FINAL School Committee Minutes November 16 2021.pdf

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they were reviewed. Mr. Ikonen thanked Ms. Andrade for her hard work, even while battling illness, on preparing the payroll and the department requests budget. Mr. Ikonen then met with Dr. Bouquillon and Mr. Mahoney, who is mentoring him through his first budget to learn the process. They are proceeding to the next step and preparing the documentation and information for presentation to the upcoming meeting of the Finance Committee. After that,Dr.Bouquillon will review the first iteration of his budget and it will continue through the process until final presentation to the School Committee. 13. Approval of Members of the OPEB Advisory Group VOTE: To approve the members of the OPEB Advisory Group Mr. Ledoux noted that the School Committee previously authorized the formation of an OPEB study committee and that the group was structured with a 5-member committee: 1) a member of the Finance Subcommittee 2) a Finance Director or member of the Finance Committee from one of our member towns 3) Assistant Superintendent of Operations 4) District Treasurer 5) At-large member He added that our change in by-laws allows us to bring in outside expertise when needed. At the last Finance Committee meeting, the following members were recommended: 1) Steve Ledoux—representing the Finance Subcommittee 2) Sandy Pooler—finance Director and Deputy Town Manager for the Town of Arlington 3) Rich Ikonen—Assistant Superintendent of Operations 4) Laurie Elliott—District Treasurer 5) Jim Gammill—at-large member Mr. Ledoux added that at a recent Finance Committee meeting, Ms. Leone raised the issue whether this is really a committee under the guise of our by-laws because there is only one voting member on it, Mr. Ledoux. He noted that he looked at it as an advisory committee and a committee that would recommend to the School Committee what would our annual contribution to OPEB should be and that it is ultimately the decision of the School Committee what to put in the operational budget for the upcoming year and what budget they are going to set after we have our budgetary hearing. He added that he does not look at this as a really long process but something that should have their task done in a few months, and he wanted to bring the kind of dichotomy to the members' attention and asked Ms. DeLuca for comments. Ms. DeLuca shared that she feels they need to get going on it to get it done in the timeframe allotted and even though it does not have the same name as all of the other various things that are in our policies, we should just make a recommendation as a group to the School Committee 14