ORDER-2020-78 : An Appropriation from the Special Education Stabilization Fund in the amount of $450,000 to the School Department .

Transcript (~37 min @ 3:11)

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▶ 3:12 Speaker 1: yes councillor thomas yes councillor Tramontozzi yes chairman sanella yes 11 yes yeah first order

▶ 3:22 Christopher Cinella: of this evening's order 2020-78 appropriation for the special education stabilization fund in the amount of 450 000 to the school department um at this time i know we have some uh folks from the administration to speak on this and i would entertain a motion to suspend the rules motion

▶ 3:46 Christopher Cinella: to suspend the rules motion to suspend the rule by councillor Grigoraitis seconded by by Councilor McNaught, Adam Clark, if you could call the roll.

▶ 3:54 Speaker 1: Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor Stewart.

▶ 4:16 Speaker 1: Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi. Yes.

▶ 4:26 Christopher Cinella: yes 11 yes okay we can bring on our superintendent tamar with us or we do we have um superintendent

▶ 4:44 Speaker 1: tamar i'll make her a panelist now we have patrick delarusso the city auditor i'm not sure why i'm not able to make him a panelist but uh can you guys see superintendent tamar yes okay

▶ 4:59 Christopher Cinella: the floor is yours a superintendent a more thank you mr. chairperson this is

▶ 5:03 Speaker 4: for those of you who are not familiar with this several years ago many cities and towns moved to create a special education stabilization fund we recognized at the time that districts could be severely impacted by unexpected special ed costs and we needed some sort of stabilization fund we have yet to

▶ 5:38 Speaker 4: access it and I will explain why in a moment at the time and mr. de la Russo began to fund it and he's funded it a little bit more each year out of free cash the purpose of this fund is sometimes when we have other district placements unexpectedly or what we have what is called move-in uh uh i'm sorry

▶ 6:04 Speaker 4: okay since we um exceed what we had planned for so very simply um let me give you some numbers in fy19 we had 39 out of district placements we work very hard to keep our children in district we create our own programs but there are children with significant needs that need special placements so in FY 19 we had 39 at the beginning of FY 20 this current school year we had 46 as of April 20th we had 53 obviously these are things that while you could plan a little bit of a cushion the way the school budget is planned you cannot anticipate some of these costs. Some of these costs come about because, as I think you have heard me speak, we are seeing children with more needs on two fronts. We're seeing children with multiple handicaps and we're seeing children with behavioral health challenges. In addition, we have had a number of unexpected move-ins. This is part of the price you pay for having a good school system when people want to come to us have their children attend but sometimes they also come with children who are already in out of district placements if a child is already in a collaborative we have to pick up that cost immediately so collaborators usually run anywhere from fifty five to eighty thousand dollars last year we had three children move in we picked up immediately. When children move in who are in private special ed schools, and private really is a misnomer. They're public schools, but they're run by non-profit organizations. There is the move-in law. So if the child moves in before April 1st, we pick up the cost of the tuition the following year. If the child moves in after April 1st, we get a pass for that first year, the previous school district continues to pay, and we pick up the child the subsequent year. So, in addition to three collaboratives that moved in last year, we had two very, very expensive out-of-district placements move in. Again, for confidentiality, I can't discuss the details of the placement or the children but those two placements by themselves cost us approximately five hundred and twenty six thousand dollars obviously when you're planning a school budget this is something you do not anticipate and that is why cities and towns have gone to a stabilization fund in order to pay for this we we froze in January never expecting the situation we're currently in. So we have some savings. We had done a similar effort the year before and were able to absorb in FY19, we were able to absorb any upticks in special ed tuition because we had frozen our budget and had some savings. But obviously this year under extraordinary situation where we began the year at 46, we're now at 53. We are approximately $800,000 in deficit we can cover about 350 000 of it so we need to request the stabilization fund to pay these tuition bills in this current fiscal year i'll gladly take questions mr sanella

▶ 9:58 Cory Thomas: counselor thomas thank you mr chairman uh superintendent taylor thank you for being here um of the current 53 or so students are there any students in the special education program that will be coming uh out of our program this year you know graduating graduating out in 2020

▶ 10:15 Speaker 4: uh we don't have anyone graduate well we have over 600 special ed students mr thomas so we're talking about the 59 that are out of district yes exactly okay we have one child who's returning to us in the fall we worked very hard to return that child um so we're looking forward to that but you know we try to return children when we can uh that's why we build our programs we return to other children this winter so uh that is a that is a priority of us

▶ 10:48 Cory Thomas: okay so will will that uh alleviate any of the you know the deficit that we're facing right now

▶ 10:55 Speaker 4: you know okay i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off we all know how awkward this is um

▶ 11:00 Cory Thomas: that's quite all right um so these the 53 out of district or out of city they're staying on

▶ 11:10 Speaker 4: our budget next year yes minus the one that's returning for the fall so and now quick quickly

▶ 11:15 Cory Thomas: um i just want to thank you for your years of service to the melrose school system and the melrose community and i wish you all the best in your retirement thank you mr thomas adam

▶ 11:25 Christopher Cinella: clerk do we have anybody else from the administration you want to bring on those

▶ 11:29 Speaker 1: we do we have in the queue we have um mr delarusso the auditor he i'm unable to make him a panelist but i can add his audio and we have the treasurer art flavon i'm able to make him a panelist so art i'm going to bring you in right now and then patrick i've unmuted you can you hear us i can hear you yes okay i i don't know why for whatever reason um it's just not the options are either mute or unmute and it does not give me a panelist option can you hear me i can hear you can you all

▶ 12:09 Speaker 1: here okay thank you all right can you hear us yeah me can you hear us would you like me to be

▶ 12:17 Speaker 1: can hear you now yes your uh your um video was not on our i think i just got a new laptop i don't

▶ 12:28 Christopher Cinella: think it's working correctly uh counselor mcmaster uh you're next for questions yeah they can hear me

▶ 12:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: thank you thank you mr uh uh some questions and i'll throw them out there for whoever our guests think would be most appropriate to answer them first question is the superintendent talked a little bit about the history and the purpose of the special ed stabilization fund what year did we establish that as

▶ 12:55 Speaker 5: the city this is Patrick can I respond to that Kristen everyone can hear you

▶ 13:02 Speaker 5: yes hi hi hi counselor yes the special education stabilization fund was established in june of 2014 it was order number 2014-135 and it was for the sole purpose of providing for unanticipated special education costs and expenses and that one i'm sorry counselor in that fund we um the first deposit was three hundred thousand dollars that was also made in june of 2014 order number 201-4130 um again that was for 300 000 that was the first deposit into the fund

▶ 13:45 Shawn M. MacMaster: counselor thank you for that and if i understood the superintendent correctly we have never transferred out of this fund since 2014 absolutely correct absolutely correct so there have until now there have never been any unanticipated costs presumably may i answer um i would say that we

▶ 14:03 Speaker 4: we were able to manage them within the in the budget and this might be most

▶ 14:10 Shawn M. MacMaster: appropriate for the superintendent if you could talk a little bit about the circuit breaker especially for our newer council members and just explain how that works relative to this issue okay

▶ 14:25 Speaker 4: here's how circuit breaker works circuit Baker is a refund on extraordinary costs above a threshold of forty eight thousand dollars so if you have a child at a placement for sixty thousand dollars circuit breaker is is calculated on twelve thousand dollars the difference between the threshold and the cost of the placement it varies in its percentage of reimbursement yearly depending on the state's ability to do so in my career i've seen it as as low as 42% and as high as 75%. We have been assured that even under these circumstances, the FY20 circuit breaker will be at 75%. But I will tell you in my experience that when the state is pressed for money, reducing circuit breaker percentage is one of the places they go.

▶ 15:32 Shawn M. MacMaster: How is that money received? Is it a lump sum? At what point in the year is it received?

▶ 15:37 Speaker 4: It's usually paid quarterly. So there's usually sometimes a lag time between receiving the funds and what we're paying out for tuition. So sometimes when you look at our warrant, you may see a minus. Similar with the 240 grant, the federal grant that we receive every

▶ 16:00 Shawn M. MacMaster: year for special ed does that money go into a revolving account and if so where where is that is that on the school side of the budget it's on the school side of

▶ 16:08 Speaker 4: the budget and we use it to offset the next year so a very simple example on these these two very expensive placements we have we're paying that totally out of pocket right now because they are too new to get circuit breaker on we will receive circuit breaker on those placements probably sometime in the fall and then that circuit breaker will offset those tuition costs next

▶ 16:39 Shawn M. MacMaster: year the room the revolving fund right now I understand the money for these two particular students we don't have right now but what is the balance of the revolving fund uh now on the school side um nil that's why we're here

▶ 16:59 Speaker 4: there's no money in the revolving not for not i don't believe we have anything a circuit breaker i think we've paid it all out i'd have to check with my business manager but i believe i believe that's why we're having an eight hundred thousand dollar problem because circuit circuit breaker is never sufficient to cover your um tuition costs when you think about it if i have a hundred thousand dollar tuition i'm only getting 75 percent of 52 000 so i'm getting about 40 less than 40 000 against a hundred thousand dollar tuition it's not a one-to-one formula in any

▶ 17:42 Shawn M. MacMaster: stretch of the imagination yeah i think that the the reason i just i asked that question superintendent is my understanding and looking on the city side of revolving funds is that the purpose is to carry money over to be used from from year to year so that's why when you said that you believe that there's nothing in there i i guess i just expected that there would be something in there from which we might be able to draw to offset these these costs further we

▶ 18:07 Speaker 4: we are drawing down the circuit breaker calling mr mcmaster's to pay the 800 000 deficit that we we have and it's and again so that the council understands we are still paying out of district costs even in the closure that is the decision that has been made at the state level we are continuing to pay these costs the end of

▶ 18:36 Shawn M. MacMaster: the school year thank you and superintendent for the two particular students in question and I understand we can't get into any specifics or any identifiers that would um you know that that you know would potentially tell the public who the students are um i i recognize that i'm sensitive to that but i'm wondering were we aware of the these two students prior to april 1st were they um you know were they uh did we did we know of them anticipate those costs back at the start of the school year or before april 1st i think you mentioned we're off the hook so to speak for april first enrollments in the district that that would result we knew about them but what by the time we

▶ 19:16 Speaker 4: became aware of them the budget process was well underway i will also tell you that it is not our habit just to accept something like this and we try to challenge it with um jesse and we did not

▶ 19:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: win that challenge so we knew but it they weren't accounted for in the budget you're saying and at least and when you say in the budget i'm assuming that's in the line item for out of district yes

▶ 19:48 Shawn M. MacMaster: exactly yeah okay um and superintendent just so we understand how do we arrive at the at the actual number there is it you know the number that i know you're offsetting some of that with the money that was frozen after january 1st but there's no and i understand that certain things may not be able to be itemized but we have a number in front of us and you can help us us understand how do we get to those numbers for those those two students because as you can imagine to the public for two students although maybe very necessary in the actual costs almost a half a million dollars I think people would want to know and it'd be helpful to understand what what is within that

▶ 20:28 Speaker 4: amount of money so I'm trying to be very careful here mr. McMaster's because I don't want to say anything that can identify it's this these children so let Let me talk in hypotheticals. Children with disabilities range from what we call from mild to severe. A child with mild disabilities, you probably know many of them. You may even have them in your own home. They're getting great services in our schools. We're doing the best we can to make sure that they're getting a standards-based education. We have some children who have more moderate disabilities that we create programs for some separate programs that kids move in and out of Melrose is an inclusion district we make sure that our children are in the mainstream as much as possible but sometimes students have to spend part of a day in a pull-out setting we have children we cannot service for a variety of reasons having do with their disabilities special education by design is a law of failure children do not go to out of district placements until the school system fails to meet their needs because their needs are beyond our capacity they may go to a private placement like the collaboratives which run us anywhere from 60 to 70 to 80 000 seem collaborative or they can go to a school like landmark which is pushing six figures to send a child to landmark or if a child is medically cognitively involved to a degree where their quality of life is not anything i would want for anybody i know they are in highly specialized placements um these placements can run anywhere from 200 000 to 350 000 and you could have a child in that placement and on top of being in that placement

▶ 22:38 Speaker 4: with nursing care intense ratios they may on top of it need an aid 24 7 and we would pay for that aid 24 7 as well that's the range that we have with children um who are placed out of district thank you superintendent i just have one

▶ 22:55 Shawn M. MacMaster: final question at this point and then I'll yield to my colleagues it's more on the on the timing of it where we're eight months now or as of tomorrow will be eight months into nine months school year and I'm just wondering is there any urgency to passing this now why now you know is there any reason we wouldn't hold it for a little bit longer to if there were questions understanding that we're hearing this you know information tonight for the first time should we want some more time to come up with questions and just about this further considering that it's a transfer out of a out of a stabilization fund I know I guess in second to that superintendent mr. de la Rousseau and however you want to answer these questions whether the superintendent starts with that or mr. de la Rousseau begins with this follow-up is what's what's the balance of the stabilization fund right now special ed stabilization fund and what that look like if this transfer is approved or recommended for approval tonight thank you and

▶ 23:58 Speaker 4: that's all mr mcmaster says we have to pay our bills we are on a fiscal school year we are on

▶ 24:09 Speaker 4: a fiscal year just like the city and um you cannot pay into fy 21 and fy 20 bill that's the first thing and please understand all of you it's not these tuitions that that set us over it's a number of tuitions unexpectedly. I began the year at 46, I'm at 53. On top of it all, we've had tremendous trouble with transportation. When we have had to hire outside transportation on top of our own transportation, transportation companies charge us $250 a day. That's what they charge. So a combination of an increase in out of district placements, extraordinary transportation costs have led to a situation where like as i started this by saying last year we were able to handle internally additional special ed costs this year we cannot so we are coming for a stabilization fund that we set up six years ago for this very purpose

▶ 25:12 Speaker 5: mr mcmaster it's on patrick doloruso yes sir the current balance is 478 000 $30.17. So, if this order is approved, there will be $28,030.17 left for this fiscal year. We are intending to replenish this fund in an order coming down to the council next month.

▶ 25:43 Speaker 2: Thank you both.

▶ 25:45 Speaker 6: Councilor Tramontozzi.

▶ 25:50 John N. Tramontozzi: I thank you Mr. Chairman and um Councilor McMaster asked a lot of questions that I had in my mind um and I do appreciate uh Superintendent all your service over these past number of years and I wish you the best of luck in your uh retirement uh thank you Mr. Tammatozzi but I do have a couple questions it is a lot of money and I understand that some of these others out of uh district placements can be very expensive depending on the needs of the individual children but is any of the service covered by health insurance private health insurance medicare or anything that could

▶ 26:33 Speaker 4: supplement uh our costs mr tramitosi the truth of the matter is that when this law was passed in this state in 1972 and by the federal government in 1975 every insurance company in this country realized they could pass those costs on to a public body and that's what has happened for well on to uh over 50 years what is it 50 years however many years it is okay but since this law has been passed that is what is what happens we are responsible for children with disabilities from the ages of 3 to 22. all right um and believe me the insurance companies know it

▶ 27:14 John N. Tramontozzi: and the medical field knows it it would take an act of congress or our state legislature

▶ 27:21 Speaker 4: to change the law to and what would you do i i you know what i i agree with you so wholeheartedly it's difficult to explain we have children not meaning arrows in this in education in this field we have children that never see a public school all right they spend their lives in a pediatric nursing home then they go to an adult nursing home and from the time they are three to the time they're 22 the bill shifts to us prior to being three the bill bill is paid by dph the department of public health when they turn three the bill immediately shifts to us when they turn 22 it sir it shifts to an uh an adult service agency maybe uh um mental health developmental disabilities whatever it may be but everybody knows from 3 to 22 it is our bill yeah which is

▶ 28:17 John N. Tramontozzi: which is unfortunate because it puts a significant huge burden on the rest of the public school system um you mentioned about the circuit breaker so is any of these this funds reimbursable by the state that the four out of the four hundred fifty thousand dollars we submit circuit next summer

▶ 28:37 Speaker 4: some of the costs attached to this will be reimbursed according to that that formula that i shared um a a new wrinkle that we don't really have our hands around right now is special ed transportation which is almost as costly sometimes as transportation as i told you we're now being charged 250 a day so i want you to think about that for 180 days um was not reimbursable that always came out of out of the budget finally under the student opportunity act as part of that new legislation they are going to begin to reimburse special ed transportation but they're going to phase it in um and again they're going to set a threshold and above that threshold we'll get 25 reimbursement supposedly next year it's supposed to go up to 50 reimbursement but again i wouldn't bet on anything in the current situation as we all know thank you a question for mr delarusso if we

▶ 29:44 John N. Tramontozzi: were to get uh any uh circuit breaker money and reimbursement for this would that go into the stabilization fund that this money is coming from no would not where would it go it would stay on

▶ 29:59 Speaker 5: the school side to offset any current or anticipated costs for special ed this is just one this is just one snapshot in time that money will be applied again to those purposes to address special ed needs. One of the things that we have, I want to just bring up on the floor, is that when we set this up in 2014, Counselor, we had conversations about the growing, I'll just say, expenditure levels that we're seeing, the superintendent in particular, and myself, for special ed costs. And we felt that in order to assure that we're not going to interrupt regular services during the year, should we get hit mid-year, typically after the budget is set, just like now, that we would have to have some mechanism to address that cost. that cost is a as you know it's it's a mandated cost and that we have no option but to pay it so we always have to be cognizant of the fact that we own this cost and to prepare ourselves for the future because this isn't going away and the superintendent I'm sure to testify to that that's one of these things that I think unfortunately we're going be responsible for as i think in the future we're going to be more responsible for osha requirements and those mandates which i think um be coming down the road again even more it's it's an element of doing business in in the public sector all right so hypothetically speaking

▶ 31:46 John N. Tramontozzi: mr delarusso if we uh if we did not approve uh the expenditure of these monies um what would be the ramifications would be something that the state would come down on us i would venture to say i

▶ 32:01 Speaker 4: venture would say that the private audit district school will sue us okay right which ultimately

▶ 32:06 John N. Tramontozzi: could result in additional expenses and costs absolutely all right thank you thank you thank

▶ 32:17 Christopher Cinella: you all appreciate it let's do it did you raise your hand i did the council attorney tozy addressed

▶ 32:20 Robb Stewart: for my question so thank you very much mr chair president gregoratis thank you mr chair thank you

▶ 32:28 Jen Grigoraitis: superintendent taymor as the parent of two melrose public school children i want to thank you for your leadership during this unplanned foray into remote learning and particularly for your words tuesday night at the school committee meeting i really took those to heart as a parent struggling to make sure my kids are doing okay and i want to always thank you for how fiercely you defend the confidentiality of our children in any conversation as someone who works with vulnerable populations I really appreciate that and I know these are numbers on a page but these are children these are members of our community and I think all parents want what is best for their children and I'm grateful that as a district we work so hard to try to provide that no matter how complicated the case so with that I'd like to make a motion for passage that would be a

▶ 33:19 John N. Tramontozzi: motion recommendation to the board the motion for recommendation

▶ 33:27 Christopher Cinella: a motion to recommend um order 2020-78 by president Grigoraitis seconded by

▶ 33:39 Speaker 6: councillor Eccles madam clerk are you there any further discussion just further discussion

▶ 33:42 Christopher Cinella: around this i didn't see anybody else raising their hands i do have councillor mcmaster for for the second time, but is there anybody else for the first time?

▶ 33:53 Speaker 6: Councilor McMaster.

▶ 33:55 Shawn M. MacMaster: Just on discussion, based on what the superintendent has represented, I think, yeah, I would be inclined to support this, but I'm a little uncomfortable moving forward on this tonight. This then is already a motion on the table, so short of it being withdrawn and the second being withdrawn, I know we can't go here, but I just want to explain what my concern is, is that I had asked the superintendent about the if there's a balance in the revolving fund and understand her belief is that there isn't but she'd have to check with a business manager and my concern is that revolving fund exists for a purpose and without knowing that revolving fund is and whether or not money from the revolving fund which would include circuit breaker money from over the years could be applied to offset some of these costs I would be hesitant just to vote without knowing the answer to that and I just think for you know due diligence would require before we move forward on this is just to know what the balance of that revolving fund is and then knowing that and having what I would expect would be a satisfactory answer I'd be more comfortable voting so I know I can't make a motion because we have a motion on the table but I would like to it just held in committee till we receive that uh that answer thank you mr chairman mr chair may i

▶ 35:25 Speaker 4: respond yes so again um i know that many of you are new to this and so let me just explain some of the um the way the school budget works melrose has never been able to fully fund our request right even uh and they will not be able to fully fund our request next year as we all know under the current circumstances it's very uh disappointing as i'm sure we all feel that way what what the school district every year does is it brings offsets to the budget those offsets complete the funding of the school um superintendent tamer you've been muted i

▶ 36:12 Jen Grigoraitis: think we've had some technical difficulties can you just hold one moment let's take a quick second

▶ 36:22 Speaker 4: kristin can you hear us okay i can hear you cindy can you hear us i can hear you now kristin thank

▶ 36:29 Jen Grigoraitis: you so telling you i think counselor jamala dean also got kicked out of the system

▶ 36:33 Speaker 4: thank you sorry this is not the best way to do business superintendent you can you can uh finish

▶ 36:41 Speaker 4: and here she is okay okay thank you so we we bring about three three and a half million dollars as offsets to every budget cycle otherwise we would not be able to fund the school system that you all know among those offsets is circuit breaker so this is how this works i know that i have x thousands of dollars in circuit breaker money coming to me based on what i paid out this year i have calculated using that money as an offset against next year's budget so

▶ 37:16 Speaker 4: it's not like there's some money sitting there the money is rolled over to pay for next year's tuitions as well next year's teachers next year's busing costs it's not sitting there in reserve this is how the circuit breaker works we roll it over to pay for the next year's costs what i do to be careful is i always underestimate circuit breaker because i don't trust the state but I certainly don't underestimate it to a degree that I have $500,000 sitting there any money that we may get in circuit breaker yeah we are going to need to fund next year's budget along with the money we get from edge stations building rentals grants and other sources of income and Clark just for

▶ 38:15 Christopher Cinella: clarification because I know you fell off we have a motion to recommend to the full board by president Grigoraitis itis seconded by councillor Eccles and if you could please follow the roll sure thank you

▶ 38:33 Speaker 1: councillor Eccles yes councillor garipay yes president Grigoraitis itis yes

▶ 38:45 Speaker 1: Councilor Jamaleddine, Councilor McMaster.

▶ 38:47 Speaker 2: Present.

▶ 38:48 Speaker 1: Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi.

▶ 39:06 Speaker 6: I'm new, yes.

▶ 39:07 Speaker 1: Councilor Cinella, Chair Cinella.

▶ 39:10 Speaker 6: Yes.

▶ 39:12 Speaker 1: So 10 is one present.

▶ 39:20 Speaker 4: Thank you Superintendent. Thank you all of you. I'm looking forward to seeing you again in June.

▶ 39:26 Speaker 1: Thank you. Superintendent, I'll expel you now. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 39:36 Christopher Cinella: Next order. Order 2020-76, authorizing a bond in the amount of $1,450,000 to replace the Department of Works salt shed. I believe we have our DPW director with us.

▶ 39:52 Speaker 1: Let me make her a pin right now.

▶ 39:56 Christopher Cinella: We are still under suspension, so.

▶ 40:01 Speaker 1: Melina, can you hear us?