001I call to order this Kawita County called Board of Education meeting called agenda 8:38 6:30 p.m. May 20th, 2025. Please rise for the pledge and a moment of silence. 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. You may be seated. Now I have a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. Dr. Horton, turn it over to you for the budget work session. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this time, I'll call on assistant superintendent for finance, Mr. Keith Chapman, to bring you a second of our required budget workshops. Mr. Chapman, working from the same numbers we saw last week,
002there have been no changes. We start with our FY25 revenue, 293 million. Look at our state funding change work from our projected 25 current year amount. See an increase in QBE increase in local fair share which is a subtraction transportation money decrease slightly very minimal increase in nursing $5.8 million net increase on the state funds. Uh not protecting any change in our midterm aotment. uh slight change in federal indirect costs. That'll vary based on what the final grants are from the Fed. Uh bus replacement funds dropped significantly. School safety grant, there was a slight increase. We also received an additional security grant. Uh we paid the custodial supplements last year, however, they weren't in the original budget when it was put together. Uh all other state grants increase a little over half a million dollar.
003Our tide level alarm tax we're looking at a increase right at $200,000. Uh our other taxes miscellaneous not projecting any change. We accepted approximately $5.7 million in growth in last year's digest when we did not roll back. looking at a 5% increase on the digest maintaining the military of 15.41 41 mills would give us just over $7 million. Total increase 19 million. Total projected revenue $312 million for 2026. And I did not say this to start out with. This is strictly our general fund does not include capital projects or federal programs. expenditures. We're just over 313 million, budgeting $812,272 in reserves, lowest amount we've budgeted in reserves in many years. Salaries and benefits, $285 million, a little over 91% significant amount there. Look at our personnel changes. You will notice there are several items highlighted
004in yellow. These items were mandated to us from the state. We've got increase in health insurance for certified employees, 2.2 million. Increase in health insurance on our classified employees, 4.2 million. TRS increase, we have just a handful of people in the ERS. There was a small decrease there, but a net increase of $1.8 million. Certified employee steps, $1.8 million. where we come to things that are local decisions. We're looking at doing a step for classified employees, admin, a 2% cost of living for all employees, certified, classified, and admin. Those are our decision. Uh we've got a few growth positions that we're adding. We due to change in enrollment, not not overall numbers, but numbers at specific schools, we're hoping we will see a decrease of nine positions, but we budgeted three just to be safe
005there. We added the custodial supplement in because again, the revenue wasn't budgeted, expense wasn't budgeted last year. Other main major changes, as I mentioned earlier, we had an additional security grant and we've added money for using contracted nurses. We try to keep a nurse at every school. We're unable to hire nurses as employees in several instances. So, we contract with companies. It's just a shift of funds from being budgeted for salaries to being as contracted services. Um, excuse me, Mr. Chapman. Sure. Uh, Dr. important for the reduction of uh teaching positions. We're not uh letting anyone go. This this is just uh someone's retiring. We're just not going to backfill essentially. Yes, sir. Um currently we're looking at approximately 74 retirees next year, but we would anticipate that any um any reduction in the number
006of teachers would be handled through normal attrition. We'll also note, you may remember back during the budget um not the budget work session, whole board training we had a few months ago back in March where we went school by school and showed you um how we track that enrollment to the grade level. Um that that is the the basis for uh those reductions. Yes, sir. No, thank you for that uh clarification. And I just know we've had that conversation publicly with other systems and I just didn't want us to look like we were doing something others were doing because we're fiscally responsible. Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Uh the next page are expenditures, major operating items. These are fairly similar from year to year. Uh largest items, uh utilities, SRO's, uh software, hardware for IT transfers.
007I'm not going to go through all of them, but those are listed out. Those come to 8.7% of the expenditures. All other operating expenditures are 21%. So, there's not much other out there. Uh, last page. Uh, can I ask a quick question on the SRO's just for my own knowledge? Do we pay 100% of that salary or do we split it with sheriffs or the city? It's a it's a split. Split. Okay. Thank you. Sure. um projecting the reserves to be $46.6 million at the end of this fiscal year, 14.88% which good good reserve balance there. On the horizon, as always, we're looking at maintaining a healthy reserve. Uh looking at the potential increase in the senior exemption, don't see any way that won't pass in November. and uh we're trying to catch up with
008our facility maintenance renovation at other schools since we've been so concentrated on Nunan for a few years. Mr. Chapman, a quick question on that senior exemption. Obviously, the the vote will be early November. Will the tax assessor's office have enough time so that assuming that that passes and we all think it will and hope it does that that will be reflected in the bills that are due in what is it? December of this year. No sir, it will not go into effect until the next calendar year. be it would be the the bill that the property tax that would be due in December of 26. Okay, that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure of that. So, okay, while we're uh real quick uh on taxes, so this budget is refle is based
009off of if we were to take the 1541 um in later this summer like the the military, excuse me. Right. Okay. Just making sure. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chapman, I'll ask a question that you're probably much more qualified than I to answer. When you look at um the increases in state health benefit plan for for classified and certified employees, do we have do we have any say in the employee cost? We don't have any say in either portion. Those are dictated to us by the state. Right. So the employee portion and the employer person portion are both dictated to us by the state. Yes sir. Yes sir. And Mr. Chapman I think that's also true for the employee contribution to the teachers retirement system which we have no control over. Those are set by and
010the max is set by law. That's set and dictated to us. Okay. That's what I thought. Thank you. So our increases in insurance. So when it now cost us 21 $22,620 per on um per or per member $18.85 per member per month 22,000 per year. So so when they we get these insurance plans so that is something handed to us from the state. We do not shop insurance. So that's our state house and representatives voting for that insurance plan. That's that comes from the state. Yes. I mean and that strictly health. Everything else we do handle locally. Health is health comes to us from the state. Did it come with an explanation of the increase? Just that's just what we have to pay. Originally, originally we were informed that they were going to phase the
011increase in over several years. Uh that changed and it was all implemented u within this year. Mr. Chapman, do you know what portion um the employee pays? Or maybe not what portion, what is the amount the employee pays? It it varies on whether it's single, depends on single plus they choose family and which plan. Sorry. Okay. If you need anything specific, I can get it, but I'm sorry. I don't know them off off the top of my head. So, and I noticed that the increase in state funding is 5,857,172, but when you flip over the changes they've made, four, five, six, it's about eight million. No, over 10 million. Over 10 million. So, okay. Yes, ma'am. By my math, I have I'm I'm terrible at math, but um 10156 213 is the uh is the
012increase. 10156 213. So, the increase in funding we received is not it really kind of negates what they're going to increase in our expenditures. It doesn't really Okay, thank you. It's not going it never does cover. It never will cover. So projecting right now to be down as many as nine teachers. Um the budget of 800,000 into reserves. Mr. Chapman mentioned it. Uh it is um you know the the least amount we've probably been budgeted into reserve in the last several years. We feel pretty good about that. Um we do have the 2% colas for staff. uh which of course would be a local decision. Uh just to give you give you some information on our general fund salary breakdown. Um administrative centered off office office salaries are 2.99% of salaries. Uh just over $8
013million there. School-based administrative salaries 5.49%. Uh so just over $15 million. Certified staff, teachers, um 72.27%. 27% of salaries classified salaries 19.25 67.93% of this budget is in instruction. Um you have some requirements there under state law that you have to meet. Um but 67.93% of it uh is uh in instruction and we're not projecting any major increases uh in in operating expenses uh for this year. Um back to really briefly uh some information from 2011 to present uh on u the cost of benefits uh for um we've we've looked at I want to say it's an 800% increase let me look at it real quick in benefit cost. Yes. From 2011 to this year's proposed FY26 increase, we've had an increase of 206% for certified employees. It's from $91261 to $1,885 a month for
014certified. And for our classified employees, non-certified employees, it's 864%. It's gone from $218.20 20 cents a month. Uh from 2011 uh to now it's $885 a month uh is what we pay uh in in classified benefits per per month. Mr. Latimer shared that information with me last week. Wanted to make sure that I was able to communicate it to you. So you know whenever I say that the price of doing business continues to go up, uh it has it has gone up historically for us. Did did you say 885 or 1885? 1885. I just wanted to make sure I heard right. Has the coverage changed for our employees? Is it better coverage or the same? Some people would say a little better, some would say a little worse. Depends on who you ask. I'm sorry.
015Can you give that number for certified it went from 91261 to 1885 and then for not certif I could be wrong. And then non-servable was 21820 to 8.85 to 1885. 18 Okay, that's okay. That's right. Yes, sir. 1885. think about th this is just not sustainable. I don't know how we're gonna continue doing that. I don't I know we're saying that it's dictated from the state, but I just don't see how we can continue on this this trajectory. We have no choice but participate in it for our teachers. We're not given an option. But I I just I don't know I don't know where the money's going to come from eventually. I mean, it just it just doesn't seem it just doesn't seem feasible. Miss Bernard, I had the kind of the same thought. My
016I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I know insurance cost for all of us, private companies or or government systems has skyrocketed over the last, you know, 10 years, but they have not increased this much. I think the state is passing on a lot more of the cost to the local systems. And Miss Barnett, I think you're right. At some point, there's a breaking point at some point in the future that the state's going to have to step up uh with more funding. I mean, it's got to come from somewhere. So, I mean, that well, that's if we I mean, there's a significant amount of expenditures we we have no control over, obviously. And uh but with Mr. Barnett, I mean, we're not going to not give and give insurance. And I
017don't think you were coming across that way. We're not going to give we're not going to not do give insurance for our employees. I just think and I and correct me if I'm wrong, when we look at the budget as a whole kind of in in years and and later years, obviously, we're in a very good spot now. We appreciate Mr. Chapman and his team, Mr. Latimer, Dr. important, but I think in in years to come, we're going to have to potentially take a harder look at and if I'm speaking for you, please correct me, but I just think I'm following what you're saying. It sounds like Yeah, it's, you know, there's not a free market out there. We can't shop it, right? I mean, it is what it is. We're given Do we know
018that? Is this the same insurance that an employee of the state of Georgia? Is it the same same type of insurance? Do we know that? It's Yes. Okay. So same same premiums and everything else. I can't speak to what state agencies are charged but Mr. Mr. Dubos, I'm a university system employee and excuse me, why we don't have exactly the same insurance. It is very similar, you know. Yeah, it's uh and um but we you know, we have been hit on the university system side with some employee increases and I think the the state has done the same for teachers, but it's certainly not every year, you know, and those are controlled. um you know the whole university system has the the same uh same plans just like all the school systems have the same
019plan. So yeah, it's a you know coming coming out of general industry, we face similar situations at our location uh here and we were we were under a corporate umbrella and our insurance costs went way up and uh so we decided that we we would independently shop our insurance and it actually was higher. The bids that we got were higher than what we were initially given by corporate. So there's no guarantee that just because you shop for that business that it's going to come back you're going to come back with a lower cost. I wanted to comment on one other thing healthcare related but not directly but the contract nurses. Um I think you know we are blessed in Kawita County to have two first class medical facilities with the city of hope and and
020Pedmont Nunan and there's some others too. I think the downside of that is like you said we can't hire nurses. I did not realize I was speaking with a principal earlier this week um and they indicated they had had a nurse school nurse position open for over a year with no applicants at all and that's where the contract nurses we're having to rely on contract nurses uh to fill those positions. So that's like I said it's a shift from kind of one one line item to another. Yes. Uh but that's something else that we you know certainly have to provide and need to provide. So we'll look at tenative adoption of the budget at our regular June board meeting on June 10th. Two weeks after we would need to have a call board meeting for
021the formal adoption. uh we'll advertise uh once between the two meetings once it's tenatively adopted and we'll should be done with the budget process at that point and we'll move on to the mill rate later in July early August. Thank you Mr. Chapman. Mr. Chair, unless there are any other questions that's all I have. Uh any other questions or comments on the budget? If not, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Motion passes six to zero. Thank you.