School Board Budget Work Session - 2/12/2026 - 3:00 PM

001Call to order the work session February 12th, 2026. >> Miss Johnson, would you like to take the roll call? >> Mr. Daniels, Dr. Hubot >> here. >> Miss Dobson here. Mr. Hill >> here. >> Mr. Hullbrook >> here. >> Mr. KS, Mrs. Pervvis >> here. Mr. Vice Chairman, you have a quum. All right. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda as listed? >> So moved. >> All right. And a second. >> Second. >> This all in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. I just remind everybody that we are on a tight schedule so that we can get out of here before our five o'clock meeting and uh Mr. Dupair. >> Okay. And again, I'll keep my remarks short. Um but just thank you for all being here. You're going to go

002through uh two activities today. One for policy updates which has involves eight policies which I'll turn over to Miss Ston in a minute and then uh Mr. Haggler and different individuals will jump in uh to assist him, Dr. Woodford and different ones. So, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Miss Ston and she's going to go through the eight policies that are up for review. >> Okay. And I I did do a little blurb like Mr. Dupier typically does. They are a slightly bit longer so that I could explain to you what changed in a little more detail so that we could get through it faster. If you have any questions about each one or any comments, I'll direct you to the staff member, exec team member that's responsible for that policy.

003So, first we have policy GBB, prohibition against abusive work environments. This is a new policy that was requested by BCPS for SANS Anderson to draft related to abusive work environments. So, that one is Dr. Calberts if anyone wants to discuss that. It's actually a policy that I think is pretty standard for everyone to have that for some reason our policy manual didn't have one. So in the review this summer that Sans Anderson did on our policies, they found that it was missing. >> It's kind of a common sense statement, too, that says, you know, if you're in a an environment that makes you uncomfortable, then say something. Yeah, I we were working on some and I was referred to the policy and notes when we figured out we didn't have one. I'm like they're like

004you should have one. So, >> good catch. [clears throat] >> Okay. >> Did anybody have any questions about the policy itself? >> Okay. >> Let me just interject. Chris Daniels asked that in the future we identify where those changes are coming from. So, she's going to be saying it this time, but in the future when you get that out, there there will be a designation of whether it came from SBAMA or whether it came from another organization or whether it came from our stockpile of Sans Anderson. So, you'll know where they came from. >> Did SBAMA mention anything about this? >> No, this [clears throat] came from >> this came from Sand Sanderson. They did it for us last summer when we had no one doing it >> and >> they reviewed all the policies.

005>> They reviewed all of policies, the whole stack of policies. So, >> and typically the the documents, these policies, anything that's new is underlined in black. And you can see this entire policy is underlined because it's entirely new. >> And typically there's only strike through and underline. So strike through is anything we want to get rid of and underline is anything we want to add. But Mr. Daniels wanted me to add some like color coding or something so you could designate what was from different areas if it was state law if it was from SBAMA if it was from Sans Anderson or US. So moving forward that will be on the policies but this time that decision was made after I had already submitted the stuff to Diana. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So policy GCB

006employee contracts was also updated by Sans Anderson to reflect amendment to state law extending from 90 to 180 teaching days to be the maximum period of time during one school year for which a school board may employ a temporarily employed teacher to fill a vac teacher vacancy with certain conditions and restrictions as established in the code of Virginia. And we also had some other wording changes that we typically did in IGA to maintain consistency across all our policies so the language matches. >> And that one is Dr. Cowards. Also, if anyone has any comments or questions, >> any consecutive days or it doesn't matter. >> Um, they've gone back and forth with state code. It was originally 180. They went to 90 and now they went back to 180. Um with the 180 there are

007um specifications in code. For example, the person has to have a balora degree. Um they have to not be able to hold a provisional license and not have a license within the commonwealth within the last 10 years. So there's specific in code to this one that if you're going to pick someone to do 180 days, they have to have a BS and not be eligible for a license basically because I think if they're eligible for a license, then you probably should just put them under contract. You know what I mean? Instead of paying them. >> Yeah, that's what I was wondering. >> Yeah. So I think it's a protection that way. I got you. >> And then the rest of it is just small little we took out the purpose things to make them consistent

008>> where it strikes through the 90 and puts in 180 >> teaching days in such a vacancy. >> Then the following line that was added has 90 teaching days in it. Is is that correct? Mhm. Um for a period of time but no longer see up top it says no longer than 180 and in the underlined it says to fill a teacher vacancy for more than 90. So you never can go more than 180. But so the tops you can't go more than 180. >> But if you go more than 90 if you go 91 then they have to have a degree and not eligible for a professional. >> Okay. Okay, IG, adult education. We do always throw in a few policies that have not been looked at for many years just so that we

009put our eyes on them and the board has seen them. So, this policy really doesn't have many changes. It was last reviewed in 2018. The only changes are the same with the wording to maintain consistency across all policies. There's also a missing legal reference to point to the code of Virginia definition of adult education and some revisions to outdated cross references. So there really weren't any changes to that. Okay. No further questions on that. >> Okay. policy IM evaluation of instructional programs was last edited by a previous employee that was over policies in 2012. So I have no idea when that was actually last revised. During the BCPS review of this policy, it was determined that it is not required by state law. It is assumed that we created it for personalized learning, but the

010policy is unclear and is being recommended for deletion. If you have any questions about that, Dr. Wford can help you >> just obsolete. >> So >> pretty much >> so we're not going to be doing evaluations. I'm sorry. >> Now oh no we we'll evaluate programs. We have policy on standardized assessments SOS all of that. This particular policy was talking about evaluations outside of that. It was specifically written to evaluate personalized learning when Dr. Shook was here. So to basically say there would be some exceptions if you were doing personalized learning, you came under a different evaluation uh system that was more um walkthroughs and visual. So we've not used this particular policy. All of our things are addressed under curriculum assessment with SOS things like that. >> Okay. All right, policy JC. >> Okay,

011I'm going to lump three policies together and explain them at once. So, we've got policy JC, school attendance areas, JCD, school zone transfers, and JCE non-residents. These policies related to attendance zones and school transfers were updated to change the mention of the word zone transfer or school zone transfer to just say school transfer to reflect that this is a school transfer as opposed to a transfer to one of the three school zones. In addition, a sentence was added to policy JCD to specify that parents of students attending a school in BCPS who move out of the school's attendance zone to another Beth County residence may continue to have their student attend the school until the student has completed the sequence of grades offered at that school, but the parents would have to provide transportation. So

012pretty much all it is is telling them they have to provide transportation and taking out the word zone so that it's just a school transfer and not specifying a specific zone. Okay. And the last policy is JFCJ extra and co-curricular participation. This policy was revised by Sans Anderson to reflect amendment to state law regarding the requirement of a signed pre-participation physical examination form submitted to the principal attesting that a student received a physical examination and was found to be physically fit for athletic competition no more than 14 calendar months prior to the date on which such report was signed before a middle or high school student shall be a participant or try out for any school athletic team or squad. Revisions also include removing BCPS language on what constitutes a school day for six sixth

013period and block schedules since our schools are now all on a seven period day and changing other wording as I said before to maintain consistency across all policies. And that's the last one. So if nobody has any questions about that [snorts] questions. So this would move to correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Johnson. It moves to notification or inflation or >> action at the March meeting. >> Action in the March meeting. We're treating this work the work sessions as the information session of the policy. So the next board meeting they would be for action. >> Correct. >> Next month. >> March. >> Next month. >> March. >> I think it's 12th. >> Okay. The next um the next uh portion of this and probably the the rest of this portion. Um I'm going to turn

014it over to Mr. Haggler and he's going to go through the documents that were provided for his presentation. >> Were there some just added last night? [snorts] [clears throat] >> I'm sorry. I didn't >> Were there more? I I only remember seeing two last night. Were there four last night >> talking about the documents? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Some were added today. I thought so. [clears throat] There's there's much more in the stack than there were in the >> Yeah, >> hard copy should be included in at your side there. >> The ones that were at, we also put them at your side there. >> Okay. Thank you. >> It's easier to reference maybe on paper than scrolling through. >> Yeah. >> Amen. >> All right. Well, good afternoon. Um, first I'll say the staff

015made me do a script, so [laughter] 30 pages. none. Anyway, so I usually don't do that, but I'm going to try to adhere to that today so I cover everything and I don't miss anything, but I don't do I don't run off. Also, >> I got two [laughter] I got two people on my side to elbow me. Um, we'll be reviewing several items related to our budget this afternoon. Um, details on how the state budget and funding formulas impact our budget. We're going to review projections in light of state reversion funding ending in FY2829. We'll review uh non-personnel related expenditures. We'll review the budget considerations for next year. Um also staffing standards impact on elementary schools and overall staffing standards. If we don't get tomorrow, we might need to schedule additional, but it's quite a

016bit we're going to try to get through today. So, we'll see what we can do. Before I start, I'll just give you some updates on the state budget. Their uh general assembly is in session right now. February 22nd is called budget Sunday. That's when the budget committees present their proposals to their respective chambers. February 26, which is our next work session on budget, is the deadline for each chamber to act on the budget proposal. March 4th, the general assembly appoints conferees from each chamber to come up with a single budget. March 9th, deadline for committee action on all bills. And March 14th, the general assembly adjournment. So, um, the Department of Education, just a side note here, will send out revenue worksheets to me, um, once the two houses take action. I don't know when

017I'm going to receive those. So on the February 26th date, we'll do the best we can to estimate what the changes are to the budget from what the governor originally proposed. If some of the things in there are a little bit too complex or are brand new where I don't know how to calculate it, we may have to change that date. So just an FYI on that. If I don't have those calculations or I cannot do estimates, we might postpone that because we need accurate revenue numbers from the state. Um, so we'll go to page one of the document that we handed out, state funding, and we're going to go through a review of the local composite index. I'll refer to that as the LCI going forward. The state evaluates and recomputes the LCI every

018two years. They use for uh to calculate, they use true property values, not discounted values, sales tax, and income tax to compute the LCI. The chart on page one displays the LCI history going back to 2014 for Bedford County Schools. Uh the bottom line I would say as you look at that um LCI going up, the bottom line is that the state views Bedford as uh gaining in wealth. The higher the LCI, the richer your district is uh perceived. I'll explain how that impacts our budget uh when we get into the state funding. Based upon the current state budget for this year, every .01 [snorts] or 1% change in the LCI changes our uh funding from the state by $730,000. So, plus or minus. If it went down, more money. If it went up, uh

019the LCI goes up, less money from the state. From 2014 to 2026, there has been about 3.5 about a $3.5 million reduction in our state funding because of the LCI increase. However, because of reversion, this uh this impact has been postponed. The full impact will will we'll see the effect of the uh full impact of that in when the reversing funding uh ends. I will make a note here uh some questions back from some board members. We're already feeling the impact of this. Um it's not going to only be in 2829. Since we are setting aside funds for reversion into the maintenance reserve fund, we are diverting funds that we could have used for operating raises, programs, other types of things um that we can't spend in that operating fund. So we are feeling the

020effect of that right now and will continue to do so but the full effect of it from the state will be realized in 2829. Uh the next chart on that first page shows our ranking compared to other districts. So when you look at that I have Bedford highlighted. The state views Bedford as the 37 37th richest district in Virginia. So keep that in mind. I'm going to come back to that later. But as the ranking goes, um we're 37th in the uh the entire state out of 131 districts as far as wealth. And I'm going to stop. I mean, I'm going to cover a lot. A lot of this is going to build on each other, but I'll try to stop at each page and see if there's any questions about the LCI and what

021the state's doing. There's a lot of other numbers behind this, but this is kind of the basics of it. So, realistically, the LCI LCI has been going up and the state's been cutting us funding. That's the bottom line. Go to page two and continue with this. How does the LCI LCI impact the uh our budget? Well, the state takes the standards of quality which are by law uh and how schools should operate. Um [clears throat] and most of the funding that comes to us um and the standards of quality is based upon student enrollment. So remember that what's our total and student enrollment for the division. The state does not give us any funding for any positions above the SOQ. So if we have any positions above the SOQ, that's 100% locally funded. We get

022no state money. The state then projects the sales tax uh for our district. [clears throat and cough] The general assembly usually makes amendments to the caboose bill. The caboose bill is what they they're picking up right now for the current year budget. And they make revenue adjustments to true up to what's actually happening. So if sales tax was coming in lighter, they would reflect that and we would get more basic aid. If it was coming in a lot more, they would reduce our basic aid. So there's kind of like a matching to what's actually happening out there. Um I also watch this throughout the year and give quarterly updates to the board that if we had any revenue shortfalls in sales tax or any other area, um I would brief the board very quickly and

023then we could decide what we need to do about a revenue shortfall in any given year. The formula um applied So, I'm going to give you the formula here. It's the SOQ calculated what it costs, the state tells us it costs to run the school district. Subtract the sales tax, multiply that times one minus the LCI. The LCI is our portion. The rest is the states. So they're taking total cost for what they consider the cost for running this uh the division minus sales tax and then they pick up their portion um of the uh that of that which is one minus the LCI. If if not for reversion which we'll we'll discuss shortly later on the state would pay be paying about 54% of the SOQ costs right now for us and we'd be

024picking up the rest of it. Okay. Um, the state funds are based upon students. I'm going to make a comment here just so everybody knows. The state funds are based upon students, not buildings. Thus, small schools do not receive additional funding because of any inefficiencies. So, I just want to let the board in that the state doesn't recognize inefficiencies. They say here's the amount per students. If we have 21 schools or 42 schools, you get the same amount. It doesn't matter. So, um, that does impact our budget. Um when it comes down to buildings the state funds are based upon student and and also as an example to this um I'll give this as an example. We currently the state recognizes six assist six assistant principles divisionwide for us. You think about all of our

025schools they only recognize six. We have 16. The extra 10 is 100% locally funded. The state gives us no funding for that. that is across the board where there's a lot of things that we have more staff for than the state recognizes. Um, as our LCI increases, I also say you hear that sometimes as ability to pay when the state refers to that. The LC LCI increases or ability to pay uh increases, then the state cuts their funding. The state is communicating that the locality should raise the funding to offset the state decrease. That's what they're communicating when they do that. Um, I did I do present the state worksheet below. It's on page two and on page three. The section on page two is really covering the SOQ part of the state funding. This

026is these line items are directly affected by the LCI and that computation I gave. And you can see they have different things in which they fund through that. When you [clears throat] go to page three, there's other sections on there that are incentive, categorical, and lottery funding. Some of those have an LCI component, but most of them do not. They are computated computated on different measurements, not with the LCI impacting those. So, if the LCI changes, those numbers don't change um year-over-year. The LCI on the worksheet is currently set to 3132, which has which was Bedford City's LCI prior to reversion. So the state has artificially kept our LCI at 3132 which is a lot lower than the actual. This will go away in 2829. That's the reversion uh funding uh gap we'll be talking

027about. When you look at the worksheet there um you have several different columns um for each of the bianium years. Um there's a column that says here's the state funding and then the other column is what does the locality what is the required match from the locality? What does the locality have to put in to the school district because there's that required match. The FQ requires um local match uh by law. From the state worksheet above you can see that the required local contribution is 27.4 million for operating in our textbook funds. Current actual local funding is 34.3. The additional five million in local funding is paying for positions above the SOQ positions recogni recognized above the support positions recognized by the state programs not recognized by the state for instance all sporting we don't

028get funding for that and unfunded mandates. So that's what that additional funding is going for. The general assembly authorized JARK, a research arm of the general assembly to conduct a study on how the state is funding schools. Study the study showed that the state is not recognizing about $ three and a half billion dollars actually being spent by the schools compared to what they say the school should be funded. There is a big difference there and there's a big gap and Jark said that that needed to be addressed. The general assembly addressed a little bit of that in the current budget, maybe about 400,000, but the other three billion or more has not been addressed by the general assembly yet. Um, another example is this. The state recognize recognizes that we have five aids uh

029um throughout our division for all of our schools. We currently have 38. This does not include special ed aids. This is just how we have [clears throat] our staffing standards um for our schools at this point. So there's a big discrepancy in what they recognize in what we're doing. Another example is school resource officers. There's no funding from the state. I will say that they did have a competitive grant that we were able to use that helped, but this is not reoccurring funds and not guaranteed, but there is no um reoccurring stream of money to help pay for SRO's in the state budget. Um I will add there was one page added. I'll hold that up. This page was not in your original packet, but I added that uh today. That's an analysis of the

030current year to give you an idea of what we are doing. What positions do we have more than what the state recognizes. I'm not going to go over all those. Those are for your review. If you have any questions, you can ask me about those. But across the board in our schools, we have quite a bit more funding than the state even recognizes. That's at 3.5 billion n statewide gap. Um there's only one area that we do not have as many as the state said we should have and that's at the central office. We have 23 less positions and the central office and the state recognizes. Those are not standards of quality. Those are support positions. So that's not mandated by law but the SOQ are mandate mandated by by law. We cannot go below

031that. There's also some state funding that comes that isn't really tied to positions but it helps us. I put those at the bottom. And so at the my my analysis is almost $7.5 million is going towards positions over the SOQ and what the state recognizes for Beerford County Schools. I'll take a moment pause been through a lot on that. So I'll pause at that point before going on to some comparison data for any questions. >> Yes, ma'am. >> So you said the general assembly is not yet addressed. Are they planning to address? Do you know what? >> I think they hope to um we'll see what happens in this uh budget cycle. There's bills that have been introduced. There's a lot of budget talk in and Richmond. Um I would say that the um the

032original governor's proposed bianual budget, it was the outgoing governor uh did not address that that funding gap really at all. Um so maybe the general assembly is going to pick that up and make some make some headway on that. So there should be some kind of compensation for the bigger or bigger um counties that have a lot further to go. I [laughter] mean, you [cough] can't bust kids. >> There's there's a lot of things to get into it. >> You know, when you look at smaller districts and counties, there's there's inherent inefficiencies where it's harder, you know, smaller schools and different things that you just you've got to do certain things and it's like you spread that over a thousand kids to 100,000 kids in in a Fairfax you it just produces inefficiencies for small

033districts. They recognize that. So, there is talk about that. Um um I think Mr. Hills talked to me that um trying to get something through saying we got a large area mass and so transportation if you apply the same metric for transportation to everybody it's a lot easier for Lynchburg city than it is for us. We got to go further. There's a lot more unless >> you have kids on the bus for two hours and I don't know if anybody wants to do that. So there are those built-in things. I think that's recognized. How that's addressed I'm not sure. Um so we'll continue to watch this. We have different associations watching this. They keep bringing it to the general assembly. Um, back when the recession, I'm going off script, sorry. Back [clears throat] when the

034recession hit in 200910, they put a artificial cap on the support positions and just said you don't need those. And that was in place until like last year. So you're talking from 2009, 10, and 11 when the recession hit all the way till last year there was a artificial support cap where they just eliminated a whole bunch of custodians and clerical workers. You don't need them. Everybody kept them, but the state just didn't fund them. So, they did a little bit in the last two years to try to regain that, but there's still a lot of work to do. >> We tried to push something through with Delegate Griffin earlier this year, myself and the IG, and it was it was dead on arrival. There was there was really nothing we can push through because

035what we were really trying to push through is to get additional funding for longer bus routes. >> You know, I was really looking for about $130,000 in additional money. could probably buy correctly wrong about two buses >> and it just it didn't get anywhere. Unfortunately, also our delegates that represent our area are not on the education committees and so that that kind of hurts us as well and just the state that we're in. [snorts] We don't have much of a shot right now of getting what we want pushed through unless we unless we're able to group a lot of of rural counties together and say, "Hey, >> that would be a good idea." >> And you know, that's that's a lot of leg work, you know. So, we're hoping to begin that leg work now

036for next year, but this year we were too late to the ball game on that. I will I will say at the state level when you talk about and there's some there's been some talk about redoing the LCI my caution there is unless you increase the overall PI for um public education and redo that where everybody gets more it's an allocation model. So if you redo the methodology on that calculation we could win or lose. It depends on who has the political power in Richmond because if you think about a Fairfax they're only getting 20% funding from the state. 80%'s coming locally. They're they're maxed out at 80. So they're going a lot of our tax dollars are going somewhere else. So you got to be careful when you go you get what you wish

037for. It might not be what you wanted. So I I don't know if we would come out on the winning side or losing side of that. Uh there's a lot of looking at that or changing up the funding on how you do this overall getting rid of that. I don't know what that means long term. Um but they know there's this discrepancy. It's been documented. It's just addressing it when they have funds. I think they might have done more this year, but I think the uh Medicare and Medicaid um um deficit really took up a lot of the money of the general assembly. >> And we're in a unique position in Becker County where we are a mostly rural district. Um we're a very large county, but we're also considered one of the more affluent

038counties. >> And so we're kind of in one of those uh we're not really on any team, so we're kind of losing all Y >> um a big argument there also when I said that they look at the LCI of uh true property values. That's the assessed value. There's a lot of agricultural land in Bedford County where you get a discount and you don't pay the the actual assessed value but are reduced. The state doesn't recognize that. They use the actual assessed value. So you're not collecting taxes on the assessed value but a discounted value. The state says you can do that but we're not recognizing that. So there's been talk about that in Richmond to uh allow us to recognize that, but I don't think that got anywhere this year either. So >> I

039do have a question. Um so based on the state SOQ recognized value versus our actual um just just looking purely at the numbers, this the state believes that we should have two less schools open. >> Is that is that pretty much what I'm picking up from the state SOQS? to those don't give us >> um [clears throat] >> based upon principles. >> Well, based on principles, um librarians, guidance counselors, I mean, if you were to knock down two two schools out of every one of them, those would line up. Those numbers would line up >> a lot closely with the state SOQ. >> Yeah. I I would say this also and just I'll be careful, but I you know, that's my job is to inform you all. Um, I'm not recommending this, but hope, you

040know, if it gets out there, then I'm not. But having very small high schools with the numbers we have in there is very costly. I mean, when you get down in the 600s, you and you have two two of them in that range, you know, states looking at go, you should have a high school that's, you know, in the 1500 to 20,000 area and stuff like that. So, those could become very expensive for the support. The teachers go where the kids are. It's the support more, you know, clerical staff is duplicated, librarian, uh, nurse, you know, guidance counselors, everything. >> But we're a big area mass. How do you do that? And you're doing the auditorium. So, I mean, I I don't see there's any option there. But it does cost more to do that.

041>> That's the bottom line. And that's that's just the reality of it. And the state doesn't really, oh, good for you have to have that because you're mouse. We'll give you more. We don't get it. >> You got to get faster buses. [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Star Trek Beam. So, >> but you know that's that's hard for me to say, but that's the reality and it needs to be said. So, any other questions on that funding, I'll continue to watch the state funding and once I get those worksheets, I brief the board on what the general assembly actually accomplish this year. I am hopeful for more than what the governor originally proposed from what I've seen as far how much and sometimes it comes with strings. You can't spend it the way you want it.

042You got to spend it here. So, we have to watch that. >> Question probably been answered a million times, but the I've seen where it's, you know, the LCI stayed the same for three school years in a row. Well, it you know it's remarkable our it was exactly the same number from the last banium and I said how can that be and I actually went into the calculations and was like okay property went up but like things changed and ours came out the exact same I don't know the probability of that I didn't think was possible but it was all different numbers in the calculations. Um I'm really shocked it stayed the same but in that sense it didn't go up so it didn't put additional burden on us. >> Yeah. If you flip to

043the next page, on the fourth page, I give some comparison data uh in regards to our number of our students, our actual LCI, not the artificial lower one for reversion, our per pupil funding for local funds only, and our per pupil funding local and state combined. Um make a note here, this per pupil funding is for operations, which is our basically our operating fund and our textbook fund. It does not include debt service or capital improvements. Um, so this is just looking at uh really daily operations. I I'd tell you to focus really on the state and local combined because the local one is kind of skewed right now. This is these are on state reports that I get because of the reversion. It's kind of showing it a little bit worse than it is.

044It would probably be a little bit better once that funding comes over. So focused over there on the state and the uh local combined peril. And I guess I would draw uh your focus on this. I mentioned earlier that the state sees us as the number 37th wealthiest district in Virginia. Our per pupil funding, we're 118th out of 131. So, and uh Dr. Calbert's going to be presenting later uh tonight on our um strategic plan. And that 118th kind of correlates where our teacher pay is. We're 111th on teacher pay in the statement. So, I think there's a direct correlation there. what you can, you know, expound from that. I'm just showing comparative data. That's factual data. And how we compare. State sees us as a 37th, but we're really funding state and local combined

045as 118th. So, I'll take a pause there. See if there's any questions you have on that. >> Yes. So, Amherst is 70 70th. They have a [clears throat] whole lot lower LCI than we do. So, >> so, so is it benefit us >> because evidently the state's not making up exactly the same >> when you look at state and local combined, you're saying you're excluding federal funds, grants, and you just say state and local combined is the biggest portion of what's driving the divisions. So whether you have a lower or higher LCI, you put them, you put everything together, it's saying how you running your division compared to everybody else. That's the best comparison I would say. Yeah. So, I would say the lower the the lower the LCI, the more money you get from

046the state. The higher the less money you get from the state. >> And as I said, some of the Northern Virginia >> and it evens out or supposed to because it's not >> you could theorize [snorts] that it should, but it's not for us. >> Not. Yeah. >> So, um and that's, you know, just the data as it is. Um you would think you would be closer. It wouldn't be exact, but it depends on how each locality funds the school systems. That's what that's what's making this difference. >> So, if we was a if it was a lower from the locality, >> I'll just put it this way. If there was if there was more money from the locality, we would our funding would be higher. We'd be closer to that 37th rank on the

047LCI. >> LCI. Yeah. >> Not passing blame and just showing the realities of where we are. Each each locality has its own issues and complexities that they've got to meet and budget for. Um but when you look at um if you look at the LCI for Amherst, they're ranked uh 97th richest, but they're funding at 70th. They're funding way better than what their LCI says. So that means there's probably more local money going in to get them even doing better, if that makes sense. >> Does that help explain how that's working? >> Yeah, I got you. >> So you can draw comparisons down the line on that. [clears throat] There are surrounding counties. We put Augusta in there because that's who we compare with mostly when people are comparing us to the same size, same

048amount of schools, same kind of demographics. >> Gotcha. So the reason we have a higher ranking in the state and local for 118 is because it's not because we have um because our it's based on the price per student and you're saying the the cost per student. Correct. >> Cost per student. >> And you're saying that the reason we have it so low is not because of is because of our teacher pay. Is that the >> teacher pay? overall budget in [clears throat] the operating in the textbook fund budget is just you you take those line items and those those accounts all together whether it's pay or anything you're using put all that money together divide by the number of students and that's what you're spending >> that pretty tight belt >> um >> so

049the discrepancy between 37 and the 118 is local funding >> yes sir here. That's what makes the difference. >> And the reason I say look out to the right because with reversion we're getting more state and less local has to come in right now. But theoretically if that weren't here it would reverse. It's going to reverse. You put them together anyway. It doesn't change that 118. Either get from state or local. It both gets combined. So that it's we're still going to be at 118 with or without reversion money. That's the way I look at this. So to stay where we are when the reversion comes, we're going to have to have more local funding. >> I'll talk about reversion here as we get closer >> to keep us >> that's coming up. Just wanted

050to pause there and make sure I answer those questions and got that. Any other questions on that page? >> All right, reversion. We've been um I've been updating the board on reversion, you know, because of the significance of it in the last, you know, almost every budget cycle. But I'm going to brief some new board members and go through this. I'm getting back to my script. Okay. There's a plan presented here to offset the state reduction in funding once reverse ends in FY2829. Each year, the first $500,000 of new revenue for the school system is set aside for capital projects each year. That means it does not flow into the operating fund for any of our ongoing operations to off to offset reversion in future. Well, the 500,000 wasn't going to get us to where

051we needed to by the time of reversion. So uh several boards back we started putting 200 then another 600 and we started putting additional money to get to that to to lessen that gap in the future. So the school system has also been setting aside an additional 600,000 in the same way as the 500. So if you think about that almost 1.1 million of any new local funding is going towards reversion not for operations. That money is being put into a capital improvement fund. we can spend that money on capital improvement, but it's not helping with helping us with our day-to-day operations for the current budget. Um, under by FY2829, under the current plan, we'll have about $8.8 million that have been set aside year-over-year ongoing. That's recurring money that can offset um my estimated

052is $10.3 million difference uh once reversion ends. That's based upon the 26 budget. I'll do a recmputee when we get the 27 budget done. I expect that number to go up. Not because the LCI the LCI could force it up in two years, but because the state's going to give us more money, so that drives that difference up. Um, so I do expect that 10.3 to increase. I just don't know how much. Um, so I'll recalculate that, present that when we do our our budget cycle here in the next next month or two. If all the 8.8 8 million projected set aside moves over to the operating fund when reversion ends. So, we're putting this aside. We have 8.8 million reoccurring funds that we've been setting aside. Theoretically, this is what you're going to do

053is when you get to reversion in, you take that 8 point 8.8 million locally, move it over to the operating fund and the state cuts you the 10.3. Now, there's a shortfall there. We'll talk about that in a minute. Um, what options do you have? This will cause a problem in that all that money that was going into the maintenance reserve [clears throat] of which these two members have have been helping us spend that money on things greatly needed. The maintenance reserve will go down to zero. We have no money for capital improvements long term. I I don't think that's acceptable. I know the board doesn't think that. So, we got to come up with a plan to fully fund that eventually. What are the options? you can incre increase the funding set aside over

054the next few years um to put more set aside into the maintenance res reserve. So when you get to reversion, you can leave some money in there. That will decrease the amount you have for operations right now. So not great, but that's one option. Um when you get to uh reversion, you don't have to move the entire amount out. You can move some of it, leave some in the maintenance reserve, so you have some seed money in there to do some things. Once again, that would hurt your operating budget when you do that reversion. [clears throat] Option three is let's see what the budget is in 2829 and not deal with it right now. Um I would recommend when we get there, we need to have some money in there uh at least contingency money.

055But you but my estimates working with the two members on the maintenance uh committee is that with life cycles as they are we need about 5 million going in there each and every year uh for proper replacement of our equipment. When we look at HVAC lasted 25 roofs 30 I've calculated all that and 21 schools and um central office we need about 5 million going in there each and every day. So that's going to have to be addressed. I don't have a crystal ball to say how to fix that right now. That's not going to be easy fixed. I don't think you can fix it in one year because you'd have to take five million out of your operating fund to fix it to fix it immediately and that would be catastrophic to what we're

056doing in the schools. >> And to add to what he says there, I think that 5 million is maintaining bare minimum of keeping our our facilities open and safe and acceptable. >> That does include renovation add-ons. That's just the major equipment and that is probably with today's dollars. [snorts] >> Yeah. Yeah. So, >> non emergency >> inflation and things like that that you know that's going to have to be looked at in the future, but that's going to use things some current dollars and so we've got some there's work to be done there. I don't know how to get there. I don't think you can get there immediately. I it's too big of a hill, but you can build up to it, I think, is what we're going to have to do. But that'll be

057for the board to decide. But those are some options to compound that. Um current calculation is there's a 1 point 1 1.5 million shortfall. If you wanted to fund everything we're doing now after reversion, this plan only comes up with 8.8 instead of 10.3 and it might get a little bit larger. What are your options there? Increase funding right now to set aside for capital projects so you have the money to move over, but that would limit how much you could put into your operating fund this year to do anything you wanted to do in this year's budget. or you wait till 28 29 and see what you got. So, [laughter] um I hate to say that but that is an option and that I I think people would say that's kicking the can down

058the road and saying we'll deal with it then. Um so, but that is an option and so I think all these things we've got to struggle with and it's it's big money um that we've got to deal with. So, um, on the bright side, because of this plan, when you add all the money that we've been putting aside, we will have work we will have put $37 million into capital improvements over this plant that uh the the maintenance committee and staff have been able to do. That's a lot of projects with cash, no borrowing. Most of those HVACs, roofs, and things like that. So, uh, that's that's good that this was done, but then we got to how do you how do you receive that money in the future? So, I'll pause there, see if

059there's any questions. I know it's kind of complex, but um trying to give you your options and paint a picture of what what we're facing. They want very good options. Sorry. [laughter] [clears throat] Um, so yeah, I mean the hard part when I went back when you go back before when we first started reverse in 2014, the spread was $6 million. It's now 10.3 because of the LCI [snorts] just but no one has really seen it because it's like in the future. But it is going to hit and I don't think the skates the state's going to give us any grace. And you want to go up there and ask them to continue reversion that'd be fine. But I don't think they're going to give it to us. Um, so that's a picture uh on

060the reverse of funding. Okay, if you go to the next page, pick up on page six. Um, I think one of the board members asks for, you know, when you look at our budget and line items, there's probably six or seven thousand line items in the budget. Kind of hard to find anything. So, I kind of did a I kind of bunched them together as best I could so you all could look at them. And I excluded all the non I didn't include salaries or fringes. That's kind of staffing related. I put everything that's non- salary or fringe within our operating budget and broke them down kind of by different categories. You can see on the left side there's grants. Grants are the revenue and the expenditures match. Not much you can do to balance

061a budget there. It's one for one. Special special education. There's some have to in special education in a lot of legislation that we cannot reduce funding and you got to maintain. So there's not much you can do in special education to balance budget. Utilities, leases, and insurance, those are kind of given. Not much you can do there. Um, not saying you can't do anything, but um, it's kind of hard. On the right side, you'll see budget categories and instruction and operations. There are line items behind these. So there might be four or five line items that support one each one of these lines behind the scenes. Um, but I wanted to give this to the board to say in our overall budget, these are things that are non- salary related that we're spending money on.

062A lot of the things on the right hand side and lefthand side we really got to do if you're going to have, you know, public education. But, um, I open it up to uh, the board if there's any questions about these. If you look through these and you have a question between now and the 26, be happy to answer those. Uh, staff is prepared as best they can to answer some of the questions on this. So, I'll turn it over to um to the board to see if there's any questions on these line items on far as like the the maintenance insurance, transportation insurance, schoolboard insurance. I'm assuming we're constantly checking that or >> we don't go out for a bit. We're part of a pool uh part of Vorp pool. Um, I'd say they

063have almost all the counties in schools. They don't have 100% but they have a lot. And so we're part of an insurance pool and they look at their losses and so we're part of that. We I have not bid that out. >> Is there any? Yeah. So there so we could but >> yeah the pool the pool is I guess we could I could take a look at it but I'm not sure if it would be any kind of savings there. You know, I mean, >> I know cuz [clears throat] I mean I I try to switch vehicle insurance every six to eight months. >> Say it's a tremendous >> We do we do get uh not everybody gets the same rate. Depends on what we're experiencing and stuff. Um and so each division, but

064they maintain the, you know, a pool. And so if you think about it with a school and insurance covering a school district, um back when we had a lot of snow back in 2010 or 11, you know, when Blackburg roof collapsed, well, that insurance company had built a new school. So it it there there's exposure there for whatever insurance it's going to take because you have to have that money set aside for our school to to be closed down because something happens. So there's a lot of risk there. Um I can take a look at it but almost everybody's in that pool insurance pool. >> Yeah, that's what kind of makes me leer about to be honest. Everybody's in it. I mean I don't know. I'm just [clears throat] thinking I know it's not a

065tremendous amount of money but it and I guess the school the bus lease we're getting out of that slowly. >> Yeah, that will continue. So when you look at the bus lease uh that includes the replacement cycle. So uh for new board members we used to lease our buses. Um we would buy it's a lease purchase. So we would uh lease them over seven years run them for 15. We would lease them. We were having interest rates in the 1.8 eight, two, so it made sense. Then the interest rate went up and we said, let's switch out of that and start buying them. So we're we went down to buying two, bought four this year, going to buy six next year. Eventually the leases will go away and we'll save all that interest, but not

066until the last lease is paid off, >> right? >> And there are seven-year leases. So we got another four years and then we'll see the true savings. Okay? >> But we need to maintain um to maintain our fleet probably 10 or 11 buses a year. If you don't maintain your fleet, If you stop doing that, you you're going to get into a hole very quickly. >> What about buying some used buses? I mean, if we looked into that because I know like Bat County and stuff had was doing that. And I mean, some of their buses are right old, but they're maintained. I mean, just >> Well, we keep we keep about 30 buses in reserve because breakdowns, accidents, and stuff, we have to do that. Um, depends on who you're buying from. I don't

067know who would be selling the bus until they get to 15 years. it makes sense to run it 15 years based upon with the state. Um, our bus garage also rotates the buses. So, if one has a very short run, it'll be put on a long run later and the long runs are put on the short run. So, we're managing the mileage on our buses by rotating them through our fleet. So, they all end up with about the same mileage at 15 years, >> right? >> So, I I I don't know who selling buses that are, >> you know, less than 15 or without a lot of mileage. Yeah. >> I'm just being honest. >> Okay. Yeah. I'm just asking them. I'll look into insurance some questions and and see. Um [snorts] >> Lindy, I

068know that you were also talking about um you were also talking about health insurance and trying to partner with the city and other places to >> um the cost of health insurance >> kind of partnering. I'm going to get into health insurance. partnering with the uh you mean with the uh with the the county? >> Yeah, with the police department, sheriff's department. Yeah, >> the insure, you know, health insurance is and and I'll brief the board on that. Um when I was going to get to the next sheet, but I'll I'll go ahead and address that now. Uh we are self-funded in our health insurance. Um if somebody were going to bid on a fully insured, they look at our claims. I I'll say this right now. Our claims um for this year, the last

06912 months, is running at 120 122% of budget. That's not good. We're spending more than we're bringing in right now. And that has been on a three-year cycle. Um we had reserves built up in the self-insured fund to the tune of almost 6 million. I'm below 2 million right now. We've seen four million flow out of that fund in the last three years. I was hoping it was a bad year because once in a while you have a bad year and you pay out a lot and you catch it up. Um, so we have postponed probably going up on our insurance rates as drastically as we needed to because it was like, is it a bad year or is it inflation? It's inflation. Um, we are spending about $400 to $450,000 a month on prescription

070drugs. We're going to have to go up substantially on our budget uh on our insurance this year. Um, on my next document, I had 17 projected. We're probably going to go up year 30. um our consultants are looking at how we can bring that down. So I'll have a better number when I present to the board on the 26th or the next time we meet. But the health insurance is um we've taken a drastic hit and so we need you got to pay the claims. So if somebody were going to come bid on us, they'd say, "What's your claims history?" They're going to they're going to charge you what you're spending. Um you may get an insurance firm to come in one year and say, "Let's lowball so I can get your business." But they're

071going to get it back the next year. That's what insurance companies do. The benefit of being self-insured, I'll be honest with you, yes, it's hard in these years, but in all those years that we did better, we banked all that money and we put it in reserve. We kept it. It didn't go to an insurance company. So, I still believe in self- insurance, but we we're going to have to address our premiums and our rates. And um that's going to that's going to be a drastic hit this year, both on employees and on the school board budget. So, more on that later, but I wanted to brief you on that. Um I don't see a magic get out of jail on this one because they do look at the claims and what you're experiencing and

072you got to collect enough money to pay the claims and and that's >> well now I I know the president had done something with the pharmaceutical companies and reduce the is that >> what he yet or is >> yeah what he's rolled out is called um Trump RX >> it's very similar to good RX and actually collaborates with that a little bit from my from my research it has 48 drugs on the on the list right now. Those are not part of insurance. Anybody can access our employees could go look at Trump RX Good RX and our employees and we instruct our employees to shop around. So it's like when you go to Walmart, present your pharmacy pharmacy card, you can go to Walmart and say does Walmart have that $5 on that drug? So

073we encourage our employees to shop around because you don't always have to use your prescription drug. You could get it cheaper other ways. Um there's coupons and everything. So, we're constantly trying to instruct our employees to shop, do the best they can, get the drugs they need to maintain whatever condition they have, but to do a little bit of shopping and being a consumer. >> Something we've been required them to do. >> Um, our pharmaceutical PBM um actually has formularies, but also uh requirements that when the card's presented, there's certain drugs that the employee has to take. if they want to take one that's different, there's a process that they their doctor can go through to get that, but you almost have to prove that you can't take this drug, you got to take this

074drug. So, there's a lot of that going on behind the scenes. >> Oh. >> Um I'm not really crazy about all that, but um it's kind of what how that market has developed and worked um unfortunately. But, um it it I I've seen the biggest increase in our drug spend, not on our medical spend over the last three years. And so we're gonna have to address it. Um, so that's gonna we got that information this week. Kind of a shock. Lane, >> Dr. Cart was in in the room when we got that and I basically just wanted to go home, [laughter] >> but uh, we're going to have to work through that. Yes, sir. >> So it really wasn't an increase in claims, just the price of the >> or was it? >> It's claims.

075It's >> the increase of claims as well as the price of prescription >> coupled really >> that and also the you know if you went to the doctor five years ago I mean I think I look back and we tell people to go for their wellness visit at one time it was like about $85 or something like that to go to the doctor I I can go look at my last bill and it's probably 125 130 now for a visit or something. So it's just overall inflation. You got to collect the premiums to pay those. So, it's it's both, but the but the prescriptions has been >> increasing quicker than the medical. [clears throat] >> I went way off script here. Sorry, >> but >> sorry. A little whiffs of steam coming out of your

076ears, too. >> Well, [laughter] yeah. The the >> Well, I'm not saying no, but um [laughter] I just told you about reversion. I told you about the LCI and now this. and you're going, "Okay, is there good news?" Hopefully, you get some good news from the state. I'll I'll let you know, but [laughter] I'm waiting for the good news, too. Um, but I need to paint the picture for the board of what we're dealing with. That's my job. So, uh, merging with the county, uh, we are trying to get our plans aligned. Um, the spur. Um, but when you merge two different groups, it it's difficult because there's always a winner and loser. and you got to blend that. So, in order for us to blend with the county, even though we're having a such

077high increase this year, for the exact same plan that most of our employees have, theirs costs about $150 more. So, even though we're taking a hit this year, their plan's a lot more. They have to pay a lot more for their employees. They're a smaller employ employer with a lot less employees, more fluctuation. It would behoove them to come on together with us. But if we blend, we almost have to go up on our rates. They come down. So then you got to go to the board of supervisors and say because of that, give us more money to offset this. And so that gets complicated. I don't know if everybody's going to understand that. So I don't know if it's an easy cell. Um but overall, we we are trying to get closer together and

078working with administration at the county. It's just complicated when you blend and how do you do that and budgetary wise? Um and I'm not blaming anybody on that. It just gets complicated to make sure the budget comes out right, but we are trying um to blend. >> Sorry to get you off script. >> I'm good at that, though. >> I'm I'm good at it, too. So, um if you want, you've got those things. If you have any questions on any of those line items, please feel free to send me an email and I give you more details on that. Um, but we constantly look at those to see if there's any potential cost savings and reductions each every year when we go through the budget from a staff perspective. Okay, I'm nearing the end on

079my part. Um, if we go to the last page, I think all the board members have seen this. U Mr. Paris sent this out um to you for consideration. Um, I will say these are estimates. These are just for discussion and to think about. These estimates will change as we get more information. I've already spoke about the one on health insurance there. That's going to change. And then when you look at the increase in pay, I that was a 3%. That's what the state did the last two years. The governor came out with 2%, but I'm hearing other things from the state. That number is going to change too. But theoretically, here are some discussion and how do the board members think what they want to accomplish here. I would say the have-tos how why

080are there two different categories? I would put the havetos as this. these these are um there would be a significant detriment to the division if we didn't implement these that's I would say the have the have to are uh the needs are items identified to function at our current level and improve our areas uh identified in our strategic framework. So if we want to get better and we want to operate where we are and we want to get better in certain areas identified in our strategic framework these needs are identified. Um we had a wants there's no wants on here. We got enough to accomplish with what we're identifying here. Um um and and these are things that we really need to do. Um see if I covered everything here. So at this point, I

081think you've seen these, you responded to the superintendent on this on priorities and stuff. Be happy to answer any questions on this, but I think there's already been a lot of traffic back and forth about u questions on this and supporting these. So I'll be happy to the staff will be happy to answer any questions on these if you have those. I guess my question is obviously this entire list is not going to be to happen. >> Realistically, what are we looking like as far as I mean, I would even even throw the needs that you put down in here as as wants. I don't I don't know that we'll be able to have the the funds to do that. How much do we really have to attack any of these issues? Uh when we're

082looking at, you know, the overall budget coming in and obviously you don't have the actual number. >> And so you're, you know, this is all just kind of of estimating. >> There's a lot of estimating. I think the state budget is the biggest unknown. So it's hard to tell. >> That's right. Because you know when you build in some of these uh these things um how much funding from the state is uh discretionary means I can use it anywhere in the budget and how much is like pinpointed you can only use it here. Um I think it's too early to tell. Um can you accomplish all these issues? No. I mean, you add all these up, the five million, the 2.7, but I think as a board when you look at this, you go, what

083are the non-negotiables? And when when you when I think the superintendent's looking through that, and he'll present a budget to the board, his recommended budget, um, and then the board will pick it up and make changes. What are the non-negotiables? That means we're going to go ask for this. If we don't get it, these are not being cut. We're going to cut somewhere else. And that might not be pleasant, but you got to balance budget anyway. So, um, [clears throat] most of the money is tied up in staffing. To bounce a budget is usually in staffing or pay. I mean, I'm just being honest. You see that other list out of $130 million, you're you're talking very little that you can like maneuver on there. Um, so I understand your question. It's too early to

084tell, sir. >> Because if I throw out a number now, then that sticks and everybody's talking about it and it could be $2 million difference in 10 days. >> Yep. I have a list that has six of the seven replies and if you start talking about that now you'll get exactly you'll get it in front of us and so we really do need to wait on the state I wouldn't I just if I make it public right now it kind of defeats the purpose of is the state going to come through with more or is it going to come through with less and I I think there's some valuable discussions that need to be add in just your replies and that will be part of the budget process >> just so I understand this chart

085the have to and the needs those are above and beyond what our budget is now. >> Yes ma'am. So >> you're going to have to ask for this extra money for sure on the [clears throat] have toss and then possibly a few of the needs. Is that what >> Yes, ma'am. um if if that's what we do and we don't know what the increase in state revenue is to offset these things right now. >> So these are just the expense side you got to factor in what revenue you get in from the state and then you go okay this is what we really want to do you balance it by saying this is our ask of increased local funding. Um I do have one item before I turn it over to Dr. Woodford. Uh I

086mentioned the um the SRO's earlier >> and um so uh the sheriff was notified or the state just put out this week that there's an opportunity to go after a competitive grant to extend our current funding for SRO's the 14 SRO's that we have uh under the current grant for one more year. Um they asked me if I was if we were okay with that. I said, "Well, this requires matching funds evidently from the schools, so I want to get the okay from my board before I commit to anything." So, uh, you can do this on a consensus. We are not applying for this. This would be the sheriff. If the board has a consensus to do this, I'll go ahead and give the go-ahhead. Look at it. I'd say look at it this we

087have to deal with the SRO. We don't know if we're going to get this funds. We're gonna have to deal with the funding of the SRO's in this budget anyway. If we get this money, it would be kind of free up that money, but you can't wait until this. If if you get this, I would encourage the board to do this because it is state money that we can get. Why not take it? Um it would be in next year's if it comes through, it would be beneficial. And so, um that would continue under the current um condition where it's about 2575 split. We pay 25, state pays 75%. If um I'll turn over to you, Dr. Cheubach and see if um if the board has consensus, I'll go ahead and give um the okay

088to the sheriff to proceed after this grant. >> Yeah. Um does anybody have any questions about the current SRO situation and and where we stand with that funding? Everybody understands that this really just kind of would if we got that grant through the sheriff's office, it would kind of freeze where we're at financially now. doesn't take away our obligation. >> We'll know about that after after we have finalized our budget. So, we need to deal with the SRO >> fully funding it and our budget or not. >> Then the grant comes along. It would basically free up money. Yeah. Um stops. I'll just let you know uh the sheriff uh pursued a grant four years ago uh for 14 SRO's and Susie Gibson and all of our elementary schools. The state paid 100% of that

089in the first year. I don't know if he hired anybody in the first year. It takes time. So did not >> we didn't get we didn't benefit from that money at all from the state and then it went to a 7525 split or thereabouts and that's been the last three years. Uh that grants over. So the full cost of the SRO's has to be absorbed by somebody [laughter] um in next year's budget. So we need to deal with that. Um this grant would say can we continue to get funding for those 14? We [clears throat] might get zero. We might get it all. We might get a part of that. And but the but the the sheriff would go after that, but I think it's state funding. We might as well try. But I'll defer

090to the board. Is that >> is that a one-year grant? >> It's only one year extension is concerned. >> What is the number um of if we're funding at 100%. What's the number? >> I estimated about $900,000. >> 900,000. Uh and just to make sure I'm clear on this, these are SRO's are not our employees. They are sheriff's office employees. Yes, sir. We just like you would rent out security force. We are renting. >> I will say the sheriff um he he outfits. So the cars and uniforms and everything else that's required is outfitted by the sheriff. We only share the portion I'm talking about the 900,000 would be for um the salary infringes. And that's not the full cost because the two year the two months that we closed in schools the sheriff would

091pick up that port. So it's about a $900,000 from my estimates. I'd get that more from the county. Um I have to get an estimate on that. Um because we that's the proper sharing for them in the offs. >> We're not paying them on offs. >> No. >> So basically if if the board gives consensus, we're just saying yes, go ahead and apply for that grant on our behalf. We'd appreciate it. >> I like the board to know when we're obligating, you know, matching funds. And [clears throat] so I think caught off guard on the last one. So I was [snorts] like, I don't want to let my board know about this because there is required matching. >> From my perspective, there's no reason not to go after this this grant because we've already been

092obligated to those funds and this actually, like you said, frees up money for a year. Um, so, uh, I'd like to give consensus, uh, for them to pursue that grant if if we're all in agreement. Randy? >> Yes. Stephen? >> Yes. >> And yes, from me. So, yes, you have consensus to tell the sheriff to pursue that. >> All righty. Um, let me check with my assistant here. Did I get everything? >> Okay, because she was checking off as I went, make sure I didn't mess anything. Thank you, Emily. Um, with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Wley and she's going to talk about our staffing standards impacts on elementary school. >> So, I'm going to share this information. It's mostly forformational purposes because it really affects how you make decisions in the future.

093Dr. Calbertt after this is going to share all of the staffing standards. What I'm really looking at is our elementary schools and the number of teachers and how we fund them. As Mr. Haggler said, when we're looking at budget deficits or we're trying to find money, most of our money is in staffing. So, I put two charts in. It was just one last night, but then I thought I'd do a second visual. So, they both look like this. Um, I'm looking first at the top one. Um basically our current staffing standards for elementary teachers are 21 students in classrooms of uh K3 and 23 students in grades four or five. Now to find that standard and assign teachers. We use an averaging model. Therefore this does not mean that no K3 classroom can be over

09421 or under 21. And it doesn't mean that a fourth or fifth grade class um cannot have over 23. Again, I just understanding we apply a formula and part of that formula is the average of 21 students K3 and an average of students for five of 23 students. Um so as a reminder, we staff much more favorably than the SOQ's require us to. Um as Mr. Haggler said earlier and we had that chart where he says, you know, Bedford County is always funded better than the SOQ's. So, let me just give you an example. If we're focused on K5, our SOQ state that kindergarten classes can be up to 29 as long as we put a pair professional in there. Um, first, second, and third grade classes can go as high as 30. Fourth, and

095fifth grade classes can go up to 35. So, please note everyone, I am not proposing that. Um, I just want to point out that we've done really well in staffing our classrooms well and I think that's probably why we're number 31 when we look at our performance because we do better than the the SOQ's. Um, but that is how we're funded from the state. So, it takes a lot of money to fund as generous as we do. So the first page of this uh projected funding is just a projection of class sizes by grade level for each school. So as an example um you're going to find each grade level listed with an estimated class size and the number of classrooms. So just looking just right here at the top with Bedford Elementary. If I'm

096looking at the number of students projected in second grade, I'm going to just and I'm making projections. If I have five classrooms, that's what's in parentheses, that's an average of 19 students per classroom. And so I've kind done that all across. Here is the calculated number of teachers based on our funding formula that the board approved through our staffing standards. You can see that Beford Elementary has 20 teachers. And so that principal has to really decide where am I going to put those teachers um in my school. Um I've highlighted in yellow areas that may be concerning for you to consider. So for instance, Big Island Elementary, they could have 29 students in fourth grade. Perfectly acceptable in the SOQ's. Um, but as an executive team in the summer, we begin reviewing the actual numbers

097and sometimes we say, "God, 29 is really hard in a fourth grade classroom." And we might look at test scores, we might look at, you know, discipline. We might look at a lot of things and we may say, "We need an extra teacher in that classroom even though they don't. It's not part of their funding formula." So, Mr. Haggler actually has some teaching positions that he holds on reserve. Um those reserve positions we've used every year. Um and they've always been funded with COVID funds are all in Virginia. We don't have that anymore. So we got to start making some decisions. And basically as Dr. Calvin and I talked, we're concerned that our staffing standards for elementary are just not working based on the size of some of our elementary schools. Um, you also notice

098that I highlighted some classes in green because they're concerning in a positive way. Um, as a former teacher, I would love to have a class of, you know, 12 or 13, 10, 11. Um, but that's concerning because you're putting a lot of money in a classroom for 10 students when a larger school may have a class size of because again, and I'm not proposing one way or another. I'm just giving information. Our smaller schools cost more money because it's more staff for smaller numbers of students. Um, so again, we have those reserve positions, but I think it's time that we really start carefully looking at what do we do instead of additional positions. So, I think we could consider classroom size increases. And so, the second chart, that's what I've done. I want you to

099see what could happen if we were to just add one student to our staffing standards. So you'll see down here at the bottom I adjusted the formula to say K3 an average of 22 students per classroom four five an average of 24 students. So what does that give us? It cuts us we can cut seven positions which is exactly the number of reserve positions that Mr. Haggler's had to put in the budget to deal with our uneven classrooms. But the other thing you have to look at is now we've got more yellow. So now we've got other classrooms that could become concerning to the board. So when we start thinking about class sizes and we start thinking about changing of staffing standards, I'm not sure that a formula may be on average may work the

100best. So, what I would like for my team to really start looking at, and in the past, this has been a concern for the school board are multi-age classrooms. And I'm not talking about the oldfashioned combo classes of half second graders, half first graders. I'm really thinking of a model where we take um maybe a second grade, let's say it's a it's a small school, it has one second grade teacher, one third grade teacher, maybe putting a parro with them. How can they work those children together in flexible spaces maybe um so that reading groups are smaller but history is a little bit bigger. So looking at some models like that that other school divisions have looked at. The other thing, um, and this actually came at a finance meeting as a suggestion, but maybe

101we offer stipens to experienced teachers who are really okay with taking a higher number of students in their classroom. It's really hard for our new young teachers to come in and have a large class, but we might have some teachers say, "Hey, I've been doing this a long time. I've got good classroom management. I'm willing for a stipen to have more kids in my class." and um if they feel like they can handle it. There are also some new models of where there's a lead teacher who works with a group of young teachers and they are looking at data. They are responsible. They are in those classrooms every day and those younger teachers um are really looking to them and the class sizes may be a little bit bigger um but they have someone who

102has a lot of experience in the classroom rotating with them. So there are lots of models we can look at. One of the things that I would ask is first of all is the board thinking that that is an okay way can we bring some ideas back because the only other thing to do is consider what are we going to do with our small schools and it's just like Mr. Haggler said I'm not proposing anything. I I love a small school. my kids are in a small school, but just like our small, middle, and high schools, it costs more money. So, if we are concerned about, you know, our future budget, um, I think we have to start asking ourselves some hard questions and maybe some of that is multi-age classrooms, maybe it's just a

103different way. I think we have to look outside the box and not do school the way we've always done school. Um, and I haven't asked my team, but I'm sure when I tell them tomorrow, they'd be happy to help us kind of come back to you with some ideas of um, how we can adjust that. So, again, this is really for information. I'm not suggesting, I'm not um, advocating one way or the other. I just I think the more we work with staffing standards with elementary, we just feel like it may not be working. If it's if we have to reserve seven or eight positions to make the classrooms look right, it means something's wrong with our model. Um, so I with that, I'm going to turn this presentation over to Dr. Calbertt. I'm happy

104to answer any questions before she goes over the rest of the staffing standards that we have in place, but I'm happy to entertain thoughts, comments, questions um, now or anytime before the next work session. >> I have I have a quick question. >> Sure. So, some of these numbers are really high and are they taken into account these classrooms that have eight IEPs and several students with English as a second language? >> So, uh sometimes we do um most of the time we're talking to our principles when we're making those decisions and that's some of the things they'll call and say to us, "This class is getting really high. I'm really concerned. Here are the reasons why." just as a this is on our projected numbers. So it's not actually what we have in the

105classroom right now. Randy does that enrollment projection. Um so some of these as we start seeing kids enroll we might not have as many kindergarters coming. So it may not be that high but the answer is yes. When we start seeing we start looking about 24 25 kids that's concerning for us as the three of us are looking at staffing. We call the principal, tell us what this class looks like, what what are your concerns, what do do you have any ideas for how you might want to do your staffing? So, we have those discussions in real time when it's happening. >> We would almost have to add staff wherever there was a yellow. >> Yeah. As you can see, there's not enough money to do that. >> Yeah, it's hard. um on the same

106idea but on the other end if there's kids who are gifted in reading or or in math can they be I don't know bumped up but going like let's say you have a third grade class that's way too big but the fourth grade class is not that big and some of the kids who are in that third grade who are maybe more gifted I don't know if they would be pushed through [clears throat] but just maybe um do some of the core classes like you said like math or or or English with the higher level and then just do the history and sciences. >> Yeah, that's part of what some of the models that we've looked at. I will tell you elementary teachers are really good at leveling kids into different reading groups and things

107like that. So, we have a lot of that going on where kids will go up to a different grade level. Um, I think it's also flexibility in the schedule. If you know the whole school is doing reading at the same time, you can really start moving your groups around the school. So, I think it's just going to take a lot of innovation and looking more deeply. But, yes, I do think that's a possibility. Maybe not moving them up a grade level and everything, but, you know, going to a higher math or reading him. >> I mean, I I homeschooled my kids when they were in elementary. My son and my daughter both very smart, but as typical, my son didn't do his work as much as my daughter did. So many of the classes we

108took, they took together, even though they're two years apart. My daughter was younger, she did fine, you know, on some of those things. And she she, you know, anyway, I'm just wondering if if that's something we can take into consideration. All right. Staffing standards. >> All right. Each um year when we go into budget, I will bring to you updated staffing standards. Um there's only a few changes on this. Uh as you see on the first page, O testing coordinator 145day split between two schools has been removed. um that is due to we haven't had the testing coordinator role hasn't existed um only for a few years and that was really when we had growth assessments and now growth assessments have been eliminated the number of so tests have been reduced in some grade levels

109um so we are removing the testing coordinator at the elementary level as you will see on the um next page on age. Um there is a reading specialist one full-time 200 day per school and this has come into the requirements um that we have to do that so we had to add it and then J is should be across it should be struck through sorry the testing coordinator well actually I'm sorry testing coordinator one part-time 90day per school enrollment of 750 so what this means is uh Liberty middle right now has a 90-day, forest middle has a 90-day, and Stant River Middle has a 90-day. We would be eliminating Liberty Middle and Stant River Middle's 90day. Uh, we would keep Forest Middle as a 90-day because it's over 750. Um, the high school testing coordinators

110would remain the same. Um, in the Liberty zone, the high school testing coordinator would also serve the middle school. And in the Stant River zone, the Stamp River High School testing coordinator coordinator would also serve the middle school. Uh, the numbers, Liberty High and Liberty Middle still less than JF and Stamp River is pretty much equal to just JF. Um, so we kind of did it by number and that eliminated the elementary testing coordinators and two middle school testing coordinators. Um, Justin, did I forget anything? >> That was it. >> Okay. >> Um, and then there's two crossouts on the next on the last two pages. Instructional aid at Susie Gibson and instructional aid at Aled. Those don't currently exist. I think they should have been removed previously. We just have special education aids when

111needed. So, if there's any questions um many of you have sold this um same document year after year, but if there's any questions about how this is done, um these formulas go into Ry's chart and that's how we allocate staff. So was the testing coordinator just doing the growth assessments at the elementary level? >> They were doing the growth assessments and the so testing. >> So who's doing the so testing? >> The librarian. The librarian will at the elementaryaries will do the testing and there will be a stipen given to the librarian based on the number of students in the school. there's a higher stay event based on if you have a higher number of students. >> I will say the old days of so testing where you're hand entering most of the information comes

112from our student information system and it flows right into our testing uh program. So what our testing coordinators um have to do is make sure that's accurate which I can tell you I I served as the director of all testing last year. it comes over pretty accurate. So, we would just be asking everyone to double check that. Um, assigning the test and printing out the test tickets and then the teachers run the testing from there. So, I think we've gone from where there was just so much hand stuff we were doing with testing and now it's much more automated. It's made it much more efficient. Um, and we were actually seeing last year was the first year without growth assessments and we weren't seeing them working many hours. They were able to get it done

113within a few hours. And so we feel like going back to the way we used to do it where we just have somebody in every school who gets a stipen to do. >> Even in full swing, they were only working 45 hours or 45 days, I'm sorry, 45 days >> between two elementary schools. So, it was a part-time position. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> So, what is the stipen about half or less? >> Uh, the stipen, no, the stipen is if it's 200 students or less, it's 500. If it's from 200 to 400 students, it's 750. And those schools over 400 students, it's a,000. >> Less. It's a cost savings quite [snorts] >> and I will say we didn't when we started thinking about this it was the realization as you as you start realizing

114things have become more efficient that and requirements have become less. It's just a a place that it to be good stewards. we felt like this is what we could do without really hurting our kids and our schools. Um, and we'll take every one of those testing coordinators as a pair or sub or whatever because they're wonderful. So, >> in a different capacity. >> Yeah. >> And that's all >> that concludes it. Well, I just want to thank y'all because this is much better as far as me understanding the budget better and I don't know just this is much better [clears throat] format for all of this. Thank you [snorts] for all your work for putting it together. This is great. >> We've been a lot of effort. >> I can see that. Thank you. [snorts]

115And it helps going into a budget or helps going into anything at this point. We're all hearing it at the same time. >> Yeah. I think when I first started, we were right into the budget. No idea what was going on. So, taking the time to actually talk us through it, that was very helpful. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> So, I have several questions. [laughter] >> All right. Um, looking at the staffing standards, um, I was just kind of for some of our our much smaller schools, you know, there's a couple schools in there in the 100s. Um, [clears throat] is do we have a need for a secretary in all of them schools? Is that like an SOQ that we have to have that or is it uh one of those things

116where could we do like a half kind of like we do with bookkeepers or are those sort of things? There is um on the bookkeeper it's the bookkeeper is split if it's under 200 but um that is really they only have one and some of the really small ones only have half that they share with somebody else. So that's the only person in the office. >> Okay. >> So if you take away that half >> it would be really >> I don't know who would be sitting there. >> Yeah. answering the phones, taking messages from parents, especially at our elementary schools because there's a lot of parents coming in and out. So, there's also the requirement that they have a lunch break and things like that. So, that's always been our bookkeepers and Randy could

117speak more to it than I can. I mean, they are also probably 80% of their job is really secretarial stuff, too. answering phones, going in, you know, back their backup clinic for nurses, things like that. So, >> in the elementary >> at the elementary level. Yeah. >> It's a support position. >> Mhm. >> Um I think years ago somebody asked and was like the bookkeepers. It's like well the bookkeeping in middle and high is totally different but in elementary it's about 20% of the work. But with all the secretarial work um we believe it's needed at the low levels. Yeah. they get a halftime bookkeeper. That's the only adjustment. There's only two schools shearing right now. Yeah. So, that's um you know, now that we again, I'm just talking about potential staff reductions. >> Um

118if we were to increase that number to say 250 for a bookkeeper, it has to be over 250 to get a full-time bookkeeper. >> Would there be any potential savings there? I don't I haven't looked at your elementary. >> You'd have to look at the Yeah. the the number of students and then we also, you know, for some of the positions we have, there's little asterisk on on some of them like I think guidance and stuff and also for clerical, we do include if there's preschool there >> in the number. So, when you look at the student enrollment of 120, but then you go, why are they getting a full-time bookkeeper? >> They really have 200 kids there with all the with all the preschool and stuff. So, we do add the preschool in. um

119that's a separate funding formula from the state. So we do consider that when funding uh for secretary work you're going to be interacting with parents and kids. >> So by SOQ though what is absolutely required is a part-time up to 299 students and a full-time after 300 student one. >> Okay. I think when you look at that when you look at that sheet and it says um support positions I think I have it separated out schoolbased secretaries um school based clerical >> yeah we're about 12 above what the states recognized in there on my on my support documents >> I gota so just to ask the question so we're 11.89 99 above and obviously you can't split a person. Um, what if we met the SOQ standards? What would that you know, we we brought

120it back to, hey, we're going to follow the SOQ, >> what would that mean in dollars and cents? Is it something to where, hey, we're going to save a million dollars? >> When you're looking at that support sheet, what we have up and above and we have to go to staffing to balance the budget or somewhere, you're right, that's what you're looking at. What can you do? Meet SOQ, but you also look at the support which are recommended but not mandated. So, where do you actually have to go to balance budget? Those are good questions to ask. We would take if you change the standard and I said, "Okay, that's five positions." I would estimate the all-in cost for an employee. That means salary plus fringe and multiply that out. >> So, for a teacher,

121you'd say, "Okay, average, okay, >> a step seven of a teacher plus the fringe, you know, you're talking $70,000 probably for, you know, a clerical worker, you know, 45 to 50 all in maybe." um because the the the ones last in would be the first ones you would remove because the senior guard and stuff. So we we do estimates on all those um so if the if any of the board members have questions on those I can do calculations um long as you know the impact but once again you got a balance budget. >> Yeah like I'm not >> if the money's not there something has to happen if the money's not there. Yes sir. >> I think it's a good question. We could work that up. Yeah, we have I have estimates for all

122those positions and I can I calculate those constantly throughout. Yeah, >> I guess what I'm looking at and I know all of our inschool staff is interacts with students, but I'm guessing I'm looking at if we're having to for me personally, you know, if we're having to prioritize, you know, instructional staff would take a priority over clerical staff if we had to find somewhere in the money. Not that they're not all important, it's just >> you got to find it somewhere. It's all choice. >> Yeah. >> None of the choices are nice. >> That's right. >> But in the end, choices have to be made and I understand, you know, questioning. We could run numbers on any of those. >> Yeah. Because what I'm worried about is [clears throat] and not even as much this

123year. There is concern about this year. But, you know, if we're not going to start moving our staffing standards in the next three years, we're gonna have to I'd rather slowly cut it or slowly just not add those positions back when we, you know, not backfill those positions rather than having to, >> you know, just go through and start slashing. >> So, I'd rather start if we're going to start I think if we're going to start knowing that, hey, we got this cliff coming up. I'd rather slide into it than just kind of drop off of it. >> Yeah. Same result though. >> Yeah. It's just, you know, give yourself a longer leeway to say, "Hey, instead of >> instead, hey, we're going to be cutting these these staff positions going, hey, we're not going

124to be back filling these staff positions moving forward." Um, to where we've got a >> we've got more of a ability to not as as harmful of an impact hopefully. gives people a chance to brace for impact. >> So, >> because it's coming, >> it is coming and and this this has got the wheels turning for what kind of changes can be made, need to be made, have to be made >> because I even and going back to our you know the state SOQs with the number of schools that we have. I would say in the past whenever we've whenever the school board has made a close a suggestion to close a school, we've always made it of we need to make a suggestion to close a school next year in six months and eight

125months and whatever. If we know we're going to have to close the school, but doesn't have to be right now and give us a little bit of a lead a lead time to do that. I think we that's the discussion that I'd like to start having is I think this budget it [clears throat] doesn't look great as far as this year but I don't see it far far more challenging than last year's budget. I think what I'm really concerned about is that we need to start making suggestions now for those >> I would agree. I mean as this board goes through this budget. I mean, I I don't think this is like the sky's is falling this year, but I'm trying to paint a picture of what the next three to four, five years look

126like, and there's some challenges ahead. I mean, we can get done with this budget here. Felt pretty good about it, but Dr. >> Calbert's going to present where we are on salaries compared to our division. And so, there's there's this slow trickle of falling behind in a lot of areas. And so, you don't see it in one year. It's just been a slow drain. And so it hasn't kind of like garnered the attention, but we're getting to the point where there's nothing left to drain and you're really going to impact programs and the classroom >> and we need to start talking about things we need to put that discussion in the public, you know, circle, so to speak, so that people know where we're short and where we need to improve upon. So I think

127that's when you when we get into the budget process, you'll see some of that. The reality is that you may not get it, but you know, we need to have that discussion about why we need it and that's showing up on some of your rankings. >> So, I have a question and I know Mr. Hegel, you you touched on this and maybe this is a question from Dr. Woodford. You had said that our some of our high schoolers high schools are very small. Um, is there any way to combine the middle school and high school in the same building? Not necessarily in the same I mean they they would share maybe the auditoriums and stuff like that, but not, you know, have them in a different section of the building and just combine the middle

128and high schools together in some of our districts. I I think if our enrollment continues to decline long term, I mean, that's going to have to be looked at because you go, okay, is a high school of in theoretic high school of six or 700, okay, it goes down to 400. You got four grade levels of 100 each, that's an expensive building to run. And so, if it continues to go down, I don't know if they all fit, we can look at that and what would that look like and how would that run? We're looking at other, we look at all those areas. We talk about it, what's possible. Sometimes it's like you're crazy, but then we go back and so the executive staff is looking a lot of things where we can save money

129and stuff, but that might be something we can look at, but we haven't done a detailed analysis of >> I'm just thinking like for example this >> Musc. >> No, we all have to go because we all have to be back here in 20 minutes and [laughter] so um >> we can carry on this discussion. that we've started a lot of stuff and lit a lot of fires and things, but uh we we're going to need to take a break and journ this meeting so that we can be on time for starting the next one. So, do I have a motion for adjournment? >> Second. >> Mr. Hill, all in favor say >> I I success. [laughter] >> Thank you. Get your hands. Yeah.