School Board Workshop: June 9, 2026

001Good afternoon everyone. It's Tuesday, June 9th, 2026. This is a school board workshop and the time is exactly 1:00. Sergeant Arms, >> has the front lobby been attended to? >> Yes. >> Okay. There are 10 items on the agenda today. Construction change order reports is number one from April 2026. Next will be safety update EOC. Number three will be capital preser pres uh presentation. Number four is the budget overview. Number five is job description. Six state and federal legislative update. Seven policy review the briefing first reading. Eight is the code of ethics. Nine is public comment. and 10 is the good of the order and other business. Per per board protocol, each board member should aim for a four minute for the initial comment and for uh a second followup and then for a total

002of 10 minutes in duration. First on the agenda, we have the construction change order reports for April 2026 presented by Scott Ricker and Kira Sust. Good afternoon, board members. Superintendent Carlin, Scott Rickenbacher with Kira from the construction department. Uh we have the April 2026 change order report is required by statute. On your front cover sheet, can you see it up on the screens? [clears throat] There we go. On the front cover sheet, you'll see that for direct material purchases, we ex we extended change orders in the amount of 13,46,24761 and the amount returned for the to the district in the tax savings is $764,2316. In nondirect material purchase standard change orders we had1,512,37425. And in contingency adjustments, we had expenditures in the amount of $675,131.82. If you go to the backup page, it will show

003you all of the projects that are involved in this. And what you will see is predominantly and if the board and the superintendent would like me to give a brief description on how the direct material purchase change order system works. I know there's been some chatter in the community that we are going over budget at one of our particular schools. That's not the case. Um change orders are a deduct to the contract for the construction manager. We pull the money back for materials and we then purchase and invoice the materials ourselves and that allows us to take that tax savings out of the contract as well to go back into the district's general fund. So of the um the large amount you see the $12 million for direct or 13,46 that was all mostly from

004the new Alva High School being built out there. Obviously we're purchasing all the materials uh for that project and get getting that underway. So, we've already saved threequarters of a million dollars back to the district at this point. The second one are the um non-direct change orders, general change orders. What you'll see is this is for Riverdale High School. Yes, the construction is done. We're in auditing stage. And people say, "Well, why are you putting money back into the project?" These are what we call direct material purchase reconciliations. When we start the direct material purchase process, we get assumptions from the uh construction manager and his subcontracts on what the value of those direct material purchases could be. And we work throughout the project to get to that point and in some cases we didn't

005expend that assumed expenditure and we have to reconcile the books and give that non-t taxable materials back to the vendor. So again, this is all money that was in the total project cost approval. There is not new monies going out to this school. This is just an accounting reconciliation of those those uh particular subcontracts. And then we had contingency adjustments and we expended $675,000. And the biggest one obviously $721,000 was at Cypress Lake Middle School. In the design process, they did not configure a fire lane by by Florida building code. You have to have a fire lane so fire and emergency vehicles can get around that site. There was one there, but there's been so many things have been added to that site over the years that it's kind of become convoluted. So, we expended

006project money within the project again within the total project budget to accommodate that, put it in a fire lane, get it approved and and put everything in place. Are there any questions? >> We await your discussion. Thank you. Any comments or questions? >> I just want to say thank you for that explanation because that is correct. You hear a lot of chatter out there. So, thank you for explaining that. I appreciate that. >> You're very welcome. Thank you for allowing me the time to do so. >> Okay. >> I just want to thank you for that, too, because I did hear um some confusion out there regarding um and this is basic basically like checks and balances. um and and how we spend the money and how or how you're spending the money and and

007making sure that the jobs are being done and properly. So, thank you. >> And and you know, at the end of the day, in one month reporting, threequarters of a million dollars coming back to the district and this already difficult times financially, I think is a big >> harass [music] these conversations. So, thank you. >> Okay, any other comments? Okay, thank you very much. Once again, great report and I agree. It's nice to see those funds coming back. You always always able to save some money for us. I we appreciate that. Next on the agenda, we have the safety update with EOC presented by Dave Nulan, Benjamin Aes, and John Schultz. still. [music] >> What the heck? What's going on? >> Good afternoon, board members, superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin and Board of Attorney Rob Dodig.

008Uh, today's presentation is the hurricane update. Also, uh, any changes with Sorry for the background noise. It's better now. Um, also just any new updates and changes with not only with uh with our our district office, but also the emergency operations center. So with me today is director of public safety Benjamin Ames and also uh John Schultz uh chief emergency management for the Emergency Operations Center. Good afternoon. Uh as Dave mentioned, my name is Ben Abbis. I'm director of public safety for Lee County. And first of all, I want to thank you all for the opportunity to join you this afternoon. Uh emergency management is one of five divisions within the Department of Public Safety. And uh that uh those other divisions include our emergency medical services, emergency communications, our technology programs, as well as

009administration and finance. Uh emergency management is a big part of what we do each and every day. And of course each uh June 1st, it's a really big part of what we do. So we're happy to be here today to talk about our preparedness. Um but I wanted to take a moment just to say how much we appreciate the productive relationship we have with the district. Uh we have worked over the years through a number of really critical events uh across our community and it's one of the strong partnerships that I think each and every time we're we're forced into that building to work together to figure out how we solve these big problems. Uh we're we're happy to look and see that the school district is right there by our side. So uh one

010other thing is we're we're in the public safety center. I was reminded this morning when I came into the office it's been 1 year since we have moved into our new facility. Um, if you have not been to the public safety center and would like to do a a tour, um, please work with with us or or Dave. We're happy to facilitate that. So, um, with that, I'd like to turn it over to John Schulz, our chief of emergency management for the briefing today. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ben. Thank you, board, for having us here today. Um, first, I would like to start off by thanking the partnership. Um, I've worked closely with Dave, Lisa, Michelle, and countless other school board staff, and um, the relationship couldn't be any stronger, and we do really

011appreciate it. Anytime I want to give Dave a call, he answers all my calls. So, I appreciate that, Dave. >> Yep. Uh, the first slide here we have today is just a few things that we have gone through in the last uh, 12 months. Uh, the some items that we've upgraded at the uh, at the office. U,, one of those is our nexus is our web EOC. It's basically a a software platform form that we share with the state um how we request resources and um Dave has been trained on that and we have the integration with our school board and also our other partners such as the sheriff's department. Um not going through all of the list but like director Avis uh highlighted the public safety uh center is open and we're housed inside

012there is our lead control with our dispatch center. So a lot of afteraction reports our focus is on the communication. Communication can always be improved and in public safety we're no different. And so now we have our dispatch center that handles all the fire districts and our EMS paramedics along with the sheriff's department housed in one roof. So that's going to streamline uh communication. Having everybody under one roof will definitely help uh those communication efforts especially during an activation. if you want to go to the next slide. Uh under blue and gray skies, um those are kind of the two worlds that we live in. Uh in emergency management, obviously under uh the blue skies, we just manage day-to-day operation. We obviously develop plans, host training exercises, which last week we had an opportunity to

013host Dave and his team for a tabletop exercise. And um that was a total success from from my understanding. Um I was at a conference in Orlando, but I only heard good things about that. And again, that just shows how strong the partnership is. Uh Dave asked us to develop a a tabletop exercise and that was something that we did and we enjoyed doing to ex again another example of strengthening that partnership. Um during gray skies, obviously if we're going to activate the uh doc, this is where all the coordination efforts really come together. Um, we have our other partners, our external partners, uh, including Dave, the sheriff's department, our other constitutionals along with the state, our federal partners as well. So, next slide. Um the our activation levels obviously every day here in Lee

014County hopefully it stays in a level three normal ready state and then we have our level two activation which we saw in um last year with Helen and Debbie and then obviously a full activation of level one would be a Irma or a Ian type event that way. Yesterday's earthquake did not reach any of those things. So, um, our flood zones and our evacuation zones, uh, flood zones really are focused on for insurance, uh, rainfall and floodings. And then obviously your evacuation zones are what we would call in the type of evacuation for a hurricane event. Um, you we have from zones A to D. Um, zone A is our coastal areas and our probably our most vulnerable and that sits population sits around 250,000 people in zone A. Next slide. And here you can

015see uh the evacuation zones and the public shelters which um we again partner with the the school board in uh the shelter operations and that's something that we greatly appreciate uh that partnership. Um during Milton we had 11 opened and I believe in Ian we had 12 of those schools opened. And again uh that partnership is is huge. It's uh it benefits all of the community and uh but they do uh do benefit from our relationship. Um the shelters um obviously uh they're not a cruise ship. Uh they're that bridge uh to get people uh safely in a in a place of safety uh during an event and then um get them back into the community. Um shelter, food, and water. Those are the pretty much those are the necessities there. Um again, our all

016of our shelters and and one of the things that comes up a lot of times and there's a little bit of confusion is all of our shelters are pet friendly. Um some other jurisdictions um have a limited amount of pet friendly, but all of our shelters are pet friendly. So um they're open to anyone. Um they're safe. Uh obviously we have uh cs, pillows, and blankets are not provided. So sometimes those things are are thought of of like we're going to have those things. But as you can see by the pictures, um the accommodations um are not going to be uh by the Ritz Carlton. And that's why we always harp on the preparedness. Everybody needs to have a plan. And this is the time of year that we're out in the community um talking

017to folks, make sure they have a plan. Um and we don't want to see a family of five or six people trying to wedge into Germaine Arena. It's just a it's just a a small compressed space. >> [snorts] >> Also, um we partner with the department of health and our special needs shelter. Um we do that the pre-registration is before a storm. Um we utilize our lead trans services and then our ambulance to transport uh individuals, the vulnerable uh in our community and we try to get that squared away obviously before any type of evacuation. Um they want to bring a caregiver and a companion with them as well. Uh as far as as for the school district um again we have our special district responsibilities including preparing and recovering. We have our communication protocol.

018Everything that we do is in our we update every year in our hurricane all hazard plan. Um as far as staffing how we're going to staff the shelters are again we we work with the county obviously as a storm was to approach on you know when a shelter would be open or how many based on on on that type of storm or how close it is. But also for example as mentioned was training. So training is very important. Beyond we had our um hurricane tabletop training this past uh last week which is really was really good training. All of our departments attended. It was really a chance opportunity exercise to really review what you do um before a storm hits you know hits an area during and recovery. Um just talking about all those things

019that could happen. And obviously as we're doing the training, there's there's injects they put into to the training or to the scenario of what could happen because as we all know, anytime we have a a storm or hurricane, anything like that, you go by what the guide that we have put together, we follow, but it never goes as there's always something that you may deal with that's not planned for. So it really trains us to really deal with those whatifs. What was to happen? How would you handle it? So the train was very well went very well received as well. Uh shelter training. So, every year we do shelter training. This year they had at the Mike Greenwell Regional Park. Um, next year we'll be at the back of the shelter sites. They're going to

020go back and forth, but this allows the shelter teams from the school sites to attend the training with the county. The county also has a group that they assign to every shelter to assist with staffing. So, it g the opportunity of those shelter teams and staffing to work together as well. So the train ends up going very well and they help to address any questions or changes that we go from year to year. Now this is a portal that we have here at the school district that was developed by our IT department. They did a really great job uh putting this together. everything that we would need um in a storm preparation or response not everything from all the performance reports that are required um any type of uh all of our our procedures SOPs

021our payroll procedures um even have it where if you click if you look on the top there you probably can't see it but you have hurricane Andrew up top as an example so if you were to have a storm hit they would put that storm's name up top there if you click on it that will bring up every single school site what that allows us to happen is we can track uh damages inside and outside the school site. So it allows administration if they respond to a school site, they can take pictures, they can download pictures, information is follow following a checklist so we can make sure um as fast as possible, do we have any damage and how obviously the big goal is after a storm passes is to down the shelters at our

022schools and to reopen schools as soon as possible. This allows us to do that. And beyond that, as far as training goes, um, after Hela and Milton hit our area, we did after action with the emergency operations center. We did, in fact, actually, we did more than one because we wanted to make sure we went over all the things that went well and the things maybe that didn't go so well and how can we improve those. So every time we have something that hits our area, we have these meetings, we can improve going to if it happens again, we can answer those questions just how how can we improve and we'll stand by for any comments or questions or discussion. >> Thank you very much uh Mr. Chairman. So just a couple of things. First

023of all, thank you Mr. Nula, Mr. Aes, and Mr. Schultz. Really appreciate uh your partnership. You mentioned the partnership and that is extremely important uh as we talk about all things safety to include uh gosh can't believe hurricane season is upon us, right? So just huge amounts of thank you on behalf of our entire governance team uh for your partnership. I I do also want to echo um the comments regarding the tabletop exercise. We brought our our cabinet over to the EOC recently. We sat down. We went through scenarios. So, just um huge appreciation for that work. That was an entire afternoon. You all gave up your time to do that and I'm very grateful. Uh it's for the hurricane that is not going to come in 2026. We're like the Boy Scouts and Girl

024Scouts. We want to be prepared, right? So, um that's that's huge and and again, just um enormous appreciation for the work that you all do each and every day. So, we stand by for your comments, your discussion, your questions. for myself and for Latana Thomas. The first day of hurricane is very important. That's our birthday, June 1st. But my question really is after the hurricane passes, how many nonschool her shelters do we have so we could actually reopen our schools to get everybody back in schools and the people back to work? Have have y'all identified enough of those you think or >> I appreciate the question. Uh and that's something one of the the topics uh you know you were involved in the resiliently planning and that was one of the the main points of

025feedback after Hurricane Ian uh that we brought back to the team was how do we demobilize the school-based shelters as quickly as possible, get those turned back over to the district so that you can remediate, repair, and get those facilities back open. uh not only is it important uh to you all um but from a community standpoint it's really important to get you know the foundations of the community back open and operating as they normally would. Um, and I think a great example of that is what we did after Hurricane uh Milton in 2024 where we immediately identified that we could consolidate shelters very quickly into those non-school sites. And uh through that process, we were able, I think within 48 hours to turn all of the school-based shelters back over to the district so

026that you could get them open back up uh Monday morning. Um, as a parent, I appreciate that. Uh I know that that the students uh also want to get back in the classroom as quickly as as possible. Um but we have a number of sites where we can consolidate people that don't have a place to go uh and then focus all of our services on those facilities as well. Um so that means that we're getting social services, we're getting other outreach partners into those facilities so that we can really concentrate on uh the case management of getting those people someplace where they'll be safe after the storm. Okay, this >> um thank you for coming over here today and educating the people in this room, but also anybody that's listening. Um I mean being a

027lifetime Floridaidian, I've sat through plenty of these. Um and it's interesting. I never even really thought about your blue sky days and what it is that you all do. So, thank you for breaking that down. Thankfully, there's more of those, I hope, than the gray sky days. Um, do our shelters I I I and I'm sorry if I don't maybe know this question, but I know that we've got some neighboring communities that may not have the amount of shelters that are necessary because let's say for example, Henry County are growing. They're growing exponentially, but they only have the one high school or um I know that they're more inland. However, they did experience um Irma um went right up the middle of the state. So, do we offer those shel do we offer opportunities for

028people out of county? >> We so we we work very closely with uh Florida Division of Emergency Management as well as our our neighboring counties. Um to your point, there are some neighboring communities that do not have the type of robust shelter capacity that we do. Um and uh when we have an opportunity to help those neighbors, uh we try to make that available. Um, but to the previous question, we want to to ensure, you know, with with Irma as an example, Irma had some inland impacts that didn't necessarily impact the coast. We were able to to get some schools back open. We wouldn't want to bring neighboring communities into schoolbased shelters. And so, if we have the opportunity to bring uh people from other areas, we've also done what we call host sheltering. Mhm.

029>> So if there's a storm on the east coast of Florida and people need to evacuate the east coast and come to the west coast, then we'll do host sheltering. But during those those times, we may get some rain and some wind, but otherwise, you know, businesses are open, the schools are open. It's a it's an otherwise normal day for us. And so we use those non-school shelters to host people from outside the area. >> Okay. Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it. >> Okay, Miss Fischer. Uh thank you, Mr. [clears throat] Ribble. Uh question actually through the chair to the superintendent uh and it's actually also involves Mr. Pson. We had some actually community block grant funding a few years ago. I know Mr. Persons was kind of dealing with it. It went to

030some hardening it and started reminding me of the shelters. Uh if at some point you all could follow up and refresh my recollection on that. I can't remember where it ended up going. I know it was like generators and things like those. >> Okay. We'd be happy to look into that and get that information to you. >> I just couldn't remember on that. Thank you reminding me of something. Uh, and the second thing, thank you, Madam Superintendent. Uh, second thing is, uh, Mr. Schultz and Mr. Aes, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for your partnership. I actually had the opportunity during Hurricane uh, Helen and Milton to witness you guys in person. We remember that. So, and see your operation. You guys were fantastic and thank for everything you do. >> Thank you so

031much for uh, this opportunity because I don't think that you've ever spoken here before. So, so I just wanted to thank you for that cuz I actually we should be thanking you for the partnership because I think you're bringing us into your your your wheelhouse really. So, thank you. Um, I just have a couple questions. One is since I I learned something new that all the shelters are pet friendly. So, and so that was new to me. I'm not I have a plan. I I don't actually go to shelter, but I have a a plan that I stick to every hurricane. uh very much a ritual but um people should have crates. Can you kind of clarify that because that was and I don't I know some people may not. And then what do you

032do in that kind of situation if you don't mind me asking? >> So if you uh bring a pet to one of those shelters, you're required to have u your pet on a leash. They must be crded and you have to bring all supplies and and anything that you would need to take care of your pet with you. um just as you would food or water for your family, you would also need to bring food and water for your pet as well. Uh and those individuals are responsible for taking care of their own animals. So, uh you know, just as you would plan and prepare for the rest of the members of your family, uh your pets are members of your extended family as well and and you'll need to include them in your emergency

033plans. Whether you're coming to one of our public shelters, preferably, you're making plans to go to someplace safe like a friend or a relative's house outside of those evacuation zones. Thank you so much. Now, my other question is actually um through the chair to the superintendent. Um and this may be information to get to us later, but um is the Alpha Alba High School going to be a shelter? And are any of their new schools, new built schools, are we are we um building them to the sta standard that there would be a shelter? >> It's an excellent question. Uh Chief Nuland, do you have that information? If not, I'd be happy to research that with staff. >> Yeah, I'd have to get back and find out for sure to answer that question. I don't.

034Sorry. I have to research that and find out. I don't have that answer that question. >> Okay. So, we'll get that information. We'll provide that for you. Thank you. >> Thank you. That's it. Thank you so much. >> Okay. And Miss Jordan, >> I'm just going to jump on as well. Thank you so much. Uh I I was lucky or unlucky enough to deal with um all of this during Ian and spend a lot of time at the EOC watching the operations with um United Way and everyone that was just part of that um grand event. Um, and then with the uh schools, I always because two of my schools are always the shelters and I I have to say um our administrators, our the people in the kitchen, everyone who's involved in this just

035everybody just really jumps in and do, you know, they do whatever they have to do. lay the lay the paperwork on lay paper down on the floor for their animals, the crates, have the little the little place for their dogs or whatever to to use the restroom. But I just really want to say thank you because it is really important for all of us to be on the same page and to have this information. Uh, and even as uh, Miss Jvenelli said regarding the crates and everything. I know some people forget that, but [clears throat] just and I know it's out there right now, everything that is needs to be done, but I just really want to thank you all for what you do. Thank you. >> Okay, seeing no other comments. I Mr. Nulan,

036great presentation and it was great to see from our county partners, Mr. Aes, Mr. Schultz. I follow you folks a lot on social media, so I'm well aware of all the hard work you guys have done to uh make this a safer community. We appreciate all your efforts. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Next, we have the capital presentation presented by Sarah Cox, Don Ares, Dwayne Alton, and Dave Nulan. All right. Well, good afternoon, school board. Superintendent Dr. Carlin and Attorney Robert Dodic. Uh, the whole team is here with you today to talk about capital planning. This team, each one of our divisional areas, plays a critical role in the development of our five and 10-year capital plan. So, as we prepare to present a tenative plan to you as part

037of the tenative budget next month, we wanted to give you some insight into our planning. So, I will kick it off and talk about our financial planning as it comes to revenues, the capital transfer, and our estimated distributions to charter schools. Next, we'll start with the five-year revenue estimation. And here you can see um with all of the revenue sources that will be accounted for in the 5-year plan, we are anticipating at this moment about 2.1 billion in revenue in the entire capital plan over the 5-year period. And that breaks out into a couple different of funding sources. We have property tax, that's the largest portion of revenue within the capital plan. We have sales tax, um just over 292 million. Um, we have impact fees at $147 million. Capital outlay and debt service or

038what we commonly refer to as CO and NDS from the state coming in at about $8 million. We do account for charter school revenue, which is their PICO funding in the capital plan, and that's coming in at about $50 million in the five-year. Miscellaneous revenue, this would be things such as like a fuel tax refund that we receive from the state. um that's a small portion of the revenue and then of course we've been talking a lot lately about how we maximize any idle cash that we have and get interest income off of that and that makes up part of the revenue picture as well. So the factors that go into our revenue estimations is not just historical trends that we've experienced but it's also the external economic factors that play into each revenue source.

039And in the next couple slides, I'll just talk through the three largest revenue sources into the capital plan with you and how we're estimating those. Um, so that'll be the property tax, sales tax, and impact fees. So for our local capital improvement tax, commonly referred to as the 1.5 mills, that we levy, this is the five-year projection that we've made with the individual years broken out for you. So for fiscal year 27, the $254 million revenue projection is based on the property tax values that we received in the FFP first calculation. Um, and we'll go more into depth in the budget overview update that's coming up after this presentation. We do anticipate that number to change because we received very differing amounts within the FEFP first calculation and the preliminary estimate from the property appraiser.

040So what's currently built into the plan you see here and once we get those certified taxable values from the property appraiser on July 1, this amount will be updated. But this is our largest revenue source. Again, it supplements all any and all kind of capital purposes that we can do. um construction of new schools through payment of debt service, major remodels and renovations, a lot of our maintenance activities, of course, school buses we can fund, and lots of instructional technology, um software and equipment, as well as many safety initiatives. Um this is pretty much an all-encompassing revenue source that we have here. And for our sales tax, you can see the three-year, well, technically two and a half year projection that we've built into the plan. The sales tax will sunset on in December of

0412028. And that's why you see in fiscal year 29, we're accounting for a half year of revenue. And interestingly, um, for fiscal year 27, the 115 almost $116 million projection that we've made is slightly below, um, the revenue that we estimated for this year. And that's because the revenue for this year has came in slightly lower than what we've projected. And just in my professional opinion, I think it's, you know, there was such an influx of cash into the market from all the COVID funding. It wasn't just government organizations benefiting from billions of dollars of influx, but it was also private businesses. And so I think we're seeing that that cash in the market slow down, which is, you know, resulting in reduced taxable sales and playing into the revenue that we see. This is

042a trend across the state. This isn't unique to Lee County. So, we've reflected that um slight decrease for fiscal year 27 here. We did build in a 1% increase for fiscal year 28. And then with fiscal year 29 being representative of that half year of funding. And so, this pretty much has the same uses, allowable uses as our local capital improvement fund. And so, it's supplemented a lot of our construction major remodels. um maintenance and technology upgrades as well. When it comes to impact fees, these this is the fee assessed on new homes which could include single family residential, multifamily homes such as duplexes or a mobile home. This is the fee that's assessed to those units. And so what we are anticipating basically over the next 5 years is an annual 1% increase in

043this revenue source. And we basically use these funds to repay debt. These funds are restrictive in the fact that they can only be used to accommodate growth. And we do that simply by repaying debt for new schools um that are built to accommodate the growth that we've seen over the last several years. So as we transition into our debt overview, you know, this is a critical part of our plan for financing new schools. The key to debt service is, you know, ensuring that it's manageable, that the repayment structure is sustainable, and that each project that we're financing meets our long-term educational needs. And so to look at debt necessarily negatively is not how we should look at it. It's played a critical role in financing the schools that we've needed over a multi-year period of

044time, which does um alleviate some pressure on our capital plan. And so what you'll see here, these are our current debt payments over the next five years. So if we issued any new debt, for example, Green Meadow Elementary that is underway, we have not issued any debt for the construction of that school. So that school would not be accounted for here. This is strictly the debt that we have issued in the payment structures that we currently have in place and will be built into the capital plan. So you can see for next year we're anticipating about 125.7 million in debt service payments all the way through fiscal year 31 ending at about 63 million. And so there is a huge reduction as you can see between fiscal year 28 and fiscal year 29 here. Um

045and if you'll go to the next slide the reason for that is because there were several debt issuances that we repaid specifically with sales tax funds. And when those funds expire in December of 2028, the debt issuances that we had will also be fully satisfied. So that's why you see that decrease in the debt service payments on that prior slide. And we typically look at debt as it relates to our local capital improvement fund. We have a statutory requirement that says we cannot use more than 75% of our capital millage revenue to repay debt. And here you can see over the 10-year capital plan period what that looks like. We have in the orange bars for you the revenue that we anticipate for our capital millage over the 10 years. You can also see what

046those debt service payments look like that are only coming out of our capital millage. As I mentioned, we do repay debt with impact fees as well. So that is not accounted for here. This is just a measurement within our capital outlay millage fund. And then you can see the percent as that reflects to a percent of the um revenue. And you know I'm happy to say where in 27 that debt service is about 26% of the capital outlay millage revenue. Based on the debt that we currently have, you can see going out it goes down to about 11%. And again, that's just based on the current debt that we have in our repaying with capital outlay millage funds. Shifting over to the transfer from capital, we've had a lot of talk about this as it

047related relates to the general fund and the role that it's playing in the general fund. Um, you know, we've always taken the district has always taken a transfer from capital in most years when you look back at our history and this is something that is allowable under Florida statute 10171. Um, any capital related expenditures that occur in the general fund. You know, maintenance the the um work of the maintenance department is a perfect example. um we can transfer funds from capital to the general fund to cover those capital related costs that are occurring in the in the general fund. And so these are just some of the uses outlaid in statute that we can use that transfer for. Some of these we can also charge directly to the capital fund and we're not necessarily leveraging

048that. Um other than our construction department, you don't see them listed here and that's because the construction staff currently are charged directly to capital. So when we talk about that transfer, this is the these are the things that we're talking about. We'll be transferring from capital to general to cover these types of things. And this is a practice that most if not all districts use. It's part of just our financial strategy. And as we move forward, we'll have to, you know, think about how we leverage that to create sustainability within the capital fund as well as the general fund. And here [clears throat] you can see going back to fiscal year 22 um all the way through what we plan for fiscal year 27 as the capital transfer. Um I've listed for you the total

049transfer from capital because in any public facing documents such as our budget books or our annual financial report that's the number that you would see. But I what I've broken out here for you is the amount of the transfer that's been for charter schools. That's majority their PICO funding that we transfer from capital to general fund before dispersing it to the charter schools. And then we have the net transfer for operating. And you can see how in 22 and fiscal year 23 that amount uh remains level at 16 million. In fiscal year 24 we did not take a transfer at all. And then in 25 26 and then what we've planned for 27. And so if we have any conversation about decreasing the transfer um to operating um it just comes with knowing we have

050to reduce any expenditures out of operating too and kind of wean ourselves off of this. But again it's just a strategic tool in our belt as we financially plan for capital and the general fund. And lastly, before I turn it over to operations, who has the meat and potatoes of the plan as far as appropriations, um, we do have charter school dispersements that are encompassed in the plan. These are required charter school dispersements that we make. So, the capital outlay millage, the 1.5 mills. Back in fiscal year 24, a law was implemented that we had to share this revenue source with charter schools and it was in a phased in approach. So when it went into effect in fiscal year 24, we had to disperse 20% of the revenues that they were eligible for and

051each year it's um upped 20%. So in fiscal year 26 we're dispersing 60% of the revenues that they generate. Um next year will be 80% with fiscal year 28 thereafter they will be receiving 100% of the revenues that they generate out of the capital millage fund. And those revenues are generated based on their proportionate share of FTE. Same with the sales tax. Um those revenues are shared based on their proportionate share of FTE as well. And you can see the amounts there through fiscal year 29 that we plan to disperse with them. An important thing to note here is you know any charter school that comes before you to approve um they they will benefit from receiving a share of this revenue as well. Um but this is what we'll build in the plan for

052them as well. And of course, this is all based on their FTE projection. So, as their FTE changes, as we get those actual results through the FTE surveys, um the these amounts get tred up. But for planning purposes, this is what will be built into the plan at this moment for our charter school dispersements. So, that is um business services contribution to the capital plan. And with that, I'll turn it over to Vince from operations. >> Thanks, Sarah. Good afternoon. Vince Kuca, director of planning and maintenance board. Thank you for your service. Um, we're going to start out with current year. This slide shows you the current year enrollment. And very important, we broke it up in our three zones and we can start in the south zone. We're capa. It gives you comparison of

053our student enrollment and the capacity, the seat capacity, the fish capacity. Um, we are well under our capacity in the south zone. If you look into the uh west zone, you can see that we are kind of creeping up at our capacity, especially at the high school level, but particularly and as as we go through the next few slides, we're going to talk a lot about the east zone. The east zone is definitely at a point of over capacity. And if you look at uh where we're at over capacity right now, it's in the elementary schools. So that's going to continue to impact us over the next 10, 12, 13 years as those kindergarters come through. Um, so we will go through and talk about some other components of enrollment, but keep in mind the

054E zone is really where the big growth is. This slide gives you a comparison of our 10-year MGT predictions on our enrollment. The green is our current or enrollment of students, all students in a district except charter school. The orange is what's very important. Those are the students that we educate in our classrooms excluding the leave virtual kids, hospital kids or homeschool students. So those are the ones we're really worried about the seats uh in the in the buildings. And then the uh one on the right, the green is our fish capacity. So as we go out through the years in the next 10 years, you know, we we hold steady pretty well until we get out to 2035 36 all all the way on the right where we have more students than we have

055seats. And I go back to the previous slide, it is in the east zone. um everything that I've uh met with and studied with MGT, the growth is happening in the east zone, particularly and we all know this, particularly the way that uh LIi acres divided out their lots and the price of their lots. Um there are still a lot of development going on in the south and in Cape in the Cape, but the cost of those homes are a lot more than in LIi acres and that's really what the whole report attributes a lot of the growth coming towards. Um I got to give you a little anecdote. Um, we hired a gentleman from Miami Dade Schools, an electrician this uh just started here in in May. And the reason he moved here is

056he can afford a house and he went right to Lehigh Acres on our salary, what he had and was able to buy a home there where he could never buy a house on a school salary in in Miami. So, I think that really holds strong on kind of the thought of what MGT's been providing to us. Um, plug in here for Scott. This is our new construction plan. Um you can see on the right hand side of the phases that the that we are in. A lot of the construction is is getting complete and we're going to be uh opening a few schools. We have four there in the middle that are in the design phase and those we are clearing ground in some of those areas. We are uh going through the design phase

057and the bottom three are in pre-esign. But if you can look over on the lefth hand column, it's all in the east zone. Um so these are recommendations that we've moved forward with all the way up to the design phase and then we continue to have conversations about the last three. Um but particularly the last one is high Q uh triple Q that is preparing for all those elementary students you've seen in the first slide coming uh through the grade levels over the years. I want to stop there on because that that ends enrollment. Did you have any questions on enrollment or do you want to go all the way through it because it's going to come in phases? Dr. Carlin, >> they proceed unless the board feels like they want to stop uh after

058a couple of slides and continue to ask questions. I think our practice has typically been go through it, but um we'll we'll operate at the pleasure of the board. >> Board. >> Okay, we're fine. Proceed. >> Just continue on. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. So, flipping over to maintenance now. Uh the maintenance team's really really a great team. Um you know I've only been here for six months, but I want to tell you one of the things I did is I met with all of the maintenance shops individually and they are really pleased and happy where they work. They love working for Lee County Schools. And it was actually one of my questions to them and we are really excited about this year and when you look at the numbers it's daunting what that

059team does and it's a collaboration of all of us but it's amazing. So we have 179 projects that are on the list for this year. In particular, I like to point out to you the major impact that uh happens with HVAC's, roofs, and the building improvements. Those are the major areas where we are putting a lot of dollars into our buildings, but are systems that last for 20, 30 years, which is a really great investment in our building. So we're really proud of that. The next slide talks about the dollar amount. almost $140 million is allocated and that has uh not not our day-to-day funds that's from the sales tax and the capital fund again impacting large large uh projects in major areas such as HVAC and roofing. This is our fiveyear and 10-year projection

060of those major impact areas, the dollar amounts that will be needed in the future based on our plan that we have um cycled for every building and what needs to be done in every building over the next 10 years. There is an escalation of 3% of inflation uh into this plan. So, it does get a little costly out 10 years out. I'm really proud to present on our new programs and project department. Uh so we collaborated together obviously all all our departments work really well together in in operations but this is our new department coming on with Chad Chad Codwell and we work closely with Chad on the projects that he should be taking over that we in maintenance used to do. And for me, again, being new, I see it a a nice relief

061for the maintenance department cuz we were taking on a lot of projects that weren't maintenance. They were truly major projects that we had to run. So, it's great that this department's up and running. This year, they're looking at 39 projects. Uh, and additional, we're also working, we actually had a meeting today on our grants. There are 12 grant funded projects and a few furniture projects in there. And then if the facility mods will be um we will be doing 17 facility mods if they are funded through uh the budget process and there's two pages of the projects that are under the new program and project management division and I believe that's all I had. Thank you so much. >> Thank you sir. Um so first of all congratulations and thank you to uh Miss Cox

062and our wonderful team up there that work in the area of capital planning. Uh we really appreciate your presentation today. Um want to talk with you uh just real briefly. It's important to remember that the capital plan is a dynamic plan. It is something that is always changing, always evolving based on the data that we receive, based on enrollment, based on different projections. So um just wanted to uh put that in as a caveat. do want to address something that is uh near and dear to my heart and I know it's yours as well is fiscal responsibility. I want to talk about the capital transfer for just a moment. As you saw back on one of the slides, that number uh has been significant uh for a number of years. And uh we want to

063certainly take a look at that because every time we transfer dollars out of capital we into operational, we are reducing the amount of dollars that are available for construction, maintenance, technology, and safety. Not to say that it isn't being used properly. It is absolutely very legitimate uses. Uh but that's something we want to continue to wean oursel off of. uh as we especially as we start to move forward toward um 2028 and beyond. So just know that that is uh on my radar uh continues to be a focus and we will continue to find ways to reduce that amount uh ultimately to the point of close to zero if we can uh because we want to make sure we hold on to all those dollars in the capital budget. Uh [clears throat] with that being

064said, uh know that this is uh continues to be a conversation at our cabinet, continues to be a conversation with staff and we will continue to have this conversation with you as our partners, as our board members. So with that said, uh we look forward to your conversation, your discussion, and your questions. Thank you. >> Questions from board members. Miss persons, >> do we have any surplus land that is too small to build on that we're trying to sell at this point or or not? I know in a while we did, but I haven't really heard anything lately on that. >> Mr. Yes, go ahead, please. >> I'm smiling because I'm leaving this meeting to have a meeting later with our realtors on looking at some properties. So, yes, we process. >> Okay. Thank you.

065>> Any other questions of the board, Mr. Jordan? I may be mistaken, but could you please on the slide that you had just shown with everything that's going to be coming forward, the capital projects, I see Franklin Park's on here and it's stating the chiller plant capital replacement. Are we needed to replace that when the school just was built? >> Great question and Dr. Carlin kind of set me up because that's great that you said this is ever evolving. No, it is a new it is a new build. You're correct. We did redo that uh building and we are having issues with that. We put this initially on our plan to to take on and then it went back to construction. So that is actually off our list now. Construction's taking it on with uh

066looking at the warranties and looking at making sure that the contractors that put that in uh they did not install it right so that we are working through that. So that is coming off program and project just happened. >> Yeah. And I and I just want to surface that. So, thank you very much for uh handling that question. That was a question that I had when I saw the presentation and uh my question went like this. Where's the warranty? Um so, uh there were some answers provided. Um and certainly we'll make sure that we provide you with any additional information on that, but it sounds like that's been pulled off the the list. Is that correct? >> Correct. Yes, it's pulled off the list. >> It's pulled off of what? >> Off program and project

067management list. They will not be overseeing that. That's going back to construction. >> Okay. Mr. We're just seeing it. Yes, Mr. Scott will be working on that. >> I'm pretending I don't see it. >> Okay, >> got Thank you. Great question. >> Next. >> Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I wanted to go back to slide 12 if possible. >> Um, when we're highlighting the enrollment and specifically, it's called out at the bottom that we're not including portables and I know in the east zone specifically, there are a lot of portables. Do we know because that zone is at capacity what that looks like with the kids that are in portables and why we're trying to push again for those builds. >> There are there are students in portables. We actually have Green Meadows right

068now that is a uh its own portable school. Um and it's not heavily enrolled yet, but we anticipate this summer that it will be. Um at the other buildings, uh I don't have all the data in front of me on how many students are in each portable at the other buildings. If we could get that, I think that would be >> we can get you an update on that. >> Okay. Armor, you had something. >> You alluded to it, but if you would mention for the public's knowledge, you know, before we had construction, we had maintenance [snorts] and now we have another division. You explain that just a little bit. Like you say, you took it off the one and put on two. >> It's a it's another department inside of operations division. And the

069purpose of this was that um construction is a very uh small group and they deal with hundreds of millions of dollars in projects. Um maintenance is a large group, but they really need to be focusing on and are staffed for maintaining things and fixing things, not project management. And so this new department allows us to actually, you know, establish core competencies and focus on executing those core competencies. All right. Thank you. I mean, I was aware of that, but I just didn't know if the public was. >> Sloving. >> Well, first and foremost, I will tell you this is the best breakdown in the last three years that I've ever seen. Um, for breaking down what the capital plan is. So, thank you for the work behind this, the entire team. I truly appreciate. I

070think it's easy for the public to also follow this. Um but on the one thing I wanted to point out just um it was it was interesting to me if you go to slide 16 that um we've got I mean almost $2 million in athletic projected funds. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I um have gone to multiple sporting events in the district and I actually thought this would be a little bit higher with some of our facilities. So, can you just talk just briefly about what it looks like for these projects? >> Yes. Yeah, I can address some of it. Yeah. In in the athletic piece, there's not a lot of construction. $2 million is not a lot of money. It really isn't. So, there's not a lot of construction in

071there. Um, my my first month on the job when I came down in January. I had to go out and uh observe a field at Fort Myers High because we were unable to play. I believe it was a girls soccer tournament game there. That's where a lot of the dollars go to is maintaining the athletic fields. I believe uh we only have one turf field out of our 17 high schools. >> So, we do have to put a lot of money into the grass fields, which is great for kids to play on. Grass is wonderful, but it costs a lot of money. Yeah. >> And um the reason I asked this too is I mean we've got a lot of facilities that you know like baseball dugouts for example. Um you know things that not

072just need maintenance but also need complete renovation. You know we built a a massive school out in Riverdale and we sort of stopped shy of the baseball facility. I I've just seen it firsthand so that's why I'm speaking of it. So I just want to point that out. I mean, I know there may be something on the agenda tonight, so I don't want to get too far into the weeds about an approval, but um I think it's a real need in our in our community since, you know, over over half of our student population participates in some sort of extracurricular athletic event. That's all. Thank you though. Thanks. >> Welcome. >> Okay, Mr. Fischer. >> Thank you, Mr. Ribble. This is a both a hypothetical and a global question at the same time for the

073team. What would happen if we stopped building schools in the Ezone today? pretty pretty evident. Um, we would have over oversized class classes in the in the east zone. Um, we would have to strategically look at some other options with busing if that's something that the board and and Dr. Cronin would look at. Um, you know, again, I've not dug deep into that, but yeah, it definitely would be over capacity. So you would agree then that we would be uh arguably uh difficulty functioning as a school district if we didn't have those schools out there sir >> for the capacity over the next >> I mean the data showing that I I really it's it's your directive we will figure out a plan no matter what we do you know what we have to do

074as as a operation team so directed by Dr. Carl and the board, we would definitely figure it out. >> When I'm looking at this, I'm addressing it as this is a need versus a want is what I'm trying to address out here and I appreciate that. Thank you, >> Chevy. You have something >> close. >> Yeah. >> Thank you so much for your the presentation. Um I do have a question and this is regarding the um the cops payment. This is for Mrs. Cox. The Cox payments, they're paid out of the capital funds, right? Or how does that work? Please. >> Um, so our COPS payments are currently repaid. A majority of it is the capital outlay millage fund. Some is with impact fees and then some is with sales tax and then of course

075when the sales tax sunsets in December of 2028, those cops issuances will be satisfied with it. >> Okay, that Okay, that's important to know. Um, and thank you for that cuz uh I just learned something new today. Um, so and that I so that I was that was my notes. I I've got the halfetent sales tax sunsets in the 2028. So you answered that. Thank you. Um, I think that my other question so regarding charter schools. So when they count their FTE, I know how ours can can kind of fluctuate from when they first count and then the second count. Um what happens if theirs fluctuate? They get cuz I guess is it my understanding we pay them not the state. So we control it. So how does that work >> once the count's done?

076>> That is correct. Um so as their FTE fluctuates as we get their updated FTE amounts through the FEFP calculations. You know of course we start with a projection and then we have the two surveys throughout the year. So we do essentially like a true up with them. So we give them a projected amount based on their projected FTE and then throughout the years we get the actuals. We work with them and true up the payments that go to them. And just so you all know we do disperse charter school payments by monthly their FFP um all of the funding the capital funding that they get. So we just make adjustments throughout the year as that goes on. >> Thank you. Because when we were looking at slide the the projected I forget which slide

077it was now my apology. Um it you know we just see the the number shifting our our our attendance is still is still going up technically from what the projection even when we've had a little slide back a little bit recently. um our growth is still we're still growing and therefore the need for the schools in the Ezone because that's where the affordable housing is as you pointed out. Um and I I completely agree. So I just um I don't know which slide that was. Which slide was that? Oh, thank you. It is 13. Um if you just look at that, it's still the numbers are there. um even the pro projected numbers, we're not losing students as as much as some people may think. So um all right. Well, that was it. Thank you

078so much. >> Okay. Any Mr. Fischer? >> One last quick one. I know as budget season comes about uh especially in July, are we going to see the updated uh five-year plan expected the draft? >> Yes, sir. That will be presented as part of the tenative budget. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments? Okay, I agree with Miss Fleming this very uh very good comp comprehensive presentation, easy to understand and I really like enjoyed hearing about the comments from the Ezone. Certainly social media has taken off of that. So, it's good really to see the facts. So, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And next up, we have the budget overview by Sarah Cox and Matthew Aosta. All right. Well, good afternoon again. You have the privilege of sticking with me for a little

079bit. Let me scoot on over Matt today. Okay, so normally you would see Kelly Lecher up here, but she thankfully took a vacation and we have Matakosa joining today. He is our assistant director of budget and I'm sure you guys will be seeing more of him. Um, so today we're happy to present you with a budget overview. We've had a lot going on within the last couple weeks. It's not that we ever really have a downtime, but we received the Florida Education Finance Program or the FFP 4th calculation, which is the result of the uh February FTE survey. Um, so we have those results to share with you. We do want to revisit the fiscical year 26 budget outlook. That was something we discussed at the April board workshop. We also received just a few

080days after the fourth calculation, we received the first calculation for fiscal year 27. So, we're happy to share the information that came out of that with you, as well as some other non-FFP highlights, what we're seeing as it relates to school taxable value because what we saw built into the FFP first calculation versus the preliminary amount we received from the property appraiser is quite different. Um, and then we'll just revisit our fiscal year 27 budget timeline as it relates to schools and the district as a whole. So for the fourth calculation and attached to the agenda item for this presentation in board docs, I did also share with you an FFP handout. Um it breaks down the specific calculation. So if you wanted that detailed information, you have it. Um but for our unweed FTE

081and again you know we always want to preface that FTE is not the same as enrollment. Um FTE is the measurement of instructional minutes for students. Um, so what we saw for our unweighted FTE was a decrease of about 699. So we went from about 109,416 to 108,717. And you can see the breakout there where the district schools um experienced a decrease of about 749 while charter and fees continued to increase. And so as it relates to our base funding, that was a decrease of about 4.3 million within the categoricals such as educational enrichment, safe schools. Um we did see a decrease in the categoricals of about 2.8 million leading to an overall funding reduction in the fourth calculation of 7.1 million 6.6 million of that which was specific to the school district and not

082charters or fees. And this was a slide we showed you back in April of our unweighted FTE. You can see the results of our actual FTE throughout fiscal year 22 and fiscal year 25. Within the dotted line window I have for you there are fiscical year 26 projection. Um the fisc year 26 FFP third calculation and again that was the result of the October FTE survey. And then the fourth calculation the result of the February survey and this is the calculation in which we will end our fiscal year with. So there are five calculations of the FEFP. The last one which gets released in the subsequent fiscal year. So for the last calculation of our fisc year 26 FEFP, we most likely will not receive that till December of 2026, maybe January of 2027. So

083we end this year with the fourth calculation. And you can see how the FTE is projecting. Um again, you can see for fiscal year 27 for our district schools, we are projecting an increase and not that we may really see that. Um we just accepted that model from the state so we could maximize our allocation through the FEFP. And I'll get into a little more uh with you on that on how it impacts funding. But um you know if we look at fiscal year 22 and I'm just going to speak to our district schools at this point you know if you look back to fiscal year 22 through fiscal year 25 on average we were seeing an FTE increase of about 1,200 per year. Um so again this year was that first year we saw

084a decline and we don't want to let that one year affect our long-term trend of projecting growth. So if we look at this snapshot that I had um in the within the dotted lines, I wanted to share this with you just for visibility into the data that we see. Our FTE is reported by program areas. And I've broken that out for you here. And so I've listed what we had for FTE as of the final calculation last year. And that calculation we received in December of 2025. So this was how our FTE resulted last school year. Um I've shown you how we broke out that projection for fiscal year 26 through the second calculation. The results of the third calculation which again is that October 2025 FTE survey. The fourth calculation from February survey and

085[clears throat] how that has evolved from fiscal year 25 through the fourth calculation. So essentially from last year's final calc to this year's fourth calc, we've seen a decrease in unweighted FTE of slightly over,466. And you can see those changes within the specific program areas here. And what stands out is that a majority of the decrease has been in our program 130 or Esau population. Um the other areas have experienced it too with the exception of our higher level ESSE 254 255s and the program 300 career education. What I do want to point out is that we did not have a significant increase in ESC FTE as this slide may allude to this was simply a reporting correction. So many of these FTE were reported in a basic education program like the 101, 102, 103

086and this year we made that correction to report them to ensure we received the maximum funding for those kids. So I just wanted to clarify it wasn't necessarily an FTE increase for those higher level ESSE students um just a reporting correction that we made. So when we take the results of our FEFP 4th calculation and go back to the outlook we had for our general fund budget, this was something we shared with you back at the April board workshop. Um our our projection has not changed much. In fact, um when we looked at our projected revenues from that time frame and our projected expenditures, we shared with you a $92.4 million operating shortfall. and we were going to bridge that shortfall with a $45.4 million capital transfer which included a small portion of charter school

087PICO funding. Um that ultimately projects our remaining deficit at the 47 million. So we have not changed that re that projection at this point in time. When we shared this with you back in April, we did anticipate about a $5 million reduction. In the FEFP fourth calculation, we realized 6.6 million. So it didn't necessarily change our projected outcome much. Um but I just wanted to share that with you because um you know as we conclude our year with the fourth calculation, we are still concluding our year with this information and of course these are all projections. Um you see the reasons for how we got here. This is something that did not happen overnight. Um and it will not be solved overnight. So, we have the reasons here that we talked about back in April

088of just the COVID influx of COVID money over those couple of years and when that ended early in fiscal year 25, we shifted some of those expenditures back to the general fund. Um, we see property tax values cooling down and we'll we'll share some specifics with you on that in a couple of slides. interest income. Again, we always try to maximize any idle cash we have. And as we um spend down our funds and we don't have as much to invest, we'll see that decline and we're accounting for that in the next year budget. That one year of declining enrollment that we've seen this year and unsure of how that will continue in the future years. And of course, as we all experience within our personal lives, inflationary pressures. So, I just wanted to revisit

089that with you because we will conclude our budget with the fourth calculation and I wanted to let you know that this is still where we stand um and continue to work. So, I'll transition over to the FEFP first calculation that we received late in May. Um I do want to provide some of the statewide values for you because this tells an interesting picture. Um if you see here the district unweighted FTE and this came directly from the for the first calculation file if you've looked at it. Um the district unweighted FTE that includes charter schools. Um you can see at a state level they are anticipating or what they have built into their own budget is um a decrease in FTE of over 33,000 for district schools. And for fees, they're anticipating or build into

090their budget an increase of over 60,000 FTE for the family empowerment scholarship. So just interesting as you know, we think about our own declining enrollment, the own state, our own state of budget. This is something not unique to Lee County. This is something going around statewide and it's reflected in the state's budget. Um, so I wanted to point that out. And then some other specific details in the state's uh balancing their own budget. What they typically do is, you know, they start with the base student allocation. That's the amount of funding we receive per student essentially. And you can see that increase from $5,372 to $5,477, no, $5,457, an increase of $85 or essentially one a.5%. So when we talk about those inflationary pressures, we all know I mean if you follow any economic reports,

091you know, inflation's been above 3% for several quarters. Um slightly cooling down, but um we saw a 1 and a half% increase in our base funding. But when that gets applied to the program cost factors, and I'll show you specifically how that formula works on the next slide, you can see those went down. So the first calculation was compared to the third calculation, right? We just received the fourth calculation for the FEFP, but because when the state developed their budget, they were comparing to the third calculation. So for consistency purposes, I'm going to compare our first calc to our third calc. But what you can see here for the program cost factors, a majority of them decreased for next year. And that has a direct result on funding for us. And I and I'll show

092you that. But these factors apply to every school district across the state, not just Lee County. And then the same for the class size allocation. We did see a slight increase in funding there, about $3 per per grade level. Um, and that's less than onetenth of a percent essentially. But once we apply some specific um factors to Lee County, I'll show you how that changes here on this slide. So, we do start with the statewide BSA or base student allocation increase of $85. We also have what is called the comparable wage factor that goes into our funding formula. And that's essentially the state's way of defining uh labor differences between counties. And you can see for Lee County that CWF or comparable wage factor decreased. So, what that essentially does is modify our base student

093allocation. So last year we essentially received $5,41 per student or per FTE in Lee County and that $85 has now become $74 increase in fiscal year 26 because that comparable wage factor went down. So essentially the funding formula for FTE we take the base student allocation multiplied by that comparable wage factor and then we also multiply it by the program cost factor. And these are specific to student needs, whether they're in a basic education program, an ESE program, an ESOL program, etc. And you can see how the funding changed from the third calculation to next year's first calculation here. Thankfully, a majority of them went up, but interestingly, you can see our high need ESC students, that funding is going down due to that change in the program cost factor. So important things, you know,

094these are all the kind of little mechanics that we don't always um aren't fully transparent with, but it is critical because it has a direct impact on our funding. And so I wanted to share the specifics of that with you. Um same with the class size. You know, we saw like that average $3 increase at the state level. When we apply our comparable wage factor, essentially what we're seeing in the class size allocation is about a dollar increase per FTE. And an important note on this slide is that we released the school budgets back in April of 2026 before we had any budget any fiscal year 27 budget from the state. And so we funded our schools with a base student allocation of $5,462 or just over $4 more than what we've actually realized from

095the state. And then this is honestly a natural part of our budget planning process for schools. um only in election years do we have any information from the state about our budget before we released allocations to schools. Unfortunately, we didn't have that this year because of the elongated budget process with the state. So, we just went with our best estimate and that was essentially we had a Senate, you know, a Senate run and a House run at the time and um we kind of just met in the middle with those two to come up with our best estimate. And thankfully we didn't land too far from that, but um it did result in a slightly higher BSA going to our schools. And um one thing I know we we see a lot about total funds

096per FTE. And when you look in the FFP calculations, it provides this number for every district and what the average is for the state. And I I just want to clarify this is not the amount of money the district receives per student. Essentially, this is taking our total funds divided by total FTE. And this is why I try to be transparent with all the little details behind that with you guys, breaking out charter schools, fees, because they all have their own little nuances and how the funding works. So essentially um I've provided to you what the state is what the state had um the average for the state and funds per FTE. So as of the third calculation you know $9,187 the first calculation being 9 9337 an increase of $150 for Lee County. Um

097our average comes in higher and essentially what is reflected for us in the first calculation is 113 FTE increase. But again, this doesn't mean every single FTE we received an additional $113 for because it's just that average, you know, applied in the total. And so some examples of funding sources used to calculate the total funds per FTE, but not all FTE drive that funding. Transportation is a perfect example. Um even though that allocation is getting divided into this total funds per FTE formula, we know not every student takes a bus to school. Um but it gets divided into that. Same with the ESC guarantee categorical. Um not every student is generating funding. So these are just perfect examples of why it's important to understand the intricacies within the FEFP um and how the funding is

098working. So to wrap up our conversation on the first calculation, this is what we experienced overall. So the increase from the first calculation over the third calculation was $38 million. And you might think, wow, that's that's amazing, and it is, and we're so thankful for it. Um, we add back the the decrease we saw of 7.1 million in the fourth calc. We're going to add that back because essentially that is funding we're seeing over um what we got in the first calculation. Um but we do need to remember that growth, the FTE growth that we've built in and the impact that has on our base funding. And if we don't experience that FTE growth, that is money that the state will retract back over the future FFP calculations. So we're we're anticipating that about $7.5

099million. Um, of that $38 million, it also included an increase for family empowerment scholarships and that was 15.3 million. So, that is not money we are realizing and we need to back out of that 38 million. We also have the teacher salary increase allocation that's included in base funding. It's not an additional categorical that we receive. It was quite a few years ago, but then I believe it was fiscical year 24 it got lumped into base funding. Um, so we back that out because we know that's money we're going to spend on our teachers. Um, it's not new money that we have complete discretion over. And then the increase in our restricted categoricals. This would be such as um safe schools, transportation. Um, we don't have full discretion over that. Um, so what it would

100look like is that our net remaining increase or the funds that we could potentially have discretion over how we would spend them is about $8.3 million. This is highly dependent on how the certified taxable values come in on July one. Um Matt will speak to it in a couple slides and I've reiterated it through the last presentation and this one we saw um a big difference between the first calculation and what we received from the property appraiser. So how that comes in will have a huge difference. So, some other FEFP and non-FEFP highlights. Again, we have um almost $7.1 million for teacher salary increases. Um a portion of that belongs to our charter schools as they also generate that funding. So, about 813,000 will go to charters and then about 6.2 million will remain with

101the district. And again, this is included in base funding. This isn't additional funds that we have received from the state. And there were there was even some further restrictions on how we can utilize this allocation for fiscal year 27. It's specifically for teachers who have 10 or more years of teaching experience in a Florida public school. And each teacher may not receive more than a $3,000 net increase from the allocation. So, um just some other little nuances that come along with this funding. Um, we do have 300 minimum for eligible classroom teachers for supplies. This isn't necessarily new for this year. This is something that um, districts, all districts have done for years and years and years, but um, we are required um, to do this by law and that's included in our base funding

102as well. It's not an additional allocation like it was several years ago. Um, we do know that funds will be appropriated for the Florida school recognition program. The exact amount for Lee County is undetermined at this time as it's dependent on school grades for all school districts and how that pot will get divvied up is yet to be seen, but we were happy to see that made it back in um for fiscal year 27. We were also allocated $3.6 million for declining enrollment and we don't have the details of how that allocation was derived. um the proviso language stated it was um a decrease in weighted FTE from what was appropriated versus what was in the FEFP third calculation. So we're um working with government relations to try to obtain more information about how that

103was made up because we also recognize a portion of that will go to charter schools as they they experienced the decline from their projection um to the FFP third calculation as well. And then some positive news. We always love when we can save money. The F FRS regular class rate declined. It was very slightly, but it does generate a savings of about $2.7 million in the general fund. So, we will take that. And um with that, I'll turn it over to Matt to go through the rest of the presentation with you all. >> Good afternoon. Uh so, the slide that we are looking at now is the school taxable value. you'll see the uh amounts that uh we've uh that's been realized from FY20 and uh to projected FY27 as well as the growth rate

104between the years. Now what you'll see is the postcoavid bump that we all recognized u after u covid and that transgressed even through Ian to where in fi23 we saw about 28% a year year-over-year increase in that um but as you can see uh we now seen that soften uh that's as I said part of the postcoid bump uh we also have seen supply and demand uh uh meet so that as construction has caught up with the demand, we've seen a softening of the market as well as a slowdown in migration that we've seen just generally in Florida and then the reality of of higher insurance cost um that we've all seen as well. Uh so with that uh the FFP has projected about a 4.5 uh% increase uh for FY27 in the first calculation.

105Uh the property appraiser uh has indicated about 0.5. So more conservative estimate than what we're seeing in the initial FEFP projection. So this next slide kind of gives you more of a comparison to that. So the FFP first calculation is based off of uh the state's projection of actual local sales uh as well as uh construction uh local sales and construction and that has been adjusted for current market conditions. So you'll notice between the first calc and the property appraisers estimate uh historically as we've seen from FY22 usually the uh property uh appraiser estimate it comes a little higher than the first calculation. Uh but we did see that flip first in FY26 and then in FY27 what we're seeing is now the uh appraiser estimate being below what we're seeing in the first calculation.

106Uh now one of the things we have seen is that usually when we do get our certified role uh within the sec uh within the second calculation which we'll receive in July 1st uh that usually has caught up to uh and been a little higher than what we have in the first estimates and above what the property appraiser has estimated. So we're optimistic that that will be the case again for FY27. uh but as of now we are estimating between that 0.5 and 0.45 four five uh% increase. >> And to tie this back to the recap slide that we had on the fiscal year 27 FFP first calculation, we had that kind of net remaining of 8.3 million. Um this difference is about $5 million between these two runs that we have for our 748

107discretionary mill. You know, that's the only millillage in the general fund that we have discretion over how we can spend it. So, um, how this shakes out and we won't know until July 1 is going to have, uh, an impact on our general fund budget and whether we see a nice little increase within the FEFP or not. >> So, just to kind of reiterate the importance of the school taxable value, uh, as you know, 60% of our revenue and the general fund and the capital fund is generated uh, through local property tax. uh of the general fund. Uh the majority of that is through the required local effort. Uh this is the amount that we are required uh to levy to participate in the FFP and it is where the majority of our taxable dollars

108come from. Uh the other portion being the 7.48 discretionary mill and this is the amount that we have discretion over for operational purposes. Now, um, we knew we, as I'm sure you're aware, Florida voters will decide in November whether to significantly expand the state's homestead exemption, uh, which would raise the current rate from 50,000 to 150 beginning in January 1st and then 250, uh, uh, January 1st, 2027, excuse me, and then 250,000 in January 1st of 2028. However, uh the expanded exemption applies only to non-school property taxes such as city and county levies. Uh and school district taxes remain completely untouched uh shielded to prevent from drastic funding cuts. So, we just wanted to kind of reiterate that. Now, here's a uh look at the FY27 budget timeline. So the first day of school will

109be August 11th. Uh on the on day 14, we do our day 14 count. And this is just as the dust has settled on the enrollment. Uh we take a look at where actual enrollment has occurred. Uh once we get that count, we will in September uh adjust the school allocations based on that count. Then in October, we will have our FTE survey 2. And this is the state's formal snapshot of where the classrooms really are. Uh so from that we will again adjust the allocations based off of that. And the reason we do that is to ensure that funding follows the students. So uh we want to make sure if a school has increased in 50 students that that funding follows those students uh to that school and vice versa. Uh we also want

110to make sure that we are following in line with the state funding formula. And then this final timeline is our FY27 district budget timeline. And this really just follows our trim requirement. So July 1st, we will receive the property appraisers certified taxable value. uh no later than July 19th, the commissioner commissioner of the department of education will certify the required local effort uh to each school district and that will be in our second calculation. Uh within 24 days of the certification of the taxable value, the superintendent will send the budget to the school board for approval. And then within 29 days of the certification of the taxable value, the school district will advertise its intent to adopt a tenative budget and mil millage rates. Then that'll be the October 3rd. And then within two to

111five days after publishing the ads for the tenative budget hearing, the school district must hold a public hearing on the tenative budget and millillage. And then finally uh within 60 to 80 days of the certification of the value uh which will be September between se for us will be September 8th. The school district will hold a public hearing on the final budget and militates and then within three days of that uh we will submit the trim and budget package to the department of revenue and the Florida Department of Education. So with that uh we'll open up to uh comments and board discussion. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Cox and Mr. Costa for a very very thorough presentation. really appreciate the in-depth work that you've done in preparation for today's conversation about our budget and

112we look forward to your comments, your questions, and concerns. Uh, board members, thank you. >> Comments or questions. See, seeing none, thank you very much for an excellent presentation. I guess you covered this pretty much in the 101, so that I think we were well prepared for this. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Next, we have job descriptions presented by Dr. Shaya Johnson. Dr. Johnson. Good afternoon board members, Superintendent Carlin and Attorney Dodic. We have two job descriptions to bring forward to you today. One from operations, which is the trades apprentice trainer. The other one is from the academic services division evaluation specialist for exceptional student education. We've previously discussed these. Just want to know if you have any more questions or discussion. >> Dr. Carlin, do you >> Nothing further from me.

113Thank you. >> Any comments from board members? >> Yes. >> M. Jordan. >> Yeah. Could you just please explain and I know that we've had this in our oneonone, but and we supposedly had a hiring freeze. Can you explain why these are being brought forward? >> Right. just so that people understand why you are bringing this. >> Sure. So we have um we we are under a hiring freeze for our central office staff. Uh we do have a process and these were deemed through that process to be essential for the functioning of these divisions. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Sheelli, do you have a question? >> I do have a question. It was in my notes. Hold on, please. Um, oh, I do have a question regarding uh I has a couple questions

114recently I sent regarding the um application process for like APS and the AP pool. So, can you um for the community as well as my benefit, can you explain that process and the hiring process and and how um promotions and and and you know, everybody kind of shifting around, please. Thank you. >> Would you like me to address that or Dr. Carlin, would you? I' I'd like to start uh addressing that question with a board policy that we have um for Mr. Dodig if we can take a moment to do that. I think you can go ahead and talk about under typical circumstances uh what the pool process uh encompasses and then I'll ask Mr. Dodic once he locates the the [clears throat] board policy to provide that. You've got it. Okay. Thank you. and

115and the board member and I have had a conversation briefly about the fact that there is a board policy that says that the superintendent shall submit recommend written recommendations with regard to the appointment and assignment of administrators for board action. So um and it does not describe a process for advertising and those types of things and I think that's what the board member is asking about. >> Yeah. And so for clarity I I uh Dr. Mr. Berner had told me there's like a 7-day uh advertising that they do with jobs. And then when I asked that to Mr. Dodic, he said that that's that was not policy or pro procedure or protocol. And so I I was under that impression that it was. So if you could please um explain. Thank you. >> Sure. So

116in our administrative guidelines that you all approved, the minimum days that a job is advertised is 5 days. So we can advertise more than that. However, the superintendent always has authority to place employees where she sees sees fit as well without going through the hiring process. And that is where the board policy comes into play. But typically we would run the advertisement for at least five days and then the hiring manager uh follows the hiring process screens according to min minimal qualification so on and so forth. We make sure that the candidate is in the appropriate administrative pool whether assistant principal or principal and then they go through the selection process. I'd also like to add a piece um through board policy 11:30 um because I think there was also a question about like how

117we transfer or how those types of things can happen. So um according to this uh board policy superintendent's primary consideration in recommending an individual for promotion should be the individual's demonstrated effectiveness. So that's very important to remember. Uh when those transfers occur, there is a determination by myself and my team as to the effectiveness. um in moving student achievement forward and that I do have authority through the um board policy as well as the uh former HRMD which is now known as the ELTAD I think affectionately known um to make those those moves as well. >> Yes. So the but the AP pool there's certain criteria to even get in that pool. >> Yes ma'am. >> So can you explain that too? and like and then and and in the past we've been given like

118an updated like given that list a pool if you don't mind doing that too because I know that it's totally changed from when it was given to me but if you could also explain that just for my sake in the community as well. Thank you. >> So just off the the top of my head to to um enter into the AP pool a candidate must have a master's in ed leadership and pass the feely. um is the Florida Educators Leadership Exam. So that is the that is the only requirement that we have to enter the pool. They just finished their master's degree and we feel like they're qualified. Uh well the job description for an assistant principal that is what uh is used to qualify them their minimum qualifications. We actually um re received this

119process from Collier County before. We had a lot of gatekeeping uh in our process before a person could enter the AP pool. So imagine they just enter they just finished their master's program. They just finished the rigorous feely test and then they before they would have to go through an interview process and demonstrate again everything they just demonstrated for their master's degree. That's to in my opinion that was too much gatekeeping. So we changed our process to match callers and we now just automatically enter uh those qualified candidates into the assistant principal pool. The principal pool however is a little different. So they must also have to enter the principal pool, they have to have the masters in ed leadership, pass the FELY exam, have at least three years of of assistant principal experience, and

120then they go through the Aspire program, um, which is our preparing new principles program. It's a 10-month program based on the Florida Educational Leadership Standards, and once they successfully complete that program, they can enter into the principal pool. So, their process is a little more rig more rigorous um on the district side. >> Thank you so much for that because I've never been told about the principal pool. So, this program is something that's an online thing. Um >> Mr. I'd like to make a point of order. You the headline on this or the title on this is job descriptions. I don't I think we're getting into the weeds on a conversation that's not appropriate for this title item. I don't know that our staff is prepared to even answer this question. >> This isn't a

121voting meeting. It's a workshop. I mean, but you're certainly the chair and you can control the agenda how you see fit. I'm not >> Well, I I'm just wondering if if we're getting into the weeds and we're getting off topic here. >> Well, yeah. I mean, I think perhaps the courtesy was given to Dr. Johnson because she's up here and I think the board member may have wanted to bring this up during her comments anyway. So, I I think maybe that's why it's being done at this point. and I can share more offline with you um Miss Gio Vanelli to go through in more detail. >> Thank you. But I think this is something that's not just for Melissa. Um it's for the community and um I did raise these questions to the superintendent. So

122she was well she was prepared and well informed and that and was information that I didn't have. And I think it's a key and important to for the community to understand that the superintendent has the authority to make moves and shifts because that is what exactly is happening right now. And and this is a job description. Um, I saved my questions for this spot particularly. Um, if you want to run your meeting how you want to run your meeting, that's certainly up to you, um, Mr. Ribble, and for the community to understand where you're coming from and this board, but I'm stating where I'm coming from. Thank you. >> And I just want to state where I'm coming from. I want to be fair with our staff so that they're prepared. If you have these

123desire to ask these questions that are entitled on our agenda, I welcome you put anything on the agenda you want. approach the superintendent or oneonone. Please explain to her in detail what you'd like to have answered and I'm sure she'll put it under a titled titled item and we can be prepared to answer these questions. But I'm not a big fan of having gotcha questions from the state. I said that's just my personal opinion of being a running a civil organization and one that's professional. So >> it wasn't intended to be a gotcha and I understand it. Thank you. Thank you for cooperation. >> Any other comments from the board members? Okay, hearing none. Thank you, Dr. Johnson, for your presentation and answering our questions today. You're >> welcome. >> Okay, moving right along. Next,

124we have the state and federal legislative update presented by Christy Hulahan and Luke Stinger. All right. Good afternoon, Superintendent Dr. Carlin, board members. Um Luke and I are excited to walk you through our legislative update um covering both the 2026 legislative session, our priority wins, and a recap of our recent Washington DC advocacy trip. I will uh emphasize that a lot of the stuff we're going to discuss in our legislative update, it has been provided to you in additional detail through our board weekly. So, if there's any additional questions you have, we'll be happy to address those at the end or offline. >> We'll now be discussing our state appropriation request. In total, we were approved for 1,374,000 in state appropriation funding this session. Uh these funds will support critical facility safety and security updates

125for the Southwest Florida Public Service Academy. Additionally, they will um assist with modernizing our student transportation system and expanding our open gate systems as well. Um furthermore, as Sarah mentioned in her presentation, the district was also approved for $3.6 million in additional state funding for the current school year. Uh the legislature approved the one-time allocation as part of the budget to offset enrollment fluctuations across several school districts statewide. Um and additionally, a portion will be shared with charter schools as well. Um and the these figures I mentioned are pending the governor's vetos and approval of the budget. He has until July 1st to act on it. We'd also like to take this time to recognize um our appreciation for the legislators that carry these appropriations. Representative Mike G. Lombardo, uh Representative Tiffany Espazito, Senator Jonathan

126Martin, and then also um former representative now our current supervisor of elections Jenna Persons Mullica. She chaired the budget prek through 12 uh subcommittee. So, we thank her. And then also, we're just very fortunate here in Southwest Florida to have a wonderful legislative uh delegation. So, we want to make sure we send our appreciation to President Albrittain, uh, former President Pasadomo, uh, Representative Adam Bana, and Representative uh, Vanessa Oliver as well, because their support throughout this session was very important. >> And to give you all some context on the legislative landscape, uh, recently, uh, this slide shows the bills filed versus bills passed over recent sessions. Um, this session in particular, 1,897 bills were filed and only 236 were passed, a pass rate of about 12%. Uh, these figures reflect how competitive the environment is

127for getting legislation through. And these numbers not only give us great insight to the number of bills passed, but it also reinforces another side of our job that doesn't get discussed very often, and that is the importance of preventing bad policy from getting across the finish line. Our team tracked over 178 bills this legislative session and that all spanned from education uh matters to anything touching the public sector whether that has to deal with uh building requirements or even um public employee uh changes in law. Um, while most of these bills are filed with good intentions, it is important to bring the attention of unintended consequences to some of the legislators that file these bills and it reinforces why our team presence um not only the team sitting on this side of uh the room

128but also you board members being a part of that team. Um, and why our advocacy matters. Uh, with so many bills competing for attention, relationships and strategic advocacy make a real difference in what gets prioritized and uh what gets passed. So, right off the bat, we'd like to highlight several bills that supported our legislative priorities this past session. This is based off of the priorities that you as a board passed um earlier on this year. And all five of these bills were approved by the governor and each one of them have a direct impact on Lee County Schools. Starting with House Bill 1279, uh the education bill. This encompassed a lot of different educational changes, but specifically for our school district, there was a policy that we really wanted to get across the finish line.

129And that specifically has to deal with the expansion of our uh education emergencies statute that allowed us to continue um our teacher incentive pay, specifically expanding that uh piece of legislation to low performing schools. Um, this was a big lift for our district as a lot of things happened at the last minute and we could not have gotten this uh done without the support of not only our delegation, some other members across the state and also our great education commissioner, Commissioner Stacey. >> And next is House Bill 561, uh, educator preparation and certification. Uh, this bill expands certification pathways by allowing earlier coursework enrollment, extending temporary certification to individuals with expired teaching certificates as well as stren strengthening professional development through Florida through the Florida Center for Teaching Excellence. Uh, this bill will further support

130our teacher retention efforts. >> Next is House Bill 753, school counselors. This bill requires that performance evaluations for certified school counselors use indicators of the Florida school counseling standards adopted by the state board of education. It also exempts prospective uh counselors from specific educator certification requirements. This was a big uh win for our school counselor team um while also preserving the school district authority to impose them as a condition of employment. This will help us recruit and retain quality counselors across the district as we need them. And finally, we have SB538, extracurricular activities. Uh, this bill allows booster clubs to fund athletic coaches, directors, and sponsors under specific policies, as well as authorizing students to participate in activities at other schools in certain circumstances and permits activity fees with specific caps and publication requirements. And

131moving on to our additional bills. These didn't fall under our priority wins, but are still worth uh the board's awareness. Uh first, we have Senate Bill 178, athletics and public K through2 schools, which was approved by Governor DeSantis. It authorizes head coaches to use personal funds to aid student athletes within specified guidelines. Uh this will give our coaches a bit more flexibility in how they support their athletes. Next, House Bill 145 claims against government. Uh, this increases the liability limits under sovereign immunity and revises filing timelines. Uh, the per person cap increases from $200,000 to $350,000 and the per incident cap goes from $300,000 to $500,000. This has not been signed by the governor, so we are still monitoring this one. >> And finally on this slide, Senate Bill 182, education. Uh this was approved

132by the governor and covers a range of items. Uh first it prohibits certain charter school dismissals based on academic performance. It modifies scholarship fund reversion, expands private school facility and land use options, and requires cursive writing instruction, mandates historical portrait displays, and creates a teacher training and mentoring program. >> Now we're going to move on to House Bill 757, school safety, which was approved by the governor. It expands the guardian program to public higher ed institutions, creates a new firearm discharge offense near schools, and improves threat management. To explain further the impacts of the K through2 institutions, because this one was highlighted significantly as a higher ed bill um throughout session, two key components, um the legislature now mandates the transfer of specific education records, including threat assessments from K through2 schools to colleges and

133universities. And then also it requires a second or it creates a secondderee felony for discharging weapons within 1,000 ft of a school and requires mandatory holding until the bail hearing. And moving on to Senate Bill 824, uh school district unimproved real property. Uh this bill originally required school districts to offer certain district-owned vacant land to elig eligible charter school operators within the district. Uh but through advocacy in the amendment process, the bill now only requires school districts to submit an annual inventory of unimproved real property to the DOE for a statewide report. And then House Bill 1081. This bill requires the Florida Center for Cyber Security to develop a new cyber security experiential learning program and identify internship and experiential learning opportunities aligned with high demand cyber security roles. It also requires consultation with employers

134and mandates annual reporting on enrollment certifications and job placements. Another reason why I wanted to bring this to your attention is because once again this might have been viewed as more of a higher ed bill. However, this is going to continue to be a conversation at the state and federal level. Um specifically once again um it is important to note that the state and federal governments are looking at ways to expand this, how to modernize it, how to bring some of these certifications to students a lot sooner. So just something to be aware of and we are seeing um this state and federal partnership specifically with this one. Um this highlights an internship partnership with the US Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology and the state of Florida. So, this just gives

135us a good insight as to where the state of Florida will continue to head in that direction. >> And for House Bill 453, uh requirements for a standard high school diploma, uh this was approved by the governor and it allows two years of marching band to fulfill PE and arts credits as well as permit students with disabilities to use Special Olympics for PE requirements. Uh both of these are meaningful opportunities for our students. And then House Bill 461, volunteering at polling locations. This bill allows registered and pre-registered students to volunteer at polls for community service hours without violating private funding prohibitions. These volunteer hours may count towards high school graduation requirements um if they have some of those. And then also for some of their scholarship requirements as well as they seek some funding opportunities.

136Um this is a nice civic engagement opportunity for our students if they would like to participate in that. And then House Bill 851, uh, professional learning, which was approved by the governor. Uh, this bill requires districts to provide annual autism specific professional learning for instructional and school-based administrative personnel. Then, House Bill 1471, Systems of Law and Terrorist Organizations. This was approved by the governor. This bill prohibits public schools from using funds to support, contract with, or accept funds from organizations designated as domestic or foreign terrorist entities. It also prohibits expenditures of public funds for activities that promote those organizations and mandates immediate expulsion of students who promote designated terrorist organizations. >> And finally, SB 1296, uh, public employees relations commission, which was approved by the governor. Uh this bill revises processes for union membership certification

137disputes and appeals including re reertification thresholds. >> And then before we go to the next slide and we shift into the federal update and what that advocacy trip looked like, um I do want to expand a little bit more. Um our great CFO and wonderful Matt Aosta did in their previous presentation touch on the property tax uh reform legislation in that special session that just wrapped up. Um, the reason why I didn't make it into this presentation is because it was still being uh done in Tallahassee. And so I'll just provide some additional context for you there. Governor DeSantis in the legislature since 2025, we heard the topic of property tax reform. Um, but during the 2026 legislative session, only the House filed um a number of bills touching on property tax, providing various different

138options for the legislature to review. Um, unfortunately none of those kind of got through or there wasn't really a whole lot of conversation back and forth. So, it was just kind of like what's what's coming, what's next. Um, so we were waiting for this special session to take place. So, on uh May 27th, the governor formally issued a proclamation calling for a special session for the dates of June 1st and June 3rd that we just went through. The legislation was filed in both the House and the Senate between the days of May 28th and June 1st, drawing immediate concerns from our local government, special districts, and other impacted entities. Following the House and Senate committee meetings, several provisions from the governor's original proposal were amended and/or removed entirely. Those key provisions include it created a

139phased homestead exemption on the first $150,000 of assessed value beginning on January 1st of 2027 and then increasing that to 250,000 in 2028. Beginning in 2029, the $250,000 threshold will be permanently tied to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. uh meaning the exact exemption amount will adjust annually based on inflation data and cannot be calculated until the year's figures are finalized. The exemption applies to local governments and special district levies only. School district levies are excluded as our team mentioned earlier and I'll say it one more time. School district leveies are excluded. The exclusion of school districts are amended on to the bill or were amended to the bill during the committee process in both the house and the senate. And then also the uh it reduces the annual assessed value increase

140cap for nonhomesteaded properties from 10% to 5%. It did touch on the residency eligibility. So Florida residents as of January 1st, 2027 receive a full phased exemption. New residents who establish Florida residency after January 1st of 2027 initially receive a reduced exemption up to $25,000 for school levies. So staying the same and then up to $50,000 for all other levies. New residents become eligible for the full increased exemption beginning in their fifth year of of continuous Florida residency. Now the path to passage is the proposal will go before the voters on the November 2026 general election ballot and it must pass with at least 60% approval to take effect. So with that we will shift gears over to federal. So this past May, uh, board chair armor persons, chief safety, security, and fleet operations, uh,

141David Nuland and I traveled to Washington DC for our annual federal advocacy trip. It was productive, insightful, and a meaningful week of meetings. Not only did we have the privilege to advocate for our students, teachers, and district, but we were able to gather great insights to additional funding opportunities at the federal level. It is important to note that these funding opportunities don't just live within the Department of Education, but they are housed in agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and so on and so forth. We received great information on funding sources um we as a district qualify and can apply for um that are taking place now and in the near future. We also gathered great insights

142as to the inner workings of some of these grants and the and as the administration continues to uh move some of the education funding back to the states. Uh they're getting rid of uh some of those layers of bureaucracy. It was just announced they're going to continue that movement um that was presented in the fiscal year 2027 budgets and a number of different agencies. Um so having those insights allow us to better position ourselves as a school district. In regards to the meetings, as you can see on your screen, um on the congressional side, we met with uh both US Senators, Senator Ashley Moody and Senator Rick Scott, as well as Representative Greg Stwie. These conversations were critical for us in continuing to build those relationships and also supporting our federals. They've been uh fantastic

143with letters of support for some of the grants that we are actively engaging in right now. We also met with five federal agencies, the US Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration, and the uh White House Office of Intergovernment uh affairs. Having access to these level these highle meetings reflects um on the school district very well and gives us a seat at the table on issues that are currently being discussed and also picking our brains um for things that they are thinking about developing moving forward. And I just wanted to give a a thank you to our team at Ballard at the federal level, specifically Tracy Pew and Dan McFall. Um this was a fantastic trip and they really organized um some great meetings

144for us for this DC flyin. Um throughout this trip, we touched on four major topics. Some of these uh were the same as our previous uh conversation, our last report, but also some of these we kind of adjusted based off of what we were doing now as a district and also some of the key themes we're hearing from you guys as our board members, not only from the DIAS, but also in our one-on-one meetings with you. So, on the career and technical education side, we discussed our CT pipeline and the career in a year model. Uh we highlighted the $1.69 $69 million in uh state funding we received and the newmies that we are launching due to that. Uh we made the case for continued and increased Perkins fundings and discussed opportunities for community project

145funding requests. So those are kind of like the appropriation side but for the federal side and also grants to support our CTE facilities and programs moving forward. Um our partners at the federal government. We're excited to hear about some of this work that we are doing and the continued commitment from not only our board but our superintendent to keep career and technical education as a priority in our community especially for this region where we continue to see this exponential growth for safety and security. We also highlighted a number of our safety in initiatives such as our open gates weapon detection system deployments at our schools which generated a lot of interest. Um we are leading not only the state of Florida but in my opinion the nation based off of some of these conversations uh

146with the great work of our safety and security team and then we also presented to our partners what we have done with the bus patrol program and that partnership with the Lee C Lee County Sheriff's Office and that also turned some heads as well. They were shocked to hear some of the statistics that you guys have been shared with over the last couple months and they were very proud of the work we are doing there and putting our student safety first. Um through those meetings uh especially with the safety and security we were given insights of a critical grant um that currently Chief Nulan and his team are actively working on to expand some of our critical safety infrastructure here at the district on educator workforce compensation. We highlighted the great things we are doing

147with our teacher incentive pay programs um especially with our work through the legislative session with House Bill 1279 expanding the de uh the definition of that educational emergency statute we went over. Um, we highlighted the incredible work of our HR team and the schoolbased leadership on closing the gap with our teacher vacancies. Um, those turn that turned a lot of heads in DC as well. That resulted in additional information being requested on some of the strategies that we're using here at our district. Um, we also advocated for protecting some of the title funding as well that we discussed, title one, title two, IDA funding, even if that's not even housed in the Department of Education as those continue to shift, just uh preserving some of those um title dollars there for our schools and our

148students. And then also, we uh once again received critical insight on the timing um with the Department of Education, Department of Labor, and when that shift will continue to move. some of the trends that we learned um as I've been sharing with you guys through the last several months is a good portion of the Department of Education will shift over to the Department of Labor. It was night and day walking into that Department of Education building. When we first went um when at the time our chairman uh board member Sam Fischer went with us, it it was an active it was an active building, you know, buzzing, people were talking. We went this go around and it was crickets. It was very very quiet. Um a lot of empty seats. So, but we're seeing that

149transition over to the Department of Labor and so we're excited to continue to work with the leadership over there. We've made some really good connections there. And then a big thing for the board, um you all have been passionate about the nutrition that we are serving our students with the fresh vegetables and and the food that we are providing at lunch. So with our meeting at the Department of Agriculture and on that topic, we expressed our strong support for these initiatives for and and the vision for just healthier school options for for our students um for meals. We talked about the fresh fruits and vegetables offered throughout the week, local produce from our farms, the great partners we have with that, our school gardens growing across the district, specifically at Trfalgar Middle School. Um, and

150through these conversations, Department of Agriculture gave us some great um, insights and and gave us some heads up on some future funding. And actually, during this board workshop, their team over there emailed um, me at 2:29 p.m. a memo specific for specifically for Lee County School District on grants that we are eligible for and they outlined them for us. So, we'll take a dive into that. And we also previewed the Alva High School opening in 2027 dedicated to what we called a technology. They are calling it a precision. And so we are going to slowly shift over to that with that terminology. But um they are excited to hear what is happening at the Alva High School and they truly believe it could become a model for the nation. They were super excited to hear

151about what we're doing um as a district. And with the federal advocacy update, um I'll end it with, as I keep saying, the information that we gathered, the insights, um the continued conversations even leaving DC, the information that they're giving to us, um not even when we request it. It it's it's a gamecher for us. It's positioning us uh very well and um they are not afraid to help us when when we need some assistance and we're greatly appreciative for that. And so with that, that concludes our legislative update for today. Um, we're just we're proud of what we've accomplished as a team. And by team, it's just not Luke and I, it's you as board members, it's our superintendent, it's many of the folks on our cabinet as well. It's it's a all hands-on

152deck approach, especially when you're talking about a 60-day session and things are moving rapidly. Um, thank you for working and engaging with us throughout these advocacy efforts. um your partnership is critical and at this time we'll take any questions, comments and if we can't answer them now, we'll get you your follow-up information. >> Dr. Carlin, >> thank you very much. Uh first of all, thank you to Miss Hulahan and Mr. Stronginger for uh the work [clears throat] that you do. Uh want to publicly recognize you both. Uh there is a tremendous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. Uh while this is a briefing and you're getting a chance to come out into the light, I do want to let you know that I really appreciate every single thing that you do. Um

153you are working feverishly behind the scenes getting meetings uh keeping us up to date and so just tremendous appreciation to you both for your work. Uh having said that, also want to thank our board members. You know, you go up to Tallahassee. Uh you know, obviously Mr. um Persons just went to DC with Chief Nulan and with Mrs. Hulahan. I know Mr. um Fischer has gone in the past. We've had other board members that have gone up there as well. So, just thank you all because it's really a team effort. There's no one person that is going to get all of this across the finish line. And so, it really does require um all of us working hand in hand. I do want to give a very special shout out. We went through a tremendous

154amount of wins starting on page four of the presentation. I do want to give uh a tremendous shout out uh particularly around the expansion of the definition of educational emergency to now include persistently low schools allowing us to provide those incentives for teachers. Um that is a a tremendous effort not only started with the board going to Tallahassee and talking about um the need for all of our children to have high-quality teachers, not just some. I live on the McGregor corridor. It's fantastic that those schools have been properly staffed. It is very unfortunate that we've had a history in this district of um schools that haven't had appropriate amounts of teachers that they've remained unstaffed. 13 vacancies, 17 vacancies, 20 vacancies when I came into office. Um I think we would all agree that has

155been turned on a dime. And I would I would argue that a a tremendous part of that has to do with our ability to retain high-quality teachers in all of our schools, including the schools where children traditionally struggle. So, a huge shout out to our Governor Dannis, to uh Commissioner of Education Kumutz, to our legislative delegation, particularly um Representative Person Mullica, who stepped up in a huge way for us, Senator Martin and others that uh definitely jumped out on that bill and helped to get all of that across the finish line. Just a tremendous appreciation to them. And also, I'd be remiss, sometimes we take hits um out in the court of public opinion. Once in a while, a few likes on Facebook around our lobbyists, I will share with you. We have relationships. There's

156no doubt about it. But we don't have all of the relationships. Listen to what occurred in Washington DC. I have never heard us talk about those types of meetings on any level. On any level. And now all of these millions of dollars have been opened up to our school district so that we can apply for those in areas we care about career and technical education with our new high school getting that noticed up in Washington DC and now Miss Hulahan's getting emails from organizations from from folks up in DC saying hey this is a wonderful grant for y'all to apply to. We have their ear. that doesn't happen just because I happen to walk into DC or any of us walk into DC. Relationships matter. And so I will just give a big shout out

157to our Ballard partners, our team, uh both at the state and federal level. Um they have opened doors for us that were not open before. And because of that, our children are winning. So thank you very much for allowing me to take a moment. U Chair Ribble. And with that, we'll turn it over to you for your comments and your questions, >> Miss Jordan. >> Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you for the presentation. I have two questions, please. The professional learning um HB 851, is there funding attached to that that we have to have the um it's a required now? >> Hold on. I'm looking through it. A51. >> And if you can I mean, you don't have to tell me right now, but >> we'll follow up with that one on you for the

158autism training. Yep. >> We'll follow up. Yep. because I it it looks like it's required but where's the funding at? >> And then the other one um with the grants a year ago I was up in Washington. Miss Person was there as well uh when I had gone up there and we spoke with uh Miss Tracy actually was there and we spoke about the grants for the egg >> at that time. That's a year ago. So, at if you could actually look to see where we're at from a year ago on those certain uh grants because I know you said that they've opened them up now, but it would be great to uh to find out where we left off a year ago with those. >> Absolutely. And something to share with the board that

159I think you'll enjoy hearing is especially as we started to learn this federal side of how things work with the grants and everything. This this is new for the school district. it was new for me as well. So, we've actually worked with um and continue to work with our grants department, our uh amazing CFO has stepped up too and in the conversation and we're thankful for that. And then also some of our cabinet members. It's kind of an all hands-on deck. We're all coming up with systems and processes, procedures when we get some of these big grants, what is the best way for us to go after them, tackle them, and making sure that we are um not letting them fall through the cracks. So, absolutely. >> No, I appreciate that. And then my last

160thing, I I really appreciate the fact that you said advocacy matters. It does matter and it does matter that when we are advocating that we have the uh correct information to advocate with. So, thank you for mentioning that as well. Appreciate that. >> Okay, Michelle. >> Yeah. >> Um yeah, thank you for all the information. And I know again we've had our one-on- ones and have touched on a few of these things specifically, but um I think again highlighting when we talk about our lobbyists and you know our government relations team, again I've gone up to Tallahassee now twice and I think it's fair to say yes, we have great relationships with our local um but we're one of 67 school districts who also have relationships, I should hope, with their local representatives and when

161they're going to the state and they're hitting the floor and they're advocating They're also advocating for their districts and we're meeting with Miami Dade and Penllis and we're meeting with all of the representatives that I personally do not have relationships with when we go to Tallahassee and those are done through our government relations teams and we're asking them to put Lee County in a position sometimes maybe ahead of their own and why. So I think it's important yes advocacy matters, relationships matter. Um, and I would like to say like we know a lot of people. We don't know all of the people and there's no way I think when you know it's part of our job. I don't think there's any way for all of us to have all of those solid relationships in Tallahassee

162or even in DC to be able to get that meeting, get in the door, sit down, have our talking points, and really position it to say like why Lee County of one of 67 takes priority over all the others when everyone else is listening to their constituents as well. So again, I I always say thank you and and thank you for championing um a lot of the key things I've gone after for CTE again for for growth here. Um you know, Alba being one of those with Agg um there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of money that is out on that table specifically federally that we've never touched before. And again, I appreciate that you can say like this is new and we are learning and we are doing the things, but

163I think it was a smart move on this board to go after those federal dollars, especially understanding and seeing after our capital, you know, explanation, our budget, how much dollars we're not getting, but we still have a lot of students that we need to support and we have teachers that we need to support and there's money out there and we're not going to get it if we don't know where to find it and where to and where to ask for it. So, just thank you for that. Thank you for highlighting that. Thank you for the board for going after that. Um, and understanding that there's relationships outside of our own that we have to tap into. And I've told our CFO and I've told our government relations team, I don't I will go and ask

164anyone for money and appropriations all day, every day and tell them why we need it over every single other district. I am happy to I say beg, borrow, and steal. I will beg. Borrowing and stealing. I don't know. But I am happy to beg for this district, for our teachers, for our students, for what we need. I just want to make sure that, you know, when we get those dollars, I never want to give money back. So, I want to just make sure we're using it and being good stewards of those dollars and just really working cohesively as a board and as a cabinet to go over every possible opportunity and grant out there because the money is out there. We just have to be willing to maybe roll up our sleeves a little more

165and dig um to get those dollars, but at the end, we benefit 100%. So, just thank you for that and thank you for everything. That's all. Well, Chrissy, thank you so much for your passion. Boy, you have no idea how it does radiate from everything you just said. Seriously, like you just were like this and that was impressive. So, I just want to give that kudos especially because uh I I know and feel your passion and and I appreciate it completely. >> Thank you. >> Um second of all, I just first of all, thank you. You know how I have been on this Maha movement thing. So, thank you for giving us a little bit of that. I um because I'm all on on all the Zooms with Dr. Berg and Dr. It was golly

166and Dr. Oz. They're all all of them are all on this including Kennedy. But, um I just want to thank you for that. But, um and I thought it was interesting. A pre P precision. Is that what So, I I'm excited to hear more about that and what >> your email was about. >> It's how they're branding it. That's uh so we went so it's pretty much what we were saying a technology but the way the department of labor is going to start branding it with them is uh a precision and what they've asked for us is because of like I said earlier they're seeing our Alva high school a as a model for the nation they want us to start using kind of their verbiage as well. So yeah so we're we're slowly we

167worked with cabinet and stuff where we're going to start getting that verbiage out there a little bit more. >> Um I think that's great. Um, the other thing I was I know I I was told that with federal money there's earmarks with uh Congressman Donald's. I know he's kind of busy, but can you like investigate that more? I don't know what the details are, but I know that there there's money there, but it's through the congressman. So, ever how that is. And then um I am excited to hear about the safety grant a little more in detail on what that is like. What what are the money that's a possibility there from that grant that you mentioned that they told you about? I think that's exciting. >> The dollar amount. >> Yeah. >> Um up

168to $5 million. >> Oh, yep. Yep. That is that is the max. And that is something um there are some caveats depending on what we're specifically we're asking for, but I have a one pager on that I can provide for you, but Chief Nulan and his team are already diving into that with Tracy. >> That's great because that was really important. I think that amount is really really important. The possibility of that. Um I think that's it. I just wanted like again I just wanted to thank you for the your passion about the trip and everything that you just brought forward. So thank you. Thank you in your presentation. Miss >> Person, why don't you go Sam first then I'll go Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair. They uh uh gonna echo what everyone else

169said uh to Mrs. Hulahan, Mr. Strowinger, as well as Ballard. Thank you so much. Uh the money part is great, but I think the biggest thing especially for the public to understand is I will use your term, Mrs. Hulahan, the seat at the table that we had for policy. Because of that, you know, we were able to, you know, get across teacher incentives. Uh, give our marching band students an alternative with PE. Uh, make sure that we had school counselors that were not going to lose because of, you know, ownorous certification issues. Those things are vital and I want to make sure to to thank you and make sure the public understands that part because they hear the money part, but the policy really is a truly part that has a lasting impact. So, I

170want to thank all of you. Thanks. Thank you. I'll give you my great insights. First off, going to the Department of Education, you can imagine you were going to meet with somebody in a room here in the district on a Sunday. You walk in the door and there's maybe one security guard there and you see nobody else. You walk all through the building, there's nobody there. And there's just floor after floor after floor after floor of that up at the Department of Education. That building is going up for sale shortly. I understand. And uh that's just where it is. They have moved everything to different agencies. It's night and day difference at the federal level versus the state level. If you want funding or you want anything done at the state level, you go to

171your legislators, your senator, you know, everybody up there and the governor. You want something done at the federal level, you have to go to all these different uh departments that we went to. That's just the way it works. They have the grants. There's no budget. So, there's very little funding that a congressman can do because normally the congressman adds that to a budget. there isn't a budget. There's a continuing resolution and that's pretty much it. So, it's it's a really odd type thing. But the response that we got, there's no one else doing this. Well, when Debbie and I went up there in the fall with the state uh for a federal relations meeting, we were up there. Where did we go? We didn't go to any departments. We went to all the different senators

172and congressmen and told them what we wanted and this and that and everybody was nice. Nice photo op and that was it. You made good relations but nothing else really came of that to my knowledge on the federal level. And I met with Debbie and I I remember going as we went over there to meet with Ballard. I said, "We need to get with these federal agencies." And we asked them to start setting up something like that. [cough] And after this trip, I firmly believe that grants don't come to you, you have to go after them. And that's a huge difference. And there's many many out there. And it's a very concl. Luckily, we have a good grants department, good communications department, good governmental affairs, and all the different department heads. And I think we'll

173do that. We are new to this compared to someone like Miami Dade who's bringing in like $50 million last year. They have it down. They've been going up there for years and they know how it works. So, this isn't something we invented to say, "Oh, why don't we go hire a lobbyist and why don't we take a trip up to DC?" That's what they're doing and it's working. And I think what you have to do in anything from academics to anything else, if someone's doing it better, copy them or Vanessa would say, steal it. But, uh, whatever they're doing and if it's working, you want to copy it and see if it works for you. And I'm I'm really proud of our team putting all this together and our lobbyists because that was a lot

174of meetings to do in a short period of time. And we got it with the right people, you know, and the Department of Labor. We were at the assistant secretary of labor. You can't get much higher than that. And I might mention he's a Florida guy, so that worked out real well. And I just remember and then I'll stop so I don't want to go too long. I just want to say that uh he says you know until recently no one ever came to us and now every agency is saying go to department of labor go to department of labor because they have been given most of the grants to oversee from the department of education. So we are well ahead of just about anybody in Florida, probably pretty much in the nation because they

175were so excited to see us. So great job. Thank you. >> Any other comments on this topic? Yeah, go ahead. >> Real quick, um to one qu I had a question regarding the athletics um uh one what was it? House uh Senate bill sub 178. Um if I could just get more details on that. I'm just curious about how that's going to how that's going to work with co um coaches and personal funds through the you know I think that was the one is that the >> yeah that's it >> for the booster clubs can pay >> th a couple of those especially in the athletics um as we wait for FHSAA guidelines and also our legal team along with our athletics team here they're all diving into it so we'll get together and give

176you an update >> that's all I ask that thank you >> okay hearing no other comments thank you very much great presentation very enlightening. Next on the agenda is our policy review briefing. Uh first reading presented by Robert Dodie. Good afternoon. Just waiting for Dr. Johnston to approach the dis if there are any questions. There are six policies today for first reading. They are actually two policies from three different chapters with one sentence added to the leaves policy, leaves of absence and one sentence added to the FMLA leave policy which clarifies that you are not necessarily exempt from surplus list or um job reductions if you're on leave. you can still be eligible for those things while on leave. And um that language came about during this season because of uh um some things that

177came about. So that that's um those are the changes. It's one sentence and it's first reading and it'll be if there's no changes, it'll be on the agenda for the 21st of July. >> Dr. Carlin, any comments? Any questions from the board? Okay, moving right along. >> Thanks, >> Dr. Johnson. Ne Next next we have Next, we have our code of ethics presented by our school board attorney, Robert Dodic. >> Okay, I think I think Miss Lata is going to go over and run the PowerPoint so I don't have to get up. Um, let me pull it up here. So annually the schoolboard attorney does a presentation on ethics for the board and the superintendent. That is this presentation. I was bumped a month ago when we had the long when we had the long

178meeting. Um so this um is about 15 slides long. It won't be that long. I'll ask you to if you want to ask questions during the middle of it that's fine or wait till the end. Um, oh, I just wanted to first say I am proud of my um skills with AI. I did this presentation, so I I I probably used about two tons of water or I don't know how much power to get it done, but I'm proud of myself. [gasps] So, the um foundation of public trust and the blueprint of integrity is what we're going to talk about. This will provide a practical reference guide for navigating Florida's code of ethics to protect the public trust. Slide two. The foundation of public trust. The system itself rests on two pillars. Article 2, section

1798 of the Florida Constitution, which mandates a code of ethics to prevent conflicts of interest and establishes pension losses for breaches of trust. and the Commission on Ethics, a nine-member body that issues opinions and handles complaints. Interesting point is it cannot initiate a complaint. The code of ethics, they have to receive a complaint from somewhere else or some other person before they investigate it. They cannot initiate complaints themselves. Slide three, who is governed and the training mandate. The code covers public officers such as schoolboard members and the superintendent, public employees such of all such as all of us, local government attorneys, that's not a schoolboard attorney, that's a local government attorney, and certain charter school personnel such as their board members. These individuals must complete four hours of annual ethics training covering the constitution, ethics,

180and public records meetings with a March 31st deadline of each year for those in office on that date, which I think you're all aware of. And if you're not, I can certainly answer questions about that um outside of the meeting. Slide four, defining the key terms or the core lexicon. Key terms are defined to ensure clarity. An agency includes state departments or boards, a school district. For teachers, the agency, it is their specific school that they work at, not the um school district. The word participate means any attempt to influence a decision. And a sp special private gain or loss refers to any economic benefit. She's on the wrong slide. I'm sorry. [laughter] Okay. refers to any economic benefit or harm affecting the officer, a relative or a business associate. Okay, I would point out

181the definition of relative versus immediate family. Immediate family is a simple, it's a narrow definition which is parent, spouse, child or sibling. a relative which is in some of the uh statutes a relative um cannot be influenced and that's a broad brower broader scope which includes in-laws, husband and wife, brother or sister. Sorry Lata, next slide. Okay, let's talk about standards of conduct. This is the gift filter. Florida law utilizes a fourgate filter for gifts. There is an absolute flat ban on quidd proquo exchanges which I think you probably are aware Latin in Latin means you do something for me I'll do something for you that is absolutely prohibited and gifts from polit political action committees which carry a triple value penalty if you accept a gift from a political act action committee soliciting gifts

182from lobbyists or vendors is also banned key term soliciting you can't accept accept a ban. I mean, sorry, you can accept a gift, but anything over $100 is prohibited. So, you can accept a gift from a lobbyist or a vendor. You just can't ask for it or solicit it or say, "Hey, could you get me one of those?" That is absolutely prohibited. Other gifts over $100 must be reported quarterly. Slide six. Boundaries of business and employment. There are strict zones of restriction. Zone one to the left prohibits purchasing or leasing goods for your agency from a business where you or a close relative, and that's the one definition, own more than 5% of the business, and that's considered a material interest in the business. Zone two prohibits holding employment with an entity regulated by or

183doing business with your agency if it would impede your public duties. Next slide. The misuse of position equation. Misuse of position is defined by four elements which are clearly there on the slide. one, corruptly using one's official position or resources to obtain a special benefit, which is number three, for oneself or others. Okay, that's defined in the statute. Now, here's a example that doesn't involve money because often we think money, money, money. Well, a call out example notes that seeking sexual favors because of your position or in your position qualifies as a benefit under the statute. There is literally a case that talks about that. So, um, slide eight, navigating voting conflicts. When a vote brings special private gain or loss, no really need to talk about state officers. That's to the left. That's the

184form that state officers have to fill out when they have a conflict for you all local officers. We have to do a form 8B. And this has happened. It's happened to me as a board attorney. It's happened in the district or as as a board. You must per publicly state the nature of the conflict to the assembly prior to the vote being taken. You must then abstain from voting. Typically, we ask the board member to leave the room. And then after you do that, you have to file a disclosure with the state within 15 days after the vote as to why you abstain because under Florida law, you cannot abstain from a vote. Okay? As you know, you guys vote on everything. That's because you have to under the law. You can't simply say, "Oh,

185I abstain." There's no such thing for schoolboard members in Florida. Next slide. Slide nine. anti- anti- neepotism and dual office holding officials are blocked from appointing, promoting, or advocating for a relative. Sometimes abstaining from a vote is not enough if advocacy occurred. Additionally, no employee may serve on their own agency's governing body. So, in other words, you cannot be a staff member of the school district and be on the school board. And we have had um individuals who have run while employed and then had to resign to be a schoolboard member once they won. Next slide. Slide 10. Procurement and contractual firewalls. Agency employees involved in procurement such as our pro procurement department or auditing drafting specifications for for procurement items cannot be employed by the person or entity contracting with the agency. Pretty simple

186concept. Furthermore, a nepatism firewall prevents procuring services from a business where a relative has a material interest more than 5%. Okay. So, had a case years ago where a staff member in special ed wanted to contract with her husband's business did something for children. I can't remember exactly what and she didn't think she was a an owner of the business. We checked on Sunbiz and she actually owned more than 5% of the business. So, we she could not um be permitted to do that. Um transparency. Next slide. Sorry. Transparency through financial disclosures. Disclosures are intended to deter corruption and build trust. You all board members have to do form six which requires a sworn statement of net worth and a tax return. Form one is the limited form. That's what our principles have to do.

187Um so even if no interest exists, the forms must be filed and marked not applicable. So even if something on that form doesn't apply to you, you write not applicable and still file the form. Now, typically my office has the sport attorney has collected um your forms, a copy of them. So, if you if you have a new one and you want to submit it, provide it to me, um we'll take it and scan it and and have it in our system in case we get somehow asked or um inquired about that. Um Kathy had collected them for you all. Next, business interest and client disclosures. This slide details quarterly requirements for disclosing clients represented for a fee before the go a government agency. It also notes that honoraria related expenses for speeches or writings

188must be disclosed annually. You can accept honoraras. You just have to disclose them if someone is is paying you to speak. Next slide. Postemployment cooling off periods. And we have one within the district also that I'll talk about in a minute. There is a lifetime ban on employment regarding specific contracts an official participated in personally and substantially. So if you participated or someone here worked on something and participated personally and substantially in the district business, they would be banned from from working on that item or that employed by that agency. A two-year ban applies to contracts within an officials general responsibility and representing entities for compensation before their former agency. We have a similar policy that if I were to leave here, for instance, I could not represent someone before the school board for two

189years. Okay, so that's in our our board policy. Next slide and we're almost done. Penalties. The cost of structural failure, penalties, public officers face impeachment, removal, or salary forfeite up to a third of your salary for 12 months and fines up to $10,000. Public employees themselves face dismissal, demotion, or suspension. Conversely, those who file, this is important, that box down there, those who file materially false complaints with malicious intent are liable for the officials legal fees. Hypothetically, a complaint is filed that is meets all of those categories. They're material false and there was an intent to be malicious to maliciously intend to injure the public officer, an individual can get their attorney's fees if in fact that's the case. So, that's a relatively new section of the of the code of ethics. The difficult thing

190is it's a real high hurdle and the ethics commission has said that even if something might be false, if it wasn't said to maliciously injure you, you're not going to collect your attorney's fees. Yep. Slide 15. The ultimate penalty, pension forfeite. Conviction of a felony involving a breach of public trust, embezzlement or bribery essentially results in the forfeite of all retirement rights and benefits. There is a legal precedent that establishes that the time of the offense is what controls the forfeite, not the date of conviction. So, if the thing goes on forever and you're eventually convicted, well, it's going to go all the way back till you violated the law for the forfeiture. Um, and that's all I have. And if any of you have questions, I'd be happy to answer them or try to.

191>> Nothing for >> any comments from the board or questions. [clears throat] >> Robert, I actually found that interesting. I thought be bored stiff have being we have to take a course every year for for the state. There there was some new stuff and or not really new but explained differently and I appreciate that. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other comments? >> Okay. If not, moving right along, we'll go right into a public comment. Mr. Dodic. >> Yes. From what I can tell, there is no public comment today, sir. >> Oh, very good. So, for the good of the order, other business, we'll now [clears throat] hear from our board members, Mr. Fischer. >> Uh, I'll hold my comments to tonight, sir. Keelli, >> I don't have a lot either, but I do

192want I wanted to bring up for conversation is um you know our monthly meetings like last month our meetings were so long I think we could have had a second meeting um to because the agenda is just longer around the beginning the end of school and kind of the beginning of school and I don't know if we should tenatively I was going to suggest maybe tentatively every other month maybe have a singled out. It was something I was going to talk to superintendent about. And then whether we use it or we don't, we have that availability um on the calendar. Um and it was just something I thought I'd bring up because it's just I feel like our meeting was long and um there's just a lot on the agenda in planning for the end

193of the year and the beginning of the year. And that's really it for me. But thank you. >> Okay. Okay, mine's going to be just a a minute longer. Uh, this um past week I had brought something forward. I had sent a request of Okay, we have a the district budget uh advocacy. This is regarding advocacy. I sit on the um the Florida school board association and you all know that for the legislation and advocacy as well. And we, the Florida School Board Association, the CFOs of Florida and superintendent, everybody was trying to get together and pull a template together to have information. So that way when we are out there and we're advocating that we have um the correct information pertaining to our districts so that way it allows us to advocate better. So

194I sent a email to um our CFO who in come July 1st we have a different law because of the bill of rights of the superintendent of the uh school board association of the school boards period. But I just sent a uh an email asking is there any way that we can get this information as many of the district is sharing so that we can speak as a state. It was not a directive uh which I was told that I was directing staff, but this was just me asking is there any way that we can get this? After that took place, I um had my one-on-one and lo and behold, the attorney was in the room with us. So, I guess my my problem with that is and I'm going to I'll just read what

195I what I have. >> If I could just not me. >> No, I'm sorry. the superintendent's attorney was in the room uh with me and I I kind of joked about it and I said, "Oh, hi. Do I need to have my attorney in this room?" And um and then I proceeded on. Then I was approached with the um what I had sent the advocacy template that I had was um that I had sent. I was shown this. But I just let me just read this. Last week I requested budget information from the CFO using the FSBA development form to fulfill my responsibility as a board member. I understand concerns were raised about whether the requests followed the established process for obtain obtaining information from staff. I take those concerns seriously and appreciate the discussion

196that clarified expectations and reinforced the importance of following agreed upon procedures. [snorts] Access to accurate, timely information is essential to our roles as schoolboard members. I hope that we can continue working collaborative collaboratively to ensure board members receive the information they need while respecting established processes. I remain committed to maintaining a positive work relationship with the superintendent and staff and will continue to make informed decisions in the best interest of our students, employees, and community. In saying that, um, after I left the meeting, because it kind of like upset me that we were even having this kind of conversation with an attorney, I did take my paper and I I'm going to be honest, I tore it in half and said I would not ask for this information for the FSBA. However, I would ask

197for it for myself. Later uh y the next day I received a letter from the superintendent's office you know telling me about the policies and the protocol manuals and I just witnessed it today appear when Melissa was speaking again being armed with Miss Juvenelli being armed with the policy of word policy 11:30 as she was speaking. So I guess my whole reason for sharing this is that I would hope that in the future if this were to happen again that I would have enough notice to make sure that I had our attorney in there with me and that if I am going to be asked to have such things that this would take place across the board and not just for individual members. um when there is a a disagreement or you're not liking what

198is being or it's not being liked what I'm asking because I will continue to ask questions because I believe that is my job and I I just needed to put that out there. So, thank you very much. Mr. Ribble, if if I may respond, I think uh it would be very appropriate because the comment was directed to me. If I may. Thank you. I just want to clarify a couple of things. First of all, uh Miss Jordan, thank you for bringing this forward uh at the dis. I think it's very important that we talk about these types of things. The very first thing is at the top of the form, uh was a place for my name and for chairperson's name. And so, uh what I would respectfully request is that that is brought to

199me directly before you direct my staff on what is to be done. And I just want to clarify, I do have a copy of what your email said basically. You know, can I get this information? And I'm I'm I'm paraphrasing and I can pull it out and read it directly. But basically the request was can you get this information for me essentially. Okay. And I can I'll dig through my paperwork and find it. But there was a request of her to get information. The challenge I had is number one that was the first time I had seen it. My name was going to be at the top. Number two, chairperson's name was going to be at the top. Number three, the recommendation was to bring that here to the board so that there could be

200a discussion because on the very last page there was a request that it was going to come from the district. So it wasn't just going to be from you, but it was going to be from all of the members of the governance team. So just out of courtesy and respect, I would not certainly put your name on anything and not bring it to directly to you. Um I would re I would respectfully request the same same courtesy. The second thing is on the form there was more information requested than just financial information. If you look on page, I believe it was two or three, there were district achievement um student achievement requests around that. Uh my CFO does not um work in the area of student achievement. So that would require some additional information from

201my other staff. There was also uh requested information for enrollment. Uh she is not in charge of enrollment. That would be another one of my staff members. So what I would just request is I have no problem certainly understand the board uh bill board member bill of rights. I want you to have the information for the CFO so you can make informed decisions as a board member on items that come before you. You are certainly entitled to that. However, when my name goes on something as an elected official and a colleague, Mr. Person's name goes on and when there is a district request, I would just follow up with let's have that discussion here at the board table so we can we can comply with that. So, very happy to do that. Just want to

202make sure that we make the right request to my right staff member. Um and certainly that request had um items that she would not have been able to provide you. And so again, just courtesy as the CEO of the organization to bring it to me and then I would be happy to get it to all appropriate staff uh with the at the pleasure of the board. And if we have that conversation today and you all direct me as the superintendent to get that information for FSBA, then I certainly will take direction from the board. So thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you uh Dr. Carlin and as it stands right now when we are heading to FSBA this week this uh conversation will come up again and it is definitely about advocacy and I would

203never have anybody sign anybody's name off on anything. My question was merely can we get this information period that's all I needed to know. I didn't ask her to fill out anything. I just needed to know is this something that we can get because other people were getting it and that was the end of it. But I think the the the main thing for me is the fact that if we are to have attorneys in the room with us, we all need to be aware that we uh in advance so that way we're not kind of what was this sidebar? I can't remember uh what the word was used today. um like caught off guard and that way we are prepared for whatever that that conversation will be. That's the only thing that I'm asking

204for for all of us actually. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Chairman. If I may, just uh one more response if I may. Two things uh just points of clarification. One would be um the reason that our um chief staff attorney was in the room and I shared this with you in the meeting was to check my understanding of the board member bill of rights. So, it was not there to provide uh legal assistance to you. It was to make sure that I was following the board member bill of rights. So, I wanted to make sure that was abundantly clear. And then the um request to to my staff member was I'm not sure that I share this with you. Is there any way we can get this information as many of the district is sharing

205so that we can speak as a state? Um my team member took that as direction because basically is there any way we can get this information? she took that as you know basically you're directing her uh work and what I would say about that is again just a courtesy if you bring it to me and we have the conversation at the table the board directs this information very happy to provide it but I will tell you the request will go outside of our CFO she'll certainly have some information she provides but I'll need to get with a couple of other staff members to make sure it's complete but again I'll take direction from the board thank you >> person >> yeah I'll jump in front of Sam this time. Um, >> excuse me, Mr. Persons.

206We're have doing board comments and there is a protocol. >> He already He already >> That's true. >> Uh, anyway, what I would like I'd like to chime in on this a little bit. I know I have in the past asked for information, but I've always gone to this the superintendent and I believe the best way to have done this would probably been to send an email to all of us maybe with this attached to it so we could all see it what they were asking and then uh asked the superintendent because it is I I just glanced at it saw for the first time today. I'd not done anything about it and there's a lot of departments involved in it. So, it is comprehensive. I personally don't have any problem with filling it out.

207And I bringing it to us is definitely what the advocacy position does. >> You know, it's just sort of bypassed the superintendent's office and it made a little bit of a problem there. So, um, we I think just all of us need to realize not to direct or ask staff, you know, I I always send things to the superintendent's office first and it gets done in a timely manner. U you know, so I'm very happy with that process and that's the way I think it should be done. Uh, the rest of my comments I'll save for tonight. Thank you. >> Okay, back. Mr. Fisher, do you want to comment on that? >> Well, yeah, there Mr. Chair, there was a topic that was brought up. input requested. >> My bad. I apologize. >> That's all

208I meant. So, I just that's the same thing. I was can we get a copy of that? I want to see what the purpose is and I don't understand why we'd be invoking the the board member bill of rights. That were my questions. >> If I could just I can help you there. >> Yeah. >> Number two in the board member bill of rights is that a board member can consult with the CFO. So I think that's perhaps why also I think because the board member walked in and there was an attorney in the room. So and evidently the reason the attorney was in there is because the superintendent want the board member bill of rights to be explained. So that's why it came up. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Now guess what? I get

209to weigh on the topic. I'm going to I'm going to go out of out of order here. I'm going to weigh on this topic because I had a I had a graph. In fact, I got it from you, Armor, off your website, Facebook page about 10 months ago, and it's a it's a graph that shows the superintendent superintendent's responsibility, and it shows the board members responsibility. And and I I know where you got it from. You got it from FSBA because every time we go up there, they spend a half an hour talking about that same thing because in each and every at each and every school board at some point in time, just like this past week, we have a conflict over that. Now, we get these questionnaires all the time from S FSBA.

210I get them all the time. I I just got put on a committee and I just got a form the other day I'm looking at, but I want to get up there and talk about it with with the peers that are on on this committee. But [snorts] I would like us all to go back and revisit that poster. You know, is this a superintendent's responsibility or our responsibility? Because I hate to have a situation where I can't go in and meet with a superintendent unless I have Mr. Dota with me. I mean, we're getting into that. We're not a team anymore and we're all a team here. We all got to get along. So, I just want to weigh on that. You know, I'm a big one on on civility. Melissa, I didn't want to

211upset you earlier when I made the point of order, but I want to be fair with all the folks on our staff that come here and stay on topic. And if we have other topics, we can bring him at the end and ask the superintendent or staff during our comments that you want to see uh this thing addressed, whatever it may be at the next meeting. So, I'll rest my case on that. Moving right along, Mrs. Fleming, you're up. >> I'll reserve my comments for this evening. She >> I'm doing the same. >> And I'm doing the same. Okay, moving right along here. We have Mr. Dodig. >> Yeah, just briefly, Miss G. Vanelli brought up board meetings, schedule time. Um, I have had a conversation with a bunch of you one-on-one. Um, I would

212just ask with the election coming, if there's going to be decisions made that that conversation take place in November perhaps at the organizational meeting. >> Um, hopefully you'll all be here. Um, because I think doing it now would not make much sense, frankly. So, that's all I have. Thank you. >> Sounds good to me. >> Any other comments on that? >> Okay, Mr. Person. >> Yeah, you sure can. I think that the last meeting the biggest problem was there were so many recognitions that just added to almost 45 minutes to >> the workshop >> to well the workshop was long too but but the meeting itself it just all ran in together there. Um so I was just going to ask that we not do that many recognitions at one time to somehow space them

213out and I know that's tough at the end of the year but that was all I just wanted to make that point. Thank you, >> Dr. [clears throat] Carla. You get the last word. >> Thank you very much. I'll reserve my comments for this evening. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Move right along. Uh future meeting events, we have a school board meeting tonight at 6:00 and at this point hearing no other business. The meeting is now adjourned. The time is 3:52.