ORDER-2021-116 : An Appropriation from the Special Education Fund account number 84082-590000 in the amount of $499,953 to the School Department account number 0111-490000.

Transcript (~23 min @ 29:22)

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▶ 29:13 Jeff McNaught: objection our rules are now suspended and the first order of business that we have is order 2021-116 an appropriation from the Special Education Fund account number eight four zero eight two dash five nine zero zero zero zero in the amount of four hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars four hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and fifty three dollars to the school department account number zero one one one dash four nine zero zero zero zero Madam Clerk, I believe we have the Superintendent, Ms. Secor, here coming into the room.

▶ 30:01 Speaker 1: I'm the Business Manager and we have the City Auditor on reserve.

▶ 30:08 Jeff McNaught: Okay, thank you. And Superintendent Kuchenberger, the floor

▶ 30:17 Speaker 9: is yours when you're ready. Thank you so much, sir. I believe also School Committee Chairwoman Jen McAndrew is here as well.

▶ 30:32 Speaker 9: Is she coming? Did you want her to come into the room? Yes, I believe she has a few opening remarks and then we'll join in. To talk specifically about the request. Okay.

▶ 30:58 Jennifer McAndrew: Thank you. Madam clerk. Hi, everyone. It's great to see you. Thanks so much for having us tonight and for considering. This order before you, I'll be brief, so we can get right to the heart of the discussion. Um, this is my 1st time before, you know, as chair of the school committee and so on behalf of the committee. I just want to thank you all for your service to the city of this year, especially during such on such challenging times. I really appreciate all you've done. And in my mind, the request before you tonight really. illustrates the excellent fiscal management and planning of the city of Melrose because establishing this stabilization fund specifically for this very purpose for special education in Melrose in 2014 envisioned a scenario exactly like we are in during this fiscal year and I know the superintendent and business director C core will talk to you about the specifics and CFO De La Russo as well, but I just wanted to thank you for taking this up, for moving it forward so quickly and to really emphasize how critical it is to meet the needs of our special education learners who not only have special needs but of course have special rights. So thank you all so much and I know we're prepared to answer any of your questions

▶ 32:26 Speaker 9: and discuss this matter. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you, Ms. McAndrew. And thank you all again for having us here. You've all received the memo, I believe it's in your packet as well, but I'll just briefly outline why we're here and what the need is and then open it up to questions. So last year we budgeted in the FY20 and the FY21 budget approximately 2.9 million dollars for special education tuition and when we develop the special education budget we really look at sort of three buckets if you will um what are the known needs the students who are before us what kind of specialized programs and placements might they require and what are the anticipated costs for that in the next fiscal year we also look at what i like to call the known unknowns so there might be meetings in progress or evaluations in progress where we have some of the information but not the final placement yet and we project and budget around those and And then the 3rd are the unknowns, you know, as public schools, any student who comes to our doorstep, we welcome with open arms and we figure out the programming and the financial resources needed in order to ensure that every child gets a free and appropriate education. Last year, superintendent. Kamoore and our director of finance, Leah Secor, did the best at projecting what the known needs were. However, in the past few months, we have realized some of those unknown needs that were not on our horizon and we weren't able to necessarily project for. One of them is transportation costs. With COVID, things look really different in the way that we transport our students. We're fortunate in Melrose because most of our students are able to walk bike to school and they do but some of our students do require specialized transportation to get them to their programs either here in the district or in out of district placements and those costs have been higher than projected due to the limited seating social distancing on bus but also the extra cleaning protocols and we can talk more about those specific details So, part of this request is specifically to transportation. That's that 132,000 that you see there. The other really relates to six different student placements. So, we had four students who unfortunately following hospitalization then required new or different out of district placements. And so our job is to respond to that. It's a team decision. It's not a singular decision. So parents are part of the team, along with many of the educators in the district and making those decisions. And we take each 1 of those decisions very seriously when we're making them. And then we had 2 additional students that were already requiring out of district placements move into Melrose. are some of the unknowns that we couldn't have projected in the past and so depending where they're coming from whether it's in state or out of state that that fiscal responsibility hits our books so to speak at a different timing when they're coming to us from out of state we're responsible day one where if it's in in state there's a little bit more lead time for us to better plan for that so that's the general part of the request that you have before you and i'm happy to add um add to that or answer any specific questions that you may have

▶ 35:56 Jeff McNaught: thank you superintendent kuchenberger um and thank you miss mcandrew um first up we have

▶ 36:06 Shawn M. MacMaster: counselor mcmaster thank you mr chairman thank you chair mcandrew superintendent and mr core for being here um whoever would be the most appropriate one to answer this i'll certainly uh leave it up to you to decide my question is about the circuit breaker and i'm just wondering what the balance of the school circuit breaker account currently is so currently the balance

▶ 36:28 Speaker 1: and circuit breaker is um two thousand dollars i'm sorry mr corey i couldn't hear you i'm not

▶ 36:44 Speaker 1: sure if it's me or if uh can you hear me now okay perfect thank you so currently right now the circuit breaker account has eight hundred and two thousand dollars eight hundred and two

▶ 37:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: thousand dollars correct okay um is any has any of that money been earmarked to use for uh the um matters that are before us tonight in which money is being requested to come out of the

▶ 37:19 Speaker 1: stabilization uh special ed stabilization fund so at this point we budget 575 000 for our fy 21 special education costs i did not earmark any circuit breaker at this point for any of these

▶ 37:41 Shawn M. MacMaster: on this request so what is the um what is the plan for that that money especially since that is 300 000 higher than what is being requested tonight for special ed purposes

▶ 37:53 Speaker 1: so what we're doing with that extra not extra money but that more reimbursement that we will be receiving um we have four quarters that we received this payment for and we will be using that extra money to go towards these kiddos that we are requesting for you this evening and we have

▶ 38:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: to pay for them in fy 22. so you're looking to carry over the 800 000 to fy 22's budget is that

▶ 38:48 Speaker 1: is that correct are you having audio issues yes okay is that better yeah much better much better

▶ 38:53 Speaker 1: sorry about that all right so correct um so we earmark and budget for circuit breaker amounts into the school budget and we do not capture those funds until the end of June so that $575 in the account will go towards the current budget that's already earmarked and budgeted for in the previous year and then what we do with the rest of the money is we are budgeting an FY22 for these kiddos and we're taking the almost break breakage in the circuit breaker that we we have this year because we've experienced a increase in circuit breaker amounts we normally do not receive a high it's a 75 percent reimbursement this year and normally it hasn't been that high and we will be using that to fund these kiddos in fy 22 because they become our obligation from now on thank you and just so the public understands is there

▶ 39:51 Shawn M. MacMaster: a reason that that can't be used for this year as opposed to FY22? There's just budgeting.

▶ 40:01 Speaker 1: There's the reason why we budget for next year is because we're obligated to spend all the funds

▶ 40:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: by a certain amount of time. And does the circuit breaker money have to be used for special ed purposes or can the school department use it for other purposes? It's only allowed for special ed

▶ 40:28 Shawn M. MacMaster: purposes. And you talked about the quarterly payments. What quarter are we up to? Are we

▶ 40:36 Speaker 1: through quarter four right now? No, we've usually received quarter four at the end of June.

▶ 40:43 Shawn M. MacMaster: And for costs that we would be looking to potentially reimburse from this year that presumably would be submitted in the summer, do we have a sense of what that might look like in terms of what we'd be seeking for reimbursements for those costs incurred this year?

▶ 41:04 Speaker 1: So we are level funding the circuit breaker reimbursement. We do not know as of yet how much of a percentage we will be getting, but we do not have to submit that report. They're compiling all the information and it's due July 6th.

▶ 41:23 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you. And then the reason I ask these questions is, I do recall the former superintendent coming before us last year, and I believe we voted as a council to take 450,000 dollars. So, a similar amount of money, similar time of year out of the special of stabilization fund, and I'm just worried that on the school side of the budget that this may be under budgeted. And I'm concerned about next year, because of certainly the related impacts and I think we might be able to forecast and superintendent, you would have a better idea than me about what those costs might look like next year. And with that in mind, I'm wondering what that budget, the line item in the school budget for special that looks like for next year is a fire. And if so, by by how much. And I think Mr. core said it's level funded, but I just, I just want it to be clear.

▶ 42:22 Speaker 9: I'll take a stab at that 1st, Sean, if you don't mind, and I think it might be helpful if we think about circuit breaker over time in Melrose. So, if we look back to our circuit breaker allocation was about 554,000 dollars. And then in FY20, it was about 550 again. In FY21, our allocation is about a million dollars. And when you think about Circuit Breaker, you're always kind of a year behind, if that makes sense, because you get the payment from the previous year the following year. And so the strategy that Ms. Secor was talking about is really making sure you have that money in hand and you know what that allocation is so that you can budget properly forward um so that's kind of just think about that so we were like 554 550 and then doubled in fy 21. that is not a coincidence that directly coincides with former superintendent tamor coming before you and meeting almost a half a million dollars of additional funding outside of what was budgeted in the fy20 budget because because those were unanticipated costs, right? So we wanna utilize the special ed reserve account for the stabilization fund for those unpredictable unknown costs that we incurred throughout the fiscal year during that current fiscal year and then utilize our stabilization account, or I'm sorry, our circuit breaker funds to then prepare for the next year so we're not constantly coming back and asking for this each time. So that's kind of the strategy that is at play here. And it's really complicated, but it really is trying to make sure that we're maximizing our resources to its full potential and avoiding what you just said, those kind of every year having these underfunded tuition accounts. So that's where that strategy again comes into play of really asking ourselves when we're developing the budget, what are our known needs? What are kind of the unknown knowns that are on the fence still in progress or that we're anticipating and then how do we prepare for you know the move-ins and the unknowns um and so in fy19 in the city of melrose we budgeted about 1.6 million 1.7 million in special ed tuitions in fy20 we budgeted 2.8 million knowing that things were changing and and I did review the past memos and saw what was before you. And then this year we budgeted 2.9.

▶ 44:59 Speaker 10: So again, trying to use that known, unknown, knowns, no unknowns formula to calculate.

▶ 45:02 Speaker 9: And FY22, we're budgeting 3.4, 3.8 million. So we have compensated. We're looking at, you know, when we look at our, especially our out of district tuitions, cause those are, you know, sometimes very costly programs. We might have some programs that cost upwards of $250,000, many that hover around 100,000. And if it's a collaborative tuition, it's usually around like $50,000, just to kind of give you the sense. And out of the 4,000 students enrolled in the Melrose Public Schools, we have a very proportionate number of out-of-district placements. Of course, we don't want any, but there's some cases where that is the right and best placement for students. And so we have about 54 known placements at this time. And so every year if students age out or if students graduate, some roll off the books and then we try to project and predict for what might be coming down the pike or giving ourselves a little bit of a buffer for move-ins. We never wanna budget dollar for dollar. So one of the things you'll see in our FY22 refinements is that we've added $150,000 to our 22 budget request to kind of compensate for those tuition increases and two new students that we just received not long ago. So we're thinking about that. It's a very volatile budget and that's why having the stabilization account is a great resource for us. And then we're able to strategically use Circuit Breaker next year. So as our costs go up, hopefully our Circuit Breaker reimbursement will go up as well. So, then that way we can offset that increase to the local taxpayer.

▶ 46:50 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you and I just have 1 more question that was about the transportation fee. I saw the negative delta and I'm just wondering for the 132,000 dollars, which this would cover. You mentioned social distancing and disinfecting and those types of things just so the public has a sense. One hundred and thirty three thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money. So can you just talk a little bit more about what that actually provides in terms of actual service?

▶ 47:31 Speaker 1: So, special education. Transportation provides that necessary transportation for those kiddos. We have a fleet ourselves. We have our own line of buses, but we also are little bands, but we also have out of. We have other vendors, third party vendors that work with us and do the other transportation that is too far away or, um. Just something that we can't manage within house and the costs have been. Been going up, we have fewer children on the buses that are allowed. Um, I think at 1 point in the beginning of coded when we 1st came by, um, we were allowed to have 1 child per man. Due to social distancing, and unfortunately, we usually have upwards of 2 or 3 children in a van. So this, the costs have gone up because it's a per child. Expenditure and due to disinfecting and cleaning and it further rose the cost.

▶ 48:43 Speaker 9: Thank you all for 1 thing I would just add to that if I could is that Leah mentioned our own drivers. that is the most cost-efficient way for us to transport our students. But with COVID and individuals' own, you know, health and safety needs, we haven't been able to fully staff our transportation department. We've been trying to recruit all year. And so, when we're not able to staff with our own employees, then we have to contract out for those services as well.

▶ 49:12 Shawn M. MacMaster: So, that's added to the cost this year. Thank you for answering my questions. Thank you,

▶ 49:15 Jeff McNaught: Mr. Chairman, thank you. And next I have Councilor Garipay following him at Council McGlarelli. Is there anyone I missed who wants to be in queue?

▶ 49:23 Speaker 2: Okay, Councilor Garipay.

▶ 49:26 Mark Garipay: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here and Dr. Kuchenberg, thank you for your detailed memo that we received. My question is also regarding the transportation in the $132,336. Um, is there any indication that will that that will be reimbursable through the, um. The covert relief or the, um, or the American rescue plan. Um, is there any indication that that will be reimbursable similar to revolving accounts?

▶ 49:59 Speaker 1: Unfortunately, um, the special education transportation is not an option under the covet accounts.

▶ 50:07 Mark Garipay: Okay, thank you. It's all my questions. Thank you. Council.

▶ 50:12 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you Dr. Kuchenberger and Chairwoman McAndrew and Ms. Secor for being here tonight. Thank you for the thoughtful proposal. And of course, all of your hard work this past year. It's, it's. Been so much, and you've gone through and dealt with so many challenges. So I applaud you for your, your professionalism and and open communication throughout. So, um, I, I thank you for this proposal. It seems like this is well thought out and it is a good utilization of a fund that is specifically dedicated to supporting our special education needs in the city. So, with that being said, I'd like to motion for passage.

▶ 50:58 Jeff McNaught: Okay, we have a, uh, motion for passage made by council, make it early seconded by council rigoritis. Yeah, that would be a motion to recommend.

▶ 51:10 Speaker 11: Because we're in appropriation, so just a minor.

▶ 51:15 Speaker 2: Thank you. Um.

▶ 51:19 Jeff McNaught: Is there any any further discussion?

▶ 51:27 Speaker 1: Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. Levin, yes.

▶ 52:00 Jeff McNaught: Motion passes. Thank you all for being here and presenting.

▶ 52:06 Speaker 1: Thank you all.

▶ 52:11 Jeff McNaught: Next, we have Order 2021-117, Friends of the Milano Center, Social Services Coordinator Donation. And I believe we have Ms. Minchello here with us.