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Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 37

Mayor Donchess

Mr. Farrington or Dr. Brown do you want to answer? One thing we should make clear about the
kindergarten, right now there is full day kindergarten in 5 of the 12 elementary schools. So this would
equalize the education offered in all the schools.

Paula Johnson

There’s no such thing as equalization. One person can be always be smarter or less smarter than
the other person. Life is not equal.

Mayor Donchess

Well still we have some elementary schools with full day kindergarten now and others without. | don’t
know if you call that unequal or not but that’s the fact.

Paula Johnson

But you know Mayor we have some people who get nice raises in public sector, and we have people
who don’t get in private, and we have people on social security and disabilities who got zero raise this
year which isn’t equal and fair. There’s no such thing as fairness in this world.

Mayor Donchess

| think the question is by assigning 10 % teachers into full day kindergarten how will that affect class
sizes for other students.

Superintendent Brown

Thank you your Honor. My name is Connie Brown. |’m the interim Superintendent of Schools for the
Nashua School Department. We are capping the kindergarten enrollments at 18. We are also
providing para support 1 per 2 kindergarten classrooms. We’re going to balance the classrooms.
We have some uneven enrollments in some of the schools right now and we are going to use 10
classroom teachers to initiate the all-day kindergarten for all the students here in Nashua. To that
Mayor’s point, we have 5 schools currently that offer all-day kindergarten. We will expand that to all
12.

Paula Johnson

So you have some school’s classrooms that are unbalanced. So that means that you’re going to
bring them up to the 25 kid level or whatever it per contract?

Superintendent Brown

I’m not sure where you got the 25. Are you referring to the collective bargaining agreement or the
State guidelines that we use?

Paula Johnson

It would have to be the collective bargaining because any kids over that amount we pay overage, am
| correct?

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Superintendent Brown

We do have overage language in a collective bargaining agreement. | don’t believe that has been
exercised for quite a while not since I’ve been here in the last 9 months. | can’t speak to when it was
used before. We are trying to keep our class sizes as Mr. Farrington said at reasonable levels and
we’re hoping to keep all of them below 25 to the extent that we can.

Paula Johnson

What do you define reasonable levels?

Superintendent Brown

| believe the State gives us guidelines for what they recommend for students in kindergarten, grades
1 to 3, 5 to 8, and then so on.

Paula Johnson

But we’re talking just elementary right now because these are elementary school teachers that we’re
taking 10 of them or 11.

Superintendent Brown

Right. We are going to redeploy 10 elementary teachers to even out some of the current class size
disparities and implement all-day kindergarten for all of the students in Nashua. We have planned for
800 incoming kindergarten students.

Paula Johnson

Okay so how many teachers are we going to need altogether for kindergarten is it 10?
Superintendent Brown

We're going to need altogether 42 kindergarten teachers.

Paula Johnson

But I’m saying new teachers.

Superintendent Brown

| believe the question you asked was how many kindergarten teachers are there are going to be 42.
Paula Johnson

Okay how many new kindergarten teachers do we need?

Superintendent Brown

We're going to go from 32 to 42.

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Paula Johnson

So you're going to use all 10.

Superintendent Brown

We're going to have 42 kindergarten teachers. We currently have 32.

Paula Johnson

So that’s 10. That will be 10 teachers that you’re going to redeploy into kindergarten. So where are
they currently...so you’re going to take the classrooms and you’re going to kind of level them off in all
the schools. So you’re going to just take teachers from different schools and centralize some other
ones where the ones or are you going to be taking them right from that school itself? Okay let me

rephrase this. So which school doesn’t’ have kindergarten. Let’s say Bicentennial doesn’t have
kindergarten am | correct?

Superintendent Brown

Bicentennial does have kindergarten. It’s half time kindergarten.

Paula Johnson

Okay so Say let’s use them as an example. So how many teachers would you be taking to...
Chairman Dowd

Excuse me Mrs. Johnson are these directly related to a budget number because it seems like we’re
having a conversation about class balancing and...

Paula Johnson

You know Alderman Dowd, this is my tax dollars and | have the right to ask all these questions and
get an answer on my tax dollars because I’m trying to understand how this money is going to be
allocated for how many teachers and how many schools that makes sense.

Chairman Dowd

Okay try to please relate your question as it relates to dollars.

Paula Johnson

lam. Sol’m trying to figure this out in which schools. You can’t shut down a citizen asking these
questions. It’s my tax dollars. You cannot!

Chairman Dowd
I’m not shutting you down. I’m trying to direct it to a question.
Paula Johnson

But | am asking the questions and I’m trying to figure out the answer to this. Bicentennial School —
how many teachers?

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Superintendent Brown

| would have to get the chart. | don’t have that standing here. | wasn’t prepared to answer that.
Paula Johnson

Then let me ask you another question here differently. | was reading the paper and this will probably
fall into next hope we'll see that 2 teachers were supposedly had moved on to pursue other
opportunities but now we find out that they’re employed and being paid. One is almost $3,000 a
month and on is almost $4,000 a month.

Superintendent Brown

I’m unaware of two teachers that you’re referring to.
Paula Johnson

| mean two Principals at Ledge Street they're still being paid — tax dollars. Why were we told that
they weren't and now that they are still employed by the city?

Superintendent Brown

I’m not sure how this pertains to the 2018 budget.
Paula Johnson

Okay never mind. In the 2018 budget, do we have enough books where we’re paying for all day
kindergarten because a friend of mine asked me to ask this question. There are kids that have no
textbooks in Algebra | and II and this | believe is the North school and none for Geometry, Spanish II
and Ill. We're implementing all-day kindergarten and I’ve heard this from teachers that were even
telling me that we’re lacking books in the classroom. So how do we justify putting in full day
kindergarten when we don’t have books for kids in the classroom?

Superintendent Brown

The all-day kindergarten is an expansion of the current program. It moves forward the Board’s goal
to have all students reading on grade level by the end of the third grade.

Paula Johnson
But that’s not the answer to my question. My question is how do we justify full day kindergarten —

maybe a Board member wants to answer... (inaudible) have kids in the classroom that | just read to
you no textbooks for Algebra | and II. None for Geometry. None for Spanish II and III.

Superintendent Brown

I’m not able to confirm that. That’s something | would need to research but again the Board voted to
move forward all-day kindergarten for all students here in Nashua based on the goal that it adopted to
have all students reading and doing mathematics on grade level by the end of grade three.

Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 41
Paula Johnson

May | ask a board member the same question?

Mayor Donchess

What’s the question?
Paula Johnson

The question is how do we justify - maybe you should have been listening to what I’m saying — how
do we justify no textbooks for students in Algebra | and II, none for Geometry, and none for Spanish II
and III?

Mayor Donchess

All right does any board member have a different answer than the one that Dr. Brown gave if its’ the
same.

Paula Johnson

And the lower level classes have no books.

George Farrington

As Dr. Brown pointed out, that’s something as far as at this point in the evening that’s just a rumor
and we’d have to look into it. Often times these things are not exactly as they appear on the surface
and we certainly will look into that if you could provide us more detail information that would make it
helpful for us to research that. If | may to just take a moment because we seem to be running pretty
far afield here this evening. I’ve been doing this for it’s my 12" year on the Board of Education with a
break in between and you can see why.

Mayor Donchess

Why you did the 12 years or why you took a break?

George Farrington

The first one probably isn’t as obvious but why | took a break should be. Often times the Board is
criticized as tonight for example for asking for more money and more money. | don’t expect us to get
a round of applause but | think it’s important to note that we’re trying to improve the educational
opportunities of the students in Nashua by reallocating existing resources and not coming to the city
and asking for more money over and above what our budget is this year just to expand kindergarten
to the other 7 schools that don’t currently have all day kindergarten. The credit for this goes to Dr.
Brown. She took us at our word. We said we wanted to try and have all of our students as many of
our students as we possibly can to have on reading and math level at the end of third grade. She
looked at our resources and found a way to do that. | don’t think that that should be lost in all this
conversation about how the district spends, spends, spends. If you can provide us with some more
detailed information on that, we will certainly look into it.

Chairman Dowd

Anything else on the school department?

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Mike Gallagher

Mike Gallagher, 9 Old Coach Road. In full disclosure, | have 3 children in school district. | have 3
children at New Searles. Not looking for applause but Jay Harding and his team do an amazing job
there. My youngest daughter is in the pre-school program so | pay out of my pocket to have here go
there for that because my family values education. | would directly benefit from full day kindergarten
because my daughter would benefit from full day kindergarten. It’s not a childcare issue. My wife
currently is home. So it’s not a place to drop my child. | think that there’s a lot of reasons to look at
this. | am as kind of a fiscally conservative person, I’m looking and saying well if you have 8 positions
that aren’t needed elsewhere, why not cut. At the same time as we look at providing better services
for our community to grow and you talk about economic development, you talk about jobs, and you
talk about you’re looking to recruit young families. We're the oldest State in the nation. | came here
12 years ago, raised a family, we’re here. We’re planted in this community. | see significant value in
full day kindergarten. As I’ve seen my children progress through pre-school, the other two went
through private pre-schools. | certainly see the value and | appreciate the efforts that have been
made. However like the rest of the budget for school and as for teachers, there needs to be some
better way, some better metric to measuring success. | would certainly appreciate seeing that.

Jumping around just a little bit because | didn’t want to get up just for code enforcement but from my
time on the Conservation Commission when | was there, there’s a significant need for code
enforcement in this city. | know that at the time it’s been 1 % or 2 half bodies assigned to that. We
have ordinances, we have resolutions, we have land use codes for a reason. If we allow for oversight
or things to be looked at twice, | Know that in my six plus years there, there was a particular property
that was mentioned on several occasions and nothing happened. I’m not looking for this to become a
revenue stream for you but again some teeth to the laws that you have on the books | think is warrant
in that.

| don’t see on here an opportunity to speak about the citizen group for the $200,000. So if you'll allow
my kind of interjector here. | think if you look around this room and you ask those who work for the
city in some capacity either as a volunteer — | include the Board of Aldermen as volunteers by the
way. If they raise their hand, 90 percent of this room works for the city in some capacity volunteer or
paid and that is our issue as a community. There are not more of us here. There are not more of us
saying hey that’s good idea, that’s a bad idea. We're sitting here talking about a fiscal budget and
we’re talking about things that this board has no control over. You have no control over if there’s full
day kindergarten or not. That’s the Board of Education. So the appropriate time to have that
conversation is while the Board of Education is having those meetings. It’s the same thing | say to
parents who just don’t understand. They don’t get it. They hear a buzz word and they run with it. So
there is an obligation for those of us who are in position of knowledge to share that knowledge.

Now as it pertains to creating this committee of volunteers if we have $200,000 of discretionary
money, | would argue that we don’t but let’s just say if we did. | would suggest to you to tap upon the
volunteers you already have: planning and zoning, conservation, culture — all of the different boards
and commissions that this city already has people who are giving their time because the mechanism
in which you’ve put in place already exists. | could go to my ward alderman. | could say here’s a
great idea. | could get him or her to buy into the issue and then sponsor legislation to make that
happen. | don’t have to get around and what | have noticed is that when these committees are
started, it’s the same group of people. So let’s reward the people who are already with us, who are
already entrenched in your city, who already understand the issues some better than you.

One last thing. | will be at the school board meeting on Monday from an issue of public safety. Tick
season folks — horrible year. So we go to New Searles where my daughter goes to Girl Scouts and
Main Dunstable School. Part of their project was to walk around the school and clean up trash. They

Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 43

spend about 20 minutes on the playground — actually it was the night of Mayor Donchess’ Ward 5
meeting. When my wife returned home with my girls, she put them to be. She received a text
message from a friend saying that they had just removed 7 ticks and to check the girls. My wife did.
One was missed and my youngest had to be taken to the doctor the next day to have a tick that had
embedded itself into her neck out. Tragedy averted. She had expressed concerned — now again we
don’t go to Main Dunstable. We don’t know who the people are. So my suggest to her was to start at
the SAU office. She called the next morning, got a receptionist who pretty much told her not our
problem. “Not our problem” was her words. So | have a problem with that because we’re spending
money on opioid appropriately so. It’s a public safety issue. This is a known risk. | have parents
from that same school telling me that they can’t get the lawn mowed — ticks coming in from the woods
are in the long grass. These children are out there every day at recess. You have high school
students that are taking walks out in Mine Falls. Class lead walks out into Mine Falls with no
notification to parents. No bug spray applied. | think that we can do a better job and, again, | just
figured while | had the mike in front of me I’d mention it but | will be at the board meeting on Monday
for that as well. Thank you.

Fred Teeboom

Back to kindergarten since that came up. The cost of this full time kindergarten in these other
schools is about $1 million. That kindergarten question in the School Board that somebody brought
up should have been discussion never went to the School Instruction Committee. It was only debated
at board level. Now certainly not a unanimous vote to take kindergarten full time. | appeared before
the Board of Education twice and | read them studies that said full time kindergarten doesn’t pay.
You don’t get the benefits you claim you get. Lots of children cannot sit at that young an age ina
structured environment for 7 hours. If you want to teach them math by the 3" grade or whatever, the
objective | heard that means that you have to start teaching them a structured set of coursed in a
structured environment and that means the kids are not out running around. They’re not playing.
Kids that young should be playing around, running around, experience no structure at all. In actual
studies and | quote it “studies” that said that and have proven that. At the same time as no one has
ever proven the study that past the third grade was there any benefit. They've shown a
disadvantageous effect structuring these kids too early for too long a time and no real benefit by past
third grade. You have spending like some million. By the way the reason that five schools have
kindergarten because part of that is the special education stuff. It's a program requirement for the
kids. It’s not totally voluntary.

Now one gentleman come up and says all the things that are happening now that didn’t happen in the
past. I’m old enough to know what happened in the past. When! came to this country, there was no
special education. | came to this country and | spoke barely any English. Maybe you could say |
don’t speak any English still but | could barely speak any English. There was no ESL. There were no
teachers teaching you foreign languages or transitioning you. | spoke broken Spanish and a kid
came from a school in Columbia and they put him in a classroom in a desk behind me so | could
translate English to my broken English to his Spanish from my broken Spanish. A funny thing
happened. We both entered that school in 10" grade around November. We graduated in June.
Both the Spanish kid and | spoke fluent English. Kids learn. They don’t need ESL teachers. They
don’t need any of that stuff. So somebody says oh we have all these problems now that we didn’t
have in the past. We had the same problems in the past as we have now. We just created a whole
culture what | call a “victimizing culture”. Everybody is a victim.

Special education — 1 out of 5 kids today in the Nashua School District is coded special education.
About 18 or 19 percent. Ten years ago, the number was 12 percent. What happened the kids are
getting dumber? No we ask the psychologist and they say oh we have better ways of measuring.
Just look at autism. We now can measure autistic kids. We couldn’t measure them before.
Bologna.

Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 44

We’re creating a culture that fits what we think is our need. The needs today are the same as the
needs that were here 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago and we had none of this nonsense.

Chairman Dowd
Any other comments on education?
Gloria Tenmans

Gloria Tenmans, Nashua, NH, 3 Worthing Drive. After hearing all this stuff and who pay taxes and
who don’t taxes. | pay taxes. | want you to know we do need full day kindergarten. | have 16
grandkids. So let me just tell you I’m kind of angry right now. So let me calm down. | have two kids
in Title | schools and two kids that are not in Title | schools. So two went to half day kindergarten and
two did not go. Two went to full day kindergarten. The one that was in the Title | school out
surpassed the one that went to half day kindergarten. | know that for a fact. As far as the
classrooms, | have kids in Nashua North, Nashua South, Ledge Street, Fairgrounds, Elm Street, you
name them. Sixteen schools. | know what they’re doing. They’re doing a great job and | am sick
and tired of hearing about what about the money. | pay taxes. | am a taxpayer. The kids are getting
a good education. We do need full day kindergarten because | can tell the difference between the
one that did not have full day kindergarten versus the one that did have full day kindergarten. So
we’re putting a value on education and that shouldn’t be right.

As far as ESL, yes they do need ESL. Yes we do need all those programs. | see the difference. I’ve
been here all my life. | didn’t just immigrate here. Neither did my mother and neither did her mother.
I’m very, very angry with oh we’ve got to worry about money. We have to worry about this. We have
to worry about our children. That’s what we have to worry about. Full day kindergarten is the way
that we need to go and they do need to read to be competitive with other kids throughout the world
and not just in Nashua, through the State, through all the States. I’m a Veteran, a retired one. | work
for the federal government and the State government. So I’m very angry about demanding answers,
can’t do this, can’t do that because you put a value on every single penny. While | pay pennies. |
pay taxes as well. It really sickens me when you put a value on my grandchild’s head. | don’t like
that. It's not about one being smarter than the other. One has a better opportunity than the other.
That’s the difference.

You talk about fairness. The fairness if full day kindergarten period! Thank you Mayor Donchess.
Thank you Chief Lavoie. Thank you to the Fire Department. Thank you for everybody that does
public service because without them, it wouldn’t be us. I’m very angry to hear people demanding
answers for things that you can’t answer. We’re wasting time. We're here wasting a bunch of time
for what to get no answers. Now if you want to know about the school the Board of Education, then
go to those meetings and see what’s happening there and question that there. Governor Sununu
happened to pass all-day kindergarten. We should have full day kindergarten and | have to say this
now I’m calming down a little bit. My two kindergarteners that went to the Title | schools, they actually
learned more than the ones that one to half day kindergarten. They knew their alphabet frontwards
and backwards. They knew not how to count by one, they knew how to count by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
| was amazed. Not the one that went to half day kindergarten. So |’d say oh wait a minute. These
kids here who went to Title | schools and these kids who did not go to the Title School knew way
more than these because they had more time. Not because they were smarter. Not because one
was unequal than the other. I’m just wanting you to know that we do need full day kindergarten. We
have a great public school district. | had my children. They’re all educators. They all went to college
— Ivy League schools because we had good public education right here. Thank you all for that.

Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 45

Steve Lyons

My name is Steve Lyons. I’m a representative for the Custodial and security and maintenance group
for the schools. There’s been a lot of discussions in the papers relative to the productions of the
custodians. It’s my understanding it’s put out there that 9 custodians being reduced. I’m involved in
that process. The reality is 10 employees who are going to be reduced because there’s two part
time. So 10 employees are going to be reduced as a result of this not 9.

Second | understand the $100,000 was put out in a good faith effort by the city. | appreciate that.
The members appreciate that. Through this process, the custodians also didn’t sit idle. We actually
located approximately $74,000 in over budgeting for security positions. Part of the (inaudible)
positions was an attempt to save 2 positions out of the 10. That was rejected. So there’s $74,000
that could have been used within that budget to save custodial positions. That’s a concern on our
part. We entered into this as a process and our concerns is | think there’s more money in that budget
that is not allotted for anything and it should be reviewed further because if a custodian can find
$74,000 in that budget, there’s probably a lot more that can be found not being spent, not a reduction
in staff. This was unspent, undesignated money and correctly designated. | would love to have a
conversation about that further if anyone would like to have that. Thank you for your time.

193 DEBT SERVICE

194 CONTINGENCY

198 INTERFUND TRANSFERS

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

6000 SOLID WASTE DISPOSAL SYSTEM FUND

6200 WASTEWATER USER FUND

Fred Teeboom

This is a question for the CFO. The Mayor may have an answer but when you add up all the
accounts that includes the benefits and retirement. It adds up to $258,493, 971. Those numbers do
not seem to maybe it does, not include the numbers that are in the green pages. The green pages
are the enterprise funds have their own retirement money. That’s in addition to the $215 million.
That’s what that adds up to the $301 million. So that retirement money of $24 million that we talked
about way earlier, that’s on that earlier page. Does that include the retirement money that’s in the
green pages?

CEO Griffin

No.

Fred Teeboom

Okay. So there’s more than $24 million in the retirement money?

Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 46
CFO Griffin

Correct. You just indicated several areas that includes retirement. On page 21 is to calculate the
total amount in the general fund operating budgets. As you know, the green pages are totally
dedicated to solid waste enterprise and wastewater.

Fred Teeboom

How much more retirement money is that in the green pages.

CFO Griffin

| could get you that number.

Fred Teeboom

But that’s the main point. So $24 million is not even the full amount. It’s even more.

CFO Griffin

Correct.

Chairman Dowd

The next area is special revenue funds, city special revenue funds. Any questions on any of the city’s
special revenue funds?

Fred Teeboom

| couldn’t find it either. It’s not on the special revenue fund. It’s not under the blue pages which you
call the trust funds. | mentioned earlier a long time ago the Public Works Department. The Public
Works Department has their own retirement money. Their own retirement fund and was smart
enough not to join the cabal up at the State the $900 million theft for the rest of it. That’s about $40
million if | remember right. They have 84 percent funded. Is that money on the special revenue
funds? Is that money on the trust funds or is it some place that’s not in the budget book at all?

CFO Griffin

You're correct. The Board of Public Works has its own pension fund. It’s managed by money
managers. Contributions are made by the employees in the city for payroll. |’ll have to look quick to
see if it’s in here but | don’t think it’s included in here.

Fred Teeboom

Why is it not in there?

CFO Griffin

Well the appropriations Mr. Teeboom are certainly included as noted in the Department of Public
Works budgets as well as the enterprise funds. | could call on Treasurer Fredette who is one of the...