001Next item, please. Next item is special reports. The first one is the 2024 2025 budget from Mr. Tom Wall. Good evening, President Mos, Dr. Malco, members of the board. As part of our budgetary process and our own calendar, we have a public hearing that we have on our budget at a very high level because our our district is so large, we can't get into the the minute data, but I'm always willing to go there if you want to have a discussion on it. So the first screen you have here, and I'll spend some time on a lot of it, some on a little bit. We're on the last two items on our budget calendar, the last two items. So the second from the last is our public hearing. This is the last time we have
002a discussion at a broad level on the budget. And then on June 23rd, which is our next board meeting and our last one before the end of the fiscal year, that's when we actually adopt the budget. And feel free to stop me if you have any questions. This is the budget cycle for Michigan. Uh right now we're we finished April and we're in early May. Uh where we have seen some of the floor action. The governor has come out with her budget plan. The house has come up a very, you know, very little detail besides giving us a foundation allowance and cutting categoricals. And the Senate just came out a week and a half ago. And so we have the general ideas where each of the components of the legislative process want to go in
003the budget. That's what we use to put this together. The next date which is important is the one after the budget hearing on this Friday. The the actual three the governor the house and the senate will get together and look at the new financials for the state of Michigan and where it's headed on just the funding available for the general fund budget and the school aid budget. So this Friday will give us a better idea of where we have, what monies we have, and what resources to have. And then they meet in consensus to kind of get together where they're going to decide these are the revenues. All three parties will agree, and then they'll have a a meeting to discuss what the next state aid process is. But as Dr. Michael mentioned, there will
004be a lot of negotiating because there's a lot of different viewpoints of how to spend the money in the state of Michigan. So what I want to talk about is a little bit more about the economic side because a lot of our budget is based on estimates. Looking at this graph, this is what makes up our school aid budget. This is where our money comes from the state. You'll see in the bottom left is sales tax. So depending on how the economy does and how the consumers want to spend their money, they'll spend more money. They when they feel comfortable and when the economy is kind of up in the air like a recession, they'll spend less money. So that has an impact to our school aid fund. The other part is the income tax.
005So wages depending on how wages are and what people earn. Part of that comes in for the sales tax. And the other part is the state education tax. So the property balance just came out last week. And so we have an idea where our property taxes are going. And that will help fund the school aid fund. This is looking how the school a fund is actually spent. You can see roughly half of it comes through our foundational allowance. Roughly 50% comes through our foundation allowance. That's where the most money comes out of the school a budget and come to schools on a per pupil allocation. So looking at some of the graphs as you can see the federal unemployment rate remains a focus because of all the cuts at the federal level. This is just
006giving you some graphs where it's been recently. You can see has been a large spike lately as we're dealing with the change in where the federal government is going to a less employee driven and more looking at individual departments. Uh obviously the other thing that's been coming through is the tariffs. So you can see that's something very important for us because it's going to impact our economy of how much money the consumers are willing to spend in their comfort level. And you can see what's most affected. Um if you look on the far right hand side with the tariffs, the auto is in there manufacturing. So those are two big things that affect Michigan. So we know it's going to eventually impact us. Uh obviously the negotiating is going on so we don't know if
007it's going to happen earlier or later but it's something we have to watch. And looking at this uh when the tariff rates do take effect you can look at they have some items on the far left that tells you every 10% increase in tariff rate will lead to a point8 increase in inflation. So obviously the numbers are thrown out there that 100% tariff you're looking at a potential big impact to what it means to the economy which means indirectly how the money is available for us when it gets down to our school aid funding. And this just shows the short-term impacts, midterm and long-term. You know, long-term is going to be good for the the state, but that will take time and we haven't been in a tariff situation in a very long time. So,
008we don't know how long that will take. So, we do expect some growing pains early on on our budget availability of funds. And looking at the consumer sentiment, uh this University of Michigan is showing or expecting a decline in the index for how people feel about the economy, which means the the inverse effect of growing inflation expectations. So us for Dearbornne um this just looks at you know just kind of give you some data where the consumer you know GDP is going. you know, it's kind of up and down, but you know, if you're an economist, you could probably make a lot of money these days trying to figure out where all this is going to eventually head up. And just inflation, um, we're right around 3%. So, that's what we're kind of using in
009our budget expectations of looking at how inflation is going to impact us next year. Come on, bud. All right, getting more into our details. You can see I always like to put this screen up every year that we have what we call buckets of funds. The most restrictive is on the right hand side with capital project. We can only spend it on that items. The debt funds we actually have a debt levy which we'll talk about later is to pay back the you know bond costs that we have done back in the past. The special revenue funds they have their own funding source and so their expenses are tied to that funding source. Anything not in any of these other categories falls into the general fund. And that's where we talk mostly about today is
010our general fund and the impact that we're going to have. Uh if grant if special revenue funds get impacted, they try to mitigate it themselves into individual funds. If they cannot, then the general fund does pick up the either plus or minus depending on which way it goes. But it's always good to see a visualization of where the money is at in our schools. This is the graph that Mr. Barry talked about earlier. We're going to expand that to show the other unions in there also. Um, so this just shows you the red line for the teacher salaries, the yellow line for retirement cost. Um, if you remember, that was a big item last year where they actually went back on the retirement rate for the balances of the ret of the retirement fund, but
011now they kind of reversed it, went back up. So, it's kind of it's it's very difficult to keep following. We like a more traditional managed approach of being in the same arenas of how they fund schools, but they are playing games right now and moving things up and then versing going back down the next time. Our student count, you know, you have this which is green and the blue is our funding from our state foundation allowance per pupil. All right, talking about mill rates, that's one of the requirements of the public hearing is talk about millage rates. So you can see this is the history of our military since 2012. Uh right now for 2025, we just got the rates last week. Uh we're looking at a 1.22 rate for the debt fund for next
012year. Hold harmless. Um the state just gave out the form today how to calculate it. So I used last year's form to kind of go through the process and came out to 2.2. Uh you'll see last year was 4.3 and a little higher than 4.3. That's because the previous year the city's had a clerical aerial and didn't do it. So that's why it's doubled last year, but it's getting back to what it normally would be for this current year. So that's why you see a big change for that. And the standard 18 mills for non-homestead property, that's what helps fund the school aid fund and one of those three pieces of pies that make up a large portion of our funding. So, I'm sorry. Next year it's or this coming year, what is the millage
013rate for the hold harmless? For the hold harmless, uh 2.2 2.2. Yes. Okay. Uh if you remember last year, we just renewed that. It was at 6.17. Previous to that, we locked it down to four mills and we're actually loving only 2.2. And there's a state formula they give us. They just gave it to us today, but I use last year's formula because it doesn't change a lot. And that's where I'm estimating about 2.2 increase or what the established home harmless rate is. This is just showing our death schedule. If you look on the far right hand side, we were estimated to be at 1.25, but the taxable values went up higher than expected. And so we are only at 1.22. So we're actually a little better off because the taxable values have increased more.
014This is the actual the form that we turn in. There's one for the city of Dearbornne and one for the city of Dearborn Heights. In Dearbornne, we have what we call a summer levy. All our taxes are levied in the summer. So, it stays on your summer tax bill in the city of Dearbornne. You can see our 2.2, the 18, and the 1.2. That's in column 10. That's what we levy in the summer levy. And we also levy on behalf of the college two. We have one form for both entities. You'll talk about that at your budget hearing when you have the college side. And the actual increase in taxable value was 9.95% this year in Dearborn. So actually it was quite high for us which is above which hence helped our reduction our debt
015mill slightly by the three. The city of Dearborn Heights did I have that backwards? Oh hold on one second please. You had it right. Nope. I did the city of Dearborn twice. I should have City of Dearborn Heights on there for this other one. So I apologize. The only change is it's a split levy. 50% in the summer and 50% in the winter. So in Dearborn Heights, you'll actually see it on both winter bills, summer and levy. So that column 10 would be halfed and the other half would be in column 11. This is our student counts. Uh if you remember last year we with a large flux of students coming in after the count date, we weren't able to count those. So those 300 students that's why you're seeing a large loss last year
016compared to the current year and next year a majority of those students are were there in the winter count. So that's why you see a slight increase for projection for next year. So overall we're looking like a flat enrollment for next year but our spring is higher because of those kids that came in after count date. They made it for the second count date. We are seeing you know that we do have an increase next year and the foundation calculation of FTEES for students. And just for a little uh history lesson, our foundation we get next year we're expecting a 392 per pupil increase. And so that will give us our revenue of roughly about 199 million from state aid. But with the 18 mills, the state expects us to levy that. And so we
017get the net from the state after the 18 mills. If we didn't levy those 18 mills, the state would say you're required to. And whether you do it or not, that's your decision. They don't make up the difference. So if we didn't levy those 18 mills, we would lose that $39 million. Hence why the importance of the renewal last February on our operational mill. Looking at our counts. So this kind of just gives you a lot of data of what the counts are and what we're forecasting. It's based on the 9010. So 90% comes from the fall student count and 10% from the winter count or the spring winter count which is SP winter spring time. And we're looking at the third column, the kind of the light purple. The 392 is what we're expecting
018on our foundation allowance. The Senate came in at 400. The House came in at 350. So we're kind of blending that to get to the 392 student count. Normally we go after the purple column, but unfortunately the they have not agreed yet. So the purple column is what reality is on the consensus committee. We typically don't know that, but we have there just in case they do get a budget done early. That happened a few times during Governor Snyder's reign where they actually got us to it in May and we could actually use that data. This is just looking at staffing. As you can see, the green bar is our student count. The other bar is our staffing. the the vertical. Uh this is not unexpected because we've gotten a lot more grants and with
019come grants, we're able to do more staffing costs in those grants. But again, that's if the grants go away, which we've been talking about earlier today, the grants go away, we have to figure out how to handle that staff. And so that's something we have to be very cognizant of and prepare for that if that does happen, we know how to move forward with the district. Looking at our staffing cost, the the contract is settled. So, we actually know what the percentage will be for next year is 2% base and another 2% on the increase in the foundation allowance. Right now, our increase in the foundation allowance is 3.9%. So, they'll get that 2% but until they actually pass the law, we can't move forward with that. So coming in July, we'll give everybody the
0202% base and once the state law is decided, we'll retro back to July 1st or whatever date the contract starts to give them the extra compensation. Uh a good example of why we don't put all 4% ahead of time. Last year we are expected to get a foundation increase. When the final bill came out for state aid, we got zero. Well, that's why we just can't move forward with it. It's much easier to give extra money later than try to take money away. And as uh Dr. Michael stated earlier, we go off a three model comp, you know, system. We have our worst case, we have our best case, and we have our most likely. At this point, we're moving forward with the most likely scenario. Um obviously still based on a lot of estimates.
021We're looking at roughly a net 35.79 FTE reduction. to say why it's a net. We have a new building coming online in the fall for the early college. Uh so we have to make sure we have the appropriate staffing for that like an engineer, custodial, food service, things like that. And we also have to make sure we're within our budgetary parameters of trying to get a balanced budget. So that's a net number. Uh obviously we're looking to rightsize and making sure it's done by attrition as much as possible. were not laying off. And that's where we get into the conversations that we just had that some buildings might be surplus or department surplus, but they should have a job somewhere else in the district. And I we understand it's not easy, but we have to
022juggle that to make sure that we can work it. It's not so simple because of certifications for teachers. So you have cases and I know HR works very hard on this between couple weeks ago all the way through September trying to get people in the right positions and follow the contract to make sure it's fairly done for everybody. Uh capital improvement. One of the things that we have done in the past we've had a lot of surplus money. We're at that point now we just don't have the surplus to put forward. So we only have budgeted $2 million for capital repairs and replacements. They might see a seem like a lot of money, but it's not for our size district and that won't go very far. Obviously, as things become more clear as we go
023forward, we have no eventually idea where the numbers are actually at. We'll look at that and look at replacing staffing. That's kind of a conversation we'll have once we have more firm numbers, but at this point, we have to at least move forward with an estimated budget. And we always look at key items. Uh you'll see the 104.19, that's the actual FTE increase. So we get some money for that health insurance that's set by the state because of the current state law that's going to increase by 2%. But I'm happy to say that DSHP does their work behind the scenes and there's no increase for employment for health care costs for the employees for next year. And then we also have the number of retirements estimated 50. I don't know if we have a final
024number but I think we've hit that number. So but we're pretty close if not over that 50. So that's good that our budget model is kind of in line with what our expectations are. Having said that, there's a lot more detail behind the scenes. We' have gone through that with the finance committee at a later date, but we're looking at a balanced budget of roughly about 112,000 surplus is what we're moving forward with. And on the best case scenario, uh if things go where we think where they could go, looking at ma mainly the Senate plan, that we could have a $4.2 2 million surplus, which means we wouldn't be laying off any teachers. So again, that's the the best case scenario. Worst case scenario, we're almost roughly about, you know, a 60 student or
025employee reduction on a worst case scenario. And we actually work through those numbers that we have a plan. We hope we never have to implement, but if it does get that bay, there will be a lot more discussions of what we have to do to get to make sure we still have a balanced budget. And I have some items just on the bottom. You know, I talked briefly about the UAL rate, which is the uh rate that they use for all the staff that have already retired and in the retirement program. Last year was 10.58. Now it's at 16.89. Last year it was around roughly 17. They went down to 10.58. And that's why you're seeing that little jog in the retirement numbers because they switched to how we fund retirement. And I'm sure they'll
026be on the discussion board again of how that looks. and just some other smaller items talking about capital replacement. Some of the things that are in that number to get us balanced that we're looking at some reductions in capital outlay and supplies, but there would be no impact to the unit budget. We do give each building a unit budget that they decide is decentralized. They decide how to spend it. That's not being impacted. We're trying to stay away from the classroom as much as possible. All right. looking forward. Um, obviously as I mentioned earlier, this Friday is a big date because that kind of sets the revenues available to determine what the budgets will be based upon. Uh, we have to adopt a budget by June 30th, otherwise we're in violation of state law. So,
027we will be moving forward with the most likely scenario. Uh, we're going to continue to monitor. Roughly about 8% of the funding that comes to Michigan is in the school aid fund. So, if we start losing federal money, that's something we're prepared to look at. uh most of our grants are basically made up of staffing costs. So if it does impact us, staffing will be adjusted or be impacted by that and see how we going to handle that depending on when that happens, you know, as we did last year. We did not expect that 300 reduction in stu in student count last year. So we absorbed it and they were supposed to make the change going through this budget process. So that's something we'll have to talk about of how to handle that if things
028come out worse than expected. This kind of shows you where we're at. Obviously, we're close to being done, but we still have a lot to do on watching the budget modifications. We have a plan in place. So, depending on how the discussions go forward and what we hear from the state, you might see some adjustments to the budget that we'll approve on the June 23rd, but we'll bring forward those ideas what changed to at least have an idea of what changed from our discussions. And that's it. Any questions for Mr. Wall from the board? Trusty Barry. Not a question for Mr. Wall. I'm sure you don't have the data in front of you. Dr. Malle could probably look into it. Uh for the year school year 22, 23 and 23, 24. I guess the question,
029the magical question is are we starting to see the students that we lost those two years? Are we are we starting to see them coming back with student services? And if we're not, is there anything we can do to uh I mean we we kind of know where those students went. Are we looking into that? Do you 22 23? You said 22 23 then 23 24. Okay. Both years we lost students. Yeah. For multiple see if they're coming back. Okay. See if they're coming back. And if they're not, what is it that we can do to kind of say, "Hey, it's a couple years later. This is where we're at." Type thing. If they're actually in the system, we do get reports from the state where they've gone to. That's what I'm saying. We know
030where they're at. We have that kind of data. Well, 22 23 we had good information where they they were we had that discussion here. Yeah. But the following year, we still lost some more students. Yeah. If they've never been in the school system before, like people that are coming from overseas, that's a whole different story. No, that that we don't have any data. That's a whole different I understand that. Thank you. Great job, Mr. Wall. And so I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I'm I was trying to sorry follow on uh Trusty Barry. What does that really matter in the sense of knowing where they went? If they're not in our district, they're impacting our budget. So, I was trying to follow if there was any um if they went somewhere else and we know what
031where they went, does it really matter because they're not with us anymore? Yeah. One example I gave during the pandemic we noticed that kids did not want to come back. So we did start our own virtual program here in the district and I believe I can't remember the numbers. Do you know how many numbers are in the virtual program right now? Yes, we're between five and 600 I think00 potentially five or 600 kids we would not have still in the district we didn't open our virtual program. So can you react to it? may or may not but at least if you have the data why maybe you'll can maybe change something and look at it. History tells us history tells us that when uh people think that you know grass is greener on the other
032side of the fence and they take their students to a charter school or whatever they take them usually after a couple years they do come back to New York public schools because of missed opportunities you know the athletic programs the theater programs the kids start missing out on that we can kind of tend to see them start coming back that's why I'm bringing that up now if they graduate in six months which I'm being sarcastic. Uh using pen foster and I'm seeing kids doing that. Um there's a couple of kids I play in my in our youth program. They went to pen foster, graduated one of them in less than a year. So those will not come back. That's a whole different story. I'm just saying that's something to keep on our radar when it
033comes to losing kids. Those are the ones that we should pay attention to. Absolutely. Well, we just want to make sure though because we've heard this um now for the last couple of years about Pen Foster and and it's an enticing thing for a student to know that they can go to a virtual school and get walk away and not have to put in the work at a you know four years in a high school setting. But I want to make sure that when we're going to try to capture these kids or or try to um convince them to come back that we don't lower our standards in order to make it appealing to those students who are looking for a fast graduation um projection. I do have another question as well. Um it it
034was if my memory serves me right, the state came up with a they were going to because they understood that their October deadline for their budget didn't align with our June deadline for our budget that they would try to have something for us in July so that we were a little better aligned that they'd at least give us some sense. do you right now? I I did have a conversation with one of our senators when I ran into her recently and um she said there was a lot of foot dragging going on in Lancing right now. Um because I explained to her how, you know, it it still continues to impact our decision making. Have you heard anything differently that that we might at least have a good sense because we have so many uncertainties
035from the federal government which I don't I'm not even certain they they're following any kind of um calendar schedule is they're just throwing out these ultimatums of we're taking this away and that away until there's nothing left. Have you at least heard from the state that they're going to attempt to get us some um better idea? The revenue consensus that happens to twice a year, once in January, once in May. Once in January showed a very favorable economy going forward. I envision though this May one might re reduce those numbers, you know, to what they expected in January. So depending if the money is tighter, then more negotiation is going to go on. So this Friday is kind of a big day, but if they stay firm in what their projections are, there's a lot
036of money on the table. It's just how they're going to spend it. So the more money, the easier it is. The damn roads are still part of the equation now. And all my sources are saying it's probably going to be dragged out most most likely through the political process. That's what I was hearing. Yeah. It makes it difficult to um for anybody to plan. Yes. But we have to have a budget and a plan moving forward for our size district. We can you're doing heroic work. Yes. Okay. Seeing no more questions. Uh second item is to invite any citizens to ask questions. So if you may step forward and u ask your question regarding the budget. Yeah. If you can state your name too. Thank you. Amira. Um, first of all, it was really hard
037to follow the presentation. Um, and I know when you guys have the board meetings at Henry Ford College, you actually have printouts for people in the audience. So, I'm just wondering if we could at least have it for something with so many charts and the like this is I'm basically just like orally trying to follow a very complicated presentation. So um just not to interrupt you but the all of the materials are available also on the meeting um website. We we went to try to click and they wouldn't open. So again just having handouts. There's very few of us ever left at the end. So I think you know just 10 15 would serve a purpose. Yeah. Um, principles at the middle school level got a email today saying that they each have to eliminate
038one FTE. So, um, decisions are already being made. And I understand that we as a district have to have a balanced budget. We did have AFT National, uh, analyze our financials in this district a year ago. um and we can send you the report, but basically it showed that administrative or non-instructional raises um were uh a bit higher. So I think it was was it 24 or 22? 24 and then 18% for teachers. So there are cuts that could be made that doesn't we teachers have told you years for years that we are spread thin. We need help in the classroom. We can't expend parapros. We need the custodians to clean our classrooms to keep everybody healthy. So the cuts can't be happening at the grassroots level. So getting this email today was very disheartening.
039Everybody's concerned. Everyone who has kids and has had absences. So um what we're asking is is there going to be any transparency in how the decisions align with the goal of protecting classroom resources? So, are we is there going to be a community collaborative effort into making these cuts and presentations that aren't microscopic text on a screen? Thank you. Thank you. Any others? Any others who have any questions about the budget? I just don't I just don't want the audience to think just because we have other responsibilities that we rushed through this. Dr. Mr. Wall did Yeah. disclose that, you know, there'll be more details coming. This was just kind of overview. I don't want somebody sitting at home thinking, "Oh, they just rushed through this because they had something else to do." That's that's
040not the case. Jamie, I think for me it's I thought the cuts have sn uh the decision to make the cuts have not been made, but I'm hearing that a decision has already been made um to eliminate an FTE at the each school if I heard it correct. Some of some of that is to do with class size. So, uh excuse me, uh enrollment. So last year when we had those students that um we they didn't come into our budget because they left after count, we made a decision not to reduce staff because our class sizes are very low overall on average than they've ever been and we decided not to disrupt. So right now because of the way the way the budget is at the state level and again we're trying to you know
041handle all the compensation increases you know that are negotiated in the contracts and percentages um and Tom has all that in there. So, um there's been a lot of um reductions, but it's based a lot of it is based on class size. And then we have to take care of the reductions in his budget projection. So, we were looking at other positions. And what I say is there may be some, you know, obviously we can't guarantee no layoffs, but we haven't had any for many years. So, we're trying to protect jobs, not necessarily positions. So, we may need to positions may need to go through retirement, through attrition. that's how we can protect jobs. But some positions will go um but the objective is to protect jobs and protect the students in the classroom. So
042the allocations they have um we've been very generous with those class size over many years. They were not like that when you know we talk about when I was in the building they were a lot higher um going back even when I was a principal through pandemic and that you know our students needed it. So that's what we've done. So most of the FTE cuts the process is we look together and uh we get our projections from Mr. Mure and then what we do is we match the projections in each building um with the number of FTEEs they may have had previously to what they had. We probably should have reduced last year but we did not want to disrupt when those numbers came in in October to disrupt classrooms. So now we're kind of
043in a two-phase of reducing. So a lot of it has to do with that and then we're looking at other positions. um you know as well to reduce and and again the objective is to save jobs. Uh we will as HR goes through their processing we'll make sure obviously the board is you know informed and that you have all the detail you need. I do if you don't mind if I could follow is the is the cuts or the possible cuts related to the federal funding cuts that was uh brought up to us the 5.8 8 million or in another list I saw 4.39 million. Is that related to that or is it the projection that's coming up? Most of it is the projections from the state budget but um there can be a domino
044effect. For example, when we lost that H health budget that we lost the 1.4 million already. So then we have to move staff around during the pandemic. That happened a lot as we were getting federal funding. uh we were very good at not putting sustainable costs into the one-time money, but there were certain positions we did because we needed to keep them. Um so the majority right now are more because of our budget alignment, state budget and enrollment through the current FTE. If these additional once they come to fruition, we do have staff on all these other budgets that I just mentioned earlier. Um, so there would be potentially reductions, but again, position reductions and changes may occur, but we're trying to save jobs for the sake of the students in the community. So that
045would be our objective if someone needs to move position. The only reason I say that I I I know there's federal cuts for title two, three, and and um four, and I just don't want it to be um us panicking and saying, "Okay, we we're losing 4 million, 5 million, and now we got a cut." If we if this is the root cause of the cuts, then I want to know how those if those four million5 million if when if they're eliminated to begin with, how are they being used to begin with? if they're nice to have type of um money that we're because I know some of a professional development, some of us some other things. We just we wanted to equate to what what the money is being used versus okay, we're losing
0465 million now we got to do cuts. So it would be nice to know what that money is actually being used for that we're losing. And if that if that loss equate to FTEES or is it uh things that we could do without for the time being? So we can get you that report with all the detail. No problem. Um there are some FTEEs on those budgets, but there's also other costs like curriculum materials, professional development. Um so there's a combination of staff and other things that are on there. There's other programs that are on there as well. So, it's a combination and we can get you those reports for sure. Yeah. I mean, there's things that are um that are good, but we could do without. For example, if professional development means going to
047out of state, then I rather have the FTE and find a way to do professional development locally. So, this is um kind of being f fiscally responsible and I just want to make sure that money that we're losing to begin with how it's being used and then we can make a determination. Is it does it equate to an FTE or is this something that we could you know tighten the belts for the time being? We can look at other things. Um Tom maybe you can correct me on this. I think 89% of our budget is our staff though approximately. Isn't that around that number? But but we are also brainstorming other things like reductions in uh curriculum budgets and materials. Staff development can be one of them. There's no doubt. Some of the staff development
048though is on that federal funding. So if it goes away then that won't be available for those conferences as well. But we can definitely look at that. And we were going to discuss it a little more in depth at the finance committee that we had scheduled. Um but I know we have to post uh we have to postpone that. So we're going to have a little more detail. And I'll just add there's consultants. There's other things that could be considered before we get to FTEES or our teachers. Um and this is when typical organization would do. They look at things that they could survive without and um cutting their own employees would be a last resort. And we have that list you know through our executive cabinet. um we were trying to make it uh
049so like with the the cuts we have to make through the state if we have to do that we can sustain it and we will not feel a lot of pain with the majority of our staff like I said we may have some position movement but I don't see a big problem these other cuts are where we would have to get into more in depth that's where but because of the way Tom operates and the way we have in the board we come up with multiple plans so we have what we call right now the most likely the that's it's not the best case. So, we have the best case, the most likely, and then we put in a third plan. If these federal cups come to fruition, what would that mean? So, we're kind
050of planning all levels and we're calm about it. We can look at other things. Um, I think our ex I'm proud of our executive cabinet. They actually over the last week we've had multiple budget meetings and we've brainstormed and sometimes um to your point what we're looking at doing is maybe um taking budgets from certain funding like state grants that we got and moving it to protect these positions. So those kind of brainstorming are happening with our team um and we've had some very very good meetings. So I'm I'm not overly concerned with the current leveling of the budget Tom just presented. will be a little more concerned when we start hearing more about these federal or if I mentioned earlier if the state has to backfill other potential federal losses like title one IDA
051free and reduced lunch head start then that will impact our state budgeting that's the bigger concern right now we've got this as far as this current budget and what Tom presented I'm confident that we won't feel a tremendous amount of pain I think people have gotten used to the very low class size so they're going to see that but the reality is is we probably should have reduced to come down to where our numbers were a while ago during the pandemic. We definitely tried to avoid the class as much as we can and we're also looking at positions outside the class. In fact, I had every classification listed, you know, different options to make sure that we're being kind of equitable and then looking at where can we what can we afford more that wouldn't
052be a detriment to both our staff and our students. There's a lot of there's there's a tremendous amount of Trusty Aljami and the rest of the board and the public. There's been a lot of conversations that have been starting, you know, going back to January really, but it's ramped up because we're now in the staffing season. And I think as Trusty Barry said, because people are seeing the headlines, the cuts, people are getting nervous about it. Here's the thing. We got this. We got a plan. We know what we're doing with the budget. We'll be fine, but we have to deal with the reality we're facing, which is why I also mentioned about that at the beginning of the meeting, and I know the board's aware of that. Um, we can also uh have meetings
053with Tom or I if board trustees want to go over some of the more specific detail. We're happen to do that as well. Uh, we just don't want to um we're not going to, you know, make announcements in the public because in fairness to employees and things of that nature, there's a process in HR. Thank you. Appreciate the questions and comments. So Tom, this presentation on the budget hearing, that's the minimum by law we have to do. Correct. Correct. So, I guess we can make sure that this report is on the website ASAP. From what I'm hearing, it's not. And if we get phone calls from the public that people want to see a little more details, we can always hold a forum if we need to. Yeah. Just want to make sure that's out
054there. So, if you have any questions, reach out to the administration. Thank you. It's on the present. Okay. Presentation is on the website. It is. Okay. Thank you. I'm sure that if not, let's make sure. We'll just want to make sure that it's on there. If it is or it isn't, we'll pass that. Let's make sure it's on there. And to the public, this is by law. This is the at minimum that, you know, our finance director has to have a budget hearing and see if there's any input from the board or the the public. But if somebody's out there like, "Oh, gone home, wants more information." There's nothing in the law that says that we can't have another forum if we need to. That's all I'm trying to put out there. Thank you. All
055right. Thank you.