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Grantham School District 2024 Annual Meeting

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Grantham School District 2024 Annual Meeting Article 2, school budget, passes with unanimous voice vote.

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we're going to go ahead and get started got it all right so I called its annual meeting of the Grantham School District to order at 6:33 thank you for all coming tonight I am your school district moderator Brittany pie I am honored to be moderated my first annual meeting here and grab them thank you so to begin the meeting we will review the annual meeting rules that are printed on page 16 the annual report so no article may be brought up for reconsideration unless it is brought up immediately after the vote has been determined and announced passing over an article is not in the spirit of the meeting and will be ruled out of order will be seated on the main floor and in the Spencer bleachers non-voters will be seated in the side sections of the bleachers non-voters who are not officers of the school district may be allowed to address the meeting only if the meeting votes to permit it whenever a voter wishes to speak he or she will address the moderator and identify her herself or himself the moderator will conduct a secret yes no ballot give me 17 or more voters question any non valid immediately after the vote is declared and before any business is conducted all proposed amendments to articles will be submitted in writing to the moderator prior to the vote of the amendment right and so hopefully everyone has chance to review the rules register if you are a registered voter with our supervisors of the checklist we will begin with article one article one states to hear reports of Agents committees and other officers here too Chosen and surpassed any V relating thereto do I have a motion with respect to article one so moved from jelly and Belmont do I have a s s a s from Nancy article standard article that allows the public to hear reports from Agents committees and officers there are reports published in the school district's annual report which you can review I will now turn things over to our school board for a brief presentation in regards to Article 1 before we jump into the reports I just like the Opera thank you out to the community for the support that they've shown the school district over the many years that we've been here the staff has been a challenging year because you'll see as we go through this budget presentation is also challenging budget that we know the board is spent a lot of time and the staff has been a lot of time tweaking and trying to get to a reasonable number in and with that oh turn it over to Denise so I'd like to open up with this site and if you can't see I apologize for weed but if you can see at least you'll know what it says but we want to express our gratitude to all the members of this community because this is what takes what it takes to have the success that we here have here at Grant Village school so we would like to thank our parents Guardians who communicate collaborate appreciate understanding and support our amazing staff will continue to build resilience while inspiring our children to learn and just not our community members who support us financially really emotionally and with a commitment to transparent inform decision-making so we are very grateful and we thank you all I would like to just let this slide just highlight a few things that you may or may not you aware of if you have children in school you certainly are but if you if you don't at this time in addition to all of the academic programs at Princeton Village School has done some amazing programs with our staff and students and one of them is the letters program which is a literacy program that is it is involved Christian I'm going to get this wrong because there are 18 months and 18 week on find programs depending on who the staff member is is that correct so our teachers who are participating in this program are part of an 18-month long online and this is all based in the science of literacy all here to help our children to be the best readers and literary students it that they can be and this is a voluntary program I believe gets we have 67% of our teachers are part of this program both of our into Vape interventionist three administrators one special education teacher in for educators educators about the impact of that has on our students and this is all volunteer beyond the regular hours of the classroom and we're very grateful I'm also the pass program this is a program that is about social a emotional learning support for our kids and as we see anxieties increase among our populations you can see that there is so much more need for this kind of support with our children and these programs focus on things like self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision-making so not only are kids working on academics but they are working I'm being the best people that they can be with the support of our staff we also have this year instruction curriculum instruction and assessment coordinator that we share with Plainfield and corn and this person is just so Dynamic and brings amazing things to our our schools are three schools in addition to some wonderful staff development for our staff the next few slides are reflections of the GDs student measures on State Testing the SAS testing here is the percent for fishing on reading and writing measures you can see the green bars GVS are is the state actual average and the Graybar is State Target can see that the Grantham Village School are far exceeding supposed to stay after old and Target even with a little dip depend on my phone around it and are back where we were before next slide similar comparison on the mathematics test testing and even more so than reading and writing our students are on Far exceeding both state actual Target Martin's are rebounded nicely from the pandemics and are doing really really well and again who knows go to our incredible staff and parents slideshows the science I do want to note that in comparison to the LA and math science were the only test our fifth grade so that's a smaller cohort so that's where you'll see a little bit of variation from year to year, it's important to know the GPS remains consistently of the state average is her as well next time some updates on the playground so the playground was opened in November with the exception of the Jungle dome which cave in January condition of the sledding hill our children are extremely happy with this and if you are lucky enough to have children in GPS schools they may be coming home Brown like my children because of the mud but they are still enjoying this the remaining civil work is to be completed in the spring of 2024 as we know it needs to be warm enough to pour concrete for the slide and the climbing wall and complete grading of the field Paving and the grass growing which is probably going to take some time okay so we won't open the floor for any comments or feedback regarding article one if you would like to see please step up to the microphone and we would ask that you state your name and address for the record before your comments hey seen none I will call Voice vote regarding Article 1 all those in favor of adopting article one please say I all those opposed to adopting article one please say night article one is approved by Voice vote and so declare hey we will move on to article to the main operating budget article two states to see if the school district will vote to raise an appropriate the amount of 11571000 $6 for the support of school for the payment of salaries of school district officials and agents and for the payment of the statutory obligations of the district and to authorize the application against appropriations of such sums as are estimated to be received from state and federal together with other income the balance to be raised by taxation by the school district this article does not include Appropriations contained in special or individual articles addressed separately this article is recommended by the school board and a majority vote is required do I have a motion with respect to article to emotion from Leslie do I have a second second operating budget over to the school board for their presentation so the first slide we're showing here is just a financial overview over 20 23 2024 budget and what we're proposing for 2020 Ford 2025 / it's an increase of 7.2% if you look at just the general fund is an increase of 7.29% year-over-year and as we go through some of these increases are Aurelia the next slide is just a pie chart of a breakdown of how that 11 million dollar budget is allocated across our school 77% of our budget goes to text services to kids the remaining go to facilities are bonding cost transportation to get kids to and from school percentage of of the overall operating that's going to rectally to services so really the main driver of these this budget this year are really mandated increases that we are experiencing and why you can see we've broken out some of the much larger mandated expenses we have our contractual salaries expenses our CPA with our staff on that stuff about 170,000 year-over-year health insurance health insurance is up 20% year over year for us Dental 4.7% so that's just under a hundred 34,000 of an increase that were seeing compared to this area area graduation is about 113000 year-over-year school district special education is up for turn 56 thousand again mandated expenses that we need to offer we are seeing an increase in that obviously coming out of the pandemic you know there was an expectation that he serve TriCity we had a 2-year contract that tired the past year and so our rates could jump up we do understand the town is looking at a eqt power that maybe something the board and school can join them join in and have a little bit of savings we also have the opportunity to renegotiate some contracts in their current provider and see if we reduced at this point there wasn't enough information to feel comfortable putting those reductions in the budget so we we left it at what we're currently playing this year save a little bit but unfortunately if you look at these numbers it is one of the smaller esol is increase year-over-year that totals just shy of 927000 and mandated increases that we have in our budget for 2020 for 2025 the next light I think is probably my favorite slide and in terms of it shows that even with and we have an increase of about $777,000 are mandated increases our hundred or $926,000 so the other board staff with their budgets have the name really trim about $150,000 in additional cost to bring down that mandated expensive 926 to an overall increase of 7 say thank you to all the staff and you're older all the Departments that put in their budgets and in really spend a lot of time trying to get the most realistic and Frugal budget they possibly could the next slide shows some discretionary budget items or items in the budget we are proposing an additional case manager structure total cost with benefits and everything is just over a hundred thirteen thousand if you look at the chart below you can see average caseloads GPS has the highest case law her case manager in the area and our case managers and structural specialist are doing this without any kind of administrative support or admin support which the other districts all have special way. Delsym with a function so not only are our special educator is carrying the highest caseload in the area but they're also doing more Ministry of works on top of that as well if people remember a few years ago we added the mental health counselor funds the notes of run out the school still into the operating budget this year reply to Corey categorize it is not mandated by the board really feel the overall if you look at essentially cost that are considered non-mandated we're looking at about $150,000 and in this budget this next slide just goes through some of the estimated Revenue maybe I'm not going to go through each one of these lines but I think the takeaway here is the our non-tax revenue is 2.6 million dollars which leaves us just under 9 million dollars to fund the school through our tax dollars to school is heavily funded through our tax dollars so we are when we do see these increases that the taxpayers obviously are putting a high percentage of that the next slide is the anticipated tax impact for 2024 and 2025 it's broken down into three stacks two pieces we got that the local school tax or showing an increase of a dollar for $4,000 of assessment swept tax is $0.02 increase $4,000 assessment which overall comes to the total education tax of a dollar six and if we go to the next slide just to sort of put that in real terms the average house value in Grantham is about more than $50,000 actually went through this should know it is if people were you the budget hearing last February over here for that the board did make the decisions Rob hunt some of our trust funds special education in area tuition funds to offset some unexpected costs this year which will be able then to return more money back to the taxpayers so when you go and with those drawers that we need the board did approve in February the estimated increase on $450,000 houses in $68 if the board had not tell you to drop on those funds especially in the area of secondary tuition funds we would have been looking at it the next slide is just a circle look at the five-year tax rate impact and it's worth noting that in 2022 I'm sure most people remember Grantham had a reassessment so anytime you have a reassessment your tax rates will be adjusted based on that reassessment so that a drop from $15.33 down to 1088 is the reflection of the reassessment values in the and then looking for 2020 to 2024 you can see the sort of the the tax rate increases that that Grantham has seen and then 2024 obviously is what we are proposing for next year I'll turn it up this graph indicates the number of Grantham students enrolled at CVS Lebanon middle and high school since its 2019 2020 school year we see the increased enrollment levels experienced during the pandemic thank you thank you to the board for your presentation will now open the floor for any feedback discussion or questions again please come up to the microphone if you would like to make comments and state your name and address for the record and when you get to the microphone they left turn it on right there's a big button on the bottom of it push that button once it turns green you can go ahead and talk Gloria 338 Brookridge Drive a question about the revenue sheet individual if there's a lot of decreases you know getting down $34,565 from other revenue is that are those definite numbers or is this something that could come during the year that we don't know about yet they're not set in stone at the moment they could possibly change but at this point this is our best estimate of what they're going to be I'll just keep pressing on then also on that sheet B before and after school programs dropped 11500. I'm not familiar with the program so is this like we're not doing the program anymore what's the reason for this the decrease in Revenue there is we're not actually housing it on anymore so we have we we've moved at 2 creative credit cards is housing that program so as long as it has been backed out of that so the expenses were also been backed out taken out of the budget a budget neutral program could you explain a little bit more about the increase in special education please the 400 million it really is it an increased in mandated services that we are required to provide to our population you know when when kids are identified that that have needs from for special education that we're just seeing an increase in that I can't get into a ton of details on what they are but yeah we are seeing a higher need for special education which is driving that driving the number and my final question goes to the enrollment trends Grantham Village school and you're looking at 271 kids for next year I know that's an estimate but what is the capacity of the school and what are we looking at for for that correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's a little over 300 at CVS here for a capacity so I think we're comfortable younger that at the moment but as you can tell we have been picking up you know after the pandemic thank you very much Ryan Sullivan 642 Old Farms Road and I'm also that your estate rap representing Grantham and only Grantham and I just want to acknowledge the fact that this budget increases substantial but the largest drivers of this increase our special ed and the tuition largely out of the control of the of the school district in so I think that's an important to recognize the other thing that's important to recognize is that the burden on the real pay taxes are result of the state not doing his job is your State Rep I pledged to do everything I can to make sure that the state steps up and fulfills it's job in providing the funding to school districts across the state have seen in a court decision that almost doubled the amount of money that's supposed to be coming from the state to the talents and there has been some efforts in the advice later this term they're underway not done but there been some efforts to increase the funding and not nearly as much as we need to bust a move in the right direction and I just want to acknowledge put the burden on real estate taxes is largely the responsibility of the state to take care of its responsibility so thank you so see no further discussion I will call for a Voice vote regarding Circle to all those in favor of adopting an article to please say I all those opposed to adopting article to please say nay Article 2 is approved by Voice vote and so declare the article 3 article 3 is to transact any further business to come before this annual meeting do I have a motion in with respect to article 3 so moved do I have a s s s for Leslie Knope I will open the floor for discussion of article 3 if I remind everyone here that the election for school district officers will be held Tuesday March 12th so a week from today at the Grantham Town Hall 310 South in Grantham New Hampshire the polls will be from 10 a.m. till 7 p.m. and I will now turn the discussion for article 3 over to the board for any other business I believe I'm next on the docket I would like to take a brief moment to acknowledge and abs and service to the Grantham School Board don't worry out of muffin cry this year edjoin the board in April 2021 when I think back to what we were all facing feels well amazing that anyone would be willing to leave into that particular Friday but to me that is to edit is and how he has served this guy is compassion and professionalism Financial Acumen and thoughtful engagement Isabella need to bring a balanced perspective as powerful and impactful as we navigated through the effects of the pandemic on our schools and our community disability is why we chose and to leave the boy just last year and I'm so grateful for his leadership most of all I value ads transparency and all of the times when he spoke his mind especially when he knew it might be less popular or easy to take his approach has proved ballast on a model for good stewardship of often challenging circumstances that impact us all and you will be missed tremendously we are deeply grateful for your service I'm going to go get for you that we can't have you and I'm not much for public speaking so I hopefully I have I know I've learned as much if not more than I am brought to the board so it's been a great three years and I'm excited for where we are going in the future and the future bored so thank you very much do we have any other business to transact or this meeting under article 3 oh okay yes dr. C I got a couple months left and I just wanted to tell you it's been a real joy to be in Grantham you got something really special going on here you get a lot of special people working for you and you got a great school and emails come into Lebanon is going to be Improvement there she's going to look at the issues that have been going in the air agreement but I want introduce do you a very good friend of mine Lisa Walker is going to be your new superintendent I did her marriage I actually did her wedding and she is a quality human being she loves children and she's going to do a great job as your real superintendent but I've really had a good time being there in a Roman you got a great thing so I can embarrass the heck out of here you go thank you doctor see and thank you to the board and the community I'm excited to be here being a shared wonderful things I'm good friends with Sydney like it as well and I've also only heard wonderful things I'm very much looking forward to hitting the ground running so thank you do we have any other additional business all right for the discussion I will ask for a motion to adjourn the annual meeting from the crowd Lori mcclory do we have a second all right all those in favor of a journey in our annual meeting please say I all those opposed to adjourn in the end the motion is approved and so declare the meeting is adjourned at 7:04 thank you

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Grantham School District 2024 Annual Meeting

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