001Call to order. Uh Board clerk, could you take roll? Okay. Mrs. Perkins? Mr. Wooster? Here. Mr. Marsh? Here. Mr. Ford? Here. And Mr. Collick? All right. Uh approval for agenda approval of agenda or amendments for open session. I'll move to approve the agenda or amendments for open session. I'll second. Okay. Uh Mr. Wooster? Yes. Mr. Marsh? Yes. And Mr. Ford? Yes. Okay. All right. Now we will have a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, everyone welcome uh to the special called uh budget work session. We can go ahead and get started with the business for tonight. We did not have anything
002prepared. We're here to answer any questions you may have or anything you want to discuss. So, Mr. Vice Chair members of the board, we are prepared to just pick up from where we left off at the previous meeting and as you will recall, I presented the superintendent's proposed operating budget. Our CFO, Mrs. Ms. Devery presented as well. So, we are prepared to address any additional questions you might have. Fellow board members, any questions? Do you want to go first? I got a couple. I'll throw some out. Um Dr. Kramer, this afternoon on my way home from work, we had a chat. We talked about a few things and you know, normally I've got something prepared and scripted, but I was taking notes when I was listening to the people talk. So, um just in no
003particular order and we talked about most of if not all of this last week after you presented, but I know we've got a an audience online right now. So, I want to state again that to Mr. Collick and Mrs. Perkins credit and Ms. Devery, our esteemed CFO and everyone else that helped, they did do the zero-based budget as we heard from one of our constituents earlier this evening. And then last last month I think I calculated up that Mrs. DeVary in her efforts saved somewhere in the tune of $200,000 plus dollars by basically cleaning up the budget. Um On the way home this afternoon you said there was a couple things that were not added to this year's proposal. And the reasoning for that was because this time last year this board agreed for compensation
004study because we knew it was an issue. We've seen the results of that compensation study. Um and I know cuz I've got people out there that are in my ear, many of your staff. I know that there was stuff that was asked for that wasn't put in the budget. And why is that? Thank you for the question uh Mr. Marsh. So, the needs are still there obviously. And in previous years we talked about uh some of those needs. And those needs are multi-year. And a few of those are Let's start with the buses. We have known that we need additional buses and we need I think few years ago we had 1/3 of our bus fleet approximately that's obsolete meaning over the buses have either over 30,000 miles or more than 15 years. Many of
005those buses are still in our fleet. But we will elect not to add the additional buses that we need for this year because we know that the compensation of our employees takes precedent. The fleet services building, the needs are still there. And our hope is that we can find funding uh for those capital projects, but we elected to not put those in the operating budget for the current year. And I'm sure as my colleagues uh at the dais are listening, they can certainly add other projects that are pending that are in need. But again, because of the pressing needs with the priorities here, pay increases for employees, the employee health insurance with which is absolutely essential, some of the special education positions that are needed, and some of the deferred maintenance and purchase services are
006essential. So, that is what we have this year, and I appreciate the question. So, there are many other needs that we've articulated in in last year's proposed operating budget and the budget prior to that that were not included in this budget. We understand that we needed to be practical and fiscal fiscally responsible, and that is why we elected to not include some of those items for the current proposed budget. Thanks, sir, for entertaining my conversation. And and I think again, for repetition, and I've said this last month and and probably several times before, this is my personally, this is my third budget process on this school board. Um they're always difficult. There's always a lot of questions and hurdles to wade through. The last 2 years, this book this this board focused and engaged and
007worked hard with the county to do address capital needs, infrastructure, items that had been kicked down the road for years and years. And and we've addressed all those ad nauseam. Uh and and the county was gracious enough to bless us with 14 and 1/2 million dollars there and about to fix a lot of stuff. And we're still looking at a new school. Last fall in a joint session, again, we sat in a work session with the board of supervisors, and and the question came up, "What's the hill to climb this budget season?" And here we're looking at it and we heard all about it tonight, compensation. We know that we need to address this. Um I know there's a lot of uncertainties. Mrs. Perkins made comments to me the other day, this this entire process
008is backwards and I can't agree with her anymore. It is absolutely backwards. The process involves the school board adopting a budget and giving it to the locality and the locality has to plan and adopt and figure out how much they can spend and estimate taxes all before the state finalizes a budget. Everything about that is backwards. Um what I would like to do is if Mrs. DeVary could help me talk through some of the specifics of the uncertainties that are coming down the road. Um You got it, ma'am. >> sir. So, the governor introduced the outgoing governor, prior governor, introduced his budget in um the middle of December. And then, of course, he left office, so now um the new governor will take that budget and make whatever changes. The House and the Senate have
009both met and made recommendations on each side. Um for example, the governor proposed a 2% pay increase in each fiscal year of '27 and '28. I believe the House maintained that, but the Senate has changed it to 3%. So, where they're going to end up, we're not sure. Um the governor recommended a 2% bonus um for staff and that to be payable before the end of this fiscal year. However, it seems as the House the Senate have both decided that it would be better to give each a $1,500 uh bonus. And I believe uh we can carry it forward or wait until um July 1st of this year to to pay it. So, there's a lot of uncertainty. Um one thing that the House bill recommends is it's allocating about $400 million dollars uh to
010schools for this one-time flex funding. And we're not really sure what all that means, but uh it couldn't be used for operating needs, naturally, because it's one-time funds. So, what would we do with that? Um but the Senate hasn't recommended that. Um I think those are the majority of the And so, Yes. Thank you. So, those are all big ones, right? So, I think we could just for the sake of explanation, and for the listening audience, if we could bring up the budget book, perhaps page Let's look at page 11. So, those are the SOQ funded instructional positions. And so, for the listening audience, if the state were to say, "We're going to give a $1,500 bonus to localities," that would be for SOQ funded positions. Yes, and I also meant to add that it
011does require a local match. >> match. So, that's what I'm trying to get at. So, so nothing is for sure. If they give us a bonus, and you can look at these pages where the funded positions, Isle of Wight County Schools, just like every other school in the Commonwealth has more employees than the minimum required SOQ funded positions. And so, in my opinion, what happens in Richmond is when politics politicians start politicking, they threw out these bonuses and pay raises, but what they're really doing and and probably unknowingly is putting out unfunded mandates. That burden always falls on the localities. Um I say all that just to just to say that the budget that's been presented, in my opinion, are all needs. Um 7.7 odd million dollars is what we're asking for an increase from
012year to year. I don't know that we're going to get all that, but at this stage in the game, with all the uncertainties, I you know, I'm in no position not to ask for what we need. Um That that heavy burden, that heavy lift falls on the county to determine what we can and cannot pay for. So, I'm going to the last couple of years, we sat up here and we prioritized capital needs and we ranked them as board and we presented it to the county and said, "This is what we need. We get what we get. We won't throw a fit." And we were grateful for it. Um In my mind, there's nothing here to prioritize. We need it. Ask for it. We'll see what we get. Let the county work on their budget,
013come up with some estimates, get a better idea of what's coming out of the state, and then we'll come back and we'll adjust as we need to. That's just kind of where I'm at. Mr. Vice Chair, if I may. I do think it's important to note, uh Mr. Marsh, to your point, my staff and I are having ongoing meetings with county officials, more specifically the county administrator, the assistant county administrator, um and their uh I think director I don't think their his title is is CF I think it's their director of finance. They are so uh county administrator um Robertson, assistant county administrator Webb, and Mr. Floyd, uh the director of finance. We're having ongoing discussions with them uh and trying to get a sense of what they can how they can support us as
014well. So, we're not trying to blindside anyone. I think someone um alluded to that earlier. We're having ongoing conversations with our colleagues uh about how to provide what I think we all agree with and that is uh the need for additional compensation for employees. It's essential. I think most of us agree. I think the big question is how do we fund it? And you're absolutely right, that burden is on the board of supervisors and their staff. Uh but again, I wanted people to hear that we are working with them uh to convey the real needs that we have here in our school division. Uh that's all I got, Mr. Vice Chair. Okay, I'm just going to kind of piggyback on that one. Um Mr. Berry, I'm going to pick on you for a little bit.
015Okay. Um I have stated before during open meetings that I had a concern about the tax rates in Isle of Wight County going up as a result of the budget. Um I did receive some chastising emails, which I'm okay with. I don't take it personally. But I do have a question for you. Looking at the budget here, I think it's safe to say that the majority of the increase would be in staff pay, correct? And benefits, yes. >> Yes, pay pay and benefits. Um I do not oppose increasing pay rates at all. I do have a question on this. What is the feasibility or possibility or would it end up creating more expense if this was phased in instead of one lump sum, if it was phased in over let's say two, three, four years,
016something like that. It's a good question. Um I think the one thing you need to take into consideration is that one the main reason that was driving this compensation study was because we we aren't competitive. So we are continuing to lose teachers. So if you continue that and try to phase it in over two to three years, you are going to probably make make the situation worse, I'm afraid. Okay. That that was just a thought that I had before I get chastised again. Um I do you want to also share the other issue with phasing it in is that what might be a 10% increase this year, if you say, "Well, we're going to increase that by 8%," that 10% is going to um multiply in the following years because other school divisions are also
017increasing their pay at a steadily rate. So even if another school division only goes up by 2%, that's another 2% that you now have to add on top of that extra 2% you didn't fund in the first year. So you're constantly having to increase to play catch up. Without actually ever catching up. >> The other point to keep in mind is that you only adopt um one fiscal year budget at a time. So although you can say you're going to do this in the next year, there's no guarantee. True. True. I mean, it it might not even be available the following year. So. Okay. Thank you for that. Um I have another question for you. And this uh received an email on on page 20 28 of the budget book. Uh the bottom line where
018it states undefined is showing the Let's see. The FTEs at 103.05 in the amount of $16,847.02. Can you go into detail exactly what that is uh both for my knowledge as well as the listening public? Absolutely. Um the reason it is presented by program is because all of those programs represent instructional programs. So, everything else and and maybe that's a poor choice of words to say undefined, but if you did not have that, then you would not be able to transport uh kids to school because your entire transportation budget is in that and it includes 36 FTEs. You also um I'm sorry. The transportation is 59 FTEs. Then 36 FTEs represent everyone in administration, attendance services, and health services. Um there's also then about 7 and 1/2 positions that fall under operations um and three
019of those are your um SSOs that we have have. So, I would not consider any of that as slush. No. No, and I'm not saying it is. Um I'm just saying it for for future use if we can break it down to where it's explained individually by whatever position instead of just undefined, um it would be clearer to the public. Sure, and it is um in the next pages that follow, it's broken down by that functional area. Like I said, this one here um breaks it out by program because those are all instructional programs. So, everything else is non, you know, instructional. But yes, I'll try to work on improving that. Okay. I did have one more, but I will yield right now while I look at my paperwork. I don't I don't ordinarily like
020to speak on other people's behalf, but I know that Mr. is a bit under the weather, and he certainly wanted to be here. And one of the last things he told me this afternoon on a text message was "I can't be there, but just want you to know that you and I are generally aligned on compensation." So, I know that a lot of people are wondering where we are at. I know that Mr. is on board with the compensation study as presented. And I I I think we're all big enough adults to recognize that we may not get it all, but I think at least Mr. and I are on the same page that we're looking to ask for it all. We're going to have to sort it out when the numbers start to settle
021and the dust starts to settle, but And I would agree with that as well. Uh that, you know, we intend to uh fully fund uh through the compensation study from what we've learned. And um you know, any way that we can help that process, you know, we will be in the corner of our um employees, our educators, and our faculty staff. But I think we'd be failing if we didn't mention health care again. So, could you talk to that a little bit? Any updates from last month? Uh we're still waiting on our consultant to evaluate the bids received. Um so, hopefully I will have something for you at the April meeting, I'm hoping. Okay. So, that's another one of the unknowns, right? And it's a big unknown. Yes, sir. Certainly a part of compensation. Dr.
022Cameron, I'll put you on the spot if you don't mind, sir. Ms. Robinson stood up here, the counselor from Windsor Elementary, and she mentioned uh school counselors taking on 504 case management. Is that something we can address, or does that require funding as well? I'm going to ask uh the expert here, our deputy of instruction, Ms. Getz, to respond to that. Thank you. Yeah, so several years back, we um hired school testing facilitators, STFs. And they took on all of the state testing. Um so, all of the SOL testing is done by them. Previously, it was um in some schools done by counselors. In addition to that, counselors did um the 504s. So, uh section 504 um is uh is required. Um it is a federal um if you have a disability you may qualify
023for a 504 plan. Those have to be you have to have a case manager. Somebody has to manage the plans. And so STF's were to help alleviate some of that so that our counselors could be freed up to work with students which they said it we agree that is why they went to school they would you know to work with children. In doing in hiring the STF's it became apparent that while it sounds good that they will do 504's many schools have way too many 504's for one person. So one person could not manage 100 150 200 504's. Some schools have that many. So instead of saying you know we'll try to have one person do it we had to look at how could we break it up spread it out so that counselors have
024some that makes sense for them to manage and STF's will do the rest. And in doing so we looked at what are those things that impact your um learning your ability to learn in the classroom your mental health. And those things we felt that would make sense for counselors to to handle and other things such as if you have diabetes or you have allergy to bees bees that might be something that an STF would manage. So we've tried to break it up. Right now we still we have some differences in the schools and we're trying to tighten that up so that it makes more sense. And and as I have communicated recently with some of the counselors we're going to be meeting with them and looking at are there some other things that we can
025do Um to help take away maybe some of the paperwork burden um and still have them manage 504s um because I think you could argue that managing a 504 for student who has bipolar disorder, that is a mental health disorder that probably should involve the counselor in helping to manage that plan. Um but something that like I said, if you have diabetes, maybe that doesn't necessarily should that be the counselor. That maybe should be somebody else. So we are going to look at that a little bit further to see how we could possibly reduce some of the paperwork. I don't think that we're in a situation where we can remove every 504 from every counselor. There there's not a person that can manage all of them in a building. Um but I think there might
026be some things we can put in place to make it better for counselors. So we're going to be doing that in the very near future. I know that's a very long explanation, but there was a lot to it. No, I'm glad you addressed it cuz if I hadn't asked you might throw rocks at me tomorrow when I go pick up my son. So >> Right, I don't want that to happen. We're going to be having we're going to get a meeting together in a very near future with the counselors. Good deal. Thank you. Okay, last one I promise. With the compensation study it it lists various levels of pay. Do we currently have any staff members that are already at the recommended level based on the compensation study? So the teacher pay, teacher and clinicians,
027they are on a what's called a step scale. Correct. And so and each year they're going to move up a step. Um so I I we have a few teachers might be uh there at 35 years. Is that what you're referring to, that they kind of max out or No, I'll I'll use what I was used to when when I was working. Um I mean we we had a a step scale, GS scale GS scale, you're familiar with that. Um and you've got 1 through 10 steps in one area. And I think it's probably pretty similar to the school system. But in the compensation study, a teacher, let's say 10 years experience, 15 years experience, do we have anybody that's already at that pay level in that same time frame? Well, there are >> If
028If not, the second part of my question is irrelevant. Yes, no, sir, because every one of the the steps for the teachers and clinicians, every one of those numbers changed. It increased. Okay. That's it. I I think Mr. Royster, if I understand what you're asking, that if you look at the compensation study, actually the spreadsheet, for a teacher comparison, years zero all the way up to 32 years, there was a negative deviation from the market comparison. The last 3 years, 33, 34, and 35, those were the only years where we were above. And so the market and so the recommended compensation changes addressed those so that they were evened out. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. It's a lot to stare at, for sure. Yeah, just just to explain what I was getting at.
029My concern was if there are teachers already at that level and they're not getting an increase versus others that are, then maybe it could create a disparity. That's what I was getting at. Yeah, and I have to ask Mr. Berry for the specifics, but I think in one of our meetings we had shared about and maybe this was in our 221s about how um out of the 400 and approximate 50 teachers around 240 of them would be seeing a double-digit increase percentage double-digit percentage increase to their pay, but everyone else was between 4 and 9% with four being the lowest percentage of increase based on where they fall on the scale. So, there will be differences in the percentage increase that an individual individual will see based on where they fall on the step scale,
030but everyone will be seeing a percentage increase. Okay. That Thank you. That That's a much better explanation that I was looking for. I appreciate it. Are there any more questions or discussion regarding the budget? Mr. Vice Chair, for the listening audience, what's next? Maybe we could talk a little bit or have Dr. Kramer tell us what's on the agenda for weeks forward. We can. That really depends on you. So, at this stage staff and I are here responding to your request. Um I'm not sure I have a calendar in front of me, but um thank you. I appreciate that, sir. Um you, the board, will have to approve the budget before the end of this month. And we have to then submit that to the county. Uh there will be a joint meeting after that,
031and at the moment we have that um scheduled for March 19th. It certainly doesn't have to be that. Uh if the board came to some conclusion in terms of what we'd like to submit to the county prior to that. Uh we could submit it once you the board determines what you would like to have in your budget that gets adopted and approved by the board. So, it really is in the hands of the board at this point. Anything different uh that you'd like to add to that? Just that it doesn't have to be a separate meeting. Like if if you're in agreement, it could be done next Thursday. At the regular scheduled board meeting. Yes. And just for the listening audience, what when we get to that point, we adopt the budget, we present it
032to the county, the county has to do their work, and then they're going to determine at some point what our revenue actually looks like, and then we actually have to approve it. Correct? If they if if what you adopt, if they do not um or give a different amount in their local contribution, then it comes back to you and we have to uh make changes to it. But if they provide exactly what you are requesting, then we're good. Right. And and go ahead, I'm sorry. >> Well, it may be worth noting and I know Mr. Ford uh he wasn't here, but 2 years ago, they were funding us categorically. And my first year in this budget process was painful because members of this school board found ourselves in front of the board of supervisors explaining
033item by item what we were trying to do. Fortunately, today we are lump sum funded. So, they put enough faith and confidence in the school board, so they're going to give us whatever money they're going to give us and say, "You guys figure it out." So, they own the lift on figuring out a number, but eventually they're going to flick the burden right back on this body to figure out what to do with it. So, it's a shared it's a shared burden. And I appreciate uh CFO DeVaris' point. Board members, if you all are in agreement universally, and if there's a consensus that you're going to accept for the most part the superintendent's proposed budget with whatever changes we can vote on, have you vote on this next week at the regular scheduled board meeting.
034So, if there are no major changes, um obviously two of our members are not here this evening, but if there are questions that you have between now and next week that we can answer, uh we can get this taken care of, uh get a vote, get it approved, and get it over to the county. I think that would also behoove us because I think if they were to get that earlier, they then would know exactly what this board is requesting, which would then give them more time as well. So, we're here uh to respond to whatever questions you might have, but again, to your point, you asked what's next, it really is your decision at this point. I would offer to my colleagues up here that because two of our friends are under the weather,
035and that's no fault of their own, that stay with the current schedule, and then in between now and next week, maybe we can reach out to them both and see where they're at. I believe you guys have agenda review. That was That was today. That was today. I think we can we can definitely uh reach out to them. It's worth a conversation, and we can we can talk about that offline. >> Absolutely. I would say staff and I are prepared to answer whatever questions you might have or things that are lingering uh to help you get to a decision. Sure. Uh I I hate to drag on the meeting, but now that the conversation has come up about the next steps. Is there do you all already have any planned recourse for the instance that
036this Board of Supervisors doesn't accept our budget proposal? What we would do, I think Mr. Marsh referenced this. What we've done in the past and what we would do is have additional conversation with you the board. We would certainly make recommendations, but you would ultimately uh Vice Chair for determine what would be cut if we don't have enough funding from the county to meet this request. Thank you. In other words, at some point we have to start making sausage if we don't get what we asked for. >> [laughter] >> And that always gets interesting. It does, doesn't it? All right. Thank you for your comments today and your work prior to this meeting. I will go ahead and adjourn this meeting. Thank you.