I appreciate that. So, good afternoon. It is March 31. And I understand that March is going to go out like a lion. Let me begin by stating that. This is a meeting of the budget coordinating group. The budget coordinating group is comprised of three town councilors selected by the town council. To library trustees selected by the library trustees and to school committee members selected by the school committee. It is an advisory group to the town manager. In. We are allowed to hold this meeting. As soon as I find my script. Sorry about that. We're allowed to hold this meeting because it is now allowed by extension of the open meeting law that we can meet virtually. If you have any difficulties, please let me know. With that, I'm going to go ahead and ask for people to indicate that they can hear me. And we can hear them. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm talking to Randy, Joe, Hanneke. I'm present. And Andy Steinberg. Allison. Allison McDonald. Present. Peter.頂ling. For isn't. Bob Pam, Robert Pam, I'm sorry. And Austin. I'm here. Thank you. Are there any question. and I are the last year's president and vice president. So in the spirit of collegiality, we'd like to ask if there's any nominations for president. Ms. Griezmer, if she's willing to do it, I would be more than happy for you to continue. Okay, I'm willing to do it. Are there any other people who would like to be nominated? I guess I have to take a roll call vote on that. All right, Mandy Jo. Hi. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Peter Demling. Hi. Allison McDonald. Hi. Robert Pam. Hi. Austin Serrat. Hi. And for vice president, Allison, are you willing to continue? Okay. I am. Are there any other people who would like to step to the plate? I think technically these are chair and vice chair. Yeah, it's gonna set. Thank you. They are chair and vice chair. Thanks for that correction. Any other people who would like to step to the plate? Seeing none, I'll start with Mandy Jo Hanneke. Hi. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Bob Pam. Hi. Austin Serrat. Hi. Peter Demling. Hi. Allison McDonald. Hi. Lynn Griezmer is an I, and going back to the previous vote, I also voted I. Okay. With that, Sean, would you like to show our agenda? I would, but I don't believe we have a formal agendas. We do actually. Do you have one? I have the calendar. I can show it. This one was not posted by me. This was handled by Angela. Okay. I can post it if you give me permission to share the screen. Okay. I'm sorry. We have one person in the audience. And I just want to mention before that this is a budget coordinating group meeting on March 31st, and it is advisory to the town council. So we've already called the meeting to order. Town manager or council? Town manager. Thank you, Andy. We've already called the meeting to order. We've already elected the chair and vice chair, and we're going to go on to a presentation by the update on the budget projections by the town manager and finance director. We are going to then ask for a status report from the library, the school departments and the town. Have a discussion. There will be a period of public comment. So with that, I'm going to take my screen down and ask for town manager and Sean and Ghana finance director to make their presentation. So Sean, I think you're going to share a spreadsheet. Yeah. Do you want me to go right in? Yes, please. So I apologize. Some of you have probably heard this spiel already once or twice at finance committee, but I'll just go through quickly. So we updated our revenue and expense projections and the primary changes were putting in the governor's budget proposal and then updating on the expense side of our Hampshire County pension assessment, of which we got a more detailed estimate from Hampshire County. So just quickly on the revenue side, which is what you're looking at, this top section is property taxes. This hasn't, I don't believe this has changed. Local receipts has changed a little bit. There's some things we've got a little more conservative on. Cannabis tax is one, for example, that's coming in much slower than it did pre-pandemic. So there's been some little adjustments there based on the activity that we're seeing. State aides were the majority of the changes were. So we, in the governor's proposal, there was a 10% increase to chapter 70, which translated to a half percent increase for Amherst and that's based on the chapter 70 formula and the way it allocates new funding to communities that are less wealthy based on the formula. So we are essentially getting minimum per pupil aid, which is $30 per pupil. There's advocacy to get this up. Obviously we think this is obviously not sufficient to keep up with the rising costs of the schools, let alone the entire town, but this is what was in the governor's budget. The charter is an estimate from the state as well. They update that based on enrollment at charter schools or expected enrollment. Unrestricted general government aid, that's aga. So there was a 2% increase in that light item. Again, lower than what we were hoping for last year, ended up in the 5% range. There's a lot of advocacy that this should keep up with however quickly the state budget is growing and this 2% is insufficient and I think our opinion and many other municipalities. Veterans and exemptions benefits and exemptions go up and down depending on the year. State owned land is one area where there was a little bit of a more significant increase. It's not one of our bigger line items. So it doesn't help us all that much but in terms of percentage increase, it was one of the larger percentage increases. And then the school choice, tuition, public libraries, those are offset. So whatever school choice revenue that comes in or public library revenue that comes in, that goes directly to those budgets so the schools get to control the school choice revenue and libraries handle that revenue. Down below and other finance sources, those I don't believe have changed. And so all in all, total revenue is going up 2.9%. If there's any, there might be some other little changes before the budgets finalize but this is essentially where we are at this point. So the other change before we get to operating budgets is this assessment for the retirement system ended up being an 8.7% increase. We were projecting originally somewhere on the 10 or 11% range. We're being conservative because we've added some new departments that had more Hampshire County employees that we thought would bump that up a little bit more but it didn't come in as high. So adjusting this number to the estimate that we received from the county system helped create more funding. And so we took the increase from the state aid and the savings from the Hampshire County Retirement Assessment coming in lower and that allowed us to do a 3% increase, recommend a 3% increase per operating budgets. And we've communicated that to the council and to all of you. Capital hasn't really changed. We're still proposing 10.5%. Some of these numbers will fluctuate a little bit between debt and new projects, but that hasn't changed. We have updated state assessments. That's where our charter tuition assessment and PBTA assessment are. So those have been updated to align with the governor's budget. And so again, with the 3% increase in operating budgets and the new revenues were essentially even at this point. And our projections for FY24. And so I'll stop and see any questions while I have the spreadsheet up. Seeing none, I will take the spreadsheet down. Okay. So we're gonna go on and just let me put this in context in addition to being a recommendation to the town manager, it comes on the cusp of individual units such as the schools and the library submitting their budgets to the town manager. I believe the due date for that is April one. And they, in addition to that on Monday night, we will hear the regional school budget from the superintendent of schools and their finance director, Doug Slaughter. So this comes literally right as we move into the opportunity to have very detailed discussions of both the regional budget and the school budget at different points over the next two months. And also the library budget as well. So with that, let me first call on the library and ask where you are in your process and any other statements you'd like to make. Sure, Bob, do you wanna talk about the budget process? Well, Doug. I believe the budget proposal from the library has already been submitted to the town manager. And consequently, our process is essentially completed. We have stayed within the restrictions that are set upon us. And we do not anticipate there will be any major changes from that. Okay, any other comment from you, Austin? No, just that the budget process in the library, like it is throughout the town is a rigorous kind of examination of expenditures and revenues. The budget committee works very closely with the library director and the trustees. We were, of course, gratified by the increase from 2.5% to 3%. Thanks. Okay, the schools. And I don't know that you wanna speak to the regional budget, but certainly to the elementary budget. Either would be. I'll start and then see if Peter wants to add anything. I think just as far as the regional school, I mean, we represent that as well. We're, the regional school budget was voted on and I believe was also sent to town manager. I'm forgetting the exact date, but it was within the last couple of weeks and has been sent to the other towns. The Amherst School Committee voted on the 14th of this month for a budget that was about $84,000 higher than the guidance that we received in the email memo from Sean. So the total was $26,017,096. I believe it, I might be off a little bit in my quick calculations. And I just wanna take a moment to talk about that. I think the school committee obviously is advocating for more money beyond the guidance. So both vocally as well as in our act of passing that budget. And I do wanna say we passed it. It wasn't a unanimous vote, not because there was lack of unanimity in terms of the additional funding. The difference was just in how we were, what guidance we were giving to the superintendent in terms of where the school committee prioritized that. But I think had it been a vote just on sort of the dollar amount and not on what to do with it, it would have been a union on its vote. But I just wanna sort of address in that vote and then going above guidance. We as an elected body were elected to advocate for the schools. And so we're doing that. It's not, we don't see it. I don't see it as disrespectful of the process or of the other elected bodies in order to do that. We're elected to have these debates and have these conversations in public, in a public forum to really wrestle together as leaders in this town about where we want our resources and our taxpayer dollars to be going. Our public is demanding that we discuss and debate this question about where public schools land in our town budgets in terms of priorities. I know personally that our town does prioritize our schools and does prioritize education. I think as I've written in the paper, you know, more than 60% of our town funding does go to our schools. And that's not just a majority, it's when you break it down to each individual department such as libraries, such as public safety, such as conservation, it's exponentially larger than any other department. And we get that and we see that priority. And at the same time, our public needs to hear us having that conversation and talking about that as a group. And so our ask is above guidance, but we don't believe that it's beyond what we believe that town has capacity for. And we welcome the debate, we welcome that conversation about how we're spending the money and how we're prioritizing that. I also ask, and I know my colleague, Peter said this also, is that this group join us in doing that hard work and saying the hard, you know, having the conversations with the community and explaining our budgets and explaining the challenges and limitations that we might have. And that particularly from the town council in terms of making those choices and making those decisions about where our funding is going and what that might mean in terms of sort of capacity to grow public school funding beyond the tremendous amount and support that we're already receiving from the town. So I enter this conversation as, you know, willing to have this discussion, willing to have this debate, not to sort of show any disrespect for the good and hard work and hard decisions that other teams and other organizations, elected bodies in this town are having, but just so that we can have that open and public debate. Peter, do you wanna add anything? Yeah, if that's all right, Lynn. Please. Yeah, so yeah, so just a couple of points off the top. So yeah, so we can share information about the region, but we're obviously gonna advocating for the region right here, because we're not representing them. So the region voted a budget that was consistent with 3% updated guidance from the town. We had a discussion about going up or down, but at the end of the day, it was 3% guidance. And we talked a lot about why and a lot of it was about town of Amherst finances. And yes, on the unanimity of the vote, we were 100% united on asking for the extra money. We deliberated and then ultimately disagreed about whether to say it should go to, which positions it should go to. So that was the procedural thing there, just so you know that. So yeah, I mean, plus one to everything Allison said and I guess two main things. One is that I feel at this level of increase that we're asking for, 84,000, which I think if my math is correct, increases the Amherst budget from the town's perspective from three to 3.3% is quite modest given the rest of the cuts that we are applying to the elementary schools get again. And also the one-time ESR funds that we're using, which as you know, using one-time funds in an operational budget is quite the risky business, but we're trying to do all we can to minimize the ask. And I feel like over the course of the year, we've tried to make the reasonable pitch as to why slightly bit more is justified this year for the schools. But as you've heard, there's been an enormous amount of public demand and pressure from some areas of the public for much more on the school budget, right? Millions more. And it's been really difficult to explain to the public why that order of magnitude increase is not only outside of our purview to authorize, but is really not reasonable to ask the town. And we've spent a lot of time on school committee trying to explain why, right? And a lot of the stuff we talk about is the stuff that I feel like the town council and the town manager ought to be saying a lot more directly and frequently to the public. So these are things about the other four capital projects, like the other things in your operational budget that you have, you know, the lack of pilot, the lack of buildable space, all the things that we call like tick off in our head that make the operational budget increasing, prop two and a half, all that stuff. And in doing so, we're getting really negative feedback that we are not going to bat for teachers that we don't value educators, a lot of like nasty personal attacks too. And we're kind of just taking it as part of the gig, but, and this is part of, you know, my personal public comment at town council a few weeks ago, it feels like we're doing the job of the town manager and the town council when we are owning that communication. You know, like, and for me, it's frustrating because I feel like we're, school committee is trying to play good ball. Like we're trying to be really good about making a case and then asking for modest increases, you know, like at the, and I knew this was coming and this is why at the beginning financial indicators meeting, I asked not jokingly, not facetiously, I asked the town manager at the beginning of this process, right? Tried to play within the bounds of how we're trying to cooperate here. Do you have millions of more dollars for the school budget this year? What do you think? And I didn't get an answer. I asked it again at the first budget coordinating group and I did not get a direct answer then. We did finally get a direct answer and I super appreciated it from, from Lynn at the four towns meeting. But that was like February, like our last, if I'm getting the month right, January, February, you know, so, and what that does is that it makes the public confused about what's actually feasible. I know you don't have final numbers in October, Paul, but like, you know, you don't have millions more for the schools, but the parents and teachers, they're not gonna get that unless we say that directly. And that I feel is the responsibility of the town council and the town manager. And, you know, it's also very confusing, I feel, when other groups are advocating as they ought to for things they want in the town budget and things like crests or reparations or feasibility studies for youth empowerment centers or I could go on, get funded because of direct and relentless public pressure in public comment and an email particularly. And we've tried not to do that. Like you don't see, you know, a school committee invoked email campaign flooding your inbox saying 84, 84, 84, right? I mean, maybe you will if people do it on their own accord, but that's not how we try and roll because we're trying to play within the balance of the process. And we feel like that's become an ineffective strategy. We asked for 50,000 last year, that didn't work. We asked for 84 this year. You know, we hope that we can make the case there. And so I just wanted to frame it like that to say that, you know, please help us explain to the public what the actual constraints of the town are. So that people are more able to understand the choices you're making and the choices of how you fund the schools and how we choose to allocate those funds. At the end of the day, we still might not agree that it should be 3%, a 3.3%, that's fine. But it has to be framed in that larger conversation. We can't just avoid it until people, you know, blow it up at the end of the process. Thanks. Sorry to go on for so long. All right, we're getting to, thank you. We're going to go on to the town budget. I'm going to start with the town manager and Sean, and then we'll also call on my fellow counselors. Paul? Yes, I really don't want to respond to Peter directly. And other than to say, we all know there aren't millions of dollars. I mean, we knew that in October. I don't, you know, I think that was, you knew that as well as I did. And everybody else knew that. We saw the projections coming in. You saw where the dollars were. The question is, and we are super transparent and we're on this spreadsheet, which is our budget document and where the funds are coming from and where they're going to. We've been always consistent in our ability to divide the pot up equally. And I don't think that that's always been a philosophy of the town and we've lived by that. We were, and we think that all the three elected bodies should be living by that as well. We don't put together a budget that is a level service budget and then come back and say, we have to make these cuts or when we develop our budgets, we do it within the confines of the funds that we have. And so I think that it creates a false narrative when you create a budget and say, we're making cuts when you're actually getting more money. And I think that that's where the tension erupts. And that's always been a concern of mine. It's a different approach. And so that's the frustration on my end. So in terms of where we are, we are going through our budget process. We've done the first cut.  We have the same kind of economic pressures that you do with contracts being settled and costs for fuel and all the other costs going up. And we're building that into our budget. We were as grateful as anybody else was to go from two and a half to 3%. We felt that was a help in terms of our fuel expenditures, especially for heating and our different, we're very intense on our vehicle usage. So I think that we're working be within that 3%. And the demands on us are no different than the demands on the school. So I guess my concern is that there, what's the difference maker here for a higher percentage? Because it's a zero sum game. It's, there's not more, we can't, we're not manufacturing more dollars. There's the same dollars there. And so the question is what, where is it coming from? Sean, do I add anything? I can unmute, I will. Yeah, just quickly, you know, last year there was a request for additional funds. At the time we didn't have a funding source for it, but I do want to remind everybody we did ultimately when we did identify funding source, we did increase everybody's budget. So we did make good on a commitment that if more revenue was identified that we would go back and reconsider the budget and allocate that out accordingly. So hopefully you guys have it. And then two other points on the, on the outreach, you know, we're one of the few towns I'm aware of that do this, you know, this financial indicators presentation, this big kickoff where we invite everybody, we again, sort of transparently lay out all the issues that are facing the town, the budget, you know, the budget constraints and direction and welcome suggestions and other ways you think would be helpful at communicating budget information. We have a G.A. Jammerst, we post everything online and obviously it's discussed at Council and Finance Committee often, but open to other, you know, feedback on how we can communicate our budget realities. And then just in the ARPA and the Cres and so on, we did allocate a million dollars to the schools as well as part of the ARPA plan to support the sixth grade transition, which we know now that's been pushed back a little bit, but we also allocated to support early childhood programming as well. So we did allocate quite a bit to the schools, you know, just through the strong working relationships that we have between the two groups. So that's all I have to say. Okay. Before we move to general discussion, I'm gonna call on Mandy Jo and Andy to see if they have comments they'd like to make. Mandy Jo. I was wondering if Andy wanted to go first. Okay. Go ahead. Actually, most of my comments are gonna be in the next segment of the meeting where we're sort of summarizing all of it together. I think if you have, Mandy, if you have anything to say about our budget from the municipal side, go for it. I mean, I wouldn't add much to what Paul and Sean said, other than I think the council has also operated at least up to this year on a, we don't wanna spend savings, free cash stabilization on operating funds. And so we don't wanna supplement our yearly expenditures through savings because it's, you know, I think that's part of our financial guidelines and policy of operating funds come from yearly revenues. And so, you know, if it, the, as Peter has started to say, the pie is closed in a sense there. What's on that revenue side that Sean showed is the revenue. And so, you know, what I've gathered is basically that the schools might be advocating for a different split of the revenue that frankly would hurt the library and the town side of government if we didn't do an equal split. Because as we all know, even the equal split is hard for all of our budgets to fit into. And so not equal splitting by favoring one set of services over another between the four that it does split by without an additional revenue source would harm the other four in what I would see as potentially a less fair burden, more burdensome process right now with an equal split. We're all burdened the same amount in a sense at least the way I see it. And so maybe that's more part of discussion. And I have some other things to say in the discussion section, but the pie is the pie. And so if it sounds like it's a question of how we split the pie, unless I'm mishearing Allison and Peter in the school committee in terms of requests for increasing the pie, maybe I just haven't heard that if that is some of the requests. So. So let me follow up on that because it's sort of hard to now hit not bridge into the next conversation. But the pie may not be the pie it's the problem too. We're about 10 days away from the House Ways and Means Committee coming out with this proposed budget. And if you base it upon experience of prior years, what would happen is that the governor would propose a budget and it would have a very small increase for municipalities and education. And the House Ways Means Committee would do better and the House would do better as a result. And then the Senate would have the highest amount and it doesn't come really until June when you have the Senate Ways and Means discussion and the Senate budget decision and it all comes together in conference. So we've got a couple of problems. One is that we're early in a process that at least based upon prior experience is indicated that we're working from the lowest numbers but we have no concrete information that enables us to project anything higher and to establish budgets based on anything higher because if that doesn't happen then we've got a real crisis so we've adopted a budget that's bigger than we can afford which then bridges into the other problem that inevitably is there and that is that given what I've just reported now I think that we have real problems with the budget calendar not that what the one we've developed but the one that the legislature in the process rusts upon us. So I think that's where and I really am frustrated by the process going forward and last year we said, well, if we do get more money out of the budget we'll share it and we did and I think that there was one consequence that I was very aware of and that is that we ended up sharing our portion with the region and I'm glad we did it was the right thing to do but our other communities that participate in the budget didn't do anything similar so it ended up being an increase from Amherst but not from the other communities because it couldn't be built into a revised process and that's where it gets back into the frustration of the budget because the region has to go and figure out what it's going to ask for in the way of the assessments from the member communities well before the member communities adopt the budget and those town meetings are happening well before the House and the Senate and the governor complete the budget process. Alison, I'm going to call on you in a moment but when I use my opportunity to say in addition to what other people have all said here we have had the opportunity on a regular basis and we have used the opportunity on a regular basis to advocate with the state legislature and specifically with ways and means and in those advocacy moments we have spoken up not only about town money but about school money and we've taken our cues from the school committee members to talk about things like charter schools and special ed and how we are being disadvantaged by the present formula for schools in a way that the Mass Municipal Association has really taken a strong position about the $30 per student instead of $100 per student increase. And so I think that we are just looking at a pie there is only this pie and there is only what we will get from the legislature or from any other resources. And as we all go forward I just cannot help but say when we advocate I'll include the libraries in this too we advocate for all of our sections of our government and we have been doing that in ways that have exceeded what elected officials in the town of Amherst have done in the past. And we have done that with the guidance of our town manager, our school superintendent the head of the director of our library and the various boards. And so I really hope that regardless of this conversation we will all continue to agree that we're advocating for the town of Amherst writ large. Okay, Allison? Yeah, I just wanted to respond or talk about the timing before we go into the larger discussion because I think I'm glad you raised that Andy because I think one of the things that we when we entered this charter the new charter and our new form of government that one of the benefits that we anticipated was your round government and sort of not being beholden to a town meeting schedule and sort of in terms of when we approve our budget. Now setting aside the region is a whole like different animal because of the town meeting the different structures in the member towns but at least for the Amherst schools and the budget timing we actually, you know, the departments of the town didn't get any benefit from this new form of government in terms of the timing in terms of when we have to approve our budget, right? That hasn't really moved substantially if the town council doesn't need to approve its budget until June but we have to submit our budget sort of before April one and I know there's a lot that has to happen but I mean, I just wonder if there's a way to sort of build in and share some of that flexibility with the library and the schools and frankly the town departments to enable a little bit more of that time and we're having this discussion and this is a great discussion and we've already had to turn in our budgets. So, you know, sorry, like, you know even, you know, sometimes a couple of weeks might be even more ideal. So I just wanted to point that I won't, I have other comments but I'll wait till you open it up for full discussion. I think that we are now in fact open up for full discussion, okay? Allison, do you want to go? Yeah, sorry. I, you know, a couple of thoughts that I hear you all saying and I just want to reiterate I don't think, I mean, I'm speaking as much for myself or more for myself as we hear you and appreciate and are grateful for the advocacy that you're doing, the time that you're spending on that and I see that and I know that that's happening. I think, you know, we as a group can do a better job sharing that with our community and the town which sort of gets to, Sean, you asked the question like what can we be doing differently or more of to sort of build that? I don't have answers but I think it's a worthy discussion for this group to have because town, I mean, school budgets are so, so complex. And yet that doesn't mean that we should just be like it's complex so therefore we shouldn't even try to explain it in a way that somebody who dips in only when they see that their library paras or their music paras are being cut we need to do a better job and I hold myself in that from the school's perspective of explaining some of these issues which gets up something that you said, Paul, which is our budgets are increasing in dollar amounts so talking about cuts and using that sort of vocabulary is problematic from your perspective and yet that's how our community experiences it, right? Like they see their favorite teacher or their favorite position is being cut and so thinking of a way, I don't have an answer like I said but I do think that there's opportunity for us and maybe this is the group to do that and to work on ways to better engage the public and better communicate and share some of these things. The pie is the pie. I've heard you all say in various ways and how do we have that conversation in a way that people understand that the pie is the pie or the ways to increase and grow the pie are not always as easy. They're not sort of overnight fixes. They take time, they take extended and concerted advocacy over months, if not years. One of the, that just thought just flipped out of my head so I will come back to that but I think that there's, that we really do have opportunity to talk about this and engage with people in a way. Oh, I know it was, we had nobody show up for our budget hearings and I personally haven't gone to the town budget hearings or library budget hearings but I shouldn't say nobody. We had one teacher that stayed for the regional and two teachers that were at the Amherst budget hearing and so what we're doing right now isn't working. I think it's sort of the short answer and so ideally we can all work together as a group so that we can sort of better tell that story and help our community understand that what we need to be focusing on is growing the pie and how do we do that? Other comments? Mandy Jo? Yeah, I know we're not here to discuss the region but one question I have for our school committee members since I sit on both is we recently, the region has always had a lot of questions about the assessment method and the region is four towns but as school committee members you are advocating for an increase from the financial guidelines for the elementary school yet at the regional level, you left 40,000 plus on the table through accepting these 4% guardrails to the point that when Amherst went from two and a half to 3% guidance recently you didn't get the full benefit of that from the region either because two of the towns were already quote at their max and as Andy said last year when we increased ours it was seen as a quote gift and there was no seeking from what we could see I don't know what you did privately or to the other towns we don't always get that report but no request to the other three towns at that point to say, hey, Amherst just gave us a portion of their supplemental budget that the increase from the state, what about you? And so some of, I think some of our frustration is about that, that you're willingly in some sense leaving money on a table and then saying, but we need more and sometimes you say that at the region too some of it was not just about the cuts to the elementary school. So I don't know whether you have a response for that but that's something that we see here that does at least personally frustrate me. Peter, so excellent question. So and I could probably fill in all of the details offline if you want but in summary, so the assessment method has been up until last year a perpetual crisis in the region going back a large number of years and without getting into every single possible scenario effectively any one town can say no to the if anyone town says no to the assessment method which because of the way it's written in the region has been a custom assessment method for a very long time then the entire budget fails. It comes back to the regionals you may already know this but this is good for everybody else to understand it comes back to the regional school committee we then have to vote another assessment method and another budget that thing goes back to the four member towns that process keeps happening until we hit July 1st of so for this year between 23 if that happens then the state education commissioner comes in and starts to impose a one 12th budget for the fiscal year for the region for that month and it keeps doing that for every month that that process goes unresolved and there's not an exact formula it's up to however he wants to do it it's usually though based on the previous fiscal year and so what would happen is that you would be operating FY 24 and FY 23 levels and so you would have to make even deeper cuts than you have now with an unresolved budget and that process lurching back and forth and just because of the way that town meetings get scheduled which is not just logistically difficult but expensive for the small towns that are operating on extreme budgets to even have it rejected once means that we're probably going to a one 12th budget right and so there's a lot of work that goes into and I would create a Doug Slaughter finance director and Mike are super tended for having those one in one conversations with the select boards and the finance select boards and finance committees of those the three hill towns and I say hill in a positive way in order to get a get a sense of what they're going to recommend and support at their town meetings which is another risk factor that makes that gives the regional school committee pause for going above above what we think might be attainable because you all it's a much higher percent chance that you're going to say yes to the assessment method because this is Paul and nine town counselors saying this or whatever finance committee, whatever it is it's only you all they're just projecting who's going to show up to their town meeting and say yes or no and any number of people can get a crowd going and voted up or down and so that's why it's been such a high priority in terms of fiscal planning for the region to get to a agreed upon assessment method that we really thought we weren't going to get to anytime soon and we're worried about it. The guardrails concept combined with the full statutory method is what ultimately got agreement for long-term when we didn't think that was possible. And so the fiscal benefit that that buys the region in terms of stability is worth the, this is what we discussed at the school committee is worth the setting those bounds and in some years not having the increases go beyond those bounds. So this was a, and you play as a good example where had the assessment methods statutory just executed like it was, we probably would have had, I can't remember what it was, like 40 to 45,000 more in the budget total. And that would have been, it's not massive shift at the region but that would have saved a para. It would have helped our financial picture next year. So it's a trade-off, right? And so that's the reason why the guardrails are there is because it increases that maximum potential for it passing. So now in terms of like the actual budget amount that we're going to set, for this particular year, we did talk about at the region at length that the town of Maribus went off from two and a half to three, which is awesome. And then we, Allison and I talked about, and some other Amherst members talked about at the elementary level, we proposed slightly more given our tact on what we felt was reasonable to ask for and what we felt the town was capable of offering. And we felt that we didn't want to do that at Amherst because we didn't want to risk it failing at Amherst town council and then that whole really severe process kicking off. It was a long discussion but that's essentially like why we didn't do that. Now we could have done some other creative things and said, well, let's just pass the 3% Amherst budget like we did and then, I don't know, make a formal request to the hill towns to like add 10K here as a gift to work around that. At the end of the day, we didn't. So that's a really long roundabout way of saying that like we're trying really hard to look out for the fiscal stability of the region because the consequences are so bad once you get into those loops. And the fact that we have now a relatively stable assessment method is a real benefit. Are there other general discussion comments? Peter, you have your hand up? I'm happy to let someone else talk if they want to have other stuff. Paul, did you, were you leaning forward to put your hand up? No, okay. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm going to take Austin and then I'll come back to Andy. So I just, I have just a general question for Paul and Sean and you, Lynn. How does the town respond given its commitment which I support to kind of everybody in the same boat? How does the town respond when they are real and demonstrable needs that go beyond everybody in the same boat? So presumably we want a budget model in the town that does both of those things, right? That allocates funds so that we're kind of all dealing with the same budget numbers but what happens in the town if there is some demonstrable need that says DPW or the fire station or the schools or the library really has a need, which if we just give everybody the same thing is not going to be met. Paul? Yeah, so we always start with revenue. We look at where our revenue is. And if there is, everybody has demonstrable needs. I think I would argue that we always have and you know, and so we, but we always try to stay fair through the three elected bodies and maintain the same percentage. If we can find additional revenues that we can pour through then we share that out equally. And but I think generally we try to manage it within the constraints of the revenues. The only way we can maintain our financial stability and our strength, we have to live within our budgets. If there are extenuating circumstances, I mean, what some communities do like the city of Northampton they go out for overrides on a regular basis. They ask for operating budget overrides, which is a permanent increase in the operating budgets. We've don't do that. It's not our philosophy. We just, I don't think the public would support it anyway. So that's not an approach that we take, but generally we're really constricted by the revenue sources. And we try to keep those growing as best we can through new growth, which is buildings going up and additions and things like that. And any other revenues that we can increase. So I appreciate that. And I just want to stick with my question one more time. And if it gets too meta, just ignore it. I have some thoughts about it, but I want to ask Sean to, if he would like to add to anything Paul said. The only thing I'll add is that's what this group is set up for. That's what I was gonna say. And again, the earlier the better, obviously, I think is why we hold our first BCG meeting in November when we do our financial indicators presentation. But that's what, that's ultimately what this group was set up for was to talk about the challenges. And if there was something, I think the Paul's point, we're all dealing with the impacts of inflation and rising health insurance costs and rising labor costs. But if there was something unique that that's what this group is set up for to discuss. And I just want to add that we don't put a formula on capital projects. But as we all know, we all have increasing health costs, we all have increasing salary demands, and we also all have deteriorating buildings. And whether or not we choose to address that collectively or individually, the reality is that the capital funds do come out of the budget into reserves. And they are, and on the regional level, assessed as part of that formula. So I don't think we can ignore the fact that at this point in this past year, 10.3% of the town overall budget was put into CAPA. So when you say emergencies, I think not just of emergencies, because we have demands, but I think about buildings like DPW that could get condemned tomorrow. I'm gonna go to Andy and then back to Peter. Yeah, I was gonna, let me just respond to Austin's question a little bit from experience of having been with budget coordinating groups since its creation and having served on it in the old form of government as well as now. BCG was the opportunity, it has been the opportunity for one-time exceptions to be made, and we have made one-time exceptions. One of the things we have to be very thoughtful about, however, when we make one-time exceptions, and I don't think we've done it recently, so it's not been on anyone's mind is, is it really additional funds for the year is so that the increase in the next year is based upon what it would have been without the one-time addition, or does it get kicked into the budget? And then there's an expectation that whatever the increase that is coming across the board applies to all funds, including the additional funds that were added. And I can't think of a situation where that second aspect has actually come about, but it becomes an issue every time you do it. So I just wanted to point that out. The other thing that I was, if I could share my screen and it's up to everybody, whether they're gonna spend a couple of minutes on it, I think it's really important that at least we understand that because of the Student Opportunity Act, and I think we all philosophically felt the Student Opportunity Act is the right thing to do in support of it, but the consequence is that the amount of money that's going into additional chapter 70 money is really pretty widely varied from the half percent that we have to 1% to getting up there and to 30%. And I don't think that when any of us thought about that statute and about the back of what we're dealing with now, that we conceived of the amount of inflation that's now taking place, that we were really spoiled by a long period of time where inflation was pretty much matching the 2.5% that we were able to raise property taxes. And one of the things that we're facing right now is the reality that we had for the first time because inflation has broken that general 2% number that the Fed has aimed for every year, that we're facing a crisis. So we just haven't faced in dealing with inflation that far exceeds revenue growth. And revenue growth is limited by mostly property taxes because that's our largest source. The second law with the legislature can give and the legislature, I've said it before, there's stuck in a process and they're stuck with their own revenues. Peter? Yeah, so I won't respond to everything because I probably have 45 minutes to the way I talk, but just a couple of things. I mean, I'll start with the very positive and something Lynn said, which is, you know, I mean, absolutely, ideally, you know, most productively and efficiently, we all ought to be in this together, advocating and coordinating state-level advocacy. Cause there's one thing I've learned about state level I've seen for six years that if you're doing it on your own, it's gonna do almost absolutely nothing. And there's a lot that can be done that feels like you're doing something that has absolutely no effect. And so, you know, we have a pretty tiny soap box to influence the state and we're always gonna be hopelessly outnumbered. And so our only real shot of amplifying our power is to work together across boards and to activate the public, right? And we're not there yet. There is, you know, a decent level awareness of some of the major issues like charter schools and whatnot, but there isn't really a focused understanding of like, okay, this is the biggest spigot that is causing pressure on the town. We need to do this. So I think that there's a lot of opportunity there, but I don't think it's possible to get there if we're not consistent with the public in terms of how we communicate the budget constraints and how we act on budget demands. So, and I know that like, we probably all don't see eye to eye on how Cress was funded. And I'm not here to talk about the value or not of Cress, but from my point of, from my perspective, okay, just like, this is how I think about it. And this is how I saw it play out is that the town didn't really have the money for it. The town got an enormous amount of public pressure to do it. A large majority of it from the same voices over and over and over again. The town succumbed to that pressure and now it's in the operating budget. And the year that it was put in, that was an extenuating circumstance that went above and beyond the need. Now, you could argue whether that was the right thing to do or not, but it was an example of the town getting feedback from the public and then saying, this is how we value the budget. We're gonna go like this and we think that this is just really appropriate to do. That's the same thing that we're doing here only trying to be more reasonable and less name-calling about it. And like, that's the frustration and it's all the more difficult to do when the town representatives don't own that from the beginning.  That's not the reason I asked the question. The reason I asked the question is to educate the public. Like, I don't know if you've been following like our news, but teachers are now openly talking about the possibility of strike because the town has the money, this is the narrative, okay? The town has the money, they'll do it if we give them enough pressure, enough signs and t-shirts and emails and public comments. And they use as evidence these items that have worked on the town council before to fund things that initially the town was signaling it didn't have the money for, like reparations, like crests, like these other feasibility studies, like hopefully not reserves, you'll see. So, you know, like that's the difficulty here. And when I think about how well the school committee has operated and been a good fiscal partner for so many years and the size of this, like if you put principal aside for a moment, you said, what is the impact of 84,000? Could you find that if there was like a lot of nasty emails in your inbox for the next month, which I'm not going to encourage, but if there was, could the town council find its way to vote for that on this side of the budget and not break the bank? Yes, even though the Heatherstone Road is crumbling and Atwater Circle has like 17 potholes. So like we can't have it both ways. We can't say we are seriously constrained, we are in a really tough situation, we have deferred our capital, which I personally believe. And if you lean on us heavily enough, we'll bend the rules for you, right? But that's where I feel like the disconnect is. And I think to say no to some of these larger demands, say no to $4 million, I'm fine with it. But to say like, look, here's a reasonable and long reason of argued case for like a small amount of money. I don't think that would be inconsistent with the town's values and how they've approached the impassement. Indi Chow. Thank you. So $84,000 as was argued last year about, I think it was $52,000, $53,000 is seemingly a small amount of money. And I will not go back to the crest thing because I just don't wanna deal with that. And it was $300,000, but I will admit there was a $300,000 increase and that came about and that did pass, right? But so here's the question I'm trying. It was $50,000 last year, it didn't pass, but it was $50,000 above guidelines. It's a request for $85,000 or $84,000 this year above guidelines with a school committee that readily states out in the open, we are approaching a fiscal cliff for FY25. What is it gonna be next year when the fiscal cliff comes? Because we all know the money's not there. So yes, maybe it's possible we could find $84,000 in a budget. I don't know, I'd have to talk to Paul, right? But this year's conversation at the school committee was a million for level services, well, we'll try to ask for $84,000, but the fiscal cliff is coming and that's two or $3 million. I don't know how much of ESSER funds are in the local budget this year, but I think it's a couple $100,000. And so I guess my question to the school committee, the region's got the same issue, right? But we're not here about the region, we're here about the local, is the fiscal cliff you guys have talked about. And so $84,000 in my mind doesn't seem small this year because what I see is what's next year and what's the argument for next year going to be when that fiscal cliff comes that you guys have admitted and asked for two or three million that clearly would maybe we can find $84,000, right? But we cannot find a million or $2 million or $800,000 without severely affecting the town, the region and the libraries. And so I think that's maybe part of the reticence at the town council level for the 84 or the 50 is because it has not been, it has been very clear that that's in, at least to me that that in the end is not the end of the requests for more than the 3% even distribution. Allison? Yeah, I just want to, before I respond to the specifics there, I just want to address that we're here talking about the budget and we open this by talking about, we can disagree, we can talk about this and we can have discussions about it. It isn't about our behavior as elected officials doing our job as elected officials to advocate for the school. So what I'm hearing is more sort of reaction to the fact that we're doing our job as opposed to what is the actual need in the school. So just us asking for $50,000 last year and $80,000 here is irrelevant in my mind because that's our job as school committee is to advocate for the school's budget. So being concerned about our behavior and doing that is not the right place to be concerned but to be concerned about this fiscal cliff that we have been talking about and it doesn't change just because we're asking for $84,000. The $84,000 is a way to sort of bridge it so that we have that time. We're not making, we're still recovering from pandemic, our students are still in need of support and we're making these cuts at a time that yeah, it's a lot bigger than what we're looking at. I pulled it up, but I think it's $565,000 in the Amherst budget. Peter and I represent the region as well. So it's cool to talk about the region and it's like about a million dollars at the region. We know that's a fiscal cliff. This is the drop in the bucket and having to cut it again next year if we get it in this year is not gonna, it's not gonna change the fact that we are facing a fiscal cliff. So I think this is part of the challenge is that our community hears a rosy financial picture and we are in fiscally sound because you all have been and all of the past elect leaders of this town have been making sound fiscal decisions. Our school district is making sound fiscal decisions. We are in good shape and yet we face significant constraints and our community is having a hard time piecing those two together and understanding sort of what you all see from a long-term perspective and how that translates into, I still have potholes on my street. My property taxes are so high, why are you cutting my library para, right? Like we, like it's a, you know, back to Sean's comment, well, in Paul's comment about language, it's like we need to work on a way to help our community understand, yes, we're in solid financial situation. We can afford all of these big projects and long-term planning and that means we're doing some belt tightening and unless we can sort of grow that revenue, we're gonna continue to be doing some belt tightening. And it doesn't mean that sort of the library elected officials or the school elected officials are misbehaving when we do try to speak up for our budgets. Like we need to be doing that. That's what our job is. But we as a community need to work harder to help our community understand why are our taxes so high and why does it feel like we're not getting the kinds of services and supports that we need. And it is gonna be rough. We have, we have, you know, we've talked at length about sort of bridging, you know, the like the bridge financing that we need to get before we have the new school building at the region, it's gonna be much more dramatic. And we heard the superintendent and Doug talking about that in a way we haven't. And unfortunately there was few, if anybody listening from outside of the committee, that we are talking about a very, very different type of program, education program that we are going to have to be looking at in the very near future. That doesn't change whether we're asking for 10,000, 50,000 or 80,000 for this particular year. So I don't know if that made any sense, but I just, I can't stress enough that we're not doing a good enough job of explaining the constraints that I just heard you talking about, Mandy Jo. You did it really well here, but it's not being heard and understood beyond this group. Paul. You know, I think, I accept that your exact comment, Allison and Peter, that we have not done a good enough job on communicating to the public because we do tend to focus on, you know, our bond rating and the sort of fiscal discipline that we've brought to the matter. You know, I've served on the school committee for over a decade in Somerville. I was in your same position. I know what that is about advocating. It's also, this town also has set up, unlike other communities, set up really strong structures of fiscal development where people communicate early on. Information is shared to an ungodly level like most communities don't. Everybody's in early to talk about what those numbers look like. I think what I'm coming away with actually is a really important message, which is we need to be talking the 84,000. And I think we hear that that's your request. That's what it is. I don't think that's gonna get resolved today. But what I think should come out of this is a commitment to having the conversation about what that looks like, the fiscal cliff and where that, how we manage that because that's the thing that we're going to, it's gonna smack us in the head next year if we don't start talking about it now. And so I think we have to have that conversation as soon as we finish our budget process because that conversation has to happen sooner than later and understand what steps we can take to mitigate that as best we can. And maybe there is a different way of approaching the budget next year or the year's future once we see that. I think we really need strong budget projections and what's included in those budget projections. Nandy, Joe, go ahead. No, I just wanted to apologize that if I came across as faulting your advocacy at Elson Theater, that was not my intention at all. You're advocating as you were elected to do. It's just, I think you got my point. It's not your advocacy that's the problem. I just look forward and I don't see that resolution of a one-year not equal increase resulting in, I think is an equal, a non-advocacy the next year for an equal increase. Like I don't see it as a one-year fix because the fiscal cliff is coming. And that makes it harder than to say, from my point of view to say yes one year because it's not solving the problem. Paul, did you wanna add to something you said earlier? Yeah, I did, thank you. I just wanted to also say why I respect your responsibilities. The town manager also has responsibilities about delivering a balanced budget within the constraints identified by the council under its financial guidelines. So I will live with that. And that's my responsibility and I hope that will be respected as well on the other side. Andy? Yeah, I just wanted to come back to something Peter had said a while ago that's on a slightly different topic than our local budget. But you had said about how important advocacy is and that we're all participating in advocacy but the frustration that we can only go so far because of the way that the system works. And I just wanted to point out that we do have the strength of our statewide associations whether it be school committee superintendents or for us the Mass Municipal Association. And to point out a couple of things. One is that I remember the fiscal policy committee that advises on the fiscal requests that we make to the legislature and the lobbying process. And it's been a real honor for me to have been appointed to that position because it's just over 20 people statewide mixed together with managers and three counselors, three select board members, three finance committee members from various cities and towns across the state. And the one thing that I have been working on hard and the reason that I was so conscious of the chapter 70 question that I've mentioned earlier and the fact that I have the spreadsheet on my computer is because I've actually been spending most of my points in the fiscal policy committee advocating on first MSPA and now chapter 70. And certainly speak to unrestricted government aid, but that's a fairly straightforward take. The chapter 70 is a lot more complicated and I have been really stressing that so strongly because the amount of additional chapter 70 that's in the governor's budget for both the Amherst and for the regional districts is so small that it doesn't come close to addressing what the need is just to keep up with inflation. And it's a complex issue, but I've been trying to find allies within the committee that have a similar perspective so that we could have that conversation. So I just wanted to let you know that I've at least tried to use my avenues into the state process. I think it raises really an issue that is an education issue, but I think a very important one for the town of Amherst. I also want to point out, Mandy Jo, please give us the name of the committee you are on at statewide level. The policy committee on municipal and regional administration. Okay, and Paul, you're on. Public works and utilities. So I make that point. We do have an audience of five right now. You never know who they might talk to. It would be great if they did or who might view the video after this, but Amherst is trying to get themselves in the right places to influence the conversation in addition to monthly conversations with our legislators. Peter, I'm going to take one more comment that I'm going to ask for public comment. So go ahead. Thanks. Yeah, so I mean, I appreciate a lot of what's been said. I mean, I'll just add a sobering couple of points, not to bring it down, but maybe to steal our collective resolve from the years coming forward. I mean, I love the idea of advocating for chapter 70. You know, if chapter 70 went up to 100, it's still probably less, it's about a hundred thousand or less impact per district. It's not going to move the needle. It's not going to save the future of schools as we know at the region. Charter Schools is more than 3 million combined at both. You know, that's, that or some other wildly unexpected major variable of that same order of magnitude is the only path I currently see. And our job as part-time advocates, because you know, we have lives and jobs in this wonderful gig, is not going to be enough. Like I'm not, Peter Denling isn't going to change charter school funding, right? And the ability I have to influence the state level is only, is a function of how many people in the public I can help organize and focus, right? Like we really can't do anything individually. I mean, other than you'll talk to Joe and Mindy and hope that they can talk to the people. I just put that out there just to set level expectations about how really difficult of a problem it is to change things at the state level. In terms of the fiscal cliff, like, I mean, you're absolutely right, Mindy Joe, like it's not going to change that picture. Elementary, it's a little brighter because if we can get through FY 25 and six, then the new building comes online and hopefully like that passes, right? Please go out and tell people about yes. And we get operational savings from that, right? There's no white horse of Gandalf coming for the region in that same respect. And so it's stark. And so a big part of the job that I feel like the regional school committee has is to sound the alarm that that's coming. And it doesn't mean, Paul, that like, it's wrong for you to put forth an argument that all departments should have the same and that's the way to go about things. But it's the school committee's job to say, okay, if next year, if we do 2.5% increase, this is the effect, cause effect, right? And then if that's 30-cut positions, if that's the end of performing arts, as we know at the high school, then that's what it is. But it's the school committee's job to make sure that when the town council is deliberating its funding level, it knows what it's doing, right? It knows, it doesn't get caught off guard by somebody saying, why did you just fund the region and make them cut all the arts teachers, right?  And it's gonna happen really soon. So that just underscores the urgency for us to be, everyone of our, as much as, I know our meetings are all really short, right? But to get it on the agenda as much as possible to broadcast the fiscal situation that the town is operating under, how that affects the schools and other services. Sean, I'm gonna call on you, but I just wanna make note for the town manager and the finance director that given this conversation, clearly we should be having a budget coordinating meeting soon after we get done with this budget and certainly no later than early this fall to discuss, quote, the cliff. Sean, before I go to public comment. Yeah, so two things. Other towns have had fiscal sustainability type working groups and things like that, since I've been here at the town and I guess I would just put out there. I don't know if this composition is where that starts. There might be another composition of a committee, more of a collective staff town type committee that looks at that first and then comes back to a committee like this to kind of talk about those issues. We think this committee looks at the high level of the budgets, but it seems like this might need more of a in the weeds type discussion. And then the other pieces I would just say is to be open-minded about the, how funding or how resources are allocated between the elementary schools and the regional schools. I think I know you guys have separate roles and they're very distinct with your committee assignments, but most towns have the K through 12 for education and they have the flexibility of allocating resources between lower grades and higher grades. And we have this sort of superficial boundary which causes us a lot of pain in some years because of the way our regional school district is separate. But I think if we're serious about addressing some of these issues that have been described, we have to be open-minded about how the funding works going forward. If there's a huge need on one side and not as much of a need on the other side, it just doesn't make sense to stick with the status quo in terms of the, how resources are debited up. So now that I'm not working directly for the schools, I can say that. So before we go to public comment and I ask people to raise their hands, Indy, is there anything you feel we need to say before that? Yeah, I was just gonna add to what Sean said that we work very hard. I was very much part of it several years ago to try and work with the other three towns to think about a K-12 region for all of our towns together. There was not the will in the other towns that was letting us really get there in a way that would achieve the efficiency that is needed in large part because they all have for strong political reasons in their communities, a commitment to their elementary schools. And that kind of was ultimately the barrier that kept it from happening. But we're gonna be stuck in this unless we can work with our three neighboring communities and find a solution that works for the region as a whole because all of us value our regional schools and the damage is coming to our regional schools and that in a K-12 district, you'd look at that issue and try and figure out how much you wanted to damage to your seven 12th grades to protect your K-6 and you'd make decisions that made sense. It's much harder to do that with the structure that we have. Mandy Jo. I apologize, I know you're trying to get done. And it goes to the region and the fiscal cliff and something I brought up before. I would urge our school committee members to not try to put the fix of the region fiscal cliff solely on Amherst's budget. And that's part of the guardrail discussion. And I don't know what the solution to that is but the other towns have to be part of that solution. Or as much as you advocate in Amherst, I'd love to see that same advocacy to the other three towns. I don't know whether it's fixable but I know we're 80% of the budget but we can't shoulder 100% of fixing the fiscal cliff. So because the people who are in our audience which includes five, I just wanted to repeat something I said earlier before most of you joined if not all of you. And that is that this is a conversation for the budget coordinating group. Normally we don't even have public comment but since public comment seems to be a topic I suggested to the town manager that we do that. This is advisory to the town manager. It also very importantly is at the beginning of the discussion of budgets. On Monday, the town council receives the regional school budget. And on May 1st, we receive the towns of the full operating budget for the town which includes the elementary schools as well as the library. So many of the questions that people might have now or statements they wanna make actually are good cues to things that we should be looking at in those budget discussions but the goal was not to have those answered today.  Oh, I should take it down but I'll just say one other thing and that is I think that Paul should exercise discretion as to whether he feels that it's appropriate it's some future date to have an additional meeting of the budget coordinating group. For example, after the Ways and Means budget comes out in the house, we have a better sense of what the house budget is. I think that's a judgment call since it's his committee as to whether he thinks it would be helpful. Okay. And I'm seeing that we have one person who's participating as a time limit but I'm going to start by saying that please keep your comments short. We will not respond if you will and more importantly, limit them to three minutes. I will use my phone timer which will sound obnoxiously at the point at the time your time is up. And so please bring Kathy, Councilor Kathy Shane into the room. Kathy, go ahead. I'll be brief. I'm only to show my picture. I'm just responding to the larger dilemma and the issues of charter school and the way the state treats us. I think we need to build a bigger coalition. And Peter said, don't go one person at a time. I can't tell you how hard it was when I first ran for council for me to gather information that clearly stated the problem. I found it in bits and pieces but I didn't find it clearly articulated. So it wasn't just our schools versus public schools but it was a fundamentally flawed formula. And we just need to make that clearer. And Peter, you've raised it several times but I was in the audience a year or so ago with a teacher who's now retired. When she heard the number she said, are you kidding me? Cause it had just never made it through to down. So, and I'm volunteering to help in any way I can. I mean, I think this is a town-wide it is not a school specific and making liaisons with the other towns that have very local charters that are draining them. There aren't that many because some communities have none. But, and then going to Boston in a human way to talk about what this has done, I think it's critical. So it's not just chapter 70. For people who don't know it, we lost some money on the MSBA reimbursement for the school because of the way the new formula works on low income. We were at a higher percent and it got down. So there are a variety of things that have happened that put Amherst at a disadvantage. And I know some of it is shared with Northampton. So I don't think we should be going this alone. And I just wanna say it's bigger than a BCG meeting. It's just, it's a much larger set of issues. And I'm happy to work on it. That's it. Okay. Matt Cain, please enter the room and identify yourself as to where you live, who you are. Okay. We also have Donna. She has left. Oh, no. Oh, she's here in your room. She got invited early. Thank you, Donna. Early admission. I was just sending you notes saying sorry you had to leave. So Anna, do you wanna go now? That's okay. All right. Sure, thank you. And I apologize, I'm driving. I hope everybody can hear me okay. So a couple of quick things that are occurring to me and I think some of them are occurring to me out of all name it frustration, right? I think something that the timing of all of this is really challenging. And I don't know that that's necessarily something you can magically fix. But when I look at this and I say, okay, as a counselor, if I wanted to propose changing our budget guidelines to allocate everybody at 2.5% but then allocate the schools higher, I no longer can really do that because everyone's had to already build their budgets. And so for me, what I'd really like to see, or maybe I could do it, it would cause chaos and it'd be a problem. So it's very much probably not recommended at this point. And so my challenge is that I'd really love to see the BCG actually utilized more effectively. And as with what Sean was saying, whether it's BCG or a different group because I recognize that BCG is supposed to be higher level but regardless, I'd like to see a group getting into the weeds and actually working on problem solving this because I think these high level discussions, nothing's necessarily changing for this year as a result of this conversation from what I've heard. And that's okay, I'm not necessarily demanding that but because I'm not on the group, but I think that for me it's challenging to know that this group is convening when departments have already built their budgets around the new guidelines and it's too late to really change them. So I'd like to see BCG utilize more effectively as people are building their budgets. And maybe there are some elements of that you can't control because of when state funding comes in but there's gotta be a better system for doing this where we can make adjustments and we can say, okay, you know what? We recognize everyone has pinched but we also recognize that right now the easing of that pinching a little bit needs to go to the schools. And I feel that we don't, I think that opportunity has become a lot more narrow given the timing. And I think that's where I'll leave it, thank you. Thank you, Anna. Matt, please go ahead. Oh, hello, I'm Matthew Kane, I live on Southeast Street in Amherst. My daughter was the student representative on the school committee for a couple of years as some of you already know until she graduated last year. My comment is not specifically related to what you're talking about but is related to the negotiation between the school committee and the APEA which has been quite challenging. As probably many of you know there's a lot of signs around town. And there was at the last school committee I understand there was a presentation from 260 parents advocating the APA's position. Now, I don't particularly personally agree with the APA's request. And I think probably most of you think that the APA's request is unrealistic but I've spoken privately with Allison and Peter and they're frustrated and some of that frustration has been expressed today that the community is not expressing enough pushback against the APEA in terms of the APA's request being unrealistic or anything else like that. And my son is currently a junior at the high school and he tells me that the situation is quite stressful there with the teachers being on a work to rule. I'm not sure how aware all of you are with that or with the situation and how challenging this negotiation apparently is. And basically I don't know the solution. I'm willing to write letters and speak to people. I haven't seen many letters in the paper other than from members of the school committee pushing back against the APA. Like basically I want to say, you know, this is an example right now, fiscal cliff next year will be another example. The community needs to be more aware of that what the APA is asking just basically is unrealistic and that the type, you know, you are aware that the fiscal constraints of how things are funded are very restricted but I don't think the community quite understands that. And I'm basically requesting myself and you all to be out there trying to explain that to the community. Matt, we appreciate that. And I think that's kind of the tone and tenor of a lot of what we've been hearing in this conversation. So I'm getting another signal that people have to leave. Matt, thank you for joining us. Are there any other comments from panelists, if you will, members of BCG or Paul or Sean? Well, let me just wish you all happy budget season because we're in it up to our necks and may we go forward in a spirit of cooperation and resolution. So thank you, the meeting is adjourned.


Iqatana nani. Rairobiwa, isdu kufiti? Kupuopuon niya ze. Uhuun, tununu umefika kunye eventu na tununa, ticket zili, kwa very expensive. So, you are an expensive guy? I love expensive things so, lasmunge kufika bei, Lasmunge kufika bei, auna tanaji anini kubualew. Are you a fan of Rema? Ya-ya, I follow his music, I follow his fashion. He's doing great in music... ...and is an inspiration to many young guys. Ya, so nan, futasana. Apoinspiration for young guys and you're very young and very successful. Nini me kukipu glood? To success. Number one focus is making a living out of what you're doing. Making a living out of your passion because I love fashion. So I said let me turn this fashion into a real business so that I can earn sick figures. So I'm making money from my own passion and I love that about myself because I love fashion. I love fashion. This is Nairobi West Nika. I'm his fan and I know him so much. I'm a chigraf on Instagram. I love West Nika. One love, one love. Nairobi West, how many fans are you? I have a very burning question. What is that one expensive thing you buy? How much? $100,000. I think it was last year. It was in LV Snika. So... $100,000. Kenyan shillings, not Uganda.   How much? $500,000. $500,000. And then shoes. I make shoes contact before eye contact. So when I look at shoe, nangalekuza kiatu ya ako. Shoes are very important. Manu mene kiatu. Atulionu uleza kuvalisha baba kiatu. Ulimpe afri amali bai. Niii. So he purchased the shoe from me. It was a special order for him. It was a very unique sneaker that I was so happy to give him and I unplugged in short. So... It was a very big deal because kijanamdogo kama mimi kufanya kitu kama iyo. Like watuengyo jafanya sana kwa hindi. So I wanted to let the culture... they are normal people so you can work with them. So you can work with them.  He's the one who got to me like ali kua na kazi na fanya. Nili fanya o brand ambassador fashion over. Nika launch labiste. Nika open my thrift shop. So kwa na uki jana na naji tuma. So good things attract good things. So he attracted me ali kua na ali nipigia simu but aku nipigia. So when I saw him it was a surprise. So you've mentioned that Mekwa brand ambassador was fashion over. Is it something that's still continuing and how did they reach out to you? Fashion over reached out to me and they wanted to collaborate with me and we're still working together until now and maybe inshallah we can have a fashion over store in Kenya. How's it go? We need to go international, big man man. So unatakufika pala international wali se watu wakubo kwa? I want to show youth that we can make it. We can't do things watu wakubo wazi fanya. Pesitu nezadu no na. Now the only thing ni kujitu mana being patient ma youth sayo na takavitu za raka raka but you have to be persistent and you have to focus on the goal. Secure the bag first. Who are your favorite three artists when you shy dress? Number one, Kali Graf Jones Trio Mio is my good friend and who else have I dressed as an artist. Okay. Will I say Masauti piya ni mem dress? Masauti, Masauti. Thank you so much for talking to us Karibu, Kwanya Event and have a good time. Thank you so much. Follow, like, share, subscribe. Una pata. E msi yo gope bana. Vitu zi na fanya wakista. Thanks guys. My name is Liz Jackson and that was Buz with Stars with the One and only Nairobi West Nika. Thank you so much.


NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. Good evening. In Miami today, two detectives were arrested on charges of shooting up the home of a drug dealer cooperating with federal authorities. Today's arrest came as seven other Miami officers went on trial accused of ripping off other cocaine dealers and for dealing drugs themselves. Miami is one of the principal branch offices for what can be called Cocaine Inc., a huge international business run by a relatively small band of smugglers operating out of Columbia. As NBC's Brian Ross reports tonight, this cocaine cartel, in many ways, is as sophisticated as a Fortune 500 company. Noontime in Miami. Downtown, office workers are at lunch. In the neighborhoods, first graders are on the playground. And on television, Nina has just told Cliff that she loves him, but also at this hour in Miami. On a shortwave radio band that most radios cannot pick up, the code of instructions from South America are coming in from a transmitter in Medellin, Columbia for members of the world's largest cocaine smuggling organization. For the last year now, government radio operators have been monitoring the secret transmissions between Medellin and Miami over what federal authorities have come to call Radio Medellin. First, there is a signal, a whistle, and then the message. In this message, cattle is the code word for cocaine. The cattle is ready. The cattle is ready. Not to worry, there is not one problem. At 8 o'clock, 8 for the first one. Radio Medellin sends out orders to dozens of Colombians who have been sent to Miami to work in the cocaine business, almost like foreign intelligence agents. Federal authorities say they discovered this man from Columbia handling large amounts of suspected drug money, and he is now under indictment. He and his family were found living quietly in a modest home with two cars and a well-kept lawn. One of dozens of Colombians federal authorities say have infiltrated the Miami area on orders from Columbia. They have a manual on how to fit into a community to make sure that they're not uncovered. United States Attorney Leon Kellner says the men from Medellin know just how to set up a cover for their cocaine business. Hire a gardener to make sure that the gardening is done. Hire a family to make sure it looks like somebody is living there. Make sure that you get the newspaper and that you pick it up every day. And this is Medellin, Colombia, about an hour's flight from Bogota where the secret radio transmissions, the orders to agents in Miami and the cocaine all come from. This city is the headquarters of what American authorities have now identified as the Medellin Cartel, a small group of men that in the last few years has formed a near monopoly on the processing and sale of cocaine. According to American officials, controlling as much as 80% of the world's supply. This is the En Vigato section of Medellin, a place where outsiders are not welcome. It is here that the cocaine bosses meet to buy up the crops of coca leaves to import the chemicals from Europe needed to process the cocaine. And it is here, somewhere, according to American authorities, at the top three men of the Medellin Cartel, all fugitives hide out and operate. They are Carlos later, 37, described by federal authorities as a psychopathic killer who has aligned the cartel with Colombia's M19 terrorists. Pablo Escobar, 36, under indictment in Miami for his role in setting up cocaine bases in Nicaragua, described as Colombia's wealthiest man. Jorge Ochoa, 37, caught in Spain earlier this year, but freed and now in hiding in Colombia after allegedly bribing a Colombian magistrate to fix his case. Federal authorities say these three men now run an organization more violent and at least as powerful as the American mafia. American authorities say it was the Medellin Cartel that ordered the murder of nine Colombian Supreme Court justices and the Attorney General, the murder of a key federal witness in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the murders in Miami of dozens of rival drug bosses. Are there places where they're more powerful than the government? Unfortunately, I think that that may be true. Richard Gregory, one of the country's leading federal narcotics prosecutors, is now tracking the move by the Medellin Cartel of its cocaine labs deep into the Colombian jungle. And Gregory says there are now intelligence reports that the cartel has a number of shoulder-held missiles. Perhaps the Russian-made SAM-7 demonstrated here. You're talking about a business that probably makes a couple of billion dollars a year, $50,000 weapon, or a couple of them that would ensure the protection of their laboratories. It doesn't surprise me at all. There was a cartel form to control the production of oil, OPEC. Another cartel for diamonds. And now here in Medellin, a new cartel for cocaine. And it seems to be able to murder, corrupt, and to operate just about anywhere it chooses to. Ryan Ross, NBC News, Medellin, Colombia.