[SPEAKER_01]: presentation. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mr. McHugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay. Um, good evening, everyone. Uh, yeah. Tonight we'll kind of review some of the, um. Budgetary issues with grappling with and kind of our thought marshal resources, new revenue or savings within our current budget to meet those needs. So just a quick review. This is gonna be similar to a presentation I gave to our union leadership last week. We know that Our class size, our enrollment is growing in the elementary grades. We're projecting for now that kindergarten will be relatively the same. We still continue to lose a few students at the middle and the high school. And then kind of a deeper dive into what's going on at elementary. With the exception of grade two, which is an outlier, that happened to be a very smaller than usual birth year when those students finally got to kindergarten. But you can see in grades one and grades three, there's significant increase in those grades. Hasn't really hit grade four, grade five this year, but we expect that. Well, we project the grade three, this is a projection of what it's gonna be in 25. So next year we expect to see that continued growth into grade four and then eventually grade five. And then we kind of review a class sizes. Now this is based on this year back in October, And it's taking a look at the general ed classes across the school. So different grade levels might be slightly more, slightly less, but this is the average class sizes in general ed. So for instance, you see the McGlynn Middle is down, but that's because they have significant enrollment in the newcomers program, which is not part of this analysis. At the high school too, I did a review of their master schedule. And to be honest, it's a little bit difficult to know kind of all the ins and outs of how they schedule. But I think in general, I'm in the ballpark for what the class sizes are generally, but they could be more or less if I had kind of a more precise, if I could do a more precise analysis on the schedule. So that's just data points for how we're approaching the budget. I outlined kind of four buckets of spending that I think we need to address this year. First of all, we have our salary commitments. We have a number of contracts that we're already under contract for FY25. And for those contracts, just the cost alone is $2.8 million. Then we have three other unions whose contracts will be expiring at the end of the year. And of course, non-unit personnel go on a year-to-year basis. And we're estimating $735,000 needs to be set aside to be able to negotiate at the bargaining table. We've talked about in previous meetings that we've identified a handful of accounts that are significantly underfunded. Homeless transportation would be one of them, substitute teachers. Special education summer school needs to be increased based on the number of students we're serving in that program. legal expense budget we talked about hasn't really kept up with the spending that is hitting that account. And then of course, facilities, building repairs and custodial supplies have been kind of chronically underfunded for a few years. So the total of those would be an estimated hit on the budget of $1.3 million. The other bucket or the third bucket would be ESSER funding. So there's a lot of positions that are on this budget that are essential to the operation of the school department. The biggest one of these is our whole ELL or number of the majority positions for the ELL newcomers program is funded at the McGlynn is funded in ESSA currently. We have adjustment Councilors, we have all our building substitutes throughout the district are funded on ESSA. Professional development was no, there was no room in the budget this year to have a professional development line and that's, very important. So we're projecting that we have to bring 21.2 positions funded in ESSA into the general fund. We're going to let go of about nine positions. Some of those are currently vacant. For instance, there were four literacy coaches that were not filled this year. But the impact again is 1.3 for this group on the budget. And then we've identified kind of the big ticket items that we would look for new spending. One is we know that through rate setting that all our Out-of-district tuitions for special needs is increasing by 4.69%. We would want to put in additional funding into the facilities department so we can start to undertake some planning, provide proper project management to those projects. conduct building inspections, re-commissioning projects are essential to kind of inform our capital needs and get those buildings back into kind of the condition that they were designed for. Similarly, you know, there's little bandwidth to do our technology upgrade our network and keep that current. There's all kinds of servers, routers, all kinds of connection points that make the network work here. We have, it's a, you know, mission critical activity that we have to, not only for just communication between schools and department heads, but our students are on computers now, they're taking tests, they're doing research. So it's essential to kind of keep that network well-maintained. The high school is undergoing an accreditation process, which they've begun this year. There was some funding provided for kind of the pre-planning that needs to go into that. But during the accreditation year, The high school will be required to host a delegation that will conduct the accreditation. We will be required to provide food and lodging for them while they're here. And so we're gonna provide the funds to be able to do that. Another area that we want to address this year is the need to kind of refresh our technology for students. We were able to buy a lot of Chromebooks and Apple tablets back when we were flush with COVID funds. There was a lot of school from home, and it was essential to get that technology out to students. But those devices are, uh, coming to the end of the useful life. So we, we, um, proposing to implement a plan to refresh about 20% of our, uh, device inventory in FY 25, and then continue, uh, that funding so that we're replacing devices, um, every five years. We also would like to increase school supplies. I believe the principal's office supply budgets are underfunded. The vocational technical school, their supply budgets are underfunded. And they're able to supplement their supply budgets tuition account they have, but that tuition account is steadily being drained. And because of the popularity of that program with our students, there's very few seats available to take people from the outside. So we want to make sure that they have the supply budgets they need. going forward and not have to rely on that other source of funding. And then we're hoping to launch a fine arts summer program. And it could be that this program would be grant funded. I know the fine arts director is looking to get grant funding for that. But it would be similar to the Jump Start program, which is music focused. And that would take place this summer. So all in all, those slides, they add up to $7.5 million. When I did give this presentation to the unions, I realized that this figure did not include the ESSER funding, so they will probably notice that this funding is a little bit higher than what I showed them last week. And then We had gone over the Chapter 70, but I thought it was worth noting that, unfortunately, Chapter 70 isn't gonna be a good source of revenue for us this year. Right now, the legislature is still deliberating on the state budget, but based on the governor's budget, the allocation for MedFed, as an increase over what we got in FY24 was a little over $135,000. And that's primarily because our foundation enrollment has dipped down from 24 to FY25. The foundation budget went up by $1.7 million, the required district contribution went up by 2.7 million. Chapter 70 went up a tick. And our net school spending actually went up by 2.9 million. And that's because in calculating the foundation budget, our state aid should actually go down But because Massachusetts holds school districts harmless from any decreases, they never reduce the amount of Chapter 70 that you're already receiving. But they do require you to spend that extra amount in the coming school year. So that's why this is 1.7 is a little bit different than 2.9. So how are we going to try to close this gap? We will have a city appropriation. We are planning to implement a couple of fees to the programs that use the schools. One's a facility expense fee and one's for administrative overhead for the provision of business office services, human resource services, and technology services. So that can offset some of the spending. And I'm estimating right now that it could be as much as $200,000 that we could help with closing that gap. We're also looking at these programs that we do charge and have revolving funds balances to make sure we're maximizing the use of those funds. And for example, I don't think we've been charging the MEAP tuition account to the fullest extent we can. So we may have an opportunity to kind of add some staff for one or two years to that program. So we're looking at those revolving funds for those opportunities. We are considering increasing fees, potentially for athletics, but also for the outside groups that rent our facilities. to make sure we're recouping the actual cost to the district to provide those spaces and just making sure that we are fully utilizing our grant funds. We're not turning any funds back. Now, then we have to look at, you know, where can we reprioritize funding within our existing budget to reduce funding in one area so we can increase funding in other areas. And so we are looking at class sizes. When class sizes are low or teachers are underutilized, we're trying to see if we can take some savings there. And You know, when you look at class size, it doesn't mean you're just reducing the number of positions you have, because you will also find that you have to add positions in certain areas to kind of maintain a reasonable class size. We're looking at our administrative staffing structure to see if there's any opportunities to consolidate the supervision that we provide. Of course, there's a whole administrative support staff that supports that administrative staffing. So that would also present opportunities to kind of reorganize that area. And then we have to look at, you know, our new spending proposals as well. At the end of this process, we may not be able to afford all the spending that we're projecting. So with the ESSA-funded positions, can we bring 21 positions over? I think they're needed, but we might have to re-look at that get the cost of that transfer to the general fund down. Those underfunded accounts, I think they need to be adjusted because we'll just be scrambling. We're not reducing the spending in those accounts and we're just scrambling all the time to kind of grab funds from other areas to make those accounts full. but we could possibly, you know, take a two-step approach and try to fund it over a couple of fiscal years. You know, any increases to those funds are gonna kind of make any shortfalls a little bit easier to manage. And then also looking at our proposed new spending to, trim that back if we can't afford to do all that we want to do in that area. And then we'll hopefully in the next, we have to get our budget proposal finalized. We have to get it in shape so that we can get it printed, but we're still having another committee at the whole meeting in April, at the end of April. And at that meeting, we'll be able to talk about whatever sources of outside funding outside of the city appropriation that we could introduce into this budget, along with any other questions the committee might have. We have our public hearing on May 6th, so we'll be able to provide a very detailed proposal at that time. And then of course, on May 13th, we are expecting that at a special meeting, we'll be able to vote on the budget and then submit it to the mayor. So I'm happy to, to answer any questions people might have at this time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, CFO McHugh. I'm going to open it up to the committee for questions. Let me just... Member Graham?
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. Thank you, Jerry, for all this information. I had a couple of questions, but before I ask my questions, I just wanted to reiterate, I know we have a big audience here and we have a lot of new members, so I just wanted to reiterate our typical process, which is our budget is a two-step process. So our budget is first made up of, you know, information about what our request to the municipality is. And that number I think is sort of coming out of what I'm hearing tonight. And I'll talk about that in just a minute once I get some clarifications. But the first thing the school committee does is tell the municipal government what we believe we need to educate children, maximize outcomes and run the school district responsibly next year. So that's one vote that we typically take. The second vote that we typically take is a reconciliation vote. So essentially, if there is a discrepancy between what we have requested from the municipality and what the municipality allocates to us in the single line item allocation to our operating budget, then it is incumbent on the school committee to operate within that allocation. So if there is a discrepancy, we then have to identify how do we get from what our request is to how we will actually go forward. So that's our process. I think what I'm seeing in terms of the timeline is that We certainly could be in a position to take a vote about our request to the municipality as early as May 6, but we could also do that on May 13. And then our final vote has typically been much, much later in terms of that reconciliation vote, but doesn't have to be. So it is, I think it is possible we could do that even as early as May 13th as well. Although if the council hasn't started their conversation around the budget and there is still like movement happening around the city's budget overall, like we may not want to take that reconciliation vote in the event that there is a gap. So, and I think we know, and we've been informed by the city CFO that there will be a gap because the initial allocation for the school district, according to the city CFO is $73,500,000. Last year, our allocation was $71,200,000. It's a little bit more complicated than that because we were using $2.8 million on operating expenses from our ESSER budget. And that was necessary last year because the operating budget couldn't support the operating needs. So it was a conscious decision, as were all the decisions that we've made about ESSER spending and are being made across the country and have been for years. So people are, you know, while you don't want to use one-time funds to support things that have ongoing expense. ESSER afforded districts an opportunity to say, what do our kids need? And in a place where 80 to 85% of the activity and the spending is on humans to educate kids, it's inevitable that that spending would also require people who are really more considered part of the operating budget. I did have a couple of questions because I'm just trying to get a better understanding of how some of these groups, these buckets break down. Jerry, there was a slide that you showed before the ESSER slide that tallied up to 1.3. Can you just bring that slide up again for me? Did we lose Jerry?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm back. Okay. I got a deal with an issue with payroll.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry. That's okay. I was wondering if you could bring back up the slide that came before the ESSER slide. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't see anything just yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, can't see it.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, not yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Coming now.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ah, thank you. OK, so those are the underfunded accounts. And these are Okay, got it. So these are underfunded accounts and it seems like there's maybe some overlap here with some of the other slides. Is that right? Like when I think about substitute teachers, I think about that ESSER bucket because that is where the substitute teachers were put last year in order to balance our budget last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So- It is separate. It is? The ESSER funded positions are, full-time building substitutes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So each school has one full-time building substitute. The high school has three, I believe. And then there's another line, district-wide line, that funds substitute teachers that are paid the daily rate or teachers that I use to sub and miss their prep. They get paid for a miss prep if they substitute during that prep.
[SPEAKER_04]: Got it. Thank you. That's helpful. And then on your next slide about ESSER conversion, when I look at this list, I think there are at least some number of these positions that are absolutely not discretionary. So I think specifically about the newcomers program, right? So.
[SPEAKER_03]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_04]: We can't not spend that money. Are there other of these 21.2 staff people that are in what is more likely a non-discretionary bucket rather than a bucket where we could operate the district, not that we should, but we could operate the district without that line item?
[SPEAKER_01]: The adjustment Councilors are based on need. And I think likely what happened was that we had a need to add more in FY24, and there was no bandwidth in the general fund to do that. So they were placed on ESSA. We'd have to take a look. I've done a lot of work. that kind of a caseload analysis for guidance Councilors and adjustment Councilors and our psychologists. And I think the adjustment, Medford is doing probably better than other districts in that they're kind of maintaining a ratio of about 250 students per Councilor, which is what their national association recommends. very few districts can, for instance, the average in Massachusetts is about 344 students per Councilor. But we all know that there are mental health issues still lingering amongst our students with coming out of COVID. And so I would be, I would advocate to kind of maintain the current staffing there. The grants manager, we only have one grants manager for the district and we have a number of grants that have to be managed. I would say that's important. The behavior para is something that the guidance department recommended that we retain. You know, that might be, a slightly lower priority than some of the others. The newcomers program, you just, you can't, we have an obligation to provide programming for English learner students. We get reviewed by the state every year to make sure we're in compliance. And so we would need to, for sure bring that program into the general fund. The literacy interventionist is again, is probably like the adjustment Councilors. There was probably a need that couldn't be handled on the general fund in 24. That may or may not be kind of a lower tier priority than some of the others. The building substitutes, we just have such a problem with attracting the number of substitutes we need. I know the school committee is kind of looking at that issue as a whole. And the other thing that we kind of haven't tackled with, but it's kind of still on my list and I don't know how we can address it is that We have to take a serious look at the rates that we pay our daily subs and our long-term subs. Many school districts in our surrounding area have had to come to grips with the fact that the days of $75, $85 a day for substitutes is long gone. even 125 would be low for a daily sub, but you could, it may entice some of our retired teachers to come back and provide those services if needed. Long-term subs are getting, you know, 250, $275 a day. So that has to be looked at. You know, I'm gonna be recommending some increase to the substitute program, but it doesn't really factor in any kind of rate increases. The re-engagement specialist is going to be needed. We have three on ESSA now. We're only proposing to bring one back into the general fund and that's because we, these positions do kind of took on the role of or included duties that would be found in a kind of an attendance officer position. And so there's still a need to have somebody who's kind of responsible for attendance officer duties. And that would be the re-engagement specialist that we're proposing to bring into the general fund. And professional development, we talked about earlier that there should be some amount of money right now in ESSA, there's $110,000 for professional development. And this figure of 1.3 assumes that we'd bring the whole 110 into the budget that could probably be shaved a little bit. But for a district this size with this many staff, it's kind of a low number. I think the allocation in the foundation budget is well over a million dollars for professional development. And no school district spends what they're allocated. But it just shows you what, in the development of the foundation budget, what the plan is deemed to be kind of an appropriate professional development expense for MedFed.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure, thank you. And then can you look at, can you go to the new spending page, the $1.4 million page? So again, some of this is not optional, right? Like our tuition increase is not optional. And our NEASC funding is not optional. Is that right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Okay. I would put the technology expense not optional. You know, the Chromebooks now are just like textbooks 10 years ago. You just, every student's gonna have one, and the whole teaching dynamic has shifted to be able to utilize the technology, the applications that are on it. Many books now that we buy are online, have an online feature, so. Yes, I would include that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're saying the Chromebook refresh is the one that you're talking about? Or are you also talking about- Yeah, and the Apple refresh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that that has to be done. Those devices do not last forever. And you don't wanna be in a position where some students have a device that works and some don't.
[SPEAKER_05]: If I may just- Right. Member Graham, may I ask a question? Sure. Just on the Chromebooks and the Apple Refresh, which I think are actual pieces of equipment. Jerry, what are we estimating for that? Because that I would think would be something that would fall on the capital improvement plan if it isn't there already.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I think it's a little over 400,000.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay. Yeah. And I think the, you know, I guess Medford has always treated those things as capital, but when you talk about Chromebooks in the same vein as textbooks, like they're, they really aren't capital expenses anymore. They're like expenses that they're it's equipment that depreciates every year. typical organization like you would you would handle that depreciation in your operating budget so I mean ideally what districts should be doing is having a an amount of money in the budget every year so that there's a cycle and we don't have these big massive changes that have to happen where we have to replace every Chromebook at the same time but instead in some sort of a like a rolling function. So I will just wrap up my set of questions by saying last year, our budget was $71.2 million. And then we had ESSER of $2.8 million. But if I start from that $71.2 million of last year, and I add up all the things that Jerry described as spending needs, I get $7.5 million for a total of $78,700,000. And that is, a big distance away from $73.5 million that was preliminarily provided to us. And I also wanna point out that the amount preliminarily provided to us is a $2.3 million increase, which actually doesn't even account for- 3.2, opposite. You said 2.3. 3.2, okay, so that barely covers our contractual obligations. 73.5 minus 71.2. I have 2.3. 3.2%, is that what you mean, Mayor? Yes, 3.2%. I'm talking about dollars. So in dollars, that's $2,300,000. Our contractual obligations are $2.8 million. So thank you, Jerry, for all this work. It's very helpful. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, if I can call a point of information real quick. Jerry, when you mentioned long term sub pay, did you say that they were making $275 a day?
[SPEAKER_05]: Remember, on top of with a point of information.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you repeat that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure. Sorry about that. When you mentioned long-term substitute pay, you mentioned $275 a day. Were you mentioning to this current budget or the proposed budget?
[SPEAKER_01]: No. I was suggesting that some school departments have increased their rates into that kind of mark that that's more of the market right now for a long term sub. So a long term sub would be somebody that we would hire because we have a teacher that goes on maternity leave. And they may be in there for, you know, three or four or five months, and they'd be required to go to faculty meetings and provide lesson plans and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right. Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify because I wasn't sure if I heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we pay $120 per day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's $100 because I will give a personal connection that my partner is a long-term.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not thinking that we should go all the way to there, but we do have to think about increasing those rates?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, because it's like $80 a day with tax. So I definitely could see the burden of that. But I wanted to clarify because I wasn't sure if I misheard you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you. Is there any questions? Other questions? Member Ruseau?
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. I know the point has been made about devices, Chromebooks being treated as capital. I just, you know, My first experience of Medford as a district was a very long time ago when we were voting whether to buy computers. I don't know, this was at least a decade ago. City Council was voting because it was capital then. And if we can't get this in there as part of our budget, it's It's just not okay. I mean, we're doing so much here to bring stuff into the budget that should be in the budget, that should have always been in the budget. And to leave behind a day-to-day use item that is literally a critical part of education doesn't make any sense to me. So I just want to support that that number needs to be in the budget. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Any other questions from the committee before I open up to the floor? I know we have 115 people on, so we'll give anybody who wants to talk two minutes. Anthony Guillen, who already has his name and address for the record, if we could unmute.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, thank you very much. My name is Anthony Guillen, 45 Elm Hill Avenue, Levenson, Massachusetts. I am the president of the Medicine and Teaching Association. Jerry, thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to ask a few questions. Number one, there was listed that nine of the ESSER positions were looking to be let go, and the unfilled literacy coaches count for four of them. So do you have the list of the remaining five that were to be cut?
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't get that question. I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure. So you mentioned looking to bring over some ESSER positions. and if I got my notes right, you have nine positions you are looking to let go. We can count the four unhired literacy coaches against that. Do you have the other five positions that were to be not brought over into the regular budget from the ESSER funds?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't have it off the top of my head. Well, there were two, in addition to the literacy coaches, there were two re-engagement specialists But I can provide that to you, Anthony.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very good on that one. Are there, is the list of programs that paid to the district to use the facilities as well as the grants we are currently receiving a matter of public record or would that be something we'd need to request? Oh, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just repeat that question, Mr. Hugh.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I was looking for a list of programs that pay to the district, such as the Japanese school that uses the high school on the weekends, or a list of grants that the school receives, is that a matter of public record or something I would have to request?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's public record.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, very good. Let's see. And finally, as far as the plan for the budget to be available, I know that you're looking to finalize that. Will that be sent to the unions for review when it is sent to, before it becomes public, a matter of a public meeting?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm not sure what the practice is in MedFed, but I don't have a problem with doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'll send you a request then.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mr. Hain, can you repeat the question? I'm sorry I missed that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just looking to see, once the proposed budget is completed, there is usually a time in which the union receives it, but this timeline seems quite moved up from last year, so I was just making sure that the union and its leadership will receive a copy of the proposed budget before it becomes a matter of public, like a matter of the public meeting you hold.
[SPEAKER_04]: Got it. I think that's outlined in the contract, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is, but not specifically when.
[SPEAKER_04]: Got it. Okay. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you very much. Member Ruseau?
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, I just wanted to clarify, when Mr. Guillen was asking about the programs and the chargebacks, which is what Mr. McHugh was talking about earlier, we're not talking about like the rentals, we're talking about meat, we're talking about afterschool, the food services program. In this presentation, I don't think we're talking about rentals in any way, shape or form, unless I'm misunderstanding.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think he's still asking for the amount we bring in for rentals, just for their knowledge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure that relevant to this presentation, that won't be included in this particular set of numbers. Because we can't just dip into that money to use it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are restrictions. And at the last committee of the whole, that was part of the revenue presentation. the revolving funds that we maintain, we get private grants as well as state and federal grants. But that can be provided. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McHugh. Any further questions from the committee or public? I know we have another meeting, two meetings on Monday the 8th, a regular meeting and a committee of the whole meeting. and our next budget, we have Mr. McHugh did put up a slide up for our next two or three budget hearing meeting. So those will be on the website as well. Is there a motion on the floor? Motion to adjourn. I remember Graham seconded by. I can second. Thank you. Member Branley, roll call, please. Member Ruseau?
[SPEAKER_03]: Member Branley? Yes. Vice Chair Graham?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Member Itapa? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Reinfeld?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Lengelker?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes. I'm in the affirmative.