HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-09-06-SC-min (Finance Subcommittee) LEXINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
FINANCE SUB COMMITTEE MEETING
DATE: September 6th 2024
TIME: 4pm
ATTENDEES: David Coelho Ast Superintendent for Finance, Deepika Sawhney and
Larry Freeman from School Committee
The meeting was called to order around 4:25 pm
Deepika shared with Larry Freeman that Mr. Coelho and she had gone over some
questions on the previous warrants approved.
Deepika shared a document and explained how the 2025 budget guidelines document
was taken as a base and modifications were made with track changes in Google
documents, for the Budget guidelines for 2026. Where the work is supposed to be done
this year ('implement'), the language has been modified to reflect a continuation of the
efforts.
Bullet point 2 Ensure all legal and contractual mandates are met.
The recent level 3 grievance hearing was mentioned and the concern was expressed on
whether it was necessary to review all union contracts and evaluate if LPS was
functioning in keeping with the contract language. Grievance processes can bring legal
costs and of course aggravation, loss of staff time in the classroom or on classroom
impacting activities and some negative impact on productivity.
In the discussion the following points were brought up. There were only a few hard caps
in the contract language, most other details are guidelines or recommendations. These
are monitored by department heads as enrollment numbers or any other such factor
changes during the year. Class sizes, case load, salary step up etc. etc are ongoing
processes which may be updated on a weekly basis. For example caseloads and
coverages for nurses and counselors would be kept track of by the Nursing and
Counseling department heads respectively. So they are keeping track of the numbers.
Sometimes mid-year corrections may be needed. It's an ongoing process. It is
periodically looked at especially for special ed students.
The increasing legal costs were also brought up as the Legal fees have been going up
since 2022. Discussion continued on : due to Covid closures, students are coming back
there are a lot of issues, More complaints seem to be arising from the Unions and
Special Ed has had more settlements. Since LPS is now at capacity in many of its
SPED programs, the settlements have begun to ramp up, especially in cases where the
parents and the district have differing ideas on the student's needed care. For example:
the parents may want a residential type program while the school may advocate for a
day program. Such issues may go back several years and it takes legal work to figure
this out. However, legal fees have been going up for the past few years. Deepika raised
the point whether it was possible for less expensive billing rate personnel in Ms. Colby's
office to do some of the work to reduce the total cost charged to LPS.
The discussion then went onto Bullet point 3. There were explanations sought on
how the supplementary staffing numbers were over and above the requested amounts
from the ATM approved budgets every year. Deepika had shared an example of a
Waterfall graph picture obtained online, with Mr. Freeman via email, at the meeting. It is
a good way to explain resultant numbers for personnel. See below.
20'11 Headcount I I t
Though more ergployees transferred cert, than in:, aggressive hiring means overall
eadcounf is up, at year end
�Oi IIVii�r
1/t111 fi�ws Transfers � Transters Cut Exits 101/ 1,
1
Beginning HC Additions Deductions Ending HC,
Mr. Coelho mentioned that the Supplementary process was used at discrete times
during the year for example on January 1 st when new children may enter the district.
However, Deepika raised the question that given the overall number of students has
reduced post Covid, and our SPED percentage is about the same, then the overall
SPED need for the district for personnel should not be so drastically different. Another
point brought up was that every quarterly financial report talked about many vacancies.
Yet every year the employee numbers were up beyond budgeted numbers. Is there a
way to explain the many supplementary positions added every year in addition to all teh
vacancies being filled.
The concern was shared that using the supplementary process seemed to be a
backdoor way of getting more headcount than what was presented at ATMs. It also
made, for example, Ms. Jay's concerns and questions last budget cycle when the SPED
personnel numbers were being reduced, unnecessary.
Net. net it was decided that a meeting with Mr. Coelho, Dr. Hackett and members of the
SC was necessary to understand how the supplementary process was being used, and
whether at every ATM we should be asking for a buffer number of employees to be
allocated over and above the known-projected number. This buffer could be in a
supplementary bucket and drawn down. Personnel is the largest expense of the school
budget and understanding why the number of personnel is increasing at this rate is
important. It was also discussed that adding personnel did not always lead to
productivity and classroom benefit.
For bullet point 4 Identify efficiencies and cost-saving measures that do not
compromise the educational program.
The discussion was around creating opportunities for building heads to identify best
practices and share cost saving strategies. Monitor progress and resultant cost savings
through some metrics.
The 11th bullet point was eliminated because the CHNA grants funds have been
depleted and the William James interface is no longer contracted to provide services for
town folk. In addition, the mental health needs have been captured explicitly in bullet 9
and implicitly in 10.
Bullet 13 has been modified because as the construction start date gets closer the
school sports teams will need plans in place for their fields needs.
Who champions the efforts
Larry wanted to understand more about how would follow through be assured for the
various `action words' used here. Mr. Coelho explained that the various department
heads took it into consideration and `owned' the work if it was within their purview. For
example health related work would be championed by the Health department etc.
2023-24 turnback of about $2.51VI
The 2.5 million projected turnback for 2023-24 was also discussed as about 600k was
projected in the 3rd quarter report. It was explained that a number of previously open
purchase orders from previous years which were needlessly tying up funds were closed
out. This freed up about 2 million dollars in free cash.
This was essentially a windfall from the financial housekeeping by cleaning up previous
years accounts. It is not a recurring source for turnbacks and was now used up as a
possible buffer for the LPS annual budget.
In ensuing discussion, it was observed that there were 2 SPED funds that could be
accessed if we ran short of cash, which
During the normal operations of a school district other funds can be used first, and then
the town appropriated funds from real estate taxes. For example federal grants funds
could be expended first before the funds from town. This would in effect draw down the
federal grants funds before any other bucket of funds. The Circuit breakers funds are
also funds that could be drawn down or the two SPED funds created for an
unprecedented increase in costs. These tend to be carried forward year after year.
However, these also form the buffer that is carried forward as a safety margin for fiscal
prudence. Hence not a desirable action.
To be done
Arrange for a meeting with Dr. Hackett and Mr. Coelho to go over employee numbers
and expense targets for 2024-25 year (this one) and for the upcoming budget 2026.
Meeting was adjourned at 5:02 am