HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-12-07 School Council - Coolidge Middle MinutesNOF
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r _Meeting Minutes
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Board -Committee -Commission, Council:
School Council -Arthur W Coolidge Middle
Date: 2017-12-07 Time: 3:00 PM
Building: School -Coolidge.
Address: 89 Birch Meadow Drive
Purpose:
..Location: Conference Room
Session: Open.Session
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Attendees: Members - Present:
Eric Castriano, Sarah Marchant, Marcel Koster, Theresa Wiggin, Richard
Nazzaro, Michael Maday, Pooja Parsons,..Breinne Karow
Members - Not Present: .
Christine Magoon
Others Present:
John -'Doherty, Gail Dowd
Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Eric Castriano
Topics of Discussion:
I. Welcome/announcements/updates/questions?
o
II. Welcome to Superintendent Doherty, who will update us on the state of our
schools, the upcoming budget process, etc.
o Superintendent John Doherty will be attending all School Council meetings as an
outreach.
o He is here to discuss budget for FY1.9 .
o He explained that there are 20 Budget Liaisons and there will be 2 per school
o He said that we are entering a difficult budget and will go over the timeline of the
FY19 budget
o Since October they've been looking at how we are.doing with our budget this
year.
o January 81h will be the first presentation to the school committee where a
balanced budget will be presented.
o Budget must be voted on by January 18th v
o On January 19th- the town manager receives the budget and the selectman
decided if an override is necessary and for how much.
o.. If there is an override it will happen in early April
o There is going to be a list of what will happen with the override due to
feedback after last years failed override.
o There will be two presentations made to the school committee the first will be
what the budget will.be and what the cuts will look like and the 2nd night will
be what the override will bring back. There will be another night for
answering questions and then the next night a vote takes place before it gets
to the town manager.
o How can school council help? We want to make sure everything is factual. If
more people have the facts then they will be able to present the information
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factually to other. You could let,us know in what areas we,can be presenting
the information clearer.
o Have certain things that you are required to pay grown over the years?
Certain expenses, -accommodated, costs" comes.off the top, things we are
required to pay health care, heat, electricity, water, snow, ice and capital.
Special education also comes off the top. Town facilities manages a lot of that
and they are giving a presentation on the. 19th of December. Once they have
that number it. comes off the top.: Whatever is remaining is split 60/40
between the school and the town. There are many cost we don't have control
of. The second reason is there is not a lot of new growth. The third factor is
state aide which has gone flat. Special Education reimbursement went down,
receiving 200,000 less than in recent years. We are allowed to save that
money for a year in 18' budget we are using 17' budget.
o There have been bulletins in the pathways newsletter that gets emailed every
Sunday morning.. Building -liaisons will also have bulletins:
o An interesting note regarding last year's override is that those 40 and under
had the lowest voter turnout..
o Can you take out. adds and deliver information? No
o 40 and under had the lowest turnout was that because an:older crowd came
out to vote? A lot of people thought it was going to pass.
.o What is.the 30 second elevator pitch? Slogan? Button? Per pupil expenditure
has fallen from 06' 232 to 16' 296 out of 326 school districts. In 06' the
override was just passed and there was more'.growth. We have gone down
significantly.
o The last five years every year we are cutting from the years before level
service budget. Current year cut over $800,000. .
o If the. town and the school have their own override and only the school's
passes that money can be reallocated after.a year.
III. Next Meeting Date/Upcoming topics
o Mini budget over on the 18th of December at school committee
o January 8th presenting budget
o Next School. Council meeting will be. January 4th 2018
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