001board members for your availability. We don't have any public comments. but Mr. Cash, would you like to recognize your special guests in the audience? Dan, can you turn on your mic or can we can we go put this mic on? Yeah, that's Lorraine, Eastston, Xander, Britain, and Harrison. And they just couldn't wait to get here. I'm sure that's true. Welcome, guys. Okay, we will as we said, no public comment. We will have to approve our agenda. We can do this as always by voice vote. all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Oh, take attendance. I'm sorry. I skipped the attendance part. So, we do need to record attendance. So, let's go back to press your buttons on your devices and then Claire, I will call on you in a minute. All right. Dr. Reeves
002present. All right. Where's your iPad? There are nine members present. Thank you. Okay. Now, back to approval of the agenda. Let's do that one more time. Just for the record, all in favor of approval of the agenda, say, "I." I. Any opposed? I. Okay. The agenda is approved. Let the record reflect. Dr. Reeves voted I. All right. Just leave it on. All right. New business. So, as everyone is aware, the reason we are doing this is because the county commission met today. and as expected, they amended the county budget and also our budget as a result of that to reduce the insurance expense by $500 per full-time equivalent. So we therefore had to come meet today to amend our budget to align with those new numbers that were approved. So we will go through three
003items or three respective budgets. The general funds, the central cafeteria fund and the extended school fund to make those necessary modifications. So the first item is approval of the 2526 school board budget amendment corresponding to the county commission's reduction of the general purpose school fund. Do I have a motion? Have a motion in a second. Any discussions or questions? And I might just defer to Mr. Golden to give a little bit of commentary on what the county commission did and some context around that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. as we discussed at the work session and at our voting meeting, the county commission ultimately did exactly what we expected them to do with our budget. They had some debate. They had some motions back and forth, but ultimately they reduced their request of us for health
004insurance by that $500 per full-time equivalent. The total for that brings our general purpose school fund budget from $565,36,797 down to $562,612797. so they went through that entire process. I did want to let you all know that they did one additional change related to their budget. the sheriff's office were they asked for an additional some additional funding for pay raises for them over and above the 4% that was the budget parameter. After much debate, the county commission approved that for the sheriff's office. And then another motion came on to try to increase county government employees by by by some amount based on a a study that they had done. I'm going to estimate about six months ago, a pay study. that failed in the morning, but at the after the lunch break, they came back
005and two commissioners said that they had voted erroneously and they brought it back and it did pass. So, I did think it was important for you all to know as a county as a as the county school board that they ultimately funded about $1.3 million more for sheriff's office pay and about $1.1 million more for county employees beyond that 4%. so I will tell you, Mr. Chair and board members, that's unprecedented in my experience in 20 years of budgets that I've worked on to some degree or another. I am going to recommend that you approve this, but but but because of that and because of county government's employees getting a different pay from the county commission on the floor today, I think we're going to have to have some more discussions with county government over
006these next few months about about where that leaves the schools. Mr. Mr. Chair, I'm sorry to give you that additional detail, but for purposes today, I do think it's important for us to approve the this item. One one question that brings up for me having listened to a little bit of that on the way back in the car is they kept referring to the exception that motion they made on those increases was excluding WCS and we knew that was that was there's a reason why they were doing that because we have a separate pay plan that's in place that's that perhaps the implication was the county government doesn't have that same kind of pay plan. Is that is that a fundamental difference that we is that a fair assessment of that or and does that
007change anything in terms of how we would recalculate our compensation? Mr. Chair, it's accurate, but it's not a fair assessment because it's not complete. Okay. so they actually did a pay study with some comps. They actually had a private a private company come and do their analysis and compare them to some comparables. we don't know all the detail of that comp plan. our teacher pay structure is different because we have a state base but we actually pay more than the state base. so so that is different and there there's another key difference is when we do pay increases for teachers we have an obligation to speak with our teacher with with our with our teacher association. So there are some differences. but fundamentally on the revenue side our long-standing practice with the county commission is
008that they have they have they have ensured that school that if they have a particular increase that there's a commensurate funding for schools related to that and this is different. All right. So can you restate the dollar amount that we're reducing but in this particular amendment the dollar amount we'd be reducing our budget. Thank you. re reducing it from 565,36,797 to 562,000 I mean 562,612,797. Okay. Any questions or comments about this amendment? Mr. Galver. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Jason or Rachel, can can we just briefly state the two items between the insurance and the on the expense side and then the then the revenue side with how we're budgeting for property tax revenues. I just want to be clear on what on what makes up that difference. Thank you for that. I'll I'll defer
009to Rachel after I speak to it if there's anything she needs to add. traditionally county government and we have budgeted on the revenue side 92% of property taxes as a revenue. In other words, projection based on that you receiving 92% of what is taxed. that is not actually part of a vote. It's just a projection for how you budget. So county commissioners talked about that a lot today. the work that they went through at the budget committee to make these budgets balance. And you all may recall that for these budgets to balance originally, it would have taken 5 cents on the tax rate for county government and 5 cents on the tax rate for us. So they were looking to find a way to shrink those pennies from that from that total 10 cents. They
010proposed changing and they did change from a 92% revenue percentage on the property tax to that 94%. on the school side that brought the budgets closer by about two pennies. and I don't know off the top of my head for the county side what that would have done. and so Rachel, well, so, so ultimately with their vote, county government has budgeted based on 94% receipts from from that property tax. a little bit extra information related to that. Traditionally, the receipts tend to be somewhere between 97 98% most years. to date it's been around somewhere around 95 this past year, but then over these next few months it'll get tighter and tighter closer to that 100. So I'm sorry. Number wise, originally when we brought the budget to the commission, it was about a $12.5 million
011gap. So by budgeting 94% in revenue, I mean 94% of property tax revenue, our revenue projection went up by about 12.5 million. However, we had sales tax that went down by 1.6 million. We did get our number. We haven't gotten the final final, but with TISA, the May estimate showed the correct fiscal capacity. And so, we are getting about $1.2 million more from the state than what was originally budgeted. So, overall revenue is up about 12.5 million with the sales tax being down 1.6 and others. So having said that, our fund balance also projected fund balance was down a couple million from where it was when we originally projected. All of that to say insurance was $2,694,000 in order to balance between the additional revenue and the reduction in the medical insurance that got you
012to where we have a balanced budget now. and that's what you're voting on tonight. So, so with this budget, assuming all the with all those revenue assumptions, we've we've got a surplus of 1.8. Is that the Yes, at the moment. But again, it's I think we had the same conversation last year until we actually close out that can go down. So, I'm not and the state has said, you know, we need to keep a little bit more in fund balance if possible, right? And so, yes, that would be that's what's showing on your paper right now. So, if I may, you accurately described that 1.8 based on those projections. two issues related to that I think is important for you all to be aware of. Number one, the value of a penny now is about
013$2.7 million. It used to be right around 1.8 last year. so now it's about, let's call it 2/ird of a penny. also that works for this budget year but the next budget year there there will be less fund balance to fund the subsequent budget. So my perspective on it not being an accountant is it's a one-year fix. Well and that was going to be I just want to I just want to set expectations for for next year because because it is a it is a one-time windfall of the of of a couple million, you know, whatever. Is it $12 million for us? Is that what the 2% is? so because the typically when you're when you're when you're having budget fixes, you use one-time windfalls for for single expenses. So, it's a great way to
014pay for a capital project that's not going to happen again. It's a lousy way to pay for a operating budget that's going to recur next year and you have no funding source for it. So all we did was borrow from next year and we've got to and we can't kick that can down the road next year. We I mean we can't I think the Phoebe said that she's not willing to go above 94 because now we're now we're red all we're all we're doing is borrowing from our ending fund balance and so next year we start out $5 million in the in the hole essentially I think that's an accurate description and the county commission had the same debate and I can't remember off the top of my head but there was a motion to
015to fund the pennies on the tax rate sufficient to stay at that 92% and it failed. It was nine to was it nine yes and yeah nine yes and 13 or 12 or I think yeah I think it may yeah I think they had 22 people at that time so it would have been 13 nos so they're split over this issue as well thank you just to give a little more context to that miss farmer how much remind us how much we are using from the current fiscal year and fund balance to roll into the next this into this next budget that we're about to vote on to make it work. Our projected fund balance as of today is $66 million. We have to keep a 3% of our operating expenses. So 16 million right
016at 17 million of that has to be kept, which means we are essentially using right at $50 million to to balance the budget out of fund balance. So, just to Jay's point, 50 million rolling over from one to the from one year to the other this time, that number that we're going to have available to roll over next time is going to be less, potentially substantially less. Correct. That's right. Yeah. Now, the variables that we don't know yet are a new housing con, you know, you know, any any any increase in property taxes, sales tax, you know, so we'll we'll be having all these discussions next year presumably with a tighter fund balance. Mr. Welch, thank you. so quite a set of curve balls tonight. I mean, we knew about the reduction. We knew that
017was coming. the health insurance can plan for that. But some of this stuff is really surprising. if I could make sure I understand it and kind of dumbing it down to my nonaccountant language, but essentially it sounds like we're living paycheck to paycheck going forward rather than having our savings account to to be able to rely back on. Is that a overly simplified fair analogy? I think that's a good way to describe it. an overly simplified fair analogy. Okay. also glad we got the cashlings here tonight as I think it's a nice little reminder of what we are, you know, at the end of the day, we talked about all the numbers and policies and everything else, but at the end of the day, this is kind of what we're here for. And I will
018say kids, you know, you can be proud that you are you are better behaved than your grandfather is most coordinating. So, let him know that as well. kidding, of course. But Jason, yeah, I'm I'm glad you want to carry on the conversation. This is extremely disappointing to to hear about the 75 percentile for all county employees except for Williamson County Schools and the differentiation in in payraises having double. I think four versus two is what it is or thereabouts. it's not double. Okay. their their 4% would have been about $5.6 million. we actually did a double check on that after their meeting. and so it's it's somewhere between 1 and 2% more, you know, instead of a 4% aggregate increase, it's somewhere between a five and a 6% aggregate increase on county pay versus the
019two. Oh. Well, for us, we took the we took an aggregate 4% and we distributed it based on the based on our pay. So, some are getting two some teachers are getting substantially more than that. We've added money to supplements. I got So, our aggregate is 4%. I got you. But either way, we're we're sort of been singled out as the one part of of That's right. county employees that are not getting the same growth, the cost of living adjustments, the increase the 75th percentile. which is very disappointing. And then also to your point about having just sort of these decisions made on the fly as they are, you know, this is budgeting has been going on for months. So, you know, either you when you do drastic changes like this, I kind of question,
020you know, is it do you not think it's a big deal or to, you know, not not pay our employees or is it just you not care or are you just sort of winging it? and I don't know the answer to that. And you know for the sheriff's office to get you know a even bigger adjustment beyond that you know law enforcement is certainly important but at the cost of education it almost seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point if you're going to you know thinking you know the old you know where your treasure is there your heart will be also you know you're going to balance the education of our future generation and leverage that with, you know, law enforcement and sort of dictators that is the most important thing. It it
021becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at at that point that yeah, you're going to need more law enforcement if you're going to keep cutting education in in this community. you know, I would make the argument that the quality of education is what keeps the crime rates low here. So, all this to say, I'm I'm on board with what we're doing today, but I think it's definitely something conversation that we need to continue having and our teachers shouldn't be getting the short end of the stick and we shouldn't be balancing the county budget on their backs. Thank you for that. But I will tell you all I have had just in the last two hours at right after the commission finished their meeting if I'm not mistaken they finished at about 3:30 or so I've had conversations one-on-one
022conversations with multiple commissioners already who were on both sides of that vote. what can we do with what can we do about the schools? so now they didn't talk about that during their voting meeting. we had that conversation after Any other questions on this amendment? Okay, we are ready to vote. Dr. Reeves, how do you vote? Yes. The vote is nine yes, zero no. Okay, the amendment is approved. We will move to the central cafeteria fund. similar budget amendment to correspond to the county commission's budget reduction. Mr. Gold. Thank you, M. Mr. Chair. Rachel also prepared the same commensurate change for the central cafeteria fund. The numbers for that are from the from your prior approval of 20,827,32 to 20,749,32. So we do recommend approval for that change as well. Thank you. We have a
023motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay, we're ready to vote. Dr. Reeves, how do you vote? Yes. The vote is nine. Yes. Zero no. The amendment is approved. the final item is the extended school program. likewise corresponding an amendment to correspond to the county commission's reduction of the budget. Mr. Golden. Thank you, Mr. Chair. the original number was8 mill 8,77,174. we do propose and recommend that you reduce that to $8,45,674. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. Gorth. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Farmer, what would if this hap if this budget happened exactly as it as it sits today, what would the what would the what would our ending fund balance be at the end of for the extended school care fund? For the end of school. Yeah. You said
024the end of school, but in extend the extended school care fund. The extended school Yeah. The extended school program. the estimated fund balance it says March 18th. It's running. Theirs is running pretty flat. So it's I think it when I looked at it, it was right at still one and a half million. So our fund balance today is one and a half million. And then so the surplus that we have, would that would that add to the one and a half million or are we using that to fund our building? We're using that to fund. So the ending is about a million. About a million dollars. Okay. That's what I'm sorry. So we're we're budgeting for our fund balance to go down by half a million dollars roughly if correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other
025questions? Okay, ready to vote? Dr. Reeves, how do you vote? Yes. The vote is nine yes, zero no. Okay, the amendment is approved. that brings us to the end of our agenda. Thanks everyone for making the time for this meeting and we're journ