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First up, we have public disclosure, not seeing any audio disclosure, no public comment.

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We have

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May 17th, May 7th, May 21st, June 1st, September 3rd,

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that we accept a minute of March 9, May 7th, May 21, June 1, and September 3rd, 2026 School Committee meetings.

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Can I get a second?

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Second.

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Any changes?

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I can see it.

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Not seeing any. All those in favor say aye.

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Aye.

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Hi, and the chair votes, I also.

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Next up, we have a field trip out of state, up to Market Basket.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, Market Basket for the all program.

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This is an annual trip where they take the kids up to Market Basket.

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Mr. Chair, sorry, excuse me.

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It's actually a weekly trip.

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We have the program staff do a one-field trip for the entire year, but they go every week.

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Okay. Thank you for the clarification.

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Can I see a motion, please?

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I move to approve the market-best-field trip request from Iraq High School, all-class.

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I see. Any further questions? Not seeing any? All those in favor say aye?

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Aye.

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And the jail votes, I also thank you.

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Next up, we have the

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fundraiser request

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from Murdoch Middle High School popcorn.

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Do you like me to speak to that?

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Please.

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We have the senior class as requesting approval

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for the annual budget rate.

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Butter or braid fundraiser proceeds will help

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offset the cost of prom, senior occasions,

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and the senior class trip.

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And then we also have the cross-country team

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request for approval for a popcorn fundraiser to support program expenses and team activities.

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Thank you. Any questions on this?

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I'm not seeing any. Can I get a motion to approve, please?

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I make a motion that we approve the double good fundraiser and the cost of 2027 fundraiser

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request.

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Can I get a second? Second. All those in favor say aye.

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I, and the Chibotai also. Thank you. Okay. Liz, you want to go over the warrant thing?

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Yeah, yeah. We, just a quick explanation during our recent policy subcommittee meeting

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with the MASC. We discussed the requirement that information from the most recent warrant

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be made available to the full school committee at the next meeting following the warrant date.

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Going forward the cover page from the most recent work will be included in the packet as part of the consent agenda.

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No vote or action is required. It is being provided for informational and record keeping purposes only.

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The most recent work is dated today, September 17th, and that has been included in your packet.

49
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Can I get a motion to accept the warrant article as presented?

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Do we need to make a motion?

51
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You don't have to do anything, it's just for informational.

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Okay, so going forward we'll see these every time we have a warrant article, as we're

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going through our records.

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We found this was information.

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Thank you for your presentation. That was needed to be updated. And so now we are correcting that. Okay.

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You're up, Liz.

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to jump right into the budget update and your packet you'll see a year-to-date

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budget report as of September 14th, 2026. We are projecting current salaries for

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current staff and budgeted positions and then we have some cleanup to do in

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some of the blanket purchase orders that were created in July. So I want to

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provide a little bit of context around some of the line items that are currently

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showing at or above 100%. Particularly this early in the year, the percentage used column

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does not represent actual spending. It also includes open purchase orders and the remaining

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salary commitments for the year. So as a result some of the accounts can appear fully committed

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or temporarily over budget while we are completing year in reconciliation and adjusting estimates.

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So, several of the 12-month salary accounts are currently affected by the FY26, FY27 payroll

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transition.

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The final FY26 payroll for those employees that was processed after July 1st is therefore

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still reflected in FY27 accounts.

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The year in adjustment to move the appropriate portion back to FY26 is not yet been posted

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by the time accounts office.

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Once that occurs, those accounts should come back into alignment.

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There is one separate salary adjustment needed at the high school during reconciliation.

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I identified that the high school's social studies teacher salary line was understated

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in the original budget because the worksheets formula captured two positions rather than three

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charged to that account.

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So the employee salary commitments in that column are correct, it accounts for all the appropriate

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staff.

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So, we will need to bring a budget transfer to the committee at a future meeting.

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We also have several accounts where the current percentage is being driven by open purchase

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orders rather than actual standing, for example, the copy or account has an outstanding purchase

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order that will be reconciled and closed, that will release the remaining incumbents for

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that.

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The elevator and vehicle fuel accounts are similarly affected by a blanket purchase order.

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those were initially established at amounts higher than we now expect to need.

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So those will be reduced as part of our normal reconciliation process.

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A few utility accounts are also slightly above budget at this point because we

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established estimated annual income purchases at the beginning of the fiscal year.

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So as actual bills come in, those estimates will be adjusted to reflect current usage and cost.

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And if a budget transfer is needed to cover any overages, we'll bring that back to you as well for approval.

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Overall, what we're seeing at this point is primarily the result of timing, estimated

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in conferences, and normal beginning of year reconciliation.

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We will continue reviewing the accounts as the year progresses, and if we identify any

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budget variances, I'll bring those transfers or any other adjustments to the committee

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for approval.

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Happy to answer any questions.

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So a lot of these numbers are what you see showing 100% are these are just

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encumbered funds that we that we have for certain certain things so they're

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not spent as of yet they're just there because like we do our salaries a lot

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of time and we encumber the funds at the beginning of the year and then draw off

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them. Am I understanding that correctly? You are. You are.

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Everybody a minute to go

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through the numbers.

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Liz, I'm sorry.

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Can you review what happened with the teacher's budget?

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I think you said social studies, what happened there?

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Social studies.

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Yes, I was reviewing, once I pulled this report,

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I noticed that that particular line item

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was showing significantly over the budget.

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And that is relatively common as we,

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especially if we've had some vacant positions,

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sometimes we hire staff at different salaries.

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you know, that's what I think. But what I noticed is that the staff under that particular

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line item were not totaling correctly. It was only showing two staff. So there, we will

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need a budget transfer to cover that later on at a later meeting.

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And we have that, right? That's just part of moving it from one count to another. Is that correct?

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I'm sorry, stay that one more time? That's something we've accounted for. It's just moving

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get from one account to another? Is that correct?

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Yes, it's not an unanticipated position or expenditure.

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The position is already part of our staffing plan.

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The original budget just understated that particular salary account.

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So I'll correct the distribution through transfer.

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It has to be approved by the school committee once I've confirmed the best source.

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So we're still pretty early in the fiscal year and completing some salary

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and incumbrance reconciliation, so I want to make sure that I'm recommending an account

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that has a true projective savings rather than just a temporary balance.

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Thank you so much.

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You're welcome.

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Any other questions?

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Do you have anything else for us Liz?

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I do not, but I'm happy to speak to the donation under new business, but that was all

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I had in my budget day.

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Absolutely,

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whenever you're ready.

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Okay, sorry.

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So the district received a general donation from the CAC that consisted of school supplies.

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These supplies were divided between the middle school and high school art departments for use for students.

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So the donation is being presented to the committee for full acceptance for

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a motion.

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I move we approve the give duration form for CAC for school supplies to Murdoch High School and Middle School.

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Can I get a second?

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Second.

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Any further questions on it?

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Not seeing any, all in favor say aye.

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Aye.

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And the chair votes aye also, thank you.

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That's going to be a real quick meeting tonight.

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I'll say.

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Yeah.

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We have no all business to anybody have any future agenda items.

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I

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was hoping that we were going to have an opportunity to review the MCAS results.

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They're not out yet.

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They're not out yet.

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When we anticipate that being out, they usually come out late October, right?

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Am I right?

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Yeah, about late October.

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You get, right now, you get preliminary results and then there's some back-of-fourth of,

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some clarification on some things and then once the final number comes out the

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parents got each child's one but that's not with all the all the information

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of student growth and whatnot that all comes in in and around the same time.

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Does he raise your hand, Liz?

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I'm following.

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Okay. Yeah, so when those come in we will schedule a meeting and that will have it

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on it and that will be a full presentation of great by great and where we sit comparatively

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with the state.

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Actually, I'm looking forward to that.

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I think we're in better shape than we used to be.

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But I don't know if it goes under future agenda items or we should just sort of relay it back

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back to the superintendent to bring us that, but I'm seeing a lot of bus emails going out.

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And I noticed at the beginning of the school year and that's to be expected, but it's

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kind of frustrating for me and I'm not even a parent or one of the kids to see, oh this

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bus is running so this is what's going to happen and this is going to happen.

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I mean, I'm hoping that this is all going to get straightened out.

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Mr. Chair, we do have a meeting scheduled with the bus company for tomorrow morning.

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We've been trying to schedule with them for a couple of weeks now, and they have some

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stuff on vacation, so we're going with a list of concerns.

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Our building administration have been collectively entering the bus complaints into a spreadsheet,

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So we will go with that data and a few other questions that we had about, you know, the costs of the minibus and that sort of thing.

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So we plan on addressing all of our concerns tomorrow.

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Okay.

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Would you be so kind after that meeting to have an email sent out about how they plan to rectify this?

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I mean, we did reduce one bus so it should be easier for them.

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Sure, yeah, we can send something out once we have the information, you know, that's

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unsure everyone's looking to see.

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Okay.

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I appreciate that.

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Anything else?

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Well, we're going to go to closing member comments and I will stop with you along.

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I have nothing.

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It seems like we're off to a good start this year for our schools.

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of everything seems to be going really well.

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It's nice to see all these requests coming through

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for the different things for the students to be doing.

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I think that's all that adds to their overall educational

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background.

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Let's keep doing all that.

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I don't have anything tonight.

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Okay. Just like to say that we seem to be on a better

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better plan this year. I know that we closed our books on time this year and Liz has been working on

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closing our grants. The audit committee will be meeting shortly. The auditor was appointed on Monday

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night and he's going to be with us for a while longer because yeah. They put out some things and

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But I'm so happy that Tony Roselli is going to stay with us.

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There's no, no, he'll be here at six o'clock.

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The fundraiser?

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No.

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I don't understand what you're talking about, but-

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She wants to know what the fundraisers are for for this school year.

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What I'm going to tell you is to show up at 6 o'clock when public comment is there.

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You are more than welcome to speak.

215
00:27:24,490 --> 00:27:27,210
No, they fundraise for different events.

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They do, actually, sometimes.

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Most of the things, let me see what they say.

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Let's see.

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Here we have.

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Pup gone fundraisers, virtual fundraisers that know upfront cost for product handling.

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These are for the classes.

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These are for the classes so they have money in their funds,

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student activity funds, that they spend over the course of the year.

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They see your trips, graduation.

225
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What's that?

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We don't have drag shows.

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We don't have drag shows at the school.

228
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You're talking out of school, okay?

229
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All right,

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because you don't know what you're talking about, we don't have drag shows at the school.

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Number one, number two, if you'd like to speak at a meeting, we have public comment at six o'clock.

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I allowed you to answer these questions, but in the future, please comment at six o'clock when we have public comment.

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And you are more than welcome to step up to the microphone and speak, okay?

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Appreciate that.

235
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You're welcome. Motion to adjourn. Moved. Second it. Second.

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Second, all in favor say aye aye and we're adjourned at 6.19