time the school because the parking lot was a lit there's no sign out front that's lit and they were pretty bad to the field they had a g p s they went back and forth and back and forth so they found something that looked like it might be a building but even driving very limited parking lot anyway and about the same time i actually fell down on the sidewalk and fell down in the parking lot because it was it was a pothole and it was very dark and i couldn't see and anyway so probably good for the community but i think our school definitely needs to have some kind of way there some kind of some kind of welcoming something there because i know where the school is because i'm there very often and you can find it in my sleep i'm sure but i'm sure that there are you know not only just grandparents who want to come see shows but other competing schools that want to come and their families who want to come and see sporting events whatever and it's not welcome you know said i really looking for it to us very much they can give me answers explaining why you think that's important discussion of you and you so you know oh i'm working hard on this to get this slide show together i've been out of town i get back late last night so we w also would appreciate your comments afterwards you can e mail me the order may be a little bit different than we've done some other years so how that's working  out some of the numbers have not been for all checked yet but we think we're pretty close and there will be some numbers that will change between now and next time we meet in january so not everything is fine tonight thank you for coming appreciate your work on the committee because they said it's in this this budget has involved a lot of discussion to get where we are right now the process as you've seen before you know this is a big jump there from november twelfth to december fifth we had another meeting scheduled in between there are but not enough people were available so we didn't have a warm so nothing done so again that's a little bit of the reason we're a little bit maybe behind from where we would like to be so as always our objectives are to maintain the quality programs that we have here in the district control costs as best we can and maintain facilities and i know the facilities committee everybody knows just we're just meeting i think they plan impact their budget a little bit so we'll find out a little bit more about that later so when we talk about me tuning high quality programs what are we talking about and these are just some test results from our schools over the past year these are the kneecap which is the state assessment that's given every year all schools in the state take it these are the results not from the tests that were taken this fall to thirteen are not from this fall but they were taken the year before that so the results are lagging indicators are not leading indicators but  see that in the district we do very well compared to the statewide average that we do better we certainly could but we do well compared to the statewide average we also since that is  number average it doesn't show but we do have a gap between free and reduced kids and non free and reduced kids in the district we know we need to do better there are also some s a t s scores again you see that we do better than the state average we also certainly do better than the u s average a couple years ago in math and reading actually i mean results it's a test that's given nationally that said the united states doesn't do very well there's another international test given john to earn a little bit of this with you last meeting the tenth test which is  e test in math and science that's given every couple of years vermont kids didn't take the thames test but from that if this is got together and decided that they would try to see  scores from the nate test which is a national test that's given in every state and link those to these international paths and what you see up here is through that statistical manipulation and vermont as  state ranks right up there was some of the higher performing countries in the world again this is not based on actual kids taking the test but it is a statistical measure that tries to show how they would do you see massachusetts out there just the bar vermont one thing to think about that was peas a test that were just really police that show the united states not doing very well actually massachusetts kids did take that very great kids same link study from art ranks right up there or again you see massachusetts above us and as i say i just want to remind folks that massachusetts did take the piece and they did do well so again what these are the types of quality programs that we're trying to maintain and if her mind is doing well in him you is one of the top scoring schools of them on that's what we're talking about graduation rates last time in the a y p report from two thousand and one two thousand well ninety seven percent vermont's graduation rate is ninety one percent second highest in the country and dropout rates are low again can we do better yes because what we know is that even though vermont kids have a high graduation rate we don't have a high end matriculat kids don't necessarily go on to post secondary education right away so we need to improve on that so the significant issues when we faced the budget and he said we're trying to maintain those programs but there are a lot of things facing us the economic climate has not improved that much over the last few years student population continues to go down there is always salary your budget committee was asked to make some hard decisions just like every other school board and you know as they say we want to raise achievement close the achievement gap manage resources preserve a wide  and other areas that we had a lot of discussion about sometimes those drop against some other values around with staff in schools related to each other and are sometimes resistant to change not always but sometimes so there are some competing values that we had to work with so they can about the current economic climate best slide was one of the slides that would join fiscal committee about what's going on around for mine at the present time and it's not news to anyone we know the student population counts are going down the grand list is not growing inflation is actually pretty small which is going to a fact our base education amount in that it's going to decline rather than go up and that's the first time since th base education amount was used in two thousand and five that we've seen in the cline in that number that affects us pretty much the statewide property tax r now is being projected to go minute five cent increase over last year and last year was a five cent increase over the year before that so again that's grown the base in amount is going down and it has big implications for our budget statewide education spending spree jek to do increase three point five point eight percent some of these numbers could be affected if state wide budgets come in higher than that could also be affected if they for them and lower a lot of those state wide numbers come from that state wide spending where one of the larger budgets in the state so we we have an impact on what that number is as i said predictions our student enrollment is going down we know that we've looked at these graphs for a long time and nice they've continual we've gone down and they will probably continue to go down for a few more years before they love walk at least that's state wide projection our teacher pupil ratio jumps around a little bit but basically we were talking in the middle schools thirteen fourteen  in the high school fifteen to sixteen to one it's the graph set up in such a way it looks like a big jump but it's really not all that as far as the economics go we know there's a big drop off a few years ago again this comes on the presentation the joint fiscal but we're not climbing back up the hill anywhere near as fast as we came down so the hole that has a big impact on what we're doing so with our student population going down what are we looking at this year the reduction of point three to five full time teacher at the high school that's a little point one two five math teacher and a point two zero driver ed teacher and and at the middle school we've reduced one teaching position and tell me there is a computer that's right in trying to make sure that we help teachers integrate computers into the classroom basically kids have computer skills and a view that will have kids at home they're the ones that fix your computers you don't fix them if you're like me so it's more about helping teachers integrate technology rather than teaching kids technology we have more students going to career tech ed centers so that also affects us in some ways we know more than we have another years we have a one year agreement with the to vote on it a little bit later this evening we are in the last year of an agreement with the support staff so those are no numbers there are many years we don't know these numbers we have a four point five percent health insurance premium increase when we first started to build this budget we used a ten percent increase as a placeholder so four point five percent is a pleasant surprise so if we look at  some of the numbers we have an increase there in the wages and the increase in the contracts that i mentioned benefits you know in benefits those can change family situations change age of employees changes or a lot of things that go into that you can see the note there at the bottom last this year that we're in right now there was a big increase included in the budget but the actual increase was a little less so maybe that could help us out a little bit as we go forward special ed assessment has gone up quite a bit you will notice and big reason for that is the averaging that was used the way special that is paid out there were some changes that need to be done so we ended up with  some deficit that we have to take care of this year to get things straight now so in our share of special education is about two thirds of the total increase so that's a good sized number  there we don't have all our revenue figures i heard the house passed the budget to ny sequester is on hold for a couple years i don't know if that's going to have an impact on us or not we'll see  debt service again we'll hear a little bit more about that little bit later but we do have one bond retiring playing possibly to put out a vote on another  bond which means that we would have less in that line than we had this year because we would only be paying interest for the first year on that new law which is less than the interest and principal payment said that we're still in very good shape in this really hurt us that from members of the board know that this is a big discussion that went on a number of years ago as to trying to keep our fleet up to date because if you don't in the long run you end up spending more money so we wanted to make sure that things were in good shape there operations and maintenance again you have some support staff you have some health care you have insurance costs etc etc we did reduce our building budget in the line i had by twenty thousand dollars but there is still an increase the of the budgetary changes and the executive committee is not finalized their budgets yet so again these there are as of where we are right now they might change a little bit one way or the other we don't expect any big changes the food service again we cut some money there that we originally had in the budget to try to or to hope that the food service is going to become completely self supporting over time it's not quite there but we've cut the lines so we're pushing them to do it this year again those people have been around a long time know that this is a nother big change occurred in this budget over time or that food service line used to bleed money as they say where we're coming to be self supporting so what are we looking at the numbers twenty eight million in a three percent increase in the budget three point six percent education spending which is really the number that we need to pay attention to because that's the one it's used in figuring out what the taxes are can i ask a quick question here there is a fifty thousand dollars item in our budget that really can't really is a carry over of revenue when we present this to the voters is this three point six percent assuming that that that fifty thousand dollars has already been accounted for or will  actual number that we present to the voters be somewhat higher because we have to we have to we have to include full full costs and not simply these revenue  and then maybe that's not the right way that we have to present to the voters to percent increase in the budget and we don't in calculating that use the fifty thousand in carry forward revenues is the three point  capital so we're not able to get the interest that we've gotten some of the years which was that revenue we've got fewer impact fees so the medicaid funds have been shipped it around so we don't have that  in f y fourteen was reduced and we still and we have a much smaller surplus for fifty so a lot of things on the revenue side meant that our education spending went up quite a bit so you'll see the results of that it's we go forward just some great breakdowns in the charts there where that three point zero six percent comes from percentages and and actual dollar numbers make sure you look at both lines not just the percentage numbers we said there were some more kids going to career and taxi you do see a percentage wise the air increase you also see the reduction there in the food services that i mentioned earlier in i think most of the other things that i mentioned on the revenue side hopefully we can balance it out that's what it would look like as they say impact fees are down some grants are down those types of things some surpluses are years if you average it out from two thousand and nine to two thousand and ten averages are always taken with a grain of thought grain of salt but that's where it would error jodel were for the last five years not that great each year but we went down for a couple of years now we've gone up for three years education spending same pattern that you saw with the budget so what does that mean for your tax rate and seen this many times how it's determined to take your education spending in your replies pupils we have gone down you know and you come up with an ad spending a mile and spending to lighted by the equalized pupil what you're spending per pupil in then you look at the bay set up now which i said went down this year for the first time so compared to last year were one hundred fifty three percent of the base at amount instead of one hundred forty one percent we take the statewide property tax going up another five make a big difference equalize pupils going down also played into that formula those are the changes that are leading to an increase that you see again that's where the supervisor you name the impact is going to be a little bit different in each town and on how many students what your percentage of students is in the district take their rate we just figured and you take it and figure out the m and use portion of a by jet and you figure out the common level of appraisal now that a little calculation in vermont's funding formula in you see on the m m u side with the change from the price a year is again it's different in different towns depending on who factors we've talked about or pretty much in one way we're lucky in that most towns are pretty close to one hundred percent in their common level of appraisal work a few years ago and some towns were in the eighty percent and that would also have a big impact with what  you end up paying so based on what we know now about our budget and based on what we know now about the elementary budgets you would put it all together and what people will look at is the bottom line are the change in your taxes based on one hundred thousand a house site value in each of the town that's what we come up with this year i live in boulder it's a better number than last year it's still a high number so as you sit there you think about your own town your own house what's happened over the last last year and this year come by it's a big change it's a big change the raise property tax relief we remind people of that are eligible for that form to fill out again just give the example the show people what the example would be based on a fifty thousand dollars household income t hundred thousand what that income sensitivity looks like just for comparison purposes to let people know what's what's the bill little other data that we usually share not presentation our student teacher ratio is really as i don't think this is changed much in the last five years i think we've stayed pretty steady right here those numbers won't look any different high school same thing a little bit of fluctuation but not much stay pretty steady where we compared to the state where i average were we to some comparable size twelve some schools seven twelve some schools nine twelve but just just some numbers to look at to compare and that's as we said that's what your own state tax rates  our special ed population again if you look over the years it's been remarkably steady really hasn't been a lot of fluctuation in our numbers or in our percentage or the number of special educators or i mean paraprofessionals go up and down each year but over time the pair's has the most variability than the other lines but we're pretty pretty consistent in i think our state what are our percentage especially kids i think based on things i know i think were a little bit below the statewide  where you can get an income sensitivity now and it sounds as if the governor is performing to twenty other tax the open space tax up higher than it has been is that something you heard or you know no i did that i don't the presidential race yet statewide average is very close to that nine presidential race and it was something in the original bill that said when bill that  one short question for john about the tim's task it's really interesting that countries that seem to do the best work in asia but i just want to know do we absolutely know that all children take that task or have they selected certain schools or tribes of schools or groups of schools i'm just curious if we know about that  diane ravitch would tell you they don't not know it's not inclusive test the but you know i wouldn't i wouldn't want to say that myself although doing it research right i guess that is formulaically developed oh to project or it's what's used as this is what the you may have originally it was written to about access for students this is a disability over time it's expanded beyond just physical disability students you if you go back that slide the number five or somewhere on the range would seem that although harsh we should focus on the student and at the cost of personal friendships and protecting our staff from changes so it's wondering if we made decisions more on student centered values rather than personal friendships how would that affect the budget i  don't have a good answer for that certainly some folks in the in the education business talk about sometimes it how to lower education costs which was lower and did we do that we tried to do as best we could towards the s effective class size that allows us to raise a team and close it you think yeah i think you you could probably know pretty well oh a lot of times are a higher level courses have fewer students  so they're more expensive to run on a curfew basis if you think about it like that so what we do pretty well so we'd like to keep some of those we would like to keep those courses the number so i assume you're anticipating kind of a it's a big number and if so is there a plan b if we get a big pushback saying that's nice but we're not going to pass this budget i mean do we have other options that work we've looked at yet or are we looking at presenting this and going forward and standing behind it and use it in so that two ways one year is tonight is the time of you has a board more than just the finance committee has some concerns to let us know that we have a meeting if necessary schedule next we just like the bomb that was discussed earlier where you have to have something in place by the january meeting to be finalized so and can warn properly so and we really don't an informational meeting until further work so we have to make a decision we not just the finance committee you was the board tonight and let us know what you think if you think we're going to high is the time to hear it so that we can get some go back yes we did look at some other options basically we looked at this three percent increase in the budget and we moved to a two percent increase and now you may feel that even two percent looking at the way that comes out because of all the factors maybe someone feels that two percent is too high if i could if i could maybe try to address that a little bit also raise some concerns that i have that i'd like the board as a whole to weigh in on it was a very challenging budgeting process we started out with a baseline budget that had no increases in programs that only maintain status quo programs and that came in at a at a more than a four percent increase and then we engaged in a process of tasking the administration to set to two to recommend a series of reductions that could bring the budget down to a through three percent target and also another set of reductions that could bring it down to a two percent target and when we looked at the full two percent list i think the reaction of most of us i don't know speak for everyone was that there were cuts in there that would be very damaging to student programs when we looked at the three percent list we thought that contained cuts that were painful but at some level tolerable we asked the administration to set a list of priorities and to prioritize which of those budget cuts they would first be recommending we absorb and then second and third in and so on for us to get down to a roughly three  percent budget increase and also to set those same curry's for a two percent increase and then we had a very long and i guess we should apologize to everybody who had to listen me that night very long meeting where we we  had a very thoughtful long discussion about what exactly you could get down to and that resulted in us presenting this budget to you with a slightly more than a three percent increase in it and  i think this is one of the hardest decisions i've faced in my time on the board and one of the reasons it's a hard decision is is is i look at the tax increase that is in bedded in this whole budget of fourteen percent and i see that as presenting an awful lot of risk of a no vote by voters and it is a very complicated case to make to them that we have gone through a very difficult process of making cuts and it's a complicated case to make to them to help them to understand that the drivers for this particular budget are not local spending decisions but the state wide educational financing system but still there will be a very significant risk because there are many voters who when they evaluate budgets focus primarily on the tax increase and the gross percentage increase in the budget that is presented educational spending is a nuanced with the gross percentage increase is something that in my experience many people focus on primarily  now when i look at those lists of cuts we would have to do to get two percent i'm of two minds on the one hand it would increase our chance of passage on the other there are definitely things on that item on that list that i believe the administration would tell you that in their judgment would have a very significant impact on meeting student needs  however the reality is that if we do have a budget that is turned down we will be back here after march and we will certainly be doing those cuts and maybe more  i think what would make best sense in this situation is for us to try to make an incremental decrease in the budget so that the net increase that is present it to the boat voters is below three percent something in the range of two seven five to two nine five something in there right now it would require more painful cuts i mean i have a list of the things that we've already cut here and there are some things that i think are are difficult but i think it would provide some measure of increased likelihood how much i can't say but increase likelihood the voters who see a budget increase that is less than three percent might be able to listen to the fuller case of why this budget is already trimmed and why they should support it not standing the increase in property taxes which by the way it's really not going to be abated by us going down to two percent even if we had a two percent budget we'd still be looking at a very significant increase in property tax  it just seems to me that as a matter of budget present presentation to the voters you're more likely to get a less vote if that increased number is below three percent if it's above it  close to that we would have to achieve i think to get down to two point nine five roughly another thirty thousand dollars in cuts yes yes and so what the idea i'd like to present for discussion before the board is if that is the sentiment with which you agree to ask us as a finance committee to reconvene and to and to use that as a firm target that we would have to a school budget is turned down that that cuts have to be made that are regarded by the community as credible cuts and responsive to their nova so if you present a budget that has a three point  percent increase and then respond with a two point nine five percent increase there is a very high probability that the voters will not regard that as a credible response to their decisions so you are pushed as a board at that point because you know you are cutting programs and staff that really are meaningful you are pushed to say that is a meaningful program but to have to make a certain number of dollars in cuts regardless because because the voters have have have spoken and my sense is that it would depend on the margin it would depend on the on the words that accompanied it but you should likely for planning that is true and that and that and i share that when you point with us why should i never do it when i share that view point which is why i'm not advocating in large part i'm not advocating for two percent budget right now that two percent budget i think would represent two painful cuts and also if from there i really don't see where we go without without making things that are that i would put as disastrous ok focused on the some superintendents of the tax rate just because that is so disproportionate to what the actual overall gross increase is with the with the budget and a really huge up maybe a little bit more so you know that that's a factor everybody's dealing with and you know when that equalize people number two you have to really think about losing more like twenty five to twenty two sleep over you know seven hundred students so some like you or you can cut teachers all over the place because you have small class sizes so because of the way the state is changing funding what i mean or the way that they're you know whatever that was because of the states changes what percentage of the tax increase is based on our budget change and what percentage is based on the states changing the way they're doing things so i think that's going to be really helpful in presentation for half time how to do it only how can you just not get a zero on health level budget let the tax go if we're going to make a small cut to everybody's bottom line because there's not much that we can really change but drastically impact the programs in our schools i'm not sure that's in the best interest of our community so that's kind of the piece that i want to make sure that we can hang on to and so i just was curious about who picks up the tab for the amount of extra money that it cost to run another vote what budget does that come out of herb's i'm just thinking back to  the impact of financial impact isn't going to change very much i mean that really is something we should consider and if the timeline would allow it would be great if we could actually compare them head to head what and what i'm what i'm saying is i think there are many voters out there and i don't have a number but i think there are many voters out there who look at two to keep points before they make their decision what is the property tax increase and there's no budget we can present that's going to be positive they're all going to be in and what is the rate and what is the percentage increase in overall spending and if they if that's and my whole point is to try to make that second number somewhat more attractive which i think we can do with some pain but not too much pain and therefore increase increase the risk that when people give it a balanced viewpoint and look that it will pass that's why that's why in just a follow up on that we we're fine with me discussing last week there's a reason that an educational process to the community is an alternative you know so one option the board would have would do you know actually it's sort of just sort of  don't have that discussion people look at it and they've already made up their mind before they go to the ballot box we're in a town meeting at one time had the chance to explain your position and maybe maybe not necessarily but maybe change someone's mind you  i guess i'm wondering what consists constituency we're trying to convince are we trying to limit the folks who would come up know who are we to try to do in here it's the number of people who are trying to go yes i see this what we're doing whether it's for language whatever will have an impact on each and every coming year so it's a question of it's an opportunity cost and then where does that fall out can we even evaluate  under three percent and there's a lot of soft numbers i don't know i mean you know it's i would err on the size side of asking for then then maybe i'm naive asking for a new wants to approach you with we expect less of the the voters will probably get less think that there is that psychological barrier with people have with zeros and i think to get below three point zero might be a smart move on our part otherwise it looks like well came a little over three well let it go  so i wonder how much pain it would cause the supervisor union to get to a two point nine something  by we're not going to see any change in the thirty five thousand dollars or of the interest that's been added will cover time so so we already have that in the budget so nothing else will change things that may impact damon like you so love and i talked today there's a possibility that was some of those depending on what the revenue victory looks like for special education it could drop at  so i think the finance committee i want to speak for them those looking for directional do you want them to get below three percent that r it was i thought i thought that just to let you know that we were in finance committee to well after nine o'clock discussing hashing back and forth you know the importance of the specific instruction that would be gone way down so it's not you know it's not just you know prove some money to get us to two point nine five  know if we bring it up we could be here to pass nine again we need to have my put my sentries they can present us with the budget and the numbers that whatever they would be that we ask them to what we're not aware of as a board that they know  a committee is that for three hours they sat there hashing out no you can't have that extra point two five if he for you know driver said in this we don't know where those cuts are going to come from so personally i'm willing to take their guy yes and no if they were doing as much hand wringing as anybody trying to figure out how to get where they got to  i guess i would err on the side with him and with clear if we put three point zero six out there and it feels at least we've got somewhere to go if we put out a two point nine budget trying to get to some place in between but you may have maybe it's no michael and here's where i disagree with you will it hurt for him to go from three point six to two point nine five probably depends on what else be excruciating i don't think there's anybody in the finance committee who would disagree with me to say to get below two percent which for planning purposes would probably be our minimum target  the question is whether the trade off i think this point of that additional thirty thousand dollars which will have some pain to it is worth it because it increases the likelihood that you won't have to make that cut and i don't have a crystal ball that's not the it's just it's just my best judgment that it does and i'm sure other people have different opinion but that's that's how i frame  i'd agree with the logic to defer to saving twenty five or thirty thousand dollars versus to herd the sixty thousand dollars it's obvious which option you want to go to and i'm just i'm asking since we haven't had a recent defeat what's the level of confidence that we're going to this year because of the to the to the numbers coming out to answer your question all i can do  risk assessment and the risk assessment his we've never i believe correct me if i'm wrong come close to a fourteen percent increase in property tax rates and that will occur in a context in which there will be a lot of concern on tax increases statewide and incurred and it occurs in the context of difficult still difficult for many economic times while it is true that we have a great history of passing budgets in this district we never face that challenge before and that's why i for myself see that as a risk that we as a board have to think about and take seriously before we present a budget to  we're kind of arguing our game to trying to figure out like a point one percent change in the budget where does that impact the fourteen i'm i'm having trouble understanding where our three percent is percent of it's less than three percent that means we're talking credit for get the numbers right here we were twenty eight million dollars budget if we save thirty percent thirty thousand dollars out of it we're below three point correct so thirty thousand dollars or twenty million is not and i can't imagine that's going to hurt anything i mean look at the bottom line but it's such a small percentage of a large budget what it does psychologically say is that we've kept it under three if we think that three point  magic number and that would say the public although your tax or your four percent we're keeping it low we met that magic to ninety nine number not three dollars  down and come up with a set of priorities and what they give us one sixteen what is the thing they're most willing to say goodbye to what is the thing they're least willing to say goodbye to to get to two percent  went through and we hashed it back and forth and sort of the in the middle east that program so you could you could take a bunch of money at somewhere else right but because we're trying to listen to our what they say is important what they need for their building what they need for their staff what you know that sort of falls in the range and indeed just roughly that was the money the monetary and don't forget over the last several years to this budget we did nothing to the budget was a four point six five percent reapers so you know from where i sit three percent budget increases are actually a one point six or a one point seven percent cut from this yeah i had i would like a better understanding of how that three percent turns into fourteen as wow has as you'll hear it and it just seems to me as if here we are struggling over this i don't mean to belittle anything but a relative mind yourself when you consider total big factor where the major decision that seems to have in this into a tizzy happened in my pillow and maybe that's where we need to go next that the governor did send out a letter to school boards asking you know to hold the line on spending and that in the legislature there will be discussion about decreasing enrollment and increased costs has no doubt about it and that seems to be across the board and in a lot of things we know i've lived in this town for over forty five years and and high property taxes used to be fairly easy to pay i mean they were not such a big percentage of mine income as they are now and it's hard to see where the services have gotten better really i mean i think that's good that's that's good going to be a question that a lot people would like to ask and and that also as you said can the business about the decreasing roman and he creasing expenses a lot of those things come from federal mandates and increased services and things that don't have happened that for reasons that that were valid but it seems as if the whole system really needs to be had just to add on to that i think maybe a somewhat concerted effort to try and distinguish between how the tax rate is calculated in fact and how little impact or that our school y fifteen this is for us to out of district students it's last transportation special education capital that the actual amount can change at the end of the school year if the actual rate differs from the announced rate if there are three percent more or three percent last than you reconcile at the end of the school year rate that i'm asking you to fifteen for middle levels which is five six eleven thousand four hundred fifty two you do that again a level thousand four hundred fifty two and that's for grades five for secondary students seven twelve twelve thousand four hundred eighty nine dollars seven through twelve yes promotion yes i make a motion for the values just stated i can repeat and he won't let them for fifty two grades five six and twelve forty nine hundred seventy and that's for the next seven other students potentially compared to the c every year but i just wanted to bring it up to the board in case there were just i don't know a lot of ideas around it a little bit about it i think i'm going to community because they've supported our budget so and i the only other thing i wanted to share is that ginny's will be including a portion in or four or ministers will be summarizing some of the initiatives and school goals and then we met last year the strategic priority committee and we modified the format a bit so that the indicators and the information is based on the strategic priorities and  nicely with our strategic priorities that if if if if well and in that in that you're the letter or introduction that you write do you know up in i think it was probably two thousand and seven well there's two answers to that the first is our celery schedule is for is in the middle of the pack now for enough for forty one and our first batch one game is this weekend on saturday so should be good we recently had a pyre teacher fundraiser for camp to come to which is organized by students at our school and  i can't remember the exact number but we raised a significant amount and i think we met that we raise from last year or might have even surpassed that and that happened during last week little community scenes are directed and put on by juniors and seniors with actors from all grades that's coming up this week and then just yesterday we had a lunch with ad men which we have each quarter and it's basically just a time when the administration sets out in our mean lobby area during all four of our lunch periods and students with suggestions or questions or complaints about school can i can go up and talk about that with our administration and i think this was our fifth no second of this year oh second of the roof said three schools and four heating and ventilation system which there was a lot of discussion on and this motion that close is going to read it comes to the board as a to fund the roof replacement project it's described in the presentation to the finance committee on december twelfth twenty thirteen  presentation to the finance committee and the finest facilities committee sorry on the symbol twelve twenty thirteen and the replacement of air handling units each b seven and h feed eight with associated allowances for soft costs and contingencies yeah that's it you want dollars dollars to be determined it will be in the neighborhood of one point four million but that's not part of the motion so that's not range ok so the voluntary merger committee organized and held its first meeting and it's not a committee of this board but since since i'm chairing it i thought i should at least let you folks know that and invite everyone to our next meeting if you should choose which is monday at four thirty at the chin in east offices and we will be posting up a series of meetings and taking all the steps to held just a tad too early for you to return so be happy to do them i also think we'll be playing we will be post we already are posting quite a bit of information at work will be posting everything on the website as well be happy to provide those