Welcome to the Thursday, September 19th meeting of the School Committee Budget Subcommittee.

This meeting will be conducted remotely over Zoom and attendance by board or committee members will be remote and remote attendance shall count towards quorum. The meeting will be broadcast, will not be broadcast live, but will be recorded and will be on Sharon TV.

If you enable to elect your webcam, your image and background may be broadcast with or without sound.

So given that we don't have Dan here yet and Dan was present at the last meeting, I'm going to table our first agenda item.

Maybe we'll come back to it if Dan is here, which was just to approve school budget subcommittee minutes from 9-5. So why don't we jump into I think what is the yeah, what should be a good update on kind of town and school FY26 budget calendar.

So we have an update there. And just as a reminder from last meeting, just in terms of norms that we're using, we don't have an explicit public comment section, but I think we will take time permitting questions from anyone in the community who has a question after a given presentation.

So with that, Ellen, I'm going to turn it over to you in terms of the updated town and school budget calendar.

So since our last meeting, the intention had been for the draft budget calendar to be reviewed at the school committee meeting next week.

That meeting has been canceled.

So this will be reviewed with the school committee at the October 9th school committee meeting.

I've also added a meeting with the folks over at the high school, middle school, the coordinators to have a separate budget discussion and budget prep document.

Our review meeting with the coordinators as well as Dr. Jocelyn.

We have a couple of new coordinators this year as well as Dr. Jocelyn being new. So I thought it would be very helpful for them to have their own separate meeting with me.

So I have gotten some additional feedback.

I met with Julie Rowe briefly yesterday and discussed the calendar.

So just waiting to get additional feedback from the school committee as well.

All right.

I hear that sound good. We had talked last time about, so we'd originally kind of set up our tentative schedule and the dates that were shared, which were effectively just every other week in between basically the off week for the general school committee.

But we mentioned at that point that we would likely need to flex and change a little bit.

So I think in all likelihood, we are going to meet rather than kind of twice a month, probably once a month in October and November due to both school committee as well as Jewish holiday.

So we'll be a little flexible as those dates get finalized at kind of the big table and as we coordinate our schedules internally.

And we'll try to make folks aware.

As a note, and Don is on the call, so calling you out, Don, for kind of good work in trying to help us be able to broadcast when our committee member or committee meetings are taking place. But the town is now also sharing those updates.

So if folks are subscribed to get updates from the town, they should see when both school committee, but also subcommittee meetings are taking place. So you can get updated there or at the big table, but keep your eyes open, so to speak.

Any question, Jeremy, on your end in terms of...

Does it make sense for us to review a draft of the budget calendar at this meeting to provide feedback?

Yeah, so we had looked at one last year or last week, excuse me, or last meeting, I should say, really.

Do we have an updated one that we can kind of peek at now or is that something we can share later?

What I can do is actually let me share that out with you, Jeremy.

And then if you have feedback, if you could send that along to me so I can make some notes and do some incorporation prior to the next school committee meeting before it goes into the packets.

Great.

If there's nothing else on the budget calendar, why don't we jump into, I think, the largest issue or item, I should say, for today's agenda, which is kind of school finance overview.

Just give me a second to share my screen.

Jane, can you check and see if I have sharing screen capabilities?

You should as co-host, but let me just double check, Ellen.

Thanks.

Yeah, you should.

But how about, do you want me to do it real quick for you?

Yep, let me do this. Let me share the document with you real quick and do that. I just shared it with you, Jane.

Okay, I'm going to have to give me 30 seconds. Thank you to everyone.

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I think I've got the right one, Ellen.

Yep, that's it. SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Okay. So, the purpose of this, Jane, if you could just go to the next screen, please.

So, what's the purpose of this grant? I think the purpose of this grant is to be able to make sure that the grant is in the future.

So, what's the purpose of this grant is to be able to make sure that the grant is in the future, which is a grant that has been encumbered, remaining budget balance as well as projections through the end of the fiscal year. And so, the purpose of this grant is to be able to make sure that the grant is in the future, and that the grant is in the future. So, if we have a grant that we have been using for years and there's a reduction in that grant, or we're no longer eligible for that grant, or our special revenue comes in lower than what we anticipated, that those do create deficits, would create deficits for, that would need to be offset by our operating budget. Jane, could I have the next slide, please?

So, school committee's legal obligations.

MGL chapter 71, sections 37 and 38, delineate the school committee's legal obligations with respect to the budget.

So, it's to establish educational goals and policies, review and approve the budget for public education.

The statute does not refer specifically to developing the budget, only to reviewing and approving it.

The school committee is required to hold a public hearing on the budget after seven days notice in the newspaper.

All interested persons at the hearing need to be heard on any section or the entire budget, and the budget materials, the line-by-line does need to be made available to the public prior to the meeting.

The committee must exercise its high-level duty under law to review and approve, but must let the district administrative budget development team do the underlying work. This was included in the school committee presentation from School Committee Council from 2020. Can I have the next slide, please, Jane? So, foundation, budget, and chapter 70. Chapter 70 is a major program of aid for us, for public schools from the Commonwealth.

In addition to providing state aid to support school operations, it also establishes the minimum requirements for each school district and minimum requirements for each municipality to share in the cost for the schools.

The detailed numbers for the formula, which is exceptionally intricate and there are many nuances for the formula, are available on the school finance areas on DESSI's website.

There's also a workbook, as well as white pages, and additional documents, if you wanted to do a deep dive, to provide you with all that information.

The one thing that you will have, Jeremy, is as you're going through charting the course with MASC, they will spend a significant amount of time on foundation budget and chapter 70. And they also will provide you with some additional online materials through charting the course, as well as on MASC's website, as well. Chapter 70 is a revenue stream for the town.

It does not come directly to the district.

It is included with all the other revenue streams for the town, and it's allocated then proportionately to district, excuse me, to town districts and cost centers.

Could I have the next slide, please, Jane? So, foundation budget is the first key to determining our yearly Chapter 70 aid. It is adjusted each year based on program areas, categories of funding, using specific student enrollment categories, changes in student demographics, inflation, as well as local wage factors.

The required local contribution establishes an ideal goal for how much each city and town should contribute towards its foundation budget, based on the municipality's wealth. Two measures of municipal wealth are used, the aggregate property values, as well as aggregate personal income, with each given a specific, given, excuse me, an equal weight. The target is recalculated each year based on the most recent income and property valuations.

Chapter 78 begins with each year's previous Chapter 78 calculation.

The sum of that amount in the required local contribution is less than the district's foundation budget, then the foundation aid is used to cover the gap. This is called foundation aid. Otherwise, districts receive the minimum aid increases of an established dollar amount per pupil. So, for FY25, the SHARON became a minimum aid district, meaning we were only getting the minimum amount established in the state budget times our number of pupils.

So, DESE is, again, has the following materials on their website to help further explain state aid calculations and local contribution requirements.

And again, this has the white papers, all the summary charts, the complete formula, as well as some additional information.

Can I have the next slide, please, Jane? So, our funding sources that we have is the operating budget, grant funding, revolving accounts, and capital budget.

Each bucket has specific sources of funds and specific uses of funds, as well as strict regulations on how the funds may be appropriated, as well as expended.

Districts carefully balance the distribution of these funds to meet the needs of all of our students.

Student needs are not static throughout the year. There are many changes every day, which does result in adjustments in how we allocate costs within and between each bucket. Jane, could I have the next slide, please?

So, funding buckets and how they relate. So, the operating budget provided through the town annual budget cycle and appropriated annually at town meeting. We have in the grants bucket, we receive entitlement grants annually for special education.

This would be the IDEA grant.

We also receive an early childhood grant to offset the costs of early childhood special education programming.

We also receive what are the ESSA grants, which is Title I, Title II, Title III, and Title IV related to professional development, as well as literacy.

And those do provide offsets to our operating budget.

We get additional federal and state grant opportunities, as well as other private funding that are competitive grants.

So, this would be examples of this would be the state grant for METCO, as well as additional grant opportunities through the state for the homeless emergency support that we've been receiving.

Additionally, DESE does provide additional competitive grants that we can apply for to offset the cost of programming in our classrooms, as well as additional initiatives for districts.

There are also private competitive grants for things like athletics and classroom materials and supplies for specific initiatives.

We have revolving accounts that are used to offset budgets.

The income for these accounts comes from user fees and tuition.

So, this would be the bus passes for transportation for the school buses, go into the transportation revolving account and are used to offset costs for yellow buses. We have the user fees for athletics, the tuition for kindergarten, as well as for ECC for the preschool.

And then we also receive funding from the town for capital projects and capital initiatives.

And that is provided, again, through the town's annual budget cycle and is appropriated at a town meeting annually.

Can I have the next slide, please, Jane? So, this slide here shows a high level, the high level steps color coded to align with the milestones in our budget development.

So, we do the internal district process.

So, cost center manager work. I work with teachers, coordinators, department heads, principals, and administrators to identify needs for FY26. Dr. Patello begins this process in October, and we work on that in October and November.

We have regular meetings with our leadership team. Principals begin talking to their teachers very early in the fall, right around beginning of, right after school opens in many cases, talking about what their needs are going to be for the succeeding school year. We have a lot of the administrators district-wide folks, you know, Jessica Murphy with special education, student services, Hina Treviti.

We talk with Carly Hans with Metco.

We talk with facilities.

We spend a lot of time going through and really trying to drill down as to what specific needs we can, you know, begin predicting and looking at for the following fiscal year. We then develop financial and district analysis tools and protocols to create and populate budget models for FY26. That begins in October and goes right through October, November, and December.

The internal district process.

We develop an initial budget for school committee to review. We work on that in November and December.

Pulling together the numbers, pulling together and reviewing teacher FTEs, all of those components.

School committee discussion on revolving accounts and fees. Those that will go to the school committee in February.

So, school committee can begin looking at and reviewing to determine if we do in fact need to make fee adjustments for the 25-26 school year. School committee discussion of budget priorities and direction.

Those are aligned with the initial budget review. Internal district process.

We'll continue to refine the initial budget presentation based on school committee feedback, as well as district administration recommendations based on priorities and trade-offs.

So, the initial budget presentation is scheduled for December 18th for the school committee.

So, that will come to the budget subcommittee the week before. And we will have shared it also with our internal leadership team for feedback to go through.

And, you know, again, with recommendations on priorities and refining the process from the very initial budget presentation all the way through to when school committee votes on the actual budget.

There will be a community public hearing for the budget as well as opportunities at school committee meetings for the public to provide feedback, recommendations, and, you know, areas that they have concern for at all of our meetings for the school committee meetings during budget season as well as all school committee meetings.

There is the opportunity for public feedback and comment.

School committee operating budget discussions will have initial review, refinement, and updates December through February.

And then the school committee operating budget preliminary and final votes. Those will be coordinated with the priorities and in finance committee schedules.

The final vote for school committee to on a budget that will go to the finance committee will occur in March. Can I have the next slide, please, Jane? SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: I have the next slide, please. So the district budget development.

So this year there will be a in the budget book, they will be will have the five year look back as well as current year. And the then for FY 26, there will be a column that would maintain level service.

So the first year there will be a number of the changes that we have to do is this would be doing what we do now in FY 26. Plus new costs, changes for enrollment increases to our FTEs based on the enrollment changes, contract increases, mandated requirements, required responses to identified problems, as well as offset savings.

So we have to calculate our retirement increases, and we have to calculate our retirement increases, et cetera. This is maintaining the status quo of our current programs and initiatives.

This does not include new programs or initiatives.

This is not a roll forward budget, although we do essentially roll forward components of the budget. But again, this is just not taking our 25 budget and rolling it forward to 26. And then we'll be also be doing zero based budgeting will be starting at zero for all non personnel cost centers for our budget.

This will involve teachers, principals, coordinators, and district wide administrators identifying exactly what they will need to expend next year in FY 26, what the cost of that will be, and the source of that they will be procuring the item from.

So for instance, if consumable elementary workbooks are being requested, then we'll need to know what the workbook is, where we're getting it from, and what the cost will be. And that will be for all areas of the budget, again, that are not related to personnel.

And special education will also be zero based budgeting for only certain special education cost centers will be used. Can I have the next slide, please? So grant funding, we receive grant funding again from federal, state, and private grant funding sources.

We have the competitive and non-competitive grants. The non-competitive grants are called entitlement grants that the district is eligible to receive annually.

Each grant has specific requirements regarding the use of awarded funds. And we have to report the associated expenditures to DESE on all federal and state grants that they award.

In general, grant funding does not roll over year to year. We expend the funds received in the same year. And then again, DESE tracks many of these grants and provides exceptionally detailed information on the grants and explanations on their website.

Can I have the next slide, please, Jane?

So the revolving account fees. So Sharon Public Schools charges fees for the following services.

This includes transportation, kindergarten, food services, the cafeteria.

This is not for breakfast and lunch.

Those we have the universal free meals.

This is for the additional items available in the cafeteria as well as a la carte items when we get to secondary grade levels.

We provide, excuse me, we charge tuition for early childhood or preschool.

We charge user fees for transportation as well as other miscellaneous fees for facility rental as well as specific AP tests, et cetera.

All of the funds are collected and they are deposited into specific revolving accounts.

And they are then used to offset costs specifically associated with that area. We cannot transfer, you know, these funds between service areas.

So transportation funds can only be used for transportation.

Kindergarten funds can only be used for kindergarten.

We can't use kindergarten funds to offset the costs of early childhood.

We cannot use food service funds to offset the cost of athletics.

It is very specific.

Although we do have the Massachusetts does provide the universal free meals, we still do ask that folks complete the free and reduced application that is available on our website because that provides the district with additional information so we can provide additional resources to our families for transportation waivers, reduced transportation fees, as well as free or reduced kindergarten fees. So those are really important.

Excuse me. And also for athletics. So these are, that's a really important tool for people to keep in mind. Next slide please, Jane. So capital projects.

Capital projects are investments for items of a value.

And these are tangible assets of $10,000 or more that have a five year lifespan.

Money can carry over for capital projects through multiple fiscal years. The capital cycle begins in October and continues through the spring.

We did get the capital sheets yesterday from Melissa and Fred Turkington's office.

District capital requests typically include technology.

These are the educator laptops, student Chromebooks, student iPads, assistive technology for our special education students, projectors, access points.

And those types of, you know, those types of, you know, the technology pieces that we do need to make sure that we are have on a rotation for replacement.

Facilities and grounds. Facilities and grounds. We receive capital funding for infrastructure for HVAC, our security systems, our fire alarm systems, replacement flooring, et cetera.

And then we receive capital funding for our special education bands, as well as trucks and equipment for our facilities and grounds department.

The equipment would be snow removal pieces.

Can I have the next slide please, Jane?

So the district again provides periodic updates and reviews of financial information to the school committee during the operating budget development process during the capital budget development process at the October.

First meeting in October school committee will be receiving a presentation from me on the capital requests of the district as well as the five year capital outlay plan. We provide quarterly reviews and operating budget status, which includes our current budget, the expended and encumbered amounts, transfers that have taken place as well as year end projections.

So the next slide please, Jane. And then these are the really helpful resources that I have found over the years have been helpful to school committee members as well as members of the community.

The mass association of school committees, has a really great program for new school committee members called charting the course.

They have policy resources that are all budget related as well as legislative updates and actions on the state budget cycle, as well as a listserv for it's an area for school committee members to ask questions and engage with one another about things that are going on in their districts.

The Department of Elementary and secondary education, DESE provides information related to all legislation, regulations, accountability and benchmarks through their website.

There is an area with district profiles as well as the district analysis and review tool. There is a very significant section on chapter 70 as well as foundation budget in the school finance section.

And there is also information regarding grants, the entitlement grants as well as available funding opportunities for districts that's currently available.

They are they add grants periodically during the school year that are competitive grants.

And I believe that that is the last slide.

So, Adam, I'm going to turn it back over to you for questions.

Thank you, Ellen. That was. I know it was a lot of information and this again was just the purpose of this. I know for Jeremy, for you and for Dan as newer school committee members, this is a ton of information.

And it's and it is a lot.

I tried to keep it really high level. So I know that there's so many intricacies, you know, in school finance and that if you have specific questions or you would like to meet with me to, you know, go over some specific areas, I'm happy to do that. But I think that really the high level overview as we're going into the budget cycle, especially as we start having our subcommittee meetings and I'm reviewing specific cost centers like transportation, special education and utilities.

That will be a really great opportunity to see how specific cost centers that really do drive our budget are produced.

And then with special education, you'll see how we utilize grant funds to offset those costs. Thank you for that overview.

Yeah, I'm definitely interested in benchmarks to other towns as well. Sure.

And that was information that was included last year during our budget process during the budget presentations as well. as through in the budget book.

So definitely looking at those communities is something that we definitely do take a look at during budget process. Yeah.

And then I think we should just. Sorry, Jeremy, can I clarify just on your question?

When you want the kind of benchmark data, is that kind of percentage of budget spent in different places?

Are you looking for kind of like absolute? I was thinking more per pupil. Cool.

So I was looking at like Sharon versus other towns last year. Yep.

And one that jumped out was like insurance retirement programs and other is extremely high for us. Yes.

Um, so just, you know, helping understand why behind that. And then, you know, there's other areas where we're quite a bit behind other towns like professional development.

Right.

So just understanding like where we deviate why I think.

Right.

Right.

Explain.

Sure.

And then the other piece of it is, is that with the insurance. So included in our per pupil expenditures, our costs of the town, um, does pay on behalf, you know, that includes our, the school department employees.

So the insurance components, those are components that, um, that are, you know, really, I don't want to call them fixed costs, but those are costs that, you know, are factored, um, and controlled by the town. So when we talk about health insurance costs for our retirees and things like that, those are, those are. The cost factors that we don't, that we don't.

Yeah.

That was just an example. Sure.

Like we were like 4,200 per pupil.

Yep.

Med fields of like 2,200.

Sure.

Act like 31.

So, you know, it's the big driver of difference.

So it's just helpful for us to wrap our heads around. Sure.

So when we think about the initial budget, um, what do you see as the primary components of that initial budget meeting?

And like, does it make sense to, given that we know that we're, we're likely going to be facing budget challenges this year, leading up to the initial budget? Like, how would you propose?

So.

I'm hoping you to shape that. So the initial budget presentation, um, so leading up to that, the budget subcommittee is going to, um, have some meetings in which I'm going to be able to do. I'm actually reviewing specific cost centers that really do drive our budget transportation utilities, as well as special education.

Um, and then, so you'll have that in November, October, November meetings.

Um, and then prior to the December 18th meeting, um, with, in which I, Dr. Patel rolls out the, um, the, his initial budget that'll come to the budget subcommittee.

So you'll see the initial, the entire presentation, um, as well as the information that Dr. Patel was planning to, um, review with the school committee.

The following week, as well as with the public.

Okay.

You know, Jeremy, are there, so last, uh, in the last subcommittee meeting, we talked about some of those drivers, kind of, as we were reviewing the subcommittee schedule.

Um, if there are other drivers that kind of are, are of particular interest or note, um, if you can send those to, to Ellen, uh, and then Ellen can try to incorporate those as we figure out kind of scheduling and which, which drivers we jump into at what meeting and the priority of those. Okay.

Well, any other questions on, on your end. And Ellen, do you have a document that's shared that kind of maintains like a list of items you guys are looking at just so we can start looking at it early.

I, a list of items, um, potential budget changes and savings areas.

So those are, those are areas that we are, that we're starting to, that we are reviewing now, um, as we go through, um, and we, you know, really refine staffing, um, things like that. Um, as well as we, um, just closed the FY 24 budget.

Um, Krishan did the hard close about a week ago. So as we, as I start going through and analyzing the information of our actuals from FY 24, um, in comparison to FY 23, um, in 22, um, as well as the zero based budgeting tool this year will also provide us with a really good picture of, um, of the needs. Um, I imagine that we're going to be able to squeeze savings out across the board, but maybe ones from last year that were considered, um, as we thought about getting like just having a working document.

Sure.

Yeah.

I think one thing that, that we'll try to do within the subcommittee, right. Cause we're not actually doing budget construction, but to the extent that we can help prepare and help administration in presenting that information to the school committee.

I think that's a major value that we can provide to ensure that at the school committee meetings, uh, effectively we're, we're as efficient and productive as possible.

Yeah.

I think having a, making sure that it's a broad enough range of options, um, and, and potential implications.

Cool.

Any other questions on your end?

Um, not on mine.

Uh, so I just had one question, Alan, um, as you alluded to kind of chapter 78, um, and how the budget is kind of formed and voted at town meeting.

When we see shifts in that chapter 78, between kind of expected a debt was incorporated into the budget and the final number that the state approves in their budget.

Sure.

Um, what happens there in terms of the difference in funding?

So for instance, this year, um, the, we are set to receive more in chapter 70, um, than what was included in the, um, in the, in the town's budget.

Um, that money does not come back to the school department, um, because the school budget has already been appropriated at town meeting. So that money goes to the town. SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: I see. All right.

So in that case, the town just receives more money than expected. Um, and we would need to find some, some mechanism at the town level if they wanted to disperse that money, uh, additionally for use in this, in this fiscal year. So my understanding is that the only way that that could happen would be through an appropriation at a town meeting.

That money would need to be appropriated.

Right.

Which we don't have planned. Right.

At present.

I mean, I'd be curious if there are ways for us to, um, to work with other, uh, other parties within the town, given that we have additional funds that were really appropriated or directed for the states for the purpose of education.

Um, given that we are in need, um, either for, for this year or next, um, I think we would benefit from, from that aid as opposed to just kind of, uh, you know, going to the town's general fund.

Right.

So I believe that those conversations have occurred. Um, I, I believe that, um, that when, as chair, that Avi did engage in conversations with, uh, Mr. Turkington.

Um, and I know that, you know, that I did have conversations, uh, with Mr. Turkington as well. Um, and Dr.

Patel did as well, as far as, you know, being able to access the funds.

Interesting.

All right.

So, well, I, I think that's hopefully a conversation that we can continue. Maybe there is a, uh, a solution that we can find. Otherwise, as we think about kind of state budget year to year, that is a cumulative number, right?

Like the, um, so the, the chapter 70, let's assume we're a minimum aid district again next year.

The dollar amount per pupil would be on top of last year's final dollar amount.

Correct.

Correct.

All right.

So at the very least we, we can count on that final number from a baseline perspective, knowing that that's effectively guaranteed by the state. Yes.

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Okay. I think that's enough for us to know as well. And I also think that knowing that, um, the per pupil, um, allocation, uh, in the, in most state budgets does final budgets does come in, you know, higher than, you know, what was, um, in the governor's initial budget is also helpful for us to see, you know, as we move forward, knowing that, you know, in the governor's initial budget, it was, you know, $30. Um, and where, you know, did wind up was, you know, about a hundred.

So, I mean, just being able to find, you know, the balance. I know that when Krishan was working on, um, the FY 26 information for the tribe board meeting, I believe he used, uh, like $70 per student in his calculation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it would be helpful for us as we think about, if this is a situation we find ourselves in regularly, um, to think about that from a town perspective.

So even, and I don't have a great answer for this, but as we make the determination of how the town, broadly speaking, balances his budget and how we decide how much money to allocate to kind of various town departments versus, um, kind of our, our potential tax rate increase.

Um, we make an, an intentional decision as opposed to an unintentional decision where, um, you know, we, we end up effectively not voting that because, uh, the state numbers is different than we expected.

So that's just my, my own little, my own little note.

Um, that was my only question, uh, and Jeremy, you're good. And Dan is still not here. So I'm going to open up the floor cause we have some time.

Um, so I'm going to recognize Judy, who has her hand up.

Thanks Adam. So I have a couple of questions and then a comment in response to what you just shared. Um, so my first question is Ellen, why, when you're talking about zero based budgeting, are you assuming that every single staff member you have should be rolled forward?

That's not zero based budgeting, zero based budgeting, which this district used to do, um, and started doing after we had a series of repetitive overrides in the early 20 aughts is truly starting at zero. And putting in exactly what you need to run your district.

And you know what you must have, what you should have, and what's a nice to have.

And then, and then you take it from there.

Why are you assuming that every human being this district is employing should continue to be employed in your zero based budget?

So I apologize for not being clear on that. Uh, in my explanation, we will be using the enrollment projections as well as looking at every IA that we have to determine our staffing levels, to make sure that every single person that we have.

Based upon our enrollment projections.

Is that we have the correct number of sections that we have the correct number of staffing that if we are, if we're projecting to have too many, too many sections of something that we are, you know, reducing staff. Um, by that.

Number of sections that we're looking at all of our IAs. We're looking at service delivery grids and matching up our IAs to the service delivery grids to make sure that we have the correct number of IAs that are needed. Uh, for those students.

So we are looking at everything.

Okay. So you're not assuming that every.

No, no, no, no, no assumptions at all, Judy.

Um, and okay. With the staffing.

I know that last year, you know, since I've been here that Dr. Patala does use the enrollment, uh, you know, when he's looking at sections and projections.

And that is something that, you know, I, you know, sit with him and we go through that together, but also this year really taking a really harder look at our instructional assistants as well.

Okay. And then a threshold for that, when you're looking at enrollment, it's a policy matter that the school committee really hasn't actually, at least this iteration ever discussed, which is what does small class size mean? At each level of the district.

Um, and, and what is reasonable to run and not like, should you be running classes of nine kids in an AP class at the high school?

Is that a reasonable expenditure?

Or should there be a threshold number below which a class doesn't run, which of course then affects your staffing.

And that's not a conversation that's ever happened.

I think it's a conversation.

The subcommittee could start and then bring to the full committee, but it is a policy issue. Right.

And there's lots of research on what class sizes are, what constitutes small, what, you know, there's ranges.

Um, and then looking at what we actually have, that's, you, you can't figure out your zero based budget unless you know what your goals are around class size. Right. So that's a comment for you, Adam and Jeremy.

Um, it's just something you've never talked about. Um, and then I wanted to also understand when the budget is first presented in December to this committee, is it going to be tied to the tribe word priorities number of 2.53 that was given out? Or is it going to be, well, in order to run what we want to run, we need 6% or 7% or 5%? Because that was really a driver last year of massive upset and confusion.

So instead of having a budget that tied to the priorities number or the expected number with then what would be added back with each additional dollar, there was just this thing presented that said, well, we need a 6% raise.

And then there was kind of this rush to figure out what to cut.

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Okay. So that is during budget development.

That will be something that, um, I will work with Dr. Vitello on what his vision with that is. If it is going to be, you know, what our need, what the actual need is, um, or if he's going to, um, have it right off, right initially, uh, being tied to priorities.

Adam, did you want to weigh in on that? I think from my perspective, and I know we've, we've talked about this a little bit before.

It will be helpful to have kind of a couple of different iterations.

Um, and I'm, this is my opinion, obviously the committee can and should weigh in. Um, but to have different, different options that are looking at effectively different funding scenarios.

Um, and I think last year, obviously we were surprised a little bit by, uh, state funding levels. Um, but we should look at kind of where we come in, uh, kind of as expected.

If we are actually a little bit lower than expected, if we have more money than expected, um, I think that will help, help the committee understand and be prepared to effectively stress test those, those different, uh, scenarios.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. Uh, you know, the median scenario should be matching the number from tri board and maybe not even scenarios, but modular blocks.

So here are items that we can mix and match and combined, um, to, to get to up or down from that number.

And, uh, hopefully we can have a pretty broad range of that so that we're considering many options rather than narrow set.

Yeah.

And I think to, to rewind slightly to Judy's earlier comment about class size, I think, you know, the school committee has, has broadly kind of been interested in, uh, smaller class sizes, right?

Like we've, we've, we've expressed that, but I don't think we have looked in detail at, uh, or at the level of detail that, that Judy was describing.

And I think getting the school committee goals broadly, and I think class size discussion and whatnot is, is a important piece of that. Um, as early in the process as possible will help the administration understand kind of what, what the school committee is looking for as it's putting together those different options.

And so I would love whether that's within the, it probably is actually more a big table conversation than the budget subcommittee.

Cause it's a school committee wide decision.

Um, but kind of collecting at least some of those initial priorities, um, uh, in my opinion would, would be very helpful.

And if there's, if there's work that the budget subcommittee can do from an analysis perspective, you know, if we wanted in the same way that we're looking at specific cost drivers, if we want to look at other drivers, um, you know, like class sizes or class sizes across different age levels or different course types, et cetera.

Um, you know, I think that's a potentially useful deep dive here.

Yeah.

And maybe the next budget subcommittee meeting can be about where we can start constructing those bigger policy ones. Um, and thinking about what type of data we'd want to see, like, I think Sharon is relatively high in terms of relatively low on average class size.

Um, so we could, I think that that's like a good one to discuss and what other ones we'd want to see and with what data to bring to the full committee.

Right. Right.

And help how, how we can help the large committee understand the trade-offs.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying Sharon, like 15.3 per class.

Wellesley is like 15.7.

Um, just something.

Yeah.

And it's, and of course, and I made a point about saying different grade levels because what is small in kindergarten is very different than what is small in sixth grade or eighth grade or in a high school elective.

Right. Right.

Um, so thank you for that.

And then the last thing I wanted to share, Adam, was your comment on, well, you know, state aid came in ultimately higher and, you know, we didn't get the benefit of it. Um, for fiscal year 24, state aid actually came in $91,000 lower, which was shared at the finance committee meeting earlier this week. Um, and so, you know, it's a little bit like when you decide whether you want to be a partner in a firm or not. Right. Like, you know, there's, there's potential for upside, but there's also potential for downside. And you're protected from the downside when state aid comes in lower than what was expected.

And then also there's all the things that the town pays for, which is why a hundred percent of that state aid doesn't come to the schools.

But I do think, you know, when you're planning for this year, last year, in order for state aid to have provided what the district needed, it would have had to come in 200% of the highest increase the district has ever received.

So since we know that's like not a thing and was never going to be a thing, um, I think it's best to just live in the reality of, you know, we're probably going to be a minimum aid district.

We were a minimum aid district for like 12 or 13 years before we had two years of not being a minimum aid district.

And the state is also struggling financially.

So I think assuming it'll be, we know it won't be lower than last year because they have a hold harmless provision.

Last year, we actually should have been a couple hundred K lower under the governor's budget, but hold harmless kept us from having that happen and, and just move forward with the planning.

But I do appreciate the much more thoughtful approach to this year and hopefully avoiding some of the, um, really kind of last minute upset that happened.

So thank you.

Thank you, Judy.

And I think on, on my end, and this is, it's not a, a school exclusively a school committee discussion.

I can think this is a broader town discussion, um, just in terms of how we, how we shape our town finances and, uh, policies so that we understand if to your point, money comes in kind of lower than expected from the state.