All the maintenance plan that we say we're we're building the plan and putting together the spreadsheet. Can we get an update on where we're at on that? You talking about our strategic plan? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think that's pretty updated. Unless we're making some changes. I I think that's on the website as well, but if not, I'll make sure it's on there. I'm just where we at. Right. Yeah. Right. Is that on the website? I thought it was. If not, I'll get it there and I'll I'll update that as well at the next board meeting. Yeah, I just again, I think because there's other people watching online, it'd be a great time to present it just so it's out there and open and and transparent with it. Don't tell me we have to go to the website. Here it is. It's 2 months in a row for Matt.
I I I was just going to add a little bit because Russell and I started with this work like when I started a couple years ago and then I know Dr. Dodds-Cairn has come in but we've been collaborating a lot with observing in the classroom so Mr. Donnell has gone through learning walks with us to see how technology is used in the classroom and the first year I mean we saw a lot of iPad use and so we changed our training and set guidelines about when you use iPad. So for instance if you're doing small group instruction there's a group with the teacher there's a group that's writing there's a group that's reading from books and then there is a section where there what Dr. Dodds-Cairn shared with Amira like they're practicing they're using it as a tool to help them practice with their speech but the technology is just used as a a tool at certain times it's going to help enhance the learning but it's not the vehicle for learning and so we've been giving our teachers guidelines on when to use it when not to use it and that we always go straight to the standards and the and the technology is just a tool to help get some of help with some of the standards and prepare them for the future.
to accommodate for for this situation and it's based on enrollment, right? So So this year we have about 8.5 BEA kindergarten positions. Next year we'll have 16 to 18 BEA positions which is like 16 to 18 is a very typical per grade level in elementary number of total sections throughout the district. Which That's That's your math of the 8.5 best of positions. And so of the open positions that you're hiring for, how does that usually work? Like could the honorably discharged are they given some preference in hiring? Yeah, we we make it a point um if somebody is honorably dismissed, if someone is a best of member and maybe just got their teaching license, if someone is a building substitute, we prioritize that hey, if you're if you're one of our employees, we're going to interview you. It's all based on licensure. You have to have the proper licensure this year.
Yeah, I know. >> [laughter] >> Hopefully in Yeah. Don't worry. Don't worry. >> are Maybe we'll WAIT TILL JUNE. >> [laughter] >> MAYBE JUNE. WE'LL TALK ABOUT IT LATER. It's at the middle school. Don't worry about it. >> [laughter] >> Let you go first. The whole middle school. President. Maybe for June. >> [laughter] >> Baseball's over. Late June. Okay. Yeah, I [snorts] don't I I can't remember either. We'll check. Great. Great. Awesome. I think you guys said it all, so all right. Enough's enough. I have one thing. I have good news. Um our new school resource officer started yesterday. Uh Officer Brandon Quesenberry. Did I do that right? All right. I've been practicing. Um joined us, started yesterday, has everything he needs in order. Um he wasn't able to be here tonight, but just a couple things I asked him to tell me a little bit about himself, and he shared that he has 4 years of active military duty, two tours in Iraq, so he's an Iraq veteran.
Yeah. And um what >> to ask do you have more questions or Um well let's give Ms. Gibson-McLean a moment to speak since she hasn't spoken to this item. I was just going to say you know um um my husband and I are both former educators my husband used to be a math teacher he's a software developer um has been coding for years taught himself how to code was making iPad apps and paid for stuff in college for us and is gung-ho about technology obviously right? My kids don't use phones they don't use tablets they have a desktop computer he set up for them and and with some Linux thing and some games they play. Sounds on point. Yeah but at the same time you know we both have been in education and were in schools that used one-to-one technology as well and I think that just as many studies that are out there about screen time I think there's just as much or maybe not just as much but there is research out there about all screen time not being created equal right?
We you know, made that very clear, which was discussed here. Um in our public comment, but uh yeah, we we like to give um all of the people that have been working for us that opportunity to interview for a position. They're not guaranteed that they get the position, they get the opportunity to interview for it. Okay. Good questions. Any more questions on this topic? All right, then we will move on to 8.5 the FY27 preliminary budget. Dr. Inglesi, will you lead us through this discussion? Sure, I'd be happy to. This is our preliminary view of the budget. So, this is the first pass at it. We will pull a place the actual budget on public display here in the summer, in June, probably. Uh which it has to be on display for 30 days, then we'll hold a public hearing in July, and then we'll adopt the budget in its final form in August as we start the school year.
Has three daughters, 13 years old and 10-year-old twins. Uh their favorite things to do are are spending time together and playing sports. It sounds like they all play. Um and he has been with the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office since November of 2023. Was promoted to deputy in 2024, January of 2024. And I think he's really earnest. He's he was very interested in this job and very eager to get started, so we're glad he's here and looking forward to working with him. Great. Thank you. I just want to thank Matt one more time. Uh I know you guys saw his presentation. If you knew the amount of running around and legwork Matt did on a daily basis, he is the epitome of a fantastic employee from the standpoint of he and I are one in the same when it comes to fiscal responsibility of the district.
And so I think passive consumption of you know doom scrolling or or just playing random games that have no like real educational value or benefit is a lot different than what what we're hearing here which is intentional use of of the screen time for specific purposes and to achieve specific goals and and things and as far as I know I mean I ask my kid every day what I ask him when he says if he says he's been on the iPad I was like what did you what did you do in there? And I've not heard that he's like playing Roblox or like going on there and doing random stuff. So that's kind of where I'm at cuz I'm also not into like people just be on a screen all day obviously and so I think as long as we're like keeping that balance at the same time we're having to prepare our kids to operate in a world where you can't be screen free as a professional or as somebody who's working really in any field even in blue collar industries these days and so there's going to have to be that like happy medium no matter what you end up doing as an adult you're going to have to have these skills and I get it things are intuitive and it doesn't take that long to pick it up but I still think practicing and using it in a and especially practicing and using it in a way at school that's like very intentional and and and positive to you is a lot different than obviously all the passive use that goes on.
Next slide. So our revenues are going up a little bit this year about 2.2 million and our expenditures are going down so it's widening a gap. But however, the um the net difference is a minus $5 million. And that's less than it was last year. And the reason being is that we're spending a lot of money on our capital projects. The the difference between what we're spending our money on is going down. And uh that brings down our fund balance accordingly by that nearly $5 million. Uh and our capital investments are going down slightly, too. So in this current fiscal year, fiscal 26, we're going to our deficit is about $14 million. Uh and that's going down pretty dramatically, but it's still a deficit in the sense that we're spending more than we take in, but it's not an operational deficit. It's not in the sense of what we consider our operating funds.
Um he is just I I can't think of the word, but I mean, he is a pitbull when it comes to saving money. >> [laughter] >> And I couldn't ask for anybody better to work with. He does a fantastic job. He has probably himself saved us over a million dollars since he's taken the position in terms of just making the phone calls and doing the extra, you know, a lot of people are satisfied with one quote or, you know, what somebody tells them. That's that's not Matt's personality at all. Could be. He wouldn't have He doesn't have to do by half the things he does, and I would still think he does a great job. But he consistently goes above and beyond, and I just want to make sure the board understands the value we have in Matt Dins. Yeah. I agree, actually. I I think about this when you're talking tonight, I'm like I was on this board before we had this position, and now I'm like, I don't know how we did it before.
We obviously can't control what goes on at home and I'm not saying we need to dip our hands or foray into that obviously we can have those conversations but um we can control what goes on in the classroom and it sounds like we're doing a pretty good job of it. Yeah. So something prior to the the agenda even coming out so my we just my daughter's third grade so she has had her first round of standardized test and I remember speaking to her after it one day and asking her about it and and so she had some frustration I was like oh you know did you write it or did you use the tablet? She goes well we used the tablet but they wouldn't let us type our answers on the screen we had to use the keyboard and I didn't know where any of the letters are.
We're spending our reserves to put money in one-time expenses. They're not they span many years, but one-time expenses into our schools. I'll explain how all that fits together here um throughout this presentation. This demonstrates what's happening. It takes a couple of seconds when you look at this graph to really figure out what's happening. But in blue are our revenues. You can see uh in 2024 to 2025 they went up slightly, in 2026 they're going down, and then we expect them to go up at a modest pace in the future. And our revenue our expenditures, our operating expenditures, are less than those, which is good. That means that we have a structural surplus. However, we're spending more because of our capital projects, the work that needs to be done in particular on warm safe dry. Each year we're spending that fund balance down, so we're spending more than we take in.
I mean, it's just so much more organized and, you know, live, up-to-date, and and keeping the board members up-to-date, and um the community up-to-date. So thank you, Matt. Thank you for your effort and all your time. Well, and clearly a lot more is getting done and staying on top of a lot more things, so well done. Matt, and you've done a great job setting up all the facilities and operations committees, all of our tours, all the research for the past 2 years that we've been able to put into the backpack project. So all of us greatly appreciate all your diligence with that. Very much. [clears throat] >> [laughter] >> Great. Um I didn't have anyone else um sign up to speak tonight, but if anyone has anything else? I saw an email that says plant sale Saturday. FFA. So I just wanted to mention that.
So my thing is like I remember in school like you were doing typing class and if our kids are taking you know our goals are all based on standardized tests all of our kids are getting administered these tests and they're having to type their answers if we haven't taught them where the keys are or how to properly type and they're taking a timed test then of course we're setting them up for frustration and lower test scores. So I'm not I'm not trying to say I don't want iPads at all but I again thinking with intentionality like are we really teaching them how to use it like we cannot be completely screen free and these kids are are going to figure out how to use a a tablet or a laptop but again you know so so you know the reason for all the questions I is you know for we're using them if one of the main important parts is for for the testing then let's make sure they know exactly how to use use it properly for testing.
And there's only so long obviously that you can do that. You see that blue line going down from 2025 to 2026? That's because we paid off our bonds and we're not taking in as much money to pay those bonds back. Tax property taxes went down. Now all those bonds are paid off, we're going to make zoom our normal what what our inflationary increase on revenues. You can see that the red line, the operation the operating expenditures, the slope of that line in 27 through 30 increases at a slope or its rate is faster than the rate of growth on revenues. So that gives us pause. Here are our revenues historical and forecasted for 27 and then through 2030. And the vast majority where our money comes from is the blue, local, our local property taxpayers. And you'll also notice that the red and the yellow, which is state and federal respectively, is almost imperceptible in terms of the difference both you looking back from 24 all the way through 30.
Good pom-poms you got. >> [laughter] >> My turn. I'll switch colors. Great. You know, those past students from Ashland-Waterloo, 1976, Oh, yeah. >> 1990 time capsule gets opened at 1:00. That's going to be really neat. >> It'll be a packed house. >> [laughter] >> According to Amanda, it's going to be a full house. I can't even remember what I put in it. Wait, that's so exciting that he we have a board member that actually put something in it, too. What did you write? I don't know. I don't remember. >> [laughter] >> It's 50 years ago. This is going to be fun. >> [laughter] >> Well, the next board meeting's at night. >> [laughter] >> Well, bring it with you. Why not? Why not bring it to the board meeting? You'll decide that day. >> [laughter] >> All right. Um and as mentioned, our next board meeting is May 19th, and it is at DeKalb Middle School.
I know at PXU when they get to PXU they use laptops so perhaps it would behoove us to teach our six seventh eighth graders to be using laptops and be responsible for that you know I'm glad that yeah we do have iPads but I'm glad you know at least we're not sending all the kids home with them you know like I they don't need to be having access to them at home but however maybe seventh and eighth graders if they added laptop it would be good for them to to learn that responsibility. So anyways um I I agree I think that's a good point and maybe that's something we can put on a future agenda or have meetings with Jay about. I think one of the one of the downsides of the iPad is kids who have no idea or concept of how to use a mouse or a keyboard um which does become an issue for people who've never touched one especially if they don't have access to that in their home or they don't go to the library and so all they're using is iPad and a screen keyboard so I think that is a valid point that is something that could be addressed in the future just maybe not with regard to this purchase.
So while it does increase a little bit, it also is decreasing in other areas as we stock talked extensively in M-CATS in particular. Being as that we're a tier four school district by the state's measure, we have adequate funding. They're not going to give us any more in that regard. And they also don't have enough money to fully fund the transportation and special education expenses that were required by law to incur. So we're getting less and less back and we're getting less money from the state. So you can see all the increases are blue and they don't look very steep. They don't look nearly as steep as they did on the prior graph, which were distorted because to show the differences between those lines, I had to pick a a different range. But, you can see this there's no range here that goes from 0 to 150 million and those increases on those revenues don't look so steep.
We will have our fifth graders present for their presidential academic awards. Um at this time we will ask for adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion. Second. I have a motion and a second.
Yeah and I I'm not saying and we certainly can have those conversations um but like the choice for the iPads doesn't come in isolation because we actually at one time had iPads for the lower grades and had Chromebooks for the middle school grades. I think I don't know if it ran up to when Mr. Donnell joined us or we had migrated already when he joined us. Noticing from the the shake of a head in the back of the room the team the technology evaluation team that made the choice to change interviewed students and the level of student frustration with how unreliable the Chromebooks were was ultimately what caused us to switch to the iPads. It was and actually there was a presentation in this room and I remember it wasn't Mr. Donnell it was one of his predecessor pred- predecessors Ms. Dodson who came and gave a presentation on the feedback we received from students about their frustrations with the current devices that they had.