The Fall River School Committee convened a special meeting on March 1, 2022, addressing several key issues including the FY23 budget, pre-kindergarten expansion, and the school mask mandate. During the citizens' input segment, resident Colin Dyas voiced concerns about the proposed FY23 budget, criticizing past administrative spending, alleging nepotism, and highlighting the city's projected $3 million deficit, which he attributed to a $2 million increase in the city's Chapter 70 matching funds. He also retracted previous statements on travel reimbursement but expressed disappointment with School Committee member Miss Pereira. The committee unanimously approved a motion to issue two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for leasing and purchasing property to expand pre-kindergarten programs. Chief Operating Officer Ken Pachico presented the plan, which aims to secure short-term leased facilities for 5-6 additional classrooms by September and a long-term purchased building capable of housing 10-15 classrooms. The discussion included potential properties and the legal necessity of the RFP process for leases exceeding $36,000. Superintendent Maria Ponce recommended lifting the school mask mandate, making masking optional starting March 7th, in response to new CDC guidance classifying Fall River as a low-risk area. This recommendation was unanimously approved after an amendment, proposed by Mr. Aguiar and also unanimously passed, clarified that masks would still be required for students on days 6-10 of isolation, in the nurse's office, or while using SARTA buses, and formally rescinded the existing mask policy. The meeting concluded with a presentation of the proposed Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Budget by Superintendent Ponce and CFO Kevin Almeida, totaling $204,753,290, a $25.2 million increase over FY22. The budget proposes 139 new positions, focusing on direct services and includes plans for significant capital investments and the strategic use of over $60 million in federal COVID relief (ESSER) funds. Mr. Aguiar raised concerns about the late receipt of budget documents and the allocation of mental health professionals.
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i'd like to call to order this special meeting of the fall of a school committee for march 1 2022. uh deb please call the role mr argyle yeah mr bailey here mr harp here chris laravey here miss pereira miss borges i'm sorry mr rodriguez here mayor coogan here salute to the flag i pledge
0:39allegiance to pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible we have one letter open meet citizens input
1:11colin dyess ray street in four river dad would you please read the letter the topic is the fy 23 budget good afternoon members of the fall river school committee if the mayor senses the citizens input in any way he will face immediate and severe repercussions we should always allow citizens to have the freedom of speech to discuss business whether one agrees or not i am writing to discuss the fy 23 fiscal
1:42budget and some areas i believe we can work on to alleviate the burden on the taxpayers while supporting the everyday worker in our school district and not the special interests previous malone budgets have included massive increases in these in famous administrative positions administrative positions that often are staffed by members of the good old boy network administrative positions that do not
2:08help the students of the city we saw in previous year's budget positions created for past school committee member families most lately for mont costa and tom cory that is nepticism the taxpayers of this city did not and do not deserve that in the budget we need to provide the extra support to the everyday teachers the paraprofessionals the custodians the nutrition kitchen staff basically the everyday workers of the
2:36school district and not the administrators the privileged few the good old boy network that's what the students and what this community deserves another issue this budget is the possible 23 million dollar increase in chapter 70 funds state representative carol fiola announced on social media the school department will be receiving a 23 million dollar increase in chapter 70 funds this is not terrible news however our
3:06funds which the city has to match and funds the school department has a plentitude of the state representative said the city will have to pay 2 million extra in fy 2023 to reimburse the city for net school spending because of this massive reimbursement this is not understood at the state level and what our delegation often fails to take into account that the city has a three million dollar deficit for fy 23. i
3:36would love to represent this district up in boston and work with the state representative colleagues on ways to reform restructure the system of reimbursement the city is going to have to make up this deficit by raising taxes on the homeowner which then trickles down to not only the renter but also all families of the fall republic schools we have this three million dollar deficit which will now be increased by a
4:05at least two million dollars because this mayor does not know what he is doing i call on the mayor to cut expenses such as pay increases for his friends and to lower salaries i call on the mayor to lower the burden on the taxpayers one more way we can save funds we should look at our policy of reimbursing travel i was since educated on the policy of the reimbursements for travel and i retract my previous
4:32statements from the last meeting however i was really disappointed miss pereira accused me of misleading the public because i didn't agree with one of the reimbursements for travel i never said it was a paid vacation i am disheartened school committee members would accuse their constituents of misleading the public all because they disagreed with the decision made by their elected body
4:55thank you all for your time and please think about the city's multi-million dollar deficit when making decisions thank you very much colin dyas thanks deb committee of the whole discussion 3.1 is discussion and vote to approve an rfp policing purchasing a property for pre-k expansion as referred by the facilities and operations subcommittee and presented by ken pachico chief operating officer ken
5:30good afternoon everyone the the subcommittee at the uh at the last subcommittee meeting looked at some proposals that uh we had already taken a look at um as a as a district as possibilities of our expansion um pre-k um program and um the next step in that process is to put out an rfp a one for leasing and one for purchase the short and long term strategy that we'll be using moving forward so the short term
6:12strategy would be to find a piece of property that we can lease for three years i'd like to do a three year with a two-year option just in case we're not ready with a long-term solution and that'll allow us to take care of our immediate need currently we're using two classrooms and some space at the boys club girls club and we are going to be wrapped up with that particular agreement in june and this would
6:45whatever facility we are ready to move on short term would have to be available to start in september so we have a couple of places that we're going to look at and we also will have that rfp ready within the next few weeks if if this committee approves it a long term strategy would be to buy a facility that we could have plenty of expansion in 10 12 14 classrooms of uh
7:18pre-k and the possibility of other expansion or class size reduction if if that becomes the need um however um the the overall plan is for uh is for pre-k and early child care so it'll be two separate rfps one for a lease um and one for uh purchase any questions for mr pachico this is something that's solely needed and i'm glad to see that the subcommittee uh sent it to the full committee anybody have any questions
7:52uh mr aguiar so the letter that's attached here says february 14th yes representing a request to discuss the child care so i'm trying to put this together that that seems this seems like the document that went to the subcommittee it is the exact document that went to the subcommittee with the parcels that we looked at three of the four that you see here we actually toured looked at those properties and
8:23one of them we own which is globe street the old stone which would be a site for mobile units modular units the second one is the old atlantis charter up on townsend hill north south main street corner summit the third one was the former planet fitness on quickest hand street which is not available they've um they're going to do a a self storage facility in that in that spot
8:59and the uh the last one that we had looked at was 951 slade street which is um which was a daycare a facility i think that was worried if i'm not mistaken um as a uh a child care facility so those are the five the four that we looked at the the immediate need we've met at the boys club but in september we will probably need an additional three to four classrooms
9:30on top of those two which we could need as many as six five or six classrooms so one of those facilities one of those choices that we looked at would be able to answer that but i'm not quite sure if there are other facilities in the city that wouldn't be suitable also so the process has to be an rfp because we can only um rent property lease property with a maximum value of 36 000
9:59for a 12-month period once we do the three-year lease on any property that number obviously is 36 for the three years also so this would would be the need for that rpa i'm sorry for the rfp process so that we can have equal opportunities for businesses in the city to lease us property so what madam superintendent what is your plan for improving increasing the pre-k moving forward well
10:35our short-term plan would be to secure a facility to open up at least five classrooms move the two additional classrooms from boys and girls club that would allow us to have seven classrooms at an alternate site that would increase uh pre-k enrollment and a short a long-term plan would be to secure a building for the long haul and open up at least 10 to 15 other classrooms pre-k classrooms that's a bold move to buy a
11:04facility we you know this committee we all have to be committed to it i think there's not a person in the room that's not committed to expansion of pre-k we know how important that is but we need to have a short term plan as well as a long term you can't we can't just find a facility and open 15 classrooms next year in september so knowing that i i just think
11:25i guess what i was expecting was some the subcommittee meets to go over something and then between that time and now we get some other new information like here's after reviewing this this is what we're coming up with this would be a short-term plan this would be a long-term plan like sort of laying it out for us so i think it's kind of it makes sense you got one building that's out of the four
11:47you got one that looks like you you it's potential for a lease and you got one that looks like it's a potential long-term solution to what the superintendent just said but these are these are just these are three options of i'm not sure how many in the city these are the low-lying fruit basically so i can't make any commitment to anyone about anything without the the procurement process happening the way it
12:13needs to happen so these were three that we we looked at because we felt that they would be both short and long-term answers but i i believe that in the city this size there may be other property owners who would like to get involved in this particular piece and the criteria that will be written up in the rfp is all going to be minimums we need a minimum of sixty thousand square
12:39feet to do this we need a minimum of eighty thousand square feet to do this this is what we're looking for we need off street parking we need to have the ability to expand in our in our permanent solution on our short-term solution we need it to be ready for september which is a monumental task if you're not already set up that way yeah so i support it wholeheartedly i i've been pushing for
13:08universal pre-k you know right through but when i look at it i just don't know why we're not i believe there's processes and that you can do in government that we identify apostles that meets the needs for the specialty or whatever we'd like that we have a process that you could follow and then you negotiate the price and we purchase it i think it has to go through the rfp the rfp process would be the
13:35if they can't meet the process so for instance if um if one of the mills had a second floor available to us that wouldn't be highly advantageous because it is a second floor and the first floor would be highly advantageous because it's little it's little kids not climbing stairs fire fire drills lunch the amount of travel they have to do so you limit yourself because of the group if we were doing another particular
14:10venue such as an elementary school then we would be wide open wouldn't the floors wouldn't matter as much so i don't believe that i can go much further without doing a formal process because um i'm not sure i can't commit anybody to time so for instance if we wanted to use globe street and we didn't own it i couldn't commit to the property owner of globe street that i'm going to put a trailer park
14:38in their particular parking lot and i need to go out and get prices i can't even get the prices on the um the mobile units i can only go by you know what we we've paid before you know for tansy million dollars multiply that out by another four to five classrooms and say that that project's going to be worth two and a half million dollars to put trailers on on that globe street property that much
15:04i can do as an option so my question though is do we have we checked in with the purchasing agents the legal yes or anybody to see it there's no other way to do it than this is what you're saying if you're going to do short term rentals under 36 000 36 000 and under for a contract then you can do that without going out for bid but if it's going to be anything over 36 000
15:32you're not going to be able to do that you eliminate the handshake so to speak of an agreement 36 000 is the total cost of total cost of the rental the rental so that's a lease part i'm talking about a purchase pot so you're telling me that the purchasing agent and legal everyone said that there's no possibility of other than doing the rfp the way we have it that you can't identify a parcel and go
15:55through a process in order to secure that and negotiate with that individual what we can do what we can do for a piece of property is as a municipality as a public entity we can seek out those particular properties and then mail them a copy of the rfp and ask them to to participate in that purchase i i don't know of any other way to do that and and i did
16:21um i did sit down with uh tammy moutino who's the purchasing agent for the city as to how we could purchase property i mean the city purchased property in a different way they could do it by eminent domain they can do other things but to do it on on straight um as a straight real estate transition i don't know how that's happened i would respectfully submit to folks that that has happened in the in the
16:46commonwealth there's other ways to do it so that we identify a property and then we can negotiate with that person you have to go through the register and all that other stuff whatever you got to post it but there's a process that can be in place if you know this is the property that we've identified that meets special considerations whatever it is there's another process but that being here or there what is the
17:06timeline to get this turned around if we approve it today and is it a certain like you have to put it out there for 90 days it's a regular procurement so in 60 days we could have a final deal on the lease the purchase is a little longer the school department obviously can't purchase the property and it would have to go through the city but you know it's a matter of how long that particular
17:31operation for the purchase whatever we purchased would not be ready our long-term solution would not be ready for september because this is it's too late in the year for a september opening of anything new a lease of a particular building could happen in september for sure what i would recommend is you do as few days as possible so that we it seems like we kind of know where we're at but i would do the fewer
18:02days as possible to get the purchase going sure personally but when you said three years for a lease if we purchase a property and start to work on it to you know i'm not so sure if it's even somewhat ready that it's going to take us three years to get the lease so when you put out the rfp for a lease i would caution you not to just go for three years like i
18:23i can't see why let's say next year we can only do seven classrooms as the superintendent said the following year we're going to do 15 in a in a building that we own and we've renovated why are we going to waste money on a lease i don't think that it's it's a one solution building to begin with um because again if we're looking at a building that's one story
18:46then it's easy to do the pre-k and a one-story building if we're looking at a building that is more than one story then we're not going to be able to put that pre-k up on that second floor safely and we've kind of eliminated that one option i would say that the the three-year with a two-year with a two-year option on the city side only on the school department side only
19:09gives us enough time to do whatever we have to do i don't believe that seven classrooms are going to be enough i i'm not sure if we're going to grow that fast and if we're talking about opening the door up to an awful lot of uh students i don't believe that one building is going to be enough even the long-term solution is still going to need that other particular building and it will also allow the possibility
19:35of some of those pre-k classrooms coming out of our schools and allowing us to do some class size reduction within those schools and utilizing those pre-k classrooms as possibly a kindergarten or first grade so it sounds like we're saying almost the same thing but i just think we need to give ourselves options so if what you just said is accurate that we're going to need both long term
19:59then we why don't we just go out to purchase them oh instead of lease like you know if that's if what you just said is true that we're going to need a double solution or more you know looking forward you know maybe that's how we write the rfp that we should have a right to well we could write it as least least option to buy yeah i think if you just
20:21open it up like you know i'm listening to what you said listen what the superintendent said it makes sense to to give us options and the goal is the same i want this done yesterday personally um i do think that there's other ways that handle it we can talk offline on on that or about the superintendent though but i do support it so i'm gonna i'm gonna vote for it but i
20:40just hope that we get it done quick with that thank you i need a motion in a second emotional approval second i have a motion a second further discussion please call the role mr again yes mr bailey yes mr yes ms laravey yes miss pereira yes miss rodriguez mayor cooley yes uh item 3.2 is a discussion vote to approve the next steps on the mass mandate as presented by maria ponce interim superintendent of school i take
21:11that back superintendent of schools sorry ms ponce thank you um when we were last here on february 14th we this committee took a vote to um rescind the mask mandate on march 14th to give us two weeks after uh february break we returned on monday on friday before this weekend late friday afternoon we received revised guidance from cdc that guidance has eased the mask requirements for k-12 schools as well as buses
21:53in areas that are considered low risk or medium risk we are considered a low risk area we didn't have that information until friday i consulted with nurse long we've been looking at our data we actually have had we were very concerned about returning after break because when we returned after thanksgiving and in particular after the christmas break it we um had lots of positive cases throughout the break as well as
22:25that the beginning of that week and which made it fair very difficult situation for both adults and students we've only had one reported positive case adult case and no student cases and given the fact that cdc has relaxed its requirements i i am recommending that we actually ease and also lift our mask mandate on at the close of school on friday march 4th and um make masking optional beginning on march 7th
22:58any discussion motion approve of the superintendent's recommendation most approved executive i have a second any discussion yes just one well i'm sorry uh miss larvae so uh you're recommending friday is that what you said at the end of the school day we want to give um families we want to be able to message to families etc and also talk to students certainly we're going to encourage anyone who's compromised to
23:21continue to wear their mask we want to make sure that we speak to our children and you know make sure we they are respectful of adults as well as students who continue to wear their masks so we want to use the next three days to prepare ourselves and lift that um the requirements as of at the close of school on friday right last meeting we also discussed the policy aspect of it
23:41and we were supposed to amend some of that how how's that aspect right so we we actually have the mask wearing policy uh that was approved by school committee until it's rescinded it's still um in our policy manual but um when we met we had just received that afternoon and amended policy by um forwarded to us by masc we are planning to uh bring that before the policy subcommittee um that's going to be happening
24:11at the end of the month um and then we will amend the current policy to reflect what the requirement was that um in health uh in the nurse's office we will still require students are sick i spoke i spoke to nurse long so students are sick for whatever reason we want to make sure we protect everyone we will have masks in every nurse's office and they can take a mask
24:33while they're waiting to be seen etc so um we will have it reflected in the modified mass policy i yield thank you further discussion mr aghiar i think that's a valid question because if we do this vote we're going to have a mass policy in place that can't be followed for the next 30 days so i think it right on the fly here i think we could make an amendment to change some of that
24:56my concern was what are the options for under the current if we get rid of it so on next monday when are the students going to be required to wear a mask i know you mentioned the nurse's office for students on day 6 to 10 of their warranty so i think if we get that information from nurse long we can rescind the policy and add whatever she's going to suggest so that we're in compliance
25:18for the next we don't want to be out of compliance on monday and that's exactly what you brought up mr aguiar is that the requirement is days 6 through ten when they return from an isolation they're going to be required to mask up and in health facilities in the nurse's office hi um so you're correct any um healthcare facility is still requiring cdc did not retract that so any healthcare facility which
25:53includes the nurse's office continues to have to have everyone that enters wear a mask also the public transportation has not been revoked either yet so anybody writing like the durfee students riding serta buses they have to wear a mask also public transportation has not changed yet students that you know were positive coming back to school the sixth to the tenth day still the recommendation is that they wear a mask
26:27anybody that's immune compromised is still recommended that they wear a mask anybody that's not vaccinated is recommended that they wear a mask not me and dated the public transportation piece that you mentioned yeah that doesn't make much sense but that's the government right that's the government that's the federal mandate for public transportation they follow the tsa guidelines the um sort of buses they
26:55follow on trains uh airports um so they i think that they're that supposed that order is supposed to be expiring on march 18th we're not sure if that's going to be extended or if that is going to be allowed to expire but they follow tsa regulations yeah i mean i think we should look at the certain issue anyway because transportation issues separate from i don't like the idea that we have our
27:20students that should be taking a bus to go to school like a school bus has to take those it's all about money and quite frankly i don't like that part of the policy but that's neither here nor there so if i was to say we need to make an amendment to the motion that students that are back day six through ten or in the nurses office or taking a serta bus
27:42need to wear masks any student that chooses not to or refuses will face administrative consequences from the principle i think that would at least solve it that there's a you know and we rescind the current mass policy so i'd like to make that in the form of an amendment
28:06he's made the motion he wants to amend it do i have a second second okay i'm missing a second on the amendment debbie you want to call on that mr hague yes mr bailey yeah mr yes miss laravey yes ms pereira yes mr rodrick yes mayor coogan yes on on the uh on the ending of the mass mandate on friday um do i have i need a motion in a second i
28:34just have one question oh i'm sorry i'm sorry miss rogers what's our plan to monitor throughout the week so today's only tuesday right of course we will continue um nurse along we monitor every day so we we will continue to monitor do we have a sense of what our threshold would be would be like we know that there are going to be cases throughout the week because that's just what what happens but
28:55do we have a sense of when we would grow concerned and say hey this isn't a good idea so so we have been seeing numbers consist consistently dropping right so i've been in touch with the superintendent every day so yesterday we had no cases today we had no cases um i talk with her pro every day so she'll know when it starts to go back up if it does right and that's what i'm asking is do
29:24we have a sense of what that threshold would be like how would when would we say hey let's take a look at it we know that there may be a case here or there that's not a rush to hey we've got to forget this whole plan and we have to wear maps yeah i think if you start to see like clusters in schools you know um which we've monitored right along also
29:45i think that's when you might want to you know think about doing something else and it might be you know school specific too at that point okay that's what that's what i'm asking absolutely and that's good we're in the green now right so it's low risk as we see if we see that we're moving from green to yellow that's you know the the trend is going the other way we'll bring it to the attention of the
30:05committee absolutely yeah because i think if you look too you know you watch the city statistics and they're going down um if they start to go back up i mean you know because we do talk with the local board of health frequently as well you know those are the kind of things we look for yeah we um uh so we checked uh i brought some of the data um the three hospitals um toby
30:33st luke's and charlton are all grouped in one there's only 17 patients in all three of the hospitals on 228 and over the weekend they couple your cases together saturday sunday at it with monday we've only had 21 cases over over last weekend and that goes along with the decline in january we had 6 500 cases and in the month of february we had a total of 590. so it is plummeting right
31:01now let's all say a prayer it keep going that way right but i also think the schools should continue what we were doing right you know space out as much as feasibly possible you know continue with the hand washing you know do what we're doing now but just without mass and i'm asking those questions as a parent of an immunodeficient kid right those are the things that i want to know
31:24because it's not just our general yes we know that only a certain percentage of people who are generally healthy and at low risk you know something can happen but there are plenty of other people in in the district and so that's what i want to be mindful of that we have a good plan in place to monitor so that's all i'm asking and we also follow the deci um you know guidelines and actually
31:45i was on a meeting this afternoon at three and they're supposed to be coming out with new um scenarios now for schools so we await that too so we watch that we follow what they tell us with that are you okay so i need a uh a motion and a second on the i'm sorry on the amended on the amended motion debt please call the roll there was
32:09i didn't think i had a motion to say i had the motion originally and then and also the amendment okay call the world please mr again yes mr bailey yes mr harper yes ms yes mr pereira yes mr rodriguez yes yes item 3.3 is a presentation and a discussion of the proposed fiscal 2023 annual budget of the floral public schools as presented by superintendent claus um if you don't mind i'm going to
32:38the podium with mr alameda
32:52oh
33:01good evening so what you have before you is a uh collaborative uh process kevin and mr almeida and i are going to present it because we both created it along with everyone that's in this room had a hand in this budget proposal this is the first step on the beginning of the work that's ahead of us and it's really a budget that's hopefully going to create an infrastructure for success for our
33:29students and for our adults look at on the first slide and we look at what an annual budget is i mean i think that you've seen a similar slide or this slide even before and the budget is is what we stand for that's our moral document what we fund represents what we value our it's a it's a planning tool it's a communication vehicle that tells the public what we're all about
33:55it's a living document that needs to be adjusted according to what's going on around us and it acknowledges the work that we've done as well as the work that we need to build on and how we move ahead it complements our district planning and it's a statement a bold statement of what we value this document was created as a result of meeting we started in november december where we surveyed our principles
34:23in regards to what the budget priorities were we gathered that information we met as a team we collected all the data and then discussed priorities and put together this document this is a representation of the work that's been done at the school level as well as at the district level our budget priorities that's the funding of what we value learning accelerations we all know that we need to close the achievement gap
34:51that's not a secret that's something that we know that we're an underperforming district we've heard it many many times in order for us to be a high performing district we need to invest in our students we need to invest in our in our staff and resources high quality instructional materials need to be in front of our students in front of our staff we need to have multi-tiered systems of support we need
35:13to create opportunities for our kids with college and career readiness pathways we need to build on our parent engagement and and include our families and we need to invest in our human capital we've done some of that work we need to build on the work that we're doing so that we are creating success opportunities for success we also know that instructional technology what we've learned in the last two years
35:39as technology is way beyond just pliers and wires instruction technology has become part of everything that we do in the classroom digital learning analytics as part of supporting teachers in their planning we are in the midst of migrating to a new student information system again you'll see human capital across all of these priorities because if we don't have the right people in place
36:06we're not going to set ourselves up for success so we need to invest in our human capital at every single level of the work that we have to do special education programming we need to look at our students meet them where they are create systems for success for all students we have various programs in our district we need to make sure that we shore those up we build on them so that we're
36:28creating systems for each of our students to succeed curriculum resources i can't say it enough we need to have high quality curriculum resources for all students and a multilingual learner programming we just opened up a new program at vivaris a dual language program we have expanded our foundational programs and to include many of our schools because our population is growing we need to make
36:53sure that we're not it's not just in one area that all of our students have access all of our families have access throughout the district and again human capital we need to invest in people that are servicing our kids and we need to continue to invest in our buildings we need to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for success in all buildings we can't just we can't have a
37:14disparity some buildings are antiquated and other buildings are brand new all students need to have access to quality instruction in in state-of-the-art buildings so whether that's renovating whether that's building whatever it is but we need to continue to invest in our facilities and operations again so we're saying we're saying that we're going to fund what we what we value we need to question
37:42ourselves and ask ourselves how are we going to get there the foundation formula what you have on the right hand side chapter 78 that's built from foundational budget the foundational budget is what we need to fund our schools that's the total and that's a result of our local contribution as well as our chapter 78 so as we know we receive aid from the states about 81 percent and the rest is funded by the city we
38:08heard today how the city is going to have to pay more because our foundation budget increased yep that's true that's the law funding what we value again how do we get there chapter 70 and we look at the key factors in the school funding formula the foundation budget student enrollment factors in wage adjustment of the community inflation is factored in property values right that's the required local
38:39contribution property values income and the municipal revenue and then that's we use that to establish the foundation budget and the local uh contribution these are the six factors that work together to determine what we get in chapter 78.
39:01so the state determines the statewide foundation budget and for uh this year was determined to be just under 13 billion dollars uh the state has has kept the same formula that they have over the last several years which funds cities and towns across the state at a level of 59 percent local contribution and 41 uh funded through chapter 70 which this year represents 7.6 billion through the local contribution and 5.2
39:28billion through the state contribution but then the local contribution you know specifically to fall river it's it's all based on you know the the community and how much how much we can pay and it's all based on the community wealth and everything else so um what you'll notice is that varying communities based on you know what they can afford uh vary all across the state you have some communities that fund
39:53uh eighty percent through their budget and get 20 percent through uh the state aid and then you have the the disproportionate on the other side where you have communities that receive eighty percent in chapter seven and communities that receive uh that pay twenty percent in the local contributions so it varies all the way across the state depending on community wealth so this here is just a snapshot of the
40:14foundation budget i know that it looks very very uh small from where you are looking at it up there but the foundation budget is established and it's got 13 in our case it's 13 but it's 14 categories the other category is half day kindergarten and each one of these categories based on student enrollment in each one of those categories has a weighting and gets and you get a certain amount of money for each one of
40:41those areas and so when you add all those areas up the total foundation budget for fiscal year 23 for the fall republic schools is just under 205 million the total is 204 million 753 290 and it equates to a foundation budget per pupil of just under 17 000 hundred and 16918 and as we move on to the presentation we'll explain uh these different areas in more detail so this next slide just provides you
41:16with what the weightings are for each one of those categories so the the base rates start at the preschool where the total is 4464 per preschool student to the vocational students where we receive a total of fifteen thousand six ninety seven seventy one for each one coded there in addition to that there are costs that are above the base rates which in particular uh and i'll pref
41:43i'll preface the low income group uh so the state has each city each school district is grouped into a low-income group it's 12 total groups and it's all based on percentage of poverty and so it ranges from zero to five point nine nine percent in group one to in group 12 it's 80 plus percent we in fall river are currently at just over 81 percent uh poverty so we fall
42:10into the group 12 category and so for each one of our low-income students so if you go back to this slide we have 9725 students that are codified as low-income so we receive just under 6 500 for each one of those kids under the low-income category above the base rate so the last piece of the puzzle is the indirect costs so the city's allowed to charge back costs to the schools and so those costs
42:41are called indirect costs all those costs are they are outlined in our indirect cost agreement so we as a department have another indirect cost agreement which outlines all the costs that we are charged outside of our budget that are budgeted for on the city side those costs are reported on schedule 19 you know for the budget year and schedule one actual once this once the year has ended and so those costs
43:07uh i know they don't have listed here but are actually health insurance the retirement costs costs associated with school choice charter schools and an administrative cost over on the city side so all those costs are outlined in the indirect cost agreement and so those are all costs above and beyond what we currently have in our local operating budget on that sure are they staying the same yes
43:32the city and everybody agreed it's all the same as as of right now we're using the same the same uh categories yes you know i mean the same uh indirect cost agreement is the same as last year yes he hasn't requested a change and we haven't requested not not as of yet mister yeah no as of yet you're anticipating it or no i don't i don't but not as of today i can
43:52say that we have no i just didn't just want to know thank you sure no problem so net school spending so we unesco spending essentially is referred to as the foundation budget by the dec it is our required net school spending this dollar amount is set by the state each and every year uh actual net school spending includes as i just mentioned the town and city in direct spending for
44:15schools which are those other costs in addition to what we have in our operating budget net school spending is a hundred percent it's the minimum required spending uh for that we can spend on schools so whatever it is that the state establishes that is what we have to spend on an annual basis and if we do not spend that money on an annual basis then that money rolls forward into the following year and
44:37needs to be made up so
44:44so the student opportunity act the great equalizer it's true so up until then to 2019 the formula for calculating our funding was the same and with the student opportunity act thanks to all the people who advocated for high needs districts who really recognize that educating students who are have disabilities who are multi-language learners who are come from low income who are considered high needs costs more
45:22and what the student opportunity act did is it recalculated the formula and recognized those high needs and we receive additional funding for students who fall into those categories the act reinstates the definition of low income and we keep reiterating low income because that's our biggest category that's where you just heard 81 percent of our student of our city we fall under that right so 81 percent
45:55if you look at the next slide and look at where we are grouped eighty percent where group twelve and eighty percent we're getting six thousand four hundred and seventy six dollars and fifty fifty seven cents because we fall into the low income category here we have a little snapshot two years of where we are it paints a picture of our demographics of our district if you look at the
46:22numbers and you look at the differences in numbers there are and especially if you go down to the um low income if you see that in fy 22 73.8 and we jumped to 81.7 percent students with disabilities was flat high needs from 81 to 86 percent first language not english 28 to 30.4 percent so these categories go up and that impacts um the the the funding from student opportunity and the funding that we receive
47:00in our next slide we have five year shifts according to race and ethnicity and it just to paint a picture and to show you how our population is shifting according to race and ethnicity and if you look at um some of the numbers we have grown we've gone from nine to ten percent from african american but we started at seven point eight five years ago we're at 10 percent
47:21and if we look at hispanic we start at 26 we're at 31 five years later so that this is the shift in our population our demographics our next slide shows you a five-year shift based on our needs these are our special populations first language learners not english we started five years ago at 23.8 and we are now at 30.4 for english language learners we started at 15.2 we're at 19.2
47:55for our low income we started at 67.9 and we are at 81.7 students with disabilities we start at 20.5 and we are at 23.3 a slight uptick and for high needs we went from 75.5 to 86.9 and that's just in a five year range this is a picture of where we are with our enrollment um we are now at uh 10 268 students as of today uh and so our enrollment is actually if you
48:33last year and much of the state experienced a decline in enrollment we actually have experienced a rise in enrollment this year we are 270 students stronger pre-k and k saw 172 students addition in k-5 in grades one through five we actually saw a decline of 64 students in secondary 6-12 we saw 162 students from last year so which brings us to 270 scholars that we welcomed into our doors
49:09this year as opposed to last year so this next slide provides you with the foundation budget enrollment and the various categories and so you can see that in each area with the exception of elementary and i will explain that in a second have gone up in particular the low income has gone up signific significantly by 558 students uh the elementary number stayed pretty much the same went down a little bit
49:37because our first grade enrollment is low it's kind of stayed consistent from last year's k level so that's the reason why the elementary numbers are a little bit low but this that slide is kind of just a follow-in to this to this upcoming slide and so each one of those each one of those enrollment figures on the previous slide uh comes to da you know show comes to the dollars that are on this slide and
50:02in particular you can see that we saw a significant increase in low income and so you know the the 23 or 20 23 million dollars that was that was referenced before plus the 2 million in required contribution for a total of 25 million dollars a very very big chunk of that comes from the low-income category and so where we were at 48 million last year we're at 62 million almost 63 million dollars
50:28we're receiving in the low income category this year through the foundation budget
50:40our budget priorities again i'm going to remind you i'm just going to we included this slide again because we don't want to lose sight of what we are focusing on we want to make sure that we have quality teaching and learning in every single classroom we want to make sure that we empower our teachers with the appropriate materials so that they can successfully move our students we want
51:04to make sure that our students that are high needs that are students with disabilities on multilingual students are taught by highly qualified people that they have the appropriate resources that we are able to meet them where they are and move them forward and we want to make sure that we have buildings that support teaching and learning so here we've included an outline of the
51:31budget process we're providing you with the state process and the local process so here so first at the state level in january the governor released his governor's house two budget uh the last week of january from now that that but that budget figure or that budget is essentially the the baseline for what the budget's going to be at for you know for us for the fall republic schools uh in mid april
51:55the budget will then go to the house ways and means then to the house then in may to the senate ways and means to the senate and then to the conference committee where then it will go to vetoes and override and finally july first the budget will be signed by the governor our process um starts in november where we have the budget survey in december we established our budget priorities that were approved by the school
52:22committee um in january we we received the figures from the from the governor as to what the figures are here for fall river in december we met with all department i'm sorry i said summer in february we met with all department heads all principals to go over their budgets to see what all their needs were and have incorporated them into this budget today we are here presenting the budget to you in march
52:47um that through in continuing in march we'll have a finance subcommittee meetings to go over um go over the individual schools and individual departments uh where in at the end of april we'll advertise the budget we'll have a public hearing in april and release the budget um and then vote on the budget to send over to the mayor so that he can put it into the city budget right before april 15th we typically have the
53:15joint uh joint city council school committee meeting that we will discuss the city finances along with the school funding and so on and so forth and then by may 15th we have to provide the budget to the city council whereas the city council will deliberate the budget shortly thereafter after may 15th and with the hopes of having a budget approved by june 30th so house two so chapter 74 fy 23 is in for 168
53:51million 421 258.
53:55this represents an increase of 23 million 238 and 415 238 000 415 for chapter 70 over fy22 uh chapter 70 for all districts for all for all cities and towns was the minimum required was thirty dollars per student uh the city contribution is now thirty six million three thirty two oh thirty two which is an increase of two million forty five thousand seven hundred eighty four over fy twenty two
54:23and the appropriation for chapter 70 plus the city contribution is 204 million 753 290. so the total increase between chapter 70 and the local required contribution is 25 million 284 over fy 22.
54:40so again 204 753 290 is our 100 net school spending figure for fy23
54:53obviously we can't in good conscience ask for anything more than 100 percent uh net school spending but 100 net school spending is what you're paying us to advocate for that's what our kids deserve that's what our teachers deserve so in our next slide we have new positions for school year 23. this is a result of the conversations we had with principals as they articulated their needs
55:18we are getting 25 million dollars more and we want to make sure that that money goes right back into the classroom goes right back into students it goes right back to teachers we want to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for success if you look at these positions we're asking for 56 paris that's because right now we have in some of our kindergarten and first grade they are
55:39sharing paris most of the first grades don't even have paris but in kindergarten in some schools they share a para when you have 25 26 5 year olds six-year-olds in a classroom with one adult you need help our kids are coming in with a lot of need and we need to make sure we support our teachers to do their job in order for them to do that they need support in
56:01the classroom so we are proposing that we add 56 pairs so every kindergarten first grade will have a pair a full-time power in there we are also asking for 51 additional teachers and that's ranges from interventionists to special needs inclusion teachers to esl teachers it depends on the need that was advocated by principals we're also asking for 12 additional officers and that will those will be
56:30deployed district-wide as you heard last month mr cabral brought a plan together reorganization plan for the technology department so which includes if he's going to build a viable technology instructional technology department he needs to be staffed appropriately so he's asking for eight additional staff we are also asking for support specialists to support sel needs in classrooms
56:57additional counselors and that's an sel integra integration counselor that would be a district-wide counselor for sel support that would work with our lead counselor a movement therapy counselor that we are piloting that would work with some of our sub-separate classrooms rpa guidance council to focus on intake and spencer borden has articulated a need for an additional sac and that's in addition to the counselors
57:24that we already articulated at the last meeting that uh it was there was a motion to add these were as a result of the principal meetings we are also asking for community facilitators one of the one of the priorities needs to be that at every single school we have a bilingual community facilitator so obviously we're not going to find a person uh 16 people who are portuguese speaking or
57:50spanish speaking but we want bilingual so that we can actually share so if if talbot needs somebody who speaks portuguese and their community facilitator speaks spanish they can swap out or go to a meeting they can share amongst each other but we can't say that we want to increase parent engagement and that we want to include our families if we don't have the right resources and community facilitators we already have
58:11some on board we have three that we are proposing to fund through the operating budget and we have seven that we are going to fund through sr funds we also need slpas and codas so the speech pathologist occupational therapy and we need custodial staff additional custodial staff family engagement specialist to work out of the pace center to work directly with families and with ms kudo an additional psychologist
58:44bcba and a lot of that is for compliance reasons an additional payroll manager and a laborer plumber an additional clerk to work with our mll department at transition we have a vp that's going to be retiring mid-year we want to make sure we bring somebody on board in september so that they can transition in the position and then take over as when that vp leaves and part-time athletic trainer right now we have one
59:14full-time athletic trainer and she's not able to be at every single event so we need somebody at least part-time that can support that work at um games and through esser we are also expanding our early college early college staff with an early college academic specialist and instructional support liaison for early college so as you can see we didn't we didn't have the budget with administrative
59:41positions we want our focus was on direct services how do we what we ask principals how what do you need in order to succeed in your buildings and they articulated their needs and we i think that we are able to to fund their needs and to support them as best we can
1:00:06so this slide represents the comparison from fy22 to fy23 and as you can see we're getting credit for 209 additional students uh just as a note and i don't believe i mentioned it before was the the enrollment figures those include the faller public school students and and also the charter school students both argosy and atlantis so our our figure is just under 10 300 and the rest is the charter school students
1:00:33the foundation budget was just under 180 million last year uh it's going to just under 205 million this year a 25 million dollar increase as represented there uh the required district contribution is going from 34.2 million this year to 36.3 million next year and in fy 23 an increase of 2 million dollars chapter 70 is increasing from 145 million dollars to just over 168 million dollars next year
1:01:0423.2 million dollar increase so our required net school spending is going from just under 180 million 179 469 0.91 to 204 million 753 290.
1:01:18the increase is 25 million 284 199 the one thing that i didn't want to point out was that um chat to 70 is um is going to represent uh just over 82 next year so 82.26 percent and fy 22 it was at 80.9 so we typically have been around 80 20. the next year will be 82 26 uh 1774. so you know it's it is some relief to the municipality i know
1:01:50i know that the increase is still two million dollars which is a lot of money but um you know it's we have seen a growth in chapter 70 and in relation to the percentage so so this here is the five-year trend for uh for net school spending and you can see that in fy 19 the total was about 150 million dollars in fy 23 where we're going into next year it's just under 205 million
1:02:22the blue in the slide represents what chapter 70 is so just to give you a picture of you know the funding levels and what it's gone up over the last five years the gray in the slide is the required contribution so here's our proposed budget so just under 180 million is what we're operating with this year um in fy 23 the house 2 budget is 204 million 753 290 uh the proposed budget that we are
1:02:51putting in front of you is 204 million 753 290. the delta was 25.2 million and we are asking for 100 that's all we're asking for on this budget so as always so our fy 23 budget concerns our budget busters that we refer to them as uh are items such as transport these are all things that we don't have control of that you know they can go up or down depending on what year it is so
1:03:20as transportation the charter school school choice expenses out of district special education our utilities the continuation of our covert expenses our capital infrastructure and health insurance so this is a list of our you know future capital investments that we have in plate that we've put on a slide for your review so that these are items that we're hoping that with the help you know with working with
1:03:51the city we're working with canon facilities that we can put in place moving forward and so those items are are listed here they total three million dollars first item is because is on the custodial side at dorothy high school it's the autonomous floor machines which total 150 000 and maintenance it's a bucket truck assorted hvac electrical and plumbing tools which total just under 200 000
1:04:20and security a pickup truck for 30 thousand dollars at dorne the handy access the handicap accessible ramp needs it needs to be fixed it's a 150 000.
1:04:32district-wide we're looking to implement the fob access for security for security purposes which total 1.2 million dollars we're looking to add outside security cameras totaling four hundred thousand dollars uh the sylvia access road uh which we've estimated at four hundred thousand dollars and finally the talbot baseball and softball field uh for five hundred fifty thousand dollars
1:05:00those items totaled just under three point one million dollars three million seventy seven thousand dollars so with we have potential use of one-time funds that we can put towards there and potentially use some easter funding to do some of this work next slide is the federal covert relief funds so the three funds eastern one two and three total just over 60 million dollars um each one of these funds ends at a
1:05:28different time so east eastern one ends 9 30 22 easter two ends 9 30 23 and eastern 3 ends 9 30 25 so we 9 30 24 sorry so we have until fiscal year 25 to spend these funds and what i've done here is just provide you with an update as to you know where we are as of today which each one of these grants and so each one of them has a different
1:05:54a different timeline so we're being very strategic and spending one allocation at a time and so um at this time we have various various items that we funded through easter one and that we are going to continue to fund those items and easter two starting in september and once that that funding runs out we will be funding an easter three the big the big items that we have already got allocated are an easter two
1:06:23and easter three are our hvac improvements that we're moving forward with and um a window project that henry lord so those are the big items although it looks like we haven't spent a lot of money there is a plan to spend all the money and we've got um in the binder we've got all the positions that we've already got allocated in the easter grant that will be moving forward i believe off the top
1:06:46of my head there's 69 positions currently budgeted in the easter fun so those positions will continue forward into easter two for next year and the plan is to spend to also do that in eastern three um in addition to other stuff that we have purchased and are going to continue to purchase is uh curriculum materials um we we we're actually going out we're going to buy more promethean boards we're
1:07:11going to ensure that every single classroom in the district has a promethean interactive board in their in their classroom so we we just went we went out for a bid we will be moving forward with a contract to the school committee in march for 200 boards because we're doing them in phases we'll need probably an additional 200 that'll outfit the whole district and each class will have one of those in their rooms
1:07:35in addition to that we are going to purchase more chromebooks we're going to ensure that every we have a chromebook that's available to every single student in the district and so that's essentially where we stand right now with easter funds so this is just the proposed operating budget on our side this is not this does not include the city costs that are written into the indirect cost agreement
1:08:03so our budget for this year totals 152 million 857 792 it's an increase of 20.6 million dollars over fy 22.
1:08:14um of that 152 million 11 million is allocated to transportation so just over 141 million is our operating budget and you can see the breakdown by category and what and you'll you'll notice that the big the big chunk of the big piece and the budget is the salary and benefits that it's 77 percent of our budget is is a salary
1:08:45so as you can see it's been a process a long process that we're asking for a lot we're getting a lot and we want to make sure we use it in the right place and we use it to set ourselves up for success right but um before we open it up to questions i'm just going to um i i can't not uh thank the people that have been instrumental in putting this together kevin worked through all
1:09:11of vacation has been working night and day crunching numbers so and he's the cfo so it was important for him to be up here with me because nobody leads a district by themselves so mr almeida dr curley who actually also worked through the whole break getting data etc helping us put this together assistant superintendent losh assistant superintendent taylor our chief operating officer ken pacheco
1:09:40our admin assistants deb cabral paulo soares goretti fritado each and every one of our principals all of our senior department directors our union leadership mr michonne mr ackley our school committee and we know that this is a collaborative effort school committee city council the city even city that's high poverty area has never shied away from its responsibility to support education we can we're
1:10:08partners we want to make sure that we continue to do that and to do the right thing for all of our students and our staff so with that i open it up any questions i know that you'll have more appointed questions when we have our budget hearings with principals and department heads but any questions yeah we are going to have plenty of cracks at this but if anybody has any questions right now okay uh mr again
1:10:33so uh one of the suggestions that i made before this document comes out i've said this every year i'm going to say it again today we just this committee just received this document right at five o'clock just at five o'clock so any input that we have now is going on something in addition to or like taking back something that was sort of agreed to here i think there's a missing link in
1:10:58the process to get the school committee involved ahead of time just my i've said this for many years i don't i have a whole ton of questions but we're going to ask them along the way but i think we're putting the cop before the horse sometimes this committee should be involved sooner than five o'clock today getting this for the first time and it's not a criticism of you mrs ponce this has happened
1:11:20for years in a row here so i just think we should get it a little earlier i i will say that mr almeida and i have had this discussion i do think that we need to probably tweak our process moving forward it would be good for certainly today is an opportunity for us to present the budget we know that you need time to digest it you get your binders you're going to look at it and
1:11:43you can ask questions along the way but maybe as we tweak our process um we open up our door and see if um individually or in pairs or whatever you want to come in and meet and see after we meet with principals and see this is where the direction we're headed to so that we can make some adjustments or take some feedback but traditionally presenting the budget giving it to you putting your hands
1:12:05having you preview it look through it and be ready for the time when principles come together is is something that's been done i certainly uh think that we need to tweak that process to get um more immediate feedback so i appreciate that so for instance we have now the pr and i think you should meet with the principals first i'm not the sites should me go over that what i'm suggesting is there
1:12:27needs to be some time between then and a public meeting where we're going to throw this out there now so i'm looking at this for the first time now and i already have a bunch of things in here that i would have said they don't make sense to me so i now that is already out there have to have this look like oh he's questioning something at my school whatever the school is where it doesn't
1:12:48have to be that way because there's some things in here that just don't make any sense in my opinion but i'd rather have that discussion earlier like what's the rationale for why we have this or that one of the things that's glaring right off the bat is we do not have enough mental health coordinate professionals in the district we went last meeting we added 10.
1:13:08found out today from when i saw you know where we were spending them that we're actually going to hire three guidance counselors with that money a guidance council has a totally different skill set than a school adjustment council mental health council we are woefully understaffed in the mental health counseling world so i see that i'm like this makes no sense then i look at this we're spending 20 million dollars
1:13:31we got 20 million dollars in additional money and we don't have 20 mental health professionals glaring to me right off the bat from watching this looking at this so as we go through the process i just saying it up front i don't agree with some of the decisions that have been made thankfully we have money we have additional money so we might not have to cut something we can just
1:13:53you know add to that but i can't i just have to say that it is frustrating to keep pounding this drum of that we have mental health needs in our schools and we it doesn't seem that the other side is getting it as much as personally for me when we hire 10 and then i see oh we're going to hire three guidance doesn't make and i'm a guidance counselor i support guidance counselors
1:14:15in this day and age with the needs we have we need more mental health counselors so i just i really think that that's something that needs to be looked at going forward the uh the other piece i think we need some clarity on it in the committee and mrs ponchi and i have had this discussion we need as a committee to know what are our roles as what we're going to approve here in the budget because
1:14:38we're going to sit through 10 meetings with principals and the current policies that we went over last year and the school committee voted so if the majority of the school committee votes you have to support those votes i get it but why don't we just ahead of time say here's the policies that we have you school committee members are going to vote on the bottom line you vote on the bottom line the
1:15:00superintendent can spend the money wherever she wants if that's the vote we're going to have i think we as the school committee need to get that in writing from the chair and then we can decide whether we need to have 10 meetings to go over this personally i think we should have some say as an elected official under how many full-time employees we have across the district we have a thousand employees a thousand
1:15:22tent whatever the number is we should have a say that's my vote if the school committee votes to say no we don't we just want to let it be whatever the superintendent says if that's what we vote and that's what we're going to do then don't have the principles come before us and waste hours and hours of their time advocating for things if we don't have a say anyway so i'd like to personally request to the
1:15:44chairman that we get that in writing and i'll support it like i don't like it if that's the vote of the will and the will of the committee then don't waste these people's time to have to come here get nerved up and wonder oh it's a stressful thing for them i think they should have to come and present why they think they should have extra employees in this and that how many counselors if the committee doesn't
1:16:03want to do that let's take that vote ahead of time and let's not waste all of our time including the superintendent and all of her staff the only other thing as i'm looking through i'm looking at the rpa and one of the things was a adding account a guidance council and all us like that to my point which made me turn to see how many guidance councils they have for the 163 kids that they currently
1:16:27have there and there's nothing in it the leadership is zero there's nothing in there they i if i can just add to that um uh our the principal asked for before they they have um a guidance counselor now doing double duty he does half of his time uh in the intake center and half of his time doing guidance work and she would like him to she would like to have her two guidance
1:16:54counselors one service the elementary students and one service the high school students and have one dedicated to do the intake work that's not what i'm talking about what i'm saying is that that's up for debate whether they're adding it when i turn to them their page in the book it's blank there's no just leadership principle there's there nothing there so i will say that that's probably an
1:17:21error because we did go through that we will correct that if i can just speak to the whole piece about the principles coming before the committee i i mean i think that there is something to be said certainly i think the committee can offer feedback but we also need to trust our principals to staff their buildings according to what they think their needs are i think that it's an important piece that
1:17:45if they articulate a need and then if you have feedback and say well what if you think about this kind of position have you thought about that for them to also take feedback so i think having face time in front of all of you and advocating for their needs is an important part of the process can that process be tweaked yeah i think it can but i i do think that
1:18:05they also need to advocate because they are the ones who are charged with leading their buildings to that i'm not going to argue about it like i i'm fine to stay here for 10 hours i have no that's not the issue what i would what i'm looking at is when we look at these budgets and what we get the principles have to sit with you and your team and justify why they want to
1:18:28do what they want to do as i'm looking into some of these things we look at like priority areas this that some of this stuff is copy and pasted from another place to me what would be much more beneficial would be a one-page thing saying to or the principal to say here's my rationale for why i want x y and z like uh you know so we can read it we
1:18:48all can read it just so we we can articulate it in a different way is i guess what i'm what i'm saying you're getting one of those next week every principal was asked to put a rationale for every position they requested um for their needs so we will be forwarding to the committee a uh one pager for every school justifying each of them absolutely they don't have to necessarily present we just say well
1:19:09like i saw your rationale x y z but i still think we need to we need to tweak the process because if we're not gonna have a say in the votes then why are we gonna meet you know uh that many times it just seems like it's a little over the mr almeida mentioned something about the ordering boards and we're going to approve it next month or something or is that from the asset
1:19:29funds that we already approved it's it's from the easter funds yes but we already approved that the grants approved but we're going to bring forward to you a contract for the event with the vendor that we're buying the 200 boards from okay so help me through the process sure i thought the school committee approves all the grants you do so we approve the grant but not the specifics and now you're going to come
1:19:50up with a contract so we come now we come to you with a contract for what we're actually buying through the grant so you guys approve anything over ten thousand dollars we bring forward to you for approval okay so we get a grant of 20 million dollars it's my belief that the school committee should have a say in how that 20 million is going to be spent all grant funds should come before the school committee
1:20:08before we apply for a grant it should be as well as each grant fund so what i'm asking you is has this school committee or the prior school committee voted to say our asset funds are x dollars and we want to spend x amount of dollars two million dollars on those boards no have we voted for that i gave you've got a grant that's got money allocated in various areas that was one of the planned expenditures
1:20:31through the iss agreement correct so so we voted on it you voted on the you you voted on the total grant to be approved yes right so i think the missing the missing link is we have i was on the committee prior we got some new people here i think we have to go through all of those major votes like we got so much money we're just gonna we're gonna vote to
1:20:52submit this to the state i think that's what you're talking about for these categories i don't consider that to be a vote of the committee to say this is how we're going to spend the money and i think the new people on the board should have a say in where we're at with those and what are we going to do in a simplified way because it sounds like a good expense but if i'm
1:21:12asking if somebody asked me where are we spending all that money i honestly couldn't tell them and i do my homework if we can get some clarity of here's what we're at here's the amount that we still have left which you have on there which is still a lot of money it would help to us for us to be able to answer you know some of those questions you know in my mind so
1:21:30i'm going to have plenty of questions as time goes on i do appreciate the work that you know you've done on this i appreciate the work the principals have done i would say ahead of time nobody should be offended if any committee member questions anything it's only what we're doing as elected officials to try to do our job so with that are you anybody have any further questions tonight
1:21:52hearing none i want to thank uh ms ponce and kevin for a great presentation obviously there's a lot more work to do but i appreciate you guys coming out and uh is there next item on the chair can i ask you a question just a clarifying question to you mr you and i had talked at the last meeting about potentially using grant funds for net school spending correct and is that
1:22:14still on the table or is that it hasn't been uh i have not gotten i've read it talked to some people on it but i don't have an official answer at this time but i as i told you then i'll talk to you when i get it connected something official the reason why i'm asking that is because i think i don't agree with it per se but i think the city has to make sure that
1:22:34mrs almeida and mrs ponce are spending all the money or making recommendations to spend all the money so if there's things in play on the city side tonight it's going to make a big effect so i agree whatever you can do for that i think is you know sooner than later okay same thing with i agree with you mr aguiar and every everything will be spent according to the regulations that are in
1:22:53place with the proper notifications and i appreciate the heads up yep the uh and that the uh money from the city that still hasn't come through the end of the air report stuff to i'm actually going to report out to you i'm going to report out to you tomorrow we just got we literally just got the notice and between working on the binders i haven't been able to report out to you yet
1:23:12sounds good thank you i yield to anything to come before the committee of new business hearing none i'll entertain a motion to adjourn second i have a motion do i have a second second deb please call the role ms yes mr bailey yes mr harper yes yes yes mr rogers yes yes