001e e e good evening and welcome to the specially called uh board meeting uh on March 19th local news media Outlets were notified in writing of the agenda for this meeting on on Monday March 17th first up is the approval of the agenda thank you Mr Burns do I have a second uh thank you m Daniel any discussion very none all those in favor I all of those motion cares 70 with Miss Harris joining us virtually for over the uh first off as public participation do we have any we do not have any public participation thank you um so first up is a presentation um to give uh the community some background um we normally don't do that for uh specially called meetings but if we want to do this PL and we can certainly
002do that so let's go ahead and do that flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you please be seated we normally don't do the pl specially call meetings uh I do recognize that due to the public participation and a couple of other items it kind of feels like it's a regular scheduled meeting so that's the reason why but we're always happy to save so no problem so going to presentations uh back in January um at the last board meeting in January on the 28th um Mr Burns uh brought a proposal to the board uh to have an independent financial analysis to help a uh Dr James in the budget process uh but also to make sure that
003the community and the board questions so that uh was brought as a suggestion by Mr Burns and the board uh voted uh unanimously uh to do so and we uh contacted our attorney uh who has been facilitating that independent fin uh financial analysis uh and contract somebody do that and so I'm going to welcome up Dr Harry Miley who is going to deliver the independent financial analysis good evening chair members of the board my name is Harry Miley I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight and a couple years since I've actually spoken to a Board of Trustees I did about 300 of them over the last 10 years in brickland too inia um I still like to do it but this was even better because I don't don't have to stay all night
004so I like this board meeting even better oh well take that back so far but I appreciate my background I've been fa member at University of South Carolina South Carolina state of PhD in economics I've been in the private sector for 25 years I'm a CFO and head of operations and financial and financial services in District 2 for 10 years I big a district we have about 30,000 students that they have they have 30,000 students 4,000 employees and about 40 50 45 facilities 6 million square feet under the roof big place I always told people I wasn't a big deal but the district was a big deal is a big deal and as your district is in Rock Hill it's a big deal you have a lot of employees big budget and affecting a lot
005of children's lives I was asked to take a look at current problem shall have and I told every time I've met with anybody the superintendent interim superintendent super assistant superintendent Finance any of the board members um my job has been very easy it's don't laugh at when you see my report it's three or four pages long my presentation tonight after I finished rambling uh should be about minutes you have a very you do have a problem it's an ible problem um it happens to many districts around the state and what you've done is you've created a a budget this year that has nonrecurring revenues to balance the budget that is done by lots of districts it's not against the law it's not against any procedure it's just not the best way to finance a budget
006and what you only do it at a when you have a really difficult budget time so you're problem is leg people talk about the $15.8 million deficit it's not really a deficit yet it's in this year's budget $15.8 million was put to was put in as revenues to balance that budget but they're one-time revenues they were taken from transferred from the fund balance which your fund balance is well above is more than above your minimum in terms of your policy tra part of it was transferred from your Capital account now it is earmarked to be TR transferred it has not been transferred yet it won't be transferred till the end of the year if needed but those are onetime monies and the the finance rule of thumb is you don't want to finance recurring expenses
007with onetime money you can do it it's legal and you can do it more than one year but it does get you further and further into a hole of having revenues expenditures that are recovering with only one time money so you could do it for several years you would exhaust perhaps even exhaust the fund balance down to a level that you would not be happy with but you could do it so it doesn't mean it's against the law or it's inappropriate it's just it's the usually it's the choice it's the best choice out of other bad decisions other bad choices that's the choice you made I say that the two two sources are the fund balance and the capital account I'll say the capital account won't be needed it might be needed and I can
008only speak from I don't pretend to know Rock Hill history or your budget process completely over the last 10 years or anything but frequently we had and I apologize if I do refer back to swiland too but I spent 10 years of my life there and on several occasions during the year especially since the pandemic hit our budget was we had Surplus revenues every year one of the main reasons was we had so many vacancies they were budgeted prior years they might have been vacancies that that people had been there for 10 15 years but the vacancies could not be filled tried and tried they were we had funds for from Esser to hire people we tried to hire them we couldn't hire them so the vacancies that were in the budget not filled would
009recreate our expenditures were lower in that year than had anticipated and if we had a balanced budget we had X number of revenues and our Spenders were here but when we had lower expenditures especially personnel and benefits which in your case is probably about 90% of your total budget maybe even a little higher it left excess revenues so one thing that may occur this year I don't know your situation in terms of vacancies but that could occur again second we frequently had and if anybody has not been involved in the financial development of a budget in a school district in South Carol you you should don't please it's not fun it's not it should not be taken by the should not be done by the weak people by weak people because the legislature is you
010know each district everybody talk everybody talks about the effect on school districts well they're about now they are about 75 school districts everyone's different every one of them is different different size different tax base different demographics Etc and what you find is oops is that some districts rely on local revenues as a huge part of their budget Richland one and Richland Two are good examples we went to the same County Council to get approval for our budget Richland one budget was 65% generated from local tax base so they really cared about County council's decisions because 65% of their total revenue package was coming from local sources so they really cared about the military we were just the opposite we had 35% coming from tax local taxes and 65% from the state so when it was
011budget time and asking for Budget approval from the county we had no idea what our state revenues would be and they were a big part of our budget rich rich one yeah that was 35% but they it was less dependent they were less dependent on the state revenues point and I think I'd have a point is that your budget process could change from now until June 30 and then last year the 8 or 10 years ago the legislature was was more punctual we would get a state budget maybe in April we would have April May and June to finish developing ours and we could have a more that budget knowing what the state was going to allocate given it was 65% of our budget the last few years that budget has been approved by the
012state legislature in June last year I think it was a last year 23 24 maybe 24 25 were both approved like June 27th July 1 we had laws requiring us to have a new budget multiple years we passed a continuing resolution because we weren't sure whether the C state was going to even pass the budget I'm saying those things because that may have an effect on your budget development regardless of the 15.8 or not and it may have an effect on how much or if you have to dip into your transfer the capital funds cap the rest of the capital funds to fund the budget so given that we are still in the position of meeting to make sure that the next year's budget has no one-time money in it or at least as little
013as possible of onetime money so let me go ahead I think I've probably talked about everything I wanted to talk about but we see um this and Terry just showed me but I maybe pushing it wrong but sorry I'm techn technically challenged ah go all right what the problem is I think I've already covered that 15.8 million shortfall anticipated for f 2526 it's balanced right now because it uses about $15.8 million of onetime funds the non-recording non-recording funds were used again that's legal that's done by diff various districts but it's not a s it's not a sustainable answer to anyone's Budget on a future basis how did that how did it happen primarily my analysis based on what I've been what I my understanding the biggest thing to me stood out was you created quite
014a few FTE employee positions over those last four years of 174 positions in a district the size of your district with declining not not not a real fast decline but declining enrollment and adding position is is a financial difficult it may be they may be positions and I'm not I'm not qualified to say oh they should have been created or those positions weren't appropriate or those positions weren't needed that's not my job my job is to look at the financial impact of 174 new positions created in a budget for declining declining enrollment with declining enrollment in addition to that there were set one year there was substantial salary adjustments that were not reflected in the budget roughly I think about $3 million added to the recurring cost of your district and then you had as
015most districts did you had eser funds during the pandemic s funds we had trouble Rich to had trouble spending s funds we had lots and as I mentioned before we had lots and lots of positions created promised designated potentially very positive things for the district we just couldn't hire them so those funds were sitting there we got criticized for not spending it all but it was just hard to find people to fill those positions but they were we did our best I think we ended up District Two again I think we created about two to six I think maybe six positions funded full-time positions funded with Sesser funds that's like Grant funds funding a position they're great they do a great deal for the district they help students they can the problem is is when
016the grant stops usually grants are for X number of years sometimes they're extended with renewals but they're XF funded years and when that funding goes away you either let that employee or employees leave or you find other funding to keep them it's hard to let good people go some of the time in districts frequently will'll find ways to keep those people on non general fund funds employed by the district you had 80 funded positions by FS that would that's not necessarily A Lot except now if you want to keep them you've got to find general fund funds to absorb them into the budget so that none I don't think any of these individual things cause your current problem but when you add them all together over these years that's created the problem again I told
017you that my my work is relatively straightforward here and F fairly short the answer again I'm not qualified or asked to look at oh why did we create these positions why did we create s funded positions that's what districts do that's your job all of them were appr every job that we that I've been that I found in terms of Crea jobs over the years all were approved by the Board of Trustees it wasn't something the district did without approval by the board so they were all legitimate creation of jobs it's just financially budget wise it was tough my recommendations that of what I understand in your position now is and oh that's right you're a superintendent uh you have interim superintendent on short notice and you've got to try your best to create correct
018this District my understanding is that the board has given Administration Direction bring us a balanced budget get us out of this 15.8 hole bring us your recommendations on how we do that it's not rocket science but it's difficult finding $15.8 million of recurring dollars in your budget that you can do without is not fun okay it's it's not and and all those positions I will give you just a snippet of how difficult some of the time that is in our budget development we would ask all the Departments all the schools everybody what are your needs next year okay this was in January February what are your needs next year usually they added up and we would get those first I call that I'm an old I'm just playing old but I'm also a former Economist
019that's kind of the demand side this is what we need to run our district every year it was in the 30 $35 million range everybody need more employees more facilities more operating expenses everything thing and we would have those all this details and all we actually ended up having like a Shar tank discussion where they would come in and tell us why you think you deserve funding and if we had $15 million of new recurring money what got cut that's not fun at all and it's not fun to come up with a plan to solve the $15.8 million problem but it's got to be done in my opinion in terms of getting you back on the footing of nothing but recurring dollars in your budget so that's not fun everybody is needed everybody provides a
020good source a good good program such to the students but it's not fun it's sitting around a room and cutting out cutting out half of the requests of people saying we really need this okay one of I remember one B this we have a former l two person here that'll probably remember better than I do but I've never seen anybody take notes doesn't matter but um but but for instance our middle schools wanted some type of math con content specialist to come in they needed two in each middle school that's 14 positions we didn't have the money so we started slow we said which are the first two schools that we've got to need and we created two positions that year the next year we added two more next year we added three or four
021more and we added we tried it but we didn't have the funds but it was a good program in the need of the district and we ultimately got to where we do that but that's not fun at all the V the superintendent has been interim superintendent has been charged with coming back to the board with that plan to solve it be the board's responsibility to decide on what we don't like that plan or yes that's a great plan or let's TW whatever that's their that's their responsibility but bringing that plan to them is the first step and supporting this their development of that plan and once you get that plan road mapap to have a balanced budget for FY 2526 you've got to pay attention perhaps I don't mean individually but I mean you'll need
022to make sure that you don't have any positions that are added to the budget that are not thoroughly beted by the district you you need to my recommendation is that the system the superintendent uh future superintendent make sure you have your senior team in the room Finance HR content development whatever in the room discussing those positions because each one has a different perspective of why or why we need that position and then the finance person can say we have the funds or we don't have the funds that's critical um in terms of oversight the last thing I always recommended was that the finance officer be a superintendent you don't want me to run a district because I'm just coldhearted and I workot by numbers and that's not a very good recipe for a good superon
023but you need us in the room because you need us to help I think we can figure out a way to fund that no that's outside of our budget capacity and we can't do that figure out another way um and we ask that I do know my understanding is that you are going through a redistricting of the district office that's not my specialty either but I will recommend that the district have your senior Finance position report directly to your superintendent that's the way most districts that I've worked with over the years works you need that they need to be attached at the hip and for instance if I ever got a call from someone any whether it was a board member outside person anyone I immediately went to my superintendent said just want to let
024you know so and so called they might have a question and this is what I told them you need to be joined at the hip and that's it it's not rocket science but you're going to have to solve it this year if you if you don't solve it if you don't come up with 15.8 million of recurring revenues with that current budget it's not the end of the world but let's say you got you were $3 million short of that 3 million $12.8 million that would mean next year you would have $3 million that you in Rec nonrecurring funds to balance the budget so you've reduceed it it's less stressful it's not as much but the the finance officer in me says try your best to solve it in one year you're not Finance officers
025you're the Board of Trustees that's not easy for you to do you may think well that's not what I was that's not that's not my job and I think we need to do this slowly at you know overtime that's y'all's responsibility finance officer in me says I want to get rid of the non- recuring dollars in my budget as fast as I can because it doesn't go away must we address it so again it is a problem you've got it's solvable you've got a team that can solve it and with the board's approval I think you can get there again that's up to y'all with that Mr chair that's my presentation I'll be happy to answer any questions and anything else well thank you Dr Molly and at this point I will open up to
026the board for questions Dr yes good afternoon nice to see you you and I had a very friendly Lively conversation in small group privately and I made it very clear that all the questions that I asked privately I wanted to ask them publicly so now it's the opportunity first of all I do appreciate your analysis and as I told you in the small group um there's no question that there's a 15.8 million that we need to try to come up with but the only option and I know you indicated you're an economist you're CFO so I understand your perspective and don't need a don't need a and don't need a long answer for your explanation I think you've done a great job over the last 24 minutes of explaining your what my question is is
027you've only given us the option for cuts but in fact there are several other options that we could use as a school district is there not I'm I I hope I did not say that these are my recommendations for cuts this you've got to come up with 158 yes you're right there multiple ways of doing it that's what you're so can you give us the multiple ways that I I understand cuts of one can we also do a millage increase yes increasing revenues will help solve that problem yes sir what is the current value of our millage now I don't really know I'm sure you have people in the room that can answer and yeah M SM can you answer that question what's the current value of our millage and how much can we legally
028um and and with a millage increase that's a tax increase and that becomes recurring Revenue correct exactly all right so our whole issue is about nonrecurring Revenue so let's talk about how we could generate recurring Revenue so can you give me the value of our millage now what legally can we raise millage and how much would that generate per year right now our value of theill approximately I'm sorry I'm having a hard time hear closer you just maybe bring a little closer thank you so the value of the me is approximately 360,000 we could increase right now n MS which would generate approximately $3.2 million 3.2 million and in fact the board raised Mills two years ago correct yes and how much did that generate when they raised it two years ago that was approximately
029$7.7 million now is there and I I have whole list of questions as you two know that I ask so just bear with me but I I do want to ask there in the in the recommendation that we got that came from Mr Miley this strictly talks about cut is there a reason why our increase in millage was not included in the recommendation I did not include I don't think I included any specific action to get to that 58 other than that's what you you should the board has directed your Administration to do with the with with the knowledge that they have and long list of things that they could possibly do I I I do not see it my I have not been asked nor do I see it as my job to recommend
030what you should do as a district on what program should either be cut expanded or that that is not part of my job and I apologize if that was I did not do that not a problem thank but I do think that I think that's there I think that's been that's an option that's an option we have that I think that I think that job has been delegated to your Administration my understanding of that but I could I've been wrong plenty so Jones would you like to address that not in detail necessarily until we get to that part of the agenda for those discussions but as far as what your role in this process is my role in the process is to make uh recommendations and options that are available to the board our team
031has come together and we've looked at all areas of the school system but that's that's our Ro to look together and see what possib so one of the options that I would like to put on the table and this is what my concern is and I do have about eight nine more questions but this is what my concern is is that previous boards have had the whole buffet and they chose from the buffet what they thought was in the best interest of the district at that time I feel like I am getting one unre but I'm not getting all the sides okay I don't know how much C no no no not from you I making a statement I do have more questions for you I would prefer as an elected representative give me the
032entire buffet and trust me to do what's right by the constituents that represented me to make the best decision for this District as a trustee don't give me one option I'm intelligent enough to look at everything and make a decision so I I'll leave it there I have um um a few more questions for you Mr M there was a huge we have a huge expenditure out there in Capitol the building of Sunset Park all right um now miss miss I guess this is probably I asked both of you the question but I think you deferred it to Miss Smith when we were in small group um and you indicated in small group you didn't have the number at that time so I'm following back up on that question I asked you at that time
033how was we funding the construction of Sunset Park and you indicated that it was mostly from Bond money that was designated for Capital but I asked was there a percentage of it that was not Bond money and your response was that some of it had originated in general but you didn't know the exact number can you tell me that number now yes 100% of the construction for sunet Park the new sunet park El with Bond proceeds okay and I can provide you a list of those Ser La no I take you at your word you say 100% so what I'm going to ask then is there were um and unfortunately my staff probably wants to quit now because we spent the last couple of days just going through all of the presentations that were made
034and I want to talk specifically about there was in June of 2022 and August of 2023 um the board approved um $8 million transfer and a $7 million transfer from the general fund to the capital can any of those Mony since 100% of Sunset Park that's $15 million there that started in general went to fund balance and then the board approved moving at the capital are any of those 15 million unallocated and can any of that come back I know it's one time it's non reoccurring money so I already know the philosophy on that but for 24 25 I don't want 25 26 I don't want to be in the position where I'm voting to decimate the district so can any of that money come back which would then give this board an opportunity a
03512mon Runway to look at some of this so Dr belon the $15 million right that is the only thing that can be transferred back to the general fund Bond proceeds cannot understand so 8 million of it is allocated to balance this year's budget Okay so the seven million the difference can come back okay so that's seven million okay yes we have that discrection when it is needed thank you so we have 7 million there so that's 7 million of money that's over in capital and obviously we know that's non reoccurring and we have another 3 million that we could get from taxes so we at 10 million now my math is correct correct yes sir all right so I I also want to talk about these um positions there was a presentation that you made
036to the board on May the 9th 2023 and um I'm sure you don't remember every presentation that you made but on May the 9th 2023 when you indicated to the board that you were moving those S positions you your words were you and Miss Jenkins did the presentation she introduced you and you did the um you did the thing is about 1 hour and N minutes into the board meeting if you want to look at it when you made the presentation to the board you indicated that you were moving s positions into the general fund at that time was the board did you educate the board at all that that was not a good decision and we were going to be at funding Cliff at this point if they did that I didn't hear it
037in the Public Presentation and what I'm you know we're faced with this and what I'm trying to know is you know the board voted for it but they vote knowingly for it was this just D so there have been a few Esra presentations that I had made to the board and in there I mentioned about the positions that were added and that yes these federal funds will end they sunset September of 2024 in the presentation and then conversations in small group I believe um was conversations that we were doing a swap we were moving classroom teachers out of eser and putting virtual in there there were virtual positions in eser already but we were doing we were moving virtual over there virtual was never a permanent program at the time during Co my my my
038last question unless something else com my my need to ask another question at at just to conclude there are several ways that we can get to and certainly I know it's a CF be cut I understand your philosophy but just to be clear to the board there are several ways that we can get there that could include cuts that could include attrition that could include in tax increase and could include moving some money back from the capital which we have now that's unallocated ated $7 million yes there's multiple ways can you if I just listed four can you tell me what others are out there just in case because obviously I'm not educated about them so will you educate me on other ways there's other ways but the funding amount would be very small okay
039one option is um naming r with facilities that is one way um rental facilities is another portion um it's ized enough but then you do have of course the expenditures that come in in maintaining those buildings when you're renting those so those are a couple options and a follow up on that um could you reite the rental policy that we currently have um because I think that that could potentially also put us in a position to where we would have to reconsider our rental policy and I just have one just for transparency thank you um so when we're thinking about other Revenue generating opportunities the the leasing facilities it brings in less than 1% of our Revenue um there is board policy KF that provides the requirements for Community usage of our district facilities there
040is a fee schedule that is listed in there that provides the rental fees that information is listed also on the operations web page under the facility rental program um what I mentioned about the naming facilities there is another board policy in regards to naming facilities um in that policy requests can be made to name a special area for a substantial donation to or to M the facility thank you just one more comment that I I like to make again and again unless someone else has something to trigger something I'm done um there's been this talk in the community that the school district is broken school district is upside down and I know sometimes we use terms in school finance that the general public may not may not understand or it's not Comm to the general
041public well I looked at um and I think this is a positive looked at the finances of Rock Hill schools versus other school districts and quite frankly with cash on hand we're probably one of the richest school districts in the state there's probably not many other school districts probably less than five that could actually build an entire building without bun referendum typically what happens school districts go to the public and they ask the public for permission to build and they do a bond referendum and we're doing it we're basically building the house without a mortgage that's the latest term that people can understand so I want the community to understand those those of you who are here in person and those of you who are listen virtually Rocky of schools is not broke we we're
042not without cash um we're we're a functional solvent School District now we can make some arguments on whether or not we should have made some of the financial decisions we made but where're we're not broke at all we're a long ways from broke so I just wanted to add that and I need the community to hear that thank you I have no more questions I may I'm sorry real quick just a follow up on the naming policy and policy KF as with any policies that we have as a school district that those can be up for Change and could be written if the board would so chose to consider or if the superintendent would were to consider those with first and second read so just because there are policies in place that currently prevents or
043have a certain fee schedule or other pieces to it does not mean that the board cannot alter those to accommodate other bigger pictures that we are looking get I'm actually glad you said that because when I said this is doable you you're you're you are in very good Financial shape this is a onetime problem you can fix it you've got the resources you're financially in much better like you say most districts in the state I have told the board and the team Administration you've got a job it's not fun but you can do it you've got a team that can handle it and do it and it's doable it's not going to be fun but you get over it and fix it and solve it but you are in good Financial State and you've got
044a good team that can address it yes you've had some bumps in the road but you know go I always like to look forward and you've got a good team and you know what you need to do and but I know as a board member thank goodness you're not head of finance and you have a broader perspective and you are in touch with your constituents and the district better and so you can you can solve it you've got a good team to do it and it's relative to the full budget it's not you know I used to say oh yeah it's just 10 or20 million it's no really big deal well when you're dealing with a billion dollars it's not but it's still a lot of money and it's it's important in terms of Financial
045Health you want to solve it and get and move on but uh you have you can do this I know you can you've got a team to do it and I encourage you to do it and I'm I'm hoping I thought myself out of any more work for you okay well I have a question say go ahead yes so thank you for the findings that you found so you you mentioned in your um your something your find and recommendation you said the current budget follows are not result of any single action in the fisal year 2425 any other single Year's budget but it was a problem that compounded over the last four years that got us to this point but one thing that she pointed out um was in the fiscal year 2324 there were
046some salary recalibrations that happened in 23 24 that was done outside of the budget that was upwards of $3.6 million so I understand yes yes so I guess Miss Smith can you kind of explain what those recal just general information about what those recalibrations were so CU that obviously that was something that ended up having to become recur re recurring fees and not non reoccurring fees right okay so we 2324 so in 2324 we have been doing a salary schedule for a few years um we implemented that salary schedule when the new superintendent came on board one of the focuses he had was for being competitive with our surrounding districts after the budget was set and the board approved it there was additional recalibrations that needed to be done for individuals in July another group
047in August and another group in j January and all of those came up to $3 million was that go ahead you have something no I'll let you finish no okay so so you're saying that that was the recommendation of the superintendent at the time and approved by the board the budget well the budget was approved and then the the salary recalibration that that had to be approved that was the direction of the superintend who approves it he approved it yes ma'am who gets the final approval superintend superintendent okay Dr did you have something else I did just one quick question because I know we've had this conversation about recurring versus nonrecurring and R non-recurring assets or monies typically things we use on like to put a rule for put a HVAC system on so we
048had a presentation a couple of weeks ago about n functioning camera on the school bus and you know kids at Sullivan have complained about the roof licking or the building are those monies that we could have used for some of those things so to give you an update on that Dr belon we are already in the process of updating our cameras and our facilities so that process is underway in regards to the cameras we are working procuran is working with with Transportation they have provided us a list of buses that is needed cameras we have provided Transportation the the um State contracts the vendors that are on state contracts and we are moving forward in pring that yeah I I appreciate that but that that wasn't my question what my question was is we have
049$67 million sitting over here I'm I'm still stuck on that and I've been stuck on it since the camp I've been stuck on it back then I was stuck on it in the campaign I'm stuck on it now we got 67 million there but we have some deferred building cost in our district could that $67 million have gone to some of the Deferred building cost if we had down a bond referendum for Sunset Park if the board did not approve the construction newart okay yes right yes let me let me make sure if the board had not approved we could have used the expenditures that the capital to help fund some of the issues so Bond proceeds are to for general maintenance if we have roof repairs the cycles that we have for repairing their
050roofs are hbac that is what our bond proceeds are for the board app under the previous superintendent to build new sunet Park Elementary when that was approved the necessary F proceeds to build that school was set aside andark for that school so and to be clear on my position on that I see I've been told the t-shirts out there represent Sunset Park I can't see that far um so I am not opposed to a new Sunset Park however I've been very very clear on my position I was very clear with the previous person who was in this seat very clear with um Miss Douglas who also represented that Community I I'm I'm I'm support the building of a sunset par I I do not support the way it was financed and I've never supported the
051way school districts who want to build schools over upon referendums we don't delay the cost or defer cost of other construction we have other needs that we have in the district to build and I'm at so I just want to be clear on that to the community I'm not opposed to Sunset Park I'm just opposed to the way it was financed and I just would like to second that I'm not opposed to sunet par just is outside of the I think the way that this has been done so so really quick um I know that we had a lot of audience viewing both in inside of the room and online um and the work procurement when you sit on a school board to work in government and some you know we're very familiar with that
052but it it's been mentioned several times and so my question to you Miss smth is if you could give the public just a elevator pitch of what is procurement and what does that mean so as a school district we have to follow a procurement code that is approved by the state so there are specific procedures requirements that we have to meet when we go out to purchase things to purchase services or to construct any buildings there's just a process that we have to follow because of fair and competitive um purchases thank you m do we have any other questions at this point I wanted to thank M for coming in and giving the transparency to the community that they've been gu to have with our financials now that we we have that I revert back
053over here and I see this as a class half full situation right now you have you have the opportunity to realign the district office which been way overdue and to meet our budget needs and to streamline this off this building so I look forward hearing the recommendations that you're going to come forward with because this has been way overdue let me go back to Capital go fast um if if we use Capital funds to take care of some things we take care would there still be a deficit of funds like meaning like the projects that things that we need to do that are currently like year mark projects that we have that things that are going to need to go into the budget that we're going to need to do capitalize would we still have
054a deficit in the general fund yes yes ma'am but but you did say the monies can there are monies that can move back from the capit fund S7 million million to take care of some of these deficit shortfalls that we have right now currently correct one time used to funds on that 7 million but yes in the general fund our expenditures our budgeted expenditures are more than our budgeted revenues so essentially what you're going to recommend tonight there is possibly an option to kind of slow walk some of this stuff potentially um since there is an option to maybe bring some money back back into the general fund I have options that are available tonight we need an executive session yes okay I want to mention one thing is that the use of the previous
055bond funds for new school I mean I understand your concerns we did that in Richland too there are districts that do that we had $30 million of excess bond funds because of a building being built in the 20089 recession and we came in $30 million low lower than we had budgeted we use those funds to build our district office eight years later or so but it so it can be done but it is if you've got outstanding needs and most districts are you won't find many districts that adequately fund their necessary maintenance costs industry says anywhere between two and 4% of your assets value you should be using on an annual basis to maintain them there are't many districts that do that um you know that's that's 40 $50 million a year for Richland to
056it's a lot of money but it can be done but I was going to mention that while referendum is the B Bond refer is more more frequent it can be done in other ways it's just up to the district's needs but it it can be done with that maintenance issue with all it does is as y'all know it's your home if you don't paint it this year and you don't paint it next year and you don't wait 10 more years then you've got a very expensive rot problem other things so maintenance is critical and it's a very important budget item we you probably have some in your general fund but it's probably not enough we never had enough and and just that leads my next question Dr Miley uh you said we're over 90% Personnel
057expense of this with with our revenues correct our our total personel expense for Rock School schools is over 90% it is 90% of the budget 90% of the budget okay personel you see a lot of schools what is the The Benchmark school for personnel expense it's probably in the 90 Plus 90 plus so again what do you you know you have certain other expenditures but that's your talent that's what you're here for is all those teachers mostly the most well- ran school systems are in 90% range okay our Richmond too low because we outsourced a lot of contract things like maintenance yard care Food Services custodial those were all off our budget they were we paid for them but they they didn't rep they didn't look they weren't employees and so it made our percentage
058a little lower than normal but if you added all those in 92 94% you you brought up another Point um I'll quit talking so I don't bring up anymore it's been a while since I've done this I but we've talked about and again my answers can be shorter but we talked about these FTE that come up I saw in one of the reports that Miss Smith um and and let me just say I'm never mad because we use Bond money we invested well and we made money off our investments that's a good thing um so I'm you know I'm I'm I'm not criticizing that but I've always I I see you know the nwp in here now they will tell you when during this entire process I was calling them telling everybody in the community
059that I spoke to um I remember Dr cook came to the saluta Business Association meeting I told him in that meeting that I was opposed to how they were doing it so this is not a new position for Montreal belon on Sunset Park all right but what my other question to you is that brings up another point I am familiar with RN 2 and I do know they outsourc their grass cutting and all these things I saw a couple of years ago in Rock Hill schools where and I support this they brought maintenance some of the maintenance people back in house grass cters and other things is that included in these FTE numbers here that we're giving CU or were all of these certified positions or were some of those when we brought in maintenance
060the grass cutters and those people back in house those position consal and the grounds crew was brought back in house in 2021 I believe I have aist so is that included or excluded out of this number that you gave us of all these positions that4 it does not include the number that came back there was 40% of our custodial that was outsourced and then all of our ground not have account in terms of in terms of support staff now what is let me ask it a different way besides the cafeteria service Child Nutrition services do we have anything else that's outsourced that's a necessary support I know C Child Nutrition is still outsourced but how about anything else that's a require necessary service it is just our school nutrition and our print center I'm sorry
061you said did you say pre-enter print print oh print print okay thank you okay well never mind typically we just go around one persons we let everyone talk first let everyone have an option to talk that's fair before we get second or third by the that's fair um I appreciate the transparency I appreciate you telling us that the job that we thought was done months ago still needs to be done Dr Jones I appreciate you willing to step in and fix this um we knew we had this problem when we approved the last budget and I would never apologize for approving that budget because our teachers deserve to be paid we need to have the highest paid teachers in the state south your line that is going to help us recruit and retain the best
062we have to start prioritizing what goes on in our schools under our principal's command and control and we need to pay those people and we need to pay the people that drive our children to school we need to pay the people that take care of our schools we need to pay our teachers our teacher the AIDS this District does not exist to give adults a job who are not tied to a school who are not held accountable to principles in our school this District exists to educate our kids and our teachers the ones that are educating them and our teachers AIDS are the ones that are helping them and we need to pay those people brother thank [Applause] you and I just feel I need um even men you're a financial person and I understand
063thisi you're also in finances um education is a business however it is about educating students and so it's important to me when look at this money and the 15.8 million that we still remember we dealing with our future and with our children and it's not just dollars I know we have to take that into account but these are people and this is their future at stake in our community is H us to make decisions that will impact their children in the future so um I I can only second what Mr Noel um said when we approved this subject um that we're currently working on with the one time news again um in June last year it was done with the firm understanding that we knew that we had $15.8 million that needed to be made
064up for the new budget in the coming year we knew the redu and return FS um again this goes back to also having the conversation in in public um to take a look at making sure that our Focus was what was going on in the classroom making sure that funds were allocated specifically to support our teachers um and our support staff um but today we say thank you to you Mr Miley for your assistance um we know that there has been a lot of work uh going into this um we do as everybody is aware have uh an executive session on the agenda um so we said thank you to you thank you it's it's been a lot actually it's been very interesting and fun you you've got it you've got a good interested board
065interest that's not I mean people laugh but that's not always the case with school boards you you've got committed school boards you're exactly right your people count it's your job to make sure the direction is keeping going in that direction it's my job to get out of the way and quit talking can't believe I talk for 24 minutes [Applause] I will entertain well actually to shake some hands first I'm going to shake your hands oh absolutely hope I want to give you a hug I hope this is the last time I see y'all I'm sure it will not in a wrong way but gu make a motion for S so we do have a motion made by DR belon to adjourn the Open Session and ENT the executive session for the following matter discussion of
066personal Personnel related regarding a proposed organization chart receive a legal advice concerning the same do I have a second thank you and any discussion on that very none all those in favor all the post car 7 meliss e e e good evening and welcome back we have been meeting in executive session for the purpose of discussing Personnel related actions regarding a proposed organizational chart um as well as receipt of legal advice concerning the same at this point I will entertain a motion to adjourn uh the executive session and reconvene the Open session so move thank you Mr Burns uh do I have a second thank you Miss Harris any discussion verying none all those in favor all oppos all opposed motion carries okay so uh we do have an action agenda immediately following this executive
067session um and uh on that accent agenda is uh presentation of district office organizational chart and I'm going to turn it over to Dr Jones to give that presentation okay thank you very much Madam chair board chair uh Vice chair and and board members thank you to our public and our employees who have waited uh as we have have worked through this I would like to thank the Board of Education also that in this process that uh you are supportive of our district and you're also supportive certainly of of our students regarding uh opportunities that they have so I was tasked with uh coming in and looking at the district office uh reorganization chart this was originally passed December 9th uh according to looking at budget and looking at other opportunities you asked um you
068asked our team to go back in and and make some recommendations and we have done that so I wish to go over that uh with you uh at this time uh right now um of course uh we and I've listed on this the uh I'm not going to read all the duties but each area lists basically the areas that they are responsible for in their work uh uh one I have right now of course is the superintendent uh and the superintendent's cabinet and work basically uh divides based upon recommendations we have had uh in in in uh regarding um all of our reports that we have five assistant uh superintendents that would be in business services uh then also looking at um schools and performance and accountability uh looking at well at operations in Safety
069Management School Innovation and student development and assistant superintendent of human resources and talent management the basic responsibilities we have for oversight and organizing a department you also see that we had the public information officer hang on one second Dr Jes I think the challenge is that the public cannot hear you but I wonder if you borrow your microphone here even better we get a walkable microphone from Mr rice uh you can walk point and everybody can hear okay my apologies if I can go back I mentioned that we had uh certainly the position of superintendent and then underneath that uh we do have five assistant superintendent uh what has been added since uh December of course is looking at the business services direct report as was recommended uh through our um through through our analysis
070and the presentation tonight and you have those of course in the areas of Business Services school performance and accountability operations and Safety Management School Innovation and student development and then human resources and talent development uh also we will be employing a new uh public information officer uh that will come on and uh he or she will have a staff of two uh as well as uh other support for the superintendent one of the Departments that we uh certainly want to uh highlight again is our business services uh and you see the chart that is listed here where we have uh both the uh the finance piece uh our our budgeting our procurement our payroll as well as director of school nutrition uh this this Wing does a really good job of making sure that our
071students have uh have access to to great muls and good student nutrition so business services and that each of these also have uh direct um accountability with our 22 principles you'll see that on four of those one of the desires of the board and for us is that we work with higher accountability for our administrators and that they have that support from our assistant superintendent so each of those assistant superintendant you will see has a connection with 22 principles this next one is school performance and accountability teaching and learning folks what we really are all about this also has Federal programs working with Federal and also looking a little transition here that that we want to explore because we know that uh Federal programming and federal funding uh may possibly make changes so we want
072to be prepared for that but we do have that with our academics uh and accountability and then you have our elementary education our secondary education support with multi-tier systems of support um and then of course our executive our executive director with exceptional students making sure that that support continues and then um instructional integration how we're exporting supporting our teachers in the instruction aspect you have the curriculum that we certainly support our teachers but you also have the in instructional piece as well uh and that wi also serves many who are at schools and they are in schools uh working in intervention coaching uh as well as supporting such subject as math uh also with this uh right now we have the adult education and Workforce that is in there now that's very interesting because there's
073also work that takes place and has taken place here in the school system with looking at training employees particularly employees that are looking at advancing or maybe being able to uh work with skills uh and and looking at Workforce Development A lot has been done in our human resources department so this this will continue to to reach and be available for our employees and we'll work with it as a district and and district office uh that would be based the adult education piece and Workforce uh as well as U our our dear parents smart and how wonderful that resources is under school performance and accountability then we get into the operations and Safety Management these meet the first tier needs we want to make sure that we have a safe we have a a clean
074we have a a well air conditioned or heated area and our our operations do a wonderful job uh you see that we've also moved from the FED uh from the uh from the December um chart we moved safety and Emergency Management into this area as they work closely with operations they work closely from our security and and our work as well as our technology uh for um for cameras all of things that they collaborate with so we're bringing that all under one umbrella of course you see the supervision of uh the principles uh that's there as you're finding with the other assistant superintendent uh and also Energy Management energy management is a big part uh a lot of those Resources pay for themselves because we look at supporting our schools with energy management transportation is
075in this area and our facilities then School Innovation and student development this is really our student services area but we also have technology Services uh in each of these in each of these uh areas for uh support for district schools um technology analysts that are out in schools working with students working to support with their devices uh we also have in this hour Alternative Learning programming it's located here a lot of great things that are happening and we want to enhance even more that when students need those alternative options that we have the staff there disabl for their education uh to continue and then you see such such also supporting services as as um our director of nursing uh also our director of District Athletics it's interesting that it's also going to pick up attendance
076so when we were looking at trying to compress some roles and trying to be as efficient as we can that also is a part of that and also maybe more accountability also between that office and the athletic directors at the school and our final is human resource and talent management a lot of advances taken place in that area we do have an ombudsman position that uh is a repurposed position we have repurposed and and with someone who is is working in in that area uh that person uh would also be working with the assistant superintendent of Human Resources particularly with Title 9 in some other areas where you need that partnership but there also is that direct connection uh with um with the superintendent as well if there are needs uh the human resources function
077how we are attracting Talent uh this year we have several schools that open fully staffed that we had that we had not seen in some past years we continue that work as well as how do we develop all of our new teachers or our teachers who are looking for completing induction um and then this also works with uh employee relations and some strategic engagement with uh the community and um also support systems so Madam chair that is that represents the revisions we have made to the workart thank you so uh just a general comment for the viewing audience um um when we publish our board brief sometime during tomorrow it may be later on tomorrow afternoon um should this pass because Dr Jones is asking for approval for this work chart should this pass here
078in a few minutes um that approved or chart would be included in in a more legible format so just for the viewing audience are there any questions for Dr Jones I slid over and I think Mr Burns can address it in the motion um but with the federal programs I think we indicated you talked about it but it was a typo on the screen that is director of federal and state programs correct correct when you talked about that I would to okay yes we you make that addition so you you made a correction approved as amended approved as amended I submitted to Mr Birds Fantastic um and um with that are there is there any motions coming out of that so um Madam chair I move that we amend the director of federal programs to
079the director of federal programs and and state programs okay and so that I move that the board approved the changes to the district office reorganization plan which the board approved in December to better and more effectively use our Personnel thank you so the motion is what the L part of what James read uh with the correction or the amendment to rename the position director of federal programs into for federal and state programs so thank you Mr Burns do I have a second second thank you Dr belon any discussion all those in favor I allst motion car 7 pardon I oh oh oh I'm sorry I correction um so that would be 60 with one abion uh and the exstension is M Miss Hutchinson okay so correction on that um any other motions no to um
080I wouldes I think that Dr Jones has some general information that he would like to share um so we're going to do that and then I will look you right in the face and let you do that motion sir thank you very much so as you heard this evening we have been tasked our team and I say we because our team has come around the table to support in this process our assistant superintendant particularly I want to thank uh our our assistant super attendant and and um our human resources as well as business services seeing how can we look at facing uh reductions and eliminations but moving it as far away from the classroom as possible and I thank the board that in your deliberation and discussions that in doing that that you want the
081classroom to make sure we preserve as much as we can and keep our instructional programs strong in that effort U I've been asked by the board as we we will continue to be looking at at at numbers and figures to see how we can address the uh 15 8 million Target that we have but I have been asked to um to to address a decision made regarding uh three uh programming options that we've received very meaningful feedback from parents and received feedback uh from from from Community citizens uh so I want to announce that that in in looking at reductions one thing that our team tried to do and presenting to the board is how can we sustain even if we can't sustain an entire program how can we sustain elements that will give students
082options it may be it may look a little different uh in the coming year it may look as as as far as uh what what it off it may not look like it looks this year but at the basis how is it that we can offer uh options for our students so first I'd like to address the da treatment program so our recommendation is that we Outsource with the day treatment key personnel and services to an external provider to make necessary adjustments to programming to deliver day Treatment Services during the 2025 2026 school year there will be savings that we can have but we would need to invest in one teacher the remainder of the positions that we have we have a medical vendor our provider that we're right now looking at partnering with and
083seeing how we can Outsource uh those positions to be able to offer it I'm not saying we can offer the full day treatment capacity that we currently have but certainly being able to sustain elements to where it is a an alternative option so we're working with that piece but our our goal is is to not discontinue is to not discontinue day treatment but seeing how we can work in addressing the budget with some external medical Source uh resources that that could help with that uh the second one our our mental health therapist our mental health therapists are a big part of our our school uh at this time they are a big part of of our why and how we support our students our our Mental Health Therapy Services are are so important to us
084and we have been able to work within our budget to be able to recommend that we have a solution uh the proposal would recommend the transitioning of all therapist to build Medicaid and allowable insurance for elig students ensuring continuing funding for these critical Physicians the plan we have 10 of the therapist the plan would be the general fund would provide for two of those because we want to make sure if there's a student that cannot be covered through billing because of Medicaid or other questions that we have to therapists that are on staff however all 10 of our therapists would Bill and that means that we would have that Revenue coming in and we would be able to provide that the savings account the allocation of of of course the the two teachers from the
085general fund but this allows us to be able to offer and continue those mental health uh Therapy Services as employees of the district and then we would uh move to a billing format this is done in several neighbor neighboring school districts I've had some conversation with with some of the leadership in this here and we feel that we can offer this and this would would resolve if we look at at building the third is our Rocko Virtual Academy um I along with a couple others I remember when we created virtual when there was a need for safety at one time 32% during covid of our students were in our virtual academies and uh that was for safety and we knew that that we needed to make some transitions with that over time but we do
086have certain students that that this is their mode of learning and this meets the need if we heard that from parents we heard that from students um so in looking at how we can offer virtual options uh as well as address the budget deficit what we would propose is um uh for the upcoming school year we focus oper offering virtual courses at the high school level where enrollment is the highest while discontinuing Middle School virtual format it currently serves 80 students now several of those students are a graders and then I would like to work with our six and sevenths to see that when they reach high school how would they have access they would still have access and opportunity virtually but we would focus on the high school level this would be a savings
087of approximately 7.5 teachers uh again uh looking at our our our middle school students in sixth and seventh uh coming up with a plan of of how those who have successfully participated can be a part of that so that would be a recommendation for Virtual Academy at this time that we look at the funding for high school for the upcoming year well thank you Dr Jones and also in addition to that um um I I think Dr Jones has some fantastic ideas on how we move forward encouraging ideas um so as we start getting budget numbers coming from our different revenue streams um over the coming months uh what community is going to see is budget updates um on a regular basis um as that process starts um internally um but we'll you know have
088that in in our Schoolboard meetings um and then obviously as typical in June we will have a public hearing and then final approval of the budget so this is a process and again lots of it is depending on whatever funding streams we have and what they look like for this year that obviously has not been completely set yet from those areas but the work has started and um I want to collectively uh on behalf of the entire board uh say thank you to you and to all of the team members that have um when I say working around the clock um I wish I was kind of kidding but I'm probably not the amount of hours that has gone into this process um to to get us to the point of a new approved workart
089tonight is tremendous uh for those in the community if you've driven by at odd hours and seen some cars in the in the parking lot it is probably because we have an associate superintendent that has spent a lot of hours uh together with this team here at this office so um just want to say thank you um on behalf of all of us for the work that you have put in here so can I add to that absolutely I just want to say again thank you those and thank you to the staff for the work you've done thank you for presenting us the option to save those programs really appreciate that I think that means so much to our community but it means something to me so I just wanted I to say thank you
090thank you thank you for that really appreciate the dedication that you have thank you so much thank you okay so with that I'm I'm looking over at Mr no thank you uh do I have a second second uh I have a motion toour by Mr no and second by Dr any discussion voting none all those in favor I all opposed motion carries 70 standard and is 10 o'