Minutes – Mar 2, 2017

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                   Stockbridge                 West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Public Hearing FY18 Budget / Regular Meeting

Du Bois Regional Middle School – Student Center

March 2, 2017 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

School Committee:              S. Bannon, W. Fields, K. Piasecki, J. St. Peter, A. Potter, R. Dohoney,
A. Hutchinson, D. Singer, D. Weston, S. Stephen

Administration:                  P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:                        S. Soule, B. Doren, M. Young, M. Berle, J. Briggs, K. Burdsall,
E. Mooney, Ed Abrams,

Absent:

List of Documents Distributed:

Minutes of Meeting dated February 16, 2017 Audit Review; Minutes of Meeting dated February 16, 2017 Meeting; BHRSD FY18 Budget Book; Personnel Report dated 3/2/2017

RECORDER NOTE:  Meeting attended by recorder and minutes transcribed during the meeting and after the fact from live recording provided by CTSB.  Length of meeting:  1 hours 52 minutes.

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order @ 7:00pm.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

The listing of agenda items are those reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed, and other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. This meeting is being recorded by CTSB, Committee Recorder, members of the public with prior Chair permission and will be broadcast at a later date. Minutes will be transcribed and made public, as well as added to our website, www.bhrsd.org once approved.

MINUTES

BHRSD Minutes of Meeting dated February 16, 2017 Audit Review
BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated February 16, 2017

Motion to approve both minutes:  S. Stephen      Seconded:  D. Weston    Approved:  Unanimous

TREASURER’S REPORT – None

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT–

• Good News Item(s) – See below
• Updates:
• Regional Agreement and Special Town Meetings
  • Dillon – the special town meeting in West Stockbridge, the regional agreement amendment passed 43-10. The next meeting is in Stockbridge at their regular town meeting on May 15^th.  Between now and the 15^th of May, we will have some small information sessions and maybe some conversations in people’s homes to give additional information on that
• Re-imagination
  • With the school vacation we have not done much on the re-imagination work except that the upcoming professional development day on the 10^th, is entirely dedicated to that. We will be spending most of the day in individual school building talking about implications with all of the staff with the team of 20 people who are meeting regularly.  The last hour, we will bring people together across building to talk about that.  At the last meeting I gave the update that Joshua Shaw the technology consultant is working across the five south county districts on technology and will have some additional updates on that coming soon.
• Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project (SBSSP) – none
• Continued Discussion FY18 Budget – S. Bannon – We will be doing this a little different than other years. Because this is our first discussion about possible cuts after the Finance Subcommittee asked the School Committee to look at a couple of scenarios before the public hearing, I want to make sure that the discussion is had so that we don’t close a public hearing then have a discussion that no one has heard.  We will start with Peter then we will go to the public hearing
• Dillon – Almost everyone in this audience, with the exception of maybe two people, has heard me give this budget presentation two or three times. It has been on CTSB so people might has seen it and the slides are up on our website.  I will give a brief summary for the folks who haven’t been here and then we will jump into mine and the administrative team’s response around proposed cuts and reductions.  The big thing to think about on the budget is three things that really go into the budget.  There is the population allocation, so which percentage of kids each town is responsible for; the minimal local contribution which is a fairly complex state-derived state formula and that is tied to the value of each community and then there is the net assessment.  An important thing that is really interesting this year, when we did the budget, if we kept everything equal and the population had not shifted and the values of the communities hadn’t changed, each community would have seen a little more than a 4% increase.  That would have been ok or too high, but it would have been even straight across the board.  What ended up happening was last year Great Barrington had just under 70% of the students and this year they have 72+% of the students.  Stockbridge had 15.4% and they dropped to 14.7% and West Stockbridge had 14.59% and dropped to 13.168%.  Just with the shift in enrollment, things started happening.  Great Barrington’s increase got bigger, and the others got smaller.  Great Barrington’s value went up which is generally a good thing, but Great Barrington got penalized in terms of its minimum local contribution or Great Barrington had an opportunity to invest more in its kids, depending on your perspective.  That shift to Great Barrington was $130,000 just in the minimum local contribution.  Stockbridge’s minimum local contribution went up about $12,000 and West Stockbridge went down almost $70,000.  That gives you some context. The total assessment to the member towns was 4.21% and the dollar amount of that is $21,369,443.  This is where the minimum local contribution and the enrollment really comes into play.  Great Barrington’s assessment went up 6.49% for a total of $15,401,529; Stockbridge went up 1.64% for a total of $3,085,525 and West Stockbridge is a combination of both the enrollment and the decrease in minimum local contribution went down 4.14% for $2,882,394.  You think back, if nothing had changed it would have been 4% across the board because both the enrollment and the values changed so the percentages changed quite dramatically.  Out of that, the Finance Subcommittee charged us with looking at what would happen if we did reductions at the $100,000 and $200,000 level.  First I will talk about the money then I will talk about the proposed reductions, but from a financial perspective if we do a budget decrease of $100,000 the net assessment is 3.72% overall.  What that means to each of the towns is, GB drops to 5.99%; Stockbridge to 1.16% and West Stockbridge to -4.58%.  If we do it at $200,000, the net assessment goes to 3.24% and impact on the percent for each of the towns is 5.49% in Great Barrington, .67% in Stockbridge and -5.01 in West Stockbridge.  Tuesday I met with the principals and Sharon and the rest of the administrative team, and we looked at cuts and reductions for $100,000 and $200,000, and I have a proposal around that.  If you look at the sheet, we listed this in three different ways so cuts, reductions and potential cuts.  The first ones are plain and simple cuts.  We have a .8 Occupational Therapist and a full-time COTA (Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant).  The recommendation is to eliminate the COTA position and to take the Occupational Therapist and move that position from a .8 or an 80% position to a full-time position.  We think in doing that we can meet the needs of students and reduce our expenses to a little more than $25,000.  The next one is not new to you.  Every year you have asked us to recommend cuts, and we have proposed the same thing and there is some consistency in our thinking.  It probably means we have integrity that we don’t jump around all the time.  There are three full-time art positions at the high school.  If we are going to reduce the budget by $100,000, we recommend eliminating one position at the high school.  I have made this argument several times before.  It’s based around student need, class size, enrollment and offerings.  Of all the positions at the high school, that is the one we see having the most flexibility, and eliminating that one position would be least impactful to the students.  If we do those two reductions, we actually get a little above the $100,000; we get to $104,051.80.
• Typically, we talk about positions, but there are people behind the positions and there are a couple of things going on here. We have two full-time Physics positions at the high school.  We need two-full time Physics positions at the high school.  One of the Physics teachers came to us after having a very great career in New York State, and we knew he would be a short timer.  At the end of this year, he is going to resign.  He already has insurance from his previous his position so we don’t anticipate any costs, and he hasn’t been with us for 10 years so we don’t owe him any insurance.  Through his resignation we will realize a savings of $20,000.  Typically, it is a wash when someone resigns or retires because we carry their benefits.  Then we hire a new person and they have benefits but in this particular case that is not happening.  There is also a high school Special Education position where somebody is also resigning.  We intend to replace that position, and we are anticipating savings there.  There is a third position that is listed as TBD, because we anticipate a third person resigning but we don’t have that formalized yet.  The combination of those three positions, the first is $20,000 the second is $10,000 and the third is $15,000 gets us to $148,451.80.  If we continue to go toward the full $200,000, we would eliminate an elementary school teaching position, and what grade that is remains to be determined based on where we are with students.  We have a couple possibilities of where it could happen, but we want to afford ourselves some flexibility going forward.  We would do another $12,000 at the elementary school perhaps split between materials and professional development.
• You will notice that there are no middle school cuts here. That is quite intentional.  As an administrative team, we agreed to that because last year when we had proposed cuts, we had cuts across all three buildings.  Then the school committee made a decision to put back positions in both the high school and elementary school, but the cuts in the middle school were not restored.  We looked at cost per pupil across each building. There are lots of different arguments that can be made that high schools spend more per student, because they are doing a wider curriculum and a range of electives and programs, not to mention athletics which we have pulled out of that analysis.  It makes sense to invest heavily in the elementary school so you set up kids for success, and you don’t have to remediate after the fact.  What came out in that analysis was that the middle school was comparatively under-funded.  There is an intentional assumption in these proposed cuts to leave the middle school alone because in previous years the middle school took a bigger hit than the other two schools.
• Bannon – I will open up questions to the School Committee first then I will open the public hearing. After the public hearing we can have more discussion.  This is the first time we have seen this so at least you can have an initial reaction.  S. Stephen – why are we not looking at athletics?  P. Dillon – there are a whole host of reasons.  I could talk a little bit to it and I will also call on Marianne to also speak to it.  I think it is largely around participation.  You think of one’s experience in school….S. Stephen – I guess I am more concerned about the administration of it, of the programs.  How much is being spent on administering the athletic program at the high school?  P. Dillon – our whole athletic program and all the stipends for coaches is around $130,000 then there are some costs there around transportation and busing.  In a context where our community struggles significantly with alcohol and substance abuse, I am particularly invested in having kids engaged in sports.  The meaningfulness itself in sports but also as an antidote to some of those other less positive behaviors, or I think we could end up in a situation where we cut athletics to save some money and then in a year or two I come back to you to say “can I have an additional $100,000 for guidance counselors and substance abuse workers.”  M. Young – I wouldn’t say we weren’t thinking about cutting athletics.  When asked to reduce our budget at the high school, I look at all of the places where can we make a reduction that will have the least impact on students and maintain the programs and variety of programs we can offer high school students at Monument Mountain.  To eliminate athletics, there are couple of factors that come into play.  There is Title IX, so if I eliminated one sport for a girls’ team, I would need to be fair and equitable and eliminate another sport for a boys’ team.  What we would end up doing is really not eliminating sports but creating a pay-to-play program for the families in our district.  I don’t imagine that we would ever have a high school that didn’t offer athletic programming.  S. Stephen – I guess I am more concerned about what are the actual…so we have an athletic director, we have busing…my daughter is on the ski team.  There is a bus that goes up to Bousquet every week and comes back.  M. Young – yes, for the ski meets.  We have to provide transportation; we provide transportation for all of the meets and games and contests that are happening.  I ask the coaches and athletes to please travel together as a team, take that time heading to the game to get ready to represent Monument.  We need to provide transportation so that we are not eliminating, or in any way disqualifying or discriminating against, a young person who doesn’t have access to those games. What we know is that parents that arrive at the games and watch them would just assume take their sons or daughters home from the games or the meets because of the rural nature of the district.  It is easier for a lot of families to get to West Stockbridge, Richmond, Lee, Lenox, Pittsfield from Bousquet then to drive back to Monument Mountain then to drive back to their homes.  We have wrestled with leaving games and meets always.  We are underfunded and have been underfunded in transportation for athletics for a number of years, and we offset that deficit through the revolving account that account is funded through gate receipts through football and basketball.  In terms of administrative costs, we have an athletic director, an assistant athletic director and we have coaches.  We are actually in line with most high schools in Berkshire County in what we pay our athletic director and assistant athletic director.  Many schools east of us have full-time athletic directors.  That is a job at a teacher’s salary.  In terms of athletics, I think we are funded adequately on tipping to the side of underfunded, and we didn’t put it on the list this year because the impact is significant, and the impact is directly to families.  When we look at our enrollment numbers in programs and our courses in school, there is some room to continue to provide a strong art program with one fewer teachers.  As much as I hate to lose any teacher or staff at the high school, I don’t think it would be a fair presentation on my part to put athletics on the table before we really looked at the art staff.  B. Fields – How many kids are there total in the athletic program?  M. Young – I want to say, we are close to 250 in the course of a year.  Close to half the school, maybe less than that.  Given all of the sports we offer, what we have seen is some of the teams that we were really concerned about that we wouldn’t able to run or offer have actually stayed with us.  The numbers have been there to run our teams.  We are really fortunate.  We are watching schools all over the county lose programs, lose teams because of declining enrollment.  Monuments have stayed strong to run them all.
• Potter – I have a question. With the reduction table, why weren’t those calculated into the budget that we got a couple of weeks ago?  P. Dillon – we heard about all of them since.  A. Potter – so they are going to happen whether we vote on it or not.  It is sort of showing up there in the middle.  We are going to get that money, right?  That $45,000 is already clear.  P. Dillon – Yes.  A. Potter – so it is a little disingenuous to put it into this table.  R. Dohoney – give them credit.  They actually call them cuts.  Usually they call them reductions.  A. Potter – well, I appreciate that but it is not a cut because no one is cutting any money.  It is found money.  S. Bannon – but if we don’t include it in the budget it will go to the towns.  A. Potter – I am happy to include it in the budget but part of my reaction when I look at this, I feel we are walking into an immediate assumption that this body wants…every time we go through the process we want to cut money from the school.  We are constantly shaving money from the schools anyway we can.  That is just the assumption going into a budget season.  That is my essential objection is that I see a budget here that feels really good to me.  The idea of what I see here and tossing money that we are going to get back anyway into this sheet doesn’t feel really good to me.  P. Dillon – at a Finance Committee meeting a week ago, the Finance Committee directed me to work with the administrators to shave cuts at $100,000 and $200,000.  You don’t have to implement those cuts.  I did what I was asked to do.  A. Potter – I understand Peter.  That wasn’t all directed at you; the middle part was, but this part here, the $45,000 presenting it in that way bothers me.  In terms of how this committee and how that vote went at the Finance Subcommittee, I found that objectionable.  P.  Dillon – nothing would make me happier to say let’s take the $45,000 because it is found money and if somebody were to make a motion and say, let’s take the $45,000 and be done with it, I would happy about that.  When you balance that with our obligation to the three communities and what is palatable there and can we have a budget that passes?  A. Potter – the problem with that objective, as a body, I reject that.  When you look at a budget you want to look at what you want to do.  You want to set your priorities and you want to budget for what you want to do and present and build the best district you can.  When you walk into everything thinking about the perception is going to be, what is going to be reacted to by this group, that group, then you are doing yourself a disservice.  The three years of the budget process since I have been on this committee, what I have seen, I have yet to see a budget that actually looked at the….I have seem level-funded budgets and I have seen proposed to reduced funding.  That is all I have seen.  I have never seen a positive budget that came in and said, here are our values, here is what we want to do, we have this idea, we would like to fund this, we would like to do this, we would like to shift these resources, etc.  I haven’t seen that at all.  What I see is this (holds up paper) and that is what I find objectionable.  P. Dillon – I think over the years, we have shifted our resources quite dramatically particularly around special ed and move positions where we can trading one role for another.  I think we are also on the verge and I don’t want to play this up too much because if we don’t deliver on it than I will be really complicated, but the work around the re-imagination I think is going to set up some really interesting shifts in practices and processes because in September there won’t be financially impactful and then the next year in ways that will be educationally significant and financially impactful.  A. Potter – as part of the Imagineering process, is there the possibility that we imagine something that might call for the investment of additional resources?  Or is it all about again coming back to the table in a budget process and making perceptions about how palatable things are going to be?  Then we are going to want to cut.  In other words, is Imagineering all about to reduce the amount of money that goes into the assessment or is it about overall improvement of what we have and is there a possibility for investment?  P. Dillon – I think there is the possibility for investment but I think it is more likely that investment would be on the back of a reduction in some other area.  I can’t image in this political climate that you would entertain me saying I would like another million dollars to really hit the ball out of the park.  A. Potter – it depends on how far that ball is going.  P. Dillon – if I am misreading that, then we….R. Dohoney – I think you are misreading it and I think you mischaracterized the last three budget processes.  I have been on this committee for a long time.  I have never had the administration or and principal come forward with a proposal that we haven’t supported and voted for including dramatic increases in our sped spending over the last few years.  What is our obligation to do is to review the budget every year to make sure there is not wasteful spending.  There have been times in these conversations that we have identified and vote unanimously that there are items that could be cut that didn’t detract from a program.  I would suggest this $45,000 that I know you are concerned about how it is characterized but that is a good thing that this has been identified.  No one made any motions or any actions at the Finance Committee or at the School Committee last time that said we would make cuts.  There was a decision to evaluate.  I have never voted on and never sent the towns a budget that didn’t meet the education goals that we set forth to do.  We have never rejected something proposed by the administration or anyone else that would have benefited our kids on a monetary basis.  S. Bannon – the Finance Subcommittee has worked very hard has never said the administration come to us with a budget that was the best educational one you could ever come up with.  How can Peter and Sharon and Peter spend all that time on it when we have never asked them to do it.  Up until this point have not, we have talked about level program, just go tell us what it would look like.  I think if we want to do that, we need to give clear direction.  R. Dohoney – first of all, we have had those discussions at the Finance Committee meetings and second the reason we start with the level programming budget and nobody likes it is our schools are awesome.  The state has this great graduation rate.  Ours is better.  We are sending two kids to MIT next year.  Our elementary school is meeting the challenges that they are being faced with more than any other school in Berkshire County.  If they come and say they can do something better but no one is saying anything is broken.  When we do hear that things are broken, we try to fix them.  S. Bannon – I agree.  I like your enthusiasm.  I am jaded by being a little more cynical but there is always room for improvement no matter when we are.  R. Dohoney – absolutely.  We had had those conversations before.  I don’t think that is a school committee problem.  Anything that is put on our desk, we consider and give it its weight.  We have had discussions about PK education, we have had presentations, we have never had a proposal.  I have said before, I don’t care how much it costs, if somebody proposes a good workable universal PK I would vote for it.  I said it two years ago and I say it again right now.  That is one example that I think you are talking about.  S. Bannon – I think that we are in a position this year that the re-Imagineering is really in infancy and that there are a lot of possibilities and having heard Peter talk about it, that it is taking long than he expected but it is going to bear fruit.  Andy would like it, and if I characterized this wrong, please correct me, would like it to be solely based on education.  I think the re-Imagineering started to be “let’s look at we can do things better” and Peter has said that some of that is going to cost more money, some of it is going to be neutral and some will save money.  I think that was the whole impetus of the re-Imagineering was last year’s increase in the budget was close to what this year’s is.  This year, we have hit some stumbling blocks with a 17% increase in bussing.  That didn’t help us at all.  The minimum contribution, although a good thing for the town of Great Barrington, in this case it is costing more money.  A shift in students….B. Fields – Sharon, without the high school art position, including the OT and then the reduction, what would be the percentage we would be looking at for the subcommittee asked…I see somewhere between $50 and $100,000 which is 4.24 and.  If they cuts of $70,000 and the reductions would reduce Great Barrington to about 6.1% I’m fine.  That’s better than 6.49%.  I just wanted to present that.  S. Bannon – there is also another thing to bring up, we still have a very healthy E&D.  It is not the way to reduce but it is something to talk about.  I may be the only one that feels that way.  I realize all the downfalls of that.
• Dohoney – I want to talk about that but I have a few questions about the actual line items. The ES teacher to be determined…it is probably a little disingenuous because I am not voting for it no matter what but I would like to know if the reduction in ES teacher solely due to recent drop in population that we haven’t been advised of or is that just that you have no place else to cut?  P. Dillon – it is a little of both.  M. Berle – thank you for asking.  At the current moment, last year we went through a whole process in a conversation about our second graders this year and to the best of our ability we predicted that we would have full classes and we started the year with that.  We are down to 12 in one of those classes.  We do a lot of work making thoughtful projections then things happen.  This year we have had five or six families leave the district because they haven’t been able to afford housing and they have moved north.  We have had some drop there.  We are always looking at both sides.  We have potential small groups in that cohort and our entering fourth grade cohort.  Our kindergarten data is pretty interesting.  It looks like we are in a similar position that we were last year.  This time last year we were predicting four classes, we are predicting four classes now but if what happened last year, happens this year, we lost 17 families who moved away during the summer so that is an open spot. The other piece that we are looking at is that we just had our early kindergarten and pre-kindergarten registrations and screenings.  This is part of my good news.  The letters are going to go out early next week for that, but we do have 21 students on a waiting list.  D. Weston – what do you mean by waiting list?  School Choice waiting list?  M. Berle – No, our early kindergarten and our pre-kindergarten is only available to in-district families and we have two full classes plus 21 students who would like to participate.  R. Dohoney – even if you are in district you have a right to be there.  S. Bannon – the argument can be made, instead of making this cut, we should use that to fund that position because we should encourage that.  M. Berle – I think that is a very good point and I think that we are doing a lot of work with community partners, United Way, Taconic Foundation to have full support from childbirth to entering our doors after age 3 be solid and wonderful.  There is a little tension around not wanting to compete with existing programs.  We don’t want to hurt other programs but certainly any student who is going to need related services, we want in the building and actually helps the other programs.  There are a number of students on the waiting list that fit that criteria.  Being really thoughtful and intentional in a strong early childhood program is absolutely in our interest.  That is what we know in the district and also in partnering with others.  R. Dohoney – so is the position a classroom position?  M. Berle – it is a Unit A classroom position and the three potential places that could come out of are a third or fourth grade or kindergarten.  The kindergarten data is complete up in the air.  The third and fourth grades are tricky because as you know we have come through a period where we didn’t have a therapeutic classroom and we were struggling with achievement and some classrooms had scenarios where things were not as settled as they might have been.  We have settled that and are really proud of that.  We are seeing really strong growth in these classes that have been so well supported because we have a therapeutic program and all of these other partnerships.  My reluctance to cut is around giving those students the great elementary experience and to make up any deficits we were documenting.  I also think it is a responsible thing and I understand the taxpayer situation.  It is really tough and I think it is our responsibility to say if we have to take something out this is a place we could talk about.  It is tough.  R. Dohoney – but it is still just based on the enrollment roulette which we don’t have any clear answer to.  We are lower than we were a few years ago.  Within re-imagination there are a lot of different ways to could go which is why I was reluctant to say but if we had to we could talk about a mixed age group with a robust curriculum.  It is not our long-term goal to be carrying classrooms with 12 students.  15-20 students is a better number.  I just want to be really honest with you.  So right now, we do have two classrooms that are pretty small.  R. Dohoney – are they both in the second grade?  M. Berle – no.  One is in second and one is in third.  They are both cohorts that we have pulled through a lot and are giving them great support right now.  I think you could create and argument to keep those groups small for another year, you also have a reasonable argument to say, if we had to cut somewhere we could figure something out here.  I would rather not but I respect and understand what you are up against.  A. Potter – this budget has $193,000 in red from choice, is that correct?  If we were to look at these potential cuts of teaching positions at the elementary school in particular, this committee charged the administration with bringing the choice numbers back up.  We voted that way.  With this potential cut impact our ability…if we do indeed have classes with 12 kids under the 15-20 that Mary identified would that impact our ability to bring those choice numbers up.  We have seats and do we have kids waiting to come into those seats?  P. Dillon – It is hard to know what the yield is on the kids we accept and a couple of things need to sort out particularly at the high school before we accept the choice kids but we do a careful analysis of who we have in the pipeline in terms of choice and we have accounted to them and we don’t think right now there are many other kids out there who are unaware of or ready to come.  We have some more recruiting to do and the other thing that may happen is we are not the only district that is wrestling with this.  Other districts might be even more vulnerable than we are.  At some point there might be a tipping point where people use the current circumstances in their own district as an opportunity to come to our district.  You follow me on that?  A. Potter – no I don’t.  Sorry.  P. Dillon – so there are kids in other schools who may want to come here.  S. Bannon – when there budget is done in the other school…..A. Potter – ok, ok, I got it.
• Bannon – we will have more discussion after the public hearing. J. Peter – We are seeing these cuts for the first time so the public is also seeing them for the first time.  Knowing that they were in the pipeline, there is a real fact that the people from the public who may have shown up at this meeting.  Is there going to be a public time that we as a committee can comment before our next meeting?  S. Bannon – we have two choices, we have tentatively set next Tuesday as a meeting if we feel we need it.  Then we meet the 9^th, which is next Thursday to vote, I will allow public comment before our vote also.  I am not going to stop it.  There is going to be a point where it is just going to be School Committee discussion.  Having said all that, it is a little disappointing that we don’t have more people at a public hearing.  I realize that people come out when we are going to cut a position but looking at our budget and seeing that for various reasons it has gone up at least in Great Barrington over 5%, I would think that would be impetus to get people here and it hasn’t.  R. Dohoney – there was a headline in the local paper that said assessment is going up 6.5% and we have two different selectmen.  We will hear from them I guess.  S. Bannon – let’s open the public hearing then we will have more discussion.  We will decide by the end of the meeting if we are meeting Tuesday and Thursday or just Thursday.  R. Dohoney – is it possible to keep the public hearing open to hear more comment on Thursday and then close it vote after that too?  S. Bannon – yes, absolutely.

Motion to open the public hearing on the FY2018 school budget:  A. Potter     Seconded:  B. Fields   Approved:  Unanimous

1. Bannon – if you want to speak, come up to the mic, state your name and address. I will give not unlimited time but I will not time it. If you get too long, I will let you know.

• Abrahms, 15 Pleasant Street, Great Barrington – This is just a procedural thing to echo what was just said, had the headline been art teacher to be cut there would be a line of students for the microphone; so either allow that headline to hit before you vote at the public hearing or just close your eyes and remember previous public hearings. This is not me weighing in one way or the other, it is really just procedural that although these meeting are never well enough attended, this one is less than most.
• Michelle Loubert, 386 Park Street, Housatonic – I just want to emphasize Ms. Berle’s talk about the drop in enrollment at the elementary school, how families left the area because they couldn’t find housing and just to emphasize that it is getting really expensive to live in Great Barrington. I am looking at this and thought if I was on the School Committee looking at this what would I do.  The potential cuts I would set that aside.  At the elementary level I think you are going to see an uptick.  The reductions with regard to resignations and hires that is good economic sense when you are working on a budget.  I would keep that.  I was at the Finance Committee meeting last week and Dr. Dillon spoke to the art position and because that Finance Committee meeting wasn’t televised, I just want it emphasized here why that art position is here.  I have nothing against art.  My daughter is a BFA from Emerson so we paid a lot of money for that BFA.  I think and correct me if I am wrong, it was because there wasn’t enough enrollment in those classes to support that position.  Am I correct in that?  Dillon – with the charge of being asked to cut $100,000 and $200,000 which is the place, the least impactful on students, that is what we came up with and it’s driven largely by participation and enrollment in thinking that two teachers going forward will cover the load that three teachers are currently doing.  M. Loubert – would that mean that those two teachers, from what I recall hearing, was that there wasn’t enough students in that class to support that teacher.  That the students in that class could easily be absorbed in the other two classes.  P. Dillon – Maybe Marianne could speak more eloquently, but I don’t know if I would use the term “easily absorbed” but we could maintain a high-quality program and rearrange it.  It wouldn’t be the same program we have today but if we had to make cuts, it would be a way to do it.  M. Loubert – I get very frustrated because I hear one thing at the Finance Committee and then when it goes public, I hear another thing.  I took very careful notes because the art teacher position keeps coming up every year.  This particular teacher today, how many students is this teacher teaching?  2, 3, 4, 5?  I am just curious.  S. Bannon – it is a position, but in that position, how many students?  M. Young – I don’t have an exact number Michelle but what I know is that each of our three art teachers has a full teaching load of five classes per semester and in some of those classes we have a couple of classes that are 10 or fewer students in the class.  When we look at the total number of students in each of the courses we are offering we think combine two sections of foundation art II into one section and still have a reasonable class size.  Mostly what we would be looking at though is redesigning the courses we offer and when we offer them.  There would be change.  We are not going to run the same program with one fewer teachers.  We would have to make some changes in that but when you look across the school and look at all of the enrollment patterns in every subject area and the programs that we offer, this is an area if we are asked to absorb any reductions I would recommend we do it.  M. Loubert – what is a reasonable class size?  M. Young – most of our class sizes are somewhere depending on the subject, so we have our academic classes that range from 15 to 28.  We strive for a class size around 18.  The teachers’ contract has language about a recommended class size for elementary, middle and high school.  M. Loubert – I meant specifically for art.  We would strive for around 18 to 20 in those classes so those student can get the attention but some of the more advanced classes, portfolio, advanced art, may have fewer than that and some foundation art classes with freshman and sophomores may be a little larger.  J. Loubert – $78, 000 is a good salary.  If there is a class that this teacher is only teaching a handful of students, as a taxpayer, as much as I don’t…trust me I know what it is like to have your job on the line at budget time in front of a public hearing.  I would hate to see somebody lose their job but it is not cost effective to have somebody making this money teaching a handful of students that could be absorbed by two other teachers without any damage to the students’ education.  Sometime what I hear at Finance Committee is not what I hear when it comes to the public.
• Bannon – so in order to have a motion to continue the public hearing there are two things that we have to consider. Is the School Committee tonight willing to say these cuts, certain ones or all of them, take them off the table.  We are not in favor.  Rich has already said the elementary school has his support.  If that is the case, let’s not put any angst in this.  Let’s take it off the table.  That would be my desire.  We can prolong this, we have done it before.  We get some drama and excitement but it doesn’t serve any useful purpose.  The administration did what they were asked to do.  They came to us with proposed cuts that would bring $100,000 and $200,000.  It is really our choice now to decide is we are interested in any of these or not.  I would hate to see us come up with other academic solutions because that is not our expertise and it should be left up to the administration to do that.
• Singer – I have a comment. I would like to take the high school art teacher cut off the table.  As a parent of high school students and having watched my kids go through Monument, art teachers are not interchangeable and I don’t think that at the high school level when you are talking about a teacher that teaches photography versus ceramics and a lot of the upper-level courses, those are not just foundation courses, that each teacher brings a different perspective.  There is also a balance and Monument that I see.  The athletics, drama and art are part of that balance.  To cut one of the art teachers, I am not comfortable with that.
• Potter – my inclination is to stand with a level-funded budget except for the reductions because they are baked in. We are going to realize those as it is.  R. Dohoney – I was going to make a motion but I think we should wait until we close the public hearing.  I am ready to make a motion to reduce the budget by $100,000, $70,018.80 of the four cuts, the $25,000, the $20,000 and the $10,000 and the $15,000 and pull another out of E&D.  I am going to make a motion by $100,000 and that this where I want the money to come from.  $25,018.80 for the OT, $45,000 that Andy identified and the remainder $30,000 to come out of E&D.  S. Bannon – you haven’t thought about $130,000 out of E&D have you?  J. St. Peter – I don’t know if this is the time because we may have to make a request for E&D for the boiler.  S. Bannon – I want to see the boiler in the budget.  I am going to have a real problem with this because we have had all this time to put it in the budget and it is not in the budget.  J. St. Peter – we just got the quote back this week for the firewall.  Is now the time to make a motion?  R. Dohoney – I don’t think we can make motions until we close the public hearing but the sentiment seems to be that nobody want to close the public hearing.  P. Dillon – did you make yours a motion?  R. Dohoney – I said it was the motion that I am going to make.  I don’t think I can make a motion right now if we are in the middle of a public hearing.  It is required by law to close the public hearing before you vote on your budget.  A. Potter – we can always reopen a public hearing.  S. Bannon – not if we completely close it.  We would have to reopen it once we advertise it.  P. Dillon – just to be clear the cut was to move the OT to full time and the COTA is the one that is riffed.  S. Bannon – the other thing to be clear about but if we took a vote tonight and closed the public hearing it is not a vote on the budget.  It is a vote on changes in the budget.  The official budget vote still comes next Thursday night.  We pretty much would have it ready to go.  I don’t think you want to close everything and vote on the budget tonight.  R. Dohoney – no, but I think we need to close the public hearing.  As soon as we close the public hearing there are going to be motions on cuts.  D. Weston – if you are not seeing a consensus, I don’t see that there is going to be a consensus on the committee to make the reduction in the budget of eliminating the high school art teacher.  There certainly doesn’t seem to be a consensus on reducing the elementary school teacher.  If those two things weren’t going to move forward, I don’t know why we would need to leave the public hearing open.  I’m not saying I agree with that…S. Bannon – if we close the public hearing and then we actually vote to keep the possible cut at the high school, we have shot ourselves in the foot.  D. Weston – well we could allow public comment at the next meeting.  We always do.  I don’t think there is a board in the county that allows public comment like we do.  I think it is for the best.   R. Dohoney – is someone were really against the cuts to the art teacher and the teacher at the elementary school they would make the motion to close the public hearing and cut off the debate.

Motion to close the public hearing:  A. Potter      Seconded:  B. Fields     In Favor:  9    Opposed:   1;    Public Hearing Closed.

Motion to reduce the gross operating budget by $70,000 and the total by $100,000 with the direction that it be as set for below: $25,018.80 from OT and the three reductions identified on the sheet and the balance of approximately $30,000 be a transfer from the Excess and Deficiency fund:  R. Dohoney      Seconded:  S. Stephen    In favor:   9  Opposed:  1.

• Bannon – we have closed the public hearing. We have given direction to the administration. Any other discussion on the budget tonight?

Motion to take the high school art teacher position cut off the table and have it remain in the budget:   D. Singer:  Seconded:   A. Potter         In favor:

• Hutchinson – I feel like I don’t know enough about the positions of the high school art teacher, who covers what, like you said photography, ceramics, etc.  They are make the same amount?  This is a $78,000 position?  It is such a specific number, $78,433 certainly sounds like a salary that belongs to a … do all three teachers make $78,000?  S. Harrison – two of the do.  A. Hutchinson – I assume that includes benefits.   S. Harrison – no that is just salary.  A. Hutchinson – I am all for the arts but spending $78,000 on art teachers that not being fully utilized as they might be…it would be great to hear from the students and other people involved with the art program about what value that has to them.  R. Dohoney – my thought on that is we need a full programmatic overview on the high school art program.  It can’t be in the context of re-imagining and it can’t be pretty pictures and comments from students, it needs budget numbers.  There has been three years of this being proposed and being taken back.  It has been three years of us saying we are going to have widespread overview, then we are going to have a few and now we are doing re-imagining.  This has got to be cornered off.  The scab has to be ripped off.  Everything has to be explained.  We need enrollment data in every class, salary of every teacher, and break the whole thing down outside of the budget process.  S. Bannon – other discussion?  P. Dillon – are you requesting that we do that next week?  R. Dohoney – no, I am requesting…if we cut the teacher than we absolutely need that to find out if we did it properly.  If we don’t, there is clearly an issue there.  S. Stephens – wouldn’t you want to do it before you cut them?  R. Dohoney – I’ve wanted to do it for three years, that is the problem.  S. Stephens – this is something that probably should have been thought out so that it was presented in front of us, this is exactly what is going to happen.  Unfortunately, that is not happening.   D. Weston – we are not going to make motions on every position that we are keeping in the budget.  So I think the motion was to take it off the table as a possible reduction.

Motion to take the high school art teacher position off the table as a possible reduction:   D. Singer  Seconded:   A. Potter     In favor:   6.             Opposed:  6.           Motion fails.   

• Weston – that is not to say that we are taking it off. It is still going to be in the possibility.  R. Dohoney – we can still vote on the budget and that can come up.  S. Bannon – we have closed the public hearing.  I will let the public speak but we have closed the public hearing.  When do we want to meet again?  We are planning to vote by next Thursday?  D. Weston – I feel comfortable to just meet on Thursday.  B. Fields – I don’t see what meeting Tuesday is going to do.  S. Bannon – I just need the will of the committee.  Our next meeting will be Thursday and it will be posted.  There will be time for public comment on Thursday.  It will be limited, in other words it will be timed, three minutes a person.  Thursday’s agenda, unless there is something else on that is urgent, we will leave just for the budget.  R. Dohoney – why don’t you move public comment to the first agenda item rather than the last.  S. Bannon – it will be similar to a public hearing except we have closed the public hearing.  We will allow comment.  That is the only fair way of doing it.  R. Dohoney – can I make another suggestion?  If people have anticipated motions for cuts or reductions to the budget maybe get them to Peter 48 hours beforehand and list them in the agenda or circulate them as part of the package.  We always just run off the cuff here which is fine but now we are going to be up against it.  If the boiler situation is worthy of conversation maybe have that proposed and in the agenda.  If somebody wants to add anything, cut anything….S. Bannon – I think it may be a little hard to do that but what I would really advocate is if you have suggestions get them to Peter and Sharon so Sharon can bring back to us real numbers and she doesn’t have to do them that evening.  R. Dohoney – but there is also the benefit of getting them to us.  S. Bannon – there is a huge benefit but sometimes it is difficult.  P. Dillon – to give context on the whole thing, we had a Finance Committee last week when it was a school vacation week and several people weren’t around; we had a meeting Tuesday with the administrators to detail the cuts and arrange a response and then Sharon and I needed to do work running those numbers and putting it together.  On top of that having conversations which potentially impacted staff.  Time is always a challenge.  S. Bannon – just to clarify, if the high school art position was able to be cut and should have been cut, I would have liked to have seen it in the budget.  The boiler we have talked about since the beginning of winter.  I would have also like to see that in the budget.  I am equal opportunity saying that I would like to see more things in the budget.  It is no one’s fault.  Things come up and things happen.  D. Weston – for me to consider reducing that out of the budget, to convince me, I would need to see take the numbers of students that are currently in the art program this year, two semesters, what we offered, how many students were in the classes in this current year and then show me what it would look like if we reduced that position.  Then I would have the information to make an informed decision.  I need to know how it is going to look different, what the numbers are going to be, what classes are going to offered, what classes are not offered, then we can make a decision on it.  If we can’t supply that, then I don’t think we can vote on that.  P. Dillon – like what we did last year with the music program?  D. Weston – at the end of the music program not the debacle at the beginning.  P. Dillon – correct, the four-page memo about what would happen in music.  D. Weston – I want to know what is happening now …. Apples to apples.  S. Bannon – the meeting after we vote we will a briefing.  The process can be refined.  Sometimes we are short-cited on time and we did meet during school vacation and gave a very difficult task when everyone was supposed to be on vacation.  We need to look at our schedule and how it is operating for next year and some suggestions on how we can improve it.  The tentative date on the 7^th was put in partially because last year there were complaints that there wasn’t enough time to discuss a budget.  I think there are things we can do better as a school committee.  I am not talking about administration; but as a school committee.  That will be a major topic when we come back.  R. Dohoney – I agree with everything Dan said.  Is you plan to request that we do that in the context of this budget session or are you saying we haven’t done that so that is why you are not supporting it.  That is where I am.  D. Weston – it is a yes on both.  I think the committee could give the administration a little better direction.  We gave them half direction.  If we want them to take more money out of the budget…if we are not going to ask them to reduce the operating budget further, than they should not go through that exercise I just suggested because that is a waste of their time.  I think we should be giving them direction.  I wasn’t willing to take it completely off the table but I don’t want them to go through a meaningless exercise if we don’t want the larger budget reduced.  S. Bannon – I think that is an interesting way of looking at it.  When we took the vote, my assumption was that it passes and there would be not more work for the administration because we are not going eliminate that position.  Your point here is, we haven’t talked about the larger picture and do we want to eliminate more from the budget than we already recommended.  If we don’t then by default, they don’t have to do the work on the art position or anything else.  There is the other scenario that we are going to hear about with the boiler which makes it difficult to say.  D. Weston – maybe we should hear about that.  P. Dillon – I don’t mind doing that work and we will put that together in a memo.  I don’t want to guarantee a time that we will get it to you but I will try before the meeting so you are not reading it at the meeting and you have a chance to digest it.  R. Dohoney – to what end?  Is someone actually going to make a motion about the high school art teacher?  S. Stephens – nobody can do that unless they know exactly what is going to happen.  That is the point.  I can’t a clear decision upon that unless I know exactly what the ramifications are going to be.  R. Dohoney – I agree with you 100%.  That is the flaw with this whole process.  We have these potential cuts flopped on us.  I don’t think we could make that decision between now and March 9^th.  Shame on us, not shame on the administration.  Shame on us for not talking about this in July.  We just can’t let that go again.  S. Bannon – I would like to hear Jason’ motion because it does reflect in the budget.  Then we will go back to see where we are.

Motion to add $30,000 to the FY18 operating budget for the repair of the second boiler to be offset by an initial $30,000 from E&D both of which to be removed from the FY19 budget:   J. St. Peter,       Seconded:B. Fields      Approved:  Unanimous    

• St. Peter – we have two boilers in the high school that are well over 50 years old. Each one has a big metal container and inside that is a fire box that has brick and asbestos.  Those fireboxes are collapsing.  One of them collapsed this year.  If it is not repaired the heat will melt the metal and the whole boiler will go.  This year we finally got bids in through this FY17 budget to fix this year’s boiler and it is going to be done under this year’s budget.  To fix next year’s budget, it is going to be $30,000 to fix the firewall with the crumbling brick and asbestos.  We had no ideas, especially with the asbestos abatement if it was going to $20,000, $60,000, $200,000, so we were waiting on that exact number.  I could have put a number in two months ago out of the sky but had no way of knowing until we got these two bids in.

• Bannon – does everyone understand the motion? D. Weston – I don’t.   I will be honest.  Let me see if I do understand.  We need $30,000 from next year’s budget to repair the firebox in the second boiler?  J. St. Peter – exactly.  S. Bannon – and you are going to offset that with $30,000 from E&D; is that what your proposal is?  A. Potter – I am confused about the 2019 though.  S. Harrison – what we wanted to do is make it clear that we weren’t increasing the budget and then keeping that $30,000 in a subsequent year.  It was a specific repair for next year with a specific payment both the $30,000 in E&D and the $30,000 operating budget would not remain in the next year.  It is a one-time allocation and a one-time expense.  We wanted the public to realize that.  R. Dohoney – I have no problem paying for the boilers.  I have questions on how we are paying for it.  Couldn’t we just transfer out of this year’s E&D, award the contract and get it done.  If there is no difference either way…if we are pulling from E&D, let’s do it now.  B. Fields – what is our total for E&D if we do it now?  S. Bannon – he is saying is by law we can just request the town within 45 days to act on this.  If they choose not to, we can go ahead and take $30,000 out of E&D.  If they choose to act on it, they would have to have a special town meeting.  P. Dillon – is there a political downside?  I know we can do it.  Is there a political downside when doing we are trying to pass budgets in three towns, while we are trying to do a vote at the Stockbridge town meeting on regional agreement?  R. Dohoney – I hadn’t thought about the politics of it.  I think that is one option.  There may be short-term political consequences but we are looking at 10 years going back to the town for capital expenditures for the high school.  We are starting death by a thousand cuts.  On that same theme is, I know the other things that buildings and grounds have talked about, why don’t we do a borrowing or we could just borrow $30,000 instead of doing it through E&D but that is a bad idea, right?  S. Harrison – it is such a small amount and we have the money and it is a one-time, short-term project.  R. Dohoney – if it were a bigger number, it would be worth it to borrow.  S. Harrison – I am comfortable with the boiler because again I have always maintained that you shouldn’t expend it for non-occurring revenue for recurring expenses.  This is a one-time expense with that non-occurring revenue so it is really a different situation than the use of it for the operating budget.  S. Bannon – could we take funds out for the phone system?  S. Harrison – if Steve doesn’t have anything else that he was going to use it for the following year, that $30,000 because we know that there are a number of things that Building & Grounds would like to do then we plan to use E&D for that one-time and we take it out next year and it’s not there, then your budget starts going up.

Motion to reduce the gross operating budget by $70,018.80 and to transfer an additional $30,000 from E&D for a total reduction in the gross allocation of $100,000:  R. Dohoney,        Seconded:  B. Fields   Approved:  Unanimous

GOOD NEWS ITEM(S)

Muddy Brook Elementary School (MBE) – M. Berle, Principal

We had a fantastic turnout for our EK/PK Screenings.  Christine Kelly and our early childhood team and I have worked really hard the last few months to make our screening, advertising, organization around the early childhood program really organized and understandable to the community and we had over 45 families come in for screenings in preparation of entering our PK/EK lottery.  Parallel to that effort of organized our early childhood program we have also been holding a grant that Cynthia Seigi at CHP is directing, to provide home visits for families and teach literacy skills, how to play with children and support the maternal attachment.  For a few years now we have been working together to identify families in the community that will benefit from that.  A year ago, our screening date for KDG showed that 40% of our kindergarteners were not KDG ready.  They were lacking basic literacy skills.  That was a number that has grown over a number of years.  It was 30% the year previous to that.  This work with Taconic Foundation and CHP is really compelling for us.  We haven’t done the screening of our incoming KDG this year yet but of this 45 students we just an extraordinary high rate of students demonstrating that they are ready.  We only had two students that they were at risk once you took out kids that were already in our system and have IEPs.  We will have more to share when we have the KDG screening. This strategy to work with a large community and be in connection with CHP and be in conversation with health care providers to be working the Taconic Foundation and United Way is really exciting.  I am very excited about the potential for a birth through 12^th grade wrap around.

Du Bois Regional Middle School (DBM) – Ben Doren, Principal

Shakespeare & Co. has come.  On Monday they are going to do their Shakespeare and language across the world which is their presentation to 7^th graders.  The kids do a day or workshops, exploring Shakespeare and wetting their whistles.  Today, we started our eight week residency with Shakespeare & Co. with the 8^th grade.  For the next eight weeks the students are working on a Shakespeare play and they will perform it at Shakespeare & Co.  Every single 8^th grader participates in that which is an amazing experience.  Also, in the 8^th grade, you will remember you approved an exchange program for our Spanish trip.  In the past we have gone to Spain or Peru.  This year, we have 12 students from the Canary Islands from the island of Los Palmos who arrived last Sunday.  We did a big pot luck and David Heath, the Spanish teacher, arranged host families.  It is a very exciting moment.  They have done things like ice skating, skiing, they were coming to the performance of Mid Summer’s Night’s Dream at Shakespeare & Co. tomorrow.  They are getting a full middle school experience.  Our 8^th graders as well as our entire school has really welcomed them.  It is exciting to have these new visitors in the school.  Their English is quite excellent; probably better than our kids speak Spanish.  They are spending a week with us now; they are spending a day in New York this weekend and they go back to Los Palmos on Monday and then our students get to visit them over April break.  We will be hosted by these same families there.  It is a great exchange and it is affecting the whole school.

Restorative Practices – we do advisory every Friday morning and that has been happening for the past two years.  Small groups of 12 meet for half hour and have really important conversations about kids’ lives.  The other component is the restorative dialogues that we have when things don’t go right.  Today, I let two circles with 5^th graders and another with 7^th graders talking about just your run of the mill thinking that don’t go well in a school day, kids not getting along, learning how to communicate and learning opportunities.  It is really amazing to see kids that have been trained in how to sit in a circle and have respectful dialog and listen, how effective these are and how quickly they go because the kids have a year and a half under their belt of conversing in this way and engaging.  We are starting to see some dividends in investing in the social/emotional learning for kids at both a very position and a constructive level and now starting to see how we can use that to repair things over time.

Monument Mountain Regional High School (MMRHS) – M. Young, Principal

The Pops Concert is tomorrow night.  Anthony Carchetti, student and Steve Estelle, teacher, are the finalists in the annual chess tournament.  Nick Dillon is still in that bracket.  We have been working on the issue of racism and inclusiveness and really making sure that we don’t let that whole issue of equity, equality, respect, fade away.  We have a half day on March 24^th and I was looking to put another school-wide assembly together.  I want to thank the Mahaiwe Theatre because they were able to facilitate a conversation between a movie distributor and me.  We are going to be able to show our students the film Hidden Figures before it is open for public purchase and DVD.  In math, science, history, racism, feminism, all of that, our students are going to be able to experience that film on March 24^th.  I wanted to give a shout out to the Mahaiwe for helping us secure that opportunity.

SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

• Policy Sub Committee – None
• Building and Grounds Sub Committee – J. St. Peter – We met earlier today. At the elementary school, we had an elevator inspection. That failed because of a minor issue of a door sensor.  We have a 60 day period to get it fixed and it should be an easy fix and inexpensive.  All of the projectors in the elementary school are repaired and the computer lab, following the high school and the middle school, is getting the Maker Space there.  The lab has been reconfigured to help with early Maker Space ideas such as Legos, robotics, etc.  That was done over February break.  At the middle school, the geothermal system, the master valve had its annual inspection.  It is in very good shape so the water is good.  The heat pump which is over 12 years old, the interface boards are now becoming defunct and outdated so as they are going we are replacing them.  This year, we have three on order.  Again, all in the budget, nothing new there.  Staffing update there is a janitor leaving mid-April.  We are actively advertising hiring.  At the high school two fireboxes for the boilers have failed and received the bids in this week.  Through this year’s budget it will be fixed over April break and then hopefully over the summer the second firebox will be replaced.  Those should be good for 10-20 years.  Phone system update is going in this year’s budget.  It is obsolete, all the cards are gone.  It is not just the phones.  It is also the PA system, the intercoms, it is all rolled into one.  Public utilities – the water vault, because of the change in laws we still have to every month have that inspected privately but two people on the staff have received all of the education and now are just working on their hours.  Hopefully in the next 12 months they will both be certified and that will be a cost that we will not have to pay anymore.  Wastewater treatment plant is coming up for inspection but there should be no issues.  The asbestos since 1980s by law every year it must be inspected.  There are a couple minimal things that we were dinged on but nothing significant.  Everything should run easily through Steve’s budget this year.  Good news, the solar array from the Housatonic we were promised a 20% savings and this year it got to 20% so we are saving about $70,000 this year in our electrical costs.  Steve has changed out 75-80% of all the bulbs in the district going from florescent to LED.  There were some concerns about costs.  They were roughly $8 per bulb but we got them for $1 per bulb.  It only cost a few thousand dollars.  Just to show how that improved things from April 2015 to February 2016 v. April 16 to Feb 17 the kilowatt hours have decreased 28% which is significant.

• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee – None
• Technology Sub Committee – None
• Finance Sub Committee – None
• Regional Agreement Amendment Sub Committee – None
• District Consolidation & Sharing Sub Committee – None

PERSONNEL REPORT

• Long-Term Substitute Appointment(s)
• Resignation(s)
• Extra-Curricular Appointment(s)

BUSINESS OPERATION-None

EDUCATION NEWS- None

OLD BUSINESS- None

NEW BUSINESS:

• Public Comment

o   Ed Abrahms, 15 Pleasant Street, Great Barrington – There will be a report and you will consider it at the next meeting before you vote on the budget about what the art department looks like now and what it would look like after?  R. Dohoney – No.  Anybody can make a motion at any time do anything, but we have not instructed the administration to do that.  S. Bannon – I thought we did.  What I don’t want to do is waste the superintendent’s time.  I would like that.  Dan and Sean would like to as well but we can’t consider it without a motion.  How many people would like to see that report by next week.  B. Fields – I think that is a short window to do a report like we are asking for.  I think we should vote on the budget and then do what we did with music last year.  How many would like to see the report, just raise your hand.   A. Potter – I am satisfied with Rich’s approach to this sheet and that is what I agreed on.  I don’t see revisiting it again having any value.  Unfortunately that motion failed.  S. Stephens – if this comes up in public discussion, and says why don’t we cut the high school art and we sit here and go well we really don’t know the ramifications of that.  It kind of makes us look not quite on the ball.  R. Dohoney – I agree with you but we were not on the ball for the past 11 months when there has been no conversation about it.  The administration didn’t propose it to us until we said give us some proposed cuts.   If I was going to make cuts I would just say cut X amount from the budget and let then admiration do whatever they want to do.  D. Weston – we never do that.  R. Dohoney – I know we don’t.  S. Stephens – if we cannot make a rationalized decision upon a $78,000 cut what is it even on here and why have we been discussing it.  S. Bannon – because the administration made a rationalized decision.  Some of us don’t feel like we have enough information.

Motion that we ask for the details as suggested earlier as referenced to the high school art position:   D. Weston,       Seconded:  S. Stephen,    In favor:  5     Opposed:  5       Motion fails.

• Written Communication – none

PUBLIC COMMENT- None

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION-None

Motion to Adjourn:  D. Weston                 Seconded:         A. Potter                 Approved:  Unanimous

Meeting Adjourned at 7:52pm

The next meeting is scheduled for March 9, 2017 – Regular Meeting – Du Bois Regional Middle School

Submitted by:

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary