School Committee - Grafton Public Schools - Regular Meeting

Okay. Uh Jay, we're good to move or Laura, we're good to move. Okay. Good evening everybody and welcome to the Grafton School Committee 2026 budget hearing. Uh welcome. We have a nice room full of folks and maybe some folks online. Um, so we'll open it up to questions and comments.

Okay. I'm not 100% but I have everything. Oh, no. There are there's 11 participants. Is anybody raising their hand? This is just for questions. Correct. Hi friends on Zoom. I know them all. Nobody has their hand. Nobody has their hand up, but it's nice to see them. I got it now.

Okay. Come on. might be better. I wonder what I could do as a fit to a budget hearing. I could give my eight slides over into FY27. you could vote on in that session, but it will certainly rather than staring at each other. We cover some ground if any of the members have questions. Kathine and I could regular meeting carry over questions. open it. But if not, what would you say?

What do folks think is you may have missed that, but um Dr. Cummings was saying he could maybe since there's no one asking questions, we could he could at least present to us, we could ask start asking our questions and if folks come to speak.

Hi, happy to see you. I didn't realize it was. It wasn't a snicker. Never a I said, "Oh, we have newcomers who might want to ask questions." And it was you. It was you. Do you ready for them? I mean, I don't think it hurts to Well, you were going to do the presentation at seven. Is that correct? So, you're just trying to utilize our time. saying if we got to sit here for 25 minutes I think and folks may have questions if we did jump in it's still within the context of I think I'm fine with that

you couldn't even vote during it you'd have to start at 7 o'clock we'd have to switch to the others anyhow yep totally up to you it may generate some questions so I say let's do it all right are we supposed to vote on it during the session though no this is really for the Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, then you're just going to have to monitor for questions. Ji, recording in progress. I'd like to record it so we have a copy of it on our in our file.

Oh, I thought it already required. Okay. Yeah,

give it back. That's fine. Yeah, that's not working.

Okay. All right. Since uh we don't at this time have any in-person or online questions, the thinking was instead of just sitting and waiting for 25 minutes that we would go ahead go through the few slides that we put together for the FY207 budget. Um

point of order. I have a question. Yes. Because people might tune in at seven wanting to hear this. Are we preempting that preempting and it's going to be really quick. We could definitely do I think not I'll speak to the slides. Not that everybody's been here for every meeting, but a lot of the slides have been gone over since September. Yeah, I think I would ask that we just do it again, but this may spark question. So, perfect. But good point.

All right. So since February 10th, uh we have worked to decrease that preliminary budget request and we we did so to about uh just over $59,000 bringing the new total at 27 requests to 50,458,513. I had a meeting with Evan Brousard, the town administrator. I won't go into I'll we discussed um some override scenario requests that came out of the last select board meeting and I'll speak to that at 7 o'clock. So as you well know the FY27 budget is barebones level service budget. Level service budget maintains the services and the staff that we provide this current year uh while obviously also accounting for cost increases. So the intention of the level service budget is to maintain that operational status quo. We are not with one exception not planning to backfill any of the reductions that we made last year for FY26. As you know, we reduced by 6 and a half FTE last year to help us get through this year. So, we had those reductions along with non-personnel reductions last year just to again get us through this year. Uh the one exception, we've got a placeholder for a human resource director that ideally we would be bringing back for FY27. We are also not going to fill any of the new requests for FY27. We had 6.5 FTE requested for next year. Um just to be as lean as possible, we did not include those in the FY27.

Central cost drivers. Uh this tune hasn't changed in quite a long time. Uh but sal the top three being salaries, out of district tuitions for special education and transportation this year or this coming year. Out of district tuition costs are just super high for us and for all other districts that I know of. That's just a becoming a big issue across the state. And then as I mentioned, we'd add back that HR position. So, in summary, we're not including the addition of any of the reduced positions. We're not replenishing savings. We're not including any of the requests for FY27. And we're not including anything above and beyond to make us better.

J. Yep. Can I just um folks have asked a couple times if those six and a half 6.5 FTEEs that we're not adding are in our 14 reduction and I want to be very clear that they aren't. Right. Correct. There is no so there are 14 real people who are currently working in the district plus we're not adding 6.5. That's right.

Okay. And then uh so just in summary, I've got we've got two slides that outline all of our major cost centers for salaries. We've got central administration instructional uh ner nurse and health services, athletics, essentially maintenance, custodial and retirement. So we have those cost centers with comments. We also lay out obviously the increase over the previous year. And then finally, we've got a summary here of cost centers for non-personnel. So we have all six of our schools, the all district lines. It's kind of self-explanatory, but anything that's really centralized, out of district tuition, technology, and then lastly, transportation. So in all an increase of 2 point uh $2.9 million or 6.2% over this past year that's all I have

just to clarify. So on the schools we um this summary right here where you say supplies and materials those also include the utilities for those buildings as well. Correct. Yes. Okay. Move this back over.

Our attendees have maybe some of them have questions.

Excuse me. Oh, wait. Somebody has their hand up. Oh, we have two questions from the audience. I'm going to go with Chantel Kimble first. So, Chantel, do you mind if I just state your name and address and you and make sure you unmute? Yeah, I think I just made her allowed to talk. Oh, now her hand is down. I'm going to move to Greg Maher. Okay. talking permitting.

Hello. Uh just far as it you're all you're very quiet, so if you could uh be a little bit closer to the mics when you're talking, that'd be easier. Um I do have a question about the recent changes. Uh do you have a summary of what's changed since the detailed budget was uh made available in December? I mean, we do we have a whole spreadsheet I can send you, Greg. But, um, we did have an adjustment to the tuition payments and we also adjusted contracted services for therapeutic that line. We also had some reductions in building and grounds department. Um, and we had about three lines change for salaries. So, I'm happy to share that with you. Okay, that's pretty reasonable. Uh, so the entire the change due to the increase in special education, was that about 1.2 million? Was that between the uh new students that moved into town during the year

since last school year? Are you are you asking? Yeah, that previously it said that there were some students that moved into town after July 1st and we had to pay. Is that the most of that increase or is there just special ed increases in general as well in that? That is the that is the bulk of it, Greg. Additional uh tuition payments associated with those students. Okay. Thank you. Um and Greg, I'm sorry. Can you state your name and address again for the record? I don't think you did that before you started talking.

Sure. Greg Maher, 36 Fairy Street. Uh I am a member of the finance committee but not speaking on behalf of the committee and I do have a child in the school for a few more months. Thank you. No need to uh clarify if you have child or not. We're all we serve all of you. But thank you, Greg. All right. I know I know I that had been asked in the past. I wasn't sure if it was still doing that. Thank you.

Yeah. I don't know, but that seemed okay. Thank you. All right. Um, now it looks like Chantel has her hand up again. So, Chantel, you are on. Thank you. Sorry about that last one. I I thought I was being efficient by putting my hand down after you called on me. Um, it's uh Shantel Kimell, five Bigalow Way. Um, I have two things I wanted to ask about. And I guess first I wanted to ask about this being a level services budget because with the positions that are not being reinstated, it kind of isn't feeling like level services. And I'm I'm just wondering um kind of why that is. For example, if I'm looking at losses of curriculum coordinators, math interventionists, reading specialists, it seems to me that we're not necessarily providing the same level of service that we were previously. Um, and I'm just wondering how we make that more transparent in an environment where people are are picking apart the school budget and accusing it of being inflated. Um, and then my second point is I don't know um where everyone who's watching is in terms of um they're following the budget process, the override process, what have you. Um, and I don't know if this was already done at the beginning cuz I was 3 minutes late. Um, but I feel like it might be helpful for anyone who watches later to explain what this budget is in the grand context of all of that and how it impacts um potential spending down the road, if that makes sense.

Thanks a lot, Chantel. Um you're absolutely correct. If you look big picture, obviously that this isn't a level service budget. Um it's level service in comparison to this current 2526 school year. Um because we made those reductions last year. So I think your point is a great one. I've been trying to make it and obviously haven't made it too awfully well. Uh in comparison to 2425 23 24 uh we are below level service but technically it's a level service budget for next year maintaining the status quo of what's pro provided in 2526. So I'll give that more thought as to how to illustrate that more effectively. Shantel, did that also address the second half of your question?

Um, not totally. Um, I guess just sort of big picture, my understanding is that this is sort of what we're going in and ask or what's being asked of the select board. And then from here they either say, "Okay, we acknowledge this is needed. We'll put an overhead on the ballot." Or they say, "Go back and give us a reduction budget." I just I I that's my understanding, but I'm not sure if that's accurate. Okay. I I think I I think I get it. Um and at the general meeting at 7 o'clock, I will uh do my best to speak to that.

Okay. All right. Next up, Amory Foley. Amory Foley, 45 Cell Street. Just wanted to see the slide. Um, there were two slides with the line items. I just wanted to see the first one again because it kind of went through quickly. If you don't mind,

hold on. and just specifically wanted to confirm that the teacher line item um ended up. Yeah. So instructional so that's all teachers contract co-ag etc is at 5.91% overall correct so close to 6%. Okay, thank you. Bear with me.

Oh, got it. Okay. All right. And Cherylyn Reno. You're up.

Cherylyn Reno, 89 Keith Hill Road. This is kind of a followup to Shantel's question, or more like Jay's answer to Shantel's question. I know you probably don't have the time to do this like in this month, but maybe as we're getting to potentially campaigning the town for an override. It would be interesting to see what say if we picked a benchmarking year say 2023 and had really funded a level services budget each year how much larger this are we our ask would be this year if we hadn't been making all those reductions all along.

Yes I can do that.

Awesome. Okay. I don't see any more questions. Oh, I do. I see a question. Colleen Roy, you are up. Pauline Roy 53 Elmo Street. I was just curious um does the school committee plan to take any action to send to the select board that they support an override for FY27? Thank you.

Yes, we do. Well, we'll talk about it. You know, I can't speak for how the committee is going to vote, but yes, it is up for discussion. I don't see any other questions, so I will ask a question. Um, Miss Foley's um question sparked something in me. Jay, so people look at that um number. I've heard a lot of chatter about 6% across the board. Can you just go into a little bit and I I can put it back on a little bit into what that all entails and what that means? The instructional Yes. budget line.

Yes, please. That doesn't just include teachers, that's Paris, that's guidance counselors, that's the subline that and it what we ended up doing since December is we went back and it was more position based budget. So the December budget I remember you all reviewing kind of had a 6% you remember that first budget. Well, this is now the salary is all position based as of a point in time. But I do want to make the point that it's not just teachers, it's instructional. So it's guidance counselors, psychologists, um, who else is in here? Principles.

Um, when they curriculum director,

the um curriculum and special ed director are included in the instructional as well. Okay. And I see too that there's additional special education and ELLL needs in there. So there are some, you know, sort of expansion of of services. It's not all right. Am I reading that notation correctly? Yes. Okay. Yep. Okay. I have another question that came in through the Q&A. Um this is from Cheryl and Reno again. Um, how much of the transportation increase is transporting kids to out of district placement?

That's a separate line, is that not? It is. Can you read the question again? How much of the transportation increase is transporting kids to out of district placement? So maybe another way to ask that is how much of our budget has gone up with transportation to out of district place? So, but it's two separate line items. our general transportation budget and our special education transportation budget.

So, we are in a contract with our big yellow bus and that's we did see that spike in 25 of 11% but now we're at a 6% increase. The other percentage is the special education transportation which can fluctuate. There's different transportation vendors and we had talked about early on how we were seeing increase increases as much as 50% remember some of those vendors. Um but it is a separate line. It is in here as a separate line. Is it the line transportation out of town? Is that the line? It was. And then there's also one um we do have ind district as well. Yeah. So if you add those

could be two line. Okay. We have graft and CPAC um coming up. So, if you could give your whoever is talking your your correct your your proper name. Um, we'll go from there. I'm so sorry. This is Nicole Press. I didn't realize I was logged in as

as the whole Nicole Press A took Circle Chair. Um, I just had a clarifying question because this was um a misinterpretation that was commented on quite a bit on um media. is the tuitioned in students from other districts that are utilizing our intensive needs programming. Um there was a I don't know if this is related to Greg Mar's question earlier but um is that something that's accounted for as part of the um funding adjustments because I know this for this time around it was covering a couple bonus um whether it be positions or activities or such but I wasn't sure if for the future budget if that money is in consideration or if it's just bonus

bonus It's it's it's not part of the it's um a separate program that we take in and it goes into a revolving account for the tuition and kids. The what um earlier I think we were talking about um what's appropriated in our budget for out of district placement. That's a budget line in the in our general budget. So those were students whose families moved to Grafton who are now at who are out of district. So we we accumulated those costs. Yes. Okay. But just there there was misperception that this bonus money we were getting from the intuition in students was um extra money we had available. So

connectices to opposite like this somebody needs to mute themselves I think unless that's from your family Nicole. No, I don't know. Therefore, we've shaded six sides of the triangle. I don't know who it is. Um, okay.

Allison. Oops. You are allowed to talk. This is so good for me. Allison, you're on mute. Hi. Sorry about that. Allison Betett 10 Lake View Drive. Um I just wanted to go back to that point about the instructional staff percentage increase because um I think uh what people in the public need to understand a little bit better is kind of the um information that was presented in the budget book that kind of articulated about how um it's it's contractual, then there's steps and there's lanes. And I just want to make sure that that is understood from the broader public perspective. Um because as they said, you know, 6% seems high to some folks, but there's those sort of um parameters there that lead to that 6%. as well as I just wanted to emphasize from my understanding that um that's sort of like the average across all of the employees that fall under that instructional line item. And so it's not that every single person is getting a 6% um raise. And so if uh correct me if I'm wrong, but I just wanted to see if you could just go back to that point and like clarify that for the public to understand. Thank you. That's it.

I don't know if we can do better than Allison. Good. Yeah. Plenty of people are getting 3% colas and that's it. Correct.

Yes. And that is not just a graft in unique salary structure. That is how education is structured across the Commonwealth that people that's part of the gig. uh that they get steps and lanes um when they get more experience and when they get more education. Um and then sometimes they cap out at that and it's not every year. People don't go up a a a lane or step. Sometimes it's 5 10 15 years. Um I can't remember how we arranged it last but often times people will be stuck for several years without a lane. I think a lot of times people think every year they move up. Um but no, it's after they invest considerable time and effort into um increasing their education and then after a certain amount of time they get um a lane increase. So many people are dependent on cola. Sorry. Okay. All right. And Cherylyn had a follow-up question that she put in which was still about the transportation lines. Um I think I'm not sure if it is or not but she says on the slides on the budget transportation and out of district are um separate but on the slide she thought they were um linked together. I can put the

it yes sorry it could be but I think your question a majority of that what's driving that is the um out of town special education transportation not the well it's a combo but not the big yellow bus contract services. I think that was the question from what I remember. That's broken down in the budget book, but just not on the two together. Correct. Yep. Other questions. Yeah. No, I see no more questions. Okay. Anything in the room? Oh, wait. Oh, no.

Okay. Um for those online um we are going to close the budget hearing and move to a different Zoom for our regular meeting. Recording stopped. It is posted. Um and you should be able to join us for our regularly scheduled broadcast. Thank you for all the great questions. Madam Chair, I move to close the hearing. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? Okay. Thanks, Grafton.

Okay, here we go. All right. Good evening,

recording in progress. Good evening, Grafton, and welcome to the February 24th, 2026 school committee meeting. Um, I call this meeting to order. Uh, we'll start with public comment. And if there's any leftover that didn't happen during the hearing, seeing none, I'm going to dive into general business and we're going to start with um preschool tuition and facility rental fee discussion. Hey everyone.

Hello.

And I recruited them to sit with me this time so that I'm not sitting by myself. Um but I'm going to jump in with preschool tuition first um based on um discussion at the last school committee meeting regarding um increases in tuition. So, just a reminder, I know I came and met with folks um I think actually April of last year and really kind of dove into our preschool programming, what exactly it was. So, what's the goal of preschool programming? Support the development of students age three to five with disabilities and provide exposure to those students with disabilities to same age peers for modeling for skill use. So, a couple considerations that we talk about when we're um talking about preschool is the staffing patterns. So, I wanted to make sure you know as we're having these discussions, we're fully aware of all of these considerations. So, staffing patterns, each preschool classroom does have one special education teacher um and one pair of professional peri regulations. Additional pair of professionals are often needed based on student needs. So, we might have students that require a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio support to help support them in the classroom. Current tuition that we have for our uh students in our um 2526 school year is $4,500 for the year. Um that's our fiveday half-day program. Um and $7,000 for the year for our fiveday full day program. Um, we do I just included here, um, just because I don't think that knowledge was there when you all met last time. We do provide a discount for families that are able to do a one-time payment. Um, I didn't include this on the slide, but we also sliding fee scale for students that are eligible for free and reduced lunch. Um, and then that payment is broken up

typically, like I said, a one lump sum payment that is discounted at $300 or over 10 payments. They are uh preschool families pay a deposit in June and then they pay the nine months um throughout that school year, that next school year. So, the demand of course when we're talking about students that tuition in um for our preschool program, community peers are a crucial component to that program. That's what makes it an integrated preschool program. So, there is a high need for us to have those community peers. Um and then I also wanted to kind of just note our fluctuation in uh tuition. Last year we talked a lot about how we had uh reduced a 0.5 preschool teacher. we had gone down a half day preschool classroom because of our special education projections. So with that of course we also went down eight tuition in students because that pro that classroom didn't run. Um each year we kind of make those decisions on how many classrooms we need. Um and with that of course does have staffing implications. you know, if we are down a half day classroom, we're also down a half day teacher and also down a half uh pair of professional. Um, and then like I said, each classroom has eight tuition paying students. So, this was um when I presented in April 2025, I think folks had referenced this slide from um when you all met last time. So, I just wanted to kind of show that here. I did highlight the school districts that we are pretty close to us. Um the reason that these school districts were chosen in presenting that is because they have similar programming to us. So the the interesting thing about preschool is that there is no specific needs to be five days a week,

needs to be three days a week, needs to happen full day like we have for our kindergarten through uh grade 12. Some school districts run three half days. some run you know five half day morning half four half day afternoons and we've vacasillated along our time here as well. So the reason I chose these ones were these were a lot of our Massachusetts schools that had the same programming as us. So five day half day and a fiveday full day. So the only ones near us that have that are it's us Milbury and Oxbridgeidge um that are pretty close to us. My feet don't actually over me feel taller, guys.

Sorry. Um, sorry, Nicole. Did you say that it's it's $700 a month, right? For the full day. Is that what you said? Full day is 700. Yep. So, how are we getting 6,500? This was last year's tuition was 650. Okay. So, this year 700. Okay. Yep. So, we did move up. Uh, what's going on in Bolton? Yeah. what are they offering over there? So, I I think certain things do happen across the board in integrated preschool. Some school districts because of maybe their limitations on the number of days, the hours they provide really give free tuition because they need the community peers, right?

Some districts that, you know, maybe have a higher demand, a higher weight list, might be able to charge a little bit more. Um, so I was able to take a look, like I said, that was 2425. Milbury and Oxbridge kept their numbers the same for this year. Um, we obviously went up as Christy just pointed out. So, um, this is comparing this year's. I do believe Milbury is going to go up a little bit last year from my conversation with the U. Special education director over there. Um, not extensively, but they're also changing their programming a little bit. Um, so just to kind of compare folks near us, similar programming, right?

So I just included some of my recommendations. Um, we absolutely could increase some some preschool tuition. Um, I would recommend that we do if we're going to increase we increase our full day tuition and not our half day. We are uh definitely have waiting lists. our half day is harder to fill. Of course, people want full day. So, we might have a waiting list of folks that all want a full day. Um whereas we're kind of trying to pull people out for that half day. So, I think uh if we can keep our half day rate the same for that reason, I would hate to hike it up more and then it's definitely not worth it to some of these families that are that are signing in. Um whereas I think our we could potentially increase our full day because we do have a higher demand and a higher weight list at least the last two or three years for our full day program. Um the other thing I did note here um you all had discussed that you know um the applications went out. It absolutely did. We have not collected any funds or collected any commitments for payments yet because we haven't assigned all the students yet. Our lottery actually takes place in March, uh, first week in March. So, if the committee did vote to increase that, we could do that for 2627 or FY27 if you opted to do that because we haven't gotten those tuition commitments yet. Um, we would just need to notify all our applicants that we are um, increasing that tuition. Um, which is not all that difficult quite honestly um, because no one has committed to slots yet. But they did receive something that did have tuition numbers on it.

Correct. The application has our tuition numbers on it. Okay. How many children's did you say are in full-time currently? How many tuition in students? Um that we have two full day classes. So 16. 16. Mhm. That's all I have. Anyone have other questions?

Thoughts on an increase like what will the market bear for me? We did increase last year. So I think the other consideration to keep in mind is that we often do have students for two years. Preschool is not preschool and then they move on to kindergarten, right? So, we have many of our four-year-olds. Um, we do do mixed age classrooms. So, we do have like returning preschool families. Um, so I think I've tended to air on increases every kind of two years. So, someone hasn't joined in one year and then the next year we're kind of hiking it up on them. It kind of cycles that way. And people have been knowledgeable about that fact along the way. um in looking at our kind of patterns, we've done it just about every two years or so. Some years have been um a little um more stagnant. Yeah, I would say that um since some documentation went out with the with the um current rates that in the in going on your two years that maybe we just keep it for the the same rate for this year going forward and then looking at it for like the FY28 to keep that consistent since we did increase it last year.

Yeah, I think that'll be part of the vote, but it's a good point. Right. I would uh agree with uh Stella. Or if we were we had spoken about going up a $100 I think last week we said or two weeks ago rather go up to $800 for full day. So maybe instead of if we did go up go up $50 this year and $50 next year or just the next year go up the full $100. Do do we have a estimate of enrollment for next year for preschool?

Um, so we're still projecting the same number of classrooms. Um, so we're not going down um or up because that not going to happen too sometimes. Um, so we are projecting the same amount for next year. So we'll have 16 paying tuition for full day. Great. Okay. Thank you. Um, yeah 100. So when you say 100, you mean a month? Yeah. Well, that's what we had talked about last week, right? Seems like a big jump though.

We're going to go from 7,000 to 8,000 if you look at the other districts. I mean, we don't have the all the other districts. You're just comparing it to to Milbury and Oxbridge for this year. But if you go back to 2024 2025, I mean, back in 2024 2025, Bedford was 9,000, Maynard was 9,000, Bolton 11,000, Medway 7,800, Ashlin 114. I mean, and these are now we're going to be looking these are going to be three years old of when we're looking at increasing.

I do want to say I'm just doing some little math and I'm looking at some of the area private preschools and they are not that much higher than like they're definitely along the same lines of what Ashlin is charging now and things like that. just to keep in mind, not that obviously public is great and better, but um for parents that choose private um so we don't want to be too much on the same I would think we want to stay lower. Yes, my point that I'm not making

correct. I mean obviously private um uh EEC run preschools do have much more flexibility with their times of day, how much services they can actually provide. Um, keeping in mind those private preschools also are doing like nap times and like things that are um a little bit different. They're able to extend their day. Um, given our contractual obligations for teaching staff and par profofessional staff and given that it is special education services, we don't have a nap time scheduled into our day. It's six straight hours of full day preschool where those kids are working. Um, and I will kind of note that for three and four year olds to be at school for six hours is a very, especially at the start of the year for a lot of those students. Um,

I just want to also kind of emphasize the fact that yes, we have a demand currently, but that has not always been the case here in Grafton. I've been in the place when I was the coordinator where I'm like searching for people. we've offered it to as as uh typically developing peers or community peers to other districts because we can't fill the classrooms we have. So I do there is that kind of fine balance between making sure that we're not um alienating some of our folks that want to access our integrated preschool by increasing it um too too much if that makes sense. they folks do get a lot more from a private preschool with regard to their um the time that they're able to provide. Um we are working for those straight six hours, but it's kind of that six hours. We can't extend that time. Um those kind of things. Yeah, if I'm just going back to the slide from 2024 2025, the full day, if you add all those 11, the average of that was 8,200. That's like I said, three years ago from the point of which we're looking to raise it. Given that we don't have the data on what like Maynard

Well, I'm gonna doubt that they went down, right? I think I bet that they're going up is what I'm saying. If we stay at seven grand, we will be far below all the others at that point, but not really the ones in our area. Well, comparison between, right? Yeah. that because they have the same type of amount of programming. But in our area, we're kind of right on par with the other um districts are doing.

Yeah, I would consider raising it and then giving a bigger discount for full upfront payment instead of 300 like 500 for full. But I think someone who come make a full upfront payment isn't as concerned about the big jump in increase. I guess it's fair. Yeah. But I see what you're saying. I'm just I don't know if that helps the right people we want to help. I guess I know we talked about this two weeks ago, but I So it's 25 families. Did you just say

66 invited me to curse? Um six 16 full day, right? So that's a full day. So we increased it $100 for a month. A month. Yeah. Did we determine it's a 10 month? Yeah, for sure. Okay. It is a 10 month. So that's Yep. That's $1,000 for us. 16,000. 16,000. Yeah, it sure is. Without really incurring a cost, right? It's not like we have to hire more teeth, but it doesn't.

Correct. It's definitely not a sustainable revenue source because if our special education numbers go down, you lose $16,000 next year potentially. Do you know what I mean? Like that's the that's kind of the the rub of it, I think. Yeah. Yep. I mean, it's not meant to be a revenue. Correct. Right. That isn't the purpose of the program, right? Which I just need to say. Um, I don't know. I'll take a motion if we're ready to make a I mean, we can keep talking about it once there's a motion, but I'll take a motion. What we take a motion on, I guess. There's too many things in the air right now to to make a motion. Are we talking

only adjusting full day? Fine. I make a motion to adjust the full day tuition for preschool for for 2728 school year. two to add $100 to it a um so to 8,000 annually. I have a second. You said 27 to 20. Yeah, correct. So that's so not next coming year. It's the following year. So we're looking like a year even further out. Second motion made and seconded. Additional discussion. I assume we may have

I was surprised that you didn't motion to do it this coming year. I was thinking potentially cuz you had mentioned the like half and half. I was I I would like to discuss that that. Oh yeah. The only reason why I I went with the other thing was because I agree with Stella in that people have already received notification. It's kind of I think that's fair. A jerky move at this point to be like gotcha. Haha. You were planning on that. Um I think that's fair. Thank you. I like giving a longer lead time. I agree. People know. Yep. And we are guessing but we don't really know what that those the numbers will look like that year. Correct. We have a sense from EI maybe but we don't know.

Yeah we we don't really for FY28 we don't have a sense of what number of classrooms we have. Um you know we've also you know as I discussed have changed programming in the past. So we had only half day program. We never had full day program. So that's the other thing, you know, when looking at the needs of students. If every special education student only needs a half day, we wouldn't have a full day typically developing group if that makes sense. So I think, you know, of course, I don't anticipate that it's going to change for FY28. Um, but there's always movement there.

Any other discussion? All right, let's take a vote. All in favor of raising uh preschool tuition for the 2027 2028 year to uh 8,000 for the year. All in favor. Okay, motion passes. Thank you, Nicole. Thanks, Nicole. Wait, so Madam Chair, so we're keeping with discounted 300, correct? Uh I think so, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Thank you. Scooch. Hi. That was Nicole McDonald. By the way, I'm Frank Brothewell. This is

Oh, National Treasure. We heard you guys really wanted to hear about facility rentals so much. We got really excited. We put this slide together real quickly. Slideshow. Excuse me. Um, if you're going to consider raising facility rentals, we wanted to give you sort of an overall picture of how much money we take in. Shauna works really hard of booking these things through the um website with uh different parties um as well as monitoring them and staffing. So, it's it's a lot of work and I just want to give her credit, but I think she would prefer if I speak. So, yep.

So, so far, uh, fiscal year 26, uh, this year, um, we're we're we should take in $116,578. Um, and so far the as of February 18th, we've received $47,617. And then we also have some bookings for the following year, the next year. That's that's up to 17,000. And then you see our historical payments. um in the past. Okay. Do you happen to have it broken out between um the discounted rate that we give versus in town versus out of town? Please do

on this slide. No, but it would be extremely easy. Um we have a spreadsheet, a running spreadsheet. So any person who books with us, they automatically go on that spreadsheet. And because I've been doing it for a little while, I kind of know who all those groups are off the top of my head anyway. Um, so it would be very easy. It would be very it'd be very easy to figure out and we could get that for you. Um, but I will say most of that is our discounted groups. I will mostly discounted because we do have a lot of town sports that use um and other towns town groups. Um, so I would say a really good chunk of that is those groups

is the discounted group like 75% probably that right now, but I can get that to you.

Okay. So, I watched um the last school committee uh meeting and just these are the people we typically serve in in one of the things was the comparison to other towns and communities and the language they use is a little bit different. So, I'll get there. I thought that was these are the groups that we typically serve. wrapped in rack, wrapped in youth sports, cultural events, dance recital, theater performances, and athletic groups. The turquo you've heard me talk about in the past, get used a lot. So instead of we call them graft and approved groups. These are these are community groups that are I I think the thinking behind it is that that their families have already contributed tax dollars to the community to fund these things that we have. So they shouldn't pay for I think we have approved groups and then all other groups and that's that that's our fee breakdown custodial um custodians for things on weekends Saturdays would be time and a half Sundays are is double time.

Can I ask the the sheet that we saw last week that's on the website? One of the reasons why it came up was that the auditorium rental was less than like a classroom. Yeah. I

So, we actually really don't typically like to rent out classrooms because teachers get really upset. Um like really upset and I totally understand why. Um in the past we had these really large dance groups that like maybe were from New Jersey. um and they need all these spaces for their student dancers and they would go in kind of rumage through a teacher's desk or you know all of a sudden their tech you know maybe they had a smartboard in their room and all the pens to it went missing and you know teachers would be really upset that their space was violated if you will. Um so I really don't like to rent out classrooms to any group that's not necessarily approved. Um, but most of our approved groups don't need a classroom space.

Right. But on the fee schedule that's on your website, this fee schedule, it says it's $25 for the auditorium, but you guys are saying it's $30 for the auditorium. Which number is right? Uh, not sure, but I have a slide later that you know what I'm saying. I do know this is the thing that's on your website. Yeah, we may have made it. I just don't know which one is. Yeah, because that's why we brought it up because it was seemed weird that that number was so was lower than the other numbers.

So, um, we poke through to these different districts. And it's it's hard. Some of them do like a full day price, some of them do a half day price. So, try to compare apples and apples, oranges and oranges. Um, I tried to break it down that a full day is eight hours, a half day is four hours, and these are hourly rates. So, this one has the $25. So, maybe that's that's pretty slide. Okay. Sorry. That's okay. So, this it didn't come up all that great. Can you see the numbers clearly? Yes. AI help you with those other slides.

Check your work, Frank. Yeah, maybe it changed the auditorium. It changed. Maybe maybe AI was like, "That doesn't make sense. Let's make that 30." You're a delight, Nicole. Second thought to be. Um, so these are like we're calling these nonprofits. We call them our approved groups. Everyone sort of refers to these in town in in community groups a little bit differently.

And then they also some of these towns might have like some type of registration fee. There might be like a little small fee attached. Um and then these are are profit forprofit or private groups that aren't necessarily affiliate one of our groups. Yes. And we Sean has done a great I don't want to keep too shout at porn. Go ahead. It's fine.

She's done a really good job because uh a what we remind people all the time is we're not the Sheridan Tower, right? It's not a team of people. It's Sean. Like so um we're happy to rent you our space and for you to enjoy our space, but there's certain rules that go with that. We've done I think a pretty good job like delineating those rules and being very people. Uh we we did have to um sort of make it clear to someone that they violated those rules a little while ago and and we expected some additional pay because they stayed well over their time and really abused it and we were going to ban them if they didn't and they they paid and apologized did all the right things. So we're giving them another chance stuff like that. There's a there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes that Shauna does the bulk of it. I get called in all and So, I don't I don't know if you want to focus on either one of these or

discuss them, but we don't have a thank you slide. Yeah, I didn't do it for you, Frank. That's why

um question.

Yeah. So Frank, kind of what N I liked both your presentations very much um equally. Um kind of though what we what Nicole did, do you have um a recommendation for something that you think could stand um a rate? And before you answer that, I'm going to talk a little bit more. So, last time, no shock, last two weeks ago, I mentioned you had come in like I think our fields take a beating. We know that. Um, and I appreciate what you said about the recreation and they are taxpayers and they're paying for that, but we're still we're still out here trying to defend our budget and trying to um convince people that we need an override and that we're spending. you know, we've had our our field is well overdue as we know. So, I I am in favor of increasing uh fees a little bit, of course. Um, so I just wanted to know kind of what you were thinking. Um, oh, sorry. That being said, I also understand the whole expectation. When people pay more, they expect more. We see that over and over again, and that is a big concern of mine. Again, when we see these numbers, we also, this isn't the full picture. We don't get how many people are supporting. Um, I've been to events at the Sutton um auditorium. It's very it's a very different feel. So, um I don't want to put you guys in a in a super bad position either. So, I'm done. I I mean I will just say that the the school committee um I think it was constituted a little differently a year ago but we had gone through them a year ago and and we made adjustments where we raised rates I think for both and we might have like that's where we came up with the group the these

and I can't I can say that when we when that was effect for July 1st 2025 it wasn't like not everyone loved it. Um so these groups these these approved groups who now need to pay more don't want to and they they're upset about it and they and so

that's something that I've definitely had to deal with and I just kind of go back with these are new rates approved July 1 and you know we apologize and you know hope you're understanding. Um and we do this money that we do receive goes back into it. So the fields that get abused we have to repair a lot and we pay for that. Um the stage lighting like whatever you can think of we we take that money and put it back. So um and we also have connections with these groups you know whether it be through Parker Park and rack or Sean has worked with them for a while. So if there's a problem, it's I don't want to say it's easier. It's it's still like a lot of work, but we we we know who to talk to like I don't know. They're part of the community,

right? The these these groups are could be anybody. I will also say like the town of one of those towns um they like Frank had said maybe like a registration fee. They um do utilities. they charge for utilities. Um, another one kind of does like a generalized fee for, you know, trash bags used and toilet paper used and um, the bigger forprofit groups would go through a significant amount of those materials for us. Um, I just don't have a number for that.

Do you have an example of what the registration fees are and other They're not ex sometimes they get you like if you stay over it's like built into the their pay structure where you just have it in fine print. Yeah. You know they kind of whack you. So if you stay over the eight hours then is there a new fee like Yeah. Do we have that? Yeah, we we have something in the fine print that basically says we can start charging.

Um we charge if if say you were a group and you booked um 6:00 a.m. to 6 pm, our custodial staff comes in a half hour earlier, they expect an hour or more for cleanup depending on how large the event is. Um and we call that the entry and exit time. But if you as a group were like, "Oh, I just want to hang out. This place is great. We're just going to keep on keeping on." and um now it's 8:00 p.m. and you're still here and our custodial staff expected to leave an hour ago. Um we will then charge for those two additional hours or however long it took you to to to leave um and like Frank said, we did have that unfortunate situation um the beginning of this school year um or that didn't have to happen.

I I I mean I guess if Laura to answer your question, you asked me If I had a recommendation, Sean was welcome to chime in as well. I I think I would be cautious with the the approved groups

and with this slide. I mean, I think they demand a lot from us already that that we just have to be we're just really upfront that that you you're not going to have a concierge at your disposal. You're going to have a custodian who really doesn't want to work today. It's it's his day off and or her day off and and we brought them in, you know, with with time and a half enticement. Uh and they're here to like clean up after you and that's that's it. They're not, you know, they'll help you set up a little bit if you need a little bit of help or something, but they're not here to serve you all day long and and there's a demand for that.

So, I don't know if that demand goes up if you go 150 to 300. Yeah. or if it's the like I don't know it's it's already there. So a few years back maybe many years back at this point I remember Dr. Cummings had even halted uh doing rentals as I recall he had said the juice was not worth the squeeze recall that 100%. I is it worth it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In your memory.

Yeah. The juices that my son Yeah. Yep. References that frequently. So, is it worth it if we're if we're not making the money from the profit groups and this is so much energy and time, is it even worth it? I'm not sure answer that. I think what you referred to was the out of town for-profit groups. It was like those groups came from New Jersey or Pennsylvania that didn't even want to pay and then it was months after their event and we still did not receive payment. That's not worth it. So, we have stuck to just in town profit groups. Um,

now that being said, like we're not sending private investigators, right? So, so I I believe that some people say, "Oh my, you know, I live in Grafton half the time in like it gets a little Yeah. sketchy.

Yeah. Yeah. So overall given the demands that you get are the any of the forprofit or not approved I mean is it a business we should be in? I I do feel like the money we do receive can go back into our facilities that you know I think to an extent does help us

which which I don't know if that was done to the extent that we that we do it. So, we're we're with Kathleen's talk as well, like we're when we have things that get used by renters a lot that need repair, we try to use these funds to and use to make our aotted money from from regular budget, I guess, last long. Does that make sense?

Yeah. sort of a question and I don't know if you have an answer right now and this kind of follows along to what Christy was asking earlier about sort of the in town versus not in town groups or the for-profit versus nonfor-profit the ones that are coming in the profit groups are they primarily also renting the field because the ones that I see are like the dance things and I'm I'm and my biggest concern when it comes to this is like we have to pay so much money to fix those fields and it's like if they're coming in and they're renting the auditorium, there's not a lot of cost for that. But I mean there is, you know, there's wear and tear for sure, but it's I'm just wondering where we can sort of like fund our fields a little bit better and protect our fields. So

primarily our for profit is the auditorium. Okay.

Um mainly everyone wants the high school and they all seem to want it on the same date. So it's kind of season, you know, whoever comes first. Um, I also we can't accommodate large groups at both the high school and the middle school. Those are our only two places with an auditorium. Um, so I do have to say I'm sorry, you know, the middle school might be available, but the high school is booked first and we just can't accommodate. Um, but we do have a few sports groups that are not from um from town um but maybe had um have a relationship with Ashley and she might know them. Um and we'll allow and they do use our fields and we do charge them the full rate. Um so that's not a lot but there are a few out there that we do.

Okay. Um, I think it's interesting to know that we did. So, this is something we haven't been really talking about and I I feel like in some ways we're reacting to some um outside sources telling us what we should be doing with our budget, which I understand um why that is, but kind of not think not really maybe understanding the full implementation implementation of what happens with the with the budget implementation. I can I'm not saying that word right now implementation and implication whatever together

because the fact is that we raised our preschool prices last year we raised our fees last year as well

shame on I haven't I I forgot about that. So I think that it's important and we haven't been telling that story at all. People have been asking us why we haven't been raising fees and we actually have been. So that's that was a good reminder. Thank you. Um, and I can hear the reason why we wanted you to come. We had a big brainstorming session, but you are the experts and you are the people that have to actually do the work. And um, also that's not your neither one of you are full-time facility directors. So that is also this is a a small portion of your jobs that you have many of at all.

Okay. Um, anyone have anything? Um, I just had a question on the fields. Um, because they do get a beating and you know, we know they they need to be replaced. Um, is that number I mean I kind of see with other neighboring districts that it like fluctuates from 100 to 31 to 25. Is there like any wiggle room there so we can have more to invest back into the fields? And especially and then with the lights too, I saw there's no charge. Do we do they use lights often or are they mostly using it?

So, we don't we won't charge lights for our town approved groups. Um but most of the other groups don't use the lights. Um they'll come during the day on a Saturday or Sunday when you know our athletics is not using them. Okay.

So, they don't typically need the lights. Um there was another town that did also charge for the use of the press box and that would be for um on our stadium fields um would be for announcements would be for using the um scoreboard. Um we also don't charge for that. Um again most of our forprofit groups don't need it. Just a lot of our for our town groups would. Um, so that's the the other hard part of those rates already went up. So now to and add more charges I think would go the opposite way for us.

I feel like we're like an airline at this point. Yeah. Well, it could it could best back like Yeah. It just doesn't make sense that our auditorium and our field rental is so low in comparison. Like even like compared to our cafeteria rental is $30. It just doesn't make sense that our auditorium rental is $25 versus our cafeteria or classroom or gym or library. All those are $30. The field again, these are the things that take the most wear and tear and they're worth charging the least for the in town. I mean I So I think that's the second time I heard. similar comment to that.

Um that part that comment the auditorium gets beat up pretty Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It gets beat up. No, I'm saying it gets beat up. Put the auditorium right there with the field. That's what I'm saying. You you may not realize it, but we we've invested um a lot of time and energy and and money in in getting functioning at home. Yeah. So, what I'm saying is the two things that are getting the most wear and tear, the auditorium and the fields are the lowest on the in town for in town. It doesn't make sense, but I assume those are also the most used in town, right? And even more so, they're taking even more wear and tear, but you're already seeing push back is what you're telling us. Yeah.

Yep.

So, when they go in, they request it through our use facilities website. Um once I approve it, I send them an estimated invoice um you know or agreement that they need to sign in and return. And usually it's like China, why is this so high? Last year we only paid this um and I come back with a you know we raised our rates, you have more days than you did last year booked. Um, and that can all change if we had to cancel for a sporting event on our end or um there was rain or this right now we're in the basketball season so I've had to cancel for the snow days. Um, and I do remove those from their permit. I don't charge them because we had to cancel. Um, so you know sometimes they're that's kind of why we put like a little asterk where that number could change, could go up, could go down. Um, but those groups definitely don't want to pay more than what they already are at the $25 um for both the auditorium or the field. I'm I'm trying to find the email because I know last year when that came up with the $25, Dr. Cummings had emailed me that he thought that that was a mistake. Do you remember this?

I don't. Okay. Anyway, and you had said you would keep it AC. I I'll try to find the email, but I would recommend going up on those two things. The figure that went up last year, we were talking of like $5 rental, like $5 increases even then. And I get that we're getting push back, but $25 for the auditorium is absurdly low. An hour though, I do want to just clarify that if it goes up $5, it goes up 20. You know what I mean? Right. But look at Right. Yeah. But your comparables are $60 an hour. What is that? $150 an hour at Choose or for four hours.

That I mean that was my math. That wasn't AI. That's Frank. I don't know if you want to less or more. But I mean we are so we're not even in the same ballpark. Well, I mean we're the same as we're not that far from Westboro. We're not that far. We're the same as Mendon Upton. I mean, Shrewsbury and Sutton. Yes. We're like 40% lower than West Bro. $35 versus $25. That's a big difference. Well, sure. In those amounts. Fair.

If you could make a recommendation to us, what would you say? Sorry. Yeah. Feel free to be honest. You might disagree, but I you would say no. I would I I would wait on these and maybe revisit this in a year on the nonprofit. And if if you wanted to do something with this, I don't think I mean I think we would both we we didn't talk ahead of time, but that's my sense is we would both be in support of something.

Yeah. Not that it's going to generate I mean I think the town is looking for for the school committee to show good faith you know that that we're we're uncovering every every stone and um this would I think address that wish and need. Uh, and I think it's not we're not completely out of line raising there for certain things. I mean, I think in the end all if we raise it, they're going to raise the prices they charge parents and these are also Grafton parents paying taxes, you know.

Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. Like that's I'm I'm paying $280 for the recreation department dodgeball at the at the gym at the Milbury Street school for six weeks. That's a lot of money and they're renting it for $30. I mean they're they're making a profit. My not the other they're renting it for $30. They probably is a twohour minimum there. You know one other point and and this is I'm gonna choose my words wisely. We've had conversations with these groups, some people that run these groups that what they're charging is less than what a babysitter gets where their their child is not doing something right

like that's a skill or learning something like just straight up babysitter who's you know um they're charging a very small amount to parents which is really great if you're a parent for sure I'm a parent but um when when the babysitter is is getting more than the program to do dive ball something. Yeah. I mean that's like just as a point that's $280 for six weeks for putting on a you know through apple tree putting on a performance and that's those hours are just something to consider.

I mean Brad and Wreck right but they're they're the same budget that we're all fighting for. So, and I mean the other ones are also nonprofits, right? So, like Grafton and Soccer's not there is taking home any kind of money in their pocket. Um, so the list. Yeah.

And I will say some of these groups like Grain Lacrosse, they have donated nets for our athletics for our own um lacrosse team to use. um you know they have a significant amount of um students that once they age out of the wreck program now they're doing really well in our lacrosse team. So um you know some of those groups do donate things to us as well

Madame Chair. Yes. I would like to make a motion to change the nonprofit rates to be $30 across the board for every every one of the things. Second. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion, comments? Okay. Saying none, I'll take a vote. All in favor? Uh opposed. Okay. Motion carries. Do we want to do anything about forprofit?

Not at this time. I don't have one at this time, but I don't know if somebody else does. Anyone? Yeah. Okay. Um, I mean, if we're going to do it for our home, you I know there not a lot of people that are coming in and we kind of don't want them. It feels Can I ask a clarify? Can is there a particular time we want that start start of the next fiscal year? Next year. Uh, what do we want to do about books that have already booked for the next fiscal year? Have they booked out that far? Yeah. Yes, they have. That's I mean, if they've already $1,000 booked.

Yeah. I mean, if they booked, they booked. But as of at this point, booking forward, you would have to know, right? The only thing with that is the way our website is that when I go in and I have to go in and physically change that, it will change that to everyone who's already booked with us. So then I'd have to go back in and like manually change it from that whole agreement. How How did you guys do it last year? I went in in July 1. I didn't I hadn't booked anything else at that point. Yeah. So July 1, it just automatically Everybody went out. Could you give like a discount for the difference?

Yeah, but that she's saying that's ton of her manual. I'll do it. We'll figure it out. So July July. Yes. Anyone? Anyone booking July one and beyond now? Yep. Or is it that you want to put the rate in like put it in starting July 1 and then when they book starting July 1, would that be easier? It will go back and change everything. It would go still go back. Okay.

Okay. Do we have a motion on on forprofit? No. Okay, great. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, Dr. Cummings and the budget. Are you going to do your slides again? Uh, that's what you wanted, right?

I do think so. Yeah. So, come on. Almost All right, deja vu. Uh so since we last met on February 10th, we have gone back into the budget lines and decreased our preliminary requests by $59,476. That would bring the or that will bring the new total FY27 request to 50,458,513. um in after we talk about FY17, I'll jump into uh a discussion that came out of a meeting with uh Evan Bersard, the town administrator this morning. So, our FY27 budget is level service budget, very bare bones. It maintains the same level of services and staffing for the upcoming school year. So, it's a level service budget intended to maintain that operational status quo. Um, it came up in the hearing. I think it's an important point that that level service budget is in comparison to the the

current 2526 school year. So, as you know, going into this year, we had reductions that I'll touch on in a second. Um, we are not backfilling any of the reductions with hopefully the exception of one position. That's the human resource director. Um, we put that as dependent on needs for FY27. If needs come up, special education is is one that is very likely to come up. That may get pushed down uh lower in the order and we may need to hire for another position. But right now, the hope is that we can bring back that HR director position. As you know, we reduced 6.5 positions going into FY26 along with about $162,000 worth of non-personnel reductions. Um, and we're not bringing any of those positions or those that those non-personnel reductions back for FY27. We had 6.5 positions requested as new positions to better support us in FY27. Those also are not going to be filled for FY27. Central cost drivers. These shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. Salaries is our number one cost driver. We're 80% salaries. That's followed pretty closely by out of district tuitions. That has surged in Grafton and every other district that I'm aware of. just the cost is uh just is continuously uh rising at a quite rapid pace. And then finally, transportation um going up by about 231,000. So those three drivers plus adding back that HR position uh makes up the great majority of our increase for FY27.

So, just to sum it up, this FY27 budget does not include adding reduced positions back, doesn't replenish our savings in terms of circuit breaker, school choice, it does not include anything uh or adding any of those 6.5 positions requested for FY27. And it doesn't include anything that's going to make us necessarily better. So that good to great piece there aren't any components in the FY27 budget. And then the last two slides uh we broke down the cost centers. So before you are the six cost centers um that are associated with salaries and then we have 10 cost centers associated with non salary budget items. um the six schools that we have followed by all districts uh basically centralized expenses out of district tuitions, technology and transportation. So in total that brings us 50,458,513 about a $2.9 million increase over the past year in the percentage wise about 6.2%. We can take any questions that you guys might have.

I have one. Yeah. Um the stipens going down. Can you talk about how because they seem like they should go up, right? Go ahead. Um that was that we were going to use school choice money to offset some of the so it's an offset. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Christie,

so in this budget book on the non-sary side, you're asking for, as you said, 10% more than last year's budget, and it's 25% more than FY25's actuals. So, we had asked that the budget be aligned to the actuals. And since the December book came out, the new book, 22 lines out of the 259 were adjusted on non-sary. Uh, can you tell me what the criteria was for picking these lines to adjust? Do you have specific lines, Christie, that you're concerned about?

Uh, my major concern is that we had spoken that it wasn't going to be incrementally budgeted, and it's clearly still is. Like if we look at for utilities for example all the utilities go up 3% over last year's budget all the supply supplies at schools operations of plant maintenance supplies extraordinary maintenance maintenance equipment maintenance bill would expect all of those to go up so those are all done but they're all done incrementally they're all done over the previous year's budget by a certain percentage correct

so the 22 lines that you guys took sped tuition and sped contracted services that resulted in an increase on those of 56,000 total of all those lines. The ones that you guys touched which were the activities, transportation, security systems, ground maintenance and regular ed and textbooks till when you align those with the actuals it decreased it by 97,000 resulting in a savings of 41,000. Right. You see what I'm saying? Sped went up 56. Those others went down by 97, right? So the net savings on the non- salary was 41. Do you follow Dr. Cummings?

I'm listening. Yes. So I guess I just don't understand because when I still go through this budget, 36 lines are budgeted at 20% more or below the FY25 actuals. 115 lines are budgeted at 20% or more above the FY25 actuals. If we can come down 97,000 with adjusting less than 20 lines, why wouldn't we look at all the others? So are just so that I understand it a little better, are you saying that you think that that number that the total number? Do you think we're too high? Yeah.

At the bottom 4% of the state

that's not what I'm talking I'm not talking about the bottom 4% of the state. I'm talking about the non salary side of the budget. You're requesting 25% more than you spent in FY25. You're requesting 10% more than you request in FY26. If you look at it, there's a spine. Here's a line. Let's look at line 145 AD vehicle maintenance. The line's been incrementally budgeted at 3% annually. This is just one example, right? So in FY24 you budgeted 127. Then in FY25 you budgeted 1311, then 135, then 139, but the FY24 actual was 65 and then 4,000. And the comment on this is gain vehicle, new maintenance vehicle. That doesn't explain why the budget is more than twice the actual.

Are you take the 25% are you you're basing that off the 8.9 or the what are you where are you getting that 25%. If you take 20 the actuals the FY25 actual was 8.7. Okay. So that that's that has offsets that are this is just the town appropriation budget, right? So that's what I'm your 25% are you I don't have all the options. So So that's that number is not correct then if you're not including but I'm saying that you're requesting 25% more from the town than was requested in FY20 than was spent in FY25. Do you but offset but wise the last two years we spent out everything basically every penny we had from circuit breaker and school choice.

Okay, which we no longer have that well to go. Why why are we not looking if we only if we only looked at 22 lines on the non-s salary side why didn't we look at all the other lines for example like I just said the vehicle maintenance or if you look at we did look at all the lines we have department heads we had every school look at all the then why is it department heads look we we did that same process you always refer to that Evan did with his staff believe it or not we've we were actually able to cut services that we no longer needed I mean this is all things that happened since September

just to crystal clear even cutting let's just round it off at 50,000 that went back to it's 100% connected to the fact that we still have some money in the stabilization account for special education there's almost 0% chance we're not going to have to go to the town and ask for that money to get us through next year but Dr. comingings you were asked to align it towards the actual let's look at the custodial supplies for instance c

can I interrupt for a second I think that we have spent a lot of time on the methods of our accounting and today's meeting is really to to go through the budget and show transparency to the taxpayers and to the residents and talk about what we need to run our schools so I think continuing to ask about the methodology used fine I have doesn't make a lot of sense then I have a transparency question. Great.

Looking at the custodial supplies, if you look at the Grafton Middle School, you're uh no, sorry, North Street, North Grafton Elementary School, it states that the the comment says cleaning products districtwide, yet every school has custodial supplies in their budget. Are you saying that the just the North Graphen Elementary School is covering the cleaning products for the district? That's the comment. Yeah, I don't I don't understand the question. Are you and because if you're so we are going to see an increase. I mean their supply their suppliers increase every year. They're always okay. I guess my question is is every school has the line custodial supplies. Correct.

Yes. So so if these guys behind me are buying Yes. Question. So then why does just the north graft and school one say in its comment cleaning cleaning products districtwide purchasing districtwide could just be a typo. I apologize. Okay. And then the high school says Grafton High School maintenance building maintenance supplies. And they also have a line that says custodial supplies, but the comment under building maintenance supplies says custodial supplies. Are there Okay. So, are you budgeting two lines of custodial supplies?

Go. No, I mean when when Frank and Shauna are doing they they order supplies by school. So I just don't understand. Is the building maintenance supplies at Grafton High School for custodial supplies or is the Grafton High School custodial supplies for custodial supplies? There's two lines that both say for custodial supplies. I'm just trying to figure it out. Oh, come on. Yeah, this would have been a good question to ask. I I emailed you a lot of questions, Dr. Cummings, that you didn't respond to. Even yesterday, I I emailed you a bunch of questions that you didn't respond to.

Oh, hi. I mean I also

um so I'm not sure exactly what you're looking at based off of what Jay has up here. Um but I do purchase all of our custodial supplies across the district. Um, some schools go through a lot more because of use of facilities and things like that. Um, so if I have to jump into that maintenance supply line, I will. Um, but usually the maintenance supply line is for ceiling tiles, light bulbs, plumbing needs, um, anything like that. Um, but if we do need it for toilet paper, I will buy the toilet paper through whatever means necessary. I think you're making a really good point, Shauna, which is we're really responsible for cost centers. And the fact is there's a maintenance cost center and there's not a maintenance cost center anymore. No, there is.

Okay. My point being the line about is the toilet paper bought by GHS or districtwide. We all know that things shift. That's the nature of municipal budgets in a school environment. No, I think that you're missing the point. The point is is that he budgeted $127,000 for custodial supplies and he spent 88,000 and two years ago some of that could have been offset like we we talk about that you look in the 20 are you comparing that to a 25 actual Yeah. Yeah. Some of that could have been offset by what we spoke about earlier, what Shauna spoke about earlier, the these the use of facilities, they're renting, they're using the toilet paper, they're using the trash bags, so um point. Okay,

that 25% you can refer back to. I would love to sit with you and go over that because I I think that's a I think we need to get the other funding in our number. This these are just the numbers you guys provided. I'm not This is town appropriation budget. This isn't other funding, right? And I'm not appro I'm not looking at your other funding either. I'm just looking at your town appropriation. Your town appropriation actuals was 8.7 million. You're asking for now 10.8 million. Correct. Because we have to add back or we use so much to balance the budget in 25 which we talking about over and over. Well, but we will be using offsets in this one as well. Correct. Not not as much. We don't have it. I mean, but there will be. Yeah.

I think that's If you add in that revolver, but we don't have these numbers. I mean, we're not looking at we don't have the numbers in front of us. Yeah. What is So, tell me what the your overall concern like why your question. It's important that we challenge assumptions and we're transparent about this. So, please what is the concern? My concern is that out of the that we're budgeting on 117 lines, we're budgeting 20% or more than we actually spent. That's a concern. But then costs go up and then if by 20% more than you actually spent 20%. I want you to understand that 20% more than you actually spent is what your budget.

But that number will go down once you offset the revolt. You're not But you're not showing that. to a million that we but where is it shown? We've been talking about it since September. But no, like when you go through the lines, it's not in the lines like you and I spoke on today. Like having some sort of line showing where the offsets would be would be very helpful, right? But you don't want to mix that with your town appropriation budget. So yes, on the side there is an all summary somewhere and I can get you the detail of the revolving accounts which we've done in the past, but the actuals are what hit the town. Correct. Correct. And the budget is what? So they're both the town appropriation numbers, correct? Not the This is the 8.7 you keep referring to. No, the actual is not the actual amount.

The actual is the actual for the town appropriation. Okay. So the actuals are the actual for the town appropriation and then this is the town appropriation. Okay. So for the purposes of our vote coming up in this meeting, I want to be very clear. We in 2025 we had a lot more money to offset. So that accounts for some of the differences. Oh, thank you. That's helpful, right? It would have been helpful too on the lines, the comments, Dr. Cummings, that it didn't say things like headphones or paint. Like if we could see that when I know that some lines did say it that were written by Kathleen and that was very helpful, but other lines didn't have that kind of detail.

I I want to keep focused on the line items and the numbers and the cost centers if we can, please. Um, does anyone have anything else? Any other questions on any of the go centers? If not, I'll take a vote. Well, I have a question. Yeah. On

and I'm sorry, because of the cost centers changing from year to year, it does have to, as I asked you before, be more of line item questions. And I know I asked you this before, but I still don't understand it. uh the North Street therapy consultant counselor salary line. We had that line in there for $83,363. That line's still there. But now there's another line called North Street Elementary School Guidance Adjustment Counselor for $83,363. So both lines are in there. I know that it says we're not adding a position, but clearly there's an addition of that line.

There is an addition of the line. Yes. Is that your question? Yeah. So, are we adding a position? No. What what happened? Um, it was it was funded by it was a new position probably five years ago maybe, but it was funded by ESSER for a few years and then ESSER funding went away. So, um, then we shifted it to school choice for fiscal year 25 and 26, but for fiscal year 27 for reporting purposes for DETI, I have to add that line. So, I did. I got it. Okay, great. I know a lot of us sent questions ahead of time, so we've got a lot of them answered. Does anyone have anything else?

Dr. Cummings, I had asked you ahead of time in regards to the the the graphs on the budget book, which what is are they not correct? They are not correct. Okay. And then a lot of the links the links are fixed. They've been fixed. I checked them. Yeah, they were half an hour. They were I just picked on one and it didn't work. It doesn't work before this meeting. I'm struggling. Um, it has. Yeah. I'd like to make a motion to approve the 2027 operating budget in the amount of 50,458 $458,5135.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Any additional conversations? Okay, seeing none, I'll take a vote. All in favor? opposed. Okay, motion carries. Um along those lines, um we had a question about it during the budget hearing and I did want to um sort of take a page from our colleagues on the finance committee and talk a little bit about um sharing a letter with the select board about our um desire to see an override on the ballot. Um so I'll take any kind of thoughts on that topic. thoughts on whether we should write a letter or thoughts on whether

we should officially sort of share with the board that we would like a you know an over Yep. Great. Well, that's easy. I'll take a vote on it then. So, we can take or I need a motion. Sorry. Make a motion to um alert the select board that we are in favor of an override being posted on the ballot. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any additional discussion? Yes. Yeah. Who will be writing this? Um I guess I will unless somebody wants to raise their hand. I trust your madam chair. Okay, great. Um all in favor.

Fantastic. All right, that concludes our budget discussion. We don't have our student. Yeah. Can I just now transition to that override piece?

Yes, please. Um, so I had the opportunity to meet with Evan Rosar, town administrator this morning. Uh, he laid out an idea that I believe came out of the last select board meeting. I did not watch that meeting or attend it, so I might butcher it a little bit. This is kind of thirdand so. So, uh, the terminology that's just kind of conversationally based. This isn't set in stone. Um, but the idea of providing a menu of override options was what he shared with me. I think it was Melrose maybe that he used as an example. Melrose, uh, I'm not too familiar with, you know, their what their menu, if you will, looked like, but this slide prior to the conversation with Evan had two things. It had that level service budget in yellow and then we had the reduction budget that we've talked about not with u great detail yet but we've talked about if we don't get an override this is what happens. Um he provided me started the conversation with direction from the select board to uh create two other options if you will. So you see the full reduction budget on the bottom kind of something in between. I don't know. He hasn't given me what that number would be. So, I'm making this up. Instead of reducing by 1.1 million, maybe it's 600,000. Uh, so I called it just a partial reduction budget. I really struggled to come up with a great term for it. Um, so it's a decrease, but not to the full extent of the full reduction budget. Then you have the level service and then above that improvement slash rebuild budget. Um, if we did get I'm making that up the 600,000, but if we said we

had an additional 600,000, we would certainly be looking to I'd love it if we weren't in the situation and we could talk about some kind of new and upgrades and something we've been wanting to do for years, what whatever. Um, it's going to be either bring back positions that were reduced or look at the uh positions that were requested for FY27. Um, so he uh I think he said by tomorrow he'll have like a ballpark sense of what those numbers would look like. Uh, they obviously wouldn't be for one year. If this menu approach was used, it would most likely be either for three years or for five years. So um it's not that mindset where you just have a partial reduction budget if you will for one year and then you try to bounce back. It would be more longstanding. Um so that was it but I wanted to share that with you so that any uh upcoming communication around it has some context.

Anyone have a question? Um, I don't I don't think you know the answer to this, but I my question I've heard about it and I think it's a really interesting idea because I know all of us struggle with being like we're going to fight for that level service budget and it's like it would be great if we could at least consider, you know, something beyond that. But that's a huge ask. And so it gives people a choice and I think that's amazing. I am very intrigued by how a vote on this works. It doesn't make sense to me and that's the part that I'm puzzled by, but I really like the idea and I would like more clarification on how that how that I share the same exact question. I'll look into what Mel Rose I'm sure others have done it but you can like the look how it's

Yep. It was like really spelled out on their website. It looks like a ranked choice. But how how does it like how do I You should vote for everything. That's the method we're going to have to get across. If you want to fund the schools and the town, we need to stop talking this just about the schools, too. Yeah. Where lives in Silver Lake. Um but um if you want to fund Grafton properly, um you would vote for choices then one needs to get 50% I believe to be that's I mean I I there's some good graphics I ask question. I think it's going to be hard to message. So, we

that's the part that I'm worried about people to do that. But I love the idea also, you know, we do get a lot of push back that from people and you even heard tonight from one of our callins that, you know, we're never really we're not actually level services anymore, right? were lower and we don't get the chance to really think about and I know you just kind of said you're going to add things back just to hear even like one thing maybe don't even but just a vision like big dreams if it was a five year you obviously towards the tail end if everything breaks right you'd be

yeah but I know but maybe just since we're have and I know but since you have this opportunity like let's put it in. Let's talk about what would that look like, right? What is some big program we've always wanted to be able to add? Do I want I mean we might have five, six, seven different answers on what that is. But I'd love to hear from you, Jay. Like that's would you know be great, right? And I believe they did have four options for theirs. Um yeah, three to four. I remember their questions were like three and then one was like a no. Like I think the fourth might have been the no. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But I but I think that their top three were like one was like a budget with kind of like everything included like maybe things that we've lost in the past few years programs um level service and then the one like the reduction budget and then like yeah I think exactly what you have up there partial and then no increase awesome lot and then I think like having the and also having like the dollar figure that goes with it. I think people hear like 1.4 four and they think they're paying the 1.4 versus, you know, this is spread out off, you know, across a number of years off the month. Yeah. The And you don't pay the full amount at once. Right. Yep. Right. And not everyone pays the same amount.

No. Right. Right. That wouldn't come from Jay. That is a lot of work, right? Of course. Okay. Thank you both. Kathleen, thanks for being here. Yeah. Thanks for all your work. Yes. lots of work. Um, so we don't have our student representatives today, so we're going straight to future agenda planning. We've had to move a couple folks from today because of the snow. Um, so our promising practices and the school updates from the elementary the K the prek to one elementary schools uh are moving and that's already reflected here. Um, madam chair.

Yeah. So on the June 9th meeting, it says the annual review of bullying prevention. The policy subcommittee has spoken and we h we have a group of policies that need to be reviewed annually, not just the bullying prevention. Okay. So, and we would like these to be reviewed prior to the handbooks like so that when the handbooks come out, they reflect all of our updates. Okay. So, I'm asking to have that move to April 7th. What do you think, Laura? Yeah. Well, we need two meetings probably. Yeah. So, we need to Yeah. It's not going to be a lot. It's just going to be basically a a rereading of them. Yeah.

But we'd like that before the And and you'd like us to include the bullying prevention. Well, you can just say policy annual policy review. It's going to be in the bullying prevention will be in that review. I do want to call out the bullying prevention because it's I think important to families to know that we specifically. like that on our agenda and annual policy annuals. Yeah. Move it to April 7th. Okay. I think that's great. Yeah. Thank you. Anything else people want to see or that we haven't kind of gone through? Okay. Moving NGS and SGS really messes up.

I know it's not in order now, Christie. It's not the students journey. I'm sorry. I really was hoping people were a journey. Journey and a little anything. All right. Um I'll take a motion to approve the minutes of February 10th. Madam Chair, yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes um from February 10th as submitted. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Great. Thank you. Uh did anyone have questions on the warrants? We did. We don't have no there were no warrants in the things, right? So there is nothing to discuss there. No policy

in policy. Laura and I met and discussed AI policy. We had a subcommittee meeting that is now back in the hands of Dr. Cummings and Mrs. Mannon. We're waiting on your revisions to bring it back to us. We would love to have that for the April 7th meeting. April 7th, excuse me. April 7th. Yeah, we would love that back. Dr. Cummings. Yes, ma'am. I would love that. All right. We do not have correspondence, nor do we need executive session. So, with that, I am going to adjourn the meeting. Thank you all. Good night, Grafton. Good night.