001presentation this evening regarding the 2526 budget with Mr. Koshious. So, our meeting is beginning at 6:13 p.m. Okay, good evening everybody. Um, it is budget time. 2526 school district budget. It's the preliminary budget we'll be going over tonight. Uh budget preparation. Uh the timeline is based upon the primary election which this year is May 20th. Uh we had to we either had to adopt the budget 90 days prior or do a resolution to uh not go above the index which the school district did on November 11th, 2024 that we were not going to raise taxes above the index. and the limitation was this year was 4%. So we go along with the regular school code for May and June. Uh tonight uh we will propose the final budget that needs to be uh advertised for
00230 days before final adoption which would be tenatively June 23rd, 2025. Okay, this is a lot to take in here. Uh this is just an overview of what we're proposing for 2526. And if you start on the right, further on the right hand side, the blue area proposing 30 a little bit over 35 million in revenues for the 2526 year. That's an increase of about 714,000 from last year and the proposed expenditures 36.36 million which is about a $1.4 million increase from last year. So there is a little bit of a shortfall difference compared to last year to this year. and my further slides will go back into the reason why that's like that and give you that information. Any questions on this one? Okay, as you saw on the last slide, uh estimated fund
003balance use would be the 1.3 million. However, we do have money built in there for items uh contingency funding which is 260,000. We have ERAY money of 88,357. And I got the good news. We got approved for it for the 25 26 year. So that money will definitely be contingency. So that's 348,357 definitely contingency not we just have it out there just in case something happens. And the other 100,000 is the onetime cost. We have dual curriculums were approving this year. That's just the onetime cost we're going to take out of fund balance. It's not a normal reoccurring thing. So, if we're look looking at our normal operating deficit, we're about projecting about $884,000 as we sit here tonight for the year. And I'll go over LA, let me go over last year real quick
004where we were last year at this time. We were 66,000, but we had contingency and rate money built in then. So, we were sitting about 226 short last year compared to the 884. What I'm projecting this year is we're we're going to be actually our revenues came in a little bit higher, the $474,000 um additional state funding, a little bit more in BEF and SEF because we passed the budget when those numbers weren't finalized last year, but the big increase was in the cyber reimbursement. We're getting $161,000 worth of cyber reimbursement this year, which we had no idea when the budget was passed last year. That's good news, but when I get into the later presentation, there's bad news on that. Uh, a couple other local revenues, the interest income's a little bit higher. So,
005that gets us to the $447,000 projected higher revenues. Expenditures are looking like they're going to come in good. So, I'm um projecting about $250,000 to the good, which that will cover our 25% match for the ERU project on that million-doll grant we got. So I'm projecting we should come in not using any fund balance for the 2425 year. But let's go back to the 2526. So what we have tonight and and again all the decisions haven't been finally made but we're and there's a lot of unknowns which we'll get into the worst case I'm presenting tonight it's around 885,000 shortfall. So that'll take our fund balance down to about 9.1 million. But let's go in a little bit more detail on the revenues, get to the expenditures, and then we'll tell you what the unknowns
006that you have as we stand here tonight. As you can see, most of our revenues come from local, 58.12%. 39.85 from state, and now we're down to the 2% from federal after all the ESRS money's been done. This budget has no ESRES money in. That's been all spent and long gone. So, we're back to our 2% in federal funding. And this is how it's usually been all along. Gradually going up a little bit. We're almost to 60% local, which is not a good thing. And you can see the local revenues, the state revenues. We're going to be about 23.53 million for state local, almost 14 for state, about 700,000 for federal. getting back to where our normal number is the 22 23 23 24 and a little bit 2425 very little answers in 2425 but
007you can see the bulk of that was 2223 and 2324 which you can see the bigger amount was funded federally question yes so what you're saying is before the money came out we got about a 2% funding two to three% and that's where we're back at yeah exactly However, to note on that, I think we used our assert money wisely and we're not seeing other districts created a lot of positions where it's hard to fund them as well too. Okay. How did our revenues go up? Um, real estate taxes right now, this budget does not have a this presentation does not have a millage increase. uh they actually decrease because we got more state money is 65,000 for the property tax rebate program. So when you get your fall bill that little it'll go up
008a little bit more the discount you're getting but a little bit overall we're about $30,000 net increase when you add those two numbers together uh in real estate taxes. Uh the good trend on the year income were we're $75,000 uh resulting in increase for the 20 from 2425 for the 25 26 year. That puts us at about $2,25,000 of earned income that we'll be budgeting. Uh other two good items to trending the uh payment of Lua tax is real estate tax transfer tax $35,000 increase and $80,000 increase. So we're budgeting around 400,000 for real estate transfer tax total in our annual budget. That's what we we get. That's up from 320. Amusement tax can back be back up to pretty much levels before CO as well too. That gets us to 95,000. The real good
009thing and what we the trend we've been seeing the last couple years interest income locking those good CD rates in and the rates haven't fallen. another 125,000 more than anticipated uh in interest income for the 2526 year. Caution the board on this though. If the rates start falling, that number is going to fall too. Uh we're still getting the four and 5% CD rates, but if that if the the rates start going down, that directly has an impact on that. And pretty much that's what we budgeted conservatively over the last couple years because we didn't know where the rates are going. CDs are locked in for one to two to three years and we got those good rates right now, but that could change next year definitely if the rates go down. Uh prek counts,
010this is great news. I know Chris and uh uh Brett worked on this. We got 11 more slots for this year. So, we're going to still have 80 seats for prek counts or 80 count preK count seats, but 80 prek seats. 51 of them will be prek counts uh funded by the state which is another $128,000 to the budget almost $129,000 to the budget. So thank you guys for the work on that. That's great. And just some small increases and other local revenues from over budget about $17,000 uh sport v revenues, miscellaneous income, different things like that. Now we're getting into the bad news of the presentation. That's all local and that's good, but that percentage keeps going up every year. Right now, the basic ed subsidy, we're really with the $100 million they have
011out there, we're getting very little because we got uh between the basic ed and the special ed subsidy, you can see it's about $115,000 more, but 34 of that was from even last year's we weren't expecting. So, if you only project what they're going to give us this year, it's only about an $81,000 increase. And that's one of the lowest we've had in the the last five years here. So the state portion, not a lot of it's going to that formula, it's going into the tax adequacy which we don't qualify for and that's where the bulk of the money is. And I know there's a lot of things going on at the state level right now trying to switch that up. And so that's one big unknown that we don't know it. And I we
012might not know in June either, but that's a really that's the numbers. I feel comfortable budgeting that because that's at least what we should get. Hopefully there'll be more. I'm not sure though. Uh the uh transportation subsidy subsidy increase will go up around 435. That's because the the the CPI went up for the uh reimbursement from the state on the very complex formula. Um state safe school grants uh they're going down, but it's because we had carryover from the prior year. We're going to right now we're projected to get 129,000. We had 76,000 carryover from the prior year that we didn't use because it was um the budget wasn't passed to late. We weren't able to spend the money that year. Uh the other big thing that you don't see, well let me go through
013the last uh increase in social security and retirement reimbursements. Pasers went up from 33.9% to 34%. Plus our wages went up and we get reimbured from the state 50% of those costs which is good. One thing I don't have in here because we didn't budget last year cyber uh reimbursement. After that budget was passed, we got reimbured $161,000 this year which we had no idea was coming. The bad news, it's out of the current budget right now. So, good news for 2425, bad news for 20 2526. That's probably 80 80% of a mill 161,000. I don't know where that's going. I don't know if cyber reforms coming. Definitely a big unknown at this time when we're presenting you the budget. Uh looking at the federal subsidies um I kept title one two and four the
014same and the idea be the same as we got for the 25 2425 actual. So that's all level there. And you'll see a little de decrease in our federal bond reimbursement. As we pay more down the interest goes down and we get reimbured on that. That's about down about 17,000 from last year as we pay less interest on that bond. So there's the revenue. Let me go through some slides to show you where it comes from and then if you have any questions feel free to ask. There's our local sources. You can see the majority of that is real estate taxes. That's of our local sources. 7 uh over 74% come from real estate taxes. The next biggest one is earned income uh real estate transfer tax, amuse amusement tax, and per capita tax, that's
015about almost 13%. A delinquency taxes, that's all the delinquent taxes. Real estate earned income per capita, that's about 4%. uh local grants. That's where the prek counts go through. That's where the idea B money goes through. That's why those numbers are around 5%. And that did increase from last year because of the more prek counts money and just other a small other there. But and uh the um the PUC and the interest in uh that the hold on I can't read that. of the uh interim real estate taxes, the u the uh payment for utility companies and the um uh the pilot payment in le of taxes. That's a very small category that's less than that's less than three and a half percent. So that's where the local sources come from. The big thing I
016want to point out on the next slide is the state sources. We're of that state sources 52% of the state sources is coming from the basic subsidy which still not getting that tax adequacy. Now this could be the second year really has an impact on that. Um then you'll see the next biggest one after that social security and retirement reimbursement in the blue square there and the and the transportation will be the next one after that around 13%. But the special education, we're only getting 9.4%. And our costs in special education are high. So, it's the lack of federal and state funding there that becomes a a uh a real big cost on on local taxpayers from that side. And the property tax re uh reduction, that's the uh act one gaming money that comes
017back through the discount on your on your tax bills. Any question on revenues before I move forward? Okay, here's our proposed uh expenditures. This is broken down into instructional support, student activities, and our debt service uh food service transfers. And uh we'll go into details on these. This is a breakdown of all that by category. Our row salaries and wages is the 100 code for all those areas. And you can see um 13 uh $1 million in salary and wages and we'll go over the increase in the next slide. Benefits are about 8.8 million about 24%. And it goes down there. The next big thing would be the other purchase services that is transportation and outside placements and the debt service. Uh the last one there about 2.6 million which going through this we learned
018that we have a low debt ratio. We're about 9% debt debt ratio which is a very good positive debt ratio as we went through the process here. Then we'll go over the increases there. Salaries and wages increased a little bit over $500,000 which is about a four 4.04% increase. Uh these wages are the normal increases for the settle contracts. But in addition, we have a position for the director of education position in this budget and two additional security guards guards that were not in the 2425 budget. And that's just the salary their salaries there. Then we also have it in the benefits the next section below there. Benefits went up about 7.12%. uh healthcare went up about 9% and I know it seems high but other consortiums they're looking at 22% this year. So 9%
019uh is isn't a bad increase. I mean we're seeing health insurance across the board rise and I think we'd be able to manage it pretty good with the consortium. And then again with the retirement uh Pasers going up from 39 point 33.9% to 34%. Uh and the wage increase that's why the social security and retirement went up. But we're getting more money back from the state which is good. And you can see it's a little bit more than 50% because some of those federal some of those wages before were federal wages where you don't get the reimbursement on that. Now we get the 50% reimbursement. That was because the Esers money. So that's good there. Uh professional and property services decreased around 33,000. That's more of the uh decrease in OTP services that we're budgeting
020for next year. And the hotspots, we got that down pretty good now where uh we only we only hand out very little. There's a lot of people we got we got that under control and I know a lot of it was during COVID we'd have have more hot spots but uh I think Janine and Greg on that working with that to get that to where that needs to be. Uh other purchase services this is a bigger bigger area around 3% about 210,000 uh increasing the district outside tuition placements uh and private instit private tuitions increased around 33,000 were in the budget which is pretty much holding level. We have some costs going up and you'll see in the budget uh on the motions tonight about increasing some of the outside placement services, but we've been
021holding the line pretty good on other purchase services and placements, increase in transportation and the EWCTC is in this category too. So that makes up the $210,000 um supplies, books and software. or we if we should look at that with the new plate uh equipment replacement overall that's a net of about 206,000 increase butund,000 is from the having the two curriculums and this year's budget which we won't have that with the curriculum cycle in there's also some supply increase um in the buildings and supplies and utilities an increase in um a decrease in the rate category 2 purchases our funding has uh for 2 which is not the internet for capital purchases. That funding wound down and we have about 34,000 worth of purchases this year compared to like 60,000 last year. So those two
022netted together bring us there. And then the last one uh dues and memberships and debt service principal and interest that decreased about $37,000. Uh the debt service payments are around down about $18,000. That's for the bonds and the loan payment we have out there. And decrease the membership fees went down about 20,000. So overall that that's where we sum up right now with the $1.4 million increase in expenditures. Any questions on that? notable expenditures like I we went over some of them there. The health insurance, the salaries, the transportation, but like even these small ones um the uh F tonight F-3525 and F4525 4625 other outside places are increasing too. That's why that has to go out there too and and we do have kids in those uh outside placements and went back to even
023a couple the IU budget and the EWCTC budget we approved in April just increases that are going up everywhere. So, um and one little note here, I don't know if too much of the board knows this, back in 2122, uh the EWCTC got a new bond at our share of that's about 168,000. So we were able to build that into our budget too all these years without a tax increase too because those improvements needed uh done up there and they've done a good job up there. But knowing we were able to build that in our regular budget too over those years was good too. Fund balance history. Uh I know a board member requested this and we I went back as far as I could dig up through the audit and where we were in
02409010 to where we are now. uh we come a long way and and and really when you see the next slide you'll see there was tax increases but not significant to get this far and the note at the bottom there was during the times from the 2021 year through the 2324 budget we were able to transfer 2.9 to do these capital expenditures we did over the years without a tax increase like the new track the handicap accessible bleachers the electric project that's going on RKM LVM MS in the admin building. Uh the football field drainage and recounting plus having that money transferred for the baseball field match 16.1 mills we were able to transfer over to the capital for this during this time period and uh not have any tax increases or tax burden on
025the citizens as well too. Again, last four years, these are competitive grants. This isn't Esther's money. This isn't PCCD money. This is what uh we were able to get in grants. Uh big one, obviously, the 1.6 million for the baseball complex. The next big one, the DCCD infrastructure ERU project, 100 one million there with a 25% match. Special ed contingency. We were a successful now the last four years. Almost $600,000, almost $150,000 a year we received. We're going to do it again for 2526, but I can't budget it. I just know we'll apply for it and hopefully we get it again. Um, some of the smaller ones, uh, well, not smaller, some as we go down here, the RKM Foundation for the mental health grant that we received a couple years ago. Last month, a
026private donor, 250,000 for the baseball complex. the state dual enrollment grant we got last year 23 24 $75,000 uh to help the kids with the at at the um West Morland County Community College $75,000 there uh project we did that RK Melon in the back there the drainage from the West Morland conservancy district was 50,000 couple private donors for the uh vape sensor grant and uh college now the I have one Esther's number up here but this is this is a good er number allocation for the children and youth was 18,000. We were able to apply and get 97,000 more because people didn't spend it. And we use that for our homeless transportation, which was great and helped not uh have to uh helped us increase the fund balance a little bit as well too.
027And we we applied for -ate money for the hotspots over those couple years and got that too around 59,000. Some FEMA co money when I got here, we applied 44,000 and the uh the state SRO grant which was a couple years ago 25. in the Special Olympics grant to get the Botchi ball started with 7500. So 42 4.2 million another 23.34 mills of taxes through those grants which combine those together that's like 40 mills of taxes which is just just great for the district and I'm glad we were able to do that. Yeah, a lot of people were behind that as well too. Here's the worst slide. The unknowns. When will the state budget be passed? Will we get the special ed contingency money again? If we can get that 150, that'll be great. And
028uh not knowing the title one two and IDB allocations, we don't know what that'll be with the federal government. Cyber charter reform, where will that be? And will that cyber re uh subsidy reimbursement 162,000 will that be come back for 2526? So, there's a lot of unknowns to be making a decision right now in this budget. And I don't know. I haven't heard anything good or bad about the state budget process where it's at. It's been very quiet. So, do I hope it gets done before June 30th? Yeah, our our next meeting will be June 23rd. I would love to have that information done to present to give you more information, but I'm giving you what I got right now. So, um that's where we are. Let me see. I may have one more slide
029here. This is the this is an important slide. The tax incre the millage increase uh from 200910 to where we are 2425. So the 16 years prior to this year, this year's budget, I believe it was 16 16 point something mills over 16 years, which isn't bad considering now we are in going into this year, the 2425 year, we're the lowest uh school district taxes in West Morland County. Now we have the lowest millage for school taxes. This this this slide I I never didn't present before and I want to do it tonight. It's just what would it cost cost uh if we did if there was a tax increase and I based on the market value and took the common level ratio to get it to the assessed value and you can see the
030numbers up there on $150,000 market value house the assessed value would be about $14,000 one mill increase would be $14 and you can read down below $200,000 would be about 19 250,000 market value would be about 23 $300,000 would be about 28 350 would be about 33 three and a $400,000 market value house would be about 37 and that would be for a 1 mil increase. And note two, the maximum we could go this year with the index would be the 3.436 mills. And note three, the medium assessed value assessed value is $17,740. So that really falls in the line around the $200,000 range where a one mil increase would be about $17 about $18. as I said before. So just information that wanted you to have real quick capital, you'll see we have four
031things on the agenda tonight for some flooring re uh replacement. Right now we set up we'll I'm projecting the unrestricted uh funds in the capital project which include excludes the baseball project and the electric project of about 218,000 and we're going to replace around 41,000 worth of uh of the flooring. So we still will have o over uh about $175,000 left in that fund. And note too, we do have money set aside in the general fund committed fund balance for different things for capital, for appeasers, for health insurance and all that stuff. There's money set aside there. Again, after this budget, still worried about the future of federal and state funding and cyber reform. That's always going to be an ongoing issue. And that's all I have. Thank you, Eric. It's a lot. Thank you,
032Eric, for that information. A lot to digest, of course. It is currently 6:40. I know Mr. Stephy stepped out there for a second.