School Board Budget Work Session 2/27/2025

001e All County school board's in session Madame clerk please take a roll Mr colck here Mr Cunningham here Mrs Perkins here Mr wster here and Mr Marsh here item 3.1 Mr chair I move to approve the agenda or amendments for Open Session second the motion is second any discussion hearing none Madam clerk Mr colic yes Mr Cunningham yes Mrs Perkins yes Mr wster yes and Mr Marsh yes motion passes Mr Vice chair item 4.1 would everyone please stand for a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thanks Mr rooster good evening it is February 27th we're in Westside Elementary School and we are here for our first budget working

002session for this year here um in my opinion approving the budget and adopting policy are this board's most important duties on Monday this board received the superintendent's formal and Public Presentation of his proposed budget and again tonight is our first formal and Public Work session just to discuss what Dr Cramer has proposed but it's worth noting that individual board members to include myself have already begun working with staff in an effort to get a good understanding on the various requests uh I think it's fair to say that the staff has a full plate this time of year as they're inundated by questions next week Thursday on March 6 we'll be holding our required public hearing when we'll receive inputs from the citizens of olive White for those citizens who cannot attend next week but have

003inputs or comments they'd like to provide I'd encourage you to send email and reach out directly to the board this evening I ask my fellow board members to consider focusing on this evening's work by asking questions and gathering information not just for our own understanding but for the listening audience as well I think this is a uh a huge part of being transparent and let the county know what we are trying to spend hard earned tax dollars on um and then we've got following meetings after the after the public hearing I think we've all learned I know I certainly have and I continue to learn that this budgeting process is difficult there are no easy answers not everyone is always going to be happy and we certainly won't always agree but it's it's our job

004to consider how to best best allocate our available resources to benefit the entire School Division as best we can and on that we'll roll in right into the works work session here item six and I will turn it over to whoever wants to go first because I usually speak too much anyway Mr chair may ask our staff to come to the day so the deputies uh CFO and director of HR to start us off any tankers yeah Mr chair I I think the easiest uh thing to start with would probably be the capital Improvement uh list that we've talked about for um early this year um I think this would be probably the least contentious thing to uh to get out there I would agree kick it off sir if you would well just to

005make it make it simple U Mr chair I would make a motion that we adopt the first five uh items on the capital Improvement uh list which are a bus garage funds for school bus replacement for five buses um a band room renovation a weapons detection systems um and Ada bleachers to send to the Board of Supervisors for consideration into the county sip um I don't think we're at that point to take that step yet um I'd like to hear what Dr Coleman has as updates on these before I do anything on them I'd be willing to second the motion but certainly agree with M Perkins that there's much discuss to be let's have some discussion on it absolutely do you have specific questions M Perkins or any member of the board regarding the CIP

006request do you want to start with anything before we start asking questions or I think again for this in my mind a lot of this is for the the public watching right so I forget the slide number it was presented on Monday do we have the slide number handy by chance it's in the back of the package I don't have a number detail end of it 34 say it again I think it's page 34 that you're looking for this one dot oh that one yeah there in the last time so we can we can talk to it while we're finding the Mr ell do you by chance have that slide we can bring up it's from Monday's presentation Mr C Rider he he's gonna he has to pull everything down and then back up there

007there he goes thank you it's third from the where is it here there we go perfect yep thank you all right so we'll do a little back story if everyone agrees so everything on this list was presented last year and I forget the total amount but it was a significant amount of money that we had compiled Dr Coleman keep me honest it was somewhere in a ballark 14 or5 million worth of capital Improvement needs that we had identified uh and last year somewhere around this time this board basically ranked them in a priority everybody took a priority made a priority list and we added up the numbers and we ended up having a board's prioritized list and last year we presented all those needs to the county and we were fortunate enough to get $9.5

008million from the county correct on top of the operating budget so that was 9.5 million from Al County uh and they took out a bond a county Bond and the lon share of that Bond funded the carsville HVAC ta system that was to the tunee of seven sorry Carolton to the tune of 75 7.5 7.4 million yes 7.4 million what else did we fund with that from last year do you recall uh both athletic fields at the high schools and the tracks of the high schools also so um um all of that went into the um the CIP for last year yes sir and we got some weapons detection systems and weapons detection it was outstanding so it it was it was awesome so these are capital needs that have accumulated for years um various

009needs various expenses that had just snowballed and we worked hard to identify those needs and start addressing them headon so here we are a year later and we've taken the the items from last year that we didn't get funding for and we've added one more item that new item is uh an idea that I believe Dr Coleman came up with and that was to convert the unused Boiler Room at Smithfield High right convert that over to an improved and enlarger band room right uh and at the same time that project would give us back a couple of classroom spaces in Smithfield High School if I in Smithfield High School and I uh can go a little bit more in depth on that conversation please do all right uh Mr kuat if you can pull up

010uh slides and if you could go to slide uh I think it's going to be four or five there we go all right so what you're speaking of Mr chair is the band room renovation in other enhanced areas around the Smithville High School area now of course um the main meat of the situation is the current Band Room built in 1980 lacks the necessary Acoustics technology and space to support the growing needs of the music program but population of the music program is not everything it's the other additives that it gives with the movement of this not only can we take a elective as a van and really revise the room to be more technological Savvy and up to date so we're taking a facility that was built in 1980 and we're converting to a

011facility for 2025 so that would just let you know the the different enhancements that will occur now the outdated infrastructure affects sound quality student engagement of course teacher Effectiveness insufficient storage poor lighting inadequate climate control that I know that each and every one of the board members have heard about this over and over again from the community now additional um additional expenses in other enhanced areas we have the uh update and expand our current job coaching and postgraduate transition facilities this is something that goes on every day at Smithville High School and throughout the division but this is an area that we can based off of moving the band room and uh expanded areas this is one thing that can happen another thing that can happen is the therapy rooms therapy rooms the current status

012attached to a classroom in in inadequate space as you already know our Spade Department our teachers do a heck of a job at uh performing their d duties on a daily basis but not giving them the space and everything that they really adequately need this band room renovation could exist expanded physical uh education classes expanding the course room even uh per student requests additional fine arts classes and electives that's something to Smithville High School so this renovation of one area space and I will like to go back to say uh Dead Space because that's what this was it was a room inside of Smithville High School that already had a roof a floor walls to Whole Nine Yards um the current rate is you're seeing another slide for square footage for building a new commercial

013facility is 425 uh Square $425 per square foot so if we're going to rebuild a new band room or something of that nature we just like to keep those costs in mind with renovating a space those costs are reduced severely so not only are we reducing the space and um upgrading a elective as a b we're having an opportunity to expand those uh current job coachings the therapy rooms and leave us other options that we can have right now at Smithville High School with electives so I think I think the point of all that is if we were to summarize it was that the proposal to refit a boiler room not only benefits the band but there's also lot of positive outcomes it's not just about the band it's not just about the band and

014I I I would say that in a time when we're also looking at how we're going to replace the school that we're sitting in right and whether or not we need to add on or reconfigure existing schools in the North End of the county this is a huge part of that conversation it it really is it really is and and these are just the overall arching ideas but when you get into the eaches of the project when you get into the details the weeds of the project you will see more of these little heads popping out for call savings and things that weren't planned but because of this empty space being converted now is a possibility right are we able to break this down into phases or anything else is is this cost as cheap

015as we can move it and get something done or do we have options there there's always options there's always options this particular 1.4 million quote was given um I would say maybe 18 months ago so of course it was cost inflation and things of that nature but that 1.4 million was based off of the diagram was Bas off based off of the setup of what we wanted at that time when I said what we wanted everyone didn't have their eyes on it everyone didn't get a piece of the pie when we start to look at the development and the renovation of that site so when we actually get into the eaches if approved and we need to move forward that is when we'll really start having the cohorts to come in everyone sit down and

016let's talk through this process because once again as you see just now this is not just going to be a conversation concerning what does the band room want is the conversation concerning several other the parts of the school several of the moving parts so yes we do have opportunity to do this in stages if you have a breakdown or scope or anything I love to see that I would definitely send you the scope of the existing uh proposed structure thank you do we have the same option for the bus garages I'll tell you what uh we can jump right to the bus garages if you like yes sir please Mr C if you can go back to slide one all right and I'm GNA go through the Concepts and the options for the Fleet Service

017building replacement but I do have two experts here so they can easily come up to the mic to answer any questions at all now just jumping right into it the current vehicle service facility was built in 1955 similar to what we're just talking about the 1980 structure and the 40e difference 45 year difference between the band room as it existed and what we're looking for this building was built in 1955 it's inadequate for modern School Bus mainten due to space constraints lack of climate control and subpar safety standards and that is one of the main drives for why we need a new facility is the subar safety standards uh hea and cool the structure compromising working conditions and this setup overall reduces efficiency um Mr fik Mr Sullivan can you come up to the microphone

018please now the new proposed plan that we're looking at with flea service building of course you received three options those options were a $775,000 option that was strictly a renovation of the building of the existing building it was a 7 uh 7.5 million structure and that was a new building and with all of the safety um safety initiatives and everything that needed to occur and then of course it was the $10.5 million building and that was the joint facility with the county so as we talk talked earlier that's something that we looked into and had priced out the county at this time chose not to actually move forward with the idea of a joint facility for all vehicles so that's when we came back to the 7.5 at that time um we talked and we're

019looking at call savings what we can do and what we can't do uh one thing that after talking to these two gentlemen that been working in Fleet Services for quite a while and one of the uh things that they needed things that we really needed for the building to be efficient an admin office service Hub parts department common area two light Fleet M uh maintenance Bays five heavy Fleet Maintenance Bays fluid recovery and tie inventory storage total square footage round about 12,500 now the estimated feasibility cost for this project at the time ranges between $350 and $450 a square foot so right right now averaging it out I did it at $425 a square foot we're at $ 5,259 $375 and that is the base cost with the soloft cost of being an additional $900,000

020and that's for uh design fees testing inspections different things of that nature which brings the total up to 6.1 I should have had it on there 6.1 now your question is can we break this into phases we we can break this into phases but what that will do is we were we would save money in the short term but spend more money in the long term because uh getting the individuals that that actually perform the instruction what they would do is um they would come out bill bill bill stop pack everything up leave come back the next year and you have to continue to pay them for their setup fees and different things of that nature um did did I miss anything can you talk a little bit more about de bays and different things

021of that nature well specifically what kind of details would you like to know about the building that we're proposing um because we've come up with several different options and I I know pretty much everybody out there's come out and seen us at least once or twice um so we we have multiple options there's a lot of different plans out there it's really what uh the board is interested in seeing and what I can provide for you I've got lots of blueprints yeah I've got a few questions for you must myself yes sir um I don't think there's anybody up here that is saying that a bus garage is not needed I think we're all in agreement on that um I know uh Dr Coleman you said for a total of Seven Bays it will be

022for a total of this yes Seven Bays two for the light Fleet and five for the heavy Fleet aka the buses okay now are these drive-through Bays so in the last design that we did over the last week we came up with a design that was absolutely Bare Bones um before when we uh briefed the 7.5 million that was based on the glosser building uh so just as you so the Gloucester building started at 6 million and it ended up going to 7.5 um so this design here is Bare Bones absolutely minimal it is going to be drive-through Bays um and we can provide you with the blueprints on that uh if we had to find cost savings you could eliminate one side of the Bay uh you could actually split the building in Half

023you could push it farther down the lot and you could minimize the amount of doors that would be a cost savings um but at this time almost any direction we go if we're going to be between seven and eight Bays we're going to end up very close to the same price right all right so when you're looking at Seven Bays um and I'm at a disadvantage because I haven't seen the blueprints are you looking at a depth or width of the building deep enough where you could pull two fullsize buses in at the same time in one Bay so in the last design that we came up with it would be one Bay per bus uh the bus would be able to drive through that bay the bus is 45 ft long uh it would

024be 15 ft in the front of the back of the bus so that's enough room to move around it uh but it would be single Bays it wouldn't be doubling up like that I know what you're talking about um in the last design they actually have one Bay to themselves so it would not be a complete drive-thru okay um and previously you know working as a mechanic myself looking at building design obviously you need the bay you need the work area um have you considered a training room we have and and I believe both of our design is we have training rooms attached um they're they're not big I mean they're really just uh kind of robust break rooms um but uh we do have training rooms and it's big enough that we could also

025support transportation and other departments as well if they need a space to train all right what about a uh first aid station we have to have one by regulations all right we have one now So currently how many technicians do you have six including myself all right so one for each Bay that's correct all right um I can't think of anything else right now I would like to see those blueprints though absolutely get this for you yeah that's all I've got for right now good to go how many bays do you have today currently we have six Bays um we also have a wash bay that we utilize on the outside of the building um before that was used for washing school buses but we've we've gotten to the point where we're repairing so much

026so fast that we've kind of taken it over a little bit um and it's it helps out quite a bit your your work is limited out there because it's outdoors right right with the new design can we expand on that later as we grow so that is correct with the design you can expand Mr cooperat I just sent you another email if you can pull the sketch up this is a very very um raw sketch of what we will have proposed out you see what and what you'll see is a um a rough draft of what we will get the architect to actually draw out before we move forward with the architect understand that the architect does cost money to actually draw it out because once he starts to architect the design draw the design

027out what he has to do is go to MSA and other organizations to really get into the drainage to get into the the the water shed everything else in order to get a true fee proposal for the architectural design so we like to draw things up talk with the architecture talk with the architecture and go from there until we can actually get a set uh thought pattern in order to move forward so once again this is a very rough design sketch based off the uh the plans that you have in place here would that require a BMP Pond you educated me a bit on BMP ponds I am going to say there's a probably 90 90% chance that it will require a BMP Pond and does your estimated cost include that BMP P the estimated

028cost for the 7.5 the initial I believe did include the BMP Pond right so whatever we decide I would ask that moving forward you keep that is a little Aster on there that's an extra cost it is it's probably unavoidable it is unavoidable aable absolutely and Miss Perkins um when you're talking about adding areas on it will be a tadb bit hard with this particular design but I understand what you're saying if you look at taking off Bay six and Bay seven you'll reduce the tire area and storage area down to Bay five so if you came to add on you would actually have to add on those Bays which is not impossible but you would have to add on those Bays on the other side of the storage and waste oil but it can

029be done as Mr stated um you can flip different things twist different things so that add-on can be possible uh we've already talked with the architech in terms of what can happen yes this building can be added on to but we're looking at inflationary cost different things of that nature the same thing that we um had to deal with with creating vestibules over a three-year period we were suffering from inflationary cost every single year so that's just some things to think about as we go through this and what was the cost on this as opposed to the original one it was a at 425 a square foot before S cost it was 5,259 379 $375 that was before S cost has anyone else noticed that everything Dr Coleman asked for is extremely expensive I've got

030a few more questions for you now as far as the building goes are there any issues that you foresee connecting to you know water lines sewer lines anything of that nature almost certainly with any building being that old we're going to have to find a way to run septic up there now whether or not we can pump to the tanks that we have just installed at the old building or not uh it's hard to tell most likely we would probably have to put in another septic system um and same with the well that well that we have behind our building applying both of those buildings they're they're very old so they may want to go ahead and it might be more affordable to put a new well behind that building right um that's up to

031the architect to figure out and if you can remember for years uh the county uh animal shelter uh area and the building shared a septic tank but uh after construction and you know being outdated we had to cut that um we had to make sure that each one of those buildings was own in separate system so maybe once again in a combin combin septic system if we work through the county now has any of this been included in the overall cost or considered in the cost yes yes once again the 7.5 model um had everything was all encompassing okay um as far as the building design is this a masonry constructed building or a steel building All Steel okay I know historically steel buildings you do get at a cheaper rate from masonry right I'm

032good anyone else let's move on then um school buses I think we need to go to the five that we agreed upon not six could you elaborate on that I I agree but I wish you would for the listening audience could you elaborate on that a bit uh last year year um we had agreed to do five each year that is what the Board of Supervisors approved um and I'm I already know we need to change that to five so as proposed right now we've got six and so the the recommendation is reduce that to five as per agreed last year with the board of super that's that's correct yeah if I might add add to that uh that was mutually agreed upon by both boards um it was five per year recurring annually for

033a period of four years you have anything to add Mr Cunningham I think everybody else seems to concur no I'm good with that um do we have this in writing from the Board of Supervisors no it was a gentlemen's agreement gentlemen gentle ladies agreement agreement last year and that was a part I forget how pry sure it's in minutes somewhere from last year it was so it's well known at the bottom line is it's still valid cor since okay it's at least verbal agreement it was a verbal understanding between the two bodies they basically said hey we're going to give you guys 9.5 million for your top five Capital Improvement needs you're going to reduce your school buses to five and you're going to take it off the operational budget yeah and that's what we

034did yeah I was involved also so I know about that but again if we don't have it in writing we need to get it in writing because the Board of Supervisors uh one of the board members is no longer on the board we have a new one so I just want to make sure that we're all on the same sheet of music so that we have it for the next four years in writing yes got it so that's a recommendation from me I think that's a point we taken and I I would agree with you thank you that's all I have the weapons detection systems do we have um solid numbers on those how many it includes um can we break it down for the different schools we did um if uh Mr kuat if

035you could pull that slide Mr Brinkley if you can join me the weapons detection system is broken down um uh for eight more units to be purchased and the ongoing price is $1,262 four units are being looked at as placed at the Smithville Middle School four units at Georgie Tor uh Middle School at a combine of $154,000 now with that stated um just want to make sure that we keep in mind the additional expenses these are some of the expenses that we did not take in consideration the first time and that will um that's one of the other reasons why Windsor High School roll out was so powerful it showed us a lot of issues that we didn't take in consideration things of the nature of screening tables uh stanions um additional handheld detectors for

036secondary screening that needed to occur Sandwich Board instructional um instructional signs Mr Brinkley did you have anything to add on there no that was that was pretty much it what we what we had laid out was the four units which would be two units at the bus entrance and then two units at the front entrance for parent drop off uh as as well so they we would have four of those units at each of the middle schools just for clarification purposes when you're referring to units are you talking about two pedestals which would form one unit yes the two pedestals form one unit okay and as you p as you pass through they set up as one detector okay and for clarity how many units are we getting for the 180,000 uh that'll be eight

037total units okay thank you and along with this with the additional um cost with the additional expenses one thing that I did leave off is the um the Personnel that is needed can you tell me a little bit more about wsor high school something that we we found out about the Personnel so one of the issues that we've run into at Windsor High School obviously that being a smaller school they don't have as as many staff uh and I hate to use the word EXP defendable but staff that are are able to be used throughout the day uh so one of the issues we're having is Staffing that weapons detection for visitors and late arrivals coming in later later on in the day this isn't an issue that we'll have at Smithfield at Smithfield High

038School so much because we do have some additional staff there that can take over and assume some of those roles uh but at Windsor we're really running into an issue with uh you know if we take the SSO and leave him stationary there throughout the day to man that uh then he's obviously not fulfilling all the rest of the duties that we want him to to complete so additional Staffing would would would definitely be beneficial for these moving forward so that we can have somebody have someone designated to monitor these throughout the day for late arrivals visitors coming into the schools contractors whatever it may be Mr Brinkley I if if the board is is in agreement I don't want to get too far off the Sip but I do want to readdress the SSO

039position position as we move forward okay I've certainly got a few questions on that okay everybody okay with that um and just again for the sake of the watching listening audience give us a quick overview of the Ada blers I know the short story is thank you we're not in compliance with Ada at Smithville High School period right and uh we I do not want to say that we're not in compliance so I do want to make sure we are in compliance but it is a um we're we're sitting very badly at it's a piece of junk yeah well it needs to be replaced I mean there is a ramp on it um there's constant fixtures um it was made with the greatest intentions in mind and I believe that it it has lasted its

040life uh but at this time not only do you need the ada8 bleachers but this time when we do it we need to go back with aluminum and we actually need to add the sidewalks needed for the Wheelchairs and for the strollers and different things of that nature so once again it was really done and uh you know everyone had the best intentions in mind and it has lasted his lifetime but at this time we need to be in full 100% ADA compliance with the um with the Ada bleachers Dr Colman did I hear you correctly you said that it's going to be going back with aluminum structure we're going back with aluminum just like the um um the home bleachers and the away bleachers they last a lot longer for that and you can

041actually get safety inspections performed on them to um to to certify are we looking at the same size as the previous a little bit bigger the one that we're looking at at this time will seat U will seat close to 50 to 75 individuals and it will have room enough for 10 to 15 wheelchairs on the front it will be an elevated structure so the um so the platform will not sit ground level it will be elevated so that um there's a better line of sight for all the individuals that's at the Ada area one more question for you uh with it being aluminum is this anything that the CTE welding students could be involved with um as part of their training as well right we looked at that a couple of years ago the

042issue was the certification of the bleach feates after the W uh meaning uh whoever comes out whoever works on them um they will have to be certified and insured so we did look at that uh one of the options to cut calls but um unlike some other areas that we can use the CTE department for that was one of the areas that we really strayed away from okay thank you what is the life expectancy of our current regular bleachers that sit next to it where are we at I have to um I had a report maybe five years ago um but I would uh I would have to actually go back and look at that report before I just give you a number but I can I can send that number to you but I

043do have a but they're not new no ma' they've been around for a while corre yes ma'am I would say that you know um I have to go back to anyone who's been here for a while I believe those original bleachers at the stadium when it was built I mean I know Miss getts loves the bleachers as we have them right now um right the other so my question or concern we have bleachers that we might need to replace fairly soon and these um Ada bleachers are still separated from the main bleachers so if we put the cost into this then what do we do later right where does that leave us so it's something to consider and see which direction we want to take okay and one thing I can can do before the

044next session is actually research uh replacement of all bleachers on the home side I will have the inspection report for um for every all the board members in the community so they can see the same thing that we're seeing but I can get a quote on the replacement of all bleachers yeah it's not that we don't want to provide something better I think all of us are in agreement but I also don't want to waste money and not do it right when we have better options that we have to look at absolutely absolutely perhaps it's worth uh at least I agree 150% to your point maybe we can also look at uh instead of rebuilding right where the current bleachers are maybe choking up and getting close to the existing bleachers so when we do

045replace those bleachers we can tie into them I I don't know okay I would imagine a lot of that stuff's modular these days anyways it should be it should be if it's not if it's not seaming it down and different things of that nature yeah worth looking into maybe what else we got people well it looks like Dr Coleman's going to owe us some information back so um I'll go ahead and withdraw a motion uh that we uh vote on this um on sending this up to the supporter supervisors and we just hold off and wait for uh the information Dr is going to provide at a later date I think that'd be appropriate especially given since we've got the hearing next week so that we might get some direct feedback from the community as

046well absolutely thank you Dr Coleman no problem all right what do youall want to delve into next Mr chair if we can I would actually I'm at a little disadvantage because I wasn't here at the last meeting um but I would like to go to the four AG major changes general fund okay he's got it up on the screen okay I actually do have several questions on this one uh my first question is probably going to be for you Mrs GS dealing with the tuition I'll grow for $40,000 can I get a thorough explanation on what exactly that is what it's for um and what funding source is it coming from so if you remember back it's been a been a minute when Miss Magner she presented on is grow and it is a preschool

047program that is for special education and peer models so it's got regular General aded students students who are models along with our prek special education students we have programs at Carolton Windsor and Hardy um the kids who are the peer models they pay to come so we are collecting the um revenue for the cost of their programs the special education students are they do not um pay tuition would you happen to know uh the percentage I know it's hard to predict it but uh the ones that would be paying out of that with that 40,000 how would it offset the 40,000 it's actually a total of 990,000 that we receive in this is an increase because in the previous two years it's only been budgeted at 50,000 so this is an increase of 40,000 to

048the revenue side okay and this funding is coming from where uh who the the child's uh family or okay what about local funds contributing to that let me go back we do we charge for the peer models parents pay $5,500 for daycare child care preschool um for the special education students we provide that because we would be serving those students anyways we are just serving them in this setting with peer models so it's not that that we were always serving the special needs children we've added the peer model part like I guess let me just rephrase that as far as that 40,000 is there any portion of that that's coming from um state grants Federal grant State funding it's all local yes sir okay that's what I was getting at it's it's tuition that is

049tuition from parents yeah it's not County money all right I think he might be confused with the Allin um preschool stuff and this the difference um the sped stuff we have for requirements are with the AL gr we have requirements as far as sped and keeping that correct yes I mean these special education students are our students and we must provide programming for them and the Allin is that a different program a different something totally yep yes ma'am Allin is totally separate that was the money that um was given to us to cover Virginia literacy act um so it's Virginia literacy act it's tutoring and it was attendance so that's grant money it will end next year and there will be no additional money for all in if I may add uh Vice chair booster

050the section that we're looking at is changes in Revenue so those are additional Revenue sources but what I'm trying to determine is where exactly that 40,000 comes from the parents the 40,000 in that line is tuition from parents okay thank you that's all I needed okay [Applause] you mind if I jump in right quick go ahead so we're looking at page two that's where that's where we're moving to yeah so Dr krer if you would I'd like to talk about the new positions um so we're short story is you've you've requested 15 new positions across the division um reading interventionist math interventionist IIA so on and so forth people we spoke Monday Monday briefly and and I made mention and and asked you to explain how it is that our average daily membership is expected

051to decline yet we're adding additional revenues and positions and I thought your answer was was well articulated there is no one single answer there's a lot of contributing factors um I also know that when we started the school year and I'll I'll pick on this as s in a little bit we were if memory serves seven maybe nine positions we started unfilled and uh due to the creativity and Ingenuity of you folks up here you merged a couple of classes combine two classes into one using one teacher so on and so forth there's several different things that you had to do to make it happen so that when we started the school year we were ready so my question really is so far this year how many positions have remained unfilled and have we been

052able to utilize those funds for unfilled positions to hire alternative positions and that's I guess that's my winded way of asking are there options on the table to use the funding we have without creating new positions and I'll kind of leave it at that for you to respond Dr Kramer sure I can go I do you want to go ahead and respond okay yes please um so I can go and respond to that and we have done that this year and I think you guys will most recently I believe in the month of November or December we had a need need for an additional registered Behavior technician and so we came to you all and said you know we have a teacher special education vacancy that we cannot fill um and so we however we

053have this need to support the behavioral needs of our non-speed students and then sometimes in that to that transition of sped and so you all approved to reallocate the funding from that special education position to cover an RBT position however knowing that that at the end of this year that we still need that special education position because even though we have not been able to fill it we've had to hire a substitute um to be able to fill that role we've had to expand the case loads of our current special education staff members to take on those students um and so we have found fixes when we can't hire but those do sometimes also cost funds um sometimes a little bit less than a full-time teacher so we were able to use that allocation to

054cover that RBT for this year knowing that it was going to be reverted back to that special education position next year so that is something that we're able to do I think within a given budget year we request what we know that we need based on our student numbers our needs and our enrollments um and our special education needs um and then if we are unable to hire them that's where we can start to look at creative options like we can't find a teacher but we have this person who's an RBT and they can support our current teachers by taking that weight off of them of carrying the load of those extra special education teachers because now they have to someone to support them with the behavioral needs of those students and so we are

055able to do that however we do um you know position control is something that we analyze on a regular basis um I can say that has been extremely helpful um having Mrs de here to help with that process it was hard having turnover in the finance department to C take that to keep that under control um however it is something that in Human Resources we review that on a monthly basis when we're doing our hiring and our Personnel reports um and so we're able to do that but we do always have to revert back to what are those basic needs and then what are our what does our position control look like I know someone had spoke at the last meeting about you know looking at a zerob based budget like looking at first grade

056and saying this is how many kids we have in first grade how many teachers do we need we do that as part of our budget process so each year we might say we have 22 first grade teachers this year let's look at the rising numbers so those kindergarteners who we already know who are coming up how are they going to fall in first grade and then what is the max number we can carry in that first grade class and so missett and I worked together to kind of look at the Staffing numbers we also look to see you know we we're starting to inform principles you need to roll a first grade teacher that you have this year up to your second grade because you don't need them coming in with the kindergarten class but

057your first grade class is going to stay big in second they need to move up and so we are facilitating those changes we don't just add a staff or a staff member because they're not going in that direction um so we do analyze those on an annual basis and then also monthly to look at to see what kind of creative things we can do to support with the vacancies that we have all makes perfect sense uh in my mind that's a moving Target I get it um there was one thing you said early on is that that you uh for the particular position you mentioned the RBT um you may have had to hire a substitute so that and that makes sense so you can't tip fortat with a situation like that if you have

058to hire a substitute to fill a position that's not filled it's a zero gain it's probably a loss if anything because Subs cost more I think um but I'll go back to my original question are there and I don't need an answer right now I would ask that you go back and take a hard look are there positions today that are unfilled that you were able to find an alternative a trick if you would so that we could possibly what was the phrase you said uh like reallocate them uh position control is the term you used I wouldn't suggest that you would do away with any position perhaps just allocate Z for that position and bring in one of your needs with those funds I I don't know you you all have to work the

059books what I do know is that we have a lot of asks again this year and I don't expect we're going to get all the funding that we want so we're going to have to cut somewhere so it ask that we take a good hard look and see what options we are and and I understand and appreciate the fact that you've already done that with your budgeting process um that's does that make sense it does Mr chair and certainly staff and I have already actually taken um a look at our budget from the initial budget we shared with you all in our oneon-one meetings and our 221s so we've already made some Cuts we're looking at the budget to see where we could to your point um making some really tough decisions because uh again

060as I stated on Monday I think this is a pretty fair somewhat um Frugal uh attempt that that we've made to be reasonable and to be as practical as possible yet trying to meet the essential needs of of our School Division but we certainly will take a look at other spaces where I think to your larger Point you're asking about positions but I think as you and perhaps Mrs Perkins and others have stated uh we may have to make additional cuts and and you know we're well aware of that so staff and I will certainly have that larger conversation um and see where we might be able to make some additional Cuts whether positions or otherwise thank you I in my opinion and and this is just my opinion I struggle with the board identifying

061specific positions to cut you folks know better than we in my opinion which ones you really need the most uh and I suspect going forward and I know where we're getting ready to get into some specific questions so I'm going to shut up soon but assuming that we don't get all the funding that we asked for it would be my preference that you prioritize those positions over me I would greatly appreciate that difference uh Mr chair and we'll have that conversation with staff so that we can um respond but I I I appreciate that if if there are further cuts that need to be made I would rather have that conversation with our team to see what we would propose thank you and on that I'm going to shut my mouth and I know there's

062plenty of questions about these positions on page two Mr chair may I may I say something yes ma'am so the the budget that you have before you has been significantly and when I say significantly I mean significantly reduced compared to what our principles have asked for I get it listen I do you you don't have to sell me on that if I had a pocket full of money I'd give you every one of them understand and again this is just my personal view I'm trying to look at this Down The Long Road last year we asked the county to give us n and a half million doll and they blessed us with that this year we're going to ask for another multi-million dollar Capital funds request um that that's a lot for the county taxpayers

063to put on their shoulders um it's got a come from somewhere and I'd rather be prepared to be told no than just present something and not be prepared for it so that's my ask if the answer that you come back with after talking about this is look we've got to have these These are required and we're going to be a in a bad spot without these positions then I think the board deserves to hear that straight shot but if there's some options on the table to repurpose some fundings some positions for funding then I think we need to look at that and and that's just my opinion trust me when I tell you that I hear you I know that you've made some cuts and they're hard to do mhm anybody else um going on

064that line of thought uh we asked miss magnar about sped teachers um is are you prepared tonight to show us things specifically did you want to look at the ratios is that what you were well what we have are theq um guidelines and what we have is a large variance as in the sped Department of what the state is saying we need for S soq funding and what we have so I think the public um needs to understand the justification for these positions especially when we have another position well three position positions and I think I just want just want to be clear soqs are not what the state says we should have it says what we are required to have we can have no less than that and accept the basic Aid funding they

065also recognize specifically for sped that we receive quite a bit of federal funding and so they expect the Gap to be big in special education what they're requiring from a state level because they know that we have Federal funding from special education so we don't get Federal funding for any of general education teachers from the federal government that's all funded through the state and local um and so the part of the reason why you see the disparity in sped and S soqs is going to because they know that we're relyant on the federal funding for that and again it's not what we should have it is what we are required to have and they recognize it does not meet the needs the numbers of students that we have the S soq funding is not accurate

066and it's they have in they have made written several reports that is not um a good funding model so for clarification the soq is that just saying what the state thinks we should have no it is saying what they are willing to fund they have said that they are they are willing to fund this because they have this model that is outdated and not accurate and so they are they assign a arbitrary number and say we're going to give you this much money for this particular thing and because we're giving you this much money you are required to have at least 10 sped teachers which they recognize is not what we need Trish can you um elaborate on what the federal government whatever guidelines regulations we are doing and um any details any of you

067might have on the funding um any require match requirements from local any relevant information I will um short try to answer um the questions you guys have as best I can is I'm not that tall okay is that better okay um I I did um print for you guys oh my gosh that's not sorry I did print for you guys um what is in this the the regulations so again separate from um the S soqs this is actually the regulation that we are bound to so this this is my compliance piece um and the chart you guys have in front of you hopefully will help to show why um we need so many teachers for the number of students that we have so just as an example on the page that I provided that top

068chart um you can see where it's broken down uh by disability category on the left hand side and also by what's called level two or level one services so imagine level two Services being my self-contained classrooms or special populations or programs a student if a student has autism as you can see in that first row um that teacher can only have eight students in her class if that population requires a self-contained setting and that's with a pair professional if that class does not have a pair professional or instructional assistant they can only have six so the number of students that we have that require that level of need absolutely dict dictates the number of teachers that we have regardless of what so soq says get it I'm a simple guy par par professional means what

069instructional assistant okay we call them IAS here but in the regs you can see they're called Fair professional got to talk plain to me I'm sorry um so similarly if you look at developmental delay age 25 that's going to be our preschool population which is also another significant population for us and you can see with um with our pair Professionals in place again we can only have eight students in that classro so this um this is actually what we what we review and what we base our decisions on is so that we can remain in compliance um on the same chart to the right hand side where it says level one those are the students who would require no pull out out whatsoever so all of their services would be in the general education setting

070but if you go down to the bottom chart if you start to combine students who require pushin services in the general setting and pull out so both level one and level two the number reduces significantly in terms of how many um students can be on a teacher's case load and just just because those interject yeah you've we've said numerous times that Although our ADM overall student population does tend to decline our sped population has increased how many percent but you on spot you told me last week um overall let me go back because I have my summary it was significant it was 20 some odd percent over the past so many years uh it's been 24% over the past like six to eight years a bil since 2016 sorry to interject you're fine um the

071three teachers that we're asking for um are a direct result of our kindergarten population that's rising from preschool so the preschool population that's rolling up into kindergarten next year is um we have 21 students rolling up currently that we know of from our preschool classrooms of those 21 students 15 all already will require a self-contained setting if you go back to the Chart I provided 15 students requires at the three teachers that we're asking for because of the need for growth in those classrooms again these are the kids that we have and we know of today it's not going to include all of the transfers that we get from early intervention over the summer I know one of the challenges you're running into um are the specific needs of the children to the different schools

072um where are we as far as the what we have now are we where we should be to be compliant do we have more than we need for compliance more teachers where are we at with what we what the government says we need and I know isn't necessarily what you say we need um based on the specific needs of the children and where they are in the school system so I understand that differs um yeah we're we're within compliance we try to maintain that um every quarter we take a look at the number of students we have in each building both in self-contained settings and in the inclusion setting um and we do monitor to make sure that we are remaining within compliance based on the regs as I showed in that chart um all

073of our positions however haven't been filled uh although we still need them to maintain compliance we will continue to try to fill them in fact we had interviews today for example to try to fill those positions so that we can remain in compliance but um we do remain in compliance uh I I I I I don't want to we are asking for what we need um we are mindful of the our numbers and we really are not trying to ask for more than what we need but we do have to ask for what we know we have with the idea that it potentially will and continue to grow we never know who's going to show up tomorrow um which is why we do routinely like quarterly review our numbers to make sure that um we

074are okay where we are and we know what we need for for next year and to be clar I have seen you work magic with the budget you are given it's pretty impressive actually so you have positions that have been unfilled but you're asking for or three more positions on top of those positions correct I need to fill those positions still to be in compliance so I can't use those current positions to um to fill the need for these three new classrooms I have to create for the kindergarten students rolling up how many of these new positions are to meet requirements all three so if we do not fill these positions we are not going to be compliant correct and that is based on current numbers not on expectations numbers today yep with the roll

075up for next year yes and is this going to be funded by federal money or is this all going to be local it's local these positions are not in my grant so the federal government is requiring it but they are not paying for it yes it's not really a probably not a fair question but I'm gonna ask you anyways sure if you didn't fill those three positions this year what makes you think you're going to fill six next year um it's pretty rhetorical I I mean I don't I mean I'll be honest we interviewed today with the hopes of filling for tomorrow so we're we're still working to fill the vacancies we have this year if I didn't fill all my vacancies we would be we the teachers have a higher case load right now

076because of those vacancies so I I absolutely need to fill those vacancies and we continue to work daily to do so understood just out of curiosity um what what do you attribute the inability to fill these positions to are people just not applying or not interested what what do you think the reason is you know we lost someone recently to another school division because of pay so that's a contributing factor it's also a tough job it's a hard job just like with all of our teaching positions there is a nationwide shortage of people going into the teaching profession um one School Division in the state of Virginia hires all of the brand new teachers coming out of every single College Prep program in the state of Virginia in Northern Virginia Fairfax can take every single

077one of them each year that they're produced um we are as you can see in the comparison chart that I sent you a couple of days ago we are ranked 10th through 12th in teacher pay in region two um I know Mr kic you had said last time you wanted to do better than just kind of staying on par in order to do that instead of having a 3% increase for our teachers this year we need 11% increase and that's just for us to get into four five and six when it comes to our teacher pay um more often than not when teachers turn down a job from us it's because of the pay uh they can make $55,000 more to go to Chesapeake um sorry $10,000 more to go to Chesapeake City schools and

078for many of them they live live halfway between here and Chesapeake um and so that is that is a huge huge issue for us yeah I was at a job fair at William Mary the other day and they have a small cohort for special education and all five girls came up at one time and that's where I have my degrees from and I was like hey I did what you guys are doing and they all said to me that they weren't interested in our division because of the pay um and in fact one of the girls actually graduated from smithl high school and I couldn't even lure her back um and they were then interviewing with the northern Virginia schools and even some of the um area schools that are closer to the beach um

079so yeah it's it's it's hard to to draw so hyp pathetically speaking let's just say you still cannot fill these positions what are the consequences for us as the school if you cannot fill those positions well we we try to fill them with substitutes um so that there is someone to work with the students I mean that's absolutely the number one goal is I want to make sure that we have um teachers there to to work with kids um our our sped teachers do take on larger case loads if we can't fill positions uh the goal is never to be out of compliance um and to make sure that we provide services continually no matter what um so we do draw from other other um other staff when we need to to to fill holes

080um we're doing it this week um with some you know just it's it's unfortunately the life we live is just trying to make sure we can keep the people we have um so that our services remain consistent for the kids and I think to kind of like also piggyback off of that as well what happens when we can't fill those is that we have burnout of our current staff um we're overloading them um and so not spending the money upfront and increasing teacher pay and then supporting the positions like the additional staff um you know just leads to additional burnout of those individuals um that are already like working for us and committed to the students here um so that's definitely something that we need to consider is you know like with the RB considering

081not having that additional position there that's one more thing that's going to you know make them choose a different location in comparison we were just speaking about like the teacher pay 10 years ago we were in the top five across all the te all the pace like the different pay rates um in terms of like your fifth year 10th year and we have slowly um not met that Mark year after a year um and we're going to we're not keeping up and we're going to drastically need to look out how we can overcome that um doing the 3% is exactly what everyone else in our region is doing so all we're doing is meeting the status quo with that and in some cases we're not uh correct few years ago One Division gave 10% um

082so we are not keeping up in many cases yeah just to be the Devil's Advocate since we're talking about pay the conversation is inevitable uh we were provided with a chart for superintendent Region 2 for teachers with a bachelor's degree how we Cherry Picked quite a few teachers from suff this last year yeah I'd have to go back and look at our um where they specifically came from we have a couple each year yes it was more than a handful because I remember at the uh con convocation there was quite a crowd of teachers that had come from suffk and what's interesting and I'll preface this by saying I agree we need to bump up up the pay but according to this pay chart every every every rank of teacher with a bachelor's degree from

083no experience all the way up to 30-year experience suffk which is just down the road pays about $5,000 more a year so the fact that we're pulling teachers in from suffk at a $5,000 approximate pay cut speaks volumes I think the answer to that mostly is obvious um why they're doing it but what about compensation I mean we're we're going to go down several little rabbit holes with this budget discussion has anyone looked at the compensation packages aside from the paycheck of other school divisions uh yes I mean speaking of suffk they're I mean I don't want to promote another School Division right now but suffix compensation package is better I believe with their HSA um plan uh their employ always pay if it's an employee only I don't believe they have to pay any

084premium for their health insurance um when it's employee only um so I know that one's for suffk I haven't looked comparatively at a lot of the other school divisions um with our health insurance um but that is something for us to consider I do get a lot when I call and offer a job and they ask me about the health insurance and the premium rates I do get a lot of oh wow that's more than I'm paying right now um but I don't have like the firm data that's just antidotal information information from that they've shared with me that's fine it's it's be a variable answer either way yeah going back is it possible um to put these positions that are required in there with a zero budget unless we know they're going to be

085filled and go ask for that money at that time instead of asking for it in a budget that it might not even get used if that makes the problem is if we wait to see we will never find the people like if you want to hire we have to start right now and we've got to do a lot of work to get them hired if we wait until September because and we know because we've been in this every single year we will never find those people well the problem is we have six positions three of which we have been unable to fill at this time so that's a lot of money floating around when we already have a tight budget so if we were able to say we don't need this right now but we

086might come to you in a few months and say okay we need it now I'm just asking if is this an even an option I don't know not for the special education because we already know based on what we have what we are going to need and it's the vacancies plus those three so no well based on the need but fiscally speaking are we able to do that like you're asking could we post you're asking like could we post a job potentially interview and then go to the Board of Supervisors and say we actually found someone for this position that we need can we now have the money for that is it even an option I'm just trying to find solutions for a tight butt I mean in that regard they would still the county

087would still need to budget for that if they were expected to have us ask for it I think the difference is is the money sitting in our budget already um which of course we return at the end of the year if we don't utilize those funds um or it's sitting in their budget budget waiting and hopefully we ask for it first I guess if that's the case um I don't know that that process would really be yeah I really don't think we can do that uh I'm trying to figure out how to say this but it's somewhat unethical um I mean I'm just saying if we don't have the money we can't well the county would have the money still somewhere it just wouldn't be sitting in our budget we don't have the money that's

088the problem if we don't have the money we can't interiew for something that we don't have that's go ahead I'm sorry the other thing to keep in mind is is you know the county sets its tax rate on real estate based on the expected expenses so if we don't budget for it they don't budget for it you know by setting the tax rate then where would the money come from later so that's is different than what we're doing with these other positions y'all were talking about zeroing out other positions somehow and filling them so I didn't know if it was different than what we're we were doing before so do you mean when we talked about how we look at each grade level throughout the division all the schools and we reallocate where we need

089to is no um the positions we've been unable to fill and we F like reallocating them yeah yeah so reallocating is where we have the money already in our budget and then we would say we're going to move this money over to pay for this position instead of this position we initially had that you all approve when when you approve either a new position or someone to go into an increased FTE or that sort of thing all right I appreciate this is just a new territory so I'm just trying to see what our options are see if we have any I I think what Mrs dver was saying is that the county just like we we have to budget 12 months out uh we they don't really have they have a contingency fund but it's

090not dedicated for positions and stuff like that so they're they're literally budgeting 12 months out just like we are and I think their contingency is designated for an array of items that are unexpected but certainly would be out of the norm for that contingency to be based on possible fills does that make sense yeah I'm what do you have John so what I'm hearing is we've got a number of positions that haven't been filled we've got a number of positions that we need to stay in compliance also we've got very limited funds that we can expect from the Board of Supervisors so we've got a you know in my mind we've got to look in two places for the money okay we've got to look first to the board of supervisor you know we want

091we need some money from them but we've also got to look internally to find out okay what do we have that is nice to have that we absolutely don't need we can use it but it's not 100% required and I I think we need to we need to dive in there a little bit um to get some of the money for some of these positions like Mr Sullivan said I want to make sure we're paying all of our employees properly if we can't pay them properly I don't want to bring them on I want to take care of those folks that we have right now and then hopefully bring on more but we do have to stay in compliance you know and I understand the the special needs World probably a little bit better than

092some um obviously not any better than you know the folks sitting in front of me um but we we need those Professionals in those positions before to kids show up so we're going to need your help identifying okay where can we get more funds out of things that we have traditionally have and then how much money do we absolutely have to go to the supervisors and ask for okay so they go hand inand and we we we need your help with that okay thank you seems like a good time to transition into pay raises anybody I'll take it um looking over the pay changeing pay um I'm going through it looking at the different lines uh don't have any issues with the line I've got one question on this dealing with the last line on

093nurses and Clinic assistant um I'm showing an overall total of $ 17,869 how is that broken down this is um you know we have included a 3% across the board um pay increase for everyone including all of the nurses Clin uh Clinic assistants and then for this area we then added on another 2% so that this is the additional 2% okay so when I'm looking at the 17,000 861 M how does that break down at what percentage of increase or what dollar amount would that be per nursing staff it's 2% an additional 2% of their current pay after they received the 3% increase then we also increased them another 2% so each person is at a different um pay you know based on okay what um what I've been looking at just like with the

094uh sped students in Alaway County we're seeing an increase in the number of students which have special medical needs such as I'm just throwing things out feeding to tubes um insulin pumps special medication requirements um I've had people contact me parents from the community I'm referring to their children and you know the special medical needs that they have as well which I will not get into that right now so I went back and I was looking through the current salaries um and I did have uh Miss Whit low forward this to Dr Kramer all board members um I don't see Mr Christenson but he got it as well um I went back through and I was looking at average salaries in Virginia and I was looking at the current salaries that we're paying with the

095increase in the number of students with special medical needs and the fact that we're going to have to compete with the new Riverside that is being built they are going to be hiring nurses they are going to be hiring other assistive staff such as paramedics EMTs um you've got to look at Riverside convalescent which is right up the road um all of those places or positions will pay more than what we're currently paying right now now I'm not saying that we need to have Critical Care nurses in the schools but what we do need to do is provide a competitive salary so what I did is I researched Virginia average salaries and each number listed in there from low to high is from the 25th to 75th percentile and just doing a comparison it is

096we we are not even close to meeting that Benchmark so I went through everything and I have a proposal as far as since we're into budgeting I have a proposal to add this to the budget now if you look at the my numbers may be off on lenser levels but the percentages are accurate based on a 10% increase if you look at a nursing supervisor position the average Virginia salary is 78,000 to 148,000 currently that position is paying 68,000 so we're below the average with a 10% increase you're bringing that to a 75,100 um if you look at the RN BSN I did lump that into one category Because by the uh the school's pay scale they are lumped in as the same they are currently at 47 277 and the state average is 40

097to 60,000 so with a 10% increase on that it comes out to 5200 470 and I continued on with lpn's Clinic assistance um what I would like to see personally for each school is to have a nurse and a clinic assistant at each school so you've got two people so in this proposal I'm looking at changing um two two uh I believe it's two part-time to fulltime with benefits and add one more Clinic assistant to equal it out to where you do have two persons in each clinic now these numbers that I've based on this is strictly salary have not included benefits that's you I don't have the ability to calculate that so what I'm looking at for an overall increase uh for all Personnel involved with a 10% it comes out to nurses to

098provide specific medical care for the students in the county especially since the medical needs are increasing so I would like to go ahead and include this as a proposal for the budget in addition to that um I want to see substitutes LPN BSN RN their hourly rate rate increased to that of a regular employee but they would have no benefits associated with that do you have a copy of that we did yes okay and is is this just changing the starting pays that's what I think you have here this would be in my opinion a base pay right so you're just looking to change the base pce correct from my own understanding Mr rooster okay you're requesting not only to restructure our current uh Manning I guess is what you would call it your number

099of positions per each School correct but you're also proposing to give our existing uh nurses and assistants a 10% raise that is correct to bring it up to the current state averages so I listen I don't I don't disagree that it's probably well deserved but I would also say that there's plenty of other positions as we've already discussed that we could arguably justify a 10% raise for them as well in fact I think Mrs Mrs Sullivan said that 11% was the magic number to get everybody up to par I'm not sure how you would explain to any of the other employees of Alaway County Schools how one group gets a 10% pay raise while the other group did not one thing I would like to add to that based on your comment is the School

100nurses they are not included in the S soq however it is my understanding that they have also been compensated the 3% whenever the increase came out yes so when we've given a 3% raise we've given it to all employees um soq nurses are not required by S soqs we don't have to staff any nurses in our building the regulations say that they may strive to staff one per 1,000 students so in our division that would be 5.5 um however we recognize the importance and the value of having a qualified nurse in our every single school that we have um so that is the reason why we staff it and they do they've received all of the same percent increases as all of our other employees have um I'm just gonna give you my own personal

101opinion on this um take it for what it's worth um I think if you are Staffing less than two people per nursing station it is subpar based off what based off standards and workloads what standard one incident can TI the nurse completely so what happens at that point I don't disagree with that and I'm certainly not a medical professional but I'm confident that our current positions meet requirements and so my question is if it's subpar in accordance with what there's got to be some sort of a requirement other than just a subjective opinion it's a simple thing of providing a better coverage and a responsibility to the students that we serve the last thing I want to see is not being able to properly provide medical care to a student that's in need um and

102have a very poor outcome I don't I don't think any of us want that I do want to clarify a couple things having looked at the The Proposal um our nurses are not paid at the base rate so the base rate is what's listed on our pay scale but they are compensated for experience so the numbers that have been worked up here would not um equate to the end result even with Benefits because many of them have several years of experience and are paid for that experience on top of what the base rate is and we do actually give a supplement of $1,500 if you have your BSN um so all of our teachers are required to have their bachelor's degree that is the that is the base minimum our nurses are not required to

103have a bachelor's degree so we do give an advanced degree supplement to our nurses um of $1,500 in addition to that if they have their master's degree they get another $1,500 and in addition to that if they're nationally board certified they get another $1,500 added on top of that to um you know try to recruit more qualified nurses um and they because they're on the admin pay scale they get the same amount of money per year of experience than all of the administrators in the district do as well um and so that's how their experience is is is compensated for that um we defin I mean I personally I definitely don't disagree that our nurses deserve that same 10% increase um but I would say that in looking at the comparison within our region like

104I spoke to with you about with the 10 11 and 12 and the pay scale for teachers um our nurses are currently sitting fourth in that comparison and so I don't think any of the nurses in our region are getting paid enough um but when you're looking at um across the board in a comparison they are sitting at a higher rank than our teachers are in comparison to people in equal um Staffing options that they're currently in I would argue the fact with you on that one that it's probably more difficult to find quality nurses that are willing to work in the school system um than it is to find teach teachers in various areas I think we have a huge shortage both in the medical field and in the teaching field at this point

105I do not dispute that whatsoever um and again just like teachers there are other options you were referencing sok earlier um we've got other areas where if you've got nurses that live within the county they can probably go elsewhere and make a lot more money so my goal is to get it in that average yes we would we would agree we would like to get all of them there that that 1500 you you mentioned for BSN is that a one-time payment or does that go into the base pay it's into their pay it gets calculated in equal installments overall 1500 inre salary just like any other Advanced degree supplement every single year that is added on to their um their pay um into their contract and divided over the equal installments of that so let

106me ask you this looking at the numbers that I have are any of the nurses or clinic assistants anywhere near what I have listed I don't I mean that would be a I couldn't really answer that just because I don't know what you you would buy near um all of our nurses have experience no no I'm talking about pay scale yeah so all of our nurses have experience so so at this time we don't have anyone who is receiving a base pay as a nurse okay I'm talking about the current salaries that they are currently making is it anywhere near what I have listed they are making more than the 47 277 okay that's what's listed as a base pay which I took off yep the online and my change to that would be bringing

107it to 52,000 are they anywhere near that number some of them are making more than that yes okay based on their years of experience in the in the field okay I'm I'm still sticking with this that I want this submitted for consideration in the budget as well I can provide you exact numbers you know that would be great no names just number of positions and or this is their current rate of pay y don't need names just title but in order rbsn LPN right just those position to include this in the budget we would need to go back and rework the numbers and come back to you to say the actual total is going to be this because the 10% is going to look a lot different on their current salaries versus what this is

108okay correct and I believe these Virginia average salaries that you have listed here that's for a 12month position whereas ours are 10mon and it wasn't based on any time frame these are just general averages from the 25th percentile to the 7 75th percentile but it would be for 12 months of work and ours only work 10 months out of the year so that that's why it's not equivalent pay to say you know that a school nurse is anywhere from 40 to 6,992 that's for 12 months of work I'm looking at the averages and this would be based on what is it 200 or 220 days or something like that additionally just may we make sure we gather everything for the proposal this also would be adding um I believe three positions so three Clinic assistance

109is what you want to add um it would change two from from part-time to full-time we don't have any part-time so we have a substitute I'm sorry substitute my mistake I take that back um from substitute to fulltime so that mean so that means we would deplete our substitute fund like we would take the funds out of the substitute fund because those positions those two positions are not currently budgeted for as payroll um as a position we have a pot of money that we we have um as a substitute fund and so in order to create these as three new positions we would need to keep some money in the substitute fund to to make up for when they're not there um but also then create two positions or three because there's a third one

110as well okay okay so I'm just making sure that's what you're asking for so three new Clinic assistant positions for us to work up the numbers of what that would do to affect the budget I looking at the budget as a whole and I'm speaking solely for myself um with any budget you've got definite needs you've got wants and you've got wishes and looking at the total budget I'm of a firm belief that somewhere somehow we're going to have to trim about 3 million off of it that's the way I'm looking at it I don't know how I don't know where um but some of that could be repurposed for specifically this so and that we're just going to have to figure this out as we go I think we're in a little bit of

111gray ter at least it is great for me but I think what you're asking is for the staff to change the proposed budget um would the board agree that that's an action item okay no I didn't intend for it to be an action item tonight okay so I apologize if it was taken that way question the step increase from last year were the nurses included in that yes thank you or the percent increase that we gave the 3% not just the 3% didn't we do a step increase as well for only for those on the teaching pay scale so none of your administrative pay scales got step increases none of your support staff um employees got step increases because there is no step scaled like there is no increment if you look at our pay

112scales there's a base rate and they were given years of experience so on years where you give a step increase instructional staff members in the clinicians are the only ones who get the step and the percentage okay I thought they were included in we did not compensate for our years last year in like the admin pay scale okay so just just so I can go on record I do not expect it to be an action item tonight I do expect it to be an action item prior to finalizing the budget so for the sake of time we'll summarize it by saying that the the budget proposed by the superintendent includes a 3% pay raise for out White County Employees across the board and the existing proposal includes an additional 2% for our nursing staff so

113that the nurses would get 5% Mr Rooster's proposal would include a 10% on top of the 3% for the nurses is that is that what you're telling us that would be a negative that would be 10% period not on top of any any other percentage total 10% total of 10 okay all right moving right along we can do you want me to provide that the what the estimate would be what it how it would change this budget that we have proposed if we would change you know remove that 2% and only give them or not only but give them a 10% increase if you could do that that would be great I would love to see it if I can suggest it sounds like there's some disparities between what's presented and what the staff's actually

114getting paid to include their uh additional stiens based off certifications I I think it would be well worth our time to look at how that really measures out so that we get an ACC accurate uh depiction of The Proposal I I struggle with the notion of giving one and again I I listen the nurses they need to be paid my wife's a nurse I get it nurses work their tails off um but I struggle with the notion of of singling out one group to get a 10% raise where whereas everyone else gets three um I'm having a hard time with that I I think it's important to if we're going to consider giving pay raises to everyone we need to look at the entire division equally um rather than singling out any particular group we

115were talking earlier about sped positions and sped teachers and how hard it is to hire them and we we could certainly argue that all of our sped teachers need 10% you know we could we could pick any any number of positions that we would be better equipped to recruit if they were getting paid more so let's take five good e e e check check back in session okay I'll open it up who wants to talk about what next I'm willing to you know go ahead and start up yes sir so before we went on break you mentioned Mr chair that you know given one class of people a pay raise without another class of people getting something totally different probably isn't the right way to go now on page 204 on the handout we were

116looking at in the middle it says changes in Pay okay and we start off with um literacy coaches U getting an additional $6,500 a year uh sped inclusion IAS is a dollar an hour sped selfcontained IAS $2 an hour I have no argument with either one of those counseling registar two of them at the $3,350 additional a year one network administrator changing to a system administrator at almost $10,000 increase in his pay year and then of course the nurses that Mr Worcester had had talked about so I just want some more information on on these with the exception of the sped I think we've already gotten that yep absolutely so for the Middle School reading interventionists changing them to literacy coaches actually expands their contract by one month so they're not getting an increase of

117pay except for the fact that they're giving also more work um so it's not increasing their current hourly rate it's just paying them for an extra month that means that they would be able to work in the month of um August yes in the month of August I was saying July August so that they can prep for the students returning to school and have those literacy plans already in place the same is true of the counseling registar again their pay is not going up on an hourly rate this would be taking them from the two at the High school would be taking them from 11 to 12 months right now they are off um during the month of July which is when we have some of the busiest time in our counseling departments with enrollments

118and transfers at the high school level um and so those two are really contract changes we were extending their contract by a month and that's how much it would cost to extend that um the only one that you'll see on the next page is an increase but that's also a title and responsibility change so it's not just increasing the pay for the individual ual who doing the same job um their job has really morphed over the last 10 years I think since it's been in in place maybe even longer than that past decade um and so instead of just overseeing the computer systems and networks previously which is why it was a network administrator they're now ensuring compliance with cyber security regulations um which is a huge piece of our world now that didn't exist

11910 years ago so protecting us against hackers making sure that all of the Safety and Security pieces of Technology tie well our camera systems for Safety and Security so all of those things were not in place are nearly as advanced in that decade ago um and so this is changing the broader scope of that person's responsibilities and paying them for such okay just um Mr Sullivan um off offline later if you could just you know let me know what that person's pay would ultimately be I just want to see you know in in that type of profession Y what it compares to okay thank thank you Mr chair thank you sir anybody else well we kind of lost our we're still on page two but on on page two if nobody has anything else on

120change and pay I would like to go to supplements and stiens any objection no sir go ahead okay the the one thing I'm looking at and I'm pretty sure everybody knows where I'm going with this the CPR trainer stien is that going to be for a certified CPR course which is a two-year certification or is it just basic training with no certification so the CPR trainer stien would be for the one individual in our division that would be responsible for certifying or training based on the requirements of that person or the need of that person um to receive that level of certification so that person would be a certified trainer in CPR so that they could certify um at the highest need which would meet the school board's requirement to have certified CPR as well

121as the Federal Regulation to have a certain amount per building um and then it would also satisfy our lier requir of our teachers where they all have to on a 10-year rotating cycle at least receive Hands-On training related to CPR so it would satisfy both of those requirements okay could well CPR certifications are only good for two years yes so this person would be paid on an annual basis to recertify those people so this this isn't make sure I'm understanding this correctly this is a certified BLS CPR instructor yes that would provide CPR training whether it be American Heart Red Cross American Safety and Health Institute for a two-year certification based on current medical standards yes thank you that was easy Mr wster thank you what else you got may I say I really appreciate

122yall having the correct response to that I think I speak for all of us we good we ready for page three let's roll on to page three all I'll start [Music] um where he go where'd he go where'd he go go ahead I I'll anybody go ahead sir okay it's back to me again uh keep in mind I graduated 1986 so I'm old school so I'm looking at the first line on the purchase services for transportation additional funds for chartered Transportation it in a sum of $4,500 uh in the grand scheme of things $4,500 is not a lot but do we really need a chartered service or could we utilize a school bus if the if the fleet Mr wer was up to par I would easily say to use a um one of our

123buses would always like to use one of our buses and one of our drivers with the basis of how we're sitting today with the fleet um we do not feel comfortable sending students um to places let's just say sometimes uh over 90 miles or what you said 4 five hours yeah four or five hours away for a state championship so that's why it's easier to just take a chartered bus but getting the fleet where we need to get the fleet to then yes it is it will be very very easy to do that but as you stated um moving forward with the five buses every single year it's just going to be a couple of years it's going to be four five maybe even six years before we get the fleet to that level but

124we're moving forward to that but until then um we have various high schools that are winning state championships on a regular basis and as Miss guest just pointed out the location for those items are nowhere near here so that's why we have it there correct me if I'm wrong here but uh in the back of my mind did we have a dedicated School Bus for overnight trips or things like this in the past I don't know about now um no um I don't think so Mr wer okay um unless anybody wants to jump in I'm just going to finish this page uh moving down um and I know we we've had this conversation before dealing with transportation and the engine replacement replacing one per year in the amount of $35,000 to me it's a little

125bit difficult to predict when an engine is going to fail and like I said we've had this conversation especially if you're dealing with you know a diesel engine barring catastrophic failure if that engine is worn out to where it needs replacement then I I would argue that the bus itself is worn out Beyond repair because diesel engines last forever can you kind of elaborate on that one yes sir um as you stated the diesel engine lasts a lot longer and then most times if it fails then it's the replacement of the entire bus but $335,000 is a lot easier to get your hands on than $150,000 in terms of working within the budget so um we're using sometimes engines and getting the new engines and putting them in buses that are past their lifetime and

126that's what we have been doing before and that's what we're doing doing now until the Fleet Service can get caught up so we have a in the foreseeable future we're going to continue to have to replace engines and different things and although the majority of the fleet is diesel we still do have those propane buses we have one bus replacement engine at this time but this year alone we did do uh we did perform two uh bus replacement engines one on a propane bus also when when do we expect to start seeing the new buses we will have the first uh first five in from last year this time in April they're coming in actually um early we have the two but the right okay yeah because I I admit I do have concerns on

127this one number one I don't know how you can budget predicting you're going to replace an engine each year and number two again what I've already said that if a diesel engine is worn out barring catastrophic failure I would say that the buess is history as well all right so that would uh in that case and the engine does fail on the buses then we would have to start slowly once again reducing the buses and waiting for the 12 to 18 months in order to receive another bus in you know instead of just uh putting them to the side pulling out 35,000 and replacing the bus engine and getting the bus open I don't think anyone disagrees with you $300,000 300,000 miles on an engine is same as 300,000 Mi on a bus itself but

128at the same time what what can get us through the year that's what we're looking at right now although we're in better shape than last year but it's still the mindset is what can get us through the year now hypothetically speaking uh let's say you did put a new engine in a bus and in 100,000 miles the bus is history it's wore completely out have you already got plans in place to take that engine back out and keep that as a spare in the event you need another one I would have to talk to Mr Sullivan about that in detail but based off the knowledge I know about Mr Sullivan he does have a plan to pull that engine out and auction off the bus and make sure that that engine is ready to go

129for another bus knowing um I would hate to take an engine that's only got 50 to 100,000 miles on it and just let it go off at an auction I I yeah I can get a little bit more information but I doubt that seriously Mr W he would allow that to occur everything that we push off to an auction is literally uh um we cannot even resell it sometimes we try to resell it in local um more of the local auctions of different things and it it cannot be resold because of the amount of parts that we have taken off of it and and um stripped it right yes sir um moving down okay the my View School Bus Tracker I'm looking looking looking at this it's 14 I need my glasses it's 14,800 and

130it says the cost is 126 annually for each bus um looking at the number of buses that we currently have I don't know if you're basing it on future buses but looking at the 62 buses we've got that comes out to like $7,810 that is correct the installation fee for the uh for the beginning of the service is going to be higher and then every year will go down and this is for the overall tracking of the buses okay yes sir now just so you're aware I've I've had um citizens in the county parents actually email me pertaining to this yes sir and I've got some security questions for you okay as with any I'm assuming it's an app I don't know anything about this this device but I'm assuming that it would be an

131app that can be utilized on your phone is that correct that is it for the parents um for the parents to be able to track the buses yes right my main concern on this um how secure is it because you know how today's world is you know you've got child predators and everybody has access to the networks right how secure of a device is this because we don't want that tracking system getting into the wrong hands right and you know of course I can't go into the overall house Securities will anyone break into the device go right here but overall make sure this is on good evening Mr rooster I actually have met with a company a couple of times with Mr Fike and the app uh they just signed all their security paperwork so

132they have several security certifications you can also not receive access to view the bus on several different security levels one is you have to have a student at the School two is you have to have a student on the bus three you receive an invite code to be able to view the bus and four you can only see the bus when it's in a certain range of your home so it it does have built-in redundancies yes sir okay because that was my main concern um it sounds to me like it's a a very good program you know especially with parents you know like the way my kids were it was difficult to get them up in the mornings and if you can track that plus okay you know exactly when it's coming so that's what

133I wanted to find out um if it wasn't a secure system I had no intentions of supporting it but if it is secure me neither it sounds great that's all I've got on that part yes sir what was the Mr Cunningham Perkins what was the range so they can only see it within a certain amount like how much are we talking like a f minute heads up or um I don't want to speak out of turn it would they showed me a demo of it and it was not far um I want to say on the demo we were watching it might have been a mile but I can't say for certain you could I can look into that for you though okay I've received an email from a parent who said uh he likes

134it and he wants to see it uh what I'm interested in I'm concerned about uh security also uh how many uh divisions in the area already have this I would have to speak to Mr Fike I was only checking on security and meeting with the company to ensure they complied speak to Mr Fike got I don't know the exact amount but I can I don't want to mention another District or another division but there is at least another division who introduced this to Superintendent at a superintendent meeting so at least another division or divisions are using this okay and I did ask Dr Coleman and Mr fik to prepare uh Mr C Ridder I suspect as well to prepare an update at some point uh to introduce more uh pertaining to this but yes uh

135the division that is using it uh is finding success and I think parents are pleased with this additional level of uh security okay that that that was a question uh plus I mean that's the biggest question uh what other division is using it I don't have to know specifically but if they have any problems what the problems are are they being worked through and also how long's this system been out has it been out a year has it been out five years you know that kind of stuff and and if something's going to be prepared for us I'm I'm all for it because uh more information we get uh the parents will he hear about it also and they can uh and they can either support it or not support it but we're representing them

136would either of you speak to the capabilities their different levels of of of of usage that we can um we can subscribe to I mean Dr Comey we were actually meeting with Mr fik earlier today he's talking about the differences between um Z and rers so um there are several levels of it's referred to as a ridership system um you can the one we're viewing at is called my view and that's where you can see the bus right if your student is on the bus and you attend the school and it's within a range you can see the bus there's an increased option I don't know how else to word that um where you could have children checking in and off buses that's referred to as straight student ridership that's obviously a more expensive and

137more intense version right it's more of a badging system going in and going off of the buses but that tells you whether or not a specific student is on a bus if they haven't lost their badge because obviously Transportation would not say you're not allowed to come home because you dropped your badge in the launch lunchroom and those are some of the things that Dr cranker were mentioning as he said the hurdles that the other division have worked through so we will be reaching out to the other Division and seeing the um items at work item the hurdles and how did they come around this and get to the point that they're loving the entire system so we will work through that slowly same way we did weapons detection the same way we're going to

138do this take our time work through it until we can figure out a way okay sounds good to me I let Mr fik know your questions as well Dr uh Coleman yeah Miss Perkins and I have talked a little bit about this and we probably want to talk with you a little bit more offline um makes sense we've got a few ideas I like the the second one that you mentioned where the child badges in and off the bus sir I think that provides a little bit more security yes sir and you know less likely to have a kid go uh go out wander off if we will no problem we'll set up a meeting okay yes sir are we losing anything in the initiation I guess for like of better word fees that go

139along with it if we do the base and then later on we're able to add no ma'am Tru The Zone our system is the base system anyway so no matter what you would have to go through the Zone our system so whether you're going to get the um the rers ship or you're going to get just the Mad View looking at the buses either way you have to get that base and that should just be one time even if you be a one time installation yes oh no all right we ready to go on the next page one more all right I got one more this this is basically just seeking an explanation um for SE CTE travel and training it's $5,000 uh says changes in VD CTE Charters and curriculum is this simply the

140curriculum itself yeah that's for training um additional training for any new things that we happen to do with CTE like Mr Miller has done quite a bit of training um for welding so it's just we have had more um training and so we're asking for a little bit of an increase to cover that some of it we can cover Through the Perkins Grant but not all of it okay it's just the way it was worded it it's a little wonky you're right thank you all right next page everybody we good all right I'll lead this one off if you don't mind uh can you talk to to the uh the office supply distribution I understand that was done a little bit differently in years past and you guys have kind of restructured that I don't

141believe that the schools themselves have gotten an increase for instructional materials and other supplies in some time so we were looking at this by taking we estimated 175,000 but we are Distributing it based on the number of pupils um and then going forward like for this next uh budget year we would look at you know we would establish uh per dollar amount um for staff development for supplies so that every school knows up front this is how much you're going to get um and I think that was used here many years ago um but this one here so this is allocated based on the Staffing or pupil count as of October I believe seems like a significant amount of change a change there um and I'm not saying they don't need it I'm just I'm

142just sped $45,000 if they didn't have it this year what what didn't they get to buy I guess is the question well as you'll see there this says the sped IO grow program so if you recall when we talked about that earlier the tuition that is paid on that that amounts to about 990,000 a year and of that the amount for materials equipment as well as the stiens that are paid to those folks um hadn't been included on the expenditure side of the budget previously so those expenses have been coming directly out of um Miss magar's uh sped budget so this was just making sure we identified this source of Revenue and the matching it to those expenses so just pick another school we'll just say uh Carolton the 18,000 they were pulling those I'm

143assuming they're not buying anything new they were pulling out of some other fund yeah I would like to respond to that so the schools get instructional funds um and they get um money for staff development to use as they need to so for example um art supplies music supplies PE equipment recess equipment that is all purchased from the schools individually so if they want to do a music program for the holidays they are buying that two or $3,000 program they we don't tell them what to buy that's their discretion to V to purchase um but that's what these funds cover they have not had an increase I literally cannot even remember and I've been here a long long time I cannot remember the last time they received an increase and as you know everything has

144gone up in cost so even to cover the art supplies in a classroom they're struggling to meet all of those needs um so this is long overdue even to send their teachers to any sort of conference they really are not able to do that they are sending a handful of teachers to any conference a year now they don't have the money I I get it I you know I got two of them in school and and I've had a handful of notifications from teachers hey anybody who can Pony up XY Z pleased you and it could be any any number of things so yeah and so what happens is if they're not doing that teachers are paying out of their pockets for things we do not want them to do that I don't think any

145of us want that yeah okay that's all I got anybody else I'd like to go back up one line um to the two aeds annually I know with the aeds the lifespan is roughly about 10 years I don't know what the age of the aeds we currently have are they aging out uh what what is the reasoning for the two ads annually they are uh you hit it right on ahead Mr W they're aging out at this time um now we did purchase a large bulk of aeds just to ensure that we're in compliance um but at the same time we did have a lot of batteries that were had died out U the pack ads had expired just different things of that nature so with the existing ones what we like to do is

146just try to set more of a life cycle at this time so we can just count on replacing two every single year until we can uh we can get back to par with everything that's going on had just out of curiosity has anyone looked into um school grants for aeds yes um we're talking outside of state and federal yes uh what was the last one we received was um I would have to get back to you on that Mr wster but uh I will say yes we have received the grant before and we covered a couple of aeds with those now it wasn't this year but it was before but I would have to get back to you with that information I know with some of the grants you can you can actually get one

147or more free with a bulk order Goa yes so I don't know you're saying two annually you know you don't want everything expiring at the same time CU then you end up with a big bulk of money involved um I tell you what I'll I'll actually dig into that myself yes sir I'll take a look at that I've got several more on this page if you want me to continue or if anybody wants to chime in knock yourself out okay moving down security dealing with radio batteries and supplies in the amount of 15,00 ,000 um I know I don't know what kind of I'm assuming portable radio batteries um I know batteries are not cheap we've got them at work uh it's on a conditioner and we've been using the same Batteries Now for at

148least 6 to 8 years so what are we looking at 15,000 for Batteries how many batteries and what are we talking about here all right so these these are not only the batteries for the ones that you feel is the uh I guess you say the radio that's in the office we have over 190 two-way batteries throughout the division what you say oh radios batteries the batteries connected to the radio so we have uh at least 190 of them throughout the division um some schools have more than others you're looking at bus Duty looking at cafeteria Duty you're looking at individuals that have the radios on the playgrounds just different things of that nature for Safety and Security point of view now these have been purchased throughout the years I don't even know how many

149years they've went back to I mean it it it actually it surpasses me in the amount of time that I've been here with different radios and different things of that nature radios break and we were at the same time I'm making the schools actually replace their radios so with the instructional funds so that one thing that was coming out of instructional funds was the replacing of the radios keeping everything moving forward at this time we've taking all r radios and the consistency of the radios on the schedule and we place those under the security um uh management pretty much Mr Brinkley to manage all of these radios and then place the funds under his line item so he can start managing this um 100% okay um you wouldn't have to know what type of radios

150are like motor rollers or whatever 360 they are licensed on the FAA frequency for isay County Schools okay is there a charging station that you should put them right back in yep reconditioning charging stations um are provided for schools that have a very large population so we don't have one everywhere and as an FYI the batteries are I say like $40 a piece it's just a sheer volume okay um if you're not already doing it just just a suggestion when you put a battery and service just date it I totally agree and I do that okay good enough I haven't done that with these radios but that's what I do and the radios I'm responsible for all right good enough thanks yes sir uh next slide vehicle parts this is the same question going back

151to the engine replacing an engine how do you predict what vehicle parts you're going to need or are you creating a stockpile for potential breakdowns there's no stockpile um if the stockpile consist of two or three parts only the Shelf then then there is a stock P but other than that I believe that you're thinking of maybe 40 different oil filters just sitting there waiting there's no stock power everything is rotated firmly this these numbers come from actual um the standard equation of how much funds will go into a vehicle uh every single year based off the year based off the mileage so anytime a vehicle is purchased and bought on then that is what is figured okay and one more thing to add if I may once again this is another area that hasn't

152had any increase um for a number of years and we've added Fleet you know to our our inventory so okay um and again it's just for clarification yes I have got I've got one more on this question and I am going to lump technology equipment all into the same question dealing with Promethean boards that is a significant amount of pocket change right there with especially Carolton I'm looking at 93 believe it's 21 boards prek through second grade yes sir okay with this amount of money how can you guarantee and I know guarantee is a broad word here how can you guarantee the Improvement of the education of the students by the use of Promethean boards I believe that's a twofold answer and I'm not going to answer the education piece however I do want to

153point out the financial piece so the projectors that are currently in place are extremely old they were birth bought the first year Dr thoron was here so 2016 so we're talking they're on eight years going on nine okay consumer projectors are more expensive now than they ever have been um I'm talking consumer Enterprise projectors let me clarify this is not a projector you would use at your house it's a projector that would be on you know an average of 7 hours a day 180 days a year um it's significant it has to have a very robust build a projector replacement with updated cabling and all the other requirements tends to run somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000 out of the box or for a non currently existing installation about 2700 that's all the cabling run

154through the ceilings run to a box on the wall a prometheum board we have negotiated down in the neighborhood of 2600 and I actually just got word from our supplier today that that may drop slightly so a Promethean board while not cheaper than a projector when one goes bad is in the same neighborhood in a new build all right number two of that is these are network capable straight out of the box as far as educational Improvement which means while a teacher can remotely connect to that board to show their screen they are not required to they could be using their computer for alternative tasks so you can bring up many apps that are built into those boards and I'm not saying Promethean per se I use the term Promethean but it's just the bid

155that won this year [Music] um they have built-in educational apps as well as a built-in web browser so you can pull up things like various websites show to your students you can have two I think it's a 10-point touch screen which means you can have two students doing work on the board side by side at the same time which a projector does not allow so those are some of my inputs on that particular one does that help without the Promethean boards how detrimental would that be to the education of students well I'd first like to just point out that when you look look at schools to school comparison Hardy Elementary has promethium boards in every room Carolton does not so you've got two schools in our County they serve same grade levels but one school

156is getting one set of students is getting an entirely different experience than the other personally I feel like that is not correct um the experience is um much more interactive with appr meum board I was in a classroom this week and they were doing um math Bingo on the board and the students go up they select what they want they go back they work the problem they go back they hit it and get the answer you can't do that on a projector you can't do that on a regular board it's very interactive and engaging for our students so does it help the education absolutely and and quite honestly it is a staple in most classrooms across the country I I'll Echo your point and I'll I'll put out her name specifically so my son has

157Mrs Snelling who is a rock star she is um and when I went to see her classroom I think it was when we did the crunch her round the world I asked her off to the side how do you like the Promethean board she said she loves it and she uses it all the time for whatever that's worth at least one teacher seems to be a huge fan our teachers love them so it's not just Hardy that has them speak to the disparity other elementary schools I can't if it helps yes they don't but we don't we are not at the point where every classroom has them in every building Hardy does because we just opened Hardy um at the high schools for example we've been able to purchase for Math and Science classrooms so

158one of the things we need to do would be English History and elective classes um and so we have been able to do various grade levels or various subject areas in different schools we don't have other schools that have them completely and so what we're trying to do is add additional in order to do that do we want to outfit entire schools so I know that's probably an unrealistic amount but if we could even start with one school and if we did one each year or one grade level each year it would eventually get us to that point and like Mr CP Ridder said if you don't have the prometheum board let's say we don't have that well we're absolutely going to have a projector he's saying that the cost of the projector is actually

159going to be greater than the cost of of a Promethean board little bit less little was it a little bit less little sorry um but minuscule right huh excuse me a very small amount it's not a whole so it really wouldn't be worth adding the projector when you can get a prometheum board and get so much more out of it and that's where we're that's the point where at we're getting ready to have to start replacing correct maybe you already uh answered this and I missed it what is the lifespan on these so we start getting all of these in the classrooms what are we looking out for ongoing expenses with them so when we buy them we buy a 5-year warranty that means we're guaranteed for 5 years I have contacted neighboring divisions such

160as Hampton who has quite a few they have ones that have run for 9 10 plus years it gets variable they're expect lifespan is about 8 to 10 which is a couple years longer than a projector I I would like to know the return on investment basically um in the classrooms where we have them are these children are they doing better or they advancing more than in the classrooms without Mr kic I would love to be able to give you a straight answer on that there are so many variables for how a kid progresses in a classroom I I really would struggle to answer that that that's I'm going to have the same question when we get to technology as well okay that that's pretty much what I was getting at as far as I

161know we live in a technologically advanced world now um everything is electronic but can you attribute these Promethean boards to students students achieving not only a good education but if you want to base it on standards well above the state level not just average above state level I I don't and I know that's almost an impossible question to answer it truly is what I can tell you is teachers like to use them and feel that it helps engage children more that's what I can tell you numbers to numbers there's so many variables you could not possibly say it's attributed to that one variable right and I I'm I'm hearing on the flip side I've spoken to about a handful of teachers um and I've gotten mixed reviews on it some say they don't like it

162some say they don't even use it it's there but they don't use it so Mr kic worded it much better than I did return on investment um thank you by the way but that's pretty much what I'm looking at is it really worth it to have these and spend that additional funds and again I would just point out that we have buildings that have them we have children who are using them and we have children who do not have the access to them which I think is a disparity that we should try to fix okay that that's all I have on this subject well on on the same page we've got $165,000 for iPad replacement rotation you know 400 per year for uh for three grades so every year we're buying new iPads new new

163Chromebooks um which to keep this program going we have to do I get it but I I need to know are we getting a return on investment on that will we buy each child a Chromebook or a tablet that they eventually get to take with them have our scores on a gone up considerably to consider this a good investment or if we didn't have those would the scores still be about what they are right now okay I said the the money is is not there for everything so we've got to look very closely what I'm getting at are these nice to have or these absolutely essential to the learning environment for each kid to have his own instead of having some available in in the schools for the students I don't really see it as

164are we increasing test scores as much as I see it as preparing students for the future and preparing them for Beyond high school if we were not doing that for our students I think they would be ill equipped when they get to College we can't assume that every child has access to technology in their home because they certainly do not so I do think if we are going to be competitive and prepare our students it is an absolute must that we have computers and give students computers how do we measure that need to do that against all our other priorities that we have Mr colleag that's a that's a good question um I don't I'm not sure how to answer that one um I will just say that technology is absolutely a need we must

165continue with it we cannot fall behind in that area um and even just l think a few years ago with the pandemic had we not been where we were I don't know how we would have functioned we would have been like other divisions that were really scrambling but because we already had a good base we were able to quickly um create a virtual school in a matter of a week okay see so what I'm hearing is you you're saying it's absolutely necessary for us to make sure each child has a school provided device at least access I mean third third and up we have you know um K2 we allow them to have the iPads um in prek-2 it's a classroom set of iPads they do not go home yeah right um in third and

166fourth grades it's a classroom iPad it does not go home fifth grade and above for Chromebooks I think I said Chromebooks they have the option to take them home the design idea is 5 through eight and then starting next year will be 9 through 12 as well okay rotations I just want to make sure before I say you know give give my thumbs up thumbs down I know you know what we're you know where our priorities have to be because I mean we got a lot we're asking for in his book yes and we're not getting it all no and there are going to be some things I think think that we've used over the years that we probably have to stop using and there's going to be some things we're asking for that we're

167not going to get um so we really need your help identifying what they are so I would say this is one of those this is a necessity I think to continue what we are currently doing and and let I'm just going to add this really quickly um our new reading program it has a lot of interactive things it yes it's it's a necessity Mr K that's and with that yes yes sir thank you Mrs GS I guess I just want to be clear too I think we had a lot of discussions about like what do we need to cut and I think it's it's very imperative of us to you know take a hard look at the requests that we've had to look at our budget to make sure that we have shed up the

168money that we receive and that we're using that appropriately um but I also like I I guess my question is are we are we in a deficit as a county are we worried about needing to cut the requests that we have because there is no funding for us no I don't think we're in a deficit okay what I want to be able to do is go in and be practical okay with the Board of Supervisors okay um we're asking for anywhere from as I read it 6,898 65 increase down to to 3,341 287 that's the range that we're asking for I honestly you know I don't see us going more than you know 2 and a half million up okay and that's going to cover mostly the pay raises which I know every one of

169us supports are we going to be able to get everything else that we're told here that we need uh without without going up there you know to almost an additional million do okay does it mean we're not going to ask for it no but what do I expect with my conversations last year with the board and you some conversation this year I don't expect we're going to get what we're asking for yeah and I think again to Dr Kramer's point in the previous budget sessions I think that's unfortunate given that we are still funded below the percentage that we were several years ago we have not we're not close to the 35% in the overall budget that we've requested and we're talking about taking iPad ads and and I know that you're not saying that

170specifically but when we have to even you know like consider cutting technology out of students hands that is a given in every other school district I want my kid to have access to that and as a taxpayer here I'm willing to pay for that um and so I think that that's just something for us to consider in going in and asking for the funds that we really consider what's worth cutting um and what we're taking away from our children and our teachers experiences in that and that's exactly what we're here for you know that was my exact question on the technology is there return on investment if there is I'm all about keeping it but if we're just putting money out to put money out I'm I'm not for that you know I'm I'm actually

171glad you brought up the tax issue um I said earlier that well I didn't say it earlier but when we're dealing with the budget we've got to look at the overall picture what do the schools need what do the students need and we've got to possibly pull from one area to put into another and benefit that but we've also got to take into consideration the citizens of the county and talking about taxes um obviously more and more funding that we receive that the county provides um they're getting it from where taxpayers not once have I had a person come up to me and say gly G I really hope my taxes go up this year it's never happened um Mr you gave me the magical number of $67,400 which equates to for every 600 please

172corit me if I'm wrong for every $67,400 that the county provides that equals a 1 cent per 100 real estate tax so let's just say you took that 670,000 400 have you already done it so it comes out to the 10.16 10 cents on 100 so 10 cents on 100 well it depends how much is your tax going to go up personally I don't want mine going up any more than what it already is and that's another thing that me personally I do take into consideration when going through this budgeting I think that's a well said listen you I applaud you all for sitting down there and Fielding questions and answering a lot of the questions we already know the answers to um I don't think anyone up here is suggesting that we start cutting

173technology um what we're trying to say is we have to come up with a prioritize list and I'll I'll finish by what I started saying is at least from my perspective it would be better if superintendent and staff prioritized instead of of marsh making his Assumption of what I think you should cut and again I think we should be able to get all this stuff it's probably not going to happen should we ask for it not saying we shouldn't but again you have to look at the big picture right $9.5 Million last year we're we're looking at I don't know what the dollar amount of that top five is what is it another $9 million that's nothing to snub knows that um in in my mind if we can work closely with the county and

174knock out some of these capital projects that have been deferred for years and years get that behind us and then we'll March forward and strive for that 35% in the years to follow that's that's my personal Vision I and I I don't know where everybody else's head is but that's just how I see it I'm looking at the long game I'm not looking right in front of me if if I may um you know a lot of these one-time um purchases we're looking to do could be um they could use one-time you know money that they have like surpluses that they have on their side of the budget could be used towards these purchases that's fair that's fair and and and those conversations are going to happen and as we don't control the County's budget

175when they look at ours they generally aren't touching our operating bu budget they're going after the CIP so if we come to them with an operating budget that is higher we just lost the band room so that's where our concern is and what we have to prioritize and I don't know if that means maybe we need to do things a little unique this year and do here's the operation operating budget we absolutely have to have and this is what we think is still important and we'd rather maybe lose this than the CIP funding I don't I don't know the solutions but we are trying hard and doing our due of diligence to dig in to the budget get questions answered both for our sake for taxpayers and Board of Supervisors so we do appreciate your

176patience with all of these questions um I'm not done but it sounds like you want to go well this is a group decision here you rock and roll Miss Perkins okay I I am hungry for the record that's why I brought a SN um okay just quickly on page 28 number 70 there's joint operations what is that that's cep and Governor School the tuition that we pay um under miscellaneous number 58 there is a jump that adds another 137,000 or so what is included in this miscellaneous fund the increase that you see there of 137,00 223 that represents the after school program okay I'm trying to read through sorry that's the summer remediation program um that is on page 27 item number or program 600 what is that it was 91,000 went to 185 went

177up to 88 8,000 do we know what that jump is all about it's because it wasn't budgeted in fiscal year 25 we we still had summer school it just wasn't budgeted in the appropriate line okay what I'm going through here I see that we have the four pages that includes this 11% increase but I've also noticed um if my quick math was right I believe it's 7% is already in this proposed budget so there's increases in here um for something and then we have what maybe 5% more in this four page thing we're now the the grand total on the the four page summary um of 6.8 million um of the operating budget um that is 5 what is it 5. 826 um the one thing that is separate would be the textbook local match

178of 309,000 because that's on a different fund okay bringing that up um you have this as a new thing was this included in the budget last year um not as a not in the separate textbook fund so in the 2025 budget there's around $300,000 for the mat local match for the textbook fund well it's not the it's not specific to um the local match is not specific to the textbook fund um as long as we the the county meets the local required contribution then we get those textbook funds so this is just the the way that the budget has been done here of having a separate textbook fund and moving the local match separately to the textbook fund okay I don't if I explained that very well but so it's it's it is it I

179did add it as an addition this year yes it's it comes into our operating budget but we move it to the textbook fund we can do that but this I'm doing it as an addition got it okay page 27 program 200 what is the special programs that's um special education sped okay I think I'm good good to go Mr Cunningham good Mr koll Mr wer I got one this is more for my own knowledge again going back to me being old school graduated in ' 86 um with all the technological advancements we've got what textbooks do we currently use yep um we purchase um textbooks for dual enrollment classes that the colleges that camp college requires we purchase those um usually every year there's changes in the dual enrollment textbooks or if we add new

180dual enrollment courses so we can spend anywhere between 20 to $50,000 for textbooks for dual enrollment um with that money we have a lot of online programs and supplements that we use and so those all come out of the textbook fun okay I was just curious um back when I was in school generally students had one arm longer than the other from carrying books all day yep so and we still have some of those but a lot of them are online now yeah being just you know traveling through the schools I have yet to see a student carrying a book they they they exist I promise you um but there they are not like what you and I remember now thanks my little girl carries a backpack that weighs as much as she does it's

181funny books it's got binders full of paper yes it's funny anybody else if I may you may ma'am um on page 26 of the budget document um there is is the summary by functional area of the expenses and in the third column it shows the full-time equivalent positions well after I did this I realized that I forgot to add in the new positions that we are proposing so I've asked Mrs Whitlow here to just provide you this page so you can see that there's an additional 15 FTE that should have been in there the dollars have always been in there I just forgot to adjust those FTE now you know I'm human almost perfect now you've got my attention drawn to it why does it skip the sequence the function sequence it goes from 64

182to 67 a 65 is is Food Service okay 66 is facilities anything else you want to add are we missing anything no sir that's all Dr Kramer no we appreciate the dialogue and uh look forward to any other questions you might have between now and our next uh work session yeah so I'm sure uh between now and next Thursday there'll be a plethora of questions and dialogue coming from each of us to most of you um I look forward to hearing from the public sure we're going to hear quite a bit it's that time of the year and again I listen I applaud your uh your your passion and your advocacy for funding um there's no easy answers no one's going to be happy all the time um we got the tough decision of figuring

183out how to prioritize it then our friends down the road have the tough decision of figuring out how much they can afford to give us so we'll just leave it at that any any aliis we good got one yes sir I would like to thank the Carolton staff and students for the lovely flowers you've given us yes sir that's the only thing I have yes yes or indeed all right thank you okay just real quick um for the staff I know I've just got one um for the staff here um I just want to apologize for not being here at the previous meeting um it was unavoidable due to work and I want to thank U Mr Marsh here for clarifying that at the beginning of the meeting so hopefully it will not happen again

184one team one fight let's call it t night thanks everybody