Special Education Expense Update ( 5 minutes)

Transcript (~5 min @ 32:54)

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

▶ 32:52 Speaker 6: Thank you for joining us Mr. Kelly.

▶ 32:56 Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.

▶ 32:58 Speaker 6: Welcome to Finance and Facilities Tonight. We have a few updates for us. We have, the first thing is we have the memo on the special ed expenses, an update on that. Would you like to speak to it, Mr. Kelly first, or

▶ 33:13 Speaker 8: Assistant Superintendent Berman, um, prepared a memo with, um, uh, some of the, the big categories she had visited in her last meeting that was in the packet. And, um, uh, she's unable to be here tonight, but I'm, I can certainly try to answer any questions that you may have, and if not, I can certainly get back to you with more information.

▶ 33:28 Speaker 6: Thank you. Any questions from the committee?

▶ 33:34 Speaker 6: Yes. Yes, Ms. McAndrew, go ahead.

▶ 33:36 Jennifer McAndrew: Thank you for this. It's really helpful. Um, just one, I guess, um, opinion, get your feedback. Um, I saw this was the first time I had seen, um, the, um, O S D estimate for next year for out of district tuition. So I remember at about this time or so last year, and we heard that the estimate was 14% increase. Correct. Um, we were nervous. Um, and I, the estimate for next year is 4.6899999999999995%. I know that's certainly higher than two point a half percent. Um, but I'm wondering how, how you feel about that and, and what initial steps you're thinking about in terms of planning. I know it's early.

▶ 34:18 Speaker 8: Yeah. So I think, um, in conversations with Assistant Superintendent Berman, when we, when a year ago when we got the 14% automatically started game planning for that, um, assuming schools would do that, many of them have. Um, and I think that's the same process we would use now as take the existing tuitions and, and, you know, go to the max on that. Like you said, um, you know, we're at a two and a half max, and it seems that the, you know, O S D seems to always go a little bit above that. This is even better than 14% for sure, but even still a little higher than I was anticipating. We might see, um, given that they had 14% last year. So, um, but it's good to know that number now, just so we can start planning and, and kind of plan for that ceiling.

▶ 34:58 Speaker 4: That'll be part of the fixed cost that we present with the budget. Mm-hmm. Proposal. Knowing that number now helps us, and we will estimate that, that we will project that, that would be what it could be. It, it'll be less in some tuitions and it could be a little more somewhere else, but I, we, it's good to have that number.

▶ 35:19 Jennifer McAndrew: Thank you. And that's just tuitions, that, that's

▶ 35:21 Speaker 4: Just tuitions correct. Transportation.

▶ 35:22 Speaker 8: That's just the private school tuition's? Correct. Okay.

▶ 35:24 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 35:27 Speaker 6: Any other questions or concerns from the committee regarding the memo with the update on special education costs so far? Oh, Ms. Desal, go ahead.

▶ 35:36 Speaker 1: So for, forgive me, this is, uh, uh, tangentially related, uh, but transportation is here and we recently, uh, settled with the bus drivers, um, so that we could hire at a more competitive rate. I was curious if with permission of the chair, uh, if you'd grant me the leeway, uh, have we made any headway in hiring, uh, bus drivers and staff for the, the, the bus rides in transportation?

▶ 36:03 Speaker 8: Thank you. Good question. So, um, we've working with Attorney Lindquist on that, um, very initiative. We've been efforting that, um, or one roadblock is that, um, we had to turn into leased vehicles, uh, due to their age. And when we went to replace those vehicles, um, the cost was, um, uh, significantly higher. Um, there, just as a little bit of, um, background, if you're not aware, they've stopped making the Dodge Caravan, which is a, a very widely used, um, uh, transportation vehicle. Uh, and the replacement vehicles now are like the Chrysler Pacificas. Um, some of the, um, uh, other minivans are, are very costly to replace and lease. So, um, that's a factor that we had to turn into vehicles that we had at surplus that we thought would be able to fill with, with Melrose drivers. And, um, we have one surplus vehicle now that we are, um, pursuing, potentially trying to hire another driver. That's where we are with that.

▶ 36:58 Speaker 1: Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And,

▶ 37:00 Speaker 4: And one of the hopes in regards to transportation though too, is under the, um, student Opportunity Act, there should be, we should be at that. The goal was we'd get to a hundred percent of transportation reimbursement. So we'll see where that lies ahead.

▶ 37:20 Speaker 6: Great. Thank you. Any other questions, concerns about this memo? Thank you very much for bringing it to us, Mr. Kelly. And please thank Ms. Berman for the update. And I know that, um, we're gonna keep getting these frequently, so there are no surprises as much as humanly possible in this process of ever moving targets. So I