for the special meeting of the Rochester Stock Virginified District at 6.47. Additions and subtractions to the agenda. Hearing none, we're gonna go into, this would be, I don't see a number on the top of this. Remember, we go by the date now. Yes, okay. Updated 417. This is the 417, draft nine, let's go to draft nine. Oh, I think the last one was draft eight. So what we're looking at here is another pass for the budget. It is under the, it does comply with the Act 46. Merge requirements, it is under the excess spending threshold. It still preserves, but doubling the guidance in Stockbridge, doubling the music in Stockbridge, increasing some of the summer coverage in the Stockbridge office. Doubling the nurse. Doubling the nurse. Increasing math, what? Full-time guidance of Rochester. Yeah. Right, full-time guidance of Rochester. Yeah, increasing some of the math. Maybe you'll down in the tree. Yeah, we're increasing math in Stockbridge. Right, there's some of that in here. I think that the last draft of a full-time person is not in here. This includes some changes to the administration. Model, we're able to retain the current Rochester principal who as a person who's in Scotts in the VSTARs program reduces our cost for administration, at least for next year. What was the other one? There's one other I just want to talk about. We did reduce the inter... Yeah, we went over the fine-tuned clone, the inter-school programming a little bit. We checked and verified it and then we're able to tighten the technology. Are you going to do lines eventually or not? I was just kind of giving a general overview. And David was going to kind of go through it, I thought. And I want to remind everybody our goal tonight is to hopefully find a number that we are happy with, that we feel comfortable with, that we are understanding to be able to move forward. Right, this is less of a theoretical give and take kind of conversation and more of the, we need to get to a number to warn it, to take something out to the community. Well, I think, if I may, from last week, it was very clear that we need to have a budget that we can stand behind and present to the people. And I think that I feel up after spending four and a half hours at the SU yesterday with Carl, I have a much better understanding of what we're buying, and what kind of programming we can have, and what some of our needs are. We just spoke for quite a while with the technology to just kind of find out what they're planning on. What is that? Well, like the equipment, what was he planning on purchasing? Technology teacher. No. No, not like the director of technology. I guess I was just trying to use that as an example. We really went through it to see, to really get a good understanding of it and to try to do the best that we can. I have to remember that this is, we're taking small steps, this is our first year. We do want to do some major things as we walk down this road together, but we need to take it in small steps. So, we're under the cap. We're under the five percent cap. We're under the excess spending threshold, correct. David will probably go over. Why don't we move into letting David go through more of the nuts and the bolts? This team here is in the summary of the impacts on the budget, as we presented by our chair. This section over here, you can see how we calculated that what the split-eight education spending is. The crypto divide by the price of pupils, and you get the mutual spending, which drives the tax rate. This is the, the spending for a group of 17,000, 629, under the 17,816, equalized tax rate by the expenditures divided by the equal and categorized pupils, here we come down to the equalized tax rate of $1.79, by eight cents incentive, brings down to $1.71. And then, compared to last year, the merger law says that we cannot pay more than five percent of our body for our equalized tax rate of last year, which was $1.4476 in Rochester. So we can't spend more than eight cents above that, or it can't be eight cents below or above it. So, this, no, sorry, we'll be back at it. The five percent is not the homestead tax rate, it's the equalized tax rate. So they take the equalized tax rate, which is hidden there, close to our house. $1.62 was the equalized tax rate. So add the eight cents, 8.13 cents from here, under that, and you come to $1.78, take it away from that, comes to $8.54. So somewhere in that range of $1.70 to $1.54 is when our equalized tax rate will be in Rochester, and it'll be the same in Stockbridge. Because our preliminary is outside of that range, we get drawn down to the upper limit of the range. So we are paying on $1.70, not on the $1.71 that we calculated from our spending and our equalized pupils. So equalized tax rate is $1.70, $1.78, and it's obviously the same for both towns, it's a single unified district now, so you have the same equalized tax rate, and then because the CLA is different in each town, divide that into the equalized tax rate to get the homestead tax rate. So because the properties in Rochester are valued above the market, the CLA is above 100%. So you divide by more than 100%, you get a lower homestead tax rate than the equalized tax rate. The exact reverse is, well, not exactly, it's a similar direction, but not quite as strong. So in Stockbridge, CLA of 104% means that the properties are valued at 104% of what the market says their value, so they're a little bit overpriced for the market. And so it reduces the $1.70 down to $1.63 as the homestead rate in Stockbridge. So this is the overall picture. The last thing that we've got to look at on this page, I think, is the change in the homestead tax rate. So up here in fiscal 18, the homestead tax rate was $1.44.76, and in 19, we're looking at $1.49, so it's almost five cents more, and that's what we're at in other countries on the difference between the $1.49, 48, homestead tax rate after the CLA has been applied to the equalized tax rate. Compare that to the homestead tax rate in the prior years as kind of about four, almost five cents, and over here it goes up almost four cents from $1.59, 70 to $1.63, 47. So that's the tax picture. Next week, we should go and look at the components, what goes into this, and I'll look first at revenue and then second at expenditures. But before we go any further, are there any further questions about what you see here or comments that you want to address and then to the board or questions to me? I'm going to go straight into revenue. Do you want to go back? The big change between this version of the budget and the one we saw last week is this line here, the small scores grabs. In Stockbridge, it went down a little bit, from I think it was $79,000 the last time, and in the Registered Wedding by $264,000. I've been trying for several weeks to reach the agency of education to find out what the small scores grant would be for next year. The common practice of the AOE over the last 15 years is to send out in December an estimator of what the small scores grant is and then you don't know anything else until you start receiving it in October of the following year. I got no word back, I had no communication with AOE until I met on Friday at a meeting with somebody who was there from the AOE, Brad James, and I asked him directly, and he said, well, the answer to your question is that you have to go back to the statute to Act 46. And if you go back to Act 46, what you see in there is that when two school districts merge, as long as they don't close the school, they keep the same small scores grant, dollar value, in perpetuity. That's cool. I don't believe it. I believe they're gonna change that. So if you think they're gonna allow that to continue, you're not in the same camp as the customer over here because I'm with her. There's no way that'll continue. There's no way. What is for this year? What is for this year? Well, I doubt it. And they are still trying to change all sorts of things this year. You guys believe that, I'm sorry, but... Whether they will be successful, we don't know. One of the things that relates to us compared to what's in the legislature at the moment is on the tax sheet, we saw that we came in at $1.71 when we calculated our equalized tax rate. But we came down to the 5% boundary at the limits. Some people in the legislature want to do away with those limits, so we would lose on that. So there's all sorts of things out there. But luckily it's only a half cent in this budget. It's only a half cent if that 5% goes away, because we really didn't want to count on it. We want to, but we don't want to really get any other. So it's only a half a cent difference there. So this year is more maniacal in the legislature than it usually is. It's usually maniacal in the time of the year. Some people call it the Christmas tree phase, phase of the budget of the legislative process, where people start hanging things on all sorts of other pieces of legislation. And so we don't know what's going to come out. It's usually not rational at this time of the legislative process. So we don't know what's going to happen, but this is the information we have right now. And the board has to make a societal decision about what it wants to recommend to the owners based on the knowledge we have now. Remembering that the majority, by far the majority of districts voted on their budget in March. So they had even less information than you have. So as much as you'd like to have more certainty, imagine how much more certainty those people in January when the board's voted for the March town meeting votes. It's a crazy system, but that's how it is. And that's what we work with. Every year we work with this. This year it seems to be a little bit stricter than usual. But coming back to you, so the revenue here went up substantially. So with the revenue going up, it means that the difference in our total expenditures and our revenue is our education spending, which drives the tax rate. So that difference between the two means that it's a smaller gap, means a lower tax rate. So adding more revenue means a lower tax rate for the same amount of expenditures. That's the main thing that's different in here. The other vulnerability that I mentioned in vain, I'm not sure if you really heard it, the things are happening in Washington, as you know. Things are happening strangely in one fear. They're happening even more strangely in Washington. And we don't know what kind of title one money is gonna be made available to states and to districts. So we are making some assumptions here, but we won't get this amount. It's considerably less than we've been getting in the past. It's been going down over the years. I just read a letter from a year ago in which the Secretary of Education advised that districts should only expect to have 75% of what they had in the prior year to make it, because many districts will use title one money in the summer, so they have to get their application in June. And so the advice of this time a year ago was put your application in just up to 75% of what you've usually had in the recent years. If more money comes, you can do an amendment to spend the higher amount. But to be sure that you don't put in an application which leaves you high and dry, just put in for a lower amount and then add things later as we become more certain as to what the feds are gonna be getting us. Part of the deadline of Washington is that their fiscal year starts from September, it goes through September, it starts in October, it goes through September. So when they are budgeting for their next year, we already have our three years into our new fiscal year. And so there's an overlap with the voting. So that's the revenue side. On the expenditure side, you've already had some insights as to the major items that have been changing. One of the, from a programmatic point of view, not from a dollar point of view, but from a programmatic point of view, one of the big changes was in this area of interschool programming. The group that met yesterday felt that way, that the board would want to have something in there as a placeholder, something so that when we come around next year, we say, oh, yeah, we should remember about that. We had thought this was a good idea, but we couldn't put a lot of money in this budget, but we might want to reconsider what we want to do for next year. So interschool programming, where the music program from this school and the music program from that school could get together and form a big chorus or a big band or whatever it was. That style of thing. We put a small amount here in the general edge, for pre-pay. We put another amount down in here for K6, but it was a much smaller amount than what was presented last time around. So in the pre-kindergarten, we see interschool programming of $2,000. It runs, I think, somewhere around 6,000 last time, something like that. And down here, the interschool programming is also reduced down to 2,000. And special program down here is in at 4,000. So the total of these is 8,000, two-four, and two up there previously was 24,000. So there was a big significant percentage of that programming was reduced. So what's in there is a placeholder, something that will get us going in our first year of operation. It may not be where we want to be in the second or fifth or 10th year, but it's a start. And it's a way of saying, this is something we need to remember to work on for next year. In addition to the, so that's for the interschool programming where there would be some exchange of students and or teachers. And special programs would be things within a school which would be enrichment activities that where it might be anything from foreign language introduction to an enrichment in mathematics, enrichment in language or as artists in residence or any of those kind of combinations. So that's one of the areas that changed since the last time you looked at it. And then we also looked at some of the other things that were mentioned. We made a change to the classroom principle. What we did here was to look at between the two schools of one and a half FTEs to be divided more or less equally between the two schools. So there'd be 125,000 in there previously and there was more like 150,000, 160,000, something like that. So it was something like $40,000 was cut out of this line from the previous version. The other thing that it was done was the ACP counselors for services for students. So what's happened down here is that the, so this needs to be taken out. So the goal was to take the SAP counseling out or rather that the person who was gonna, in each school who was gonna be doing the SAP counseling, which is substance abuse prevention counseling, would be the guidance counselor. And the goal was to have part of the guidance counselor charged up here to the SAP counselor because some of that work is grant funded so we need to have it recorded here so that we can get the revenue in to support that. And I can see that I didn't succeed in doing all of it the way I hoped to do it in some of it. So that, for example, down here in Stockbridge, we see that the guidance counselor with a total of 0.4 is divided 0.36 for guidance, 0.04 for SAP counseling. But the benefits for this are buried down here and the benefits are up here. So it's not a diary, it didn't achieve everything that it was intended to do, but it's a part of where they're. Are the numbers the same or is there some adjustment in that number? There are some adjustments. So this number needs to come out because it's down in here. Okay. And over here, I didn't have the opportunity to put a number. Well, the number down here needs to be put up there as the other way around. We're showing that there's SAP expenses. So we can use that to offset the revenue that's coming in to support you. And then this one need to be brought out in some way up there. So bottom line is there's an amount in here which is more than is needed and that we need to take out tonight before we vote. Okay. But, That's good. It's a minus. That's good. It's a minus. It's a minus. Yeah. The student is testing the Start360 program and I was able to research that and discovered that there is no amount or there's no part of this service that's in the assessment for technology. And each district enters into an agreement and makes a separate, has its own check to reassize that the company that hosts it, there are three components to their service. One is a hosting service, which means that you get your foot in the door. This is a subscription service where you pay on the basis of the number of students that are going to be accessing this testing opportunity. And then there's some additional services and what we saw here in, in effect it was only in Rochester was this year we've already spent $57,000, $5,700. Ooh. That's cool. $57,96 was spent here. So it was, $6,000 was put in and it was divided between the two so that both would have access to it. Whether that's a service that we want for next year, it's relatively small potatoes but it's an opportunity right now, it's in the budget. And then down in the technology there are the regular expenses for the software. So this is an additional service which was in Rochester only of the four districts that I looked at was the only one that had that service. All the others had just the hosting and the subscription. So the hosting and the subscription are in this line item. No, they're not. Hosting and subscription. This is just the additional services. Those services we're going to be needing going forward Bonnie, if you know what those are. Those are the assessment pieces David? Star 360. Yeah, those are the assessments. So the regular Star 360 is the perfect number? Yes, yes, yes. They listed on the bill as professionals with office services in addition to the hosting and the subscription side. I don't know what they said. These are the progress monitoring testing that we do with kids to find out what, how they're making progress in their class. And we're doing it throughout the whole issue in every one of the schools. So this is just, it would be Stockbridge and Rochester to share of that amount of money. We can do that as many times as we want to during the year. And I think they do them in Rochester three times to see how the kids are doing in math. Same thing with stocks. So you're saying that these, this line item 165 for the Star 360 test is actually a assessment from the SU? No, not from the SU. No, not from the SU. This is the standard bill. This is the tool, Rochester. This is the tool we use. It's a tool that we use to assess our kids. Sorry, I was getting those confused then. Okay. And this is a tool that is used in other schools as well. All of the SU. Okay. The way he said it sounded like it was not in other schools. Smash, it's all over. It's all over, okay. So these are the additional. It's not like what he said was relevant. This particular expense is not in other schools. This particular expense, this is mine. They have a different expense, but they have a different expense. These are different services. Totally different services. What are you talking about there? I'm talking about, on the bill to Rochester, there are three sections. All the other districts have only two sections. So the item here is the third section. That is four. And it's called Assessment, Renaissance, and Annual Implementation of Data Coaching Renewal. Bring it on over. Let's check it out. And that was 5,697, 5,697. It does sound like professional development. Take that out, please. We have, yeah, we will. Do you want to take that out? Yes. Yeah. So you still have hosting, and substantial staff in the technology area. We'll take it out. We'll share it up here. How much is it? It's just like $600, he said. Can you bring it over and show them? Of what kind? Sounds like we'll let Anita coaching. But let's tell her his before we start. Well, I do know that we did ask, our teacher did not know how to administer the Star 360 test at one point. I think what this is is when the results come back for the Star 360, this helps them to understand what they have to do in order to work on the areas that they can use. So I'm a little puzzled because I don't know that other structures within the SU are using this same tool, always in texture. So it must be something that Dan is the ask for. They have a hosting. They have an access to it. They have an access to it. And it's a professional development. I'm sure that's what made Danny pay for it. Or Dan decided to get the board approved, but the body says we have not access to it in standing left. To my understanding, we've had no professional development around any of our assessment. It looks like it's an annual fee, so I mean, if it's something that you want to look into in order to make sure that something we're not using, or do we just want to take it right out? I'm not using it. I want to support it. If it's data, what I think it is, and what I think it is, is it's data assessment coaching. It helps people better understand if I take the Star 360 and I get this housework data, what do you do to help me move forward? Okay, that's what I believe it is. So the teacher gets information on how to, here's all the scores in my classroom. Here's how I can suss this out and decide that we really need to be focused more on building word banks, or we really need to be focused more on this aspect of numbers. Or something like that. But I'll leave that to you online. Star 360 doesn't give you a... They give you some of that. I think that, see, I'm not really certain this. I think we need to look into this before you start taking it out. Let's leave it at that. I think if we can leave it in, if it's what I believe it is, we'll take good use and we'll connect with Stockridge because they're giving the same assessments. If it is professional development, then we'll build that into our professional development calendar for next year. I'm hesitant to take it out because I'm not certain it isn't going to help us be better. Let's know what a thing is before we do something with it. Sorry, go ahead. My question would be, wouldn't a teacher know when a student is or is not learning something? Not necessarily. No? The beauty of this test is that it gives you things that teachers can do, like grouping kids together that are in similar places, knowing what the next skill is that they need. And yeah, there's a lot of teachers that are intuitive enough to figure that out, but just take some of the guesswork out of that. What are they missing? What is it? Why are they doing poorly here? What did they miss? And so they work on that unit to be able to. So this highlights a specific weakness. Right. It gives the teacher some ideas about how to correct it. It's data-driven instruction. We'll go on with the data, not how you think the kid may be or what he might be missing, but what does the data show you? What is the evidence? And the tests give you that, so that then you get the diagnosis and you can make a far clearer prescription if it's true. All right, thank you, David. And then I'll just show you one example of the shaving that was done yesterday down here with an equipment for billions of grass here in Rochester that there was 12,000 in there before. And by identifying what specific items there were that were going to be purchased with that 12,000 dollars, I decided to cut back to 10,000 dollars. That would be sufficient to cover the items that were needed. So that's just an illustration of the kind of level of shaving that was done yesterday. And I think with that, I'll stop and see what question they might have. I still don't understand why our snow removal is done by the town and there's in Rochester's is not. That's a pretty big difference between snow removal and grounds.  So I don't understand. I think the time does our parking lot, but if you think about this campus, there's a lot more sidewalks, fire entrance that have to be cleared and our custodial staff does that.  There is just a lot of sidewalks and entryways that have to be cleared. Well, you know how I can solve that. All right. I think it's something we could be working on year to year to find more efficiency. Right. I think that's what we need to do is because our town paid, the town pays for ours. Yeah. And your town probably should pay for yours. Maybe that's something we can have a discussion about with our snowboard going forward, but it's already, the town has to pay for this outside. But not the sidewalk, just not the sidewalk. Right. And I think there's also as the building usage patterns change that we may find that we're not needing to clear nearly as many fire exits or so. Exactly. But you may not need all parking. Exactly. And I think that as we go forward, especially in this next year, for the next six months, we're going to have a lot of discussion about these efficiencies. Unfortunately, we can't do that tonight. But yes, that is on the list of something we need to be aware of. Philosophically, Joanne, I think in a lot of these situations, the idea of, you know, we're verified. Yes, these numbers are based on a school that operated very differently than it's going to be operating now. But I think at the end of the day, what we all kind of agree that it's more important to over budget and coming low and save money. Oh, Carl, I don't know how Stockford takes that. But I would like to ask, while we're there, obviously the joke's on Stockford, because Rochester already knows this. So we're talking one zone, correct? Is that what we're talking about? We might as well just say it. Which one? One zone in this school is going to be right. They're, yes. We are going to be keeping the one zone in the high school open, yes. Because obviously, they all know it, but we don't. I didn't know it. You didn't know that? We've never actually. We've never actually. We've never had a conversation about it. We've never actually. We've never actually. We've never actually. We've never actually. Well, no, but we haven't actually, even though he has stated in the letter, we haven't actually heard it. Well. This is assuming Plumstone is open at the lower heat. Yeah. Correct. I mean, somebody must know that answer. Or you wouldn't. But I just want to be clear about this case that I shared last time was a farmer's look at this system.  Right. And obviously there would be two different amounts in the budget. One, the building shut down with a little bit of heat. Or we were using one zone. So I mean, this budget had to be built on one way or the other. This budget is built on using one zone. Thank you. You're welcome. I asked Mr. Labs out when I walked in. He had no idea. Because I didn't know. So much of what the number came out from. Yeah, I mean, please.  How come the line 224, the salary for the custodian went up 7,000 from last time? Because we found it was a different person that has seniority. This budget as soon as two custodians is here. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a question about the tuition numbers. Thank you. Are you taking those numbers at the 16.5 maximum allowable tuition? David had actually done some pretty extensive work for us in regards to what we were paying for tuition, actually using. No, this is under revenue. Oh, the revenue side. Because, here we go. At the 14, 4, 18. Here's his revenue. He's doing it at 5, 15, 5. Okay, five. This is the revenue tuition for Rochester. That's not rich too. That's not rich too. Okay, so you don't know if you're allowable. That's right. Is that conservative? Is that what you're saying? Because that's going to be a big difference. I mean, if we're coming in at 17,000, roughly. Jack up for it. The state is never going to allow us to have 16.5 as allowable tuition. They just aren't going to do it because there's a certain percentage that you can't go above for your actual cost of per student for that. So Bruce, I sent you an email about that to give you a heads up because you said you have a letter in December saying if you're going to bring something up, give me a heads up so that I can invest in it. When was the email? So my question is at the 418, how many students is that incorporating for tuition in Rochester? I can't tell you what line I'm here on please. So the revenue is on the roof. It's on the revenue sheet, thank you. The 418 bucks. Tuition case of six. 27 for Rochester. Right, and it will be six for Stockbridge. You're right. Are we really getting 27? Yeah. If David could pull up that tuition revenue again. We have a lot of tuition. We have, you can see we have two preschool. And if you could. We've worked really hard on this. There's 27. To try to make sure they're real. Wait, was this the December date or the October date? This is current AIS, right? Haven, let's hope. I want to verify that these are the correct number of student. March. March. So this was the bodies that were enrolled in Rochester in March. Because that's not in here. And it doesn't tell you, tell us what. No, what I'm saying is you're not, we're not seeing what you're pulling up for allowable tuition. You're saying that, yeah, that she's not in this packet on the thing. Right, that she's in the packet on the thing. Is this being figured at 16-5, 15-5, 14-5? You see the 15-5 right there? Next to it? It's up on the board. On app, you can call him app. Okay. So you can see there's in grade six, the third student is a Hancock student. Then there's 15-5 for both Rochester and Stockbridge. All K through six tuition kids. He's assuming it's 15-5. Then you have a different rate of crystal. Right. And yet this was the actual bodies. Right, and we intend to, when you send allowable tuition, and then after the fact, you see where that number was, and what the actual costs were. And there's a 3% swing on either side of those. And we have, at least, we have, as long as we're relatively on a journey, we have intentions of doing what Stock does to us, which is, if we need to build back, we build back. I think that'll be a discussion for another time that we'll have to talk about. Well, we know what the number is, but I mean, that's not something that... We might come in at different things. I think what's confusing the situation is comparing the education space in each class pupil with the tuition per student, because it's a two-tony type of number. That's right. So they're not covering the costs of the same student. That's right. And they're not covering the same costs for the same student. So you can't compare the apples and oranges. Then you could find another way of cutting students and cutting costs, and you could come up with maybe $19,000 or $20,000 for a student. And which would be the right one? The right one would be the right one for the purpose for which it was being calculated. So for taxes, the amount is the $17,000. Education spending per equalized pupils. It includes certain expenses, excludes some. It includes some students, it excludes some. The per pupil spending for the allowable tuition includes the students who are your tuition in students, which the equalized pupil does not. So it's the different body of students. And it can be for a place like Wright's to come in significantly different. If you've got 20 or 30 students coming into Rochester, that's going to change the number of the denominators for what the cost is divided by significantly compared to the equalized pupils. And $1,000 swing for 25 kids is a lot of money. So what I'm saying is- I hear what you're saying, but I think you're mistaken. I think you're comparing apples and oranges because the cost education spending for equalized people cannot be compared to the allowable tuition costs I'm not misunderstanding. I know that this year we were getting 16.5 from Hancock and Granville students coming to Rochester. That was the maximum allowable tuition for primary school students. I mean, at the end of the year, after the actual cost of calculating- It's on their website. We know that it was 16.5. If you never see the allowable tuition in a website, that's why I think you're confused.  And you see what we're actually charging. We were charging 20,000 for secondary 16.5. I'm not misconfused. I've seen it. I saw it. Tim, I think we're kind of getting a little off track in terms of the budget. We can go through and look at where we at. The important thing to remember is that the amount we are allowed to put in our budget is the announced tuition, which is the 15.5. If the real cost changed one way or the other, we either have to refund or we have to bill back or it's in the 3% wiggle room and we just call to wash and walk away. All right. So is the state gonna allow us to charge 15.5? The state is going to allow us to charge 15.5. Okay. That was my original question. Okay. Is the state gonna allow us to charge whatever you're figuring the- Yeah. This is the, that is the number. And I just verified it right now. I just looked it up on the AoE website. Okay. So, see, it is there. There is something called the announced tuition. The announced tuition, yeah, is what I'm looking at. This is what, because the allowable tuition is a back, is a looking backwards number. The announced is a looking forward number. So we're looking forward for a budget. So we're using that announced tuition. Okay. There's no health insurance for the principal for the stock price we wanted. The courts between two banks of the river, I'm split down the middle. What's happened on Monday was that the budget committee we're called the budget committee that met decided to not budget based on actual positions. But to budget based on- If they're earning nothing from the budget, they need to have some- Well, if you listen to me carefully, you'll hear the explanation of your question. So what was done on Monday was to say, we're not going to budget based on certain, the health insurance is not based on particular positions. It's based on a 1.0 FTE for a total of 125,000. So the direct answer to your question is that 31,000 is spread between the two positions. That's a healthy number for two. Zero is zero. Right. Just in terms of people to commit the budget and not just saying to get it easily. That's the kind of thing where it'd be nice to sit on. Right. So if you're saying 317 is zero. What the total would be for the two people that would be filling that, 125,000, let's just put that number down in the middle too just so there's not a zero that catches people on. For the sake of this particular item, Bonnie just told me she doesn't need any help. So- Well, then it might be nice to switch the number plates. Yeah, right here. Well, again, like you would get in Stockbridge where you'd be able to work. Yeah. Zero's catch your eye. Why is something that's- Well, I'd say blank space is catch the eye. And make sure- Right. I mean, if you look at the top and watch out for us, 59% of the expenditures and there's 30, I mean, it's- It's gonna be all the rehearsal from what we're doing. No, no, no, exactly. That's what I'm saying. We just, we want it prepared so we can talk about it. Our advantage for us. We saw that problem and created another problem. We're happy that that's fine. The problem that we've created is that we've now taken part in health insurance for the administrative assistance. So when the committee yesterday decided that they were not gonna tie the budget to positions but decided to have this global floating group on its principles. Correct. They didn't indicate how they wanted to deal with the other expenses that went with it. And this gets there. Answer the question. We don't want to have zero's to tell the audience. This time. I'm just telling you that all the other items in there was- Right, okay, no, I mean, the key thing is is that we have the proper FICA. We have the proper unemployment. We have the proper insurance numbers for the blended positions, you know, and we're not going to have, as Jenny put it, a $30,000 prize. That's good to know. Carl, did you check on whether there should be another seventh grade student in Stockbrook listed on the line 269? I believe he's included. See, what's included in the original one? There's six Stockbrook, six grade students right now. In the other section of the class? Yeah, there's two new ones this year. Okay, so then, right, that would be the, that would be the one. What are you talking about? Cause that's- I used to go to Stockbrook, but he goes to a different school now. Right, but he finished his elementary school at a different school as parents were paying tuition. And now that he's a seventh grader, he gets- He comes back. He comes back and he should be in at the state allowable. Okay. The other thing to remember, and I don't know if that's this situation, but sometimes when you see you're off by number like that, in the state of Vermont, if mom and dad live in different towns, a youngster can go to either school tuition-free, sometimes that. Correct, that's why so much of the role of the Stockbrook principal and the Stockbrook's office manager is verifying everyone's residency because people pop on your- Well, and sometimes it's very legitimate, you know? Mom, the kid has been living with mom and getting elementary school somewhere else and now they wanna move in some place and take advantage of the fact that dad lives in Stockbrook. Right. That's legit.  Exactly. Just another zero that popped up at me was the- Number? It was 46 tuition. I'm not sure if it's a simple answer for that, but it just doesn't. Yup, that is that- Is that another point of explaining it? No. No, that is a specific Rochester resident that is being tuition and Stockbrook does not have any tuition. Or why is that different time? So no matter, it's not. No, it's basic. We should talk about it and not talk about it. It's a- It's a- Okay. I just wanted to know about that. Yeah. And that probably is going to be a question at our meeting. So we'd be nice to have the proper narrative to discuss that point. Yes. So we don't go all in on purpose. Correct. Correct. We can't do executive session in the annual meeting. Well, no, but if the question's off the floor, we need to have the correct answer. That's why we need all these questions. That's what we're here for, is to challenge everything so that we know. Right, exactly. Retirement, retirement. And that's line 40, 37. There's something for Stockbrook. There's nothing for Rochester. And again, nothing. The answer to that is simple answer. It only relates to the parent educator. Gotcha. You don't pay any retirement for teachers. Gotcha. And there's no parent educator in your project. So that's a- That's 17, 17, 17. Yep. That is a 504 parent educator, but it's been on her since a long time. I'd like to ask, I don't actually- A 504, so it's section 504 of the, I want to say IDM. Civil Rights Act. Civil Rights Act. Basically, it says that students need to be accommodated in their school for physical disability or physical challenges. And- And there's no money in the budget for it. It's not a federal, it's just a civil rights law. It's not a federal education policy. So kids that are on IDM or special education, often there's reimbursement that goes to their services. So they're handled through the special education department. The way the Civil Rights Act works is, districts are responsible for their own. So this person has a need for a parent educator to help the student or- And this is a physical need or a- It could be a broad section. Right. Body cast and can't come to school. We have to accommodate, make sure that we have- Yeah, it could be a short term or a long term of a situation. Equal opportunity, equal opportunity. Right, right. The biggest difference is not a special education idea. There's two gateways about the kids' educational capabilities that the child has to meet. My, how much do I put, three minutes? Three gateways. Three gateways, okay. But basically, it's a different, it's a, because that's the, those are the federal idea B regulations. They come with funding from the federal government to offset those costs. The civil rights costs of 504, the student, you know, are just, it's just bored by the time. People often think of it as, as the ramp act. It was originally, it was section 504 of the civil rights bill that children who had physical disabilities began accessing schools. In the early 50s, if you couldn't climb the stairs, you couldn't come to school. And basically that's- That's where it started. It's really just an accommodation. If you make the accommodation, the youngster can learn adequately. If you don't make the accommodation, the youngster can't access. That's what, Frank? All right, 243, 244, people have pro games. Is that going to be based on a contract that the civil rights union has ever been through? Yes. Yes, all right, okay. So have they, have they accepted duties already, or, so that's all, that's all set. For the rest of this year, and so we'll do it again. When? Probably in those malls, Springer malls. Yeah, nearly that late. Yeah, David, once a bit go out for fuel all you know, I think we work with a mental person. Is that right? Yeah, it's the energy company, the energy company, and they investigate the market every day, and they come up with, so we take advantage of the best expertise out there, it's available. So a lot, there are a number of companies that do this across New England, across the country now. So they are consolidators, basically. Yeah, yeah. And so they will call us in a moment's notice and say, we think it's time to, are you ready to move in and make a bid tomorrow? Because the price on the market is... I was asking because I know I get my contract from Propane, I know it's coming up very soon as they'll say, here it is, you know, they'll be coming up soon, so. These folks also walk in Dartmouth College and Hitchcock Hospital and things like that. Great, thank you. I have a question. What are the repair and maintenance costs of $49,000? Can you use the line item number? So again, dollars. $236. $236. $36. I don't know if I need to speak specifically, but I do know historically in our budget that has been numbers in that area. It is a big number, but. Does that include the high school or is that just the elementary school? I can only speak for historically in our historical budget. I have seen high numbers in that line item. For next year it's going to be just the elementary school, but we do have some significant, we do have some significant issues. We have some leaks in the roof. We have some plumbing issues that have to be addressed. We have like all in the floor that we're not sure has been maintained and we need to make sure that's maintained. Is there a breakdown somewhere where this number was generated? Yes, Jesse generated it from actual pass that she feels needs to be completed. So it's projected forward. Right. And it is her best guess. No, she did not get estimates from all of the different contractors, but she feels she has a pretty good handle on. Because I'm just guessing again. That's not touching the high school. That's not doing anything at the high school at this point. Now, if one zone stays open in the high school and something goes wrong over there, you know, a heater or something. Obviously, we have to address it. Yeah, it's a big number. It is. I feel like I don't know that I can defend that number without estimates and some sort of breakdown of where that number came from. It's one of the biggest numbers we've got. Well, maybe if we had a list of... Yeah, I mean, even if we saw her list looking now projected and got a copy of it. The glycol thing is the floor in the addition that we talked about. That we talked about a few weeks ago? Yeah, she gave us the report. But it's something nice to be able to defend that. Carl, do you know what the 15th first stop bridge includes? I want to say softening in the hot water in the kitchen. I think there are some window gaskets, Jim said. I mean, I think that he had put together that list. So it is a current list? It is relatively current. It's nice to see both of the lists. Sure. And I think it's important as we're having this conversation I think what we need to be thinking about just as a board is, are these the things, is a number here so egregious or so questionable that we need to do another version stop and try to do this another time? Or is the number relatively close so that because the goal tonight is not to produce a budget narrative and not to have split all the money into all the particular cells completely accurately. The number we need to have is we need to have that four million whatever it is figure that goes on to our warning. Some of the, and I think it's important that we're identifying narratives that we need to put together into our stories, but I think it's also confirmed. This is an open meeting where lines can be changed, numbers can be changed on the floor. So if it is an open meeting and they're looking at a budget on that, in that open meeting, are they looking at this? We have sent it to them. They were looking at a book, a book that they've been sent and they come in with questions. We better have backup for every single line because it is going to be that. Sure. I think it's important that we identify her, but we be able to be able to answer and I think that's what we set ourselves as our task is that we can get behind each number on this. Correct, correct. I agree with that. So I understand that you're saying we're trying to get to a general overall number in that sense. I trust the work you did and I think in the ballpark I'm looking at things that are gonna raise people's hands and make them. Right, right, right. But I think what I was trying to get at and I think the part of what we need to do tonight is I'll say we think this, we believe you Bonnie, we think this number is good. Give us a detailed explanation so we can defend it versus... Oh no, no, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I'm saying I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking of the annual meeting and I'm thinking of defense of this budget. But I also think for my own well-being, $49,000, it's up there, it's a lot of repairs. It's a lot of repairs. And I just think we need to see a good list, yeah. In the middle, Nancy, will we? Do we have a date yet for our annual meeting? We'll come out of this one tonight. If we have this budget, we will have a date. Tonight. If we, if you don't resolve it tonight, it will be a different day. Correct. Gotcha. Incorrect. And every date we change gets closer to July one. You got it. What is our criteria for the board for accepting this number? Well, I think we set a goal to be under the cap. I think we set a goal to be able to address our students' educational needs. Okay. Okay. Those two, isn't it? Those are amazing. It's always good to know what you're talking about. Yeah, what we're striving for. Exactly. Well, I think we have a goal to maximize the use of space to sort of downsize for spaces that, that was another commitment, I think, that we're working on this budget. Right. And we have, we have a draft, what do you mean, education, between the two campuses? Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. Yeah. Go ahead. It doesn't matter. I don't know.  No, I'm sorry. You've had a lot of questions. I'm just curious about summer support. Is that janitorial? What name? 225. 225. That is, yeah. She'll only have 122 grounds and that is. And don't we have the kids in the summer? Excuse me? And don't we have the kids in the summer? We do not have kids in the summer, but we have long-term needs to be mowed. So, ours don't? Well, I think, I think also, does the summer support really? Okay, true. Enough with the looks. It's for the sooty camp, for painting, the gym, the schedule to be painted this year. Oh, that brings up another point. Are we going to change the name? It's for the campus doctor, I think. Is this the full-time? Or I would stop her, I think is what she's saying. Correct, for summer support, I wonder if the salaries of the janitor is a year-round salary or if that, or, you know, that takes into account the camp in the summer? 26. This is just additional help for the custodians. We're cutting down. Somebody to ride the lawn mower. We're cutting down from three custodians to two. We have a lawn mower, too. Well, I guess we need to get our kids to go. I think Francis, I think Francis has summer hours built into his schedule. It's $26,000. He's getting the summer hours built into that. He does. Frank? I apologize if you've already spoken about this. But you get talking to wall-walls and you keep talking. I just, I wanted to compliment David first for laying it out this way. This is very helpful in looking at the FTEs. I just, and actually I was pleased to see the salaries for the two principals and that the reasonable salaries. Can you just speak to the principal, to the principal line, line 184? Is that going to refer to rules because of, you know, contract issues and, and, and that. So. Well, I, I, I'm sorry. I didn't mean this to be a hot fade. I'll actually, I'll let you know. No, no. We were able to lower these lines because Bonnie is in the retirement system and therefore she can only make so much money. We believe that we would hire someone else. We don't have any idea who that might be, but we wanted to have enough money in here to be able to find somebody. And we hope that maybe they would move back and forth and Bonnie, because of all her experience, would be able to mentor, depending on who we found. And so we, we've really put the amount in this to be able to support hiring of someone else as well. So that's, stay tuned for that. Just started to advertise for that. So. Okay. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'd like to know again why our janitor doesn't get paid to do the summer groundswork if he could, if he could. I think, I think the answer is that this money in the past has been able to support what's been done for them in coverage. Don't know whether, I don't think we should crank it up just to crank it up. I mean, I think it reflects what we've paid and the way he's worked in the past. It's been able to support it. So. He hasn't, we just, the claim of $26,000. Glad this is reporting. So we're gonna pay our guys $26,000. We've got the children here in the summer and yet versus $78,000. Well, that is what your need has been. Again, I'm glad this is recorded. That is, if you have a different need, then we need to address that need. We have a different need. What is, what is- I feel that should be looked at by our school board all of you, because that's ridiculous. To look at the amount of money that the student is making? Yeah, I mean, we actually have the children here in the summer program, like. Great. And so he has to clean for that. So you feel that, okay. So you've got- So maybe we need to look into the floor and we've got the kids. Well, there's, I think there's an apples and oranges kind of difference in that. I mean, part of the, I mean, there's, I'm not sure where's the revenue from the Suzuki program show? It's buried in revenue. I don't think it's lying. I don't know. I don't know if they've been able to pull it out. What is the Suzuki program? My friend had talked about it. Yeah, it's this huge music show and that is a worldwide program that comes and it like doubles the population around Chester when they show up. It is every kid, they have private lessons, or- It's a camp. It's a camp. It's a camp. That they come to- It's a summer camp for prodigies. It's a summer camp for prodigies. It's not just a camp for prodigies. Right? Just so kids don't- No, no, no, it's not true. That's not true. That's not true. I'm sorry. And their parents come also. Yeah, their parents come to see- Suzuki is a program where parents work and learn with the child as well. I mean, it's such a great program. Oh, it's a great program and it takes over the school and all the buildings and many of the pianos throughout the community. And they bring in- They also bring in- The pier's hall is used. The church is used. Yeah, the pier's hall. It's just like a meat farm. Yeah, yeah, and they bring in teachers from all across the country come to teach here. It's a nationally- It sounds wonderful, but again- But we have the kids every day- Well, I think maybe we need to look into the staffing needs for the summer camp in Stockbridge and to make sure those staffing needs are being addressed and paid for properly. And maybe it is part of the One Planets budget. Maybe not of our school's budget. And we should look into that. I mean, I'm talking to Janie about this situation in Stockbridge. I'm sorry, what line is that? As well as- It's far off. 225 is where I started. All right, thanks. No, but I think it's reasonable to see if we're covering, if we're actually covering the number. Carl says he thinks so. Well, I don't think it should be the person that's taking care of all these children. I mean, that's a huge job to have to do that. And then after a long day, clean up. I mean, that's insane. Well, I think that, I mean, I think that, again, you're looking at just the custodial piece of that. I think that the custodians not necessarily should provide you the kids, but- No, I'm saying after the kids leave, you know, after a day of locus and whatever, should that teacher who's been with those children all day, it shouldn't be their responsibility. No, I believe it's covered by the, I believe that's, I believe there's hours for the workers to leave. Oh, so it's not in this amount. The $26,000 that he moves again. It's everything he does. Oh, wow. He has his full compensation, and he's, he's part-time. It's part-time to do that whole building, is part-time. I'm happy with the work he's done with us for that whole year. Oh, yeah, I have nothing to say of that. It just seems like a big job for one person. Yeah. You told me it was that? Yeah. If there's a need for compensation, then we need to know why we're going to be a part of this historical need, that there's an indication of need for compensation. We talked with Francis and talked with the one, talked with the one planet person about the, the needs and what goes on that- Talked to the- Programming to their person. I'm wondering, does the Rochester person take care of the grounds? Because Francis doesn't take care of the grounds. Yes. They do to the grounds. We have all the fields all back. Because we have somebody else who takes care of the grounds. Right, that's the contractor. Right, and we've had a conversation that we would like to look into, which is going to be a better bang for our buck, to get a contractor to come in and do all the mowing and everything, maybe a bunch of things. Yeah, well I'm thinking that's why this is lower is because he doesn't do the grounds and the building. Yeah, and we want him to be focused inside, not just worrying about the grounds. Yeah. Go ahead, Leslie. And I think this has been addressed before, but line number 86, did we hire her? We had talked about, we added one base and we're going to add to her income. I didn't know if that was the added income. Yeah, we did. That added some days to her rights. I didn't know if that- Because I don't know how to make her with it. Ah, I'm sorry. I might have answered that incorrectly. I'm not sure if we gave her a raise, but she did get- She can still work for more hours. Correct. And get paid for those days. It's the same. You've got to understand, there's a support staff contract that has been negotiated. And when that's finally implemented, which will be July one, there will be an increase for all the staff, all the support staff. We don't see it. So it's not a question of- It's always just in proportion, that's all. Well, this is something we negotiated for 18 days to try to get to and all of them will be lifted. So- So we're adding 10 days to the stock which admin, but no increase in salary. That would- Well, it should be 10 more days. It should be 81 hours for an hourly rate. There will also be an increase of the salary because of the negotiated contract. We did. This is the same salary. That's what I'm looking at. Well, I saw it and do you have those boxes around your numbers anymore? What, how it got calculated? That 10 extra days for the administrative assistance in Stockbridge. I did not compare, but I do remember while we were there, we saw the box and- Right, right, right. How good it is.  Sorry. Okay. So how does this budget budget reflect education priorities for the school? I mean, you say we're meeting that or- March 8th, that was still the same. When did we add it in? Maybe, David, in particular. We're just verifying that increase in the salary for the administrative assistant for Stockbridge. We wanna make sure that, I guess the question's maybe when it got added in or just to verify that- It is added in. It is added in. It's about a thousand more dollars. All right, it's about a thousand. But the idea of raise is gonna be taken care of by the supports. Right, right, right. We're talking about the extra days, though, Bruce. Right. Jenny's saying that the number hasn't changed since March. So if the 10 more days have been added, there should have been- The extra thousand dollars. You know, a thousand some dollars in there. Okay. For line 55, this is Title I, General Ed, Instructional Remedial. I'm not sure even if this question was answered. Oh, dude. It's only a matter of how we're actually gonna be educated in this kind of thing. I don't know. Well, I- It's a question. We're talking about what we are, and even I'm looking at, you know, for maintenance budgets, numbers here and numbers there. We're looking at visuals. Right. As opposed to, and this is Jenny's point. Well, Stock- I think that how does this budget- Incredible. How does this budget reflect educational education in the two schools? Yeah, I think that's the bottom line. I'll start it off with that. This doubles music in Stockbridge. It takes a music teacher and spreads them over both districts, but it doubles the amount of time in Stockbridge for music. Okay. It doubles the amount of guidance in Stockbridge. What now? Point two. It's point two, and it's going to point four. Oh, I don't- I don't math was a big issue. It increases math by half a day. In Stockbridge. In Stockbridge? Half a day per week. Yes, per week. Yes. It was a, it went from a point eight. So Donna Gallin is broken into about three different parts. She does library, she does math, and then she does a remedial section, and we pumped up her FDEs by half a day. So that's something else. We also doubled the amount of nursing time. Nurse was on call, but now the nurse will be in Stockbridge two days a week instead of one day a week. We'll also be here three days a week. So that increased to give more equity to that split. Now I'm missing something. There's- Besides Donna, is there any more? Interventionist time in Stockbridge? Now, we talked about, we talked about, some of the teachers have talked to me about wanting more intervention this time. Sorry. And they also- I'm just curious to find that for me. A person to work with students who have been. How many difficulties? Difficulties because of one on one. They've been found on start testing that they need to catch up. Okay. So they came to me with a plan. This is when we were talking about the facilities expansion and having the temporary building. And they, and I don't know whether Donna was speaking for the rest of the staff, but she certainly said, you know, it'd be really nice if we could get foreign language part-time and also do an interventionist part-time. But I guess I was just for the board to decide whether you want to go there. Certainly Rochester doesn't have foreign language either. So we probably to be equitable, we probably ought to think about how that might benefit both campuses. The interventionist thing, I'd love to see that. I just don't know whether we can afford it this year. There's a lot of intervention or there are some intervention being done in the buildings anyway. You've got title one folks. You've got Donna's FTEs and math have been pushed up a little bit. I'd love to see more. Well, we don't know. I mean, we can think it might be. Because I know we've talked about foreign language for a bit and we've never really seen a number about that. And I really think it's essential. I mean, our kids are going to Middlebury and Woodstown. I agree. I just noticed that something we can do year one, but I think it's something we should be looking at and really, Could it be nice? Have hippograme running for a year. Can we just finish here? I mean, I understand.  I'm just getting to the priorities. And I just, because Janie's made this a real priority is that this is what we should be talking about. But the other things are apples and oranges or whatever between the two buildings and two campuses. But that this is really the heart and soul of it. We've never, we haven't ever seen a number. So that we know what an even .2 language person, you know, half a day of language, a day of language, something like that would be. So I'm just, I don't know how serious you guys are in looking at that. So we haven't brought you a number, but we certainly could have. Can I just get, I mean, if we can't do it this year, I'd like to see the number for an interventionist and a second language teacher for year two. I think that was right on the next year. We had a budget shaving it down and getting it. So the nicest are really things that we have. We're starting looking for next year's budget now. Then we have numbers and places and FICA and all that kind of stuff projected so that we have some idea once we know this system better. And obviously we know this is the first budget and we're trying to get it down. But these are priorities for us. Yeah. My son had Spanish in preschool for three weeks last year. And then the woman realized it was the last thing they were throwing at her and stopped. And it was, and he came home every day with it. And it really, you know, I think it's one of these things these days. I think we talked about mission statement too, that it's an internet, we have a world student or something like that in our mission statement. So I think there's no question that it's a, it should be a priority. At least for me, I feel very strongly. Oh yeah, I do too. Especially since they're going to like Middlebury and what's that, where people are doing it very early. And Megan, you've mentioned it in terms of, you know, tuition and drawing kids in from Hancock. I have literally had a grand-vail parent had a birthday party of war and told me, asked me about our programming. And the one thing she asked was, do you guys have foreign language? And I go, well, not right now, but we're hoping in our merger in year two that we're going to be able to, I really think that's what we're losing our students from Fitzfield. We're losing our students from Granville and Hancock because unfortunately we're not unionized with a larger school that can provide all those services because the budget's spread out over many towns. So what we're trying to do is very difficult, but I do think in the next year, by looking at these budgets, identifying our priorities, we will get there. I just think that we do need to know those costs, but I just don't think it's going to happen tonight. I just think it's where we need to be identifying what other, why our kids and our valleys are leaving our community schools. Disappearing the community spirit of our entire valley. And I just think that if we can identify those needs, start to advertise properly, bring in the parents and the kids from the world, just a lot of principals bring in and extend invitations to Twishing Towns to get their families into our schools. I think if we can work on these goals, that we will get those students. Not all of them, but some of them. I think it's good for our valley and it's good for our schools. There's four things that parents have spoken to me about who are trying to decide if they're leaving this year. We do have tuition students who are thinking they won't be here next year. They talk about a second language that comes up pretty quickly, a quality after-school daycare program because these are primarily working parents and they need to have a pre-doctor for their youngsters. Are they looking for daycare age or school age? School age, after-school programs. Music beginning earlier, and for music starting in third and fourth grade, which is more and more schools are expanding into. I guess a lot of them, there's primarily those three. Is there money in here for curricula? Like if you look at a reading program, a structured reading program, a structured math program, is there things for instructional tools? Anything for curricula? Well, I get confused when we start talking about curriculum, because they have a curriculum coordinator at the SU, and how much is it? Like from what I understand, there's no real structured reading program in either school or continuous from kindergarten, I believe, but from kindergarten to sixth. One of the things we decide is we want to do a tier thing with kids in multi-age and a structured reading program. Is there money in the budget? To buy books. There's not enough money in there to buy a reading program K through six. There's some money in there, and one of the things I hope to do with the Rochester Board is because the current Rochester Board, we look like we're having a surplus at the end of the year. Teachers told me that they were prepared to buy a writing program and some reading materials. Last year, we were told in September that that was something they could not do, so they didn't order it. So we're hoping to get some of those materials out of the surplus from this year, Jamie. Quarter. I would like to have that structured line item in a budget panel on, I mean, that you can't do with it. Yeah, curriculum, curriculum. So when you say curriculum, that means curriculum tools, is it really sort of curriculum tools? Yeah, instructional tools. Instructional tools. It's not curriculum development, it's curriculum tools. Yeah, and that would be different than the supplies and periodical books and papers. Isn't that, what's the line 156 then, Bruce? What line? Sorry. How much would those, I mean, that seems like it should be priority number one. Well, yeah. So how much does that do those things a lot? Did we have any idea what the expenses would be of these 10,000? Well, you clicked on a kindergarten to sixth grade reading program if you wanted to do the whole thing. You could easily spend $12,000, $15,000 getting all the materials. Well, that seems like priority. With the professional development. I think, Joanne, that this is something that, it's not if we look at this, it is a when, because I think our teachers need to sit down, we need to go over the research, get the best practices, get the right place. Or programs work, so I think it's gonna, we want to pick the right program. Right. We want to pick the right program. That means you have to look at the evidence and the data in order to do that, just, hey, doesn't this look like that? We're making a list of what we want on the budget for next year. Right. Well, what is line 156 that says, curriculum improvement of instruction dash curriculum? This is the work I believe that goes on with Mary Ellen Simmons and Rochester and Stockbridge's portion of proficiency work that they're doing and other things, just $15,000. So curriculum development, what do you mean by the SU? Mary Ellen Simmons is our curriculum coordinator for the SU and she is, and Shirley first, and are working with the Rochester and Stockbridge teachers on proficiency. So this $9,000 is not driven by our administration. This $9,000 is our share of a program that the SU was passing down to us around proficiencies or whatever. I see $15,000 there. Line 156? 160. Okay, that's tuition reimbursement for training. I'll give you 156. 155. Yeah, 9,003 for improving the structure. David, could you confirm that line 155 is an SU assessment? 155. Ideally the way that should work is the curriculum. Yes. The curriculum should work with the teachers. That is an assessment. He just verified that. That's an SU assessment. Ideally to follow up on Janie's point that the curriculum director, let's say for example language arts in the district should work with the Stockbridge and Rochester teachers on looking at the data. What do our kids need? What are evidence-based programs? Janie said not just programs, but pretty pictures. Sometimes teachers pick programs for other reasons that are just as unrelated to student achievement. We really need to look at the two or three evidence-based programs and say this is the one we're going to commit to for the next three to five years. We're not going to jump in. Right, I was trying to get a handle on, because you were talking about curriculum and there is a line that directly assesses us for improvement of instruction dash curriculum. And I was trying to understand if that was money, that was for our administration to use, as it saw fit, or if that was a program, that was our share of a program for the SU. And that's our share of a program. Yeah, I think in the past people, schools have acted pretty much on their own to adopt series and decide on what they want. And I'm trying to get away from them and try to move together on some things. It's also in the statutes, if you look at the statutes, it says that they, surprisingly, will provide curriculum coordination and any other services. So the things that people don't like and surprisingly need to do, it's often the things that are in statute that are required to be done. So I think it's important to understand the context of which we work. And it's not Bruce sitting there saying, I think we'll grab some more of the voters money from Stockbrook. There's a requirement in the statute, I think you should be aware of what that means. Right, right, I was just trying to understand, again, we've often had money for some curricular flexibility when it's getting support and local support, much like we have that $6,000 that was previously indicated as being special support for Rochester or for the district for the Star 360 data coaching. For example, that's not a curriculum initiative. You said that's only in our district. And that's what I was trying to find out, if the line, two lines above it, for curricular improvement was also just in our district and money. We could deploy as we saw fit or if that was money that was already deployed on our behalf. And the answer is it's been deployed on our behalf. If I'm correct. And I think as our two campuses come together, teachers would welcome an opportunity to get together around curriculum. And they would, there's huge benefits to doing it collaboratively. When something works, you're celebrating together, when something doesn't work, you sit down and figure out why is it that this group of youngsters is not progressing the way that we'd like them to progress. So I think we're right for doing that work next year. I mean, I'm torn because I think we're very close and we've already extended several weeks. But it feels like in some ways we're actually now talking about some of our heart and soul issues. And we now sort of understand some of the trades we're talking about. One would hate to say it, but you know, I support the full music and the selection, but if it's, are we talking music versus language? And what's the weight on the scale there of music versus language? Or music versus intervention? I think that's the kind of thing we have to look at. And maybe, maybe, Carl, you say, maybe that's, maybe that's after we've got the hall and the single number done, and if that's it, fine. If that's something we can, you know, what does it borrow from the people? I think we have to, I love all this. I think that we can't change everything this next year. I think we need to go forward with this conversation and get this right. Like, I want this curriculum that they're talking about, but I don't want to just jump in and get the wrong one. I don't want my teacher to put them up. But I do think that one of the things we can talk about is music worth second language. I think that is right today. Well, what second language would you go for? What second language would you go for? But Amy, do you understand the point? You said I do think that is germane to this budget. And I don't remember. And then, you know, people are gonna ask us a lot about that. And I'm just saying, and Carl laid it out very nicely, what we did decide for. I'm also, you know, this is a crash course in budget, what we've gone through. I've gone through the last three months. And so I'm now starting to understand that it isn't just about, let's get to the last number. That it is about big decisions that we're making. And these are the really profound decisions which are the ones that affect our children and what they're actually getting today in the classroom. Not so much about it. I don't remember exactly, but I believe in both of our community surveys. I believe STEM and I think foreign language was another one that was on there that people were interested in. I don't think we should go back and take a look at our surveys to really identify and stop the teachers who have said they don't want more art. They want intervention. They don't want more art. They're not getting any more art. Well, if there was a choice, but they want the intervention. I think what drives this whole discussion is really student achievement. I think the board needs, I think you might be surprised if you look at our student achievement results. So I think it starts out with looking at strategy and then the board setting some very clear goals for what they want, Bruce, myself, the other principals in the district, the teachers, to build into a budget. Because a budget is only the implementation of your philosophy. It's all it is. And we barely had a chance to be even thinking about a philosophy. It's all been numbers, numbers, and... Because you have to get a budget adopted so the schools can operate faster. But I think it's never too early. I don't think spring is too early for the board to start looking at your surveys as Jenny said, or Jenny said, I'm sorry. Start looking at your surveys. Start pulling out, what are our polls next year? Because if you really want STEM and you really want second language and you really want to stay under the excessive spending cap, and we only have a hundred and say we have 20 kids, then something has to go. We need to have a higher price. What do we know about the Newton School? I have no idea what it looks like. All I know is that they have high student achievement. If I know about the school in Norwich again, I have no idea about anything except that they have high student achievement. If we can get that, then the schools of choice will come to us. I think what you should plan on doing is have a retreat in the spring and you begin to talk about all these ideas and how can we do this? What's most important to you? And I think you need some time with each other and with the community to try to figure it out. Getting through this. Well, I mean, don't discount. We're operating on, and I hate to keep saying this, but the strategic plan we developed, and that's got an awful lot of philosophy things in it about where we should be going as a system. And so I would say that should be one of your resources that you're having these conversations because there's an awful lot in it. But I think it's healthy. You have to keep talking about student achievement and education for the kids and not get, I know you have to worry about boilers and plumbing and all of that, but we should be having a discussion every time you meet about student achievement. Absolutely. And I think that's what I'm sort of waking up in is from your emails, Janie, that you've been pushing this so much that it finally sort of hit me tonight. And maybe it's just an education moment that goes enough to affect our numbers at all right now tonight. And we can go forward, but I really, it's like, ding, I get it now. That's what we need to be doing. Effective boards have discussions about student achievement and instruction all the time, every meeting. I went on the round of now, and they get the reports, the school will get this report of the straws 360 every time it's given. They get what the equipment was given. You know, we have to do that, and it's been done here before, it just happened to go a little while. But how are we to know? It was in the newspaper because they publicize it. Well, I know that. Because their scores are so good, yeah. Well, I think, so we're learning. Some of you have been doing this for a while, but many of us are brand new to this process, and this is how we learn. Part of the success has been a very, very well-vetted writing program that they've had for a number of years. A lot of writing instruction and workshops with their teachers, and that filters right on down to the kids the way they write every day. And that is one of the really important things when you're testing, even math testing, if you can't read the problems and come up with some kind of logical way of figuring it out.  So that is one of the things that Newton has done for a long, long time, and everybody works on it. Do they do writing workshops? They had one of the facilitators lived in town, and two of them actually spent eons of time with their teachers. So everybody that comes there learns the techniques, and it's very well-informed, and it's been going on for 15, 20 years or so. And they also have a community of folks that work at Dartmouth, and those folks come, they take their kids to museums, and I don't want to sound like I'm high school here, but we, the kids get a lot of exposure to worldly things, and they do well, the kids do really well. That shouldn't make a difference, and we can't. A couple of things. First of all, I want to loop back. Jenny brought up the point that it didn't look like the salary of the office's system and stockage had changed. I went back for old budgets. It has not. As of this money that was added, it was still the $1,000 or whatever, 1,086, you said? Yeah, it was rough, though. But the money is not shown in the budget. It's, that number is the same number as it was over a month ago. I went, yeah, I paged back through some, doing that. Then the other point I would think, I mean, oh, I'll go back to what I asked. What's that? Okay, so you have changed it. Thank you. The other piece that you don't want to, when we talked about increasing, a guidance in increasing music at Stockbridge, the question was, was there, was the schedule a lot of it? Was there time and purpose in doing that? Would it be beneficial? And the discussion was, yeah, I wonder, I mean, just off the top of your head, if you said, we found the $30,000 to hire a 0.4, for a language person, could we put that into the schools? I mean, is that something that even at this date, there would be the ability to plan for? I mean, or do we need to have a planful cycle to say, here's how it's going to be, and here's how language is going to fit in with things? Because I always worry that every special you add takes away from general education. And I don't know what's been done in planning, the daily schedule, the weekly schedule, and so on. I'm not, you know, is this even something that could be done effectively for this next year? It's done in other schools, and I'm sure we could figure out how to work it in. As far as the schedule goes, that Mary Ellen Simmons, our curriculum person, and Shirley are talking with the teachers there, or that's the plan, basically, to work on that schedule. They had three different renditions of the schedule at Stockbridge, and they're looking at, you know, trying to work it out, so that the projects that were, and Rochester as well, I don't know, I can't even find anything. We don't have the extra person to do the math, so we'd be looking at different schedules. Right, but I mean, the question was brought up and said, well, could we have a world language program that sets something in our community's value? What I am asking is, assume we find the money, you know, we don't have to worry about, we got a teacher for free, we have a teacher in the lobby, could we, I mean, is that something that can be integrated and done, or would it, I mean? Well, I would like to jump the opportunity to do a second language. I think, however, if we're going to do it and do it well, we need to have a bit more time to plan, because second language, it needs to be a whole part of what's going on. Everything I've seen about this. It can just be 30 minutes twice a week, it's right. Right, everything I've seen about the world language, the construction of an elementary school, it's holistically integrated into everything, so that one day they may be getting a math language in Spanish, and the next day they may be ordering food in the cafeteria in Spanish, and we're just doing things, and it's kind of more immersive, and I question whether we could, you know, if we could, even if we could find it in the budget tonight, would that be something that we would actually implement well next year, or would it be? My initial response would be, we would do it better if we took a year to plan it. I don't think we would do it horribly, but I don't think we would do it as well as we would. Oh, if no one's coming in. And oh, by the way, it would be more hard to find. I mean, can't I find it? Especially if you're doing two days a week, you know. I was going to say, it's a complicated application that you need to be a foreign language teacher. There did not used to be any certification over a month. Is there a license now? There didn't used to have to be, has it changed? I have a little idea, so I'd like to talk to you another time about that. But as Bruce said, folks foreign language, second language teachers are hard to find, so if we were ready to do it, we need to do it on both campuses. Yes, we do. Yeah. And try and make it a full-time position as well. So basically the answer is let's make that as another goal. Sharon and Strapper, I think. I'm excited the box for us, but there's a number of school districts who are hiring bilingual teachers as their teachers. Right, they're not just hiring bilingual teachers to teach, but they're hiring bilingual teachers. Well, that's why we had Spanish before. Because one of our high school teachers was, he's actually still, he might be available, but it's not full-time enough. He does more in Spanish. I think that is, we've come up with some two goals. I think we have very long goals to try to cash out over the next year. Is there a writing program? Is there a structured writing program in Rochester Elementary? And there isn't a stockage. That's what we're hoping to buy with Title Funds this year. See, so that we, neither of us, what is so critical in writing is critical in terms of the reading, writing scenario. And neither of us schools has a writing program nor a reading program. Is there a spelling program? No. No spelling. Now, just to be clear, youngsters are taught meaning they're not. I don't know what you're doing. I'm not saying that. No teaching program. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that. But it is not structured in sequential year-to-year. Thank you, Monty. You're welcome. I was getting a little nervous. No, we don't teach spelling, we don't teach it. Don't teach them anything. But there is, I mean... Yeah, there isn't that sequencing year-to-year. There isn't that building upon a pretty good skill set. Yeah, I think we're good. Excuse me? Yes. Go ahead. Do we have, if we have rolled in the various, the technical corrects that we've seen, if we've got it, we have a number now? Show us if it's all the last of the draw. Where's the thing that checks on the student to seventh grade or is she added in? Are Sheds first? We've got to do that. They have a school program. The shed has actually changed into the sound panels. Carla, the sound panels. Yes, we put the sound panels due to discussion with... What line is that in? That is in. Because with discussions with the teachers, they said that they would prefer, right? So... Let me find a bunch of... Here's where we're at. One of the things that David brought me up to speed on was that we have to, if you're going to bond something, it has to be worn. And you can't decide you're going to bond something from the floor. So, but what David pointed out was that there's municipal lease agreements, like for a bus, that you don't have to, you don't have to to bond. So it doesn't have to be worn. What we'd like to do, because there's people that have said, let's just build onto that building. Let's do some brick and mortar work and do that. And let's not just throw a trailer in the back of the parking lot to get something there for next year. Dominic Gallant in particular was saying, let's put in some sound panels. Let's improve the acoustic of that building and let's do that. So we're talking, like, in the cafeteria, throwing some. Right, I think to try to, panels that go up around that mezzanine or that, she sent some pictures of what they look like. And again, if we're now, as we go forward, we're talking about other foreign language in that type of space, that might have a different need than a trailer. Space, we have one space. We have one room. Right, right, but the thinking is that we would rather fix our one room. We would rather fix that and we would rather go forward with looking at, Barbara had started doing some architectural drawings or got, what's the guy in kids called? Carl, you know, the, yeah, I think it was someone from Carl Williams team that did some preliminary. We spent $1,000 or so, $1,500 last year to do some preliminary general drawings. What I think we'd like to do is, you know, get those, look at them and try to start having that conversation because I don't, the general feeling, I kind of agree with it. Would you rather have a trailer next week or would you rather build out and add a couple permanent classrooms to the building? You know my answer, Carl. Well, a lot of the teachers had expressed. Don't build anything. Save all the money, Carl. You know my answer. Okay. You all do. So yes, the upshot is that we're fixing the space that we have and we're looking at moving towards getting plans for a more permanent expansion to have some space in that building to do things in more than just that one room. Will we get the acoustical tiles? Yes, those are in the budget. Yeah, that's two, 236, no, oh shoot. Yes, 235. No, that's 236. Oh, it went to 236, that's 236. Yeah. And again, we have to remember this is the first year and we are going to move forward with what, we need to get together and figure out what we both value and where we want kids to go and what we want to do and we're going to continue to make steps to make improvements. You know, I want Stockbridge to have more space. I think you're overcrowded. You know, let's figure out how we can get you more space. But let's not just make a knee-jerk reaction. Let's take the time to look at it and really evaluate what we have, what we can use. Carl and I sat and talked about what kind of technology that maybe is in this high school we can, we can reacquisition to our elementary school. So it's not for elementary school. So we don't maybe have to buy brand new stuff if we have some stuff that works. Or chair with Stockbridge. Well, no, we're taking this budget. This budget has this budget, right. This budget has this equipment to technology to writing to viewers, projectors. There's something like, what, 6, 10 projectors in this school? Right, no, this budget has money to put a spark to take smart boards out of this wing of the Rochester High School and make sure every elementary classroom in the Rochester side and in the Stockbridge side has a smart board in it. I think we've got two in Stockbridge. I think so we'd be filling the rest of those classrooms out. I'm not sure how many of the elementary classrooms have smart boards in them now. Every, all of them do, but two are not working, so. Right, so that must have been what Mark was saying. Right. But the asset, we can just, we put in money for the electrician to wire them. We took out money for the, there originally was, his recommendation was some kind of mobile touch screen, like flat screen TV that could be rolled around from classroom to classroom. We felt that it was better to use, the suggestion was to use the existing smart boards that are in the high school and move them into the elementary room so that every room has one. You don't have to roll something around from place to place. And again, this is just the first year.  There's another part of, there's, there's the middle schools, the middle school Chromebooks is moving to the Rochester Elementary School. Stockridge is getting a new card of Chromebooks because the laptops in Stockridge are old. So we've looked at. Right, Stockridge's getting 30 new Chromebooks. We've looked at improving, improving the infrastructure around the building. And again, we can, we don't have to bond. If we decide we want to do a modular classroom and there'll be a presentation on that at the meeting, we don't have to bond. We can do that, we can do that right away from the floor. It doesn't have to be, since it doesn't have to be bonded, it doesn't have to be warned. So the people can weigh in and we can talk about that at the annual meeting. We just don't have to make a decision about it tonight. So speaking of tonight, are we? Yes, can we see where we came in with the changes? So we go to our sheet on the back here. So this doesn't really... We're good, we didn't change anything? Changed the school, changes. Oh, I see. Yes, it changed by that 2000. Tax rate because we were above. Right. Limited by the five percent increase. So the two students had preliminary. Preliminary, equalized tax rate from what we had before. But we're still above the allowable of the range. So it effectively means we can stop there and change the tax rate. I'm going to tell him the 70, 70 annual. Now, let's see, I'm sorry, he doesn't change the tax rate because the... Right, it's about the five percent increase. Right, it's about the five percent increase. And so when we adjusted the S&P number, we made sure that we had that other seventh grader. We changed, I didn't hear you say the seventh grader. You wanted to add another seventh grader? We did, if there's six of them, I would tell the family to learn to talk. Is that change their percentage? I thought there was five and one. We had a lengthy discussion at the last meeting and it was decided to leave it out. Do you want to change that now and bring it back in? I think we're going to have to have those students come in the washroom early. Are you going to have your master's coming up? We've got to take a stand at some point. Yeah. I'd say we'll leave it where it is. I'd be my recommendation. Does it change the percentage? Because, you know, as Bonnie said, we're going to have students come and go in Rochester as well. Well, that one student would put stockage over the cab, but I don't think that there's very many other ones coming and going and... Well, that one's from this problem, right? Let's find out. We have students that are leaving that we would... I've heard that one student might be leaving, but I don't know. And you never know. People change their mind all the time. The best guess is... I don't know if it's going to be possible. Yeah. Kayleigh. She's going into the states. She's going to Woodstock. She's going to Woodstock. I thought she was going to Woodstock. She is going to Woodstock. She is going to Kayleigh. That's what I thought. So it's the 7th grader at Woodstock. Again, I think that... Kayleigh. So it still keeps us under the cap, though. Yes, because we're together. I know we need to show a sense of it. So they have to... Taxes. Would you go to the revenue that would show the equalized spending per pupil, per campus, to make sure that we're both still under the cap by increasing that one already before you add it? After adding this. After adding this, doctors would be above the cap. After adding this, do the adjustment. After the real grandstand thing, yes, but we're in our articles of variable and promise each town when we got an expert that had her spending. Capture. By ronningly, because we were afraid of the exact opposite of what we're looking at now, we were afraid that when you looked at Rochester, when you teased out Rochester's number of stockers and the Rochester would still be way over the cap that we were afraid about loss of those families, that Stockridge would have to have all the cuts to cover that. Do we wish the kids next year would make some big difference? I just think your student population is going to change. I agree. I think we should just exclude it up. As fast as you make this change, we could hear next week that somebody's coming and somebody's leaving. Right. Yeah, we have to make a stand on something. Any big voices? What's the voice consensus? You don't want to be open. I'm curious. Right. I'm taking a little back. Yeah. I think we will. I think it's justified because there are students that are going to be coming and going. We're not going to have the exact same population at the start of school year or even partly through the school year. Or two weeks from now. Right. Do you want to take it out? Yeah. That's my recommendation. Do we take it? That's just one voice. Well, it will be over the cap if we do so. If you don't take them out. Right. Exactly. One talk. So it just means if he is there, then next year something else will leave. How do we move around? We just asked a little bit about how we make a decision here. Because I feel like sometimes we're making decisions and not knowing that we're actually making a decision. So I think this needs to be clear that we're saying yes to this and no to this. Right. Floating in, man. Because there's no motion that needs to be made. What's your last point about how the one zone sort of got decided? It was a little amorphous. It wasn't clean and cut. And that we could say yes, we're deciding. It was sort of a map and a picture here and a picture there. And I just think in terms of going forward, we just need to be clear about how we make a decision about things. Sure. Because so that people can know what we're making. I think it was decided when the budget was built. Well, it's just we are building it right now. It's what we're doing. But I'm just saying that how we decide something's in and around, I think needs to be very clear. I don't feel like we're sort of doing it by now. It's a little bit here. Is there numbers that need to be fixed in the SAP coordinator line? Yes. That's the external issue. And it's not going to affect anything. But it does need to be insured out. OK. But it's not going to affect the SAP. It's not enough. It's not enough. Right. OK. Just wanted to make sure that how close that was. OK. Do you know my opinion? No, I didn't. I got to decide. Are you asking what that is? No, I thought Ethan had a question. And it was completely or a comment. It was completely ignored. How do we show consensus? Right. That's my opinion. I would say that everybody should weigh in on their opinion on what they want. And we go with the, I mean, it's like voting, right? Well, usually you call a vote. Well, I don't think in this case we actually need to. But I mean, do you want a consensus as the chair of the board? Absolutely. A consensus of the people? Absolutely. How do you go about doing that? How would you go about it? I'm usually relatively, it's a better word, Lezeg Fair. I try to, I mean, let the conversation sort of go and see where it sugars out and then generally say where, you know, ask a more part. I think we're kind of getting to that point on this particular thing. You know, I think... Well, what I do think happens is that we finish up a meeting and then point of view with them, then there's e-mail comments afterwards about things we talked about and needed that makes me feel like maybe some people weren't quite in agreement with where we went. And so I'm just trying to make sure that we're moving forward as a group and not by who's right.  Right. I talk a lot, so... Wait, what? I just want to be clear on what our process is. Yes. And I think that, you know, generally, it's a straight parliamentary process. You know, we have an issue. We take an action on it or we don't take an action on it. I think in squishier situations like this where you're kind of trying to talk something through and sort of herd the cats towards a particular place, the process becomes more nebulous. And I think it's important to clarify, for example, that this budget is built assuming that that one zone is being heated in the high school. We're not... You know, that's all the details of that and what the savings are haven't been worked out. So I think my point is that sometimes we confuse a statement like the budget is made expecting this with, okay, that means we're going to do that. You know, when I think there's that, I think there's that part of it, you know, that... I mean, don't get me wrong. Everybody else is fine with this, you know, the way the decision's made. I just... I just hear Joanne's point that it wasn't a clear decision that we were going with one zone. It obviously wasn't the issue. Well, I don't know. It happened somewhere and I'm not exactly sure. And you didn't even realize. Well, I mean, I had a guess, but I wasn't because I saw a picture and I saw the logic thing and then it went from there. You and I chat about getting the argument on the other side. But I guess that's the kind of thing that it's just... I want to make sure I know what I'm making a decision. So that everybody else knows when we're making a decision about something. Right. Because it's clean and it's good for the people. It's not clean. We toured the elementary, which is double the size of our elementary school. I thought maybe the decision would be made after the tour because it was even on the list of things to talk about. It was never talked about. It was skipped. Completely. It's done now. Obviously, you've decided. Well, no. We've got a budget that... But when did that get decided? It gets decided when the budget gets passed or not passed. But we've gone through all the numbers of using a zone in this building. And that was never questioned. So obviously, that's kind of not fair to the voters in stock, which I don't think. It was never discussed in public. And when we heard, when we were offered this idea back in August, September, whenever it was, that was written in there. Jenny even read it. That was the previous Rochester's principle said very, very clearly that she thought that you could run the elementary school in just that building. The current Rochester principle says different. And when we toured that building, I got the sense that all three of the Stockbridge board members felt that it absolutely is that way. All of you were making comments about that. So when did that change? The elementary building is bigger than yours. It's huge. It just is the way it is, though. It's not that I built it So actually, the question is very specifically directed to the Stockbridge board. I do agree that the Rochester is twice as big in Stockbridge and that the Rochester elementary free range could fit into the Rochester elementary. I think for year one, I don't think that we have enough time to do that. I think that if Bonnie talked about, you know, there may be Hancock-Granville students that leave. I think if Rochester doesn't get that $100,000 in revenue, then that zone is going to have to close because they're not going to afford it. Does anybody look at it now? I think this is a question not if, but when. I think that we don't have enough time to see how do we configure because it comes in below the cap. Okay, John. Let me speak. This is what you asked for. Because we are coming in below the cap and I do believe that this first year, I don't want to lose the tuition students and let's work through it. We have no idea how to do it any other way like that because let's not make a rash decision. And I was one who looked at that elementary and said, well, we could do this and we could do that. And we could. Yes, exactly. We need to look at it and we need to see exactly how much we save if we do close a certain thing. We should rush into it. Five years. Stock which kids will be here. That's my prediction. In your article of agreement, clearly stated that your town will have to close your school in your town. I was put in there by a Rochester person knowing that your situation is very different from where we are in Stock Rochester. We understand that. That article of agreement is we're not following it at all. We are not following it at all. I don't understand this. I think we need to settle down. Just take a breath. Jenny? I'm just asking. I think that at this time I don't think that we have time to fully evaluate it. I think that closing two zones in the high school is a good step in the right direction. Even reconfiguring the elementary school, it's not going to be a very big cost and it's not. I think I do obviously agree with you that in Stockbridge that that was the impression that the high school's closing. I'm not saying that it's fair that it is staying open, but I think at this time, I think that if you're one, it's just the way that the cards are dealt. She asked for the stock. I think that we're making a really big step in terms of getting this shut down. My concern is that just closing the doors to close the doors isn't necessarily the best way to do things. And I also think that the Stockbridge voters and the Rochester voters are going to be able to do things that are that the Stockbridge voters and the Rochester voters have the annual meeting as they're timed into a weigh-in. And at the Stockbridge meeting, we're going to... That's twice as many taxpayers. Well, I think what she'd like to see is somebody come in and see what the reconfiguration could be. Right, and we're going to do that. The point is, are you hearing about that? It's just... So many things. Literally months. We got our first budget six weeks ago, two months ago. I don't remember. We're in this place and we have to make a call. I'm glad you guys spoke up. But I do believe that we've never actually spoken of it. We've never had even a moment to have conversations. No, no, no, no. We got kicked inside, blindsided by numbers and not getting to some of the real discussion. But this is our first ten. I know. That's what you're saying. So I'm saying this is how we learn. And I think being a solution-based process is we need the time to do it. I think that's kind of changing the verbiage around a little bit. I agree. That was in our proposal that we were supposed to move find an efficiency over a period of time that we're comfortable with. This is a part of your retreat and your discussion and retreat about how you're going to do this. I understand what she's saying, but I also I just lost my high school and I'm not getting emotional about that. I had that discussion with one of the other parents the last time. And I said, you know, the Stockbridge kids are so excited to go to their school of choice. And I said, the Rochester kids all of a sudden can't go to their high school. Because that's it needs to be spoken that way. Because I caught myself getting caught up in a couple of things and I tried to be solution-based in my life instead of just complaining. And I think when I took a step back and tried to look at it so how do I fix this? That's what I came up with saying things. I think you said at one point softly to voters and I think that's kind of Stockbridge has to realize that these kids aren't going to their high school. But I think also the Rochester kids have to start being told, you get to go to your school of choice. And we'll get there. It's all of us kind of softening our verbiage and saying solution-wise instead of just I want it now. I think your words are so wise because the bottom line is and I can say this because I'm the outsider Ben, you went three months I really don't have anything vested on whether this building closes Stockbridge closes, that zone closes I really don't. I think the job of this board and communities and myself is to every decision we make the last question we have to ask is how is this good for kids? And we're all seeing declining enrollment we're going to there only going to be harder decisions ahead of us there aren't going to be easier decisions ahead of us but if we say to every question how is this good for kids we really won't go too far we just won't but the softening of the language is what has to happen because otherwise people withdraw and they don't want to share their thoughts anymore and they just think Jane you've become the enemy and even if it's the enemy I'm the enemy and it's really not that it's just how do we do it it's best for our kids get home you are get out of the way I'll pay the enemy in a way so we need to I think we made a wrong call on tonight yeah are we there? yes we are there yeah we're there can we wait you're at rest decide if they're there right on there I guess the question that we're at is should eliminate stop you saying it okay I think they're back to me hold on so to eliminate stock bridge from being over the cap I would recommend that we remove the one person we just put in can we do that David? because if they come I think we will find other efficiencies we're working together now and really this budget is going to pay for both campuses I know we are promising to show separate and that's what we're going to do but I think we can make it I agree so I guess I'd like to make a motion that we accept this final budget number as presented the number David is actually I think we need to accept we need to do the warning right I know you said the budget you have to put the budget over as a word can I take comments on the on the no that was Jeannie I think people are perhaps misinterpreting the agreement when it comes to being over the cap or under the cap because they were not I suspect correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect that people were not including the fund balance carrying forward as part of that cap so if you look up here it's a negative 18,000 so going into fiscal 19 that means at the end of fiscal 16 there was a deficit in stock bridge of 18,000 that's part of the expense that puts them over the cap if you take out that starting fund balance of a negative deficit to pay off I don't know what they were thinking of when they wrote the agreement but it's possible they were not considering that feature let's put that in for information no I didn't to give you a history the reason to separate that number out is there was great concern that with the students that had been allowing Rochester to have somewhat of an easier time balancing the budget with those doing the way that there would be not as much resources given to stock bridge as were given to Rochester because the previous situation of the fad of students and the artificially low tuition versus expenses so right it was the bottom line that we were talking about everything in bottom line let's make sure that the stock bridge is in funding Rochester and the funny thing is the hypothetical situation we're looking at with let's look at these students at this moment it becomes the other way around Rochester is pulling stock bridge under the cap right you're looking at a 1.6 and Rochester a 1.5 can we get stock bridge and what's that number we not take him out is he is the student in or out out student if we decided the student is out we decided the student is out and we take the student is out of the budget yes we we all we agree to take him out there you go he's out he's out he's out so if you adjust that so we're below the cap we can make a motion so we're still over the cap so what changed in stock bridge on your paper here versus what you handed out tonight that pushed your stock bridge above the cap one you insist on seeing the principal's health insurance to be addressed okay so you move that health insurance okay okay okay it'll be under yeah when you approach you put it 40 60 or you put it even even yeah okay oh nice so there's zero oh I I wasn't going to mention that I was just going to say you're quietly I'm not even the accountant well how about we go back do it the way it was with the health insurance just to be sure to explain that how the annual meeting we can explain we're going to have before we go to the annual meeting we're going to have to do a lot of sitting down talking we can do a drive run we can do what we are supposed to do we have a lot of things to do we're going to face we're going to face this and more absolutely you're going to be able to answer the question I'm just saying emotions get going we prepare that thing is we need to prepare ourselves that this is going to be a tough meeting there's going to be a lot of people out there with just one axe to grind and they're going to go for it I make a motion that we move the health insurance back where it was for this budget to be for this budget that we're looking at tonight to be under the cap for Stockbridge all in favor can you raise your hand do you understand we're moving the health insurance back yes just the way it was okay so we're going to do that David David thank you now do we move the budget now can we make sure that both Rochester and Stockbridge individually are under the cap collectively are under the cap and our tax rate is under the 5% cap as well as a criteria we set for accepting this number we have to make sure that it's easy big enough to see yes thank you and so the total spending is the budget is 4251494 that's correct 4251494 alright I would like to make a motion to accept this budget of 4251494 second motion has been made and seconded to approve the budget with a total expenditure of $4251494 discussion hearing that we've had enough discussion although David is signified by saying aye opposed okay so the budget I was about to vote tell me tell me so we have a warning do you take a look at I said you can I don't forget I voted this version I voted the previous one we have so the number correct so what's the warning for now this is for our David can you go back to the number because the number we need to I will speak to the warning if I give it a chance to speak okay now that we've got the warning go ahead David so what I prepared was based on what existed before we came to the meeting so there's the article in the budget amount to be warned there's also an article there on a tax anticipation note or an ability to take out a loan in advance of receipt of tax payments because towns don't typically collect taxes and pay taxes on July 1 there's a time lag and salaries and various other expenses have to be paid so there's a lending article and then there are three additional articles that are provided and you can just scratch them out and I can print out a new one if you don't want them this is language which was prepared by our attorney for another district that wanted to establish three reserve funds you may want to establish one, two, three or zero and whatever your choice is I just wanted to have it available for you so if you wanted it you've got that legal language for a warning about a reserve fund first of the reserve fund of a reserve fund for those who may not be familiar with it is that in the absence of a reserve fund if there is a surplus in a given fiscal year there's a legal requirement under statute that that money be returned to the taxpayers in the next available budget which typically in fiscal 18 on June 30 this year if we have a surplus in any of the districts I'd say $100,000 that money must be returned to the voters in the 2020 budget as an equivalent of a revenue if there's no if there's no vote of the voters not of the board but of the voters to create and to fund you have to create and then you have to vote to fund it also so what this provides for is the creation of a fund what it does it provides a creation so if there is an interest on the voters to not only create the fund but also to put money in it then that needs to be a separate vote so one of the considerations is what happens at the end of fiscal 18 another consideration is what happens in any existing reserve funds so if any of the districts have a reserve fund for tuition or whatever do you want me to stop I'll stop you said many districts have a reserve fund so the terms of the agreement which are still valid despite other opinions to the contrary one of the terms of the agreement is that all the assets and liabilities of the districts that are emerging become the assets and liabilities of the district that's being formed so that means a reserve fund potentially well is it becomes an asset but the question is if there's no part to put that money in it can't be used until a part is created so this is creating that part so it's not taking the money it's creating a part so that when voters say when voters allow it to go across then it has a part to go into so the start of a building reserve we would you need to use that same language that it's a building reserve or does this support that people need to say okay now we want that to be a maintenance or it could be a building reserve for stock bridge so we could have separate building reserves for the different school buildings or for the first and second grade in this elementary school or for something very specific so as long as the voters agree to the language of the terms of the reservation it can be set up for that purpose I think it would be to probably have campus based reserve funds because that way everything's being one of the reasons that we did that we did not put money from the trustee from public funds into this budget is the concern that those funds were set aside years ago for the stock bridge central for the stock bridge school district it says in the big question the stock bridge one of the stock bridge public funds I'm not sure what the exact languages of the Rochester public funds but they're there and our thinking had been that we were just not going to open that can of worms in this particular budget cycle and we would just let the trustees of public funds keep their funds and invest them and roll them over and we would we had some more discussion and figured out a way that the communities would support to pull from those and use them for the students to be used we would do that but we're going to do that this year so my question would be number one if we we either need to make separate campus building reserve funds we don't have a tuition reserve in stock bridge nor do we have a unified governance reserve we only have a building reserve and you're not sure if you I'm not sure only from what I know through the Articles of Agreement I thought we did not have any reserve I didn't think you did either but I wanted to make sure there was something that now going forward though if our board wanted to create a a building a joint reserve fund for our new budget when our new fund balance is that need to be taken care of here as well or should that wait for another year you could do that another year we established ours we had a surplus we're like we should put money in we know that our boiler was dying so we you know we identified the surplus in the budget that we had an article that said we wanted to put this much of the surplus you know this much of the surplus in you're likely to have a surplus this year I'm not sure who Stockbridge does but Rochester we are hearing probably will right I just think it's important at least for creating them now we'll probably there's talking Stockbridge about getting the generator finally and using our building reserves to do that we once we get we'll decide what we're talking to do about that but I think it's important that we are established one they're separate I mean two points one just and this is just emotional I mean at these four articles after we do the basic budget feels like we're asking for it I'm still trying to understand what David's saying and I'm sure it makes a lot of sense but just the need to construct this just sounds complicated two is can Stockbridge use this reserve fund even after the merger as we've taken over them if we've set up a fund so we have to do this because otherwise so the new board has set up a Stockbridge only reserve fund what happens if we do not what happens that money then we need to leave an opinion of that but my interpretation would be that the money is in limbo until the courts decide so and the third option to be accurate is also that if the current Stockbridge Board spent that building reserve fund on inappropriate use before the before the merge that would take care of it as well I mean I lean towards what Ethan is saying that we can make a reserve fund when we have a surplus to stick into it right now there's no we're establishing accounts that we're not funding at all with this article David you've just said that you've got a reserve fund for maintenance in Stockbridge correct as of July 1 it will be inaccessible in my understanding until we create a fund correct if it existed July 1 it would be inaccessible but what I'm saying is that absent that reserve fund needing a place to land or absent and absent there's a Rochester reserve fund you're missing these articles are all unfunded unfunded reserves so we know how much the Stockbridge reserve fund is the reserve fund is at 85 but I'm sure I think it's a little bit lower because I think it's kind of on the kitchen thank you Bonnie but I think there was Stockbridge was paid on that so like as Bruce was saying at the end of this FY 18 Rochester possibly will have a fund balance and do we need to set up the article now to what? no so the next annual meeting we can set it up we can call we can call a special meeting to set up these funds too but it has to be worn 30 days in advance but I would say that would make much more sense to make this statement on issue you know what it would be nice if maybe we could think about warning this when you guys have found out for sure if you're going to be able to what you want to do with that reserve if you're going to spend it all down or if you want to move it into a Stockbridge only building reserve or moving into the whole district probably we have to warn it we have to warn it it doesn't have to be with this but that would take this also an issue at the meeting and we could literally warn it for the day later or a week later we just need to warn it for 30 days so I finally figured out that each one of these articles one is for improvements and maintenance one is for student secondary tuition one is for operational structure and tuition so you have to you can't just create a reserve fund it has to be for these particular areas maybe those purposes aren't the ones you want that's what I was going to say I would highly recommend that you think about the tuition reserve because populations fluctuate most of the rest of the districts that are tuitioning out kids do have a way of putting some reserve away to for those big classes that are coming through or some changes in the balance I would highly recommend that you think about doing that and we can create a reserve fund at this meeting even though we do not at this time have funds that are going to go into it okay so sometimes we have somebody who can really explain it well I mean I do understand take your point of like maybe we should just not do it at this meeting and maybe we should gather shortly and thereafter well before I mean our meeting is going to be in May if we did it in June instead of a second meeting going on the assumption that our budget passes we could get it done even before the July July 1st we just have to warn at 30 days ahead of time I would hate for that 18,000 to go no it's not that money in the budget he said the reserve fund they have is 18,000 80 you thought it was done probably no Stockridge has reserve fund you're talking about the one and the concern that the first concern I had when looking at article 3 is that and I understand that going forward we're one district I just see that being a big flash point for people saying Stockridge had put away this was just an example you can make it campus based but you know can we do that tonight though so you could make that take all these three out tonight and print one which has none of those three in or is it a version of one of them or two of them do we know what the language would be for there to be a reserve fund for Stockridge and a reserve fund for Rochester I believe that we could play another 5,000 I was getting an attorney to review it for Stockridge campus sure so let's do how do you feel about that James we could make one for Stockridge and one for Rochester that would be my issue if it visually looks like there's equality right there even in that I think we're covering our bases and then luckily turns out that Stockridge does have money to put in there so the mechanics at the end of there was a surplus of $50,000 and the voters said to be useful for building makers could put 25 in and 25 in so you could sort equity going forward as well as what came through from the past so can we then maybe then we take what would you use of the three the future capital improvement could be Article 3 but we would duplicate it and we would say in whole apart future capital improvement two of the district facilities in Rochester in such amounts and then Article 4 would be the same with Stockridge and then we have one for tuition and one should do district tuition because as we're going forward we're talking about old money coming in we're talking about now the word together money will be saved so there'll be an Article 3 for Rochester Article 4 for Stockridge and Article 5 for tuition for the union there's two more recommendations on an article though creating a fund for Rochester if it should be specified for building I mean I don't have one I think we should I'm wondering how so for all the breaks that you don't want to have money in your budget some year you've got money in there the town does this with the trucks all the time running the fund so today we'll say this is where we brought you from from that meeting the tuition and make sure the dollar amount is right and then we should be good to go how should we view it I I hate to stop with something I totally agree with that I'm just I'm wondering about if you're talking about an article that nobody's here we've created we had a key we had a key there's another off here somewhere because somebody called her I can't imagine she's just driving very fast well there's a little will she get reception bigger question we need to get you guys to go we can't print it out we can't print it out we can approve it we can't sign it we'll make sure I mean you've got a couple days it's all signed and I'll have to put somebody on it we can put a copy to us I'll start from the right there there's a printer sitting right there you're the tech guy you're the tech guy you should what what I see where you're going I'm just kind of wondering why should I take you back you know I think we should find out don't put anything in this put one in about the building for now I think the tuition I think the tuition I think the tuition I think the tuition at least three articles we've talked about one building for Stockman Drugs for Rochester one shared one I think we have to be able to buffer those costs for like I agree I think I think putting it that way too where it's one yes I think we can put it here I know I covered my I'm so sorry I'll take that over you've seen these in print just trying to test print something there so the last piece we need to talk about that David points out is the look at the dating times we agreed was here we agreed with seven now do we we have agreed about it being in the Rochester auditorium I just want to make sure that that feels good still this is pretty important we had all agreed on this before actually wait one more second we had to test this before and we had decided that we would hold this first annual meeting in the Rochester high school auditorium and I want to make sure that we are still in agreement and maybe with some public comment on that decision yes the only the other option would be the meeting house called your landmaster oh ok shut down the reason I thought the Rochester it's larger this might be the first time that they're really seeing it and see the value of it I don't know I mean where it doesn't send up any red flags that's what we're I mean it doesn't with me we're feeling what it was made it was the biggest space there would be more there would be a ton of people I think what a lot of people say is the Stockbridge people don't come when it's in Rochester so the only scary thing is that more Stockbridge people will come if it's in Stockbridge but it's larger so it's again you know what that's it we're one district and we also have we got it yeah that's it it's the public place to have we are going to drive the house to us, the stage that's the place to have it the auditorium is now it's your auditorium and the 15th is the date of work the date is still the 15th I thought we had 15 you guys need to vote on that 22nd being the date you're going to do this tonight too you may go now you can stay if you want I'm working that night so the 22nd, Tuesday the 22nd we'll make sure we schedule it just like that Tuesday the 22nd, here, 7pm did everyone hear this? you can vote on it so if you wanted to vote on it I could print it out tomorrow and we'll get it around for signatures okay so what did you say you would like us to tell you the articles? no can you read them back to us okay so the first article is article 1 together reports of the school district during the reports of the board of school directors the district treasury article 2 shall the voters to approve the school board to extend $4251,404 which is the amount the school board has determined to be in history for the engineering fiscal year 4251 494 thank you it is estimated this proposed budget if the approval of that result in education spending of okay number is does this feel too fast for you? no no no I'm fine with this you did say you thought we should look at the language no that is for an additional okay good but thank you for checking 17,6401 17,6401 17,6401 17,6401 I'm equalizing very equalizing people because the rejected spending will be very equalizing people is 7.7% higher than spending for the current year in Rochester and 7.6% higher than the current year in Stockbridge article 3 shall the school district establish a reserve fund to be funded from time to time from a secu