February 4, 2026 – School Committee – Video & Transcript

February 4, 2026 - School Committee

Autoscroll:

Welcome to the Whalen School Committee meeting on February 4th, 2026. We have Betsy Cullen, Kate Sambuco, Erin Gibbons. We have two members absent, Erin Muller and Christina Rodrigo. We have our administrative team, and we are being recorded by WACAM. It is 6.22 p.m., and I would open the floor for public comment for those. And so, same rules as last time, three minutes. Please keep it within the purview of the school committee and just respectful, that's all. So, Andrew Carpenter, Andrew Lane Whalen, thank you for allowing public comment at this meeting. I'll be brief, because I know that the Select Board Chair and the Article DD Liaison will be addressing you tonight regarding the parcel on 25 Holiday Road, Orchard Lane Parcel. So, I'll just give a very brief cover, kind of the points I did last time. On Monday, I raised the core issue that this committee holds the care and custody of the Holiday Road, Orchard Lane Parcel, and that nothing should proceed in a way that assumes transfer or pre-commits an outcome. But tonight, before the Select Board Chair and the Article DD Liaison speak, I have two yes-no questions and one request. First, can the committee confirm that no town-funded study or concept work on this parcel is authorized unless and until the school committee votes to allow it? And then, secondly, can the committee confirm that nothing in Article DD or any questions about it, discussions about it, I mean, should be treated as the school committee endorsing transfer or development. And then, if the committee agrees, please state that directly on the record tonight so there's no confusion later. Thank you. That's all. Thank you, Andrew.
Carol Plum, Bald Rock Road. I don't have a crystal ball, but I'd like to, like, step outside of your purview of just the school committee looking in. So, if you guys still have buses parked on the town property, and I hope during all your discussions that are going on about moving things around that somebody takes that into account because if you think of what else the town is doing and you're being your little bubble in the town, well, if the town decides to do something else with town building, you still need to find a place to park those buses, which I believe is, what, 30% of the kids are going on the bus that are out there. Too bad it's not, like, 100%, but hey. The other one is just, if you look back or when all the elementary schools were purchased, the land there was purchased in the 50s. I believe they were built in the 60s. Sorry I didn't review it before it came up. But my thought is, you know, they bought the Holiday Road as sort of an extra piece, and the town has not been investing in land, and they're not making any more land. So, I would think long and hard before you guys decide to give up your property without wheeling and dealing and getting something in writing or just keeping it or whatever you're going to do with it. So, I would really rather not see that be cashed out for quick cash for revenue, which is what it starts to sound like after a while. You kind of need to invest for the long haul. I mean, maybe that's just me, ethically speaking. I feel like it's not just for the people here now. It's for the people who have to do something later when there's going to be more cost to buying land. I mean, think about it. If you give up this land and you redo the 750 people that come in on the MBTA communities, and that adds, like, another 150 kids, where are they going to go? I don't know if that's actually in your calculations when you talk to the architects or that group anyway, but just please consider that you leave enough space or consider how you're going to do that or get some sort of guarantee. And that's really all I wanted to ask. Thank you. Thank you, Carol. No one else for public comment at this time, right? Okay. I'd like to invite the select board chair and select board member Whitney up to discuss article DD, 25 Holiday Road, for the appropriation of funding for engineering study and appraisal. Much more comfortable chairs than the end of Carol. You might move up there. Good evening, Carol Martin, Lake Road. I normally say a member of the select board, but tonight I won't say select board chair. Thank you very much for not only having us come before you, but also for accommodating us on such short notice. We really appreciate it. I'm going to give a little bit of the... Erin had sent us two or three questions, and one was kind of the genesis of where we came up with this idea and also some discussions that have taken place. And then Bill will talk about the actual article that we're working on. I think we also would like to find out maybe about timeline, right? Because, of course, as always, we're on deadlines. So I think some members in this room actually have served on the budget task force, and both last year and this year, the budget task force has come back to the finance committee, to the select board, and said, you know, every year we're allowed to increase the budget by 2.5% plus new growth. And Wayland is very, very low on the new growth. I think we're somewhere around, you know, 310 or 340 out of 351 communities. Massachusetts, I don't know the correct number, but it's really... We're not doing too well in new growth. And so one of the suggestions that's been in order to increase the amount of money we have for a budget every year so that we don't run into having a situation where we end up with operating overrides just about every year, every couple years, is that we look at some new growth. So that was around November when we had the budget presentation forecast. And so we said, okay, let's look at the land available. So I, among others, went through the rep committee to look at all the properties. And I was really surprised. A lot of land in town is municipal land. However, there are not many large parcels that are undeveloped. One of them is, as we know, Clippin Hill, which is about 25 acres, where you have an elementary school. And I would imagine that would be a piece of property that if you were looking at to build in the future year, you would want to keep that land. The second parcel that's available that doesn't have any development is what we call 25 Holiday Road. This is just under 14 acres in the residential area. So the board had... We're now in December. So I'm kind of saying, should we put an article in or what? We need to talk to the school committee. We don't want to go full without speaking to them first. And then it was a holiday break. I think Michael and I reached out and had a conversation with Christine and David about it. Said, we don't want to blindside you. This is what we're looking at. This is why this could be a tool in our toolkit to help us with future budgeting. And we said the next step we'll have the select board liaison, which is Mr. Levine, reach out to the chair, have a sidebar with her that this is what we were doing. So we wouldn't take anybody by surprise. And then with the deadline to submit articles on January 15th, in order to be considered at town meeting, we did put an article in. We submitted it on the 14th so that we at least get this on the table. The select board would like to have the ability to evaluate this. And Bill will speak to this much more because he is the liaison on the article. But I just want you to understand that we have done some due diligence, although we kept saying we have to go up and meet with the school committee. So we appreciate it. It's a little later than I meant to be, but we are here. Thank you. As far as other discussions that have taken place, the Economic Development Committee has come before the select board. I think they've gone before the finance committee twice. And I think they have mentioned several items that could be used, you know, for economic development, not necessarily new growth. But this parcel was one of the suggestions they made for new growth. And I think it might be the source of a lot of the misconceptions that the select board has already made a decision on what they're going to do. You can't make any decisions until we have some due diligence done. And that's the step that we're on. So I'm going to stop and let Bill speak about the more details. And then we'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Good evening. Bill Whitney, Woodridge Road. As Carol mentioned, we have been looking at the, sometimes referred to as the 25 Holiday Road parcel, which the town has owned since 1956. And it was identified as a potential site of market rate and affordable housing with the Wayland Real Estate Asset Planning or WRAP Committee report in its June 2017 report. Carol has touched on the sort of genesis of the particular interest at this time. And so we have put forth this article, which is the draft that has been circulated as frankly a bare-bones article. We have had the benefit of input from Mr. Carpenter and his neighbors about ways in which it could be more fully described. And so we are working with our counterpart in the Finance Committee to do that for the warrant article. One of the questions was, what are the uses that would be studied? And in our meeting earlier this week, we discussed the interest, the particular interest in looking at housing. There is an understandable concern among the neighbors about the density of, I suppose, potentially height of any buildings. What we are looking at is, what would the effect be of extending the, essentially the layout of the holiday, or rather the orchard lane properties, which are in this R-40 district, which means a minimum lot size of 40,000 square feet and 180-foot frontage where a new road would, or extended road would be in place. That's one alternative. Another alternative would be considered as something on the order of the cluster zoning where a single family, typically units similar to townhouses, the kind of thing one sees in the Mainstone area, would be aggregated in a portion of the site with the balance of the site being open space, possibly with walking trails and so forth. And we are not looking at something of a density approaching that of Alta-Oxpo, you know, that's consistent with the character of the neighborhood. As to some of the investigations we would do, I think it's the kind of studies that we would seek to undertake would be of value to the town, irrespective of the specific use. We plan to do some site planning to test some of these reuse alternatives. We would commission a site survey and do some preliminary site engineering to inform the availability and sufficiency of utilities to the site, as well as distribution within the site. In stormwater management, we would do some preliminary geotechnical engineering to determine the bearing capacity of the soils, which would inform recommendations as to foundation systems. We do a phase one environmental assessment to establish the known conditions, environmental conditions on the site, and to establish whether further environmental study is warranted, preliminary septic design and engineering traffic analysis. We would do a projection of the potential range of revenue and expense to the town of the various options. We would pay legal fees associated with the proposal, regulatory reviews, request review of a request for development proposals, exploring permitting approaches that might include as-of-right zoning, conservation cluster development for a 40B project, as well as commissioning and appraisal to estimate the market value of the property for the recommended reuse. Consistent with our practice, we would hold a series of public forums as available, so as to indication that would be made in the 2027 annual town meeting. So there is no immediacy as to when construction might occur. We want to first do our due diligence, as Carol said, explore options, similar to what the school committee is doing now with its K-8 facilities master planning effort. So we think that this would help everyone understand the possible options for the site and would then enable us to come back to the 2027 annual town meeting, assuming there's a consensus, and at that time talk about the care and custody of the property, we would talk about authorization to dispose of the property, and so forth. One of the things we talked about early on was whether to go first to the town meeting to seek transfer of the property from the school committee to the select board. And the first question, of course, would be, well, what are you going to do with the property? And so rather than do that and not be able to say anything, we thought it would be prudent to first explore a range of options, have some public comment, and make a recommendation to a future town meeting. So that's what the property will be.
Thanks, Bill. Julie. Thank you. One of my questions is,
in the event that the master facilities planning group came out with a recommendation that this could be an optimal place to do something related to future expansion with the pre-K to 8 plan, would we not need to then undertake all of these steps anyway to determine if it's environmentally sound for school use, daycare use, utilities, stormwater, traffic, et cetera? Do you have the answer to that at all? We have engineers, you know, who work for our architectural firm who would take a look at that as they think about options, because that's... So they should be taking those sort of into... I mean, they're not going to go out and do a phase one, but they should be taking... to some extent is, is it a viable option as they come up with options? Because that's part of their charge in the next month is just to come up with some options for us before our March 4th.
But those are based, to Erin's point, not only on conceptual, there's a parcel on paper, but some actual preliminary assessment of the suitability of the parcel. Preliminary is the right word. My understanding is that they have looked at all of the land owned by the town or the school and are taking all of those areas into account when making proposals correct. So this would be included in that property.
And so, did we confirm that? That this parcel is being... Because I know that was what we tasked them with, to look at everything. In our last meeting, they said they have looked at all town properties, so I just want to make sure that this is included in that list. And they're coming back on the 25th, or they're not. They're coming back to the school committee on the 25th. Right. Yep. And that's to present us with the... With some options. Options. Correct. Preliminary options. Preliminary options. Yep. Okay.
And there will be a range. You asked for a range of options. Correct. So there will be multiple.
And the deadline for Warren Articles finalizing is... 16th, maybe. March 16th. Maybe we have to submit our final write-ups. So we probably need to have a... We were talking about timeline. We would probably need to hear early March. We're meeting March 2nd and March 9th, and I would think for the March 9th, that would be our deadline, because March 16th, we have to be done. So we're not really discussing them. We're just finalizing write-ups. Let's put it this way. We're not supposed to be discussing by now. We're supposed to be done. Okay.
Does anybody have any other... I have a question. I'm just curious. You mentioned that there's been... I mean, I think we've all been here heard where we rank low in terms of new growth, and I think everyone who's paying attention to budget constraints is focused on what are sources of new growth. I guess I have two questions with that, and forgive me if I'm not staying current enough, so thank you for joining us, but, like, what prompted the focus... What other parcel have been considered? Like, what prompted this sort of focus and moving forward with 25 Holiday Road at this time? Certainly not the only option, and just if you can shed a little light for us on that, because it seems to be advancing that to this stage rather than other options that I'm curious what was looked at or considered, and secondarily to potential residential versus additional commercial. often, you know, sources of new growth. Right, so the answer to the first question is, I went on the RAP report, which I mean, real asset inventory, I guess, proposal, project, I don't know the name, Bill knows it. I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon with the RAP report when I was elected. And I was, like I said, I was surprised at how much town, it's called municipal land, it's a property, there is, but they're all small parcels, and the only two large parcels that stood out was the 25-acre lot at Clayton Hill, which is where your school is, and, because obviously the school's on one side and then you have all the land on the other side, and this 25 Holiday Road is just under 14 acres. I mean, it's like what isn't going to be developing, the town's not going to be developing, the goal would be, you know, contract our vision, put an RFP, which is to be our area, to develop, to come in and develop this land. We would be selling it. To your point, also, we all recall the recent activity at the town meeting and adoption of the town meeting of the MBTA zoning. In the course of developing that, the planning board looked at several parcels because there are certain statutory requirements as to what needs to be included, among them being a five-acre contiguous parcel. And so that was considered at the time. And so that sort of refreshed everyone's recollection, I guess, of the fact that there are significant parcels. There are a few parcels of land in the town of some size, and this is one that's town-owned. Yeah. I mean, actually, Bill's right. When the planning board looked at, developed the plan to present to the town and the state for our MBTA community compliance, one parcel had to be 25 acres, and they had a really challenging time finding a parcel for 25 acres, and they ended up picking the parcel over off Route 30 in the Mainstone area. There's some land there that's undeveloped. We don't really have large parcels, and so it's not... In order for us to move the needle, if you will, with new growth, we can't just build one or two homes. We need to... I think also we're looking... I think we're also looking at the model of what was called River's Edge, which was the... the Severine Whelan septage treatment, which was decommissioned and ultimately became an important source of additional revenue for the town. However, we're not looking at something on that scope. I want to say this again. Two things that Bill said that I also... if we're in a chicken-and-egg situation, we can't ask for custody for land until we have a plan. We can't have a plan until we do some development, and we don't have this particular piece of parcel under our control. So we're really... Should the town decide that they don't want to go forward, then we will have done some due diligence, and then basically, at the moment, we're just probably looking at regular operating overnight. And so this is why we are doing this. We're not... We're not deciding to come and take anyone's land or anything like that, but we're trying to come up with options here for the whole town. That's really where we're at. Did I answer all your questions? You did. I mean, just a quick follow-up. I mean, I appreciate the limitation of the large parcels, and obviously you get... forgive the expression, a lot of bang for your buck if you develop a large parcel, but is there also a possibility of generating revenue from selling small parcels because those are remaining empty, whereas in the same way we only have two large parcels that are potential for development, I think that also... The flip side of that is what if the town needs to develop something sizable, then we would no longer have that municipal-controlled land to do that? So are we also exploring possible revenue generation through the transfer of small parcels? I'm going to let Bill speak to that because I'm pretty sure he's going to say it costs more to do two separate parcels than one, but... I mean, there are a number of small parcels, particularly around Dudley Pond, that are not buildable, and so I think the town manager has heard from a number of abutting property owners wanting to buy those properties. So, yeah, I think it's wealth to the extent that we have property that isn't tax-producing, that it's not appropriate for public use to short Silvo's private development, but, again, this is an opportunity for the town to do something with a piece of property that it acquired 70 years ago.
But I do think that... Oh, also, Betsy, you asked about commercial. Do you want to take that? I mean, commercial... We don't have a lot of commercial in town. But it's... Like, what is our goal? And this is a bit, like, putting the select board on the spot here, but, like, what are we doing to invigorate our commercial spaces? I mean, hopefully, the project at Whole Foods, the old Whole Foods, is going to be great, right? Um, and town center hasn't exactly taken off the way we all hoped. Um, but, but what are we doing to create more traction in these spaces? Um, because I think that... Sure. You know... It's a very fair question. Um, you know, with respect to town center, um, retailing has certainly changed since that plan was originally proposed. And what's there now is producing a whole lot more revenue than a vacant, uh, industrial brownfield site. Um, so, uh, right now the, uh, planning board is working on the zoning on Route 20 West, uh, from basically the Sudbury line to the town center, uh, to see if, uh, maybe upzoning, that would be something that, uh, might induce property owners to want to do something with it or sell to someone who might want to do something with it. Uh, we have... We are blessed with a lot of open space in this town and a lot of wet land in this town. And so, the, the commercial development opportunities are somewhat limited. Uh, but I think that Route 20 corridor is one that, uh, our board has set as a priority, and, uh, the planning board, and I was working hard on that as well. I do want to add one thing. There's a misconception that I hear periodically is that an empty storefront, once it fills, it's more taxes. The building is what generates the tax. Unless it's, you know, a resident, a resident, a restaurant that's going to generate, like, um, meals tax and some local tax. Well, and you do have property tax for those individual businesses as well. But the, the real bank of the buck is already on the tax rolls because it's the actual building there. So, it's, it's the new, you know, it's the building that generates the tax revenue. Um, so, for example, where the hope was was, they're using the same footprint, but they're going to do some build-out. Once that gets assessed, that's the amount of property we get from that, no matter if they have full with events every day. But we're driving more people, right? And if we're having more people and more traffic, you have to think that there's going to be more interest in filling town center stores, um, you know, and leveraging the businesses that are in town. Um. No, no, it's, it's a fair point. Uh, you'll recall the prior, or the most recent annual town meeting, there was a, a Warren article, uh, to amend the zoning code to allow drive-up windows to pick up, not, not to order. And so, uh, you know, I'm leaving no stone unturned. What's... Excuse me for one second. Yeah, so our board has, um, has going to have two articles, and, well, actually one that's key, um, at town meeting, and that is that we're going to get, they're called home rules, we're going to ask, town meeting to authorize us to ask the legislature for 10 additional liquor licenses because we have, don't have any at the moment. And to me, and to us, that is one of these things. It's enticing. If you're going to come in here, you want to know whether there's liquor licenses available. Mm-hmm. So we're doing that. We're also applying to have, again, home rule, there's a new provision where you can take an existing, uh, wine and beer license and ask the select board to convert that to a full alcohol. It doesn't increase the number of licenses, but it gives it flexibility, so we're also asking for that at town meetings. So I think that's, there's a couple of economic development items we're doing. This is one, you know, rather than waiting for someone, developer, to come into town, buy a property, and then decide to develop it. We're trying to be, you know, be more aggressive here, more sort of, and get this piece of property looked at to see if it is something that makes sense for us to develop.
Probably my last question. I don't know about the rest of my committee members, but, um, what is happening with the identified parcel up by Mainstone related to the MBTA communities? It's, you know, it's presently, uh, the zoning map has been amended and it's, uh, it's, it's a, uh, you know, there's, there's the theoretical possibility that someone come in and if they aggregate a, I think, a minimum five-acre site, uh, that, uh, they could, uh, do as of right development there. But, uh, to my knowledge, there is really nothing, uh, being proposed at the present time. And it would be very difficult to do that since you have a whole bunch of individual property owners. So those are all individually owned at this time? Yeah, I believe that in order to develop there and gain some of the property, you have to get, is it 75% of the owners? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure what. It was, the high, it's, it's a condo complex. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So the owners, the HOA, would have to take a vote to sell that land. Individual unit owners,
Yeah, okay. So, um, I didn't know if any of that was municipally owned or if it was, what the deal was. It was my knowledge. Okay. We think it's all private. Okay.
So I appreciate you coming here and communicating all of this to us. It sounds like it's a tricky time, like your time frame is, is tricky. Our time frame is tricky too because we're in the middle of this facility is planning, um, maybe it's land we use, maybe it's land that we don't use, but we're also planning, um, plan around decreasing enrollment, right? Like, so while we're all doing this planning, I just hope that we're parallel planning so that if we're planning for decreasing enrollment and maybe you're planning for increasing enrollment, we just need to be communicating about that so in five years or ten years or fifteen years, we have what we need to support our population.
Totally. I'd follow up on that. You mentioned, Bill, I think that this would, if you were to move forward in the diligence that there would be projections of the sort of, um, revenue generation from this, I think, would that include anticipated, um, size of families moving in because I think I personally am not aware of the cost analysis of what growth through tax revenue, for instance, Alta Oxbow gave us versus increasing costs to the school budget to accommodate and appropriately service new families moving in. So I think we've got to get a realistic and make sure that we're not netting back to where we were, right? The increased tax revenue has to be multiples better over time than the increasing cost to service the increased population. And I think one of the gems of Wayland is we do have wonderful schools, we want to be able to maintain that, but it also means it is a desirable place for people with school-aged children to move and live and come and stay. So I think that, I don't know that we've always done that interrelated with our projections of, and we have recent examples in town that I think we should collectively look at to see what the economics actually netted out to be. Your point about the net is exactly right, and Mr. Carpenter has reminded us that it's well to look not only at the revenue but also the expense. Right. I am going to add that I've actually heard this comment several times so I have the answer written because I'm getting a lot of calls and personally people know me. When we, I don't know how many were here when that project came online, but that was billed as a major cool solution step in the right direction for the town to maintain the minimum of the 10% subsidized housing index. The goal was never ever, whenever I heard any of the discussions or that came before the finance committee or anyone else was never ever this is going to bring in a lot of the goal was to make sure that we were fulfilling our goals as good citizens and also supporting our housing production plan and we came pretty close to that. I mean, this is a dynamic number of moves and that's another reason here. We need to be looking at any development in terms of keeping ahead and abreast of our housing goals and maintain that level. People say to me all the time, we were at 10%. Yes, we were, but you know what? ADUs are coming, someone builds another room, someone down my street, did a little cul-de-sac behind their yard, a couple houses in there. Every time we add another unit, we've got to look at maintaining more units. So this is another item that is part of this process is to make sure we're maintaining that because the last thing I think any of us want is to be sitting here, have a 40-B development come in because if we're not at the 10%, they have a lot more flexibility than we probably would like them to have.
We definitely have to look at the numbers on this. May I ask a question? I guess.
Recognizing that you have an upcoming meeting with HMFH and the public forum on the 5th, do you have a sense of when you'd be in a position to make a call as to whether this is a viable site for an elementary school?
I guess I would answer your question with a question. How open would the select board be to some joint proposed tweaks to the language that leave maybe more purposes to be explored, not narrowing just to potential housing? I mean, we'll have more of an answer after we hear from HFMH the next time, which would be February 25th. But maybe a good solution would be, because I hear you, right? Like, if this is something that makes sense, you don't want to lose a whole other year. Exactly. Get it. Appreciate that 100%. But I'm wondering if there's a way that we can tweak it that everybody sort of gets their needs met and, you know,
I guess that would be my ask. Maybe we just look at tweaking it, leave it open to schools, leave it open to and not narrowing it, and maybe it's a joint proposal, school committee and select board. We'd certainly be happy to take that back to the board.
two different surveyors to do a survey and inevitably they won't agree. So... Right. I think... So I think, you know, in any event, we'd like to work with the school committee and its consultants to, assuming this goes forward, to share that information, unless, of course, you decide this is not an acceptable site or something that you want to pursue further. Well, and I think even if the answer is maybe this isn't the best place to plan for a new school, it may be that we need the space for purposes of storage or interim positioning of classrooms, what have you, while we are making changes to existing buildings. And that may not be the most favorable or planned item either, but I think we just need to stay open-minded about it. And while I'm in support of exploring whatever is best for this site, I'm not particularly inclined to just acquiesce. No, I think right now we need to have options. We need more answers before all of us, right? I completely appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yours is a complicated task, right? What's a configuration? Where are the discussions you have?
Do you do K2 and then 3-5, or do you do and all that, and sort of geographic distribution, and what does that do to the cost of moving kids? And Aaron Miller's comment about you have two kids who might have been born 18 months apart and came on two different sets of things. Yeah. Yeah. Which I have, sadly, personal
that. Me too. So we get it. We get it. So, well, certainly that's a very interesting suggestion. Let us take it back to the board. Okay. So if you think that you would like me to pursue asking the board about a co-sponsorship, you can bring that up probably at our meeting on February 23rd, or we're meeting Monday, it might be too soon, so maybe you and I should be touch base and see. I don't see that being as a problem myself, but like Bill said, I want to take official vote. I do think that the copy, not necessarily the text, but the kind of copy does with the write-up. Doesn't that say something about some possible school? Talks about town uses. Town uses. It said town use is a possible field. So, there's that, and if we need to specify, we can. I think it would be helpful also just to show that it's not a foregone conclusion that this is going to be housing or open space or whatever, or a school. There will be no foregone conclusions, it's just a study. And I've said that in every email and every conversation, the select board has taken no votes other than to submit the article because of the deadline. If you don't submit, you can't even have the conversations. Right. Yep. Understood. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you so much for coming and appreciate your time. We appreciate yours.
Just a quick question from the public. Will this be discussed anymore in the meeting? Tonight? This is it for unless somebody, yeah. Thank you. And typically I don't answer questions from the public.
Very hard. Hard lines. Okay. Thank you so much, Bill and Carol. Thank you. I'm feeling that. I don't believe you. I don't believe after their friend. I know. No one ever stays. Stick around. We might have a thing. You never know. I think it might be very interesting. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. I'm going to ask for one of those liquor licenses.
The Church of Airmen. The Church of Airmen. Can I interrupt for one second? Sure. I flew in like a flash. I do just want to apologize again and thank everyone for their patience. It was by no means intentional. Roller skating would have gotten me here faster. I would have tried it. No sweat, Betsy. Okay. I don't have a presentation related to the next items. on the agenda. However, I believe we are inviting Mr. Rollins up to go over the athletics portion of the proposed fiscal year 27 budget. Okay. Questions? Can you start off by giving me an awesome answer to this question because I know it's always a good answer. No pressure. Can you give me? I know we're going to know the answer to this. The rough percentage of our student body that participates in athletics at the high school? About 80%. You know, I think we have 59 high school teams, 36 varsity sports, and we filled 1,050 roster spots last year. The middle school, another 12 teams, another 250 plus roster spots for that. So, still thriving and going for the more exciting season.
And we, refresh my memory, is this year the first year of the gymnastics club program? They're a team, a co-op team. We're in their second year. We have seven on the team. Okay. Yep, and they're competing throughout the season. It's going well, yes. Awesome. Seven's a decent number. Seven's a decent number. Yep. Is that seven between Weston and Wayland? No, that's Wayland. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. Okay.
And, forgive me, I'm trying to, do you know what page, I think we're all trying to, oh, athletics, 26, in section three. Yep.
You are requesting a very modest increase.
I know that it is difficult to get referee coverage. I know that's expensive. That's gone up recently. It's gone up. There was a 7% across the board and onto a 3% next year increase. Is that instituted by MIA? Recommended fees are recommended by the MIA. I'm part of the committee that works with associations from all the sports. We try to encourage referee training and try to set fees and listen to the different groups about their struggles to try to make it, you know, try to get more people to sign up to do it. It's a job that is difficult and requires a special person. I couldn't do it.
And refresh my memory on transportation. You have your own budget for that, right? But you do use Whalen School buses and drivers. First student is who we use so we do work up the schedules with them for transportation and it's a significant amount of trips. Do they give you any sort of better rate or do you pay the same rates as so it all falls under the contract? So they have first right for any trips.
And you have a minibus? We have two and next week we're going to have three. Which is great that we've been able to work through the capital budget and refresh our fleet that we fundraised for 11 years ago. Is that used in the middle school and the high school? It gets used in the middle school, high school, elementary schools. If you see it around, we have them. It's a town asset. When they were fundraised for, they were donated to the school and it gets used at every school. If athletics is not using them and another group has a need, we allowed it to be used for everybody. So that's about 86 field trips last year. So it's a need for the district that's kind of grown well beyond athletics, but it falls under us right now. That's awesome. In that aspect, it's a cost avoidance from the higher rate, especially when you have a smaller group. Right, knowing you're not getting a 70 passenger yellow bus. Yeah, and it's a cost and convenience factor because it is difficult to get buses and a lot of times we can't get our buses until after drop-ups are done and come back to the school. And with our trips that are heading in towards Boston, anywhere, the time to travel, the later we get, increases the length of the trip significantly. That's if we knew that. Yeah, so it used to be when first student took over we had town bus drivers who drove the first student buses but were paid out
as well as officiating to find coaches, it's very difficult. And, you know, I think Wayland was the top in the area about 20 years ago. He was well-known for paying coaches, good coaches very well. Now we're near the bottom, and it is getting harder to fill those positions. So that's something I've brought up with the teachers' union. It is part of the teachers' contract. And hopefully we can make some adjustments to it, and people keep an eye that I think the struggle's been teacher coaching percentage has dropped over the years, and it being part of the teachers' contract. Due to help train, our coaches make the best experience for the kids, and they're the number one factor. It's not me. It's not you guys. It's the best people we can hire to do the job. So the most important part of our athletic program is our coaches. I think we keep talking around this table about trusted adults and how kids need trusted adults. I'm sure that's very often. Yeah, yeah, the connections they make, and I think it's fun to see. You know, I think there's an English project where they write somebody who will influence them. And the stack of letters I get from that to give to coaches is a really warming reminder of why we do it, because a coach has a different relationship than a teacher. It helps to produce good, well-rounded adults. That's our goal. I think it's a really, really integral and important part to kids' experiences and their education, and I don't think it gets enough attention of how important the athletics program and the people that are running it are to the success of a school. The community as a whole, it's a special place for a lot of people. Some of my best memories are, so, okay, I have had my questions answered. Do you guys have questions? I just have a curious, so I'm impressed by the jump of the number of sports from the middle school to the high school. You say eight to 20. So do you see a lot of first-time athletes in high school? Because I think sometimes we fall into the misconception of athletes are students who start when they're three, and then a kid cannot break into a sport when they're 14 because they haven't been trained. So are you seeing, I mean, 80% of a school is a big number. Yeah, and they try, and some don't. And really, your freshman year, be involved, try something new. Some of them fall in love with it, you know, and some of them don't, and that's fine. You know, but to try as many things as you can, and I think we, our program is kind of based upon that with 36 opportunities, different sports from a high school our size is amazing. And it really, there's something for everybody. And if you want to push yourself to the top levels, we have an opportunity. If you want to be on part of a team that's a community, Colson, we have that opportunity. I think that's what we can do special here with everybody's support. We can run those programs, something for everybody. So, and there's a lot of sports, they don't get an opportunity to try. There's not a youth sport with sailing, and there's just a lot of different things out there. So we probably top the state in a number of teams for a school our size. I haven't seen any. You know, Mahid was talking about the 8%. You know, you have schools, you know, having worked in districts that are high schools three times the size, or gone to a high school that's more than three times the size, the percentage sometimes is a third. That's right. Yeah. And that's a real, one of the big pluses of one of the small high schools is the access you get to play. You just don't see it at large schools, because the basketball team is 12 players, regardless of the size of the school. Right. And, you know, that's one of the, to get the 1,200, 1,300 roster spots in middle school through. It's expensive, and it's important, and, you know, we know budgets are tough, and we're scraping by this year, and there's some things we can't do, and that we're putting off, but we're able to fund everything we need to run our programs. There's been, you know, no decrease in service, and we're planning on that for next year, too. So, Christine talked and worked through just to, to get by, and we'll get everything we need, but maybe not as many things as we want to get through this budget cycle.
I lied. I have two more questions. Sorry. One, I just wanted to check on the status of the, um, boys hockey. Boys hockey team is playing tonight, um, so they had a game of 5, 545 tonight. Um, this, we're in, uh, end of the co-op this year. Uh, the thing is, our numbers have gone up. Okay. Watertown's numbers have gone up. Okay. Which is great. Uh, the bad thing is, you can get too big that the co-op would not get approved. So, this year, um, next year, Watertown is going to have their, um, a large group. Um, it drops back down, uh, but that will be through the MIA process to apply for the co-op, and this year is, at the end of the season, we will be submitting it. Do you, so you foresee trying to submit again with Watertown? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. In the event that the MIAA does not accept that, what would be the other alternatives? Um, I think we're looking at 1415, which is probably not enough to run on our own, so we'd be looking for another school. Okay. Do we have any prospect? Um, not lined up somebody to tee up. Okay. It would be an investigation process, but, you know, we're hopeful, and at the end of the season, we'll, we'll start that process right away, so we have time. Does MIAA look multiple years out? Like, is it possible to say to them, it's going to be a bubble? We, we have to spell that out, and that will be important, because, uh, the sheer number wise, so next year they match the, the, uh, minimum number, their expected numbers will match the minimum numbers to run it, so you wouldn't be able to, but we have that show expected and projected, so, and they're eager to continue the partnership, so it's going well. Okay. If there's anything we can do to help there, let us know. I know that that is a beloved program. Yeah. In town, um, and then, now I lost my other question, oh, I don't remember, oh, have you done, um, any sort of recent kind of review of athletic fees and where we fall? So, um, I do, I think we constantly, we kind of share documents. I'd say that that $300 athletic fee is similar to 80% of, of, of the schools, uh, in our area. Okay. So that really is, the vast majority are doing a $300 even. Okay. And that's where you are, there are, you know, probably 15% that have gone to nothing, and then 5% that have, um, you know, based on the cost of the sport, they fluctuate drastically. I'm a big proponent of one fee for all sports because I want the kids to, I don't want them to choose the sport based on the fee, but, uh, the reality in some budget situations in some districts have been, they, they divide out the cost and, and pro-rate the, change the athletic fee based on the cost per sport, and it's, uh, what they have to do to get by, but, uh, definitely not an ideal situation for a community. Okay. Um, has ours been $300 for a while, or was it? We increased it, though, not that long ago, right? Yeah, it's, maybe it's longer ago than I. Seven, eight years. Okay. It was, it was a $275 when I first got here. Yeah. I think it was a $300. Okay. I just wanted to kind of get a, yeah, there was a $25 increase at one point because middle school went from $100 to $125. $25, yeah. And the high school went from $275 to $300. Okay. Thank you. Okay.
Anything else?
Thank you, Heath. Thank you, Heath. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Thanks for your support. Thank you so much. Everybody playing today. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. We have a lot going on. This is a busy time. It's before vacation, so. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, we're, we're it. Okay. We're it for it. Thank you. We got you guys. You have a closer, David. Like, let's just. Well, I like that term, you know. I like the closer. I don't mind being here. I was the opener this time. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll close.
Let's jump in. Let's jump in. We're going to do finance and operations. And then we have the questions that we've got out. Yeah, those were shared within, um, our folder. So, I, I think, um, if we need to, we can ask more. But, yeah. So. So, I'll jump in. Um, part of my oversight is finance and operations. And under the operations umbrella is human resources, facilities, um, those types of. Um, expenses. And the notable kind of, um, change under the HR operational piece is the requirement to break out, um, the substitute lines. That's to provide the state, for the state wants to know what long-term sub-coverage is and where are short-term. And long-term is anything over 30 days. Short-term is your daily, um, coverages that, um, every district sees. So, the state is looking at that. So, I just wanted to make that, um, more accessible and easy to find, not only, um, transparency-wise, but also selfishly on the reporting end for us not to have to drill down and try to go through every single, um, coverage and try to determine if it was long or short-term. So, that was just a, again, like a reclassification for our reporting requirements. Um, and that was pretty much the only change. And again, what I was, what my exercise being new in the district was really drilling through the, um, our payroll system and making sure that everything is aligned with where the budgets are. So, there is still going to be some work that I have identified and this is just, this is a normal situation that happens, especially when there's some turnover in those key roles that, uh, teachers that might have changed a building, um, they're coded to the wrong building still. So, sometimes it looks, it's, it's looking wonky right now and the goal that, um, myself and my team are going to be working on these next few months is to, um, re-correct all of that so that our next contracts that go out, um, before the summer really identifies the correct coding for the building location that they are in. And so, that will, um, kind of, uh, work itself out in the next budgeting cycle, but I had to be true to what the information is and I always rely based on what the payroll says because you know if there's a problem in payroll, somebody will make noise. Um, so that's where I, I really wanted to make sure that I was, um, being accurate in those, um, prospects. Um, so that was the, um, community research and again there was not, um, any significance in, in change just, um, clarifying where the actual, um, jobs were within those line items. The, uh, finance section that, um, includes the transportation for, um, all of our regular buses. So, we have, um, um, the, uh, yellow bus, uh, that's under, it'll be year three of the contract. So, we do have, um, increases there and along with that is a reduction of what we've been able to apply from the fees that we're collecting because we have fewer fees that we are able to collect, um, based on where students are and just, um, that whole process. So, there is a, an increase in that contractually and, um, because we're not able to, uh, utilize that, um, fee fund for as much as we would like to. Can you, sorry, can you just refresh my memory on what the fee is per rider? It is, uh, $4.50? Is it $4.50? Yes. Okay. And then a cap. Right. Yeah. You have that third child. I think you get a $50 discount. Hey, that's better. I think nothing. Nothing's worth it, huh? I think so. I never hit the cap because I always have a kid changing school that it's, um. So that is the, um, and then the homeless transportation, it falls under the transportation umbrella as well. That has increased and that's also getting us, um, in line with where our costs are for that. The good thing is that we are seeing that there's more reimbursement from the state. So despite our increased costs, we are getting some in the subsequent year to, to help offset those as well. But, uh, the $110,000 that's in there is where we are currently and have been. So we're getting it back to kind of the baseline of what our need is for that population. I sent a question about that, Christine. I don't know if you saw it. Is the driver of the cost increase about increased in, like, number of students who need it and qualify or rising cost of transportation or both? Both. And what's the relative, like, predominant driver? I would say that the, um, number of students that we need to serve. And it's something that's unpredictable. Um, I think I shared last year, if, um, a student who lives in Natick, you know, has a fire at their house and comes to live with a family friend in Wayland, we split the cost, but we share, we have to transport that student to Natick. We share the cost with Natick. We share the cost with Natick, but we have to then transport that student. So that also falls under, like, in Evento, um, our homeless. Um, and then you just don't know, um, in terms of move-ins or there's a lot of laws around, um. And because of the, um, locations, it's not that you can necessarily always group multiple on one vehicle. So you have to do individualized transportation for that. So that's what also rises that, that cost. It's not like we can do one bus for everybody because they're going all over the state. So, um, it's just to meet the needs and, and be, um, more in line with what we are actually doing. Um, yeah, also if we had a family in Wayland who became homeless for some reason and had to move to, you know, a surrounding area, it's within an hour usually. Um, they have a right, the kids have a right to stay in their home school. So we would have. That's a federal law. Mm-hmm. Is that for a certain period of time though? Um, it's, right? Finish the year? It is and it's not. And until they have what's called fixed and stable home housing. So if, if it goes on for two years and say you're doubled up where they're living with a grandparent in, you know, Ashland. Yep. Yep. They would be considered homeless or McKinney-Mento beyond the year. They are, until they have like a fixed home where assigned lease is assigned, where they can't be kicked out for no reason, they are considered homeless. Right. Or as often as transitional housing is the most common. Right. And that, that is not considered permanent. Yep. Um, it can go on for multiple years. Thank you. Um, the other increase under the operational category is the, um, lease, um, copier maintenance. And this is to, again, um, be mindful of the very aging machines that we have. We did, we were able to get the elementaries as we heard. They were so grateful for, for just those, um, new machines. So, we plan to, um, continue to kind of weed out those older models and bring in newer ones and getting them at a, um, economies of scale pricing with new leases helps us do that. So, doing it on a smaller incremental level also is fiscally responsible, but also responding to what the need is at the building level. So, um, that was a nominal increase in that category as well. Um, so overall, um, we do have, um, increases in that capacity, again, mainly due to the, um, the drivers that we, the, the budget drivers that we are aware of, the transportation costs and contractual obligations. And I believe that leads us into the facilities. Yeah, go into facilities and then I will do technology. Fantastic. Can I ask a question before we go into that? Um, the transportation, we're, fiscal year 27 will be the final year of the contract? The third regular year, we have two options and I would, I will be recommending that we opt in for those. Okay. You do not, whenever you go up to bid again, you're, you're going to see the market rate, which is still in the double digit increases. Yeah. And we're not required to, because we have extension options, we're not required to put that option out to bid? We can just take it? We have the option to opt in for that or we can go out to bid. Okay. So my recommendation is that we will opt in for the two additional years that we have with that procurement process. So it's just two years we can get to bring us to five? Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Is it built in increases of 5% each year? I honestly have not looked at the option. Okay. But I, it will be more cost effective than going up to bid, I don't know, real market. Yeah. I was just curious. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. So facilities, I didn't know our challenges there. We did have some shifts from personnel to non-personnel. And this is in response to some challenges from the summer cleaning that we didn't have. It wasn't fast enough. It wasn't, you know, able to get things done in order for the heavy cleaning of our custodians that needed to do the waxing and all of those types of things. We did have a number of damages and things like that. So we want to just be able to shift that allocation down into contracted services and be able to get a cleaning company for that just summertime deep clean and then let the custodians do the rest of their flooring work that they do regardless during the summer and after all of the work is being done within the building. And I believe the middle school will be our summer program. Is it Quakement? Quakement. So Quakement will be where the summer activities and programs are. So they will be the last to have that deep cleaning so that everybody is out and then we have it serviced and ready for the start of the middle school year. So that would be the main change from facilities and then we did do some nominal increases just we know that the plumbing and HVAC repair work is constant and it's prevailing wage so it's not inexpensive. So just putting a little bit of resource there and getting some of the utilities back to the range that they have been actually coming in at over the course of the year. And there was the cartage line needed to be increased significantly because it had been level budgeted but that's not the true cost so I just wanted to get it to where the services for that. And then the centrics which is that those are landline for phone service again that's truing up the cost to where we are in actual expenses. So very nominal in the increase and really it's just kind of a shifting of the resources from personnel to non personnel. So overall just a 1% increase which if you ask the facilities director he requested 10% across the board which I would love to be able to do. However, we still need to get this for IT. Technology. Technology. So I'll just talk about a couple of the big items. Number one, and this is really what I would call a reclassification is that the software was previously building based and that would be more central which is more common in districts. If you think about consistency, purchasing, so that's just all centralized in a reclassification. The other part is, you know, the biggest budget item of course is computers. And we're coming to the end for our high school students of the leases on the Macs. And the team is exploring different options for sure. So there's new Chromebook pluses which are 14 inch and they do almost as much as, you know, they do a lot more than regular Chromebook. And that's something they're looking at. And they're also more security with them. Jen and I were talking about that. So she will join us at the next meeting to talk more. But obviously it's a time of transition just with the leases expiring at the end of the school year for the high school students, 850 Macbooks. That's the entirety, freshmen through seniors of this year, all of those computers will basically go out. So for, we'll be under a new lease contract next year? I'm hoping it's not a lease. Potentially, but, or whatever. I've encouraged Jen to go away from leasing computers because that was the model we used in the 90s when they were so cost prohibitive that that was your only option to get these devices. But now they've come down so far in their cost and having them just as a rotating replacement cycle will be much more beneficial for the district to already own those devices and be able to deploy them as they need for different parts and things like that. Very interesting. Because I remember like, yeah, okay. So stay tuned on that. But we have to approve the budget funds and then the question is right now they're exploring different models. And we live within that budget. But we know Kirsteen is a fan of looking at all options, which we should be doing. And so is Jen. The internet is almost double. Correct. What that does is expand capacity to prepare for the future. Jen and I talked about that, that that's really necessary just given demands of today. What does that mean? Like increasing wireless coverage throughout? Like what are we talking about? In terms of how that, it basically I think. I think it's fiber also, bringing that, making sure that that is accessible. Five gig dedicated fiber line. See, Dave, and I wasn't even in that conversation. Yeah, she and I talked about that today. So that is why it's doubled. And Jen has a real strong background in this area and feels strongly just to prepare for the future. It's a wise investment. And she'll talk about that in March, March or early April. Early April. I think we went to the first meeting in April. First meeting in April. So we will talk more about that as well. So those were like the major technology. Although if you look at the overall budget, it's only increased 1.82%. So it's really, really low as all our budgets. Kirsteen. Yes. Something that I don't know if we've talked about or addressed while you've been with us is typically for non-union roles. We will align a COLA increase for those roles with the union COLA increase for each year. But I'm guessing those are not built in here. Okay. Is there any chance we could get that number in a ballpark if we were to say, hey, can you run it for this? Could you give us that increase for those non-union positions that would be? Well, it would be a little challenging without knowing what that increase would be. But if we were to just run like, you know. We could give a rough estimate, but there might be a little bit of range given what you said in terms of the context. Yeah. I think that's just important for us to know, right? Mm-hmm. We don't obviously have anything in the book because... No, understood. I just... Yeah. Sure. Something we want to think about. Don't want to leave them hanging out to dry. Um... Okay. Does anybody else have any questions? Not on the technology, but it's on the same page and I admit I missed it so it wasn't in my questions earlier. Um, I'm just noticing that it looks like we removed prior appropriation for translation and I was just seeing the multi-language learner budget down 20% and I was just curious about that. I know we talked about new translation tools in the last year and I didn't know. All right. So that was in the personnel. So we're not utilizing staff for that. We are doing full, uh, contracted services which is where we did put those funds into... So they show up somewhere else? Down below, yes. So that's with the, uh, 18,000 right, right below the personnel. LLs. Okay. Got it. So then what's the driving the 20% decrease? Um, so this is, it just, it looks like it even though it's, um, small dollar value. Um, but this was communicated with, uh, Christina who oversees the EL program and this is really just aligning with what they're actually using the funds for and having that available, um, for them in that, uh, manner makes it, uh, much more accessible for them to, to get. Okay. But just to be clear. No, I just want to make sure for the public that it's not reflecting of any, like, divestment in our support. No, it's not. We didn't reduce an FTE or take somebody out or anything like that. No. It was just shifting where the cost is actually, um... Right. And Christina pays a lot of attention to communication, as you know, and cares deeply in this. No, I had understood the translation enhancements were, people were very happy with that. That it really, because that was a pain point a couple of years ago. And so... That's great. That was a huge, you know, we, we debated whether to bring that on board this year and because we were also bringing out a new SIS and it was just a lot for the tech team and teachers and all those things. But because of its capabilities, it's been a game changer, really. That's great. Even in, like, um, our delayed opening messages now, as an example, because that's been a challenge when we used to, like, I miss not leaving phone messages. But what it does is it'll, it goes, you know, the written, everything we do then goes in multiple languages. Right. And that's really helpful in terms of things like a two hour delay which is still there for us. The classroom supply, I think that's what's driving a big chunk of the 20%. And the loss of a conference. Betsy? Yeah. Oh yeah, we're down from six to one. Yeah. But maybe we didn't need to repurchase. Again, this was in conversation with where they're utilizing the funds and they really didn't have a lot specific to this program area. A lot of that they're already getting at the building base level. That's what I was curious if it was kind of tucked somewhere else. Okay. All right. We didn't take away if there was a need. It was more reflecting on what, what they're actually utilizing for this, um, key programmatic area and then also identifying that they are getting what they need also at the building levels. So we can validate what we can. Or do you want to revisit other ones? Not in that. I had one other. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. The, there's language about, we tried the 0.5 math interventionist at Clay Pitt and there's language in the budget, um, overview that talks about that early data being powerful. Brian shared with us from local school that in terms of like a wish list when asked by the committee that in future years it would be good to look at that. The language in the budget book says we will look to carry forward. Is that 0.5 interventionist in this recommended budget for Clay Pitt? Yes. So, um, Clay Pitt has a split position between part-time EL and part-time math interventionist in addition to the math coach interventionist. Because what we, we tried to do, we did this last year, Betsy, um, until a couple of years ago, every school in Wayland had the same number of support people. Like in literacy. Mm-hm. It was not proportional. To the enrollment. To the enrollment. To the enrollment. And so what we've tried to do, especially when you think of academic support, it's really important that it be proportional. Mm-hm. So both in literacy, um, beginning this current year, we put in last year's budget. And in math, we've made it proportional for Clay Pitt. So the ratios are similar. So basically in literacy, um, Happy Hollow and Loker have two, and Clay Pitt has 2.5. And then in math, um, Loker has .5 coach, .5 interventionist, so does Happy Hollow. And then, um, Clay Pitt has .5 coach, .5 interventionist, and they have an EL teacher who also has a math background. And so she splits her time. Got it. And so that, that's what we've done, which is really helpful. But no, no change? No change. In that. Okay. Yeah. It made the budget differently, because we made that shift a little late last year. No, it just heard positive feedback, so I wanted to make sure we were able to continue that. It's been a good, it's been a good improvement. Okay. Anybody have questions to follow up on the budget Q&A that is in our folder? Um, thank you guys for getting answers to the questions in a very compressed timeframe. Um, I think some of this we will just have to revisit later in the year when things get a little more solidified. Um, I think they're, they would be positive movement versus, well, hopefully, positive movement versus a negative, um. What I can share anecdotally, today I was at the MADFO conference for, um, school business officials, and we always have an update from, um, DESE, the finance, and looking at, um, deep dive into chapter 70 and the funding mechanisms. Um, for chapter 70 circuit breaker as well. And what they did indicate was that there is a, um, infusion to the circuit breaker from the fair share act of $150 million. And their intent is to fund circuit breaker at the statutory maximum, which is the 75% over, um, the threshold. And what they are hoping will also cover transportation. So we are really optimistic that, um, once that all flows through the legislature and that, that's the governor's budget is always kind of the baseline for the minimum aid. The Senate and House typically bump that up slightly. So any little bit in movement will be to the positive for our, um, state revenue for the town and, and that will ultimately help. And I think it's what Kirsteen said is really important because, you know, we talked the, on Monday night about like the high school being on the costs a little bit and maybe need a little more. And I think that this is where, I mean, I, I, I'm optimistic looking at historical data as the legislature, the budget from the legislature is higher and that will be helpful to us, um, to give us a little cushion. Because, you know, I like being honest, there, there's no cushion here. Um, and, and that's something, you know, if you talk about what, where are our risks, our risks are that we don't have a cushion. Like we should be honest with you, that's our responsibility. And so the fact that circuit breaker would go up and even, you know, the town looking at some kind of reserve for special ed, I, I think that's really, really important. We budget, uh, really, I mean, you can see this, looking through this, how tightly we, we budget, like there's not a lot, not a lot for it. I would love to be able to have some prepay for next year. Not 27, but 28. Like if it comes in higher, that'd be fabulous. Ladies to my right. I'm good. I dumped plenty of questions and then came. Thank you for the quick response. Um, I'm assuming that the ask to break out the substitutes and the long term substitutes ties back to the attendance piece that Desi is pushing. I will not, um, dabble in the mind of Desi and their rationale, but there might be a correlation. I just, that's what struck me as, yeah. Interesting hypothesis. How much of that do we typically use? So we have, you know, two of 70, 290 for the year. How much of that do we typically go through? I have not been able to take a deep dive in that category, but I know that this is a hot button issue in every community. It's not unique or new for Wayland, but it is, that's why Desi wants to see that data point, is to really be able to, um, understand what, what's happening. But we do have... Because it's also a budget pressure. Right. In the communities. Yeah. That becomes, that becomes a, an out of district cost almost. That it continues to escalate. Mm-hmm. And without any guardrails or management or, or understanding, it continues to, to rise. So that is what I would rationalize, the, the, the need and the reason for reporting that data point specifically and separately. And we do have certain buildings that have identified subs. Do we have one in each building that has an identified? Uh, I do think the, the, the middle school and all the elementaries have. Okay. That's what I do. Okay. For many years, it was only elementary though. And then, yeah. Okay. Off topic, but just out of curiosity, I'm assuming that rarely is that one position cover your substitute need in a building. Yeah. Okay. Just, just wanted to. That's my question. Like, how much of that are we? That's, that's why I thought your question was. And so, no. I think we're having to. We're paying on subs every year. I'm sure we can quantify how much of that $290,000. That sub could, it, it, it, you know, one of those subs that covers, um, meetings sometimes. Mm-hmm. So, like, if teachers need to go step out for IEP meetings or data meetings or, so that, that building sub, you know, goes, covers those things often. But, yeah, that would be good. And on the rare, like, on the rare day that you don't, I'm thinking about the middle school in particular, but that's where I said most time. Um, if that sub is not needed, we have, like, a list of places that it is really hugely beneficial to have an additional goal. To have an extra. To have an additional goal, so. At least somewhere. Yeah. Anybody? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, very much. Um, do we have a set plan for any additional specific presentations around any areas of the budget for next Wednesday? No. It's just us coming back to the table with any questions. Any questions that come up. Okay. Okay. Um, I think everything else, you know, there was a, somebody had a question about, you know, from RISE in terms of what we would project in terms of having students come from other districts and that, um. That was a great answer. It was a great answer. No, it was a great answer. Right answer. Yeah. I agree. No, perfect. Uh, because we talked about that, and we'll. And we certainly don't want to bite off more than we can chew. That's a fabulous program that's really. Right. And we want to make sure, we want to make sure that we're meeting our needs. Correct. Um, and so I want to give. Yeah. You know, I haven't, I, I check in kind of monthly, but, um, I want to give until April. Cause, um, just to give time to make sure that, you know, somebody's not making the practice that we thought they were making or they've progressed or we want to have that room. Yeah. No. No. It made sense. Um. Okay. So we can plan for that. If there are questions that come up while people are kind of ruminating on this over the weekend, we'll just send them the way we kind of did. Yeah. Okay. Um, and then if you can just update that document that everybody has, um, and then we'll come prepared to discuss and potentially take a vote to approve. Um, we were invited while we're still on budget. Um, we were invited to FinCom on Monday night where they will be reviewing town and school operating budgets for 27. Um, Kirsteen and David are planning to attend as reps to present the school budget. Um, I think I'm going to make every effort to be there. Um. I said at 7, 7.30. He didn't put a time. Whether we're first or the 10. Oh, no. Begins at 7. You should push to have that be different. Let me to voice my opinion. Defer to you. Um. We'll be sharing my overall presentation, but we're also going to share the Do the Student Services presentation because we think that's just so important. Back as yesterday. So don't feel obligated, but I just wanted to make sure that was out there. I put it in. Yeah, thank you. Um, do you want me to go? Is it at 7? Oh, okay. Yeah, it's not in the body, but it is at the, um, subject line all the way at the end. So I just saw that beginning at 7. Um, would it be? I sent you all the names of everything. But I'm happy to go. Yes. Because I, it would be, I can't, I have, um, we have quite a few evening things coming up. Got it. That night I was home for bedtime. So if we, if I can be there at 7 to support and then get out by 8. Okay. 15, I can do that. Let me see if I can maybe make that happen. Okay. Okay. Um, what time is 4 to 6? 4 to 6. 4 to 6. We also have a morning, don't we? We do? What's the morning? I think we, uh, yeah. Do we have that day wrong? No. Wrong calendar. Sorry. Sorry Betsy, no. It's Friday, right? Betsy, that's Friday.
Alright, so I wanted to just kind of wrap around that. I'm going to do my best to be there to support you guys, um, on Monday night. Anything else on the budget? Um, would retain a motion on the consent agenda or comments on the items for edits prior to that in the event there are any? I was absent on that day, so I have confirmed that I was accurately absent. I have no comments. I submitted, yeah. But I found them very informative. Move to approve the consent agenda. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. Okay. Okay. Any matters not reasonably anticipated? I generally anticipate well. Just kidding. Guys, it's been very quiet in here tonight. Come on. Okay, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. It is 8 p.m. on the dot. We are adjourned.