City Council - Regular Meeting

We are here for a joint workshop with the Ellsworth City Council and the Ellsworth School Department and School Board regarding the Ellsworth FY 2027 school department budget. Um, city manager Pierce, uh, any opening remarks on your side?

No, I'll just say it's it's school only tonight. Um, and just kind of a quick reminder on some of the time frame things. I know it's um it maybe seems a little clunky, but this is uh the way the school budget and the city budget with having to get on a re referendum have to go. And thank you to the school department for all the pre-work you do to get us to where we're at. But um so tonight we'll hear we heard round one from the school uh a couple weeks ago. Um now this is kind of round two that they've everybody sharpened their pencil and this is kind of their final presentation. I believe next Tuesday the school board um pending the council's approval that directionally uh we're okay um with this figure they'll uh move to their own board on Tuesday to approve and then functionally it would be great if we could approve tonight but we have to wait until the school board approves um but u the Thursday of next week we'll have a a special meeting at 5:30 uh to uh decide if the school board passes the budget if the city council would like to affirm the uh the school board's um budget resolutions and then we'll have a series there's like eight or nine different resolutions that we have to go through uh to account for that. We also have a um we added in because there was a special meeting a discussion of the uh firetruck apparatus which we've had a few conversations on authorized uh bond anticipation note funding for the fire department's also coming in on Monday of next week to talk about at the workshop. So, uh, if the council chooses that they'd like to move forward with the fire department committees apparatus selection committee's request, um, we'll have a lot of information on that on Monday so that on Thursday, uh, in addition to the potential school board budget resolution validation vote, uh, we can do um, a vote on the the fire apparatus uh, decision and then we'll move straight into uh, the meat of the city's budget, the line by line of the department heads. I know last week we had the external organizations. The first meeting we kind of had a general

budget book overview. Uh but starting next Thursday will be the real, you know, every single department for their operational budget. So that's not their new things. There's some smaller stuff that are bigger changes we'll discuss, but we already cleared um the way on the new things and Ashley will be keeping a log of both this meeting uh and our future meetings uh so that in later budget cycles we can have a joint discussion on changes uh that the council seems to be making or or not. With that, I'll send it over to Amy.

Good evening everyone. Thank you for having us. Um, at the table, um, just quickly is Nikki Chan, assistant superintendent, Carolyn Heler, finance director, Amy Athetherton, accounting manager, and then our three members of the Elra School Board, Chair Paul Marcosian, Vice Chair Kelly McKenna, and member um, Beverly Sergeant. So, thank you for having us tonight. First, quickly to go over what is in your packet so that you kind of can orient yourself. First, you do have a copy of the PowerPoint that we will show and go through this evening. While we go through the PowerPoint, the one pager version three of the budget is probably going to be the easiest thing for you to reference as we go cost center by cost center. When in the presentation we get to our debt service part of the budget, I have provided you with a breakdown of all of our um projected FY27 budgets, but given you a full breakdown of our debt and then also you have a four-page handout and this has um a couple of things that you had requested some of you last year. So, we made notes and made sure we had it with us this year. Um, one on the back of the first page is the definitions of all the cost centers that go into a school budget. We've given this to you a couple of times, but think it's important for you to have that. And then on the back, um, something that's often we take for granted is all of the jargon and lingo in education, all the acronyms that are used. We've provided a kind of a cheat sheet. So if I say things and you don't understand what they are, please don't hesitate to ask, but then you also have it to reference as well so that that can help you um

throughout. So we will jump right in and talk a little bit about and go over our agenda for this evening. Um, we will talk a little bit about the FY27 budget snapshot. Go through each cost center with you, what any of the major additions or decreases are in each cost center. Talk a little bit about how fixed costs impact our budget. Look at how our budget has grown over time. talk a little bit about comparatively speaking our per pupil expenditures, our percentage change over time, budget to budget, but also um revenues across time, and then what we feel like we've accomplished during this budget process as it relates to making a final recommendation. Tonight, our purpose for our presentation for the public is to provide an update on the work we've done since we presented to you um a couple of weeks ago, March 12th. We've done a considerable amount of work. We want to talk a little bit about how we've tried to balance responsibility to the taxpayers, but also the needs of a everchanging school system. Um and some of the constraints that we are feeling. We want to talk a little bit about the reductions we've made in certain areas andor changes we have made that have resulted in the overall impact and we will go through and talk about the cost centers um as well as debt and revenue so that you have a greater understanding of the full budget. The reality of this proposal is that we have done a lot of work over the last year in our strategic plan. And now that we have a strategic plan, more so than ever, we were really able to target a

lot of our decisionm um both for increases and decreases that were greatly aligned to the goals that the public has said they want our school system to bring about. Um we have really looked at all programs, every cost center and really done a complete audit in my opinion of what we think is responsible and doesn't take away from student learning but does show responsibility to the taxpayers. Um knowing that that's always a stress for everyone. There are some tradeoffs we've made in this budget to try to have a balance of both of those things. So when you look at version three to kind of explain the structure for those of you that are new in our FY27 version 3 budget handout as we go through this for those of you that are new and haven't seen the school budget before the top half is our expenditures and our proposed cost centers. Okay? And typically what we try to do each year is show you the changes per cost center prior year to current year and what the percentage changes are. And then below we show you the revenue side of the budget and how that changes yeartoyear. And then on the bottom of course is the grand total local appropriation. If you recall when I presented to you last, our budget to budget was over 8% and our grand total local appropriation was at approximately 13%. So we've done quite a bit of work to get it to 7.85. On the next slide, you'll see our cost center percentages broken down. Sometimes it's nice to see not just the percentages on a sheet, but sometimes it's nice to see a visual so that you

can see really when you look at this and you calculate the percentages that go directly to students, it's over 3/4 of your budget as it should be. So to dive right into the cost centers and talk a little bit about what comprises each cost center. In each cost center, we're going to talk a little bit about what are some of the additions, but then also what are some of the decreases. We've had to make some hard decisions in this budget. Um, and so we'll talk a little bit about those. So, one thing that we've worked really hard on this last year is to craft an educational programming document that's going to be going to the board for full approval on Tuesday. Our curriculum instruction and assessment committee has worked very hard on that. And what that has done is looked at what is the optimal class size for different grade levels. And so what is that span and use that as a target for making staffing decisions that's responsible and in alignment with state subsidy. And so as we've really dug in and looked at enrollment, we've made recommended changes to staffing in regular instruction. First, we believe we need a fifth first grade classroom, but at the same time, we have a decrease of four teaching positions in this budget. We have the reduction of a prek teacher, a kindergarten teacher, a third grade teacher, and a middle school ELA teacher. Those four positions were 100% decided because of enrollment. Most of our classes or grade levels now have four classrooms, not five. Um, third grade has had five and the enrollment

coming up over the next couple of years warrants four, not five. Um, and same thing with kindergarten registration. Our numbers right now say enrollment wise that we can do with four classrooms at that level. Um so with the addition of first grade, we do have a decrease of four positions at Ellsworth Elementary Middle School and a reduction of a prek edtech. As a reminder, however, we talked about this at the last presentation. We will still have four public preK classrooms. three will be at EMS and the fourth will be through anou at the Y at the Beachland Center. Um, so we will still have four public preK classrooms that are free for families, but they the fourth classroom will be run by the YMCA and they will staff that, which is why we were able to take that position out of the budget. In addition, as I've talked about the last couple of years, we have been in dire need of curriculum updates and we've really been working through a cycle of updating our different curriculum. So, this budget does have math curriculum grades 6 through 12. Um, as you know, we've done ELA, science, and foreign language the last couple of years, and based on our cycles that we go through, it is time for math. So, there is an additional um amount of money in the regular instruction line for new math curriculum materials. In the special education budget, some of our changes are continued tuition costs for private special purpose schools. We talked about this last time. Um, we have if a student's IEP calls for the least restrictive environment to be at a private purpose school, we do have to we

do pay the tuition costs for that. So, that continues to be included in our budget per law. Um, we also talked about last time that we have an addition of a main care billing and specialist. We think over time the revenue from this position that could be brought into the school system will more than pay for this. We're hoping it brings in additional revenue. So this is an expense in this cost center, but we've also put the salary of that person in the revenue side because all the different research we've done shows that that position's revenue brings in enough to offset the cost of that position. We also have the addition of a prek coordinator that is 50% funded from the state due to the new law for us to provide um special education services and case management for four year olds. For the FY28 budget, we will be responsible for that for threeyear-olds also. So this position is half through the state funding and half in our special education budget. And last year we had a very successful summer school program that actually blended together our special education programming and our regular education programming to provide equity for all students. And so that change is also in this budget as well. Career and Technical Education has its own cost center. That's Hancock County Technical Center. It also receives its own state subsidy, which is on the revenue side of the budget. And when we get to the revenue side, we'll talk a little bit about that. The three biggest changes to this cost center are the additions of two new programs. One is in partnership with the Ellsworth Fire

Department. Um, our fire department has worked really hard with our CTE program to receive a grant and we have I think we're up to 11 students enrolled in this program in the fall for firefighting one and the grant covers the cost of this. So that is exceptional in my opinion. It's a growing need in our area in Hancock County. Also, the addition of our cooperative program, we receive full funding for that through state subsidy for that program. So, we're really excited to be able to expand that for students. That program specifically helps place students in internships, apprenticeships, and to earn hours in the business community. It is also the first year of our first payment for the school revolving renovation fund. If you recall, um, we received over a million dollars last year. That's at 0% interest and a percentage of it the state pays for and we pay for the remainder of it. Um, and that payment starts um, this coming year. So, that is also in our budget for CTE. Other instruction is all of your co-curricular activities, athletics, and transportation costs associated for those programs. With the new teacher negotiated agreement that we reached, it is the step zero of the teacher scale that is used for the formula to determine stipens for coaches and co-curricular. Because that base salary went up, all of our stipens went up. So there is an increase in this line and as you know costs of everything are going up. So judges, referees, rentals, anything having to do with co-curricular contests and athletics has gone up. So we've allocated increases for that in this line. Also

student and staff support the it's a big change but not a big change fiscally. We do have money in the budget for K through 12 cell phone storage. Um, we did pass a new policy that starting in the 2627 school year, we will have a bell-to bell ban on cell phones in our schools. Um, if you've um listened to the state, it is getting more and more momentum. I believe it's going to get passed in legislature very soon that there will be a statewide ban um on cell phones in schools and so we won't be alone. And so part of handling this is having appropriate storage for cell phones. There is money in Governor Mill's supplemental budget right now to help offset the cost of that, but I do believe a a small portion of it may fall on us to fund. So there is a little less than $50,000 in the budget for cell phone storage at this time. System administration. One of the biggest things we talked about and that we're doing to move forward in our strategic plan is we're taking our current finance department structure and dividing it up into human resources and finance. Um, currently finance and human resources are blended and as you know with all the changes in laws for human resources, we've really been advised um that we need to make that shift and so we are making that shift for the FY 2627 school year. Um, and we do have an additional hourly employee for accounts payable in this budget for um, central office finance team. rising legal and audit costs. Our audit and our legal costs both have gone up and so we've increased those lines in

the budget as well. In our school administration cost center, there are no major substantive changes. We made major changes last year when we added the additional assistant principal at Ellsworth Elementary Middle School. That structure has worked and so we're keeping that structure the same moving forward. So there's no substantive changes um to that cost center at this time. For transportation, we do have the addition of one van driver in this budget. Um that's a part-time employee who helps us run students that are on either adjusted days or are in private school tuition students. We have to provide transportation for those students. So, we have vans that go to Bangor um several times a day and we do need to help cover that. We do need one additional van driver. So, that is in this budget as well. Facilities and maintenance. I'm really proud of the work we've done keeping up with our facilities and maintenance plan long term. But I will say, everybody knows heat, oil, gas, everything is on the rise. So, we do have um an increase in those costs in this budget as well, but that's the only major substantive change. Now, if you pull out this sheet, your debt service sheet, want to talk to you a little bit about the debt service side of the budget. This gives you a breakdown. you'll see that 2030 is going to be a big year for us. Um the EMS project will come off the books in 2030.

Um but going across the top, you'll see what each is for and then the amount of the loan and how long the loan is for. And then you'll see what our payments are to in total when you put them all together. The last two columns that say well three columns are FY27 budget. Those are our three new payments that will be coming in this new budget. So first tp phase 2 that's our tax exempt lease purchase that we did with EMC for energy efficiency projects. If you recall you approved that last year. That was for us to continue our work on lighting efficiency, roof projects, and our windows at Ellsworth High School to bring that building more up to code and safely. Those payments begin in the FY27 budget. Then the last two things are I spoke to you about at the last presentation. We are are going to lose our intercom system districtwide um very soon. If we can make it through this year, it would be great. Um that's going to come in at probably a total of anywhere from $700,000 to $900,000 to do an intercom system districtwide. rather than put that all in a budget and affect the taxpayers, we will go to bid, finance that over time. And so we've made an estimate at about 6% interest rate and we've put an approximate amount in this budget to start paying for that to try to get that done this summer and pay for that over time. And then the AV panels we spoke to you about in the FY26 budget. That's for our instructional

technology upgrade. If you recall last year, we put money in a reserve for this project and we put $125,000 in our budget hoping that we would get the Federal R grant, which we did not. and it required us to apply for the grant to have a third of the project in the budget. So, what we would propose is take the $125,000 that was budgeted in FY26, move that into the reserve that's already established for this project and use that for a down payment on the project and finance the rest. By doing it this way, the project itself is actually going to cost us less because we would be doing it in bulk and doing it all at once across the district. What that does is it provides equity for all of our teachers and provides an instructional upgrade and gives us the technology that our students really need to be learning how to use. Um, now we're very behind. We have some instructional technology in classrooms that are so old we can't buy the bulbs for the projectors anymore. That's how old they are. So that payment is in the FY27 budget. Also, Avery Lane, our first payment, as you'll see, comes up. Um, we paid interest this year, but our first payment towards debt service starts in the FY27 budget. The school board did a loan over 20 years where our payments, we pay high payments to start and then come down over time. But we thought it was important for you to see an approximation of what our debt would be um for the FY27 budget. And like I said, you'll see starting in 2030, we're going to be able to breathe a little bit um as long as we don't have

any other major major costs come in. But EMS comes off the books in 2030. So we're we're getting closer and closer. Amy, yes. Question. One is are there any So these are the three new FY27 the three new proposed what you just discussed the last three columns. We've already approved phase 2. Okay. That was a year ago. You vote the council voted for that.

So it's just the last. It's just the last two and those won't have to come to you for bonding or payment. It'll be financed through the school department. You won't have to do that. Um, but we thought it was important for you to see that we're accomplishing two really big projects in this budget and this is how we felt was most fiscally responsible for us to do. I would say um Nikki makes a good point for both the intercoms and the AV panels. Those two things are huge components of our strategic plan. So the intercom system is 100% student and staff safety. Um we need to be able to have a communication system districtwide that taps into our radios and other things so that we can communicate quickly and efficiently when things happen. Um whether they're minor or major um escalations. And then the instructional technology is huge for recruitment and retention. It is really hard on teachers when the instructional equipment in their classrooms doesn't work. It's very frustrating to them and it's very frustrating to our IT department and for us as we try to provide increased academic learning for students. Our students need access to some of the interactive technology that they will see at the post-secary level and at the business level. and we currently in most classrooms do not have what we should. And so these two projects really are pinpointed strategic plan items um that we've put in our budget for this year.

Something for you um was just the the track um and maybe adding a pencil in. Yes, we might want to do 35. We can lower that through the capital campaign hopefully. Yep. Put a no interestonly payment in there. I did not add it to this. Yes. So, we have an interest payment in the budget, she just said. Um, so that the track project is in our overall budget, but we haven't added it to this yet until we've seen the final figures. And I don't think that it would hit on the bond debt service until 20 FY28. Yeah. An interest payment in next May. Y

I think I think there's about 5,000. And you can see the difference on the debt service line compared to what's on this debt sheet. I just the green this is already pretty tiny. So I didn't Yeah.

All right. All other expenditures if we go forward there are two things for you to look at on this. There's no substantial changes in food service, but we did I sometimes feel badly. Food service and adult education are two really important departments that serve our community. And so sometimes we glaze over them because they don't always impact the budget as much as some of the big ticket things are, but they are very important. So I wanted to make sure we talked a little bit about food service. So, as you know, in the state of Maine, all students receive what is to them free breakfast and lunch. Not necessarily free for us. Um, but it is free for all students to eat breakfast and lunch on a daily basis, which has been a wonderful change. Um, in your four-page packet, you also have you have it a couple places. You have it in this handout and then you also have it on the slide. So what you will see is your expenses and your revenue for food service equal each other. Greg has worked really really hard on our food service department both to increase the quality of what we offer students but also to try to keep costs down because it does cost us money even though it's free for students. And so we are looking to apply 60,000 of um fund balance from the food service program towards this to help offset costs um to make it uh neutral. And then if you look at adult education, adult education is very very important to our community for a variety of reasons. Not just because it provides

enrichment, but I think one of the most important things they do is they help with graduation for students who maybe have dropped out and they also very much help with workforce development in our area and workforce training. So, I think the services that they provide is invaluable. A lot of school departments do not have an adult education department anymore. Several do, but a lot don't. I'm very proud that the city offers this program. Um, and you'll see that for this it's the same thing. Expenses and revenues need to total each other out. And we are taking $100,000 of fund balance from the adult education line to help offset costs. What I will say that sometimes gets confusing is enrichment is a different fund. So the enrichment classes that adult education offers, it has to pay for itself. So she can't run classes that end up putting us at a negative. So everything has to kind of balance out um for adult education. So in looking at our fixed costs, so 90% of our school department budget are fixed costs, expenses that are essential and largely predetermined. Whether that be salaries and benefits that are determined through collective bargaining agreements, whether it's lights, heat, electricity, you have to have those things to run your school. So fixed costs for us are at about 90% of our budget and then a little under 10% is um the variable that we people can say we can play with. So when we looked at how did we reduce

the budget from last time to this time there's a lot of different things that went into this. This was really hard for us to go from 13% to 7.8. Um, lot of stress and anxiety on employees, I would say. Um, knowing that we were looking at staffing very closely and in what would best move us forward, we did do a complete audit of class sizes and enrollment. We look at it every year, but this year we made some hard decisions that were uncomfortable and hard for people. We also negotiated a competitive teachers contract that I'm really proud of that raises the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000. Um that makes us competitive with other districts in the county. We were behind, if you can believe it. Um we were behind other districts in the county before this negotiated agreement. We really worked hard to preserve core instructional practices for students when we looked at this. Really moved forward in our strategic plan both for facilities, for athletic fields, for our curriculum upgrades. And so we had to balance needing to make those changes with also trying to cut the budget and get it down lower. If we were to go much further down in our budget, it would most definitely probably be loss of additional positions and then some other hard programmatic decisions for us. Some of the investments and strategic adjustments, I've talked a little bit about this. We really used our strategic plan goals to try to help us make these hard decisions. Um the three biggest being improved academic learning for

students, recruitment and retention of all staff, not just teachers, but all of our staff. And then the safety um of our students and staff, not just physical safety, but emotional um also just the whole round wholeness of a student. Um, as I talked about last time, our e economically disadvantaged population has skyrocketed from last year to this year, which helped us a little bit. It did give us more subsidy, but it does paint a picture. Um, we have almost I think we're at over 60 students that are currently homeless um in our school department. Um we have a very challenging complex school department right now that we are trying to manage and service and so really trying to keep the whole child in mind when making some of these um decisions for our budget and I would say just trying to balance phasing in updates and improvements because if our school department doesn't say ab stay a breast in curriculum and in technology ology and in offerings. We want people to move here. We want people to send their students to our schools and be proud of our school department. So, really trying to keep highquality education at the center of all that we do while balancing um what we know the taxpayers need. If we look at changes in FY25 per pupil, so we've looked at this the last couple of years and we do have the updated FY25 per pupil rates that the state released. So if you'll see the state average is your first bar graph at $21,700. That's the statewide average for per

pupil expenditures. Ellsworth is at 19,535 currently, which kind of puts us in the middle of this group. What we've done is put some of Hancock County on here. So, you can see our rates comparatively, but Brewer and Scow Heaggan are somewhat similar in size. Brewer is very comparative to us sizewise. Um, so that you can see where we are. We have moved that needle up the last couple of years. If you recall, we were really, really low. Three years ago, we have moved the needle a little bit, which sometimes people don't understand. When your per pupil expenditures go up, your state rate for tuition goes up. So, this is what helps the state determine how much we're allowed to charge for tuition. And so, as this goes up, what we can charge for tuition goes up. So at Ellsworth High School, when our tuition goes up for sending towns that have choice to send their students, we can charge more, which shows on the revenue side for our budget.

So that's something that sometimes people don't understand. So we feel like we're making slow gains in this um but felt like it was important. We've talked about this the last couple of years. We wanted you to see where we were comparatively this year as well. The next slide paints the picture of our budget over time and we look at this each year and each year I am amazed. So the top chart shows you budget to budget what our percentage increases have been since 2017. Our average budgettobudget increase has only been 5.3%. Which is kind of crazy. And so if we hadn't had the 2025 11% it would be much lower. Then if you look at the local allocation percentage increase over time it's even lower. Our average increase since 2017 to taxpayers has been only 4%. And so I know that people have been very frustrated, especially the year we really went high, but the problem is because we were so flat for so long, it really hurt us long term. It really did. Um, so now we feel like we're stabilizing a little bit. We went low last year with rising costs. If we did that again, it if we had to drop that low again, it would be really hard on the school department. Um, so 4% overtime local appropriation.

If we talk a little bit about fund balance and our reserves. So, if you go back to the version three sheet, I'd like to talk a little bit about the bottom half so that you all understand kind of what some of this means and people at home understand also. So, the bottom half is the revenue side of the budget, the mill rate expectation and additional local, those numbers come from subsidy. Okay? So that's given to us from the state general fund balance forward. So every year we talk a little bit about this for this budget. We feel comfortable putting 1.6 of fund balance towards this budget again. Um that leaves us at approximately 6% of fund balance. They recommend 6 to 9%. So, we're getting close, but we feel okay staying at 6% of fund balance. So, we have 1.6 going towards this budget. CTE has its own fund balance and so we have put 135,000 of their fund balance towards this budget. We calculate an increase in tu tuition for next year. That's because our tuition rates have gone up and we have larger classes coming in for the fall. I think that will start dropping in the next couple of years cuz our EMS enrollment is is dropping a little bit. So, I would expect that to change in a couple of years, but for the FY27 budget, we do believe we'll have an increase in revenue. CTE assessment. What that is is because other districts send students to Hancock County

Technical Center, there is a commitment from all of the other school districts to pay a per pupil cost to help offset the city of Ellsworth's cost of running that school. So what happens is we take our budgeted amount subtract how much we get for subsidy. That variance is divided per pupil and every district pays the difference for their number of students. Our enrollment at HCTC continues to go up up. We're at I think 340 341 last I checked this afternoon for the fall which is insane. It's awesome. Um, and so we project an increase in revenue on the CTE side because of students continuing to choose to come to HCTC. Then we have our food service allocation local match and the revenue side. The rest of the EM payments for debt service. So those are expenses. And on the revenue side for the EM debt service, our state subsidy allocation is at 8.5. Our state subsidy did go up by about $400,000 predominantly because of the rise in economically disadvantaged and preK students. Our state CTE allocation also went up by $200,000. So that amount also helps offset the budget. And then our miscellaneous revenue has also increased and that brings us to the grand total on the very bottom for local appropriation at 7.85% to taxpayers. Something that you don't have on here

that I do want to talk to you a little bit about is next Thursday when we come for full approval of the budget, we are also going to be requesting that approximately $275,000 be dispersed between a variety of reserve accounts. Um, this is fund balance that we would like to specifically allocate to different reserve accounts. And I'm happy to talk to you a little bit about what each of those are. We'd like to put $15,000 into Hancock County Technical Cent's minor capital reserve account. That currently um is at $100,000. We'd like to add $15,000 to that account because there are a lot of capital projects that need to be done at HCTC. We believe this is a fiscally responsible way to do that. In special education, we would like to add $25,000 to that reserve account. If one student moves into our city or has a meeting that places them at a private purpose school, that's $100,000 of tuition money approximately. And so rather than try to guess and plan for students, um most school departments keep a hefty special education reserve account to help offset those costs when those things happen. So, we'd like to continue building that up a little bit and add $25,000. We'd like to add $25,000 to the student transportation reserve so that we can offset any sudden jumps in fuel. Um, we have seen major jumps in that or any other transportation repairs that we might need that are emergency. For facilities, we'd like to add $75,000 to this account. We currently do not

have a facilities reserve account. Um, we would like to create a reserve account for emergencies in our buildings. The high school and Hancock County Technical Center, especially Hancock County Technical Center, are older. And believe it or not, the high school is starting to have some significant wear and tear. And so, we'd like to be planful and mindful of those things without having to put major major projects into the budget. And so we would like to start that facility's account and add 75,000. Currently we have $125,000 in the FY26 budget for the AV panel because we don't have full approval of the FY27 budget yet. We would like to put that amount into that reserve account because that's what it was in the FY26 budget for. And so we'd like to move that money from that line into this reserve account. Um we already had $100,000 earmarked for this project and we had put $125,000 in the FY26 budget for that. Because we didn't piece meal it together because we want to do it as one project, we'd like to take that budgeted amount and put it directly into that reserve so that we can then use it as a down payment on the project. And then last but not least, um we'd like to put $10,000 into food service. We have significant equipment repairs and replacements that are going to start coming up in our food service department and those have to be outside of other cost centers. They have to stay in the food service cost center. And so we'd like to put $10,000 in a reserve to start building savings to make those repairs and purchases when the time comes. The FY27 budget

is a budget that we're actually super proud of. We feel like we're able to achieve a lot of things that we wanted to achieve in our strategic plan that were action steps for year one, but we also feel like we are preserving key programs and maintaining um a fair budget for taxpayers. We feel like we reduced um things and made some really hard decisions with this budget to try to keep taxpayers in mind. We were really thoughtful and planful in what we did with this budget. We believe it's really fiscally responsible but maintains highquality programming for our students. So questions and comments and then of course what we hope is that by the end of our discussion the board and I um have an idea of if there is any work that needs to be done between now and Tuesday. As you know, um we have the special meeting next Thursday because that was the drop dead date for us to have the final council vote in order for us to get the ballots voted for the June referendum, which we have to hold by law. Um so that's why we are on the timeline that we're on. So, hoping tonight to get feedback from the council so that the board can vote on the full budget um Tuesday night.

Great. Thank you, counselors. Any questions or feedback um you'd like to provide to Amy or the school department? We need time to digest numbers. do your homework.

I'm happy just to kind of give just a little zoom out as well. Um, and just huge thanks to Amy and her entire team, their credit to the city. Um, this whole budget process came from 13 to 7.85. I could say, you know, we penciled them in in the overview in your budget books at 8%. So, I'll work with our teams and knock that down um to 785. So, that'll help out um uh on that side of things. Um the city's at 7.3% increase over the previous year. Um so the school budget at 8% or 7.85% increase around 16 384 out of the local appropriation. The city side currently at 7.3% uh 11.8 million of the local appropriation. And then the county tax is up 9.9% up uh at 821,000. So that's your your full mix of blended between the three. We don't have any control over the county one at the 9.9%. That one is what it is. Um but you know I think for me you know I did a lot of research on our budgets and other cities and towns coming in here and um I think Amy's slide at the end here. This one kind of tells the whole story. Um that one and this one I think as well. I know when I started here three years ago and Amy was making her presentations like you could see the effect that this the fact that in FY21 they went net negative.9 FY22 they went net negative 2% and then in FY23.93%. Like that is remarkable for two reasons. One is just uh like that's such an underinvestment in your schools. And the second piece is those are the three highest inflationary years since the 1970s. Um so how in the world Do you underinvest in your city to for three consecutive years during the high like did did Ellsworth beat inflation? there the cost of things not going up

and the answer is there was you know a pretty significant underinvestment in our education system um which had a temporary effect to keep the tax rates lower those years but you see that big spike um that uh the year before I arrived in 24 you know the there's been a remarkable decrease in the rate of increase and you can see that kind of blue line getting back to you know um and in those other areas we're still under the statewide average um I know in looking a lot of other school increases this year too which aren't final for FY26, they're way bigger than this. Um so, uh the city, especially not being in that RSU system where you don't have as much control over it, the fact that you can see how much this team takes pride and care and fiscal responsibility to get to this point is is really a credit to all the work they did. So,

thank you, Charlie. Councelor Smith,

thank you. This has been really helpful. I appreciate especially not having to do this all in one night, getting that that first look and then um this is laid out really uh in a helpful manner for those of us that only look at it a couple of times versus the um staff and the board that live with it. The one thing I'm not seeing here that I would love to know is just trends in overall enrollment. You mentioned specific class sizes but not and then you mentioned um for Hancock County the number but um what are the trends that you're seeing and maybe by the elementary middle and by high school just

Yep. We had that um in the last presentation. Nikki's going to see if she can pull it up. I don't know if It's definitely in the schoolboard one.

Not that one. Yeah. You're okay.

Yeah, there it is. So, this was one of the slides last time. Um, and so you can see overall I actually can't see. You can't see. Okay. So in 2324 overall we were at 1260 students and then it was 1236 and then this year 1242 and if you look specifically at Ellsworth Elementary Middle School in 2324 we were at 734

724 and then 736. But this year we have four public preK classrooms. So with the additional last year we had two, this year we have four. And so with those additional students, you can see if you take that population out, we've we've gone down enrollment wise at the elementary and middle school. And then at the high school, we were at 526 in 2324, 512 and 2425. and in 2526506. And then if you show the next slide. So Hancock County Technical C Center's enrollment is not included in the ESD enrollment, but in 2324 we were at 251. In 2425 we're at 264 and this year 312

paints this paints a picture and um with Hancock County superintendent they were all saying oh boy because some of their sending high schools the number of students they're going to send to us has skyrocketed. So students are really looking for um workforce development, career education, those kinds of things. So the firefighting program and cooperative education are certainly assisting with that. So our enrollment has declined over the last couple of years overall, but not by I I'm not going to try to do percentages in my head on a Thursday night, but Oh, go give it a try.

You'll thank you. But um decimals matter. Um I would also note Amy and I were kind of discussing this on this trend. You know this is hard to square with some other statistics for Ellsworth which I find interesting which is we're the fastest growing city in population trying to reconcile 36.7%. I just um did a ton of the math on this back to 2000 to 2024. Um May is when the local uh CPS estimates come out. So we'll find out what happened in 25. That's 26% higher than the main average. It's on three and a half times higher than the main average. Um, of what? Of the main average. And it also trends a little younger.

What number? Of of It went from 6,456. I don't want the numbers. What are these numbers of? What are you counting? The total ma the main population, okay, as a whole is about 10% growth between 20 uh 2000 and 2020. Um, yep. Um the the the population of Ellsworth goes is up 36.7%. Um so 26% and that's three and a half times higher than the main average 3.6. Well, it's fascinating that that's not reflected in our No. And there's a lot of new housing permits there's a lot of uh so is it that's again what's your mix? Is it retirees that are coming in here that aren't saying but also or is it like a you know

I think it's a mix. I think it's retirements moving, but I also think more and more families are choosing homeschooling as an option. Yeah. Yeah. To be transparent, I think that I think it's a I think it's a double double piece of it.

I think there's another piece too when it's we just had that workforce housing and like year- round housing. How can we encourage that? um you know as as it if the mix becomes too heavy on the Airbnb side, the retiree side, close to Aadia side, that's not great news for our um for a school system in terms of um growth. If it's on the other side, you know, not just good for the school system, good for our downtown business owners year round, good for the whole, you know, environment. And I I would say that's one of the reasons why we're really trying to be innovative and think differently about education and really try to be responsive. Students want different things than they did 5 years ago. And so if you recall a couple years ago, we started First Academy. So families that want more remote learning, we have that option now. Um trying to keep up with instructional technology, keeping up with our math curriculum. If you recall, one of the textbooks we asked you to replace two years ago in our budget was over a decade old. Like, you cannot do that and have a high quality school system. So, we want to try to get some of those homeschool families to come back to the school system as so that's why we're trying to evolve and change. That's one of the reasons why we feel like this budget, we're proud of it, is we feel like it does both. We feel like it's responsive to the needs of our community but also is responsible in cost.

What's the status of open access book open access textbooks for K through 12? What do you mean by open access, Carol? Um, they are created by educators. They are digitized. They are online. They're free. Yeah. Do you want to talk to it?

Yeah, I can speak to that. So there are many programs um in science for example, math or reading that are open access. Um the issue with most of them is that it's the curriculum is is open access but it's just simply like the teacher side of it. And so again, when we're trying to engage with student materials, almost all of those companies or th those programs have product that you can buy because kids do want to interact with science journals and notebooks and teachers actually do want to have a physical teacher copy to look through rather than just scroll through, you know, finding it online on that free site. Um so that also in comparison with looking at ratings, you know, the curriculum that we utilize or have to utilize um in order to meet federal regulations

needs to meet specific ratings, you know, green ratings that have high stars and high high ratings on many different criteria. Yeah. And some of those open access do meet that and some of them don't. So when we go through our review process we do look at them and certainly every single time we do look at the fiscal impact right now you know we are looking we're you know narrowed down to two math programs for example and the fiscal impact is important for us to decide upon but in the end we usually make the decision based upon the physical materials that kids will interact with the digital materials that kids will interact with um and you know the ratings and and how our teachers will be able to provide that

because this is a technology they're going to encounter absolutely in secondary school I don't my students don't buy any textbooks anymore right and so mo now most curriculum you know we buy we buy a classroom set of textbooks for example um so instead of buying 150 geometry books we buy 30 for that classroom they use them in class and they don't take them home um but then we do have to buy 130 student licenses and though we pay for that fee um on a yearly basis because they do access that for their personal license and we use it in the classroom and at home.

Okay, I have to say it. Go ahead. Okay. Um, I understand that this isn't open for discussion, so I'm just going on the record here that $50,000 a year is below the uh below 80% of the average median income in Hancock County and technically qualifies our new teachers if they are in a single household family for section 8. Amen. Amen. And they earn that $50,000 in about the first hour and a half. I think that's I'm not pleased. Just on record,

any other questions or comments? Councelor Allerin, you've explained this to me before and I'm not sure that I understand it. You've got a proposed $34.7 million budget total cost, correct? Yep.

Okay. And the total ask for Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth is around half of that. Fair number. So, how many students are you expecting for this budget year? I would guesstimate I think we were at 12 approximately 12 mentioned 1242 last year.

Yeah, I would say probably right around there to be honest with you. Maybe a little bit higher. 1250 or something like that. Okay. So, yeah, when you do that math, it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 27,000 and change per student. Okay. That and I realize that that's fixed and variable cost.

Yeah, for sure. Tell me what the town of Le Moine is going to pay Ellsworth to send a student here for high school. The tuition $15,000 just over $15,000 right now. Okay. And the theory behind that is what if if our costs are 27,000 a person um in this coming year

and you're going to collect 15,000. Is that because that's the local appropriations? No, it's because that is what the state says we may collect per pupil.

So they look at your school expenditures, your per pupil expenditures for the prior year. And so career and technical education, some of those things that are in this budget don't go into that calculation. And so it's apples and grapes to be honest. Um because a Le Moine student who attends Ellsworth High School, it's not factoring in your pre-K to 8 school, your CTE school, and those things aren't included in that per pupil cost.

So if you take that number of local appropriations per student, it comes out to 133. And if you're collecting 15, it would seem that that would be a contribution to the local appropriations, not a debit, if you will, or a debt to you. But when you throw the whole number in there and take out the state funding, it's pretty big number. And I just wanted to understand that again. So,

yep. In a nutshell, you know, at the 34.7 million, the cost per student is 27,000 and change, and you're collecting 15 from another town. That just seems like a burden on Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth. But when you take just what we're asking for from Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth, it seems like there's a contribution correct to that process. And I struggle with both of those things because

I'm guessing that, and correct me if I'm wrong, um, some of the 34.7 million has to go into that number. It seems like that the city of Ellsworth because they're a service center. I'm not saying you can do anything about it, but when you start playing with these numbers, it seems like every student that comes from Otus is costing Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth money when you get right down to brass tax. Um, something that you might find very interesting is there is a page on the DOE website uh that outlines how the state develops the tuition rates, what goes into

I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is well, no, the point that I'm trying to make though is that what isn't going in there are things like the cost of heating a building, right? And the cost of heating a building is going to be there regardless of the number of students that you have attending. So the more students that we bring in that bring in revenue, it's offsetting these costs. So it's helping the Ellsworth taxpayers. Fixed cost. Yes. And you're looking at heating a building as a fixed cost. Yes. It's it's just

worth conversation because it it just just doesn't seem if you really dive into the weeds and there's nothing we can do about it, but it seems that

since I've been here that this cost per student thing is troubling when you're educating another town's student and I have to think that's costing us a little money. It could be, Steve, if you get right down to nickels and dimes. But what I would say is the well-roundedness it's it brings to our high school and the types of things that we're able to do. Um, because of the size that we are, I think outweighs the cost to be honest with you. Um, I think it's a source of pride to be able to say that when our high school goes on the road and goes to the towns and recruits that people are choosing us because of what we offer and the value added. Um, so I I understand everything comes with costs. Um, but to me looking at what we provide and the value added those communities partnering with us bring is a bonus for our community overall.

There's nothing we can do about it if it wasn't. True. And I do feel like there's not we are doing something right. I just got some data from Hanok and Le Moine and because of the eighth grade road shows it it seems like something like 85 to 90% of those students are picking Ellsworth which in the past they had picked MDI John Bass or other schools. So there's a large majority of students who are picking our school district for a reason because we are um attracting them in a good way. Yep.

Yeah. I want to add one thing to I think reinforce this value. Um, you know, I work statewide and there are communities that are busting at the seams and they've got a lot of more their population is growing. There are other communities that actually will say sometimes into a microphone, we don't actually want more students because we don't want to pay for that. And if you're looking at it longer term, there are people who are in this building several times a month in this room because they are passionate about the town they grew up in. And if we don't have students who are connected to Ellsworth, whether they live here or live in Le Moine and Ellsworth High School is their high school, they are not going to be passionate about this city 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And if we want that same connection and the people who are willing to serve here, it's people oftenimes who grew up here and care. Sometimes it's people who didn't grow up here and still love it. But it's that con intergenerational connection that we are building with the schools and with the other things that we offer that makes Ellsworth not just a great place for the families now, but the kids who grow up here are going to be even if they live here or not, they're going to love this place and invest their time in it. that comes with an outstanding school system and with the parks and wreck and the other things that we bring where people are going to remember their childhoods here and will be committed to it. So there's that's how do you put a dollar value on that and I don't think it's counter to what Steve is saying. I think it reinforces

that there are these values of people feeling truly feeling connected to the community and we'll see it in decades to come. So, it's another reason to make these investments while other communities are saying we don't really want families here. We are com they're literally a community saying we actually prefer to be a retirement community because um it's just better for us right now. Yeah. Without looking at the future. So, I think it reinforces the hard work you all have done towards this budget and that we've done in listening and trying to understand where the numbers are coming from. So, wanted to add that to the conversation. That's a good point. Go Eagles.

Any other questions or comments for Amy and the department? I'll just say I support this budget and thank you very much for the hard work you've done and I look forward to voting to support it. Thank you. And if we adjourn before 7:30, then councelor O'Halerin wins the I lost the 10 minutes. I said 7:40. He said 7:30. You could have a singleong or something, but we could. Yeah, we could. If you'd like to lead, that would be awesome. I'm going to table that motion. Councelor Shay,

the um something that you probably could look at is alternative options on transportation because the cost of maintaining the vehicles, specifically the big yellow ones. And there's a lot of requirements to

certifying the drivers, maintaining the records. that's all rolled into that. Um, and then on top of that, the the additional equipment that probably will eventually come down from, you know, Augusta is saying that here I have the swing arms installed and this that and then the the maintenance of them and and putting them in a location. You see what I mean? I do.

Um there could be other ways like u soling to find out what contracted services could be done. it it it's a lot of work to maintain those vehicles and it's a lot of work and I I'm not saying our drivers are not the best. They really are. Oh, I know. We got great people. But um several people pointed out to me is we should be in the business of education, educating

if only so simple. Oh, you know, transportation. Yeah. But, you know, um there are there might be a chance to look into it to explore that. You know what I mean? Um, so because the price of fuel and the price of the vehicles are going to go up and it's not going to make any difference whether we go with electric ones or we go with diesels or we

you know they haven't come out with one that just rides on air free air but I do know from my experience round big stuff that road drives on the roads you know what I Yeah. So, are there nuclearpowered buses? No, light rail transportation. I I would like to see it ride on just plain air. Those roller buses look very similar to the ones back when dirt was young. Nobody's come up with anything better.

I just like I said, Well, I'd like to see more going to educating the young people. Got to get them there first, Pat. I'm I'm with you on that. I think teachers need to be compensated. They, you know, they had to A lot of them had to put up with me. I We'll just pray that Google and all these other companies will figure out the automated blankety blank. Seems like that may be 350 years from now or next week um if AI gets a hold of it. So, um, is there any other questions for council or for the school before I do kind of just a little wrap-up of next week? We're good to go. Um, so just I want to note next week we have the just to reiterate at 5:30 we'll do um

follow sorry next Thursday um pending the school board's uh ratification of this budget and we'll have the 5:30 special on the ratification the council of this budget as well which will lock the school budget into a referendum on whether the community also supports that budget at the um uh at the next election cycle which will also include the primary elections. So, I think it should be a robust uh turnout um on that piece. And then next Thursday, following the uh the the budget vote and then the uh the fire truck potential vote, uh we have the recreation department, the facilities department, which is in the police department, dispatch, fire, public fire protection. Then we also have human resources and employee benefits. I may look to if uh depending on the will of the council, that's going to be a potentially long night. Um uh police, uh dispatch, fire, recreation, those are probably our three largest increase categories. You're looking at an increase of 600,000 for the public safety side of things. Um you know, a couple hundred thousand in the recreation side of things. And that's with no new staffing increases. Uh I think it really takes it's going to take a decent amount of time. You add employee benefits onto that. Again, that's actually net negative two. We're down one on the general government side with not backflowing in the the code area this year and um one in the public works side as well. We're still up half a million dollars on benefits. And I was talking to Carrie a long time today about some of the reasons for that. So, that's a lot of budget increases to do in one night. So, if if the council is okay, I might push HR and um which is going to be a easy one. That's just for the departmental budget. And then the employee benefits which HR oversees. That's the big uh half a million dollar increase that you know is uh unless we want to start opening up ordinances and reducing benefits for employees um uh and on the flip side collective

bargaining increases which we can't do. These are these are very difficult costs and needed probably a lot to explain. So I'll probably push out that to the next cycle. I did leave um and you all have this and it's also online the full schedule. I left about three weeks between when we technically finished this budget and um the vote in May. So I may just add another another one week and pull some of these things out just to give us a little more time. It seems like I know these are operational budgets. We already did the new stuff so that we should go quicker through these than we have done in the past. But um I think I might just add one more that last week in April, one more Thursday just to give us a better chance. And if we need one more in May or two more in May before the meeting, we can add those as well. But I think that'll just give a little more space to to consider some of those increases.

Charlie, in addition to all the budget work, what is on the agenda for the workshop this coming Monday? Just regular Yeah, I was going to send that out after this. Um Sure. I'll pull it up. if the agenda is coming out. I just I don't see anything.

Um right here we have uh logo presentation update from Amy. Uh and I know the uh I think that the the library is going to be launching their logo on April 20th. We probably won't be that soon, but there'll be kind of a final final look at that. Uh the firetruck with Scott, that's we really want to spend because that's a potential vote on Thursday. Spend a lot of time on that one. Um and uh the comprehensive ordinance project update from Danielle. We've already heard from her at one workshop. Um and again there's nothing there's a big ordinance change. I know last time around it seemed like we're doing this workshop. Here's the ordinance changes and if you don't speak now like all the ordinance like this is this is a phased out project. So be an update there. A procurement policy update from uh from myself. Uh we had a really great meeting on just the open gov the new procurement system that we're launching. We've actually already um are posting some in the system. So, I'll update. But, as we talked about at the last council meeting, there's some some larger policy issues that uh are coming up that I'd really like a little more input on from the council on how they want to see their procurement processes go. So, that one could take a bit. Uh Demire Field updates for myself. I just said there's um a new playground project over there that are great. Rotary groups are doing kind of phase two. It's awesome stuff. So, let's give you a quick update. Um, you know, the city technically owns that property, but the Rotary sort of um was instrumental in its founding as an area and have been great at upkeeping it over all these years. One of the things that makes Ellsworth just so awesome is to have active roties. I think we have two. We have like a noon time evening one um the noon time one or I can't remember vice versa is also doing like a grant project too at a separate they're just we're so lucky to have those groups and then we'll review the April council agenda which will be a large agenda um for April and I'll be I'm going to be remote in on that one. It's school vacation

week and I have a um a family vacation out out of state but so Sarah will be in this chair um but I'll be zooming in to um talk on that one too. So great. Cool. Thank you. Appreciate that. No problem. There's going to be any offering for public comment. If there was any public comment, be happy to. Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for potentially um approving this um because we have worked really hard and I feel like our um team has put a lot of effort. We started last year knowing that negotiations were going to be

um for teachers were going to be a big increase in this. So everybody really paid close attention and didn't have too many um wishes and wants, you know, in this. So what we've added for the extras really are necessary. They're not um just things that we want to have. It's really more of needs. So thank you for your time and listening to us with this presentation. Great. Thanks for all your hard work. Yes, you guys. Thank you. It's hard time, not easy. All right. Anyone else? All right. Well, thank you all. Thank you. Thank you everyone.