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Westmoreland School Board Warrant Information Meeting Part I for Friday, February 26, 2021

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Westmoreland School Board Warrant Information Meeting Part I Date, Time: for Friday, February 26, 2021 – 7:00PM. Meeting Location: The Westmoreland School Board members attended the meeting remotely. Transcription available upon request.

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so we are now recording floor is yours okay good welcome everybody to the our proposal or the 1st virtual infer instructions for the annual town and school district meeting introduce myself to those who don't know me MP3 Hills on the school district and town moderator for Westmoreland on so we will get started thanks for all those who are attending Sierra Jo couple just ground rule that kind of threw this together to see if we could all just kind of put some stuff together obviously not a normal year not a normal process you know we're not going to have an annual town meeting this year so we're trying to do things a little differently so just just kind of laying it out there everyone's trying to do the best I can to get things done to run the business of the town I'm so a little bit of bear weigh what if we have little bubbles here and there as we go through this but we're trying to do our best zoom for those that you know will be in this first meeting in the second meeting we have both video and audio options of the audio options is much more less then with the attempted you can call in buy a phone if you're having difficulties has been with try turning off your video that'll help and like I said you can join by body or are you only if you need to the sessions not in did the beat interactive so rods already put everyone on mute I mean if you have a general comment that you know about something can't hear or don't like the background of behind me you can get up with a common the chat and that you know hope we'll be able to see that we'll do it do our best to address those if we can be just a comment about the chat only the host will see the chat so if they're something that's urgent I know I'll just time in and let you guys know perfect the chat so if that works you have a PhD in Zoom so we will rely on you to do that so just kind of an overview we're going to cover tonight I will cover an overview of the HB 1129 House Bill 1129 the alternative process for the the annual meetings being pretty people review the school district warrants the select board will review the Town Warren and then we'll kind of wrap things up from there just a little bit Brown and kind of how we got to where we are either 1300 + registered voters in Westmorland beast on the town meeting we had last year with the Broadband vote which had a lot of a lot of interest and we've got a you know very high interest Warren article this year with this fire station we expected to get 250-plus voters to attend planning to attend or want to participate in town meeting so was that we started off with a Blackboard said you know you know key objectives with this is in a we want to maintain maintain safety for everyone who wants to participate and then we want to enable everybody to be able to participate in the process and then lastly wanted to Spring a simplification point for the town residents and also for the all the officials and and folks that are doing the annual meetings try to harmonize the process for both the town and the school district to minimize confusion and in your efficiency Lodge kind of how we end up where we are today and then printing Hampshire law there really are only three options for annual meetings in person meeting like we normally do postponed it to a later date or follow house do 11:29 which enables virtual information sessions in you know voting on the Warren articles I know a lot of people I had mentioned to be can we do this can we do this and we've got a lot of other folks that you know as I've been in meetings and had documentation asking different ways to creative ways to get our annual meetings done but unfortunately the laws are set up that we only have certain things that we can do and really it's outlined in those three different areas so we have chosen to go with House Bill 1129 the process there this was enacted last year you know after covid-19 they're either their Town meetings or their school district meeting so they had to have a way to frost complete their annual meeting so this was House Bill 1129 was passed and I'm going to outline how that doing everyone has in every time every resident in the town voting resident has gotten a summary of this but I'm going to cover it again here so there are going to be to Virtual information sessions at your in the first one the first one is really designed to show are the alternative process which I'm doing right now and then for the governing body so the the select board in the school board to review the Warren articles from there the residents are able to have an opportunity to provide feedback input to the Warren articles back to the governing body the select board to the school board by email phone text and with that input is intended that they they are residents they are registered residents of the town in one heater fires is that all this input will be public record the names and the content of communication will be shared publicly at the second information session and that the folks need to be aware of that is very similar to you and you're a town meeting when you are recognize a town meeting to say your say your input on the on the the article at being discussed I just got to discuss at the time you know you are recognized and your comments are public record so Sperrys I'm with with this virtual information session and then the other pieces is it there in the interest of time the board does reserve the right when they're reviewing your input to summarize the key you know summarize it in the community if it's if it's long and lengthy the second information session the governing bodies can review the input and then that governing body will voted and decide whether any of the warrant articles will be in Bend I mean that's purely up to the governing body based on the input they receive from the the residence of Towne and then we both on the Warren articles on an alternative ballot in that is basically going to be a yes no on each one of those articles the first question on this alternative ballot is asking the residents if they approve using this alternative process so. the key Concepts the key piece here is the fact that the first question is do you approve doing this alternate process and then it's a voting on each of the the articles there and I'll go to the that in more detail here so from a boating standpoint voting will occur on March 10th from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. it's in-person voting in the school on and down at the bottom there is going to be drive-up voting available that's part of the HP 11 we need to provide drive up voting or accessible voting for people who are uncomfortable with in-person voting on so we will have that as an option five separate balance there's our County elections School District elections the Town Warren Wichita alternative ballot for the town warrant the town Bond vote for the fire station and then the school district warrant self so five separate ballots that we will vote on on the 10th like I do share before the first question on both the town and School District warrant ballots will be to approve the use of the alternative process outlined in HB 1129 so I just works it if the optional procedures are not approved by a simple majority than all of the subsequent Warren articles are deemed disapproved so if if the majority folks say I do not approve this process than all the Warren articles fail on this does not have impacts the elections the town elections in the school district elections assist not impact those just the warrant articles if the off procedures are approved than all the other goats in the warrant article Shelby Dean the final action of immediate action of the meeting so the votes for the subsequent articles will be whatever the tally of the votes are from there if the operating budget article is not approved by the governing body so basically if if the the procedure is not voted in the majority in the then the operating budget of you to the town of the school fails the the options for the governing body selectboard or the or the school board is to convene another convene another meeting by September 1st to adopt an offer budget or adopt the previous year's operating budget not including any separate warrant articles so that's the alternative there if that happens to fail and I did mention the drive up voting already so the key dates were meeting today in the 26 our first information session we need to have a deadline for Thomas questions is Monday March 1st by midnight on the Baylor has a detail to how to do that email address phone numbers also it's on the website the Westmoreland website second information session for the town is on the Wednesday March 3rd second information for the school is on Thursday March 4th the final Warren articles the final warrants will be published on Saturday the 6th and then we vote on Wednesday the 10th in the gym alright so cover that covers the the overall session next up Dean if you want to view the school this more and I'll stop sharing here okay so what do you want to go with my two documents to the screen here okay can you guys okay so welcome everybody thanks for attending tonight appreciate everybody's support Huron on this review before I get into the details of this wanted to make a few call out I want to thank you know Mark Deb and all the teachers who have figured out a way to get your kids back in school when there's many cities across the country who never returned back to school so around of Applause and thank you Mark and Deb and in all the teachers for helping our kids get back in because we do know how critical it is for the kids to be in a classroom and we went through many hours of a friend of figure that out and what you're going to see here is that there's actually some good news you've been fortunate fortunately we've got Folks at attention to the the national monies that are available and in other things that became available in and again are the team really worked hard to utilize all those funds and so we are fortunate to be in how to get place with our budget this year and we'll talk about that as we go through this I'm just going to the warrants real quick just so everybody has the high-level these are the ones that are good I can go out for approval and then we'll go and obviously operating budget in more detail can you enlarge that a little bit it's a little small on the screens sure good that's good on that yep perfect perfect good not taking one down so this is just a high level summary the warrant so Article 1 typical reports to hear the reports Cajuns Auditors committees were officers chosen at the pass any vote related to hear their two second article is the operating budget to see if the District of Andres appropriate amount of 3.8 3841000 or $64 for the support of the schools for the payment of salaries of the school district officials and agents and for the payment of the statutory obligations of the district by this article does not include Appropriations pain in the special or individual articles addressed separately where majority vote would be required so we'll go into the details of what that article is about and again this is a a hearing session so you got comments as pissed Peter noted more questions you get before those out as per the procedure what we would like to do is let as I said we've been fortunate this year we are actually running fee verbal to our budget so we will have some some money is available from last year and article 3 is an opportunity for us to do is to the parking lot repaving we've been talking about this as a is a school board for two three years now we've got Kappa Reserves at we've been building up that fund is not sufficient to cover the costs that we have here we'd like to use the surplus of the idea this one this article is to see if the school district will vote to raise an appropriate up to a hundred twenty five thousand of its unassigned fund balance if any remaining on the hand at the end of the fiscal year June 30th 2021 for the purpose repaving the school parking lot and the basketball court if there is insufficient undesignated fund balance as of June 30th 21 to fund the appropriation the remainder to be taken from capital reserve fund previously cabbage my folders on March 16th 2001 for the purpose of the major renovation reconstruction of building school buildings and related costs were to take any other action in in relation there to on the budget committee and School Board recommend this this one will be voted on so just to clarify here if we don't end up the end of the year with a surplus we won't take 125 out so hypothetically if at the end of the year we only have $75,000 left are we would take 75 and then combine it with our capital reserve money to get to the 125 to execute project with that said moving on if if if we have the 125 extra We believe We may have another 25 extra we'd like to put forth a article for for special education High School tuition fun this fun for those that might not be aware is a it's kind of an emergency fund for us as a district right now our balance is about $225,000 in this Expendable trust what this covers Us on is if we have a unbudgeted change in attendees that need special education type services at the high school where we have to pay those tuition fees so with that said to see if the school district will vote to appropriate the 25000 to be added to the special education High School tuition fund previously established by voters on March 16th 2001 for the purpose of paying future year unanticipated special education and or High School tuitions at work to take any other action in relation there to this some to come from June 30th fund balance available for the transfer on July one no amount to be raised from taxation if there is insufficient undesignated fund balance as June 30th at the funny appropriation and the appropriation in article 3 article 3 will be funded first with any additional Surplus to be applied to this warn article the budget committee and School Board recommend this article hopefully that makes sense everybody this is something we've talked about a lot and and you know there's just a lot of uncertainty we've had districts are schools in AR overall Chi SAU 29 District that have found themselves in a very difficult position financially because of the changes with people moving in moving out that sort of thing so we think we'll be in in this disappoint us a 250000 in that fun and then that's kind of where we would you feel comfortable finishing out the year forget their article V is our other business to transact any other business legally come before the meeting so obviously Ampersand meeting somebody might call out something we need to talk about and we would address that here play with the Joseph of the warrants I am now going to reduce that and pull up my summary sheet Scott I hope this doesn't change from our hearing from the February 1st so that should be the same document I haven't heard of anything changing so this first sheet folks and I will raise it I was going to give me a little bit of a heads up on that one you're ahead of me how's that looking looks great okay so I love this Shi because it kind of tells the whole story on where we're sitting for next budget. It looks at where we actually we're in 19 and 20 against the budget where we are against the budget this year and we're going to finish favor both of that the proposed for next year as you could see overall proposal is going to be less by about 4.78% from this year's budget so that's good news we we do have some ups and downs throughout the process year that will get through this is primarily due to a reduction in our high school tuition and the fact that we had paid off a bond which is a huge piece of why we're saving $85,000 of that going into this year so our bond that we had was a a bond that we did some upgrades years ago on the heating system home and in a few other things right marks shake your head at so I think we got that that bond is now paid off so next year will be in the clear of that 85 gram I'm going to move forward through this hopefully I can go at a pace or people can follow along I do plan on reading every line cuz this thing is 8 Pages. You want to sit here and listen to me talk about that regular instruction bottom line is with our salaries benefits equipment book Supply Furniture equipment and I were going to run a flat budget for the most part with a slight increase in this line item so again we as a school board we talked about the financials in the financial report every single mom are we tracking and our business partners from SAU Scott and in and Rob and team help us make sure we are on top of where our money is going and how we're doing on it on a month-to-month basis Google co-curricular salaries assemblies other fees around co-curricular so Mark help me out a little bit here but because we were going to Short this year because of we're not doing field trips and stuff like that but we do want to plan for that for next year because we are anticipating being back in the game all right moving on school services so this area went up and there's good reason so are our nurse especially going from last year we had our nurse a 60% rate which is three days a week for those that don't know we're actually going to school 4 days a week Monday Tuesday we have Wednesday as remote day and then Thursday Friday I so we had the nurse move to 4 day support which is 80% we plan on doing that again next year to make sure we're in good shape going out of this this crisis that's the big change their and then our guidance support was also a change last we had you wanted to bump up our guidance there's this so we we've done that and we've maintained that they get that piece from a guide and stamp point or the other big pieces the the retirement State retirement impact on everyone of the salary and benefits positions other state retirement mandate went up 19% for retirement so that when I significantly and that's what we're going to start budgeting for as we move forward staff development free flat smaller number educational media slide increase organic celery benefits and in again their retirement benefit it's us and every one of those line items School Board we have a slight increase here care for a variety of things basically we've got an audit this coming up that's going to hit us for the big part of that school administration turn the school up 4% total Magan with all things that work that are going on I thought I appreciate you guys cuz I know that you're you're putting in within the hours that we pride talked about build Services increased here with some salaries you know here what years were recovering some of our cleaning and all the things that we've had that do extra so we want a budget and cover us for that anything else big in here that's about it transportation's pretty flat we're very fortunate to have our our own transportation system for sake so we don't have to share that with the the first two student full group of SAU staff services flat turn on fun transfers this is for this different phone transfers so this is the budget for food art projects that's flat so total subtotal for elementary instruction is a slight increase of 2.98 overall gay as we said our debt service we we are done with this $84,920 annual fee payment that we made on our bond so that's going to be zero next year so that helps us bring our total big to less than yo down a percent less than last year special education for elementary again this is something that sits it's all based on numbers and and and the kids that come through the system and and move on to the high school and then graduate so next year will be down 6% in this category as well overall and then we move on to the high school so for those that are not aware of how we cover our kids go to the high school is that be Philippe it tuition fee for every kid that we send to the high school that's how we cover the cost of them going to the Kenai so as we move in the next year or regular school attendees numbers are about the same so for a sliding high schools regular tuitions Transportation pretty much the same slide increase ISO regular High School slide increase 1% or we get some some favorability here is we have a few students that will be moving on and it will not need this special services next year so that's a 40% reduction when that's a big number right so that's where we get our savings into the total High School cost to drop is down almost 12% from last year Spurs yes a unit and the services they provide and what we share with all the services we get know we're part of these discussions as well overall increase a 2.35 Robin team support us nicely and total operating budget down by almost 5% from last year so how does that roll into sorry I'll talk about revenues revenues are are obviously our our taxes are a big part of that and what we will we have to also be careful about is is how much we get from our New Hampshire property tax support and our New Hampshire attic Sage support So New Hampshire adequacy Aid is from the state and and that's going to be a big drop this year so you know that favorability we saw in the budget from last year to this year we will have some life less revenues from the state so are our property property tax impact will not be that fool difference so you can see there so with that are property tax decrease from the proposed budget would be down 4% and this is how it relates to a person house now if we had back in our Warren articles to use up so one of the items on this line is the owners are fun balance at the top here this is a hundred fifty thousand and we feel that we might be ahead on good for going out of the year if you get your approvals on the Warren articles for the the parking lot in the tuition trust fund I using that 150 up now that there's there they could be that this better than 150 so this number is obviously just an estimate at this point but it's going to put us right about even with a slight with a slight increase overall so if we use that money those two items that's where we'll be sitting going out of the school budget hopefully up cover that well this packet was sent out I believe and is available so if you want to look at it in more detail or if you want some night time reading have had it eater thank you Dean very thorough next up is the select board cover in the town of Warrant articles okay you're good are we on now you are good we can hear you are you okay all right on the Warren on it first of all remember all of this is on the time website and of course it's also in the annual reports and all the parts are here in the town hall or if you're going to the recycling center tomorrow Ronald have some up there so make a choice I guess okay on the 1st article on the town warrant is to see if the town will vote to approve the optional meeting procedure as outlined in spell 11:29 he is already going over this however I just want to remind you this is either a yes or no vote we certainly hope that everybody Barbara and Ron dog boarding yes and remember please if this is but this meeting only it it does not mean it carries all over all the years or anyting that's just for this year and we certainly hope that next year will be back in the Town Hall bowling in the regular way but the this is just getting approval how far this year as long as you about yes that's it for Article 1 ion saving Everybody by Nicole shoe is to choose all necessary Town officers for the ensuing year out of town vote for offices good evening Frank Reeder we're changing like this so that we don't don't bother anybody too much they get to see different face each time and they also gave me the longest worn article to read this is article 3 to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate the song 2272000 $500 for the purpose of building a new fire station on town-owned land at 772 Route 63 find the current fire station including architectural and engineering design work building construction site work permit fees and interior equipment with 2272000 $500 of such some to be raised to the issuance of bonds or notes under and in compliance with the municipal Finance Act RSA 33:1 as amended to authorize the Selectmen to apply for obtain and accept federal state or other Aid gifts and donations if any may be available for said project and to comply with all laws applicable to send project to authorize the Selectmen to issue negotiate sell and deliver said bonds or notes and determine the rate of Entry Theron and immaturity and other terms thereof and authorize the Selectmen to take any other action or the past any other vote relative there too about to select board and the budget committee recommend this article requires a three-fifths majority vote to pass the big question is the tax impact if this is it for parking passes there is the letter for me is available on the town website the the estimate from the Bond Bank was made at 2.5% we fully expect the the interest rate on any note be much lower than that that is just a number that they use they do the rest of us there's been a lot of questions about the proposed fire station I'll remind everybody that the the fire department facility advisory committee and the fire chief are both available questions will also be at the recycling center tomorrow Saturday for questions and first cancel alarm Apple for to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate the budget committee recommended sum of 1428359 dollars or general town of operation selectman recommend this article this article does not include special or individual out Ackles address separately and this is a simple majority bolt request I'm not going to go through too much at this because a lot of it is the same as last year I'll just mention the thing for a 9 items here they have changed in Greece follow along with the show the budget as is presented in the annual report most of these come in the beginning a couple of sections here the first one is in number 41 Saturday the executive session section and this is because the race for the ministrator and also we put in a new position here which is different from other years for an assistant Town Administrator and that does not mean that Joanna is going to leave us but she suggested that the Jodi could. learn some of the things at least and then when she decides to retire I'm not saying she's going to but if and when she decides to retire then at least some of well I have a background of knowing how to keep things up to date for us here on the next section is number 41 party or their election registration includes a raise for the town clerk awesome money for the counting machine the coding and decoding of the counting machine and also there's been quite a bit of increase postage fees because mailings that we put out for the way that we're doing the meeting for this year the next line is the financial Administration is his number 4150 and this is all due to you are increasing the assessment cost and that's because our longtime assessor retired at the end of 2020 and he was giving us quite a bargain and now we had to put an extra $20 and to take care of wrapping up this assassin gear and doing the coming year the one that we're in now next one is the legal that's the number 4153 and that's about 5,000 up then it was previously and that is because we expect there will be some increased costs due to former Town Clerk and tax collector the next one is 4155 Personnel Administration and this is off because of the health insurance we're just going up also we have medicinal family plan that we did not have last year right now we have two family plans and two single plans and this also includes the increased Medicare is sacred time next one is line 4194 General government building and the increase here is due to the fact that call Jody and Joanne working on replacing the Monument of the Town common and the price given to us is 8500 on that on the next line is Nova 4215 the ambulance and this is up about 6,600 and we have no choice but to pay it and this is for the standby teen ambulance virtue left here now next to the last one is number 43 11 Highway Administration and that's up due to we increase the pay for the road and the final one is number 43 12 highways and streets and as for Paving and this year they hope to pay yourself feeling trolls big one and the comment in front of the church and fellowship hall and also the parking lot at the post office which is in pretty bad shape right now so those are the increases other than that everything is about the same as it was last year great job okay so Article 5 is to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate the sum of $128,000 to purchase a new backhoe for the highway furthermore to authorized withdrawal of $55,000 from the highway equipment capital reserve fund created for this Purpose with a balance of $73,000 to be raised by taxation both the select board and the budget committee recommend this article we meet with the road agent fairly regularly and got to keep track of how everything's going this is a 20 year old piece of the date they use in a lot to do the excellent job that they do maintaining our roads in this town I think most the townsfolk too pretty happy with the job they're doing and we are this side of bucket is getting very sloppy on this thing it's been repinned once the transmission is acting up now and we decided it makes more sense to sell it and get whatever we can get for and replace it rather than continue to pour money into a 20 year old piece of equipment so that's how I could fly article 6 is to see if the town will vote to authorize the Selectmen to sell the 2002 John Deere backhoe used by the highway department this article is contingent on the passing of Article 5 and any proceeds received from the sale would go into the town's general fund moving on article 7 article 7 is to see if sound will raise to will both to raise an appropriate the sum of $20,000 to be placed in the fire equipment capital reserve fund previously established both the board and the budget committee  in the star and it requires a majority vote to pass others currently about $107,000 in that fund and this is the money that would be used in the event we needed new fire apparatus article 8 to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate the sum of $10,000 to be placed any highway equipment capital reserve fund who previously established both the selectboard the budget committee recommended article and again it requires a majority vote currently there's about 63,000 in that account and of course in the previous article we would propose removing some of that to help pay for that backhoe okay an article 9 an article I did it to see if the town will vote to change the purpose of the existing Municipal land purchase capital reserve fund into Town Hall Septic Tank capital reserve fund this is a new fund of course further to name the board of Selectmen as agents to extend from both the psych ward and budget committee recommend this off 2/3 volt require and this is sort of a bookkeeping thing I guess originally we all the the cap Reserve listed on page 23 I think in the in the report and asked if you know page 21 skills me and if you look at Municipal land purchase House close to $32,000 in it right now and there really is no point to keeping it now because we we bought the land both of the Town Hall here and we don't expect to buy any more land so really it makes sense to shut down this older farmed and put the amount of money into this new fun we definitely need to do something about the septic tank here for the town hall and so we hope you will approve this one okay article 10 is to see if the town will vote to discontinue completely the class 5 portion of Adams Road beginning at the intersection of Stonewall Circle and going past the current bream house located on lock 56 approximately 200 ft long by majority vote is required this is being put in front of the town at the request of the owner so this is a complete discontinued of that portion of the road that portion of Adams Road from the intersection of Stonewall Circle and going past All Brands house cocaine and final article article 11 is to see if the town will vote to allocate the 2020 income from the Jonathan Lord fund to the Westland library this money stuff $4 is included in the proposed operating budget and again a majority vote is required so that's the end of the war and articles we didn't want to take a moment to thank all of the all the folks the volunteer so much time at the deuce what are in town many of them are listed in the in the town report and I think it's always it's always a warm feeling to realize how many people are volunteering their time to to help the town so if you see those folks out in the I'll be sure to thank I'm the vast majority of them are not paid for what they're doing in the ones that are paid or payed just to kind of a token amount so if you see him please think and that's it from us Peter thank you guys alright sure the wrap-up screen here so D thank you for sure School District warrants and select work for sharing the town so next steps show for the folks on the call and then anyone else in the residence of West for lands provide input back to the respective governing bodies selectboard of the billboard by Saturday the 1st that's that's not right that's not is that right I can look back in my notes Here stop Monday the 1st so it's actually Monday the 1st at midnight and I call out the the specific phone number to email addresses there but those are also all in the mail or that everyone received and they're also on the website so that the input by Monday at midnight I need to give your name address and phone number for with your comments can I just point out that the email address for the school district is wsd underscore 29 it gets kitten with the underlined there corrects that is correct Rob display KY sure before the second session for the town is on the 3rd that's on Wednesday second session for the school is on Thursday 4th both of those I believe it's 7 p.m. and those will be to each of the governing board will review the governing bodies will review the input they receive and then they will vote if they will cheat or mend any of the articles on the Warren from there and then we the final warrant will be posted for the weekend and then we vote on Wednesday the 10th so that wraps up our evening with this first informational session thank you all for those that are participating I saw I saw it one point. 25 dispense I didn't I didn't go through and figure out how many of them were our governing bodies but but thank you for those residents it or are here online and I'll listening to this help with helpful and like a shared get your info the different email addresses to the phone messages it there and we will talk them in about a week thanks everyone have a good night

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Westmoreland School Board Warrant Information Meeting Part I for Friday, February 26, 2021

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