[0:00] You are in good shape.

[0:02] So I'm calling this meeting

[0:04] to order at Monday the 5th of January

[0:06] at 6 32.

[0:10] The year is 2026. We're still here.

[0:15] It's the Grandville Hancock Unified District Board.

[0:18] Good morning. Any adjustments to the agenda?

[0:22] I have only one, which is the addition to discuss

[0:28] as item 5.3, the superintendent evaluation.

[0:33] I do not need an executive session unless you do.

[0:36] Okay, great then I don't think we need one.

[0:39] Thanks Tara. I don't

[0:41] Have any of my stuff home with me so

[0:43] Fair enough.

[0:45] Okay, so we'll move along

[0:46] to the minutes from our regular monthly meeting from

[0:49] December 1st, 2025.

[0:51] If anyone would like to move. We'll second those

[1:00] I motion to approve the minutes from

[1:02] the December regular meeting.

[1:04] Thanks Samantha. Is there second?

[1:13] Hearing none. I'll second them. Any discussion?

[1:18] Okay, hearing man. So moved reports to the board.

[1:22] I'm assuming Jamie is with our said.

[1:24] So we will come back to him.

[1:26] Tara, would you like to take it?

[1:29] So my report just outlines what's happening as far

[1:32] as reporting out of the business office during the month

[1:35] of January in addition to budgets, budget mailers,

[1:41] multiple drafts of budgets.

[1:43] So if there's any questions,

[1:47] Any questions for Tara?

[1:53] Okay, thank you Tara.

[1:56] I need to get up actually the,

[2:00] where are the minutes from last month.

[2:04] Do I see that? Okay.

[2:08] So moving right along to the policy committee update.

[2:11] The policy committee did not meet this past month.

[2:16] We had a special meeting instead

[2:19] of the negotiations committee.

[2:20] I can update you all on

[2:22] that if you'd like in executive session.

[2:25] The summary, the summary is things are,

[2:28] things are moving along very swimmingly.

[2:29] We have a really good negotiations team

[2:31] as does the support staff negotiations have kicked off

[2:34] and they are, we are working really

[2:39] well and amicably to pull something together that,

[2:44] tangent aside, we, that means we haven't met

[2:46] as a policy committee, which means my,

[2:50] which means I don't have an update other than this is the

[2:53] next reading of policies 33 C 33 and C 36.

[2:58] C 33 is the K

[3:01] through eight inter-district supervisory union transfer

[3:05] as I mentioned last month.

[3:07] This one is now in discussion at the full board

[3:09] and we'll probably come back to district boards.

[3:14] C 36 was also moved out of

[3:18] committee at our last meeting

[3:20] and got its first reading by the full board last month.

[3:23] That one did not see a whole lot of discussion.

[3:26] I anticipate now that we are on the other side of holidays

[3:29] and special meetings, we will see a little more on that one.

[3:34] If you anyone has questions

[3:36] or comments on either of those policies, let me know.

[3:43] I think that this is our third reading for both of them,

[3:45] which means they may be warned for action next month.

[3:48] We'll see what happens at the next full board meeting,

[3:51] but let's be prepared to vote on that.

[3:58] Okay, we will table 5.1 until Jamie joins us.

[4:02] Tara, do you know if he's planning

[4:03] to join us at a specific time?

[4:06] He was doing act 73 updates when I left

[4:09] to join you. So I would then

[4:11] Join us to do them again.

[4:13] Right, so when Jamie returns we will hear his report

[4:18] to the board as well as his act 73 update

[4:22] session starts tomorrow

[4:24] and I am sure

[4:26] that we will be hearing quite a lot about that.

[4:29] So then moving along to 5.2, which is draft number three

[4:34] of our fiscal year 27 expenditure budget.

[4:37] Tara, back to you.

[4:42] I won't be able to see you once I switch

[4:44] to my other screen so if you have questions

[4:47] We smiling, we'll be smiling brightly, just

[4:49] Yell at me.

[4:53] So what I have updated in this draft since our last review

[4:58] is only the SU central office

[5:02] and special education assessments

[5:05] and those are based on the SU approved budgets

[5:08] from the last board meeting.

[5:10] So you'll see central offices down

[5:12] and special education is up for an overall

[5:16] increase in assessments of $543.

[5:20] As you all may remember

[5:22] 'cause you are veterans to the board announced tuition rates

[5:25] have to be set by the 15th of January.

[5:28] So I will be making adjustments to the tuition

[5:33] for the next draft of the budget based on

[5:34] what those announced tuition rates are.

[5:36] Right now we're using a 6% placeholder,

[5:41] didn't make any changes on the revenue side of things.

[5:44] Just that one on the bottom.

[5:45] And now you can actually, this time you're gonna see your

[5:47] tax sheet which has some pretty

[5:51] basic information in it for the time being.

[5:55] Again, the yield is still the December one yield letter

[6:00] that the December one letter yield that we are using,

[6:05] your long-term weighted average

[6:08] dropped from 1 92 0.43

[6:11] to 1 78 0.40.

[6:15] So your education spending

[6:18] is at $13,493 and 18 cents.

[6:24] We take that education spending per pupil cost, we divide

[6:27] that by the yield

[6:31] and that gives us the equalized residential tax rate

[6:35] of 1.5248.

[6:38] The ACT 1 27 deduction is still in statute

[6:43] A OE just hasn't given us any indications if they're going

[6:47] to change the formula being used for that.

[6:50] So right now I just have it in as it was

[6:54] for fiscal year 26.

[6:55] It's highlighted there 'cause that number may change.

[6:58] So that gives you an FY 27 preliminary equalized tax rate

[7:04] of 1.5137.

[7:07] I do not have yields, not yield, sorry CS yet.

[7:11] So all I am using is a projected CLA that was given to us

[7:16] by the tax department with the December one letter.

[7:20] And as you can see they both are at 76% currently

[7:24] and that's still using the statewide CLA adjustment,

[7:28] which is projected to be 70% this year.

[7:32] So we take that equalized preliminary tax rate of

[7:35] that 1.5137.

[7:37] We divide it by the current projected CLA

[7:41] of 76%

[7:43] and that gives us a homestead tax rate in each town

[7:46] of 1.9917.

[7:50] And then that gives us an increase

[7:53] of 30.09 cents in grandville

[7:56] and 30.93 cents in Hancock equates out

[8:01] to $300 and $309 at a hundred thousand dollars in value.

[8:07] So all of those numbers are still subject to change based on

[8:11] where we actually end up on the cs.

[8:19] Do you know when the final CLA numbers are expected?

[8:22] I usually have them by now, so I'm surprised that I don't,

[8:25] we usually end up getting them right around the end

[8:28] of de mid to end December.

[8:29] So I would expect them anytime.

[8:31] I know it's been a conversation

[8:34] that multiple business managers have brought

[8:36] up throughout VA sbo.

[8:40] Any questions for Tara?

[8:46] Oh, I also wanted to know, I'm assuming that this

[8:51] does not reflect,

[8:52] because it hasn't happened, the governor's proposal

[8:56] to buy down by 50%

[9:02] the deficit that the, the deficit in the ED fund?

[9:05] No, 'cause this is still using that 12 one yield. Okay.

[9:08] So any changes that they make throughout the legislative

[9:10] session or any of those budgets will end up like we did

[9:13] several years ago with the different yield amounts.

[9:17] So if he makes those additional changes then

[9:19] we'll get a revised yield.

[9:22] Okay. I Stacy, yeah, this is Samantha.

[9:28] I think that I,

[9:32] I'm pretty sure that state finance officials

[9:38] may discussed already in like pre-session hearings

[9:42] that they would be looking

[9:44] to do a buydown in the annual budget adjustment.

[9:47] So that happens. I mean typically it happens

[9:51] before February last year there was no budget adjustment

[9:56] that was approved by the governor ultimately,

[10:00] but, so if that did happen we would have,

[10:04] Tara would have updated yield projections

[10:09] like before March if they do it in the budget adjustment.

[10:16] Okay. Thanks for that Intel. Hi Jamie.

[10:24] Well yeah, I, I mean we'll have

[10:29] to see what the final numbers do to this.

[10:32] Speaking personally, you know, I don't know

[10:35] that I could look anybody in our town,

[10:37] including myself in the face

[10:38] and try to justify an almost 60% increase in two years

[10:42] in property tax rates.

[10:44] Like it just, and I don't know if

[10:48] that means we need to go, you know, try

[10:52] to testify in front of committee

[10:53] and show them what this is looking like, you know,

[10:57] because I, I do feel like part of part

[11:01] of the problem is they're not looking at these tax

[11:03] calculations and understanding how we're getting here.

[11:09] Yes. Jamie, you I, we can't hear you.

[11:40] It's very quiet. It got very quiet.

[11:42] I think he'll come back. Oh, Brittany's coming on.

[12:12] Oh. But thank you Tara, as usual.

[12:17] You present this in a way that's really clear

[12:19] to read even if the numbers

[12:24] don't, don't do what we want them to do.

[12:27] Yeah, I'm with you on the numbers.

[12:32] I have a, I have a rogue question.

[12:34] Are do any of the Grandville members know,

[12:37] do you have an appraisal underway right now?

[12:40] A reappraisal?

[12:43] I believe we do. I've, yeah, I've been apprised.

[12:48] I think Cheryl announced something about it at time

[12:50] meeting last year.

[12:54] Okay. I'm not sure if I do to be honest.

[12:59] Hi Clayton. I,

[13:02] if there is a town wide reappraisal underway are,

[13:06] are the new,

[13:08] do the new values go into this fiscal year's projections

[13:11] or is that, I'm I thought

[13:13] that would take a quite a few years.

[13:14] It depends on when you finished.

[13:17] Okay. Yeah, if they finish it, so the grand list,

[13:21] I think currently the statutory deadline

[13:23] for the certification on the grand list

[13:25] is ev either April 1st or April 15th.

[13:29] So if, if any towns reappraisal is completed

[13:33] before that recertification deadline, then it would impact

[13:38] the school, the that year's upcoming school budget.

[13:41] Okay. So in theory, I mean I don't know,

[13:45] that would be like pretty wild for, for our unified board.

[13:49] 'cause there could be a scenario where like Greenville's

[13:54] CLA is a hundred or like 105

[13:58] and tax rates are adjusted favorably in Grandville.

[14:02] And then, I mean God knows,

[14:04] I think Hancock's last year was like 64,

[14:07] Right?

[14:08] Yeah. Okay.

[14:10] We have that in another district in RSU

[14:12] where one town reappraised and the other didn't

[14:14] and that's the exact scenario.

[14:16] Yeah.

[14:18] Okay. Lemme text Jamie,

[14:22] I'm assuming he's restarting some stuff.

[14:25] Oh hi Jamie.

[14:29] Am I back? You're back.

[14:31] That is me being as tech savvy as I can get to figure out

[14:34] how to turn a microphone back on.

[14:37] So you threw your computer out the window

[14:38] and then went outside to fetch it and then it worked.

[14:41] So I was just gonna say to the board, right,

[14:42] we had a 30 cent increase two years ago

[14:46] and then last year the tax rate actually we saw savings

[14:51] and now we're at 30% increase again, which I just got asked

[14:55] to testify to senate it in on Friday afternoon.

[14:58] I was gonna speak to the fact that one of the issues I,

[15:02] I think that Vermonters have

[15:04] with the ED funding system right now is how unpredictable

[15:07] the tax rates are due to the variables that are outside

[15:11] of the district's control.

[15:13] Right, right.

[15:22] Yeah, no, like I said, I'm just not sure what to,

[15:26] I'm not sure what to do with this information at this point.

[15:28] So we'll see what it looks like

[15:29] when the final numbers come in.

[15:31] Sorry, I know you just took it off the screen Tara,

[15:34] but what, what's our real projected budget increase?

[15:37] Is it 11% for expenditures?

[15:48] 6.15? 6.15,

[15:49] 6.15.

[15:50] That's, I don't, sorry, I'm switching.

[15:53] Yeah, well I mean we're kind of going out of order

[15:56] and when Jamie gives his report,

[15:58] his written report talks about some of the reasons

[16:01] for the tax increase that are beyond what's going, you know,

[16:04] so maybe what we should do is backup

[16:07] to Jamie's superintendent report

[16:08] and he can talk to some A DM numbers that have come in

[16:13] because I think that also is a factor.

[16:20] Yeah. So I mean in general across the entire supervisory

[16:24] union we've seen a decrease in our long-term weighted

[16:26] average daily membership, which is made up

[16:29] of our average daily membership, which is a spotlight

[16:34] of, well it's, it's

[16:35] how many students you have enrolled in your district.

[16:37] But the average daily membership is taken

[16:40] during three weeks in October.

[16:44] And so if you have a student move in

[16:49] in September and then you had two students move out in

[16:53] October and one of those is that student that moved into

[16:58] September for example, like you don't get credit for 'em,

[17:01] you only get credit on average for the students

[17:03] that you have in your district

[17:07] for the three weeks in October.

[17:09] And the long-term weighted average daily membership

[17:12] is made up of average daily membership

[17:14] and weights from a two year rolling average.

[17:19] And so what we've seen is, is

[17:21] that our average daily membership is down in our districts

[17:26] in addition to our weights are down

[17:28] because we've seen a decrease in the number

[17:32] of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.

[17:35] And a big chunk of that is due to the fact that less

[17:39] of our students appear to be getting direct served due

[17:44] to the fact that they qualify for Medicaid

[17:46] because of some of the sunset language

[17:48] that occurred in regards to Medicaid.

[17:52] We had families who were still being served via Medicaid due

[17:56] to parameters of the pandemic previously

[18:00] that have now sunset for this current year in regards

[18:04] to calculations of free and reduced lunch numbers.

[18:08] Because families either no longer qualified due to income

[18:12] or didn't take the opportunity to refill out the forms

[18:16] to requalify for Medicaid,

[18:18] they may actually still even qualify financially

[18:21] but didn't reapply.

[18:24] And so we have seen direct serve numbers across the SU

[18:28] decrease for free

[18:29] and reduced lunch categor, you know, Cate

[18:34] being categorized as qualifying for free and reduced lunch

[18:38] because the Medicaid direct certain numbers have decreased

[18:41] across the SU

[18:43] and a reminder

[18:45] that lunch now is free universally across the state.

[18:50] So we actually ask families to fill out

[18:53] and districts that you send your kids to are annual income

[19:00] declaration forms.

[19:01] They're no longer free and reduced lunch forms.

[19:04] And so we're relying on families filling out those

[19:08] family income forms or qualifying for free

[19:12] and reduced lunch due to direct serve.

[19:13] And what we've seen is not

[19:15] that less families are filling out the income forms.

[19:17] We've seen less families qualifying for free

[19:19] and reduced lunch due to the fact

[19:21] that they no longer qualify for Medicaid.

[19:28] So those weights have impacted us as well in our long term

[19:34] weighted average daily membership.

[19:38] I, So the big two reasons

[19:43] for your taxes going up as much as they are of course is CLA

[19:49] and a loss in pupils,

[19:52] which you would say means less tuition spent

[19:56] but not necessarily right,

[19:58] because it's the long-term weighted average daily

[20:01] membership, not necessarily enrollment into schools,

[20:06] not enough to offset, you know,

[20:10] what we're expecting

[20:11] to be announced increases in in tuition and things of that nature.

[20:15] 'cause your budget's still up 6%.

[20:17] Right. Tara, can you remind me of our actual

[20:22] student population this year?

[20:30] As of November 26th, I had 85 students

[20:34] that had been confirmed

[20:35] and I still had eight

[20:40] schools that I hadn't been invoiced from yet.

[20:44] So that number could rise.

[20:46] Yep. We have 91 in the budget currently.

[20:49] Okay. And that's 91

[20:51] and that's down from enrollment from last year.

[20:54] So right now from 1126 we had 85

[20:57] that had been counted based on tuition invoices.

[21:00] We had 90 in your fiscal year 26 budget.

[21:06] And then I have,

[21:11] there are five 12th graders leaving

[21:16] from it and I had four

[21:21] coming into the tuition pool.

[21:25] So once I have all the tuition invoices in,

[21:28] which I believe I do now

[21:30] 'cause I was waiting on Middlebury,

[21:35] I'll be able to update that for our next draft.

[21:38] Okay. 'cause I think everybody else has since come in

[21:42] maybe R one of the Randolph schools

[21:43] I might still be missing.

[21:46] Okay,

[21:50] thank you Tara.

[21:51] Any other questions for Tara?

[21:53] We're kind of, we're a little bit all over the place

[21:55] but we're discussing, we are on 5.2

[21:59] and also back to 4.1 Jamie's update at this point.

[22:04] So I would take questions on those, Jamie,

[22:06] if you have anything to add to your report to the board

[22:10] or you can also jump in there

[22:14] Just that, you know, it's, it's really

[22:19] challenging in regards to what we can control locally

[22:22] and expenditure budget to make up

[22:25] a drop in our long-term weighted average daily

[22:28] membership like that.

[22:30] Is it, it is really hard if we lose a chunk of students in

[22:34] that count to be able to curb enough in revenue

[22:37] and expenditures to not have it result significantly on an

[22:42] increase in taxes

[22:48] of which I think argues for the fact

[22:50] that we gotta figure out a better way

[22:54] to address the ED funding formula.

[22:56] And I think that is what taxpayers have been asking for

[22:59] for a while now is more predictability.

[23:04] Right. And so what I see,

[23:06] because I, you know, as we've long discussed as a board

[23:10] and as members of the RSCA is

[23:16] the implementation of ACT 73

[23:18] or as much as we know of how of, you know, what

[23:21] that implementation looks like, which is still a little

[23:23] init, doesn't promise any cost savings.

[23:26] So like pa you know, like we,

[23:29] our towns passed our budgets two years ago at I think 38

[23:33] and 36% increases per town based on the fact that

[23:39] there was a big mandate to make changes

[23:44] that would fix the out of control spiraling

[23:47] of property taxes unrelated

[23:48] to the increased cost of like raw education.

[23:51] And I don't have any, I personally don't have any belief

[23:55] that what's happening now is gonna change this.

[23:58] I think we'll be sitting here in a couple, like, I I

[24:02] I just don't think it's, I don't think that what

[24:05] is being proposed is going

[24:06] to fix the property tax increases.

[24:08] And so asking people to pay another

[24:13] 18% increase when I cannot pr when I don't have any faith

[24:18] that the system is gonna change is,

[24:19] is PR is a challenge for me.

[24:22] Prima, we,

[24:24] I think that's partly why they gotta talk more instead

[24:27] of talking about possibly governance.

[24:31] Right. Although I think most folks think

[24:34] that we don't need 52 superintendents

[24:36] and I think there are places in the state

[24:38] where we don't need 52 superintendents

[24:43] that, and I think there are places where we need

[24:45] to do a better job of working together to curb costs

[24:49] that are, are outta control

[24:55] and we need to, that we ought to be able

[24:58] to have a funding formula that provides more predictability.

[25:01] Right. Right. And what the issue I think we have right now

[25:04] with our funding formula is your taxes went up,

[25:07] I believe 30 cents one year.

[25:09] Tara, how much did they go down last year?

[25:13] 10 and 12 respectively.

[25:14] 10 and 12 cents and now we're back up 30 again. Right.

[25:17] Like and so you know, the one plus of the foundation formula

[25:22] for a district like yours is

[25:24] the weight just falls the student,

[25:27] Right.

[25:29] You're not left to the devices of whatever other districts

[25:34] try to make up possibly for, you know,

[25:40] shortfalls in regards to revenue and

[25:42] or increases of expenditure via announced tuitions.

[25:46] Right. 'cause the weight would just follow the student

[25:48] to that receiving school.

[25:53] Samantha? Yeah, I'm just, I'm gonna go back a beat.

[25:59] So our long-term daily average is

[26:03] calculated during a period of three weeks in October.

[26:07] Yep. The whole state. But it's

[26:09] Calculated Currently January

[26:13] and we are showing a 10%

[26:17] lower enrollment than we know our budget will carry.

[26:24] Your LTW ADMs not even made just off

[26:26] of those three weeks, Samantha.

[26:28] It's made off of last year.

[26:30] It's three weeks and this year's three weeks, which

[26:33] Is your but in October. Every time,

[26:36] Every time.

[26:38] This is So what, This is what I'm saying this is,

[26:41] this is part of the problem is how we go about

[26:45] finding L-T-W-A-D-M

[26:48] and then you add onto it lots of different

[26:52] weights on top of your A DM based on things like sparsity

[26:56] or whether the student's in elementary school versus high

[26:59] school or whether the student qualifies for free

[27:02] and reduced lunch or not.

[27:10] Tara, do you have on hand

[27:12] what our long-term weighted daily average is?

[27:16] It's right on the tax sheet. Oh,

[27:18] Sorry.

[27:19] It, it dropped from 1 92 0.43

[27:21] to 1 78 0.40

[27:36] And you don't have expenditures to cut

[27:40] to rectify that.

[27:42] That's my point. Like that that is where

[27:45] we're in a rock and a hard place.

[27:47] Like when we lose students in your district via L-T-W-A-D-M,

[27:51] it's, it's, it's a killer

[27:57] because it drops your per pupil cost from 11 7 9 4 up

[28:01] to 13 4 9 3.

[28:13] I mean your, your tax increase is the change in

[28:16] that plus you know, accounting for

[28:18] what we're seeing is 6% increased announced tuition.

[28:22] Hopefully that stays true.

[28:24] But you, you know, Tara does a nice job there of showing you

[28:27] that that change in the equalized tax rate

[28:29] before CLA was 1.37 up to 1.52.

[28:34] The biggest, the biggest piece to that is

[28:37] that drop in L-T-W-A-D-M.

[28:40] Yeah.

[28:48] Okay. I don't think there's much we can do with this

[28:52] until we see the final CLA numbers.

[29:00] My guess is we'll have

[29:01] to have some conversations about using the rest

[29:05] of our tuition reserve fund,

[29:12] but I think we can have that conversation at another time.

[29:14] But I do want you to think about

[29:16] that 'cause that's the only thing we have.

[29:24] Okay. Anything else on this?

[29:30] Samantha? Still have a question? Oh

[29:31] Samantha, do you have your hand up

[29:32] for a new question? No,

[29:34] That's all. Thank you.

[29:36] Sure. Okay. Thank you again Tara.

[29:39] Thanks for going back and forth on this with us.

[29:42] Thanks Jamie. So superintendent's report

[29:47] and then Jamie, we had also passed over 5.1,

[29:49] the ACT 73 update, if you have anything to add,

[29:56] session starts tomorrow. This

[29:58] Is why we're talking about it.

[29:59] Right? I mean so within

[30:04] my report I think I'll, I'll focus on the act 73 update.

[30:08] So session starts tomorrow.

[30:13] I fully expect

[30:15] that the governor will come out pretty strongly

[30:19] in opposition to the task force report.

[30:23] Not even necessarily based on a policy perspective,

[30:26] but focused on the fact that the task force did not

[30:32] provide a map

[30:36] of which they could have just provided one.

[30:37] Right. That included SU I think you're gonna hear a lot

[30:41] of language around they didn't fulfill their obligation

[30:44] and less focus on actual the policy report they

[30:47] provided, which there's a lot of good there in regards

[30:50] to the policy report.

[30:52] And so if you haven't had a chance to read it,

[30:54] I'm more than happy to send you a copy if

[30:58] that would be helpful for board members

[31:00] to have a copy of that report.

[31:03] Would that be helpful if I just sign, send the PDF?

[31:07] Yeah, I think if you sent it I've looked at it,

[31:09] but if you send it around, it's sometimes not easy

[31:11] to navigate that website.

[31:12] Yeah, I'll send it. So it's in your emails in boxes.

[31:17] The only other updates I have is I did get invited

[31:20] to testify in front of Senate ed on Friday at three.

[31:24] That's after the VS. Will have testified on Thursday.

[31:28] I think that they're, that's a positive opportunity

[31:30] to be able to respond in regards to

[31:33] what testimony they provide on Act 73.

[31:37] That's this Friday. That's this Friday at three.

[31:40] I have a half hour with them.

[31:45] The other thing I guess I can update is

[31:47] that I am gonna be joining

[31:52] WDEV on Thursday morning with Zuckerman on his radio show

[31:59] with David and to discuss ACT 73

[32:03] from 10 to 11.

[32:10] You know, I, I think there's gonna be times we're gonna need

[32:12] to be active and educate our elected officials

[32:17] about why the policy within the task

[32:21] force makes a lot of sense.

[32:23] And I think that it's going to be another long

[32:29] marathon slug fest in regards to where we end up with

[32:35] I, you know, I think that

[32:41] that there right, we could get to

[32:43] that maps actually hit the floor

[32:46] or there could be a real likelihood

[32:47] that Act 73 has changed some to more align

[32:51] with the task force report

[32:52] and that maps may not even hit the floor.

[32:54] So stay tuned. I think as we finalize budgets

[33:00] it's gonna better dictate what direction that may go.

[33:04] Okay. Meaning I think if budgets are

[33:09] up and people are unhappy,

[33:10] I think there's gonna be more political will

[33:13] to push toward maps hitting the, the floor.

[33:16] Yeah. No other W-I-V-S-U districts have

[33:20] passed their budgets yet. Is that correct?

[33:22] No, no. We've got, Tara

[33:24] and I have a sprint

[33:27] of a marathon over the next three weeks to try to get us there.

[33:30] Good luck. You know,

[33:33] in general we have several districts at the expenditure

[33:36] budgets are actually under 3%.

[33:38] Okay. But, but, but like you, we are, we are faced

[33:41] with a decrease in L-T-W-A-D-M this year. Yeah,

[33:45] Okay.

[33:47] Of which the governor had that information.

[33:49] Just so the board knows, they know

[33:52] what the district's L-T-W-A-D-M will be when

[33:55] that D one letter comes out or at least the estimates.

[33:58] And when he talked about average 12%,

[34:00] he knew in general multiple districts were gonna be losing

[34:03] L-T-W-A-D-M.

[34:04] Right. There's very few that gained any.

[34:10] Okay. Thank you Jamie.

[34:13] Any questions for the superintendent?

[34:19] Okay. Hearing none. Thank you. You are off the hook.

[34:24] The only other agenda item we have was this 5.3,

[34:27] which is the superintendent evaluation report.

[34:29] Just to note that if you haven't completed that,

[34:34] when you go to complete it,

[34:36] it says this thing is due on

[34:38] December 15th or whatever the deadline is.

[34:40] That has certainly prevented a couple of people from

[34:44] clicking the button and doing it.

[34:45] Anyway, please do it anyway.

[34:47] If you could please do it this week.

[34:48] If you haven't, I would love to get

[34:52] those just done so that we can get to the other side of

[34:55] that process and not have to worry about it.

[34:58] Actually the new form, I went and did it

[35:00] and the new format is a,

[35:02] is a little bit faster than the one we were using.

[35:04] So the Google form we're using is

[35:06] speedier than SurveyMonkey.

[35:07] So get it done. Please let me know if you need help.

[35:12] I'm happy to come round with tech

[35:14] or meet you in the library

[35:15] with some technology if that's a problem.

[35:17] But please try and get it done.

[35:19] I will send an email reminder in a couple of days,

[35:21] but hopefully that can just, you can feel really good

[35:24] and virtuous because you'll read

[35:25] that email and you'll have already done it.

[35:29] So thank you for that.

[35:32] We don't need an executive session tonight.

[35:35] And our next meeting is warned

[35:37] for the second over in Grandville at six 30.

[35:40] Is there any other business or any future agenda items?

[35:47] Okay, I will be watching some

[35:49] of the hearings this week if you need, if anyone wants

[35:54] a play by play, please let me know that there will,

[35:58] you know, everything will be live streamed of course.

[36:00] And Jamie will be testifying on Friday

[36:04] and carry on.

[36:06] I just had a quick remark to make.

[36:08] I had heard that this was being floated,

[36:10] but it's now being reported on by Vermont Public

[36:13] that Senate Pro Roof is considering a bill

[36:18] to push forth hard caps on school district budgets

[36:24] for this year and next.

[36:28] I had heard that that could be a possibility that

[36:32] that might be introduced and they did seem to report on it.

[36:40] And so with that, I actually, I would say to you, I don't,

[36:45] I'm not in support of a hard cap,

[36:47] but I think that signals that there could be movement to try

[36:52] to pursue an alternative to school redistricting maps.

[36:55] I actually could foresee that as a positive

[36:59] leadership is signaling that this early in the session.

[37:04] Thanks for that. And that is, yeah, you can find that on.

[37:12] Okay. Any hope for the business?

[37:18] Okay. Hearing none, I would enter turn a motion

[37:20] to adjourn at seven 10. So moved.

[37:25] Thank you Julie. Thanks everybody. Get home soon.

[37:27] Goodnight. Thank you. Goodnight.

First Branch Board Meeting, Jan 5 2026

Transcript