All right, we will get started here.

Welcome to the October 11th meeting of the Sharon School Committee.

This meeting will be conducted remotely over Zoom.

Attendance by board or commission members will be remote, and remote attendance shall count towards a quorum.

The meeting will be broadcast live and recorded by sharing TV.

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

As is our custom here, we will be going to public comments first as part of our community update section of our agenda.

I will remind folks that we ask that their comments

first and last name be visible.

I will call on folks whose first and last names are not showing, but I would just ask that you lead off with your first and last name if that is the case.

It is a two minute.

We do have a two minute time limit that I ask everybody to please be respectful of.

And I am willing to keep time here, guys.

So I will start off with Jay O'Brien, whose hand I see raised first.

All right, hold on, Jay, not on the clock yet until you unmute.

There you go, Jay.

Thank you, Jay O'Brien.

Thank you.

Some people on the school committee have replaced disagreement with accusation and used false compassion to manipulate parents into compliance.

This is the same school committee who at my very first school committee meeting several years ago when I spoke immediately shut down the Zoom chat feature so I could not correspond with other parents who were also opposed to masking kids.

During the last meeting, after I had spoke most recently, in the August meeting, someone else then used words like undertones, transphobia, and homophobia.

First, gay people have as much in common with trans people as straight people do.

Secondly, I will not sit by and let someone besmirch my family's good name or the names of other parents in town who oppose radical gender theory in public schools.

I should not have to say this, for it goes without saying, and it cuts into my two minutes of time,

but we've always perceived trans people as valuable members of society worthy of respect and human rights.

Another horrible comment was made by a non-committee citizen who said, parents who oppose the gender cult ideology are afraid of our kids becoming trans.

What a disgusting thing to say.

These comments can't go unanswered.

Do you think someone can give you trans like it's the China virus?

We're talking about poisoning young impressionable minds.

The people are trying to rule through emotional blackmail to impose a political agenda on the rest of us.

If we dissent, we're branded as bigots and accused of lacking empathy.

The people pushing this use antagonism, emotional manipulation, and an accusatory tone that has become the staple with the gender theory and mask pushers.

The goal of this is not to arrive at answers, but to browbeat parents like me and make me feel bad for denying left-wing orthodoxy.

Dr. Patel.

We have to have new leadership.

We have to have a new leadership class that says no.

It's the most important word in the English language.

We don't say it enough.

We have to reestablish limits on behavior and reestablish authority.

Thank you.

That was exactly two minutes.

So I appreciate your brevity.

On to Tobin Aspar.

I'm sorry, Tobin, I was distracted for a second, not forgetting who you were.

Go ahead, Tobin.

I will start your time now.

Hi, my name is Tobin Asklar.

I use they, them pronouns.

I'm speaking as a parent of three children in the Sharon Public Schools and for myself.

First, I'm holding in my heart the Sharon Jewish population and Israeli friends and strangers who bore the horrific and murderous terrorist massacre on Saturday and their aftermath.

I denounce the attacks and the continued acts of antisemitism that have erupted worldwide and even locally in response to brutal killing, torture, and hostage-taking of Jewish people in Israel.

These harrowing events and now the resulting war bring not only the pain of civilian devastation and killing, but more antisemitic and anti-Islamic rhetoric in the United States.

On a personal note, I want to thank the Sharon Public Schools and Temple Sinai's Hebrew School for teaching my children and keeping them safe.

Thank you to the Sharon Police Department for looking out for everyone's safety, but especially for protecting our temples and houses of worship.

Second, today is National Coming Out Day.

I am a genderqueer non-binary lesbian mom.

To the LGBTQ plus kids who are already out and those still in the closet, I hope the world brings you joy and happiness, belonging and love.

I hope you are free to be your true selves.

May your classrooms and libraries be filled with books that present positive representations of your lives and the lives of your classmates and the beautiful diversity of America.

May your teachers and adults see you for all that you are and all that you can be.

May you have good and loving friends who hold you up and who you can equally support.

Shalom, salam.

Let us stand together and support one another.

Thank you.

You, Tobin?

Next up, I see Judy Crosby.

Hold on, we got you on the mute.

All right, go ahead.

Thank you.

First, Tobin, thank you so much for those words.

I have family missing at the moment and I really needed to hear that.

So thank you.

I'm I'm going to speak tonight about a vote that appears later on this agenda, which is for this school committee to vote to approve retroactively three and a half months into the new fiscal year transfers that occurred from cost centers.

into 24 overspent cost centers during the fiscal year 23 budget.

There's clear state law as well as clear interpretation of that state law by the Department of Revenue that the failure of this school committee and this administration to vote those transfers one by one as they were needed last year is fully in violation.

Why does that matter?

Well, Dr. Botehlo, you lied to me.

You stood in the auditorium of Sharon High School, the brand new Sharon High School, before the town meeting when I said, hey, I have questions on this part of Article 16.

I want to know

what does level budget mean are there going to be cuts you cut things from 23 to 22 and you said no level budget no problem everything's good except for what i didn't know at that time as a member of the public because you and your business manager and this school committee deprived me of the knowledge was that over a third of our supply materials budget had been redirected

more than half of our professional development budget had been redirected.

We were $600,000 over on a sped transit line item.

And the list goes on and on and on.

The reason for that state law and that Department of Revenue interpretation is to ensure that value judgments about where we redirect money from are made by those who hold the policy handle.

I see Nadia Ahmad.

Nadia, I'm just going to start your time now.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Nadia Ahmad.

I'm here to voice my concerns over forcing kids to listen to sex ed and LGBTQ content that has penetrated the general curriculum.

I sympathize with those who are truly struggling with gender identity, but sympathizing with one minority should not come at the expense of another.

Some would say that some would say that LGBT members are at high risk of attempting suicide.

Therefore, our kids should be forced to learn about their identities.

A study at Stanford University concluded that American Muslims have twice the rate of suicide attempts compared to others.

Based upon that,

Should we force kids at SPS to start thinking about converting to Islam?

Should we force them to start praying like Muslims?

That would be ridiculous to ask.

There is a clear difference between raising awareness about something and then forcing it on people.

This forceful attitude is making Muslims and all concerned parents feel helpless about the situation.

All we are asking is to give us the option to opt out wherever there's a discussion around sex ed and LGBTQ.

Please do not make us feel worthless.

A simple option for parents to exempt their kids out of this curriculum or out of this discussion won't hurt the LGBTQ members at all.

But not having any option is hurting a lot of us.

The decision is yours to make.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

John Mayle.

John, hang on.

Okay, start the clock.

Okay, start the clock.

Hi, Avi.

Nice to see you.

So I just real quick, I saw that you've agenda my conversation around the program of studies this evening.

And I sent a letter to you, Dr. Botello and some other people last week, just about something that I have been talking about for a couple years now, which is bringing back curricular theater at the high school level.

I'm just mentioning this now just to make the community aware that this is something that I've brought up.

and if any interested community members would like to connect with me about this proposal or um discuss you know the possibilities of this i'm well you know i'm happy to hear anyone who has an opinion about this i think that um as we consider like ways to use the beautiful new facility we have

including the multimillion dollar black box theater, I think that bringing in curricular theater would be a very worthy discussion to have, possibly not tonight, but just in the future.

So as we continue to go through the program studies discussion, I strongly believe we should talk about curricular theater, and I have proposed to help develop that at the high school level.

Have a good night, way under two minutes.

Thanks for your brevity, John.

All right, next up, Casey McLaughlin.

Hold on, Casey.

We can hear you, I think.

Can you talk?

Yes.

All right, I will start your talk now.

Thanks.

Last meeting there was a lot of gasping and wide-eyed pearl clutching around how such hateful people in Sharon could dare speak out against non-academic, highly problematic gender ideology being promoted in classrooms.

So I did some research.

Are trans people really victimized?

Let's put it into context given the recent horrors endured by actual victims.

Did you know that there are 36 national holidays dedicated to LGBTQ plus?

In October alone, there is Intersex Awareness Day, Lesbian Day with Sunday, Pronouns Day, Spirit Day, and today is National Coming Out Day.

Guess what else?

We have Ace Week for asexuals, Gender Fluid Visibility Week, and this entire month is LGBT History Month.

And that's just October.

I've never seen such an oppressed group be so nationally celebrated.

So it is a lie that trans people are under attack, or my favorite hyperbole,

being genocided.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, there were 40 reported cases, four zero, of trans individuals losing their lives to violent incidents in 2022.

To put this in perspective, this constitutes .000025 of the 1.6

million trans-identified people in 2022.

These statistics suggest that trans people may be among the safest demographic groups when it comes to violent deaths in the United States.

So there is a big difference between tolerance, which is what it used to be, and forced celebration that some members of this board and this community really need to differentiate between.

I will end with this.

Normal adults do not get angry that they can't talk to children about sex.

predators and perverts do.

Remember that.

Richard Kramer.

Richard, I'm hitting ask to unmute.

Hit it again there.

There we go.

Can you hear me now?

There you go.

All right.

Okay.

I did hit it, but it didn't take the first time.

Okay.

Go ahead.

I'm going to start.

Go ahead.

I'm ready to start.

Okay.

You go ahead.

Sharon probably proclaims itself in lawn signs all over town that it's no place for hate.

And of course, I completely agree with that.

That's why I feel compelled to call out

the hateful intolerant disgusting comments at the last school committee meeting i'm appalled i was nauseated i won't name names you you know who you are the hateful name calling was directed at families with traditional values and complaining that a small minority of parents are somehow dominating the situation

First of all, it's not true.

In my experience, it's not a minority of parents.

It's a minority of parents that aren't afraid to be called names.

The majority of parents are afraid to even speak out because of this hateful name calling.

These are vicious attacks by school committee members.

It's embarrassing to the town.

Those people should be ashamed.

Moreover, we live in a country with a constitution that's been designed to protect minority rights.

We don't believe in the tyranny of the majority, nor did our founders.

I think apologies are in order.

I think the people who did this should be ashamed.

In my opinion, I believe they should resign.

There's no place at the school committee table for people who engage in those kinds of hateful comments.

Another member of the committee disclosed proudly that there are confidential discussions ongoing with an attorney to figure out ways to bypass opt-out so that we could get rid of opt-out.

You know, attorneys don't work for free.

I don't recall when the school committee voted to authorize spending on an attorney for secret negotiations, secret discussions to devise novel legal theories to eliminate opt-out.

I do agree that opt-out needs to go.

It doesn't work.

It's not being done in good faith.

All right, that's two minutes.

Thank you.

All right, Mira Balincki.

Hi, members of the school committee.

I just want to say that we moved to Sharon because we love our children and Sharon is a great place to raise children.

I love the narrow town.

We have families from so many different backgrounds.

We're all united in the love of their children and who are dedicated to education, who value education.

And I was very sad to hear that at the last meeting, you said, or some members of the committee said, that you felt that some families in Sharon had the wrong values and that you were looking for legal loopholes to try to change those values.

That all that the parents who are coming to these school committees want is to raise our own children according to our own values.

Thank you.

Thank you for your brevity.

Judith Weider.

Thanks.

So first off, I wanted to thank Tobin for what they said.

It's been a rough few days for everybody, so I appreciate all of your comments.

Second, I would like to say I personally am celebrating National Coming Out Day.

I'm queer, I'm not afraid to say it, and I'm proud of my queer brothers and sisters.

So I would like to read a couple of things.

First, I would like to read a statement, which Avi, I apologize, I joined the meeting like one minute late.

So you may have already said this, but at the base of every webpage that we have on the Sharon Public Schools,

at the bottom of the agenda for this very meeting.

It says that sharing public schools does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender identity, homelessness, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.

The voices of hate that have been speaking up, and yes, that's exactly what they are.

People can teach their children whatever they want in their own houses, but when you are in a public space,

you must adhere to the public rules.

And the public rules do not say that hate speech is protected speech.

I would also like to point out that the Trevor Project has found that LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers.

And they estimate that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 24 seriously consider suicide each year in the US and at least one attempt suicide every 45 seconds.

So when we talk about NCOD, when we have holidays, when we have these sorts of things,

They are to make sure that people don't kill themselves over something that they don't control and that other people, voices of hate, tell them that they are wrong simply for being themselves.

And I just want to tell all the kids that might possibly be listening to this, you are loved.

You can be yourself.

We are proud of you.

At least those of us that don't preach hate are proud of you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Judith.

Right on time.

Appreciate it.

I see Khalid Issa.

I apologize if I mispronounced that.

No, that's okay.

Thank you so much.

I would like to thank the school committee members for allowing me the chance to talk.

I would like to thank you all for your efforts.

We are a Muslim family.

We live in Sharon since 2017.

We moved to Sharon for its diverse, inclusive community and excellent school system.

We were hoping to practice our religious freedom and pass our faith, religion, and principles to our children.

Matters related to sex and gender in particular are surrounded with clear morals and guidance in our faith.

As we requested to have the right to opt out of such education, which contradicts our faith, during the last school committee meeting, we were labeled as homophobic, transphobic, and people of hate by school committee members and members of the public as well.

I would like to clarify that this has nothing to do with hate.

This comes out of sincere belief in our faith and a sincere desire to raise our children on certain values.

Sharon schools do not discriminate based on religion.

It was mentioned multiple times in this meeting that we want every child to feel welcomed.

And I would like the same for my kids as well.

We request to respect our values and provide an option to adopt.

Thanks so much for giving me the chance.

Thank you.

All right, next up, I see Boris Chislovsky.

Hello, thank you, school committee, for the opportunity to speak.

And like some other people voiced, I was a bit hurt by some comments from the last school committee

by the last school committee disparaging comments equating opting out from LGBT and sex subjects to rejecting learning about other cultures and religions, such as Islam and Judaism, remember those were mentioned, and equating the LGBT lifestyle, which is pretty much a recent emergence in the world culture to ancient traditions, is kind of foolish.

And

It was disparaging to hear them call us various names, which people already mentioned.

That's all.

Thank you for your time.

And thank you for your brevity.

Charlotte Hogan.

Hi.

Thank you for letting me speak.

I wasn't going to speak about this tonight, but I changed my mind after listening to everyone else.

I have two quick points to make.

One,

At least at the high school level, parents can opt out of any sex education that they wish that they don't wish their child to attend.

So there's that.

And the other thing I wanted to say was the climate at the high school right now is so fantastic.

I have been working with Miss Keenan, Miss Andrews as a PTO member.

And for those of you who don't know, my fourth child is now a sophomore at Sharon High and

the vibe, the climate, the teachers are happy, the kids are happy, their administration has come in, and I just feel really positive, and I'm really happy that we chose her as our principal going forward, and that's it.

I just felt like I wanted to throw a little positivity in there before you start meeting, and I'm very grateful that Ms.

Keenan is on board, and I see great things ahead for Sharon High, so thank you.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you for your brevity and your positivity.

And credit to Ms.

Keenan.

I see Kristen is on this call and we appreciate the work at the high school.

So thank you.

I see next Ahmad Muhammad.

Yeah, hi.

We are a Muslim family.

I live in Sharon since 2017.

and we came here because of the diversity and we people respect different background different culture different religion and we respect all culture and every religion but we also expect people to respect ours and we really want to express our dissatisfaction of uh that the district is trying to uh

like teaching kids about LGBTQ and like, you know, different things that's not even related to their age.

They're very young kids.

And we actually, this has the values in trying to teach them actually disagree with our values.

And we want to be able to raise our kids the way we wanted to raise them.

And we expect everybody to do that, to respect that.

And we don't want to impose our values to anybody else or anybody else.

But also we expect the same from others.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for your brevity.

All right, seeing no more hands, I will look to Julie Rowe for correspondence.

Is that right, Julie?

Do I have that right?

As a matter of fact, that is correct.

The school committee received 34 pieces of correspondence between September 6th, 2023 at 9 a.m.,

and October 11th, 2023 at 9 a.m.

A couple of parents wrote to the school committee to express their concerns regarding the survey that was distributed to students at Sharon Middle School at the beginning of the school year.

A parent wrote to suggest that the schools should never reinstitute a masking policy.

A parent wrote to the school committee to express their belief that the district was not listening to parents who did not want their children exposed to LGBTQ topics and suggested that parents be provided with an opt-out option.

Several parents, community members, and students wrote to the school committee to share their thoughts on the lack of an appointment of a Sharon High School theater director and the impact on the students in the planned fall production schedule.

A parent wrote to offer their praise as easy and stress-free for the new drop-off process and traffic flow at Sharon High School.

Thank you for the praise.

A couple of parents wrote to suggest that to ensure student safety, the district provide a crossing guard for the area between the lake lot and the high school.

A community member wrote to inquire about plans for migrant students who may attend Sharon Public Schools.

A parent wrote to suggest that Sharon High School begin to hold an annual career day.

A parent wrote to the committee to object to the disclaimer that the chair shared during the opening of the previous meeting.

The school committee received several letters written that expressed their strong support for the district to continue to uphold the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to create a school environment where a sense of belonging is fostered throughout our classrooms and school spaces.

A parent wrote to the school committee to suggest that specific analysis be completed with regards to MCAS scores and to include a comparative analysis of districts that have both consistently been doing better than Sharon and that have recently started performing better than Sharon.

The school committee received an invitation to CPAC's Assistive Technology Services Fair on Sunday, October 22nd, 2023,

from 11 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

at the SHS cafeteria.

A parent wrote to inquire about the composition of the DEI director search committee and wondered why the district's assistant and superintendent of equity engagement is not included on the committee.

A community member wrote to inquire as to whether a school committee member would be willing to assist with a Boy Scout merit badge requirement.

This requirement asks the scout to get feedback from a branch of local government that deals with an issue facing the community.

A community member wrote to share their concerns about the lack of community engagement at school committee meetings.

Several community members wrote regarding flag displays and wanted assurances that the only flags to be flown are US and Massachusetts state flag.

Several community members wrote to express concerns that as of Monday morning, October 9th, the district had not sent out any communication regarding the horrific events that occurred in Israel over the weekend.

A community member wrote to express concerns about the district budget and to ask if there would be any clarification provided from the district or the school committee about the budget status.

We received several editions of Millie's METCO Monday newsletter, which included the following highlights.

METCO participating school districts identified as top high schools in Massachusetts, Massachusetts School Superintendents Association learning opportunities in racial equity, diversity, and inclusion,

Lexington support for diversity curriculum, new school leaders and DEI directors for 2023-24, including Sharon's own Justin Wilson, and best practices spotlights on the districts of Arlington and Foxborough.

And that concludes it.

Thanks, Julie.

I know we have a school rep here, I believe, Brendan.

Do I see Brendan anywhere?

Brendan, if you can raise your hand.

Oh, I see you, Brendan.

There you go.

All right, Brendan, welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the space.

Again, I am the Student Advisory Committee representative for tonight's meeting.

Just a few updates for the past few days.

We had a club fair on the 22nd of September that was a success.

We had a senior sunrise on the 29th of September that was also successful.

We've had a lot of club activity going on, a lot of service projects that have been ongoing, and we have picture day, which is tomorrow.

So if there are any high school students watching, just make sure to get that smile going.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Brendan.

I will now throw it over to Dr. Botello for general updates from our superintendent.

Great, thank you.

Jane, can you make sure the slides after this are included as well?

I'm not sure if they were, but.

But before I started, I just wanted to, prior to this meeting, I want to thank Avi Shemtov and Adam Shane, and I saw Julie Rowe there as well, but there was a really...

wonderful gathering in support of Israel and showed just the great community that we have here.

It was, you know, certainly members of our Jewish community were out with passion, but also various members of our interfaith community throughout the community.

And it just showed, you know, some of the very best that we have here.

We were horrified by hearing the news and the department condemned the attacks on Israel by Hamas.

Our hearts are really going out to all of our community members impacted as well as those that we know in Israel.

We're really trying hard as a district to support the kids.

I think just showing that we're there to support them, giving them some sense of normalcy,

but also giving them a place to go when they need additional assistance is incredibly important we also have made sure in addition to our jewish and israeli kids really show support to all kids including our our palestinian and muslim families who we know reject the vicious attacks by hamas this past weekend and are fearful for their family members in the region so i just wanted to pass without recognizing that we have also been

in touch with Chief Coffey at the Sharon Police Department.

We work really closely with them and it is indicated that on Friday we will have some additional presence just to promote a feeling of safety and security for all of our kids and staff on Friday.

Getting to some other general updates, enrollments continue to come in in the early fall a little bit more, certainly than typical.

New elementary enrollments have been generally restricted to cottage and heights in order to maintain some class size consistency across the three schools.

And so if you look at the enrollment in your package, you'll see that actually those numbers across even where in grades where perhaps say Easter cottage was a little bit lower than heights there now.

getting to be quite equal across the schools.

We knew that we would expect some additional enrollment, though certainly we're welcoming some new families into the community with open arms as this fall comes about.

As far as our DEI director process, we went through a rigorous process where we've identified a finalist.

The finalist will be visiting the district on Friday, and we'll continue to alert the committee and the community about that process.

We're pretty much fully staffed, except for we do have a handful of instructional assistant positions across the schools that we're looking to fill.

MCAS results will be sent home to families early next week.

It's a reminder that MCAS is one important data point, but only one data point.

You use this in collaboration with the materials and grades and assessments that you get in the schools and really engage with your children's teachers about the progress of your kids.

We'll also be doing a presentation in late November or December about MCAS and other assessments as well.

Some upcoming events.

November 9th, we have early release in all buildings.

November 14th as well.

And then 16th will be elementary and ECC early release.

And then no school on Veterans Day.

And then we'll have Thanksgiving recess coming up.

It's amazing how quickly this year is already going by.

and some upcoming school committee items.

School improvement plans we'll be reviewing on October 25th.

We'll also give a preliminary update on the elementary master plan that should be fairly complete by Flansburg.

associates that have been working on it.

And then we'll also on October 25th review our FY24, that's our current budget.

We'll look at realignment as well as a quarter one report.

Despite some of the kind of rumblings in the community, the FY24 budget looks sound and we'll be able to give you some of the details of that on October 25th.

And then November 2nd,

Dave Kuntz, November will have superintendent goals and evaluation process and then also.

Dave Kuntz, vote to approve the capital budget submission to town in late November, we have some preliminary information on that today.

Caroline Miller, Dr Botehlo I did on share that those other slides, but it didn't take in the presentation so give me if you want to give me a minute to refresh.

Dave Kuntz, yeah that'd be great.

We just have a couple more about our calendar subcommittee that has been working.

that they include Julie Rowe, Wen Tiano, and Shana Blenke.

We're looking to evaluate the calendar, especially around observances of cultural and religious holidays.

Looking to propose a calendar that adequately reflects the diversity in Sharon.

The next steps was to conduct a survey of the community regarding cultural and religious observances.

This will include family members, teachers and administrators, and also meet to evaluate the survey and create a proposal for the school committee.

So this is a chart.

that was put together by Julie Roe and the committee that kind of looks at how others have tried to balance observing our various holidays, especially religious holidays within their communities, just for reference.

And this will be included in your packet as well.

And then the survey will be sent out in the weekly dispatch and the link will be promoted to get as wide a view as possible.

So please, please, we encourage you to take that survey and encourage your friends as well so we can get as much community input as possible.

Ruben Duran, So next we're going to go to our fiscal year 2023 so that's last year as a fiscal year and Ellen when the more is going to review.

Ruben Duran, Real report.

Ruben Duran, Yes, we move out of their kind.

Ruben Duran, Just ask the committee, are there any questions or comments on the general updates.

Ruben Duran, doesn't look like there are all right moving on.

All righty, I'm having some technical issues with my video this evening, so I apologize.

This evening's presentation is on the FY23 financial report for the fiscal 23 budget, which went from July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2023.

Next slide.

The FY23 budget was appropriated at springtime meeting in 2022 of $49,520,966.

We received a reserve fund transfer at the May 17th, 2023 finance committee for a legal settlement, revised FY23 appropriated budget, which

totaled 49,695,966 included the appropriated budget plus the reserve fund transfer.

The district expended from July 1st, 2022 to June 30th, 2023, $49,536,521.

As of June 30th, 2023, the district had $159,445,000 encumbered in purchase orders that remained opened and were carried into FY24.

The school department returned $0 to the town upon closing as the entire local budget was appropriated and fully expended and committed for FY23.

Next slide, please.

The FY23 year end fiscal review will include the general expenditure report through June 30th, 2023.

It will include the year to date budget report from UNIS which includes the appropriated budget, the revised budget which is the sum of the original appropriation plus additional any transfers, year to date expended which is the actual expenditures posted in the financial system as of June 30th, 2023 and encumbrances which posted to the financial system

as of June 30th, 2023.

The available budget would be the total remaining funds available as of June 30th, 2023.

Next slide, please.

This slide illustrates the,

fiscal review by location for each of our major areas, each of these elementary schools, as well as secondary, elementary and early childhood.

It shows that we were appropriated the $49,520,966.

There was the adjustment of the $175,000, which was reserved from transfer for a rise budget of $49,695,966.

We expended through June 30th $49,536,521 and carried forward $159,445 in open purchase orders into fiscal year 24.

And then the next slide please.

Important finance dates for us.

The town distributed on September 19th, the capital project forms and instructions.

I'm giving, providing the update to school committee this evening on the FY23 year end close.

There'll be a preliminary review this evening of capital project requests.

On October 18th,

And actually that meeting was canceled, I apologize.

On October 25th, the school committee update and realignment in quarter one update will take place.

On October 26th, the school department initial FY25 to FY2030 capital project will be submitted to the town and we will be providing the finance committee with an update on the FY23 year end, FY24 budget realignment and quarter one update.

There will also be the joint meeting of the Select Board, Finance Committee, and School Committee to review financial condition and long-range needs.

That tri-board meeting date is still to be determined.

And then the additional pages in the presentation that is in your packet includes the fiscal year-to-date review by departments.

And that's just the remainder of the slides.

If you could just flip forward.

Thank you.

And that concludes the presentation on the FY23 fiscal review by department for the local appropriated budget.

Thanks, Alan.

Dr. Mattel, appropriate time to take questions from the table.

I see Julie's hands up.

All right, go ahead, Julie.

Thanks Avi and thank you Ellen.

So there were some accusations that were on Facebook and we received one letter asking us to clarify.

My feeling is that since

these accusations did not have any calculations behind them, that it's very, very difficult to determine where the numbers were coming from.

So I can't even ask you about them since there's no analysis there.

But I do have a couple of questions that I think it would be great if you could explain for the good of the order.

So for one thing, could you talk about using a zero-based budget versus a level service budget?

I feel like we always use a level service budget.

I don't recall anyone using zero-based budgeting, but I could be wrong.

The second question I have is, could you discuss about the staff and transportation questions?

And could you discuss some of the transfers that were done?

And I appreciate if you just sort of could address some of those questions that people had.

Certainly.

So for the FY23 budget, we did have overages in the area of special education transportation.

Part of that was due to...

unanticipated transportation needs for students requiring specialized transportation.

We also were unable to obtain minivans for special education.

We had several ordered, and the orders were either canceled or did not come to fruition, or we could just not get them.

We have recently, within the last week, been able to procure six minivans and Fran Derry is working very hard to hire additional drivers.

And that will hopefully mitigate some of the issues from this past year in terms of budget process level service versus a zero based budget.

My experiences here as well as in other districts have been level service, especially in times where we are, you know, we did have a significant budget increase this past year for full day kindergarten, as well as the

COLAs and steps that are associated with personnel, which is a major driver for the school department budget.

We also did receive an additional appropriation to offset costs for special education out-of-district tuitions.

And we plan this for FY25.

I do plan to do a line-by-line three-year look back on all of our expenditure lines to make sure that they are all in good order.

Thank you.

Can I follow up, Avi?

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Ellen.

So I was wondering if you could address the supplies and material budget and also the professional development budget.

What specific questions do you have, Joy?

Well, I mean, I believe that there was an accusation, I don't know, that

there seemed to be a problem with using certain budgets that were supplies and material that were being spent on other things, not supplies and material.

And I think also there was the same question with professional development.

So do you like those?

I'm not sure specifically again, because the original accuser did not provide

any detailed information.

So I'm just, I'm just reading off of what I got on Facebook.

Um, and I was just wondering if you could maybe try and figure out what's being said.

I could, I could speak to that, Ellen.

Over the last several years, we've been trying to, um, identify areas within the budget that have been historically, um,

um not fully utilized and have been historically used in different areas and so um you know we definitely use our supplies and our professional developments to meet our needs we also know that in times of unexpected costs whether it's special education transportation or other things we need to

uh find ways in order to uh help fund those and those can include uh numerous areas but including you know our supplies and professional development but certainly we're committed to making sure that kids have the supplies that they need and we're certainly and work very closely with the sta around uh making sure that professional development will be starting a professional development committee with our sta uh counterparts coming out of the last contract to really make sure that we continue to grow and improve in that area

So you're saying that the professional development is being worked out with the STA and have there been any complaints or like overall problems with this that are an issue?

There have not.

And the other thing that I'm saying is that we're continuing to, you know, each year realign our budget in a way that more accurately meets our needs, because historically there again have been some areas that, you know, have not been completely aligned to needs and been used in other areas, not just this past year, but in past years as well.

And I think the school committee and administration and the STA are very excited about that professional development committee.

So I was wondering if you could address the issue of the nutrition account, $50,000.

Could you describe that?

Sure.

So the...

district is permitted to charge indirect costs to grants as well as food service accounts.

In FY22, the prior finance director did calculate indirect costs for food service.

It was found during the audit of this in the spring of April of 2023, when DESE came on and audited the FY22 food service program, that the

Indirect costs were not calculated correctly and there were issues with the indirect costs.

There was a finding on the corrective action plan that DESE had issued to the district to be completed that the indirect costs for FY22 did need to be reimbursed to the food service department.

Because of the lateness in the fiscal year, it was, I want to say it was right around April, May, when we were going back and forth with them regarding the corrective action plan, I did ask if we would be permitted to do so in FY24.

And they said that that would be fine, knowing that we would be able to offset the charges going back to food service for the indirect costs for FY22 with additional indirect costs collected in FY24.

Thank you, Ellen.

You're welcome.

Oh, can I, I'm so sorry, Shauna and Adam, I just want one more question, which is, could you talk a little bit about the issue of the transfers?

So the transfers for the end of the year, we do a final budget cleanup over the summer after all of the expenditures and purchase orders are finalized.