ballot item that's being put on the ballot for april seventh welcome with me our superintendent john fallon vice chairman sandy baghdadi and select so we thought it would be a good idea to have a sounding board if you will focus group that wasn't really in the details of looking at each of the respective areas in the issues to get their perspective or think those individuals as well they were into a frenzy  we had the overall task force and again i was appointed by this board of selectmen and the members that i just mentioned and then when we constructed the task course we thought that will be important to know only the monthly basis but also to form working groups around some of the issues that we believe as a task force were important to be addressed group a was education group be looked at non tax revenue opportunities group c was looking at capital projects major requirements an opportunity for structural change and then group b was financial projections i think you may have seen this on the slide it would as well proceed through the slides to go through it or you so i just went through the working groups so the goals of the task force as as we construct it were to produce a multi year financial plan which would illustrate the ability of the top by quality municipal and educational services of capital improvements we want to look at both the operating tafel needs of our community based on data recommendations of the working groups we wanted to look at exhaustively i think we did to best to give potential revenue sources in service of the live remodels you know were there ways that we could look at delivery services differently than we currently do today we always hear about innovation consolidation regionalization so we wanted to test for some of those issues as well we've always investigate those in the past but this is a more formal way through the working groups wanted to analyze capital project funding needs and impacts again major building projects  collect data on revenue expenditures historical trends and project future estimates based on those trends in various assumptions and that was really the overall task of the task force in the working group for of course  correct they spend hundreds of not dozens if not hundreds of hours on sections as well so i think what's important is for each free we all get to hear from each of the chairs of these working groups and the summary  findings and recommendations and to the extent that the chairs of those working groups want to add additional color in terms of some of the other seven reports that were part of those findings but they don't give a john there were a number of other to see the first part of the task force again there's copies of the executive summary that are on the two tables in the full report is on the web page as well as the executive summary on the program tonight is to go through  force i need to recommendations as well as go over the of why sixteen budget based upon available revenues and then to answer the question so in the interest of time what we will do on the treasurer for you carmen own and the findings of the group be revving up to the sub group was to create a consolidated fee schedule which sounds like n and chuck clarke and didn't guard it so that was the subgroup and so the findings of the revenue opportunities was to create a consolidated fee schedule and compare ourselves to other mis paths with regard t fees and what we found is that the fees that belmont charges are competitive if in some cases higher than other communities but now we have a database to go forward so we can contract this information going forward and i think the thing  that the the treasurer has said is that the revenue opportunity subgroup will continue to meet so even though the report has been issued on the work that will be identified the second will be the continuing work of the subgroup going forward  again there was work that was done with regard to the pilot payments and again work will continue that work that will be explored going forward with regard to try to solicit additional pilot payments from our  commuter parking program in front of the lions club to charge a fee for those spots for commuters as well as a limited number of spots of the parking lot of a high belmont center that's generated parks me fifty thousand dollars which is included in the sixteen budget  in terms of recommendations again these a lot of recommendations that are detailed in the full report but one of the things that we spent a lot of time on was to take a look at our recreational things that we will continue to work on going forward as part of the recommendations of the task force in addition to that there was a recommendation in terms of hire a professional in the recreation department to help manage recreation facilities as you aware few years back we consolidated recreation under public works since they were already providing a ministry of structure to the recreation department but now we're at a point where  we may be in a position to hire a professional to manage our assets in to manage our facilities and to take a look at the program offerings of the recreation department to see if they can be expanded in order to generate additional revenue to the town  in addition the task force to go look at selling top parcels for residential development or to give to finally the use of town apostles to see if there is opportunities to use them for time programming  in addition to that as you will where we have a parking management plan that is has been developed and will be implemented as the at the end of the belmont center reconstruction project in terms of trying to make sure that space is turned over in belmont center so that there is parking available for individuals who come into the center to shop and do business in addition to that task force took a look at other parking to help generate possible income with regard to either commuter parking or just parking in general or to allow us to have additional spots that may be freed up behind one center for business business permit holders of that as the macy's building its development attention generates additional traffic that we have an opportunity to maybe move some of our business permit holders to a different location so that's one of the things that was recommended that  the boards like and in other countries take a look at again we talked about the consolidation the management of the town and school recreational assets under experience recreation management again i think the  superintendent and jay markov of the public works department have started talking about trying to coordinate the way we manage our facilities because again some cases they're tile facilities in some cases their school facilities and basically trying to put them under one umbrella so that they can be managed more effectively efficiently and potentially to raise additional revenues in terms of those assets and you get that ties into field management  again the whole issue about the fields and maintenance and upgrades and what we receive from in kind donation with regard to field maintenance and how it's coordinated so a lot of good recommendations these are the major seven but if you look at the full report i think there may be of the fifteen recommendations so that gives you just the highlight of what they looked out and in this part of the report that they  helpful when we look at capital projects of fall into two categories one is the major building projects that need to be done in the town such as the high school the library we know the list and i'll get to that momentarily and then the other piece of that is what the capital budget committee oversees which is the funding of capital items requested by the town department heads so when we look at the capital budget account or the amount of money that's given to the c budget committee each year we have a budget committee for the last few years has been saying you know what we really can use a steady stream of three million dollars a year in the last few years we've seen requests anywhere from four and a half to five and a half million dollars and we're giv around a million dollars to work with so as you can see we're certainly not funding when needs to be done the department heads are very very good about what they ask us for i think somewhere in that it says they're not asking for blue sky requests they that flight will get back to the suggestion capital projects i always like to say we need to take a look at where we've been where are we now and where are we going the good news is as a town in the last fifteen years we've done a lot of really good stuff when you talk about capital projects and major building projects we have the new senior center that we're meeting in tonight's the new wellington school field complex which has been replaced twice in the last fifteen years we have projects such as joey's park and other playgrounds and things which the town kicks in for but are mostly funded by donations and geos and private funds or whatever but they are a major benefit to the town and there's something that we could look at and say look we've done something good here the playground is another good example of that and privately funded and private work on the white field house this past summer which was very nice in addition to that under in progress now is belmont light substation and wood pool which has been sent back a little bit by the snow but driving down tonight i noticed some new framing on another building so that's exciting belmont center reconstruction project was to was approved in november and hopefully will go forward whenever the snow miles melt and center and then the propeller road street sidewalk project which has been going forward even in the snow the good news and having served on the cherry middle school building project we're very happy to announce that those bonds will be retired so that the general will be completely paid for it's like tearing up your mortgage  right now and talk about capital projects we spent a considerable amount of time talking to all the stakeholders of the projects that you see on the slide there these are the projects we've identified that need to happen and really without exception they need to happen yesterday they were all pretty expensive and part of our task was to look at the needs look at where these potential projects might be sited look at the cost and figure out how to schedule and find these projects so number one on the hit parade is belmont high school cost to the taxpayer ultimately around seventy million dollars full cost about  hundred million dollars the state will reimburse and that's an estimate for us this is the one project it's the biggest project and unfortunately it's the one that we are least able to time because we're depended on that state aid and we have to wait for the state approval and that state approval may or may not come we get a letter every december that says mostly no we're waiting for the yes letter so it's very difficult for us to time that and of course it's the biggest chunk of money incinerator site there's been various proposals for that that needs to be done soon so that we can locate something down there d p w facility is the one in the worst need that and the police station both extreme p w facility is the one that's most ready to go they will stay on their site they have a reasonable feasibility study and they have a reasonable estimate of the project of twenty eight million dollars library and police  station good estimates but not necessarily solid sites so we need to see what develops there the library will be moving forward with potential other plans they also are dependent on state funding and so they're a little bit tied to the state grant process as well and the police station they need a place they need somewhere to go and that really is the conundrum when we look at building projects in belmont lots of projects not enough sites and so the old real estate adage of location location location is what we're dealing with when we try to prioritize and make a plan for addressing these  buildings here we are with the recommendations so when we look we jump back to the every day capital budget items what has been recommended is a plan that would allocate to the capital budget committee a half a million dollars in the next two years which would be divided as three hundred thousand for roads and two hundred thousand for sidewalks we hear a lot from citizens about both and we're trying to make a bigger dent in both of those items in addition to that would be one million dollars over two years of bonding capacity which would allow us to take some major items off of our capital budget list and bottom of the actual cash in hand would be one hundred twenty thousand dollars each wouldn't i guess at this point i would just like to sort of make my pitch for buildings we can't lose sight of the need to do these buildings and unfortunately buildings like the d p w there's nothing sexier exciting about the d p w and so it's hard for them to get an advocate to say hey we need to do this and so the capital budget committee in a lot of ways sees itself as the cheerleader for some of these projects and so you're going to see me popping up a lot saying but wait don't forget about the d p w and the police station and some of these other projects because they need to happen and they need to be part of the plan and you know him or if they can remember it was great when things are going to through the this you know sort of the working group facilities are not getting any younger the getting older and the conditions are pretty bad all of them are in pretty tough shape in costing us to repair them in rent you know except we have to every year as well so i wholeheartedly agree with you emory mean w put together some numbers just for you know to take a look at them in the sense of the scale of what we're talking about and he projects that to do all the sidewalks that need to be done a if we did a mock one time it's seven point two million dollars so when you think about what we already in the capital budget put in for side and then the extra two hundred thousand a year that that the recommendation is for and you think of how what that means in terms of addressing at some point two million dollars just sign improvement you realize that even if you did that at the end of the day once you've repaired them all you're starting all over so it's an ongoing need that we really got to get our arms around and and and yes it as all of you know sidewalks don't even exist on every street so there are streets that want sidewalks and so this is an important issue that we you know recognition of the task force is excellent in that sense because quite frankly it's a need that every resident that you know e mails us but also a p s here and you're going to hear more about this from dr failon but one of the things we also looked at is going down the road in the near term we have some overcrowding in the schools which may require some additional space and that costs money but also as we go down the road the existing school buildings that some of us who are getting older think of as having been just renovated in fact it was twenty and thirty years ago and so when you look at the bottler and the burbank and when brought we need to take care of those buildings as well and so i can't emphasize enough how important it is to include the capital buildings the building projects in an david as a multitasking so i was these i guess the citizen representative of the of the task force along with the jim williams and one of the things we did was really look at the town government and say what are the things that the town is doing in terms of service delivery is it are we doing more are we doing last what is essential what is not essential i think the takeaway that we came up with was services have diminished in the town over the last thirty years  the d p w staff and been reduced dramatically there's less police officers than there were ten years ago in terms of sworn police officers and we were looking for efficiency mark and david and laurie myself and we also looked and said myself met with the senior folks over at arlington and they have him and mark went over to winchester and well lou we looked at what innovative things are they doing as well and so the takeaways came to you what what what things can we apartments currently participate in many liberal aberrations and really regionalization efforts i think that's something really key and i want to harp on that too much with all the town folks that we met with the heads of all the town agencies there are collaborative that are  i don't want to go into too much detail but there's a ton of efficiencies out there and we think that order to regionalize even more essentially you'd have to come by how i mean david feel free to apply that there be a legal restrictions can ever be accomplished although no give up on that one great and i think in terms of finding you know i don't want to go through too much detail but in the full report of the task force we have lists and lists of how much collaboration is currently going on you can see you know the fire department belongs to metro fire it was consists of thirty five other fire departments in terms of ordering different supplies the d p w already has regional for cure meant the libraries i'm in member of the  our recommendations we wanted to establish an incentive bonus pool for department heads and other lawyers to reward them for development and implementation of innovative and cost saving ideas i think we were really excited about the technology and the cloud computing that some departments are doing we want to just continue to foster that and create more and more efficiencies although at some point i think we came to the conclusion that there is a certain diminishing marginal utility at some point you know personnel  largest cost and you know if you can't make those efficiencies you know go to have good people and we do have good people all of these town governments i mean my background is in financial services and i came in with a very objective  saying if there's ways to be found let's find it i'm not saying that there aren't more and more efficiencies that we can always maximize really the town has been running very lean for a number of years and i think we're starting to cut a little bit maybe into the b the generation of additional property tax revenue as well as we certainly want to work more closely with our state legislators to lobby for more changes at the state level the current pension system and for additional health care reform to more effectively manage their findings or recommendations and i think we have a fiduciary obligation as a as a member the boards like it is and as a board to do everything we can to implement an executed on these recommendations specially on the group the time government you know which i w different you know in terms of what was more acute for them then and asked where they're faced with the same challenges that we are and as mike would muesli the audience knows all three hundred fifty one communities are faced with going going issues as relates to open and pension to address our calming issues and find solutions as well as explore further ways to collaborate and innovate and and then of course and sent our town department heads who have you saw there doing more collaboration is than i think any of you may have extensively on the financial projections that were it would be informed as we work through it and for the issue that we were later than we thought in terms of issuing a report is we continued to be informed by our actual experience in fifteen it also perhaps in fourteen as we continue to work through the for the it's projections because we certainly want to ensure that we were as of wind as we possibly could with the facts on the ground at th terms of overall our budgets funded nine percent is funded from property taxes in state aid and so therefore any increases or decreases in state have an impact on our budget but again property taxes is the main driver of our revenue sources to fund our operating budget with regard to the schools the superintendent will talk about where the school department budget has been from circuit breaker or out credits or revolving funds and those have been depleted or will be depleted at the end of fiscal fifteen findings of again the superintendent will talk about the original students or contracted services and again the superintendent has charts that and let him explain again part of the whole lot of it was to basically get the information from the four other groups and come up with a question is will you know again as we get to the recommendations clearly of the high hand it's a seven point seven million dollars projected shortfall in fiscal nineteen and the four point five billion dollars shortfall through  seventeen the findings of the the modeling group is basically to maintain programs and services and yet in the three things you talked about which i would call r and additions or expansions of the things that the emory mahoney talked about above the increase to the capital budget with regard to roads and sidewalks and five hundred thousand dollars that is part of the model that was developed by the task  do that twice five hundred thousand dollars and sixteen and five hundred thousand dollars in seventeen to basically buy a million dollars worth of capital improvements but finance it over six years  five positions each year in the subsequent years for seventeen eighteen nineteen in addition to that of all of the fluids that we develop increases the superintendent's terminology is sixteen for two hundred seventy six thousand in addition for transportation for special ed in addition to contracted services and for temporary services which  fifteen additional funding or revenues generated from building permits fees based upon our current experience over the last couple years we talked about the fifty thousand dollars for increase meter fees in business permits new property taxes that are generated from new construction and above four hundred seventy five thousand dollars and dished it out on there are projected to be projects or cushion village and the uplands as well as personal property taxes from the substation through red star which of any corporate is into the law again this is not the budget per se but it is the model that basically inform the budget recommendations there are several  the first one is that the financial projection model will be used by the various committees going forward as a planning tool number two the revenue opportunities group their recommendations will be considered  dollars increase in operating funds as a major increase in property taxes to the homeowner and again understanding that approximate in the end all increase to the property tax levy translates into a one hundred fifty dollar increase per million dollars for the average single family home or own and so i think that was a recognition of what our what our projected shortfall is and one of the cost of that is the finance funding and again basically taking all those into account that task was recommended to the board of the four point five million dollars on out he recommended to the boards like the for consideration finalized just through reiterate i think it's really important that we as a board continue to wear ways to execute and implement some the recommendations of the task force and of course not to dis be in the test course as well we want to thank everybody who work on this it's been a lot off of the finance force and you know we know that these issues are not easy issues to online so we thank them for their diligence and doing this  range of recommendations that we need to evaluate discuss and implement according with that i'd like to introduce the superintendent to present the schools i think what we might do is to chairs go through the overview and then go to the superintendent because his and i will do this very brief because we've covered most of it so where we are now is with the war committee the board of selectmen have developed in a rare a vailable revenue budget target based upon available revenues to the town of fiscal sixteen the school apartment has developed the budget to  we work within those parameters as well as down departments again quickly going through the budget process we as a town department sit down with our departments we have budget guidelines that we issue we have a team approach in terms of reviewing budget requests by town departments for submission to the board of selectmen we also again as part of the process we work with the superintendent and his staff and the school committee to share information both on the revenue expenditure side so that we all are sharing the same information and making the same assumptions in addition to that we do collaborate with our elected officials at the state level to get a sense of what the  state revenue picture looks like in terms of what we may expect for stated and like so again the process begins late in the calendar year november and basically yields a budget in february but again there are a lot of folks involved in the development who want a collaboration just again talking about where our budget goes for the total budget that's been submitted ninety six ninety one is the available revenue budget and again i'll just go through the larger pieces the part of the school budget is approximately forty nine percent and again we have different public safety and we have fringe benefits pension health insurance we have state charges  again in addition to getting revenue from the state we also get a bill from the state for various things that they provide to the town the biggest assessment that we receive this would be t a one point six million dollars in terms of an dollars that in interest is four point four million little bit less than one percent human services which is the library health department is a little bit a little bit less the one percent public services d p w community development and facilities so that's just where we spend our money overall total revenues again you as i no the biggest piece of the pie is property taxes but eighty one percent followed body state which is a point eight percent and again other taxes that is motor vehicle excise tax meals tax penalties and interest in those kinds of revenues which is three point six percent and ambulance receipts which is under one percent of eight hundred thousand building permits eight hundred thousand  free cash which again is the town savings account is being used to balance the budget as it's been done for several years above one point eight percent or value of one million seven hundred fifty so i just give you a sense of where the funding comes but again you get the idea of what our biggest revenue sources are terms of balancing our budget expenditures including the schools and town departments almost seventy percent of salary benefits as part of our types of expenditures non salary are the things that are not people oriented energy special ed tuitions materials things like that that's twenty two point eight percent to twenty two million dollars again we talked about capital for roads one million to forty nine in the fiscal sixty budget dead in interest we talked about which is about five percent or four point four  discretionary capital one million dollars and then within the department the budgets the operating capital both million dollars so again that just tells you from a statutory level how we spend our money  the proposed budget is ninety six nine eighty one which is an increase of one million seven twenty four or one point eight percent the school budget for fiscal sixteen based upon available revenues is forty seven point million crease of a million three or two point eight percent now budget is thirty two almost thirty three million dollars an increase of nine hundred thirty seven thousand or two point nine percent the fixed costs which are fifteen point five million fixed cost are the things that basically the town is required to fund such as the service pension obligations the roads override the minuteman assessment state charges things there basically the top will have to pay the bill for so those are categorized the fixed costs and the total fifteen point five million it's a decrease of hundred thirty one thousand overall again  we do a revenue projection based upon property taxes beat increase by two and a half percent new growth based upon construction like and then we look at our non property tax revenues as i said motor vehicle excise tax mules tax penalties and interest the like into a projection for possible increases in fiscal sixteen as well as fees and charges for services and permits and licenses so we come up with a number and then from that number we deduct those fixed costs they talked about then basically that's divvied up and basically those become the target amounts for allocation for available budget development for both our budgets and schools basically with the net amount is left after you now for the fixed assets predictable number as a beginning point home again we talked about the capital budget alone again we talk about using our missouri's free cash to balance our budget as well as some other reserves which is the o of funding or not things that have not been funded i think clearly on the capital budget in terms of the request that we get our resources that if in fact an additional resources became available that the  school to me in the war committee counsel budget committee to look to a payment management program i get we budget of one million two hundred forty nine thousand based upon the road over right from property taxes in addition to that we receive approximately five hundred thirty three thousand dollars in the state from chapter ninety funds which is used for a payment management program and then school part and superintend will talk about staffing next steps the governor has submitted a budget it does call for an increase in state aid in the superintendent will talk about maybe an offset to that revenue number of that we just received news about this week but but again the governments need to state a budget be also smits  budgets for all the departments and basically if the town is the beneficiary of any grants when the actual allocations made to different departments then maybe reduction grant resources that take place and superintend will talk about the reduction one of our great resources that we just found out about consensus agreement between the three branches and that allows me to the palace to plan in some cases there are variations to local aid and other allocations to fund the state budget in addition to that we had a budget me higher which then becomes additional resources to fund the budgets we're asking them to see if they can provide that number as soon as possible so it can be included in this budget cycle taskforce recommendations again were part of the decision making process in terms of considering them understanding now and again i think again john i think will talk about the actual available revenue budget and how it impacts the school budget for fiscal sixteen if the available revenue budget is implemented i think one of the things that we will ask and what i might do is just the way to the end to talk about what the plan override uses would be if they became variable in terms of resources but again i think there's a roadmap that has been developed based upon the financial taskforce evening my name is john feal one of the superintendent of the belmont public schools the very proud superintendent of the belmont schools i want to thank the board of selectmen they have been very supportive of the process of the work committee and obviously the school committee so we very much appreciate being part of that process a lot of the information that was gathered for the financial task force subcommittee that was the education subcommittee was very much entrenched in eight modeling groups that were done  operation and it has been structural technology innovation revenue sources student services instructional technology and student life groups all of which had members of our community in our town government participating in each of those marlin groups in all of those summaries were incorporated into the financial taskforce work that we did when we get to how the financial task force interacts with the available revenue budget we have had extensive conversations with  financial taskforce of the needs of the town the revenue projections and the expense projections and it was our job as a subcommittee to talk about education to put forth what the needs were of the school department so to do so i think it's very very helpful to talk about the context the schools are in at this point in time just as other departments are in the time when the group talked about government services we have a police department that has more cars than they have had many years but  look like for the school department in the financial taskforce as it was developed as part of the overall financial taskforce into the how that would look for our school system and it also led to recognize that we do have  ensure that all students receive instruction from high quality teachers are a three major goal our budget goes for the f y sixteen budget to provide a rigorous educational environment maintaining levels of staffing that are  the increase in the level of a role that that we have experienced and we will experience maintain a well rounded education what we think about school we don't just think about math science and social studies but we think about where language music are performing arts part exams and we feel as a level one district that we are one of the very few districts across the whole state that have that i'd as ignition that we want to work hard maintaining that and lastly we always want to make sure we provided teachers the correct professional development so they can get better what they do so they can engage our children better to have a better school experience well we started to look at the pressure points that are on the district right now and have been increasing over the last few fiscal years  mean pressure that we're seeing is the increase in the role that we're actually going to go into a few slides that explains how many students we have received in the last few years and how many projects to receive additionally to david kills  about different budget priorities in the school budget there are several lines in the school budget that have actually dramatically gone out that are commensurate with the hieromonk that we have but also we needed services that the state says that we need to provide and we have no choice of providing for certain types of student services in those costs are accelerating and they're also made it so some of those what i will stop college bills that you have to pay and we've seen on a very significant increase in those line items is getting support of those areas will go a long way for the school budget in general and lastly we're always looking at the social health and wellness of our students and our staff in really big sure that we get access to make sure that all of us students can access the curriculum we see a an increase of over three three hundred seventeen students to the government public schools during that time to go to visit him which this was something we see over the ten year period that we are expecting an additional four hundred eight students in the next five years which would conservatively give us an estimate of about ht after that have good schools and i have great communities we're seeing that right now that index is really not accurate that we're actually having to add a number to that of additional students that come in so we have indexed that by thirty students  nasdaq group says that there were three hundred babies born five years ago that's how many students are going to having to god five years from now what we're seeing is that we have an international international community coming to belmont this it in the past two days three days i've received one of the most awful horrible one phone call from germany into a waste book for twenty minutes with a gentleman from spain so we have people coming from all over the world who are interested in going to school living in this community to access all the great things of the community and access to surrounding the benefits of boston cambridge so this this is number that we see is not rooted in the old fashioned way of thinking about a roman which is already three hundred students were exact science and so i can't say that they fully are i just think that what the dish is doing is year by year trying to you look at the trends and what we experience of the past and doing a job to project those future numbers  increased costs associated with servicing them in these a mandated services one group the students who are new to our country who don't have english as their first language or the term that we use yell out english language learners in from two thousand and nine to two thousand and fifteen we've gone from ninety eight students to two hundred twenty two in the reason why those significant is that the state says that we have to serve those students at a certain ratio teacher per student depending on their level of english that is not something that we have to decide ourselves of figure out ourselves that's a be indeed a cost i was at an echo meeting today which is a collaborative meeting of eighteen school districts we had about fifteen superintendents in school with the members of the room everybody at that table has concerns with this type of data in their in their home districts that they have to provide more teachers that are mandated that the services that the trying to provide history and there's a lot of complicating factors are trying to provide the service but this is a mandate of service in the way it works is that if you see on the left hand side that the majority of the students that are coming in are at least proficiency in the english language so allowed to do this we believe that the international community in the multi the diverse population does i just it well it's just a very factual current that that also is a budget driver for the district similarly with our students who need student supports because it challenges our beyond school system's ability to provide in the six government public schools so those students would have services provided outside of one public from eighty one students in june of two thousand and thirteen to ninety seven in the school year that were and as a only as of february of this school year and they have one more student going out as well the reason why this is significant again is because the average price to educate these children is about sixty five thousand dollars per year that's what transportation in the range of the cost of some of these two issues go from fifty thousand dollars to one hundred  fifty thousand dollars the current deficit that we have isn't is mainly because we're providing a lot of contract and services for the higher modest students we have it we're providing a lot of services for the complicated cases and students that we have that we just described so these contracted services have really come into while her about five hundred thousand dollars sure in the current year were in the belmont public schools has experienced shortfalls in the last two fiscal years in this year we're already as david pointed out implementing reductions we're not filling some vacancies and we're not buying all the things that we should purchase for us to use and i teach use those types of measures have happened in four of the last fiscal year four of the last five years so we have been having to take money out of the general structural materials but it and move it over a certain budget line items to pay the difference for certain mandated costs this means that we're taking things from most students and trying to put them in the been working its way through the budget process in the belmont public schools for some time the current deficit we have exhausted the typical types of one time funds and support funds  go to look towards these budget line items the lab credits that people spoke to earlier we belong to a collaborative to sheer cost for our special interest attention and special ed services in professional development and by sharing in those no project in the lab credits to use that's one time money so none of those funds are available and sixty we have utilized all the circuit breaker money which is the state funds that go to support all school unities for the audition cost those funds have been depleted well of the fiscal year we're in in any and all evolving and constantly have the school system that take in money to certain fees and then spend them down on the line items that are used by those fees those have been exhausted as well and it should be mentioned that we had a two hundred thousand dollars transfer last year to be able to have the schools close out in completely year in line with their budget so we are seeing that these funds are not available in between now and the depth of that we've been having rolling over transportation regular and transportation bids everything from paper to natural gas to how we buy our phones how we behave or what tricity how we do professional development all is done in a collaborative nature to try to drive down we even had our high school go from oil to natural gas in an attempt to drive down costs do we partner in our collaboration with the town's departments that we share resources with i started the night out by saying that we would not have been able to survive without the d p w of the facilities department in the work that we've been doing with each department is much appreciated it we do share resources and we do work together and it's a very cooperate program and we're thankful for that everybody from the amount of money that they call the average per pupil expenditure for every city in town school department across the commonwealth what that's like shows is that the state average for our purpose books and injure is the state numbers these and our own numbers the difference in that average amount is one thousand seven hundred seventy two dollars per student so just in rough numbers as a as a way of demonstrating how might not be budget terribly factual as much as it's a it's an indicator that if we were paying as much if we would hang is much for students of other communities around us we might have a different budget story to support the students in the schools here is a graph of that data with the surrounding towns and we compare ourselves to burlington lexington bedford watertown wellesley unwilling all spend between almost eighteen thousand dollars per child all the way down to sixteen dozen dollars per child you see that being in the middle which is our state average into the right in below the state average is below so it is an indicator that other towns surrounding us in an apples to apples department of education  measurement are spending more money per child than we are about one schools so those slides just try to give you a peek into the debian's of the schools the pressure points on the department  as a member of the financial taskforce who did come in late october kingston was part of the group for the majority of the time but as a number of that group i did fully support the vote in the work of the task force who presented it to the board of select we believe that the task force represents and i believe the task was for presents what's in the best interests of the entire town in all of the potus it represents in the capital projects that represents not just the school budget that it represents so we very much appreciate the work of the task was in how relates to the schools when we were asked to take a three year we had the public schools we had to look at the key to part is that we're driving that budget scenario one wasn't obviously to talk about the enrollment in means hey the school system as best we can as an increase in students is going up and also to be very very honest and open about some of the budget deficit drivers that we're place that we need to address so we have a line items  it just we're not adequate and we felt that they needed to be a fiscal injection those line items that had been increasing the rest collating to be able to stabilize those accounts because that those accounts have been the characteristics that does address those funding alignment issues that we talked about the three major areas of contract and services for all students services that amended the increase in the on a district that has been dated the transportation that we provide for special education regular  folks and we keep the law school on the air this certain one time funds that we just don't have access to so we should always keep that in the back of our mind as well the other task that we had for the time financial task force was that if we are to address the needs of a roman we had a list of three years of the projected staff support staff and teaching staff that would like to put through just to address it maintain the level of staffing to be corresponding with the low of enrollment that we're seeing at all levels of our school district so we look at this chart and again this is online if you want to look at it in more detail this job basically goes down by a level elementary middle district wide and then across by year this is school year fifteen sixteen seventeen sixteen seventeen seventeen eighteen essentially the in roman to the elementary level means that we need to add another class at one of our buildings we need an additional kindergarten and additional first grade then digital second grade there are graded for the grade as we move through the next three years so these positions just ask for that we want to kindergarten teacher or first grade teacher in year two we want a second grade teacher and then in the year three of their a teacher we're building another coal or other class combined with that at the wellington school when we built grew significantly so that one from a force tr school to a five training school so next year this last are trade has five thirty classes but there's only four there are four fourth grade classes waiting for those whose so we need at that last teacher to balance that school so essentially all the additional staff that we're looking to hire is surely to be attained the district as it relates to a roman we believe that the class sizes that we currently have are high and if you think about and they welcome three hundred fifty eight kindergartners so that's just one year's difference if you look at how the data stossel looked for the enrolment didn't we have a role in presentation that outlines all this on the web as well in our budget for the future review we used to have thirteen grades were the children meaning kindergarten through twelve that were under three hundred that were actually under two hundred eighty students per class we currently have a lemon about thirteen grades over three hundred most are over three hundred thirty if we only have two left that are under three hundred so trying to just give you a picture with some facts about how the how that enormous wave of students is coming into the district it's starting at the elementary level but we have students coming in at every level of the everything every week and a few a few weeks of every month of the school year so that just maintains that that that service delivery for the elementary level at the middle school level obama give a grade five teacher needed because we have a group of folks coming from the elementary to the middle and we need what we call unified arts teacher which is the technology physics that music are because w students are of those classes they have to be somewhere else and if they're not somewhere else what's happening in the last few fiscal years is they're ending up in study hall eighty ninety students at a time not engaged so we have middle school school that i think that we need to engage those students and i think that this one position in the position in year two would go a long way in trying to provide meaningful enrichment opportunities for the student in games that during the day anything from or a war are to maybe robotics or any other kind of class and we can engage the students in as opposed to sitting still for forty eight minutes during the day we also have a guidance counselor that we would like to see in year two we have four grades of three hundred or so students p m we only have three guidance counselors that's a caseload of four hundred twenty five to one middle school is the most difficult time in a child's life so you want to make sure that you have those services wrapped around them at the high school we have three positions that we would like to see that goes to adding classes in sections of classes because we had again have many many students who during the school day do not have a full schedule so at the high school you have seven periods in your schedule many of the students only have six classes so they just have a one off because they don't have enough classes we don't have enough staff to give everybody seven classes so they call those freeze free periods and those three days combined with that schedule combined with the fact that we don't also provide subs for the high school teachers means that if there are days where hundreds of students in our gauge during the day not engaged at all or in a day we have students in the library we have students in the cafeteria and we have benches that were donated by parents so the students could sit in the hallways it i believe that the open campus that we have  in in many ways a very good thing for our seniors they have but i think that that that free time has it worked its way down to juniors and sophomores and we really want to make sure that we can engage our children in maybe bring that pendulum back to an appropriate level the last positions that we were asking for was that to be aided english language learning teachers we were told by the state we sent them a letter last week saying that we would try to hire guidance counsellor it would also like to provide some technology support and social emotional help and we're going to leave that thirty year with a little bit of a fluctuation so we can see with the roma looks like and what we need to provide the financial taskforce maintains the services that the school provides a district as the added funds only bring us at a corresponding level to our research and roman increasing by the drivers so that was just a brief overview of what the schools support its power are of the overall task force budget and we do support the entire towns financial taskforce budget the available revenue you get a bill revenue budget that is sure and not enough money to provide the services you need the first thing you do like you have to do when you have a home's pay your bills the certain things that we have to pay and those things are mandated contracted service  a transportation bills and we have to hire those to be allowed to be just as states as we have would also like to hire that additional grade four teacher because we have five third grade classes going up into four classes if we need one more number we were able to just sail where we get last year of fiscal fifteen and these numbers in red are the added amounts in these line items that we need to infuse into our budget that are basically our budget driver items so we just add the increases of those budget line items and then we put in that rate for teacher that we need and we have a health insurance for the three positions with a little bit of above or utility we're basically saying that we at least need forty nine million one hundred sixty three thousand dollars so we start with what do we have in fifteen we add to it the allocation from the available revenue budget which is one point three and that means of the total projected budget allocation for sixteen under that scenario would be forty seven million five  hundred fifty seven thousand dollars if we look at the basic need which is around forty nine million it we subtract that we get that one point seven million dollars deficit the impact given the available revenue if we have a shortfall of one point seven we have a leadership team get together to decide how we would respectfully methodically go about making these reductions with the intention that we would have to live with the reductions that we make is absolutely keeping in mind that whatever we say we're going to reduce is what we'll have to live with if that is our case here are the amounts that buy lol we would reduce four hundred thirty four thousand dollars at the elementary level we reduce three hundred thirty dollars at the middle three hundred seventeen in the high school six twenty three six hundred twenty three thousand dollars a district while totally one point seven the way the methodology was we gave the numbers to those level administrators the elementary principals that the elementary reductions middle school folks high school folks they got a number amount based on need and role and that they're responsible for and then we try to take some of the playing by making district wide productions as well in the end we're asking with this level of reduction you have to do what you need to do first and if you get to do the things that you'd like to do that has to come second so when it comes to certain productions then i've been put into this budget because we're trying to provoke interest or cause folks alarm as much as we're trying to say this is how we're going to approach us if we only have this much money we're going to do the things we have to do first and whatever money we have of the whole tribe of the things that we can do that would like to do sex and you'll see that that methodology is you see some of the reductions in each  i'm sorry that this is such a long list it is hard to read but these are every single position that we will either a limited balling or bar at the elevator all ranging from clerical aides to music teachers to a grade three teacher three guidance counselors an administrative position reduced library reduced library need reduced so these positions were across all units of our group meeting it it represents administration clerical aides teachers guidance into total four hundred thirty four thousand dollars the principals wrote down very thoughtful impact statements that i want to read to you but i can say aloud that in today's world not to have a guidance counselor a school is a very big deal but because it's not in front of it it's group of students during the day we can't afford to have those folks if we can't have the teacher first you're going to stop me from first and are on the new level everybody might think well professional aides you know that they're not teachers will what's the big deal about that when we bring students out to do the kind of insurance that we do we're i was in the window and i was watching kindergarten class of twenty four students when they were trying to learn how to read the teacher that explicit lesson and then she was able to break those students out in three of four small groups one of which was taken by one of the aides it one of which was taken by her and another one which worked and there are five years old they're working on their own they're really working hard but that's the method that we can differentiate that instruction to give the kids what they need who need it down here it's a challenge the kids with the a challenge who are here that's how the school works these list of the impacts and each level at the middle school a sensually we are reducing math english science and social studies by what we call point eight of a teacher that means  teacher is a full time teacher is a what we know point eight means that we're taking four sections are the middle school english math science and social studies that means class size will go out of our lives quite in the areas but more importantly that's not described that the middle school is made up of teams of teachers that take your children that meet together for teachers bigoted english math science of studies teacher and they have a hundred kids they take care this moral of this mental is that middle school  that is used throughout the country that is best practice that means that teachers are going to have to get to know maybe two hundred students in teacher across grades in all watered down our ability to make sure that we can maintain good relationships with us students and children at school the big hits here is that with those reductions i mentioned before that we have middle school students presently in studying off our integrators will not get performing arts will be of study or some grades will have more study halls and others and as we do the as well as before we got so it's a well balanced look at reducing each work group in someone might say well why did you couple the parliament why did you cut a whole series of things we're not trying to provoke we're trying to sell out we're trying to take a very very cautious approach to if we have to stop our school in this way we believe that this is it might be the best way to do it under those types of conditions there's very serious consequences for this type of induction of the high school which is already very thin staff high school that the reductions in math and english will result in an average class size of twenty seven that science and social studies will not be allowed to take an additional cause in their areas all these seniors who are looking for a fifth course day will only be a little take five classes juniors despite a seven period day will be able to take five classes with the exception of a positive decision making class it's not every day  our tenth graders will only be allowed to take six classes so we have a seven period day but we're going to have enough resources to have our juniors and seniors think five classes i consider that to be something that's concerning not just because students are not being able to have those experiences which is what high school should be all about but also because it impacts are ability to project those experiences on their resume and on the transcripts as they prepare programs for youngest students going into first to go into second grade which will reduce as well in reducing a preschool teacher that adds up to two hundred four thousand dollars of central office and district wide types of positions they were gone district there non decision or normal non selling productions as well we're reduce our materials and supplies by hundred forty three thousand professional development by twenty five facilities bite me in here is we're we're beginning to start to act more like we might need to start and generate more income in there's two ways to do that in some of this is doug filling in the work of the financial taskforce where we believe like the financial taskforce in partnership with them in trying to take our assets that we have which are six school buildings and begin to try to rent them out at a warlock an incredible rate to non government folks who want to commit our buildings around them so even though we're school in our business we believe that we can start to market that and do some of that work and as we begin to transition that to a centralized facilities department function that will be a town wide function we feel we need to do it right now because we can't continue to rent a space if it negative experience that results in the loss of a teacher so the finance subcommittee is meeting and we're looking through every rental charge looking through every vendor that we use and letting them know in a letter that starting july one regardless of a financial task was by june or bill bradley budget we're charging more money to use our space it's the only avenue that schools really get to be a business person and bring money and so i think that the town should  be should be aware that we're working hard at all different ways to reduce and save and also wherever we can bring money in we can the other types of money that we can bring in are on the backs of our parents which we really don't want to do we would look at raising our kindergarten feed i would look at missing a lunch crisis we will look at raising our sounding music prices and we will look at athletics and cost the item that david spoke to earlier that the state is giving us potentially  to the governor's budget for cities and towns of about three hundred thousand dollars the very very small of our mind that was that the kindergarten grant that our town gets each year was reduced from one hundred sixty five thousand dollars to zero so we used to get a hundred sixty five thousand dollars a year for kindergarten that helped pay for the teachers in the eighty's we charge tuition for kindergarten to support that so everybody could have a full day k it was a skill we really didn't have enough money to pay a certain amount and we've been doing that for more than a few years so that by the governor's budget took that money out a full day k it is to be showing up in another line and so the town but that is a reduction before we knew that information we planned on charging more for him to garden to increase revenue for to reduce cuts so the government public schools this line out of the video five thousand dollars right now is a question mark next to it because we're going to have to go back and redo our budget our calculations to see how we can manage this if in fact the house budget does not include the full they can be got so this is one that's a little bit we'll have a national next to it so the reductions that we have  are considerable we're trying to be proactive with some of our rental issues and we will that it's here to try to offer certain things that we do not overburden our parents at the same time these are the production power impact statements that we're just go through you can read them on line and this is a summary that's the one point seven by level in that is the reductions in f e's now that's twenty seven point six after an event it's not twenty seven people it might high school student was that we were presentation they were juniors and they don't know what to pick the next year because they don't know what's going to be reduced so there's a real human element to this that i think that we should keep in mind so just as one reduction if you reduce those aid at the elementary level for a case one two and three in some cases for you'll impact over the years and students if you reduce the teaching staff a bill measure level seventy five percent of our students will be in class sizes th phased approach though as the believed to be constructive we can tax from horsham what's been constructed at the end of the day there will be a full tax impact but we don't all get all that all once we get it in chunks so basically obligation as a way of freeing up cash flow for both the government activity even in the school because i think the take away from the school is that it's already running very with just  little bit of a strategy here because again while twenty forty is the absolute deadline i need to cover your unfunded liabilities what you also have to do is do a couple things b position to do is basically have a stretch of the funding schedule so if in fact you currently take your funding schedule and stretch it out the absolute max and there is the non performance of your investment r of return that happens because of factors of the stock market on the investment portfolio changes the basically the only option how is to increase the annual contribution to make up the difference so basically whether retirement board is going to is that six million of the fixed cost is going towards unfunded pension obligations which in my parlance is a sin from the past it was a board of selectmen over the years who decided not to fund the pension fund and use cash for other purposes perhaps whatever the decisions were made i think it's clear to say that the government and not after the individuals but the town government did not fund pension fund properly what happened now is one hundred thirteen million dollars unfunded pension obligation which the current schedule calls for the annual amortization to go from six million to eleven million dollars and whoever put us in that position it's not it's not important what's important is that that is the driver for the problems that were happening in our budget so as i understand it there are ways to restructure that in i'm simply asking was that considered know david gives a good explanation of what could happen down the road but what we're seeing here is that schools are being held up as well if we don't pass this override you know here's what's going to happen to the schools in i don't think we can allow that i mean the over right to me needs to be passed now that on the ballot however the reason we're in trouble with the budget is not because of the schools it's because of this fund on over in i think i know it can't be addressed this year because you know the ballot already started but i think going forward we have to begin to think about restructuring the pension fund so that we don't have to go through this again in three years and we also have to think about funding so that we don't create another pension fund problem all right thank you you can have that discussion unless this question we're not going to get into this about pension and all that i know that for you everything comes back down to mention and all that but that's not what we're going to thank i understand that presentation was about but what is missing in the presentation and thank you very much is a discussion of the impact of the pension and then we're creating a new problem as a group of of elected officials of which i am one we're creating a new problem for opec has to go the way this is developed the way this is developed news that somehow the schools are the reason we need the override in my opinion  obviously there's needs at the schools but there is also a need to do something about the pension the pension problem and i think you should consider as you go forward restructuring the pension obligation that images coming to you if you let me speak now could it be number of things that we believe we start on that path as you look at our pension obligation i think it's prudent in one point it was twenty twenty five you call now it's twenty forty the state extended it when people were hemorrhaging back  to make twenty forty statutorily i think this board i've been a member of for the past four years decided that we will just maintain the funding schedule twenty twenty seven taking consideration which david indicated because if there's any down markets  with them we're spiked in years twenty thirty twenty thirty to twenty thirty five i'm going to once we fully fund hopefully by twenty twenty seven our pension obligations we will then direct our resources  counteract towards pension towards or unfunded open believe it's helpful right now that the state hasn't mandated us to statutory fund at some point in time which they may very well decide to do although  finish i don't think there's been mistakes historically by the board pensions or driven by state statute we are obligated to defined benefit plans they are defined benefit plans they are just their stature they are state mandated to find better plans were not in a private employment situation where we have any control whatsoever to in terms of our pension construction too deeply and you know that very well to be based in your background we've gotten some pension reform that's been introduced championed by our state senator will brownsburg but if you understand and i think you do it only impacts new employees so the employees that we've had historically we still have an obligation to find he percent of their last three years compensation as long as they're alive so that's the current structure and that's why the weibo is so significant in agree with that and the idea is that we can prese law and so what i'm what i'm suggesting is as i understand it again that can be restructured and there may be good reason not to there may be good reasons to do it but i think it should be addressed in the next round of the financial taskforce and i also think that some people in town are saying well the schools don't need any more money you know they have enough money when the real driver of the shortfall is the unfunded pension obligation i don't agree with that at all but let me just say this to well  always over the years so we've had an increase in cost that's the reason why we're deficit increasing costs that have been exasperated this year by a spike in the role of it because we are a level one district i think i support that number one in we were attractive time to move to where he'd miles out of boston we can take us to cambridge and there's been a significant turnover in property on younger families just in my street alone there's been two young families that are moved in with no i definitely understand and there are ways to do that and i think and i'm encouraging people to look at that so that we don't end up in this situation hopefully in the book and the override will pass and we don't face the situation in the schools and then hopefully three years from now when that amortization payment goes up we don't have to come back and have the same discussion again thank you thank you jim you're wel development and quite frankly you know pushing village while it does include one hundred thirteen units of residential housing goods about thirty five thousand square feet of retail we expect that retail will attract that it's going to be very much retail space will attract restaurants we have last year we were approved by the legislature a slate of new additional liquor licenses both full retail beer and wine for restaurants and full liquor for restaurants we plan to use those strategically to really enhance economic development in certain sectors i think cushing areas one issue square is one area there are other potential upcoming developing areas potentially in waverley potentially in other places where we hope that those licenses will help us to have the kind of you know retailers that you're talking about even though our percentage related to the cap property right now residential property taxes ninety four percent of our property so we will be six percent commercial we need to go up we need to get that commercial number going up we're all working in unison to try  ok fred paul the precinct one you certainly made a very strong and compelling case for justifying the be all right i have two questions concerning how one explained it to the public  one is that i'm assuming that the non school budget is a sufficient budget adequate budget and doesn't have to be mentioned as part of the over why sixty requests for intel budgets that meet the available revenue again modest increases in operating budgets with regard to materials and the like moderate a modest increase and negotiate salary increases and so we were we basically we are able to fund our department the budget departmental budgets however that doesn't mean that there are not needs of the top side budgets with regard to each department but basically we've created a budget that meets what we have for available revenues and we have budget hearings today and there was a lot of conversation about the commuter element apartment and their ability to  compliance planning department or police department so it's not that the town departments do not have needs that they do the task force has several recommendations with regard to trying to cordon coordinate our you thank you the other question i had just briefly is that when you talk about the fiscal years seventeen and eighteen and the aspect i have in terms of the school does that mean we need additional teaches today because of rising role and so forth in the years fiscal seventeen eighteen or nineteen twenty we're going to still need those i just want teachers that we're talking about for fiscal sixteen and probably if the growth of class of the number of students grows we're probably going to need even more teachers so doesn't that sort of have to be built in to what happen publicly before think you know some might disagree that maybe our revenues were as high as they need to be in the i'm just it's around the edges if you will you know we felt as a as a task force that there is such significant capital needs as well building projects that to to suggest and recommend to the worst likely more than what we recommend it would in some way to mr opportunity if you will or you know are asked some point of the residents community and i we realized how the override you know recommendation by the financial past force are not the only recommendations because if you read the report thorough way you'll see that you know all of us should because there really are a lot of recommendations many of the other recommendations related to general government may not involve numbers that show up in an override right are real numbers that could help generate additional revenue that could help streamline operations right that could help all these other efficiencies so there are financial taskforce recommendations that specifically target general government they're just not the kind that have shown up  capitol right so there seems to be a real specific plan to continue the funding the five hundred thousand dollars for roads and sidewalks approving it seems to be a continuing plan to do the smaller capital just i'm still concerned about the capacity so the first issue is budget but it can be solved by raising more money i'm talking about school system  fully that the the additional strain on our school system while we're trying to you know prepare for it with you know the kind of  doing is really jarring we really don't know what that full impact is going to be yet yeah there are many people just like yourself sir we're very concerned about whether this might mean a few years down the road on school whether what it will do the class sizes if we don't it's worth your concern when we get that and it's worth all our concerns that we deal with this with open eyes understand the concern and quite frankly we've been hearing from a lot of residents about that city in many scenarios not just high density in town centers you know like cushing or waverly or anywhere else but we're hearing about it simply by the subdivision of large lots into small lots creating higher density lighting there lest the character feel of the belmont people were used to were needing to deal with that as a community the planning board sam you know served on the planning board the planning board is going to be charged with with dealing with some of these there are very very concerning issues a very large lot belmont became to lots that would also have a huge and you know our schools and believe me our schools are attractive enough it makes our town attractive enough that that becomes a very profitable and economic thing for landowners to do that you know one of the benefits of a multi use or a mixed use project like cushing is the fact that it has a significant amount of commercial which will help offset some of that through tax revenue but we understand you're right i mean we've all been asking the same questions i met with them recently with the developer and his associates his attorney his project coordinator and they are very very close to that partnership  that selling to the demonstrate finance which means they have to have this partner because the banks are requiring end of them they seem to be very optimistic that they're going to conclude this within the next couple of months of that last and i agree with you the last email or letter from the developer for you know to the public didn't say if construction was going to start that is a weapon structure where they are that is if they have financing it was very open ended  we asked them to come in because of that just to speak to us about it and that's where we are now that they're supposedly two to three months away from us being able to sell them the parking lot and then being able to break gro and i'll just add that this month or next month his monthly option payment to keep the purchase and sale agreement to live on the parking lot goes up to thirty thousand a mo great question thank you now my second question is along the lines of what fred was saying just when we speak to people about the override about supporting the override the first time that they are right got discussed in the ballot system harold there was a front page of that said that a lot had the fourteenth highest taxes in the state and that we were also spending below average on all the schools so the question are high which results in higher taxes of course and do the math for tax rate actually went down this year on the fact that we are a very attractive community because of your location in our school system results and time high probably goes that plays into