The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About2020-01-30-AC-min 01/30/2020 AC Minutes Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) January 30, 2020 Place and Time: Cary Memorial Building, Hudson Room, 7:30 p.m. Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; Sanjay Padaki, Vice-Chair; Alan Levine, Secretary; John Bartenstein; Lily Manhua Yan; Meg Muckenhoupt; Nick Nichols; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members)Absent: Eric Michelson Other Attendees: Dr. Julie Hackett, Superintendent of Lexington Public Schools (LPS); David Coelho, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations, LPS; Kathleen Lenihan, School Committee; Deepika Sawhney, School Committee The meeting was called to order at 7:35 p.m. Announcements and Liaison Reports Ms. Kosnoff reported the following: • The Town will be selling approximately $9 million in bonds on Wednesday. • The FY2021 Recommended Budget and Financing Plan (Brown Book)is expected to be completed by tomorrow for inclusion in the Select Board's packets for their meeting on Monday evening. • The Budget Summit scheduled for next Thursday may be cancelled. LPS Budget for FY2021 Using this Committee's written questions, which had been submitted to Dr. Hackett prior to the meeting, the initial focus of the discussion was on special education (SPED), its costs, and the staffing audit that is going to be conducted. Dr. Hackett's comments regarding the audit included, but were not limited to, the following: • Staff members are exploring potential vendors to conduct the SPED staffing audit. • The selected consultant will look at programs nationwide as well as comparable communities in the Lexington area. • The goal is to have the audit completed in late spring. • It is anticipated that the audit will include recommendations for using staff more effectively and efficiently; there are some indications that in some cases students may perform better with lower adult/student ratios than with the current ratios. • It is anticipated that there will be some staffing changes, but it isn't clear that this will result in cost savings. • Implementation of program or staffing changes will be complicated and take time, but conversations have been initiated. It will be easier to make changes for new students than to change the accommodations of current students. • In addition to the families that are impacted, there are staff and union considerations. Dr. Hackett's comments regarding SPED programs in general included, but were not limited to, the following: • There often is value in having special needs children spend part of their school day in a general education (Gen Ed) classroom rather than all day in a SPED classroom. 1 01/30/2020 AC Minutes • Individual Education Programs (IEPs) are legally binding agreements between the school department and the parents/guardians of a special needs student. IEPs may identify a requirement for one-on-one assistance for the student. • For this school year, Lexington has approximately 122 special needs students who are placed out-of-district. Although this number fluctuates year-to-year, the percent of this population that are out-of-district remains reasonably constant. The availability of Minuteman Regional Technical High School does not impact this number. • Out-of-placement tuitions average approximately $75,000 per year. • The anticipated bubble for enrollment predicted for the high school may not similarly impact the number of special needs students. These students are served by the SPED program until they are 22 years old. • The fraction of the school budget that supports SPED has been increasing and is currently about 34%. There are a variety of reasons, which include increases in out-of-district tuitions. Dr. Hackett's comments regarding legal expenses associated with SPED programs included, but were not limited to, the following: • Legal costs have been reduced substantially; Lexington is taking advantage of free mediation that is offered by the State. Part of that process involves demonstrating to parents/guardians that the program being offered is the right approach for their child. • There are currently no outstanding legal issues; having adequate staffing is helpful. • It is not anticipated that changes implemented based on the audit would trigger lawsuits. Additionally, Dr. Hackett reported the following: • The five to ten reserve staff positions included in the budget are intended to be used"as needed"; these are for needs that are identified after school starts in the fall. • Although LPS is allowed to spend any funds within the appropriated school budget that are not needed in one area to address other school needs, the administration intends to refrain from spending any funds that are not truly needed. • Lexington receives funds from four outside sources: Chapter 70, entitlement funds, Medicaid, and an amount based on the State's"circuit breaker" program. State circuit breaker funds must be expended before the end of the next fiscal year. • In September 2020, the start times for the different school levels will change from the current times and a redistricting plan that requires two extra buses will be in place. • LPS has completed implementation of enhanced security at Lexington High School for which $382,000 had been appropriated. Additional funding for security has not been pursued for a variety of reasons, including the potential for rebuilding the high school. Minutes After a brief discussion, a motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes, as recently distributed by Mr. Levine, for January 14, 2020, and January 23, 2020. The motion passed. VOTE: 7-0 2020 Annual Town Meeting (ATM) Financial Articles and Report Planning Issues discussed relating to the preparation of the Committee report to the annual town meeting included, but were not limited to the following: • Ms. Kosnoff agreed to work with Mr. Padaki regarding the Recreation Enterprise Fund and how it is handled in the budget. 2 01/30/2020 AC Minutes • Ms. Kosnoff reported that an effort is underway for converting the spreadsheet with budget forecasts into a useable format for Mr. Nichols and Mr. Michelson. • Mr. Nichols reported that, because of the complexity of calculating depreciation for different classes of personal property, the Town uses a vendor to do the required analyses. Detailed data on depreciation by class are not available, so any calculations of such effects will have to be simplified. Ms. Kosnoff urged this Committee to consider preparing the report using Wdesk, cloud-based integration software. She described its flexibility, commenting that it is possible to control who and how many people have access to any single section of the report for editing, etc., and tables from spreadsheets can be embedded so that changes on the spreadsheet are automatically made in the document. She added that the Town has an unlimited license, and there is training material available. Committee members expressed concerns about Open Meeting Law restrictions and the time required to learn a new approach to building the report. It was generally agreed that this would not be attempted for the 2020 ATM report but perhaps could be used for its report to the next special town meeting. Ms. Kosnoff offered to bring demonstration material to a meeting. Future Meetings Dave Pinsonneault, Director, Department of Public Works, plans to attend this Committee's February 5 meeting. Questions should be sent to Mr. Parker, who will forward them to Mr. Pinsonneault in advance. The meeting adjourned at 9:22 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sara Arnold Approved: February 13, 2020 Exhibits • Agenda, posted by Mr. Parker, Chair • Budget-Related Questions for School Department 3