NASB BOE 09-08-26

Speakers are labeled SPEAKER_N. This transcript is machine-generated.

Recording

modification of the agenda, Ruth, under new business, we need to let add E. Tudor position.
That's what it is right. I want to make sure there was anything else. Any other modifications
to the agenda? Okay. Next approval of minutes. So we have the public meeting minutes for
August 24, 2026. Is there any gross errors, issues, or concerns regarding the minutes. For August 24,
2026? No. I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. I'll second it. All right. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed abstentions. Okay. Next, we passed around the non-public meeting minutes from today. Is there any gross errors issues or concerns regarding the meeting minutes for today? No. I'll make a motion to approve today's non-public minutes. Okay. Any further discussion? Do none? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed abstentions. Okay. Okay.
Next, we will open it up for public comments. Any public comments?
All right. Let us know if you choose to change your mind. So therefore, there is no response to public comments.
Next, correspondence. Just a reminder, we did receive a correspondence, but just as if somebody were to stand up and speak for public comment, you have to state your name and where you're from.
It was a unanimous.
an anonymous letter. So unfortunately we cannot read that for public comment because we need to know that it is somebody within the district and tied to the district just like our public comment session. So we are aware of it. We do have the information, but just a reminder.
All right. Announcements and recognition. We will go do the student board rep report.
Okay. So the main thing is the first few days back to school, seeing a lot of old friends and new faces.
And enjoying the time back, it seems to me at least that the new class, the freshmen have settled them really well and are enjoying their time at the school.
And the staff and faculty put in a lot of hard work to make sure it was a smooth transition back into the year, which I know all of the students really appreciate.
And it's been really good to be back and be with everybody again.
For sports, on the 11th football has their first away game at Crossbeck Mountain High School. It's going to be under the lights at 7 p.m., which is a big deal for us because we usually only only,
get that for a homecoming game. So the team's really excited about that.
For girls soccer, unfortunately, they're 0-3 right now, but hoping to bounce back with the game
currently happening at Berlin right now. Boy soccer is standing at 1-1-1 with a win against
Sanborn and a loss to win a squam. Feel hockey right now is undefeated, beating both Medadnach and
Stevens in their last two games. And girls volleyball is at one-in-one, losing to win a squam,
and winning at Meskoma. And for theater,
auditions were held today for Peter Pan, which is going to be the fall play. Unfortunately,
no music and no flying, which is a bummer eye.
Casting is going to be announced, I believe, on Thursday. So we're all looking forward to
that a lot, and just happy to be back and enjoying the school year.
What did you audition for?
Peter Pan.
Matea, was there a course record broken this weekend? A running record?
Cross-country.
Cross-country records?
Yeah.
By 19 seconds.
Wow. I did not see that one.
Colin.
It was a King.
Colin Foster.
Yeah.
Conn Foster.
Yeah.
Set a new course record.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
I hadn't heard about that, but that's really cool.
The course record also was previously held by a different kid from a different school.
Oh, not from Newfound.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
We actually own our own record.
That's awesome.
All right.
We will move on to Superintendent's report.
Much like Mateo.
Mike Mateo, really the two most significant days for me were meeting with the staff for the first time, which was pretty exciting to share who I am, where I think we are at and where I think we're going.
And the theme I tried to impart was, we're better together, right?
Newfounders better together.
We're all better together.
We're all better together.
We work together.
So that was that.
And then the first day with the students was really, really neat to see the students fill the halls.
I mean, being in the students.
the schools throughout the summer and seeing it being cleaned, but then to see all put back together.
And then the hustle and bustle and the sound of the kids, it was really, really sweet.
And it was really neat to see the fifth and sixth graders on their first day, trying to sort it out
and get used to it, which was really nice.
And then at Bristol Elementary to see all the kids, you know, coming together and the new family.
So it was really, really pretty special.
And to Mateo's earlier point, the, you know, again, everybody did an amazing job getting us ready for this, the start.
And the teachers really, really did an amazing job this past week, this past last week.
I visited each of the schools again and made myself present and was, you know, pleasantly surprised by how exciting and how engaged everybody were and is.
And then U.S. News and World Report just released the rankings for the schools.
And Newfound Regional High School is number 25, the middle school is number 23,
and both of the Bristol and the New Hampton schools are in the top 18% of the schools nationally.
So things are really great in terms of the education here in the district.
That's all I have.
Okay. Well, thank you. We'll move right into the district 26, 27 district goals.
Yes. So you were provided a copy with them. They've been finalized and are on the website.
The first goal is to improve student learning and outcomes. And there's a series of action steps that follow along with that.
The second one is to strengthen the partnerships with our families within the communities.
And our third goal is to improve.
improve technology, the technology systems and processes here in the district, which
we are underway with all of these things.
And the staff professional development, again, this year will be focused on collective
efficacy, the belief that if we work together, we can do great things and continue to
great things here. So those goals are posted on the website and available for folks to review.
Okay.
Presentation. We didn't have a presentation.
I don't have a presentation.
I don't know.
Next, financial report, Treasurer's Report.
The treasurer's report.
For those of you who don't know, we have a district treasurer, Michelle LaCroi, who works independently, comes in and reconciles bank statements and reviews with our accounting staff.
Elect, you know, everything from, as you can see from their report, collections from the towns, etc.
We have a much better cash position than we first started.
We've collected a significant amount of money to all towns had paid up.
up. We had some, and we understand there's even some financial hardship in the towns that work with us.
They don't get to hold large fund balances, so they're having used temporary financing also to manage cash flows.
So it trickles down to everyone, so we try to partner with them to manage our own cash flows and work with them, too, so that we're not paying a lot in finance charges.
So I think she's doing a great job on the cash management.
and just independently reviewing our statements for outstanding checks and et cetera.
My portion of this report really gets down.
I also include the manifest.
You'll see those in here, too, which you had asked for at the last meeting.
More like, when's the last time you saw the, I know your sign off on all of these,
but we do want to present them in the dollar amounts for each period, which is what's done here.
If you want more detail added to this, that's academic.
we can do that.
You do see the full copies, which has every line item expenditure by vendor, et cetera,
and you sign off on it.
This is just simply a recording of the manifest that you sign off on to approve payment of bills,
which I would ask you to vote on.
We can do that after this.
I gave you a two-page financial report generated from our financial software.
So when people at districts ask, you know, how to come wearing a business.
bad position. I usually ask, once the last time you saw a system generated financial reports,
not something created in Excel or presented. So one of the things I try to always do as backup
to any Excel or narrative that I would put with the report is to give you the actual
summary reports from our financial software, which looks at the data. There's nothing you can
fake with something like this. Or be confused about.
I want to explain this report because it's going to be similar to what we do for budgeting.
The budgets are driven on functions.
So this report represents every function within the three major funds of the district.
General Fund, 10, Food Services Fund 21, and our Grants Fund 22.
So I thought I'd take a moment just explaining what goes in.
We have some new members here.
What goes into this report.
what's not in this report and how to read it.
So I'm going to start with the first line under account number on the first page.
And just scroll to the right.
So it's like what is the data in this and what does the count number represent?
So when I mentioned function, the 10 represents the fund number, general fund 10.
The function represents the next four digits.
In this case, it's 1,100.
So everything else is zeroed out.
And we call that collapsing the account to the function.
So there are many accounts under this.
There's under 1,100, which is general ed.
It's our largest function in the district, as it should be.
You have supplies, wages, and you have various forms of those, equipment.
And then we also measure that at every level, elementary, middle, and high school.
But then we measure it all.
also at every single building.
We have, and we'll get to some of the more district-wide functions in a minute.
But the reason why we do this is to summarize it so you get a very simple snapshot of what
also the Department of Ed and the Department of Revenue have us report on when we're budgeting.
When you see a lot of the summarized budget documents and MS forms that get posted with
their budgets, they're function driven.
So that's usually where we start.
If there's any part of the account number or want you,
you to be able to understand. It's the function code.
We'll get into objects and all the other accounts that are associated with these when we start
budgeting, which is already started. All right?
So when we look at 1100, the description is the description of the function.
Regular ed programs pre-K through 12.
Under the first column is the general ledger budget. And the reason why we call it GL budget is
because it's the adopted budget that's been the,
adjusted from what it originated as.
So if we were, we adopted a default budget, there's no real detail under that because it's a
calculated budget from what, ironically, was a default budget.
So what we've done in the last six weeks before generating this report is we've reallocated
the bottom line associated with the default budget only in two function codes that at least
had a dollar in it, right? So these are all function codes that have had transactions in
them. And we've, and we took the bottom line and we looked over year-day transactions from the last
three years. What was brought in by the departments for budget requests and the proposed
budget. So something that you transparently have seen, is it within the request that you have
acknowledged? And also the departments wanted. And then we looked at, too, we cleaned up all the payroll
positions, fully encumbered payroll, and then identified all the wages and benefits that
you don't encumber. For example, substitute teachers. We have an arsenal of substitutes that work
for us. It's diminished from probably 10 years ago, but we do. And because they can sub at any given
time, we don't encumber those positions, meaning we don't have a set number of hours and days and
schedules for these individuals. So the encumbrance is.
zero. So what we do is we predict what that dollar amount will be for the year. And as the
year moves on, the year-to-date transactions begin, we'll begin reducing what we'll say,
there's about this much left in the budget. But we've put in budget that is representative
of all those other positions based on history. So this is, this budget was essentially
designed from looking at the actual contracts that have been
through payroll, looked at all wages that don't encumber and create estimates for that
based on past history and their hourly rate increases and so on over the last year, of which
most of the positions didn't see any because you're on a default budget. And so for right
now, this is the adjusted budget that is, to our best knowledge, can manage the departments per
function. And there's a significant amount of detail
under each line item because we did start with their initial department request.
So it looked like something they somewhat recognize when we brought this to all the schools.
Under range to date, this is probably the most useless information on this report.
Like if there is anything to ignore, the range to date matches the date range
at the top of the page, August 1st through August 31st. It doesn't matter much to me because
under each month, there's a lot of what this fluctuates. And it doesn't have much meaning
other than in its relationship to the entire year. And we care about this internally only
for cash flows and any volatility when you have, you don't have a lot in your bank account.
So that's the only real value of looking at this before we push out vouchers, etc. But for
guys, it's more looking at it from a bigger picture. The year to date is from when we
begin the fiscal year, July 1st, to the date that I run the report, and I run this as close to the
meeting as possible. So this one was run, I believe, today.
3.30. Today. Yes. So it's very recent. Right, Brian? Right there. You got it. The balance is
general budget minus year to date. And then we have encumbrances.
So I mentioned how a payroll position encumber's money has a schedule, has days, hours, and it encumbers from July 1st to June 30th.
The encumbrance is the portion that has not been spent on that position.
So every report, you're going to see the year to date increasing. The encumbrance is decreasing.
I actually compute all remaining pay periods before running these reports the night before, so we make sure we capture any related payroll.
changes before it goes into this report. And then you have the budget balance.
So your adjusted general ledger budget, subtract out year-to-date transactions, subtract out incumbrances,
is where we are standing right now. And this is not a savings. So you can look at General
Ed. There's $681,000 in there that has not been spent. That covers all schools. That's support.
We also encumber through purchase orders. So one of the things we've implemented, this is tough because there's been kind of a lack of oversight to some degree on these things in the last few years. There won't be any purchases without a purchase order. So we've rolled this out. I think everybody fully understands the situation. I want them. We've looked at encumbering all major contracts. There's a handful of
major contracts that have not been encumbered as they're still, those contracts have not been signed yet.
An example would be contracted paraprofessionals. We have budgeted for them. We have a need for them. We have some already working here.
The paperwork for those has not come in with all their rates. I think that's late.
So in July and August is when all those, actually,
Once the budget's approved, we begin contracting for these. Transportation is one. We always have an advance. Do we need to bid it out? Do we need to negotiate something better? So on. Once that's inked, we've got a PO ready to go. And it's for the entire year. So, again, just like a payroll position, a purchase order will encumber. Sometimes you get an invoice, it pays the whole bill. And a lot of these larger contracts, you're either billed quarterly, monthly, or so on.
you're going to see the transactions on those purchase orders increase while the encumbrance decreases.
So this is how you manage and you can, this is a, you know, a $27 million budget.
It could be a $500 million budget.
If you work through the end user for accountability, these are not hard to maintain.
You should not get lost because you're managing your larger expenses.
Now, I didn't make adjustments on a couple lines because I want to go through and just highlight.
a couple of things, which are an issue, just from eyeballing this. And you probably already have done that yourself. So I'm going to hit extended school year summer. 1220 function code. The $1,200s are generally special ed functions. 1211 is your behavioral programs. 1210 pre-K programs.
1,200 is the general all special ed programs. So 1220 we've isolated just to, I mean, we use. I mean, we usually.
accounts obviously to put things in buckets 1220 is the function functional bucket for the extended
school year or special ed special education summer school as you go through this is one we want
to look at summer school is over they exceeded this budget by seven thousand dollars so
generally as we go go we monitor this and if you go down four accounts below that
to 1430. The general ed summer school, we have a mid-step program, we have a bridge
academy, we have a few other little summer programs going on. There's about $20,000 budgeted for
them. They came in under budget by $2,700. I'll be transferring those budgetary funds to cover
part of the $7,000 and then we'll be looking for other areas to cover them. There's other savings
within the budget. We monitor this all the time. So that's just one way we look at these
reports. We have time to do it. And that program is completed. Another thing we look at is saying,
hmm, why is there still a $1,900 incumbrance? Isn't it over? Well, it could be a bill that hasn't
been paid yet. So we do monitor all these and we can say is that, or is that a purchase order that should
be closed out?
Right? So you can make the same, you know, you can come up with questions just from looking
at a report like this and take it home with you, look at it, ask questions, email them to us.
We will answer you. But I want, I mean, we look at the same way that I'm asking you to look at it.
Explain the $5,600 one to me.
The $5,600 interest payment on a lease purchase. That's a great question.
This is the interest on the, um,
the computer Chromebook lease. And the Chromebooks are charged to a lease line 440 under the
222, the technology 2225, I believe it is, function code, computer-assisted instruction.
We have no money in the budget for it, but you think you might have a...
Well, they charge it to a different account. So what I'm going to do is transfer funds. So you're
going to see under 2225, there's a lot of...
There's some money under that, which would have covered the interest.
So what I'm going to do is transfer that to, so the budget is going to move from 2,2,25 to 5,600.
The only problem with that is that's where it was charged.
Under the Department of Ed Handbook, there's really no delineation between bond interest and short term.
When we look at a short term leases and interest on these, there's still.
short-term debt. And in this case, it's multiple years. So I might actually change the function
on this, too. So I'm talking to the Department of Ed about the best way to illustrate this for
now and then in the future budget. So that's a really good question. And there might be one more that
has a zero. Explain 2729. I believe that's homeless transportation. Yeah. It's other vehicles.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Is 9-81-60. Yes, good question.
Very good.
We've, here today is 6360, but there's a negative on the encumbrance of the exact same amount,
and we're back for 9060, even though we decided for that.
So a negative encumbrance means we've over-adjusted an account.
And for 981, we didn't really have much of a budget for those vans.
Yeah, no.
Right?
So that's where this is.
So that's why it's other transportation.
This is going to ramp up, and we've actually, so working with Jason Roberts,
the principal here at the high school.
we've come up with some better ways to use those fans.
So I'm actually going to need some budget to cover that.
That's what I was wondering.
But it's going to fall under 27-22 is going to give up a little bit of their budget.
Yep. Makes sense.
Right?
In order to help cover that as we develop a better plan.
So we haven't adjusted that yet.
We want it to stick out because essentially it's just a little bit of gas money, right?
They also charge it back to different programs.
So we're looking at the best way to track.
Right now they're taking a dominoid readings.
They're looking at the departments.
We have a sign-out list.
We want to look at it better by function, but all transportation,
and it used to be, we had transportation spread out in incorrect ways.
And some of these functions, like 1,100 had their field trips under object code 519.
Those should be under 27, 20,
which is field trip transportation.
So we're aligning these things all up.
So there's going to be a little bit of discrepancy from prior year expenditure.
You're like, how come this school had almost no field trips?
I'm like, yeah, because they put them under the 1100 function code, et cetera.
So we're realigning some of the rules on how to use these accounts with the state standards.
So that's already started.
We're moving, we'll be moving the budget to 27, 29.
There will be a combination of maintenance, which there's nothing in right now.
This, I believe, is gas.
If you look at the underlying account detail, and those vans are paid for it with ESER funds,
so we don't have a capital cost associated with them.
We would normally depreciate that over time, and then we would have in our capital improvement plan
a time when you would repurchase a new vehicle.
So none of that has been done on these.
because they're going to last forever and have no need no maintenance.
Probably not.
But I think as we get a really good plan for their usage, we'll understand the replacement cycle
and the cost of maintenance better.
So we're not doing that until that really, it's actually, we're working on that plan pretty quickly.
Real time.
Yeah, so we're actually already started using these midday for life skills, for students.
with special needs.
That's lowering our cost for our student while utilizing vehicles that we have sitting out here all day.
So it's already starting to work.
And up, uh, sorry, 2,600 operation made us the plan.
That's the whole, that's the assistance of services.
Yes, I highlighted this.
We are already, we've already spent or encumbered all of our money.
Correct.
So it seems unlikely that we're going to skate through.
No.
So we will skate through.
So under the other 2,600 functions, there is money that's in repairs and maintenance.
And in my opinion, probably more than is what's necessary.
So we initially distributed the payroll budget based on the encumbrances.
And in this case, the lead stipends did not get encumbered, which was about $12,000.
And when you add New Hampshire retirement and if I got onto that, that accounts for almost the totality of that 15.
thousand. This is a wage generated function code. So that's it's a really good
observation. We wanted to leave a lot of these in there to talk about them, and it also
helps you learn how to read this report. So what we will be doing is doing a budget
transfer from probably 2620 to cover that cost. And then we'll be monitoring also. I want
see how are we using overtime? So we actually created an overtime account across all
object codes so we can track that. Obviously, we want to eliminate overtime completely. Usually
it means that you're understaffed or you're just not working efficiently in a few different ways.
So we're looking at that too and we're tracking it now by its own account. We don't encumber
overtime. So if we're going to be looking at it in terms of budgets and we have a real need for it,
I'll give you an example of a real need for it in a minute.
Then we're going to have to up the budget a little bit and predict what those overtime dollar amounts will be.
In one case, a really
an important use of overtime
and we're going to be, would be for, let's say, for example,
we have some food service workers that work in the after school program.
I don't want to cut off their ability to work in that program because we need them.
The overtime is working.
it. However, the way we were handling over time, it was almost all charged to the after-school
program. It's not really fair. And the after-school program works in a, under a very tight
grant, which seems to not get much more funding year over year. And it has some tight
requirements in what you can pay people. So having the 21st century grant cover that is the
whole amount, which comes from them working in the food services. With that, we're going to be
moving to a blended overtime model, which will charge a portion of it to food services, too.
Food service director's here today. He's probably like, no. No, I'm just kidding. Sorry. But it's not
a substantial amount of money, and we would cover that within that department, too. It is the proper
cost. One more. Yes. You said something.
to make us balance, to make us have cash.
It took a million dollars from, I want to say food, but I may not be using the right word,
you took a million dollars to bring it over?
So the general fund bank account is actually a combination of the two.
So we use Interfund accounting, where the deposits for food services have sat in this account.
Money has never really been transferred from it.
So a million dollars of that was general fund money.
Yeah.
Okay. But we've never, because we've always had a fund balance that
that affected, yes, affected, was enough to cover cash flows.
no money had ever been transferred from that. So there's no, the only reason why I would
transfer funds back into that account would be if there was a cash flow issue with
payments going in and out of it. To be honest, they should be transferring fund money out of it every
a year when we close the books on the food service fund. It should be ready we have to repay.
No. No.
Just one question on 122, 2120 on page two, there's guidance services. There's an encumbrance and an expenditure.
Was that an unplanned expenditure because there was no deal budget? Oh, it's under the grant fund.
Okay. This is good.
Any other questions on the first page, general fund?
Because the general fund kind of closes out there on the first page.
You see the summary line.
And then the second page, and this won't always work out this nicely, is food services and grants.
Okay.
So grants are a little bit different.
We spend what we are allocated.
When we build the budget, however, we don't even.
know the allocations for these grants. We have a good idea what it will be, but we're
estimating that. One of my philosophies in budgeting is don't over or underestimate it. Try to
keep it the same every year, unless there is a substantial shift in how we're getting federal funds.
The reason being is because it inflates or deflates what your bottom line is. People use this
politically to say, look, we actually have a $500,000 decrease in the budget.
That's because you cut down on what you said you're going to have in grant funds.
So I generally try to keep these funds consistent.
What we did when we allocated these is we allocated to temp grant accounts by project.
And you don't really see that represented here.
You see essentially what all Title I, Title I, DEA for Special Ed Programming,
21st Century, which is a piece of Title I, I believe.
McKenney Vento is for a homeless expenditures, part of Title I.
What was it? Bridge. Bridge Academy's funded out of the General Fund under 1430.
That was that summer, we consider that a summer school program.
But these are a combination of all those grants, what we're predicting,
per function. And so if you go down to function 1,200 and 1210, that's all IDEA.
Right? So when we go to look at, I think we have total, you have 21, so IDEA is going to be found in the special ed function code is 1200, 1210. And then the special service is 2140 to 2190. So if you look at audiology services, speech, behavior, that's where we're spending most of our IDEA funds. And you can see we're already starting to encumber.
those up, right? So we have not received substantial approval on the
2027 IDEA grant yet. So we're going to leave our placeholder budget until we have
substantial approval in the majority of our federal grants. And then what we're going to do is we
backed out the entire temp budget. And we enter in what has been assessed and approved. And
for every single grant. And this gives our grant writers more time to get through there
and finish writing these projects. So if we get a grant right now, get a grant, whatever,
$100,000, that's what you get in here. Yeah. If that comes in at $150,
we would, we would revise it up. Because. Right, but we're not going to change the $27 million, right?
Yes, you are. Okay. You're going to accept the unanticipated increase in that grant.
And we're legally gladly. And we could get other grant.
we don't even know about right now. We can. We will bring those to you when they happen.
For the most part, these grants represent grants that we get every year, which is why we predicted them.
We do not, I would not assign grant accounts to positions or purchase orders unless it was anticipated greatly that we would have the funds to do that.
And all of our grant contracts, if we do put, you know, even in our employment contracts,
There's lines in there that say, basically say if this grant is terminated or the funds aren't approved, so does the contract.
So there is some risk when you do this because the general fund would have to pick up the other expense.
We consider a minimal risk because we know what our, generally what our allocations are and what our enrollments are on average.
So as long as we're conservative with these numbers, we can look and hire people for these positions.
We don't have to wait mid-year and be like, well, sorry, we can't have these two case, you know, manager positions until, or I should say tutors, I think is a better example, until the funds come in.
So kids are getting these services right now in anticipation of the grants that we've applied for.
So 2725 on the first page is for field trips transportation, but we've already spent it all.
And this is grant transportation. Does that mean we have no money reserved for field trips next year that's not grants?
So we didn't spend it all. I believe some of it's inumbered, right?
So they're anticipating these now. They might un-anticipate them.
So there might be a time, too, where they're like, oh, you're just paying for next year on this, okay.
These grants are for this year.
No, I meant the field trips.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
No, don't apologize.
This is exactly the conversation I wanted to have, so that you're already digging into this, asking questions, and it's the first time you've seen it.
So just real quick in my experience when I prepared grants, there's often a provisional match or something to that effect.
Let's say, you know, the grant will cover a position for one year, but the match is you must self-sustain that position for two additional years.
Is that then added in elsewhere, budgeted for?
it's where...
I don't, I'm not aware we have any of those.
Perfect, yes.
No, we don't have that.
That's a really good question.
This is a great conversation.
The only one we do is the,
it's not that
we do have to prove to self-sustain,
but that's because we're the fiscal agent for the
20 first, not the...
No.
The getting to the Y?
No.
No.
Yes, that's that one.
Okay, not that one.
Yep.
You know what...
But they have to...
K.D.
No.
No.
Okay.
That Jen McDonald's her position.
Oh.
Because we're the fiscal agent for that grant.
But we had to have a certain percentage of
matching donation time,
so everybody that's on the board for that.
Yes.
Donate.
Yeah.
And not only that, her...
So, now you mention it,
it doesn't even fit our fiscal year.
So that grant's very...
She's a LADAC?
Or not.
Well, something in that ballpark.
Her grant
goes through, I think, September 30th.
So her contract
in the default budget,
that's protected, too.
So we will have that in the proposed budget
and the default because you've already approved
that contract.
So,
yeah.
That's the only grant that I know that we have a
matching... And so in that case,
we split fund a portion
of her position is in the general
fund as well. So we actually
split fund proportionately
to what the grant is approved
and you would have the general fund
covering within the same exact position.
Perfect. Thank you for answering
that. Nice.
Mm-hmm.
Good contributions?
Mm-hmm. Got it.
And you knew the employee too. That's amazing.
Good.
I just know that that's the one
with that group.
That grant.
So different question.
Back to the manifest.
Yes.
We made a third payment
to Pasquani
of $93,000.
So that means we
gave them like $280,000
for the payment
in a year.
So my question, did we see that in the manifest
and we all stuck with an income
and we got like 1.662
in cash in there now.
And like one town
owns it still, it's like $200,000.
for the last month.
Where do we see the money,
the incoming money,
from Pasquani
and from Hill,
like,
like, why do we see it
reflected in the same way
we see with the town's owers and stuff?
In her report,
because she's looking,
Michelle's probably looking just at
the tax.
Tax receipts.
Right, right.
I'm like, this is waiting to see
what's anticipated
that's coming,
and I don't understand,
you know, I don't know when Hill pays
or what they pay or what they pay
or what in Pasquani.
Yeah.
And you'd think that be kind of the same
a schedule as far as telling us
what's going to happen where we stand
and the money.
It is used as revenue to build your budget.
Right, right.
So we will, and I think
Brian's used this too, because we made this report for you
in Hill many years ago,
the parent to this
would be a revenue report.
So unfortunately,
our receivable software doesn't
encumber the whole payment,
but the budget does. So you'll
see the cash flows
and the year-to-dates on, and
what's remaining would essentially match
with the tax rates.
So I haven't...
A revenue report right now
would look silly, right?
Because we haven't really collected much of anything
compared to the entire budget.
Look at the revenue.
See all the towns are paid
and we don't have much cash.
But if there's a $98,000 check coming from Hill tomorrow,
that'd be nice to know kind of thing as opposed to.
So we're very
internally, we manage our receivables too,
and invoicing.
and there's software that does it.
So we know if there are 30 days over, 60, et cetera.
So we have aging reports.
We have a part-time accountant
who that's one of her major responsibilities
is just on,
it's not her only one, but billing,
receiving from towns.
And we're probably going to be more of the enforcer for her.
She's a good person, good guy
in this relationship, good lady.
And we have some,
So I think we will be improving
that relationship with some of the towns.
I know they want us to be understanding
when they have troubles
paying right around November and December.
So it's really just,
a lot of it has to do with just improved communications
with those other towns.
When I worked here many years ago,
we used to publish who hadn't paid yet,
and it was really only one town.
Those of you know, we'd put a little shame.
on those guys.
That works pretty effectively.
It's just like you're hurting
you're hurting the school.
But I think
just a little bit better communications.
We've already established good conversations
with New Hampton,
although their town administrator is leaving
shortly.
It's going from us.
Five times the budget we have.
Yep.
Had really good conversations with Christina and Bristol.
So I think
you know, as long as our communications
are going well. We're very
aware of our cash flows.
We've collected, we finished all
paperwork for the IDEA grant from
26. We're expecting all the funds
from that. So our goal was
to improve this immediately.
We did.
Our second goal was to get the
default budget
intelligently distributed
in a way that all
the buildings can recognize it
and see where they're headed.
So now they have the budget details.
We've given some training to administrative
assistance. We have an 18
meeting on Thursday. We're going to do a couple
run-throughs so that all the principals should know exactly
what's in their budget.
All departments, food services, facilities,
et cetera. They all use our software.
I don't want them to have to go through an admin
assistant to understand it.
So I
want them to understand it.
We've given them rosters that
included days and hours. It's my
expectation that they know how many hours those people
are contracted work before they sign the times.
sheets. That's how we control
costs on that
level. So if you
think that person's supposed to work in extra
20 hours, how would you know?
And if they didn't know, it's because
no one told them. So it goes
both ways, right? So we're trying to get
everybody knowledgeable and we're taking
this budgetary starting point
and we're going to parallel that with the
2020-28 budget
process. So I'm giving them the opportunity
to reconstruct 27
while they budget for
28, so they know exactly what's
in there.
These are zero-based budgets.
And they should be representative of the
programs. There should be, when I see
someone saying, well, I can easily
buy that, you know, robot
for $3,000. I'll take
it out of my supply account, and then I'll be like, why did you budget
$3,000 extra dollars in supplies?
Right? So those
questions will be had.
There is sacrifices, though,
departments will make to make a
better decision because
this budget was built a year ago.
So we're understanding.
It's not like we want,
it's very important that the
end user knows what money they have
and be accountable for it.
And that's how you intelligently
manage these budgets.
And you don't have, you know,
our special ed costs
have exploded at a rate
that a tax cap budget like ours
can't handle.
That's a real problem.
So when you have a 2% tax cap,
maybe a 1.8% budgetary growth,
it does not cover
expenditures like that.
Your transportation contract
is not going to go up by 1.8%.
Your fuel costs
are not going to go up by 1.8%.
So these manufactured kind of
legislated by a Senate's budgets
are great.
If you're on the decline,
your costs are going down
and they're managed through something like
that. It's difficult to do
when other costs, unless you're
closing schools
and laying off teachers, increasing
class sizes,
what you won't see from us is
a recommendation to close
banned and just going to say it now
unless it is the absolute last
resort. And to do that,
if we get that budget, you're not
seeing those programs come back. There's
no threats here. We're very
realistic with what we're
proposing and what we're going to propose
for an FY28 budget.
So, you know, there's
a lot of things we can do,
but Brian and I are interested in
seeing your school
thrive.
And that's not by spending
20% more than what you have
now. It's by being very
smart in how you use your money
and honest with what we're budgeting
for and knowing
what you're budgeting for. And that
means that every principal, every
classroom teacher, every admin,
assistant. They all need to know
what those numbers are.
You cannot do this well in the dark.
So this is how it starts.
Thank you.
Thank you for a question.
So
for manifest, we have
June, July, and August that need to be
approved that we're in the packet.
So then a motion to approve.
I'll make a motion to approve the manifest.
I'll second it. Okay. Any further discussion?
No.
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed. Abstentions.
Okay.
Next, budget committee, we haven't had a meeting
and we'll have one coming up in September.
Facilities?
I don't think.
He's still trying to get his
the new facilities.
Yeah, I used to see where
legs are around.
Gotcha. Okay?
First, we needed a budget.
He's scrambling around.
We got the schools open.
Fair enough.
It's great.
He's not breathing yet.
He's got schedules for all the folks.
We've made a bunch of modifications for
employees at different schools.
With the closing of one school, there was a shift
in even his employees, and then he didn't
get the benefit of being here over the most of the
summer, and the crew
had to move Danbury.
Brian and I
did not help them move. We have a lot of other work to do.
I know there's some consternation about that.
Mostly Brian, you know, younger
and very good shape.
Do you have that? Is Bristol
done? The building?
The work?
Yeah, the work's been completed.
That had to be done in order to open the sale.
Right.
That was the money, IRO, and what we were hoping for?
I think it was lower, actually.
Yep.
Then we've got the final bill.
I haven't, we haven't received the final bill,
but from what I understand, it's lower.
Yep.
That doesn't happen often with the way?
Not much lower.
Don't get excited.
Okay, policy committee.
We have policies for second read,
and then they're waiting for the fall.
Update.
Okay.
Curriculum committee, nothing planned.
Building committee.
Pause.
Wellness Committee, reading.
Tech Council.
Transportation Committee.
Dennis was lucky and got to be the chair.
So, yep.
We had an organizational meeting.
As just noted, I was nominated as the chair.
What happens when you're nine minutes late?
So we discussed some rules and requirements in the why we do certain things.
We organized our thoughts.
We're going to be moving to collect and analyze some data.
And at some point in the near future, we're going to have some outward facing materials
that we're going to present to the board, i.e. the public,
so that everybody will kind of have a better insight as to, again,
again, the why, why certain things cost, how we're budgeting, how we're spending, and things of that.
I believe our next meeting, we said it was going to be 11.5, right?
So our next meeting will be 11.5, and that's when we'll start analyzing some of that data.
That's that.
Negotiations committee, we've been trying to get something scheduled.
As of right now, we don't have anything on the books, but we are still working on getting that scheduled.
Schedules are a little bit crazy, and we needed to get that.
the school year off and running.
So that's to be determined.
And I did talk to Joe about the football oversight committee.
Yep.
He said that he's never had a meeting.
When he first took on that position, he had tried.
But the friends of Newfound basically said come to one of their meetings.
They don't see why we would have to have an extra meeting.
Right.
And I think it was just one of those advisory in case they had somebody specifically assigned
to them to reach out to as need be.
B.D.
Need a motion to approve?
I'll make a motion to approve.
Second.
Okay.
Any further discussion?
Seeing none.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Oppose.
Abstentions.
Okay.
Next, new business.
We have one new hire to bring forward.
We have Hannah Carr, who is the
newfound Memorial Middle School computer education teacher.
I need a motion to approve.
I'll make a motion to approve the new hire.
I'll second.
Any further discussion?
Seeing none.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Extensions.
Next, we have a resignation of Aaron Edwards,
who is the Newfound Memorial Middle School computer teacher.
I need a motion to accept the resignation.
I'll make a motion to accept the resignation.
I'll second it.
Okay.
Any further discussion?
Seeing none.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed.
Abstentions.
Okay.
There was a request.
Next is the dress code policy.
review. This was a request that was sent to us.
There has been an outreach to us in
regards to
dress code policy and
reviewing it.
So what we do is typically
when there's a request to us
with a policy in regards to that
because we've already approved the handbooks, which includes
the dress code, is to send it
to the policy committee for a specific
review. They can
re-review it, revise it, have
input, public income.
But we as a board have to vote to have it go back to the policy committee because everything for the board usually is supposed to kind of go up through the committees to have that, hopefully have that more integral discussion and then have it come back to the board and have further discussion if need be or approve or deny.
I make a motion that we have the dress code policy reviewed by any policy committee.
And I'll second it.
Any further discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed abstentions.
Is that like a policy review is just that item?
The policy committee can have it.
I mean, I don't know when, if they anticipate the fall update coming anytime soon.
You could have a meeting, just review that.
I think it might be worth just a review of that since it should be a little bit more of an in-depth conversation-based.
Yes, I agree.
And the policy impacts the handbook, too, so it should be a focused meeting.
Right.
And there could be, you.
you know, an addendum or modification to,
because I think it would be good,
Mateo, both from the high school and potentially the middle school,
to have student input.
That's a great idea.
I think it was wondering why he said it may.
I know, it's like, what?
But it might be good to reach out and see for the policy committee,
even if, who's Dennis and, Michelle, right?
To maybe reach out, see if there's any input from student council or anything like that.
in regards, because I know the middle school has had some recommendations for
for dress code.
Unless you don't show up.
Yeah, it's a good idea.
Perfect.
I think that's very important to have student input.
And maybe work with Chris to try to get middle school or Mr. Perringer is in charge of middle school.
Okay, I'm getting.
Dennis, if I need to re-vote, I can do.
Has them that middle school teaches that there, so.
Yes.
I'm going to use my resources.
Okay.
All right.
Next, we need to start, so Brian is an interim superintendent, so we need to begin the direction forward of the board for a superintendent search committee.
We need to, typically what we do is we come out, outline kind of who's going to be involved in that search committee, like outline, you know, a principal, a couple teachers, things like that.
what I might propose is to initiate the search, get a full-time superintendent ad posted,
and then get people's interest to send an email for interest in regards to being on the committee
and then kind of bring that to the next board meeting for approval.
At least get the job posting out and start that and then get the committee kind of voted on.
next board meeting.
Does that sound like a good timeline to everyone?
So I'll make a motion to stand up the superintendent search committee.
Okay.
I'll second.
Any further discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Opposed.
Abstentions.
And then what we'll do is so if anybody has, so maybe you can post or send something out if anybody's interested in to email me directly.
Because usually we take teachers and parents.
as a parent involvement as well as administrator and SAU stuff and I think we've
done one or two board members who was on the last one it was were you on the interim
one no you'd be interested yes I mean you know so I don't forget and then what
we do is we vote on the committee makeup and the and who's interested at the next
meeting and then at least if there's an ad posted, they can start, people can start getting
the required components of the advertising.
So I think Donna owns that usually.
She will usually have that.
Somebody from this, usually is posted on school spring, right?
Mm-hmm.
And then you start reviewing those applicants regarding credentials, things like that.
Okay.
Any further discussion?
or questions in regards to that?
When do you want that posted the version?
You know what the committee meets?
Everyone does post it now?
I think if she gathers the stuff and we gather
who's interested and then they can
review the posting and make sure that the committee,
the superintendent and search committee can review
that posting and make sure that's what they
want.
Agreed to.
Yeah.
And then they can kind of develop that from there.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think that's what you did.
Okay.
Next, tutor position.
There's a tutor position that was sent to us
regarding a tutor job description, right?
Job description.
Yep.
So you need a motion to accept the job description
for the tutor position as described.
I'll make a motion for the tutor position
description to be approved.
I will second that.
Okay.
Any further discussion?
seeing none.
All those in favor of say aye.
Aye.
Oppos?
Abstentions.
And I should have asked for just, sorry, I just got on the road train to approval and things like that.
The position is a, it's...
A tutor position, so we're down three case managers, two at the middle school, special
case managers, two at the middle school, two at the middle school,
There's two at the middle school and one at the elementary school.
So we have a interested candidate who was formerly in the district,
who is currently finishing up their special ed degree
and has agreed to come and serve as a tutor under the guidance of the case manager at Newfound
Elementary School at Bristol to provide direct instruction to students.
And we won't keep that position still, but we'll close the current position for a case management.
at Newfound Elementary at Newfound Elementary School at Bristol, yes.
And that's acceptable for the state to do it that way?
Yes.
Yes, the student services coordinator teased that out.
Okay.
Sorry, I should have probably led with that, so I do apologize for that.
Okay.
All right, next public comment on agenda items only.
Yes.
Fran.
Okay.
in Hampton. Three things. As far as the superintendent search for me, I hope that it's going to be a public process and not raised doubt about the public not being aware of who's applying when they're being interviewed, maybe being able to attend interviews, like it has been in the past. There are a number of recommended areas for the public.
process of selection of a new superintendent and we should follow them. Number one. Number two, I assume they documented that our business administrator presented to them to the board will be put up online and available to the public other than them just listening to it being described. Number three, when does the board member packets become
public materials. So when you get your packet from the SAU, when do those things become public?
Like the enrollment statistics, like the description of the various schools of what they are doing and so on.
And if that is not provided on our website under meeting agenda documents or minutes of the meeting, it should be.
And if it's not going to be, why not?
Number four, the statement was made about that you don't want to cut budgets, you don't want to do this, and you want to do this, and you want to do that, that.
You're doing this to more appropriately show where things you're being budgeted and spent.
And it's like, you know, there is a limit, and it is not unlimited.
You can talk all you want about. Special ed. Skyrocketing.
Well, that we need to be.
to figure out why is it skyrocketing and how can we reduce it or how can we more cost-effectively address those needs?
We can't just keep giving the taxpayers the bill and say, you figure out how you're going to pay it.
They can't just pass it off to somebody else. They can't go to their employer and say,
My property tax bill went up $1,000, I'm going to need $1,000 increase in salary.
They have to decide what they're going to cut, what they're going to adjust in their spending.
It might not be being able to eat out.
It might be that they have to cut down on their groceries.
It might be that they might need to look for less expensive medications.
It might be that they can do necessary repairs to do your home.
to your home for their vehicles. Real people in real lives have to make adjustments
to your spending and to just keep spending and keep just budgeting, you know, building
every year, six, seven, eight, nine percent increase when real people are facing at most
the two percent increase in income. It's got to stop at some point, which brings me to my income.
Which brings me to my next point, the advisory committee is in being on the 10th.
I would like to request that Michael put together the last five year MS-25 reports to do her writing in a spreadsheet that can be easily prepared.
Now, if you're moving things around into different categories, I would do it myself.
But then I don't want to have to be plagued, but how come this one of, oh, will we change that, move that to a different category?
different category.
MS-25 should be consistent, state-by, and from year to year.
And to look at spending, we need to do that.
Because spending keeps going up, enrolling keeps going down,
if we get enrollment issues.
I haven't heard anybody mention what enrollment was at first day school.
So.
Thank you, Evan.
It's in the minute.
It's in the minute.
997.
97.
997 in the entire school.
And that was in the published board at Genda materials.
It is.
It's in the packet.
But that was...
It's in your packet.
The only thing...
The only thing on the website, because I just tracked,
was the agenda.
The packet wasn't posted.
It's what France pointing out.
All just need to change.
All predicted a thousand, 25 a few months ago, and it's 997.
All right.
These are included with the minutes.
Right.
they're included with the minutes once the board meeting's done.
Yeah.
Which is one of the things, I mean...
But some, we...
We get the packet emailed to us.
That used to be posted.
The whole thing used to be posted.
That's just a clerical thing.
I don't think.
But this all goes and it's on our website.
Yes.
It's just after the meeting.
It used to be posted once the agenda was posted.
All of the supporting documents used to be posted as well.
it as well.
That's just a small change that we need to make and make sure we do that one for it.
That's not a problem.
Right.
It's just, yep.
And this was our first enrollment numbers anyhow, because it was a little bit different.
Right.
Just a reminder.
So was I.
Yep.
So.
Not a huge to do.
Easy to fix.
Easy, easy, be easy.
Any further public comments.
I apologize if this is already to mention.
But I believe in the last meeting it was mentioned
to that first school did not have an four-grade teacher.
Was that something that?
that's something that has been required?
Because Amy has issued the ICT.
There's four, in the packet we got this fourth grade teacher.
There's two teachers in fourth grade grade.
Is Deirdre like fully the fourth grade teacher?
Or is she a long term substitute?
I think she got a one-year contract.
One-year contract?
One-year contract.
Okay.
They do, yeah, yeah.
Yes.
Sorry.
A lot of moving parts.
A lot of moving parts.
Sorry.
Yes.
Yes.
Is there any update on the teacher contract in the MOU that we're waiting to hear from?
We're trying to set up a meeting with the, we're trying to set up a union meeting.
We're trying to set up for negotiations, which would include the MOU and going forward.
We've been trying to set one up.
Ours now.
At this point right now, it's on ours.
But there's been, has been, I can say.
has been, I can say that there has been back and forth, but there needs to be a meeting set up.
Yeah, they don't.
Yeah.
All right.
Any further public comment?
Okay, seeing none.
Board member comments.
Middle school football starts first games tomorrow night.
We're going to win us, but I'm excited.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm making a motion to adjourn.
I'll second.
All those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Oppose.
Extensions.
Thank you.