Cumberland, North Yarmouth, and MSAD 51 officials discuss budget pressures and regional collaboration

[3:56] Michael Sweat: Everybody to Cumberland, we're happy to have everybody here, and before we get going, I want to thank Kim Vine for putting this together. It's important that we talk, let everybody know what's going on instead of being three different islands. We'd like to think with it, with three islands that are attached by bridges, so anyways, welcome. If we can, I said not the Mill Road Bridge because that doesn't work right now, too soon. If we will, I, what I'd like to do, just start over in the corner and everybody just introduce themselves, and if you don't have a microphone, just yell it out, and who you represent, and we'll just go around the table [4:53] Grace Till: I'm Grace Till, I'm the junior rep on the school board. [5:01] John Thurston: John Thurston, school board, rep from Cumberland. [5:05] Michael Sweat: Michael Sweat, select board, vice chair. [5:07] Paul Whitmarsh: Paul Whitmarsh, North Yarmouth, select board chair. [5:13] Grace Till: Tig Filson, Cumberland Town Council. [5:17] Jeff Mahal: Jeff Mahal, Cumberland Town Council. [5:19] Michael Sweat: Mikey, council chair, Cumberland. [5:22] Matt Sturgis: Good evening, Matt Sturgis, Cumberland Town Manager. Good to see you. Andrew McGovern Cumberland Town Council [5:29] Bob Vale: Bob Vale Cumberland Town Council [5:31] Kim Vine: Kim Vine Cumberland School Board Chair, also Jeff Porter our superintendent regrets that he is away at a conference and is not able to be here this evening, asked me to send his regards and his apologies [5:45] Leanne Candora: Leanne Candora, geez that's loud, okay, North Yarmouth School Board [5:51] Jesse Lamar Vincent: Jesse Lamar Vincent Cumberland School Board [6:05] Michael Sweat: So before we go into the updates from each town stuff, I do want the most important announcement here is, and that's for everybody up here and in the audience, there's plenty of cookies back here, help yourself, thanks for Brenda for ordering those for us. So what we're gonna ask is everybody from the from the school and then from each town just give an update of what's going on, basically what are your, what are your high-level things, and kind of just give us the cliff note version of what's going on so Kim, I'd love to start with you. Okay, all [6:48] Kim Vine: right, hello everyone again, welcome, and also thank you to everyone who's able to come tonight because I agree this is such an important meeting, shouldn't be, come as too much of a surprise, but the biggest thing on our plate, so to speak, is the one campus project, the physical piece of this, the construction, it is moving along, it is on targets, it's been very exciting, still some lower level decisions to be made, but so far so good, and we should be open for the fall, the non physical part of this, the Logistics of it, the reconfiguration of students, the training of teachers, because teams are being separated and moved around, that is a huge job on top of everything that goes into construction. So I want to take a moment and give a shout out to our administrative team, because in addition to the day-to-day operations, which is a full-time job in and of itself, they are working very hard. This is a very, big job to get to fall of 2027. So that is the biggest thing. Then, as if that weren't enough, for those of you who are not aware, the state of Maine is changing its system for meeting the special needs of preschoolers. So I'm gonna say ECSE, which stands for Early Childhood Special Education, and that's that's what I'm referring to when I say that. What it means is that each district is now responsible to meet those needs rather than relying on the state. It is required, it is law, and in the spring the board as it was in the spring voted to encourage or to ask the administration to pursue a sort of a hybrid model where some of those children will have their needs met in the school at the new small school that will open in the fall and some of them will be able to stay or will choose to stay in their community preschool, which is exactly what we were hoping for. It is a lot a lot a lot of work to then balance those two. We hired a pre-k coordinator, I should say ECSE coordinator, I apologize, and that person has been just hit the ground running to meet with our local preschools and providers and to coordinate all of this. So that is another huge piece of this, and then the last thing I just want to say that for the first time since before covid the district has a new strategic plan. I would encourage anyone who has not seen that to just go to the ms 8051 website as well as to check out the board goals that we voted on or kind of decided on discussed at the over the summer, and there's so much good information on the website. In fact one of the goals is to even improve how we get information out, so if you aren't able to find these things, if you aren't able to figure out what's going on, please feel free to reach out and we can easily direct you to the website and show you how to get it. But there is good stuff coming where it'll be even easier. So that's about it. Great, thank you Kim Paul. [10:34] Paul Whitmarsh: Sure, I guess before I start, I'll let you want to introduce yourself. Yes, sorry I was late, Dana Rogers. Which, all right, so with that for us, the biggest thing going on, the biggest challenge actually has been our hiring a new town manager and all that comes with that. So there has been quite a bit of staffing change, especially in our code office, which hopefully now is settling down. That has been another one of our big issues, but basically the getting the new town manager who unfortunately due to a personnel issue couldn't actually be here tonight, so but Britt has been has been great. She's only been here two and a half months now, and it probably feels like six or eight months for because it is just she came in right at the taxes, the tax commitment coming in, and so it just her timing was, you know, good for us, not so good for her, and so that's really been our challenges and our biggest issue right now. So we're starting to try to align different things in the town differently based on some ideas that she's brought, based on some ideas that the select board has had, changing the way some of the committees operate, changing the way some of the town staff functions, Brits rearranging some of that. So there's a little bit of a little bit of upheaval. On top of that, we have a new website that has been less than cooperative, so at times, so those really have been our biggest issues. We do have some big, as I mentioned, our code office had been empty for a little bit there and is now filled, but we did have some code issues with some large developments in North Yarmouth that are going through some different challenges, let's just say. So that's where our biggest issues have been so far. Do you guys have anything further to add? Oh, yeah, we did start our comp plan committee. And so we do expect in about a year and a half to two years to be running a new comp plan [13:06] Michael Sweat: Thanks, Paul, on the Cumberland end of things. To say we've been busy would be an understatement. We've had a lot thrown at us since really the beginning of summer. If you didn't watch didn't see the on Tuesday the Town Council meeting, we're starting the process of redoing Grilly Road. That road's a mess. I live off of it. It's not only going to be repaid, but the whole thing, most of it's going to be rebuilt. That's going to be an $8-plus million project if we throw in all the bells and whistles. When I say that, I'm talking about the sidewalks and, you know, it's just going to be expensive, it but it needs to be done. The infrastructure is obviously some of our most important stuff. We recently did a council priority study. We wanted to the purpose was not to dampen anybody's pet projects or ideas or we didn't want it we didn't want to stop those from coming forward, but we want to get an idea of where everybody was coming from. So we did a study, it was sent in, and the vice chair put it all together and our top our top three most important items for our town council was short and long range capital planning strategy. We want to get ahead of what's important to us. We want to know what's coming down the pike before we start any new projects. So Matt and his crew at Town Hall have put together a list and it's still compiling the information nation, and it's a pretty road. We got a lot of stuff coming down the pike. The second one was the Grilly Road reconstruction and pavement. The third most important item was the MSD 51 cost sharing agreement. It's important to us. It's so important, and I'm not here to, you know, just beat a dead horse, but it's important. you know we've got a there's a campaign to get enough signatures to put it on the ballot coming up and the signature collectors are pretty getting pretty close we've got route 100 roundabout project that's that's gonna it's gonna cost us a lot of money it needs to be done that 's a huge traffic safety issue up there in west cumberland and then we got stuff like the casco bay trail as you know we were the last community to sign on to it to do the study and it wasn't because we were against trails, it's we just don't know what's coming with the trail itself. Usually like most of these grants there is a 10 local participation and we have 300 three miles of proposed rail trail in Cumberland, which means we're we're probably going to have to come up with 300 000 and I don't know if we can do it. I don't know if we will do it. I don't want to put the car before the horse, but you know, we've just with the infrastructure stuff Gurley Road. And then I know that you're dealing it with a Kim this whole closing of Mill Road caught us by surprise. It affects your operations and it certainly affects ours and you know them force that when they took the bridge which lies right in the middle of the road on Mill Road, that means not only going to have to find one turnaround but we're going to have to find two and you have from your end you're gonna have to find a bus stop or stops on both end and then we got to get into the cost and Matt has done Matt's done a great job for the short amount of any time he's had to collect the information on Mill Road but because that road only has 300 vehicles per day it's gonna be on the low end of priorities for the state we don't have a few million dollars hanging around that we can immediately fix so you know we're gonna strategize and you know work with the state if we have to do local participation I think we will but there's a there's a lot of stuff and last but not least I want to mention that we are looking hard and we extend our hand out to both North Yarmouth and the Sad and we want to talk about consolidation of services or whatever equipment whatever we can do to save the taxpayers of both town money but I know Paul and I Bob and Michael you know we've gotten together swap ideas on different things I think we're going to look at one project at a time and see if we can get these things going but you know in the end I think that it will save money a lot of money for the taxpayers so have I missed anything Mr Manager no it's a good start sir we know we have a lot of plate and we are very fortunate to have Matt on board and it was it was a gift when you came and we appreciate it we didn't mean to throw all the stuff at you so with that being said I guess I'll turn it back over to Kim if you want to give us an update and forecasts and challenges for your FY 28 budget [19:44] Kim Vine: are you ready sure yeah okay so some people know that on October 1st the superintendent intended presented the budget that he and the other administrators have put together just for anything new that's going to be required or recommended once we have four buildings and this reconfiguration so I will first do it as one campus there were a lot and it was very overwhelming and so I'm not going to comment a whole lot on the numbers themselves because next Thursday night if you're not doing anything Come on over, we are having a budget workshop to really dig in. So I just, I just want to remind everybody that those are not the numbers that are going to stay. I suppose they could be, but those are the numbers that the district comes up with to say, you know, in a perfect world, this is what we would have. This would make the operations of our schools the most efficient, the most successful. And as a board, we take a look at those numbers and we say, okay, let's, let's really think about what we can and can't do. So hopefully nobody lost any sleep after that night, because it is not going to stay that way. I can almost guarantee that. Because we are all taxpayers, too. So we all saw that number and immediately thought of our own checkbooks. A checkbook is something physical that you would write. Yeah. So I think if it's okay, I'll leave it at that, only because we are very much in the middle of discussions. But all that to say, we're starting this much, earlier, because knowing of what's coming down. So we have several budget workshops. We very much encourage people to come to speak. There will be separate public comment because it's a workshop. So come listen, and if nothing else, please know that we are taking this very seriously, and we're not just going to say yes to everything just because the district [22:03] Michael Sweat: asks us. That's where we're at. Thank you, Kim. One thing I forgot to mention in my report was something else that just got handed to us. As you know, and I have to do this in case, sure he doesn't come over and smack me in the back of the head, we've got a, the CMP is proposing a very invasive power line. It's the power line that they are proposing to go right down the backyard of people on Grilly Road, Middle Road, and then all along that, the backyards of everybody on the interstate side of Middle Road. They're proposing pole size, the same size poles that they put when they did the power corridor from Quebec down through Maine. So and they're, they're proposing to put that. So we just wrote a letter to the PUC. We've written a letter to the president of Central Maine Power, did a proclamation, Falmouth did the same thing. And, you know, we're hoping that we can convince him to redesign, whether you put it on the ground or relocate it someplace else, but our neighbors in on Middle Road have really taken a beating meeting this year between the rail trail and now this huge expansion of the power. So I forgot to mention that, so I apologize. The next item on the agenda is a recap discussion on deepening the regional collaboration meeting, which was held on September 29. Bob, I'm going to turn this over to you if you want to do some follow-up. [24:03] Grace Till: Make the enrollment study. [24:15] Matt Sturgis: It won't take a long time. I just wanted everybody to know I did speak with GP cogs been doing this work for us, they're close to the home stretch, so they're anticipating that they're going to have the data and everything pulled together by the end of this month. They'll be testing their models and making sure it's all hopefully checks out well, reporting out to staff, meaning probably myself, Bridget and Brett and Jeff, to kind of give them kind of preliminaries, finalize that, and then we should anticipate wrapping at least having a hard report in hand by the end of November, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel and but we what we did in order to try to be cost effective was redeploy some funding that the town had received for some land use planning that quite frankly we didn't need to do as we were hot on the heels on the tail of doing our comp plan, so we redeployed that funding to GPCog and had them do that, so I spoke with the Paul Johnson from GPCog who's doing that work for us today and got that update as we're at so we do see it and then coming, so as soon as we get it I'll, I'll obviously get it out to all three bodies and look forward to seeing how that will be a helpful tool for all three entities. [25:29] Michael Sweat: Very good. Bob, I'll turn it over to you. [25:36] Bob Vale: I think I'm kind of just following along with what Matt said there. But I think everybody here was in Falmouth two weeks ago on Tuesday. And for me, it was 25 years in the making to see that collaboration, the five bodies come together and have a meaningful discussion. And I've given a lot of thought prior to it and post-meeting, and, you know, we can't, you can't just say, all right, well, somebody will man the oars and somebody will skipper the ship and we'll get there. That's not how I took it and I hope that nobody else does. This is a, when we talk about collaboration and consolidation, it means that we all have to exercise some level of involvement and commitment to see this through. Tuesday night we had our town council meeting and I threw out two things kind of tongue-in-cheek, but it really was serious. What does Casco Bay Fire sound like? What does Casco Bay Education Alliance sound like? And what would that mean to you? Does it mean that we would consolidate all the school districts and have a single superintendent? Probably not, but does it mean that we would share services, payroll, staffing, health care, ed techs, bus drivers, teachers, contracts, education programs? Would we share that with one community to another? And I'm not going to pick on the school here because I'm going to throw the towns right you on the bus too. Public works, snow plow routes, fire rescue, again, payroll, office staffing. You know, if we're serious about moving the needle, if we're serious about collaboration, if we're honest about the rate of increase in our taxes, we understand that it's going to be a painful exercise. And part of that pain is to be, to, you know, look in the mirror and say, what am I willing to sacrifice in the interest of making ourselves more efficient? So, I hope that everybody was serious when they were here in Falmouth two weeks ago. I hope that we can, you know, reach out to the other communities. I think that there is a GPCOG is working on that where I know I'm committed to do this and I know that there's others at the table that are committed to this, but the challenge is for all of us to really put our best foot forward and I think we're going to be the better for it. 'S we can't, as I said, you know, we can't expect change by doing the same thing. [29:00] Michael Sweat: Thank you Bob. Before we go out for public discussion, I'd like to ask the three panels, is there everybody at the tables, is something you would like to state, is there something that you would like to ask one of the other entities here? School board wants to ask the town Cumberland or, you know, at the end of something or vice versa. I'll throw it out to you and I think this is a good time to get everything out on the table that we can and swap information, ideas. So is there anybody from the three from the school or from the two towns that would like to ask or make a statement about anything I [29:51] Kim Vine: Forgot to mention under our budget challenges that we have revamped how we are doing the Finance Committee. So for those of you who don't know, the meetings are now at 5 o'clock on the first Thursday of the month, just before our school board meetings, and Sean as our finance chair is actively working on ways of making that meeting more accessible. We're working through some challenges of how to set it up so that everybody can hear each other and see each other, but also how to get information out to people. So I apologize that I forgot to mention that during our budget. Sean's doing an amazing job. He had big shoes to fill, and I also hope that at some point, if not right now, but for those of you who don't know, we have sort of a new committee going on, which consists of two members of the school board, two members of the Cumberland Town Council, two members of the North Yarmouth Select Board, so that while these meetings are really helpful from maybe a higher level, there's more conversation that's able to happen a little bit deeper, and also just getting to know each other and establishing maybe some more relationships. So I'm not, I know that the funding formula was one of the things that we kind of had as a priority for that group, but school board members, if anybody wants to go ahead and ask anything first, and then maybe we'll have Tim do a little update, if that's okay. Sure. [31:24] Speaker L (unidentified): Okay, I mean just with the spirit of transparency, I agree. Sean's taken that over, and we've taken feedback from, or he's directly taken feedback from the first finance meeting to the second one, and change some stuff, like we now use microphones so everybody can hear. It may still be still, you know, some people's back, but you can hear everything. Just so we can, as opposed to talking like this, we'll talk with each other and have that same type of thing, but it's in a much bigger room, the Geiger Room, so I think that in the spirit of transparency and the best we can for that, so taking that feedback, so thank you Sean for that too. [32:03] John Thurston: And we did hear you guys. We will make sure we have all the handouts next time. [32:09] Speaker L (unidentified): Absolutely, every, that's what, I'm perfect example. Anybody? [32:14] Michael Sweat: Anybody else have anything? You guys all good? Go ahead, I know you want to say something. [32:24] Grace Till: I was just curious. I think I'm like, maybe I'm the only one that's really worried about the price of gas and diesel, but I was just wondering, school buses, snow plows, right? And in the spirit of regionalization, I know that at the GP cog beating Matt Christina Egan asked all of us, you know, as municipalities and districts, do you, do you, is it to lock in a price or is it, are there pro, I was just curious in the spirit of collaboration and in our current climate if that's something at some point that we all want to explore a little bit, like are there programs where maybe the three of us as bodies could look at things like that for cost savings because we are all using diesel, right, we're all using gas, there's a lot of pain right now, and I just, one idea that possibly could be low-hanging fruit, did I say that having no operational know-how, but figured I would throw it out there, and so I was just curious about how that's impacting all of you. [33:33] Leanne Candora: We do it, right, we get our, we already collaborate, I think so, between the school in the town [33:37] Matt Sturgis: because the bus garage is right there where the, where the pumps are, so we collaborate on that already, but we do at times we lock in, we're more of a gas operation than a diesel operation on the town side of it, whereas I know the school side of it is more of a diesel because the buses just, they just, they have to last a lot longer and they put a lot more mileage on, so we have in the past locked in, right now we're tracking pretty decently because our gas price is close to where we had originally forecast for our budget for this year, diesel's obviously ridiculous, and like the big concern with like, and we're looking at that for next year's budget as well, Chris and I have been talking about it pretty regular, what we're looking at for forecasts, like I said our gas is pretty good, we did buy diesel in the most recent warrant and you rent like six bucks a gallon for us, you can, I mean in the past we've locked in but you have to commit to a certain amount of gallonage, and so sometimes it works. Out well, other times it doesn't if you don't have that amount of use, so you try to use your judgment on that and play, you know, lack of veteran play the float to see where that's, where that's gonna be. So but generally, I don't know, gas has been pretty decent, but that $100 oil is a big concern, you know, for us a lot of it's looking at for next year, you know, if we're looking at Greeley Road, we're looking at paving costs, that's going to be a challenge next year, at least forecasting. So like we were talking about on Tuesday night when Doug Reynolds was presenting on Greeley Road, talking about how much you have for tonnage that's going to go down there for pricing and how that could be. Well, they put an escalation clauses in there in case it goes, let's say it goes to $200 oil. Generally, they don't give you the money back if it goes to $50 oil while you're doing your project. So sadly, it goes up, but like gas prices, it takes a long time to come down. So we try to factor all that in, but I think it would be a great opportunity if we could. I mean, I'd love to collaborate with North Yarmouth if we could all do a joint purchase and say, okay, if we talk to J.P. Noonan and say this is what we're going to do and the amount they want to buy and we know that we're going to have X amount of gallonage, I mean, that's a great opportunity for collaboration for sure. [36:08] Leanne Candora: Matt, what's your plan for paving Greeley Road? What's the timing on that? [36:14] Matt Sturgis: We probably start just for school that starts and no, I'm just kidding. We've advanced the ball a lot as of last, as of Tuesday night where we came forward with a lot sharper plans on it. We've got higher level estimates now for cost. One thing we're gonna look at is if you look at an 11 foot travel lane versus a 10 foot travel lane and how that adjust your paving costs and what that might have for an impact on the budget, but we're, you know, if we go out, we're looking to try to go to RFP end of the calendar year, January, so we look at trying to get that back. You want to get ahead of the work schedule for others, so we look at construction probably next summer if we could [37:00] Leanne Candora: get that done. Okay, and I don't know if you've been in conversation about the paving for the campus this, because it would also be next summer. There's the potential that we might have the opportunity to pave the whole thing, but only if the price is [37:16] Matt Sturgis: Right, I mean that they'd be probably two different purchase areas, but if we could find a way to line that up and look at X amount of tonnage, I mean they may be, it all depends upon like, because I know Ben Grover's doing the work at the school, and it could, you know, it could be Grover doing the work on Really Road, it could be Story Brothers, like at that point it depends upon it, because they have their subs or whoever they use for their sourcing, but if there's a way that we could look at buying a lot of asphalt the [37:48] Speaker M (unidentified): price of oil right now and ask like, just it's scary, it is, but so many of them, Doug Reynolds [37:54] Matt Sturgis: was saying the other night, so many of these, the contractors are pricing that out and, you know, they're hesitant to put a number on that because it could be, you know, it could be $75 an hour, $60 a barrel, and who the heck knows where it's going to be. It goes up, like I said, it goes up really fast, and it takes forever to come down. You know, we pay the price when it comes to that, as we know, all of our own pocketbooks. [38:18] Bob Vale: Roofing shingles are made of asphalt, too. [38:23] Michael Sweat: That's crazy. A quick question, Kim. Kim, the Main Street, the four-way at Greeley and Main was all part of the permit for the school. Is there anything else coming down? Is part of that permitting? [38:40] Kim Vine: Yeah, I will turn to Tim, who is the head of our, or to the chair of our facilities committee. [38:48] Michael Sweat: Yeah. I didn't see all your thunder, Tim. That's okay. [38:53] Speaker N (unidentified): Not to my immediate knowledge. I think most of that work has been executed, yeah, so I think the sidewalk [39:05] Matt Sturgis: the sidewalks done on the cross from intersection of Main Street and Blanchard Road, yeah, up to just beyond Sweetsers, and but that's, that's, that's that was part of the project, but that's ours because we had a deal with the state to get that work done, so but that's the last element of sidewalk construction to be done, yeah, because they're also replacing that culvert that's way down below, like way down deep, just before this side of Sweets or so, that's a state project, and then we're gonna, we're just trying to line it up with other good folks in Augusta. Have you heard much about the stop sign? No. I really expected our phones to ring off the, off the hook when it came to it. The calls we got mostly were like, holy cow, we need some enforcement over here because people are blowing through. And I was over there to observe on my bike one day and saw a couple blow right through. But it seems to be getting better now. There's a lot of signage up there. But we're still working with MDOT. They've got a, we've got to get a couple other elements in over there that we've been working with them on. But yeah, I expected a lot more noise or a lot more pushback or input, but it's been surprisingly quiet. [40:32] Michael Sweat: The same problem down Grill and Scheme, Middle and Tunnel. Yeah, when we, when they first put that four-way in, people were just blowing through. It seems to go away for a while. And I was coming up to the council meeting on Tuesday and sure enough, somebody just right through it. So but it's just gonna take a time, take time. We'll get, we'll get through it. Anybody else? So I wanted to share [41:02] Jesse Lamar Vincent: something in the spirit of collaboration. So the town of Cumberland assisted the SAD in doing a efficiency study on MIW and the middle school. And so I believe you got, I think everyone, I don't know if we've sent you guys the results. I think maybe Denny has sent them to you because the LCC helped write the grant. Very well done. Engineers came in, they looked at the buildings like what money could be saved and actually projected it out. And so if you replaced all the LED bulbs in the school there's like a four-year payback and you'd save, you know, X hundred thousands of dollars. Something to air sealing that could be done. I think and some stuff because we're just, you know, you're paying to heat the buildings and the heats off and just going out through big holes. This new school where buildings can be very efficient, but these schools were built before they air sealed things very well. And then solar panels on the roofs was another one. It's like a 10-year payback. But you know, you could, as the town of Cumberland knows, if you put solar panels in, after a while you're just making money and price of electricity doesn't Seem to be going down because we have a company that wants to make money off our electricity. Right, so those are things that we would have to, and so there's cost estimates for them, amount you'd save, the payback period. But those are things that I would advocate at some point that we put in the budget, because we will save money long term, but you have to pay for them up front. And so I think people should take a look at that. And you know, I know Tim's looking at it in the building committee, and yeah. To see, you know, how do we fit that in? And you know, I know nobody wants to see things added to the budget, but you know, I replaced all my light bulbs and I installed, you know, additional insulation when I moved into my house. And you know, it's a little shocking to me that there are cost savings that are just sitting there and we're wasting money every year because we haven't done some of these things. But we had engineers come do all of these things, give us the prices, give us the payback period. So. I hopefully will look at some of them, and I want to say thank you to Cumberland for helping us get that sort of efficiency assistance grant to do that work. And yeah, I think it's pretty exciting, and hopefully we'll be able to do some more studies on the high school. They only let us do two buildings with that technical assistance, but I'm sure there's some parts of the high school that could get buttoned up as well. So yeah, so just to say for the budget, maybe there will be things in there about. Some of those, maybe, but ideally we will be, you know, the payback periods like four to 10 years for the various things. Yeah, but I think that was a good example of collaboration. [43:28] Bob Vale: Between the town and the SAD, you talk about energy, and I think that's one of a, an opportunity for all the other communities to have that conversation, because it's, you know, when you, when you, when you build a solar farm, you know, you have a, you have the economy to scale. And so if you, if you put the four school districts together and say how can we build something, and then take it the next step further, we need to be reaching out to our legislatures and being able to make these things work. And you. Know what we really need is to incentivize what we're trying to do, and we need to get the state to start to provide those incentives. [44:13] Leanne Candora: We know we have had limitations in the past because we are an MSAD that we haven't had always access to some of the things that if we were a school district of the town. So looking into figuring out if we need to contact our representatives, if there needs to be changes. [44:31] Speaker M (unidentified): Just to help incentivize, let's do it. You know, I was thinking, Kim, about this. [44:40] Michael Sweat: Mandate you have for the three-year-olds, and you know, we, it to me it seems we're not getting a lot of help from Augusta. You know, you've got that mandate, you know, the choice, it's a mandate, but they, but they're not paying for it, they said. [44:55] Kim Vine: you 've got to pay well there is a reimbursement process that remains to be seen whether it will be full we are actively lobbying for that as are all districts because districts there are districts who have already been doing this for a couple years we're one of the last ones because we wanted to take our time with it and other districts have been saying this isn't going to work unless you reimburse more so we are hoping that Augusta understands what districts need [45:27] Michael Sweat: We like you have, we've had a deal with the new family leave, and that took another half a percent of wages away from workers. It also cost you, us costs, another half percent in employee costs, and let's face it, they've got to review it I think every three years. I don't see them cutting the costs, and we all deal with collective bargaining agreements which have the benefits already there, but we're all forced to pay, and we're dealing with 1829 which you know mandates instead of letting us deal with how we have a vision for our town, not the office has a vision. We now have mandates on what is going to be allowed, what's not going to be allowed. We're trying to work our way through that stuff too, and it's not easy, and we had 1829 and then we had 1829a with. All the adjustments, and we still have a lot of work to do before we can implement it, but we're under the gun. We got to talk about new growth areas, what is growth areas, and so. Is there anybody, go ahead. Sure, I want to make a couple comments. First of all, one thing we didn't mention is the restructure of the Joint Standing Committee between the two towns for collaboration. It was on my list mentally but nowhere else, so apologies for that. So for those who want to know, we've restructured so it's a full board, the whole council from Cumberland, the full board from North Yarmouth, and it's for purposes of looking for ways for consolidation, collaboration, and what have you. I went. To a regional meeting of GPCOG and someone came up, I said what's this dysfunction between Cumberland and North Yarmouth? So I had to put that to rest, and hopefully we're on our way to some better communication and better relationships, and also with the school. I participated in the meeting of the six of us, which is Paul, myself, Tim, and Sean, excuse me, and Jeff and Bill follow it as well, and I think we're very honest, very open, very transparent, and I think if we do more of that, we'll be better for it. We're not going to have collaboration, consolidation, regionalization unless we lay our cards on the table and cover all of the challenges we have working together and not working together, and I'm hopeful after a couple of these meetings that we're on our way to that, but we must be open, transparent, and particularly when it comes to finances. Our taxpayers require us and we're obligated to respond to them in terms of why our taxes are going through the roof, and we need to hold each other accountable. There are certain things we could do, the fuel as an example, buying together with this, with the school, with the town of Cumberland, what-have-you. So there's lots of things we can do, and we keep asking ourselves, but what really moves the needle? Right, you heard Bob say it earlier, what moves the needle, and it's not buying cases of paper together, which I did hear at one of these meetings a couple times ago, cases of paper, seriously. So we got a lot of work to do, but please, your comment about the Finance Committee and the change in approach even after a couple of meetings, it's getting better, and we can thank Sean for that, so, and the rest of the group. So I think more of that will go a long way. We have to respond to our taxpayers, and we have to have good answers, and it needs to be backed up with good data. Thank you [49:24] Speaker N (unidentified): Can I jump on that for a quick plug? That's okay, I don't have a microphone, which I think it's intentional, but that's okay, I think it's okay. So yeah, so our in that joint meeting as Kim and Michael reference, I just want to get to the logistics of some of that stuff, just a quick, recap. We kind of laid out what our kind of goals and approach and what we wanted out of that meeting were just as the panel of six, but really talked a little bit more about governance structure around that and what that would look like. We were all very much on the same page as like the intention of what was proposed to be a transparent and public forum, which is a little strange given that like, we're coming from three different governance structures, but I think I don't know if it's formal informally, but we see very much this group as like the governing body of also driving the work that we do. So between meetings, like you know, we surface all these ideas, and then we only meet two or three times a year, and so not a lot of work happens, or there's not a really good place for that work to happen. We want that small joint meeting to be where a lot of that work is taken place or charged. So our next meeting I think is Monday, November 2nd at 5.30 to 6.30, I think we're trying to get it in the Geiger room. That will be, I think we're gonna post it on all of our various different entities. We don't have like a chair or vice chair or anything like that yet. I think this is very much supposed to be like a flat level thing. If we get to a point where we feel like we need that, we'll do it. Right now we're just sharing duties, like some one week someone will be the note taker, the next week whatever, but it's public, it's going to be open to the public, right, we want I think that participation even if there's no public comment period at that point, some meetings might have that or not, but like that engagement is another part of the entity that we need to continue emphasizing. It's not just the three of us, it's also that group over there, so that's a very big part of that committee as well. So yeah, next meeting is November 2nd, 5 30, we're going to try to meet for right now as needed, but at least once a month, and yeah, I think we're we if there are any, I think we've taken some things, I think energy is one that we should put on our docket for something to kind of explore as well. That's what I'm taking out of this, but feel free as a committee if there are things that we want to charge that smaller group to do or to investigate in between these bigger meetings, I think that would be my request of all three of the entities, to make sure that we're doing that. It's going to get take some getting used to, but I appreciate the conversation. I think it's a really good step forward to what we want to get to. [52:13] Kim Vine: Thanks. Did you guys come up with a name, and I when I say guys all six men, did you come up with [52:19] Speaker N (unidentified): Them, what was the name, Tim? You're, I wrote it down in my notes but I haven't. It was, it was, it's not a very good name because six guys got together. That may be a better name right there, but I think [52:28] Paul Whitmarsh: it was a community partnership committee. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, so and I do want to apologize. So I was actually the one, I'd recorded it on my computer. Unfortunately, the, it's very difficult to hear. So I had planned on sending all the members of that committee that file, but it's really tough to hear. So I am in the process of actually, I'm not fully transcribing it because, well, I'm just not going to fully transcribe it. But I am in the process of putting together some notes and some minutes for that. So there will be minutes out that will be posted. I'll actually have our time manager post them on our website for sure. I'll send it to the other two entities, and you guys can decide what you do with them on your own. But they will be available so the public can also see, as well as the rest of the members of the two committees. But I do apologize that, unfortunately, my recording didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped. [53:22] Speaker L (unidentified): So with all that in mind, number three on the agenda was an update forecast challenges for the FY 20 budget year. But I think we only heard from the school on that. I don't think we heard from any town, or if that was supposed to be part of it or not, either town we didn't hear from. [53:40] Paul Whitmarsh: Well, I mean, I'm happy to speak. Our biggest challenge is you guys. I mean, let's be honest here. The, school budget drives our budget, you know. So we've done things too, like, you know, Cumberland mentioned they're looking at their long-term capital plan. We too are looking at our long-term capital plan to see if it still aligns correctly and if we still need such large expenditures that are, that are coming up. So we're looking at as much as we can to reduce, you know, as Mike Eads mentioned, we've been in discussions trying to see where we can consolidate as two towns. So we're looking to cut as much as we possibly can out of our budget, but the truth is your budget drives ours. It drives our tax rate, and so that's, you know, kind of the elephant in the room is our biggest budget challenge is what's the school gonna do, and that's really where it stands with us. Believe it, believe me, we're cutting ours bare bones and trying to get away with, you know, as much as we can. Yeah, and we're kind of the same Dave, you know, we came [54:49] Michael Sweat: In at two and a half percent increase last year, town staff did a really good job putting our budget together. We nickel and dimed it together. We were able to keep it down to two and a half, I think, and based upon what we were, what we had for new revenues coming in, and we've got some coming into the future, but go along with Paul. I mean, you guys, you guys are the big dog when it comes, and you know what we spend was really, it every raise to the tax pay is significant, but we really kept dollars down. We didn't, I think we had maybe one and a half positions for the whole town, and we hadn't added any for a couple years, and then you know I think we're, we're headed for another good year, but you know we 've got some significant stuff coming and everybody wants something as you know, and yeah, but we can't, something's, something's got to give them, and we can't keep doing stuff like add the rail trail but 300 000 at least. I look at North Yarmouth that they do it up there, they've got seven miles and I don't, I don't know how they come up with 700 to a million dollars for trail, and then we've got other stuff here and there, and now then we get thrown this whole Mill Road and we can't, we just don't have the budget to even put a temporary bridge over this one, so I don't know, and You know, we really, I mean, you guys got the new school, you've got some, you guys have had some major projects that have added and added and added, and, you know, we're looking at, we're looking for you guys to cut where you can cut and come down close to where our increases are, and I know it's going to be a tough road. You guys have a lot of, you guys have a lot. But that's my two cents for it. But anyways, that's a challenge. Go ahead, Tim. [57:10] Speaker N (unidentified): We've built some – I think we've built a very – all three entities have built a very attractive town for various reasons for people to come to, right? So I think the idea of – I think I want to make sure that our language, especially in forums like this, is very clear as to that it – The way that just came off was a little bit like our spending is forever out of control in the sense of now you guys have to make up for our spending. Like we're building another school. Why? Because people are coming. Kids are coming. Housing is being developed. Right. Right. There's there's there's a reason why we needed more space and there's a reason why our tax base and what the percentage of tax base is off the school rather than who's sharing our tax base as well. Like other businesses and companies that we bring in, it's not just a siloed and those are intentional decisions about strategic decisions about what we want our town to look like. And so when we say what's like what's the biggest concerns within your town even if that is a small percentage of what our taxes go to I think it's really important that we look at your entity as a pie in terms of what are things within your control that you can do because we're not in control of the decisions that you make that send more kids to us we're not necessarily in full control of the budget that we make but we don't you don't hear us in these forums saying, stop developing, stop, Like, we don't do that, because you guys have a different charge than us. We're kind of, we're, we're kind of in a realm of under all both entities, we're dependent on each other. And that's the whole point of our joint committee. That's the whole point of these. And so I just want us to be really careful and thoughtful about when, like, what are other drivers, when we talk about challenges that we can support with, that like, oh, they have this going on maybe we can help in our own way or we're aware of that we won't be able to ask them for this year or next year or something like that so I think the direction right back to the school is a slight diversion of the actual question that we're trying to get to it's not all about the school we're [59:24] Kim Vine: All connected thank you Tim you language matters and I just did it earlier when I said you guys but there was very much a you guys right pointing to the school well it's we are taxpayers we are Cumberland and North Yarmouth residents who happen to sit on the board because that is what the state of Maine requires for governing a school district and so I just say this over and over and over again tonight when I go home I have to get into bed with somebody who's going to say to me what'd you Decide about taxes because it does, it hurts. And when we are making these decisions, we are doing it because of how many children are in the school. It is not to be the best, it is not to have the newest shiniest thing, it is to educate every child that shows up at our door, and every child has unique needs. So it is not an efficient business model because there is a small group of kids that requires a huge percentage of needs. And the other thing about budgets, and Tim, you alluded to this, there's the expense side, there's the revenue side. So the expense side goes up, we are doing our absolute best to control that. We don't have much say in the revenue side. And so that is another area where we are hoping that us, we, these two towns can continue to look at not just how we can keep expenditures down, but what can we do to keep revenue increasing and or to maybe not develop quite as much just to keep our numbers from growing as excessively. So you know we talked before Kim about why I [1:01:13] Michael Sweat: mentioned about the mandates coming down from Augustine. Part of the thing with 1829 which they passed and we have to live with is we can't cut the number of building permits. I would love to see us cut at least a half the building permits we allow, but 1829 does not allow us to do it, not even by, it we can't even freeze it for a year. And yeah, there are a lot of, we live under mandates all the time. Good. [1:01:50] Jeff Mahal: So you know I first of all I want to start off the disclaimer that this statement is not an attack on any one body or any one person in this room. Now that I've said my disclaimer, everyone hold on for a ride. You know Michael made a comment about you know if we want to move the needle, we're not going to do it with collaboration of paper and fuel. I think it's great to try to take that first step, it moves us in the right direction, but if we really want to make a change, we're going to have to make some painful decisions. And I don't mean just the school, I mean both towns, or otherwise why are we talking about this? It because although if we're not going to move the needle trying to coordinate buying paper together to save a little bit of money, probably cost us more money in trying to combine the purchasing efforts between the three entities than what we're going to save. That's just probably a reality. So you know what is an area that we can make some changes where we're really going to move The needle and what are the effects of those changes going to be? And you know, my experience is in the private sector, it's all I know. However, when revenues drop off, you got to make some tough choices. And right now I got to think about a plan that if revenues drop by 10 percent, 20 percent, or 25 percent, what am I gonna do? And that's all that means, layoffs and everything else, and I gotta look at that, and that's the real deal, and it doesn't get any realer than that. And the reality is if we take an exercise like that, we're going to know what the tough choices are going to be. And then it's okay, can we live with them, and can we do them, or can't we do them? It's not an attack on anyone, it's not an attack on the school system. I believe in MSAD 51, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be sitting up here, but that's just, that's just reality. And I think if we don't take a stance like that, it's, it's you know, we're not going to know what we can really do. And I understand we've talked about mandates and Kim, I'm not picking on you folks, I understand mandates come down from Augusta, and I do not know much about education, so I will put that out there. But we have made an investment in a beautiful campus up there, put four buildings on one piece of land. I understand like the state may have a mandate for if you have a school that's three miles apart, you may need this type of staffing, but when it's on one campus, can we challenge that mandate in Augusta, or is the savings less than a fine? I mean, I hate to, I hate to look at it like Exxon Mobil might, but that's, that's the reality, you know, it's, it's like if the fine's a thousand dollars and the savings is a hundred thousand dollars, I'll pay that thousand dollars all day long. But you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave it there, but those are just my thoughts. I [1:05:11] Speaker L (unidentified): think Sean had it, Sean was right there, he beat you too. [1:05:21] John Thurston: I appreciate all the comments everybody's shared, and I know that there's a lot of emotion behind some of the words that were used, and I completely understand that and where it's coming from. I think the expectations of and the change of our community that we've had even since Covet is significant, and I think even since you and I were going to MS 80 51 one, the expectations are very different. There was not a granite curb anywhere in the town, there's plenty of them now, and I think to understand Where those align and where we are now and what that extra cost is, really important. It builds on what you said, and that is an exercise in itself, because I think back to conversations that I had where my grandparents would say that school cost too much money then, and my grandmother be like, you know, the Eckberg boys would chop the firewood and bring it up at the schoolhouse in the corner of Valley Road and Bruce Hill Road, and they would light the fire before school started, before everybody else walked there. We're a long ways from there. Everybody cleaned up, everybody did their part, everybody's in one room. So if we don't know what the expectations and what everybody's willing to live with and not live with, and we can't really make a good decision. And what I've been hearing at most meetings is one side that we're spending too much money, it's costing too much, and it's hurting too much in the wallet. I haven't heard, to be honest and frank, many parents complaining that there's not enough services or offerings at the school. I think it's important that we provide those services for the kids and give them as many opportunities as possible, but when we're hearing consistently from one side, it says to me that we need to address something. We're hearing from both sides, I feel like we're probably getting yelled at from both sides, was probably a good thing, we're probably right in the middle. So I don't necessarily have any answers on how to get there right away, but I think if everybody wants to come to the Finance Committee meetings on the first school board meeting in the month, I think we can start to have more of those conversations and kind of put in the [1:07:38] Speaker L (unidentified): right direction, and that's the first Thursday of every month. Jesse, did you have something? Yeah, I [1:07:45] Jesse Lamar Vincent: just, you know, because, you know, especially as budget season goes on, there might be some finger pointing. You guys, you know, you guys may be able to hold your budgets down, and the schools is not going to be held down the way yours is, because we're negotiating contracts, we have way more people who have health care and benefits, and so there are fewer, I think fewer opportunities for us to hold our budget down. We gotta open this new school, you need to have somebody at the front desk, you need to have a Janitor to clean that new school, so we're gonna have to hire some new people, right? So that's one. And to Sean's point, right, like there are many people who say taxes are too high, there are a lot of people who taxes are not a problem, right? Like this is a town with a wide range of people, and some people don't show up to meetings, life is fine, life is good. And so as a school board, we're tasked with like how can we educate kids best that the town can afford, and we pass that budget on, but the budget is the town's budget. Everyone votes on it, and it goes up or down based on the people's vote, right? We're just the superintendent recommends the budget to us, we tweak it, we move it on, and it gets voted on, and if it gets voted down, it's gonna have to get changed and then get voted on again. So I think we need to remember that, like you guys get to vote on a budget, you guys get to vote on a budget, we just pass it forward to the voters, and if the median voter says yes, then it moves forward, if the median voter says no, then it won't, right? And we're getting closer and closer, right, like the votes have been closer and closer, so we're getting closer and closer to a point where more people believe we're spending too much than believe we can afford it, right? And so I think Sean is going to be as thoughtful as he can about how we can provide the best services and save money, but I don't think Sean's gonna vote for a budget where we think we're hurting the educational outcomes, but then if we send that to the voters and they vote it down, then we're gonna have to make even harder choices, right? And so I just think that's really important for people to remember, that the voters of Cumberland and North Yarmouth are the voting legislative body, we're just recommending something go forward, and then people have two opportunities, both in person and then at the ballot box, to either say yes or no, and those votes are getting closer and closer, so we're getting to that point where, you know, and enough people are saying we just can't afford it no matter what, and then we're gonna have to make real hard choices. So, you know, I like I hear you, like we would love to keep it to two and a half percent. I don't think there's any chance we can do that because we have a new school and we have staff and we have contracts. Right. It's just, you know, health care is going to probably get us there. And so I think we're doing the best we can. But like, you know, we all have a role to play. And so our role is to do what we think is the best we can and send it to the voters. And they tell us if it's right or wrong, and if they tell us it's wrong, harder choices will have to be made. And so, you know, as we get into budget season and fingers are being pointed, just remember you got to point them to every person who shows up and votes, because those are the people who are deciding if the budget passes or not. It's not the members of the school board. We're just recommending what we think is the best bang for our buck to educate kids responsibly, you know, with a responsible budget. So, you know, and we'll, if it gets voted down, we'll try to not take it personally, and we'll have to make harder choices like we haven't had to do that yet, but it's come super close. And so maybe this is the year that happens, and if it does, we'll pull up our pants and we'll do what needs to be done. So just, you know, you know, or our skirts or whatever, right? Well, our boots, our boots, whatever. We'll pull up whatever we need to, and we'll try and, you know, so yeah, just remember, like, I think that's super important. The voters are the people who decide the school budget, right? And I think the North Yarmouth voters tried a couple [1:11:47] Paul Whitmarsh: of times to decide that, send that message. And so I'm here trying to represent North Yarmouth, and North Yarmouth has hit that point, so, twice now. And the new school also was voted down by North Yarmouth voters. So I agree, but the problem is, to the North Yarmouth voters, you're not hearing the message, because we've already tried to make our voice heard, and we're unable to. To just another point, just as a select board, town meeting, town meeting actually votes to pass our budget, so our budgets, we don't as a select board actually pass our budgets either. Our budgets go to the town, and the town decides from there. So we're in the same boat. We have to control our budget in order to, you know, get it passed, and our budget has to show the mill rate, and that mill rate, of course, includes the school budget, so it affects us all when they're voting on this. So, and that's why my answer originally to David's question there about the budget was it's really yours, because the mill rate that gets put out gets put out by us not by you guys gets put out by us because we're the ones who send that tax bill so but yeah the town north yarmouth is at that point and you know it's it's tough for us to sit here and hear that well we put it out to the voters when my voters are behind me screaming going wait we're voting no so what else can we do then so that's where a lot of the frustration i think comes yeah i think it's also really [1:13:23] Speaker N (unidentified): I hear that, Paul. I mean, I'm a North Yarmouth voter. We have rights, Sarah, Leanne, too. I think the idea is the final product that goes through has gone through a number of different critiques and pushbacks. I think if anyone listened to the meetings last year, it was part of the process. There were ones that there were elements of the budget that I was strongly against or didn't vote for because i didn't have enough information i know sarah was like that too we hear you we represent i don't want to think that like oh north yarmouth passed that we can just move on there's definitely feedback that we've been hearing we've been very much engaged with the public so i don't want to discourage anyone from doing that because your voices no matter like they are definitely heard and executed against and processed and we've gotten great ideas i think from the public too so then we do with what we can. So I know that, like, speaking from a North Yarmouth representation, I know that your voices are heard. We bring it up a lot in terms of how close these budgets are, what North Yarmouth has come to. Again, I think that's part of the conversation of the small group. So I 1,000% hear you. I just want you to know that the final product is not that we don't – I don't want you to not feel listened to. I think that feedback is very much heard. and we have cut things because of that in part or been a little bit more I think very much more stringent on some things and sacrifice some things that we probably ordered yeah we've said no to a lot that we probably ordinarily wouldn't have but there are some things I've lost on to that's kind of like this the way that this works like I'm not it's compromised and not everyone's gonna walk away kind of not happy and somewhat happy and somewhat so you're heard so please continue to voice either At the ballot box or at public comment and come vote and show up at the auditorium and raise your hand and because we only got how many kid people that we have at the auditorium right so like come and engage in that process like I think that's that's I mean it's been a lot of the same kind of people come and engage I think that's I think [1:15:32] Bob Vale: That's really important yeah so I think you're all you're kind of all everybody's hitting the mark but it one of the same side we're missing the mark completely I have a police chief who wants a new police station and I keep telling him bring me some national metrics. What's the size of a good police force? Is it based on 5,000 people or 50,000 people? And sometimes we're so involved in what we do daily that we don't seek the outside help, the outside resources that might see things clearly. So I want to hold your feet to the fire, but your feet are going to get just as hot as my town manager's feet are going to get hot because to me the programming is five towns can have one payroll department. Five schools can have one payroll department. I said before we can't just operate the same way and do the same things and expect a different outcome. Do we need a curriculum coordinator for MSAD 51 or could we share that administrative position with a number of schools I can't answer that question and maybe you can't either but I think that if we start modeling things and say what's the proper scale what's the proper configuration how many teachers do we need per student what's the program? We have, Yarmouth, I believe, is in an actual decline of student population. So are we reaching out to the Yarmouth and saying, can we send some students that way? Can we share some of our higher level programming? Can we share special ed programming? Can we share bus routes? I'm picking on the school right now, but I'm just as intense on fire and rescue. You. I serve on the county budget committee, and I've been on there about eight years, and I listen to the county dispatch director come and make a presentation every year, and she says some of you have heard this, and I'm sorry for repeating myself. She said when somebody calls 911 from a cell phone, not only can I tell you where they are geographically, I can probably tell you what room in the house they're in. I can dispatch the vehicle based on where your location is, which has nothing to do with town lines. So the struggle for me is, yes, you know, I like coming to the town office. I like voting here. I like the girls behind the counter. I know, and I have this repertoire. Women. Women, yes. Thank you. But, you know, I enjoy that, and there's a price to pay for that. So we have to recognize that there's going to be some sacrifices made, or we have to start thinking that we can do things differently. So it's, you know, I don't expect a 2.5% budget, but what I do expect. [1:19:04] Leanne Candora: It's personnel, to your point. Like, that is the huge cost, and we have the most personnel. Now so let's start sharing them. Yeah, right, I mean that, I mean those are your examples, right? You would have to change and how departments operate, and the biggest part of the personnel that's gone up, health insurance. Have you guys got your increases for next year? Do you know your increases are gonna be for health insurance? Ours have been 10 to 15 percent year over year over year, and so school districts have been, even if they don't change their budget, they've had to lay off staff to cover health insurance. And this has been one of the biggest drivers and increases. Beyond whatever other decisions that we're making, adding staff or not adding staff, if we just keep everyone that we have, the cost of health insurance is everyone's challenge right now. [1:20:04] Jeff Mahal: So, Leanne, what prevents you folks from having the employee pay more? I mean, that's what all of us run into. That's reality. And, I mean, I'm a pretty good negotiator, so if you folks need some help in that department, you know, the Cumberland Town Council will vouch that I've got some pretty good negotiation skills. Go ahead. [1:20:26] Kim Vine: As we look at our collective bargaining, sometimes we are limited by what is acceptable, but having said that, we have some really talented people on the school board who are looking at other things that we can propose, and I don't want to, I can't say too much because it's a process that's happening, but I think that there are other options that maybe we can explore, because that is something that we are taking very seriously, too. I just wanna go back real quick to North Yarmouth, because I was thinking the other day that it is really unfortunate, we're not an electoral college when we vote on the budget. It is a popular vote, which means however many people vote, the majority gets the win. And that is unfortunate for North Yarmouth when Cumberland has more people and Cumberland tends to vote for the budget. So I don't know what to do about that. I just wanted to name it because it does make for tension. And I'm hoping that 's maybe one of the things that the community relationship... Partnership committee. [1:21:45] Grace Till: Partnership... Yeah, that the guys... There's T-shirts. [1:21:49] Speaker N (unidentified): Yeah, right. That's how we're going to get the money. [1:21:52] Kim Vine: Maybe with the funding formula I don't know I don't know if there's a way to do anything about [1:21:57] Speaker M (unidentified): that but it is tough when it's a popular vote and I wasn't I just wanted to address that you [1:22:03] Paul Whitmarsh: know what was being said that there are there is a group that is voting again not just a group one of the towns is voting against the budget so one of the towns has reached that and I wasn't trying to do that to be decisive and I think Sean and Tim at that meeting were fantastic and I don't want to you know disparage anyone and say because that I think is going to be a very helpful place to be able to get some of these concerns voiced and again I don't I don't doubt that the three North Yarmouth representatives on the school board aren't listening to the North Yarmouth people and doing that I just was making the point that off of what Jesse was saying that there is a town that is at that point and I know Jesse's they're saying the other towns getting pretty close to so at some point we may very well hit that point where the budget isn't isn't acceptable anymore but man I think you really hit it with the personnel is the issue it's always gonna be your biggest cost is biggest cost for everyone in every business and every you know in outside of the school budget if we look at municipal budget our biggest cost is of course our personnel to we do we have great personnel but you know that is a cost and I think you know what Bob's trying to do is saying hey can we outsource some of this instead of hiring people can we outsource the crit and I use the word outsource but it would really be a collaboration between three districts instead of having or five districts rather Instead of having five people, can we have one? Well, that's great. That cuts my personnel, you know, down to one-fifth of a person instead of a full person that I'm hiring now. So if we can do that in a number of areas, like a curriculum coordinator or, you know, payroll or wherever else we can find that to reduce the number of personnel, that's gonna certainly help, you know, with that budget now and moving forward. So we're gonna, I'm gonna close this up. [1:23:58] Grace Till: With Jeff, obviously we know there are things we can control and there are things that we can't control, and I think there may be a little bit of a missed opportunity, and I know as Jeff said it's not going to come down to fuel but electricity. I think is a big cost for you, right, is your, I remember a couple years ago I think it was like 600k a year, that's probably with heat pumps going to be going up, right, and we have expanded our solar field, a lot of those credits are no longer available, and I know that there are some wacky things that have happened or there's some wacky policies that Augusta has put in that like you are going to build a field, it has to be adjacent or something. But that's something that we could advocate for. Because if your utility bill is going to be at a million dollars, especially with heat pumps and with, I mean, I'm not trying to talk about data centers, but we know that electricity costs are going to go through the roof in the next 20 years. And those are things that don't exist in current state. We don't have control over them in current state. But that's stuff we could advocate for, that stuff that we should be pulling in our legislators and saying, because we can't be the only communities that are dealing with this, right, and so I think there's also just kind of that opportunity, and I'm not suggesting another committee, but what are those things that are in our control that we can really put pressure on our legislatures or go and testify to start collaborating on? I think that could be something all three of us could do [1:25:38] Michael Sweat: together. Jeff, I'll let you finish up and then we'll go to public comment. I'll make this really [1:25:44] Jeff Mahal: Quick, you know, I mentioned this in the committee we had week and a half or two weeks ago, and you know, I think this comment would be supported by a lot of citizens. There's a lot of trust in the elected officials in these towns, so whether you're school board member or town council or select board member, I think sometimes where the trust is lost by our citizens is below you folks, in some of the administration levels. And I'm not singling out anyone, I'm just, I'm just saying that's where some of it is lost. It's again, I'm not singling out the school or either one of the towns, but that's some of the comments that I've heard, you know, from citizens [1:26:29] Michael Sweat: and I'm going to leave it there. We're going to go to public discussion. We would ask anybody in the public wants to come up and make a comment or questions, there's a three minute time limit on this, and both your questions, your questions and your answers all count towards the three [1:26:50] Shirley Story King: minutes. So surely I've prepared remarks and I've practiced for three minutes. Shirley Story King Cumberland. Good evening, thank you for holding this meeting. It is more important than ever that we work together as one community to address the challenges ahead. For four years our growing grassroots group of the same kind of people, I mean concerned taxpayers, has worked to raise awareness fairness, represent underrepresented voices, encourage responsible and sustainable financial decisions, and ask the difficult questions that might otherwise go unasked. We appreciate the progress made over the past three budget seasons, but some of our biggest challenges remain, particularly when it comes to financial transparency at MSA D51. I challenge the belief you're doing the best you can, because you don't know what you don't know. We continue to request basic financial information including budget to actual reports and year-to-date financial data, info that's not even available to the Finance Committee. We believe taxpayers deserve access to accurate timely information just as they receive from our municipalities. Despite repeated discussions and promises we are still waiting for consistent access to these reports. We also need greater clarity about how financial decisions are made. With a new school under construction, for example, how were potential change orders and additional expenses reviewed and approved over the summer when neither the Finance Committee nor the Facilities Committee met? Understanding that process and how contingency funds were spent is essential to public confidence and responsible oversight. I encourage every school board member to become better informed about the district's financial operations while keeping in mind that approximately 60% of our households do not have children in our schools. We must consider the needs of students while also recognizing our responsibility to the entire community. I also encourage our municipal leaders to become more involved in the school budget process, attend school board meetings, ask questions. While you have no more authority in the process than I do, your experience with municipal budgets, public spending, and financial oversight could be a valuable resource as we work through these challenges. Together, we need you to examine the numbers, ask meaningful questions, and commit to concrete, measurable plans that address what looks to be a significant increase in property taxes in the coming fiscal year. We all share responsibility to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent while wisely not wildly. Transparency is the first step. That means open communication, accurate factual and timely financial information, and thoughtful responsible decision-making. Thank [1:30:02] Michael Sweat: You Shirley anybody else bill [1:30:11] Speaker P (unidentified): Young taxpayer in North Yarmouth and Cumberland, let me put on my eyeballs a little bit. What Shirley said when a group of us started the tax group four years ago was based on the seemingly lack of information being presented and some and a somewhat non-caring approach to those who cared and got up to the podium to express their concerns. We also took on the responsibility of bringing financial information to the taxpayers where none was being presented. We were in it for the long haul. Thankfully, that has changed with the Cumberland Council and now with the new select board in North Yarmouth. Where it has not changed so much is with the SAD school board. For four years, we have tried to work collaboratively with the school board. We have attended your 2 p.m. finance meetings and your regular meetings and met with board members to find middle ground. Our finance experts have attempted to give advice about the path you are headed down and try to stave off the inevitable. Our efforts to inform the public have been called misinformation. Well, that's laughable, considering last year information was not even given to the finance members at the regular meetings. This year, this year is presenting some changes, so we look forward to the changes. But let's remember you spent less than six hours as a full board discussion the budget last year. What I am here to ask is how you went about looking at the pre-k program from a cost perspective. So rather than engage with the private sector daycare providers, our community providers, who have been doing the job, you are taking on the task alone. Have you thought about the cost to the taxpayer? Do you even have the taxpayers in mind? Have you thought about how the half-day program is going to affect families? How are you going to transport those kids on school buses? Have you thought about how that is going to place a financial burden on the daycare providers? Wouldn't it be better to hire out the needed services rather than employ specialists? Specialists? Wouldn't this cost the community less? And by the way, your health insurance last year was 6.1%. I will leave you with this. Some of you have heard it. This is from Sherry Mitchell, a Maine mighty girl and advocate. Rights and responsibilities cannot be separated. Every right we stand upon must be balanced by a set of corresponding responsibilities. We cannot legitimately make a demand unless we are willing to take responsibility for creating a world where that demand can be met with escalating costs in the next five years and beyond. Wouldn't, wouldn't it all work better if we could all really collaborate on getting this right for all in our community? Finally, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and families of the Bend, Oregon elementary school shooting. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Bill. Anybody else in [1:32:59] Michael Sweat: public? Hello. [1:33:07] Pat Old: My name is Pat Old. I'm a Cumberland resident, and I thank you all for doing this, because it needs to be done so strongly. I want to mention something. I believe me, I'm not political. I was not paying attention. I was just going along raising my grandkids doing my thing, and then my taxes started choking me, so I started paying more attention. This group here has been paying such strong attention that now I feel almost a civic duty, I guess, that I should pay more attention. This is a small thing in the realm of the millions and trillions and billions that you all have to talk about and deal with, but it has to do with something in the transportation administration of the school. I was reading and I found out that there was just someone newly hired as the head of the transportation, and you didn't even know about it until the school, this summer the budget was passed, asked when we all voted on it. So I don't know where that falls as far as this new person is being paid. But were they replacing somebody? I don't, I don't know if they were. What happened to the person they were replacing? Because, and maybe it's a strong rumor, but they're still there and receiving the same salary for less duty. Now if that's the case, people should know why? Does that make sense? That's my question. And things like that are the things that stick in your throat when you're paying your taxes. What is happening? Is the transportation department where it's supposed to be? I think one of you guys over here has a lot to do with trucks and stuff. Maybe that's a collaboration that should happen. Somebody from there and the buses should be looked at. If that's the case, that's all I got to say. Thank you very [1:35:21] Michael Sweat: much. Welcome. [1:35:30] Terry Maloney Kelly: Terry Maloney Kelly Cumberland so I was looking forward to tonight because honestly this group represents community and what is supposed to be our whole community but my experience and I think this is a really the big challenge for our two communities is that my experience is that the SAD does has a different view of who is their community and I am NOT one of those folks that 's been explained to me before I don't have children so my concerns and thoughts are not top priority however 60% of us are paying for the other 40% of the expense of the school. So I think our biggest challenge honestly is if we aren't all looking at the same folks as community in the same manner, I don't know how we're ever going to really get the hard work done. And as far as collaboration, yeah, transportation, I mean we have public works, you guys have a maintenance department, finance, I mean I got to tell you, the town of Cumberland has set the bar on how to run a business and how to be able to provide everybody who's interested the information quickly. Everyone knows where to go get it, and there isn't any confusion about what's being asked or delays in getting information out. And I think perhaps there's some collaboration that could go on there as far as having standards. standards. The transportation department, so safety, my end of town, we have a bridge that's being closed. And so I'm going to ask the question of this board because I think about safety, I think about all of the resources, but I heard recently that the school department had a bus inspection that's required and there is a significant number of buses that did not pass inspection. So my question as a citizen is how did that happen? Seriously. And who was responsible and who is accountable? And that just astounds me. These are children that you are responsible for. Whether your kids take the bus or not, they get transported put it on school trips they go on the bus to sports events how did that happen and what are you doing to be sure that it gets corrected and never happens again so [1:38:16] Kim Vine: most people don't know that i actually was a school bus driver for a short period of time really yeah so yes terry when i heard about that by immediately my haunches went up the overwhelming majority of buses were back on the road by the end of the day or within a day or two it was a light bulb here very minor things this is in no way saying that safety does not matter i am in no way dismissing this because it was very it was very much an eye-opener for the district it's it's too bad that jeff is not able is not here to talk about it directly I have to offer the disclaimer that the school board does not oversee departments so we ask questions we try to get to the bottom of things we have facilities we have different committees but at the same time we are somewhat limited in what we can ask of a department because we're trusting the people to do their jobs so when it feels like someone's not doing their job we have to figure out what our role is in that I will say that there were Essentially three factors. One is it's really hard to hire bus drivers right now. Every district in the state, probably the country, is experiencing a very serious shortage of bus drivers. So our, I blanking on what his title is because we sort of have two directors at the moment, which I will speak to in a moment, rather than being able to do the majority of his job description, he's been driving a lot of routes. So it is therefore conceivable that some balls were dropped, some things did not happen that should have happened, and that is a very serious question that all of us are asking. In addition to that, we have a mechanic who is out on long-term health leave, so we're down a mechanic as well. But the third thing is that last year there were two tragedies in our state that involved bus drivers, and the state has naturally responded with we are not going to let a bus on the road if one light bulb does not work, if there is, if the tread depth of the tire is just a little too close to that head of the quarter. Like I said, I was a bus driver, that it's coming off the road. That has never happened before. During inspections there will often be things where hey, you got to get this done, but we'll go ahead and pass you. So I can't speak for other districts. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be up here with claiming hearsay, but according to our superintendent, who meets with other superintendents and is at a superintendent conference right now, every district experienced a large number of buses that did not pass inspection, and again I will just say the majority of them were back on the road if not within the day, within a day or two. As to your question about the staffing in Transportation, we did have one of our leaders, I'm not going to get hung up on titles, but one of the heads of the Transportation Department resigned over the summer. That was quite unexpected, and that's so hard when you're trying to put together a budget and you don't know when you're putting together a budget in late winter, early spring, sometimes you don't know what personal changes are going to happen. So rather than trying to fill that position as is, we took an opportunity to restructure the Transportation Department. So yes, that person that you were referring to is receiving the same salary because we did not feel it was appropriate, given all that he is asked to do, to reduce his salary, but that also meant bringing in a director. So yes, more money is going into the transportation budget for, in the hopes that We can streamline this better because we don't want buses failing inspection. We do not want there to be any question of safety, let alone routes running efficiently. And of course, now with the bridge, it's an even bigger job. So all that to say, there are many factors. All of us care very much about safety, and this is an ongoing process to make sure that it doesn't [1:43:02] Speaker S (unidentified): happen again. So real quick, a question on top of that. So if you want to avoid hearsay on say buses is failing, where was the notice to parents? Why is it hearsay if you know the first time I hear about it is through a public comment? I have two kids. I mean, I'm not a fan of excuses, Kim, really. If you're going to fail something, you need to address it immediately, and you need to address it with the parents. I'm that drives me nuts. I'm sorry. That's a valid point. [1:43:35] Jeff Mahal: I'm sorry I need to bring this on the table. I got a commercial driver's license. The testing process is very similar for a school bus license. The same pre-trip is required. Those bus drivers are responsible for pre-tripping those buses every single day. If they are not doing that is a serious issue. We are a well-paying district. I'm sure we pay better than say New Gloucester or some of the other districts. That is their responsibility as a driver when they get that license, and if the bus isn't safe it shouldn't go on the road, and it's their job to bring that the attention of the school administration. So I am flabbergasted that we have people driving buses with headlights and tail lights and signal lights that are out that are easy fixes. I could understand if somebody didn't know a brake can had failed, you have to crawl under the bus to find that, but signal lights, it's unacceptable. I'm sorry I have nothing else to say. [1:44:34] Kim Vine: I know I'm harsh, but that's the reality. You are correct, and that is one of the questions I asked as well, Jeff. So I'm you're working on getting to the bottom of it. Yeah, these are the [1:44:45] Michael Sweat: questions I think that the taxpayers expect you guys to be on top of. Do we know how many had failed breaks out of all the buses? I don't have that number. You'll be shocked. Anybody else in the public want to come up, please Meredith? [1:45:07] Kerner: Kerner Cumberland, first of all, thank you all for being here tonight and for giving us the opportunity for public discussion. It does give me hope that people are listening. Earlier this month, our school superintendent told us that we'd, we'd need additional staff of 13.8 FTEs, kind of essentially a person, to support the new building and an additional 7.1 FTEs, primarily across grades five through 12 because of increases in enrollment. That's a total of nearly 21 additional FTEs or people. Pre-K aside, and I might be oversimplifying, but pre-K aside, we're basically taking our student population and expanding into another building. Is there an opportunity to shift staff as well, or if we're dealing with a bubble of students passing through a grade, can teachers be flexible and shift a grade level to accommodate this? Surely if we're dealing with a bubble as it passes to the next grade, there's a reduction in class sizes for the previous grade. The superintendent referenced enrollment growth since 2024, but it's more relevant to look at growth from 25 to 26, as well as the current year. Using the numbers on record with the Department of Education, our enrollment increased by only four students in 2026. I haven't seen the numbers for 27 yet. If we look at the students affected by superintendent agreements in 26, and if I'm looking at it correctly, we accepted 32 additional students in with 15 going elsewhere. That's a net gain of 17 students. That's a lot. Who approves of this? There should be criteria and oversight for accepting out-of-district students. I asked the board to better understand class sizes, student to teacher ratios, student to staff ratios, enrollment, and superintendent agreement students before approving this additional headcount. I also ask that all this data be available to the public. I wasn't able to find any data on the website regarding class sizes. I did find a figure saying we had a staff of 444 FTEs in fiscal year 25, but it's unclear. Is that staff, is it faculty, is it a combination? And its old data. It's important to understand both faculty headcounts as well as administrative and supporting staff headcounts, all in conjunction with class sizes and enrollment. I also ask that the board do an audit of enrollment in non compulsory classes to identify any that can't be justified. The IB program comes to mind for me as maybe an opportunity to reduce some costs with limited impact. The school board is not just responsible to the schools, but one of the primary roles of the board is to ensure that our tax dollars are being used responsibly. Anybody else? [1:48:35] Dave McLaughlin: Dave McLaughlin, North Yarmouth. I started getting involved about four years ago when I really couldn't determine what the tax impact was on the first referendum. I usually could do that in about five minutes, but you know, two and a half hours later I finally calculated it out, and then I published a paper which I informed the public that by my calculations it would be 40% over five years, or eight percent a year. I also spent quite a bit of time sitting down providing a lot of advice. One of them was you need to go to long-term forecasts. My most recent advice was you need to get an efficiency study done. Why? If you look back over the past seven years, the school's been operating at seven percent average year-over-year expense. Inflation is running four point four percent. In addition to that, when you take a look at the school that's coming online, you're going to have a thirty percent higher operating costs than what it was originally. I hear the bonds coming in at four point two five markets at four three five markets at five three five. I hope you get the four to five, but I'm telling the market on double-a, and I 've issued a lot of bonds, is five three five, so keep an eye on that. So what's that all mean? Your expenses next year, instead of seven percent, are going up by 12%, but that doesn't include the full bond amortization. If you throw the bond amortization in, you're going up 17%. I think that numbers light. Doesn't throw in this, the subsidies that I think the state's in trouble, that could be reduced, you know, the health. We don't need to go over the expenses, a lot of pressure points on the on the line item expenses. So what does that mean, bottom line? Moving forward, I'm assuming a 13% tax impact for both towns in 2027. You can double that up again, and I think you're going to get hit with 25%. I'm very confident in those numbers. So what do I think is going to happen? Last year, you were 70 votes to pass the budget. That was with a 5.5% tax impact. I think you're going to be at least 13%. Do you think they're going to approve it? I don't. If they don't approve it, and if the position is we want to get closer into inflation, that's a 13% cut to the existing school budget. That's $7 million to get close to inflation. That's where a lot of towns are moving and where they have to go. Can we get down there? No. I think it's too big. But you can't be at 17%. You've got to be a lot closer to 3.6%. So my biggest question would be, and I think you need to take a hard look at it, I think you need to anticipate it's not going to be approved and what are we going to do next because I think you're going to get into some serious cost-cutting that you're going to have to do because you can't do it on revenues. You're not a company, you can't plant more potatoes and generate more revenue. And don't feel alone, by the way. way, this is across the nation. This is across our state. Nobody owns this. I don't look at anybody on the board now. Real estate development has impacted this. I mean, you've got a lot more coming into the school on the expense side than you do on the revenue side. This has created this thing. But you've got a big problem coming up next year. I've done my best to warn you over the years and tell you this. But what I'm telling you right now is tomorrow morning, if it were me, I'd be getting an efficiency study in the ASAP and get it as efficient as possible so that you can minimize getting into programs and cutting your programs. That's what I did. I took on the position that, above all, I wanted to protect the asset. What's the biggest asset of our community, our school? What's most important? The delivery of education. Where does that happen? In the classroom. That's a variable cost. you get into cost-cutting you don't cut your fixed expenses you cut your variable expenses get the efficiency steady and try to minimize any further impact that's gonna happen I think it's critical that you do that I spent a fair amount of time looking at this good luck I will attend the meeting next week [1:53:16] Michael Sweat: week. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Judy? Come on. All right. Well, first off, thanks to the public for showing up tonight. We do value what you say. It is always nice to see people in the public, and instead of us always up here, we do. Paul, I'll let north yamilco first and closing and we'll go and kim you'll have the last say how's that okay [1:53:54] Paul Whitmarsh: All right, well, first I want to say thank you, thanks to you know hosting this to Cumberland, I appreciate it. Thank you to the other two, the council and the school board, for allowing us to be here and attend this, and you know thanks for listening. I know I did, I think I had mentioned this earlier to maybe to Michael in passing, that I really didn't want this turn into a big you know beat up on the school type meeting, because that's really not what the intent of this should be. We all know that budget is the biggest budget we all and we don't doubt that the school board looks at it and realizes that too, so I hope that the comments made are taken constructively and not as criticisms. And I know that I know just from again our small meeting that we had with the Community Partnership Committee, that I know that both Tim and Sean took a lot of notes and were very receptive, and it was it was very good to see. So you know it's good that we can work together, and believe me we're doing everything we can to control our growth, to help control what comes in to be able to you know how much more growth we have and how much more the school can expand. So we're going to do our part, and you know hopefully we'll be able to all work together, and as bob vale has mentioned a number of times, hopefully we can find some places where can collaborate and places where we can share costs and or you know outsource them with other towns so that there's spread those costs even further. So thanks again i appreciate it [1:55:46] Michael Sweat: I've just got one quick comment. A couple a couple meetings ago Jesse came to the town council meeting and then the public discussion paid a really nice compliment to the town, and I want to say thank you, and kind of following what Paul said is, and I'm I am sure to blame on this, we're quick to criticize and slow to compliment. And you guys the school board volunteer your time, you do a good job, it doesn't go unnoticed, and having put kids through the school I appreciate the final product, and you guys are very much appreciated. So Kim I'll turn it over to you for the last word, and then we'll close her up [1:56:44] Kim Vine: First of all, Bill, thank you for mentioning the school in Oregon. I glanced at my phone as I was walking in, and there's a different kind of pain when you see that it's happened at a school. And I know that every teacher, every administrator, just it could immediately see themselves in that situation, and it's horrible. So I join you in praying for them. Again, thank you. I'm so glad this meeting happened. It was a little hard to get it to happen, but good stuff has come out of it. Your public comments have not fallen on deaf years. The transportation issues, the budgetary issues, I swear to you that we are aware of this and concerned about it just as much as you all are. And sometimes it's just that I'm limited at what I can say publicly regarding ongoing situations. And just the last thing I want to say, and I mentioned it earlier, is public schools are by definition inefficient. We have to put a lot of resources into meeting every child's needs. As Sean said, education looks very different than it did even when we all were kids. And by the way, someday I want to figure out how many alumni there are sitting at this table. It is when you look at what is spent sometimes for just one student, the private bus that has to go down a rural road for this student who cannot ride on a giant bus with other children and instead has to take a specialized van, you look at the number of adults that have to be with that child, you look at the number of kids who want to change the world. I think they all do, and we are trying to give them opportunities to do that and to meet everyone's needs. I encourage everyone to take a look at what a profile of a learner looks like, because it is, it is very different than when all of us were in school. So I will be the first one to say that a public school is inefficient, thank god, because if we were trying to be efficient, the majority of the kids would probably fall behind. And so thank you for recognizing that this is a really hard job, and we appreciate all of you as well, and we [1:59:16] Michael Sweat: appreciate all of you as well. Thank you everybody, and have a good night. Be careful on the ride home. Thanks