total time: 8.02 minutes
total words: 1267
total time: 1.71 minutes
total words: 257
total time: 10.76 minutes
total words: 1666
total time: 0.55 minutes
total words: 117
total time: 2.24 minutes
total words: 311
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great, thanks so much. Today is March 5th, 2025. We have a Medford School Committee meeting for fiscal year 26 budget at 4 p.m. via Zoom. This meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast and Verizon. Participants can log or call in by using the following link or call-in number. The meeting ID is 963. three, four, five, nine, four, seven, six, one. Questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting questions or comments must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford Street address, your question or comment. Member Ruseau, if you could please call the roll.
[Ruseau]: Certainly. Member Bramley?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Present.
[Ruseau]: Member Graham? I'm Graham.
[Graham]: Here. Can you hear me?
[Ruseau]: You're pretty, pretty light, but I just heard you that time. Member Intoppa? Member Intoppa?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Member Intoppa, can you hear? Are you able to unmute?
[Ruseau]: Oh, he's not. He's not a host.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Oh, we're gonna make him a host?
[Ruseau]: Yes. I'm here. Thank you. Great. Member Olapade? Here. Member Reinfeld?
[Reinfeld]: Present.
[Ruseau]: Member so present, Mayor Lago-Kern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Present, six, seven present, zero absent. If we all may rise to salute the flag, please.
[8Kto7egzLDI_SPEAKER_13]: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Agenda item number three is the MSBA Accelerated Repair Statements of Interest, SOI. Dr. Peter Cushing, assistant superintendent, and this is concerning the district's intention to submit a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority MSBA accelerated program on behalf of the Roberts, the Misituck, and the Brooks Elementary Schools. Medford School Committee is hereby asked to approve three separate motions hereby authorizing the administration to formally submit the statement of interest For the schools listed below under priority five, replacement, renovation and modernization of school facility systems, such as roofs, windows, boilers, heating and ventilation systems to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in school facilities. Number one is the Roberts Elementary School roof and heat pump. Two is Mississippi Tech Elementary School roof and heat pump. And number three is Brooks Elementary School roof and heat pump. Dr. Cushing, I don't know if you have anything to add before we take votes and discuss.
[Cushing]: No, just appreciate the committee's consideration of this. This window is open now until March 21st, and then we anticipate it will be closed for approximately two years. So now is an opportunity to at least get into the pipeline and have the opportunity to make decisions as we move forward with these three schools.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. And then, so the general public's aware, this is the same process we took, just a different category under MSBA as it relates to the work we're doing for the new high school, which we're now excited to share last week that we're in the feasibility study. So this is just the first phase of trying to get that portion of these projects paid for through the MSBA. So I want to thank all that are working on these applications from the chair. Needed projects, of course, is one that has to worry about city and school budgets. It's a lot of work that we are doing on our HVAC and our high school and now these roofs. nevermind city-side projects, but definitely getting at least 50% reimbursement is something that you just can't pass up trying to do when you have buildings that are 25 years old at this point and their roofs are at the life expectancy or gonna be there shortly. So thank you. Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Is there an exact set of language that I should have the motion? Is that why Member Graham has her hand up? That's my question. Thank you.
[Graham]: Yes, there is. Dr. Cushing, this language that you've shared with me, I'm just going to pop in the chat.
[Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Graham]: And I'm happy to read it out loud. But I think the other piece of context for all of this, just so that if anybody else is listening besides the committee that's sort of been through all this with us, when we looked at the capital plan, which we approved back in December, December, I believe it was December in that plan. We made recommendations to pursue these accelerated repair applications when the window opened, because at that time, what we did know is this window is open again for the 1st time in a while. Right? I think it was open last year, potentially, but was closed to us when we would have needed to use it for. Um, the McGlynn Andrews project, and, um. The is doing a lot to try to combat. Like, the sort of skyrocketing cost of construction across all of their projects, which is what led to them freezing this program. So it is. seems like it's the first program to freeze when something happens that is unexpected and I'm glad that we have this window open that we might be successful with one or multiple of these projects because at best if everything goes as planned this will not come around again for two years which means we would not know an answer for three years which means we're probably looking at 5 years from now that, like, these things would be repaired and replaced and I am really worried based on what I hear about the. Things like the roofs and the HVACs from the process that we've been going through with McGlynn and doing these many assessments to figure out how to submit these applications that. sometime between now and five years from now like we are going to be looking at all of these projects as non-optional projects so um i i know dr cushing has been like really hustling to get this done in collaboration with some of the team that is working on mclenny andrews um and just sort of trying to position us to take advantage of a potential grant so thank you dr cushing for Um, for doing that, and I will, I'll read this and I will also pop it in the chat.
[Cushing]: This is just real quick, if I can, I apologize for interrupting. This language that is going to be read is extraordinarily specific and prescribed to the largest extent where specific things have been put in around the priority, the address of the school, things like that. But otherwise, the language is prescribed by MSBA and specifically taken from their resources.
[Graham]: Thank you, which made it really easy. So I didn't have to come up with this. So I will make a motion that reads having convened in an open meeting on March 5th, 2025, prior to the SOI submission closing date, the Medford school committee of the city of Medford in accordance with its charter bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize a superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts school building authority, the statement of interest form dated March, 2025 for the Roberts elementary school located at, what is the exact address? 35 Court Street, I believe. I think. Thank you. Court Street, Medford, Mass. 02155, which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which the application may be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in the future. Priority 5 replacement, renovation or modern modernization of school facility systems, including the roof, which is approaching 25 years old and the HVAC systems with heat pump technology. This work is being undertaken by the school district in partnership with the city of Medford as both the heating and cooling systems are in various states of failure. In particular, the cooling systems are unable to maintain a comfortable temperature for staff and students to function at maximum learning capacity. The roof is showing signs of deterioration and wetness, and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of interest form, the Massachusetts School Building Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or approval of an application, the awarding of a grant, or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, or commits Medford Public Schools of the city of Medford to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. And here it comes in the chat.
[Ruseau]: I am forever grateful you didn't expect me to type that up as it went, since you went.
[Graham]: Although it's not letting me send it. Oh, it's too long.
[Cushing]: Yes, there's a limit. Member Graham, would you like me to share the document with members? Yes.
[Graham]: That would be great. It is in the document. So what I just read, we can share with you if that works.
[Lungo-Koehn]: There's a motion on the floor. by Member Graham, seconded by Member Reinfeld. Roll call, please.
[Reinfeld]: Unless that's a problem because I have a child with the Roberts, but I assume that's fine.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I think it's fine.
[Ruseau]: Member Branley? Yes. Member Grant?
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Intoppa? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Reinfeld?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Rossell? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I also have a student at the Roberts, but I'm going to vote in favor of all three. So yes. 7 the affirmative, 0 the negative. Motion passes. Is Misituck next?
[Ruseau]: Oh, each one is.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Misituck Elementary, roof and heat pump is next. I'm assuming same sort of resolution.
[Graham]: Yeah, it's the same exact resolution. You can read it again. Having convened in an open meeting on March 5th, 2025. Prior to the submission closing date, the city council of the city. Sorry, this is the wrong 1. hold on. I'm in the wrong place. Sorry. Here we go. At the Medford School Committee of the city of Medford, in accordance with its charter bylaws and ordinances, has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit the Massachusetts School Building Authority Statement of Interest Form dated March 2025 for the Mississauga Elementary School, 37 Hicks Avenue, Medford, Mass. 02155, which describes and explains the following deficiencies and priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in the future. Priority five is replacement, renovation, or modernization of school facility systems including the roof, which is approaching 25 years old, and the HVAC systems with heat pump technology. The work is being undertaken by the school district in partnership with the City of Medford as both the heating and cooling systems are in various states of failure. In particular, the cooling systems are unable to maintain a comfortable temperature for staff and students to function at maximum learning capacity. The roof is showing signs of deterioration and wetness. And hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of interest form, that Massachusetts in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application, the awarding of a grant, any funding commitment to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, or commits Medford Public Schools of the city of Medford to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Grams, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: I'm in the document, there seem to be duplicates for each school.
[Graham]: That's because there's votes that have to be taken by the council as well. So you just need to go to the school committee section. Excellent.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I'll second it though.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member Graham, seconded by Member Ruseau. Roll call, please.
[Ruseau]: Member Bramley.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Intoppa. Yes. Member Olapade. Yes. Member Reinfeld. Yes. Member Hruso. Yes. Mayor Lengelkern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes on the affirmative, zero on the negative, a motion passes. And onto number three, which is Brooks Elementary School roof and heat pump. Member Graham.
[Graham]: In an open meeting of March 5th, 2025, prior to the SOI submission closing date, the Medford School Committee of the City of Medford, in accordance with its charter bylaws and ordinances, has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts School Building Authority a statement of interest form dated March 2025 for the Brooks Elementary School located at 388 High Street, Medford, Mass., 02155, which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in the future. Priority five is replacement, renovation, or modernization of school facility systems, including the roof, which is approaching 25 years old, and the HVAC systems with heat pump technology. This work is being undertaken by the district in partnership with the City of Medford, as both the heating and cooling systems are in various states of failure. In particular, the cooling systems are unable to maintain a comfortable temperature for students and staff to function at maximum learning capacity. The roof is showing signs of deterioration and wetness, and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of interest form, the Massachusetts School Building Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or approval of an application. the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts School Building Authority or commits the Medford Public Schools of the City of Medford to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts School Building Authority?
[Hurtubise]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Reinfeld. Roll call, please.
[Ruseau]: Member Bradley.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Graham.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Intoppa? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Reinfeld?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Rossell? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes. Thank you.
[Graham]: Just a note for everybody that these do also need to be approved by the council and Dr. Cushing is working on a submission to them in time for their meeting next week. Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Cushing.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Next up, we have the fiscal year 26 budget areas of chapter 90 revolving funds, enrollment projections, and class size. So I'll turn it over to our budget analyst, Mr. Gerald McHugh.
[McCue]: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to attempt to share my screen. And here we go.
[Ruseau]: At the bottom right, Jerry, next to the slider.
[McCue]: It's always hard. All right. Can you see it OK? Yeah. OK. So for this meeting, I'm going to give an overview of what we found for enrollment projections for next year, how that translates in the class sizes projected, a brief overview of chapter 70 budget and kind of how we divided up the override questions. And then I'm gonna go through kind of the initial asks from all the principals and directors in the school system. And there's gonna be a lot there and the bottom line is gonna be a little eye popping, but we're not suggesting that we're gonna attempt to fund everything that was asked for, but we do wanna encourage principals and directors to not be shy about stating what they think they need for their program.
[Reinfeld]: Jerry, do you want us to save questions till the end?
[McCue]: I guess I did allow for some time for questions at the end, but I suppose, if there's any clarification that it might make sense to interrupt.
[Reinfeld]: And sorry, while I'm here, will we get a copy of this? I don't think it was in our- Yes.
[McCue]: Great, thank you. Yes, we'll get it up on the website tomorrow. So we're predicting an increase in kindergarten enrollment, and of course, that's just a best guess. I did note that there was 699 births in Medford for the year that the kindergarten class is entering. I took an average of the percent of births in the prior three years that translated into kindergarten enrollment. And then I made my projections based on that. You know, we'll of course keep an eye on that, you know, through the registration process, but we are proposing, you know, to have sufficient teachers to handle that increase in enrollment. So the enrollment by grade, it's somewhat stable, although, There's been this history in recent years where one kindergarten is high and then the next year the kindergarten is low. And then as these grades progress through the elementary, there's ups and downs. But we'll get to the total enrollment and it's somewhat stable. This will necessitate principals to kind of move their teaching staff around because some You know, they might've had four grade twos this year, and they only have three grade threes next year, but one of those second grade teachers will probably have to move to grade three, unless they still needed four in grade two. So we've accounted for that. So there's your middle school grades and the high school. And then I took a cut by school as well. So Roberts is really large. So that's something that we should be keeping an eye on. And the rest of the schools are pretty close to what they had this year. And some of that increased kindergarten enrollment is driving up that number for them slightly. And then here's the middle schools are pretty stable. And then the high school we expect will increase a little bit because of the ninth grade coming in and the Curtis Tufts will be somewhat stable this year. And that really depends on, that's based on students we know about. And there could be other students assigned to Curtis Tufts during the FY26 school year. And then these are the totals for the last three years, actual as of October 1. And then based on the October 1, 24 enrollment, we use that as a baseline to form a projection for FY 26. So about, you know, 34, students, let's see, it's an increase of about 65 students, 34 is from the kindergarten enrollment, 23 is from the high school, and then the rest is kind of sprinkled around throughout the remaining schools. So we did class size, you know, after I got some feedback from the principals this year, we changed a little bit how we're doing class size. because I wasn't originally taking into account students that are mainstreamed in specialist classes. So we tried this methodology this year where we took the number of regular ed grades in the school for a particular grade and then divided it by the total student enrollment. And that will make sure that they, specialists will have a reasonable caseload. And these, I think, compared to other school districts I know about, these are pretty generous class sizes, I think. But Chapter 70, as we found out, kind of the basis for the override was the conclusion that the Chapter 70 budget and Chapter 70 state, the foundation budget and the Chapter 70 state aid really do not provide MEDFED with the funds they need to run their district. So there's a, right now this is based on the governor's budget. Chapter 70 for MEDFED will increase by $338,000. That's based on many school districts actually get the minimum state funding. They don't qualify for chapter 78, as is the case with MedFed. So typically governors have begun this process by giving $30 per student. Governor Healey constructed her budget based on $75 per student. And if my memory serves last year at the conclusion of the state budget process, it was up to about $104 per pupil. So hopefully that number will rise and give the city a little bit of extra funding to offset their appropriations school department.
[Ruseau]: Yes. I don't know if you can see the question from the mayor, but should that actually say FY25 and FY26?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I didn't know if that was, sorry.
[McCue]: Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, because you said it will be going up, so I thought FY25 were finalized.
[McCue]: Yeah, I think I used last year's template, and I did forget, but I'll fix that at the end of the, presentation. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, great. Thank you.
[McCue]: And so then we had the ballot questions this year and thanks to the voters of Medford coming to the rescue, providing $7 million in additional budget authority for Medford Public Schools. Question seven provided $3 million for kind of general school expenses. And 4 million was dedicated towards the creation of a high school schedule along with providing funds for teacher and paraprofessional compensation. So how this got divided up is we were grateful to the mayor and the city council who advanced one million, $750,000 to the school department to kind of finalize our school budget last year. And it prevented further cuts. Everybody can remember there were a lot of cuts that had to be made in last year's budget. So the city was willing to take a risk and provide those funds upfront and hoping that the override would pass, which it did. So of the 7 million, that 1.7 was retained so it could go to fund the amount of money that the city already provided to the school department. And that left $5,250,000 to add to the budget. So basically this year we're working with a budget of $83 million. And last year, I know the school committee was very interested in some of the special revenue funds that we have. So I'm gonna try to quickly go through the list of these items. So we have federal grants. You'll see, I have a column for FTEs funded, and I haven't got to that yet. But particularly with the federal grants, Those grants are at risk, as many of you are aware. So we really have to get a handle of who we're funding off of these grants and just be prepared in the event that funding is cut. But that will be part of the budget narrative when you get the budget document. So we have our ESSER group, Title I, Title IIa, Title one is for reading and math instruction. Title two A is professional development and maybe, is it class size? You can use it for class size reduction. Title three is for our EL program. And then we have this student support, academic enrichment. That's the Saturday Academy, terrific, okay. And then the VOTE program has the Perkins Grant. Special Ed has the IDEA. We have a significant special needs population, which is why this amount is so high, and this funds teachers and medical contracts. other types of contracts that are needed for our special needs students and out-of-district tuition. There was a new IEP being mandated to be implemented, so we did receive some funds to implement that new IEP. And then we get a separate IDEA funding that supports the preschool program. Then we got this year, we got vacation acceleration academies and Molly Lorden spearheaded an effort to take advantage of a cybersecurity grant that was available earlier this year. And we in fact were awarded it. Our health services department receives comprehensive school health services grant from DPH. And then we are a fiscal agent for Medford Family Network and they receive a federal grant, coordinated family and community engagement. And then we had a small grant to support proficiency outcomes for our EL students and then the state uh, kicked in another $5,500 for that federal grant that we got. Um, we also, um, had, uh, qualified for reimbursement for a portion of our out of district, uh, uh, tuitions and transportation, uh, over a certain amount, uh, any tuition that's over a certain amount of money that's based on your foundation per pupil amount. 75% of that difference is eligible for reimbursement from the state. So our special education department prepares an initial claim every year, and then we get reimbursement based on that claim. And then in the last quarter, there's a reconciliation to get the actual student costs lined up with what we already received. And we also get reimbursed for our homeless transportation. And we've never budgeted this, but this year I want to utilize some of these funds to offset our homeless transportation budget. So I think we can free up maybe 300,000 or all the way to 391 to kind of offset the homeless transportation in the general fund. And that provides us a little bit of relief to address other needs in the budget. We have private grants. We have the Crystal Campbell Betterment Project. Cummings Foundation provides money for the Center of Civic and Social Responsibility. They also receive donations from the public, so that's in a third account. We have a scholarship in the memory of Leah Kalleri-Clark. We help the Medford Education Foundation manage the distribution of funds to our teachers that apply for grants through the Medford Education Foundation. Another private grant is Children's Trust from Medford Family Network. That is in the deficit, but it's mainly, we're still kind of unraveling accounting problems with that. They have several, several pots of money, and then they have people could be funded over two or three different pots. And if that's not executed perfectly, then you can get this situation. But this grant is well managed by the person that's assigned to it. So that will, I'm not concerned about that right now. And by the way, these funds, are only through the end of February and it's being compared to a full year's worth of funding from FY24. And then Midford Family Network also does some fundraising and that goes into their gift account. And then the school department receives gifts and donations at various times and it goes into this account. as well. And then for our revolving funds, oh, okay.
[Reinfeld]: All right, just to clarify, that's the balance, right? That's not the spending on it?
[McCue]: Yes, it's not the spending. Thank you. It's what's available after the spending.
[Reinfeld]: Okay.
[McCue]: I mean, I'm happy to, you know, maybe at a different time, we could kind of take a deeper dive into the the revolving funds and we could get, I mean, I have a history of revenue and spending for each of these accounts.
[Reinfeld]: No, I just wanted to make sure that was.
[McCue]: Yeah, it's not the spending, that's a good question. And the other thing about revolving funds is that the expenses hit right away, but the revenue typically lags because of reporting. It comes through a lot of fees come through the website, and then they have to be downloaded here at the school department, prepare a report that has to go up to City Hall. City Hall has to match it up with the deposit they received, and then it gets into the admin system. So the revenue does lag behind, and the balances at the end of the year will reflect all the revenue that was collected. Let's see, so some of these, I mean, you're familiar with the early education program, Medford is fee-based, school lunch is fee-based. Those balances are down mainly for the reason that I talked to you about it, but it's also the school lunch director is really doing a good job replacing equipment and updating equipment, utilizing those revolving funds. school athletics, driver's ed. We charge students if they break their Chromebook or they lose their Chromebook. At one time we accepted students from out of district down at the Curtis Tufts and we charged tuition. So we do still have balance in that account which we use to charge one of the individuals teaching their kids corner. Again, that's a situation where the revenue lags, the actual spending, but we've been, there's another thing that we're working on right now is that we've always had this practice of holding slots for employees. And sometimes, you know, if you have a very efficient, soon to be mom, She's on the phone four or five months ahead of when she needs it to make sure she gets a slot. And the budget is really based on almost full utilization of all the seats. So that's creating a little bit of a problem with the revenue projections that we're trying to address now for next year.
[Ruseau]: Barry?
[McCue]: Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. The shore tuition going up is confusing, because I didn't think we had shore occupying any classroom. So was there money that shore owed us and we just got it?
[McCue]: Yeah. So it went in. What typically happens when you have out of district students in your district, you can set up a revolving fund. And so this is a balance from back in the day when we collected tuition for those students. And little by little, we've been kind of spending it down. So you see, it goes from 176 at the end of 24. It's down to 98 as of February. Oh, there's an error. The 176 is 17,000. Oh, that should be a comma, yeah.
[Ruseau]: Okay, sorry. I was confused by that. Okay, thank you.
[McCue]: catch there's no more there's no more revenue coming into that account and that that's also the same for uh vocational uh tuition as well um i think the last student that we have from out of district is a senior this year uh and then of course we have the before and after school program um the edgley field now these next two accounts one um you know the In community schools, I don't know when the decision was made, but it was before my time, but I'm sure it was necessary to get through a tough budget year. But the director of athletics and his administrative assistant are charged to community schools. And it could have been that there were like sufficient funds in that year to be able to do that. And of course, the director of athletics does have a responsibility for scheduling the people that rent our school buildings. But it's really unsustainable because we don't have the rent coming in to cover those salaries anymore. So I think what we'll try to do before the budget is finalized is figure out some kind of allocation method where it kind of makes sense for the director to be charged a portion to Edgeley Field, a portion to community schools, and a portion to the general fund, and the same for his administrative assistant. And that will provide some relief to this revolving fund. And then the pool, they're doing a little bit better, as you can see from the deficit is going down, but we did change the rates at the beginning of the year, so that's helped. The other thing that I've done, one thing that also may be unsustainable in the pool is that the use of the pool by our own students uh, is important, but it's right now it's being absorbed into this fund, which doesn't have the money. Uh, so we can either, uh, so right now, um, I directed, um, the pool director to fund the chemicals that are used in the pool. We're funding those out of the facilities department right now to kind of compensate for the school use. But, um, going forward, we might have to figure out some kind of allocation on the general fund to support the pool. And then finally, the Medford Family Network also has a revolving fund that they call the Parent-Child Account. You want me to, that was a lot. Do you wanna, let me see. Yeah, we're gonna get into, kind of all the different asks. In the next few slides, I don't know if we wanna stop and entertain any questions so far.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I just have a question from the chair if I don't see any hands raised. In the CFO world and maybe the superintendent too, where are we at with the federal uncertainty and how our schools you know, taking that into account and budgeting. I know us mayors are talking about it on the city side mainly, but I have recently learned that there's a city or two that are nervous enough to be, is gonna be, you know, affecting their budgets. So I just didn't know where we are, because you did have a slide with all the federal monies and grant monies that come in. And I just, is there any of them that are of concern? Are we hearing any word on any of them that they might be cut or reduced or anything like that? Just so we can keep an eye on it.
[McCue]: I haven't heard any specifics. We definitely have to keep an eye on it. I will try to budget some money in undesignated salaries to maybe address three or four positions. What's unclear is whether the grants are going to be completely eliminated or are they simply eliminating the bureaucracy and giving the money or some portion of the money directly to the states. you know, we'll just have to see what direction they go in. But, you know, these are grants that affect every community, red states, blue states, urban, rural. It's just, there'll be a lot of pushback, I think, if this attempts to cut them completely, so.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[McCue]: When you hear about, you know, cutting, you know, eliminating the Department of Education, it's possible that these programs will just move over to the United States Treasury and will be dispersed from there. Did you want to say?
[Galusi]: I was only going to just follow up. You know, the title grants are the ones that fall under ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act. They are the ones that are linked to the, the competency determination and our compliance with making sure that we are compliant to the state standards and frameworks. Right now for Title I in Medford, we are using it solely for early literacy and reading skills at the elementary level. And to Jerry's point, Title II is a lot around professional development and learning. We do fund some consultancies in there, some of that funding is used to help us continue our partnership with Hill for Literacy. Title III, as he said, is through Paul Teixeira. Title IV is a lot of stipends and used to, as it's stated here, support students. And a lot of our fiscal 25 funding went to help with the High School Saturday Academy. The only thing that I would say, there's definitely a lot of conversation going on, a lot of monitoring of the current situation. There has been no change, but there is definitely some rhetoric around maybe, you know, just fear. And if districts and states are not compliant with federal mandates and executive orders, you know, the threat is that this is the type of things that they will remove. from funding districts federally. So of course it warrants monitoring, but at this time, there's no change.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Guzzi. And Member Graham?
[Graham]: Thank you, I just I saw I got a couple of questions related to this from a constituent and on the same day, I saw 1 of our representatives post about this very topic. So I just dug up her post and I'm going to put it in the chat to sort of. frame like how does money come to us like there's very little money that comes directly to us directly from the feds um so um i just thought this was like a helpful context oh it's too big um i'm just going to give you the facebook link i guess because i can't give you the whole quote um but um I find her to be very helpful and factual in her understanding of how school funding works. She's sort of a legend in Massachusetts, and she should be in a much more broad way than that. I don't know if that will actually take you to her post. Let me, I will send it to you all separately. And her name is Tracy O'Connell Novick, and she is a wealth of information. So I'm happy to read it to you all, but she basically, she says, that something I see a lot, perhaps, of people perhaps simply not knowing how federal aid to school districts works. In the vast majority of cases, federal aid to school districts goes through state ed agencies. There are some exceptions, and this doesn't, for example, speak to DOD schools or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Districts are not on their own, though, for the most part. Your federal aid is conditioned on written agreements between the state and federal governments. There is no TAP that runs directly to your school district, and thus, this isn't every little school district's fight. You know, the world changes, like, every minute right now, but that is helpful context. So for all of our, like, wishes about what Dessie might do differently in the world right now, I think we're all on that same side. Thank you.
[Galusi]: But just point, I mean, I do think that's important to also note though, because there is a difference, right, between competitive grants and non-competitive grants. And most, not all, but like most of these grants that Jerry is highlighting, we receive an allocation based on our demographics, our enrollment. And so we're kind of assigned the amount that we have to work with and budget for in the various categories.
[McCue]: Okay, so I wanted just to give you an idea of what the principals and program directors have been asking. We've made some tentative decisions on things we might include in the budget, but it's very limited right now. where we know we're gonna have, we have to provide a reserve for our collective bargaining agreements. And we do have teachers, we do have staff that are under agreement with the collective bargaining that will have an increase next year, that has to be accounted for. And most people have step increases or a lot of people have step increases that also have to be accounted for too. So once that's taken care of, then we can kind of address some of these other needs. And this is kind of right now where I'm at. There's still a handful of budgets that I really haven't gone through with a fine tooth comb, but we, and keep in mind that the numbers that I, you're looking at is not a budget number, it's the increase over FY25. So, we're anticipating we'll have to increase our reserve for expiring collective buying agreements by 1.3 million. We've already plugged in FY26 salaries for everybody if they If they are under a collective bargaining agreement in FY26, we used whatever was proposed for that employee for FY26. If they're not, we're using their current amount. And those funds are provided on that first line under our reserve. We have a handful of unforeseen expenses that we had to add to FY25 after the budget was approved, and I'll go through that list with you. We have tentatively sought to include some new spending, and then I'll go through the list I want to see just to give you an idea of what's being asked for. is kind of to be determined. That totals 2.7 million right now. And, you know, there's no expectation that we're gonna be able to fund everything that was asked for, but all the expenses will be evaluated. Some of the asks, it may, behoove us to wait until the new school schedules are established. So I'm going to switch to a different spreadsheet. So I'm going to stop sharing this one and
[Hurtubise]: Oh, sorry, the wrong one. Here it is.
[McCue]: Okay, so this is a new spending that we've included so far. And again, we kind of reserve the right to to take some of these off if we have to demalice the budget, but we do want to increase our capacity in our tech area. We identified this year every single software application that we're using, and it totals close to $800,000 worth of annual licenses So we know that our students and staff are using a lot of this technology for research, for instruction, for professional development, for keeping track of our students with demographic information, keeping track of their grades and things like that. you know, we have to have a reliable network. And what this will do is that the kind of the network support is within the group of people that are under Molly Layden that support the school, the teachers and the students with getting their computers running, their printers running. So we intend to keep those that same number of positions. This gives us an extra position that can deal exclusively with network issues and we'll be able to serve the staff and students better in the school with the compliment of staff that we have there. And then we have, you know, aging service and uninterrupted power supplies. These power supplies would keep our computers running in the event of a power outage and a lot of them don't work or they're beyond their life expectancy. We have a separate project going to replace air conditioning that's in the computer rooms at each school too. So a lot of those are out and of course that creates a very risky situation when those rooms heat up too much. We do think we have sufficient teachers to implement those class sizes that I showed you earlier, except we would need another elementary teacher at the Brooks. So we're kind of a little bit back and forth whether we should hold back on that and wait until we get closer to the start of the school year to see if those additional students materialize. But right now we're suggesting that we wanna go forward with that position. Yeah, I had a meeting with the principals and we went over there. the number of teachers they have per class. So I know there was a concern with the Missituk. In fact, that will be on the list that I showed you, but all the, I believe all the teachers that the principals need in the elementary schools are provided for in the budget right now. And we can go, if you wanted to see kind of details about how many classrooms we have at each grade at each school, we can certainly go through that at another time. The world language director asked for a stipend to provide a French II. Of course, an existing teacher would pick up an extra section to do that. Of course, with the new schedule, there may be no need for that. It might be able to be absorbed, but we'll keep an eye on that. When we approved our compensation plan for hourly rates, we identified security monitors as a possible security monitor substitutes as a possible need. So this will provide a small budget, at least initially, if we utilize a daily sub for security monitor. And we are expanding the number of students that can take the PSAT, sophomores and juniors I think at all, all sophomores and juniors, I think are contemplated to take the PSAT next year. And so that requires an increase to that subsidy of $2,000. The current budget is $4,000. Now for budget adjustments, these are, let me see if I can make this a little bigger. So these are things, you know, for operations we had because of, we had students move into the district that required one-on-one paras that come to the district with IEPs. And we had to put on three one-on-one paras at the Mississauga and an additional special ed para at the Roberts. We also, we currently fund lunch monitors in the lunch fund, which is not appropriate. We will get written up by DESI if we haven't already done so. So we'll propose to bring those salaries onto the general fund. We have two, pieces of software that are no longer eligible for grant funding that are integral to our instruction. One is ST Math software, and the other is the MAP assessment program that we will have to provide for in the general fund next year. This year, to deal with vacancies and illnesses at the vocational school, we added a building sub, although, no, we added an academic lead, I think, to support the vocational program, and that is working very well right now, and so we're proposing that we add that to the budget next year when we fix it. We also have frequently used daily subs in the health services program, but we don't really have a budget for that. So we're gonna establish a budget in FY26 for those needs. For security monitors, one security monitor was added this year because we have one night shift building monitor at the high school and we weren't able to provide that building monitor with a work-free dinner at the appropriate time. We also had some concerns with coverage over on the pool side. on a door on that side. So we added a building monitor for that purpose. And then in reviewing the staff, so we take a kind of look, we look at, you know, the FTEs that were authorized in FY25 versus what we actually have in the payroll and a additional security monitor popped up at the high school. So through, miscommunication, I think, that a position got filled that didn't really exist. So we're kind of evaluating, you know, how we want to deal with that second position right now. But one is definitely needed. And then, as I said, we went through all the instructional software that's used throughout the building and throughout the school system. And these, You know, as these became available, my guess is that people would just kind of figure out accounts they already had that they might have some slack in a particular year to fold in software. So sometimes it was charged to textbooks, sometimes it was charged to instructional supplies, sometimes to contract services, But for interview reporting, it should be reported under a category that's called instructional software. So we've identified all those and for what we need to get those accounts right size, we would have to add $58,000 to various accounts over the school system to make sure that those, that software is fully funded.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Excuse me. Jerry, I may ask a question. I know every year the city adds like a position or two and then the schools is moving things around and maybe does the same, adds several positions. This year we're adding quite a few more than that, obviously, because of the overrides. Are you budgeting at all? on the school side for the 20,000 plus per person it costs for insurance, or is that something that would be doing on the city side? Just pointing it out, because I know the school side alone is 11, maybe 11 and a half million for insurance.
[McCue]: Right, yeah. Well, I think that the practice here, Mayor, is that that was always accounted for on the city side. But, you know, we could have a conversation if you wanted these people are already on the payroll so they're already baked into FY 25.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, on this page. I just, this page and I know there's been a few others with new proposed positions. So that's why I think it's going to be more than usual with the override. So I just wanted to point that out because it's just a large expense for a city and school that we, yeah, I think we do take on the city side. So I didn't know if you were budgeting that 20,000 or so or more per person per new hire.
[McCue]: We are not yet, but you would have the increase in the chapter 70 um, to help support that. Um, and I don't think at the end of the day, um, the, the, the, the, the question eight was really to address compensation. So not to add people, uh, and then question three, I mean, question seven, uh, the 3 million. is basically stabilizing some of these budgets. Like this is how we're fully funding our instructional software and looking at facilities maintenance and the needs of our technology. So I think you'll find that we're not really in a position to add a lot of new staff in my mind right now.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you.
[McCue]: And so, I wanted to just kind of give you an idea of what the principals and directors were asking for. At the high school, the principal would like to start, oh, she asked for funds for Acceleration Academy, and I think we have that covered. Is that covered in the grant? Oh, that's a Saturday.
[Hurtubise]: The Saturday Academy, yes.
[McCue]: Okay. not the Acceleration Academy. She's very interested in establishing an alternative program at the high school in that this program would be similar to the Curtis Tufts, but different from the Curtis Tufts, these would students that don't have identified special needs, but need smaller groups and kind of a little extra therapeutic support And she does have a grand vision for this program, but what we are looking at is kind of more or less a pilot and start out with a small group of students and see how that works out. And there'd be a lead siteman attached to kind of take care of some administrative duties within that approach. more funds for the summer school, an advisory, I guess this would be a curriculum committee for SEL, whiteboards. She'd like to add funds for bathroom duty, but that's something that I haven't taken a look at yet. And you'll see, she asked for a number of positions which are are listed under the directors, but our teacher, band teacher, which we took care of in the supplemental theater teacher. Three were language teachers, and we'll give a few more details in a minute on those. And then two engagement specialists that would support working with the students. address attendance and behavior. At the Vogue program, we more or less took care of a lot of the asks through the supplemental. He is looking for an assistant due to increases in his program, enrollment in his program, and just somebody to help out with the administrative duties at the vocational school. The Andrews principal asked for a full or part-time special ed meeting teacher and was looking for either a para or a behavior specialist to run a in-school suspension program with a restorative practices curriculum. At the McGlynn, we did talk about the administrative assistant position, and that got added in the supplemental. He is also looking for funds to utilize a guidance Councilor to help with the schedule over the summer. The MISADUC asked for grade two, which we've provided for. The Roberts was looking for a special ed reading teacher, a BCBA, and a math interventionist. The ELA director asked if we consider two literacy interventionists at each middle school. The world language director was interested in restoring one Spanish teacher that was cut in 25, and then adding a second Spanish teacher to expand offerings. And to, sorry, there's a typo there, but to create a sign language strand within her department as well. And then the extra section for French too, which we've tentatively signed off on. And then we, for math, we had this ST Math that we're bringing into the general fund. Next year, she did offer to reduce her supply line because based on her needs, they're well, they have less of a need for textbooks and supplies because of the technology that's used. The athletics, I haven't been able to go through and I will within the next few days, They've been typically running over their budget. So I want to look at, you know, how we can structure that account to figure out what are we going to charge to the athletic revolving fund? And then what do we want to provide for in the, in the general fund budget? The Food Service Director provided for new appliances at the various schools and she has sufficient funding in her evolving fund for that. Visual and Performing Arts would like to add an art teacher. And again, this was kind of thinking similar to world language that there might be a need for more more of these types of sections when the new schedule gets created, but that I think is to be determined. We restored the band teacher at the high school. She also asked that the theater teacher be restored and have a part-time elementary band teacher and then increase her supply line by $4,000. uh, which I think is, you know, has merit. At the buildings and grounds, we, we, um, we added when we finally settled the Teamstess contract, we were able to add two swing stiff custodians, and that's been helpful in, in keeping the overtime down. Um, but the budget had already been passed by the time that, um, Labor agreement got worked out, so we added those in the supplemental along with an assistant director for buildings and grounds. And we still have to do some analysis on the cleaning contract, the maintenance lines, and the utility lines to make sure that those are sufficiently funded. In curriculum instruction, we talked about the MAP and the STMATH That map is really should be 38,000, I think not 45, but all this will continue to be gone over before we finalize the budget. For special ed tuition and transportation, we kind of got lucky. There was a increase of about $600,000 in special ed tuition. But because we did not use all our circuit breaker money this year, we have some bandwidth to offset those increases with circuit breaker money that we will receive in FY25, and then some we'll receive in FY26. Right now, I have this line item as being level funded, but it really would have put a hole in the budget if we had to come up with that. We had a number of new students this year that came to the district that needed an outside placement, but we do have a couple of residential placements that are aging out next year, so that helped. Same thing with transportation, and here's my my guess on how this happened, but as I was going through the budget this year, well, I get that I'm thinking about a yellow bus. So for special ed, we had a significant increase this year. And then the next two years are smaller increases. We entered into a three-year contract with North Reading Transportation. And we'll be able to utilize some, we'll be able to utilize some balances in Circuit Breaker to offset those increases in Special Ed Transportation, which as of a couple of years ago, the Circuit Breaker now takes into account transportation as well. So transportation is eligible for that reimbursement. The special education department has a program that they call project transition. And it's for students that have completed high school, but will still be with us until they turn 21. And so they've never really had a budget to work with. They've kind of cobbled together different amounts of money from different sources and including, you know, parents' generosity, et cetera. So this year we decided it's very small money for a very worthwhile program. So we'll continue to, we'll provide for that in FY26. And the director at the Curtis Tufts asked if she could have her own supply budget. which is fine, again, it's short money, but it kind of gives her a little more ownership to meet her needs. Before that, she would just typically go to the special ed office and try to get funds from the administrative office for her supplies. She also asked that if we could make sure the, you know, it was always intended that the floater would provide some administrative support to the director. So, but what was missing was a consistent day during the week where she could kind of rely on that person to come down. So we're trying to work out the scheduling of that so we can make that happen. And then the, Special Ed director wants to review the access program at the McGlynn Middle to look at staffing. There's some concerns with possibly growing enrollment in that program next year. And we do have more special needs students that require a year round programming. So the budget, which is around $280,000 right now is projected to increase to about 330 some odd in 26. The EL program is fine. And may I add to your earlier question, this is another area that we have to look at because of the nature of that program and the families that are coming to MedFed to be in that program. If you remember last year, we had a significant EL enrollment in kindergarten in FY24, and we provided for two EL teachers at grade one to accommodate those students. And speaking with the director, we'll move that second teacher into grade two for next year, and then we'll keep an eye on enrollment as we go forward. The health services, we did add a nurse in the supplemental. They were requesting a health record system that is really good. The designers of the system like to say, made by nurses for nurses. And that this is gonna help a lot with the reporting that they have to do with DPH because the software is designed to do that. And we'll get this in the first year of this grant, the cost of the application and the implementation. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done to integrate uh, this application into the school brains system. Um, and then we will have to pick this up and FYI 27, it will no longer be grant eligible. And then she did ask that her laptops be refreshed with Mac books. And we, um, completed that, uh, a couple of weeks ago, at least completed the ordering. So that that's going forward this year. guidance requested that the two Councilors cut at the middle school be restored, possibly add a college and career Councilor maybe as a stipend position, but somebody that could, you know, take the lead on the needs of those students that require those services. We talked about adding to the PSAT subsidy. So a lot of students can pay for their own, but some students need a little bit of support in order to take that. And that support comes out of this account. And then she also, I don't know if you're familiar with recovery high schools, but they're a little bit like a special needs outplacement but they usually have students that are referred that have substance issues. And I don't think we need to put a placeholder in because I think we'd probably be able to cover it, but it is expensive. But we haven't, there hasn't been a need for that for the last couple of years either. The director of library media suggested that we hire a district-wide library assistant. So a few years back, the assistants accepted in the high school were eliminated in favor of having full-time librarians in each library. But there is some need to collect books and get them back on the shelves. log in new books, some kind of like low level administrative duties that could support the librarians and takes time away from their teaching assignments and other things they have to do in the library. So for other operational, we are looking at a position to kind of provide leadership in the technology area. So this is something that we still haven't fully figured out, but our technology is kind of spread over different departments and it really needs to be organized in the same way facilities is organized so that people can be making sure that servers are refreshed on a timely basis. power supplies. We are up to date on the latest releases for security reasons. So that is under discussion. There was some discussion earlier, do we need to somehow support our diversity needs in the school department? We rely on the city. in their person. And so we're taking a look at, you know, whether it makes sense to have our own or work something out with the city. So, as I said before, the community schools, without the Edgley account being involved, it would cost $127,000 to kind of allocate, two salaries on a 60-40 basis, 60% to the general fund. But I need to sit down with the athletic director, kind of get a better handle on the time he spends in each of these programs. At the beginning of the school year, we established a city year program in two schools. So we are thinking about whether or not we should continue those programs into FY26. We did, as happened last year, we had, you know, we, in order to deal with a severe budget situation in FY24, there were a number of paras that was shifted to the before and after school program. And It really, you know, that's not, it's something that was necessary to do that year, but we should be working to undo that and get those people back on the general fund. I will say that through attrition, we've kind of whittled it down. I think there's 17 paras that are on this revolving fund. So it might be that we don't need to move five, but we should probably try to move a couple at least, and kind of keep an eye on that in the future years. And then we've talked about, as part of overall technology organization, whether we have a need for a high school registrar. I think there was one at the high school a few years back, but I think our position right now is we're gonna wait until we have a vacancy in our data reporting, position so we want to get that filled and get that person up to speed so that person could support a new registrar if we wanted to go forward with that position. So does anyone have any questions on that list or where we're at?
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, thank you so much for the presentation, Mr. McHugh. Very detailed. Any questions from the committee? And if not, we can move on to our last agenda item. I have a six affordable housing trust meeting as well. So just throwing it out there that I have to leave around six. So if there's no questions, thank you for the presentation. And I think you said you were going to send it to us by email as well so that we have it and can further review.
[Graham]: Yep.
[Reinfeld]: Will we get this list that you just went through here as well? That would be really helpful to see what people want.
[McCue]: Yeah, let me see. It's kind of embedded in a large spreadsheet, but I could probably print it out and PDF it.
[Reinfeld]: Even just this tab, I think, would be really helpful. Yeah. Great.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you so much. Hearing and seeing no further questions, thank you, Mr. McHugh. We're going to move on to number five, which is our executive session portion. Upon motion to enter into executive sessions pursuant to Mass General Laws 30A, Section 21A, executive session of the Medford School Committee to conduct a strategy session on the basis that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining positions of the Medford School Committee. Specifically, the Medford School Committee will be discussing ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with administrators and the Medford Teachers Association.
[Reinfeld]: Is there a motion to enter executive session?
[Lungo-Koehn]: And we will not, the Medford School Committee will not convene in public session after the executive session. Motion by member Reinfeld, seconded by Second. Member Intoppa, roll call, please.
[Ruseau]: Member Branley.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Intoppa. Yes. Member Olapade. Yes. Member Reinfeld.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Lindgren.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion to go into executive session has been approved. Have a good night, everybody that's watching from home.
|
total time: 8.02 minutes total words: 1267 |
total time: 1.71 minutes total words: 257 |
total time: 10.76 minutes total words: 1666 |
total time: 0.55 minutes total words: 117 |
|
total time: 2.24 minutes total words: 311 |
|||