001Call this first budget hearing to order. Need a motion to approve the agenda. So move. Mr. Tulle. Second. Mr. Hammond. All in favor? Passes 300. Purpose of the hearing. Mr. Adams. Uh good afternoon board members and Dr. Branch. Uh before we get started, we do have a handout available at the back of the room uh for reference for the budget that we sent tenally approved. Um I want to remind everybody of the purpose of the hearing. The Coney County Board of Education has tenatively adopted the fiscal year 26 budget. Georgia law requires the budget be advertised after the board of education adopts the tenative budget and prior prior to final adoption. The board is required to hold two public hearings for the purpose of providing an opportunity for public input on the tenative budget prior
002to final adoption. On the screen you will see our budget calendar. In April we had our expenditure budget review presentation. We presented the tenative budget on May 12th and the board tenatively adopted the budget on the same day. The first budget hearing is scheduled for today, May 22nd, 2020, 2025 at 4:00 here in the board meeting room at the instructional support center, 71 North Main Street in Watkinsville. The second budget hearing is scheduled for May 29th, 2025 at the same time in the same location. Budget considerations for fiscical year 26 budget include salary steps for eligible employees of 1.08 million, health insurance employer contribution of 3.08 million. teacher retirement system employer contribution employer contribution increase of 1.1 million and our school res officer program at $2.5 million for total considerations of $7.8 million with a
003continuation budget of 112.6 million and additional considerations of 7.8 million. The total budget expenditures amount to 120.5 million. Of the 120.5 million 88.5% of the fiscal year 26 tenative budget is salaries and benefits and the remaining 11.5% is operations for daily operations of the entire district. The budget is based on an estimated roll back millage rate of 13.91 mills, a decrease of 2.32% from our current millage rate of 14.25. And again, that would be the lowest millage rate since 1992. This leaves an estimated unassigned fund balance on June 30th, 2025 of a projected amount of 20.45 million. When you add projected revenue of 119 million and deduct expenditures of 120.5 million, you come to an estimating ending fund balance of 23.25 million on June 30th, 2026, which is a projected 19.2% unassigned fund balance. Again,
004just that represents about 2 and a half months of salary and operational expenditures for the school district. for comparison of best practices that are recommended by DOE and just standard business guidelines suggest maintaining reserves equivalent to 3 to six months of such expenses. And I also like to note if the roll back rate is attentively adopted, hearings on the millage rate will not be required for fiscal year 26. Both federal expenditures and revenues are projected at approximately $7.6 million. Federal funds make up about roughly 6.5% of the overall budget and on average the district administers nine nine distinct federal grant programs each fiscal year. Again, these funds are basically a pass through and reimbursement based and we get those received on a lag throughout the fiscal year. The budget presentation, budget calendar, and budget documents
005are posted in assembly with the corresponding meeting dates mentioned earlier. The board will vote on the fiscal year 26 tenative, excuse me, budget and tenative millage rate at the June 9th board meeting. And that concludes my report unless the board has any questions. Well, I just want to thank you, Peter. This is a lot of work and you team did an awesome job with this. So, big thank you for that. And I was curious, um, when was the last time there was a full roll back in our budget? I think it was 2014. Well, I can verify that and get that information to you. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you. Communications, Mr. Car. Thank you, Mr. Ransom. We have one OKone County resident signed up to address the
006board. Before I invite her up, I'll read this. Policies BCBI and BCBIR1 state that only Okone County residents or school system employees may address the board and that members of the public shall conduct themselves in a respectful manner that is not disruptive to the conduct of the board's business. The board allows three minutes for those who sign up prior to the meeting. Please state your name, address, and topic. The board requests that you refrain from making any disparaging remarks about school system personnel. There will generally be no response to comments or questions posed by citizens at the meeting. All comments and questions will be taken under advisement by the board. However, any board member shall be free to respond and make public comments if he or she elects to do so. To any citizen wishing
007to provide documents for board members, please submit them to the director of communications before the meeting or prior to addressing the board. Please remain at the podium during your public comment time. Our speaker is Pamela Hendrickx. Welcome, Miss Hendricks. Thank you. Once again, I'm the only one here because this is a very difficult time of day for the public to come and it just sort of to me indicates that y'all don't want to hear from the public. Um, you couldn't even get two of your board members here at 400 pm. So, and this happens every year as y'all know. I'm usually here at these board meetings and um I I think it's now I I wanted to say I just heard the reading I had a I had a handout I wanted to give each
008of the board members but I guess I'll submit it and you can have it for the next meeting. Um, I just wanted to start by saying that, you know, I'm here to speak for the taxpayers that support our public schools. And, you know, I feel like each of the board members have been elected to represent the taxpayers. Um, once again, we've got assist. We've got it looks like in the coming year you're expecting 98 fewer students and yet the budget's going up $5,635,549. I had prepared a handout. I will get it to you for the next public hearing, but I had taken a look at the budgets from fiscal year 2020 20 through fiscal year 2026 or really just 2025. And I had looked at things, you know, the way this is presented, it looks
009like, oh, this is all just an increase in teacher salaries and health benefits and, oh, we had to protect our students with the new um sheriff's deputies of the schools and that kind of thing. But I propose a different way of looking at it. And um, we just keep increasing the budget. You know, I thought, gosh, it wasn't long ago it was below a million. I mean, below a hundred million. And I look back, it was just um it was below a 100 million in fiscal year 23. We are now sitting at 120 million. Yet for at least two years in a row, we've dropped students. And so I I looked at it honestly, it's hilarious. Um in fiscal year um 2021, we added to the budget 6,621,000, but we only added 24 new students.
010That was 275,000 per student. There's a different way of looking at these things. I mean, you've got to start tightening your budget when your when your students enrollment's going down. And basically, Okone County, because of the high tax rates, families can't afford to live here. Our own um local newspaper man can't afford to live in the county that he writes about the paper. I think that's tragic. And I just continued. Another thing I looked at was the cash balance reports. And I just took a snapshot. So I used the April 30th cash balance report. And guess what? It has gone up every single year. I don't care what your budget says, you're holding more and more and more of the taxpayer money. Um, and it's currently at $68 million. Um, that's my money that you're
011sitting on and I would just like some consideration of that. and it does every year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. [Music] Mr. Ransom. That concludes public communication. Thank you, Mr. Caul. Any other further business? Hearing is adjourned.