001Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, February 24th, 2026 Matthews County School Board public hearing for the 2026 2027 operating budget. Item 1.2, the Pledge of Allegiance. Please rise and join me in the pledge. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Item 1.3. Roll call, please. Miss >> Laauo. present. Thank you. Item number two, Dr. Daniel will present a brief review of the 2026 2027 draft of our Matthews County Public Schools operating budget. All right. So, we're going to I guess kind of um use one presentation for two different purposes this evening. Um so, part of that we'll cover part of this with the um the
002hearing earlier and then if we need to review some of this at the beginning of the um joint work session, we absolutely can. Um, so I wanted to start off a little bit talking about just Matthews's demographics as a whole and kind of clarify um some of what what how that impacts budget planning um for us and just really try to clarify some of the um vocabulary associated with when we talk budget stuff. So currently we serve about 783 students daily. that includes um students in preK3, preK4 through grade 12. That over that's enrollment. So in those those grades that is enrollment our ADM or average daily membership is a slightly different calculation and that ADM is what the state uses to drive basic aid funding for the school division. ADM does not include preschool
003students. It also factors out slightly students who are in regional programs um either for special education, career and technical, Chesig Bay Governor School, alternative school. So any regional program um students are fractionally um calculated out of our ADM. So that then reduces slightly our um state um state allocation. Currently, Matthews employs 157 full-time employees and another 26 part-time employees. 21% of our students qualify for special education. For reference, that's um that's high. That's above average um both within our region and across the state. an additional 8% of our students qualify for a 504 plan. That number is actually down over the last year or so. Um but when you think about um just under a third of our students um receive special education services or um targeted or specialized services for a 504 plan. and
004504 plans can differ in terms of services. Um, but that's a high percentage of our students who require additional support. 43% of the students in Matthews County are direct certified. So that means they are um receive some level of government assistance. That then factors into the number of really kind of free and reduced lunch eligible students. We're currently part of C. Um so we don't locally determine um free status or reduce lunch status um because part as being part of C um all of our students receive um free breakfast and lunch. We'll review our eligibility for that and the financial costs and benefits of being a member in C. But right now 43 43% of the students who we serve um receive some level of um assistance in their um in their lives. 3% of
005our students are English language learners. And just as um kind of a a way to think about this, last year we served our um food service team served 193,245 meals to students. our enrollment was about the same last year. So that's a lot of breakfasts and lunches um served to our students. So um last month we pre we presented a first draft of a budget. That draft um included all all the wants for the most part. Okay, that draft was based on an ADM of 725 students. So there's probably some question about well if you know if your ADM is around 743 um currently and you're basing a budget on 725 why the difference? The difference is historically when we go back probably 10 years or so we've seen annually a decline of 20 to
00625 students. So, we were projecting trying to project a budget on where we would end the year and not necessarily where we would start the year. Um, historically, we've um we've had um we've projected too high an ADM. So, we were trying to be conservative um about where those projections are. Um so, it's based on an ADM of 725 students. The first draft included an increase of 2% plus a step. That's 3% total to to the current salary scale. Okay. I just want to clarify because I think it got out in the media or it got out in the public that the school board was saying a 6% raise. That's that's not what the first um budget included. It was a 3%. Um there was a 6% for teacher assistants. Um our teacher assistants are
007the the lowest or the least compensated um employee group within our division. Um we historically have a hard time retaining our teacher assistants. It's a difficult job. Um it's a relatively thankless job and so we needed to do um a little bit more to be able to recruit and retain some of our teacher assistants. Um the first draft of the budget included a 10% increase to health insurance. Um cost to the division between five and 15% of that cost would then be passed on to employees. Um we I think we have an appointment two weeks from now to receive our health insurance um rates or bids. So that's we should get that final information here in the next um couple weeks. First draft included the match for the school resource officer grant. It included an
008athletic trainer position replaces a CTE position um and assumes assumes like our calculation of state funding and local funding based on the local composite index. All right. So tonight we're going to talk about a second draft of the budget. And so after having some conversations with um members of the board of supervisors and some of their leadership team, I think their um their ability and looking at the overall county finances, we needed to begin um trying to determine ways to to scale back our request and uh begin to um look find a different number, figure out what what we can do to um make it work, make the make the numbers work. So this second draft remains based on an ADM of 725 students. However, it includes an increase of 1% plus a step. So
009that's an overall of 2% um 2% pay raise. It still maintains a 6% for teacher assistance and it still maintains the increase in health insurance being passed on to employees. Um it does still include having in our budget a placeholder um for the school resource officer grant match. Um but this assumption is level funding from the county. So that's last year the county funded the school division approximately $9.1 million. The first draft had a the school division with a request of 9.4. So, what we'll talk a little bit about tonight um has this is with a budget of of 9.1 million as a as a conversation point for tonight. So, if you notice um athletic trainer position um has been removed. Um I do believe the second draft does include um the CTE position though,
010correct? Okay. I'm sorry for folks folks in the audience. I kind of checked with Miss Hley. So, it does. So, we've removed the um athletic trainer from the budget, but that CTE position still remains. Okay. I'm going to hand off um to Miss Hunley to talk a little bit more in depth about various funds and numbers and explaining some of the the budget calculations and pieces and then we can go from there. >> Okay. So, All right. So, our budget is made up of four different funds. It's operating food service textbook and Matthews Community. And as you can see on this next slide, it breaks it down as far as this is the total budget with all the funds included which has operating fund which also includes thrifty spot but it's dissolved in fiscal year.
011This year we dissolved the thrifty spot. Um, and it also includes food service fund, textbook, and the Matthews Community Fund. And it has actuals for fiscal year 25, what's budgeted for fiscal year 26, and what's proposed for fiscal year 27. Um as you can see for operating fund it's um the difference from what was from fiscal year 26 to 27 is a difference of 320,62822 for operating fund. Um and for food service fund it's a difference of $42,94.13. The textbook fund increased $66,312 and the community fund stayed neutral. Overall, the total budget decreased by 296,413.35. The next is a breakdown of as far as the funding sources for the total budget. It's a comparison of again those three years and the percent um based on the total budget for those years. Um as you can
012see for the different from 26 to 27 um even though this still level funding the percent has increased a little bit as far as for local um contribution um and the same for local other but as you can see the state went down slightly and that's because our local um composite index change for this bianium um and federal went up a little bit for um fiscal year 27. I'm just going to give a quick breakdown of just the operating fund as far as just looking at that separately. Um, as you can see for other local, um, from 26 to 27, it's an increase of 53,668. And that's because I did a little, um, reorganizing some of the, um, some of the like the rate and Medicaid was budget under federal, but truly that should go
013under the local. So that's why that's increasing to that much. As you can see, the federal funding went down $9,7640. Um, and state funding, as you can see, decreased by $364,531.82. Um, and overall, it's a decrease for the operating budget of $320,62822. >> Sure. So I just want to ask about the Medicaid monies. So you because the money is coming even from well state or federal government, however you want to look at it. It's coming to the locality. That's why you moved it to the local not where it's coming from where it's being received >> because it's it's reimbured and it's um reimbursed through um local >> local expenses. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. And the next slide is um breakdown of the operating fund expenditures. Um and as you can see
014of course instruction is our largest uh um uh category and that reduced by 400 357577. Um administration attendance and health went out 51,84653. Pupil transportation 27,92789 operations and maintenance 24,523. Transfers include transfers to the textbook fund and to school um food service that went up 60,000 and technology reduced 81,34987 again with a difference of $320,62822. Um and as far as the next slide, um it's just a breakdown in percentage as far as how much of our operating fund is based on the different object codes. As you can see, personnel and um and employee benefits make up 80.94% of our budget for fiscal year 27. That's it. Yeah. I mean, >> I mean, because this is the public hearing, so I didn't want to go a lot. >> I didn't want to go into a ton
015of, again, there's 36 slides. We can talk academic achievement or other things, but, you know, if there's, you know, as part of the hearing or if there's other questions, we didn't want to take the whole time going through minutia, but >> sure. C is that an annual renewal that faculty? >> It's multi-year. We're in our last year. We have to reapply this year. Um we won't know until uh April 1st when we get our numbers whether or not um what the percentage is going to be if we qualify for C >> in the multi-year. Is that three years? >> It's three years. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. The transfers are for go back. >> The transfers are for textbook and for food service. We budget to transfer money from our operating to those different
016funds. >> Thank you. Ideally, we'd get to the place where food service is self- sustaining, and we've gotten a little bit better over the last couple years, but there's still it still requires some amount of local support um going into the food service program. >> Okay. >> In order to get it to to break even. >> Thank you. um as we uh shift from what our original budget included which was two plus one 2% plus 1% for the teachers and now we're shifting downwards. I'm wondering and this is I understand just your perception um and your opinion about how what the consequences will be to to teachers possibly leaving and jumping to another um school division. In light of the last two to three years, we have effectively shored up um not having teachers leave
017because we've been able to in tandem with the board of supervisors been able to have funding so that they were able to at least equal what other school divisions were giving or even a slightly more to keep them from leaving here. I'm just wondering what your perception is of that. Um it's it's hard to predict. I I do agree with you that we've been able to turn the tide of folks actively teachers actively seeking employment elsewhere um to find I guess greener pastures on some level or another whether that greener pasture was um compensation or health insurance or actually working conditions. So, I think we've done um had a good partnership with the supervisors and we've done a a solid job of um improving um the working conditions through compensation um and the the day-to-day
018climate stuff to be able to retain folks. We've also then kind of um condensed or um as our enrollment has declined, we've um reduced our employment staff, too. So, there are fewer positions that were needing to fill. So, moving eighth grade helped um us being able to do that to some degree. Um, I think it will continue to be a challenge for us to recruit people to come here when people retire or um some folks are looking for um better spots or those hard to fill positions. So, we have a couple hardtofill positions. So, that's really where the the salary scale gets looked at. And it doesn't even I I think it can deter folks from even applying because they'll look at the salary scale that's posted and they're like, "Oh, well, they can't match
019what I'm doing or no, that's I can just compare salary scales with a Gloucester or a West Point or a York County um and just kind of pursue um working in those divisions." So, um I think we've again we've we've done a lot. So, I'm relatively confident that we'll keep the folks who are here, but in the event there's a retirement um or again some of those hard to fill positions, um it's going to be difficult to then attract and recruit folks to come here. I also think um teachers who and we're in the middle of and we've talked a little bit about it with the board, but um we're hoping in to be in the final stages of a salary scale study that's doing some comparison and to figure out different ways to I
020guess shape our salary scale and also um apply it more equitably. Um so that's going to have a cost impact I think in the coming years. But one of the things we wanted to look at doing is we're because our scale is competitive in the early years. It's really once you get beyond year 10 that we begin to lag behind because most divisions aren't 1% every year. Every step isn't 1%, they're 1.25, 1.3, 1.5, something along those lines. So that's that accumulates and that's where begin to lag behind. So reshaping that um that scale. >> So will a salary scale um take into consideration those limitations that we now have just that rigid 1% it'll adjust it. Okay. >> That's one of the things we're looking at. So instead of um having 1% for each
021step, do we one of the things we're benchmarking at is at different job categories. Um but just looking at the teacher scale, we're we're fairly competitive at year zero. So how do we get from year zero um where we are competitive to where most a lot of our competitors are at on step 30 and what then percentage increase does that look like each year >> and kind of map it out that way. And we've got some built-in um like longevity supplements and stuff like that that we don't necessarily have to be stride for stride at at step 30 um because a lot of our employees come and stay with us and so we've got that built-in longevity piece that can help us. >> The other one is and you touched on it is the um
022the reduction in staff over the last two years. It's at least it seems to me and I'm car trying to carve out the custodial staff because we're still contracting for that. Um, so I would say it seems to me about maybe 30 staff. I I don't know how many custodial there were and I'm go going to the slide that you haven't yet shown. Um, so we've cut back. It's um it's after the LCI slide. >> So I'll I'll touch on this a little bit. So >> if you want to wait until the um the joint meeting to do it again with that. >> Um >> but so one of the things that we've done to adjust to declining enrollment so um we've um in the last three years we've reduced overall staff by 41. Um
023that's an eight 18% reduction in staff. Um in that same time our ADM our student ADM has declined 14%. Um so um in I think there's another slide where we it's kind of broken out by um teachel. So I think that's the slide you're looking for Miss Hajis. Um >> yes sir. >> So in parentheses is licensed um staff. So, um, part of the decline for 2526 does include, um, our custodial staff. So, that's that's nine people, um, two maintenance positions from the merger. Um, so that's 11 total positions from, um, that are included in that 2526 count. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. One other thing that I don't know if we've uh have kept in mind this evening. We've still not heard anything from the state as far as what budget what their
024budget is going to look like. >> Uh if it's going to benefit us, if it's going to hurt us. We're hopeful that maybe it will help us a little bit, but there's no guarantee. So maybe there's some possibility of the state providing a little money so we could possibly give teachers and staff maybe a little bit better raise in 1%. So um on Sunday was was budget Sunday. Um so some crossover. So we've got some spreadsheets um on the the Senate projection and then the House projection. They're fairly similar. Um there's some subtle differences but there is I think in the house budget a 2% um salary um component for um FY27 and then FY28 the hurdle for us and so usually that salary money comes in the way of incentive so you have to
025certify that you've provided the the 2% or whatever that benchmark kids in order to receive the the money from the state. Our hurdle is that um I showed you the slide earlier where we have basically 183 employees. 100 I think 156 are full-time employees. Standards of SOQ positions for us at an ADM of 725 is I think 62 positions. I think it's 6562. Um, we get 62 funding for a 2% factored through our local composite index for 62 positions. And again, we employ 153 people full-time. So we get in terms of state money for that 2% we've got to put in a lot of our own money in order to access the state money for that. So, I think you did a rough calculation. I um I And it's around I want to say about
026$55,000 >> state >> from the state. >> Yeah. About $55,000 towards that 2% raise for our employees. In a 2% raise, I think we looked at I'd have to find that slide. Um, but I want to off the top of my head, it's somewhere around $200,000, $220,000, I think. Something something along those lines. So, we get about a quarter of what it would what a 2% would cost. >> So, if I can just make sure I'm understanding this, I want to try to repeat it back as best I can. >> Okay. >> All right. So, if the state says 2% for the teachers, it's only for the SOQ positions, which is 60ome positions. >> Correct. So the other how many do we have? >> 153 full thought. So the other 90 positions we wouldn't receive
027any money for that. But of that 2% for those 60some positions it would be still the county would have to come up with their part of the LCI. >> Right. >> Okay. I just want to make sure that we're which is which is a percent of a percent of a percent as you go. >> Correct. So, for us to provide a 2% for all 157 full-time staff members, >> we would then have to come up with the difference of between the 55,000 roughly that the state is providing us and what it would actually cost to provide a 2% for all of our full-time people. >> Any more clarifying? Any more clarifying questions for members? >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Daniel. We'll move on to >> Can I ask one? >> I'm sorry. >> Sorry.
028>> So, um I saw it was on I think the slide was fund one and it was about operating fund expenditures and it had a box in it called um 68,000 technology. I'm kind of curious how much of that cost is due to Chromebooks. >> I'm trying to find your slide that one. >> Yes. >> Um, so like >> Yeah. I mean, I'm sure some of that technology is um and I'm thinking student Chromebooks, not the Chromebooks that you get the school board or the teachers computers. >> So, we're giving about um four years four to five years life out of Chromebooks. Um, and so we just replaced those Chromebooks. Um, we did a big purchase last spring. I think they arrived in the summer. There was a lot of formatting and and onboarding and
029stuff um going into this school year. Um, one of the the only benefit that I'm aware of to being a small school division is that state VPSA technology money is allocated by school and not by student. So, every school in Virginia gets the exact same drop of technology VPSA funds regardless of how many kids you have in there. >> So, we really make out on that. So we're able to um do a little better than say a like so Thomas Hunter Middle School got the same amount of VPSA technology funds as you know a large middle school in Virginia Beach. So we're able to use some of that VPSA money, state money um for technology related expenses. generally it's um dedicated towards testing and so where we have banks of Chromebook carts and stuff like
030that for testing. >> Um but in terms of the exact number that we expended out of that budget annually for Chromebooks, we'd have to pull up in terms of what we replace um annually. But typically what we do is purchase in chunks on kind of a four three year fouryear sort of cycle. So we're not trying to replace the entire inventory all at once. So I think we look at about a half to a third on any given cycle >> using some of that state state support money. So much of that isn't >> um >> we have to record that as in terms of revenue. So, that's part of what comes in. >> Um, but we don't necessarily expend all of that VPSA money annually. You can store it for, I think, up to five
031years. >> So, that line, much of that doesn't come or maybe none of it comes from the local. >> No, I mean, some of that is going to come, a lot of that is still going to come from local because we're only getting I think >> 125,000. >> Currently, we're getting 128,000. 128. >> Next year we get, >> right? So we'll go down to school next year. So we'll we'll drop $26,000 because I think you get 52 as a division and 26,000 per school within your division. Um so we'll have one less school next year. So we'll go down in terms of our technology funds by 26,000. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. That's >> follow up on the technology too. How are we able to um have a have less
032six $81,000 less in technology? What are we not getting? from we had um it's from attrician >> um um >> attrician how >> as far as um the what is misspoke what was she the >> missco she retired >> and replaced her at a someone else had a lower salary and then you have that $26,000 also that's >> we're going from three schools to two now >> okay >> huh >> we'll be going from three to three schools to two >> but also >> so we'll get less money from the state But it's also going down a position too. So So that position would have been put in the technology >> budget technology account. >> So we're going down a position because someone retired plus another position we're going down or just retired. Okay. >>
033We're reassigning some duties. >> So a CTE person is sort of moving into the technology department to have some different jobs and job descriptions and so we've moved some things around. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. I have a question and I know the numbers are not done. They're not clarified on how much we're going to have to pay for health insurance. I understand that. But if we go on the second draft here between it says between 5% and 15% of new costs passed on to employees. Do you have a ballpark number of what that is? I don't. >> No, we don't. >> We can we can work on calculating that by plan once we get better numbers. And we did that last year, right, >> as part of the budget approval. We looked at
034this is >> what the increase to the employee would be for employee only, employee family based on the different options that we have available for employees. We'll take it. I think um the the Centa plan is I think is going to exceed what we budgeted. Um so um we'll figure out what the exact number is, what the exact cost will be for those. Um but if it's um I think it's going to be opposite of the weather forecast. I think it's going to a lot more is going to hit us than we were calling for. Um I would have preferred that you know it's going to be really bad and then nothing nothing happens. >> I think it's I think it's going to be a significant increase. So we'll have to evaluate continuing those plans
035or what do we do with with plans going forward. >> Thank you. >> All right. Now moving on to item three, public comments. Miss loud, do we have any signups? We do not have any signups for this public hearing to speak on this important topic. Are there any other final comments or questions before we adjourn? Thank you all for being here. We will adjourn and prepare for our joint work session with the board of supervisors which begins at 6. We're adjourned. Thank you.