Ann Keitner, My name is Ann Keitner.

I'm the chair of the town of Sharon Finance Committee.

This open meeting of the Sharon Finance Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Mass General Law due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Ann Keitner, During budget season, public access to our meetings will be limited to the beginning or public comment, excuse me, will be given Ann Keitner, limited to the beginning of each meeting to allow Finance Committee to get through

the voluminous list of presentations and discussions over the coming weeks.

During the public comment section of the agenda, I ask that any person wishing to speak raise their hand and begin by stating their name and address, and then speaking clearly in a way that will help generate accurate minutes.

If you're unable to speak and want to comment on another section of the agenda, I will review any emails that are sent.

I'd ask when speaking for all participants of this meeting, whether a member of FinCom, a speaker on the agenda, or a member of the public, to be respectful of each other.

For all attendees of this meeting, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking.

I've confirmed that we have a quorum.

We've got all of our speakers here.

Next, just a reminder to the committee members that our purview is to evaluate each budget presentation

to ensure that the presenters have done the appropriate analysis to ensure both an accurate reflection on budgetary needs and forethought to the sustainability of their budget going forward.

The Finance Committee does not have direct oversight, but does have duty to make a recommendation to town meeting about an appropriate town budget.

We also recognize each group's given autonomy and authority, defend as they see fit, whatever amount the town votes.

I ask that any questions from the finance committee to the presenters keeps our purview in mind and that they're made in a professional and respectful manner.

That is the end of my opening remarks.

So Judy, go ahead.

We'll move to public.

Thanks.

Judy Crosby, Six Condor Road.

I do want to note once again,

My objections requiring people to give addresses.

That's a thing for town meeting where those who speak are limited to town people and those who vote are limited to town people absent advance permission of the moderator.

These meetings are truly subject to open meeting law where any person is allowed to attend and speak.

I'm willing to give my address, but then I just want to be clear.

You have to allow anyone, whether they're from Sharon or not, to participate.

That was my first thing.

My second thing, and I do have a bunch of comments with respect to budget, but I also want to make clear that while I appreciate your comments about being polite, treating people with respect, there is in fact a very recent case that came out from the SJC that makes it crystal clear that you have no right to limit people, to turn people off, to do any of those things because you don't like the tone or the tenor of their presentation.

You are allowed, of course, to limit citing words.

and those sorts of limitations that are permitted under existing First Amendment case law.

But that sort of admonition that you just gave is in fact specifically repudiated in that case.

I think I am within my right to ask people to be respectful, but I understand fully that I cannot cut them off and that they are public is allowed to speak their mind when it's public comment period.

Thank you.

And I guess I would ask that moving forward, you consider adding that to your comments when you ask people to be kind and polite so that everyone understands their legal rights, because it has not always been clear in other situations at other committees.

And of course, anybody who is upset by anything anyone says on the committee has an absolute right to speak and repudiate, as I think Chuck has said he wants to do later.

So thank you for allowing me to speak at the beginning of your meeting.

All of my comments moving forward will relate to budget and school committee and school administration obligations with respect to managing the largest pot of money that this town gives for operations.

First, as some of you may be aware, there was reporting last week on everything Sharon and more generally on social media about the scholarship fund that the district and the school committee have absolutely failed to properly manage.

School committee's obligation was to supervise Dr. Patella.

Dr. Patello was instructed by the school committee in March of 2022 to undertake a process.

There are emails that show that Dr. Patello was reminded in June of 2022 and said he would do it over the summer.

That Jane Martin sent an email in October of 2022 with specific questions from the town about how the money should be managed, what it was to be used for, so they could make investment choices for the money.

That was never answered, but Dr. Patello did tell Jane that he was responsible for it.

He had subsequent emails with a member of the community where he made multiple commitments that he was on it and that it was being handled.

Scholarships were released information-wise on March 1st to all seniors in this town.

The scholarships that he committed and that he said he was on top of were not part of it.

Meanwhile, the money has sat in a mutual fund where at least now it's earning interest, but early on it was earning 0.01%.

And that's because this district did not advise the town on it.

In addition, also in those emails, some of which come from a public records request that I filed in January of 2022, there is evidence that this district through a complete lack of appropriate financial controls

sent over $3,100 to the attorney for the trust pursuant to an invoice that was invoiced to the trust and was sent to the school committee as an information only matter to let them know the work that the trustee was doing.

Veronica approved that invoice.

It was approved by Judy Townsend.

It was then sent over to the town side.

The invoice was never addressed to the school committee or the school district.

It was paid by the town.

The money has come out of the scholarship fund and now has to be returned.

And nobody has been aware of it or on top of it.

There is also another $483,000 that was reported as being in the trust in June of 2022 when the trust amount was $1,483,000.

One million was distributed.

In August of 2022, there is zero evidence that anyone from the school committee or from the district has followed up with the trustee to get an accounting for the remaining $483,000, which of course as beneficiaries, they are legally entitled to.

I negotiated with the attorney that was hired in Washington, the Tedra that led to all of this, that ensured this money would come in.

I have an incredibly personal interest and my experience and my view of what has gone down is this school committee and this superintendent, once it was determined that they could not take the money and use it for whatever purpose they wanted to, which, by the way, they tried to do in February 2022,

So I intervened again behind the scenes, provided administration with evidence of the vote that was taken in February 2021 to accept the money and create the scholarship fund.

They were literally looking at how they could spend it on whatever school expenditures they want.

These folks have shown they have no fiscal responsibility and they are asking you tonight to provide them with $52,395,000 in change while coming to meetings like priorities and accusing this finance committee of being unsupportive of the schools and of not

being a partner as they should.

Thank God for this finance committee for occasionally asking questions of this district and this superintendent and this business manager.

How dare they make those sorts of statements?

Julie made a presentation at that meeting suggesting that Sharon does not fund its schools to an appropriate level and showed all the towns that she wants Sharon to be like that fund more money and that she thinks are more highly rated.

Sherry picking data is not a good look.

Winchester spends $2,100 less per student than Sharon and is meaningfully higher rated.

Hopkinton spends $2,700 less per student than Sharon and is meaningfully higher rated, both by US News World Report and DESE.

Has anyone on this school committee or this school administration reached out to Hopkinton and Winchester to ask how they do so much more with so much less?

Having more money doesn't mean that you are spending it responsibly or in the best way to achieve the results you need to achieve.

I have also seen throughout this budget season at every school committee meeting, and I have either attended everyone or watched it after if I was traveling, that zero meaningful information has been shared with the district regarding how the money's gonna be spent.

There's one broad, very broad amount called level service budget.

There's another broad amount called SPED additions, and then there's a third for full day K, and that's it.

I served on school committee from 2018 to 2021.

I served during two of the most tumultuous budget seasons ever because we were deepening into a pandemic and then living through the worst year of the pandemic.

Both of those years were negotiation years.

In both of those years, if this finance committee goes back and looks at the materials provided,

and looks at what the public had access to at school committee meetings, they will see that there was very detailed information provided about each school's expected budget, about the administrative-wide expected budget, and about the full district budget.

And that included how much for facilities, how much for maintenance, how many FTEs in each building and across the district,

and so much more.

A contract here is not a free pass to not provide information to the public.

Furthermore, any assertion that this school committee has not been treated fairly by this finance committee is so far off the mark.

This finance committee, since July of 2021, has approved extra funding to the school committee and the school district of almost $1.2

million.

No other segment of this town has gotten any sort of consideration of that sort.

This school committee funded meaningful funds in July of 2021, some of which went, despite the school committee's assertions, to a raise for the teachers that was backdated.

They provided meaningful funds last year when the administration, under the supervision of the school committee, fully bungled the Sharon Heights parking lot process and rebid without telling the school committee.

Nobody on the school committee was asking.

Nobody was paying attention.

They also funded $75,000 to support full day K in fiscal year 2022.

and fiscal year 2023, and they're now approving for fiscal year 2024 funding $590,000.

On what planet does that look like?

A lack of support for the school committee.

Asking questions of the school committee and the school administration is most definitely their job because everybody can see the school committee isn't doing it.

Nobody on school committee or the administration has discussed in the past two years

the optional funding that does exist in the district's budget.

It's approximately $2 million.

Nobody's discussed the priorities for how that money is used.

In fact, there's been an absolute assertion and assumption that level services is an appropriate thing to maintain.

I would argue that is an abdication of this district's obligation.

And furthermore, is a massive departure from how every superintendent that preceded Dr.

Patello

has done things since I began watching school committee in 2004.

That's the sum total of my comments.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you, Jenny.

Okay, we'll move on to the next agenda item that is the sharing public school budget presentation.

Turn it over to Dr. Botello and Ellen and Avi.

You all can choose where you want to start.

Thanks, Anne.

I think I'll just lead off with a few words and then we'll kick it over to Dr. Patel and Ellen who prepared a presentation of answers for questions that your committee had provided us with ahead of time.

I do want to just say thank you to Ira Miller, who offline was able to

know just call our attention to some stuff around you know the what what ms crosby called reporting um

You know, there's certainly some views that were shared on social media, but more importantly, Ira was able to sort of highlight very specifically, you know, a check, some money that was probably paid or possibly I should say paid in error.

And so at the very least, the administration is looking into that.

And if in fact that was an error, as it appears, you know, based on what Ira was sharing with me,

it was, then we'll take the steps that we can to get that rectified.

So again, I appreciate Ira's reach out and his work on that.

As far as the rest of that stuff goes, we do have an agenda item on Wednesday to just get an update as we did a year ago.

Just make sure that people are in the know as to where we are.

on that scholarship.

As we jump into this budget presentation, which is what we came here for tonight, I want to thank you, Anne, not only for the work and the collaboration to get to this point, but also for

the direction for tonight's meeting and then also for the work from yourself, from leadership on this committee and the rest of the members of this committee to provide us with questions so that we could have a productive meeting here tonight.

It is certainly our objective to provide answers as best we can to your committee around the things that certainly are FinCom's purview.

So again, we are here because

We respect Finance Committee's obligation and purview to make a recommendation on our budget.

We're confident that the school has done the necessary work and is very much interested in collaboration here with this committee.

So hopefully having provided those questions to us ahead of time will make for

an efficient but still productive presentation uh so again we appreciate that and and certainly and well apparently it is not legal for you to limit folks tone i appreciate your attempt to uh to keep things civil both at the table here between our committee our administration your committee but also from the public because i do believe that positivity leads to productivity more often than anything else so without any further ado dr patello and ellen whittemore have their presentation

All right, I'm going to throw it up here.

Let's see.

One second.

We can.

Well, it's up, doctor, but there you go.

yeah so presentation we've woven in the questions that you sent to us and.

You know, we can go over any of those in detail throughout the presentation, but then we have some kind of overarching.

As well.

So.

Okay, so the components of our budget include, yes, an assumption of levels service.

You know, we continue to analyze the services that are provided and believe that the services that we are providing are really essential to our students.

So we start off with that assumption.

Mandated special education staffing is a big part of this budget as well.

As if you've been following our process, we did have a number of, well, three kind of essential

aspects that we were looking to add this year, but based upon the current budget target, we are deferring those for this year.

And then free full-day kindergarten, which we are very grateful that Sharon is moving together with so many places in the Commonwealth to provide that for our families.

So when we start off, you know, our recommended budget is 52,395,688.

That's 2,384,638 above FY23.

And it's aligned to the 5.83%

target that was presented at the late last priorities committee.

And so our level service budget itself, which includes contractual obligations, special education, including outer district tuition and other non-personnel services, is resulting in a 4.3%,

7% increase itself.

And as we get into especially the special education costs, we'll kind of outline some of the reasons for that.

So some of the questions that were posed, first of all, and I did put the numbers in to designate how they fell with the questions that you asked.

So if you're following along with the question sheet that we provided.

So the dollar amounts comprise each portion of the $2,163,000 increase.

Again, we're not delineating those specific dollar amounts as we are in contract negotiations with two associations.

So for that reason, you're not going to get that specific detail this year, though you'll certainly get it in the future.

With respect to transportation, athletics, and maintenance expenses,

There are no major changes associated with any of those areas.

The increases that you will see eventually with transportation is due to annual contract increases with respect to transportation.

It's related to athletics, it's related to transportation and stipend increases that naturally occur.

And then with respect to maintenance, it's related to funding maintenance supply costs associated with the new high school.

So those are some of the minimal increases that you'll see in those areas are due to those factors.

With regard to personnel related contractual obligations to date, our administrative assistants are scheduled for a 2% increase for next year.

Cafeteria workers, a flat amount of $1 per hour added to each step.

custodians 2%, school assistants 5.2%,

and our teacher instructional assistants are currently unsettled.

So it'll be to be determined.

What is the net cost difference for teacher salary year over year between FY23 and 24?

Again, we're not able to provide that figure because of contract negotiations.

When we generally look at increases for steps, it's typically between 1.5%

to 2% for steps each year.

Lane changes can really vary from year to year depending on the number of people who go into a different lane because of additional credits that they've earned or an additional degree that they've earned.

We also typically expect between $150,000 to $250,000 in savings due to retirements and attrition.

What changes, if any, in FTEs or partial FTEs are there in building and central office administrative staff compared to FY23?

There's only one position that's being added at, you know, and this is also included custodial and maintenance personnel at this level.

And that's the position of director of diversity, equity, inclusion is being added as a separate position.

entity this year, where it was a shared position last year.

It's a net neutral to operating budget.

We're doing this by restructuring the operating budget lines that have been historically helped to support DEI initiatives, as well as restructuring the MECO grant.

And so the MECO grant has always had line items that were used for district-wide DEIs.

So we're using those exclusively to help fund this position as well.

Now, again, one of the big reasons for the substantial increase that's just coming from the level of service is there is an extraordinary increase in private out-of-district placements.

The operations of service division has put forth a 14% increase instead of the typical 2% to 3% that we typically see.

Also, collaboratives, which are out of district placements that are publicly run, are projecting higher increases, and we're preparing for up to 10% in those areas versus a typical rate increase of 3% in collaborative placements.

Again, day programs that our kids attend range in price between $54,000 and $130,000.

And residential programs for those who have extreme needs for that type of setting range from $105,000 to $422,000.

So there were some questions about those rate increases.

So first of all, given of this rate increase for private out of district placements has been typically 2% and is 12% above that this year.

How much are we forecasting?

So there's a $428,000 increase forecasted because of that.

And so that's $428,000 that we needed to build into our budget in order to prepare for this extraordinary increase this year.

With respect to collaborative placements, you know, reflecting the projected 10% when typically it's around 3%.

So due to that 10% increase, we're projecting a cost of $133,000 more than the typical 3%.

So those two together, $428,000 and $133,000 are what we're preparing for as far as increases above the norm for private out-of-district tuitions as well as collaborative tuitions.

Given the extraordinary increase in certain special education costs to Governor Haley's proposed state budget, including any change to the method that special education expenses are funded or reimbursed.

Unfortunately, they did not.

We expected there was some kind of indications or promises of that, but her proposed budget did not include any changes to the method to fund special education.

or reimbursed for this extraordinary increase, or just for the general high cost of out-of-district and collaborative tuitions and special education costs to begin with.

The next question that you had was number nine.

Does the FY24 budget project any change in number of private out-of-district placements or the number of collaborative district placements?

How does the number compare to previous years?

Certainly, again, we have seen an increase over the last several years.

The social-emotional concerns were on the rise prior to the pandemic, and those have certainly exacerbated situations.

As far as this year to next year, we have 54 placements in FY23, and we're expecting a similar amount in FY24.

But in previous years, in FY22, it was 50, FY21, 46, and FY20, 49, FY19, 47, and FY18, 39.

So over the course of the last five years, we've seen an increase, though we kind of have a more flat prediction for next year.

Dr. Rattel, if I could just jump in.

There had been a question on the Q&A that had been submitted regarding an explanation of Circuit Breaker, and it had included information from Circuit Breaker Primer that was published by DESE a number of years ago, and I'd updated that to reflect the current foundation numbers.

If anyone has specific questions about Circuit Breaker or if it would be helpful for me to host some sort of a Circuit Breaker 101, I'm happy to do so.

If people reach out through...

The chair of FinCom to the chair of school committee, I'm happy to facilitate or answer additional questions regarding circuit breaker.

I know it has a lot of nuances and it can be a little confusing.

Thank you, Ellen.

I'll be in touch with Avi if anyone comes to me.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So the few positions that we did add are mandated by the services that we need to provide to children.

That includes a 12th grade teacher for our high school LEAP program.

So this is the last time we will be needing

an additional teacher.

We now have that program running 9 through 12, as well as we always have the need for as students move in or students needs change for instructional assistance.

So we're doing just a small number of instructional assistance prepared within our budget for additional of two that will need to be prepared if that number changes through the fungibility in our budget.

Also, just a minor possible additions to occupational therapist hours are predicted.

Though that number, again, we're still following the exact needs of our students.

And if we can keep it with the current number of FTEs and hours, we will.

But if we have to add a small number of hours, we will as well.

So that's 130,758 that are part of FTEs.

kind of the mandated needs that we need to provide.

Again, another part of our budget and the reason for the substantial increase is the free full day kindergarten.

We appreciate the finance committee and the town sides commitment to really serving the families of our community.

And free full day kindergarten has become

you know, pretty much the norm across the Commonwealth, except for about 10 towns.

And so we're trying to get out of that category.

So this will allow us to fund this, you know, for next year and will be sustainable going forward based upon the funding influx in this year.

So we greatly appreciate that.

some of the service improvements that we initially had in our budget when we were hoping the state might be providing some extraordinary relief for a custodian at the high school, a network administrator to really help manage the network, especially at the high school, but also supporting throughout the district and as well as

Jose Cisneros- elementary science and social studies coordinators, which are point five positions so for now, these positions are being deferred they're certainly high needs on our radar.

Jose Cisneros- We certainly you know we'll be looking to make sure that we have enough enough custodial support the high school so we're going to be looking at creative ways to do that and and in these these positions will continue to be a need going forward.

So again, if you look at the different components of our budget, the level service is at 4.37.

Our mandated special education staffing is 0.26%

increase.

So that's the only staffing increase that we're funding separately through the budget.

And then the full day kindergarten is 1.2 to get to that 5.83 for the year.

Again, if that 14% was not part of the budget for this year and special education costs were more of the norm, as well as if we weren't making this really important and needed step for full-day kindergarten, our budget would be much more modest.

But this year, those extraordinary increases are necessary.

Another question, this was question 16, asked about the priorities following the three deferred positions.

Those were things like a part-time business, part-time math teacher, a part-time robotics teacher.

an additional math teacher, ELA teacher, some more technology positions, wellness teacher, team chairs, a bunch of positions.

The question was, is this list in priority order?

It's not because these continuously change.

For example, the additional math teacher,

um you know depending upon course selections for kids sometimes kids are spread in a more even way across the schedule and that allows for a little bit more efficiency that might lessen the need for that additional math teacher so that's a factor that comes into play um as well as kind of signing up for various courses um we're also if we look at our

district-wide technology needs where, you know, we're really supporting teachers too.

You know, they serve as integrationists themselves and support each other in the growth of their use of technology, yet also having additional kind of increases to have people who are just targeted at supporting teachers and using technology wisely still is a need, but it goes up and down based upon the professional development that we can do with our core staff as a whole.

So those needs, again, are not in priority order.

We'll continue to look to ways to meet these needs through, you know, creative ways within our current staff, as well as through attrition or restructuring.

And so those will be things that, you know, we'll be looking to do.

With respect to number 17, what other initiative, if any, does the school community propose over the next fiscal years?

You know, I think, you know, we really do look at the impact of transportation and athletic user fees on our families.

We want really a level playing field.

We don't want, even though we do have scholarship options for those who might want to, say, play sports and where the fees that we have are really

prohibitive, it still provides a barrier to some kids and families feeling like they can participate as fully as other families.

So that's something we'd like to look at.

And obviously we've been talking about the, it's not really the operating budget, but more of the capital as far as continuing to analyze space needs in the district.

As we look at our kind of our overall philosophy towards the budget, we continue to closely examine and analyze components of the budget.

We look at the district's evolving needs and its historical way of operating, and we'll continue to look to make changes to achieve greater financial efficiency and sustainability while better serving the families of Sharon and improving the educational experience for all students.

So, you know, we understand that, you know, being as efficient as possible is really critical that, you know, investments that we put in our budget really, we have to make sure that we're prepared for them so that we use them wisely and so that they pay off for the kids and the families in our district and we'll continue to look for ways to do that.

So that's the core of the presentation.

I then can, if people have questions on the enrollment information that we provided, I can put those up as well and go over that information.

Fania, go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to comment on the general sector of transportation costs.

Coincidentally, during my day job, I have very detailed insight in what's happening in the passenger transportation industry in Massachusetts, including what's happening with school bus operators.

And I can only tell you, do not put any hopes in that the costs are not going to go up or continue to go up dramatically.

You know, expecting 20 to 25% increases in contracts

would unfortunately be a realistic expectation.

It's nowhere near the top and continues to go up.

That industry is under immense pressure because they have to pay significantly more to the drivers now because there's an extreme driver shortage.

And plus on top of it, obviously gas, but the problem is primarily coming from an extreme driver shortage.

which basically also means that there is not enough supply of buses available.

So you just have to pay whatever is asked to even get somebody to drive you.

Yeah, we appreciate that.

It's certainly something that, yeah, we've been looking at conservatively, knowing that it's a really extraordinary time with regard to transportation.

So thank you.

And that information is also very helpful, Anya, as we are going into the last year of our contract.

So we will be going out to bid next year.

Like I said, don't be optimistic there.

That would be very misplaced.

Anyone else from the committee have any questions for Dr. Patello or Ellen or Avi?

Dan has his hand up.

Just a question while we're talking about transportation.

How much of the transportation costs are borne by the district and how much are borne by people paying for the transportation needs?

About 43% of the costs are borne through fees that are taken in from families and about 57% is through the school operating budget.

Thank you.

Chuck, go ahead.

Yes.

I'm looking at what was given to us on the left-hand side of the school budget, and I'm looking at document A1 and document A2.

And if I'm looking correctly, the actual September 2022-23 students in just grades, I guess, kindergarten through grade five was

1496.

And then you're projecting for 23, 24, 1253.

That's a decrease of a substantial number of students that will be entering.

I can answer that, Chuck.

That is not the second key because we're still in the process of enrolling kindergartners.

It does not include kindergartners.

So with the kindergartners, we should be pretty even, a little bit lower than last year where we had some really high class sizes, especially in kindergarten.

a little bit in first grade and especially in fourth and fourth and fifth grade um but we should be quite similar but a little bit lower for next year but we don't have the kindergarten included in that second heat because they're still in the process of registering well if you've projected more in the kindergarten than you had last year or in the current year

Karen Hollweg, That that that second page is only grades one through five, whereas that first page is kindergarten through fifth grade I think that's what Dr patella was getting at that they didn't put anything.

John Patella, Because I know we asked the question why don't they put in kindergarten.

for the document A2.

Because they're in the process of registering now.

And so our projections are showing a similar number, which we had 211 last year, but that's really a very, very preliminary projection.

The registration process is going on now.

It goes on through the summer with kindergarten.

But if we had the 211 from last year, that would put us at 1464, which would be able to lower some of our class sizes a little bit, which were quite high, especially kindergarten was historically high.

And so that's what we're looking at.

But we don't really have, again, because of the registration process, have those kindergarten numbers yet.

That's why they were left off.

Okay, so in effect, this is like comparing apples and oranges.

Not really apples and apples, but oranges and oranges.

No, in effect, that's what it says here.

I mean, I missed that your projected enrollment for next year didn't include the kindergarten.

Chuck, I think what Dr. Gutierrez- I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Let me finish.

Somebody should have had a number in there for kindergarten.

or else they should have excluded kindergarten for the current year, one way or the other.

And that wasn't done.

Well, let me finish.

In addition, I guess nothing has been done regarding the high school.

And it just doesn't, you should have something that shows all the grades in the school and what the totals are.

We always used to get that.

I don't know why it hasn't been done.

I certainly can give you that.

I can provide that to the finance committee.

The numbers in the high school and middle school are pretty even for this year, but I can provide those to you.

Thank you.

Any other?

I don't see any other hands up.

Anyone else have questions?

Go ahead, Brian.

Don D' Ellen kindly reference the circuit breaker and helping us understand it i've stumbled into this one before.

Don D' Am I correct in understanding that this expense budget does not include the expenses that are covered by our quarterly receipts of the circuit breaker funds, recognizing that the circuit breaker is paid in arrears.

Don D' there's a lag and with respect to the computations of the amounts that the town is do.

But I'm struggling to understand where are the expenses associated with the revenue that comes in routinely, although it may not be entirely as predictable as we would like.

I include the circuit breaker offset in the in the budget process.

I'm sorry, I cannot comprehend that.

In other words, we're looking at an expense budget that matches exactly the town's allocation of revenues.

So the budget we're looking at, which is sketchy at best in light of the ongoing negotiations, the expense budget that we are dealing with seems to tie to the revenue to be allocated by the town meeting.

There's perhaps another $2 million of revenue that will be flowing directly to the schools as distinguished from through the town's general fund.

So I'm, I may be clueless, but that's where I'm struggling.

Okay.

So what I do is we take all of our out of district placements.

We total them up.

We then look at how much we're going to be taking in it, how much we will have in circuit breaker to expend in FY 24 and then the Delta.

is what we would need from the operating budget for FY24 out of district placements as well.

And that increase, you know, the delta between what was budgeted in FY23 plus the anticipated circuit breaker equals, you know, the additional allocation that we would need in our budget to balance our special education costs for FY24.

So the expense budget that we're seeing is diminished by certain special education expenses that you anticipate.

They are allocated to circuit breaker funds already.

On a going forward basis in the next fiscal year, the town is going to allocate the amount shown in this budget material.

Yes.

So there must be given that an additional $2 million will be infused to the schools through the quarterly circuit breaker payments.

We're not seeing the associated expenses to which those circuit breaker receipts will be devoted.

Correct.

So we have a total amount for our FY 24 anticipated audit district placements.

We utilize in the formula of determining how much of a operating budget increase we will need.

We utilize what we anticipate having in revenue for Circuit Breaker.

Thank you.

Thanks, Brian.

Ira, go ahead.

Thanks.

Rob Lemansky, Well, did you have another topic, but just to follow up on the circuit breaker do do we have historical information on what we've received from the store historically on circuit breaker I think we used to get that.

Karen Hollweg, i'm happy to put something together.

Rob Lemansky, For yeah just so we get an idea of you know, because that tracks with the amount of special ED because we're you're projecting more special ED service right.

Rob Lemansky, Yes, necessary so.

Rob Lemansky, That means we'll need.

more circuit breaker, but how does that impact your estimates?

So for next year, knowing what we have for circuit breaker that we received this year and retained circuit breaker will be hopefully okay for next year in terms of where we are right now.

Things are pretty well balanced.

And then we will also have the revenue that is coming in for reimbursements

In FY24, or was expended in FY23.

And then we'll be able to use those funds for budgetary purposes or, you know, if there's something catastrophic with our costs.

Because that's a year in arrears that you get the payment gutted.

Correct.

So the other question that came to mind on question four about the retirements and attrition.

So attrition to me means that there'd be a loss of positions.

But that's not the case, right?

Trition can also mean people who move and go to, you know, who don't retire, but are resigning for other reasons.

And those people can still be perhaps more costly than additional.

So that's really a segment of retirements.

But I guess we know somebody from Sharon, but not not retiring.

They're resigning.

Oh, I say moving.

Yeah, moving out.

Okay.

And when did teachers have to notify you if they're retiring or leaving?

Isn't there a something in the contract about in order to get sick time?

They need to give you a certain date, certain for retirements.

There's an incentive for them to tell us, you know, but in January, but some do and some don't.

I would guess most do, right?

Yeah.

So you can't.

How does it look this year?

So you gave us average years.

How does it look this year compared to the average?

Brett KenCairn, it's a little bit more modest this year than in the in the past several years years.

Brett KenCairn, Okay, Dr patella do you want to stop sharing for some reason on my screen it's like.

Brett KenCairn, yeah that's okay.

Brett KenCairn, that's all I had right now.

Brett KenCairn, Thanks, our anyone else on the committee have questions on the school budget for Dr patella or Eleanor obby.

No.

All right.

Well, Dr. Patello and Ellen and Avi, I truly appreciate the time and effort to put together the information.

to answer our questions thoroughly and for taking the time to meet with us.

I made a note of the historic circuit breaker.

I'll follow up with Avi after that.

And Ellen, I'm very appreciative of the offer to give us a one-on-one on circuit breaker.

I know I will take you up on that and I'll see if anyone else on the committee, most likely well after budget season and the town meeting, but I'm sure we might have some other takers as well.

Sure.

Can I just touch upon the budget book that you all received on Friday?

Please.

Sure.

So on the budget book, the budget book is divided into different sections.

The first section is the budget narrative, which includes a overview of all of the information that Dr. Patel has reviewed, but it also provides additional breakdown in terms of FTE increases by specific areas, kindergarten, you know, what the FTE increases would be associated with that.

We talk about more along the lines of dollars, percentages as well, reiterating some of the items that were in Dr. Patel's presentation tonight.

Then we break up all of the different cost centers, departments, schools into their own sections.

And that has a budget narrative.

And in the case of special education, has a very robust descriptions of the programming.

and the services as well as the staffing for all of those programs that we have in district.

Moving forward, I'm going to actually probably start drilling down and adding some sections when you see the book for FY25.

So it's delineated out even more for maintenance right now that would be within central office, but really drilling down and really taking all of our cost centers out into individual departments for you to be able to see.

Also moving forward, I know when we had met when the school department, school committee chair, Dr. Botello, I believe Mr. Turkington was there, met with you, Mr. Miller and Dan, I believe back on January 5th, we talked about a budget book and Ira, you were great.

You had some suggestions on books that we should look at.

So you will be getting a line by line budget.

Music to our ears.

Thank you.

Can I just, yeah, that is music, but that really is the budget book that goes to the school committee.

And that historically is the committee that has received the book.

And then we received it once it was prepared for them.

So I guess my question on that would be, so did the school committee not receive a detailed report?

line by line budget i understand what you're saying about negotiations but did the school committee or maybe i should ask avi in the school committee were you asking that right yeah so did you did you have a chance to look at line by line items on the budget that's why we consider a budget book and i you know we appreciate um