001[Music] me. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hello. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] I would like to call the meeting to order and acknowledge some water school district sits on the ancestral lands of the squali island people. I thank these caretakers for the land who have lived on and continue to live on the land since memorial. Please rise as hikes. It is time for our swearing in of our new elected board member. So have our four electric board members come up please. Do you want them all to have a microphone? Maybe you don't need to so loudly at the same time but just have
002it there. No, I don't think it matters. All right, we're going to do this all together. So you all Okay. I state your name. I Do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States? Sir. Okay. Raise your right hand. Yes. Say, I state your name. I will solemnly swearly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States. I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington. that I will faithfully and impartially perform that I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge the duties of the office of school board director and discharge the duties of the office of school board director director and state your district
003of the water school district number 33 according to law of the water school district and to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability congatulations questions. [Applause] You got the photo out that you need. You're good. All right. Oh, you want to do that right away with because you have some obviously some special. Can you take a recess? Is that in the agenda? Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] They're working with Ukraine and Russia reported more than 200 facilities in Russia and occupied Ukraine. Next, we will move on to the board officer elections. the office of presidents. I will now accept nominations for the role of board president. I'm not a second investigation of Casey Baylor and are there any other nominations? State law. Are
004there any other nominations? Are there any other nominees? Go ahead, Kevin. So, we'll take a roll. July station. Yeah. No, I think my station I'm writing fishing. Yeah, I just I share the concern about humans were farming well over 200 biologist domestication. farming industry. Well, for contion Go ahead. Take a little cold. I'm director beard director. Director Taylor, Taylor, Director Watts. The motion is Casey Taylor. Now we move on to election of vice president. Accept nomination of the role of vice president. nominate because second problems over the previous century over fishing, industrial pollution, clim Are there any nominations to vice presidental? We will now take go ahead roll. Is there any discussion the nomination presidented? I think everyone take a roll call vote. Director Warner says thank you director director Taylor. to the US. The
005motion is passed and serve as the role of vice president until December 22 election. I will now accept nominations for the role of legislator legislative representative. iotics are known as anybody on the board. Is there a second decades amongst except the nomination of Casey Taylor. Are there any other nominations for legislative treatious diseases? Are there any other nominations? farmers. All those in favor, Jason Taylor serving in the role of legislative representative, please say I. All those opposed. Motion passed and Casey Taylor will serve the role of legislators until December 2026. Next, we move on to the agenda discussion and approval. Superintendent Bogan. Any changes to the agenda since it was public? No changes. in the second half of the show. All those in favor of modifying the agenda as presented say Imon. All those opposed.
006The agenda will proceed as published. All those published origin. The minutes from the November 6th meeting have been distributed to the board. Are there any changes or corrections? All those in favor passing the minutes say I. All those opposed. Now move consent agenda. The items on the consent agenda have been provided to the board. Are there any questions for discussion? All those in favor of approving the consent agenda as presented say I. All those opposed. Next we will move to student report. will start. Good evening everyone. Today I'll be representing the student populace of Black Hills High School. And this month's topic was what barriers social or cultural or systematic uh prevent students from seeking or accessing mental health supports? What ideas do students have to create a more mental mentally supportive school uh courses?
007Okay, to start off, fortunately, the general student consensus was positive towards this month's question. Most students thought that they faced no significant barriers that prevented them from seeking help in their school. Therefore, this month's report is fairly concise. However, there are a few points that students brought up that I want to highlight. First off, almost all students said that they did not feel discriminated against in any sort of way by teachers or administrators of black folks. When talking about sensitive topics in the classroom, students reported that teachers do a good job in creating a safe space for discussion. Additionally, students frequently responded that they would consider places such as the counseling office and clubs when they needed mental health support. Also, most students stated that they have both peers and trusted staff members whom they
008can go for uh for help. A pattern I recognized was many students said that they would not consider the counseling center as a resource where they could ask for help. Specifically, they felt uncomfortable sharing some issues with counselors who were not their own. Thankfully, most of these students replied that there were other staff members whom they could trust and were comfortable seeking help from them. Overall, the Blackfield student body for the most part unanimously agreed that they did not face major major hurdles if they wanted to seek mental health from their school. Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the board. I represent Cascadia High School. This topic is honestly a difficult one to speak on. So I ask for your grace and patience. In the feedback I have received from the students, a wide majority
009feel like mental support is difficult because of the funding and judgment. A lot of students have expressed the concern for bullying or judgment that they have received in the past for personal hesitation based on their own memorization of their feelings comparison to others. A few students mentioned that they either feel like they haven't heard this mindset of therapy being for the weak or lesser people as in people who can't deal with their own problems. This mindset is one of the most damaging to hold. It can discourage the help of yourself and others. Mainly, the biggest thing was being thought of differently by their peers and breaking the social mask they hold for comfort. Some feel that it can be overwhelming to talk about it and open those doors back up compared to just ignoring it
010and leaving it in the past. A student feels this is more internal problem with people consistently minimizing their struggles and their mindset of their problems aren't big enough to seek help. It is hard to recommend those people for therapy or mental health because it can be quite invasive or offensive if you're in a position that is systematically above them like a teacher or a principal. On the topic of improving school supportive culture, I had a few students who had ideas. Those were the students and teacher had more opportunity to connect and have a better understanding where they are coming from. Uh those students explained the introduction of new clubs and students to connect rather than clubbased activity. Lastly, a student recommended there to be a peer-to-peer support system or a group that can be run.
011Their idea was students would be more interested in this rather than talking to a therapist or a teacher based on their understanding from being in a similar situation, recommending training sessions for the students who are interested in helping. I personally agree with this recommendation. Uh this can help students have a feeling of support from their peers and ultimately create a closer school community and culture. I also put out an extra question based on the problems with the school and its culture in general. students feel the school does not get adequate amount of funding resulting in a lack of resources for the school. For example, there have been a few students that had mentioned that they had food that was expired before they could even get to it resulting in more of a negative view of
012the school principal. Thank you. questions. I'll move on to public comment. There is no public comment. So I don't have to read. Now we move on to reports to the board and statistics the director of financial services will provide a financial services around conducted designed to figure out whether it's exciting to have you on the board now and so we're just gonna jump right and give you all kinds of information this evening. Um so our first report is the November enrollment report in October finances. Um so this is the board or the slide that we look at every month um comparing enrollments. And I just wanted to take a minute for the new board members to kind of share why um enrollment is so important to look at and why our our school or our
013district is a little different in that we have um a couple different pockets of um enrollment that makes the overall enrollment look steady and flat. But um we're actually increasing, but we um really have to look at K12 specifically because that's exactly what um funds our um funds the district. Um the area up above in the graph is the the K12 um which which generates revenue for the district with our um so the two areas that are are actually up in um contract to budget and up over the year are both running start and um new market which is great. They're both great programs, but um those specific programs won't generate a district. So, I try to separate those out so you can really look at um where we're at as far as um enrollment,
014revenue, and aortionment projection. So, um we are down um 71 from budget. Um at the end of last year we um we had a um an aft um that we actually decreased by 40 um from for our budget and um so we're you know you can see that we're significantly down we're generating less revenue throughout the year. Are there questions about in this facility. Maybe just for the newer members, we did increase some of our budget. Correct. Yes, we did increase both brand and I believe we're we increased start I think by 25 and by 20 in our budget and we're um we haven't quite met budget in anything but we've definitely exceeded it in start and so help me with the you said the the revenue coming in is related to K2. So what
015do those numbers mean if they're above budget or below budget as far as finances are concerned? Um so we receive we receive a portionment for every student of our full one FTE that we um that is enrolled and so if if budget is um if we're not receiving as many and enrollment is down then we're receiving less portion each each month. But that's K through 12, right? That's 12. I'm asking what what the numbers mean financially above K through 12. Okay. Yes. So we are paid specifically for running start and um new market but running start is just a flow through. So we receive money from the state for those students and then we pay the um these schools directly. So they invoice us for those students and there's about 5% admin um and direct
016for that but most of that money just goes directly to the colleges um and then has their own um funding source and they their own um balance sheet that they and we'll go into that a little bit more as we get when we're talking about the school budget we're talking about the 71 less students below budget are the only thing that affect us financially Well, there's there's a twist. Can I add a twist to it? If kids are going to start going market, they're not staying with us. So that's kind of the twist in the right. So the K12 enrollment is important to us. That's what our operation but but when when our kids are going out to market which is not a problem but if we haven't budgeted that correctly that's also where okay
017itffects our budget. Right. So if those 71 kids are in running start, we've lost the financing for 71 kids. So if you look at is this fair to say there if you look at the the budget for start we're up over budget by 39. Correct. Yeah. And I think we've seen I've seen New Market added um a new a pre-electrical pre-electrical program as part of their trade program that program is like predominantly um under school district students like it's just this I think nature of new program it's close by so we have more students that and I don't think we present like those are those are things that from a district perspective I don't think we necessarily thought that would occur. Um but we have Just look at by number that mean market we have
018by far the largest number of any of the 13 school districts that serve go to New Market we have the largest and it's again I think it's a proximity thing it is literally across the street from high school and down the road from Black Hills so and in the backyard of Cascadia so a lot of Cascadia students also participate at e market so there's a you know again proximity these are a lot of kids in there are t the lives here enables that experience of those programs. So, we just need to make sure that we are adequately budgeting for that and I think it's been a bit of a challenge recently and again we we saw our kindergarten numbers drop and you'll see that probably slide here. So, we're seeing some of these different patterns
019show up but this is one that we're definitely paying attention to and I was having conversations about how can we maybe recapture some of that and give it during budget. We ask, you know, New Market gives us their budget. We um they they do their own projections and again, you know, the migration of the of the students to those new programs that was, you know, it's hard to know or you know, that wasn't included in their projection. So, um from the start, we get the numbers also from our council office and and we we do our best to to protect those numbers and did increase them considerably. So it would be fair to say [Music] um you know, they're some of them are going to other online schools, some are transferring to neighboring schools, and
020they're they're not all just transferring to start or um or any other. What you're saying is the the 6566 total budget and the 6551 number that we're at in November, that's only 15. That's 15 students. That's not so we've lost 71 students where dollars are attached to them and we've lost 15 Did you have a question? I was just gonna ask if you were gonna show us our budget or Yes, I know. Yes. So, um here we have five different funds. Um we'll just kind of break down for October. Um for this is our general fund. Um we have an ending fund balance of 5.5 million. um that is um you know October to we have our our tax banks that all come in October. So we have a really high um revenue collection in
021October and um we're in our next our next presentation we're going to go into just our cash flow and our our um our cash balances so you kind of get an idea of what we've been dealing with with our inner fund loans for the new um for the new board members. Want to make sure understand just where we're at with our crash. Um and so our our ending fund balance right now is is steady, but that um that goes quickly um with a a large payroll that we we go through every single month. So um our ending fund our next uh our next fund here is uh capital projects. So we have a fund balance of 12.5 right now. the small projects that are done each month. Um and um this is where we'll get
022our interference in debt service and that will net 127 will actually decrease when we make our payments next month on our bonds. This is how we pay our bond payments next year. And then our ASB um 1 million very helping fund bonds for our ASB. We've restructured how we're paying some bills to the general fund and ASV. So, we're going to see how that goes this year, but they have contin. And that is um we just received um well, we paid for two and a half buses. Two buses in one of our buses are also um and we have a few more that will um basically eat up all of that forward this year for artificiation um in September questions about I can say we have five funds we also have a private purpose fund
023which I don't usually um have a slide on that those are um the private purpose is usually like our scholarships and kind of assistance that you um and so we don't typically report on that. We have about 265,000 we do report on that year questions. Just a quick question. Sorry. Let's say that let's say that we were at budget. What would our what would our ending fund balances at the moment? Okay. I want to state for the record office. Thank you. I really appreciate that. It was true. Yeah. And and over financial services. All right. So this is our year end finance report. Um we submit our year end the end of October of the year to ESD and then the ESD into OSPI. So this is just a breakdown of where where we landed
024at the end of the year. So as I mentioned we have these five funds that um the end of um at the end of the year in general fund we had a balance of 3.2 million. So you can see there that we ate into our full fund balance um of about 3.3 million this year and that's really we started the year at 6.6 million and um this is one reason why we had to eliminate um um go through the the processes just to start adding back into that fund balance. Um, so this is a a look at each month or each year over um you can see that in 2023 just off the up at 11.1 million um and then dropped down to 4.5 um for that the beginning of the year of what happened
025this last year at um 6.6. So taking those additional measures to um the budget was um was very needed and to have those um have that have that planned in place so that we can add that into that fund is really important to do that. There is a few different ways that you know we have that 3.2 million, but it's really important. One thing I really wanted to explain is the different pockets of that 3.3. It's not it's not all um actual cash for the district. Um and this is something that's very important to understand. So there's this it's separated out into four different sections where the district has um carryover funds that we actually we actually can't it's not a discretionary fund we can't spend um it's money that we've received from the state
026that we haven't actually spent in that category. So we carry that over um and we have to reserve that leave that in fund balance um the other 3.8 86,000. That's the other um non-spendable fund which is um things like uh inventory at the end of the year um or you know what we have in our freezers, commodities, that kind of thing. It's an asset to the district but it's not actually cash that we can spend. Um the other area is our reserve um reserve fund balance which is a 1.9 which is the reserve for skill center. So they as I was mentioning earlier they actually carry their own um their own balance and receive their own approximate for their FT and then have their own expenses. So at the end of this year they had
027a 1.1 million balance. So the majority of our 3.2 million that's in the bank is actually um so the unassigned fund balance which is the actual cash that is ours that we um are working to increase based on all of the um all of the changes that we made this this last year is currently at that 603 the 63,000 so um that is what our funds that we need to um to work to increase Any questions about that? If I understand of the 3.3 million only roughly. So why do we do it that way? Why don't we just have a fund balance of 63,000 other than money somewhere else? So the state actually dictates that we need to report it this way um and we have to keep new markets separate for um we have
028to account for separately. Absolutely. Um sometimes we say well separate balance sheet for separate organization you know in terms of the law and the way that OSPI reports us and if you look at any book they just regard the as a school and then some of our school districts. So they show up in all of our financials like that. So we separate them out so that there's clarity and transparency. But if any member of the public goes to the OPL website, pulls up their financials, pulls up enrollment, it will include all the enrollment for every grade of the skill center, it will include all the revenue, all the expenditures. So they're separate um in the sense that they have a a dedicated fund balance, but they are part they're legally part of our school district.
029So therefore, we're obligated to include them in all of our financial system. So you have to kind of have both ideas that we have. They're part of us, but they're separate. I said this is a little bit of a shift just since I've been here because I think when I first the first budget representing and kind of some you know some of our staff that have been around a number of years they were not presenting it the way that we're presenting it today. So biggest been the shift around being much more transparent around where the money is and what and who it belongs to and part of it is as we build in we have a policy for an income balance of 6%. Historically, I think the district has seen this this fund as 6%
030even though it says and I think we it might be a policy for us to look at down the road. Um because it does say to remove all of those and the 6% should be without these different buckets, but that was not how the district kind of perceived that in their prior. So I think we're shifting towards that as we're rebuilding the fund balance now. But again, it still counts. So again, it's a matter of how we want to look at it moving forward, but we'll take a look at that policy again. Sorry, I know you were. Um, so just to be clear, uh, you're saying this before, but the policy as it stands right now that 63,000 blue should be 6%. I believe that's that is what it says. unappropriate says something like I
031have the policy offices accordingly the district adopts his policy in regards to those portions of fund balance that are in vendor form that are not legally restricted as to their use outside so I a little confusing I was going to suggest maybe we work to make it clear for staff I think what I what I hear I agree with is we want to make sure that we are building the blue bar and not trying to count. So you were just reading that definition. You were talking about the blue bar. Well, I think they I I think we tried to a few years ago try to get to talking about the bar% because I think the funds that we're talking about up there are all spendable. Yeah. um they're not restricted in that manner and we
032sort of do spend them on paper, right? Like but they also belong to New Market. So if New Market says I want my $2 million, they're going to get their $200 and we will not have it. Um it's it's definitely some again it is definitely work that we're we're well aware that issue and I think our goal is to build the new bar to% expend the current current expend you have a plan. We're getting there. These next few slides, um, I'm not going to go specifically into them, but this is just how we our expenditure is broken out by object. you know, between our salaries and and benefits, supplies, for services, travel. You break all those out and look at those every month. 82% of our expense is compensation related. So, our largest expense is
033people. Um our revenues um we receive three types of revenues between local, federal and state. So as I mentioned earlier um cash flow is a a big concern. We need to make sure that we have enough cash in the bank at the end of each month to um to pay our bills and make payroll. Um you start with a lower fund balance. You don't have a lot in the bank and so you have to really watch that closely. September um this September was the lowest cash balance we've had ever um $270,000 in the bank. Um you know we like I said we receive our October uh tax payment in October. So that does spike up quickly there. But um when there's not a lot in reserves, then you have to um you know have to
034take that inner fund loan that we talked about. So last year we had um we took a $4 million in fund loan. It was an approved $4 million fund loan um from capital into general fund but um we only had to transfer about 3.6. This year we passed a resolution estimating to um we decreased it to three million. Um I at this point I'm thinking that you know might only be one and a half to two million um to get us through those months. I don't anticipate us to transfer that until January and Apple is going to have to have that in our fund loan for three months this year instead of the um um four, five months that we that we made it for last year. June is typically our worst month. Um, our
035lowest, we receive our our portion payments um differently uh throughout the year um different percentages from the state and it's really dictated. It's based on when we receive our um our tax payments. they um hold on to the state and hold on to the money till the end of the year um for I'm sure for lots of different reasons but we receive larger aortionment payments in um July and August. So we really June is I think 2% of our aortionment payments. So it's it's very low and um without a a a reserve it's it's hard to make it through June. But I do anticipate this year with all the cuts that we've made um I see us having building up that fund balance enough so that we can get in with positive cash balance progress.
036Does this slide make sense? You know, we just and the cash balance does all that make sense to just to make sure I understand. We basically do that 3 million authority to to borrow from we don't We're going to million. Correct. Last year. Yeah, we only use 3.6. Sorry. How much do our expenses do every month? We got a lot of money in 11 months. How does pay um you know we have expenses a payroll because it is acrewed out over the the 12 months. Um payroll is is pretty steady each month. We do have some larger um bills that we have to pay um in September and October. We have our large insurance bill which is almost $2 million this year which increased that was an increase of I think when I started we
037were under like 1.2 million and now we're almost at 2 million. So um it's it's going up rapidly. Um so different times of the year we also have like our our running start um running start portion windows. Those are usually around Um we also have some contractual obligations where we pay out in June and July um any any retirements if if our teachers retire if retires there's different um cash outs or um you know bargain cash outs that that can add up and increase those expenses. So sorry. No, please. This is good. I'm glad you're asking questions. So 82% is pretty steady. So wanted to share, you know, talking about payroll. This is a look at every October that we've had since 2012. And you can see every October has increased um with the exception
038of um COVID um that that first um October after CO was kind of a normal week. We didn't have as much staff in buildings. So um the point that we wanted to show here is that our payroll costs are down 3%. this October or last October, which means that we eliminated enough, you know, we risked enough to be able to lower our our payroll each month. Um, sometimes, you know, in in projecting and and knowing how much you need to eliminate, you're also increasing on the other side. You have, you know, second column, you have contractual obligations that go up. So, sometimes your doesn't decrease if you don't if you haven't limited enough. So, this shows that we are down 3%. And this is this is big because this is how we're going to add
039back into our fund balance each month when we have, you know, at least 300,000 um if not more um of less costs, then this is how we're going to add back into that 600,000 that we were talking about earlier. So, we um this is um this is showing that we This is just the the progression of our um of our staff that we had on the historical this is really the the same breakdown of our um of our same um same slide that we were looking at earlier um with our really where we're where we're at with um so in summary um we are we already started working on our on that deficit in our we started working on it throughout all of last year um you know we have that 3.3 million um that
040we took out of fund balance to end up with our 3.2 that if we hadn't intervened and hadn't started making those um those you know eliminations those cuts from um from different um you know travel our legal bills our ESP bills I mean we looked under every single rock and worked really hard to find expenses that we could cut this year that eliminated 1.3 million out of um of what we would have spent this last was planned. So we already started that um that progression. So that really helped us um because we would have had less than 3.2 in fund balance. So um our goals in 20 256 is to of course reduce the alone like I was mentioning earlier and then add on to um that fund balance. So there are some risks this
041year. Um and as we're talking about with enrollment um defining that you know at this point that 71 students budget that's you know that's close to a million dollars. So we still have to really be careful um with enrollment being down like that and continuing to eliminate expenses and and not um continue to do that work this year. um we're just not yet. So, we need to continue to do that. Um and then there's the state budget as well. We don't know what um we don't know what the governor what the budget's going to look like if we start eliminating things and that will affect us as well. Um and of course, we're going to pass those levies. So, we have to pass the levy to fun the things that we have planned. So, that
042is my portion for evening. If there's anything else, I will insurance. Okay, good evening. Thanks for a lot of finance presentation. So, I'm gonna change it up a little bit. I might not go into every slide. Um, so how about this? sort of tell the story of the purpose of the next section, why you're seeing it because it goes back to last year and then I'll share some of the highlights. But um I'm going to take 60 seconds here because whereas the board members that have been on the board for a while are already tuned into this. But the new board members, it's important to understand, you know, where is this coming from? starting in September of last year um when some of us were brand new um and we had a historically low cash
043balance um there's really two things that the district decided we could have a year one was some current year interventions things that you can change in the budget within a school year because remember staffing is already done once you start a school year right once you start a school year there are a limited number of things you can do in your non salary arena for overtime these sorts of expenses. So the first set of initiatives was let's set out and do some emergency uh savings in the district so that a we can make further progress to our goal but b we're demonstrating to the community overall that we're starting somewhere other than people first so that they understand that people are the last result. That was part of that was a really important thing with
044this process is that don't reduce staffing until you have. So part of the credibility of that is well did we do that? Did we see any result? And so uh K mentioned to you in the first bullet point that you know we managed to trim that operating by a million. That's more than we thought we were going to get. It's a good result for a midyear election. And the slides that you're going to see speak to some of the reasons why we were able to trim that. Does that make sense? Then we'll talk a little bit about what happened last year. Then we had to make the much larger reductions that were taking effect now. So you have to think about the two separate. Okay. Um we refer to this as QA. This is our
045quarterly business analytics dashboard. There's a whole series of analytics that we're looking at every month. Um, you're only getting a sampling, but when CAR says we're overturning every rock, I might amend that to say we're overturning every pebble. Um, because more data is being collected and allied in this district than ever before across a full range of operational as part of that first initiative of midyear midyear improvements. That's not just cutting expenses. That's looking under every pebble of how can we increase revenue. Okay, there are ways to increase revenue. One of the ways is can you increase the wrership of your buses? If you already have a set expense of your buses, but you're not getting kids to ride, well, there's an opportunity to raise more money if you can build a confidence with your
046community that the buses will be on time, but there they'll be orderly. So, uh, as you can see with the the thicker orange, we are dayto day pretty much consistently 5 to 10% higher in writership than we were last year. And over two years, we're over 8% higher in our accounting numbers, meaning that we take a small sampling and so that's what it wasn't just cutting expenses. It was also how can we increase revenue and transportation was able to do that because we were able to uh hire drivers keep routes consistent and parents started you know started to engender low confidence in the fact that okay we can ride the bus and know we're going to school. So it's not unusual for transportation programs to spend more than their revenue from the state. That's not
047unusual. It was unusual to have that big of a gap. We had a very big gap but uh thanks to the transportation team factor and the leadership of the superintendent we reduced that deficit by over 36%. That was a very big win for us. Think about that perspective. Big gap between our revenues to transportation and our expenses to transportation reduced by over a third in one year. So I'm really proud of the work that the team did to achieve that. And I have a question. How'd you do that? Um, so okay, I'll give you the 30 second version. So, it's both a revenue side and an expense side. Okay, you can achieve you can reduce this this gap by increasing your revenue, increasing your expense or doing both. We did both. Okay, on the revenue
048side, it's the conversation we just had. It's this graph. We increase and I'll to the expensive. Okay. Um, essentially what we did is they weren't I'll choose my words carefully. Overtime was common place in the transportation program. We relied heavily on overtime two years ago. Variety of reasons for that. Um, I think you'll see a slide later that demonstrates the huge drop in overtime. Um but we were also we also economized enough so that you're maximizing your efficiency on the routes that you offer. Um but you know transportation is one of those programs where you can talk about stuff but you need a certain number of drivers for a certain number of routes. It's not like it's not a theoretical conversation that you've got to do. So we were sort of limited in terms of
049our ability to reduce that. But we were not limited in our ability to really curtail overtime and create strict ground rules of when we would allow overtime and approve. And so the slide that answers your question numerically is about four of them. Thank you. So now we're on about um about this is the slide from a couple weeks ago. I think we're at about 235 straight days of not having any bubble routes. For those of you that were here two years ago, they've done well until you so shift. I hope the bus drivers are listening because this is because we have great heard them. We retain them. They are invested in this. They're proud of this. They want you to know they're proud of this. What's a double row? Okay, so a double row. Um,
050two years ago, Yeah, some of the board members had to had to live through it and they might explain it better or not. But basically what it is is let's say you have 45 row that's about 45. So let's for the sake of argument we'll say we have 45. Okay. Oh including okay I'm gonna stick with my original just so you have a certain number of brows. Pick a number. Let's say 50. Okay. Um if you've only got 40 what do you make? Well, the first thing you do is you go, "Well, okay, I guess we can try to collapse these two routes, cram a whole bunch of kids on one bus, and try to do two routes with one bus." But if you got if you only have 40 drivers for 50, you can't
051get cute with it. You just don't have enough people, right? So, what you can do is really send out your 40 buses, run the route, maybe collapse a couple if you're if you're able to figure that out. have them deliver those kiddos to the school, then loot back double, loot back, do those other routes, and then get those kids to school. So that means the second group of kids get to school when it gets under the scenario. So what happens? The parents are like the bus. So then what happens? Your wrership goes down, right? You know, your wrership goes down. So what happens? your revenue goes down. So, it's becomes sort of a a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, um thanks to our human resources teams, the young son artist, they're the ones
052that hired all the dragons and got riders that engendered trust with the parents started putting the kids back on the bus, the wrership went up, the revenue went up, and we were able to I mean, it's a big deal. It really is a big deal for uh the drivers and the leadership of the university. Let's talk about food services as another opportunity to like you can increase revenue or you can reduce expenses and you can do both. Um we have both going on in in nutrition services. So both our breakfast and our lunches served are way up. Now to be honest the reason for that is that we have more qualify for the free meal program. But that took a lot of advocacy like our superintendent had to advocate for OSPI our teachers program had
053to advocate with OPI had to advocate several times to get these schools improved for the last man. There's work involved in that. It's not just doesn't just happen but you're talking about lunch over 10% increase tax revenue. You're talking about over close to a 30% increase in breakfast revenue. If you're achieving that with roughly the same number of staff, then you're increasing revenue with all the pieces. Okay? And so we were able to reduce that same deficit I was talking about earlier by 21% again considerably more than a big win for that and the whole teachers. I gave you some slides that go school by school. I'm not going to go into that, but it's sort of interesting because some schools go way up, some schools didn't. We spend a lot of time trying to
054figure out why. Um, but what's happening now, and we just talked with the principles about this two days ago, was once again, it's like a battle every year. We try to get all of our schools qualified for the free meals program. They use the free lunch counts and the direct certification data. I feel like I'm hamster wheel with this because good again this year we have four schools that are really close to being qualified but are not yet qualified. So Bob Gibson and I are spending time you know advocating for OPI saying would you consider a future money by the way they go back and okay we'll give you one more shot. So these principles are out everything similar you know because it can be the difference between Little Rock Elementary School will be free
055to the whole versus going back to we have the most work to do with Columbia and they're aware of that and sometimes there's just a demographic change in school can do. Okay, I'm going to move through some of these more quickly. Uh we have for two years use reduced our um energy use on a per square foot uh basis. So that's to win um buildings and grounds was um able to achieve over a half a million dollars in savings in their budget. They were sort of the the winner if you will on the expense side for operations and I wanted to give them their kudos. Um also for the board members that were on the board last year, you'll remember our conversations about facility lapses there and how that was a priority for our team.
056You can see like last October we had like on any given day we had an average of 25% of our custodians out. It doesn't mean sick. It just means health for any reason. Look at the profound changes that we're seeing um through November of this year. Um the average daily absency rate regardless of the average down by almost. How did we how did we Well, there's several theories about that. Um, I'm cognizant of your time. I think that we had a very explicit conversation with the whole team in this room about it. I told them if they uh miss fewer days than I, I was going to owe them a party, which I just missed seven days of work before my year. So, now it's going to cost me a lot of money. Um, but
057I'm that's I'm being procedures that but we did have a very specific conversation with the whole team like people are looking at this and it matters and it reflects on our team and you know if you're sick you need to be home if you're going to get people sick stay home because it's not about that but also taking care of yourself is part of this role um and let's make an effort to do that so that we don't have this level of absolutism and therefore subass and I honestly don't know like I don't know that was me. We've also had some significant turnover. Again, human research has dealt with some great custodians. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's just say that it was late. Next slide. Let me add I mean I I feel like I want
058to add to this just a tiny bit because I think there's been we have a new custodial director creating expectations and supports and you know here's what this work looks like. I think sometimes that varied from sight to sight. we're getting continuity with that and just expectations. Um they're also um improving equipment so things that work and things so there's someone paying attention to that. And I also want to give kudos I think le to assistant superintendent um last year him and some others in that team like they recognized some of our really outstanding achievers and they gave them this like golden certificate um I don't even remember what they called it they also basically said is and there's some money basically it wasn't like personal money it was like what piece of equipment you
059know that you personally need to do your better job better and so each the people that were recognized and I don't think there was the four, five, six of them that got that. So said they got that and then he personally went to them and like what do you want? They made that happen. I don't want to share anything about because I think that is like we're recognizing their hard work. We're recognizing people are doing this outstanding job and then that sort of gets reflected in attendance and then as we bring in new people there's just a newer culture of hey we we appreciate the work you're doing. There is they're doing tangible things that we recognize the hard work that you're doing. What were some of the things that they chose? Because it was
060like we have one I don't know if I'm supposed to call them out by what do they have? Well, we have one really great custodian who on their own personal time at one of our elementary schools tends the garden on their own time. So, they come on the weekends and after work to do the school garden. They love gardening. He says, "I want a bird to be here for the garden." I was like, "Okay, well, we'll find the $48 to get the bird." it was important to him, you know, like and that's worth $48 to the school district to to give, you know, um another person, this is a good story, we had one really fantastic custodian um who said, "I don't want anything. I just want to make sure that every kid in my
061school gets to go to the field and if there's any affordability issue in terms of any kids not being able to go to um you touching It turns out that that wasn't a place to deal with. But but that's the I mean we have some amazing custodians that take deep ownership of their building and the gratifying part of those processes. Some of them came up to um just just a little recognition for some of these folks is a huge I said it was going to be short and then it's like seven. So I have three slides left. I'll be right through these and then I apologize monopolized your agenda. There's a slide for certificated and a slide for. Okay. So first the slide for certificated. You see not everything went down. Okay. Um we don't
062have the ability to make everything go down. Um but some things did. So we paid a lot less in extra time that we can control. We paid less in cash outs. I'm not entirely sure all the reasons for that, but never was happen. We were down a little bit in sub costs, mostly because we were approving less travel activities and sometimes they necessitated that. But I expect sub costs to go way down this year because we were able to partner with our labor to come to a more market friendly rate for that. I want to acknowledge TEA proud for their cooperation on that. Um on the classified side. Um okay, so you were asking about costs. Here's classified overtime cost. We were down 17% districtwide. You see the note in the top right hand corner.
063Uh transportation as a department was down $175,000 and additional overtime wages. It's either either extra but basically things. So huge chain. Um and you see all the way to the right was essentially we paid close to $12,000 in a couple days ago. So a lot of this was like track and is there a rule and in some cases it's appropriate to have local contract required. But have we sorted that out? And is there clarity from a management perspective on that? Um, this board had a work session last year specifically on non salary related things that we thought we could reduce. The board challenged us to reduce travel to reduce our legal bills and ask the superintendent to begin to get that. So this is the followup. We did that. Um, travel was down 22%. Legal
064bills was also down 22%. And um, ESD was down 26%. And so in conclusion, the story here is you kind of go back a year and you remember where we're at. It was like, okay, the board had to do two things. Do what you can in the year room and then for the next year. And so a lot of these charts evidence of bridge, a lot of these charts tell that story about and then plan for the year of major reductions close to six and a half 7 million reduction. We're now going to see that this year and we're starting to see the evidence like okay did we cut enough? Did we cut too much? And we definitely didn't cut too much. And it's like we're like it looks like it's just enough. We ended
065October with $270,000 in cash. We didn't want to be negative because we want to be negative. So that was the first. Okay, good. Good benchmark. The second benchmark was Kira showed you the October payroll. We don't want to see payrolls keep going up. Like it had to be lower. It had to be lower and it was it was close to 3%. That was another like okay so now we're stacking benchmarks. Okay, we're stacking benchmarks. We want to see that uh sub rate cost down. That'll be the next. And so the big goal this year is if we can wean ourselves off of that loan and use we know we're going to need it, but we don't want to need $3.6 million, right? So if we can limit our loan and hopefully cut the month, I
066would say the first goal is the more significant one. Um and then we can We end this year with more fund balance than we started this year. Creating operating surplus and increase that blue end of the blue. That's what we're at. The blue in the chart stack chart. It's all about that blue stack. And so if we can create that operating surplus and end with more this year, we're on our way. We've now corrected and then we just have to sustain. All right. Thank you for your patience. I know that was a lot of information but also probably important for the new board member. Thank you Ben. Now we will move on to action items a director of financial service. We'll present second reading of policy 61 policy 6106 policy 6570 to Okay, so these
067are um three policies that basically um explain and and require a level of um of uh of systems for our federal cash awards. Um it was these were three policies that we didn't have that we needed to update. Um it came out it's it's come up in a um in our um we're having for special ed that these were three that um we needed to add to our 6000 series. So, um it just it addresses our allowable costs and and federal programs um and how we manage and um keep track of our all of our cash programs that also um matches the um um the CFR guidelines and there was a model Um and then the third is um in 6570 that's that's really talking about um property management and keeping track of anything that
068is purchased for federal dollars um and procedures in place to make sure that accordingly question drugs were started Now understand discussion. All those in favor of approving policies 610 65 say I all those opposed lesson policy 6101 6106 and 6570 are present everyone we'll now move on to the superintendent from you before I get started just quick of the printed board. I do just want to acknowledge that board members I think um we had four board members attend the WASA conference um a couple weeks ago. Um and I just want to just kind of highlight a couple things vendors in the boot camp. Um and so kind of just getting their feet wet before they first came in here. So maybe feeling a little more prepared today than um had they not gone to that.
069also appreciate their attendance of that and and and just again connected with other state directors from Ross and then the other highlight um that certainly our community should know and the board should know um the president of the state association is our own director so congratulations and she will be serving out um for the next calendar year until next year and so kind of closing out so I get to attending that next year she will be presiding over that in the conference a year from now so congratulations to you um so each week or each month we've been doing some strategic spotlights. Again, these are kind of things that don't always show up as um like clearly in our strategic plan. And so I want to highlight a couple things and this one um this
070first one is um gallery of a graduate. And this was an event um hosted at Bush Middle School for their students. I did ask permission to take a picture of this young man next to his slide. I think I have a highlight of where and so they are using portions of our portrait of a graduate and those aspects and in this in this um process. This was a drop and they're basically describing how they use some of those skills that they're developing in middle school. Um and so they're already integrating this into their current work. And so I just this idea of kind of a student centered approach and showcasing our students is something I wanted to emphasize. I also um so here's another inside the big side of the page and this one is
071they're rating themselves on a level of 1 to 10 like where are you in each of these portrait of graduate skills and then basically saying you know setting some goals and where they are and um this student was like really critical of themselves and and the teacher I was kind of kind of eaves dropping them like over their shoulder taking pictures and listening to them but she was I didn't rate herself always really high you know that was a 6.5 and I remember the teacher saying like well you're one of the best students we have in the middle school and again this idea that we haven't arrived and there's a place to go and they were being reflective of where are they are in those developing skills and where do they want to improve and
072each of our students are doing that and again I thought was something again starting to see this strategic plan come to life in ways that I never really imagined and I think when we developed this that I don't you don't you're not going to find this in the plan like that was not a goal for us to say like every middle school will set goals in our portrait of graduate like they're doing things to kind of own this at their own levels and to make this and then I share it out to our other groups and hey do you want to copy some of these great things and and then let us know if this is making a difference around um some of those skills that they're developing. takes 15. I want to just let
073everyone know that we we have held our first summer student advisory council meeting. Um it was held on November 12th right here in this room. About 25 of our high school students representing all three high schools. Um theme and the meeting focused on building a strong foundation for collaboration through team building. We did some team building activities, open student led dialogue around leadership, identity and inclusion. students brought forward a range of lived experiences and we kind of I pulled all their information together including perspectives related to neurodiversity, LGBTQ identity, military connected families, economic hardship that helps shape really authentic and thoughtful discussion. We spent this first meeting learning about one another, setting some expectations to how to effectively dialogue and engage in discourse and disagreements that treat each other the other side with dignity rather
074than contempt. And so dignity is brings us together. Content drives us apart. So the group brainstormed a lot of topics that they're interested in discussing at future meetings. And so this council will meet four times. The next session is scheduled in January. And so this group plays an important role in helping ensure student voice informs our own work and decision-m process again outlined in our in our strategic plan. December um 15th is Bill of Rights Day. So each year we observe Bill of Rights Day here in order. Recognizing the ratification of our first 10 amendments to the US Constitution in 1791. These amendments define many of the core freedoms that we often consider fundamental. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of protection, free due process, and
075more. This day uh serves as a powerful reminder of the values that shape our democracy and our commitment to civic education in schools. is it offers an opportunity to help our students better understand how these rights impact their daily lives and why they continue to matter in our society. Originally in 1941 by President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, Bill of Rights Day encourages all Americans to reflect on the importance of protecting these liberties not just as part of our history but as a guiding principle of our future. Do you remember my first year? I brought you a a bill of rights. So, but I didn't have enough for our students and the board. And so, then the board said, "Well, we want our students to have." So, then they never got them. I think I said, "Well,
076I'll get you one eventually." So, and Derby, if you want one, I have one. Okay. So, I did So um anyway, yeah. So pass along and we'll keep Sarah's original. Yeah, each of those are sorry. We'll save Courtney's for her next meeting. All right. Um I I do want to one of the things that we've started doing this fall is our district office team has launched a new staff appreciation initiative aimed at recognizing our incredible individuals who make our schools thrive. So every other Friday or kind of around that every few weeks, part of align with our Friday early release schedule, a small team from the district office has been visiting schools and district sites to personally serve Italian sodas to staff. So these visits are not connected to meetings or walkthroughs, they're simply about
077thanking them and gratitude. Um whether in the classrooms, front office, kitchens, bus or custo reminded that their daily efforts are seen, valued, and deeply appreciated. making sure that we all our most recently visit was at Michael T. I think that might be them. No, I think it might be a variety of people. Um, but we were at Michael T. Oh, there was another one too, right? We were at Michael T. And then we had another one, too. We have metal. Is that the only we've done so far? And we're doing one tomorrow at Little Rock. They look forward to doing these. So, it's a small gesture, but one that's been wellreceived and serves the foster connection collaboration with our dedicated professionals. So, um a quick shout out to our uh T-Ird volleyball team. So, they
078went to state. Um I believe that they received fifth place at the state this year. First time they've been in quite a while. And so, um they're super proud of their efforts. And um I had the chance to go to Yakima and see them in person. And you can see their parents in the background there all in the U checkered. They all wear that. And I didn't see that at our home games as much, but they go all out at the state. All got their checkers up and there was a lot of them and they were loud. So um tip off of their first game that I got to see um which was their second game at the tournament. Tip off 9:38 p.m. which is kind of interesting. So yeah, they're playing a big game
079and the place was empty because their court went late the whole day and so yeah or late tip off. Um and sadly they lost in game. So and then um I don't know if you knew about this. I just want to is coming up quick. So, this is Little Rock Winterfest, their 77th annual Holiday Bazaar. Um, so if you haven't been there, it's quite uh quite a huge community event, huge fundraiser for the school. Um, they the raffles and huge raffle things that they give away. So, 9 to3 on Saturday if you want to go to that on your way to see um our Tongue Water High School football team. They're playing in the state finals for the third consecutive year. Um, so I think they're they're uh kickoff is about 3 pm. So you
080can go to Little Rock Winter Fence, head up to Seattle and see football and have a great weekend. That's all I have to say. Thank you, Kevin. Now move on to four comments. Please keep in mind that each approximately two three minutes to speak. We will start at the end of the table to my left and work across to my right. Cool. I just wanted to say I attended the uh state conference for board members and I had a lot of fun there and I wanted to thank everyone who was there and everyone who arranged that just wanted to welcome the new board members. I'm really excited to be working with y'all and uh nice sure um I also want to welcome the newborn members. Um I have been visiting schools and it frankly has
081been the joy uh of of all of this is visiting schools. The staff are always so welcoming even though we're never going to I try to go to cover but um it right in there. So, it's been a lot of fun um visiting the schools. Um like I said, the staff are very, you know, um and um I'm not sure how to say this. Um I'm hoping that we can have an executive session about this situation that we have with Director Taylor. I I want to ask for it in public because I don't know that I'll get heard otherwise. I'd like to um I had the opportunity this week to meet with a group of our educators um and just kind of have an opportunity to listen to, you know, what they're dealing with in
082the classroom every day. I was just really struck by uh the fact that a lot of our teachers are dealing with uh more kids with mental and behavioral health challenges in their classrooms. It it they are heroic in their efforts um and deserve to be uh listened to and heard around their needs. So it was really a great opportunity and I would encourage fellow board members uh and you Kevin to join uh educators at the weak uh office uh for their meeting reach out to DJ. It was really great opportunity I think heard from our educators and they really wanted to to hear from all of us. So um and I just want to also say I really appreciate the opportunity for an executive session. not sure that everyone has been read in on the
083um the lawsuit um that we're now facing. Um and I would like this opportunity to talk to you. Thank you. I'll start off. Uh I was not able to attend the last meeting where it was last. I'm glad she's here today actually. is a great if not the greatest board member of this district to speak. She has been by far the best president on a board for sure without a doubt. I can only strive to be as good as her and I will lean on her during I wish her well suits going forward actually with the fight against the little small man at OSPI and I wish her family well the best and your son. Thank you. We appreciate you. The next thing I want to talk about was uh uh about a conflict of
084interest. Go read policy 16. It'll be a good start for these one. It's a joke how you interpret it. It shows you desperation. Conflicts of interest. It has to do with being a board member and avoiding contracts and employment issues. Nothing to do with being an officer or position as an officer at all. It's disappointing to do this. It's not surprising. However, there was some good news. Kevin talked about Waza. That was very great to go there and get refreshed after another board director. One of the things I reflect on is, you know, they tell you there two things that this board asks for the community. I mean, they're very important things to most everyone is your kids and your money. You want your kids and you want to spend your money and that takes
085a lot of trust. And I have questions about the community trust in me. And my questions are if you Melissa Beard and if you hired a child molester help you get elected, you will you pay with campaign funds. Campaign funds were your largest contributor was teachers union. These are teachers union dudes that you hired longer. This is a sex offender. Has been on a sex offender list since 2022. He was updated in March of 2025. These are serious questions about I have Did you know that there was a 15-year-old girl that was groomed and raped by this person? My question would be to you if you guys knew about that. Did you know about that when you hired him? You'll say no. You didn't know. And you'll say that you cease all that you've lost
086complete trust in the public and serious concerns about your judgment, the management of funds and your concern for student safety. This isn't a conflict of interest to both. It's probably not even an ethics violation or gross negligence, but it does certainly war investigations, but I'll see that happens if I can. Hi, Rob. Thank you. Welcome to the board. Thank you for not following whatever this trick was. You were both accused of collusion tonight directly where it's clear going along. can start off tonight with just saying thank you to the public and the community for the confidence to um allow me the uh tremendous opportunity to be on this board for the last few years. Um I enjoyed my first 15 months with the board. I learned a lot. Um and I look forward to learning
087more and being a good steward of our finances in this district. That was probably the number one thing. Um, number one thing I hear from people is the last couple years before the board is finances were a struggle to say the least. Um, and so I I think that this kind of segue into my next point here, but I just want to thank you too for all the just amazing information. I remember over the last year saying, "Hey, we want data, we want charts, we want all the things." and today you provided all those things and uh I I think there's something to be said about the accountability of money and being able to show people exactly where I can be as transparent as possible. Um and I think you two are doing an amazing
088job but my experience on the board all I've seen is is the work of you two and your teams. I don't want to forget about everybody else too but um everything that I've seen has been phenomenal. So I can't speak to what happened before that but I appreciate everything you were doing. Um, and lastly, I just want to welcome new board members. Say I'm looking forward to working with all of you and I think all of us combined definitely have the heart and the passion for this district and want to be the best that it can possibly be. So I want to keep thanks to all the information I uh I've learned how much I don't know since I started going to the WA conference which has helped me a lot. I'm looking forward to
089learning things. I appreciate giving us the information the way you did and highlight numbers in the chart. So thanks. Keep them up. So with no further business coming before the board, the regular meeting at 7:34 p.m. Thank you. [Music] Heat. Heat.