Meeting transcript
BOE Meeting
May 14, 2025 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
Alright. Great. We'd like to welcome everyone to the regular meeting, for the board of education for the town of Andover, for the month of May. We have for months, so kind of a little bit of coming back together. Mhmm. So in terms of public speak, while you guys are here, we ask that you keep your comments brief and to the point and speak for, you know, no more than two to three minutes. If you continue to speak for longer than that, we may need to cut you off just due to the length of the time of the meeting. So we'll be with pledge of allegiance. I'm
just I don't know what that is. I'm just gonna leave it. They're both here. They must be.
It's just strange. Just chat, isn't it? It's again. So we'll go through the people that are virtually first. Amanda Baloyne? Hi.
I just wanna say thank you to the board and for all that you do.
Thank you. Doris, I don't know. Maldonado. Maldonado? Can I remove this? Is that easier?
Hi. My name is Doris Maldonado Mendez. Thank you for for what you do, and I am a parent and a substitute. Thank you very much. Liz, we'll check.
Thank you. Just here to listen. Okay. Thank you. Kim, first on? No worries. All set for now. Thank you. Okay. Oh, okay. Amy?
I mean, She's joining on her way to our house. Okay. It's like a virtual I'm good. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Courtney Hill? Yes. Hi. Okay. Marcy, I'm assuming minor? Oops.
I don't know if you can hear me. I'm having a hard time getting on.
I'm okay for now. Thanks. Okay. Okay. We'll go through the real people that are present in the group, which is gonna be harder for me and for May. I'm fine. You. That just clear to watch. Nothing for me. I just wanna say thank you. Just wanna say thank you guys at home.
Do you mind just stating your name? Alexandria Carvelo. Okay. Thank you all to the board for what you do. Happy to watch. Hayden Frodo. Thank you all. Miss Dana Fraser. Thank you for everything, Jordan.
Deborah Holder, saying we appreciate you all. Katie Dixon, thank you guys for all that you do for us.
Lisa Hopkins, thank you for everything. Holly, you for the time and effort you put in on behalf of my children. Jill and Rosie, thank you for how you support our school and the future of the
Charlene, Del, Master, we appreciate each and every one of you and everything you do for us beside behind the scenes and at every meeting. You've seen that.
You guys really are doing an amazing job. Thank you. Abby Hartnett, thank you for everything you do, and we appreciate everything. Thanks, guys. In
terms of communications, I don't think that we have anything that's not going to be addressed in in another line item. So I don't have anything for that. Does anyone else have communications? I don't have Jerry, you're good? K. Shannon? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any communications?
I do not other than to say hello, and I'm sorry I'm not there in person to eat with all of you.
Okay. Now we know that you're not Jerry. So No. That was weird. A little weird. I didn't I was incognito. Hear what Jerry says. Okay. Do we have student celebrations?
I just wanted to celebrate. We got to meet our inventors for Invention Convention, and they went and perform performed. Sorry. But they went and presented. So we had Buddy Stack and Wynn Greenhouse, and they went to the state finals at UConn. Did a fantastic job, and Buddy Stack won a young emerging innovator award. So that was really exciting. Awesome. And so thank you for all the support. And we also had Valerie was there. She participates in the judging, which is awesome. And then we had two staff members attend, Christina and Jen, to support them, which was great as well. So just thank you for the board for always supporting our young innovators in all in all ways. So that was exciting.
Just to add on to it, as a parent who was there, it's really a phenomenal thing to go to at the state level. It's really cool to see all the work and, like, the passion that the kids have in what they're doing. My my girlfriend's daughter is going to the national competition. Yeah. She's from Hebron. Yeah. Really? I know. Yeah. That's neat. So Yeah. Yeah. And it's cool too because they put the kids in, like, little circles where they're with the other kids that are their age. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Cool. It was I I really love that you that we started doing that. Yeah. It's a really neat opportunity. So we'll continue to build. You know, in a few years, we'll have 200 inventors. So That's it. Okay. So we have approval of minutes from our last regular meeting, which was March 12. Again, we didn't have a meeting in April. So does anyone have changes on those or things that they noticed to correct? I didn't I didn't see anything. Okay. K. Shannon? No. Thank you. Okay.
Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the minutes? I'll make a motion that you approve the minutes for the board of education meeting, Wednesday, 03/12/2025. I'll start. Okay.
And then opportunity for us to add or delete agenda items to the way that the agenda is written. Does anyone have anything that's not written on here that they would like to move or amend the location of things.
I don't I don't have anything to add or delete.
Maybe why? No. There. Shannon, did you wanna add anything to the agenda? No, ma'am. Thank you.
Okay. Okay. So we'll go through reports in terms of a chairperson's oral report. I think the biggest thing as of currently that's not addressed elsewhere in our agenda tonight is really just that the town budget failed. And so as such, under the rules of the new charter, it's been bifurcated. We did have another town meeting last night. The board of finance did decrease the school budget increase. So instead of an eight ish percent increase, it's a 5% increase. And then that will go to referendum in two weeks. I don't remember the The twenty seventh. Yeah. So if people have questions about that, the meeting from last night should be recorded and posted at some point on the town side. It was recorded by the CBC.
That's what it was? Okay. Did did you see if it's posted somewhere yet?
They usually take a little while to edit the video after they videotape it. Okay.
It usually goes on their YouTube. And then it'll go up on the top YouTube? Yeah. Okay. I don't have anything else besides that. Okay. Superintendent's report.
Alright. So we've got some things that'll wind up throughout the rest of the agenda here. So I'll I'll to stick to the things that don't wind up someplace else on the agenda. Grant updates. So when we're looking at the grant updates, I've got a few things for you. Let's see. Maybe I'll this one, I'll do, that part of the year round. But, the good news is is that the application will open again in a couple of days for us to, reapply for that after school breath that we had for two years. It is coming back. I didn't expect it to come back, but I do know that the state does have some surplus funding. And a fair number of grants that had been offered for a number of years, unfortunately, are on hold because they fell under a DEI. And so they are reallocating, money to other areas of need, to early learning. We'll talk about early start in a minute. But they definitely, you know, found that this was a worthwhile program. They did say that they would try to put, some more funding aside for smaller districts, and we were lucky enough to get it last time. So, hopefully, that increases our odds. It is a tougher process in that the grant that we had was overseen solely by,
the eGrant management system. And so, sure, they came for site visit. Sure. They did expect a certain amount of, accountability in terms of our our documentation, but now there will be a documentation site to enter data on a regular basis, that we've used with other things before. We used it with our summer grant at one point. And so, hopefully, some of the guideline changes will include having to guarantee a certain percentage of students that you, use as your target number of participants that would have to participate a total of a certain number of times, like sixty days during the course of the year. So, you know, when we are are looking to provide programming, we'll have to keep that in mind that to hit our target. If not, what happens then is at the end of the first year, the funding is not available for year two because it's a two year grant. So we'll keep our fingers crossed. The application should take a few days to fill out. It is a comprehensive one, but, I'll update you in June, and then July as to whether or not we get that one or not. Other than that, the only other grant application that we've completed to turn in is our IDEA grant,
and our IDEA grant, is special education. So, we're hoping that, you know, there are, no blips in the IDEA grant. And if not, then that one will move forward. The funding through what is now called, and we'll be talking about it, but, Smart Start and School Readiness will continue. The the names will just change as we move forward. Smart Start will continue to be Smart Start, but the School Readiness will wind up being funded under something else called the early start program. So those are the only grants right now that are available for us, unfortunately. Sarah and I have joined, something called Grant Watch. It was a small fee of a 100 something bucks a year, and it it is geared toward, nonprofits. But probably 25 of them that we we see on there now do have little disclaimers that you can apply if you are a municipality and or a school district. So we're gonna pour through those and be on the lookout for some of those and see which ones, we would qualify for there. So, those are our grants updates. In terms of facilities, Scott's still doing an amazing job. You know, he's right on top of things. I mean, we couldn't have asked for a better head custodian.
We mentioned it, and we know that, you know, within days, it's done there. In terms of, regular preventative maintenance, repairs and operations, those sorts of things, From the last meeting till now, we did have filters and belts done. USA Mechanical is our contractor, did the preventative maintenance on those. FPT did a sprinkler flush. It wasn't part of our regular contract, so that one was $3,185. We had Ward come in and do the lights to the sensory room as we moved the classrooms around in anticipation of utilizing space for newer classrooms next year, we took the sensory room that was located across from the cafeteria, and we moved it. When we moved that, we moved it down to the wing, where the boys' locker room was to the right of the gym. That's now the sensory room. Most of the stuff that was done in that room to prep it was done through pre K because that room itself predominantly services. So when you look at our our, expenses in there, you'll see a fair number of things in there, predominantly services, those four rooms, and then kindergarten. Not completely, though. The lights in that sensory room had to be redone. They would have had to to use that space for anything else. And then at the top of the stairs so when you come out of the office, if you are going down the stairs to the left there, there were three lights there that had the old ballasts like all of our lights in the hallway do. Those are like those long, light, fluorescent looking lights. We
can't reach up there to change them, so you have to, you know, utilize somebody else to come do that, and there's always a cost. It doesn't have to be done on a regular basis, thank goodness, but they really do need to be upgraded. So Scott did a great job of researching, you know, are we better off to pass somebody in and come and change them, or should we change them to these? So by changing them to these lights here, these fluorescent lights, they were much more affordable. I think it was only a couple $100 to do each, light in there. Of course, obviously, somebody has to come do it. The goal eventually is to look to replace all of them in the hallway with more efficient lighting. They're LED lights. Yeah. So Right. Energy cost. Yeah. So that's the goal. And I think we talked about this a couple of years ago, trying to find out if Eversource has one of those programs, where you were talking about. Yes. So so we're looking into that, Scott and I are. The gym fans, the that the town installed, those are done, and they're in there. They did that over April vacation. There's they're a little loud. One of them is a little loud. They did have to install them in slightly different location than they normally would have just simply because they realized that once they put them up, that if they, how do I describe it? If they had them kind of as low as where the
the grates hang, they would be hit by balls. And so and when they came in, they're kind of not the caliber of material that I think Jeff Murray and the town had thought they were. So, they'll do. They're still good. But they then had to place them behind those grates, and they're on chains so that if they need to be adjusted check them. Yes. So so if they need to be adjusted, they can be adjusted. So they aren't hanging, but they can adjust them. So it seems to have worked out fine. So so far, so good. A while back, we had, you know, approved the, asbestos, the three year asbestos testing to be done. Mhmm. They did come and do that. We're awaiting the results. When they come in, we'll let you know, but, they did do, that, on the April 25. Our hinge and suppression system was serviced by FTP. We had a leaking valve gate and a check valve, that was replaced, and exhaust fan motors were checked number eight, number 18, and number 19. So all of this was, just regular repair, maintenance, and operation. But, you know, it's just good to know that, you know, all these things are in good shape, good working shape. So And they did the the lights out there? They did since the last time we met. Better week. We're just waiting. They had to reschedule that. But, yeah, those lights are done.
We did have and it will come up a little further on, but we did also have an issue with our mower. We originally had it fixed during the time period from March till now. We had it serviced, and, it's still not happy with us. It's, it's getting old. We're talking about something that's 30 years old, and, it's just not thrilled with us. So we'll talk about this when we move down, but it would like to retire. And so we may have to just let it retire, because it's it's retired. What portions of the fields are mowed by that versus the town of Tortmund? The town doesn't mow our property at all. Okay. Yeah. All of 30 Bicycle Road is mowed by us. K.
So the town doesn't the the town does the only thing that they do for us is to plow snow. Yeah. They won't shovel. Our guys shovel, But the plot will come through and and plow the parking lot, but that's it. Other than that, we take care of everything related to the property. Is that something that we could explore as an alternative? The town?
To You would need to pay them for it? Mhmm.
So the town actually pays somebody else to mow their areas. I know there's a line item for 26,000 for their fields to be mowed because they they have their big mower for, like, the the 316 and the Route 6 stuff, and then they have, smaller, I don't wanna use the word contracts because it's another works people that do some of the other places, but, no, they don't. And it's not done in every town that way. Some towns, is, the bigger towns, absolutely. But in the smaller towns, some of them do do it. And when they do, then they do an in kind service. There's no transfer of money. In the smaller towns where the town mows it, they claim that as an in kind service. But I can tell you that and I actually have a quote here from a company because they thought that they wanted to give us a quote. To mow our lawn, to have, somebody like, I know the town does hire people. To have somebody come in, it would be, 1,200, and that's only every two weeks. It is expensive. Every day. Yeah. So it is expensive. So, yes. That's why we don't do that.
Yeah. I I see somebody's like, oh, the wrong profession. So most of the facilities updates, we're gonna be talking about at some point here, so I'll, I'll I'll hold on to that one. And we are still working with Scott's list here and our updates on, capital further than the three projects that we're currently involved in. So those are the updates for those.
And those three products, just projects, are the the bathroom plumbing giant renovation project Yep. Which we have on on here The elevator. Yep.
And yeah. The driver's on there Okay. Still as the third one. And the elevator, you know, I know we've contracted with TK. We're just scheduling because remember, we can't schedule that after the last day of school because we need that elevator for a particular student. So, it'll be, you know, rendered out of order for a day or two. And so we have to do that from the last day of school, but it will be done, those last couple weeks of school. So happy to do it. Okay. You want me to move to the next one? Sure.
Yeah. Okay. So, I I did put on the agenda. I know that Kate and I had spoken about this, when we put this agenda together a week and a half ago, addressing the River East insert. I know Scott Zoyed is here, and and, Scott, you did a good job of doing that last night, so thank you, by simply putting it into a another form of a flyer online, I guess. Not for us to be political in any way, shape, or form. Sure. Upset that this went in there. We were nice enough to be able to get an apology from the River East. So, you know, I do respect that,
that that was put in, and it was proper. But what I wanted to do here more than anything is for us to be able to, make sure that we can speak to the the the truth of it. And I think that's what most of the people in town want is, you know, I don't think most people thought it was true, but I think they're like, okay. I don't believe it, but can you tell me what is the truth? So a couple things on here. So first and foremost, actually, Taylor, there is there's two slides that you have. One that says how we get our money, and the other one says Mahoney and Stable. So we can start with the how we get our money. So I first couldn't understand where somebody would come up with, something that says $900,000 board. So I thought, well, let's just look at the fact of
of our money in general. The board of education, we do have our our own account, and that was set up at the request of the first selectman a couple of years ago. We used to kind of share the TALENTS account. And year after year with the audit, the auditor really found a lot of errors in things. So a few years ago, mister McGuire asked me personally, and Eric, he said, well, go to the bank, take Eric Anderson, open a separate account for the school, and we'll do for you guys what we do for RAM, which is we'll give you an allowance. We'll take your general fund allotment. In this case, our our budget is, 4,340,000, and we'll just put it in there every month. Clean? Okay. I said, sure. So Eric Anderson and myself went to the bank. We went to M and T Bank in Glastonbury, and, we set up the account, and it's worked very well. That was a couple of years ago. And what happens is is we decided when we were speaking about how the allowance should be given to us by ACH transfer,
I explained to the town that the difficulty is we don't use the same amount of money every month to pay bills. So it had to be a little bit front loaded, but, of course, we wanna make it easier for the town, and we want that ACH transfer to be the same amount. So we get an ACH transfer this year, for example, of 434,000. And, again, these numbers are slightly, you know, to make even. There's pennies in there or whatever. So it starts July 1 is our first payment. We get 10 payments. So that's our whole year's budget that's given to us starting July and ending in April. And the reason why it has to end in April is because we have, heavier spending at the end of the year, not because of anything,
you know, nefarious, but because our teachers get paid for the whole year, but all of their salary obviously comes out of our fiscal year, July through June 30. And they don't work June and July. So their paychecks actually start in August, at the end of August. And then there's 26 paychecks, but there's twenty one week I mean, 21 pay cycles before they get out of school. So at the end of the school year, there's five paychecks that we owe them from the work that they've already done. And so some of them opts together all summer long, but it still has to come out of this year's budget. So we have to save up enough money before the end of the year so that when we have that last pay cycle and if somebody doesn't, like, know how this works, they go, wow. You had a pay cycle where you guys have $425,000
in one cycle. We did. So what happens is those payments go in. The first one, for example, let's say the account is at zero on day one July 1. The $434,000 will go in. July, obviously, those people aren't here working. We have less expenses. Most people are on vacation. So maybe we spend that month 400 I mean, maybe that month this month, we spend 34,000. So the balance at the end of July might be 400,000. And then our next ACH transfer comes in in August of April, and I have some errors up there, that weren't corrected under good. I know. I did correct. 434,000, and maybe our balance is 800. So if there's somebody that wants to say, oh my goodness. I saw their bank balance, and they've got a hoard of 800,000. That's not a hoard. It is two of our 10 payments, and we just haven't experienced those expenditures yet. But we will.
So and so school starts again. So by the end of the fall school year, we resume paying our regular expenses and our payroll, and at any given moment in time, then the balance goes up and down. So it is normal during a couple of times of the year for our bank balance. If somebody were to go look, if a town's person were to go look, if one of the other boards were to look at our available balance, it's it's absolutely positive that at a certain, you know, time during the year, it could say there's $900,000 in the account, but it doesn't mean that that's stored in a hoard. It means that that's what we have left because my last payment comes in in April. I don't get any money in May and June, but I have all of May and June's in those five pay
periods to still pay out. That last balloon payment is over 400,000. So then what happens is that other slide, the Mahoning's table. Then what happens is it's pencils down. For those of you who are teachers, you know what that means. It's pencils down June 30 because July 1 starts the new year. So unless you've already saved up an expense so for example, I'll just use the elevator just simply because we're just talking about it. If the elevator is scheduled to be done June 20 and the company calls and says, we can't come till July 2, that is already what they call encumbered. We knew it's coming. It was supposed to be done. Just because they rescheduled that visit doesn't mean that, uh-oh. We can't get it done. It's encumbered as an expense for this school year. So there are encumbered expenses, and there will be a couple of things that'll trickle in during the course of the summer, but they reflected stuff from the school year. And so pencil's down. Money's spent. It's done. If there's money left, it may actually still be in that account because we can't do anything until the audit is done. And in this town, every town is different. But in this town, historically, it's not done over the summer, by the way, because everybody has to finish things. That would be absolutely ridiculous for people to think they could do the audit over the summer.
Here, it's usually started in January, maybe early February. And what we're looking for then is the audited actuals for the prior year. And that's we have a fantastic, firm called Mahoney and Sable, and they come in and they audit us, all of our stuff, and they audit the town as well. Now once they get us all done and together, they say, here's your draft audit, which this board will be looking at tonight as one of its, board business. And they say, okay. You had $200,000 left. And when they do that then, they say, guaranteed. They check it. They go through things, and they say this is what you had left. Other years, we've had $20,000 left. So it's their job to figure out what the unexpended funds were and to make sure it matches up with all of our paperwork. Then when that's done, that money gets returned to the other accounts. We can no longer keep custody of that. So we are allowed to keep 2%, on the books in our 2% nonlapsing account, but that's not kept here. It's not housed here. That money, Terry writes out a check, and it goes into the two percent nonlapsing account on the town. It is this board of education
that does get to approve whatever expenditures you're gonna use the 2% nonlapsing account for, but we have to call the town and say we need to check for that, and this is what it's for because we we don't have custody of that money. A year and a half ago, the board of finance worked with us, and we're very appreciative of that, worked with us to say because we knew that during a two year period, I I I strategically saw ahead of time due to grants that had come in and things like that. I was like, we're gonna have money, and we're also gonna have some projects. So can we open an account? And they worked with this board, and they created our first ever capital account. We had put we were, working to get the driveway done, and it didn't happen. So that money, the $1.13, went into that account. Then the town last year funded that account a 100,000, so they put that into that capital account. So this year, as the board of finance was doing our budget, the board of finance I was at that meeting presenting our budget to them, and the board of finance, I saw that there was a 100,000 set to go in the budget again.
And I said something to them, which is what I believe Joanne was speaking about last night at the meeting. I said to them, I do happen to know. I know you guys wouldn't know this yet. I said to them because the audit's not done, but I do happen to know that we're gonna have a $100,000 left when they finish last year's audit. So please don't tax the taxpayer. Take it out. And they did. So that's why I asked them to take it out because I knew there would be that money left. And so that's why that check then was just recently because the audit was finished in March, April. Okay. So that was sent over to that account. Again, we don't have custody of that account. And even though the board of finance has already said we're 100% behind you guys with the bathroom, we're 100% behind you when we've already gotten half a check. Mhmm. With the elevator, we do still have to go to them, to get that money. And then when they say yes, the town gives us a check for that. So long winded, but hopefully, you know, educational there. We would never have access to any money after an audit season is done because the auditor says that money's gotta go elsewhere. You're not allowed to keep it. Good. So that's that. The second thing on there that I think is of value
is and Scott did a great job of this on his comparison, and I do know that somebody else named Jacob had come up with a chart online, and it it it Jacob is, ma'am. Yes. And it's very accurate. Very oftentimes, because we're part of RAM, people love to compare Hebron, Marlborough, and Andover. And we do it too. When we're looking at making sure that we have you know, we look at bookworms. We wanna make sure our kids are just as prepared as the Hebron and the Marlboro kids because they're all going to the same classrooms. We do compare ourselves to them when it comes to curriculum, and we do because they're our neighbors. But in many cases, it's apples to oranges. And that's because we're the baby size of the three. You know, we have a quarter of what they have in in the other districts. And so when you look at per pupil expenditures, the difficulty is and imagine this, and I'm simplifying this for people who have never looked at per pupil expenditures before. Our costs are to 35 School Road. So you have to take everything associated with this building and this property, and you have to make sure that you divide all of the costs to run 35 School Road by 250 kids. And when you do that, it's a lot of money because we have 250 kids. If we had 500 kids, that number would go down. And remember, they I I I actually cringe because it's a per pupil expenditure. Like, somehow the kids are are benefiting from every dollar of that. And directly
indirectly, they are, but directly, that includes keeping the lights on. That includes heating the place. And you're like, should that count? But it does. It does count. And so the difficulty is sure. When you have 250 kids is it's gonna be a lot. I live alone, and so my mortgage is a certain amount. So the ratio of people to my mortgage is, you know, 2,000. If somebody else moves in, now it's, 1,000 per person. If another person moves do you know what I mean? So the costs get divided further. So the fairer way to do that, if you're really trying to see, do we align with the other districts that are like us in the state? And Scott did this well, was to look at the ones that truly are our size. And when you look at the ones that are truly at our size,
we are middle to lower because all school districts that have a school like ours with about 250 kids or less, they're gonna run as high as 30,000, dollars per child because of the fact that you're running a huge facility with a smaller number of kids. So this number here is deceiving, and it would be one thing if it just listed it. But to say that it's our cost versus Hebron and Marlboro's is not a fair comparison. So it's not that I had a problem with the $23,000 number. It's the comparison to the neighbors who's saying that we can compare apples to apples, that that that's wrong there. I I will ignore some of the stuff here that's just political and and and nasty, and move on to the, legal fees. And I'm moving on to the legal fees because, sure, that's taxpayer dollars. We have to have an attorney. We absolutely have to have an attorney. There are legal matters that we need to handle, students, staff, negotiations with contracts, and then other things. So, yes, we have Shipment and Goodwin as our legal, experts. And in my five years here, sure, we've had to call them a few times. We've had to call them to, deal with the things that we're just not equipped to deal with because, you know, we do have one lawyer on the board, but, we do need someone that understands, you know, school law. And the town has their own attorney. You guys met the gentleman last night. And so, you know, oftentimes, they have him at the meetings, and they have him, in different places. That too is is something that people normally do.
In the case of the senior community center, and I won't rehash the whole thing. I would just say that there was a time when the two boards were not able to sit down with one another for whatever reason. So it did require us because they have an attorney, and we're not going to work with an attorney as laypeople. So we did then have to say, if that conversation needs to begin, it's going to have to then happen attorney to attorney. And that, we did have to do. The total expenditures during the course of that time were 10,000. The I don't know where the 35,000 came from. Even if you look at the expenditure report for us, that wasn't even the time period when we did do teacher negotiations.
That was later because, of course, we pay an attorney to do that. Thankfully, they were short. It wasn't too long. Thanks, guys. And the noncervic, spite as well. So, the other question there was whether or not we have utilized our counsel, Shipman and Goodwin, for this situation with the solar. And we have. Not for any other reason except that we were, entering into a binding contract as a board. The town then did become part of the equation, part of the conversation with their attorney offering us opinions. And once again, we're not going to take an opinion from an attorney and not have an attorney read that. And so our attorneys are working with the town attorney right now on that, and we will be talking about that solar later. So once again, sure. It does mean that we we did need to speak to counsel regarding that. And so the fact that we had to speak to counsel is a fact, but the numbers here are are not correct. The last thing that I do wanna address on here, then later on, if the board has questions, please let me know, is, it isn't fair to have them look at actual expenditures and then say, if I gave you a $100,000 to work with and you only spent 80, and then next year you come back and ask for a 100, it's not fair to say, well, you are already getting an increase because you didn't use the 20 from the year before. So now even if you ask for zero, you're asking for 20%. That is just not an accurate way to depict things. It just isn't because things change. If you go into a grocery store and every week you pay $5 per milk and this week it's on sale
or you have a coupon. Every week, the milk is still in there. The price could vary, but you can't say, well, since you didn't spend it, that expenditure is not a valid one anymore. We do have certain things that are variable. Special education costs are variable. So you budget for it. You put it in. And if during the course of the year, let's say that child moves, there's going to be money left if that child moves and we're spending a significant amount of money on that particular child. I get grants. If I get grants and it offsets a cost, there's going to be money left at the end of that year. Doesn't mean next year there's going to be. So we do take advantage of when we have those cost savings, those expenditures, but we also consider that the following year. We don't just move it forward without considering what revenue we're we're gonna have. So so that number is not accurate there. Preschool, we're gonna talk about later, but here's the the catch on that one. And we have slides we'll we'll talk about when we get to this on board business, but preschool is something that has to be a part of the school. Every district has preschool.
I know there are people out there that don't wanna admit it, but we are required to service our birth to three students, required to service them. I know there are people that do still think, well, it's just babysitting. It's just day care. Just get rid of it. We can't. We have to have that program available at minimum for the students who are identified with needs. So you have to have a room available to them. Now there are certain districts that only offer half time, half day. They can. But you must have preschool. So very oftentimes, they say, well, you have to take those kids out of your student count. Everybody has them in their student count. We're not the only one because we're required to have those students. And in the town of Andover, it's no different than anybody else in the state of Connecticut. We are required to educate those children all the way up to age 22. So the 20 birthday for special education students. So, you know, it it goes in both directions. It's not just k 12. For special education students, it's birth to three programs. When as soon as they leave birth to three and come to us, all the way through to 22. So if you were looking at, you know, Ram's budget, for example, you may see programs for students that have already graduated that are in those programs on the other end, and those programs are not optional either.
So every time I see where you can't count pre k, you have to. We are legally required for some of those students to provide those services. So, and I think those are really kind of the only things on this that I think we need to address. If there's specific questions before you move on to the principal's report for those people, in the room here, on the board, please, by all means, let me know. Thank you, Val. Does anyone have any other specific I don't questions? Tyler, you did great job in explaining that. Thank you. Any other questions on that? No. Shannon, you gone? Good. Thank you.
K. Okay. We will move on to the principal's report.
My report has been Way more fun. I'm sorry about, but I don't know. So we have a lot of exciting things. You know, we call it have you been seeing around? They call it May cember. Yes. May cember. Yes. Because it's, like, December all over again where it just feels nonstop, and I'm sure for everyone in their personal life as well. So lot a of great things. So we just had our professional development day last week, and we did several things. So we concluded our book study on creating inclusive classrooms, looking at challenging behaviors, some of the things popping up with kids. So we had nearly our entire staff involved in that book club, that was great. We continue to do some more bookworms work. Our we really just have a fantastic trainer from the University of Delaware who provided us even more additional time on her own accord, which was great at no cost. She just loves us that much. So she was able to meet with kindergarten and start to talk about some changes we wanna kind of make into next year. And then teachers were able to look at, the illustrative math and the bookworms math going into unit one next year. I know we have some educators in the room. And, certainly, when you pilot new programs and you're going through the trenches, now that you've been through it, you're like, alright. I have some more plans for next year. I wanna you know, this is how we wanna move it around. This is what we need to work on. And so it was great. As much as we don't always, love a May professional development day, that was, a nice opportunity for us to really reflect and
begin to also then reflect on what we've done and plan and then plan for our end of year assessments that we are knee deep in now. So we are in our SBAC testing era, if you are a Taylor Swift fan. We completed ELA. We're really doing great on track. If you're not aware, SBAC is, a window opens, and so all testing needs to be completed by the last day in May. So as you can imagine, students are absent or students take longer or shorter. This SBAC is not a timed test, which is fantastic, but, you know, presents some challenges. So we work, our intervention team works tirelessly through these next two weeks with our classroom teachers to ensure that kiddos who need more time, separate settings, just a quieter space, get all of the things they need. So we are on track. We have begun math this week. We did ELA last week, and we're
going through. So the timeline is very similar. The state plans to make those, that data public mid to late August. So nothing, yes. Is the SPAC computer adaptive?
So it is on the computer. The test itself is not necessarily adaptive. So it gives you you can score a one through four. When it first came out, there was talks that it was going to adapt to how the student was performing, but not exactly. So if you're in fourth grade, you're getting fourth grade level. Are they taking them on tablets? Or
We are still using Chromebooks. They it is iPad accessible, but, It's it's still a tablet, not like a computer computer. That's no. Yeah. You're right. It is the Chromebooks. Okay. Yeah. And then our second graders are also doing I Ready. And so they we strongly believe, and we appreciate the board's support in not over assessing our kiddos. So in third through sixth, we don't give them the I Ready assessment again at the end of the year. That's crazy talk. So we that's been great. We actually give that in March and gives us really good data towards what what May will look like for SBAC, and we're really able to intervene kind of in those two months. Second grade, they're at that age where we kinda try to give them a little experience with some online, you know, computer testing. It's hard. You know? We we know why SBAC exists, but, you know, if you've never sat with eight, nine, and 10 year olds to do a a two hour computerized test, it's a lot. And so while we are celebrating wins already, you know, there are some kiddos that this is a hard experience for and may not truly reflect their knowledge and ability. So it's a it's a time as educators I actually said in the hallway today too, feel like this is actually why we do this job because you see some of this data, and then we think, well, like, how do we make sense of this? What do we do next? So it's an exciting time, but, you know, a lot to consider. Alright. And then our younger kiddos, I wanna leave them out. K one, they participate in what's called DIBELS. And so DIBELS was a new assessment required by the state, to be implemented this year. It's not a new assessment. It has already existed, but a new requirement,
and that looks at their reading abilities. And so they will begin it's a one minute interview style test. So it's not at the computer. Nothing great. So they do six to seven one minute sections where they might have to name the letters, read the words, things like that, read a passage. And so it's not stressful to them, but that gives us some really great data and is well researched. So we're excited to see that. Memorial Day is coming up. So both of our bands and both of our choruses were invited again to participate in the Andover Memorial Day festivities, so that's exciting. So missus Gordette has been working on that to make sure they are ready to go, so she's excited there. Our book fair I'm stealing some PTA updates here. Let's Alright. That's Book fair, as you can see in the corner, has been delivered today. It's a very very exciting day. So that will get all set up at the end of the week, and that will be open next week. Yep. So we appreciate your support there. And that corresponds with the evening of the arts on Thursday night. So it's open then where we'll have our spring concert and our art show, which is great. And then that we'll have the talent show. It's just very exciting next few weeks. And then last, I know the board, you'll get a a nice invitation from Diane in the office, but our sixth grade step up is scheduled for the twelfth at 10:30,
which we just can't believe is in a few short weeks. So I think I covered it all as much as excitement as I can, but questions I can answer?
Can you speak to kindergarten enrollments? The numbers Yeah. Pre K enrollments, where we're at? Yeah. We're looking
good. So pre K, we're far beyond. We're going to and I know we'll talk about pre K. We're definitely going to need to wait list, students, but we are right now, at 69 to 70 of students interested in coming to pre K next year, so we're working through that. And kindergarten, we are at 24. It's a little kindergarten's a little bit more variable because of the kindergarten waivers. You guys remember that from last year with the birth date change? Birth date change. So we have several students who have applied for a waiver, and what that means is we assess, and then we determine whether or not they can go to kindergarten. So that number does change. It's not set in stone. And, certainly, I find being in Andover that our kindergarten registrations also tend to come later in the summer, whereas pre K, they come on, like, January 1. So, yeah, so we're in good shape. The waiver they signed to move up even though they aren't necessary. They so if their birthday is September 3, they cut off September 1. They have to ask,
hey. Can I come to kindergarten anyways? We then do an assessment, which we worked with Hebron and Marlboro in trying to create a consistent assessment. And then I work together with missus Morell, our early childhood specialist, and the classroom teachers to give that assessment. Then we have to render a decision, then the parent has to decide what they're gonna do with that. So that's kindergarten numbers are still in progress, but that's
Is that the minimum at 24, or is that That's what we have. That's current. That's coming. Not including any potential waivers. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So more than 20
Could be. I I don't wanna speak to individual waiver processes, but that would identify too. But Yes. 24 registered. Okay. K. Any other question? Yeah. That is great. Yeah. And I'm giving a tour this week for
elementary aged student next year too. Can I ask what percent of those 24 are coming from existing pre K? Most
of them, we get since I've been here, I would say four to five. I'm looking at Jenny because she knows four to five students that weren't in pre k typically, weren't in our pre k. It might have been they were in a Yeah. Okay. Program that would be new to probably close to, like, 80% of those. Yeah. It's a it's a high percentage, which is phenomenal. And if, again, you're not in an educational system, knowing the kids and the education they've received for the past two, sometimes now three years Yeah. Puts us at a huge advantage in kindergarten, which is just phenomenal. That's awesome. Yeah. Very. Yes.
So in your packet, about halfway through, we'll start with the the expenditure reports for this year. There's the summary, and then it goes into a little more detail. And then as Caitlin had requested, the town is now providing statements of accounts for the for the AES Capital Fund and the 2% fund, and I believe the Norton fund is in here. Yeah. Is great. Thank you, Caitlin. These along with the minutes will be posted online in the next week or so, so you can look at them. Does anybody have any questions about the financials that went out in the last week?
Just know when you guys look at the statements from M T, they don't match up with this Yeah. Because they're it's, like, where the money is in the fund balance versus where it physically lies within a bank. So And just just real quick. The the
M and T bank statement that says school improvement, that's the 2% That's the 2%. The 2% nonlapsing. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Just wanted to clarify. And I think that one says $1.60
something, but there's actually $1.75 Okay. Plus what we just sent over to them. Okay? Yeah. It sounds like $1.66.
Yeah. But this is from before the transfer from the audit from Yeah. No. Yep. Just making sure. But it's that it's the Yes. I know. I know. It's confusing. Nope. That's alright. Just wanted to clarify. What is the expansion fund? Is that our
VIP fund? That is something that has been was it the $88,000
balance? It was the $8,000 balance that was left over from years old expansion on
of the school itself, and it was in a line item over on one of the many line items on the town side. And that's what we ceded Thank you. The capital with.
But if you look at in terms of the balance of the capital fund, it's on the other that's that's the $4.29. Right. That yeah. You're. Yep. Does anyone have questions on the Current expenditures? Current expenditures in terms of percentage used. How do you feel getting into last this would be month of the year? Last two months. Last two months. Mhmm. Okay.
We still have a lot of Still have a lot of what I can do to expect. Purchase orders. Okay. Yes. So, I'll still be paying bills right through June, and I'm still waiting on a couple of, real I mean, we we usually renew all of our software licenses at this time of the year, and we also we have contracts that we renew at this time of the year or the following year. It's always happened like that because they're usually due, like, prior to July 1. So we have to renew them in this year. So the these numbers, you know, we're at 87% spent, but it's gonna they're you're gonna see a big difference by
the next meeting in June. K. But Thank you. You're welcome. In terms of the amount of money, like, percentage wise for instructional assistants and IA substitutes, is that is that a discrepancy that's going to, like, the 67%
of instructional assistance? Is that gonna Right. I'm hoping that, you know, there'll be some money left in the IA line to to compensate for the IA subs. That's what I was And there will be other monies left in the salary lines to compensate for any overages.
And then and then I guess more for Val, is that a line item that you think, like, budgetary wise, is that gonna stay high for next year, or was that something specific to this year? So
the category this year was off. It wasn't the the name of where people fell in salaries was off because we had a variety of times during the course of the year where we had vacant positions, let's say, a para. So that position temporarily was filled by a sub para. So Terry would take that out of a sub line because they weren't in the union. And then that person, if they filled that position permanently, would move to the noncertified line as a permanent member of the school, and then she can make the adjustment later on. So, that's just what happens sometimes when your staff varies,
is you know, it it just the name is is different as to where it is in there. You know? That that's the only difference.
So is it just that we're keeping better, like, better accountability of of where that No. It was that this year, what we wound up doing was
there were a variety of times we and, you know, when I have to speak to specifics of a student, I'm careful not to disclose So the during courses of this year, there were times when we had new or different needs as they related to students. And until the need could permanently be addressed, it was filled with a temporary person. Yeah. And so when you fill it with a temporary person, Terry doesn't know if that's gonna stay a temporary person. Right. Are they here to do a test, or are they here to so she will put them in a temporary line. And so once that person either does or doesn't become permanent, you know, as an expense, then she'll move them over. And that's common. So while we're assessing needs. So it just happened to be this year. Yeah. An unusual year for that. Yes. For that. Yes. Next year, however, what you will probably see in the budget is when you also, hypothetically, have a staff member that goes out because of a childbirth or something. Yes. There will be substitutes that come in to work for them, and you will see them in that line as well. Yeah. Now since that hasn't happened yet, we know it's happening. So the ones we knew about are planned for, but you'll see the same thing happen where it'll have to run over from one And that would be under teacher substitutes.
Correct. If it's a teacher Yes. If it's a noncertified person, it would run under the noncert. Yep. Anyone else have questions? I'm all set. Good. Good? Great. Thanks, Terry. You're welcome.
Okay. And then we have liaison reports and updates. PTA.
Thank you. Can't believe that it's the end of the year. It's Yeah. We had our last meeting the beginning of May. Everybody here should have received an email for the ribbon cutting. It will be next week at the evening of the arts. The ribbon cutting for the new playground will be at 05:45 up at the upper playground with the talent show. Mhmm. We're working on that. We've got a great we we have, like, 30 acts at the talent show. Yeah. I know. I'm saying Yeah. Please come. Please come. Will tell me. Didn't tell you. It's so cute. I didn't know what to call back. I think yesterday
that it's also the same as the evening of the Earth Day. We talked about that at our PTA meeting because
I forget who brought it up. So next year, we were definitely fine. I have a note to make sure that we don't conflict. I think try to Absolutely. No. It was it was brought to our attention at the the meeting, and I have a note to make sure that it doesn't happen. But, yeah, I mean, we're winding down. That was kind of like our last meeting, you know, last or two weeks ago. And, again, the ribbon cutting, and we've got the talent show. And
And I just wanna add, Celeste, on behalf of the teachers, they want to make sure we thanked the PTA because they just supported, our staff appreciation week. So it's teacher appreciation day last Thank you. Gosh. It's been a week. Last week. Yeah. It was a I don't know. So they did a phenomenal job spoiling
our staff as well. So thank you for that PTA. Oh, you're welcome. It we have a lot of fun doing it, and, you know, we obviously wanna hear from the teachers, you know, if if there's anything, you know, different that we wanna do, you know, for for that week, please let us know. So, yeah, it was a great year. We had a lot of great support, a lot of good fundraisers. And, yeah, just looking forward to the ribbon cutting next week. We hope you're all there. So
Great to hear. The only one I'll just ask a question that we could do as a board potentially. With PTA's money, you you raised a lot for the playground. It'd be a very nice gesture, I think, if we could send you a letter to them that Celeste could distribute to the PTA members.
Yeah. I don't know if you'd be open to that. Yeah. I think I think that's a great idea. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, That'd be great. Thank you.
In terms of town meetings update, I feel like I kind of already went through that. And then Pri isn't here for school readiness, but, Val, you have some updates in regards to that. And I just asked Kate. So because we have executive session after this
and then preschool doesn't wind up on the agenda again until, nine e, under school readiness, I asked if it's okay if we kinda do what I think people want to hear in terms of questions that have come up with it while we talk about what's changing with school readiness. So I'm gonna make it a little elongated so that when we get down to the other parts, people will probably will leave and go home, for the second this afternoon. So that's okay. We're not insulting. So can you put that this up there? Mhmm. Okay. You're welcome. Here. So so the state has a new program that goes into effect July 1. And when it goes into effect July 1 so tell her it's the financial model. Know. Right? It's just true. So it goes into effect yes. July 1. You don't have to share that quite yet. July 1, and it's called Early Start Connecticut. Okay? So everybody will see this fairly soon. I'm not really sure, what precipitated the state to change, but I can tell you that some of the things are looking at the whole state and seeing how do we focus on the birth to kindergarten. How do we make sure that every place in the state has ample daycare centers, before and after school care, preschool programs, everything under kindergarten. They have desert areas of the state where there's families that have literally no way to get day care. And then we have other areas where there are waiting lists. And so the Office of Early Childhood,
OEC, kinda looked at school readiness, and they said, that's kinda where we have to go with this. And so school readiness councils, we have, we've had it with Hebron before. We've had it with Just Us. Those are the oversight of the school readiness grant. But the whole purpose of the councils was to really have a commitment from the community. So you heard me say last night there are specific seats on that council, the first electman, superintendent, the principal, community members, library partners. The the goal was to have the whole community involved in that. With this new early start that you're gonna hear lots about, they're having you know, they're making it different. It's they're gonna have local governance councils, like LGPs. And the goal, in a nutshell and and I won't do it as well as they do, but the goal of those councils is to be like a school readiness council, but they want you to be involved with parents. They're gonna have parent ambassadors that are actually going to get paid to be ambassadors and be part of this group and do surveys and do a lot of outreach.
Really make sure that you're involved with community partners like the library, like your elected officials, like your boards of education and your schools, but to make sure that you do it on a larger scale. So no longer do they want little Landover to have its own. They want your council to be bigger. And you're gonna partner with day care centers and local providers. So, unfortunately, right now, I'm not sure that they're ready to, like, jump in July 1 like they think they are because every time we ask a question, they they're like, I don't really know the answer to that. So it's gonna be the office of early childhood, OEC, as the umbrella for it. And then no smart start. They will cease to use that naughty word on July 1, and it'll be early start. There'll be another layer underneath it, and the layer underneath it is a company. It's a private company that's gonna oversee, and it's called Shine, Shine Learning. They're gonna be next. And then the LGPs. And the LGPs, we've decided that we are probably going with Hebron and then Lebanon, which I know it doesn't border us. But in terms of kind of what's going on in the three towns, we're very similar. They will be looking for as you can see on this paper here, they will be looking for these programs to promote family engagement, community collaboration, have an administration, which we did and we did it well, but we had always paid with our Smart Start I mean, our school readiness money for a liaison through EastCon. They will now make sure everybody has that, and that money comes out automatically. So you don't have a choice. You don't pay them. It's gonna come out automatically.
And they wanna make sure that, you know, it's it's broader and that there's gonna be needs assessments done by these parenting ambassadors to find out. With your group, your LGP, what's the need? Is it before and after school care? It's probably not for us because we have cool. Is it day care? I mean, we have one in town, but maybe, we'll need to work with them on transition programs. So that's what they're doing, is they're really trying to make more fit under the umbrella so that everybody is successful. Okay? So for us, we probably won't see a big change this first year. They have still guaranteed funding. As a matter of fact, we get more this year than we did last year.
We had 36,000 more this year. We did apply for even more. Mhmm. But it involves certain slots, which I'll talk about in just a few minutes when we get to the preschool end of the club. First, I wanted to address one thing before I got to that because I know two people in the room were interested in that. When we talk about the money, nothing is going to change in terms of, us receiving that school readiness that's gonna be early start. We will still apply for that. There's not gonna be in this first two years an oversight group that applies on our behalf. Who knows two years from now? But for right now, we are guaranteed what we know we're getting for the old school readiness, the new early start for the next two years. Someone did ask yesterday. They were like, well, why do we not see this with your financials in the budget? And we don't see it it because it's reported separately. It's not part of the general fund. So before I get into that, Taylor, can you turn that one on, please? I wanna just show you because I do, as I said, know there's two people in the room that did say, hey. You know, I've never been on the council. I'd love to see you. We have a reporting system just like we do with everything else. This, for example, is how it's in our Edmunds software system.
There are regular accounts. You can see them on the left, the zero zero nines, and then it's one zero ones or hundreds are always salaries. 3 hundreds are always, purchase services for anything in Terry's system. 6 hundreds are always supplies and so on and so forth. They are the numbers. We come up with an anticipated revenue at the beginning of the year. We can never know what that anticipated revenue is gonna be until months prior to when we see who is enrolling for next year. Like Taylor says, we have a wait list, but we won't know until then. The individual costs do vary. As I said before, we are financially responsible to our special education students, and towns most towns do not charge at all for special education students. You can if they have limited services, but most towns don't. That's the number that you see on the top there, that revenue, the anticipated revenue. That was solely the tuition collected from a parent. That's money that comes in from them. That is and it's three categories just because it means that you had that top line tuition revenue, NG. That means a parent is their child is not taking a grant slot. If they're not taking a grant slot, Terry categorizes them under NG. So does Diane when she's listing them out. The students that are taking readiness slots, which we get money for, in addition to that $6,000
that we get for that kid, we get more than that. And the anticipated for the children that were in our school readiness slots was an additional $37,000 in addition to the 6,000 per kid that we get. The pre k smart start, a separate grant. It is not going to fall under this new early start. That's gonna stay independent. Those students, we get 65,000 in in that grant plus parents whose children take our smart start spots, pay an additional 32,000. Okay? So that's the 220,000. As for a full budget, again, since you don't know what your revenue is gonna be from the tuition, you don't create a budget. What you do instead is you say, what is the steady? What do we know we have to pay?
And that's what goes in those lines. If you look down pre K tuition, local tuition means tuition that parents pay. It has the expenditures just like Terry does with all the other bookkeeping. She puts those in. And what we use those lines for for the certified, the noncertified subs, we use those for salaries. There's eight salaries that are paid for preschool. There's four teachers and four parents. Keep in mind that by law, as I mentioned earlier, if there is a child in one or more of those rooms that needs to have assistance, that particular staff member's salary should, by all intents and purposes, be in the general fund. Most of the time, the expenses related to that person can go in here.
And they would be in the general fund under special education. Correct? Correct. Correct.
And, again, you know, most towns have expenses that are in their general fund. We have been blessed and lucky enough because of the amount of tuition that parents pay. I mean, it's not an eager amount, $6,000. We have been lucky enough between that and our grants to have that ability to to leave it separate. If you look down then, you'll see the supplies. You see all these other things. Can you turn the page? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I
know you have to turn it. I know I said that. Getting good at it. So then in Edmunds, which is our software program, there is that's what you guys are looking at in front of you, to the board of ed. What's in front of you is exactly what she has there, this whole accounting. Stop. I don't know if you can see that. I'll do you again. Let's go over here. What you're looking at over there is exactly how she does it on a weekly or or monthly basis depending on the expenditure. You are looking at the description is certified salary, and Terry takes it right out of there. Okay? It doesn't go to the general fund. She takes it right out of there. You can see. She minuses her expenditures. You can keep going. Non served salaries, same thing. Keep going. She pulls the payroll right out of there. Okay. Tuition. It says parasub, but I will tell you we've never changed the name of that line. It's all of the subs in pre K. So if that's the only other that's not true Yes. Is that it's not just parasub. It's all of the subs. It's in this packet. On the the other packet that she hung it out. This one here. Oh, sorry. I would sell that one. She's sorry. I'm on this flyer. I'm like, what's the whole thing? I'm I'm okay. Thank you. Thanks. You can keep going. Yeah. Okay.
So okay. So then you get to preschool supplies. And at the end of the year and this is where if at the end of the year, based on whatever changes we had, students lots more students that paid 6,000, lots more money that came in. We had, you know, extra kids. We filled our spots, whatever. At the end of the year, if all of your expenses are paid for and there's anything else that's collected in only the month of May and June that is not utilized during that year, which isn't often, but sometimes, if it comes in, it can carry over. And so you'll notice on that top line from the year before, maybe it's that, you know, we did oh, we had those two extra grants last year. That's why the 18,000 that they gave us. So at the end of the year, there actually was $3,369 in there. And so that carries over to the next year, stays in that bucket,
and can be utilized. Like I said, it's absolutely their policy, anything collected in May and June. Okay? But you'll look and see. These are all the pre K expenses. If they are pre K only expenses. Including expenses for I was just gonna say. Pre K only. If it's only for those four rooms, it goes in here. The best analogy that I could come up with was because I know you heard it last night. You've heard it before. People are like, don't you minus this. Don't you minus that. Anything that's pre K only that nobody else in the school, there's diapers in here. There's wipes in here. Of course, unless it's for special education student in the building, it comes out of theirs. Do we nickel and dime the rest? No. I don't. I had friends when I was a senior in high school. I was 17. We graduated, and they didn't wanna go to college. And their parents said, you know what? You're gonna have to pay rent then. They weren't 18, and their parents said, I don't believe they're responsible for them, but they're paying rent. They're not going away to school. We had parents that said, you're gonna pay $500 a month.
We had other parents that said, you're just gonna pay for your expenses. Buy your own groceries. There's no way these are our children. A lot of them were legally responsible for, special ed. There's no way that we're gonna say, if they take a paintbrush from someplace else in the building, we're charging them. Not gonna happen. If they use an a, we're gonna charge them. Not gonna happen. Because we also take things from there. But if you look, everything that is preschool only is on there and then some. Vinyl gloves, the playscape. Because there is $38.81 in a portion of the grants, quality enhancement, it's called, to enhance their location.
Most years, we use it for playground stuff. And so the mulch because it has to be six inches. The mulch and stuff that's done in playgrounds out there, we don't use from our general funds. They pay for it out of preschool. That beautiful fence out there on the second set of preschool playground over there, they paid for that out of there because last year, it was an extra 18,000 to better your facility. If you keep going What are Amazon captions? That just means stuff first. We wanted diapers and wipes and stuff. When Terry gets the Amazon bill, Celeste, she divides the Amazon bill up, and it goes where it's supposed to be each line item. So if they ordered wipes or diapers or supplies, whatever was pre K only on that Amazon bill got charged to them. What's the void check one that's set right keep go scroll up. Scroll up. No. No. No. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. But the void yeah. What is what is the void check? When you pay Amazon? Yeah. Is that that is Yeah. Voyager one, that one. ACH transfer? Yeah. It's an ACH.
We'll see it's twice because I think yeah. Depending on the electronically,
Celeste, instead of sending back. Check for Amazon. Okay. Because it's not really cutting a check because it's ACH. Right. Right. Yeah. So it really when you see an ACH payment, I get a a copy that looks like a check, but it'll say void at the bottom because it's not a real check. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
What is it when when you when there's expenditure that says move expense from tuition to grant? Like, what grant is that moving? Preschool to. It's preschool. So it's it's just in one of those three available pockets
of money for preschool, whether it was the grant, school readiness Yeah. Smart Start, or the tuition. We can move things between those three things. Okay.
Yeah. Depending on the needs. Depending on the needs. When it was. Yeah. You'll see toothbrushes,
prepaid chairs, snacks, the tubs, and you keep going. And even, like, at one point, you'll see paper for the copier. At one point, if there was a lot of additional stuff that was being done, like, for preschool enrollment Yeah. You know, if it's success, it's not just somebody made a few copies upstairs. We take that out of there. Yeah. If it's excessive. And this year, it it was with all the copies that she was making. So keep going. There's a room downstairs. You're gonna see, like, mats. See, the fencing was done, 5,000. Because that sensory room was moved, even paints and things. So I guess I kinda got, you know, pretty flustered when people in the community say, well, that they're not really charging this to preschool. We are. Mean, I we're we're really charging it to preschool. It's really coming out of there. And then some. This year, there was this windfall, 18,000 that they sent us to better your preschool program. We did a lot of those things with you. The whole school benefits from that. And so I'm certainly not charging them for
paper clips if they're they're doing these things with that that program. And that's the way it works. But you can clearly see, I hope, tonight that there is a lot of money that comes in there, and all of those expenses are paid. And there's really no way now, Taylor, you can probably go back to the other thing. There's really no way moving forward, especially, because we're gonna have this new thing called the the LGP, and there's gonna be lots of other charges in there. There are gonna be lots of things that take place. There's gonna be lots of expectations for collaborating with the community, and we cannot say, well, we need to charge them electricity.
We're a school one school neighborhood. And so there is plenty in there for us to say we're confident that that this is is sufficient, that this holds its own. All of that money has to be spent on preschool. It can't go the other way around either. We can't take preschool money because it's for other banks. The auditors check those various
they do a lot of they pull a lot of invoices, and they're looking through the detail to make sure that it's charged to preschool.
So the last the last thing on this one, and then we'll take questions, but I know this was important to people before we went into executive. The last thing I will say in addition, and and this will be posted February 7, is that I know that we're going to have to discuss the potential, which I don't I'm not in favor of it, but I'll put it on July's agenda. I know that the town wishes that we could do our budget the way they do. I have not done it that way on purpose because it doesn't benefit the town. And here's what I mean by this. If they said, you know what? Take all your preschool expenses and throw them in your general fund, and then have all the revenue the way we do. I mean, if you guys looked at the town's budget, they say, here's our expenses
minus our revenue, and then they get a bottom line. And at the bottom, they say, hey. This is what we need, and this is what we're gonna tax you on. For us, if we're being fair to the taxpayer because the one thing I do agree with them on, if we could leave preschool separate, make the people that use it pay for it. I I get that, and and I'm not against that. And if at some point we can't do that anymore, then we move it over. But we can't do that right now, and so we have. I want you to understand why sure. If this is what the board wants to do in July, I'll put it on July's agenda. Would love to do it. If we presented our budget the way the town does, it would be to our advantage. We would consider presenting it. Right now, our budget is 4,348,000. So I want you to consider this number. I tried to make this easy. Our estimated preschool expenditures, let's just say, are 450,000.
If we add that in right now, our budget is $4.07 $9.08. Okay? If we presented that budget and we said our budget is 4.798 and then minus revenue from it, we would still say it's the same amount of money. Right? It's the same amount of money. All we need is 4.3, but that number on the top is $4.07. Okay? Flip to the next one. If we did the same thing with capital because I know there were a number of people last night that said, we're not happy with your capital account. That's it. Okay. Sure. Great. Let's take those three big expenditures that we have, the bathroom, you know, know, the other two projects. So we say we're gonna add them in because we know their expenditures this year. $450,000. Let's add it in. Our new budget would be 5.248 with the capital expenses and the preschool. And then we would do it like the town. We would say our expenditures are 5.2
minus the 450,000 that we have coming in in preschool revenue, the grants and the tuition, minus the 450,000 that we have in our capital fund. You heard them say they use fund balances. We're gonna use our fund balance. Right? The bottom line would still be 4.3. However, our actual budget would be 5.2. So when they say you can have 5% like they did this year, we actually would be getting 262,000 and not $2.17 because it would be 5% of a much larger number. Mhmm. So if that I want you guys to ponder this as a board, and I will put it back on in July. Because if that's what the town wants, if the first electman, the two boards say, yes, we do want you to present it, throw all your expenditures in and then minus your revenue, understand our budget's not gonna say 4.3. Our budget's gonna say 5.2 because we're gonna throw in all those things. We're gonna have 5.2, then we're gonna minus the expenditures, and in the end, still be asking them for the different amount. Questions on that? So, like, now with that, how does MBR play into that? Okay. Does anybody not know what MBR is? Okay. We've got a couple faces. MBR is minimum budget requirement.
Minimum budget requirement is the state says, on the backs of children in the school, a town cannot cut you below a certain number. Most of the time, I won't go through the whole formula. Most of the time, it's about what your formula is now, your budget is now. So that's why you never even during bad budget season, you never really see towns in our area go lower than zero because they can't. Because that minimum budget requirement says, this is what you've already established you need to run a school of 250 kids. So hate to break it to you, town of whatever you are, Andover, Hebrew, Barber. You can't cut them to make it less of taxes for the rest of the town. So the minimum budget requirement is usually whatever your budget is.
If that's the case that's a good point, Mike. If that's the case, they would have to start at 5.2 because they don't take into consideration your revenue. Yes. They just look at your budget. They look at your overall budget. So even with a 0% increase then, we would be 5.2. And I don't think it's fair because your revenue and the money in your capital can vary. Just like I don't know if you noticed there was a slide last night. The town, sure, they're coming in at zero, really, after they minus their revenue because they have an increase of revenue. But there was a slide last night that showed, of course, their expenditures go up. They have to pay people, increases, salary increases. I think it was a 130,000. So that is in there despite the fact that that number is lower. So this year, for example, we are putting in there onetime costs for the bathroom, onetime costs for the elevator. So once you have that in there and it's part of your 5.2 next year, if we don't have to fix a bathroom and we don't have to fix an elevator, we immediately have open $450,000,
and we don't have to do anything. So that's why I don't do it because that's not transparent to do that. Mhmm. Okay? So and and and that's why we've always just put into our budget the expenditures for the k six. At some point, who knows? We might have to. I mean, if costs change and stuff, we may have to actually say we gotta move it over. Was that the only one on that? Let's see. Yes. And then go ahead. Okay. Very quickly. But this is gonna be, like it's a 90 there. Very quickly, this is what preschool looks like for us right now. We have four rooms, 15 seats. Unfortunately, two of them, think, have 16 in them. But, ideally, we have four rooms with all of these slots in there. Okay? And we don't turn we don't have a lottery, so we don't turn any Andover family away. Show me the Andover family right there. All of those slots because remember, have to do these without names or anything.
All of those slots are filled with Andover families or AES families. So that's incredible. I know. I see some of them. That's huge. When I started here, Miata, there were two classrooms. Yeah. So the fact that we need 53 slots right now is so amazing to me for our residents and AES family members. Okay? That's what we need. So I know that there have been a few people that have been saying, why you have out of towners? Why would we run that fourth room half empty when I've already told you that every seat in that room is a minimum of $6,000 if we can fill it? And out of towner can't be special education, not that we have anything against that, but that means no extra costs, and they have to be full price. So why do we run that fourth room, which we have to have, with those empty seats in there? Each one of those white squares is worth $6,000. So, of course, we're gonna fill in. Okay? And I will tell you that the advantage of four rooms for us is amazing. You can dilute the number of special education students in one room, making it less difficult to meet those needs. I don't know if anybody has ever had a family member, I have, that has autism. That means that teacher has higher needs. And if you have two in one classroom, it is difficult. If you have three in one classroom, it is difficult. If you can separate them and put one child with exceptional needs in each room, it's a much better environment.
Okay? Taylor, show the yellow one. Thank you. These represent our school readiness and smart start slots. And keep in mind, we've already talked about the fact that not everybody qualifies to fill one of those seats. There is a formula, and, those seats are filled by, that formula. We get $6,000 for each one of those slots, the yellow slots that you see there. We get 6,500 $65,000 for the green slots that you see. The problem is also that not every single one of those colored slots there can be filled by handover kit. So if you go back to the red one, the advantage is some of those slots, because we only get the money, we use it in in most cases. If we can fill them at some point now and in the future with a child that is coming from another town that we also get tuition from, that's more money coming with. So that's something for us to consider. And then the rest of them, we'll talk about afterwards with with what the future would look like. But that's preschool there in in a nutshell. And I know it's difficult for people to understand, so I wish that people would during the course of this next year, especially as we're establishing LGPs. People who are interested, if you wanna be on there, parents, let me know. Because moving forward, it's gonna be really important that the community understand all of this, not just for financial,
but for the future of the school moving forward in terms of the number of classrooms, in terms of the needs, and things like that. Can I I just wanted to add real quick because I've gotten some questions when we say Hebron and Lebanon? Why not Marlborough? Why not Columbia? Why they don't currently receive early start funding. I just wanted to say that it's not that we're neglecting our other friends. You know, we're happy to partner with them, but they would have to decide to, you know, invest in that same. So just want to clarify we're not leaving Marlboro out in this partnership, but Lebanon made the most sense. Columbia, Marlboro, and Bullen are other kind of partners we typically look at, but they don't participate right now in early start. Thank you. Mhmm. Does anyone have questions on this stuff?
I have a couple, if you don't mind. Yeah. So
with the early start funding, is that all state dollars, or is that funded from the federal
lower? Do you know any of that? We receive it from the state. However, I'm sure the state receives some of their funding from federal. But if your follow-up question is do we have to worry if we're gonna get it in the next two years since we've already been told to us that we will receive it in the next two years. Two years, we're good. Yep. After that We have no idea. Yeah. We have no idea. I believe their goal is universal preschool moving forward. So that's gonna look different in two years. But if it's universal, they're going to make sure that every child has a spot. That's their goal. The LGP will also be funded.
Right. So they are gonna fund that group separately than our grant. Right now, we have to pay a portion of that grant for EastCon, as Val said. Now the state will fund your LGP to do the work. Right. Those parenting parents. That's that's great too, and that's what partnering does for us is it increases to the funds so that we can do more outreach and work for the families.
So then that leads me into my next question. Can you speak to, call it, Andover, Lebanon Mhmm. The other boards and the boards in the state? What is the authority of a board versus the LGP? And what's the distinction?
No particular answer to that yet because I was at three meetings last week, and someone even said, well, we know what our school readiness, meetings look like now. What will they look like moving forward? They said we don't know. I can tell you this. It makes sense for us to partner with our RESC, which is Eastcon. There are eight RESCs, areas in the state, and we plan on making sure that there's a lot of collaboration with the rest because the rest will already overseas to subcapacity and assists all of our area partners. So there isn't an answer yet on that one, but I would say that the rest will be instrumental in helping us figure out what that looks like. Okay. Would do you know if boards would be allowed to add classrooms or the or be creative Oh, you're absolutely you're still gonna have your local authority. This board of ed will still have the local authority over our preschool program.
They monitor our quality. School readiness comes in and make sure we're running a high quality program, make sure we get our NIAC accreditation. You have to have that to receive this funding, so it's more about quality. Right.
Sure availability. Yep. Quality and availability are what they're trying to do, not to take over, you know, the oversight of it. They wanna make sure that there's quality and availability Okay. And funding.
And the last question I had, I agree with that not nickel and diming, but when we see the pre k utilize PE, art, music, That I see is a potential part you could allocate. Is there a very large expenses to the pre K? How how is that an additional expense to what we pay now? That's a fair no. That's that's why I wanted to get your thoughts on that. It's Yeah. So it's not an your your view is not an additional expense.
Yep. I will tell you additional expenses. So for example, we have, currently, a halftime speech teacher, and we share them with another temp. Last this past year, preschool is one of those grades where you do have a large number of kids that wind up needing, intervention and or initial consultations. We, this last year, we had all of that additional service time put with another provider and charged to preschool because it was not part of what would normally be part of our budget. So But it would fall under special ed for
well, I guess depending upon who the kid was. Right? Well, they weren't special ed yet. Right. But those initial right. But, yeah, we took it we took it from the grant. Fair enough. So so, Eric, to answer your question, if we found that there was in fact something that was causing us more money because of preschool alone, it goes to preschool. But they're absolutely the children of the school, they're absolutely entitled to use what we have here. I mean, if someone said, you know what? Because of preschool solely, we have to add a teacher. Obviously, that would wind up in in preschool. How about a day on to your person's week, though?
That hasn't happened yet. But if it did happen, certainly, would. K.
But I think, like, there in that, right, when you talk about that and where the size of our school is, some of that goes back to, like, if you're talking cost per pupil, why is it more expensive to run a school for 200 kids on a per pupil cost than what it right? Because you still have to have that teacher. It's still sunk cost. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yes. I do have one question. Would it be possible to include this page in, like, in the financials on a monthly basis? Absolutely. I think for a lot of people, myself included, that just makes everything more open and honest clear. Yeah. And clear. Yeah. No problem.
That was a very good presentation. Thank you. You lost him. K. Okay. So
moving on. Our next step is executive session to discuss legal matter, personnel matter, and a student matter.
Make a make a motion to enter into executive session. K. It is 08:38. You don't turn Do have to invite anybody? All the things. Okay.
So we'll invite the superintendent, the principal, and the financial. I sent
Yep. And we're back as far as I can tell. And there's nobody in the waiting room in case you're wondering. Okay. No worries. So we're we're back on. We're out of executive session? Okay. Thanks, Kayla. Nope. There's nobody in there, so we're good.
Yeah. In terms of the bathroom project and an update, so Fuss and O'Neil has still been working on that. We have the plans, which I don't they're not posted online. Right? But we do have, like, hard copies of the plans. And so in terms of where we go from here, basically, as a board, we need to look through them. I know that Eric sent an email earlier today. He did reach out on his own accord and have someone else look at these. Correct? Yes. Yep. And they gave their feedback and had some questions, which I think it would be appropriate for us to ask Fuss and Oleo those questions on a move forward. And then the next step in the process is
going up for bidding. Correct? Yep.
Along with those questions, Kate, two things I'd like to figure out as a board. First, just cost estimates given the economy if we need to budget more for this than what was estimated. I I've been saying 400,000
in my head, and I think originally it was, what, $2.02 50 to 300. Okay. So I yes. I would I mean Yep. I don't think we publicly said that, but, yeah, in my head, I've Mhmm. Increased it dramatically.
What did we communicate to the board of finance that we anticipated your order? We didn't. Or did we need I we didn't. Okay. I think we told them around 300,000.
Yeah. We could kinda give them a ballpark. Was the ballpark plus the original cost of paying Fuss and O'Neil. Right. Okay. And
then I know that the RFP creation is not within under the scope of the fussedonia contract. So Yeah. Like, guide the direction of it. Okay. Yep.
Whether you want to draft it, that's what that's another concern I have. Just to watch out how we how we do a good RFP. What happened at the journey?
I was thinking Plus and O'Neill does handle that. They don't handle the RFP for They handle the process? They handle the, like, administrative
process. Like, the bids that come in and everything, but to draft up the yeah. I don't think they do that. Like, the scope of work and what we're looking for. I think they just review the bids that come in. I think that's what they do. But I agree. Yeah. What I saw. And Yep. Yeah.
K. Is there enough money in the capital improvement money that we put aside to cover the increase if it were to be 400,000? Yeah. Yeah. So
Based on the the surplus that we had and we put in there, we're we're Yeah. We got We got it. We have it for that. Yeah. I don't know. We're not gonna have it for that in a parking lot. No. Which is why we have to push ahead with that yet. Right. I think this is more important. This is way more important than a parking lot. Yeah. It's probably the most major capital improvement project that the school's ever undergone aside from an addition. Yeah. And the addition. Yeah. So I I guess
I honestly, in terms of where we call it, like, bathroom project update, I feel like I feel like we need to call it something different. It's it's because I I don't I wanna make sure that people in our town understand, and that's why, right, like, it's it's more than just a restroom. Like, it's a major plumbing renovation.
Sorry. I would say it's all at a plumbing renovation. So instead of saying bathroom project, renovation, bathroom renovation Just renovation. It's also renovation. Bathrooms. You could add in the. It's yeah.
What is it? Four. Right? Or is it three? Three.
Three singles and the boys in the cross? Yeah. Let me look at that. Add to renovation, would you? Yeah. Yeah. Renovation project update.
Why don't you add the term major if you wanna call it major? Oh, well Yeah. Yeah. So so
Yeah. Do you wanna do anything tonight on it? You wanna just wait till June? I don't think so. I mean, I think just we'll schedule to have them come in June. The point that you do have to do is to just
with this, layout is to just get the progression to move forward, with what we had set up as the timeline. That's all we can do. Right. Can
you share the timeline again? Yeah. Well, no. They had I don't have It was it was laid out in the original. Right. I I Okay. And we're and we're off from that now because, like, we didn't meet for a month because of the town meeting. So Right. So Can we advance it tonight?
Well, you could vote to say we are continuing to move forward with the original timeline, but Kate and I will have to meet with them again just like we did for them to create this. And if the decision that needs to be made comes out of that meeting, then we're gonna have to bring that to you guys just like we did with this and
ask them to come to the. Yeah. Can we do a special meeting to keep this going?
Don't have a problem with that. I mean, I would I guess I would hope that we could combine that with the amendment to, yeah, the solar. Yeah. I feel we're gonna get behind. Yeah. Yeah.
And and I guess my other question then is, is there anyone on the board that feels more comfortable with this stuff that would like to help facilitate it moving forward or be part of the meeting? I'll take it then when somebody else wants it.
Don't hold on. Jerry will invite you to those meetings in addition to the two of us. Thank you. I I would appreciate it because it's just I mean, I can look at this stuff, it's very much not in my wheelhouse if at all.
If it the the it's the, like, RFP proposal process that you need help with? Or We're not there yet, but are you volunteering? Well, I Yeah.
When we get to that, is seriously, when we get to that, is that something that you'd like to be able to tag into?
I have knowledge of that stuff from what I do for a living.
Thanks Hey. For volunteering. We're not there yet, but when we do, I certainly will not schedule that meeting without calling and seeing what your availability is. Okay? Yeah. That's that's my fear is my availability these days a little Okay. I will certainly agree when we get to that meeting. Mhmm. I will certainly make sure that it's not just Kate and I that we reach out to you and see what you're available for. Okay? That was in the email. So send me one that said if you want a copy of it, you can Oh, okay. I can help with the RFP process. It was attached to that. So let's
let me write myself open up. You just send it again. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. Okay. I think I may need one. That's something that's in my wheelhouse. Okay. Can help you with the RFP. You
can look at it. You got me one second? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Solar project update. So the town attorney has been working with the school attorney in regards to modifying the amendment that was brought up after we had the solar town meeting, and they are currently presenting that to GreenSky's. We're waiting to hear a reply from GreenSky's as to what a modified amendment would look like. Okay. And once we have that, then we would call a special meeting in order to vote on that amendment and passing it. If they don't come to an agreement or they don't come to an agreement with us, then it's gone. If they don't have to do an agreement with us, then I would imagine the project would be gone. Yes.
She wants to go. And then
does anyone have any other questions on solar? No. So we're just waiting to hear back? Yes. Basically. Currently, we're waiting to hear back from GreenSky. So you'll provide an update. Was sent on May 6 Okay. To them. So So you'll just let us know. Or okay. Yeah. Cool. I would say, like, we can by by email when we find out, and then we can set up with something different to go from there. And we could just do that special meeting via Zoom? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. In terms of surplus expected from this year's budget, and Valerie had some additional
I had one additional. So right now, as Terry mentioned, we're looking at somewhere about a, a little bit more, you know, depending on where we wind up at the end of the year, but we have one request of the board. We are about between last year and this year, about $900 into repairing a 30 year old mower. And Scott has requested, rightfully so, that, we bring to the board the possibility of replacing it because $900 every time we have to repair this thing, it's just not working. It needs to retire. And, we did look at having a lawn service, as we said, and it's about $1,200 every two weeks to have them come do that. This WH Pruce was the best place. We actually have used them for picks before. They're in bulk in. And there's three quotes in here for the scag mower. There was one at $15.07 99, one at $14.06 24, and one at $13.02 59, in terms of, the mower that the scag mower that we would need, and there's pictures in here as well. On that?
Yeah. I'm gonna do it. And then 13?
Yeah. Is there any advantage for him in getting something larger than that? Well, his request was the $14.13000
dollar one. Okay. So the middle one in there. That was the request because of what we have here. But that's a brand new one? It is. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And on the last page in there, actually, the guy from the company, I said, I don't really know mowers that well. I know he's working with Scott. Can you just give me some information? And so that last page says, the present mowers in 1995 model. The mower deck material is getting very thin with holes starting to surface, which could cause an unsafe condition if an object can penetrate the deck. Some parts are starting to become unavailable. They had to locate the hydro filter adapter from out of state and have it shipped in for our last repair. Other parts are no longer available. So, you know, it was their recommendation from the very beginning even so we had it repaired earlier this year for us to replace it earlier this year. We said we can't, and then we had to wind up paying to repair it. So
I make a motion to allow the board, the school to buy a lawn new lawnmower from Pruce up to $14,000. 14 Shannon, it's $14.06 24. Up to 15. Up to $15,000. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. Second.
How many other quotes did you get, Gail? Two. From from different companies? Or Yes.
Yeah. There should be two more. They're on the other pages. Up to $50,000. Got it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Anyone have any other questions?
When would we get like, how soon would we get it? Is it in stock? Or If it's not, it would be fairly soon.
You know? So if they had to ship it over fairly soon, it's not a long wait time. On this. Yeah. It's not a long wait time. I would I would tell Scott tomorrow that he could order it. Okay. Okay. All in favor. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Brie?
Sorry. I said I, but Shannon is just louder than me. So Betcha.
Anyone opposed? Okay. Eric, you okay? Oh, yeah. And I Okay. Yeah. Okay. K. Mike was louder than me. Can I do Scott look happy? I don't know. Okay. And then audit update.
So, underneath the audit update, I've given you guys a packet here, things to consider. Again, this is the draft. When we do have the final, it will appear on the town website and or ours. It's this one here. Everybody have one here? Yep. Okay. So in going through it, there's good news, and then there's okay. Is the audit. Remember, for last school year, as I mentioned earlier in this evening, that doesn't usually get done until February and March. So this is the draft that we received April 23. There are two kinds of findings to an audit that can be found. There is a material weakness, and then there's a significant deficiency. And ironically, it doesn't sound right, but material is more significant than significant deficiency. So if you think about material weakness being like a felony, the significant deficiency would more be like a dis misdemeanor. Okay? So that's the way I relate to those. So findings for the 2024, number one there, material weakness and internal controls over financial reporting, and it was the reconciliation of the town to the school district's general ledger.
It was reported as material weakness the prior year, so this is of concern to our auditor. There are still accounts on the town's general ledger that are related to us that are incomplete. To resolve that, we have proposed adjustments to eliminate certain balances such as cash, accounts available, and accrued liabilities that were previously reported on the town's ledger but pertained to the school district. So moving forward, and this I've included in here for you guys is an email from the auditor himself. Moving forward, I recommend that the town only record activity related to its general fund appropriation, to the AES reserve fund, and to the AES capital fund. All other school district related activities should be tracked through a dedicated interfund account. At the year's end, the trial the town's trial balance can then be combined with and reconciled against the school district's trial balance. For instance, when the town's transfer funds to the school district's cash account, the entry the entry would be a credit to the cash and a debit to the AES. At the year's end, the AES expenditure account would then be reconciled. So what they're saying is they do only need to record their own son their own, accounts during the course of the year. Yes. We are still gonna give them the monthly reports that they've been asking for, but they say that it's the year end that's the important time for them to reconcile. So we will give them the same thing that we give to the board of finance monthly,
but that there is no reconciliation. And he says it's actually getting confusing to try to do anything with that during the course of the year. It should be done at the end of the year. Finding number two was significant, which, again, is less than material. This one also was financials for bank and interfund. They were not material as they were in the prior year. This was material weakness the year before. There were some issues with the balancing of the cash and interfund accounts on our ledger the year before, the '23. As a result, he says this is the one that we got dinged on in the '23. And you can see here, they said they have lowered the severity from a material weakness just to a significant deficiency. The primary issue was the monthly bank reconciliations that needed to be updated for any subsequent postings that would have an impact on reconciliations.
And he puts in here that it did not have a significant impact on any of the revenues and expenditures. So in other words, if we the year before we got dinged, and they said the reporting that was being done with our new admin software system, if you guys remember right, it wasn't doing so well. It was able to be fixed, but this year, there's still a couple of small things that still need to be worked up. So they've lowered that to, you know, Should the twenty twenty four zero three there, I just wanted to you guys to know because it looks bad for us if it was all of our grants that are in e grants, but it says major federal award program that they had a late filing that was, an annual compliance report for the coronavirus. This is not our grants. So this major thing here has nothing to do with any of our grants. I can tell you what it has to do with. It's later on in this report, and it has to do with the 750,000 that they got, in that, grant to build the senior center, their second tranche. Their money is different than ours. You know how we get it as a reimbursement? We have to spend it, get the receipts, put our receipts in, then they give us the money back. That is not how it works on the town side. So their reporting,
they do at the end of their grants. So this does not affect us one single bit. Okay? Okay. So and then on the next page there on the top, it just says, oh, by the way, last year, you had had a second finding that was completely fixed. And so the only one that pertains to the school was the, was the one that said you're better than last year, but, we're still we're not giving you an A plus. We're giving you a B plus and keep working on it. We're gonna get an A plus this year. So, so anything that is cons of concern to the school, because remember, the audit is the two of us together. I highlight it for you in here, so that as you guys read through this draft, you know what pertains specifically to us and not to us. Okay? So that way, you're okay. Yeah. And I think that was it in there. So happy reading. And if you wind up with any questions,
please just let me know. I'm just This has to do with the order. Correct?
That has to do with our grants. Uh-huh. So yes. So what I gave you guys in front of us was actually the one before it with our surplus, Jerry. Yep. What you're looking at on this, the board, what you're looking at is right off of v grants, 2022 to 2023, that's a list of all the available grants that we had. That was what we were able to offset because I know some people said, where did the surplus come from in previous years? And highlighted in yellow were the things that offset general funds. Got it. Okay? So the one grant there that said, CT SEDS implementation stipend Mhmm. That was an unexpected grant for 10,000. And they said, here's to train your, people on this, new CT SEDS, and you can use it for their salary. So 5,000 of it went toward Diane's salary, 5,000 of it went toward Holly's salary, the special ed director, and that opened up 10,000 in the budget. The next one down, title $410,000. That we offset a salary on that. So this way, you guys as a board can see when we down there how we wound up with extra. The one on the next page, I highlighted for you. It says $23.24.
Same thing. There were one, two, three, four extra grants given to us in 2324. Our ESSER for the right to read for 38,000. That was federal. The TSA of 5,000, which was money to give to, paraeducators for extra support Mhmm. Title four, and then school readiness competitive enrollment based, which was an extra 10,240. So the ones in yellow offset the budget. '24, you'll see that list is getting shorter. You'll see title one, IDEA. I made notes for the board as to if it was federal or not. And the reason why I made notes is if it was federal or not is because some of you have asked me with the changes to what's going on with the federal government right now. Do we or do we not anticipate, grants from the federal? And you can see as you move to 25, 26, which is the last of those blue pages, there's only two there. All of the federal dollars are gone. Okay? So if you see that, they're all gone. Only the ARPA School Mental Health grant and the ARPA Mental Health support is still on that list. So moving forward, it's a shame that $1.75 is cut right now moving forward because this page shows you we only have two grants. Okay? And then the last one does not appear in egrants because the grant award for the re grant for the twenty three three twenty six that we opened up, and put Caraboni in.
That is a federal grant on a different system. Okay? We are not guaranteed that moving forward either, but that this year did pay 23,000 of her salary. So Thank you. You're welcome.
And the only last thing that I will tell you, and I'll pass this out now, but when we get before as you adjourn, when we talk about items for the next meeting, we did get the other kind of audit, which was our policy audit. Remember, we paid Cave to do a policy audit. It's finished. It's very thick, so you'll have to read it over the next month. And there's lots for those of you, Brie and Shannon, I will get a copy of this to you. This is hot off the presses within the last twenty four hours. Spend more over there. It's very fancy. It's very fancy, and there's a ton of stuff in here and these great checklists that tell us exactly what to do. Don't get nervous because this will be a six month or more project where at every board meeting, it'll say policies, and we will be working to correct
any of the things in here that they tell us we need to fix. Replaces the notebook. This does replace the notebooks. Mhmm. Okay? So that's it.
That's it. Right. Now they're reading So this is just telling us what we need to do, then going forward, that's what we'll do. It's right. This set that recommendation. Okay. So they've done the audit, and now we go forward. Okay. And it'll tell you how many mandatory ones we're missing, How many need to be reviewed and reviewed? Like Parts. Oh, I saw that. Beautiful. It is pretty organized. Yeah. Good.
K. So I think we're up to, like, comments from the public on agenda items. And do you have any comments?
No. Did we do did we do the preschool changes? Preschool changes.
We did it before. We did that before then. Did.
But, Shannon, I think because of the time, any of the things that don't pertain to the next couple months, I'll add them to June because it's strategic long term planning. It's not for right now. Okay. Absolutely. That conversation. I'll put it on June and July and keep it on there. Okay? K.
We expect it to be a twelve hour meeting. No. We're not talking. The
only the only other thing in terms of action items that I have a question about is I feel like we should start talking about scheduling our board retreat slash CE for the summer and or summer meetings and when when are people not available slash available, I'd really like to try to make sure that we are all able to be participating in that. Can we do a doodle?
Can we do a what? A doodle? What's a doodle. A doodle that you step and say You're doing a doodle. Sorry. Here. Do a doodle. Here. 10 times. Apparently, he doesn't know what a doodle is, and that was hilarious. Straws years old. Never heard of It's like Sure. It'll it'll be a list of dates and times. Yeah. And you check what works, what does not work, and then work it all together, and it magically tells you what the voice on this. Sounds good. Okay.
Doodle it up. Doodle. K. Softboard can be. And then our our next regular board meeting is June 11. Yep. So what's on the agenda for June 11? What are we gonna talk about? I know the policies.
Yeah. So policy audit. Preschool and long term planning. Preschool long term planning. Where the budget is. Final expenditures. Final expenditures,
what we need to do. And solar and renovation. Yours budget. So final expenditures, budget, and the the bathroom reno or the major renovation? Yep. Yeah.
Major renovation, solar. It's a major. It's a major. And final expenditures for transfer. Okay. Yeah.
And then I would just say anticipate that we would have regular board meetings for July and August. With the doodle. With the doodle. No. That's for That's for retreat.
Oh. I thought we're doing the meetings with the adults. That's exciting. I'm excited. I'm excited. Okay. One last question. One last question. Would you want a special meeting to meet new staff for the fall, or would you like to do that in August? What do you recommend? It's up to you guys. It's however you feel about with doing that at, like, a regular meeting. Okay. Great. Yes. I mean, the summer's short enough.
You know? I just wanted to see what you guys No. Regular meeting, I think, is is fine. Can I meet Celeste and say motion to adjourn? Shannon, go for it. I'll give it to you, Shannon. What'll she do again? Bye. Alright. Bye. 936. Bye. Woo hoo. You're beautiful.