001Okay, Kandum, I think we're recording right now and live streaming. Yep. Thank you. Sorry about that. Thank you. Morning everyone. Thanks again for joining this episode of Aaron Talks Too Much. And today we want to cover couple of things and we apologize because there's an LRP pack meeting going on at the same time. So, LRPAC is happening and they're discussing a lot of the bond pieces which are also on our agenda for today. And we want to make sure that we're utilizing Megan's time as well. And Megan, if you're still Oh, did she join keep joining us or did she leave? Oops. Uh, let me check. Um, I think she left. She was here first thing, Aaron, and I think she left real quick. Okay. Can you see if we can get her back on?
002Yeah. Yep. Great. So, where are we going to start today? I want to start with We're gonna start with then u Oh, there's Megan. So, yes, Aaron, she's back on. Okay, there we go. Okay, so I think Megan's back on and I want to start uh in order to utilize her time well and all of our time. Well, I want to start with Megan and I'm going to help her uh walk through a presentation she hasn't seen. So, she's really going to like that part. Um and uh but she will understand sort of what it is we're attempting to do under our piece under one of the one of the pieces that the district has related to the board and I'm stalling a minute because I need to pull it up. Board policy 2.3 talks
003about the way and our method of budgeting and how we look at budget priorities. And when we're looking at those budget priorities, ensuring that that budget priority matches both I think the community overall and then um the board's priorities. So under 2.3 the budget planning there's really it's just small but we do this will be a presentation that we need to give to the board as part of our bond um presentation or our board adopted board presentation but we're ensuring that we have projections for revenues the carryovers and the planning uh any of the disclosure of our planning assumptions and then we're also ensuring that we are not deviating from the board's ends priorities. That's hard to say. So when we look at those boards and priorities, one of those is within 5C. And so
004I'm going to launch my uh presentation for 5C. And are we able to see that? Okay. Yes. So under 5C what we'll do for the members of fact this is the presentation that with your approval today and then any adjustments we need to make after the presentation um then we will ask the members to provide this presentation to the board at at its next board meeting. So what is 5C? 5C was the mill levy override and how did we how did we come to the original pieces that collaborative effort through elevate and then prioritizing those uh investments within our six focus areas. And what we do during the budgeting process is we start at the cabinet level and we're determining our overall allocations and allocation methodologies both for schools as well as for departments and
005the majority of 5C of course is within Megan's world and so as we start thinking about 21st century learners diverse learning outside the classroom, safe schools, seal and world class staff. Those are the pieces that were originally prioritized within 5C. 5C over the years, we started with the original amount of $27 million. That was the amount that was in the original ballot question. and the amounts of funds available related to 2018 mill have increased by inflation. Of our mill levy overrides, the only mill that grows is the 18 mil which grows by inflation. And you can see here through next year's budget forecast. So for next year's budget, uh forecasting $34.7 million, which is a 2.3% increase on uh from the prior year. I asked last night at the DAC meeting what everyone thought inflation
006was, and very few people would have guessed it was 2.3%. I think uh many of us assume that we're still in that 8% range sometimes the way it feels in our own personal world. I think uh what we also know is based on the chairman of a Federal Reserve's comments that um he uh chairman Powell is worried about the impact of the tariffs and the impact of potential inflation. So knowing that, I think it's important to realize that our other mil levies do not grow by inflation. In other words, we passed a mill levy in 1991 for $5.4 million. And I know that you all realize, but it's also worth restating that $5.4 million bought a different basket of goods in 1991 than it does today. And as you can see that through the forecast
007period of FY2029, the basket of goods or an inflationadjusted amount, we would be short by $38 million. In other words, what we originally said were our priorities in '91, 2000, the ' 04, and '08 mill. and the ways in which we spent those funds, those are still costing us uh today, but we don't have the same buying power that we did in '91, 2004, and 08. And even to the extent that the 18 mil rose by inflation, I think that depending on where the priorities sit, it still may not pay for an inflation adjusted amount. So, we want to just make sure that FAC and the board as we go through budget planning that when we're talking about the mill levy and people will sometimes say, well, what about the mil levy money? Doesn't the
008mil levy money pay for that? And the answer is it did pay for that in 1991, but it costs more today than it did in 1991. And overall within those spending priorities, assuming inflation, we would be short in FY29 by $38 million. So, and I'm going to invite uh Megan and and Megan, I think I'll start with having you just introduce yourself, but I'm going to go through each one of these. And as we talk about them um I'll invite Megan in to talk about ways in which we're implementing these in both the 2425 school year of how we're doing uh learning materials, resources, and textbooks in the current year. and then our plan for the upcoming year. So, we're sort of looking at the 5C report in both how we've allocated or looked at
009those funds in the current year um as well as moving forward. So, Megan, I just want to introduce yourself. I'm sure everyone knows who you are, but I just want to make sure. Yes. Good morning, everybody. My name is Megan Kaine. I'm the chief academic officer for Adams 12. This is my 26th year of having um the privilege to serve in this system. So um thank you for joining us this morning and taking an opportunity uh to hear about the investments that we've made on behalf of our students in our system. First large significant um investment of 10 about 10% of our funds really goes to updating the learning materials, resources and textbooks. And so, Megan, do you want to talk about the overall process? I think um what I talked about last night at
010DAC again was just the introduction of new learning materials for the middle school uh learning uh the new middle school adoption and then talking about uh the math adoption as well. Yep. So um I can talk about these like three uh buckets here. The first around updating our technology devices and systems. As many of you know, um, post pandemic, we've, um, onboarded many, uh, technology devices across our system to ensure that students have one-to-one access, but then also that our educators have, um, high quality, um, devices to be able to support and deliver instruction within the classroom. Specifically in the educational um technology area, we've made an investment in our Seessaw um learning management system, which is a management system that's utilized particularly at the elementary level in grades uh PK through 2. And then
011also um it's a it's a system that's leveraged for our significant student needs program in grades 3 through 12. We also uh leverage uh Edpuzzle in K K12 classrooms alongside Padlet Backpack. Um in specifically in high school and middle school, we utilize a platform called Gail um which allows uh social studies, science and ELA teachers um to assign reading material um that is uh specifically connected to um the content that they're teaching in their classrooms. And then uh we also invest in overdrive and uh pair deck which are also educational uh platforms that uh students utilize in um our updated learning materials and resources and textbooks. Uh we have uh our typical investment that we've had year-over-year in everyday math uh student journals as well as the everyday math digital platform that our educators can
012access along with um our partnership with the mind research institute and the implementation of STM math uh supports and resources within the elementary classrooms. Interesting fact to note here is that we um have gone through a thorough vetting process to move into not this upcoming school year but a future school year um that uh where we will be adopting a new uh elementary math resource um that will uh you'll see appear um under these investments in future years. We opted not to move forward with that investment this current school year coming up um because of the uh implementation of our benchmark advance resource um and Dibble's assessment tool over the course of the last four years. Uh we want to give the elementary uh educators a little breath um before we start to adjust their
013math resource as well. In the English language arts area, uh we continue to make an investment in actively learn uh which again is a digital platform that both educators and students can use um simultaneously um to access the most current literature um to support their learning in those classrooms. And then we will be making a substantial um investment at um the tune of about $1.59 um million dollars uh to adopt a new middle school ELA resource um that is aligned to standards um and has uh reading materials that are most current and interesting um for our readers at the middle school level. uh in the social studies pa space. Uh we continue to partner with Gibbs Smith Education and the Colorado story uh resource uh for our students. And um those are the most current
014uh investments in the learning materials, resources, and textbook lanes. Oh, oopsie. And one of our larger next pieces. And um these are a lot of the investments that we've made. And we haven't tred up all of these these numbers, but this was the intent in the budgeting process for 2425 was to reduce the class sizes. Um high school course options. the our interventionist programs at the elementary and K8 level the and then I can talk about the allocation to charter schools and then we've expanded preschool across the district in any of these individual pieces Megan that you might want to touch on other than what we what we've written here. Yeah, I think the only thing that I would touch on here is I'm sure um the members of FACK have heard um the message
015from our superintendent about reductions in our system and may um be connected to a school that is uh working through some class size uh conversations and then also around our academic interventionists. And one thing that I just want to clarify here is that we um in initially had 15 elementary FTE, two KAF FTE and a 1.0 coordinator FTE built into the academic interventionist space and we will continue to maintain and and sustain um that allocation. What I would clarify for the group is that post pandemic we utilized other funds to expand and add additional academic interventionists in this space and due to the plateau of esser funds and then also the reduction of our general fund um we will not be able to continue funding. I believe at at our highest point we have had
01647 FTE across the system um supporting intervention and we just due to our budget constraints won't be able to continue at that level but the good news is that due to our 5C funds and other funds in our system we will be able to ensure that all of our elementary and K8 schools will be able to maintain and sustain an interventionist that will be able to um support uh intervention for our most uh needed students across the system. So, just want to clarify that for you. And then the other piece is that we worked closely alongside our finance team in um the class size impact um at high school and have been working closely with our high school leaders as they've had to make some uh budget adjustments as well as our middle school leaders
017making budget adjustments. And we believe that as a result of that really focused work in our system um that we'll be able to maintain reasonable class sizes at our secondary schools and be able to uh maintain uh especially in our core content um educators to support uh high levels of teaching and learning for our students. And then on the charter school piece, so everyone's aware based on a statute and based on our plan. So under state law, we're required to adopt a plan on how we will share mil levy override funds with our charter schools. And our plan currently states that we share on a per pupil basis mill levies with our charters. What that means is we have our funded pupil count and we divide our total MLOS's by that funded pupil count and
018then we would forward and we forward on a a monthly basis to our charter schools an amount equal to the their proportionate share based on pupil count. And so that's the current plan. I would tell you that, you know, plans across this metro area have are diverse. Um, one plan in particular is Littleton. Littleton's mil levy override sharing plan with their charters. Uh the MIL levy plan uh pays first for special education which is about 50% of Littleton's mil levby overrides and then they share whatever's left on a per pupil basis. So, as we look at ways of of utilizing resources within the charter school uh space is that we know that we want to make sure that what the original intention was of of the overall piece is that we are creating that plan,
019adjusting that plan or reviewing that plan periodically. We are required to post that plan on our website as are all other school districts across the c across the state who have charter schools. All of those are posted on their financial transparency websites as is ours. And uh just to give you a quick where is that um for anybody um within our district website is uh you'll see that at the bottom of our website there's always on every page there's a link to financial transparency and coming to that financial transparency page what you will see is there is a section called um the plan for distribution of additional mill levy revenues or the statement of intent to distribute. And that is that exists on every district's financial transparency website and it states the plan for how
020we distribute those funds to our charters. And right now our plan says that we share it on a per pupil basis as and and so then just a little bit of arithmetic for you as the denominator adjusts. So for example, if um if the total funded pupil count for the district goes down, however, the number of students who are at the charter school actually either stays the same or goes up, then just from math, the distribution to charter schools would go up. So charters would not just see a percentage increase based on the fact that the mil levy override increased by inflation, but they can also receive an increase just because they have more students than uh as a percentage than they did originally. So there's a both there's a both and in the distribution
021to the charter schools. The next big piece is the expansion of of CTE programming. And again, this is the 2018 mill. So, of course, we had expansion of CTE as well on the 24 mil levy, which did not pass. and but then we also have expansion of CTE programming on the bond of 24 which did pass. So this is the piece Megan if you want to say anything further on CTE um expansion and the expansion from essentially 2018 till today. There's been a lot of great programming adjustments that have been made since that time. Yeah, I think you know really the only item that I would add here is that the good news is is that we're we have figured out how to sustain the expansion that we have done. Um due to not passing
022the mill levy this year, we won't be able to add additional um career and technical education programming yet as far as the personnel. Um but we are um able to continue what we've put in place and then as we develop uh Thornton High School and have some opportunities to expand um CTE there um it will be really exciting times um for that school and we will most likely be adding um new programming um there. And then also in our middle schools, we're in conversations um with all of our comprehensive middle schools about how we might um start to expand in that space as well with both FTE alongside um with the monies that the bond has provided us. So Megan, I just wanted to to ask a follow-up question there. And a clarifying question is
023that I think it's easy for us to assume that CTE for the district means uh future forward only at Bowman and Wash Square. And the fact is that it actually includes a lot more than just future forward. Right. Correct. We have uh CTE programming across our entire district. Um, so we have very specific uh buildings that house um some of our CTE programming which are Bowman um the Bowman campus and the Wash Square campus. But we also have CTE programming in each of our comprehensive high schools as well as um each of our comprehensive middle schools across our system. Um so it's it it's both and right uh we have specific locations where students can go to access that learning but then they can also access that programming within their own school setting. Thank you.
024The next uh big piece and and some of this uh was one time the installation of so the access cards and as we continue to ensure that we have those as access card systems updated as well as the cards themselves uh that's part of the safe schools which was the out $300,000 of of this. But certainly the the larger component is the security officers, the at the campus supervision at our high schools. Yep. and school. I would just add that school safety continues to be at at the top of our priority list to ensure that we've got the most updated systems. Um that we're monitoring those systems um and that we're consistently um working alongside our campus supervisors to ensure um the highest levels of support um across our system. one of our next major
025investments in this happened certainly not only in the metro area statewide and and and across the country in 2018. We we added significant investment incling uh counselors at all levels and then our curriculum and then crisis response here uh on the district side as well. And so this has been a pretty dramatic expansion as far as uh I think Megan if you want to talk from your experience even before 2018 when when really there was a a much larger focus in recent recent years on Yeah. So we um as a system started building our um social emotional learning programming prior to uh the pandemic and post uh pandemic. Uh the good news is we had a lot of foundational pieces already in place in our system aligned to social emotional learning, traumainformed care and response.
026And post pandemic, what happened is we had so many students that had experienced some form or level of trauma um over that time that we knew that our students were really fragile coming back into a more brickandmortar setting. Um the other thing that became really visible for us during that time was that our students um had spent so much time on devices and or secluded from their peers that they were not engaging in what we would call typical school ready um behaviors prior to um either enrolling in school or had been so cut off from others that when they came back into school our students were just having a lot of challenges navigating the social environment of school and doing so in a really productive way. And so we made a significant investment in our
027system to expand our social emotional um learning specialists across our system to ensure that we had counselors that were available um for our students to support them. and really thinking about how do we leverage a social emotional curriculum to really support our educators in making sure that they have the skills and the tools um to provide the level of support that our students need. And so, um, you may hear of some curriculum across the system, um, depending on where students go to school, um, but we utilize, um, things such as sources of strength, c cultures of dignity, capturing kids' hearts, building healthy communities, understanding trauma, and facilitating hope, restorative practices, um, school connect, and second step, and depending on the level, of um whether students are attending elementary school, middle school or high school, those
028schools have an opportunity to select one of those particular curriculums and then think about how they embed that learning and support um within the system to support their students. The other thing I would just note is that the cost um of our mental health folks is pretty significant. And so um increasing FTE costs in the counselor and social worker space um is is higher than what has what we had budgeted for in our 5C money. So, we have been adjusting for that cost um and utilizing other funding sources outside of 5C to maintain and sustain those positions um over time. But the good news is is that in our curriculum bucket, we've been able to carry some fun balance um in that space uh to allow some expanding and some new learning opportunities. For example,
029in our um capturing kids heart schools um that have piloted that work this year, we've been able to really support staff um in uh having those groups um facilitators from Capturing Kids Hearts work really closely with staff particularly in our two of our comprehensive high schools at Legacy High School and Horizon High School to really help them think about the ways in which adults are connecting specifically um with kids. Um and then I see the question um about is the cost per cell position higher than the teacher level? And the answer to that is no. Um it's the cost of um the social worker license and then also the counselor license. So the SEAL um does not cost more than a teacher. SEAL is on what we would call a TOSA um position um which
030is uh comparable to an educator's uh position. And then I guess the last thing that I would add in that um seal space is that um we did um add additional seals with esser funds post pandemic particularly at our title schools um over the course of the last few years and um title leaders have utilized their title funds to staff two um seals and um we've had to make some adjustments in that space again due due to um funding and the cliffing of some of those ESSER funds. Um and so building leaders specifically in our title schools have made some decisions about utilizing title monies to either continue to fund one or to fund two seals. So you may hear about some adjustments that have been made in that space. nerd. The I think maybe
031alphabetically our last topic on the worldass staff piece is another uh significant allocation and what I would say here is that again remember that these pieces were are ongoing costs. So, as we've developed the salary adjustments, the COLA adjustment for staff that these costs, you know, continue to to to be within uh the overall pay of of all staff. And then to know that uh while the 1% cost of living at one point in time 2018 costs more today than it did then. So here on on this piece, you know, I think the investment of early career educator salary um pieces and and so I think as that has happened across the metro area is is on the on the earlier career side versus either the length of the schedule. You could have you can
032increase the length of the schedule, shorten the schedule. You can do things with the steps or the increments between years of service. You can put a a big emphasis on the early career educator uh salary piece uh to get people involved in in a BA 1 2 3 4 piece and then and then still being able to be uh competitive on the on the back side between years five and 25. And then the experience credit for veteran teachers that is different across the metro area here for in 2018 the the piece was to to utilize that up to 10 years. And so Jerry Creek is a good example of of a district that has I think it's less than hours. And so if there are districts where you can go in and they may not
033count all of the experience, they may count just five years. They may just count two years. So even if you had 15 years of experience and you had a master's with 15 years of experience and in some of those districts, you would still only be placed at year five or year three depending on the metro area district or other districts across the country. And this one was to increase that service level to 10. Um let me see. And then um the teacher leadership as well. So those were the investments that are continually being made on on the staff side. when again I would say that um this is uh just prioritized investments of of $34 million. That's what we were talking about here. And when what I would say is continually want to focus on
034the fact that that's $34 million and not lose sight the forest for the trees concept. And if I can flip back just one second to u our financial transparency website, what I would and on our financial transparency website, we have the navigating the budget guide. And within the navigating the budget guide, we again continue to focus on these focus areas. And what that means for me is that the implementation or the allocation of 2018 mill levy funds only supplements what we were doing already. In other words, it doesn't pay for everything that we have to do and it's it was only additive and allowed us to do uh some additional investments. But it again is the it is the overall strategy on the entire budgeting platform. So when we're looking at overall budget pieces, focusing
035those on the academic outcomes, which again is part of our uh 2.3 monitoring for the board, which will also be doing uh finance will be putting that presentation together for May as well. But what that starts with is these are the guiding principles that we share with the community and this is how we set the budget. And then 2018 funds really then just come in as part of the overall portfolio of available resources. In other words, those property taxes. But when we look at the overall revenues, we know that property taxes are really just one component. And when we look at state revenue, for example, $45 million, that is a significant um piece where our 2018 mill really is again only slightly additive to the entire to to the entire system. What I would also
036say and and I think over here on the general fund side you'll see that 13.8% 8% of our investments are paid for by Milvy overrides. And what I encourage board members to look at and act to look at as well and a conversation I had with them last night is that we are looking at the entire portfolio and making sure that the entire portfolio of income and revenue is aligned to those guiding principles that came out of Elevate. Um, and when we look at the other main piece here that I wanted to talk about is Megan had mentioned a few times about the federal funds. And you'll see here that overall on all funds, federal funds represent uh just under 7% of the district's entire budget. So when we look at things like title resources
037in IDA in particular, we know that we we certainly will plan for and have contingencies for any adjustments at the federal level related to policy changes. But I wanted to share with you that there are also other funds that we are just as intent on budgeting uh correctly in budgeting in alignment with the overall um with the overall um elevate process. And so those when we're looking at per pupil revenues and again this is showing a little bit of the differences in the metro areas and then uh bit of a history lesson in the fiscal downturn but also in our funded pupil count. And as I was talking about in here with the funded pupil count, if our funded pupil count goes down and the district side is lower while the charter school side stays
038the same or increases, then their percentage share of this mil levy override funding would go up. uh the rest of us um then we'll come back um right after this when we uh is then on how we're spending those funds. And the reason I want to spend just a second on this is we've talked about how we spend 34 million. This is how we spend the whole pie. And again the the point at the beginning of the presentation is that inflation adjusted the mil levy overall mil levy is not paying for what it used to. And so that is where the remainder of these general fund resources of about $530 million is really focused on. Um when we talk about the totals we are talking about 80 just uh just over 88% being salaries and
039benefits. And that pretty much aligns to the investments that we talked about within 5C. It's not exactly uh apples to apples, but it's very close that approximately 88% is at salaries and benefits. And as Megan talked about, it's really the curriculum adoption pieces that are the the non salary or the supply side of how we're spending those monies. So even on the 5C side, it aligns overall to our focus of spending the majority of our budget on on staff. What I would say about the remaining 11% is that we need to keep the lights on. So that includes Excel Energy, it includes uh the fuel for the buses, it includes insurance, both property insurance as well as workers comp. So there's a significant other component uh outside of just uh salaries and benefits. But as
040you can see, you know, we're it it is really once you even start taking Excel Energy and some of our other pieces into account, it really is a smaller amount. We continue to share the initial prioritized investments. This is what Megan has shared with us today. And this breaks it out into a little bit more detail on line item by line item, but we've bucketized it in the presentation today. So I wanted to make sure we were sharing that with you as well as I think just having that emphasis here which is that as we're looking at the overall cost from 1991 until today is that our costs have grown more than the increase of the mil levy overrides. I'm sure I went four minutes over at least. Um, so I need to stop talking
041and let's check in with FA and see if there are any questions uh for me or for Megan on the 5C piece. Thanks, Aaron. Uh, sorry I was a few minutes late. Uh this is extremely helpful background and insight into you know how the district is operating and spending these ny dollars. I don't I don't have any other questions. Right. Um again thank you so much Megan for for jumping on and and uh to her credit I will just say that she did not see this presentation. So, uh, she was very much a trooper. I will say though that she has seen it, just not maybe like us. Well, the good news, Aaron, is that uh my team and I and uh finance have been working behind the scenes on our uh prioritized um investments.
042So, it uh was right at top of mind um for me. And thank you um fact team for giving me the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with you this morning. Thanks, Mer. And we have uh Jeff who is joining us uh on the phone. uh we also have uh but what we want to talk about now is really moving now on to the bond side and as I will say again um that LRPAC also is meeting now and they're seeing this same information so obviously from different speaker where we are on the current bond is we've issued the bonds This was done in late January. We issued the bonds at $171.5 million with 8.4% premium with uh just under just about 6% of costs to issue the bonds which netted $185 million
043to the project fund. As a reminder, the we are authorized to issue $830 million of PAR and so far we have issued 171 and a half just over that. So probably over two or three or four additional issuances over the next uh four to six years then we would issue the remaining amount of PAR. The first piece, the first par issuance was 171 and a half. That is to essentially pay for what we anticipate as the first two years worth of of bond investments. We are going through the process now of of of recclassing some bond uh pre-bond issuance uh spending that we did which is allowable under IRS rules and identifying u the pieces to get those moved in. We have allocated uh to our charter schools their proportional share of the bond. What
044I will tell you is that it's a little bit more complicated than per pupil when it comes to the bond piece. And the bond piece for the charters has uh is also about the fact that the charter also receives capital construction money from the state. So they would then we would take the piece that they received from the state and then not double up on that because those funds are not available to the district. They're only available to charter schools and it's available to charter schools on a uh per pupil basis. So when we look at the investments from CDE related to capital construction for charters, we then take that off of uh their allocation before allocating bond proceeds. In other words, uh not not double dipping into the same uh per pupil amal. After
045that uh there is a size adjustment for instructional costs. So the focus uh generally on the bond is of course on ensuring that the focus is on the instructional arena and that instructional offset is also applied prior to the distri distribution of proceeds uh to the to charters chart. The charter distribution would only have been their proportionate share of this $185 million. It's not their proportionate share of 830 million but their proportionate share of 185 less um less again their capital construction from the state as well as an instructional offset. The next piece is year to date at the at the offset the jump I talked to beyond uh the chairman Powell's comments related to interest rates and probably the reluctance of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates in the near term. I will
046say that from an investment earnings standpoint that has assisted the district because we are now at uh 14% of of overall where we thought the bond interest would be and that was bond interest on the entire portfolio of the program meaning all $830 million. So we're 14% of the way there in less than 3 months. So, we anticipate to have a significant amount of of interest and if I weren't being recorded, I would say something else. Uh, so I won't say that and so were but hi to Chairman Pal uh as he's still currently employed. Uh the other piece that was adopted or approved, it was presented to the board in again I would say it was presented again to the board in February and then at the last not last night's board meeting but
047the board meeting before where we have the approval to move forward with our Oracle cloud ERP project which includes payroll and HR as well as financials and includes projects module for capital projects, assets, etc., as well as purchasing the whole the whole overall piece. And that's approximately an 11 million project. And that'll be paid for solely through interest earnings on on the bond. Then um other folks have given this update, but I'll I'll speak for them from the purchasing standpoint. The where we've been able to to get in just under three months is that we now have the Thoron High School contracts essentially complete. That's with uh with Accenture uh and then the AE contracts etc. as well as movement on the central kitchen warehouse. uh furniture for so furniture for all of our schools
048approximately $25 million playgrounds and then uh and as I said Jeff is on as well but moving forward on all of our IT projects specifically those that projects that are related to which means it would be funded not only by the bond but also partially by ate which is a um a quasi federal program that uh provides funds based on our free and reduced lunch percentage. Then uh the other pieces as far as where we are on uh construction facility and the sign is movement on uh roof replacements, parking, the playground and Prairie Hills. And to date, um well, as of probably yesterday, we have over $10.3 million encumbered in all of these projects. in that um that does not include the IT uh incumbrances at this point but uh the 10.3 is majority of
049line items on one which is the summer the majority of the summer bond projects related to the roofs, the parking lots, the playgrounds and some work that needed to and some immediate work that needs to happen at Prairie Hills. on the IT side. Um e again at -ate procurements happen both there are rules that that were adjusted around -ate and how we procure but working with specific vendors uh who participate in the -ate program inable projects for hotspots internet service uh fiber optics um the network cabling and those are the vendors that that uh we're working with. And then uh the network overall network cabling project which you know it's it's hard when you talk about the bonds projects because you know there's times when things are behind the walls and you really can't see
050that we've really made a substantial investments in the district. But um these are are the types of projects that that happen and and that are very important uh to the district even though they're we really can't can't see them would say even on the on the hotspot side you know ensuring that we have a connectivity across in all of our schools and so that's um really important and then the inter intercom project as well and so uh Jeff is on on the phone um with uh any questions on the IT side, the um construction side. Apologize, but we have the overlap with LRPAC and so the construction folks are presenting at LRPAC right now, but if you do have any questions, we can get back to you on on those pieces. And so those are
051the that was the component of the bond spending that we wanted to talk touch on today. Hey Erin, I can throw Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I can throw another I don't know if you can see me. I'm in a weird setup right now, but um I can throw another couple updates out there in terms of the IT stuff and and I can probably answer some broad questions on the construction side as well. Um the network cabling project um we've started at Sky View. That's SC that was on that slide. Um, our intention, um, now through spring of 26 is to complete network cabling at 12 sites. Um, and like Erin said, this is it's it's not super cool and it's not super exciting, but it is something that we can do at night
052and 12 months a year. So, when you see the construction plan or the CFND side of that that slide, most of that work occurs during the summer. Um, and most of the IT stuff we can do during the school year. Um, that's not to say that we aren't going to be busy doing this during the summer as well because we have better access to um hallways and the the work crews don't have to put their stuff away at night, but um we we do have a list of 12 schools that we intend to get done on the network cabling side in the next roughly 12 months. Um so I just thought I'd throw throw that out there because it wasn't on that slide. And Jeeoff, we have a question from Kelly. Um do you want
053to talk about uh the service providers? Do all her question is um do all schools get the same uh service provider and how does that work across the IT side? Yeah. So basically um there's there's kind of two components and part of the service provider if you're talking about like internet service um which you pro I assume you are and I don't know if you can clarify but um I'll kind of talk about the structure of our network. So we own our own fiber network. That was something that we installed in the last bond. Um, and our we have two different um because we're a a public institution, we take advantage of uh Front Range Gigap for our in Giga Pop. Sorry if that didn't come out clear for um one of our internet service
054providers. Uh and that's like a it's typically like a university kind of thing, but it's like a uh like a co-op, I guess, a public co-op. um they provide service and then we back that service up with FRG. No, that's Front Range Gigapop. We we have another I'm spacing the name of it, but we use two digit we we do everything in twos. So, we always want to make sure that we have resiliency if we lose connectivity to one. Um but we basically are our own service provider because we have our own fiber network and then we utilize um public cooperatives for that greater connection to the internet. And then every school has the same um bandwidth, connectivity, all of that. So the infrastructure inside of the schools is the same everywhere. Um that allows
055us to to support all of that at scale. So um I hope that answers your question and happy to answer a follow-up if you need me to clarify something. It is helpful. Thank you. Appreciate that. What I'm more curious about like for example in the slide that's being displayed, you have internet service, zio, hotspots, T-Mobile. Is that part of the redundancy that you were talking about or is is there more reason to have multiple connection points if you will? That is part of the redundancy that we talk about. So we have and if I rattle down through those so hotspots um a lot of our hotspots end up going we don't use those sort of on the production side. Most of those hotspots are in place um or we have them in inventory in case
056we have an emergency. So, um, if we have to stand up a district site like for maybe a reunification at an RTD bus stop or something like that or a park and ride, um, we can utilize those hotspots for those things. Um, and then also we use hotspots for homeless students or students that don't have connectivity at their house. Um, one part of the federal funding is to basically like on the internet works or on the internet side, they would call it the last mile. So that's think of that as like the connection to someone's home or the connection to their computer. So we utilize hotspots for um our students that just don't have those that capability at home. Um they request those and check those out. Think of it kind of like a library
057book. Um internet service. Zo is our that's why I was spacing it because they're new. Um we we contract through Zo for our internet service. So that's a redundancy that we have. So, um, it's like when you think about the capacity at the schools, like every classroom is using is basically connected to the internet all the time because we're a Google shop. So, all of that stuff sits outside of the district. So, we don't want to lose that because it basically shuts down the district. Um, that's what that service is for. And and um the next one, fiber ops and maintenance. So fiber ops and maintenance is when think of uh you see an excavate, you see someone working on the road and they have a big shovel and they stick that shovel on the
058road and rip our fiber out. Um that is really maintenance and repair of those kind of um I would say unplanned or unscheduled um interruptions in service. Um that's irradable as well. And then the network cabling part is the part like Aaron was talking about that's the stuff behind the walls. Does that help? super helpful, sir. Thank you so much for the explanation. It's not super exciting stuff, but it's all it's like basically it's like a utility. Um and and we find that with internet services is we we how much we might complain about Excel Energy or somebody like that. But we have a much better appreciation for the utility services for providing consistency um and doing what they do because when you turn a faucet or you plug something in or you turn on
059a light switch, there's usually water or electricity there and and to try and kind of support that which is sort of the state that everybody is in um is challenging. And that was that then is the component of ensuring that we are are sharing the information that we have related to the bond. So covering both how we fund allocate and track the bond projects as well as fund allocate and track our mil levy override spending. So that is uh the components there. if there are any other questions on those. Otherwise, we'll stop the recording and um and the public side of the meeting. So, thank you so much, Jeff. Thank you. You y'all have a good day. Thanks, Jeff. You, too.