Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2023-06-01
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Robb Stewart ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 1, 2023 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Leila Migliorelli Chair Present Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Present Christopher Cinella Present Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Absent Ryan Williams Present Jen Grigoraitis President, Ex Oficio Present
APPRO-2023-28 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) Fiscal 2024 Operating Budget in the amount of $101,173,341 (one hundred and one million, one hundred seventy-three thousand, three hundred forty-one dollars and 00/100 cents) Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee City of Melrose Page 1 8/1/2023 4:16 PM
Transcript
▶ 2:30 Leila Migliorelli: seconded by Council Elli on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Host. We are adjourned. Good evening. The time is 7:30 PM on Thursday, June 1st, 2023. This is a meeting of the Appropriations and Oversight Committee. I am chairwoman Lila Elli. Joining me, our Vice Chair Jamine Councilor Ella Eckles, GEPE Carm, Che McMaster Stewart Williams, and President Greg Reis Exo Officio. This serves as a notice of a quorum for the record in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting's being recorded and broadcast live on MMT v. Um, I will motion now motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objection, we are now open for public comment. This is a portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on any agenda item
▶ 3:24 before us. Is there anyone here in the public wishing to speak? Anyone online? Not, not at this time Seeing no objection. I would like to, um, close public comment. Yes. I Would like to Speak. Oh, okay. Please come to the table. You can just state your name and address for the record. My name is Daniel Franklin. I have lived in Melrose for about 25 years. Uh, I'm a software engineer. I wanted to speak tonight about the New England, um, MetroTech vocational School building. Uh, a number of us are very concerned about the cho choice of sight for the school. Now, I should say that I was one of the 88% of the voters who, who voted in favor of the building of the school. And I still very much support it as do, uh,
▶ 4:26 all of the other people that I've been talking with. However, we believe that the current choice of sight on top of a hill hilltop with granite ledge that needs to be blasted is going to cost significantly more than has been considered to date and will result in higher costs for site preparation, which the state may not cover. The state is limited, has limited the amount of money it will allocate for site preparation to 8%, and some costs of site preparation are not even eligible at all. So my concern with this site right now is the financial concern that this site choice is too expensive and one of the other sites that was identified at the time should be used instead. Uh, I'd also note that, um,
▶ 5:19 it involves cutting down a forest of mature trees, which seems like an inappropriate thing to do at a time when we need so many more, so many mature trees to help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So I believe that, uh, the, the school board, the MetroTech School Board, should seriously consider one of the other site options that were identified in the feasibility report. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else here in the public wishing to speak? Sorry, My phone won't stop playing. Hi, everybody, I'm Alistair Mok. I live at 63 Noel Road. Um, I just have a very simple, and I'm sorry to miss what came before. Um, this budget that you all are considering today is already way less than our schools need. Uh, the school committee asked for more,
▶ 6:28 for every good reason. Um, I really hope that every member of this council will, I know you can't increase the amount. You can only decrease it. I hope you won't decrease this at all. We are so underfunded. We are underpaying our staff. Our kids are missing resources compared to all of the towns in this area. I'm coming here late because I'm on a meeting with METCO families who are trying to understand why their kids are feeling so underserved in this community. And we have a constant conversation as a group with our racial justice group and the Friends of METCO Group about what the schools can do and what they can't and what a lot of folks are not able to fully understand because they don't live here,
▶ 7:13 is just how much we're underfunding our schools and all of our city services. We. So that's the basic point. And then the second point is I hope every member of this committee will spend your time this next year working both in front of and behind the scenes to make sure that we pass another override because we are desperately, desperately in need of one. It's, it's frankly, an embarrassment that Melrose has such a low tax base given what this town is. We need to be paying more for services or we can't expect more from our city. So thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak in public comments? Is there anyone online Perfect. This time? No. Okay. If there is no objection, I'd like to close public comment.
▶ 8:13 Leila Migliorelli: Seeing none, we are now closed for public comment. Since we have members of the administration here tonight to speak on the items before us, I'd like to motion by unanimous consent to suspend the rules before we su proceed. Seeing no objection, the rules are now suspended. The first and only order on our agenda tonight is the budget appropriation 2023 dash 28, fiscal 2024 operating budget in the amount of $101,173,341. First up tonight we have the Northeast Metro Vocational Tech with Superintendent Dave DeBerry and Jay Pecon. Thank You Madame Sherry, is it okay if the school committee rep from Melrose joins us at the table? Sure. Ward Hamilton. Thank you. And we have Carlos Ella, our principal here as well. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.
▶ 9:13 Ward Hamilton: Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Ward Hamilton and I'm the representative rep, uh, elected to, I'm the school committee member elected to represent Melrose at the Northeast Metro Tech School. Uh, a position that I've held since, um, November of 2020. And this evening, it's my honor and privilege to appear before you and to introduce our superintendent, Dave DeBerry and, um, no stranger to Melrose, our finance director, Jay Pecon. Thank you. So, so, okay. Mr. Pecon has, uh, um, a presentation very short that we'd like to share. And I'm available as Ward and Jay as well, and colla for any questions on that presentation. Thank you. Great. Thank you for having me tonight. This is, um,
▶ 10:02 proud to present the FY 24 budget for Northeast Metro Tech. So the goal of all of our budgets that we set out to produce on an annual basis, we always have two goals in mind. First of all, we always wanna minimize our financial impact to our member communities. Now, we understand our member communities under significant financial constraints on an annual basis. They're under the prefaces of prop two and a half of how much money they can raise via taxation. Um, I know fully well that Melrose is a 96% residential tax base, um, which limits, uh, greatly your ability to raise, uh, revenue via taxation on an annual basis. And also we're cognizant about the fact that, uh, we, we don't want to raise an assessment that would, um,
▶ 10:49 hamper the ability to pay other departments such as irregular public schools, such as police and fire departments, other city departments. Um, so we want to limit that liability as as much as we can. And secondly, we want to provide an adequate level of funding to support, learn student learning and foster educational excellence, cuz that that's what we're here to do. We're, we're here to be Melrose's other school. We want Melrose to be as proud to send their kids to Northeast Metro Tech as they are to, to send them to the regular public, um, public schools in Melrose. And, uh, we wanna offer that same excellence except in a vocational pathway. So regionalization exists by definition to offer services at a reduced cost
▶ 11:36 to its member communities. So we always attempt to keep our budget at a below a 3% increase on an annual basis, which is $523,937 or less compared to the FY 23 budget. I'm happy to report that our actual operational assessment increase was 485,620. Now, this is a, an effort that we always attempt to, um, pursue. As you, you'll see, this is a historical assessment analysis, oh, I'm sorry, I'm, I did not change it. There we go. Historical assessment analysis from FY 19 to FY 24. So you, we really aim to keep our assessments low on annual basis. You can see an FY 19 to FY 20 to FY 21, very consistent. The only outlier here is FY 23, but that's where we're, we, uh, introduced our first debt service payment. Um, so that's a bit of an outlier.
▶ 12:34 I will say without the, the debt service payment, our operational increase was 0.88. Um, so we really, um, we don't just say we keep, we want to keep assessments low. We do, and here's a numerical representation of the same, uh, graphical data, uh, without the 12.92%, uh, outlier. The average increase over these this amount of years is 2.3%. So the reason why we're able to keep our assessment solo is because we were able to, um, achieve a, a great amount of state funding from FY 22 to FY 23 and 24. Uh, we received a significant increase in chapter 70 money over the years. Uh, we also receive transportation reimbursement, which is, um, exclusive to regional, uh, regional schools. We get re reimbursed for our regular transportation.
▶ 13:43 So based on the chapter 70 formula calculation, Northeast Metro Tech is projected to receive 14 million 72 974 in aid, and 24, this amounts to 1.3 million approximately higher than our budgeted aid in FY 23. Um, we're gonna use 1.2 million of our transportation revenue that we're receiving FY 23 to offset the FY 24 budget. Uh, we, we imply a, a different strategy than other, other districts. Um, we actually bank our transportation revenue this in, in the current fiscal year. Um, in that way we know exactly what we're gonna have for an o offset in FY 24. This, um, prevents any ni if 90 cut should occur or state funding cut should occur. We already have that revenue in, in the, um, in the till in order to, uh,
▶ 14:37 offset that, that expense. Additionally, we intend to use $700,000 from our excess and deficiency funds to further reduce the assessment costs. In total, we plan to use 1.9 million of other funds to reduce member assessment. So FY 24 is, it's the same as as any other year. We have, uh, fiscal challenges that we need to tackle. We need funding for regular contractual salary obligations, including steps and lanes, uh, funding for new educators slash administrators based on student needs, increased enrollment in key subjects and increased demand stemming from the school building project. Also, we need to continually fund for opeb as you, this board, um, is very well aware. OPEB is other post-employment benefits. Um,
▶ 15:25 it is the largest liability on our books, uh, of over 60 million. Um, it's very important to continually fund that because s and p 500, when they do a review of our, of our, um, financials, uh, if they determine that we do not have a strategy in place in order to fund that liability, it, it would reduce our bond rating. And that's very important since we're gonna be bonding for our second tranche of bonds in FY 25. So we wanna make sure we keep that, uh, that bond rating strong. So everybody, um, all the member communities are able to, um, take advantage of that, that lower interest rate and the funding for increases in health insurance costs due to a projected 5% increase in GIC premiums, and then funding for technology to support student learning.
▶ 16:19 So all, all told our operating budget request, um, is going up 410,000 1 46. It's a 1.22% increase over at the FY 23 budget. If you add in the debt service, the debt debt surface actually came down based on the FY 23 amount of 1 million a 62 200. Um, the interest rate came in more favorable, so therefore, uh, the debt service amount came down to 1 million 737 600, which is a de decrease of 124,600, which is great. Um, so if you add those two numbers together and then reduce the total, um, expense by the revenue applied to the budget, that results in a $17,950,172 assessment, uh, that's a change of $485,620. So here's the, um, the information that would be most prevalent to Melrose. If you look on line three,
▶ 17:24 it shows that the toll FY 24 assessment is 1 million 2 77 38 that can be attributed, um, very easily to, uh, the minimum local, uh, contribution. Uh, and what that is, is that's a formula that from the Department of Revenue, they determine based on your income and property wealth of the, the city of Melrose, citizens of Melrose, I should say, um, that, um, they should be chipping in approximately $200,000 more. And then, um, and also an increase of 10 students also increases that as well. So that's why the increase went up 220,600. Uh, and also you also have to factor in the, uh, the debt service amount. So here's a breakout of operating assessment, 1 million 180 2 113, add the debt service of 88,626.
▶ 18:20 And that's how you come up with the 1 million 2 77 38 total assessment increase. And that is, that's all I have. Um, so if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you. You're welcome. Any questions from the council? Councilor Gepe? Thank you all for being here. Um, couple questions regarding how many students do we typically have in that apply to the vocational school and how many get accepted every year? So I, I could tell you the overall number. I don't have the Melrose numbers of applicants out there. So we have over a thousand students who apply every year. Unfortunately, at this point, we can only accept approximately 350. There is 650 plus students every year that, um,
▶ 19:15 we cannot accept. So when I look at the total assessment summary, it was up there, oops, sorry. We have a decrease of 13 students. Is that just for this year or is that the total? Are we maxed out every, every year when you, I think it was the second to last screen. So what happens in a a vocational school, we are, you have to have hours in the majority of the shops to attain a certificate. It's difficult to, um, replace juniors and seniors. So if they move out of the country, like many of our students do from some of the gateway cities, they can't be replaced. Um, in recent years, we've really built up our sophomore acceptances so that, um, they would be able to obtain the required amount of hours,
▶ 20:03 Mark Garipay: but we still struggle with the junior and senior years for that same reason. Okay. And with the new new, uh, vocational school going on, um, getting built, and when it goes online, what do we have any idea what our potential increase will be in the student numbers For Mels? So the increase overall will on average be 25% for all towns. So we're going from, you know, at one point when we first started looking at the school, we were at about 1200, and then we're looking to build for 1600. So we're looking at about 20 to 25% of the current numbers. So are we consistent every year with the amount of kids that we accept from Melrose? Yep. So it's twentie it's pretty consistent. It's a percentage of your middle,
▶ 20:50 your middle school students. I believe it's seventh and eighth as compared to the percentage of the rest of the district. So one would speak as our enrollment goes up in those middle schools, we will have more available slots at the vocational school. Exactly. Okay. Thank you. You're Welcome. Councilor Williams. Thank you. Thank y'all for being here. Um, I noticed on your sheet you had an account for excess and deficiency and you're taking about $700,000 from that, right? Yes. What's the balance of that account? Do you expect that to be able to last throughout the years with debt service coming on? I mean, tell, tell me About that. Well, I, I think with, um, sound financial planning and, uh, we end,
▶ 21:29 uh, we end the year, we try to cut back on our expenses at the end of the year so that, that account is typically fully maxed out. Uh, as you've probably seen in, in previous budgets, we been able to use, uh, any, uh, an additional over 5% to be able to use that to reduce the, uh, the member communities assessments. And, um, I anticipate we'll be able to do that again next year. So can you share a little bit more about cost cutting measures that you're taking to keep the assessments low? Yeah, sure. Again, we use, uh, as much as we can from our, um, state re our, our state funding numbers. Um, we take as much as we can from our transportation reimbursement while be still being conservative. Um, because again, we don't,
▶ 22:12 we don't know how much that money is gonna be until that very end of the year. But, um, we, uh, If, if I can add ad we do a lot of lobbying. I saw Mayor broader here earlier when he was in the State House. He would probably see our face a lot and you know, Senator Lewis will see us. Um, we, we are constantly lobbying, um, throughout the, for the state for increased arm reimbursement for student ELL students, which we have a large amount of ELL students. We have a, a very large amount of, um, special education students. So as the, the state increases, um, you know, the, the funds for those students, which we have a higher number of, we in turn will get a higher chapter 70 reimbursement. So we find that to be a major part. Uh, in addition,
▶ 23:00 Ryan Williams: I think the majority of my, my job is, is getting out there and finding, uh, grant opportunities. So we work very closely with the state, the federal government, and also private grant opportunities. And the more grants we can bring in for different programs, the less we have to increase to offer the programs that we do. Um, I want to ask about the site because in my neighborhood we have a couple of the green signs, right? Yeah. Say forests build the vo. And, um, I've heard a little bit from both sides of this, but since you guys are all here tonight, I'll give you the opportunity to talk a little bit more about it, um, directly. So are there additional costs associated with the site selection with blasting
▶ 23:43 and deforestation and things like that that, that you're putting into the construction budget? Well, minimal and what people, uh, don't understand is any site on the northeast grounds is rock and ledge. So had we been able to select a site, there would've been still a considerable amount of site work being done. If you've been to that area, it's all ledge. In order to put the current building, which we can't build on, there was a lot of site work. So I am happy to say in my response to some current concerns, we are one of the only school projects that is at budget right now. I believe last time we checked 75% of the schools, um, that were offered into the M S B A grant program had to go back to the cities
▶ 24:34 Maya Jamaleddine: and towns for additional money. Um, we are one of the few that we were able to stay on budget. So the idea that we are somehow wasting money and spending ridiculous amount of money on unnecessary things, the data doesn't show that otherwise. I would be here tonight letting you know that we're probably going to ask for more money like most schools have had to do, especially in nearby cities. So we are in a great situation with our budget. Vice Chair Aldine. Thank you. Thank you for being with us tonight. Um, you've mentioned that, um, there is increase now that with the new site there would be increase of acceptance and students for the books. Um, what is the process of your application and acceptance, um,
▶ 25:27 for the school? Yeah, so it's been pretty consistent throughout the past 55 years. Um, we go to the different, uh, middle schools, um, and we, we have, um, an assembly and we, we share the opportunities that Northeast has for students. We now have an online application system or students if they have to still use paper and pencil, they can. Um, students are judged in four category, um, attendance, grades and severe discipline. So we no longer see, um, scores of students who have basic disciplinary issues, only students who have had 37 h and a half, which are expellable type discipline. Other than that, um, we do no, we no longer get any discipline on students. Um, so grades in attendance and counselor recommendations or
▶ 26:20 recommendation from another source is now allowed. And Melrose students only compete against other Melrose students. Okay. Um, so, you know, Chelsea students compete against Chelsea students that way you, they on challenges of somebody from a different demographic having an opportunity that another might and, you know, that, that had come up in the past. And I believe we satisfied and corrected that misconception. Okay. And what is the demographic of, um, the students? Sure. So we have approximately 50% of 50 in addition to 50% non-white students. Mm-hmm. So that's changed since when I was a Northeast student. I think it was a 99%, uh, white versus non-white student. So I believe our demographics and within the non-white population, um,
▶ 27:10 we just had our first multicultural fear last week, and it was a huge success. And we had over 20 tables representative of different countries throughout the world, and I believe we probably have about 40 different, um, nationalities represented at Northeast. So I think we're one of the most diverse, I would argue we are the most diverse school in the state. How about the, uh, staff wise? The staff? We work hard for diversity. We are having challenges, um, bringing in any staff with the current shortage of teachers. Um, we are working within the past two weeks with the Department of Ed, um, on improving, um, diversity within staff. And we also have a recruitment, um, a diversity and recruitment, um,
▶ 27:57 Maya Jamaleddine: coordinator who's also working on, but I have to be honest, lately it's been disheartening many jobs. We're lucky if we get one applicant, um, period. So to, to be able to select a diverse application, uh, applicant has been challenging. But I think we're doing a, a good job. Okay. Well, um, I would encourage you to continue, um, seeking for diverse, um, it, it's mostly important for our students to see staff that look like them, uh, understand their challenges as well. But also I wonder if you have, if you do any kind of workshops or training for staff, um, that would help and equipment equip them to better serve the students? Yep. Yep. So almost all of our, uh, staff are SEL certified in including the vocational,
▶ 28:49 um, um, teachers. And that's been within the last couple of years. We also do several in-house, um, trainings mm-hmm. Um, through our professional development series. So it is definitely highly encouraged. Um, we have seen data that exactly fits. Um, I can give you a quick example. We had a, a, one of our programs, we had a, a Hispanic gentleman who was teaching our freshman exploratory program, and he had been here for about 25 years and he retired last year. And we saw the numbers drop dramatically in students who were selecting that particular program, despite the fact that we brought in another quality teacher and we really had to, you know, look close and say, was it that connection that really encouraged students to pick this particular
▶ 29:36 Maya Jamaleddine: program. So that's information we're constantly looking at. Awesome. My last question, um, and you mentioned that you have different demographic for a student and you have special education and, and large number of special education students and, um, differently able, uh, student as well. Uh, we've received several, um, you know, clarification and question and concerns about, uh, the new site. Yep. If it's gonna be accessible, uh, for the large number of your students, because they are from this population, um, I understand that it is ADA certified. Yep. Um, but this population still have those concerns. Right? How can you reassure them? Sure, Sure. Well, I can tell you we went one step further. Um,
▶ 30:30 being ADA compliant is not enough. Mm-hmm. Um, we're following a universal design. So rather than just have the right amount of doors, the right amount of elevators, we're looking at everything. We're looking at locations of rooms, we're looking at how far the nurse's office is from, you know, the elevator. We have, um, one student who, you know, is impaired physically is in a wheelchair, and his mom is a great advocate, um, statewide. And she's working on our team, um, to help us develop plans. Um, you know, it is unfortunate that this concern came out of the concern about, um, the site and through the abutters. I'm not so sure this would even be a topic if it wasn't for some of the abutters
▶ 31:17 Maya Jamaleddine: trying to stop the project. I started my career as a special education teacher. I moved up to the director of special education, um, devastated at the idea that somebody would actually think that I, the M S V A, the state of Massachusetts and the parents of the, the, you know, people on my team would ever allow a site that wasn't 100%, um, you know, approvable mm-hmm. For our students. And, um, it's been a very disheartening conversation with a lot of mistruths to the complaints as well. Well, I hope this conversation will still open, still stay open for everyone, um, sure. Uh, to keep the, um, door also and conversation, um, you know, continue. Um, and I know I said, um, my last question, but I wanted to make a statement and also ask, um,
▶ 32:16 Maya Jamaleddine: um, req, you know, suggest since this new site is gonna be built on, um, un unseated land of the indigenous people, I would like to suggest if you can, um, take an action, um, as your, um, as the book, um, in to honor, um, the indigenous people and those who, uh, sacrificed, uh, for our country. Yeah, I can thank you. Share that with our committee Counselor. Che. Um, I just have one quick question. Um, you had mentioned that you have about a thousand students who apply and about 350 who are accepted. Um, I was wondering, do we have, do you have any partnerships with sending districts sort of around students who are enrolled in like Melrose High or Stoneham High, but have the opportunity to explore the, um,
▶ 33:11 the programs thank you, at Northeast Vogue? Just because obviously vocational education, competencies, project-based learning, like it's a Right. It's an excellent opportunity. So I'm just curious about that. Yeah, so Drella, her first year as principal applied, um, for a grant with the Cummings Foundation. And it started out at about 30,000, 25, 25, a Hundred thousand for Four years. So the purpose of that grant was to develop a Saturday program, um, for students within the district who don't get accepted or may not have applied, but have changed their mind on the course of their career. So the majority of Saturdays throughout the school year, students come in and they go through different trades and they go through an
▶ 33:57 exploratory program. This year we had over a hundred students and they're notified with their letter if they're not accepted that they will be eligible. We go to all the, we try to go to all the high schools, not all of them have time to fit us in and, um, share that information with the, with the, uh, councils and the students. It's been a great program. In addition to that, this year for the first time, we are doing a pilot program with the City of Revere because they are our largest amount of applicants and we are bringing our plumbing program teachers to Revere High School, um, for part of the day to teach a plumbing course. Our hope is that this will grow, that this is something that we can expand to other cities and that we can expand
▶ 34:43 Manjula Karamcheti: more programs. So we've made a paradigm shift that Northeast is a vocational school to, we are your resource for the vocational district. So we don't feel like everything needs to occur just in our building Monday through Friday, eight o'clock to two 30. So we are looking at all different ways of getting out to the kids who can't get accepted. Awesome. Uh, as a former school counseling director, uh, I was at Lexington High. We had a partnership with Minuteman, the second half of the school day students from Lexington High, I could go to Minuteman and take classes. Um, and I have a background in comprehensive high schools as well. So it's an excellent opportunity and to leverage districts, um,
▶ 35:24 Jen Grigoraitis: in terms of sharing resources and staff and that kind of thing. So I would encourage sort of everyone to be thinking about ways that we can make that kind of stuff happen for students. Thanks, President Greg. Thank You Madam Chair. Thank you all for being here tonight. Just a few questions. As you kind of talked about the future, I'm impressed to hear that the project's currently on budget. I know that's a minor miracle. Um, two questions. When are you next in contract negotiations with your bargaining units? Um, and then what is the split of health insurance premiums for employee versus the district? Sure. So we have, we start negotiating soon. Um, we're in the last year Okay. Of a three year contract. Currently,
▶ 36:10 the majority of our health insurance splits are 85%. Okay. Uh, for the district and 15% if they want a premium package. I think we went up to 82.5 for that. But most are satisfied with the GIC offerings at an 85 15 split. Okay. So you're a contract. So the new, um, agreement would be in place for the start of FY 25, correct? Yep. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else? What is the will of the committee? Motion to move the bottom line on 3 99. Second Motion to move the bottom line made by President Greg. Seconded by Counselor Sin. Anyone on discussion? Mr. Clerk Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Sin? Yes. Counselor Eckles? Yes. Councilor Gepe? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes.
▶ 37:10 Chetty? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Greg? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's, uh, 10. Yes. Unanimous. That Motion carries. Thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you very, thank you so much. Um, next up we have the Melrose Public Schools. Um, tonight we have school committee chair, um, Margaret Driscoll with some opening remarks. Thank you so much. Uh, committee Chair Moore, council President Grigoraitis, uh, Gregory and members of the c uh, city Council On behalf of the Melrose School Committee and the school Department, thank you for the opportunity to present the FY 24 budget this evening. In today's world, for those who may not have a window into the day-to-day operation of our schools
▶ 38:08 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: in our city, state, and country, schools are so profoundly different from what they were when we all went to school. Districts now act as social services agencies. We feed students for whom food insecurity is a daily challenge. We provide mental health services. We are childcare agencies. We provide profound, broad and deep special education for everything from speech services to autism disorder spectrum students. And we educate students who come to us speaking virtually no English. In this context, we can't operate the school budget like a household budget. In other words, cutting expenses to match expected revenue. We are required by law to provide every eligible child a free and appropriate
▶ 38:59 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: education. In the Melrose Public Schools, also known as f, which you all know, we are obligated and honored to educate every resident, student and other students who qualify to enroll in our schools. We can't nor would we turn them away. Household budgets include more controlled by a household. Extras can be cut, and a wage earner can earn more money by taking on another job. Certainly not easy, but often doable. But the school department can't do that. The only way absent and op operational override is to cut expenses. So what expenses you might ask could be cut. Class sizes could increase substantially, which would overload our teachers and drive them away. Administrators could be cut, but we are already very thin in this area relative to the actual needs of
▶ 39:51 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: students. And if we don't have in infrastructure, the system will collapse. Since staffing makes up a vast majority of our budget, cutting from the remainder would affect things like curriculum, materials, technology, and other things that support learning. Our major challenges fall into three primary categories. First, enrollments both volume and the needs of students. While the enrollments of many districts are decreasing, hours are increasing, which is a very happy problem, uh, yet a challenge. Second year over year inflation is currently at 5% down from the previous 9% versus our city's annual revenue increase of two and a half percent, plus some small pockets of new revenue, which is not nearly enough to keep pace.
▶ 40:37 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: We have also reached contractual agreement with our teachers and prepare a paraprofessional educators in agreement or agreements designed to provide a compensation package that supports fair wages and educator retention, both critical to our ability to teach our students as well as possible within our ability to pay staff special education services and transportation increases our substantial, as you know, and to a great extent out of our control. And third, the mental health needs of our students. A growing critical need around the city, state, the country, and the world. It's clear that the kids are not all right. We face profound challenges in suicidal ideation, inappropriate and challenging in-class behaviors and more.
▶ 41:25 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: These issues are partly due to encountered, compounded by residual effects from the pandemic, along with the extremely negative social media impact on children and youth. And we all will hear more about that from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And you can read about it in statements by the Surgeon General and a number of profess uh, professional medical associations if you're interested. While we understand that the council is voting only on the city appropriation, which includes chapter 70, we also know you understand that the school committee's budget substantially exceeds that amount, creating a structural deficit. We understand that this is concerning on many levels and had the needs not been
▶ 42:06 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: so great, our vote is a committee might have been different. Instead, the committee voted a budget that we feel must be deployed at this time in a targeted fashion to address our most critical needs. And we respectfully request the city council approve the appropriation before you. And with that, I would like to welcome Dr. Cooken Berger and Mr. Kelly to the table to, uh, address, uh, the council and to answer the questions you may have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for allowing us to be here with you tonight. And thank you Chair Driscoll for those excellent remarks. Um, I think that Chair Driscoll really summarized the many challenges that we're facing quite well. Um, Ken and I are prepared tonight, uh,
▶ 42:59 to answer any questions that you all may have. And we're operating under the assumption that you've been closely following along in the budget process and have also reviewed the, the latest, um, refinement memo along with the four motions that were made by the school committee. I'll ask Mr. Kelly just to remind us of the numbers, um, that were approved by the school committee. So they're all top of mind. Good evening. Thanks for having us tonight. Um, so the, uh, school committee considered and, uh, discussed an approved, um, budget of 47 million 623 79. Um, as Chair Driscoll indicated, um, that does have a structural deficit, uh, included in it, um, for the reasons that have been, um, highlighted by Chair Driscoll that, um, our,
▶ 43:49 our budget that we proposed is, um, level services. So, um, we are, um, uh, proposing a budget that continues the programming and services that we have now, plus some additional required, uh, items, uh, such as special education, teaching and ELL services. Um, the latter was something that we, um, were, um, part of some findings from an ELL review, uh, English Language Learner review, that we are, um, obligated to put in place to support those learners. Um, and, uh, with city appropriation, we are looking at about a 2.7, 2.8 million deficit that we would be, uh, approaching the respectfully the council, uh, in early fall to consider, uh, supplemental, um, appropriation at that time. Be happy to answer any questions you may have.
▶ 44:37 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Um, first up we have vice chair Jamine. Thank you. Thank you for being with us today. Before I, um, um, ask my question, I just wanted to take a moment, um, to thank you for all the amazing work that you did for our community. Um, I know that with, I know that you advocated very well, uh, for the better of, um, the education in our community and our kids. And, um, no one would do any better job than you did for us. So thank you so much for your service. Um, I also do have a question about the budget that is proposed. Um, you know, with this budget that I know that it's very, it barely covered the minimum, uh, for our students and school. Um, are we going to expect that some of the contracts are not gonna be renewed
▶ 45:41 Maya Jamaleddine: for the teachers? So, um, we have, you know, confident commitment from our partners on the city side that although the number that you're approving tonight is approximately 2.7 short of what this level service plus required service proposal is requesting, um, there is a solid commitment from the city to ensure that we're able to maintain current level of services. So we don't anticipate at this time or have not been given any direction at this time, that we will be re um, initiating a reduction in force of any type. Okay. And just for the public, I, we heard from many parents some frustration that some of the teachers have received letters of non-renewal, uh, of their contract. Um, can we provide some context of why those letters have been sent?
▶ 46:32 Sure. So, um, our job is to ensure that we have the, the most qualified educators in front of our students each and every day. We have a robust evaluation process that is part of, um, uh, our annual review of our non-professional status and our professional status educators. Obviously, the individual context of that is confidential as it's a personnel record. Um, but this is an annual process that we go through. We look at what are the current needs of our students, what are our current staffing levels, part of our budget process. Our actual budget process starts with looking at student enrollment, student needs, current staffing levels. We identify any staff who, um, may possibly resign through, uh, an intent for, um,
▶ 47:16 request process that starts in February where we ask every single educator, what are your plans for next year? Do you plan on returning? Would you like a change in assignment? Um, you know, some, some staff will submit and say, oh, I love where I am. I don't want any change at all. Others will say, I love where I am, however, I am interested in teaching a different grade level or a different content area, or if this opened up, I would be interested in that. And so this is a multi-month process that we go through as a leadership team to really evaluate our personnel across the city and make decisions about who will we be growing and inviting back to the district. Um, and who do we let go or choose to separate from. Um,
▶ 47:54 there's a variety of reasons, um, that a separation can occur. Um, none of which I could say here about any specific individual, but that is one of our major obligations in terms of hu Human Resource management, which you all know is the bulk of our budget, um, creeping over 87%. And so it's just part of our professional obligation, and I can assure you that it's not a decision that we ever make lightly. Um, but there are times, um, when we may choose to non-renew a non-professional status person or, um, you know, terminate a partnership with a a, an employee, for example, if they were in like a long-term sub role, um, or hired as a long-term sub in another, and the employee who they were replacing is returning,
▶ 48:37 Maya Jamaleddine: they might have got a termination letter as well. So, Um, just what I'm hearing is, um, those termination is not related to the budget, uh, shortage or any, you know, budgeting reason, uh, as much as could be for many different reasons such as personal or professional, uh, reasons. Sure. So, um, at, at this time, we're not reducing staff, but we are constantly looking at existing offerings and considering reallocation. So I couldn't say a hundred percent that none of it had to do with reallocation or redistribution of personnel in order to better meet the needs of our students. That's all part of this very complex process. Okay. Well thank you so much. Appreciate it. Counselor McMaster. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, superintendent. Good evening, Mr. Kelly.
▶ 49:29 Shawn M. MacMaster: Um, my first, um, question, uh, is the obvious for us here and for, for the school department, but I do think it's very important for the public just to understand where the school department finds itself now and where the city finds itself, um, in, in terms of the, you know, precarious fiscal situation. Mm-hmm. Um, the budget that was requested as Mr. Kelly said by the school department that was re that was approved by the school, um, committee was 47 million six hundred and twenty seven, six hundred $20,379. That was, that was the request. That's what was approved. The administration has, uh, sent the city council an amount, um, of $38 million, 38,000,500, 11,600 and, uh, $59. So that's about a, a nine $9 million plus difference. And I think Mr.
▶ 50:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: Kelly said that the 9 million difference includes the 2.2, $2.4 million structural deficit. A 2.7 Yes. Two, correct. 27. Okay. So that's the deficit that is essentially being carried over and that the, that the city council assisted with, I believe in March with an allocation, recognizing at that time that that's not really a sustainable source of revenue for operating expenses. And I think you'd agree with that. I think the school committee would agree with that. Yes, as well. In addition to what the school departments voted on, there's a free cash order that will be coming our way in the amount of $869,495. And in the memo from Mr. De La Russo, the city's chief financial officer, he lists these as one time pre purchases for
▶ 51:28 Shawn M. MacMaster: FY 24. And I had a question about some of these because on the surface I don't see how they're one time purchases. Um, and where I'm going with this is I'm just concerned that mm-hmm. We're gonna continue to go into a deficit from which we're not gonna be able to emerge with no additional revenue in the city. So, uh, athletic transportation, 155,000. That fair to say that's not a one-time expense? No, it, I think the important phrase there is prepayment. Okay. So these are absolutely things that belong in the operating budget. Mm-hmm. These are absolutely things that we should be fully funding. Mm-hmm. Um, what we were tasked with doing was looking at the operating budget and identifying items that could either be one time funding,
▶ 52:10 which we don't have a lot of, as you know, we don't have a ton of discretionary or even a little of discretionary funding in our budget. Um, but more things that could be prepaid. So that would be like paying our transportation contract in advance, like upfront. Um, and that's true for some of the items on the list there. The, the other point where we're thinking about these numbers when you're talking about that difference between the 47.6 million and what, um, is before you tonight for consideration, that 47.6 million number also includes 5.8 million in scheduled offsets. So that is, I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. In scheduled offsets. So that comes from our circuit breaker reimbursement,
▶ 52:50 Shawn M. MacMaster: our ECC tuition, um, any monies that we're pulling from the revolving one available, same thing with education stations. Um, any additional revenue that's generated beyond expenses can be utilized as an offset there as well. And there's a few other things that fall into that category. Okay. So when you say one time pre-purchase though, that that is not something that every year is necessarily going to occur with these items. That's just what the, what the school department this year is saying, we could pay up front if the money was available. Correct. But a lot of these things could be in the operating budget should be, if that was how the budget worked out. Correct. So it's, they were, it's a cost that we're gonna continue to have.
▶ 53:30 Shawn M. MacMaster: It's just with that free cash allocation, the request is free cash would allow you to pay it up upfront, especially in the case of, like you said, with uh, something that's contractual, just pay the, pay the contract up upfront. Correct. That's correct. Are are there concerns about paying a contract up upfront without services having already been provided? Did does that come into account when you, when you make a request by the case? So the, the transportation line is a good example for that, and that would be funds that are encumbered, but then they would be drawn down and paid based on invoices received for services. So we would not be prepaying the transportation company with that. It would be used to encumber funds and then paid for services once delivered.
▶ 54:11 Shawn M. MacMaster: Okay. Um, consular, um, Williams mentioned when he was, when the, the, uh, northeast, uh, flow tech was before US cost cutting measures. And I know, um, chair Driscoll, um, referenced this in her remarks, but I did wanna talk about this because one of the things that, um, that made an indelible impression on me at the time of the, the, the contract negotiations was members of the, of the school system employees who came before the school committee and identified a number of areas that they felt as employees that the school department could take a look at, uh, and potentially caught or eliminate. Um, and the reason that I think that's important is I think all of us would agree, school department at here in City Hall,
▶ 55:01 Shawn M. MacMaster: our professional jobs outside of this chamber is that any good organization when it comes to a, a big decision and obviously a budget is a big decision, um, makes its decisions or should make its decisions in large part informed by line staff in their views and in taking that into account. So prior to the submission of this budget, were any of those items, and I think the few that, that I remember, um, and there were several of them mm-hmm. Focused on certain administrative positions, were any of those looked at, was there, you know, an internal assessment done to see whether or not the school department could make some cuts as difficult as they might be. And I understand Mr. Driscoll's analogy, and I think it's a good analogy. I mean,
▶ 55:44 the school department is not a household budget of apples and oranges, but at the same time, seeing can we maintain important student services? We're making cuts that we don't want to make, but that we may have to make where that might mean certain other administrators doing more. So is that something that the, that the school department looked at before submitting this budget? Yeah, absolutely. That's part of our budgeting process annually. So again, when we're looking at employees, we're not just looking at classroom employees or teachers, um, we're looking across the board and constantly thinking, you know, how can we be most strategic with the resources that we have? Um, but this year we took it even deeper and worked with our administrative team,
▶ 56:25 which um, includes all of our building principals, our assistant superintendents, myself, Mr. Kelly. Um, and we looked at each department, each school budget, and we generated, you know, call it a what if scenario if you'd like, but we said, okay, what is the item that could possibly be eliminated, reduced reallocated? What is the dollar value of that, the cost saving measure? What are the implications? And then what are the additional considerations that we need to come up with? Um, and I would say at the elementary level there, there's very few, cuz it's predominantly classroom teachers, building principals, assistant principals. We do have three instructional coaches, um, whose job is to be in the classroom giving that just in time professional
▶ 57:10 development. Um, the research is really clear, that's the best type of professional development in terms of building efficacy and in our staff. Um, but we looked at, you know, so what are the other things that they do outside of that direct coaching in the classroom? Um, and so they also, um, do one-on-one coaching sessions three times a year to look at student data and help assess, you know, student interventions, things like that. Um, so if we were to eliminate those, the principals would run the data meetings, the principals would lead the curriculum support, and could they do that? Sure. Um, I can promise you there's not a principal in this city that has any spare time on their hands. Um, if, if my,
▶ 57:50 my bigger concern would be the fact that they don't actually even take time off even when they're scheduled to take time off. So, um, it would add, uh, more responsibility onto their plates that I think would be, wouldn't be sustainable. Um, but that's one concrete example. Another thing we looked at was kindergarten class sizes. So we had, um, a, an unusually small for us kindergarten cohort this school year. We started the year at 285. So if you remember last August we eliminated a kindergarten position. Well, here we are on June 1st and our incoming kindergarten enrollment is back up to 314. Last time I looked, which was yesterday. Um, and so we looked at, you know, what's the impact of going from 15 kindergartens,
▶ 58:34 what would that be? Quick math, you can do that right over 20 kindergartners in a class. What if we added one back? We did that for a while. That was our plan for a couple of months. Um, but now where we're at the 314 plus, knowing what we know about the incoming population, over 10% of the incoming kindergartners, um, are going to require English language services. And another 10% already are identified as needing some sort of, um, specialized instruction through an individualized education plan. So again, could we have kindergarten class sizes of 22, 23, 24? We could, what's the implication of that? What would we save? So that would be two teaching positions, let's call it 120,000 just for, um,
▶ 59:15 easy math sake. But over time, is that really the best investment to save that 120,000 have kindergarten class sizes at 2324? And what are we, what are gonna be the implications of that? So that's not something that's, you know, dollar for dollar easy to, um, calculate right here on the spot, but we know the value of that early intervention. So that's another example at the elementary level. At the secondary level, of course you heard people talk about the director positions. We are fortunate to have content directors now we've been working since the override to bring those positions back. So the obvious impact of that would be undoing everything that we accomplished with the override in terms of reestablishing those positions.
▶ 59:57 Same thing with high school class sizes. They have some of the nicest class sizes in the city. That's at our aspirational level, right? Where, you know, 20 to 24 students in most classes, with the exception of some specialty classes or AP classes, could we eliminate some teaching sections? Could we share some with the middle school? That's what we looked at to reduce class sizes down at that level. Um, and again, it's, it's a decision, right? Budgets are about decisions. Do we wanna undo all that we just accomplished with the override? Um, so that's, we had lots of conversations about that and really looking at, um, you know, even if we did say reduce a teaching position in each department,
▶ 1:00:37 which is not a part of this budget plan, the dollar for dollar class savings, cost savings would be just under $300,000. Um, it then also impacts our accreditation, right? Because now our accreditation was based on our current staffing levels. So if, for example, we were to reduce a guidance counselor at the high school where class or caseloads are about 195 per counselor, they would go up to about 2 25, 2 30, um, per counselor. And that puts us right back on that threshold of like, are we within the recommended caseload? So it's just a matter of are we trying to move forward or are we trying to undo all of the good work that was done with the last override? Um, and those were really hard conversations to have. We even looked at,
▶ 1:01:23 um, you know, if we, if our directors were to start teaching a section here or there, how would that work? Um, it sounds easy to say out loud, like of course that would save money, but it really doesn't because number one the courses, the way the schedule rotates on a seven, um, seven block rotation, it wouldn't be like a consistent time of day each day. So that has implications for team strategic planning and for, um, you know, all of the reporting that we have to do in the assessing of the data to make sure that we're making progress and you're getting a strong return on your investment. Um, and they also carry a huge evaluation load. Um, so that, who does the evaluations if we don't have those directors or if we reduce their
▶ 1:02:04 capacity to do them, it falls on the principles and the assistant principles. So again, thinking about retention, thinking about, um, actual sustainability and, you know, what is, what is realistic to ask of someone within the, the school day and school week. So all of those were part of the conversation. I, it's not as quantifiable as probably we would all like, but those are the, the types of conversations we were having, And I'm glad to see that. I mean, those are, those are policy decisions. Those are within the purview of the, the, the school committee. That's why we have an elected school committee. Um, and I, and I'm glad that those are areas that, um, the school department looked at.
▶ 1:02:37 Shawn M. MacMaster: Mm-hmm. What I'm just wondering is, was there anything that you were able to find, and I, and I understand it could be small amounts, but whether it's training, education, supplies, anything, was, was the school department able to identify anything? And I, and let me just make it clear, I understand that that doesn't mean that the line, that the, the bottom line would come in at a lower amount, but just for the public's edification, if there are some concerted attempts to, to cut from somewhere, um, were you able to identify anything and if, and if, and if you didn't, you didn't. It's just, it's, it's something that was important for us in the public to know. Yeah, I would say no, we didn't, we didn't eliminate anything because all,
▶ 1:03:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: any elimination would result in a different level of service delivery. And we understood our charge to maintain current level of service and meet required. Understood. Um, superintendent, you mentioned offsets and that, so that actually ties into a question I had about special education in the state circuit breaker and the amount, the, the 47 plus million dollars that was approved by the school committee, that special education request was roughly 8.1 million. Um, the, the line item for special education in the budget before us. I'm wondering, um, does that account for the state, um, circuit breaker reimbursement? Are we, are we accounting for that and what we're asking knowing that we're gonna get a
▶ 1:04:00 certain amount based on the pure per pupil cost, that percentage was 75% or 65%, whatever it is. Yep. Um, yes, we do. Yes, you're correct. So, um, in case anyone's not aware, circuit Berger is a one year lag. So you're actually applying for reimbursement based on a year, a, a prior year. Um, we have a very, um, skilled person, uh, in the right role that, um, is, uh, our liaison for, uh, reimbursement requests. Um, and we are next year, um, we are, you know, good practices to, to use a little bit of a, uh, build up a little bit of a reserve over time. But next year we are, are projected to use all of our circuit breaker. And do we have a, a a a balance right now in the, the circuit breaker reserve account that is gonna be carried over?
▶ 1:04:48 And how much is that? That'll, Yeah. When we close FY 23, we'll see if there, um, we are projected to have a little surplus right now. Um, and that would carry over and that's something you could use to like pre hypothetically prepay a tuition for mm-hmm. The, the, the following year. But we would need to make sure we would have that available to do that. And, And when you say little, and the reason I ask is I remember a couple years ago asking a similar question. It was like $46. Are we talking small money like that? Or thousands, or We're Projected to get about 2.1 in circuit breaker this year. Um, and there, there could be anywhere, um, from 300,000 of that left. But like I said, we still need to close out FY 23 before we can commit to any kind of a number.
▶ 1:05:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: Okay. So it's serving two purposes. One, making sure that we balance the budget at the end of this FY 23 year, but then also offsetting FY 24 when you hear that 2.1 number. Okay. And my, my final question just relates to, um, spending to date, um, and I'm looking at the year to date budget report and, um, in particular encumbrances, which I'm reading it right about 2.4 million that is encumbered that hasn't been spent. Yes. Um, the reason I ask that is, you may recall, Mr. Kelly, when you appeared before us last time, I asked a question of spending and did we anticipate spending the entire budget, which I'm confident that you are, but whether or not the city could have found money from somewhere else
▶ 1:06:10 or from within the existing school department budget, short of us approving free cash as we did in March? I believe. So are we on pace to spend that full amount? I think I know the answer. And then can, can you speak to some of these en encumbrances? Sure. So the, yeah. The answer question is yes. We're, we always try to, you know, come in at zero. That's, you know, we're, we don't want, um, you know, we're not in the business to run a profit, so we're looking to commit it a zero at the end. Um, and the encumbrances, um, you know, we're starting that closeout process now. So we look at all of our purchase orders and encumbrances and if there is money left, we would start to close out purchase orders and move that money back. Um,
▶ 1:06:48 a lot of the are probably still tied up in tuitions right now. Mm-hmm. That tends to be our biggest, um, our, our biggest cost. Uh, so, um, we are in the process right now of starting to look at any open purchase orders and close out, And if I recall it was, um, con, I think it was cons Garrette who had, had, he had raised this as as well. So if he has questions, I'll defer to him on any specifics within the, uh, the encumbrances. But that's all I have in chair. Thank you. Thank You. And if you recall, during the FY 23 build, we have established some more, um, clear budgeting practices that'll allow us to regularly report to the school committee and the public exactly where we are to date. One of the things that'll happen moving forward into FY 24 is the business
▶ 1:07:34 office will be encumbering salaries right at the start of the fiscal year, which is obviously our largest expense. Um, again, the, the challenge that we face when it comes to end of year is that our, our educators get these balloon payments so they get like either six or seven paychecks in June. Um, so even though it can look like down to the wire without those funds encumbered that there's plenty of money in the budget, we have to account for that. So the best way for us to do that and, and tell that story and stay fiscally responsible and sound while also being transparent is to encumber all those salaries right in the beginning of the school year. I think that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you.
▶ 1:08:14 Mark Garipay: Um, just a note cuz of with the fans going and the squeaky chairs, if everyone could project loudly so we can hear all the questions. Um, counselor Gepe, Um, thank you. Thank you all for being here. Um, a little bit, um, more on, um, what questions are around kind of what you just mentioned. And Council McMasters was asking regarding the salary line item on the current budget, um, where, you know, 5 million still left in the budget, 78%. So you're saying that's part of the balloon payment we're gonna see Correct. The end of June. So one would assume Jan, um, July and August. We don't have, we don't pay out any salaries in the school budget. Do I understand that teacher Classroom based salaries, teachers paraprofessionals? They are,
▶ 1:09:02 they are not paid through the summer administrators in, um, you know, the, some of the IT staff that are in the buildings during the summer, they are paid throughout the summer. Okay. So basically anyone who's unit A, anyone who's unit A, which is part of that, that larger collective bargaining. So it's classroom teachers, occupational therapists, any certified staff do not get paid in the summer unless of course they're working the extended school year or another summer program. Um, and nor do the, the paraprofessionals, as Mr. Kelly said. So you believe that fi that $5 million that's available as of May 30th, which is, you know, 22% of the budget is gonna be all all used up. So yeah. To Dr. Cooken Berger's point to, uh,
▶ 1:09:46 Mark Garipay: for this year we actually used spreadsheet based to encumber the, the salaries we between, you know, having the teachers contract settled mid-year rebuilding the budget. Mm-hmm. Um, it's, it's challenging to encumber funds in Munis midway through a year. So we've been working with our CLA partners to monitor this closely. Mm-hmm. Um, so we've run some spreadsheet projections, encumbrances that mimic munis and we are projecting now to come in pretty, pretty much at zero. Okay. Um, also, uh, back when you were in front of us, um, back in March for the, um, free cash allocation of 2.7 million, there was a line item and then is that the same with, uh, substitute teachers? I still see, we have not spent anything on that really. It, it's,
▶ 1:10:30 Mark Garipay: sure. And you're, you're looking for an increase in substitute teachers this year? Sure. So that's something that, um, typically might reclass at the end of the year where we are paraprofessionals having their contract, they get an increase rate when they cover for a teacher for a certain amount of time. And so, um, that will be over from the paraprofessional line and we will use some of that substitute. We also have, um, teachers that are on leave, long-term substitutes that we can, we will reclass some of that from. So yes, that will be allocated. And, um, council of Masters kind of, um, touched on this with the free cash allocation and prepaying items. Um, are we gonna have any money left over within this budget to prepay items
▶ 1:11:12 for FY 24 or are you doing that in any line items where you see there's available revenue From, from the, the operating budget? From The operating budget currently? Sure. So we're not allowed to pay, uh, across fiscal years from the operating budget. That's what the offsets we, we are allowed for the revolving funds of the offsets. We can cross fiscal years for that, but for operating fiscal 23, we would not be able to pay anything from that for, for 24. Okay. Um, And just a, a functionality, and correct me if I say this wrong, um, when we get that free cash, if we get that free cash request, it goes into the other funding sources and that line is allowed to be carried over from one ear to,
▶ 1:11:59 We're back from our emergency recess and we'll take a moment for everyone to get composed. Bless you. Okay. Counselor Gek, do you recall where you were in your Yeah. Um, we looked off where we can't pre, pre-purchase with the existing budget budget, right, Sure. So yes, we do have, um, for those, those one time fund requests, those are in a fund that is a revolving fund and it, those can be spent across fiscal years. Okay. Um, the, I I was having trouble hearing on the $500,000, I think it's a 500,000 free cash appropriation we have coming down, which is gonna prepay, um, is it, was it all one time it items or is some of it potentially, um, reoccurring every year in those, Those are reoccurring costs. I think those part of the new, we have a new,
▶ 1:13:28 our website host is discontinuing supporting schools. So we, we are, um, contracting to have our new website and part of that is to have the, the website built. So that is part of that one time and that would not be recurring. Mm-hmm. It would just be the subscription for the website ongoing. Okay. There's a couple of other small things like the middle school locker request. So as you know, we only have 300 lockers per grade levels. Yep. So that's, we may need to continue to add to that each year, but that's not a forever like operating expense and like, like the course risers, once we purchase them, that's a, like a one time investment as well. But those are small dollar amounts. So the sum of that reoccurring
▶ 1:14:08 Mark Garipay: money that will be allocated with the 500,000 really will be added to the deficit in FY 25 cuz we're paying. Right. So our fy our 2.7 or 8 million deficit in FY 24 will now be, it's gonna extrapolate for FY 25, Correct? Correct. Okay, thank you. Um, so Well I would, just to clarify, it's not a dollar for dollar, right? Because if chapter 70 goes up, meaning we received more state aid, um, if for some reason there was an enrollment decline, you know, we're constantly looking at, but when you think about level services, these are things that would be part of that level service budget. Mm-hmm. So, um, not necessarily a direct correlation And if free cash goes down, we don't have the money to offset. Correct.
▶ 1:15:02 Mark Garipay: Is that it? So it's, it's both ways. Yep. So, um, What is the plan to pivot if the, if you see the deficit getting more than 2.7, 2.8, what, what's, what's the goal? I mean, how, how are we gonna, I'm worried about 2025, I mean mm-hmm. I think 2025 is gonna be devastating without some sort of in influx of revenue, whether it's organically cost savings. But, so my question is, if if the the deficit gets bigger and bigger more than you anticipate, what's the plan? I mean, give us a little guidance on, on that cuz it's gonna, you're gonna be coming, hopefully the next administration does what this current administration has promised, um, and sends that free cash order down. So, you know, give me a shed a little light on that for us.
▶ 1:16:05 Sure. So this year we have built in some, some new reporting tools that we share with school committee on a monthly basis that's sort of, um, we use as, as indicators to, to watch just what you're, you're, um, describing to see if there's any trends, any outliers that are, are coming up. Um, so those are, those are new processes that we have this year. I think they've been successful and I think that has led to, um, a modest reserve in our, in our offsets. Like we, we may have to use some of that to close out FY 23. Um, but we're starting to build modest reserves, which is healthy practice to, to um, help, um, uh, reduce the impact of any unanticipated costs. Um, so that is now something that we are actively doing. Um, and I think, um,
▶ 1:16:44 just constantly revisiting our costs, uh, to see if there are places we can, um, you know, reduce impacts and, um, uh, obviously I think everyone agrees that this is, this is a short term solution in that we are looking at an override in, in two years, you know, ballpark two years, um, to, you know, address the concerns that are, are being raised with this budget. And the short answer is service reduction, dramatic devastating service reduction. The only way for us to make up a 2.7 million difference, we wouldn't be presenting it if it wasn't absolutely essential, is to reduce staff. Mm-hmm. The only way we can get there. Um, and there is no comfortable way to get to 2.7 million in reducing
▶ 1:17:35 staff. So, um, I mean, when you think about the entire ho man budget or the entire Hoover budget, it's, it doesn't even cover that amount. Right. And certainly I can't imagine that we would move forward with the concept or idea of closing an entire school. Right. Um, cuz even if we did that, as devastating as that would be in redistributing students across other elementary schools, for example, um, that still doesn't solve the problem that we have before us. You say two years, do you think we're gonna be able to survive two years without an in influx of revenue? Maybe, maybe one year? I, I personally don't see it. Maybe one year. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I I struggle with this year's current budget with,
▶ 1:18:17 with everything that's going on to make sure that we have, uh, a free cash. Um, Mel Melrose is an mtss, multi-tiered systems of support systems. That's, that's our programming, which is, um, that's pretty mainstream. It's current, um, it's effective with students. So when you, when you think about a, a cutback like that, that erodes everything that that system stands for. And our, like our, our, um, our, um, colleagues from the, the vocational school we're saying, um, universal Design for Learning, that's all aligned with best practice, that's research based practice. So when you make a cut that's as significant as that, you now erode, um, the effectiveness of, of a system, like a multi-tiered systems of support where your tier one supports are,
▶ 1:18:55 Mark Garipay: are maxed out and you now have to go to tier two for supports that, um, may have been addressed in a system that we have now. And that further leads down the road to increased special education referrals. So, um, a cutback of that magnitude has ripple effects. Yeah. On just the savings. Um, going, going to the, um, you had sent out a, um, spreadsheet to me last week prior to, uh, when I was looking for the munis and you had Franklin, the Franklin School in there. Do you happen to have that information in front of you by any chance? Yep. Yep. I'm just trying to, you created a actual budget this year for Franklin School. Right. Which is great because I think we can see, um, what the actual cost is.
▶ 1:19:38 Mark Garipay: What, um, what do you anticipate, you know, the current enrollment is right now, what are you anticipating the revenue is gonna be for FY 23 as we stand FY 24 as we stand today compared to the expense expenses that are not required? Yeah. So Is there, is it in, is it breakeven? Are we It's better than breakeven. Um, to the good work of Donna, principal Donna Raso and her administrative assistant, Melissa Aveni, they have been working hard to recruit families. Um, I also wanna applaud the school committee for actually approving tuition rates that are designed to cover the cost of running the program. This is the first time that that approach was used. In the past we looked more at comparable, you know,
▶ 1:20:22 tried to find comps in other programs. There are no comp programs because all of our teachers are certified and you just don't find that in, in most preschools or any that I'm aware of. Um, so what we know to date is that not only can we cover the operating costs of the tuition based program 100% with our in current enrollment numbers, we're also able to fully cover the amount, the 475,000 scheduled as an offset that you see here in this budget. So the, the out the outcome only gets better from here as we continue to recruit more students and, um, fill those seeds at the Franklin. Did you wanna add to that? No, I think that's just one of those, those systems we put in place this year. We, you know, we sat down with, um, principal Rosso and, uh,
▶ 1:21:06 who's done dynamic work. Um, and she's a tremendous leader at that school. And she, um, you know, she and I have worked collaboratively to, to build a budget for that, that program that you're referring to. And that's one of the first times that that's happened. So we, we are able to, um, that's a self-sustaining program. The tuition-based program is self-sustaining and is also now gonna be a healthy contributor to the offset, which, which reduces the, the, the budget. And That doesn't even begin to talk about the return on investment. Yeah. So I know you all know that, but I feel like every chance I get, I just have to remind us what a smart and wise investment that is. Um, not only because it hel also helps generate revenue to offset the operating
▶ 1:21:44 costs, but, um, we can say proudly that this year we're back to, um, more than 50% of our incoming kindergartners were enrolled at the ecc. So that, that's how we know about the incoming needs at the level of detail that we do and how we're able to be really planful for how those students are placed. Um, and the, the more, the more students coming to us in kindergarten, having been at our early childhood program, the, the better return on investment throughout not only our time with them through their 13 years plus of schooling, but for them in terms of life outcomes. So looking at that, you're saying the, uh, tuition's gonna be 1.3 roughly? Is that, is that what I'm looking at? It's What it costs to operate the, the tuition based programming at the Franklin.
▶ 1:22:29 Mark Garipay: Okay. And then the fourth. Okay. Um, I dunno, I, I mean I, I'm struggling, I'm struggling with how this is a balanced budget. Um, it's more money than the city's appropriate where depending on, on, for all intents purposes, but depending on free cash, which for all intents purposes we don't even have in hand. It's what we're hoping for. So I, I struggle where I know the, the administration would, would, would probably argue differently based on city ordinance, but I, I struggle with this as a, a balanced budget when we're, you know, anticipating we're spending money on anticipation. Okay. We don't have, I I, I'm struggling with that portion of that to be honest with you. So that's, um, that's all my questions for now. Thank you. Mm-hmm.
▶ 1:23:21 Ryan Williams: Council Williams. Thank you. Um, I want to ask you a couple questions about line items. Um, so I noticed the account for library librarians and media centered directors, like half, half spent right now. That's not a summertime position. I'm sorry, I didn't hear That li sorry. Nice chair. I gotta get some oil on this chair. Um, the library Librarian media, uh, center director line is only 59% spent. It's not encumbered. It has $123,000 in it. We know we've got librarian shortages in the schools, in the elementary schools. It's a staffing problem. You know, what's, what's going on. So you're referring to the year to date budget report? Is That the line number? Uh, 2340 in account 0 1 11. Yeah. The year, year-to-date budget report. Sure.
▶ 1:24:20 Ryan Williams: Yep. So as I said, the the salaries this year were not encumbered in munis and that's not a practice we, we we want to go forward with. That's something we wanna do On the same thing as the other salaries. Correct. Okay. Um, and so I'd have to look, um, at exactly what is being charged, but, um, it, I'd have to go into and look at just what has been charged to that already, to know exactly what would be left. But that is, um, that is a, a salary line and it would, it will be expended before the end of the year. Yeah. And I mean, we have five elementary schools. Right. And each one needs a librarian. Um, I know this is kind of a theme, but $300,000 doesn't seem like it would cut it for that.
▶ 1:25:03 Yeah. We don't have a full-time librarian at each of our elementary schools, as you stated. We share them across the library media specialists across the schools, like we do all of our elementary specialists. Right. Um, which, go ahead Please. I was just gonna say, um, again, I know this is, we look at this budget and no one feels comfortable about where we sit with it. But that's just another example of this. You know, I would use the phrase, this is a damage controlled budget. There's n there's no luxuries in here. Um, and that would be a primary example cuz we all know that running a library isn't just the classes that you teach. There's, you know, stocking the shelves and calling the books and making sure that everything is
▶ 1:25:44 Ryan Williams: coded properly so that we can account and protect our investments in the materials that are in the library. And right now, that time is not built into their schedules. That's primarily done by parent volunteers. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Uh, I hear a lot about damage control tonight and a real bias towards cut. Right. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And, um, I, I guess I would, I would love to know what does it look like on the other side of that argument? Right? So we've all heard a lot about what we could cut, where we could find efficiencies, you know, where we could look to whatever reduce spending. But where a lot of the times when we're in this, in this room, somebody says, oh, you know, where, what is this blocking? Like we're not spend, you know,
▶ 1:26:37 Ryan Williams: we're spending this on one thing, therefore we can't spend it on another, I have the same mindset with the cuts argument, right? We're, we're, we're thinking so much about cuts that maybe we're not thinking about growth. So my question, and I know this isn't part of the discussion, and it's not, you know, we don't, we're not allowed to grow the budget and it's, you know, it's handled very well by the school committee. But my question is, what is the budget? What is the number for the kind of ideal aspirational Melrose public school system? What does that look like? Is it 5% more? Is it 10% more? I mean, you must have thought of it. Um, so we do go through a process with our administrative team every year where
▶ 1:27:12 they're able to submit proposals. I will say that our, our administrative team is very conservative when it comes to submitting those proposals. Um, even when you look at the middle school who had the most proposals submitted this year, um, it was over a million dollars in, in new positions. Mm-hmm. That was still being very conservative. If we look at class sizes, if we look at program offerings, if we look at, um, the electives or cross team offerings that we have, um, the same is true for the elementary. They, they were conservative in their ask. And again, the number is big. And I know it's hard to comprehend me saying these two things at the same time. But an example I would give, just touching back on kindergarten,
▶ 1:27:54 cuz we already talked so much about that. Um, we have general education kindergarten classes in integrated kindergarten classrooms. Right. And in an integrated kindergarten classroom, you would typically staff it with a general education cert, a general cert ed certified teacher, and a special ed certified teacher. And there's typically paraprofessional support in kindergarten classrooms. And you could talk to any neighboring district. Um, and you would hear that in our, um, integrated program, kindergarten classes. We have a dually certified teacher, um, and some paraprofessional support, depending on the needs of the student. There may be a one-on-one for a particular student para support. Um,
▶ 1:28:32 Ryan Williams: but it's not a given that all of our classrooms are para, all of our kindergartens are para supported at this current level of service. Um, so those are just two examples. I could give you many others. So no, I don't have the number in my head and I wouldn't even wanna just throw out a percentage. Um, but I think if we were truly going to right size the district and match the service level of what our community is expecting, it would be significant. The number would be double digit millions. You said, you said you get proposals and it reminded me of Councilor McMaster's comment, right. That the staff drive the dis the staff should or could drive the discussion. These proposals are provided by administrative staff mm-hmm.
▶ 1:29:12 Ryan Williams: In consultation with school staff teachers. Yeah. Correct. So teachers, so the school, the school staff, the personnel are providing recommendations kind of unabashedly for what they think they need to do their jobs. I wouldn't say there's a direct seat at the table for, for like classroom level staff, but certainly for department directors. They're building those budgets with the secondary administrators. Um, I would also say that through feedback cycles and loops that we have within the district, whether it's around professional development or curriculum materials or curriculum reviews, our staff have a voice in that process. Um, ultimately it's the principles and the assistant superintendents who are putting
▶ 1:29:51 Ryan Williams: the proposals on the table, um, taking in all of that, including their observations and their knowledge of the needs of the students. I appreciate that. That's, that's super helpful. Um, you know, I'm, I'm an elementary school parent, right? I have two in first and third grade. And the fear that's in my heart when we have these never ending, I mean, I've been in Melrose for seven years and like, like five of them have been budget cliffs, you know, just nonstop budget cliffs. And I just, I just wanna say out loud in this room, um, that when I'm looking for a community to be in, when I know people are looking for a community to be in, one of the biggest things they look at is the schools. And, you know,
▶ 1:30:40 Ryan Williams: whether the schools are fully funded, whether the schools provide the services that their kids need. We could go 10 more years without a fire in a police station. It would be a disaster for the fire and the police departments. And we need to do right by everybody, everywhere we can. But people look at the schools. And so I, you know, if, if there, you know, I just, I guess I just wanna make a commitment right now that for those of us who remain in Melrose, uh, whether we're on city council or just the elementary school parent or you know, staff, uh, you can count on me for an override. Right? You can count on me to help vote for it on the ballot. You can count on me to help, uh, work for it, organize for it,
▶ 1:31:15 Jen Grigoraitis: knock doors for it, whatever it takes. I'm happy to do it because we need it. And I don't think to Counselor Gee's point, I don't think we have any time left. Right. I think we are there. So, you know. Thank you. That's it. Thank you President Grigoraitis. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you both for being here, including for our little recess and thank you to our colleagues on the school committee for also being here and for all of the work you have all done on this budget. Um, I think like everyone in this room, I'm not happy with it. I'm certainly in support of it cuz the alternative is unthinkable. But, um, I feel like, I know we've talked about cliffs and you know, lack of choices. It to me feels like we are forever on a roller coaster where as soon as we get
▶ 1:32:00 Jen Grigoraitis: to the top the, we just plunged right back down. Um, I appreciated Councilor McMaster's questions about the director positions and your response superintendent that all of those director positions were enumerated in the 20 20 19 override. And now here we are four years later having to have serious conversations about the viability of those positions. What is that message to voters? What is that message to those educators? What is that message to our students? Um, I'd like us to get out of this cycle. I do think this body, and I know the school committee as well, have done a lot to ask questions this past year about why are we here? How do we do things differently? Unfortunately we don't get to build the budget.
▶ 1:32:37 Jen Grigoraitis: Um, the few questions I had for you, um, were just some things to clarify around process and timing because we are leaving you hanging out there looking for, um, money as is unfortunately the great Melrose way. Um, so the free cash ask that you all made was for about 870,000. But the order that's coming that is on our agenda for next Monday is for 500,000. So how are we addressing that delta of 369,000? So that, that contributes now and brings us back up to that 2.7 million. Okay. So that's how we're at 2.7. 2.8. And then I just wanted to clarify cause I think Mr. Kelly, you, or maybe it was Chair Al had mentioned that, um, you all would be coming back to us in the fall if it's free cash, it's really early 2024 that you would be coming back to us.
▶ 1:33:24 Jen Grigoraitis: So that is a new mayor, new members of the school committee, new members of this body. Um, and yet again, we're at a point where we are at least halfway through the school year. So to Counselor Garrett pays point if those, if that money is not there, we are talking about catastrophic cuts to, you know, the salaries we've already encumbered. Yep. Okay. So I just wanted to clarify all that. Those are my questions. Thank you Counselor Stewart. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Uh, Dr. Berger, Mr. Kelly and the members of the school committee that are still here appreciate, uh, your attending tonight. Um, so to cons, Erica's point, you, you know, it is in balance. It is, it's a deficit. Right? I get it.
▶ 1:34:09 Robb Stewart: So we have a deficit on our hands and you have a plan, well, sort of a plan. But what I'm not hearing, and I think what would give confidence around the shoe is, um, a little bit more comprehensive plan. And I think what's been missing from the conversation is enrollment. Cuz enrollment drives everything, right? I mean, the enroll enrollment goes up, you need more teachers, you're gonna need more everything. So that's gonna drive the budget. And I haven't heard anything about what that enrollment looks like over the next three to five years and how that is gonna impact this budget. Um, I recall when Dr. Uh, came to us about six, seven years ago when we're having an expected very dramatic increase
▶ 1:34:53 Robb Stewart: that it was clearly mapped out of the number of students that we expect and what that increase would look like. And I think that's what we need to do right now. So I'd, I'd like to get your impression, and maybe you've already done that internally and you're not just sharing it, but if you're going to go for, you know, if, if there's gonna be a whole discussion about an override, which, you know, it sounds like that's something that is starting to gain momentum, you're gonna have to sell it. Mm-hmm. And the only way you're gonna sell it is to demonstrate why you need it. And right now, you know, all anybody's hearing right now is school needs more money, but they're not hearing why. So, um,
▶ 1:35:29 I'd like to understand what your plans are for selling it a little bit more. Sure. So, um, I won't be able to contribute in the selling part of it, but I'll give you some talking points that I think are really important. And, you know, in my professional opinion, I think that any override moving forward needs to be a citywide override and not just isolating the needs of the schools. My concern with just isolating the needs of the schools, although this is out of my purview, would be that we continue to perpetuate the issues the schools get more, every other department has to get less. That can't be the way we move forward because we rely on the other departments to run the schools. We're also interconnected.
▶ 1:36:07 So it's not just about what are the needs of the schools, what are the needs of our police department, our fire department, our D P w, our IT department, they're all understaffed, you know, IT and D P W are a core part of our day-to-day operations. They're all understaffed. Um, you know, to think of an elementary school that has one custodian who's there till six o'clock from six 30 till six o'clock at night while and getting override to be there, or I mean, uh, overtime to be there till six, that's not how you keep a school clean and maintained. And so there's a cost to that, right? There's a cost to that saving a dollar today, um, only to let things compound. So, and defer maintenance moving forward.
▶ 1:36:45 So we need to look at all of these things all at once when we think about what is the real amount of the override. Um, enrollment is one factor. It's really crystal clear. We just did, um, a demography study, right? I think it was kind of year two of the pandemic. Um, and everything the demography study was showing has rung true with the exception of last year's kindergarten. Um, and there's lots of factors that could be playing a role into that, but looking at the housing market is something we have to do annually. Um, looking at the age of our students, and then of course the roll up as we think about the district growing over time. So when I'm, when I'm looking at, um, our current enrollment numbers and I see that, you know,
▶ 1:37:28 all of those numbers that Superintendent Timor was talking about have stuck. They're true, right? We thought we were experiencing a bubble. It's not a bubble. It's really more of a table at this point. And we have a couple of years before all of those 300 plus classes get to the high school, but they're coming, right? And we didn't plan for the middle school. They're at the middle school now. This is why we have class sizes of 22, 26, 27 at the middle school. There's a modest ask here for two core teachers to try to right size sixth grade. Um, it doesn't solve it, it doesn't get him down to like 23, 24 we're probably, we would want them to be at that age level, but it takes a step toward that.
▶ 1:38:07 And so one of the things that we're thinking about with the positions that are in this budget is how do we get sixth grade right now for the middle school? So then next year, like I can tell you now, they're going to need the same level of staffing minimum that, that we're investing in this year. And then that has to roll up to eighth grade as that class size of 3 0 9 works its way through the middle school. I think the high school's ready for class sizes of 300. Um, we, you did a lot of that work with the initial override. There will need to be a continu analysis based on student needs and offerings to make sure that we have the right FTEs in the right departments. Um, so that's work that we have to do. But what we can see clearly looking at,
▶ 1:38:48 you know, first grade up is that every class coming is, is at or above 300. Um, and then it's just basic math. You know, if you have 15 elementary teachers at any grade level, you can divide and see, because I think class side is something that's concrete to people and they can understand that. Um, the other thing that I think has to be a part of that enrollment conversation is we ask ourselves, you know, well what, what is the difference between, you know, 27 kids, middle school kids? I'll use as an example in a class versus 24, 22 20. Um, and I would say the, the difference is huge depending on who that one, two, or three student is and what their level of need is. The other thing we have to really look at is the physical plant of the middle
▶ 1:39:29 school. Um, so if it was designed to enroll 900 students and we're now exceeding 300 at every grade level, things like the lockers, right? Um, but also the size of the classroom matters too, right? So a middle school body takes up the space, a middle school body needs, um, you can't just put more desks in those classrooms and keep rising those class sizes. If you walk into a middle school classroom now, even though that's our youngest building, um, it's tight. It's tight in those classrooms. So when we think about best practices and what should, you know, a 21st century classroom look like, we're challenged by that with the larger the classes get, right? Because teachers have less flexibility in how they can use that space and group
▶ 1:40:11 their students, and all of a sudden we're back in desks and rows, um, you know, modeling, mirroring some educational practices from a hundred years ago. So those are all part of the conversation. But the enrollment, there's no mystery about the enrollment. Um, the only thing we need to be asking ourselves is what is acceptable in terms of the class size? What is acceptable in terms of what a student's schedule looks like? Are we okay with middle school students taking art the same art class twice in one school year? I'm not. But that's a question that we have to ask ourselves. So how do we solve that problem? We need more art teachers at the middle school. We need more music teachers at the middle school.
▶ 1:40:51 We need more electives for middle school students to take to supplement their core classes, right? Another thing that we're looking at is just the amount of instructional time students have time on learning. So again, with like the rotating schedule, the way that we do it, which is a little bit connected, we're breaking more away from the middle, the middle school and, um, high school having to be connected in terms of schedule. But it still is connected because we share staff. So that seems like a really great cost saving measure, but there's implications of that. So our middle school students have their core classes four times a week for 57 minutes. So when you, you add that up, they're getting about 221 minutes a week of math instruction,
▶ 1:41:34 of ELA instruction of science of social studies. So where, where are they spending their day, the other three periods in a day? Those are things we should be thinking about, particularly when we look at our student scores and outcomes. And we talk about wanting higher achievement levels. So the way we're gonna get higher achievement levels is more time on learning more core instruction. They should be getting those core classes five days a week. How do we solve that? It's more staff. Um, and so I think the, the moment that we're at here in Melrose is that we've been conservative, um, for a number of years. And even with the override, right? We sort of like dug a hole, dug a hole, filled it a little bit with the override, and then we went back to,
▶ 1:42:13 to digging the hole, obviously with, you know, the challenges of the pandemic and all of that. The, the question I think we have to ask is what are the standards that we expect? And then we can talk about what does it cost to fund them, right? But right now, without those standards, without those core values and guiding principles, it makes it kind of like, what can we accomplish with the revenue that we have? Instead of thinking of it the other way. What is the need and how do we actually advocate for the resources we need to meet the need? So that was a long answer to it. What about enrollment? But it's all interconnected. Understood. That's my point. Understood. Thank you. Uh, so it kind of goes,
▶ 1:42:53 Robb Stewart: the whole enrollment question goes directly towards the budget and more of the forecast of the budget. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, we have a deficit. If you wanna reduce deficit over time, you have to understand, uh, what your expenses are and what your revenue's gonna be. And so you gotta put it all together. And, you know, in the foreseeable future, if there's no ability to bridge that gap, then, then you have a valid argument to I think, uh, Ryan's point of, uh, where, where you need to find additional revenues. So, um, but I think it it to us to have more confidence in what that plan looks like, it would be helpful, at least from my perspective, and, and I don't wanna speak for others, but I think there may be common sentiment is to understand not just the present,
▶ 1:43:40 Robb Stewart: but really what the future is. Because, you know, we, we certainly wanna support the school. Everybody has children, not, well, almost everybody has, has children, uh, sitting here. And, and I think we all understand very well the value of having, um, you know, a a very strong school system, not, not only for our children, but for the personal value for the wellbeing of the community. I mean there, there's all, oh, lots of great reasons for that. Um, so, and none of us would argue that, but uh, in order to continue to support these efforts, these requests, um, it would be helpful to have a plan mm-hmm. That we can see. And you know, bluntly, I don't see a clear plan over the next three years.
▶ 1:44:28 I hear what we need to do next year and that's great. We have a plan for the immediate future for the next three years. I don't see it. And it would be helpful. We could see that. Yeah. And I would just also encourage, as we're thinking about building that future forecast of need, really understanding what we're learning post pandemic, right? So I'm not sure if you all saw like the recent study outta Mass General where they were, um, checking in on on babies whose mothers were, had covid during pregnancy, right? And so I don't quote me on the numbers, but I think there was like 18,000 mothers included in babies included in this study. And what they found at the one year check-in was that mothers who were pregnant
▶ 1:45:08 with male babies had like a 94% developmental de rate of developmental delay comparative to female babies, which was 0%. Which is fascinating, and we can get into the science behind all of that. That's not necessarily new news. We've known that male babies are more susceptible to infection and the impacts and the developmental delays of that during pregnancy. But if we think about that 94% rate at year one, we can be hopeful that there's progress in development by year two and year three. Um, but we have to also expect that there's going to need some level of intervention in order for that to happen. And we get, we get those babies at year three, right? The day that they turn three, they come to us and we can begin addressing those needs and applying those
▶ 1:45:52 interventions. Um, but some of the things we're also discovering here. So that's two years to plan for that, right? To be thinking about that. Um, but one of the other things that we're discovering is that our students coming into us 3, 4, 5, already have those delays, don't have the same proficiency even in basic functioning like toileting and being able to sit up and having the core strength to be in school and to, um, so that's requiring more support and services. And some of that's because of the timing of their birth, you know, during the pandemic and not being seen maybe by pediatricians or having social interactions and, um, all of the things that, that happened during the, that critical stage of development. And similarly,
▶ 1:46:32 we can see very clearly the impact on our youth when it comes to social media. And I'm excited about the commissioner's efforts to offer a million dollar match for districts that wanna restrict, but restriction's not enough here. Like we all lived through just saying no in the nineties that let us right into the opioid crisis, right? So when we're thinking about, you know, what are the needs, the one thing I can promise you is it's not going to get more affordable to educate our kids, period. There is no cutting of the budget that's going to allow us to educate our kids in the way that they need to be with the increasing needs that's going to cost less than it does today. And that's if we didn't add one single thing,
▶ 1:47:13 Manjula Karamcheti: new or innovative or creative to your point. So I know that's not a ray of sunshine, but that's the reality. And I think we just have to get real about the problems we're trying to solve. Thank you. Thank you manager, counselor, Carm shady. Well, I was about to say amen, what you were just saying, so, but that's probably a little inappropriate. So, but thank you for sharing all of that and explaining all that because I agree with you. I think it is not gonna get any cheaper and we're gonna need more and more money to be able to, uh, support our students who are coming in and all of those factors. Um, I'm looking specifically at the memo for the final budget proposal, which allows us to, it's sort of divided into maintain,
▶ 1:48:00 Manjula Karamcheti: respond and include. Um, and so my questions are sort of related to that. Um, in the maintain category, it's really around the budget will allow us to maintain current service levels and supports and student supports. So I'm just wondering if you could explain the little bit, and I think it goes to a little bit of what Counselor McMaster was asking, but how do you evaluate the effectiveness of the programs and services that we offer K to 12? Sort of what data do you use and then how does that impact what programs we continue to offer, but how we might redesign those programs, um, all under the guise of finances. Um, so could you just speak to that a little bit? Sure. So there's multiple measures that are used internally and externally for us to
▶ 1:48:50 assess the impact or the return on investment really is what we're talking about, right? Um, from a budgetary standpoint. Um, so of course there's our standardized testing data that we use. It's not as necessarily timely as we're planning the budget for next year. We don't have that data yet, but we can always, you know, look back at the progress that we're making. Um, we look at that data through a lens of of equity and saying, who are we serving well and who could we be serving better? And that drives some of our, um, programming and decision making and, um, creative thinking. We also have internal measures. So we have a robust, you know, benchmark, internal benchmark, um, system across the grades where we're assessing our students internally a minimum
▶ 1:49:35 of three times a year. And we're using that data and communicating it publicly to again, show you who's making progress, who's making expected growth, who's exceeding that growth, um, and who's not progressing. The, some of the technology tools that we've been able to invest in with the resources that the city has provided has made that much more accessible, um, right down to the classroom teacher level. So I was having a, a summative evaluation conversation with the principal the other day, and we were looking at beginning of the year fall assessment data, um, winter and spring, and we can get down to the granular level to say like 5%, that's six kids. Who are these six kids? Like what are their names?
▶ 1:50:14 I would argue we should know what is their shoe size, what's their favorite thing to eat? You know, who lives in their house? Like what are all the things we can know about that learner? And that doesn't necessarily cost more money, um, but it is time for us to be curious about our kids and really make sure that we're learning, um, everything we can about them and the supports they have both internally and externally, right? So that's kind of more, um, you know, general and not as, um, concrete and quantitative, but it's still really important. And then it's, uh, of course looking at our SEL screener data, which is another internal tool that we use at at all grade levels. It's looking at, um,
▶ 1:50:51 observation data and feedback that teachers are getting in the classroom. Um, it's also looking at of our students who are receiving tier two or tier three supports, are they making progress towards their goals? Um, are those, you know, supports working? So one of the things you see the elementary principals asking for year over year is more academic interventionist. Um, so to think about a school the size of Winthrop or Roosevelt's or Lincoln or even Horace Man or, or Hoover, and they have like these 18.5 hour a week interventionist. So there was two at Hoover, um, when we were fully staffed. One's now doing a maternity leave for us. Um, but how many students can they actually see in a day? It's a basic math problem,
▶ 1:51:32 right? And we know that that duration of intervention, if it's intensive and it's done with fidelity, needs to be six to eight weeks at a minimum for students who are one to two levels below grade level. So when we're looking and we see kids who are three plus levels below grade level, it needs to be even more intensified, right? And so one of the things we look at is who, who's able to access that supplemental tier two service, um, so that we can intervene before it becomes a tier three higher, more costly need. Um, and we're understaffed in that area across the board. That's why the principals keep coming to you and asking you for that. Um, but ultimately our approach has been, um, absent of those resources is to really hone in on that tier one,
▶ 1:52:16 the level of support at the bottom of the, the pyramid is what I'm motioning over here. Um, that is for all learners in all classrooms all day, every day. So it's, it's a mindset of, you know, helping our teachers understand you're all interventionists. Julie doesn't need to go somewhere to get that support. Sometimes yes, it's a necessity, but absent that, what can we do here? And that's where our investment in professional development becomes absolutely critical. Um, and I know mon counselor [unknown] you're very familiar with our professional development catalog, um, this summer it's impressive once again with a variety of offerings and that really drives that student data drives. How are we investing in our most valuable resource, our human resources? Um,
▶ 1:52:57 and you see that in the professional development menu that's offered. So six big categories this summer. Um, personalized learning, continuing that, and that includes our rethinking grading for equity work that we're doing at the high school. It also includes the MTSS planning that, um, you know, Mr. Kelly was talking about. There's a whole offering of diversity, equity and inclusion trainings. Um, social emotional learning of course is so critical and important. And then there's different curriculum and instruction offerings. So making sure that iReady as a benchmark tool is actually being used to its full potential. That's critical. We can spend the money and, and purchase this. It's an expensive software program as they all are,
▶ 1:53:38 but it's only worth it if we're using it and it's only worth it if we're using it and it's changing outcomes for our kids or improving outcomes for our kids. So that professional development is at the heart of that, right? So it's not about more stuff, it's about what we do with what we have. Um, and then the other two categories, obviously special education and technology are the, the broad themes. Um, but making sure that we maintain that investment. And this was something that we originally had on the, the list of the 876,000 potential, you know, prepayments because some of those things are offered by contracted services, which are like outside experts that we bring in. Um, but most of it is offered by our internal educational experts.
▶ 1:54:20 Um, and I'll just be honest in this moment as I have been all night that, you know, this is, we don't send a lot of teachers out of district for professional development. It mostly happens in house and it's dynamic and it's robust, but there's also significant value to making sure that we're budgeting for them to go to national conferences or local conferences and getting that outside exposure, um, and opportunity to then bring back, right? That's just investing in your people, bringing that back to the district so that we can continue to thrive and grow. Do you have any like, concrete examples of like programs and services that have shifted based on the data that you've looked at, um, in terms of things you've kept or gotten rid of or changed?
▶ 1:55:08 So the, the most significant program offerings that we have are special education related. Um, and so I would say the expansion of the access program down to the elementary level and the student success center down to the elementary level would be one concrete example. One of the things we're trying to accomplish in this budget, um, it's not quite clear yet if we'll be able to, but, um, given those rising e English language learner needs of our incoming K, one of the things we're challenged with is where we can place students who have specialized needs. Because we don't offer all of these programs at every school, again, in the name of efficiency. Um, but also it's, you know, it's, there comes a point where it's healthier for the program to be consolidated,
▶ 1:55:49 but depending on enrollment, there's times when you would want to split it. Um, but EL services is a perfect example. Um, in our tiered focus monitoring report, we were sort of tagged for not having adequate service levels at the secondary level. Um, but at the elementary level it's much the same. Because right now, if you are an English language learner, no matter where you live, you could live across the street from the Winthrop School. Um, and if you need English language services, that's just not offered there at this time. Right. We only offer it at Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Hoover, which then further, you know, perpetuates the high needs nature of those schools. Um, because at Roosevelt, we,
▶ 1:56:29 ALS is also one of the two schools where we have our developmental learning center at Lincoln, we have EL services, our developmental learning center, and we have that access in Student Success center that I was talking about. So it's na that's our high need school because we've designed it that way. Right. Um, Horace Man is our predominantly white affluent, highest achieving. If you look at, you know, standardized testing, um, measures school in the city, yes. Because we have amazing educators and an awesome principal there. Um, but also because we've minimized who can actually have access to that school just based on where the services are provided. So when we think about it from an equity lens, again, what are our values?
▶ 1:57:11 What are our guiding principles? What are the decisions we wanna be able to make? That's a real conversation, right? So we're looking at that and we're saying, gosh, you know, um, even our students who are enrolled in the METCO program, if they need certain services, they have access to certain elementary schools, obviously that becomes a mute point at the, at the secondary level. So even if they were able to go through the same preference process that our families living in Melrose do, there could be limitations. Right. Um, so I'm excited to say for no money, no new money, we are expanding the METCO program and including new, um, elementary students at the Horseman School this year. So we're excited about that. We're also looking at, um,
▶ 1:57:52 Manjula Karamcheti: are there ways that we can expand English language services to the Winthrop School using existing staff? Um, and we have some creative ideas around that. So that's, you know, those are all data points that come from multiple source sources that we're crystallizing to say like, how do we really solve for, um, equity? Cuz ultimately that's what our charge is. Right? To promote the success of all students. So Thank you, um, sort of in the respond category, um, of what the budget allows you to do. It's, you know, to respond to rising at a district tuition rates that have gone up from 6% to 14% and the significant transportation cost increases. So obviously we need to pay that. Like it is vital. It is essential.
▶ 1:58:37 Manjula Karamcheti: No questions about that. Um, the question that I have is like, in terms of the out district placements and sort of why students are going out of district, um, has there been any like strategic looking at that, um, what sort of categories are students are going out of district for and how we might actually design programs that might keep students in-house and or generate tuition from other districts who might wanna send their students here? Um, we're all thinking about ways to increase revenue in all the places citywide, you know, I'm just wondering if the school has done any of that thinking. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you Assistant superintendent Berman, um, very early on in her role was able to identify early literacy as a challenge.
▶ 1:59:29 Specifically when we think about serving students with dyslexic brains or who need a more multisensory language approach, which we do not have any language based dedicated sub-separate programming in the district at this time. Um, partly that that's the philosophy of, of it, you know, previous administrations, which I share, which is to have students included as much as possible. But we also have to be able to address leash restrictive learning environment least restrictive, most appropriate. Right? So, um, as much as we want students to be included all the time, there is times when that sub-separate is absolutely essential, like in our developmental learning centers, right? Um, and that doesn't mean that we're still not trying to re you know,
▶ 2:00:12 reverse include as much as possible or even, you know, design that within their, their IEP schedule. But that is a, a major gap for us right now. Um, and so one of the things we're doing is looking at current staffing levels and spacing issues, cuz that's another challenge that we have. Um, but we're optimistic and hopeful that using existing staff we'll be able to begin to build an elementary language based program at one of the schools. Um, part of our delay in being able to like publicly say, here's the plan is watching that K enrollment, because depending on if we needed those two additional Ks, we would've had space at Winthrop or at Hoover. Um, but we're still committed to that, you know,
▶ 2:00:50 assistant superintendent Berman and I were just having a conversation about that the other day. That's a starting point. And then we have to be able to sustain that, maintain that, and build on that. Right. Similarly, we're looking at the way we're utilizing special educators in general across the board. So looking at caseloads, looking at student need. Um, is there potential reallocation to begin to design a language a more, um, a more, uh, concrete, accurate, you know, evidence-based, language-based program at the middle school. Um, because I think that's where we're seeing families, you know, from the family perspective. Like they're patient and they understand it takes time to build these programs,
▶ 2:01:28 except if it's, if it's my kid, now's their time, right? And so I'm excited for that and I wanna advocate for that, but at the same time, I don't have time. My child doesn't have time. So I think that's, that's definitely an area where we can do some prevention with some strong program development. Um, but the one thing we all know is there's always going to be reasons why students need to be placed out of district because that is going to be the least restrictive, um, most appropriate placement for them. And that shouldn't be deemed as a negative. Um, that really is our obligation to make sure that everybody gets what they need. Absolutely. And then my final is just in the include category.
▶ 2:02:08 Manjula Karamcheti: This is more for clarification than anything else in the, include the following to support mandated and contractual requirements. Are these new positions to be funded? Yes. Yes. And new programs like Cheer Unified Basketball that are under donations to actually include them in the budget. So these are new Yep. Take on that responsibility. Absolutely. So I guess the question I just have about that is just regarding the data of our historically marginalized students, our black students, our ell, our special education students. I do see some items that would move towards supporting those, but probably not enough in terms of what the data says and, and what our kids need. You know, thinking about expanding metco, I,
▶ 2:02:51 Manjula Karamcheti: I wonder do we have the resources to bring in more MECO students given, you know, many of our families are already saying the students are struggling and not getting enough support. So I'm not seeing any added positions regarding some of those things. And Yeah, We've been working, we wanna do that equity work. Who, who is able to really provide the support in leadership and on the ground for that. Yeah. So meco, the MECO program is one prong of that. Yeah. Right. Um, and we are restricted by our enrollment and our space and how many more students we can bring in, right? So part of the work that, um, our METCO director, Nira Hall and I did, um, before the enrollment season started with the METCO program was look at
▶ 2:03:36 literally every single school, every single grade level. Where can we add a seat? Oh, where's the, you know, now that we have the actual student interest, we can look and see, um, are there siblings? Where can they be placed? Are there other students in the METCO program at that school? Because again, we don't wanna place one student by themself. Um, and that's how we were able to bring horseman into the program was there's four students including a sibling pair that we can place there. So, um, that'll be a start to, but those are all things that we're thinking about. And separately looking at the METCO grant allocation. Um, so this is another choice and area, um, of growth for us. Currently,
▶ 2:04:15 the METCO grant offsets a portion of teachers salaries that is in proportionate to the enrollment numbers. And there's a formula that we use to generate what that amount is. Um, that's a choice that we made a long time ago. And to break away from that, we have to be prepared then if we said we no longer wanna do that, we want all of that money to go more directly, I would argue the teachers are directly teaching the kids. But, um, to that program, as some other districts do, we'd have to come up with another two to $300,000 because that, that is the allocation that's offsetting the salary line right now from that grant. Um, another thing that, that NARA is doing in this role is just still in her first year,
▶ 2:04:55 Manjula Karamcheti: is really assessing, you know, the pro the positions that we do fund through the grant and saying, is this appropriate to be funded through the grant? Should this be funded through the operating budget? What's the transition to make that decision one way or the other? And are there additional positions that we think could have higher impact, higher return for our kids enrolled in that specific program as one example? Yeah. And I, I'm not specifically speaking about our METCO students, just, you know, as our population diversifies, um, how are we ensuring that we have prevention and intervention, um, programs and personnel in place doing that work? Um, cuz we have had a few cases this year and, um,
▶ 2:05:38 Manjula Karamcheti: not that we need to continue with our professional development and, you know, our faculty and staff to be able to, to support those students for interest. If we're expanding, uh, METCO in horseman, are those, are those leaders? Are those teachers prepared to provide those students what they need? Um, so thank you for that. Um, just big picture, I definitely am struggling overall with this budget because it isn't enough money to do all the things that we wanna do. Um, it feels a little irresponsible to approve a budget that we know still has a structural deficit in it and hope that people vote when it is a new mayor. It is potentially a new, new school committee members, a new city council members.
▶ 2:06:25 Manjula Karamcheti: It just doesn't feel like we're setting you up for success. Um, and so just when I think about this, even two and a half isn't enough for 8% inflation. And I just hope all of us collectively really continue to push on who we are as a city. Who do we wanna be? What are we willing to pay for, for services mm-hmm. Not only the schools, but the city. And like really figure that out cuz Melrose isn't bringing in enough money to be able to do all these things. Mm-hmm. And if we want nice things, we have to pay for them. So thank you. Counselor Echos. Thank you Madam Chair. Uh, thank you both for being here. I'm just following up on, uh, counselor Stewart's kind of talking about enrollment. Cause I do believe forecasting's important,
▶ 2:07:17 Jack Eccles: but I just wanna ask one quick clarifying question, which is that I think that to get to like level services where we need to be no structural deficit, we would need to see a persistent year over year decline in enrollment to maybe get there. Is that accurate? That Yes, that would be one way to get there. Yeah. One way. Yep. Yeah, That would, yeah. But like for any, for any override skeptic who might be waiting to see enrollment figures, that's what they would need to see to eliminate our need for an override to eliminate this deficit. Yeah. I mean, you would need like to need 30 less teachers each year. Right. Thank you. At least. Um, vice, well, anyone Else for the first time? Vice chair Jamal,
▶ 2:08:06 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Um, you just brought up, um, great news and I'm thrilled to hear that you at a, um, horseman school, um, to be including, um, the medical student, which is great news. Um, I, when I have no doubt that, um, you have this in mind and taking into consideration how to support medical students, um, at this school. But also I wanted to reiterate the importance of preparing, um, the staff mm-hmm. And, um, the students, uh, to be more welcoming and supportive of our medical students. Um, we know that some may have some resistance of accepting new coming and, um, and that, um, medical students from, you know, majority marginalized population that they may have some, um, you know, uh, limitation on speaking up or advocating for themselves. Mm-hmm. So,
▶ 2:09:09 Mark Garipay: um, just wanted to reinforce, um, if you can put a plan on how to better equip our, um, you know, our school to be more welcoming and supportive for our medical students. Absolutely. Thank you. I have questions unless other people have additional questions. No. Okay. In a minute. If you have another question. Yeah, go ahead counsel. Okay. Uh, it's more, I don't even know if they can, you can answer this question. Um, to counselors Stewart's point about a plan, um, we, we have a lot of changes coming up. We have a new mayor, we're gonna have an interim superintendent. We, we talk about the cliff. I firmly believe FY 25 is gonna be, um, a a huge struggle. Who's gonna create a plan and who's gonna
▶ 2:10:09 Mark Garipay: stop the plan and follow and take ownership of it in order to get us there? That, that's what I'm struggling. I don't think there's anyone, I don't know. I don't know if the school committee or someone going help me educate me on, on how that's gonna happen. That's, that's where I'm struggling right now. I mean, we, we need to come up with something in order to, to make this work. Um, and there's just so many changes. You know, I'd like to, to see who's gonna take ownership in, in that and creating it and coming up and, um, and taking ownership in that. So, I mean, I don't, there's no, there's probably no answer at, at the table right now for that, but that's a, that's a major concern for me, so.
▶ 2:10:51 Leila Migliorelli: Great. Anyone else with additional questions? No. Okay. Um, I just wanted to make some comments about what it is that we're, we're just reminding people what it is that we're voting on tonight. Um, that it is, we're voting on the 38.5 million budget, which is the chapter 70 money and the city appropriation. Um, and not the, not the entire plan. We don't have a say in the plan. Um, we are responding to what's in front of us. I think that maybe difference of opinion with some counselors. Like I don't, I don't know who given the transition, there is no one to come up with a plan for how to get out of this. And I actually think that you've been very clear and articulate tonight about what are the challenges and what will happen without funding.
▶ 2:11:39 Leila Migliorelli: And really it is the funding problem. This is not a for-profit business. This is not a company, this is not a, let's look at revenue expenses, you know, projections. Those are those, it, it's important a part of it, but this is a, the business of people and human capital. And this is an investment in our children. And I think any parent wouldn't want anything less. And I would really hope that any community wouldn't want anything less and, you know, settle with mediocrity. Um, that's not, that's not a great position for us to be in in the future. And thank you for outlying exactly what's at risk here, if we keep going the way we're going. Um, and when, I mean the way we're going it, it is the lack of investment in our schools that that's the way we're going to
▶ 2:12:19 Leila Migliorelli: ask to, to cut things or to look at, I mean, simultaneously I've heard questions tonight about asking what to cut and then also what can we add and how it's not enough. And I can't even imagine being your position in which you're having to field both sides of this, this, you know, question that happens in the community too. But I, I never hear anyone saying in the community, my goodness, my kids have so much, uh, they're getting so much, so many services, it is outstanding. I don't even know how they, how are they able to afford this? That's not the thing everyone is asking for more, you know, people are happy with what they're getting to an extent, but how can we do more? So to Councilor Williams point, um,
▶ 2:12:55 Leila Migliorelli: it would be helpful to look at what it would, what it would be to, to run this the way we would want to run it. I, I assume we're nowhere close to that. Um, and I, I just, I think that moving forward we need to be addressing the revenue issue here. Um, you've done a great job of going through the expenses, even the year to date expenses. Again, it's not only, it's we're educating human capital, but you are employing human cap. That's the, that's the main drivers of the business. And it's startling and scary as a parent to hear what these types of challenges are coming forward with, with our children and children coming into the school system. You're right, there's no, there's, it's not gonna get cheaper to educate this.
▶ 2:13:34 Leila Migliorelli: And I think the more people realize that, um, and, and can take this value of public education, that I, I think is a, is a common community value, um, and come up with a way to solve the problem. I think it's, it, it's for the better. Um, so no questions. Just a comment about that. Thank you, um, for being here. And thank you for my colleagues for asking such great questions. Cause I think we got a lot out of this conversation. Um, with that, if there's no other questions, I'll entertain a motion, motion to move the bottom line on line 302nd motion to move the bottom line made by President Greg Reis, seconded by Counselor Eckles on discussion. Councilor McMaster. Thank you, uh, Madam Chair. And thank you for your, uh,
▶ 2:14:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: your answers and your candor tonight. When, when you were before us back in, uh, March, I believe it was, you know, I described the allocation that we were, the appropriation we were being asked to make at that point as being really an impossible decision because I don't felt, I didn't feel like any of us could not support that. Mm-hmm. Uh, at that time, there were expenses that needed to be paid. We had an obligation to pay them and we did. Um, but I, I feel like now, and, and then it was an impossible situation in that I, I felt like, and I, I, I think I said, you know, it's really a stop gap measure where we're kicking the can down the road and we have to come up with some sort of solution.
▶ 2:15:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: And I think I recognize that there really isn't any easy solution, but that this is not sustainable. Right. Um, now I feel like we're in even more of an impossible position because we're con we're we're continuing now to kick the can down the road. And it's not just a, a problem that we addressed this one time. It's a, it's a critical problem that is affecting city finances. Mm-hmm. And I mean, there are really four, four options. There's only four ways out, and none of them, other than finding another revenue source, which was alluded to tonight, right. Increasing the tax levy is really the only viable option. Mm-hmm. The other three options are you cut city services or you cut school services,
▶ 2:15:47 Shawn M. MacMaster: or you cut from both. And nobody wants to do that. Mm-hmm. Because we recognize that these are services that are, that are essential. So cons, Gar mentioned something tonight, which to me really intensifies the, the, the problem here. Um, and why it really is for me, literally an impossible choice. Um, when he raises questions about, and I think Consular Stewart validated the concern of it, if this is really a, a balanced budget, and you know, I think if we, if we look at it at a, on a really superficial level or we want to be cute about it, we can say, yeah, it's a balanced budget. Because what we're voting on tonight as a council is, you know, what was submitted by the, the administration and that, you know,
▶ 2:16:34 Shawn M. MacMaster: that amount though is significantly short from what is needed to run the schools. Right. And so, so you know, you can go back and forth and say, well, it's a balanced budget because we're only appropriating right now what it is that's before us, which we know we have or we will have, but we also know that the expenses are going to exceed that. So if you break it down, how then is it really a balanced budget? Right. And that's the question I personally struggle with is, you know, is, is the fiduciary body, how do we then pass this going to, you know, council Gar pays point, and I think other councilors reference this tonight is the free cash in, you know, the, the potential override. Those are all what ifs. Right.
▶ 2:17:20 Shawn M. MacMaster: And so we've been very fortunate the last few years to have a mild, you know, we had a mild winter this year, the year before we had a mild winter. But if we have to tap into free cash for snow removal, snow maintenance, we have some major issue with our fleet of vehicles. There's a problem with one of the buildings, you know, that what, let's say we project 2.8, you know, 3.2 million free cash next year, that money may not be available. Only a portion of it will be available. And I think, you know, when cons Gepe raised that question, I was thinking of the problem of passing, what I really do think would be an unbalanced budget mm-hmm. As it relates to state law and us being in a position next year where we then
▶ 2:18:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: can't legally set the tax rate. But I think cons, Lepe was looking at it from the municipal standpoint. He mentioned the charter, which I didn't even think of, which I pulled up and it's chapter four, section 4.6, um, subsection B, it says, all budgets submitted by the mayor to the city council must be balanced. A balanced budget is defined as one in which actual or projected revenues equal requested expenditures. We know the expenditures are going to exceed what is, what is needed. So even though a certain amount is only being asked of us tonight, we know more is going to be spent. Right. And that really creates this moral dilemma. We want to fund education. Mm-hmm. We have to fund education, but at the same time,
▶ 2:18:53 Shawn M. MacMaster: how do we continue to kick this can down the road knowing that that money might not be available or an override may never pass, and then what happens? Mm-hmm. We can't set the tax rate legally. We, we have to make cuts that none of us wanna make, that we can't afford to make. So that's why I'm, I'm really, you know, I've been struggling with this. Um, and it's to, to a, I guess a higher extent in light of the, you know, the, the language and the charter. Um, but that worries me. And then, you know, as I was thinking about the concern, which I've gone on record with about free cash going back to March, is, you know, is there any precedent out there? In, in 2014, this, uh, the town of South Hampton found itself in a, in a, uh,
▶ 2:19:38 Shawn M. MacMaster: basically a difficult, uh, situation because it was dinged publicly by the Department of Revenue for similar financial practices. And what do r wrote in a report was Southampton should stop using reserves such as free cash for operating expenses. And I think we all share in that concern. Mm-hmm. Um, but I just, you know, it's, it's, we did it once cuz we had to do it. And again, back to the impossible decision is what, what do we do tonight in light of the continued problem, the uncertainty of future revenue, um, the uncertainty of needs that may arise, unforeseen needs that have to be paid. And then the question of can we, can we legally pass something that we really, in good faith, we may have a difference of opinion across the council,
▶ 2:20:33 Shawn M. MacMaster: but that I believe in good faith isn't really a balanced budget in light of what we know those needs are going to be. Right. At a minimum. Well, we know 2.8 I think is the number Mr. Kelly said as a structural deficit. If you add on whether, I think counselor, um, excuse me, president Greg right, has said 500,000 in the free cash, which you both conceded will be operating expenses. Right. They're moving forward, whatever that number is, 500,000, 900,000 that continues to grow. So now we're up to about 4 million. So I just, it's, um, it's concerning. I know we're all cons, you know, concerned about the situation. Um, but I I I'm worried about, um, passing something that is, it to me is not, is not balanced in that we may not be able to find a way to pay moving forward.
▶ 2:21:23 Leila Migliorelli: If we do, it's gonna result in as actually as you said, superintendent, dramatic devastating service cut. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on discussion? Um, just to clarify a point here, I, I pulled up the old override, uh, question and it said in that said, since 2009, the city has diverted a significant portion of its state certified free cash to close to $750,000, um, school budget shortfall. So it seems like we've been funding the schools through free cash and operating costs for a very long time. Mm-hmm. So perhaps to that point that perhaps we haven't been passing budgets that are balanced for the school. I think we also receive a lot of free cash requests for operating p parts for,
▶ 2:22:08 Leila Migliorelli: or maybe not operating, but deferred maintenance for, um, other departments and things like that. I guess one thing I would say that we haven't seen yet, um, is a accounting on the site. You know, so there's a 3 million gap here. And I don't think, not that I'm saying that any other city department should feel that gap, but we've never seen the corollary to what would that would look like in a different department. You've outlined what it would look like in the schools. I don't know what it would specifically look like across the city. So I would think that if we wanna have a full discussion about city finances, we should be looking at the whole thing about what would be cut and what not would be cut. And we haven't had that conversation yet. It's,
▶ 2:22:44 but my point on discussion, Anyone else? Councilor Gepe To that point, I would, I would state that the school committee in years passed probably have passed, um, a budget that was the same amount as the city. So in essence it probably was a balanced budget. But you're right. We can go back and take a look at all that. So, Uh, is it appropriate for me to add a comment or not at this time? Go ahead. Okay. Um, the, the one thing I would say, and my hope moving forward would be that what we've, what we were able to do last summer, because we were forced to, was take a deep dive into the budgeting practices. And I went back deeply to FY 18. Um, and there's a lot of things to notice and to point out and to clarify.
▶ 2:23:36 And we've done our, our full best effort to, um, eliminate as many of those issues as possible. But the one glaring issue that we have to just say out loud is that we have not been properly budgeting for known expenses point blank period. And the the biggest categories that stand out that are very costly in the budget are special education, tuition costs, coverage and transportation. Those lines have historically been under budgeted and historically overspent. Um, there needs to be better record keeping from budget approved to budget actual so that when we're building the next year's budget, we're building off of budget actual and not going back to budget approved. That that is what is causing this issue to keep happening year over year over
▶ 2:24:26 year for, you know, 15 years now. That, that we have to disrupt that practice. And, you know, this is nerve wracking. We've, we've been nervous about this since we ran the FY 24 level service budgets back in f back in February, um, before you even approve the free cash request. Um, but it's basic math and you're right, councilor McMaster, it is more like a $4 million number. And I'll just give you two quick areas to think about. The 2.5 free cash request, um, that was approved in March plus, the 1.5 and known contractual obligations just between two bargaining units, unit A and unit C, which is our teachers and our paras doesn't count the other costs for the other collective bargaining agreements. Doesn't count the program, the innovation,
▶ 2:25:10 the creativity, the, the, what are the new and known needs. So those number, that is a real number to have in your heart and to keep coming back to. And I think moving forward, if I could have one hope or if, if anyone wanted to hear it, it would be that when we identify problems, we come together to focus on how to solve them for the betterment of our community rather than focusing on, you know, who's at fault for the problem. Because that re that really consumed a lot of positive, constructive energy that could have been put to better forces for Ken and I over the last several months. Um, and the problem's not solved, right? We're more honest about the problem, we have a more clear picture of what the problem actually is. Um,
▶ 2:25:54 now we need to come together and talk about what's the path towards legit solving the right problem. Um, so Thank you for what it's worth. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll Vice chair Jim Modine? Yes. Council McMaster? No. Councilor Sin? Yes. Councilor Les? Yes. Council Gepe? No. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Council Che? Yes. Council Williams? Yes. President Gregs? Yes. And Chair Mc Mcle? Yes. That's eight. Yes. Two nays. That motion carries. Yeah. Um, thank you for being here tonight. Um, then just to wrap things up, I'll entertain a motion to hold appropriation 2023 dash 28 and committee. Motion to hold. Second. Motion to hold. Made by counselor Ella I, counselor Echoes, seconded by counselor Carm Che. Um, all in favor? Aye.
▶ 2:27:00 Leila Migliorelli: Any opposed? That motion carries. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. It's all moved. Second motion adjourned. Made by Counselor Williams. Seconded by President Greg. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We're now adjourned.