001Good evening. Could someone make a motion for us to enter executive session there a second all of those in favor say aye opposed We will now move to executive session. I don't hear Good evening and welcome to our May board meeting. It is very hard to believe that it is the end of another school year This is always an exciting meeting because it's filled with our students Who have done great work and are going to be recognized. So thank you all for being here tonight There was no action taken in executive session But I would like to amend our current agenda for the board to go back into executive session Upon completion of this open session. Do I have a motion? second all of those in favor say aye Opposed Thank you We'll move back
002into executive session upon completion of this meeting as we do in all of our board meetings I will now ask mr. Charles Boyd to pray Let us pray our gracious and heavenly father. We just want to thank you for another beautiful day Thank you for everyone. That's a symbol here this evening father Thank you for our students who are coming out and thank you for their achievements father Bless them and guide them and lead them as they continue on father father, please Bless our students that they will have a safe summer at the end of this school year father Keep them safe and and whatever endeavors they encounter Father we thank you for the parents and guardians and all family members father for letting us serve your children We we just thank so much of
003them and we just thank you for all you've done to allow us to do for them Father bless our administrators teachers staff Father give them the guidance that they need to prepare our students for the future endeavors Father when we leave here this evening, please guide and lead everyone to have a safe journey home in your name We pray amen Amen. Thank you. Mr. Boyd The minutes for the April 13th 2026 board meeting were sent to us electronically to review prior to this meeting Are there any changes or corrections to the April board meeting minutes? Hearing no changes. The minutes are approved by acclamation The April invoices were sent to us prior to tonight's board meeting. Are there any questions regarding the April? 2026 invoices Hearing no questions. Do I have a motion to approve
004the April 2026 invoices? second all approved say aye any objections Hearing none the April invoices stand approved at this time I would like to turn our meeting over to our superintendent. Dr. Ken Kaiser. Thank you, madam chairman Tonight is a very special night because we get to recognize Over 300 students that have demonstrated outstanding performance and achievements our Students are the heart and soul of this district and tonight we get to celebrate their achievements with junior scholars the science fair With our fine arts programs and our students have really worked hard and I see a lot of parents out here And I know you're beaming with pride and I know you didn't come to hear me talk I know you came to celebrate these young students. So at this time, I'm gonna ask dr Wooten
005to come and begin our recognition program and if you will Just follow dr. Wooten and miss Lane over here to the side. We'll get with our first group of students now while they're coming I would like to remind everyone that this is teacher appreciation week and our students have worked hard But none of these students would be where they are without the love support Professional input of their teachers. So at this time if we have any teachers here I'm gonna ask that our teachers please stand and let's give our teachers a big round of applause for everything they do Thank you so much. And at this time, we will have miss Lane here to recognize our first group of students Gotta put my glasses on Good evening And thank you so much for joining us
006tonight as we recognize the outstanding achievements of our fine arts and academic students I would like to begin by offering a tremendous Thank you to our school board and district administration for your continued support of our fine arts and academic programs These programs provide so many wonderful opportunities for our students to grow and succeed Thank you as well to all of the parents for encouraging your students to strive for excellence and reach these great heights We are incredibly proud of each of these students and all that they have accomplished I will now begin our recognition by honoring the academic achievements of our junior scholars Dawkins Middle School Savannah Chastain Adela Coleman Jack Crispin Aidan Ekaton Mark Fiege Mark also has the highest average in the district Amelia Ferguson Thomas Fisher Evelyn Frye Luke Gardner Gloria
007Gray Zoe Grummer Keon Howell Ella Kern Elijah Clickman Anil Lewis Paisley Loftus Timothy Lida Yuliana Maldonado Arismendi Zamir Marquez Olivia McCallwant Mon Patel Lydia Paz Calderon Salah Ragredes Luke Sandifer Holden Smith Carter Swank Faith Thames Holt Turnipseed Olivia West From Fair Forest Middle School We have Albina Arisvon Kendall Hernandez Padilla Joseph Levitt Jennifer Lopez Lucas Morellino Trasier Jane Onyongo Zarekia Peters Monika Ulanoff Jordi Vasquez Perez Gable Middle School Parker Chavis Owen Crisp Emma Cunningham Colson Davis Leighton Fisher Ava Harvey Justin Kilgore Ariel Neely Sawyer O'Neil Sebastian Page Harrison Miller Price Natalie Schindler Callie Sebach Matthew Sobranas Jameson Steyer Henry West and Ella Zellner Thank you so much for joining us this evening as we recognize the outstanding science achievement of our students from the science fair in behavior science first place Veronica Ulanoff from Fair
008Forest Middle School second place Elizabeth Storm Dawkins Middle School and honorable mention Anaya Moore from Fair Forest Middle School in biology first place Jameson Stor Gable Middle School third place Ira Pooty Dawkins Middle School honorable mention Aditri Nagubili Fair Forest Middle School honorable mention Sarah Brooks Fair Forest Middle School honorable mention Gabriella Carranza Lima Dawkins Middle School in chemistry first place Jordi Vazquez Perez Fair Forest Middle School second place Elizabeth Leonard Fair Forest Middle School in general science second place Lucas Morlino Fair Forest Middle School and third place Sophia Smith Fair Forest Middle School in physics honorable mention Ali Scott Dawkins Middle School some special awards the genius Olympiad award went to Jameson Stor from Gable Middle School and it was organic vs. non-organic how does nutrient runoff affect the ocean the NOAA award was
009Sawyer Green from Gable Middle School how does the time of day affect the call volume at the fire department let's give all of our recipients a big round of applause we're going to call it Miss Vicki Bishop for elementary music actually before Miss Bishop comes up we would like to call Mark Feing back up to the stage and as Miss Lane just mentioned he was the overall winner what we didn't mention is that Mark was the overall winner in the district for ELA he was also the overall winner for math making him the overall winner for this test with a score of 1430 on the PSAT so Mark if you would please come forward thank you so much for joining us this evening as we recognize the outstanding choral achievements of our elementary students and
010please hold your applause until all have been recognized from Anderson Mill Elementary School, Eliana Alexander Milani Cortez Briley Fowler Caroline Kever Emma Prescott Michael Roka Jaden Sellers Myla Wallace Evelyn Wilson Kylie Ball Fiona Bray Hunter Stanko Addison Allen Maddy Grace Belk Kylie Fiona and Hunter, we're from Fair Forest Addison, Maddy Grace, now we're moving on to Pauline Glenn Springs Ava Burgess Rosalie Lenmesser Callie Pitts Eva Reed Emory Vance Clara Witt from Roebuck Elementary we have Channing Bunch Nora Lemay Reese Lanier Livy Peavey Lily Williams from Westview Elementary we have Jackie Coleman Noah Brooks Hudson Huang Laura Lastorm from Woolen Heights Elementary we have Carly Collins Dean Hurr Darian Moore Isabella Powell and now I would like to turn it over to our Director of Visual Arts and Fine Arts, Dr. Amy Workman Let's give all
011of these Amy Workman and I'm going to recognize our outstanding visual art winners Darby Deal JaKayla Kelly Caroline Lopez Elaine Sabatka Gracie Wilcox-Hawkins Kenneth Tate Wilson Melanie Carmona Gomez Nazar Mariskeski Bailey Overveig Veronica Yulinov Millie America Madison Author London Clayton Katie Diaz Milana Fedorchuk Vanessa Hernandez Hernandez Katie McKinney Adeline Gracie Redrick Ollie Wheeler Prashan Wiggleton Aiken Brooklyn Alexander Jennifer Angelis Miracle Boyd Rihanna Brown Fatu Deng Emily Ducolos Ulysses Elizondo Garcia Lana Foster Ava Francis Tanner Godfrey Ariana Gonzalez Gaspar Mariah Green Hannah Harrington Alex Hefner Miranda Jackson Kinsley LeGrand Nellie Manzuck Zoe McKinney Ingrid Akatila Rosas Grace Robinson The next row y'all might have to go on down to the end Javian Rodriguez Haley Ruth Roseland Sanchez Martinez Victoria Huedense Eden Vanderpook Avalie Workman Takumi Yang If y'all will please give these great visual arts students
012a round of applause Next up we have our amazing dance teachers Ms. Lauren Carlson and Ms. Nikki Hines Good evening everyone and thank you so much for joining us as we recognize the outstanding dance achievements of some of our students First we have Evan Wood Aubrey Davis and Anaya Payden Thank you Ms. Hines and Ms. Carlson My name is Leah Wren and I'm the Director of Theater Education As a group our theater students earned fourth place at the South Carolina Theater Association's Studio Series Festival as well as a superior in play performance at the Palmetto Dramatic Associations One Act Play Festival with their production of Kodachrome. The individual recognitions for theater are as follows Tamiya Bird Lily Long Chelsea Onate Tuk An Phan Joshua Vasquez Flores Colton Bruce Presley Campbell Peyton Carter Katelyn Comer Philip
013Crawford Aubrey Davis Tierra Edie Dee Andres Alex Hefner Alyssa Inabonet Niasia Jones Damian Lopez Delaney Lux Mikkel Ezra Lida Olivia Marsh Madison Miller Marcel Miller Alex Richards Asiri Rodriguez Kareem Thompson Amaria Williams Jaleah Wise Evan Wood And from Fair Forest Middle School Jaslyn Dogen Miles Martin Melissa Demova Nyla D. Martin Melissa Demova Nyla Brown Markeia Brannon Abigail McLean Sophia Smith Marlee Staley Lillian Standrich Jolie Sellers and Gracie Pleasant Congratulations to our theater students. I'll now turn the podium over to Mr. Dave Bruce. We're going to recognize our first, our all state band members from our district. First we have Alaina Babb Salah Hamrick Connor Timms Samira Jean D'Angelo Payne Haley Loftus Camila Ramirez Colton Bruce Katie Fodorchenko Grayson Miller King Aidan Nelson James Page Wyatt Stevens and Eden Vanderplug Let's hear it for our all
014state band members from our right of district. Next we're going to recognize our Dorman Indoor Drumline on their accomplishment for making semifinals up at the World Championships again this year as well as being multiple regional champions. Christian Jacques Samira Jean She's a dual threat, that's why she has to do good things. Walker Stevens Bryce Butler Nolan Crum Hezekiah Mitchell Vin Sherbert Colin Allman Marcus Allman Karina Artega Leah Bray Carson Brown Vianna Brown Leah Burgess Malachi Kennedy Janeann Corn Kayden Corsi Alex Cox Evie Crook Delgado Jeremiah Gist Mariah Green Justin Harley Blake Hill Darian Hunter Ashton McDowell Braden McGinnis Brianna Mendez Jeremy Otero Aidan Ott Journey Peake Anthony Perez Andy Powell Logan Rampersod Leisha Rogers Amy K. Rodriguez Angie Serratos Olivia Sinclair Moses Smith Chase Spearman Wyatt Stevens Caitlin Vogler and Gavin Yath They're under the
015direction of Mr. Victor Perez in the Dorman Drumline. Let's hear it for our Dorman Indoor Drumline. Okay, I'm going for it. I'm going for it. That is our percussion section, so you can tell. The clanking coming off. Next we're going to recognize our Dorman Indoor Varsity Color Guard. They're under the direction of Ms. Katie Dante. This is the first time in school history that this group has made the semi-finals at the WGI World Championships. So we're really proud of them, yes. Riamari Epps-Pitts Kennedy Fernandos Fernandos, excuse me. Morgan Harris Emmanuel Jeter Lea Lane Holly Lane Mackenzie Bazan Andrea Nash Justice O'Fair Anastasia Orlova Anaya Payden Justinia Serratos Kenzie Smith Laurel Smith Markelle Williams and Skylar Young. Let's hear it for our Dorman Indoor Varsity Color Guard. We'll now turn it over to Ms. Lemire and
016the chorus. Thank you. I'm Angie Lemire and I thank you very much for joining us this evening as we recognize the outstanding chorus achievements of our students. The following students have been selected for Southern Region ACDA and SCMA Allstate. Christopher Depra Olivia Marsh The following students for Allstate and also for SCACDA Sarafina Joy Ingrid Koontz Sadiq Thomas and the following for Southern Region SCMEA Allstate and SCACDA Sally Ramirez Peyton Staley and the following for SCMEA Allstate chorus Savannah Glenn Mackenzie Kaiser Rumor Robertson Stevens Dylan Turner and the following student for Southern Region and SCACDA Katie Fedorchenko and the following students for SCACDA High School Honor Choir Molly Hernandez Contreras Duncan Jones Alana Robinson Aronza Rodriguez Nehemiah Smith Sofia Fedorchenko Delaney O'Brien Alara Bird The following students for Allstate chorus and SCACDA Zuri Gray Trayden Long
017and the following student for Southern Region ACDA Antonio Suarez We now have the privilege of recognizing our middle school students. SCACDA and Southern Region Blaine Gray Southern Region ACDA Cooper Hong Lucy Stanley Connor Thames SCACDA Honor Choir Recipients Adella Coleman Mark Fieg Aubrey Gautam Zoe Gromer Tanija Jones Ella Kern Paisley Lawson Madison Lucas Bryson Martin Luke Sandifer Holden Smith Southern Region ACDA Ivy Lamee SCACDA Rylan Koepke Gideon Park Marlee Switzer Destiny Williams Marlee Staley and Southern Region ACDA Naima Wilcox and SCACDA Amelia Ferguson Please join me and congratulate these students and their families. And now we welcome our coordinator of orchestra Mrs. Arlen Mills. We have a few students joining us from the choir. So I know they'll hop in line real quickly. We have a few students in line real quickly. Thank you so
018much for joining us this evening as we recognize the outstanding orchestra achievements of these students as they were accepted into the South Carolina Music Educators Association All-State Orchestra. It is fantastic to see so many students in so many arts and excelling in all of the areas. Alright, Matias Arianas Gutierrez Jordi Vasquez Perez Ella Kern Amelia Ferguson Salah Hamrick Lily Hoffey Gracie Buttemer Katie Fedorchenko Sophie Melkor-Contreras Camille Griffin Michael Depra Melissa Chains and Grayson Miller King. Congratulations. What an outstanding group of young people. How about one more big round of applause for all of our students tonight? You know, they work so hard. I just want to take a minute to say this to the parents. It is an honor and a privilege to serve in a district where you got a board of trustees that
019is absolutely committed to putting students first, to making sure they have opportunities, to celebrating their successes, and making sure that we are doing everything we can to put them in a position to be successful. But parents, it is you that make sure that you instill those character traits in them at home. Students, it is you that come and do the work. All we can do is provide the opportunities. So students, I want you to keep the progress that you are currently making. This world will be a better place because of the young people that we see in District 6, their character, their integrity, their work ethic. The world don't want to tell you about all those great things. They want to celebrate the bad, but I am telling you, there is way more good than
020bad. Every single one of these kids here tonight is successful. Every single one of these kids here tonight have what it takes to make this world a better place. So kids, I encourage you, stay on the course that you are on right now. Enjoy the journey, have fun, and thank you for making our school district a better place, and thank you for what you are going to do in the future. I can't wait to see the great things that you do in your future. So one more big round of applause, not just for the kids, but for the parents too. I will say this, there was one student when she came across the stage, I think her name was Mackenzie Kaiser, I hugged her, I told her I wouldn't embarrass her, so I am not
021giving her the Hot Mom Award tonight, although she is my daughter and her mom is my wife sitting here, but I will do that when we get home, because you never want to embarrass your child, right? Especially when they are in high school, but Madam Chairman, that concludes my report and I will turn it back over to you. Dr. Kaiser took a lot of the words right out of my mouth. To have this many students here tonight to fill this beautiful Fine Arts Center is really remarkable, especially in May when everybody is tired, we are really glad that you were able to come out tonight to celebrate our students. This is where we find our joy and this is when we know the programs, the priorities are working to see this many students recognized. It
022would not be possible without very supportive parents who came here tonight and who have also come to all of the events for your children, so a big round of applause to our parents and to our exceptional educators. Please find an educator to thank this week. National Teacher Appreciation Week should probably be every day of May, we know that. But these teachers show up day in and day out for our students and that's why we have so many here tonight to be recognized. So thank you all again for coming. We would love for you to stay for the remainder of our meeting, but if you would like to go, this is a good transition time. What is left is finance with Dr. Daniels. Thank you. Alright, good. Alright, so we'll finish off revenue. If you remember,
023we had about 6.7 million in increases. We're about a 5 million dollar gap. So how do we end up trying to meet the needs of the district plus shrink that gap as much as we could? Okay. These are some of the assumptions that we've used to build this budget this year. So of course, $2,000 increase and that really at this point is the only thing that the state will fund partially. Remember, they don't fully fund to keep the salary increase. Now what they say is that school districts don't have to give $2,000. We're giving it, but it's up to the school district to decide. So Spartanburg County has decided to do $2,000 to match what the state is giving. Experience increase for us is 972,000. Of course, the state does not cover that. Average percent
024increase for all other employees is about 3%. We do that based upon what teachers are giving. So teachers get an average of 3 or 4%, depending on where they are with experience. And so all other employees, non-certified, will get about 3%. Bus driver salary scale moved from 1983 at start to pay. That's actually mandated by the state too. The percent we have to actually increase our bus driver salary scale. Extending all scales from 28 to 30 steps. This is what most districts do in Spartanburg County. We've been at 28 years for the last, actually for the last 18 years. We've been at 28 years for all other steps. So to that's what other school districts in Spartanburg County are doing. We're moving those scales to 30 steps. The positions that we've added that are included
025are special education administrator for dormant high schools, music arts teacher, assistant principal at Gessie Bobo, extended the days of our power school secretary. This has been at for the last couple of years, so we are including that. For special education classrooms, these two positions, this position here, athletic training, we're trying to work that into a pupil activity. You took the revenue from our athletic sales to cover that position. It's not included in the general file, but I do want to show you that that is a possible ad if we can generate some ticket sales to cover that. Three nurses we're going to actually try to include that in Medicaid. We're actually looking at Medicaid dollars from the state to see can we actually add these three nurses to our budget and exclude that from general
026funding. So how do we start these are eggs, so that number keeps on going up. How do we start decreasing or fricking that gap? One of the things we start looking at is our classroom positions. Some of our classroom class sizes were extremely low. When I say low, 14 students in the classroom is a little low. Our district average, remember our district average for elementary was around 21 kids for elementary students. For 14 kids is a low, very comparable to our special education classroom. So we said, okay, if you got 14, if we actually remove the teacher from that class that's retiring or leaving the district, taking that to 16-17, it makes sense to actually increase that class size. So we're not talking about class sizes of 24, 25, we're still way below 20 in
027most of our elementary classrooms. So that's 16 positions that we're looking at through attrition. We're not moving, not terminating, if particularly, we're looking at that position and saying, can we actually adjust class sizes? Vacancies. So for 28 years, that's been my question, vacancies in the budget. We have removed all vacancies from our budget, okay? So we're counting on the numbers that we have, the positions that we have to actually balance this budget. So we removed all vacancies from our budget. General Fund position, we talked about 17 stand positions, moving to General Fund, creating that $70 million gap, that's still gonna happen, okay? There's no other place to put those positions. Nine positions coming from Title I back to General Fund, we look at Title I, those positions are going back to Title I next two
028years, okay? Of course, by doing that, that's the General Fund statement. Custodians, we are adding custodians for some of our additions in our school district. When you look in your packets, you will see salaries actually not increasing as much. Part of it is because we moved substitute costs out of salaries to purchase services, okay? We contract substitutes now so they don't belong in salaries and benefits. We move that to contracted services. So you'll see that cause some of that decrease in salaries and benefits. Health insurance, retirement, we've adjusted health insurance to actually what the state is going to charge us next two years. So that was a small saving that actually helps shrink that deficit. Contractual adjustments, again, when you look in your packets, contractual adjustments did increase primarily because of substitutes increasing or moving
029to contract services. We are re-bidding our speech services contract. We talked about this during our last meeting. We need to cap what we're able to charge these contractors, okay? For one speech teacher, we should not be paying $150,000, okay? So we are actually capping this. We're re-bidding this and we're capping what a contractor can receive for a teacher. School account adjustments, that didn't change. Instructional software, we do receive some state money. I think it's around $81,000. So we're actually moving what we can't over to our grants, our state programs, our federal programs, and that's why you see these state capital, new quotes capital, some of these things, some of the costs moving to out of the general funds. Line item adjustments, McCarthy tuition, satellite classes, spent contract service and overtime, again, all those things were
030adjusted based on reasonable expectations of what we should be charged for next school year. School resource officers, again, that was adjusted. I think based on what the county is giving us, I think we saved about $15,000 per school resource officer in comparison to budget for next school year. So what does that mean for our budget? Employee salaries actually increased, $4.2 million. Primarily, most of that is because of the $2,000 increase in teacher salaries. Friends benefits, $3.6 million. Most of that is because of 1% retirement. The reason why health insurance goes up, if I change my insurance during the year, if I go from single to full family, that creates increases in health insurance. We capture that as far as our health insurance. Purchase services, $1.8 million. 1.2 of that is substitute costs that were shifted
031over to purchase services. Supplies, $1.1 million. Equipment, no change. Other expenses, no change. Other financial uses, down $341,000. So, again, what the state budget does now is push districts to look more at their local tax base. We wanted to show you here our budget since FY22 to FY27 for local taxes. Just to give you an idea of our costs as far as increases in local tax dollars per pupil. Now, that is increasing. If I showed you some information and details if you want to see this, on state dollars per pupil, this number is actually going down. That means the state is funding less per pupil now. I shared that with the other Spartan County districts two weeks ago, explaining that we are losing money per pupil on a state basis. Of course, a lot of
032districts have the option of actually increasing local taxes by CPI growth. If the school board actually chose to do that, the cap would be 10.2 million for next fiscal year. On the revenue side, so we talked a little bit about expenditures, how we make some of the adjustments on the expenditure side. We pushed revenues as much as we could that were pretty reasonable. I still think the numbers are pretty conservative based on collects in the past, but that's how we actually shrunk some of that gap also. Special district tax, going from $38 million to $40 million, just $2 million. This past year we went up, I think, $1.8 million, so that's pretty reasonable as far as that growth between two fiscal years. Again, local tax basis is the strongest, most stable piece as far as
033revenue. $6.8 million, $8.6 million, again, reasonable based on collections in the past. Countywide tax, $4.2 million, $5 million. Teacher equalization, $2.4 million, $1.3 million. We're not actually decreasing teacher equalization. We capped teacher equalization last year. It gives the county more capacity to do some initiative for teacher salary. So that's a cap number. At some point, superintendents, chairmen, each school board will decide how we want to actually allocate more to teacher equalization. Delinquent taxes, $829,000 to $2 million, that's reasonable. We're already at delinquent taxes, $2.3 million for this year, so we think that's a reasonable number also. Other local, $954 to $1.7 million. That's primarily, hopefully, interest rates can increase a little bit for investment. We're actually, because of our $395 million, we're expecting some greater return as far as interest rates. Intergovernmental revenue, federal revenue,
034this is all for MacArthur Tesla billing here. We have satellite classes, MacArthur Tesla pays us, so we're expecting an increase there based on the increased number of classrooms we have at MacArthur. This is our state revenues here. Bus driver salary, this all comes from the state, so these are actual state numbers what the state projects we will receive as a bid for the next two years. Friends benefits the same. Again, these are numbers, are actual numbers that have already been projected for our students. There's no increase in these numbers. We put exactly what we expect to receive from the state. But you see a total of state revenue, $89.5 million to $93.1 million. Total other financial sources, this is money coming from state funds over to general funds, $18.8 million to $18.3 million, so there
035is a small decrease here. These are our other financial sources here. Transferred debt, the $1.4 million is what we have to pay for our portion of the RDMS construction. So this actually is paid from the general fund, but you'll see later debt service. We transfer that from debt service over to our general fund, so our payment for our portion of RDMS for next two years will be $1.4 million. Transfer from special revenue, $1.7 million to $1.8 million. This is that one-time money that we talked about last year, hoping that in this year we'll have about a million dollars left. Of course, extra dollars are gone, so you don't see anything there. Transfer from EIA, this is what the state allocates, $11.5 million. Transfer from EIA career technology. Remember we talked about in the last meeting
036how the state shifted career technology money from career centers over to school districts. Okay, here's that money here. When we talk to our RDMS board, we're going to talk about the loss of revenue because of this here. Transfer from EIA, carryover, from $2.1 million to $873 million. Again, that was one-time money last year. We're hoping to have about $873,000 to carryover. Indirect costs, not a lot, no change there. Indirect cost food service, $1.2 million, $1.3 million. That's because as expenditures increase in food service, of course, indirect costs will go up also. So total other financial sources, $8.8 million to $8.3 million, primarily, again, cause of those decreases in one-time money from last school year. So by adjusting expenditures, adjusting revenues, we're looking at for next school year an increase of $10.5 million above $25.26. So
037our total budget next year is $176 million. Estimated revenues, $176 million. So, of course, we're not anticipating using any fund balance, but again, there are some things that we still have to look at. There's a lot of one-time money in this budget, okay, and we know that the state budget, as far as on a per pupil basis, will continue to decrease. And so, again, these are some of the things that we go through this year that we'll still look at is state aid and classroom, look at fringe benefits, special education, McCarthy-Tesla, or more kids eligible for McCarthy-Tesla funds. And we need to look at that, because McCarthy, again, has its own millage, has its own local taxes that they actually levy. And if these kids should be supported by McCarthy, we should actually be charging
038those classes to McCarthy. As far as the state budget, the conference committee that still need to have, we feel pretty comfortable with those that the numbers that we presented for state revenue are not going to change that much. Signed I, that's the last date that any bill has to be submitted. And then some of the things that we'll continue looking at is minimize staffing increases as far as our district budget, evaluate all future vacancies, gradually adjust class sizes. Like I said, if we have 14-15s, we need to look at those. Support with additional local revenues, and again, that's not for this year's budget, but as we talk about the reopening of new schools in this district, that's something we'll have to talk about is how do we generate revenue to cover that? Again, because our
039state revenue is not going to support that. And so we'll have to have that discussion about these positions in these new schools, hopefully two and a half years from that. Any questions on general fund? Again, you have in your packet is the detailed summary of all the line items that shows all the increases and decreases in revenues and spending. Any questions? Yes, sir. It has not yet. What we plan to do is go to talk to Frank Ringwald. He was the one that came up with this new formula, and help him understand, hopefully, that his formula does not support an increase in state funding. They don't see the decrease primarily because we do this because we have Artie Anderson, we have McCarthy, that we have to share revenue with. And so to do that, you
040have to impute a base student cost. And so when we impute that, you can see the decrease. So Frank Ringwald has no idea, unless he's just not communicating, that there is a decrease. All they see is the total state dollars is increasing. But once you start dividing that by the total number of students in the state, that's what actually shows the decrease in people who support the government. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So buildings and grounds. Don't have a lot of buildings and grounds, because there's not a lot of change since our February and March meetings. But of course, we still have the top 100. The things that we have to consider is instructional equipment, playgrounds, school safety, technology. Really just show you the funding for Pew Activity. And this year is actually, I think this
041year, since we have the referendum, it's a little bit easier for our capital project. The reason why is, when you have referendum dollars, you have to separate referendum dollars from your 8% normal money. Because you can't spend things that were not approved in the referendum. So we had to track all of our referendum dollars. Now, all of our 8% dollars. Our 8% dollars next year, we created a budget for technology of $3.1 million. Mr. Carlson had a request for replacement of computers next year. This is where that money would come from. $3.1 million. Top 100, preventative maintenance, $3 million. Okay, that's really the top 100. We talk about the roofing project. We talk about transportation. We talk about buses, carpets, furniture. All of those things will actually come. HVAC will come out of this $3
042million. That number, I think, is okay because we normally don't spend over $2 million in a year. Because just man, you can't spend that much based on our labor that we have committed to. Unless we start contracting out everything, which we don't. Then we have $9.6 million in buildings. And we wanted to put that in there because there are some projects that we know we have to look at that we can't spend out of referendum dollars. For instance, our lighting project at the stadium, sports complexes, we got to replace with LED. If you ever go to one of these games, a lot of those lights are out. So, we can't use referendum dollars, so we have to use this building money here. So, those projects or non-referendum will come out of this $9.6 million. Then
043you have the referendum dollars and our estimated budget is $325 million. So, $325 million. I'm going to explain this piece up too. Referendum dollars, because there are some tax laws for referendum dollars, you have to spend them in three years. So, that's why we won't be issuing referendum dollars until next spring. Normally, of course, we do our bond issuances in September. We're doing a smaller one in September just to cover any architect fees, surveys, those kind of things, but the majority of that referendum will only be issued this spring. That gives us three years from that point to spend that without having to pay what they call arbitrage back to the federal government, because you can't earn interest money on referendum dollars in this cap that you can earn. So, this is how this looks.
044Local revenues, again, very conservative as far as our estimate, $24 million for the next two years. State revenue is $1.6 million. Our total revenue is $26.2 million. This is pretty much in line based on our current growth. $24, $25, $26 bonds, crunch on interest. Again, the plan would be to issue $15 million in September this year, then come back and issue the rest of it for that $325 in the spring. Now, because, and we talked about this in construction, because the new elementary at Dawkins, we will save that issuance until later on, because that project probably won't be completed within three years. So, we'll issue that probably the following fiscal year or after that. So, our total crunch on interest for next year is $23.3 million. It won't be any crunch we'll pay on the
045$325 million next year, because we're going to issue that in the spring. The only thing we'll have to pay is interest. The crunch won't be due until April of 2027. But even the interest on that is $5.4 million. So, that's something that's included in this number. Equipment acquisition, we have one more year of this 22 equipment acquisition lease, so that payment is $647. Other services, $400,000, $700,000, that's just because of some of the work that's going to have to go into the issuance of this referendum money. That's increasing. Total expenditures are $24.7 million. Other financing uses, we talked about the money that's going to our general fund to support R.D. Anderson. Here it is, $1.4 million. Again, that will be transferred over to the general fund to cover that debt for R.D. Anderson. Again, pretty
046simple. Our thing with general fund this year, we normally don't present a budget for each one of those items. This year we do again, primarily because we want to make sure referendum dollars and 8% money and stuff. Can I ask any questions on that? If not, I think that's it. In your packets, again, you have the details of all this, and if you have any questions about any increases or decreases in those line items, let me know. Alright, thank you. I'll text Leah. Yeah, just let that work for a while. Okay, I'll text Leah until we're all done. Nice job. Appreciate it. Made the right and left balance. I like it. Alright, Omar. See you tomorrow morning. Are you getting your blood work done in the morning? Yes. I did sign up, but I will.
047Yeah, you need to. Yeah, I will. No, I'm gonna wait until you need me, so I'm gonna stay. Every time you turn around, I'm gonna do it. There was no action taken in executive session. If there are no other questions or comments, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.