So I'm going to, this is Andy Steinberg chair of the finance committee and I'm calling the finance committee of May 7, 2021, order at 1pm. And I apologize to everybody that we had a posting problem with what was scheduled to be yesterday's meeting. And I appreciate everyone's flexibility for being available today. I think that we have one more person to join us from the finance committee. That's Jane Chetler and she had indicated to me that she is available. So hopefully she'll be joining but in any event today's meeting is a virtual meeting. And being held pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30 a section 18. And this is both a meeting of the town council and finance committee, and this noted being conducted by a remote participation. So, in accordance with the rules that we have regarding the virtual remote participation meetings. I'm going to ask each member of the committee to indicate that they can hear me be heard by responding after I say their name and then over to Lynn, who is president of the council. She needs to call us meeting to order and then confirm attendance of two additional counselors who are not members of the finance committee that are participants in this joint meeting. So I will start with Kathy Shane. I'm here. I'm here with Pam. Yeah. Bernie could be at present. So I think that impact Angeles or Pat. Yeah. Lynn, when you take over that will confirm your attendance and that you can hear and be heard. Thank you. I am present for finance committee as a finance committee member, but as chair of the council, seeing the form of the Amherst town council, I'm calling a meeting of the Amherst town council together at present. He am on May 7, 2021. I want to check and make sure that Mandy Joe Hanneke, you can hear us and we can hear you. George Ryan. And I just want to make sure that Mike and Doug can also hear us and we can hear that Mike. Yes. Yep. Yes, I can. Thank you so much. I also just want to make. Oh, and we have a couple of questions. I just want to make sure that as well as Sean, I want to make sure that if Mandy Joe and George, either one of you decide to leave after a certain point in the presentation, you let us know that so that we can adjourn the town council meeting but continue the finance committee meeting. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. Quick question. Do that through chat or just orally I will have that card stop at about at 230 so I just want me to send you a chat notice or what. I would raise your hand. That's the public way to do it. Okay, so today's meeting. We're going to start first by focusing on elementary schools. And then there are three sections of the budget that we're going to talk about later. One is senior center veteran services and social services is on the list though we are going to have a conversation about whether that something we want to start today but continue until another day but I'll cover that later so we can get into the schools now. So I want to welcome and thank superintendent Morris and Dr slaughter the finance director for the schools for joining us today and I don't know if either one of you wants to say anything sort of as a brief introductory overview is Welcome to do that please. So thank you for having us. You know, speaking of hard stops this meeting was originally scheduled I was informed that was supposed to be on Thursday and then it shifted to Friday as such Alison McDonald who's the chair of the Amherst school committee is unable to attend given the shift so she sends her apologies. I have a 145 that I can't change that wouldn't have been a problem but it is and that's not a fault thing it's just the reality. So we will try to be as brief we do have a brief presentation will try to roll through that as quick as possible so we can get more to counselors questions. If that's okay with the Council and committee I guess I should say. Yes. Let me think this is going to work but that's not what I wanted to project so it's not going to work. Let me try again. I see elementary school FY 22 budget presentation. Oh you did okay. Sorry I'm not a zoom person so one of the last holdouts so that I was seeing something else on my screen so that is that thank you very much for letting me know Kathy. So again we'll roll through these slides pretty quickly. And you know starting from a place of our mission which I think is really important to start with, even if it takes a minute to talk about that we're really focusing on all learners and recognizing in a budget context that to meet the educational needs of some students has different financial aspects than for other students and we try to balance those two and try to provide a budget consistent with the finance committee guidance and the guidance we received from the town of Amherst as best as we can but there is some inherent conflict that comes up as we think about those things and we talk about it frequently and and it comes up all the time at our hearings that we have at the school committee level around the budget each year. So just a bit on leadership team, the principle the search, I think is just about coming to conclusion I think next week we'll be able to announce the incoming principle of Fort River because sadly for us Dan Chamberlain our has been principle there for the last four or five years is becoming principal at a school in Thailand so she'll have a fabulous experience there. She's leaving but when we're in our boots and she's at the beach sometime in next December January we will be very jealous of her but she's done a fabulous job at Fort River in a great number of ways she's been the principle that was there as we integrated the coming on days to a language program. There's two specialized special education programs at Fort River and her leadership will be sorely missed. After a period where they were shifting significantly haven't shifted as much over the last three four years and Amherst we've seen that shift play out at the region. But at this point some of the shifts that we've seen in the past are pretty significantly stabilized I would say for where we were I will note that this year's demographics may be affected by students who may have chosen other options we did see a significant decrease in students this year we're actually seeing an increase now that students are back in person so even our numbers from two months ago are no longer accurate for our enrollments you'll see those later but we're seeing a significant number of homeschooled and other families who made other options returned to the schools now that our schools are open five days a week. This is something that you may have seen if you were at the regional meeting but one of the significant focus is actually frankly over the last 20 years but we've just had a particular success with this over the last five have been an increase in BIPOC or staff of color and you can see that broken down by demographic group. And that really matters representation matters it matters for our students in a diverse school that they're seeing adults who look like them. If you think about the opportunity gap or educational debt we are students. This is something we're really proud of and and I've worked with the state and they see us as a model I'm on the racial and balance advisory committee, which is statewide group and having lots of conversations about what's what's happened here and our work on that so you know big appreciation of principles to assistant superintendent Doreen Cunningham for rising our hiring process completely using some research and best practices to shift. How we approach things and you can see the results here in this document. So a couple of the initiatives we have going on certainly we'll be thinking a lot about what this you know post pandemic which is probably optimistic language but we'll go with it. Education looks like we have a lot of facilities needs. We've made a lot of facilities changes in our schools as a result of the pandemic. So we have a lot of space needs particularly a two of our elementary schools at Fort River net Wildwood. As we've shifted how those spaces are used that aren't it's not exactly there's no backsies on what we did. And for good reason but we are going to have to look at some adjustments over time. This was talked about even at last week at school committee will be a continuing conversation at the Amherst school committee level. But this been a significant shift for students while being and that's some of that's around the pandemic some of that's around racial justice and many other factors so we are consistently focused on that we received a grant this year. That's supporting an increased focus on that it was a I think Doug can correct me but I think of $80 ish $1,000 grant where we're working with River Valley mental health consultants and they're working with us both directly with students as well as advising us on strategies around that so appreciate to get the grant that doesn't come out of the taxpayers pockets but still supports that end. I spoke about teacher to staff diversity and the grant we received is listed. And we are the last two weeks actually both at the regional level and coming up next week at the Amherst level really going to explore the sixth grade question. So it's my 20th year in the district. I'm going to go back to Cata's like every four or five years the sixth grade question comes up. We are very atypical for having six grade students into the elementary school less than 20% of schools in Massachusetts as well as the country have a six K to six, seven eight nine 12 model. So we do intend the middle the regional school committee last week open the door for elementary committees to start engaging on that question we had a committed citizen group that worked on this and got sort of the end got truncated because of the pandemic. So this is something that over the next couple weeks and months I think you'll be getting to hear a lot more about. So I'm going to go ahead and take a look at some of the resources to engage the community and see where they are on this question. There's going to be an intersection between the space needs and the sixth grade question, as well as potentially the building project so there's a lot of I use this term a lot, a lot of Venn diagrams where there's a sixth grade question and a space question and a building project, and all those things have things in the middle and they have each unique aspects to each of them and and that's the the complex matrix that we're going to be talking a lot about and engaging the community on in the next couple months and go moving forward. I'm going to turn it to Doug who's again conscious of time here because we do want to get to counselors questions but just maybe just, I'm sorry I didn't I wasn't a good model Doug my apologies but if you can just go over very briefly the next couple slides and we'll open it up for the counselors and the committee. So, based on this slide we're talking about sort of where our budget is going this coming year. You know, we're, we're asking for about a 2% increase which meets the with the guidance from the town as far as what it's available to do. That requires us to to reduce from a level services budget by a little bit in order to make that happen. So this coming year is is going to be 24,386,522 dollars. That's not on the slide but that is the relevant number. And so if you go to the next slide please. And so this is, you know, sort of the quick snapshot of where do we spend our money it's mostly on people. It's a people business of government generally is and especially schools. We, you know, we do have expensive things, you know, buildings are expensive to have but but we, but people are a lot more expensive between what costs to pay them as well as their benefits. We have pretty significant amount of our budget dedicated to that as those as those needs for kids change the changes who we have to have and who we need to have in place and and those costs shift accordingly. So this, this slide is just laying out a little bit of where we spend our money on on staffing. But you see that regular and especially by and large, you know, the number of students in those groups is is significantly different but the, the amount of people and the costs associated or are very similar. And I would suggest that's probably not a typical across other districts in the Commonwealth. Next slide please. So the regular education instruction, you know, half of it goes to classroom instruction. And, and that's where, where we spend the lion share of our money in that regard. And then we have smaller amounts for the more specific specialized things we do call it kindergarten. I always find that interesting but I think it's a bit of an artifact of kindergarten not being compulsory even to this day. So if you're under age six or not compelled by a lot of the end in school, but that's a quirk of things. But you'll notice EL also pretty significant chunk of 14% that's that's a pretty sizable chunk of spending that we need to do to support those kids that English isn't their first language. And again, in this in this area, one thing that it's not easy to see here nor is it in the other in the other longer line by line document that we have is where we utilize our school choice funding, I will say that does impact. And we'll get into specifics that a little bit later it does impact these these numbers but not so much the the the effort that we make for for those regular education students. Next slide please. So in special education. We try to keep a fair amount of our special education students in district and so we offer a number of programs in that regard to meet those kids needs and keep them placed within our schools we think that's better educationally we think it's better. There are non special education students to be in and apart of the school with those kids. And, and we think it's a cost effective strategy as well. But as you see here, you know the breakdown of how we are delivering those services what you'll see in the in the graph, the left is a pretty strong uptick over the last, you know, few years in our spending and in special education. We've been by the needs of the students that we're experiencing if you've seen Dr Brady our special education director in various meetings she's talked about at the elementary school the that some of the students that we have currently have a much higher level of need and that requires more resources to meet that need. Okay, if I could just pause. Just one one comment I want to make the preschool we have a Crocker farm which is a significant 12% of the special ed spending. I think, just, I think it's worth the 30 seconds to say that that is a state defined program around special education. We do accept typical peers or regular education preschool students. But, and we charge a relatively nominal fee as compared to private preschools in the area. And it comes out because that's our obligation and students turn three and they have special needs. Every community in the Commonwealth is mandated to do that is to have a to support those students and their special needs from ages three to kindergarten. And so I think it's just worth noting you see that it's special ed preschool some of you may know that there are non special education students there but it does fall into the preschool barely with because that's, that's how the structure of public preschools are set up in Massachusetts. I know that one I often get questions about that. Thank you for that. Let's go to the next slide please. These are the other support services that we provide it's, you know, you know, a smaller part of the budget but it's a variety of ways in which we try to support our staff through professional development. Keep our libraries working health services, obviously that's an area this year that we've all been noticing a lot more of because we've had to to spend a lot more time thinking about our, our health and our community health and that sort of thing. But these are the areas that fall outside of what you think of as classic instruction and other ways we support students and our staff in order to achieve our goals. Next slide please. So here's a list of ads and cuts. Yep, and I can take this one so we do have declining enrollment we're anticipating one fewer need for one fewer classroom teacher in the district. We did do an ad when coming on days came in to make sure that we were covered in terms of bilingual special education needs we said at the time it's a temporary need because as the program matures. We would have the same number of special educators as all the other schools was just at the beginning we only had kindergarten nurse, and you had special needs and it need to be delivered bilingually we needed a temporary ad. It's going to be consistent when we say it's a temporary ad it's really a temporary ad now that coming on days will be K to two. We're able to reduce a position and still maintain our services of student needs so the below is the specials so with declining enrollment, and all these are difficult cuts I want to say with declining enrollment, we are able to ensure that students have all of their specials at the same amount of time they currently have them. It will have an impact somewhat on the integration parts of the day but none of this will not this reduction won't reduce the instructional block for specials and art, but it does reduce the integration time in those two areas at the facilities I think we spoke about that at the regional level and the food service some of the central office cuts. We've talked about multiple places the bilingual psychologist again to clarify. This is not a direct service position this is about literally who does evaluations when there are bilingual students who are being tested for special education. We've had the position posted for a year and a half we haven't had any suitable applicants. We will save money by contracting this out but I know this is one that's been a little bit confused perhaps. I haven't done a good job clarifying that piece this is not a reduction in services at all. We've had the option position at central office and our ELL program report indicated that we have more interpreters than was, you know, perhaps beneficial or compared to other comparable districts so again difficult reduction but we want to be fiscally conscious and when we have experts in the field tell us, actually, you know what best practices and we're doing something a little different. I didn't make those reductions. I didn't talk about there was no sabbatical request and we're anticipating some turnover savers over turnover savings which is when people retire. We generally hire people and we've been really good about that the last couple years and put an emphasis on hiring people that can replace them who are highly talented and have long careers ahead of them and that also is positive for our budget. So those were the level service pieces and I think because it's 120 and I have a 145 I'm going to stop there because I feel I'm afraid otherwise we'll do all the talking and not allow for the other folks to ask questions if that's okay with the with you. So, thank you for the initial presentation and I'm going to just say one thing. I will actually do have Jane chaffler is joined us and Jane, just confirm that you can hear us and we can hear you. I'm here. Okay, great. Sorry for the delay. No, that's okay. So, the couple of reminders and then I'm going to try and get into questions really quickly because we are limited time with superintendent Morris present. Let's talk about the budget. I think that we're that the budget we're looking at right now is the budget that is part of what is from the town budget and it is so it matches what was in the budget guidelines so we're passed by the council that started the process the funds that might be available from federal sources for because of the pandemic, both the Esther funds in American Recovery Act funds is a separate pot of money and we can ask questions about it but I just wanted to make sure that we're all clear that the budget as presented does not include any of those funds. Doug, right on that. That's correct. Yeah, so I just wanted to and the other thing that I wanted to point out as far as the appropriation from this from the town. That the council, we have a this is that budget is incorporated in the town manager's budget and the council can add cannot add to it can only confirm it or subtract money from any budget. It doesn't matter both of what's in the charter and mass general law chapter 44 section 32. So that we have to just want to remind ourselves of that. And I think that those were the two introductory things I wanted to say and I guess the other point is is that we want to understand the budget but notice the school committee's budget. That is being presented to us. So, with that I want to open it up to questions and I'm going to ask the people try and focus on questions that they think are really important to ask while the superintendent is present because he does have a hard stop that he's informed us and then I will go from maybe Doug can stay a little bit longer, the conversation continues. So please focus on questions you think that really are best asked while superintendent is still with us. I had seen a couple of hands up earlier and one was Mandy I do. I just wanted to clarify what you just said about budgets because section 32 of chapter 44 of the mgl actually does have a way to raise school budgets but it requires the cooperation of the school committee. And at this point the school committee has not requested or increased in that budget. So it's it's a little more complicated than just know. So I just wanted to make that clarification. We should talk about that later because I was, I'm not clear about that because it has to do with regional schools. The mention of thinking section is I recall it mentions regional schools not local schools. It mentions both, but we can talk about that later when the superintendent. Thank you. Kathy. Again, please try and start with questions that you really think are important to ask well. Superintendent Morris is here. Okay, I sent some of these in but not very much in advance so I apologize and Lynn. I sent them in and she said some of mine overlapped but you already mentioned, I'll just focus on the bigger items than I know and I'm, I'm, I'm looking in particular for is there any way to come back and revisit a couple of decisions that were being made, but I'll wait on that so my first question is on special education, I did a four year rate of increase so I took 2022 over 2018 for each of several items and special that whole expenditure on payroll is up about 15% compared to 3% for regular. And Mike what you said is that is. So my question is that more kids in that category and or more seriously high needs kids. And then my third part to this question is, you know is is Amherst just proportionately there and compared to North Hampton surrounding schools, and could the state help us out so if we went and looked at where the circuit breaker threshold is on where the state comes in. So is there are there issues and I'll ask this about charter secondly but issues we should be raising to the mandian Mindy and Joe level that would help any district that wants to make sure they're doing well by special needs kids as you said you know providing what the kids needs. It would become a magnet for for for children because of the reputation and get high need kids as a result of that, that the state circuit breaker could help so it's that three part it's disproportionate compared to regular. I think that the end result where you're watching looking at every day is squeezing out the breadth of other programs we can offer because where you have to live within this restricted budget. So I'll stop with that is my first question. I think we can start and I'll ask Doug maybe to do a little bit on circuit breaker. He'll do better than I will at that but I think what you're seeing isn't what you're saying is an accurate reflection we are seeing more students who come in with not just special learning needs, or learning needs so the number of students we have who whose ips from when they turn three require a nurse assistant to be with them to access the curriculum. It's higher than what we've seen right and our preschool staff have been noting this for a number of years that they're seeing more and more students with more significant needs I think favorite ease. And as a public meeting she said it before in a public meeting it's you know she's not trying to advertise how good a job we do it special ed we just do it. But I, you know, bluntly, there's a reality to that and you know special education parents have networks and communicate about districts that are supporting the children at high level, and not just public schools all schools. And, you know, for better or worse, and I think it's, you know, better for kids and perhaps worse fiscally we do have a reputation of working collaborative families to provide the resources that they need to be successful and so this is a desirable community that way. There's a lot of internal programs that's atypical, especially in Hampshire and Franklin County so if you want if you have a student with intensive needs and you don't want to send them out to a day program. There's not many school districts that have. First of all that are large enough frankly and this isn't a critique of I mean if you're in Hadley. It's a wonderful school district there's not a it's a such a small district there's not going to be enough students with similar needs to create a program in our situation that's a little bit different we do have the capacity that way. So it is something we're aware of it's something we talk about frequently. Dr Brady is actually having some of those conversations are special ed director with principles right now. We also have a community that requests. Special Education requests, it can come from family can come from the school and we have a very active community and that's a great thing and, but it also means compared to some of our neighboring districts. Parents rightfully advocate for the services that their children need and, and we try to collaborate when we can. It's not to say that every family would say that their needs. The child's needs are fully met in the district with special needs I we have data to show that that's not the case. But the cost piece of it is is real and we are it's it is a concern that we have. And it's still the students who are in front of us right and taking care of the needs has to be the highest priority but Doug can speak a bit about circuit breaker and how that works which is a partial reimbursement it doesn't fully reimburse the cost but it is somewhat helpful fiscally for us. Right so generally speaking the way it works is the, the legislature will fund a circuit with it, you know circuit breaker at a certain level and what that happened what happens is this is that in order to qualify for that type of reimbursement first off your your expenses for given job will have to be four times a base rate so they have a sort of per pupil base rate is in the 12 to $13,000 range your overall expenses have to exceed four times that number. Before you can even ask for reimbursement then once you get above that threshold, then they reimburse at a particular percentage of, so it's not 100% once you get above that it's a percentage of that. And that's about, you know, what that percentages is based on what the funding looks like at the state level so if they fund the circuit breaker, you know, large, you know, to a greater extent that percentage goes up and we get more support for us in that regard. And so, it's a pretty high bar, I mean, to get the four times the sort of base level of cost is in the order of $45 to $50,000. That's a, that's a pretty expensive amount of work and support we're giving a kid. But nonetheless we have some students to qualify in that area and we, we definitely leverage the option to seek that funding. Just to on the legislative end then I know that's what's in the law now so if we were we meeting the larger we have the town or we the you were to say what would happen if we lowered it to three times and or increase the percentage. How many districts would benefit that, what would be the benefit to Amherst, you know, have we done either, not recently have we ever done that kind of analysis and and or provided it then to our two legislative leaders. I can jump in a little bit which is to say that this is part of the Student Opportunity Act and some of the work was circuit breaker was a honestly a highly charged item, because it benefits all districts and the idea of the Student Opportunity Act was primarily to equal out disparities and funding between districts that do spend have a high purple purple cost because they have a tax base that can support that or is willing to support that versus more urban districts that don't have that so you know but it certainly would help an awful lot it would also help if circuit breaker was fully funded but the big thing that I would ask your question though it's a bigger ask. So there's the idea funding, which is the federal special education funding, which when idea, I'm guessing 6070s I think it was early 70s when idea was passed. There nowhere close to funding their original commitment on idea. So, you know, actually, if a real serious we collectively are real serious about special education costs actually don't think the state is necessarily. It's the most convenient place right we know the legislators personally all those things but at the federal level they're wildly underfunding their commitment to special education and, you know, I think they're funding it. I'm a little nervous in a public meeting but it's well under half that I feel comfortable saying that the federal government's commitments and idea or be being never close to funding even half of what the original commitment was. Yeah, that's helpful. So there's a, you're suggesting that if we do a ledger, if we do a focus it might better or be both levels but definitely should not forget the federal level. Yeah, it's really the only thing they fund for the most part, in substantive ways, you know, most of the funding comes from local to state in terms of public schools a special ed is the one piece where the federal has a pretty large impact on those other grants that they do like title one but idea is a big special education funding source for districts. I don't want to take up too much of the time, Andy, but the other question I had is similar to this on charter when Yeah, yeah, so should I just give everyone else a chance to ask a question Lynn. Like, several people have questions on special ed, rather than jump around I'd like to special ed so. I'll come back. So, Bernie was your question about special ed. Yeah, it was on circuit breaker specifically and I just wanted one of the good doctors to refresh my memory is my memory of the circuit breakers. It's, it's retroactive. We have to put up 100% of your costs, and then at some point in the future the state will reimburse you whatever they figure out your, your, your, your do under the circuit breaker so you're looking at getting money back in the following fiscal year frequently. That's correct that there is a lag of basically a year. So the expenses we submit from this year would be paid to us next year. They do have if you have an extraordinarily expensive placement that comes in submit year a kid moves to town that has an extraordinarily expensive placement they do have an option that allows you to get immediate relief. But by and large, yes it's a year lag. Thanks. Anything else. Thanks. And looking at the, the first page of the detail budget, and then also page 38. I see a rise in costs in special ed, but a decrease in staff. Am I reading that correctly. You want to take this one chair. This one piece that you should know generally about. So that list of additions and reductions that we have, those have not been applied in the detail part of the budget, they're only, they're still in a lump sum, sort of at the, at the bottom right before the grand total. And so the, the, the salary lines that would be associated in special education are still reflecting that the, the values that are in the, in that reductions list so that, that increase would be reduced by, you know, the amount on that which I think is about $95,000. So that, that year over year change of 200 someone thousand which would reduce by about 95,000 with the proposed reductions. And then the other changes in those costs are, are relative to the staff that we have and, and the needs of students have relative to the staffing that we were projecting there. But when I looked then at page 38 included in the $372,000 worth of cuts seems to be one special ed teacher and one bilingual psychologist I think you already explained that one earlier that you know it's. Yeah, but it's so we're seeing an increase in costs, but yet we're reducing staff. Am I getting that right. You are. You know, some of it has to do with with the steps that that staff get. We're, and this is a broad general sort of statement about all of the stuff we have we're younger than we used to be when I first started working for the district about. We're at the very top step right now we're in the between like 50 and 60% of the staff are are at the top step, which means, you know, the other half essentially are going to get a step step increases for an individual, roughly in the 4% range which puts a lot more pressure on the budget in in, you know, in a year over year basis. Additionally, I think, you know, as we talked about the needs of the students. Sometimes the FTEs don't change as much but who does the work does so if you know if a para educator can do the support a student and that student moves to the middle school and then the kid that comes in that might have a special need now needs someone with with a higher level of sophistication in their training than that person the FTE might not change but the but the cost does because the person for expensive to hire. Thank you. Mandy, do you have your question on special ed? Yeah, it's a follow up to Lynn's the expense account I think she was referencing to on page one shows a special ed increase of $250 plus thousand dollars. Yeah, it's, it's really other than personnel payroll, the only increase in the budget significant increase in the budget there's others. And so what is accounting, I think she asked this earlier, but in pre meeting questions but what is causing that significant increase there. And is that something that will maintain an increase year over year now, in terms of either leveling out at the 400 total, or is it going to be still going up 200 and some K a year after FY 22. I'm going to take this one dagger you want to do it. Go ahead. Okay. So we have historically for most of the years I've been doing this we've had less than two out of district placements at the elementary level so when we feel like we can't meet the educational needs of students. And, you know, we, you know, meet with the team, including the family and figure out the best educational environment. We've had an increase in students whose needs we can't meet in our, despite our special ed program so that that expense is really about two issues. So we wouldn't expect that line to increase unless there were more students who come in that level of needs which we don't have information is the case the students we have, we have had some intensive needs students come in but they fit well within our current programming structure but we've seen an increase and that's really a typical for us at the elementary level to have students at a district as I said most there's been plenty years we've had zero at the elementary level and frankly we pride ourselves on that that our programs are supported to be able to that broad range of students that we have, but we've had students that that we at team meetings they came to an agreement that we weren't the right program to meet the educational needs of that students so it is a repeating cost. So I want to be clear about that to your question, but it's not necessarily an escalating cost. Does that, does that make sense. Okay. So, Kathy, you're the only one not right now with your hand up. Remember to please focus as you pick questions and once you think are important for Dr Morris and because he has to leave in a couple minutes and I do have one question I at least want to pop out. So, but go ahead, Kathy. I said I didn't want to dominate this so if other people have questions I mean my question on charter was similar to the circuit breaker and I can do it later, but it's, it's I wonder when we have a child I don't know how many kids are going for charter schools from elementary and do they bring the average higher amount that we're spending compared to other towns, and does that include the special needs kids in that average higher. And so where I'm going is a change in formula and a change its way it's calculated. So we have that analysis and are we providing that at the Boston level. So it's, I know it's nothing you can do about but I just don't have a sense of how much it affects the budget I didn't see anything that talked about charter leaving and the cost to us. Yeah, so I can I can answer that I think. I do a throwback call to Sean, because we've worked on this a couple years ago in his old role. But the short story is lots of unfair things about the charter formula. One of we're seeing pretty flat attendance, you know, or students going out we're not seeing an increase that way. But you're absolutely right that because we support our special ed students that does increase our per people allotment which then influences how much money charter schools gain by students from Amherst going attending them. So, you know, there's other factors like school choice and that factors in so there's a lot of just very bluntly the charter schools in our area I'm not this isn't a critique but they don't have specialized programs the way we do. I mean, the size isn't there it's not like a broad right I get a lot of virtual tomatoes thrown at me for a lot of things about charter schools this is not a dig at charter schools to dig at the formula that includes intensive needs students in a formula and those schools aren't, you know, in general, programming for intensive needs students which I find broadly unfair as well as out of district students so, you know we could have had a district students that are six digits, you know one student, the tuition based on the tuition may be in the six digits. That gets factored into our cost but it also gets factored into a formula that has nothing to do with the students who are attending charter schools so that because I have to leave in a second because I have a desi conference call. I'm happy to talk offline but Sean has also done a lot of work a couple years ago and we both have the scars to prove it in terms of some discussions about this that some people like some people don't like but in terms in general we have fewer special education students going out for charter schools, particularly as it relates to intensive special needs students. So we have data on that our charter school exodus rate, you know, outright is pretty constant, you know the last three four years. Three years I would say it's gone down one year it's been pretty flat so we're not seeing an increase we're not seeing a decrease. I do you know that money that we charter choice, it does come out of the budget from the town so you know some other communities and I'm not advocating for this, like belcher town. The money from charter, those costs are borne by the town not directly by the district that's not how we do it here in Amherst I'm not complaining I'm not advocating but it different towns allocate the charter school costs differently. So when you think about per pupil cost, and that's why it's a funny number is it's, you know, we have this dance about well we reimbursed the town for the year before other towns don't organize things that way. So it's, it's a longer conversation than probably we have capacity or time for now but one I'd be happy to engage in and I'll answer, because I do have desi text to me because I got to be on a conference call with them right now ironically but one other question you can answer you emailed Kathy is about Wildwood utility cost being greater than Fort Rivers utility costs and shockingly I know they answer that one because I don't do well in utilities but Wildwood is oil heat. And Fort River was updated I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 years ago to gas heat we had plans to look at that for Wildwood. There was the moratorium. Because the building I'm in right now at the middle school, you know is across the fields from Wildwood and is on gas. When we met and the moratorium happened and that's where we are but that's why there's a cost difference is that in general oil is more expensive than than gas. And I leave you in the very capable hands of Dr slaughter again I apologize for the date change I couldn't change this other meeting it wasn't, you know, desi calls I got to do what they got to tell me right. Thank you. I'm sorry about that. The other question I was going to ask just so you know and I because you can, if I can answer you can take it up in another format and that is whether you've thought about the process for allocating us or and recovery act funds are available to the schools and what they might be used for any of the budget reductions if possible. If that was something you were thinking about. But I'll leave it to Doug if you can answer it and if not we'll take it up in the later format. I'll give you my 32nd and Doug will do more but on SR three which is the most recent stimulus we don't have desi send an email to this like we don't have the actual amount. Or do we have specifics unintended use or allowable uses it says it's loosely like that other ones except you have this and this and that so we're still waiting is a short story on SR three. It's a multi year grant. So, at this point we're still in a holding zone but I've talked to Paul and Sean who have been fabulous throughout this process with Doug and I about you know both the municipal and the school and once we get more clarity having conversations about what that would look like going forward but I will leave you and Dr Salar's cable hands again I apologize to have to leave earlier than intended with the date change but I hope you all have a lovely weekend and those you mothers have a wonderful Mother's Day this weekend. Thank you. So, um, I just want to make a request that creates an equal playing field and that is as much as superintendent Mars is always so willing to do stuff offline. It's really not appropriate that questions get asked to him and then not shared in terms of answers with everyone so if we feel we need to bring somebody back or we feel we need to create a set of questions I think that's great but the offline isn't really doesn't create the level playing field of knowledge. Thank you. That's a good point and I raised the question I raised because I thought it was a general interest and that we would as a committee. I don't know the answer to but certainly should not be. I agree with what you said about everything should be done for the benefit of the entire committee and not offline. Um, Kathy, did you had other questions that had been posted in advance and Doug might have answers to. Okay, I have one more. Central I literally did what I think is a sort of a simplistic way of looking at things and I went to the four year increase and everything anything that was not in the same per year so central administration, compared to school administration goes up much faster. Again, as a rate of increase over that four years. And I don't. My, my bigger question is, what is the total central administration cost, and can we see that somewhere, because you allocate that then down to regional and elementary as I understand it right, you know so central administration has to be priced out somewhere. So I didn't know whether maybe this was the allocation changed, you know that more of it was going to elementary that gone before, or whether it's a staffing that someone moved out of school administration up to central but it was enough of a difference so one went up by 17%. The other went up under two over the four years so I wasn't looking at tiny differences. So that was my, my other overarching question when I just looked at change over time. So I'll start with the first question first which was around how we apportion those costs between the different, the three different districts that we work with here. We really haven't changed that significantly over the last couple years. So that's, that's not probably much of a driver in that regard there may be individuals that the apportionment between districts has changed a little bit I think that's likely a bit of a driver I think there's also some, there's been some. I don't want to necessarily say central office additions there's there have been some, some work and positions in the central that are now being essentially charged to the central office that had been, you know, you go far enough back we're kind of moved out into either regular education or in school level educational costs and then come back so like our curriculum directors cost is one that's come on in the last couple of years. We've had curriculum directors and people in those roles over the, over the intervening years but at times it's been, you know, shared out into the school administration and now it's more centralized. And also, the staffing that supports the, the central offices around communication and clerical and administrative support that kind of thing has had some changes in the last couple years. And so that's probably also that that probably that is a little bit of it as well it's not a huge piece but you know it did bring some people into that central office staffing area that that would have caused that increase as well. As far as the school administration costs. You know that that has stayed fairly flat because we've got, you know, we've had three buildings with a principal and assistant principal and their clerical staff and that's all stayed pretty much the same so what you're seeing there is is is pretty unchanged over the last several years so the increases there are relative to people's steps and call us. Thanks Doug. I actually, I also asked a question about facilities and even since I've asked it. Something that was said today sparks me to push a little more. And that is that I know that we were able to make some serious accommodations. I mean, in both Fort River and Wildwood, but now that we have students coming back in more in greater numbers. What in fact, are we doing about our facilities that allows us to still abide by the state guidelines. And I know that you have an increased amount here in facilities under expenses, which is what my original question was, but it does seem to me that we've got two schools that I'm actually we have three elementary schools that I'm not clear how you can do desks apart whatever level they're supposed to be and, you know, still have kids not sitting on windowsills. So, I'll be able to answer that to some degree, not probably to the fullest amount that the superintendent certainly could but but I'll certainly answer some of that so I'll start with your original question which was relative to sort of the coming years budget. There are a few pressure points on on that facilities area and and so in that facilities area and expenses have our utilities and so, you know, when you guys raise the water and sewer rates that's an expense that gets passed on to us. I mean, I'm not going to blame you guys for I mean the need to do that was was necessary and as necessary so you know I've sat in the select board chair and voted for those increases in other years so I do appreciate the need there but it does have that impact on us. A little bit. Those are small they're not huge dollar amounts but they do contribute to that. You know the the anticipation of fuel costs for the coming years is another one. And so those those are the ones I can think of off top my head that that are starting to pack that facilities use the increases in well transportation is held separate there. So those are those are the primary ones I would say they're in and in general talking about sort of the space question, you know it is it is real is it is a complicated one fortunately at this point in time for this year. You know as we bring the kids back, you know we're still at a much lower numbers, you know, kids had the option to remain in remote and so we didn't think about 75% decided to return it in person so that's one piece that's kept the current circumstance such that we can fit within the spaces we have. But I think also as we go into next year the utilization of space is going to be very different, especially for river and and Wildwood by virtue of the modifications we made, we're going to leverage spaces like cafeteria spaces differently. I'm sure we're going to use outdoor spaces, much more often. So we are, you know, continuing to plan and think about that I think the other thing that's, that's a really open question for us and this gets to, I think when you had said us is enrollment I think that's such an open question for us this coming year. You know, we've, you know the drop from last year to this year was pretty significant. That's a much, much larger drop than it would normally be the case. We expect a fair number of those students to come back but exactly who will or who won't, and how much and is very dependent upon very individual decisions we just don't know so you know we're kind of planning on about the same number of students we have this year, it probably will be a little larger than that. But, you know, we'll be spending our time and are already spending time thinking about those spaces and how to activate those and we're doing some more work in regard to air quality and some spaces so that we can leverage more of those buildings for student use that might not be in use right now. Jane. Do you have a question. Yeah, I. The one that I'm thinking of right now I have a handful but I'm going to address this one first so I'm looking at the school administration budgets and I'm looking at the payroll for principal and assistant principal and it looks like at Crocker farm and Wildwood. In the pre the principals are getting a pay cut and the assistant principals are either remaining flat or in the case of Crocker farm there's a slight increase but I are we having do we have that much staffing turnover or like what would the reason for a decrease for the in the payroll for the principal and not even a slight bump for the assistant principal. I guess that just seems a little hinky. This is where I get to be embarrassed because, because I believe in reviewing that in going from last year to what we budgeted and put into the budget last year for our principals was was incorrect to be perfectly honest. So, most, most of those type of staff have a base salary and then they have a few things like longevity or additional pay for for doctoral degree those types of things there are a few different categories of additional pay that people receive. And I think we double counted the additional pay so in each in each of those cases there was a few thousand dollars for those principles that we essentially double counts we over budgeted in the current year. So we corrected that for fiscal 22 it makes it look like we're cutting their pay which really isn't the case. The other general, you know, approach we've taken with with those folks is that, you know, we are in negotiations and so in the short term we, we will. We'll have step increases for our system principles principles all are on what's called committee action. And we, we hold those at a 0% COLA until decisions made for the district generally and that involves, you know, a broad set of factors but you know some of the negotiation with the unions on their potential COLA. So what we, you know, we, we have accounted for potential cost of living increases, but not directly in the line that it sits in right now. I guess it's the best way to describe that. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Mandy. So I was looking at the total budget not just for this year and I know I've been concentrating on a lot of cuts and how you guys present a budget and then level services and then all these cuts and all but I was looking at the projecteds for the next couple years and all of the payroll account increases and, and then looking at the projected from the manager budget which also projects budgets for elementary schools. I'm concerned, and I'm concerned about payrolls increasing above 2.5% a year and I don't know whether we can change that or not. But as you know we've got caps on how much we can increase our property taxes, and you have projected in your budget, a three and a half percent increase every year for level services and then an actual 2.7 increase in sort of the funded budget the projected actual budget, the managers project projected a two and a half increase in out years. So, right off the bat they don't even agree. But what is the school's plan, given that we likely can't go much above 2.5% any year when payroll, and this is going to be a question for the manager and all when we get to that so it's not just the schools when payroll increases above 2.5%. And so I think that the, that is, that's a difficulty we face I mean I think that, you know, at, like I said earlier, you know our staff are getting younger so they're not all at the top step. You know if everybody said the top step then, as long as your coal is less than the, the prop two and a half limitation, you know your salaries stay within the bounds of what you need to have happened. You know it is it's an inherent structural problem we have. I don't deny that we, you know this, the difference between our steps in our, in our salary grid is about what I said before about 4% on average. And so that does pose an inherent conflict. And I'll say just about those projected out years I did not spend a lot of time reviewing or thinking about the projection percentages I used. I mean I did some, obviously I wasn't, but I also took very conservative numbers so you know for example, if you were to look closely at the line that contains pensions I, you know it has a fairly large jump from one year to the next. So that goes for 5% it's got a health insurance increase of three to 5%. You know those may not always be the case our increase in insurance issue was 1%. So, you know, those are things that that help offset those increases in just raw salaries from folks but there's no doubt that that's a that, you know, we have an awareness of that structural problem that we have. And I think on the town side they do too as far as their contracts and and their staffing is concerned they've got the same.  But, but nonetheless it does. And it is a clear point of concern for us as we move ahead that we keep in mind as we're hiring as we're staffing as we're thinking about the number of kids we have. And we're thinking about what's possible. You know the, the fortunate thing in Amherst is there is some new growth which helps make the overall increase from one year to the next more than just the prop two and a half, you know you get into some of the smaller communities that we partner with in a regional school district, you know, you know, Pelham levered shoes break their new growth could be very very small. And so they're really, you know, two and a half is really kind of the reality for them on a year over year basis Amherst has fortunately some new growth most years that helps draw that number up a little higher than two and a half percent, but that's certainly something as as a district and any department for that matter in the in the in the town keep that in mind as to how to how to stay within the revenue that's available to it to the community. Linda. Something else. Yeah, thank you. So, I'm sticking on the same theme on the issue of salaries and I remember a conversation that I believe took place during the regional school budget discussions about the possibility that someone like town manager might be involved or his design may might be involved in contract negotiations on other than just with the town but also on at representing the town in the school and I didn't know if that had happened or if it is happening. And then I have another question. I really don't know. Unfortunately, the superintendent might have been able to answer that one but I can't. I don't know if they've connected that way or not. I mean, it's a, it's a huge burden to ask him but at the same time, there did seem to be some interest during the regional school meetings of having the town kind of sitting at the table if you will during those negotiations. Perhaps, you know, I hate to say it bringing some of the reality of something that, for instance, like thing manager just pointed out. The thing is, and this really goes back to the broader question of enrollment trends, and I understand it's a particularly and this year, it is a complete and free flowing picture. Okay, but my standpoint, what would be most useful is to understand by school by elementary school by grade. The enrollment trend has been over the last five years, and then update that. I mean, higher ed uses October as its date, I think I actually elementary and secondary uses October as its date as well. I think that might be a federal number, a federal kind of landmark but just so we can understand and I think part of the understanding there is, again, you know, a class of 25 is not acceptable and Amherst. But, at some point, how do we deal with a class where there might be two and a half sixth grades, instead of two sixth grades, and how do we start thinking about that. I'm particularly interested in that, as Andy has suggested, this is actually at the regional level, but as we start looking at the impact of overall decline in birth rates in New England, and particularly how it affects Amherst, and it's continuing. I mean, it's just, we're, we're not, we're not nice warm states where people want to live. Well, I think that it's a request going forward. Right.  The hardest one to predict is the kindergarten because you know the only thing you've got is is births and Amherst from five years previously is the only number you've got and that's, you know, a lot of people with young children move frequently, I guess is the simplest way to say it. So it's not a real indicator of what's going to show up on your doorstep. I mean, the trends have been downward. And I think they'll continue to be in that same range at the same time I personally see and this is just my own observation so it's a bit of just an opinion, but you know, Amherst is making an investment in affordable and I think we will see some moderation of the decline by virtue of that to some extent, I don't think it's going to be huge, but I do think it will moderate that that decline a little bit for the for the next few years and I think depending on our housing policies and Amherst particularly, it's still a very attractive place to live it's a fairly expensive place to live though so it is, you know why we have a bit of a bimodal, you know, economic picture in Amherst where we have fairly well to do and fairly not so well to do and not a lot of middle and our schools reflect that in a lot of ways. And, and so I think that we definitely, you know, we definitely look at those kind of numbers regularly we you know certainly in the process with the with MSBA and the, the building one of the critical sort of first steps is trying to get good numbers of what do we think our future looks like for enrollments because they don't want to build a building that's way too big or way too small for a building that's going to last a long time so they try to go through a fairly arduous process to identify how many kids you're going to have what you're doing so they're going to be. I know certainly when when you have the structure we have, and, and you try to have the right number of classes in each of the grade levels. It gets tricky. You know, because you know you have that. You've got 36 kids in say third grade so you go oh that's two classes of 18, but if you had 30 which go to 15, you know, there are these weird break points with adding a section or taking away a section. We try to be proactive in thinking about that I mean certainly at the kindergarten level in years past we've done things where we move kids to a different building. Just because the, the need to keep those class sizes as small as we like to was was such that that was a case and we've done that and, and, you know, we generally stay within the targets that the school committee is set and and and are able to have those section sizes in that regard but but there are certainly years that we have some, you know, some things where it's, it's pretty expensive because you'll have, you know, 16 or 17 in class instead of 20 or 21 and that makes that class a lot more expensive. There's just no way around saying it. And that is, if the school building committee and emis and go for the larger single larger elementary school to replace two current elementary schools that will provide us more flexibility I assume.  I don't know if the conversations will head in that direction again but certainly a, you know, two schools versus three gives you a little more ability to keep those class sizes balanced and, you know, then two buildings does that better than three does as far as key to his class size is more on target with with what you want and and to be efficient with it but don't know how that will all play out. Kathy, unless your question is along the same lines. I know that Dorothy and George had their hands up and then I was going to come back to you. Mine was just an offer as part of the elementary school building project. There were estimates, somewhat what you're asking for land about class sizes and each of the cohorts and I'd be glad to send that to everyone. There's a grid. That's it. My thumbs up from Lynn. Thank you for that suggestion. Dorothy. George. I am concerned about some way for our school to get more control of what's going on, because right now, there's no limits on to terms of special ed, and the balance could tip. So that there's lack of equity for the other students. And of course, one of the reasons is incentive you have a good program, people want to come to a good program, but an incentive to get other people into your school system is good kindergarten and universal pre K. That would get people to say I want to live in Amherst and go to that school. Right now, I just, it just seems you're just too reactive to what happens outside of you and without much, much way of controlling it. I have some comments on class size. In neighboring schools, 18 seems to be the top number of students that most people want in elementary school. And at Holyoke Community College, they're having some in person classes this fall. They're capping those classes at 10. I think any class over 18 is getting into not good territory for average students who will learn to be absolutely quite as mice and say nothing if the bigger the class gets. So, I'm just wondering if you've had thoughts about ways of getting a little bit more control over what kind of classes you have. I'll speak to that a little bit. So, in speaking relative to special education, we're required to, the term that gets used is faith, which is free and appropriate public education. So some of the requirements by federal law for funding and support requires that you provide what's necessary for a child to access the curriculum. And, and so that's, you know, so when the kid, you know, it shows up on our doorstep where we have a, you know, an obligation, and that's immutable in some respects. There are things we can do as far as our programming that that and we do look at, you know, do we, and we review regularly to try to keep those costs as, as reasonable as we can, given the, given the, you know, expectations of what we're trying to do and, you know, and I think that the, you know, if parents are going to shop around where they live, which they do, I mean people do that whether the kids that has special needs or not they should, you know, it's, it's a result of how our system set up relative to property tax bang, the line share and state taxes bang the other part of it. But I think that, you know, we certainly look at how we're expending and how expensive our, our, our programming is and how best to make those as efficient as we can to keep them at a high level of performance but also at a, at as reasonable price as we can. So we're, we're routinely looking at those, those types of things, certainly and, and, and obviously, you know, in some ways, I would suggest, you know, some would talk about the fact that that we're in a competitive market because of charter schools and the options and school choice that the options that family has to choose different schools. So, you know, we try to offer things that that help retain our students in our buildings. And that's one piece among many reasons that, you know, we have the common on days program in in Fort River is to help provide that differentiating factor that might encourage a family to be or move into Amherst. And so, you know, we are thinking of those kinds of things as best we can. But we do operate under some limitations, there's no doubt. But, but certainly, you know, if you have other suggestions, we're happy to hear them and, and think about it. Obviously, you know, there are, like I say around like special education, we are compelled by law to meet those requirements and morally as well but but certainly legally and financially we are in addition. Just to follow up on the preschool question though. So, you know, is there a way of having more preschool as a way of making the district more attractive to more people. I think, and I'm going to probably be outside my realm of expertise here, but I believe so is the short answer I would say there I think we certainly look at it and there are some, you know, given the things that were compelled to do and certainly I think that, you know, growing the, the, the peers part of the program for the kids that don't have the needs is certainly an area that we've looked at and certainly continue to look at and, and have to strike the right balance as far as capacity to do that but yeah absolutely I think that's something we look at. What I'm going to do is I'm going to recognize George and then I'm going to actually see if there's any public comment that people from the, who are attending the meeting from the public wish to come back while we're on the subject of schools because we can come back for a second round really get to other programs but when we draw close to schools. I want to do that to George. Yeah, just really not a question and I apologize for that but just two comments though, if I'm off base here with my claims effect, I would very much like to be corrected. I've been looking at enrollment data over five years which is fine but when I look at enrollment, I'm looking over 20 years we're seeing a decline in enrollment that goes back to the beginning of this century. According to the numbers that I've put together and I, perhaps they're not right but I'm looking at a figure of like 32% decline from 2001 to the present, give or take. It's a steady decline that's been going on for quite some time not just the last four or five years is my reading of what I see. So that is deeply concerning. Just looking at four or five years you think oh well 4% you know whatever but it's it's it's huge is my sense. And if I'm wrong I need to be corrected. The second is that I think there isn't real need for a broader conversation and I know that a number of us have spoken about this, both at the regional level, and with the elementary school. We basically it seems to me have two groups one that negotiates salaries and makes commitments that go on for years, and another group that's responsible for trying to figure out how to balance the budget. Those two really don't seem to be, you know, as far as I can see, in close conversation and so here we are trying to figure out, as Mandy raised the question earlier, how is this sustainable over time, combined with the decline in enrollments, I get really concerned and as a representative of constituency, I need to be able to explain this to people and give them a sense of what what the future is going to look like, and explain to them. What are the costs that that we're facing and I'm saying that I can't do that, but right now I really struggle to be able to do that so I'm hoping that over the summer. Given all the other demands we have on us that we'll have an opportunity at the elementary level for sure but hopefully the regional level to dive deeper and have a much deeper and frank conversation about some of these concerns. So that's just my two cents. If I could just offer a little comment there. Yeah, I, the, so technically the, the negotiations with the unions is done with the school committee. They normally go into, you know, and obviously they get support from from administration, the school committee gets support from administration to help them inform their, their negotiations and their process in that regard but at the same time, you know, the, the, the folks on the school committee, you know, are fairly aware of the constraints and under which the town operates and it's critical, you know, to communicate to them. Would like to. I think it's important to communicate to them. The constraints and, and the pressure you guys are feeling as counselors, relative to, you know, their choices and their actions that are making. But it is a true negotiation so it is one where both sides have to have to come to an agreement. And so, you know, I'll, I'll largely leave it at that but it, but the school committee is the is the primary negotiator with the union and so those folks are elected officials of the town and, and, and I would strongly encourage you or any citizens to engage with the process and, and, and provide them with information about, you know, the constraints under which the town's operating and, and keep them aware of, of those limitations that, you know, the town faces is, you know, I mean I think they are in, in, in, in, I personally would suggest that they are pretty informed about that but at the same time, you know, they don't do it every day like you guys do. Just a quick follow up, you would agree with me Doug that the enrollment decline is something that's been going on for quite some time. Yes, absolutely. There's no doubt that that's, it has been a long, you know, the, the treaty this year has been a bit in that, but yeah, the trend has been long standing in Amherst, you know, and Western Michigan really that we've had a decline and, and, you know, the, the unfortunate thing from the standpoint of sort of the structure of your school is because you have class sizes of say 20 or 25, you know, somewhere in that range, you have to lose that many students in that building in that grade to reduce by one, you know, so it tends to be the transitions between, you know, 65 elementary school teachers to 64, you know, those tend to come in steps. And so there's often it doesn't track quite as smoothly as the decline in enrollment. And so that's, that's a tricky thing to sort of see, you know, but if, if we were to look back in 2000 2001 and look at the number of like elementary classrooms we had versus now, we would close the school building in the meantime by virtue of that decline in enrollment in about 2009 2010. So we'll, we may continue to see that. And I think that's, that's, you know, for, for, for Kathy and in the group on the, on the building committee that's going to be a critical question is they look at those projections of enrollment. How big a building do we want, and do we need as we look forward, and, and try to build the right size to meet our needs now but in the future and, and, and, you know, sort of hit the sweet spot. I had said that I would pause for a moment after George and see if either of the attendees would like to comment. I think one of the attendees is on the telephone, and if that person wishes to raise their hand. The R9 will cause, will let us know that you wish to be recognized. Athena, if you could allow Tony Cunningham to join the meeting so that she can. Tony, are you there. Yes, thank you. We can hear you so. So while I understand the council votes the bottom line, you can still offer feedback on individual lines in the budget. Therefore I'd like to request that you fully fund art and technology teachers in the FY 22 elementary budget. These are driven, these cuts are driven by a decision to replace two full time positions at Crocker Farm with two day per week positions. In addition, the proposal is that the art and technology teachers at both Wildwood and Fort River traveled to Crocker Farm one day per week to teach there. This results in art and technology education at all three schools being reduced from five days per week to four days, and Crocker Farm children possibly having three different teachers for each subject. While each child is still expected to receive one 40 minute class per week, the reduction to four days will dramatically reduce the amount of time available for arts integration and additional projects at each school. I disagree that the enrollment has declined sufficiently to justify these changes. This fall Wildwood will likely have 19 or 20 classes and with six teaching blocks in a day. This means the art and tech teachers will have only one open block to do everything else, including prepping for classes and working on any arts integration projects. Anecdotally, when I asked my child and her friends what the highlight of their fourth grade year was, they said it was the Native American project which was a collaboration between the classroom teacher art library and technology. In third grade, their highlight was the animal adaptation unit which was also a fabulous example of arts integration. There is project based learning like these units that engage many children in school and create lasting positive experiences. These are key differentiating factors to retain families in the district. In my opinion, it is short sighted to make cuts to key differentiators. So if we agree that that we value these subjects the question is how to keep them fully funded in a tough budget year. I would like to share to you all to review where in the budget funds could potentially be moved around, but I would like to suggest that you earmark $75,000 of the expected S or three funds, which are due to be announced in the next few weeks. We saw on Monday that the town manager plans to use 100,000 of the American rescue plan to pay for a capital projects manager. This is a precedent for using these expected funds to pay for staffing. I understand that the budget as presented does not include S or or American rescue plan funds as a separate pot of money. And lastly on a separate issue I noticed the Crocker farm feasibility study improvements have been removed from the pending list in the capital improvement plan. And I would urge that you restore that item to the list as it is a significant cost and will likely be needed to be spent in the next five to 10 years. Thank you. I want to follow up. I guess the one thing that just so that people have been reference made to Esther, which is an unusual name that's elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund and it has been included as a part of each of the federal stimulus assistance. Legislations bills that have been passed in Congress over time. And plus the most recent is the American Recovery Act. And so the other funds are a part of that which were designated for elementary and secondary schools. You know, the rules under which they, those funds can be utilized is, I think, something that is beyond me to explain. So I'm not even going to try. But it is a question of whether Esther can replace the budget cuts like this or is there is a way to do it. I don't. I, I frankly do not have an answer to that for my own knowledge.  Yeah, I just need to note that George will be leaving but since Darcy has joined us we still have a quorum with the council. Yes. Thank you. Bernie Kubiak. I think I said to you a couple of observations actually the school committee has broad broad latitude and how it spends money that it's appropriated by the town to the point where the budget is could actually be considered to be more of a suggestion and an actual spending plan and I've unfortunately seen that done, not with this school committee, but with with another. One of the, one of the problems we have with two and a half was designed to start the beast. It wasn't designed to be helpful was designed to force governments to be smaller. That's a problem we always face, but looking at what's been said about the composition of the faculty right now. This might be an opportune time to raise the very difficult question of separating out steps and colors. So that you don't get an automatic for four and a half percent salary increase each year. That might have a moderate effect and there may be some ways to massage that to make that happen. It's a difficult, it's a difficult ask. And I'm saying that from someone who's tried. The other observation is that we can't ask the school administration of the school committee to judge how we do land use. And the way we use land right now in town, the town is organized. We don't have an ample supply of workforce or middle income housing. And so we're not going to see no matter how attractive we make preschool, we're not going to see an inflow in the town because people can't afford it. One way that we can and this will come up in other discussions is to to make sure that we have, we have an opportunity to move that 50% of single family homes that are rentals now to move those folks out and make some of that housing available to families. And so that's going to get us into questions later about we talked to the planning board about land use. And when we look at downtown development and the creation of more apartments. Thanks. Thank you. Kathy. Yeah, I want to do a follow up on the public comment we just had with a question. The timing Doug, if, if we learn more about Esser in the next whatever four weeks, five weeks, you know, before July one, the, the art and technology piece that the $75,000, which was a reduction in time. If there can be something done because whether it's a direct offset of that or that the town can shift some money that was in another budget because of some relief somewhere. What does the timing of that have to look like if you were, I wasn't sure whether you were reducing a whole slot so saying goodbye to a person in terms of when you give a termination notice or we're reducing you to part time. So the, we, the way you were reconfiguring the hours to be able to staff the Crocker, we've, we've gotten more than just this one comment on this we just got another one today. But we've had several coming directly to the council to try to do something, you know, and I don't know what the school committee heard so it's, it's a question of if the finance committee said I know we can't put the money but we said Paul we're hearing this. We can do as the manager figure out some way for this piece. So I'm just looking for timing, a timing question. Yeah, so, so just to give you a little piece of this at Crocker farm the, the two staff that are are there in those roles are taking the district ones retiring. So no individual is being is being let go for that purpose will probably believe that the strategy at the moment I don't know. Not 100% sure would be to ask that folks in our other two buildings take a day of, you know, their current full time position, but it would require hiring a point for for each of those. We sometimes partner with, you know, other districts like Pelham that are smaller that have people that are working partial in those in those similar areas. You know, I don't know if the, if, if a person of film would be able or willing to do that or we would have to reach out to, you know, she's very leverage or any, you know, Hadley, you know, any number of schools that have folks in those those sorts of areas to hire a part time person. So that would be for the current structure of what we have as far as, you know, the ability to, to, to hire and plan for for, you know, a full time person. I think that the window of opportunity is there to talk about hiring staff is is there. And that's the mechanics of, of, of the budget. You know, if, if the school committee were to reconsider and change, you know, well if they had, you know, advice that that funding was available and that they were willing to take that up and change that and then I think that it's possible to do that I just, you know, I don't want to do anything like that but I think that the, the town budget because it doesn't have to be passed until, you know, before July one you've got a little more time. You know, the mechanical steps would have to happen between, you know, the manager of the school committee and ultimately the council, but I presume that they would be, it would be possible I believe but the realm of my expertise on some of that, you know, specifics in that regard but and I don't know I have no idea of the school committee's mindset relative to this or quite frankly superintendents as far as if that were to be actively pursued. I don't know. I haven't had the conversations about that so I don't know. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of echo the comments of some of the previous speakers and when we had our conversation about the budget guidelines so many months back, we talked quite a bit about sustainability as being an important piece of the budgets and and the town finances going forward. And we also discussed, you know, two major drivers of sustainability, especially for the schools, which were the declining enrollment and the increase costs of salaries every year and I think it's very clear that those two issues are still very much the issues that we need to be wrestling with. I think special education may be another issue I don't see it as such a big problem right now but if it continues to grow. If the cost continue to grow over time, it could become a third issue of sustainability, but I think right now the biggest issue are really issues are the enrollment and then the people costs basically. So I do echo those, those comments and I think, as I said, I think that's where we need to be focused both as a committee and as, you know, a town on on how we're going to sustain, you know, the quality of education that we have. And if I could, that just reminds me of a point and this goes back to when Andy and I served on finance committee a million years ago but but it's a one I'll bring up at this point, just because I think it's important relative to to this conversation and it's not necessarily specific to the the comment by the by the caller. And that is this is the use of one time money to support your operating budget. And so with something like the Essar funds in particular or other resources that are are not recurring on the on the revenue side in other words, you know, there's not a stream of revenue to continue to support it. You find yourself back to the same problem. It's delayed by your cell. So to go back in history a little bit with the town of Amherst we we got a grant. Oh, goodness, probably 15 years ago or more, probably 20 years ago and it ended 15 years ago that allowed for the hiring of four or five firefighters and the difficulty with that grant was is when that grant ended. And then to let those people go we didn't have the budget to it was not a great budget year and so we didn't have the opportunity to fold those are factor those those new salaries into our, our public safety budget, and that was a really difficult conversation town meeting quite frankly. And I think that there, there are grants we have and town has had over time where it's a, it's a smoother transition in other words they build in that you are taking on a bit more and more of those kind of costs as the grant progresses through. But that is that is one of those concerns anytime you have sort of, you know, one time money like a grant or, or something from reserves that you fund is that then how do you solve the problem the following year or two years down the line or, or that's you talk sustainability that's certainly a factor that's got to be kept in mind, as we, as we consider these kind of options. Good point, even though we're living old times, not always easy. Yeah, I kind of want to echo what Bernie said about we pass a bottom line budget for the school committee, or, and frankly for most of the town. And how the school committee who are elected just like the town council decides to spend that budget is not something we as a town council should probably get too far into the weeds in I would say and I think we have to remember that the school committee was presented with a budget number that Dr slaughter and Dr Morris have been presenting to us today, the town manager did not change that number. And they were fully aware that that seven that one of the cuts plan was to arts integration programs, and they still passed that budget and asked us to pass that budget. So I, I get very concerned when we're looking at simply doing policy when policy on school committee cuts when policy isn't on school committee cuts is not what we as town councilors were elected to do. I just wanted to, I just wanted to echo that because that always concerns me. And that's, you know, at the start of the meeting I said we actually have a way to increase a school committee budget that that we come back to it's not just regional schools, but it requires the school committee to ask us and recommend that we do so but we are present we've been presented with their recommended budget, we haven't been presented with a budget that they passed that then our town manager reduced by $100,000. He passed through the budget they passed. And so that's their recommendation to us and they think we have a, and in some sense an obligation to recognize that they were elected to decide whether those cuts were okay with them and pass a budget on to us and they, they did that. Thank you, Mandy. You're going back to remind me again of the provision in chapter 44 section 32, which provides the, it has to originate from the school committee the request to increase budget and it has to pass by two thirds of the council, in order to increase the school budget and that is that one anomaly. However, is a since you're on the Charter Commission Charter Commission did not include that in the charter. And part of state law and the charter has as allowed by state law. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we're clear on that. So going back to Dorothy then your hand was up and then because I want to try and spend a few more minutes on the schools and then we need to get on to the other subjects. I do think that Mandy's point is very interesting. We have two elective boards, both responsible to the people of the town to represent their needs, and both trying to do it. So that's why you kind of get the second run but I do I do it's an important point. So my question is, what school choice last year. I'm a school choice brings in money to the district, and it wasn't offered. So, you know you lost a couple you lost potentially a number of students who would have come in last year. So, yeah, I'll take that I'll take that question so the, the, the goal with school choice generally is not to increase your costs and so what we would like to do generally in any given year is the students that we take in would be filling in slots so let's say we have small class sizes and while wouldn't we try to, you know, level up those classes and and so we didn't feel at the time that we had any space for new students we certainly kept all the students we had so we still had school choice revenue. And so that's the evaluation we've made each year as far as are taking on students is can we do it in a way that that will generally, you know, augment from a resource standpoint but not necessarily for us. So, you know, that's the rationale we go with it but again it's a bit of, as is always the case with a lot of these things is, you know, a bit of forecasting a bit of principle reading is necessary. You have to make the decisions fairly early relative to the reality on the ground when school starts. The added piece to that is that the amount of money you get from school choice is $5,000. That's what the sending district transfers to the receiving district and $5,000 as well under the cost of educating a student so that if you take school choice to the point of having to add staff which takes in more as more cost than the revenue coming in you get back to the point that my dog is making a plane made. So, Bernie and then Kathy. So just more of a point of information would be helpful and we're going to talk about answer or any other, any other source of funds, other than what we raise and appropriate. It would be helpful to know if what the ground rules around those are if those are simply going to go to the school committee. The school committee for the school committees use whether a grant is simply going to go to town manager. It would be helpful to know who's who's driving the bus in terms of those funds, and not make the assumption that this is that it's fairly appropriated by council. Yeah, I don't know if Sean or Paul have an answer when to answer that. I can speak briefly on that. I think Bernie's right I think as their money goes straight to the schools that does not come through the town. It goes through title one so it's right, Doug, or it's goes through title one allocation so that goes for straight to the schools. ARPA money we imagine will be similar to how cares money came in, but we're not sure until we see the detailed rules, which again we hope to see, along with the other money, any week now, but they've been saying that for, I think, MMA had a article like four weeks ago saying detailed guidance coming soon. So their definition of soon is four to six weeks I think. So we're really eager to see what those rules are and and we'll update the committee as soon as we get them. Kathy, did you have anything your hand was up. No, I just forgot to take my hand down. Sorry. Okay. So, I think that we've spent a fair amount of time in school so I do want to get on have some time for the remaining agenda items sitting to do such services. So, I wanted to see if there any last questions man to your hand is get something else. It's not for the school it's it's more about. I wasn't sure whether today would be the community discussion on community responder because it was not really included in any of your finance committee agendas so I'm trying to figure out where that portion of community services when that portion of community services will be discussed. So we're going to take that up as soon as we finished and I think the, because that is not good. There's not a clear answer to that. I think the committee needs to discuss that. So just see who loves up on school so that Doug can get on top of things with his deck because we really appreciate your spending this much time with this dog. Pat, did you have something. My question doesn't have to do with the schools and just asking a budget clarification. So thank you, Doug, Mr slaughter. As always for your good work. Okay. So, nothing else to this point on the schools, Kathy, I know you had a long list so I think that you had already sent them and got some responses already. I know. Okay. Thank you very much, dog. I appreciate it and thank Mike. I'm sorry that we got messed up with the hosting having been missed but having to put it off for a day. I appreciate the flexibility and sorry that he wasn't able to stay with us longer but we understand that this is an important competing process. So anyway, thank you very much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you guys for having us and we appreciate the time you, you've allowed for us and certainly reach out to us if you have other questions. Thank you. So let me get back to the question that was just raised about the community responder program. It technically is under social services, and therefore it is on the agenda for today's meeting. But I actually had been thinking about that for a while because a couple of additional factors one is that we haven't seen the report from the working group yet and it looks like the timing is going to be difficult. We might see the report but it won't have been presented to the council for council discussion. If we before we probably have to address it in this committee given the fact that we have a time limit on our work to. So, that's the problem. One of the ideas that I had come up with was to at least postpone it until the day that the police budget is heard, because they tie together in a obvious way that I won't have to, I don't really don't have to state. I think that we might have the working group report by that date, though, won't have been, as I say discussed in the council at that point. So I had sent something to Sean and Paul to ask their thoughts about that scheduling and probably should just clarify that now. Because it sounds like that's why you might want to stay with the meeting or not. So is there any comments from the committee and Paul. So I think you should not talk about it today because the community safety working group isn't here and I think they should be they would want to be present. They have, I know they've posted an extra meeting for an early next week to work on their report to get it to you sooner. Their anticipation is that it would be discussed on May 13 when you talk about the police budget. That's their expectation, but that was not, you know, you can make your decision on when you want to bring it up. But they were saying, oh, public safety is going to be discussed on May 13. We should be prepared for that. I think having clarity on when it is going to come up would be helpful to everybody. But it shouldn't be today because clearly nobody's ready for it today. So, I guess my question then to the rest of the finance committee is. Is there any objection to postponing the discussion of the social services section, which is really just that part of the community services budget until the 13th when we and then added to that agenda and I do know that that will make for a busy agenda that day. But all of our agendas turn out to be busy agendas. I think that is absolutely appropriate. I think it would be in really not appropriate for us to have that discussion without some significant notification to the community safety working group and I also would suggest that we set a time specific in on that day when we will have that discussion. And furthermore, I think we should actually have some level of interaction with them about whether or not they're available during these hours, since they have generally been meeting at five o'clock. And perhaps for the purpose of this discussion, we need to be more flexible in our time. Okay. So, thank you for that suggestion. John or Paul can check with them just to make sure that that works and but if there's no objection from the committee and I'll look for hands raised is to do cater that somebody wants to be raised to object that we will not discuss it today and as chair that I will add it to the agenda on the 13th if it's agreeable to the working group and they can have representation present and feel that they're ready to present the discussion. So seeing no objection, then that is what the plan is and we will focus on senior center and veteran services for which are the two parts of the budget that we can discuss today. Yes, Lynn. So in other words, we're saying finance committee, which could be committee of the whole is going to have the discussion with the community safety working group before they present to the council. This is, it's becoming very difficult all the way around because they have actually said at the last meeting that they would like to present at the council on the 24th, which sets back even later than the 17. I don't, I don't have a great solution to resolve this. I just am saying that seems a little backward to have them come to the finance committee meeting before coming to the council. No, I think that's a problem and of course, what we're having to deal with and maybe we should take this up separately and then come back to the committee, either by email or next Thursday with further report on this. But our last day of budget review is the 20th. We're still out of sync on time and then we have a meeting for the 20. Excuse me, we have one meeting left, I guess we have the 27th. Yeah, Andy we could. I mean we could still do the different departments on the 13th, but we could also have a follow up conversation on the 27th because I think there is. It's not scheduled to be a full meeting the way it is right now it just has conservation development, which I think would probably be maybe an hour and a half for those three groups. So it's possible that something we put on to the to that meeting on the 27th. What do we have on the 25th, because we have a finance committee meeting that day to what it. That's general government. And there's a lot of sort of smaller departments in that group. The 25th. Oh, sorry, it's whatever the one right before the 27th. Make it my calendar. PRC meeting that's why you don't have one scheduled for the 25th. Yes, I think the 20th this one we're doing general government. Yeah. Okay, yes. Okay. Okay, because Lynn asked since I'm not a finance member that if it's not getting discussed today and it sounds like it's not I'm going to cut out of the meeting and leave it now which I believe leaves the council without a quorum. Yes. Then in that, in that case, town council meeting is adjourned, the finance committee meeting continues. Thank you. I have another question that's not related to community safety working group. So whenever whenever you're ready, but Pat. Okay, Pat. Yeah, I just want to budget clarification. I was, I understand that as a town council, we can only just. Pat, I think you're frozen. Yeah. Let us know if there's something that needs to be resolved. We'll get back to Pat's question when she's available to ask it.  It's my other the other thing I want to talk about. And I'm more than willing to wait on that. But let me go ahead. Since Pat's program. One of the things that we have said is that at each of the town council meetings. As we're going through this budget, there would be updates and at the same time, I have been under the impression that, excuse me, I got kicked out somehow. So, I got kicked out again. Yeah. In two ways I need to ask this question. In the past, we have been. The finance committee report is often been much more very pretty extensive when it came to reporting on the budget. And yet, some people have felt that that really wasn't as necessary. So I, I'm asking what is our expectation for a written report at the end of the budget review reviewed by the finance committee. The second question I'm asking is, what is the expectation or what expectation that we as a finance committee want to set for what it is we will report on on the 17 and on the 24th of May. Okay. Like an answer to my question I apologize I seem to have gotten thrown out of the meeting. Come back with the rest of your question and then we'll come back. I'm trying to understand. Last year when we wanted to, we had to freeze two positions and that gave us some flexibility because I understand that as a council and we cannot decrease a line item and then move money. However, it does say in the charter that upon the recommend, except on the recommendation of the town manager we can't increase. So if the town that puts a lot of responsibility on Paul to make recommendations about changing funding and I think that there needs to be quite a bit of conversation about changing funding for the press program. And so I'm trying to understand how we go about that. Because it seems to me that yes Paul makes the recommendation, but we need to give him feedback about what we think should be happening and then he can do he can make his decision. So I'm trying to understand how this is going to work and when we're going to do this. We need to have the discussion of the program. First before we can, but we can move money and and a line item could be increased upon the recommendation of the town manager that would be based on what we were asking him to do. And if the town manager, my understanding that if the time manager makes that request, then we can consider it otherwise. Right, but we can give him feedback and input that might help him decide to make or not make that decision. And I'm trying to understand when do we get to do that. If there's a specific name time that might be just during discussion, I don't know if Paul has any comments on that. And Andy, can I add real quick. Yeah, you know, I think there will, I think we have time set aside at the end of this process for sort of a discussion, sort of a final discussion of the finance committee. The report, and that'll, that's after all the departments have come and spoken and you've finished your review. So that might be one time, sort of when the full picture has been discussed with each of the departments for people to share their thoughts. Okay. But up until that point with a recommendation from the town manager funds could be moved around within the budget. Is that correct. So if I wanted to take $10,000 and move it to public safety. And I and we, when can I have that conversation with the town manager and so I'm assuming now I would have it during the public safety presentation. Right. And then I could say and or the council could say, well, we really want that $10,000. And then if Paul makes that recommendation, it can be moved. Is that correct. Okay. Yep. Okay. Because we've been walked into the know ability to affect Paul and I think that's incorrect. And Paul and I'll talk through this more just to give more sort of organized feedback as well. I think what we've said makes sense, but I just want to think through it more and report back to the whole group on that. Thank you very much. Andy, could I ask, I just want to also just remind that Mary Beth is here for senior services and I know Lynn had a good question about what the final report will look like. So we could hold that till after Mary Beth goes. I think that makes sense. So Mary Beth welcome. Finally getting you. And we appreciate your patience and appreciate the good work that's been going on at the senior center is there any introductory comments that you would like to offer. Yes, there is certainly so first of all, thank you everyone. And here at the senior center we are, if nothing else patient so I appreciated watching the process unfold. And this is much like my day so I have to, I have no qualms, but there are a couple of highlights that I think are probably not as clear in the service statistics that I think you would be interested in that might just sort of inform your governance. The first is I think it's really it's been very interesting to watch the discussion around elementary schools, because I think that this parallels that and I think it's, it's more to the point around demographic changes. And so I just would like you to have in your awareness as you are looking at town planning for the years to come. And so we really need to be considering a plan for aging in Amherst, and the demographics underlie that. So in 2010 seniors defined as people over 60 were 13% of the population. And by 2025 with in Hampshire County it will be 30%. So we are certainly graying in the valley we are graying in Amherst and we are graying in the state of Massachusetts. And I think that that is important because that change in that key demographic also has impact on housing on services, aging in place. And so I just think it's not necessarily an immediate state of alarm, but as your elementary population and enrollment decreases, certainly the needs for people to age in place will increase. You know, even statistically within the country, you know, two out of 10 people feel like they need help in their home to age in place.  I think that there might be some discussion moving forward. And more importantly, I wanted to just link that to one of my key objectives coming up for this year, which is that we're going to be exploring, trying to obtain designation as an age friendly and dementia community, which will allow us to really look at what are the social determinants of health that are important to our community to age, and how we can foster it to be a more inclusive age wise community. And it's not a layout of funds what it really is it's a lens and perspective for making decisions so if you were going to be building a park for instance, and you're going to be installing benches. It would simply be that you'd be thinking that these benches would also have elbow rest so people could push off to get up. And then if you're installing three or four of them you might put one in a quiet area for somebody with dementia. We're not talking about a capital expenditure. We're really talking about a philosophy of embedding that sort of care taking within the decisions that the town makes. So, so that's the first one. Secondly, I think that I would really love to highlight our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion. And I think that I believe I mentioned this the last time but really from the day that I've arrived. The town manager has been really clear with me that he wanted to see a more inclusive senior center, and has been a real supporter with me in terms of recruiting people both for the council on aging, and in terms of any ability that we had to recruit staff that reflected our community more dynamically. So within our council on aging we now have four out of nine persons who represent the BIPOC community. And that's tremendous. And the other piece is that, while I wasn't able to bring in full time staff just because of our staffing patterns and folks are remaining because they like working here. But I was able to apply for and get some full time grants and all of the individuals who filled those positions were BIPOC individuals. So we had persons who didn't speak English they represented a variety of cultures within the community. And it really has brought a real air of inclusivity and also welcome within the senior center. And we had folks who were able to speak Spanish to our Spanish speaking clients who come here. And also, for the first time we are hosting a master's in social work student. And so, do you know having the ability to flex the identities of the people that comprise the senior center, I think makes it more appropriate for a community center setting. And while numbers alone represent simply a representation diversity and aren't necessarily a measure fully of what we want to do. It is in fact a start so the piece that we're really looking at for the future is within diversity equity inclusion is looking at how do we measure inclusion. And that's been something that I think a lot of researchers have been looking at how do you make sure and gather the experiences that makes somebody feel either included or excluded. So going forward one of the most wonderful things last time I came here I thanked you for remodeling the senior center. And what I'd like to say this year is that we have this wonderful blank canvas upon which we are going to carefully and thoughtfully reopen and scale up in a way that makes us feel like a different place, a place that is multicultural a place that is inviting that the artwork that the values are displayed in a way that doesn't signal and flag white space. So, so that's where we're going in the immediate future. And then lastly, I think that I would like to just share with you are scaling up plans to reopen, because I know that that you probably are getting questions about that. We have really are guided of course always by the science and the safety that has been promulgated not only from CDC and the state but also the Massachusetts Council on Aging. And there are a number of sector specific guidelines, which will allow us to to scale up, but to really scale up in a way that is safe, and it will be gradual. And that's going to be the next message that I'll be sharing with our senior community, because I think that some folks might think when we reopen it will be back to the way it was, and that won't be immediately possible. I think in the summer months that you know the guidelines around having classes is we have to have people stay outside they're going to be admitted 10 minutes before a class begins they can't gather in the hallway they can't gather in the lobby ways. Then we are required to have 30 minutes at least between each class to allow for cleaning and for airing out of rooms. So we'll be gathering those sort of guidelines and making sure that we're offering socialization and also exercise because we do know that we've experienced cognitive decline and physical decline. So we're preparing and speaking with teachers. But I think underlying everything what what I want you to know is we can set out services and programs, but we have to simultaneously work with sort of the psychosocial aspect of what it has done to people to isolate the shelter for a year, because even in the conversations as people express enthusiasm, they are expressing great anxiety, and it's almost like a reentry program. So we're bringing in some experts Dr star who's a gerontologist and also friends over at UMass who do gerontological psychology and be doing some programs that will put on Amherst media around. How do we re engage and how do you judge what's safe and appropriate. So I think you'll see a twin track of trying to support people emotionally, and also adding in the programs and seeing what happens. And then to end on a high note in the intro, we are almost at 90% for vaccination rates for individuals 65 and above, and about 83% for those 75 and above. So I just wanted to a huge shout out to everybody in town from the town manager, his staff, the coven ambassadors, the health director Emma dragon, my own staff I have to tell you they were up 24 seven doing we did they did over 2000 appointments waking up at midnight setting their alarms. We looked for any possible open lanes I know Robert's on here I read his, his editorial. We lived it, all of the points that that he brought out about how, how crazy the state and really heedlessly they rolled things out but we were able to find workarounds with everybody, a huge team effort. So I think our seniors are looking healthy and we're looking forward to serving them in greater capacity. Thank you. It has been a difficult year and senior center has certainly been doing your part to try and make it work for our for the population that you serve and I know you've made contributions. Personally also to other parts and like our homeless population. Appreciate all you've been doing. And I'm going to turn it in second see if the questions from other people in the committee I shared with Sean yesterday that I had been assigned the responsibility is the member assigned to community service programs and went over the budget and for the sections that we were going to be talking about. And I had one observation and you sort of touched on it actually and something that you said in your remarks about your success and obtaining a grant that would allow you to bring some additional people in for helping out. And one of the things that has always been evident to me in reviewing the senior center budget is that we have a small staff that does not fall out and it does not fall out because it's able to grab hold of money that's not town money but money from other sources and that the way the budget is presented in the current budget book while I have really appreciated changes. One thing that I missed was that I thought that the nature of in size of the grants and the outside funding that we receive both from states services from Valley older services and just grants and donations is not as evident and this budget format is it was in prior budget formats and the grants are actually listed on, you know, substantially later in the separate section of the book just as part of the grant listings. And so I recognized that didn't end up being too much of a question other than that I thought that the listing of the grants was actually omitted donations, which was also another major part of the work because we have the friends of the senior center and I just didn't think that we had full picture of what the funding is that supports the work a lot of it because senior center and the council on aging got and work hard to make it happen. So, just wanted to share those thoughts with the committee since I had sent it to Sean after the after I had reviewed budget. So just following up on that that's definitely something we can build back in. You know we don't do it for all departments but I think your point is that it's such a me, you know, sort of an oversized part of what the senior center for their funds come from that you need that to see the whole picture so that's definitely something we can add back. Going forward. So, questions from other members of the committee or comments. I just wanted to agree with Sean and you Andy I think it's important for not only the people the members of this committee but the people the town to understand where the money comes from for the senior center and have it all in one place so it's easy to see, especially since it is sort of a diverse set of funding sources. I just wanted to say thank you to Mary Beth what you both what you're leading to talk about where where we are in demographics and also the work when I look at what with your staff you've been doing. She grabbed me and my mom when my, she was still alive watching my mother vote because a 98 year old was or 99 year old actually was tottering into to vote and to take a picture. Just so comment on the healthy aging you're probably already connecting to people but the New York Academy of Medicine in New York has been doing a healthy aging project for quite some time they had a lot of working with them. And one of the things they were doing is they were doing a lot of work in libraries when they were in the middle of the day doing book clubs and other things to get seniors out of their house. And it was particularly targeted and with what you talked about benches going around doing, looking at every bench and whether it has something you can get up and it has made in a big city like New York a huge difference, because even pre coven people were often very isolated. Especially if they didn't have transportation so just trying to think of the resources we have and to the extent are a little North Amherst library up here does get expanded which is the plan. And there'll be space for that up here and I met several very isolated people over time, whose elder kids had moved out of town and we're looking for some ability to join, join in so I really think what you're doing is fabulous. Thank you. Yeah is the, the old both both literally and figuratively human services person. I welcome the age friendly designation and I can recall a couple of years ago having a conversation with with Dave Stevens and he was asking me, where's Amherst on this so now we know Amherst is Amherst is in so thank you. I hope on one of Kathy's observations though I'm concerned about our ability to outreach to elders who are our homebound or isolated in our ability to address programs. One of the things I read into it's managing your field frequently was the question of hoarding. And a question of being able to assist people doing small tasks. And managing the light bulbs, mom and the grass. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what you and your staff may be capable of, or where you're going to need some help in doing that kind of outreach. I think that was we start to reopen a bit more. We have a tremendous volunteer base would have over 180 volunteers when we are fully operational. So those folks do a lot of that kind of work of, you know, assisting somebody a lot of times it has to do with technology they can't get their TV to work or a clicker to work. And they're extensively with Amherst neighbors. So that's also one of my objectives and you know they have already started some of their contact lists services. And we speak nearly daily in terms of referrals of folks who might need someone to go for a walk with them, or someone who just wants to have a visit on a porch as well so they have about 160 members right now and they're trying to grow that base and really partner with us, because you need a fleet of people out there doing this kind of work. And when you speak as to the most vulnerable people quite quite honestly most of the most vulnerable people we serve in some capacity for either social services and also through service. So by that I mean the hot meals meals on wheels and also we have a free to go lunch. And, you know, we claim a lot of people through that program, and certainly our most frail and vulnerable are those individuals who are on that program they've been identified by variety of social service providers. I have to say even as that program, maybe doesn't draw as many people for a congregate setting here in Amherst as other communities, the value to us of the daily contact as people who are our most frail and vulnerable, being able to know when people are in and out of the hospital and what they might need they're discharged at 5pm on a Friday, and I know they're not going to have food. It's incredible. So, so those are some of the ways and it's certainly not that we have the, the ability that we're mapping everyone and we're meeting everyone's needs. The more that we let people know that we're here that we're available. I work with you one of the, when you mentioned working with homeless. One of the beautiful things about cold at the upside is that I've been able to work in a variety of roles, either whether it's been food insecurity working with the chamber and the Latina families we work with 20 of them per month. We've been able to build some deeper networks and also trusting relationships so that when people of any age quite frankly when they need help they come here to the bank center and we had that yesterday where a young family is living in a hotel. They have children and they came here looking for some help. So, so I think that the more we're out there. The more it spreads our name and our good work so I think it's, it's also about consistency and persistence and being willing to be flexible we've done mobile office hours. So I think, again, we're always looking to redesign and to be flexible and not just in a center. But that helps. It does. Thank you. This is a question from Mary Beth picking up from a topic you've spoken on. When I drove by the green today I noticed. A lot of picnic tables and chairs out and using myself as a case in point I've got terrible balance, and I can't get in and out of some of those things very easily. And so I thought, you know when we're choosing furniture for a park. Maybe we should consult you, because there are some table chair sets which would be much better for older people or people with lousy balance than others. And that, that, you know, so it's not just price, it really is design, it's design that matters. So I'm just wondering if you've actually thought of those table and chair designs or whether you have any outside your center that. So we don't have any in our immediate area in our patio area because it just doesn't facilitate it but in the nearby boltwood area, they do bring picnic tables that get dropped. And I think that they were primarily for the restaurants. And they're, they are are different in design and the ones you're referring to because I was just walking the green yesterday when I noticed those as well. I do think that your point is well taken is the precise reason why age friendly dementia friendly matters and can make a small impact that actually makes the difference in quality of life. So, yes, and the ones that I believe have been in the immediate area of the senior center are ones in which they have. They've got a free entry. So there's nothing that sort of binds up between the leg and the table. So folks can, because a lots of seniors sit at them, quite frankly. Yeah, when they get there to go lunch, then they go and they sit at the picnic tables. So, well, thank you. Kathy, your hands up. Forgot it to take it down. I didn't think. Yeah. Okay. I guess since we've been talking about American Recovery Act and with other parts of the budget, it's maybe a question for Sean as much as anyone but the extraordinary expenses we've incurred in trying to serve seniors in this very difficult time where we're doing a lot of homebound delivery of meals because we can't have congregate meals in the way that we used to get to additional expense and have we've been able to tap into any of those funds to help offset those expenses. Yeah, not from the not from the American Rescue Plan but from CARES. When, if we've had a additional expenses, those have been charged of CARES. So I believe there have been some additional expenses for delivery of food is one area where we redirected some staffing to deliver meals. I've worked with Mary Beth on sort of the meal program that we did in December where we provided meals to needy families. I can't remember off the top of my head there were any other additional expenses but anything additional we can cover out of CARES it just has to be unbudgeted and related to COVID. So we also purchased like small tables for all of our consumers to have outside of their home because it became a real problem that you have to do a contactless delivery. So you can't hand off because your arms are not going to be long enough and you can't put a meal down on the ground because someone can't reach down there they're going to topple over and it's just it's inhumane frankly to put food on the ground for somebody. And so we bought classic tables for all of our consumers. And I will say that I was able that I tapped into a dislocated restaurant workers grant and that's how I got four of our drivers. And then the town manager helped and allowed a whole host of staff to be reassigned and helped us out who were whose main positions or jobs from LSSC and also the management enforcement individuals they had less to do so they helped us every day with lunches so. Is there a problem now as we're moving back into actually having people park and pay parking meters getting our home deliveries done. No, because my other sort of carrot to get people to deliver meals honestly is the tax work off program. So I have individuals who participate in that. And, you know, so as, as different groups have sort of peeled off, we've always been able to find folks who are willing to do it. It's incredibly socially rewarding, both for the person who delivers and the recipient will always look for a bidirectional exchange. And our seniors who are participating in that, you know, they're earning $1,500 off of their real estate tax bill, which is significant for seniors. And also, you know, it's a very safe, contained and controlled opportunity for them to socialize and to meet 12 to 14 people on a given afternoon and exchange conversation of the door staff. So, we haven't, we haven't had a problem continuing the program luckily. It has expanded certainly but you know we've really, we've been fortunate. Other questions from members of the committee. Yeah, I guess my last question is as you look forward to the year ahead and just in your plans for getting the center reopened and shifting programs back. Because do you, do you have any concerns about whether there's resources available to support you going forward with the steps that need to be taken. I think it's less a question of resources in more the way in which our small footprint impedes gatherings that are the typical size that we previously had so we would have a class of 20 to 25. But now probably that the largest room will be able to access the clinic will have to close down. So after that we'd have the large activity room which we could fit approximately 15 people in. So, the, the other rooms are much smaller, you know, and some of them will only allow say six people, sometimes four to five. So the capacity, as long as there's social distancing in order, or in effect will limit our ability to facilitate programming. At the same time, I think that, to me, it's also a benefit because I think the early adopters who come will be able to help facilitate conversations with people who are more anxious, and by August, sort of a groundswell will start to build a sense of coping around people coming here experiencing that it is safe that we have lots of safety procedures and in order, and it feels orderly, and it's a cautious way to proceed. And then as the restrictions lift in August, I think it will come together nicely, both socially and emotionally, and also our capacity to to serve programs. So most of our programming is done, it's through volunteers, quite honestly, it's, you know, we're a real volunteer based organization. And so I don't think it's a question of resources I think it's more just going to be the question of space and space will open up as time goes on. Is the RSVP program been up and running in full force. Yeah, it's up and running by our RSVP volunteers have not have, have, have not volunteered during COVID, and they have not yet returned. And I will say that that's, you know, there's another piece to this that I have found the difference between anticipation versus the reality. So lots of folks have been calling me for months saying when are you going to open, and then when I reached out to teachers and volunteers. The fact that they're going to be working with individuals who are not vaccinated had a very chilling effect, and on their willingness to return. And I think we're seeing probably up to about 50% of volunteers being willing to teach, and then also to return.  I think based on t