Minutes – Apr 13, 2017

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                   Stockbridge                 West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting

Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School – Library

April 13, 2017 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

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

Administration:                      P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:                            B. Doren, M. Berle,  J. Briggs

Absent:                                   K. Piasecki, A. Potter, S. Stephen

List of Documents Distributed:

Minutes of Meeting dated October 27, 2016; Minutes of Meeting dated November 10, 2016; Minutes of Meeting dated December 1, 2016
Minutes of Meeting dated March 23, 2017; Personnel Report dated 4/13/2017; Board Certified Behavior Analyst Job Description
Treasurer’s Report, Early March; FY17 Q1 Transfer Overview; FY17 Q2 Transfer Overview Detail; FY17Q3 Transfer Overview Detail
Resolution – Rights of Undocumented Students and Protocol for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (ICE) Access to Schools
Response to OML Complaint; Special Education Evaluation Team Leader Gr. 5-12 Job Description

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:  – hours  58 minutes.

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order immediately after completion of the 6:30pm Executive Session.

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 School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated October 27, 2016
BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated November 10, 2016
BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated December 1, 2016
BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meet & Confer dated March 23, 2017

Motion to approve all minutes:   R. Dohoney                 Seconded:    D. Weston               Approved:  Unanimous

TREASURER’S REPORT – March, 2017 –

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT

• Good News Item(s) – None
• MV Scholarship Presentation – B. Doren – It is with great pleasure that I welcome the Wisdom Lodge here. They are donating a great contribution to the Monument Valley Scholarship Fund.  We have two really important CapStone trips; Nature’s classroom in 5th Grade and the 8th Grade trip to Washington DC, as well 6th Grade does day trips all over the county as well as the 7th grade.  We would love to make all of these trips open to all students.  For some of the trips like Nature’s Classroom and the Washington DC trip, it is a significant financial hardship.  We do have fundraising opportunities and many families take advantage of that, but we are still in desperate need of scholarship funds.  It is amazing that a lot of our community members come out and support that.  For Nature’s Classroom, we just had every single kid that wanted to go, was able to go.  We had no kids left at school for the entire week which is amazing.  80% of our students are going to Washington, DC and that is not across income lines; it is not the well-off children going to DC and the lower-income students staying at home.  We are proud of what we do.  It says a lot about our district and we couldn’t do it without partners.  Wisdom Lodge Representative – I would like to present these checks.  It is the second half of the $500 we donated earlier in the year to this great endeavor.  One of the checks is for a matching grant from the Lodge of Massachusetts Free Masons and the other is from Wisdom Lodge.  Wisdom Lodge is a golf committee, and I want to say it is a pleasure to be up here and being able to present this check.  I would like to say thank you and hopefully all of the kids get to go to Washington, DC.  I have Chris Tonini and Larry Tonini here as well.  They are both members of the lodge and on the golf committee.  Without their due diligence and hard work, a lot of this wouldn’t be possible.  I would like to thank them as well.  Chris Tonini – we will be putting on the golf tournament again.  We also sponsor Soldier On so we sponsor the two groups.  What we would like to do is let you know that on June 25th, we will be holding the event at Skyline again and the proceeds will benefit the kids again as well as Soldier One.  If anyone is interested, please let me know and we will get you in.  We welcome anybody to come in.  It really is all about the kids and the veterans.
• Proposed Vote: MOU – One Year Contract Extension Unit A – P. Dillon – this is negotiation time and we are in ongoing negotiations with all of the groups. One of those groups are the teachers or Unit A.  Typically we do a three-year contract.  This year in the context of all the work around re-imagination and where we might land, we are recommending a one year contract extension.  That contract extension includes two types of increases; people who are on the salary schedule and then people who are off the salary schedule.  People who are off the salary schedule have more experience either within our district or in other districts and brought here and the recommended increase for the off-step people is 2.21% for a year and the recommended increase for the on-step people is 1.42%.  Teachers that on the salary schedule move down the schedule in terms of years of experience and they move over from left to right in terms of credited accumulation or course work.

MOTION TO APPROVE THE MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR A ONE YEAR CONTRACT EXTENSION FOR UNIT A MEMBERS:          R. Dohoney                        Seconded:      B. Fields                Approved:  Unanimous

• Proposed Resolution – Rights of Undocumented Students – P. Dillon – We borrowed this language from Southern Berkshire and the Amherst Public Schools. The proposal is around the rights of undocumented students and a protocol for working with Immigration Custom Enforcement office and the access they have to the schools.  Many districts around the Commonwealth are doing things similar to this.  This is no dissimilar than the article warrant that is on the Great Barrington Town Warrant.  If you have questions, I am happy to respond to those and if you have recommendations for changes, we can look at those as well.  B Fields – the training of teachers, administration and staff on how to respond to ICE personnel, is that going to be done during the school year?  Is that a professional development topic?  Dillon – it is an interesting one.  The times we have to work with teachers and staff are the two days at the beginning of the school year, the other full days during the year and half days and faculty meetings.  We have not yet developed a plan about doing this but that will come shortly.  R. Dohoney – this policy purely deals with how we deal with ICE officials up front but no protocol on how we deal with the families and the children if this even occurs.  Is that because it would be in the policies and protocols?  P. Dillon – I think we are really good at dealing with families so I don’t know if we need separate language doing that.  I think that is what we do every day.  A. Hutchinson – it is in there; “develop procedures for notifying families and how to support students who family members have been displaced.”  So it is in there.  Obviously, you need to support the other kids in the class. There are a lot of people to support.  R. Dohoney – that is what I was asking.  It says to develop strategies, etc.  Why is it not in the policy that second to the superintendent being called, the family is called?  If you assure me that is going to be in the practices…P. Dillon – I think it is more in the practices and this is a chain of command thing.  R. Dohoney – ok, that’s what I thought.  D. Weston – did I miss a School Committee meeting recently?  Is this a first reading or a second reading or did we not require that?  S. Bannon – this is a resolution that is going to be attached to policy.  It is not the actual policy.  R. Dohoney – my question is why not?  S. Bannon – it didn’t come from the Policy Subcommittee so I would say that would be the first reason and I think there was some urgency to get it attached.  We could make it a policy later on.  R. Dohoney – we could vote on the resolution now but the if the Policy Subcommittee wants to take it up later on….S. Bannon – yes, but that could take months.  I feel like this statement needs to be made sooner than that.  B. Fields – the current Attorney Generals threaten cities with withholding of federal funds if they do this sanctuary program.  Are we in danger if we do this?  Would that affect our federal funds that we receive, like Title I for example and if it is an unsure, could we have a legal opinion that this…S. Bannon – no one is going to give a legal opinion because there is no precedent.  B. Fields – so it is possible that that order to cities could be extended to any institution that is receiving federal funds?  R. Dohoney – there are two different issues.  The legal issue and then then whatever the conditions any governments puts out.  There are a lot of legal opinions out there, including the Attorney General from New York saying that you can do this.  That doesn’t mean that any granting authority can condition their grant on whatever it is they want.  That has happened with community policing grants already.  B. Fields – I just think we should know that.  I am all for this, I am just saying let’s look at what could happen.  S. Bannon – it is wide open.  P. Dillon – I don’t like to be reactive but if we actually had to invoke this, and I hope we don’t, then we would do that and there would be some reaction potentially from the government and probably all along we would have conversations about what our next steps are.

MOTION TO APPROVE THE RESOLUTION OF THE RIGHTS OF UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS:   A. Hutchinson     Seconded:        D. Weston:               Approved:  Unanimous

• New Job Descriptions – P. Dillon – I would like to talk through these with you. I am assuming everyone read them.  These are positions we talked about previously in the Special Ed overview and also in the budget conversations.
  • Board Certified Behavior Analyst – this has a particular set of qualifications and skills connected to applied behavior analyst so working with kids with a range of issues particularly kids who are on the spectrum. I think the description is fairly straight forward and I am happy to respond to any questions about it.

MOTION TO APPROVE THE BOARD CERTIFIED BEHAVIOR ANALYST JOB DESCRIPTION:       B. Fields      Seconded:        A. Hutchinson          Approved:  Unanimous

• Special Education Evaluation Team Leader – P. Dillon – This is a shift and in some ways it may be more complicated. We have spoken about the Special Education Evaluation Team Leader.  As we are proposing it now, we see that there is a 5-12 position so middle and high school and in all likelihood the year after, we will propose another one but at that point, we will try to change the age ranges.  We would like to start with 5-12 as a pilot and then the year after, PK or K to grade 6 and then this position would become a 7-12 position.  There is always some confusion about this, we very intentionally see this as a Unit A teaching position, so similar to a school adjustment counselor, social worker or a guidance counselor and we described this position as largely cost neutral because if a typical special ed teacher spends 80% of their time teaching and 10% involved in meetings and parent outreach we are going to try to transition that so that all of their time is involved in teaching and the 20% from each of five positions cover the cost of this position.  Hutchinson – under job goals it says initials only.  What does that mean?  D. Weston – IEP process.  They are talking about the initial assessments.  P. Dillon – we can clarify that better.  There are initial evaluations when it first comes up and then there are ongoing ones that typically happen every three years that are more about tracking people process.  D. Weston – I am still skeptical but I think to get the best financial bang for our buck, you should work toward having this person be the person who can allocate district resources.  That is not in the description.  You have to have someone at the meeting who is capable of allocating resources for trying to get some efficiencies, we should get this person to the point where they can do that otherwise your special ed director is going to be required at a lot of these meetings and I think the idea is to free her up and free the other teachers up.  I think there would be some value in having that person be able to allocate resources.  P. Dillon – I have open to considering that but I want to be very careful that this is a teaching position and not an administrative position.  I have some concerns about the resource allocation pushing it toward more of an administrative position.  D. Weston – but without that you are not gaining some of the efficiencies you want.  I just want you to look at that.  P. Dillon – ok, I am open to that.

MOTION TO APPROVE THE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEAM LEADER FOR GR. 5-12 JOB DESCRIPTION:  R. Dohoney     Seconded:  B. Fields           Approved:  Unanimous

• Updates:
  • Regional Agreement and Special Town Meetings – P. Dillon – the remaining meeting where the Regional Agreement Amendment is going to be considered is the Stockbridge Town Meeting which is on May 15th. Dohoney – the Regional Amendment Committee talked about reconvening at some point then the other town meetings came up so quick.  Do we want to reconvene before the meeting on the 15th to review any issues.  P. Dillon – there is a meeting on the 24th that the Stockbridge representatives to the Regional Amendment are meeting to talk about that impending vote.  B. Fields – is that April 24th?  P. Dillon – yes.  Obviously it is a public meeting and it will be posted.  That is at 5pm on Monday the 24th in Stockbridge.  R. Dohoney – that is more of a Stockbridge thing right?  P. Dillon – yes.  R. Dohoney – I don’t think we need to reconvene I didn’t want it to go unsaid because I know that we did talk about it.  D. Weston – I wasn’t notified about that in anyway whatsoever.  P. Dillon – I believe Doreen told everybody about the date and then emailed everybody.  I can check that you got it.  D. Weston – I have a Finance Subcommittee meeting notice.  P. Dillon – that is a separate one.  D. Weston – I don’t think I got it then.  R. Dohoney – so the town meeting is on the 15th.  What time do that start in Stockbridge?  D. Weston – they start at 6pm I think.  R. Dohoney – is there any indication that this appears on the warrant yet or not?  D. Weston – no, but I can try to find out.  P. Dillon – I don’t think they have completed the warrant yet.  R. Dohoney – who is the moderator in Stockbridge?  P. Dillon – Gary Johnston.
  • Re-imagination – we had a big all-faculty meeting on the 10th of March. We got some good feedback from that. Just today, Joshua and I sent a nice email to people about that.  People worked in buildings and came up with ideas for most of the day and then we worked together across building at the end of the day.  Those end-of-the-day meetings were pretty well documented.  We did an analysis of those notes and shared that at a high level with everybody.  I can send it around to the School Committee as well, I just didn’t get to it today.  We are leaving the door open for all sorts of additional conversations both for things that are impacting our planning for the start of school and for additional work we need to do going forward.
  • Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project (SBSSP) – P. Dillon – you will recall that is the one that we have been working on technology, professional development, starting to look at some special ed services. We got money for that a little more than a year ago from the governor’s office as part of the community compact.  We are having a meeting in Stockbridge on Wednesday the 26th at 11am.  We are going to bring together the technology director from elementary and secondary education, Sean Cronin who is the person who is working in the state house to support a lot of this work, a handful of other people, all of the superintendents, our technology folks and the consultant we hired to do an analysis of technology across the six districts, Joshua Shaw is going to come and present his initial findings around where we are going.  He is the guy who had worked with Lee to reconfigure a lot of their stuff and make it simple and save them an astronomical amount of money and everything is working nicely.  Bannon – has he reviewed Berkshire Hills?  P. Dillon – he did.  He has reviewed each of the six districts.  His initial one was he came out and met with everybody, and he has been tracking things.  The other folks that are involved in this are non-profit partners that are working with the state, like the education super highway folks.  This should be interesting and it is nice to bring people back together.  S. Bannon – is there a report that we are going to see?  P. Dillon – there will be a report and I am going to get it on Monday.  I will get that report to all of you as soon as I can.  S. Bannon – we should probably get that on an agenda so it is public.  P. Dillon – yes, very much so.

SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

• Policy Sub Committee – None
• Building and Grounds Sub Committee – J. St. Peter – the asbestos report is wrapping up next week. We should be in good shape by the end of May and all wrapped up until the next go around. The new firebox in the boiler in the high school is going to start to be fixed Monday.  They should be done by Friday.  The phone system lines will be going in this summer.  One of the benefits we just discovered is that we will be able to get rid of quite a few of unnecessary phone lines that were used when faxes were critical issues.  At the high school, the new exterior athletic PA system, generously paid for by School Center, Inc., has been been installed.  It will be ready for spring sports.  At the middle school, to harden capital budget v. operating budget.  The two newer schools are twelve years old now so the solar panel inverter, the heat pumps, the chiller at the elementary school are going to need some capital monies to keep them functioning so going forward that is something we are going to be looking at.  The driveway and parking issues at the elementary school and the middle school were addressed.  Everyone knows that at the beginning and end of the day, both driveways can be hairy to say the least.  The big problem we noticed first off is parking in front of the elementary school for two factors.  1.  The safety factor – kids are getting out on a busy main road which is an accident waiting to happen and 2. The aesthetics of it.  We have these two nice schools  that the taxpayers have generously funded and to have a big mud pit in front of the school is not pleasing.  We are trying to work through ways with the principals and superintendent about solutions to the parking problem.  Maybe changing the curb cut at the elementary school; maybe changing where the buses and parent dropoffs are at the middle school before a tragedy occurs or becomes more problematic.  This does dovetail really well into any possible changes with the start of the day or bus routes.  Hopefully we can get a straight-forward policy on that and it will alleviate all of the problems.   D. Weston – at Undermountain we had a similar problem and we increased our visitor parking by leaving a number of parking spots empty.  Most of the faculty parks in the other lot.  If you left those first ten slots open and didn’t park faculty there it would help.  It made a big difference at Undermountain.  The building I am in now, we stopped having parents come in.  We have staff meeting parents and it has made a huge difference.  It puts some work on the faculty but it made it safer in all respects.  J. St. Peter – we talked with Richmond, Morrison, Lenox and they all have the same issue that drops off and the parents don’t get out of their cars and it moves very well.  The big problem with the parking lot is the only sidewalk is against the athletic field so we are talking about having maybe just parents with kids parking in that row so they don’t have to cross the parking lot and faculty parking closer to the main road.  We are going to handle those hopefully at our next meeting.  We make sure it is on the agenda and let you know.  B. Fields – we also discussed the idea that parents have to be trained.  We are talking a new way of going around and having monitors out at the key point of drop off and a monitor inside so at the pick-up in the afternoon, there is no need to get out of the car.  You say,  am Johnny’s parent and somebody inside says Johnny go on out and there are two adults and we move on.  P. Dillon – as you go forward and future meeting happen, it would be great to invite Mary to join you.  B. Fields – her name came up.  We didn’t know where it was going to go.  It was initial.  R. Dohoney – I went to the meeting and gave a lot of unsolicited advice.  I think there are big reforms coming and I think these guys in the buildings and grounds crew are on the right track but they are going to need the whole committee’s support.  P. Dillon – from a timing perspective, coming up with a plan by mid-summer so we could message the plan and start supporting people in the shift before school starts would be great.  The first couple of weeks will be a little all-hands-on-deck bumpy and once people figure it out, it will work fine.  I do the Richmond that they have a funny name for it called Kiss and Ride.  It is super efficient.  People know what time to come and what time to leave.  It is safe for kids and quick.  They make it work pretty well.  D. Weston – we are doing it in my building and we share the driveway with the buses and there are no problems.  At least here you have two different driveways.
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee – D. Weston – the meeting will be April 27th at 6pm at the Richmond Consolidated School. That will be a joint meeting with our school committee members, Peter and the school committee members from Shaker Mountain.
• Technology Sub Committee – P. Dillon – we are ready. Andy and Dave met and they are both ready to come and do a presentation at the next meeting.  They were actually ready for a while but during the budget process, we put it on the back burner.  They are eager to share how things are going.
• Finance Sub Committee – R. Dohoney – our next meeting is May 10th at 5:30pm at the District Office.
• Regional Agreement Amendment Sub Committee – None
• District Consolidation & Sharing Sub Committee – P. Dillon – we have reached out to our neighbors in Southern Berkshire about a meeting and we are waiting to hear back from them.

PERSONNEL REPORT

• Non-certified Appointment(s); Long-term Substitute Appointment(s); Leaves(s) of Absence; 
• Resignation(s) – Erin Candee has worked for us for a number of years as both a classroom teacher and most recently as the technology/computer teacher. She has announced her resignation for the end of the school year.  I just wanted to recognize her hard work in both contexts.
• Extra-Curricular Appointment(s); Volunteer(s)                                      

 BUSINESS OPERATION

• FY17 Q1, Q2, Q3 Transfer Overview & Detail Reports – S. Harrison – Most of you with the exception of Diane and Ann have seen these before so I will be quick. We set our budget in March and by the time school comes and the principals actually know what their class compositions are going to be like and what kind of supplies they really need, if they need additional reading material, we might have to move funds from one budgeted line to another.  The other typical reason for transfers are things I do for salaries. If people are reassigned, particularly at the elementary school, if there is a 4th grade teacher and they get moved to the 2nd grade, I need to move the salaries with those.  We may have put salary money in contingency either for salary increases like we are doing in 18 for negotiations or longevity, additional payments, potential hires that the school committee approved to have in the budget but hadn’t approved the position before, so I move that money around.  Q1, we had one operational move for additional business education, and we created new texting lines, and we wanted to call it evaluation and we had to change the code to a SPED code.  It was under regular education but they are special education lines.  The reason that is important is at the end of the year when we do our reporting.  Bannon – so let’s vote on each quarter.

MOTION TO THE 2017 FIRST QUARTER TRANSFER REPORT:   D. Weston           Seconded:  R. Dohoney   Approved:       Unanimous

• Harrison – Q2, five of those were done for operational needs. The text in music at the middle school and they realized they didn’t need the text but the needed more supplies.  The difference is, a text is like a library book; you are going to have it for a long time; a supply is consumable so that might be a workbook.  From Phys to Tech Ed at the high school; you are typically going to see it in the same type of line, like you saw before in the music whereas there was additional need in Tech Ed and there was a little bit of Phys Ed money that was available.  The rest of the transfer were the really long ones or the ones that I initiate, again, I moved contingency to the first one for salary lines for longevity and the administrator annuities and then the second one was for those transfers I talked about.  In EK we had a teacher that took a leave of absence, we had a one year replacement for that teacher so we had to move that salary from second grade into the EK line.

MOTION TO APPROVE FY17 SECOND QUARTER TRANSFER REPORT:       R. Dohoney           Seconded:  J. St. Peter      Approved:  Unanimous

• Harrison – What we start in quarter 3 and you will start seeing in quarter 4 when we close the budget, we start getting more as we get to the end of the year because when we get into the year, it needs change, you will see on Q3 in addition to typical school text, supplies, materials, we also have some transfers in the facilities and maintenance lines. What typically happens there is Steve budgets as best he can for professional services and fees for maintenance, supplies, custodial supplies, and every year as Mr. St. Peter was just talking about, we might have an air filter that goes so he might have to buy a new air filter and it moves money from another account.  Typically we would do the purchase as needed then we move the money after.  There are another set of salaries as well.

MOTION TO APPROVE FY17 THIRD QUARTER TRANSFER REPORT:  J. St. Peter             Seconded:  B. Fields  Approved:  Unanimous

• Harrison – I also wanted to point out particularly for Ann and Diane, when the auditor was talking about the way that I managed the budget, this is what she was talking about. At the end of the year when we close the budget and the budget lines, we balance those lines.  Typically the schools will keep theirs in balance but we may have other like the maintenance line or health insurance might have additional funding because we did the settlement for the change after we set the budget so we are going to have some money left in that.  I will move that extra money into contingency and it’s an easier way to make sure that at the end of the year we are going to come out at least even if not positive.  So this is what she is talking about is the unique way I manage the budget.  I makes sense for me.  The financial report, typically we do these monthly.  We are getting caught up.  It was a bit of a crazy fall and winter this year with the shared services.  I think we are on top of that and next year we have a process for it.  What this does is it shows you the multiline budget that we create and you passed in March.  We roll those up into consolidated lines so the revenue at the top of the budget pages, so our Chapter 70 we will probably get a little bit more but we don’t know exactly right now.  Chapter 71, I anticipate we are going to get probably $100,000-$130,000 more.  I am very conservative in the Chapter 71.  That is the transportation reimbursement because we have had years where it has been as low as 40% so it is better to have the money drop to either E&D or we have the regional revolving fund.  Member town assessments come in quarterly.  MSBA reimbursement we budget exactly what it is.  We know from year to year, it is exactly what it is year to year.  Medicaid we have at $65,000.  We have collected $51,000.  I expect we are going to have more in that than we have budgeted.  It could be up to $100,000.  Kate has done an excellent job in capturing a lot of our contracted services which hadn’t happened before.  Interest on investments, because of the way we borrow and pay ourselves back.  Misc, one of those was the truck that we sold when we got the new truck and transfer from E&D which you have voted.  When we go down to the expenses, it looks like we have $1.2 million but if you go down to the bottom left that is not exactly what we have because if you look at administration, some of that administration is going to be copying fees or postage, lots of stuff that has to happen over the next three months.  Remember, this is March we have a long way to go.  The one place that I will say, when we do May, I expect we will have this amount or maybe a little more, the benefits in the district insurance, I am pretty comfortable that that 400 will be what we are going to see.  We will need a little bit more for the food services.  We had a couple of extra enrollments but as I said, when we budgeted, we had the old plans, then we went on the deductible plan so that is where all of that savings comes from.  Custodial and operations, obviously that is electricity, heat, gas, that is going to be spent down.  Instructional, that includes substitute teachers and at the end of the year, we tend to spend a lot more than the rest of the year.  R. Dohoney – Peter, do we expect that tend again this year with a lot of substitutes at the end of the year?  Didn’t we do some reforms to help deal with that?  P. Dillon – we did the thing where two of the three groups agreed that three unused personal days could be rolled into their sick days.  Last year was the first year that we did that.  We think that will encourage a number of people to not get caught into the use it or lose it mentality.  The one group of people that still might be in the use it or lose it mentality or some folks that have reached their maximum number of sick days because then for some of them they still may feel the need to use them.  That being said, many people don’t use those days at all.  There are a number of people who are in really good shape, but people get sick but what is frustrating to me is if school is ending on the 22nd of June do you need to see you dentist on the 21st of June or could you see him on the 23rd of June.  I don’t think there is tons of that, just a little.  D. Weston – in their defense, my dentist takes every school vacation off.  I’m just saying.  S. Harrison – so this is the operating budget, this is based on the budget you vote on.  The next page is all of our revolving funds.  School lunch fund, we do have budgeted also additional money in the budget.  I haven’t moved all of that over.  We are on track; about the same place we are on the deficit this time every year.  You can go down and see the athletic funds, the large one up there is the FFA capital trust fund, that is the greenhouse fund.  S. Bannon – probably time for another discussion about that.  S. Harrison – circuit breaker has 417.  That is money we receive for cost in excess of four times foundation which is about $42,000 that we spend on any individual student which high needs and we get reimbursed at 75%.  What we started doing a few years ago was what we get in one year we spend the following year.  If we don’t budget that in case we have a large unexpected cost.  We will spend the 295 this year; we have to  You can spend it up to and within 18 months of receiving it or it drops to your excess and deficiency.  What we do is use that for our autism program and then we will move some of the high cost tuition at the end of the year.  Choice tuition, you see that is all choice and tuition in.  Those are high but we have budgeted 1.2 for choice and 888 for tuition in so what I do at the end of the year is we budget everything in the operating budget so that from year to year we can see what we spend then we have different lines where we move that expense into these revolving funds.  The rest are grants, federal, state, private.  They are typically on a reimbursement basis.  United Way we get quarterly and we will have that by the end of the year.  This is actually a good month.  Typically, we will see the grants in the deficit because they are reimbursements.  Fiduciary funds, those are fund that are held for the benefit of that we can only spend on scholarship and then at the schools in their activity funds.  We are in pretty good shape right now.

EDUCATION NEWS – None

OLD BUSINESS – None

NEW BUSINESS:

• Public Comment
• Written Communication – Response to Open Meeting Law Complaint – P. Dillon – we received a pretty lengthy letter from Hanne Rush in the office of the Attorney General in response to Eileen Mooney’s Open Meeting Law complaint. I think it is worth reading, especially the statement of facts and the discussion and the conclusion.  I think it makes sense for me to read the two paragraphs of the conclusion so that it is in the record.

We find that the Subcommittee violated the Open Meeting Law by failing to include sufficient detail in its meeting minutes and by improperly convening in executive session under Purpose 3 on December 2, 2015 and January 19, 2016.  With respect to the subcommittee’s improper executive sessions, we order the Subcommittee’s immediate and future compliance with the law’s requirements and we caution that similar violations could be considered evidence of intent to violate the law.

We now consider the complaints addressed by this determination to be resolved.  This determination does not address any other complaints that may be pending with our office or the Subcommittee.   Please feel free to contact our office ….

• Dillon – my sense of this is when our initial minutes were perceived as being a little too short-handed in how they were comprised, then when we revised them, they were seen to meet the standards. The revised minutes included sufficient detail to understand.  Because we revised them, there is no further relief needed with respect to the minutes.  S. Bannon – this was 2015 and 2016, and for the executive sessions we did not use executive session at all of finance subcommittee this year so that resolved that issue.  P. Dillon – I think it is resolved.  If we wanted to, we could kick this to the Superior Court for Judicial review, if we wanted to prolong the discussion.  There is a 21 day window to do that that started on April 6th so we would have to do that by April 27th.  If anybody wants to do that, please say it.  If we are okay with moving on, I am fine with that too.  R. Dohoney – there is nothing to appeal.  B. Fields – we have already revised and addressed the complaint.  S. Bannon – I think the one thing that is more clear now than ever, and we knew this before so it is nothing new, subcommittees we don’t have secretaries for, we don’t have it budgeted for so we have to keep the same quality of minutes but that is difficult because we don’t hire secretaries.  I don’t think anyone wants us to budget $20,000 for secretaries for subcommittees.  R. Dohoney – the state does.  P. Dillon – ironically they are not subject to the rules that we are subject to.

1. Dillon – Doreen gave me copies of the calendar for next year with the meetings, just grab them on your way out.

Motion to Adjourn:    R. Dohoney               Seconded:  B. Fields                     Approved:  Unanimous

Meeting Adjourned at 7:58pm

The next meeting is scheduled for May 4, 2017 at Monument Mountain Regional High School.

Submitted by:

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary