001[Music] he he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] a [Music] he oh [Music] he [Music] [Applause] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] uh called this special school board uh amers County school board meeting to order um so if we can rise and have a moment of silence and pledge allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all all righty board we have a a proposed agenda in front of us I make a motion we approve the agenda for tonight
002okay second have a motion and a second all in favor I I Dr Wells have an agenda so Mr chair members of the board thank you for being here this evening hope you enjoyed your meal I want to special thanks to Chef Phillips and his students we preparing that for you um they do a very good job so we hopefully we can start using them a little bit more here in the near future so when we when we start the presentation tonight you will get your budget book and a copy of the presentation at the conclusion of the meeting and that way you'll have that um we did change the budget book thanks to Kim lonic and man Davis for their work on reorganizing and changing the book I think it's going to find you'll
003find it a little more user friendly and and read easily to read and and and go through a little better than the other version we had so I hope you'll like that so I just want to thank them for that and also I ask as we go through the presentation that um and we'll hit this at the end too if you have questions on this wait till you get your book kind of go through the book and during the week between now and next Thursday when we have our Retreat we have questions just for them to Mr Terry and then he can compile and get those to me so we can make sure we are addressing your questions at the retreat so and Bor if you don't mind if you can get me your questions
004by Tuesday that gives me Wednesday to get them to him okay thank you so first we want to talk about our priorities and this is kind of came from our disc with you as well during our our meeting in October but maintain class size is below the standards of quality provide Staffing necessary to meet the needs of all of our students continue to upgrade a modern ARA facilities maintain competitive Pace scale to the surrounded divisions and then continue to build programs that provide opportunities for all students to complete their school year ready for the next grade or Life After High School those our a PR looked at when coming up with the budget um as far as how this going be laid out we'll start with student enrollment we'll go through the general assembly mandates
005we'll review the summary of revenues um division pay scale summary of expenditures all in Virginia finds and enclosing information at the end so enrollment so the state has projected 3615 for our enrollment next year Wen Cooper has it at 3668 to 3738 and our projections are 3684 however we're going to base the the budget off of the governor's and the house and and Senate projection which is 3615 .25 that way that's the worst case scenario we feel but we didn't want to go high come in lower and then we'd have a budget deficit additionally Welden Cooper if you look at the 22 to 27 change you can see that you know this is the three different versions of Wen cop but each one of these are are showing you know from 22 through 27 which
006is next the following FY um a decrease in in the student enrollment throughout so we are projecting according to weld and Cooper those numbers to continue to drop um we will see how it all works out but this is the Weld and Cooper projections for through okay General Assembly mandates so the governor's budget came in with a 3% pay raise that was off the annual budget from last year we had to do six over two years 3% last year and 3% this year that required in the budget um these are for the soq positions for 26 that is required in the governor's budget the house budget had a 3% uh for compensation increase forq positions for 26 it did remove the support cap and it also had a $1,000 bonus for Q funded positions be
007to be paid out in FY 26 the Senate version is very similar to that and St it had the bonus in FY 25 which is just to be paid in June of this year versus July August September of next year so it all depends those are the the main differences in the two um we went with the Senate version because that's what when it came out of crossover and the conference committee um that was the one that moved forward to the governor's desk so we're working off with the Senate version summary of revenues so the governor's proposed budget was 4,774 n32 the house proposed budget was 42251 and9 which is a 1.47 million increase over the governor's proposed budget and the Senate budget was 4173 4813 which is a $959,000 increase over the governor's proposed
008budget you'll see a difference about $516,000 almost $517,000 between the two and that is based on when the bonus comes out so the house version had the bonus for 26 the Senate version for 25 so for next year that $500 some thousand difference was in the bonuses and when the bonuses were paid out okay again these are forq funded positions not all of our positions so we'll have several hundred positions that aren't being covered in $1,000 bonus because they're not s soq not funded by so soq but we've got to come up with funds to be Equitable there too with the ,000 bonus that the state is uh pushing forward for S soq revenues Again State revenues just kind of breaks it down there roughly 35,700 th000 in state revenue almost $6 million in state
009sales tax roughly $9,000 in federal revenue um 2.3 in federal grants $658,000 for adult Regional program Child Nutrition $3 million other local funds $193,000 uh Board of Supervisors we're requesting $17,620.63 973 which represents a $1.2 million funding request from the Board of Supervisors and we'll talk about where that a little bit later compensation increases as we went through and again with our meeting with you back in earlier than the fall as get in priorities we wanted to look at what we can do so everybody's getting a 3% increase that's in that's anual budget we have to do that but then we looked at what bands were we the least competitive in within our region and then for teachers that was steps 8 through 12 15 through 19 and 20 through 25 so in those bands
010we've adjusted those bands so teachers in those pay areas those pay ranges are getting a little bit more than a 3% okay so they're getting a little bit extra because we're spreading out the band so we can be more competitive uh regionally we're also looking at under additional classified Pace scale in addition to the 3% so everybody's getting a 3% but we're going 2% extra for instructional assistance a 2% in additional increase for health assistance 2% increase for Food Service one cafeteria workers 1% increase for IT Tech additional 1% for class one and two secretaries additional 1% for bus drivers additional 1% for van drivers and additional 1% for bus assistant so in the long run those folks there would get a a raise of 5% 4% to 5% depending on what category they're in
011so they get the 3% plus the additional 1 to 2% based on where they fell in the category expenditures so Personnel we're adding again 29 positions to the budget some of again 10 of those 10 and a half of those are the van drivers that we talked about um earlier uh last month and bringing those on board in into the hourly from hourly into into the into the budget um 3% compensation increase health insurance increase is 7.74% that we are covering it is no increase to the employees okay I know the other localities are looking at 30 40% increases in their insurance um we're going to pick up the 7.74 but our our employees will not see any increase in their in their in their insurance cost then again to select pay scale adjustments for
012Market competitiveness under contracted Services we're increasing the Govern govern School tuition rate there's an increase in the SN air maintenance contract we're going to remove contracted painting from the operating budget and put it back into CIP we're going to have to increase workers compensation we have to increase the liability in property insurance and did a reassessment and plus we have a large the high schools addition so we have to increase funding there um increase for utilities because if you got your ad Bill last month you saw whatever else is seeing and then the increase for copy lease uh classroom instruction we look to add or expand the best labs to nine schools one IIA at each Elementary School to support kindergarten classrooms when we met uh in the fall there was a conversation about having
013one per every kindergarten class budget-wise we felt that was a stretch but we can at least try to get one in each Elementary School to support kindergarten classes so that might be one per class but they can move between the two or three kindergarten classes that are there and support those classes um add additional senior slot to the STEM Academy and then increase CTE materials allocations expenditures and Staffing changes and I'll kind of summarize this at the end this is two this is two slides so I just want to summarize it at the end so again we're looking at our contract our currently hourly paid van drivers looking we need to bring in the accounting specialist into the budget that was approved last year but it wasn't in the budget that was an add-on so
014we put that into the budget added supervisor Communications and grants and websites into the budget I'm restructuring departments up here with a with a two person negative so we're losing two positions um add a school half a school secretary um ACS support assistant and AES support assistant best lab technicians 10 cuz when the ones we did last year even though you approved them they weren't in the operating budget so we're going to put all 10 into the budget we're going to add instructional assistance at the elementary schools those are the six for kindergarten classes add add the homebound coordinator who was previously in all Virginia pulling that person into the budget add the reading specialist that was previously in all Virginia the0 five of that into the budget the class size reduction of a at
015mass and Heights move into the budget we have to add a c stting at the high school because now we have addal square footage we have to keep clean so we'll need to add a custodian for the high school we're going to reduce a community school coordinator because we can fund that through the grant through F 26 so that will come off at the budget and we're going to reduce two elementary teachers due to projected enrollment um through attrition because enrollment dropped at a couple schools we can do that through attrition we have people that are leaving we just won't fill those two positions that comes out to 29 positions so when we look at that the van drivers and the best Labs make up 20.5 of those the instructional assistance at the elementary in
016kindergarten make up six of those the support assistance at the high school in Amis Elementary are two of those and then the reading specialist is another so that's 28 29 of the all those positions are direct support in schools um nothing up here it's all into schools expenditure and budget change again operational budget in 2425 was a $57 million budget this year proposed in a $59 million budget with a change of $2 million federal grants Esser grants last year we had $4 million in Essa grants that Essa grants are gone right Essa we've used that money is all gone so this year Federal F through federal grants is $2 million 2.3 um adult education program stayed constant at 658 980 Child Nutrition is increasing their budget from 2 2896 to about $170,000 of 33 m66
017for total gains and losses of 3 $395,900 is instruction 99.39% is operations and maintenance 7.75% is people transportation and 7.55% is Administration and health okay so it's not include grants does not include Child Nutrition because no Child Nutrition is separate Allin Virginia as we get into Allin Virginia um we have four positions right now that we're funding through while in Virginia that aren't in the operating budget so we have literacy teachers two literacy teachers an instructional math specialist and an attendance officer that we're actually funding through all in Virginia funds continued for this coming school year however just a note that as we move into into the 26 27 school year unless all Virginia gets reallocated those funds will go away we'll either have to bring those positions into the following Year's budget or uh
018not have those positions okay and then my closing information here again just to reiterate this proposed budget includes a $1,200,000 funding increased request from the Board of Supervisors the current contribution is 16,42 189 we this budget here will request a $1,628 amount from the Board of Supervisors um I just want to be clear and straight on that that's what this is requesting that's to meet the needs of what you've asked us to look toward work towards and we feel that is that is needed to meet those needs conversations moving forward uh we're going to post information on the website we'll have social media accounts we'll have school messenger we'll have public meetings the meeting on the 13th we do have the public hearing on the 13th so you'll have an Community will have an opportunity
019to speak at that public hearing on the 13th if they so desire future budget meetings again tonight we're doing the presentation on the sixth we have our budget Retreat the 13th is our regular school board meeting meeting we'll have the opportunity for public comment there depending on how you feel about how the meeting is go on the six we determine whether not we need the four meeting on the 14th uh and then I need to present the budget to the Board of Supervisors on March 18th so if we need to come back on the 13th and the 14th to continue budget discussions we can but I'm I'm scheduled to present our budget to the Board of Supervisors on March 18th okay and then final thoughts again my final thoughts are this one thank you to
020Kim and her team for all the work they did to prepare the budget and work through this um I think you'll find the budget book um to be easy to follow and'll help you as you go through the process again alsoo if you have any questions for for me or the team please get those to Mr Terry um he compile those and get those To Us by Tuesday we'll have a chance to uh go through those and hopefully answer your questions for the meeting on Thursday and Miss Lon you have some read information for them can I help you thank you ma'am you will get the copy of the presentation as well as the budget book and that is all I have for you this evening so thank you okay thank you Dr Wells I
021I am a little curious the numbers that you had up there from Welden Cooper does that take into account all the housing changes that are happening in the county no okay okay okay Wen Cooper is based off of birth rates okay but it doesn't look at things we have it doesn't look at the growth in the community it simply looks at birth rates from your the local hospitals in the addresses as we've said in the past I do anticipate the developments in M Heights to increase our population in the next to 10 years um know one on phelp road and the one the Town Center coming on so we'll see and you know and I actually saw on the news the other night rok's looking at building a new high school for $150 million yes
022so if we had another Elementary School we had to have Elementary School is running about 50 oh well yeah right but still Middle School about 100 and high school about 15 I would say Elementary you're probably looking more like 70 deping to be honest yeah yeah you're looking at uh you know 350 400 a square foot yeah so so Bard do you have any just general questions without digging deep into things tonight um thank you for everything Dr Wells and Mr conage thank you yeah it's thank you you put a lot of effort into it we can see that so so we'll have fun digging through the numbers here in the next couple days uh but Bard as you do dig through the numbers and you see things if you have questions if you could
023get them to me by Tuesday I can compile everything and then get them to him by Wednesday so that he can have a chance to cphon through things and get us a few answers for our meeting on Thursday if there's anything General you want to speak and say yeah the question I have Dr Wells is you know based on what we had told you we wanted to see as far as um you the budget but knowing you looking at it from your perspective from your lenses knowing that obviously we want to concentrate on how do we improve instruction in the county is this the budget that does that are these the positions that as superintendent you think are going to move that needle so that we can you start having right U some gains uh
024where we're not seeing today so everything we've added in is it's in the schools whether it's instructional Assistance or whether it's working with uh elements to help support uh teachers in the classrooms and give students those supports so I do feel this will help uh give those teachers what they need in the classroom especially some of the behaviors that have been an issue and getting those those students where they need to be and so I do feel that again the focus of this was to compensate those positions but also what we're adding in is at the school level so it should it should be straight support of instruction so I do say yes thank you thank you m Terry yes sir so I know it's early on yet but we're in the middle of it
025still the Board of Supervisors and their take on it have you gotten any early words yet or we going to look at uh major overhaul or do you have a warm and fuzzy feeling about it I told Mr Bryant that I was given a budget based on the needs described to me by my board and that's what I would present to you and then that's what id be I'd be presenting what You' come up with to them so if there's uh issues with funding we'll have to work with the county on that to come up with those concerns I know the county is I don't want to speak for the county but they in conversations never regarding their budget so I don't feel comfortable speaking for them but I know there are some currs with
026meeting their budget and the uh public comment when's going to be the next public comment session for us uh yeah yeah March 13th March 13th yes sir and will they be able to review this online yes is that what the plan it will be posted tomorrow very good yes sir okay yes ma'am um Dr Wells um I know we got an email about an additional position for stem for Jr yes um and I noticed in the budget you said it was for senior so we had that additional one for the senior we just got the email yesterday I think about the junior so we have not we did not include that in here because I was not going to make them reprint their budget book for that but that's something we can discuss during budget
027conversations thank you okay board anything else okay like I said if you guys could uh do me a favor and get me your questions or comments or whatever by Tuesday I'll compile everything get them to Dr Wells by Wednesday and then we will meet again uh bright and early on Thursday so if I'm hearing nothing else there's one more thing on the [Laughter] agenda okay all in favor hi I thank you everyone thank you all right [Music] a [Music]