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Grantham School Board February meeting/Trust Funds Withdrawal Hearing, Tues. Feb. 6, 2024

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Grantham School Board February meeting/Trust Funds Withdrawal Hearing, Tues. Feb. 6, 2024

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leaving thank you for coming tonight we are going to open up the public budget hearing from start with a presentation by the various board members obviously we want to thank and but tired board wants to thank the community for the support that they've provided this year and all the previous years you've got myself as you got myself at UPS the board chair Leslie Nesbitt as a school board vice-chair in a Sullivan at school were secretary Nancy Mackenzie as a school board School Board member and Julia Belmont as a school board member as well I apologize for the reading of the script that we just want to accommodate people who may have difficulty in hearing so we'd like to thank you all for being here tonight and especially our parents in the Guardians who communicate collaborate cruciate understand and support our children and our community are amazing staff who continue to build resilience while inspire children to learn and to smile our community members who support us financially emotionally and with a commitment to transparency informed decision-making I'd like to just highlight three of the great things that are happening here at Grantham Village School presently our school is participating in the letters program sponsored by the New Hampshire Department Ed and at present this is a Christian correct me if I'm wrong with this is an online program yes we have a large percentage of our staff who are participating in this program and this is a reed program reading and literacy based on the science of reading and presently we have 67% of our classroom teachers participating both of our interventionist three administrators one special education teacher and for peer Educators and this is a free program sponsored by the department of Ed and it seems to be going quite well for our staff and students the other program is the Pax program in this is our program that helps with social and emotional learning for all students pre-k through grade 6 and the highlights of this program the things that the children are working on our self self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision-making so that's pretty exciting to have that in place in a time when there seems to be so much need and we're very for the other highlight this year is Christine Downing seated down here is our curriculum director of curriculum instruction and assessment and we share her skills with Cornish and Plainfield so it's it's just a nice cohesive program and sharing of services so we're very fortunate to have Christine with us next we like to share out a little bit of the rgds testing averages compared to the state actual find Target performances so first line here is reading and writing the green bars are GPS 2018 2019 2020 obviously no data 21 22 and 23 see that our GPS students are obviously exceeding the both the Target and the actual averages for the state in pretty strong fashion next fight is math Mouse performance which is pretty stunning visual in terms of how well the GPS students are doing just 85% in 82 percentage is already amazing and then they exceed the state average is pretty impressive and the same is true for science by me being sorry I'm up our science Silver Sands in comparison to ELA and math and science only Test 5th graders so this is a much smaller cohort for testing scores but again we are exceeding the bestie average but you'll see Asian from year to year and that's cuz we're testing a very specific group of students next time and then some playground updates so the children have been very excited and expelling energy on the playground so this is open in November except for the jungle dome which was recently opened a few weeks ago in January along with a sledding hill I think there's been a few broken sleds along the way but there's certainly enjoying the snow remaining work is to be completed in the spring of 2024 that includes and Paving some greeting for the field and some grass grow next we're going to move into a warrant articles the first Nicole is just article one to hear the reports to hear the reports of the agents committees and other officers there for chosen to end to pass any boat there too second which guessing why both people are on this call or in this room tonight is our operating budget so article to see if the district will vote to raise an appropriate amount of 11571000 and 6 the hours for the support of schools for the payment of salaries for the school district officials the agents and further payments for the statutory obligations of the district and to authorize the application against the preparations of such sums as ARS made it to be received from the state and federal governments together with all other income the balance to be raised by taxation by the school district is auricle does not include Appropriations contained in special or individual articles addressed separately this is recommended by the school board so quick Financial overview of our operating budget for last year was 10 million $793 + 999 dollars proposed operating budget for this year 11 million $571 or $60 an increase of $777,064 or roughly 7.2% year-over-year and looking at just the general fund balance a last year 10542369 dollars the proposed general fund for 2020 for 2025 is 11 million $310 10 $442 an increase of 768000 and $73 or 7.29% this is just a pie chart showing essentially the allocation the general funds that we are proposing in this budgets to take a look at it the sort of the purple color there the burnt orange color in the in the lime green color represents Direct Services to students the represent about 80% of the overall general fund general fund spend that we are proposing for 2024 and 2025 so talk about some of why we are seeing this significant increase we are from last year we have several mandated budget drivers that are increasing essentially cost that are either fixed or contractually obligated that we don't have a lot of control over so those are be our contractual salaries benefits New Hampshire retirement system health insurance which you can see is almost just about a 20% increase for health insurance in a bun with a 5% increase Dental area area graduation is also up due to our increasing population here special education is up $456,000 over year for city is up 30,000 you were real that's partly due to the fact that last year we were fortunate enough to be locked into a lower rate contract that will be expiring at the end of this year and then he saw it $15,000 so in total weave 926 or just over $926,000 that are mandated by the drivers that are increasing the budget if you look at our operating budget but doubt operating budget versus are mandated by you'll see that our increase is only 777000 if they only 777000 it's still a good size number but part of the reason it's not the 926000 increase is we are able to go through and cut some what we called more discretionary spending numbers to get it down to the 777000 number so we were able to offset some of those increases with splits shared savings savings that we found in the budget for next year couple items that weedy technically discretionary wanted to be a new case manager instructional specialist for about a hundred 13000 part of it we call it discretionary because we don't currently have it I would probably argue with anyone that it's more mandated tested his discretionary but if you look at their current it's loads of our current case managers they're carrying on average 19 kids her case manager if you look around the district to the other schools we are by far the highest caseloadpro case manager in the in the area this coupled with the fact that every one of those schools also has a special ed admin assistant to help support some of the admin functions we do not do our case managers are not only carrying feisty slowed in the area but also doing more admin work then other case managers in the area the other item that we are considering as discretionary in this budget is the mental health counselor you remember the position was added after the pandemic with some grant funding that grant funding has run out so we would like to keep the health counselor so we are moving that cost into the general fund for next year this is a look at our estimated revenues boats 77% our overall budget comes from tax funds the rest of that the rest of that 23% is broken out over various different either grants or funding from the state or government and we have preschool running about ten thousand Revenue coming in we are in a little bit on our investments every year school building aid from the state for 107,000 Medicaid for 5 we do get help with some of her special ed Koch from the 8 we're estimating that to be about 175,000 for next year the adequate education 84 about 950,000 State education tax of about I'm just over $1000000 and then our plan is 2nd year with an unassigned fund balance of about 350,000 and our intent is to return that to the taxpayers for next year next one anticipated tax impact for 2020 for 2025 again these are estimates of these race won't be set until early fall but we are we are estimating an overall tax increase of about a dollar six for the year dollars for that is coming from the local woke up with a community about $0.02 is coming from the swept essentially means is that for every hundred thousand dollars the tax for 2024 25:5 will be about a $1,132 warn increased about $104 if you take the app which home value in Grantham which is roughly $450,000 or estimated increase for the School portion of your taxes is about $468 next year this is assuming that we withdraw some funds from to trust funds this year to help offset unexpected costs that we have we have I received this year we're looking to withdraw 150,000 from our special ed fund and 100,000 from our secondary tuition fund if we do not end up drawing those funds down we obviously will not have the $350,000 on the sign fund balance to return to the taxpayers next year so that you would be looking at an increase of about $617 on the average home of 150000 this light is a just a sort of a visual representation of what the tax rate in Pakistan over last five years you will notice in 2022 there was a significant drop in the tax rate that was due to a town-wide reassessment of the tax base so obviously when your assessment your assessed value of your house go up your toy he's going to go down to compensate for that so that is the drop from $15.33 to $10.88 you can see the last two years that it has has climb back up a little bit Nancy thank you here we take a look at the number of Grants of students enrolled at CVS Lebanon Middle School in Lebanon High School 2019 20 school year we see the increased enrollment experience during the pandemic has remained consistent at this point it's article 3 any other business Comfortis thank you for thank you guys for attending this presentation it will run through this presentation again at the annual meeting but if anyone in the room or on Zoom has any questions or comments we would be happy to hear him Jeff Wyler 201 Walker Road I just had a question on the area agreement what's the expiration date of the the current area agreement we just signed one we just signed an extension or our new area agreement recent within the last couple years I can remember when I was on the board but it was a 10-year agreement I couldn't remember if only this another 10 year I think it was 21 so you would know yeah it's a 10-year agreement thank you we're not seeing any comments or questions on the zoom if there are any other questions are, from the room I will go ahead and close up with participation is it part of the public hearing and closed the public hearing for the school budget all right so we will move next into our next public hearing which is to public hearing to withdraw up to 150,000 from special education trust fund number 543 for unexpected special education costs I don't know what the board and we talked about this quite a bit in our board meetings at the board has any other, so you'd like to make at this time we will vote on our normal board meeting to to move ahead with us or not after the public hearings see no comments will open it up to the public comment portion I'm not seeing anyone on Zoom anything in the room thank you for saving us Brittany Brittany pie 3 Pinehurst Drive could you tell us what the Odell in that account in that trust fund has current balance is $324,550 Twitter comments on the withdrawal 150,000 from the special ed Bond we will move to our second item in the public hearing which is due would drop to $100,000 from the secondary to open trust fund number 551 for the purpose of the frame the cost of secondary tuition I sent you was since it was asked about the balance in the trust fund the current balance in that trust fund is 160 $1,451 any comments from the board again something else we've talked about sort of that links during this budget process not seeing any comments on Zoom any comments for the room Brittany pie again 3 Pinehurst Drive are the costs that we had this year things that we anticipate will we will see next year and are those built into the budget in a more realistic way for next year let's hope we have currently in the budget we have the full allocation of tuition kids that we expect to go into the area agreement watch two additional to add you to carry on any people that move in so we do have that built-in and this is just to help defray the cost for this year essentially we've had we know we might probably recall we always budgeted ahead for some extra and we're at a point where unanticipated this year we can actually sort of use what we've been like this cushion actually use it for its intended for and also for next year so for I guess for both of those I mean you're looking at pulling down almost half of one and over half of the other one is that is there any concern from the board that this might be a position that we would be in like next year and not have the balance to be a do that or is there thought about how we would go about building those funds back up yes I'm good I think do we are run the risk of having unanticipated costs that you're absolutely you know given the budget climate that were in and what we're looking at for increase cost cost for next year it really does dry it really is in my opinion the time to use these funds you do see any we're still coming in with a 7.2% increase while using these funds this year so we were looking at even a higher increase next year if we don't use them you know I would hope that future board so that when we do have future I signed balances would look to replenish those funds for your future rainy days but we will still be replenishing the secondary tuition trust when I was I was talking about before we're still budgeting for like the two cushion so you're sure drawing back the cushion that accumulated over a. Of time. Like using some of it and also planning to continue like building the cushion back up Belair 403 Walker Road given the increases in new residents and the increases in students at Grantham and the increases in students at the middle school in the high school levels compared to what was budgeted last year the numbers that came in since and that weren't budgeted for is allowed for two extra next year enough when I realize that you're you're we're really trying to keep the budget tight but is it realistic to only allow for two additional move-ins at that I got off the first light for myself I think it is I believe it provides us a little cushion for next year but also looking at the housing inventory in Grantham three or four houses on the market altogether so in a while we did see that huge you'll push it be at the end of pandemic is sort of flattened out for us a little bit partly do because there's no homes to buy so you know I hope is it's enough you never know if it is or not but you know I think providing that to register is that cushion and then if we are in a position where we get more people to move and y'all did that will be something we deal with next during the budget season great if there's no other comments or questions we will go ahead and close is public hearing a closed on the board will move into its normal board meeting first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda with one edition we need to actually have the approval of the agenda on our agenda so with the addition of approval of the agenda I take any comments more discussion around approval of the agenda modified sorry Brenda if there is no discussion I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended some of this motion from Leslie so I can checking for Jillian all those in favor say aye agenda is a fruit just a real person now that we have deposit entertainment we will open up the floor to public participation couple people on zoom and a couple people in the room Brittany pie 3 Pinehurst Drive I promise I will stop saying my name over and over again since I won't get to stay at during the meeting because I'll be at desks with the like hammer I'm sorry that you're doing meeting I wanted to just thank you guys and I wanted to thank you guys I know this has been a really difficult budget year and I think it's the board has faced such a variety of challenges in the last like 10 years and this is definitely by far been one of the hardest budget years I've seen the board go through and having watched the last meeting when you all were working on the budget I just wanted to thank you all for I think what we was a really thoughtful conversation and discussion and they are taking a really solid approach to the budget this year and I think heading into the annual meeting in there are almost no District I've heard about that are not dealing with some kind of absolutely wild budget year so I know there has been a lot of front-page coverage of districts that are bringing in budgets that are very much lower percentage than ours is but if you re look into the decisions that those districts had to make there's some really some things are going to have a really long lasting impact on those districts that have brought those numbers down in a way that I think they are going to find very painful in the future and I appreciate that you guys have walked that line between setting the district up to be successful moving into the future while also being aware of what that budget impact looks like for the taxpayer so I just wanted to say thank you I know that the budget is such a tricky thing you Wade through and a lot of like hard work goes into that so thank you all for that work nothing in the chat and no further comment in the room right we'll go ahead and close public participation the next item on our agenda is the administrative report starting with the superintendent report the report will have a short non-public at the end to discuss where we are with the special ed administrator review next up the business administrator report and unless anyone has any questions right and the principal report so I just want to highlight something that's in there but a huge congratulations to all of our participants in the spelling bee it's always amazing that they put themselves out there and they're so brave getting up in front of everyone and they did an amazing job and our runner-up was Rachel Cooper in our winter can hear it so congratulations to all of them Kristen I just thought it was so amazing that a third grader one and it just what an achievement for that young student that was exciting next up on the agenda is the withdrawal of up to 150,000 from the special education trust fund number 543 for unexpected special ed any further comments discussion from the border on that item hearing none I will entertain a motion to withdraw up to $150,000 from the special education trust fund number 543 or unexpected special ed cost some of you have a motion for Leslie S 2nd for Nancy and are we doing call or call Denise motion passes next item on our agenda is withdrawal of up to $100,000 from the secondary tuition fund number 551 for the perk defray the cost of secondary tuition any discussion or coming from the board entertain a motion to withdraw up to 150 a hundred thousand dollars from the secondary tuition trust fund number 5 add one the purpose of the frame cost of secondary tuition so moved we have a motion from Leslie and a second from Joe and this will be a roll call Denise Ocean passes next item on our agenda the motion to approve the 2020 for 2025 budget and a further discuss comments questions on that I just I just need a little clearer did this budget include the special ed assistant I'm secretarial work yes okay thank you Cummins not hearing any more entertaining motion to approve the 2024 or 2025 budget emotion from Leslie second from Nancy begin this will be a roll call Denise Joe and Nancy motion passes agenda motion to move the Articles to the any further discussion comments on that entertain a motion to move the Articles to the warrant motion I would entertain a motion to move article 12 the warrant motion from Leslie second from Denise another roll call Denise Joe and Nancy next I'd entertain a motion to move article to the operating budget to the warrant I got a motion from Jillian second from Leslie this will be another role call Denise Joanne Nancy and then the third motion accept the motion to move article three all of their business to the warrant we got to move from Nancy s from Leslie another roll call Denise Gillian Nancy Leslie Eddie's I all three articles and move to the wart so outside of the public hearing tonight this is the item on the agenda that I am most excited to have a discussion and action it is the nomination of Lisa Walker as superintendent of the Grantham Village School District 75 any discussions from the board any comments the only thing I will say is oh. Upper Darby yeah I'll Echo that Echo that in the conversations that I have had with her also an amazing thank you and with so much gratitude to the nominee to the superintendent search committee now that was a committee I was on last year I have a sense of just how much time effort is put into that you do for the people that did it for the second time this year thank you thank you thank you I have heard nothing but rave reviews about how the process went the team seems to have fantastic team to work with and I don't think we could be happier with the with the choice that came out of that committee so again thank you very much for all the time and effort that the entire committee put in hearing no other comments or discussion I would entertain a motion to nominate Lisa Wu Walker as superintendent of SAU 75 and this can just be a roll, just a voice mail right all those in favor High we have ourselves a superintendent thank you on our agenda is the to accept the unattested unanticipated food service rep USA supply chain system Grant board has that in their packet I'm a little over $10,000 we just need any discussion around any questions around and then a motion to accept it obviously Carrie no questions or any questions or comments on it I would entertain a motion to accept the Food Service revenue from the USA supply chain assistant Grant motion from Leslie second from Denise all those in favor Mission passes and then the last item is not so much we don't need any action on it but just the acknowledgement of an an anonymous gift that community I provided Grantham School District information of that gift is in your packet you know that the donor has asked to remain anonymous so we will certainly honor that but any questions or further discussion points I personally think it's just another great example of how the community supports our education system in our school and you know we are we are thrilled with the donation thank you very much I'll be great next item is our consent agenda is in the board packet any questions comments concerns with the consent agenda sharing none I would ever the motion to accept the consent agenda as presented motion from Leslie second from Nancy all those in favor I was supposed to send Jenn passes next up is our second round of public participation for the evening we will take a look at zoom and see if there are any comments there anyone in the room with me I just paid it all nothing on the chat they're perfect bright not seeing anything in the chat room and not hearing anything in the room I will close public participation for the evening I forgot my piece of paper Denise again so I do I understand we do have a non-public today okay and what are we Thunder okay so we will go into non-public under RS a 91-1000 32e entertain a motion to go what I will entertain a motion to go into non-public under RS a 91-83 2E ocean from Leslie second from Jillian this will be a roll call Denise

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Grantham School Board February meeting/Trust Funds Withdrawal Hearing, Tues. Feb. 6, 2024

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