Special Board Meeting 4-10-25

001an open session at exactly 5 p.m. today. Thank you, colleagues, for being here. I do believe our two colleagues that are not here yet should be here shortly. So I'm going to respectfully ask that we go ahead and get started with the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead and ask if any of my colleagues would like to read the land acknowledgement, equity statement, or Board of Trustees agreements. Excellent. Thank you very much, Trustee Rodriguez. Thank you very much. All right, land acknowledgement statement, sir. Okay, we should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we are gathered. For thousands of years, this land has been the home of Patwin people. Today, there are three federally recognized Patwin tribes, Kachaldehi, Band of Winton Indians of the Colusa

002Indian Community. Klitsodihi Winton Nation and Yoshidiki Winton Nation. The Patwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected as elders have instructed the young through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands. Thank you very much, Trustee. Equity statement by Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. All students deserve excellent schools, which are culturally responsive and set high expectations, a high-quality learning environment, and equitable resources to ensure that they are reaching their full potential. WJUSD will be purposeful about providing equitable access to all essential educational opportunities for all WJUSD students, especially diverse and disadvantaged students who have historically been underserved by educational institutions. Thank you very much trustee. I'll go ahead and proceed to reading the Board of Trustee agreements Board of Trustee

003agreements check in remember our larger purpose Boundaries, it's not a zero-sum Open aspire to finding common ground having empathy and being respectful Thank you very much proceeding to item B approval of a board agenda any changes superintendent trustees All right, can I get a motion to approve the agenda for today's special meeting? I make the motion. It's been a motion by Trustee Rodriguez to approve the agenda of the special meeting on April 10th. Can I get a second? Second. It's been seconded by Trustee Brubaker. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? All right. The board agenda for April 10th special board meeting has been approved by all board members. Item C, public comment for items on the special board meeting agenda. We have one. Becca Bernard. So I was in a

004meeting with CTA chapters across the state. There were about 20 different unions present, and they shared some statistics from the... And one of the questions That I had going out of that was comparing us to all these other districts our percent of Expenditures on employees is in the one of the lower one of the lowest out of that group. We are around 75% and some of the districts kind of averaged between 80 to 85%. And I know that when we talk about the budget, we often talk about it's there's only one pie and we have to divide the pie and you can't really grow the pie. And it really made me wonder about the $30 million that we spend on our services, which includes a lot of contracts with people like SLPs who are providing

005special ed services because we continually are not able to fill those vacancies. And so we pay. even more for contracting and we kind of are in this cycle of well we have to pay the contractors because we don't have you know these positions we don't have people in these positions and so the question becomes well if we spent more on our actual staff then maybe we wouldn't have to spend as much on our contracts so I'm going to present that question to you and then I also again I'm just going to continue to bring up our ending fund balance which was The third highest out of the 20-ish districts, the highest being a really small district, which tends to have discrepancies in their percentages. So the third highest at almost 37%. The next highest was

00642%. Dos Palos, don't know that one. But most of those districts fell between the 9% to 20%, 25%. And so we continue year after year to have funds that we roll over. And in my opinion, in six years, if we went from 17% ending fund balance to 37% ending fund balance, then to me that seems like we had ongoing funds each year. But we are just calling it a reserve. I understand it's not. intentional but I just want to again address that we have a very high reserve higher than most every district that I speak with in my position as a president thank you very much miss Bernard anymore all right Thank You Monica we're gonna go ahead and move on to the facilities and finance item item D D1 information school district budget workshop

007part one and then we will be conducting our special board meeting Just as we do our regular board meetings Where we have two questions two comments and then we pass it to the next person on your right and we'll begin with whoever's ready going first presenter superintendent the floor is yours I'm gonna invite our associate superintendent Lewis Wiley to introduce our guests today who will be doing a introduction foundational presentation on the budget so that we are all on the same page and make sure that we all understand how schools are funded or districts are funded and Guide you through the this part one and then we'll go into part two So I'll go ahead to this introduce our guests today Thank you superintendent good evening trustees or president superintendent this evening we have mr.

008Matt Phillips he's an associate vice president with school services of California and He'll recognize the terminology when I say it's getting dark outside So I'll get out of the way and let Matt have the microphone Thank You Matt Good evening, Madam President, fellow trustees, superintendent. My name is Matt Phillips and I'm a school services of California. Just a little bit about myself. I think it's always important to if I'm listening, I like to understand who is speaking. I've been with or in school finance for about 20 years now. I graduated from Chico with an accounting degree. I have my CPA certification. Spent the first six years of my career. I stumbled into it. A little firm that. audited only school districts not something that you necessarily dream of when you're going to school but there

009I was it paid the bills it allowed me to really see the the good the bad and the ugly as far as processes, procedures, finances, and I got to learn a ton in that role. I spent about five years working in a school district business office, Rockland Unified, east of Sacramento, K-12 school district, so similar to Woodland, a unified school district, about 11,000 students and 16 school sites. And then I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and had an opportunity to go work at school services. And I've been there for about 10 years now. In my travels around the state, I get to do this kind of stuff, which is some of my favorite, which is sharing information. I participate with the California School Boards Association as part of

010my role with school services. Our company supports CSBA with the Masters in Governance training. There's five modules to it, so specifically we handle the third module, which is school finance. Within that module, we're using general financial information, which is, you know, we always use a district that's in big trouble. And so a lot of the trustees that have the opportunity to go through that training, it's a good... training but it's numbers that are foreign to them one of the things i love about this particular training here is it will be using your numbers right so this is not a fictitious district that we're going to be looking at as we look at the different pieces of financial information it's going to be woodland joint unified school districts numbers we'll be using the most recently available

011state certified numbers which is 2324 unaudited actuals i do recognize that the board has approved a first interim and a second interim for 24, 25 cents then. But I wanted to use the 23, 24 unaudited actuals as really an anchor for the presentation today. So let's move along here. So the way that I've structured the presentation. Again, using the district's information. And I want to talk first about the district's local numbers. And I've split this up into really three pieces. First, looking at the revenues the districts receive. We're going to talk about the mechanisms. We hear assumptions a lot when we talk about budgets. Talk about those assumptions and how they translate into actual revenues, the source of those revenues as well. we're going to spend some time then talking about expenditures i appreciated the

012the teachers association president's comments of about a pie we too use that terminology at school services that it is a pie and it's very difficult to grow the pie especially when we consider what's happening at the statewide level right now the third portion of the local budget will then talk about reserves looking at the district's reserves talking about how do we measure it how does the state measure it and what are some considerations for the trustees and then and we'll transition into what's happening at the statewide level as we know it right now. A lot of moving pieces happening at the statewide level, so I will anchor a lot of my comments with respect to what the governor released in January, and then provide updates on items that we know about at this point as

013of April 10th. Okay? And I'm open to questions. I know there's process that the board typically follows. I'm comfortable with whatever the board wants to do with respect to questions. All right? Okay, so I think it's important that when we talk about school finance, we have a common understanding about what that fiscal cycle looks like. And to me, there's two different cycles happening at one time. When we think about the responsibilities of the finance team led by Mr. Wiley, at any given point, the finance team is in three different fiscal years. They're kind of dabbling. Just recently, the 23-24 fiscal year was closed. So if we look at July and August of the current fiscal year, the 24-25 fiscal year, the business team was really heavily invested at that time in the 23-24 fiscal year,

014trying to close it out. Also, trying to launch school and get the kiddos back in the classrooms for the 24-25 year, all while starting to plan for the 25-26 budget year. So when I say fiscal teams in three fiscal years, that's what I'm speaking to. When we look at a fiscal cycle for a school district, and this would be a school district, which there's about 1,000 of them statewide, there's 58 county offices in the state of California, so 58 counties, and then another 1,400 charter schools in the state of California. So we colloquially refer to those as local educational agencies. So you may hear me say LEAs throughout the presentation. That's what I'm referring to. So with about 2,500 LEAs in the state of California, the fiscal year is July 1 to June 30, so

015that 12-month period. But when we think about the period for a fiscal year runs in its entirety, it's really about 16 months. And the way that I get to 16 months is the trustees will approve the budget generally in June for the upcoming year. So if we start with June, we have our public hearing as well as our adoption of the budget. The public hearing is where we have the budget and the LCAP come to the board for consideration. And then at a separate meeting, the budget and the LCAP have to be adopted by June 30th. We then go all the way through our fiscal year cycle. So we have the budget adoption in June. When you get to December, that's when first interim comes to the board. I was participating in a training, a

016master's in governance module. Depending on the timing of the first interim new trustees that could either be their first meeting where they've been sworn in and then one of their first action items is to approve the first interim or Sometimes the first center meeting is soon enough that the trustees are then sworn in after that so perhaps their first Budget approval is second interim, but I had a trustee asked me in one of the meetings I can't remember male or female, so I'll just call it the trustee. The trustee asked the question, well, you know, I'm sworn in and then I've got to approve this brand new budget. I don't even know what I'm looking at. And that was kind of an aha moment for me as a facilitator of the session. First interim is

017not a brand new budget, right? First interim is the first opportunity that staff have to come back to you as trustees to say, here's what has changed since the adopted budget was brought to the trustees in June. So from that period of June all the way through December. A lot has changed in that period. Anytime we think about a budget, we have to say and stipulate that the budget is based on a set of assumptions. And when we go through school and even our own personal life, if we have children, what do we tell our children about assumptions? They're not good. We should not make assumptions. We have to do this in school finance. Right and we think about the the number of assumptions that are in place when a school district adopts its budget

018in June Really nothing is known as far as actual revenues actual expenses Right the number of students that we might have enrolled in our school district What our utility bills are gonna look like for the year everything is based on assumptions And so when we think about a budget every time the budget comes to the trustees whether adopted budget first interim or second interim The goal of the business team is to be able to stand in front of you and say, this budget is based on assumptions. We know that every single number in here is exactly wrong, but we believe it to be approximately right. Because again, there's an expectation that the numbers will change throughout the year as the assumptions change and they become actual. So that period from when the budget is adopted

019in June all the way through December. We now know a lot of things in December that we didn't know back in June. We know the number of students that we have enrolled in the school district. We know our staffing has settled down. We know if our wonderful teachers have come back with additional educational units. Maybe they get to move columns on the salary schedule. That may be a cost that we didn't know about back in June. So a lot of assumptions have become actuals, but there's still a lot of unknowns even in December when first interim comes to the board. That's why in state law there's another check-in period called second interim. Trustees just went through that last month. The second interim is an update of first interim. There's a lot more that's known between

020December with first interim and then getting into March at second interim. One of those big things, we now know what the governor's proposing for the next year, vis-a-vis the governor's budget proposal. And then ultimately we go all the way through September to unaudited actuals. By the time we get to unaudited actuals, the reason they're called that is because the numbers have yet to be audited. There's nothing fancy about that. But that is the fiscal team's attempt to what we call close the books. So all of those budget assumptions that were there throughout the whole year that were presented at adopted budget, first interim and second interim, those all go away. And now we're looking at actual revenues and actual expenses for the year. There's no more assumptions by the time we get to unaudited actuals.

021So that's the one time of year where the numbers won't change anymore. So that's the 16-month fiscal cycle for school districts. And then we have three check-in points with respect to the state budget. So I had just mentioned the governor each year releases the prospective budget for the upcoming year by right around January 10th, I believe is the deadline in law. Roll forward four months, we come to May, May 14th is the deadline for the May revise to come out. Now, the unique thing about January and May, both of those budgets are the governor's budget. Now, certainly there's input from the legislature in the compilation of those. I'm sure no governor has ever done this in isolation without understanding what the leadership of the legislature is hoping to see and looking for. That being said,

022it is the governor's budget, both in January and May. And then it's the legislature's responsibility to pass what they believe the budget should be by June 15th. So they will certainly consider what the governor has put out in January and May. There's always changes, very seldomly is there no change between what the governor puts out in May and then what the legislature proposes as a budget in June. And they have to do that now by June 15th. There was a bill that was passed about 10 years ago now that said if the legislature doesn't pass an on-time budget, they don't get paid. We had periods, especially during the Great Recession, we'd go all the way through October. Right, we'd be three months into our fiscal year and we still wouldn't know what the state enacted

023budget was right so we have largely solved that problem But the the bugaboo here is that we are still adopting our local budget before the state and acts its budget Right most of our board meetings are usually the second or third week of June where we're adopting our budget heck Maybe even the fourth week But at that point even if the the governor were to say, okay, legislature, I see what you have proposed for me with your either assembly bill or senate bill. I'm going to go ahead and accept that as the enacted budget. That still isn't going to happen until the last week of June, right, at the soonest. So there would be no way for school districts to incorporate any changes from the enacted budget as part of their own adopted budget. So

024realistically, by the time the adopted budget is approved here locally, there's already changes, right, because we will be incorporating. the enacted budget from the state of California. All right, so those two cycles are happening each and every year, and I think it's important. to understand that as we consider the school district's budget and why changes might happen. Can I add something, Matt? Yes. On a practical perspective, because this happens a lot when we're having our one-on-one agenda reviews, when we're talking about purchase orders and why do we need more, why didn't we, we can't, we can't exact. Well, there's assumptions that staff makes, too, when developing their department budgets. Sometimes things cost end up costing more there can be shift in staffing there could be an unexpected damage to a Building I mean there's different

025things that also happen so internally as well Each school site and each department also make develops their budget and they also make the best estimates I'm always saying that during the meetings estimates, but there's also changes too. And so that's not an out of It's not that people are not doing their job or it's just part of a budget. It's like it is with your own personal budgets. Yeah, and I'll build on that point. Thank you for that. Budgets are greatly decentralized even though we think about the fiscal team as the the face of the budget They're the ones presenting the budget to you as the the Board of Trustees because that is their responsibility a budget is really a team effort and incorporates spending at the site level spending at the department levels where

026many of those departments are responsible for generating their own vendor requisitions purchase orders and so forth the budget is the roadmap for that spending but it is not uncommon for a school district to have a budget that exceeds actual spending throughout the year right it's better than the alternative right where the actual spending exceeds the budget all right if we're gonna have a surprise we definitely want it to go the direction where the budget is greater than the spending i think in that vein you know there's ways especially if trends start to develop where the business team can sit down with the departments and say hey you know we looked at your spending over the last three years and each year we see this delta between budget and what is actually spent and let's have

027a conversation around that and see is this something that was truly one time each year or is your your department budget too high right and that's getting down into the weeds that's more of the the budget development uh internal component but that is a conversation that can happen so with this presentation and the documents that i'm going to share the the sax documents the sax is a standardized account code structure which all of this information is reported in the standardized account code software, which is administered by the California Department of Education. So the nice thing about being able to both present a budget and review a budget is the way that budget information has to be recorded is uniform throughout the state of California. Every single LEA in the state of California is required to

028follow the standardized account code system. That's required by the California Department of Education. So I actually say I'm bilingual, I'm fluent in English and Sax, because I can speak all the numbers, and it truly is a separate language. And I'll talk about that in just a moment. What this allows not only us to do locally, but the California Department of Education, the legislature, the California Teachers Association, is to be able to aggregate all of this information at the statewide level and very easily determine how much was spent on people. How much did we receive from the state of California? How much did we receive from the federal government? How much did we get in interest income from holding our money in the county treasury? Because everything is reported in a uniform matter across every single

029LEA in the state of California. So it's pretty cool from that standpoint. When you think about the fact that there's almost $100 billion invested each year into the TK-12 system. We're like a big business at that point, right? Looking at trends and analysis and where's the money going? How are we spending it? Where did we receive it? We get to aggregate it, all the revenues and spending for about 4.4 million students. Pretty cool concept. So I'd mentioned SACS, the Standardized Account Code Structure. Now I'm not expecting, there will be no quiz at the end of this. I'm not expecting the trustees to be experts in SACS. But I do want to highlight both the form of the Standardized Account Code Structure. And then identify a couple spots that I think are important for the trustees

030to at least understand the concept behind it. So each level of that pyramid represents a different field within each account code structure. So every single account code line has all of those fields in it. Which means every single account line is somewhere between 20 and 23 individual integers. Which tells us something as we look at each of these fields. To me, the two most important fields because we see these come out when we look at our SACS documents are resource and object. A resource is going to tell us who is providing the funding and what is it for. It's also going to tell us if a funding source is unrestricted or restricted. Really important. In addition, the object is also going to tell us if it's a revenue, where the money is coming from. But

031more importantly, in a better use of the object, it's going to tell us how we're spending the dollars. It's what we call a natural classification. So when I talk about spending the dollars, are we spending it on teachers? Are we spending it on classified non-management? Are we spending it on benefits? Are we spending it on utilities or insurance? That object field is going to be able to tell us that, and it's presented at the aggregate level on the SACS document. The rest of that is trustees. You don't need to know about any of that, right? And you don't even need to get in the weeds of the resource and object, but understanding what those are, I do think is important. So let's get into the first glimpse into the SACS document. Okay, so whether it's

032adopted budget, first interim, second interim, or unaudited actuals, your board packets are probably, you know, this thick each time, right, about 200 pages. This particular excerpt right here, if we read across the top, we've got two sets of data included in this. Okay, the first three columns are the unaudited actuals from 2324. Okay, so if we think about the timing of that throughout the year These would have come to you as trustees for approval the first couple weeks of September, right? They have to be approved no later than September 15th of each year Okay, and that the the numbers underneath the header of unaudited actuals Represents the actual revenues the actual expenses the actual contributions That occurred in the district in the 23-24 fiscal year Okay, so all activity through June 30 of 2024. The

033next set of numbers on the right-hand side are the adopted budget for the 24-25 fiscal year. All right, so if you were to go back and you go, well, Matt talked about the fact that second interim is also a budget and second interim should be an update of adopted budget and first interim, right, that would be a good takeaway. But if you looked at your second interim, you would see these budget numbers. in that first column of your second interim because that's our adopted budget. And that second interim is going to compare where were we at the beginning of the year, where were we at first interim, and then where were we at second interim. So there are budget numbers when we see unaudited actuals, but it's not a budget for the year that just

034ended, right? We have the actuals there. It's the budget for the subsequent year. When we look at the rows going across, and I'm going to go into more detail as we go through each of the items here, but I want to start, you know, my brain works. Let's start at the 10,000-foot level and then get into some more detail. So Section A, that's revenues, right? So that would be dollars coming into the school district, okay? And revenues are categorized in four broad categories. Dollars received through the LCFF. or the local control funding formula, dollars from the federal government, other dollars from the state of California, so other state revenue, and then other local revenues, dollars we collect locally. Section B is going to be our expenditures. So the money comes in in one of those

035four buckets. Section B is now telling us, well, how did we spend the dollars? And I mentioned before the objects, the objects are identified there. Our people costs, right, folks or dollars that we spend on personnel are those first three rows, certificated salaries, classified salaries, employee benefits. I'll get into that much more as we kick off part two of the presentation and then as I will with the other categories there. Okay, I'm going to skip row C for now and talk about row D, all right, at the high level row D. If we had any dollars that were going in between funds, right? Because this screenshot, I think I neglected to mention this, so my apologies. This is our general fund, right? Or our form 01. So anytime you get a board packet that has

036budget information or unaudited actuals, I always recommend as trustees, let's go to the fund 01 or form 01. Because that is the this is where we record all of our day-to-day expenses of running our school districts, right? I think the only thing that when folks consider day-to-day expenses One of the only things that wouldn't be here are dollars for our cafeteria program Right so for feeding all of our students each and every day that would be over in a different fund fund 13 But other than that for all intents and purposes, this is our day-to-day activities here. So section D would Identify if we are transferring any money between funds Right the transfer and transfer out the contributions line You'll notice that the contributions within each year they net to zero So for 23-24, the

037contributions you see a negative 21.9 million and a positive 21.9 million. I think it's 21.9. That is support that we are providing to programs that otherwise don't receive enough money. And so the two main programs are special education, we make a contribution, and then also for our maintenance program, routine restricted maintenance. Okay? Each time the trustees get this document that I bring it over. Yeah, I did so when we look at page two to me the two most important rows for trustees to put their eyes on would be row e and then section F Row two okay row e Takes all that activity above and it sums up for us. What's the difference between revenues and expenses and contributions? For our restricted programs So when we look at the 23-24 year, and I've circled the

038unrestricted column because the unrestricted, that's our lifeblood. These are dollars that we can use for any educational purpose. These are dollars that the state uses to measure our fiscal solvency for meeting our minimum reserves statewide. Dollars in the restricted column. You as trustees don't get to determine what's unrestricted versus restricted. The superintendent and fiscal team don't get to determine what's unrestricted versus what's restricted. It's the granting agencies, so the federal government, state government, when they provide dollars that have to be used for a specific purpose, the restricted column is where that activity goes, both the receipt of those dollars and the spending of those dollars. So the way that we would read unaudited actuals for the 23-24 year. There was a surplus in 23-24 of just over $13 million in the unrestricted side. So our

039available reserves increased by $13 million. Conversely, our restricted reserves decreased by $530,000. Does everyone see that? When we roll that forward to the 24-25 year, for the projections at that point, there's a projected deficit of $2.8 million in the 24-25 year. Okay, that's an important row because that's going to help us identify, do we have a surplus or do we have a deficit? Okay, and a question I get in the trainings is, well, I hear this term deficit and deficit spending. What does that mean? A deficit or deficit spending simply means that we're spending more, right? Our expenses are greater than our revenues, right? So if we think about it at a personal level, right? Let's say our paycheck for the month was $1,000. After we account for all of our bills or rent, I

040know we can't live off $1,000, this is hypothetical. But if after accounting for all of our expenses of rent, car payment, car insurance, groceries, we only spend $900. We would have a surplus in our personal life, $1,000 of revenue, $900 of expenses. Those expenses were $1,200, we would have a deficit. We would be deficit spending that month because our revenues are only 1,000, but our expenses are $1,200. When we deficit spend, right, the $1,200, we're deficit spending by $200. That means for us to pay for all those things and afford all those things, we're either using credit cards, right, debt, or we're dipping into our checking account or savings account to pull money out of there. So then the other component where I'm asking trustees to look each time you get a formal one is

041not only row E, but then row F2, which is ending balance. How much money do we have left over when we end the fiscal year? So for 23-24, because there was the surplus of $13 million for that year, the district started the year with $44 million, and then when we look at line F2, that means it ended the year with $58 million in unrestricted dollars. Right unrestricted resources looking at the restricted column started the year with 26.4 million Ended the year with 25.9 million. It looks like okay, and then this part of the form It's very confusing the way that it's reported Cde does not care for my opinion on this so no change has happened, but I hope it does at some point in the future When you look at f2 right the 58

042million that we just spoke to all those numbers underneath it ARE A BREAKDOWN OR A BREAKOUT OF THAT $58 MILLION. THOSE ARE NOT NUMBERS IN ADDITION TO. SO THE WAY THAT WE WOULD READ THE FORM HERE IS THE DISTRICT ENDED WITH $58 MILLION AND OF THAT $58 MILLION THERE'S $51,000 FOR REVOLVING CASH, $40,000 FOR STORES INVENTORY, $55,000 FOR PREPAID EXPENSES. THEN WE GET DOWN INTO THE ASSIGNMENTS. THE FIRST BIG ASSIGNMENT THERE, $15.1 MILLION OF UNSPENT SUPPLEMENTAL AND CONCENTRATION GRANT FUNDS. All right, so that's within the 58 million. I'll talk about that a little bit more when we talk about reserves But if you keep going down right we see the other assignments The district has to set aside the reserve for economic uncertainty 4.8 I think and then 35 million that is unassigned available for

043any educational purpose Okay. So again those dollars are not in addition to the 58. There's a breakout of the 58 When we think about a budget, the question should be, again, I know we're looking at unaudited actuals, but as trustees are reviewing adopted budget first interim, second interim, we know the numbers are based on assumptions. So the question should always be, well, what assumptions are used to arrive at those numbers, recognizing they're going to change throughout the year. All right, so let's talk first about the revenue section. Where does the money come from? It's no surprise that most of the dollars received by LEAs in the state of California comes from the state of California. But the way that the state does it for record keeping purposes is they carve out all of those dollars

044that are received by LEAs through the local control funding formula. So I'm going to walk through an example after I provide a little bit more contextual information to talk about how the LCFF works and why it's really important in addition to students learning, but why it's really important for students to show up each and every day. So based off the 23-24 data about 72% of dollars came to the district through the local control funding formula about 9% through federal revenue 12% through other state revenue, which we generally call categoricals Most of those being restricted and then about 7% from local revenue Okay, so the LCFF, really important. It is our lifeblood when we think about being able to do things. Certainly, employee salary and benefits, right, that would come from local control funding formula dollars.

045If we wanted to go buy some new buses, that would come from local control funding formula dollars. These are dollars that allow us to run our school district. They can be used for any educational purposes. Okay, so let's talk first. So what I've done here is I took that Form 01 that we had from a couple slides ago, and I pulled out just the revenue section, right? And what I want to do is walk through each of these components here. So let's look first at the LCFF, right? For Woodland Joint Unified, about $125 million is received annually just based off of students showing up each and every day. And you go, well, Matt, what do you mean by that? What the heck do all those words mean? I'm glad you asked. Let's talk about it.

046Okay, so first thing we need to understand is what's happening statewide. So this information reflects the statewide enrollment of students in the TK-12 system, transitional kindergarten through grade 12, which is what we educate here in the district. Going back to the last pre-pandemic year, which arguably was 1920, we can see even at that time, the state was projecting a decline in enrollment, even pre-pandemic. And then we had March 2020 hit, all heck broke loose. And then there was just primary concern, health and safety. Third down the list was how many kids are coming back next year. What's going to happen? Because it's important that we understand how many kids are enrolled because that then derives how we get funded here in the state of California. So you can see a really precipitous drop. from 1920

047to 2021. The state changed some of the rules that year for funding. They actually didn't collect student attendance records for the 2021 year. I know my teacher friends in the audience remember distance learning. That's a traumatic word for them. It was chaos in the 2021 year, trying to teach students and then record who's actually receiving instruction. That decline in enrollment continued into the 21-22 year, and we're starting to flatten out a little bit, which is a good thing. But if we were to look at enrollment projections from the state of California, this decline is projected through the 2040-41 year. This is not expected to turn around anytime soon, so it really is our new reality, which is really how do we do more with less? Because as we have fewer students, we receive less funding.

048So I want to distinguish this concept of enrollment versus ADA, or average daily attendance. A student who's enrolled, and I would say most parents would say, hey, I pay my property taxes. My student is enrolled in the district. I've done my part as a taxpayer within the district boundaries. And I would say that is true, right? But there's one more piece that's really important. School districts, specifically Woodland, does not receive funding just because students are enrolled. They receive funding based off students showing up each and every day. And so that's the concept of average daily attendance. Right a student who's enrolled if they show up all 180 school days They'll generate one unit of average daily attendance And for each day that a student is absent that factor of one decreases Okay, it's about a

049half a percent each day. They're absent So when we think about the rate at which students show up to school each and every year It's about 94% right now when we look at the statewide average Okay, 94% Means that on average students are absent about 12 days a year Okay, if we lose a half a percent per day, all right, so we think about it from an academic standpoint 94% is great You know we have that as a grade. That's a solid a in any class All right, that still means that students are missing 12 days a year All right, so that's an area that we always want to focus on and do better Each day that a student is absent Okay, that's lost revenue opportunity of about $90 per student So that's why it's

050so important that we encourage parents, hey, if you're going to go on the vacation, just come to school for a couple minutes first. Let us mark your student present, and then off you go. Off you go. Show up each and every day. I'll tell a quick story. I'm going to date myself a little bit. When I was working in the school district, I was in the business office. One of my accountants came in to me one day and she goes, Matt, you'll never guess what we just got. I said, what's that? She goes, well, we just got a check from Valley View Elementary for $104. And I was like, $104? That's a very oddly specific number. And I said, well, what was it for? Well, at the district, we used to put out a little

051newsletter to our school secretaries. And at the time, each day a student was absent, we lost $52 in revenue. And a parent came into the office and they let the school secretary know that they were going on vacation and they wanted to know if they needed to get any homework for their student for the two days that they were on vacation. And the school secretary mentioned to the parent, well, we lose $52 each day you're on vacation. And so the parent wrote a check for $104 right there to make up for those two days that they were going to be out. Right? And I tell the story just, again, anecdotally. I'm not suggesting we ask parents, right, to make a contribution for each day that they're going to be absent. But at least sharing that

052information with the parent. The parent had no idea. Right? Again, the parent thinks, hey, I'm a taxpaying citizen. I've enrolled my student in the school district. Surely they're not penalized financially if we're absent. And that is not true. That couldn't be further from the truth. We're funded based off students showing up each and every day. Right? So again, I've had the question in the master's in governance training. What can I do as a trustee to increase the revenues? How do we grow the pie, if you will? The easiest thing you can do is spread that message about the importance of not only the programmatic, because programmatic is 1A, right? But 1B, the importance of students showing up each and every day. The district loses money when students are absent. Okay? The easiest way to grow

053the pie. All right? The alternative is, you know, we create more students, but that's a lot of work. Okay, so when we think about attendance again, it's the rate at which students show up to school So when we look at how the state funds that then? Okay, this is through the local control funding formula. So a couple concepts here. All right first The state provides the the LCFF is broken up into really three components And there's a base grant There's the GSA reflected on the slide, which is the grade span adjustment, and then the supplemental and concentration grant revenues, which I'll talk about on the next slide. So what the state of California has done, and this formula has been around since the 2013-14 fiscal year. It succeeded a formula called the revenue limit formula.

054I don't know if any trustees were trustees when the revenue limits were here. That was here for about 40 years from 1972 to 2012. And then under Governor Brown, the State Board President at the time was Michael Kearse. He was a professor at Stanford, very smart guy. They conceived this new formula. That switched away from the old formula of revenue limits, which was effectively Equal payment it was an equality funding model to the local control funding formula, which is an equity funding model Okay, and even within the local control funding formula There's a recognition that hey we need to at least provide a floor for every le a in the state of California So the way the formula is is is conceived in the way that it works is any student in grade kindergarten through

055third, whether they're enrolled in Woodland, down in San Diego County, up in Del Norte County, the state's going to provide the same amount of funding, assuming that student shows up for the entire year. That's the base grant. I'm going to transition and talk about COLA here, and let's understand what COLA is. So when we hear the governor say, we fully funded the COLA for education. We fully funded the COLA. Education got the COLA. What COLA means is it's not a pot of gold. It's not new revenue necessarily. All COLA, which is the cost of living adjustment, is it's an increase in the funding per student provided by the state of California. So as we read the chart there, if we had a kindergartner here in the 23-24 fiscal year and they showed up every day

056of the school year. They generated $9,919 for the district. That kindergartner comes back for first grade in the current year, $24.25. If they attend every single day of the school year, they've generated $10,025 for the district. That's all COLA is, an increase in funding per student. Remember I had mentioned a couple slides previous, many districts in the state of California have fewer students year over year. So when we combine this notion of a COLA, the application of a COLA with fewer students, a lot of districts are actually seeing less revenue in 24-25 than they did in 23-24 because of declining enrollment, declining ADA. It is a statewide problem that we're all still trying to deal with. So that's the application of COLA. It's an increase in funding per student. So we now have the base

057grant for 24-25. So again, kindergarten, no matter where they are in the state, generates the same amount. Ninth grader, same concepts, but different funding amounts. That's also why we consider the notion that not all school districts are created equal. And the reason I say that is because a unified school district is going to have students in all four of those buckets. A high school district may only serve students in grades 9 through 12. Right at most they're gonna serve students in grades 6 through 12, but predominantly 9 through 12 well every single one of their students Will get no less or generate no less than twelve thousand one hundred forty four dollars Based off the way that the formula has been conceived. All right, so high school districts are generally funded at a higher rate

058than Unified School Districts All right elementary school districts because of the base grant and then what I'll talk about here shortly the grade span adjustment are funded at a higher rate than unified school districts. Unified school districts are generally the lowest funded of the three school district types because the rates for grades four through six and seven and eight are considerably lower than the rates for K-3 and 9-12. So talked about the base current and the grade span adjustment. When the formula was rolled out, there was a recognition that during the Great Recession, so from 07-08 through 11-12, that there was an old categorical formula prior to 07-08 called class size reduction, which incentivized school districts to lower class sizes in grades K through 3 down to 20 students. Right that was the push and

059you got the most funding if you had 20 students a little less funding at 21 a little less at 22 a little less at 23 well during the Great Recession that went out the window and we now had K-3 class sizes 27 28 29 right really high So with this formula the governor said hey, we're gonna incentivize School districts to return back to 24 to 1 Right by providing this additional funding 24 to 1 in grades K through 3 Similarly, at the 9-12 level, there was dollars provided for career tech education, CTE. That's the $316 per student in grades 9 through 12. Those dollars didn't have to be used for those purposes, but that was the intent of the governor and the legislature. So when we sum those two up, you can see how much

060each student in each grade span can generate, is eligible to generate if they show up each and every day. Alright, so quite a wide range there and you can see the discrepancy between grades four through eight and then the other two cohorts there Alright, this is where the equity component of the formula comes into play Alright, because the base grant grade span adjustment is uniform throughout the state of California The equity component is the supplemental and concentration grant portion of the local control funding formula and what this says or the way that this is implemented is the state is targeting more money to LEAs with higher concentrations of students who we call unduplicated pupils. Okay, and an unduplicated pupil is a student who is identified as either eligible for free or reduced price meals, receiving

061English learner services, or foster youth. Okay, and the reason we call them unduplicated is because many times you'll see overlap between those categories You could have a student that's that's eligible right and all three Certainly a foster youth student would be eligible for free reduced price meals on the natural The state only counts that student once for the purpose of this calculation. Okay, so that's why it's unduplicated Okay, so for each unduplicated pupil the state provides a supplemental grant. Okay, so this is in addition to the the base grant that we just spoke to Okay, once an LEA and this is at the LEA wide level, this is not school by school, which has been an argument of some of the proponents of this. Once an LEA has at least 55% of their students identified

062as unduplicated, that 56th student generates the concentration grant. All right, so additional funding above and beyond. So really quickly we can see LEAs that are 70%, 80%, 90% unduplicated pupils are receiving quite a bit more in funding than LEAs that aren't above that 55% threshold. Now Woodland, you're at 74% right around there. So you do receive some concentration grant. The statewide average is about 64%. So that means that 6 out of every 10 students on average, or 3 out of 5 students, are identified in one of those three categories, which is kind of sombering to think about in the state of California. But that's what the data suggests. So I think this is where I do my little exercise. Ooh, I do. All right, so I get to play with Excel here, which is my

063favorite because I'm an accountant. And I just want to illustrate for the trustees. Let's see. Does that? Hopefully everyone can see that okay. So this concept of enrollment, ADA, and unduplicated pupils. Okay, so a really basic example and you'll see we have on here the the base grant amounts This is a fictitious district. They only serve grades TK through three All right They're eligible to receive eleven thousand sixty eight dollars per student as long as they show up all year and then they'll receive supplemental and concentration grant funding depending on their Unduplicated people percent. Okay, so if we have a hundred students that are enrolled How much funding do we get? We don't know because the students are only enrolled. We have to figure out the rate at which the students show up to school.

064So if we use the statewide average, 94. That means students on average are present 94% of the time. They're still missing 12 days of school every year, but we generated 94 units of ADA from those 100 students. And in this example, none of the students are identified as an unduplicated pupil. This particular district would receive a million dollars, just over a million dollars in funding from the state of California through the local control funding formula, based off of this information. Now, let's start to play around with the unduplicated pupil percent. So now what I've done, by changing that percentage, because we only have 100 students, this means that 20 of the students in this district are unduplicated. eligible or identified in one of those three categories. You can see the base grant row, row eight

065there didn't change, but now the district is receiving some supplemental dollars in addition to the base grant dollars. We go to 40%, now we're getting $83,000 in supplemental. We go to 55%, now we're getting $114,000 in supplemental dollars. So again, it's really important for students to show up each and every day. It's also really important that we're identifying students in each of these categories, right? I'd say a little, not less so, but the free and reduced is a bit mitigated now that we have universal meals in the state of California. They're receiving the meals irrespective of their socioeconomic status. But certainly students that are eligible for English learner services. and students who are foster youth, we want to make sure we've identified those students appropriately to make sure they're getting the services that they need

066to set them up for success. All right, so once we hit that 56th student, we're now getting concentration grant in addition. Okay, so let's do an extreme example here. Let's say we have a district where nine out of 10 students is identified as an unduplicated pupil. All right, so 90% UPP. We went from funding of only a million forty thousand with no students identified So now funding of almost 1.5 million for the year because of the students we've identified as unduplicated You can see how quickly that ramps up especially when we get above that 55% threshold So this creates some disparities and funding throughout the state and that's intentional Right. The state was very intentional with the local control funding formula about wanting to target dollars in communities that need it most And the metric

067that they use for that are students that are identified in one of those three categories. I was doing some work in a district in the Central Valley, 99.5% UPP. It was wild. It was wild. Like, I can't even fathom that. That being said, they were getting a significant amount of money from the state of California per student, and they needed it. They needed it. So this is, hopefully this helps to illustrate the concept of the UPP. When we talk about average daily attendance, so let me put in Woodland's number here. So Woodland, 74% UPP, you'd be getting about 1.3 million. If students were absent more frequently in a given year, another six absences, which would drop us down to 91 ADA, you can see how that affects all of the funding. That ADA component is

068really, really important. Because when we have 100 students enrolled, we're going to staff for 100 students. We're going to have lights on for 100 students. We're going to serve meals for 100 students. But if only 91 are showing up each and every day, that's kind of money down the drain, if you will. That's lost opportunity for revenues. So it's that concept of growing revenues. So that's about a $40,000 difference there. 3%. So hopefully that illustrates the concept of average daily attendance and UPP and why those two factors are so important for funding. Not to minimize the programmatic component, but the funding component. Can we go back to that? And if anybody actually knows our ADA, put that in because I think that would be interesting to see. I don't, and the, I can do it,

069but RADA, again, is across all four grade spans. Right, I understand, just to show how it changes the numbers. 9,600, what's the enrollment? Okay, like budget, exactly wrong, approximately right, okay? So 9,600, oops, all right. So again, with the 9,600 number, that means students are showing up 96% of the time, okay? Let's say, so everyone remember the 135 million. If we drop that by 1%, we just lost almost $2 million just by students being absent for two additional days on average. That's the impact of attendance. It is very significant. Thank you. That's the point I wanted to make. Yes. Thank you for that question. I appreciate it. Okay. So there's our illustrative example. So let's go through these next couple categories, and I think that'll conclude part one once we finish the revenues. So as

070we look at the SACS document here, again, this is the same chart that we've already seen. We're now moving down to the federal revenues. The question I get a lot is, well, why is there zero under the unrestricted column when we look at federal revenues? It's because most federal revenues have to be spent for a specific purpose, which means they're restricted. Okay, the main ones that LEAs receive we would see here would be dollars for title one, right? And even all the titles, right? I know with the larger migrant population the district receives a lot of title three dollars as an example. Special education, federal government does provide some money for special education. So that would be in here as well. Again, it's aggregated at this level, but that's why you would see a zero

071on the unrestricted side. There are some LEAs that receive what's called impact aid dollars. So if part of their boundaries contain federal non-taxable land, the federal government actually provides some money that offsets the lost revenues and ADAs that would be generated from that called impact aid. But you guys do not receive any of that. All right. So again, kind of breaking down what we typically see in that federal line item there. Those title programs, Title I, II, III, and IV, special education. When we think about special education dollars, we'll talk about this on the state revenues side as well because the federal government provides money for special education, the state provides money for special education, and then whatever is not covered by those two revenue streams, we are covering locally with our contribution. Right. And

072so when we look at the general breakdown of that, again, special education services are federally mandated services as required by the IDEA. At the time that the IDEA was passed, there was a I can't even call it a promise. I'm going to say an intent by the federal government to cover no less than 40 percent of costs associated with special education services. They currently cover about 10 to 11 percent with federal dollars. The state covers about 30%, which leaves local LEAs to cover the remaining 55% to 60% of those costs. We'll talk about that a little bit more in the contributions. So those are the main revenue sources. I keep the ESSER on here. So the ESSER, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds, those were in direct response to the pandemic. And the

073reason I keep them on here is because they were so significant with respect to dollar value. Again, generally the federal government's not in the space of just providing money to kind of do whatever with. In this instance, with just these three different federal stimulus acts. So remember, let me think, two were under President Trump during his first term, and then the third Federal Stimulus Act was under President Biden. Between those three Federal Stimulus Acts, we got each of the three S's we see here, more than $21 billion was infused into TK-12 education just in the state of California. $21 billion. It was very, very significant. There was some other funding provided by the federal government and the state government. But again, the impact of these dollars we have seen trickle through the system, even through

074this fiscal year. That big bucket over there, the SR3, all those dollars had to be spent by September 30 of 2024, which is a part of this fiscal year. So many LEAs are coming off of the spending of these dollars. They did influence not only what LEAs were buying, but how they were spending their dollars. So when we look at the pie, the expenditure pie, it was certainly influenced by the spending of these dollars because these dollars had to be used to respond to the pandemic. Many LEAs were buying HVAC equipment, personal protective equipment. I can't tell you how many phone calls I got from people going, can I spend my ESSER dollar on shade structures in the playground? I said, yeah, as long as you can draw a connection to the pandemic, right? Social

075distancing if we need the space. There's your shade structures. So a lot of other things, or these dollars were used on a lot of other things other than what we typically think about with educating students. So that definitely would impact the pie and how dollars are spent. I hesitated even putting this in, but I felt like I would be remiss if I didn't mention it. A question that we're getting a lot at school services is, you know, what are the risks relative to federal dollars at this point? Again, I feel like each of these slides is only good for the day that it's created because so much is changing so quickly right now. I just saw the bill was introduced to officially shut down the Department of Education. So let me back up a little

076bit. The two main funding sources we get from the Department of Ed are Title I and special education. So when we think about what is our exposure here in education here, not only in the state of California but nationwide, those to me are the two big ones. The third one would be in the Department of Agriculture. They provide the funding for free and reduced price meal reimbursements. So I'm just going to focus on the Department of Ed components right now. I have a very hard time as I stand here today on April 10th thinking that Congress would pull back on special education funding, even if the Department of Ed were to ultimately be dissolved. Special education funding, again, is in response to the federally mandated services that we have to provide. I'm not sure... how

077Congress would eliminate the funding but then require those services to be provided. My expectation is that those dollars would move to a different department. Again, if the Department of Ed were to be closed down, which I still don't think is going to happen, I don't think it's going to pass, even though the bill has been introduced. The Title I dollars, I do think, are a little bit more susceptible to cuts and or elimination. Right and I say that just because while it doesn't fit into the president's platform It's a lot closer to his platform than special education dollars. So When leas asked me, you know, should we should we not budget any of these dollars for 2526? I'd say no go ahead and you budget them for now until we know otherwise Right because what

078we don't want to do is if we have staff that's funded with title one If we eliminate Title I from our budget, we're then effectively eliminating those positions. There's pink slips. It just creates too much turmoil at the local level. I would say status quo at this point on each of those funding sources going into 25-26. That's my recommendation. Okay, on to happier stuff. So let's talk about other state revenues, going down on the row here. The other state revenues, we will have both unrestricted and restricted dollars. So yes, we get some dollars from the state that we can spend for any educational purpose. We also get some dollars, the majority of dollars, that have to be spent for a specific purpose. And this is 11, 12 different individual funding streams. I put the largest

079ones on here just for the board's edification. You don't need to know all of them, but I think understanding which ones go in here is important, especially as we think about the connection to what we hear from the governor. So if we go back to 22-23, there was a historic one-time investment in schools that came through the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, as well as the Arts and Music and Instructional Materials Discretionary Block Grant. More than $11 billion just in those one-time block grants. In addition, the state has, and they're very proud of this, as they should be, have created the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program. Which is dollars that are intended to provide those wraparound services for students, right? So the before school component and after school component so that for each instructional day students

080are on campus right under the supervision of an employee of the district for no less than nine hours pretty cool Also for 30 non instructional days every year the students have access to nine hours of supervision on campus Alright, so those dollars are restricted have to be spent for that specific purpose. Again, I mentioned their special education dollars and then lottery mandate block grant. I get questions a lot, you know, well, you know, if the jackpot for the lottery goes up a lot, do we get a lot more money in schools? The answer is no, right? You might have parents ask you about that in the supermarket. Lottery is only about 1% of our revenues, somewhere between 1% and 1.5%. So it's a very small piece. We'll take it, but it is not going to

081make or break any decision that you make as trustees. All right, and finally the local revenue. I think this is the last slide before our first break or a break When we look at local revenue again, we're gonna have unrestricted and restricted local revenues when we think about the unrestricted Dollars right we maintain all of our cash in the county treasury We actually receive interest on that, just like we would in our own checking our savings account. It has been relatively significant recently because of the higher treasury rates, the rate of borrowing. So I've seen interest rates 3.4%, 3.5%, which has been significant given a lot of those one-time dollars that LEAs have had that had remained unspent. Those interest rates are starting to drop. So interest income will drop facility use fees if we're

082running out our facilities to outside entities We charge them for that we can collect those fees And again miscellaneous donations donations to school sites for PTAs Foundations and what-have-you All right, so that's the revenue side of things. I think that means we're to break because I just hit the slide forward one, so I'm not sure what we're doing at this point. That was the end of part one Thank You superintendent and thank you very much for the presentations for first part. All right, let's go ahead and Conduct the Q&A or comments who would like to go first? All right, I'll go first Thank you. I want to say thank you for explaining the cola based on ADA Can you touch a little bit about? How the cola Since it is based on average daily attendance

083of our students. How does that? Reflect when we think about Salary adjustments because I I have a history of working in education policy and I believe that there's a strong misconception that when we think of Cola it means that I, as a policy education staffer for a school district, am going to receive the 1.07 COLA. So can you talk a little bit about that and clear that misconception? Yeah, absolutely. So first, COLA is not derived at the state level. The legislature does not determine what the COLA is. The COLA is actually an aggregate of federally collected data based on state and local government consumption and investments nationwide. And that was intentional. When it was put into law, there was a recognition that we probably don't want the legislature determining what the COLA is each and

084every year. So let's benchmark it against a federally aggregated data point. And then each year, the legislature gets to determine, based on revenue projections, can they afford to fund the COLA, right? So then when we talk about this distinction between COLA, ADA, and then compensation increases, certainly if there was no declining enrollment, it would be a really easy conversation. You got COLA. If there's no declining enrollment, great. That means our revenues went up in this year 1.07%. Let's talk about a 1.07% compensation increase. I went back to this particular slide here, which compares the 23-24. local control funding formula revenues with the projected 2425 local control funding formula revenues. This chart is nice because on the very right hand side, it actually calculates the difference for us based off the two numbers that are there.

085The software does this for us. This is not a manually input number. And so we can see the growth in the revenues is a half a percent. So then we have to ask ourselves, well, wait, wasn't the COLA for 24-25 1.07? Why wouldn't our revenues go up 1.07%? And the reason why is because COLA is only one piece of the equation. When LEAs are projecting their 24-25 revenues, certainly they would incorporate the COLA as an increase in funding per student, but then the other big component of that is, well, how many students are we funded on? pretty good scenario. A lot of LEAs statewide, this actually is a negative percent year over year. There's actually a decline in revenues even though a COLA was provided. And that goes back to the illustrative example I provided

086before. Yes, the funding per student, the dollars that we receive per student has gone up by COLA, but that does not mean that a district has the equivalent of new revenues. Because ultimately we are funded on the number of students that show up each and every day. And if there's fewer students year over year, that's going to offset the COLA. So I was having the same conversation with a board member. And I could see the wheels were turning. And they're like, oh, so the state COLA, that's like the gross COLA. But then what we see here, that's the net COLA. I said perfect. That's a great way to describe it, right? Because our growth in revenues incorporates COLA plus any changes in the number of students year over year. Net COLA. Thank you very much,

087Mr. Phillips. I'm going to pass it on to my right, Superintendent. Superintendent via start sorry trustee Villagrana. Thank you In one of your example you were doing you had when you put 50 56 percent or at 50 56 percent Unduplicated is when the concentration money kicked in. What is it that? Dictates that that's the percentage so each year Yeah, so again, right, for us, if we were at 55, we'd get nothing. At 56, boom, we just got another $600,000. Pretty cool. That number is reported each year by LEAs. It's what we call the Census Day. So on the first October, first October, first Wednesday in October every year, every LEA in the state of California has to take a snapshot of all the students that are enrolled in their LEA for that year. And then

088over the next couple of months, that information is reported to a statewide system called CALPADS, where the state aggregates all this information. And for each student... that is reported to CALPADS, the district has to report a lot of information about each student. And one of those fields, or a couple of those fields, I should say, are whether or not a student is an unduplicated pupil, right? And so districts do that by identifying, is the student eligible for free or reduced-price meals? Is the student an English language learner? Or is the student a foster youth, right? Those are three of the, whatever, 75 fields that have to be reported for each student. And so once that data is submitted to the state via CALPADS, we're able to get a report once it's all said and done,

089where CALPADS then says, okay, based off the data you sent us, right? So for, in this example, you sent us 10,000 students. We believe that 5,600 of your students are unduplicated. So you have an unduplicated pupil percentage of 56%. So it's based off of locally submitted data to the state of California. Yeah. Thank you, trustee. You're good trustee. It'll do is mojica a quick follow-up question to my colleagues question in your response Am I correct in understanding them that the UPP actually shifts from your new year when the additional concentration funds kick in as well Yeah, that's so that's the third component when we look again when we look overall at revenues Those LCFF revenues are all the base grant dollars that we get as well as the dollars for supplemental and concentration So any

090change year-over-year is going to incorporate the application of the Cola The number of students were reporting for a DA and our unduplicated pupil percent for that year. Okay And I have another question if that's okay on slide 14 And I think the the spreadsheet that you were sharing actually is probably either either one would be helpful GREAT. THE UPP, I FOUND THAT SHEET REALLY HELPFUL, SO THANK YOU, WHEN YOU WERE KIND OF PLAYING AROUND WITH THE NUMBERS, RIGHT? AND IT LOOKS LIKE THE FUNDS FROM THE UPP AND THEN THE CONCENTRATION FUNDS THAT MAYBE KICK IN, AND FOR US THEY DID IN FACT. WE'RE GETTING THAT MONEY BECAUSE OF THE UNDUPLICATED PUPILS, RIGHT? SO OUR ENGLISH LEARNERS, FOSTER YOUTH, FREE OR REDUCED PRICE LUNCH. Earlier, I think you had mentioned that the LCFF is unrestricted funds

091So these monies that we're getting including the concentration funds, even though we're getting them for these students We can use them for anything No, they are unrestricted right? So all the dollars that the state allocates through the LCFF Yeah, we report as unrestricted dollars, but when you look at the education code There are some limitations on what the supplemental and concentration grant dollars can be spent on right so because they are generated by those three Buckets, but that's not the right adjective those three groups of students What the law says is that those dollars have to be spent to principally benefit and increase or improve services for those students Right and the way that an le a communicates that to its community. It's through the local control and accountability plan. Mm-hmm, right and so the

092law related to the the LCAP or the local control and accountability plan is an le a annually has to report how it's using those dollars to principally or primarily benefit that group of students And those dollars have to be spent in that manner in addition There were some guardrails put around that because for the first so the LCFF came into effect in 1314, LCAPs came into effect in 1415 and there was a lot of questions around okay we do the LCAP each year well what if we have unspent supplemental and concentration grant dollars and there wasn't real clear guidance on what LEAs were supposed to do with that. I believe it was in It's 21 22 or 22 to maybe 22 23 There were some additional guardrails put around that that said that leas had

093to separately identify any unspent supplemental and concentration grant dollars To be used for that same purpose going forward. So although they are unrestricted they certainly don't feel unrestricted Great. Thank you. Thank you very much trustee trustee Richardson Fowler Hello, thanks for coming out tonight. I love your shirt. Oh, thank you Okay, so my question is we talked about the assumptions and everything's changing We've got three years of budgets that were in at any given moment based on being on three years the back trends Is there any way that we can tighten up our assumptions and even more? Yeah, okay. Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah, so I think on the the revenue side So much of that information comes from the state of California. All we can really do when we

094look back historically at our assumptions is ask the question, were we using the most current information that was available to us at the time that we put together our budgets? I will say budgeting in California is difficult. Because many times we don't know about new dollars we're gonna get from the state until they've enacted their own budget right and at that point We've already adopted our budget. So I think going back to the assumptions for all the revenues Can we tie those back to the most current information at the time that we had available? That's all we can really do at that point on the expense side again looking at trends To say and let me think about how I say this When we look at trends on the expenditure side, again, the expenses are

095going to be based off assumptions. So I'm going to break it up into two categories. So if we look at our people costs historically, right, and we have assumptions there. The question that I would ask is, well, was our assumptions, was it based off of, did we know how many people we had working for us at the time? Was there any unknowns relative to that? And so when we got to the end of the year, did we have any swings that were unexpected on the people costs? If we knew the number of people that we had working for us, we had reasonable estimates for what our substitute costs were, there shouldn't be any unexpected swings, right? There's always going to be ebbs and flows, especially. with a district that has a nine-digit budget, right, in

096the hundreds of millions of dollars. But instead, the swings would be, oh, we settled in March, so when we got to the end of the year, we saw an uptick in salaries, as an example, right? So it would be a reasonable change. And I think I know where you're going on this one, but I'm going to go here anyway. When we get to the books and services, right, looking at those categories... Because again, generally you will see the budget for books and services be higher than what actual expenses are. I would say that's the norm. Where the conversation then has to go is, well, are we comfortable with the amount of change that happened? And do we understand why the change was there? Fairly significant amount the amount of unspent supplemental and concentration grant funds

097I think the question would then become well Why aren't we spending these funds right because these are supposed to go to those students, right? So are we missing out on services for those students? Are we putting things in our L cap that we're never going to do or attain and so let's think about how we can spend those dollars Elsewhere or not elsewhere, but let's think about other actions and services that serves that student population So that we don't have those dollars funding falling to the end reserves at the end of the year All right, because that means we're not spending those current dollars on our current students. Absolutely. Yeah, and my fault final question for now is When can you speak more about our restricted funds when they become carryovers? Do they? Maintain their

098restriction from the original fiscal year. Yes. Okay. Yes Yeah, so any dollars we get I'll pick on title 1 and special ed because I've used those already those always retain that Restriction that they have to be spent for the allowable uses of title 1 and the allowable uses of special education Restricted dollars never lose their designation or their restriction. Yeah Thank you. Thank you very much Our superintendent has a comment Just want to add to the your piece because that was a very good question And as you may recall when we did our budget reductions and I met with each department to look at expenditures and we looked at trends about to make space To move expenditures from the general fund that qualified for these funds That was part of the process to the minute

099level that we did to try to address to improve in that area of Working within our working budget and tightening up our budget So that real quick President Bautista Zavala, can I check in? So that means that we have positioned ourselves for the next fiscal budget to know some new assumptions and trends based on the tightening up of our budget back in fall We're making improvement towards that. So we'll see we're gonna be revisiting in a year to see how That you know how how with how those decisions have been made remember those decisions were made for next year's budget Right that Lewis is developing is gonna come in June. So we'll take a whole year to see well How did we do? How close did we get we're asking we improve? Okay. Thank you

100any other comments on this specific? Section all right moving on trustee Garcia question for me right now. Thank you very much trustee Brubaker I don't have a question. I just wanted to make a comment because I thought it was interesting because we just a few meetings ago had a boundary study an hour Excuse me our decline it we have a decline enrollment, but it's 3.9 percent according to my math Which may or may not be right, but I think it is Which is I think you know not a good position to be in but it's a lot better than the statewide average Which is heartening when there's so much uncertainty on so many other things, right? So I just wanted to highlight that that we got that going for us. Okay, good Thank you very

101much. Any questions or comments on this one? All right, trusty Rodriguez Hi, thank you for being here tonight. I really appreciate the information that we're going over today. Just your reflections in dealing with budgets and looking at different districts. When a board is taking on the issues of raises to teachers or to... to clerical, right, when we're taking on issues of perhaps increasing healthcare coverage or hiring more teachers. Generally, all decision-making, most of that, to me, as I look at it, would come out of the LCFF. funds right and and I'm just wondering what what has been your experience in seeing how districts piece together funding to be able to to be able to make those kinds of investments right in the long term you know is it basically just however you can manipulate this

102LCFF whatever you know extra you can you can get from COLA if of course you know everything else happens just what's your experience in trying to base sound decisions. Yeah. And I'm just going to make a joke, and I shouldn't say it, but I'm going to say it anyway. We don't use the word manipulate in accounting. We massage things, right? Massage is better. We have a saying also in education, we can do anything, we can't do everything, right? So it's about priorities. Where do we want to prioritize? Because, again, when we look at, and the way that most... Boards school business officials would look at this as we start with well What do we have to spend that's new above and beyond the previous year as our starting point? Because we can't spend what we

103don't have and if we are that means we're spending down our reserves All right, anytime expenditures are greater than revenues So as we look at the 2425 year as an example When I look at what's happening here, overall, the district is projected to have significantly fewer revenues than they did, and I'm on slide 10 right now, significantly fewer revenues than they did in 23-24. And I would actually break apart unrestricted versus restricted right here because the decline in restricted dollars, that just means... Hey, we got some one-time dollars in the previous year that we're not getting this year, right? So that could be the ESSER dollars. Well, we were never going to use those for compensation increases anyway. So I always, my advice is that we would look at the unrestricted column and we say,

104well, as a district, we're going from $133 million in unrestricted revenue down to $128 million in unrestricted revenue. So anything new. that we want to do as a board, we don't have any new money to support that. So rather the conversation would then switch to the expenditure side. Is there something that we want to do differently? It's something that we don't want to do so that we can do something else. It's a tradeoff. So that's where we get in the conversation around we can do anything, we can't do everything. Certainly, I know staff would brief you on, you know, if the board wanted to provide a compensation increase, well, here's the impact for the current year and the multiyear projection because that's something you would need to consider before ratifying any tentative agreement. But it's

105not overly complicated to me and I recognize as I'm saying that that sounds silly for me to say that but it's Let's look at what we have to spend if we think about on the personal level How much do we have to spend this month? And if we're gonna spend we probably want to stay within those boundaries And if we do go over that means there's something else that we can't do. So what's that trade-off going to be? Is that helpful? Yeah Thank you. Yeah another question Sorry, just looking for it really quickly. Well, where is it? I'll just bring it up out of my head. So just going back towards the changes federally that are happening, and I know you had commented that it seems unlikely that they... that the end result would be

106the elimination of the Department of Education, right? And I think that's one way to look at it. That's a disastrous way to look at it, right? But that doesn't have to happen necessarily in order for us to have trouble with funding, I want to put out there. They can, as they've done, either ship out different pieces of it, which might cause chaos. They've already eliminated a significant amount of positions. right, which might cause delay or chaos. And that, in fact, even if they don't eliminate the Department of Education, there are other ways in which we can be severely impacted. Can you evaluate? That perception that I have, whether... Yeah, no, you're not off base. I think anytime you see that much chaos, is a good descriptor, that much chaos happening, business is not going to

107happen as was happening, certainly with the number of positions that have been eliminated. I think at a minimum, LEA should expect a delay in the funding coming from the federal government, which is kind of sad because special education was always a year in arrears anyway. So it could push that out a little bit further. I think whether we're talking about the elimination of the department overall or just a decrease in funding still takes an act of Congress, right? The president does not get to unilaterally decide to eliminate and or reduce funding. I believe it's on the Senate side. I think even though it's mostly Republican, I think they still need eight Democratic votes to do something like that. From where I stand and I don't spend a lot of time in that world. I will

108admit but from where I stand I Think they would have a tough time getting the votes that they need to move forward with something like that Thank you. And is there a particular date or time that we can look to to what you would say probably by this time We would have a pretty good idea of what we're facing Yeah, so the federal fiscal year goes from October 1st through September 30th. So the federal government is currently working on continuing resolution for the 24-25 year. I don't anticipate that there would be any significant changes for the current year because it's, I mean, it's over halfway over even at the federal level. If we were to see anything for 25-26, probably in that September window, you would start to hear some rumblings around it. Again, that

109would assume that the federal government is passing a budget on time. Which the fact that we're in continuing resolutions right now that means they haven't even passed a budget for 24 25 but To answer your question and that September window is when I would really start keeping my ears to the ground Thank you Thank You trustee. I don't have any other questions or comments superintendent No trustee Villagrana going back around trustee Rodriguez Mojica. I Think it's either slide 13 or 14 And this was a piece where you were sharing with us the different funding based on grade level spans, right? And it looks like the funding for grades 9 to 12 is significantly larger, right, than it is for the other grades. And if it's not on, or it is on there, it's because of

110cost of career and technical coursework, right? Technical ed coursework. That's a part of it. There's also a recognition that it just costs more to educate a high schooler. You think about a high schooler with five periods, well that's going to take six teachers or five different teachers with the prep period. So you've got the cost of actually teaching the student, but then you also have all the extracurriculars and co-curriculars that go along with that. We think about facilities, sports fields, tracks. When we get into some of the STEM topics, science labs, things that you would not see certainly in the K-6. A LITTLE INTO 7 AND 8. HIGH SCHOOLERS ARE MORE EXPENSIVE. THAT WAS CONTEMPLATED IN THE FORMULA. A SIMILAR QUESTION TO WHAT I HAD ASKED BEFORE ABOUT THE ADDITIONAL MONEY GENERATED FROM THE CONCENTRATION

111FUNDS AND THE UPP. FOR 9 TO 12, IS THERE ANY OF THAT FUNDING THAT HAS TO BE ALLOCATED THAT IS NOT TECHNICALLY RESTRICTED BUT IT REALLY IS TO CAREER AND TECHNICAL ED? or does it just go to all of the different things you just listed that? Yeah, no. So the the numbers on slide 13 here, whether the base grant or those dollars for the grade span adjustment, right, which if we're focusing on 912 is for career tech ed, those are truly unrestricted. There's no strings attached, you know, for a unified district. It's not like you need to break apart your LCFF into the four grade spans and spend it accordingly. It all goes into a pot and then you spend it out. So those dollars no strings attached any educational prerogative of the board those

112dollars can be spent on Versus the supplemental and concentration as we mentioned before has to be spent to principally benefit An increase or improve services for the unduplicated pupils. Okay. Yeah, and and all the supplemental and concentration goes into a bucket as well It's not like those have to be spent on the respective grade spans MAY I ASK A FOLLOW-UP QUESTION TO OUR DISTRICT AND I DON'T KNOW SUPERINTENDENT IF YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS. BUT I'M CURIOUS IF GIVEN THAT THEY'RE NOT RESTRICTED AT ALL, RIGHT, DO WE DO ANYTHING INTERNALLY TO ALLOCATE SOME ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR THE CAREER AND TECHNICAL ED OR ATHLETICS OR ANYTHING LIKE ANY OF THE THINGS THAT WERE JUST LISTED THAT MAKE 9 TO 12 A LITTLE MORE EXPENSIVE OR IS IT REALLY JUST KIND OF EVERYTHING IN ONE POT

113AND IT GOES WHEREVER IT'S NEEDED? Our secondary sites do receive discretionary funds the school site To make the local decisions at your school site. They also receive funding for sports like for I think the kid like ten I'm just gonna normal know I'm about Don't want to guess but they get did you get a bit of money that specifically for sports to replace equipment and Anything regarding sports so they do that in addition to the concentration we also allocate specifically to each site And you'll see that when you see the school plans specifically the supplemental concentration that's allocated to the site so they can make decisions in there At their school at the site level on top of their title one many districts only give sites title one a discretionary They don't receive this additional

114funding. Yeah, and that funding is coming from from these the LCFF monies So we do do that. Yes. Okay. Thank you Thank you very much any additional comments on this specific questions that were asked Okay, trustee Richardson Fowler trustee Garcia trustee brew Baker Sorry, I keep meaning to clear my throat before I turn my microphone on on slide at 8, I think No, sorry slide seven, um, and this might be better directed at our staff on the federal revenue line there's a difference of 12 million dollars between 23 24 and 24 25 is that because of Escher funding or what is the discrepancy there? Is that a whole can of worms? I just opened The column on the left is the unaudited actuals. The column on the right is the adopted budget. I think it's

115safe to assume that when we built the budget, we're taking into consideration all of those new federal monies that we're getting ready to receive versus the unaudited actuals is what we actually spent. And it could be the impact that those dollars that he described that we received from a little bit from Trump and a little bit from Mr. Biden, that could be factoring into that. Thank you. Yep. Is that all for you trustee Brie Baker? All right trustee Rodriguez. Just one of the things that you mentioned was the concept of the California lottery and how their money impacts education. 1% I think you said right? Is that a formula that that is kind of it's in stone? Is there a particular time period where that formula could be opened up again? What are the base?

116What's the basic information about yeah, so there was there was a report done I think by the I'm going to get the department wrong, the State Auditor of California, where they looked at how the lottery was spending their dollars, and there was a finding that they weren't sending all the money to education that they should have been. I think that report is three or four years old at this point. But the way that the dollars flow to LEAs is it's on a per ADA basis. It's a uniform rate. So the unrestricted... I think it's $190 per ADA. And then there's some restricted lottery that's like $90 per ADA. Something like that. That's exactly wrong, but it's in the ballpark. It's about $280 per student we get from lottery funding each year. And when that funding

117first began, the lottery funding, did that funding build on funding that was there for education? just replace a section of funding. So if it was 10%, so was it 100% of what we had and then 10% on that? Or did it actually just replace 10% of that 100%? My gosh, my gut would say that it supplemented. So it was in addition to. And the reason that I say that is because in education, we have Proposition 98. which was passed in 1988. And what that says is for all the state revenues, education gets about 40% of those revenues. And that's been in place since 1988. The California lottery, I think, it came in two waves. I think the unrestricted piece was passed in 1984 and the restricted piece was in 2000, I think. So there could

118have been something that happened in the mid 80s. I was about that tall at that point. So I don't remember the specifics of how the unrestricted lottery came out. If it did supplement versus supplant some of the state funding, I don't know for certain. The intent of it should be to supplement. Supplement, correct. And do you know that as a legislative fact? Do I know what? In terms of that, that in fact was the intent of. Bringing the lottery. I know that it I know that it currently Supplements funding that we get from the state of California. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Okay Thank You trustee. All right. Does anyone have any further questions on this part one? Okay, so I'm gonna go around Trustee all right trustee Richardson Feller So with our attendance I know

119that when we have students out for a longer period of time and I do this as a teacher myself if I hear that they're gonna be out for 12 days and I'm like you sure you don't need some recovery days so that we can get you on independent studies which helps cycle in our ad a do we have any and I know you're an accountant so maybe this is district-wide staff folks do we have any mechanism in our arsenal to account for the kids who are at home. They're having a moment but they can still do work. I know as a teacher I still keep my stuff on Google Slides. So if a kid is out I tell the parent if you can still do work with them if you log into Google Classroom. So

120if they're doing some work at home. I don't understand why we can't get credit. I completely get that the formula is not just, and we're talking about numbers, so of course we're gonna be emotionless, but my teacher heart says the purpose of the ADA is. they have to have their butts in the chair in order for us to educate them. Sure. So I've got an answer for you. I got what the law says. So the law provides ADA in two ways. And I didn't get into the weeds on this one, but I will since you've asked the question. Okay. A student can generate ADA with being their bottom in the seat. A student can also generate the same amount of ADA if they participate in independent study, which means that they're doing remote learning. There

121are some caveats that go along with that. including but not limited to the student, the parent, and the supervising teacher have to sign a master agreement, right? Which the laws around that have been loosened up recently. Prior to a couple years ago, that master agreement had to have all the signatures affixed before the student went out on independent study. Now, as long as the student is participating in what the state calls short-term independent study, which is less than 16 days, the signatures can be affixed afterward. Right. So once the student comes back we can fill out the master contract with the signatures and When the student returns not four days after they return when the student returns to class They have to turn in all of the schoolwork that was assigned to them when they

122were out on independent study And then you and your teaching role Would review that work and evaluate the time effort of that work And as long as that work met the minimum day that the student had to be in their seat We can claim a DA for that work Perfect. So I think this is my follow-up question to that one. The short-term program is how many up to 16 days? It's 15 or 16, and it's switching next year. Let's call it 15 for now for the sake of argument. So it's up to 15 days because that's what I thought it was. And how... Is it up to like one to 15 or is it? Yeah. So the law prior to, I believe last year said that for school districts, a student had to be out

123at least three days before a school district could start claiming ADA. That has been reduced to now you can do it for one day. But the student again has to return the work that was assigned to them the next day they come back. Yeah. Thank you. Can I add in addition to that? There's a cool change in law coming for next year, attendance recovery program, where students who are absent, A school district can make up absences for students who are absent if that student is participating in the before or after school program and or summer intersession. Up to 10 days of absences can be made up per student. As my comment, I will say I love this program. As a teacher, I cannot tell you how many times I've signed up to teach the Saturday

124school out in Esparto for credit recovery. Thank you very much. Trustee Garcia, Trustee Brubaker. Do we communicate to our families very clearly that availability? I know that's something I became aware of when my oldest was in kindergarten, so I got an early introduction. And so we've sort of planned our vacation times. We try to do our best to plan our vacations around the school schedule, but sometimes that's not possible. So we had planned our vacations around the times for our kids to be able to do independent study. Are we making sure our families know about that availability? I think definitely with this scenario that we can do better on we definitely do a push during especially during the Thanksgiving December time our teachers especially our teachers and school principals really push out that communication because

125a lot of our families tend to leave around Thanksgiving and then decide just to take the whole time off and then come back in January so that happens also there's a big push then but I believe that there's something an area that we can Definitely do more communication on ongoing throughout the year. Thank you. I'm gonna piggyback on that Do you have a comment on it? Okay, I'm gonna give a comment. I know that we did like a Informational night where we sat in this room Right before the holiday season. It's probably like October And we gave like a little 101 on what families could do if they were planning to do extended vacations or being away from the area for extended period of time and what the different options were what the processes were

126to ask for independent study or take an extended an extensive packet home and be able to Allow for them to not miss school and then the child not to fall behind Not sure if we've done it again, but it was very successful. We probably had about 15, 20 families here. A lot of great questions. We had a translator here. If we're not doing it again, I just encourage us to do it again. I would love to be a part of it. I think I sat on a panel for a portion of it. But not only am I sharing it as something that we've done, but I also just wanted to tell you that that's one thing that I have seen that our district has done in the past. And I want to celebrate it because

127I think it was successful. We can definitely. Work on doing adding some more of those communications as you know, we also do a lot with trying to promote positive attendance with our attendance campaigning and This this week I went to announce the winners of the month the teacher that is become very popular with our principals They get really really excited when they're the so they went the best attendance for the month But I can work with staff on on how we can communicate more this up these different options for independent study. The law keeps changing. You keep getting that policy that keeps coming to you and it's going to come to you again because of the reasons that Matt just described with another change. It started getting more attention during COVID, especially we started coming

128back in person where families wanted to stay home and just, you know. This distance learning and getting and taking credit for the time that they were online and that's when it all started and it keeps Changing and changing every year since then Thank You superintendent. So if we are Almost to them. I don't know almost to 7 p.m. I do want to allow for a bathroom break We do have a second part. We'll be conducting public comment before we start the second part Do we have any other questions? I'll just continue going around, but if we can just show a hand so that we have a more or less, and I would like to keep us on a, not that I'm trying to limit the time, but just kind of get a sense of where

129we are in this section. All right, does anybody else have any questions? All right, so is it all right if we let him do his questions, if there's any comments, and then we can take a break and continue with part two. Go, Trustee. So this question is about reserves. WE KNOW THAT WE HAVE TO MAKE A 3% RESERVE THRESHOLD EVERY YEAR, WHICH WE HAVE SINCE I'VE BEEN ON THE BOARD AND BEFORE THAT. BUT IN TERMS OF HOW MUCH RESERVE CAN YOU HAVE, WHAT ARE THE GUIDELINES, THE HARD LIMITS ABOUT THE PERCENTAGE OF RESERVE THAT YOU CAN HAVE IN THE BUDGET? SO THERE IS A LAW AROUND RESERVES. AND IF I COULD, COULD I HOLD THAT QUESTION UNTIL WE GET TO PART TWO WHERE WE TALK ABOUT THE RESERVES? I THINK IT WILL SEGUE NICELY. Thank

130you very much, trustee. All right, so it is 6.51. We'll give about a five-minute break. So we'll come back at 6.57. And then we'll continue with part two, public comment. Thank you so much, colleagues. All right, thank you very much. It's now 6.57. Thank you so much for getting back on time. Monica, go ahead and lead us back into any public comment for item D2. Okay, first one is Becker Bernard. Unless I have that backwards and you're the third. Okay. Alex Trotter. So I have a couple of questions. I was wondering if we could identify parts where kind of like our books and supplies services and capital outlay can be like redirected or slowed to go towards employee benefits and salaries. We know that our students benefit when schools are fully staffed with stable students

131or not students. stable staffing. So if we want better outcomes, I think that it would be a good. thing to kind of look towards what we can do to recruit and retain the best for our students. And we also know that our UPP is 74%. So we have a lot of students with needs. And what are we doing to recruit staff and retain those staff members for these students? Because we know that they are the ones that really need a lot from us. So those are my questions. Thank you. Okay, next we have Kyle Peace. Hello. So you guys were talking a lot about independent study contracts, and I work in a high school, so you guys are asking a lot of questions like, oh, how does that work in the high school level, and

132how does that reality work? So I do believe most of our parents, or a lot of them, are informed about that they exist. The kind of disconnect I see as a high school teacher is the completion of work while the students are gone, and the burden on classroom teachers. to prepare work before they leave or to like, you know, I just tell them a lot of times just, oh, the work's on Canvas. I put everything on Canvas. You can submit online. But a lot of our students, when they go away, they don't have internet access. It's spotty. And so I just wanted to provide you guys that perspective. And if you guys have additional questions for me as far as a classroom teacher, you can go ahead and ask me about that. We're good? Okay.

133Thank you. I just love it. Okay, next is Becker Bernard. Firstly, thank you to Trustee Brubaker for requesting these special meetings. I appreciate that we are attempting transparency with our budget. I do want to address some concerns from teachers that I heard this week, which were that announcing two days before the meeting without clear expectations of public comment opportunities such as this, which is really... nice to be able to comment in the middle of the presentation rather than just at the beginning or at the end. So I do worry that although this was a great first attempt that we have some room to advertise and to really get people to come to this because it was meant to be for the people too to learn about school budgets. Okay, so I jotted some notes down.

134We spend 15% of our budget specifically on services. That's about $30 million. And our bargaining team recently requested from HR and business services a list of all contracts greater than $50,000. And they are working diligently. And I know that they are awesome and overworked. But they are hopefully going to get that back to us soon because we really want to ask questions that are specific about. What are we spending money on that we could be spending on staff instead? We know that our students deserve the best and safe and stable schools, and that means keeping teachers here. When districts are spending 80% to 85% of their budget on staff, and we're only spending 75%, I see that as a real... obvious discrepancy that we should look at. And again, our services has increased year after

135year. So now we're at this point of how are we spending that much? Students learn from people, not stuff. We spend 25% of our budget on things other than our teachers. And I think that's something to look up to. There was a reference to schools as businesses, and I agree. They kind of operate in that hierarchical way. And there's some... big gaps in pay. I mean, we have a superintendent who just recently had a raise, a well-earned raise, but has the salary of what a CEO makes. And we have teachers who I just had to sit across the table from who are not able to pay rent and are getting evicted. And I have teachers who can't pay their mortgage and who go to the food bank because they qualify for food stamps. And I

136have teachers who tell me that they... don't know how they're going to continue to work but they also are afraid to leave because what if they can't get a job in this economy and and it's it's really hard to hear i hear the numbers i hear that it's a business i also hear the people and i really hope that we can reflect on our spending habits and find how to divide the pie in a different way thank you thank you very much that concludes the public comment for the second item Now we're moving on to the presentation part two sir. Okay, I did it success Okay, so part one was really about the revenues part two We are now going to transition into the expense side of the general fund Talk about the reserves in

137the general fund and then I'll conclude the presentation tonight with some information that we're hearing from the state so Good news the numbers align with what has been shared thus far Again with the the breakout of the expenses if I were to put the the sax form right next to it You could see the actual dollar amounts, but how a district or how the district is spending its dollars we can see it broken out there between certificated salaries classified salaries and employee benefits So going from the right down around the bottom that represents the people costs Quick math gets us to 75% there so that is a true statement 75 cents of every dollar that the district spent in 2324 was on behalf of people whether salary or benefits with the remaining 25 percent broken

138out between books and supplies services and capital outlay Something that is interesting to me and isn't necessarily specific to Woodland, but something that I've seen throughout the state is this continued conversation around spending reflects priorities, and that is an absolutely true statement. One thing we spoke about earlier in the presentation was the influx of the one-time restricted dollars, the federal pandemic dollars. Just on that one slide. It was more than $21 billion. And in an annual year, about $100 billion is allocated to education. So if an LEA were to spend all that, that's a 20% increase in funding just for one year of one-time dollars. That has skewed how LEAs are spending their dollars. That denominator has grown and that does change. So the question becomes what is the new normal? Certainly, we at school

139services monitor this. If you looked at any of our articles prior to about 2018, they would say on average a school district spends about 85% of its unrestricted resources on people. That's 1,000% true. If you look at unrestricted and restricted combined, it's been about 80% historically when we look at the general fund. So it's important that we understand what we're looking at. I actually just had our information technology colleague that I work with, he's able to... query all the different unaudited actuals. And we look back over the last five years, and the trend, it was pretty eye-opening when we looked at how much is being spent on people. We went from 19-20 to 23-24. And I'm sure Lewis can share the article with the trustees if you care to look at it. But going from

1401920 to 23-24, that percentage spent on people, and we looked statewide, we disaggregated the data between unified elementary and high school districts. That data overwhelmingly shows that there has been a decrease in the percentage spent on people. It's gone down from 82% to actually 75%. So when you look at the spending here in the district of 75% and I'm not here to argue if it's right or not, I'm just right objectively what does the data say. When you look at all of the districts statewide, all 1,000 districts, the average is about 75%. Right so to me the district is just it's average with what it spends on people Now this does not contemplate the breakout between certificated and classified or I'm sorry the statewide data doesn't distinguish between the certificated or classified It doesn't further

141bifurcate certificated between management and non-management When we think about percentage spent on salary, that's a combination of, you know, especially for a teacher, well, how many kids do you have in your class versus what are we paying you, right? With this notion we can do anything, we can't do everything, generally districts with higher class sizes, they're able to have higher pay. Lower class sizes, lower pay because we have more people running around. So there's a lot of ways to get to the percentages that are reflected here. But I did want to note that the statewide data suggests that on average districts are spending 75% on people, at least for the 23-24 year. Okay, so when we look at the expense component now of that SACS form. Again, we're looking at the people costs and my

142circle kind of it cuts off the sense no one really cares about the sense So it's those three rows when we look at the people cost certificated salaries classified salaries and employee benefits So what's in each of these categories? Alright, so when we think about certificated salaries, these are employees that work in a position Either with a teaching credential or an admin credential Okay, so when we look at the certificated salaries line, that will include all of the great teachers employed by the district. It will also include the vice principals, the principals, superintendent in there, because all of those positions require a certificate, right, certification. Conversely, when we look at the classified salaries, that's going to include all of the wonderful support staff, all of the clerical support, human resources, finance, school secretaries, right? The

143whole gamut. Anyone at the school site that's not certificated is going to be in the classified salaries. It's also going to include groundskeepers, maintenance, custodial, bus drivers, right? Any other position that does not require a certificate goes in the classified salaries line. And then finally, employee benefits. These are the benefits that the district pays on behalf of employees. So what does that include? So we've talked about salaries. I think that's pretty straightforward. Any salaries related to those particular classifications. On the benefit side, we break up benefits really into two categories. There's statutory benefits and then health and welfare benefit premiums. Okay, the statutory benefits would be the first five bullets listed there on the right hand side. Those are benefits that are a percentage of salary. So every dollar of salary that's paid, and I

144know we have a couple teaching professionals here on the board, so you'll be familiar with these. But the statutory benefits as a percent. So CalSTRS, for example, the employer is making payments to CalSTRS, the teacher's retirement plan. The employee is also making payments to CalSTRS. And both of those rates have gone up over the recent history. The information presented in the statewide SACS forms is just the employer's contribution to CalSTRS. It does not include the employees. Conversely, for classified employees, it's payments to CalPERS. Both the employer and the employee are making payments. It's just the employer's piece. For classified employees, Social Security. For both employee classifications, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance. So each of those categories is a percent of payroll. For every dollar we're paying a percentage into each one of those things. The health

145and welfare, this is the district's contribution for annual benefit premiums on behalf of employees. So this is going to be a real dollar amount. This is not a percentage of payroll. So as salary goes up, that doesn't necessarily mean that health and welfare benefits go up. right the district's contribution they're typically separately negotiated items but it is included in the benefit line item so as i mentioned on the previous slide when we talk about those statutory benefits when i say that they are driven off of salary they are a percentage of salary this is what it would look like so for a certificated employee As an example, if the employee made $10,000, so it's a part-time employee working maybe some extra hours. So the district would say, hey, you've earned $10,000. Great. The employee has

146their pay stub. They have their taxes taken out, withholdings, what have you. They're going to take home $7,000, let's say. When the district is reporting $10,000 paid to the employee, the district is actually paying $12,260. for that ten thousand dollars because of those statutory benefits calpers medical unemployment and workers comp on the classified side the rate goes up even higher right so for certificated it's 22.6 percent on the classified side it's almost 37 percent because the calpers rate is higher than calsters and classified employees are eligible for social security where certificated employees are not Okay, so you see the rate significantly higher for every $1 for a classified employee. These are real costs, right? These are dollars going out the door. Each of those lines is included in the benefit expense line item on the

147SACS document. All right, moving on. So books and supplies. Again, there's been a lot of conversations in this area. When we look overall, it does appear that the books and supplies, at least at the time that unaudited actuals were put together, it does appear that the costs are going down. A LOT NOW THIS COULD NOT CONTEMPLATE ANY CARRY OVER FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR AND I KNOW WE HAD QUITE A BIT OF CARRY OVER SO THAT'S SOMETHING WHEN WE LOOK AT TRENDS I KNOW THAT WAS A QUESTION FROM TRUSTEE FOWLER WHEN WE LOOK AT TRENDS WE WANT TO INCORPORATE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE 24-25 BUDGET HOW MUCH IS THE CURRENT YEAR ALLOCATION VERSUS HOW MUCH WOULD BE CARRY OVER FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR THAT A SITE AND OR DEPARTMENT DOES GET TO SPEND. Within books

148and supplies, I like to ask the question in a less formal setting, what goes into books and supplies? Right? Obvious answer, well, textbooks. Yes, textbooks go into books and supplies. Some other things that might be surprising to folks, if we're buying Chromebooks, technology devices for students, that goes into books and supplies. Certainly the pens, paper, pencils, all of the materials used for learning in classroom goes in there. Guess what else goes in there? Right? Wheels for school buses. Gas for the school buses, right? Urinal cakes for the boys' bathroom, right? All those other things, the sprinkler head replacements, right? PVC pipe, if we have a break in the irrigation line. All those other things, when we talk about materials and supplies, it's much more than what just goes into the classroom. It's all those things

149that we can hold that's required for operating a school district, okay? Services and other operating. And rightly so right this is an area that we always want to continue to evaluate right because if we're spending dollars here That means they're not going to an employee of the district right by definition of this category its costs for outside services But it is important, especially as trustees, that we understand what makes up this category, right? Because as an evaluation is done, as there's conversations around, well, what are we spending on services? It is a lot more than just outside supports, right? Whether classroom direct service support and or other professional supports, right? A significant component of the services are things such as lights. electricity, gas, sewer, right, the cost of utilities are all included in this category.

150The cost of the insurance premiums for the district, right, the property and liability insurance premiums that's paid on an annual basis are incorporated and those items are broken out separately within the SACS document. It's very easy to see how much of the services go for insurance, how much go for utilities, how much for repairs of district equipment. If there's things that we can't repair internally, we have to go down to local mechanic shop or something like that. Cost of that goes into this category as well. That's broken out separately. All of the cost of the instructional software that we use, right? Any learning management systems that we have for students. I heard, I think, Canvas. I don't know if that's free or not. I doubt it is. The cost of that would be a software

151cost. It would go in services and other operating expenses. Travel, conference, certainly a cost. It's broken out separately in the SACS document so we can see exactly how much we're spending on travel and conferences. And certainly, any outside legal support, any outside professionals coming in. I've heard the, and I hear this statewide, you know, there's a shortage of specialty credentials. I don't know if we know this, right? Speech and language pathologists, really hard to find as an employee. Right these private contractors have sucked them all up, and then they're charging us double the rate that they're paying them It's it's criminal right to a certain extent the cost of those types of services the cost of Sending a student to a non-public school because that is the least restrictive environment for the student It's all

152in this category services and other operating so again fully support having a conversation around it But we should go in with eyes wide open that it's a lot more than just outside contracts, okay? Getting down into the bottom categories here capital outlay other outgo each of the two categories there So when we think about capital outlay all that is is these are things that we can hold that exceed a certain dollar threshold All right, it's something that needs to be capitalized. The federal law around this says if you're using federal dollars for something that costs more than $5,000, it has to be capitalized. So we would record the cost of that down here. Like if we bought a school bus, as an example, that would be a capital expense. So it would go on that

153row there. So you see a lot of modernization, renovation-type projects that would exceed that particular threshold. On the other outgo, if we are paying our county office, I'm not sure how involved Yolo County Office is in providing special education services, but I know a lot of county offices will provide those regional services for the more severe students. Because they can get some economy of scale Right if we only have a couple students that are you know hard of hearing or blinds We wouldn't want to open a classroom just for that right we would probably refer them to the county program where they can have eight or nine students in a classroom and actually have a Full-size classroom to serve those students more appropriately the cost of providing those services would go in this particular line

154other outgo Indirect cost it's a little more nuanced, but it's effectively The cost of operating the district are spread across all of our federal and state programs Okay. All right. So that's the expense component of it. I went through that a little bit more quickly again I know there's time for questions at the end and I absolutely welcome those When we look at the contributions, so, you know, Section D1 here, some districts will have transfers in between funds. I would say the most common example of this, certainly as we look at the general fund here, would be a transfer out to the cafeteria fund. It's probably the most common example of this. Many school districts run a cafeteria fund that is not self-sufficient, meaning that the costs of running the program are more than the

155revenues that are received, and so districts will support... their cafeteria program with the transfer of unrestricted dollars from the general fund okay what i see across the state though is the contributions item here all right so what this is saying is the district in 2324 used 21.9 million dollars of unrestricted monies right predominantly our lcff funds to support programs that are offered to students on the restricted side, which is principally special education and support for our maintenance department via routine restricted maintenance. So the question becomes, well, how do we do less contributions? Because if we can do less contributions, that frees up more money on the unrestricted side. The routine restricted maintenance, that is a formulaic calculation. Right any district that participates in the school facilities program in Both the year that they receive dollars

156from the school facilities program and for 20 years thereafter a district has to set aside No less than 3% of its unrestricted dollars into a restricted account, right? So there's not a whole lot we can do about that other than reducing spending overall. All right, it's 3% is 3% Alternatively, we could not get money from the state, but that would be a terrible trade-off. We want to get money from the state for our facilities. So that, to me, can't do a whole lot about that. The special education side, again, the services are mandated. When we look at, you know, it's hard to find cost savings in special education right now. I'll be very frank with you. Whether it's the non-public agencies that are, you know, hiring all of the other white qualified employees and then

157billing them back to us, right, sending them back and charging double, certainly coming out of the pandemic. I was working down in a district in, I guess it was the beginning of the 21-22 school year. So kids have been home for a whole year. And there were some teachers on this committee that we were a part of. And this was in like September. And the teachers were sharing stories. And it made me well up a little bit because they were saying that the students aren't even ready to learn at this point. They just wanted physical contact. You had second and third graders walking around holding hands. It wasn't romantic. It was just because they hadn't seen anyone in such a long time that they missed and they yearned for that physical contact. Segwaying from that,

158coming out of the pandemic, a lot of learning was lost. And so as we think about how we evaluate students, we're seeing more and more students now who are being referred over to special education for additional services. Statewide, the rate was about 11.5%. So in any particular district, about 11.5% of their students would have an IEP. That's gone over 13.5% now statewide. When we think about the number of students that are being referred to special education, so again, it's an area Very tough to contain costs over there the federal government's not helping the state I don't know if you know this about governor Newsome love them or hate them He did deal with dyslexia as a child, so he has made it a priority in some of his previous state budgets to provide additional funding

159at the state level above and beyond what he otherwise would be required to. So that has helped a little bit, but still, costs for special education continue to outpace growth and new revenues for special education, which means the contribution continues to increase. All right, so now we get into the reserves conversation. So again, this is page two from very early on in the presentation. You see I've still circled those same two rows, row E and row F2. Not to get too far into the accounting weeds, but when we define I'll look at that 58 million because we've already walked through at once There's five basically accounting categories that those dollars go into The restricted category that's not something that a school district can determine what's restricted versus What's not the balance that's in the restricted

160is simply the remainder of dollars that we receive that are restricted that are unspent And that's all it is. The districts don't get to move money in and out of there, right? But the other four categories, that's where a district can categorize items. So whether it's non-spendable, committed, assigned, or unassigned, right? Those numbers are manually keyed in there. Non-spendable dollars again. They're part of our reserves. There's really nothing we can do with it though, right the money in revolving cash Stores inventory, right? That's unspent if we have a warehouse right all the extra paper and light bulbs and toilet paper and stuff at the end of the year Prepaid items if we paid for something now that we're not going to use until the next year that's prepaid Again, I think the biggest component, you

161know, there's already been conversations around it is under the other assignment, which is the unspent supplemental and concentration carryover. Certainly those are dollars while not restricted because, again, school districts don't get to determine if that's unrestricted or restricted. That would be the state having to mandate that those dollars are restricted. The state has not done that and does not seem willing to do that. What they have instead said is that those dollars have to continue to be spent for the students who generated those dollars. So that's why we see that carryover there. It is a portion of the unrestricted ending balance. So when we calculate the minimum reserves, it will be included in there. So let's look at what that means for us. So the way that the state defines ending reserves. And for most

162school districts in the state of California, the minimum reserve is 3%. A school district with between 1,000 students and 30,000 students has to have at least a 3% reserve, not only in the current year, but in the two subsequent years as well, to adhere with Assembly Bill 1200, because school districts are required to complete a multi-year projection. A couple data points for the board's consideration. There's a nationwide agency, the Government Finance Officers Association, that recommends at least a 17% unrestricted reserve for governmental entities. That represents about two months worth of payroll. Should there be an economic downturn, there's some money in the bank. This is the savings account. I think more impactful when we look at that statewide data. So I had mentioned the statewide data for spending on people is about 75% for the

16323-24 year. Using the same source for statewide data for ending reserves, the average unified school district had a 24.36% reserve in 23-24. Right now when we look at the district's actual reserve numbers here, you can see that calculated with the unrestricted reserve from fundo one plus dollars and fund 17 so you see that on the first row divided into total general fund expenditures for each of those respective years right so 32 percent reserve or almost 33 percent reserve in 2223 increased to 38 percent in 2324 and it's projected to hold steady as a percentage in 2425 It's important that, again, we understand what's in that $62 million that the district ended the year with. A big chunk of that is the supplemental and concentration. About $15 million of that $62 million is supplemental and concentration.

164Even if all those dollars were spent, the district's reserve would still be higher than the statewide average. If we were to back that out, it would still be right around the 29% range. But I think having the context of what we see statewide, what's included in that number is really, really important for the trustees to at least grasp the concept at the 10,000 foot level. Now to Trustee Rodriguez's question from just before the break, is there a maximum? We know there's a minimum, and again, the minimum has to be there for all three years, not just the current year, but the current and two subsequent years. Is there a max? Currently, the answer is no. There is no maximum. There was a bill passed Proposition 2. I think it was in 2014 2014 2015 which

165said that if the state Hit some metrics in their own reserve for school districts that that would cap the reserves for local school districts Okay, and so I've got a I've got a slide on this a little bit later So I'll pause when I get to it to highlight the numbers Effectively what happened is the state hit that magic number for capping district reserves in 22-23 so district reserves were capped for one year in 23-24 and then the state pulled all the money out of the rainy day fund So the reserve cap is not triggered at this point and it's not projected to be triggered anytime soon So the law is there in the event that the state's own reserve account for schools gets built back up again, but that balance is currently zero. And

166so there is no trigger on the local reserve cap at this point. It is 3% of the TK-12's share of the Proposition 98 annual payment. So said another way, it's about $3 billion in reserves. And I'll pause on that slide when I get to it in just a moment. But again, those dollars have been depleted. All right, so that's all of the woodland specifically. We walked through the whole Form 01, the revenues, the expenses, the contributions, the fund balance and ending reserves. I've got, I think, four or five or six slides here on the statewide budget to kind of set the stage with where we are now and what we could see coming out as part of the May revise. Okay? All right. A lot of bar charts on this slide. The takeaway from this

167slide is that funding and education is primarily generated on the big three taxes. So sales and use tax, corporate taxes, and personal income taxes. So as these buckets go up, as the state collects more taxes, education gets about 40 cents on the dollar, as codified under Proposition 98. Proposition 98 covers the TK-14 system, so that's TK-12, and then also grades 13 and 14. So with TK-12 getting about 89% of that share. You can see the largest bar chart on here is far and away personal income tax. It's more than or about double sales and use tax and corporate tax combined. The takeaway from that one is that a majority or a significant portion of the personal income tax is generated from our highest earners, our 1%ers in the state of California. In the most extreme

168years, the personal income tax could be more than 50% just from our 1%ers in the state of California. So very, very concentrated tax base, which also makes it very, very volatile. Our 1%ers generally earn their dollars from the stock market. So as the stock market goes so too does funding for education in the state of California. Yes I see the grimaces. We know what's happening with the stock market right now not likely to have an impact on the 24-25 year, the year that we're in right now, right? Because that tax year has already finished for taxpayers, right? That concluded December 1 or December 31st, 2024. But certainly this downturn, if there's not a recovery, the 25-26 tax collections could look very bleak, which would impact our funding for schools, right? Again, just a quick history.

169The higher part of the bar represents the state tax collections for each year. So it peaked at over $220 billion in 21-22. The lower blue bar represents the dollars that were allocated to the TK-14 system under Proposition 98. So you can see we hit that high watermark in 21-22 220 billion statewide with 110 billion paid to TK 12 There was a lot of things that happened in 22-23, but the cliffs notes version the state way over projected revenues in 22-23 Sent the money out the door to schools and then realized oh we overestimated revenues by 26 billion They attempted to say schools keep your money But please don't hold the Prop 98 commitment up at this level. We want to come back down here. So you might have heard about a lawsuit from CTA and

170CSBA accusing the governor of understating the appropriation for Prop 98. That's effectively what it was. He gave us the money. Rather than taking it back, he said keep it, but don't hold me to that for future Prop 98 obligations. CTA and CSBA said that's unconstitutional. And, you know, they were right. You know, they were right. It's unconstitutional to manipulate the Prop 98 guarantee. My fear with those lawsuits is the governor would have said, fine, give me the money back, which would have been devastating for schools. Right? Those two one-time block grants I talked about, the Learning Recovery and the Arts and Music Block Grant, basically those dollars would have all had to have been pulled back if the governor were to pull back money. So they struck a deal, at least CTA and the governor

171did, so we're off and running. 24-25 you can see while the state revenues are down the amount going to prop 98 is actually up from 21-22 and that's because as part of that deal from 22-23 there was a suspension of prop 98 which anytime that happens that means the governor and legislature owe us the amount that was suspended so they're repaying that maintenance factor in the current year so that's why you see the discrepancy there. So when we think about 2526, right? Because that's the high level bar. Prop 98 just says the money has to go to schools. It's up to the governor and legislature to decide how to send the money to schools, right? They're the elected officials. That is their responsibility. So when we look at how the monies are being proposed to

172be sent out at this point, so this is as of January, we know for 24-25 the COLA is 1.07%. There's no question about that. There's no question that it's going to change. It's locked in. The COLA for 25-26, the governor as of January projected it to be 2.43%. Okay, so that means that if that held steady the funding per student would go up 2.43 percent next year right which would then be offset locally by any declining enrollment declining a DA All signs at this point point to the 2.43 being high There's a non-partisan body, the Legislative Analyst's Office, that provides an analysis of the governor's budget proposals to the legislature. Their most recent estimate as of mid-March, they project the COLA for next year to be 2.26. So down slightly, not significantly, but down slightly

173from the 2.43. So that's something that we're keeping an eye on at school services. But you can see a majority of the ongoing dollars that the governor has identified are to fund the COLA. Again, a growing district, they're going to get that 2.43% increase or whatever the COLA is, plus whatever growth in ADA. They're going to be sitting pretty. districts that are losing kids are going to have that net COLA scenario, kind of like we talked about with us. Yes, the COLA is here, but our actual revenue growth is here because of declining enrollment, declining ADA. Not to go through all these, but the governor is proposing to put a significant amount of money towards the final push for implementing universal transitional kindergarten. That does affect us because we serve TKers. So that means our

174class sizes, or our class size ratios, excuse me, for every 10 students, we'll have one adult in the classroom, right? And that's the school side average. That's down from 12 to one this year. And then some additional money for the expanded learning opportunities program. The bottom half of the chart is just some one-time spending proposals that if we do have an economic downturn, that's the first place the governor is going to go is starting to pull back on some of those one-time items in there. Okay Again just big picture right our current funding level Governors projecting it as of governor's budget to be about 117.6 billion could go up to 119.2 billion again This was all put together in end of November early December as the governor was presenting this In early January the Eaton

175and Palisade wildfires were raging down in Southern, California The estimates of the damage of that are unknown. I think there was an LA Times article in late January that estimated the economic impact at about 250 billion dollars. We do know at this point that there is an extension on tax filing for residents of LA County. It's been pushed out several months. LA County represents about 25% of the state's population. So whether it's on the corporate side or on the personal side We're not going to have the full revenue picture as of April 15th like we normally would write the tax filing deadline because they have Several months to file their own taxes Okay, and then again, looking into 2526, the governor's estimate as of January was almost even with 2425 as far as the amount

176of money going out to schools. I have a hard time believing this is going to hold steady, again, with the wildfires that are out there. Looking at the stock market right now, all kinds of crazy things are happening. So the 2526 number at this point seems to be high, which means that... those list of things that the governor was proposing to do for 25-26 he's not going to be able to do all of those things the question remains is how much is he going to have to pull back and what is he going to be able to fund all right so connecting some dots i had mentioned the reserve cap or the the reserves earlier for the district this is the mechanism that would dictate whether or not the trigger is in place So when

177you look at the 22-23 bar, that notes that the rainy day fund for schools was at $8.4 billion. The governor and legislature, because they overestimated taxes in 23-24 and they didn't want to pull any money back, they used the entire rainy day fund to support the ongoing commitments they'd already made to schools. So there wasn't even an economic downturn necessarily. They just overshot the bow on their estimates. So they used the entire savings account in the 23-24 year. The use of that entire savings account pulled the reserve cap, the local reserve cap off. This balance in this account, this rainy day account, needs to be over $3 billion to trigger the reserve cap. So you can see preliminary estimates and this is as of January before the impacts of the wildfires and the stock market

178and all the craziness the governor was projecting that that rainy day reserve would be 1.2 billion at the end of this year and 1.5 billion at the end of 2526 so barely even half of what's needed to trigger the reserve cap locally So I don't anticipate the reserve cap being triggered at any time in the near future Okay, and if it is triggered, I don't think I addressed this if it is triggered What it says is that the district's reserves can be no more than 10% All right It limits it out that and that's of the unassigned and assigned the board could choose to commit funds That would exclude those dollars from the reserve cap, but the letter of the law says 10% for unassigned and assigned Okay, and there is you can apply for

179a waiver to the county office for two out of three years if that is in place Okay, so I think this is the final slide. Hooray We are here. So when we think about next steps, you know, headed into the middle of April now, you guys, you have spring break coming up soon. Oh, you just had it. So you're fresh off spring break. So you're in the final push then to the end of the school year. You'll have your LCAP coming for a public hearing probably towards the end of May. We'll get the May revision in the middle of May. That'll be our first update from the governor since January. about how he views the impact of the wildfires down in Southern California, how he views the impacts of the stock market for 25-26 revenues,

180and we'll probably hear his thoughts about the current administration as well, because he likes to share those things. But that'll be our first update since January of where he thinks the financial health of the state is, and then by the end of June we'll have an enacted budget for the 25-26 year. Okay? So that concludes the presentation. Thank you very much, mr. Phillips We're gonna go ahead and start Q&A and comments who would like to go first. All right No questions and comments All right. We're gonna go ahead and start by trustee Richardson Feller. Okay, so I have a question about our Reserves and our percentages So you had made a statement that most of the districts were at about 24% yep I'm trying to slide 15. Oh no different one. I have too much

181stuff Yeah, I totally were here we go, okay, so in Yolo County In Yolo County, we have the largest amount of reserves, according to the California Department of Education. I've sent out some emails and reached out to them because I had so many questions. Lewis has, my first few years, Lewis, thank you. But again, I'm not trying to get a PhD in school finance. Right now, we are almost double most of the districts in Yolo County in our reserves. We've got like Davis at less than 6%, Winters at less than 14%, Esparto's at 15%, Washington's at about 23%. And we're at 38%. So my question here is... And we're not seeing huge cuts in those districts. We're not seeing huge setbacks in those districts. How do we get parity in our reserves? So you spend

182them? Yeah. Yeah, that's the simple answer. Within that, I really can't impress upon the trustees enough that a significant portion of your reserves are unspent supplemental and concentration grant dollars. So to say just spend it is the flippant answer. Utilizing specifically those supplemental and concentration grant dollars in an informed way. One, we don't want to be found out of compliance with the law. The county office has the oversight responsibility. relative to our LCAP and how those dollars are spent. There's already been a couple lawsuits statewide relative to that. I think the first big one that happened with the spending of supplemental and concentration was down in Los Angeles Unified. Basically what they tried to do was say, we're 72% UPP, so we're going to cover 72% of our special ed encroachment with supplemental and concentration

183grant funds. Like, nobody was getting anything more out of that. They were just shifting funds over. And they got their hands slapped. They were on the losing end of that. So we don't want that type of publicity and trying to spend down our reserves. But I think if you were to set those to the side and then go, okay, now what do we have? You know, you're probably still going to have 28, 29%. It gets you closer in the ballpark, right? Because those S&C dollars, it's about 15 million of the 62. So that still leaves you with 47. It's definitely on the higher end of the range. But, you know, again, the other part I would impress upon the trustees is these are one-time dollars, right? So as we're spending it. There might be a

184push at some point to say let's do an ongoing salary increase. And there's nothing illegal about that. But we don't want to put ourselves in a position where we're giving an increase, spending all the reserves in a year or two, and then you've got to make cuts. So it's a balancing act. Right. Okay. Let me see. I know earlier we were talking about books because that's where we have a lot of the carryovers. And just because you have experience with several other districts as well I'll ask this kind of esoteric question. We also have a lot of spending in our services and other operating expenses. Is that part of a norm that you see in districts is that is a. Large influx of our spending or their spendings as well. Yeah of the non personnel

185side, right? So personnel is the one through the threes and then you've got books as fours Services as five and capital outlay as sixes. Mm-hmm, right so on that's the object codes The services is always the largest of those three Right of the fours the fives and the sixes because remember trustee Fowler what's in the services? I'm going back Right the services all of our utilities for the district gas water sewer power insurance payments repairs of vehicles There's a lot of things that are in there that While it's one thing to say hey we have a lot of spending in services, let's see what we can cut back. That's a good conversation to have. There's not a lot of meat on the bone in that area. There could certainly be, and it's a good exercise,

186especially when you look at the professional services category. I think spending some time looking at those contracts, but even within that category, you're going to see things such as instructional software. Right the learning management system you're gonna see the district's attendance system Aries you guys use Aries. Yeah, you're gonna see the cost of Aries in there If you're using escape or QSS as a financial system, you're gonna see the annual cost of that in there So there's gonna be some recurring things that are go you go. Yeah, we need to do that, right? That being said it's still a good exercise to go through But I want to make sure that as you approach that exercise There's some things that you should expect to see in there that are part of doing business Okay, thank

187you. Thank you very much any comments on this. Yes. I just wanted to comment just Just to remind the board when we did our seven point two or so budget cuts We did go through that process of cutting back on Professional services and supplies we did as much as we could to avoid any personnel else. We went third last And we did go through a process when we were doing this adjustment for to consider the races that we gave for this year So this is an example of what you described about having those conversations Thank You superintendent All right. On this comment on this specific topic comments trustee Rodriguez. I think the other thing I mean it's it's difficult. Right. It's a balancing act. I think one of the the nature of some of these

188costs are that they're not fixed. Right. They rise and probably rise more than just every year probably every couple of months. And so that that also makes the calculus difficult. Well and. How we pay for those rising utility costs is the same thing we use for increasing employee compensation. It's all coming out of the same bucket. Thank you very much, Mr. Mitchell. Going down the table, Trustee Garcia, Trustee Brubaker. On the topic of reserves as well, when you say the average unified school district has 24.36, does that or does that not include unspent supplemental and concentration grants? If they were to have it, it would. I would say in my experience, the amount of unspent supplemental and concentration in Woodland is way outside the normal range of what I see in most school districts. But

189yes, it would include that in others. So that was sort of my next question is what is the best practice of the ratios of that kind of thing? Is that we're pretty far out of whack on that for best practice? Yes. Okay. Just to make sure I'm understanding where we are. Is this my individual or am I still following up? So you can we started with the Q&A trustee Richardson Feller had her two questions and then we went to trustee Garcia and then now you're asked your first question of two. Okay, then I have a comment as well, which is I hear you on the Legislators need to like disband the Department of Education. It can't just be signed away But I also find myself sitting here being more worried than I was coming in

190because of the situation with the stock market and the tariffs, which I mean, I don't know what effects that will have because I don't know how much of our books and supplies come from China and whether we'll even be able to get them. But like that there's other aspects of the financial uncertainty that I hadn't really thought about until looking at sort of line items and what that means. So I just wanted to sort of raise that flag because that hadn't occurred to me. So that's, I'm still processing, so I'm going to pass on. Thank you very much, Trustee Brubaker. Any other questions or comments on that? Okay. Trustee Rodriguez. No questions. I don't have any questions. Anything from you, Superintendent? Trustee Villagrana. You did a great job answering all my questions. Sorry, I have

191many questions. Thank you for a great job breaking things down in a way they're able to be digested. Great job responding to our questions that we had as well. So just thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much. Trustee Villagrana, Trustee Rodriguez-Molica, nothing from you. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, passing along. Trustee Garcia, Trustee Brubaker. I'm still collecting my thoughts if anybody else has anything but otherwise. All right. Trustee Rodriguez. I mean I just kind of have a comment to make you know obviously again it's about balance and trying to find where and the board has generally been committed to be able to increase wages and do the best we can for our teachers and all our staff. And when we look at our reserves, it looks like it's a little on the high side,

192right? And yet we find ourselves in this particular environment where, you know, I think it's a, as moving forward in terms of dealing with all our challenges, it's, you know, it's not a bad thing necessarily to be able to deal with the issue of what we would do with this kind of percentage of reserve. And although somewhat on the outer edge, I think the thought had always been to... try and have some sort of rainy day fund with uncertainty coming out of COVID and certainly not knowing what funding would be like. And now we have other uncertainties. So I just wanted to thank you for the information that helps really clarify what these numbers mean and what they mean to our particular situation, at least in terms of some additional stability to be able to

193deal with the challenges that are coming. And I'll follow up on that. You know, reserves allow a board time to pivot, right, if things do take a downturn. And, you know, I would say a lot of folks, both in school business, running a school on the programmatic side, certainly as trustees, have not had to experience a downturn. The last downturn we had ended in 2011-12. There was some uncertainty in May of 2020. The governor at that time, we didn't know the impact of the pandemic. proposed a 10% year-over-year reduction in funding for schools, which never came to fruition. So anyone who's been a trustee or in schools from 12-13 on doesn't know what a cut is. They haven't seen a cut in school funding. And we're quickly approaching this time now where cuts look like

194a very real possibility. I'm not saying the governor's going to come out with that in May, but certainly the environment that we're in right now lends itself to an environment similar to what we saw in 07-08, where the state's got some... Cloudy skies in front of it right now to put it mildly. Can I make a comment about that? I was here in this district During that time in 1112 That was we closed schools we cut Counselors we cut programs. It was a devastating Tornado they hit and yeah, we have not seen it WE HAVE NOT SEEN IT. I DON'T WANT TO BE INSENSITIVE TO OUR RECENT CUTS BECAUSE THAT WAS ALSO VERY DIFFICULT. BUT THAT WAS A DEVASTATING TIME. I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT. AND HAVING THESE RESERVES, LIKE I SAID,

195THEY LOOK HIGH. BUT IT GIVES US SOME FLEXIBILITY TO MAKE SOME DECISIONS IF WE'RE FACED IN THAT SITUATION AGAIN. THANK YOU. All right, going down. Trustee Villagrana, Trustee Rodriguez-Molica, go ahead. Thank you for everything I feel like this was really helpful and I'm learning More every time we talk about the budget and thank you to trustee Brubaker for bringing this up. I think this has been Just incredibly incredibly helpful I think I have more just like wonderings and thoughts and I think I was also gathering my thoughts earlier with all of this and I I guess I'm just wondering given everything that we've discussed right and where our certificated staff, our faculty are, right, in terms of like their compensation. And in learning all of this, right, I'm realizing that we're in a really tricky

196position, right? Like it's with funding, with everything else that's going on around us. And I completely understand, you know, with, it is more comfortable to have these reserves because we don't know what's going to come up. But I guess my, I don't know if it's more of a question or of a concern, but I'm wondering like how did we get to a place to where our teachers are the lowest paid in the area and I'm not asking this as finger pointing and I want to be clear about that but why I'm asking is I guess I just want to make sure that we don't dig ourselves in deeper right and what can we do given the situation that we're in right Not not exactly to remedy that because I realized that that it's right now

197where we're at I don't see how that's possible right, but I don't know if you have any insights around that like what can we do? Given everything that you've shared with our numbers To try to ensure that we're not getting deeper and just further and farther behind because I get the sense that my colleagues on the board like We don't want our teachers to be the lowest. I don't want my teachers to be the lowest paid in the area so What can we do right moving forward any thoughts and I apologize for this being a little rambly but I think I'm just thinking about a lot of different things and just Trying to make sense of this and where do we go next? Yeah, so it's I'll give the high level and I'll get into

198a little more detail. It's the high level You increase the pie or you spend your money differently Right are really the two kind of main thoroughfares here I think we talked about increasing the pie right did the quickest way in the easiest way to do it Increase attendance right that gives us more dollars to spend without any increased costs, right? Realistically, we already have the staffing the classrooms are already there. We're just getting kids to show up more often the harder part is on the spending side and i know the board i apologize if i said no one's gone through cuts recently i meant at the state level there's been no state cuts i wasn't trying to say that there has not been robust discussions here with local considerations so i apologize if i offended

199anyone with that looking at our expenses so when i put the pie up there right how are we spending our dollars I think continued conversation around those non-personnel costs, right? It's always a good exercise to go through that. You know, what contracts do we have? Is there something we can do with our own employees that would, you know, make it so we don't have to go the contracted route and we can keep our employees here? I think it's always a good exercise. The less popular route on this one is because we are experiencing declining enrollment, looking at how many people do we have? Do we have the same number of people that we had five years ago? And if so, it's the concept of right-sizing. And there's a couple different ways to do that. One

200of them, in the least painful way, is that as positions become vacant, we have conversations starting with the leadership team around do we fill that position? Is that the best use of our dollars right now? And that's across all classifications. Specifically, and I'm going to focus on the teachers just because there's a direct correlation with number of students and teachers. If we have fewer teachers and we just reinvest those dollars back into the remaining teachers, that gives us a way to provide a compensation increase without dipping into anywhere else. And I know that's a less popular option, but realistically, those are the options that the board has in front of it. Thank you very much. Is that all for you trustee Rodriguez-Romajica? Okay. Thank you. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. So we're talking about the pie. It can't

201get bigger. But in ways that kind of can I we had a bond measure on the last election that didn't go through and that was for school improvements. I do know and I think it's Temecula that just recently passed a bond measure for school employee salaries not just teachers but both unions and they have a contentious board. So the community was surprised that it actually passed. That being said. Do you have experience with districts that pass these measures? And can you articulate anything to their fiscal efficacy prior to passing these bond and ballot measures? I can't speak to the fiscal efficacy. It's more about community support and what kind of support can be rallied from the community. And there's a distinction here. There's bonds, so general obligation bonds, where we go to the community and

202we say we want to modernize, we want to build new schools, new multipurpose room. Those dollars can only be spent on facilities. It's bond measure. And I distinguish that because for a bond, we can actually pass that at 55%. It's a Prop 39 general obligation bond. I believe what you're referring to is a parcel tax, where we go to the community and we say, and it's taxed similarly, it's taxed based on their assessed valuation, but the proceeds of a parcel tax can then be folded back into the day-to-day operations. The threshold for that is 66.7% to pass. So it's astronomically higher. Really have to get the community support around that. I've lived in Sacramento for 20 years. As someone from Sacramento, I think that would be tough. It's tough for any community, right? Outside of

203what I would consider to be very blue communities, which is why I'm kind of surprised Temecula. You said contentious. That's an understatement maybe for that board. You know, there's very similar characteristics, I would say, for communities that generally are able to pass parcel taxes. Not to say that you guys couldn't here. I would be surprised if you got that high. But if you did, I know that would be a lot of steps you put in, a lot of walking. Right, but that's the distinction between the two they both go on the ballot both of them are asking a question Will you support us for this this and this except the parcel taxes? Will you support us for smaller class sizes increased compensation and so on down the list that would allow you to use those

204dollars for salary increases Yeah, thank you. And if you were to do that, I would certainly recommend working with a polling group Yeah to identify is there even community support before spending the money to put it on a ballot? And if I'm not mistaken, I said recently, but I think it was 23 that they passed that ballot. They were contentious then, too. So, yeah, it's recent enough. I'm a Southern Californian. Thank you very much. I think we have a comment coming down. Trustee Rodriguez. I think it's, you know, to be able to do that, obviously it's a limited amount of time, right, that you would pass that parcel tax for. So it's almost not just about... creating the partnerships you know for a one-time passage because if it doesn't pass the second time in four

205years you know it's kind of a roller coaster so it's it's really talking about a re-examination of where we would put our energy and how we would put our energy for in a long-term way not a short-term way Because it could be a really nice, it would be great to pass, right? But it wouldn't be great to fail the second time. And so that would really require, I think, for all of us to examine how we work together, not just those of us within the school district, but within our community. And it takes a tremendous amount of work. Having worked on Measure P and falling a bit short, I can tell you that it takes tremendous energy. Yeah, that's the entire community. It's the Chamber of Commerce. It's elected officials throughout. It's all hands on

206deck to get to that threshold. Agreed. All right. Thank you very much. And then we left off at Trustee Richardson-Fowler, Trustee Garcia, Trustee Brubaker. So I think probably the rest of my questions will be better. For the next meeting, I have requested, among other things, that we talk about the reserves and sort of dig into those, hearing that we are. Out of balance on the unspent supplemental and concentration grant dollars Concerns me, but I want to learn more so I know what's going on and what we can and can't do So that's that's where I'm at. All right trustee Rodriguez. No, nothing for me Superintendent. I'll just make a comment to regarding Justin. Oh, he does comment about why WHAT HAPPENED IN OUR DISTRICT. WE WENT THROUGH A LONG PERIOD. I CAN TELL YOU SINCE

2072005 AS A DIRECTOR FOR LIKE THE FIRST 10 YEARS HERE, WE HAD NO RAISES FOR LIKE 10 YEARS. IT WASN'T UNTIL I LEFT TO LORI WHERE ALL OF A SUDDEN THERE WAS A RAISE. I'M LIKE, OH, NOW THEY HAVE A RAISE. BUT THERE WAS A PERIOD OF TIME WHERE THERE WAS JUST NO RAISES HAPPENING. I KNOW JUST FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE NEW TRUSTEES, In the last four years, the board has been committed to make progress to that because it is not acceptable that our teachers are the lowest paid in our area. It's not. And the board has committed to move towards that. And so in the last four, five years, we've been trying to move slowly towards that. We have not been able to make that huge jump at one point because it's just

208not. Feasible but the board has been committed to that and I believe that we continue to be committed I Know that I am but that's gonna require some very difficult decisions If that's what we want to do because we can do anything you want We just can't do everything you want and you've heard me say that He didn't know that I say that all the time. So That's my little line Thank You superintendent comment on this trustee Rodriguez just to pay back on that comment. I think I don't speak just kind of approximately, but at least during the last five years, I mean, I think it's the large, if you group all the percentage that we were able to do for all our workers, it probably is the largest percentage within the last four to

209five years, just speaking generally, than any group has done in quite some time. And so... You know even though we go through our process you know I am proud that that this board and those of my colleagues are no longer here on the board prior to me coming have been committed and it. You know you can argue about what percentages you know show that commitment but historically I think this this board can can stand on on the aggregate of the percentage and a few years before that as as being. one of the biggest showing of commitments towards raising salaries than any more in recent history. Thank you, Trustee Rodriguez. I'm going to chime in on this one if nobody else does. I've said this before. There's other districts that are, you know, I'm going to

210say. not so good shape financially and I believe that we've learned from their mistakes and this school district has done a really really good job in making sure that we use every dollar wisely I trust all of you on this board to continue navigating and guiding us in that direction where we are whole and we try to maximize every dollar I trust that our superintendent and her cabinet and everyone works is working very diligently and making recommendations for us as a board to guide us in principle and be able to work together to make sure that we make the best decisions um that's my comment for this because now my turn is over i was going to go into something else but i can't because it's not my turn all right going around does anybody

211want to comment on this specific trustee so in addition to it and it was said the superintendent you know will share or can I said share a list of the things that we as a district have districts don't have like a specialist EL specialist RTIs I mean there's a long list of services that we provide that we invest in so as a board we decided to make those priorities right we said family engagement was up there in priority and so then we invested money in that and so we've made decisions to do that we could stop doing those things and then shift all that money over and increase the salaries, right? So, but again, it's just decisions we've made as, as, as boards in the past that have increased the quality. All right. Thank you

212very much. So we left off, you went last, right? Yeah. Okay. So I'm, I'm not going to take a turn. Trustee Villagrana, Trustee Rodriguez-Molica, Trustee Richardson-Fowler, Trustee Garcia. Trustee Brubaker. Trustee Rodriguez. Okay, so it looks like we're pretty much good. No more questions or comments on this presentation. I do want, before we do wrap up today, when this item was originally submitted, it was for two sessions. I personally don't think that there's a second session necessary for this. I believe that the staff took the item as it was requested with the votes at the last board meeting and brought back exactly that. If there is a need at this table for us to have a second meeting, please express that now so that our staff can start planning it. According to what is determined today

213because what was requested has already been presented. Okay, and I'm being very respectful and cordial, but I Personally do not believe we need a second board meeting Special board meeting for this topic and I do trust that our staff is able to touch on the other topics in the normal regular scheduled Agendas that include budget and fiscal reports I'm opening it up for discussion. Sorry. We'll begin with trustee Brubaker So I was asked to provide a list of things I would like to have covered in the budget sessions by our superintendent over a month ago and I provided that list and a few of those things were covered but the majority of them were not so I would like to have that second session. I think that especially looking at the details of the reserves

214because I don't know that any of us have a clear picture of that is incredibly important. So I would like to still continue to have one. I'm sure that other people have opinions but that's my two cents. Okay I'm gonna cut. Do you have a question or comment Trustee Garcia? Can I chime in on this one? Yeah, okay. So I have had conversations with Mr. Wiley and our superintendent, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but if there are specific questions that you have in terms of reserves, you do sit on the budget committee that represents our board, and you are able to ask those questions there. And then you can come and... share the information that you learned during your board report. There are also regularly scheduled budget agenda items that will be scheduled

215as normal and routine, and you're able to ask those questions then. But I would encourage you to ask those questions in advance so that they can prepare. But I do want to be respectful and mindful that this is a lot of information. They do need some time and the next board meeting that we would meet would be in two weeks so I just want to be very very open and honest that This is this is a lot of work And it's not just our fiscal team and superintendent It's also all the time and energy that goes into place and putting this specific meeting together And then I'm gonna throw it out there Thank you very much, Mr. Mitchell, for being here today. I am a fan of school services. You guys are amazing in everything

216that you do, and your work is impeccable, but it does cost. His presentation did cost our district, so I just want to throw that out there. Superintendent, anybody else would like to chime in? Mr. Phillips can sit down. Thank you. You don't have to stand up. I'm here at the board's pleasure. So Trustee Richardson-Fowler, go ahead. Okay so I coming off of spring break I always give this disclaimer please don't take things personally I'm not here to admonish anyone. I am incredibly frustrated at how late it came out. I did not have a time to review this material and cross reference it and develop my questions. This is a very important topic. And again thank you Trustee Brubaker for bringing it forward. I really do appreciate this time. That being said I had a slew

217of questions that I couldn't get to. I really would love to dive into some of the minutia as well. I'm going to tell you that when I sat on the UC Davis ASU CD student board we had a full week long budget hearing as students that went from 6 o'clock until 2 o'clock in the morning and we went line by line and I understood more about the ASU CD budget. than I understand about the Woodland Joint Unified Budget. When I signed up for this. Do I want to be here on three nights consecutively each week. No. But I got elected to do this and that's really important to me and that I do it with fidelity and introspection and an inquisitive eye. I'm just a little frustrated right now. This is a very important topic.

218And we also learned that it's very important that we have the community's trust as well when we are trying to push forward ballot measures be they parcel taxes or bond measures. This was a way to invite the community in for a conversation. I'll just leave it there. Thank you very much trustee Richardson Fowler superintendent, so I'm in the spirit of transparency and Also not taking things personal I do want to be transparent and let the community know and the board members know Why the agenda was posted later it was we were ready to post the agenda. There was a request for my trustee to hold off To request some changes and I was not able to make those changes that late on Friday afternoon so I needed to wait till the MONDAY TO GET A

219HOLD OF THE CONSULTANT AND MAKE THE ADJUSTMENTS. OUR INTENTION WAS TO POST THE AGENDA ON FRIDAY. AGAIN, IT WAS JUST A That's how things roll. There was no one's fault and there was no anything wrong with the request I think it was a good request We made the adjustments but that did delay also just a reminder. This is a special board meeting and so there You know, there's a different limit times that we are required. It's not a regular board meeting So, you know within we only need 24 hours to post the agenda So we went we were way before beyond that for this particular um type of meeting thank you superintendent any questions or comments on this trustee villagrana i i agree with you that i have no need um and to me admit

220the objectives that were asked for during when the item was requested what i've heard is being asked now is something else um and you know again that could be during the budget conversation uh what we're talking about um you know if we're gonna Do shifts in the budget, you know, that's when we have the conversation not to me having it outside of Specific details. It's making it makes it harder for me anyways to be able to Specifically talking about the one-time spending and again one time the one-time amounts the care forward again That's that's not gonna affect we get raises or how much raises we get right? That's we should determine how we're gonna spend that money if we want to spend it now I don't advise that we do because as you know, there's

221gonna be cuts and we have to brave for those cuts If we want to spend it down then we do and that's fine But to me that was not the purpose of these it to me that the purpose was done very very successfully and i have no need for for another uh conversation like this i agree that it could be done uh you know we could schedule meetings with um staff as well and delve deeper into those elements as well um so yeah i i'm fine thank you trustee villagrana i'm going to go ahead and go down the table trustee rodriguez mojica AS I SHARED EARLIER, I FEEL LIKE I HAVE LEARNED A LOT THROUGH THIS SESSION AND EVERY CONVERSATION I HAVE HAD IN OUR COMMITTEE AS WELL WITH LOUIS AS WELL. I AM CURIOUS.

222I FEEL LIKE I HAVE MORE TO LEARN AND I THINK IT MIGHT BE. I THINK MY FELLOW TRUSTEES THAT HAVE BEEN ON THE BOARD FOR LONGER HAVE JUST HAD WAY MORE EXPERIENCE WITH THIS INFORMATION. SO I KNOW I NEED MORE. I AM CURIOUS IF If we do not hold that session in two weeks, if we'd be able to add it as an additional item instead of just waiting for the interim reports, because it does seem like there's additional questions. And I don't know, I guess I just don't want the momentum to be lost. And I want to keep learning more about this as well. Superintendent, is this something that we can work into the agenda? Into like the regular agendas? Some of it's going to happen naturally. through the budget reports after developing the budget

223and when we're developing the LCAP and we can definitely add you know topics regarding like the carrier funds and explain what are restricted not restricted and you know we could fold it into if it's right what I heard tonight from trustee a brew breaker was regarding reserves understanding what those are how they're broken down And then I also heard the carrier the carrier or specifically El Cap And so I I believe that we can fold it into regular meetings if that was the pleasure of the board Can I piggyback on that? when would be With our traditional calendar for meetings when would be the next time that we would have a fiscal item on our agenda So that would be in June So that would two meetings in June. So we'll be back here two

224meetings in June. So that would be like I want to say about 630 to 45 days. All right. Going down. Any other questions? All right. Trustee. Okay, trustee Fowler. No trustee Garcia. Thank you very much for your patience. Yes, so I agree I learned a lot a lot from this presentation. So thank you and I gonna I try to put in your feeds as a new board member and Of course, you have a lot of question and I wish I can have this presentation when I started to be a board but much suggested is Also, we can ask to the business finance department to have like a three board members meeting anytime and they can assign your questions. So that would be helpful if you wanna meet, like our previous meetings, that would be another

225option for me. So for my part, I don't need another meeting, another special meeting. Thank you very much trusty Garcia, I'm gonna comment on your on your comment. I think that's a great idea I remember when I was on boarded I Remember sitting with mr. Wiley maybe once or twice And then when I did the MIG Our superintendent went with me or went with us and that was very helpful because when we had questions She was very supportive in answering them and those that she needed help She would connect us with the respective cabinet members to make sure that we got the responses The MIG, the C-S-B-A MIG is very, very helpful. I encourage you to, if you haven't already done it, to consider it. And I know that that was a huge, huge onboarding

226opportunity for me, especially in the fiscal stuff. Trustee Brubaker? So I'm a little confused because... I emailed the superintendent about the concerns that many of the things I had asked for, which I think could have been easily integrated into this presentation, were not included and was told that we are having another budget meeting and so they could be included in that. Part of my motivation for this request was not only to learn myself But to be transparent to our community because I was part of the team that several of us were on Trying to pass measure P and I think a large reason we did not pass that is that people don't understand and don't always trust the financial decisions from the school district whether that is valid or not and I wanted to have

227transparency to make that possible to have happen in the future to get a school bond passed in the future and To now have Sorry, I'm trying to gather my thoughts I'm trying to do the best I can for our district and I feel like this was a big step Towards doing that and I am confused about what is happening. I will leave it at that trustee Rodriguez so I think that I think, speaking in a very general sense, that there should be some sort of a second meeting. I know what we have agreed to, but I think that there's value in being able to digest what we learned today, go through the issues. It's very important, the issues and the topics that still need to be explored. and to be able to really hone in

228on what information is left that we would want to know about and in what form, right? So that we really hone down on the ask. And then that ask... about the topics and the details of the topics can be relayed back to the superintendent to see what type of preparation they would need to then be able to do a quality work in answering those questions. Some of those questions may resolve themselves in fact sheets, fact sheets shared among us with the public. Some of them may be resolved by having another meeting as we've talked about. But I do think that going through a process of taking this in, looking back at what, and you've already talked about what some of those topics would be, but what about them would we want to know? And in

229what ways do we want to know about that? And then having that discussion. whether it could be away from a meeting or as an item in the next meeting or in its own separate meeting. But I think my concern is that, as you say, these are very important topics, very important issues that we rarely get to talk about, and we want our staff to have enough time to be able to address them as well as possibly and with the quality that is possible. I think that for me, if we create a committee to take this presentation in, to take the questions that you had in. and start to create a guideline about what we think is still important to be known, what we think is still important to be shared with the public, and the

230process by which we'll be able to do that. I think that can be very, very valuable towards going towards a lot of the things that you wanna know, things that are kinda hard to know, things that we have yet to. to discover in terms of the high percentages of carryover, et cetera, and then how we would want to let the public know that. I think that can be a really valuable process with a goal that we come out with solid suggestions that we come back to the board to make happen. So to me it's not about not having the second meeting. It's about going through a process to evaluate the information we have Really hone down on the ask so that they're very clear about what they what they need to do giving them the

231time to do it and then and then and Then see what the what the second gathering looks like and and what pieces you know can can be learned about and shared in several different ways. So to me, there's a lot of important work to do to kind of figure out what the ask is and how to do the ask. Thank you very much, Trustee Rodriguez. I just want to clarify that for me, I believe that our school district has always been transparent in terms of our budgets. I don't believe that there was any intention of hiding anything. We've always allowed for public comment. If there are any community members that have questions that exceeded the three minutes, they're always welcome to email or get in contact and make an appointment with our staff to ask

232questions. You know, there's a public records request process. So I disagree. that we have been disingenuous or that we haven't been transparent. Yes, we had opposition on our bond, and there could be a list and list and lists of reasons why they didn't want to support it. But I know that our district did their due diligence. So I hate for anyone to walk away thinking that we are being disingenuous or not being transparent in our budget process because that's not fair. And it's not fair to our staff that put in a lot of work into this. And that's just not who we are as a district. I know that our staff worked really, really hard in putting together this presentation and they also worked with you, Ms. Brubaker, in trying to do the best they

233can to bring something today. I do believe that your ask kind of did change and they tried their best to meet the mark, but there are some things that they are not prepared to present right now. You know, you ask scenario questions like where could we pull money in the event that we lose funding from the federal government? Was that a question? No? Okay. I read your email. I thought that was one of the ones that you made that you wanted them to prepare. Okay. I'm sorry. And I'll retract myself if you didn't ask that because that's what I understood. But it's tough. You know, it's a lot of work. So I ask that you please have the patience to allow them to roll out this information in our regular board meeting agendas. And I'm

234going to look for the email that you sent and I'll come back to the question that you did ask because I want to clarify that. But that's where I am. Go ahead. I want to clarify. I did not mean to imply that there has been a lack of transparency about the general. Seeming about the budget in general But I don't understand what the reserves are we've been asked recently to spend money from the reserves Potentially with an agenda item coming up soon and I kept thinking I hope that we are able to have the budget meetings before that because I don't feel like I have any way to Ethically vote on that because I don't understand their reserves When this was there's nothing wrong with talking about things that happened in budget planning meetings, correct?

235Okay When this was first brought up at a budget planning meeting in I think March 10th or 11th The first thing I said that I wanted to talk about was the reserves. I said that's the first thing I want to dig into that I believe that I may have mentioned one other thing which I can't remember at the moment and then the next day I sent our superintendent a list of other things and I have not changed anything from that point on and I did not have any communication from the from the district about that with the exception of some back and forth about timing of public comment during the meeting And that's that's the only back and forth there was so I don't know go ahead superintendent With all due respect to all of

236you, I work with the pleasure of the board. And the direction I was given for all of you in December was to do a workshop to understand how the budget works. And that's what my intention was and tried to include some of that information. And so that's what this was supposed to do. There was no intent to take away anything that was talked in a specific meeting. It's difficult for me to respond. TO A WHOLE BOARD BY ONE INDIVIDUAL PERSON'S REQUEST ON A SEPARATE MEETING. BUT AT THAT BOARD MEETING, MY INTERPRETATION WAS THAT THE BOARD DIRECTED ME TO COME BACK AND AGREED TO SUPPORT THE NEW TRUSTEES AND TO SUPPORT THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING HOW THE DISTRICT AND HOW THE BUDGETING OVERVIEW. And so that's what the intention was to deliver. I think it was beneficial

237today, not just for the, I hope that it was for the trustees and for the community members who are watching, because I think that helps understand, well, what is it, what parts do you want to zero in to understand even deeper, right? And so I'm hoping that that's what. I'M GETTING A LITTLE UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT WHAT WAS SAID IN INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS BY INDIVIDUAL BOARD MEMBERS WITH ME BECAUSE I SERVE YOU ALL AS A WHOLE AS A BOARD. SO I JUST WANT TO REMIND YOU OF MY POSITION AND OF, YOU KNOW, MY INTENTION AND HOW I'M TRYING TO DELIVER TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE BOARD AS A WHOLE. THANK YOU, SUPERINTENDENT. ANYONE ELSE BEFORE TRUSTEE VILLAGRANA? TWO THINGS. ONE, TRUSTEE BERNARDO, I WOULD AGREE WITH YOU ABOUT THE PUBLIC. WE HAD A FULL PLACE, RIGHT? THAT

238THE PUBLIC IS GOING TO BENEFIT FROM THAT. AND THIS MEETING WAS SCHEDULED A LONG TIME AGO SO PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT IT REGARDLESS OF WHEN THE AGENDA WAS PUBLISHED. the public knew right and so If that was the the intent then I would be yeah, you know, we had 40 people here Yeah, let's definitely have another one to to reinforce that I don't I don't see that and you know, if we were to look at the numbers viewing, you know, it's probably not hot that high either and then I just gonna reinforce I was gonna actually say that that the superintendent does what we say at that meeting right and we gave direction as a board and you know if I have an item and then I go to the superintendent and say oh I need

239you to add this to it if the superintendent does that now the superintendent is going against what the board directed to do right and the superintendent obviously should not be doing that the superintendent is going to do what the board asked them to do and I remember that at least my recollection is that what happened is what was the board approved to be done. And so if we then go to the superintendent and request additional things, then we put the superintendent in a tough position because what if the trustee is like, no, that's not what I want. I want this. And again, the board agreed to the specific thing. And again, that just puts the superintendent in a tough place to try to change when the board said. And again, the board is four of

240us, right? If there's four, that's. That's what the superintendent does. So just want to make up those two points. Thank you. Thank you Trustee Villagrana. Trustee Rodriguez. Mojica. Trustee Richardson-Feller. I will be concise. I've been taking my little notes here since I put my stuff away. I will disagree with you Trustee Villagrana only because just because the room isn't packed doesn't mean that what happens here tonight isn't going to reverberate around the community. It'll be interesting to see what the fallout is of our meetings like this. I get that these are our business meetings. This is the meeting where we get information and we make decisions. I think these study sessions are very important so that we can get down to the bottom of things. I don't understand even right now how we call in

241consultants versus having staff do things. For example tonight I've heard numerous times that it took a lot for our staff to put stuff together. to do this meeting yet we also had a consultant come in so i don't know where the divide is either I also heard that there was a price tag with this presentation. I don't think that was anyone's intention to have a consultant come in and have a price tag associated with that. So I have questions regarding some of those things as well on how we are you know the efficacy of our spending. The fact that we as a community hadn't passed a bond measure until 2020 for over 20 years is significant and speaks upon how the public relates to what's going on in the board. Don't make my decisions here

242on the board for the sake of public opinion I make them to the best ability of my knowledge with the information that I have in a way that I can defend the choice that I make that being said we are in the business of providing a service and clearly people in the community Are not all happy with the service that we're providing And so I just want to make sure we are as transparent as possible about how we are making decisions the information that we are getting all of the things. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of interest right now. It is what it is. But yeah thank you guys for your time. So just to clarify, what I've been hearing tonight is that there's not an interest for a second study session, but

243there's still interest for the information. The information can also be incorporated into other board meetings by sections. It could also be more deeper for individual trustees. So I just want to clarify that no one's... I DID NOT HEAR ANYONE TONIGHT SAY THAT WE SHOULD NOT PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION OR NOT HAVE THAT INFORMATION IN THE PUBLIC MEETING. IT'S JUST PERHAPS NOT IN ANOTHER STUDIES SPECIAL BOARD MEETING. AND SO I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT I UNDERSTOOD THAT. IF I DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT CORRECTLY, I'D LIKE TO HAVE CLARIFICATION. THANK YOU, SUPERINTENDENT, FOR STATING THAT. TRUSTEE VILLAGRANA? I just want to clarify that my comment about the public being here was just the fact that they weren't here period not about whether they're going to take away or understand or interpret. I never said anything about

244that. I said the fact that they weren't here that was that makes it so I'm not willing to support another meeting for the public to learn this. That's what I said. I didn't say anything else beyond that. Thank you for your clarification sir. Anyone else? Trustee Garcia. Yes, so I can see your frustration but for my perspective respectfully I want to say since the beginning when she asked for two meetings I mentioned it if we can start with one I think from that is when when I started this confusion or something I would like to for the next when somebody asked for some topic start to see If I say I want 10 meetings, I think that was incorrect at that time. I understand we have a lot of things going on in the first

245meeting as a new board, and I can see the frustration. I totally agree with the trustee, sorry, follower and all my trustees. This is very important, and we want to be transparent with the people. Absolutely. I have even where I don't agree on everything. I respect my college. They are here because everything is important for us. That's why we're here. And absolutely, I want to be transparent. And everything is out there. And any people can come and ask questions. And for me, I open if they want to do a different way. But I think for me, I stay the same. I want to stay with this issue. Thank You trustee Garcia trustee Rodriguez on this on this still yeah go ahead Again I kind of go back I think I think you know I think

246we could have a second meeting depending on the outcome of Evaluating what we've heard here today the questions that you still have remaining But I would like it to actually go through a process where we create a committee and that committee begins to look at the questions that you still have and other board members may have the information we had today and then and then connect with with staff about those questions and Analyze what is the best way to? To you know get information out to other board members. It's important to the community and continue to work on on the questions that you have, we all may have, and continue to work in conjunction with the superintendent and staff to see if, and to work on the ask, and to see if that ask can

247fit in a second meeting in the future, or it can, the asks can be... you know, taken care of through sharing information on our website or at or agendized at a future meeting, but that we continue to work on this. So I don't know if... if anybody is open to that idea to create a committee to continue to work on questions that our trustees may have and some of the important things that have been brought up like the themes of the reserves and such. I'd like to propose that. Thank you very much. I'm gonna go ahead and chime in on that I believe we already have a budget committee formed within this board So if that budget committee would like to work on that I will trust their discretion so they can figure out if

248they want to do that because We elected them to guide us in the budget. So I'm if they want to do that. That's great. Let's do it And I want to clarify My role as board president is to make sure that I'm working with our superintendent in creating an agenda that is concise and accurate to the request and what was spoken at the board meetings. Trustee Brubaker, you did send a list of questions, I think two days ago, and I had to sit down with our superintendent to make sure that those questions were concise to your original request, okay? It was before that? It was a second. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't I'm just I presented the information So one of the questions that I was speaking about was you wanting to know

249all the names of the funding sources and programs from the federal government? So that when cuts are announced We will know what potentially affects Woodland. Joy Unified School District is what you said Now, if I misinterpreted your point, I'm sorry, but that's a lot of work. And even the presenter today said, like, things are changing. There's no way that we're going to exactly know, you know, what cuts are coming or where we're going to get the money from in the moment until it's cut. So the reason I'm bringing this up, I'm sorry. The reason I'm bringing it up is because. I want to give grace and appreciation to our staff, but also give them the space and time that they need to be able to process all of this policy. And also the opportunity for

250them to go and connect with the associations that they work with that are the experts to be able to guide them. We're not saying we're not going to get you this information. The information is going to come out. We're just not ready right now. So as board president, I have to make sure that I'm listening to our superintendent, that I'm listening to our fiscal staff experts here at our district and trying to shape something that met your initial need. Okay. And it kind of changed a little bit. So I do want to say thank you for your patience. I'm very sorry that maybe it wasn't all what you wanted, but there is an opportunity for us to try again. I would encourage you to submit another yellow sheet and take it in sections because this

251is a lot. And I'm willing to work with you in creating that. I'm going to stop there. Just to clarify because I want to make sure I heard it right. The question was that and you can clarify to Trustee Brubaker. The question was you wanted a list of funds or resources or one of the account lines that was in that pyramid so that you can have an idea of what might possibly be cut. OK to that fact I'm going to say that's not an impossible task. Do you know how many districts actually publish that list for their own districts. I will say that Sac City has a list. That is about one hundred and fourteen pages that lists all of their different codes for funds sources whatnot and they considered a tool of transparency. They

252do it every year and there are several other districts that have that as well. I will just leave that right there. I just wanted to make sure I was picking up what you guys were putting down to make sure I had the information or not to share. Trustee Villagrana. I've said before and we are like super transparent you know district and part of the issues when you're transparent that this becomes the baseline now like oh you got to be more transparent and more transparent and like we're so transparent. We're really good at transparent. I mean doesn't mean we should be more we can't be more But I also don't want to take away from the fact that where we're at compared to other institutions You know again that doctor we referring to again every time

253we approve the budget. It's 120 or 30 pages that has all the codes in there like every time when we approve that so the public has that it's on our website Yeah that information is there it's available Every time we adopt the budget every time we make changes to the budget. But again we are super transparent. We're really trying to be more transparent but we have all sorts of transparency in our district that I'm very proud of that we're there. Anyone else. Trustee Rodriguez. So is is the current budget committee willing to. take on unanswered issues or have continued discussion and meet to see you know, what what are the questions Who's on who's on the Budget Committee? Right To see you know what the best way is to address outlying questions Discover new questions

254from the information we've heard today and from the questions that that still remain All right, so Laura, Trustee Brubaker's a yes, Trustee Rodriguez-Moljica, and Trustee Villagrana. I'm not calling your names, putting you on the spot, but I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sorry I didn't mean it like that. It was more like... Okay, so yeah, you guys are a yes. All right, so in terms of where we are in next steps... budget committee will meet with mr. Wiley and superintendent if you would like to attend and then craft an agent craft an opportunity for Discussion to happen around The questions in terms of what you guys would like to learn more about the budget. Is that correct? And bring back conclusions that you reach back to the board so that we can hear what was a

255result of of your discussions right. Conclusions about what? Conclusions about any need that there is to still maybe have a second meeting and or address questions that that Trustee Brubaker may have or or we or that the you know I mean it's primarily around I think. the things that Trustee Brubaker is asking for. But there could be some clarifications around reserves, about the percentage of reserve, what makes them, I don't know, that's discussion that the Budget Committee would have to have, right, to see what information it would like to. to bring back and to ask for either another presentation to ask for clarifying information. It sounds like it sounds like there's that that trying to clarify and answer our questions that we that may still be remaining is something that what that some board members

256would like to share with the public perhaps. And what is the best way to do that. So I think trying to take those, deal with those issues, but mostly try to clarify the ask. If there's still things remaining that we need to either talk with staff about or have a different presentation, let's clarify the ask so that we're clear about what they are. All right. Is the budget committee okay with that? All right. Superintendent? Just again, I hope that this foundational piece of the budget was helpful to understand how it all works together and some of the challenges that we have and some of the things that you want to zero in to have continued conversations and then we'll work with the committee to determine what the next steps are on what we want to

257bring back to the entire board. Is that what I understood? Yep. Okay, thank you very much again. Thank you very much. Mr. Mitchell. Thank you. Mr. Wiley Superintendent Monica everyone here all of our staff. Thank you very much for coming to the special board meeting Is there any closing comments? We don't have to have any closing comments. There's one public comment. All right Becca Bernard Sorry to keep you an extra three minutes. I appreciate this board and the transparency you had tonight. I want to clarify that I don't think we have an issue with transparency. We have an issue with equity and access. Just because I put something on my Canvas doesn't mean a single student will click on it. You have to direct the students. You have to show them where it is. You

258have to have conversations about how to navigate Canvas, where to find the tools that they need. We had four to nine live streamers while I was watching and three teachers here. Zero community members, zero parents. The purpose of this was transparency for... everyone to learn about the budget. And unfortunately, I understand due to constraints, it was posted two days ago. Just because it was on the schedule again doesn't mean anyone remembered. We need to target the right people. We need to be contacting parents who are in school site councils, who are on the PTA, inviting them on one-on-one conversations, talking to your school sites. That's how we're going to get people to come here. And it doesn't have to be a special board meeting. workshop where three of you attend to follow the Brown Act

259could be something that you're inviting parents to Providing childcare and food knowing that those are often barriers that don't allow people to come Well planned and advanced well advertised I might be wrong But I don't believe this was in your superintendent report this last week the update it said the next board meeting was the 24th not The 10th which was today you know, really being intentional. So I understand that the format might change. I'd love to work with you. I invited and clarified with our CTA budget analyst that he was available on April 24th. I reached out to the board president and Laura Brubaker and let them know that he was available and willing to do it for free. So I feel that there is a missed opportunity, but I am NOT going to What's

260the term perfection? Hinders progress like I love that we had this meeting and I appreciate each of you deeply for being transparent So those were my main Concerns about the difference between equity and access. Thank you. Thank you very much superintendent has a comment. So I appreciate those comments just so that And we could do something for parents definitely. And we can discuss it in the agenda with the budget committee. But just a reminder, these meetings are your board meetings. And the public is invited to come and observe and make public comment like you just did. So the focus of these meetings is to support you on learning whatever you need to learn to make decisions and inviting the public to watch. THE PEOPLE THEY ELECTED MAKING DECISIONS OR LEARNING AND BEING ABLE TO BE

261PUBLIC. IF THE INTENTION IS TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC OR PROVIDE UNDERSTANDING FOR THE PUBLIC, I THINK WE COULD DO THAT IN A DIFFERENT VENUE AND WE CAN DISCUSS IT. BUT FOR A BOARD MEETING, THAT IS NOT THE VENUE. AND SO MAYBE THAT'S JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT PUBLICLY. AND THEN I ALSO WANTED TO SAY PUBLICLY THAT OUR DLAC REVIEWS THE BUDGET EVERY YEAR. Our LCAP committee also reviews budget, they get presentations by our categorical director on categorical programs. So there are some areas where there's parent opportunities, but we can definitely increase that. So I'm looking forward to working with the budget committee to discuss what is appropriate for additional discussions with the entire board and what are some other ideas where we can reach out to the community. Thank you very much, Superintendent. Alright, that

262concludes our special board meeting. I guess I don't have to gavel down. We are adjourned at 8.52.