Meeting transcript
Board of Finance- Special Meeting Budget Workshop
March 29, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay, thank you everybody. I'd like to call to order this Town of Andover Board of Finance meeting. This is a special budget workshop meeting on 03/29/2023. The meeting agenda has been posted and as a special meeting it cannot be changed just to make a note for that. I'll call the meeting to order and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Betty, I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, God, indivisible,
liberty and liberty justice all. Okay, thank you. Just a couple of comments about our meeting tonight. I see we do have members of the public, so we have two opportunities for public speak. We have three items on our agenda tonight and they are the only three items we will generally cover, although we may do some budget discussions in general. We have a CIP request from the Board of Fire Commissioners for a vehicle. We have the request for the Economic Development Commission for a sign, and we also have a presentation from the AES district on their proposed budget. So just a couple of things. Just as a reminder, just kind of protocol and per the charter, we'll be talking about each of these items in turn. The AES budget item, as per the charter, the Board of Finance does not have any opportunity or authority or anything to change this budget. This is a recommendation from the AES school board,
so it will pass on to the budget as as indicated per the charter. So our job is to review ask questions if we have any comment on it. Michael But we do not change the budget at this meeting that's goes on to the town meeting so just a reminder about that that this isn't you know, there isn't any opportunity for the Board of Finance to make adjustments either up or down or, to the to that budget number. Okay, I guess that's it for now, at least for housekeeping. If you do, want to make public comments, please try to make them fairly brief and to the point. We're all volunteers here and, especially the Board of Finance and I know for everyone else on the boards it's it's been a it's been a busy time and we have a lot more work to do, so I'd like to keep this brief and to the point. So just ask you to keep that in mind. I think that's about it. Eric, do you want to go around and invite any public comment? Sure. First up on my list, Shannon Loudoun.
I like being first. I'm here solely to support our superintendent and the AES budget and greatly appreciate the Board of Finance's work and now that you've mentioned that that also is on your agenda I was at the CIP meeting where we heard from the economic development committee and highly believe that we need to get a sign to welcome people to Andover. Thanks very much. Thank you, Shannon. Next up, Jerry Cremay and Cremay.
I just wanna say thank you to Mark and the Board of Finance. You have a big job and a job that takes a lot of your time. And I know we're all volunteers and I thank you for your time that you do invest in our town and the work you do. I'm here to support the Board of Education budget and Valerie. And that's it. Hey, thanks, Jerry. Valerie Smith or Bruno. Sorry. Smith. She's down on this. Yeah.
Hi. Nope. Nothing for public comments. You'll hear enough of me in a bit. Okay. Terry Smith.
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm just here to sit in on the Board of Finance in case there's any questions regarding the budget that was developed by the Board of Education. And I appreciate all the members that are on here tonight supporting this. Thank you. Chris Bernard.
Good evening. I'd like many others, I'm here to support Valerie and the AES budget. That's all I have. Mike Beckworth or Beckwith. Sorry.
Similarly, I'm just here to support Valerie and the AES budget tonight. Thank you.
Okay. There's a note from Steve Fuss that his mic is not working, but he has no comment. So last up, Ron Mike.
Think Ron will probably have an opportunity to voice anything later if he's away from the mic or it's not working.
And last Celeste Willard is just joining us now. Celeste, do you have any public comment?
Hi, good evening. No, just here in support of the Board of Education's budget. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mark, unless I missed somebody
other than Board of Finance members, that's it. That's what I see too. All right, very good. Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item three is the budget workshop for fiscal year twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four. We have three main items we want to cover today. The first is the CIP request from the Board of Fire Commissioners for a squad rescue pumper. The Board of Finance, you do have an explanation of the request in front of you. I guess the first thing I do want to say is, you know, and this is probably with the fire commissioner, Schogels, whoever's going to be on, there's anybody on the fire commissioner, we do have brown mic here from the fire department, is that it's it's become a little problematic during the budget season that things are changing
beyond the scope of what the process is supposed to be. And there may have been reasons this request came in late, but really we're supposed to have a proposed budget expenditures all in one hundred and twenty days before the end of the fiscal year, which would have been right about the beginning of March. You're not alone. We've got some other requests that could have come in late, but it's I just want to make that comment because it's important and I want everybody to understand that technically the Board of Finance doesn't need to entertain any requests beyond that date, So it's we do want to start buttoning up this process, making it a little tighter. And again, there may have been reasons and the Board of Finance wants to be flexible. We want to do what's in the best interest of the town. But as mentioned here before, we're all volunteers, so we want to make sure that it works efficiently and effectively for everybody. So I just want to make that statement. I think next year we'll be trumpeting a little louder and a little earlier that we need everybody to get their budgets in and prepared on time and with care and thought. With that promise, I guess I'll turn it over to Ron. Mike, do you want to kind of talk to us about your the need for the equipment here and where you guys want to go with this?
So Mark, two minutes. Ron, Mike said that they can't get their microphone to work. I'm gonna put them up on my screen as fast as they can walk over here from the fire department. Okay. So if you can hang tight for about two minutes, I'll go let them in. Yeah, we can. I think we can.
Honestly, I just flipped the agenda items, but, we'd be in violation of, state and other regulations. So it's, I feel pretty strongly about following those.
It looks like the lease option payments went up a little bit since the CIP meeting we knew we had slightly updated figures when we talked about it then I was just looking at the ten year figure. It looks like 117 a year, and I think it was 114 when we did the CIP. I mean, the vote on the CIP to recommend had some play in it. We deliberately went a little high So because we knew. So I'm not surprised to see that, but it's just another example of Yeah. The minute to minute, changes.
Things tend not to go down in today's day. No. I also want to make the point, Rob, I don't know if you guys on the CIP made any specific recommendations about financing options or etc, but in this, and for the Board of Finance anybody following along on their packet there's a leasing proposal on page three of the packet that does have the various costs per year based on a seven ten or fifteen year lease. All things being equal, just off the top of my head, I thought, well, it's not that much more to go for the fifteen year lease. But I started reading the details and note that the interest rates are only fixed for the seven and ten year options. The fifteen year option gives them an opportunity after seven years to adjust the interest rate I'm going to guess it's not going to go down so. I just want to kind of point that out for the benefit of the board and anybody else who's following along that that makes me very nervous so. At least I can almost guarantee it would go up.
Hi Sean cool will fire Commission. Finally made it. Hey,
Okay. So thanks for joining today. We just wanted to give you guys an opportunity to could you hear us when you were out?
I could hear you but we just ran across the parking lot to get the town hall. Yeah, mic working. Okay. Yeah,
well you know you heard my spiel about trying to make sure we get the budget going in a timely manner. Yeah, so the other thing I was just commenting on was that the Rob was talking about the numbers having gone up slightly from the CIP meeting and I was commenting on the fact that the interest rates stated here are only fixed for the seven and ten year leasing options. You read the details it says that after a fifteen year option or anything greater than ten years upon the receipt of the seventh payment the payments can be adjusted based on an index to be determined at issuance. So there may not be apples to apples comparison there. So at any rate, just that was the summary of what we were talking about. If you want to go ahead and kind of give us the overview, what you guys are looking for, what you think, why you think it's necessary and what you hope to accomplish with this.
Okay. Well, the fire department had developed a ten year plan to replace larger items. On the ten year plan was to replace two of our oldest pieces, our heavy rescue, which is 25 year old, and our oldest pumper, which is 32 years old. So we're we're looking to take those two vehicles and combine it into one vehicle, is basically the plan. I think it would serve the town better because, you know, you got with less and less volunteers, you're able to put everything into one vehicle, go out on the street, it's gonna be able to, fight fires, go to car accidents with the extrication tools, it'll have hazmat equipment on it. It'll be an all around vehicle. And by getting rid of the two older ones, you know, maintenance costs that go down, insurance, know, items like that. So that's kind of the overview. I had sent something out to everybody. I don't know who got it or who didn't.
We did, yeah, I mean I think we think we have in our packets, have the kind of the explanation of the reason you want to make the purchase, there's a leasing proposal here as well as a ten year capital projection for the Fire Commission. So I guess first off, you stated some pretty long ages for the two pieces of equipment. Are they in bad shape or is that just I mean what's what are we? What are you looking at? Why are you replacing them? You gotta you gotta make that that case I think so.
Well, mean, obviously as anything gets older, the oldest pumpers already been sent out ten years ago, has been refurbished. Maintenance wise, I couldn't really, I don't have a lot of numbers maintenance wise, but obviously the maintenance costs are starting to go up on both vehicles because they're older. The heavy rescue at one point actually had a fire in it, it was repaired. And so it's just as they get older, I'm just afraid or the commission's afraid that we could have a catastrophic failure with some, with one of these pieces that we may need at some point. We've been, you know, moving them along and things have been going okay, but again, the cost to repair and the cost of the upkeep is getting higher and higher.
Okay, I guess I'll just I didn't want to go ahead. I'll go ahead and open it up to the rest of the board too for questions. I just thought one that one was an obvious one. The other one I have too and I see Rob and Joanne both have their hands up just you know is there residual value in the two older pieces of equipment also?
So talking with manufacturers if we could trade the two pieces in may get $20,000 for both of them. There's a little bit, but not a lot. Okay. Yeah. The prices and everything have just gone haywire. I mean, not in our favor.
The the one thing I just wanted to really quickly mention as a kind of a point of information that we talk about at CIP was the lead time to construction of this vehicle. Right. Right. Wasn't didn't you say about two years before we actually get it? Yeah. The the lead time is anywhere from eighteen months to three years, depending on who would get to bid.
So these these vehicles are going to be around for another two to three years.
And I I think that speaks to the issue of, you know, the the 32 year old machine, the 25 year old machine. They're working now, but we have to have confidence that even if we pull the trigger on this and put this in the budget, that two years from now, they're still functioning. I think that was part of the reason for the late push.
That's as I remember it from the CIP meeting. That's all. Yeah. And part well, part of the late push too was trying to get people to actually give us figures. And it's been like pulling teeth with these manufacturers because well, in their defense, they have towns that are spending money. They have purchase orders that they're going out to bid, and they took a little bit more priority than we did. So I was able to get some stuff from people, but, you know, they're they will get to us when they get to us, basically.
Well, when would the first, and, you know, subsequent payments be due?
Right. I believe in 2024 it would start, well depending on when we ordered it, but it's usually a year after you order from the way I understood it. You make the first payment a year after you order. Right, and something also to keep in mind for everybody, I know we talked about CI, I brought it up, even if we sign a contract, there's not a lock in price, if they have updates or they have a price increase, they're gonna pass it on to the customers until the vehicle's not paid for until they have their check-in hand. So that's another issue that we have.
Mark, that was a question I was gonna ask him because I saw in here that the first payment isn't even due until August 2024. So I'm just curious when we're when we would be starting the budget for it. And I totally understand the need. I appreciate you being here tonight to explain the the need with the two old trucks versus getting the new. I forgot the word, but whatever. However you described it, it makes sense with less and less volunteers using one truck to go out there. You know, I kind of was a person that brought up the planning and and why we hadn't heard about it first, you know, if it, I noticed that a couple of the CIP meetings had been canceled. It hadn't been on our radar and that. It was a bit of a, you know, a bit of a big thing to hear this coming now.
So in all to me, I took over for Kurt Dowling. So Oh, yeah. I'm kinda stepping into this a little blind here. So I'm trying to do the best I can for you guys. I don't I don't know what Kurt had talked about because obviously I didn't wasn't able to attend some of the meetings and I had never had a chance to talk. So Yeah. Alright. That's a good point.
Point. Kurt wasn't well for a bit before. Yeah. And we had he hadn't mentioned it hadn't attended the board of finance meetings for a while. Okay. But it sounds like Rob has good knowledge of it, which is great, you know, and, and he's willing to speak to it but it hadn't come up in any of just I being think it's a thing that's a need in the town, that's not my agenda at all. So since everyone's here and we're discussing it, we might as well bring up a couple points.
I was just wondering, and I don't know if anybody knows this that's on right now, but you talked about the price could go up. And I'm sorry. I don't know your name from the fire department. I'm sorry. Sean Cole. Sean, Bills and Roachers. So you've talked about how the price could go up until it's paid for it. If you were to start making payments, I'm just hypothetically now, does that lock in the price? Or can it still go up until the price is paid in full?
No. Just wanna lock in the price. So say we say you you guys decided to go with the financing option and you financed it and they cut a check the day after we ordered it, the price is locked. Okay.
But if we don't have to paying the first bill here till August of next year, then it could be variable
until we actually cut a check. It could yes. It could be. So talking to the manufacturers, basically, they're saying is any price increase is gonna be passed on. And this is all three of them, not just the one we got the price from. And so to put this in perspective also, the fire department with the ambulance billing budget has gone out to price ambulances. And they are getting prices between 350,000 and $375,000 for an ambulance. And it's the same idea until that vehicle is paid for, it's the price could vary and it's only gonna go up. Other questions from the board of finance?
Do, but not for Sean. I was trying to remember if anybody knew off the top of their head what we actually have in the equipment fund. Yeah, was just looking at that so that in the budget and I was going to ask the question to Eric or.
Just kind of what the mechanism is here, I mean we've got $100,000 in the proposed budget for the fire engine fund tanker fund. And we've had 80,000 or 60,080 thousand last year, sixty thousand years before. So I presume that the disbursement would largely come from this fund, at least initially.
I would think so until we ran it dry. The issue I think was that we don't have 915,000 in there.
Right. But you have a lease option, right? And if you can fund it at a 100,000 this year and you know, it's gonna, you know maybe we cover the first payment and then you we would have to go up to 120 or something every subsequent year to cover potentially to cover the financing options.
That sounds right to me. But it might it's just a it might behoove us to think about how much we put aside into that fund this year. Even if we we're thinking, okay. The let's say we do this or we agree that this is the plan and we're not gonna make a actual payment on this truck until August 2024. It might make sense to say, well, maybe we ought to adjust that 100 that we have in the budget right now up a bit to, you know, when we have a budget year that's looking pretty good. That's just a thought that occurred to me but yeah I don't think this has budgetary impact directly on this year's budget.
Potentially if the if the payment isn't actually executed into August 2024 but again that then that Trump said that might subject us to price increases and you know anybody who's living in the world, especially in business costs of equipment is the last couple of years knows that things aren't going down. Joanne you raise your hand, do you have a question.
Sorry computer, I just wanted if Sean is still there, I just, you know, whenever we discuss it and decide, and we know it's probably not gonna affect the budget this year, have they decided, have they given enough time to deciding the exact truck that they want since it's such a large purchase? I mean, there any more thought or scouting around to do before
making that decision? Yep. I'm sorry. The so I I did a request for proposal. I tried to get three prices for you guys, you know, for everybody to look at. Like I said, I got it from the one that the other two are working on it and I probably get it not long after you, decision is made, you know, yay or nay. But also, I was just doing that, obviously, for the budget. You know, I'm I'm figuring that it's gonna have to officially go out to bid, you know, once everything's passed and approved. Yep.
Which I think may buy, may even buy us a little bit extra. I, you know, I don't know, you know, may give us a little bit better price at that point when more people are Yeah.
I think I was even meaning just the truck itself. You've already determined that you think this is the best vehicle to purchase for the town. You know that for the need that I mean, I know the pricing we're going to have to wait for exact, but you know if we're making such a large purchase, this is what you've determined would really
and you made a good point, I, you know, I listened, so yeah. Yeah, no, I have to give kudos to the, committee that built these specs. They, they went through both vehicles, are so many older members in the fire department, They sat down, they've had a lot of experience. They actually went to surrounding towns and looked at vehicles, to compare, trying to figure out will this work for us, will this not work for us? And I know they found some interesting things that I never would have thought of. And then they said they spent quite a few months putting these specifications together for this truck. So I think this truck is really would serve the town well and, you know, like we're keeping these vehicles thirty years now. So, you know, looking at it like a, at least a thirty year vehicle out of this. Okay. Thank you. Other questions for Sean, Bill?
Yeah, I just wanna, is there, so there's three different vendors, are they all the same model, but three different vendors or the three different, like is it Ford Chevy or I'm just making names up, international, whatever, or are they all the exact same truck from three different vendors that we're getting prices on? No, you're right with your Ford Chevy Dodge. So they're Pierce Manufacturing,
Emergency One, and, New England Fire apparatus, which is a spark chassis. All good vehicles. We have a firehouse full of Emergency wanted vehicles now. When I was a career fireman, I ran a pierce fire apparatus and tower ladder for quite a few years. So and they're all that's why I reached out for them for prices and and time frame of the build. There might be some mom and pop shops I might be a little leery of, but I mean, we'd have to see if they actually bid on. But any one of those three vendors would I would sign a contract in a heartbeat if it had the right price.
So I guess my question is, are they apples to apples price wise would you expect? I was just listening, obviously we were looking at a new town truck and Eric explained the difference between them and the cost and one lasts longer. So I just was wondering, do you think is there one brand that costs more than the others or are they all going come at the same price approximately or
that's what I was looking at. Yeah. So if I had to guess, I mean, they're all pretty much close. I mean, have their own little quirks, so to speak, but they can all so the like, for example, the cab on this truck, you know, we we made them generic. So a a six person cab. And we know and I know that each one of these manufacturers manufacturers can can produce produce a a six person cab to meet what we're looking for. I gotcha. So, yes, I mean, I could probably give you a list of low to high. I mean, I think emergency one, I think New England fire apparatus, and I think Pierce Manufacturing would be the order they would come in once we get all the prices. I don't know that for sure. That's just my guess from talking to surrounding towns. But that's kind of the wait and see when they get back to me. Alright. Thank you.
Any other questions? I'll note that we don't have to take action on this but we will have to decide the funding mechanism should we decide to fund the vehicle purchase and just kind of establish that in our budget before we finalize it. Thanks Sean.
Okay yeah Thanks for the information. If we need more, we'll get back to you guys and thank you for your service to the town. And
if pass on, if you get the clear pricing from the other two manufacturers, pass it on to Eric. Okay? Yeah. Good point. Great point. Thanks, Rob. Yeah. I'll I'll reach out to them again and see what I can do.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Very good. Thank you. We will go on to our next agenda item. This is three b, the Economic Development Commission request for a welcome to Andover sign. Eric, do we have somebody from the EDC here? As far as I know, we do not. Okay.
Unfortunately, I don't have the minutes from the CIP meeting. I know they approved the purchase of a single sign. I honestly don't remember what the exact dollar amount was. I think it was either 4,000 or 4,500 or that's what they recommended.
There's there's an estimate in the packet along with three different design designs. The one with the first one there with the photo stone is the one that actually has the estimate attached to it, which in my view is the most attractive, although I'm not a big fan of the script The letter of the script other two seem it just says 4,000 on each of them and $2.50 per. Know $2.50 for installation or 4,200 for installation versus 3,000 and then 7,000. Yeah
there was a smaller one it was a little cheaper Mark. Yeah or you could get the real smaller. It was a $3,000 one and yeah. I I I Shannon, that was the This
is sorry. This is Shannon from CIP, and I'm in the car with Fred, the chair of the CIP committee. And upon a motion, the CIP approved unanimously spending up to $4,250 for a singular sign.
Okay, was that a specific sign? Yeah, which sign? So there the second one that's in there is four is 4,000 installation $2.50, so that would be $42.50. So I would presume it's that second sign. Yeah.
Am I on? Yep. Hi. Hello? Yeah. This is Fred Oliver from PIP. We just approved the money because, we wanted to leave it open as far as Preview. The specific, design of design. There's that one that we have that you can see in the packet. There were two in the packet, but we wanted to leave that open to the EDC and others as far as the specific design of the site. So that's why we that's why we that's why we said forty two fifty rather than a particular site. Okay, there actually seem to be three at least three
different styles in the packet. Has two different sizes. There's actually four different options, but the concern that I have two two concerns. One is that the estimate that's included in there for the looks like the largest sign is actually 44,750 which is $500 more than you guys have stated. And the other concern is that the date of the estimate is 12/20/2019. So I don't know if that's a typo by the signed contractor and sometimes these small businesses aren't real careful with their stuff. My recollection
of that is that that was we should really have Elaine on here, but Elaine did all the the legwork on this, Elaine Bucard. And that 02/2020, that was as you see an estimate she got a while ago, the committee actually preferred the $42.50 sign or some some design variant there are $42.50 because we like the price on that better. That's that's why we that's why we gave that number. Okay.
And it also it also was from a local vendor, Mark, that Elaine was very, very much preferred using instead of going out of state.
Yep there's there's lots of signed vendors in Connecticut but yep okay so the is the proposal a request to put this in the budget for next budget year is that what the request is? That's my recollection. Yeah, believe so.
As opposed to this the request is spent for this year.
Right. The only other thing I'd add is my recollection and I am going off memory is that, you know, one of the reasons there's so many different sign options there is there was a brief discussion and kind of put to one side of smaller signs, but the original idea with the smaller signs is there'd be two. And so there was a decision to go with, why don't we do one big one? And it was the 4251 that the committee liked the best. So that's my recollection of how it went down and why you might have more in the packet. And it's a little, you know, maybe a little confusing, but we
went with one sign, or a recommendation was to go with one sign. Does anyone know where this is gonna be placed?
We we discussed a a few options. This is Fred Oliver again. We discussed a few options. The one that and that's part of Elaine originally brought up by on Shawty Mill in Route 6 where the the old dog pound is. We also discussed the possibility of near the near the old town hall. So we also didn't have a clear idea about where exactly it should go. So that's that's another thing that Elaine and the EDC and others are gonna have to sort out. So that's that's where we stood with that. Yeah.
Is it possible to have two smaller ones instead of one larger one? Was that discussed?
We did. We from what I recall and Robert, correct me if I'm incorrect here. We did we discussed the possibility of having up to four, one big central one, and then one at one end one at the Columbia end of Route 6, one at the Bolton Coventry end of Route 6, and possibly one on at the Hebron end of three sixteen. And we decided for budgetary reasons to go with this one first just to get the one big central one first, and then in future years, to look for the smaller ones. So we decided to it'll be best to go for the big central one, first of all.
And is this in Go ahead, Louise. Is this in line with, like, the celebration for this year, or does that have nothing to do with it, the, anniversary?
EDC wanted this for years, but this has been a recurring request, I think.
Will they replace. Eric I mean with it is that would this just be a line item under the economic development Commission budget. You think.
If you approved it or you could put it in the you know the I suppose you could put it in a permanent phone like the town wide building maintenance fund and then just specifically earmark in your budget message that, you know, 4,500 or 4,200 or whatever is allocated to X in the budget message. Okay.
Or you could just add it to the EDC budget.
All right, thanks. Any other questions or comments from the Board of Finance members?
I guess I just have one question. Have they determined if we are going to invest in something and of course it's a nice idea, it would look good, you know, as a town, have we determined that these sizes fit the need? You know, that's my thing. I'm trying to visualize the. The 4 Thousand 251, I guess it's four feet across three feet of the post and maybe four feet of a sign. The committee's determined that's big enough. That's visual effect enough. I don't think we have that information. Okay. Somebody.
It's on the agenda you know me I'm gonna ask. Yeah yeah. You know when and if it does get approved it has been on year after year, know they have been you know, I just hope it's big enough we can see it in that all right that was my question. You.
I'd like to know myself. I'm in I will say generally I'm in favor of supporting this just because I think you know it's positive thing for the town in general. So, I'm sorry I think Go ahead.
Oh, this is Fred Oliver again. That was something kind of an undercurrent in our last meeting with Elaine is that we wanted to just get the money approved and because we had some and we just You're
breaking up. Sorry, Fran. Maybe it's consultation. Yeah we're losing money. I think they're going through a dead zone.
Yeah so yeah so I think I think I think there's a couple of things I think if we if we put it in as a designated capital purchase, then you know as Eric suggested maybe part of the Tom White Building Fund that we might have a little more control and if we just put it as a line item under the department. If we were to fund it I would suggest we you know maybe bump that a little bit to cover the sign cost maybe just $5. You know de minimis change from what they're asking and we can that way if something comes in a little higher we want something that's going to meet the needs a little differently, then you know we can certainly discuss it and approve it at a later time. Anybody so we can do one or two things we can if nobody has any further questions we can either go on to the next agenda item somebody can make a motion to adjust one of the line items to account for the expenditure request. You want to go to the building main fund, which I think is what Erica suggested, then the motion would probably be to adjust the building main fund 03/9020 from 90,000 to 95,000 with the purpose of intended purpose of funding the sign for the town of Andover. I have one more question. Yeah,
have one more question. Was looking at the post itself, and it looks like the bottom is like a faux stone columns, but there's pressure treated posts. Are is there any maintenance for these particular
posts for so many years? It'd be it'd be minimal. Yeah. A good pressure treated post, assuming they are installed in solid days, the stone, good drainage, will last for a long time.
Yeah. Either stone or cement, it'll last longer than any of us I can worry about. Okay.
I would make the motion, Mark. I don't if I can repeat back to you, what you said. Okay. That main line item, that you stated there. I make the motion that we do bump up the fund to $95,000 to cover the cost, and any incremental increases so that we could get the right sign installed with the labor included and all that. That'd be my motion. So you're, I'm sorry, You're second release. Yeah. Okay.
So the motion is to increase the building main fund 305Dash519 that $5.09 $0.02 0 to $95,000 The intention of adding a picture $5,000 to support the purchase of the town side. That correct? Correct.
Okay. Do we have any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the motion passes. Thank you very much. Thanks, Shannon and Fran. We appreciate the input and of course Rob is always so. Okay, we will go ahead and move on to our next agenda item which is the presentation of the ES proposed budget. And just a reminder I think we have the same Groupon that we had when we started but the function of the Board of Finance here is merely to review the budget with AES to ask questions, if any, and to pass that on along with our proposed budget to the town meeting. First the hearing budget hearing and then the town meeting, we do not have the opportunity or authority to make any changes up or down or likewise to the budget. I guess so that's yep Joanne.
I have no problem with what you just said that seems to be a change from the past, though, is that with new Charter thing. Know I think it's it's been that way. Yes,
it's in the it was in the Charter originally I think by 08/2002 I don't I think that that's that's why it can get it can get changed to town meeting and elsewhere, but not not initially by us.
No problem. Yeah, I had remembered it differently. Thank you for clarifying.
Okay. Okay. Alright. So let's go ahead and Valerie, you wanna go ahead and take the floor?
I will. Eric, can you make it so that I can share my screen? Did every member of the board get Mark, did you send out the approved budget from the a copy of the approved budget that you received from the board of education? The letter the transmittal letter with the yes. I I think I see Joanne shaking her head. They all got me. Yeah. It was a while ago, and I think I'm I'm gonna put it back on the screen. I'm gonna put it back on the screen, but I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Sometimes I miss stuff. So That's okay. So, Eric, I'm capable of sharing. Correct? Okay.
Let's see. Okay. So I only have four slides, and then we'll go right into the budget. So it's nice and easy. First of all, thank you, for having us here tonight so that we could talk about this and be able to answer any questions that may be looming after you went through the Board of Ed approved portion of the budget. So there's only four slides, and I'm really hoping that our brief presentation tonight will be able to answer any questions that you have. So with our budget, it hasn't changed in terms of from year to year, school to school. The town is similar in a lot of ways. The largest percentage of our budget, obviously, is the salary line items. That's what makes up about 59% of the budget. It's allocated to pay people. It's who we have who work here in the school. What does that staff consist of? There is a list there. We have 21 full time teachers, classroom special, special ed intervention. We have four part time teachers, six paraprofessionals, 2.5 custodians, two people in the kitchen. The second one is part time. A part time finance manager, principal, a part time super, a part time special ed director, five part time special ed service providers like speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psych and social work,
two office staff, one nurse, and then we also need to employ substitutes for these positions. Fuel is going to be the big unknown for next year. However, we did make sure that we locked in. This is probably the biggest increase this year that we will see. We were very lucky going into the twenty two-twenty three school year, us and the town. We locked in at two twenty three, which is both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because it kept that number reasonable this year, but a curse because we all know even in our own homes that that can happen again for next year. And so when we were looking at lock in prices for about a month, we were getting a little nervous because they were going from 3 to the high fours.
Eric and I had daily emails back and forth with Dime to figure out exactly. It was like buying concert tickets. Do we lock in today? Do we lock in tomorrow? We got to a point where we were very satisfied that we were as low as we were going to get for next year. We locked in at $3.10. Now, this year, we had budgeted only for 28,000 gallons, and we did get lucky. It was a risk that it was gonna be a warm winter, and it has been, thankfully, knock on wood so far. So we budgeted in for the lowest amount of oil this year that we've ever used, which was when we looked at our trend data, 28,000 gallons. Now we have gone a lot higher than that before. So when Terry and I were sitting and looking, it was we were going to go right for the middle.
So in looking at our budget, we were very confident that even if it's not quite as warm next winter, if it's a little bit colder, that amount of 35,000 gallons should suffice. We didn't feel like we had to go up to the 43,000. Whoops. Whoop. There we go. Okay. So just a few numbers to consider before we look at that budget. About 15% to 75% of the budget is made up of medical insurance, life insurance, dental benefits. There really isn't much that we can do about that. That does vary for a school from year to year. You could have people that have babies. We've welcomed one baby already fairly recently. She's still on leave. And sometimes people get added, people come off. So, we really do try to speak with staff going into budget season and see if we're going to have a lot of changes, either in our favor or not in our favor. Because one person roughly in insurance costs the board between 10,000 and $12,000 for one person for medical insurance. That's the board's side. And so that can make or break that line item. And so we do our very best to come up with exactly
the number we feel is a confident number. So that if there is somebody that does get at it, it won't throw the budget off for the whole year. About 59% of the budget is salaries to employees and service providers as I just mentioned. Two to 3% of the budget is designated to the upkeep of facilities because remember AES is different from RAM or from some other larger school districts in that we only have an operational budget currently, we do not have both an operational and a capital budget. So everything related to the building itself has to come out of our facilities line items in this budget. So we try to do our very best to make sure that we can potentially plan in terms of doing preventative maintenance and seeing, you know, do we have to anticipate something coming up next year or not? But that's always a tough one because you never know. About 14% is designated to special education costs, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. 4% to our overall electricity, oil, propane, and diesel costs, our utility and our fuel costs. And as I just mentioned, the biggest one in terms of increase will obviously for us be the oil. So that really doesn't leave us a whole lot that changes on a year to year basis when you talk about those
non negotiables. So we try to do what we can with that 5%, those things that aren't fixed, those things that we can be a little bit more creative from year to year on. Those are the areas mostly that I try to work on trying grants to supplement because as new initiatives and things are needed, those are things that I really try to make sure I can go try to supplement in other ways because the rest of the budget is pretty solid. So I should have warned you already that there was a spoiler alert. There's the number on the bottom. Dollars 182,000 is really the increase that we need to make sure that all of our obligations are met next year. Now we did have the advantage of having some areas to reallocate, and I will show you those exact areas. That $182,000 increase includes $60,000 for fuel and utilities. It includes 120,000 for the total contractual obligations of everybody. What are some of the increases that we'll see when I flip to that next shared document? The contracts, the facilities, special education, the utilities fuel very small amounts to curriculum and supplies, which I looked ironically, it's about $5 for every student for academics there of an increase. Spending reallocations, we had one out placement that returned, and we had one in placement that moved in. And by in placement, I mean they had all of the same needs that they would have had they attended another facility. They are just attending AES. The areas of savings, you will see there are certain line items that say coaching, but it s not coaching in the sense of sports.
It says coaching in clubs. These were all of the expenditures that are after school activities and the ones that have been contractual. There s only about six that are in the teacher's contract for what they have to get paid to have those, and then the rest can vary from year to year. Another area of savings was switching principles. It was a small savings, but nonetheless, it was the savings that we can have this year moving forward, having switched from a veteran to a newer principal. And we had some psych services that I was able to utilize a grant for that'll go into next year. So you'll see that that's a decrease as well. Okay. Alright. So I'm gonna stop this one. And I'm going to move on to got lots of other questions. Okay. Is it paused? I think I'm gonna have to stop it and share it again because it doesn't like that one. Okay. Can we see that one? Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Great. Great. Thanks. Okay. So this is what you have in front of you, and I've purposely highlighted
numbers to make it a little bit easier for us for talking points. As we go through the things that are in yellow, you'll notice there's 0% increase for whatever reason. In some cases, it wasn't that we had an increase to that expenditure. It was that that expenditure perhaps was I was lucky enough to get it covered someplace else. For example, two summers in a row, I did receive grants for summer school. And so the obligation to have extended summer programming for special education students is still in here with that $2,002.60 that covers the minimum. But then if we were to have the same summer school that we've had two years in a row, then I would seek out other grants. I do have, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, I have one in now that would allow us to have a summer program similar to what we had last year and the year before. So that is why that's not in there. You'll notice on the top, the 101 is there. That right there is teacher salaries. There's the actual, there's the 23 adopted budget, and then there's the recommended, and it has increases there. So you'll notice to go back to the staffing levels that we have, go back to their contracts. We settled a three year contract and in settling that three year contract, it was certain percentages, an average of three per year
during the three, but one was slightly less than three one year, one was more than three the other year. But it's about a 3% increase for the teachers. When you add in there that speech teacher, the special ed teachers, the regular ed teachers, and the instructional tech salary there, you get an increase on the bottom of about 90,193, which is that number in my last column. When you add in the next two lines, the instructional assistants, paraprofessionals. Now just note that the paraprofessional last year so this school year, we filled a teacher position with a para, and that has to go back to being the teacher. It was the librarian. The librarian moved over and filled another position temporarily because she's part time and there was a paraprofessional that went in there. That's going to switch back because we do have a new student that came to us this year, the in place student that required us to they came in after the budget passed last year. And that required us then to
utilize another additional paraprofessional during the course of the year that was already in the building. So the total there is 62,727. Substitutes, the reason why there's an increase to substitutes is because the rate increased this year. It's not that we all of a sudden have lots more substitutes. It's that the rate did increase. So we were very lucky that the board of education increased that to be a little bit more competitive with other towns because we've done well. We've got very highly qualified substitutes that are willing to come and work here at AES when a lot of other towns are very short staffed. So thank you to the Board of Ed, a number of members are on here for having done that. It's made the year a lot easier for the principal. Under the coaching clubs in Green there, you'll notice that Terry and I reduced that section. I reduced that section not because we're going to have less of that by teachers contract, but because I received an after school grant. And there were some of those positions that we now use through the after school grant. And so we felt fairly confident that that could reduce by almost half.
You'll notice in yellow, there is no change, as I said, to summer school. I'm counting on getting a grant. There's $13,000 increase there under nurse custodial and the non certified SPED administrator, where it says $32,000 One of the two office people, the administrative assistant that sits outside my desk, they have a dual role. And so their salary is in two different places in the budget. It's going to be under the certified admin assistant when you get to superintendent, and then the other half is special ed. So her salary is split between the two spots in the budget. It's not that it's two separate people. It's one person split. The change to the nurse, she did not receive an 8.36% increase, but the nurses substitute really can't go on a regular sub line because obviously with the qualifications and credentials that the nurse has to have as a substitute, Terry and I had spoken about this and they receive an hourly rate for their services. And so it was moved into this line so that all of the nursing costs were in that one line since she appears no place else in the budget separately. We wanted to be able to keep an honest eye on that one. Under the group life insurance, changes in the group life insurance are why we didn't go up
three or more percent. It's a small amount in comparison benefits, but there were some changes there. And that's why that one didn't increase as it would have elsewhere. Okay. Second page you'll see is mostly yellow, which is good. And part of the reason why it's mostly yellow is because there are a few areas here that I had grants for that are two year grants that I received last year, and they'll go into next year as well. You'll see under professional education services special ed that dropped by 9% and that is not because the cost of that person dropped by 9%. It was that I was able to put a portion of that into a grant. Same thing with psych services. Psych services did not decrease. No worries. I know, Joanne, last year, you had a comment on that because you wanted to make sure our kids were serviced. I promise you they're fully serviced. It's that part of that is going into a grant that we received. And so I took it out of the budget if it's going be covered by grant. Under staff training, it looks like it went up a significant amount of money. However, there was a need with new mandates, like the new reading mandates, the K-three mandates, the fact that there's another state general statute that said you have to have a certain amount of professional development now eighteen hours for paraprofessionals. There were just a number of mandates and things that changed that Taylor really needed to have some additional hours. And so the Board of Education in approving a calendar for this year too also had to work in a couple of half days
to allow for that training. And this increase looks significant just as the percentage, but this is to accommodate that. And there are mandates that were involved in that. Of course, unfunded mandates. So we did have to put a little bit more in that line. The school physician, I'm still working right now on trying to have a physician for our whole region, Hebernando Remarborough and Ram. But this year, they did go up from 1,000 to 1,800. I'm working on trying to lower that cost. But as of right now, we have nothing signed. And so the cost next year is gonna be what it was this year, which is 1,800. And legal expenses. Other than that, on this page, everything is yellow. We move to the next page, and almost everything is yellow. We have two areas of blue there. One is the special education transportation, and I know you're all aware of this. We've talked about this at board of selectmen meetings as well, that we had a need with our in placement for an increase to special education transportation for one student. The printing. I just don't want anyone to think that all of a sudden we're just copying a whole lot of things on here. Because there were mandates to the K-three reading for the state, they had if anybody doesn't know, the state said the legislature decided were six approved they went through a science of reading thing, and they said there are six approved reading programs for K23. If you didn't have one of those, you either had to switch to one or you had to apply for a waiver, make some changes.
So Taylor did work very hard at making sure that we were able to apply for a waiver. But they're really behind, and we don't even know whether or not the waiver will be approved. But in the mean time, you have to take some steps to make sure that certain tenets of a reading program are in effect. And in doing so, rather than ordering a lot of books and a lot of materials that we don't know whether or not are going to be approved for next year or the following year or whether or not the legislature makes changes to the six approved choices. We have been and based on what we have been having to do, we're planning for next year as well, we've had to do a lot of supplemental curriculum materials that we make ourselves for right now. And so that's the increase of the $2,500 there with the creation of some of those materials on our own. The orange on the bottom, you'll see that because we had that switch from outplacement placement in that line item, it will come out of there, that 100,000 will come out of there and be moved to other places within the budget. So it is reallocation based on that need. The next page, this will actually change for next year the way it's set up because it's not often you'll see in the middle there, third grade supplies, fourth grade supplies, fifth grade. It's not often that a lot of our curriculum is separated like that anymore. Very oftentimes, let's say, you use foundations. You purchase foundation not by grade, you purchase the package. So that'll change a little. But overall, you'll notice on this page that there isn't a lot of change
to most of the supplies that are on here. Honestly, what we do try to do is and you'll notice speech supplies, occupational therapy supplies, those sorts of things. What we do try to do in writing grants is we try to when we apply for the grants at least I do this. I don't know that everybody does this. But I do try to make sure that in applying for the grant, you not only apply for some of the salary for the person or the position, but that you also make sure that if there are any other supplies that are needed, that they're built into that grant. Because then that helps us even more. And that's what I was able to do this year. Somebody's not on mute. I can hear some wind. On this page here sorry, it still says draft across there so heavily. I meant to lighten that. Again, we tried to push them together in terms of ELA supplies, math supplies, science supplies, and social studies and not see them all. In years past, that thousand $50
would have been separated by grades. It would have said a $100 here, $250 here. And it just it it wasn't it really wasn't a valid way to do that since we do purchase. If we purchase something for K through three, it's like, where do we put it? So now it's just going to be by content area. And there's small increases in each of those areas. As I said, it's about total for the curriculum area there. For instruction, it's about $5, a student in the departments of supplies. And then we get to the ones that unfortunately I gave you the bad news early on, ripped the Band Aid right off. Electricity, 10,000 is the estimated based on going through the trends from the bills from the last year and the year before, will probably be an increase of 10,000. Hopefully next year and moving forward, we will be looking at some savings when and if the project is completed for being able to utilize solar. So we are trying to do something about that line. Heating oil, as I said, we have locked in the price. It's a good price. It was a very good price in terms of what other districts had to lock in at. And if we go for that middle ground in terms of the number of gallons, as I mentioned, it is an increase of 45,000. And diesel, 5,937. We don't use as much diesel. And then this page, everything will remain the same. As I said, this is the area that
I am pretty able when grants come in to utilize, supplies because there's always a small amount of the ability to put that in there. And sometimes we get lucky and it's larger than others. In this case, you'll see ELA on the top, social studies still separated. It won't be next year. And that's it. I'm gonna stop this
so we can see about Okay. Thanks, Valerie. I will open it up to the Board of Finance members if you have specific questions for Valerie. I have a couple. Had a what do you guys use diesel for?
There are Brian's laughing. There are only two Terry, we have two uses for diesel. What are our two uses for diesel? Generator maybe?
Yes. But what's the other one? I know there's two. I asked that question. I'm sorry?
I said, hopefully, we ran out of power that often. We're on No. $12,000 worth of diesel through it, but there must be do you have a truck? Terry, they can't hear you.
There you Sorry. We we use it for the generator,
and I'm not sure what the other item is. I'm sorry. Related to the kitchen, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe Eric knows. Hey, Eric. Bus. Sorry. I haven't gotten that far.
Oh, our percentage of the bus. Is that what you're saying? Correct.
Okay. What part of the bus? My guess. Yeah. Sorry. Yes.
I I know Eric and I had that conversation. We're trying to lock in That's not part of it. It's not it's asked to be a separate line item for diesel. Okay. Alright. But I remember Eric saying to me, Val, you may use a lot more oil, but we use a lot more diesel. So we we need to lock this in pretty soon. I was making him nervous. Yeah.
Alright. The so one question going back to the Special ED transportation so in Eric you may need to kind of help clarify peskin: this, but if I remember properly in our current proposed budget for the town. We put in for a we have a line item currently for a small SUV which would enable it was for this to allow the school to use a wheelchair accessible van. Is that right? Yeah, that's basically correct.
Okay, so would that offset that large increase you had in the special ed transportation line?
So yes and no. If so we just were able to start using the town vehicle this past month. So at the start of the year, we obviously still had EastCon's transportation for that. Even if we're able to use the town's transportation, we signed an agreement with them that said, obviously, we'd upkeep. We still have to pay. It's not in the town's budget. We have to pay the driver. We have to pay for the gas and make sure that that is covered. And there is a person then on the town's van that has to ride it with them. So we have to pay the hour in the morning and the hour in the afternoon. When you utilize and it's still savings. But when you utilize the, like, east con transportation, what makes it so expensive is you sign a contract. No, we don't have to put a person on there. You sign for the year though, and it's twice what it would be, which is why we did pursue this. Okay. So still in net savings, but you're saying that's reflected in these numbers? It is. The following year, depending on our relationship and our ability to utilize that vehicle, we'll have a better idea next year. Potentially next year, it doesn't go up. Maybe next year for 'twenty four, 'twenty five, it could go down. But we've just started utilizing it. And so in that number, we're figuring having to have the person ride, having the driver,
and having to utilize the vehicle and pay the gas on there. So I would say ultimately then the '24, 25 has a better year of it being lower. But this one, if we plan any lower than this one, we could wind up over. We do have those other costs associated with it because a paraprofessional has to ride the bus or another adult. Okay. Makes sense. Other questions from the board? Joanne?
Valerie, you really did a good job presenting it because everything that I highlighted you spoke to. Thank I had about 10 highlighted items, but you really covered them all. Did you and and I I did I I was listening the whole time, but the one that you probably talked to and I apologize. It's under. It's the other professional services for the board that went up like 140 from 5,000 to 12,000. It's on page two. Yep, that is legal expenses. We have legal expenses. Was gonna ask about that also now. Yeah, that was one of my highlights there. So legal expenses for the board? Yes. Okay, got it.
Was there any specific thing driving that that you guys increased?
There is. Right now there has had to have been some interaction between the town's attorney and our attorney regarding the potential building of the senior center. Okay. Because it happens it's it's property issue related. Okay.
And then a follow-up to the special ed trans you know, the special ed overall. I know that because the student is now at AES but still has a great deal of, needs or whatever that you're covering with that. So part of it was the transportation, part of it other
So without giving too much away on one particular student, we'll speak hypothetically here, okay, Joanne? Thank you. So when you have a child that's a high needs child that's placed outside of the building, let me start with that. Usually that's sticker shock for people when they see that about a $100,000 to outplace the student plus transportation costs, and people go, that's crazy. But that usually includes everything, and you usually don't get additional fees. You have here's the tuition that includes everything, including the paraprofessional support, including this, and then you pay the transportation to specified places. If the child's hypothetically, if we had a child that attended another public school that wasn't a special ed school,
we would have a lower cost, but then we would be billed individually for if the child has transportation, if the child has to have speech language, if the child has to have a paraprofessional with them at all times. When the student's in place, there are certain things, Joanne, that might not be of a cost to us depending on the needs of the child. If they are really the only one that requires certain services I'm trying to slow down because I wanna make sure that I don't Yeah. Say too much about a specific student. No. Right. If they are the only child that requires a service, then it usually means a cost. For example, I'll give you a reality. Last year in our budget, if you looked back, we had $2,700 of services for one of our service providers. We had about three children that required very small amounts during the course of a week of service. The
particular child that moved in that's higher needs, they required daily, almost daily services of that type. And so, that was significant. We didn't have a person on staff to increase their hours. So, that person had to come in. Are, I would say that there are probably, Joanne, of the 100,000 that's been reallocated here, I would tend to say this year that there's probably an additional 25,000 to $30,000 worth of expenses simply because we weren't equipped. For example, there's equipment we didn't own. Once we own that equipment, then you don't have to buy it again. Right. And there was a significant amount of equipment. Where we lucked out this year was we actually when I say we, meaning about four or five people here on staff, we were able to borrow some equipment, some equipment that was $15,000 total, from other districts. We will slowly have to acquire that equipment, but we're not gonna do it all at one time. Right. Right. So
yeah. No. That's great, Val. Thank you. I I figured that's what it was. I just wanted speak to it because it is a big change, but you're It is a big change. Mhmm. It is a big change. Thank you for that.
You're welcome. I have a question. Yeah. For for Valerie. And I know you brought this up at one of the senior luncheons, but if a child, special needs child, the family decides to have that child go outside of AES, is there any cost that the parents are responsible for, or is that mandated that the town has to pay for everything?
So let me back up just for one second because you said special ed. If any child who lives in the town of Andover requests to attend a charter or magnet school, there is a cost to me because that goes in my budget. So if a child attends a magnet school, regular ed or special ed, there is 5,000 to $8,000 of cost for each one of those children. And that goes in my budget until that child attends RAM, and then it goes in RAM's budget. Do the parent participate in it? Nope. Because they are a resident of the town of Andover. And that is a great question, but that's universal, Louise. That's any town. You live in Hebron, you attend a magnet school, Hebron pays. You live in Coventry, you attend a magnet school, Coventry pays. So that a regular education student could have an additional cost to us for attending a charter or a magnet school. Where it's different with special education, oh, except for, let me back up, except for a Catholic school or a religious school. If they choose to attend a religious school, Louise, we we aren't responsible for the cost of that. If they attend a tuition school, like a private school, we're not responsible for their tuition either. Only charter and magnet schools. Okay.
If the child is special education, the same thing is true. If they attend a Catholic school or a religious school, we don't pay for their costs unless there's an extenuating circumstance. There are a lot of legal things around that. But they know when they attend those schools, whatever the religious school can provide for them, it does, and that's it. If they attend a private school, the same way. But if our special education students are attending another school at our decision, If we had a PPT and we said this child needs to attend that school because that's the least restrictive environment for them, we have to pay all of the costs. So we are responsible for every single child in the town of Andover, regardless of their age, up until they hit 22 if they're special ed. So if there's a child that's receiving services at three years old in preschool, and they're receiving services and their special education, we have to pay for that.
If there's a child that is special education that's already graduated, the town of Andover through RAM and then the levy is responsible for that special education student until their 20 birthday. Oh, my. Yep. It's wherever they live. Yeah. That's good education. Thanks, Valerie. You're welcome.
Val, just a quick follow-up to that. If the one thing that you mentioned where we pay you know, where the town would pay for charter, magnet, or whatever, how does that go with enrollment numbers? Oh, I guess we just count the student. Ram would count it as a student in the per student, you know?
It doesn't count in our enrollment, Joanne. That's a good question. Yeah. They do count if if I have a student, let's say, that they came here in second grade, and then we say we can't service them, and we, through an IEP, through PPT meeting, send them to another school. They count in our enrollment. Right. So that's definite. And the reason being is we're still part of their planning process. Right. So whenever there's a PPT meeting, we still attend. Mhmm. We help make the decisions still for that children, their that that child. They're still ours. However, those students that attend the magnet schools, I don't count them in my AES enrollment. Okay. That's what I would I give an enrollment summary at a board of ed meeting every month. They're not in there. Okay.
Good. And one one additional one from me, and then I'll clear the floor. So I understand this budget very well put together as far as understanding and and thank you for that. We you mentioned grant money, you know several times, which is great that you're out there securing grants or trying to secure grants. There that's probably a different accounting. So in order to run the school or do extras, have this town budget and then you have your pot of grant money. Is that true? So there's really more funds that go into running the school. And if it is something that is in that grant,
you don't see it here. Right. So for example, I received an after school grant. It's gonna run the whole of this school year and next year. All of the expenses associated with that after school grant run through the grant. You don't come in here. As a matter of fact, I was able, as I said, to take a little bit out of a couple of line items because it's going be in the after school grant. So we don't double dip. If it's in a grant, it's in a grant. Now the only time that changes, Joanne, is if October comes. And, in October, I apply for a grant and I get it, and it's $10,000 And it says this $10,000 is to pay a paraprofessional. If that paraprofessional is in here, that's why at the end of the year sometimes then I have to go back to the board and say, hey. I have $10,000 left. And they'll say, how did you get $10,000 left? Well, I had that grant, and this is all it could cover, and it was allowed to to supplant and not. But if I already know it's a supplemental, it's not in here.
Yep. Good. Thank you. Yep. That's the way I understood it. And just it's good for everyone to understand too. I know you're saying these terms, you know, while we have you. No. Thank you. You're welcome.
Now real quick. I you may have mentioned it. I don't recall. What's our enrollment year to year looking like from last year this to the projected for next year? I'm so glad you asked that. Our
preschool program for next year is full. We Wow. Actually, yes, we actually have some and I'm very excited about that. We actually have a few out of towners that are on the wait list because, obviously, all of our Andover students come first. And for a couple of reasons, not just because, you know, the Andover residents, but because, obviously, that would be enrollment that would follow through to kindergarten, first, second, third. You don't wanna fill those spots with 10 Hebron kids, and then they leave in kindergarten and they go to Hebron and we lose the enrollment. So that's the reason why we do that. This year, we were very strong with numbers this year as well. We had quite a few, very young students that were able to enroll. You don't always see that.
We had a few that didn't have their third birthday until they came to AES this year. So, that means that they'll be with us in that program for two years. It is so nice to see the enrollment of the Pre K, K and one be so robust because that means that that will protect us moving forward. And I know unfortunately, Ram has had a loss of students this year from Andover. They'll have a loss again next year of students, quite a few students. But give us a couple of years and we'll be back up there because, we have the strongest numbers right now in our lower grades. Remember, Robert, we had that bubble where we had three kindergartens
and now three first grades, and now we've got a strong pre K coming in. So we're really excited because you see the lots of little faces, and we're strong for next year. So, you know, we're gonna be just about where we are, if not higher. Okay. And where were we this year? Can you off the top of your head, do you remember? I do. Last year, we were in the 170s, then we got up to 180s and 90s. We were at two zero four. And going into next year, we should be right at 200. And when I say at the start of the year, remember preschool,
we try not to fill it to the brim in September because during the course of the year, when children turn three, they are eligible to come to preschool. And if they're in the birth to three program, got to kind of let them in because they're already receiving services that we're going have So, pay for we try to keep a couple of spots. Taylor's done a great job. She's looked at the birthdays of the potential kids that we'll be enrolling next year and said, how full can we go? It looks like we're going to have at least three after Christmas that will turn three and come in in the spring. So, we're trying to make sure that we won't be over capacity with those three. So, we're really excited. Our number's gonna look good for next year. Do you guys have the opportunity to to, like, chat with You
know, you mentioned birth to three. And my memory serves when I reached out to birth to three with my eldest when she was really little, it was through So can they, like, give you a heads up or they can they not really do that? So we actually have some people that might be they're Andover people that might be coming in. We actually don't need that.
It's appreciated. But here's why we don't need it. We don't need it because we do screenings. Right now, have two a week that And are being so the good news is we've already started the process. They come in, they do their screenings, all of them. And we've met some lovely kids and their parents already so far. We've got some great Andover residents who are dying to have come aboard. And the good thing is then if a child is already through the screening process exhibited a need for something. We know that going into it. And so, a lot of the birth to threes are already on our calendar for their screenings. And so, does, to your point, Robert, give us a pretty good idea of maybe what we need to consider. So, you know, we have two preschool rooms.
So the advantage then for Taylor and for the school readiness team is to look at the needs of those incoming preschoolers and to be able to make sure that they're evenly split in those two rooms as well, that the needs aren't heavy in one room and not in the other. So I'm glad you asked that. Is very helpful to us on a number of levels, but the screenings are really where we get the answers to those questions. And we've met them, a few of them. Little one came in last week. Too bad I don't see Ron's name on there anymore. Little one came in last week in a cute little fireman jacket already. So was we like meeting them.
Very good. Alright. So roughly 200 next year is your projected enrollment, give or take, as things develop. That's good to know. Thanks.
Any other questions for Valerie or the board? The one comment I have is that and I think that Mr. Rob asked the question, is that the grants are not here. I've raised this issue before, so basically what you don't see is the sources of revenue. So it doesn't really give you an accurate picture of the total spending. And I think that would be appropriate really for a full accounting. So I don't know, Terry or somebody, if you guys have that or if you normally present that if that's done at the Board of Finance or I'm sorry the Board of Education level.
It is, and, you know, the difficulty with that is that a number of them you want to have a very accurate number, and some of them are very allocated to something. As I said, not to supplant, they're to supplement. So like I said, I could tell you that we received a $200,000 after school grant. It goes for this school year and next year. I can't use it for anything else. So it is completely enrichment and engagement for the students and their families after school. It can't be used before the school day is over. So I absolutely could say, well, here's this wonderful grant, but it really doesn't do much of anything to this particular budget. So it those are at every board meeting. Finance report, we can talk about those quarterly. Those are given quarterly. But in terms of how it affects this, it's just different because our grants are different. So I'll make sure because it's done quarterly, but I can make sure that those are posted at the end of the year.
Yeah, I mean generally that's going to give you the full picture and I understand it is it's it's confusing because well it's just like the town you know you sometimes you have offsetting revenues in a different page or in a different location. You can't really see that. This grant is specified for this particular thing, but what it does give is a net result, and that's kind of a common way to, I think, accurate way to portray expenses and income is just kind of generally how that's presented. It doesn't change the bottom line, I get that, the line, the number is what it is, but it does give an accurate picture of expenditures, etc. But again, to Joanne's question earlier when I said it's not there and here, we have a school readiness grant and a smart start grant, They are solely for preschool. Get it. Preschool does. I understand that. I'm not and by no means do I think that that's am I saying that that's what's happening? But it's just there's a level of expenditure that's occurring that's offset by grants, and that just makes that clear when you have all of that data in there. But it doesn't change the bottom number, and I get that. I understand. And Mark,
had asked the question because it's just showing the investment the town gets or how much the total education program is costing is what I meant too. You said, the amount of spending. It's great to have the grants. We have this. It won't change our document from the town. It's just more money is going into the school. Like she said, it could be a $200,000 summer school grant, the school readiness for pre K, and all of those good things. So the total cost is
really higher than this figure because of the grants going. Yeah. There's more We're very grateful for the preschool grants cause that's how we keep the preschool expense and the budget at zero.
An awesome grant for the families. It wasn't around when my kids were preschool. I think in full day kindergarten, the whole thing, it's good. Yeah. Okay, other questions for Val? Thank you. Okay,
I guess we're all set then. We will move on with our agenda. So really the that was the last specific item. I don't know if the Board of Finance members have anything specific that they want to address in terms of the budget at this time. I'll just comment on the CIP request on the fire equipment. You know, we didn't make a motion. Somebody could make a motion. Currently we have $100,000 in the budget for the equipment fund. I think we probably want to find out what is in that fund, like Rob asked the question, so we probably want to ask that if we don't make a motion now. Think we'll want to know that information for our next meeting, Eric, so
that's something I think we'll have to understand where that falls and everything. Yeah, Rob. Yeah. I just wanna make the the I don't wanna make a motion at this point, but I just wanna let you know what's kind of percolating in my head is that if you look at the capital play in our packet, it was the old capital plan for the fire equipment fund for the fire department. And obviously, the the costs are a lot of data at this point. You could see that the truck that they're now costing out at 09:15 was at one point thought would cost 3 quarters of 1,000,000. Yeah. About that. But you can see there's more coming as you would expect in anything like this. You're going to have rolling expenses. And I think step one is what do we have in the fund? And step two is thinking about, okay, if we're going to do this ten year lease, honestly, my gut is the ten year lease is probably what's going to happen. Okay. So that's that's like $1.20 a year, $1.17 a year. And then where are we? We know we cut capital a few years to get budgets passed. Right? Our intention was to put a $100,000 in there every year like clockwork didn't happen. So are we behind?
You know, are we in a situation where this year it might make sense to put $1.50 in there? Maybe. I don't know. A, what's in there? B, let's think about it. Maybe come back next meeting, and and then maybe that's when the motion happens. And in the interim, maybe we get the other two quotes come in and actual firm pricing from the other two manufacturers. That's my thinking. Yeah, it's reasonable. Think I'm
in agree. Oh, sorry, Bell. You want to go ahead? You're all set. No, I just said I like his thinking. Oh yeah, before we had made. I know we made one motion to add tonight, which is fine. I kind of was at the let's get everything in, get our facts together, see where we kind of are at a starting point or where this takes us. And then seeing I had seen the money in the fund as well, thinking leaning towards what Rob is saying, how it wouldn't be a cost to this budget or an ad because we have money in the fund. But going forward, that's going be a big ad, know, should we say yes? So that affects everything, you know. Obviously glad he came on tonight, presented it, told us, and that that made a lot of sense. Just having him saying that with the lack, you know, the less volunteers to go out on these calls that are so important in a community,
getting a truck that can handle it all is important. I needed to hear that, so I took that piece, you know, from that. Yeah, there's all these needs. Obviously, you know, we're and it's kind of just, you know, weighing everything, wanting everything to move forward, wanting to plan, wanting to know what's coming down the pike. Luckily, which goes without saying, thank goodness this was the year that Val mentioned that the enrollment is down at RAM. So we are we have a huge savings there that I'm sure a lot of you know. So we're we're weighing everything. I think you know with reval and everything last year last year and things kind of going up without adding too much, you know, just for the cost of everything. You know, now we've got to kind of piece it back together. I'd like everybody to get a little be a little happy with that. We have to approach the needs of the town. We have to be happy that there is a decrease there, you know, for whatever reason.
Yeah, so I'd like to see a document that shows us everything that we've heard so far as presented. We know the Rams number. We know AES budget. We know what the town is proposing. Yeah, get the funds in and you know, make sure everything is up to date and kind of see where we're starting from. You know, kind of like what we've been doing. I like our process this year that we've had things sent to us from Mark. We've all been able to kind of get a feel, do a little homework on our own, and then come to the meeting and be prepared to discuss. That's my thought.
Yeah, I've made the notes in the saved a different file with the addition, of one line item we did opt to change tonight and the reason for it. So I'll distribute that and make sure Eric gets a copy. Questions and comments? Discussion? Okay, well, hearing none, I guess we'll move on to agenda item four, which is our final public speak opportunity. Eric, you want to go around? Sure. First up, Val Brunel. Oh, I've said enough. I'm good. Thanks. Terry Smith. I'm all set. Thanks, Eric. Jerry Creme.
Just a thanks to everyone for being here this evening, and thank you for Valerie for the presentation. We appreciate it. I hope everyone has a good night. Chris Bernard. Nothing further for me. Thanks. Mike Beckwith. All set. Thank you.
Steven Foss. He probably still doesn't have a mic, Eric. Probably still doesn't have a mic. Okay. Celeste Willard.
Just thank you to Valerie for presenting the budget, and thank you to the Board of Finance.
Mark, that appears to be it. That appears to be it. Thank you very much. That is it for our agenda tonight. Other than adjournment, would anybody like to make a motion to adjourn? I'll make it. I'll make the motion. Louise motion is to adjourn. Do I have a second? I'll second, yeah. Any discussion? Hearing none, let's vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No one? What are you expecting here, Mark? We had a long meeting last week. This is a good time to do I think we were concise to the point. So good. Thank you everybody for your contributions. There's still more work to do. Thank you. Appreciate it. We'll be meeting again next week and hopefully.