[0:00] [Music]

[0:08] [Music]

[0:12] My uncle Turner's daughter Leroy. Did you see Marjorie

[0:17] lost her husband? Marie Turner. Okay.

[0:25] » So, at 6:01

[0:29] joint meeting of the town school board and the town select board.

[0:34] We'll have an agenda review about the flag. We'll do updates for both sides

[0:39] and then go over preliminary budget factors

[0:43] comments and motion to agenda. Do we have any changes to the agenda?

[0:59] To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it

[1:03] stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

[1:21] Um, welcome Diane. I think you're the only new person at the table, but you're

[1:28] not new. But, um, okay. Do you guys want to start with

[1:33] updates? >> Um, well, we could do several updates.

[1:38] Talk about common updates. We could also about the school um act 73 a little bit

[1:44] um and that process is moving along um down in the state house. Uh I do know

[1:51] that the districting task force had another meeting today. Uh the couple

[1:55] things that I've heard coming from the school districtricting task force is um

[2:00] one of their uh thought processes was around um using county lines you know 14

[2:07] or 15 county 14 or 15 districts but I think today they were going to discuss

[2:12] more about utilizing the CTE more as kind of parts

[2:18] of the districts. probably about 17 roughly 17 at that

[2:24] point. I know is just as tuned in or maybe even more at times tuned in than I

[2:29] am process but um that's just something that I heard about that now starting to

[2:35] talk talk about the CP process become a very central part of education at this

[2:40] point connecting the districts to the CP is something that they're starting to

[2:46] explore

[2:50] everything else on that side it's really going to alling on these maps coming

[2:55] through and the legislation actually deciding on a map

[3:02] if any of the three maps are acceptable to move forward.

[3:08] On the town side, we're still moving forward on some projects. We're moving

[3:12] forward on the hourglass that seems to be uh still on schedule for 2026 coming

[3:19] up next construction season. There will be some traffic delays and

[3:26] traffic pattern changes around Route 7 and the hourglass area. Um, from what I

[3:31] hear, they are planning on trying to keep at least one lane open on Route 7

[3:37] at all times coming through that area. Um, the north is open and the southbound

[3:43] is utilized going around the new road. That's preliminary kind of process on

[3:50] that. We're still on the town site discussing

[3:54] a multigenerational recreation facility. That process has moved forward a little

[4:00] bit to where I've been discussing with a couple different groups

[4:04] to maybe different ways we can partner with them and have them involved in

[4:10] either everything from groundbreaking to management or just management. So I have

[4:15] two different companies I've been talks with them about. hasn't gone very far

[4:20] where they received our feasibility study and now on our side I believe

[4:24] we're coming up with an RFP and start exploring more on how we actually want

[4:31] to move forward with the project we want private partnership which I think really

[4:36] is the most feasible way for us to actually get this done or how we want to

[4:40] go through so there'll be more discussions

[4:43] with myself and the select board on exactly the process that we take care of

[4:47] but that's still well in the works and we still really looking forward to

[4:50] seeing how we can make that happen for

[4:57] one of the and also it's not directly but it directly very directly affects

[5:02] the new interstate rebuild um that's literally a year ahead

[5:08] of time that was not scheduled to be done till next year and I can't

[5:14] officially say that it will be done this year but if you all look at it it's

[5:18] I would say that

[5:24] » that whole new bridge and all that. Yeah. So that to me I could see them

[5:31] being done in a couple of weeks because they're tearing up the last bits and

[5:35] pieces that are not going to be used any longer.

[5:39] Like for instance, the the southbound entrance to 89 coming from Chimney

[5:46] Corners is literally a clover on the inside of the old

[5:52] rerouted coming off the roof.

[5:56] So, uh that's a change. So, you know, left.

[6:04] So, yeah. And uh um That's good news.

[6:17] » Amy and Chris and anybody else who wants to jump into this deep end of the court,

[6:22] but do we have any sense as to how the new legislation is going to impact,

[6:28] you know, the traditional December 1st time frame as when the tax department,

[6:35] » there shouldn't be any impact. They're saying December 1st. So I don't see

[6:40] anything coming from the state

[6:49] » positively.

[6:53] » Right. Now I know that the actual tax rate was less

[6:58] » last year.

[7:04] Wild card. I think that's going to also depend on

[7:09] the state level that's going to be utilized again.

[7:16] [Music] >> It was a total of 115 million that was

[7:20] that was from two different sources put into buying essentially buying down the

[7:25] tax rate if you would. >> Um but like Chris said that's a big butt

[7:31] on that whether that happens again in the next couple years.

[7:36] We were told not to I was just going to say on it.

[7:40] » We're seeing the agency of transportation really in a deficit with

[7:43] their budget now. So money just like on the local level and the state level is

[7:49] going to be some very hard decision >> implementation is FY 28

[7:57] 28 28 28 so there's a couple years more to deal with still. So

[8:05] yeah, pretty much this year 27. Yeah. So we'd have

[8:13] » Yeah. One more fiscal year of something needing to be done or you could see

[8:17] another. Yeah. Actually two reality.

[8:30] » Yeah. They believe

[8:35] So, it's not likely going to be 2024

[8:42] taxes at 2026 costs. >> There's going to be something,

[8:54] » right?

[8:58] » But this current Yes. the next one or two as

[9:03] a wild card that's the most I want to I guess

[9:11] it depends there's a lot too on December 3rd we all go down for a

[9:17] annual uh really you know they call it a budget over it's really it's like a the

[9:25] state economists come in and give kind of like a health of the of the state

[9:30] budget and what what revenues look Are they up now? Good news is this last

[9:35] couple few years well all the way back or forward have been in the positive

[9:42] direction. Um but you can't hear that on December 3rd. I don't like

[9:48] transportation for instance if you all saw took a hit just recently because um

[9:53] truck sales are down. Literally I was talking transportation and that's that's

[9:57] a big factor with truck sales down because the cost of living trucks. So so

[10:02] high on grand.

[10:09] So it's had a profound impact. You got vehicle payment as much as your

[10:14] mortgage.

[10:23] » They do so far. In a couple months that could could change, but hopefully not.

[10:29] in your circles, have you heard any glimmers of hope?

[10:32] » No. Um,

[10:36] you know, there's the federal title of course

[10:41] likely we have just what we issued, but

[10:46] it's likely that many of those title funds will be eliminated or

[10:53] reduced except for the

[11:02] until

[11:09] you know I think we all know that healthare is up again.

[11:20] I think our revenues look pretty steady

[11:25] and we've already started back and forth with the state around our numbers. So,

[11:33] those aren't matching and they usually don't. We have to go through a very

[11:37] lengthy process of back and forth.

[11:52] We have some other school updates. It was a fabulous start to the school year.

[12:01] our work with um you know our teachers collaboration

[12:09] professional development that's happening around literacy and

[12:13] instruction

[12:16] we had a very successful summer on our project speak to that a little bit

[12:22] » yeah all the storm water work is complete you guys have storm water that

[12:26] you have

[12:29] a couple projects here and there.

[12:37] » Yeah, we um you know they just they did their own bidding process and picked a

[12:42] contractor and we got one from Fairfield called who did an excellent job. And the

[12:48] thing that I don't normally see out of contractors which was much appreciated

[12:52] is at the end of the day they were sweeping Avenue.

[12:55] » Nice. 5 5:30 at night after they had their trucks going down there every day.

[13:00] So, I thought that was it was nice that they hired someone local for us, but it

[13:04] was also nice that they were just taking care of the city at the end of the day.

[13:07] I thought that was cool. Um, and the roof is done. Um, and that came in under

[13:12] budget, which was great. Um, so, um, happy to have that figured out. And now

[13:18] we're just in the process of planning what we're going to get done next

[13:23] summer. You know, we really only have an 8week in the summer and we need to

[13:29] increase the amperage coming into the building. Um so that's going to be the

[13:35] first piece of next summer before we can really do anything in there. Um because

[13:39] we have we're running sort of that maximum capacity of what that building

[13:44] can handle. Um so that's going to be sort of the first piece um to get things

[13:49] moving. So that'll start literally the day school is up. It's a three-we

[13:53] process. you can't do it like during vacation or and it's big cables, you

[13:59] know. So, um time we have so we're gonna we may lose

[14:05] a little bit of time um in the beginning of next summer with that. We're going to

[14:09] have to have a lot of people bring power in starts.

[14:14] We essentially have three more summers to finish all the projects that we're

[14:19] we're doing. So, we're going to try to knock out as much of it as possible. Um

[14:23] All the windows will be delivered shortly and they'll be ready to go. And

[14:26] they're going to start going in whenever they can work. If it's 40 degrees over

[14:31] Christmas week, they're going to put a couple room windows in in February break

[14:35] and April. So the window projects going really well. I'm just happy the roof got

[14:41] on before school opened and that storm water project was really really good and

[14:46] easy to do. So good luck with yours. I'm assuming yours are more widespread than

[14:50] just projects.

[14:53] » Oh,

[14:58] » it's all consuming right now.

[15:06] » No, honestly, there's really not. I mean, we're

[15:10] hoping that, you know, insurance come out. It's a struggle right now. We have

[15:16] obviously like everybody we have certain regulations that we have to follow

[15:21] that we have to meet

[15:27] » a lot of it is public works.

[15:34] When is the first bond payment due on >> so we actually uh paid it in the last

[15:41] » okay >> um but the delta between

[15:47] year one is just interest and year two is principal and interest so the delta

[15:54] between that will be adding 400k to the budget

[15:59] » what we're trying to do some of our um storm

[16:05] We have the storm water utility ordinance that we are putting in place

[16:09] and looking forward to being through the process and

[16:14] get 60 or 90 days now to we have some money that we have set aside that is

[16:22] going to seed that fund utilizing all our options and how we're going to

[16:28] move forward.

[16:32] » We were actually program. Our work was 350k and we only pay 35 of it which was

[16:38] great. And they also refunded us like the permit fees which were about 5,000

[16:43] for even 6,000 for there. >> So that worked out really well. But you

[16:47] had to commit. You had to they were running out of money

[16:51] » and only the people who were ready to do it this summer were guaranteed to get it

[16:55] done because it's a fivey year window that started last year. So because we

[16:58] were ready to go, we were able to access that. also recently been uh we've had

[17:06] some grants that we've had to turn to turn down due to not being reimbured.

[17:16] So even when you get grant money, it's not a guarantee that you'll be able to

[17:27] schools as well.

[17:32] » Bouncing back to the whole redistricting, do you guys have a

[17:36] preferred plan in place or you just kind of waiting until

[17:40] » Well, you know, it's it's interesting that um

[17:44] you know, one they haven't So we did a lot of work last spring and

[17:52] association said we'll come to you with some proposals based on what we know

[17:58] about building usage and programming and demographics and um transportation.

[18:05] They weren't interested and um and now it it looks like there's been some

[18:11] movement of some districts, you know, to sort of partner with other districts and

[18:17] then present their proposals um to the task force, but to me it seems

[18:23] like it's not they're not interested, right? Like if they were interested,

[18:27] they would have asked us, right?

[18:37] CTE

[18:43] customer of all three. >> Yeah.

[18:46] » Are we primary to ethics? Is that how that works?

[18:49] » Not necessarily. No.

[18:53] So, and you know, as we know, um, even with having access to the CTS,

[19:02] we often still have students that are waiting

[19:06] » really. >> So, and that's common across many of the

[19:09] high schools that those CTS. So, that's concerning to us that the CT,

[19:17] you know, divide Bington into one district and

[19:23] still.

[19:31] » No, but we do have some.

[19:42] » Yeah, it's not. It's Fair. It's

[19:50] nursing kids.

[19:53] I I don't know. >> Cool. Okay. That was an option.

[19:59] » We don't go down there, >> but we have students that go to St.

[20:14] » Yeah, we do. She played on the team. the other team the other day. I saw it.

[20:19] Yeah. How does that work? I've never heard of that.

[20:22] » We get a bill. We get a tuition bill from them

[20:25] that we have to pay just like people in North Georgia.

[20:30] » When I was on the school board, if you didn't have a student coming from there

[20:34] to here and there to there to make it even, you couldn't do it. So now you can

[20:41] pay for it. >> Well, change.

[20:44] » Yes. So the new law is that There's a lottery system where students

[20:50] can apply in a given time frame to students from can apply to go to a

[20:56] different school within the lottery system. The school doesn't have to

[21:00] accept them as long as they have so many students participating in the lottery

[21:06] and they um they say our student

[21:15] so that works.

[21:17] » Oh, so even though this student's going to say, "Oh, then she'll have to

[21:21] graduate with the milk." >> No, but she's counted in our

[21:26] » So, we pay for it even though there's not somebody coming here.

[21:31] » Yes.

[21:35] » Well, it's not. We We get the ADM, so we get to count them as part of our advert.

[21:41] » So, no, we're not paying money. >> Okay.

[21:43] » So, Yeah, it's the lottery and it's very

[21:47] it's very small number of students. >> How many do we have right now currently

[21:51] going to other schools that fill us? >> I don't I don't know. It was only

[21:56] » that's tuition. That's different than the

[21:57] » lottery. I

[22:01] It's only high school students that can participate.

[22:13] » It's changed since It's hard to get in. I mean, there's

[22:17] students that apply that

[22:25] is very popular, but they're also kind of

[22:28] seems

[22:39] basically two more months.

[22:47] have a very limited time frame.

[22:52] » So what's the plan after district?

[22:58] » Yeah. Once the once the district map is adopted

[23:03] um then uh right now at the same time we just started seeing the u voting wars.

[23:10] another committee to start talking about voting wars within the districts. So

[23:15] they in conjunction with task force are now starting to meet. Um and then after

[23:20] the district for when I think it's 2028 is when um the districts the new

[23:28] districts are supposed to take over total

[23:32] handling the school and all that stuff. There's a

[23:37] a very strict November 2027 is when they would do the elections for the new

[23:43] boards. That new board will hire a superintendent

[23:47] after the school year after year starts and then those

[23:55] board will start

[24:02] » there's no details about how that's going to happen.

[24:06] » Quite honestly, I would not say that there's a

[24:12] very it's going to be fluid I think >> well it guidance all these collective

[24:17] bargaining right there's there's all sorts of like

[24:21] the debt how service going to work so there's a lot

[24:25] of things all these moving parts are going out

[24:30] there >> five districts

[24:33] contract >> absolutely different term lengths and

[24:37] ends You know, as much as you think that

[24:40] might be the hardest part, it's probably going to be the easiest part to come up

[24:43] with figuring out the rest of the process. I think this year actually is

[24:48] going to be much harder than last year. Last year was

[24:53] the process ahead of us is going to be harder than the process that's

[24:57] » Chris. I was under the understanding that the school board chair at the time

[25:02] is the person that's designated. That's what I was at one meeting I went to that

[25:08] the current chair of the individual schools would be the person that there

[25:14] wasn't an election. >> I don't

[25:17] I don't believe that's the case. I know discussion about that.

[25:20] » Yeah. >> I don't think I don't think that's

[25:23] actually kind of set. >> Okay. But there was discussion.

[25:28] » Yes.

[25:31] » Okay.

[25:44] So on the town um healthare obviously we do know what our increase is going to be

[25:50] already%

[25:53] is much better than we were anticipating a really sad thing to say

[25:59] what we thought but if you compound it with last year we're looking

[26:05] health insurance.

[26:08] We obviously don't see that going away anytime soon. It's almost like you can

[26:12] establish a 10% increase yearly pretty much. Um the also a couple of the big

[26:19] things on the town side that we have we have the department of public works

[26:23] building bond that's going to start to make payments on that. Paving costs

[26:28] are going through the roof. We're getting a lot less done, a lot more

[26:32] money. And um staffing staffing is always most

[26:38] expensive part of operation

[26:42] making sure our staff is in a position where they don't want to

[26:47] stay working for the county. >> We have seen

[26:53] great success with the police department. So, are we at full or

[27:02] right now?

[27:11] » Yep. Two in the last couple months. One is

[27:16] already doing their field training. >> The hardest part with our with police

[27:22] department is a lateral move which from one police department to another police

[27:27] department, you're talking at least six months of just before they're actually

[27:31] an active working officer in the community. And when we start looking at

[27:36] somebody who doesn't have any credentials and has to go through the

[27:39] academy looking

[27:43] out there enforcing law the the pipeline and the time frame of

[27:50] that onboarding process is a really hard thing to plan for when you start

[27:53] retirements other

[27:59] staff is almost impossible

[28:04] much better than where we're at. >> Much better than where we are. The

[28:07] decisions that have been made over the last couple years with the police

[28:10] department have really made it much easier for them to recruit and

[28:16] » at one point we're down to 11 officers on the road due to injuries and

[28:20] retirements out of the 17 offic.

[28:30] They're still doing a good job >> even though they're down.

[28:34] » You wouldn't know it. >> Back there.

[28:40] » The other uh Well, what do you want me to segue?

[28:42] » No, I just want to I was going to segue into SRO or

[28:49] » you ruined it. >> Sorry.

[28:53] » No, no. Obviously, now would be the time if there was any desire effort to put on

[28:57] a second for us to start considering that

[29:08] throwing it out there. There hasn't been any discussion. Yes or no?

[29:15] Right.

[29:28] » Agreed. I do think if there's going to be a year where Congress actually able

[29:35] to accomplish some things, I would expect the city's massive crime bill to

[29:39] come out, which I would expect to be a plus for local police department.

[29:45] program. So I think we should at least be ready

[29:50] to jump quickly if there is such an opportunity in the next year year and a

[29:55] half

[29:59] if there's going to be any success. I think it would be around

[30:17] the other topic I was hoping to talk a little bit more about

[30:23] mentioned at the last school board meeting

[30:27] looking at some resource sharing collaboration between the district and

[30:33] utilizing each other more for things that we can obviously

[30:40] coming out of the same taxpayers pockets. Um, and if we can

[30:44] » another couple years. >> Exactly. And if we can eliminate any

[30:47] redundancy or you know taking more money than we need to because we're both doing

[30:53] the same thing

[31:00] about that next meeting. from

[31:05] where >> our cabinets.

[31:10] » Our cabinets of two me and two others

[31:23] bring down resources. I think that

[31:33] at one time it was very successful remember

[31:37] with um sharing electrical work and all that years ago was when I first got on

[31:44] the board we were sharing >> still

[31:51] Yeah, you're >> always

[31:59] the local cont.

[32:11] » Yes, unfortunately

[32:15] not.

[32:18] electrician. We do have a new vehicle maintenance

[32:22] » person

[32:27] that we do have what seven or eight

[32:40] » and we have the facilities

[32:45] before. So that's certainly an area that we

[32:56] We get to move to community. >> Absolutely.

[33:01] » Um, do we have any

[33:07] members that want to make comments? Anything online?

[33:17] I will make a motion to

[33:33] » I assume we're not meeting on December 29th. That's the next day.

[33:43] » I won't be here, but

Milton School Board & Select Board Joint Meeting 2025-09-25

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