001like to call to order this um work session June 4th, 2025. Roll call, please. Mr. Drew, Mr. Bennington, Miss Lammer, here. Miss Minky, Mr. Anderson, here. Miss Roland Miller, here. Let us stand and say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It's a work session. Come on. Uh with everyone in the uh room as an employee, I will skip over the safety briefing. Uh we have before us our agenda. There has been one addition since it was posted. So I'd like to present it as amended for approval. The change was 4.9 meeting schedule change which um cancels the work session next month on the 9th and schedules
002us for a retreat on Saturday the 12th from 8 to 12. So if we could approve if there's a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So moved. Second. Mr. Anderson, Miss Larmer. Mr. Dur, roll call, please. Mr. Anderson, yes. Miss Lmer, yes. Miss Roland Miller, yes. All right. Uh before us is our consent agenda 3.1, which covers all the items in four, which are um all personnel related other than the meeting schedule change. Any items we want to pull out for discussion or any questions about those or any quick comments? Right. Then a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. Seconded. Miss Larur, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Drew, roll call, please. Miss Lmer, yes. Mr. Anderson, yes. Miss Roland Miller. Yes. All right. So, we have before us for our main agenda
003item number five, board discussion about our levy options for November 4th of 2025. Um, there is a presentation. Do we have access to that right now? Um it I shared it with you this morning. Um Oh yeah, I was looking at email this morning. Yeah. Well, it's now knowing that you might want to pull it up now. So um so so we did uh share it this morning and it's being posted as we speak to the um board docs as well. So you'll be able to access it momentarily either way. Um there was some late updates. Uh you know getting feedback is great and we got feedback from multiple board members, community members shared things. So Randy and I um and um you know Susan, we spent time later in the afternoon and then Randy
004and I touched base. I think I cut into his sleep last night with a couple text messages. So So it's been something that we're we've been working closely on. So, so I think before we jump in, um, we'll be going through kind of these different questions that were presented that people wanted additional information on, what I'd like to do is kind of go through a group of slides at a time and talk about the assumptions behind them and just make sure that we're kind of moving ahead in our decision with some of these assumptions. So the first um the the first kind of series is just in in general and um I'm going turn it over to Mr. Hustler to kind of get us going through these slides. All right. Uh so kind of answering
005the question for those tuning in, you know, why are we here? Why are we having this conversation? And we wanted to highlight uh taxes um on December 31st, the last day of the tax year. And then what happened after and with a rejection of the November 5th, 2024 um ballot issue that was to sought to um replace an expiring levy. The district lost $13.5 million of revenue in in um local taxes. Uh 9.7 mills rolled off um individual property tax, you know, property owners here who are paying Parisburg taxes. So with that, we put together a plan um that blended and balanced reducing our our costs through uh cuts and uh program reductions and also using one-time funds from our um our general fund, you know, our cash balance. So that has led us to
006May 19th just uh a few weeks ago where the board asked us to present a variety of options as to how do we proceed moving forward and the conversations leading up to that with the board everything is on the table that's been made very clear to to Randy and I. Um, we like to use the, you know, the doors, door number one, door number two, all the different options that are available and, um, and and doing nothing is an option or having voters reject a levy is certainly an an option we have to prepare for, as is, you know, asking for a variety of different things. So, kind of looking at the past five-year forecasts, which Randy looks in his crystal ball with all of us and says, you know, this is where I think
007we need to be in terms of um revenue and and this is what it means to us. So, at the last board meeting, we went through some different options and and link them to the five-year forecast. So, November 2024, we're required to do a 5-year forecast. that was after the levy rejection in his forecast. It it was $14 million was the amount uh that he worked in. And um and and so that was 9.98 mills at that time to to generate 14 million. Uh it was proposed in the five-year forecast to be a five-year levy. And the question that board members asked, the community asked was, will will um, you know, will will there have to be cuts in addition to what we've already done? We know this isn't restoring anything, but will there have
008to be further cuts, or will we have to be back on the ballot prior to the five years of that levy expiring? So, that last column highlights that. So, May 2025, just a couple of weeks ago, uh, there were three different forecast models that Randy showed. Uh, one of them was a a levy um that was uh for $11 million annually at 7.8 8 mills and you know going across do do we need to do additional cuts and does it get us a full five years before you know going to voters and the projection the crystal ball said no we we wouldn't be back to the voters we wouldn't have to make further reductions $8 million uh 5.75 mills and in three years we would have to make further reductions or cuts so we wouldn't
009get through the five-year levy without having to come back with some type of a smaller our operational levy. And then the other one was the income tax. And so Randy plugged in uh a half a percent income tax. And we'll we'll we'll do a deeper dive into some of these. And again, the way that that is structured, uh we would we would need some additional uh revenue or cuts possibly in 2028. So we wouldn't quite get through the term of that. So, one thing that was clear um that on May 19th is that all of these options did not restore the the $6 million of cuts that have begun and will be in place next fall when we return to school. Um so, the we've had questions from folks and uh and and those questions
010are, you know, where can I find the cuts? where you know it doesn't feel like maybe those cuts have happened and so that's a great question. So the next two slides um this takes us right to our website. Um there is a um a a transparency page that we've added to our website. So if you go to our website, one of the tabs we've added is transparency. We this is brand new just in the last month. And in it, there are several topics that individuals might want to learn more about that fall into the category of transparency. And we're building that out. So, if you have suggestions of what you would like to see there, but um it ranges from the the performance audit uh to board policy manual to the financial the fiscal audit
011that is done annually. It has the employees uh salaries listed. Uh it also has the state report card and and also some o other things like this list which is um all the reductions that are that have been made and put in place. So if somebody says, "Boy, it doesn't feel like that." There's 11 pages of reductions that you can go and and take a look at. We've done a really good job of trying to limit that impact to students, but inevitably those things are there and they are real and they do impact students and it might not be your child or your grandchild, but but this is everything that's there. So again, it's being very transparent. Um the next slide that I want to call attention to is, you know, it's the movement of
012staff and there's a spreadsheet here that will be public facing. Um, I'll pull it up and I included screenshots of this slide in the presentation. Um, and um, you know, we'll we'll um, yeah, so I don't want to do that uh, while we're broadcasting. So, at any rate, um, it is it is a live document. Um, this is something the human resources department, Don Christie, has has put together and it shows the different movement of staff and where staff are going because when you when you eliminate a position that staff member and this is just for teachers um so and and other licensed staff that are members of the pea uh which is our our union. So if you have somebody who has seniority and they lose their position, they're allowed to bump into another
013position and then that person then has the ability to either bump into another position or they end up being laid off. So there is a cycle of this. So calculating the dollar amount, you have to follow each of those individual moves to find out what the net dollar amount is. And that's what this probably Don and his staff are the only ones that really can understand and interpret this. We won't spend a lot of time here unless board members have question during the discussion. So, we're trying to move quickly to to do this, but you will see a name and the position is eliminated, not filled, and then you might see that person's name down below and they're bumping out another person and then you get the net cost. And we have some slides, but
014this is Yep. Yep. And that that is strictly current salary for 2425. We did not include benefits in that. This was for Randy and I and this is a picture into my brain which is not a good picture uh of how to put all that together for him and I to follow it. So I would share that with Randy. So then he would look at the benefit side. He would then also look at the salary for 20 what the 25 26 salaries would be. Um so actually that final number would be low uh because it does not include 25 26 and does not include benefits. So I just wanted to add that that piece and I'm going to repeat that in case it wasn't picked up on the microphone. One is that I believe this
015snapshot if you go into the Google doc that this is these snapshot these screen captures that document's even been updated since these were grabbed. So when we say this is of 6325 and is fluid um this these screenshots aren't even um even though they were probably 24 hours ago or not accurate anymore. Um it is only salary. I think it's important to point out it is 2425. So this year's salary not what would have been saved in the future. And we've kind of thrown up that if you look at the general budget that our we're budgeted at 38%, you know, our our line item for personnel is X amount and our line item for benefits is X amount and it's about 38% of the personnel cost. So we just threw that up there. It's around
016760. That's a complete ballpark, not real number. So just to repeat that to make sure that if people are listening and didn't hear what Mr. Christie said. And I literally for the forecast for example have took this list and when I look through salaries I literally every single item I counted for in there. That's one reason why the forecast changed from November to May because I'm literally looking at every position to try to be capture everything. And so this is also just to highlight again what Mr. Hustler said. This is only certified. So teaching what we consider our quote teachers. It also has there's four certified staff positions that were eliminated that are not captured in here who weren't technically classroom teachers. Um that was the 504 coordinator. There was a TOSA. There was a
017um dean and a counselor who were all certified staff who are not going to appear in this. So if you think well they said they were going to cut 26 certified staff and this is only 22. That's the difference. If you look in the fifth column um and look for position eliminated, they're the 22 positions that were eliminated versus the names of who gets tied to those positions. At least that's my understanding of the spreadsheet. Correct. And I I we added here that as of uh 63, which was uh two days ago, um yesterday yesterday, sorry. Um this is uh um very fluid. In fact, the board meeting today changed this. So you did some personnel actions just a few minutes ago which will have to be updated as as those move through this and
018and it changes. So someone is resigning. Um we'll look to see if there's somebody that is recalled. If there isn't, then we post and then that person's salary would be offset against the person that's resigning and so forth. So so it is it is very fluid. We're talking about levies and we want to be very clear about this to the community. I just want to pause and see because we just talked a lot. Are there other questions because I know this was requested by some board members. Are there other questions about this just the two that are that have red on them? So like for um the second grade teacher uh at Fort Megs if we've got the position was a was not filled salary was 43,000 replacement salary 60 so it's costing us 16,000
019to replace that person for a position that's not being filled. I I don't understand the logic there. And Don, maybe you come up and turn the mic on or grab the mic. Don, when you Yeah. Oh, we got him standing at the mic. It's put in red because if you look when she was recalled, she replaced Kelly Vanrice, which Kelly Vanrice's salary was at 60,153. And when she replaced her, then the the net is a negative 16,721. So it's a minus. That's why it's in red. The the bump caused actually that's that's the bump part of the bumping. Yeah. But Kelly Van Trice has had resigned and then Georgia Pal replaced Kelly Van Trice. She was recalled. Okay. Mhm. So the net then would be that savings of 16,721. That would actually be I think
020isn't that a higher cost because all the other ones are savings, right? So, and and I'll have to go through, you know, with that. And like I said, we'll we'll continue to work on this and and things there as well. Yeah, I think I mean my interpretation was that the red is where when the bump occurred because someone's position was eliminated and they took another position, they were actually a higher salary salary that 60,153. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So the red numbers are bad guys. The black numbers are good guys. Right. In this case. Yes. Right. Which is good that we're reflecting both. And yeah, I think just again not to bel labor this the the the positions that the positions positions are being eliminated but the actual people who are eliminated are going to
021be lower on the seniority. So yes, so the savings is always going to be a little bit less particular if you have a higher salary bumping in. So it's not it's just not always a net. Yeah, there's just three of those but yeah. Right. Okay. No questions for me on this. the slides later have addressed my questions that we'll go through. Yeah, the the sec the sec the position was eliminated and that younger teacher salary $43,000 is the the bottom of the salary schedule, but we have to put another teacher in that classroom because we can't eliminate that that that classroom at Fort Megs. Um so the teacher that is going in there is coming from a higher seniority because that person's job was eliminated elsewhere. And so that's why um Sue that that salary
022going into that is higher because that person lost their position. So they have seniority. So they're going to bump into that one and then that person leaves. So that for that line that that's why there's an increase at $16,000 more. But then that that position eliminated $43,000 that will go away. So that that'll be there'll be a net savings with that because that person then doesn't have a job to fill and that's where that savings would come with that transaction. So that's why it's a little challenging to to follow all this and I was joking that Don probably dreams of this and there's another one for certif or our support staff that is very similar that we haven't brought up. We just wanted to give this is our biggest line item our teachers and and
023that that's why so just that reminds me too we need so this totals around I'm going to just ballpark it at around $2 million of savings plus the ballpark $760,000 people are going to say well you cut 6 million this is only 3.7 million and that's where you have to go into the eightpage list to see all the other items that were cut that get us to over $6 million in savings. So, um, transparency, any levy that we're talking about right now will be a new levy. Last year, we were talking about replacing a levy that was set to expire. So, that has expired because of the rejection. Now, this is a new levy. So, just so people understand that, we're not saying it's a renewal. We're not saying it's a replacement levy. this is
024a a new tax. So, just wanted to put that out there. Um, one question that we've received, Randy and I, and I know board members as well, is will delaying a levy uh not going on the ballot until November 3rd, 2026 cost the community more? It's a great question and um I'll kind of turn it over to Randy. The next three slides kind of answer that question. Um and and the next slide is is take starting the conversation with the May uh forecast. Yeah. So again, using the May forecast as our base, right? And the in and the 14 million. I realize the 14 million obviously upped, but that's kind of the base I'm comparing things to because that leaves us kind of at the the ideal situation at the end of the forecast. And
025you see it at that $14 million levy leaves us at the end of fiscal year 29, 84 true cash days. So you say, okay, well, we're looks like we're good. You know, we have a good cash balance next couple years. Can we delay a year? So if you go to the next slide, um if so if you delay a year and use a go to higher levy 15.5 million. So um over a mill more and and we but we end up in end of FY29 and a worse position. So you you're you have a bigger ask if you wait a year and you're not and we're not in as good a shape. So, so I you know the So that's kind of the thing that that you we got to wrestle with here and I
026and I'll be editorialized here. I think it makes sense to go smaller earlier than wanting to try to catch up as we go ahead. So I mean that's really but that's and and at 45 true cash days that's not a very comfortable place to be. So you'd have to ask for even more if you wanted to be at 60 days. Yeah. So that kind of gives you a sense that that waiting that year just puts you in a deeper hole to catch up. So to 45 days, why that's significant is that would be the equivalent of somebody having in their checking savings account combined um 45 days worth of expenditures for their house. So they could operate their house without any new revenue for 45 days. So if there's an unexpected bill, you know, that
027that margin becomes very thin. And then in between paychecks, and we've talked about this in previous meetings, um you run the risk of having to borrow money to pay bills. And I know there's area districts that have to do that when they fall below that. And we would be running close to that depending on the timing and the cash available. So, so I on this one because we've been modeling everything for 60 days or more by policy. I mean, really, you would need a couple more million in that. You would even need a higher levy to get us to the days and then the next ask would have to be even bigger. I in some ways this doesn't we'd almost have to play it out another 3 to five years to show the true impact
028of waiting another year. And based on policy we would also at that point the board should expect a plan from Tom and I that says how to get to six back to 60 days whether it's new revenue or reductions at that point. But the model really I mean to me instead of a 16 million it's not going to it's going to be Yeah, you're exactly right. It's got to be more than that or a reduction plan in those future years. And and obviously if you extend this out just by extrapolation we're probably we are rough calculation we're out of money the next year. Yeah, we'd have to ask for even more even more and and big cuts, right? This is not cut a million in 29 and but I don't have those I haven't worked
029out that far yet. I try to work out 10 years. I just haven't I haven't got there. So if somebody is at home saying well why don't they just ask for the same amount 14 million? Why did they have to increase at 1 million? How would that what would that do to us with this particular model? Now, if you if we're starting at 14 million now, we're ending with less than 45 days. Clearly, well, and you look at that, you you're looking at, you know, the collection. You're looking and just by doing back the napkin, you're if you ask for 14, you're essentially out of money in that last that third year, right? Because you you're you're losing a a full year's worth of collection in that in that time frame. So, so to answer
030the question, will delaying a levy not going on the ballot cost the community more? The answer is yes. If we wanted to maintain the same level of service that we have today, that's the other assumption. We're assuming we're we want to maintain our level of programming. All right. So, through all this kind of the underlying assumption that we want to maintain. Now, if the answer is we don't want this level of programming either direction, that shifts the discussion, right? So the other question and and comments and feedback that we received was discussion about an income tax. So um we're going to walk through a couple of just common uh you know basic information about school income taxes and then Randy will we'll do some discussion of modeling. But in Ohio, the most common types of
031school levies are property taxes and then you have traditional and incremental. Um that could change with this uh pending legislation, the bianium budget, but right now that's basic income tax. There's two different varieties uh traditional and earned income. And then there's bond issues and then combo issues which combine bond issues and then either or property tax and income tax operational funds. So that's generally the bulk there. There's some other levies, permanent improvement, and there's safety levies and other things, but generally those are the big ones. So we wanted to do a deep dive into the income tax. So the first type is a traditional income tax and and it's an income. Income that is not taxed in a traditional income tax is social security, disability, uh survivor benefits, railroad retirement benefits, welfare, child support, property
032received as gift, inheritance, and workers compensation benefits. And then what is tax or wages, salary, tips, interest, dividends, unemployment, self-employment, um you know, and you can read all those that are that are in the hopper. So that is a traditional tax. That is what we have in Parisburg and we have a half a percent of a traditional income tax. The other one that often gets talked about is an earned income tax. And so districts are permitted to to do an ear earned income tax and and it is based only on wages, salaries, and other compensation and net earnings from self-employment. Um the tax excludes other types of income and deductions that are traditional income based. So, interest, dividends, capital gains, pensions, and does not allow personal exemptions that are allowed under traditional tax base. So,
033there was a subtle difference there in terms of what you're paying on between an earned income and a traditional. Um, not to steal Ry's thunder, but an earned income has a smaller pool that you're drawing from. So to earn to to set a target at so many dollars that you need to collect annually, the amount of percent you need to collect off of an earned income tax increases because the pool has shrunk. And Randy has done a really nice job of outlining how how that works. Um the other thing is that a new income tax either way takes time to ramp up. property taxes, you you pass it in November. It goes on the books January 1. You begin to collect that with that next year. With income tax, we we shared with you, here's
034a traditional income tax of a half of a percent. If it's $10 million new, you see from January to June of 26, we would only collect 619,000 on that. And then the next year, you can see it begin to ramp up because you're paying taxes a year behind. you just filed in in in April for your federal taxes, your state taxes, local taxes. So, you're paying for the previous year. Um, so so I'm I'm oversimplifying how people pay taxes just to give an understanding, but but that is it. It the money doesn't come all at once. Um so the other thing that is important to note is that um once you have one type of income tax you can't add a different kind of income tax to it. So we shared back in in 1989
0351990 I forget the exact year the district passed an in a half a percent income tax that was traditional. So, if the board were to say, "We really like the earned income tax option," it would have to take two steps to be able to to make that switch. So, the first step would be you would have to replace an existing levy that was passed with an earned income tax. Um, and so that would um that would be the first step. And if that got the blessing of the voters, then the next step would be to ask for that additional um you know earned income tax. So it got on the same ballot. You you could that's something we'd have to talk to the attorneys. I I'm not sure. But two steps, two different ballots. Yeah.
036So that even makes this timeline even longer. couldn't you could not if if you wanted instead of doing a property tax levy wanted to do a a earned income tax levy it you it can't be done in November if you want to do an income tax you can do a traditional additional now having said that the other thing is um I have not received it yet but I request from the department of taxation a certification of what that equivalent would be because it changes obviously every year when the last time I did it it is the equivalent of that half percent is 3/4 of a percent in earned income. You can only do a quarter percent. So if that earned income was a So let's say the the equivalent of a half percent was really
0376/10 of a percent you still have to go 3/4 to get the equivalent. You can't do a fraction within that. So, um I'm waiting for that certification to get the exact numbers are. But this is kind of an independent long term. If you wanted to convert that earned income that that traditional tax to earned income, you could put that on the ballot and say, "Hey, replace this and you don't you don't put that income at risk because if it doesn't pass the the the traditional stays in place." So, you can keep that in place, but you can't we couldn't go on the ballot to both times because you can't put a earned income tax on the ballot when you already have an existing traditional income tax. Gotcha. Unless, you know, so it it's complicated. I've
038already talked to our our bond council about it, you know. Um, and again, I'm waiting for Department of Taxation to give me the exact numbers on what they estimate each of them would would generate. But, so it's half percent. So when I say 3/4% now that's based on the last time they ran that but it's that's what it's going to be because again it it's not going to be lower than that. The only thing it could be is higher. It could be 1%. I don't think it would be but it could be 1% would be the equivalent. And and um so the certification involves looking at the federal returns for everybody who lives in Parisburg school district. and um the last uh tax year 22 and this is reported on the cup report which is
039available on the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. But the the average income in Parisburg schools by a filer is $118,315.75. So that number times every resident who pays federal tax, state tax, that is what Randy is requesting from that. So, I just wanted to kind of back up to show that that that's the average um as of 2022. So, let's not beaten this to death, but just quickly move on. So, one of the reasons why collection takes long income tax about half the income tax, maybe slightly more is withholding, right? So, those who who um have it withheld from their paycheck that obviously department of taxation gets that quarterly from the from their from their employment entity. We don't get it in that quarter but so it happens faster. The non-withholding that is those
040who are not having withheld um self-employed or some cases you work outside the district the employer will not withhold it when you have to self-report that at in April 15th that catches it. So that's why it takes so long to get caught up. So it's not like your it's not like property tax where we all get the same bills you know twice a year. So this is uh beginning to look at the these um income tax considerations. So Randy did some some modeling here. So I'll turn it over to Randy again. So this is the same thing using the the the May forecast and and putting a half percent which is 10.5 million or so. And go ahead Thomas click the next. So that's equivalent about 7.48 mills you know give or take a couple
041hundreds of a mill. And again, equivalence, we've already talked about all these. The again, you can see what the delay does and it puts us at 16 true cash days. We're essentially we'd have to do something in between. Okay? And again, an uh uh income tax, a earned income tax is not feasible on this round. So, if you delay it another year, obviously it's it's not going to it's it's it's not going to work without major major reductions. But again, going back to we said, if you really want higher income tax, right? Yeah. You know, really in the long run, if the if the district really wants to move from a traditional to an earned, you can do that, you know, any point in time, right? You can say we want to hey voters we
042have this half percent we want to convert it to 3/4 or whatever the number ends up being earned income tax and it's it's risk free to the district because we're already collecting that that half percent. It doesn't go away if the voters say no. Could you have a scenario where you've got that question to the voters and a property tax on there that you want to change it to earned income, change what we have from traditional to earned and they can go yay or nay on that and then offer up a property tax of whatever you you can do that. Okay. Now the question of course in my first question in my mind is I can see why you'd want to do it but would it create more confusion but you could do it? Okay.
043Yeah. Just to be clear on the conversion right. So if we convert a 0.5% traditional income tax to an earned income tax does the percentage stay at 0.5 which would be less total revenue or does the percentage automatically adjust to the equivalent revenue against the earned income? So what happens? So on the on the income tax, you're specifying the percentage. Yep. It's going to collect what it collects. We have estimates on what? Estimates. Estimate estimates on what it's going to collect. So there's no guarantee you're going to collect that, right? And so and so and the the income tax goes for the calendar year. So you're still collecting catching up on the 0.5 when you convert to the 75. I don't know exactly how that that was going to work. The question was Yeah, the
044question was more if we convert is the percentage going to adjust so that your revenue is consistent. So if we convert from a traditional to an earned we would collect less revenue then because you're taxing different income categories but now at a lower rate. Well so the board has that option to set that amount is what Randy So yeah. So what you do is if if we were going to replace the half percent, assuming that you want to keep the same revenue or equivalent, you're going to put 3/4% on the ballot. But can we do that at the same time or does that have to be two separate? No, what you do is you do a do you do a replacement? You go, hey, we want to replace the half percent traditional income tax with
045a 75% or whatever that number is um earned income tax. That's the ballot. So it ends up, hey, I'm paying a half percent today. Am I willing to vote yes on a threequarters percent again equivalent earned? And so that's that's that's one ballot question. So and then again, we have to do it in quarter percents. Now whether that's again we'll get the chart from the Department of Taxation. That could be actually a little bit more revenue because you you have to you got to go up by a quarter percent. Right? like but I don't I don't remember the equivalent again it's being recalculated I'll get that to you as soon as I get it. Yeah. So I just think it's a I think it's an important nuance because the the conversion would also be a
046increase in the percent for some people. Right. Exactly. Right. So it's not just changing the type of tax. It's changing the type and increasing the percent get equivalent revenue. The whole point is go back to what the slide Sham showed on what's in a traditional tax is those um there's things in in in that that would no longer be taxed. Yeah. Right. So that's the benefit is some some of these um other you know dividends and stuff like that you or I don't there's some things in there that would not be taxed. So in in a in a community with with high investment and stuff income because social security for example is not already not taxed on it. So that's I I kind of look at it this way, you know, and it goes back
047to I I say earned income. I think it's a paycheck tax. Yeah. [Music] But didn't you say in regards to Chris's scenario that to do what he's saying that's a two ballot situation to convert is one is one step. Okay. So if we're going to have if if we're again so we have a traditional income tax. If we want that to be an earned income tax that's a valid that's that's one ballot step. If we want to have an additional income tax that is earned, that's a sec that's a second ballot issue. That cannot happen until you've converted the first one. Now, I think that I think your scenario, we have to do the conversion first, right? Because we can't have you can't have you can't have two different types. Yeah. But I think the
048key is the conversion also requires an increase in rate to keep revenue flat, right? Right. for some taxpayers. It's not just changing the you could we could just change the tax type, but then that would reduce revenues, right? Right. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's the the nuance. So putting it on if we were to think about do you want to put both on there, converting to an earned and maintaining revenue would actually be increasing the rate of taxation for folks against their earned income for those who are are earning a paycheck. And and that's the whole point is that moving the moving the tax burden. Yep. To those who are working essentially is what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. So I think Sue the income tax is a tough one to kind of connect the
049dots and it took me a while but um if what we're talking about is a replacement of a levy. It's not a renewal. So what you're talking about is renewal five a quarter or half a percent for a half a percent. If we do a renewal and keep it at half a percent, then we would actually be decreasing the amount collected. Replacement is replacing it with an equivalent that would bring the same dollar amount roughly, give or take. So, and and then if you were doing a property tax with that, now to Chris's point, you're going to have people that, you know, on payrolls are going to feel a little bit of an increase with a quarter percent income tax increase. People who aren't on that will feel feel a a decrease of a half
050a percent, but then we're also looking at property tax increase depending on what the board would set. So it the messaging gets it would be a little nuanced because there there would be many moving parts. Not that that's not impossible, but um those are the the questions that we're getting and we're and we're trying to answer and respond to those. So, um, so the, um, so not to feel bad, Randy, but usually this happens when, um, when I'm working with your, uh, presentation, but it just kicked me out. So, so I think while we're while you're getting that back up, so one of the thing the question came up, you know, the the the levy options are infinite, right? I mean every increment you can think of is a possibility. We've tried to narrow things
051down to get the you know put boundaries around to help help focus it. But so you know but the question is what if we did a smaller levy but did you know we want to try to control cost to a certain level. Yeah and that's the next question that we have teed up. So so so I thought I did so taking that request and this Chris this goes to some of the other questions you had I combined. So go ahead and go to the next slide Tom. So I said let's look at it and it's using the forecast. So start here. Our enrollment projections are modest but still there over the next five years. Our general fund budget this is right out of just um the forecast. So the yellow is so you see next
052year we see a decrease in our year-over-year. Now remember we're going against a base that was probably 5% or 6% higher year-over-year. So and then you can see the increases 5 and 7 7.2. So let's say the target is to we want to control those to 4%. Okay. So personnel costs are our biggest expense and you can see we're a little over 5% after next year. And then certified is the biggest one. And then classified exempt. I've grouped them together. And then admin. And you see next year the the real dollar reduction year-over-year in classified exempt admin and certified as a slight just a slight increase. Normally that'd be 5% or more but the reductions have kept that down. Built into the forecast is adding some staff for growth. And the reason that like certified
053goes over 5% is because of that adding one or two staff members to deal with growth. If you take them out, you stay right about 5%. On the classified side, I go, why is that number so high? I went back and looked and probably have a little bit too much built in there. Again, it's over 5% because of built-in to be able to add aids and monitor. So, it's not a huge dollar amount, but it is a percentage that I can fix. And then you can you can see the administrative. And then other by the way is um sixth period classes where um supplementals and substitute teachers and substitute staff are all in the other. So the biggest bulk of that's instructional substitute teachers and um so but that that that stays the reason it
054goes up it goes up at the about the level of base increases, right? So there's no steps involved in that. So you can see where the growth is. And if you notice in FY28, you see that big jump from 5.7% to 7.2. It shows up on the next on the next slide. Tom, go ahead. Um so you see benefits right now it's 8 8% and that's just and that's driven by completely by um health insurance. Health insurance is number one. Retirement's number two. Retirement is tied to um salaries and health insurance benefits obviously are based on claims. Purchase services we stay below 4%. Supplies and materials we're right around that 4%. The big jump in FY28 is due to the anticipation of having to buy portable classrooms, buy trailers. So you see a jump of
055almost $1.2 million because we know the next portals will have to have bathrooms, right? So if you look at controlling um try to get that 4% obviously you still got get the personnel but you know if we didn't have to buy portables there there's a significant change there. So go Tom hit the next go ahead and so I I modeled this again with those red reductions. Go ahead and hit the uh next button. And it's actually it got out of line, but it's actually 73 true cash days at the end of end of 29. We actually have decent position and go ahead and hit the next and these are the approximate reductions we would have to make in those years to get the control cost to to that 4%. So it's not, you know, certainly
056there there's some significant reductions there and except for the years of the portables if we didn't have to buy them that impacts it, but it's going to have to come out of personnel, right? That's where that's where the costs are and that's where talk about the assumption of maintaining programming. We're going to have a difficult time maintaining programming at our current level. I want to I want to jump back to slide 24 just to to kind of highlight what Randy covered well for us. Um so getting back to the question that we had at the beginning is what about the cuts? You know we showed that complicated bumping um spreadsheet. This this is another way that you can see the the people aspect of this on this slide. So we had 447 uh certified staff.
057So those are members generally that are in the pea. So teachers or teacher related Tom I'm sorry and just so you know that number is what was in the last payroll. Okay. So these are so like in there's at least a couple positions that um I can think of that were that essentially were are going to be eliminated that were not in the last payroll because they've already they've already left. So right. Okay. So that fluid piece. though. And then we're we're projecting to have 422 next year. So that that shows that reduction of staff. Now the question that people have is then if you're reducing by that many staff members, why are your costs going up 1.4%. Because in in our industry, we pay um every public school pays based on the Ohio law,
058Ohio revised code because you have to pay teachers based on their years of experience and their educational um you know u level. So that is required in in law. Local control determines what goes into that salary schedule and that's often referred to as steps. So when a teacher goes for summer break, they come back the next year, they advance to that next step, those costs are built in. So they automatically get those costs unless you negotiate a freeze on the steps, which we didn't do that. Um, but that just advancing the steps alone is an increase to the to the district. So even though we're reducing everybody moving down from one step to the next or stepping up from one step to the next in their salary is costing the district. So that so people
059who look at that and say that doesn't make sense. It's because of the that that model that that cost. If you go down to classified and exempt 239 to 219, that is a reduction in salaries because there was a sign a greater number of folks that were cut and those steps that they also have are not as great. So that that contributed to that 7.1% in real dollars. For administrators who don't have steps, the same thing. We go from 33 to 30, it's a 5.8% reduction in in that. So I wanted to to highlight that aspect of it because people at home will look at that and say well why you've cut administrators there's a decrease you've cut uh classified but with teachers you're showing a 1% one and a half% and the other thing
060to recognize is that on salaries in particular for for certified staff their contract is July 1st July 1st September 1st through August so there's two months into the next fiscal year so if you if you eliminate a position essentially goes in effect September 1st. So you get 10 months of savings, then you get two months in the next fiscal year. So if I saved 1 point I'm using simple math, $1.2 million, that's $100,000 a month, right? We really only see a million of it in one fiscal year, we see 200,000 in the next fiscal year. So it gets it's complicated to see those. You're trying to compare apples and apples is tough. So, I think that but I think the year-over-year percentage gives you an indication of of where those s how those savings are
061showing up. Just add those those two slides are excellent. Thank you for pulling them together. Yeah, and I like the the sh seeing the headcount change kind of helps to illustrate exactly where the cuts were. Um it may be illustrative to include 24 on that so you can kind of see the prior year before it started um just to see the the true net headcount that's occurred over the last over the last couple of years. But I think these are these are really good slides. Thank you for pulling them together. So skipping back. So so the discussion about the cost control. So, we want to keep we just talked about the increases and decreases and keeping our growth at 4% was suggested by a board member and what would that look like and and that's
062what's great about the feedback is well let's find out. So, what that does is the following slides illustrate the reductions that would be considered to meet the caps because we are going above the caps and we just showed you some of the reasons why. So, if we're going to go above the caps, we're going to need to put in some uh management uh to control that growth. Um in in the one year it'd be 1.28 million and then the next year 2.5 and then 2.89. So over three years that would be equivalent of of $6.7 million. So that that's kind of an abstract number for us. So, we'll send out a message to staff because to do this model, to do this exercise, let me be clear. This isn't a plan. This isn't like what
063will happen, but to to give a perspective of what these reductions would look like. We wanted to to take a moment or two to kind of share like, well, these are the kinds of cuts that would have to go into keeping that 4% cap because I think it's an important part of the conversation because abstract when you're dealing with a $70 million budget, cutting 6.7 million over three years, yeah, it sounds reasonable. Um, but let's let's talk about what that could be. And again, the comparison is not just about controlling the cost, but it I think there's also been discussion, well, can't you ask for less than 11 million, this is about a million less. If we had asked if we asked for 9.9, I'm just going to round up to 10. I know it
064gives us a little bit more money, but if we asked for a million dollar less, this is also the same scenario. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's a good point. In that slide, it it was instead we've talked about 14 million in November of 24. In May, a few weeks ago, we talked about um um it was uh $11 million and now this is 9.9 million. So you see that. So to get 9.9 million, those that's where those numbers those red rejection numbers. So we'll send out a message to staff and say the following slides are not a cut list. They are not a plan. We have a process that we go through to to get to those kinds of reductions. And we have talked about coming up with a reduction list even adding another layer of
065feedback from staff. So that's that's in a message that will go out. But um and and again this is this is just part of the model. So 6.7 is the target over three years. So how do we get to that target um if we if we do that? So here are some things you'll see example highlighted. This is an example, not a plan, but uh if you if you look at getting to that number, um high school busing is not required under the Ohio Revised Code and it would be roughly a million dollars. And you can see all the different positions that would be there. Um the junior high, um you can see the positions that are there. Hal Prairie, elementary, central office. So that gets us to $6.7 million. all those cuts. I'm not
066going to go through those, but you can see what are the kinds of things that would go into that. Um these reductions would affect um supporting students and programming. Um we we just are showing this as about the positions could change at the end of the day. We have to hit those dollars and and we're already $6 million into cuts. These would be in addition to that. Um, so again, we just wanted to spend a little bit of time digging into that as as a model. So, thank you for that. So, I guess the other um option in there, right, is so the cuts would be one way, but the other option would be there there could be additional revenues evaluated over that time as well versus making the cuts, right? It's about getting into
067what's the optionality over the the time period that we're looking at. So, you know, I think Randy made an interesting point on if you if we didn't have to do um portables or if we funded the portables through a different option through a different permanent improvement levy or something like that. I think there's a level of optionality that we can look at within the is it all cuts, is it cuts in revenue, is it no cuts but more revenue. Um just trying to think through okay what would that look like so that we've kind of got that picture and the difference of a million dollars is is a big difference. Yeah. Which which kind of leads us nicely into what we discussed and and you've seen these slides so I don't want to um but
068the the 1 million annually would be um 7.8 mil levy. So again over you know almost 10 mills came off December 31st. So this would be asking uh 7.8 mills. It picks up from 9.9 it's it's 11 million. So it's that extra million dollars that you said makes a difference. That does. Uh and then this is a breakdown of what it would cost uh per homeowner. The 9.7 mills that expired versus a 7.8 mills. the the relief that people received from having those mills fall off. Um they would still be paying less than what they did on December 31st in 2024 with a 7.8 mil levy. Um and so it's it's a smaller option. It's a smaller option than what was presented back in November with $14 million or you know levy. So So anyway,
069I I won't we got some millillage that's falling off. We talked about that at length. Um, and so this was all from the last presentation. Finally, very clearly we're not out of the woods and and we recognize that that something has to be done. And the doors, door number one, do nothing, make reductions all the way up to what we were talking about in November, which was passing a $14 million levy, you know, near 9 mill. So the cost of financial uncertainty is something that's real and and we talked about that impact with staff. Uh we just extended the to principal um uh deadline. We we had approximately five applicants for a principal's job here at one of our elementaryaries. So you could add that to the list of teachers and other you know for
070the same reason. So it's a perspective and then and then we've talked about the timelines. So I'll turn it over for discussion purposes now. So, thank you for all the information for responding to our questions. Um, at this time, yeah, I would like to open it up to the board and maybe we can go around the horn of um, you know, kind of where where we are thinking, what are our concerns are, what additional information we might need. Um, I kick it to finance member Laurara to start us off. I think sorry I think when we look at this um we need to really be cognizant of state budget and where it's going to be um additional ask from the state when it comes to unfunded mandates. Um, I get nervous when our days of
071cash run under 60 just because of timing of bills, timing of payment, um, going five years out, I'm I'm more concerned with us falling short and not and having to come back early and ask taxpayers for money. So, something to consider. Okay. Um, go over to Mr. Anderson. Yeah. So, I mean, I I I think from from my side, I think we absolutely need something on the ballot in November. I think that's clear. Um, the problem just gets harder the longer we go. Um, I think we do have to consider the impact on the community, right, on people's expenses. So, I, you know, as far as your question, Susan, on additional information, I I think I have all the information I need at this point that the trick now is just narrowing down to the
072number. Um, I think the, you know, I could, I think the 11 or the 9.9 are both options that are going to require potentially coming back depending on what the state budget does. But at this point, there's so many unknowns with that. It almost becomes impossible to plan around. We know what we know today and we've got to make the best decision we can with that. And we have to understand that if the state changes things, we may have to come back in a couple of years and make an adjustment. If the property tax is repealed, that's going to be a a huge adjustment that people are going to have to factor to. Or we may have to we may have to look at making some level of cuts to make the numbers um meet.
073I I think that's just the decision we have to get to. I would given how tight the timing is I I would encourage us to try to get there sooner rather than later if we can you know because I think whether it's you know 9.9 versus 11 seem to be kind of the two options the property the income tax seems to be maybe a bit of a long putt to do this year. Um you know we just got to narrow down between the two and then get moving. Thank you. Well, um I'm I need time to digest this presentation since this was the first time I've seen it. Um it's a it's a lot to take in, but I also want to get community feedback on this. Where are they at? We've taken over the
074years, we've done a lot of community research and the levies that we've thrown out, let's not let me change the wording on that. the levies that we have put to the community to be clear um have been rejected yet we based that on community input and so it's conf I'm still confused as to where we're supposed to go. We want to keep Parisburg in the top 7% in the state but nobody wants to pay for it. So where is that where's that happy spot? the fulcrum on this balance. Um, so we've got a public forum tomorrow at 10:00 here in this handy dandy room. So I would I'm I appreciate your confidence, Chris. I'm kind of a little overwhelmed at at our options and trying to understand where we need to go. I really want
075to hear more from our community as to what they will support. I think I can't believe that they don't understand now what the rejections have cost us. Not only right now, but in that one slide, Tom, that you had with the the teachers that were offered their jobs back and they won't come. the lack of applicants, the lack of qualified applicants, um positions going without any applicants because people are afraid to come here now. We used to be a destination district. Now maybe we're a district that people know not to come to a different kind of destination. That's not what we want. That's not what we want for our students and that's not what we want for our home values. That's not what we want for our community. The community is based on the quality
076of their schools. So, you have to get behind the schools. Where is our community at now that they see what the decisions have truly cost? Um, and I'm not sure I know what that is. So, I'm going to try and absorb all of this so that because we'll we'll need to make our first decision, right, Randy? By the June meeting. Well, that's the the plan right now to not have special meetings would be to do the resolution of necessity at this month's regular meeting on the 16th. That would set us up to be able to then make the resolution to proceed at the July regular meeting, which I believe is the 21st. If we are not prepared to do the resolution of necessity this month at our regular meeting, we would probably well we will
077need to call a special meeting in order to still stay in time and get ourselves on the ballot. So that the the perfect scenario or the two regular meetings that we would look at the resolutions required to get it on the ballot. If we are not prepared to do that at this at the regular meeting, then we'll need to call a a special meeting somewhere at the end of June, beginning of July. Okay. So, I think this report that the two of you put together, this was very well done. I'm going to take a while to digest it a little bit though. Um, so that gives us time to give to get this feedback and see let's see where people are at. As as Erica is always saying, the the best levy is the one
078that the people will accept. Well, we've been putting those out there and they're not accepting them. So, I want to understand where they're at and I and I truly do not know. I I'm just kind of my hands are up in the air at this point. So, I think that's an important amount of feedback that we need to get and hopefully people will come to the dialogue session for tomorrow. Um, and maybe um another plug 10 o'clock here tomorrow. Maybe Mr. Hustler, if you could put up slide 44 for that. Um, thank you. I'm not cutting you off, am I? No. Okay. Um, yeah. I think one of the challenges that, um, we've noted is that in some ways the community hasn't fully felt. I mean, we've, you know, we limited building access due to
079the decrease in the custodial staff, but otherwise, these are all reductions that will occur for next school year. And I think that's part of the challenge is that other than the the list of real names now that we can see um there the community still isn't I'm still not sure exactly what the impact of these reductions are. So, that's part of the challenge right now. I I think Miss Larur, you also made an interesting comment when you said, "No one wants to pay for it. I'm going to throw in the state on that because all of the proposals at the state level will just put more and more expectations on us. I mean, we're already at a very low percentage of I'm not going to quote a number off the top of my head because
080I'm not good at that, but um they're already paying for a very small amount of the education here and they're all proposals are to spend even less money um next year, maybe a little bit of an increase, and then after that, a pretty sharp decrease. So, I I think our community wants to pay for it. I think our community wants the state to pay for it too with our tax money that they have. Um what I'm hearing is if we look at some of the assumptions that we need um and so I'm going to kind of run through those and then also share some of my thoughts. I think that there seems to be a shared assumption that we want to stay in any scenario above the 60-day true cash. Um that we don't want
081to short ourselves. We don't want to put ourselves in a position of um either because of the changes made at the state level or other conditions of having to borrow money or have to do reductions since we have, you know, we're already doing those. Um so I'm going to say that that that 60-day true cash seems to be a shared agreement. Um and there seems to be a very clear shared agreement at this time that none of the um reductions that were made for that over $6 million of cuts, none of those will be back in the budget in the future. Um it it also sounds like that we are um I think due to the uncertainty and also then the cost the ripple cost effect that we do definitely want to be on the
082ballot in November with a levy. So if we start naming and uh if we start naming the things we don't have to discuss then we can focus on the things that we need to still discuss. There seems to be agreement as much as we would like to consider this and I'm going to put this in the strategic plan category that right now an income tax that would be an in earned income tax is not feasible for our current financial needs. But that could be part in the next five years of rolling that out. What would it look like for us to we'd have to get the numbers shift it from a traditional to an earned and would we want to fund in the future any additional needs with an additional earned income tax? That would
083be something that really would need a lot of community input because I think that's going to create a a bit of a divide. But we could certainly look at even if we don't look at future revenue additional revenue we could just look at looking taking that traditional to an earned alone. So that can be a kind of a strategic question over the next couple years. Um, and I think right now the assumption is that within the next year or two that we are not interested in trying to make more reductions, but that we need to look at what our kind of five-year plan for that is. One of the things that I'm I'm very cognizant of that I um since there is a lot of uncertainty from the state level about what our funding sources
084are going to be. Our current strategic plan takes us through next year. Um but it means next year that really we should be as a board starting to engage a strategic planning process again. And that strategic planning process will certainly set up the expectations we have about curriculum, about programs. Um, and that would then translate into the financial needs if we want to go in whatever direction we determine in that strategic plan that that would set us up for our is it that we need to we may need to cut some things in order to let some new things happen or it may be that we need some additional revenue. So I I for me that is right now I'd like to plan for things as they are knowing that next year we really should
085be in a strategic planning process um to look at really 2027 through 2030 kind of time period. Um so that's kind of where I'm thinking. I like the 11 million because it gets us through just at the minimum um cash balance that we're looking at. It does not require cuts right now that um that are you know we we're not planned to do additional reductions and costs and it gives us that time to do some strategic planning and determine what we're going to do with facilities, what we're going to do with the curriculum. Um, and some of that may again come down as unfunded mandates. I know one of the bills has uh, you know, kind of expansion of requirements of curriculum at the junior high for instance. Um, I'm guessing that's not going to
086come with money. So that I I'm right now leaning towards the 11 million, but I realize that I I think what seems to be is that 9.9 to 11 million figure. I think there's still some discussion about the fiveyear fiveyear or less. Um I'm and I've said this before. I'm I'm for the fiveyear that allows us the time to then adjust in the middle. I and I like the fact on slide 42 that um with the mills falling up off from the PHS bond that 11 mil um 11 million becomes you know the 21350 a year per 100,000. um you know compared to previous tax or even the 273 or the 339 is seems more doable you know more affordable I know it's not doable perhaps for everybody I shouldn't say that um so the
087assumptions that I'm not hearing consensus on are the ex are the amount somewhere in this 9.9 to 111 and the length of the levy is that is Is there another assumption that I'm not hearing that you're not on board with? No, but I mean I guess I I'll just say I'm I'm good with five years as well. So I don't know if we're if they're are we truly not agreed on the length or we I think Manki raised a question about that. So I just wanted to Oh, okay. Gotcha. Worried about the last definitely the last year almost the last two years if we go five. in the amount or the the term. Well, with the with the 7.8 mil, I'm worried about the last year and a half year and a half. We wouldn't
088we wouldn't be bringing enough in. Yes. Okay. Or that we'd be getting dangerously close. So, which slide is that? And I think for me again those adjustments it may be that the next move is a small if we can either another income tax traditional without transitioning the current one into an earned or another earned. think there is a desire in the community to have um the balance if the if the state's going to ask us to um support education more and more that it not all come property tax. I like the property tax right now because we had an expired one. Let's get a little bit of property tax, a less amount. I think it's about a it's about twothirds of what we had before. um a little bit less but um and that then
089that course correction maybe in four years if we needed that or five based on where that that could be maybe the income tax of some variety but that would be part of our strategic decision. So I want to I think that the five-year property gives us the option of looking at an income tax in the interim if needed. Yeah. So yeah, agreed. I just want to clarify though. So like the 7.88 is a five-year levy, but we may have to come back before the five years if we don't if the the numbers change on the the back side, right? Am I hearing your concern right Laura? Okay, perfect. That's what I thought. Yeah. So it is five years. It's just we may we may not have and that' be the same issue with the the
0909.9 is right you'd have to either make cuts. Same with the 11 because you won't hit the 60 true days cash with just the 11 and you we'd either have to come back for additional revenue within the five-year period or we would have to contemplate cuts to to maintain 60 true days cash in the period and Susan's point I think the the term becomes important from a flexibility standpoint right because obviously there's a lot of uncertainty out there but if you got five years we have predictable cash flow for five years But maybe at year three you're going this is not enough or whatever and we could replace what you know early or you can do something new or and but the point is you strategically the board will have some flexibility and not just
091be oh my gosh we're running out of money we got to put another levy on without any room for error. I think um just in 2010 we were in the middle of a of a four-year levy and it was an incremental levy and that was when the uh state's tax collection really did a dive because of the recession. So again we're a year behind. So they we were beginning to feel the effects of 2008 2009 the recession hit us hard all schools hard in 2010 there was discussion with the board at that point in time about do we go to the voters and ask to to ask for more money in the midst of this because with the levy that we have now we're going to run into some financial difficulties and the board at
092that year in 2010 said we're not going back to the voters we're going to make reductions and they made three and a half million roughly $3 and half million dollars worth of reductions and then the next levy that was became a point of restoring those things. So we've we've have historically faced those situations where the state has changed things and the board has wrestled with those decisions and the last time it faced it said we've asked the voters this is the commitment and we're going to honor that commitment. We need to tighten our belts. we need to do the things that we need to do and we did that in 2010. So just sharing that as a historical thing that that you know that that's happened and boards have wrestled with that and it's not
093easy and and that was their choice then. So, and I think I mean I I think to Miss Benkey's point, I mean I was just looking I was trying to so I think the 11 million in five years puts us at 44 real cash days if I'm looking at the right version of this. Um is that 52 now? So that's the nove that was that was the November um well that's with the 14 million. Yeah, that was 14 and then this pulls up May. So 44 is the right number. Yeah, right there. Yeah. So that it does it is the minimum it is the minimum really we can ask and stay in shot of 60 days at the end of the fiscal year. Um so it does set us below. So to Miss Mankeyy's point
094at some point um you know in fiscal year 2728 we are going to need to be looking ahead but again I think that's where the strategic planning next year to set us up for what are the financial needs going to be in the future. So it is the minimum we really can ask for and it's actually a little bit less than we probably should ask for but I think it's probably a better number than asking for 11 and a half. Okay, other questions or comments? Again, um questions to Mr. Hustler or Mr. Drewer? If uh I'll be checking in with everybody before the regular meeting of whether we're going to be close to getting to a resolution of necessity or not. Um all right, any other comments, questions? All right, great meeting. Thanks for the
095discussion. Thanks for the presentations, Mr. Drewer and Mr. Christie and Mr. Hustler, Miss Price. No, you're always there. Um, if there's no objections, I will adjourn the meeting. Hearing none. Meeting adjourned. There we go. I don't like that.