>> I don't think I have any questions, but um couple things. I I really really appreciate seeing the perspective from certified staff, classified staff, and the safety. So we get the a full spectrum of the impact. Um I do feel like I need to point out for the sake of the public um the two department chairs that you had listed and our other department chairs while they absolutely benefit from the referendum in terms of stability and many other things. I believe it's correct that they their pay is not impacted because they're administrators. None of this referendum is going to administrator pay. >> That is correct. >> Okay. I remember that from when I was one of them. Um, and I and I do have to toot my own horn a little bit here. Um, Nathan Chaffer and Brad Brennham um are partly here because I hired them quite a few years ago.
We'll we'll be there to honor those youngsters. Meet me there Sunday at 12:00 p.m. And then of course Carla Johnson around the corner is our retirement our end of year celebration. Just watch your calendar board. We're busy celebrating our staff and our students and of course culminating with the crash on June 3rd and 4th with graduation at Lawrence Central Lawrence North High School at the fairgrounds. Okay. Don't be late. And the 6th grade science fair is here, right? >> Yeah, the 6th grade science fair will be here in this building Saturday. Dr. Brown, you just want to chime in real quick. Just real quick. We're very excited to host the top three winners from each of the 11 elementary for a science bloodbath or science fair, whatever you'd like to call it. We like competition. >> We do like competition. We'll be announcing the winners between 11:00 and 11:30.
And then maybe next year if we can get a little more, we can rely on make really strengthening it through some external support. We aren't exactly sure yet. We do have some great internal capacity. I just think we have to capitalize on using it um in hope that it isn't being um used for other work and that it can really do the work it's here to do. >> Okay. >> Cuz that's a big big problem right now. Does anybody have any other questions on the document? We do recommend these things. We don't recommend touching the others uh because we do real we do believe that there is an impact that we are not yet aware of that they may have. Um and um And so, we we this is what we bring to you. >> And I think just um just a a comment because this is my first cycle through this and it seems slightly odd to be potentially voting on these particular things before the town budget has been voted on.
Because when we triangulate that data, when we look at partnering with our, you know, research, accountability, and and data person, Andrew Parker, when we look at Educlimber, all these different things really are rooted in what is happening across our district, where is that consistency, what is that common thread, and coming back to our rights and responsibilities with, you know, what we define as gross misconduct, what we define as prohibited items is consistent at one of our high schools to one of our junior highs to one of our elementaries. Obviously, we know the severity of some of those things are going to look different based on level, but making sure that we have a common understanding and common language to come back to is is is critical. And then the last thing I would just highlight for the purposes of of today is that improved clarity around the athletic code of conduct.
>> That's a very correlation >> and I'm so glad I did. So, I have a a story that um I hope doesn't embarrass Brad, but I think it's an important um story. Several years ago before the referendum, um I think CA arranged for one of our um our state representatives to meet with teachers here at North High School to talk about the issues of state funding and the lack of state funding. Um and many teachers got up and spoke and and Brad Brandon had been here maybe about 10 years at that point and um he is an amazing teacher and he got up and said he is passionate about teaching. He loves teaching, but with raising his family, sorry, he didn't know if he could afford to keep doing it. And and this referendum helps us keep teachers like that here. >> 100%. I appreciate that story.
If you'd like to join us then come a little bit earlier if you'd like to walk around and look at some of the projects. Scientists, yes. We will have a packed house board in this building celebrating students and I can just feel the academia and all the brainpower already. It's going to be packed Saturday morning. And the competition. >> Yep, and the competition. That's all I have board. >> All right, thank you. With that our next meeting will be our well, it's going to be a combined work session and board meeting on Monday, May 18th at 5:30 p.m. here. Thank you again everybody for doing the hard work today and I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All right, properly moved Miss Puckett and seconded Dr. Mulholland.
Um, and then before we really get into the next fiscal year in which I mean we have four months of potential assumption changes, right? During that time period. So, I understand the need and I certainly understand the legality around the May 1st um, compliance. So, all 100% valid. I guess in an effort of, you know, transparency right to those that might listen to this conversation afterwards, these all are not necessarily set in stone at this point. And so, I would just allow the opportunity to as information changes over these coming months, we may be looking at slightly different decisions. Or correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption. So, >> I see it in a different way. I see it that the referendum's coming. We have to get to this number because I mean good, bad, or indifferent, the referendum passes and this budget stays the same.
We worked very closely with both of our high schools, worked very closely with our athletic directors to make sure that we were, you know, making sure that that section was robust with explanations and included some some enhanced language. The one thing I would add about the student conduct section two is is that many times when people think about student conduct, they automatically go to discipline. Student conduct really is about protecting our kids. It's about protecting those that are in our space and our educational spaces for a variety of reasons. Making sure that they're free of bullying and harassment or in the event that those things do occur, we have mechanisms to be able to support them. Harmful language protocols, those types of things. So, don't think of student conduct always is that straight to discipline. It's really about, again, teaching our youngest people how to do life in an educational setting that where we have them as a captive audience for 7 hours a day.
>> Questions, comments. >> Um, I think all of the positive data is really helpful for people like Mr. Stunner that live that every day. they recognize how different that is from potentially peers or other districts in our state. But for for those of us that aren't in the meat and potatoes every day, it it would be helpful maybe to see some comparative numbers for each of those points. I don't know if my comment is making any sense, but you know, as we get closer and closer to our decision, um just helping us see how spectacular these results are. um in in comparison would be really helpful. >> Of course. Yes, that does make sense. I want to make one last comment and thank Aaron Lenard for being here on his birthday to present uh for for Columbus East High School. And of course again want to thank the teachers and CA of course for their continued partnership.
If it doesn't pass, we have to cut further. >> So, the bottom line, I 100% agree Aaron, the bottom line number stays the same. I guess my only variant in the interpretation is the section in yellow could vary. Like >> think it's going to vary much. I mean, if you're talking about I mean, and this is my opinion, right? So, the people, right? We have to give them notice. Like, I mean, I I mean, ethically, morally, and legally we have to give them notice. So, those positions, I mean, I don't see the furniture changing. The libraries, you know, I don't see much, I mean, this yellow section. [clears throat] >> Well, Steve, what do you think? >> to reduce that or we have to look at blue below, right? >> Are all those not necessarily set in stone in the yellow? And they could shift a little bit just to more to specify or answer to Caroline's question.
Um and so if we put all of us together in a room for 7 hours a day, uh 5 days a week, we would have to have some conversation around conduct also. Um just to make sure that everyone had rightful presence and was able to be seen in those spaces equally. Um one of the things that we have done differently this year is our stakeholder feedback. Uh you know, in years past part of code says that you have to put this in front of parents and and do some things and we've used superintendent's advisory group and we've used the SSAC and we've used different avenues to to be able to gather feedback from our stakeholder groups. Um and this year we took it a little bit a step forward if you will. As with any new thing that we do, it's really a learning opportunity.
So thank you. >> Thank you Dr. Stalbone. uh budget workshop for the operating referendum. Dr. Boseman, >> as he makes his way up here, I'm just going to point out how unusual it is that we're doing a budget workshop. In April, uh we have, at least since I've been in BCSSE, these have always come in August, we do a budget workshop. September, we do a budget hearing. In October, the board considers approval of the budget. Um, this is unusual particularly because we're uh we're moving this up to this time frame because we're asking the board to consider renewing the operating referendum. And so we think it's important that you see a picture of what that operating referendum might look like for the next uh eight years. And because we're starting with this one and we know you want to consider the entire picture, in subsequent meetings in uh in the future months, we're going to do preliminary budget workshops just like this one for the education fund, operations fund, and debt service fund.
I would like to take Caroline's approach and share that this is my first time with you all too in the budget. And so I've seen it done a number of ways, so I'm going to ask you all. To me, it is incumbent upon me uh to work with administration to bring to you the the pathway in which we are going to get to whatever is voted upon. >> I understand. >> like right now what's going forward to the town is 3.96, right? And so I need to show you that we can get there. >> Mhm. >> And here is a pathway to get there. >> And how? Right. And here is it. I have to execute on letting some people know before May 1st that and again I if if it works differently here, that's fine, but I don't think you have to vote on that.
Um and and we could talk about the number of people that we have actually connected with and the reach in which we've able to been we've been able to do that. Um and you'll see some of those things highlighted here. Um that's not something we've ever been able to really accomplish and so we learned some things from our strategic planning process. We learned some things from from how we've done it in in the past and we want to highlight those things here. Yes, thank you. This was so exciting and shout out to the communications team for helping us get some of these survey questions out because seeing these, you know, responses flow in and really kind of help guide and ground us on where we want to go with this process was just really exciting and you know, I always get excited about you know, policy procedure but now I'm even more excited about right the next steps of what we're going to do with this and and where this is going to guide our work.
>> Thank you, Dr. Phillips. Good evening. Yes. Uh Mr. Binger and I as as Dr. Phillips mentioned, we'll bring to you workshops over the course of the next few months to go into a a closer look into each of these funds. Tonight will be the operating referendum fund. The first few slides that I'll share with you will be relatively static and I uh by sharing that I mentioned that they will be um the same through the other workshops to help paint the the fiscal picture that we are facing and that many other districts across the state are facing as well. Uh once I get through those, then we'll we'll talk specifically about the referendum moving forward. As I mentioned, this is a context for budget reductions that we'll be facing in 2027 and beyond the um decreased net assessed value that we would realize due to property tax reform.
I have to do that by law. So whether you vote on it or not, I have to let some people know that uh we may not be inviting them back, you know, that not we may not, we aren't. And um we hope that we'll have something for you. Um so I'm have to do that either way, uh whether you vote on it or just say yes, Steve, go ahead and do that. Um and I always to Caroline's point also, I would keep you informed as the months evolve of changes potentially to the budget. There may be more realized savings than we expect in, I don't know, electric I'm not going to say gas cuz I don't think that's changing, but electricity or something that we just didn't anticipate, right? So maybe we don't have to do the, I don't know, X, Y, or Z in yellow here, right?
So just really quickly to capture some of those numbers, right? the student responses we had almost you know, just over 1,700 responses in in years past we've captured roughly maybe 20 student voices. So even this even though this feels a little bit different in terms of the data just being able to reach and and those responses from our um 6th through 12th grade students is is phenomenal. Um parent guardians um same thing. We got, you know, just over 750, you know, responses. We also do a parent focus group. Again, communications really was a great partner um in letting us present and be part of one of their parent leader focus groups. Um so again, just trying to continue to get that that robust um you know, feedback from the community. So just to give you a couple of snip uh snapshots of some of those questions.
You may be familiar with the potential loss or planned loss of local income tax that falls off in 2029. As a reminder, that's a little more than $2 million that BCSC receives that goes into the operations fund. Declining birth rates that affects our ADM. Of course, there has been a modest state um funding per pupil, but as a reminder, the curricular funds um that is part of that funding. So, you you're you're familiar that uh schools no longer charge for textbook rentals any longer and those those funds about 1.6 six or so are rolled into state tuition funding. Um some cost increases that we have listed there. One example specifically from a shift would be the um state law required um turf teacher retirement fund portion that the school district pays has increased over the past few years from around $5,100 to now $6,600 that we are responsible for as a district for a teacher making $60,000 or so.
Whatever it is. And and so I guess that's why I wonder why it's a vote versus just like, yeah, we can Yeah, thank you for showing us a pathway and we'll just keep going. I I don't know. I'm not sure what we'd be voting on if things did change. Do we still have to eliminate all those things or do we have to re-vote again? Now we're going to put back X, Y, and Z. And is it a constant back and forth vote? I'm trying to >> was going in my head. So, I think Joy would be the one I don't know. >> voted on. >> I was going to say I think it's >> We vote on the number. >> On the number. >> We vote on the number, but I think we've always voted to accept the number. We don't vote like on this at least in my memory and in conversations I've had.
Here is one of the parent guardian questions. And and right, the data is so telling. Um that first question is aligned to that first bar. So are you aware the district has a student rights and responsibilities? Um the majority of our families said yes. That was great to see. Um but when you look at some of those next areas of opportunity is how confident do you feel that you understand how the student rights and responsibilities applied? So again, that's where my excitement comes in because our our goal over the past couple years was making sure that this was a forward-facing document and our families and our students and our staff knew about it. And you can see we're we're doing okay in that area. Now it's time to take it to the next step. And and how do we then become um more fluent in what this means for you as a family, what this means for your student.