that's on the war for town meeting next week and i'd like to begin with a recent patient by representatives from the minuteman destructible killing the district superintendent kevin comments and then i have some background material around those comments for your further review and i probably won't take the whole fifteen minutes but will be happy to answer any questions that you have  appreciate the opportunity to talk about the building project it's been a very long journey for all of us and we've had a number of ups and downs i wish things had happened differently in a number of different ways but we are where we are today and i know belmont has some concerns around the project i know enrollment is a concern belmont is concerned that parents will not be interested in having their students attend minuteman and sufficient numbers to fill a school designed for six hundred twenty eight students we believe in roman is will be sufficient in the near term for the following reasons one we've coming to the end of our first year after having engaged a national expert in increasing student enrollment and retention in the vocational high school area as we come to this and of this full cycle full year cycle of activities we're starting to see some small but encouraging results we've seen increased interest from eighth graders and their parents this past fall as we usually do every fall we go to the middle schools and talk to groups of eighth graders we have some of our students come and talk to them they answer questions and at the end they fill out a card if they want to learn more about minuteman and come and visit a year ago i took over we had about over the sixteen member towns which represent seventeen middle schools we had about four hundred fifty students originally expressed an interest to come to minuteman a visit and about two hundred fifty came a year ago this fall this past fall in two thousand and fifteen going through the same cycle but doing something differently we had over a thousand students express interest and come to visit minuteman about four hundred actually did come in the fall and experience minuteman for half a day we also have had a increase in just applications of about fifteen percent as of this point in time compared to july of last year so we're encouraged by those results it's not a certainty but we believe that we're on the right track to find the right student for the right program for the right reasons in addition to our revised marketing recruitment and retention program we also have noted and i've been informed by my colleagues and it's well known that number of our largest sending communities are experiencing increases in the lower grades in their own communities arlington belmont lexington and others we've noticed there's only been three new vocational schools built in the commonwealth in the last ten years and within a year of opening they all had waiting lists of several hundred students where prior to that they've been struggling to get in roman and i don't think that's a reflection of having a shiny new stone in the middle of a field i think it's a reflection of the schools are being built now to accommodate innovative and high tech rigorous career and technical education for the future in addition to seeing increases in our member towns and what other schools have experiences the feedback that we've gotten from parents who've been involved in this building project and the design of it and then every view the new school they're impressed with the facility that the facilities designed to support a career academy model which is really a smaller high tech high school environment with a focus on helping each and every student achieve a competitive advantage in college and in finally one of the broader reasons that we believe in role it will increase is that we have a new regional agreement after much work by many selectman the sixteen member towns i think we have a user friendly agreement that is likely to attract want to more communities  join the district and i think in that new agreement there are actually incentives that were thought to entice new members to consider joining minuteman so for those reasons and more detailed reasons in this package that you can read later we really believe that in the near term not in the short term but in the near term three to five years we'll be able to have a fully enrolled school finances i think belmont is concerned that the new schools too expensive and then that simply repairing the school that we have is the most economical option over feasibility study which you know from your experience with with with school building construction projects you're required to look at a number of different models the will building authority has scrutinized our models and the options that we submitted over the last year and a half by the school building committee and after their review they've agreed to invest forty four million dollars in this project which is take that one hundred forty four point nine million and s b a has said very clearly they would not support a school of less than six hundred students a high school of less than six hundred students a basically rejected our other eight options that included a repair only option as inefficient and on economic toll and not in the best interest of the educational program plan in addition the department of education established about a year ago a regulation that requires a capital fee associated with an m s p a project now there are concerns about that capital fee actually being implemented we have some information that we shared with  with folks from the department of that we've formally requested that they set that capital fee for us now now that the cost of the project is known and the associate commissioner has responded in that they're going to be working on  he expenses and losses of not approving this project are clear in their real if our project doesn't move forward in the time frames that have been established by the accreditation from the new england association of schools and colleges the capital fee assuming conservative even that it's implemented we could lose twenty to twenty eight million dollars of capital fee revenue over the life of this bond and probably the more significant an unknown component is the ongoing capital repair expenditures that accrue and trigger a d n a and other code requirements that will incur larger more expensive repairs to be made in a shorter period of time in finally one thing that i haven't talked about much in public but if we think about building a new school and tearing down the existing school what goes into that site right there the m s b a has agreed to participate in the demolition of the existing facility that is part of the project and what's left is left to the district to monetize in a way that benefits the district for a long term we don't know what that might be but certainly the lexington portion of the campus which would be available for some creative innovative public private partnerships would certainly not be available to us if we're still in our existing building trying to repair it over the long term and finally we're left if we are left in that building we're left with an inferior facility that's really a hindrance to providing innovative high quality career vocational technical education that reflects not only the requirements of the workplace but also supports academic integration and rigor that goes well beyond whatever was imagined in the one nine hundred sixty s when a vocational school was designed they don't even imagine the programs that we have now in engineering robotics environmental technology and other  areas this is a little bit more detail background information that may address some of these other things that i've spoken about in more detail than i want to do with the time frame you've given me but that would conclude my remarks and i'd be happy to contribute to any discussions or questions ok i thank you if i thought to structure our discussion tonight i began with a couple of questions we get to do that and we we have some fairly specific answers to questions we'd like to have answers to your first regarding what we prefer well refer to as an m yes you're right as required by the m s b a failed vote teachers the district would submit an explanation of the failed code including the reasons for that failure the district would also include a proposed solution the solution could be a recent middle of the project under sixteen d or the district wide vote under sixteen and the m s p a would review the plan and then would need to provide the district with approval to move forward  with daf plan if approval was not given the project is dead and the district would need to resubmit a statement of interest and get back in line with the m s p so specifically they could the district school committee could discuss and reauthorize the debt under sixteen day or they could decide to go to a district wide ballot which the majority of the aggregate vote would be the determinant if it was approved so just to summarize that one possibility which might be even the likely outcome would be a district wide vote that fair to say that would be as i understand the failed policy procedures m s b and would have to approve any of those options but more than likely that would be that we would look at this point in time ok understand from other materials you sent the charge will be on the order of eighty or eighty five hundred dollars per student as a couple that's our estimate based upon the regulation itself which states that the department of  would seek to set that capital fee  based upon the average of what the members are paying on an annual basis per student and what assurance do you have right now that that few would actually be charged and would not be successfully challenged by nonmember town responded the commissioner of elementary and secondary education is authorized to establish such an increment under c m r it's our understanding that the massachusetts school building authority has approved schematic plans for minuteman building project and he goes on in identifies a stat that will be responsible for working with us and with the authority because this is the first time that this provision in the regulations has been used the process will include an opportunity for municipal officials and other interested parties to comment on the those rubric the intent of the increment is to provide a revenue source for the incremental capital cost incurred to accommodate students that are  nonresidents we would expect that increment would continue during the life of the bonds issued for the project the increment was authorized by the board of elementary and secondary and through the exercise of its formal rulemaking authority we are confident that this regulation is fully consistent with the underlying provisions in chapter seventy four of the general laws which give the commissioner the authority to establish limits on out of district which we provoke at so much the fact that he responded in that way rather formally has set up a process that can include representatives gives us confidence that they feel confident in what they've set and regulation ok the one second of question regarding treatment of members students can minuteman refuse to accept a nonmember a student from a nonmember town if there is capacity and the student is otherwise qualified if you're admissions policy reflects that yes there are some schools in the commonwealth that admissions they don't accept admissions at all from out of district students ours has not been adapted to that at this point but does that mean that a a town that has a non yes i understand you to say that the m s b a will not approve funding for a new building if that building is it would serve fewer than six hundred students that's what they've told us in writing and i found it on their website as well ok and one final question of the said list is minuteman has a rather low student teacher ratio there are two other vocational schools reasonably close by for example warning to you yes the d ta minute man's student teacher ratio in two thousand and fourteen was eight point five shaw sheen was ten point six not sure what was twelve point six blackstone valley was twelve point seven million and i actually haven't found anybody in any other school in the unit within a reasonable radius of belmont where the ratio was anything close to eight point five is in a new school when staffing levels be rationalized to bring operating costs down to something commensurate with their vocational schools in the area yeah we expect that it will but i think there are two sort of compelling reasons why that ratio is is what it is in the two thousand and fourteen fifteen year one is that we have several programs that are on closure plans so  closure plan as approved by the department of that and you basically if a student starts as a freshman you have to provide that student with a vocational technical program until they graduate as a senior so we have two programs that are going to be closing that are carrying the full staffing for the programs but have very few students in them because i think we only have two grades left and after this year will only have the seniors to graduate and then those programs will be closed in the staffing will be reduced the other reason is that our of all the schools that you mentioned minutemen probably has twice as many special ed students as the schools that you've compared us to we're at about forty seven percent of our population is receiving some services through an i p so our special ed staff is is higher in some cases double and some of the schools that you mentioned in the new academy model we expect student teacher ratio to be comparable the only thing that may modify that is if our population of special ed continues to remain at the level it is it will probably be slightly less but much closer to the schools that you mentioned th m to begin with you didn't say that you were concerned at all of fact that first of all men is the most expensive vocational school in the commonwealth and now you are saying you will attract others out of district students even though they're going to be burdened with a surcharge of eighty four hundred dollars do you really think that the no one district towns are going to send people to minimum and then go on and on the projections are correct well those towns that don't have any vocational technical programs available available to them and we have to remember that parents and students make the application to minuteman on their own there are no town gatekeepers preventing students from applying if they're from a district that has no vocational technical programs for instance if you look at students that applied in norfolk agricultural high school they come from all over the commonwealth because programs are offered there that are not offered anywhere else norfolk aggies tuition is somewhere around twenty six twenty seven thousand and i know there are towns outside of our region that are transporting kids to norfolk ag and additional costs of another twenty five thousand in transportation costs so there's not a district students if accepted aren't rolled in the communities must pay the tuition and transportation so well i did you consider that all the changes d as he has come up with limiting the ninth grade exploratory pro absolutely and you'll see it reflected in our applications from out of district for next year it's probably dropped by half from those communities such as waltham medford somerville and cambridge dropped by half because you have cations of life graders from out of district and not getting along explanation but that's a negative effect in the moment but in the short term it is especially this year but the law allows them to reapply to minutemen as sophomores in from what i've heard from not a small group of parents from medford and walk him who wanted their children in minute me and this year they may not have a clear understanding of what a sophomore mind is like but tafe think their kids are going to come a sophomores and if there's room we cost that everyone else members of paint you telling me tonight they d e s c is going to solicit municipal input into that rubric and they're going to set the fee and we also know d s c sets the two wish it operate really less than what member towns pay so you really have confidence that they're even going to give us the average fee in any event it's going to be that political decision isn't it bob i hope you'll be with being as the representative when we go talk with them about that feel it's not no worry about is not if you're there in any event you talk about the the renovation how much smaller is the is the new school compared to the existing school of roughly about thirty five thousand square feet so out of three hundred the existing schools three hundred five thousand square feet isn't it yes so this is going to the new school's going to be ninety percent is big isn't it but two hundred fifty seven thousand square feet and the reason that is not just him young so it's ninety percent for half the students because the old school was designed for twelve hundred and you're talking about the renovation will be fixing up an all building that's hopelessly to lauch that doesn't compute does it and it's not exactly the way i would describe it the building is the building that we have now was built under the specifications and requirements of the s p a p at the time those requirements were very different than the m s p in the chapter seventy four requirements that are currently in effect for vocational technical high schools  so there are spaces that existed in new vocational technical high school that were never invision in an old and renovating the building is not a batter of square footage and where walls are renovating the building must reflect the educational program planned the vocational technical programs that were are within them and the unique requirements of each of those spaces you know just think about what's required in an automotive shop or a biotechnology clean lab or an engineering lab these are very specific expensive spaces and are minimum square footage requirements for instance m s p a says in a high school of around six hundred you have to have two hundred twenty five square feet per kid for the academic piece in addition to that if a kid is in an automotive program they need another two hundred square feet people so added together that's four twenty five for there and if you average all over creation programs it adds about another hundred fifty five square foot per kid on to th twenty five plus there's a what do they call it a rounding factor one point four one point five for the hallways in the stairwell common area yeah things of one hundred million dollars you could take this existing building envelope and you'd be very much in line with the square foot requirements square foot as i agree with you on the educational program plan no doubt as i understand the proposal is nothing in there for athletic feels yes there is there is a multipurpose field and i'm saying oh no i didn't party four point nine million dollars is not the answer is there's existing feel that will remain the building that is being built onto the existing football field displaces that field and as of now restoring that field on the grounds as an adult there are three fields in the original design two of them were taken out of the project where the building is yes there's a third field you know where our tennis courts are now in the softball field there's a multipurpose field that is shared there so that is part of the existing one forty four point nine the other two fields which was originally envisioned as a turf field and i think with lights and everything was taken out and put as an ad if it does to the first question that jim asked you know months you know the town the votes against this would you be supportive of belmont withdrawing from the district well wouldn't i wouldn't i would not personally but it's not up to me you know it's up to the school committee and the rest of the remaining member towns because you'd be withdrawing under the new agreements right which is requires a three year notification you're not allowed out you can stay but you know to pay for the debt institute which offers post graduate programming right now we have forty five or fifty students who have graduated high school but their high school experience never included vocational technical education so they can apply to minuteman as a post grad and we have four dedicated post grad programs and at their space and some other ones and the student is appropriate there they have their own instructor but they share a shop and it jimmy jimmy none of those are factored into the the six twenty eight or whatever the m s p is for this is exclusively on high school if minuteman chooses to utilize its facility for summer programs or community programs or post grad programs or whatever all own home town axis i just like x is just a just a small slice slice of the pro year we have possible absolutely we've been doing it for ten years it's called the minuteman in the morning program it's designed around juniors and seniors who've passed the m cas they come the minute man for half a day and they're just in their vocational technical program only in over two years every day three hours a day two and a half to three hours a day they're able to graduate from their home high school with a diploma from belmont high school as well as a trade certificate or a program certificate from minuteman and that's about it's undoubted the dozen kids from lexington only right now i think is that right following year they're rolled into the assessment so there's no fee to the students there's no additional fees for that out it's only member district community kids that can do this and we've been talking about how to increase access to minutemen through some creative innovative programs like that that we received recently that has a pro forma allocation of the capital cost cross the various the ten member towns that are remaining and it looked like the expectation was that belmont's capital actual unrolling which is currently i think twenty six and calculate the all the cost of those twenty six students that week twenty six tuitions and currently it's about close to twenty nine thousand dollars per person plus the three hundred seventy three thousand dollars in capital costs that come out with pay all in it to remain  member town and i believe that number comes out to about eight hundred seventy thousand dollars for the alternative hypothetically it's of belmont withdrew from the district and sent the same students to minutemen paid nonmember tuitions and paid the capital charges let's assume it's still eighty four sixty three isn't spreadsheet the all in cost is on the order of one hundred thousand dollars less by participating as a nonmember town so what is your  response to a recommendation that belmont withdraw because delmon could still get all the benefits that minuteman offers  well that may be a question for belmont to consider but the numbers that we're using right now you know remember the spreadsheet that you have is the first year we're using the four year rolling average on applied to these assessments so i think after four years if your costs were still way above being outside of the district i think you'd clearly be better off outside of the district than in the district and  just i was going to make two comments and one is that along those lines the first comment is this very seventy three i know i haven't cited that number before there's twenty thousand or so of fixed debt already in there that's also big into that and you assessment so it's really three forty something or other so that's a small point but but the other thing is when you look at it on a per student basis because it's based on a four year average and because belmont's two enrollment over the past number of years has declined we're getting assessed on an average hypothetical notional number of students that we don't really hide in place there so it overstates our per act per student cost if it were flipped around and our long term average was twenty six but we were really sending thirty this year i don't think this committee would be saying hey this is a great deal we're sending our kids to minute man at less than that average part of what you pointed out roy i think is just a function of a snapshot in time of where our point in time in roman is relative to our fo year average and that can change and it has changed over the past twenty years it's bounced around that can change a couple of years ahead and i can see that the capital component could change i'm not sure how much it would change but the but when  i refer to the all in cost that also of talks about the regular tuition and right now the number town pays ten thousand dollars or more  less than a member town if you have the savings would go a long way to covering any capital charge are you also adding in the cost of transportation and the cost of special education which a nonmember community would head charge for special ed so most of the average that they have cited forty seven i think that the last time i looked not there was no material difference between nonmembers communities and member communities in that average so you could assume call it two thousand and twenty five hundred on top of the wish plus transportation i don't know what train station run it now i'm not clear because it conflicts with those costs will be incurred really well i guess maybe i'd pose the question then to the velleman representatives who have been part of this doesn't seem like a   but just done purely on financial from my perspective be the nonmember tuition rate that des percent i thought the differentiation between being a member and nonmember when you factor in transportation and  the special ed surcharge was starting to get narrow it to be not necessarily comparable but close dessie has now reduced the nonmember tuition and so i think there is a financial advantage i think minutemen's transportation cost because of what the district is with steaua in lancaster or whatever arguably are probably on average a little bit higher than what belmont would incur bussing kids just from belmont to lexington i've not looked at that i don't know that for a fact but i don't think i'm looking for financial point of view i think there is a slight benefit to being a nonmember from my perspective i wouldn't make that decision to be in or out of the district based on that operating differential we still have a few questions of the superintendent and we have it but i would say generally but if you have a the way i see bracy it is zero ten pounds left and three hundred thirty one students who are being asked to pay for six hundred twenty eight hundred fifty million dollars school of which one hundred million dollars is this will roughly ten percent so we've got ten feel the same way that we should continue to commit ourselves to this district i don't think it's a strategy we should consider that being said i think this building is that is the wrong building at the one time it's hard for me and i've talked to spoken to governance structure is a heck of a locker than it was before the other six towns are leaving and i'm disappointed that some of them are leaving like but they're leaving and if there are ten towns getting together today and we said you know what we really need to form a district and we need to collaborate in regional allies who are providing vocational technical education our project involvement is anywhere from three hundred thirty to four hundred you know what i think we should be the school that's twice that size would be really make that decision today considering the demographics of these communities i don't think we would and i think that it was to continue to support the operational infrastructure that was built to have a proper kids to invite in nonmember students and that's where we are today so we're relying on the fact that number talented like me will send students there because some of the places to continue to send kids to this district in will continue to subsidize the number towns for hundred forty four million dollars building and clay just can't get to yes with that i want to remain in the district and i think we need to understand in the reconstitut  strict what will that look like who might want to join and then i said today and done today then we can gather again together even though down what will be considered perhaps over the only no community is somewhat of an outlier an outsider to understand exactly what we can do from a cap perspective because we clearly need to renovate or we've been rebuilt aspects of the building we know that no different than our high school we surely understand the boat yes we're on the hook for the next thirty years one hundred forty four million dollars building and we hope that a rom goes up from the distance i don't think it will dramatically vast or superintendent he doesn't think we'll ever graphics that will be sent a lot more kids there so perhaps we'll get to thirty maybe we'll get to thirty five but i think it's an increase a percent per year i just don't see that happening within the remaining ten towns the other point is it's a pretty expensive proposition i think it's over forty thousand dollars on average per student for twenty six kids we currently spend twelve thousand per student here if this building does not move forward i understand the fact that we are in this peace queue and i appreciate the fact that they somehow have said that six hundred twenty eight is therefore well ok perhaps they will can say that if we come back to them in a year and say you know what we're really a school up would be happy to lead the effort along with him and others if in fact this fails we're not i don't think we should leave the district i think we should remain and try to solve this problem i just can't get to yes on this significantly sized building that's only thirty five thousand dollars thirty yes i was at a yes for the revised agreement to reconstitute the district interim prove it's governance and we've done that and we've been successful with that but i was never at a yes for this size building and i still think it's too big and i think that the number of close call to understand to close call me then it seems to me that the question of the building i mean really about the size although i mean i'm not hollywood jack's discussion of public meetings ago that really doesn't make sense to build a school for your students a high school and the marginal difference between a six hundred twenty eight seats school and a five hundred seats school and if you consider assume probably there is well i don't know but i think that depending on the good outcome of not only town meetings but we've now heard that five i believe of the town meetings who are approving or voting on this are voting on it's subject to a debt exclusion vote yes if if not only in town meetings vote yes and belmont votes no and it passes him all  of the debt exclusion passes in all of those communities i think that's a very different dynamic than if belmont votes now and five other communities turn it down in the debt exclusion i think that impacts what the school committee would do and that's one of the reasons quite frankly i've been advocating from the get go that we ought to let the town meeting process play out before we head down the path of the vote as an option i just you know if so we absolutely without question in the in the out years we don't have four hundred or five hundred thousand dollars in our budget legion children not just in the fact we had a successful override in nineteen in twenty and twenty one we don't have the money would have to cut programs to pay five hundred thousand dollars or four hundred thousand for ten thousand so we would absolutely have to go for a get exclusion right in the middle of perhaps a better solution for high school that worries me a little bit even though the average i think your numbers are a i mean it's around one hundred thirty thousand today and that's the only reason the numbers are lower or single family home about one hundred thousand so for the average single family home owner thirty five dollars it's not that much when you think about it at that on with another eight or nine hundred for a high school and whatever the pool costs are so i mean at some point we're not going to be as successful as we need to be especially with high school i don't think it would jeopardize it dramatically but we have to somehow find within our budget soon eighteen nineteen twenty we have to absolutely go to the tommy true the president for tax we should vote and frankly i have to just say this and i have a lot of respect for the other communities that kind of kicked in the session to the voters and say you know what well vote yes if the voters want it and i think it's up to the leaders in town to the side whether and principles the right thing to do as a member of this district and as a community rather than say you know what i really don't want to take a vote on this left the residence the side and i i  don't understand why that was done that way respect arlington and cash from bolton and stowe but that's basically what they've done they've sort of taken that way out if you will and said i'm going to vote yes only if the residents support  exclusion and i think we need to make solution based on whether we think oh it's still in the funding source we think it makes sense for us as a member of this district to vote yes for this building that's the that's the question in front of us  you know i appreciate the conversation and one of the assumptions though that seems to be prevalent is that a four hundred two or four hundred thirty five pupil school would be significantly less than a school for six hundred twenty eight i think jack referenced that a little bit in terms of the incremental cost i went looked at that in the minuteman high school preschool matic design that was submitted in march of two thousand and fifteen and where the four hundred thirty five and  this around it's available online but the document is nine hundred fourteen creates a swan so if this shows if you look after escalation it shows what a renovation would cost for four hundred thirty five w new school would cost for four hundred thirty five and at that time which was a year ago it was about one hundred twenty million dollars for a brand new four hundred thirty five student high school and i recall that educational program plan for four hundred thirty five was i think significantly less than what we're going to get in the six hundred twenty eight and you can see those costs are not you know it's twenty four million dollars difference for six hundred twenty eight versus four hundred thirty five that's significant no doubt about it yeah but that from a ten percent share point of view that's about two million dollars over thirty years and if in roman goes up to what the high average was for the last four years you're up around forty forty two kids or so in this year belmont is back up to i think we had twelve applicants last two years really at eight so the incremental cost which jack was referring to and what you were referring to i think are important pieces of information i think that this is obviously a very close question well to me it's a close question so hard questions on the if if a new building if we do not incur the debt for new building but we incur  unless the intent is not frenemy either but i think that would start to be a disservice to still there's some of that detail in here as well i didn't go through it with the cost of doing nothing there there and and i'm at the same point of view as mark in terms of i i think i think it's important to state the state in the us to stay inside the district i am very happy to hear that we may have to use a new governance model to maybe maybe make some real changes it could be if could be changed at the leadership level it could be changes changes in the just not just in terms of the programs but i think we're better off sort of going going forward from where we are now in this with this plan rather than stopping everything down you know trying to start with a very clean clean slate so it's a close call too but i but i'm not probably going to vote yes timing for this evening given that we have other items on the agenda i really intended to have a vote on this by eight forty five so we have about fifteen minutes remaining to deliberate on this i i would say that i'm actually i think close to jim in this that recognizing the risks in this and recognizing that we live in an imperfect world i'm inclined to take th risk and hope that as a member as a vigorous member of a future minuteman district that belmont could help make the news a new school or a success i think that have to make a lot of financial choices and prioritize things in the coming years and my own list would include reassessing for example a community preservation act right now we're putting away this saying that that money could be redeployed to possibly a higher priority and there may be other possibilities of time as well so i think that clearly a new school costs money but there could be ways work hard to make it successful school would if that's where we go with from autonomy perspective that's what i'll do but option b voting no provides flexibility in other alternatives which clearly we can't see in front of us we don't have it i don't have  you know a new site school what kind of renovation should it be could we support or portions of what we currently have these all of these things haven't really been discussed and yeah there's downside risk to that but renovation option on a renovation option was pressed the baited by the estimators and the architects and engineers to take anyway in a pure m s b a renovation they were estimating i think sixty to seventy two months with the m s p as that renovation option without the m s p a we're estimating that that would take almost ten years because of the bonding requirements that would kick in at different points in time and we there's a spreadsheet i think it's the very last page in this packet that tries to give a timeline of that even in the renovation that it was an m s p a renovation which was old was more money than building new because of the time to spread out and you know there's no such thing as a modular classroom for automotive shop read displacing students in a vocational program during a renovation is very very problematic i went through it in a five year project in brattleboro vermont where we built a new high school a new vocational school and a new middle school it was very disruptive to the students in rome and our programs during that time plummeted when the new building was open and everything was perceived as safe and clean and ready our moment came back up but it was very difficult time and i think that's a cost of plan b that is certain that you're going to delay whatever educational program plan you want to implement you're going to disrupt the educational process for kids at some point frequently when you consider escalation costs and the building boom that seems to be starting right now there may be also issues in escalations beyond what they're predicting so there's a lot of costs in plan b that are on known but they're known  and disruption and a reduction in what we're able to offer our students is clear and i'm more fearful of that than the unknown's about or the risks involved with enrollment i really believe in it see parents interested we surveyed all our district guidance counselors seventy percent of them said they saw our parents being more interested in sending their kid to a vocational technical school over the next five years we've got tremendous support from this governor he gave us five hundred thousand dollars a month ago when we applied for equipment money to start our new advanced manufacturing program even though he knew it wasn't going to be in place fully for at least three to four years they wanted to support that kind of programming at minimum in l a just to quick comment first off i've always been skeptical about you know if you vote no you're immediately on the path to one hundred million dollars but to the extent that you dribble it out you end up with you know a forty year old building now becoming a fifty year old building and so you don't end up with the same physical plant the other thing i think that's really important which i think i've mentioned this group before is there's walking a bit of a tightrope there because a big big big chunk of that hundred million is the requirement that you have to  meet handicap accessibility life safety and i am imbedded in that number i think is even seismic codes of unilateral cross bracing and all that sort of stuff the thresholds without getting too much into the details based on that twenty five million dollar figure cited before as the assessed value say if you spend somewhere between call it seven to eight million dollars over a three to five year period you risk the building inspector in lexington saying you now need to spend all of that immediately so whether it's a real tight rope it's a it's not a it's a risky  pressure these eighty four hundred or whatever and so come back again are three even higher have to have is that i think that's a risk i mean the department of ed has crumbled under political pressure in a number of different areas and i was president of mabo for a year the mets association of occasional administrators were the commissioner was granting a chapter seventy four approval to programs that had no business being approved we filed an injunction against them to get them to stop so i have i tried to say what if that number goes to zero three and assuming because it's also subject to how our share of students compares to the rest of the members at assuming that that stays constant that three hundred thirty five thousand assessment that we pay on the building project goes to four fifty so that's the range of you know it's about twenty seven percent of the debt services being paid by the nonmember communities under these  projections it doesn't matter whether it's people in rome and it's only matters if you collect zero from nonmembers because the the dept is allocated amongst the remaining member towns regardless of whether there are three hundred four hundred or six hundred member students there it's still proportional i would like to ask if minuteman would consider changing its policy to not allow non i just want to we could debate this for a long long time so just quickly i thought can follow the money they talk about the risk of the renovation there's no risk if you vote yes we're paying one hundred million dollars the absolute worst thing that happens to us that is there puts pressure on towns like water district right when the right if the school committee is willing to have a school sitting there to enable a holding six twenty eight and only having three know i i sit back and i think where belmont was forty years ago forty five years ago and if we were given the option to enter the district to build the school that was double the size of what the member towns needed we wouldn't have joined the district at the time the purpose was to get a group of towns together where we can share the costs and provide a more cost effective form of education for our children now over the years ok that track's been lost and i understand that and you know the school's been put in a position where in order to pay for the programming and operating costs we have to let we have to let outsiders and this is our one opportunity you know to try to make this right if we pass this debt there's risks both sides there's risks if we pass it there's risks if we don't pass it but if we don't pass it we slow it down a little bit if we pass it down the course it's done we have no we will never have another chance to make this right in the next forty or fifty years so my vote is to slow it down a little let's keep the dialogue going ok i know it's not popular with the administration and i suppose it shouldn't be but this is you know this is our one opportunity to try to get it right again and you know what is the cost of slowing it down for that reason and  we look at the entire thing yeah i think so i mean i think that's what look to me to try and scare you know you know i mean i've committed to get my colleagues and other members aboard that that would i would work towards that really need to change the government in order to reconstitute which we've done said we're setting it on that path to do that and also committed to them that i would walk away from or belmont walk away from staying and trying to solve the building issue because it has to be solved not ignoring it they're clearly there's a need there without question is a need clear who can come in and what is the role of look like and then we can sit down again and figure that out going forward i know that's going to make a lot of towns angry a respect for the appreciate that there will be in done to me today that he respects our point my point of win and i think that they also see that the passing of this very difficult very complex building project as a sign that the district really is solidified in that the years of dysfunction are over his town to take us down the road seven years you know especially where the ministration legislature is strongly supportive of occasional education and i think that politically we can bring some pressure to peer to get back in line quickly or to do something that might be like i was tasked by the school building committee in the school committee three years ago to begin investigating the possible repurpose ing of the building we're reuse of the campus and at that and the lexington and  we've been kevin and i have been working with a legal firm who's had experience with public private partnerships with mit and we have bta and harvard they've given us a clear set of guidelines to follow in regards to this public process one of the cautions that they gave us was to not explore anything until your bonding with the m s p a was intact because in their experience when sees that there is some revenue stream coming to the district they would use that as an opportunity to back off on their commitment so they have forty four million dollars that they've committed to the table i want to keep that there but we have done our due diligence as we were able to do under the guidance of counsel and explored with different developers what their interest may be in being involved in a public private partnership we've talked  potential partners including the university of massachusetts middlesex community college you'll see an op ed piece coming out in the next few days that describes an intent to collaborate with the stockbridge school of agriculture in regards to the urban agricultural sustainability center that's being built in waltham and we've also talked with some different companies that are in the life sciences area that are in our region that might have an interest in being on our campus there be basically been two themes that we've kept intact in our discussion is one is that whatever partner is there must be mission compatible with education and workforce development number two they must be campus centric in other words they want to be part of a campus that's committed to lifelong learning k through adult in the life sciences and biotech area and so we believe th talking it seems to me that the of the conversation seems to be that we're talking about you know understandably you recommend a favorite vote assuming tom meeting follows suit that we be committed to the debt and so forth or we're going to open up the door to reconstitute a new district and i guess i've been thinking a little bit differently in terms of probabilities and i'm thinking ok if we if we would a vote and i'm i'm still tossing you know i'm ahead but if we were to vote u favorably if so this question then will tell meeting follow suit you tell me to follow suit we're is the vote right now is it is how many a story of three towns have voted yes one of which was subject to a dead exclusion vote that has been held and has passed a couple of those six towns have passed over and there's a whole bevy five four towns on may second look so monday ok five  tom district wide election i guess i'm thinking that what's most likely with a negative vote if all three you know we tell meeting and voters vote negatively on this i've been thinking in terms of the most likely scenario then is we might be the one single time holding out and so some within sixty days timeframe we're going to be talking again about ok not about reconstituting a district but ok are we prepared to leave  we want to be a come in nonmember town so i'm not saying that that's that's a better scenario worst scenario i'm simply saying that you know this vote tonight is not going to say it's not really between certainly reconstitute the district or certainly proving that death there are a lot of other possibilities there which are least in my mind seem a little more likely than that you know it's going to come to a halt and we're going to you know we're going to be in it for reconstitution kind of scope of the out of the the purpose of water and it comes in the wood warnings to let the citizens out there you know hey something in this area is about ready to happen so pay attention and what we're all being told  this area here is that the funds from the sale of property and even the dead find it would fall property is what's going to happen and that money is going to be transferred to a little village the motion which no one had any notice  citizenry is that the candle fun is going to be the source of this that there's going to be a transfer from the candle fund i think it's beyond the scope of the motion and my kids i could care less but the money comes from but my concern is that somebody when we got halfway through planning on high no thank you i made the amendment because it's my understanding that the purpose of the candle fund is to fund feasibility studies for capital projects floyd here we've talked about  free cash and i think there are people in this room who could think of things to do with free cash from the sale of property i can and i think other people  if we take the one point seven five million from the sale of the property and put it against the the building committee it's gone rez it's it's permissible for the purpose of the candle fun to do exactly that so i believe that town meeting deserves the choice i want to take it from the kendall fund which is the purpose of the candle fund in then think about what else you can do one point seven five is free cash or do you want to put the one point seven for cash we had this discussion at the board of selectmen meeting on monday the thinking the vote was two to one that was not contentious the stabilization fund and then the proposal would have been to take take those proceeds out of that fund but against the building committee so based on the hypothesis that if it had been sold earlier that's  that's why sammy and mark you know went with the idea of of using the proceeds for the building committee i'm i'm not indifferent exactly but i do think the town town meeting should make a choice  well the only other thing i doubt that we talked about household was if the what falls road money were to fall into free cash ok i think there was some hesitancy about that and i think mark and i had favored that if it fell under free cash then it should be transferred into the capital that stabilization fund and then we said well why take money from the candle font to let money fall into free cash to transfer it into debt stabilization during that process we talked about establishing a stabilization a major cable a major capital stabilization and i was very specific in discussing this mark saying it's going to be these four projects  most significant projects where you know on deck and everyone agreed on that we brought this town meeting town meeting approval of this stabilization fund and it was understood that the one million seven hundred fifty thousand would be put into that stabilization so to be on a rocket i got the check and i put the money into the stabilization fund as per what was discussed at town meetings now is we've got the man seven fifty there's been a recommendation to put that in against the with the belmont high building committee and i say that's where that million seven fifty should go put it into the belmont high building committee and let them do the things that are necessary i don't know all the ins and outs but it's my understanding is going to be a major effort on  going to cost a couple of bucks there's going to be some schematic designs is going to be some what if what if type analysis going to cost some money from my perspective if the man seven fifty is to right number take that money and put it it's already in a stabilization give it to the capitol building committee and let them run with the project the candle money just for  everyone's own information way back when when i arrived on the scene the kendall money used to just be floating around ok if you look at our financial statements there's an item on it sticks out like a sore thumb th candle money three main some change saw last few folk sit around the table as anyone know what the balance what the standing balance was because certainly i've been searching for the documented in our financials but i can tell you the balance of the kendall money is there you'll be able to see that over and over again so in closing i'd strongly recommend used to made seven used for any other purpose other than the four projects as we know from from but but since it's not in there it is those funds could be allocated to another purpose  always it's always been a standing policy of the board of selectmen as well as to work a committee one time money should be used for one time projects that's been a policy of the eleven w what i know that there are other uses that it could be used for but it's not it's not the purpose of my amendment the purpose of my amendment is very simply the the candle fund has three point two million dollars in it it's purpose is to fund feasibility studies it can't be used for anything else we have a million seven fifty was generated by the  the town meeting deserve a chance to think about what else they may want to do with that pass the board of selectmen we've thought about it and we've decided that we want to put it against the high school fund so  to adams once it falls into the free cash and i suspect you say well tell me if you decide what to use it for i think it's a slippery slope and the try to use it for operating purposes and you know we've always you know  concerned about major building projects and the fact that we continue to pick up you know a couple needs and i don't want to see that one million seven fifty that's a one time source of funds for free cash and somehow be appropriated for operating needs i would have supported your amendment if we could have taken the one point if you if you remember it said then we'll take the one million two hundred fifty and we'll put in the cap with that stabilisation for it to be used for capital projects i think just leaving it into free cash team is going to allow us as a community to say well we really need for operating and i think we we have significant major building project meets and i think this is the way to go to fund thank you yeah i'm i'm i'm glad for the chance to formally weigh in what was the what was the starting of a balance and then just to frame our conversation going forward i would like to move unfavorable action on one on that the amendment  we've just got in a few weeks we're going to be talking about up an article i put on the warrant about putting money in general stabilization fund with the eye toward stretching out the overall dollars as much as possible so i'm very open to using money for different purposes on the other hand if if the high school hadn't been approved this was basically basically in the same place who were year ago in terms of where that process was and this money came in my understanding is the same is lloyds has been in terms of where the proceeds from property sales were supposed to go as much as i would love to get another one point seven five million into the general stabilization fund distressed the override i would support putting it in under those circumstances into the capital stabilization fund  i have certain assumptions behind that in that thought one is that the high school for the conversation i've heard is going to use most if not all of that money and it's really planning stage and it's going it's going to take a good chunk of that money this is not drastically over funding what their planning process is going to be so it's going to have to come secondly i've also kind of assuming that with the major with the sort of dockets major capital projects that we have over the next few years chances are much of that three point two m kendall fund is also going to be needed so i don't think this is sort of this is not free as in free cash with capital letters i don't think there's a this is sort of free funds floating around that you know hate let's find a use for it i think the are there and so i mean i'm i'm going to vote for the unfavorable recommendation on this for that reason i think you know other that if it's going to go to capital then all we're doing is moving into different think that it has significance it's all pretty fungible and in our conversation a week or two ago about how for other appropriations it i think there's a comment made that some of these fees will be reimbursable by the m s b aid and a good chunk of them would be are those funds with those funds fall to free cash or would they go back into the capital stabilization fund for future capital projects it would it would go back to the without appropriation for the high school x number of dollars every reimbursements we get will come back to the to the building committee into the fund funded they're managing overall well it depends on what the final cost of the high school is it's just like the wellington it just like it's just like the treasury if you recall we had six hundred eighty three thousand left over for the channel that we put against a senior center now it will be that much less money we'll have to allocate when we pay for the school i mean it's going to go to the debt just to have floyd finish your thought you were saying just like we had six hundred thousand complain recommendation by this committee there be a time meeting vote to move to the next project twenty years first the first things first of all we need a source of that excluded vote so we can blend into the episode are there any new points to be made in his discussion  and this may be a crazy question but so the one point seven we need for the high school feasibility study to kick off that that would leave that three million and we have three other major projects how much are we going to do we expect to meet for those feasibility studies i know they're smaller yes i think i have i haven't got the foggiest idea because i don't know what the final projects going to be because it depends what a kickoff you know the police station did the police station ten years of probably cost to half of what it's going to cost to today so it's tough it's tough to say and those kind of funds invested i article paul to procreate reach from that into that fund if you wish but we use that investment income to bill let me just ask david would it be possible to cover a free cash update five minutes or no more than ten minutes much the planning phase of the high school may cost in our conversations with the m s p what you're required to do is in superintendents in the process of doing this now a primary component to take some pressure off the elementary all those have to be studied and they all have to be programmed and they all all all solved have alternatives about whether that the terms of the program requires to be  does that require around zero or new build or a combination of both so all options in terms of the education profile have to be programmed and costed and so the more complex you get terms of some of your alternatives unanimous been appropriated is enough ballpark that in addition to the fact that you're required to hire owners project manager as part of this process and having environmental testing as part of the process to it does not seem to be an  reasonable amount of money to start based upon our conversation to them s b a and potential options will be investigated ok just one sentence i promise the chair bob just as a benchmark arlington who got a stroll as what we were talking about this morning at belmont high building committee arlington has set aside two million for its feasibility phase and winchester which is another school that's building a new high school had seems to be an appropriate use for the money and i don't see an advantage to changing that plan but are we prepared to go so  come from the floor with a slight break from tradition if you have a very quick commonwealth record coming from the floor i've polished eyes of the not supposed to be public input but you see i'm going to say sometime in the middle of two thousand and eighteen we're going have a debt exclusion we probably have about a year or so that we're going to have to keep rolling over and over and over again and the you know we can feel free to bring it up next week a town meeting so i think that we should take a vote on the amendment there was a motion for unfavorable action all those in favor of the ok ok so you started three kashrus certified as of seven one two thousand fifteen at seven point six million dollars in this fiscal year there are three items that are being proposed for use against the seven point six one million four five is a longer class rose one point six million is a revenue source to balance the f y seventeen budget and three seventeen is the general fund or general ploy allocation for the opeth policy that totals three million from adopted a free cash guideline it was based upon the budget versus what was certified free cash so the budget for fiscal sixteen was approximately one hundred and one hundred twenty three million dollars our free cash was seven point six million so if you use four percent as the target amount that meant that you had a toy argument that you wanted to reserve a four million dollars basically that left you three million five ninety two to allocate after you took off the reserve and that basically is the three amounts i just told all if you want to stay within your four percent target i'm out basically you've want to use so for example if the target policy has a three to five percent target if in fact you use the three percent target as opposed to the four percent you would have after you took three percent of the budget that was adopted versus the free cash you would have a reserve amount of about three million dollars which would mean you would have about four point six million dollars available less the amounts that i've allocated here or indicated here are three point three million three sixty six would mean you would have available for further allocation of about a million to twenty eight so again this really just demonstrates the three items that are for consideration versus what we have for a certified amount and basically what the targets are and what how much is the reserve amount based upon the policy adopted last year and just to be clear the four point two is an when we close the books and we submit our statements to the department of revenue and we will get another certified free cash amount as of several one hundred two thousand and sixteen which will be available in certifying town sometime in the fall of sixteen effect of seventy one two thousand and sixteen so again the plan would be to replenish at the very least the million nine it's being allocated for dallas the budget in to cover the whole pet policy and guidelines it is taking the certified last year's certified number so the seven point six in the ducting anything you appropriate it so that at that point in time that that's what your free cash is because we don't have a certified certified or validated term barracks or over revenues or calculate which will only happen after we close the books on six thirty two thousand and sixteen right i think we're all saying the same thing that the four point two is the expect worst case presumably we'd like to see it go back up to seven million or somewhere so that we could use it again next year would follow road money won't fall into this because we're well presumably going to fall into this i guess i'm just wondering beyond sort of the normal term backs and the normal you know any of that are there big projects that we are anticipating will fall into this for this fiscal year yes we'll we'll have the well will the money from the