001Bluetooth mode. Good evening. Thank you for coming out. We appreciate you taking the time to come out and listen. Um, so the setup for tonight is that my clicker is not working. The setup for tonight is that we'll do a presentation and I'm going to go through the points of the presentation here, what we're going to cover, and then at the end we'll give an opportunity to ask questions. And so with this, uh, we'll give you an update on the current legislation that was just passed on Tuesday. Uh, we'll give an overview of the district. We're going to look at how we compare to other um districts in our county. We're going to look at our talk about our carryover requirement, the timeline of information, our budget findings to date, our spending reduction plan, our
002path forward, the impact of reassessment. Um also, we're going to go over our meeting reminders when we hold uh public meetings, and then at the end, like I said, we'll give an opportunity to ask questions. Steve, I think you're going to have to be my clicker. >> Yep. >> All right. Well, uh, good evening everyone. My name is Richard Forston. I am the, uh, school board president. And for those of you who don't know him, that was Matt Burroughs, our school superintendent. He and I are going to tag team a little bit on this presentation. And I want to echo Matt's comments and thanking you all for coming out tonight and being engaged. Um, our job as schoolboard members is made easier when we hear from from more people. We had put this presentation together
003uh and then on Tuesday, some of you may have read in the news journal or elsewhere uh about uh the special session that the general assembly had on Tuesday. Um I was there during the day until we had a schoolboard meeting that night. Three bills were passed. Um for our purposes, uh the important bill is the third bill, House 242. And that bill allows school districts in Newcastle County to revise the their tax rates that we set at the beginning of July retroactively to allow for a lower residential rate or a lower rate on residential properties and a higher rate on non-residential properties. Uh we have 10 business days to do that. And so we are going to have a special meeting on next Thursday, which I believe is the 21st, right? Today's the 14th.
004So that'll be at 5:00 at the usual place and it will also uh be uh on YouTube for those of you who can't make it in person. Um, tonight's meeting and town hall is to talk generally about the finances of the district and why the school board took the actions it did on July 8th. Um, you know, because of public notice requirements and and schoolboard notice requirements and the like, we really can't talk about what we may or may not do uh next Thursday. uh that'll be where we discuss the change in the rates. But that was action that the uh the general assembly took on Tuesday. And so if we go to the next slide, if we go to the next there it is. Um so this is the notice it was posted. uh
005it's on our website, but next Thursday uh which is the 21st at 5:00 pm we'll be meeting at the training center over on Route 13 in our usual uh boardroom and uh it'll be on YouTube and that's where we will discuss uh adjusting the rates >> and I apologize I apologize I didn't introduce myself Matt Burrow superintendent of the Applecom school district we also have uh two other members of the boards up here with us we have Dr. Dr. Toshiba Graham and our newest board member, Tim Higgins. So, who are we as a district? Next slide, please. So, our current operating budget is uh 236 million. We're at 13,141 students. Uh that currently makes us the second largest school district in the well almost the second largest school district in the state. We will pass
006uh Christina this year. We're the fastest growing school district in the state and have been for the last uh 15 years. Uh our operational cost per student is $18,000. We currently have 19 district office administrators and our size of our assessment base is uh $15 billion and the local money raised for that from that is $52 million. So, how we compare to the rest of the county? Um, we have the lowest tax base of any of the other districts in the county. Excuse me. We have the lowest operating cost. We spend the lowest amount per student. We're below the state average on spending per student. Uh, that's the entire state. And we have the fewest administrators per student in Newcastle County. So, if we can go to the next slide, this is how our uh
007sister districts to the north compare to us. And we wanted to show you the this slide because, you know, one of the things that we hear uh at the school district at at the board level, and I know Matt and others in in the district office hear all the time, is you know, you guys are spending too much money. We spend too much money. you know, we shouldn't be spending so much money. And I just want to remind people that when you look at the other districts, we're not spending very much money at all. Um, this slide shows Brandy Wine has 10,000 students. They're spending 22,750 per student. Now, these figures do include uh special education expenses as well. So when you look at us at the bottom, that's why it's 20,000 because um that
008picks up the special ed expenses. This is this these figures come from the state website. Um Christina, which uh is just a little bit larger than us right now, and we may pass them in the next couple months. Um they're spending 26,000 per student in Colonial, less than 9,000 students. So they've got uh over 4,000 less students than us and they're spending 23,000 a student. Red Clay still the largest and they probably will be for at least the next couple years. Um they're spending 225 per student. So if you look at just the difference between us and Red Clay where they're spending 225 more per student if we spent at an equal amount per student as Red Clay. So $2,500 more per student over $13,000 students. That's my math holds. That's about $32 million more
009that we would be spending that we're not spending. So the reason I want to emphasize this is we do really, one of our former board members used to say we really do operate on a shoestring compared to some of our um fellow uh school districts. And if we go to the next slide, you'll see part of the reason why um our operating tax rate so is 35 cents per $100 of assessed value. Now that's the rate before any adjustment we might make next Thursday. Um so you can see Brandy Wine their operating uh tax rate is uh se 17% higher than ours. And then if you look at the right hand column, that's the assessment base. So that's the total of all the property values in each school district. And you can see that um
010Brandy Wine's assessment base is 7.8% more than ours and their operating tax rate 17.1% more than ours. So if you multiply the tax rate times the assessment base, that gives you the tax revenue that the school district raises. And that kind of explains why uh those our school districts to the north are able to spend so much more money. Um we do not have for example an oil refinery or a Christiana mall or an experimental station or WL Gore or any of the office buildings that are in the city of Wilmington. So that's why our tax base is so much lower than all of the rest of the school districts uh in Newcastle County. And a couple of other little interesting uh facts, you know, there is a data center that is being proposed for
011the refinery um up in the Colonial School District. Uh that data center, if it goes through, is about 6 million square feet of space. If you conservatively estimate $300 a square foot for fair market value, so therefore for assessment, that data center would be assessed at $1.8 billion. And if you look at Colonial's uh total assessment base right now, it's $15.6 billion. So in other words, if that data center gets built in Colonial, their tax base will go up by more than 10%. Just that one project. Now, that's a huge project. It's a once in a-lifetime project. It would be the most significant investment uh in Delaware history. Um but you know, that's the power of economic development. That's the power of non-residential development. Um next slide, please. So, we feel that you get bang
012for your buck with uh what we're spending. Thank you, Mr. Forson, for showing how we compare the rest of the uh districts in Newcastle County and spending. Our standardized test scores prove that. Uh we're we just had our results, they'll be out tomorrow of standardized testing. Uh we rank at the top of the state um in ELA and math. Uh we last year our AOCIC high our our high schools were all in the top six of traditional public high schools. Matter of fact, Apaccom high school was number one in both ELA and math um on the SAT. Next slide. So, one of the things that we have to do as a school district and um it's something that we pay a lot of attention to every year and if you watch our meetings, you see
013we're always asking our uh financial people about this. The state requires every school district to have always have two payrolls in the bank. Makes sense. Good fiscal policy. And uh I think it's born on past experience years ago that the state went through. But the point is that at all times a school district is supposed to have two pay periods uh in its bank as a cash reserve. So for us last year that meant we always had to have $4.2 million in the bank um because that's two payrolls in the district. And again if you were So can we go to the next slide? So, next slide, next slide, next. There we go. So, um, at our May 13th meeting, and it's there on YouTube. If if you weren't able to watch it, you can
014watch it in reruns. Um, we we got our financial report, and we were projected to have $7.9 million carryover at the end of the year. um good number, well more than 4.2 million and so we were looking good. Now we were projected to have a big carryover at the end of this year and then next year would be a little lower and next year it would be a little lower and then eventually depending on inflation and depending on if we ever get any non residential uh development in Aquinameck, we'd probably have to go out for a referendum again. build up your cash reserve and then it goes down with inflation in a uh almost never- ending cycle. But shortly after that May 13 meeting, we started to hear back that there were some errors in
015the forecast and we brought in um our former CFO, Chuck Longfellow, who went on to be the CFO for the Department of Education. and we brought uh in another uh school district, former CFO from downstate to go through the projections and figure out exactly what the heck was going on and um and report back to us. And Matt, I'll let you describe uh what we found. >> Following the expert review, uh we were informed of the full um impact of the budgeting errors. It was determined at that point um that we actually had a 3.05 carryover or 3.1 if you round up. We want to just be clear on this that there was no um misdoing or no one absconded with funds from the district. This was budgeting and forecasting errors that occurred. This money
016went to good things. The money went to teachers, to kids, to materials and things like that. it was just the misforing aspect of it. So the forecasting errors that were discovered um as we looked as we had the budget examined next slide it under projected payroll. So when Richard referred to the financial uh report that was shared with with me the financial advisory committee and with the school board that showed $7.9 million and neglected $2.8 8 million in salaries that it was going to take to get to the end of the year. It also in that budget when we dug into the budget, it showed summer school funds or summer school um cost were put into a line in the budget that was uh IDAB or federal funds. Those funds cannot be used to spend
017for summer school. So that money had to be taken out of our local side of our of our budget. And then the other part of this was increased utility costs which account for about.7 um million of that come into play. So that's where we went from what looked like a $7.9 million carryover and we say forecasting errors and misbudgeting that takes us to the 3.058. Some things as we continue to go forward that are part of our budget. 87% over 87% of our budget is employee cost and so we continue to have those employee cost. We continue to have contracts and things like that. You can't stop paying people. So that's part of our budget and will continue to happen. Rising utility costs the we're still continuing to see that utility costs are increasing. Um
018we've mentioned this, we've been talking about this since April at our schoolboard meetings. We're seeing a rising our population of our special education students. And then just as is hitting everybody in this room and everyone in our community, we're seeing inflation that's impacting our budget. So, uh this slide shows us kind of what happens if we don't meet that required carryover. Uh basically, um Delaware law authorizes the state then to appoint what's called a financial recovery team, which then takes control of the district's budget and spending. Uh and that uh financial recovery team has very broad powers over the expenditure of funds. They also get to approve tax rates and uh essentially have to take over spending and financing in the district. Not a good option. And you know, if I was on a financial
019recovery team and I came into a school district where the tax rate was significantly lower than any of the other operating tax rates in uh Newcastle County, an easy fix would be to say just raise your tax rate to match the next lowest tax rate. And that was uh if we go if we were to go back to that slide, that would be Brandy Wine, which is a full six cents more than us. So, um, even with the action that we took in July, we're still 6 cents lower than than Brandy on the operational side. If we go to the next slide, so we didn't have a lot of good options. Um, you know, we could have done nothing, right? And just said to the state, fine, we don't have uh the required carryover. you
020guys deal with it. Um, that was not a particularly uh enticing choice. And as I say, with those broad powers and the unknowns that come with it, including the power to adjust tax rates, and not something we wanted to do, we could have said, "Let's cut $7.5 million from next year's uh budget uh and future budgets." That would have gotten fairly messy because um as was said earlier about 87.4% of our expenditures are personnel related and you know much like the federal government you hear about the federal government by the time you pay out all the entitlements associated with the federal government there's not much very there's not very much discretionary spending that's left to to play with or to adjust. And that's true of the school district as well when you're looking at 87.4%
021of your costs being personnel related. Prior to the action that we took uh at July, we were raising just over 45 million through our operating tax rate and revenue. And uh as folks know uh we could raise that by up to 10% roughly five million. Um, if we had done a full 7.5 million in cuts, you know, we would have started to having to cut teachers, there's just no other way to say it. And when we cut teachers, we're only paying a certain percentage of their salary. The state's paying the rest, but it's not like we get that money. Oh, you're not hiring as many teachers as you could. Here's some extra money to spend on other stuff. That money just doesn't come in. Uh, it would not have been pretty. It takes about $500,000
022on our side to pay for roughly 14 teachers. So another five million in cuts if all of that was teacher related. And maybe it wouldn't have been, but I mean very back of the envelope rough math. That's about 140 teachers. Uh which would not have been acceptable and would not have been good. So what did we do? We had a lot of lot of bad options, but we took what I thought was the least bad option, and I'll, you know, I'll say that's what I voted for. We cut expenses 2.5 million, not only this coming year, but future years. And we also approved a one-time 10% increase, which we were authorized to do in connection with the reassessment. So, that was the action that we took at the July board meeting. So, when we talk
023about the $2.5 million in cost reductions, we're looking at uh four major categories here. We're looking at school budget reductions. We're looking at department budget reductions. We're looking at staff reassignments. And then the large chunk of this is program initiatives and position reductions. Um, and that gets us to the $2.5 million. Uh, as mentioned previously, 87.4% 4% of our cost is employee cost. We're an employee business. So what we doing moving forward to ensure that this does not happen again? So what one thing we've done is we've hired a new director of finance. Um and she's sitting up here at the front. So we have new director of finance. We also have are adding additional members to our financial advisory committee uh with financial background. Anyone interested in that, feel free to reach out. Uh
024more than glad to have you be part of the team. Um additional financial financial reporting and documents for our financial advisory committee and school board and improved budgeting and reporting systems. um in regards to our budgeting. So we also are expecting a um detailed external report from the state auditor. They have promised that that would be delivered by Labor Day. We also have internally hired um commissioned people to come in and to look at our finances and do analysis of our finances and to look um at them. That report is expected to be midepptember. >> Yeah. And just to follow up on Matt's point, I mean, the goal here, I mean, you know, before the board sees anything, before we present anything to the public, it's prepared, it's reviewed, it's double checked. The theory being
025that it's accurate when it comes to us. Um, obviously that did not happen with what we were presented with May. And so, you know, I have said a couple times and others have said, we want to make sure that if there are additional processes that need to be in place, we want them to be in place because we don't want this to happen to us again, we also don't want it to happen to any other school district either. Um the next slide, one of the things um that we also discovered during the reassessment process, uh we only I only found this out last November and I started talking about it at schoolboard meetings. Um historically and going forward, tax bills get issued on July 1st based on whatever you know your assessment is. But new
026properties that get built during the tax year, which runs from July 1st to June 30th, they don't get to ride the whole year without paying anything. The county historically every quarter issues what are called supplemental tax assessments. So that for example, Target opened in October. So, I was pretty excited about that because that meant ordinarily the county would issue a tax bill to Target and then it would pay three would pay starting November 1st and pay three quarters of a of the uh I'm sorry, October 1st, they would pay and pay three quarters of a tax bill. Not a full tax bill because they didn't open at they weren't open at the beginning of the year, but they'd pay 3/4 of a tax bill. There were other stores that opened. Sprouts opened, Dashing is opened,
027um, any number of stores. And every now and then I go to Parcel View and I'm I'm sure some of you have been to Parcel View. It's a Newcastle County website where you can look up information about individual properties. And I went there and I said, "Oh, good. Target is opened. I wonder how much they're going to be paying in school property taxes." And there wasn't anything, right? It was still no reassessment based on the fact they were open. So, I called some friends at the county finance department and said, "Hey, just so you know, Target's open. It's time to reassess them and was told, "Oh, yeah. We're not doing that this year because of reassessment. We're so busy doing other things, we just aren't doing that this year." Now, ordinarily because of this supplemental
028assessment process, um, with all the growth that we have in Aphequin and we've been having, um, we have typically gotten anywhere from a million to $2 million in property tax revenue during the course of the year. It's not part of our budget. It just comes in as kind of a little kicker, but it helps us at the end of the year. And so at the end of this past year, you heard us say we have $3.1 million. If we'd had gotten a another million dollars in tax revenue, we'd have had 4.1 carryover instead of 3.1. And it if it had been a little bit more, we actually would have had enough to meet the carryover requirement. But the county took the year off. County council was unaware of that. The county executive was unaware of
029that. uh there's no use I'll say crying over spilled milk. It is what it is. But again it goes to the fact that you know because we have the lowest tax base and we have the lowest expenses um we are really um living on a shoestring and uh when things don't always work out they all add up. I'm going to do the next slide too if we can get to that. So, um, we're not the only ones who increased, uh, by 10%. Uh, Christina went up 10%. Uh, Colonial went up only 7%. Um, and if you go to the next slide, again, I just wanted to come back to this because we're about to go on to some other slides, but um, again, I just wanted to show the fact that even with the increase
030that we did, when you look at the other districts, you can see that we're still by far uh, we have the lowest uh, operational uh, tax rate. uh and that if your same house was in one of the other districts, you'd be paying more. Um, you know, we do pay attention to the finances. I can't help it that we got a flawed report on May 13th. Hindsight's always 2020, but we did. And uh and again, no use crying, ever spilled milk. I do want to now if we can go to the next slide. So this slide shows what the median assessment was for housing in aquinic in 2023. So the median's the midpoint that means 50% were more 50% were less. So before reassessment the average residential property which was based on 1983 values so
031that's why it's so low was $86,200. After reassessment, the median was 485,200. So right now as we all sit here today, half of the people in half of the homes, half of the residential properties in our district are are assessed at less than $485,200 and half are assessed at more than $800 and $485,200. And so that is roughly what about a six-fold increase. Little it's I think 5.6 75 um increase that the median went up. And what that tells you is if your house went up more by a greater percentage than than than that, then your tax bill was going to go up just because of reassessment. And if your house went up less than that amount, if your house only went up four times uh its 1983 value, then your tax bill is going
032to go down. And I know people whose tax bills have gone up, and my I suspect many of you or many of the folks here in the audience, that's what happened. That's what happened to me. My tax bill has gone up about $1,400. Um, but I also know people whose tax bills went down. Um, the 10% increase that we adopted, didn't want to adopt it, but we adopted it at our July meeting, works out to $171 if you have that median assessment of $485,200. So, um, so for people in the district, you know, it was 100. I mean, I wish it wasn't, but the average or the median, excuse me, was $171. Some less, some more. Um, that's where we were, and that's what happened as a result of the uh actions we took on
033July 8th. Now, stay tuned. Um, as I said at the beginning of this meeting, the general assembly has given us some authority to adjust those tax rates. And while, you know, the board is not going to meet or discuss uh that issue until it's meeting next Thursday, I mean, under state law, we have to have those discussions in public. And um, you know, we can't have them out of out of sight and and they're supposed to be at a public meeting. And that meeting is now noticed for next Thursday. Um, you know, if I had to read the tea leaves and if I was thinking about things, I think that the rates might be adjusted uh at our meeting next week, but I'm only one person. Um, I did want to, if we can go
034to the next slide. Yeah, I started off the meeting by thanking everyone for coming and we're going to stay here a while uh until 7:30 to answer questions uh uh that that folks may have and and you know even after that I mean I'm happy to talk to people out in the parking lot or whatever or some people have called me at the office. Some people have sent me emails. Some people have sent me very nice anonymous notes but um our schoolboard meetings take place the second Tuesday of every month. Um they're in person, but I mean if very little good came out of CO, but one of the good things that came out of CO was the fact that it taught us how to do our meetings on YouTube. And so, uh I talked
035to a lot of people now who say, "Oh yeah, I watched you on TV. I watched you on YouTube." and um and that has given more people the opportunity to see our meetings, monitor our meetings, and and see what we're doing. Um I encourage all of you uh to do that. I like to think it's one of the most interesting things on TV, but I'm also uh smart enough to know it probably isn't. Um we also have schoolboard workshops in addition to our regular meetings. They're always noticed. We do blast emails. that are on our web page where we talk about uh particular matters uh that are affecting the school district. So, you know, we try to uh well, we have to do all our our business in public. We try to be as accessible
036as possible and I know uh not only myself, but I've got two schoolboard members here with me tonight. Uh there were two who could not be here tonight. Um but we will we are always as accessible as we can be. Our email addresses are on the website. Um my phone number at the office is uh on the internet. And so you know I encourage folks if you have questions if you have issues or reach out to us. you know, people do and not just about these financial issues, but you know, if you're having other troubles uh with uh one of your children at the school for some reason, um if something isn't working out, I I always tell uh parents that that one of the most important functions that a schoolboard member does is serving
037as kind of an ombbudsman. You know, if you've gone through the regular process and it hasn't worked or you're not getting uh responsiveness, then come to us and you know we can get responsiveness for you. Might not be able to get you the answer that you want. I wish that I always could but but at least we can get you an answer and at least we can get people being responsive to whatever your concerns are. So with that I think we've come to the end of our pres formal presentation. >> Okay. At this time um we have mo microphones located on our two aisles. Uh we are allotting two minutes for you to ask questions. We're asking you to please be respectful in your questioning and as um Mr. Force mentioned we'll be here till
0387:30 uh to answer your questions. And so if you'd like to just walk back to the microphone um to ask your question and if we could have one question at a time. >> Yeah. How you doing? Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um I'm just you know when you said had examples up there you were comparing yourself to other districts and you you were doing really well with a lower amount of you know money as per well that you know this is a message to our legislature. Well if they're doing such a good example why can't you enforce that the rest of the school districts get less money like we get with and try to get the same result? I just don't understand why you're comparing yourself up when we ought to
039be taking the and comparing oursel down. The other thing is the median example you gave up there on the screen, mine is about 485. Mine went up $800, not $171, $800. The other thing you mentioned too is about the data center. The Newcastle County representatives feel that we're not getting that data center. You have Amazon, you have Clarius, you have the pharmaceutical company, you have a huge retail base. You can't compare it to other districts when you're growing and getting all this income. So, the other thing is too is how many times have any of you how many of you are getting a refund from your taxes? Nobody. Nobody in this room is getting a refund. So, that bill is kind of like useless to me. And the other thing is, how many times you
040guys been to alleged to a a meeting, a town hall thrown just by our legislators, our senators, our representative. How many of you been to a meeting that they had to discuss our school situation? None. Because they have no meetings. You know, they're more worried about straws, plastic bags, windmills, but they never want to engage on school stuff. You know what I So, the other thing is for our Newcastle County people. I really appreciate, you know, our constipals being here, our law enforcement, they didn't have that much during the data center debacle or the electrical debacle. I just don't know why we need this type of, you know, enforcement. That really makes us feel like we're a problem. So for Newcastle County reps, I think he got played because I was in an earlier meeting
041in March and they told me in March it that by October our tax rates would come out. Well, they came in after the election. So something about collusion is just making me like upset that they turned this into a advantage for our governor. So, thank you for your comments. I think you said one or two complimentary things about the school district during that and I appreciate that. I'm more than happy to talk to you after the meeting about your particular bill because you shouldn't if if you still have the median and you had the median originally, then you should be okay. Now, if you had below the median and now you're up to the median, that means you did increase greater than the percentage. It's all about how much your assessment actually went up as
042a percentage to tell you whether your taxes went up or down. But I'm happy to review that with you after the meeting if you like. Um and uh you know other comments addressed to some legislators who are here and we probably should introduce them at some point but maybe um we can do that at the end. Um so I see someone else is ready with another question. Ma'am Oh here let's go to this side. I'm sorry. So, like the other gentlemen, I like to make more of a statement. I did not like what I heard because I heard general statements and I'm tired of being compared to other districts. >> So, look, the only reason we >> Excuse me. I wasn't done. I heard you. I sat there and listened quite quietly and I listened
043to you and I did not like what I heard. you brought out general statements. You don't give any uh special facts. The fact that you turn around and say our projected to me that sounds like the stock market. If you look around this room, a lot of people here are seniors. We are on a fixed income. You raise any of our taxes at all and it hurts us. You just think that it's just all about you. Well, the first thing I'd like to see is get rid of 19 school districts and get rid of all the damn administrative costs. You gave us nothing. You gave us absolutely nothing that we can go on. And back at our state representatives meeting, Kevin Hensley, uh, last last few months ago, it was the same thing. You never
044answered our questions, but here's a question for you. Prior to the second vote for the referendum, there was a postcard that went out in the mail basically threatening that if we don't get the money we need, okay, we're going to have to cut certain programs. Who paid for that? >> Not the school district. >> So why didn't you put it on there? So, you don't have the money, but you spent the money without the taxpayers's knowledge and didn't even acknowledge it on that postcard. So, what if the referendum didn't pass? You'd be further in the hole because of money that you spent. That's about all I have to say. >> All right, over here. >> So, uh, thanks so much for the information. Um, like many others here, I'm retired and so I have no
045idea how we're going to make these payments, especially expecting a five-year reassessment and expecting a 10% increase from the school district every five years. It's just unsustainable. But my my question is, you mentioned uh the state audit as well as an external audit or review. Um, what kind of accountability can we expect from that? Because my um career has been in financial institutions and if somebody had made a mistake like this heads would roll. So I'm just wondering what what can we expect as accountability? You two are still here. So what can we expect? >> Well, our CFO resigned so we have a new CFO but I mean to a certain extent I'll say it depends. It depends what the report shows us. So until we have that report I can't fully answer your question.
046I'm not trying to dodge it. I mean, I just I want to see the report before I say what'll happen or what should happen. >> Well, who would make that decision? >> It' be the school board. >> The school board, >> right? We're the we're the body that runs the school district. >> So, um are we going to see that report? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. This side, sir. >> So, my question is who got fired? We have $4 million. All of a sudden, it's in, it's out, it's here, it's there. And all and we're supposed to take it up. Hey guys, just take it up the tail end because we are got the lowest tax rate and everything. Who got fired? All I hear is incompetence and and and now you've
047well, we've got rid of somebody and and we promised to do better. That's incompetence. If I lost $4 million, I'd be in jail. If anybody who here who's self-employed lost that much money or even that that percentage and everything, they'd be out of business. But because you guys can turn around and keep going to the well and everything and we have to sit here and just keep taking it and taking it and taking it and everything, you guys seem to think that that's okay. $4 million. And I noticed that the lowest amount of money that was that was going to be appropriated went to the students. If we got a budget here that's you said 7.9% is is teacher in and involved in everything. So that means that we're all working for the teachers and
048nothing is really going to the students. I mean >> I would argue the teachers >> based on the remainder. >> The teachers go to the students, right? I mean the teachers are the ones who are >> I mean it's all administration. Yeah. But I mean I I mean and you and you and you said, "Well, you know, let's not cry over spilled milk." $4 million is a lot of milk. I mean, that's a hell of a lot of milk. I mean, and when you sit there and talk about, well, we could buy little things with P that that $4 million can buy a lot. Okay. But apparently not in government. It doesn't get you very much of anything. and and and I got, you know, I was at the meeting uh earlier this week and
049everything. By the way, your your guys's PA system stinks. I could barely understand anything and I can understand everything you're saying tonight. And and like I said, I just uh I I am stunned at $4 million, everything. And and it's so nonchalant, like, well, that's the way it goes, you know, kick the can down the road and everything. We'll get you guys and everything. And and and by the way, we're going to hit you. And here here's how you're going to take your medicine. You're going to take 2.5 here and we're going to cut here, but the biggest cuts go to the kids. That's what I looked at. I saw the biggest cut goes to the kids. I thought we were here for the kids. I thought it was all about the children. Apparently, it's
050not. Apparently, it's not. over on the side. >> Hi, my name is Naen Burroughs and I've lived in this district since 1986. I had two sons that went through the school um up until high school and when the Charter School of Wilmington opened up, I ran and and enrolled them. Um Ron Russo, who just recently passed, was the president >> and he was a great guy. He was more than that. He was a great educator. >> Yep. >> And that's what we're lacking in this district. There's never this the education here. I didn't come down here for the education because in Delaware doesn't exist. We're at the lowest end of the country in educating our kids. If I wanted my kids to go to college and get a good education and in turn and get
051a good job, it wasn't coming from this state. Um, they had great teachers here and they had some piss poor teachers that should have been fired and because of the unions, they're still probably teaching. I want to know what are you guys going to do about raising the bar for our kids because they're just getting left behind. They can't go to college. They can't afford to go to college. They can't get scholarships because their education's not up to par. >> You want to talk? You know, I I went to a meeting uh that Kevin Hensley had and you both were there and it was before your Janu or July meeting and you stood there both of you and said we're not going to raise taxes and that's what I went by and the whole time
052you guys didn't even know what the hell was going on in your district. So I'm going to disagree with you on the um part about well several parts there that we don't have good teachers. We have phenomenal teachers. We get phenomenal results. We also um have where you say students go to college we have 78% of our kids go to college realizing not not every kid is going to go to college and not only do they go to college 90% of them persist through college and so I think we get tremendous results. I think our teachers do a tremendous job in preparing our kids for college and getting ready not only for college but for careers andor the military. >> No, you don't. Because my kids had to go to a federally funded program, one
053of the TRIO programs to get ready for college. They went up to the University of Delaware and they studied and they got a stipen and as parents I got educated. That never happened down here and it probably still doesn't happen. How do parents who never went to college know how to get their kids in college? They don't. And you guys are dropped the ball on that. I mean, how about vote schools? How do you know your kids going to go to college? How do you know they shouldn't go to a vote school and get a trade? It's dropping the ball on all our kids. >> Thank you. over here >> old enough to retire but can't afford to retire. So last night we watched all these accolades for all the sports and the places and
054the places that they the placements that they made statewide, countrywide, whatever they were. Good job. And then you talk tonight about academically comparing us with the rest of the other school districts how we placed top. Big deal. We're not placing academically across the country. You're just comparing us here in Delaware. We don't care. I mean, yeah, we care about Delaware, but comparing ourselves among ourselves, we are not wise. And I hated all the comparing that you did tonight cuz that's BS. And then the the uh tax assessments, Tyler Industries, all the shoestrings and spiderwebing out that they have their hands in and the businesses that actually got tax cuts while we got increases. We need an audit by somebody not tied to Tyler Industries or anything like Amazon got lowered, Costco got lowered, and it
055was probably a lot more. And what about the missing money? When I balance my checkbook, I find it down to the last stinking penny. Yes, penny. But you guys lose money and we're supposed to say, "Oh, well," and then let you dig in our pockets again. Not fair. are not right. There's crooy funny business going on and we need to find it. >> So, Tyler Technologies probably deserves some of the shots it's getting. Uh there were any number of errors in uh various assessments. That's a different topic for a different day. um we're going to get the audit reports, but what you're going to find is the money got spent on school expenses. And the report that we got on May 13 is as Matt said, um we got a report. It showed we were
056going to have $7.9 million in carryover and our CFO made errors and mistakes that weren't caught. And that's what happened. And it's, you know, no one's happy about it. And if if we seem blasze up here about that, I apologize. because I never wanted to do what what we did on July 8th. Never wanted to do it. And I feel bad about it every night. And some of you probably think that's good. You should feel bad, but I do. And um we're going to make sure that we put in place processes and additional checks and additional balances so that something like that can never happen again. And we're going to get to the bottom of why it happened. But no money was misspent. No money was lost. It all got spent on school expenses. Just
057the estimate about how much we were going to have at the end of the year, how much we were going to spend between the forecast and the end of the year was wrong. That was the mistake or actually quite a series of mistakes. And you know, I'm going to continue to defend our school district and its results. We have, as Matt said, a tremendous number of kids who not only go on to college, but then stay in college and graduate from college. And our district is well known at a lot of colleges because we are rigorous. I mean, we can paint with a broad brush and say there's lots of problems in public education, and there are. And we can do a better job. Every school district can do a better job. Wilmington Charter can
058do a better job. And that's part of what we're trying to do. But I don't think it's fair to say, well, Delaware is at one of the worst states for public education, so therefore Appein, we just get thrown in with that bunch. We are the number one school when it comes to ELA, when it comes to math, uh, at the high school level. And that's because we have good teachers who are working hard. We have good students who are working hard. We have parents who are concerned. Um, that's the difference. Concerned parents. The fact that parents are here tonight, I think, is a positive sign. the p fact that parents come to PTA meetings and pay attention to schoolboard meetings is all good. So I'll I'm I'll stop speechifying and I'll talk to the gentleman
059in the yellow shirt. It looks >> Yeah. I'd like to know every time we have a random referendum and it doesn't pass, you run it through by busing 18 year olds over to vote. They don't own property. They don't pay taxes. >> Well, we I don't think that's part of our policy. We don't bust. That has been your policy >> to uh to uh >> this last referendum that was your policy. >> Okay. Well, I'll let you That's not right, but that's okay. >> Correct. That is not right. >> All right. How about this person over here? >> Yes. >> I just want to make sure. >> Thank you for having this meeting. Um, I want to apologize on behalf to all the people that I should have been coming to these meetings, but now
060I'm in the woke up program because I own a home here in Delaware and you're about to make me lose that home and I'm here cuz I'm not going to tolerate it. I've been on a journey to get this home, but if you keep raising my taxes when I'm not getting cost of living raises, you can't just raise it and say, "Oh, well, you have to deal with it." I don't agree with anything you said on that stage and how you phrased it. I'm speaking on behalf of we the people, the seniors. Why are seniors still paying taxes? They've paid taxes their whole life. What are we doing with that toll booth money? We constantly go out dinner and the next thing you know the toll booth the price is going up. Well, that affects
061the man in my house helping to pay the mortgage when he has to go over the bridge and factor that in. The property that my house sits on, I've called the county for seven years. Our development has yet to be handed over because it's not up the county code. Over $2 million worth of stuff and the land developer is not even being fined. So now we're on our eighth year and I should have never even received a certificate to occupy my house, but yet you want to raise my taxes on the land that it sits on. And I don't have children. I don't I'm one of the people who couldn't afford it. And I went through breast cancer, received no help here. I called to get help for two weeks in my home and I
062was sent a letter that I'm not blind, I can work. And then when I asked about my cancer, oh, it's just environmental causes. There are other ways we can get this money. If people are telling you that they can't afford it, they're being honest. I have friends who are losing their homes because what you consider to be owed just 10% is enough to kick them out of their house. And the same with the seniors, they're not getting cost of living raises. We are not trying to be difficult. We care about children, but stop using them to get money out of us. I spoke to a contractor the other day who offered to repair one of the school roofs and fix it in exchange for a tax cut on his taxes. They turned him down. And
063when we tell you guys no, there's a reason we can't afford it. targeting them. They're not making their prices any cheaper. And when people are going in and stealing and committing crimes, they raise the price on us. You guys do nothing. There are a group of people I care about at the county and that's our police officers. That's the only thing I would like to see also is that they are treated better. I turn on the TV and they're treated like crap. You send them out to go after these people and then you let them right back out in the street. that affects the budget and then you guys need money at the school. So they say, "Oh, well, we can't give you from here. You got to go to the people in the houses
064and you got to raise their taxes." 10% to you is nothing because you guys get raises. Not all of us do. And the seniors are not getting cost of living raises. I came here because it was supposed to be more affordable. And all I see is Delaware land scam and a whole bunch of corruption. Well, I'm awake now and frankly I think we need to bring Doge here and we need to bring Washington here because I've had enough. Nobody comes and cuts my grass. Nobody comes and takes care of my house. That's still not up the county code. Eight years later, I have blue poles still in my development. Blue poles. It's not even passed. They haven't even handed it over to us yet. and you want to raise my taxes on it. We've got
065over seven houses that sold for way less than what they should have sold for, which hurts me. We, the little people, you're constantly coming to us and using the children to get money out of us. Get it from somewhere else. I know one of the things the general assembly is going to do is look at school funding in this next session. That's what they've all said. We've got members here. They're hearing what you're saying. So, I think it's good that they've heard what you said. I'd welcome Doge coming to Delaware and looking at some of our spending. Sure. I think that's a good idea. Let's go over to this side. >> Um, one, I'd like to know if you have anybody here to address um the comments that they didn't get money from Target and
066things like that from the people that are here because that's why everybody is here. Is there anyone that is from the county that can speak to that and take questions on that and why it just got >> Well, I was there and I know I mean the answer is they decided not to do supplemental assessments this last year and so we didn't get partial tax bills from Target and some of the other companies and the finance department made that decision as far as I know although someone could correct me otherwise but I was at a county council committee meeting where that was news to all the committee members and I know because Uh, it was also news to the county executive when he found out about it. >> Well, that's what I'm saying. Why is
067there no one here that can speak to that that money wasn't collected? >> It's our meeting and um and you know, I mean, this is about our situation and what we're doing. >> It is about our situation, which is why I think they should be here because I see a bunch of stuff going back and forth and I believe it's someone on the board that points the finger at the county, the county points the finger at the state or at the school. No one can answer any questions. There's, you know, they you I have question about my bill. My bill went up um 17% from 23 to 24 and then 38% from 24 to 25. Who am I supposed to talk to about that? I have no idea because everyone's pointing the finger at everybody
068else and I have no answers and I can't afford to come up with that much money just like that. And then I agree with whoever said about the House bill that is going to give you a refund. That's a complete joke. That's not on you guys. But, um, >> well, I'm happy to talk to you about your bill if you want to call me or email me. I'll talk you I'll talk you through it >> and see what we can do because I I I do know a fair amount about this process. I can at least >> interpret it for you and give you some ideas. I'm happy to do that. >> And I did hear that there was money spent on some kind of magnetic boxes per middle school child or something like that
069for their phone. When I went into the schools, I saw that teachers had pockets when you walked in, which every student is capable of putting their phone in a pocket, which they don't do because I've seen videos where they're in class and they have their phone and they're doing this and the teacher standing right there talking and our kids are sitting there with these, >> right? So, >> phones and they bait in school. Like, I don't even understand what's happening. >> Okay, so we'll go off topic a little bit. I'll just bring you up to date. Um earlier this spring we adopted a cell phone policy for our middle and high schools. >> Mhm. >> In high school there will be what you talked about the pouches and when you go into the classroom you
070put your phone in the pouch then you go sit in your seat have your class and when class is over and you're walking out you take your cell phone out and go to your next class and do the same thing class by class by class. And that's going to be the policy for high school starting this September. In middle school, >> sounds like an economical choice, too. One pocket thing for classroom. >> In middle school, um, we're going to have kids put their things in a pouch that then seals so they have no access to it what's whatsoever during the school day. And so, in the morning when they come in, they'll put their phone in the pouch. When they leave at the end of the day, they'll unlock the pouch. I mean, the point
071is that you don't need a phone when you're in middle school. >> You absolutely don't. But why is that not the same option as high school? Why do they have to do why do they have to spend all this money per kid when they can make them put their phone in a pocket for middle school as well? >> Well, we got some grant money as part of all of this. And so virtually all of the cost of the pouches is going to be covered by grant money that we were able to receive. So, um, and middle school, in high school, the, you know, look, some of us on the board may have thought that, let's do the same thing for high school. Just put your cell phone away all day and you'll get it at
072the end of the school day. But there were others who said, "No, no, the calculator thing will work. That's what our committee recommended. Um, and that at least gives the high school kids when they're in the cafeteria at lunch, uh, access to their phones. you know, use use your cell phone responsibly. >> But that's that's where we landed. >> And, you know, we talked about it at a couple of schoolboard meetings and whatnot. And and that's where we landed. >> I mean, my my child's in high school. He doesn't need his phone at lunchtime. He can talk to people. Like, I'm fine with him locking it away or just putting it in a pocket. I don't care if he gets it back. And he shouldn't have had it in in middle school either. The only
073reason he had it in middle school for me was because we had no transportation and I had to get a hold of him. >> Um >> I wish I wish you had addressed the school board because there were those of us on the board who would have liked to have heard people saying that. But we you know it's a five member board. We we landed where we landed and at least for this coming year, but we're going to revisit it every year. We're going to revisit it and see how it's working. But for this coming school year, we're going to go with the pouch method for high schools and the um the locked thing for uh middle schools. >> So, the only other thing that I have is $2.8 million in payroll wasn't accounted for
074on the school board. Is isn't there a financial person on the school board? Like I was at the schoolboard meeting on Tuesday and the financial stuff came through which nobody in the audience got to see and it was approved like that. But $2.8 million in payroll. How do you not how does somebody not question that when it comes through to be reviewed? I mean I that's what I do in a business. I'm a controls person to make sure that our financials are right. And that's a lot of money in payroll when you know how many people you have. and and I mean it just seems like a major oversight to me. >> So here is what I think the audits that we're going to get, the audit from the state auditor and then the report
075we're going to get from our uh people that we've retained. Um in Delaware, state employees get paid every two weeks, not twice a month. You would think, oh, you get paid every two weeks, you get paid on the 1st, you get paid on the 15th, you get paid on the 1st, you get paid on the 15th. That's how it should be probably. But it's every two weeks and there's 52 weeks in a year, which means there's 26 pay periods. And if you assume that there's two pay periods a month, that's not going to work for two of those months during the course of the year. And so my understanding, but we're waiting for the fi final report is that 2.1 of that that's a payroll. When the assumptions were being made and uh the report
076was given to us, it only assumed two payrolls in May. There were three pay periods in May. And then the other part of that about $700,000 of that $2.8 million. Um teachers get money for being coaches, for being advisers for clubs and things. It's called uh extra pay for extra responsibility. And um but we only make those payments twice a year. Once at the end of say the first semester in December and then once at the end of the school year. And apparently um when the financial projections were being done uh that extra pay for extra responsibility or EERS was not factored into the report. Now the report we get you know we don't get line by line by line by line by line. We don't get you know something this thick with all the
077backup. We get a summary report that shows us everything. We look at it. Um but we have a CFO. We have a financial advisory committee that is, you know, goes through these reports before they come to us. And um and so as I said at the outset, I mean, when at our May meeting when we were looking at $7.9 million carryover, life was good. I mean, that's where we wanted to be. Um, everybody felt good coming out of that meeting. We had done our job and then lo and behold, we're told six weeks later, life's not good. So, um, you know, I feel horrible about it, but that's kind of a rough explanation of of what happened there. So, now we'll go. >> So, just quickly then, so you said the CFO stepped down. Is
078it the same financial advisory committee? >> So, you know, there's some turnover there and we're revamping it >> because it seems like they missed it big. I mean, it's not just the CFO's job, right? they can make a mistake and that's why there's other people to check things. So to me the financial advisory is who should have picked it up and how many people are on that and didn't pick it up but we're going to keep those people. >> Well look we're going to get two reports here in the next couple weeks and we'll make appropriate changes based on those reports. We've already got some new people for the financial advisory committee with strong financial backgrounds. So let's go to the gentleman over here. Sir, >> good evening. Good evening. First, thank you for holding
079this session. >> Thank you for coming. >> Um, I'm going to preface with acquainted with some of our legislators, interacted with some of our schoolboard people here in engaged conversation and dialogue. So, nothing directly personal, but I hear a lot of common themes going on. I'm going to start off with some math. Okay. 300 to 500 percent increase on the assessed value in one clean shot. That doesn't even pass the smell test. Okay, let's start there. Let's talk about where do we place I hear what you're saying. We're top in Delaware. That's great. But where do we stack up against the rest of the c the rest of the country? Other reports and there are many say we're approximately 45th in the nation. So let's use basic principles. Who, what, where, when, why, and how.
080How are we at the bottom? Being the best at the bottom is does not make you the best. And it certainly doesn't justify 10% salary increases. When I was working, you had to walk on water and pot the Red Seas to get a 10%. You were lucky to get a 3%. Now, cost of living increase, the CPI typically, and this affects seniors, this affects everybody on average is one and a half to maybe two and a half, 3% on average. And yet you get taxed a 10% increase. Are you kidding me? As you get older, you start to get medical bills. And those medical bills increase. I look at the dynamic on all these meetings that I've attended. We're not 25 anymore. Sorry. We've paid our dues at least 40 pay periods to get eligibility
081for social security. Now on a fixed income as a retiree, as a disabled veteran, someone with medicals, cancer, etc., you've heard some from some other people. How can you possibly expect those us to ex to pay those tax bills? Recent news articles, New Jersey, PA, there's an elderly 55 up community. Last night's news, they raised the rents on a 55 plus community by 100%. Now, I've heard both sides of the argument regarding age capping. You had kids in school. You have a fresh workforce. You've got commercial and industrial coming into Delaware. They're fresh resources to tap for revenues. There was also federal monies that were directed to the state of de uh Delaware, $26 million. And if you have to change the line items, it's earmarked for this, it's airmarked for that. Well, guess what?
082I grew up on brick and mortar schools. You don't have to have a university campus, university style campus everywhere where you're over budget. You can't afford it. It's that simple. So, you got to live within your means. It's what you're telling us to do. And last but not least, I want to touch upon one point that was referenced today. Some things that look good on paper don't always work out operationally. Okay. You referenced the income, the tax revenue that you're going to get from this proposed data center. Well, I attended that work, that info center in person so I can cite this their goal. This data center that you cited, their goal is to tap upon the current grid, the electrical source that we pay from Delm Maraba. Now, they're not building their own. This
083goes to county who was going to a who is going to affirm or deny those permits. Now, let them get their own grid cuz the grid we've had enough outages, you know about that, blackouts. Stop squeezing the data center. They're big enough. They can buy their own grid. You don't have to take and tack power off of us, which has got a right hook, left hook. Yeah, I'm all for building up a business. That's great. Oh, and let's not forget the tax split, the category split between commercial and personal non uh personal residential. With that being said, CO's over. Stop using the COVID as an excuse. That's over. Everyone's back to normal and working and fully functioning. That's a big one. So, all these commercial stores target all the other ones you mentioned, whatever. They
084don't have the excuse of well, we lost value. >> All right. I mean, I with respect, I mean, we've given you well more than two minutes and there's a lot of other people waiting to talk. So, >> you got it, Richard. I'm sorry. No. >> With that, >> I yield back. Thank you for listening. I hope you'll take these these points under consideration both legislatively from the school board and I appreciate you giving us this opportunity to give feedback. >> Well, and I'd be the first to say I would support the general assembly giving more tax relief to seniors. I mean, you're absolutely right about that, but that's that's not our call at all on on the school board. But I I agree with you that at some point seniors need to either get know
085they won't never see another increase and be grandfathered from all increases or even get tax relief and pay less. There is an exemption program that a lot of people may not be aware of. You might want to publicize that that impacts both the county property, school, and sewer. If you've got a medical impairment, you're a disabled vet, etc., etc., which is a fixed number off the assessment. It's not proportional. That needs to be changed because otherwise you deplete the credit that you may if you're eligible to be getting. There's a lot of people that should be on that, >> right? >> We yield back. >> We do have the senior We do have information about the senior credit somewhere on our website, I know, but we probably should feature it more prominently. So, we'll take
086a look at that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate. >> All right, we'll go to this side. >> Hello. Thank you for uh having this meeting. Um yes, I'm upset like everybody else. Um last year I was excited because I turned the age of 65 to get that tax credit. the referendum passes there with that tax credit. Um, now the gift that the county has given you, we're having a reassessment. If they didn't have this reassessment, what would you guys be doing? Because last year you passed a referendum. So, if county didn't have a reassessment and our taxes didn't go up because of the reassessment and then the state granted you saying, "Hey, you can raise up to 10% on top of that because they're doing a reassessment." If they didn't have this, what would
087you guys be doing? >> Well, if there hadn't been a reassessment, there would have been supplemental assessments. We'd have been very close to the carryover figure, if not in excess of it. And I suspect we could have at least had a referendum. We would have to have a referendum sooner rather than later because we still have to meet that carryover requirement. But, you know, that's an alternate universe that that doesn't exist. And um and so I can only speculate about what we would have done in that alternate universe. >> But the other uh recessants wouldn't uh affected us because that would have been more on business, right? Well, >> what you're talking about their assessments >> would have been on commercial property, not residential property. >> Well, anybody who builds a house, who builds a
088business, I mean, they get assessed and they start paying. So, I'm not sure I follow your question. I'm sorry. >> Okay. Well, that's all I have. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Over here, ma'am. First off, thank you for having this meeting and also thank you for what you do to educate our children. But with that being said, um obviously there were some checks and balances that were missed and it's disappointing especially since we did pass the referendum last year and our taxes were increased. So my question is, you mentioned that you hired a new CFO and you're going to have more frequent reporting. So I would like to know what the schedule will be for that reporting. And I would love for you to be very specific and share how we can have access
089to the results of the audit to the results of future auditing. especially if we're someone like me who lives in this district but may not have children who attend this district. >> So with respect to the reports we get, we do get a monthly financial report and my understanding is that it does get posted on our website. I'm not sure when it gets posted. It gets posted the day of the meeting. >> Oh, it gets Okay. It gets approved. It gets posted after we approve it because I guess our approval then makes it official. So, it does get posted on the website. The audits that are going to be done are definitely going to be posted on the website and um I'm sure that the media will be covering all that anyway. But um >>
090and can you be specific where exactly on the website for some of us who may not be as technically savvy? Which which prompts do we need to go to to see the data? >> So, if you go there's a calendar section and then you click on the date that the schoolboard meeting is. And if you click on the schoolboard meeting, then you'll have the agenda and the and the reports. And there's all sorts of things associated with the agenda, the financial reports, but also, you know, we get reports about different policies and and things. All that is on the website for the for the uh for that particular schoolboard meeting. So, you know, if you get home tonight and you want to see what was on the documents for our July meeting or our June
091meeting or our May meeting back back even now our August meeting we just had two days ago, you should be able to get those documents. If you have trouble and you're not getting, you know, you can't figure it out. Uh, feel free to call me and and I'll figure it out. I'll help you get to it. >> Okay. And then my last question, you mentioned that you're going to be taking a look at rates next week. Does that conversation include residential tax rates or are you just looking at commercial tax rates? >> So what the what will happen assuming that we do something and we're you know that'll be discussed next week. I want to be clear. We're not making any decisions here tonight, >> but but what will be recommended, I suspect, to the
092board is the residential rate will go down >> and the commercial rate will go up. >> And the commercial rate can be no more than twice the residential rate. Now, we've only got about 11 or 12% non-residential property in Aquinamic because we are a bedroom community. But even so, if we were to double the commercial rate and reduce the residential rate, that means commercial instead of just paying 11 or 12% would now be paying 22 or 24%. And the amount that residential would pay would go down from 88% to let me do the math in my head, like 76%, right? 77%. So, so assuming the school board does that, there will be relief on the resident school residential tax bill. And you know, I've started getting and I'm sure that my fellow schoolboard members, they're
093nodding their heads. We've been getting emails from folks touting that and supporting that. Um, feel free to send us more emails. I love getting emails. Um, and it's helpful when we're trying to make decisions to say, "Look at all these people who support this policy." But we'll have our meeting. It's next Thursday, 5:00. If you can't be there in person, it'll be on YouTube. All our meetings are on YouTube. You can go back two years and see our meetings on YouTube from two years ago if you want. >> So, if by chance that gets approved, then will you relay that information to the county so that they adjust our bills? How is that process? >> Yes. I'm sorry. I should have described it in a little greater detail. Whatever action we take next Thursday, assuming
094we do something, if we do nothing, nothing happens, but I suspect we'll do something. Um then we send that information to the county on Friday and sometime in the next week and all the school districts are on this same timetable I should say by the way. So we have 10 business days to get the information to the county for any revised rates. The county will get that from all the school districts. It will then put it through its computer system and send out new bills to everybody. Now it's going to cause some confusion. Some people have already paid their bills. if you've already paid your bill and then it's less >> that's when you'll get your refund. >> Okay. >> Um but uh if you know if it's if you're a commercial property then odds
095are you're probably going to owe more. Um so you'll get a you'll owe that additional amount. You've already paid part of it and the county has a record of it. Then the bill that they send you should show the amount you've already paid. And same with residential. In theory, if if you know somebody has paid their residential bill, that information should show up on the revised bill the county sends out. I suspect that uh if you're like me, um you wait until say the end of September before you make that payment because it's not due till September 30. Um but that's the process. So we meet next Thursday. Whatever action we take, we provide to the county. County gets that information from all the school districts. they send out a new batch of bills with
096some sort of, you know, explanation letter. >> Okay. Thank you, >> sir. How is that going to be decided if you're going to process that uh decision where you're going to uh reassess? >> I'm not sure I understand your question. You said that there's going to be a meeting about uh redoing the commercial and the residential. How are how are you guys going to decide if you're going to do that or not? >> So, I suspect it has to be the same amount of money. So, you know, it's it's kind of a an algebra alge I think it'll be an algebraic uh expression, right? the old rate which was a uniform rate times our old assessment base equal taxes raised and that has to equal a reduced rate for residential call it x. So x
097times the value of all the residential properties plus 2x times the value of all the commercial properties. And then you solve for x and x would tell you the the uh minimum rate for residential and then 2x would be the maximum rate for commercial. So that's how that equation gets solved. Matt wants to >> Can I So what will happen at the board meeting is we'll make a report to the board and show the the difference in the rates like okay this is the lowest the residential rate can be as compared because it can only be two times as much as the commercial rate. We'll show them what the impact of that is to Mr. Forson's point. It has to be the same amount of revenue that we're bringing in at this point. Um there'll
098be some discussion and then the board will vote on it. >> Is that the question you were asking? >> Yes. >> All right. >> Yes, that's it. >> Thanks. >> So, as I say, feel free everybody here, send me an email. Send us all emails. Um but I think we've heard a lot of you tonight already. Did you have a follow-up? We since you didn't take two minutes for your question, we'll give you a little more time. Um, so how do we um how do we submit a a reassessment request? How do we get our properties evaluated if we feel that what has been chosen is wrong? Okay. So, you're um the way the property tax assessment system works and you know, I will say I I think that the county and and the media
099did a really lousy job last fall and this spring, but in theory, everybody should have gotten a notice sometime in October or November saying, "Here's what we think your new assessed value is going to be." And you had the opportunity if you disagreed with it to call the folks at Tyler Technologies and say, "Hey, I think this is wrong. Here's what I think it should be." And then in February, everybody in theory, and I've talked to people who said they never got it, but in theory, everybody got a second letter saying, "Yeah, we've looked at what we did and sent you in October. We've talked to a lot of people. Here's now what we think your number is going to be, and that's going to be your new assessment." Under state law, you only have
100until March 14th to challenge that assessment for the coming tax year. And if you didn't do it, then you're now this year they extended it to March 30th, but next year it'll go back to March 14. If you didn't file a timely appeal of your assessment and you're just realizing when you got your bill, holy cow, look at this. This is outrageous. Um, welcome to the club. There's a lot of people in that boat. Um and um but it's too late. And so it's too late for this year's tax bill. And so next year, if you file an appeal, and there's a form on the county website, and if you email me, I can send you the link. You can challenge your appeal for next year. But the county's position now is if you didn't
101file an appeal already for this year's tax bill, you must pay it. Um and and I think it that's a shame. I know the general assembly talked about possibly reopening the appeal window but decided not to do that. Um I wish they had but but that's where we are for this year's tax bills. But next year if you think that assessed number is too high and you think your property is worth less and there's a lot of people who think that then you can file an appeal next year. But that's the way the county system is is set up right now. And I'm going to say I mean that's you know that's nothing the school board does. Unfortunately, I was one of those people that got that assessment after the appeal date. >> No, I
102know that a few people >> there are many people in that boat and I have fielded many calls with people who are upset about their bills going up and not realizing it was going to happen. But thank you for your questions. >> Sure. Thank you. >> All right, we'll go to this side. >> Hi. Um, I'm going to make this real short and this question goes to all four of you board members. I'm a senior, but I'm not up here for just the seniors. I'm up here for the people, the parents that are struggling to make ends meet, make the paycheck. I'm going to lose my home. So, I'm going to ask you, you put me in this predicament. What am I supposed to do? >> We have a family farm. >> I'm sorry. I
103didn't hear what you just said. >> Well, we have a family farm that's been built in 1900. You know the high note farm, you know the family. We're going to have to sell. So, I'm asking you as the board members, you put us in this predicament. You said, "We will not go after the 10% with the last referendum." You lied. Then you stand up here tonight and said, "Oh, it's spilled milk. It's my home. It's these people's famil family's home." And in ranking for um foreclosures, Del's one of the highest. What do you think you just put everybody in? Now I'm asking you, what do I do? Do I walk away and say that a boy? I lost my home because you guys made a mistake. >> Well, let's talk after the meeting. I I
104want to understand more about your situation. But to be clear, when I said spilled milk, I was only talking about the counties not doing the supplemental assessments this past year the way they had done every year up till >> you also said that when you said about finding that the mistake was. >> Well, I mean, the mistake happened. I can't go back in time. I wish I could, but we're losing our homes. A mistake happened. like everybody else ask what about us? Oh, well that sucks. I'm sorry, but that sucks. Sir, >> yeah. I just wanted to uh my question is I hope everybody else here want what other options did you look at besides saying, "Ah, yay. the county raised everybody's taxes and we get 10% more. What options did you look at? How
105much per kid does it cost to build all these new schools in this in this district? >> So what I mean we did have a slide. We could have done nothing. We could have just said fine our CFO who's gone made some errors quite a few. Um we'll just ride it out. Well, then that meant the state would have come in with a financial recovery team. And that was not a pretty picture. We could have said, "Let's not raise taxes at all. Let's make $7.5 million in cuts." Well, that was not a pretty picture. It just wasn't. And there so there were no good options. We picked the option that we felt was the least worst option because I guarantee you if we had started cutting teachers the way we might have had to have
106done that there would have been maybe different people in this auditorium but a lot of people in this auditorium upset about that if there had been a financial recovery team that took over the different the district. Who knows what they would have done but I suspect it would not have been pretty. We just didn't have a good option. I mean, I I wish I I wish we did, and I wish somebody if somebody thinks there's something better we could have done, I wish they'd tell me what it was. >> So, when we look at our tax bill, >> the school tax is more than four times the amount of the county tax. >> Yep. >> And how many So, how many residents are in the Apoquinn School District? >> Well, but understand they fund different
107things, right? The county taxes countywide and provides certain services. school district's tax school districtwide >> goes directly to you guys. >> Beg pardon? >> Goes directly to you guys. >> The school tax goes directly to the school >> to the school district. Yes. >> Exactly. And it's four more than four times the amount of the county tax that we're paying. >> Right. >> What did we do to try to handle our budget better? >> Well, >> what are we are we looking at all these homes that are being built and putting a $25,000 impact fee? Or do you want to put people out of their out of their farms and their homes and out of their retirement communities? Or is it just easy to just say, "Well, you know what? We got we got we
108struck it rich. The state did an assessment and the law says we can take 10% more from these people, which is off on top of the county tax because it's four times as much. That's a 40% difference than if they were just raising the 10% off of what the county tax is. And I'm not worried about just me and we can't worry about all these pe these people should have brought their children with them because they're not going to be able to afford to live in this district. My taxes have went up four times in the last 20 years since I built my home. And so that means in 20 years you're going to put them up four. That means they're going to be 16 times because there's nothing like you will go after 1%
109increases. You're going for 10 and 12 and 27%. And if not, we'll take the football team away. >> Can we can we look at making sure >> I'm I'm going to answer your question in a way you probably don't like and people don't like to hear, but let me answer it this way. We do everything we can to keep the cost down. And one of the things we showed you on the slide and because it's true is we are spending far less than any of the other school districts to the north of us. Far less. And that's not an accident. We work hard to keep the cost down, but there's only so much you can do at the end of the day before that shoestring breaks. If you had the revenue, if we had the
110tax base that any of the school districts to the north had, >> we'd be fat and happy. Why isn't there a $25,000 impact fee on these new homes that are causing us to have to build more schools? >> There is an impact fee. >> How much is it? >> I want to say it's what is it? 9,000 10,000. It's nine or 10,000 for for aquin because it's impacting the cost of everybody in this living. But understand that impact fee only goes to capital construction to to cost of construction, not operations. >> We going just tax us all out of this out of the district. It's crazy. >> Gentle the gentleman over here. >> Uh yeah, sorry I was late. >> No problem. >> I sent some questions to Mr. Pullman the other day and I
111asked him to give them to you, Mr. Burroughs, and the other people on the board. I hope you got them. So, I missed if you answered those question. So, um and just to say I'm sorry when you said you do everything you can. I They'll leave the district office and they'll go to a meeting at a school and somebody have big wigs up there. They'll all drive in a separate truck that get eight miles to the gallon. Why do they not have Kia or something that gets 29 miles to the gallon? There's there's something wrong. You you can't say >> I drive a Prius that gets 69 miles to the gallon. I'm talking about the district people that get trucks. They get 8 mph gallon trucks. So, he knows Burus knows. So, anyway, my my
112m one of my questions is has anyone contacted the Delaware state auditor because they are the only authority that can mandate a formal independent audit and it seems like a like everybody has to contact them to make this happen. And that way we can um that could trigger a forensic audit to determine how funds have been managed and identify where the misallocations may have occurred. This process will also reveal um you know what's going wrong where where it'll give us. >> So the answer to your question is yes there's an audit. It's being done. We've been working with the state auditor >> the state auditor. >> Thank you. >> And uh that's supposed to be done around Labor Day. I I don't know if it'll be before Labor Day or right after Labor Day, but
113that's the target for it getting done. We've also hired two outside former CFOs and we're going to have I think an even more detailed report, but that's not going to be till later in September. So, we're going to get two reports to look into the issue. >> Okay, that's that's one. Then I gave um where I I wanted to know where the missing funds have gone and I'd like to know, you know, is anybody going to tell us where they gone? >> So again, I I know you didn't get here on time. But I'll say the missing funds, it was an estimate issue. And what happened was that when he told us at our May 13 meeting we were going to have $7.9 million left, he he didn't include certain expenses. Those expenses got paid.
114So So the money went where it was supposed to go, but the estimate we got in May and the estimates we got earlier in the year presumably were were off. And he also had uh paid and allocated certain expenses and costs related to summer school to a federal account that and they should have been charged properly to our account, our state account that affects the carryover. So there's no missing money. It was a case of the money um not the $7.9 million figure was off because he he didn't have all the expenses in it. Now we're going to get a a report from the auditor. we're going to get another second report. And so I'm saying this is what I think they're going to show. Until we get the reports, we won't know for sure,
115but that's the answer. >> So, okay. Thanks. So, um I guess you answered then how much of the taxpayers money was misallocated? Um will the proposed 10% increase be enough to address the current shortfall? >> Yes, >> that will be. Okay. Um how frequently are you going to raise this 10% rate? I know what the the state says you got to do or can do, but I see other districts are only raising theirs 1%. Do we have to do 10% every 5 years? I mean, >> so so the answer is like all good answers, it depends. I for years never wanted to do this, right? I mean, and on May 13th, if we had to vote on May 13th, we had $7.9 million. We were golden. >> So then it >> but but then that's
116not where it ended up. We I mean and so as I said earlier and again I don't know if you were here I mean we had a lot of bad choices. None of them were good and we had to pick what we thought were was the least bad choice. >> Okay. So why were there no secondary safeguards or contingency procedures placed to prevent such a situation? >> Well that's a fair question. That's a good question. That's one of the questions we're going to get answered so we can, you know, we can figure out what was missed and where and you know, we're going to if we have to make changes to our procedures, they're going to get made. Um, but you know, I I'll say stay tuned on that. >> Okay. And then I did
117set I when I sent my questions, I did write a fifth one, but Mr. Pullman said it was a lecture. I didn't mean it to be a lecture, but um could the focus should it be exercising on the fiscal responsibility as those these were your own funds and not everybody else's funds. I mean, can't you spend the money like it's yours, you know? >> So, as I've said, >> make sure you don't spend more than you bring in at your own house. >> Well, we still we still have money in reserve. We just didn't have enough money for for the state. But look, I mean, if if you go back and watch our meetings, I mean, you know, we are constantly asking questions about finances. And as I said earlier, and I know a lot
118of people just say, "Oh, we don't care." It's no accident that we're spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars less per student than any of our sister districts to the north. It's no accident that the that Brandy Wine I mean they're they're the closest in terms of spending per student and that equates to another $32.5 million if we were spending at the same level and the same rate >> and and they only raised their 1% I believe. >> Well, sure. They've got a bigger tax assessment base and they've got a lot more money anyway. So, um, so they didn't have to, but you know, Christina Christina raised their rates 10%. I mean, and they've got the biggest tax base of all. So, that generated $18 million for them when they did it. I mean,
119our our action only generated just a tick over $5 million. Um, so, you know, look, as I say, I mean, I'm I need to be careful when I say this. I don't want to sound too thrifty or cheap, but we spend the least per student, and I think that's a good thing. We're still getting good results. We have the number one high school, traditional high school in English. We have the number one traditional high school in math. And all three of our high schools are in the top six, >> but we're both 40 what, third or 45th in the nation. So, that really is. >> Well, but you're painting with a very broad brush. And so, let me let me address that real quick. There's one thing we could do to make public education better.
120and move the needle more than anything in this state. You know what it would be? It would be to make the city of Wilmington its own school district again because what we do to those kids, they they have to get up at an ungodly hour. And I'm not a morning person, but they're getting up at like 5:45 to get on a bus to ride a bus out to Newark, Glasgow, Christina, and then at the end of the day, what do they do? They have to get on a bus and ride back to the city. And then we wonder why aren't we doing very well in public education, especially with the kids in the city of Wilmington. Many parents can't get out to their children's schools in the county. If this and and Wilmington's served by
12111 different high schools in the county. So you and I live on opposite sides of the street. We're going to different high schools. You live two blocks away in that direction. You're going to a different high school. You live two blocks that direction, you're going to a different high school. And then we wonder why do the kids in the city of Wilmington in particular not do very well in public education? We're failing them because we have them riding a bus two to four hours a day and then we wonder why aren't they doing well. More than anything, I think that would improve Delaware score uh as compared to the rest of the states. It's a topic for a different day, but I'm I'm pretty proud with the results we get in Apple. You heard about
122our college attendance. Since we have a 96% graduation rate, I think we're doing okay. >> All right. So, we're going to take one more question over here and we'll take one more question over here if we have someone new that wants to make comment. >> Well, I had one more question. How much money are you spending on the district office to rehab it again in as many years? And you knew we have no money. So, where are you spend you're trying the guy just said we're saving you money, but let's rehab the district office again in two years. It didn't need to be rehabbed. Remember I worked there and helped rehab it last two years ago. So why are you doing that? And and I would have saved us what how much did you want
123to say there in the state funding system there's different pots of money and that money was allocated for that particular project. Um, so we're going to take a question over or take question over here and if there's someone new over here that wants to take a question and then we'll have a QR code or a link up here. If you have questions, you can feel free to send them to us. So, you've been very patient, sir. >> Thank you. First of all, why am I talking to you? Where's the school superintendent? This was supposed to been a a school meeting. >> I'm the school superintendent. >> You are? >> Yes, sir. good then you can listen. First of all, quit selling quit selling how great your education system is. We rank 45th in the country.
124We rank 10th in the state of Delaware in the Newcastle County I should say. And not only that, that's because of who they're ranking and how they ranking it. After GM, I started teaching at Wilmington University. The very first night, and I told for 14 years, the very first night I could tell the students who went to private schools, parochial schools, charter schools, and dead last was public school systems. Basically, I told freshman and sophomores, they could not read nor write. I think we have six school teachers in our area. You said something right. I'll agree with you. We have fantastic teachers. When in the heck are you going to let them teach? I asked them, "How much money are they getting out of this?" Zilch. The money is going to schools. within say 10
125minutes of my house. You have built three or four brand new mega schools. The teacher said they're only at 50% capacity. I don't know you would. But the fact is why don't we start? I know what I want to say. I can't say it. Look at our school system. It isn't working. I had to in addition to teaching at Wilmington University, I was farmed out to your vote school to teach a specific class. We have what many people are thinking. We have fantastic students, but your school system, you don't have one teacher, one principal. Correct me on this. One principal, one teacher, one anything on your school board. Why? That's one question. Why not? And the other question is we're becoming a state of old people. Look around us. Not many people have in here
126have kids in our public schools. Something should be considered about the fact that the senior citizens, somebody mentioned, I think it was you in the brown suit. You mentioned your taxes went up what $800 and something dollars. Mine went up $1,800. I'm thrilled to pay my property tax. It only went up several hundred. Never see any county in there, but the fact is it went up. I've talked to people on it. Your system of assigning this proper school tax is not on sound ground. I hope you're getting the message from these people. Are you guys going to look at it? A friend of mine um asked for a reassessment, a reappraisal. Supposedly, he got substantially less. We're comparing apples to apples. How can there be that much discrepancy in each one of our assessments? It
127is not, as you're finding out, it is not on safe or sound ground that you're trying to sell here. And sir, with all due respect, your boat's not floating with these people. That's it. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Last question for the evening over here. >> Yes. Um, first I want to start by saying >> I think one of the biggest issues that we're having here is that when the information was rolled out about the money not being budgeted well, it was rolled out in a very matterof fact way. It wasn't very sensitive. It wasn't very we messed up, we made a mistake. It was this is what we did and this is what we're going to do to fix it and it's impacting us. What we are wanting one is we want
128an apology, a sincere apology about the wrong that was made. It's not only impacting us, it's impacting our kids. And that is the number one reason why we are all here. It's our kids. We're losing sight of that. If we are not happy with you guys as a district, it's going to reflect at home with our kids. You have to hold yourselves accountable and be sincerely sorry for the mistake that was made. One, and two, we want to you guys to restore our confidence in you guys. We are losing confidence and faith in you guys daily. What are you going to redo to restore the confidence in this school district so that we feel comfortable and confident and investing in what you guys are doing with our kids? >> What are you going to do
129to restore our faith and confidence in Aquinaming School District? >> Okay. Well, that was a good question to I think end on. So, we will end there. We said we'd go till 7:30. >> So, I want to take the mic on that. Um, and I I mean, I apologize if it came across like it was just, oh, matter of fact, this is how it is. No one no one wanted to be in that situation. No one wants to be in that situation or for that to happen. And I think that as we look at this, I mean, it's caused a lot of unrest in the community and and to your point, a lot of trust issues in the community. something that we have worked hard for many many years to build that trust and that's
130something that we're going to have to work on to rebuild and regain the trust of the community. It's unfortunate. It was an error mistake. There was no intentional misdeed by anyone but it does to your point. We have worked hard to try not to impact the kids. to your point that the kids are the ones when there's turmoil and there's confusion in the system, the kids are the ones that are impacted and we want to do everything possible that we possibly can not to impact our kids. And I appreciate you bringing that up and if it felt like that came from us that this is how it is and oh well this is how it is. It's not just oh well this is how it is. It hurts I know it hurts you. It hurts
131our community and it hurts me like definitely never want something like this to happen. So very much appreciate it. I appreciate everyone coming out here tonight. I appreciate the time that you took um and your concern that you have for our our kids, for our district, for our teachers, and our and our students. As I said, a QR code's up here. If you have additional questions or comments, please feel free to send them in. We're more than glad to answer them. Just thank you very much. Bye-bye.