that in mind, the overall increase to that line for us, if it's 16% and that is what goes through and that's what we sign on for, it would be about 80,000.
Yeah. Yes. So two things on this. Number one, just because I wanna point out. So you mentioned all these other places, so that means the town as well will see whatever this increase is across the board. So, you know, I mean, there there's not a lot we can do about it that should be but when I know that number doesn't typically come out until, what, like, March, the actual final number. Is that That's true, Steve. But I can tell you because our consortium meets monthly,
we usually have a very strong indicator. So, you know, last year and the year before, I recall our first meeting, in October when we started to look at this because it's also based on trend months before that, and in the summer. Sometimes it goes down, especially when it was post COVID. We were looking at different trend numbers. But, Steve, I remember we had started off that year with, like, 10 and a half percent, and that was the recommendation. And it didn't whittle down that year, even with more months of doing well. It didn't whittle down lower than 6%. The year that we came in at zero, we actually were talking about, a potential that year of going negative. It was go gonna be between a negative two and a two. So it's usually, Steve, a really good indicator right now, that you're within a point or two in either direction of what the true and accurate increase is going to be. We've been at 16, percent 16 and a half percent for two months now. Okay. And that is
and that is That represents right now, if I'm doing the math just quickly, it's $5,000 per percentage point. So if they're off by a couple, that's a big kinda jump.
Well, so that's the medical insurance Yeah. Portion of it. So, that's why I'm being very careful with it, but it's not the dental. It's not, life insurance. It's not those things. It's the medical. And we've already taken into consideration, Steve, without giving away any information about, staff, we've taken into consideration the life changes for family members that we know about. So if I know already that somebody is or is having a baby that's going to wind up on our insurance, we've already planned that in. If I know that somebody has a child that's coming off, we already know that. That's the hardest part about planning it. So you're absolutely right. The 16, you know, and a half,
the lowest it probably would go would be 14 or 15. The highest it would go would be 17 or 18. But we've also already taken into consideration life changes for staff members so that we know that we aren't gonna get surprised with something to the best of our ability with what we know. So I'm fairly confident in in the around 80,000 number, but you're right. We will get that hopefully at the February meeting, because I know that Ram, and Hebron already have penciled in budgets that they've given. So
that's the number. So there's a good chance that's my that was what I wanna get at. So by the number that we're actually gonna put into the budget, we there's a chance we might actually because in the past, we haven't had a hard number. We might actually have a hard number this time?
Yes. Okay. Yes. Awesome. Nice. And what we what we do do too, Steve, is to make sure, obviously, and that's what these meetings are about, that, we're all really on the same page. Because, we know, for example, if RAM has the most people that they insure up there, a half a percentage point decrease for them is huge in that budget, and it could affect, you know, all of the other towns. So we really do try, in talking to Chuck Patriconi and in everybody, in the consortium meeting, we really try to get to a solid number as we can by now. It's been floating a little bit, but it's a great question. I'm I'm really confident that we're gonna see about, unfortunately, 16. So I think that the 80,000 is is a good number for us.
Can can I ask a quick question? Sorry. Go ahead. The the self funded plans, is that a union agreement or state?
No. That is agreement with the entities, Brie. If you look at a teacher's contract or the noncert contract, they don't decide who their insurance carriers are in any district. What it generally says in there is, if there's any changes to be made, we have to offer them something comparable. So it's a board decision. Mhmm. And when I, yeah, when I say board decision then, it's made that wouldn't be, Brie, who we go with is not a negotiating factor. How much of the total cost they pay is. So they don't get to say, for example, we don't like Blue Cross Blue Shield. Get rid of them. That isn't something they get to negotiate, but they can say, we don't like paying 22%. We wanna pay 21%.
Yeah. No. Under understood. I just didn't know if we had investigated or the consortium has investigated whether self funded versus, you know, plans or or if there's any cost savings in going outside of the self funded realm.
So they did many years ago before I was ever even here. And I know that they had had other insurance companies. They had had consortiums that weren't self funded, and the goal had always been for them to go self funded. And if you looked at the last ten years, I will tell you, the group that put this together was brilliant, Bray, because this has saved every one of these entities more money over the last ten years than had they done something else. I can also tell you right now that I am, looking at insurance companies in my other district, because they're not self funded. They are a consortium of neighbors, but they're not self funded. And when I compare what it's cost them versus what it's cost us since I've been here, you're way better off with this right now. Absolutely. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, way better off. You may see percentages, I can tell you, in the partnership the state partnership, you'll see a number that represents an increase of 9%. But when you look at 9% of what, we're still better off even if we have a 16% increase this year because the of what part, theirs is higher than ours. So, and that's because we went years where we took 0% increases or, you know, negative increases or, single digit increases. So it's a great question, but right now, I can tell you that this consortium, is the best bet for us. And I know every year that Chuck from Brown and Brown,
he absolutely works with other districts and looks at this, and it is evaluated and reevaluated annually. And they're still better off. Okay. Alright. The BUSD contract. We are still in a draft negotiation. And as the board knows, when we first were talking about the agreement, that was done in executive session because all negotiations until they're finalized are in an executive session. I feel comfortable right now because we have a TA. We have a document that, you know, kinda just needs to be signed at this point. So we are finalizing the contract. It would give us a five year extension, with, DATCO. And the reason for that is in the past year and, again, the group that looks at the contract includes
the superintendent and the business manager from Hebron, Andover, and Marlborough, as well as Ram. And we looked. We thought about, whether or not we would be better off with somebody else besides DATCO. But with all of the shortages, because we've been working on this for the past year, it's spearheaded by the superintendent at Ram. So I thank Ram because since they have the largest need, they and then Hebron do a lot of the legwork, so I've been very lucky with that. And when we meet, I'm appreciative of that. But because a lot of the bus companies have still not managed to recover from, COVID and the fact that they had shortages in bus drivers, shortages in buses, the inability to service students, with special needs that were out placed places. There's not a whole lot of bus companies right now, and and there's not a whole lot in the state, but there's not a whole lot of bus companies right now that are willing to, go put out an RFP.
They're just fighting to keep the customers that they have. And so, this negotiation went well, and, we did feel by looking elsewhere, kind of peaking and seeing what other people are paying with other companies, we feel that DATCO is is absolutely working with us hand in hand to make sure that we get the best contract. Also, keep in mind that there's new mandates, not only environmental mandates about, you know, green buses and buses that aren't, you know, using so much of the fuel, dirtying the earth, but there's other mandates as well. And because there's other mandates as well, a lot of bus companies have to build that into their costs now. So tack in their cost for those mandates, tack in the fact that some of their buses need to be replaced because of the age of them, tack in the fact that they're short bus drivers, and some of them are unionized. Our bus drivers are not unionized nor is Ram or Marlborough, but Hebron's are. And so sometimes that throws them a little loop too with availability of drivers. We've had a really good relationship with DATCO, and they have tried throughout this negotiation process to work with us. We are at the point where our increase for next year would be, and, again, it's a red line right now, and so I have not actually signed the paper, but it is an anticipated 4.3%. The only difference and it's small for us because we are a small portion, levy wise. There is a performance bond that was added in there, a $15,000 performance bond, and our share for the year would be $930. So I really did think, and I'm pleasantly surprised,
I really did anticipate. I know when I spoke to Terry about this at the start of negotiations, and, we were kinda like, okay. Where do you think we're gonna fall with this? I really thought we were gonna be looking at 10 to 12,000 as an increase. And it looks like, if this is on the trajectory of the 4.3, which I'm 99% sure it is, it would be an increase of about 6,530 So, that is reasonable. But what it would also do was it would let us know, for the next four years what our percentage increase was. So in the long term, it would allow us to know pretty much with certainty what that line will be for four more budgets from from now. And so, that will actually be something that will, you know, allow us to, move forward,
with this line and make sure that it's accurate. So, obviously, with the increase in students, we're not expecting an increase in number of buses. Is that correct? So not for next year, Steve.
And that's because and we've mentioned this at board meetings before. A fair number of our, new students in the past twelve months are pre k. And so, the pre Kers get racks. They don't get bust. Right. Yep. And so, you know, that would be a whole another ballgame if we were were doing that. But, we have also been, you know, pretty lucky that and you guys know this who are on the board. There are parents that, when we reopened after COVID at the end of twenty twenty and into 2021, they began and some of you wait in that line every day outside, so you know, they began driving their students and picking them up, and, it's just become a family habit. And so we do have percentage wise, not numbers, but obviously less students that take the bus than did in 2019. So, Steve, I I I hear that point, and, you know, fairly soon, we may have to look at that. But for this year, I'm very confident that the number of seats available on those buses is still enough. Maybe in two years, we're gonna have to look at something different. But for right now we actually will have to in two years because those pre Kers will be in first grade.
And so but for next year, I think we're okay just with that 4.3 increase. Okay. So the overall anticipated financial need. So a little backtrack here. This portion from tonight of the anticipated needs, when we add in the one zero one section, the 3% increases for salaries that are contractual, when we add in the number that we anticipate of 3% for the noncertified negotiations in the one zero two secondtion. When we add in the other employees that, fall into administration who are in mid contract, and the one administrative assistant increase that is not in a union. When we add those things in, and we look at the bus increases, we look at the the insurance increases rather, Here's what we're looking at. The first seminar that we had, that curriculum and instruction, was a zero net increase. The special education oh, and not add, supplies was a savings of 51,000 for next year overall. Total savings because we did have increases, but we had the $96,000 savings. When we look at this one,
the increases from what I've talked about tonight are actually a $147,100. But if we take that $51.04 50, what we'd be looking at right now without the rest of the potential budget, we would be looking at, 95,650 going into the final budget seminar. And, again, most of what you're looking at for tonight, almost all, 99% of it, is nonnegotiable because it is contractual. So this is the tough one always, but I think that, you know, we're doing well right now. So, yep, I think that's the last slide. Yep. So AES budget at Andover Elementary CT dot o r g. Any question can be sent there, tomorrow. The slides that are on here will be posted.
And does anybody have any questions?
Alright. I'll I'll keep going here. Just the last one. Sorry. I got in a little bit late. Had an issue with, my son. So I'm staffing, I think you cover I just wanna make sure we're increasing in size, like, if we're not too tight at all with staffing because this whole increase so far in the budget is 95,000. You had one teacher, and that doubles that. So are we I just wanna know. We're not going to go, yep. We're good. And then all of a sudden, we find out we need another classroom teacher or anything. Like, we're we're comfortable with the numbers right now.
We are simply, as I said, because of where those new students fall. We have three students from the last board meeting until the February board meeting that will be entering. They were already registered, so I I think one of them anyways was in Taylor's numbers for the January meeting. But, you know, there was a second grader and a fifth grader. Was it fifth or sixth, Ty? Sixth. Second and sixth. So we know we're okay. Right. And the other one was a third grader. So you're right, Steve. That's something that we always have to look at. But you guys know because we've discussed this the last couple of years. Six, fifth, fourth, you know, sure. Our class sizes are bigger than they ever were here, but that's okay. Because the other changes that we've made in terms of cohorts, the other changes that we've made in terms of how the classes and the schedules are structured,
you know, we are confident in that. And I had told you that with certified. What about para support? We're still confident in the number of paras we have?
So for right now, we are. And the reason is is we've accounted for everything that we need for, to service our littles as well as to service our special education students. The only caveat with that one, Steve, is always when someone moves in, unknown. And so I'm comfortable with where we are right now. But the last thing that I would ever wanna do is to say, well, just in case, let's add one. Nope. If the need comes, we'll approach the board, and we'll give you the information and let you know. But based on what we know right now, you know, we're we're okay for right now. We definitely are. Okay. Thanks. Can I ask a question about health insurance? Sure. So
in terms of the contract for, like, certified and noncertified staff, is it you said that we like, the board pays, what did you say, 2020%? No. They pay that. We pay the other 70.
So we so we pay that 70, whatever it is, 78% of of whatever their total is regardless of if they're individual or family plan. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. That's and that's negotiated, like, in their contract that it's that way?
That's actually universal. It's it's very rare, and I don't wanna speak out of turn, Caitlin, but it's very rare. Like, in a you can't, like, get a job pretty much anywhere where they say, okay. This is your salary, and this is what you have to pay for insurance. But if you have five kids, you have to pay more.
It's the percentage for a union negotiated kind In the private sector, that's not true. That's why I'm asking as a business owner. Like, I pay a set amount of money towards all of my employees' insurance, and they pay the difference on top of that. So that that's why I was asking.
Thank you. But in a union, though, no. It's it's that's their rate. It's their percentage. Okay. And so yeah. And so let me just tell you, I I because I I'm not giving you a person's name. The hold on one second. The so little. Yeah. It costs for a whole family plan for insurance, the HDHP premium share, let's see, and the dental. Yeah. It's just about $31,000 for those two. And if I look down here, I will tell you that more than 50%, probably closer to 65% of the staff in the, certified union, have have higher plans. So yep.
Okay. Thank you. I just I just didn't know. So
I have those charts, Caitlin. I can share a copy with you without anybody's name on there just so that you can see the number of family plans that we have, but,
I just have to as you know, I just redact any of the information that's personal to student. I don't need to see the chart. I just as a business owner, I didn't I didn't realize that was a standard contractual thing for a teachers' union. It's it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.
I have to be honest with you. I didn't either until, probably about nine nine years ago when I was doing this, you know, as a building level administrator, and I'm like, wait a minute. We pay what? And I thought the same thing. That's crazy. And I realized that that's fairly universal no matter, you know, what district I worked in. So I was surprised, though, too. I really was. I had no idea how much insurance cost.
Anybody? I I, yeah, I have a couple questions. Just getting back to what Steve had asked about staffing. I know we're we're good right now, but I know in our last budget session, budget workshop, you had mentioned that, you know, there's a possibility that we might expand with the preschool, but we won't know that those numbers until the spring with registration. What what would happen then if if we do if if we do expand, then then what?
So that wouldn't be something that would affect the general fund because preschool is not currently in the general fund. That is in a budget. It's funded by school readiness, smart start, and tuition. So you're right, Celeste, that that would be a separate conversation that we would be bringing to the board about, should we do this? This is how we would wanna do this. If there was an extra cost, we wouldn't know that. As you mentioned, we wouldn't know that right now. We wouldn't know it until we knew, if we had more smart start spots, if we had more school readiness spots, how many kids we were talking about, what the tuition, revenue would be. So until we know that, we really couldn't have that conversation. But when we do,
the conversation there would be if we opted to do that, if, you know, we had that conversation with the board and we decided it was in our best interest, at that point, that would have to be something that, we potentially looked at, the 2% nonlapsing if we couldn't get the grants, because there really is no way for us right now. There's there's no line items in here for preschool, number one, but there's no way for us to actually have any accurate number just like when we opened the third one in November. We have a little bit better idea on that one now. Well, a lot better, I should say. But it wouldn't it wouldn't be something that I I would even feel comfortable throwing numbers out at because we would not have those final numbers truthfully
probably until August. Okay. So but if, Celeste, to your to your point, if that was something that we did implement during the 2425 school year, this time next year when we're putting a budget together, if it wasn't self funded, that would be when we'd wanna say, I think we need to add it to this because it's not self sufficient anymore with four classes.
Right. And then just going back to, like, one of the first slides, there was coaching slash clubs that was 6,100.
Yep. We talked about that last time. The coaching because I remember curriculum? Is that the coaching curriculum?
It they we said that that's that weird word that people are like, coaching like sports. They've always called it coaching, but that's that one that's contractual in a teacher's contract that says if they go and yes. When they come back, they're used as the professional development leader. They have to be paid a certain amount of money to do that. Okay. That mine, when I got here, was 13,000, but that was because included in there also were the clubs that were mandated by teacher contract, the chess club, the yearbook club, the robotics club, the drama club. And for the fast for the last four years, we've been lucky because, some of those, same types of clubs that children would like to join have been part of, extended programs, expansion programs, and after school grants.
And so because of that, they weren't utilized. So that number has to stay there to cover should those contractual things occur. But, over the past four years, that number's gone down. It's actually been cut in half significantly.
Okay. Alright. Does anybody else have any questions? Mike or, Shannon. Shannon, you're here. I thought you're at the board of finance meeting. I was, and I just hopped on about ten minutes ago. Okay. Good. Alright. Well, thanks for joining us. Do you have any questions?
No. I don't. Thank you very much. Okay. Mike, how about you? No. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome.
Caitlin or Brie or Steve or Jerry, do you have any other questions?
No. I'm all set. Thank you. Thanks, Jerry. I'm all set.
Thanks, Kate. No more here. Okay. And how about you, Steve? I'm good. Okay.
Alright. I'm hearing none, and I don't see any members of the public that have joined us, this evening. So, if nobody has any other questions and we are good to go, then I think we can say goodbye. Good night, everyone. I wanna say thank you. Bye. You're welcome, Jer. Good night