Reorganization Planning Committee Meeting
May 14, 2008
Present: Chair Gail Marshall, Vice-Chair Brian Hubbell, Facilitator Bill Ferm
Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy Mount Desert: Patrick Smallidge, Laurel Robbins
Southwest Harbor: Skip Strong, Kristin Hutchins Tremont: Scott Grierson
Others in attendance: Rob Liebow, Nancy Thurlow, George Peckham, Judy Sproule, Mia Brown,
Gary Friedmann
Commencement of Meeting
Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:04 pm
Review of Draft Minutes from 30 April 2008
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Skip Strong and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of
30 April 2008, as written.
Public Comment
There was no public comment.
Report on May 2 Phone Conference with Dick Spencer
Gail Marshall summarized the phone conference she, Brian Hubbell, and Rob Liebow had with Dick Spencer on 2 May 2008.
What will the plan that we have to submit be required to include? Paul Murphy was correct in assuming that it is going to have to respond to all the boxes in the original plan we submitted. We will be requesting to form an alternative organizational structure. We won't have to rethink and rework the plan but it will have to be appropriate. We will have to file a new notice of intent and plan. Do we have to go through the exercise of submitting the notice of intent, wait for a reply, then submit the plan, or just submit both at once? Mr. Spencer said we could work that out later.
Inter-local agreement. Very broad. Any activity that a governmental entity wants to do that they are empowered to do can coalesce with other entities to get that done. It could be trash pick up. Mr. Spencer has used this for school matters in the past. When asked who the governmental entity was, he said it's the school committees that would be parties to the inter-local agreement. He will need to look at town charters for all towns that will be involved.
Brian Hubbell - He described the school committees as the ones who would come up with the agreements but the voters would eventually have to approve.
Gail Marshall - Voting - whether weighted vote or not. If people are elected to elementary school boards and then to the inter-local board, he doesn't think we would have to use weighted votes.
Patrick Smallidge - That would solve a lot of issues.
Gail Marshall - One of our concerns if we chose to go ahead with the plan directly would be making sure there is a mechanism for change, to include other schools that are not in the original plan. We want a clear opportunity to include another system if we think it seems appropriate to move ahead before that is decided.
Budget validation referendum - The high school did not have to have do a budget validation referendum this year. Beginning in subsequent years, the high school will also have to do this.
Swan's being an SAD, Dick Spencer thought that these agreements could include Swan’s becoming an RSU on their own but they could be in our inter-local agreement.
Brian Hubbell – In discussing the referendum, we also discussed if it was possible to have this done at the same time as the plan? We’re hoping we wouldn’t have to ratify the inter-local agreement first and then go to the voters. These might be separate questions.
Patrick Smallidge - Dealing with issues of potential acceptance of new towns to this structure. Has there been any more discussion on withdrawal? Personally concerned to be locked into agreement with no exit strategy.
Brian Hubbell - Assumes that would be part of the discussion when drafting the agreement so parties could get out of it. There is nothing in the inter-local agreement that would prevent that from happening.
Judy Sproule - In Title 30-A it says you have to provide for change.
Patrick Smallidge – We should establish our original structure first through the inter-local agreements, then turn to accepting other towns?
Brian Hubbell – That’s a little ahead of where we are right now. We should want to be able to handle change and having additional towns join later on.
Patrick Smallidge – I read about Trenton and Lamoine in the paper getting the cold shoulder. I understand the amount of time people have put into all this to keep it the way it is, but this would be a wonderful opportunity to solve funding issues and representation issues.
Bill Ferm - Reports are like background information and discussion will flow from these. Asked Gail to summarize the phone conference to conclude this report.
Gail Marshall - Dick Spencer is not available right now but will be available by the third week of June.
Bill Ferm - He would be available to start drafting and work on issues then?
Gail Marshall – Yes.
Report on Union 98 Current Governance and Financial Structure
Rob Liebow – Distributed handouts. The first sheet has just union 98 towns in it. What you do in a Union is take the 2005 census number for that town then take the number of board members and divide that into the census number and that becomes the number of votes per board member.
Bar Harbor has the highest population so it also has the highest weighted vote.
Paul Murphy - Clarification. When we are talking about the inter-local agreement, we are talking about the organization that will replace the school union, so just the central office. It has nothing to do with the high school or local schools.
Rob Liebow - Explained census and votes and percentage of each. We discovered that, for 30 years or more, we calculated our numbers slightly wrong. The state assumes that if you have a high school board and a local board there are different members on each. The total census count is split between the two and we’ve just been adding those numbers together. When you start to talk about alternative structures and talk to the state, and you find that there are only five Bar Harbor members that sit there on both, it’s not a simple “add them together” situation. We got these numbers verified from the state. All of our votes have been fairly unanimous so it doesn’t cloud the issue, but it will be changed from this point forward. The second sheet adds Trenton with five members and the percentage for everyone shifts around. The third sheet adds Lamoine who also has five board members. When you take a vote on something, it's not the number of hands, it's the number of votes per hand.
Gail Marshall – This is not necessarily how we would want to or have to construct a board under an inter-local agreement, this is just how we do things now.
Rob Liebow - Computation of payments by formula. This determines how much of the budget is going to be assessed to each town in Union 98. Dick Fox came up with this formula years ago. He explained how this formula works and went through the current budget figures. He also figured these numbers strictly by using the enrollment percentage only, just as an exercise. It’s not dramatically different. Added three possible additional administrative positions, that if you expanded your organization to include other towns, you couldn't add two other towns to that and expect one person to handle everything. These three additional positions would add $210,000 to the budget.
The next sheet adds Trenton to this. Trenton's current superintendent’s office budget is $138,500. Some of their services are different than ours so I tried to make them as close as possible to being the same. Put them in this relationship and they drop down to $105,589 but this doesn't add any additional staff. What's reducing assessments is that you’re making a larger unit operate with the same size central office.
The third sheet adds Lamoine. Explained how they fit into budget. They have superintendent’s office costs of $126,000. The last sheets take Trenton and add staff and Lamoine and add staff.
Gail Marshall - My sense is that we are concerned that our superintendent, director of special education and director of curriculum are already working to capacity. We would need the additional staff. Spacing problems and real estate are also issues.
Rob Liebow – This is the same sheet but adds all the staff. It adds $210,000 to the budget. Everyone would put in a little more. It would still be a drop for Trenton and Lamoine though. Also done by just enrollment percentage. What it says to me is that you could run a central office with additional staff for not much more than what you run it now.
Gail Marshall - Still doesn't understand the 96% column.
Rob Liebow - Doesn't have any rationale to that number.
Nancy - So you didn't have fluctuations so much in your percentages. It used to be 92% but Frenchboro had some problems with that and we changed it.
Paul Murphy - Might be useful to get Dick Fox in here. He could explain it.
Brian Hubbell - The effect of it is pretty clear so I assume that was the intent.
Gail Marshall - We can look at the budget to see what the central office has to do for work. All components need to be managed by central office. These variables are going to drive the cost of the central office.
Review of Previously Submitted Plan
Paul Murphy – Can we go back to the conversation with Dick Spencer? The parties to the agreement would be the school committees. Then the inter-local agreement is to be negotiated by the school committes?
Gail – No. The inter-local agreement would be built by the RPC.
Brian Hubbell - School committees have to sign to agree to the reorganization plan. Voters have to ratify.
Gail Marshall - This board has been tasked with that.
Brian Hubbell - Title 30-A allows the school boards to decide how to assign authority jointly, as we're talking about school authority. Then they will enter inter-local agreements to share duties.
Patrick Smallidge - That is where you might run into interference with individual town's charters?
Brian Hubbell - It would be important to make sure it's consistent with each town. We can't be in violation with that.
Gail Marshall - This will ultimately need ratification. This board is responsible for creating the document that has to meet approval of whichever governmental authority, whether it’s the school committee or the town, who will sign off on it for the purpose of sending it to the commissioner for her approval. Then once the commissioner approves it, it will have to go to the voters of each town.
Report from Trenton and Lamoine
Judy Sproule - Trenton wants to keep options open. We want to find the best place for our students. Union 92 had and RPC meeting last week. They want to keep Union 92 together without Ellsworth. Several members are exploring other options, including Blue Hill. They are interested in getting all the information they can since this is where their students come.
Gail – This is why we brought up earlier to create a plan to allow us to deliberate with other entities and bring them in under terms that were advantageous to everyone, but no have members of Union 98 waiting, but leave the door open.
Brian Hubbell - Want to make sure everyone is clear. Inter-local agreement is just to deal with functions that are currently taken care of by our central office.
Bill Ferm – Is there a timetable of how this whole process could move forward?
Brian Hubbell - Expect we would have simple list of functions to parallel what our central office does now. Duties we would expect to accomplish through inter-local agreement and how governance and finance would work with that. We could give this to Dick Spencer to draft the agreement based on these items.
Paul Murphy - One thing that will not be identical is that we will need to make some provision as to how transportation is handled at the central office. It will be transportation administration and there will be no transfer of ownership or responsibility. Rob will become transportation czar and will empower each local community to take care of it's own transportation.
Rob Liebow - I would still oversee it, as I do now.
Paul Murphy – But it has to be in the plan. The issue of the inter-local agreement is to get information to Dick Spencer so he can do the research to draft it. While this is happening we can go through the rest of plan and work those issues out.
Brian Hubbell - We would probably submit the inter-local agreement to the commissioner to get her take on it. This would be part of our reorganizational plan.
Patrick Smallidge – So we would use this as a template to see if it's going to fly.
Paul Murphy – Kind of a pre-approval kind of thing.
Brian Hubbell – We are expecting to keep other functions virtually identical.
Patrick Smallidge – Very comfortable with the funding formula. Can live with it. Like the way it pans out for additions of other towns.
Paul Murphy - We all agree with that.
Patrick Smallidge- Is there any contention amongst the other towns on structure and funding?
Bill Ferm – This may be a good time to look at the components of the inter-local agreement.
Scott Grierson - As I interpret numbers and percentages, a larger school like Bar Harbor has an advantage with the Fox formula. If that's accurate, I like the enrollment portion rather than going by the Fox formula. Seems much simpler.
Rob Liebow - The answer is that the size of the school doesn't dictate the demands on the central office. If Cranberry had 5 kids but still had a teacher and specialist, you could have just as many school board meetings and special education issues. Right now small isolated schools are probably getting a bargain. Other variables in there are meant to take away from the fact that the work of the central office is not not driven by enrollment.
Paul Murphy - Doesn't take a lot more work to manage Bar Harbor’s collective bargaining agreement rather than Tremont's, or the budgets. Managing the budget is managing the budget. They require the same amount of work. Enrollment is less a factor.
Bill Ferm – Perhaps we should see what areas we have consensus on.
Gail Marshall - Do people want to think about representation on the board, if we have latitude to think about how people on the board vote? Do we want to think about weighted votes or one person one vote? Sometimes it's really hard to get a quorum. We need the numbers (weighted vote) to have a quorum.
Paul Murphy - No objection in principle to look at it another way. We should get a definitive opinion from Dick Spencer first whether we can move away from weighted voting. It's potentially a contentious issue. If we don't have to address it I don't think we should.
Bill Ferm – Let’s start talking about things we would want to mention to Dick Spencer to draft in the inter-local agreement.
Patrick Smallidge - Doesn't like weighted vote, but can live with it here. As percentages and budgets are divided, it's not a huge hill of beans.
Laurel Robbins – Are we going to go through our original plan at some point. We know we will have to do tweaking in the inter-local agreement.
Bill Ferm - One option we have is to set a meeting for next week and go through item by item, or we could start with the inter-local agreement.
Gail Marshall – Maybe some of us should highlight those things that don't fit any more. Not to make editorial decisions but make it more comprehensive.
Brian Hubbell - Most of this is obsolete since we are keeping our boards as is. So this is probably as good a night as any to go through and decide what our central office will do.
Bill Ferm – Maybe we could just mention topic by topic now and then put it up on the screen next week.
Let's start with number one. Units that are listed here. Mechanism where we would list units that are listed here but also build in a way to expand and contract?
Brian Hubbell - That's just a list of current members to this.
Bill Ferm - Next, number of members on board.
Gail - What we're going to do is describe election to elementary boards and then describe the high school board. Above that we'll be describing what the inter-local board will be.
Paul Murphy - Swan's will be moving from an SAD to an RSU. Does the exemption outer islands get not apply to governance structure?
Gail Marshall - That would be their call to make. It doesn't matter what they call themselves.
Bill Ferm - Method of voting of the governing body. Get legal opinion on. Then the matrix - election of members board of directors and RSU members.
Gail Marshall – We’re going to elect people to local school committees. Those people then become high school board members and those people would become board members of the inter-local agreement committee.
Bill Ferm - Overall school responsibilities.
Gail Marshall – We’re going to be as we are now. Completely independent schools, come together for the high school and have the inter-local agreement for the central office.
Kristin Hutchins – Did you say last time the MDIHS Trustees might cease to exist?
Gail Marshall - If the Private and Special Act for the high school is untouched by this, then they [Trustees[ are in there, unless changed by the mechanisms of the Private and Special Act.
Paul Murphy - Which would not be part of this process.
Bill Ferm - Budgeting.
Gail Marshall - All do their own.
Nancy Thurlow - But you're going to have to be one big budget for reporting purposes.
Rob Liebow - Nancy and I are going to meet with Ray Poulin to see how this will work.
Brian Hubbell - We will have to deal with how we allocate. We’re going to get all money from the state in one chunk.
Kristin Hutchins - When this is all done, towns will still be paying the salaries of teachers.
Nancy Thurlow - No, we’ll be sending it to the former RSU. We have to put everything together in one set of books so we can upload it to the state. Everything goes to the state quarterly. It looks like we would have to do like we do with the high school and assess each town. You're going to become one unit for financial purposes, but you'll develop and authorize budgets separately.
Mia Brown – I envision like an in and out account. Each town puts their million in and then pays out all their respective expenses and then when we've voted on that, each respective town would vote that amount to the inter-local budget.
Nancy Thurlow - Like the high school in a way. K-8 budget that comes from taxes and other funding sources but it's got to all come together. Not easy.
Kristin Hutchins - Will staffs in the schools remain the employees of the towns.
Gail Marshall - Yes.
Rob Liebow - Salaries have to go through these books, but towns will hire and fire.
Nancy Thurlow - Payroll will be one big payroll.
Patrick Smallidge – In terms of dedicating the revenue and when we go to town meeting, town meeting dedicates to a specific account which would have to be reauthorized by the inter-local board, and signed off on the expenditure.
Paul Murphy – The collective bargaining agreement will be with the town and the teacher's association.
Bill Ferm - Is this something for Dick Spencer, too?
Gail Marshall - Yes.
Paul Murphy – It was a very clear point of negotiation when we put this alternative organizational structure together that it was important to us that teachers remain employees of the municipality.
Mia Brown - Should we also seek advice from an accountant or CPA?
Gail Marshall - Dick Spencer can decide that.
Kristin Hutchins – It might be reasonable to think of what the central office is doing as payroll processing.
Nancy Thurlow - Our auditors should be part of this at some point.
Patrick Smallidge – I stand in awe of what all of you have done to save our democracy in regard to education. But we have been this same route with these same people. The last time you sat in an office with Hannah Pingree and had gotten "this will go". I’m a little uneasy that we have a Mount Desert Island size hoop here. This is a tribute to the people who have done the work, but it makes it very vulnerable. Still going to fly in the face of the intent of the law.
Gail Marshall - Totally understands Mr. Smallidge’s skepticism. This is a different situation. This is explicitly spelled out in the law. I think that if you look at the letter from the commissioner of education that was put in the newspaper, she came as close as you could expect her to, ratify the nature of the conversations we had with her. I'll be happy when it's over and her name is on the approval line.
Brian Hubbell – The largest difference is that this law was largely drawn up by our lawyer who is working for us.
Paul Murphy - We managed to keep Dick Spencer with his responsibility to us. Not only was he our lawyer going into it, but he was our lawyer when he drafted this legislation. We hold the trump card. Non-compliance is still our final trump card. If DOE burns us again we always have that.
Patrick Smallidge – I am seeing a huge amount of effort from all of you. We’re looking at huge complications in accounting. When the professionals are having a hard time, I'm uneasy. All the smaller towns are watching us. You’re setting a precedent.
Scott Grierson - Same gut feeling about this. Feel there is a loop-hole that has been created for us and feel this loop hole will be closed on us.
Paul Murphy – The greater fear, and why I would argue against non-compliance, is it’s only a matter of time before Augusta comes and gets the non-compliers. Then we’ll be forced into a structure we don’t want. Two ways to look at what they are thinking about non-compliers. There will be a lot of them and they will save money by cutting their aid and they want everybody singing from the same hymnal. The hole may just be MDI sized. While they want it to have the appearance of general application, they don’t want it generally applied. They think it’s crafted in a way that very few districts will qualify for this structure.
Gail Marshall - As a school board person, there is value, and it is useful and important for our school systems to get through this process and not end up in an outlaw status with the DOE. If that's where we have to be to protect certain inalienable rights, that's what's we'll do.
Geroge Peckham - Paul, do you have any sense of how other unions in the state feel about this loop hole?
Paul Murphy - No real sense, but I think a lot of them think it will be difficult for them to qualify.
Rob Liebow- There are two huge hurdles they come up against. If they are not minimum receivers, there’s one subsidy check that comes to the alternative organizational structure but then it’s going to have to be divided up so when you do budget, revenue offsets the amount you raise for taxes. In other places where you may have an 85% receiver, 20% receiver, etc. the state department isn't going to split this up for them. They don't know how they're going to solve this issue. Different teacher contracts are another issue. The alternative organizational unit has to have a mechanism to getting to consistent agreements. There could be massive disparities. I think we'll have a problem with Frenchboro. For them to jump to a scale would be a huge problem.
Gail Marshall - That's where the exemption comes in handy. Nobody is more distressed than we are in thinking that we may have carved out a special exemption for MDI and leave everybody else in the lurch. Communities spent a lot to hire Dick Spencer to draft the law. We worked really hard to get this passed, but it didn't. In some ways for us this outcome is better, it could be easier in some respects.
Paul Murphy - We'll all be happy if repeal succeeds. We're still in the position that we don't love this.
Judy Sproule - From my viewpoint, state wide there is just total dissatisfaction. Dale Douglass from Maine School Management said there are very few school districts that could take advantage of this.
Geroge Peckham - Failure to pass was strictly political and not for the benefit of education?
Gail Marshall – The commissioner will say the primary motivation for doing this was for the "quality of education" but I don’t think it was an educational bill to begin with.
Bill Ferm – Let’s just keep going through these. Referendum procedures.
Gail Marshall - State law.
Bill Ferm – Local Assessments.
Rob Liebow - That will have to change somewhat, the local and high school will have their own referendum, and inter-local will have their own, but it will happen on same day.
Gail Marshall - Want to share an anecdote. A woman in Portland was quoted as saying, “I voted for the budget. It isn’t because I support the budget. If I vote no, it's going to be interpreted that I want to cut the budget.”
Paul Murphy - Interesting how referenda are going. At Tremont’s town meeting last night, and every other one I’ve attended, dealing with the school articles are a mess. This budget transparency is budget confusion.
Laurel Robbins – The budget we approved at town meeting doesn't count. What counts is..
Paul Murphy - You're voting to send it to the voters.
Kristin Hutchins - It passed a lot more positively on the floor than it did the next day at the polls.
Scott Grierson - Eveything was unanimous until it became secret ballot. That may be the plus side. You actually know what people think.
Bill Ferm - Overall budget recording and record keeping.
Nancy Thurlow - We'll find out Tuesday, hopefully.
Bill Ferm - Balances and carryover funds.
Gail Marshall - We'll find out.
Bill Ferm - General reserves.
Gail Marshall - Each jurisdiction is going to maintain it’s power over those items.
Bill Ferm – Building and equipment ownership and maintenance? Construction and maintenance projects? Debt responsibility?
Gail Marshall – Ditto.
George Peckham - What impact do the trustees have now?
Gail Marshall - You're in business. The way the law works, we're not dealing at this level with the Private and Special Act.
Gerpge Peckham - With the same powers and responsibility?
Gail Marshall - Yes.
Laurel Robbins - What would challenge the special act?
Gail Marshall - Someone decides it needs to be rewritten and go to the legislators.
Paul Murphy - It would be a matter for the governing bodies of the towns to negotiate the change and bring it to the legislature. It’s not a school issue it’s a municipal issue.
Bill Ferm – Scholarships and other special funds.
Patrick Smallidge - If it's voted on by the legislative body, instead of having the Private and Special Act we draft inter-local agreements for the high school and it’s ratified by the towns...
Paul Murphy - You've got a state statute that trumps any municipal statute. It has to be done through the legislature. Towns could get together and petition legislators to amend or kill the private and special act.
Bill Ferm – Scholarships and other funds? Student activity funds?
Gail Marshall - As is, where is.
Bill Ferm - Federal and state grants?
Rob Liebow- If you are an RSU, it goes to the RSU and you may get different amounts of money. Or will and alternative structure act like an RSU for grant money? REAP money - small schools get a lot, but bigger schools don't. We could stand to lose quite a lot of money.
Gail Marshall - Rob are you hearing that they are trying to solve this problem? I would assume they don't want to give away federal money.
Rob Liebow - They said they would look into it.
Judy Sproule – I think in 668 it defines the school administrative unit as one of the entities comprising the alternate organization.
Rob Liebow- It would be more advantageous for us to remain in unique profiles. You draw aid when you are struggling because of demographics and your community’s economics.
Mia Brown - In theory, if all the state is consolidating, the people giving the money would have to restructure their giving.
Gail Marshall - The “people” is the federal government.
Bill Ferm - Filing state reports.
Nancy Thurlow – We would file as one unit.
Bill Ferm – Hiring, rehiring and termination.
Gail Marshall - Handled locally.
Bill Ferm – Supervision and evaluation of staff.
Gail Marshall – Handled locally.
Bill Ferm - Negotiated contracts.
Gail Marshall - We'll have to commit to the consistent contracts and demonstrate that we have a mechanism for being consistent.
Rob Liebow – The contract, even though it's consistent and common, is not a common contract. They are contracts in common. As long as they are separate, they are multiple contracts that are consistent and common in nature.
Gail Marshall - People are going to have to demonstrate a commitment to get to that place. We can say we've done that and will continue the process. That's our commitment but we're still maintaining the independence of our individual boards.
Rob Liebow - From a selfish superintendent point of view, envision contracts that are done around same table at same time. One table of representatives that meet together. If someone new came in, they would be at the same table.
Gail Marshall – My sense is that we went into that process with a high level of commitment and sound reasons for doing it. That process should continue and boards should agree to that.
Bill Ferm - Staff seniority and reduction in force procedures.
Gail Marshall - Local, but it's the contract.
Bill Ferm - Personnel records.
Gail Marshall – Same as it is now.
Bill Ferm – Assignment of staff to schools.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Assignment of students to schools.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Establishing school grade structures.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Staffing patterns and class size.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Programming decisions.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Curriculum decisions and selection of eductional materials.
Gail Marshall - Central office core function.
Rob Liebow - Educational materials could be selected at each school as long as they reach the same curriculum needs.
Gail Marshall - It's the goal that is unified, not the means to get there.
Bill Ferm – Policy making.
Gail Marshall - Consistent policies that will allow for some minor variation. This is what we do now.
Bill Ferm – School closure.
Gail Marshall – The decision to close a school will remain with local community.
Bill Ferm – Extra curricular programs.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Expulsion powers.
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Transportation
Paul Murphy – We’re going to have to write something about that but the intent is to keep it local and to give Rob oversight.
Gail Marshall - The individual boards could ask Rob to study the transportation system and report on it’s efficiency and make recommendations. Administrative function. We could delegate to the administration to have them report back and tell us what we can do.
George Peckham - With respect to closure point, wouldn't the responsibility fall to the RSU and if you go forward with that responsibility locally won't that influence the commissioner?
Paul Murphy - There is no RSU, it’s an alternative organizational structure and it only takes care of central office functions. Each school is the sole responsibility of the municipality.
Bill Ferm – Bus purchases
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm – Lunch programs
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Acceptance of gifts
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - School calendars
Gail Marshall - Have to reach consistency, but variability with outer islands. They have built in exemption anyway. We have consistent calendars now anyway.
Bill Ferm - Insurances
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Assorted outside contracts
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Lease agreements
Gail Marshall - Local
Bill Ferm - Distribution of state subsidy
Rob and Nancy will discuss this with the state on Tuesday.
Gail Marshall - Assorted outside contracts and insurances, over time our central office evolved and communities chose to pool their energies and resources. Don’t know that we consolidate insurances, but this is another area where we don’t want to tie the future’s hands. Wants future units to be able to, if they want, run one lunch program if people choose. We've gotten where we are now because it makes sense.
Paul Murphy - Makes sense for things like bus purchasing and leases, where volume might make for efficiency. Add sentence for each line that says, “We will continue to explore ways to be more efficient and find means of cooperative ways to purchase buses, for example.” Keep authority where it is now and express that we will look for ways to cooperate where possible.
Bill Ferm - For next time, we will have something to look at and highlight things we went over tonight.
Next Meeting
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Wednesday May 28, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Adjournment
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Laurel Robbins, and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 9:07 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Selena Dunbar, Recording Secretary