Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2025-05-29
Attendance
Cal Finocchiaro ; Mark Garipay ; Ward Hamilton ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Devin Romanul ; Robb Stewart ; Kimberly Vandiver ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 29, 2025 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:01 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Late 7:40 PM Cal Finocchiaro Present Ward Hamilton Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Present Devin Romanul Present Robb Stewart Present Kimberly Vandiver Present Ryan Williams Present Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Oficio Present Mark Garipay Chair Present
APPRO-2025-50 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) Fiscal Year 2026 Operating Budget in the amount of $107,575,802. Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee City of Melrose Page 1 6/25/2025 11:09 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:03 Mark Garipay: Good evening. The time is 7 0 1, Thursday, May 29th. This is the meeting, the Appropriation Oversight Committee. I'm Mark Ype, the chair also joining me tonight, uh, councilor Stewart Council is Ro Reky, councilor Romano Council, uh, Hamilton Council Williams Councilor Chetty, councilor Vandiver and President Moore. This serves as a notice of a quorum for the record in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting's being recorded live on, in broadcast on MMTV. I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objections. This is, um, this is a portion of the meeting where, um, you can speak to, uh, to anything on our agenda. Uh, if there's anyone in the gallery looking to speak,
▶ 0:53 Mark Garipay: please come up seeing no one in the gallery looking to speak. Is there anyone online There is not. Okay. There is no one online. If there's no objections, I'll motion to close by unanimous consent, the public comment portion of the meeting. All righty. Next up, we get, uh, minutes approval. At this time, I'll also motion by unanimous consent to approve without reading the minutes of the May 15th, 2025 appropriation and oversight meeting, uh, budget hearing meeting, the May 15th, 2025 appropriation and oversight joint meeting with the planning Board, the May 19th, 2025 appropriation and oversight committee meeting. Senior, no objections. Those minutes are now approved. Moving on, we are on to department budget presentations.
▶ 1:42 Mark Garipay: We have two budgets in front of us tonight. The first one is budget 3 99 Regional school assessment. And we have, uh, with us the, um, Northeast regional vocational team with us. We got Mr. DeBerry, Mr. Pone, and I apologize O'Brien. Mr. O'Brien, the floor is yours. If you want to come up before we do start, I'd like to, you're welcome to come up, but, um, we hand it over to, uh, Mr. Hamilton, uh, who's the rep on the school committee. Uh, would like to say a few words. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the, uh, team from Northeast for being here tonight. Uh, first a, uh, statement, uh, public statement that I am the, uh, representative from Melrose to Northeast. So I will not be able to engage in the dialogue this evening
▶ 2:39 Ward Hamilton: or vote, but it is my privilege to introduce to you our superintendent David DeBerry, our assistant superintendent, Tracy O'Brien, and our finance director who's no stranger to Melrose. Mr. J Picone. Thank you. Thanks. Alright, thank you. Um, I will, will hand it over to you. Do you have a, oh, you have already loaded up, so I will hand it up. The floor is yours. Sure. So a couple things and we'll be brief. You, we, we know you have a, a busy night ahead of you. Um, wanted to stop by thanking everybody again for a very supportive year. Um, we feel very comfortable even, um, regardless of having Mr. Hamilton on both boards, we are very comfortable working with Melrose. We've done some great community projects this past year
▶ 3:25 and we're looking forward to, to doing some more next year. Um, so Mr. McCallen's gonna, um, present the budget and one of the things he's going to talk about is how much we understand the impact, um, right now of educational aid in all 12 cities and towns. And we took that into consideration and tried to have the tightest budget, um, we possibly could have. Um, in addition to that, we did, um, save some money towards the bond for the new building. So you may have gotten some notification. We sent some notification out about two months ago, letting people know that we are able to reduce, um, some of the impact on the bond to, to also alleviate some of the financial pressures that, uh, almost all
▶ 4:13 of our districts are going through right now. Um, Ms. O'Brien's here, and I would like for her to share a few things about the success of our Melrose students at Northeast. We may not say specific names, but there have been a lot of successful, um, students from Melrose this past year. Thank you. And thank you for having us here. Just so you are aware of, of the great successes, of continued successes of our Melrose students. Uh, our graduating seniors, and I refer specifically to Melrose graduates at this point, are off to unions, to, um, they're off to work directly in their career tech area areas, as well as going to two year and four year schools. Um, the students from Melrose have participated widely this
▶ 4:58 year through our activities and sports activities. Um, we had a Melrose represent student represent us at the International DECA Conference, uh, which is really a very hard spot to earn. Um, we also had a Melrose student represent us at states for Skills, USA, which is the career tech competition statewide. That student, uh, got a silver medal, which was an amazing accomplishment. Um, we had a mass state vocational champion from Melrose in wrestling. And, um, our, one of our Melrose students from our culinary program was on Revere Access tv, uh, doing a cooking lesson for the community. So, uh, the students from Melrose have had a diverse and varied experience throughout this school year and continued to be a, a vibrant part
▶ 5:46 of our school community. And we appreciate your support. Thank you. Great. Um, so I'm gonna do a brief synopsis of the assessment. Um, so I'm just gonna go through this real quick. So based on the, the, uh, DSI formula required net school spending, which determines minimum amount that, uh, cities and towns, or I'm sorry, we have to spend on education on an annual basis, uh, it was determined that dsi, that we need to spend $2.2 million more than FY 25 to meet our net net school spending threshold. Um, so normally the net school spending requirement, the gap, the revenue gap is filled by chapter 70 in local contribution. The local contribution comes from our member communities such as Melrose.
▶ 6:31 Um, normally our chapter 70 amounts are, are ample enough to, uh, cover a majority of that net school spending requirement. I will say that, uh, over the past couple of years, that hasn't been been the case. Um, only $910,000 of chapter 70, uh, funded that $2.2 million gap, which requires us to, uh, assess as a minimum required local contribution of almost $1.3 million to our member communities. Um, unfortunately that's happening across the state. I noticed that Melrose has, their required net school spending is about $2 million more than last year, and about $194,000 is funded, uh, only with state funding. So something needs to give there, but, uh, I digress. Um, we were able to, as the superintendent, uh,
▶ 7:20 mentioned, um, reduce the debt service requirement because there wasn't much any much of anything we could do with the operational, uh, budget because you have to spend a certain amount of money based on the required net, uh, um, required minimum multiple contribution. Um, we're able to reduce the debt service payment, which was, was originally 9 million 1 26, 2 55 to 6 million 496, 2 55. And that's not just for Melrose, that's for all of our communities. Um, but we used $2.7 million from our, uh, reserves and excess in deficiency funds to reduce that burden because we knew this was gonna be a troublesome time for, uh, for our communities. The action alone, uh, reduced Melrose assessment by 154,000.
▶ 8:03 So we were happy to do that. So you'll see on the chart here that our minimum contribution increase would, again, is the minimum amount that, um, we need to charge in order to, uh, ser service, uh, the students. Additionally, uh, and I did service increase of $1.2 million, uh, comes up to our FY 26 assessment almost exactly of, um, the 2 million 477 2 79. That's the increase of assessment from FY 25 to FY 26. But again, that's not just for Melrose. And here is the total assessment summary. Um, you'll see that Melrose, the total assessment is 1 million 951 636. Uh, that's the difference of 332,606 based on seven new students and the increase of our, um, debt service by approximately $93,000.
▶ 9:02 And here is the breakout that you'd probably be most interested in. Um, total, it shows our total final operating assessment of 1 million 580 0 1 8, uh, 371,000 6 1 8 for our debt service. And the total assessment, again is 1 million 951 636. So, uh, at this time, I'd be happy to answer any additional questions. And Jay, if I could jump in, and I've been talking to a lot of our committees in the 12 cities and towns, and, um, some are sad to see a pattern and, um, some haven't seen this pattern yet. And that's why I just want to share the current situation. Um, the, the current state leadership feels that cities and towns need to stop paying more of this year. So for years, we had an expectation of
▶ 9:56 what we would be getting for chapter 70 money, and it was usually an increase or, you know, significant enough. And we usually knew what it was gonna cost the cities and towns. Um, so the new formula that nobody really understands, um, is really wants to put more, more burden on the cities and towns. So what you are seeing this year and last year is going to continue. Um, these aren't just a blip in the radar. Um, so I've been helping to try to prepare some of our cities and times, as Jay said, we are spending at minimum contribution. So it is the legal minimum. We can charge our cities and towns, even if we had the money or even if I, we had ways within our budget to save you money, I cannot charge below that.
▶ 10:45 Um, we were being creative with some of our excess money from last year, and we said, well, we can't lower what we charge per student, but we now have this bond and that we can save money, uh, for our cities and towns through that bond. Um, but this is something that's not going away. And I see cities and towns, um, kind of pointing fingers at each other. Why, why are we, you know, under budget or why, why do we have to make these cuts? And the reality is it's coming from the state and it, it will continue. I have to commend, um, Senator Lewis, um, who is put, is putting a task force together to start to address, um, the Chapter 70 funding and hopefully regulate it. But this is something that really is out of all our,
▶ 11:36 of our control at this point. And if you have, you know, contacts in the State House and if you have contacts in the governor's office, um, those are the discussions that need to happen. Um, you know, Mr. Hamilton knows that I'm on the phone with, with our reps and our senators, um, almost on a daily basis to discuss issues like this and some of the other ones. But it is a difficult situation and, um, I wish we had better, you know, better systems for helping to, to minimize the impact of not only us, but I'm sure you know, the Melrose Public Schools as well as dealing with this sudden change in, um, how we're funded. So just wanted to get that out there. Thank you. If there's any questions, we can jump back to the q and a.
▶ 12:21 Thank you. Any councilors have any questions? Council Stewart? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for, uh, that clear explanation. Appreciate it. Um, I just want to be clear on the numbers up here. So 1.9 million and how many students, Uh, we have a, you have a total of, sorry, 79, I apologize. 79 students. Okay. So that's not too unreasonable. Um, so you mentioned state, state leadership believes that we need to pay more. Is that coming from the governor's proposed budget that she sends to the floor? Is that, is that where that matriculates Exactly, Exactly. So for the past two years, it's been the lowest increase that, uh, I can recall. Um, you know, they talk about inflation rates. So the, you know, the,
▶ 13:34 I'm not gonna say the governor specific, their office feels like they're in line with the inflation increases from year to year, but what they don't take into account is, um, the services and the contracts for a school system has a much different inflation rate than the overall state does. So if, you know, maybe, yeah, the state average might be one and a half percent for every type of occupation in every type of service in public education, you know, um, that the contractual raises a loan a far above that, you know, that what it takes to run a, a public school, whether it be the heating, the busing, the contract, those are so far above one point a half percent. So, but that's the rate the governor's office is using
▶ 14:25 for our increase, and it might not be the exact rate, but it's somewhere in between one, one and a half, um, to determine our increases in chapter 70. Um, it's a little like a shell game, but in the end, it's falling on the cities and towns and we're not prepared. We, nobody's prepared. We never expected year to year that they would drop. We're in a, like a proper, an informal proposition, two and a half situation where all of a sudden things have changed dramatically and we need to readjust. And we're, we're doing our best to do it at Northeast, but to the cities and towns, I, I am, you know, glad I'm not a, a, a superintendent in one of the cities and towns right now because I know the pressure that's being put on them
▶ 15:12 to balance something that's unmanageable with what they're given. It's, it's a big challenge. So if there's anything we can do to try to help ease that. But again, phone calls to the, um, your rep senators in the governor's office. This is the second year in a row. We, we saw it last year and we were waiting for the headlines in the newspaper and they didn't come. And I think everybody used all their free cash and they used all their funding and they survived a year, but by nobody saying anything, if we worked last year, nobody said a word. Here we are year two now, people are outta their reserves and struggling. And, um, for some reason it's not making the media, it's not being talked about.
▶ 15:57 Like I said, all we're doing is turning on each other. I'm seeing, um, school committees turning on city councils. I'm seeing the superintendent's offices in the hot seat. Everyone's pointing fingers and the state's kind of just sitting back and saying, well, nobody said anything. So, uh, I guess it's fine. Um, so it's been a real eyeopening. I've been in public education for over 30 years, administration over 20. I've never seen it to this level. Um, so, So just a couple of other questions around the numbers. Um, the operational assessment, that is based on a per student that's Yes. Right. So it's some form of multiple. Okay. Yeah. And then, and Actually the debt service also is based on your student count as well?
▶ 16:40 Robb Stewart: Percentage of total enrollment. Okay. So if we divide by 79, we get a per student on each one? Yes. Okay, great. And is that consistent across the, the cities and towns, or does it vary based on the cities and towns? Uh, it's, well, some of the lower income communities pay, uh, per pupil cost per assessment, it does a little bit lower. Okay. Based on their income and Property loan. Okay. So there's a, there's a weighted factor based on income Yes. Average income of a town. Yes. Okay. Got it. And then, um, for your reserves, how much do you have left in your reserves? Uh, we're we, uh, our e and d balance is fully maxed out, so we're on 1.6 million. 1.6 million. Okay. And, and you said you spent about 2 million this year?
▶ 17:24 Well, we'll be spending, uh, about $2.7 million in order to, um, because we were able to, um, use, um, prude and fiscal practices, such as taking some of our grant funding that we received, um, and used that instead of using, um, budgeted funds. So that way we knew we were gonna have a fiscal crisis this year. Yeah. Uh, and we wanted to be able to give back to the communities and, and really help out any, any way possible. Um, so that's why we tried to build up our reserves over this past year, uh, because we knew that FY 26 was gonna be an issue. Yeah. I feel for you. I mean, 1.5%, it's worse than our two and a half situation, so I, I can appreciate what you're going through. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
▶ 18:07 Kimberly Vandiver: Council Vandiver. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So to continue, um, a little bit on that line of questioning about the numbers, um, so taking, so I just did the division, um, so taking the total, the 1.951 that we have per student, that's about 24 7 per student? Yep. Correct. And then I'm assuming the state minimum's based on the operating, so that one is almost perfectly 20 K per student. So we're at, that's, that's our minimum spending requirement is the 20. So your minimum spending require you, you're talking about your minimum required local contribution. Is that What Yeah. You said you were at the minimums. Is that our minimum? Um, so the minimum required local contribution, the budget is,
▶ 18:53 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, basically yes. From Melrose. Yeah. Yeah. So we we're charging the minimum, it's The 1.5 Yeah. 1.5 million. Yeah. And that's to all 12 of our districts. Yeah. Right. Okay. So I was just curious, um, I, looking at at maybe there's reasons I, I'm sure there are reasons. I'm just curious to understand them. Um, so on the, um, the net school spent the per pupil spending within the Melrose District, I believe in, in the 16,000 range. Um, so I was wondering, is there a reason that those numbers are different or that Vocation vocational schools in theory, um, because we have equipment and supplies such as copper and machinery, um, so they've determined that it usually is, it is higher for every vocational high school than it is
▶ 19:40 Manjula Karamcheti: very similar to an elementary school compared to your regular high schools. Those per pupil costs are different based on the needs of the students. Okay. Understood. Thank you. You're Welcome. That's all. Thank you, Councilor. Um, sort of again, related to like the tuition costs, we have a memo with the non-resident vocational tuitions, and I'm just noticing a range through the different vocational programs. Um, and some of these I know are comprehensive high schools with vocational programs embedded in them, while others are more specifically comprehensive vocational programs that exist on their own. Um, but just sort of curious, um, for the ones that are more, um, specific vocational technical high schools, um,
▶ 20:31 what would create the range and difference given like that? There is a range. The state would determine that based on the programs In Okay. So yeah, We, we don't set that rate determining the vocational. Yep. We don't set that rate. Okay. Yep. Do you know what goes into their determination? Again, it's this magical chapter 70 that nobody's ever been able to understand or nobody will explain it. I wish I did. Thank you. You are Welcome. Anyone else for the first time? Council Stewart? Yes. I just, um, have, this may be for Ms. Golden, um, transportation is separate, right? Correct. For this, so this does not factor in any transportation. Yeah. Net school spending transportation and, uh, does not factor into net school spending. Right.
▶ 21:23 And that, that is a separate line item for our budget, right? Oh, um, no. So everything is rolled in so that your operating assessment will include transportation as well, so. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? So, will of the committee, Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion to move this to the bottom line. Second, We have a motion to move 3 9 9 regional school assessment to the bottom. Move the bottom line by Councilor Stewart, second by councilor, uh, Ramal on discussion. All in favor? A. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That will be moved to the bottom line. Thank you for coming. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you Everyone. See you next chair. Thank you. Okay. Cheers. Next up
▶ 22:21 we have department 300, 300 Melrose Public Schools, and we have with us superintendent, uh, de and business manager Ken Kelly. Welcome, welcome back. Thank you. Thanks for having us tonight. I think our plan is to just kind of give a quick overview of our budget, budget process, um, show some resources that are available for the community, and then we'd be happy to answer any questions that the, the committee may have this, the council may have tonight. So, um, I'd like to thank, um, uh, the council for having us tonight. Thank our school committee, uh, mayor and CFO. Golden. Um, been very approachable, very supportive, helpful as we go through the budget process. Um, just some quick facts about the, the, the,
▶ 23:13 uh, the school system itself. Um, if we're not familiar, it's, uh, eight school facilities. We have, uh, six elementary schools, uh, and two schools at the secondary level, the middle and the high school. There's some enrollment, um, information in the, um, slides that were shared. And we come in just under 3,900 students this year. Um, and we are a district that, um, uh, strives to implement, uh, multi-tiered systems of support and UDL instruction. Those are our mainstream cutting edge, uh, in today's education world. Um, and it strives to meet kids, uh, uh, get as many kids in the general standards based curriculum as as possible. Um, our budget is composed primarily of two, uh, two revenue sources.
▶ 23:58 Our budget obviously has, um, cost associated and revenues. Um, our budget is about over 93% fixed costs, uh, things like contractual obligations, um, uh, salaries, um, special education mandated services, things like that. Um, so 93% of our budget, over 93% of our budget is not discretionary. Um, those are costs that are, are conveyed to us. Um, and then we get our revenue from two primary sources, uh, the city's appropriation, uh, which includes the state's chapter 70, uh, funding that we just heard about from our friends at the vocational school. And then, um, medalist generates revenue on its own. Uh, um, the school system generates revenue on its own through revolving funds, uh, and grants.
▶ 24:44 Um, we have a tuition line at the Franklin School, the ECC. Um, we charge fees for students to participate in activities like sports and extracurricular activities like drama. Um, we receive federal aid from the IDEA and um, title one through four entitlement grants. And then we receive funds from, um, um, just under a million dollars from the Medco grant from the state. Um, it's worth noting that the, the school system generates a significant amount of revenue. There's a lot of pressure on our offset revenue. Those are built into our budget. Um, our, our number and, um, it's important for, uh, the council. A lot of, a lot of you are already aware, but for the public, um, that number is something
▶ 25:29 that we budget at the beginning of the year based on forecasts. And we collect that money over the, the course of the school year. Um, in essence, we're spending that money as we are collecting it. That's not something we collect in addition or have in reserve. Um, that's money that is part of our budget. So we place a lot of pressure on, on collecting that revenue. Next slide, please. Thank you. So for, uh, this year's budget process, um, it was, uh, starts back in October, November, we start looking at, um, projections and, and forecasting. Um, we held three public listening sessions, um, where, uh, staff public, uh, were welcome to come talk about the budget, their priorities listened to,
▶ 26:12 what the budgets, uh, constraints were. Um, we did that through, uh, December and January. And that included a, a digital survey we provided, um, looked at the responses to that and tried to assimilate that into our planning. We received our chapter 70 projection in January. Um, we presented our budget book and had budget deliberations with the school committee February through April. And the school committee approved the, the budget on, uh, April 15th. Um, and we are, you received a memo in, in the, um, the packet and the agenda tonight. Um, subsequent to that approval, the state has said that they, um, the, the House and Senate have, um, proposed an increased, a further increase to chapter 70.
▶ 26:54 And that is something that the governor will have to consider. Um, but the, um, the bottom line number that you have is inclusive of that with anticipation that that should pass, um, framing and priorities for this budget. Um, we looked at this as a level services budget. So it just incorporated the, um, the natural, uh, increase in costs of our fixed costs. Um, that resulted in a $4 million, uh, gap that we had to close. So Superintendent Deli and I spent, uh, most of the time January through, um, April, uh, uh, in my office, in his office, uh, reducing that down. Um, we got it down to a level that was about a $200,000 gap left. And, um, the mayor and CFO Golden were able to, um, absorb that back on the city side.
▶ 27:39 And that's important to note that that creates a further gap on the city side. Um, we certainly appreciate that generous support and fully know that that $200, $200,000 has to come from somewhere, and it comes off of the city side. So that creates a further gap on the city side. Um, our priorities for this budget were based primarily on compliance with state, um, federal and special education laws and regulations. Typically, that's not how you would want to design a budget. The budget is a, a forecast and a guess of what you would want to do and the program you would want to implement that we were not allowed to do that this year. Um, and having to close that gap. Um, and this furthered impacts from last year.
▶ 28:19 If you remember, for FY 25, we had significant cuts to staffing and programs. Uh, so this further compounded that, um, uh, those cuts, um, we do try to focus on positives and one positive that we've been, um, focusing on. And it is discussed that we've moved away from one-time funding requests, um, this year for our budget. We do not have to come before council for supplemental budget requests, which is, that is progress. That's good fiscal health. Um, the other side is that, that the, the both the city and the schools have faced, uh, significant cuts. Um, and this is, as we heard from the vocational team, um, this is something that's going on statewide. The state has a, a revenue problem itself.
▶ 29:05 Next slide, please. Thank you. So this is just a cost center overview of, um, our eight schools, the different departments. Um, and we arrived at a, a bottom line, um, expense of $47,649,000. Um, and then should the, um, the governor pass the increase chapter 70, we would ask school committee to reconsider and, and include that, that additional revenue in that, um, uh, that vote. We have tried to, um, make things accessible and readable for the community to, to educate on how the the school system budget works. We're trying to be as transparent as we can. We do offer a, a, a website that includes our line item and budget, both approved and proposed. It has resources, um, throughout the budget process
▶ 29:53 that we've, we've posted there. And I would encourage anyone that would, wants to learn more about the budget to, um, to stop by that website. And that's actually linked on the next page. If you could go one more slide. So, the major takeaways for our FY 26 budget would be that, um, very high levels of collaboration between the city and the schools. Um, we have had to make some hard choices, but we did, as I said, move away from, um, reliance on one-time funding. Uh, we have had significant staffing cuts, which has been, um, very challenging to do. Uh, it's not good for kids. That's not the way this budget, uh, was designed, which is, is too bad. Um, it was approved on April 15th. We do have the potential for additional, uh,
▶ 30:35 chapter 70 revenue. Um, and this, this council graciously and generously, uh, considered and approved for, um, uh, an override question, um, to go back to the, the full council for potentially to go to November. So, um, that is greatly appreciated, um, because that override does include, uh, uh, revenues that would help the school system. Uh, for FY 27, we're always looking a year ahead. Um, without that increased revenue, I'd say we're on this same pattern. Um, we have fixed costs that increase beyond our control, we're obligated to pay them, and that just indicates further cuts might be necessary, uh, to meet those, those numbers. And I did, um, link in there, the, uh, there is our website,
▶ 31:15 Ward Hamilton: our resource for, um, the public that, uh, has, um, a lot of things in there. It has our line item budget that shows everywhere every dollar is spent for the school budget. So, um, we thank for your time and, um, if superintendent do doesn't have anything to add, I would say we're, we're open to questions. So, um, any questions from the council? Mr. Hamilton? Thank you. And more of a comment than a question. Just waiting to see if anybody else had questions first. But thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you, Mr. Kelly and the role that you've been in, which has been a challenge in your entire tenure in the Millers Public Schools. Thank you, Mr. Dela, for all that you've done.
▶ 32:06 Ward Hamilton: And, and I thank the school committee for all of their work. Um, you know, we're in Massachusetts, we're seven miles north of Boston, and this is where we embraced historically the value of public education. Great education educators like Harris Mann and others. We look at the history of like Boston Latin, and we realize that while as a municipality, we need to deliver services, public safety, police and fire public works, the schools are the cradle of American civil liberties. And that's where it all starts. And it's painful for all of us, I think, to see the struggles that our schools are against and the challenges. And, uh, I pledge my commitment to work with you all to get through this and to, uh, bring Melrose Schools
▶ 33:03 Robb Stewart: where we all want them to be. Thank you. Thank you. Council Stewart? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just writing something down. Just excuse a second. Uh, I'll go to council ache if you want. No, I'm good. Thank you. Um, gentlemen, thank you. Um, so I'm, I'm looking at the revenue sources, right? And, um, what is the percentage between, um, the city appropriate and including chapter 70 versus the other revenue Right, right. The revolving grant funds and so forth. Sure. So we're, right now, we're projected at the 4 7, 6 4 9 number. We bring in about five to five and a half million dollars in offset revenue. Um, and then the city's, um, uh, appropriation is in the memo. It's, it's the 42,000,523 number.
▶ 33:55 Robb Stewart: So we generate about five and a half million this year. We actually were closer to six because we had some funds that were available to us, and we were trying to support the cuts that were made in FY 25. Um, and we just don't have those available to us again this year. So we're not about 5.4 or $5.5 million, which is, that's a lot of money for a school system to generate. It's 10%. Right, roughly. Um, so, um, you know, when I look at this, right, it's federal grants, state grants, um, and there's a lot of noise about this, right? Um, so there's risk, right? So what are, what are the alternative plans? Um, from what we've been hearing, the, like the, the Title one grants, they seem to be somewhat stable.
▶ 34:42 Um, the IDEA grant is a little more that one's, that's a little over a million dollars. That's the one I'm kind of very concerned about. I think there was some proactive forecasting and CFO Golden and the mayor have increased the, um, the, um, special education stabilization fund. That's something that would be available to support special education services should the IDA grant somehow be impacted. So I think that's some proactive thinking. Um, but yeah, I think we're all waiting to see where that, that turns. Um, and I would hope that it stabilizes. Alright. And if it doesn't, we will need to go into either stabilization or free cash. We're obligated for special education mandated services.
▶ 35:18 Robb Stewart: So the, the revenue will have to come from somewhere. Yes. Right, Right, right. Okay. I just, just wanted to be sure that with we as well as the community understands what situation we're in. Thank you. Sure. Um, and so the other thing that we heard the other evening was that, um, this came from the mayor is that there's no more of basically chasing grants. Uh, so are we going to be impacted at all by the fact that we now don't have someone that chases grants? Or is that different on the school side? Uh, I would argue, no. Uh, we do not have a dedicated, um, grant manager at the schools that, that is, um, a division of responsibilities that, um, uh, multiple people handle. Some of them will not be returning next year.
▶ 36:07 Robb Stewart: So, um, I would say that for us to pursue grant revenue, um, it's a challenge. There's really no one dedicated to do that work right now. Um, and it can be a good source of revenue, um, but you need to have the time to go look for opportunities that, that meet your district's needs and, and align with the strategic plan. So that is, that is a challenge. I would argue. I would, I would concur with the mayor that that's, that's a challenge, right? Right. And so that, uh, to me, that's a concern that we, you know, we have a budget here, but there is a fairly significant risk in a portion of that revenue that we are may not be able to count on at all. So I just wanna make that aware, Mr. Chair, that that is a, I think a,
▶ 36:47 Manjula Karamcheti: a significant risk to this budget. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Common chatty, Thank you chair. Um, Gar pay, I will spare you a long-winded speech. Um, but I do wanna thank you both for all of your efforts and your work with school committee. I feel like in all of the budget cuts in the city and schools, this was the hardest to like, go through and to make decisions on. Um, I think I heard you say that this is a budget that is not good for kids, and that like truly makes me wanna cry. 'cause that is what our school systems are for. Um, and I think I'm feeling even heavier about it right now because my daughter graduated last year. My son is graduating from Melrose High tomorrow, and that we have to vote on a school committee budget
▶ 37:42 Manjula Karamcheti: that is not good for kids, just feels so wrong. Um, and so I think all of us here are really committed to figuring out ways that we can support you now through the override and in the future. I, I think that's something that you can expect from us. Um, I don't really have questions 'cause I've been following school committee meetings pretty closely. Um, 'cause it seemed important to do so. Um, the one question I will ask, and it's a hard question to ask and probably an even harder question to answer, but it is the one constituents have repeatedly brought up to me. So I just in good faith wanna ask it. Um, the idea of, uh, removing the middle school principal in this budget, I think has just been very concerning to a, a lot of people
▶ 38:35 Manjula Karamcheti: because of what middle school is, the middle school model, the importance of leadership at that level. So if you could just speak to that a bit in terms of like what went into that thinking and decision making. Um, also because it does impact the high school leader of what as well, who is excellent, I'm a big fan, but to do both just seems really difficult. So if you could speak to that, I would appreciate it. So, I mean, the first thing I'll say is anybody's been to the Museum of Science, um, where they have that table of nails that you can lay on. Yes, yes. I have a picture of myself on that from, So The being a chaperone. So the theory behind that is you're dividing the weight equally amongst the nails so that the nails,
▶ 39:18 there's not enough pressure to go through and break any skin. So in terms of the individual cuts that we've made across the district, that one has gotten some vitriol and pushback. Um, but so have every single other cut that we've made. Um, and it just sort of, if you go back to when we started originally proposing some of the cuts, it, the vitriol has come in waves. We've had waves around class sizes at Winthrop. We've had waves around the removal of the team model. We've had waves around splitting, uh, Mr. Merrill between the schools we've had. Um, you know, the interesting thing is we haven't had much pushback at all about what I would consider the most important position in the district that's being cut.
▶ 40:01 And that's the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, which is what we do. Um, that is our primary product. That is what we do as a school district and the leader of that part that we haven't gotten much vitriol at all. So when I say that, um, I would say confidently that each and every cut that was made, um, was received poorly. Um, and I've had negative feedback on each and every one. But what that tells me is that we've spread out the nails evenly amongst things. Now, in terms of the middle school principal, um, in terms of full-time equivalent FTE positions, the middle school hasn't lost anything in terms of leaders. The high school is losing a full position because what's happening is we, yes,
▶ 40:45 we're losing the middle school principal position, but we're adding half of Mr. Merrill and half of an assistant principal. So that's a zero sum game over there at the middle school, we're actually losing two halves of a, of an FTE at the high school. Um, and I would actually argue in practice that Mr. Merrill, Mr. Corrigan are probably gonna be spending more of their time over at the middle school at least initially before we get to the point where it's equally divided between the two because they have the, as you hinted, uh, or alluded, the high school systems are very well in place. Um, and the culture and the climate is, um, extremely strong there. So that I think they know that they have the capacity
▶ 41:34 to probably spend more than 50% of that time over at the middle school. I'm fully confident that the way that that middle school will run will be level service minimum, and if not, it will run at a more efficient rate due to the, um, structure as well as the changing the bell schedule to match the high school. So we also had some like staff savings there. I, I may be wrong, you know, and, and that remains to be seen. But what I, what I will highlight though is that as we had to go through and, you know, and Mr. Kelly's accurate and that we've probably spent more time together than either one of us would've liked. Although I very much like to spend my time with Mr. Kelly. Um, the amount of time that we spent
▶ 42:17 and we were going through the process, you start at $4 million and there wasn't a whole lot of fat to trim right off the bat. I will tell you that, um, when I, I did a full robust entry plan as I entered, this is my first year, if you're not aware. Um, and my analysis in my first a hundred days was that, um, currently in this fiscal year, after having some cuts going into this year, we were about $2 million worth of position short to run a district in a, in an efficient way. Um, and instead of saying like, okay, if we had $2 million more of, for example, we don't have a special education director, we don't have an HR director, we don't have instructional coaches, which in my mind are, are, uh, extremely important to move teachers' practice.
▶ 43:00 Um, all of those things and a few others would add up to about $2 million of positions. Instead of dealing with that, we're dealing with $4 million. So in actuality, we were at $6 million short. Um, so now we're going through and saying, what do we cut? And we did this in reverse order of the least amount of pain. So, um, we said we did class size analysis, we looked at where the class sizes were the lowest and cut there first. Um, and we got down to the point where it was the middle school principal or two more teachers at Winthrop. It was the middle school principal or looking at class sizes of 37. So while I know it's an outside the box decision and people are, are concerned, and rightfully so, the alternative to keeping that position,
▶ 43:50 the cuts would have to come from somewhere else. And I can say with confidence that every cut we made was strategic and each one hurt. And the more we made, the more they hurt. Um, so I would say I'm, I'm confident that the middle school will be okay. Um, and, and I think we'll go from there. I would echo that, that, um, and I would agree Superintendent de he's spending as much time as we did together. Um, he's a teaching and learning expert. And so when he comes at that lens of what is gonna be the less painful for kids, he really knows what he's talking about there. So that was helpful in that process, which was painful. But I would agree that this is not a model that's foreign to the Commonwealth.
▶ 44:30 Manjula Karamcheti: Um, geographically, the two schools are literally right next to each other. Um, and in my experience, there are other districts that have, um, a middle high under one principal. So not ideal. We did truly receive a tremendous amount of feedback on that. Having said that, it's not a model that's, that's brand new and has not been pioneered in in the commonwealth. Thank you so much. I, again, just wanna honor how difficult this was and, and the work that you had to do. And I very much appreciate your thoughtful response. It's really helpful to get the thinking behind it, um, for this specific position, but just how you approached overall. So thank you. Thank you councilor, uh, Ramal. Thank you so much Mr. Chairman. Uh, I want to thank the,
▶ 45:14 Devin Romanul: Sorry, councilor Ram, sorry for the record. Uh, councilor Jamal's here. Sorry. Sorry, sorry about that. Sorry. Well, Thank you. Hello. Hi. Call you off your game. Sorry, I Want to No, it's all right. It's all right. I could use some interruption from time to time. Um, you Say, I wanna thank, uh, the, um, leadership. Thank you so much for your incredible work in this budget. Um, Mr. Superintendent, I wanna thank you for your time walking me through a few weeks ago, all the different pain points and all the, um, budgetary constraints. So thank you for your feedback there. And, and also the members of the school committee, uh, here in, in absent for, um, the avalanche of, of work that you have undertaken in in recent months.
▶ 45:53 Devin Romanul: So, um, I did have a couple of questions that my, my colleagues didn't ask. I I, How Do we compare with other communities with regards to that offset income? 'cause you, you have mentioned it a couple of times now, both this year and last year about how risky that is. Where do we stand on the spectrum of other perhaps like-minded, um, communities we're, because we're, we're high? Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I would say million million. Two, 2 million. Typical. So up to five category Yeah. Is Is high. So a bit of a tight rope given the current circumstances? Yes. Alright. Yeah, I mean, to give you a a sense, like, and I live next door in Wakefield, um, athletic fees are roughly triple, triple here. Um, I have an athlete at home. Yeah.
▶ 46:38 Um, so I pay those every season. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's about triple what Wakefield pays and it also varies. I mean, it's all over the map in terms of, you know, those fees in general. Um, and also it's kind of correlates to the wealth of the district as well. Right. Um, the district that I was previously in had a $25 flat fee for all sports and waived most of it for most kids. So it really kind of depends, but this is extremely high. Yeah, I agree. And without that 5 million, we wouldn't be making med school spending. So that's another piece to consider. Yeah, that's remarkable. Thank you, uh, for that feedback. Uh, my other question was around deferred maintenance. Um, you know, we had passed a few, uh, appropriations
▶ 47:21 Devin Romanul: around building repair and playground equipment and asbestos amelioration, um, given the cuts that we just made earlier this week with the Department of public works on, uh, staffer who had works closely with you all in the schools and, uh, trying to get out in front of deferred maintenance and that our community is now taking with, um, other departments. A uh, not getting out in front of problems waiting until things break, um, and how interwoven some of the other departments are with, uh, the school facilities. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on anticipated any sort of number of deferred maintenance that you have in your head now, things that we might look forward to for free cash appropriations next year.
▶ 48:01 Devin Romanul: I don't wanna get out in front of, you know, this current, um, budget. But just as we are thinking holistically about where we're gonna end this time next year, um, with, uh, given how tightly we're on, on some of the, um, offset income, how tight we are on potential free cash down the road, um, uncertainty about chapter 70. So I'm wondering if you have any feedback on deferred maintenance. Mm-hmm. Um, I can, but unless you Sure. No. If you start, I can. Yeah. I mean, so the, we have some proposals with MSBA, um, and that, and that's, you know, that's coming out of the city side 'cause they, they, uh, the city side and DPW handles all of those things. Um, but the reality is when you go through MSBA, they're,
▶ 48:41 they're paying a certain percentage, sometimes up to 60% of whatever it is. So one of, you know, one of the things is like the Franklin roof. Um, if, if we don't go through that process and then we're forced to do it ourself, it's gonna cost twice as much. Um, and then we're also putting kids at risk. So going ahead and doing it now is, um, and it doesn't mean we're doing it now, but putting in the application it's probably a few years out before it gets approved and, um, gets done. Um, so it's, it's, it's simple stuff. It's just like when you own your own home, it's, you can defer the maintenance all you want, but eventually it's gonna catch up to you on most likely cost more. But we're not in a spot
▶ 49:21 where we can fix the things that we need to fix. Um, so what we're doing is, and we, and we have a committee right now, and we're bringing in a consultant to, to analyze all of our buildings because a, a key piece is the prioritization, right? To say like, yeah, we, we have issues in every single one of our buildings. Um, but we have to figure out which ones are the ones that are the most immediate, which ones are the ones that we need to deal with, uh, first. And that's what that committee is working on now. Great. Yeah, I, I'll just back up for one second. And our, our budget, the school budget is a teaching and learning budget. The city invest a tremendous amount of resources into the school system.
▶ 49:58 So we have our, our, our city appropriation for this teaching and learning. And then things like the DPW custodial facility support, that all comes from the city side. Our nurses are paid on the city side. Uh, all of our benefits are covered by the city side. So there, there's a lot of resources being dedicated to the school system and generously and we appreciate that. To answer your question, just like superintendent said, I think now we are trying to get a proactive forecast approach on things. So this, this, um, you know, capital improvement priority group that we're working with is a start to that. Um, and so I think that we're starting to put systems in place where we can identify what those priority needs are and,
▶ 50:34 Maya Jamaleddine: and, you know, place them at the top of the list. Great. Well, appreciate your work on that and please keep us in the loop as to how we can best support that, um, you know, long term budgeting and forecasting. Alright. Thank you again for all of your help. Thank you Counselor. Counselor, Jamal, Thank you. Um, thank you for being here and thank you for all the amazing work that you've been doing. I wanted to check in and say, how has been your first year at Melrose? And hopefully I know you, you know, you signed up for it, you know, what you're stepping into. So I hope that, um, you're embracing this. Um, and I'm sorry if you, uh, touched base on this prior of my, because I came in late. Uh, but can you tell me about the position,
▶ 51:22 Maya Jamaleddine: the principal position that's going to oversee, uh, like Mr. Merrill's position in a way? Mm-hmm. Uh, now we are going to, um, uh, um, you know, he's gonna get compensated for having, uh, for overseeing both, uh, schools. Uh, hopefully the, um, uh, override passes. How is this going to, uh, be managed after that? So are you asking, um, like if we stick with that model, if the override passes? Yes. Yeah, I think that remains to be seen. I'm gonna be completely honest. I'm, I'm going into this very optimistic, um, I, I'm, I'm, you know, hoping that the middle school shows some drastic improvements with this model. Um, and there are some factors that kind of play in, right? 'cause we, we have pretty robust data tracking systems.
▶ 52:20 We track, you know, when you think about changes in leadership and administration, some of those impacts, um, have not just only to do with student outcomes and, uh, in regards to academic achievement, but also discipline data, bullying data. We track all of that, and we're gonna be able to use this year as a baseline to be able to say, we had x amount of bullying allegations, X amount of bullying findings, X amount of days missed due to suspension in school, out of school. We're also tracking that by student demographic as well. Um, if those numbers dip as a result, that tells us that, um, you know, perhaps the, the leadership change was problematic, but if those numbers improve, then that tells us that that leadership change perhaps may have
▶ 53:08 been, um, may have been attributing to those numbers. Um, it also, we have to also look at all of the other factors in the district. So we don't make the decisions in isolation. So we could get an influx of migrants, um, in one section of the city, and we would need to build programming and make changes, uh, based on that. So there are things that change from year to year. Um, it could be that Mr. Merrill just says, I don't want to do this anymore. Um, or it could, it could be that Mr. Merrill says, this is the best thing I've ever done and I'm having a ball and I love it. And, you know, so there's all these factors that play in. So I, I'm not gonna say if the override passes, then we would immediately hire a middle school principal.
▶ 53:52 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, I'm gonna say if the override passes, and by the way, that wouldn't immediately impact next year's budget anyway. Um, so if the override passes, we have to do some analysis based on the needs at that moment. Um, and so there are decisions that will need to be made. Okay. So, um, I'm, you know, I I didn't even think about, you know, those data analysis in terms of the bullying that you're ge sharing right now, but that makes me wonder if you have a number of, uh, the cases that we are having now reported. Mm-hmm. Um, and so that, you know, hopefully next year we'll be able to report this. I, for the record, um, we have, I'm, you know, a great supporter and fan of Mr. Merrill. I have, uh, full confident that he will be able
▶ 54:43 Maya Jamaleddine: to handle both positions. I do worry, um, as a parent and as a, uh, leader in the community that the middle schoolers have been suffering for the past few years, uh, for lack, uh, of, you know, staffing and, uh, you know, being in a, a cafeteria because the teacher is absent and from bullying and from all the other, uh, uh, challenges that I'm sure you're aware of. So I, I do commend you for mentioning this, and I hope that these are things that we can, uh, track, uh, moving forward and be able to report back on it. Um, especially now with Mr. Merrill taking leadership. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and just so that everybody's aware, and especially if you're a parent, you receive my weekly communication every Friday.
▶ 55:32 We do, um, at the bottom of the s'more, the little newsletter one, the colorful one, um, at the bottom there's a link to a document called Indicators of Success, and that you can see all of that data right there. Um, so, you know, I've, I've heard the narrative that middle school kids are suffering. I've heard the narrative that I've heard the word zoo. Um, I've, I've heard the narrative that there's rampant bullying going on. Um, but I, I like to deal in facts and not narratives. Um, and so as we start to look at the bullying numbers, they're, they're pretty low. Um, and so we've been tracking them this year, like last month we had one allegation. Um, so, you know, it, it's all relative. Of course, one allegation of bullying is a problem.
▶ 56:17 Um, but in a district of 4,000 students, um, it's, I wouldn't say it's the biggest problem that we deal with right now, but we deal with it appropriately, take it very seriously. Um, but you can see not just the bullying data, but all of the discipline data, student outcome data, academic achievement, that's all in there. So it's pretty good stuff. So, uh, take a peak. And it's also, for me, in my first year, um, to me it's baseline because a lot of this stuff wasn't tracked in this same way. Um, so if we want to actually measure the work that we're doing and the success that we're having, we want to be able to at least have a baseline to compare to. 'cause I don't know if you told me there were 12 cases
▶ 56:56 Maya Jamaleddine: of bullying versus three cases of bullying versus 76 cases of bullying. Like if I don't have a baseline, I don't know if it's getting better or getting worse. Yeah. And, and just for the record, uh, Mr. De that the, there is a lot of, um, uh, differences in a way that parents or community, um, interpret bullying to the way that in reports we are documenting as bullying or as other cases. So for as a parent, um, when, when a student is, CE is going through these incidents, and I don't wanna shift from the topic. These are bullying for, for them. And I do understand from, uh, superintendent's, uh, standpoint that could be seen differently. Now, there is a lot of things that are not reported. There is a lot of things that you probably, um, does not get
▶ 57:52 Maya Jamaleddine: to you to, to leadership. But there is things that are happening in middle school, and I do hope that we see improvement there, um, under the new leadership. Um, in terms of the compensation, do we have any number for that or not yet? We Are in negotiation. Okay. So, um, are we going to, uh, you know, get all these information once this finalized? Hopefully. Um, we generally don't. I mean, the contracts are public record. Yes. Um, but yeah, Where As, as city counselors. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I hope that, um, uh, we'll get, um, more information. I will be able to provide it to the public soon. Thank you for your work. Um, we have a public hearing at eight o'clock. It's going to probably be very quick, I would assume, seeing
▶ 58:46 Mark Garipay: that everyone's here for this one subject. So we're gonna have to recess right now, open the public hearing. If no one speaks close, the public hearing we'll should be back within I'd say three, four minutes. I would think so. Um, but on your point, uh, the init initiatives to success, if you don't get the email, it's, I think it was in your, uh, superintendent's agenda packet two meetings ago, I think. Right? You could someone so you can find it online too. Um, so with that being said, I'll entertain a motion to recess. So moved. Second. We have a motion to recess, uh, by Council Williams, seconded by councilor, uh, president Meley rally on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? We're recessed. Alright,
▶ 1:02:08 Kimberly Vandiver: for Counselor Chedi about, um, the middle school high school split and the detail that you gave there and kind of some of the thinking. Um, so I wanted to ask the same thing about the team model, which is, I think, think for me, the thing that I've heard the most about among the many, you know, difficult cuts that all the bed of nails that you're talking about. But, um, if you could share kind of any, any upsides there any reasons it had to happen, any thinking there? I mean, uh, you know, as Mr. Kelly hinted at, this isn't a budget that's good for kids, I believe the team's model is good for kids. Um, it's not the only thing that is good for kids. It's also very expensive. Um, so when you do the team model, what happens is,
▶ 1:02:51 if people aren't familiar, you have a math, science, social studies, English teacher that work together as a team and they share homerooms, four homerooms, five homerooms groups of kids that travel through. So they have those same kids and they get to know those kids a little bit better. Um, from the kid perspective, the team model really doesn't appear differently than when you're not using the team model. From a kid perspective, you have math period, one English period, two social studies, period three, et cetera. Um, that's the same whether you're in the team model or not. Um, the difference is, and and to, to your question around the sort of the pros and cons to gives and takes, um, you know,
▶ 1:03:31 I was a middle school math teacher, um, and I've worked in both models. And as a teacher, I felt that I was a better teacher, not in the team model, because what ends up happening is when I was in the team model, I had a great team. I enjoyed my time with that team, but when I had a period off, I'm sitting with an English teacher and a history teacher, and yeah, we're talking about kids. When I wasn't in the team model and I had that period off, I'm surrounded by other math teachers and I can say, did your kids have trouble solving those equations? What are you doing to help them understand those equations better? So I think, not that you want to pick your poison here, but, um, I think the difference is with the team model,
▶ 1:04:11 it's more of a social emotional support model, and you give up on the academics a little bit. Whereas in the non-team model, it's a little bit more challenging to meet the social emotional needs, but you're better off meeting the academic needs. Um, and the reason why it's expensive is because when you look at the number of kids you have, you have to look at a grade level, right? So for example, if you have 125 kids on your team, then that means that, or you got four teachers for 125 kids, eight teachers for 250 kids, right? But now we don't have multiples of one 50 or 1 25. So we have anywhere between 285 and 315 kids at a grade level. So now what happens is you keep the teams and the divisibility rules don't always work out well.
▶ 1:05:02 So then you end up with sometimes class sizes of 17 because your limited to those four. When you eliminate the team model, you say, I'm gonna work with, we actually started with 25 didn't work. We moved up to 28 per class, theoretical math and said, if we have 28 per class and we have a total of 900 students or 850 students, we say, well, how many math teachers do we need? Um, and we ended up saving four positions initially for each content area. So we were able to save, um, eight. So for eight 16 initial, uh, initial cuts, um, by moving away from the team model. So it ultimately worked to be about, was it 1.9 million or 1.1? I forget at this point. It 1.2, 1.2, it was over a million dollars, uh, worth of staffing.
▶ 1:05:56 And so if we kept that team model, we would have to cut over a million dollars of staff somewhere else. So that would be a couple of other principals that would be closing a school. Um, and even with getting rid of the team model, we're still getting rid of the principal. Um, I will say this, and I've said it many times, we cut $4 million from a bare bones budget, and we don't have a single class over 30 across the district. I'm very proud of that work. I think it's a miracle. Um, and while it's, those aren't the numbers that people are used to here we're delta hand, alright? Sometimes you're not dealt great hand, we're dealt hand with a $4 million deficit. Um, so there's gonna be some things that,
▶ 1:06:35 that we're not happy with. Um, and, you know, I come back to those, the nails on the table here, right? It's, it's been spread pretty equally, uh, uh, across the district. And we use some strategy. We looked at kindergarten needing lower class sizes because they're younger. We recognize that older kids can handle themselves in most, most cases, uh, a little bit better than the younger kids. So that's why we looked at targeting 28 per class in middle school and high school. Um, and if we didn't do that, then we're cutting at the elementary even more. And I'm, I will tell you the numbers, they, they were 36, 37 in a class at the elementary. So, you know, like we're not proud of any of these decisions that we've made.
▶ 1:07:19 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, we're not proud that we're running a, um, a middle school with no middle school principal. It would be better if we had teams that would be better if we had the middle school principal. It would be better if we had 19 in a class across the elementary schools, and it would be better if we had 6 million additional dollars. That, that, that makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate you laying it out that way. Um, and, and if the override were to pass, you know, as you said before, you know, you'll have to be kind of reevaluating where everything stands. But, um, you know, in the same way that the kindergartners need a little more help than than everyone else on class size, it's possible that, you know,
▶ 1:07:58 Kimberly Vandiver: even if just the sixth grade can move back to team model or, you know, I am sure you're gonna be considering exactly how much would need to move back or what to layer back in. Yeah. Um, is there, you know, we have all of these cuts. We're we're short. You're, you're, you're doing all of these, uh, maneuvers to try to keep it all spread evenly and working and, and compliant. Um, how do, how do you balance right now kind of for the parents of kids in these programs who are, you know, in the middle school or entering kindergarten for the first time, what is, um, you know, how are you kind of assuaging some of those concerns and, um, living in both worlds, both the, we're in a budget crisis and also trying to help them enjoy their experience and,
▶ 1:08:50 and not be, you know, too freaked out? Yeah. I mean, so I've, I've personally, I've been at the PTO meetings, I believe at each school, um, with the exception of maybe one. Um, but I, I listen to people, I hear people I, you know, I have those, like I'm answering your question here. And there, there are people who just kind of need to know the rationale for things. Um, the, the, the harsh reality is that, um, you know, money does help. Um, and without money, it's, it's harder to do the things that you're talking about and making the, uh, experience great. Um, what I've, what I've learned here in Melrose, we have some great people. Um, and to me, when we look at, I think the biggest impact of all of this has been class size.
▶ 1:09:36 Um, you know, and when I look at those class sizes, I'm in those classes at least on a weekly basis, and I'm running through my head, how would this feel if there were five more kids in here? You know, that's sort of like the, the approach that you take. I'm sitting in this first grade classroom and I'm, I'm looking at these kids on the rug and I'm saying, okay, well next year there's gonna be five more than there are now. And I will be honest, it doesn't feel like it's gonna hurt that much. Um, there's just five more kids. Um, and, and if you like kids, then more the better, right? Like, I mean, it's, you know, it, it's, we're not dealing with 36, 35. And I have, I've been in districts where we've had that,
▶ 1:10:18 I've been in districts where you had 37 newcomers to the country in a, in a half a classroom. Like I've been there and it's doable. Um, in Japan, they argue to get more kids in their class, um, because of the way that they teach and their approach, they wanna see multiple, um, solutions, strategies from their kids, and the more kids they have in their class, to more likely they're gonna have varied solutions. So in Japan, teachers argue to get more kids in their class, they want 35, they want 40 major cultural difference. Um, here, you know, I, and I think Melrose is, Melrose is a little different and than than other districts. Uh, I've been in a number of districts and I've worked with many from on a consulting basis.
▶ 1:11:04 The numbers that we have here are way lower than most cities. Um, and I think people, I don't know if we don't have that perspective or not, but I can tell you people are upset when there's 25 and 26, where I've been in districts where they would be praying to God with gratitude that they had 25 and 26. Um, so I think it's doable, you know, is it easier if it's 19? Sure. But I I, I think we can handle 25 in a, in a class. Okay. Um, that's, yeah, that's helpful perspective. And, uh, thank you again for everything that you've been doing to make this all work. And, and hopefully we're able to pass an override and make it a little bit less challenging next year. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else looking to speak?
▶ 1:11:55 Maya Jamaleddine: Council Williams for the first time, I'd like to make a motion to move this to the bottom line. Second, we have a motion to move this to the move the bottom line by Council Williams second by Council Vandiver on discussion. I got Council Jamal. Thank you. Um, Del Lady, I'm, I'm trying to remember last time you were, uh, here at the Chamber and you mentioned about, you know, how you would like to have our schools, um, work class, um, schools and how it's challenging to go if we lose, you know, the override. Um, I'm listening to you now. I'm trying to see what have changed because there is, um, a difference between, um, you know, I'm trying to understand and accept what you're saying about the number of, uh,
▶ 1:12:46 Maya Jamaleddine: students increasing the number of, uh, students in the class. And, uh, you know, it's doable. And I'm hearing from you, uh, things very different from the last time. So if you can help me understand, um, what, what is based on what we have made that sha uh, shift? I, i I, I don't know what shift you're referring to. I've, my, my, my stance, my philosophy has not changed. Um, from, at any point, even before I was hired, I take a certain approach and, uh, you know, we, in my opinion, um, in order to, to create a world class educational system, you need to have teachers who are highly trained, highly developed. Um, and to me, class size isn't, isn't the priority here. The priority to me is developing teachers.
▶ 1:13:42 That to me is the challenge. And when I said our goal is to be a world class school district, absolutely, that's still the goal. We're not gonna be able to get there with the budget that we have. Mm-hmm. And, and that's the reality. Like in order, in order to get teachers to be better, we need instructional coaches. Um, that, that to me is the linchpin to all of it. Yeah. Um, and we are so far away from being able to afford those because, you know, it, it's, it, you have to look at the current context and, and where we're at. And it's like, you know, it, it's, it's great to have ice cream, but if you, if you have food insecurity, you can't spend your money on ice cream. Right. You have to, you have to buy high protein food
▶ 1:14:22 Maya Jamaleddine: to be able to sustain you. The ice cream is necessary. Mm-hmm. This class sizes of 19, that's ice cream that it really is. It's ice cream, it's not. And then that's what I've heard the most about is, oh my God, we're gonna have 24 under my kindergarten class. Like, that experience would be far superior if we were able to invest in developing our staff. Yeah. That to me is like what I'm getting at with that, with that's where we want to go long term. Yeah. And thank you so much for clarifying this, because it's really, it makes importance for difference for, for us and for the public to understand, uh, where, what are we aiming for? Where do we wanna invest in? And what you're explaining that professional development
▶ 1:15:02 Maya Jamaleddine: and training for our teachers and stuff is, is where we are going to put our investment. Um, what about, um, teachers? What are their opinion in terms of when we are telling them that we are going to increase those, um, uh, the number of students? Um, because we've already hearing, uh, in receiving some, uh, complaints that, you know, we have a lot, uh, of students already and it's very hard to be able to focus on individuals. Um, so if you can just touch base on this. Um, so we, we have a lot of teachers and probably a lot of different opinions. Um, but in, in my experience, teachers generally argue for lower class sizes. And, and it's important to satisfy also our staff and make sure that we are meeting both, um, in between.
▶ 1:15:56 So how are we going to have this argument with the teachers? It's, It's, it's, I wouldn't say it's an argument. I would say it's important to listen mm-hmm. To teachers' voice. I don't think it's important to satisfy their demands. Um, the, if, if we satisfy the teacher's demands, they would all be making $150,000 and have 15 in the class. Right. So it's like, this is, this is union advocacy and, and it's, and it's what unions do. They, they advocate for lower class sizes and more pay. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's not a black and white thing. It's not a yes or a no thing. It's a continuum. It's a negotiation. Yeah. Um, and the reality is, yeah, if you're an English teacher and you're assigning essays,
▶ 1:16:37 Maya Jamaleddine: if you have 143 students versus 99 students, then you have 44 additional essays to score. Yeah. Um, yeah. There's a little bit more work there. I, I hear you. And, and I a hundred percent agree with you. I also wanted to make sure that, you know, while we are, uh, listening to the, um, you know, teachers and, uh, doing what's realistic, it's also the students in between that are going to be either getting the pressure from the teachers or getting the, uh, the more attention from the teachers. So, and I do count on, you know, leaders at that time to make sure that, to keep this in, uh, um, in mind. Mm-hmm. Because at the end it all goes to what, uh, quality and what kind of education is the students
▶ 1:17:22 Maya Jamaleddine: and our kids are receiving at the school. Mm-hmm. Um, so as much as I wanted to say to the public that this budget, you know, it's not, it's not the ideal and, but we can do this. What I am hearing from you, I also want them to keep in mind that this is not the best for our students and we definitely need to pass this override to be able to provide a better, um, education and a better support for our students. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank you So much. Yes, definitely. Uh, president Elli. Thank you. I just wanted to say, realizing this is the largest, um, department budget that we have before us, and I just wanted to acknowledge the work that you have done through this school committee process and the budget process, and, um, also thanking Mr. Kelly.
▶ 1:18:07 Leila Migliorelli: Um, I had some questions, uh, last week, which I really appreciate your time in going over. Um, I think it's really helpful to see the different, the categories of the budget and to see how they change over time. Um, and I feel like there's a lot of good information as to why that's happened, um, and that you've presented tonight. You know, our job in, in the city council is, um, you know, largely fiduciary and that we're trying to make sure that the money that's, that we are, uh, appropriating is being spent accordingly. And it's really helpful. I think, you know, over the last six years I've been on the council to see sort of the development in terms of the information available, um, and being able to follow along.
▶ 1:18:48 Leila Migliorelli: Um, and, you know, the, the steps that you've been taken to decrease reliance on free cash. And I think it's important to hear about the offsets and some of our reliance on that too, and how we could potentially shift that over time. Um, and, you know, hopefully through an override to get more of that operating support that you need to deliver on some of the things that, um, you would like to. So I just wanted to say thank you to the both of you for being here tonight. Um, and, uh, just appreciate all the work that you've been doing. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. That, that also just, that's teamwork effort. They, the, the business office at the schools is, um, everybody can be proud of them. They're a very small group, extremely hardworking.
▶ 1:19:28 Robb Stewart: They always place kids first and they take the responsibility of municipal and taxpayer funds very seriously. So it's a, a small group of people that work incredibly hard to, um, to put us in, in good shape. So thank you. I can pass that along. Thank you Council Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And through the chair. Um, to, uh, president Re's point transparency, I think is very much appreciated. Um, it, you know, there's no question and we avoid some of the complications that we've seen previously. So, uh, appreciate that. Um, I'll be supporting this. Um, and I'll be honest, I'm reluctant to support this and for no other reason than what you said, Mrs. Superintendent, is that it's a budget not good for the kids.
▶ 1:20:13 Robb Stewart: Um, and that to me is concerning. Um, you know, I, I care about the kids quite a bit. I think it's important for the community and for the future of this city. Um, and, you know, echoing what, uh, cons Colin Shady said, you know, this is, this is not a good budget. Um, um, and I know, and that, that has nothing to do with the work that you've done. 'cause the work's been excellent. Like I said, the transparency, um, shows that you did everything you could to make this work given what you had. Um, so, but it's unfortunate, um, where we're at. Uh, but I will support this, uh, because I think, uh, it's a reflection of that you're doing the best you can and we will do the best for our community.
▶ 1:20:55 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Okay. Um, if you guys don't, uh, the council doesn't mind, I just had a couple quick questions. They'll be quick. Uh, the health of the revolving accounts, are they, how are they doing compared to Sure. Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. We do supply the school committee with a monthly offset report. Um, they're the, thankfully they're on track right now this year, which is, that's, that's good news. Um, but we try to be as open and transparent that those are online as well. They can be viewed in the packets and, um, their monthly updates and they, uh, show progress towards the budgeted goals. We set budgets for the different, um, revolving accounts. And, um, we started that about three years ago.
▶ 1:21:36 Mark Garipay: So it's easy to track progress towards, um, things like, you know, um, you know, the athletic fees, the facility rental fees, things like that. It's easy to track that towards their, their budgeted numbers. And as we stand now, you don't see yourself coming back to the council for, I know we still have four, four weeks left, um, May 29th. I do not. Thank you. Well, a couple years ago it was January, we're getting that. So, um, and, um, we sat here a year ago when we were doing the budget process, and the mayor came with, uh, with the new FY 25 budget, and we used more receipts, which helped us get rid of the $2.3 million deficit. We all know what happens. We're gonna have lower, lower free cash next year. Yes.
▶ 1:22:25 Mark Garipay: And that's extremely important that we stay, these cuts are, are brutal, but we still need to stay within the budget. And when we left last year after we approve this budget, I said, there's no way the school department's not coming back for more money. And it's a credit to, to you superintendent lady and and your team, Mr. Kelly, that you're not back. And I think, I think the, the city as a whole, even though the cuts have been really, really bad, we, we've turned the corner and we're, we're managing the money. So I think, you know, you do, you did a great job. I I thought you were gonna be back here for $2.33 million. Again. So community, thanks you. I thank you on, on that. And, and I can say like, this is foresight.
▶ 1:23:16 The, the gentleman next to me, um, you know, it's, Hey Ken, do you think we can swing X? No. That's kind of how it went. And, and, and this is going across, I mean, the concept of position control is extremely important in understanding. We hire somebody, we hire them at a certain salary, and you know, the, I, I commend our principals for advocating for the best teachers we can possibly get. But over the summer, as we made hires, we had to make some very difficult decisions. And this is where we talk about, um, counselor, the, the impact on the kids when we have two candidates and one candidate has, uh, a master's plus 60 credits and has 15 years of experience and is by all accounts, seemingly an excellent teacher.
▶ 1:24:07 And then we have somebody fresh outta college with no, no experience. We went with the latter over the summer, nine times out of 10, unless we had no other choice, because that was a savings of $30,000, we would have to pay this first person 98 and this other person 64. And so we went with the 64 and we tried to find the best inexperienced teachers we could find when we started adding up all the hires. That probably comes to that 2.3 million. You know, if, if you hire 10 teachers at three $30,000 savings, that's 300 grand, right? Like right off the bat. So I I, I don't wanna say we were nickel and dimming it, but, uh, Mr. Kelly was, uh, fielded a lot of advocacy from our principals to say, yeah,
▶ 1:24:53 Mark Garipay: but this guy is, and we're like, Nope, sorry. Um, and those are hard things to say because I, I, I, you know, as a former principal, I hear where they're coming from, but we were very consistent, um, and prudent with the cash and with the hiring. And I think all those little things add up to, to us not sitting here right now saying we're X amount of dollars short. Yeah. And I think some of the school committee members will, will know that, uh, or they do know that I've had some, some conversations and been pretty vocal, um, with where we were and, and seeing where we are now and how, with how we're managing it, I think it should give the community a little bit more confident, uh, from where we were a few years ago
▶ 1:25:36 Mark Garipay: as we move forward through this. But, um, the only other thing I wanted, uh, to wanna just mention was I appreciate, like everyone else, your explanation on the middle school, the, you gave me things to think about that I really didn't even, you know, wasn't even in my mind on, on, uh, having, having Mr. Merrill and, uh, and Mr. Corrigan both there. And so made a lot of sense to me. So I appreciate that. So anyone else on discussion? Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? This bottom line will be moved. Last, uh, item up for the day is adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Oh, I'm sorry. Council Councilor Williams floor is yours. We have To hold, are we still holding? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Motion to hold the budget.
▶ 1:26:26 Mark Garipay: Order and committee second. Motion to hold. 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 fiscal year 2026. Budget in the amount of one $107,000,575 and 8 570 $5,802. Um, on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That's held. Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion to Ajour. Second. A motion to adjourn by Council Stewart. Second by Council Williams on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned. Opposed?