White County School Board Meeting 5/27/25

001All right. Is everybody's Does anybody have food in their mouth? Okay, we're get we're getting ready we're getting ready to say the say the pledge. So, I'm not going to start the meeting till everybody's mouths. All right. All right. So, we'll uh call the May 27th uh meeting White County Board of Education to order. This is our budget work session. So, if you would uh before we get started, let's rise and have pledge to the flag of the United States of America to the stands nationy for all. Thank you. Um so appreciate appreciate everyone being here uh tonight. Um Miss Stone is not able to join us tonight, but she will be here on on Thursday. And um so Mr. D. I'm sure that there's any questions as she reviews the budget that you can

002uh reach out to her and answer those questions if uh if they come about. Um tonight's uh meeting is a little bit different because uh this is anformational uh forformational purposes only. Uh we won't be taking any action on any of the items that are on the agenda. Uh that will happen on Thursday. This is opportunity for us to uh uh allow our director to walk through the proposed 2025 2026 uh school year budget. Uh we have uh our resources here. Uh Miss Ally, thanks for joining us tonight. All the hard work you did putting this uh helping bring this together. Uh Mr. Mark and Miss here as well. Um and uh so uh we will we will uh proceed in looking at that uh tonight. Um we uh we're going to do um when

003we get into our agenda, just want to uh make note that uh been asked to move the uh school nutrition program budget up. Uh so uh that way those that'll be that will be uh presenting on that will have the opportunity they won't have to go through our entire general purpose uh school budget because that'll be a little bit uh won't take quite as long. So uh that's uh just an overview of our our meeting tonight. Just want to say that uh uh it's a reminder Tennessee code annotate and board policy 1400 states that every build meeting of the board is open to the public except where law allows close session. The agenda for board meetings are posted on the district's website at www.wh coastschools.net at least three days prior to each meeting. State statute

004requires that each meeting agenda include an item reserved for public comment. Signup sheet is made available prior to the beginning of the regular meeting. Individuals who have signed up prior to the start of the meeting may speak and may be may to speak will be recognized in the order listed on the signup sheet at the point in the agenda designated for public comment. Board meetings are streamed with the help of Warrior Media for live or recorded viewing. Links are provided on the district's website. attending and or speaking during tonight's meeting applies consent for comments and appearances to be used. So before we uh uh consider the the items on our agenda tonight, um like at this time if there's any board member who have a conflict of interest on the items on the proposed agenda,

005uh please uh let that be known. Now, Mr. chairman, as I do each and every month. Um, nothing on the agenda tonight has a conflict of interest, but just for the record, my wife is an employee of the school system, and um, want to make sure that all the items that I'll discuss tonight are are mine or and mine and mine alone and uh, have no conflict with her being an employee of this district. Mr. McDonald, Mr. Chairman, my husband is also an employee of this district, but I do not have a conflict tonight and especially since we're not voting on anything, but the questions and concerns are mine and mine alone. Thank you, Miss Officer. My wife is an employee as well of high school. Uh, but comments that I'll make tonight are my

006mine alone. Thank you, Mr. Smith. So, uh just let the uh minutes reflect that Mr. McDonald, Miss Officer, and Mr. Smith all uh state that they have employees working with the district, but there's nothing on tonight's agenda that would constitute a conflict for them as outlined by statute. Uh so, with uh that um we will uh get appro seek approval for the agenda for tonight's meeting. again said we're going to allow school nutrition to present before a general purpose but that would be the only only change to uh the agenda uh just in the order that we proceed. So I'll entertain a motion for approval. Motion to approve with moving school nutrition up. Motion by Mr. McDonald. I have a second. Second. Second by Mr. Smith. Comments discussion. Okay. All those in favor signify by

007saying I I opposed. Motion passes. So uh next we will get into the u uh our our budgets. We have school nutrition program uh which is still a federally full uh federally funded uh uh program and then our general purpose school fund and uh that is funded from a couple different sources. So, uh, uh, this time, uh, Mr. D, I'll turn that over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, like to thank Mr. Markham and Miss Tonnie Savage, our supervisor of school nutrition, have worked really hard on this budget and presented for you tonight. I'm going to allow them to go through that, uh, in its entirety and, um, I appreciate them being here this evening. So, uh, Miss Miss Savage, I'll turn it over to you, please. Thank you. and board members um just

008remind you uh for audio purposes if you use the mic when you speak and we will be starting the school nutrition budget is a single page or two-sided page budget. Miss Savage um if you want me to I'll start with revenues first. Um you will see that um because we're all and I'm very proud of this that we're all C which all students in White County schools eat free. That's why there's no uh child income. um on those first two sections. One thing that I am um we do, you know, get some money from um teachers um allocart sales. I am hoping to implement more alleart sales next year at the middle school and high school to kind of help offset food cost and uh things like that. So that's my projection from that. That's

009what the 42,000 is. Um can I can I ask one question right there? So what what are allocart sales? I remember all when I was in school, but didn't know if it was still kind of the same thing or if that had changed. It is not the same kind of things that when we were in school. What it is is extras. Um there's strict guidelines as far as what we can sell from the federal government. Um I can sell extra entre but any other things besides an entree that I sell, it has to meet be smart snack compliant. So there's a lot of regulations. It is just extra things, but it's not exactly like what um you know you had there. So, okay. I mean, so when you saying extras, you're saying like apples and

010oranges and stuff like that. Yeah. Extra chicken strips, extra hamburgers, hot dogs, smart mouth pizza, things like that. Waters. I'm going to bring back uh selling bottles of water and um ice drinks, things like that that meet the USDA guidelines for smart snack compliance. One reason I kind of took those away and you can see we had about $20,000 in allocart sales, which basically were just hamburgers, you know, hot dogs, things like that. um is because before we went C I I didn't want I didn't want to compete with the kids' money as far as paying for their lunches and so there was a lot of you know kids not paying for their lunch and there was lunch debt. So we've got that cleared out. There was none this year. All of that was uh

011taken care of. So I'm going to implement that back. That's awesome. Thank you. [Music] Um, so you can see on the on the rest of this, um, other revenues, there's not really a lot. There's some commodity rebates and things like that that we do. Um, some investment income. Chad Mike can, you know, talk to that if you all. Okay. So, with school nutrition program, uh, those funds are held in a separate account because they're federal. There's federal money in that. Um, with the school uh federal projects fund, it's on a reimbursement basis. So, we've spent those funds and we're just getting reimbursed here under uh school nutrition. We actually just get paid for the meals that we serve. And so, those funds are held separately and the interest on those acrue to back to this

012fund because they're they're federal funds. um the state education funds, we do get um that around what was it this year? 23,000 and we're anticipating that next year. And what that helps pay for that helps pay for some of my salary. It also helps pay for training for the uh cafeteria staff every year. Um, I take all the managers that want to go. It's not required, but I take all the managers and assistant managers that want to go to Gatlinburg or Chattanooga for our state uh conference, school nutrition conference where they can uh get extra crediting and things like that. And so, I pay for that for them and stipens and things. So, it's used for training that 23,000. you know, I pay my staff for all the staff for my benefits training and any

013we have a day of um mandatory trainings that I have to do with all my county staffs that we meet for a day here and that's what that 23,000 goes for is all the extra training that we do with the staff. Um the federal government, you can see on that um the lunches we um you can see that it it did go up last year. We held off on like making a lot of decisions last year about things because we didn't know how a whole year of C would work. And you can see that um we it was a little better. You know, we don't have exactly all the final final numbers yet, but you know, it held well. uh that USDA commodities, the federal government gives us something in all districts um something called

014um entitlement money and that's based on how many lunches, breakfast and lunches we sold previously and they there's a formula they use and that entitlement money a lot of times it's not just cap money they send to the district uh I participate in something that called um it's DoD and And that's when I first came I was like okay so what is DoD because I'm thinking war you know what I mean? So but it's not it's the it is the department of defense but that's where I buy uh fresh produce and um I usually put a h 100,000 110,000 into fresh produce that we buy throughout the year. So that's where a lot of my entitlement that 200,000 or so goes into fresh produce throughout the year. Also, um we do a commodity processing bid

015where I can get um chicken products from Tyson. Um there's another company I buy chicken from, Gold Creek, you know, cheese from different places and I use that money to get a a lower cost for some of the uh things that I serve. I try to focus on the center of the plate items and things like that. So, it's really I guess I don't know if this is the right word in kind money. We don't really see that money actual in our budget. It's just kind of especially that DoD. It's just a wash through, but it's something that it's dollar for dollar with that DoD. I don't have to pay for delivery. I don't have to pay anything else. It's just that's money that I can spend for that, which is very good because we'll

016spend 150 170,000 a year on fresh produce. You can see there how much money we get for breakfast. Um that USDA other um these are rebates also that we get from the government. There's some um companies that you know will give us rebates if we use their product and we use so many and um my program assistant Donna Griffin does a really good job tracking that and that's where some of that money comes from. Also another thing that the federal government gives us is a warehouse. Uh I forget what it was this year, Chad. Um 12,000 or something for um rebate on money for storage and they actually bring that to us. Like storage, we may have to pay US Foods to hold our commodities there and pay them to deliver. So they help us

017out some with that, you know, paying some of that delivery. So that's what that is. And um do you have any questions about this? Feel free to ask me. M quick question for USDA other 23400 you're proposing 60 next year. Oh yes, we had um some equipment grants and things like that that I was able to get with the help of Sheila Felton um for two or three years. I I I for a couple years I replaced a couple serving lines and the year before uh warmers. That's what it was. It was equipment grants that that was some uh money that we had there that we were projecting. Didn't get that this year. Or last year. Thank you, John. Okay. Any other questions? just amazes me that there's almost $3 million in revenues just in

018food service through this district. I mean that that's unreal to hear you say that we are spending a1 $150,000 on fresh produce. That's that's crazy, man. And my first year on the on the board, which was almost 11 years ago now, um I was baffled then and I'm baffled now because that how much produce can you buy for 150,000, you know, for $150,000? And that's it's crazy to think that you're doing it every year. Yeah, it is. It's it's a lot. Yeah. Of course that those first threw on um expenditures my salary uh clerical um cafeteria personnel um you can see that um it has gone we have projected it to go down and one of the biggest reasons we're expecting that 2% raise like I think y'all are doing Miss Ally y'all are doing

019for on the GP side we have uh figured that in but I um with the decrease in enrollment and some different factors. I I do something every year called meals per labor hour study where I look at I take two or three months out of the year and I look at how many meals we serve, how much allocart we, you know, we generate and how many labor hours that we have. And there's a formula that I have that lets me know actually gives me a good look at how many meals per labor hour I I I have. And last year, um I I thought about dropping some hours then, but I thought, okay, I held on for C and see if our participation went up. But this year, it was just some of the schools

020were just kind of too low for me not to kind of take 30 minutes from a few people. I had somebody leave at the middle school and I um actually dropped a whole position and spread some of those out to make it. So, it really helped as far as that. I hate to do that, but you know, it is a business and so that's just what I do every year is just do meals per labor hour, compare it to last year, you know, and um what the school is and what they serve and things like that. that. So, if anybody has any questions for me about how I came up with that, but I just want to be transparent with y'all that I there were some hours that I cut 30 minutes from How many

021meals are we serving as a district for for the school year? Do you know that number? If I was on my Oh, it's a lot. I mean, it could be like close to a million, you know, 750,000. I mean, it it's a lot. It really is. So, do you know about how much per day? I do have that because in case y'all ask me that. Now, this is just an average because it would depend on, you know, if it was after the first of the year when uh we have those early grads and things like that. But, um it's just a rough average of like $18,000 a day that we would generate roughly from um from the government. Is that what you were asking, Miss Douglas? Okay. Yes. Savage, do y'all still do like summer

022feeding programs as well? We really, this year we're really going at it hard this year. And um actually today we had had a kickoff planned at the YMCA, but the weather did not cooperate. We were going to have it by the pool and and feed a lot of kids and grill burgers and hot dogs and but we're going to we're changing that to Thursday. But tomorrow is our first um big I call it big feeding day on Wednesday at uh after afternoon at Finley. Uh Miss Barnes Oh, okay. Miss Barnes, it's gone up since we've gotten in here. She um sent out information on Parent Square and gave them an opportunity to sign up for their children. So, we actually have 544 students that have said their parents have said that they're going to come

023by tomorrow and pick up meals. And the government has changed it to where I'm going to give away five breakfast and five lunches tomorrow to each child that comes through. So they they've uh loosened some of those restrictions because before when we had summer feeding, if Miss Douglas brought Braxton, I had to see Braxton eat that lunch. And now you don't have to. It could be a parent, a guardian, you know, and things like that that come pick it up. So, that's one thing that's made a lot easier. So, and and like I told Chad and some of these people, you know, if you don't if you don't want to come help me feed tomorrow afternoon, don't answer your phone if I give you a call because I might need some help passing things out,

024Ashley and Emily. So, but yeah. Yes, Miss Douglas, we have expanded that. We um provide food for the karate camp uh that's in town. We provide food for the YMCA camp that's here on campus. Uh we have for several years provide food for the reading program that um the library has. Um this year we're expanding the Y and the karate camp. We feed them for five days, but we're actually on Friday send able to send them home two days worth of meals, breakfast and lunch if the parents want it. So, so you're not just feeding the kids during the school year, you're going above and beyond and feeding these kids in their extracurriculars during the summer. That That's awesome. I That makes my heart happy to know that we're able to do that. Yeah, we're

025trying. Um I'm sorry about my coffee. So, that's what that's the discrepancy between last year's um cafeteria personnel. That's why you'll see a little lower number. Not because I'm paying them as much, but uh temporary personnel that would be um cafeteria subs. And you will see that um we have gone up on that. And actually uh we are over this year on our 24 25. We have had lots of um FMLAs and things like that this year that have really hit us hard. And uh that's one reason that we've gone up to 30,000 on that because actually the last two years we have um kind of your workforce is probably not getting any younger. No. No. And that's something that I take into account when I do that meals for labor hour study. I had

026one school a few years ago, course they had the mass exes, they all retired at the same time. But um they probably had an average age of like 60 65 in the cafeteria. So I can expect a average age a kitchen with average age of 65 years old to produce as much as and most of the time they do though as a um younger one. But okay, let's see. There's all those other Medicaid compensation, all that. That's just, you know, what we have to do. Um, communication, that's our phone and, you know, things like that. We're all on the same What is that called? Ashley Voipe where our phone bills have gone down. Uh, we keep paying that. What? Keep paying. Oh, that's you, Jason. I could have. Yeah. So the schools and and Donna

027u the program assistant is in the process now of reimbursing schools for the amount at the end of the year for us getting to be on their VOIPE system. It's saved us a lot of money um since we've uh started doing that. um dues and membership. Um we pay for the cafeteria managers and assistant managers and myself and our uh school nutrition coach and the program assistant to be members of the school nutrition association. So that's what those um memberships that's what that is using and memberships um maintenance agreements. This could be um I have monitoring systems on my freezers and coolers, walk-in freezers and coolers. That's part of that. That's a yearly service. Uh preventive maintenance work on freezers and coolers, ice machines. Uh that's all things that I contract out and have that.

028And then just general maintenance and repair equipment. That's 336. Um pest control. I have a pest control contract every year. They come once a month. Y'all, I'm probably giving y'all way too much information on come once a year. I mean, once a month. Three of us have never heard it. So, Oh, okay. I appreciate it very much. Um, postage, we don't have as much postage as we once did, you know, so that's really gone down over the years. Um, transportation other than students, that is our Yes, we zeroed that out. That is something that we don't have to do anymore. that's why it's held on there. Um, travel, of course, that is if I've gone to meetings or, you know, stay overnight at state meetings and things. I also pay the cafeteria managers to drive.

029They have to drive to the bank at least two times a week to deposit. High school and middle school may go daily. Um, just that kind of thing. That's what the travel is. Permits, we have to have pay for our health permits every year. um other contracted services that could be our what? Yeah, our commodity processing some more of that where we do have um money that we have to pay through Tyson and and and things like that. There's some of that is that inind entitlement and then some of it I do have to pay for but it's a lot cheaper price that we have to pay for. um food preparation supplies, food supplies. You can see we had loted uh that 1,350,000 for this year. We did not meet that goal. We exceeded that

030goal, you know. So, you can see that's why it's gone up. Fingers crossed it will be fine for next year, but we'll we'll just do what we have to do. um office supplies. We had to replace our server in the um office this year. You know, that could be um well, that's data processing down at the bottom, but you know, just general office supplies, paper. where we provide paper for the cafeterias and supplies, uniforms. Um, I like to to provide the staff and actually I have one on today because I thought I was going to have to work in the kitchen today. But, um, I do provide them with a shirt and each day is a different color that they wear. It I call it their uniform just as a service to them and it

031looks good when they're all in there looking the same. Okay, there's that USDA commodities. That's where that that wash comes through that um 205 uh,000 for this year. It's gone up next year for 221,000. So that's where that DoD some of that money and things come through. That's where we um the expenses, but it's basically just a wash. Um other supplies and materials we can like we have a fifth grade, eighth grade and high school celebration in the cafeteria. we buy balloons and you know celebrate their graduation. That's just where things like that come out of. I can't think of what else, Chad, at this time, but it's just it's just odds and ends kind of things like that that we need um to run the program. Uh refunds, we uh do provide refunds to

032students maybe that live leave our district or graduating seniors. A lot of times what happens is like I've had teachers say, "Hey, my child's graduating. Can you put their money in my lunch account?" Sure. You know, but sometimes they want their their money and we do refund them. Um inservice and staff development. There's more of that data processing. That is um our student our student management system. What we have to pay every year for that u technology and to do that and food service equipment. I don't have anything in particular right now that I'm I know I have to replace. We've um Chad and I have done a really good job over the last few years just trying to, you know, look ahead and see what we need to replace and try to transition, you

033know, old equipment out. So, I guess one question I did have is um on your data processing, when can you monitor all of the accounts here in this office from every school? Are they all? Yes. Hooked through the network, I guess. Yes. Uhhuh. We have a server here that we And that's what happened with, you know, your your server went out and and you had to replace that. Yeah. It was old and it was getting to be where we were they were having trouble at the schools. We were having to reboot all the time and Ashley can tell you she Ashley does amazing job. I don't know if y'all know that, but she had been telling me Tanya, it's time to re and I was like, "Okay, Ashley, whatever." But this year, I just had

034to What was it Ashley? a month or two ago and um she warned me, you know, but I kept hanging on. But it's made it so much better after we changed. That technology is not cheap. I mean, just like it's not. And the year before, I think it was, we got all cap the manager new computer. She's kept us she's a does a really good job keeping us on a rotation and us, you know, not get letting them be outdated and too old and things like that. So, I have a question. The travel expense. So for last year it was well the school year we're in right now was 12,000. So this year what? Sorry. She was asking what line item and I said 355. Oh, sorry. I thought you No, I apologize. Okay. No,

035that's So in this year it's 15,000. Did we go have you guys went over that? Well, the reason being is my understanding that travel You want to talk about it? Yeah. So, for uh next year we'll have a new travel policy with new rates and stuff countywide and so that is factored into factored into that. So, it's about time. What's the policy? I don't I don't know. Well, I can pull it up here and tell you. You mean like what we pay per mile and stuff? Is that what you're talking about? Gotcha. That's what I thought maybe. Okay. Okay. Sorry. May I say just one side note? I just just to let my new people, my new friends know, uh, school nutrition is a little different as far as our funding. Uh, when we're not

036in school and we don't sell meals, we don't get money. So, just just so you all know that, we only get funding based on when we sell meals. It's not just a standard amount every day. So on snow days or two hours late, we don't serve, excuse me, we don't serve breakfast, you know, we don't get money. So I just want y'all to know that. That's just something I think needs to be. It's a little different than the funding with the GP. So just so you all know. Thank you, Miss Savage. Um, yeah, if you don't get paid uh for those days, but yet you still have to buy the inventory to be prepared to serve those meals. So hopefully you don't have a lot of discarded food. No, my staff really do a great

037job about that. They, you know, we may have some manager's choice meals, you know, to try to get rid of some of that throughout the time, but you know, it it it it's all works out. So, so Miss Savage, just looking at u the your budget and thank you for for laying this out. the uh fund balance starting I guess it was July 1st 2023 it's about 2 million and now it's uh projected I guess in 2026 is or would be uh uh 870,000's miss pretty big draw down and I know that a lot of things go into factor in that costs go up and then also the number of meals you say may go down. Um, but are y'all comfortable with the burn rate um of of where that's at? Do you think you'll

038be able to you project that there'll be funding that will allow that number not to go continue to burn off at at that pace? I am hoping it levels off but um you know there are so many factors involved in that. Uh we do have to uh by law we do have to keep a three months fund balance in operating expenses. So I'm actually I don't think the tech I mean we use it in school nutrition the other supervisor in excess. So I'm still in excess amount you know but it's required for three months. I mean, I'm I'm hopeful, but you know, that's I mean, we're I don't know. You can see how it's declined. It makes me nervous. I'm like, "Okay, Chad, what are we going to do?" I mean, hoping it levels off.

039I really am, you know, and and as Chad and I were talking the other day, our reimbursement rates are not going up compared, you know, at a good rate compared to the food and things like that. So, um, you're we're worried. Yeah. Cost of eggs really impacts your budget. Um, no, but it was it just something that thought it was worth noting that, you know, the burn rate over past three years has u has, I guess, accelerated along with what going on with and and I do want to brag on my staff in saying this. If you look at um the increase in salaries over the last two or three years when we implemented that increase, you know, we've taken all that on ourselves. We've taken on paying for insurance and I I forget what

040else. So, actually, we've done a pretty good job considering the increases that we've had over the last few years. So, you know, we're still we're still hanging on and and managing. So when you consider things how we've increased over the last few years, we're it's not it's not doom and gloom like I want to because you know at the house my house it's like well we got to have some money. No spend that understand I'm sorry not questioning your your budget or your method of spending. It's just uh you know it it's I mean it's a reality that that we're all we're all facing and so it is a reality. Yes, Mr. Yeah, I just want to speak to that briefly. Um, you know, similarly to where we see in the in the special education

041program. Um, that's a program that's not not been funded federally uh at the ratios in which we think it should be. And obviously for our needs here in White County and what we've had to do there is they're they're in a situation where they're beyond that point and they're spending every federal dollar that they get and the the GP has had to pick that up. You'll see in a few moments in in this budget all those positions. So I could see a time hopefully it doesn't happen but a time where eventually Miss Savage is going to say I can't pay for this extra worker at at Cville and she's going to be looking to GP to pick that up. And so that's you'll see that in that bud that's what's happening right now with with

042sped and uh you know we're glad to do that as a district but it does put a strain on our budget and that's what would happen in that case. Um you know she watches her her her pennies very closely. She's done a great job. Every time that we implement a raise at the at the for teachers or with our st support staff rather, she picks that up in her own budget for her staff. And so she's been able to do that. Been very frugal with her spending over the years. But we do see that decline and it's just a it's just a supply and demand issue uh that's uh that the costs are are rising for her department quite a bit. So just want to point that out that that's the that's the example that

043we're running with special education right now. and and um that is an allowable uh dip into my excess fund balance is um increase in salaries and things like that. And every year I have to do a plan of how I'm spending my excess and that's something that I've you know that I put in there. So that is allowable. It's not you know a bad thing. You know they don't want us to have $4 million in excess with school nutrition. they want us to keep it. But yeah, while while it is a business, it's not really a for-profit business. So, I understand that. Um, any other questions? And Miss Savage, I think I failed in introduction to uh recognize you for the hard work you did putting in putting this budget together, but certainly appreciate that.

044Any other questions on our school nutrition budget? Just proposed budget for just just one. What's been the trend line over the last five six years as far as to your your point Mr. chairman, the the burn rate is, you know, we're we're decre decreasing in that burn rate, but if we went back to 21 or 22, what what did that look like? Really adding to fund balance until probably three years ago, we were able and that's probably that is I don't say probably, that is why we still have some because we every year I was like, wow. Yeah, I mean we were adding 200,000, 300, 400 just depending on the year um adding every year and that's given us a cushion in order to kind of help this um increase out. But it has really

045been steadily over the last three years. Real steady, you know what I mean? A, you know, Yeah. Did that answer that, Miss Smith? Thank you, Mr. Smith. It's a good good question. Um, so that is uh the proposed school nutrition program budget for fiscal year 2026. Um, so if you have any other questions about this, uh, the information is provided, um, reach out to Mr. Savage reach out to Mr. D and they can walk you through that. I do appreciate you giving this head the heads up that that burn rate continues at some point in time that could become a general uh purpose school fund item that we need to just be mindful of and I know I know you are but appreciate you bring that up. Um board members one other is any other

046questions on school nutrition? Okay. If not, um I failed to mention this too and I think uh in in our agenda, we have an item on here to review the AIA contract for classroom additions uh at uh Do Elementary. Um I think Mr. Markhamm, are you staying with us here the entire time? Okay. All right then. All right. We won't move that up. I won't recommend we move that up. we'll get on into our uh next item which is uh review of the general purpose school budget for fiscal year 2026. So Mr. D, I'll turn that back over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um before we get too in depth, uh I just want to say thank you again, M Miss Savage. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your work on your

047budget. Um thank you to obviously Mr. Markham who his help in putting together our school budget each and every year. Thank you for his presence here tonight. And uh certainly Miss Miss Ally, thank you for all your hard work in compiling all these numbers. Um this is not uh my budget. This is a collection of thoughts and um input from department heads, our supervisors, our school principles. Uh we met about a month ago and started talking about furniture and positions and maintenance needs and uh the like. And so we sat down with all those and then now that uh gets put into our hands and Miss Ally puts that into this form that you see tonight. I'd like to preview a few things for you before we get into uh the budget line items. First

048of all, when it comes to revenues, um the revenues kind of speak for themselves as we go through. Um you'll see that um they're very concrete. There's not a lot of u ambiguity there. They are what they are. Um since Tissa funding um since I started this position in 2016, we've lost uh we're down about 400 students since that time. That's about $2.8 million in current TISA dollars. Um, so that's that tells you right there where that cushion that we've been living in for some time has gone. U as the as expenditures and all of our costs of doing business have gone up, our revenues are uh if not staying the same are going down. And so um it's it's a difficult budget situation to be in for sure. Um want to thank Miss Ally

049specifically. She's gone through and put together some really good kind of cliff notes for you on your budget. There's one section just for revenues. So when you get to one of those strange I'll go over those tonight, but if you have a question tomorrow or the next day and you say what was what is the in that other contracted services, she's got that for you. So it explains a definition there uh of a description rather of each one of those and appreciate her doing that. Um, I also want to say before we get started that um, in a nutshell, we're this budget, very similar to previous budgets, is about a $4.1 million uh, overage in what we estimate we will spend and what we expect to spend. Uh, we have always over the years uh,

050throughout my years here at in White County, we have overestimated our expenditures and underestimated our revenues. And at the end of the day, we we wind up in that gap of a safe zone. And just like this year, we're able to contribute money back to our savings account. So, um, this year is no different. If really, it's it's a little higher if you look at the margins to what similarly you saw in the school nutrition budget. They're they're expecting to they're projecting that they're going to spend more than they bring in, but they'll live in that margin as well. If you run that percentage-wise out, it's obviously more money in this budget, but percentage- wise, um, it's pretty similar to what you expect there. I want to tell you this is a very similar budget

051to last year. Um, there are there is one new position in this budget across the district and I'm hoping that's going to get covered with a grant. And so really, there are no new bud new positions that I've added to this budget. Um, we only have one extra teaching position that we keep in there just in case we need to add somebody later. We normally keep two or three. Um, the there's a $1625 raise across the board for all of our licensed staff. That's uh the next step and we'll do that again next year and that'll get us to that $50,000 threshold for entrance for starting teachers which is mandated by the state by next year. So, this is the halfway step to get there. Um, and we'll do that again. There's a 2% across

052the board raise for our support staff in this budget. Uh there's $2,000 for the teacher bonus that was set forth by the legislature in the ESA U program. U there's also $2,000 should the board choose to give that to all licensed uh personnel. That'd be another 30 people that's in there as well. Um, and then there's there's money budgeted for what we'll have to guess will be our health, medical and in medical and retirement and liability insurance increases. They give us an estimate, but we really don't know until about January what those will actually be. Uh, all that to be said is that there's nothing new under the sun here. This is the same budget that you saw last year with just the cost of doing uh, business increases. And uh even I've reduced the

053amount we're putting into capital outlay by over $100,000 this year. Um we're I'm trying to uh trying to keep this manage this the best we can. But honestly, if if nothing changes with revenues, I'm not adding anything this year. There's going to come a point where we're going to have to start looking at cuts and cutting programs and cutting people is the only way that you can start saving money if something doesn't change with our revenues. So, I think that we're okay right now. I think we this is a this is a I know that this is a budget that we can maintain this year, but moving forward in subsequent years, um there's just nothing added to this that's going to move us forward. So, just want to say that um what I'd like to

054do is go through the budget. I will go through section by section and um I'll try not to belver the point because there's a lot of information to go over but at any point that you want to stop and ask a question just please interrupt me and uh otherwise for time's sake I will move quickly and again like I said if you have you have reference notes that you can turn to should you have a question about any line item. All right to begin Mr. chairman or board members, anybody everybody understand what's what's in front of you and Miss Ally, I appreciate the cheat sheet. Um, that's uh I think that's should be helpful to all of us even if those that have gone through this exercise before. So, thank you for for putting that

055together uh and for that summary. All right. So, board members, I'm going to be on I'm gonna start on page one. I'll try and tell you. I'll be following along with the account numbers on the left hand side column and we'll jump along there. If you get lost, just let me know and we will get you back on the right track. All right, so we're starting on page one. These are revenues. Uh so looking at the money coming into the district. Um starting in account number 4000000. This is our local taxes. Uh get into property taxes. Most of these are self-explanatory. Um trustees, interest and penalties. uh in lie payments in lie of payments um all of our current property property all the property taxes total up to $3,947,132. Then you have your county local

056option sales taxes. That's broken down into sales tax, wheel tax, mixed drinks tax. That is an amount of $3,95,000. The Yes. for the current property tax 4110. This may be a chat question. How is that estimate determined? 3.7 million. The same thing for the local option sales tax. Thank Thank you, Mr. Smith. The uh current property tax. So, we get a uh everybody got an assessment a reassessment notice right in their in their mailbox a couple weeks ago. Um yeah, so the way that that works during reassessment happens every five years in White County. Um the values are brought up to market values according to the state and then the property tax rate is lowered so it becomes revenue neutral. So in a sense your house may have increased by 100% but if the certified

057tax rate is adopted which is the rate that the state gives us then your tax bill stays the same essentially. It might change up a little bit or down a little bit, but it's, you know, relatively the same. Um, what happens then is the county commission has to determine whether they want to keep that certified tax rate or exceed the certified tax rate. Um, right now, um, we are estimating the three mill, $3.7 million. And that just off the press went down a couple hundred,000. Um, but that is based on numbers that we get from the assessor of properties office. We divide that out uh and your tax um tax penny you'll hear us talk about is $97,300. It's almost doubled from last year because of that assessment change. Uh but we would be allocating

05836 pennies. The county would be allocating 36 pennies to the school system for next year. Um and that's at $97,300 a piece. And then there's other taxes that are broken down on here that are that are divvied out based on that percentage of of the overall tax rate. But it it all goes back to to the assessment to the assessment notices that you get. So we take that number and recalculate it. As far as the local option of sales tax, we take that uh as a historical trend. Um and for the past few years, that has been going up pretty significantly here. As of this year, it's leveling off. It appears to be leveling off. Um in December sales, we're bel 24. were below December sales tax collections of 23. So, we did see that

059hoping that that would ride itself over the next couple of months, but it didn't. It followed a similar path. So, um those are starting to level off. So, Mr. Markham, did I see and you said that the fixed tax rate the state the state sets that correct? Is that it was that 2.05? Is that what I've seen at one point? So currently the tax rate is $25 per hundred dollars of assessed value. So that's 205 pennies. The state will take the the revenue that's generated countywide off that and they'll say, "Okay, at these new assessed values, what to get that same amount of money, what does your tax rate need to be?" So they'll do that equation. We are estimating that to be at about a$121. We don't have that certified tax rate yet, but

060just based on our preliminary calculations, we're expecting it to go down to a$121. and then the county commission has to determine whether to raise it above that or not. Okay. Thank you. I know it's been a hot topic, you know, everybody talking about it. So, I know this is only posed, but we won't know definite till after they meet in June. Correct. Right. So, the county commission will uh will vote the plan is for the county commission to vote on the tax uh the tax rate and um the budget as a whole. genius, but based on their conversations currently, we would have it at at 36 um 36 pies for the school system. All right. Thank you, Mr. Markham. Um so I'm about midway through. I'm on 4,300 state statutory local taxes, bank excise tax,

061and then the com all the local taxes. The total we have right now is 7,90,916. Um, beyond that, um, we have licenses, 41100, marriage licenses, permits, make a lot of income off there, about $2,000 a piece there. Then you turn over to page two, top of the page, 4300, charges for current services, education. Question. Okay. I don't know if I'm working. So permits are the building permits not added into this or are they and I'm just missing it. No, that is actually No, the building permits don't run through this. They would run through the county general fund. Those permits are actually the u helping education license plates that are sold in the county. I think there's three countywide maybe that are sold. Okay. Again on page two, top of the page, we have tuition for

062out of county students uh that is paid to the district. Um that's I'm sorry that's 43511. Uh 43542 is uh money we received for T from TCAT for services for classes that we teach on behalf of their their institution. uh 43551 school-based health services. That's the stellar organization the board voted to we get money back. They file the paperwork on our behalf for those services and we get the kickback money there. So that's that income received there. And uh 43570 receipts from individual schools. Sally, what is that 65,000 that we get there on 43570 receipts from individual schools? Okay. For their phone bills, for their communications we received from the schools. Okay. One quick question. 43511 uh tuition pay for students. How many students do we have districtwide that are paying um tuition? Uh not

063many. It's I I don't know. It's probably less than a dozen. Um there's $500 a student and max 2,000 for a family right now. That's very low compared to what other districts charge. Um you know, we'll talk about that later when we have to look at when we're look looking at ways to raise revenue and how we allow other students to come into our district, but right now that's what we charge. We fair I and that's a question I need to ask Mr. Mark them as we look at property rates. And that was that number is based on a parcel and what a parcel what the t what a tax would be paid on a parcel of land. And then we also added the wheel tax because we felt like that's what we were losing

064by that family not living in our district um at at minimum. But at least we felt like that was a a system of where that number came from. We didn't just pull that out of the air. So some people charge 1 1500 1500 and there's no rhyme or reason for it. So at least that but we may need to look at that moving forward. you know, we don't we don't want to charge people too much, but uh we want to be fair to our to our taxpayers. Okay, moving down to uh the middle of page two, 4,400 other local revenues. Uh we have leasing and rentals. We charge the daycare um going up on rent for the daycare that serves uh our community here out of our bu this building. Um, then we move down

065to the bottom of that page, 44,390 other local revenues. That 28,300, that's White County High School basketball. We get a portion of ticket sales and that goes back into help uh pay for bleachers when we repair them and other upgrades to the facility uh when needed. You'll recall we did about $200,000 worth of bleachers last year, I think, before the season started. Um then also there's 28,300 in bus signage and uh White County High School parking permits that goes back into helping pay for paving and which we'll do this summer. Um so that's where that money is generated from. That's Yep. So the total local revenues there at the bottom of that page $34,600. Over to page three. Yeah. Uh top of page three. Uh Chad, you want to explain the OPED thing to me

066one more time? There's $200,000 that goes in and out of our budget for accounting purposes. Mr. Markhamm can speak to that. Thank you, Mr. D. Yeah. So, this is similar to what Tanya talked about in the school nutrition program with the funds kind of going in and out. Um there's really no money that changes hands here. we just have to recognize a revenue and expense. Uh, OPED stands for other post-employment benefits. And so when teachers retire and are on the the state health insurance plan um prior to 65, then they're eligible um for a rate discount through the state health insurance and then that not a discount but a differentiation in the state health insurance. Um and then we have to take our portion of that and applicable to our retirees and recognize that as

067a revenue and expense, but there's no cash that goes in or out there. It's something that the state on our behalf essentially. All right. Thank you, Mr. Markham. Okay. Middle or top third of page three. This is uh it's line 46500 state education funds. So, this is the main majority of our funds from the state. uh TISA funds 46510 TISA funding in the amount of 29 million dollar that's minimum of $7,75 per student and then based on their needs uh individual needs it may be more than that but that's the bulk of our state funding. Um couple am I am I reading that right? We're about 30 $30,000 some change less than what we were last year on TISA funding. So just yeah they pull on the 15th of every month they pull our ADM

068and so that that's where that number comes from. So last year we were at 29 thou 29 million 30,955 actual right and 2324 and we're saying this year we're going to be 29 million9 just question here um reminder we did start this tub funding in 2023 that was when that was first year we used t Yes, that's correct. Um, a couple lines down, 46, 515, early childhood education, that's prek, uh, teachers, some of our prek, 5 thou 59,185. 46,590 other state education funds, the 7734,240, that's salary equity funds. That's funds that we get from the state to match uh small schools versus large schools to equal compensation for for our employees. Uh career ladder program is 46610. There's not many folks left in that program anymore. And then you have the total for our state

069education funds. Quick question. Um for the items that were actual numbers in the actual colum that there aren't any proposed budget numbers. Is there a general rhyme or reason for that throughout the entire document or does it depend on the the row essentially? So, Miss All can probably speak to this, but there there are some things like BEP. There is no BE be anymore. So, that's just a line that we've kept in the formula, but kept in the in the document. Um sometimes there will be money that goes into a category um that we will have one year and then next year we won't depending on some needs. So it's just kept there for accounting purposes in that line item. Why why was the actual for 2324 for the other state education funds so much

070higher in that year the 1.5 million versus 734 we're proposing for next year? What and what can you tell me what line? Sure. 46590 Oh yes ma'am. It's just a large variance we rece for him. So it's just it just stuck. jumped out because of the the large varian. All right, moving on to middle of the page. Other state revenues uh 46851 state revenue sharing from TVA. Uh that amount is 1943 397. Uh down a couple lines 4690. Other state revenues, there's $100,000 there. That's the paid professional leave money we've received from the state to pay for those that are on that leave and the substitutes that are needed. Okay. Um, moving down to bottom of that page, 47640, uh, 73,000. That's what we received from the Army for ROC reimbursements. And then on page

071four, bottom of the page four, you have some transfers in for grants of $15,000. And that is takes you to your total for revenues for $38,98,552. This is state and local. Of course, we have lots of federal grants we receive. There's federal money that will come in in the fall that we don't know right now. That's our state and local revenues. Any questions on revenues? Are we good to continue on, Mr. Chairman? I think so. Board members, any questions? Okay, following it. Okay. Thanks for the clarity from Mr. Mark and yourself, Miss Ally. You're very welcome. All right, we'll keep moving. We'll go into this is page five. Uh we'll go into uh our expenditures at this point. Very similar fashion. I'll go through section by section. I'm not going to belabor every point. There's

072a big section chunks of these that are are benefits uh se or benefits u yeah insurance that sort of thing. So I won't go over all those, but I will point out the ones that are maybe a little more rather ambiguous. if it says other or objects not used, things like that that stand out, large ticket items. But I'll be glad to answer any questions on any line that you have. All right. Uh starting with 71100 teachers, uh that 14,322470 jumps out. That is 224 classroom teachers. Not all teachers are included in that number, but that's where that number comes from. Um, jumping down to a few lines to educational assistance 71100 163. Uh, that 992,000 that's for 42 educational assistance. Just below that, other salaries and wages 189 that is the bonuses that are

073built in from the ESA. So that's that $582,000. just the teachers. That's the bonus is just for the teachers. And Miss Allie, that number is just for the teachers that were paid for by for the 290. Okay. Yeah. That doesn't include the extra 30 that you've got budgeted somewhere else, right? Oh, it's in 116. Oh, it's already built in there. Okay. All right. Um, substitute teachers, non-certified subs. Sure. On that. So in the 11671 100 116 the teachers. So you're saying that the $1650 bonus or the the increase in salary is already built into that into that 14 million 322. Correct. Okay. Yes. The the salary increase of $1,625 is built into that. We were talking about the extra 2,000 as way that as well the other 2,000 u from the education savings act that

074was uh proposed by the state. So there's money for that 2,000 in that 116 line item for 30 teachers as well as and then down below is the other 29 in the 189 category. Okay. Thank you. Just one second. Can you say that again? Think I misunderstood. So, all the teachers, all the teacher bonuses on the pay scale this year was $625. That's built into uh line 116 for teachers. 1625. 1625. Yes. Then the bonus money of $2,000 for 30 teachers that weren't included in the definition of teachers under the SA definition are included in that line as well. That would cover all licensed personnel. Then going down to 189 is where the other 2,000 for every other teacher is budgeted. That's the 582. And that 582 is is reimbursement from the state. So that's

075basically just a wash. When we see that come in, that'll be a it'll be coming in and going out all at the same time. Okay. Right. That's based on their definition of the Yeah. Okay. So, the 582, it's for the 291 teachers, not this 30 that we're trying to slide in there. Correct. Because this 30 is extra. Am I not correct? Correct. Correct. Okay. So, I want to know who are the other licensed administrators. I got the school psych psychologist, but I don't see anything in here for the teachers aid. Am I wrong? There's not yet. No. Okay. Other than the There is uh we did a 2% increase for all staff positions. Can we get a definition of who these licensed administrators are? Yes. So that's a 582,000. No, that's that's what I'm saying.

076That's 30 people and that's the 582,000 or no, it's added in with the 14 million. Yes. 91. There's that's $60,000 would be the the addition of those 30 people in that 14 million question. Okay. So, state head definition as far as who received make sure we're talking about same bonus here. Maybe I need to get my cheat sheet out. So, the state had had guidelines as far as what you had to do to qualify for the bonus. Um, had to be licensed, had got to spend 50% time 50% instructional time with students. And then the question was, well, what about others that help contribute to that. And so what I'm understanding is that you identified or proposing you would be proposing 30 administration administrators who are licensed and school psychologist. That's also requires a license.

077So, basically, it's the $2,000 bonus is for state license. You've got you you you have the state license. That's the reason why it's not just across the board, everybody. It's basically $2,000 for teachers who are licensed, but then also administrators have to be licensed as well as school psychologists. They're they have uh facetime with kids too, just not maybe necessarily from instructional to a side, but that's where we're that's that's what's being proposed. So what by definition of what the state proposed and their definition of teachers, we came up with the 291 teachers and that's line item 189. That's what we've put in there. So, if the board wanted to stick with that, that's what this budget would propose or would would entail. There's also $60,000 in 116 if the board wanted to cover that

078remaining 30 teachers that which are administrators um and school psychologist. But if the board doesn't want to do that, then it would just reduce that line item by $60,000 and we would pay out 189 just like it's proposed. So, okay. Now, there's not any extra right now built in for support staff other than their than their 2% raise across the board and the board has the option of of doing something different with that as well. Okay. So, I just want to make sure we're all clear on this. Okay. Because this gets and understand appreciate the from the accounting portion of this how you you work that in, but uh just want to make sure we're all clear on how we are abiding by the Freedom of Education Act. And we're saying we're doing that through

079line item um 189. That right there covers our requirement to the state. Then the other 30 identified it's been proposed again licensed employees or administrators. those 30 that have been identified have been added to the 116 line. That would not be a recurring cost. Correct. So, so we'd see it in this next year floats back around, it would not include that extra. Okay. So, just want to make sure everybody's that we're all clear on that. So, thank you. I just want to make sure. So, line 189 is prek through 12th grade. That's correct. Now, so if we wanted to look at the um educational assistance that's in with these licensed teachers, can we get a number for how many of those we have? Yes, I think Mr. Smith has some say some numbers. I provided

080some documentation on that. I don't know that I would know how to interpret this correctly based on your definition. Happy to show somebody this and let you determine. I'll be glad to I mean I can share what I've shared with you to everybody. Um but um he's after that information you know of course when you talk about educational assistance then you know you everybody does a valuable job you know and u you know so it's not there's a lot of more support staff than just educational assistance and um so you know I think the board then want to consider others as well. So I have numbers on that. I think we broke that down and have some numbers on what everybody looks like at $500 versus $1,000 and that sort of thing. I I can

081share that with you um tonight. So, did you already get that? Okay. Yay. Yeah. Yay. Yay me. Um so, uh uh I've sent a lot of emails. Um so, yeah, if you have that, you want to look at that, that give you an idea of what um what that would cost, what that addition uh would be. So, you know, we um I know there was some discussion about at the last meeting or last time it was discussed among some board members about all the certificated folks and that's where that extra 30 came from, but certainly open to whatever the board wants to discuss about support staff as well. I I think I did a little math on that and you know maybe my math was not totally correct but took taking what you had sent

082us it was if we did 2,000 across the board for everybody it was another 500 and something thousand dollars u for everybody from bus drivers to cafeteria aid you know cafeteria folks everything I think it was another 500 something thousand dollars was what would what it would cost us and I don't know I may be way So, no, that would be close. I mean, we don't have exactly 300 staff and 300 teachers, but it's in that two something ballpark. So, if you multiply that by 2,000 a piece, you would be you'd be in that that ball. I don't remember the exact numbers right now, but whatever I sent to you, but that would be that'd be pretty accurate. So, uh, board members and, uh, Mr. I'd like to suggest that double check your emails. Make

083sure you have the information for what it would look like for B that would be bonusing non-licensed staff because in our district you pretty much have two categories of staff. You have licensed staff and you have non-licensed staff. And so what the state asked us to do comply with for the teachers to get the raise is to make sure that we would give licensed staff based on their criteria. And it has been proposed that we include 30 addition 30 additional um license staff. So that would cover all the license staff. And if we were going to do something for non-licensed staff, then we would need to we would need to do our homework and then bring that up in Thursday's meeting. So we would that's where we would make that decision. So if you have

084questions on that, reach out to Mr. D. Um when we come up and we put the uh budget on the table for for discussion, then at that point in time, we would go through and make make amendments and vote on take action on those amendments such as adding non-licensed staff to that. Um but that would take place on on Thursday night. So, just make sure if you've got questions, these are good questions that we're all in the same room can hear, but if you have any further questions, um, make sure you get that before Thursday night's meeting. I have a question. Do you know, Mr. D, like other counties, how they're handling this? I mean, is anybody Have y'all talked at all? Yeah, I've talked. It's all over. I mean, there's some people that are

085doing a little something for everybody. There's a lot of people that are doing just what what because of their budget constraints, they're doing paying just what the state paid, you know, and that's the only people getting it. And I want to make a note, too. We weren't trying to add 30 people here. Miss Ally just at the information she had, she put that in the budget, so it was there. It can be taken out if if the board doesn't want to do that. So, we're not I'm not necessarily suggesting that all the those extra 30 people get that. that was just a budgetary thing at the po point that she was with the information she had she budgeted for all of them because there was conversation at that time that that's the direction that we

086might be going. So um so I want to point that out. I mean if we if the board was to pull that out that's $60,000 we'll take out of that 116 category. Uh but at the same time if the board wants to do something with support staff I fully support that but we also you know have to be realistic about where the budget and where is and where that will come from. We're already 4.2 two overs. That's just a consideration. So, certainly support and I think those people deserve every penny. Um, but that's just need to consider that as we look at those numbers. So, and I think uh board members, we just all need to be make sure this was pointed out to us in our uh in our summary uh about the uh

087the basic overall increases to our to our budget. So, it's just the clarity. Now we can take uh an account number and assign that to the uh uh set the third and fourth items on that uh on that uh reference page. So thank you both for that and we understand that these are this is a proposed budget. It's not a we recommend you do this budget. All right. Thank you very much. Um we'll move forward here. Um, so starting at that 189, we understand that one's bonuses. Uh, we have certified subs, non-certified subs, then all their benefits. Um, bounce down to look like line 429. Um, those are the instructional funds. That's what was BEP. Um, so as teachers get $200, classroom teacher, $200 per classroom. That's what that money is. [Music] Uh $500,000 $499.

088That's textbooks and uh 599 other charges. That's sports. Is that right? I think that's correct. And then um that's broken down on your sheet. And then the last large item there is 722 385,000. Those are computers u we buy every year that's part of the Chromebook that Chromebooks. Okay, that's regular instruction. Moving on to special ed. Um 71200 and again this is sped GP. We get a lot of funds from federal program. A big majority of our sped funds come from federal but this is the GP portion of that. As I was talking about what we have to pick up, what they can't pay for anymore, this is what we pick up. Um so 116 category in sped is 1,820,180 that's 30 special ed personnel some career ladder money and then educational assistance for special

089ed 360,000 that's 17 positions there uh benefits and then the total is at the bottom there is $2,796,55 is sped GP Page six, vocational education program CTE. Um 71300 line 116 again teachers 14 teachers is $834,900. Uh benefits and a total of 1,575725 for vocational. Next uh 72200 this is attendance uh 105 is Brian Haley his position salary and benefits travel 119680 next section 72120 health services uh 105 supervisor that's Marcy Canard's position two down 189 other salary and wages That's 280,000. That's for nurses. Um down 499 other supplies and materials. Um that's contracted services for our nursing program as is other charges. 15,000. Those are both contracted services from our nursing program. Quick question on on the health services. Is that uh is Marcy is she the the nursing supervisor and director of nursing

090and coordinated school health or is coordinated school health? She's the coordinated school health director. She's the director of that program. She does oversee the eight nurses in our schools as well. So that's all lumped together in one one department. Yes. Okay. I know other other districts are that you know they have that separated. So just didn't know how that worked. Yeah, that's how we do it. Um, next section on I'm on top of page seven 72130 other student support line 123 guidance personnel those are our guidance teachers that's 696500 and then a secretary uh one of the secretaries of the schools so guidance department 42350 um 189 other salaries and wages That's Richard Bumble, our behavior specialist. Benefits. Um, you go down to not sure what 399 contracted services is in that one. Okay, that's

091athletic trainer and part of the SR and the SRO that we we pay for part of our athletic trainer. We partner with Star Physical Therapy. We pay half that salary and then we pay for one SRO. Uh the state grant pays for all the others. It's the extra one at the high school. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh I'm in uh Yes. 399 contracted services. Thank you. Okay. Uh just below that uh 471 uh three $300,000 that's software. I don't know which ones that is. Is that all? Okay. Yeah, that's our that's our curriculum software. I Ready. Yeah. And and yeah, Mastery Connect and I Ready. That's our benchmark software that we do. We used to do Math and Renaissance and we've had in Star Eden. Yeah. We have we have a number of those we use

092now. Okay, that's um other student health services. That's 1,ion399530. Regular instruction program 72210 bottom of page seven. Um 105 this is our curriculum supervisors. That's Angela Fresh and Valerie Butcher. 129 is librarians. We have six of those. Some a couple of them travel uh clerical personnel 162 that's half of a position 163 is one educational assistant and then 189 is one position in support of I forget who's that who says that one 189 do you remember Miss okay data clerk at the middle school thank you um salary benefits. Uh, scroll down to 3.99. That's 6,000. That's the K9 service that we use. And then 432 is the library books that they each library gets a lotment for books each year. New books in circulation. And that is a total of 940 925 for regular instruction

093program. Guess one quick question in the the travel portion of there in that um the regular instruction program uh 355 I believe it is. Do we our our librarians that that travel do do they get reimbured for their travel from school to school or is that just for travel for Miss Butch or Miss Fresh and anybody that they go on go to conferences on? So the f the traveling teachers do not get reimbursed in that regard unless they go on a on a specific training u because they go to their work and they work there for two days and they go to the other school and work for two days. So that's considered normal travel for their workday. Um but uh and that's that is for their travel but also Miss Fresh can send teachers

094to to trainings through her funds as well. So we'll send a lot of our lead teachers to some trainings and we'll use those funds to do that. So it's not just for Miss Butcher and Dr. Butcher and Miss Fresh. Okay. Okay. Top of page eight, uh, special ed, special ed program support services, and special ed. Um, 105, supervisor and director. That's the director's salary in line 105. Um, Dr. Davis hopefully will be here Thursday to meet with you all. She's going to be here for a meeting and we're excited to have her coming on board. We miss uh Dr. Thompson already, but we're excited that she's coming on board to join us. Um 124 psychological personnel, that's our school psychologist, 134700. And then there's clerical personnel 162 that's a share of some about four different

095people share some of those funds for the uh sped department um benefits and then moving down to benefits and travel uh other contracted services 39945,000 that's our OTPT services that we contract out and then materials and supplies for a total of 3828.95 Next section, vocational education program 72230. Uh fund 105. That's Lane Ward and his supervisory role. 161 are two positions for secretaries, benefits and travel. And then down at the bottom of that section 499 actually 3.99 other contracted services that's 60,000 is for TCAT. Um it's reimbursement for their teachers that we we share with TCAT 30 and that's a total of that whole program that that line rather is 255 290. How many teachers are through TCA? Do you know Miss Ally? Three or four? Yeah. welding, nursing, and um uh mechatronics. Okay. And

096there might there might be one more. Just one of the nursing though, isn't it? Just Yes. All right. Uh technology 72250. Uh supervisor, that's Ashley Rust is line 105. uh data processing personnel at Starla Dunn's position is 121. Um, we have 189 other salaries and wages. That's two and a half positions uh for support staff or techs benefits and travel consulting fees. Um, 350 uh objects not in use. That that's ENA, right? That's our internet service. uh 399 23,000 is Skyward our student information system 471 the 157,000 157,000 that's software through her program and then uh 245,000 that's the Chromebooks that we purchase through for each incoming eighth grade class is that correct yeah so the eighth graders carry them on through their senior year and then they get to keep them there a cert

097certain rotation for staff computing like every five years you replace it that I think that's coming up or is that did we already address that? I think it's coming up in the budget. Is that in your budget? That's in ours. Yeah, I think I have it marked on here but yes, there's a rotation and um we started doing that. that we felt like similar to mowing and with in the way that we reimburse they have some skin in the game. They take care of the computers and and uh they they try and you know purchase only what they need and uh so that's the way we do it with the schools and we reimburse them a large portion of that. Okay. Um again you'll see that in-n-out this is the expenditure portion of that in-n-out

098oped payment you see right in the middle of page nine that 200,000 for accounting purposes only. And then 73, excuse me, 72310, Board of Education. Um, but line 191 is the whopping salary that you get paid by the county to do this every month. Um, do you want to say something? Oh, you're just clearing your throat. I'm sorry. No, sir. I Okay. I just want to make sure. But I can. No, it's your meeting. I just want to make sure. No, you're you're fine. uh inservice training, uh benefits, travel expenses. Um about middle of that 213 payment to retirees. That's the money we pay. Mr. Mark was talking about uh insurance payments that we make for retired to retirees from our county. Um was that 15 is that the $1,500 that they get until 65,

099right? Yes. 30 more years retiring with us. Yes. question for that. You said 30 or more years. Is that 30 or more years in this particular system or 30 years of service through the state TCRS? If they retire with us as a as a teacher, they don't have to have it all with us. But if they retire as a with 30 years in TCRS, then Okay. with us, then they get that. That was that's what I was wondering. Uh other fringe benefits. Um, that's 25,000 on 299. That's sick leave. What is that, Miss Al? I forgot. Support staff. That's right. If support staff retire with 30 30 years or more of service, then we pay the remaining sick days. So, that's the funds that provided to correct. Thank you. Up to 60 days. [Music] um

100316 contributions that 55,000 that is one half of Yes, Miss Rickby that we split HR with the county. We split that position with with them. Yes. All right. Other uh payments to to trust commissions workman's comp. Uh the last line 533 is for fingerprinting and the total of the board is 718735. All right. Top of page 10. Um director of schools 72 320 101 uh is my salary. Um, I'll let Mr. Let's go up 2%. So, I'll let Mr. Chairman Young speak to that if he wants to. Uh, career ladder program. Actually, uh, if you go down a couple to 183, 189, I'm sorry, 189. That's uh, CEO credit. That's the thousand dollars I get for going to all my trainings, getting at least 10 days worth of training each year. Um, and that's the

101state will pay us $1,000, but we budget for that and then we get reimbured. State um salary benefits rather and travel. Uh there's actually communications fees that's gone up a little bit for phones and computers and my dues for toss or tsba. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory. 188340 for that category. Board members, I I want to provide the same transparency as what uh um our director and Miss Ali providing on this. Um Miss Ally reached out to me and said we need to budget for uh for our director's salary. Um and by contract it's 2 and a half% per year um adjustment. So, uh, needed to put a number in there and for to prepare ourselves for discussion on Thursday night, um, I instructed Miss Ally to put in the number of 120,000. Um, for

102for salary, um, I'll tell you where the logic came came from for coming up with that that number. um that number. reviewed data from the uh 2023 2024 um district, not White County district, but the uh um the district that we're in uh for the state for uh education with Putham County, Cron County, um Warren County, all the way up to Mon County and looked at that uh salaries versus sizes of the school districts and we have been underpaying for the a director position. If we had to go out and hire today a replacement for the director, um that number would be uh the 120 would probably be a starting point um entry if we had to go out and hire today. So basically what I did I took the average of where uh what

103that uh those comparable districts of a size of ours and so figured what that average of those uh of that salary was and added two and a half% per year to that. That's how it came to the uh 120 number. But that's just for your information how that number got there and we can certainly debate that um on Thursday. But I just full transparency wanted to let you know how that number was put in there and it's our our at our discretion what that final number is. We'll we'll review that on Thursday night. Mr. Chairman, one quick question. I know you've done your done your homework on that, but where where does that number fall in line with um all the other districts in the upperland as far as paywise for the director? Are we

104are we in the top third? Are we in the bottom third? Are we in the middle? I'd have to go back and and revisit that. Um Mr. McDonald, what I was trying to look at was average for uh districts comparable to our size. Um there are some districts in some uh systems within our district that have uh um elevated pay scales. I don't know how else to put it. Um not sure how they would justify the u uh the the uh the salary, but you know that's that's they didn't ask me to come down there and give them instru uh input on how they set their director salary. So, um, but I was just going based on what in our district what schools of comparable size and this was based on where it would was

105two years ago and just added that cost of 2 and a half% cost of living adjustment. So, we needed someplace to start. So, Miss Ali asked me for a number. So, that's where I'll end. Thank you. And it's a round number, too, so we can easy for us to remember. All right, Mr. Mr. Chairman, thank you for even considering that. I just want to say the number that I would have budgeted was 107425, which I think is the 2% raise from where I was this year. Um, I appreciate y'all considering that. Um, I will just say I'm very proud to be the director of schools here. Um, the the salary is it's not on par for where it should be. Um but um I don't advocate for myself in that regard very often. But um

106I I'll send you more information than you care to know will look at uh tomorrow on that. But just for an example, you know, last I looked at it, White County is the 62nd 64th largest district in the state of Tennessee out of 147 and my pay is about 120th. So it's it's very disproportionate from where it it it isn't a lot of but as the chairman said those numbers are all over the place. Some of the smaller districts have some really high salaries. I'm not pushing for that. But I I do think that I've done an admirable job. I'll I'll show you the accolades over the past nine years and I'm about to be the longest tenur superintendent in the upper Cumberland. Um because not they don't just stick stick around too long anymore.

107But uh nevertheless I'll give you a bunch of information. I just appreciate you all considering it. And that's just a budgetary number that the uh chairman put in there and it's not my ask but u I appreciate y'all considering it. Um if I could just board members just a reminder I mean this is this is a line a budget line item that we do have more input on than others. So just give that some consideration look uh look over and then just be prepared to uh be prepared that we spend some time on that uh subject on Thursday. Thank you. I had a director just recently call me from another district that's about half our size saying, "I need you to help me with my budget talks." And I said, "You make a lot more

108money than I do. You maybe you need to help me." But anyway, nevertheless, thank you all for your consideration. Um, okay. Middle of page 10, uh, 72410, office of the principal 104, our principles or eight principles, head principles, $665,500. Um, we have 119, three accountants or bookkeepers that are in that number there. 139, assistant principles, 53, 535,000. There's eight of those assistants. Line 161, there's eight secretaries accounted for in that number. Salaries, excuse me, benefits. And then the bottom um 307 in that line is communication or 60,000. That's for phone bills. Yes, the high schools is about a thousand a month, I think. Cell phones as well. No. Uh they have cell phones as well, but is that in there? Is that where you take that? But they pay that out of their Yeah. for

109us. And they pay that internally. They reimburse us. Okay. 72510, bottom of page 10, fiscal services. Uh 105, that's Miss Alli's position 161, uh secretaries at the BOE, and that's 162 also for clerical. Some benefits in there. Um 316 contributions, that's our accountant fees, some travel, office supplies, and Um that's that total number in that category is 241070 top of page 11. Mr. D, if I could just uh just for for second on that contributions um 13,000. Did I hear you correctly? Is that accountants? Is that when they do our annual audit or the school audit? Is that you? Finance department. Okay. All right. Our contribution for you providing your physical services. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. Is there like some special contracts like 100 day contracts? Like where do some of those?

110Yeah, they'll they're coming up. We just have a you just a few and they're like 40 days. I think we had three people doing 120 days total. So each one was doing about 40 days and we'll get to that just a little bit but and we speak of it now but when we get there um like Miss Markham comes in and we when we work through monitoring she was very helpful through monitoring and they in fact she was just here this past week they were doing a lot of uh monitoring or inventories for federal checking all the barcodes taking all that out she could go to one school felt was at another and uh very helpful so Mr. Lynn helps us with a lot of uh curriculum. He does some observations for us and a

111lot of spreadsheet work with our data when it comes in. Um talking Steve Wilson, oh yeah, he's on that contract as well with the hint mowing service. He took that over and he left the middle school as an as an vice principal. But I missed they were in the teacher category, so I skipped over that. Oh, I had that noted on it. Coach Crane as well. Yeah, those are all part-time people. Um, okay. Operation of plant middle of page 112610 uh 166 line that's for 38 cons custodial personnel 1,245500 uh 189 uh that's mowing services. Is that correct? Oh, that's Roger's position. I'm sorry. Yeah, Mr. Rogers the work that supervises our custodians. I apologize. Um, sorry, benefits. Um, moving down, you see middle of that. So, we have our utilities, electricity, natural gas, water,

112and sewer. Um, I think we're leaving pretty similar numbers budgeted. Is that right? For next year, Miss Ally, similar to what we did this past year. We had money left over in those categories, so we didn't raise those. and building contents and insurance 313300 total that category is 3,331,960. Okay. Maintenance of plant um bottom of page 11 167 that is five maintenance personnel and some lawnmowing people. We pay extra for some folks to mow for us. Um, salary benefits, pest control. Scrolling down here, $4.99. Um, that's mowing. Is that correct? Okay. Yeah. 499 other supplies and materials. Just beneath that, 599 other charges, 185,000. That's materials and supplies for the maintenance department. All the gadgets and glue and wood and things that they need. um septic tank money and maintenance equipment $225,000 and that total

113is $814,175 for maintenance plan 72710 this is middle top third of page 12 Transportation 105, that's uh Randy Alli's line item for his salary. 142 is for our two mechanics. 146 is 825,000 for 35 bus drivers. 162 I think that's uh Roy Summers receptionist secretary at bus garage. 189 other salaries and wages 95,000. Those were our bus attendants that ride the buses. And then we have lots of benefits. Diesel fuel, garage supplies. We go up on fuel much, Miss Alley. Yes, we are getting what? We get two propane buses. Three. Oh, yeah. Three. We get three. And we're we should as part of grant program and we should be getting reimbursed basically for one. So we're buying three for the price of two is basically so that line on the very bottom of that category

114transportation equipment line 729 at 466500 that is for three buses. U they're very expensive. They're $150,000 now that the ones that we buy with little all they have is a little storage underneath uh and the cameras. Um, they're good buses. They're the extended long nose buses, but did I hear you correct that they run on propane? They do run on propane, the three that we're purchasing. So, we as part of a grant program that we've been hearing a lot about, you know, a lot of green energy pro programs and u we've had a lot of folks reach out to us about electric. I'm not sold on the electric just yet. I really just from a safety standpoint. I could be proven wrong, but if you've ever YouTube those batteries going up, they catch fire in

115an instant. Um, the propane ones are very safe. Um, I feel like they they can travel a little bit longer distance. And uh, that's the other thing about the electrics is you don't want to get them too far out of town and you can't send them on long trips and things like that. So, propane's a little bit different. So, uh, we will have a little expense to put in. We budgeted for the propane um, tank that we'll have to put in to fill them up. We're excited to get a little bit greener fleet going. So, we are purchasing three propane buses. Question would be where will we be buying propane locally or will it be coming in on a rail or what what's the how's that work? I think the plan is to purchase it

116locally, but you'll have to have it we have to have a tank on our facility, a pump station at our facility. All right. 7300 73 0000 sorry bottom of page 12 operation of non-instructional food service. Don't have to go through all of that because you went through the food service budget already. Um we do have um sorry 73300 community services uh 189 that's Beverly Drumar is that correct? Yeah, that's her salary. Uh benefits, travel. Uh the bottom of that $599, there's $11,000 for food and clothes for the food pantry and clothes closet that she operates. Total $88,80 in community service. 73400 early childhood education line 116. Uh that is for five prek teachers, 325,400. Uh we get grant funds for five preks we run seven and so we yeah right and we we addressed those

117in the regular teacher category earlier but so um educational assistance 163 there's $172,000 to cover those then we have benefits instructional supplies so total of that category is 608261 So you mentioned that two or five were two two of them. Well, no. We operate more more teachers more preks than we get funding for. So some of those are paid for through u how many are there? Five that we get enough money to run five. So we budget this money but we get funded we get funded for these five for these five under this category we'll get re reimburseed funding for that from the state that revenue for reimbursement reflected in the revenue section. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Sorry, that's confusing. And most of these programs, as what we talked almost about food service earlier, is that

118eventually we can't fund it anymore with the original funding. So, we have to pull funding from over here and we pull funding from over here. We have people that have to account for how many hours a day they spent paid out of this fund and then how much they spent out of this fund and do a PARS report. Um, it's just and prek is like that. We pay for some of it out of the grant and then we pay some of it locally. And I've specifically asked how much money is in there in that base for coordinate school health and they can't tell you. So I specifically asked that question but they won't they can't tell you. So more to come on then. All right. Um, we have some engineering capital outlay bottom of page

11913. Uh, 76000, $20,000 for engineering services. Um, you have a list on your notes, your kind of cheat sheets of expenditures of what the capital outlay projects are. They have a total of $616,000 this year. That's about a that's over $100,000 less than what we budgeted last year. Um, we didn't address every need or concern that that parent principles had, but we tried to address address some critical ones. And um, as we said before, we'll need to meet as the board would consider it this uh, fall or maybe this summer rather uh, at a retreat and discuss our capital improvements plan and what directions they what board might like to go. Some big ticket items over the next five to seven years. So that brings us to the total estimated U expenditures for 42,324,421. Um

120that's a deficit of $4.2 million. It's similar to what we've done in the past. It's certainly more than what we'd like it to be, but as I said, the revenues, as you see, are few and the expenditures are many. We we're seeing increases in uh our salaries and benefits and we want to support our our staff, but that's our most costly um expenditure and as utilities go up and materials and supplies and you all shop the same place as I do, everything's gone up and u it's getting more and more challenging. Uh we've lost many students as I've said over the years um to homeschooling and unschooling and um you know every everyone now with this this funding model is is money and so we're okay right now. I think financially I think our budget

121is it's it's high uh but I think it's doable. We've not added as you see there's no new programs there's no new positions. I've tried to be very conservative as far as going into this uh this mindset of of where we are financially in this day and age, but um there's going to have to be some serious decisions made um amongst the local funding body and uh within the school board about positions and and programs moving forward. Um, just like as we discussed in u federal, excuse me, our cafeteria budget, something's going to have to change that turn the tide at some point and some we have to make some difficult decisions, but confident in this budget and the program we have going very proud of our school system. Uh, I'll send you some information

122u not this evening, first thing tomorrow, but our school system has achieved much in in the past several years. I we have so much to be proud of. We rank very highly in not just the upper Cumberland, but in the state of Tennessee. Um, our scores are very good. Um, it is not perfect by any means. We have lots of problems and there's not a perfect school system out there, but this one you can be very proud of. Uh, your this tax money is going to good use and students are being educated well and uh, and we're recognized across the state for for doing a good job. So, appreciate the opportunity to share this budget with you. I guess I have one quick question, Mr. Markham. This may be for you. Um, last year during

123this time, we we had we talked about a $3 million deficit. Um, I think around a three million, 2.9, 2.8 to3.2 million deficit at this time last year. Uh, we're at 4.2 this year. But um are we how much are we putting back into our fund balance as far as money going back into savings? I know we, you know, we said we were going to be in a deficit, but it looks like we're adding money back. So, can you give us that number or do you know that number off right off now? But for the 23 24 school year, so the last fiscal year that we closed out, we had transferred some funds into school federal projects funded. If we hadn't done that, we would have roughly added about $2 million to our fund balance.

124This year, I mean, we're we're kind of on the same trajectory, but um we don't have all the things closed out there and and and are a little bit hesitant in that regard to give you a number. Okay. Well, I mean, and the reason I'm asking that is because, you know, if we we always seem to have a deficit in our budget, I I like the fact that we that we shoot high, but our people do a great job as far as cutting costs where they can. You know, the lighting project that's that's went on across the uh the county. um all of the projects that have happened. Uh we've done a good job as far as being very um good with our money. Our folks have, you know, we asked, we asked last year,

125we asked for people to be very mindful of what uh what they were spending and and what they were, you know, what they were doing. It looks like it's paid off in the long run. And and I appreciate Mr. see you uh keeping on those folks and and um doing what we've asked you to do as as far as as a board um to add money back in a very tough economy. I mean, this is probably been one of the toughest economies that we've we've been in in the last three, four, five years and I just appreciate that. Thank you. I guess clarification that maybe Mr. Mark, the uh the fund balance on the last page is 11.8 million, but in the last report that you provided in April, it was 19.6. What's the difference

126between Mr. Mark, the report you provide to us versus what we're seeing in front of us here? So, where you where you see there, that was where we were at at that point in the fiscal year. we have some backendheavy expenditures whether that be payroll or something like that. So that'll draw down on that. This right here uh would have been um as of I'm thinking the end of 24. So but that's going to be like a timing difference there. I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. So last year we approved a negative3 million and something dollar budget. This year it's negative4.2 million. Am I reading it correctly? That's correct. That number the second to the last number on the page 14 at four 4,225,869. I do have a question about so

127the new position at the high school. I think I may have been reading something and miss what you said earlier because we've got that and we've got the new position that was created for the vice principal at Finley. So yeah, that's good good question. So the principal at vice principal at Finley was already an interim position and so we just made it permanent. So it's really not a new ad as far as that goes. So salary pretty much stayed the same. Yes, very close. Very close. Um um so that was kind of a wash. So it wasn't really new. The new position we had a we have a fantastic graduation coach at White County High School. She does an incredible job. very important to our success rate as far as graduation goes and that was

128a statef funded program that was cut and so I have I have in our best interest put that one position in our budget but we're working very closely with the AIS foundation and I'm hoping uh that they're going to choose us I'm very um optimistic that they are uh but we don't know yet but if they do they're going to come in with two curriculum co or graduation coaches and a secretary that they pay for so that money would come out. So that is the only thing that I've added uh in this budget other than the normal uh payraises. So, you know, that's what I want to point out. I recognize too that increase in that budget. But it isn't because we've added anything. It's just everything costs more. You know, we we've increased salaries

129and we're trying to be uh fair to our employees and we're trying to pay we're having to pay the going rate for what everything costs. Uh but that's that's what it's gone up. It's not because we've added. I've even reduced, like I said, our capital outlay budget and tried to find places to to cut back. So, um, but yeah, but thank you for asking about this. No, I mean, I get it. I just feel like our people in our county is fixing to be hit hard and I feel like we need to try to save as much as we can, you know, because we've got elderly people out there that's fixing to have a really hard time. Yeah. Well, I can tell you in the nine years that I'm doing this that I've been doing

130this, I've never asked the county for any extra money. I we take exactly what they have to give us by law at the at and by the maintenance of effort. I've never asked the the taxpayers for any more money. So, um we've operated within our means and I can plan to continue to do that and u but that that shows in this budget. I was cognizant of the fact that even though everything was going up, we're going to have to pay more. I didn't add a lot of other stuff that would have been on top of what we what we have what the cost of business is. So, quick question on the the heirs foundation. You were talking about that program. Um I think it's benefited several counties around us uh in a great way.

131Um Miss Rushing is being our graduation coach at the high school has done a fantastic job. Will is that something that would we get to keep her there in that position or is that something that would be totally up to that foundation? It it it is up to them. it's their employee, but that she's already interviewed with them and I've told them if if they don't come to us, they still better hire her because she's fantastic. So, um, but yes, she's I think she's already interviewed with them, and our hope is that, uh, they they obviously want to place people that know us and know our our situation. So, I think that would be a no-brainer on their part. But, we're very hopeful that, uh, we had a good visit with them. We're very hopeful

132that they will they'll choose us. And once they come in, they're there forever. So, they're as long as their foundation exists, they're there. So, it's it's a big deal. Um, so we're hoping, but we did budget for her a salary because we want to keep her if we can. Okay. Um, any other questions for director on the proposed budget that we've been presented with tonight? It It's not a question. It's a It's a Thank you. Um, and I'll I'll speak for our other two new members. This has been very enlightening and I appreciate the level of detail that's been provided by everybody tonight. So, thank you. Thank you. Awesome job, Miss Ally. I love our papers this time. Yeah, Miss Allie, the the cheat sheets u I know you and Mr. He put some effort

133in that and uh cheat sheet the uh information you sent to us Saturday about how we read these uh these budget because when you don't look at them once a year um especially the first time you see it um it can be a little bit overwhelming if you're not of of an accounting background. So um all right so so I'm going to tell you where I think we are um in this uh in this discussion. So, we've gone through our our budget and that's that's been proposed to us and it is an increase of uh of uh from where what was proposed last year. Just put it in perspective. Um Mr. D was talking about u about where uh the difference between this coming year's budget versus one that we're in right now. Um last

134year we proposed uh we passed a budget was a proposal for 2425 of 41 million uh $41 million. Um it's been amended since then to uh 42 million. That would include monies coming in various funds and the uh expenses that they were uh that would uh be offset with that revenue. Um what we're being presented with for 2526 your fiscal year 26 um is 42.3%. So just in perspective, my calculations, I'm not an accountant, but it's uh our amended budget for this year versus our proposed budget for next year is an increase of about a half a percent. So, and I asked Mr. D to look at that uh with me tonight before meeting and just he he he agreed that it was close. Uh so just to put in perspective where we're spending now

135versus what's been presented to us uh that we'll consider on Thursday, there is about a half a percent difference between the two numbers. So um what I have on unless somebody caught something that I did not um you have the information uh presented on the budget proposal have another couple days to look at it. Um, two items that I've noted that we need to uh consider or it would be would be considered on Thursday night is that uh bonus of non-licensed staff and Mr. D is going to get us all cost on that what that would look like. Um, and then uh director salary. So, those are the two things that I've have down that we uh that we would uh need to address in this in this budget that that's been discussed tonight. So,

136be prepared to speak on that Thursday night. You recall if I missed anything? No, I think it's great. Okay, that's what I had. All right, that's so that's that's what I had. So, um, if no other questions on our, uh, budget, uh, proposals, then we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, and that's review of the AIA contract for classroom additions at Bondi uh, duel duel elementary. So there is in your uh your folder for uh that for tonight's meeting copy of the industry standard AIA contract between uh owners and contractors. And this is a contract uh document that was submitted um for the additions to uh to the dual elementary school. Um it was a bid and uh that was run through by uh uh by the county that was put out

137by the county and uh Mr. Markham was was part of that. uh Midstate Construction Company out of Livingston was the uh was the bid winner and with a uh with a sum of uh 1.74 million for the uh for the for the renovations. So this contract is in your in in your folder. Uh what has what uh Mr. has has uh brought to my attention said that if we if we approve this in our special meeting um coming up this Thursday that would give the contractors two extra weeks to get get started on the work um might help them given you know some of the weather we've had and have a couple couple weeks buffer. So uh that was at the request of Mr. Markham if we if we uh want to consider that Thursday

138night uh during our regular SK scheduled meeting um it'll be on the agenda so we can uh we can bring it up at that time if uh if we want to go on and and uh approve that contract. So uh keep that in mind as we prepare for uh prepare for our meeting on Thursday. Um anything you like to speak to that that anything needs to be added? Just want to note I mean this addition is seven classrooms and some storage to the front of the school. It'll look very similar to where it way it looks now. We're just bringing because what you're looking at from the playground is a hallway and so we're just building rooms on the other side of that hallway. Um give them very much needed space to do all the

139u spreading out they need to do. uh they're crammed in with they're a little bit bigger than Northfield at this point and uh so we're looking for space that they don't have space to do all the RTI and tutoring that's mandated throughout the day. They're in closets and on top of each other. So this will give them that space. So excited about it. Um it is $1.7 million that would come out of our fund balance that come out of our savings account. So it wouldn't affect this budget. Uh but we feel confident in what we've been contributing as I've talked to Mr. remark and what we've been able to contribute back to savings over the years that this is a doable project and won't put us in any financial harm. Um very much needed uh

140for them to have the room to do the program the way it needs to be done at Doyle and one we're excited about doing. So uh we've worked with Midstate. They're the ones that did the Bondra edition. So we we've had a really good relationship with them and uh excited to work with them again. And if the board would entertain it, it would just allow us. We can certainly put it off till June, but uh we wanted to the board to consider it because it will give them opportunity to get started and uh get going as soon as possible. One quick question and and Chad, this may be a question for you as well. Um going ahead and locking this bid in now. Um is there contingency building this with the aspects of tariffs and

141and all the things and price increase? Is there contingency built into that? Um, and is there a possibility this could come in under budget? So, uh, there are contingency funds in that contract. Uh, but what they bid is they're locked into. So, um, no more. I mean, we it won't cost us any more than that. No, I mean, unless they run unless we found some huge issue that run through our contingency and and uh and we had to do something else with unless there's some endanger endangered uh endangered frog or something or bats or something down there. Change orders, right? Yeah, we've done some subsurface observations work and and everything seems to be good in that regard. So, we don't see that being an issue, but they've been locked in to their to their pricing

142and they'll submit a schedule of values that shows all that stuff. So, I know just being on the property down there and looking at at where that's all going to go. I mean, it's going to look nice. Uh, but you know, it's taking out that that basketball court that's been there for years. Are they just going to move stuff out to make room for those kids to still have because I know they've added um 30 minutes of recess time to the state has mandated u time for recess now. So that's is that going to be I mean are they going to fix the playground back like it is now or will that be? So one of the things we we'll do at the end of the project like at the end we had some we're

143going to try and have some money left over and like we did the sign at Bondicoft with money that was left over. So what we plan to do at at Doyle is to uh put a walking track um through through that area. They will lose that pavement area where the basketball is now, but we're gonna work our plan is to work with the city to reallocate that to make the basketball area where there is a pavement area over the corner now tennis court. Sure. And so we're going to have a basketball area there and then we're going to join that with a walking trail uh to give them an area. That's something that the principal said and it still gives them a little bit of grassy area in the front uh to do to play

144and then of course when they do field day they have lots of space in the back if they go out back and do that. The only thing that scares me with that campus is that terrible curve right there where that b where that old tennis court is. You know, there's not as much traffic on that road now, but there's still a lot of heavy equipment that comes through going to that rock quarry. So, um that just scares me, those kids being that close to that road. But if that's what we got to do, that's what we got to do, you know. Yeah, they're out there every day. I I agree with you. It's a it's a dangerous road, but I mean there's not as many in that corner perhaps. But um but yeah, but it

145it's not going to take up too much space, but it it is going to come out 30 feet from where it is now and roughly. Thank you. All right. Any other questions about the um contract for uh bill edition? Okay. If not, then we'll move on to next time agenda is public comment. And there no one asked to be recognized tonight. So that leads us into the final agenda items on our on our agenda. Uh there's no new business on our agenda. There's no old business. And that brings us to chairman's comments. So our next budget our next meeting will be here at VOE. Um Thursday the 29th. That will be our budget meeting where we will take action on the proposed budget and that will be here at BOE. And then our next regular

146scheduled schoolboard meeting will be June 12th and that will also be here at BOE as will all meetings going forward unless otherwise advised. So uh those are chairman's comments. So next item is uh uh is going to be adjournment. Before I take a moment, Mr. McDonald. Um, just again want to thank everybody for being here um and staff for for uh accommodating us tonight and for giving us a little uh nourishment to uh uh to sustain us through this uh this meeting. But appreciate all the work and with that I will take so move. Second. All in favor? I All right. Thank you.