We got the package baby! Customs Kazakhstan Defeated. We have Pinky and Brian back. Yeah We just went up to the customs office and they asked like okay. What is the package? Drones? I just said it's just drone parts It's actually not working like they won't fly because there's no batteries in here So technically these don't fly as they are in the package. This is just drone parts There's not a drone just drone parts and he's like, oh, okay Here you go. Nothing to pay. Nothing to do. Give us the package. Good to go. Thank you customs office Everything laid out for a crazy day. Oh god that box is really heavy Okay Hey, do you remember us bumblebee? It's been a while and look what we did we put the panniers on last night Because we are that prepared We are super ready to hit the road for sure. Don't forget the disc lock I heard horror stories of people when they're like pack everything up get everything going then they start riding and then clunk the disc lock hits here And the whole thing topples over now that we don't have water bottles anymore because we've switched to the Camel backs camel backs is that what you call them? water carriers Water bags the Moscow Moto ones that come in the backpack now I've got the space where I can put my disc lock here nice and convenient. I love Gobi The Wi-Fi on our computer is broken Well, we want to upload videos We had to physically like bring it into the hostel and connect it with the ethernet cable up to the router So basically this morning that we just dropped off the computer set a bunch of videos to upload and then just left it there It's very important in the morning that you check That the time and date on every GoPro is correct. Otherwise sinking them later is going to be a big challenge 622 a.m Perfect upload complete The ethernet cable this computer is like 12 years old Look at this. Okay time to get changed. Hey Bumblebee is alive Three two one. Yep, that's it Ready to hit the road Good morning world. Welcome back to our circle navigation around the globe and motorcycle We're here in the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan and we got up nice and early this morning We set the alarm at 5 15. Are you proud of us? It's been a while since we've woken up that early But we've got good reason to wake up early because today We are heading out of the city and towards the border to Kyrgyzstan So we are here in Almaty and today We're going to be taking this road over the border to Kyrgyzstan and then this road towards Lake Isikul Andre the local motorcyclist that we've been hanging out with over the past week He advised us to get up very early to head Out towards the border to Kyrgyzstan because he said that once it hits rush hour All the traffic is going to go that way that road is going to be completely blocked Traffic jams as far as the eye can see because pretty much just over the other side of the border to Kyrgyzstan is the capital of Kyrgyzstan Bishkek as you can imagine the road between them can get really busy by the way Andre told us as well that this pipeline here is a gas line Which is overgrown and connects all houses with gas here in the city Everybody's heating their houses and cooking with gas.  You've just got this pipe on the left and right in front of every single house a lot of Towns and cities here in Kazakhstan. They don't even have gas or a heating system Most people here are still heating with wood. Yes, I guess despite the massive ice or everywhere It is pretty convenient for the people. Hey totally Now that we've got the suspension fixed it's like speed bumps are a bit less of a challenge now Before it was like good do good and a massive bounce But we've got to be careful with this new rear shock because I want this new rear shock to last until we get back home For sure better last until we get back home better last But thanks so much again motorcycle world the dealership that sponsored us with bumblebee in the beginning in my hometown Northampton those guys are absolutely amazing that they sent out this shock and got it to us before we left the city Because now we can continue on our way just nice and smooth. I love it all the way back to England So after entering Kyrgyzstan, we are going to be heading to Kyrgyzstan's most famous attraction Isik Cool Lake a giant giant salt lake in the mountains and hopefully if it works out We're going to be having a beautiful wild camp right next to it So it's about two and a half hours to the border and then another two and a half hours to the lake in total 240 miles. It's already 6.49 so better hit the road. Let's go All right, here we go joining the chaos. It doesn't look so bad at the moment. Hey, no, I think we've done it, right? Yeah Think it's cross we can get to the border without a crazy traffic jam So we've hit a bit of road under construction and look at how dusty it is here Yeah, it's really super dry. It's giving a good test to the shock. Hey. Yes. It's good Yeah, the shock's doing great I mean, it's just amazing that we can go on like roads like this and it's it's pretty smooth Yeah, I forgot what it was like to have a working rear shock Now I feel like we can tackle some trails again. Oh, yes, I'm up for it So we're getting pretty close to the border to Kyrgyzstan now You can see just in the distance some snowy peaks The mountains of Kyrgyzstan, so we're just gonna find a petrol station used up a little bit more of our Kazakh money Tenge and this border town is called Korday and it's pretty much the first thing we've seen since we left Almaty because in between it's just been Basically just a desert. Yeah, HL this one here. HL. Okay the last petrol station in Kazakhstan Here in Kazakhstan, they have the cheapest petrol we have ever seen in our lives. It's something like 30 to 35 pence per liter. Yeah, absolutely crazy. Yeah Oh, thank you Yeah, okay, yeah Okay, okay, I think he said like oh, I'm just gonna do these guys and then I'll come to you Didn't understand a word, but I think that's the that's the gist Okay, thank you Bye-bye. Okay, this is it You can see up ahead Control point. Yeah, do you think we should go in this line or on that line? Oh, oh, it's green This line obviously Actually, it doesn't look too bad here at all.  Yeah, perhaps. Yeah, let's go to the front. I Mean at the moment. This is like a Closed gate. It's okay. This one This one Okay, I don't know exactly Oh, yeah, okay There we go, we go Thank you. Okay, I think we'll turn off the cameras now. Shall we? Yeah Okay, okay Okay, okay Yeah, all right, let's get this done Well, there we go literally ten minutes and Everything is done on the Kazakh side. We just had to give our passports Get them stamped and then a guy came over and just asked us if we had money or drugs. I Said I wish but I have neither so now I think that's pretty much it We just need to give the little slip of paper that proves that we've done these bits to this fella And then we should be through to the Kyrgyzstan side 20 minutes later. So that's it. We just crossed through into Kyrgyzstan and it's only 20 past 10. Can you believe it? Absolutely amazing That was a super fast super easy process. Wow, so we're just stopping here because here There is a money exchange and a place where we can get a local Kyrgyzstan sim card So we're just gonna stop here see if we can grab those things before we make our way into Kyrgyzstan properly So I'm just leaving Lavi there to look after Bumblebee. So let's see if we can do it all here Thank you in Okay money exchange done that was really really easy Really fast. So let's find a sim card. Oh Actually, I think the same place sells sim cards Sim cards sim card are cool Okay mission successful managed to get a sim card. So they told me is Unlimited for a week and it only cost 250 Kyrgyzstan some which is only two pounds 24 We're only gonna be in Kyrgyzstan for around a week So we can just have unlimited day to the whole time Upload plenty of YouTube videos Also got a whole bunch of local currency, which is awesome and that should do us for like the whole time We're here really. I think I exchanged about 150 pounds worth. So plenty It's nice hat I'm really really happy how smooth the border crossing was and as well how easy it was to pick up these things and exchange the money amazing, it's like it's quarter to 11 and we have already ridden 130 miles and crossed a border and got a sim card and exchanged our money I think this is the most successful day we ever had. This is like German level productivity. Hey, nice Okay, so now we have just a little appetizer. I bought some potatoes yesterday and we will have it with this Funny bowl Is that what you call it? Is that the official name? No, the official name is actually court court Court court. It's a dried milk milk gets bad, but not bad. Okay. It's like our sour Yeah, okay our milk dried very very strong taste. It's very sour salty Yeah, I think it fits very well with potatoes.  Does it work? Ah, all right, I'm down. Let's do it Out and on our way, I don't know if you is actually a way out No, there is no way out here back to the border Okay, yep Yeah, that's a busy car park here Andre told us doesn't matter what you do don't park here on the streets because the police will come straight away and find you Yeah, this is like all of this is like a no-stopping zone But then apparently the police are also waiting right here because after the no-stopping zone Yeah, there's a stop sign straight after it's true and apparently the police are always looking here I think they actually have a police station right there. So everybody has to go to the line. Okay Stop, okay And go and go Andre told us that this is just like a money-making scheme basically They just want to get all the people they're coming into the country just drive straight in and boom hit with a Kyrgyzstan fine Look that's a petrol here. There you go. Look at that. Kyrgyzstan petrol station. Anyway, we did our last fuel up in Kazakhstan We have a full tank. We can do 250 miles and we've got a lot of Kyrgyzstan to explore So I just had a look and this is country number 27 Welcome to Kyrgyzstan Amazing. I'm just so happy that everything worked so well After we did the whole Russian bit pretty much everything from now on is gonna be like a breeze compared to Being like pulled out of the queue having to do an interview I mean this one was like barely more than crossing from England to France. It was like passport stamp We didn't have to do a temporary import permit. Which is amazing. So it was literally just passport control Check the bike going out and then passport control check the bike going in. So yeah, that's absolutely amazing slower here, yeah Don't want to get in trouble on our first day in the country. Hey, no and there's the polis or the other side Oh, yeah, did you see them? Yep, apparently it's the watermelon season here in Kyrgyzstan because We're just seeing tons and tons and tons of roadside watermelon sellers. Oh, they have a KFC here They have a KFC here as well There you go KFC Kyrgyzstan So not a police car Yep Tons and tons of police controls here that we've seen so far. Yes, at least 15 So we're just coming around the outskirts of Bishkek here So pretty much over there just in front of the line of mountains That is the capital of Kyrgyzstan Bishkek and in the city of Bishkek There is a million people and in the whole of Kyrgyzstan. There is six and a half million and it's pretty much The only big major city in the country, but we are not headed for Bishkek This time we're avoiding the big city because we're heading for the countryside We're heading for the mountains and perhaps swimming in the lake Look, this town is called Tokmok Tokmok, there's a big fighter jet on the way in There you go.  So we're just making it a bit of a detour now We're going to see our first attraction here in Kyrgyzstan, which is an ancient minaret Called Burana Here we are. We have arrived Up ahead is ancient minaret of Burana So yeah, let's go park up and find out more. Hey, yeah, totally How do you like my outfit, which I have chosen? It's practical. That's what I can say. It's practical You know, you're not going to get burnt shoulders. That's nice You got your nice socks on to prevent blisters. You got your hat on You are absolutely the cutest Bye bumblebee Bye bye bumblebee So we're using this historical visit to have a little bit of time off the bike today because The bike was recording a temperature of 37 degrees before we stopped. So it is incredibly hot right now. It's mad hot So yeah Little bit of time off the bike shorts and t-shirt and see a beautiful part of Kyrgyzstan history Almost forgot to pay Hello, two person. Thank you. Thank you There you go. Look at that Really nice design You know the layout of the brick So this is the ancient minaret of Burana And it's actually a islamic minaret for a mosque and it's the last surviving remnant from the ancient city of Balasagon Balasagon Balasagon And this city dates from the 9th century and this tower was built in the 11th century It's the oldest surviving architectural construction in central asia The tower actually used to be 45 meters tall, but an earthquake in the 15th century Basically half of the tower collapsed. So now the tower stands at 25 meters high But it's still amazing after nearly a thousand years that this tower is still here mind blowing. That's crazy That's so cool.  I just had to take off my sunglasses. That's amazing. Look at the way that they've constructed this This is kind of what I used to do with Jenga bricks when I was younger Oh my goodness.  Oh my god Literally walking on my hands hands and feet Wow, I did not like that staircase. Look at this view Wow And over here behind us got all the high mountains that I really hope we're going to pretty soon because The whole time today, I thought we'd be riding straight up into the mountains. So hopefully after this We're going to be starting to climb Literally this staircase is only wide enough for like One person.  We're going up now Oh, yeah, I don't like this This bit Oh, there we go Not doing that again. Welcome to Kyrgyzstan. Thank you very much. I really like your head. Yes. Kalpak Kyrgyz traditional. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yeah, your boots are amazing. Look at that Yeah, what's your name? Aidar. My name is Aidar. Aidar. Nice to meet you. Aidar. It's very nice to meet you. I am horseman. You are horseman Eagle man. It's horseman archer Horseman archer. Cool. It's town Bakambaigwa. Next to the lake. Yes, it's cool. Okay. In tourist, it's Eagle show Yes, Facebook. Yes, Facebook. Do you have Instagram? Instagram. Yes, Instagram. Oh nice. Beautiful. Very, very beautiful. So we're just having a little snack under the tree before we get back on the road. A couple of days ago Andre picked us up and took us to like a bazaar, like a food market, the green bazaar He treated us to a whole bunch of awesome stuff. These are macadamia nuts And they are so super cool and tasty and you open them with something like that. How cool is that? A little key almost. Yeah, let's put it in And they're so incredibly tasty. Yeah, it's really interesting because after we picked up all these nuts at the market We looked them up online and actually macadamia aren't from this area at all So the macadamia tree is actually native to australia And they're mostly grown in hawaii. Can you believe it? And then we find them like in a market in the middle of al-Mati How crazy is that? But I think these are literally One of the tastiest nuts I've ever had and they did a study on the genetic diversity Of macadamia trees and they found that all of the farmed trees that are currently out in the world Pretty much stem from a single batch of seeds that they took from a single area of land in queensland australia So they can trace it back even to the very first Cultivated tree in like the 1850s. I think it was how crazy is this world?  They're both really really tasty nuts But actually I think maybe even pistachios are slightly nicer than macadamias But they're absolutely both so so delicious.   So thanks Andre. This is some really nice roadside snacks Looks like the start of the mountains Yeah, absolutely stunning the mountains have really started to spring up around us now. There's a giant eagle. Awesome. Amazing So now we're starting to get out Into the hills into the countryside of kyrgyzstan I think it's about time to tell you guys a little bit more about country number 27 on our journey around the world Kyrgyzstan So kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of many great civilizations As part of the silk roads and this area has been home to many different nomadic groups Including the Turkic nomads and then in the 13th century It was conquered by the mongol empire and then much later in 1876 It became part of the russian empire and then eventually the soviet union in 1936 After the collapse of the soviet union in 1991 a democratic government was established So the word kyrgyz comes from the turkic words meaning we are 40 Believed to be referred to the 40 clans of manas a legendary hero who united 40 regional clans in the area And a tale which is told in the epic poem manas Which apparently is one of the longest poems in the entire world with apparently something like half a million lines So it really is like an epic poem And it's really interesting as well about the kyrgyzstan flag because on the flag is a sun With 40 rays of light coming from it and that 40 rays is also in a reference to these 40 clans of manas And the other emblem on the flag is actually the top of a yurt Which is basically an homage to the nomadic people that live here. Oh, look. There's a yurt just there That's good timing. So it's really nice that on the flag you have a reference to the legendary Formation of the kyrgyz people and you also have a reference to their ancient way of life Which has been going on for thousands of years. Yeah, I like it as well There's a whole load of like cafes which are all of them yurts. Yeah, cool That's awesome So the mountain range that dominates kyrgyzstan and the mountain range we're actually heading towards right now Is called the tian chan mountain range and there are super high mountains here The highest mountain in kyrgyzstan is called probadol and it is 7,439 meters high. There we go. We just spoke about the kyrgyzstan flag And there it is painted onto the side of a mountain cool Beautiful islamic cemetery here. Look at these buildings. Yeah, very beautiful. Some of these are like Like mini temples mini palaces. Yeah, really really cool All right, we are finally getting to lake issyk cool You guys probably can't see it on the gopro But we can already see the lake beginning over there in the distance and we're about 10 minutes from The first spot that we're going to try that is a wild camping spot that we found on eye overlander It sounds really really nice There's a bit of a forest next to the lake beautiful place to pitch the tent So we're gonna head there and see if we can find a nice camp for the night. So I think it's supposed to be Down here down this little road on the left. Okay Is there a road? Is there a road? I think so Yep, just here. Okay We Yeah, and I think it's just down this track. Wow. Oh, I love it already. Wow. Look at this place. Hello horses Oh, yeah. Wow, there's horses everywhere. Wow, amazing. Absolutely amazing. Wow. Here we are. This is it Cool. Look people are swimming lake issyk cool ladies and gentlemen. Look at this Amazing Wow, cool amazing place But there's just like horses everywhere and like families having picnics. Hello So apparently we can camp anywhere on this side. Yeah in between the trees. Okay, cool Yes, I think we've just got a kind of pick a spot.  Oh, how about how about we pitch up here? Okay. All right Yes So whilst Lavi's doing all the hard work setting up the camp I thought I'd tell you guys a little bit about this amazing lake in front of us lake issyk cool So this is actually the seventh deepest lake in the world And it's the 10th largest lake in the world by volume It's really interesting because the name issyk cool means warm water And that's due to the fact that it's actually a saltwater lake And so actually it never freezes and it's salty because it has no outflow So it's actually the second largest inland body of salt water in the world behind the Caspian sea And the largest mountain lake in the world behind Lake Titicaca. So it's a pretty impressive lake Absolutely amazing That we could come here on our first day in Kyrgyzstan and camp just there in front Amazing Good evening guys. We made it. Happy to live. Yes, and we've got our camp set up here the tent right here our beautiful climate camping chairs Which just to add another dimension to the camping experience. I mean look at this. Oh, it's so amazing, man It's so amazing. I can't believe the spot here. It's like the best spot ever I just found a hairband on the ground and I'm like, oh, let's try if I can do it already. And yes Wow, it's the first time since like Since africa. Yes Wow, so that's pretty cool. So it was a pretty long day in the end I think we were on and off the bike for More than 10 hours today. We crossed the border. We rode over 260 miles we visited a tourist attraction And now we're here at the gem of kyrgyzstan and it's just been a really full-on day But a really nice day. Yeah, it is absolutely amazing that we can camp here tonight You know surrounded by so much epic nature. It's a really nice scene as well to see the local life you know kids running around and People are swimming. It's just it's just really nice. So that's it from us today We hope you enjoyed the video. If so, please give us a thumbs up Subscribe to the channel share the video with your friends and family comment below and we will see you next time No, but the kazakh way is like a little bit softer


Hi. Today I'm going to show you a few things related to setting up your account. The reason you want to set up your library account is to keep track of books that you've borrowed. It's easy to renew them. I will show you how to do that. You can see up at the top here. It says my account. Type in your username and password and click send. As you can see, I have two books checked out. Suppose the books are due tomorrow. I can renew them. You might be wondering how I do that. Well, I click on the renew all tab. It says my renewals were not successful. Why? Well, they're not due yet. But if they were due, I would get a new date and time that they're due in the future. Now I want to discuss the process for checking out books. When you're ready to check out a print book, you need your RIT ID card, and you can go up to the circulation desk in order to check them out. I want to let you know that there are different borrowing periods. One for undergraduates, three weeks, as well as graduate students, which is one semester. And the third option is faculty and staff, which is one year. That sums up my explanation about setting up your account and how to borrow books.


When you work in sales like me, you're always juggling a million things at one time. The only way to get through a hectic day is to be focused and to work smart. That's why I love my mobile CRM app, Pocket CRM! No matter what the day throws at me, I'm ready for the next task and I'm always prepared for the next meeting without even turning on my computer. Today is a big day. At 9, I have a closing meeting with a large new account. By just checking my phone, I can easily see how to get there and at what time I have to leave to be there on time. After my presentation, it's time to close the deal. Even when the customer wants to make some last-minute changes to the proposal I have presented to him, it's not a problem for me. I can just adjust the proposal from inside my Pocket CRM. I send the updated offer by email and we are ready to sign the deal. What a great start to the day! Now that the deal is in the bag, I update my pipeline to see how far I am from hitting my sales target. Close, but not there yet. I get notified by the app that I have a new task in my diary. Hey, a new prospect wants to meet up with me. Immediately, I get access to all his contact details. I call the prospect and set up an appointment to meet for lunch the following week. Okay, what's next? It's our weekly sales meeting. Before heading back to the office, I send a text message to the sales team to let them know that there's a new leader in the sales competition. There's no better feeling than winning a new customer.


Hello everyone, now my is Dr. Venanta Suryam, post graduate resident second year, studying at KVGMCH Medical College Azulia Karnataka. Today my paper presentation is on the topic Diffusionated Imaging, Effects of Intervascular Contestation on Apparent and Diffusion Coefficient, that is ADC value measures in cases where in new presence. So my guide is Dr. Aishwarya K.C., Professor of Entityology, Department of Radio Diagnosis, KVGMCH College. So coming to the introduction, we all know that organ tumors are the leading indication for gynecological surgery. So characterization of organ masses pre-operatively is very crucial for explaining patients about possible treatment plan, especially the surgical part. So MRI plays an important role and it is of great help in identifying the malignant patients before surgery, particularly when adjacent findings are suboptimal or indeterminate. So MRI can help reveal the morphological characteristics of lesion, including the papillary projections, nodular antiseptic, soluble portions, and signal intensity on T1 and T2 weighted images. But based on these basic sequences, we will not be able to distinguish between the venine and malignant tumors. So there comes a role of division weighted imaging, where it can help us to characterize the lesion, whether it is venine or malignant in nature. So diffusion weighted imaging is sensitive to changes in the micro diffusion of water into both intracellular and extracellular spaces. So ADC values, that is, differences in the upper-end diffusion coefficient of venine and malignant complex adnexal masses have been reported to have certain proven value in certain studies. So typically malignant-oriented tumors demonstrate lower ADC values than venine neopasms, reflecting the higher cellular density. And the effect of gadolinium or contrast studies on ADC measurements is not well understood, and previous studies have shown certain mixed results. And given the mixed results in the current literature, more information is needed to optimize MR protocols by determining whether performing DWI, pre or after the administration of contrast, whether makes it any differences for the evaluation of the tumors. So aims and objectives of my study is to determine whether ADC values of organ tumors measured at 1.5 Tesla MRI, before and after administration gadolinium contrast, this makes any difference, and also to determine ADC values in cases of venine and malignant tumors. So metals and methods I conducted my study at KVC MCH college, and it's a prospective study conducted over a period of 15 months. And study population included women with newly diagnosed organ tumors who underwent contrast MRI to evaluate the nature and extent of the tumor. And the sampling method included universal sampling and 40 patients were included in my study, along with for the final calculation four patients were excluded from the data. So methodology of data collection, inclusion criteria of women from the venicopathy, who refer for the evaluation of organ neoplasms for the contrast in the MRI, and those with a normal RFT, that is normal serum creatinine values. Expression criteria include patients who failed to follow up in our institute with histopathological reports, and also pregnant women were excluded from the study. So methodology, MRI was performed at Phillips 1.5 Tesla machine using the dedicated MRI protocol. So basic sequences, all basic sequences like T1, T2, T1, FATSAT sequences were obtained and a deficient weighted imaging was done before the administration of dynamic contrast. And after nine minutes of administration of dynamic contrast imaging. So data collection performed according to the hospital regulations after the approval by the hospital authority sign. Also consent of the patient was taken. Statistical analysis was done using Microsoft Office Excel 27 and IBSS software version 21. And data will be presented in the form of tables and percentages. Eight meters will be used to assess the statistical significance. So P value less than 0.05 will be considered significant. So results of my study include median age of the patients aged, the people were divided into different groups that is 20 to 40 years, 40 to 60 years and more than 60 years. And we could see that patients were more than age of 60 years were 19 patients and majority of them were the patients who were aged more than 60 years. And over into us were catarys into two types that is benign tumors and malignant tumors. Benign tumors in my study were 21 and malignant tumors were 15 in number. And according to the size, so majority of the tumors were between 10 to 20 centimeters. And some of you tumors were also there, which were which exceeded more than 25 centimeters in size. So coming to the results of my study, so that is basically I took the ADC values before the administration of contrast and after the measured ADC values after the administration of contrast in cases of benign tumors and malignant tumors. So according to the data, so which I collected, so benign tumors, number of lesions for 21 among them serious study number within business is a study number of eight, and others first fiber thick comma sister in fiber mind that tumors one in number. So pre contrast ADC range for different type of tumor was tabulated, and we can see that for Benign tumors, the pre contrast ADC range was 0.48 to 2.21 and average being 0.48. And post contrast ADC range range from 0.20 to 2.32 and post contrast ADC mean was 0.4 plus or minus 0.62. And the difference in the ADC between the of the over in the benign or in tumors pre contrast and post contrast was 0.08 that is 3.4 percent and P value obtained was 0.86. That is it is more than 0.05. So it is not statistically significant. Similarly, we tabulated the findings for ADC values for the malignant tumors. And then in my study 15 malignant tumors per pound among them six for six serious study more business study more were three number two were serious borderline tumor other was business borderline tumors clear cell adenocarcinoma endometroid adenocarcinoma and then also cell tumor. So the main ADC pre contrast ADC value for the malignant tumors raised from 0.912 plus or minus 0.20 and post contrast mean ADC was 0.94 plus or minus 0.23. So difference in ADC was 0.03 plus or minus 0.21 that is 1.6 percent and P value was 0.3. That is it is again more than 0.05. That is it is not again statistically significant. So similarly the ADC values were obtained for solid and cystic components separately for ADC in case of malignant and benign tumors in solid components. We can see that the ADC malignant tumors, the P value before and after contrast administration was also not significant and similar was the case in case of benign tumors and for the cystic components also the statistical significance was not obtained. So for the pre and post contrast image in cases of cystic components of a lesion. So coming to the discussion of my study. So DWI is increasingly being incorporated into MRI protocols due to its potential for improving characterization of ovarian lesions. However, controversy still exits regarding the effects of cadolinium based contrast agents on the measurement of ADC. So in our study ADC values were not significantly different from dynamic contrast imaging MRI sequences in ovarian tumors, that is they were not statistically significant. So which is in agreement with a majority of the previous studies that found no statistically significant change in ADC values after the contrast administration. And several factors for study design may explain why ovarian tumor ADC values were not statistically were not significantly affected by the contrast, because there are some limitations of my study. So this is because we investigated only a single delay post contrast dynamic weighted imaging at a point time of nine minutes after the injection. And one only one type of contrast agent was used that is cadopentated di-glomine other agents may produce different findings and this was not in a tabulated in my study. Furthermore, the number of B values was limited due to the scan time restrictions and we could measure only the ADC values of diffusion weighted imaging of B0 and B800. Only these two diffusion weighted values were included in the study and cadolinium is known to reduce the signal to noise ratio. As a result, the DWI images may have a lower SNR closer to the noise flow and result in an artificially increased or decreased or at higher B values ADC evaluation. So conclusion of my study is that ADC measures using our approach were not statistically significant or they were not significantly changed after the administration of ovarian tumors at 1.5 Tesla MRI. So finding support the possibility that diffusion weighted imaging optimized maybe obtained before or even after the administration contrast MRI without compromising important clinical information. And also we found in our study that benign ovarian tumors at higher ADC values compared to the malignant tumors are consistent with some of the previous studies. So I also tell that further studies are needed to support our study because our study now add a very limited number of samples. So finally to conclude and so two conclusions which were drawn from my studies that one is that the benign tumors ADC are more when compared to that of the malignant tumors and ADC values did not significantly differ. So you can please differ when measured before the contrast administration or after the contrast administration. So these are my references. Thank you. Thank you Anand. I especially thank Hong Kong Update CME 2022 and also HIRIA Masterclass India for giving me this wonderful opportunity for my paper presentation. Thank you.


So, hi everybody I'm Paul Backelman town manager I'm calling this first meeting of the budget coordinating group to order. This is January 27 at 830 am pursuant to chapter 20 the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. The questions are included on the agenda that was posted, no in person attendance of members of the public is permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access to proceedings in real time via technological means this meeting is being recorded. What we will do is verify who's in the room and if they can hear and can be heard so I'll just go through my screen, Sean mangano. Yes. Lynn Griezmer present Doug slaughter. Yes, I can be Andy Steinberg present Allison McDonald. Sonia. Yes. Austin. Present. Mandy Joe. Peter. Mike. Sharon. Bob. Thank you all for being here. If you want to show the agenda, Sean. So the first order of business and then hopefully my role will be finished is to select a chair, and then the chair will will conduct a vice chair selection. Are there any nominees and the way we will do this is we will ask for nominations and then see if that person accepts and then if there's, and we will continue that process until there are no more nominations and then we will go around the room and vote for the chair. So are there any nominations for chair. And I'm going to use my. Andy Lynn, do you accept the nomination. So many we won't meet too often. Yes. Okay. Are there other nominations for chair. Okay. So, given that I will go around the room at the members and ask for, if you approve of Lynn Griezmer being the chair. So, talk with start with start with Andy. Yes. Allison. Yes. Austin. Yes. Mandy Joe. Yes. Peter. Yes. And Bob. Yes. And Lynn. Yes. Okay. So you are the chair of the BCG, which maybe this. We may have one other meeting, but hopefully this is your, your solo role. So I turned the day us over to you. Okay, I'm the floor is open for nominations for vice chair. I'll also take volunteers. Are there any other volunteers here? Allison. Is that you? Are there any other volunteers? Then I'm going to quickly go through the voting for Allison for vice chair. Then Greece Merse and I Andy Steinberg. Hi. Mandy Johanna key. Hi. Austin Serrat. Hi. Bob Pam. Hi. Peter Demling. Hi. Okay. Then we're going to start with a fiscal update. Am I correct in that, Sean? And I know you probably sent us that, but would you send me the agenda? Yes. Thank you. Do you want me to go ahead and share my screen now and start going through it? Sure. Yes. So there was an email sent out last night. Yeah, the agenda was part of that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and go through it. We'll find it right now. Just go on, Sean. Okay. All right. So we're going to look at updated. Projections that include the. Governors. The information from the governor's budget. And I'll just go through and highlight. Mostly what has changed from the last time. We presented this at the financial indicators. And we're already in the previous meeting. So. In local receipts, one thing that did change that's outside of the governor's budget, but it, it has an impact. Is PBTA. We received the. FY 21 PBTA letter. Thank you, Doug. And. Our assessment went up quite a bit. It went up about 10%. Most of the increases actually. So the way our PBTA assessment works is we pay a portion. We pay the whole thing, but then we get reimbursed by UMass five colleges.  And they break it down for us based on the routes of who, who owes what. And so in this particular case, our assessment, our assessment from them went up quite a bit. But it was almost exclusively UMass. Their share that went up. And I think the way they described it to me is. That a lot of people's routes sort of scaled back where UMass had to maintain a lot of their routes last year, especially during the second half of the year. And so that's why their costs went up quite a bit. So you'll see an increase in our. Revenues, which is shown here in special assessments. That's the, you'll see, that's quite a bit of an uptick from the previous year. But you'll also see down below in our state assessments, that's where the cost going out is shown. So for local receipts, I think that's the, the only major change from last time. And state aid, we saw chapter 70 go up. Very small amount. I think that correct me if I'm wrong. I think it was $30 per pupil, which is, you know, almost as low as they ever do. I think the lowest they ever do is maybe $25. So we're hoping to see that number get better. Again, Amherst and region only get minimum aid for chapter 70. We don't ever get any foundation aid or any of the benefits from all the things that you hear on TV about. All the new money going into schools. Because of the wealth level of town and the other factors, we only get the minimum aid every year. So that's really the most important number for us when you're, when we're advocating is what that minimum number is. Charter reimbursement went up. I'll let Doug speak to whether there was an enrollment increase. It did look like the governor put quite a bit of more money into charter reimbursement and that may be part of it as well. The unrestricted government aid went up 2.7%. We knew that a couple of days ago. We were hoping for more. You know, the governor technically is keeping to his promises around increasing local aid the same as whatever the consensus revenue forecast is for the state. But, you know, there was a year where the consensus revenue forecast was zero and I think they have had a 20% increase or 15% increase or something way above what that that was. So, you know, I know Paul and many others are advocating for much more than what that was this year and that would make a big, big impact on our financial picture. Veterans benefits went up a little bit. These are the ones sort of just fluctuate a little bit up and down state owned land. It's another one that's very frustrating to us. Our value of our state owned land went up, but not more than what other towns state owned land percentages went up. So ours actually goes down relative to the pot of money that's available. And this is what we get from the state for, you know, the land that's owned by you, you know, mostly UMass, I think for us. And this is another area where we're advocating really for a formula change or something significant to happen here because it sounds like Hadley bring in, you know, as much or more in state owned land revenue as we do and we have the flagship campus for the state. So it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And I got a really long description of how this program got to be where it was from somebody at the DOR last week, but yeah, it just doesn't seem like a fair formula the way they do it. And then the last two things here, school choice and public libraries, those, that revenue comes in, but then it goes out because we give it to the schools, the school choice tuition revenue. So that goes, we have to receive it because it's on our way to the school's account. And then public libraries, Sonya correct me if I'm wrong, but same thing, it goes to the library. And then the last piece here on the revenue, sorry, on the revenue side are other financing sources. So ambulance fund, Sonya and I have been looking at the activity in that fund. It dipped way down during the pandemic. There were a bunch of, there's been some pretty significant changes to the fund. We lost the Hadley routes, which decreased revenue quite a bit. That was a big chunk of the activity, but then to try to offset some of that loss, fees were increased are the billing fees that come out of the ambulance department or ambulance to our third party biller. And, and then the pandemic hit. So we never really saw the true impact of losing Hadley and then what the, the increase in revenues would be from the fees going up. So we're still not really, it's hard to separate what's related to the pandemic, what's related to our fee increases, what's related to losing Hadley. But what we, we have been looking at the activity through the first six months of this year. And the way this fund works is we have to have the money in the fund. Sonya will be proud of me for saying this. You have to have the money in the fund before you can appropriate it for the following year's budget. So, so we're looking at this and we feel pretty good about this number. CPA is just the debt. So it comes in and goes out. That doesn't really have any impact. Enterprise funds continue to be an area that we're concerned about. You can't really tell looking at these three years, but if you go back prior to FY, prior to FY 20, our reimbursement from enterprise funds were much higher. So that's an area we look, we hope improves as we come out of the pandemic. And then another adjustment you'll see here that just as throw makes things look a little strange is that in FY 22, you'll see this is FY 22 recap now. So this is what Sonya has submitted to the state as what we think our revenues are going to be. And it also includes the free cash transfers that we made. The council approved transferring so much free cash to the stabilization fund. And so it shows up here. So if you take that number out, you kind of get back to where we were during the financial indicators report, but because we have to include that number because it's part of the recap. It makes it look like our budget's dropping, but it's really not in reality. Should we pause here and take questions? Sure. Any questions? Okay. See none. Then let's go on to. Oh, Allison's got a question. I'm sorry. Yeah, Allison, go ahead. Real quick. Sean, can you restate that last bit that you were saying about it, the budget looks like it's going down, but it isn't. Can you. Yeah, so if you go back to the financial indicators report. That's the number that we gave in November. That was before the recap was finalized. And so this number here and free cash is 5.9 million. That wasn't in there. That's a number that comes in as part of the recap. And it's really just a transfer. It's not a true revenue source coming into the budget, but it's something that has to be part of the recap. And so if you take this number out, we were somewhere around 86 million. If you go back to that presentation. And that's really sort of the true budget. Again, this is because the recap is in here. It makes it throws it off a little bit. Andy, you have a question. Yeah, I was just curious about the. Charter reimbursement and how that compares to the charter. Assessment for. The act on the other side of the coin. So I can pull. After I stop sharing this, I can pull up the. The cherry sheet so you can see both. If you want to have that pretty. Let me ask Peter. If he is a question before you do that. Okay. Peter. Yeah, it doesn't have to be now, Sean, but could you just give me the, the, the one on one version of, of what a recap is. This is the first time I've seen this term and on budgeting and. Sure. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. Yeah. Sonya is the expert. She's been doing it for the last. I don't want to guess how many years. Yeah. It's the form we set our tax rate with. So when we vote our operating budgets, those are set in stone. Once the council votes those budget, but revenues are in flux until our tax rate is set. And we have to balance. We have to balance. We have to balance. We have to balance. We have to balance now. In stone as well. It doesn't mean we can't take in more. We won't get less. It just means those are the numbers that are tied to our budget at this point. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on this sheet before we take it down. Then let's go back to go to that next sheet or that other sheet you were talking about. For charter. Yeah. Around charter, right? Sure. Can you, is this super small on your screen? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's. For this hour of the morning. Doug, I might have to rely on your, your former IT skills. How do I zoom in on this? Control plus. Control plus. I know something easy like that. Thanks. All right. So this is the. All right. So this is the estimated receipt side for charter. So there's the reimbursement going from 107. 841. And this column here to 236. The reimbursement side. Our charter is going up from. 1.6 million to 1.8 million. And again, I don't know if Doug, you may, you may not have dove into the numbers yet. I know these will go up if our charter enrollment stays the same year to year. These numbers will still go up. Somewhere between three to 5% because. The tuition rate goes up. So every kid will cost. 3 to 5% more. And when you're talking about millions, it adds up pretty quick or, you know, 1.5 million or so. I see Mike's got his hand up. Just on that note, the projections show basically the same number of charter students as we have this year as next year, actually in both districts, but I know this is reflecting the Amherst district, but at the regional level too. I think it's within the range of one kid difference. So essentially flat. I think it's important to note that the increases you're talking about are based on the inflationary factors, not on more kids going to charter. And Mike, I don't know what you think or Doug, but it seems like the charter schools. Have sort of hit their, hit their enrollment numbers in terms of growth. It doesn't seem like they're growing as much as they were in the past. So now it seems like it's more shifting between towns sending there, but it doesn't seem like we've had those big, big increases that are really��� there. Doin it seem to could compare whether others of the fully dedicated kids increases per year, like we did when, when the PVC, ICS LS was expanding. We're not seeing kind of big trends either way. So my understanding is they are taking more classes at certain grade levels, but they don't seem to be taking as significantly more kids from our community. That's good. No, that's really good. Peter. So yeah, two quick points on that as it relates to budget planning for this year and future. So there is a pending lawsuit for the PVC SCS is suing the state to expand. So that, that is probably the biggest variable that could affect. Amherst elementary charter in the future. There's a 9% cap. Right on, on what we can lose to charter and we're at about 6% ish.  The other thing to note about so Mike is correct that we're, we're starting to stabilize in the enrollment. And who knows, you know, what happens in the future, but the way that relates to the charter reimbursement is the reimbursement is only for a portion of the change in enrollment from year to year. So, if, you know, once you get into steady state enrollment numbers, your reimbursement will will will trend to zero. And it's, it's, it's true that the initial pot for the reimbursement amount to fill that line item for the governor is is higher than normal as Sean mentioned a few minutes ago. But that number for us if our enrollment stabilizes will will will pretty much go down to nothing over time. I assume you mean when you say go down to nothing you mean no increases. So you're right so there's since the reimbursement is for the change from one year to the next year, if your enrollment stays the same that eventually you're not going to get reimbursed for for anyone. Thank you. Are there any other questions about this or the previous chart. Okay, seeing none. Then we're going to go on to budget updates and we're going to start with the schools then go to the library, and then to the, I'm sorry, there is one other. That's right. Yeah, anything about health insurance. So, health insurance we have the bands unless Paul has gotten some inside information this morning which crossing my fingers he does. But we are bands for health insurance where if we were at the minimum, and it would be a 0% increase. If we're at the average, it would be a 3.7% increase. And if we were at the max, it would be a 7.5% increase. You know we don't want to speculate too much but when we've looked at our numbers. At least the last time I saw the numbers. There was nothing that indicated we would be at the max for example, the numbers seem to be trending where you know, PPO HMO, you know, have some differences in their experience but on the average we seem to be in an okay place. So we're crossing our fingers that we're below the average but again we don't want to speculate too much. Paul did you any have any whispers this morning. No, but they understand that we're very anxious on it and might be wise I think for Sean to go through this side of the budget as well. And just for all everyone here to know to we've taken a number of measures to try to get our health insurance rates is down as low as we can we've taken advantage of some different programs that Maya offers that then produces discounts on our overall rate. And so we've implemented a number of those the last couple years. So yes. Yeah, go ahead. So this is the expense side so operating budgets haven't changed in terms of what we're, we're looking at so we've got the two and a half percent for everybody. And then additional funding for the town to help fund the implementation of the Cres program, and then the adjustment for charter and choice tuition boosts up the elementary schools to 2.73% So that section hasn't changed much that will continue to fluctuate. As we dive into the capital plan and meet with JCPC. But this is still the main thing here is that we're proposing 10% of the tax levy for capital. And this will this section I'll just say it will change. This will change quite a bit before the final version. One of the big variables here is when we borrow for the library. We have the library project moving forward. So we can choose to borrow this year which would make our first step payment and FY 23, or we can borrow in the future which would push the first step payment out a little bit. And there's pros and cons to both. But if we do decide to borrow this year and try to take advantage of low interest rates, that would put the first first step payment into FY 23. Again, the overall won't change in terms of the 10% for the levy but you know how much is for projected debt and current debt and what's left over for cash capital will probably change or will definitely change. In the miscellaneous section. We have a retired pension assessment again this is pension for both the elementary schools the town the library. This is piece parts that are related to the enterprise funds get carved out and paid by the enterprise funds since they're supposed to be self sustaining so that. So it's the net after the enterprise fund pension costs are backed out. We have OPEB back to 500,000 which is sort of the ongoing level we'd like to keep increasing that into the future was really what our original plan was was to increase $100,000 per year until we got to our annual required contribution. But we want to at least keep it at 500,000 and make those ongoing contributions. Then reserve for abatements and exemptions that's always just 1% of our, our levy, we might see that go up a little bit we did send a flyer up this year to make people more aware of the exemptions opportunities available to them. But generally the 1% of the levy is is enough for what we need.  These cherry shade offsets are just the, the equal to the money that we give to the schools for choice and the money we get to the library. So that just nets out. And so the bottom line is right now, I think this is a, you know, a balanced budget that we could move forward with. There's going to be some variables that change up and down but we're, we're in a balanced place at this point. So I have my hand up to ask a question on the data set assessment does that include the two items that will come before the council on my the seventh, which is the increase for the fire. Pumper and the second one is moving forward with the OPM and the architect for the schools for the elementary. And I'm going to include those because we're proposing to use free cash to pay for the increases of that so that will take some burden off of the debt and and you know any future override it'll takes a little bit of pressure off of that because we're proposing free cash. The, but the pumper the original pumper obligation the 450,000 that the council approved that is part of our projections here. And then, does this include any change based on numbers that were presented at the last four towns meeting for regional debt. No, because the regional debt didn't change and again correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't look like it changes for FY 23 it's when you get past and some of those out years, when a roof and the fields potentially kick in. That's where those increases start to come in. Other other questions with regard to this budget. Okay, so are we ready to go on to the next. Not seeing any objections. So this is the budget updates and I know we have a four towns meeting on the 10th, I guess it is 10th. And also, but we're talking about both elementary and secondary here. Mike Doug. So I will take it Doug may jump in Sean has encouraged me to be brief and to set a good dynamic for that. I'm not sure I'll be successful but I'll do my best, but there's no visuals at least so. So really just want to talk about five things. I will mention as Lynn said both Amherst region when I'm not being explicit assume that it applies to both districts when I am being explicit I think it'll be more clear. So I just want to start that we have a lot of challenges running school in a pandemic right any newspaper you have will describe the challenges, and they're ubiquitous right it's not like site specific but we've got students who struggled to live in the social emotional toll of the pandemic, not just the safety measures that we have in place but the challenges that existed that exist with families being, you know, greatly affected in all sorts of ways by COVID restrictions and COVID itself on the illness. Soon academics we definitely like most districts saw significant gap in achievement levels, based on the separate from in school not in school just the nature of last year, you know, starting in 2020. And we saw those exacerbated in ways that include race, gender, socioeconomics and disability. And so we're working our hardest to both support students social emotional well being but also ensure that they have successful options as they leave so you know, I know we're talking finances but this all connects so I promise again the section brief otherwise Sean will send me darts and I don't want that. And the last challenge we have like every organization right now is staffing. You know, we went through the fall we have an online tracker of all of our COVID cases in our schools it's updated every day. And what you'd see is in the month of January we've far surpassed any number of cases that we've had the entire pandemic up until now. And so we've kept our schools open. We've virtually never had to do the sort of warehousing of students like oh go to the cafeteria and, you know, hang out and do some work because we don't have teachers for you but that has a cost to it. Right that adds you may thought ahead via permanent substitute teachers, our staff have been incredible about being flexible and covering for one another. And there's a real cost and there's a cost when we say don't come in if you're feeling sick. Our teachers are the folks who are so dedicated and I'm sure the same is true at the library in the town who, yeah I've got a sniffle on fine and and now we're saying, okay I don't know for a couple days we really not fine don't come. But we have to pay people for you know they're certainly entitled to sick time we want them to take it and we have to pay people to cover for them. So I think that's one of the essential implications of all three of those. I'm incredibly proud of the level of quality of education we've offered this year despite the pandemic. I mentioned, you know that we've covered classes and health and safety measures have been part of that as well so you know, just getting emails and pings from newspapers around you know what kind of master we supply for staff and we've recently talked about just applying a high quality mask for students we always had surgical masks available but higher quality mask with Omicron and you know we have you some grant funds for that but there's it's been a primary focus of schools this year. So then connecting it to the fiscal challenges and the unknowns right health insurance was recently talked about so we're eager to get that number. We're in a competitive environment, so when we are not providing the services and options that families to request. It means that they have options to go to other schools it also means that we have to attract students and track students back so for instance the last couple years we've added Chinese and that's worked out to be worked out well fiscally but it didn't at first right so we were hearing from folks in our community we want to come back from middle school or high school, but we've, we want there to be a robust Chinese we're continuing to hear that maybe even needs to be more robust and you know we're struggling with the financial implications of that so all that to say we're in a competitive environment the same is true the performing arts as well. Where, you know we have to have additional factors that we didn't used to have to think about in terms of retaining students but the financial implications of charter schools are so great that it does affect our thinking and it affects our finances. So if we're not meeting the needs of our students students are going to find a place other place to go and that has a pretty big sticker shock. And so our desire to stay competitive affects our fiscal challenges. This year we have a fiscal challenge with our bus contract our bus contract like most bus contracts operates off an inflation factor inflation as you know is that higher levels and it's been at in recent history. So it means we're going to have to pay more for our busing, you know, we've done very well with that. Over the past five years where inflation was incredibly low. And now we're on the other end of that so our, because we have a new bus contract but the inflation factor is going to push up the cost significantly there. I think as Sean mentioned before so the governor's budget had $30 per pupil, which really doesn't move the needle in terms of our budget in terms of year to year costs and that pushes it off on to municipalities. So we have a fiscal challenge as it relates to and I'll speak this is an elementary issue Wildwood and Fort River, because we had to close up the quads for airflow and safety and ventilation. It means we lost 12 classrooms at each site. It means that classrooms are taking place in cafeterias, which have been converted art rooms music rooms, and the particular cafeteria is particularly important to note because it means we can't use it for students to eat students are eating in their classrooms, which means we can't use staffing to cover lunch periods. And I know this sounds like a small detail but it's not a small budget amount that we're having to cover with staff over just to make sure that staff have their duty free lunch which they're contractually obligated to, and that student students eat in a supervised environment our cafeteria is the elementary level generally, you know, on average would host four to six classes at a time with one person supervising and we don't have that option now. So we've had to increase staffing to support students because of the nature and the infrastructure in our school buildings right now. And the last one is our Esser funds we continue, you know we have gotten three rounds of Esser funds which are from the federal government related to their stimulus package funds related to the pandemic. We've tried to be very thoughtful and how we approach the use of them and try not to build bridges that there's nothing on the other side of as much as possible knowing that it's a multi year grant. I know my professional organization as recently written to the federal government to advocate and there were other co signers to extend the use of those funds they're slated to end in September 24 to push them out two more years so that we can wean off them a little more gradually I'm highly supportive of that but at this point it's, it's that that's the timeline that we have right now. So now I'll just make just a couple Amherst specific comments public region specific comments and Sean hasn't kicked me off I haven't gotten the hook yet so I think I'll try to be rather be done soon Sean, but on Amherst, you know we're involved in a green project which is townwide I want to thank Kathy Shane and I'll do that at every opportunity for me sharing that project she's doing a fabulous job. And, in addition to the sustainability like the green sustainability of use of energy will have operational savings when that project comes into place and significant and significant waves. I know that's 2026 but we are trying to build a bridge to when we will be more efficient right now in our three buildings we are very inefficient, and it causes financial as well as operational challenges for us on multiple fronts. We are slated based on boats of the Amherst school committee and the regional school committee to move sixth grade to the middle school, not for this fall but for the following fall. I will do my one little deviation I got to spend time in every sixth grade classroom and Amherst, in the last two weeks asking the sixth graders what they wanted to think about what middle school should look like for sixth grades. It's awesome. They have a lot of great ideas and a lot of things for us as a community to think about because they're not just about school. It's really what does the community look at, as it thinks to a sixth grade sixth eighth grade middle school and how do we position young adolescents in our larger community the conversation went a number of different ways I wouldn't think and it's something I'm looking forward to sharing with the Amherst school committee and the larger community in a week and a half. There will be some, you know, challenges and savings along the way, but really when both those projects take place when sixth grades at the elementary at the middle school level and the building project is in place we're working with one less school and a whole lot more efficient staffing models, operational models and so we really it's for me it's often how do we get to 2026, where we can realize significantly more savings than our current current setup designed I know. In the past we've looked at regionalization, you know that would have had a lot of savings didn't end up going forward we looked at regionalization actually twice one with Pellum at the elementary level one kid at 12, you know the communities were not in support of those measures. We've looked at combining schools we've looked at a whole variety of things over the last five years and we've settled on these two is providing the operational savings they're they're occurring. They're not synchronized and they're occurring less quickly than we'd like a former building project also would have netted significant operational savings, but now we're back in that queue. So, you know was really trying to get to a bridge where our infrastructure can support a much more efficient model of schooling for students at the regional level we're presenting our initial budget on Tuesday we had a four town meeting. We received feedback from our member towns they didn't align, which is no surprise and no new news right that towns were looking for different assessment methods and preferring different things. We also heard from our school committee at the regional level that they were comfortable with adjustments based on enrollment, but they requested a budget with no cuts and looking at sustainable funding sources. So we're trying to take all that in that pie doesn't all add up at the moment but Doug and I are working really hard to how to come up with a model that meets the competing demands and interest to the to extend possible. And so we're looking forward to that four town meeting that Lynn mentioned which is in the evening. So it's a little shock for those of you have been to a number of four town meetings. In the evening on Thursday the 10th it supported that Amherst town council I believe has a retreat on the 12th which would have been the logical date we would have had it. So Lynn thank you for letting me know so we didn't just let that conflict happen. Really helpful to have that communication. And the last thing I want to share is that you know just we we see a drop in enrollment starting in our current fourth grade. And this is what predict that trend will continue. So we have realized some savings of the elementary level it's hard to realize it now because of our infrastructure but will, but that that that will drop will occur when those students get to the middle school and high school. That will affect the assessment for the member town because you're we see a pretty significant drop, starting in that current fourth grade it also will make other efficiencies more realizable in the future so you know we are looking at the long view on this not just a year to a year but how do we get more sustainable over time and I think our enrollment will help us. We've made some changes before we've moved some of the academy to the high school and the limited use of that building. Sorry, I'm going to have overhead. This is a good time to stop because you can't hear me anyway, but I'm happy to answer any questions folks have. Any questions can I just have one clarification just my memory is clogged. Absolutely middle school moving to the sixth grade in 2020 fall of 22 or fall of 23 fall of 23. Thank you. Yeah, so it's not the next year. Next academic years that you're after. Got it. Are there questions. Mike, thank you for that very concise Doug I think you did a good job please make sure you tell him that that was very putting it all together. I do have one other question then Andy I saw your hand so why don't you go ahead. Yeah, I was just, you mentioned about enrollment trends in the elementary school, and I was curious whether the, there's any way to project whether the enrollment of the number of students who are in special education. There's projections there or that's none number. We do have some of that projections. We are seeing an increasing share of special education students when you look at our preschool level because all students with special needs in the community, you know get assessed by a preschool coordinator. We are seeing students with significant needs in our preschool environment so I don't see a downward trend that way. So there's some thinking about what it meant for a generation of students to miss a significant amount of time in preschool and the implications that has. I'm not an early childhood expert but I've heard early childhood experts talk about the implications in the pandemic at different age spans, playing out differently, not better or worse just differently. There's some thinking about the implications and kind of what that does there but as it relates to to early learners who weren't able to get early intervention for long periods of time. There is some thinking that that will have a negative effect on those students and will kind of by effect increase the special education load particularly at primary grade levels over the next few years. Andy Joe. You talked about the staffing challenges in a pandemic year and all and as we move out of sort of pandemic as pandemic and move into endemic situations is what I would say. Do you foresee those staffing challenges lessening in terms of if testing decreases and quarantine and isolation decrease such that it would affect the budget I know it's affected the budget this year for a number of reasons but do you see that at a point where that may decrease or put less stress on the sort of subline on the budgets in the coming years. That's a great, great question so at Fort River and Wildwood, you know that the at the elementary level that's really based on at this point more the infrastructure of the schools and the challenges but the six word moves that'll ease. So we have one more year of that. I think more generally, your guess is this is mine where the pandemic goes both of us probably read a lot of the same articles Mandy Joe and and you know you can look at the optimistic scenarios. You could look at people like Bob Washler out UCFF who who you know recently wrote pretty and he's pretty moderate. I find him his opinions often moderated compared to others and he just said I think this is going to be like the weather. Right. When the weather is good, things are going to be all right, but the weather is going to be more variants is going to be, you know, it'll be seasonal component to this. We, you know, he was interestingly arguing for, you know, really he was using weather as an analogy to say, you have to adjust your measures consistently, like you adjust your, what you wear consistently based on that and in places in the northeast he was predicting spring to early fall looking pretty good and with a seasonal respiratory illness that's significantly more significant than many others that we may be in similar places through winners over the next few years so it's hard to, it's hard to know it's hard to budget for to your larger point. And that's true across departments that were, I mean by, not my departments but I think the train would be true for Sharon and Scott and Tim that you know we're all anxious to get back to more predictable levels of that and not yet ready to counter eggs or I'm terrible expression but you know what I mean. It tells me I should never do that at meetings and she's right. But, but, you know, so I think, I think it'll be better right I think we have vaccines we didn't have them a year ago. We know a lot more now than we knew then but even the question of like masking which has been the social media cause this week about masking in schools right. You know, it's hard to know exactly how that'll play out over time. What we know is what we've done has been pretty effective at reducing and eliminating spread in schools. And I think as it relates to staffing and what the quarantine rules are what the spread is. It's just it's hard to plan for, you know, and I'd love to be internal optimistic I typically am on this one. I've learned one of my lessons the pandemic is don't always come out with your optimism in a public meeting and I'm going to choose not to right now. So Mike. I know that transportation is reimbursement from the state based on formula. We don't do as well because we're not completely regional. Do you see any possibility the state might add relief in transportation based on inflation. Sorry, I chuckled because the governor's budget actually pretty significantly reduced regional transportation reimbursement. I think it was to the order of 8% or something like that. And we would just be it's it's not it's based on a per mile it just not like based on one district gets more or less it's not like circuit break or something like that. So that I do hope that our colleagues in the legislature will track that and that's not the first time he's tried to reduce regional transportation so he being the governor and oftentimes representatives push back and at least get it back to being level. But there's there's a literal reduction in transportation federal regional transportation aid in the governor's budget. Peter. I'll follow up on that so. So, first, I'm here as a delegate from the Amherst School Committee but just since the question of transportation came up so that. So that's right that line that subject to appropriation line was significantly decreased in the governor's budget and so this is a real emphasis point of advocacy that if you all want to get involved in please read out to me that we've tried to do it every year but this is one of those things where regional school districts across the state band together and we try and generate pressure. But of course we have this systemic structural problem that we're outgunned by the Boston reps right in the suburbs, and they just don't get why it's it's just to fully fund regional transportation they forget about the broken barriers that are on us that you know back in the 50s when this our region was constructed it was one of the carrots one of the main financial carrots is that we're going to fund your regional transportation and they've never ever funded that fully and and it's it's never risen to the level of of a commitment. So that's the advocacy thing that happens every year. The local reps are totally on board with it, but you know they are two voices among many and so something will be putting some effort into it to the degree that we can from our small humble soapbox out here in Amherst but anybody really wants to get into that please contact me we can just Facebook groups and you know organizations and and there will be budget amendments that will need to be, you know, advocated for and whatnot so something that that you can spend some time on if you if you have it. Sean. Thanks Len and thanks Mike for letting us get a word in. So, rural school aid Mike, it looks, I think we're going in like year three of rural school aid. I know it's not a huge, huge amount but I don't know the answer to this I mean when when do you think you you'll get a comfort level that it's something that's reliable and ongoing and could potentially be budgeted if you haven't budgeted for it yet I don't know if you guys have incorporated that in. I know it's, it's new so it's always a little precarious. Given given your response I'll let Doug answer that one, Sean. Yeah. So we get that really only at the region not per Amherst. It has varied in its size. And so that's part of, you know, the, the concern I have for you, you know strictly budgeting for it. It tends to kind of be, I don't want to say found money but it provides some relief in that regard. But if it becomes I think over the next couple of years, you know, were consistently funded. There'll be a lot easier sort of predict what that what that size is in the current years about 90,000 but it's been 65,000 so you know you don't want to. I just don't think it's been consistent enough yet to budget, but I think in the next couple years if they continue to sort of fund that line in the budget and then we'll be able to be more programmatic and how we do it. Peter. Yeah, just real quick so that line originates from Senator Adam Heinz he's the senator state senator from Berkshires. He's currently running for lieutenant governor.  By the way, Adam Heinz now lives in Amherst. Just to be clear. So, I do have one other question going back to Essar funds. You said you're on the third round the multi year this slated to end in September 2024. Are you thinking they're going to add more funds or you just want to stretch existing funds out. I'm sure that they would love my professional organization would love more funds but that the request was not actually around use, adding more funds was around stretching the use so that it could cover multiple budget years, more than it currently does. Okay, any other questions of the schools. Then let's move to the library. Sharon Austin. Oh, I'm sorry Paul. We thought this meeting was going to be over earlier but so is there anything you want to say before you have to leave Sonia just so we don't lose your wisdom. You're muted though. No, I'm sure you and I have it covered. Thanks Sonia. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. You're coming to join us today. Okay, we're going to library. Okay, well Mike, I always enjoy your presentations. I don't think you're long winded at all. So, so COVID for the library. We're having the same problems that the schools do with staff shortages. Yeah, you know their staff are getting it during their family get togethers and yeah, thankfully we don't have to gosh worry about the psychological issues and and well being of our patrons the way that the schools have to do with the kiddos I'm you know my heart breaks for this whole many generations of these children that they've been through these past couple of years. So I think our patrons our biggest problem is masked on compliance. For the most part, patrons get it they're on board this is Amherst, they're educated yay.  Do we serve them but that just encourages them that it's okay do we escort them out which of course is just going to anyways. So that's that's COVID for us. The next few years are kind of going to be weird for the libraries because we have the North Amherst library building project going on. Well that will go on soon and then the Jones building project so we will be for the North Amherst library project we're going to move North Amherst services down to the months and open hours that's where the staffing will be computers materials and all of that. So that's great. And then when the North Amherst building building project is done will move them out and then the Jones project will begin several months later and and we will move all of the Jones stuff out will be able to increase the hours at both branches staffing will will go there materials collections programings that and and we will also be looking for other interim locations. I love what Mike what you said about you know operational efficiencies once once the Jones project, especially is done you know not only staffing efficiencies you know better sight lines that kind of thing but the utilities. So we're expecting savings there. I'm really excited about that. Financially speaking, where the library is is for FY 23 going to be where we always are so the town appropriation covers most of the library salaries it only pays for salaries, but it doesn't cover 100% of our salary so it's not going to be in the whole, let's say 60 grand 70 grand. I'm, it very much depends on the coal is you know union negotiations those health insurance increases. So until I get that information I'm kind of, I'm kind of up a creek I can't. My whole budget is around, you know those figures so until I, until I get those numbers I can't give anybody anything concrete, but that's, that's pretty much where we are now, I beat you Mike. Thank you. My serious amount but that's okay. Any other questions for the library. Austin. This is a question from the library not for the library and it's one that is raised all the time. I just want to raise it again, and that is. Is there a prospect in our lifetime that the town and the library will reach a new understanding about the contribution of the town to the salaries of people at the library. I don't want to try to answer that. Yeah, so I will. Okay, usually Sony usually likes to answer this one. Right, Sharon. Yeah, I mean, right now, unless there is a realignment of the budget, there aren't, you know, you're looking at the numbers that we're looking at. And unless there's a new influx of cash or anything, I think that relationship is sort of stable. And I understand the point that the library makes but I don't see that changing in the near future at least. So I'm raising it as a, not for. You know what you said the near future, I just think that we need to get involved in a long term in a conversation about how to deal with this problem over the long term. Because it and the failure to deal with it year after year puts the live I mean again we're all in the same team but puts the library in a very difficult position. Yeah, so I'm just asking that the, you know, the numbers don't work out which is, I get it, that we think together about how to think about this over the over the long term, rather than just saying, you know, every year the same thing the numbers don't don't work out which I understand. So, since we are a budget coordinating group, I think it's appropriate that we together think about this as a long term problem for the town, and not just say it's a library problem. By the way, that was a good speech. Okay. Any other questions for the library. And then I'm moving on to the town and I assume this is Paul and Sean. Yeah, so I'll start. Much of what what Mike said and Sharon say I just sort of add on to all going through the same things. You know, pandemic increased workload for many, for many of us because we had to reconfigure everything as finance I just want to shout out to that department with Sean and Sonya in particular. We have major new grant programs that they've had to manage cares grant program now the ARPA program. These are huge management challenges because there are not. It's understanding the rules, and then there's also the whole reporting piece of it, which is really intense, because we have to document everything every time you see all these money coming in, but we have to document everything and get our departments who are spending money to make sure they're doing everything properly.  We are experiencing the same kind of the great resignation is real. We're seeing a lot of turnover people choosing to retire earlier or at a certain point. There's the HR department is handling a lot of work different levels, along the same lines in terms of where we stand our major budget driver is our, our, our people and that means collective bargaining. We are in arbitration with our fire department fire fighters union right now we have all the other unions for for other unions are up for negotiation right now. And for those refer and then ends and the climate has changed in terms of what the with the pressure on wages right now is really becoming more apparent as we start to go into these negotiations. Recruitment is also a challenge because, especially as we're working to diversify our staff. We, you know, we're people are bringing us competing proposals, especially in certain professions like wastewater, any kind of licensed profession, people can catch, you can just see the market what's going on with those jobs and it's really, we're so working through that. The big thing for us, I mean, as we go through our budget. Everything, you know the council has established two major lenses that they want us to look at everything through. Through racial equity and through sustainability and that we are trying to incorporate that into all of our decision making the council approved the establishment of two new departments which is the major driver in our budget for the coming years, which is the DEI department, which includes two people, and then the crest program, which we're still in the implementation phases of we've been very successful at getting grants for these for this program, but it was the long term impact is will will be long term. It's a big, it's a big, big new program and that's why you see that the funding the way it is. And in terms of the other things economic development, high priority for the town and then the other thing it's going to change that we don't really know yet, but it's we all know it's going to be different is that our little sort of health department of one and a half people with is not going to look back that going future in the future. We know that public health has much higher profile now, and needs more investment to move that forward we are having regional talks about how to look at health, not on a town by town basis but on a region by region basis that's the only way to really attract the quality and the level of staff that we expect, while maintaining our own sort of authority over what we need to do in our community. So, Sean, what would you like to add. Sean's good. Are there questions about the town's issues budget. Peter. Oh, Paul did I understand you correctly so for the, for the first years of crest, you're funding that operational line with with one time grants that you don't expect to be there in the future. No, Sean. No, so. So, the operational side of crests is, we're trying to incorporate into our 2.5% increase that you know part of that will go towards that, and then that's the reason why we're asking for the additional 300,000. There are some things that we view as one time costs related to crests vehicle, I mean, sort of one time cost vehicle purchases outfitting space. You know, software works that the software is super expensive training and legal support to kind of get things up and running because you know this is very novel. And so, so those types of things we're funding out of the grant, but the operating costs in terms of the responders the director and the, the other position. We're trying to fold those into the existing operating budget, or the proposed operating budget. Any other questions about the town budget. Okay, seeing none I think the. I want to make sure we cover two things before we finish and I know we're pushing up against time limits we probably exceed them. One is, if we need a second meeting and when we think it would be best will pull for it we won't try to come up with the date today. So we need to be some need based on whatever we find out about insurance or other things as we move along. And the second thing is I want to make sure we designate somebody who will approve the minutes on case we do not meet a second time because I don't want to have to meet just to approve minutes to approve minutes. So, with that Sean you were going to do the calendar. Sure. All right so I won't go through all the dates but I sent this out to everybody. And I guess it's mostly if there's any questions or anything people saw that jumped out the upcoming important dates around CPA and capital are the things that are coming up in the near future with the presentation of the CPA recommendation to finance committee and then JCPC starting up pretty soon. We have the, I guess the second page here is probably the easiest to look at, which is splitting it by type of budget. So, for operating budgets, like always the library and the schools budgets are due by the end of March so that Tom manager can then incorporate them into his budget proposal to the council. And then we've got presentation to the council all the, you know the month of May is always very busy with finance committee and reviewing the budget. And then there will be council have at least a couple of meetings likely to decide what they're going to do with the budget. On the capital side, we start JCPC in a couple weeks. That will, they'll provide a recommendation to the town manager by the end of we tried to do that by the end of March. So the town manager has the month of April to finalize his capital improvement program, which will then go to the council again by the first business day in May. Finance committee will review that and then same thing council have a couple meetings to discuss. CPA we don't. This timeline is probably going to modify a little change a little bit this is sort of a rough estimate at this point we know finance committee is going to discuss it on the eighth of February. Not sure if they will be able to make a recommendation at that point or not. So, so that could be there could be another meeting from finance committee. We tentatively have it with at the town council on the 21st. In the past CPA went along the same path as the operating budget but because we moved CPA up early in the earlier in the year. So we knew what they were going to recommend by the time we got to our capital planning or capital improvement program. So we had one summer quest to get the CPA recommendation voted sooner, so that people don't do the recommendation December then have to wait till June to find out if it's approved. So tentatively for the 21st, but that could change. And then the regional schools you know certainly split for input from Doug and Mike on on timing of when the other four town meeting or when the other town meetings are, but their budget come at the end of March. We usually will do an early, earlier timeline for the regional schools of their budget can be approved around the same time as the other towns. So there would be a presentation to the council sometime in April. At least a couple of finance committee meetings finance committee meetings to review and make a recommendation, and then it would go back to the council. Sometimes it could be the 16th it could be the meeting before that as well. If the council decides to bring it up earlier. And that's the timeline. Are there questions or clarifications on the budget timeline. I just, hey, Sean, I just have one question. When do you think I know union negotiations are going to be settled I don't know when you're going to get the health insurance numbers but when do you think the town will be able to get out to us our salary projections. So we are going to try to do that. Pretty soon actually we're going to try to do that on the next couple weeks. It's going to have an estimate, but we're going to try to do that. Holly and Sonya and I are going to sit down next week and go person by person through the salary projections. And then, as you said, it'll have an estimate for the outcome of negotiations but we should have that up to you then a couple weeks because yeah, I know you need it to. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other questions about timeline or things that relate to timeline, like Sharon just asked. Okay, then let's take this down and ask if there are any other general questions or comments that people would like to make. I'd like to start out by saying I have found this very useful. It's delightful to be in a civilized conversation with each other about where we're all coming from and what we are all facing. And I hope that in the future, we might even think about doing something like this routinely, not just when we think there's a problem. So, are there any other comments or questions in general. Yes, Paul. So you had asked about a minutes and I maybe I would suggest that the chair and vice chair approved the minutes, the committee out delegate to the chair and vice chair to give. Do I need a vote on that. I think it's everybody nods or had I think you'll be fine. Everybody give me a thumbs up yes. Okay, got it. Great. We're Allison and I will take care of that. And Paul or Doug or Sean or Mike or Andy with all of your experience, do you see something that will come forward that could bring us the need to meet again. Mike. I think, you know, the thing that is really for you Lynn and the council and perhaps Fincom is that, you know, I don't know if there's going to be a need after the four town meeting the next four town meeting. When we get a little more clarity, perhaps on, you know, you'll get more clarity from Doug and myself where we're sitting. But also the other towns, I can't predict to shoot spray how you're going to react I can't predict to you how shoot spray is going to react or palom or leverage. That obviously has implications that nature of regional districts other than being the main superintendent business managers existence is that they're they don't fit well with, you know, not to exceed or not to be below however you want to frame it because that's a relational assessment method, relational assessment that changes year to year and in this district district. The method changes year to year, we haven't had the same method for years on end so that whether you want to handle that through the full council through the finding finance committee through this group that from the schools that's probably the big the reason that I could see coming back together and maybe the goal would be that that folks here where the reality is but you know I can't speak for the library I can't speak for you on this group from the town side of whether that this is the right group or a different form is the right one but that's that's probably the most volatile thing on the school side is is relates to you where we are getting four towns to agree on this that's method and a budget level. Okay, Andy. Based upon experience with prior budget coordinating group. I think that the major reason that we would need to reconvene is if there is a factual change in projections that we didn't anticipate and need to adjust to given what the situation is currently in the state budgeting process. I think that it's really depends upon what happens within the House and Senate whether they reach any consensus amounts early about stated to schools and localities municipalities, or whether we have to wait until we see something out of the House poison means committee in April. That would be the biggest driver that might change at this point that I can see anybody else's thoughts on it. And I guess the only other one I picked up from conversations with Paul was the insurance. And just not knowing that one Andy you have another comment. No other other comments. Yes, Peter. I mean, I guess I would just note that process wise the Amherst school committee has hasn't had an initial budget presentation from superintendent or finance director yet that's that's coming very soon. So as of right now, we don't know if two and a half percent is going to be able to cover our budget without cuts. We also haven't had a discussion. A full discussion on the Amherst school committee since since the election or since the newly elected members took over came on about what people's feelings are in terms of budget level. So that could be another variable that affects the items here, but so I mean, I'm not offering an opinion one way or another about what it should be but I just, if you just, you just check marking you know unknown variables that could change I would probably put that one on the list. Thank you. Are there others that anybody wants to raise. If there are any other comments, seeing none, then I want to just note, we do not have anybody in the audience, and therefore we do not have any public comment, we would have public comment. If we had somebody in the audience, Allison. I was sort of picking up on your, your comment earlier about making this more regular which might also connect with Austin's comment about sort of thinking long longer term as well and just sort of wonder about setting up a meeting of this group and thinking about that. When, when should it convene right we were thinking about just this particular FY23 budget year, whether we might need to meet again. And I think there's opportunity for us to talk about and think about bringing this group together at another point to have those conversations on sort of, as you said a more regular basis and what does that look like and what is sort of the charge of this group. Okay. If there are any other comments, then seeing none, I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 945. Thank you everybody. Absolutely, thanks.