Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Angela. Welcome back to House Education, 02/18/2026. We are discussing now school construction and school construction aid. The context of the conversation is, to a certain extent, yesterday the committee had some time to talk. We talked about CESAs as something we have general agreement on. Got some more testimony this morning. And we have general agreement that we all believe that we need to fund our school construction aid program. We don't know how much, we don't know how to do that, but we have general agreement that that should be part of whatever we're putting forward. Knowing that that was probably going to be the case, I've asked folks to come in and sort of talk to us about the importance of school construction aid and any suggestions they have for us as we go forward. The fact is we have built the structure to do this, we just haven't funded it. Anyway, with that in mind, that context, realize your comments may be a little bit of afield of that or not, but we need all the input we can get. I appreciate you being here. The floor is yours.

[Mike Legleiter]: Thank you, Chair Conlon, members of the committee. My name is Mike Legleiter. I'm the superintendent of the Harwood Unified Union School District in Central Vermont. I'm a resident of Duxbury. And by way of background, this is my thirty fifth year in public education. In my previous superintendency, I led our team through full scale renovations of three elementary schools that ranged in size from three fifty students to 700 students. The construction of a new elementary school with a capacity of seven fifty students, a three year phased reconstruction and rebuilding of a high school with a capacity of 2,100 students. So I was saying to my colleague that when I became the superintendent educator, I didn't expect to be a person with experience in construction, but it's actually one of our passions now. So I'm very happy to hear that the committee feels very strongly about funding that. So I think I will skip some of my comments that I made about the importance and the fact that in my experience, you really can't separate the education transformation from school construction because they have to be very linked and they have to be a part of the same policy conversations. My full remarks are in the record and like I said, I will skip through and talk a little bit about some of both my history but also the history of my current school district, Harvard Unified Union School District. And I think it's worth noting that the importance of linking both of those as a single policy issue with the experience of the Duxbury School District. So in the 1990s, the Duxbury Elementary School was in terrible shape. It needed tremendous work. The town decided that it was not cost effective nor prudent for them to fund that project. So they engaged in conversations with Waterbury, the Waterbury School District. And through a lot of conversations, through votes of not just those two towns, but the rest of the supervisory union, they decided to merge. And as part of that merger, they transformed what was then, what was originally Waterbury High School, Waterbury Elementary School into a K-four building. And with about 50% support from the state, they built Crossett Brook Middle School, which is a grades five through eight building. One of our current board members, our vice chair Cindy Senning was on the board at the time in the mid 90s. I think of note, current representative Teresa Wood was the chair of that board. And I've learned a lot from both of them about the work that was done. And I think it really is a good model for the state to look at the importance of what happens when you have towns that have need, and you have some state resources to contribute, and you have an overall state policy initiative that supports that kind of consolidation because you can find that towns will, make good decisions in spending dollars. And I think Waterbury and Duxbury are excellent examples of what that can do when there is background. So fast forward to 2022 when I became superintendent, one of the as I was looking to move to Vermont, one of the pieces of my resume that our board found interesting and helpful, especially at a time when there was a potential bond that eventually failed for Harvard High School, was my experience in construction. That bond failed shortly before I I became superintendent. We've done some more work on that. The budget failures in 2023 put that work to the side. But as the state has started talking about district consolidation and school consolidation, and we've looked at our long term enrollment trends, our board has also taken a look at a very extent and has engaged in extensive study, not only of the capital needs of all of the rest of our buildings, but of different scenarios and they have somewhere around 12 or 13 scenarios that they've studied in conjunction with our architect, to take a look at what is the cost of renovating the status quo and not doing any level of building consolidation. And what are the costs associated costs if we were to make some changes in building configuration, close various buildings. And what they found is that the costs were tightly grouped. When you put in the capital needs of our buildings, which are great, and the closure of some buildings, there's not a lot of separation from long term costs when you look at a bond. But they do have the groundwork laid for conversations moving forward as the state, this committee, and the rest of legislature and governor look at what that future state will look like. So a lot of that groundwork has been done, but it does require in all instances, if we were to close our smallest elementary school and look at merging that with another school based on current enrollments, there would be some level of need beyond just capital maintenance, some construction that would be necessary at least in our district. And what I've learned in the last four years is that all of our school systems in Vermont are very unique based on the geography and the layout and the needs and the towns and configurations. But taking a look at it, we're not talking about cosmetic improvements that have to happen. Absent the renovations, we're talking about roof spoilers, HVAC, fire systems, and other ADA compliance issues. And in the case of schools like Brookside Elementary, which I mentioned earlier, Brookside was built during the presidency of William McKinley. So it's a very old building that even though it has been kept up, is in need of renovation again and some other changes to make it more appropriate for education in the year 2026. So having said that, I think establishing a phased reliable construction, system of funding and strategy is very important. I think this committee and the state has done some of the background work in commissioning studies. We know the conditions relative conditions of buildings throughout the state. And I would just advocate for taking a deeper dive, asking the agency of education to do some more work with that to prioritize the kinds of funding that has to happen. It doesn't all have to happen at once. That would be cost prohibitive. But I do think that an intentional approach like this committee is considering is what is necessary for those of us who are in the field and working in the buildings that need a lot of work and also need considerations for that future state that's being envisioned by our leaders. With that, I'll turn it

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to my colleague. Thanks very much. Thanks, Mike.

[Sean McMahon]: Morning, representatives. As you know, good to be back here again after any k day. Doesn't seem like it's been that long ago. And I'm Sean McMahon, superintendent, Kingdom East School District, serving over 1,700 students from the towns of Perth, Concord, Bloomberg, Linden, Newark, Sheffield, Sutton, and Wheelock. And we maintain seven buildings, varying levels of disrepair, I would say, in need of renovation and construction. Also, I serve on the state aid for school construction advisory board. As I've said to you before, I think I bring a unique and broad perspective, having spent first twenty two years over in Chittenden County. And as the principal over at CVU, we did complete a $19,000,000 school project that was eligible for 30% aid, 2004 to 2006. And then as a superintendent in Winooski, we completed a sorely needed $55,000,000 project without any state aid. We're able to be very resourceful with USDA financing, two and a quarter rates we were able to get, and we raised over $1,000,000 privately. And we're able to take advantage of ESSER funds for HVAC at that time and contribute another 4,000,000. So there is opportunities for creativity and resourcefulness within all of this. Currently, Kingdom East School District is shovel ready with over $80,000,000 in school project costs across our seven buildings. We have concept designs, gone through facility analysis, and we're ready to go. But like Mike mentioned, we couldn't close any of our smaller schools. For example, Luneburg is kindergarten through fifth grade. We have 41 students there right now. We couldn't even move those into Concord, the closest school, because there's no space. And Concord is probably one of the school buildings across our state that is in the worst shape. Similar to to Newark, k eight small school of 55 students, They couldn't go to Sutton. That building is in terrible shape. The only place where we really have capacity in our district is Linden, which is kind of the most centrally located school building across. And our communities really, they can't afford to support a bond. In fact, in June 2019, there was an opportunity for a bond for 24,000,000 to put significant repairs. You can imagine what that would cost now, probably over $50,000,000. And they defeated it 07/1989 to 03/2013. So now what we do, and the board has had, I think, good foresight in terms of committing favorable balance from budgets into a capital reserve fund, but we're spending in addition to operating budget, we're spending 500,000 to a billion dollars a year just to keep our buildings open. And we have four buildings that we've been running around to on the weekends and the evenings this year just trying to keep the heat going, incurring all kinds of costs. We haven't had to it's a student day yet, but it's a real it's a real hardship in managing these aging buildings. So no doubt you're all aware of the billions of dollars of deferred maintenance maintenance as taxes rose, budgets tightened, and school boards invested in staffing and programs across the last couple of decades while not really maintaining most of most of us a more formative approach to facilities and operations. The good news is that we have the facilities condition assessments, which provide a starting point for all of us in terms of assessing the the need. And we have the state aid for school construction advisory board that is now working on its next report. The challenging news is, as you have mentioned, where's the money gonna come from and how do school construction, renovation, and aid dovetail with Act 73. So while we're in a period of declining student enrollment, high student needs, significant school building needs, and I would add as I did last time I was here, the least prepared teaching staff we have seen in decades, and we can't lose sight of that as we're doing all of this work. Our response has gone kind of from paralysis, I think, the past to reactive. And I think now I feel like there's a calibration that's starting to happen towards a more thoughtful and sustainable plan for the future. But it's gonna require investment. This this magical thinking that this is gonna save money in the short term, I I just I don't understand it yet. And and maybe there is some modeling that we would see that would change my mind. But my opinion, there's a few key points needed to move forward. Reliable and usable data systems with all the metrics when considering education transformation, including school construction, research on what's best, defined funding sources for school construction aid. There are states that have laws about tying funding to mandates, not just figuring it out later. And so maybe that's something we need to think about is we need to have those funding sources really clearly defined as as we develop the pool of dollars for this. And it's better to do something than nothing

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: right now.

[Sean McMahon]: So even 50 to $100,000,000 per year in a 9 and a half billion dollar budget would start to really make a dent in the needs that we have. And I think tying the eligibility to school construction aid to act 73 components like class, school, and district size, and the highest needs as as described in the the FCAs. And I think considering the affordability across our towns, the wealth and the poverty levels across our state, and making sure that the the neediest communities move up in the criteria list. And then lastly, focusing on developing methods to improve the teacher recruitment and preparation pipeline. Because like I said, none of this matters. We can have beautiful buildings. We can have new governance structures. If we don't have a talented group of teachers, we're not gonna see outcomes change. There was an interesting, I was listening to a researcher the other day talk about how this is the first generation that's not outperforming its parents. And there's a direct correlation to the use of technology in schools and when that happens. And we're starting to peel that back a little bit now. So this is a complicated puzzle, and that's why I bring that up. We can't get tunnel vision when we're just talking about construction to have the full context, and I think talent is a big part of that. So I wanted to finish and just share with you one of my favorite poems is from To Be of Use. And I think particularly apropos stanza in there is the one that says, I love people who harness themselves and ox to a heavy carton, who pull like water buffalo with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done again and again. So thanks for your time, your leadership, and your effort again and again.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. Thank you both for coming in. Sean, I think you brought up one of the sort of issues that we constantly face when you said, what's the point of having bright shiny school buildings if we can't attract a great teaching staff? That puts the brakes on things. It's like, well, okay, let's not start throwing a bunch of money at buildings until we solve the quality teacher issue. Yet also saying, well, we gotta do something. And I guess these are all sort of unsolvable problems without just throwing money at them. But should we still move ahead? If we haven't solved a high quality teacher workforce problem, should we be moving forward with putting a lot of money into school construction?

[Sean McMahon]: I would say yes. It is a part of recruitment and retention as well. When you bring potential candidates through deteriorating buildings, that has an impact. Or I had a principal candidate yesterday going through a building for a site visit, and the kids were talking about how it's always too cold or it's always too hot. Those are the kinds of things they all are threaded together. And there are some things happen too, the apprenticeship program. But also, think I don't want folks at the state level to lose sight of that because I think there's more that could be done at the state level as well. But I think they go hand in hand. I don't think it can

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: throw a baby out of the bathwater on this. When you talk about, if we could do 50 to $100,000,000 a year, I could not agree with we could make a huge difference. Our Appropriations Committee is trying to find $3,000,000 just to fund extra requests. We are up against that, but I could not agree more that this needs to be a priority. I think I lost my way, forgot where I was going with that. Oh, So in your district, you have consistently had difficulty passing a bond despite very clear and evident need.

[Sean McMahon]: There was only one attempt, though, too. Since KASD was formed. Do

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you think that if, with a limited amount of money that we could put at school construction funding, the goal of the state is essentially newer and fewer, but at a high level of subsidy, call it anywhere between thirty and fifty percent, would your district go for newer and fewer?

[Sean McMahon]: Yes. Yeah. There's been discussions about that for a number of years, and I think they would. And I think there's legalities around the articles of agreement that would need to be worked out, because right now that would be difficult with the existing articles of agreement. That's a very important point. And there's obviously the choice piece is always in this conversation, particularly in the Northeast Kingdom. So I think those are those are two parts. But, yes, you know, it's at a point. You know, you go back to 2018 when act 46 and people were wringing their hands and digging in. And I think both they've seen some benefits to this district model at Kingdom East, and they see the affordability. They're they're like, we gotta do something. So it's at a it's at a pressure point. And I think that they would be you know, in in Kingdom East, the idea of a regional middle school has been talked about quite a bit.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Can we get other questions? Representative Brown?

[Representative Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No, just to echo that, I really appreciate. This sounds hopeful to hear that if the state can provide meaningful financial partnership, that communities are capable of embracing change. We've been having a lot of discussions about sort of what it takes to get folks on board. It's a positive.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think if you go back and look at the time when we were offering 50%, which created CrossettBoard, the uptake on it was actually surprisingly small. I know in my area, there was a proposal to merge subburgrating with Whitington and Leicester, rejected by the voters, and here we are twenty years later, and two of those schools are closed. I think we'd had a pretty shiny new school. Yeah, Representative Brady?

[Representative Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I wanna ask you just, what should we do? You've been all over the state. You have a great perspective. You've worked with a lot of different communities and student perspectives. And I think both of you are just important educational leaders in the state. So greatly appreciate your time. And any and all expertise and ideas you send out, guess, meant more practical question other than please just tell us what to do is I don't know if you can answer this. Seven buildings currently. And if money were an object, obviously it is, what would the ideal configuration, how many buildings to serve the community well and have sufficient opportunities for students and schools? How many buildings should be in that district until we repair you don't need to.

[Sean McMahon]: This is my perspective. Yes. Yes. So I think that you have to geography, and that is a common starting point, and it's a common complaining point when we start talking about consolidation, particularly in Northeast Kingdom. And it's real because you can't get there from here is a real thing in rural areas. And so for us, Lunenbigger and Concord are kind of over to the east. So I believe that we could put money into Concord. And like I said, it's it's one of our buildings that's in the worst shape. So it would require some pretty significant, but there's enough of a footprint there that we could bring. We already brought the middle schoolers there a few years ago, but we could do that. The other thing that we can also think about is, and we have talked to St. Johnsbury School District. They have one building, and they're between Concord and Linden. So that could be an opportunity to come together and to create a larger district. We have a lot of the same partnerships and, you know, St. John's Berry Academy and tuition and all those things. Then I would say Newark is our smallest building to the north, and it's a beautiful building. It's a beautiful town. And so I wouldn't wanna give that up as a district, but I think that we could use it differently. It could be reconfigured whether it's a therapeutic setting, which is sorely needed in the kingdom, whether it's an outdoor education hub for our district and other districts. I think there's just a lot of ways to think about that one. Sutton is in really bad shape, and there's a little over 100 students there. Burke is a great campus. The building is in terrible shape. So I would recommend investing in Burke, and you could then you have 150 students to fold into Burke, which is about 170 or 80 right now. But there's room there that you could build a bigger

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: and then you could keep a k eight

[Sean McMahon]: if you wanted to, or you could, in Burke, you could create the regional middle school right there. So then you'd have Concord, Linden, Burke. Miller's run is kind of Sheffield Wheelock, it's kind of off. They they're close enough to Linden, and they're at about

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a 150,000.

[Sean McMahon]: So there's a little bit of capacity that might need to be created to do that. But there's And that's just one perspective. We've played this out in many different ways. There's a lot of different options. And then when you start to expand St. John's Grace School District, or you start to talk about Waterford or Caledonia Cooperative that we have talked to as well, then you create more opportunities.

[Mike Legleiter]: I think what Sean's talking about is coming up with some criteria that incense scale and coming up with the mechanisms by which districts will say yes. And I think when you look at the state of buildings across Vermont right now, I think a lot of communities will opt to make those harder decisions. Because even in my own community, when you look at the amount and we have over $100,000,000 deferred maintenance. When you look at the numbers, we have to do something or we're going be in a crisis very soon. And we're one system away from that breaking point right now.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Sean, could you talk a little bit about the State Aid for Construction Advisory Group and what you're up to, have we sort of just left you guys hanging because there's no real money there?

[Sean McMahon]: We're still kind of, I think, wallowing in the data a little bit here. And I think that's that's why I had it as one of points. I'd love to be able to see, and I haven't taken the time to do it, but think we need to like, have some prioritization of the FCAs that shows our buildings and it shows how many students are in them, the grade configuration, and then the ratings for the different systems and stuff so that we can begin to see like, what are the highest priorities across our state right now? And then what are the opportunities there? Given some of them are pretty small. I think that Michael Goggin is doing a great job from the bond bank, just like looking at all of the, you know, outstanding debt across the state and figuring what the capacity is that, you know, could could be accrued over time. And then you've got David Epstein from Truex Collins, who's been doing this work for a long, long time, and he brings the architectural and the master planning perspective to it. We are headed into, we're trying to do, I think, three or four meetings with like every couple of weeks in the spring, so that we can kind of wait and see what you guys do a little bit at the legislative that might guide our development of criteria. But I think we'll be getting into that criteria development in the spring.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I I don't know what's left for us to do other than to actually fund the program. So if you have thoughts on like, well, actually, we need these questions answered. I mean, we kind of left a lot of the work up to the agency to come up with a scoring system, sort of put a lot onto the advisory group to also kind of make that happen. But if we have dropped the ball other than money, let us know where, so we can make sure everything remains on track.

[Sean McMahon]: I think what I hear more is more of the political part that I think there's been discussion about of like, yes, we have the law, Act 73. We know that there are some pressure on that, some public pressure on that. And is there gonna be any amending of that, any discussion of it that might shift any of the policy before we get into that criteria development or not. And that's why we figured if we got a little bit later into the session, that might be a little more firm than looking at.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You know, don't know if Act 73 really plays a role in sort of the overall guiding philosophy of school construction as we structured it, which can be summed up in newer and fewer, but how you rate all of that? I guess, tell me what you think the intersection between 73 and your work is.

[Sean McMahon]: The like I said, with the class and the school and the district side, you know, are we gonna incentivize that? Are we gonna stick with that? I think those are the biggest ones.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Are perfect. Specific. Yeah. I'm gonna just spitball here, and I think your answer is gonna be, doesn't matter, just do something. But does 20,000,000, to get started at $20,000,000 a year, does that move the needle, or does it just not move the needle? I just don't know. I think I'm a big believer in it's better than zero.

[Mike Legleiter]: I would say that with cost today, 20,000,000 will help probably one district. But one district finished is one district less to do later. So I would say that's a piece. I think this is more of a question for ways and means. But I do think the funding formula for districts like ours where that bond debt is counted into our per people costs is a challenge for some districts. And I know there's lot of discussion among the districts for that. That's something that I think needs to be discussed. And I understand the rationale for why Ways and Means put that in when they did. But it will be a barrier to our district moving forward. And I know other districts as well.

[Representative Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I so appreciate you bringing up the teacher workforce issue. We have the teachers sitting on this table, so I definitely want to be working on other policy issues and just bad news every day of cut this, close that, cut this, close that. But I wonder, especially given the different you've served in the biggest high school in the state and now in some very, very small schools. Obviously, communities are very different. But do you see any teacher workforce challenges or teacher development in small school with a less ability to have a community of practice to have I think of my own first years as a teacher. And it wasn't the district that kept me afloat. Was a couple of other teachers and a mentor. And so I wonder what those challenges are like in smaller schools and what you see potentially as kind of a little bit of a nexus between scale, recognizing regional differences, but also scale impacting the job of a teacher, and the professional life adult

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: teacher.

[Sean McMahon]: What I see that works well at Kingdom East is that we have district led professional learning. And so we can get that crossover. And sometimes we do it virtually and sometimes we get people together in the same place and they have to travel and that's a little bump, but we can do that. So we can have, you know, coherent district initiatives like the science of reading that we're working on now. Then I believe there's also a need to kind of like meet a school where it is, because schools are in different places, whether it's leadership, whether it's academic outcomes, social, emotional, and behavioral work. And so we we give local time then. And then there are, you know, CIPs, and there's local plans. So I think it's a blend of both. So I haven't seen it necessarily be a huge problem because of the small nature. What I the biggest problem is opportunities for students and staffing. You know, in a small school, you either have a couple teachers out on a particular day and you're there's not a ton of learning going on on that day because you're just trying to make it safe by having adults there.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Would it be a stretch to say that there is a connection between what you just said and what the issue Representative Brady brought up, that sort of more teachers under one roof does a better job of sort of building that community around professionalism as opposed to, you you're in a very small school, hard to sort of interact with people teaching at your own grade level.

[Sean McMahon]: I mean, I've seen it both ways. Yeah. Mean, that's dependent on leadership. It's dependent on resources. It's dependent on teacher skill, effectiveness,

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: all

[Sean McMahon]: of those things. And you can have a school of 50 and it can be incredible. And you can have a school of 500 and it can be terrible. There's a lot of different factors there. Again, I go back to the opportunities for students. You have some scale, a larger scale, then you can pull those resources, you can have better common planning time for teams of teachers, both from lesson and unit planning perspective, but also ESTs and five zero four and IEP meetings and talking about students, whereas trying to do that in small schools is really, really hard.

[Mike Legleiter]: And this was ancillary services, technology, counseling, nurses. There's other elements that really impact that make it challenging for our small schools to provide those robust services.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Which I would say is a bit of a plug for CSIS as well.

[Sean McMahon]: Yeah, I think the other thing I was thinking about, Erin, for your question is, in the Northeast Kingdom with the state of our state college system is a real impact there, without having the education program in Linden anymore. Mean, we used to get students, that was

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a pipeline for us, it's gone. And

[Sean McMahon]: so I think any kind of reinvigoration that we can do of those types of programming, because growing your own, John Castle of BREC, we've worked really hard on that and the apprenticeship, and we have a local program, Cultivating Teachers Grant, where we fund support staff, staying in the system and moving from support staff into teaching. But I think that we could use some help at the state level with that, in addition to what's already happened with the apprenticeship program, which I think

[Representative Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: has been helpful. Where do your new teachers come from? Do they tend to be in the community or someone coming back to the community? Or do you get the somebody seeking out a very particular kind of landscape and community?

[Sean McMahon]: Most of ours are local. We do get occasional we tend to get, I'd say, like, 20 age into 30 folks from from like, Boston area or up and down the Eastern Seaboard who will, like, wanna get back to Vermont or they love the outdoors and wanna be you know, that's the attraction to the area. Yeah. But most mostly both.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Ours are

[Mike Legleiter]: all of the above. Our biggest challenge is the Mayotte River Valley because of housing, cost of housing. We don't get young teachers coming out of school because they can't afford to live in the community. So our principals will spend about two years starting to recruit prior to knowing someone's going to retire, find someone. We had a couple two years ago. One was hired at Batesfield. The other was hired at Warren I'm sorry, the other was hired at Faeston. And they withdrew because they could not find housing, and they wanted to move here. So that's a big barrier in parts of my district. Waterbury and Duxbury are different. Access to 89, we have a lot of teachers who will drive from either north or south, that's far easier for those buildings to hire new teachers and young teachers.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I know we're getting a little off track of school construction, there's talk about concern over the workforce and all that. At the other end, we hear, well, Act 73 is looking at significant consolidation, I mean, the Act doesn't speak to school consolidation, but I think that there are very real predictions that between declining enrollment and a sort of different governance system, that the strategy is to close schools and that that's going to lead to a massive loss of our teacher workforce. Yet at the same time, all we hear about is that we are about to go through, or we are in the middle of a mass retirement in the teaching staff, and that we are desperately seeking highly qualified teachers. Is it fair to say that we are desperately seeking highly qualified teachers? Yes. And that attrition will probably be a significant factor both to deal with, but also as a lever to keep the teaching group that we have today.

[Mike Legleiter]: Our district over the last two budget years has reduced about 48 positions, support staff, teachers. Total furloughs are about six. We were able to do that through nutrition, retirement, eliminating unfilled positions. We had to be very strategic about it. Now, that has been moving forward, it will be far more difficult for us to do that without impacting actual people. So that was one of our guiding principles in coming up productions to try to prioritize people over positions.

[Sean McMahon]: Yeah, similar for us. Mean, in this proposed FY 'twenty seven budget, we reduced 25 positions, six teaching and 19 support staff. Most of those had not been filled at least for a year. So we couldn't find people if we needed them. But we'll also be in a position, our special ed needs are not declining, that if we have to hire back some of those roles, we will.

[Representative Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: This is just a side comment for the community, but I'll help. Someone mentioned to me something to keep in mind about the picture here. A lot of making these shifts through attrition and retirements will also have fiscal impact on the need to benefit pension system, and we may suddenly see an increased demand on the pension system. Costs may go up elsewhere.

[Representative Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'd like to do something that doesn't involve negative consequences. We all know. I don't think we have anything to do. All right, well, thank you both very much for your time, your insight, your comments, very helpful. John, thanks for your work on the advisory group on school construction. Thank you. All right, we are due back here at eleven everybody. So