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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFCMeetingMinutes_12.01.15 TOWN OF NORTH ANDOVER FINANCE COMMITTEE Meeting Minutes Meeting Date December 1, 2015 CTO 6:45 Bill Callahan, BC Chairman X Susan Almono, SA X Donald Elliot, DE Vice Chair X Timothy Tschirhart, TT X Karin Blake, KB X Liz Gerron, LG Thomas Ringler, TR X Angela Ciofolo, AC, X Chris Nobile, CN X Jennifer Goldman, JG X Non Fincom Members in Attendance Dr. Price (Price) Superintendent of the North Andover School System Note: All FINCOM votes are subject to change upon receipt of new information. Note: Documents used in this meeting are listed in Document Table, herein. Agenda A. Approval of Minutes th KB: Made motion to adopt and accept the minutes as amended for October 28 JG: Second the motion th All were in favor to accept and adopt the amended minutes for October 28. th TT: Made a motion to accept the November 17 minutes CN: Second the motion All were in favor Agenda B. Dr. Price Introduction to the Committee BC: Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us, and talk about the challenges and opportunities, and also to welcome you to the Town. You may or may not know everyone on the Finance Committee, but we will go around and introduce ourselves to you. With that being said the Finance Committee members stated their names and spoke of their children, if any the school system, past or present. 1 December 1, 2015 st Price: Stated that she has been on the job since July 1, since then she has met with many people over the summer. Price went on to say that she really does appreciate being invited to the Finance Committee Meeting. Price wanted the Committee to know that when she met with various groups of people, she felt a very strong sense of community here in North Andover. There is a strength and pride here in this town, you can see it and feel it. Price: Wanted to talk of input, what is working in the school system and what is not. Price: Stated that even with limited resources there is lots of commitment from the faculty, that go above and beyond with the kids. Price was happy with the raised values here and they also have a consistent approach to what we value, and the spirit and sense of collaboration (she owes that to her predecessor). Price: These are the things that I got a sense of from the community. Price spoke of the leadership team that has proven to be very helpful (started also by her predecessor) and how they go into schools and look into issues of practice. Price: Stated even with those things we do have things that are not working. She spoke of the non consistency among the 5 elementary schools. The teachers have no time to collaborate and that may be the key to help with consistency. They have hired a coordinator for math and science for K12, and also another for the humanities. Price: also mentioned for those students in the elementary schools who find it easier academically never feel pushed until they enter High School. Price: Went on to say that the IP subgroups are underperforming compared to the state This should not be happening in North Andover. The ELL Students are also a concern; this is when the parents and students first language is not English (called the low incident district, not a huge percentage). concerns were any information that was being sent home from the student to their it being translated back to the parents. Price: Spoke of the incredible need to develop consistency in structures at the central office level. Price: Far too many superintendents in a short time. Price: Spoke of the hiring process and stated that a sample lessonteach a class in front of the kids, is very helpful in the decision of hiring. It is different than just having an interview. Price: Also spoke of her concerns around resources. Every superintendent would all say they need additional resources. Price: One of the things she felt might help everyone understand is the rankings from the Boston Magazine. They rated North Andover 73 out of 125 school districts based inside the 495 area. Price: Spoke of the various rankings and values. Price spoke of North ranking of 118 which rates everyone on class size, student to teacher ratio, and per student spending. The Output ranking for North Andover was 43. Price mentioned some of these ranks, such as Graduation rate, students who go on to attend college, SAT scores. The key takeaway here is that the Output ranking is 43. Price: Just because you spend more money for mean you will have a better outcome. Price: Boston Magazine does not take into account student demographics. 2 December 1, 2015 TR: Stated he loves how Price approaches this, what we put into this (such as money in comparison to other) and what we get out, this is good. Price: Finding comparable districts to North Andover is challenging. CN: Spoke of the return on investment. You get a return for the money in district, very powerful, shows efficiency. Price: Stated that she wanted to alert and inform everyone that in the last few years a Committee was formed by some important folks. They put out a report called Review She passed out this report to the committee members and urged them to read it. Price: Stated they addressed 2 pretty strong overhauls. In the report they speak of Special Education, in the report they state that it is not an adequate representation of school spending. It is not reimbursed at the level that it should be. The other is Health Care, not taking into consideration the rising cost of health care. Price: Stated in the report they have recommended an aggressive overhaul and Price asked the committee to look at page 9 of the report she submitted to see the impact. Price: Stated that it was communicated to her that North Andover can benefit by 3.2 million dollars in an increase to State aid. It would require matching a little over a 1/2 million dollars from the town, this would be close to 4 million dollars. Price: This is exciting that they are looking at the Foundation Budget. Price: Any question TT: Stated he has fears of running out of money for Special Education. How are we addressing this? Price: Responded that she thought it was wonderful that the Town Manager set up Special Education contingencies. The reality is you always have some unanticipated cost in Special Education. We are going to present this tomorrow night. We are slightly in the red, right now we are $32,000 in the red. Our anticipation is that we have to dip into Contingency for about $150,000. Price: Stated the two concerns she has for Special Education is cost and achievement. They hired a consultant to look at Special Education. Price stated that she really trusts this consultant, since she has an incredible range of experience. She has been spending time in our schools to see how we can be more efficient in Special Education. This consultant comes at a reasonable cost. Price: Only wants to keep programs that we do well. Some students cannot be serviced in our district and need to go out of district. We should and need to support programs that we do well. with that (that is when they would need to go out of district). BC: Stated that we live in a community that has options and choices 3 December 1, 2015 Price: Stated she is okay with competition, but that she wants people to feel that North Andover is a good choice, regardless of who their kid is. BC: Thanked Price for coming and speaking to the Board. Price: Stated that she will be back once things are more specific. DE: Always good to get more information Fincom: Thanked Price for coming. Agenda C. Social Media BC: Opened up the conversation to the committee on Social Media and how we should be putting out information from the Finance Committee to social media. The Committee spoke of various Social Medias and how they can put out this information. Who will put this information out there, and what should be written. BC: Stated this would be just to push out information and would be relatively simple. JG: Stated she is better with Facebook and felt that once or twice a month is sufficient. JG: offered to do postings. BC: Stated that he will write up a series of guide lines for Social Media and we will vote on it for the next meeting. Agenda D. Working on Meeting Schedule BC: Spoke of future meeting dates for the Finance Committee and then stated that Maylor would th like us to vote on the Capital Improvement plan by February 9. We will have different department heads speak at specific meeting dates. Tuesday, January 5th Tuesday, January 12th th Tuesday, January 26 th Tuesday, February 9 Tuesday, February 23 Tuesday, March 1st Tuesday, March 8th Tuesday, March 15th Tuesday, March 22nd th Monday, March 28 Tuesday, April 5th th BC: CPC is scheduled to be ready March 10. Rooms still need to be reserved for these dates. 4 December 1, 2015 Agenda E. Adjournment 8:45 TT: Made a motion to adjourn DE: Second the motion All in favor Document Table SUBJECT FROM TO 1.Finance Committee Minutes October 28 th,2015 (Amended) Angela Fincom 2. Finance Committee Minutes November 7th,2015 Angela Fincom 3.FY17 Budget Calendar Bill Callahan Fincom 4.Foundation Budget Review Commission Dr. Price Fincom 5.Boston Magazine Rankings Dr. Price Fincom 5 December 1, 2015