NOTTINGHAM BUDGET COMMITTEE MINUTES
NOVEMBER 9, 2006
PUBLIC SESSION
APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE NOVEMBER 16,2006
PRESENT: ABSENT:
Ms. Gail Powell, Chair Mr. Chet Batchelder
Mr. Bill Netishen, Selectmen's Representative Ms. Denise Blaha
Mr. Hal Rafter, Alternate School Board Representative Mr. Kurt Duprey
Mr. John Decker Ms. Charlene Andersen
Mr. Michael Koester Ms. Judy Doughty, School Board Representative
Mr. Philip Fernald
Mr. Chris Mills
OTHERS PRESENT:
Ms. Amy Plante, School Board
Ms. Michelle Carvalho, Principal
Ms. Judy McGann, Superintendent SAU #44
Mr. Peter Bock, Selectman
Ms. Kelly Tivnan, Budget Committee Secretary
The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00pm.
LIBRARY BUDGET:
Ms. Powell handed out copies of the library budget. She said that the Library Committee had been very helpful. She said that the Library Committee had understood that the Budget Committee wanted copies of their budget in advance of their presentation and she said that the Library Committee had made an effort to make sure that happened. She noted that the library budget was separate from the town budget. She explained briefly that the library budget was voted on by a Library Board of Directors and she said that the Budget Committee did not have the authority to recommend changes to that budget.
TOWN BUDGET:
Ms. Powell said that the town budget would be available on November 16, 2006 and she said that the Budget Committee would discuss it at that time.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Mr. Decker made a motion to approve the Budget Committee minutes from October 26, 2006. Mr. Fernald seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 7-0.
DISCUSSION OF SCHOOL BUDGET:
Ms. Powell said that she had met with the Nottingham School Principal, Ms. Carvalho and they had reviewed the information packet that was being given to the Budget Committee. She said that it had worked out well because she had gotten to express some questions in advance.
Ms. Plante said that she wanted to give a short overview of the school budget and she wanted to try to answer some of the questions that the Budget Committee had asked at a previous meeting.
Ms. Plante said that the School Board had addressed questions about student performance in their newsletter.
Ms. Plante said that the School Board was trying to gather data on high school students. She said that it was very difficult to follow students once they graduated. She mentioned that finding out about students in the years after graduation often involved sending surveys and she noted that there were difficulties with this which included address changes and students not returning the surveys. She said that in the Coe-Brown 2006 graduating class 18% of the students had gone into the workforce and the rest had either gone to college or joined the military. She noted that statistic was for the entire Coe-Brown graduating class and not just the Nottingham students. She said that she did not have information about the Dover High School class of 2006.
Ms. Plante said that there had been a question about the cost per pupil. She said that there was some information from the Department of Education on this topic. She said that she had done a chart which showed a cost per pupil comparison. She said that the problem was that they could really only compare Nottingham to other K-8 schools. She said that comparing schools which did not house the same grade levels made the information less useful. She explained how the costs per pupil were calculated. She said that she had also inserted a column in her chart about average teacher salaries. She noted that the amounts paid to the teachers did factor in to the cost per pupil.
SCHOOL DRAFT BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS:
Ms. Plante did a power point presentation on the highlights of the draft school budget. She said that the total proposed budget was $8,328,148. She said that the increase from the previous year's budget was 3.17% or $255,928.
Ms. Plante explained the bulk of the increases. She said that the largest increase was in Special Education tuition but she said that the overall Special Education budget had only increased 5%. She said that another large part of the increase was a lease for a modular classroom. She said that another increase was so that the school could hire an additional teacher.
Ms. Plante showed a pie chart which showed how much of the proposed school budget was contractual spending versus discretionary spending. She noted that some things in both categories were subject to individual interpretation. She defined her interpretation of contractual and legal obligations with examples and she also gave examples of what she considered to be discretionary spending.
Ms. Plante said that she had separated the highlights of the proposed budget into 5 categories.
PERSONNEL:
Ms. Plante said that the proposed school budget included money to hire an additional teacher. She said that the new teacher would teach 8th grade. She said that the goal was to have 3 teachers for each grade. She said that the current 8th grade only had 2 teachers but she said that class would be moving on and the current 7th grade which would be replacing them had 3 teachers.
Ms. Plante said that the proposed school budget also included a school nurse and a counselor. She said that the state benchmark for those services was 500 students in schools with grades K-5. She noted that Nottingham had surpassed 500 students and it was a K-8 school. She said that the older kids needed different help and services than the younger kids and she said that she felt the current staff in those areas were being stretched too thin.
CURRICULUM:
Ms. Plante said that the proposed school budget included money for social studies and grammar text books.
TECHNOLOGY:
Ms. Plante said that the proposed school budget included money for computers and laptop batteries. She said that the school had a technology plan and the money for computers matched what was stated in the plan.
BUILDING:
Ms. Plante said that the proposed school budget included money for a modular classroom. She said that there was also money included for building repairs and furniture replacement. She said that another proposed building expenditure was a security system for the front entrance.
PLANNING:
Ms. Plante said that the proposed school budget included money for an enrollment projection assessment and a feasibility study.
FURTHER DISCUSSION OF HIGHLIGHTS:
Ms. Plante said that the School Board had looked at the proposed budget once but they had kept everything in it that was proposed. She said that the School Board was not at the point of recommending cuts to the proposed budget yet.
MODULAR CLASSROOM:
Mr. Rafter noted that the proposed budget included money for a modular classroom. He said that was a way of addressing the need for additional classroom space. He said that the School Board was still discussing those options. Mr. Decker asked how long a modular classroom would last. Mr. Rafter said that it would last until an addition was built. Mr. Decker said that the modular classroom should have been in the school capital improvement plan. He said that it would be a large expense. Mr. Rafter said that the modular classroom would be a rental and not a capital expenditure. Mr. Decker said that it would still be considered a capital expenditure. Ms. Carvalho said that the cost of renting the modular classroom would be $35,000 over 3 years. Ms. Powell said that a modular classroom
would only be one room and it would not be long before the school would need another room. Ms. Carvalho said that the modular she wanted to get was a double wide and so it would house 2 classrooms. Ms. Powell asked how long that would be used. Ms. Carvalho said that it might be used for 2-3 years. Ms. Powell asked if 4 rooms had been added to the school since it was built. Ms. Carvalho said no. She said that 4 additional rooms were constructed when the school building was constructed. She said that those rooms had been filled. Mr. Decker suggested that the School Board look at doing the school addition sooner than they were planning. Ms. Carvalho said that the School Board needed to get information on the growth of the population before they could do an addition. Mr. Rafter said that the School Board also needed to address the space issue for the coming year. He said that both of the studies they were looking at
doing could be done in the fall and they could have a warrant article to address them in March of 2008. Ms. Carvalho said that the people from the School Administrator's Association who were going to do the study on growth were currently involved in projects. She said that they only took projects every 5-6 months. Mr. Decker asked about the current capacity of the school. Ms. Carvalho said that the capacity was different for the cafeteria than for the classrooms and she said that the School Board and the community were in charge of determining a reasonable class size. Mr. Rafter said that capacity was a political number. He said that the state minimum standards had changed since the school building had been built. Ms. Plante said that the School Board had not had an in depth discussion about modulars yet. Ms. Carvalho said that there was no mechanism to determine the size of the kid population in Nottingham. Mr. Netishen asked
if the 4 additional rooms constructed with the building were occupied as classrooms. Ms. Carvalho said yes. Mr. Netishen noted that the information given on a modular stated the price of $49,000 to install and a 36 month lease. He asked when that lease would begin. Ms. Carvalho said that the lease would start in June or July of 2007. She said that there was also a cost for furniture and other necessary supplies for the modular classroom. Mr. Netishen asked if the School Board would have the proposed budget reviewed by December 14, 2006. Ms. McGann said yes. Mr. Netishen said that he agreed with Mr. Decker regarding his comment about the capital improvement plan. Mr. Rafter said that there had been no discussion of a modular classroom when the school capital improvement plan had been prepared. He said that this request was a new one. Mr. Netishen asked how the school knew that they would only need two additional
classrooms. He said that he would like to know every classroom and the number of students who used it. He said that he would also like to know the state standards for comparison. He said that he did not mind waiting for that information until the School Board decided whether they were going to keep the cost of the modular classroom in the proposed budget. Mr. Bock noted that growth information would not be available until the population study was completed so there could be no movement towards building an addition until that time. Mr. Fernald asked how many students the school had been built for. He said that he thought it was 500 or 600. Ms. Carvalho said that she would check on that information. Mr. Fernald asked how many students currently attended Nottingham School. Ms. Carvalho said that there were 514 current students. Mr. Fernald said that he thought the modulars the school had in the past were lousy. He said
that he would not vote for more modulars. He said that he felt modulars were the same as throwing money away.
Mr. Koester said that he thought the information packet provided to the Budget Committee by the School Board and the SAU was good and very complete. He asked if someone would explain the projections to him. Ms. Carvalho said that the projection number for Kindergarten was based on a 5 year average. She said that the projection numbers for the other grades were simply based on moving students up from one grade to the next. Mr. Koester said that he anticipated Ms. Carvalho's growth estimate to be a bit low. He said that he thought more classrooms would be needed. He said that eventually the school might have to do some non optimal class sizes. He also noted that the School Board could not budget for a capital expense like an addition for the 2007-2008 school year at this point. Mr. Fernald asked
whether they could hold a special town meeting. Mr. Koester said that they needed to do this process correctly. He said that they should not rush this. He said that they would need detailed architectural plans before they went to the public. Ms. Carvalho noted that other programs needed additional space when population growth occurred. She said that classrooms were not the only consideration. Mr. Netishen said that he agreed with Mr. Koester and he also felt that the school population growth projection might be low.
ADDITIONAL BUDGET DISCUSSION:
Ms. Powell said that the School Board needed to acknowledge that there had been a surplus from their previous budget and she said that they needed to address where that money had come from.
Mr. Rafter said that the School Board had not had any discussion of warrant articles at this time. He said that they had put the cost of the population study into the proposed budget instead of making it a warrant article.
Mr. Rafter said that the guaranteed maximum rate for health insurance was 4.8%.
Mr. Rafter said that the teacher salaries in the proposed budget were based on the current contract. He said that they included step and track changes. He said that Nottingham was currently in contract negotiations. He said that the salaries in the proposed budget for the principal, assistant principal and custodial staff included a 4% cost of living increase.
Mr. Rafter noted the line for Guidance benefits. He said that according to the proposed budget, nothing had been spent in the past year but they were asking for money for the coming year. He said that during the previous year the money for guidance benefits had been moved into a regular education line because of the HIPPA laws and privacy concerns but he said that the money had been moved back to it's original line. He said that there had been money spent on that line during the previous year and the only change had been in the way it was shown on the budget worksheet.
Ms. Powell asked if the Budget Committee wanted to look at the proposed school budget in some more detail.
Mr. Decker asked if the School Board could tell him what lines were considered discretionary. Ms. Carvalho said that the lines which were highlighted in yellow were what they considered discretionary.
Mr. Netishen asked about the Speech Therapist. He wanted to know whether that was a new position. Mr. Rafter said that the money for the Speech Therapist had been taken out of the line for Speech Contracted Services. Ms. Carvalho said that now they had SAU employees in house instead of contracting with outside agencies. He said that there had also been a staffing change in that position.
Ms. Powell asked about a proposal overview and a review of personnel being added to the proposed school budget.
Ms. Carvalho said that the request for an additional teacher, guidance counselor, and nurse were all directly related to the school enrollment numbers.
Ms. Carvalho said that the text books they were requesting in the curriculum category were a one time only request and they were addressing a need outlined in the 'No Child Left Behind' legislation.
Ms. Carvalho said that the school had a technology plan in place. She said that plan was published on the school website. She said that the computers and laptop batteries in the proposed budget were a part of that technology plan.
Ms. Carvalho said that the money requested for building repairs was basically to do three things. She said that they wanted to repair the ventilation in the music room. She said that had been an ongoing problem and they had tried several solutions which were unsuccessful. She said that they wanted to do an analysis of the problem and they wanted to try and fix it. She said that they also wanted to replace the rug in the school library. She said that the rug was 7 years old and it got a lot of wear. Finally she said that they wanted to install a security system at the front entrance of their school. She said that they would like to install buzzers and cameras. She said that the side doors to the school were all locked during the day and the teachers had keys but she said that one door in front
was left open during the day. She said that because of recent tragedies in the news, she felt it was important they look into getting a security system.
Ms. Powell asked if the repairs to the school were one time costs. Ms. Carvalho said yes. Ms. Powell asked if that meant that the money in the building repairs capital reserve fund would be saved for a major repair such as roof replacement. Ms. Carvalho said yes.
Ms. Carvalho said that the enrollment projection study would work to project the enrollment over the next 10 years. She said that the people doing the study would look at growth in town and they would look at how to meet the needs of the students based on the growth. She said that the facility study would look at the building and look at the space which would be needed for services and programs based on the numbers found by the enrollment study.
Mr. Rafter said that the School Board still had an open issue with Dover High School regarding tuition. He said that the Dover Superintendent and Dover Business Administrator were coming to talk to the Nottingham School Board at their next meeting. He said that the School Board was hoping to have a resolution to that problem after their discussion with the Dover officials.
Mr. Fernald asked if the Budget Committee wanted to take a preliminary vote regarding their views on modular classrooms. Ms. Powell said that the Budget Committee should give the School Board another meeting to discuss the matter.
Ms. Carvalho said that she had put together 3 binders for use by the Budget Committee. Ms. Powell said that she would put one in the Town Office mail room, one in the town library and she would keep the other. She said that if anyone wanted to borrow the one she was keeping at her house, then they should contact her.
Mr. Koester asked if there was going to be a School Board meeting before the next Budget Committee meeting. Mr. Rafter said yes.
Ms. Powell explained the information request form process to the representatives from the school.
Mr. Fernald asked if there was a security problem at Nottingham School. Ms. Carvalho said no but she said that one of the front doors to the school was left unlocked and she noted that there had been recent tragedies in schools.
Ms. Powell said that the next question was how the Budget Committee was going to deal with this budget.
Mr. Koester said that the additional teacher salary was a proposed expenditure and not a contractual expenditure so it was still up for discussion by the School Board and the Budget Committee.
Mr. Rafter reminded the Budget Committee that the contract would not affect the proposed budget because it would be voted on in a warrant article.
Mr. Decker asked if the permanent substitute was a part of the contract. Mr. Rafter said no but he said that person was paid based on the contract. Mr. Decker asked if that applied to the technology positions as well. Ms. Carvalho said that applied to the position of Technology Director.
Mr. Netishen asked if there was a total for what was marked as discretionary spending. Mr. Rafter said that he would figure out that number.
Ms. Powell said that she would like to know where the surpluses had been during the previous year.
Mr. Netishen said that he would like to look at the most significant accounts. He said that the Budget Committee should look at what items were discretionary in each of the accounts and they should prioritize them. He said that the Budget Committee should try to get an overall view of how they were going to approach this budget. He said that the Budget Committee had looked at the entire budget the previous year and they had not had any major recommendations. He said that the Budget Committee had already done the work the previous year and he did not think it was wise to spend time on every line of the budget when there were only a few lines that would make a significant difference.
Mr. Rafter said that of the surplus from the previous year's budget $223,000 was from salary and benefits. He said that surplus resulted from teacher changes and the actual amount for insurance being lower than the budgeted amount. He said that other significant chunk of the surplus was $77,000 for high school tuition. He said that the high school enrollment had been slightly lower than was projected.
Mr. Netishen said that the Budget Committee should look at everything that increased more than 30%. He said that some of those increases had already been explained.
Mr. Decker said that some of the account numbers were not quite what he had expected. Mr. Rafter noted that might be because of the new accounting software.
Ms. Powell asked if there were any areas of the budget that members of the Budget Committee needed a more detailed review of. She said that she would like more information about cost indicators and cost of living adjustments. She said that she would also like to look back over the past 5 years and get some information about trends. Mr. Netishen noted that a problem with looking back was that some years were stand alone years. He said that you need to understand what happened during a certain time period in order to understand the expenditures of the time period.
Mr. Koester noted that the Budget Committee did not have the capability to offset the numbers with revenues. Ms. Powell said that the Budget Committee could not tell the School Board how to run their business but they could look at whether the School Board was running their business well. She said that the Budget Committee members should look at the 1100's and the 1400's as well as the changes which had been presented to them. She said that the Budget Committee also needed to look at the tax impact of the budget and the revenues.
Mr. Rafter said that he would highlight particular lines of the school proposed budget the next time that he came in front of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Rafter said that Dover High School would give them a tuition estimate which would be final in September. He said that they should have the final Coe-Brown tuition rate in January.
INFORMATION REQUEST FORM:
Ms. Powell showed the Budget Committee members the draft version of the information request form. Mr. Netishen said that there should be something at the top of the form where people specified whether they were asking the school or the town for the information. He said that there should also be a number system so the Budget Committee could keep track of what forms had gone out. Mr. Decker suggested having people put a check mark next to either Town or School. Mr. Netishen said that he also recommended that people be as precise as they could about what information they were requesting. He said that the information requested should be put right on the form which had been used to request it. He said that would make it easier for Ms. Blaha to know which requests had been fulfilled.
OTHER:
Mr. Rafter said that to get the average class sizes people should take the total number of students in a grade and divide it by 3. He said that worked for all the grades except 8th in which case the number should be divided by 2. Mr. Fernald asked for the lowest class size. Mr. Rafter said that he did not know.
Mr. Koester said that he commended the move towards getting the SAU to provide speech services and other services but he said that the Budget Committee initially had some control there and now they didn't because they didn't get to see the SAU budget. Mr. Netishen noted that the School Board might have more control over the issue because hopefully the SAU could negotiate a better contract then the district could get by itself. Mr. Rafter said that the significant reduction in cost for the new way of doing these services made up for the small reduction in time that they were getting with the professional who provided these services.
Mr. Koester asked why the SAU budget continued to go up each year. Mr. Rafter said that the SAU was a staff heavy organization. He noted that the costs of salaries and benefits tended to go up each year.
Mr. Fernald made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:25pm. Mr. Koester seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 7-0.
Respectfully submitted,
Kelly Tivnan
Budget Committee Secretary
| 
