ORDER-2016-158 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2017 in the amount of 75,328,574.79 (Seventy-Five Million, Three Hundred Twenty-Eight Thousand, Five Hundred Seventy-Four Dollars and Seventy-Nine Cents)

Transcript (~1 h 26 min @ 24:22)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 24:22 Peter D. Mortimer: Public participation is now closed for this evening. Continuing on with the budget for the City of Melrose, Order 2016-158, City of Melrose Operating Budget for fiscal year 2017 in the amount of 75 million 328 574 dollars and 79 cents we have uh various budgets here before us this evening and we are ready to proceed with the budgets at this time

▶ 24:54 Scott M. Forbes: alderman forbes yes mr chairman i'd like to make a motion to consider department number 171 the conservation department first in the order of departments um for the reason that it is a uh probably the most uh the least complex budget uh this evening and we could probably knock that one

▶ 25:10 Peter D. Mortimer: out fairly quick second alderman and alderman forbes has made a motion to take the conservation commission budget out of order duly seconded by alderman Medeiros all in favor please say aye aye Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we will proceed then with budget number 171. It's the conservation department in the amount of $20,825.

▶ 25:34 Scott M. Forbes: Motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from all the department heads.

▶ 25:37 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to suspend the rules from Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Inferno. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we have with us the chair of the conservation commission, Susan Murphy. Good evening, Ms. Murphy.

▶ 25:53 Speaker 7: you for coming please proceed thank you and thank you for taking me out of order our budget has remained the same for several years so it may look familiar we have two major components to our budget we have a salary line item that goes to our approximately one day a week conservation agent we have a new conservation agent this year eric devlin who's a very committed and bright young man native of saugus he's doing a great job for us if you have a chance to meet him the other large line item is our conservation maintenance line item that is primarily used to do treatments to three of the ponds in the city l pond towners pond and swain's pond for nuisance vegetation we treat to try and avoid having the ponds choked by vegetation l pond in particular has an algae problem and we're also seeing more invasive vegetation there's purple loosestrife in swain's pond and invasive water chestnut in l pond so those are the major items in our budget we also use that to take down trees where we need to and such but that's pretty much um the big items in our budget i'd be happy to take any questions motion to recommend the bottom line we have a

▶ 27:01 Peter D. Mortimer: motion to recommend the bottom line by alderman Boisselle duly seconded by alderman forbes all in favor any opposed hearing none the conservation commission budget will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you very much for your attendance this evening the next budget we have before us is budget department number three zero zero it is the school department in the amount of twenty five million seven hundred twenty five thousand six hundred thirty eight dollars and ninety cents we are under suspension still and that stands for the entire appropriations

▶ 27:41 Peter D. Mortimer: committee meeting madam superintendent and members of the school committee

▶ 27:54 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: would you join us please Thank You appropriations chairman Mortimer president Kahn and members of the Board of Aldermen for inviting us to speak to the FY 17 Melrose public schools budget as approved by the committee this past Tuesday May 17th superintendent Tamar and her staff began this process in October 2015 and she presented her initial budget to the committee on February 23rd as a level serviced budget there was a million dollar plus difference between the bottom line for that budget and what the city could responsibly provide the schools and we still needed to provide teachers and materials for two additional kindergarten classrooms and a part-time music teacher fund our higher than anticipated transportation contract and address stipends for co-curricular activities so the superintendent sharpened her pencil and took a wide variety of actions to close the gap including reconfiguring content administrators by cutting three of seven grades 6 to 12 director positions and adding content facilitators in those areas to perform elements of the work prepaying some materials this year and cutting materials in other areas freezing her salary and reducing administrator salaries removing requests for an elementary specialist in order to reduce current class sizes of 35 students in many art and music classes and a technology position that would allow the new Learning Commons to remain open longer after school pulling more money from reserve accounts that represent rainy day monies raising fees for education stations high school athletics and elementary music lessons and increasing early childhood center tuitions reducing the salary increases that were able to offer teachers in the collective bargaining agreement that is currently being negotiated and reducing the recommended increase in substitute teacher pay even as we continue to struggle to hire subs given the low rate by this Tuesday a balanced budget was presented to the committee and unanimously approved although unified in our vote we articulated that this budget is no longer a level service budget but one that provides the basic services needed to provide students a quality education our district is high-performing but we share the superintendent's vision of a school system where we meet the needs of every child without labeling them and our staff has the capacity and resources they need to be flexible adaptive and proactive for children this budget will support improvement thanks to our outstanding students and families dedicated and hard-working staff and the financial support of the city but we no needs remain like curriculum materials additional staff members increased staff training and higher pay for educators the committee is made up of Melrose citizens and we recognize and appreciate your responsibility to provide for all city departments and we respect the inability of the city to provide all the funds needed to realize our educational vision at the pace we'd like in the interest of student achievement we vow to continue our advocacy at the state level to improve increased education funding for Melrose and we ask for your support tonight of the FY 17 budget for the Melrose public schools thank you for all the work that you do for the schools and for the city and with that and begging your indulgence we would like to invite superintendent a more forward to

▶ 31:22 Speaker 4: answer your questions thank you very much chairman Driscoll alderman boy cell

▶ 31:36 Robert A. Boisselle: please wait till she see it we all have our blue binders this evening good evening thank you for coming and the other school board members for coming here this evening been watching your program on TV for the past couple months months and very interesting and very disheartening. I have a few questions though. Some of the line items that you presented in your budget, you have some of the line items that just sort of ran out of money, but still your actual expenses were higher than what was budgeted. Now, do you take the money and just rearrange it in the end to pay off that particular example? For instance, take an example the boys basketballs was budgeted for $1,400 but the actual as of 2016 as of 517 was three thousand two hundred forty five dollars is that money extra $2,000 brought from some other group that didn't spend their money or

▶ 32:43 Speaker 8: how does that work so the this two different considerations here Alderman Boisselle first of all the school committee votes categories they vote a contractual salary category and a non salary category they have bottom-line autonomy as you well know and what will happen is during the year the business manager if necessary will put forth a memo to them asking to transfer funds if it is between categories if it's not between categories we make the adjustments we need to make to have a balanced budget we are projecting a balanced budget again this year the interim business manager has advised me that he has all confidence we will balance our budget the items that you're looking at are revolving funds it's some of them are paid from the athletic fees and what often happens in our fee in our athletics is there a cost to being successful if we run past the season there'll be additional costs incurred for buses officials venues so what happens is we are able to balance the athletic budget line every year but we do know that there are unexpected costs if we are successful I don't think any of us would want our kids not to be

▶ 33:56 Speaker 2: successful if you're in a winning streak that's right as I have said told the

▶ 33:58 Speaker 8: committee the most expensive success is the Super Bowl very good now as a month

▶ 34:07 Robert A. Boisselle: as she was discussing the chair was discussing the learning Commons is that the the name of the new facility that we're creating yes it is and we also had an influx of technology this year into the system and we also have the stem or steam program which term should we be using is still stem or steam or really

▶ 34:33 Speaker 8: matter it's called stem steam makerspace fab space fab lab hackerspace it's very

▶ 34:41 Robert A. Boisselle: good how is the technology and the steam program coming together quite well

▶ 34:46 Speaker 8: actually I wish I had it with me I have before I came here tonight I was at the stem pathways capstone projects and one of the young ladies had done research on steam labs and had a great PowerPoint on well how effective they have been in both high school and university learning and I asked if I could have the PowerPoint and she is going to share it with me tomorrow so I can share it with the architects so that they can see that how this is taking hold among our young students who are looking forward to it it's coming together very well we're ahead of schedule on our project we're beginning the maker space next week we're beginning the administrative suites next week we have been able through the budget to in the maker space furnish it and provide more computers higher power computers it's a different type of computer that goes in there and what our challenge is is buying the good old-fashioned saws drills and power tools that we will also need but we have every face that we can fundraise for

▶ 36:01 Robert A. Boisselle: those or get a grant very good now with the steam which is a standing for arts and so forth is the technology merging with the arts also yes it is is it saving us money and or are you teaching art in a different way you have to

▶ 36:15 Speaker 8: you have to begin to teach art in a different way. So to that end, in the Learning Commons, there'll also be a graphics art lab. If you know any young artists or any young students who are at schools like RISD or Savannah or Parsons, you would know that a good part of their education now is computer-based. A lot of the drawing they do, a lot of the production they do is using computer programs. While a good number of students are still interested in becoming artistic painters, more and more of our students are interested in the computer design end of their artistic endeavors.

▶ 36:56 Robert A. Boisselle: So if you're doing a little airbrushing, you don't need the compressors anymore. You just hit that appropriate key and you'll get your effect. And you can change it very quickly going into a different abstract type area.

▶ 37:09 Speaker 8: If I can continue to brag about our STEM students, one of the projects I saw tonight was a young lady who spent the summer at Ackamey Technology in a group in which they developed an application in which you could apply filters to all your artwork, so.

▶ 37:29 Robert A. Boisselle: Very good. I just had one other question. In the Winthrop School, you have a line item, Winthrop Equipment slash T, that on the munis

▶ 37:47 Robert A. Boisselle: page six, item number 2420. They had a budget of $1,000 and they actually spent $3,600 on equipment slash T. Is that some sort of special equipment that they're putting in?

▶ 38:11 Robert A. Boisselle: mean the budget for this year is now $6,000 so I'm just wondering what kind

▶ 38:17 Speaker 8: of machinery we're putting it's not machinery it's I would have to check to see exactly what what they bought with that where where my where I'm thinking

▶ 38:33 Speaker 8: it's Winthrop music so I would have to see I would have I would have no problems for you exactly what they bought on that thank you very much thank

▶ 38:41 Peter D. Mortimer: you mr. chairman Thank You alderman Boisselle alderman

▶ 38:44 Speaker 7: Leberman please thank you very much for this information just a few questions

▶ 38:48 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: how much chapter 70 funding are we anticipating are we expecting at the top

▶ 38:55 Speaker 8: of my head I want to say that we're coming away with 70,000 and do you know

▶ 39:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: what that is in comparison to last year no not at the top of my head and you may

▶ 39:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: not know this off the top of your head either because it's still along the same lines but how many children that the analysis was based off of the the

▶ 39:21 Speaker 8: analysis based off almost every student in our district with the exception of the tuition based ECC kids okay for the ECC students that are special ed we get

▶ 39:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: proportional I think I remember from last year that we felt like the number was a little bit conservative so are you feeling it's it's more representative

▶ 39:49 Speaker 7: this year I think it's more I think the number is is is probably fairly well

▶ 39:52 Speaker 8: reported by us I think the issue this year happens to be that they did we recap unit they know you recalculated the low income and there's that new economically disadvantaged category and many of us are feeling some impact from that switch to that economically disadvantaged category okay there was a

▶ 40:18 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: mention of administrator reduction in administrative so administrator salaries was that accounted for by the consolidating the directors positions or people actually taking a pay cut would you repeat that please the reduction in

▶ 40:35 Speaker 8: administrator salaries yeah it's from it it's from they read that and the

▶ 40:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: increase in fees I know that this was discussed quite a bit in the school committee and this was not an easy decision could you talk a little bit about your process for coming up with the numbers for that and the analysis that you did and speak to whether you feel that these may price families or kids out of any of these activities or services well we've dropped the activity

▶ 41:02 Speaker 8: fee as you know or you may not know we have withdrawn the activity fee for now the athletic fee is a difficult one and it goes back to what Alderman Boisselle

▶ 41:17 Speaker 8: was raising transportation especially has gone up tremendously we cannot control that part of the problem with transportation is because we do not transport in district we don't have enough buying power and we're sort of held hostage when we go out for those bids whether it's METCO or athletics so that has that's a tremendous increase the other increase that we're feeling in athletics is the need to condition our helmets and our pads for football and lacrosse we made a purposeful decision that we would buy the lacrosse helmets because we want to make sure that they are up to standard to protect children and so we're paying for that yeah so those have expenses to it we raised the previously the athletic fees were paying about 43% we've raised it to 46% don't forget part of that does pay for the salaries of the coaches and we're anticipating a raise in that we are we always quietly waiver children who need to be waived we don't discuss it we certainly don't want to embarrass anybody but that is taken care of very quietly whether it's music fees athletic fees or any other kind of fee the district does that constantly at the

▶ 42:39 Speaker 8: ECC they have a fees working committee including parents and they help recommend what the fee may be and they came forward with a recommendation at the education stations it's been a little bit more difficult as you know in your positions one of our major concerns that we're having across the city is not only the cost of health care but the cost of utilities ed stations the school buildings run basically seven days a week 24 7 okay there's just we're never closed I mean I know many of you ride by at night and you see lights on whether it's an athletic league from you know the rec department whether it's a rental whether it's a school function where whether it's education stations we are always filled and always have people inside and the city has begun to ask us to consider but what the impact is of indirect services and that is part of what you're seeing happening here in terms of the ECC brought raising fees miss Rosso feels that maybe a handful of people who thought they would come and not coming but she cannot tell you for certain whether it's because of the fees or because they had decided they were going to go to chime time instead you know but that's what we're seeing but as for children who are already in the district we find a way to help them participate

▶ 44:22 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Great. Thank you. Finally, my last question. You mentioned you started this process needing to cut a million dollars, which is a lot of money. And in Ms. Driscoll's opening statement, you mentioned some broad categories of things that we still need, that the budget funds what it funds, and there are some things we still need. Are you able to get sort of very concrete with me about are there things here that we are now not able to provide or are there trade-offs that we're going to need to make in order to provide them and sort of what is the real day day-to-day impact on the kids in the schools as a result of some of the decisions that needed to be made well

▶ 45:02 Speaker 8: the real day-to-day impact is we have been working very hard for four years to improve the outcomes for students the directors have been instrumental in that there is no denying and I have a fantastic team I could not ask for better as a superintendent and as I've made it very clear to the school committee work will slow down there is no two ways about it work will slow down however my priority and I believe the committee's priority was to keep teachers in front of students and that's what we have succeeded in so that's a

▶ 45:48 Speaker 8: concern it's a concern because education in 2016 is endless mandates and I know there are more coming I was at my annual conference today and heard from Jesse as to what is coming whether or not we can successfully implant whenever those those mandates are remains to be seen we are very thin we have always been thin administratively and we are even thinner now the other thing that is important is our directors double as coaches and they are in the classrooms helping new teachers helping veterans teachers as we bring forward new instructional practices or materials that's part of their job obviously they they're not going to be able to do that to the degree that they were doing it before and if you can't help teachers does it have an impact on kids is a question okay the other piece is the materials um we have a program review system in which we have an ongoing cycle of reviewing all our curriculum to date we've done um

▶ 46:54 Speaker 8: okay social studies we're in the middle of ela we're finishing global languages um this month next month and we should be about to start math part of what comes out of those reviews as recommendations for new materials and training we're doing a lot of that in-house that's a stressor and buying materials is often out of our reach and that is a real concern okay thank you

▶ 47:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you very much thank you for your work on this thank you thank you alderman lemmerman

▶ 47:41 Speaker 5: president khan please yeah um i have a question that's going to sound silly but i'll ask it anyway okay i read your budget materials what is the bottom line budget that you folks voted

▶ 47:59 Speaker 8: i don't want to misspeak so we have it 28 million 400.5 for six minutes

▶ 48:08 Speaker 5: yeah that's what i thought this isn't a trick question but i know And the way we do this is we get an overall city budget at the start of this process from the administration. And in it, they give us a budget summary on page 99. What we have, it says that the budget is $25,725,638. And until we receive this budget from you folks And after you passed it earlier this week, that was what we had for a budgeted figure. So I just wanted to make sure that I understood the situation. And I have a couple of questions for Mr. Del Russo, if he's available to take some questions.

▶ 49:05 Speaker 8: There is a difference between what you contribute and what we add through other funding sources.

▶ 49:10 Speaker 5: Right, that's what I want to ask him about.

▶ 49:11 Speaker 8: Right.

▶ 49:18 Speaker 5: evening yeah i'm sorry i wasn't able to speak with you today mr delarusso but um explain it

▶ 49:28 Speaker 5: so i can understand it uh how uh we bridged the difference of uh three million one hundred and forty eight thousand five hundred and two dollars i didn't put this i didn't add the sense but uh

▶ 49:39 Speaker 5: How is this going to work?

▶ 49:43 Speaker 9: Chair, principally what happens, all of them are gone, is it's a multiple-level process. The first and foremost is early on in the year, what the city does, just as you had indicated, is to advise the school department what the anticipated appropriation is for the next fiscal year. That's step one. having said that that's what we're going to provide from our I'll use this term side of the table for funding sources so they can go ahead and now they have a number to plan with based on what we're going to propose in our operating budget the other point I want to stress out is the budget before you is an expense budget it doesn't demonstrate revenues ie so if you look at the depart the veterans department those are expenses of that department those are not the revenues of that department what's unique in in Alderman Khan's point is that and we are in many ways fortunate that we can supplement the operating budget by up what's called other funding sources and those sources help us provide services that normally we would not be able to provide Oh given the amount of money that we're able to provide the school department so whether they be grants and we do have a breakdown which we can provide the ultimate very detailed i think it probably might be good to look at but there's a whole host of evolving accounts that are standard in the school department that are unique to the school department and some are very specific in other words they can only be used for purposes for which the revenue has been designated by either the the commonwealth, the federal government, whatever the case may be, and they're very specific to where they can use it. So when you see a number 25 million plus on the city budget, that does not take into account that the school department by law has additional funds available to supplement other programs that they operate. So that's why I see that number 28 million. That's where the difference is. The difference is what they have here, which we can share with all the board obviously, and what we can provide as a city.

▶ 51:57 Speaker 5: you going to ask us to increase the amount of the overall city budget by 3.1 million

▶ 52:06 Speaker 9: no because what happens is all you're voting on when i report what you voted on to for out of the uh if you look at the uh tax capacity of the city and that square block what you're voting on is the twenty five six seventy five six well that's the question that's the point seven we're not being

▶ 52:30 Speaker 9: asked to approve a 28 million dollar budget no you're voting specifically on what you're going to appropriate and raise through taxation and other sources period you're not voting on the other funding sources applicable in the school department at this time that's why our number

▶ 52:45 Speaker 5: in here is not 20 maybe i'm not maybe i'm just uh you know losing my grip in my older age but i don't remember us budgeting uh in this way before i think this is different i've never seen this before as far as i can see i don't ever remember voting a budget that didn't match the the uh the tally in the budget i can assure you it's done i mean my career that's it's done in

▶ 53:10 Speaker 9: every community and and they have to have other funding sources in order to operate the majority

▶ 53:17 Speaker 5: i understand other funding stores but i mean we have to vote the amount that's in that's correct page 19 that you've given us which is 25 million and i've never seen this before where there was a variance between a budget that was sent down it's like that every year okay well i can go back and

▶ 53:38 Speaker 5: second look I don't remember that how much how much much I'm sorry so when

▶ 53:41 Speaker 8: when we create our budget we created on Excel sheets and what happens is the business manager then takes our budget and puts it into munis so that once you approve it we can begin to use it in the munis system so what you get what you're seeing on your munis document is all the funds we expect to use next year a combination of what the city is giving us and what we will get through revolving funds grants rentals those type of

▶ 54:15 Speaker 5: things no i understand that i just in my experience just just looking at the budget document i don't recall us doing this this way before in terms of the fees how much revenue do

▶ 54:26 Speaker 5: you anticipate the fees are going to generate for the school district well it

▶ 54:39 Speaker 8: varies from fee to fee so on our budget document which is online as well from the athletic with where we we had projected about 258,000 from school

▶ 54:54 Speaker 8: choice about 40,000 we were applying but I'm actually going to use more from the music revolving we had originally intended 50 from education stations about 230 and the metco grant gives us about 250 then we get things like the 94 142 grant which is the special ed grant which is about 800,000 so that's

▶ 55:20 Speaker 5: where some of those monies are coming from and what about does that include tapping into reserves or what do you anticipate we we tapped into some

▶ 55:26 Speaker 8: reserves to to diminish the the Delta this year so that so among the things we did is we we use some of our reserves to prepay some purchases that have a yearly fee attached to them we're going to use some of it to buy some of our curriculum materials for especially k2 our perishables we're going to use it to reduce some of the the obligations like licensing for example we're in the third year of our Mimsy grant we have to it's a two to one grant we're going to pay part of that in advance so that's what that's how we got the 1 million dollars

▶ 56:27 Speaker 5: reduced and I understand that you you you reduced some administrative physicians, how many, if any, actual people are being laid off as a result of this?

▶ 56:39 Speaker 8: Nobody's being laid off.

▶ 56:49 Speaker 5: And is it possible to partner with any surrounding communities relative to transportation contracts? Is that done, can it be done? And I'm violating my principle that I always say, I won't violate asking policy questions because it's really not my job. But I was curious as to whether if there were other communities.

▶ 57:12 Speaker 8: So last year, the former business manager, Jay Bacone, did a study of that. And we would actually lose money. Our small internal van service, we make money on because actually Wakefield, Stoneham, saw a guest contract with us to transport some students. we also explored going through the same collaborative which runs transportation for a lot of my colleagues and that would have cost us an extra hundred thousand dollars so we were sort of like in a no-win position busing for athletics and Metco are two different types of contracts I've discussed with Doreen Ward our Metco coordinator collaborating on busing she she said we tried it years ago and they ran into too many issues with kids being on time and things like that when you're going to more than one district so she is reluctant to do that and the athletic busing is but is particular to your size and your schedule you know we may be going to play Westwood but Wakefield may be going to pay play so I guess it you know the same type of sport I think

▶ 58:28 Speaker 5: that's all I have initially mr. chairman Thank You president car

▶ 58:36 John N. Tramontozzi: Alderman chairman Tosi please right thank you just a following up a little bit on what President Kahn was talking about in terms of the budget so if I get it straight so the city is giving to schools 25 million dollars to run the educational system of the city of Melrose but you budget because you need 28 million dollars to run the program the educational system yes and you anticipate this covering this difference with the other funding sources that you described are those other funding sources a guarantee of funds we budget

▶ 59:15 Speaker 8: conservatively and that's also how we've been able to build up our surplus a little since when I first came here and it had been pretty heavily depleted so we are conservative on that in our projections so you know for example if we say we're we're planning on applying 50,000 in music fees I think in reality we end up playing 80,000 once we know how many kids have come in and taking lessons and things like that the same thing with the sports and everything else where we also do fairly well as you have to as you know is education

▶ 59:53 Speaker 8: stations has 700 children in it they run a very robust summer program and that quite frankly if she does well we do well but we still budget conservatively as to her contribution the same thing on rentals you know we rent two buildings BB and Ripley that's that's a constant we know what that's exactly going to be and we also rent out the auditorium at the middle school Roosevelt Lincoln heavily and we're anticipating when the Learning Commons is completed the performance space there will also be able to be rented all right so it looks

▶ 1:00:33 John N. Tramontozzi: like maybe yeah we will get those funds from other sources coming in to take care of the balance of the budget because I because my concern what would would have been then if there was not enough of the other funding sources coming through then you'll be back to looking to us for additional funds in the middle of the fiscal year and you know we got to be careful of that let me ask you and maybe this is a question for mr. de la Rousseau what if it if it turns out that they have an excess of other funding sources where's that extra money go there's a stay within the school department or is it going to the

▶ 1:01:12 Speaker 9: general funds no it doesn't enter the general fund those sources are unique to

▶ 1:01:15 John N. Tramontozzi: the school department so does it go into a separate fund future use or how does

▶ 1:01:26 Speaker 8: that how is it accounted for so you have to be again very careful the state regulations around revolving funds and student activity fees are quite strict as you know and if it's a student activity fee it can only be used for those things that benefit those students you know if it's a revolving fund we have more flexibility and we can use it in other categories if we have to I'll give you an example of something that had come up where it was good to have reserves most people don't know is we had issue with the sound board and the lighting board at the auditorium in the middle of the production season you may

▶ 1:02:10 Speaker 8: know you're very familiar with that and luckily we had in reserves the $3,500 for the sound board and the $10,000 for the lighting board or you would have been there with a very big flashlight well as you know I do have a soft spot

▶ 1:02:25 John N. Tramontozzi: for the the arts and the theater and the music program as all four of my daughters have been successful with those programs and that leads me to another question I have is it appears then that the in the fiscal 2017 budget that it does not fund the position of the finance director is that correct

▶ 1:02:47 Speaker 8: yes it also does not find a separate math director and it also doesn't find a

▶ 1:02:55 John N. Tramontozzi: separate separate history director and and of course I'm a little disappointed in that but I understand in terms of the budgets but let me ask you this so what what was the rationale for the elimination of the finance position and will it will the programs that theater and music and programs suffer in terms of quality and opportunities for the students because of the elimination of

▶ 1:03:22 Speaker 8: the that director position what happened is during the budget season two of the directors informed me they would be leaving given what we were facing at

▶ 1:03:33 Speaker 8: that time I had to seize it as an opportunity to keep teachers as much as I don't like it I and without having to lay off two people and that's when we began to think I do not do this in isolation I do it with the whole team there's 23 of us on the team including the directors including the assistant principals and we began to talk about what are our options this is an unfortunate configuration that other districts are going to I spoke to my colleagues in North Reading North Andover Waltham all facing similar situations moving to a different configuration with directors because of fiscal constraints what we are going to create is and again when you have a situation like this you also have to see what are the opportunities in this situation we are creating what we're calling content facilitators we're working with both unions on this I will tell you the teachers union is happens to be pretty enthusiastic about this and so we are hoping for the best again I'm not telling you this is ideal we all know this is not ideal but what we will do is we will have teacher leaders who are expertise in their areas take charge of of what they can and have and report to directors who will have budgetary responsibilities for those areas I'm just pausing to think okay I'm sorry

▶ 1:05:04 Speaker 8: thank you in this business very few people stay in one place forever and that's especially true among administrators and we do not have a succession system in the Melrose public schools we don't have a way to grow the next generation of administrators so when this occurred and we had to brainstorm we looked at it as an opportunity to grow that next generation of administrators that when some of our current people move on to whatever aspirations they have we have people ready and able to take over the teachers also like it because it gives them more say in their departments and they feel that they have a lot to bring to the table and they do they're smart capable people so again we're in a situation where we're trying to make lemonade out of lemons and you know committed people it's a one-year at school committees and systems it's a one-year trial and we will re-examine it in the spring if it doesn't work we will be asking for more money to return to the to the other structure so but that is the best we can do under the circumstances well I do

▶ 1:06:19 John N. Tramontozzi: hope maybe it it is a successful um it works out because uh of course my uh my fear is that once the position is gone it's very difficult to bring it back and in past experience we've seen that especially in this type of position i hate to see the uh the good works that the um the program in the productions of for example les mis and beauty and the beast and most recent too too I think we're successful productions and great opportunities for the students

▶ 1:06:54 Speaker 8: I hate to see those disappear we had great productions before we had the director of Fine Arts also as you well remember yes and I hope it continues in

▶ 1:07:01 John N. Tramontozzi: that that the loss of that position doesn't affect it at all but thank you I appreciate that all right that's all I have no thank you Alderman Tramontozzi

▶ 1:07:12 Monica C. Medeiros: alderman Medeiros please thank you superintendent Amory you have a vacancy in the business manager position second can you talk about how the the budget process has gone and what like how you've handled that without the business

▶ 1:07:26 Speaker 8: manager so when mr. McCollum left I think we were already on draft for so and he had set up great systems great macros and we have Dan Sullivan with us many of you met probably know mr. Sullivan he's worked with the city for many years especially on Eunice he comes two days a week and he's working with us on this and he's been able to pick it up using what mr. Picon has left in place so the adjustments he's had to make to the documents have been only basically my change log and corresponding changes to the overall budget he is the one that ultimately had to take the Excel sheets and convert them to munis being very well familiar with munis it you know he was able to do it and is this am i

▶ 1:08:14 Monica C. Medeiros: correct in memory serving me right this is maybe the second year that we've got the the school committee is really sort of on munis and doing more this is this

▶ 1:08:25 Speaker 8: is no the school committee's always been has been on yours I'd have to look at mr. yeah yeah yeah a long time we're expanding the use of it we're trying you know a lot of a lot of the staff have a habit of keeping double systems you know at this you know so we're trying to move everybody somewhat recently yeah yeah

▶ 1:08:47 Monica C. Medeiros: voted some funding for related like that so in in my recollection I can't remember us having this this kind of difference in the itemized budget with the actual budget either I think in some ways it's it's a little bit more clear in terms of what we're actually expending I know you mentioned that there is an other funding document that is with this so if you look at the draft

▶ 1:09:17 Speaker 8: of budgets which will be you know finalized when I'll go up as soon as we finish here here and you look at page 9 of that document online it lists all our other funding sources so yes so I would like to see if we could get that you

▶ 1:09:35 Monica C. Medeiros: know please added to the budget order that we have on the Alderman side so I think it's it's very important that you know if somebody comes you know looking to see the city of Melrose budget and they go to the document that they can really understand you know how it is that you know we're getting from you know these two different you know two different dollar items I know I had asked this last year is about how many revolving accounts we we have and one if we could get a list of those if you had a chance to work on that since last year

▶ 1:10:17 Speaker 8: That list exists, I believe, in Mr. De La Rosa's office.

▶ 1:10:23 Monica C. Medeiros: And can you talk about some of the controls that are involved in how the money is handled, how it comes in and how it goes out, and how the decision is made regarding the revolving accounts?

▶ 1:10:41 Speaker 8: Well, their budgeted immune is just like anything else. So if I know I have $278,000 in athletic fees coming in and a total budget of almost $700,000, they're transferred as needed. Reflected immunists, if you follow immunists, you often see things that are negative and that's because they're coming from revolving funds. It's the same protocols and procedures as you would have for any other city department that may have outsourced funding,

▶ 1:11:18 Monica C. Medeiros: whether it's a grant or something else and I are those funds audited absolutely

▶ 1:11:22 Speaker 8: actually they're audited at several places they're audited by our auditor they're audited at the state level in the year-end reports they're tightly

▶ 1:11:37 Monica C. Medeiros: controlled okay and I heard you mentioned that you're doing curriculum review on a rolling you do a rolling cycle and next up is is math how how far in how far in are we into the bond that we did for curriculum materials going

▶ 1:11:58 Speaker 8: into year four or five going into year four or five yeah yeah at least four or

▶ 1:12:06 Monica C. Medeiros: five and if we're looking at math now is that going to take well it's a two years

▶ 1:12:09 Speaker 8: any program review was a two-year two-year review it takes us two years to go through the whole process so in some of what come and sometimes they come out of it recommending nothing and sometimes they come out of it recommending something or sometimes they come out of it recommending adjustments and sequence of of instruction it's not just about the materials it's about instruction sequencing of courses training for teachers it's a comprehensive review of

▶ 1:12:42 Monica C. Medeiros: the curriculum and also I thought that I'm not sure it was yourself or if it was chairman Driscoll that that you had mentioned an extra staff or additional staff to keep the Learning Commons open later so I had proposed we're

▶ 1:13:01 Speaker 8: anticipating with the new Learning Commons that students are going to want stay later in the day and we're trying to find a way to staff it with somebody who has technology abilities after school maybe even beginning late afternoon you know halfway through the school day but again it was a choice a difficult choice we had to make in order to close the difference and we dropped it from from the budget at this time yeah no I my recollection was when we

▶ 1:13:29 Monica C. Medeiros: voted the bond that we thought we were going to be able to do those kinds of things with the existing staff so I don't know which bond you're referring

▶ 1:13:46 Speaker 8: to all the the bond for the Learning Commons and well I still have a library media specialist I to library media specialists and an academic facilitator but again they're very much in demand and again anticipating further demand we wanted to try to ease and provide more supervision we'll have to find a

▶ 1:14:10 Monica C. Medeiros: different way to do it thanks it's kind of circling back I know another question

▶ 1:14:19 Monica C. Medeiros: I was hoping to you know we voted to fully fund all day kindergarten and you know with the understanding that when we did that it would become self funding and fund itself is is that the case

▶ 1:14:37 Speaker 8: considering how how little chapter 70 Melrose gets I don't think anything is self funding in Melrose I think that it has been very successful we do get chapter 70 money for those children I don't think you I know that in the crowding people suggested we go back to half day of fees I will tell you about 90% of the state I believe now has full day K and it's an integral part of our education program and to go anywhere backwards would have a negative effect on not only those children but on their whole family but you don't think it's self-funding I don't think anything is self-funding athletic program is not self-funding our music program is not self-funding we're a public school

▶ 1:15:25 Monica C. Medeiros: system no we have an obligation we were just you know very much told that it it would be self on I wasn't trying to see if that's where we're at it doesn't seem like we are so on that note so you don't think that the ECC is self-funding

▶ 1:15:41 Speaker 8: see the CCC is self-funding I don't know where that rumor started the ECC is not only self-funding it's one of the offsets we use to balance our budget

▶ 1:16:00 Speaker 8: it is ACC is tuition-based the only obligation we have at the ECC is the special ed children which were about number about 32 currently out of 300 and

▶ 1:16:12 Monica C. Medeiros: could you explain a little bit more about the the obligation at that level I'm sorry can you explain a little bit more about the obligation that we have at that level it had you know pre-kindergarten what you know what our

▶ 1:16:31 Monica C. Medeiros: our obligation is in terms of education do we have to provide you know full-day

▶ 1:16:36 Speaker 8: services like what's the special ed children or for all children or for the

▶ 1:16:38 Speaker 10: well for special ed I mean or for special ed children it depends on what

▶ 1:16:40 Speaker 8: their disability is and what their IEP is written some children need a full program and some children just need related services so it varies from child

▶ 1:16:53 Monica C. Medeiros: to child and those are sort of if early intervention detects this is how right

▶ 1:16:59 Speaker 8: so as you as you well know and obviously you remember from your days on the school committee if the child has been an early intervention and early intervention recommends that the child begins services or continue services at three they're recommended to us at 2 6 and we begin planning at 2 9 so that the day they turn 3 they can literally walk in the door so what will often happen at the ECC is we will be picking up kids which we did as late as the latest two weeks ago because under the early intervention and special ed requirements

▶ 1:17:37 Monica C. Medeiros: that's their transition time and actually speaking of picking it do you think that your enrollment numbers for the regular you know kindergarten up do you think especially kindergarten do you think that those enrollment numbers are

▶ 1:17:50 Speaker 8: solid at this point or I think I think my next year's enrollment numbers are still soft I think that we will continue to see registration over the summer I think we were at last time I looked we were at 305 and we typically see between 30 and 40 registrations over the summer so so you had been I'm closer to 30 than

▶ 1:18:11 Monica C. Medeiros: 40 quite frankly and you guys have been estimating on 330 is that i'm estimating on 330. so we're close but maybe a little bit over yeah and um can you talk a little bit about you mentioned uh chapter 70. um then you talk about the charter school funding and this might be more of a question for mr delarusso um are we receiving the reimbursements that we're supposed to be

▶ 1:18:39 Speaker 9: receiving from the state through the chair it's my understanding we are not getting the full reimbursement i know there's been a lot of discussion because of the negative impact it has on funding um for all cities and towns because we don't get that um but from my understanding um we are still not receiving the full reimbursement we're required to get do you have any idea about

▶ 1:18:58 Monica C. Medeiros: how how short that will leave us or how short it left us last year um i can find that out for you

▶ 1:19:07 Speaker 9: i'll be happy to provide that for the board but um as you're aware it is disappointing because it was sold under one version and it's come across as a different version and i think perhaps if that was understood in the beginning people from my perspective would have had a different uh concept

▶ 1:19:27 Monica C. Medeiros: of it no certainly and we have many obligations that we have to meet based on what the state and other i know put on us and yet some of those areas where we should be getting the full amount that they are obligated by law to be funding us with a reimbursement we're not necessarily getting so

▶ 1:19:51 Monica C. Medeiros: we're happy to to do some research for you thank you i'd like to see that as and how that has an impact on our budget in particular I'd love to see it with it over the last five years particularly thank you Thank You alderman Medeiros Alderman

▶ 1:20:05 Michael P. Zwirko: Sweirko please Thank You mr. chairman and thank you for being here tonight and also for all the work you did it over the past couple of weeks with the budget I know that it wasn't easy so I appreciate the hard work so I chairman Driscoll during in her opening remarks made the statement that the budget reflects basic services that will be provided and maybe I didn't get that completely right but I guess what I'm saying what I want to say is does that mean does the term basic services means what we are mandated under the law I mean because it seems like I'm looking at this and I know the the good work to get Sunday it's more than basic services right I mean so what exactly what did you mean by that and we are obviously we're in good steed with what we will be providing it under the mandate so if you could just expound on the basic services

▶ 1:20:56 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: a little bit please sure what I meant by that was that the superintendent proposed a level service budget anticipating that needs always grow and change and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but that is my interpretation of level service because we have additional mandates more students more things to do so we are looking at originally in the first draft was the love the level service but obviously we've had to make some changes so we are certainly well over meeting the basic minimum requirements thanks to all the good work that our staff is doing but certainly not to the extent we would like to do um that we feel that the good people of melrose certainly would like to see us do so we're always looking to do more than that so um thank you what i was trying to do is make

▶ 1:21:56 Speaker 8: a distinction between level funded and level service if we were funded at the same exact number you had funded us last year we would actually be laying off people okay you know expenses go up yeah contractual obligations go up level service was an attempt to continue to do what we were doing and accommodate for some additional mandates and some additional growth needs for example the fifth grade at the Winthrop the two two additional K's against it again this year the need for an additional specialist at the elementary schools because you now have more kids you have to give more you need somebody you need more time for art and music that's a point two person or point four person depending on on the situation we were trying to incorporate all those things into what would be a level service so our students would continue to get what previous students had received over the past few years again as we've discussed here we kept we kept teachers in front of children we were able to add those things we needed to add to accommodate the growth we weren't able to give another specialist to the elementaries we found a creative way around it using our school psychologists and our social workers we have some more maneuvering of staff that we're going to have to do internally Lincoln's going to have 425 students I think Roosevelt's going to have 420 that's a difficult number for an an administrator without an assistant principal so we're thinking about how we allocate mid-level staff so that they're there to help the principals again without adding that because we couldn't um it's those type of things that we're really struggling with and i appreciate the clarity

▶ 1:23:51 Michael P. Zwirko: on that the the other um question i wanted to ask is you had mentioned the departure of mr picone and then you had said that the business media dan sullivan in that role is that an interim role that

▶ 1:24:01 Speaker 8: he's in you said it was only two days a week that's it that's an interim role so

▶ 1:24:03 Michael P. Zwirko: is the position the position will be filled the position will be filled it isn't I mean are you interviewing currently is it open point now I needed

▶ 1:24:13 Michael P. Zwirko: to get this unity okay and I also noticed and apologies on my end if I missed it but it appeared at least the way I'm looking at it there is no

▶ 1:24:23 Speaker 8: athletic director or the Robbie or Pat Ruggiero is retiring and we will fill

▶ 1:24:31 Speaker 8: that as well but there's no she where don't you see her she's listed usually system-wide on the same page as me I think oh with me yeah maybe I'm looking

▶ 1:24:42 Michael P. Zwirko: at it I thought it was it's under the business manager role it's zero dollars maybe it maybe that's a different acronym for the you know the ad is add

▶ 1:24:54 Speaker 8: admin oh okay yeah I mean the munis the munis abbreviations are not always

▶ 1:25:01 Speaker 5: helpful yeah I know it says zero right

▶ 1:25:11 Michael P. Zwirko: yeah page 16 the third one down it says 2017 is zero no that's administrative

▶ 1:25:26 Speaker 8: help desk the administrative receptionist administration straight up

▶ 1:25:32 Michael P. Zwirko: no they're under business manager above tech director for 2017 under mayor it

▶ 1:25:42 Speaker 8: says zero he may have put that in under wellness because they're also the director of health and wellness I will have to check with mr. Sullivan it

▶ 1:25:52 Speaker 8: jumped out at me that's why I asked no thank you for catching that

▶ 1:25:59 Speaker 8: um he might have moved it to the athletic department and I guess my last

▶ 1:26:17 Michael P. Zwirko: question is more more of a broad one with respect to what's been called as the structural deficit it has been eliminated through this budget process I'm just curious it was it was kind of a tall glass of water to get rid of it's

▶ 1:26:31 Speaker 9: respectfully do the chase not been eliminated because the override didn't pass so what we do is this fall we're going to seek a request from the Board of Aldermen for another six hundred fifty five thousand from free cash like we did last year I believe was six hundred and forty thousand that does not include the Medicaid of three hundred thousand dollars that we do traditionally for a number of years but that will be a request before the board

▶ 1:27:06 Speaker 5: most likely in october in the fall yeah thank you those are all the questions that i had mr chairman

▶ 1:27:09 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman's workout alderman forbes please thank you mr champ um i think this first

▶ 1:27:16 Scott M. Forbes: question is for uh mr delarusso can you just describe uh the vetting process for the expenses that we have here in the budget i know that you and i talked at at length sometimes where we get these finished numbers and it's like a cake with the frosting on it but we really can't cut into the cake to see where these expenses are allocated and if you know if they're justified just for example if if a line item and supplies goes up by a hundred percent I'm assuming that you've had contact with either the various department heads if it belongs to which school if there are any type of estimates that go along with that that justify that increase can you explain

▶ 1:27:57 Speaker 9: that a little bit to us sure I make you the chair and um I'll use the readers dietress virgin if i can but i'll try to go as deep as you'd like me to what typically happens is um when we do send down it's a great question thank you when we do send out um the budget proposal and request for information from each department we specifically advise them they are not to increase contractual anything other than contractual salary obligations which are all audited by the auditor's office in the city budget so all the salaries they're audited why because we have to ensure that they're at the appropriate step level and they have quite frankly the authorization to be at that stepping level so that is significant part of what we do the second thing is that in particular um we specifically advise department heads and i you know quite frankly and i get it back a little bit each year and i should get it back a little bit each year that we advise them again to not increase any line items unless there's already a pre-approved contractual obligation for example if trash if the contract is a three-year contract we're obligated for another 10 000 next year for example then that would justify the increase in that line otherwise we ask them to submit a supplemental request outside of the budget as to what items they would like to see increase or adjusted or actually decrease because that can happen too depending on the contract expires or they've changed a vendor for example um but and then what we do is um so that is all assimilated it's put together we sit down we look at them through the auditor's office budget by budget item by item line and by line item to ensure that if we have an opportunity to increase a line item we obviously try to identify which one for purposes of need for purposes of departmental request would warrant it so it is in its own way it is a very laborious process which it should be And we put everyone through this process so that we can be sure that what is budgeted in that line is actually as close to what is accurate as is possible. It is clearly our consensus that we cannot fund to levels that any department would like to see. That will never happen. What we try to do is suggest that within that category, that they use their management skills and prioritize during the year what comes up before them. So if they have to use another line item within a category, it's because they as department has believed that's a bigger priority than what was originally their objective. But that's really the leeway we provide them because they are also responsible, just as we are. to ensure that they don't exceed their line items by category period but we also try in the best way we can to give them that some type of flexibility because things will happen the budget you pass today will not be the budget that ends up being expended period it's either going to be higher or lower that's just the nature of the budget so to your question it's an excellent question And it's also, it really, it's a process that I think really never ends because as you're aware, every month we produce a report for the Board of Aldermen by department to show you where they're at, and it also assists departments to identify what they're doing, where their strengths are, and where they may be weak. So if they do have issues, we like to know as soon as possible, particularly, for example, with the overtime, because we need as much time as possible to plan to help them. The later it gets into the year, the less chance we can help people at times. So the sooner they can identify an issue or a problem, please, we ask them to tell us so we can put it on the agenda and, you know, hopefully we'll be able to help them before the end of the fiscal year. So it's really a two-way street, and it needs to be that because there's no possible way, given the magnitude of our budgets, that we can operate any other way. We need the department's input. We need their trust. We need their judgment. And we try to provide as much help as we can.

▶ 1:32:40 Scott M. Forbes: Sure. I know just given my accounting and auditing background, my job is to go inside the number. Oh, yeah. And this is kind of like the opposite. But I do know that if you gave us every single piece of paper for every single line item, We would be here in October, and we still wouldn't be halfway through.

▶ 1:32:54 Speaker 9: You wouldn't want that.

▶ 1:32:56 Scott M. Forbes: It is readily available. If anybody had a specific question, the number is easily justified.

▶ 1:33:02 Speaker 6: That was the point that I was really trying to make.

▶ 1:33:03 Speaker 9: Absolutely. In fact, one of the things that we take pride in is on the payment of bills, that we ensure we have adequate documentation. Every single item that we pay, and it's twofold. One is not only that it provides what we need, justification to pay the bill, that it's appropriate that it's legal and it's proper but also as I we always tell each and every department and I always emphasize with my own staff that remember that in a year or two years or three years an auditor will come in here asked to see these bills by random selection and they want you to produce the documentation you used to that authorized the payment of this bill so pretend the audit is standing in front of you the outside auditor and before pay the bill be sure all your ducks are in a row will hold it up and don't pay it because if you can't justify it now you can't justify it in two or three years so that's the protocol that we use that's why we're i think as successful as we are we don't see a lot of um negative issues we don't see revenue deficits we don't see debt appropriation deficits they don't happen by accident that because people pay attention you have to pay attention where you're going to end up in those positions because um the longer you put it off the worse the problem will be it's like anything else address it immediately and take action as soon as possible so i mean that's the protocol and um i think that helps everyone here because it all gives us a peace of mind that people are on top of it and it has to be that way thank you thank you i appreciate that point of clarification

▶ 1:34:35 Scott M. Forbes: for us um i do want to get into uh i i looked through the budget and one of the two things or the two things that popped out at me were the lincoln school and the franklin where their increases were i think for the lincoln is like nine and a half percent overall and for the franklin was at 19 um can we could you just go into that for us and uh so um without looking

▶ 1:34:58 Speaker 8: as you said as an accountant into the numbers generally uh don't forget the lincoln now is up um classrooms okay so um they're now a four four and then the rest of three strands so that's an additional um the other thing is we need to add a 0.5 esl teacher at lincoln's which i'm sure you understand at the franklin um what we have run into is with some of our special ed children we need additional related services we are probably going to have to increase some of those some of the children that we see coming in from ei

▶ 1:35:44 Speaker 8: a little bit more involved than we've had in the past and you're seeing you're seeing some of that reflected including sometimes the need for another paraprofessional so that is what you're seeing okay

▶ 1:36:05 Scott M. Forbes: and my last question would be hearing uh hearing the language and the dialogue tonight about cutting director positions and and i've heard the word layoffs a number of times this evening as well to me it wasn't a few years ago where the administration was saying that we were in a very financially stable and robust position when it came to our school department it seems like that this has changed in a very short period of time with this fiscal 17 budget are we in a position of financial stability or are we are we are we just trying to hold on or maintain you could go into that a little bit for

▶ 1:36:45 Speaker 8: us I would I would appreciate that my objective this year given the information we were provided by the city as to what was available was to maintain that was my objective this year was to maintain and to not slide backwards

▶ 1:36:58 Speaker 8: i think you're in a situation where it's a year by year situation quite frankly i think there were some extra stresses that mr del russo can talk about on the city budget and their ability to provide funding next year but i think that given the city's ability to raise

▶ 1:37:24 Speaker 8: revenue you're in a difficult position you know mr. de la Rosa you think that

▶ 1:37:28 Scott M. Forbes: six hundred and forty thousand dollar appropriation from free cash should be able to take care of that supplemental shortfall if need be I feel the chip the

▶ 1:37:36 Speaker 9: I believe we're looking for six hundred and fifty five thousand in the fall if it's if it's available and that would I believe but the Medicaid would close the door for the school department to buy them what they need that was the same numbers last year last year I believe was six hundred and forty thousand six forty last year plus the three hundred for the Medicaid Thank You mr. chairman

▶ 1:38:02 Peter D. Mortimer: I have nothing at this time Thank You alderman Forbes alderman

▶ 1:38:06 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: McAteer my goal is please I know it's been months and it's not easy and I appreciate you presenting us with a balanced budget it's it's fortunate that we haven't been balanced it on the backs of students in terms of putting services and and staff in front of students and I think we should all be very grateful for that I am concerned that there's basically a three million dollar difference that you're filling with outside funding are all of the expenses included in this budget for that three million dollars or are there so in other words like if you're getting eight hundred thousand dollars in circuit breaker are all the special ed costs included in this budget that would be

▶ 1:39:02 Speaker 8: offset by that circuit breaker funding that's a special education as you well know there's no projecting right one of the reason we were eight we felt a little bit more secure using reserves to buy against next year was we got past the April 1st deadline if you're familiar with speed you know that's a magic date right in special ed world it means that nobody has moved in it's a very expensive out-of-district placement private out-of-district placement for which we will be held responsible for the coming year that doesn't mean we won't have move-ins for collaboratives that doesn't mean we won't have placements that are expensive unfortunate things happen to children and we have a responsibility to make sure they receive a free and appropriate public education so I can't I can't promise you that I think you know a budget is your best guesstimate and that's what we did based on what we currently have in special education and those types of but the outside district

▶ 1:40:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: the outside placement tuitions and the collaborative tuitions are included in this budget as projected yes they are they are so the current students for our current students so the outside funding sources that you're anticipating using to fill that three million dollar gap are essentially right the expenses are

▶ 1:40:30 Speaker 8: covered in this budget right and we believe you know one of the difficult difficult things of doing a budget before the state finalizes their budget is again where we're using information that could shift in a moment right but right now it was built on the belief that they will fund the K grant they will fund circuit breaker at a reasonable rate but you know again from your experience there's a day where all of a sudden you wake up and they've decided to go from 70% reimbursement on circuit breaker to 40% because the state

▶ 1:41:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: has a problem mm-hmm and although they say they're giving more in chapter 70

▶ 1:41:09 Speaker 8: this year yeah we heard from the department today and they said don't

▶ 1:41:17 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: count on it right the checks in the mail right yeah so in essence what the city is budgeting for the school department is really three million dollars short except for the fact that we are receiving these outside funds which at some point almost any time could be in jeopardy is that an accurate statement

▶ 1:41:44 Speaker 8: to some time I think what could be in jeopardy is the revenue realized well

▶ 1:41:50 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: from your revolving accounts from your fees from your exactly tuitions right

▶ 1:41:59 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: right and so those are based on sort of a break even a break point where people will say gee I really can't send my child to education stations every day after school anymore exactly right right so that that was leading me to the free cash which mr. de la Rosa has already addressed in so far as we are anticipating that and we are anticipating the 300,000 in Medicaid reimbursement which makes up almost the million that you had to cut no the bill

▶ 1:42:34 Speaker 8: budget is built with that calculated in already oh it is yes okay the million we

▶ 1:42:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: had to cut was above and beyond so your amount of 28 million includes revenue from that the three million dollar gap includes that almost million dollars right from free cash and Medicaid money okay all right that's that's good to

▶ 1:43:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: know thank you I think that was most of my questions I did also pick up as I'm Alderman's work oh did on the ad position and I I'm I'm wondering if they

▶ 1:43:18 Speaker 8: just think I think he moved him to a different line right and so out of my

▶ 1:43:22 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: office yeah well because the other and the other director positions that are remaining there are three remaining right and are they in here embedded in

▶ 1:43:30 Speaker 8: in the high school in the middle school staffing costs and the staffing costs

▶ 1:43:34 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and so the new lead teacher coordinators whatever the new we haven't finalized

▶ 1:43:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and facilitators we have not we've had them before haven't we instead of Lee I mean I remember when we didn't have department heads and we had lead teachers and lead teachers at one point you're right so those positions are or are not in here they're not in there yet they're not in here yet yeah but I

▶ 1:43:59 Speaker 8: believe there's a line there for contractual obligations that covers what we predict will be the cost of that to me it would also be helpful going

▶ 1:44:11 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: forward to know like what the costs of those are specifically in relation to what the savings is from not having the directors so if and when there was a point that we could put them back we would be you know aware of it certainly I am and have been since day one with the kindergarten grants a huge supporter and a full day kindergarten. Nevertheless, the high school being our flagship, I think we, you know, may need to be looking, and I, as I know you are, for the future, you know, of how we're going to be distributing, you know, the resources that we have. And I know you work hard on that every year and every day so but I think it's a continual battle to to balance it and thank you

▶ 1:45:09 Peter D. Mortimer: for what you're doing that's it thank you thank you very much Alderman

▶ 1:45:15 Gail Infurna: McAteer-Margolis Alderman Inferno please I had a question regarding chapter 70 based on Alderman Lemmerman earlier question where I understand how you you didn't know the number or anything I was just curious for the public safe sake would you know whether it was going to be higher or lower just you know it's

▶ 1:45:33 Speaker 8: going to be slightly higher it is in somewhere this is 91 pages of documentation that I carry with me I just know I understand it's going to be

▶ 1:45:46 Gail Infurna: slightly higher because our enrollment is higher okay all right I just kind of wanted to get that out there for the public also I actually had the same concerns about the athletic directors line here I've just gone through I

▶ 1:45:59 Speaker 8: really can't see it in here and I just like I think mr. Sullivan when he converted to Munis buried it in with high school and middle school salaries I will ask him to you know I appreciate that but the bottom not line is accurate

▶ 1:46:15 Gail Infurna: from the Excel sheets do you know and I should know this but somewhat maybe like Thank you, I'm not a good memory of the numbers. On the business manager's job that you're advertising, what that was. Actually, excuse me, the athletic director, what you're advertising that job for?

▶ 1:46:30 Speaker 8: That's contractual, and again, I'm trying to remember what we did in this new contract with the administrators, is we tiered their salaries depending on the position. And I know that the athletic director's tier is up there higher than the director's. So I would say mid-90s, I would say.

▶ 1:46:52 Gail Infurna: That's what it looks like in here from before, but I wasn't quite sure. And I really don't have many questions. As you know, I do watch you avidly on TV. But I am concerned also about the change in department heads. And I think to your credit and to your administration, we've made many gains in the past few years and it's tough to, and I'm sure you must really be feeling it. It's tough to see the progress being slowed down, and I'm going to go with your theory. It's not going to stop, but it's just going to be a little slower, so I do feel bad about that. I also like and appreciate that you want teachers in the classroom, but I guess we want it all and just can't have it all. So I thank you for, thank you, the school committee and administrative team for all the tough decisions that you do have to make each well at least every other week when you meet and so thank you for all that thank you thank you alderman inferno

▶ 1:47:59 Speaker 5: president khan please so is the 650 free cash allocation part of the 3.1 million dollars of funds that are being applied for other sources or is it in addition the month of the dn prepared

▶ 1:48:13 Speaker 9: Did he include the $650,000?

▶ 1:48:17 Speaker 8: He included it.

▶ 1:48:18 Speaker 9: Yeah, but I saw it.

▶ 1:48:23 Speaker 5: So it's in the $3.1 million is the $650,000 free cash. That's what he said.

▶ 1:48:29 Speaker 9: He could verify that.

▶ 1:48:31 Speaker 6: Okay. We'll verify that.

▶ 1:48:34 Speaker 5: That's all. I was going to launch into a polemic about municipal finance and being vigilant, but I don't think anybody wants to hear that.

▶ 1:48:43 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Codd. Alderman Boisselle, please.

▶ 1:48:46 Robert A. Boisselle: Just to clarify, Chapter 70, the annual cherry sheet analysis stated 4-28-2016 shows an increase of $205,480, about a 2.58% increase.

▶ 1:49:03 Speaker 8: Increase in population.

▶ 1:49:05 Speaker 9: And also as a point of information, respectfully, is that also on page two has, one shows the charter school reimbursements that all the mnemonic was talked about you know page two shows the charter school assessment so we see it on that same state aid sheet and again when it strikes home you see just so much money that we're not realizing it's striking pardon me but no no problem

▶ 1:49:36 Peter D. Mortimer: disappointed thank you mister thank you thank you alderman boy cell seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard the chair is open for a motion motion to

▶ 1:49:44 Speaker 2: recommend department number 300 school departments bottom line alderman boy

▶ 1:49:49 Peter D. Mortimer: sellers made a motion to recommend the school department budget I'd like to

▶ 1:49:54 Speaker 5: have the I'd like to have the actual bottom line recited since bottom line is

▶ 1:50:01 Robert A. Boisselle: twenty five million seven hundred and twenty five thousand six hundred and thirty eight dollars and ninety cents according to what I have here or twenty

▶ 1:50:16 Peter D. Mortimer: five point seven million alderman Boyce L has made his motion more specific and it was again seconded by alderman Inferno seeing no further discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget the school department budget will be recommended the full board thank you ladies and