001Okay. So, we're going to call the July meeting of the Brandy Wine School District Board of Education to order. Uh, let's start with the pledge of allegiance. Like to ask Mr. Dejami to lead us. Okay, with that we're going to move to swearing in of new board members. I'm going to come around to the front. This may be interesting. Excuse me. Frank, where is your family sitting? Are they over here? Well, let let me come down to you. You take the Bible in the right hand. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of schoolboard member. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the
002United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board member according to the best of my ability and I do furtherly solemn and affirm that I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered or promised to pay, contributed or offered to, or promised to contribute any money or other valuable thing as consideration or reward for the giving or withholding of a vote at the election at which I was elected to said office according to the best of my ability and I do further solemnly swear that I have not directly or indirectly paid offered or promised to pay contributed or offered to contribute or promised to contribute any money or other valuable thing as consideration or reward for giving or withholding
003a vote at the election of w at which I I was elected to sit office. So help me God. Congratulations. Welcome to the board. Thank you. I got you. Right hand on the Bible. Please repeat. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and that I will faithfully discharge the offices the duties of the office of schoolboard member according to the best of my ability. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of schoolboard member according to the best of my ability. I further solemnly swear that I have not directly or indirectly
004paid, offered, or promised to pay, contributed, or offered to, promised to contribute any money or any other valuable thing as consideration or reward for giving or withholding a vote at the election at which I was elected to said office. So help me God. And I do further solemnly swear that I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered, or promised to pay, contributed, or offered to, or promised to contribute any money or other valuable thing as consideration or reward for giving or withholding a vote at the election at which I was elected to set office. So help me God. Congratulations. Welcome aboard. wring on the Bible. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and that I will faithfully discharge the duties
005of the office of schoolboard member according to the best of my ability. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board member according to the best of my abilities. And I do further solemnly swear that I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered, or promised to pay, contributed, or offered to, promised to contribute any money or other valuable consideration or reward for giving or withholding a vote at the election at which I was elected to said office. So help me God. And I do further solemnly swear that I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered, or promised to pay, contributed, or offered to, or promised to
006contribute any money or other valuable thing as consideration or reward for giving or withholding a vote at the election at which I was elected to said office. So help me God. Congratulations. Welcome back. [Applause] I will take a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? That'll take us to the superintendent report. Dr. Lawson. Good evening, President Acriman, members of the board, and members of our audience and community. Tonight's data dive relates to school climate with a particular focus on students sense of belonging and behavior referrals for specific violations of the student code of conduct. Since 2021, we have administered the Panorama survey to all fourth through 12th grade students to measure student well-being and equity in our schools. A particular area of focus in
007our strategic plan has been to increase our students sense of belonging at school, which has a ripple impact on student attendance, engagement, and behavior, which subsequently impacts academic performance. In our middle and high schools, grades 6 through 12, we improved six percentage points over the last two years in students sense of belonging. The four-point increase between school years 24 and 25 was the equivalent of moving from the 10th percentile of schools nationally to the 20th percentile. While we suspect that administering the survey in the fall impacts comparability with districts who administer the survey in the spring, the data both shows that we still have work to do and that our actions over the past two years have led to real improvements in students feeling that they are valued members of our school community. The reason
008we don't give the survey in the spring is because we issue the u survey that the University of Delaware puts out around school climate. So, it's a similar survey. We wanted to do it during a different season so we wouldn't over survey our students. While we administered the survey to older elementary students during the same time span, we questioned whether students at that developmental age understood what sense of belonging meant. In other words, we were unsure there was a shared definition of its meaning across our schools and students. For that reason, we made a decision to change the wording in the survey in 2025 to make the questions clearer and more accessible. This has improved accuracy and clarity, but doesn't allow for comparisons to previous years. And so, for these reasons, we didn't include fourth
009and fifth grade survey results here. Stay tuned for future years. Student behavior referrals are one measure of building climate and they also reflect the strength of multi-tered systems of support or MTSS within our buildings. The total number of referrals in Brandy Wine fell by 800 from school year 24 to 25 and referrals are also down by about 200 from school year 23. Here are trends in our behavior referrals by grade cluster. You'll see that referral counts at the elementary level have been somewhat stable across the LA past three years as noted in light blue, medium blue, and dark blue constituting school year 23, 24, and 25 consistently. Middle schools realized the greatest reduction in behavioral referrals in school year 25 from the previous year. This is attributable to intentional leadership among our middle school administrators
010and their staffs who promoted strong schoolwide expectations, language, and clarity along with other key strategies used in AVID and tier 1 of MTSS. At the high school level, referrals are significantly down from school year 23, but ticked up over this past year compared to school year 24. While we consistently strive to cultivate positive, respectful, and safe learning environments, it is important to recognize that we do not anticipate student behavior referrals will ever reach zero. As part of normal child, adolescent, and teenage development, students are expected to test boundaries, make mistakes, and learn from them. Remember that key executive functioning skills such as working memory, self-control, and cognitive flexibility do not fully develop in humans until age 25, well after they leave school. Our focus remains on guiding students through behavioral moments with support, accountability, and
011opportunities for growth. BSD summermies, camps and programs are well underway where students have opportunities for acceleration, enrichment, and remediation in targeted areas of learning to prepare better for the next grade level. Programs focus on English language arts, math, social emotional learning, grade level transitions, and enrichment activities. We are excited to welcome our new Secretary of Education, Cindy Martin, to our KTO2 summer literacy academy at Hanby Elementary this Monday, July 14th. We invited her to visit classrooms and observe our fabulous educators engaging in lessons and activities that reflect the science of reading and also implore the state department to rein institute necessary state funding for summer programming targeting students in general education who are struggling to learn to read. Starting July 21st, our STEM camps will offer opportunities that blend both the arts and sciences. This
012week, BSD is hosting its annual administrative retreat. The retreat provides meaningful professional learning aligned with district priorities, promoting connections, collaboration, and a little laughter and fun among our district's school, our district and school staff. This year's theme, Exploring Excellence, features sessions on talent management, operational excellence, multi-tered systems of support, and school safety and security. We also had a very special presentation today from the Bo Biden Foundation for Child Protection. As we prepare for another exciting school year, our facilities team is hard at work making improvements to our buildings and grounds. Projects are underway that include the addition of a single user bathroom at Conquered High School, exterior facade improvements at Springer Middle School, upgraded lighting in the Mount Pleasant High School gymnasium, and new hallway flooring at Harland Elementary School. We are grateful for the
013dedication and effort of our facility staff in creating safe and welcoming schools for students and staff. Our video this month spotlights a June BSD graduate, Miss Leah Norton, who is attending the US Naval Academy after being accepted into all four US militarymies for the 2526 academic year. From kindergarten to graduation, Leah Norton's BSD journey has been one of growth, passion, and purpose. So now, after achieving something only a few students nationwide ever do, she's ready to take on what's next. [Music] So then, how would I do this note? Which one? First uh second measure, first note. My name is Leah Norton and my graduating class is class of 2025. I started in the district with kindergarten. I was at Maple Lane Elementary and then I did middle school at PS Dupont. I was a part
014of the gifted program there and then choice to Brandy Wine. I wanted to be a part of the biomed pathway and then I also just really like the swim team here and my sister was here so like it felt like the right decision to make depending on what our plasmids turned out to look like. I've wanted to go into the medical like science medical field since I was in sixth grade, fifth grade. Coming in, I really wanted to be a clinical lab technician. And through biomed, I learned that it's not really what I want to do, but that I still eventually would want to go into the medical field. I was fortunate enough to be a captain of the swim team this past year and swimming gave me some a place where I could compete
015not just with members of the team but like friends who I have been on different club teams with. [Music] And then with marching man it's kind of the same thing how I got comfortable talking to more people and I love the way that it helped me grow my leadership. Um taking charge was a big thing. learning how to step outside my comfort zone to make sure that others are okay and that others feel comfortable. That was a big thing that those two taught me. And then these past two years, I've been a member of the student voice advisory. Learning how to advocate for other people's needs, figuring out ways to help them, figuring out ways that we can work with our administrators and help get the message across that if kids need help, this is
016why they need help. Um, so I really enjoy all of that. coming in junior year, I had Dr. Lancaster and she came in and she was just this like force. Like I loved her energy. She mentioned that she um was active duty Air Force and that's kind of what got me going was just hearing about how that propelled her into doing all of this and how she got to have all of these experiences because of that. Around August, the nomination applications opened and applying to um members of Congress asking them to nominate you for an academy. The first message I got was from Lisa Blunt Rochester and it was that I had been nominated to all four [Music] [Applause] [Music] I know these are really prestigious schools and I know looking like last year looking
017from an outside perspective I didn't think I'd get into one let alone all four. Um, so I was I'm beyond grateful for the fact that I got into all four, especially academically. Like I'm just extremely like thankful that Miss Hullman was here to help me, that my parents that were here to help me, that the teachers who were getting ready to write me recommend recommendations last summer were still like interested in the process and excited to see where I was going. We're so proud of you. I'm proud to be BSD because of the support provided, not just through administrators, teachers, friends, um, but the way that BSD tends to feel like a family. I don't think there would have been a better place for me. I don't think I would have come out a better
018student than I am at any other school or any other district for that matter. [Music] [Applause] So, we are grateful that Leah's parents both are proud to be BSD staff members. Her dad, John, is an assistant principal at Mount Pleasant High School. And her mom, Kristen, is an amazing special ed coordinator for us in our preschool programming. Thank you for joining us this evening. President Acre, that that concludes my report. Thank you. That'll move us over to public comment. We have received no cards. Are there any virtual? Okay, we're going to move right along. That'll take us down to board business. There has been no um DSBA meeting, but the DSBA boot camp is coming up on the 19th of July. Uh existing board members, if you want a refresher, you're welcome to go down
019for the day. It starts at about 8:30, runs about 3:30, 4:00, and you'll cover most of the required training that the state requires you to have as a board member coming in. So, it's it's a good day. I'm going to go this year myself, so I I do recommend that you take advantage of that. Um, Miss Doc, any legislative updates? Um, the committee has not met uh since our last board meeting. Um and uh we'll be meeting up and we'll have to find someone to take on the other uh item C. Uh district finance committee, Mr. Scrobot. Uh district finance committee had a kind of out of cycle meeting on Monday. Uh I did not it was by Zoom. I did not attend. I was out of town on vacation. Um but in addition to
020the monthly financial report, uh I know Mr. McCoy will share some of the robust discussion uh that went into the tax warrant recommendation uh that we'll hear um here shortly. And unless I missed it, Mr. McCoy, the next meeting will be back on the second Tuesday or second Wednesday, second Wednesday of August. Health and wellness advisory. Mr. Heler, any any updates? Uh no, no meeting since our last meeting. Any updates in maintenance advisory? Uh, no meeting since the last meeting, but we are meeting next Tuesday at Darly Road. Parent and Citizens Advisory Committee I know has not met Miss Stock, so you can report on that at a later time. Uh, Miss Pigeon is not here at this some point, so I think we'll have to find someone new for the parent council with students
021for disabilities. Uh, Wilmington Learning Collaborative, Mr. Jimmy, we had a meeting yesterday uh u with the WLC to discuss the um approvals slashrecommendations uh made by Cristiana uh school board with regards to new principal for the Pritchette Academy and we agreed that uh we agreed to support the Cristiana uh Christina um recommendation. They also informed us that they would be putting a full-time principal into the uh binary school as well. We were made aware of that. Thank you. 917 WMPH. Uh we have not had a meeting since our last board meeting. We do have a meeting scheduled for this coming Monday uh which is the 14th. Um, this meeting usually covers the recap of the school year that just passed, a little bit of a look forward into the next school year. Uh, um, we'll
022most likely get an update from Paul Wishingrad regarding um, WPH was approached by a media company uh, to take over um, a local show that focuses on local musicians. Uh typically it's something that's done outside of our normal operating hours. So I think we'll probably have some discussion as to you know is it anything that might be of interest to the station and the district? Uh what are the benefits for our students and the programming and the learning opportunities they have? Um outside of that uh if it doesn't really fulfill those items, it may not be of interest. Um, but always looking for new ways to expand the skills uh of the CTE program there at WPH. Um, so to any of our listeners as you go through the summer, tune in on your radio
02391.7 or check us out online at wmp.net uh where you have access to a lot of the programming and stories and news reports that the students have produced throughout the year. That is my report. Thank you. Are there any additional board member reports? That'll move us to the consent agenda. I will take a motion to approve the consent agenda. Um, can I just ask a question? Um, will we have an opportunity to talk about the opportunity grant waiver? If you want it removed from the consent agenda, we can move it into old business. Could we can I can we make a motion to do that? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You don't even have to make a motion. Just a request is enough. Okay. So, we will move the um opportunity grant waiver into old business. So,
024because I think it's probably something that um would fit better in old business. That'll take us to the monthly personnel report. I will take a motion to accept the monthly personnel report as discussed in executive session. Oh, wait, wait. Sorry, I forgot to do the consent agenda. I'll take a motion to accept the consent agenda which consists of items A and B. So, moved. Motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? Motion carries. It moves down to the personnel matters. I will take a motion to accept the personnel monthly report as discussed in executive session. Make a motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? That'll take us to student matters. I take a motion on items A and B. choice good cause and choice denials.
025So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? Motion carries. All right. Let's do the opportunity grant waiver. You want to do the tax first? Okay. I think that that's going to be the one that's going to be the most interesting. So, let's move to the uh tax warrant for fiscal year 26. Mr. McCoy, Tonight we're going to go through the 2025 2026 tax warrant recommendation. Uh the first slide, slide number two actually, is just the overview of the tax rate reset. So there's uh multiple steps to this process and this is the overview of the culmination of most of those steps. So the first step is to um figure out the 2026 taxable assessment. That's the $15 billion at the number at the top. Step two is to reset our
026tax rates to a revenue neutral level. And then step three is at the bottom and that is to add the second half of the voter approved referendum. And from there we have some additional options which we'll discuss as we work through the presentation. All right. So first we're going to talk about taxable assessment on the next slide. Here we have the different parcels listed what their previous taxable assessment was. uh what their new assessment is. And then we have to back out exemptions. And those exemptions, the $214 million, those are elderly tax exemptions, um disabled exemptions, and veteran exemptions. Then we have to back out the at risk assessment. Uh we'll talk about the at risk assessment on the next few slides. And that brings us to a new taxable assessment. So we start with
027the full assessment and then we back out the portion of those assessments that are not taxable to arrive at the new taxable assessment. And then the far right column you can see the percent increase from the previous assessment. And unfortunately the residential increases have outpaced all other classes of parcels. Um, and on the next slide, there's a graphical representation, a pie chart of just what that change looks like. So, with the old assessment, residential made up 67% of our tax base, and with the new assessed figures, residential now makes up 79%. So, that's a a fairly substantial shift to the residential taxpayers. Um, uh, by my calculations, it's going to be $11 million of taxes that are switching from commercial properties to residential properties. Commercial properties will see $8 million less and, oddly enough, utility
028parcels will pay $2.6 million less in taxes. So, this is has been a big topic of conversation um amongst the entire county. Newcastle County has actually decided to split their rate between residential has a lower rate than commercial will pay just to help out uh the difference. So, on the next slide, we considered if that was something that we could do at Brandy Wine School District. Um we our ultimate goal was trying to ease the burden that some of the residential properties were going to face because of this reassessment. However, we ran into a lot of hurdles and it quickly beca became obvious that this would not likely be feasible. Um first of all, the Delaware state code for school district refers to setting just a single rate. It doesn't mention anything about having multiple
029rates. And the Delaware state constitution has identical language to surrounding states. And those districts in those surrounding states have faced litigation for treating residential and commercial properties differently. And the district almost certainly all the time loses that litigation and then has to return funds to the commercial properties. And then to top it all off, earlier this week, Newcastle County informed me that if we wanted to split the rates, they would need 6 to 8 months notice to change our tax bills. So that was um the icing on the cake of all that. So, it's not something that we can do for this current tax year, but we are going to try to work with legislators and district stakeholders to determine if the split split rate idea can be put into law and if there's a
030way to make it um possible in future years to find a middle ground where we're not just putting the entire burden back on commercial and that there's some some way that it's fair for everyone involved. question. Yes. How have we arrived at um at this where um with the reassessment that that more of the percent of the burden is on residentials. Um so commercial properties were valued closer to their market value than a lot of the homes were. So when the reassessment came through, a lot of the home values skyrocketed whereas commercial values only went up a smaller percentage. So because the commercial or because residential went up a lot more, they're taking on more of the tax burden. You made a statement there on slide four, I think about something about utility. Are are
031they considered commercial or are they viewed differently? They would be in our calculations commercial. So anything that is not specifically residential, we consider non-residential. That would be the split rate would be residential and non-residential. Yep. All right. Moving on to slide six. Another big portion of this was the at risk assessment. Um so the at risk means that that's the portion of taxable assessment that Brandy Wine School District is expected to lose pending resolution of current appeals. There are 652 appeals in process. Uh the vast majority are residential appeals at 584 and the total value of assessment that we could lose is $320 million. Uh so we have to back that out of our calculations when we set the total assessment that we can apply our taxes to. Uh this is something that we'll probably
032continue to face in future years. The appeals listed here are just those parcels that met the deadline, met this year's deadline to appeal. I imagine that if these are successful, more people will come out of the woodworks to appeal their assessment. So, this is an issue that will likely be facing for future years. Do you know off hand who the one utility that's I do not know, but I think it might have been a gas company. Okay. I believe there was a bigname utility that appealed years ago and I was wondering if it was the same one. So, thank you. I can check into that for you. All right. So, on slide seven, it's the process of resetting the rate to a revenue neutral rate. So, on the left side are our tax revenues from
0332025. We then have to gross that up to factor in the 99.5% collection rate. So that when we apply our tax to that number, we'll collect 99.5% and we'll realize the same amount of revenue that we realized in 2025. So we move over to fiscal year 2026. We have the taxable assessment that we just pieced together in the previous slides. We know that we have to have a certain amount of revenue. And then we just do a little math equation and we figure out the rates that will get us to the same exact revenue that we realized in 2025. So our 2026 tax rate to reset to revenue neutral is 6141. Any questions on that slide? Sorry. Um M that's that's per still per 100,000 of assess per $100 of assessment. All right. So then
034the next layer of this on slide eight is the referendum. So the voter approved referendum had a increase of 20 cents to our tax rate in year two. State code specifies that if there is a reassessment effective after voter approval but before actual revenue is derived, the district should calculate a new real estate tax rate which at a maximum would realize no more than 10% increase in actual revenue over the revenue announced. So our stance that we are going to follow through with for this portion is that Brandy Wine has calculated a new rate to match the announced revenues during the referendum voting. On the next slide, it kind of illustrates that a little better. So this was the notice of special election for our referendum and we had a total amount of revenue that
035we had realized of $15,625,549. So I I took that total revenue, I divided it by the 45 cents that we were asking for over the two years, and you come to a revenue generated percent of 347,000. I then below the line multiplied the revenue percent times the 25 cents for year 1. That was $8.6 million in revenue. And for year two, you take the revenue generated percent times 20 cents and you arrive at $6.94 million for our referendum in year two. So then on the next page, we have to gross that number up to factor in the 99.5% collection percentage. And then we uh calculate that in year two of referendum a tax of 0.0441 on our taxable assessment will produce the same level of revenue expected from the voter approved rate of 20 cents.
036So that 0441 then gets added to the base number that we saw to create the revenue neutral tax rate. A couple other things that factor into this. Uh on slide 11, the Newcastle County tax pool. Um we really we could not figure out a way to get the tax pool to work for all the districts that are in the pool. Colonial Red Clay, Christina. Uh it used to be that it would take the first 46 cents of our taxes, put it into the Newcastle County tax pool. The Newcastle County folks would then allocate it and spit it out to the districts based upon the allocations. And Brandy Wine has always been a beneficiary of this as we are we receive more money than we contribute to the tax pool. That's a recent phenomena. Historically, we've
037actually lost money. Okay. So, we couldn't figure out a way to make it still work. Um, so we just decided that our best approach would be to freeze it. So the new language says that beginning in fiscal year 26, the Department of Education shall administer the Newcastle County Tax District such that each district in the pool contribute the amount of revenue equal to that contributed in fiscal year 25 and shall receive a share of the poolled revenue equal to the amount received in fiscal year 25. So, we put the same amount in and we get the same amount out. And that means the net impact for fiscal year 25 is that we will that will continue into 26 is that we'll receive an additional $967,000 in revenue to Brandon School District. And that's on top
038of the uh 15 million or so that go into the pool. 15,878,000. So, while it's not ideal that what has been set up to help allocate funds has been frozen, um, we are beneficiary, so I'm okay with that this year. On page slide 12, we have the 10% allowance. This is another hot topic within all districts in Newcastle County and the state of Delaware due to the fact that uh the federal government has frozen title two, title three, and title four funding. Um so that's putting us in a hole to start 2526. So after the reassessment, the state code allows for an increase in tax rates to realize at a maximum a 10% increase over tax revenues from the prior year. Uh Brandy Wine has firmly taken the approach that we're not going to utilize
039the 10% unless there was some reason that we were basically force forced to utilize the 10%. And then last week we found out that federal funding was frozen and that that would put us in a 1.246 million hole. 75% of that is used to spend to pay for staff wages and benefits. So, um, we're one of the recommendations to the board is to use the allowance to fill the gap in funding that we're seeing. And to fill the void left by the withheld funding, we would need to raise the tax rate by 0.0079, which equates to using 1.70% of the 10% allowance. Mr. McCoy, could you or Dr. Lawson uh maybe expand a little bit on um what type of staffing falls under title 2, three and four. Sure. Uh so some of the positions
040that we have, we have instructional technology coordinator, social studies coordinator, science coordinators, um we have summer school teachers, uh a lot of different EER opportunities for our teachers for professional development, um things of that nature. I don't. So in general, title two is for professional development, professional learning, and as he mentioned, that is people that is paid from that that grant. Title three is uh funding for multilingual learners. Again, that pays for staff, our EL tutors, our MLL uh staff that are districtwide in many of our schools based on where the students are. And then Title 4 monies are characterizes well-rounded students. That could entail, it does entail for us um MTSS uh not only uh money for incentives for students and um coordinators that uh structure the systems, but it also um pays for
041social workers um professional development and supplies um for many of those things. We also utilize technology monies out of there. So what we have done over the past several years with student devices um can also be supported by title 4. So that one's a little more flexible than the other two, but in general uh these were very important funds for us to operate. Two questions uh if I if I may. Um the first question is do we use any of the title three funding for our immersion programs? No ma'am, that is local funding. Okay. Um and then uh the other question is that uh do we have any positions in the district that are fully funded by title two title or title three? Yes. Okay. Um quick question as well. Uh is there a plan
042for if the federal funds that are currently frozen become unfrozen in the fiscal year? Yes. And uh Mr. McCoy will go over what DFC, our district finance committee recommended as a result of that very question. Yes. So the the district finance committee asked a very similar question um and they were steadfast in the fact that if the federal funds do return then the additional tax rate needs to go away. So I don't know if we would have the ability to return the funds to everyone within the 2526 school year because that would mean a dispersement to every parcel in the district. But um in asking around other CFOs, I do think that we would be able to reduce the tax rate by the same amount that we'd raised the tax rate for next school year.
043I had a question too, Mr. McCoy. Um when did you find out that this money was being withheld? I I can answer that. The Secretary Martin called an emergency meeting of the superintendent on July 3rd. So, we were notified Monday, June 30th, that the funding would be withheld, even though Congress at the federal level appropriated the money already to be sent to states, and we were to receive that on July 1st, but we found out the day before that it wasn't coming. And Dr. Lawson, you mentioned MTSS. Is that multi-ter support system? Yes, sir. And so is is what you're telling us is that that's a risk um by this withholding if we don't approve um raising this tax rate by the 00079. Yes, Mr. Jordan, it is. And in Delaware, unique to Delaware and
044not other states, MTSS is a regulation. It is not negotiable. It has to be done by every school and that is not the case in other states. Thank you. Mr. McCoy, one question. Um, what does one penny on the local tax rate raise today with the new assessed value? Uh, one penny would uh realize $1.583 million. Just trying to wrap my head around it since I know in the old days it was one penny. It was about 300,000. So this is Yeah. Everything has exploded a little bit. All right. So on slide 13, uh, we have the ability to shift some of the tax rate around. Um, due to retiring debts, BSD can shift 0.0032 from the debt service tax rate to areas in need. Uh, you'll see when I give the June financial report
045that the special education tuition tax line was overspent by $1.2 $2 million um due to just rising costs and and student needs throughout the district. Um and that is the line that pays for intensive or complex students. So the idea is to move a portion of the rate to there and then minor minor capital improvements. We have HVAC needs throughout the district that we can no longer delay and the state doesn't really appear to be lending a helpful hand in that. Um, conquered. It's meant to have two chillers, but it has one chiller, and that one chiller is 22 years old. There's major mechanical work that's needed at Darly chillers and two boilers. And there's several rooftop HVAC units that are at the end of their useful life. So, shifting that 0.32 will result in
046moving $500,000 from the debt service line and splitting it between special education, tuition tax, and minor capital improvements. Mr. McCoy, with with this shift, this is a this is a permanent shift. Is that correct? So, if we um if we had a capital project in the future, we would have to reask for this essentially back from the voters. Yes. We wouldn't be able to shift it into the capital project in the future. Yep. Thank All right. So the next couple slides are just kind of putting the entire puzzle together and it will lay out three recommendations for the board. Um or you could create your own recommendation. So the first one is the neutral rate plus the referendum plus no usage of the 10% allowance. So just walking through the the chart, we have the
047revenue neutral rate on the left side. That's a tax rate of 6141 plus the referendum increase of 0441. Then we have the shift of the debt which is no increase to the tax rate and then the uh red box are the fiscal year 26 tax rates if we went with this recommendation. So our total tax rate is 6582. Then we have recommendation two on the next slide. And recommendation two is the neutral rate plus the referendum plus the recovery of the loss funding. So that's the 1.70% of the 10% allowance. And it's the same concept except now you see a number in the usage of allowance column 0.79 which we um looked at earlier for the makeup of the lost federal funding. And in this scenario, our tax rate is 6661. And at the end
048of these, there's a a summary of how they'll impact the average household. Uh tax warrant recommendation number three on the next slide is the neutral rate plus the referendum plus the full 10% allowance. Again, same concept. The usage usage of allowance now increased to 0463. So that number is now higher than the number in our referendum column. So we would realize more revenue from that than we would from our referendum. And at the end of the day for that the tax rate is 7045. Um and there our last slide is DFC recommendations and the DFC um flat out does not recommend going with recommendation number three. All right. So the next slide 17 is how this would impact the average residential home in Brandy Wine School District. So before the referendum, the average residential home
049generated a tax bill of $2,5.15. Uh the recommendation 1, two, and three, they follow along with the previous three recommendations that uh you just saw. So, the average taxable home value after the reassessment is $385,922. Uh, if you went with recommendation one, the tax increase from the previous year is $534.99. The portion of that increase due to um Brandy Wine, which in recommendation number one is just adding the referendum is $170.19. the portion of the increase due to the Newcastle County reassessment is $364.80. And if we went with that, we're looking at um needing a referendum most likely in 2027. um we could probably push it off to 2028, which I believe was the original plan when we went through the previous referendum if we um cut some positions. Recommendation number two, the new uh
050revenue neutral plus referendum plus covering the funding loss. Uh that would be a tax increase of $565.37, $21 due to Brandon School District. The remainder is the reassessment. And then three follows the same pattern. A large tax increase. A larger portion of that is from Brandy Wine. And with that option, we I project that we would have to go to referendum in 2030. Option three is basically passing a referendum without voter approval, which is why DFC was strongly against it. The next slide is the um district finance committee considerations after our meeting on Monday. They uh recommend that we do not split the tax rates for 2526 based on the advice of our our district solicitor. They recommended that we adopt tax warrant recommendation number two. That's the neutral rate plus the referendum plus recouping
051our lost federal funding and DFC uh does not recommend tax warrant number three. So that is all I have for you. Um do you guys have questions on any of that? I know you said the DFC did not recommend number three, which you know the full 10% clearly we haven't presented a need for those funds. So I I think that's pretty uh pretty clear. And between one and two, did you say they made a recommendation? They recommended that we go with number two. They did not say no to number one, but their recommendation was number two. Thank you. And Mr. McCoy, I have a question for you. Um, it it was on your table, the average residential comparison that has the three recommendations in columns here. Um, what I'm looking at, it looks like the
052majority of the increase is due to the reassessment. Is that correct? Correct. I'm sorry. Go ahead. For for residential properties, that will be correct. Okay. And so the question really for us is then whether it's going to be $170.19, $20057, or $348.87 in addition to the reassessment. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, the unfortunate aspect of the reassessment is that it's um really going to hit residential the hardest and it's at a time with the second half of our referendum. So that residential parcels may tie the two together and think that the whole increase in their taxes is due to Brandy School District. And Mr. Real quick, can I just just to clarify the line that says portion of increase due to BSD, that's due to the referendum portion that was previously approved. Correct. And then
053the second one would be in addition of the 1.9. Okay. Y thank you. So to summarize the burden of tax is moving from 2/3 basically 67% to close to 80% on the back of residential property owners. Yes. Yeah. I I I think that whoever did this reassessment didn't do a very good job. That's that's my own opinion. Um because I I really do not believe that commercial properties were assessed closer to their market value because that value was set in 1987. So that's like virtually impossible in my mind. And then of course, you know, we have the port at Edgemore that's going to be coming in at some point and that's a piece of property that used to generate income that will not generate income because the port will be uh exempt from taxes as
054is the the other port that we have already in Wilmington. So that's another loss and I know you know from history and I think Mr. Scrobot referred to it. You know, we have seen commercial properties uh ask for their money back years after uh Astroenica wanted two years back when they tore down the building close to 202 where the new apartments are going in now. So, of course, those apartments will generate um additional taxes again, but they wanted two years. It cost this district a million dollars when that occurred. Verizon also um went back and selectively reassessed and you know said oh it can't be right you know we've lost value our stuff is depreciating maybe it has but there's still the land that it sits on. So do you know uh of any commercial
055or residential projects underway now that are expected to come online and receive certificate of occupancies in this fiscal year? Um, and if so, are we tracking them to make sure as soon as they get that certificate of occupancy that we're, you know, trying to get that tax book? I'm not aware of any. Um, the full focus of the county has been on getting us numbers for the reassessment. They didn't have a clean file for us until this past Monday. So, I'm hesitant to ask them, but I'll see if anything is on their radar. and also um see if I can find anything within the district. I have a question. I understand the process is that individual property owners and commercial uh interests can appeal their assessment. Is it possible for us to appeal those assessments
056we think are underrated? As Mr. Arian pointed out, I do not believe that there's any way to do that. I know when I was in Pennsylvania, we could reverse appeal properties. I don't think that exists in Delaware. They're kind of at the mercy of this of the reassessment numbers. Uh do you have a a rough idea as to the variety of uh decisions that other uh districts are making throughout Delaware in terms of the 10% uh option? Uh yes. So, Abquinimick, they were in the paper today. They took the full 10%. Uh, Red Clay last night went with 7%. Excuse me. Colonial went with 7%. Red Clay is expected to go with 1% tonight. Christina, they went with 10%. They're using it as a way to not have to go out to referendum. Are those
057also disproportionately on residential units? Yeah, this this is throughout the entire county and Mr. Nami, all of Kent County took the full 10% as we understand it. Thank you. At the end of the day, you know, we made a promise to the community when the community was nice enough to overwhelmingly approve increasing taxes voluntarily. Um, I don't like not keeping promises. I I I I watched a video just as in it's a comparison. I watched a video that kind of explained this big bill that got passed the other day and you know, are there promises made and promises kept? Yes, sort of. Um and that's kind of I feel we're sort of in that same boat. Um I think that I can support recommendation two uh to make up the loss funds. It's a very
058minimal part of that 10%. Um, and then I think we should do that with the understanding that next year on rates that we can adjust if for some reason the federal funding comes through as was originally anticipated that we can reduce the rate uh by the same amount in one of the categories to pay back the community. I don't think I want to send a check to everybody because that would be um pretty honorous. But I think we can honor our our promises by, you know, sticking with recommendation two, which is we're making up for lost federal funding, but if that funding does come through, because it is it's frozen, but it's not denied. So, I think there's still a very good chance it all will come through. But then the question is, how does
059it come through? Does it come through with the same numbers and the same titles? Do they push it all together in a block grant like the state did uh several years ago when they were having fiscal problems? They collapsed a bunch of categories into one and said here you figure it out. Um, so I think you know that that's a fair way to kind of go about it, which is to uh accept that recommendation, make up that income because I don't want people to lose their jobs that we've um promised opportunities to and opportunities to our children than what we're here for. So I think I would like to see us move towards recommendation two so that we at least stay even. Um, we're looking at a referendum in 2028, which, you know, that's that's
060certainly fair based on what we told uh people when they passed the referendum a couple years ago. And, you know, we stick to our word. Uh, to me, that's that's the right thing to do. I don't know if other board members agree. I agree with that. I think that we have to just make sure that we definitely stay on top and communicate with the public if and when those federal funds are released. You know, as you've gone through everything and you said, you know, if the federal funds weren't withheld, two and three wouldn't even be on the table. We'd just be at option one explaining the effect of the reassessment um on the BSD community. Um quick question for Dr. Lawson or Mr. McCoy, if you could go back. So, if we've mentioned throughout the
061evening, commercial properties and even residential uh appeals to their tax bill over the last however many years. So, with a reassessment, does that kind of wipe out that appealed value? Because if they appealed it five years ago and got a new assessed value, that's wiped out. It's today's whatever the new reassessed. Yes. I would think that appeal has been overridden by the new value. Yeah. Uh I would just ask um Mr. McCoy and you know at the request of Dr. Lawson to maybe go back to some of the big dollar commercial appeals that happened over the last 5 to 10 years. And just to make sure that how their current reassessment, what was the result of that? And and do we feel that that is in line or just to make sure that the county
062didn't miss anything at some lower appeal rate that was in a window? Just something to make sure that, you know, we're we're collecting all the possible revenue that we have. Okay. Thank you. I'll agree with uh with what both of you said. I number three is not on the table for me and I'd really love to support number one, but I don't think at the expense of um losing positions that work directly with students and taking that risk. But what if we do end up supporting number two? Um to Mr. Mr. Acriman's point, I would almost like to if the board could get a almost a monthly progress update on that we're doing everything possible to be able to pay that back, for lack of a better term, next year when we set the tax
063rate and kind of a monthly update on if that's we think that's going to be realistic based on how things are trending and, you know, to to show that we're really doing everything possible to make that the what can happen next year. And go ahead. I'm sorry. I I I also agree um for a recommendation to um because I I I don't think that we can risk the uh loss of service uh for those students and uh you know several of those students are are are neediest students. Um it's uh I mean it's a terrible thing to ask uh taxpayers for more money um in and you know Mr. McCoy, I think you're in a very unenviable um position maybe potentially for the next couple of years because I don't know that things will necessarily
064get better in terms of threats of federal funding being frozen or not given. And um Dr. Lasser, we we look into the neighborhood of $4.6 million in in federal funding. extraordinarily significant um to this district. Um I think we I think a couple things have to happen. I think we need to be thinking now what are we going to do then for 2627 if indeed this plays out again but then more federal funding is frozen or not given or um we have to compete for um unrealistic grants that we can't potentially achieve because it goes against maybe fundamental values of even educating students. Um and um and again I mean because we're I mean this this may not get better and and uh this might be something that gets worse as years uh you know
065as we're as we're sitting here next year. Um and so I think that we really do need to be thinking about that. And I think that we also, you know, I think that we need to be looking to the state, our state legislators and saying, um, you know, we we we have to figure out something. It can't just be on the backs of uh of school boards to go to um our residents and and um, you know, and and ask them to to pay for these to to make up all these losses. and what are we really going to do? Because at the end of the day, um we still as a state have the um we we have the um moral imperative of educating students in the highest quality that we possibly can. Um
066so so I I I it's not it's not it's it's not something that I I want to be optimistic. I want to say the the the funds will be unfrozen. will be able to give those back somehow and this will be the end of the cat and mouse game. I don't know that it will be and I think we need to really be um forward planning and I think that um you know I I wish that maybe we had a little bit more forward planning maybe a year and a half ago or two years ago when we were even just going to a referendum. Um, but I know that's that's often hard in the past. And I would like to remind everyone that we had a system before reassessment that though antiquated and a little
067weird, it actually worked. And I don't know if the purpose of the lawsuit that was filed by the ACLU that forced reassessment was to move the burden onto residential property owners. But we can thank the ACLU because they were the ones who brought that lawsuit and won it. Uh so keep that in mind when you're talking to the public. It's not it's not the state, it's not the county. We were forced to do it. Um our system might not have been perfect, but at that point we were 67% on property owners, residential property owners, and now we're looking at 80%. So I just want to make sure people understand that that's where it came from. Wasn't something we thought of, wasn't something the county thought of, wasn't something the state thought of. I didn't think
068it was going to end up this way. I bet the ACLU didn't think it was going to end up this way, but this is the net result of that lawsuit. Um, that's a gross characterization, Mr. A. It's the truth. It's they filed the lawsuit in your opinion. They did they not file the lawsuit? Did they not file the lawsuit? It's a They filed the lawsuit. It's a gross characterization to directly tie that to it's the truth. Okay. Is is it a fair um is it is it fair to say that the large percent and going back to slide 12 there we talked about the 1.2 million um 75% funds on staffing. Is it fair to say that a lot of these positions are already contractually obligated? So we it's it's not even a matter of
069making the cut in this fiscal year anyway because we're already committed to those programs, contracts. Yep. And so forth. the majority of that line. I mean, same thing with, you know, spent a lot of time in the in in the road show for the referendum and, you know, we met a lot of people and as much as I don't like that system, I've said it in in several meetings that it is an accountability measure for us and we did go out and, you know, I think we did, you know, the results show that we did a really good job of explaining what we were asking, where we were coming from, what we're doing as a district, and where we're looking to go in the future. And I I I do feel fortunate that we are
070not in a position of some of our neighboring districts that are taking 7 8 9 10% whether you know there have been missteps or they're just looking for an opportunity. I hope that you've done a great job on this presentation, Mr. McCoy. Um, I hope that this continues with the public and our transparency as a district and as a board to try to explain this the best that we can and understand that, you know, what we're making a decision on tonight is a direct result of, you know, federal funds that have been withheld. Um, and again, I think we've, you know, narrowed the number down to the bare minimum. And you know for that I can see supporting uh option two. And also you know I I give great weight to the district finance committee.
071I mean these are members uh of the public um that live in our district. Uh they were instrumental in in the referendum process. You know they're in tune with what's happening in the community. And so I I do give their recommendation a great weight as well because I know they spent a lot of time looking at the numbers, asking questions, meeting with you. Um so thank you. I I I wanted to join uh what Miss Stock was saying about the moral value of recommendation two because quite frankly for me um the choices between two and three um and two I as she was saying there is a moral value to that and that is that we are going to compensate for those lost federal funds for professional development multil- language learners MTSS as Dr. Lawson
072had pointed out we have a state law that obligates that. Um so for me it's really between two and three. My concern is whether you know what are we going to see in the future from this administration in in this year. Are there any more funds that they could withhold that we would need to tap into that 10% to cover to compensate? Um I can't predict the future. So that said, I mean I I am in support of too and and you know um the circumstances I think that we find ourselves in uh and Mr. President regardless of who brought that case. I mean whether it's just the ACLU I know there are families involved with that as well and it was a court that ultimately approved it. I think the situation we find ourselves
073in really is only on recommendation too. Thanks. Any additional board comment? I will take a motion um for whatever someone feels. I I personally like number two. I'll make a motion to accept um recommendation number two. Motion. Do I have a second? Second it. Motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? Motion carries. Recommendation two is the one. That will bring us to the opportunity grant waiver. Uh the opportunity grant waiver is to allow Brandy Wine School District to so the opportunity grant has a restriction that the funds earned by each building 98% of those funds have to be spent at that building. And so what the waiver will allow us to do is give us a little more flexibility where we don't have to spend above 98%. So if um I'll steal
074this example from Dr. Lawson. If a teacher who's paid with opportunity funds moves from building A to building B, those funds can follow that teacher instead of being uh stuck at building A. So, it just gives us a little flexibility and the ultimate goal of the opportunity funds will stay the ultimate goal of the opportunity funds even with the waiver. The way we spent it before we uh sought the waiver is the way we would spend it after we sought the waiver. Yeah. So just to add a little bit to that, I just want to commit that the funds are absolutely spent for lowincome and MLL and that is all. But what happened to us the year that we didn't get a waiver is we had a teacher leave mid year and we weren't able
075to put anybody else in the wa into the opportunity grant because we didn't have the waiver. So those funds sat and if you don't use them, you lose them. And so the only thing this allows us to do is that if someone were to leave midyear, we could replace the newly hired EL or MLL teacher into that grant and pay that person. We ran into trouble by not having the waiver and we lost funds. And so we made a commitment to do the waiver each year so that that would never happen again. and we would certainly you utilize all of those funds and we got $6,000 more this year than we got last year and make sure that our low-income students and ML students were fully staffed and funded. Um I I will say that
076um you know several years ago uh when this was to being debated in the Senate and the House and um I I was definitely a strong supporter of that. I definitely did a lot of um campaigning um and lobbying for that and um you know I I would just ask if we could just see um a report if if indeed how I mean if if we're approving this uh I just want some assurance that um it's being used in a responsible manner um and you know and I and again because that's the obligation we have to our community. Absolutely. I will put a copy of our submitted uh opportunity grant in board docs. Absolutely no problem. I did I did I did want to um add on to that the ability for us to be
077able to go uh present to the public present to schools that we're not taking money from one school to give to another. It's a more complete narrative uh if if the waiver is actually needed in this year just so that um we don't want somebody coming back and years late maybe even that year or or subsequent years saying you know you're you're shortcutting this place or you're you're hurting this other place and instead showing you know this is why this is how and and really like I said uh not just numbers but a narrative would really be appreciated and I think the public would too. Thanks. Yes, we have to submit a narrative when we when we submit to the state. Um, but I will also say that the we absolutely use the 98% in
078each of the buildings. We don't take money from one building to put into another. It really is the flexibility of if people leave us or if something happens, it allows us to then backfill. Any additional board comment or discussion? If not, I will take a motion. I'll make a motion. Motion. Do I have a second? Second. Motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? Just to clarify, the motion is to accept the waiver. Correct. Yes. Motion carries. That'll move us down to new business. Uh the first item is policy review committee. Um, I put a draft policy uh together which is attached in board docs. Um, we haven't had a policy review committee for many years. Um, I I can't remember the last time we had one. We did streamline our policy manual
079during the uh tenure of Dr. Hollik several years ago. Um, I'm not looking to bullet back up to what it was prior to Dr. alcoholic. Uh, I put this together as kind of a talking point so that we could look at it and each have a chance to see if we want to tweak it or change it some way. Um, but I think it would be a good idea to establish a policy review committee. It would be a good idea to have a broad uh committee composition. Uh, schoolboard members, in the past, it was uh two schoolboard members. At that point, we had a full-time attorney. that attorney was part of it and the superintendent. I I think it it would make sense to have it a little broader uh with some administrators, maybe some
080educators, maybe a parent, uh possibly a student. You know, again, I I think um some of our high school students were pretty sharp. Um we could even look to have community members. None of them are required based on what I put together, but it's it's an idea that I think uh we should look at. So, I would encourage board members to treat this as a first read and come up with any edits or changes you want and we can talk about it again. Well, Mr. Acman, I I applaud um the idea. I do think that a policy uh review committee is important. Um, and so I look forward to um looking at this and and having some more uh dialogue about this. I was also just, you know, googling around a little bit. I noticed
081that Red Clay actually has a part of their website devoted to their policy review committee. Correct. And they they kind of talk it up um on that web page. I think their assistant superintendent is the one that is the person you email if you're interested to to find out about that. Um, I don't know how this compares to what they have, but uh, you know, this kind of is, you know, what I what I saw. And I know that we had some policies that were not in sync with a couple of our collective bargaining agreements, uh, because, you know, we trimmed it down but didn't necessarily cross reference it um, at the time. So, this would be a way, I think, to kind of close that gap. Now are you think now and I get
082this is I guess part of this could be part of the dialogue but um like the way that you have this written here it's just to uh review um and you know obviously one of the important things um that we can do as uh as board members although none of us can do it by ourselves but that we can work um in tangent to um if need be for to uh write new policy. Yes. Um, so I almost wonder if we would consider changing um the focus of this committee to not just be a review but to also uh be a place um where um if you know that that that policies could even be kind of the birthplace too. I think that's a good idea. I think that's one of the things we can
083incorporate. So again, this is not for action tonight. Miss Doc, if you have some suggestions as to where that might be tweaked. I kind of feel like it's in there. Um but maybe not because it does say the committee's recommendations for policy adoption or amendment are then submitted to the full board for final review and approval. So I think it it implies the potential for new policies as well as uh reviewing. I think we got a lot of reviewing to do first. Right. Well, I think we should review it and I I think uh where we have gotten in trouble in the past is relying on Oh, it's implied. Um and I think that we do need to be uh very clear in areas where we should be clear. Any other board comment? Um I
084just had a couple of formatting things in a typo, but I'll email them to you so that they're in ready. No problem. Okay, that'll take us to the monthly financial report. All right. Uh the June 30th, 2025 monthly financial report was approved uh on July 7th by the district finance committee meeting. So on pages one and two, as usual, we have our revenues. We are at or near 100% for all sections with the exception of child nutrition on page two which we'll get to in a moment. Uh on page one, some of the items of note are that our tax receipts were strong for the year as well as our interest income. Um I I was asked about the interest rates previous at a previous meeting. Those were all hovering around 5% for the year.
085Categorical state funds are at 103.4% 4% of budgeted mainly due to state reimbursement for wages. Tuition funds are at 109.5% of budget. And the main reason for that is um that revenues received from other districts for students at Bush are now coded to this section rather than to the local section at the top of the page. Uh for our new board members, the the presentation and layout of this report is hopefully going to be revised to make it a little easier to understand just for future reference. On page two, everything looks good until we reach the child nutrition nutrition section at the bottom of the page. Uh so we've come to learn that the prior year number, which I've I've stood up here and said, "Oh, we'll reach the prior year number. I have no
086problem saying that." Uh the prior year number included a $2.6 million transfer from the building's internal accounts for I think it was four years four previous years of school revenue. So the prior year number is inflated by $2.6 million. Um because of that we did not reach last year's number and we will not reach the budgeted revenue number. Um and to add to that, you'll see when we move to the expenditures that the child nutrition operating unit was overspent. Uh the numbers show that child nutrition had a net loss around $2 million in fiscal year 25, which is um not sustainable in the least bit. So, we're working with the child nutrition director to dig through the numbers to see if something may have been miscoded throughout the year or if there's a uh um
087expense being overlooked that kind of inflated things that we need to deal with as soon as we can. In total, actual actual revenues were 5.5 million over budgeted revenues. And there's no total on this page. Um that's something we'll look to add in the future. So, are there any questions on the revenues? I had I had one. Um, the child nutrition that you mentioned and and Dr. Lawson, you may know the answer as well. Does that jeopardize um free school breakfast or lunch? And are any children at risk of losing that? No, that does not jeopardize uh our C, community eligibility provision, which means that uh any kid in the schools that meet that provision are free meals. So because we didn't perform as our financials would have liked us to perform, it does not
088mean that they're at risk of losing that program. In fact, they may be expanding the program to more schools. So I actually just asked Colleen Carter about this at the retreat two days ago because the universal uh breakfast was passed by the legislature and so I was asking how that would impact BSD and child nutrition funds. So, as I understand it from Miss Carter, if if a school is C community eligible, if they're a participant as a community eligible eligible program, and that's all of our schools except for Hamby, Lancashire, and Conquered, they will not receive any funding from the state for the universal free breakfast program because it was written into the bill that CS would be excluded. So she's trying to figure out now whether her original idea of including Hanby Lancashire and
089Conquered into the C mix given everything that's happened this year is a better idea than to leave them as nonC breakfast and see if it doesn't benefit us financially to just acrue the debt of of the students and families who aren't able to pay and make up for that doing the roundup at the register and the other initiatives that we do with Giant. Um, and the angel fund is another thing that, you know, I know other people contribute to on a annual basis during the holidays as an example. And so she's trying to figure out what's going to be more fiscally and financially responsible for us. But it was a question I had to All right, we'll move on to the expenditures on pages three and four. Uh so we'll stay on three, but the
090bottom line of this report you'll see shows that we overspent the budget by $1.3 million. However, a huge factor in that is the number on the first line, division one state salaries. This line is 100% reimbursed by the state. So even though it looks like we've spent 4.7 million more than our budget, um in reality the entire amount is reimbursed by the state of Delaware. The second line, local salaries, that's at 102.88% of the budget. Um and that's the portion of salaries that the district covers. And I think that's just a symptom of the budget number being too low. Uh with that said, we will uh take a dive into the numbers to see if there's anything that jumps out or or if there's anything we can do to limit the growth of that number.
091So many of the negative numbers on this um report have been explained at previous board meetings. Um a new one is the transportation line in the middle of the report. This is offset by almost the exact same uh overage in transportation revenues. So, it's just the fact that wages were higher than expected, but in return, we were reimbursed by the state for those wages. Uh there's two schools that ran well over budget. They've been made aware of this and I fully expect them to correct that in fiscal year 26 through better bud budget management. The most notable over budget is the special education tuition tax line, which we've discussed at previous meetings. Um, it has ballooned in June as we received all the final bills and made a push to get all of our bills
092paid before year end. Um, and as I mentioned last month, the special education team is working to ensure that our resources are being allocated appropriately. Uh the final negative is the child nutrition line. Um they did serve a record number of meals which equates to more expenses, but as I mentioned on the revenue side, this is definitely not a s sustainable um net loss. So we're going to have to really dig into that and figure out what is happening. Mr. McCoy, I I know you're talking about revamping the reports, and I don't have a suggestion on how, but I think it might be helpful if if in these and both both in revenue and expenses, maybe if there was two separate columns for whether it was a local cost or a state cost like that
093might be helpful to be able to look down and say, "Oh, we're over on that, but the state is paying for that versus we're funding that locally." I'm not sure how to y incorporate that, but I think it might be helpful. I think that would make it a lot easier. So just for clarification, the 1.323 uh million at the bottom of total expenses negative, that's that's the structural uh deficit or is it? Um not necessarily because that first line um the state salaries, okay, that's negative uh 4 million if my eyes are working. uh that will be totally reimbured by the state. So that pretty much in itself wipes out the entire over expenditure. So if somebody were to ask me how much did we budget for and how much did we spend in the
094last year, where on this would I be able to point them to find the answer? And I know I know we're looking to to revamp it and that's something maybe we should think about one of those questions, but where would I find an answer that I could that I could point to them so that they could do it every month that going forward? Sure. Uh so this the expense page says at the bottom that we budgeted 257 million on page four and we spent an obligated 258 million. What that doesn't take into account is that some of those over expenditures are 100% reimbursed by the state which is shown on the revenue side the revenue reports. Yep. I agree. So that's why I made a point to mention that our revenues were $5.5 million over
095what we budgeted. So even though we're showing uh negative here, our revenues were healthy and as a whole we were in a good position. There any other questions on the expenditure side of things? And this has been reviewed by the DFC on Monday. Yep. There are a couple pages left. Okay. Um page page five is is the um prior year appropriation expenditures. Um there's not much change to this. We just continue to spend down things that have longer than one year expense time allowability of cost. So it continues to dwindle down. And then and page six I think is um worth spending a second on. So this is the cash flow analysis. Uh throughout the year, we had hoped to land at $7.2 million on the far right side where we now have a balance
096of $6.9 million. And it it was just the fact that some of those overexpendures then hit our local funds and um we didn't reach the level that we wanted to be at, but our ending balance last year was 6.6. So, we have moved in a positive direction overall. and and with the second half of the referendum coming up, that number should continue to move in the right direction. And that is it. And that was approved by the DFC at their July 7th meeting. Can um can you remind me, I know we talked about it during the referendum that this first year we wouldn't get to the 8.8 million um but we're 2 million short. What is our minimum number to get through this summer? Uh, I believe it was $4 million in our financial position
097report that we sent to the state. Okay. Thank you. Any additional board comments? If not, I'll take a motion to accept the monthly financial report. So moved. Second. I hear a motion and a second. Are there any objections or abstensions? Okay, that'll move us down to item C. And before I turn this over to Dr. Lawson. I just want to take a moment to say that it's been my pleasure to help Dr. Lawson get through her first year um as president. And I think that I would like to as I hand the baton to Dr. Lawson, I would like to nominate Mr. Heler to be president for the 2526 school year. Um I've known Jason since he got on this board. He's done a great job. He's involved with the robotics. He's involved with CPR.
098Uh he was very instrumental in helping to pass the referendum. I think he's a a great person to work with. He's smart. Um I've enjoyed my time, but um I've had more than one opportunity to be president over the 30 years that I've been sort of here. Um I say 30 years sort of because, you know, there was a break in there. But I think as I turn over to Dr. Lawson, I'd like to nominate Mr. Heler to be our president for 2526. Thank you, Mr. President. You stole my thunder. So, Mr. Heler, do you accept that nomination? Proudly. Thank you. Are there any other nominations for board president of the Brandy Wine School District Board of Education? Hearing none, Jason Heler has been nominated for board president and he accepts that nomination. All in
099favor say please say I. I I. Are there any opposed or abstensions? Congratulations, Mr. Heler. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, I turn the gavvel that the imaginary gavvel over to you to uh run nominations for board vice president. Excellent. Um are there any nominations for vice president? I nominate uh Mr. Ralph Arian. I'd like to nominate Mr. John Scrubot. Are there any other nominations for vice president? I accept my nomination. Mr. Arian, do you accept? Um I think I'll decline for next year. The decline? Yeah. All in favor of Mr. Scorbot for vice president say I. I. Repeat that. Yes. Um Mr. Arian declined the nomination. Um so Mr. Scorbot's the only nominee. Okay. So all in favor of Mr. Scorbot for vice president say I. I. I. I. Any opposed or abstain?
100Abstain. Miss Harris roll call please. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Abstain. Mr. Yes. Mr. Jordan. Yes. Motion carries. Congratulations, [Applause] Mr. Aman. Do you want to wrap us up? General information. Next board meeting is August 18th, and then in September, we'll meet on Monday, September 15th, and then on Monday, October 20th. With that, we can take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Are there any opposed or abstaining? Motion carries.