001Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our April board meeting and the vision of Burke County Public School is that each student leaves equipped for a world of possibilities. So we thank each and every one of you for taking the opportunity to come and to share with us whatever you have to share tonight. And we will begin with our invocation and our invocation will come tonight from Mr. Paul Williams. Let's pray. Father, we do give you thanks for this day. Thank you for this beautiful spring weather. And just remind us, Father, that in you all things are made. Uh Father, we pray for our school system, students, teachers, parents, faculty. Father, we just pray that you just be with us in our daily goings and comingings. Pray tonight for our board members, Father, that they
002uh make decisions, Father, that honor you and honorable in your sight, Father. Just pray you continue to watch us and keep us and bless us when it comes and go. We pray. Thank you. And now we'll have pledge. Due to last week was spring break, we don't have a young person that will come before us. But thank you. We have one of our board members who will take the place. Please stand. I pledge algiance 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. Thank you. [Music] We're now ready for our roll call and let it be known that four of us are present and one will be virtual and that's Dr. Ruby Sax. Okay. And now
003we're ready for the adoption of the agenda. We have one uh item number 9B will be excluded. Uh the certification of the board of of education certificate. We're not prepared to do that. Okay. But other than that, we're ready for the adoption of the agenda. I make a motion that we approve the agenda, adopt the agenda with the one exception of nine bra. Have a second. There any discussion? There's no discussion. Let's vote. Show hands. All in favor? Thank you. Mar. Yes. Okay. The motion. Thank you. Now we're ready for the approval of minutes. You had an opportunity to look at the minutes. Are there any corrections to these additions? If not, it's your pleasure. Motion. I make the motion to approve the board minutes from the uh March 18th board meeting and the March
00425th call board meeting. Second. A second. We have a We have a second. Uh any discussion? There's no discussion. All in favor? Show of hands. Motion carries. We are now ready for our financial report. Mrs. Marchman. Good evening. Good evening. Tonight I have the financial report for March 2025. If you will please turn with me to the first page showing the revenues. As you can see through the end of March 2025 were 75% complete of the fiscal year. Total revenues at the end of March were 69,561,576. And you can see now at this point we have brought in 70.3% of your budgeted revenues which is much more in line with completion of the fiscal year due to receiving um property taxes and whatnot. The next page shows total revenues as of March 31st 2025. Total
005excuse me total expenditures were 53,286,369. This is 70.67% of your general fund budget and again 75% of the year has been completed. So spending is a little bit under um completion of the year. That's a good thing. I do want to point out that we did have a March 31st cut off for spending. Um so you're going to see some of that activity on the uptick because we are trying to close out the year at this point. The next page shows the general fund balance sheet. As of March 31st, 2025, total assets were 251 million $680,215 with total liabilities and fund equity equaling the same amount. The next page shows the changes in general fund equity. As of March 31st, 2025, end of period general fund equity was $250,622,0667. The next page shows investments in
006all funds. As of March 31st, 2025, total investments were $239,973,487.35. And just as a reminder, this is where we house most of the property tax revenues that we receive. Um, again, this is a very liquid investment source. We can hit the money quickly for payroll purposes and it has an amazing interest rate. The next 13 pages represent your purchase order incumbrance report. This is cumulative for the year. And just as I stated about end of the year spending, you're going to see incumbrances go up for that reason because we did ask people to do their final purchasing. Okay. And then your next good number of pages represent your vendor activity report. This is just for the month of March and it is cumulative $5,000 per vendor. Are there any questions about the financial report? We
007need a motion for to accept the financial report to set the financial report for. Okay. Need a second. Second. There's no discussion. Dr. Miles, I hear you. Okay. There's If there's no discussion, uh, let's vote. Showing hands. Okay. Motion carries. I'll continue, please. Okay. So, if I'm correct, cola is the next item on the agenda. Okay. I'm sorry. I reviewed it earlier today. Um, so tonight I have the presentation for any potential COLA that you all may choose to award. It is one of the biggest financial decisions needed for the preparation of the fiscal year 26 budget. Um, these numbers have not changed from the numbers that were briefly and quickly given to you at the board retreat, but I did want to go over them in a little bit more detail tonight and answer
008any questions that you may have. I have hard copies if anybody would like a hard copy spreadsheet in front of them. Okay. Okay. So, the first column that I want to point out to you is what it's going to cost for your employees to receive a year of experience on their pay scale. That is an automatic award. They get it if they are with us for a year and it does not warrant board approval. People naturally move through the scale. Okay. So you can see in total it would cost $435,976 to award those. We call them step increases, but really that is the same thing as longevity increases, years of experience, etc., etc. Then your next six columns represent anywhere from a 2% cola to a 7% cola. Okay? Your number at the bottom represents
009the total cost for those categories. Okay, these are your local salaries. These do not include salaries of your title one funded personnel. Do not include salaries of your school nutrition personnel. Federal programs are refunded dollar for dollar. Okay? So that's why they're not included in this analysis. Okay? Um, I do want to point out a few financial things for you so that you can make your decision. I have included some interest numbers on the bottom. Um, since July 1st, 2022 through the end of March, Burke County has made an interest alone 23,274,811.82. Currently in the current year that amount is $7,816,28253. So your interest alone could cover really any cola you wanted to award on this sheet off of this sheet. It's at your discretion for numerous years. Okay. Um, I do want to point
010out that your current fund balance at the end of March is approximately $250 million. Okay? And you can see that on the financial report that was just presented to you. It is estimated that there'll be another 7 plus million surplus this year. And even with the 7% cola put in the anticipated expenditures for the next fiscal year and a budget that you saw at the board retreat, that's another almost $23 million in a surplus. So, I just want to remind you, as I'm sure you are all very aware, what kind of financial position you're in and I know the biggest question is always, can we afford it? Um, I want you to know I would never present a cola to you that we could not afford. Okay. Um, so really it's um I'm going to
011turn it over to you for any questions, concerns, conversation um and decision. Um, are we ready for any discussion? the 1% is an automatic 2 and matter. So it depends. Let me give you a little bit of history and I'll try not to get too longwinded. The statebased pay scale sort of most steps are going to be anywhere from two to two and a half%. But in the years that they started awarding flat rates, it has changed that spread somewhat. Okay? So some years you're going to see a 3%. Some you're going to see just below a two. It's kind of all over the board. Same thing happened with the admin scale, the classified and admin scale that you see at the board of education level. Those used to be two and a half% from
012one step to the next. And with some positions, you do still see that. But some of those positions have also been awarded a flat rate over the years. And what I mean by that is like $2,000 versus a 3% increase. Okay? So when you do that, you do skew the percentage that one position gets from step to step versus maybe the position below or above it. So it's hard to answer. I used to be able to say yes, two and a half%. I can't really say that anymore. Okay. Has a question. Okay. your question, Dr. M. Yes, some of our employees would be going up on the next step automatically. And of course, they would receive the same cola. Is that right? That is correct. That is for all employees. Yes, ma'am. That's how we've
013always applied it. This is my opinion. I'd like to see us go as high as we can on the cola for this time because it's interesting how things are going up. Um, and I'd like to see our employees receive the benefits of what we know that we can do at this time. That's just my opinion. Thank you, Dr. Miles. Anyone else? Any other comments? Uh, two comments. So, or one question. The government's off or the governor's office has not put out a $2,000 raise or anything like that that there is nothing in the future budget for that. We do always for a certain group and then we have to we have to finagle the cola to make sure everybody receives it that is due. Um I understand exactly what Dr. Miles is saying but I
014think there's also a balance here between the cola and then the mill rate roll back. Um that is something to consider in the future as well. with our surplus. So, I don't necessarily agree with with 7%. Um, I think that we should probably do a little research and fully understand what inflation is looking like and consumer price index and some things like that before we make a final decision on a cola that is going to carry forward. And the thing about percentages is they compound upon each other. So whatever we decide this year, it will also be included in next year's cola and the next and the next. So exactly. Yes. And I'm aware. Um I did do a little research. For example, I checked and uh one company told me that they normally give
015like a three to 4% co-op. Um and it's not in education, but that was shared with me. and those school systems that can give a good cola, they are doing it. I I consider what the auditors have said to us consistently that we need to look what we can do to help our employees more. And when I look at all of the surplus that we have, this is not going to hurt us at all. But of course, it has to be and I do understand a board decision. decision tonight. Well, um it would be nice to have a decision tonight. Yes, ma'am. Because it is the it's it's hard to move forward with the budget without it and if we want to stay on our budget timeline, you um Yes, ma'am. I agree. I agree.
016I did do some numbers for inflation if I did look up currently it's 2.39% today. Um over the last seven years cumulatively it has been 25.9%. And the board has awarded over those same seven years approximately 22%. That is a little skewed because there are flat rates in there. So you know that that was kind of the best I could do with trying to work with flat rates and percentages. Um you said 25 to 20 25.9 26 26 um you should have about 3 to six months of operating expenses. Burke County right now could operate for three plus years with a complete revenue loss. Complete. What was last year's 6%. What was it? 6%. I'm going to say I'm going for 7%. Any other discussion? I originally not wanted to go that high um because
017I thought it was the 6% and I think if you do too many consecutive years of the same then it becomes unexpected. But at the same time, our um our teachers are struggling. I'm working multiple jobs, taking on a lot, and that's not something that they should have to do. We have the surplus. Um I don't think it should be an expectation, but with the economy as it is now and we are in a position to be able to award our teachers and show them that, hey, we support you guys. I said we do that. So, I'm in one, two, three. We need to vote. Let's make a motion. I motion that we vote to increase our cola to 7% for the upcoming school year for our teachers. Need a second. I second the motion.
018That's going to be all staff. All staff all staff has been motioned. Motion I did not hear it. A motion that we move for our cola to be 7% for all of our staff members for 2526 school year. I have a second. I second the motion. No, it has already been second. Thank you. Okay, there's no other discussion. Uh let's go. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you very much. I will have a tentative budget prepared for you all in May which will need your approval as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm not a numbers person. So, thank you. Um now we are ready for our public participation. We have Mrs. Burley here from uh Archway. Because Bernie has so many names, I won't name them, but I remember this is Bernie. This is
019Bernie. Come forth, please. Hello everyone. I'm excited to be here. Hello everyone. Have my back to you. I'm one of those people that sits in a restaurant where I can see everybody and everything. So, um I am excited to be here and share um about Archway partnership possibilities and kind of catch you up on where we are and what's been going on with that. I don't know how many of you at this time um have been involved with Archway in Burke County. Um I know that Miss Payton and Dr. Williams has been through the work that my time here. So, um, my name is Connie Fennel Burley and I am the archway professional for Washington County right now. I've been in this position for 10 years with UG and I've had the distinct pleasure of
020coming over and working with Burke um, since late in the fall when the gentleman that had this position accepted another position with UG. And, um, I was asked to come and fill in and work here. And that has been a a joy to get to be here and to meet everyone. and I was actually here back when all of this kind of started um in Burke County. So um had a little bit of boots on the ground experience there in the beginning. So anyway, how many of you around this circle are familiar with Archway Partnership? You've heard of it or you kind of know it exists. Okay. Now, we bring reports back. Yes. Yes, we do. So, I'm going to just kind of give you a little flow over kind of where we are today,
021what's going on. um and what we have to look forward to and make decisions about. I also have with me um Lisa Hopper here. Lisa is um the new area manager for um Georgia Power and she is also the executive or the chairman for our executive committee with Archway. Now, many of you may have known Suzanne Shy who has retired from both positions. Um, so I'm honored and excited to have Lisa as a part of because she's been a part of Archway for quite some time and I'm truly enjoying having her as our um person for our our board for executive committee. Who's driving this? I am. Okay. Okay. So, University of Georgia is um, as you probably know, the land grant institution for the state. We are tasked with serving the state of Georgia
022in a multitude of ways. Archway Partnership is actually a part of public service and outreach for UG. Um, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that. We were born originally from extension um, back in the day when they were looking at how extension served the state through all of the egg and all of those ways. and they were looking at how can we further serve the state of Georgia in economic development and helping to improve communities in the state. Um the whole plan for Archway Partnership was born about 20 years ago. The first community was Moltry, Georgia. We were there a couple of weeks ago celebrating 20 years. Washington County where I am which is Sandersville, Georgia was the second archway community in the state. Um Burke is one of our newest. So
023we have been developing through the state through all these times and I'll tell you a little bit more about that. But this is what how we you were talking about your mission for the school. Um this year's our goal is to connect communities with higher education resources to address locally identified community and economic development issues. The key part in that is community locally identified um scenarios. This is a completely communitydriven initiative. It is not as though Archway rolls into the community and says okay you're doing this this and this right and this this and this wrong. none of that. Um the community, you know, your community, the community knows what challenges are here, what um initiatives could be addressed. Archway's whole mission is to come alongside of what is going on in the community and
024figure out ways to partner with um community members, with organizations, and help you reach the goals that whatever the community is trying to work on. You can change it. This is um public service outreach that I was talking about. Archway Partnership is part of that vice president's office. Um some of you may know of Marine Extension, the Botanical Gards at Georgia um Office of Service Learning, Carl Vincent Institute of Government, which has been here recently working, the small business development center, the Georgia Center for Continuing Ed, and the Fanning Institute for Leadership. We're all sister units working under public service for the university out in the state. Okay. Um, so this is what to talk about what we do. Again, um, I said we're community based service. Our goal is to work on whatever it
025is that this community wants to work on. And I'm going to share some of those examples in a minute. It is um, decided by the leaders of the community and by leaders that may be the executive board. Um, we try to get a lot of input from the community, but we do have a group called the executive board for Archway that kind of guides the decisions that are made and where we're going to use those resources and the things we're going to work on. Through this partnership, we're able to bring in students and as you know, in a lot of the universities and colleges and universities in the state, students have to have experiential learning opportunities to actually graduate. So, we're able to bring them out into the state to give them opportunities to serve
026the state, to see parts of the state they may never have seen, um, and to build portfolios and have boots on the ground, hands in the mud, true work on what they're working on, not just in the bubble of the classroom, but out and about. One of the most important things to me in this process, and I think it's super important for this community as well, as you know, a lot of the students at UG are from the Atlanta area. You know, there's two Georgiaorges, Atlanta and the rest of us. Um, a lot of them are from the Atlanta area. Some are out of state and some are out of country. A lot of them have never been to rural Georgia. They don't know what they have a preconceived notion of what that means. A
027lot of times maybe grandmama lived down somewhere and they went back in the day. So, for me personally, I'm a rural Georgia girl. I grew up in Johnson County, um, Georgia, which is Rightsville. Went to UG, married the Air Force, moved all over, worked overseas, and came chose to come back to Johnson County and Washington County area to raise my family because I don't think there's anything like rural Georgia. I am sold out for it. Um, so I take it very seriously when we have students in Washington County or in Burke County that I'm going to take every opportunity I have to teach them and to show them the side of this life that we have all chosen. and why it's so important. Will any of them move back to our community? Maybe not. But
028they may be future business leaders, decision makers, legislators who are making decisions and this may be my shot to teach them about things they're going to be making decisions on that they may never have seen or heard. So, um I think that is one of the grand responsibilities of the archway community and a great um opportunity for an archway community. We also have faculty that come into the areas. faculty at Georgia, as you know, a lot of them are um charged with research and we're able to support a lot of those initiatives um throughout the the state and work on a lot of things that have long lasting impact. I've spent a several years working on Alzheimer's and dementia work in Washington County as a pilot for the care center UG that has been life-changing
029for the people in our area because we've been able to work with the caregivers and we've been able to have people diagnose quicker and share information and provide that kind of information because of being archway community. Okay. Um this is where we are. There are 159 counties in Georgia as you know we are in nine of them. Everybody doesn't get an archway. Archway is an application process, a selection process. Um, we have several on there that waited four and five years to become an Archway community. It did kind of line up like that for Burke. Um, when it came up for that Burke was interested in being have an archway partnership here. It just so happened we had an opening for a community. So, this one was a little together. I don't know why that's
030doing that. Um, but Thompson McDuffy's Archway, they waited many years. Lawrence County just became Archway Community. they waited four years um but it was just a little bit different for here but we do have some communities that have graduated and then we have um about nine they're active at the moment okay so the way we work as I said I'm an archway professional um my job is to know all things about the university and all things about my community and I spend every day of my life working with the board of education in Washington County with the hospital um I work with commissioners with the city council members um I work at the sheriff's department an awful lot. I work with the police department. It just depends on what's going on on our personal initiatives
031in our community because every community is different about what they want to work on. But we have we have to connect the dots. I call myself a dot connector. I'm trying to figure out at all times what a community is trying to work on and who's out there to help make that happen. Not only that, but in a community a lot of times, and I'm sure you have run into this a lot, it's really easy to get in your silo. It's really easy to only know what's going on in your little bubble of the world. And through no fault of anybody's and not being critical of that, we're all so busy and I always say we're riding a tornado. But at the same time, what I've learned is that by my involvement in so many
032different areas, this group's over here working on this project and this group's talking about how somebody should be working on it, and I can often say, "Well, go talk to so- and so because they're actually working on that." or this group's working on something and this group's working on something and we're able to pull them together and say let's work together and pull in the same direction instead of two different groups working on the same thing. So I work on that a lot. As I told you, we have an executive committee which is um decided on sometimes it has to do with a funding partners, sometimes it's just other groups. My executive committee is about 18 people in Washington County. Um and then from that we bring in community members for issue work groups. If
033for instance a big initiative for us is mental health. That is a part of our um community health and wellness initiative. My mental health issue work group involves sheriff's department, DJJ, providers, clinicians, community service boards, um the people at the school system, the wraparound services, counselors, everybody that has their fingers in mental health somehow in our community. We're around the table once a month about 30 of us talking about what these challenges are and how can we address them, what can we move the needle on. It's a really big animal, so we kind of have to pick what we're going to move the needle on. Okay. So, in a lot of the communities, this tends to be kind of the buckets. I call it buckets that we work in the initiatives, excuse me. Um, economic
034development. We're all always working on building economic development. Our community leadership, who's coming up behind who's coming up behind all of y'all to take these positions. Um, education and workforce development is always a thing. quality of life and health and wellness. Two things that I think about that are probably to me in my mind, in my experience, the most attacked Oh, thank you. things in the community is the school system and the hospital. No matter how hard somebody's working in those two areas, there's always something that somebody's, you know, not happy about or or working on with that. So, we're always working in those areas to help come alongside each other, know what's going on with each other, know how we're improving things, be able to be advocates for each other, be able to work
035together on those initiatives and those areas that that may be a challenge because everybody in so many of these areas is working so very hard um all of the time to do the very best that they can in those areas. Again, all these um these initiatives are common in a lot of our in a lot of our communities. I said earlier additional one for us is generational poverty. I was asked to work on generational poverty um which is a really big animal but we slice that all the way back down to literacy. Um we work a lot with our board of education um and that not a looking at what the school's doing and how can we support that? What can we help do? For us in our community, I'm just giving you some examples
036in our community. We were having challenges with the kids that were coming into kindergarten. not knowing enough words, not knowing directional words, co had an impact, you know. So the question was, how can we come alongside the work that you're already doing that's so great and help prepare these kids to come through your doors when they're four or five? So literacy became a birth to 5-year-old literacy is a huge initiative for our community. So we have a task force, the literacy task force. It's made up of um people from the school system. It's made up of daycare owners. It's head start. It's the Boys and Girls Club. It's first love kids. This is an example of a literacy resource guide that we put together that's birth through 8th grade that went out to all the
037parents helping them know these are books, these are things to look for, these are things to do. Um, so that's just an example of how you the goal is to come alongside whatever the initiative is in any of those areas and whoever's working on it and work together on it. Okay. Now, Burke when they started they chose I wasn't here at that time. Um their initiatives were or your initiatives were workforce development, intergovernmental communication and collaboration and housing all super important. And as workforce, you know, that touches everything. Everything you do touches future workforce for sure. Um these are some pretty big animals to to attack. Um we have done a lot of work in those areas. We've done housing studies. We have the Carl Benson Institute that's been here now doing a big grant
038that's um about a $30,000 project that um is looking at the workforce in Burke County. What are the challenges? What could be done? How could everybody work together on some of those initiatives? These are the three that were chosen. These can be updated at any time. They can be adjusted. Um Dr. Williams and I were talking not long ago about all of this and um of course all the CTA work and all the pathways that y'all have going in. All the work you're doing is feeding workforce development clearly and always working on that. Um education could be a part of this. Literacy could be a part of this. whatever you may deem. I feel like there'll probably be a reset on these because we've kind of done a lot of work in these areas and
039I feel like from my experience a reset would be good on looking at some of these initiatives. Okay, this is Burke in 2024 and review. We have 50 students involved in projects here, 14 faculty. We completed 16 projects and the return on investment which is the investment that the community makes in having archway here. about twothirds paid for by the state, about a third by the community. Um the return on investment was $178,000. Okay. Um that's just the back of that. Some of the priority areas and again workforce development, housing, intergovernmental collaboration. Okay. So, Burke Archway to date. Um I look back to see kind of what's been done because I've been just filling in since November. Um and just trying to keep up with where all you've been. They there have been 34 projects
040completed. Five are in process right now. 50 students have been through here. 14 faculty members have been here. We work with the Terry College of Business Institute of Leadership Advancement which is a highly sought out after group at the Terry College of Business which you know is nationally renowned. They've worked on projects here. The Carl Vincson Institute of Government has been here working on the workforce studies. um the JW Fanning Institute of Leadership and multiple colleges throughout the university. I don't think there's a college at the university that Archway hadn't worked with. Maybe not Burke, but Archway. Um and so for 22 to 24, there's been a $436,000 return on investment for Burke. So, just to wrap it up, you know, one of the questions we've had since I've been here, I've been meeting with
041a lot of the community partners and um the organizations, council members, and like what is the best way to leverage this? Something Dr. Williams and I talked about like how do you know how to leverage this to be the very best that it can be? Um number one, your art professional. Number two, having a mindset of working together. I think that's crucial. um having a mindset not I don't mean for just you I just mean countywide and for a lot of communities that takes a little while because you everybody's been working so hard on the things they work on but just kind of beginning to develop the thought process of who needs to be at the table who needs to be around this table or talk on this working on this how can we do
042this together how can we even though we're all have our own agendas per se for the things that we're responsible for also how do we leave our hat at the door and come in and we're about Burke and we're about building Burke and the future of Burke and all of those things. Um that and and that's our job to help lead you through those. Okay, that was fast and furious. What questions do y'all have for me or for Lisa? Do y'all have any at all? You said that you we've completed how many projects? I'm sorry. Could you go back to 16? Can you tell me those projects? What they are? I can um happen to bring a little list. And some of these I'm not familiar with. They have happened. Um and they're everything from
043landscape designs to studies to development. Um so this is on our list. uh Burke youth leadership and action. Um Burke Youth leadership train the trainer. Um the housing assessment study that they did um zoning and ordinance research. They were part of the Propel program which was a um special program through Carl Benson Institute for excuse me developing rural leadership um and rural opportunities. They did a um six street park redesign. They looked at a land bank feasibility study. um city of Wesburg County home buyer education research. They did an emerics program um with the executive committee which is all on helping learn to work together. Um they have provided specialty pro photography for events, permitting guides, a couple of phases of that. Um, downtown Wesboro restroom concept plans was a a thing. Highway 24 park
044design. Um, provided listening sessions, park at Ellison Bridge concept plan. Um, services provision research project phase one and two um project resource guide. They did cyber arch which is looking at the cyber security of I'm assuming they probably did they did that with the county I would think we did it with our school system so I don't know who they um farmers market revitalization housing and workforce data fact sheet um workforce data updates um museum relocation revitalization intergovernmental collaboration lunchon several of those workshops um Burke internship and career expo nonprofit profit board research, Propel Royal Scholars Project, the Bert VITA tax research project which is um to do with income taxes and providing free services for that and that's a good project. It's not necessarily all it's not all hands-on but when I think project
045I think hands-on hands-on project there's a lot of research and there is research workshop style. Yes. We also do a lot in a lot of communities. We do a lot of engineering studies. Um the artisian well is one of the things that we and I didn't at least the ones that are in pro in process right now. Um we've done wastewater treatment studies for communities. Landscaping design. We're doing several of those right now for our hospital. Um we have done the hospital in our community in all communities. They're required to do a thing called a community health needs assessment. the IRS mandates that or they can be fined and that can be an 80 to $180,000 project for them. We provide that for our hospital at no cost because of being a part of Archway.
046So there are depending on what your initiatives are, there tends to be different levels of handson kind of projects like that. Our goal is to help get all of that together and plan. There is a part that the community takes the ownership of those um and we help guide how to make that happen but we're not the administrative end of it to make it happen. You became the student leadership. So a lot of this is driven by our chamber to begin. This is things that are chamber. No, it's not chamber driven. It's the executive committee is made up of different entities throughout the community. the board of education, the chamber is on the um a part of that. Board of commissioners are a part of that. Um there's a few individual representatives. Georgia Power has
047a representative. The city um Miss Payton, if I'm I'm not thinking of everybody, but the goal is to have representation from around the community. It's not one group or one person guiding this train. Okay. And they the way that we came up with those three major things was through listening sessions. People then from the community came together with a great big meeting. That's how they came up with the three. Well, the thing is too is communities grow and as they progress as archway communities, the understanding the um request, the development just grows and grows and grows and grows. the understanding of how to leverage things, the understanding of, you know, what it takes to do all of those things, the opportunities. I think for a new community, a lot of times it's overwhelming because there
048are so many options. So, you kind of figure out what's a hot topic in your community and that you can use. But with time, you're able to kind of step back and look at the bigger picture, figure out what's going on. Now, I know a little bit more about it. How can we leverage these resources even more? So, we got into this in what year? 22. 22. And we were bound by contract. It's a M. It's a yearlyou. Okay. It was a fiveyear commitment. Yeah. I think that they want it. A lot of times when there's it's it's the state requires a yearly, but when you're starting a new community and you're hiring someone for that position and all the things like most communities are in for three to four to five years. Some of
049them like us have been in for almost 20. And that's what we're looking at trying to decide now is if we're going to Yes. It's time to doou um and it's time for the community to decide what they would like to do going forward if they'd like to continue the partnership. Um and carry on. So this costs us what have to go back and look. It's different. All the funding partners that she mentioned put in part of it. Yeah. The the funding partners um every community does that differently. They decide within the community who funds, how it's funded, who does that. So, um, the board of education is one of the leading funding partners here. All right. The return on investment that you showed us, was that for this entirety or for this just this
050one? For this last year, I showed you one for the year and I showed you one for the whole time. And the way that's decided, the projects are assigned values according to the level that we have some undergraduate students, some graduate students, some PhD students, engineers working on at faculty level. So they're all assigned a very conservative amount um for that their time and energy on those projects and then it's all assigned a date and the amount of time they put in to come up with the cost of the value of that project. How do we identify the students who are involved like the 50 students and the 14 faculty from our we have a database that we manage all of our projects and in that database we know all of the students. Some of
051them are archway students. They actually work in our office every day. Some of them are students that are out in the um classroom because we do some projects with classrooms with professors on campus that know about Archway and they're looking for that experiential learning piece for their um their classes. And some of them are teams like the the team from the Terry College of Business Institute Leadership Advancement. Those students are from all over campus and they apply to be selected to be a part of that team. And we're assigned different numbers of of teams according to the projects that they choose to do. But everything's captured in the database of who's working on it, what students, where they're from, you know, all of those kind of things. Any other questions? If you think of something,
052I'll bring you when it's over. Thank you for your time. I'll bring them with you. Okay. Thank y'all for allowing me to share all of that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh we'll continue now your part. We don't have a certificate so we can go to head start. Okay, Mr. Head start. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good afternoon to everyone. Good afternoon. Okay, I'm guessing this afternoon I don't have a lot. Oh, let me get to uh this report. I've got several things that I want to bring to you this evening. So, I'm going to move through this because this is sort of basic. It's what I'm bringing to you almost every month. Uh but good news because uh we do have our 94 uh students that are in the funded enrollment and
053we actually have our enrollment uh for the last month was 94 which is where we're supposed to be. Uh the uh let's go to the average daily attendance for the month which is 87 and I'm reporting on March. These are March figures, although I'm giving them to you in April, so it's always a month behind. Uh we have uh eight children that are on the wait list and 30 children that are in transition. That number remains the same unless we have a child that withdraws before who turns three and withdraws before the end of the year. So these are our children at this point who have either turned three or they will be turning three by the end of June and and that number is going to be the same. I'll be bringing that every
054month until we finish this this particular year. All we have are two pregnant women and that number changes based on how moms deliver. And so I think I may have started out giving you uh six and so now we're down to two. It means that they have delivered and babies still remain in the program because mom as a pregnant mom is enrolled in the uh homebased program because mom is only going to get one visit a month by the homebased uh teacher. And so pregnant mom does not need as many visits as the mom who is parenting. Mom who is parenting will get a visit every uh every week for her child. And so the same thing happens when mom delivers then the uh sessions that she will get at home will increase. She does
055not get she it like starts off to uh every two weeks because it's too much for she and the baby to actually do those visits for an hour when baby is sleeping. So so as as the baby gets older then the visits for that mom who is newly delivered will then get additional visits as well. And so we look at our health checks 81% uh the shots immunizations 100%. Uh we did not have any uh incidents that we needed to report uh to the health department. Number of children with disabilities we are on target with that 10%. we are supposed to be uh have 10% of our enrollment uh with our children being declared uh with disabilities. So that's a head start. Uh that's something that we must meet every year and so we're glad
056that we are doing we are here at this point before the end of the year otherwise we would have to ask for a waiver. So waivers are not that easily to write up cuz you in a waiver you've got to explain why you did not make the 10%. So it's hard for you to say why you didn't. It's better to say that you did. Okay. So our staff training activities were five so far and our parent involvement activities is a one. So far we have collected uh $21,679 in in kind and our uh school nutrition report for 20 days. Breakfast uh 1,600 children were served. We paid 13 $3,000 $792. Uh for lunch still 20 uh days $7,568. And for our snacks, we still had 20 days. And uh the 1600 children, $1,936. Uh the
057budget report is included. And uh if we will do the first page that second page, uh it looks like in the month of March, we did not do any charging. So at that point in time, it just meant we must have caught up with the spending. So we we took a break in March. Uh let us look then at the budget on um for January through December 2025. And so far we have expended uh 57% uh we have 57% of the budget left. $512 and five yeah five yeah $512,117.50. and the pages that follow that just gives you the explanations of what we have used in terms of the spending and we still have not uh completed all of our budget from 2024. So if you will go over a couple of pages then we
058will be in the budget for 2024. We still have some incumbrances that are out. Um what Miss L'Oreal normally does is that if if the uh amount of the bill is out there and and it hasn't come to us, she goes she'll get on the phone and she'll call the company just to find out uh you know what the holdup is, let them know that we're ready to pay the bill. You just need to send it to us. And so, uh, it's it's much slower this year than it has been, uh, in in in past years. And the pieces that we have, the pages behind that just explains what our spending has been so far and what we are waiting what we're waiting to pay. And so, this completes this part of the report. But
059I do want to do uh the piece to bring the board up to uh the newest thing that we have done at the early head start program as far as uh dealing with uh vacancies that we had. And uh I do would like to report at this board meeting that we have then uh we're going to bring a recommendation to you tonight uh coming from the policy council in order to accept a candidate for the uh the director's position. And uh just a quick background on that uh we must and I'm going to include Dr. Williams with this in terms of uh spearing she she takes the lead with this particular part of the process although policy council takes the lead along with Dr. Williams in terms of bringing that candidate doing the interviews and
060getting uh the final candidate that we are going to present to the board. Um that person then has to be presented to policy council where policy council has to vote on it. Uh we didn't get finished going through the interview process until the week before we were leaving to go home for spring break. So our schedules were very very very tight because we need and here we're coming back and the same day that uh I needed to present this to you. I had policy council meeting this morning. Uh I was unfortunately was uh at MCG with my husband doing a procedure on yesterday. So it was like a very very busy day for us. But we do have uh and and I have it in as in the form of an announcement. Miss Yolanda Willis
061has been presented as the candidate for the position of early Head Start program director. We had a discussion. it was open for discussion. Uh prior to um the parents going home at spring break, I sent them a package that included the uh resume for Miss Willis so that uh they could be informed when they came to the meeting on today in order to accept this recommendation. And so uh Miss Stacy Richardson made the motion. I move that Miss Yolanda Willis is accepted as a candidate for the Burke County Early Head Start position of program director and is recommended to the board of education for approval. Second was made by Miss Luchia Brown. Both of these are parents and so I present this because it wasn't in time for uh to get in your package because
062we wanted all of this to be authentic. that has to go to officer Headstart in that whole process. And so, uh, if there are questions about, uh, Miss Willis's, uh, resume, I did bring it with me tonight just in case I would be giving, uh, accurate information, but she is a very strong uh, has a very strong resume and uh, interviewed very well. And so, uh, I'm very pleased to present that, uh, that that candidate. Uh, are there questions about that? If not, I've got one more thing that we need to take about, take care of. I do want you to go back to your calendars for the governor's training where we are going together on May the 14th at the Early Head Start Center. will be in the training rooms from 5 to 7
063and I'm working on getting the food catered. So, we are going to have some good food while you're there for those two hours. And I do want to just at uh at this point in time just thank the board as well as Dr. Williams um for making yourselves available for this. This is another thing that happens every year. Uh it's not that uh you I'm punishing you for for something that we did not do right, but every year the governor's training is scheduled and it's supposed to encompass uh new board members coming on and new parents coming on. So information uh what we we want to make sure that nobody misses out on that important information that you need. And so I will be I will be counting in uh six representatives from the board
064and we'll be having uh I think we've got five coming from uh policy council. Okay. Are there any questions? I know I told you a whole lot today. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay, Miss Reed, uh just let me say this, please. Uh when you first started making uh your presentations here at the board, and I was a new board member, I used to wonder why in the world Miss Reed has to bring that report every month, go over that thing line by line. And then when we had our first governance training and the uh your the trainer start asking questions. Does Mr. Reed do this? Does M do that? Man, that's when I realized you were not punishing us. Well, I I just I just want I want you to know that uh
065my concern is always to make certain that Burk County Early Head Start is in compliance and it is not a good position to be in non-compliance with the office of Head Start. And so it starts with uh the director's position. Yes. The director is supposed to guide the board and have the board experience those opportunities that are going to make them more empowered so that when you get to a point where you're going to have a review, those those persons that come in that do that review, they will have conversations with the board. But if the board has not been in constant uh engagement in terms of what the office of head start expects, then you aren't going to feel very comfortable when you're answering those questions from those persons. And so, uh, I always
066want to have, uh, my board to be prepared when it is time for that piece to come. I won't be with you at that point in time, but let's just hope that Miss Willis is going to have gotten her training. And well, you're a couple of years off before you get to that point for that big review. And so, at this point in time, I'm going to say take good notes and ask a whole lot of questions before you go to your trainings. the the the person that does the training wants you to ask questions because they know then that there might have been something that they said that was not clear for you but they want to make certain that you get good results whenever you have that review. Thank you so much Dr.
067We have a motion. I want to add something about the head start. So, officer Head Start considers the director's position a key position. So, there are actually three steps to it. The first step was to get policy council approval. The second step is to get approval from this board as the governing body. And then we have to send that recommendation up to the office of head start. They have to actually approve it before we can offer the job to Miss Willis. So, it is a process. So, um you'll hear again from you've probably seen it on the personnel sheet. um because you two have to approve it before we send it up to the office of head start. Make a motion. I make a motion to approve the uh presentation from early head start for
068the month of March. Second. Okay. Are there any questions? No questions. Let's vote. Thank you. Vote carrots. And now we are ready to move to um our school nutrition uh report. Miss Ly. Yes. Good evening. Good evening. Tonight I have two separate bids. So I have one for a cold pass through at the high school. And a pass through is where you can actually pass through from the kitchen to the wine. So you load it in the back from the kitchen and then the people on the line can pull it out and grab it. So we have one of those at the high school that I have to replace. I got six bids and the lowest one came in at Norville. Help if I share it with you, but Norville got the lowest one and
069they do good business. I feel comfortable. So I'm asking tonight to accept the bid from Norville for 14643 for the pass. Do I have any questions? Is that what you need? We need a motion. Make a motion to approve the cold pass of um second. Second. Oh, yay. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Let's vote. The vote carries. The next Okay. Our next item is a commie oven. So, it will it works as a convection oven and a steamer. So, we're looking to get a combi oven at primary because the cost of repair is so significant that we decided to just replace. And I have six bids on that one. And Culinary Depot came in at the lowest. It's 3678660. [Music] Well, they your bids include the equipment, the installation. I do equipment
070install and then training and haul of the old. So they take away I put it on the page in big bold big font right above where they put their price so they can't say they didn't see it. Any other questions? There are no questions. We need a motion. A motion that we accept the bid for Culinary Depot for the primary combo um oven. Second. [Music] Okay, there no other discussion. We need to vote by show hand. Okay, the vote. Thank you. Anything else? Well, Miss Allison is is standing here. Um, we had um the school nutrition program had an administrative review during the last month of March and there were no findings. So at this time I would like to present her with the certificate from um Department of Education for a um successful administrative
071review. Great job. Thank you. And in return I couldn't have done it without the help of Miss Carol free from SBA. She did an amazing job. Paid attention to detail. very bur and I'll always Um I had mentioned back in March that the senior citizens center was requesting the use of a bus of course with a bus driver to um they have an annual prom and last year they had it in Burke County and Jenkins County came up here and so this time they're having it in Jenkins County and they want to call the seniors um to our seniors to Jenkins County. And so we need a I'm asking for an official vote on um allowing the use of the bus and bus driver. That is for April 29th. 29th. That didn't answer my question.
072I wondered why was going to Jenkins that I make a motion to approve the use of a bus and bus driver for the Burke County Senior Citizens Prom on Tuesday, April 29th. Okay. Um, there's no other discussion and they're real happy uh to be traveling by bus because some don't have transportation. Um, let's vote and that will make them very very happy. I think now we're ready for Perfect. I have nothing further. Um I think I shared everything I need to share with you all in your Friday update. So let me just say the Friday update is wonderful. I really appreciate it. Uh that um magazine, the school board magazine. Lots of good information. Um it has something on there that I'm really studying hard of how school boards can benefit from. uh surveys and
073and all kinds of things. So, if you haven't looked at it, please look at it because it does have good information in it. So, I appreciate that. And will we continue to get that as soon as I go? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Now, this closes out our open part of the meeting. I thank each and every one of you for attending and you may go with your evening as we continue to go into the executive session to discuss matters. Let's vote. Motion. The motion is made with yote. [Music] I have I that you were the good person. Thank you.