You would call, I would call the meeting to order at 6.36. Adjustments to the agenda. I have a couple. Okay. Quick update on the Rochester campus of preschool. Okay. These would all go under probably, wow, you can figure out where they go. I don't think any of them have big discussion on efficiency, Vermont. That would be an action one. Right, isn't that, yeah, that's 8.2. Yes, and asbestos work would be action. I get the budget that you emailed everybody else. What would be an action item? Asbestos work. So that would be 8.6 asbestos work. Right, I sent it out on Sunday. And I think the other thing I'm going to add, actually we're going to make that pre-scoring action. That might be a quick action. Okay, so we'll call that 8.7 pre-scoring. Got it. Thank you. And then another action item, school calendar, I'm going to share. School calendar, 8.8. Do we have to do that separately now, or is that, I thought that was... Well, this is for this current year. We have a request. We have a request possible after all those, because I was really not quite ready for the meeting just now. Year. Yes, not next. 8 points. Can we adjust it? Sure. Bonnie had mentioned efficiency remont, which is already action item 8.2. Okay. She then added action item 8.6, which is asbestos. Okay. Apparently our schools need more of that. 8.7, there's a pre-k action of some sort, or a potential for action. It originally was a report that has now moved to action because she might want us to do something. Okay. And then Lindsay decided that we needed 8.8 the current year calendar added because she wants to make a change. Okay. I think she was jealous that Bonnie was doing all the adjustments to the agenda and she didn't get to do anything. And also I'm going to change number 13 executive session that I'm just going to say what I'm going to say. Yes. Personnel needs to stay. Okay. So maybe you want to move 13. If it's not going to be an executive session that's just going to be said, then that can happily go under number 5 board comment. Yep. Okay. Here we go. Off to the risks. Already then. Yes. Yes. Yes. Cool. Then we'll move on to public comment. Do you guys have anything to say at this time? Feel free to jump in anytime. You too.  So consent agenda. We have three sets of minutes to approve. I believe they're all in the packet. Tuesday, March 5th minutes. The special Wednesday, 13th minutes. And then that was 21st. March 21st special meeting. Which let's see that again. Make a motion to approve the minutes. Okay. A motion has been made. Do I hear a second? Just on March 21st, it says Megan will. Sorry. Which one was the first? I just saw it. Where was it? Oh.  Maybe I wasn't sure which one. Same. We have just one other name change to 4.110. It's Linda Gendro. G-E-N-D-R-E-A-U. G-E-N-D-R-E-A-U.  No, I don't. We better spell people. That was a special one. Right, right. Why did she not know if it was Megan will because she wasn't sure which one. Someone said she wanted to interview her. Both there, if only one of you. Yes. Okay. Any other corrections, additions or deletions? Nope. Hearing none, a motion has been made and seconded to approve the slate of minutes as presented in the packet and amended just now. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. All the minutes are now official. Board, comment. First of all, I'm not sure.  Tonight because of the budget meeting. So maybe I should just... Do you want to wait until after the budget meeting? We can postpone board comments to the end. To see how long we're here. Yeah, because I could... Yeah. I don't know. I always kind of thought you were like silent Calcule as a woman of few words. Yeah, right, that's me. All right, so we'll move... That's me. Board and comments to the end. We'll have to do it before executive session. Yeah. It's down there with the second public comment. Yeah. So that we can go on to board reports. I don't have anything from Bruce. Okay. I signed anything with him. Okay, so we can go straight to the principal's report. Thank you. And it's in the packet. Right, is there anything that anyone has any questions about that? Okay. Do we need to... Anything you guys feel when you want to extemporize on? Well, not extemporize, but just to say quickly, I think Black River Design's doing a great job on fulfilling the work that we've asked them to do. They're very respectful of the fact that youngsters are in the building, they call ahead, they sign in at the front office, they always let us know they're here. They took some pictures on our campus, called and said there were a couple youngsters in the pictures, but they wanted to know they weren't using it in their presentation, their information, so I think they're just an excellent... It's great to hear. Wise choice, everyone. Whoever did that, that was great.  The last thing I'll just point you to is where's the preschool visit? Number two. I wish that I had my phone when I walked into the cafeteria. The Stockbridge preschoolers came over to search for their Rochester friends and they found coins and little footprints all through the whole thing and it ended with a lunch in the cafeteria for everybody at St. Patrick's Day lunch. And I walk in and here's this long table with all the preschoolers on it, and at the end of it sits hard downs our bus driver overseeing the St. Patrick's Day lunch. And they had a big plate for him. It was just, it just made my article feel better. That was the very beginning because they'll be friends now. I would say that the preschools have done as much than most of them. Yeah, they've done the most. Which I think is the right thing to do to continue to foster this interconnectedness because, you know, they will have, that's their classmates. They've established that now. Those are their friends. And they come right in the preschool room and head right through their favorite centers.  All right. Any other questions for Lindy and Bonnie? All right. Thank you so much for the report. It's all positive. We try. Yeah, excellent.  My budget. All right. So just to put the disclaimer out, I am only a month in. I did not create this budget. Marilyn has been phenomenal and she has been the person taking care of all of the budgets for the civil advisory union for this year. And she's done a really great job and she's worked extra hard on them. This most recent budget draft that we submitted had the adjusted revenues from your audit. So that was the one that was sent out on Saturday. I'm really disappointed because I was the one that was complaining about not having the budget. Yeah, so I'm not sure how I missed you on that. I apologize. I don't have distribution lists for each of the boards set up in my Gmail account. No, I was the one that complained about it. I didn't get any probable. I know that. Next time, feel free to just email on my blog. They haven't set it up on my blog yet. It's just not a group. I find out these things as we find mistakes. Oh, we need to fix that. But yes, at any rate. So what I gave you in the printed form is what went around on Saturday. So if there's any questions. Oh yeah, lots of them. Marilyn did recommend due to the food service deficit that if you added an additional $40,133 to this budget, you would still be under the threshold penalty. And I have the adjusted tax rates for that. If you wanted to move forward with that. Rochester would be 1.537 and Stock Range would be 1.688. So that's my first pointers. Is that the box? The little box. The box wasn't there. So now I understand what that is. So the Can I say one thing first before you go? Just a reminder, as a unified district we all start with a unified tax rate. So that is the amount we would need to raise to put into effect the budget that you would approve. And then the CLA is what adjusts those tax rates upward. So as a unified district both Rochester and Stock Ridge have a tax I think it's $161. $165. $165. And then it's the common level of appraisals to take it down. Which is the far right side of the second table. So by adding in the extra food subsidy what does that bring our tax rate to? Pre-CLA. 1.6971. And part of that 2 cents is what you're losing for the merger. Right, because we were at 8 cents last year and only 6 cents this year, right? Yes. Okay, well can we set that food service thing aside for now? We'll go through the budget a little bit and then revisit that once we look at the numbers, should we say. Are there specific questions? Yes, of course. So I went off of the cuts, basically. That was a good place to kind of start the list of what actually got cut. I'll go through what those were. I have them right now. Okay. But yeah, if you want to, sure. Well, I don't have not everyone do I have a question why that now. I guess my question for the top one is just this 100 100-320 is contracted instructional services and I noticed in the notes it includes money for one planet so it's kind of wondering if what other type of stuff that includes. It includes ELL, interventionist as well as artists and residency. So interventionist in both buildings. Interventionist, okay. Okay. Is that the only place in our budget where one planet shows up? Okay. So I guess the next would be 1100-340 the other professional services which include a lot of our wonderful programs you're adding in. So I notice was kind of wondering what was taken out and so this year 5th and 6th kind of did everything like the traditions of the overnight field trips that both buildings had. We've asked them to prioritize to create an every other year rotation. So next year we'll go on Keyway then again. So that's the difference. The change you see there is what Keyway didn't want to cost for next year's 5th and 6th graders. So the 5th and 6th graders are going this year. They will not go next year which means that group has already gone. So the idea is you go once over the course it's yours. And I don't know about Rochester but that's the way Stockbridge has done it in the past as every other year. And one of the things we're trying to support too is a better understanding of what's available closer, locally, right in our own state. What are things that kids aren't particularly familiar with right here in Vermont. And there's certainly a reason to go to Boston. There's a reason to do things like that. But there's also a reason to better understand your own state. What's happening here? What's happening. So then if you actually go down on the cuts there is this same line item that we took out for $2,000. That we took out. Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's grant funding that we received for well, winter wellness. This is grant funding? Well, that $2,000 we will get towards our winter wellness program for grant funding. So we pulled $2,000 out from the taxpayers. Because it doesn't show up on our revenue not completely. We're anticipating an extra $2,000 of grant monies to offset that. But it does not show up on our revenues right now. So if the grant money didn't show up at the event, what would happen? Or we'd find it someplace else.  We haven't put all of the grant money that they think we're going to get. So we'll have some in case that happens, Carl. It comes in a little less. Right. No, I guess it seems like philosophically we change every few years in terms of do we put all the grant revenue on the grant income on the revenue side so we can show that we're supporting a more robust program than over charging the taxpayers for. And that really tax dollars and expenditure on our kids. Or that it seems other times we say, you know, let's just show we want to show a lower budget or the philosophy seems to change in the business office of saying we're not going to show these off-tax revenue sources and not show the programs they support either. So that the taxpayers are only looking at something that talks about the things they're paying for. And so it seems like we're in one of those years where we seem to be not showing the majority of our grant income and not showing the majority of our grant expenditures. I wouldn't say so. Again, you know I haven't been here through too many budget cycles but I would not say that's the case. I think, let me answer it this way I think grant coordinators typically get a sense of how much, for example, title money which is our big grant is coming into the district and typically the folks who send the money will say we're anticipating we're anticipating a 12% reduction. Most grant coordinators take the bad news into the budget process. Okay, they're telling us 12 we're going to budget for a 12% less. Typically it ends up being 8% or something 6% less. So they give sort of their best guess and then we take that money and figure out how we can reduce local funds by the amount we're fairly certain we're going to receive.  Mary Ellen negotiated an SUI contract or excuse me school district like contract both of us together. I think we realize that we're not getting a good rate on that. So we have that in writing like this is what it's going to cost. Great. That's a huge difference. Yeah, I know. Okay, I think the next is the whole technology section. So that is 2490. So it looks like notice in the notes there was a reduction in the amount of Chromebooks potentially to be purchased. And a couple questions was you know how many do we currently have they're like one years old. How many do we currently have they're two years old. How many do we want to have in our buildings just a little more information about that. The amount that was chosen where does the number come from for that was the cost of each Chromebook. That's a hard quote. From somebody. I don't want to say Google but from the supply. These are Chromebooks that were purchased in May of last year and they're $220 each. So if they're that price we could actually buy 35 Chromebooks for 7000. We're just interesting because that is not the price that we just paid recently. Okay. It is a year ago but I thought that was kind of interesting. So but that's the plan is that you would try to reduce the amount of Chromebooks that you're going to buy. I think ideally we'd like to get one to one at least for 4th and 6th graders. And I would say in Rochester we're probably almost there but some of the machines are 4 to 5 years old. At a certain point we need to We're trying to bond those up. In Stockbridge we're wanted we are 1 to 1 4 through 6 right now. The reason we could reduce that is based on numbers we needed. Five new ones to meet the need of the right grade number of students per grade level. Because we just replaced so ones that we have are 2 years old. So we're just and we took in 6th graders. So brand new this year. So are we trying to put Chromebooks into the 3rd and 2nd graders hands as well or because you're saying that the 3rd graders have. So somewhat because standardized testing they will take a test on the computer. So it's important that it's a device that works. Oh definitely. And then our teacher does testing programs like that's kind of just different things I would say all the time but definitely being familiar with it and knowing how to use it safely. Yeah that's great. Yeah it's definitely very important. Yeah. Okay. I didn't really have a lot of questions with technology I could I was able to see where you know the reductions and everything seems reasonable. 2610 420 which is that cleaning services. Oh. And so I was just wondering because the last draft it was 6500 and it looks like only 4200 came out. So where did the rest of it go and I think we were kind of wondering what that cleaning service was anyway. And actually it was a typo it was contracted services. Okay. And I'm sorry. I remember that. It was like when the first couple of days I was here. Okay. So I got surprised too when I read it and I thought we have cleansers. Yeah right. So the balance of so that the 2300 went into what line of mediums are our last 420. 420. Yeah. What we did is we just looked very, very carefully to see if there's some things we could defer. I'm going to be honest that we didn't make a lot of cuts but most cuts in the buildings facilities are basically things we can try and defer. There wasn't a lot of cushion budget in the first place. There weren't any numbers that were sort of rounded up. Yeah. She does a really close job trying to budget and we just looked at some things that we said okay maybe we can wait a year to do that. So that typically I typically won't be doing that. We won't be doing that in our budgets too many years in a row because that gets us in a whole lot of trouble. I see it. I'm sorry I didn't even see it down there because it's out of number. Okay. Okay. 2610-431 that's our potential like bleachers and multipurpose room tile and the bleachers are ridiculously expensive to remove. Right. So we're just going to keep one side closed. Yeah. That was one of the costs. The tile piece I think we're just going to wait and see what comes back. So from this study like right. So this 55 proof is just kind of like in there as like so you have it for right. There's going to be stuff that we're going to need to replace. Okay. There wasn't anything specific. From the study priorities that some of it will just be general maintenance like you'll have to replace lights or you'll have to replace those things. One of the things that very informally and I don't want to quote the engineers at all but I just asked him a simple question about if we're on site and we're doing work do you think that would take the cost down of taking this set of bleachers out because as Lindy said it's ridiculously expensive. And his comment was it certainly makes sense that it could. You've already got the guys on site you're probably going to have materials but you need to remove it with on site you got the contractor probably on site so you can probably get lesser cost when we're actually doing some work. For right now it's not a safety issue because we keep them locked shut and nobody can open it. Okay. 2670 dash 108 that's the crossing guard. Yes. The reason we recommended that or put that in this list is that we're having more and more limited use we have three or four sixth graders and a fourth grader who sometimes use it in the afternoon we don't at this point hardly ever have any child who uses it unassisted in the morning there are parents who walk their children down from the village but there are not hardly there's hardly anyone who walks down on a company of kiddos. It is a question is that we're thinking it out for that amount do we want to leave it in but it's basically had far more use when we some of the days break we're here because those are more the kids who walked on. We're down to just a couple of youngsters a day and for many days it will go many days in a row nobody crosses. It's very short term it's 15 minutes in the morning 15 minutes in the afternoon. The reason we have that amount there is that nobody is going to give up their entire day in 15 minute blocks to make $9 an hour they're just not going to do that. That is what that would be. Okay. Oh is that this? That is 2670 with no dash on it? Is this the number? Is it in there? This is what it costs for the crossing. Okay so it's not I'm confused while we're looking at that block you see it's function 2670 safety and then it's got an object 590 free SU assessment. It kind of goes though. It is confusing. But the SU assessment is 2711. Okay so that's what's missing. 2711 is missing. On the sheet it doesn't label that's a separate function. So yes SU assessment for transportation is 2711 for a function code. Okay so we'll need to get the 2670 safety having a whatever or sub. I can't change the pivot table. It's locked. So yes I will let. But Maryland could change that because that's confusing. Yes absolutely. Lower the speed limit because it's a school crossing during certain hours it starts to flash. Is there any way we can get the state to work on putting a sign and how do we in place. There's quite a process this fall to get pre-school pick up Monday pre-school pick up added. I have a contact I mean it was installed if it's a state route it will require the state sign. Right the state comes and I have the name I don't know. Well we can certainly look into that if it makes sense if we could. The only thing I know is we have to get them here to measure up because there's requirements. Somebody actually told me at our I don't know if this is accurate or not that our crosswalk is not an inappropriate place because it has to be so many feet away from anyone's driveway. So it probably wouldn't hurt to have I'm guessing it's the department of safety to make a contact. Just have them come down and look at the area and say what are your recommendations. There's no other good spot to cross. I know there really isn't. My has their own crosswalk guidelines really better known. They're quite extensive because I tried to locate one of Milbury. It's supposed to include a certain number of but it's kind of the chicken and the egg. You might not have that number if there's no crosswalk. If it's a school use then See that's the other thing they told me they may come and say you can't have a crosswalk here. I just don't know how it all works but we might as well start the journey and find out. Because it does make sense as long as there's no crosswalk. Just have some kind of signal that people never slow down. The only way they can be ticketed during that time this is why the guy showed up like you need to sign this because they can't they could ticket someone but someone could appeal the ticket if it hasn't been signed off of and updated. Which is good. Something to kind of keep in our minds I'll make that all to the department. I can see what you find out if you need to sign me that whole time. You guys happy with the budget? I have questions from what I've seen in the last five minutes. Just generic. The 2610 total operation buildings has gone up 8% from the 19 budget and I I wonder how we're going to defend that to the public. I think they're going to have an issue with that. Some of the numbers I have to tell you I've worked very hard to try and change some of those numbers. It is what it is. I just don't have the answers for why we can't change some of these numbers. For example, why the electric bills are going down. I don't have this background to explain it all, but what folks keep telling me is that our computer switches over there our telephone routing system is over there. There's a lot of things over there that require energy even though the building shut down and that's I'm hoping that the the engineers seem quite what's the word they want to use they were surprised when they looked at the amount of energy that was being used in that building and they felt there was some things we could do fairly quickly to bring that number down fairly significantly. They would walk around and point to things and you know I have no idea what they were telling me but it certainly made sense to them. Did it sound like those are easy fixes a lot of them did, Jenny they were lifting something up and they were saying look no insulation up here what needs to be six inches thicker and it would pay back in a couple years. I mean, are there any things that aren't going to cost much that we could implement? I don't really know, but I'm hoping when we get the recommendations back we can figure that out. They did believe, they did feel that there were a number of places where they could look outside there's a number of leak, air leak kinds of places. Some of the windows they had some questions of how well these windows are serving us. So I think when we get their report back we'll have a better handle on how to move forward with some of this stuff. But right now it's a mystery to me because I will be honest, I thought when we turned the heat down, shut the lights off and just went to zone one that we would see a drop. And the temperature went from what to what how much did it go up? It never was much above 70, 68 it would go up to 70, I'm really cold days and we dropped it down to 55. And I asked a couple of people and they said we really shouldn't go much lower than 55 where we'd start causing ourselves problems. It seems like that, I mean it's not a huge difference but it seems like that. It just did something. I don't know why. It just didn't. I just, I wish I could, I wish I had a better answer. All I can say in the buildings and grounds piece is we've gone through every number line by line by line and put it back as far as we feel we're comfortable putting it back.  Hasn't gone down one penny since the high school and they're still charging us the same amount. There's no competition. It is what it is. It seems like a lot to me but I can't find anybody else to come and pick up the waste. And so I have asked Tara if we could do an RFP to see if by chance we would get someone who possibly bid and provide a little competition but that will be for next year and I don't dare reduce this much in case we're left with the same provider. That's really not nice, is it? No, we still don't have it.  Yeah, it's really not nice. So can we put it out to RFP? Yes? We can put it out to bid. Just a matter of what I've been told is there's only one person that ever bids on Rochester. No one else ever expresses an interest. There's less but I don't know if you had any competitive nature or not. I don't know. So the food services why aren't we including that 40k into that number that we're thinking that it will be a missed part of the conversation maybe? I think we are going to include it. It is an option for you. It wasn't included originally but based on the deficit the historical deficit the original budget didn't include it. So Marilyn was recommending that you put in that amount of money. That additional amount of money? That additional 40k. Right now it's got like 15 grand or 16 grand. So the 40,133 bring it up to 56,000. And adding that in will make us over the threshold. No, we'll still be under. After adding it in your threshold number would be Bonnie I wrote it on your piece of paper $18,054 because I think it was after we take away your exemptions You wrote it on this one. Yeah, it will be so after we add it it will be I want to have it on here too. $18,526.14 per pupil. Then we get to subtract out the costs you get to subtract out that do not count toward the cap. So we get to subtract out $407.36 plus $64. So that would be what $471.36 And then the $792 $7.90 No $407.36 and $64. We would subtract that from the $18.526 and that takes us to a per pupil cost of $18,054.78 $18.54 $18.88 So that's even less than what the budget is before we add that back in. So is it because we're adding that in that we get those extra reductions? Tara? I get to calculate it out. Can I do math with my hand? At Rochester. I'm trying everybody. Ah, ours is $54. I'm just, I guess I I'm surprised that our food deficit is so high. That's like $300 a kid. What we find to look at our side is that our revenue from the food service program basically pays for all the supplies and food and paper goods and all that. It covers that with a slight amount left over. And then to cover salaries and benefits. It's that there's so few youngsters in a good number of our youngsters bring home lunch. We do have some kiddos that we feel would qualify for free and reduce lunch but parents sometimes pride gets in the way and they're like I'm not feeling that out. I get that. And then we just have very little economy of scale that we can do much with. Looking at both buying and stuff like that that will help us a little bit. So their salary, is that included in that number or is that more different? So the food service has to, the food service is its own separate like business unit. There's a whole it does so all the personnel costs, the insurance costs, the supply costs everything like that is all lumped together in like a non-educational sort of account. And then we just have to make that whole but I'm just surprised that 56,000 dollars is a lot of overage for 147 kids. Part of that essentially goes into paying their salary though right? It seems like. Right last year was we subsidized 50 or this current years we just subsidized 55 that was 24,000 for Stark Bridge and 31,000 for Rochester. So your per pupil spending prior to per pupil spending prior to being able to take away those things is 18, 5, 26, 14. After we can take away those it brings it down to that 1805 for 78. So my question is in the chart that you gave us that before we add in that extra subsidy the per pupil spending is 18, 303. So we cannot take that 18, 303 because you're under the threshold you still get those deductions but it doesn't impact you because you're already under the threshold. Yeah but it's still lowers. 18, 303 and then you drop down the 407 36 and the 64 dollars. So we can still take those on that 18. Okay. By the ed formula I never have to count principal interest or contributions toward the whole in teacher retirement that's $24 down there. We chatted with the board at our last meeting about how you have to pay a charge for every new teacher you hire in the first five years. That's the amount that we can take out per pupil for that. Okay that's our credit. That's a good way to think but these are two credit. You can subtract them out. They do not count towards your per pupil cost that puts you when calculating the cap. Okay. That's right. So wouldn't that bring us down to $1.61 pre-CLA if you take that 18, 303, 10 and then you minus 407, 36 and minus 64? You gotta start with 18, 5, 26, 14. She's doing it prior to I'm not just sorry Amy. I'm confused as to why my number's higher before I add in $40,000 more dollars. So wouldn't we go 18, 303, 10 and then take out the 407, 36 and the 64 which would get 17, 831, 74 and then you divide that by the yield and then well that gives us $1.67 before we take the take our 6 cents off. So if we take our 6 cents $1.61 pre-CLA. If I look at this sheet here does that show that the 18, 303, 10 already has that amount minus? No, it doesn't. 14 is that amount and then 14 21 minus is it out but it didn't in the calculation. Right? 24 Yeah because the she has that the threshold is what is in there for line item 22 excess spending threshold is at 18, 3, 11 and then per figure used for calculating district equalized tax rate is at 18, 303, 10 which is the same as 13 of above and you have 14 and 21 that you are supposed to minus out of that, right? Okay so it should do that. Okay, good. I'm not confirming that. Oh okay, not saying that. That's why I'm thinking that 24 should be lower. That's why I'm thinking if if you go with the same theory that is here that if we add it back in that's a pre-CLA if it doesn't get it does. It really isn't an option. I mean we know it's an expense but we have to show it. We have to show it. Right. Well again that brings us to a pre-CLA with the food service out of back at the food service subsidy of 40,000 133 it gives us pre-CLA of $1.63 $1.63 pre-CLA compare to the $1.65 6 so I think that's still under the threshold. That's still under the threshold. 311. We would be at 18 and 54. So definitely I think we should go ahead. Now our budget assumes we're essentially drawing down our carryover to zero is that correct? Right. I'm not suggesting we don't do that but we do have to know that it's good practice to carry some sort of fun balance to take care of on the anticipated. Well yeah so our balance carry forward for our budget of 2019 is what was carried that came from our 2017 budget correct? FY17 budget okay so this that we're putting in now is the audited amount from 18. It's the Rochester and Stockbridge combined. Audited amount from 18 to the revenue sheet. 236. 236. That was both some pretty big fun balance. So that's something we need to remember we're looking at a tax rate that's going down we're looking at a per pupil cost we have to remember that so when we're starting next year's budget if we don't have that same kind of a healthy surplus that's going to automatically increase our spending levels basically paying it down by almost a quarter of a million dollars right but on the other hand our budget shouldn't have a quarter of a million dollar cushion in it either we really once we're kind of getting in this better groove our budget which is why I have the audit because what any administrator should be able to do if we have a surplus like that we should be able to explain to the board why we have that surplus at the audit in time like you guys so we need to go through it and figure out why and then explain to you and the taxpayers where did this surplus come from and I think that I'm anticipating given that the high school was downsizing there were some things that were budgeted for that never came to be and that's where we're going to see some of these surpluses I don't know that for certain but that would just make sense Stockbridge also had a big surplus as well Stockbridge's issue was pretty small oh okay not there okay but just so the board would know this Linda and I both believe this when you have a large surplus you need to be able to explain it to the board just as much as you need to be able to explain a significant deficit sometimes significant deficits and significant surpluses are really beyond anyone's control a whole lot of youngsters move in they anticipate it and you need to hire a new teacher that would be a great problem to have you need to hire a new teacher etc but that would show up as a significant deficit on the flip side you budget for something that doesn't happen you're able to reduce your staff by two teachers that is going to result in a significant surplus so Linda and I need to go through the audits and I want to be able to explain where this money comes from but I will say the board grappled with this notion of how do we want to start establishing the fund balance because it's really not prudent to not have any sort of money on hand for any anticipated event right and then besides that we had also formerly set up this I had created funds for like a tuition fund in case we ended up with an influx of tuition kids and some of this money would be nice to start funding those accounts I'll just fact check a little bit Carl asked what our what our student population our number was I remember that the board had a previous meeting and asked me to look at the Rochester Hancock and Grandville numbers so at the point I looked at this we had 92 youngsters on site one youngster off site 63 were from Rochester 20 were from Hancock 9 were from Grandville and we were just a question on the budget sure simple one, I noticed you have an audit she number in here from last year but no audit expense for this year what's the number the audit expense it used to be budgeted for at the local level at the school level and now it's budgeted for at the supervisory union we have a new contract that the auditors are giving the SU one price and so our share of the audit is now rolled into our SU assessment you're welcome one question I see the public potentially asking is what efficiencies we're making as we merge last year we combined music teachers how are we working towards anything not necessarily combined but making things more efficient I don't know at this point we have anyone significant I mean we're in the process of looking at a number of things trash removal bulk buying for food service none of those are reflected in this budget is actually happening already but we're sort of looking for those opportunities definitely field trips right because we're doing field trips together and that's an efficiency that does save some some I'd be hesitant to call for trips and efficiencies I know we don't want to incur high school but I think we have concentrated this year on the social emotional I think we have socially but I'm thinking budgetarily they'll probably be asking I think the next thing that Libby and I could explore I think it's after this we get some of this engineering stuff back a number of schools have gone like some folks put an attorney on retainer they do the same thing with plumbers electricians and you get a better rate when they come to work on your hot water your bag of lights that went out or whatever whether we're large enough to do that I don't know, but those are things that we need to start exploring is that a way to save some money if we both use the same whatever I know Tara when she gets her feet on the ground is going to be looking more for us to do bulk buying of certain things that we're not doing and stuff that hasn't been done since Donna right, great fear that we can tell people well one of the things we learned is we're not going to do any more bidding in the papers we're going to go to these bid sites that are online so it's looking into those rates is that something that we can tell people that we're actually looking that we're looking in into them now whether it pans out that it ends up saving us any money or not the next question but we need to look into those things and it would seem like it would turn into some level of efficiency. Question on this sheet the CLA and tax rate for last year for FY 19 those numbers don't correspond to what we have in our book for CLA or for the tax rate in 19 FY 19 for the historical. I have that Rochester's CLA was 114.25 and Stock Bridges was 104.47. This is information in that we printed last year so Rochester was 114.5 and Stock Bridges was 114.25 and Stock Bridges was 104.47 and then the actual tax rate that was printed in this book and you might want to just maybe review this page in the book to correspond it to but I could tell you what the tax rate Rochester's was a dollar point four nine four eight and Stock Bridges was a dollar point six three four seven and at that point we were dealing with the five percent cap that we couldn't the tax rate couldn't swing five percent up or down which benefited in both of us and I don't know I don't think we'll be in that that same situation this year no. I have a question how these tax rates actually go over to the tax bills and the years of the tax bills because you know if I look at my 18-19 tax rate on my tax bill the homestead tax is not the same that we printed in this book wasn't there an error isn't there something that says I know on here that said and spending differs from annual town report due to error in FY 19 so if the ed spending is incorrect that's got to change our well but I mean the tax rate between here is a dollar point 49 the tax rate on my tax bill is a dollar 40 I mean that's nine cents that may have been where the error was though there was some note here that we don't really understand well I'd like to explore that a little bit more with somebody I think we should I didn't hear the whole thing with your lower than what we printed the education the homestead education tax rate was lower on my actual bill than what was printed that's one point four oh on the bill one point four zero seven one I don't know I don't have stock bridge it you know maybe you can take a look at your stock bridge bill I just you know I mean here we are getting this tax rate down and we're talking about pennies on the tax rate and then when I pick up my tax bill and it's not matching what we're trying to accomplish here it concerns me and I'm kind of wondering you know I might just be missing a piece you know that there's another calculation that goes in there or something and I guess it's something to do with the grand list well isn't that CL no no the C the CLA grand the CLA is a calculation that the state of Vermont does of which the grand list in property values are apart okay so once what it can change exactly up to tax rate June 30th oh to June 30th so so the tax rate the education spending tax the homestead education tax rate that we are potentially setting right now actually goes through another calculation with the grand list should it shouldn't be nine cents okay let me let me ask you this what did you say Rochester CLA was last year what was printed in the book yeah was one one four point two five and that's what's on the state website one one four okay for Rochester CLA and one oh four four seven good so what was printed in this book and that's as of August 14th 2018 so that will be correct what this says that would be the final number that would be the good number August 14th 2018 so that was 2018's number we have a new number for 2009 which would you say your your bill was sorry $1.40 right for what the actual tax rate yeah what dollar point four zero seven one that's what so if I plug in if you plug in what to the spreadsheet your 114.25 for your CLA in Rochester yeah it brings your tax rate after CLA to 1.4071 which is exactly what you said prop bridge is 104.47 that would bring their tax rate after CLA down to 1.5388 okay so this is off of our budget last year the budget number from last year what I just wanted what you just need me for now on from what on when I plug it into this section of the chart where it says a hundred percent and ninety percent right now okay you just switch that because that's linked to our our 19 budget yeah so I just updated it there manually overwrote it there and I come up with your tax rate that was on perfect so um that's not good um so what does it what is it come up with for last year's on per pupil spending your last year's per pupil spending on this spreadsheet yeah that gives you is that 17 to 47 67 to 47 67 and this year prior to adding in food service is that 18 303 10 right okay a difference of a thousand fifty five dollars and 42 cents here's a piece we have to remember to we're automatically going up to sense by the reduction right in the unification right but that's that that comes that that comes in later that comes down in line 20 change and what right but it's still a reduction of those two cents I agree I'm not in here but I've lost it you have to get it back for me okay the number that we printed was seventeen thousand six hundred forty four dollars not seventeen thousand two hundred and forty seven dollars so I just want to be let's make sure we have our numbers really nice before we print okay well before we probably let's let's make sure we all our numbers are flown flowing in the right place and that the budget still still ends up where we think it's right right well seems like we still have two things we need to know add in that food service number and then you talked about not draining the carryover down to zero and how that would impact what our number yeah I I think at this point I mean I'm kind of hesitant a little bit here but I think at this point this budget has been calculated using all that carrying over and it's probably late in the game to change that but I think as the board you need to talk about what directions do we want to give Tara in another year do we want her to start by putting 80% of a carryover that's a offset do we want a director in the first draft to put all hundred of it in or I think we just have to the board just has to grapple with which way are you most comfortable starting to develop a fund balance but if we add in that 40 we still have a cushion wouldn't it be a good idea to keep a little bit of that cushion it might be the year you decide to do that right well I mean I think understanding I mean the way you you build a carryover into a budget at least the way I've always thought about it is you know you do that by estimating most things kind of you know you don't try to say well we can you know let's let's shave this down to the absolute minimum let's still leave in you know let's let's leave that $55,000 in building general repair we think that's a pretty good catch-all number and hopefully we don't spend all of that and so that's how you get a you can you can get a surplus right you can all I mean I think by law that 236 or whatever the carryover is in the audience has to be returned to the taxpayers either by being applied as a surplus to the budget right off the top so that we're starting with our first quarter million paid so do you usually reset that number zero each year so typical yeah or you or you say that okay we've got this 236 thousand dollars let's do what we did a couple years ago in stock which is let's put some aside for we know that there's gonna be we're coming to the roof and we're getting clothes on the new furnace so let's take some of that and then you add then you add an item to the warning it says will the voters approve for adding $50,000 to the building carryover and then put the cushion into your budget for the next year you have to do something with it if the board asked to do nothing with it as Carl says then it automatically returns to the taxpayers to reduce the budget if you wanted to start a type of a fund balancer contingency as Carl said then you have to ask for voter approval to establish the reserve funds like in Chelsea when I was on the board we had a building reserve fund right and we established every year we have we have we have some review reserve funds that we that we fund but at the beginning of your budget season is we that's when you talk about it before you even start to build the budget we say okay any if we have a surplus we want to take 20% of it and put it into these funds let's see what we in this year your audits were extremely extremely late audits are usually done in the fall yeah and we weren't the only SU that didn't get their audits I mean they the audit auditors reached out and explained that it was all the way across the board they're behind and you know that's no excuse but generally speaking you have your audit in financials right and then you have a better idea so you're not you're not one of the things that Tara is going to be dealing with is a couple of fairly large firms who did a lot of work in school audits have ceased to work in school audits anymore so there is a shortage of auditors who will come in and audit small right and that was actually one of the reasons why we we went to the you know some of the other boards in the SU were kind of more hesitant towards the idea of having a group contract because they were afraid that they wouldn't get the right amount of attention from the auditors but the auditors basically I think told us more or less straight out that we know we want we're not going to sign the individual contracts with Rochester and Stockbridge and you know Tumbridge and and Straford we want to sign one you know we that for everyone so the auditors only come into the area once they go through all the books at the SU office and and then they bang out the individual audits and moving forward there will be less audits because all these different schools back to the fund balance issue though another thing just to share with the board there are some districts that actually budget line item contingencies so they will have a line in their budget that says building maintenance contingency or some break it down electrical contingency plumbing and I think we're kind of small to break it down but that is another way that they begin to plan for contingencies the other thing that you will hear Lindy and I tell you is that we shouldn't have too large of a fund balance because then we're holding monies that really should be returned to the taxpayers I don't know if they're still doing it but six or seven years ago building managers used to recommend about 5% of your budget be held in a fund balance anything above that started to look too much like we're holding on to taxpayer money that really should be returned right and the other piece is you know when you think about you know are you budgeting too close to the too close to the bone and risking a deficit it's important to understand that the board can without going to the taxpayers the board can take it take it if we let's say you know the roof failed or something and we went you know we had a half million dollar or a quarter million dollar deficit because a lot expected circumstances that deficit can automatically the board can without talking to the taxpayers just break that deficit deficit out over three years so there is you know there is the ability to and I'm not I'm not advocating that we should run a deficit and then you know I'm just just passed on for three years but it is something to be thinking about in terms of you know as we we try to walk that line between you know balancing a budget having you know not too big of a surplus or you know not too small of a deficit the other thing I will add to what Carl said is that administrators that have this ethical principle somebody told me it's in statutes and where I've never seen it I think it's just an ethical principle that as soon as you become aware of the fact that you are potentially going to have a deficit administrators one of the ethics of being a school administrator is that you start that day taking every step you can to keep the deficit as small as possible so basically you go forward and you don't purchase anything that isn't essential once you know or once you believe you're going to have a deficit because your obligation is not to spend all the money that the town allows you to spend while this deficit's building up but it is to maintain that deficit in a small number as you can because the taxpayers are going to have to make it up in the next budget. What sort of reserve funds do we have right now? We do have some in both towns I don't know if they would be in this I don't know what reserve funds we have is a reserve fund to be used to fund in actual dollars. Oh no. That's a good question. And the building had one at one point didn't we? I'm sorry yeah I don't know how our funds you have a building fund and we have a general education fund so yes we do have money in it. Those are two funds that have money at that are yeah okay. I mean they need you you can the board can draw them down as long as they draw them down for whatever the purpose they were reserved for. So one is a building fund and one is a general education fund which you could there's more reasons you could draw that one. Building fund needs to be drawn down for building maintenance. Can I ask a question? This trust fund slash trustee of public funds dropped significantly in the proposed revenue. I know what the $9,000 is that's contribution from Stockbridge but is there other monies that have come in in the past like that's a pretty big drop. Yeah what was the yes Rochester in the past has gotten funds from the trustees of public funds and maybe Barb would like to talk a little bit to us. I guess it's probably a combination of whether how the funds would be handled versus one school versus another and there's this discussion about are the funds supposedly more for the Rochester people the way it's written or as could be broadened out to be students of joint schools and so last year when things were pretty much in a flux we did you know anyone was coming we gave it 44 before things happened but as a things were still happening we pretty much selected to let well first of all not that much money but secondly just don't like to see how things work out and what our true obligations are and handling those funds and so that's pretty bottom line. From one point of view we get more bang for our bucks from contributing to the school because the school taxes are two thirds more or two thirds of the total tax bill as opposed to the one third of the town but then you get the sticky wicket okay which people are reserving we're serving the taxpayers on one hand just to give to all the schools but I think you might have a little bit of an issue with that so that's where we are. How are the one of the things we we weren't able to get a handle on because you were down our last meeting how are the funds I mean in Stockbridge there's one of the one of the public funds is specifically for schools and the way that that's been traditionally handled in Stockbridge is the trustees you know have usually you know figured out what their return is and what they what they they they can get out of that and do now is that the same methodology that's used here or is that there are other funds that are the purview of the school you have the funds in a preview of the school you have two funds Kirk Patrick in the way which we talked about before this is in your direction totally and then we have the funds that our town funds which is what this 44,000 came from technically the trustees of public funds donated minister are not supposed to minister your school funds and I think in the past what we did was we will help the school by combining the investments with the bank because we could get a lower rate because of the combined total I think this is something that I think just talking about we've talked about before is how are those two funds legitimately you fellas were looking into your to your legal aspects of can those two funds be as a combined fund of source of income from both schools or can it only be restricted to the Rochester and I think last time I talked to you guys arrives as your meeting I think decided you had to look right right and that's and we did according to Bruce he talked with our attorney around the same time they were settling the issues around the property issues and that because the budget serves the budget you know the combined students and because the amounts of money are somewhat proportionate in terms of there's like 10,000 that comes from there are 9,000 that comes from the Stockford side and we've got in the past it's been more from the Rochester side but there are more students from the Rochester side and the idea that it could be shown that there are more than $9,000 of benefits going to Stockbridge based kids so because the money is never really directly allocated where you know this is all put you know $9,000 is put into the Stockbridge food fund or wherever the big the big thing is that they they said that because the community that it serves includes the stakeholders for those for those funds and it's not there there's not any way to look at it's you know it's a four million dollar budget and we're talking about you know 1% of it or so in the lower or 2% in the total amount of so what did they say we could we could do that's why we have the 9,000 from Stockbridge in there because we were so we were told that it would not jump or at least per Bruce you know I've not seen a bit of paper from the attorney is that the ownership remains with each school correct income from right to the joint right because it serves it serves kids from both places and there's it's not of such a large proportion that it would seem like one town was subsidizing the school you know both schools something else that should go back to we've had meetings about that to the school board or the treasure or the principal depending how it's worded because there's one in Rochester that just handled by the principal and not by the trust not by the school school board any case just another consideration that we now as trustees pretty much almost tried to say the school decision the school policy and all we were doing was helping out putting it as a common plow right so the whatever you need so the amount that was given in this line item of trustees and public funds was actually town funds town's truck it was not want the perpetrator the way that's interesting okay I know it doesn't address the sort of the emotional issues of mergers but for the last 10 or 12 years Vermont's education fund has been a blended fun it used to be that you take your tax bill to the to the town treasurer and they would put it in a town account and that account would be used to pay for the town schools what happens now is all of our tax money is sent to Montpelier there is no such thing as Rochester tax money stock bridge tax money it all goes to Montpelier it's divided up by formula and a portion of it some of us are receiving town so we get back more than we send others of us are not receiving towns like killing 10 stow those places that tend to have big property values they are sending towns so they send more money to Montpelier than they get back so there's actually language in Act 46 the merger law that talks about how you can look at these funds but fundamentally it's impossible now to say I only want this to go to Rochester kiddos or I only want this to go to stock bridge kiddos I guess the exception would be physical things like buildings okay you can actually take money and pay for a roof on this school because there is no funding for those kind of projects anymore from the state you want that completely but in terms of having funds committed just the youngsters from one campus or the other it's no longer possible under Vermont's funding law to do that I would suggest that next year this year is already budgeted for the 2020 it might be a good idea for somebody come into our trustee meetings and discuss the position which then will help us make a decision in how we distribute great and the trustees that everything is said and done for town meeting for the town budget yeah okay so when do you guys even pretty much make the decisions in December so November December and when do you meet once a month twice a month no we meet really quarterly or on demand okay thank you yes thank you very much all right do we have any more questions and do we feel like we're comfortable enough with what we've seen to move this forward tonight where we want to it goes to it goes from the 18303 to 18 and but then you minus out the stuff to 18 but based on what I've seen we that's the number that we have to put in the morning is that 18 526 14 okay and we have to state that that's about to cap them I just that's what I was just doing all of this when I was digging back through what number was actually used in all of this and even last year it wasn't the number that was used was that 17 247 67 up rounded up to 17 248 so I don't I shot Marilyn email but she hasn't responded for what our warning is sorry your perp people our warning is 17 644 well I'm assuming that was probably before the error I mean all I have is this okay well as our warning so yes well but that would make sense because the 18 526 14 that is our education spending per equalized people then we get to take the cap calculations and we get to subtract out so that would make sense 18 526 14 as your per pupil spending right and if I'm wrong she and we will adjust the warning at the day of the meeting like we did that that would make but that would make sense because it doesn't it doesn't clarify spending yeah it doesn't say education spending per equalized people after blah blah blah it just says education spending per equalized people and that's what we're spending is 18 526 14 right so then we go on to do the cap calculation which is why you're subtracting out those numbers that would make sense so the the budget number would be four million four hundred twenty six thousand three hundred forty four dollars one more time yep four four two six three four four now what that does to our tax rate is brings Rochester up eight cents which is higher than five percent so we can't go there so it has to be seven cents right and say I'm a stock bridge it's a ten cent increase which you can't go more than five percent which is what we ended up with last year as a five percent cap on the tax rate can't go five percent higher or lower right I'm kind of asking you go we want more than five percent but we really wouldn't times five percent it's five percent of stock bridges and then the questions that post CLA or pre-CLA where that five percent comes in or maybe it doesn't matter I can't and with stock bridges FY 19 tax rate of a dollar fifty three eight it can only go up point zero seven six nine seven cents and what it would be at with the new rate would be a dollar sixty two which is higher than seven cents so we would benefit from the cap again as well I guess I'm saying which is right because so we'd we'd be essentially saying because of the cap we can we can push we push the food service dollars in there not go over the the excess spending threshold but the tax rate can't rise enough to match that so we'll take advantage of keeping our taxes down it's a five percent increase yeah the merger cap so don't idea it'd be a five percent increase in and homestead tax right so would we reflect that in the article seven of the warning where we say we because by law we have to say what the percentage of increase is well we said in last year we benefited from the five percent cap and that bring us kind of into the pool when we start next year when we do your warning from last year because I don't know so sure he's super helpful I was gonna bring extra copies of that right because we will reach a point where we no longer benefit from that five percent when does that happen I'm not sure that's what the two percent each year six percent so this is not specializing it's specifying that it's subject to the cap it's saying you had seven point seven higher in Rochester and seven point six higher in Stockbridge and right now combined the projected spending per equalized people is seven point four one two percent higher than spending for the current year when I did out my math using the new number okay so I don't think in our warning there doesn't talk anything about of the five percent no it's not referencing the cap at all so we were over last year yeah because you were at seven point seven and seven we weren't over the we weren't over the cap for people spending right over the five over the that they let us jump taxes that much because of merging but if there is a progression that we that of this five percent and this year is different than last year we need to figure that out because your points of good with Jenny we're sort of we're sort of getting we're two percent yeah so we're sort of getting things we're not getting them for free we're paying for them but in terms of the cap we're getting them for free and that's going to catch us it's important right but I'm all my only hope is that this is we this is only our second budget together we're only for it part way mostly through our first year together yeah so I think by next year we'll have learned a lot we'll know a lot more we'll have audited numbers and we'll really be able to you know and it goes down to four cents next year right the exact right yeah so you're gonna lose another two cents there right right but I don't think there's a lot we can do you know because this is also new about that we just don't have this historical data to do really anything different and really what we're doing is we're building a lot of tools that we make next year's budget both easier and more transparent because we're trying to terror I know especially trying to create history from a couple of folks ago yeah that's great fine which apart you say you know what this is not productive use of time I just have to agree on a set and move forward and that that's kind of where we're at right now in the business office as I've been working through this particularly in the last two weeks and we are you know coming up with the request for current budgets for the current year and where we're at we found that there's a lot of things in the software that aren't coded the way that they need to be coded so we're trying to find out does it make sense to take the time to go back and recode everything or just start fresh for that once all of these budgets for the 1920 term are approved just rebuilding the system for the current year so we're going back with Tyler technologies back and forth about what's going to be the best course because then we also have the change is coming down from the state ALE for accounts right so we have to change all of our codes anyway they're happy once they figure out what we try to the counselor going to be and we need to have that line to be able to trace it back to at least something for those first couple years yeah so that's what we're trying to establish within the business office right now what is going to be the best course of action yeah to build that so that's still why your expenditure reports and revenue reports look funny because they kind of dump things and like special accounts and in some situations they've dumped all expenses to one building versus breaking it up for building so it's really if there's been a lot of confusion within that's what you get when you have four different people doing yes so you know I was forewarned and I anticipated spending stuff like that well I definitely appreciate all the work that you've put into this and you have provided me with information that I was really valuable and in more in-depth look than I've been able to have before so thank you I really appreciate it can I have this question I guess you're going to be looking at the new draft on this and then you need some to hear this sheet that's not reflective new your carryover right your fund balance numbers are going to change no the top number on the budget worksheet that was issued that $236,000 is the audited okay fund balance that we corrected and made that to move forward for this budget draft right and the next question when you go down to your comparisons even you had something I'm maybe just confused about this when you come down to your comparisons you had $40 for Rochester and $10.19 what was that $14 something about $1.407 one yet so then that number replaces the 1.60 yes okay and the same thing in the next column $1.5038 so then when you go forward when you want to get your change and you all these other calculations at this point I guess it shows a considerable increase as opposed to a decrease so the difference FY19 and FY20 is actually comparing the primary tax rate prior to CLA so it didn't change that part of it that little table right there where it says difference FY19 FY20 of 0.1315 for Rochester and 0.0664 that's driven by a formula that's deducting the tax rate prior to CLA FY20 which would the revised number for food service is 1.7571 well when the heading says FY20 CLA and tax rates it was implied to me that this that the rate that you showed below included the CLA adjustment maybe I'm reading the heading wrong no it's what it says yeah the top box right well I'm just using this yeah I guess what I'm looking for is a comparison after you your calculations what the increase is in your tax rate compared to the year before right and I'm not suggesting this is an all important work that we do but I think your point Barbara is a good one most people when we're done I think we'll want to know what was my tax rate in my tax bill last year yeah what is my tax rate in my tax bill right and not so much not so much why in terms of calculation it's gone up tell me what's made it go up and it's gone down tell me what's made it go down right and you know I know I'm gonna vote on and they're not just gonna look at that right your tax rate went up by this amount and this is what we've done this is why so I mean based on the revised number yep with the CLA as it stands right now at the 110.3 versus the 114.25 the difference for Rochester is that point one three one five one three one five and the difference for Stockbridge is point one five one nine right over that one point four oh seven one and one point five three eight eight where are you reading that that is the revised tax rates after CLA when you gave me the revised CLA number say those numbers again Rochester is that one point four zero seven one Stockbridge is one point five three eight eight okay and when we when we fully when we fully pay for the food service deficit as recommended you're saying it's going up 13 cents in Rochester and 15 cents in Stockbridge why would it be I got that the Rochester would be a dollar forty eight oh two and Stockbridge a dollar sixty two six as the new CLA tax rate everybody takes the time and kind of figure it out because it is kind of complicated I think we've looked at the budget and does there any more questions on the budget this is one of the things I'm going to suggest I think in fairness we need to give Tara some time to figure this out because she's trying to work with other people's numbers if we I think I'm saying the same thing we said is there anything in the but I'm not saying except the budget at right now I'm saying anything in the budget but we could call special board meeting in a couple days yes that's what I'm saying you have to do a special meeting right it could be a very quick meeting but just basically says here's the impact of the budget that you accepted right so the only the only other questions that I still I'm assuming that you know the we went from 96 96 thousand seven hundred dollars in building operations I'm sorry 26 10 operation building we do the same thing we were looking at last time which is the supervisor salary went from basically 90 93 7 to 60 66 1 and salary general went from 3,000 to basically 39,000 or 389 but when okay I understand that things need to be rearranged which account or which function code things are held in but where the you know it seems like we went up nearly nine thousand dollars in building maintenance salaries do we hire extra people we did not hire extra people I do think Marilyn and I believe had a conversation that there was a deficit there in terms of the salaries this is actually three yes so there's like one two three four so there's four people so there's one two three so there's four people in that hundred thousand dollars so I can't answer completely why the numbers were different but I do know that we checked those salaries and those are the accurate salaries for those four people okay so then is the the information shown in last year's budget was that just wrong that's what we don't know okay because it would be good to have that the answer for that and then I know we had asked and I didn't I have not yet seen the breakdown of where we're sending kids in those situations I had that I'm confused as to your question that you just asked so under 2610 supervisor salary right it went from 93 658 last year to 66 149 this year whereas line 108 salary general went from three thousand dollars last year to 38 911 this year I'm on the last page and part of that we believe and this is what we were hoping to be able to substantiate completely I think the 93 658 number may not have been an accurate number six fifth see that 93 658 at the bottom of the page confuses me is that you know if you look down health insurance went from 23 2 to 23 1 which would kind of look like the health insurance went up like 12% so the fact that actually the dollars went down would almost make it look like we lost a person which could happen right change their right they couldn't right but then do on the other hand to go up in salary over 10% it feels like there's something that needs to get sorted yeah I mean I have found the backup to substantiate that 93 658 and how many people and then so go to the 66 149 is it the same two people in that you mean for this year's budget what one same line item but this year you went down yeah for yours I'm substantially for yours yeah see I think I think from what I I can see the line item okay on the tab we reduced we reduced by one position so I can see why ours went down substantially should have been a whole salary ours went down looks to be that way and benefits down 19 to 20 well probably went down so in in this current year which is FY 19 right now we reduced a custodial position when we were okay so that's why ours went down have they entered I don't I think he only had one copy of it I think he just passed it around you actually see me the name she seemed to see what you can figure this out right now he gave that out no well you know what the names on it but we should be able to give you numbers of how many kids yeah I think he passed it I agree I mean it's so it doesn't make sense it does so 10105 including both like custodial leaders in both buildings position to supervisors ours is one 108 right that was the other one we're asking 20 610 8 includes two part-time people here at Rochester they come in and then the work but the money they get paid for the summer okay and summer work okay but again so why did it go up 11% if it's the same people I'm not that bad about that part I don't know I just that's the breakdown I was given right who was where yeah and again again I'm just gonna say that I know here was trying to recreate work I'm not trying to say here the the areas we still want answers on exactly we can have this you know we can get the final document have a special meeting and bang it out and neither am I neither am I trying to have Wendy and I know sidestep responsibility but we get the salary figures and benefits from the central office so we're gonna have to get there a time to just dig on that figure right because it's this is just for Stockbridge we have it for Rochester this is yeah no no the big thing is just I did do we know we really nailed down as accurately as we can that you know we're going to whatever this total number is yes we've confirmed the residents of every kiddo we confirm the school they plan to attend the only projections are the sixth graders because at the time we're putting this together and actually still now most sixth graders have not confirmed their school we think we know where they're going families think they know where they're going they're starting visits etc okay we had to make a guess for the sixth graders where number is the tuition the tuition is 111 we're sorry 1100 brother and it's it's broken into two lines now 561 and 563 number 568 is the present the state of Vermont Davis right and then there's the income comes into no no they say you don't have to we pay for a significant amount of tuition to Botek centers and then they turn around and say to the town's and you have to raise this money so that we can tell you we're paying subsidizing tuition right so we get out of that I mean we get 43,000 back for that 43,000 it's a usually it's a wash yeah yeah we raise it send it to them they send it back to us right it's only the only thing it's weird is that it doesn't match up to kids because it's a six it's a six semester roll yeah rolling average but we basically what so do we go up or down in terms of like kids were tuitioning up right but I mean do we do the do the number of kids go up or down do we know I don't know that crap is I don't know how many we tuition last year with any certainty I saw a list and nobody verified it and I couldn't answer that question next year we'll answer that well let's try to figure out I mean it's we went up 50 something yeah so I can certainly find that out for you how many we're okay yeah just just just that you know just so we were able to say okay we're spending $57,000 more than we did you know that's number of kids right strike us that we would get these questions answered and call a quick meeting so that I think that's the way to do it I feel a lot more comfortable knowing you know that we've seen you know we've confirmed we understand about the 5% cap in terms of tax rate rising that we know just because we I mean what worries me we looked at our warning from last year and said oh well we said we put these numbers in this way you know the people that put that together last year made a lot of interesting choices in the way that they put things together so I want to make sure that we are saying the right things on the warning that we're supposed to say by law we're you know saying things the way we do like one of the things that's new and I've never seen before on the warning is the point about to fix the salaries of the school district office officers for the next year we've never warned that before it's in the budget and you know so I don't know why that's it happened in all the schools this year I'm assuming a change in Dina wrote these warnings so she so I don't know if it's a statute law that's what I would like to I would like to know where she it came this all came in your personal warning okay in the packet and it may indeed be a statute because we had to do it on our board okay yeah and that's if that is a new law let's you know then that's fine you know I just want us to make sure that we're I mean anything that's not consistent is the things that if you were asked about they say well you always set goals this this way right you know and why are you saying it now I'm changing and the other piece why did we make it a non-binding advisory article for changing the meeting date right because it shouldn't we have to we wanted we wanted we wanted yeah we can't just have it floating in the air for next year yeah I mean we need to say we need to think about and we can we can figure this out we need to think about what day we'd like it to be yeah and say because it should be a binding article that says right that should be an article nice to be a binding article that says should the annual meeting of the Rochester Stock Exchange Unified District be moved to a date you know the 4th Tuesday of April the 4th Tuesday of May because I think that'll go was that yeah you don't want to open ended right well you and you can I think you have to warn it to a fixed date but I think that if we tried to say oh yeah hey you guys do you like coming in May we didn't like it last time this time that even less than you didn't change it okay are we discussing that right now I think let's let's let's win the school calendars I mean is there we know when how's it the April break it's set there's a draft right now I can tell you that don't don't take the 30th of April 30th of April if you're looking to do April because that's not what it hasn't been adopted yet right your proper channel but we do want to try to avoid being on vacation yeah you know is it ever does it does the April break ever go to the last week of April no just talk because calendars are being aligned I'm not gonna wait I'm not gonna weigh in in the way of aligning and what is your problem doing the first week in May like the first Tuesday in May yes there's too much else going on I think having having these meetings closer to town is better people are more likely to want to come to the meetings the schools do it this Saturday before town meetings some are doing it the night before town meeting well we do work for Monday night we are Monday night well there's a lot of both benefits that we get by waiting to get real numbers for the tuition and what else the tuition firm payments insurance increases the house insurance increases okay that's a big you know your seat you know you get your house insurance increases in October and that's gonna be some of them but not all the time so much later we get the CLA's later you'll have your quite frankly in the past part of the thing with with with Stockbridge was always that you know the business office was much more interested in the bigger schools you know and so we I don't discriminate you know certainly we could we could look at I mean the first week of April might be a possibility yeah cuz I don't think we never have vacation the first week in a year right into his Easter next year I personally think it's better and I understand but I personally think it's better to build a budget on real numbers than numbers we're thinking we're gonna get so we get our CLA's and our equalized pupils which are critical you can't calculate a tax rate without those two things like a few couple weeks ago the yield will never be confirmed till the end of the session they put out they're redoing the ADM so that number is going to change exact in the next so as the is the first week in April will the information that we need be in or should we make it later I think some of it will be and I think the AOE once they get this year is an exception to the rule was my understanding why the AOE is so far behind and everything was because of all the new stuff and they're down like 40 something staff members so all of the stuff that normally is issued in December we didn't get has been like February and March this year I mean I certainly think the first week in April probably heightens the probability that we'll have that information so let's do it done I mean it gets it closer but it gives us I mean the big thing those is moving it you know a having a closer time meeting but also having the ability to you know the taxpayers say no we don't like what you're doing you've got time right to rejigger it and to address we had always been the first Tuesday in May but that's where that's when tuitions weren't coming out I mean we were that because tuitions weren't coming out till like end of February so we wanted to be able to you know with sending half our kids spending half their school year going somewhere else right yeah it's really important up when tuitions come and you know things are more computerized so I think the numbers get generated better looks like Rochester's was the last Monday of March so maybe do the first Tuesday of April that we can we can who that if we do if we tried to warn that this year would that make next year's be on April 1st oh maybe it oh that would be fun a long time ago be actually in the it'd be the first Tuesday wasn't a joke but that's just next year right you're after that I mean if that's gonna give us enough time I mean we want enough time to get our numbers and I think because of where the way April vacation seems to jump around the middle towards the end of month it either needs to be the first weekend of a or the first Tuesday of April or the first Tuesday yeah we'll leave that for someone else's problem yeah so can I just go over your questions again for me so I make sure I have them written down yeah so you want to know if the per pupil spending limit that we disclose on the warning needs to be the full amount or less the threshold allowances right I plugged in the new CLA's into this spreadsheet which recalculated the tax rate after the CLA which appears to match your tax bill that we can confirm yes no no about Stockbridge increasing the expenditures that forty thousand one hundred thirty three dollars I have done that in this version of the draft which has increased the tax rate after the CLA to the amounts that we previously discussed that one point five three eight six and one point six nine oh seven and we want to know do we disclose that number or the capped number is that what that question was there okay then we want to know how long the 5% cap remains in play that was a question and I when you're talking about disclosing you mean on the warning on the warning right because we definitely want in our Bob in our book to lay out what the actual tax rate is yeah but what needs to go in the warning number is it that 5% or what we did lack what whoever did it last year was the seven point yeah property block okay and then questioning on the salaries for the custodial staff correct and I'm guessing if we talked about that term we talked about the names you'll find they've just been juggled around into places right and I don't that's not I mean I don't know if that's something I can fix right we may not be able to turn we have the answer right I wasn't you Justin we fix that I just thought we get the answer to right then make it correct forward yeah and and back tomorrow I believe so I should be able to pull numbers I haven't trained in the software yet so I have to rely on and everybody else well isn't it the means though it's the old software some is some is in profund which is the one prior to the infinite visions which David and Liz put together put together which is the current one that we're using for budgets is the infinite vision software which is not the software that the state of Vermont selected to use moving forward and that timeline right now is 2020 hoping that it will get extended longer because the test groups are not finding it news the new state software is yes supposed to be junky yeah it like puts us back to the 1980s business managers who've been doing this for a really long time have identified lots of issues with it so that's still and then the only other question that I have here Tara was that the number of tuition kids youngsters last year we've got the number for this year so what the question was for the car here no how many youngsters we tuition last year I mean excuse me for the current year just be able to see what our student population so we want to do it this year to next year comparison of tuition and we have the next number already we need I both have that for our students we'll be there right early what time is your appointment meeting in the morning I don't get into okay well oh that's right because you're doing the Alice training so are we saying for next year the second Tuesday in the morning is that what we're saying well I have to check with Nina okay as to what why she indicated that was a non-binding article and if that can be changed to a binding article with you already identifying the date right so I will pose that question to Dean and did we just determine a day we said the first Tuesday of April as when with the C so the warning has to be 30 days before the 28th so the warning have to be by April 28th because April's a 30-day month so when do we want to the 20th is the Sunday of April excuse me the what April 28th is we have to do it before then okay and when is vacation 15 April 15 okay do I want to meet on the 23rd is that do we need that much time well we either we can meet I could do the 11th I could do next Thursday I'm not here I'm not the conference okay I leave Wednesday for that my concern about the 23rd is that if we find any glitches it doesn't mean much okay so what I will do what do the night is once I fix all of this and I think I fix all of this once I have a conversation with Marilyn because she's gone for two weeks so she's doing most of this remotely she's not in the office with me so once I've had the conversation with her to verify the numbers that I put in tonight part based on our discussions are accurate once we know all of that and got the final stuff that we need to do I will email this to all of you so if there are problems potentially we can identify them prior to this next meeting to actually approve and finalize the budget in the morning does that work so what can we meet next Tuesday what can you do the ninth you think we can have this this resolve by the night Sharon and yeah Stratford Stratford is on a Tuesday it shouldn't be a long meeting though you might be able to do like a four o'clock meeting or 434 15 something like that because you just should be meeting you should have already seen it right it's just a formality at that point moving it if there are issues obviously sharing Stratford is at 5 30 to 7 30 and then Wednesday night I have F bud oh they ended they put you do and then there's I don't go to that but you have to have a representative there correct so you would be down one representative are you an SS negotiations I have I've been reading it I have the meetings that have been picked pretty much landed every time on a day that I'm taking my kids somewhere but I am I mean we haven't even gotten ground rules so the negotiations are really not so if you wanted to shoot for Monday I could do whatever time works for you all Tuesday night I have Sharon and Stratford unless you want to do 3 o'clock so I can get back to Sharon for 5 30 I mean that I can't do 3 o'clock right so that's the challenge where do you work well I was gonna say you guys all down and Sharon I work in Brandon so this is a little bit closer so what about that what about Monday at 4 can we do that Monday I can't do until 6 Monday depending on your friends but if you don't have someone that's going to support staff I don't have to be at support staff so Monday I'm fine if you support staff that you need to be done in there by 6 p.m. I can always roll in late a lot of the beginning meetings are all kind of okay so Monday the early so we can do is having a friend I could I on Monday I couldn't do anything really 5 30 5 30 okay with you on Monday I don't have any quickly yeah I mean it should literally hopefully be no more than a half hour you just got to approve it you guys will tell prestige and then she'll probably calendar which will pop in my calendar so is it easy it's easy if I stop here isn't it then I come from the SU office in right now so whatever so what well it's one less mountain to go all right so 5 30 the 8th it's stock bridge to get all these final numbers and put them to bed and then bless my stuff on Friday we would we would we be warning the meeting tomorrow probably Christian issue the warning for a special meeting tomorrow right Christine get that right out tomorrow yeah special meeting with just the one item to approve budget approval approved warning all right moving on so that's a 3 and 8 4 and as far as policies go given that it is 20 of 9 I would entertain a motion to table policy discussion till next month 21 policies from phase two okay so we're tabling there was some special warning on that for those policies so I don't know if it's has to be done no you can table it because it was a special warning right and we can that's for those that's the that's the his method issues warning this is the first warning that the Rochester stock bridge unified school district will consider 21 new policies that at school were being on April 2nd right policies are recommended by the SGO right we're choosing a table that we review and approve the audit yeah because we can't we just got handed that there's the next thing I was gonna tell you that we have got if we all can take a look through the audit and get together any questions we might have to Tara in advance you want that on the 48 before I just hit send on Christie's now on the 8th or do you want to do that I know if we're doing it regularly so on the 8th right now I just have to act to accept FY 19 budget act to finalize annual meeting warning correct me I think that's all right now we do I believe want to act to approve the efficiency Vermont energy efficient grant yes this can be quick you have the information at the last meeting that our project qualifies for efficiency Vermont it rebates not to see $5,000 I'm just asking for the board to take an action that we would accept to the efficiency Vermont grant and then Tara will execute it we have to have it signed I think Carl has to sign it probably for the study and this is for the they will they will reimburse up to $5,000 for parts of the study that this is a separate one for separate one for each goal not to exceed $5,000 in each goal $5,000 I'm not gonna ask Carl to sign this one tonight they sent us these anticipating that our engineering study would get started on the normal timeline and we were a bit late they're sending new ones that has the correct date but I'd like the board to take the action that they will approve the energy efficient excuse me efficiency Vermont energy script energy grant I make such a motion I say and and authorize Carl as the board's representative to sign the corrected forms when they are received by the administration that will take care of everything that we take care of everything they want from us right so we've decided to approve it and we've authorized me to sign it with the correct paperwork comes in right and do you have the contract I haven't seen a contract I talked with him today he asked who it should be addressed to because he was doing his invoice in the contract at the same time so I did have that conversation with John today I gave him our address to send the invoice to and I said I will need to verify who needs to sign the contract if it should be Bonnie and Lindy or if it should be me based on my conversation with Bonnie and Lindy they would like it to be me that signs the contract so I just need to get back to John tomorrow and let him know that I'll be the one to sign it John from Black River did you know what the number was whatever he's gonna write it in his contract based on the proposal that was presented at that meeting all right so we have a motion on the table to prove the energy the efficiency of our money efficient grants and authorize me to sign the revised documents when they come in any further discussion hearing not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed okay so we've got that done yeah we tabled the audits so asbestos asbestos as part of our work with Black River design they Polly who is our basically the person who's done most of the work in the buildings has suggested that we put the asbestos question in the two schools to rest once and for all she has recommended a firm that put together a proposal if the proposal is put together in such a way that if they do up to 72 tests it's $3,900 for one so I think I gave those both to you here here we go so at the Rochester high school if they take up to 70 samples it will cost $3,200 Rochester elementary school if they take up to 60 samples $2,900 Stockbrood central school if they take up to 75 samples $3,300 so it'll be around $12,000 if they have to take all of those samples in all three buildings. Lindy and I are recommending that we do this work because it makes no sense to do this architectural study and still have asbestos questions hanging out there yeah it's that's contained but we need to know where it is particularly if we move forward with any project so if we're gonna replace the flooring in a couple of classes we need to know are those do those profiles campaign and it sounded at the meeting they can't themselves black over design they can't say themselves but it seemed I say insinuated that there might be evidence and as one of them said we wouldn't be recommending a firm do the inspections if we didn't think there might be reason to do it and I know that I know that both schools well it's all changing you shouldn't be it's not the kind of asbestos it's in floor tile that are contained or maybe so well that's the that's finding finding out what it is yeah sometimes it's better to leave it in actually exactly but I want to stress particularly for parents who might be watching we don't have an asbestos safety concern in our buildings at this point Rochester had a big abatement project not that long ago yeah but there are pieces left in elbows of heating things and heating rooms so we just might as well get the information now we definitely need we're trying to get a whole picture of what got going on here so exactly so I would ask the board to approve that we that you accept it's not over 15,000 so we don't need to go out to bed that you would accept a proposal from ATC environmental services not to exceed three six seven eight not to exceed ten thousand five hundred dollars to do an asbestos survey in the Rochester high school Rochester elementary school and Stockwood Central school okay any further discussion I know that both schools you're supposed to have an asbestos log or you do have it and but there I've been told that they're not necessarily completely up to snuff the Rochester one that's over in the superintendent's office maybe because nobody's got their hands on it but we don't have a complete one here right and you only have a semi-complete one from doing the remediation exactly so I think it's worth it's worth it's that's necessary and you know I think we thought that if Black River wasn't asking us to do it maybe we need to do it but now they're saying you got to do this bit so all right any other discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed okay we're going to have an understanding of a better understanding of our building which is excellent the pre-k piece let me make this quick also we have a delightful problem here in our Rochester campus we have more three year olds who want to attend preschool than we anticipated which really is a great problem to work on initially I had sent out a letter to the family saying that our four-year-old program was full and we would have to use a lottery system for three-year-olds I found out that there's great support for preschool in Rochester and they really want us to turn no one away which is a great piece of information to get back so what we have what Lauren and I are proposing we have 13 three-year-olds at this point that we believe will be intended that would be one of our larger classes if it you know move through so what team for three and four year old no just 13 year old right so what we're proposing is that we don't change the hours for our four-year-olds they would continue to come Monday through Friday the same hours they've been coming which is 8 to 1 15 we are proposing that we have two groups for three-year-olds one group would attend Monday Tuesday Wednesday from 8 to 11 30 the other group would attend Thursday and Friday from 8 to 115 now three days for one group two days for another group the two-day group is a little longer both groups would get the full 10 hours of preschool that Vermont law mandates for parents who wish they'll be a little more they'll get a little different experience what Lauren and I plan to do is after screening sit down and look at the information we've gathered through the screening and put groups together that seem to make sense what are the groups looking at needs looking at ages looking at boys and girls etc etc we have asked parents to let us know if there's they have a situation that would preclude them from doing in one session or the other and that we would try and accommodate them so that's how we're moving forward this year not to be discussed tonight but at some point we will have to discuss with the board the situation this sets up for next year because these would be 13 three-year-olds rolling forward next year would be 13 four-year-olds which means we would have space by licensing for two three-year-olds so we may be in the I think it's an enviable position though we have to grapple with it of finding additional space and additional instructional personnel for preschool it's what we've been hoping for that we'd start to see a little rebound in our population it brings along certain challenges but again we don't have to deal with that there is a similar mix in town I don't understand your question Jenny is it about the same proportion of Rochester versus I don't know I should look at that I'm not I'm not sure that but I should look at that that would be interesting it would start to see a pattern so I just there's really no action needed on the part of the board I just wanted the board to know that we're reconfiguring preschool and that our intent is to turn no one away I think we I don't think we can turn anybody away we've been talking about literacy and we need to get these kids right away and get them right and to to education absolutely and if we want to change both our trajectory of learning and if we want to lessen the cost that it's costing us then preschool is the place to start we really should have a full day yeah yeah it's pretty close that may be another move for us to make all right thank you I think that is great news the current year calendar so here I am with another snow day the day proposal that's what we want well no school in July some of my teachers who are going to school Memorial Day make up the day just what we're actually asking is to end school for students at the state minimum 175 days which would end it on June 17 with the proposal on June 18th and 19th both staffs work together for specific literacy training with their new materials to get ready we don't want teachers starting the summer without without the proper PD and the reason we 18th is that we said 18th and 19th so two full days 17th is the last day for kids right that's what I'm proposing we're proposing it seems everybody's really excited about it we just want to make sure that we just absolutely yes and our teachers all work all summer is f&p coming in to do that training no are they providing any on-site training at all at this point I don't know there is there any way we can make up a day so they're not coming to school on Monday that's why the Memorial Day conversation is not because it's sort of easy going well again I think they would learn more now pulling a day just now we just don't have any options without you a Saturday or a Sunday or a Monday or a vacation day or shortening April break or none of those I think would get there typically when schools try to do that they don't get great turn it comes up there's a camp yeah so I'll be the silver leaf day yeah yeah we tend not to play in big things like that in the last day because the kids miss it more like an ice cream social or something we can move in I just know like education on the 17th is the last day so that by doing it June 17th which you're saying is it fulfills the requirement of the kids for the to be in school for the amount of days 175 days barn no more and there's not gonna be anymore we did that life and through what is it through the teachers contracts there they are supposed to have a hundred and seventy seven seven days okay so this would be a good so this would be two additional in service days so you're still there and then it would give us additional time to well they the more though they could collaborate and get together well the more that they can do I mean I'm disappointed that it's it's not you know trading from the from the curriculum provider but I think that you know the we need to get we need to get that material in front of the teachers and we need to get the teachers thinking about what they're going to do with it and how that's going to be you know we and assimilate it so that when they come back that they're they're prepared and we want everybody to have the same base and the reason I say that is every teacher we have has great intentions but we don't want someone interpreting how to do something a different way and then that language isn't the same and there's a lot of things that have been identified it we just I am I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna recommend as much professional film as possible as possible we needed desperately yes I'm who who's going to be presenting a new program to a new staff and why isn't that curriculum company when we spend $200,000 coming into doing the second party question Jenny I can't answer I can't answer the second part of that question Lindy and I are in the process right now of designing that program at that professional development those two days looking for people who can come in and talk to our teachers about the importance of a explicit sequenced instructional model that isn't just I call it hold hands and kind of say goodbye I'm gonna interrupt who's gonna be taking these why isn't that company coming in and say okay this is level eight let's get out all the materials here that we sold you for $200,000 and let's show you not someone come you should not to go look for this I can't answer that question what I can do is make the very angry you know I know yeah I don't think you're angry I don't hear you being angry and I don't take it personally don't I think what we're what Lindy and I need to do now is we have this scenario we have this situation it's our obligation as principles to make the very best of it that we can and make sure that these materials are implemented well make sure that the places where we feel there are holes that we are addressing those areas so that they are become areas of strength and our teaching the reality is this was my observation being here what a little over a year is that we not only have to do professional development around these new materials that have been purchased we fundamentally have to do professional development around the most effective way to teach reading these materials are only a tool and we have to improve on but they are what we have and we are going to be laser focused on professional development that addresses not only the shortcomings in materials because I would offer the most problems are going to have shortcomings but even more than that we have to fundamentally address what does reading in these two schools look like what how do we believe children are taught to read how are we going to take those manuals and make sure they are implemented with fidelity while at the same time shoring up those places where even I have concerns about some of the places that in the program but I can't answer the question about why I have wife onto some panel or not doing the training I've never and this is my 52nd year I've never heard of a company never that didn't provide a consulting staff on site when you have an implementation are we up to me yet well we can we can we can really now need to get you're done we're past your time let's interrupt you made tirade and let's do we need to take any action about the calendar I think you have to approve that that's like there has to be a motion that I'm making you should not wait the last two students wait the last two three days in exchange for two that's your development service professional development I seconded any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed okay thank you very much for all right now board comment okay so first let me say I'm gonna say what I said last time the fact that Bruce is taking this initiative really is the exception guys it's not the rule you don't find me and so you want me for the building use no because I think we can defer that to the next meeting okay good because I can't know what you're going to do no no that's what I want to go that stuff back with me please everybody get a copy of the audience let me grab one for you oh yeah so copy of everything for Ethan I'll probably see him in the parking lot okay it was yeah it was there are two of stable I don't know because that's the way they came in from the auditor okay because it looked like if you look at yeah it looked similar but it came in this so I don't know if the auditors didn't take it at all okay I suppose it's stately are you two audits read them read them figure out where exactly the Robin on the left branch of the tree okay I'm gonna do this quickly because it's not a fuck and I understand that I maybe next time I don't want to be last not used to being last um Lindy very nicely and graciously gave me the program to look to oh I know I've interrupted bruise there the second thing is these two we have incredible team and I am trusting them to do something about this okay so we really as much professional development whatever they say that's really what we have to do there is no choice for this the good thing is because of Bruce's focus because everybody is doing the same thing because there are finally materials I could take up there are finally materials we have to make a rise but there has to be a treatment just by the basis of we're all doing the same thing and there's going to be reading groups I mean there hasn't been reading groups in our schools hasn't been a reading program so just by that we were going to see pretty good I would achievement but pretty good is not good enough here guys we are in bad shape this program I don't know how to be professional about it I really it's it not only doesn't invent the research it goes against the research it can cause confusion for early learners for example it has here this is how they're there I'm just choosing the second one three pages of notes on this program but here's one where the picture is next to where the dog is running no no you don't have a picture on the same page when the kids is just learning to read you have that on the back because otherwise oh what's running oh a dog okay it's a door they always look at the picture yeah and then what what the research says is when pictures are introduced to early readers they you learn a guessing strategy and it's the dog is running yeah it's gonna be the dog is running because you know so they know they go against the research they say introduce I can't even tell you the introduction of phonics introduce oh they list look at the recognize and introduce BCDFGHJKF what are you getting me we have kids who've never been read to with a book who don't know what the letters are plus the fact guys if they go by the research and I'm totally with Bonnie on phonics in a set up totally sounding out words but there are according to research ten sounds that if you're taught them who generalize to over 353 sound words 4554 sound words and 21,650 sound and they're not this it's not this this is just an off-handed way of doing it and then I have a question how are they placed in these level readers is there a test for each level to see if the kids are passing because I don't see I could go on I'm not this is just I don't care for this program at all and I'm making that not emotionally it is emotional to me because this this program is not going to teach the majority of our students and the majority of students are tier two students and this program is not going to get them what they want I just want you hope it's going to learn all kids going to learn yet we'll learn but the kids that will will not learn this way or the majority of our kids so my question is my concern first of all this this however whatever the expression is this train has left the station so this is what we have to support and that's why I'm saying we must support professional development because this is going to be a really difficult process to implement because you're going to have to change the giving them new materials and I'm I have three pages of notes of things they have to change because it's incorrect it's just they're doing them they're doing incorrect things that could cause mislearning and confusion and so I think this year we really have to look at the assessments I think we have to look at the we have to trust Lindy and Bonnie to show us these assessments formative assessments should be going on every two to three minutes without lowest performing kids certainly at least once a week with our tier two kids and we need to see those assessments and we can't wait for a whole year to see the tier two kids are not making it in this program if we see in a month's time because that's all you're going to in six weeks eight weeks these kids aren't doing it then we better have something other than that two hundred thousand dollars to put the majority of our kids in because this program is not going to do it I think that you know I think that I have not yet seen and I don't know if you have or anyone has you know I mean we went through when we when we chose contractors for our for a building assessment we used a really pretty standard evaluative process of saying everyone looks at all the bids break them down and then and sort them in and award them points in these in these categories build out a matrix you know a rubric that shows so you can say here's why we chose this over that I have not seen that we've really looked at anything besides fontanel at the at the at the level or I have not bruises not well they responded mario now I went I I asked about that call because I've requested that when I went to the su to visit with Mary Ellen I didn't get it then and I've requested that in several emails the last one she said if I could come to the su again she would have the rubrics the other programs I also want to know who was on the committee because when I moved back to Vermont four years ago everyone was using fmp and this is where we are now I know there's new materials that means nothing to me that means nothing you just pile on materials but it's not embedded phonics it's not okay these are the sounds you teach so these are the words you have so those are the words that are in the story this is not a decodable text this is not a sequence of sounds to words to stories so I will look at that Carl I Mary Ellen has said that she good and I will go back down to the rest seems like we we went down we kind of we we kind of bought into what was that presentation of around the updated version of what we had and we didn't really break it all out like that the person that that you know helped us guide and do our assessment or evaluation made this recommendation and now apparently he's going to be working for us as the implementation person on it which doesn't really you know I find that you know questionable I'm not going to can I ask you to clarify what you mean is she guided us on this process picking right no she didn't she did not she came in and audited the current status of each class okay okay I was then I then I misunderstood what Bruce said no no yeah so so she came in she did an evaluation of where we stood she got that last meeting that was what that special meeting was so she just she made the assessment and for the whole district but she was very not she not specifically recommend this decision before she came in training did she go to FB training not to my knowledge yeah I don't believe so I don't believe okay so then I'm still gonna question and I understand I got an answer I'm still going to question again this whole thing is why did Debrais go and I know she's done a one this is nothing against Debrais anyway she's going to be retired yes she's going to be involved in it but why didn't we send a teacher why don't we try to get Amy if she was going to be you know and I think again the the train has left the station this is what we've got I think it's very important that we support the administration and doing in our building administration and doing this but I think it's very very important that we really watch and just as boards we watch that we're getting the value that we got out of this because yes the answer that oh this is grant money don't worry about it it's grant money this is grant money that could be spent on family interventionists that could be spent on you know a lot of other programs well how much is going to be left over for tier two now we've just spent $200,000 that's a lot of money just going to be left over for the majority of our kids you know we certainly spent we spent a bunch of the the the $200,000 just on what's her name to be the leader of the project you know the the salary part of the salary piece that's I don't know what's going to be be out of there but I really I think we I think it's important that we see a budget and we see we we see the the the planning of it and we see results and we watch those results and we make sure that they're not you know they're not what you're talking about which is you know there is going to be a bounce because we've got we put a focus when we put an organization to it so it's going to improve you know but is it going to improve beyond you know in an equivalent amount to the to the investment we've made in in in this program I have to ask again I really am just amazed you've never met a consultant so they're not providing any on-site training at all not I haven't heard I haven't heard who's going to be doing the district training you're talking about in June or just in general there's special no in June you two are going to be just but who is doing this is a unified effort not everyone went thank goodness to Boston so what who who is going to be providing this training so my understanding because I met with Mary Ellen yesterday is that um so part of Amy Toth who you're referring to about the consulting piece but we have to follow the correct even though we all you guys all approved for her to hopefully fill Debra Isis back we have to go through the hiring process for the master agreement so that's what's happening right now once that goes through and we should know by next week then my understanding is that plan of who's rolling out what type of training will then be planned out and why Mary Ellen said she would plan to come to the main meeting to explain what the training looks like because Amy didn't even go to the Boston training and she's going to be learning it new along with everyone else then being in charge of the training and that's why I'm going to say again someone better contact f&p and say what the hell we just spent two hundred thousand dollars you are not sending a person here well and we also need to make sure and this is the last piece that I wanted to say on this matter is I always get nervous when we have a person that's supposed to be in front of our kids um you know doing some you know doing some extra tasks to help get that person in the building or whatever I'm concerned that you know Amy is going to have the responsibilities that Debra Rice had in in the Stockbridge building going forward as well as the responsibilities for leading this this program that she hasn't had a lot of training on at this point yet and my concern would be that will she be pulled away from the but I don't think she's going to be leading at all because she's going to be leading the training I think the plan is for her to do some that's certainly the plan the coaching right the coaching right right but we need to we need to make sure that you know that while we're worried about our personal development is also that she's doing you know that she's not focused on on the uh no but she's learning it like we're learning it like I'm not like learning it but like everybody else is learning it she's learning it and a couple things you know I've acknowledged I can't answer you know why I know I know I'm not free to understand I don't I don't we don't think that at all what I'd like to say is I think you guys have I think you're an essential complement of why our scores are not going to get somewhat better but they're going to get significantly better it's the support that you provide I think you know you've worked with us both long enough to know neither one of us are very faint of heart there are things that we've been advocating for strongly we will continue to advocate we've made it clear that our teachers and our staff are ready to move and therefore we're going to move we know we have to show our pieces of that program we know we have to find people who could come in and do training on all sorts of things questioning techniques running records effective sequence of of sounds and symbols and we are prepared to do that work the next thing you've heard me say before and I'm going to encourage you to continue to demand this of us I'm just quick background I'm the chair of the school board or over across the mountain um no school board that I've ever been involved in ever asked frequently enough to look at student achievement data you need to continue to keep that an ongoing almost a standing item on your agendas how did we do on s back how did we do on s back science star 360 evaluations are coming up show us the week after they're done how many kids are are in the green how many kids are in the blue how many kids are in the red how many kids are in the yellow and how many kids have moved from red to yellow and yellow to blue to green why aren't there more kids what do you attribute the success of these kids to we sort of sorted out our schools to the point now where we both feel very comfortable spending being able to spend a lot of time in the world of curriculum I would admit since I came here last December I've been trying to fix other things I haven't done a ton of curriculum work but now we're both poised to make that um a primary part of what we do every single day every single week and so I think the biggest help the board can be to us right now is continue to hold us continue to support us thank you very much for the support you guys tonight but continue to hold us accountable for how's that program being implemented what professional development has been offered and how are our kids doing that's the only reason we come to these meetings and we have these meetings and you take these jobs and we take these jobs is because we take seriously how well we can help kids learn as you said right now we're not doing so great we have far too many kids who aren't meeting the standard without no no disagreement about that we have to make that our number one priority not only in literacy but we've got similar issues in mathematics that we have to tackle so um I guess the last thing I'll say about this I think you already know this but I'm going to feel better if I say it Wendy and I are both passionate about kids academic progress and you're going to see us working very very hard to change the picture that we now have because it's not okay and I understand all the concerns and I'm going to work very hard to address those concerns I don't doubt that I really don't doubt that I'm just the analogy I gave to about it the other day you can be the best surgeon in the world you're not operating on this body with a butter knife you can be the best teacher in the world the three people I'm teaching now I could never teach them without a design a specific scientifically designed instructional tool and that is the opposite of this we are not putting a scientific instructional tool in the hands of our teachers and that's what they need they don't need this process because it isn't one because it isn't one I'm also going to suggest I certainly would not do it now but I think Bonnie's absolutely right I think because I'm so concerned about this program that we have an obligation as a board to to do just what Bonnie said told everyone's feet to the fight to look at this and to see assessments and therefore I think we have to be a knowledgeable board I think we have to know what we're voting for because because I'm going to say as much as professional development as we can get oh my god let's get it but I want us to know the kind of professional development that we should get that's effective and that's going to pay off so if if you would like and I don't want to push myself guys I feel very yin and yang between this but I would like to present give me 10 minutes a board meeting 15 minutes a board meeting just to present some research to you of why professional development is so important of why the quality of our teacher is so important so that or what kind of let's us look at a rubric of curriculum like let us see did you know the picture shouldn't be on there no no so let's look at that I mean let's let's us be knowledgeable so that we can look at that not just me so we can look at that and say wait a minute this is not what a scientifically designed instructional tool should look at that is not that so if you want I would like to present just just a little bit of research each time not on student achievement necessarily but what we should know is a board what will make us what will give us the schema where we can support them in whatever they have to do to make this better because again it's here so let's be knowledgeable about how we get it out how we change it whatever we have to do to do it sure do you want can you do that on the 7th on May 7th can you give us a few minutes then yeah all right let's let's let's let's add that in and I love the idea of asking about the student achievement so we know where we are I can tell you what they gave me at the last SU meeting they gave us our star reading scores Rochester had 82 percent of their kids participate in the test stock bridge at 78 percent proficiency came out that only 39 percent of the Rochester children are reading out about 50 percent or the the mean 50 percent mean and that 52 percent of stock bridge are reading at that level and this is information you got from the SU yep so we should have that at our meeting absolutely I'd actually encourage you to ask for a little bit more detail for reporting exactly yeah detail without and and maybe we can talk about how what I'm looking at when I'm looking at you know what these mean but like one thing this doesn't include is like the primary grades because they don't take this particular assessment which test was up this is the star 360 yeah reading a map reading there's a reading in a map one but the primary grades meaning kindergarten most definitely to take something called star 360 early literacy assessment which combines the math and the so what do we want to join me I just want to expand on a point did you just call me joney was our interventionist and I want to ask her a question about that that's what you know but Mitch is point I think the more I don't think I know this the more educated the board is the more the board understands about how young and how we're progressing in a school the better youngsters are going to do I'm going to say something blunt I don't want to offend anybody it's that I have the same problem in the board I'm on we spend way too much time talking about roofs and tires and energy audits really we have people to central office they should do all that and we should just trust them to do that because what we advocate on when we get our time I'll spend in that stuff is we advocate on understanding how kids learn reading how youngsters learn mathematics what are our assessment results so I'm going to push this a little bit every time you put an agenda together to say is this really how we want to spend our time do we really have to spend an hour and a half doing this or would we rather hear from from Mitch on a learning sequence journey or lindy on social study standards and yes should be or Bonnie on mathematics or Bruce or Mary Ellen absolutely that's how you should fill your exactly there's certain business pieces we have to have certain things you have to vote on but I think we have to raise the trust levels and the expectation level of what people at the central office can help us do because they can do a lot of what clutters of our agendas now Connie's right I got that I got that jack thank you very much that was a good one too you just I'm only going to make one point um then I don't know if it matters but May 7th the night you asked Mitch to do some work on meeting we might possibly be having the facilities report coming back with speaking of time so I don't know if you want to well it's still only a few minutes just want to mention it we want to ease it no you don't want me to talk but I'm sure you can't do it in 50 minutes that I know well we could put it to timer all right um that we are next our next regular meeting is the 7th of May we do we do we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and and and conclude the piece for our our our our our viewers