001your shield of protection around each of our schools, our students and staff. Thank you for our many blessings. Forgive us of our sins in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Okay. Agenda. Do we have any changes, Miss? >> Uh, yes, Mr. Chairman. The town school visit is going to be rescheduled for another day. >> Okay. All right. Y'all heard the change? No. Y town visit today. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> So move. >> Second. >> All right. Move and second. All in favor say I. >> All those same sign. Motion passes. All right. Welcome everyone. Um I'll get
002stuck with me today since Ashley's gone. So hopefully I can fumble through this thing and we get it done. So um appreciate that. It looks like um Kim you're first. That's late. Good morning. >> Morning. >> We're going to start off with a really exciting topic. And this presentation is a little longer than normal because I think the information is so important that I want to go through more than I normally do, but also interject and ask questions at any point. So, let's back up real quick and look at the >> crime details. You should have when I attached it. >> I have it. >> Okay. >> Let's see. Maybe refresh. >> Okay. >> Sorry. I did I did attach it first thing this morning. Thank you, ma'am. >> That's it. >> Thank you. So
003we have five calculations that are based on five surveys and the calculations are also based on estimates of those surveys and actuals of those surveys. So lots of times you may hear comments uh from schools that talk about maybe their FT their student population is up and funding is not catching up to that because uh Mr. Bennett and I are tasked in January of the prior year to send a to the states. We are given several different uh data points that we can choose from, most of which show declining enrollment more or less in your district schools and growth in your scholarships. And we are pretty much held to those. So, we are paid on those estimates. We are not paid on who shows up in August until October and February if they're still there.
004That makes sense. So, what that means is the first is what's being worked on right now. All the legisl legislation going on and the budget those estimates will be used to create a first calculation depending on whether it's the Senate bill or the house bill that first calculation will come out. So my budget uh workshops are built on that first calculation. By the time I see you at our tentative the second calculation has dropped. The second calculation only has one actual and the actual is survey one which is summer. So really for us there's not much of a yeah nothing. It doesn't impact us. So the only change you normally will see in that calculation is local dollars because that's when they settle on the rle and we know exactly how much our local dollars
005are going to be. So my proposed and my tenitive will be captured in that um second calculation. Third calculation is estimated or actual for the October count. So we have survey two in October. [music] So when the third calculation drops which is what I just received it is actual survey one which nothing for us and survey two which is our October student population and it is still estimates for survey three which is February and survey four which is at the end of the year. Um and then the third calcul or fourth calculation is what's coming up. That's based on actual the February count. So actual October and actual February and there's still an estimate for uh survey for. So what we're that will be captured and I'll get that in April and we'll have a
006final adjustment to our FFP based on that. And then the final calculation is that fifth calculation and it comes about November of the prior year and it uh shows how we ended the entire year. So it has all actuals all surveys are actuals and that adjustment becomes your prior year adjustment that you see in the third calculation. It's a lot of information but just is important to understand how we get the money, how the money flows, and why the money doesn't always match what's going on in the So our FFP has a base funding component. This is what is we call above the line. It's where you take the unweighted FTE, multiply that by the program cost factors, which we'll get to that in just a minute, and that becomes a weighted FTE. That weighted
007FTE is then multiplied by the base student allocation and then by the comparable wage factor or small district factor in our case, and then you get a base FEP. But when we about the BSA. That is the base student allocation and that is prior to um the waiting and this year's BSA is $5,372. Real quick, program cost factors are used to ensure an equitable share of funds in relationship to the cost of that particular program. So K through 12 or CAPE or ESAU or ESE and these are the program cost factors this year and this is what this adds to the BSA based on the program which is your weighted your weighted funding brings these amounts into play. So you can see program 101 111. 111 is the ESE students in K through three. 112
008is the same same theory. It's the uh fourth through 8th grade ESE students, but they are programmatically their cost factors are exactly the same whether you're a 102 or 112. But we know it costs more to educate a 112 and that comes into play in a minute in a categorical. But you can see on this that you get about more per student that is in that K through three band. Your 1.0 is the four fourth through eighth grade band. So, it is identical to the BSA that I just uh read to you. You lose $150 a student for that 9 through 12 band because they must be cheaper to educate in some form or fashion. And these uh program cost factors are adjusted every year based on a cost report that the district does, all
009districts do at the end of the year. It's due by statute. So that's how these program cost factors get adjusted. And it's important to remember when you have a BSA when they start talking right now about the BSA growth. >> They're also adjusting the program cost factors. So our growth is usually never exactly the dollar amount that they're saying. That's attached to the BSA. And then you come in with the program cost factors and you do the Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. So, Esau, you get about $887 more per student. Uh, career cape 435 more per student. And then you can see our heavy tiers for ESSE support and those amounts for them. And this is why you will hear Mr. Bennett really, we really want to make sure these kids are categorized correctly.
010Want to make sure their IEPs are done correctly. Want to make sure that saw that the person serving them has the credentials they need because that all impacts how we can them. >> So the comparable wage factor went away a couple years ago. It's still there for some districts, but Levy gets a small district factor of 1.0373 and that adds $20040 to each student. This that was done when they rolled those categorical up into BSA and it it clearly showed that some of those ru rural districts were going to be at a disadvantage if we kept the uh comparable wage factor because ours was less than one. Is there any factor that they set the BSA on or is it just kind of I mean I know it's I mean I'm sure it increases but
011is it just kind of >> I I don't know there's how they're coming up with setting that BSA what that growth is sometimes we know sometimes there's a statute uh coming along like $15 an hour and they try to build the BSA to uh cover that uh one year and you'll see this in a minute my graph when we took on gardener and one other scholarship that outside the FFP. When they put it in the FFP, they increase the BSA to offset that expenditure, but then the state gets to say they grew the BSA, but that BSA just went to wash and expense, >> right? >> Uh the same happened when they took all those categoricals and put them in the BSA. They get to show this really monumental growth in the BSA, but all
012it did is move funds from below the line to above. >> Yeah. But in a different bucket. >> So, right now, we're looking for what we call above the line. So, that is your BSA and your weighted funding. And you can see that based on the BSA and the change in weighted funding or FTE, it looks like the district is going to get close to $569,000 in growth. Okay. What you don't know is all that FTE is not the districts. That FTE belongs to charter schools and scholarships and the district and virtual programs. So when you look at a calculation that is published by DOE, you cannot know how much money is actually in the district, you are dependent upon me to tell you that or any other finance tell you that. There is no
013way really cleanly to assess that. You can pull out scholarships but you still don't know charters and virtual impact. >> Does everything flow through the school? Does it get dispersed? I don't know. >> Charters only. >> Okay. Charters only. Everything else goes directly. So if you have a scholarship, >> it goes directly but the accounting of it flows through the district. >> Okay. >> Now charters, the money actually flows through the district. So we pay the charters. >> So the additional weighted funding at the bottom though now we only have two actually one is isolated schools flows through that small district supplement is of no more. It doesn't exist. This changed when they moved [music] Kate AP and dual enrollment and early grad to a categorical that I'll show you. But that isolated school funding,
014we're one of I believe only two districts. The other is an elementary school in Taylor County that received this funding. There are qualifiers for the funding which you can imagine location and and all of those things. But the other piece to that is we have to have a minimum of 28 students in that 9 through 12 band and a max of 100. So you're very cognizant of how many you have in that 912 band. We recently have been experiencing declining enrollment in that 9 through 12 band. So that isolated funding has continued to decline. Cedar Key is our one of our most if not the most I believe it is the most expensive school to operate. And to keep in mind is any school we have in our district that has less than 700 FTE
015is probably not funding itself. It is taking we have two schools that fund itself and feed the rest of >> and those two are high school. >> Yeah. >> So let's look a minute about the FTE and what's going on in the FTE because if you were to just look at what I showed you, great news. Our FT increased and we are getting almost 500 almost $600,000. We're happy. Well, when you peel back the FTE and that growth of 74.05 in unweighted FTE, you can see charters have declined by almost 30. District all the way at the end has declined by almost 25. So, the only growth is fees and a very tiny growth to virtual. For the most part, virtual belongs to the district, but there is a component of virtual that doesn't belong
016to the district that is being another way and we're paying uh contracting out for that. So I think that's so really just based on this you can tell where I'm going to go with the rest of this in terms of money and growth. The district did not grow. The district declined. Charters declined. Scholarships increased. So, let's take a minute and let's just look at enrollment and where we've been since May 2020. Enrollment only is what I'm talking about. So, I'm not talking about unweighted funding or any of that kind of stuff, but just what's happened with our enrollment. You can see that between May 2020 and February 26 that um the districts declined by 100. Charters have declined by 14. Home schools have now homeschool and scholarships have a little overlap. In a minute, you
017can see where Mr. going to tease some of that out. I have not I cannot tease it out for this purpose. Some homeschoolers get a scholarship, but not all scholarship recipients are homeschoolers. Homeschool has grown by 252 and scholarship is is what the main growth is attached to and that is enrollment. So let's look real quick at uh district withdrawals. Since July 1 of 2024, Mr. Bennett did uh do this exercise. So he peeled out or was able to tease out from the total withdrawals of the district 509 as of July 1, 2024 through what was? Okay, we had 509 withdrawals. You can see >> we had 509 kids. We drew first to look at this. >> You can see in a year and a half you can see the majority of those are going
018to home and then you can see some went to PEP and then some went to private school. Now the reason that last screen, our enrollment loss isn't matching with what's happening to our funding is when the state opened it up to private schools. Those kids have never been in our schools when and also now at kindergarten, you can start somewhere else. But what happened is all these people that have been paying for their kids to go to private school for years now get scholar can get scholarship funding. So now it is flowing through the district. So let's move into what we call below the line which is our state funed categoricals or the few that remain. There's a couple more than what I have listed but they have no impact on leave so I didn't
019want to waste any time. We have the discretionary compression, student transportation, safe schools, mental health, ESSE, guarantee allocation, which is what's used to feed additional funds to the 111, 112, and 113, educational enrichment allocation, which used to be SAI, and then the new categorical called academic acceleration options. So the first one is just the discretionary compression >> right here. >> Sorry about So the discretionary compression that is used to increase the uh unweighted student amount up to the state average amount because some schools generate more in their millillage than others. So you can see there's an increase of 145,000. scholarships do get a portion of all of our categorical which doesn't make sense why a private school would have access to the same schools allocation but you'll see in a minute where they pull out
020the scholarships and that decreases all the categoricals but it doesn't decrease our spending requirement to the categorical >> keep that in mind some of these are flexible such as this some are not so this is just an example of how they arrive at what county in particular gets in that um compression supplement. So Ly County's uh 748 mil equals about 470 a student. State average is about 878. So we get an additional 408 per student. Whereas Flaggler is already over the state average. So they don't get any additional in that student transportation. This one is hard to manage. We do not get enough funding in student transportation. You can see we get about 1.7 million yet our transportation costs are close to 4 million. The excess comes from the flexible dollars in the general fund
021that would otherwise support salary programs. So transportation is paid for students who live two more two miles or more from school. You can see we transport about 550 within less than two miles. So we don't receive any funding for them. So that not to call anybody out, but the easiest way to tell you what that looks like is there's a bus route in Chief that's full of students that we don't get paid for, but we choose to transport them because of that busy road that's running right in the middle of town, >> but we get no funding for that. >> How many total kids do we transport a day roughly? Do we have I hate put on spot. It's okay if you don't want it. more than 3,000. Okay. So, these a sixth or so
022of ones that we transport that we don't get paid for. >> So, others might be right here >> as the bus is coming in, they can stop and pick them up. So, >> to me, those don't really cause a problem until they're overcrowding on the bus or until we're creating a separate bus route because we have too many unfunded. So we are working with transportation to create a way for parents every year to ask for transportation whether they legally should get it or not so that we can start to engage with parents when their kid is an unfunded rider that they can understand parameters around that maybe what's allowable this year because we have space. We may not be able to do that, but we have to start the process because what we don't want
023to do is negatively impact that child that's been riding the bus for 10, 12 years and say or what, however many years and say no more. But we need to be able to say no more moving forward. But we've got to figure that out. >> And this two miles has been in forever, right? >> Yes. >> Is that something we ever thought about legislative wise? >> There's Well, there is a caveat for that. >> Okay. So of those if they're in hazardous walking if we're we're transporting >> guess what the county doesn't need to build sidewalks. So, we haven't really pursued that hazardous walking designation probably as aggressively as we should because for one, it's not easy and for two, you're dependent upon your county and your city having the funds to be able to
024create those sidewalks. And I'm not sure that discussion is going to get any easier easier given what is going on with um property uh taxes. >> And as you can see, it's far less than 50% of true transportation cost. that were actually being funded. Now, this transportation cost isn't just driving a kid to school. That's just any other thing. If there's a component of, you know, field trips or athletics, we do recover some of that from the schools, but it is still going to run through transportation safe schools. So, this particular line covers about 73% of the cost. The line share of it goes to the sheriff's department to provide their SRB program which is statutoily one of the uh elections that the school board has for that service but the one that we have
025found to be the best use of our funds that we've utilized since the inception but you can see that our true expenditures are over a million about 1.1 million with the majority of that going to the sheriff's department a little over a million crossing guards 33,000 that goes to the city of Wilston city of Ced and city of Chland The Raptor program at each school flows through this and then anything to run the director of school safety's office. It's a very small portion of the salary and travel. There's just a lot of travel with this program. I mean, not a lot, but it is kind of expensive, but it's it's all mandated. It's all required. That's how they get their certification and all those things. Mental health assistant allocation that is managed by um Miss
026Marcy and her department and this is a fully self sustaining allocation. They've done everything they can to keep what they need within that allocation. Uh so she's in favor and I don't know if it's adequate but they've managed it very well and that goes to everything. Uh there's someone mostly employed I think going through that now. We used to have a lot of contractors which cost a lot more money but she gets out there and somehow gets these people to actually come into the district which saves us some money guarantee allocation. This is how the state gives us more for those 111s, 1112s, and 113s, which are your students with ESSE services sitting in those K through 12 grade bands. If they are also ESOL, they would and qualified, they would get the higher funding.
027Um, when we don't have everything, all our tees crossed and eyes dotted, they would go back to phase. So it's important that everything is done correctly because this ESC guarantee allocation for this year is based on student population from last year. So they put that money in the categorical. It's always a year behind. Um and then we have to let uh the department know exactly how much we're spending because they have to notify parents exactly what that per child is. educational enrichment used to be SAI. When they took all those categoricals, rolled them up, they put more money into this educational enrichment. And so it did grow uh and but the way we can spend this money [clears throat] is for educational enrichment activities and services at any time during or beyond the school year.
028And the school district can identify the most effective and efficient way to best help students progress from grade to grade with these funds. So it is not flexible but the definition says I still have to know how much we're spending and then if we don't spend it all we have to put it in our reserve funding. So we need to spend it all every year and we do and we spend it for things like Esaw aids summer programs additional hours there's software that runs through this there's a credit program that runs through this. So that's just a snapshot of how this goes. This is our new categorical. It now includes AP dual enrollment early grab. So this is since this is a categorical, it changes a couple things for this. First, you can see if
029you look at the budget, you can see how it should be budgeted based on the FT in that program. So that's in the black box. 93,000 roughly for AP, 80 for dual enrollment, 22 for early grad, and the balance to K. Realistically, what's happening is the very next line that says updated budget. AP generally under spins. Dual enrollment well over spins, but any overspin between those top three categoricals comes off a cake. There's absolutely no way to split that hair and there is no way to keep cape whole because it sits in a categorical with the others. In order to keep cape whole, you'd have to use general fun to make up the difference. I'm not going to do that. So Kate ends up but the beauty if there's any beauty of this actual categorical
030is they allowed it that's why there were options in there is they allowed the districts to kind of figure out how to spend those funds >> but again there are still statutory requirements that go along with these categoricals Kate has to pay bonuses Kate has >> the problem as I see it for this categorical is let's back up how it was it was additional weighted funding so we would give that 538,000 to Miss Tanya. Miss Tanya would give it to the K programs. K programs may or may not spend their whole budget and that's fine because we need to keep money to see new programs. So when I talk about my assigned fund balance, it has correlation with the financial condition ratio because it was part of the BSA. I I just would locally assign
031it to Kate. That money would sit over in an assigned fund balance and Miss Tanya would pick it up and move on from year to year to year. She could plan because it and it also benefited us because it kept that financial condition ratio high. Now that it's a state categorical, it's what we call restricted fund. So the state is going [music] to know without a shadow of a doubt how much of this money we spend every year and how much we leave on the table. And if you remember the discussion last year was that we don't spend it all. There's a reason we don't spend it all. Okay, we want to seed new programs. We want to save money to be able to buy larger assets for those programs. >> This money needs to
032be spent year to year. We cannot I don't think we should roll this money. So, this is going to be a frame a change of direction that Tanya and I we have to explore. But the problem I see with exposing it year after year is DOE is a going to see how much is there. The state's going to know that that money is not being spent and they're going to want to In my assessment possibly cut that particular categorical because FFP is is for how long? >> One year. They are not putting money in this that they anticipate us >> carrying forward. But yet we have a mandate to carry forward. >> Not categorical though because categorical again are restricted. So I'm a little I'm a little nervous about this particular allocation. So we will
033continue to watch the progression of this. But I just want to make y'all aware because you'll hear in Tallahassee or start to read how maybe possibly we don't need this money. And I just want you to understand what's happening. School districts by nature are conserve their money. We save. We take a long time to spend federal money. They get we get three years to spend it. But year two they start thinking why haven't we spent it? Well, because by nature we know we need to be uh good stewards of that money. And sometimes that spending it on anything and everything because of but this is going to be a little bit of a different so that brings us now to the total of FFP state and categorical so you can see the categorical increase by
034almost 500,000 so when you add that 500 to the 568 from before you're getting over a million growth and then you see a prior year adjustment there that is what would have happened based on our final calculation that we got in November for last year. We lost an additional $122,000. Somebody did us the charters. However, but that remember we didn't get a we didn't get a third fourth count. So, we didn't know what was going to happen, but this would be a direct result of that fourth count. Usually, it's time. So, now we're at 944,000 growth. So, again, we went from 570 above the line. Now we're at 944. Now you have to look at scholarships. So family empowerment comes in and it has grown by almost 1.2 million based on the uh second calculation
035in July. That state funded discret discretionary supplement is simply the chart or the private schools portion of that 748. So it reduces in in this instance it reduces the uh share to the scholarships. It goes to the scholarships. It flows through less but it in essence reduces that increase on the scholarships. So now we're at uh 900 that the difference of those two is an increase in scholarships of 937,000. You see a prior year adjustment for scholarships. So what they was reduced from scholarships last year was more than what went scholarships for Levy. So they gave us back about $50,000. Now we've whittleled down that to a $56,000 grow after we remove scholarships and everything. We're now from 570 944. Now it's only 56,000. Real quick, let's look at the impact of scholarships over time.
036started in 2004 to now which includes fees. We have um flowed through um 26.4 million in scholarships. But what is just eye opening to me is what's happened since of that 26 million 20 million of it occurred just since 2020. And if you look at the variance per year, you can probably make a very good on when statutes change, >> when floodgates were relaxed. And you can see districts were starting to adjust to McKay. So, you're adjusting to McKay. Let's figure something else out. Let's institute FBS. Let's move gardener and all those over into you. Well, FBS started to flatline. Okay. So, let's just remove the income minimum income requirements. Let's just open the floodgates, which is what you're seeing in 24 and I'm sorry, in 25 and 26. Back to the third C, we
037have one categorical that resides outside of the uh FFP and that's class size reduction that was reduced by a little over $5,000. So that yellow line, that one point almost $3 million. If you were to pull the third calculation down from DOE now and you were to look on page two, you would see that LE has a [clears throat] growth between the second calculation and third calculation of one point this number one almost 1.3 million. Of that 1.3 million only 51 belong local funding does not change except in the second calculation. I'm sure there's one year maybe it did but for the purpose of this it really does not get readjusted until next year based on the second they'd have to reduce the next year. impact. So when you look at that growth of 1.3
038million, you're going to see on that same DOE um accounting that Ley County grew by 2.25%. So I had a someone else, another professional reach out and they were looking and dissecting the population and they said, "Wow, Levy is one of the few districts is actually experiencing an increase." And it took that took me a minute. I was like, "No, we're not." Thus, where this was born from I had to dig into this. This is why we would prefer the FBFP to not be part of the district's numbers. People cannot understand what is happening. However, this year the House has a bill that is monetarily to the advantage of the district to keep the scholarships I'm sure it's just by accident to keep the scholarships embedded in the but this is what's difficult and this
039is what I don't want people to fall victim to when they hear that Ley County is experiencing grow. We are in. So, our FTE grew per student by $9521. We'll look at that in just a minute. So, now let's just go back over what I'm saying. If you were to pull that DOE report for the third count, Le County has grown by almost 1.3 million. You need to go in and reduce [music] scholarships from that. you need to add in a prior year adjustment to that or reduce a prior year adjustment from that because that's attached to the district, not scholarships. They do a separate line for prior year adjustment for scholarship. You do the prior year adjustment for scholarship and then you that leaves the district 51 or 50 $52,000. The reality of the
040situation is yes, cashwise we are going to get $52,000 more until they take more money away from us in April due to the third survey. We really lost flexible funding of close to 73 million 73,000 because what I had to do was take that growth of 51 and go back and start subtracting what I now have to spend out of my categoricals that are restricted. So we actually 73,000 less flexible dollars than we did prior because now they're earmarked. They have to go to these certain programs, whereas before they were flexible and they were sitting above the line. It's a lot, but it's just a lot that goes into really understanding what is going on in the budget. Nobody has to understand it to the degree I do, but I hope that you at least
041understand it's complicated and it's never as simple as as your stakeholders want to or even I want to make it. So, that $95 increase for student funding. You see that $85 of that went to scholarships. The district got a $10 per. So again, Levy is experiencing growth in scholarships. So now let's move to the budget. Uh when we or the board approved the final budget back in September, I think there was roughly about a $2.7 million deficit that the board agreed to approve because we had sufficient fund balance to cover that. And we also expressed that we were going to do things over the next this year and the next two years to work on reducing that deficit. That deficit has been reduced, but net it has actually grown. That's wrong for some things that
042the board did approve. So, let's walk through that. We're right now I'm budgeting and Mr. exactly what a budget is. I am budgeting a deficit of 3.6 million February's data. And that's just the difference between the revenues and the expenditures. Your variable here is really I know I'm going to lose some revenue in the fourth calculation, but the bigger variable are those expenditures and trying to track those to really on what that deficit to be, but we have made some adjustments and cuts throughout this year to bring down that deficit. But our unplanned increases have been the problem. So, one of those was a permanent transfer that we just did to our self- insurance of $450,000. We had only budgeted 300. We were grateful it was only $450. The board approved the increase in compensation.
043So, we know that recurring dollars of about 530,000 in that and then a board support to self insurance above the 450 of 325,000. So neither of those were budgeted in July or uh September. We expect the FFP to be reduced again in the fourth calculation due to a decline in enrollment in survey 3. We are experiencing just this year an increase in utilities of up to 15% with Wilston being the most expensive uh area to run. I mean >> it's awful. >> Yeah. >> 15% is just >> city Wilston just terrible. I mean the citizens everybody is >> We also have the coldest >> days in a long time. So we're waiting to see what that is. And city of Wilson already had anticipated us to have 50% bump on two of those days. they
044had already, you know, sent out notes. So that 15% increase is only from July to January. Last year we were up, I can't remember what it was now, but I think we ended out the year somewhere about 30% increase. Now we're up 15 first. And then if I factor in a few things, the impact of Esser and all those things on last year's budget, I think we have an inflation increase in cost in other areas of about $700,000 that sit in this budget that we couldn't It's not that we couldn't anticipate, but it was hard to budget for that. So, somewhere in there, I'm expecting a final deficit to be between 2.7 million and 3.6 million. And our fund balance, our I'm sorry, our financial condition ratio should land somewhere between 12.2 and 10. Not
045saying anything that we don't know, but I feel like have to move into things just to remind people because there's this thought that this is just a budget problem and it's an inflation problem and once that gets fixed by the federal government, we're going to feel better. We are not the only game in town. We all know this. We are now competing with everybody from home school to private school. We have to reinvent what we do and who we are. We have to become more competitive. It's very hard for school districts because we had a monopoly for so long. We have not been I don't I don't mean Levy County, but as a whole, it's taken us a little little while to realize while we may be the biggest employer in those communities, we are
046not the biggest educator option education option really. There's multiple >> market yourself. >> Yeah. >> Um and again, I say this to my team all the time. This is just about budget reductions because some things I bring to my team is like cutting $3,000 and why? Well, because we've got to review all processes and everything because we have to do things differently. I'm not comfortable chasing pennies. You do not fix a budget chasing pennies, but you do remake processes and and the infrastructure looking at every those will not fix the budget, but they will allow us to do things more efficiently and effectively. And now is the time to be creative and innovative and ask those silly questions or those big pie in the sky ideas and see what we can do. And then our
047old way of being funded is gone. We're never going to be funded like that again. And so we just need to understand there is a new revenue allocation environment. FES has opened up funding to students who've never been part of the formula before which I mentioned that earlier. We need to think about where we are and where we're going and what that looks like. House Bill one in 2023 was when they uh really instituted that universal school choice, opened up that not as broad as it is now, but started to get their in the water and rolled those several allocations into the BSA. So I think that you got to understand what that is to understand how scary that is. So that's where all the teacher salary increase allocation. So keep in mind any growth
048the district gets that looks like flexible dollars next year I first have to pull out TSIA instructional materials reading allocation because all those have statuto requirements attached to them but now they sit in the BSA and they're highly vulner So the obvious is what are what are we doing to try to control the costs. So one thing or relieve the general fund in the case of the well point number one is we are maximizing the use of capital outlay funds which means we are taking full advantage of the statute allowing us to recover any maintenance salaries and costs that flow the general fund and bus driver salary. The problem with that maintenance cannot be proactive. Maintenance cannot schedule big projects. Maintenance has to be reactionary because they have to know if we have the funds.
049I mean to the degree that I got a call about pre-ordering AC units so that we can have them on hand to react quickly and it was going to cost $60,000. And we talked about talked about it and we had to cut that in half. $60,000. We are utilizing our capital budget to keep you know to help fund to the extent we can. There's only four and a half million that flows through that and we have one more year to pay off. The other issue with that are buses and this will come up as we start making other decisions. Just keep that in the back of your mind when you wonder why we're cutting something. Think to yourself first thing you think is does this have a bus component, a transportation component? If you do,
050you're probably answering your question on why we had to cut that. We have an aging fleet. We have a fleet that has not been replenished in a timely manner because we built Wilson High School, jumped right into Chief High School, and now I can't use capital dollars to buy buses. I needed to use capital dollars on the general fund side until we can figure out that that budget. So, that has put um maintenance costs on buses higher. that has put us in a position where we are just trying not to add any more additional miles than we have to run these buses. This has nothing to do with capital outlay funds, but we also have a bus driver shortage going on at the same time. So, anything that impacts transportation is kind of problematic. We
051are currently reviewing health insurance options. Any change we choose to make though will not impact us until January 2027. that is how far out some of these decisions have to be made to to impact your budget. Transportation, again, we looked at those unfunded drivers. We're trying our writers, we're trying to figure out way to reduce overtime. Transportation is the biggest line with the most overtime and that supports some schools during activities, during school activities, and some after school activities. So, we're looking at those. We're trying to consolidate reduce routes. I've asked transportation to reduce one to two routes if possible. They've been able to figure out something to consolidate and reduce one but that is going to be something that we have to manage that is going to impact the kids and what time they
052get up and what time. We are capping activities that impact transportation just like I said or increases utilities. So you can kind of think of what activities we have in our schools that are impacting our utilities and are impacting and looking at those and seeing how we can cap some of them. We have a slow fill process for noncritical personnel. The best example is maybe a maintenance person leaves mid year. We talk to Mr. Grezy and we say can we wait till July and he is agreeable to wait till July and we try to take that savings and salary and it will stay in the general fund to help reduce the deficit. We also decide if we're going to fill some of those positions. We may not fill them. Uh any new assistant principles new
053to our district, if someone moves up moves over from a different AP to a different school, they're going to maintain their same 12-month schedule. If they come up the ranks as a teacher, they'll go 11 months. If they come from outside our district, they'll go 11 months. And that will be for any new assistant principal in our district. We are reviewing all positions that do not cover a class roster. any position, district or school. Secretary versus a teacher is what that means. Uh we no longer can be everything to everybody. I love being a part I love growing up here. I love being a part of this district, but this district goes above and beyond and we are not going to be able to really need to look at what's happening around us. While we
054do not want to be a lot county, sorry for the example, we are going to have some of their cost savings measures because even with that county still in the same situation we are reducing districtwide travel. Um we are reducing position through tuition. So I want to stop on this real quick there it feels to schools maybe possibly to teachers that the budget is is bad. So all of a sudden we're cutting positions. I want to tell you everything we're doing in a school to cut a position is the same thing we have done every year. FTE is falling that's resulting in removing those positions. We have instituted no layoffs. We are simply doing our same staffing allocation. We do our best in a school to be sure the principal does that it only impacts
055two things through attrition. So that position is already vacant or that person's retiring. We're going to there's no butt in the chair. You also have your one and twoear teachers that may not be performing and by nature those are generally exited out anyway. So regardless I don't know what you're hearing but we have not done anything different. What I'm happy about is someone people think we are doing something different. So clearly they're hearing that the budget is a problem. What's different is we've asked them to turn off lights. You don't need 16 lamps in your classroom. Do you need all the paper and the pens and the paper clips? Is there anything? Does every teacher need a printer in their room or custodian in their office? Those are the things that we've asked the principles
056to cut and go back and discuss with their staff. But right now, staff is being cut through attrition. They are not being laid off. >> And what's happening in a classroom is a direct relationship to what we're seeing in with regard to FT. Now, what does happen is districtwide we're reducing. You may have that one school that's lucky and isn't at the same rate, but we do still have to reduce. There isn't enough. You're chasing $3.6 million. But what we're cutting generally does not have a person in the tell you, you should be so proud of principles. They have all come to the table ready to work. They rolled their sleeves up. And in years past when we had money, there wasn't, you know, they tend to advocate a little bit harder. they're not advocating
057for their staff, but it just feels so nice to actually be a team and we're all working together to try to have the same goal, which is to keep as many people employed and as many people uh still touching those students and impacting student growth as possible. We are also reviewing facility usage costs because of inflation and the high cost of electricity. We are not charging anywhere near enough for the use of our facilities. We really need to increase that. I believe will come back before the board. But Miss Wade and I are looking at that and it's going it's going to be eye opening what you're going to see. But I just beg you to remember what I just told you about Little and how expensive it is to run that electricity. And then
058there are some people by statute like your little leagues or whatever that we have to uh allow use to our facilities. We don't want to deny anyone, but what we want to do is recover the cost that it takes to truly use our facilities. And districtwide, we're reducing utility usage anywhere in any way that we can. I mean, when it's LEDs, they're they're generally not what's costing us the most. I mean, I'll just rip off the band-aid, the lights outside in the athletic fields and all that is what's costing us the most. So, they're a way to control when practices are and those types of things. Use that. Um, and then there's other areas beyond athletics, but it's just Will and I just can't say that. Um, I will say everybody got more expensive and
059we are working on a district-wide communication plan and because we do believe we need to be consistent. We need to be consistent from the principles to myself to superintendent to the board. Why are you doing what you're doing should be the same answer from everybody and if it's not we've got an issue and then being as transparent as we can. Obviously there are going to be administrative decisions that will become transparent that can't be in the moment but once I mean That's just what we want everybody to know. We want them to understand my budget. We want them to understand where the money's coming, where the money's going, and what we're doing to reduce those costs. Because what'll happen is we're going to have an audit. The audit's going to see the fund balance continue
060to decline, and the superintendent and I are going to have to answer for why that's occurring, and we're going to have to provide proof of letting our board know what's going on. So, we want to make every effort to make sure everybody understands what's happening, where the money is going, and the decisions we're making. Okay, so that was a lot and that was heavy. So I thought let me give you guys some words of encouragement. Mostly this is for me. So the first one was beware of little expenses. A small leap will save a great ship. And that was from the great Benjamin Franklin. >> And then that is I do agree with that. There is no cut too small. As a matter of fact, I'd love to turn these lights off right now, but
061I won't do that. [clears throat] I did not put a mandate on what people can put their AC at. Just so anybody knows, I've been accused of that. Maybe coming get a fan with a battery. Okay. Happiness can be found can be found in even the darkest times if only one remembers to turn on the light. I decided I did not like that quote. I I think we educate during the day. We should not turn on lights. We should just live in blind. So maybe I will revamp that quote. This two shall pass and hopefully not like a kidney stone. I do think a kidney stone passing that would probably be preferable because it will be quicker than receiving adequate funding. But on a serious note, I just have to remind myself this. So anybody
062that gets depressed by this, um remember to find something or someone to be grateful for. There are blessings everywhere. There are blessings all around us. And positive attitude is is contagious, as is a negative one. And I do think we can get through this together. We we just have to be courageous in the decisions we're making because they're not going to feel good, but we have to remind ourselves, give ourselves grace when we we do make those decisions, but remember what it is we're trying to accomplish. Um, and it's going to be fast forwarded. I don't think we're going to have three years to figure this out. We really have to get a handle on this next year. I mean, we're still going to strategically year after year, but you're not going to see a
063change in what is impacting us. You're not going to see that change and that is evident based on the two budgets that are coming out of houses. >> Does anybody have any questions? Well, I just, you know, talking about the utility usage. Um, I grew up in Chief and I can remember in the late7s there was an energy crisis and, um, we also were having a recession. So, there were things that were programs that were cut, like sports programs that were cut. And we even changed our school start time so that we were not having to use lights. I know that the AC is really what kills you. And back then we didn't have it only in certain buildings. >> Aren't we grateful that we use dollars to put AC in every >> Yes. >>
064But I know that um that is a concern of mine. I've noticed at some of the schools like the hallways are freezing and sometimes doors will be propped open in the morning and some teachers like to keep their classrooms extremely cold. Maybe administrators could talk to them about a >> they they have and we will continue to um address that. I think what the principles need from all of us is consistency in what that answer is because the squeaky wheel is going to come to you. The squeaky is going to be compelling and I would say please don't get into the sneaky because for every one complaint you get there are 50 others doing it and they know why they're doing it and so that's a little bit of a concern. We've already had that
065pop up and in basic things and we've got to stay firm. It is not going to be fun. You mentioned athletic programs. That is a discussion we have. We're trying to ramp up and we're trying to be strategic in what we look at. just this weekend. Everybody's excited about Wilson and their athletic program. So, you have you have to be mindful that we don't want to cut it to a point the kids don't come. >> But if it was only me making decisions that isn't those are expensive, >> but that is a draw to bring schools to kids to be enrolling in a school or if you have your school classroom too hot, I ain't going to sweat all day in the classroom. I'll go home school because of AC, but not because sports. But
066we have the prep scholarship that allows us to bring kids in to participate if they and get a little bit of money back. But you're right, we are going to have to make some really tough, uncomfortable, unpopular. >> Yeah. I'm not suggesting those. I'm just saying that's what we did. >> It's on the record. You said it. >> No AC. We're ripping all ACs out. Miss, but spring sports would be looked at before fall sports. Um, you've already got lot county that has shown us. Imagine this. parents can drive their kids. >> You um >> some parents would maybe prefer to drive their kids. >> You do. >> I'll say that. >> So when I say we don't county, I say let's don't be afraid if they can do it. I think we can do
067it, but it is going to be >> I I I agree. You said a couple things like like one thing on the bus routes and all that stuff. Um, and you you said these kids been riding 10 years on the bus, whatever. Um, everybody's ever lived in a home that's gone through anything. Well, we've had cable for 20 years. Well, honey, you got to hunker down. We're going to cut cable off. >> Uh, I'm a I'm a big guy. If you go back far enough with me, I'm of the mind gyms being hot make tough. So, I'm all for Yeah, we got air conditioning, but we ain't turning it on. go back to and you know about this Bronson High School. When I went there, >> they didn't have it. >> You opened the window.
068>> That's right. >> And we sat there and went, "Yeah, okay." Nothing wrong with a little fresh air. I was how many and and I'll get looked at as a jerk, but but it's the reality is the reality. Um, education is the business we are in. Sports is important. >> We may have to play a sport on Saturday morning when it's a little cooler. We don't have to turn on a light because them big lights cost money. Uh we may have to we may have to leave them air conditioners off, open the window, run a run a battery operated fan, whatever those things are. And it it's tough if if we go back to the one last real hardcore budget day and we're not at that point yet, but it's kind of like, oh, I
069don't know about that. Well, you may not know about that, but we've got to keep you employed. We've got to keep kids coming. So, we're going to have to do tough, hard things. And I think my personal opinion, I think that's why we're here. >> So, I can only speak for this school board member. I don't have a problem looking at somebody going, "This is why we're $3 million down." And yeah, we have a fund balance, but at the rate we're going >> three years, we're nothing. Oh, yeah. >> And then we can't do anything. >> Um, and and we talk about, you know, we're having to do what we have to do. We had to take money from the capital projects and move over here. Problem is we still got the capital projects that
070go on and eventually well how are we going to educate a kid and build them falling down because we had to run this light or we had to blow that air condition on a big old empty gymnasium. So these are just spitball ideas. I think another thing you you talked about early and and I've heard this said before and I think it I think it goes well to education. We are not the only game in town and For a long time, I've sat here with folks going, "Yep, we're the best thing." Are we? Okay, there's a reason. There's got to be a reason. So, the comparison was made one time, you can buy a chicken sandwich anyway, anywhere. But for some reason, people go Chick-fil-A and they're open six days while everybody else is open
071seven. Is the chicken sandwich that much better? No, it's a chicken sandwich. But >> service, >> the service, customer service, and I say this again, I say it, I've seen it in every school I've visited, and it's no personal knock, but it's the truth. They're institutions. The first thing a ch a child doesn't want to be institutionalized. So when you walk into a school and the first human you see is like, I'm here, that ain't making me want to be there. So we got to change our attitude. You go to Chick-fil-A. Hey, how can Hey. Hey. Yeah. All right. Glad to serve you. Glad to be here. >> My pleasure. >> We got to have some of that. We can't We can't be Zach's be Yeah. Our coke machines down. We got to be Chick-fil-A.
072We forget this. Um, so yeah, there's some there's some tough times and I'm glad we got you because you explain all this to us, but there's tough times and we got to stand together going, tough times are upon us. We want everyone we can employ. We want more kids being taught. We want to keep every program available, but [clears throat] we may have to cut off the cable. You may have to watch tunein TV. We may have to run a fan at night instead of the air conditioning at 60°. We may, you know, these things and we're going to have to be tough, but I'm behind you. I'll be tough with you. >> These decisions are going to come pretty fast and furious. We tried some of them to delay. So, you're just going to
073see is the funding. I've ran projections on the House and the Senate bill. Both of them show we need to cut over a million dollars. So, we're trying our hardest to bring the board a balanced budget. I'm not sure that's going to happen, but it's going to have to happen in year three. Um, so when you're looking at projections for next year and you're already knowing you need to cut another million to two million on top of what we've already done, that's the problem. And one last thing is while we do use county as an example, what we don't want to be like county is the number of schools are closed. Yeah, >> that's a very real reality for a lot of school districts. That's everything our superintendent is trying to avoid. So, I feel
074I really go back to that when people say we can't do that. Here's what we're trying to avoid and here's what we're trying to do. So, I appreciate you understanding. >> Yeah. >> I also think I think also a lot of the general public doesn't understand. This is a battle on three or four fronts >> that a lot of people don't get it. And the money is not just a miracle here. And our biggest contributor to us is fighting against us. The state of Florida's fighting against us because they don't like this. They like this other thing. And you can watch the trailer me. You watch the way the votes go. And that's why y'all don't take me to Tallahassee cuz I can't sit there and go, "Oh, y'all doing so good." >> Now we
075can't afford to take you to Tallahassee. [laughter] >> Yeah. You doing so good while you stabbing me. No, the reality is the reality. So we got to sell what we got and we got to tighten her down. >> Do you want another update when we do the fourth calculation? Yes. >> And and one thing that I'll add, um Kim putting this together was phenomenal. >> I mean, very intentional with explanation and I think right, >> you know, when Kim showed it to me, >> um it's what the board needs to see and we're all on a unified front. But I will tell you here, I want you all to know that everybody that comes to the table during the extra meetings that we've had and and with admin and discussing the budget, when Kim said
076everyone is coming to the table with ideas, >> that's not she's just not saying that. That is the truth. That's what's happening. Um we talked yesterday. >> I already have appointment with the Republican uh meetings. We're going to sit down and take a few of these slides and I'm just going to hit every single Rotary Club the you know and put it out there like she said a unified message that we're all saying the same thing at the same time but also we're being transparent. >> We're not trying to put anything underneath the the carpet. We're we're keeping it real and we're keeping it honest. >> So just know that that's happening here. [snorts] I did give you a new Sorry, you remind me. I did give you a new version of your financial statements.
077>> The old one that's color is generally just the general fund. The other one I borrowed back from our friends at Gilrest County because I like that it showed you not only how we're spending the money, which is what your objects would be. Are you buying materials? Are you paying a salary? That's how we're spending money. But above that, it shows you who we're spending it on. And you'll be able to how much is going to uh general administration which would be your district office more or less and principles you know so you're able then to see how are we who are we spending the money on and what are we what are we purchasing with that money so that when we start making these decisions we're very intentional in what we're targeting and we're
078not trying to target that instructional line as heavy as we are some of the other but you'll get a real really spend most of our money into those hours. So, we're really um trying to find everything we can to leave that alone. So, that's why you're going to get some of these that are I think it's more painful. The other ones that we want to cut that are lower are more going to be more painful than the instructional piece. >> So, I just wanted you to be able to recognize what's happened while you >> Jim watches mine so bad she wants to crack on the radio out there. [laughter] It doesn't require >> It's on the battery. Right. >> Next got Miss Maria Anderson. >> Oh, >> thank you. >> Good morning. >> I'm here
079to bring you the final recommendations for our instructional materials adoption for languages 9 through 12 or Spanish. Um so our the final recommendation based on the number of votes which we only currently three teachers taking the um Spanish course >> um and they were all 100% towards Kletboard languages for >> um and all of these top three selections were approved by the state already. So we're good there. And now we're just going to be moving into the parental objections that we open that 30-day window and then come back April 8th for the final approval. They would know which one is the best. I feel like [laughter] >> we need a motion on this time with that. >> Okay. >> To continue. >> Do we have a motion to continue? >> Second. >> All in favor
080say I. >> I. >> All oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. All right. Julian. >> Good morning. >> I'm here because we did an update to policy 10.06 which increased the minimum for a purchase from 10,000 to 15,000. It sounds great because the cost of everything is not up. So we could buy refrigerator for 9500 and be the 10 but now that refrigerator is 145 the US increase which is going to help us out to advertise >> second favor I same time pass >> thank you Public comments. >> Yeah. All right. Any public comments? No emails? >> No, sir. >> All right. Moving on to the approval of minutes. Everybody have a minute. Time to look at the minutes. >> There's two seconds. >> Yeah. There was February 10th and January 27th. I'll entertain a motion
081to approve the minutes. >> Second move. >> Second. >> All right. All right. All in favor say I. >> I. oppos same time. Motion passes. I see one motion for both minutes, right? >> Thank you. >> All right. On to the consent agenda. Um Mr. As you have any question? >> I I I don't have any questions. I I would like to make comment. Uh I see that Miss Judy Beechum is is exiting to drop on May the 29th. And if we will look at how long she has been a part of our system and she's she went to school there and she worked there all that time. So we got a person with a lifetime. >> That's right. >> That is uh leaving us and she's done a fantastic job and we're definitely going
082to miss her. >> That's all I have. >> Yes, sir. >> Campbell. >> No question. >> Miss back. >> No questions. >> All right. entertain a motion. >> Yes, sir. Second. >> All in favor? >> I post same sign passes. All right. Finance. Any questions on the finance? >> It's part of it now >> because of the format >> format. So now we're sound superintendent. All right, Miss >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I've had the pleasure to go out to the schools and see all the bal and s that we have at each of each of our schools. And um I'm sure you've seen some of that on Facebook, but um even with everything going on, this these students working very very very hard. Um, and when you sit there and you talk to
083them and you hear their plans, even with the with the doom and gloom and the scholarships, [music] uh, we do have some students coming from Levy County that no doubt will do great things and they have just they have worked very hard. Um, Beast Feast was wonderful and of course Levy County School Foundation always putting on 110% and giving back for our students and it's it's nice to see um >> how 24,000 >> okay 24,000 raised. Uh, I think I don't want to steal anybody's thunder, but looking forward to the games this evening. We get to travel there and and see those. That'll be fun. And I wanted to I had my little verbiage, but I've already said it after Kim's presentation. Um, so you you heard that comment there, but um please know that
084we're working hard for you and everyone is and you will be updated definitely every step of the way and that's all I have. >> Mr. Husman, >> thank you Mr. White. Uh the the beast feast was a good time. I'm glad I was able to provide that church. >> Planned it just right when it was time. Just perfectly, wasn't it? Did you see that? >> Yeah. I mean, no less effortlessly. >> Effortlessly. >> No need to think. Just glad to be a servant. [snorts] Um Yeah. At Bronson, we're celebrating girls flag football. >> That's a brand new thing in Bronson. >> They uh we're we're I don't want to have to play the girls. They're they're tough. They're tough. >> Don't play the games at night though. gater today. Turn lights on [laughter] later today.
085Camera is going to flip a switch on you. Turn them lights out. I'm going to kill them. Turn them lights out. Open these windows. Be all right. >> But now I'm tight. See? Okay. Um, be quiet, Mr. White. This is my time. Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming [laughter] my time. Uh, want to congratulate the Bronson FFA chapter on multiple things. First, their senior uh, FFA state championship in poulry judging. although it's called like poultry evaluation. Now, um on that team, uh Mattie Stewart was the state high individual. JJ Rice was the third high individual. They also finished sixth in the state milk quality with Nolan Meeks being your state high individual and 12th in dairy. This is National FFA week and I hope we're all celebrating it. Uh and cut funding to everything else, but let's
086don't cut agriculture. Um, I'm a former FFA member. Today is FFA alumni day and uh, shout out to everybody who's ever been an FFA member and all the good things it does. Uh, next is uh, on March the 12th, if you're interested, Black Prom is having another U night of giving to raise money for the Bronson Middle High School Junior Senior Prom. So, a portion of whatever you spend there that night will uh go towards that. And it'll also be opportunity for you to go eat something other than the other fried chicken. But, Mr. Drew, why hurts? Come on out. You come on out. I'll let you buy my supper. >> All right. That's how you That's how you budget. I'll let you buy my supper. >> And lastly, if you're not doing anything Friday
087night, you can come celebrate my birthday. >> I turned 35. [laughter] and I can finally run for president. And uh in doing so, you can come to the Bronson FFA alumni uh food fest. And >> you can get a ticket if you know somebody. >> If you know somebody, I'll get you a deal. I'll get you a deal. I'll get you a $20 ticket that's ordinarily 25 cuz I love all y'all. Just drop my name and they'll sell you a ticket for $20. But more importantly, there's a good possibility at the cake auction. I'll buy a cake and I will give you a slice of my cake because I'm on a diet and I don't get to keep cake, but it's also something for you to do. So, >> you have cake for you for
088you today. >> Yeah, I look at it and let me get back. >> So, anyway, that's all I have and I've enjoyed my time with you all except for Miss Lake telling us that we're [clears throat] >> we're broke. But I keep hoping we'll find a magical >> money tree somewhere and it's not happened yet. >> So that's all I have. Thank you. >> That was >> uh Kim, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and I hope I'll be able to come to you with questions along the way. >> Thank you. Yeah, I do want to congratulate our val and sit at Cedar Key. Uh Brody Gil is our validictorian and Shelby Tomkins our saludiatoran. And I I just um wanted to share that we had Deca had their cornhole tournament this past
089Saturday and it was a huge success and the best part about it was how much of the community it drew, you know, to the school. So, school people in the community uh earning money for a lot of good causes um for their own club and for other causes as well. And I just want to make a comment. I so much going on and worrying about all the things happening at school but at the schools but uh I've been volunteering in the um uh at Cedar Key and at Chief One. So, I've been in and out of the schools a lot lately, and I just want to comment that some of the programs that that we have purchased and are using. I loved seeing them in action and being used um well, and I loved watching
090the kids learning from them. So, you know, for AVID, I I've observed in the classroom um the different AVID practices that some of our teachers picked up at at the uh the highlight that we had um in Willist. And um yeah, that was great to see that that they learned from that professional development because I'm all for professional development when it works. And also uh I've observed the writing the core connection program being used wonderfully and our kids are getting ready for um the writing test coming up >> and then working with kindergarten kids in uh the UFly program. I love seeing how much that has uh been successful in birthing our readers. So, um I'm really happy with all of that. I know our teachers are working hard and and uh the most important
091thing is that they're they're teaching explicitly, which is something we've been trying to move uh in our schools and it's happening. It's happening. And uh and I want to congratulate our county people for encouraging all of that and for bringing those programs to us, but also the teachers who are uh responding to the professional development and doing a good job because that's the most important thing is effective teaching. >> That's all. I had um well at Chief Elementary School, they have recently remodeled or revamped their teachers lounge and um I think it was a lot of um you know donations and things and they've stocked it with snacks and um had a person to come in and help decorate it. So the teachers were excited about that. Uh, also the PTO at Chief Elementary School
092is getting ready to give out several thousand dollars worth of teachers grants. So, they're excited. And over at the high school, they're celebrating FF National FFA week. And um they also Chief Middle High School was represented um at the Florida Association of Student Council's leadership convention where they gained valuable insight on safe learning environments and strengthening their leadership skills. So um we're all proud of them for that. And um I too want to thank Kim that you know it's it's hard to be the bearer of bad news. But you you did it well and we all know that you know when times get tough the tough get going and that's what we're going to have to do is just get tough and buckle down. um the valictorian and saludiatoran. Miss Bole and I were there
093at Chief High School the other day for that and I was so tickled because the valictorian was a former student of mine, Lucas Knap. And then the saludiator saludiatoran was uh Nicholas Bartley and both very deserving and I think it was very competitive up to the very end. But that's all I have. >> Thank you. Um I'll start with uh thank you Kim for your presentation. Like I say, I like I like the format you had it in. I felt like it wasn't as busy as other times that really went through and kind of explained everything. And I certainly say we're, you know, difficult spot, but you know, it's good to be at, you know, projected 10% fund balance kind of thing versus worrying about 3%. because you can make incremental changes now that can
094affect you down the road where it won't be, you know, won't be as bad. Um, so Miss Bo said about the beast feast. Certainly appreciate everybody showing up and helping out. I think everybody was served well. Cameron didn't miss many people talking, but >> he didn't. [laughter] >> Yeah, I know. I had to keep >> I I have very few things I bring to the table. >> He is our entertainment. the entertainment. >> I know what I do. I know who I am. >> That was good. I think every Yeah. So, everybody got fed well. Thank you for the maintenance for the setting up and for tearing down. That certainly is a big help for sure. Anything to get some stuff off of me. I appreciate it. >> Miss Annie has made that a lot
095easier as far as organizing and it takes us a lot less time. >> Good. >> It's because she beats that. >> Yeah. I saw pulling out yesterday. I was pulling in to get that light tower. So, I appreciate it best. I appreciate all the hard work and I said all the >> the organizations and everything that came out and cooked for it. I know like I said it was very successful. I know we had competing against a couple other things going on at the same time, but still I think seemed like it was about 250 people were still there and so I said raised to $24,000. So certainly good you know put to good use. Um so thank you for that. I went a valictorian and saludiatoran. Um certainly enjoyed that. There was two people
096I you know we went all around being right behind them. So I knew these kids pretty good. Actually valatoran was Kai Gwen and the Sudator was Ramy Webb and actually went to school with his daddy. So me and him graduated together. So it was good to see them see him grow up you know and kind of be there. Um, also the it's FFA week and actually started FFA week Wilston. FFA had been fundraising for a barn and they broke the ground this week on that. So that's good. GoFundMe kind of thing and raise money for that and they're actually having a fishing tournament on Saturday. So after you go to the feast on on Friday night, you can come fish >> fish and catch your own food maybe on Saturday. There you go. Uh, and
097certainly the big thing is, you know, Willist, not just the boys. The boys and the girls are making it to state. It's in Jacksonville this year. They're going to leave about 11:00. Raised up money for charter buses. So, don't have that. [laughter] That won't go against that. No transportation cost there. So, that's good. But yeah, a lot of people chipped in yesterday, started calling around and yeah, so so they got the cheerleaders, the boys and the girls and cheerleaders are all taking buses and yeah, hopefully um so we'll be good tonight. They play at 6:00 and 8, the boys at 6:00 and the girls at 8 and hopefully the both win or at least one of them win be back on Friday night. So >> I hate to miss it, but hope I'm not there.
098[laughter] >> You just tell me how much to spend. >> That's right. I'll for you. >> I'll talk to you. So anyway, um, and that's all I have. And if everybody's good, be your turn. >> Hey, Mr. Black.