here introduce themselves so that you know who is speaking and later during the meeting if when if and when you speak if you could introduce yourself and what town you're from we would appreciate it so a bob the business manager fortune east i'm michael marks i'm from richmond and as you know as we have two student members on the committee we have student members on our regular school regular full school board we have just didn't members on the other some of the other committees too so we appreciate those students and find them really helpful to a lot of our discussion also i'd like to have jon alpert teenie our superintendent introduce thanks and before we open it up for public comment just a little brief introduction how it will work it tonight as i say will begin with public comments if we maintained our present programming as do this and maintain our present staffing as you can see what those numbers look like there are a number of by noons so it's when i say what it might look quite that's why i say that there are a number of figures in there that we don't really know how they're going to come out one month to month three months from now so it is in many ways a prediction and after the presentation will again be a chance for the public to comment on what you've heard from those numbers if you'd like to say anything else about the budget then the committee will discuss the information and move on to figure out activities and creative to only about ninety children we also feed all the kids that go to their summer schools and step program too so that's really good bang for your buck you it doesn't cost you a whole lot for basically just a walk through yeah first page here so this is the first draft of our budget for f y fifteen the status quo programming budget overview is what you have in front of you on that first page what status quo it's basically that the fourteen fiscal year fourteen budget moved forward into fiscal fifteen and adjusted for knowns placeholders and  estimated items so basically at this point in time in october what do we know what's what's a placeholder and what's estimated at this point we're right now support staff are in the last year of a contract so we know that the average increase is going to be three and a half percent for their salaries teachers currently have a placeholder for their salary increase of three percent and that's pending nego started at a fourteen percent increase and it was later reduced to ten so based on the best information we have at this point we're expecting a ten percent increase we've also updated any changes to health care coverage because we're looking at the current staff we have in fiscal year fourteen and just moving them forward so we're looking to see if anyone's changed from a single to a dual any sort of health care coverage that may have happened both increases and also d s creases at someone change from a family to a dollar to a single we would reflect that in the budget we would also incorporate for the support staff there was a increase to the percentage contribution to their health care premium s so that was incorporated what we received information from our insurance carrier on our property insurance and worker's comp as to what they thought the increase would be for the next fiscal year and that's estimated to be a ten percent increase for those two items dental insurance is estimated to increase five percent over our current rates the next three bullet items pertain to the central office pressure education and transportation budgets and those three budgets also had the same items applied to them as far as premiums for health care support staff increase it cetera  the central office budget is estimated to increase five and three quarter percent in total and a portion of the central office budget does get allocated to the m m u school district that's based on our equalized pupils which are what we had free peoples in the past year who will not get our updated equalised pupils until we figure in december the beginning of december and that won't be finalized until mid december so how the allocation is going to change we won't know until later and that could move and new school district either up or down depending upon which direction the enrollments throughout the surprise reunion go increases and health premium increases and again a portion of this budget is out to the m m u school district based upon our equalised pupils transportation is estimated to increase  six point six percent again they have the same sort of pressures on salaries and health care premium but they also have some special items that had to be considered fuel cost i was a difficult item to estimate so far and into the future expense for summer and winter tires the budget was adjusted for because that is a conservative expense with such a large fleet of buses of this payments for new borrowing and this new borrowing is to fund a proposed roof project at the three buildings within the school district and this is overlaid this increase and princip fifteen but we did it and the interest payment the way the borrowing happens is the first year that the borrowing of hers you only have interest payments it's the second year that the principal would also start so that first year we only have interest  cost for substitute teachers and staff we use an average of the prior three years in order to determine what our substitute needs will be patient education student it's a six semester average and it has increased to eighty four students this coming fiscal year or we were anticipating eighty four increasing from seventy four as the number of students increase in the last two semesters and two semesters three years ago have dropped off that had low number of students our average is rapidly increasing and we have a tuition rate at the moment of fifteen thousand six hundred dollars and the two locations for the education ok tional education students is the burlington tech center and the essex ten tech  bar and what that means is that and option to invest the unused borrowed working capital into a turn to turn interest ha disappeared because we've gone over the five million dollars threshold of working capital borrowing in order to fund our operations while we wait for tax funds to come in that puts us in a different category so we've lost that can no longer earn interest on the unused working capital ok that's the basic i guess bullet points i wanted to talk about and how do we compare to fiscal year fourteen after we've incorporated all those items and moved our budget forward into fifteen we'll have enough approximately a one point two million dollar increase over fiscal year fourteen represents about a four point four six percent increase  what does that mean to the education spending is it means an increase of a little over one point six million or a little over seven and a half percent the reason for such a large increase t education spending in past years we've had surpluses applied that would depress the amount of education spending that we would need so that is no longer available to reduce the education spending fifteen and there's also been decreases in other revenue forces one that i just gave an example of was the interest during eliminated one hundred two thousand dollars in revenue from the budget in addition t education funding is a used to cover the increases at the one point two million dollars has to come from education funding and i think that's it that i wanted to talk about on the  comparison to f y fourteen so the education funding that relates to the property tax return to the second page or just what you quickly through to see what the property the expenditures that are planned and we remove essentially all the other estimated revenue sources except for the vocational and transfer that we receive from the state so that stays in along with the education spending figure we take that this second figure the third row and that third column from the right and divide by the equalize pupil so we see what our spending is going equalize pupil at that point we do a check to see if we're over a threshold that the state requires us to be under if not there's a penalty there's an additional increase that that adds to the tax rate it's the amount that you're over the threshold essentially gets added to your tax rate so we do the quick check and we see that you know currently we're under the threshold we don't have an issue with that so we can just use the spending per pupil as calculated above and we can see what our tax rate is going to be what how do we how do we do that part our will that works off the base education amount that the state  and we will not have those numbers based education till about mid november and we also want to have a statewide education tax rate to about that time so this is early on looking at  pretty much just how it's built we really can't lose yeah even when we get those numbers it's not set by the legislature at that point it's once they come back in session  it's finalized and a time change after that point so we can have an instance where we've used a particular base education amount and rate in the budget and then that changes after the budgets are approved so that that can one hundred fifty two percent over what the base amount is we take that percentage apply it multiply it against the education tax rate and that tells us what the equalized tax rate for mt manful union will be and from that point each local town school district that has an elementary school that has students coming here to the high school in the middle schools they will take a pro rated portion of this tax rate in order to arrive at their composite rate and it's based upon equalize pupils the number of equalized pupils  that go to the high school in the middle schools as a total of eight students from the town that attend both elementary and the m m u school district and typically it's on the order about sixty percent  of the composite tax rate belongs to m m u and the balance would be from the elementary school so that's pretty much how the tax rate is constructed again it's early on there are a lot of other factors that come into play later one other item that comes into play is the common level appraisal which tries to equate the value the home values throughout the state that's a number that we get in late december and again that plays a factor in the final tax rate calculation for the school districts  me at this point is kind of early on to see exactly what's going to happen to a two hundred thousand dollars home let's say because there are so many other factors that need to be applied it depends on the base amount of the tax rate and the c l a before we get a final figure it also depends on the elementary school district what pressures they're on their budget since it's a composite break between the till we get further on it we really don't have a clear idea of what the impacts going to be will probably keep whoever is successful whoever is this successful better will probably stay for three years could slip big process to the bit and we will be doing that the health insurance is treating to hear over the cost of living increase in the above mentioned last year they knocked the highs reached down significantly from what i wanted the teachers insurance plan myself i'm and it also shows fiscal year fourteen budget in the proposed way for fifteen pretty much the bullets that i described in the first page explain most of the increases that have that occur in the budget and there are a couple other i guess items we did talk about the tuition is students at the career and technical education center did indicate about the transportation services the fuel cost we are going to be buying two buses at the end within the transportation budget this year i have indicated that there we do have a bond retirement which is also contributing to the decline in the interest rates and payment principal payments i don't know what else i want to talk about within this it's really just showing you within the functional categories  what is happening do you have any questions perhaps on this score man when you're the facilities committee that works on transportation and we used to purchase three or four of us this year when we dropped down to we got ourselves in trouble down wondering is this setting us up for that bigger bump down the road  so we advanced the bus purchases into that particular fiscal year take advantage so we ended up buying for buses and that fiscal year so we kind of just shifted a little bit ahead and structure but we've been able to get a room between seven to twelve years on some of them on the bus any other questions common level of appraisal which could get used in our property tax calculation up to late december our health insurance i didn't create it was ten percent that's the figure of where you are using at the moment we'll get an updated not to exceed figure probably in early november we probably won't see the rate set came to well december and it could be as late as the first week of january  other smaller minor one unemployment which we also get through this bit probably won't see the final rate on that until december the final tuition rates for example the tuition for the vocational ed  in here they're soft numbers this is a picture of what what it looks like just bringing fourteen into fiscal year fifteen and pretty much keeping everything else the level funded are a constant has th do is combine now with some actual numbers so that you can share your thoughts as well as where we are right now and what it might look like as we said there are a lot of  i can't help but notice that just like previous years three quarters of the increase is largely stuff we can't do anything about programs so it increases the pressure salary increases and twitching to the tech centers  essex and so on and that sucks up one hundred something thousand more or less along with special ed fuel costs and health insurance while fuel costs you know we can push the busses is making sure that we're providing quality education programs for our students and also trying to be sensitive to them to the needs of many of our taxpayers who were not fortunate enough to be able to easily absorb these kinds of be increases some of us are fortunate that some of us are not and some of us really need decision makers to be sensitive and i think it would be i'm hopeful that we'll engage in a process from this point forward that recognizes that a seven point seven nine percent increase in the tax rate would for many people be very significant i understand it's an early it's an early projection of may get revised but that's a very significant moment that doesn't mean that we won't get there but i think it does mean that we ought to test the options very carefully before we get there so that we fully understand what would be the consequences if we made cuts from this baseline and really assess whether those are good cuts that should or should not be made in striking that balance so what i'm hopeful will do from this point forward is engage in a process in which we go to additional drafts of this budget that model what the budget would look like if we were to instead of having a four point four percent four point four six percent gross increase of three percent gross increase and a two percent grossi increase and i would hope that we would model the priorities in terms of what potentially would be looked at and would not be looked at in that kind of process and that way we can evaluate whether we really have struck the correct  weeks ago we had talked about different options one of those was to see what the tube would look like and that for those the two percent wasn't just a number pulled out of the year it was basically if someone said earlier consumer price index or the rate of inflation at the present time around two percent so what would a two percent increase look like and have the principals in the administration something office in ministration look at that number and set some priorities as to if we had to go with that number what would it look like what would we do so i think that that's in their minds already is to look at that two percent increase three percent i don't know i don't know how much more work that would be worth it would just be a little to be prepared for next tuesday to share some priorities that are even you know bigger than the budget and that are connected to the strategic planning priorities for a menu and then we'll also be sharing with the committee what would it look like if there was a two percent increase in concerns and you know in subsequent interested to see what programs get cut to get to two percent tools you'll have  given is that if you wanted to increase something what would have to go up what could be given up to even how so the intro to the budget but certainly looking at two percent  it's going to be quite a bit i would think because i think it's a difference from where we are right now close to about six hundred sixty thousand here from where we are right now so it would mean quite a bit there one of the things that it's important to state as we go through this exercise that as you know we don't value the programs that we have to prioritize and that's very difficult so we're not necessarily saying the program is just my own common sense and reflect the views of everything coming to a price whether you saying you're going to go with you know the four point four percent six percent increase and see you know maintaining the status quo and if you go opportunities or whatever you pay some a lot more spending i think that it's got to be some really creative problem solving and i think this is a great task for your students members to start thinking outside boxes the kids have to show us the way because we're still programm going up because the increase we saw last year and the potential increase this year is not a sustainable increase in property tax i mean i love the remark i love being here i love the great schools but in seven percent that means  tax doubles every ten years that means i'm a better mom which be a bummer because i love it here but he's really started to have serious issues with this kind of crap and tax increase on a regular basis i see and i'm sorry curious the property real estate values and stuff in there certain houses in vermont now that are big all the houses and they're so expensive to heat your apartment taxes are so high they're giving them away for like you can buy in bury you can buy a four five thousand square ferpa victorian it would cost a million dollars to make then for two hundred thousand dollars because people can afford the property taxes and i talked to one woman selling them and she appealed with an appeal but they still had a value for ninety thousand dollars and they would not the state would not lower that valuation so she was she just got creamed by the property tax g i believe and the other challenge of course for people citizens here is that as the property cost prices go up the taxes go up property values go down because people have x number of dollars to spend every month on their things so what you can afford them decreases which is ok it's not the end of the world but it does have ripple effects through the community on many important levels and so i just think that it's a it's a huge challenge because obviously fuel costs are going out other things are going up i do have one question that i'm curious about and look at special education it's a large figure percent that we get reversed course seventeen percent picked up by the federal government the rest is through property taxes and state taxes and more was originally written the feds are supposed to fully fund forty percent and they have i think seventeen highest i ever heard of them do you never thought that was the original legislation they were knew for years and never come close you know never i'm just sure sure do appreciate that so i'm just here to educate myself because personally i'm i'm devoted to a great education in vermont but i see i see a crossroads and  there's there's it's already starting to split and i don't think that i mean i just don't think any society can afford a seven percent increase in the cost of education long term i mean i don't think that i'd be curious what the you know gross revenue you have that there are houses being built and maybe that increases the revenue somewhat but even that somewhat you know questionable whether number so here ok well last year's budget and this is total budget was an increase of four point three one percent the year before was an increase of two point five seven percent the year before that was a decrease of two point seven three the year before that was a decrease of zero point two eight the year before that was an increase of three point zero three and if you go back in time there are more significant increases but i think that there has been a pattern over the last five years  of trying to rein in the increases as as best we can but there's there is really a sense i think on the part of a lot of board members that there's a rock and a hard place in  not wanting to downgrade educational programs in the hard places what you've been describing people can only sustain so much in terms of their of their ability to pay taxes the other thing that i may be significant here is is that although we have had these increases property tax bills by and large in this supervisory unit have gone up in a higher rate and that is to some extent influenced by the elementary school but it is also to a large extent influenced by the statewide property tax system so while we recognize and i think people will correct me if i'm speaking out of turn for them for this committee we recognize that it is our responsibility to be prudent in our financial decisions we also know that even if we are prudent other factors may drive your property tax and i understand and i'm curious because that i might understand the systems it's so convoluted that very few people fully understand it and think that's absolutely sure in the chairman of the challenges i think with the system because i'm sort of here to educate myself on the larger things i think it is sort of the standard problem is that there's not a whole lot of incentive to control an individual school districts budget other then you know it's the right thing to do because the state is spread which is a good thing i let's short because it's the right thing to do but it may not be completely the right method you know i'm just talking philosophically here because if it's not a direct correlation why would we have their projects you know why we try to keep a zero percent budget that's part of the reason the increase in cost in schools in the fuel is going up and there's a lot of evidence that that actually will continue so i think thinking strategically long term which is not necessarily humans our best  you know our ports but we're going to be looking at significant shortfalls potentially with increased fuel and it's affecting the taxpayers as well as their transportation costs go up so and the heating costs and we're going to we're at a place where we have significant fossil fuel expenses so that it's going to be a you know a long term challenge for schools and households and everything else but you know  it's it's going to be an interesting challenging time and i don't just plant that seeks i don't know that there's any answers but there's challenges in the can we definitely recognize that as a problem and it so there is was a program that we were able to take part in that allowed us to put solar panels on top of cable so and we looked at doing it at browns river but the tax incentives that were there the first aren't there for those things that we've done to save power and save energy in terms of efficiency and upgrading some of our equipment those have media it impacts our budgets in terms of money that's available based on for your own they're supposed to put you on and i talk to my legislators about that and they're very reticent to get involved into discussions about these great complicated issue they really don't want to get into it but long term  you know i think we need to get away from funding our education system through there's a more equitable way to do it and probably get access not it so talk to your legislators they will be reticent they're very you know leery about you know discussions about you know education funding and stuff like that but at least you know make them understand that you're you concerned about this and they should be thinking news the interesting thing of your point about sustainability or not sustainable increases is even within our own kidneys supervisory union because of the way it's all set up as i said earlier it's very different in different towns and as a resident both i can tell you last year that we may have already got stuck between a rock and a hard place because that but the combination of the the elementary budget led to a very large increase which was voted down once or twice i mean times we went through before we got a budget that passed so that's why i say it is a complex formula and  at it different different levels just to see where it would look ten points we've seen all the different options then get into them where you decide well this is what we want this is what we don't and then come up with a fig listen to the debate share your thoughts and we will meet again a week from tonight it will be at the central office in richmond as you've heard i think will be looking at what it would look like it was a two percent increase from this year and give some priorities and ideas and john mentioned look at what you know over a two year period what some of those administrators like to see what's tied or teaching plan things like that try to get a perspective on where we want to be down the road and what we need to do to get there other than open up for any more thoughts we have a just want one thing i can think of would be a little more personal if we could have ourselves for her to but first and last name the sort of just last name ok we'll get it done your work and look forward to getting down to