The Fall River School Committee held a special meeting on March 4th, 2024, continuing its budget hearings. The meeting focused on reviewing various school and department budgets, with particular attention to staffing, conversions, and unfunded positions. Key discussions included the expiration of ESER funds and the need for fiscally responsible and sustainable budgeting, aiming for 100% net school spending. Superintendent Pon emphasized prioritizing positions based on enrollment and compliance over 'wish list' items. Principals from Fonseca and Lalor Elementary Schools presented their budgets. At Fonseca, discussions centered on the conversion of a VILS facilitator position to an ESL teacher and the impact of seven unfunded wish-list positions. Principal Cobb expressed satisfaction with the funded ESL teachers and noted a drastic reduction in chronic absenteeism. At Lalor, Principal Sipson explained the conversion of an Instructional Support Liaison (ISL) to an ANL liaison due to applicant pool quality and increased social-emotional support needs, and announced the relaunch of the "walking school bus" program. Department heads from Art, Athletics, Curriculum, Custodial, Facilities, ELL, Finance, Human Resources, Insurance, Nursing, Parent and Community Engagement, Early Childhood, Health and Physical Education, School Committee, Special Education, Student Services, Superintendent's Office, Technology, Transportation, and Nutrition also presented. Recurring themes included the lack of detailed budget rationales for committee members, the impact of unfunded positions, and the need for consistent staffing models across the district. Significant debate arose regarding the conversion of a SEAL Integration Specialist position to a Lead School Adjustment Counselor, with concerns about the position's efficacy and lack of data. The committee also discussed the use of ESER funds for transportation, the circuit breaker fund, and the staffing for the new 251 South Main Street building. The meeting concluded with a motion to adjourn, which passed 7-0.
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I'd like to call to order the special meeting March 4th of the Fara school committee uh Deb would you please call the role Mr AA here Mr Bailey here Mr Cory here M lar M Perera okay m r here mayor here uh let's say a pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for
0:43all 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 UNP perceived by by by those present and are deemed acknowledged and
1:08permissible do we have any citizens input we do not have Okay um this is a continuation of the budget hearings where we left off last time we uh were not fortunate enough to be joined by two principles sh oh I'm sorry go ahead uh superintendent thank you at our February 26th meeting we received a request for additional information regarding class size FTE by school and uh grants column
1:40which we've provided to all of you um principles were on hand on the 26th to answer any questions regarding their schools we do have principal Cobb from fonsica and principal sipson from lerno here tonight to answer any questions regarding their schools they were not present on the 26th and again I want to reiterate that this was a different budget process with SF funds due to expire at the end of September it was
2:05critical that we prepare a budget that is fiscally responsible and sustainable this committee has invested heavily in providing schools with layers of support that allow for solid infrastructures we've invested in systems building and Staffing we are asking simply for the draft is asking simply for 100% net School spending the new proposed positions are enrollment and compliance BAS
2:30and driven by the absorption of the positions that currently sit in eser funds tonight we have department heads available to answer any questions regarding their departments so with that hand it over thank you any any comment all right let's open up with fansa fansa Elementary School does anybody have any questions regarding the fansa elementary school thank you I'm sorry Mrs rri sorry uh Miss
3:01Rogers please um so I apologize because I've been out of the loop the last month because everybody's been sick and that's here we are so I'm just trying to catch up to speed on a couple of things um I see on here that we have a ESL classroom conversion from a district bills facilitator so I could this question could have already been asked and answered before but the the vills facil position that
3:30was a Verizon Grant funded position origin originally yes okay so I'm just not understanding how that goes how that converts to an ESL teacher position funding wise so the vills grant uh funding from the bills ended I believe last school year where they funded a portion of the salary last year this year fiscal year 23 it's fully funded that position is fully funded in the budget and so now we're taking those
4:00vills positions and in some cases we are converting them to compliance positions such as this uh as an El position okay so to call it a vill's position probably was a misnomer before because the V was for Verizon the V was for Verizon correct right so I'm just thinking funding wise it wasn't funded by Verizon but that Verizon Grant last this past budget cycle already that that was that was the
4:29the title of that position previously okay all right so that answers that question sort of um and then I noticed that there were other positions I just need to pull it back up can I interrupt just so Mr Mayor Mr it's related to the vill's issue so when did the position end being funded by Verizon fiscal fiscal year 22 June June 22 so assuming that that's true at that point the person worked for
5:07Verizon so can you tell me what the advertisement process was as well as any other information to how any of those individuals would then therefore become employees of the Far River Public Schools at that time they were always our employees but Verizon grants paid for their salary in the initial but they were all our employees subject to The Horizon the grants yes you're so that ended yes but part of the part of that
5:38contract with the grant was that they would pay for part of it and then we would absorb until the Verizon Grant was uh completed yeah so the Verizon the Verizon piece itself even though there was no funding I believe ends at the end of this fisal year and so at that point in time the commitment piece is no longer hours at that time but I'm just having a hard time
6:03with the fact of at whatever time we had ex amona people in Verizon positions at the same time we had positions called instructional technology something how do we change well we we we changed it I guess in one way but then not in the budget to say at that time we needed one at each school now it depends some principles say oh I don't need it some people say I need it some people
6:34say I'm going to convert it well I for one have never taken a vote and I'm the chair of the technology subcommittee we talked about this many times about what are we going to do when this ends so how how does it just get there all of a sudden all these people are now working in the part of the budget full-time we're still going to call them Verizon but then they're really an instructional
6:54technology facilitator and we don't hear anything I haven't heard at a subcommittee or anywhere why do we have some have them and some don't what sense does that make in the district that that was part of the Verizon Grant Mr agar they're not the same position as the instructional Tech you're you're right that we had instructional te Tech facilitators Mr um uh cabal is here we also have techs at
7:22each building as you know when we when we um got the Verizon Grant we were into integrating technology in all schools what we are saying is as that Grant is sunsetting we are and we are in a different place right technology plays a different role now in our schools and what we have been doing is what principles have requested is they don't feel like they're in the same place that
7:49they need someone to be doing that work that now they need to be doing um different kind of uh support with technology it's not really about uh making sure everybody has their onetoone that they're doing that the technology integration Etc there it's a different kind of work and that position is sunset that uh Grant is sunsetting we've owned those positions since last year so that so so I guess to cut to the
8:19chase the fonico schools before us has 650 students and they had a vill's person for three years or so well where is this conversion coming from it's from an it's from another school it's from Morton it's from Morton so if Morton says they don't need it what does Morton get because what do what does the other schools do there's no consistency is my point some schools are going to say they
8:43have it they need it I'm we've coach people up we did this it has to be consistent from a district it can't be and I've said this before we have winners and losers in the budget because we don't do a a look at the entire picture so what's going to end up happening is somebody's got to do the work at that school school at some point somebody's got to do the work and
9:02I was going to bring this up there in technology when it's their time but somebody's got to do that work so if one principal gets away with just saying oh I don't need it because I want something else it's going to come back to the technology department at some point they're going to have to do the work with less people because we just converted positions I'd rather it come from the director of the technology
9:21through the superintendent to say this is how we're going to fund it and I I just think it's it makes no sense at the very least the V has to taken out of it because it's no longer a vill's position and then what are the requirements I asked this question in the past so we have instructional technology folks that they have a job description so now when these people got converted last year are
9:40they working under the vills or they working under the instructional technology job description they we they are still vill's people they are that Grant is expiring this year we are we it's no the the the funding for the position but we have a vill's grant that is expiring this this year for other so theills sorry go ahead that's okay so um no none of the vill's positions that doesn't mean we don't have Tech um
10:13facilitators that we're going to continue to have to support schools but Our intention was not to continue with the vill's piece for any of our schools specifically vill's people because you're right the the grant is expiring we're we're going to be done and we need to absorb those positions and certainly Mr kab speak I what you said I agree with but what we're seeing here disagrees with that because in my mind
10:40if the if the vill's folks who do not do the same job as an instructional technology person totally different job description we didn't as far as I'm concerned that's what it is until somebody proves otherwise so at that point they would end on June 30th if that's what you're saying at that point we would open up and say now across the district we need x amount of instructional technology folks to do the
11:03work that we need in all the schools if you'd like to apply sure you can apply it's like a system it's a process it's not just well one school said they can do without it because they got something else like a like trading it shouldn't be that way and and I think more comprehensively we should be doing that discussion via the technology subcommittee where we can get into these issues rather than through this process
11:25here so I apologize for taking Mrs R's time something needs to change with that I yeld to anything further Mr R I just interrupted her as so oh I'm sorry back to miss Rodricks then Mr Corey so on that same same line right so I see that there's a conversion from RPA for an ESL teair so I'm wondering how not necessarily how that impacts you but how does that impact
11:51RPA so we so at RPA we had two POS originally we had two full-time ESL positions um one of those ESL position positions is moving here to make create this teacher at fansa uh we had a stone full-time position over at Stone for which um we can meet the needs by um making it a 04 over at Stone and the 6 so essentially three days a week will be
12:20at RPA and two days a week will be at Stone what would be really helpful at least for me was if we had something that explained some of those conversions because I see them and I see that you know position a is being converted into position B but it doesn't explain why so when you say something like that that makes sense to me like okay we've got this person here this person can split
12:42up that time but that's not clearly okay outlined here so it would just be helpful for me to have a better understanding of it um the other question I have is that I see there are one two five six seven positions that that you asked for that were unfunded for this year so I'm just trying to understand what that process looks like and what does that mean for you now for next year if those positions are
13:09unfunded how does that impact the work that you either planned on doing or wanted to move forward with that maybe now it's a little bit tricky sure so I will say that the most critical positions which were the L teachers to L teachers were funded so I was very happy with that um certainly there's still wish list items for me um but those two L teachers were really critical um and
13:32we can do a lot of work with with those new teachers and the structures that we have on board so the two things can be true at the same time right we can be very happy with the fact that that was funded because that's a critical need but we can also say hey this is going to impact Us in this other kind of way so I'm not forcing you to say publicly how that's
13:54going to impact you but it's seven positions and you know that's a lot so I'm just trying trying to understand what that process looks like about how that decision gets made because we we certainly have talked a lot about putting a lot of effort into social emotional learning and our higher needs populations but then when I look at the unfunded positions in general half of them are from those populations and so
14:16that's that jumps out at me yeah I will say we also do have a very large cell staff right and so as the year has gone on we have seen improvements in our conduct and cell data so my hope is that that will continue I I just go back to there's a reason why you asked for them right and so I again I just encourage folks to talk about how that then impacts them
14:40because there is an impact no matter how we look at it um it doesn't sound like we're going to have that discussion here but it's something that I would certainly like to know so I yield for now if I could just clarify uh so when principles comes to us they bring us uh a list of um critical needs as well as wish list right nice to have I I've said
15:03this uh at each of the meetings our priority needs to be on uh making sure that every single position that is uh needed due to enrollment increases due to compliance um that those are filled um I think that it's a I I personally feel like it's a bad practice right now to just say yes yes yes to every single position and we're going to have to sustain every position and um we have
15:30added hundreds of positions in the last three years fonsica is one of the schools that is very heavily staffed because of their status and they should be um but at some point we have to say and what I've said to principles what do you need do can can you run your school appropriately with these positions and and that's that's the barometer and yes these are nice to have we said we will
15:56hold on to that and then we'll see where we we are and see based on our needs based on see if if we can add but if we just keep adding adding adding I just want to say we have to sustain all of these positions no I agree with you that they have to be sustainable when you look at the new ones that have been added a good bulk of them are still
16:15funded through essr funds so I'm just I'm I'm cautious about how that's going to play out right but I'm cautious about how that will play out because we're absorbing them but that money is going to come from somewhere right and so that's why just this is a budget conversation so that's why I'm asking the question how does that impact you I'm not giving anybody a hard time it's just there things that jump out at me
16:35when I look at that and I see you asked for seven that weren't funded you know I I think it's it's an okay question to ask me how does that impact you right and so it's not to put anybody down it's not to put anybody on the spot but that does have an impact on folks I don't want you to think for one minute that question like that's what we're here for
16:57right to to have a a discussion about it um all I'm saying the the priority was to absorb we added layers of support and we put them on Esser funds right and now we're going to absorb all those positions that's 10 and some positions in addition to the other positions that we're adding so each one of those positions we need to make sure we position ourselves no pun intended position ourselves to be able to sustain
17:23these positions because we wouldn't want to take out all these layers of support that we work so hard to create in our schools so that's a very valid point and I think that um we can go back and look at that as we finalize the budget or as we see funds become available right now we're trying to figure out how we absorb those layers of support as well as add any crucial
17:47positions M Mr Cory Miss Cobb I just want to say it's uh really good to see you again I've been away for a couple of years and now you you're in a different school and I just want to praise you for your commitment to the Fall River Public Schools thank you for all of that means a lot to me personally thank um I just wanted with all of that being vetted are
18:09you do you have everything you need for your school are you happy I I am yes that's good the the only question that I have and I'm looking at the absenteeism I know it's in a difficult demographic in the city and I want to I'm curious just to know what type of family backup you're getting you know uh are the parents with you on this mission to help their children I I have to say the
18:34community at fonsica including the families has been very welcome very supportive um you know I think if you look at that chronic absentee rate R uh absentee rate for fonsica we had a drastic reduction March 1st this year compared to last year um I think that's a few things I think there has been some new monitoring systems put in place we've increased the team that's been monitoring attendance and I think that
18:58that we're in a place now where kids feel happy to come to school we're doing some different things um and I I have to say that the families have been very supportive along the way it's so important because you know everybody's under the gun on absenteeism I believe it's a different pitch and now postco than it was even preco and so everybody's really struggling with that I and I know that the font is where it's
19:23at want to make sure that we support you in every way we can thank you a thank you Mr Cory Mr Agia yeah just a question for the superintendent is this what you would consider zero based budget level budget level funded budget is what I would cons oh how we did the process how you did the process yes so part of why I I sometimes question in the past prior to you being
19:52superintendent I told the last superintendent who claimed that they we did a zerob based budget here that he was totally wrong because we're not doing a zerob based budget at that time and the more I look at this budget we're not doing a zerob based budget here either because a zerob based budget is you start from zero and then you look at all the needs that we have and then you
20:13make value judgments along the way we have not done that what we've done is said last year you got x amount of salaries and FTE in your budget at any given cor Center or school and we're not touching that because that's where we're starting from and then we'll see what we can add we're not looking at it to say if somebody's overstaffed they're going to get a reduction and somebody that's
20:35understaff that's what we true zerob based budgeting is and I'm operating under the condition that that's what I thought we were doing so when I asked some of these questions about how many counselors do we have how many this do we have it's with that in mind that a true zerob based budget would be done that way um but I honestly don't think that that's how we are uh Miss cob when
20:57did you know what was funded in the budget um um after the budget meetings when you guys got the budget so when you walked out of the budget meeting with the superintendent and the leadership team you were aware that we were not funding as M Roger said SE I think it's seven total um some were put on question um and some were some were yeses and some were NOS so you knew that they were NOS
21:22I knew some of them were no yep and then I when did you know that there was seven the the seven that show up on because the only thing I can go on is what I get so I got handed us on February whatever this document says the first five were yours when were you aware that you didn't get those positions in the budget um finally finalized was mid-February in not from the budget in
21:47the prior meetings or something like I'm just trying to figure out what the process was well the superintendent meets with with all principles in all departments so I think she hears from all of us and then makes some decisions after and then you had another meeting that said by the way you got these and you didn't get those that's all I wanted to try to clarify the um last meeting I told you mentioned conduct uh is
22:08improved so I had asked for some conduct data Madam superintendent and I don't believe we received anything in the last week um assuming it's forthcoming we will get it for you you make it as a valid point to say why you needed X Y or Z position which therefore is the reason why I asked for the conduct data was to try to determine whether we have certain things or not
22:31now you have been staffed you said fully staffed and appropriately so I've been happy to support those positions you have three Vice principes correct you have three School adjustment counselors you have three seasons you have X amount of department heads so and the state's watching over every move you make correct logic then therefore would indicate that if that's the model that we're using to prove to
22:55the state why the fonsica school is is successful I still can't figure out and this is not a question for you but it's more for the district why don't we have that same model for everybody else because you're saying you're fully staffed the state's probably saying the same thing and it it just frustrates me to look at it to say why we don't do that I still can't
23:18see it you look at the or chart we ask for the or charts for a reason it very clearly articulates what you have and you have some of the neediest children in the city so if it's working there I don't understand why at other schools that have like demographics we're not doing the same thing um but you had mentioned before that you got the elll teacher and the one is on here is
23:37unfunded is that because you asked for two I actually asked for three so I got two funded and we'll we'll keep looking at the numbers to see and if if I know I could go to um superintendent Pon if at the end of this school year the numbers look higher we can certainly talk about I would go to her ask for a third one when I look in the line items where am I
23:57find finding that the other two positions were added I'm sorry so she said that she got an addition of two um positions and that would be just under the additions is that so it's the it was through conversions m d yeah so the two positions that uh principal Cobb got were through conversions so you'll see on the conversions page the two positions fansa so to to piggy back on what my
24:28colleague to my right was just asking about so the conversions at fonsica are they're not conversions because it's not her positions they're conversions from other they're conversions within the budget from other from other schools but wouldn't that just simply be a reduction at C Center a and an increase at C Center Pono like why do we have to do it as conversion so I just don't
24:56understand what the benefit benefit of us other than to confuse why would we have to wouldn't we just say that the position that it came from wherever you just said it was Morton so we would say Morton has a reduction of one and Fran has an addition of one when I see position conversions I look at that as as one member is that she's running to fansa she has a position called stem teacher and she
25:20wants to make it into a science teacher that's converting her stem teacher to her science teacher conversions from one building to another to me are not list shouldn't be listed on the conversions it's false representation of of what we have and it's very hard to figure out what are we adding what are we subtracting it just uh you know to me it's just very um it's very hard to to figure out and
25:48and you're saying that you have everything you need I think we' staffed you up pretty well um I'm hoping that the conduct data that we get indicates um the same obviously um my last question that was on those lead teachers that you have not funded is that from the um when you became or your school became level four whatever there was all these positions that based on the plan indicated everybody gets paid extra you
26:18have different positions what are those lead teachers are they not that so you have some lead teachers already yeah we we do have five lead teachers at the school um I was looking to increase the model so that we would have representation across grade levels prek through five and also an L in a sped Lead Teacher those are stien in stien positions through the contract the ones that you currently
26:41have correct and what would that cost 6000 6,000 per teacher 6,000 and you feel as uh the five that you have are they assisting are they worth the $6,000 in what they do to help you School move forward they certainly are a big part of it they're part of our ilt they have teachers that they work with they provide professional development they've been running a new teacher support group this year um so you know
27:10they're the staff that's able to give input um from the teacher perspective so to me I think that's a glaring problem that we need to correct because you have a high L population right who's focusing on the L as a Lead Teacher now is it dispersed amongst five or how does that it was dispersed and we also were just able to fill our L coach interventionist position in November so
27:38that person has been on board supporting the work in for our elll students as well and they participate in all the things they want in spite of that you still ask for it even though they were hired three months earlier I I was looking for a teacher that would be a lead in the El and how about the other department that you said you were looking for say that one more time you said another
27:59department you wanted to lead teach of those um special ed and who does that work there is currently a special ed um Lead Teacher but what what's happening now is there is a first grade Lead Teacher there is one that's at the special ed lens there is um uh uh interventionist two interventionist I'm looking to have a different model where prek through five um te classroom teachers as well as an l and a sply
28:23teacher and how does that compare with other schools across the dist District they lead teachers do you have more do you have less do you have is there any of those positions that you talked about at other schools I can I only have prior experience at one school and I did have one um Lead Teacher per grade level Madam superintendent you know if that's the case that's not um across the
28:46board not everybody has but I think that last year we added uh more lead te teachers so basically um everyone wanted one per grade level now what we're seeing is now people want one for special populations and is there any lead teachers in Fall River Public Schools that focus on special ed yes there is can you tell me where um dery is one of them that has yes but
29:15there I there are a couple there are a to identify exactly which ones there are I but I know there are a couple you know where I'm going with it right yes it it makes sense for $6,000 to have the thing and if we have it at one place or two places or three places and principal Cobb's asking for it at a school that's underperforming and a need of like I just don't understand why that for
29:35$6,000 we didn't add it I think you know my point on that with that I yield thank you anything further thank you Miss cob uh next school up is lerno do we have any questions or issues at lerno Miss Rodricks Mr Simpson please I want to give you a chance to sit down appreciate that my my only question is actually the same that I asked um just the rationale around the conversions um
30:12because we're going from a coach an ESL coach interventionist to a teacher and then an ISL to anle on so I'm just looking for an understanding of what those were about yeah absolutely uh From theal perspective uh this year was the first year in which we had those positions we added two of them my Approach has been a little bit conservative in terms of with the new position I want to onboard one or two
30:38see how um what the applicant pool is like how can we train and Implement them the appan pool is actually fantastic it's one of the strongest pools that I receive so um based on uh this year who we've hired the impact that they've had um within our schol School Community we felt like we wanted to add another position there the current ISL position we haven't um hired yet that the the
31:06applicant Pool isn't the same and with the need of particularly in K through 2 of increased social emotional support the decision was made to prioritize that um similarly I'd say on the MLL front um Coach position was posted couldn't find a candidate that fit the needs of our particular staff and school um population is increasing as it relates to um transitional multilingual Learners
31:32um and the decision was to make that conversion so we can have more direct support um in the classroom and uh myself as a a former MLL director vice principal Nancy Rodriguez um strong skill set as it relates to MLL we figured um let's convert that open position in which we don't have a a candidate to a teaching position to support I appreciate that so so you know I asked that because when we're
31:59converting one position that means that another position isn't going to be filled and that was a position that had been um asked for that had been needed and so that's why I'm asking for what those rationals were um but that was my only question so I yield thank you anything further Mr agar I'm having a hard time finding the page again but so you you provided a Cost Containment of anazon according to my what I'm
32:29seeing so you gave up an Fon we uh we converted in instructional support liaison and ISL position to become an ANL liaison so under here it says cost containments luto instructional support liaison and that's because you had it vacant is that what you're trying to say Sean I got Sean so the ISL cost is cheap is cheaper than anaon so anaon is 45,000 versus a ISL which is 35,000 so that's the reason
33:10why it's considered a Cost Containment and i' see under the program improvements the is on yep and is that the pool you were talking about that you had a good pool that's correct and you had no pool for the ISL not the same quality of of candidate applicants yeah and how do you compare with other schools if they had x amount of isls and x amount OFA on I'm not exactly sure with the ISL um
33:44with seal liaison I believe that would put us towards alignment with u having ancl liaison per School adjustment counselor yep so so the reason why I asked that is if you um if you had fill the ISL position yeah you would be here today saying you know you need to have ancl integration person you'd get both my opinion by you saying I didn't fill it or whatever the reason is why
34:18you didn't fill it you just lost a position just being brutally honest the way I see it because that's what we do oh now it's a Cost Containment it's not an addition whereas your scazon that you asked for is probably just bringing you up to where I don't have it in front of me but you're probably bringing you up to where everybody else should be but it cost you and your school and our Sal aison
34:39because you didn't fill the position that's the way that I'm seeing it do you have any and you had no other needs that you I can't find the unfunded positions on my sheet did you have any other positions that were unfunded sir for for this year the proposals were the the two positions um that I requested we converted um and so we feel confident that we can move forward next year with the positions
35:07that we have of course pending demographic changes and you know changes in populations uh last year we onboarded three special education teachers and two sea on so um it was a big uh shift for our community it was great to have these new resources so we're continuing this year to train hire support build capacity um and with you know the addition of an additional seaon and then
35:37a elll uh teaching position we're hoping that we we'll be in strong so you didn't ask for any positions but you feel like you're going to make great gains at the school anyway I I had the two positions that I I asked for the L position and the liaison um were the ones uh that You' got those saying you got those you said right correct yeah so I I I feel we're we're funded
36:01we're staffed we're excited so high expectations over there absolutely the um I don't see it in this budget it might be a question for maintenance but the uh repairs air quality and all that stuff is that is there any additional line items that were needed spe specifically to deal with that issue at your school it's not specifically in my budget I know obviously there are costs
36:26that are going into the building I think that would live in in a different uh line item but you as principal have you been told that you're going to have X amount of dollars and resources to make sure that that building is safe the air quality whatever like are you have you been told that you're going to get all those things all year because this is budget time so if I ask later on in in
36:47maintenance and whatever yeah but have you been told that you're going to get certain things we hav't we have told principal um uh Simpson as well as that staff like we are working on the roof that that any repairs we have been very clear about what needs to be done in order to correct what's going on over there so we'll see that in the maintenance projections at that time okay thank you
37:12I Y old sir good luck thank you Mr Cory I'll be brief how you doing Mr sson um do you have everything you need yes we do are you happy with it uh projection wise yeah we're really happy with the the team that we assembled the resources that we have and all the work that collectiv has gotone into the budget the only thing that concerns me is the absentee uh the rate of
37:37absenteeism at your school formerly there used to be uh in the past there was the walking School Bus concept that was very successful uh in the Lal School District uh I don't know if that's still being carried out however that being said whatever we can do to support your attendance numbers you know in in any way in the future please let us know we appreciate that you you'll be excited to
38:01know uh we're going to relaunch the walking School Bus uh this month uh we piloted it last year with uh teacher and staff volunteers it was a great experience um overall not only for hopefully supporting absenteeism but for community building getting our staff out into the community in the mornings it was a great experience for all and that's what it's all about you know the community building aspect of it thank
38:28you I yield okay thank you thank you Mr Simpson uh next Department up is the art department does anybody have any questions for the art Department no questions thank you can I ask a question who Mr AG Mr Agia I also agree with my colleague to my right that it would be a lot better if we had um information uh one pages of something so we used to have them come before us
38:59and at least give a presentation so I'm looking at the O uh page page single this is the op page in the budget so I don't really see there's no narrative here to know that the director feels everything was good uh that they added this I asked for that uh any of that so I just have one page um so just am I missing so just answer that so principales all provided rationals and
39:29the and department has provided rationals for all their needs for the schools and because the positions were not in in past years we've provided uh we were able to fund most of the positions and so it was a pretty easy undertaking to uh update edit do what we need to do to get it in the budget would that uh this this time around we were not so fortunate to be able to fund you
39:53know most of these positions that were requested by the positions and so by the I'm Sorry by the department heads and the principles and so with that I made the decision just not to include them because it was going to be misleading to what was there and so it would have been very hard to follow what was going on and so that's the reason why it was not included so it was misleading to give
40:15information to the school committee is that what I'm hearing I'm paraphrasing but just no that's not help me to understand what you just said I'm trying I'm just trying to be clear as to why it was not there and so the reason it was not there it was it would have been it it would have read in improperly and so there were there was a lot of information there for things that were
40:33requested that are not being funded and so I didn't want to mislead anybody to say that the positions that were being requested were funded and so with that it wasn't included for that reason so I'm just hearing that for the first time so what you're telling me is that I have a page that says unfunded positions yep separate from that you're telling me you have directors that have requested from
40:57the administration stuff positions supplies whatever that we do not see because you chose to say that's not something we want to give this year is that what you just said because that's how I took it I I'm I'm saying that it would have been very hard to follow and it would have not flowed with the budget is what I'm saying okay um you know my stance on it superintendent would know
41:17my stance on it just from I find that answer to be totally unacceptable because we're doing a budget the school committee one of the major priorities of the school committee is to review the budget what I'm hearing is we're going to review the only the parts of the budget that the superintendent or Mr Alita chose to give to us not the POS not the pieces of data that show what a director
41:42when I'm only not picking on the art department but that happens to be her whatever she presented as far as what she would like why she wanted something whether it was data or information went to you all you chose not to fund it but we've never had a chance to have that discussion and that to me is absurd totally we have one page from art I don't know Miss Francisco very
42:07well but I know that she's not shy to at least give us some information I look at this as say this one page is because somebody chose not to give us what her rationale is like for instance one question I would have is do you have any plans to do anything to improve the art Department across all of our schools for our children yes wish lists anything like that yes
42:30can you tell me where that data is where that information is is it only inside of you or have you showed other people no it would be in the document that I provided right thank you I don't want to I'm not giving you a hard time at all that's my point Madam superintendent is that we're sitting here saying I'm looking at this saying that's all she's got is the one like I
42:48said I I know that you would have some thinking outside the box whatever we're also sitting on on some money that we need to have and make improvements in a Zer quote unquote zerob based budget no school committee doesn't need that information all we need is to say here's the information don't ask too many questions because I'm going to get everybody to roll their eyes and then we
43:08can go home M Mr a just just just to be clear so I can just respond so that's not that was never the intention the the the reason it was not included is because it would have not AF flowed with all the documents I will gladly send you every single doc that was provided to us from the principles and the department heads tomorrow it will all be sent an email by the superintendent tomorrow if
43:34if that's the information that everybody wants it's not it was never to not provide the information it's that it would not aflo with a document that's all and all I would say to that is I'm not suggesting that you every piece of information has to be in this document it's a public document what I am suggesting though is that having a little respect for the committee and saying part of our duty is to analyze
43:55and approve a budget that information would be very worthwhile for us all to have that's all I yield anything further M Rogers just quick question so are we saying that you ask for more than just a fine arts department ahead yes but in the Performing Arts budget which will be because I do I do the two I'm the fine and the Performing Arts so but nothing in the fine in
44:20addition to what you see Fine Arts and then you asked for a performing arts department head and that's correct that's all you asked for no and I asked for an additional ban itinerant okay all right I yield anything further far thank you Mr Francisco next Department up Athletics Athletics do we have any questions for athletics Mr Agia just a comment I've said this for two budget Cycles now that we have um
44:56Elementary and Middle School sports that's kind of taken off over the past several years and I think I would say the same thing I've said last time superintendent was going to take it under advisement a year ago that I think we need to have a focus on uh a director of the elementary and middle school that's a full-time job just doing all of that work and um I think we need to look
45:17at when we talk about conversions it kind of makes more sense to me to take the assistant athletic director and convert that to a middle Elementary in middle so that you don't actually have um people in two different places that it's not for your question for you Mr Boston it's just I've mentioned this already to the superintendent was going to be taken under advisement I don't see any changes
45:39so I just assume that's the change not recommended but um well and I don't think my other question is going to be to you sir did you have anything that wasn't in here but um I'm I'm not sure what you're looking at any any requests that were not funded the budget again I'm not sure what you have in front of you that what you're looking at um I have I have what I what I have
46:04um I gave during my budget meeting but I don't know if you have that same document bunch of assistant coaches it looks like and increase for middle and elementary school coaches was the only two items that I see 58 and 59 on here so I would assume that one of them is contractual probably yes and the other one is just probably extra positions um what I would probably request if I was looking more to
46:35scrutinize a little more of what we have is we only see the the rec recommendation for assistant boy soccer girl soccer cross like those positions but I don't have a good perspective on what do you have in the budget for all those without going through each one and look so like if it was me I would say where is the recommendation to say I need an assistant soccer coach and then
46:59the answer to that is going to be based on I have 87 kids try out I got you know some kind of rationale we have we don't see that rationale so you must have given that to the during your meetings which Mr Al now said we're going to get copies of so well the rationale um behind it was um in 2015 boys um baseball and softball were both given a uh Varsity assistant coach
47:26and it it worked out it's been working out really well so um it works out I don't even you know if you can put it in data but it's increased instruction um it's increased supervision you know something that you really can't see on paper but the the supervision would be there the extra instruction would be there and a lot of times a JV team will be playing at the same time as the
47:51varsity so the varsity coaches left all by themselves so you know it's good to have another set of eyes uh you know in the in the Dugout or you know on the field uh that was the the reasoning Behind These Sports getting um the the assistant varsity coach right sounds sounds rational to me sounds like some of what I've been asking for the last two meetings is that I just don't
48:16understand why one has it and what doesn't so you just told us that you have two sports that have an extra coach two how many sports do you have total well 28 30 something freshman between freshman JV and varsity we have what 40 42 yeah 42 so we got two winners two winners out of the all of your 40 some coaches and the other 38 just so happened however that went back we could
48:39probably track it down who made that decision who was behind this that whatever either in my opinion either we do it across or we don't do it at all shouldn't be and what sports get the extra coach what sports got the extra coach you just mentioned back before I became athletic director it was uh and I coached baseball for 10 years and I didn't have it and then as soon as I
49:02left they got it um it was baseball got the assistant varsity coach and softball got it yep and I just uh I I I don't think it's fair let's just say that it's nothing about I mean nothing about you sir just what what's right is right and you have said it I've said many things about sports we need to improve we all of that stuff you need Coes you need adults you need the kids
49:26to be coached at the same time is if you don't have enough players then you got to do something so if you're if you're not a successful program something needs to change in there too but if you don't have the right tools like as far as one sport gets three people and one doesn't that that becomes a problem it used to be you'd get extra only if you had a
49:44male coaching a female like there was a position of something that made sense like that too you have any of those in the budget no I mean as far as like having to have a female is that what you're saying no so if you had a male coaching a female vcity sport do you do you get the opportunity to hire an extra female to monitor those children when the mail
50:04obviously can't go in yeah so um the last contract we got um specialty coaches so uh that's that's worked out pretty well and that's in the budget yeah it's in the last budget specialty coaches y perfect thank you very much are yeld anything further thank you Mr buston next Department up is curriculum curriculum Department hearing nothing for curriculum Mr agar I would just say uh I
50:39basically have the same comment I just made we have one page for curriculum so I'm sure that Dr Curley has other plans and other things I didn't analyze it but I'm not going to Bel the point you know what my feeling is that I'm sure there's more to this than I'm looking forward to getting the other data I yield thank you um the next Department we're going to ask um custodial department but we're
51:05going to skip down the agenda to facilities maintenance admin campus maintenance and security after we do custodial first we're just going to give Mr Pico an opportunity for all of his departments so the custodial Department do we have any questions on that first we're just giving everybody a heads up anybody have Mr Agia yeah just looking at the um the budget here the end of the budget where it says
51:35overtime comp office equipment Furniture maintenance General classroom supplies like I don't know what the categories are can you just explain in a quick what classroom supplies are under the custodial is my guess it's just custodial supplies it's a generic uh coding in munus but it's custodial supplies so it's not classroom it's meant for General custodial supplies cor yes and do you know how much that was
52:01spent last year um roughly is it up down or is it it's probably a little bit more than that but um I'm looking for you right now Mr AR and the the line of office equipment Furniture maintenance is what is that for is that like desks for schools or is that
52:40I believe that's just like a contractual service line for custodial um for that line but uh to answer your question Mr agar on the what was spent in custodial supplies um sh sorry I just I thought I grabbed
53:10it so last year we spent about 565,000 in supplies Mr AGA in FY 23 so I'd like to request some backup of what that is just to clarify but I custodial makes more sense than classroom Y and the other one you said office equipment was a contractual MH for what is and the reason why I'm asking this is the similar so I can only go by what is here yep and what I have is the salaries
53:40of the full-time you know people then under it I have these five lines we don't have any backup documents at all um so when it says 85,000 I'm thinking that's for office equipment SL Furniture maintenance but to me me that's not a lot of money and then I'm saying where is all of the money in our budget so it's in the main you'll see it on the maintenance side you'll see all the lines on the
54:03maintenance side so custodial like if the custodians are needing Supply uh equipment it doesn't fall under the custodial yeah it would fall on the supply line it would get paid out of the supply line that's where it would get P it would get paid out of so I asked I don't think I received it again but about a year ago I asked for an update of all of the custodial equipment because I've been in some
54:28schools and I've heard from people that the the the supplies that the custodians are use the equipment is not good so I asked for an update we had uh I think you guys paid a a truck driver to go around and collect the data so not sure how that matches up but we got some data so I'm looking for that again because I've been on this for a while okay I'm
54:47very concerned that we have all of the money that we've had and we don't have the proper custodial supplies meaning uh equipment we should have the topof the line equipment period I don't see anything in here about that am I going to get that tomorrow with the other stuff is that so the custodial department head is whoever that new gentleman is I would assume that he presented a something to his boss Mr
55:13Pico and then Mr Pico submitted it to you guys but what I'm asking for is it maybe where is it so Mr AGA the um as as Mr ala said in the maintenance side um a lot of the items are listed on that particular area because they're uh used by most of the departments in fno um so the supplies um Mr CLA um and Maria Bor just brought in their requests for equipment whether it be floor
55:49scrubbers um extractors other medium to high ticket items um as requests and the and the committee um who vetted this the superintendent and um said that everything that they needed to do their job was going to be approved so it is in the in the projections on the purchases which would be in the maintenance and also on these line items but this line item is $100,000 or less than last year
56:20so this one here but that may not be the line item with those data equipment is coming out of there are other lodger line items that it would come out of and you're just saying it's under maintenance even though it's for custodial it's just it's just a line item of where they land in the particular budget it's got nothing to do with the service it's fno the department itself under my direction um all
56:43answered underneath those particular line items so all the contractual Services if they're custodial or if there's someone up there in that line item so it's confusing so I apologize for being a little confused but the way I look at the budget is this is custodial so if a custodian needs certain things to run their to do their job efficiently yes I would expect those to be in the
57:08custodian account if that was the case personally as one member I would advocate for and I have been for over a year superintendent can tell you I've asked for this for over a year that we need to have top quality Equipment so that they can do their job properly I just don't see and as they arrive before the there is equipment that's being bought now and then there's a equipment some of this equipment will
57:34be bought next year the items that we need um additional funds for but there is dollars now that are being used to purchase some of this equipment and where is that coming from so that's going to come from eer Mr Agia I'm going to take some I'm going to purchase the equipment from eer okay I could just clarify When U Mr Pico and Mr Cloud came to the table Miss
58:00bores um they had a list of equipment that they were requesting and um one of the questions I asked was what are what do the custodians need in order to do their job effectively some of the equipment what I heard was some things was Mal were malfunctioning or had aged out so I asked Mr clout and Miss bores to sit to go over what were the immediate needs and to make sure they created a list of
58:28anything they needed in order to do their job so that we could order that immediately and correct me if I'm wrong doesn't the school committee approve funds out of Esser and the like right we haven't we haven't submitted the list yet but they I asked them to go through that and whatever we could fund this year to bring forth those contracts for this year and then additional but if they need let's say a
58:59scrubber in order to do their work they should have a scrubber to do their work I I believe me I totally agree with it I'm just trying to look at the process of how this goes and where does the school committee sit when it comes time for uh making these type of decisions to at least supporting it I haven't had a subcommittee I've been on facilities now I haven't had a subcommittee to talk
59:20about this I haven't been able to say whether it makes sense to do you know hire the uh to get this piece of equipment versus another do we need uh $600,000 tractor do we need you know whatever like I haven't been part of those discussions but it seems to me based on what I'm hearing now is that a lot of these balls are in in way and we're making decisions and the school
59:41committee there's nothing that's there's nothing that's going to be purchased without coming to the school committee I don't have that ability so we wouldn't do that but so the items are being put together by those who do the work okay to decide the model the m make and and the process of which that piece of equipment is going to be used I thought I heard you say Sir that you had some of
1:00:01the stuff was coming in that's if I misspoke meaning it's going to be B uh put in before this budget so this budget is July after July right between now in July we got quite a bit of time that we can have that subcommittee meeting purchase this equipment because most of this equipment I'm going to say half of this equipment is not going to be used till the summer the rest of it will be used
1:00:24from now until then the day-to-day equipment that that um is either outdated obsolete or um is needing repair yeah and somebody said I don't know who it was I said uh I don't know the names the assistant talk to the director they committed they I said that they did something and then they gave it to miss Pico did anybody have a meeting with all the whole department Madam superintendent did you have a meeting
1:00:51with just to be clear so I I want you to answer the question that I've yep I I had a meeting with during the budget process with Mr Pacho and his team at that meeting I asked Mr Pico Mr CLA and Miss bores to sit down they they said that some of the equipment was not in good working order so I said I want you to sit down I want you to go over all
1:01:13the things that we need the immediate needs and the long shortterm and longterm so that we can put a list together of things that our custodians need so that they can do their job effectively and they then and your followup with them was you met with them all present so everyone's on board does everyone on that agree with it like to say they're all in the room everybody was speaking freely so no I mean with
1:01:36the submission so when I get the papers I'm assuming from Mr El is going to say here's the submission of what they wanted well I would say before Mr alme gets that submission we need to have a follow-up meeting to go over exactly what it is that the shortterm and the long-term needs are so that we can bring right because I think what you're saying I think we're saying the same thing the
1:01:57supplies the equipment is terrible it should have been done years ago we all agree all I'm suggesting is that the school committee does have a uh place at the table abut to help with that and that could mean sometimes people don't like it when you ask questions but if we ask questions and we do what we need to do we're all going to be better off the kids are going to be better off the
1:02:16custodians are going to be better off so I don't know anything about a scrubber I don't know anything but I'd like to have a meeting where I sit down and say the people that work for you say that one makes sense this one doesn't make sense that's not cost effective you know what I mean absolutely here in this building we got one $150,000 for a uh robot to to clean the
1:02:36floors we told we were told it's going to be great whatever I don't know if it is so great why don't we I'm not asking for the answer but these are the kind of discussions I'd like to have at subcommittee I think they'd be fruitful and I think at the end of the day we'd all be in agreement we have lousy equipment we need to do a better job I
1:02:51just want to make sure every person has a seat at the table and can actually say no I think this makes no sense because pushing back is not a bad thing I think it's going to get us all to a better place and that's when I look at this I'm like this is hopefully this there's just something missing is what I feel so if I vote Yes for this budget I'm not sure
1:03:08what it means for that discussion we just had so I'd like to between now and the time we approve it either have a subcommittee meeting or have a discussion about it or when we get to maintenance maybe you'll tell me about the other lines but sure I think we're on the same page with what we want it's just how do we get there with that I yield thank you anything further on custodial okay hearing none actually
1:03:28sorry I had one question sorry go ahead Mr here on the additions because I keep on not finding the paper was there any requested positions that are on here that are not funded no for custodial nope and the other ones you'll talk about yes thank you I yield hearing no no further discussion next item is facilities and maintenance Das admin we'll look at that first does anybody anybody have questions on
1:03:55facilities and maintenance Das admin Miss Rogers I Just I'm looking at the unfunded positions and so my question is the same um you've got 1 two three four security officers that are unfunded so I'm just wondering how that impacts what you plan on doing what that looks like for you know the future of that department how that impact the other folks that are doing this work it's under facilities and
1:04:31operations over here yeah I'm just um getting myself there I don't have that c there's a CU it's labeled as where is it labed labeled it's after yeah I've got it yeah I'm showing these have um open tbds that are
1:05:03funded I don't even have it it's all in security maintenance they're all under that tab it's the same tab yeah y yep so I'm sorry the question it was you have five security officers that are unfunded that you I um I don't know if those are the only positions that you asked for or if there were other ones but but there's five that are listed under unfunded positions and so you know
1:05:28when we talk about Safety and Security of course you know as as a parent as well I get nervous that I see we have five security officers that were requested I'm assuming we requested because it was something that you felt were needed but they were unfunded so I'm just wondering how that impacts your department moving forward are people stretched thin what does that look like so we have nine positions that are not
1:05:49filled okay um and the the ration now behind new positions is I can't fill my old positions yet these positions have been vacant all year so until we fill these nine positions we won't know whether or not we need the other new positions so the they're sitting on the back burner and um hopefully we will be able to fill these um a lot hinges on you know Collective bogging agreements things like that so I
1:06:19I think that we are moving in the right direction with Safety and Security um Mr Ventura the director is doing a great job um he's he is um neck deep in it every day and um he'd like to see these positions filled so that we can take a good look at the district and see where we are with you know our um our offices so I I get that rationale that that
1:06:46makes sense that we have nine that were unfilled so I'm not going to ask for five new ones because I couldn't fill these nine so I don't even know what we can do yet with these n but somebody asked for them so originally we wanted to be sure that we had one at every Elementary School we wanted to be sure that we had an adequate amount of um security people at our middle schools
1:07:06and also at the high school and as um as Mr Ventura um is going through the building um dery you know he's having um he's made some changes uh in in the uh policies there and it is still looking to fill these other positions so that he can see um what is left from this group that we can spread to uh the elementary level and possibly um augment the uh Security offices at the middle school I
1:07:39guess it's just more of a process comment then that like somebody still asked for five positions right even though and it wasn't a point of them being denied as much as it was of the fact that we really don't have Direction right now um as to you know know we would like putting numbers against a school name um is how we' get got to that area now we'll have the opportunity
1:08:03to see where these positions fall out we have uh more security at RPA than we've ever had um and that wasn't in the cards um but it's it's an immediate need so we're taking care of that and then when these as these offices come in to play we'll place them where we feel we need them and then at that point as we get closer to a a a full complement of
1:08:29funded um if we need to we feel that we will come back to the superintendent and say you know we may need two or three more um to do what we need to do so my question does my comment makes sense though it's sort of like why did we ask for them if we if we didn't need not that we didn't need them because we do need them but if we have nine positions
1:08:49that are open that's where I was just sort of stuck on like why did we ask for them in the first place I think that it was not a a note it was a hold until we trying to fill the nine and then gauge because it might be five and it might be more but it wasn't a no it was just let's try to fill those nine look at the
1:09:09impact and then go from there and and add so certainly which security is priority which that makes sense but that's where I go back to I think if we have that information ahead of time then that answers you know my question and then that sort of elimin need for me to even ask like oh okay I see why this happens I see how that played out and then you know I I do much better when I
1:09:31can read information that's how I process stuff I know not everybody else does that in the same way but for me that would be much more helpful and Lord knows we're not just catering to what you know how Sarah processes stuff but it would be helpful to have that back up sure I yield Mr Cory yes Mr Pacho yes I just want to say do you have any outstanding requests I could use a new lawnmower at
1:09:59my house I hear you but other than that no me too well I just want to take a moment to praise you again Mr pachico because you've been on the job for quite a while and there's been a lot of transformation in that time period we've seen Watson completely transformed as a building it looks wonderful we've seen the stone we've seen a brand new high school get built beside the new Morton and I know
1:10:26that you've overseen so many of these projects and um I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that and say thank you for your commitment to the Fall River Public Schools I yield thank you but it took an awful lot of people to get that stuff done Mr a the um we're in the lines can you tell me about where the maintenance stuff that we talked about would be can you tell me
1:10:52direct me to the line items so if if you go to the maintenance um section right after the salary um items yep that's when all of the heavy duty um items come in so heating electricity and then all the way down the line the heating electricity you have office equipment Furniture maintenance contracted Services uh ventive maintenance all of those items is where all this stuff would be pulled
1:11:28from so when you're talking about purchasing uh equipment what what line would that probably under office equipment Furniture maintenance it could be under preventive maintenance also if we're if we're picking up equipment um you know the contingency item yep so just uh and maybe we're going to get this info but I don't see it here the back out of where did we come up with uh building materials and
1:11:53supplies 400,000 like I would like to know what is in that line not necessarily right now but to to know what does that mean So within that we have $150,000 for lawnmowers or whatever it is that the breakout is where I would be looking whether it's here to a subcommittee so that we can kind of get a feel for so we don't have unlimited money what I would agree that in a subcommittee meeting we could give
1:12:19you um those items broken up much easier um and then the discussion would help uh to understand right why those items are put in those spots we can do that we haggle with it we come up with something then we refer something to that's the way it it should go uh in my mind the electricians you have in here it looks like I know we had talked about at a subcommittee meeting which I was
1:12:41important to do that one of those electricians I believe was going to go to the information the cio's line so that he was dedicated for that and I see it under here and I'm wondering why so we don't have so in that same discussion we were talking about adding another electrician and that that we would we would shift the low voltage one of the low voltage electricians over to that the other electrician didn't come
1:13:06through fruition it's not here um we didn't hire that additional electrician which would be electrician number five so we've allowed one of the low voltage um electricians to be used um both Mr cabraal and myself have conversations a minimum of once or twice a week about the Personnel that he needs whether it's Carpenters or electrician to go over and that electrician goes over as much as
1:13:32he's asked to unless he's in the middle of something on the opposite side but there is a we are sharing of that electrici we're sharing it's not exclusively over to Tech but we are sharing that person so out the four people you have here you said three of them are low voltage I didn't two of them are low voltage two of them are are straight electricians that don't hand at
1:13:54one point we had three low voltage no so how do we have one to give to him we didn't there was we had said we were adding another electrician during that conversation there was a um if I'm not mistaken there was a job description that was put forth for the um from him from him from Scott and then we had said that finding that person is more difficult than finding an electrician
1:14:24we would advertise for an electrician and then we would share the low voltage one at that point he could have it as long as he needed it if there's work every day and if not that electrician could find work back in maintenance so it would be a shared position but we never hired that electrician I agree with around 3/4 of that because I was there as part of it yes at the time we
1:14:47had two low voltage we've never had more than two so we had two Mr cabal came before for the subcommittee and asked for a position called like wiring he had some other name of it that really didn't make any sense to it made sense but it was like we have a person who's currently working that can do that job yes we agreed superintendent agreed you agreed at the meeting that we were going
1:15:08to take the low voltage guy who was capable of doing all of his work and transfer him directly under the or chop for him therefore you would have a vacancy for a low voltage guy or just rehire a full electrician that's the way that I recall that happening I don't I'm not saying it didn't happen that way the way I recall it was that we were going to move that person when we hired
1:15:34another electrician to fulfill to fill that vacant spot I hear what you're saying and and if that's something that happened then that's my I mean we can go back and look at it it's not the end of the will but making it right I just want to make it right now so when I'm looking at this I say well my first question is the two low low voltage guys are they
1:15:53licensed yet uh one is they're both close they're both close so one is closer than another and you know my feeling on that I do the or chart said the job description said they'd be licensed so I do if I just say okay back off on that Kevin because they're working on it they're still not licensed so my concern is that we should have a position under Mr cabal's budget called
1:16:18low voltage electrician and it can still work under him we didn't need to change the job description but he would be the one doing the interviews the hiring and so it's sort of off your plate if you're going to stay with these guys he just has to recog uh when he comes up here he's not going to say I have a vacant position as an electrician guaranteed nobody's going to
1:16:36tell me that because I haven't seen it mhm that's the problem is at that time we said we were adding five bodies in the electrician world right now we have four in the budget yes so I think the missing link is when Mr cabal comes up he's going to say I need to have that position because either one of these guys is going to move into it and apply for it or he should have already filled
1:16:55it is cuz he's got a lot of wiring needs um the way that I see it when you go down to the end where it says uh water CSO so we pay the city 525,000 yes for water yes I know we I mentioned this before about trash and where is the trash amount and do we pay for trash and how much do we pay we've been asking I've been asking
1:17:20this for three and a half years on City side so yes so we do pay answers weay yeah we do pay5 Grand or 40 Grand or something like that but I don't see it in this budget am I missing it um if I'm not mistaken it's in it falls on the contracted Services line Mr tag yeah what is it it falls under the contracted Services line item so we have line item that's
1:17:45specific for water and sewer we don't have one for a trash no waste disposal no I would recommend that I mean it's truth and advertising it makes sense so whatever the number was for over a year now we've also been negotiating with the city apparently for the end of the year agreements and we're still waiting for answers on that too but if we're not paying a fair shot for what
1:18:10the trash is we should pay just like the city just has to make a decision and do the same thing for the for the other folks nonprofits and and all that stuff so I want to be fair if we're not paying our fair share then you should be comeing to us and say pay it but I don't see the um the line item I don't see you said contractual services and I don't see a comparison
1:18:32from year to year are we increasing or ex or decreasing our contracted Services over the this year increasing you said increase yes do you know how much is it is this a like is it a line item or is this just uh currently happening in the current budget so you um say that again Mr are you are we increasing our contracted Serv services in the current budget which therefore leads to an increase in this number yes
1:18:56plus plus we have contracts that are contractually increased from year to year so that's the reason why for the increase right that's a concern of mine of how much uh Outsourcing we're doing um maybe we could get some comparative data on on that the big one was I think it was the two that's $ 2.7 million in the contracted Services line yes and that's where ene falls under that's where Falls
1:19:22and a lot of of the other ones are yeah I would just like a breakout of that so we can get to see what that is I mean it's a lot of money that we're paying them and I still don't know exactly what I does can you just tell me do they clean vents are they responsible for making sure and stuff not for cleaning duck work so they do some PM work and
1:19:41they do major repairs there are two pipe fitters that are in the district every day and uh provide emergency services to us on the weekends and nights um and they are responsible for there's a list in their contract of everything they're responsible for by school cleaning ducks wasn't isn't one not cleaning ducks yeah and um do you have do they who do they sign in with when they come in like are
1:20:07they here all day like you say they're here all day they here for8 a day can you tell me what that means all they are a 7 to 3:30 group that are here in our buildings every day so if I was to come here at 3:15 and drive around and say show me where the Ane guys are we could find George could say oh that's where they're at absolutely yep the or chart is
1:20:33um I guess this is a comment for all of them I don't think these are or charts like we're at least like I was asking for in O chart is Who falls underneath who the way that I Envision it because this is like everybody sort of um straight and then you have is transportation even on here yes so they be under the master one so I I don't know where what I'm looking at
1:21:00is so I'm looking at your rug chart so yes it should show transportation for instance has one block and then within that there's three people that work there under you know underneath them and then maintenance the same you know yes I have that oop yeah you don't have it I have it no I I think that you probably do have it cuz I think we've had it before when whatever but it's not in here this is
1:21:26what we got in here it's kind of um confusing related to it two more questions one is um you mentioned lawnmowers do we have Storage storage we have storage we're paying for storage do we have any places that we store storage that storage is is all of our supplies that's distribution so if we had snow blowers do they where do they get stored the snowblowers get um depending on the snow blows is
1:21:53stored at the schools um and the equip the other equipment is stored at the at the uh Bas building and if we got new snowblowers in they would go to I I have new snowblowers that are sitting at um different buildings the spares yes that are not being used yep and another one of my uh issues was the labor we've been talking about for a while is the labor been hired so the labor has not been
1:22:20hired we're also changing if you look under uh maintenance you'll see a couple of conversions um I see labor open open TBD right but if you go to um to the labor position just before the one we were looking at so just above total salaries there's a highlighted area open to be so there's a plumber converted to appliance repair so it's something we're trying to bring in house we do an awful lot of um
1:23:01kitchen equipment repair and outsourced um two issues with that a lot of times the availability of the company um we're kind of at their Mercy uh and the second piece is is that the repairs are extremely expensive some of that work we can bring in house with a technician we have enough kitchens and enough equipment um that would warrant this position filling the plumbers position is almost
1:23:24impossible um so therefore at this time that position would be um better utilized um as a as an appliance repair and then the steam fitter conversion would be to an organized labor so we're looking for two layers of labors we're looking for a laborer who has actually been um you know doing that kind of work so high-end labor that has licenses um to operate equipment um to uh set up licensed uh to set up
1:23:56stage and different things like that that person would be much more valuable um to work as a um side by side as opposed to a helper the labor position that will that's listed that we haven't filled yet is straight laborer that would be um a runner someone who's going to clean up after trades people that's that other position so one of them we already have in the budget and this one an additional one yep cuz we're
1:24:25getting as we look at some of the applications some of them are are are very um not at all equipped to do the work we want to do and then we every once in a while get someone who is way over what we need and they would never accept the salary of that labor so I think we have the opportunity with two positions to uh have um two individuals who can um help
1:24:53um the tra the Tradesmen and and um and that department with the projects that we can keep inh housee yep so I would assume that that's going to come before us for a job discription it will it will yes the $4,000 labor is I just it doesn't sit well with me because that's been over a year we can go back and look at it we have people that can do basic
1:25:17labor kids out of out of this particular School construction CRA you know how the heck we can't fill that is not I just think we haven't tried to fill it personally but there's no reason why we haven't filled it with I'm going to tell you that I haven't tried as much as I should um that lies on me and um you agree with me that we could potentially get a nice and and that was the original
1:25:40intent and I and I believe that that was the intent when I brought it forward that we wanted highly recommend it yep people need work we need that the only issue I would have with the organized labor and then you said we can't find a plumber well no kidding because the three plumbers that are listed or two plumbers that are listed here 72,000 and 76,000 one of which I probably gets more
1:26:02money because he's a lead even though does not is that no it's not a lead what is that just a step something it may be uh longevity it may be something else so $76,000 for a licensed plumber that we can't find and we might have a organized labor for $69,000 like it that's the problem is the salary that's why we can't find anybody and uh so I don't know when that
1:26:24comes forth like unless you come for us with a higher Plumbing pay or electrician I don't I just don't see the union position so then the once we negotiate a contract that's what's going to dictate I know those numers and we're up for that so like I've said the same thing every every year that we if we're not going to pay people we're not going to you know get them um absolutely the
1:26:45do you get any reports from uh the grounds and like how that's going with it all of the new people I do I do do and there's a lot of um again for the facilities meeting we do have that comparison that we had that you had asked for we have that comparison that's ready to go we also have a lot of uh of documentation both um in uh in photos
1:27:08and also um in writing of of the work that's going on there's a lot just dery High School um athletic fields for instance I mean we have I I don't want to say my but we have a lot of netting that has to go up and down trying to preserve The netting so at the end of the seasons it comes back down back up that's a lot of work that wasn't there before Nets would stay
1:27:34up to catch birds year round what I would just ask is if you could send us something as the committee it might help to us at least for me it would help to know here's some of the projects we have nothing extravagant but here's how we we just added six positions at 60 some, thousand here's what we're getting from that and then we don't have to spend the money on the Outsourcing um of all those
1:27:54things to me that makes sense the transportation department I asked this a while back about the secretaries all having a 7D license is that finally happened so our transportation director um de cavalo has been working and asking around with her people and also with others um to gain the licenses where uh we do have some people in uh distribution that have those licenses and we're going to encourage them to um
1:28:23to as many people as we can because we know we can use them uh our uh Courier Vans are busy all the time a lot of of set Roots but they do do a lot of work in the course of a day and and there are times uh when vacations and Inc time come up we that we could use extra hands so she is working hard on that particular piece I was referring to to
1:28:45the secretary so we've asked we've asked but again that's so four years ago yes if I recall we were going to add a secretary I made the suggestion at the time and the whole committee supported it and you you support it yourself to add to the job description that they will maintain a 7D license and I haven't seen it yet and that's that's what my question is if we have a job description
1:29:07that says this is when they get hired this is what they should be doing including the director so that if we ever needed we could you know like you said people are out it makes a lot of sense we all supported it at the time but it's been years I'm I'm going to tell you it's not in the job description absolutely not and if it's not somebody took it out in
1:29:26the public meeting it's not in the public meeting was I don't believe it was in if I I could be wrong go back and research see I want to make sure we're on the same page sure in my opinion it makes sense yep and if it's not then superintendent should send it to us and say it's not if it makes sense we should add it sure I'm of the belief that we
1:29:44said this in a public meeting that we would add it to the job description so therefore we'd have multiple people that could um drive them and did I ever get an answer on the uh the amount of the other than that is included for the trash do we know what that is total like how much do we pay the city for trash do we know that I couldn't tell you right
1:30:05now we're in second quarter of um this year and I I really don't have a handle right now as to what that number s us though you send us an update yeah well I can do that absolutely I yeld thank you anything further for facilities maintenance campus services maintenance and security department and transportation we went over that hearing none let's go to the elll department elll does anybody have any
1:30:38questions Miss Rodricks I'm just trying to understand these conversions um they say community facilitator converted to El mainstream teacher and that's on here twice but it's not on on the list of conversions there's a new position I'm I'm so my understanding about the community facilitator positions is that the ESL Department historically had two of them they were open they have been
1:31:07open since I started um I've been analyzing the need for the Department to have Community facilitator positions it seems a bit Superfluous since Pace has Community facilitator positions every school has community facilitator positions and I don't want to keep positions on the books just for the sake of keeping them on the books um I'm happy to revisit those in future years if we feel that we have more of a need
1:31:33in my department but right now that's not where the most need is given that we have lots of people in the district working on that so that money for two of them because they are low more they are not they don't earn as much as teachers two of them become one teacher that's my understanding of the conversion correct that two of them become one teacher yes okay I again I think that's where my
1:31:58confusion lies because the way it's it looks here is that it's two Community facilitator positions that are converted to what looks like two mainstream elll mainstream teachers at Green it's just one it's just one okay but then it wasn't in the list of conversions on like in this front section it's be it's because of the cost so because the cost is different so the teacher would be
1:32:22included on the program improvements and on the bottom on the cost Cost Containment section would be the two Community facilitators yeah so I see that here now that you've explained it again I think this is where it goes back to like having an explanation would be really helpful because I look at that and to me it looks like we're converting two Community facilitators to two elll teacher positions which doesn't make
1:32:47sense funding wise right that that doesn't add up um but then it's not on the conversion and then it's not here so thank you for clarifying that and then I'm assuming that there was more well actually I don't want to assume anything um there's one position on here that looks like it was unfunded and that was a dle coordinator I don't think I even know what that means correct dual language education dual language educ
1:33:11okay um were there other positions that were not funded and how does that impact same question I asked everybody else and how does that impact what you would like to do for your department moving for the only other thing that I requested was an snon at PACE and we are in that that actually does exist as a teaching position right now and so my need is to have consistency at PACE over the summer
1:33:36and teachers don't work over the summer so having that as a as a teacher um I was hoping to convert it to an snon but um superintendent Pon and I are in conversations about whether we might do anou or something that would allow us to have consistency for that person to work over the summer um and not have to hire individual people in and out of pace in the summer to screen our multilingual
1:34:02learner students I know it's busy over there over the summer especially while you're trying to do that work so that's why I'm asking how does that impact you moving forward so I think we're going to just res I think we will resolve that we don't have the exact resolution yet but I anticipate that we will find a way for that to happen we have to do that with our bargaining unit
1:34:22correct okay I yield on that one anything further Mr agier just on that same issue so you said you have uh to do at the pay center is to do screenings yes what are the qualifications to be a screener you need to hold a teaching license so I've reached out to neighboring districts about how they handle this um some districts it is a teaching position some districts it is an snon some districts utilize re hired
1:34:52teachers historically we have had this as a teaching position and then we have hired people over the summer to just come in um I'm just looking for a little more consistency over the summer so it's not one teacher does it throughout the school year and then I'm hiring all different people to do it throughout the summer and you have it vacant is that what you're saying it is currently
1:35:15vacant yes is it how long has it been vacant since it was vacated in uh last June so what have you done all year uh the coordinators have been screening students Megan prio who is our assessment specialist has been screening students and we have someone uh who is coming in part-time to screen students and is I don't know who that is she's asking what was that you said about coordinators who's that the coordinators
1:35:48are we have two curriculum coordinators in in our budget um and they have been doing ours at PACE as well so is there a uh agency that does this on a contracted basis like other departments have done because to my knowledge no it just seems like here we are we saying it's a teaching position and this and that and then I'm looking at the salaries and you got 108 and 101,000 to do
1:36:17screening so they are subbing in right now to do some screening that is not their primary purpose they've done maybe 4 hours 5 hours of screening um on any given week and we um we are prioritizing direct service to students it's very hard for me to explain to a parent that I have a teacher full-time testing kids when I have no one providing services in buildings I don't disagree but if if
1:36:45just looking at it as a budget so somebody if we had a teacher there was working 40 hours a week they would be doing 40 hours of screening that's unlikely no so what would they do otherwise they would they well I mean at certain times of the year there's a need to screen prease students not sure what that's going to look like the state of Massachusetts is releasing new guidance
1:37:09on that any day now um we do have a large need for pre for kindergarten screening come this time of the year other than that they often would assist with parent Center family engagement um initiatives they need to this person also needs to be able to reach out to families to be able to explain our services um to be able to get consent from families we also this person can handle our opt
1:37:36outs really where we are Mr AAR I want to be totally transparent is that we are really in a place where we're trying to figure out where everybody's role is and what how we can best maximize everybody's skill set um yeah I I I totally understand it just when you had said that the the coordinat are helping for 5 10 hours a week five hours so in my head I'm saying okay so that's 10
1:38:01hours of testing what would the rest of the 30 hours be who's picking up that slack if they were full like it just we want to maximize everybody's so if we're going to pay a teacher potentially you might pay a top step teacher if they were high you know in a high need section that's means you're paying $85 $90,000 for the position and if that was the case and they're screening five kids
1:38:22A week we maybe should do something different they're definitely screening more than five and so I do have that data track since in the past three months we've had over 200 students just so you know a screening of a student who um is not a newcomer can take up to two hours so that it can be a pretty extensive process if the student has any kind of English we're also hearing from
1:38:47the state of Massachusetts that we may not be accepting out of state screeners so we're looking at potentially even needing more time for somebody to screen but I think the thought behind anou would be that some of those hours would then become spread out over the summer so then we wouldn't be additionally hiring another person for another line item of Summer screenings no I I think
1:39:07it makes sense and you had talked about the issue uh last meeting about the dery positions I still don't feel really good about that conversation and I think we we need a good picture of where where we're at and what we need and you had talked about well we can't fill a position so let's not put it in the budget but I disagree with that because if we need the positions if in a perfect
1:39:31world we could fill all the positions that's how we can create a budget that's sustainable that we know in order to do the job right we need x amount so when we don't add five positions that we know are needed to service the kids that's $400,000 that we don't have in the budget accounted for in next year as we go forward so we keep on hearing that not from you we heard it from Mr Pico we
1:39:53he hear it again it it's a zerob based budget if we did a zero based budget it says in order to teach all of our El kids we need x amount of dollars that's what should be in the budget if we can't fill the positions then we have to do whatever but I don't see that here so what I see us doing is we have winners and losers in the budget some people win
1:40:12one year and then they win every year other people lose every year because they're losing positions and I'd rather say let's just make sure we know what our needs our request so we can sustain it so so as of right now I I just want to clarify as much as I can about those positions that are not being funded at dery as of right now when I looked across all of the schools I went for the
1:40:33number of positions that we know we need to meet compliance I will be completely transparent and I will say to you compliance is a floor it is certainly not a ceiling and we know that we're getting more students that's just if you follow the trends of MLL students it's available it's public data the MLL student student population across the country is increasing it's certainly increasing in Massachusetts and it's
1:40:55certainly increasing in for River of course it's impossible to predict I could get two kids tomorrow I could get 50 kids tomorrow that's tough to know so how we worked it out at the district level was to think about what's our minimum compliance where will we add you know the wish list is there if we continue to get more students we don't know we might get more students at dery however we might get more students at
1:41:19Middle School all of a sudden I have no way of knowing what the age range of our immigrant population is going to be so I really feel that it's best to hold on some of those positions right now and hopefully have some latitude to add as needed and and send those positions where they need to be and the District Middle School coach MH do they work for you so I believe that that is the the
1:41:44vision of what we are going to do that they will be at central office because we had Middle School coaches at all three schools this year you can see that two of those were cut so cus will no longer have a position Morton will no longer have a position Talbot's position which is the only one that is filled will be converted down to District that person will service all three of the schools so
1:42:10when I look at um the or chart the little Bubbles and stuff The District Middle School coach under your department should fall under you I think so uh Dr Curley do you have a different Vision no I believe I believe that is I think that um if it's not that way in the org chart I think that that's it's not that way in the budget I we don't have an or chart it's
1:42:36it's listed under one school is that it says at the bottom interventionist coach ESL at tbit will be the District Middle School coach and that just beg the question of if it's a district Middle School coach working under you it should fall under the one pager that has your budget right would be in my opinion that's fair you know I think it makes sense but like I said I this is it one
1:42:59page that's all we got for your department so did you ask for other things that are not in here that the only thing is the Dual language coordinator that's it the one that was there thank you I yield anything further for ELO thank you next is the finance department Mr almeer anybody have any questions for Mr almeer Mr agon I don't see do I see any on here that you have any requests or
1:43:35not or how I did not acoss anything and you're fully so you're fully staffed is what you're saying yes sir and is there any anything glaring in this budget with any changes up down that we should know about no it's level funded the when I say level funded my positions are are it's level service for positions and level funded for dollars and all the line items so if there's any differences you
1:44:05just would find it from somewhere else to correct some of these salaries yes the um one of the things I would just the thing where we get it on the computer uh the streamlining the payments and where I'm is that in here is that in here somewhere under you're talking about docu sign Mr AGA yes yep and that would be under supplies classroom supplies yes how much do we pay for that do you
1:44:39know um we increased it so um this year it actually went up more because we have uh We've created more of the um you know batches so to speak so be so we were so our original subscription that we had was for I believe it was for a TH or so a year uh we're actually doing that more than that now so we increased the subscription I think we ended up going
1:45:04from 4,000 to like 7,000 or something for the year and you you take the uh payment for all of the Departments like special a just just just mine just mine cuz I was I was the department that originally started the docu sign uh process on the school side um and so sped pays for their their own uh this year was the first year that sped uh came in with the docu sign process on
1:45:29their end and and payroll like the payroll manager and the clerks like what are what is their role what is their role like is it just a to do they just move payroll like the docu papers or did they actually do any analysis is that what the manager does so essentially the the payroll folks they they check in with all the schools they get all the documents from all the schools in order to process all the
1:45:57payrolls um they verify that the information that's being sent over is sent over properly that the rates the rates there are proper for the folks that they're getting the information from they put in all the information the payroll supervisor supervises all the staff uh ensures that everything is in the payroll that needs to be in the payroll uh she also is the person that's respons ible for all the mtrs filings
1:46:22that we do on a monthly basis she does she reviews all the enrollments with mtrs um and she does other managerial tasks that that are asked and under Legal Services is under you but I would assum assume that that's it's for that's for the that's for the whole school uh that part of that is the salary of our legal counsel here and the rest is for any potential IAL legal items that come up for the
1:46:54year so that's not necessarily under Finance per se that probably it makes it look like you're spending in your department $300,000 in legal yeah no I'm not no I'm not I'm not but it's it's just it's always it's always just falling under my it's always fallen under my area and that's where it was coded but you know it's General school department yeah I mean I would make a recommendation that that goes
1:47:17under the superintendent so it's more truth and advertising for the people that look at the budget with that I Y thank you thank you thank you Mr Corey yeah Mr alme how long have you been with our district uh since 2011 M Mr Cory and here we are in 2024 I really want to thank you because year after year you seem to you're the head accountant for this District it's a
1:47:41big budget lot of line items tremendous amount of line items and you have a handle on on a lot of it and and in that that's not an easy task uh so I'm I'm very pleased with the overall performance I don't have any questions because all the line items here seem to make a lot of sense to me and I'm so happy that we've been able to retain you because as far as retaining
1:48:07you as our chief accountant then that means that we're sustaining you know the the confidence and the commitment to the budget for the fall Riv of public schools thank you again with that I yield Mr chairman thank you thank you uh next Department up human resource department anybody have any questions for the human resource department hearing none actually I have a question doesn't may be a comment Mr
1:48:37agar so uh I've said um I've said this in the past that I think that we have a few departments that were um not high functioning let's just say and um I've mentioned to the superintendent this multiple times and it's gone nowhere basically that I believe when we look at the structure of this this this department that we need a deputy superintendent to assist her with her work and moveing this District in
1:49:05addition to that there's several departments that do not have a an assistant superintendent that falls under them so I think if we're a high functioning District we should have an or chart that says we have a superintendent and then we have a layer of assistant superintendant and under them is all of the Departments Human Resources maintenance custodial and all that other departments do not have
1:49:27anyone and I still maintain to this day that we're missing an opportunity to create an organizational structure with an experience potentially an experienced person that could come in and assist the superintendent in moving this district and making non-high functioning departments high functioning so I think it's still an issue and I wish that the superintendent would act on it I yield
1:49:51hearing nothing further on human resources I'll go to insurance does anybody have any questions about our insurance hearing none Mr Mayor I'm just waiting to see if anybody else had a question so s you go thanks so under unemployment um is that just a standard yes because I think I asked this every year that what do we do when we don't have that many people so so historically the number has been over 200,000 we've
1:50:24had years in the past where we've seen you know a little bit more turnover or we've had to do some Cuts in the year's past where the number has been higher but 300,000 is a is a standard number that we've used every year but that it's safe that's it's a little over like I don't think we're going to spend that um when I see the line item sickle buyback and this might be a question for
1:50:46different departments but I consider sickle buyback when person retires yep and when you read language in the contracts especially specifically maintenance custodial and Facilities that that I've looked at personally it it does not indicate that if you leave that you get paid and I don't know if when that happens if we pay somebody does it come out of this line item or does it come
1:51:11out of the budget of the department that is um so paying that benefit is that so historically what's happened is those the as far as facilities and maintenance uh and and those those categories they typically come out of the department what comes out of here typically are the sickly pay payments out for teachers and Par professionals and for clerks that's typically what comes out of this line
1:51:36item so what I would request the superintendent is to once again please review the language because it just makes zero sense to me I've read the language in it in the language in the contract for those departments it states something along the lines of if you leave it it doesn't say that if you leave you quit you just go get a job somewhere else that you get paid your days and then we other people
1:52:04that work that leave that don't get their days so we're not consistent when it comes to how we pay people and then that takes over to another we're just not consistent period but we're not consistent when we pay people now I've looked at the contract I've looked at it I've sent to the superintendent I've asked over and over how the heck are we paying somebody that quit we're paying
1:52:27them money there's also times where we pay and HR has to go chasing money I don't understand how this happens but this one here for Sly buyback is something that just totally doesn't sit well with me if I'm wrong please look at it and tell me that I'm wrong but when you look at the language in the contract it says if you quit you will not get your your si time paid out and why would
1:52:49we do that for some and not for others is not is not okay in my book so I ask the superintendent to please look at it and report back AEL thank you Mr Pereira would that be something that's contract negotiated as far as payback for a sick time oh of course so if they're negotiating their contract in some I'm just trying to think about it if you have some workers who negotiated a
1:53:16contract where hey if they quit they get paid their sick time that was good negotiating cuzz I know that if I quit my job I'm going to get vacation time I'm not going to get any acred sick time but there are contracts that do negotiate that in is that what the deal is is that why we have a discrepancy and some get it and some don't contracts are done differently and
1:53:36then negotiate it differently so I you know to speak to whether or not you know certain languages in a contract um you know it's a historical thing I would say for the most part right but I mean that's why they're getting paid you know so I would would say good negotiating when that contract CS up again if we feel that paying out sick time is something we want to deal with and I
1:53:58guess we deal with that at that time you know anyway with that I yeld anything further Mr Agia yeah I would agree with Mr Perera that contract language is very important and it should be good but we got some people here that negotiate contracts that are super negotiators I guess because even when the language is clear that you do not get paid here in River you get paid that's the problem so that's what I want
1:54:23you to look at the contract language is what it is but if the contract language says they don't get paid somebody please tell me why the hell they getting paid I yield we'll get clarification on that because I don't believe anybody's getting paid if they're not if they're not allowed to get paid we we'll get that information okay perfect thank you that's a sorry that's a different ball
1:54:43of wax if it's not in the contract they should that they are not going to get paid their sick time then they shouldn't so we should clarify that and make sure that's correct yeah absolutely thank you anything further all right next Department up is the music department music department anybody have any questions about music hearing none yes I sir okay go ahead K just the same the same type question for I'm assuming
1:55:16we're going to get something from the director that explains it a little more then the one page you will get it thank you are y next department is parent and Community engagement title one nursing nursing oh I'm sorry I skipped nursing my fault night nursing anybody have any questions about nursing about our nursing staff okay hearing none parent and Community engagement Title One anything on that for anybody
1:55:53thank you no ahead oh sorry M Rogers go ahead no there was just one position that was unfunded so you know I go back to how does that impact the work that they do I think it was an eson um and were there any other positions the the snon was in relation to the elll position okay so that that was that one were there any other positions that they requested no okay go
1:56:23did you say title one it says I'm sorry did I read it wrong yeah at the very end title one parent and Community engagement Title One Mr agar I just don't know what that means because so it's just it's labeled that way because most of the department is funded uh through Title One positions it's just how we've coded in the past it should probably just be Pace what it should be I'm looking for the title one
1:56:48Department thises the director they they don't have a he's he's he falls under uh curriculum so he's part of curriculum no no thank you I yield yep anything further thank you next one up is Early Childhood Early Childhood hearing none question Mr agar when was this budget done February February so the amounts that are in here are the most current or is they yes CU I think um I don't necessarily
1:57:31think some of the salaries are accurate I think we gave some raises and I don't see them here but I could be wrong and in particular Mr AA the director so that salary is split so it's partially funded through a grant and funded through operations okay so it's in two it's in two line items yeah so it's the you you'll see the first line and about the fifth line
1:57:58down Y no I I see it I I think that that's the split to me the best way would always be to put it in one and put like a comment that how they do okay it just makes it look like as if it's different that's all okay um and IID asked uh probably I don't know a while ago about the um it's the title one question but I guess we're going to get that at some
1:58:26point for the information I asked for relative to the salary they used to combine the position I think you're talking you're going to get that to us I assume Miss Dr Ryan as well as the social studies we brought that to the committee last year during the budget process when we split those two positions we had shared that with the committee but we are going to get the history of how it went and in early
1:58:46childhood we're going to have a subcommittee meeting yes on Thursday to discuss this and I'm looking forward to having the plans laid out in writing I think we need to do um more for that so I would say this is one where we're going to have to increase it if we're going to increase the but a lot of information was asked for so I'm really anticipating a good meeting on Thursday with that I
1:59:09Y thank you any anything further on Early Childhood next agenda item is health and physical education health and physical education any questions on that section of the budget hearing none school committee that's our that's our budget no increases I believe anything on the school Committee hearing none next item up is the special education department special education department anybody have any questions on special
1:59:54education Mr Mayor Mr agar sorry I'm just trying to get organized a little bit there was um some positions that either were not funded or they're built within the school so I'm just trying to wrap my head around where we're at relative to FTE requests um I do you have any that you as far as your um piece of the budget that is not necessarily linked to a school or they all get linked to a
2:00:27school sure so um I only request the positions that are not linked to a specific school so I had brought my um first request to subcommittee last month when you got everyone voted to um put the position out there now so we are in the process of hiring for that position and then um I had talked to the superintendent during my budget meeting about instead of just the one cluster coordinator the um requesting two
2:00:59cluster coordinators so that's not off the table completely but it's one of those things that we're going to wait before we bring that second position forward so other than that as far as a conversion um you don't have any new positions so then no I do not have any any additional positions what I would say is I'm looking at the budget where it says an orange about that conversion and I will
2:01:26say the same thing I said to the principal of the LNO I believe if we have an unfunded unfunded position unfilled position doesn't mean that we don't need that position in addition we have another need for something else doesn't mean we have to take it from there to go to here that's just my opinion and I will say this again Thursday at the subcommittee if we have a need for like this says bcba so if we
2:01:52need 10 bcbas based on the children's needs in the district we need 10 you shouldn't be faced with well you can only get one of those that the kids also need if we do this and I would say that I said that to the principal I would say that the same uh to you um one thing that is glaring that I think is the inclusion is still something that doesn't sit well with me um we talked
2:02:15about it at the subcommittee relative to the kids do not get any Services outside of math and English that's a problem I I really think that's something that we got to focus on um I asked for class sizes um the class size report and I haven't had a chance to dig into it too well but my gut tells me that the the class size are very high especially at the younger
2:02:38grades and then when we don't have the proper supports we're going to have more kids identified we're going to have we're going to start off from a deficit perspective than not so yeah worry that we're not adding if we had a zerob based budget like I said we should we would say some of the non-negotiables would be every kindergarten class has a teacher Aid every grade one has a you know
2:03:02something like that I just worry that we're not being honest about what we truly need not that we can find the people right in our budget right um I know Mr agie are that the inclusion setting is the next goal of mine so this year the focus was really on um pulling the data for our substantially separate student population and their level of need and the services that we provide them and
2:03:28we've done a lot of work around that and then next year again same thing I need to pull a lot of information in order to be able to make those recommendations because it's very different across this District even Elementary School to elementary school and then K12 right so without the right information I can't say we need you know two more par is in every grade from K3 we I can't say that without good dat
2:03:54data analysis and there's no easy way to pull it because it's so different so that's my goal and I absolutely I think you guys know me by now I'm not shy about asking for things so I will absolutely ask those things because I see that our special education numbers continue to rise we just pulled it today we're at 3125 now um as of today so the supports that's needed in a science and social
2:04:20studies class I hear you um I just want to be able to make um you know a a good um confident recommendation and I don't have the information I need to do that at this time so I I understand that when I'm looking at the or chart which the one like this I don't really care for it uh as I said before personally but in the way I see your department based on
2:04:44subcommittee meetings and the full committee is that we have you and then we have the compliance officer is almost like the assistant superintendent uh assistant special ed director and then from there you have departments and then people would fall under them so I don't think that this as Mr Pico said he has one that's better than this you probably I do to have the same um what I would
2:05:03ask is that gets presented Thursday at the subcommittee sure just so we can be on the same page with it sure you have in here supervisors I brought this up before that all special ed supervisors in my opinion work for you and they should work for you not for a school not answering to a school they should answer for you so under this it should show that or the organizational struct I
2:05:24can show you what I have put together and again so if we can add that to Thursday's sure agenda I appreciate it thank thank you very much I yield M Rodricks I just have a comment so we're talking about inclusion and I know that this is school level but when I look at the unfunded positions we have seven uh special ed positions that are unfunded so when we talk about what's needed to create a truly inclusive
2:05:50learning environment it's really hard for me to wrap my brain around that that that's the direction we're going in when I look here and we've got you know three at Green that aren't funded that were requested and unfunded we've got two special ed inclusion teachers that weren't funded we've got another three over at three special ed Paris over at Sylvia those are the positions that
2:06:12really support kids being able to go out you know so it's more of a comment that I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around how can we say in one breath that we're trying to do this and I think we are but at the same time we're not funding those pieces and I get you know we have to make sure that we have the funding for it but that this
2:06:34has to be a priority and I think we're in a in a position now where we have folks that are really inclusion minded um to really make that shift and I don't know that we've ever been in that position before which is you know a positive thing but you know that's the hill I'm going to die on if I could just be clear not a single sped position was
2:06:54requested and we said no what I said was we needed to have a conversation with Miss obenchain we put them on hold based on numbers and as she saw fit she would support those requests that's what we put them on hold we didn't say we somebody didn't come to the table and said I need a special ed teacher we said special ed and elll we need to include miss obenchain miss agella so that we
2:07:18can make decisions based on numbers and need so I think it just goes back to the process right cuz when we get it it just says unfunded positions so what it doesn't tell us is that hey we've been talking about this and this is something that you know it's unfunded for right now but that doesn't mean it's a no that means it's a we're not going to put it for right now but it is a conversation
2:07:40that we're going to continue to have cuz when I look at it right I get the binder there's a lot in here it's falling apart on me two or three times already tonight right when I look at it as you can see my papers fell out um you know it just says unfunded so I don't have a good understanding that hey we've had this discussion and it's not a no it's a
2:07:59these are the ones that we're going to prioritize first and then we're going to go back to it and so that's the thing that I'm struggling with when I read it no it's a valid point obviously we need to be more clear on that but there was never any intention of withholding special we I agree with you we're all on the same page we want our kids to have access we just need to make sure because
2:08:20those numbers change all the time from school to school so she needs to be part of that discussion Maks to needs to make those decisions oh are you sorry Mr Cory yes um thank you Miss Oben chain for your commitment to never changing landscape special needs and I really appreciate that you've you your layer focused on the fact that it is everchanging and I really appreciate your transparency and in requesting in our
2:08:50subcommittees uh you know for whatever it is that you need because this department um historically has not really worked out very well 20 years ago but right now I think there's more focus on this department today and due to that Focus I think we're making it a better department so I I I I praise you and I I ask you for your continued commitment stick around you know help us out help
2:09:19us get the ship straight and with that uh I really appreciate you know how hard you're working to be laser focused on this department anything that you need you make sure you request it to us in subcommittee we'll get it for you and I want to thank the superintendant as well for being laser focused on the needs and the necessary changes for this department thank you with that I yield
2:09:42thank you anybody have anything further Mr agar can superintendent or Mr El me tell us what's in the contingency fund that we keep referring to because I keep hearing that we're going to maybe maybe maybe how much money do we have in that account where is it located in the budget so the contingency account is under the superintendent and there
2:10:10is I would say probably not enough hold on you know what I'm saying is it coming from actually no hold on sorry the contingency is under it's actually under Finance I'm sorry and it's for $200,000 that's the contingency so when we need a one to one par that comes out of that like all that stuff will be transferred out of there Y and um I just think that we're making a
2:10:41lot of commitments that there must be some other part of money somewhere because we're going to end up having to pay for some of the these things during the year understood and I just it's not as clear where it should come from my last question on um special education is the circuit breaker and do you know how much money is in it now like what where are we at moving forward into the the
2:11:03because this is a budget discussion how much of our circuit breaker funds are we going to be using to fund special education so um the the plan is as of the end of the year to carry a balance of just over $3.8 million over and of which um we'll be spending 2.4 million next year for um tuitions and the remainder of what we're going to carry over will be used to cover out out of District
2:11:37transportation in circuit breaker or in extra money like prepaid tuitions in circuit breaker so you're going to use all of your circuit breaker funds to zero it out yep as of so what we've been doing on a yearly basis is carrying one year's worth which is allowed by the state um of the circuit breaker amount so whatever we receive in FY 24 is carried forward to fy2 and then we're not going
2:12:05to do that now so we we we are do we are doing that's what we that's the process that we've been using so we'll be spending what we received in FY 24 and fy2 but then we're not carrying it over we so you're allowed to carry it over but we have but we have to spend it yes and then so the state require so the state requires you to spend they allow
2:12:26you to carry one year's worth of Revenue uh in circuit breaker per year which is what we're doing so like money in the bank yes yeah but you but but in the following year you're required to spend what you received in the previous year and then the next year you're going to carry so this year we expect to get how much in circuit breaker um the same I don't I don't know what it's going to be
2:12:45next year but I'd say roughly the same maybe 4 million so then we'll start this budget we'll start this budget with $4 million in circuit breaker available to be spent next year yes and that decision isn't part of this yes it is that's so this in this budget I've got down at the bottom of the bed budget you can see that we're using 2.4 million uh for tuitions and the rest is going to be as
2:13:11we had noted on the slide when we did the presentation uh in February will be used for transportation to cover a of District transportation and that's because the state now allows us to yes use some of that fund for not that we're given it corre so as part of the $3.8 million that that I just I just referenced for you Mr agar 1.4 million was associated with Transportation reimbursement and we don't have an
2:13:34option at that point I'm sorry we do not have an option for that we do we do have an option but we as we did this past year uh I followed that same practice forward for next year in fy2 so you told us that it was an option I'm sorry when we paid that money you all told us that that was an option no I told you that the reimbursement that we received was for transportation that
2:14:00what we received in circuit breaker is for tuitions and for transportation that's what that those are the reimbursements we've received and I recall the conversation was we would normally get $2.5 million in circuit breaker yep and we received 35 million based on Transportation correct exactly so that's how we logically and that's how we we're doing it yes so 3 years ago we we got a million dollars less or a
2:14:24lot money more money less then correct so just you know just for reference um so in 2020 the figure was 2.8 million um in 2024 for this year it's $3.8 million so we've seen about a million dollar increase um in five years and the amount that you have in the transportation line is you have backup to show that that's the increase based on Transportation yes not just
2:14:53because we said it yes I do I do the um there's another account that we talked about for U the tuitions for special ed couple hundred, what's that tuitions that we charge from a district or something tuitions that we charge yeah I think it comes in revolving we have a revolving account yes how do we access that so how do we act how does body access that money so typically that revolving account you know theoretically
2:15:23would be used for stone it would be used to cover expenses over at Stone because that's how we generate the money for that fund so the money is for tuitions related to the stone school for students attending from out of District so I didn't think there was ever any money come out of that account it hasn't we've been built we've built we've built up the fund right so I would just be
2:15:44curious to show the committee how do how do we how would money be spent from that so so would just super so I guess we could know we should work through uh with the superintendent through through the school committee to figure out you know what the best plan of action is to spend that money but you know on the financial side I'd prefer to carry as much money as we you know you know as
2:16:06much money as we can if it's ever needed we can tap into it I would say yeah thank you I yield M anything further on special education hearing none student services anybody have any questions about the budget for the student services department Miss
2:16:32Rogers it's a Monday all right so I have a question about this conversion just like I've been asking everyone else um but this one I'm especially concerned because we sat here um um probably a year ago really advocating for this position talking about how we really needed to have somebody to integrate all of thatal work into the academic pieces and now I'm seeing that we're trying to convert
2:16:58that position so as we take a look across our buildings and watching the play out of that position this year um what we've noticed is there's a need across all 16 schools for seal integration and so to anticipate one person leveraging that work across all of our schools it really didn't play out the way that we were hoping for it to when we look at the need for our lead sack position um that in particular
2:17:26person in that position is very much strapped thin day in and day out because the needs across all 16 schools for a person to help support with our tier three situations and in some cases some of our students that are in need of tier 2 support so the vision for our department as we move forward would be to duplicate that lead lead sack position be able to divide and conquer
2:17:50so that schools can have a go-to person as their lead sack in the district we will then create a team at the district level to really Infuse the work around seal curriculum which we are piloting right now across our schools as well as the screener tools as well as thinking about the integration model for seal um across all of our schools uh looking specifically at Sylvia and some of the
2:18:15work that Sylvia has done with seal integration we want to be certain that schools have leaders um and go-to people that are part of their work day in and day out not necessarily only coming in when things are at a high need one of the other things I I want to point out is that in sy21 we only had we had 138 student support positions on the budget we have grown this year as of sy24 to
2:18:42have 203 building based support staff so the request from principles has has really been around we need help building up as principal Simpson mentioned here at lerno when he was up here earlier you know they added a few positions and really needed to build up the skill set the toolbox and and the way in which we do business in our buildings and so I Envision this work to create an
2:19:03opportunity to have two lead sacks where we can divide and conquer the district but really have have the lead sack position have a team at the district level so we can all be on the same page of how we support our most high-risk schools and or students but at the same time have a layer of consistency to ensure that all things seal are being attended to through the lead sacks and then through the building based teams
2:19:29accordingly in buildings there's a lot of professional expertise across our buildings the opportunity to build Folks up meet with them on a regular basis and ensure consistency foral integration across the district is the vision on where we see this moving forward so I'm just having a hard time with the piece around it hasn't played out the way that we envisioned it because when that position was requested we
2:19:55actually sat here as a committee and suggested that we have multiple of those positions one at each um grade level so we'd have an elementary integration specialist we'd have a middle school and a high school integration specialist with the idea that all three um grade levels had very different needs and the response was no let's try it out with one first and see how that goes um and
2:20:17that person was really supposed to have both the teaching expertise and the Lal expertise so a little bit different than what we're looking for with the lead sack right that's what we had talked about because we really wanted our teachers we wanted somebody that spoke that same language as our teachers to be able to pull that piece together and from what I what I remember from meetings and from conversations we
2:20:38haven't really used this position or the person in this position to do this work because I believe for a while they were acting as maybe a vice principal at RP PA for a little bit so I'm struggling with the idea that we've used it to the capacity that we should and then have looked at the data and decided this isn't going to work in this way um to really make that decision right now when
2:21:00this person only came on in like what January February of last year I think even later than that I think the spring they it's been less than a year that we've had somebody in this position and for a position that we came here and advocated so strongly for to now turn around and say we're going to convert it again I go back to once you convert it it's gone right we're not going to be
2:21:21able to refill that and I am I'm very strongly opposed to that because I sat at a community meeting today where folks were being asked apparently by somebody in the district to create um activities for teachers to be able to integrate work there's a whole committee working on that and supposedly they were asked by someone here so I struggle with we I don't know anything about that committee so I'm struggling
2:21:46with we converting this and then asking somebody out in the community to do that work when we have someone hired to do that work so I mean I that's a that's a position that I you know when somebody comes and asks for a position advocate so strongly for I have a hard time justifying that conversion less than a year later after we haven't really used the person to their full capacity well I
2:22:12think that has been a challenge with it is that having one person in that position across 16 schools when we're talking about pushing in and coaching up teachers that's an intimate experience right one of the things that we really noticed right away with this position is to just open up school a school and have this person push in and push into classrooms it really hasn't played out
2:22:32that way so openly and so easily because of the fact that this person isn't necessarily living in that community on a regular basis and so in looking at the work of the lead sack position knowing that this also lives within the work of those folks but also going back to the building based folks when we think about seal integration I Envision that work to be led through the building based leads
2:22:56so when we think about having highly trained sacks in our buildings as well as Vice principles across our buildings that do take on anal lens we I Envision that work to be led through the building based teams because that's where the traction can really be goned um it can right 100% it can however I don't agree that we've used that position at all in the way that it should have been used because from what
2:23:23I understand from the conversations that we've all had here that person has kind of bounced around to different schools not doing integration work I mean we had this person filling in at RPA in a very different role for a few months and so to then turn and from what I understand they were out for a little bit as well um so to say that we've tried it it didn't work I don't think that we've
2:23:46tried it I don't think that we've tried it with Fidelity to what that position was supposed to be and again that person was supposed to be operating from both the and the academic lens to be able to integrate those pieces so that's the part that I'm struggling with um like I I wouldn't support that and I know I'm one voice among many but I fully do not support that because we haven't tried it
2:24:11we haven't really tried that work once we try it if we go back and we say hey this is the data this is what we've done this is why it's not working and this is how I can see you know being able to push this in because the the work of the background behind a a sack a lead sack versus theal integration specialist are two very different roles that person was
2:24:31supposed to have a teaching lens versus the sacks that are having a counseling lens and so when you go to social work school when you go to counseling school you're not getting that um that academic how do we teach this to a larger classroom setting versus the person who's an educator that's coming in and within LS that can do that work so that's that's what I see as the difference between the two positions and
2:24:53we haven't given it a shot so I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around why are we suggesting that we make that conversion when we haven't really given a shot we don't have any data to say it hasn't worked because we haven't tried it we also don't have any curriculum in the district when we think about what this person was expected to come in and to infuse as a toolbox and a
2:25:13toolkit right so as we move forward this year knowing we doing some of the Satchel screening work and theal screener work we're also piloting a couple of curriculums we envisioned this work to be something that a number of the seal support staff in the building we're going to own not having one person in the district to be facilitating that work across 16 schools while simultaneously we have seen a high need
2:25:36for a d a lead sack and at the current time our current lead sack has also been very instrumental around infusing seal and all of the work that she does across our district and so with the need being pretty high and in speaking with principles this also came from meeting with a number of principles in asking about seal supports what are the supports that we need to help develop the support staff that we have invested
2:26:03very feverishly in the last few years without much support and training that came along with it um I think the two things can be true again I think we can say that we have this really high need and I agree we have this incredibly High need for our kids I think our kids we we're triaging at much higher levels than we've ever had before we've had way more crisis calls than we've ever had
2:26:23before this is happening on the regular and I would 100% agree with that but I think that can be true in addition to the need for somebody to really own that work of integrating and really training up folks to be able to do thatal integration because again I think the backgrounds are very different and when we sat here a year ago trying to Advocate listening to folks advoc for this position we all said the same thing
2:26:48this can't live with one person and it was let's try it out see how it goes and then add more as we as we need we haven't tried it out and that's my point we haven't tried it well correct because I guess I Envision these the the integration Specialists to be living among and within our vice principal networks that are pretty deeply strong across the district and we all know Vice
2:27:11principles come to the table with a wide range of backgrounds as well as some support some sack support staff Andor guidance council is at the secondary level who could definitely step in in support with some of the curriculum implementation and be part of the daily boots on the ground I think what we are seeing and what we have seen throughout this year um is that our schools as we
2:27:33all know are very different from the north end to the south end and everywhere in between and what it takes for someone to come into our schools and get traction working with teachers being in classrooms offering recommendations that is very hard for it to not be a consistent person who's in your building and who you as a teacher have relationships with on a pretty reoccurring basis right and so as we
2:27:55envision as I Envision this work being a to build out a sustainable model I truly and and having experienced it at Henry Lord as a principal it was truly through those staff in my building that got in theal Lane to help support and reinforce the work um and that was not every vice principal it was not every sack that engaged at that level but it was a representation across my school um so
2:28:20that we can also build a district Seal Team based on the leaders that are doing the work in our buildings day in and day out um so that is where the recommendation came from what is the rest of your team have to say about that piece the rest of my team is is a team of three I had a chance to speak with uh three of the three of two of the three
2:28:44and two of the three were on board with the idea of building up our bench to be more direct um to infuse into schools we were not all 100% on the same page nor were there um really in-depth detailed conversations either right and so that's again very struggle I think that this is a position that was advocated for very strongly I understand that and now we're saying never mind just kidding when
2:29:09honestly we haven't given it a shot and so I'm not going to keep baging the point but I have a very hard time with this and I disagree with it um because because I don't think it's a good move when we have folks that advocated again very deeply for this specific skill set and I'll go back to I think multiple things can be true at the same time I think we can build up our building staff
2:29:30I think the work ultimately will live with them but to have somebody to spearhead that work the position was designed for somebody to spearhead that work and that person hasn't been given an opportunity um I think I've met that person one time um so I really really can't speak to you know their skill set or anything like that um but again I we haven't given it a shot so I have a
2:29:53really hard time converting a position because again once you convert it it's gone um when we haven't even tried it and we don't have the data to back up that it hasn't worked because we haven't given it a shot and with that I yields Mr ago yes so this is listed listed on the it's not listed on the conversions it's listed on the Cost Containment so it also is a little
2:30:14confusing on on that so I've said multiple times that I don't think this is the best way we should be doing budgets overall I think that the use of subcommittees would have been much um more efficient and we would have got to the bottom line on some of these things with less questions but actually a more in-depth conversation in a smaller setting and I think that's what's happening here because we I think we all
2:30:38agree that we need to increase theal integration into the schools and I think we have job descriptions that we haggled with we talked about we did the same with a lead School adjustment counselor who at one point was not that and then we con made that position a higher level of Union position you know so I think that we went through some changes for those that have been here for a while
2:31:00and we all sit at the table and say this is what we want to get to how can we do it what's in the Union why is this you mentioned lead sacks like that to me is all of the leads in the whole district for the most part I think should be eliminated personally because they don't have the job description that allows them to lead and do the things
2:31:17that we need to do but that's just an aside but I think what we should do with something like this is have a subcommittee meeting where we talk about doesn't have to be this one but I think maybe scheduling one where we can sit down and talk about what does seal integration look like across the whole school system and I think we would come to some sort of agreement on this is the
2:31:36best way to do it it might be the other position was 78,000 or 68,000 this one's 100 the other one's 122 like there's probably a way to get to us to all be on the the same page and I my gut tells me that when we do that process we're going to actually need more than the folks that we are currently hav so do we need a director of that and then two teachers
2:32:01you know at a different pay or something like that so anything would be on the table but I'd recommend we uh we hold off on making this formal until we can have a subcommittee meeting and hash out if I could just clarify you're correct because the term is being used interchangeably we used to have a lead saac then that was elevated to a coordinator of umcl services lead saac and that's that
2:32:25person that's sitting in that role we have lead sacks that get a stiens um to support uh schools but this position that's why it's in Cost Containment because it's a higher paying um position moving to a coordinator that's right so you would agree that when we're looking at the budget in front of us miss Costa is not the lead School adjustment company counselor for 122,000 she title
2:32:49is something different so all I'm asking for is to dot the eyes cross the tees when you guys meet figure this stuff out before it comes so that we're not mistaken it's not a lead sack making 122,000 that position calls for a lot different stuff there also we got uh job descriptions Union discussions the whole bit that I think needs to uh go but it's a student this is this issue here is a
2:33:12student services one that and it's kind of special it's I brought this up several years ago and I still maintain it to this day we have situations where we cannot get our children seen by a school psychiatrist for medication medication management and the like I brought it up three times ago when the superintendent wasn't even in that chair and I believe that we still need to do a
2:33:35contracted person that is dedicated to us all the time this is several years now we've been talking about this and the excuses I got at the time was oh it's so hard to do we can't do this we can't that's why we pay people $150,000 to go and figure out way but nobody's telling me that we don't have a need for us to have a school based person who's dedicated to us 100% of the
2:33:59time Diamond Regional is currently in with the state about oh how wonderful it is we're going to have a community health center and I read in the paper whether this is true or not they're going to be able to give these services and all that stuff I would say that's a great thing but we have needs that are 10 times more than Diamond Regional has for that especially at our youngest most
2:34:17vulnerable ages so the state's given them money to do a high school thing when we can't even do it and we want to pay we need to sit down and say how are we going to do this pay somebody that's on site all the time same it could be health for us it could be somebody else but we bring up these issues and then we're only part-time we expect those
2:34:36that are getting paid big bucks to be able to get that done so I'm throwing it out there again we need it people can't even get a a a psychological assessment we have people out in the community do not not they can't get one even if they had money and insurance what are you kidding me and what are we going to do we're sitting on plenty of money but God forbid if in four years we couldn't
2:34:55figure out how to get this person to be here as a consultant it needs to just be done bottom line with that I you thank you anything further hearing none next agenda item is the superintendent including school to be determined do we have any questions for the superintendent budget and the school to be determined I have a question what what is and this is probably just my ignorance um but T in
2:35:26tuitions I've never seen that or maybe I have and I've forgotten so we have a situation where we have students that live um the Saudi Pond area which um in the what area I'm sorry in the Saud Pond area area oh okay okay where where it would cost a lot more money to to transport the students to Fall River versus uh them just attending the schools there in in Tian so we worked
2:35:54out an agreement years ago with um Tian where we pay a nominal amount for each student that attends um Tian okay am am I mistaken that I hadn't seen that before because I don't remember seeing that on last year's we we've been paying it the last couple years it's one of those things where it the bill always comes in last minute is typically what happens with different maybe it was
2:36:16differently because I I feel like tan would have stuck out to me but okay thank you for clarifying problem anything further Mr agier can you please explain to us what the school to be determined means because it stated and I don't think everybody out there knows what that means nope that's correct um as you know we've um acquired 251 South Main Street currently we are um we have some
2:36:44prek classrooms on the bottom floor um the building will be ready for OCC for us to occupy the rest uh the remainder of the building for the fall uh we have to have some placeholders um we also have some we've been planning and um uh exploring options for us as a district how to support our pre- expansion as well as um to try to uh relieve some pressure for um some high needs areas overcrowded
2:37:16so we know that we're going to have to have staff for at minimum for that building we need to have a placeholder for a principal we're actually on Monday are going to ask to actually start that process for to get the leader uh in that building to get um people hired up Etc um as needed but we're going to it's it would be a two-unit school um and um would need the uh supports like our
2:37:43typical two unit schools so what happens if it doesn't come to fruition um if what doesn't come to it we have a lot of line item placeholders for Staffing here so are you saying we're going to do a school there is still open discussions like so we're going to do is this one way or another that building will be occupied right so we have to have um placeholders for Staffing for the
2:38:13building to be occupied whether we actually are meeting as a subcommittee as you know this week uh with some options of what um we've looked at um options for occupying that building and um uh we will we will have to have so may not be specific to all those positions but absolutely you have a million and a half dollars of something that you might want to change that's all I'm just trying to
2:38:36as we present the budget that shows that I think we need flexibility you need flexibility to say that's the money but not necessarily all these because the positions are listed so I think think he need some flexibility there personally uh that's why I asked um thank you I yield anything further just oh I'm sorry sir just quick question that was sort of like outside this is going to bend more
2:38:58I know it's hard to see me over yeah I am sorry um I'll start yelling from this that's better hey I'm right here um at one point Didn't we say that we were going to provide uh Pars in every first grade classroom yes didn't we make okay so you see there I see two par at the bottom and then two kindergarten yes so we have two additional par classrooms there those are the the that'ss I going
2:39:21through this budget not all par first grades have been coded but that was specific for first grade okay I yield anything further technology department does anybody have any questions for the technology department Mr agar yeah I just had um the same comment about the oou chot I think it doesn't do a good job of explaining what we have you probably have a better one Mr cabal I'm sure um one of the questions that I
2:39:50had just was on we've had subcommittee meetings where we talked about when you became the CIO that we've had I think pretty good subcommittee meetings where you discuss all of the things on the Y perview one of which was um the issue we talked about with the electrician thing so I don't see it here maybe you want to comment on if you were listening to the conversation uh is
2:40:16it did I make any sense there and so so currently right now um we have an individual that we basically job share I work with Mr Pacho on The Daily we have conversations it seems like every hour some days um and that individual is working with us um in a perfect world ideally yes I'd have a fulltime uh you know low voltage person we keep adding devices you know um across the network
2:40:41and right now um job sharing you know it's tough to get everything done in a timely manner so uh Madam superintendent I think you heard the conversation as well and I think it's pretty clear that we need to have Mr cabal be able to hire somebody and that money would have to come out of somewhere in the budget because it's not in either one of theirs so I if you don't have any other
2:41:03contingency money and the only one was the 200,000 and that position cost 70 I think your contingency is going to be down to 130 um but you probably have other money I'm betting that you have so figure it out um the other thing is that when we have the subcommittee meetings I think I've asked you these questions over and over you took on under your org chart you took have Fred TV so that
2:41:26means you're the boss of Fred TV folks like that is the way the org chart works as the CIO then you had um instructional technology versus Mis like you had all those departments correct one that is very clear to me that we had this discussion multiple times is that we have cameras in this place all in this District that have been all over the place on the thing when you became the
2:41:51CIO I recall and somebody correct me if I'm wrong that we had subcommittee meetings where we said Mr cabal you're in charge of them you told us you know how to fix them you had guys that could do it in house blah blah blah all this stuff but it fell under you that that department was going to also include all of the cameras and this thing so we're not wondering who's whose
2:42:11responsibility is it you've shown us on the computer all all kinds of different things you can do so I don't see on the or chart where that would fall and I don't I just don't know if it's under a person or is there something else that we can add that says what falls on if I'm a person in the community and I say oh they have a a CIO head what departments fall under him or or
2:42:34responsibilities are under him so I don't know if it's a an addition to this but I think I think we're all on the same page that the cameras are all under you yep but how does everybody else know that the superintendent and I and the senior staff we can clean that up the you know the or chart that's here um that are in the budget book were based on um the admin positions to give a
2:42:55broad overview um all of the or charts um Miss Sardina and I have been working on they can be expanded so that you can see all of that and Madam superintendent am I wrong that the cameras fall on the Mr cab yep he's he's he's in charge of the cameras across the whole district and um the only question I would have is I didn't look on the conversions and all that
2:43:18stuff but I think you've been pretty much asking for these as we go is there any of those other positions that we didn't fill or trans like uh do new job descriptions is there anything lingering that is not in this budget that is in your no at this time the only position that would be of great help would be to have a low voltage person dedicated full-time on our end yep and other than
2:43:40that you don't need any otherwise not at this time um the only thing I would also say to the superintendent is to take note of the salaries and um we always should have an AR chot that looks like something like this like we have at the district that you're at the top then the people into you get paid a little less then the people into you get paid a little less I would just point to
2:44:02that as something I would like you to look at on this this particular list I yield thank you nothing further on technology uh we did briefly touch on Transportation does anybody have any questions there Mr Agia so Essa funds are gone after June 30th or September 30th September is so and and here it says preschool million dollar does that mean we're going to spend a million dollars in
2:44:30transportation between now and September 30th so um I've been in touch with the state in regards to um Transportation uh and the ability to be able to fund it for one more year so they allow so there's flexibility late liquidation flexibility in ner and you know I've inquired about the certain things that we're paying currently out of Transportation um I'm sorry out of eer that we could potentially carry
2:44:57forward because we have contracts and things that are in place um and they indicated that um they they indicated that that's an item that we can pay for for one more year and so that's the reason why so the end in is not September 30th for that particular for that for that particular item no what other line items have you requested that for um no so originally when we were um
2:45:18going when I was going through the budget process I had inquired about uh that cesy partnership that we had for talit and whether or not we could continue that forward in eer and they had indicated no they had given I I forget what the exact reasoning was but they they had indicated no um but um there was there's a list of things that I had requested but transportation was one specifically that they had indicated
2:45:43it just looks funny personally I get it we keep saying the same thing you keep saying it runs out it runs out we're jumping all over ourselves trying to figure out how to spend 88 of this and that but conveniently oh we got Transportation we'll come up with a million dollars I get it um my concern is and we're not paying it is that's a million dollar structural deficit for the city going forward after the current
2:46:05year correct and um the circuit breaker fund I'm still you're going to get us information I'm sure on that but how we get to that 10.8 is a little bit um concerning for me personally but the mayor is going to pay that from the city Side so um I guess that's less a problem that we have to worry about but correct it is a structural deficit right the following year for the following year it's an additional
2:46:30million dollars they will have to come up with yes thank you correct um anything further on Transportation thank you last but not least nutrition Nutrition department do we have any questions on our Nutrition department yes M Mr AG so one of the new positions that you had mentioned about uh repairs of uh equipment and stuff I would assume that's going to come out of this
2:47:11budget I'm Sorry Miss what was that question the a revolving account like for the repair person you want to hire appliance repair yes is going to come out of that budget not the main we come out of that budget because the money is listed under the maintenance exactly yes um I just have a question and a concern about the utility workers and you know I've had this conversation yes at
2:47:36nauseum um I'm just concerned or looking for updates at that doesn't have to be today but how that's going because it's still is sort of something that doesn't make sense to me when we pay somebody to do the whole day but I haven't seen it and I haven't seen the reports on how a custodian is doing something else in the school but the utility work is only that calf and I know it's a
2:48:00different animal all I'm asking is if we could get some sort of update on how it's going I told you in the past I thought it was a mess I use all kinds of different terminology well some of that's changed and and and again some of it's changed because we do have Personnel that is staying in these jobs um and they do have a person who is supervising them so it is different um
2:48:23the the operation itself is different and the um again the the work in the cooking kitchens is totally different than it is in the regular kitchens and which is why the regular kitchen kitchens depending on the size of the school usually has a part-time person as opposed to full-time however we also built in in the last budget not this one um to have positions that would float so we have five positions of full timers
2:48:53that can float into different buildings um to do the work of the uh of that particular piece which is the utility position C is they're a floating utility worker that are paid out of nutrition and if they don't need to float they just they would go they would be assigned to a position so there may be kitchens there may be um work that the uh that that Mr cting and um Mr
2:49:20reposo are looking to have done so I'm I'm going to announce um and I'm not quite sure and I can get you a list of those outlying things that that they have the floaters do when they're not tying in into a position yep I'm just looking for some backup since we paid them all and that's all absolutely get us a one or two pager it doesn't have to be anything extensive but it'll make a
2:49:42little more sense to AEL thank you okay any further questions on the budget by our membership all right hearing none we did have tentatively a schedule uh for a third meeting but I don't know why we would do that um our next meeting then will be Monday March 11th which is a regular school committee meeting uh the following day is the joint meeting with the city council March 12th for the
2:50:11state of the city and following that we will have a special meeting on March 18th for a vote to reduce I mean I'm sorry to release the budget to the public so those three meetings are coming up for everybody I know there's some additional subcommittee meetings but um I want to thank everyone in the district for their efforts to put the budget together uh I thought it came out very well obviously people do have
2:50:36questions which is uh very positive and I'm glad we got through it um hearing nothing further I'll entertain a motion to adour J can I ask you a question on that please Mr AA so when we talk about the release of the um budget you know there's certain things we have to do when are you anticipating that we're going to vote for a final budget under the you have a schedule but I don't have
2:50:58it in front of me yeah I don't have it in front of me either we're we on our timeline oh I'm sorry Mr uh Mr Al's got it Mr soril it is April and then it goes over to it's April Mr agar but I'll give you specific dates right now so um the week of March I'm sorry March 25th after the the release of the budget for on the 18th uh March 25th the public
2:51:24hearing will be advertised we'll hold the public hearing April 8th and um we have a tenative date here of April 8th through April 10th for the school committee to adopt the budget right prior to uh the city council The Joint City Council school committee meeting so that's the schedule between now and then thank you I just would encourage super superintendent to ask for subcommittee meetings things like that before so
2:51:48people can hash this stuff out because I it feels like a rush right now that we're rushing through it and I don't I know there's a timeline we got to get things done at a certain time but I do think being a little more thoughtful about it and meeting going over some things will would be a better way personally so okay thank you are you nothing further I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved
2:52:11second um Deb please call the Mr AIA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Cory yes lar M Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor kouan yes
2:52:35adjourned