001Good evening. I'm calling for the special board meeting of Tuesday, June 24th. Mrs. Sch, may we get a roll call, please? Yes. Joanne Rue here. Megan Miller, Brian Nichols, Tom Henkins here, Amy Levy, Juan Romero, present, and Tia Johnson here. All members are present except Megan Miller, Brian Nichols, and Amy Levy. Thank you. May I get an approval of the agenda? So move. Second. Motion by Juan Romero, seconded by Joanne Rue. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? I I a motion carries unanimously. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Our first item tonight is the student success and support ad hoc committee membership approval. This is to approve the additional names for an elementary teacher on the student success support ad hoc committee. recommendations. Chair Joanne Rue. Uh, so we've we just added one
002name, Sarah Spencer. She was a elementary teacher. We didn't have one on the list yet. And so, um, we just need to have approval for that. Um, I will also say we do have our agenda for the first meeting and it'll be next Wednesday at 5:30. So, we're looking forward to getting started. And that's located here. Correct. Any other discussion um before I uh ask for a motion for approval? Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve the student success and support ad hoc committee membership? I move to approve the student success and support ad hoc committee membership. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Juan Romero, seconded by Joanne Rue. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I I I. Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Our next item is the preliminary
0032025 2026 budget. And the purpose of this is to provide upgrade to the school board and community on our 202526 preliminary budget efforts to date. And we have Dr. Garrison and Stephanie Elwood. Um, thank you board of education. Um, this this meeting has been a long time coming. I want to say we've been working towards this conversation for um for pretty much the entire school year and we wanted to make sure that per one of the board's goals that we met this um conversation even if it wasn't in the in the balanced budget space but we definitely wanted to still want we still wanted to make sure that we met the timeline in which both we from the ad hoc committee's recommendations and of course from the board um having this preliminary budget be at
004a balanced spaced um if at all possible um by this time frame. I would like to thank all those who have um taken a part of this conversation of course um the business office um the cabinet nap level um executives um the administration the ad hoc committee ad hoc budgetary committee um led by Mrs. Mrs. box. Um the school board of education for, you know, keeping his thumb on the pulse of this conversation throughout the entire school year, teachers and staff members as well. Um this is a heavy lift because to my knowledge, we haven't had many um preliminary balance budgets at this point of a school year, knowing that there's a lot of different factors that still need to be um is yet to be determined. Let's say like that. So you may hear
005that in the presentation. Um we know that typically in the state's budget conversation that most of this information won't be available to the general public until October. Um and so October of this year. So we um again I believe we have a a good space to kind of work from. I would like to thank all those who also advocated at the state level um for the legislators to kind of get their act together a little bit to try to have a earlier budget to the conversation. I like to kind of ask for that not ask for that. I appreciate the people who have already reached out to our state legislators to see if they can have these budgetary conversations a lot earlier. Um although there's a lot of questions still out there. I believe I
006would personally believe that um there's still again a lot of things yet to be determined at the state level and hopefully they will move expeditiously to get us those numbers um for for all districts, not just ours. Finally, I'd like to note that um in the course of this budget presentation, we would like you all to kind of pause and ask us questions as we go through the presentation. So if there's a slide that you would like, you know, additional information about, let's just um go ahead and make that a part of the conversation now so that you just pause us, we'll answer the questions. So when we get through with the conversation, we'll be at a at its finality. Um again, um from a final p from a final thought perspective, um there's a
007lot of nuances in this budget. A lot of nuances in this budget. And um as we kind of work through those nuances, we will have a better picture again. But I do believe that our school district has worked extremely hard to get us to this point. Um I will say it has not been easy. Um neither do I expect it to be easy at times, but it has not um been easy at all. Um there's been a lot of um conversations and sometimes there's going to be opportunities for us to agree and may not always uh may not always agree. Um but I do believe it is our responsibilities to think about where we want to be in the budget and I believe that this budget helps us um prepare for that that next phase.
008to the board members. Um I'd ask that you also remember that you know as we are still working through this um your patience is greatly appreciated. It really is um a lot of things that are asked of my administration. We try to deliver on that as quickly as we can but then there are spaces in which um we have to pause and figure out what's the best um step forward. And so um I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Lwood. We have a a short presentation prepared for you and we'll go from there. Mrs. Elwood. Thank you, Dr. Garrison, and thank you to the board for letting us present tonight. Um, as Dr. Garrison said, we are presenting a preliminary budget discussion tonight. Um, this budget is not um on the agenda to be
009adopted tonight. That will come later in August. Um, we'll come back with um hopefully some um more refined numbers. Um um the budget that we're presenting tonight is a balanced budget. It is very conservative. Um our revenue numbers and our expenditure numbers, we've gone through and combed through those numbers and come up with um the balanced budget that you see here. Um the staffing has been reviewed. We've gone through and uh realigned according to projected enrollment. But as Dr. Garrison said, things can change. Um enrollments will change. Staffing will change before the start of the school year. And we will be refining these numbers for the August presentation. Um this um first slide is just um the totals um showing here. Um the um would like to point out that we do have a very
010large transfer that happens between general fund and special ed fund and that is noted on here. Does anybody have any questions on this first slide? Hearing not I'm going to continue. Um this next slide um lists out the key budgetary factors that we used in developing this budget. Um again I wanted to just point out that we were very conservative with projecting out membership um using the um the three-year average of 6,23. Last year they used six or last year the actual was 6276. Um, that may seem like a large drop, but in this district, we have had declining enrollment, and it's better to be conservative at this point than to be um to make those numbers um larger. Um the uh maximum, excuse me, the maximum revenue um limit per member is um projected
011to be that $11,65527 um as long as there are no changes at the state level. Um, and that includes the extra $325 per member increase that's in current state law. Um, um, like I said again, um, the membership number that we have today is very conservative. Those numbers we won't know until um, third Friday count in September. Um, I did want to point out that our state aid numbers that we're using in this um, budget is just that. It's an estimate. Um, the July 1 number that comes out is also just an estimate. And those final numbers do not come out from the state until October 15th. So that balance between state aid and property taxes, even though we have numbers in this budget, those numbers are going to change. Um we also um were
012conservative on the um expenditure side. We did incorporate the 1 and a.5% increase for staffing. Um the monthly health insurance contribution um remained at the 4% um as recommended by by the ad hoc committee. We did incorporate um some dollars from OPED, other post-employment benefit fund um 73 into fund 10 to cover some of those costs. Um the um there was an insurance premium increase that's incorporated in this budget. Um it was estimated at um last uh spring as being 10% and it did come in at 11.6. six. Um we did have a small increase um expected for independent charters and private schools because their enrollment has kind of leveled out. We don't have um additional spaces to put um to accept more children. So only a small increase this year um 236,000 is estimated
013in the budget where in previous years it had been big jumps of millions of dollars. Um, on the next slides, um, are the details for the staffing, um, decreases and the, um, contracted service decreases. And I did want to note that we did have an estimate in here for utilities and transportation um, increases of 3%. I'm sorry, were there any questions um, regarding the building of the budget? Yes. I want to go back to slide if I could [Music] on the slide. One more. So what was the enrollment numbers from last year? So that's that's on this slide. Um the enrollment for last year was the 6,280 or I'm sorry for yeah for 2425 this school year. 6280. But that's not enrollment. That's membership. That's a gross number. What's the net number? Cuz I remember
014hearing number. So enrollment and membership are two different numbers. Enrollment. Okay. What do we get finance for? Membership. So membership are the um students that are our beloved students that either are attending our schools or they're attending um the charter and those are numbers and voucher and voucher schools. Yes. So those are those numbers. What are our district numbers? So the district of aoid numbers um we referring to the last projected numbers was 546 when when we reported back probably back in early January. Um that number has since changed um of course and so I can look that up for you if you want the exact numbers like right now but yeah but not to confuse people that's not what we get aid on. That's not what we get aid on. Correct. That's not what
015we get aid on though. Those are just the kids that are attending butts and seats on our school in our school district. Correct. Membership is a different number. Membership includes those numbers and the kids that are attending private and and voucher schools. I'm a layman. Okay. No, that's okay. We get financed the district. Our revenue is based on our enrollment, not PLA or it's based on membership. So, we pay that out. But we pay that back out. Correct. We do pay that back out. Let's put the net number for just the school district. I understand what you're saying. I don't want to sugarcoat what's going on. I want to know. So these numbers I'm looking at minus a thousand people. Correct. And when you look at the expend when we get to the expenditure slide
016slide, you will see those expenses out to pay those school. I just want to Yep. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. Okay, the next slide here shows the um the budget reductions that we had um previously had approved at the schoolboard meeting on June 3rd. Um this is the June 3rd um I'm sorry this was one of the recommendations also from the ad hoc committee. Um the total reductions is just over $3 million. On this next slide is um further budget reductions that we have incorporated into the budget. Um reductions in cleaning services. Um just I want to make sure that I'm very clear with this. There is no new technology built into the budget for next year for students or staff. So, no new devices, no computers are built into the budget. Um, and
017then the use of other post-employment benefit dollars are also in this budget. Um, see, I have that number right here. Um, the OPED transfer is 1.15 um 6 million. So, um if we do use these dollars out of OPED, um then that will leave, um a little over $3 million left in the OPED trust. Um pending though, if we need to use OPED dollars for 2425 school year because we also do have that budget or that budgeted into the 2425 budget and we have not closed the school year yet. Yes. Sorry. Going back to numbers and going back to last fall here. Yep. We talked about and there was conversation around the fact that this penalty of using those said dollars, you know, as far as no way. Um, so it's not like we could
018just take money out of it and it's it's not like a piggy bank to the district. And please explain. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Please explain about OPED dollars and how we can or cannot use those dollars without penalty. Thank you. So, the use of OPED dollars affects the balance between the equalized um aid and the tax um levy in the following fiscal year. So depending on when you use those dollars and how much you use, um it could affect that balance in fiscal years following or I'm sorry, the first fiscal year following. Um I did want to mention also that OPED dollars are finite. We only have um 4.3 million in the pot. So once we use those dollars, they are gone. Um that's another um drawback of using those OPED dollars. I think sorry
019I think that's understood but I thought the conversation around not using them at a certain point you know would defin would be a negative somewhere along the line. I know it's there but correct we we want to use them strategically. Um my my recommendation would be to use them slowly um not use you know the whole chunk in one school year because you're right it would affect that balance for the next fiscal year. Thank you. Moving on to the next slide. Um this slide is a pictorial of the revenue limit and how it's kind of calculated. Taking that um the resident membership times your um per pupil amount um plus a declining enrollment hold harmless which we don't receive. um plus the one-time non-recurring exemptions which are listed down below. Um plus the ongoing um
020reoccurring which we have none this year um to give us that revenue limit of just over $74 million. Questions regarding the revenue revenue limit calculation. Um seeing none, we'll keep moving. Um, this pictorial is just a a graph showing the declining enrollment over the years. I'm sorry, non-enrollment membership. Um, this next slide is um a pictorial of the revenue limit tax levy um versus general aid. So that revenue limit authority that we talked about in the previous slide that 74 um.9 million and if you take out the state equalization aid that gives you the tax levy that will um be the local taxpayer um responsibility. Mr. So, what can you um just sir give a quick snapshot of how general state aid is um is measured and how that impacts us from a general state
021aid perspective. How's that? Yep. So, the state equalization aid um if we Oh, I looked at that one. Sorry. Top one. Yeah. Um the state equalization aid is a calculation taking all 421 school districts across the state and then um equalizing those payments to um spread out the state revenue across all districts. Um the um one of the points I wanted to make about um state aid is that the state has not settled their budget either for um uh 2527 fiscal years. Um, so the um the aid certification won't happen until October 15th and we have to wait until October 15th because all the school districts also have to submit all their actual revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year and then the state does a calculation based on how everyone's expenditures came out for
022the fiscal year um 2425 to calculate equalization aid for 2526 school year. Sorry. My my thought to that is again what happens around us is also important. Correct. Because depending on how everyone else is so current um estimated um equalization aid is based on budgeted numbers for 2425. So depending on how everyone's schools um revenues and expenditures come out for the school year that affects everyone else in the dis or in the state when they put that whole pot together. Guess it goes back to that possible referendum stuff as well then could we draw a connection to that when referendums are passed. Well with the referendum and not just not not the one that that we would like to pass of course but everybody's referendums that has passed does that impact and that ties back
023to the revenue limits. Okay. Um yep. So the revenue limit authority um we are kind of in a low spending district. So, our revenue limit authority is low because our per pupil is, let me go back up here, is only um the 11,655. Um some districts are as high as 25,000 per student and we're on the low end of this. So what what happens is that you have some school districts that are receiving a higher um revenue limit authority based on their demographics or where they are in the state compared to deote and that leaves us behind and and the only way we can generate extra revenues is by going to referendum. Thank you so much. Just a followup, educate me again, and I know the city goes through this with shared revenue also. Does
024the state or give you credit for being fiscally fiscally responsible? Uh, i.e. not go having a uh deficit spending or whatever. No, we're just currently no aid in the dis in the No, I mean putting in your pecking order. We're talking about 31 million to let's just say charter schools 315 whatever that number is what would let's go back sorry I could be way wrong purchase services 31539 I'm The purchase service number also includes internal um things like transportation and utilities. Okay. What can we Let me just ask you a question. We'll zero in on you have 200 people. How much are we paying out to charter schools more than we receive from the state for our own students? What's the discrepancy? I know there is a disparacy disrepency and I just want to go
025to bat when I do go to bat to have some numbers behind me because it's way out of line. It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault. You're asking what the per pupil is for I and I don't have however you but just paraphrase just I know you probably don't want to get on record. So we get x amount in per student, right? Correct. But we have to pay out to my knowledge more to TLA, Rock County, and OA than we get in for that. Is that correct or not? Incorrect. I'd have to go back and look at the numbers. Just I'm sorry. Yep. Can I chime in? Go ahead and maybe help. Um, so last year I I remember seeing a slide where um the public charter schools got X amount per student and
026that was more than what the um private voucher schools got and that was more than what regular public schools got. Yeah. And I believe there's a different number for K through 8 versus high school as well. And you know, and I don't have those numbers in front of me. I'm sorry. Do you know if that if the state has changed that where all students get the same amount? No, they have not changed those numbers. Okay. And that is part of the state budget that they want to make changes to those and you'll see that later in the presentation. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Did that help clarify, Tom? No. Thank you. I I think we can get those I just agree. No one's going to answer the question and because maybe we don't know, but I
027think I know the answer. So I think I think humbly that we are paying more money out than coming in for each student for our students that are going to TLA. And I'm not saying anything bad about the other ones. We're paying more money. We're getting money in $100, but we're giving away 110. That's my That's how I interpret it. And you guys can just if I'm wrong, somebody tell me. I think you'll be able to capture some of the next thought on slide 14. Mrs. um Elwood breaks down into percentages, how much goes out to charter schools and payout. I mean, the hard part about your question is there's a lot of thoughts with that. um business managers including superintendent try to walk a real thin line because they the state gives us money
028for all the kids all all all the students in our district are our students who live in who live in Bo are our students whether they go to our school district or not they still again are our students and so that that's what that's I hear I hear what you're saying I do I understand what you're saying as well but that is that they don't they don't all come here though right and so that's where there's the open enrollment space. So, and I and not to go too far off because so if we know that there are 10 students that live in our district and would usually go to our school but decide to enroll in um the Lincoln Academy. and we have another 10 students that decide to go to one of the voucher
029schools. When the state f gives us the funding, do they give us the x number of dollars for the 10 students at the Lincoln and then we pay them or they just pay them? I mean, it's it's kind of a wash. I mean, we're not we're not paying above and beyond for their students because the state is funding them. It's just the state's funding them at a higher level. Those are really good questions and I think for the next presentation or even before I can put together some information for you and get that to you. Thank you so much. But I did want to point out as Dr. Garrison was saying that the percentages that we are paying out are pretty high for this district that we're paying to the charter schools, the private schools
030and to the um open enrollment which is the um instructional services number here that 9.5 the 7.6 and the 1.9. Moving on, this next slide um shows the unassigned fund balance analysis. Um this is related back to our schoolboard policy to have a minimum of at least 18% which um as we can see here, the school district has not for many years had that fund balance. And the only way to um to put money back into fund balance is to have less spending than we're getting in for revenues during the year. Um the numbers for 2425 like I said before are not finalized yet. So that's why those numbers are or that change in fund balance is listed as zero. Um in school finance we have other funds also in our district. Um this the
031other fund slide here is um the special projects fund, our debt service funds, the capital projects fund, food service. Um the other post-employment benefit I'd like to point out here. This is showing where we would um have a decrease in our fund balance for um the OPED and those dollars then are are finite and that would be all that would be left for the following years. Um community service fund and um our fund 99. Are there any questions about other funds? Yes. I just have a question on fund 50 or I guess anyone. If if money is in fund 50 for example, it can only be used for explain to me as a novice. Yeah. The fund 50 is our food service fund. I understand that. Yep. And food service fund is kind of like
032a business. the monies and the expendure expenditures have to all be related to that business and that business is serving school lunches and um school breakfast and those funds cannot be used for another purpose. Okay. So fund 50 does that affect our never mind. I think I I you there's no tax levy dollars or general state aids, right? It doesn't affect our general well-being or as a district. It's just there. Money in, money out. Correct. As long as it stays float. Correct. Thank you. But I would argue the point. It doesn't affect our district's well um well-being. It it's, you know, how how well we feed our kids with nutritional value and um you know, sufficient portions and things like that I think are important. I agree. I was just wondering we can't use one
033for I mean I think you were talking more of a financial well-being if we could use funds for other correct I'm not trying to get away from feeding our children. Thank you. Yeah. Um to end our discussion tonight, I did want to um touch base on what has been going on at the state level. Um there's been a lot of um debate at the state level. The governor has um come out with a lot of suggestions for school finance. Um and the joint finance committee last week um did um vote on a motion. I think that's how that worked. Um and these were some of the proposals that were in that motion. If you want to see the motion in um in full, it is linked in this slide. Um some of the key things
034on here were would affect the school districts. Um and one of the bigger things is the categorical aids. Um the special education aid in particular, the governor was suggesting to move that aid from 30% up to 60% which would give the district approximately $4 million. And that's that piece that we're moving from general fund into special ed fund. That would reduce that by that $4 million. Now, when the um joint finance came back, their suggestion was a lovely 2% increase this year and another 2% for next year, which would only be about $267,000 extra in state funding. Um there's a lot of back and forth that happens with state budget. Um there could be changes before it gets to the governor's desk or the governor could veto everything. Hopefully um somewhere in the middle they'll
035meet, but um we'll have to wait and see what happens. Um I believe that they typically try and um resolve by July 1, which is next week. Um I'm not sure where they're at with that. Um so hopefully before the end of summer they'll come up with um a plan. Um the other couple of items on here are are highcost aid and aid for um school mental health services. Um the high-cost aid in my opinion um would be better if they would fund special education at 60% rather than putting monies into high-cost aid. Um high-cost aid if they did what they were proposing um would be a very small increase for the district about 50,000 in the first year and 180 the next year. um the school mental health services. That could be um an
036increase for the district if we continue to um um have increases in our services that we have for um [Applause] um school social workers. So, if we decrease our cost for school social workers though, we would get zero in funding. Um this next slide, I pulled out a couple other things from the joint finance um motion. That first one is the recovery high schools. I did just want to kind of put this out there on people's radar because we do have a um a grant currently that we're looking at um recovery high schools and that process and getting something like that started. And this is um a positive for more increase in state funding for that program. Um the second one um was a bit concerning. Um going back to your question about how much
037per student is going out of our district. Um they are talking about increasing that open enrollment transfer out by um $1,578 per pupil. That's more going more money going out than what we are getting in for those pupils then. And that would cost the district about net about a million dollars. Thank you. And that's what I was getting at. Um, well, this is open enrollment though. This isn't private school and charter school. Well, this is a to my to my knowledge, if student Aloy school district kid student, excuse me, goes to Turner, it's a wash. I mean, the dollars per dollars and and a Turner student came here, it's equal. But if they went to TLA andor the other ones, it'd be different. Yep. And that's what we were talking about. I wasn't sure what
038I'm not quite sure what those numbers are, but this is talking if one of our students goes to Turner, they want to increase it by that $1,578 per pupil. Okay. I I hear you, but I don't hear I mean I don't get it yet, but I will. Thank you. Um so the like I said before the state budget next steps um there's some debating that needs to happen. Typically um the DPI said that typically this supposed to happen before July 1st. um if the timeline's not met, the state just continues to operate under their current budget that they have um in place until something is signed into law. Um for our budget, um these are the additional actions um that we need to do. Um we need to incorporate the state DPI aid estimate. Now,
039reminder that that is just an estimate and it may not be the um the best estimate because it's going to be released on July 1st and all of the final numbers for 2425 from all the districts are not in yet. Um and so that that number will be changing um when they do their October 15th final. um we need to look at um budgeted revenues and expenditures and um adjust those numbers. We may also need to adjust membership depending on where our enrollment and um registrations come in. We'll take another look at those numbers. Um and just overall looking at budget dollars to see if there are other things that we need to refine in the budget. Um looking forward um the timeline in August is when we'll be coming to the board with a
040preliminary budget that needs to be um u voted on and approved and then there will be a budget hearing in September. Um, also a reminder that the budget will change again when we do get those final numbers in September for head um for membership and then in October the equalized values will be um um certified by the state and then in October we'll be coming back with the final budget. Any questions or thoughts to share with Mrs. Elwood? I I have a question for revenue sources. What thoughts or suggestions do you have to us board members to um how can we get creative there? And I obviously those revenue sources coming in from the state and the federal and local tax bases we we can't have much impact on other than passing a referendum and
041hounding our state legislators. Um but you know what what can we as board members do to help support you know finding more resources for this for for our students whether it's in in in terms of instructional um budget or the um like the mental health services that's something I could see it affects our students kids. But we could ask for somebody, a local donor or some or maybe not a local donor, maybe, you know, maybe maybe a celebrity. I don't know. Ask somebody say, "Hey, we we have some kids that need some help and are worthy and deserving of this. Can you donate some money to the cause of childhood mental health services for the boy area and and I know we could also look at using fund 80 as well but help help us
042help you and I hear what you're saying but I think the biggest impact for our district is going to be to go to referendum that that is the one tool that school districts are given to get substantial amounts of money to help fund the needs of a district. And at this point, we are very slim. We have gone through and um reduced as much as we possibly can with the number of students that we have. um trying not to decrease services, you know, in those areas of mental health and those types of things. But the only um tool that districts really have because you're t the items that you're talking about, you know, getting donations and um outside assistance from companies, those types of things. Those are all great um ventures, but a lot of
043times those are one-time dollars and they don't keep supporting districts in the future. We we did um this year um I want to say I'm not sure for the first time but under under my direction we did take some time take some of our funds that we had and reinvest those funds um through the investment opportunity. Um wasn't much that we got back from it. You know, one could argue $40 $50,000 maybe, but it's money that we hadn't gotten in the past. And um you know that's something that I I that I did reach out to you know our partners to say hey can we do something different with some of the funds that we currently have. And I know it sounds crazy but like around January we're sitting on you know a couple of
044maybe an extra$100,000 $200,000 and could we reinvest that to see if we get something back and we were able to do that this year. Um and so there's not again there's not a lot of ways we can actually get money. I've always stated this, we're not we're not a, you know, not a for-profit organization. And so we we use what we get to educate our kids. And I just want to make sure I thank Mrs. Lwood for the work that she um has done over these past um few months here in preparing this presentation. Um, I know the the going question that that's resounding in my brain that came from my left and my right was, is it safe to say that voucher charter schools get more money than our students? Um, in a nutshell,
045the answer to that is yes. Okay. However, how much? We we don't have that information. And so, I don't want to, you know, I didn't want to put Mrs. Elwood on the spot. I know we weren't trying to do that, but it's hard for us to answer that question because we don't know the number. But the answer to the question is yes. Um, and so I just want to make sure I noted that in the conversation. You can get that information from an I think her name is Anne Chapman from WBO. She did a presentation and she shared that information as well. And I don't want to, you know, regurgitate all of the information that she shared, but there's a space where that that the answer to that question was a yes. But it's different
046for every district based off of I mean not different for every district. However, there's a lot of kids in our school district. They all are ours. But it is true that charter and voter students do get more money than we get. The answer to that question is yes. How much is the corvol for us? And again, thank you to everyone who's helped put this together. Thank you, Mrs. Alwood. Thank you, Dr. Garrison. No further questions. Mr. Romero, um, have we have we tapped into like like potential like maybe business partnerships to help, you know, fund some of these things that we do need if even, you know, I guess I mean some kind of sponsorship to help like with the high schools or with the the at the middle schools that need help. Um, maybe
047if we could put together uh this is where we can use like say a sponsorship for this particular thing, maybe that might help as well. I'm I'm just trying to think outside the box here cuz I know referendum it's it's so easy to say, well, we just go to referendum. We'll go to referendum, which yeah, it could be needed. However, if we don't, I mean, what else do we have? You're right. So, I'm trying to think outside of think of other ways to bring in other revenues. And if we have to go to referendum, then that's okay, too. For from what I need, because we either way, we still have to bring the money in somehow. We bring in to be able to fund all these all these programs and everything that we do to
048not limit the students achievement. You know, we need to actually bring it, you know, we need the mental health services. I mean, there's lots of things that we got to still fill in and I don't want to leave our kids without anything. So, I'm trying to think of ways to to help offset some of these costs that we got going on. I mean, in my opinion, every every dime does count. So, I don't know if if there's anything that we can think of, maybe that route or possibly um well, I mean, also if there's, you know, spaces, I guess, that we have that we can maybe lease, you know, that other than what we're already currently doing, if there's other things that we might look at doing that, um it's just some things to kick
049around if it helps or not. I'm just throwing it out there. Thank you. If there aren't any other Oh, Mrs. Rue. Um, so how much did what the ad hoc uh committee um present to you? How much of that was um adopted into the budget? That is a good question and I'm sorry I thought I was um touching base on that as I was going on and I might have um missed some of those things. So the first two items on the ad hoc suggestions were using other post-employment benefit dollars to help support um not having a pay freeze for teaching staff and the other piece of it was not increasing the portion of the health insurance um for staff and both of those were incorporated into the budget. Um the um percentage for the
050increase that was incorporated in the budget was what the board is currently at with the negotiations. Um the other piece was utilizing staff reduction recommendations that the administration had brought brought before the board and all of those were incorporated. Um those were on um back here this list of 31 positions. And then the last piece um that was on the recommendations was the restructuring of COAC and um I'll defer to Dr. Garrison on that one. you know, based off of the level of um reductions that Cole has to have, we've already been in that restructuring space over the past um one could argue two years. Um as it stands right now, we of course had to make some additional changes to KAC space and so um we are as tight as we can honestly be
051here in the Kolak Educational Center. Um, I believe the ad hoc um said that with the restructuring that over the next year that we probably should look at a little bit more in reductions as far as amount that is budgeted for COLA. Um, when you compare it to other districts with similar numbers and um, thank you Mrs. Rue. I have encouraged Dr. Garrison to meet with his cabinet to um look at long-term strategy and come up with uh restructuring, looking at other districts that um looking at the enrollment projections that we will be similar to in in terms of size and demographics. Um so this again this is our preliminary budget and um we are we're working towards that. Go ahead. So and I I understand that our collect staff is working and that it
052is tough. Um, I think I heard that the special ed part of the budget that the um the state is not taking on what Governor Ivers had had recommended. And so, um, things are really tight. And so, even though it won't help for this year, please, um, remember to reach out to, um, the people that represent you and encourage them strongly to, uh, fund ed public education. Thank you. Um last night some of the board members and myself attended a state budget discussion at the Hedber Library and one of the points somebody made was that the number of students that are identified as special ed is rising and that's not particular to bo but but all over the place and um I wonder you know thinking again in terms We look at enrollment projections. Do
053we also look at pro special ed enrollment projections? What what will those higher cost needs be? Do and is that something we can even know? That's that's a great question. I think when we look at the 3K spaces when we start doing early childhood like um screeners um 4K even and going into of course kindergarten. That is a great question and I'll be honest with you, I haven't seen districts really look at the numbers of changes that special education happens on the earlier side. I think we just get the numbers when we start kindergarten um and a little bit of the 4K screen 4K screening spaces. Um I would hope that the state does a lot of the things that we're talking about, but the reality is um they haven't and we have been stuck
054with the bag of trying to figure everything out. Uh we will continue to do that um to to the best of our abilities. Right now we fund balance transfer almost $10 million to take care of our special education needs in our own district. Without that cost, one could argue we would be doing a little better from a just a funding conversation. Um because we are I think people need to understand this. We are using the funds that we currently have to take care of the needs of our entire school district. And that fund balance transfer that we do on a yearly basis is not bodies like you know paying for me or paying for anyone else in the district. is paying for our own kids and to do the things that we need to do
055for our own students. And I think that's missed sometimes in in the public, the general public, but also it's missed in how state funding actually looks at this conversation. The drop in the bucket conversation, the drop in the bucket number that Mrs. I asked Miss Elwood to put this in the presentation where it talks about the special education funding, the 2% increase is $267,000 per year. That is very low. Very low. A 60% is $4 million. $4 million. Our deficit 2526 was 6.2. Now what with if if we move to to four I'm sorry if we move to the 60% allocation which is $4 million. And I'm not going to do the numbers thing cuz I can start going down a rabbit hole. So let me just stop. the the hopes is that we we
056we really understand that we're using the funds that we have to educate our students and pay for the needs of our students that sometimes is left in left off the table in the conversation. Mr. Henkins. Okay, I'll shoot from the hip a little bit. I also was uh happy to go to Hedber Library where Spritzer was there and Enro and another lady from what who another representative and uh the reality and I can be not PC. The reality is in my humble opinion [Applause] that the public schools are becoming a place where students who can't afford and or go to or self- transport to other places go and nobody here admin can say that but I can. And so I in my humble opinion our district is going to be more challenged by the special
057needs and uh challenged students. So we have to prepare ourselves and how we do that I'm not sure but that's the reality of it is and I think uh I know we have a great team here. We have good bones here looking at Miss Mortech, Miss Elwood and uh Dr. Garrison, Carol Fox, Mr. Eberart, Dr. Kim, we can find our way, but I think we have to face the reality of where this school district of Void is heading for the next 5, 10, 15 years. And with that, that's my humble opinion and not the boards. Thank you, Mr. Henkins. And I agree. I agree. We do need to look at where we're heading 1 3 5 10 years from now. You know, there of course are a lot of unknowns. Ultimately, we want the best
058for all of our students. And I I don't want people to have knee-jerk reactions when thinking about having discussions around things like um special ed funding. Um, special ed funding um, also helps cover the students with um, that in need of speech therapy, students who have ADHD, which is on the rise, um, students who have um, some physical um, disabilities um, some minor, some not minor. It's so special ed is a broad umbrella and it's you know it's unfortunate because we really do want our students to be productive citizens when when they graduate our school district. And if we are not able to fund highquality teachers um with with good programming and robust services, we are doing ourselves a disservice tomorrow and down the road. And um we'll just, you know, as a board, we'll
059just keep doing the best we can and encouraging others to do the same. Any other comments? Mr. Romero, thank you. Just uh something just throwing it out there also that I was thinking about as well. We um is there maybe an option to do like a a parent accompanied like for example a DLI companion classes where it can be done on a tuition based kind of thing for parents that are interested in going to DI courses or classes with their children at the same time but charge like a uh just a reasonable amount like a tuition kind of fee. um nothing like super exuberant but something that kind of brings a little something in and also it also fosters like a a better relationship with the with the parent, the child and the school itself
060to kind of have them interact and mingle together. It's just something popped in my head to kind of think about outside the box maybe if it would be a possibility to do so. Um, I know there's there's red tape obviously that would be have to be looked at, but just something just to kind of throw it out there because I mean we have to start thinking outside the box when it comes to funding. The way that we're being our our hands are getting tied left and right and I'm sorry that's the way it feels and we have to get creative of what we're going to do. So for me, one of our biggest resources is our our awesome teachers. And if there's a way that we can we can use that resource in a in
061a better light, you know, to think about, okay, well, how can we not only just teach the child, but also help the parent understand what's going on, what's classes, cuz when's the last time someone's been in a in a in a classroom as an adult, you know? Um, it could probably help in that aspect, too. There might be some things that parents might open their eyes to, oh, I didn't realize it was like this or hey, this is maybe an option to um to offer for an improvement. Um I think it would be it would garner more um obviously more parental interaction. I think that's kind of what we need. Not saying that parental interaction is the end all end all of everything. Obviously, it's not. But it's a really good building block to help
062provide a better a better structure for for our children. I I love that idea. I I don't think legally we can um during school hours, but I was at the convention in January, the state convention, and there was another school district, I forget which one off the top of my head, they used fun 80 to have classes and they charged people $5 a class um to come in and if they were led by either community members or teachers in their high school or middle schools, you know, whatever worked. Um, and it was funded through their fund 80. We could do something like that, which I I love that idea, you know, ha having the parents and the students making learning a family affair, you know. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. You guys get
063on it. I'm joking. I'm joking. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I I'll I'll I'll dig up the information that I had from that convention and and get the uh specifics and and how they did that because it was a good program. Any anyone else on budget before we move to exhibit A? Okay. Next we've got the um that No, that's not that one. Exhibit A, the HR committee report, employment recommendations. The purpose of this is to present employment recommendations to the board. Are there any open session questions on exhibit A? Are there any close session questions on exhibit A? I would entertain a motion for approval of the 62425 employment recommendations exhibit A. So moved. Second. Motion by Joanne Rue, seconded by Juan Romero. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? I I I. Motion
064carries unanimously. Next, we've got executive session. Um I thank you. A motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the board of education into close session pursuant to section 19.85 parent one parent of the Wisconsin state statutes relative to employment promotion evaluation items. Tonight's close session discussion is the superintendent evaluation. Is there a motion to go into close session? So moved. [Applause] Is there a second? Second. A motion by Joanne Roose, seconded by Tom Henkins. Mrs. Schop, Juan Romero, I. Tom Henkins, I. Joan Rule, I and Tia Johnson. I motion carried unanimously. Thank you. We will be con um adjourning from close session tonight. Thank you. [Applause] Are you saying that you know like it's important that we