4.3.2023 Fall River School Committee

I'd like to call to order the special meeting in the fall of a school committee for Monday April 3rd that would you please call the roll Mr agya here Mr Bailey here Mr here Ms larabee here Pereira here miss Roderick here mayor Coogan here salute the flag allegiance to the flag of the United States

justice for all

exactly where's my disclaimer pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meaning through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings of Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible

citizens input there is none there thank you Committee of the whole item 3.1 is a discussion of the fall of a public school fiscal year 2024 budget our first sure superintendent Ponce good evening everyone so last week we were here together and we actually went through the schools we went down the list and the committee was able to ask questions of the principals this week we are here we're

going to follow the same process and we're going to bring departments up we actually last week were able to do the schools with the exception of Henry Lord community school but we also got in music art nursing and PE health and school committee Department budgets so we have the remaining departments here principal Barnhart is here with us today last week she had parent-teacher conference so she was not able to join

us she is here and available to answer any questions in regards to her school budget and then we can go down the line and go through the Departments thank you superintendent does anybody have any questions on the Henry Lloyd community school budget any questions Mr Mayor Mr agya I think I don't have the page in front of me but I'm assuming that there was no request tonight that

what is in the budget is everything that was asked for by the school yes thank you nothing on Henry Lloyd thank you next apartment um Athletics does anybody have any questions on our athletics department this goes middle high right through the sports any questions on Athletics Mr agya just had a couple of thoughts on on the budget so one of the things I think that we've done well over the last

several years was we increased the amount of middle school and Elementary School athletics I think that's one of the real good things that has happened and I think we're adding I think it was a trainer to make two full-times not I think it was a little confusing last meeting but you're going to have two full-time right not two and a half correct yeah we're asking for one additional full-time trainer

and um I just think that as a as a system a lot of times we look at Durfee um as you know the athletic director at Durfee I think it's time that we look at uh splitting that up so we have leadership in the in both the elementary and the middle because it's it's two different types of jobs and I know we added an assistant to you but I think um

I'd like to ask the superintendent to look into the potential of having a different organization structure for those um Apartments nothing that's happening bad it's just that once we started to add then we added a little more I know for myself I want to have even more at the younger grades but it takes away from you know the high school it's a bear in and of itself within the volume so I do

think that that would be something I'd want to look at I did ask Mr Boston when he came in for his budget meeting to see where he was and if he needed additional support he did say he has currently 1.5 for the athletic trainer and we're asking for the other 0.5 to make it to full-time people we talked about the athletic director position and whether he needed support in that and we are

monitoring that in in and moving accordingly he said at this time that he wanted to keep it as is but that's certainly something that he knows that anytime if we need additional support we can bring it to the table well I think that the difference in what I was suggesting and what you mentioned isn't the issue of what does Durfee need the issue of what the district needs was

where I was advocating for so if I ask the question to Mr Boston do you have what you need currently he could say yes to that answer but that would still also lead to the fact that on a separate issue we would need to look for a different position for the elementary and middle so I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying but how the question is approached and if maybe there's other

ways to do it would be my suggestion the high school is is a big job in and of itself I just put it out there as food for thought but one of the things that we had just given um I've thought about this for a few years now where we gave an award last time last meeting to the Fall River Country Club for their support and everything they've been great with working with us

and in times when we had no money to pay for things that was needed even more but looking at the budgets like I have and just looking at fairness we pay for other places to rent when it comes time for sports and I think we should also look into the fact of maybe look at some surrounding places but we have the resources to pay a stipend of some type to the country club

that we don't need necessarily for them to we appreciate it but at the same time I think a good faith gesture of they try to make ends meet in their business that whether they ask for it or not what's doing what right I think we should look into the possibility of of creating something we have to rent Drisco rank we have to rent other places I don't know why we wouldn't pay for that service as

well but that's my real only concern with it I think it's just additions thankfully we have enough money to put in the budget with um we don't have those cuts like we normally do so I appreciate it thank you I yield anything further on Athletics thank you Mr Boston curriculum looking at the curriculum budget does anybody have any questions on the curriculum budget Mr Mayor Mr agya I just the only question I had

on that was there was I want to say there's an increase or it says new position maybe the superintendent could just highlight that for the gratification of the public of what that is absolutely the position that we are proposing uh for the office of instruction office of teaching and learning is for a director for social studies we have currently directors for English language arts um mathematics as well as science

um in the current uh structure that we have we have someone who was doing uh double duty is doing social studies as well as managing the title one Grant and that person will be retiring and we also think that that's a position that up until now we haven't had the funds to have somebody totally focused on social studies and it's time to bring Equity to social studies also so that person will be overseeing social

studies for the district just as science math and Ela so I don't disagree what happens to the other position the other the other position that's that's an existing position that is already budgeted for the title one and grants that was happening so that position will be posted yeah my only concern is that it's not a concerned I mean I think you could you could totally justify one of

those positions but we've had millions of dollars over the last several years additional so when I see like this I don't disagree with the nature of what you just said for that but then what is going to be added to the position the responsibilities of the other position because it just begs the question that if a person was able to do the title one director of Rants and run 50 of this now

we're taking that 50 away are we adding 50 percent more work to that person's responsibility well I think it begs the question that's all right that's that's a question I think that we would have to rework that certainly um the focus on social studies we we are trying to put just like science um typically there's been a a focus on mathematics and Ela I think that no one can disagree with that science has come

to the Forefront also and now we're trying to do the same thing with social studies and give it its support but the grants person the title one we have to look at those where we actually have a meeting set up to look at all of those duties to see where um you know what needs to happen and and if any shifts need to to occur yeah I just think it's

fair to to wonder and is that a union position is that what a union position well the director position is yes they are fraa positions so when it went to 50 percent of the social studies was that bargained with the Union it hasn't gone to anything it's a proposed position for until beginning no I mean the the one that's been in existence for several years the you're talking about the position

that exists now and them doing double duty I I can't speak to that I'll have to ask Mr Coogan to speak to that because that was way before me but you understand it's a valid question right like it's yes

uh yes the both positions are considered fraa positions and they've both uh and that's been doing double duty for at least the last uh five years I would say six years so that person gets 25 more of the pay no it's a split position so position if a person has a position director of Grants whatever the title is Title One something whatever it's called in the union full time and then we add a a different position

to that are you saying that the union wouldn't ask for the it's it's my understanding and this as I said this goes back at least five or six years that the person that's held that position has always been in a dual role as both the supervisor of the history curriculum or social studies curriculum as well as the title one director and if that wasn't the case you'd think it would be a problem if we were doing

it like new fresh out of the gate today if the person was doing a title one director position alone 100 of the time and then they added the social studies to that after the fact you would think that would be a problem I would say it would be a problem it would be a condition that we'd have to take care of through the contract meaning 25 more of the pay yes potentially yes

Madam superintendent if you could get us some just a one paragraph on that because um I think it's a valid question and then when you look at the contract It also says that you're gonna if you do it if you assume somebody else's role you're going to get 25 of the pay and if we don't it doesn't wouldn't necessarily come to the committee unless we ask questions I would agree with you in

terms of uh coverage I don't think it was set up as coverage I think it was set up as a as a dual position I think that's just you know a difference I'm sure the facts will bear that out whether it was together or before understood okay thank you I healed anything further anyone curriculum hearing none custodial Department custodial Department Mr pachico oversees that anybody have any questions on the

custodial Department if no one else does I have some Mr aggia I just wanted to defer if anybody else had a question so the question I have I've been trying to ask this for a while so uh we have positions in there so can you tell me the rank order of the ranking of positions within the custodial Union as far as custodians you have pod time as the lowest juniors and seniors

so a senior is the highest rank the senior is yes the senior is the highest rank so one of the things that I've been finding out over the years has been that we give some stipends to different positions for a variety of reasons so when I'm looking at the budget I was trying to find those I asked the superintendent today to highly highlight any of those positions and the one I'd like to focus on it's called

I believe it's Meo on the it's a little off center but it's senior Mel yep so what what exactly is that because I've been told things and I'm just trying to get clarity this their senior custodians that fill in I don't know percentage-wise we're probably talking about maybe 50 of the time they're they're seniors in buildings acting as seniors filling in sometimes it's short term sometimes it may be a longer term

the MEO side is the fact that they're driving a piece of equipment so they're driving a vehicle and delivering sometimes it's custodial supplies sometimes it may be dropping off something to um nutrition they could be picking up and delivering salt items like that so so the title itself to drive a piece of equipment not a pickup truck so the box truck in Civil Service languages and Mel a motor equipment operator

that's where that language came from so in the custodial contract yes where is Meo listed it's listed as a senior Meo in rank order there is no rank order they don't take precedent over anyone else when they're driving the vehicle and delivering stuff they're in Meo when they're working as a senior they're a senior equal with all the rest of the seniors but the MEO stipend as I've gotten from the

superintendent is for service auto rank the MEO is the fact that they're doing two jobs as the previous conversation they're doing two jobs the service out of rank is the language the service out of rank is how it was determined yes so the path that I have a problem and don't understand is that it's two different unions no it's not they're working in the same Union that's why those contracts different contracts

same contract so the custodial contract I'm a custodian yes and my rank in my job is the highest within it well I just asked you that so you said that the highest ranking custodian is called the senior custodian yes which is what this person is then we say on top of that they're going to get service out of rank even though there's no rank in your contract higher than what you have

so we're going to slide over to the maintenance contract to give them a stipend when the two unions were broken up I don't know the date on that the MEO belonged on the maintenance side the job is not a maintenance job they're doing nothing to do with maintenance they're delivering product changing out snow blowers lawnmowers delivering salt they're not doing maintenance work but that's not what my question is

my question is how does somebody if that was not if that was I know what your question is a service out of rank if it's not service not a rank we could say 25 percent of the pay to do a second job just as we just got done talking about it's just not it's the issue is is the way the contract was worded it's not in that way that that particular I would much rather

be transparent and have somebody get 25 of a pay than to not put it in a budget clearly identified as this is what happens so that the person just gets it personally I would 100 look at that when you look at the job description for this job we and we just hired a different person for the job a second person where in that job description does it say that that position is going to get

eight thousand dollars in service out of rank where does it say it where does it say in the contract in the job description that it says that they're going to get eight thousand dollars the person is doing two jobs I understand what you're saying but if you're looking at it from the angle of if I'm a senior custodian how do I know that that person when that job description comes forth how do I

know that that person is going to get eight thousand dollars more than me as a senior custodian when his job description says senior custodian and mine says senior custodian have never ever ever met a senior in any of our buildings who was not afraid to ask a question they also know the history itself of the position how it came about and how much it pays the document is a public document with

all these dollars in it so there is no doubt that they know how much it pays and those who apply for it are not applying to make a lateral move they are applying for that job because they know there is a stipend that goes with it so that's not a secret it's there's no secret whatsoever but it's not in the budget listed as such so you can say the internal people know

it but if I ask for a copy of the job description it doesn't say there's an eight thousand dollar stipend that's for one now we can just agree to disagree but I just think it's totally wrong and I brought this to the superintendent to say that it's wrong months ago I also asked for the public record payrolls to figure it out so now if we have a person that when

they fill in for a job they get service out of rank would mean in my mind if she's a different a rank than me and I fill in for her I get paid that daily rate for that day that's what I would think now if there was two of us when I filled in one of us might get it one of us might not depends on who was filling in that might sound logical to some people

but what sounds illogical to me is that both people get exactly the same exact amount the same amount every week in their payrolls exactly the same that to me just says that it's not as needed filling in it that means it's part of their salary and when I'm looking at it I just we just went through a contract I voted against the contract for certain reasons and this being one of them is that we

just voted for a new contract with maintenance custodial and the like and we haven't straightened this particular piece out because if what you're saying is true that the person of course they were just going to get the extra pay then when we negotiated the contract we should have said these two positions get sixty thousand or whatever the number is instead of 52.

we didn't do that for the last contract we didn't do that for this contract and they get the same amount every single week there's a problem here with how this has been made and how the people are getting paid and when I look at the budget I ask the question the first day is it buried within I don't think stipends like that should be buried Within there should be a separate line item so that the school

committee can get truth and advertising and say that's a stipend that somebody gets it might be you today me tomorrow or her the next day whatever it is so I think there's problems with how it's uh how this has gone on how it's been characterized for what they do what they don't do in addition to that I've asked questions about the overtime how much overtime do the two individuals get that

are in that sort of group the two people work together on the truck theoretically if we're filling in as as you know overtime or extra time whatever they're doing theoretically we should get similar overtime not really not really we should get some well they do get some but some people don't want overtime yeah there's a whole bunch of people who work for for ethanol that do not take any

overtime zero and then there are some who take a moderate amount and then there are those who always answer the call yep that's just the way it is and on that truck would be exactly the same situation some want it and some don't so people should get they should get some if they're doing the job they're doing the job you don't think you should get some time they're doing

the job what do you mean I can't forced over time some so they shouldn't get they shouldn't be things that are needed to work that truck with two people in the department that both should get overtime is what you're saying so every single time no not every single time I didn't say every single time so it's arbitrary so that is just a situation that I could say we're going to have over time this week with two

people working some 12 every year I would say that there's going to be cases where both people would get it would need to get it based on if they were on the truck if they wanted it right and when when I look at the payrolls one person got 21 000 the other one got zero that begs the question to me not only about whether you said because you could want to get more but it begs the

question how does one person who and I work the same job on the same truck I get 21 000 she gets nothing it doesn't it just doesn't it doesn't jive and I think it calls for us to look into it you know a little bit more um but that person could have refused over time Mr aguir I could have not won every single time they could have just like it doesn't make sense that doesn't

make sense to me just like it doesn't make sense that the person gets service out of rank the exact same amount the exact same amount both people every single week the same people that we're just saying one guy doesn't want to do overtime but he got the same service out of rank for every payroll for the entire year that's not filling in for somebody that's part of your salary as far as I'm concerned if it wasn't

look at the info it would say this week I got a little more because I was filling in more the next week we're short custodians so we're short custodians we hear that every meeting we don't have enough seniors we don't have enough custodians so I would think that those people are in both of those people not just one both we're in the buildings as many times as we possibly could

because we were so short so that's when a senior is up correct so that would mean that we only have 16 seniors but okay so hear me out so if they're going to get 7 500 a year for service auto rank but they they needed to be in the buildings more that number would fluctuate it would have to fluctuate because that means that they were both only in the buildings exactly the same amount of

time each week because we're not given it as service out of rank we're patting somebody's salary with it it's part of their salary otherwise the number wouldn't be exactly the same that's what I'm trying to get at if the number is exactly the same it's part of their salary bring it up in negotiations put it in the budget so it says what it is the position gets senior pay and they

get 7 900 in an extra stipend for whatever you want to call it but to just bury it in I think that's a problem is there any other custodian I'm looking at the list that we just got now related to any other type of situations with the service out of rank or other divisions that we just received this info on um uh contract like they shouldn't be many positions many situations of service out of rank

so if there's two like that's only two there's not any more that are that not that I can recollect right now yeah and the um in the custodial ranks the the positions of uh part-time that we have in the budget yes so those go how do they get paid like is that is that change in the contract so they get a um larger pay now or is it the same obviously there was an increase in

hourly increase yes so when we look in the budget that but whatever it says sixteen thousand eighteen thousand whatever the number is what would that equate to for hours 20 hours a week couldn't hear you 20 20 hours a week I'm sorry because those are positions that we needed within the we need those to fill in to make the place work properly yes and the cafeteria ones is not part of

this right so that oh neutral yield until the calf comes up thank you anything further on custodial Miss Pryor hi um so circling back to what Mr Aggie I was saying that the stipends um seem to appear to be equal is it customary that just they're working and now that stipend's obviously I'm assuming based on hourly pay like hourly how how long their how many trips they have to take or how long I can tell you

that and I'm gonna plead ignorance here I don't know exactly how it was figured okay it's a stipend so I don't think it equates to the oh it would probably be like the proportion because you're doing a little bit of another job the issue is this person comes to work every day other than possibly having an inside track of knowing at 5 30 or 6 o'clock what they're going to do that day yeah so

they may be working in a building or they may be doing their truck driver job okay and moving stuff but it's day to day okay you don't have a lot of advanced warning as to what you're doing so to at the time my guess is that when this was negotiated as it is as it currently is it was the fact that it would be a lot more difficult

for daily use on the city Side I did an absolute ton of service out of rank sure truck drivers laborers have gone up to truck drivers driving sweepers there's there was all kinds of stuff this stipend is because they're taking on extra work right they have two separate jobs right and the paid differential is that service out of rank yep not necessarily only when they're going to do one thing or the other the

fact is they are doing two jobs from day to day they don't know where the the job that they're going to particularly do so they could be a senior at Durfee they could be a senior at at Watson which is technically where they're I should say expertise lies right is doing that job and that's I guess the way I will get out of rank yes it is it is obviously based on

leadership too but I think also out of rank is based on expertise right yes so if my expertise is maintenance or custodial services or whatever and I'm the senior at this school and I'm being pulled to um drop off whatever it is you guys are dropping off that would be not using my maintenance or custodial expertise so to speak so hence out of rank so that makes sense to me now when overtime is offered

because we're talking about the overtime budget and you can't force overtime and I work in a department that we have get offered over time many people don't take it um however everyone is offered it so my question is when there is an overtime situation is it offered to everyone so the in the custodial ranks it would be offered to everyone this particular job is two people right okay so it's it's an overtime situation

so for instance if we had a storm coming in tomorrow and it was something that was rain rain until the last couple of days maybe we would be delivering salt maybe would be uh fueling gas so the only reason the other custodial team so to speak is not um getting offered that overtime is because they're not an M they're not an emel right they don't have an Meo mode equipment operator so they're not in

that job right so they wouldn't be offered that way they wouldn't be off at that position because that's not their job to ride the uh these particular and if one person is out the job doesn't get back filled so it stays not filled and that one person would be doing whatever work they could do but both people are offered it one doesn't take it one does whatever the case may be yes okay

um that's really all I have to say the other thing and I just kind of did it now too and I just hope and I'm saying this respectfully because I just kind of almost did it we got to be careful when we're talking about um you know people who are working here and in in this session I think we all know what I mean so and I just kind of did it

myself too so I'm calling myself out too um but I just hope that we're we're careful about that going forward thank you Mr Pacheco I yield anything further on custodial hearing none Mr Mayor sorry I thought somebody else had the Henry's but oh oh may I yeah so the other issue that I have with the same type of uh when we're talking about the each week what you just said Mr pachico to Mrs

pereiro was that the MEO is a two-person job for the overtime no the amoebiope is could be a one-person job what I'm saying is that the overtime is only offered to those two so if there's overtime that for instance again we're delivering salt if it has to be delivered that day then it's going to be offered to the two of them at least one of them is going to take it

you hope if it isn't taken by them then we have to figure out how we're going to get that salt delivered to each and every building I use salt and maybe a bad example because we should know when the storms are going to hit but it could be gasoline it could be a whole bunch of other things in the summertime delivering fuel to the to the custodians to cut the grass in each individual

building all of that gets done that way so those every there's certain responsibilities that they do all the time they'll also deliver the supplies to help out distribution so they'll be delivering wax they'll be delivering paper supplies if they're going to a building to deliver salt and they have room on the truck they would throw other things on there so it's yeah do you have records of when

either of these individuals is filling in for a senior yes the custodian Department should have that so I'm sure the code is the supervisor of custodial Services would have that yeah Madam superintendent I'd like to ask that you get that to the committee for the two positions over the last two years how many uh times they were filling in as a custodian just so we can try to I really want to make sense of this

because it it's it seems like a small thing but it's such an obvious glaring inconsistency that I have to bring it up and if it was that they were service auto rank I think that's bad terminology then because to me service out of rank means you get the X level up if you're a sergeant and a lieutenant you get the the service out of rank piece which is what's listed in the payrolls that I

asked for it says it right out Sor whatever the initials are if it's something that is going to be part of a salary all I would ask is that it goes part of the salary so everyone knows what happens and if it's not and it's going to be when they're filling in there's no way anybody can tell me that it's exactly the same for both people every single week it just it defies any

kind of case that's not the case what do you mean the service the service are the rank is is that statement and it's not broken down by when they do it correct but I'm saying so that's not truly service out of rank that's part of their salary that's what I'm saying if I'm looking at the budget this year we just got the notice 7 984.24 25 cents for both people

to me that's not service out of rank when you're doing the MEO work that's part of your contract that's part of one particular contract so when we negotiate the contract with the custodians Union the main Insurance whatever the union it would be we would say they're going to get this if we negotiate with the teachers union and we have a teacher lead that teacher lead is negotiated it's x amount of dollars that's what

they're going to get it doesn't just happen to add to their salary so all I'm saying is we we've missed the on what it is and I think we either got to say yep that's what the salary gets or or not truth in advertising is all I'm asking for and in the budget now that we're doing line items which I I do appreciate it should be one I think that says

79.85 so that when you look at all the seniors they'll have similar salaries and then one gets a stipend when you go to the leads and the other departments I think the same thing should happen but I'll talk about that maintenance the only other question I had is on overtime in the custodial Union on Sundays is that double time yes and how does that get issued like most of the time it's an emergency

most of the time it like it could be a contractor that's working in the building and that's the only day we can do it if it's a shutdown for a boiler or an HVAC system that can be done on a you know on a Sunday that's the only things that come to mind and somebody would have those records of each time you must have to fill out a form to say why is it on a Sunday

we would give permission that can't be done by anybody else right it has to be permissioned so a supervisor had to Grant permission to have any work done and would that have anything to do with needing to be an Meo no no it all depends on what the it all depends on what the work is so if it's a to open a building for instance you know like you said to let a

contractor in that could be any custodian of the building or whoever like a rotation of it could have been a senior it should have been a senior can be a senior senior refuses it would be a junior but we would we'd have records of that we would have records of that yes Madam superintendent I'd like to ask that we get copies of that as well with that I yield hearing nothing further when the custodial Department ell

our English language Learners any questions on ell e hearing none finance department any questions on our finance department hearing none human resources anybody have any questions about human resources Mr chair Mr aguiar thank you so uh I happen to be at a training today for my job related to human resources and uh one of my takeaways was that it's a very uh involved apartment and there's a lot of

things that happen with policies procedures and the like and we've had our fair share of issues with um complaints and policies procedures and all that stuff so one of the things that I would suggest that we look at is is hiring an outside agency to come in and actually look at all of the policies and procedures that we have I know we've done that but I think it's high time for us to have somebody

that's very knowledgeable in this to protect the district to make sure that we're doing things the proper way to audit some of our investigations and the like so that we can get a a report on whether we're doing it are we a high functioning Department relative to this and I think that's money that I think would be well spent if we were able to do that in such a way that uh

they gave us a deliverable at the end here's the policies that we think are really good here's where you're lacking is where we need to change or whatever it is and bring that to the policy subcommittee if we do it individually it's going to be very difficult for us any of us to be able to figure it out I think having an outside person to come in and make sure that we're doing things the right way

how do we address things when somebody has to go on leave for example if somebody has to go on paid leave for a reason there's got to be a system in place of how everybody gets notice of such we have professionals that could come in and actually tell us here's how you you did it and here's how you can do it better and I think I'd ask the superintendent to come back with some

sort of recommendation and if you disagree I'd come back with that as well so that we could have that debate but I think I know I've been dealing with a lot of issues and we've dealt with the issue with the prior superintendent and I think we we still have a ways to go to make sure that we're High function without our yield any anything further for human resources hearing none insurance any questions on our insurance

next up parent and Community engagement Title One early childhood does anybody have any questions about those areas related to the budget can I I apologize I was trying to get to the the one on insurance I have one question go ahead so we have listed three hundred thousand for unemployment is that for non-renewals like what is that a number that you feel is a little high or so we three hundred thousand has been

consistent year after year we've used that number it it fluctuates we've had years where you know previously it was like four or five hundred thousand dollars and uh recently it's more like about two hundred thousand dollars so we've used three hundred thousand as a placeholder from year to year yeah so it's not for people getting laid off because we're adding 100 and some positions that begs the question of for

now it's more it's it's for the non-renewals yeah yeah the workers comp salaries we where does the money come from if we had a workers comp claim that we settled like settlements so they know that in the past years ago it used to be the city would pay that and I believe now we're paying it we are which is a big difference could be hundreds of thousands of dollars that the city used

to pay now we're paying correct but where in I see workman's comp here but I can see it so salary so where would that show up so it's a couple areas so we do sometimes take money here from the workers comp line item here and then we have money that's set aside within the legal uh Legal Services account that falls on the finance a small amount of money there yep and you think that that's sufficient

to settle like hopefully I mean we don't know what we're going to happen but correct so that so the only two lines would be where you said there was one so once the workers comp salary line uh salary and that's there if there's any money left over to there we use it to cover to cover uh settlements and in the legal services line it within my department we have money in there

so the salary when you would just ask for a transfer to yes thank you okay so we did um parent and Community engagement already next grouping is the school committee I'm pretty self-explanatory any questions on the school committee did Mr Mayor who had said power in a community we did I thought we didn't do that to that and then we went back to Insurance because you asked for that one unless

you got a question on Brown community that was from the last meeting that we kept to this one right no I did it tonight okay if you got a question though just like on insurance you want to go back go ahead yeah no I just had a question on parent Community that's all but I didn't go ahead so in here it I'm not sure where it shows it I think there's an open position

like the administrative assistant it's been open for a few she I believe that that just got filled um or was in the process of being filled Miss Kudo is was at a conference in their plane was um canceled she's like but they're in the process of hiring so when it's open it's it's being filled in that process and the one Community facilitated that's the same it's sort of yes yes it's not a new position nope

and do you think that we are paying the that we have enough money in this account in this department to do what we need to do as far as was there anything denied I guess that's a good way to ask it there was not um I I think that the best part about um this year uh is that we have had funds so throughout the year when people have needed Physicians they've

come before this body and we've granted positions so um every single person at their meeting I asked that do you have what you need in order to run the Departments so at this time Ms Kudo had multiple positions that were filled that were she asked for throughout the year and and we've granted those so I know that she's not here so I can't ask this but if you could just get a

sentence I know in the past we had a position that was like sort of half with the um MLL department and that if you could just get us a one paragraph comment on how that's going the community facilitator or the clerk the clerk it was the one that we was I think we debated whether the person should report to Ms Kudo or the other and I'm just curious to see a response to how

it's going and I can tell you that that person is um based out of pace and has been working at PACE uh full-time uh with Miss Kudo so I'll get you a write-up on it but that position has been based out of there thank you very much Miss rodericks

sure so suppose on the fact that we have a lot of new Pre-K positions that are open right it's part of proposed yes but then I also see a significant number of open Pre-K positions so what does that look like right now like how many kids do we have anticipated coming in what does that look like knowing that we have this many Pre-K positions that are still open and then all of these new positions to fill

sorry I'm losing my voice so bear with me we don't have a ton that are still open the ones that look open right now are the Overflow classrooms that we're trying to figure out because we've hit capacity and so our existing classrooms are fully staffed capacity again and so that's that's what you see as open right now and those would be rolled into the expansion for next year

wearing a Pre-K placement that haven't gotten one yet for this school year like kids that I have on a wait list right now yeah so we have about six to eight we've been able to sort of finagle some things around and have some kids move out we do have six to eight kids right now that are on a wait list and pending Services we've offered everything we have available as walk-in Services

while we work to try to open an additional classroom okay um I yield to that Mr aggio yeah just not so much a comment I mean it is noticeable that we have that many open positions I know it's for the reason that we're trying to expand but I'd like to ask the superintendent I know at the last uh alt-ed Special Ed subcommittee I asked to try to see where early Ed would fit

in to a subcommittee because I think we're going to have some major expansions and a lot of discussions that need to happen so I'm just asking if there's any um follow up with that but I think it's urgent that we do it so that we now head into the spring if we're going to be consistent with you know subcommittee work I think Early Childhood deserves to be part of

one of them I'm not saying mine it can be anybody's but I do think it's that important to miss various and we'll make a recommendation in the Friday email as to where we think it's is the right fit for the Early Childhood subcommittee fair enough thank you our yield uh next up we went through the school committee so next one that we haven't addressed is the security and maintenance department

any questions on security and maintenance Mr aguio I'm just trying to get to the

so the um looking at security the uh when I see the bills come through a lot of times it's a it's for a contract of some private entity yes and can you explain one what that is why that's needed and then where is it in the budget for that um and I I could have missed it it's just I'm trying to look here so the the need is um

at certain times of the day we have to double up in areas um it's not a full-time piece but we do have to double up in certain areas entrances and at the pace we have a full-time person working so that we don't use one of our security offices that's another spot that we would use the company that's that's listed so it's filling in we do have absent absenteeism in like any other group so

did we use them to fill in spots that we need to we push security people into key areas to make up for somebody who's out and then we use that particular company as for lack of a better word a temp agency to fill in our spots to be sure that we're staffed every day yeah I'm looking at the budget here and it's one two three four five six we have 10 open positions and then five

no ones I just recall within the last maybe we had Mass resignations or something I'm not sure what but at one point maybe early in 2023 I had asked about some of this stuff and the answer that I got was we're actually staff fully staffed we were and then we we have had two or three people leave um and then we we have some old positions um that people came in and then didn't

like the job two or three weeks and left so there is a a turnover I wouldn't say all at the end but there are some people who've been here for a while that have applied for other jobs elsewhere um some of them pay better which is why they left and others um they just it didn't fit it wasn't a good fit for them yeah I just the the there's a lot of open positions that and

I to me that seemed like a inconsistency to what I've been told during the year you could look back at it superintendent you can look back at it and see whether you know what is the goal when you we add the five if we were fully staffed is this to have one security guard in each building what what does it look like it would be to to staff up the elementaries so that they would have someone

again it wouldn't be a situation where we would substitute another pull another sub for and pull another uh security person from Durfee Durfee has the majority of of the Personnel on the security side the um we have been using security people to help out in certain areas of buildings that we've had issues in so with that being said this will fill that last piece of our security details so to speak in the in the

elementaries yeah and we're not quite sure how that plays out um through the course of the year so we're not we already know how it works in the in the middles and obviously at the high school but we don't have many at the elementary level so what I would ask and I think you I'm not sure if you sent this to the um during the Rio uh piece but I'm curious to see a

visual of what you what the goal would be to look like at the end if we had everybody hired as well as if we um can get some detail on what's happened in what all the open positions because it you know I know it's hard to find people but it's still not a bad job and I'm not sure that we if I haven't ten openings right now I'm assuming we still have those 10. it

doesn't really make a lot of sense when you know but maybe we're trying I don't know maybe maybe that's the case but if you could get us a one-pager on that I would appreciate it I would say that there's a position called senior I would say the same thing as I suggested before that must have a stipend some additional that person's paid more than the other so personally I would like to see those broken out

and my last question is on the school resource office is 700 000. can you explain what that what that is getting us so it's everything including the subject all of our offices including the sergeant which is this is the first year we've been paying for the sergeant yep and this and this um that includes the benefits the whole bit like that is what we've been working with I'm not sure if it includes a full benefit

package it's what we've paid since we started with the sros you're the boss uh that that number is going to change Mr agya in a meeting today at the school I haven't even called Kevin there uh there are some benefits that haven't been being counted um pension I think pension being the big one uh they're working on that now but the number will change a little bit because they weren't taking out any

money for pension payments for those seven so that's going to change I just want to give you a heads up when you see it come back it'll be a different number no I I totally understand okay so sometimes we have debates here where it it gets to look like oh well you know some people aren't being fair to the city side and with finances and the like and I can

tell you that this particular one is not one that anybody can blame me for not being fair to the city Side on this issue with that being said if we're going to say that we have to be fair in truth in advertising and pay for this out we should pay for the benefits just like we would do for anybody else that's only the fair thing to do and what that's going to do is actually

assist the city on the city Side to say that we're going to take some expenses from we're going to pay for some expenses that the city currently has and that's going to actually help the city so it's not always about let's beat up on the people that are going to give you know the administration a hard time or whatever all I've asked as one member is that the city pay at least 100 that they

have to by law along with that I've also mentioned time and time again that there's some things that we could probably do that can help the city so it's not a like one side versus the other the issue here is just being consistent and fair with what we do so when the mayor says that this is going to be added I totally support that what I would say though is that I asked

this week for when what are we using for a end of uh indirect cost agreement with the city I asked that and it's probably I would guess some of the reason why there may have been a conversation I don't know but at the same time we have to go back to not forget what we talk about here at these meetings so in the current year if I had the current budget here

whatever the mayor just mentioned with the benefits the pension the this that whatever needs to be taken out of the current year as well because this thing of starting next year is I think it's only going to say we're going to start next year because we have sat both the city side and our side have not been able to I don't even know how long it takes to rectify it but it would have

probably taken one hour in my opinion to go back to the current year so I've been talking about this since 2022 when we first did the budget and we were trying to say whether this should count or that should count and I asked in the public meeting to have you renegotiate and open it up so now here we are it's April and we're still talking about something that doesn't exist even though we talked

about it back in September October so it's not a matter of always trying to hit the city side but with that being said we can say all we want we talked about it well we talked about it we had to talk what is the agreement right now that we're operating under Madame superintendent I shared that with you you asked me that last week I emailed it to you in the committee we are operating under the old

agreements we have met multiple times with the mayor and his team and we are in the process of revising the indirect cost agreements they had to look at some figures um so that we could finalize it but we I what I shared with you is the old one I'm not being critical of you at all I asked you for something and you gave it to me within the hour I totally get it

I'm not being critical of you what I am being critical though is people need to take the school committee seriously when we vote for things and I think sometimes that doesn't happen and here's a case in point no matter what number you're going to give right now for out of the current budget that we have for the schools I just heard I think it was either miss pachico or Mr Mayor say that the

sergeant is going to be coming out effective next year did I hear that right yes yes so my point is we the school committee took a vote in public session not at this school but in a school committee meeting to say immediately I don't know when it was November October immediately we were going to count the sergeant to our budget vote of the committee info let's just suppose that's 100k

probably could be very easily with salary and benefits so that would mean that this school committee said we took a vote to take one hundred thousand dollars that's currently in the police budget and take that on immediately because I made the motion and I don't know who seconded it but we voted immediately to take one hundred thousand dollars out of the police budget and move it here

what I'm hearing now is that it's going to start next year it's it started this year and it started immediately and I'm sorry for the miscommunication it started this year and we we've started being we started being charged right at the beginning of the year after the after the vote was taken because that was one of the topics we talked about with the city when we first met with them back in September or

October and I apologize I'm getting the months confused here but we agreed to take on the sergeant salary which is different than I just heard from it is and that's and I'm sorry that's that's why I stepped in we are being charged for it and that's the plan moving forward to be charged for the centers how much is it that we currently are taking out do you know it works out to

close to a hundred thousand dollars no I mean like this where I see 700 000 here so that's 700 000 is the the seven sros plus the sergeant salary tonight's the first I've heard about the pensions but that'll be another another item we discussed moving forward could you say that's the first time you heard of it about the pensions yes yeah and yeah the CFO yes sir I mean you've been involved in these meetings

we just looked at it this afternoon doing our budget here without him so no no the city budget we were looking at the city the police you understand what I'm saying right yes Mr almida is the CFO we've we've been told I've been told anyway that we've been going back and forth on this for seven months if that's the case that particular issue should have been rectified seven months ago so

not being critical Mr Almeda all I was asking was though maybe you could just get it to us sure the current number in the current uh budget should be closer to 700 000 then if we take separate from the benefits piece and I'll get that for you yeah thank you thank you with that I yield thank you anything further oh I'm sorry that's all right so what's up any Chico I would like to know

the difference between a senior safety officer and a regular uh safety officer what's the difference so the senior is and and some of it is training so they've done some extra training of stipend a step not a stipend um and then they they're in charge of a building so they would be helping out with the assignment of offices um and and things like that okay any responsibilities of of doing trainings

with the regular safety officers uh no that would lie on the director the training would lie in the director yes okay so it is just more training and it's a stipend yes we're having more training and it looks as if there's only one in the district correct that's two there's two yeah must be missing a page yeah there are two um safety and where are they two seniors

one is a Durfee one is an RPA I'm sorry one is a dirty one is RPA and one is at Henry Law there are three okay yes okay I yield thank you Mr uh Chico I do have one question how many of these safety offices are first shift how many second if you know if this compliment was full how would you divvy this up so with Durfee like right now there are two um we would probably

um up that but we're also we got a Time issue that we have kind of um still have a lot going on and there's a change of shift and we're kind of short um at times so we're thinking about you know trying to um go back and bargain a change so that we could have a little more of an overlap at the end of school because the building has got a lot of students who

are still there and we're running with two security people um especially in the summer when we have people outside inside it would be nice to have some extra so that's something we're working on right now how about third shift um we had two we had one officer on third uh for a while that didn't work out so we don't know the building is empty as far as people um before the second shift custodians

leave we do have a third shift on custodians and first shift starts what time for those guys coming in tomorrow seven seven okay or a little earlier at Durfee might be 6 30. okay thank you oh I'm sorry I have a follow-up Kenny um could you give me an example of some of the trainings that somebody in the senior safety officer position would I couldn't off the top of my head I can

tell you that they that the sheriff's department does a lot of training without with our offices I'm not quite sure the the added training for the seniors okay yeah I'm just curious if he could and I will just get her something on that yes I'd appreciate it thank you I yield anything further Mr agya yeah just following up on Ms larvy's con the budget that we have says there's only one senior safety officer listed

and while you're looking Mr Chico what is the process for that that position it would be advertised and advertise interviewed like right within the group

would we just go by the number like the meaning meaning the salary like so the the person that's like 49 or 50 Grand is probably you know the person that is in that um that ballpark there's there's only one listed Mr pachico must be an error so I can say to you that there are three yeah if you could just get it like a superintendent can get it it's probably just the salary piece

um so security is not a safety office is not an easy position I think my opinion so it's a pretty tough job and they're getting basically a low 40s 40 40 some thousand dollars per year uh for each of those individuals and I just when you look at the Departments that we I think we need to look at some equality amongst like how much people get paid and I just wanted to know for

the record that a security guard basically is 41 42 I mean the open ones are 39 so I don't know if that's for a step is that what that yes that's why so 39 000 for First Step safety officer is the salary with data yield Miss laravey all the follow-up so how do you determine uh where the senior safety officers go now that I know that there's three so so normally you would have some

supervision some supervisory role as a senior unless a senior was unless a person was moved for other reasons throughout the district that would be the the criteria so if you have a situation where you're moving people around a lot like Durfee where where security people would be rotated through the building you'd want to have someone who has an ability to take care of that make sure that the rotation is

Right third floor second floor east west depending on how they so lay that building out lunch duties things like that on a smaller building you may have a situation where there's posts so they would be posted up at a particular floor and that senior person would still have their duties it's not like they're not doing the job they're still doing their job they just have some extra duties

some of it is is clerical and some of it is um actual Hands-On but they're still in one building they're not traveling from the district the three scene they're not nobody's traveling right now right now that is one of the suggestions is that something that maybe we can see in the future absolutely as okay that's kind of where I'm leading to it may work out well with the elementaries that that person be

rotating through the Elementary's making sure everything is okay and if you know suggesting different things um having a relationship with the principals right I mean you say they're in a supervisory position right that's what you just said so are they um doing any of the uh let me hold the not trainings but when you uh evaluations yeah yeah evaluations are they doing any of that they won't be

doing evaluations they would be assisting whoever that person is but because they're union members they wouldn't be evaluating each other what they would do is is as we do with other things they would help during the evaluation process um certain questions could be asked as to what they feel strengths weaknesses things like that yes all right I yield thank you thanks so those positions that they have a job

description the seniors seniors I think it moves up strictly by the uh the stipends so like the stipend would dictate the extra role the extra training they have and then decide where they would where they would land but there are people who I'm sorry as far as a job description so if we were to if we were to ask what is the job description for the position of a senior security officer would we

find anything I'm not sure if we would and I haven't looked at I can I can sense if you could look and if we don't please just reply that we don't have that one the other thing I'd like to look for I always thought that there was one or two but I could be wrong and I'm curious to see when we got three and when was that one was added this year was added um

probably in January but it was added how like through the through the process of that particular building we were having issues in a particular building yeah I'm looking just more of when was I vote if you could check that out to see when the school committee vote was for the they didn't I I will tell you that now there's no need for me the school committee didn't vote to make that person a senior

so how do they become a senior I'm going to tell you that they would just put as a senior I I didn't come to the committee as a vote that's on me yeah it just you might have a good reason not suggesting you don't usually have a good reason whatever but once again I think that the committee needs to if we have a say we have a say we should

get the thing it shouldn't just be added to you know three so Madam superintendent if you could put a one-pager together for that I would appreciate it thank you a yield anything further thank you special education department special education Miss Rodricks

I have a couple of quick questions sure oh sorry um is that better okay so when I'm looking at all of the new special ed teacher positions right we have quite a few that are being added in the schools yeah yeah so when I'm looking at that and then I'm looking at this specific services like speech language pathology and OT I don't see any increases in there so I'm just wondering about that

connection honestly I'm assuming those kids are accessing speech OT and other services as well we still have a few um SLP positions that should be filled by I would say within two weeks we're in the process of that was gonna be my other yeah we're in the process of um to like scream into the microphone sorry yes our OT positions are fully staffed yeah I saw that um so yes I did not ask

for additional SLP or OT positions at this time even PT because honestly I need to wrap my head around where we're at with all of these services and how many services if we're fully staffed are we able to meet the needs of the students right now we are with the Pre-K expansion that might change again the committee from what I've observed in the past few months of being here we could come back down the road

and say you know after doing a more careful analysis I just don't want to ask for positions without being able to give you a true rational as to why um I know I anticipate I shouldn't say I know but I anticipate with that Pre-K expansion we will need to think about those uh services no I appreciate that because I was just looking I mean it's quite a few self-contained classrooms and that's a

different discussion in a different day yeah but as I look at that you know typically those are kids that are going to be receiving additional speech and language so is that because we have a significant number of of kids that are going into those settings I'm just looking at the rationale for why we're opening that many classrooms why we're opening that many Pre-K classrooms actually these are

specifically kindergarten yeah Special um sub separate classes oh sub separate classrooms that's a couple things so yes there's a the influx of pre-K coming into kindergarten where in some some programs are already over what the deci recommendation is so we have to work to um fix that for next year even though we notified them in the waiver and all of that piece right so some of the classrooms might be at 14 and a

substantially separate classroom can't go over 12. so for next year we have to open an additional classroom even though there's only two extra students because you can't I need to divide them up right so then and honestly when I go into our substantially separate classrooms a classroom of 12 High needs students and possibly for adults it's very cramped and so we need to think about that 12 is

just a very high number especially for little guys so that's part of it the other piece honestly is the Autism Center um we have seen an influx we probably have had six new students from that Center and not all of them are younger some of them are like in fourth grade they've had no formal schooling so when they come in those are adding to our our substantially separate classrooms oh

I'm sorry you said you referenced the Autism Center so you're talking about the community-based yeah Autism Center that's in that's in the city that's in the city that's families access you know through their health insurance yes so typically the kids can access that until they're about eight years old what you would think but honestly we have again fourth graders um I think fourth grade was probably the

oldest that we have had so far coming directly from there yeah so out in that world you know eight seems to be the cut off but that's not to say that it wouldn't get covered for kids older than that right yeah they're hearing from the families is there now because it's Insurance based and they can't find providers either they just cancel the students program for the day so now they want them in school

so that's why again I'm you know um actually Henry Lord has had you know a significant increase with those students I'm just trying to wrap my brain around that but again that's a different conversation yeah I agree different I agree that's a whole other conversation for that um those two SLP positions that are currently open have they been open for a long time one of his uh one of them is our bilingual position

um but we do have a candidate who is fluent in Portuguese um so that will help with some of our bilingual evaluations and the other one they've been open since before I got here so I'm not exactly sure how long but um and then the two open Team chairs because I noticed that we're looking to move 20. we actually filled those positions the open ones um we had a staff member who left who actually came back

okay so I was just noticing that we're moving to 20 and it looks like you're making a lot of moves and it sounds like what you're in a good way and it sounds like what you're trying to do is really sort of streamline and also sort of take the load off efficiency so that way to be you know my three priorities are compliance programming and instruction and our team chairs play a huge role in

our compliance piece and when I look at their the size of their case loads and the work that they have to do with those caseloads that's the compliance is where I see that we can do better and we need to do better by not because we don't have great staff the staff are working triple time um you just can't keep up with all the regulations and all the timelines and paperwork when you're stress stretched

too thin so that's why to bring their caseload numbers overall down to make sure that they can fulfill the responsibilities of their role and do that effectively and make them feel like they're effective because right now it feels like people feel like they're putting out fires a lot of the time right it just feels like you're treading water when you're doing that all the time and that was sort of the

rationale for asking that question between because we have a significant number of new teacher positions but not it wasn't comparable on the service delivery side you're absolutely that's why I was looking at that saying like how are we in compliance if we have this many kids that are coming in odds are they're going to require that level of specialty service and then what do we do

how do we manage that but I appreciate the fact that you want to kind of wrap your head around what's going on um and that answered my question so with that ideals anything further especially Mr aggia thank you so uh once again the lead psychologist is in here it's all bundled up I would recommend that it gets separated out so that we know that there's a lead position with X Dallas I

think that truth and advertising would would be the best way to go you know I talked the other day about the inclusion teachers and we're going to be working on that but as I look at the budget and I look at the positions I look at the needs in the special education department I think overall okay we just took the whole what we spend on special education I personally don't think we're spending

nearly enough money on it I don't have all the answers on what particular positions but you can look at and say how much are we spending for this what other districts spend what I think we're underfunded in special education just my my gut telling me I guess but at the same time I also hear what you're saying about all the things we talk about at the special ed subcommittee you brought

forward a bunch of job descriptions uh for trying to rework things that actually make sense I 100 agree with that so I'm looking forward to next Monday voting on all those because that needs to happen now not in May June and July it needs to happen now so I'm looking forward to that but I think you're totally on the right track with what you're doing what I will say and I've said this in other places and

I believe that in the structure of your organization in the special ed Department that you need a an assistant that actually has a a non-union not any Union not just just in general just like your position and I've seen in smaller districts they have a special education director and an assistant special education director because that takes the burden off of a lot of different things and

short and quick you're going to be burnt out quick and go in here and going there so I can tell you from my vote my one vote would be that if you bring photo superintendent brings forward an assistant superintendent under you we've had those positions in the past called different various things I personally would think that that's an important piece to put all the pieces that you're

trying to do together and to give you some assistance so I will commit to that today and I will vote for that in a heartbeat if it comes forward and um I do think you're trying your best if there's a lot of issues but keep up the good work I think we're we're on the right track with a lot of things with that yields anything further next one sorry guys look next up student services department

anything on student services hearing not miss Rogers am I wrong in saying that the SEL integration specialist position has been open for quite a while they just um we actually just processed a uh recommendation for hire okay anything for Mr aggia so we talk a lot about attendance um policy and attendance offices and and the like I think I mentioned this about the resiliency alternative school one of

the things I think we're lacking is having attendance offices that work hours different than the normal school day so I do think that we have a sufficient number but we also have people locked into the time that they work I'd like to propose that if we are going to add one which I think we should for almost a split shift so we have someone working after hours supper time knocking

on doors getting the families together I know we have different positions called different things but uh personally I think with the attendance being as bad as it is and the needs we haven't tried everything we're trying things I think one thing that we could try is having a second shift or mid you know split shift person so that they can work through the hours of supper time trying to get

people when they're when they're home so I as one member I would support something like that I probably wouldn't support it if it was just during the day and um I know we talked about the attendance offices going to the schools and if we can just get up one paragraph and one of the emails just to see how that's going yeah with that ideal thank you um anything further superintendent's budget

anything on the superintendent's budget hearing none oh I'm sorry Australia I see the one that's open I'm assuming that's getting filled as well yes so you're not going to have any open positions other than the grant writer is that because the city yes have yeah split with the city so jogging my memory I believe that's in here as 33 000 but jog in my memory I think last year the city said they were

paying the whole thing has that been a change now we did we uh obviously we lost our grant writer Mr dibiasio moved to Florida we just brought a young lady on even for less than that so we were going to give her a trial run to the end of the year and come back to the schools so we're at a holding pattern on that right now because she just started and

she's making a heck of a lot less than that no all I'm saying is the money so last year we took the money out of our budget and the city said they were funding the whole thing if I'm seeing this in the budget that would mean to me that somebody told Mr Almeda that we needed to put in certain amount of number for it so now we're we're going back to pay in half yes

and I'm not wrong that we were told that we're not paying half the last one no so I was against that at the time I thought we should have paid half that's what it is we're using at halftime we should pay half so I'm glad that it's in here but if I was to look at that number and you said it's even less than that well she just started Kevin she didn't no I'm just saying like

if so for the education of anybody it says 33 000 that's yeah if half of that is sixty six thousand so if it's less than that that means we hired a grant writer in a city with x amount of dollars x amount of people and all they needs for fifty five thousand I hope that she's very good but part of the thing is we have to pay in order to

get qualified people to do this stuff so I don't think that's enough money but good luck Mr Mayor that thank you I yields I really I appreciate your concern Mr agya thank you anytime next next up technology department anything on technology Mr agya it says new position director of Technology infrastructure is that just because it's is that one of those uh in the group that came before the

subcommittee and that that's not filled is that what that is uh no we've had this position in the past we didn't have it last budget cycle um and bringing it back to the committee because there's just a need in that Silo of Technology right now I'm basically filling that role and trying to do you know CIO duties so we're looking to bring that position back to oversee the break fix side to give them more of a

day-to-day Direction so I'm not split in two different places who was the last person they said we didn't feel like don't recall that no the the position we phased out in last budget cycle because I saw a need to try to to separate a position and create silos for network and then VoIP infrastructure but right now that department I'm there in the morning to try to get you know people set up and

then back and forth between the two buildings and I'm looking to bring back the director position so that there's supervision of that staff on the break fix side on a daily basis so there's someone there every day yeah so I pay attention at the subcommittee meetings and this has never been brought to the subcommittee at all so that's one of my first concerns my second concern is how we do things in

this District in my opinion sometimes is that we go in any given year we say we're not going to fill this position because we need you to create these two positions and then we create those two positions and we forget to eliminate the other one then we come back and I'm not saying this is the case here but I've seen this across the district then we come back

and say oh by the way we want to fill that position now and why I'm asking that question through the subcommittee is so that we can get to the details of these things so that we can I vote at the subcommittee and the full committee based on information that I'm given and then to to add another one so Mr agya during the subcommittee meeting we hadn't had a chance to sit down for

my budget you know meeting with the superintendent with the CFO and this came out of that after our subcommittee meeting I would have definitely brought it to the committee at that time but this was in preparation for our Budget moving forward and it was done at their meeting and that's why it's here now right so I think I think my points pretty clear if we do that it should be like a

proposed position that we're going to bring to the subcommittee before it just comes in here as a new position at another administrative position you know you might have the need for it I don't know but there's a better timing and there's a better way to do it I think than putting it in the budget and just say oh that's a new position that just that's just my um I guess I need some clarification

because the some of the new positions that we're proposing in this budget for next year um have not gone like I'm thinking about the social studies um director that will bring it forth right I didn't bring that position to the instructional subcommittee I I hear what you're saying but I think that this is the proposed budget and that's what Mr as we met with each department that's

what Mr um Cabral proposed I get that it was an old position which is why um uh I think that why you're questioning it but every single position in here in this proposed budget has not gone through a subcommittee for approval first yep and that doesn't mean that it shouldn't oh I agree it's my thing that's all I'm saying so this is a proposed budget so right the purpose of subcommittees if we're going to do it

properly is to vet each issue to get into details about it when we do it at a budget presentation when there's 178 new positions and all kinds of things going on it's much more difficult than at a subcommittee and say Here's what we'd like to do for this that and the other thing so we have the money we have but if we're going to do subcommittees we should do

them the right way and even if now this budget doesn't need to be approved today so we should be having subcommittee meetings or any new positions in any department where we could go through this it's just not a good system in my opinion when we take a position and this is going to come up again with other positions so when we take a position and say we're going to remove

whether it's in a Union contract or not and you know the situations I'm talking about and we say we're going to give this young lady an increase in a different job that's going to take my position my whole position out we don't get rid of it we keep it in advance and then when it's convenient we just bring it back and with no vote of this committee so that's the problem that I

have is that when we eliminated the director technology infrastructure position it was for a reason because we didn't need it at the time we didn't think we need whatever it is that position is gone as far as I'm concerned that position doesn't just sit there and say well when we want to fill it we'll fill it same thing happens in a school we've had situations I'm not going to uh

one person's a department head I don't need a department head I'm going to do the job then I do the job next year guess what happens oh by the way I want that department head job so I'm not bringing something up that doesn't make sense we have to if we're going to do subcommittees do them and I would say that we should have had some of these discussions at more of them

rather than like if I didn't look at this line item budget like I'm doing right now I'm the chairman of the technology subcommittee meeting and I would have had no idea that we were adding a hundred and whatever 100 000 position to the Department if I didn't look at this line by line and try to figure it out under the new it shouldn't it shouldn't be that way it should be highlighted that this is

what we're going to do and I think myself and the subcommittee has been very supportive of your organization and trying to help with things but so it's not a criticism of you but it's just frustrating to me when we get to the point where we have this we've added a lot of positions and you know my question is separate from this where is the amount of money for PowerSchool oh

it's been being funded out of eser to this point but where is it in the next budget it's an Esa budget yes for one more year okay and how much is it in when does it run out Uh current contract will run out um last week of July uh in the process right now of um acquiring new pricing from PowerSchool as we speak they usually give it to you the first couple of weeks

of April with a lot of those other contracts so we'll be seeing those numbers come in in the next week or so so it we're not we're not bound to that program more than July correct I don't remember when we hired when we booked it uh our current contract will end on July 30th and I'm in the process now of reviewing everything um we're looking at you know what stakeholders are seeing what end users are seeing

um and we'll be putting together something more formal um whether or not you want to discuss it in a you know technology subcommittee meeting first moving forward but I should hopefully have all of that information in the next few weeks how much is encumbered in uh yes sir how much roughly it doesn't have to be exact just over 200 000 at this time and how much is it going to cost to run it next year

I haven't seen everything yet but um probably just over somewhere around 200 000.

next year yes sir but we don't have a quote yet is that what right no right so you know my concerns about that program uh I think time is of the essence if you want to have a subcommittee you want to have a full committee I probably recommend a full committee because we would end up having the same debate twice would be my guess uh related to that but um and just and

just so that we get all of the information full transparent and I have all of our eyes dotted and T's crossed it will not be ready for this you know April 10th meeting because they're still you know getting their quotations ready and I'd like to have a little bit more data and do some more research on our end before we make a full decision as a senior staff sure I would say I wouldn't

expect personally I wouldn't expect that in a week but I think we we have to make a commitment to the next meeting for sure and if we look at it we need to be um I brought out last meeting that a hundred thousand dollars in increases and all that stuff I would expect that to be in the one pager of what is the real number because the way I see it

even at 200 000 we were paying fifty thousand so that's four times as much as what we were getting before and I think we need to we need to really look at it my last question on that is when I had asked for some stuff to be on the last agenda it was stated that there was going to be a survey done and that was weeks and weeks ago so any updates so there was an initial

survey put together and I sat down and looked at it um it's being redone because I didn't necessarily like the way the questions um they left a ton of for interpretation so I wanted a more appointed survey the superintendent the assistant superintendent I have been sitting down the last few days we have a draft of a survey that'll be discussed tomorrow at our senior staff meeting and then it

will be sent out we were looking to create a survey that had a little more logic in it so you know for example if you were a building based administrator you would click that as your choice it would give you a set of certain questions so that it wasn't what I didn't want to do is send out seven different types of surveys for all the end users using the software and the

draft surveys they basically did that they were asking the same questions to everyone and you know to do this correctly and to give us a good data set so that we can make a decision and informed decision moving forward we decided to clean the survey up and do some logic so that it would dump the people into certain sets of questions and then the data would be a little bit easier to follow no I

understand the request that I had made at the time didn't say we needed to survey everyone the request that I made trying to make an educated decision was to survey the principles and see what they said I I but I'm the one who withheld that because I think that we just like when we Implement anything new we have had these discussions and we want to get data not only from the principles we want anyone that uses

PowerSchool and how they use it we want to make sure we also want to make an informed decision I think that your concerns are some of our concerns also and we want to make sure we have all of the information in front of us before we come to you with the record recommendation as well as results in regards to where we stand yeah no I I can appreciate that just I'm frustrated

because I sat here and watched how we switched from one to the other that was very very very top heavy from Central Administration putting the pressure on people to vote a certain way we all know it whether we want to admit it or not we all know what really the story was it came from the top that said we want to get rid of it and there was ulterior motives why so people came before us and

said no you know I think it could be okay it could be okay and all this stuff it was because it came from the top we all know it just admit it so that's part of my frustration is that we we were sold a bill of goods I know it I feel it I hear it and I think it's unbelievable as far as what's going on the only thing

I would ask is if Mr Cabral or Madam superintendent if you could please share the clip of the video with the full school committee again so we get notice of what we what we were promised by the folks there so as we start to look into it we should get to at least go back and see that would help us with that I yield anything further on technology hearing nothing transportation anything on Transportation

hearing nothing come here oh I'm sorry Mr Egg yeah can we get an update on the we I know we advertise for a director we had some discussions and where are we at with that at current so um the offer was made the conversation um was that the offer along with the current salary was not acceptable um with all due respect was exactly the way it was said and I respect that

um the current person who does the job the salary is very low and the person who was interested in the job felt that that the current salary of the person um is low and the offer that we made them obviously was lower than that so they weren't interested and that's where we stand right now so who's the day-to-day operations director right here me I am oh all right well that with the

in the absence of a director I'm assuming those roles yeah I I've said this to you Mr Pacheco many times already in public meetings and I think that you spread your position is Spread Way Too Thin and then it becomes to not being able to do the all of those things so I'm going to say that again here you can't be running the day-to-day operations and you can try but you can't deal with

the needs of that department Justice uh doing that so when I'm looking at this budget it it says here 51 50 600 for the I think the person who was doing it what are they getting paid additional for doing extra work are they getting the 25 pay um what is the difference it comes out to just about that yes so at that point if it was a year-round thing that would

still not be enough money I mean if if I'm looking at the position of 56 50 600 and 25 percent of that for if it was a year would be 13 000 so that would take the salary up to 63 64 which is more than the directors being paid it's more than the coordinators being paid right now we'll have the coordinator here at 69.

but but the moral of the story is I'm not being critical of the situation but we need a technology director a transportation director yeah we need the technology one we've got a good one it's okay so the issue is though we voted for a certain number based on the job description and they're coming in at the low end what we just heard here is that the person that's currently

doing or was doing it I guess now is not the case was actually making more money than we offered the person now am I taking the job on you know we offered a number this committee that was less than the person was actually making I don't understand but that but the issue is is those funds are not wouldn't be available so this obviously is a projection for next year so it's not the same

those projections in front of you are not their salary current its projections so what would that what would the person that was doing the job I don't I don't know off the top of my head 51 Maybe I mean it's only 50 600 here so it probably would be in in the forties yeah yeah Madam superintendent so my point is and I'm not trying to pick on Mr pachico here but just hear me through

if we had a person who's a clerical person Chief clerk whatever they call it that was making for round numbers fifty thousand dollars we put that person in not as our actual position we just say you're going to do the duties of the transportation director they were going to get the equivalent of 25 percent of their pay which I believe should be the standard because what some unions have that that would mean that

that person's 50 000 would be 63 000 or 62 000. if that was the case when we negotiated to say what are we going to offer why in the heck would we offer 55.

I I believe it is saying that that's not accurate right it's not because we was sharing so the two clerks in that in that particular Department are sharing the duties so they're both working for extra dollars to keep the wheels on the bus excuse the point um but it's not one person doing that work when we advertise for an interim one person one of the two apply right right yeah I understand

Madam superintendent so under that scenario we have two people making half of twelve thousand dollars that means we had one person making six thousand extra and the other person making six thousand extra we advertise the job interim the interim person was going to now assume all the duties of that director wouldn't it logically say that that person was now going to get the other

six to go back on top at a minimum to be at sixty two thousand and we offered 55.

right and as I said miss dagia the 62 was not acceptable either I understand but this committee only offered 55.

so how did we offer 62. what if we said if that was the case why why do we offer 55. if you can just give him 62 65 70 why would we have to have taken a vote for 55. so all I'm saying is I think the importance of this position is we need a position we need a person in that role and all I was asking is trying to look

at the logic of these numbers you can get us the exact figures because you have access to the payrolls but if we were going to pay the six thousand twice when we started at a floor of the the 12 000 on top of their salary I just I really just think that we need to uh we need to look at that um all of the money that comes out of the uh on this line

adds up to 10-2 and we've been quoted at like 11 for transportation is this something missing that I'm not seeing here

where did the bottom test total projected 12 8 12 8.

but but I that's less money that was that we don't have a say in right I'm sorry so I'm trying to figure out what is the actual amount not so much that is on the the city Side so we had talked about the mayor had brought up about the 11 million thing and all that stuff so I'm using that there wasn't there had to have been discussion about we needed 11

million if that was part of the thing so this says 10 million but we were talking 11 million what is the real number the real number is 12.8 million that's the number for next year that I've got that I've got factored in um I I'm trying to be nice to the city so to speak and if you see the breakdown below you'll see that I am projecting to spend 1.5 million on a circuit breaker for

next year if I had a District transportation 800 000 out of sr3 for preschool transportation and 500 000 from mckinney-vento to give you a total for 10 million dollars so the total transportation is 12.8 million dollars next year but 10 million of it is coming out of the operating budget okay I guess it's good that I ask questions because then you find out the real story so I guess from reading this somebody

correct me if I'm wrong the administration in the schools without a vote of the school committee chose to spend 1.5 million towards transportation that we've never spent like that before am I wrong I'm bringing it to your attention through the budget yes I couldn't hear you can you please speak into the mic absolutely I'm bringing it to your attention through the budget yes oh so that doesn't need to be highlighted I

so I'm not looking for you Mr Alma you can only do what you're told to do I get it but Madam superintendent if I didn't ask this question right now how was this school committee going to know as a body that we were deciding to take 1.5 million at a circuit breaker funds and pay for transportation with it how would we know Madam superintendent how would we know we would be notifying

you we knew that we were going to have this discussion tonight but we will put it in writing to you yeah please do I can give you my opinion my opinion is that was underhanded it was not appropriate and it was it was just I can't even tell you how flabbergasted I am that that even showed up in here and for any member of this committee to just sit here and think that that's okay

you've got to look in the mirror because what two meetings ago three meetings ago I've heard from members of this committee I've heard from other people saying how the heck are we going to spend how are we going to pay for all these new positions 150 positions 170 positions to the tune of six million dollars in Essa funds according to this budget how are we going to pay for it and I've said to members of this

committee members of the public anybody that asks I said well two meetings ago I asked Mr Almeda how much money we had in the circuit breaker account like a bank check like a a bank book you told me three million dollars so I've been taking votes and I would assume because everybody else heard that same story that we can we know we can cover it because we've got three million dollars in our account over here

now just by asking questions I find out that half of that bank checkbook or whatever you want to call it account is going to be gone because we're going to spend it right here in the circuit breaker fund and we're going to slide that in and hope that we pass this budget and call it a day nobody was going to bring that up today nobody because if that was the case it

should have been presented when we did this part of the budget when the mayor asks does anybody have anything in transportation somebody in administration said I just want to let you know there's a big number in here and we're taking 1.5 million out of your fund school committee and we're going to spend it towards transportation that didn't happen and that's a shame and the same thing I don't know what

this Essa 3 preschool where does that come from just because we wanted to get to 10 million no where is that come from so Mr agya you know I'm always very fair to the city I'm very fair to the schools I try to do things appropriately I did delineate how the 10 million dollars was coming about for the budget so if I didn't Clearly say it I apologize but it's in all of the documents that

everyone got here on at the school for the school committee so if I need to be clearer in the future I will be I'll make that point um but these numbers are all estimates preschool has the preschool budget for transportation has increased we've grown it's increased I budgeted when I budgeted for the Esser Grant sr3 in particular I budgeted transportation out of there so that was all intentions for preschool

transportation for the increased preschool and so that's why these numbers are the way they are the number four mckinney-vento it's a conservative number but that's based on the reimbursement that we received last year that's the 500 000 that you see there the million five fraud a district is roundabouts what we pay what we're going to pay what what we are paying this year for our district I do anticipate it will

increase a little bit but that's that's what the number is there the 1.5 million dollars the 800 000 that's a good number good estimate for what we have so that's how you come to the 10 million dollars it doesn't there's no way anyone can say that sliding in 1.5 million the way this went is okay there's a slap in the face to the school committee maybe everybody else know maybe I don't know maybe everybody else know

but all I know is what I ask here at this public meeting that you said there was three million dollars in an account and I've been taking votes and telling people otherwise so we were going to slide in whether we whether I asked the question or not we just felt like oh we're gonna slide it in that's not okay that is not okay it's not okay by this member if anybody else thinks it's okay

then please speak up because as far as I'm concerned that is not okay we need to take the school funds and be able to fund these positions going forward hundreds of positions and we can't do that when one meeting we're told we got three million in the bank and then all of a sudden we lost 1.5 million without anybody telling us it's just not okay it's not the right thing to do it's unbelievable

I don't understand how anybody can even even try to do this and say that we're being fair and transparent to the school committee if I didn't ask this question we would have voted and we wouldn't even have known it and when I ask questions people look around like oh is he going to ask another question yeah I'm right look at what just happened here we wouldn't have known you're taking 1.5

million out of our savings account to send to the city to pay for transportation we wouldn't have known it to be clear Mr agyar the information is in your budget binder I apologize that it wasn't set out in public if you want me to say it it's said right now I could just as happily take the money away and let the city pay the additional million and a half if that's what you would like

I understand sir but we had a debate here we this school committee had a debate just the other day we had a debate just the other day excuse me I have a chance to talk we have it we had a debate here we had a debate here the other day this full committee about something that the mayor presented to try to take 11 million dollars off of the school department we had this debate

you stood there and sent silent about this 1.5 million superintendent the same thing if you didn't know and think that this was going to be an issue that was going to be tough that was going to be a big decision whatever it is obviously you weren't thinking and you guys as a senior leadership team didn't think about it because somebody in that senior leadership when you're all together should have said you know I

think we should tell the school committee before we present this budget and once again I mentioned the other day we got this budget at five o'clock the other right on the spot so I've been trying to do my research along the way but 1.5 million for transportation out of our checking account that we could have used for services for special editors I just talked about and all this other

stuff to slide it in it just it just was not and is not okay it's just unbelievable how this even got to this point and you're up there Mr Almeda this issue falls on the superintendent in my opinion because she's the leader of this district and and if I was mad at you I apologize my concern is that I just didn't like the way it was handled and I don't think it's we can't in one breath

say one thing and then next week say another it's just not okay with that idea I will take responsibility I mean it's not Kevin yes you're right I'm the superintendent I take respability we will we will have a discussion about taking the million and a half and putting it towards filling the positions there was no intention to slide anything you know we've been very transparent with everything that we do

so yes you want you you want to beat up on someone that'll be me no I I got I got to be clear on this obviously when I I when we talked about helping the School's transportation or helping the City by funding the school transportation Jay Sullivan explained to me that the circuit breaker fund leftover Surplus was the only place you could carry money over to the city now this showed up you know honest honestly

it is a help to the city of Fall River I don't believe for one second that we're going to be cutting any positions or not funding positions because that 1.8 1.5 million uh I you know I don't want to make it sound like I'm a saint or something but I really didn't get involved with this but I really do support it I think helping the uh helping the city with transportation in

a fund that as the Tes explained to me was one of the areas you could carry money over in and the Esser and mckinney-vento is a reimbursement anyway so as far as I'm concerned it's a good thing for the city it's part of the fairness that you talked about earlier when we were talking about the pension costs so at the same time time this is another area that can that can help the

city I mean if if that's what we're looking to do it's one city budget the school's a part of it um I don't think there's anything wrong with this I mean I'm glad that there is a little bit of net School spending allowable in this budget two hundred thousand dollars Mr Almeda is that is that the Athletics part we had talked about yes so that's two hundred thousand okay so there is some benefit for the

city I think helping the city in a time like this is not a bad thing I don't believe for a second I think Mr Mr aguiar is well aware of the finances in the school department and there's nobody going to be getting any cuts of 1.5 million um it's one of those funds that can be carried over from the desc so I support it but you know whatever happens happens it's going

to go forward we're going to vote on a budget I'm not in the business of beating people up I think Mr Almeda does a good job so I will not be raising my voice but at the same time I do uh to a point agree with Mr agya that that should have been a paper that went out to him earlier as a notice we could have had a debate but as far as I'm concerned

it's a benefit for the city and uh you know it's obviously about 10 of that budget so it does help us and I appreciate it I'll leave it at that and again I I have no problems during pointing out the only thing I was trying to point out was the volume as long as we talk respectfully we're a much better committee Miss Rogers so I'm I'm not even going to get into

whether I agree with spending that money or not spending that money there are a lot of things that I know a lot about right and so I ask questions and when I look through information I can make sense of it better because there are things I'm very familiar with and I feel really confident but I rely on the fact that we have other members on this committee that have other areas of

expertise this happens to be one that Mr aguir has more information about than I do and so I wouldn't have caught that had that question not been asked because I wouldn't have realized that that's not something that we've done before right that that's not a piece that we've pulled out and somebody said like that's not money that we've spent before in order to support Transportation so I for

one appreciate the facts that those questions are being asked because again there's a lot of things that I know about and there's a lot of things that I rely on everybody else here to ask questions about because I don't have the answers to them so that's the only comment that I'm going to make about that and the fact that it does like once this is all sort of presented it does it's not highlighted anywhere it's

something that we haven't done before and so as somebody who is newer to this position I'd appreciate that being highlighted and that's all I'm going to say about that with that at yields anything further Mr Right Here if anybody else wants to speak I already spoke so nobody else wants to speak I'd like to fall Mr ragia so part of the concern is that we we don't have the information so now I'm hearing

that we have Jay Sullivan said something about the who works with the ESC just tell me are you aware of that oh you know Mr can I make this absolutely when the 11 million was being debated is when I talked to Jay Sullivan he told me circuit breaker money can be carried over obviously it you know as much about it as me City departments have turnbacks there's no turnbacks in the school department the

only area where a turn back is allowed and I'm going to ask Mr almida to make sure I'm saying this right the only area Jay Sullivan said there are turn backs allowed is the circuit breaker funds am I right or wrong yes yeah and that's what he told me during the 11 million debate I did not call him about this part of it here that's what I was saying

he goes Paul he said Paul you should be able to get money back out of circuit breaker I said well I've never heard that Jay I called Mr Almeda he said that's the only area where you're allowed to turn back other other monies left in the budget go on can any money be turned back to the city without a vote of the school committee no was this money brought to the school committee no that's my point

so when we talk about circuit breaker money as I mentioned last month it's sort of a a bank bank book that has three million dollars in it so what the mayor is talking about is because we have been fiscally prudent as the money comes back in in the old days let me take you back to when we didn't have any money the entire amount of circuit breaker money which is three million dollars apparently right that

was carried over in the old days 10 years ago when we didn't have money that entire amount of three million dollars would fund a special education budget the entire thing so we wouldn't have a turn back because we took the entire circuit breaker and we actually paid for the services for the children out of that money so when I'm frustrated and upset by this is because we have said now that we've

been fiscally prudent we're gonna we're gonna have that money in reserve so that we could do some things such as I asked Miss open chain to come back and look at inclusion and see if there's a recommendation so if I'm thinking in my head we got three million dollars in circuit breaker money and she came back to us and said we're not doing inclusion right in service in our children right so we might need to hire

I don't know 50. let's just say 50 support staff to help the children in inclusion classes 50. she could come back to us two months from now make that recommendation I'd be looking at it and say hmm that's only two and a half million we got three million in the circuit breaker account maybe we could do something like that that's what we would use that money for is actual services for kids

so when the mayor is saying that that was a turn back it wasn't a turn back because we as a committee could make one vote right now Mr omida drain the three million dollars out of the circuit breaker account and put it in the budget and then we'd have three million dollars to spend on whatever else we wanted could that happen Mr Almeida by a vote of this committee but quite simple we could spend that

three million dollars in a heartbeat because as I just said in Miss open chain came up we have so many needs we could spend that money right now but we didn't we kept it in the reserve my frustration is because we look at that in one meeting I asked the question we got the answer now without telling anybody we just stripped half of that away so the money isn't something that don't

be mistaken that says it's a turn back it's not a turn back at all it's not a turn back what that is is a reimbursement for money that we already paid out we the school budget paid out and they reimburse you some money for circuit breaker that's what that is it's reimbursing school budget funds so that's how we got this money in it's not a turn back like in the city

where we don't spend the money and it goes to the general coffers the school department does not turn back money like that whether Jay Sullivan said it was legal or not well it can be okay sure if we chose to take a vote to do that but we didn't we just slid the money underneath and that's how we're going to go about it so to me that's not okay we still need to look at it random

superintendent and the mckinney-vento reimbursement is only five hundred thousand I recall getting a notice that last year was like 800 did it go down and until the legislature is supposed to be now funding that almost at 100 percent so if we spend a million bucks that should be a million bucks last year we were reimbursed 560 000 the year before that 550 000 the year before that 516 thousand dollars

and that was from where because I've asked that question before and those aren't the same numbers so that's what we received a lot that's the last three years right yes so the city gets that money doesn't even come to us so what if the city got 750 000.

in the budget are we going to get 250 back then the city would decide what they do I think we need to pump the brakes on this a little bit and and talk about it further I just feel very passionate about the fact that you do your homework we ask the questions and I feel I feel bad that this conversation even had to happen because we shouldn't maybe having this happen to have this conversation like

this with that I yield and I will I will Echo something I do um I do take School transportation very importantly we're still working on I got a meeting set up with the MTA reps we're still working on that but at the same time I would not favor what Mr aguiar said and we will you know so we don't have to give the money to the city we'll drain it that's not the point we're

going to do what's best for the kids across the city whether it's Transportation whether it's special ed teachers whether it's services this isn't a race to spend money so that you don't help School transportation this is a race to spend money where it's needed for the kids first and transportation is part of that that's how this came out it was the only area where they allow a

turn back I didn't know that I talked to Chase Sullivan it was nothing to do with this discussion it was in the initial 11 million as I said I fully expect to be working with the MTA on school transportation and we're going to keep going forward on this and I do appreciate the city making an offer to help us it doesn't it doesn't hurt it me daily supplements transportation for our kids that's what this is

anything further on Transportation sorry trying to end that one nutrition anything on nutrition the last one we have tonight is nutrition did I miss maintenance I I don't think we talked about maintenance today but security and maintenance department with together Mr aguio sorry I have some maintenance questions um why don't we finish nutrition I don't have a problem going back for a couple

questions I found nutrition one question on nutrition go ahead the um positions called I don't know custodian whatever the wording is utility worker are they full like I don't have it in front of me right now but where are we at with this with the we have one vacancy and I'm in the proposed budget I'm asking for five full-time which would lead to how many 10 whatever it's it's roughly 10 yes

so at one of the meetings I had asked a question about whether a person could leave the that position and go to custodial has that been worked out they can leave at any point they want to if they're if they're the if they're from the original again I I don't want to I seem to be misspeaking a lot today a little tired this weekend um but so I'm not going to say that

if they're the original people who are in the jobs when we did this changeover that they can come back at no harm if I'm not mistaken maybe Tom can correct me there was a one-year period that allowed all of this movement to happen so they can apply for a job like any other person can apply they're not guaranteed the job someone else could get the job over them but they they can move across contracts

across units I'm sorry within the contract at will like everyone else can yeah I just don't think you know my stance on I didn't think it worked out well but what I would recommend is that if people were in it you know if I was a custodian before and then I moved into the to that job you should be able to go back to the union whether they're one

year or not they should be able to go back and keep their seniority and do what they need to do as far as a custodian job because there's one district and we have needs in those departments my personal opinion if that's not the case I'd ask the superintendent to bring that forward back to us so that it just would be treating people failing you're in one job you think it's going well I could

work for a year I think it's going well for the year and then all of a sudden it doesn't go well things change whatever and now I'm not so why you guys should be stuck or I have to go back and lose seniority or whatever I would ask you to look at that and come back to us with a fairness proposal because I think it's just treating people the way that they

should to be treated in my opinion with that I yield okay a Mr ragya had a couple of questions we jumped when we went to security and maintenance he didn't get to ask a Mr ABIA so I see some of them like the same thing I was talking about before head Carpenter is a number in there then but it's all one person I I personally I would like to see those all broken out

um so that we know you're talking about the leads the leads yeah one says head which I think is really a lead but it says head it's an old title that that's been around longer than any of the others then one says lead then I I don't see one in the other because there's not enough employees how many employees four four you need I'm three I'm sorry you need uh three or

more three or more so then if I go through this and the plumbers there's no lead no but there's three plumbers there's not three plumbers there are three there are three positions but they're not filled so once they do they'll be a lead yes um the the other piece of that is the job descriptions I've asked for that in the past and the answer was there's no job description it's just that the senior

man gets it we will be coming up with a job description for the committee to vote oh good so I just think if we're going to pay the lead whether it's three thousand four thousand whatever I personally would favor something with teeth you know like a like a foreman we talked about that the last meeting and I'd even go so far as to say I think if we had a a legit Foreman where there's

responsibilities they could get paid more but right now we're basically in my opinion giving away money for no with no apparent benefit because there's nothing that they can do when when I look at what's been the the process going forward is what in the past has been just basically uh I don't know it just it's just something that I think needs to be looked at and totally changed so in the

bottom one you've got storekeeper and store keeper is there any leads in those departments which department would still contract are we in uh storekeeper maintenance there's no store Keeper in the maintenance or whatever whatever unit it's under the maintenance budget so that's why I'm reading it so storekeeper curriculum supplies is it the um says Russell Lewis okay yes so is there any lead pay in that yes

he's the head there's one who's lead um so there's two store Keepers one takes a lead role and then there are two store keeper helpers so to speak there's four people in that department and does the second person get any stipend the way the department was broken up was there was a um a storekeeper lead for curriculum teaching and learning side and then there was a storekeeper for the

custodial site or general supplies two different locations now they're all in in one location and all the supplies are in one location so it's changed the Dynamics of how things are done yep I understand and I think I think you can understand my point I think the superintendent can understand my point we have four people that you just mentioned they're a storekeeper related we got two of them getting paid

the lead that means you divide four by two that means you got two that means you don't have three so therefore they shouldn't have a stipend but nothing sometimes goes the way that it should in my opinion the only other question I would have and would be a suggestion uh to the superintendent is that we have groundskeepers in here at fifty nine thousand for additional groundskeepers and I

mentioned this at the riog meeting I'd like to see what the cost benefit analysis of doing some privatization work in that regard as well as looking at a labor type of more entry level to do some of that work that is I believe in the budget was 30 000 for a labor that's open but whatever that number would be it would be lower than this so I'd ask the superintendent to look at

trying to figure out uh any other way to do that that makes just makes more sense my last question is on the laborer position that's in there do we have an update Madam superintendent we do not have an update that the job was posted we had a couple of applicants and the interview interviews as far as I know have not yet happened yeah so I've asked that too many times I

guess but the memo that came out to ask for the labor position I believe was March of 2022 and we're now in April of 2023.

so I I don't need to even I don't think go into that I think you can understand that for your own self but I do think we need to look at the stipends the how much money we're paying I need to think we need to look at the overtime who gets it how do they get it when they get it and I've sent an email on that and I hope that something's forthcoming with that I yield

anything further to come before the committee tonight during this budget discussion hearing nothing of entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn exactly second I have a motion the second Deb would you please call the roll Mr I yeah yes Mr Bailey yes heart yes Laramie yes this is Pereira yes Mr Roderick yes mayor Kruger yes adjourned