two thousand and seventeen annual meeting and your town meeting for the town of belmont order let's arise for the pledge of allegiance ok one moment please all right go ahead and this is the attendance check thank you ok thank you and terms of admission to the floor but one addition is bridgette or who is the actuary for the retirement board and any other requests we've met all the department heads and staff and so forth earlier all right thank you and with unanimous consent of town meeting members i will ask the town clerk to read only the return of the warrant helen good evening everyone town clerk's official bulletin boards in the town hall in at least five other places in town giving notice at the annual town meeting had not been completed and had been adjourned to meet again today wednesday june seven two thousand and seventeen at the belmont moment thank you on just a couple of primaries this i hope we all do and it should be the final night of town meeting barring any major hiccup i would ask once again for presenters and town meeting members to be concise i appreciate the fact that these presenters the other night held to the time limit and i hope that will be true tonight as well will begin with article eighteen and then turn to the voting on the budget we article by item by item and we heard the presentation of course of mr epstein the other night so we'll go right thank you mr moderator jim lehrer selectman chairman of the board of selectmen in ten meeting member at large moved that the ten meeting here the motions in the following order one eighteen thirteen twenty do so but we also asked ellen to send no it don't link to the library website so you have the form report of the feasibility study as well as the supporting materials so i encourage you to use that following on from what we heard macone the other night and my job is to talk about facts and figures and i hope that at the end of this i can make you a believer tim so with that facts and figures i think you've seen  from programs sixty five percent of our community has a library card we average about a thousand unique visitors a day eleven circulating library in the country are in the cut almost in the country in a comm feasibility study two years ago this community this town meeting appointed the feasibility study it was targeted to cost ninety thousand we came in at forty thousand and we've completed that work in two thousand and fifteen the library under took a long range plan which is the street strategic focus on programs and services we completed that work and use that as a key endpoint to diffuse ability study that we began in january of two thousand and sixteen or february and completed and that's where in the bottom of the chart you'll see a schematic so color scheme will come back to that later on those are elements of the building program and each color signifying a certain next the committee so we had a great group of dedicated engaged folks representing all walks of the community these are folks that you can reach out to after you have questions because they're the ones who sat through  evaluation tad the discussion so encourage you to use those photos we evaluated three options all on the existing site the site works very well for the library it's right in the center access to our school and we looked at renovation of the building renovation edition as well as new construction how do we do that we had a lot of public employees lot of engagement from different constituents in the town different departments met with many people had three public forums had a design be the architect that we had with the children and you'll see one of the quotes later on one of the participants said i don't care what you do with the new library we just need a draft so do our best we had teen focus groups and also a town wind survey to collect in point and you see on the right of the slide some of the quotes and impose that we got through the public forums public forums so what did we hear to no surprise people are really looking for improvements in the children's room they're really looking for expand and science services hours they're looking for more comfortable seating they're looking for open space they're looking for quiet study rooms they're looking for an elevator that works that accommodates wheelchair they're looking for better bathrooms if you've ever been in the current bathrooms they're horrible looking for more parking looking for more self check out so certainly lots of  needs so what do we do we took this forward and as you can see and again you can you can look on line and get a sense for this but this is the color scheme i was speaking about so we took that employed and we  what does that mean from the square footage so what do you need in terms of a children's program when you're looking for periodicals what you see going left to right is to program so based on the input that we got what do we think the square footage is that we need what do we have in the existing facility what would we have with the renovation and new construction so a couple things to highlight here we think we need a building about the size of thirty eight thirty eight thousand square feet the current building has twenty nine thousand and change if were to go with the renovation only we would actually have latched usable space because we have to upgrade to the seismic code so i'd have to build out the walls and the usable space and on the inside renovation addition comes in an almost forty six thousand square feet prior building programs came and at about that same level and we very clearly heard from the community that we got was t alarmed so we did factor that and we looked really at what the needs and the wants are and try to come to a balanced decision so what does that mean in terms of cost you know building costs are high renovation without  addition runs at about sixteen million dollars renovation plus addition that is close to a little under twenty five million in about twenty three for four new construction different consideration if we were to do a renovation only we know that that won't meet our building needs it's smaller than what we have today one of the things you'll see on the website is a structural engineer report which basically says that the existing building is a poor candidate for for renovation we have issues with the speed with the roof the walls and the floor is not designed to carry the book load that we have renovation addition again we looked at not only cost of construction but try to start to look at directionally cost to operate on an ongoing basis both from an energy efficiency and from a staffing standpoint so with the renovation addition hardball you know the brick walls to your sight lines aren't as approved likely more expensive to staff and would would have a mix in terms of  and not new construction new can new construction obviously you get to design if you want new systems new infrastructure give you the best value in terms of energy efficiency and design and layout a couple of other considerations on the  line so renovation as we talked about undersized not a good candidate for renovation would require us to eliminate about a third of our book collection there are many of us myself included who still life a paper book so so so it's a real real compromises that would have to face renovation and addition oversized more expensive and have so least optimal layout based on what we heard from the report do encourage you to take a look at it one hundred fifty pages there's a lot of information there these are very high level sketches and schematics much work to be done in terms of going forward really i think as you heard  from the other night we're committed to partnering with the town with the major capital works program and to to understand where the library falls there are some very significant needs of the library building it's one of the oldest buildings in town we talked about have only used by the public so it's a matter of not not if but when we will be forced to have some significant investment and but again will wait for that for the report in the fall we would like to  unparallel talked about schematic design which we have an opportunity to do private and public partnership in terms of fund raising the belmont library foundation has raised funds in the past has over a million dollars today that we could put towards the cost of the new building construction costs go up about a million dollars every year beyond two thousand and nine so we think a real opportunity for us to private fundraising and as a contribution towards the overall cost we're eager to move forward and do the right thing for the community and to continue to build out and serve the community with the library that you so thank you very much for having me thank you mr moderator we're brownsburg or state senator it is for me coming back to the spot i just always struck by the enormous capacity in public spirited energy in this room and always feel like it's truly the foundation of what makes american civic civic life as good as it is about about sometime in november really little before november last year i decided i really should be entirely out of the business of making predictions about anything but i do have a few thoughts to offer you that fall in the vein of predictions and hope were somewhat useful first i understand you had a good presentation from dave rodgers about the budget on monday which i have had the opportunity to review the slides and they' slides that give a good overview of what's going on we are the the interesting thing right now is that the state budget that we have that we assembled both the house and senate have passed their drafts were based on revenue assumptions from january which we now know are not are not accurate to the tune of roughly half a billion dollars so that creates a great cloud of uncertainty over many of the details of the budget but what i  prediction first that i want to offer you is that you could be fine in terms of local aid the legislature is extremely committed to supporting local aid because we in fact recognize that you at the local level have responsibility for some of the most important institutions in the state local schools local police local fire local public health and public works what makes the state run and the that part of the budget it's not on the table for modification really there's a negotiation about some of the major the some of the differences in a few of the accounts but that's not something that's on the table for getting jobs so you should feel safe as you move forward in the budget deal that deliberations tonight indeed one of the other as a legislator one the areas that i found that people i do have a local concern about many of the things we do at the state level are not of great local concern they're sort of statewide significance but they're not a great local concern but one of the things that i do get to be involved with and state state local is the issue of transportation and one prediction there and we went things i thought to do is to get a bigger better long term picture of how our transportation demand is going to compared to our transportation capacity and that study was completed a few weeks ago after a few a few years of work and the short answer is it's going to get more and more congested and that's that's another prediction for you because demand as regional demand for moving around is likely to continue to rise for the next for the forseeable future one thing that i think we can be so i'm as a legislator and as a advocate i'm very concerned about addressing that problem of congestion as it relates to the neighborhoods that i serve and one project which i think is exciting which has been on the on the drawing board and is moving moving forward is addressing that huge intersection at the front fresh pond a modern street which is for those of you who commute into harvard square by bus is a major major bottleneck and that's an area where we hope to make some some significant progress over the that everybody one or other all these engineers said we could do this we could do that and i was expecting the room to go yeah we already tried that it's not going to work and nobody said that so it's clear there's a whole lot of ways to improve that intersection it just hasn't been addressed in a few decades and so that's there's going to be some improvements there over the next few years and that's that's something i'm very committed to staying focused on when i was before you a couple of years ago not a couple years ago last year around this time i brought forward a controversial issue which is  raised some concerns among my friends about where that was headed the bill did not we did we did pass a bill in the senate but i have to say it was not a very fully negotiated bill i think it was kind of an aspirational bill with many features that were needed work and it died did not go further did not was not taken up by the house i've inquired as to whether people expect to try to work on that bill again this year the answer is yes but what the assurances i'm hearing from people is that they're going to try to take a different approach and really address upfront some of the concerns that came out at the tail end of that process this year so i don't know how far that's going to go but i but i think  i'm hopeful that if it does move forward we'll have something that comes closer to being a consensus product if i may mr wagner and i'd like to quickly ask for a show of hands as to how many people have noticed the volume of air traffic at traffic over the past drives planes to fly in the northwest or actually because they have their northwest winds they have to fly in that direction to some runway closures at logan logan is undergoing some construction and they're kind of ripping the band aid off and disrupting a lot of things but by the end of june things should start to settle back down and three there is this change in the way the f a a flies planes they used to sort of send them off from the airport and let them fly in whatever direction and that led to the kind of phenomenon of you know you  you take off you go to la guardia and then takes a forty five minute circling around the land they don't do that anymore the system is a lot better they know where the planes are going but what the consequence of that is is if there are certain routes in the sky that if you happen to live underneath them you're going to get a lot of traffic because the planes just all fly the same route and it's very predictable and they're just going over your head one after another if you happen to live in belmont or watertown or aren't in right now during a certain things so a couple of statements about where that's going to be this is this is a federal issue catherine clarke's been involved all your local flight pattern which is something they've been rolling out nationally it's been the subject of litigation nationally there's all kinds of lawsuits all over the country about this by the neighborhoods like ours that have problems we have great leadership in this town and may not be here tonight but byron's byron's been doing a the year this year just as the construction finishes and so forth and that's so on our year round basis we should expect to have busy weeks like this about ten weeks a year not fifty weeks a year ten weeks a year you'll see planes coming over so a lot of time we won't notice it'll be in the winter in the windows are closed but there will be a couple of weeks typically in the summer where we have the phenomenon we had last week but in the long run there is some hope of slightly some noise reduction and that's the hope that we have is really is the result of legislature is grapple with touching up the voter past marijuana legalization and the prediction i'm going to make about that is that it is not going to change dramatically the signal that i think  or guiding the committee is working on that is let's respect the will of the voters number one number two let's make sure that we what we do does accomplish the goal of killing the black market or marijuana which and part two parts of that don't tax it too high and too don't make it too difficult to site to site facilities so the provisions that are in the law are not going to change too much in the direction of giving communities more ability to just say no to having any facilities in their in their area last thing i want to do is say congratulations to you all for adopting your welcoming town resolution last in your last meeting  thanks i think that was wise we the feedback i've gotten i've talked to a lot of police chiefs around the state about this major city police chiefs all endorse the kind of measure that you took last week and it sends a very good signal it's going to be we the legislature have corresponding legislation that is going to be difficult for us to pass on a statewide basis but so the community action that you took last week last meeting was was very positive i congratulate you again for it and as always i'm here to serve an amiga to hear from you and i really mean that so you know where to reach me thank you for having me tonight good evening everyone thank you mr moderator i've lisa fiore chairperson of the school committee town meeting member at large article eighteen authorisation to establish a special education reserve fund moved that the town will vote pursu to general law chapter forty section thirteen to establish a reserve fund to be utilized in the upcoming fiscal years to pay without further appropriation for unanticipated or unbudgeted costs of special education out of there was some question about this one abstention that kept recurring in let me just explain that it was all of these cases like when williams who is a voting member of the war committee but chose to abstain because the board of selectmen had not voted at the time the work com was meeting great thank you for that explanation mr failing on the presentation on article eighteen thank you as a moderator john failed superintendent of schools before i seven last years a junior when he hosted the senior awards as a junior class officer devon is going to the university of michigan he's a class president of the class of two thousand and seventy eight belmont high and during his speech at i'll let you know now i have no instruments up here for you we are establishing a special education reserve fund that is part of the modernization act to provide that was signed by the governor in august of two thousand and sixteen to meet for goals eliminate update obsolete laws promote local independence and wine municipal interactions with the state and more importantly provide mini greater flexibility to do their jobs on a day to day basis we're providing you the text that i will not read this will be available online for you to take a look at we feel that this reserve fund will provide the school department in the town great flexibility in safety in their budget for the out of district tuitions and special education lines in our budget that tend to be one of our big of biggest variables in our budget the highlights are that we have to establish this by a vote of the school committee the  to be used to pay for extraordinary special education out of district transportation in tuition costs and most importantly the release of these funds to pay for these expenses would be authorized by board of the school committee and the board of select how is the spread reserve fund different from the special ed stabilization fund that we already have the special education stabilization fund which right now does not have any funding in it takes a vote of town meeting and town meeting does not meet until may or june of each year and when our special education costs rise early in our academic year it causes us to freeze our budget when we need to spend those funds on the classroom and we ultimately prevail when we asked town meeting for money which we truly appreciate in the two years ago that was a take a sum of almost five hundred thousand dollars but by the time we received that five hundred thousand dollars we had to reduce the funding for a lot of other things in our district that went into the classroom this fund allows us to be able to go to the board of selectmen the school committee without having to call a town meeting to access those funds if needed throughout the school year so that's the major difference between the two  the massachusetts department of elementary and secondary education provided guidance on creating this fun and what we're asking tonight and all we're asking to do this fiscal year fiscal seventeen is to establish the fund with  per the department's gardens and also to create a line in the school budget that has a zero balance to eventually use as a mechanism to allocate funds towards this special ed reserve we're not looking for money right now we're just looking to establish the  this vote tonight in the vote that was taken by the school committee at our law school committee meeting are putting in place the fundamental mechanisms to be able to use this discount in the future the belmore school committee and school department are recommending in requesting a positive vote from town meeting to create the spread reserve fund and if the sped reserve fund is approved by tom meeting tonight the town the school committee in the school department will need to identify funding for the account including when to fund it what initial amount will be funded and from what sources will the account be for initially funded from so we put on taking on those questions during the fiscal eighteen budget year gammell jim gamble is when it comes to the microphone jim is chair of the school subcommittee education subcommittee of the warrant committee and he requested permission to speak he's going to talk of believe about the funding for this but i want to be clear at the outset that the only action a town meeting tonight is the creation of the fun not the funding itself so we're not going to get into a debate about  about the funding that would be the high school mr gammell yes my name is jim gamble i'm a town meeting member from precinct two and i'm really speaking to you as a town tonight meeting member i am strongly in favor of creating and using a special education reserve fund this is about keeping a financial cushion for the unexpected costs of special education first recognize that that the purpose of a budget is to project what cost might be but sometimes the actual costs realize our are different from the budget projections in the case of special education we all recognize that having a financial cushion to help  cost is a good thing this article is is is about how such a cushion should be set up and what should be the policy for maintaining it if this article passes the school committee will have a separate complimentary account the special education reserve fund to hold part of its cushion in addition to its existing circuit breaker account the circuit breaker account is available to the school administration to access as it sees fit in contrast the special education reserve fund will be a segregated account in its funds are available to the school administration only after a favorable vote by the school committee and the board of selectmen so far the school committee the board of selectmen and the warrant committee have not taken a position on what should be the policy for allocating funds between these two types of accounts but there are at least two people here the superintendent and myself who have thought long and hard about it we don't agree but we both recognize the legitimacy of each other's point of view the superintendent in his televised remarks to the warrant committee on may tenth spoke in favor of maximum f school administration by keeping funds in him of the circuit breaker count i on the other hand prefer that the circuit breaker count serve as a first line of question with two hundred to three hundred thousand dollars readily available but after that the reserves should be kept it should be kept segregated in in this new type of a fund both the superintendent and i foresee the chance that if the desired funds were in the reserve fund that he may have to answer questions from the school committee or brood of selectmen about whether there are other funds available to cover these these these costs the difference between a bit between the two of us is is is that i would welcome that conversation while the superintendent said he would rather not have it and to be fair if i had his a job i would probably feel feel feel feel the same way but i am a town meeting member and i am in favor of talking about this when the unexpected costs of special education are high this new fund lets us have this conversation with a true town wide perspective as represented by the board of selectmen to put some actual numbers on this issue is school district is projected to end this year with about a seven hundred thousand dollars balance in its circuit breaker county my preference is that two to three hundred thousand dollars stay there in four to five hundred thousand be transferred to this new fund frankly if the school budget had had just a two hundred thousand dollars transfer i probably would have been quite on on on on this topic on tonight but instead it is zero but with a with the real pledge by by the school school committee members to hold a policy discussion later to this year i look forward to this does discussion both at the school committee and in to the board of selectmen to my fellow town meeting members i urge you to discussion on the motion under article eighteen story crystal precinct when this seems like a terrific idea so thank you for implementing it i noticed that there is a maximum of a million dollars that could be in the fund if i saw the slide correctly and so i'm wondering maybe this is kind of pie in the sky but are we allowed if we have this fund and it reaches its max and then there's access additional funds available are we still allowed to utilize the the spread fund that we've had so far to put additional funds into if you understand what i mean understanding that that's far less preferable because it requires a vote of town meeting but i'm wondering whether we can put excess funds above the million dollar limit into the other fund mr f flexibility governs the sense that discussions of the school committee and the boards like it would be needed to use this money but in terms of flexibility not having to go to town meeting once or twice a year and getting into thirds vote if the money is needed for many reasons mention it allows  on and safety nets for when we don't hit our budget and we exceed budget costs finally i've had a lot of discussion with individuals on this and one thing that came up is sort of having more visibility into the details special education budget because it's such a high percentage of of the budget and i've noticed in towns in lexington there's a subsection within the budget and within the financials that shows the special education out of district spending across all of the different ways of paying for it so  have is could we look to incorporate that similar to what we see on in the work committee on page forty two but in the budget and in the financials so we can just have greater visibility and understand why we why mess and why the monies might be needed thank you thank you cities and towns for money spent on the previous year special education costs there are three different mechanisms to pay for special education in the district one is the i d e a federal grant that's a federal grant for special education the second a circuit breaker funds it's a reimbursement state funding mechanism and then there's our general fund those are the three pieces that make up the funding sources for that that expense line item so each year we spend a certain percentage of those funds towards that and we use a circuit breaker money not going to pay those bills in the year that we're in but the state says that you should actually hold some in preparation for the next year so circuit breaker funds are not funds that can be deposited anywhere else they can even be deposited into this account school committee budget they might give us a whole line item of all things they want to do with the budget but once we say yes to the total amount they can reorder that any way they want i'm  is are we are we are we sure that we're expanding the special education funds on special education and how does that impact the general fund you know the the education fund that we're there we vote is a town meeting we vote for your budget it has a total thank you well well first things first we're asking tonight for folks to start the account it's recommended by governor baker in the state we're not asking for any funding for that account we've already taken the next step of putting a line item in our budget that has zero money in it to prepare for next year's discussion about how we want to fund it where the funds will come from and how much money will go in it to jim dmoz point that is a dialogue that we will all have next year it's been a dialogue that we've actually been having this year about whether or not fund should be allocated this year and it's a patient of f y eighteen so we and i personally feel that the school department has been very transparent and very responsible and efficient with the funding that we receive each year from the town and from the state and from the federal government and we have a couple of slides that will show that in the in the budget presentation to heard the answer if next year in next year's budget town meeting approves the budget that has pick a number of four hundred thousand dollars line item in it for this reserve a the school committee in the school administration obligated to put that four hundred thousand in there were could they subsequently say you know what we had more teacher cost than we expected we had four hundred thousand in our budget but guess what we weren't able to put that into the reserve fund after all it's a family judge failed to consider the schools this is a brand new town meeting article that's being recognized in adopted in some actually miss powers are putting it off until they can figure it out a little better so i'm not letting you know that i know all the answers to how this this this economy will work in the future i can only say that as soon as the budget is allocated and we do have a bottom line  policy in the school department which is different from other departments that once the money goes into that reserve fund the only way it can get out is with a vote of the school committee in the board of selectmen so i assume that we have to put in a wind of the school department budget which would then put it on track to be allocated into the reserve fund once it's allocated to the reserve fund it can only come out with a vote of the school committee and the board of selectmen right thank you thank you mr vaile any further discussion saying not all those in favor please say i was opposed no the motion is adopted we now turn to article thirteen the budget as we all know mr  presented the overview on monday night so we'll go immediately into a series of motions category by category and we will start with article thirteen  general government mister roy roy epstein chair of the warrant committee moved a bit under general government to four million six hundred two thousand seven hundred twenty three dollars to be raised and appropriated and voted unanimously favorable action on all of article and the capital budget committee anne marie mahoney chairman of the capital budget committee and town meeting member precinct one the capital budget committee unanimously recommended favorable action on the lee thirteen b mr epstein moved be that under employee benefits seven million three hundred forty five thousand six hundred twenty three dollars be raised on appropriated for retirement expenses moved see that under employee benefits two million nine hundred ninety four thousand and thirty nine dollars be raised in appropriated for other reserves including health insurance insurance and salary reserve be that under public safety fourteen million three hundred twenty one thousand five hundred twenty dollars we raised an appropriate of public safety were concerned about wanting to have some availability of when different activities occurred in the town by the police department whether there are accidents larcenies problems with drug overdoses et c metrics and i naively said well we've got high school volunteers could it who could help you know look at those numbers i was told that that was or records are very are private and may not be part of the public i was also told that the police department has had an i t person who was beginning to look at some sort of developing of an i t program for all of this information and i'm wondering whether there has been any progress made or conversations in terms of developing such a program because when i was looking at the report of the what the school what the police department wanted and didn't have and some recommendations that was sort of up in the air and i wouldn't bring whether somebody could could make respond or make a comment well i would invite the chief response but i would say that the question of creating what i would call management reports that answer useful questions that people have about the operations of police and fire is something that is contemplated for the coming  possibly by hiring a consultant initially to get us organized but i don't believe anything has happened to date but the goal is to address that in a fiscally team so the risk is there are steps being made in terms of getting happy and developing programs so that we will be able to have some information historically where how the police activities lay out for the community well the steps that present a present i would say are the intention and then open to action will take place in the coming year that's terrific thank you thank you any further discussion under thirteen d public safety easy and then the be a presentation on the school budget fiore chairperson of the school committee town meeting member at large moved that under belmont public schools fifty two million nine hundred sixty nine thousand four hundred eighty five dollars be raised and appropriated and for the record the of the school committee yes it was a unanimous vote in favorable action and we had the votes of the other bodies a few moments ago so we can go ahead with the presentation happy to have this conversation a part of our budget we meet twice a month at school committee on tuesday nights and we meet twice a month on tuesday mornings open to the public for all to come in and we want to make sure that you're aware of that town meeting was s a yellow booklet with all the information with a more extensive budget set of documents that was sent out by our town clerk and it also had the website address of the full seven hundred some odd lines of our budget online for you to review tonight we the school department is appreciative in values the town support through the override which we have just completed year two of the financial taskforce funding which is a three year plan we added the five positions this school year that were a d to us in the financial taskforce budget and we appreciate in value the support as a benefits our class sizes in offerings to our students every day highlight is that our budget is on track to be balanced on june thirtieth of this fiscal year this has not always been the case and we take pride in the fact that the monies that you gave us we are able to allocate one of the major topics that we have in our discussions with finance and in this body is the art of the ship tuitions we want to let you know as as of the third quarter update of fiscal seventeen there was a deficit of approximately four hundred thirty four thousand in that line item with savings realized in our general budget and utilization of the state circuit breaker funding we are able to finish this school year with the balance of circuit breaker moving forward and having a level funding budget we carried that money forward in a circuit breaker with the guidance of the department of elementary and secondary ed and we'll talk more about that in previous years we talk about the sustainability of our budget we had always had trouble with our facilities budget and our addition to wish in line for special education those are the two drivers from a budget perspective that we're always in deficit we want to let you know as a school department that we're not sitting on our hands that we approach actively going out and we are appropriate increase the rental fees so we can provide revenue to the school department that we can have our facilities department access to fix things like elevators fire alarms walls floors furniture gerry boyle and his crew have an endless list of things that we can support them with that additional revenue we have started the medicaid reimbursement program which revenue that would come in from the federal government for services that we already provide this was a funding source that was out there to grab that we had not taken advantage of that we went out put the application in with a lot of work from our nursing department our special a special education department to bring revenue into the town through medicaid for services that we already provide this kind of funding will go right to special education services that we have always problematic that we always have had problems with in the past and lastly we have been able to with the override funding and being efficient in our expenditures been able to carry circuit breaker money from one fiscal year to the next because we can only carry it for two years and that allows us to budget better for each and suing year so we believe that these proactive steps provide us some sound fiscal strategies and our budget nephi seventeen and sets us up for sufficient  support moving into f y eighteen circuit breaker is a big conversation with the town and with some of the members of the warren committee he wants but folks know that the circuit breaker funding from the town in most cities and towns to twenty nine districts that answered our survey over eighty percent of the towns take the full circuit breaker amount that they get each year in hold it and planned to use it in the following fiscal year essential what they're doing is they're putting that money in the bank because they know that they need to expend that whole amount in the future fiscal year they're actually one year ahead we have been working for three years to slowly get a circuit breaker funding up to the point where we can begin to feel confident in our funding for special education by having that circuit breaker have a balance that's exactly why the state provides circuit breaker and that's exactly why they give you a two year window this is just the pa graph that shows that in the light blue eighty percent of the towns that have contacted us do exactly that so we average about one point five million dollars and circuit breaker eighty percent of the towns that we contacted put all one point we are in year three of the financial tip task force budget plan again we thank the folks for the override in that plan we had an additional five point zero f t east we don't say five teachers because some of those will be part time increment those f t ease have been shifted from our original plan we have a romance in class size issue that we have been challenged with especially at our elementary level so for those positions will go to the elementary level point six of an educator will go to the high school in point of an educator will go to the middle school be f y e team budget also includes support from the general fund in the areas of athletics student activities and music when we look at the f y eighteen budget and we looked at the financial task for forced budget assumptions it was supposed to be a seven percent increase in the line of out of district costs again we have three sources of income or revenue that we used to expend on our out of district i d e a grant from the federal government which we fully expend general fund money from this from the town of belmont and also circuit breaker from the state we decided not to take the seven percent increase in fiscal eighteen and give back that three hundred thirty four thousand five hundred two dollars to the town so they could put it in the stabilization fund because we recognize that we have done a good job with the circuit breaker and we are able to carry a balance forward y eighteen that we can be sure or assured that f y eighteen can be covered and part of f y one thousand can be covered so we thought we felt in the spirit of making that override money last one more year out or a further year out which as it is everybody's goal i believe in this room we committed to reducing that seven percent line and giving that three hundred thirty four thousand dollars back to the time we are only able to do that because we have circuit break strategic challenges that we face i believe unknown to many in this in this room the per pupil expenditure for belmont i'll show you a chart that may surprise you the enrollment projections that we continue to talk about every we could school committee and work through  the district with our parents and our teachers are continuing to go up and we always are very concerned and very thankful for the budget areas that we have around capital that we've been very so much by the capital committee with when we look at our per pupil expenditure what you see there just a cut to the chase is belmont in the first yellow line and f y sixteen that's an average of sixty two dollars difference per student from the state average if you multiply two thousand one hundred sixty two by four thousand one hundred twenty students that's a whole lot of money when we look at the peers that we like to compare ourselves to in the districts that a contiguous to us in belmont in the other five dish extent a level one because there's only six level one districts in the in the whole state the highest level a district can get is level one there's only six k to twelve districts and we're one of them when we add all those folks together and we look actually graduation when we look at the other districts that a level one the districts that touch us contiguously in other towns we compare ourselves to the average those town spend the average is eighteen thousand and seven dollars per child that's a thirty four percent difference and it's a four thousand six hundred and fifty eight dollars difference per child and again multiply that by forty one hundred students we feel in belmont that we're doing a very good job with limited funds that we appreciate greatly from this community in the state in the federal government by producing high student outcomes good morale with our staff and our students happy parents hopefully who support us greatly on very limited funds so our fiscal challenges are real and they're rooted in the data this is not our data this is the data that's presented by the department of elementary and secondary  we do so while we grow by over one hundred students a year in two thousand and sixteen seventeen the year that we're in in october first we had forty four hundred students through two separate in roman studies one by a private contractor and one done by the state we are projected to have four hundred four thousand eight hundred eighty eight by the two thousand and twenty four twenty five school year when you average one hundred students per year over the last five years and will continue to average hi roman for future years that taxes all the different resources that you have in your district we've been able to add classrooms and space in additional teachers that we're very thankful for but we also have to add to things like guidance nurses special education support we have students in study halls of the middle school we have students who don't have classes every period of the day at the high school we have class sizes of twenty six that are elementary school all of which we're tackling with capital funds and support and support of the of the district but all of which we do again with limited funds if we had more funds we would add classroom teachers we add in special education mandated services would add unified arts folks guidance school nurses would add some more space and would actually add some more instructional supplies support for teachers to use with children and engage them in a high level curriculum in learning each day so we do have needs that we continue to have with thankful that with thankful for the things that we do have and we feel we still provide great outcomes we provide you this this is a lens into our district to show that the budgeting is tight and the only continues to grow and we're making it work but we want to make sure that we let folks know that even though we're thankful we do still have challenges when we look at just our space needs in the enrollment you know that we added six modular classrooms at the high school last year this year we added six modules to the middle school we are looking to add six modulus to one of our elementary schools and we are considering our belmont high school building project not only as a nine to twelve school but possibly as an eight through twelve school or a seven through twelve school those other options have been put on the table to try to remedy our space and our class size needs across the district we again thank them belmont high school building committee we thank the space task force who have worked on the modular classroom needs that we have and as always we thank the capitol committee for their support over the last three years to fund ah success is a many from the first ever girls rugby team to play in a championship match in the country that will play this weekend the regulation to a boys baseball team who made the elite eight baseball tournament that's the first time in belmont history a big round of applause for all boys baseball our elementary school the public school was recognized as a national blue ribbon school the burbank recognized by the state  support teachers and students and we have very thankful because all those different aspects of what make up our are our success is rooted in the classroom with students engaged by great teachers supported by wonderful parents and administrators thank you very highlights in our chapter of the warrant committee report about public schools pages thirty five to fifty two this is this this year we follow up on the school administrations references to per pupil spending in belmont and other other m communities we looked at fourteen other cities and towns and as them received early access to data on school spending for fiscal year six sixteen from and we also use state and federal federal  demographic and financial information for those of you with a copy of the report let me take a sprint through this work starting on page forty four the fore on forty four here are the fourteen other towns we we looked at fo four of them we call our neighbors arlington watertown lexington and when chester four others are nearby cities cambridge summerville newton in waltham and six are suburban towns bedford burlington needham wa wellesley and weston this is a nice mix of town towns and cities here the next page forty five shows basic demographic information we are in the middle of most of these measures most of the suburban towns are wealthier than we are and like arlington we have a lot of two family homes and condos on page forty six here is our summary of the information on the per pupil spending for fiscal year six sixteen yes belmont is at the bottom and per pupil spending but also note that we are essentially tied with arlington in winchester we break it in two types of spending and classroom instruction benefits and pupil services stand out page forty seven here is the five and ten year information on in roman growth and on class sizes here is one clue about our lower per pupil spending we had we have larger class sizes then the other towns at the bottom of page forty seven the ten year in ro numbers tell a striking story about belmont and and and our closes neighbors we are the ones facing the room and boom and it's most concentrated in the elementary grades families with young kids are moving here not to the more distant suburbs this makes sense when you think of the high tech jobs being created in cambridge in boston much faster than say the old route one twenty eight corridor if if you want good schools in and end up to be close to to work you will look to belmont winchester in arlington page forty eight it is the accountability and data d d spite the lower per pupil spending our students are scoring better than than in any other town it is clearly a combination of kids teachers and families page forty nine here is the teacher's salary so in data we looked at the actual contracts for the teachers in each of the fifteen cities and towns and we asked the question what would have been the total cost for the roster of belmont teachers if their pay had been based on the other towns step in lane tables the answer is that belmont paid at the average of all fifteen cities and towns and our neighbors belmont paid four percent more for instance if we had paid at the same rate as as arlington or winchester we could have afforded about twenty more teachers with with the same dollars that we spend in fiscal year sixteen page fifty one finally we look at the tax tax picture in these places belmont has the lowest new growth meaning its natural tax base grows more slowly than any other town in our sample also we are one of five towns with very little commercial property our average single family tax bill as a percentage of per capita in in in income is a among the highest and to a top it off we drive older and fewer cars and this collect less from our motor vehicle taxes my two thousand and three pilot is there is that if we drove cars as nice as i'm lexington we would have five hundred thousand dollars more as we say at the bottom of page fifty one belmont arlington in winchester  face financial challenges that wealthier and more commercialized commercialise municipalities don't page fifty two the last page summarizes our findings and conclusions let me close if i have time by reading the last two points so if i'm managing overall budget growth within the town's overall revenue growth remains the primary financial challenge will the school district manage its funding resources to meet the demands presented by a growing student in and the answer will influence whether or not the community will ask the board of selectmen to place an operating all over right before the voters the ongoing contract new contract negotiations present the most important financial management decision facing the school committee the belmont community strongly supports and school system and greatly values the work of of the district's teachers leadership and staff we recognize that competitive compensation is in important factor in attracting and retaining top performing employees in our analysis shows that belmont teachers salaries come come compare well to our  communities but the math is simple for our town of homes salary increases in excess of the town's revenue growth will will lead to increasing pressure on school and other town finances thank you  and faucets i want to specifically ask about the fact that it was found in the just generally in the butler and science has shown that for the for kids no level is safe or lead so i want to sort of ask please detail was been down this first of all to the entire time meaning body i would recommend that you go to the website we dedicated a whole section of our website with all the lab reports from the first two water testings the faucets that were actually turned off the letters that we sent out to parents and it's to the community upon finding out that there was a trace of lead not waters so first of all given them the media accounts back in the spring of two thousand and sixteen i asked our facilities department to proactively test the water randomly in the faucets in our schools to make sure as we were seeing in the news that our star water was safe when we did so we had all of our faucets that were tested randomly come back below actual levels in april of two thousand and sixteen the deep the d d p the department of elementary the department of environmental protection was providing grants for towns to test all of their water so we proactively applied for that grant when we applied for the grant we went out and tested all of our faucets and we found out of one hundred eighty faucets nine were found to have lead in the water we shut all night off and we begin to take those results back post them on the web site communicate with our families we then did a second round of testing to make sure that those results were accurate and if we missed any others i believe that count went up to thirteen  have been working with the word of the apartment manager mike bishop facilities director gerry boyle health department phyllis marshall we will do a third round of testing to make sure that all those faucets stay in the same line and then we will make a decision as to whether we need those faucets to be on line or we can take them offline or keep them offline because they have been shut off in find out whether it's worthwhile to turn them on with a plumbing fix keep them off or provide alternative water sources right now we are not finding that our children are missing those faucets that were place i believe that we can go on without them in place but we want to make sure we have all those results that third round of testing will be done in june of two thousand and seventeen gerry boyle has been leading that work with m bishop in the town and we look forward to finalizing those results but all those results the exact details are all on the website for you to review and have been present at the parents throughout the year thank you but just to reclassify with the second point  about testing are reconsidering testing what's the pattern for testing our pipes in the future now it's good that we caught this now i'm wondering about are we testing in the future for we're going to test your early monthly for future issues in the school i'm not sure if mr bishop is in the audience but i believe the water department doesn't into all testing of the water that is within the boundaries of his the expectations of the state and that happens and has already been happening nearly school started hours and i was assured that there was a committee that was seriously working on this and yet i've heard no results from this committee now maybe i just missed it or something where we going with this the school committee has asked that i have put a committee together next fall i heard that was supposed to happen last year that's what i was told last year at this time that there was a committee that was going to rush right into it and really start working are i i have to say that i don't believe i ever said i would rush into the start time issue we did sign on with the middlesex league that we would like to start the two thousand and eighteen year with the other middlesex towns with a possible change  start time we have reviewed the busing transportation issues that are involved and before we get the group together we've done that study of our busing already added two buses one bus this year and we've added a bus to our budget next year we are trying to figure out whether this is a high school switch of times or we need to be a k to twelve switching times and what we're finding out and preparing to explore next year is that it does have to be a k to twelve discussion we were hoping to be able to only have a nine to twelve discussion which would mean that the study would be a little different it would have a smaller scope and just be around the high school students and their needs but with the bussing assets that we have which will be only eight we're going to need to have a k twelve conversation so that changes the scope of the work of that committee that's actually on the agenda for the june twentieth school committee meeting school committee member in your press which has asked to be has asked me to make this a formal process that will go through next year whether or not this actually happens in the town or not will be decided by the school committee but the data will be provided by this group next year so in other words you've done the preparatory word act and what you're looking for and hoping for is to implemented starting in the fall of twenty thousand correct have two points that i actually wanted to respond briefly and the first is that i'm glad as i said last year i'm glad to pay more for education but not glad to pay for a situation where high school students are sleeping through the first period or two of school and i just think we have to get our priorities straight and the second one is that you mentioned that the elementary school class size runs to as as large as and maybe even in some cases larger but it's largest twenty six students per class and i wanted to mention that when i was in sixth grade you know a thousand years ago and my class had twenty six students in it my parents were suddenly on the barricades pushing for a big bond issue to do anything to reduce the class size from twenty six and i'll be glad to do that too i know i think twenty six is way too big way too big for elementary school classroom but you know we have to have these things appropriate dealt with appropriately so that they really get the value as they are now i can see that as they are now but that they continue to get the best possible value out of you know the money we pay one first of all i want to just thank you and commend you and the school committee for its hard work putting together the school budget and i admire a lot of the things you described in terms of improvements over prior years and so on so thank  so a couple questions on the revenue side first of all on the federal money could you just talk about how much total federal money week at what i've read about the proposed federal budget the schools i believe in i'm going to look to find a structure that we get one point three one point four one about one point four million dollars of federal funding about nine hundred twenty one thousand of that is for special education and then we get title one and other grants from the federal government ok and what is proposed to occur to those funds under the president's proposed budget we i don't know the exact numbers that and how they would impact us in f y eighteen i would say that i would be relatively concerned about our budgeting moving forward should be probably less dependent on federal funding in more dependent on the local and state funding but there is concern generally that some of the federal funds may be less than they are currently we don't have an exact number right now ok maybe it might come it would be better place if a committee meeting in terms of doing more research into that and then indicating to people of advocacy is needed around these these items the other thing is i'd like the consolidated budget on page thirty nine so thank you in your report i would also but i would note that and you mentioned it verbally but there are a lot of other sources of funding i'm not sure what they add up to there's the foundation for bellman education and there are a lot of funds that come from the p t o use and i don't know whether it would be in your document or else in the warrant committee but i think it would be helpful were i think we're being asked to appropriate fifty two point something or other million this combined budget on page thirty nine is sixty so we know that eight million comes from other sources there's and i don't know how much additional maybe a million or something that comes from yet other sources that aren't on this page and i think would be helpful either in the warrant committee report in this report to make people aware of what those additional funds are we sure we have a line in our budget we have two views of our budget one is the general fund budget that we look at every year and then we look at our all in budget that that spreadsheet is looked at quarterly by the school committee and is in the seven hundred line item there's a whole section that says all in so you can actually see this federal grants that come in that make up the difference between the fifty three or so million that we vote on here locally but are correct our budgets more like fifty eight to sixty million dollars when you consider all those other groups just a revenue soldier page thirty nine is very helpful because it has what you're talking about what page thirty nine is missing is these other non profit funds that come in this is state and federal funds and then the fees that people pay for buses and tuition and so on but what's missing here is the foundation for bellman education the p t o fund so i'm asking that also at least for a town meeting because i think it's important for people to understand that what we're supporting with tax revenues is not really the full cost of educating our children that's a point well made thank you very much we do get a lot of support from those groups and then one last question can you go back to the slide that showed how we are thirty percent below our cohort in terms of funding per student and you know that one i think the most important point to me when i looked at this was that it was the trajectory so it was shocking to see were thirty five percent below the cohort and sixteen percent below the state average but it's even worse to see what's happened since f y eleven so the trajectory is very bad in terms of our relative spend relative to their averages the both of those and i in in my view even though you're doing a in the u s so definitely the influx of people coming into students coming in i think is going to be real and your ten year projection i think is quite realistic and scary to look at and when we talk about sort of the trajectory that the other person was mentioning you know a lot of it i think has to do with parents getting involved i'm a parent and we get e mails asking for tissues e mails asking for wipes for the tables  parents are contributing basic needs for the classrooms and parents are very happy to do so for the kids and for the classrooms but you know i think at a ten year sort of trajectory it just doesn't seem sustainable and you know you can look into the future but i'm wondering have you guys looked sort of that far out and sort of made that plan versus going year by year i think and moni did a great job at the last meeting where the they sort of talked about making a committee and doing a a multi year plan of how to address all the capital and she's coming up all the buildings that need to be addressed  period that work that began before i arrived in that i participated in to some degree i believe was the fundamental underpinnings of why the override was so important and so successful the amount needed at that point was around seven million but the amount of the override was less than that because we felt that we i believe as a group of town officials needed to be realistic about what the town could afford i believe that that fiscal outlook over two more years is being worked on by the town administrator phyllis marshall and we are trying to be reasonable with what we are asking for in relation to what kind of revenue was available in the town we could say we need a lot of things but we're trying to be responsible town partners and being realistic about what our needs are and what the the revenue capacities of the town and and i think that over the last three years we've accomplished a lot with that first financial task was planned and i believe that we will work with the board of selectmen in the school committee in the w committee to continue that forecasting over the next two to three years  superintendent feel is absolutely correct and we look at this matter many of us believe that the deficit was more than the four and a half million dollar ride and we hoped at that point in time with the overripe funds we get we perhaps get through eighteen in nineteen you know if you look at the projections today we're going to continue to update them fiscal twenty we have a very significant deficit i think we'll have some discussion about that in the next article and why it's important to to look to that we also have a high school that we need to consider probably sometime in the eighteen and so we're four well aware that from an operating point of view there's there in the continue to be deficits and if you just simply do the math on state average spend if we spent up to that would be another nine point five we don't have the money and so we surely as a bourse like can take this very seriously the operating budget we also understand we have pursued very significant capital needs we also understand that we're going to have to come back to the residents of this community and ask for more money well for exclusions and operate over eyes in the future so we're keeping our focus on the deficits and more that we can do we can't work nor should we expect the state to bail us out you heard senator brown's burger they had deficit as  a comment and then a question i'd like to preface this by saying i am the parent of an out placed child and in my professional life i represent low income special needs children as an attorney and although not in the taliban want to avoid conflicts of interest i was disturbed last year when we had this discussion i'm a member tom meeting raised a question about what we're doing to address special education costs i thought was an appropriate question it was a necessary question i felt that afterward she was rather unfairly attacked in her motives impugned and so i'd like to emphasize that we do need to be open to questions and creative ways of thinking about the school budget and in particular outplacement ideal it removes a child from frankly what is typically in my experience a better educational experience in district and also an opportunity to have full inclusion the community in full participation in after school events placements are typically something that happens not as a desired outcome but as a necessary outcome and as i questioned superintendent failing on this the answer that i frequently received as to belmont's placements is simply that we lack space in district to address a lot of these special means that we are mandated by both state and federal law to meet so my question is in the building of the high school to what extent are we considering special education in the space configuration such that we can bring some of these children back in district and frankly provide them with a better educational experience and also potentially benefit our bottom line mr fairlie john phillips who went to schools i agree with you completely to be able to have a student instead of getting on a bus and travelling thirty five minutes to another town to be able to come to his or her home district school where he may play or she may play soccer and meet folks in neighborhood at their district school b r desired outcome we are seeking to add special education space to our high school we are not at that moment in the process yet the m s b a recognises that they do square footage for all regular education parts of the building first and then they address special education after that so we are prepared to go and announce for more space and again depending on what option we choose seven to twelve eight to twelve nights with twelve will probably be able to have more flexibility for more students given if there's more grades involved attainment but the quality of teachers was very important so if you look at what the problem we have with a fixed amount of money and we want to get the best outcome is sort of a classical to my solution problem and i'm wondering about like paying teachers more so we get more competitive i think that's a fairly judged downstream into the schools i do believe class size to a certain extent does have impact on the teaching and learning in outcomes of the students that we serve i do believe though the fundamental and the primary or the biggest piece of what makes students successful is the classroom teacher so providing high quality instruction by high quality teachers which i believe we have and ensuring that we give them proper professional development support and and in a professional environment to work in ensures that i think that's the best assurance we can have to get great student outcomes for us students so i agree i believe that  we right now are at the elementary level when we look at those high class sizes with unique class makeups we have students who are with us on i that we want to keep in the district we have students who are coming to us an increasing amount to have english not as their first language so those things are things that our educators need to be able to adapt to and we want to find the highest quality teachers and we want to pay them a wage that what still they want to come to don't want and i think that we do i think we're very competitive right now but the point is that the gates foundation actually gives you numbers so so you believe seem very well aligned with their results as i recall them at least but you could actually you can actually analyze the situation and given the amount of money we're putting into education i think i could be a good sort of test for your math teachers ok i mean i have a question regarding the per pupil expenses i seem to remember that some districts in future costs like pension and medical into the per pupil cost and other districts don't and i may be remembering wrong but i'm wondering if somebody here knows the answer so i can tell you the it's the data that we use is right from the department of elementary and secondary ed and they have their own algorithm for how much is spent in that data source we use in which we try not to use any other data source because it would be comparing apples to oranges so we use their data  that is fed by all the information from the districts in certain categories so we try to lean on that comparison because it's an apples to apples comparison so thank you thank you yes ma'am tear down our precinct six town meeting member i just want to comment on a few of the things that i've heard tonight and also say that i am a k through twelve classroom teacher i teach in winchester nearby and i think that superintendent failon has done a great job with limited resources and has tried not to alarm everyone about the somewhat dire situation that our budget for the schools has been in for years and years and years but i just want to make sure that my fellow town media members are really focused on what some of these numbers really mean looking at the comparison in pure pure per pupil spending between the state average and also the districts we like to compare ourselves to i would certainly hope that people are embarrassed by this and not at all proud of these numbers live in a town with a lot of collective resources not necessarily in the town budgets but a lot of collective resources amongst the people who live here and what those kind of numbers mean in reality to me as a classroom teacher means that you know in my classroom when the hole puncher that i used to hole punch all the papers for all my students so they don't lose all their stuff and not have things to study from when that breaks i can't get that fixed unless i want to shell out seventy five dollars on my own just to get it fixed if i need to get a new one at a cost of about two hundred fifty dollars i need to wait sometimes a decade to get a new one and these are kinds of things that we're over time asking our teachers to pay more because teachers we care about our students we want the best for our classrooms and when year after year supply budgets are cut or level funded at very low levels those are the kinds of numbers that get squeezed so that we can get as many teachers as we can to bring the class sizes down so i just wanted to make that point to people who might be in the classroom every day what some of those numbers mean also the class sizes i think are frankly an embarrassment i do want to say i think that things have been moving in the right direction i think superintendent failon and the administration has been working hard to improve things but i've been in town meeting member for ten years and for so many years we have level funded budgets or worse thirty f t e is cut things like that we still haven't bounced back from those years and so you know adding four f t e is that's great but that's not where we need to be and if anyone has been in charge of a classroom of students the difference between twenty students in a room versus twenty six in terms of what you can accomplish is huge and what kind of experience those students have and what kind of personal attention they have is huge so i hope that as everyone continues to think about the school budget here and in the future when we may get asked for an override again people are appropriately alarmed at where we stand in comparison to other high quality educational or towns with high quality the backs of the taxpayers we have very little business tax revenue to draw upon so these numbers are startling they were startling when i first started with the town meeting when i first became a possible for us to amass a list of items that we have lost in our school budget so we can see what was on the budget one time that is never bit that is lost its funding i mean we're talking books libraries librarians in a library we don't out but sometimes we don't feel the pain because all of us are just so well adjusted to throwing ourselves into filling the gap that we don't feel  pain we staff it with free help take days out of work go to the library put in my time there's a part in the budget that's missing and i've asked this many different times and i don't really have any answer of how it would fit but if you would please consider it how do we calculate aggregate the amount of hours what that costs in time what that saving us what we're pitching in to the overall budget as the budget is not a real budget to me and knowing how much we really need do we have a dedicated grant writer who's looking for more funding the gentleman before me was talking about the gates foundation  of different foundations that i believe have deep pockets looking to help where our federal budget our state doesn't go i just don't see us getting out of a pit and we need to think more broadly very good job of that i think so my point of view we had a centralized grant writer even hired a consultant to do that in organizing around that and again i could think were considered an affluent community so many times we know qualified might result in additional grants  i don't see a lot of ways out of what you just suggested one of the things i've always talked about difficult to do is we need to look at look for ways over the next several years to deliver services differently both in the school side in town side i've always talked about it we've never really done it it's challenging but that's one thing because it's not sustainable unless we want to just tax everybody in this room out of here out of town so we do as a board and as a community need to look at how can we deliver services in a different way without  great thank you and i do feel that it's really important probably to find to identify some of those areas where grant writers have contributed to town when it comes to recycling when it comes to some of the signs in town  one is that i know and don't want we are level one and there are only five other level ones i also know that permit to be a level one is that all schools in your district must be a level one which means in belmont we have six schools and we are keeping six a level one and is the new quiz but the five others i think it's you know they've got to keep between ten and twenty five schools at a level one so i just wanted to voice that comment is that correct that all schools have to be a level one and what is something that would cause a school to drop a lower level when people tell me oh the cherries mr fail john fail in super to the schools what could cause a school go to go from level one to a level two would be there's a very very complex matrix of scores that's based on the student growth individually as students and of a grade in of the school in reading writing math level not based on their previous growth but just based on the aggregate performance of the district that could cause them to go from level one to level two and believe it or not your attendance could cause you to go from a level one to a level two lack of attendance so those are three general areas that would cause that is correct that did you have a follow up or so i do have a separate separate question so in terms of making sure that we can keep up to speed with the enrollment and the funding requests i just want to know when single families torn down and built into a two family or when we have you know that qualifies as new growth or if that's under the two point five percent cap and then when we get new condos and if there's any way that we're tracking  if there's any way that we can align the causes of the new enrollment and take the source of income income from the house and provide more money to the schools that's it that's a general question i know other towns mean can't pick had developers pay impact fees so is there anything we're looking at that directly tracks the child moving in to a new home or a home that's been torn down and rebuilt with the money that goes towards school other than just say no more people and a much more property tax is that it is that a clear question i understand the question i'm looking for somebody to answer  so we're not looking at it or there's not a way to do it you know that that that all of the revenue goes into a general fund pot and then and then at the very start of the budget process there are conversations about how much should go to the fixed cost how much go to the to the town how much should go to the schools and and those are really set by needs where the new families come in is really just showing up in the total  met numbers in the school have to deal with that but but as a good example of the big pot that our projection for the for the chapter seventy state grants for the schools has gone up from the very start but that hasn't changed the we have somebody to answer that tonight yes if the two real specific questions when a single families torn down and replaced with a two family that might require you know going from one student to four students is that new growth or is that and the two point five ca member precinct six chairman the board of assesses all new growth is captured on the building that goes in there's no direct tie into the number students because the establishment that value is done well before th to me it's not about the money i don't think quality of education is measured in just dollars if it was i looked at the chart on page forty six and i see that we're supposed to be at the bottom of the pack with thirteen thousand dollars per person per pupil city cambridge pays twenty eight thousand four hundred  waltham pays twenty thousand two hundred forty four dollars per person i don't think that's not a knock on cambridge or waltham but i don't think there's anybody here in this room or anybody coming to town paying ridiculous prices unheard of prices to get into the town would think either of those two systems are better than what we have here in our town i heard that we pay our teachers four percent more i think that goes to the quality of the teachers and the commitment of the teachers i think the administration i've heard the word embarrassed i'm not embarrassed we'd all like to have more but if you look at your tax bills i have i moved here when i was five years old went to the wynn brick school before it was renovated before it was renovated after that and one of five and i got through graduate pole in the middle of our class raised by three kids there's always a need for more money there's always something you could do with more money but more money doesn't necessarily translate into higher quality or complement superintendent failing i think i've made a met him in passing but i'm not embarrassed about our system in fifty to fifty three million we were not being pikers at that but the fact that they can had been a straight and deal with the funds that they're given and get such stellar results i think that something should be commended it's a source of pride good embarrassment so i've always taken trouble i've always had problems for twenty years when i sat at that table with these per pupil spending thing it always bothered me because back then i'm citing now cambridge and wealthy and just as what we have on whatever this page is year forty six on on the warrant committee and i assume that to be accurate but back then there was a map that had red and blue and everything was blue meaning they spent way more than bill my except little belmont in red and it included cities like los rents and lowell and it stood for the proposition at least that they were somehow superior than what we have here and i'm parochial i'm proud of our school and i think the fact that we're number one of six level one with all five and i turn and i taxpayers have supported or ever rights for education the volunteers now foundation a provided tremendous support friends groups boosters groups we've done it and that's what makes it that's what makes the community and not just money so i'm proud of belmont thank you for what you do and take a look at this it's not all about the money it's what you do with it this man and man precinct four it is about the money we had an opportunity we tried to get it over to pass we are mission critical before we did it we put the smallest override forward we know we're going to be in trouble i sell homes in belmont i sell a lot of my just sold it to bed bath condo for six hundred five thousand that's where your money is they're coming here and they're looking at our school getting in the national journal's every year that our teachers are great that our community is great but we have to invest in these schools or the thing that you would invest it in the most of your money and time in is going to go down in value they come to find us because we have great schools and we are number one so you cannot not want to propose this budget and when all of you let the vote for this to pass tonight i want you to think about what's coming in our future and we are going to have another  when you're gone on a long time have two questions and you can tell me if i should put them to another context one is about coordination between we're going to be building a new high school in a new library kind of in the same not saying i think not at the same time  i just i'm going to i would like you to maybe encourage you in thinking about the library at the high school to look at what happened in cambridge and they did some court nation when they build a new ice renovated their high school and built a new library and did they save some money in terms of how they did staffing there so i just encourage you to look to that model because we're not quite as adjacent as they are but we're pretty close in terms of the library in the high school and the only other question to the warrant committee is there sounded like there was an interesting study on teacher salary and i would just ask that maybe that  get analyzed for the workload of the teachers in other words i know that many teachers in a lot of high schools that we i think teach our teachers i think one more section than that in many other high schools and also adjusted for class size as well because larger class size means more work for teachers and so that should be an adjustment not just looking at their salaries committee i would congratulate the subcommittee the war committee is an incredibly hard working group of people but we also have our own workload issues and we will do the best we can next year's report and we're always happy for suggestions but there were also human limits on our side will now vote on the public schools budget all those in favor please say i was opposed no it's adopted unanimously we have to take a five minute break thank you are going to push through tonight no matter how late it is folks so come back