FCPS School Board Action Meeting - 8/18/25

001[Music] world. The world [Music] Uhoh. [Music] Hey, blue. [Music] You know, you [Music] Everyone ready? You ready? >> You all ready? >> Ready. M. Jackson, are you ready? Okay. I don't know. Okay. Good evening everyone. I will now call this regular meeting of the Faget County Board of Education to order. Welcome back to school. Uh Miss Jackson, good evening to you. Will you please take role? >> Good evening. Amanda Ferguson, >> present. >> Amy Green, >> present. >> Tyler Murphy, >> present. >> Penny Christian, >> present. >> Monica Mundy, >> present. >> Thank you, Miss Jackson. I'd like to welcome everyone joining us for tonight's meeting both in person and on our broadcast. Next on our agenda, uh, board member Amanda Ferguson will lead us through our observation of moment of silence followed by the

002pledge of allegiance, reading of the district mission statement. Board member Ferguson. >> Thank you, Chair Murphy. We remember Eliz Elijah who served our students, staff, families, and community as a custodian at EFJ Hayes for seven years. Anthony Bruce Sate who started his career in the district as a substitute teacher for three years before accepting a position as a math teacher at the learning center where he served seven years. Donna Graham who joined Fyet County Public Schools as a food service assistant substitute before accepting a full-time position at Breenidge where she sent spent the last three years. Tanya Jones, a 20-year veteran teacher who spent 17 years at East Side Technical Center and taught technology at Brian Station High School for the past three years. Larry McCrae, who was a member of the transportation team for

003six years, first as a bus monitor and for the past four years as a driver. Our hearts remain with their families, friends, and all those touched by their passing. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. And now the pledge. I pledge allegiance 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. And the mission of the Faget County Public Schools is to serve to create a collaborative community that ensures all students achieve at high levels and graduate prepared to excel in a global society. >> Thank you, board member Ferguson. Our next order of business is approval of the uh agenda. Dr. Ligins has requested an amendment to the agenda pulling consent item

004J1B regarding professional leave for discussion prior to action. And I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda with that change indicated. Is there a motion? >> I move we approve the agenda with that indicated change. >> Uh motion by Bormer Green. Is there a second? >> Second by Bor Mundy. All in favor of adopting the agenda as amended, please say I. >> I. >> Motion carries 5-0. We do like to open our schoolboard meeting celebrating our talented students and high quality arts instruction. Now the students are back in session. And so at this time, I'll invite FCPS director of fine arts, Miss Katherine Lther, to come forward and introduce tonight's performance spotlight. >> Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Ligins, and guests. I'm very excited to uh share with you our uh performance,

005the first performance of the season, which is going to be Tates Creek High School's percussion ensemble uh performing Watercolor Sun. Before that, I do want to formally and publicly thank uh board chair Murphy and Superintendent Ligins for performing with our students this summer in Mama Mia. Uh we had several guests including state representative Chad All and principal of Paul Lawrence Dumbar High School um Scott Lowshider who did a cameo as Father Alexandria's. So um you can uh enjoy a t-shirt with your names on it as a part of the cast as well as a photo and thank you so much for supporting our students over the summer and as always. So tonight we do have the Tates Creek High School Percussion Ensemble represented here. I'd like to thank um Dr. Christy Field, the principal, who

006is in attendance here in the middle of the audience, as well as head band director Aaron Cunningham, who's been with the district for 18 years. He's actually on the field with the students right now during band marching band rehearsal. We also have here tonight assistant band director Brent Hunt, as well as his daughter Elena Hunt, who is one of the featured performers in the quartet today. A little snapshot about Tates Creek High School. As of this morning, over 50% of their students are enrolled in an arts course. So, you're going to see four of them on screen today. You're going to see Devonte Elliot, Jonathan Coop, Emily Wilbur, who are current 12th graders when this video was taken last year. They were in 11th grade. And then Miss Elena Hunt, who will join us here

007in a moment, uh was in ninth grade at the time of the video, and she is in 10th grade now. It's a very diverse program and um they were honored in 2025 February to be um selected as one of the performing ensembles at the Kentucky Music Educators Association state conference. You're going to see a unique performance that has a quartet of students on one single instrument around a 4.3 octave mima. So this is something that um is quite unusual. Students learn about collaboration and focus and they have to learn the right tool for the job as they pick their mallets, as they pick their position. And these are all skills that transfer over into their their regular lives. So, I'm going to turn it over to assistant band director Brent Hunt as well as his

008talented daughter Elena Hunt. All right, good evening. Thank you guys so much for doing this. I think this is a fantastic thing that you guys do. I've watched these um each month and see all the ensembles perform. Uh really appreciate that support for you guys allowing us to do this. Uh it's a really exciting time right now at Taste Creek High School. um in the band world especially uh the arts programs are growing and they're thriving and we're really excited by that. Uh we've done a lot of work in that. A lot of ground work in our feeder schools and and promoting our program. Uh the band program through marching band and all of the different things that we do has grown to over 120 students uh which is great up from uh under a

009hundred last year. So uh it's really it's really gone a great way. We've gotten more involvement from also from students that live within our district but might not go to Tates Creek High School like if they're involved in the steam school or Agra schools or different stuff like that. So they've come along so we're able to get them connected so that they understand that hey your your involvement in the arts doesn't have to stop just because you've gone to a different school. Um you can still participate in the marching band aspect of of the program or jazz band and things like that. So that's been wonderful. Uh uh the concert band has consistently earned distinguished ratings uh straight distinguished ratings last year with our symphonic band as well um both of our programs. So TCHS

010uh has been uh 4A KMA state marching band uh finalist a couple times the past year. But one thing that we're really excited about this year is that we've grown and now we are in uh class 5A which means that uh you represented the school size and the band size are both in the top 20% number-wise. Uh so that puts us in a great spot. It's a very competitive class, but we're real excited to be there and that's just showing once again uh that we're continuing to grow uh and and families are starting to choose us more through the band program. So, we can use that as our own somewhat type of magnet program to help bring families in and uh to our school as it continues to improve. Uh students uh in this percussion

011ensemble that you're going to see today, uh they auditioned. This is just a small little thing. It's a little quartet, but the whole public the whole percussion ensemble, there's about 15 of them, uh, performed in various ensembles there. They recorded uh, performances and did this whole big thing and we videoed it and sent it in and everything. And Kier has a group of people uh, aboard that decides, you know, who's going to go through all the videos submitted from the different schools throughout. Uh, we've had many Fyet County Public School groups that have performed there at KMA conference, which is great. Uh, Tates Creek was selected. We're going to show you one of those today. Um, and this is the second time that the Tates Creek High School Percussion Ensemble has performed at state conference.

012Usually annually they select one to two, sometimes three groups. So, it's a highly selective process. So, we were really fortunate to be a part of that. So, I'm going to turn it over to Elena to talk a little bit about what it was like to be a part of that and the percussion ensemble and uh what being in the arts at Taste Creek means to her. Good evening. My name is Elena Hunt and I'm a sophomore at Tates Creek High School. I had the opportunity to perform the piece Watercolor Sun at KMEA State Conference in Louisville this past February. This piece is both beautiful to hear and fascinating to watch since there are four of us on one instrument which we call a MIMA. Having four people on one instrument poses some challenges. Whenever there

013are challenges like that in a musical piece, it requires much practice. Our practices began right after the end of marching band, and we began breaking down the various rhythms and notes to learn and perfect the piece. Practicing with my three peers was exciting and allowed us to become closer to each other. And this is the prime example of what band is. It's an experience like no other that brings kids with many different backgrounds and qualities together for one common goal, to make music. As you listen to this piece, my one hope is that it brings you joy as it did me. I hope it allows you to see the complexities and the skill of such a piece, but that the piece itself brings you to a simpler time and you let the music really take

014you away. So, on behalf of me and my three peers, thank you so much for your support of the arts at Tates Creek High School. We hope you enjoy Watercolor Sun. [Music] Hey [Music] everybody. [Music] Are we able to get it going, Mr. Cardi? Okay, no worries. We'll be patient. [Music] I [Music] want you. [Music] I [Music] think. [Music] Hey, hey, [Music] hey. [Music] Thank you all very much. Excellent work. And you know, the fact that you've practiced on an instrument that you can't necessarily take home, which just adds to the amount of time that it required. And you know, you commented that those practices happen after marching band. uh almost as an aside when there may be folks in here who don't realize that that marching band in and of itself is an incredible

015commitment of time and so even after that you continued uh with that work. So thank you well done uh and thank you both for being here and sharing this with us. We appreciate >> at this time I'll turn the agenda over to Superintendent Ligins for the superintendent report. Thank you, Chair Murphy, and thank you all again for that wonderful performance. Uh, I'd also like to add my own welcome to everyone joining us here tonight, both in person and online. Uh, before our formal presentations, um, I would like to give you a brief update on um, how we've started the incredible school year 2425. I'm sorry, we're in 2526. uh as you entered and if you were in the room a little bit earlier, you should have seen a slideshow scrolling with all the amazing photos

016and data by the numbers of some of the things that we've done to be FCPS ready uh for just last week when we began on Wednesday. Um among some of those high points we have um more 6 million square feet of floors that have been waxed and ready for teachers and students. As of last week, 35 thou 3,500 backpacks filled with school supplies. We had over 35,000 hours of professional learning earned. Uh we also opened two new schools, but we also transitioned uh to a new communication system um with a new electronic transportation routing system for this school year to provide better services to our families. In addition to that, uh there's been over 25,500 bus routes uh created and we delivered over 67,000 messages through that particular platform, direct messages. Um for many of

017our students, heading back to school also means uh the return of nutritious meals. And so in the first three days alone, um, our cafeteria served over 105,000 meals, including, um, 16,831 slices of pizza and 49,930 nuggets in just in three days. Uh, also since Fed County School is the second largest uh, school district in the uh, state, it's fun to see the huge numbers and consider all the things that we uh, do as a district um, to this scale. Um, but what really makes uh, the first few days of school were all the smiling faces we saw, all of the energy. If you had an opportunity to be at a school on the first few days, just uh to see the kids are back, to see the the new school supplies, the new clothes, the

018smiles, the teachers, the uh families that are anxiously ready to drop their kids back off at school. Um the the crying um for kindergarteners, and when I'm talking about the kindergarters, I'm talking about their parents. And so it was really a great uh start of the school year and uh really uh helps us uh navigate what we know will be a path to a successful future for those students. Um in our spotlight futures uh spotlight partnership update for August, we're excited to spotlight um the many ways in which we're collaborating with the University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union. At this time, I'd like to invite our external partnerships manager, Michael Adams, Jr., as well as his guest uh to the podium or to the table. [Music] Good evening, board members, superintendent Ligins, and all who

019are joining us in in person and virtually. I am Michael Adams, the program manager for external partnerships under the leadership of our chief of staff, Mr. Tracy Bruno. It is long overdue, but I'm happy to spotlight the transformational partnership we have with UK Federal Credit Union. Joining me tonight is Miss Janet Beard, their business development manager. She's a highly respected leader and an education advocate that I'm privileged to call a friend. I'd also like to introduce him Seth, a 2024 graduate of Frederick Douglas High School, who is now an employee of UK Federal Credit Union. And somewhere hiding in the back, we got Andrew Miller, who is their director of marketing, and Bobby Bowers, who is a branch sales manager at South Broadway. Partnerships like this help us to meet our strategic priority of outreach

020and engagement and fulfill our portrait of a graduate promise of ensuring students are future and life ready. UK Federal Credit Union is a member-owned notfor-profit financial cooperative that has been part of our community since 1937. They operate six branches in Faget County, one in Jessine and two studentr run branches right here in our district. The first inschool branch is at Frederick Douglas High School with a second branch scheduled to open at Takes Creek High School this fall. These branches represent a substantial financial and human capital investment by the credit union which is rooted in its principles of education and its organizational philosophy of people helping people. The credit union also provides financial literacy workshops to our students and staff, attends career fairs for our middle and high schoolers, supports middle supports multiple schools through volunteerism

021and donations, and sponsors many events such as our such as lunch for our district leadership meeting. I can go on about how this organization impacts our district, but I would like to our partners to speak about what collaborating with Faget County Public Schools means to them. Thank you, Mike. Um, Mr. Adams, I should say very appreciative uh to your partnership, your leadership, and your friendship as well. So, just want to say thank you. And to this board, um, to Dr. Ligins, on behalf of our CEO, Ryan Ross, and the entire UK Federal Credit Union family, we say thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. We are uh truly honored to be recognized as a community partner and we are grateful for the chance to work alongside FCPS. It's a partnership that is truly a win-win,

022especially when we put the students at the center. Our commitment to financial well-being is at the heart of every single thing that we do. Investing in students and in adults is the key to building stronger individuals, which leads to stronger families and stronger communities. That's why we are committed to this partnership. Last week, we wrapped up the step the bus school supply drive in partnership with FCPS. The incredible generosity of our members, our leadership team, the board of directors, and our members was absolutely unbelievable. Together, we filled our UKFCU van to the brim with essential school supplies for students that needed the school supplies as well as much needed classroom necessities for teachers. This initiative would not have been a success without teamwork and collaboration and that's why we are committed to this partnership. Lastly,

023and Mike's already shared some of this, but one of our most rewarding accomplishments in partnership with FC FCPS is the establishment of our first inschool studentrun credit union branch located inside Frederick Douglas High School that opened in 2023 and that was in partnership with the Academy of Professional Services. Our second branch is on target to open this October inside Tates Creek High School. Both locations will provide affordable products and services to the students, teachers, and staff within those schools. All ran by train trained, excuse me, and ran by student interns here at Faget County Public Schools. It is a it is a major financial investment that has provided realworld real work experience and a career path for students. We know that this partnership is changing lives because we have a testimony, a real life story

024that shows just how impactful this initiative has been. And that's why we remain committed to this partnership. For over 88 years, we have proudly served our members as well as this community, and we are dedicated to continuing that legacy by helping to make Lexington a great place to live. Our partnership proves that when business and education unites, it's a winwin for everyone. Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce one of our success stories, a former high school intern who is now a valued part-time employee at UK Federal Credit Union, Hamil Seth. I will let him share his story of what this experience has meant to him. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Janet, for this warm introduction. I graduated from Frederick Douglas High School in 2024 and I am currently a sophomore at University

025of Kentucky. I was part of the first group of students to kick off this internship program. I would like to thank Fate County Public Schools and UN and the University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union for starting this great internship program and giving me opportunity to share my experience today. The internship gave me valuable exposure to the credit union environment and its operations. It was a great learning experience for me as I developed important skills in banking, financial literacy, customer service, marketing and employability along with many soft skills. I also had the chance to work and network with credit union leaders and experts during the internship. This experience also helped me become more career ready as it guided my decision to pursue bachelor's degree in accounting and finance at the University of Kentucky. Just joining the

026internship program was an incredible opportunity as it has helped me build a clear path towards my future. During the internship, I truly enjoyed working at UKFCU. So when I learned there was an opening for part-time tele position, I applied right away. I am now working part-time while being a full-time college student, which allows me to take my experience to the next level and push myself outside of my comfort zone and learn new things. One of the qualities I admire most about UKFCU is their commitment to helping and investing in the community and the employees, whether through volunteering programs, high school internships, or great products and services provided to our members. I am proud to be part of such an organization. At the end, I would like to thank everyone who has been and continue to

027be part of my journey. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you both very much and we appreciate the partnership. Uh we had I think all of us had an opportunity or most of us had an opportunity to attend Step the Bus and it was incredible. So, we appreciate that. Um I do do have a question for you. How many um did you take advantage of the dual credit and dual enrollment opportunities at Frederick Douglas? And so did were you able to go into UK with some credit through either AP or dual enrollment? >> So actually I transferred here I shifted here from India in during my junior year spring semester. So I was not able to get much opportunity of those credits but uh if I was here for all four years I would have really liked

028that and have some building blocks. >> No. Excellent. Well, we we do appreciate you here. We we do appreciate the time that you were able to be with us at Frederick Douglas and we appreciate you coming back to share your experience with us. Any questions or comments? Board members >> Murphy Green. >> I just reiterate what you have said. It's equally from our side. We so appreciate your partnership and your commitment to our students and to making our community better as a whole. Um I think when we pour ourselves whether whatever our time, talent, and treasures are resources into the next generation, we all reap the benefits. Um and you guys are a shining example of that. So thank you. I'm I'm glad to have worked beside you emptying that extremely full bus. Thank you

029to all of your members for their donations and good luck with your studies in accounting and finances. We do have an accounting and finance department here in Fate County and so in a few years um they can tell you the website. So, but thank you both so very much for sharing your experiences and your partnerships. >> Thank you all. I surely echo those uh appreciations. Um I also want to thank board members for your leadership and um prioritizing such community partnerships. They really do make a difference. Uh for our final item under the superintendent's report this evening, uh we would like to present at the work and the recommendations of the board solutions group. If we can have that presentation come up, please Go ahead. As you all are aware, we did have the opportunity

030uh to engage several community members that are were part of a budget solutions group to take a look at a variety of things uh to make some recommendations to you all as a board. um consider concerning the $16 million proposed gap. Uh here's a list of those members. I see many of those members are in the audience today. So I just want to again say thank you for your commitment. Thank you for your service in uh in serving on this group and uh we um are ve very pleased to have such a huge support within our community that's willing to um to lend their time, their talents, and their efforts in order to uh to help our school system continue to thrive and to do better. One of the things that we we've stressed and

031we try to stress at every single meeting, next slide, please, uh is the importance of all the things that we do in the district, whether that be um our our budget or whether that be um any other item that occurs in the district. It really is linked back to um two different things. The one being the portrait of the graduate. portrait of a graduate was something that our families uh came together in our community came together and stated this is what they would like any student that goes through Faget County Public Schools to graduate and be able to identify with. And so these four attributes are something that is not just on paper. They're not just something that is uh a poster that we we hang on the wall. That is really something that every

032single decision we make is tied to um ensuring that our students are graduating uh with these four attributes um under their belt. And um finally, we also take a great amount of time and effort um to work on our strategic priorities. Uh this one is for of particular uh interest and importance to me. This was something that ultimately when I came on as superintendent uh heard from thousands and thousands of uh individuals that stated that this is basically what we want our school system to be. uh these are the priorities of our communities, of our parents, of our students, and these are the things that are important to this community in order to make sure that when we're providing an education to our students, these are the things that our community has stated that they

033would like to have. And so, um, we entered into the, uh, the work with the the work group to go through these, uh, priorities and to let them know that these were not only important to our community, but they had also been board adopted and they're something that we have, uh, thrived to strive to make sure that we are providing to our students each and every day. >> Thank you, Dr. Ligins, and board team. Uh, I want to echo those sentiments. It was a pleasure working with the um board solution workg group and getting to know many of the um community members along with our important um business folk who really take pride into what happens in DeF County Public Schools. And so it was an honor to be able to work with them. I

034also want to thank the board community for engaging in this difficult but essential work. And so one of the first things that I'd like to share is you know over the three the course of the three meetings there was lots of discussion there was a lot of evaluation of data and an opportunity to really come forward and bring some clarity to what's really happening but also to make some um recommendations as to how we move forward. And so the the budget solutions work group made 10 recommendations and I'll start with what those are upfront and then we'll work into each one of them individually. So first of all, one of the recommendations was to reduce the planned district contingency fund from 6% to 4% of the total general fund budget. The sec one of the

035second ones um recommendations was take the full 16 million out of the planned contingency fund. A third recommendation freeze any spending not contractually obligated. A fourth being charge the district with making up the rest of the cuts from administration not impacting teachers. And a fifth recommendation continue with the program of attrition for administration. The sixth recommendation or a another recommendation was initiate a sponsorship program for particular programs, pieces of buildings and public private partnerships. Another recommendation was reduce maintenance costs by 1.7 or up to 2 million. Another recommendation was liquidate real estate and other assets. And the last two involved one, reduce maintenance costs, increase lunch pricing, and the final recommendation, raise the occupational license t tax, and let the long-term committee continue to work. So, just a little bit about what is plan contingency

036and fund balance. And there's been some confusion over this, so I'd like to help bring some clarity to it. Um, plan contingency. You think about the plan is a portion of the general fund set aside in the budget specifically for emergencies or unexpected costs. And Kentucky law requires at least 2% of the general fund budget and FCPS targets 6%. Um, the fund balance carry forward is the actual audited cash remaining in the general fund at the end of the fiscal year after all revenues and expenses are finalized. This becomes the beginning fund balance for the next year's budget. But it can also include money for planned projects, carryover, allocations and reserves. A key point is the fund balance is the total carry forward resources. The contingency is planned in the budget while the fund balance

037is confirmed at as the year closes after of course the the auditing. So just a little clarity um contingencies planned. When we built the new budget for fiscal year 25, we set aside 42 million as planned contingency. that wasn't tied to the fund balance. It was based on our policy of keeping 6% of the budget reserved for emergencies. Fund balance equals actual. At the end of the fiscal year in 2024, the audited fund balance was 42 million. This is simply the actual dollars carried forward after revenues and expenses were finalized. Key point, it just so happened that both the numbers were the same in that year. That is coincidence, not by design. And in most years, the two amounts are different. So let's talk about the long-term recommendations from the budget solutions work group. First

038um recommendation was initiate a sponsorship program for particular programs, pieces of buildings and public private partnerships. Potential funding impact would we'd have to establish a target goal for external part partnerships. So that could be a variable amount. One of the things to think about is what does this do from a student impact in organizational trade-off standpoint? It definitely could increase student internship opportunities. It could allow the focus of local funds to be in the classroom, but it also could limit autonomy on fund distribution when sponsors have specific programs and requests as the focal point. And so what are some potential next steps or additional questions that we we ask is we'd have to identify highv value opportunities with programs, spaces, and initiatives. Treat sponsorship revenue is supplemental to the general fund. And one of the

039questions that's come up is this realistic for prek through 12 district in terms of sustainability and um moving forward. So, one of the recommendations that we want to dive deeper into is charging the F FCPS. >> Dr. Barber, would you prefer for us to um if we have a question relating to a part a specific recommendation? Can we go ahead and ask it at the conclusion of the presentation about that recommendation or would you prefer to take all questions at the end? >> That's up to the board. >> Okay. if you >> uh board member Green indicated she had a question on this particular recommendation. >> Thank you Chair Murphy. Um so looking at the public private partnerships are there examples that we have seen in the preK world of this existing in Kentucky and

040then if not in Kentucky at a nation level. Um, so that's my first. >> Yeah, I mean I think there are examples um that where those exist and have been somewhat successful. However, we'd have to look at the research on how much funding actually is coming in for those programs. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> And so you have written that it would be probably considered more of a supplemental and not a a consistent revenue stream. Um and so I appreciate you pointing that out. And then I think there was a me mentioned during the budget solution work groups about partnering and talking with UK and about how they might do their private partnerships with external partnerships and then kind of giving us um a view into that that relationship. And so would that be

041an opportunity for us to sit down with UK and see kind of what they do in this lane and we can learn from them? >> We actually are. And so we've we've been fortunate to have start building a relationship with them and so we are starting to build some workg groupoup solutions surrounding even how they do their um a couple things. One, how they invest their money. Two, how they do some review of their utilities. and three partnerships like what do they do for the partnerships and how they gain uh opportunities especially uh uh with within their own um endowment I guess you could say. >> Thank you. >> Thank do do we currently have any pending such offers? Actually, there is um a potential opportunity that is being worked on right now um with

042um with a I can't name the individual or the group because it's still pending, but it should be coming to the board very soon and it is it's not a significant amount of money, but there but we don't know yet. We're we're still evaluating that uh how where it could go. So, >> thank you. Yeah, I have a question about something >> for person. >> Thank you. Before the recommendations, just on the let's bring clarity page. >> Yes, ma'am. >> It says that on number one, the contingency is planned when we built the new budget for fiscal year 25. I assume that means the working budget >> last Yes, ma'am. >> Last fall. >> Yes. >> That we set aside 42 million. >> Correct. But at the September planning meeting of the board, I pulled

043it up the the working budget 2425 and I remember this specifically because this was one of my concerns and one of the reasons I voted against it a year ago. It says on page 29 under expenditures contingency 43,65,000 >> which I realize is only 1.65 65 million different from the 42 >> that you said was the fund balance. >> But that was one of my concerns, one of my several concerns with the budget at that time because >> the contingency was more than the fund balance last year at this time. So I don't I don't know where this came from. We set aside 42 million as plan contingency. Mhm. So when we set aside contingency, we do a percentage of it and so there's a set aside and so it's the 6% target. >> I

044understand the 6% but our own budget document says 43,65,000 not 42 million as plan contingency for the fiscal year 25 budget. So again that number was already more than what was in the fund balance. I mean, it's concerning enough to me that you say these two numbers just happen to be the same. 42 million. That means we've spent every penny that we had and we have nothing extra to carry forward. And now a year later, we definitely don't have anything extra to carry forward. In fact, we're in the hole. I just want to make sure the numbers are correct. It says on the document 43,650,000. We'll proceed forward. Do you have a qu I mean the question is on the table? >> The question is was it 43,605 or was it 42 million >> or

045are we just guessing? >> There's no guessing. Then the question is was it 43 million >> 605 page 29 F1K of the September planning meeting FCPS working budget 2425 >> there's approval of the final budget working budget and there's also what comes to tenative and there's a planned contingency amount and so we we plan the contingency as a 6% and that's that's the amount that's listed >> I understand all that that the numbers are different. >> Thank you. >> We'll look into that, Board Member Ferguson, why those are different. Thank you. >> So, one of the things is we talked a little bit about the um one of the recommendations was charge the FCPS administration with making additional cuts from non-campus and non-eing positions. These cuts must not impact schools and classrooms, which was the

046goal of the um the budget solutions work group. And so this could vary reduce anywhere from 1 million to 3 million depending on uh attrition or um changes into or cuts in positions by eliminating district level school support. And so some of the student impact here could be level supports provided to schools and students such as instructional and mental health, behavioral and technology supports. Some potential next steps include conducting a comprehensive review of all district office positions, contracts, and budgets. Chair >> Warmer Green. >> Um I just wanted to to reiterate something that we've were told in the past. Um so as my understanding this past year all district ed level um departments were asked to cut their budgets by 20%. And there was a 8 to9 million savings um of within the administration. Is

047that correct? >> Yes. So 8.9 million total and then 20%. Yeah. >> And then the propos the tenative budget included that continuation of that reduction of the budgets. Is that correct? >> Yeah. Well, last year actually was 10% and then this year is adding that additional 10 or more. >> So >> my concern on this one um specifically talking about the student impact and organizational trade-offs is when I joined the board five years ago, we had a comprehensive review of really our organization and many of the findings were that uh we were not supporting our classrooms and our schools at an equitable amount. Um, so there was that in the building they and I sat on sitebased council so I remember hearing that they felt like there wasn't a direct line of communication. The personnel

048wasn't there to meet their requests. Um, and additionally our HR was specifically pointed out in those reviews that it wasn't um, enough to support our staff appropriately um, and our technology organization. So I think I appreciate all of the re recommendations and I take them all very seriously. I just want to add context to those and make sure we realize um why we have certain places that we do and the impacts that we may we all you know things are going well and so it's hard to remember even just a few years ago that there was really some struggles and it impacted the classrooms it impacted the um administrators because you I sat there with the principles and they if they can't get the support they need timely then it hinders what they're able to

049provide for their teachers then the teachers can't provide for their students. So everything is connected. Um so I just wanted to point that out because that has been a few years and we hadn't discussed it. >> Thank you board. One question I have and it relates to the point board marine made. Do we have an analysis on because I know one of the things that emerged from the work the work group and what I appreciate about their final findings is as we appreciate the investments being made in students and classrooms and we want to protect the investments in students and classrooms and that's echoed here. Um and I'm not sure if that's their language. These cuts must not impact schools and classrooms or or reflects the expression of the group as part of the discussion.

050So do we know the extent to which it are is this a request to uh reduce non-campus and non-eing positions period. Right? So if a an employee is identified as working at this building then they that position should be considered for elimination or does it add the extra layer that we have to analyze the extent to which the reach of the work being done goes into classrooms and impact students and staff. So, and if the answer to the question is we have to do that level of analysis, then what are the criteria, right? How do we determine if something does quote not impact schools or classrooms? >> Yeah. I mean, I think there's different layers. So, we'd have to review direct impact, you know, to uh student services that exist right at the classroom level

051and those who are adjacent or peripheral. But but every every position somehow has a a direct or indirect impact. And so it' have to be a review and and a better understanding of which positions, you know, to evaluate. >> So if I'm understanding the recommendation correctly, then it's not simply a directive that says a reduction in force excluding classroom teachers. It's asking for cuts that don't have an impact on students. Is that correct? >> I I think Yeah. I mean, the way it was worded and the way the budget solutions work group described it was just anything that's not directly on campus um or non-eing position is how they described it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. at Borma Christian >> and I you you may have already answered but in any of the discussions did

052they u did the group prioritize positions that they thought would less impact because you're I mean everything is going to impact it's just a matter of what that looks like right so was there a list of priorities or >> there wasn't necessarily discussion about specific positions I mean I think um there was a target at administrative positions in particular, but that's another recommendation. But there wasn't in this one, there wasn't necessarily a specific um as long as it was non-teer, non-campus. >> Did uh were the $30 million in discretionary staffing allocations any part of the workg groupoup conversations, especially on this topic? >> There has been some discussion and we will definitely be discussing. Not not at the workg groupoup level. >> No, not work because we didn't get to the campus level. >> Yeah.

053>> Okay. Thank you. >> One of the other recommendations is liquidate real estate and other assets. um suggestions there. Um funding impact could be onetime revenue from property and surplus equipment sales could be approximately 8 to 10 million depending on evaluation and current possible asset inventory potential for future additional assets. Um trade-offs could be future acquisition of property will be associated with the increased base costs. you know, for a limited period of time. It allows for um continuation of some services directly to students given the the cash flow. Um just a side note from the data that I've received, um actual average surplus dollars received per year on assets and inventory is about 40,000 here in Fyet County. Next steps potential um we'd have to obtain appraisals as needed. And one of the questions that

054came about in this process is is this the part of the larger part of or is this part of the larger process of closure, consolidation, redistricting and resoning and or how how do we prioritize what we sell >> Murphy? Board member Graham. >> Thank you. Um were there discussions about the need to maintain space? uh we all um see for what Fate County is with the land. We know inside of the circle it is very um hard to come by and we also have to consider when we create schools they have to be accessible to families um from multiple angles. And so was there discussion about the need to continue to maintain the space we have because like a chess board there is open space to make plays. And so if we in the future

055there is a need to move a school or rebuild a school and have that move maintenance somewhere or move a preschool somewhere. If we were take away all of the empty spaces on that chessboard, how can you make a appropriate play um to provide for the students? So, was there a discussion about that within the workg group about the limitation if you released anything that looked like it was not being used, but it potentially has a plan for a move in the future? >> I don't think there was any heavy discussion. I think they looked at some of the assets and inventory and so there wasn't a within the work group a heavy discussion surrounding those measures. You have further questions? You have an additional question? >> But yes, I have one more. Thank you.

056Um and so another point and what if this was discussed in more detail in the workg group um um actually let me let me organize my thoughts. >> Okay. And would this I'm assuming that there would be an impact on it would some of these actions would require a reassessment or reconvening of our local planning committee and may modify require modifications to the district facility plan. >> Yeah, I mean that there would have to be definitely board involvement and potential LPC or local planning committee um depending on what we're looking at. And of course when you get to um the legal side of it, you know, how go about to sell different assets we have, especially if the bigger if it's property or land. Uh I mean, I'm sorry, a building. >> Thank you. >>

057Bman first. >> Thank you. Yeah, I was just going to ask if a um a list and asset inventory was provided to the work group and it sounds like that was. Yeah, as far as I know, we divide we provided that list of >> Okay. Did was that sent to the board? >> I don't know if we did or didn't. >> Okay. I I would just like to see that. Um >> to be honest, >> asset inventory if if it if one was provided to the work group. >> Yeah, sure. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Bar. >> Okay. Um, so moving to the short-term recommendations from the budget solutions workg group, freeze any spending not contractually obligated at the district level. This could um focus on a lot of things, but some examples include but

058not limited to we could garner over savings of about 750,000 travel professional leave from general fund could be realized from fiscal year 26. This is recently enacted um just this past Friday I believe or Saturday. Um but savings of contracted maintenance i.e. painting, parking lots, building enhancements um may have to be um looked at. Also just thinking about student impact and what could be an organizational trade-off. It does allow for continuation of services directly to students for a limited time depending on how long the freeze goes, but it could lead to some deferred maintenance schedules as you know could disrupt technology integration efforts and limits professional growth opportunities. Some potential next steps are pairing the freeze with a two to threeyear recovery plan and then just ensuring from you know a question that came up

059is what data would drive the prioritization with service contract should be frozen. So it's something we'd have to evaluate. >> Chair Murphy >> board Monday. >> Was there any discussion about any reviews of other contracts outside of maintenance that we approved? like we approved quite a few and some of them like handover statistics I believe that does some of our reporting like are there opportunities for some of these other contracts that we have to have a cost savings there as well? >> Yeah, I think some of them have been like signed on and they're moving and so it would have to be re-evaluated if we were to look at it for future years potentially. Um but yes, I mean anything could be on the table. It's just a matter of what direct services is it

060providing and is it happening right here and now? We're already paying for it. >> Chair Murphy, >> also to add to that, if there's any additional contracts that we don't see as a board like space rentals, maybe we need to start using spaces that we have um if at all possible or things of that nature because I know there's a lot that we don't see that doesn't meet that I think $40,000 threshold as well. >> Sure. board member Monday Mundy. Um, in relation to that, um, I would like to add in a purchasing area which falls up under me, I've had discussions with them about contracts that come to to make sure we have out clauses cuz I've noticed some of the contracts don't give us the ability to say notify you within 60 90

061days so we can get out of it. So, we have started since July 1st making sure that anything that comes that way that we're looking at it accordingly. >> Thank you. And my understanding um on that point as well is part of the um directive that we heard I guess it was last fall or last spring for 20% reductions at the district administrative level included precisely that type of assessment of those contracts that don't quite meet the threshold for board approval. But so my understanding of the recommendation is that it it would also essentially be an administrative directive. It's not just speaking of contracts that come before the board. Is that is that a correct meaning? >> I think each department was asked to look within their own department budget and figure out what made

062sense to eliminate or look at or kind of pull back from and and contracts were included in that. Um, and I, you know, I heard a conversation with, um, I believe it was on WKY with Adrien Bryant with Civic Lex. Um, and one point that he raised is the question of, you know, how do we assess what contractually obligated means, right? Does it mean we are in the contract? Does it mean we've established a priority that that it's an established priority? Does it mean that the line item has been approved, but a contract has not yet entered to? So, um I'm not I'm not sure if we're how far down the road we are on those types of assessments, but I'm assuming that would require some type of a review to specifically define what would

063be frozen versus not. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> I mean, I Ferguson, >> I had that same concern. I mean, even just about, for example, some things on the agenda tonight. I mean and again back to whether it affects schools or what's mandatory travel what affects school level what affects you know what's contractually obligated I mean I think are we buying buses you know I mean if we have to have buses to transport our students that's not yet contractually obligated but it can't be discretionary I mean it's that's very hard to identify >> well and I also think of the lengthy contracts, the lengthy list of contracts we approve to meet like compliance requirements, right? Like the IDA compliance uh for the students who have highly specialized needs and we have

064to contract for those services as well. >> So, Chair Murphy >> Bormer Green >> and this may bleed into another one that you talk about um adjust maintenance services, but you have listed here deferred maintenance schedules and disruption of technology integration. And so again, this speaks to a space that we were in several years ago where there was kind of a pause on maintenance and how much we've had to really take that on that include to board member Ferguson's point additional bus purchases. So do you all have numbers? Um because that that two to threeyear recovery plan if that's what that cost is may not be worth the short-term gain. And so was that discussed in the work group or do you have any of those numbers to share? it wasn't necessarily discussed at the

065detail you're talking about in the work group. However, there was discussions surrounding various contracts um and what exists and also just contracted maintenance what what actually is out there. We do have some numbers reflected um on various contracts and we can get those to you. Um but again there's levels of what's actually happening direct services that are going on right now to what we can say this is kind of like a level three or four project it can wait. >> Thank you Christian. Um, when I see freeze any spending not contractually obligated at the district level, um, my brain right now is thinking about SPDM because while they are they have their autonomy and they have their budget, surely there are district level decisions and district level services that trickle down and what is I

066mean have did was SPDM discussed as far as what they have to say how that because that's a school it it impacts the school level and the students, right? So, how do you factor SPDM into this conversation? >> You know, it depends. If the contract is districtdriven, they may not um have as much um I'm not saying voice, but they still have a say. But in terms of what happens directly and locally at the school level, um we'd have to evaluate if there's a direct impact. But yes, I mean there some of our the contracts we're talking about could be impact device, you know, support repair. It could impact a lot of things. It just depends on what we're looking at and it may not even be SPDM driven, but even then it might impact

067the classroom. >> Well, and that Bormer Christian raises a good point as, you know, as I sit here and think like as an educator who sponsors clubs and organizations, oftentimes we we raise money. some of that money is swept to the board and to spend our own money, we have to go through district level approvals, right? And so that's something that you we just have to be cognizant of that uh I appreciate, you know, the the concern about making sure that we're we're uh holding harmless students in the classroom and that that any of these initiatives don't impact the student and educator experience. Um but we have to be mindful of some of these impacts that might be unintentional and we don't want to find out when we're in the middle of the process and

068say well wait a minute you know we we've at this board have approved trips to Washington DC and and Williamsburg and >> that's not funding coming from the district general fund right it's it's that's money raised by those schools but it's still considered a district contract so I appreciate the information. >> Yes sir. The next recommendation was um continue with the program of attrition for administration. So one of the things is the program attrition for district administrators can reduce personnel costs. So by not by not replacing those district administrators who leave due to resignation or retirement, those salary benefits are savings to general run fund for sure. Um some thought process surrounding student impact and organizational trade-offs, culture and climate, teacher quality, resource allocation, guidance and support or coaching could compound job responsibilities support staff

069which lead to delays of service um to schools and staff. Could could increase cyber security risk depending on what staff is impacted. um and delayed in services such as records processing again deferred maintenance, payroll processes, hiring processes. However, you know, potential next steps if that's the path that that is selected would be prioritize essential functions and define positions that will remain vacant. And then again questions that we have to ask ourselves is do we realist risk delayed response times to serve our students in instructional supports, student support services, resource allocations, device repairs, etc. [Music] >> Thank you, >> Chair Murphy. >> Board member Green. >> Thank you. So it says um administration. So my notes coming into the meeting was a question about did this mean was the purpose district level or school level also

070administration because I know um that was a big ask a few years ago as well at the school level for making sure that they are shored up with their administrations. Yeah, I think the ask was administration um wasn't totally clarified, but a lot of JDP was the mention uh throughout the work group, but administration could impact others as well. >> And we assumed because it's a continuation of the program of attrition. There was no program of attrition at the campus level. So, made the assumption that it was off-campus. >> Yeah. >> And was it shared? Oh, I'm so sorry. Was it shared the steps that were taken um through this past year that savings of $ 8.9 million and how you decided that those positions were you know because there were some P positions um

071with attrition there. So was that discussion did that happen with the work group? Yes, we actually mentioned um some of the positions were cut and as well as just or that we didn't fill and also just some of the other things that we saved on >> Monday. >> Was there any discussion of reduction of work days for administration or potentially furlowing administration? >> That has come up. Um so there is there's been some discussion surrounding that but yes. >> Okay. Just wanted to make sure that was on the table. >> Any other questions? >> Dr. Bar. All right. Another recommendation. Um, we kind of combined two here, but it's two different things. One's asking reduce maintenance cost by 1.7 to 2 million. Another was reduce maintenance costs and increase lunch pricing. Kind of doing the

072same together, I guess you could say. doing those two things together. So just thinking through funding impact could be anywhere from 1.7 to 2 million through vendor negotiations. Deferring non-critical projects as mentioned um and then also 2.2 to 3 million combined benefit reduces the food services debt. We would have to some trade-offs. We'd have to have uh increased breakfast and lunch prices. um could also lead to depending on what contracts we cut um prolonged replacement cycles on Chromebooks and playgrounds and then of course some maintenance projects could be delayed or deferred. What we'd have to do or or upon your recommendation identify and prioritize projects continue to explore energy savings measures potentially and rebid contracts as needed. So a question would be how can we raise meal prices without losing customers? what's the the tipping

073point and you know what do we need to do um outstanding with outstanding balances to address them? >> Chair Murphy >> board >> were there was there a number that was shared that they that was feel that the administration said that you could raise a lunch price excuse me to that amount without losing customers and what would that be if it was shared? It's hard to tell because when when you evaluate, you know, we we don't know the exact tipping point until we implement. I guess we could do a better job at surveying our families and come up with a strategy there if it were to take place, but we really um in implementing something like a 25% increase, we know the revenue that would come. We just don't know who would stop >> buying

074lunch or not coming in to eat lunch and just bring their lunch. >> Also, I think it's important to note about food services, it's a no- win situation. And what I mean by that is um it's been variously reported um even though sometimes not factual um that food services owes us gender funds and some money. So whether they paid us d immediately if at the end of the year they're in the hole we got to give the money back to them. So if we get it we still got to deal with it. And if we don't get it we still got to deal with it. And so the food service situation that we're facing is that it's the expenses are definitely outpacing the revenue way they're able to get funding as an enterprise. But by

075law, if any fund is in a negative, general fund has to cover whatever that fund is. And that would be the case with food services if something doesn't get better. >> And about those expenses um increasing the cost of food, has that been substantial? Have you felt that at the district level this past 20 or 12 months? Yeah, we definitely go ahead. >> No, I mean the prices are going up and the costs are going up. It's just um you know keeping up with that balance is has been tough. >> Well, and it's a double whammy not only in prices going up, but recent changes to SNAP eligibility is going to impact as well because we've already seen schools lose community elig eligibility provision where every kid eats for free. And you know, with those

076changes, they could reduce the number of schools that meet those requirements and then therefore impact more students. So, it's um it's like I said, it's a double whammy uh when it comes to the child nutrition program. >> Chair Murphy, you have one more. former Green. Um, >> when we talk about the replacement cycles on Chromebooks, I think the past two budget cycles we have really stretched that thin and so is there a breaking point on that to where we're not able to offer equitable access to education um if Chromebooks can't be serviced because I would assume that that would be an issue if we couldn't provide this technology to our students. Yeah, I mean there once you go through two or three cycles of that, you have to be come up with some creative strategy

077to get it to all of our students. So one to one just would be if if the board's goal is to have a onetoone initiative that would very much be impacted. And on the question, and I believe uh board member Green made a reference to this, but just to to drill down a little bit, when we're talking about deferring non-critical projects, it's similar to the conversation we had about impacting students, how we define non-critical, you know, something that's non-critical in in terms of maintenance, as we've all learned both in the work in the school district and in our homes, that something that's non-critical today uh could be critical tomorrow. And so would that factor into the calculus? Right? Because if you're deferring a project >> because it cost x amount of dollars today, are you

078doing so with the awareness that a year from now it could be 2x? >> Yeah. I mean there's always a risk especially in times of um you know inflation or just difficulty in price and pricing and what's happening with the different contracts we already tried to work through >> thank you for letting me go back um because maintenance has come up several times if you could get the board the numbers um really of what it has cost when there was deferred maintenance for several years and then what we had to pay additionally on top of those projected original costs I think that would be helpful for us as a board to understand that the the delay versus the cost long term and I think it also helps uh the community understand as well what that

079looks like. So in that ask >> yes ma'am. >> Okay. One of the recommendations was raise the um OOLT and let the long-term committee continue to work if it were to take place. the this fiscal year would be anywhere from 13.5 million to 16 on collection. A full year could be anywhere from 27 to 32 million. Um cost differential of raised from 0.5 to 75 depends on your salary. Um there's some mention of figures up here. We had the average salary of 66,000 would be about a differential of 13.75 per month. um whereas you can see 33 is less and 99 is a little bit more. One of the things that could do is allow sustaining programs and opportunities for students. It does continue districts forward progress in making schools and students safe. Um just

080a caveat here, no additional revenues will lead to deep cuts for 2627 school year and beyond in our classrooms. some potential next steps. Um requires Fate County Board of Education approval for resolution to move forward to fiscal court. Um you got to continue to work with the board's budget and finance committee as well as the budget solutions work group to determine long-term sustainability for campus and district success. >> Chair Warmer Green. Um so you brought up you shared the numbers the 0.5 to 0 75 an increase of 25 per a 0.25% of the county. Can you share what the total amount is if you have that of what the county is versus what the piece that we get out of that? >> So county and and faget county are two different and so they get

081a certain percentage on their own we get our own percentage. So that was just to represent and so we currently get the 0.5 um which is roughly $57 million a year and then they get their own um rate. >> Do we know what their rate is? >> It's 1.75. >> Yeah. 1.75. >> It's 1.75. So when that gets build are those numbers put together? Are we separating them for discussion point? But when it's built is >> No, we do. We have our own. Rodney, you want to explain? Yeah. Yes, we have our own collection process related to it. It's not tied to the PVA, not tied to the sheriff's office that's been reported. Those two things are not related to us. That's related to property taxes, occupational license tax. We collect our own house. >>

082And then the county LFUG collects their own as well. Correct. >> Okay. So, it's not combined. All right. Thank you for that. Um, so from my understanding that FCPS is recently eligible for this change. I think it was last implemented in 1986. Can you speak again to the eligibility point if that was discussed in the solution work group as well? >> Yeah, so in the 2020 census we passed the 300,000 um inhabitants mark and that unlocked the opportunity for um Fate County public schools to have that or to go after that additional 0.25%. um no other county has that option in the state of Kentucky because um Jefferson County already has it and so they have the 75 and FET it was unlocked because of the 300,000 or more um inhabitants in the county and

083so that has been put into place for those who have that type of um number of inhabitants and so FET's the only one eligible board. >> Thank you. Um, so we talk about the impact it would have on the individual. What is the impact it would have at the business level with the net profit part of this tax? >> Do you have Sorry, can you repeat that? Yeah. >> So the OOLT impacts individual um employees and um businesses and so what would the impact be on a business um if you have an and if you don't have an examples you can provide those later. I didn't know if it was discussed in the solutions work group. >> Yes. So businesses just like employees pay varies. I mean depends on how much your net profit is.

084That's how much it would go up or down depending on that situation. I can tell you based on our estimates 22% of the revenue we get off of OLT is related profits and 78% is related to payroll as a as a revenue stream. uh in terms of the for lack of a better term the net cast, how does this revenue stream differ from that some others that the board might consider or could potentially consider? Well, how Okay, school finance is cyclical. Okay, so everybody knows about SE dollars that's monthly. um as Fed County, the way we're situated related to our assessments and growth, then we get less seek dollars than most other state. We rely more on the tax dollars. So although we get seek dollars monthly, it's a set amount and then we don't

085even know the final set amount for seeking to win. >> It's later on. the the the tenative seek comes in September and then the final seek doesn't come until um it's even in the spring really because they have to evaluate where we're at. And so really it's interesting because we do a final working budget in September, but the tenative seek comes in September. >> So with that being said, then you get under to the property taxes. of property taxes. Once the board approves within 45 days of getting those numbers, then them funds start to come in late October and November and December. That's when we see a big impact on property taxes. Okay. As as far as OLT, that comes in. But in April is when we get um one of our quarterly reports and

086that's usually a telltale sign of where we're going to end up related to our occupational license tax. after the president passed the um approval that people don't have to fill out a form and say they want an extension or anything else. When we looked at the numbers that came in in April, we noticed about be $3 million behind where we normally are. Now, those people could have paid in July or companies could have paid in July. We're right now analyzing that because the July and quarter reports just now be came into our office at the end of July and started coming in. We got buckets of mail working through out right now. That's where it gets into the situation where we tell you that well I tell you specifically that I can't tell you a

087number until I know what kind of revenue we had come in. So theoretically the $3 million that we were behind may have came in now. I don't know that yet but by next week I will know and then I'll be able to project and tell you what it's going to look like that may come in later in November. So there's that part of it. So it's cyclical in how it all comes in. Seek is monthly. Property taxes primarily come in October, November, December. Occupational license taxes coming in, but the big portions of it again come in and but in bunches, excuse me, in April and July and and I know it sounds funny to say July, but it's July for things that happen through June 30th. Okay. >> That's for businesses that have a fiscal

088year >> I'm sorry. >> That's for businesses that have a fiscal year July 1 to June 30. Is that so individuals pay it in April and businesses? Is that why you say you're saying June 30th? >> Yeah. They all have to send their the reports into us based off what they have, right? The taxes collected and the business. Yes. >> And >> also, I'm sorry, I wanted to correct um and this is what I've researched off of Google, so forgive me. I'm not part of LFUG, but it appears that they're OLT is actually 2.25%. >> That's just their share. It doesn't include the school portion. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh warmer Monday. When I was looking at the documents that the work group was provided and there was

089a list of questions, there was one question that was brought forth about um the sheriff's office getting an additional 1 million for the collection of the tax if the tax was to pass. Is that additional 1 million coming out of that 13.5 to 16 or is that already >> No, it's not. Okay. >> The sheriff's tax collection, as I was stated earlier, I remember the slide, but the earlier slide was talking about it. That's related to property tax. Has nothing to do with occupational license tax. >> Okay. Got you. >> And the cyclical trend you were discussing and you noted that, and I may be getting a little ahead of ourselves, but that there's been an outlier in that for this particular fiscal year. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. And so what

090what would be our degree of confidence that um this recommendation would bring in uh bring in the estimated revenues listed here? What is our basis on that? >> What data are we using to make those projections? >> Well, if we're projecting again based off trends that we're going to get 54 to 57 million, then there's a 0.5 half of that multiplied out McGee that difference and so that's why we projected at that rate. I mean Lexitton let's be very clear is not recession resistant. I mean not recession proof but it is recession resistant. So we've seen things that Lex that normally don't happen in other communities. >> So it's at least point 0025 of the 57 million that's in the budget now. that I mean I think that was the most recent number for the

091OOLT for >> for 2425 the revenue was 57 million I think >> yeah that's that's the 0.5 that's not the additional 025 >> added to but it would be the point it would be the 0.25 or 0.025 025 of that >> above that >> that's the amount you're talking >> yes that would have been the tenative budget that we had a previous I think it's like 73 million >> right okay >> chair Murphy >> board >> this is another process question um is the OOLT tax subject to recall because there is no election this year so would that be an added expense >> it is subject to recall >> so we would have to pay for a special election depending on if you got the signatures needed for recall. >> Yeah, but if they we

092got the signatures, how much are we talking? >> Um I don't know. >> Okay. Could we find out? >> Yeah. >> Or give us an estimate. I think that's something we need to take in consideration. >> And Chair Murphy, >> more >> one more question. I apologize. I may ask some questions out of order at the end because I kind of made my question list before um we came in. But one thing that I am going to request and I'm just one board member and if it's too much work, I get it. But looking at the frequently or the Q&A document, there was the question of what happens if the OOLT does not pass, if we do not take it. And there were lots of things that were stated in there. Can we see a

093list of reductions like we saw um for the 8 million that was done previously without the O if we do not take the OOLT and see where those reductions would lie because there were a lot listed. Um but I really want to see where that impact will be. >> So you're just saying if we don't get this revenue what what specific things will we have to um reduce? >> Okay. We that's kind of complicated because it would be um really a board decision and discussion. It would possibly be some of the work that we've continue working with the the work group on >> to determine where that would occur. It would occur through administration to look at because the only kind of direction we have right now is to keep it as much away from

094the campus as possible. And so we'd really have to sit down and look at everything to see what could and could not be and then ultimately bring it to the board for a reduction in force. So it would be a board approval. So we can give hypotheticals, but it would ultimately be board approval required for that. >> Yeah, I do understand that. And I know we're up against the clock, right? Because everything needs to be approved by the end of September. Um, but I don't whip votes, so I don't know what everybody's vote is up here. Um, so I want to know what that impact is going to be if that tax does not pass. Um, and I think that's something that we need to take in consideration and see e even if it's still

095somewhat hypothetical. Um, because that that could be what we face. Um, >> but who wants it first? Bor Ferguson. Go ahead. >> Thank you. I mean, I know we have one more recommendation, but I I thought when the budget work group um I guess results, tally, what recommendations came out, they were listed in a priority order. And is there any rhyme or reason to the order? They're listed in here. I don't or or is the ranking in here anywhere? >> They were presented on the first slides in the ranking order. >> Yeah. on here, but they're not listed in the order. Oh, so where it says budget solutions, work recommendations, those are in the order. Okay. Okay. But they're in a different order in the packet. That's okay. >> We divided them between long-term, short

096term. >> Thank you, Chair Murphy. Thank you. Um I just wanted to kind of reiterate um Dr. Monday's request about seeing what potential impacts could be and if that would hit the classrooms. We talk we have that we have our discretionary positions that are $30 million um you know and those are very important to our students in our classrooms. I know they're titled discretionary but um and all the other conversations that we had. So again, to to her point, I know it's impossible to ask for exacts, but just an idea of what the impact could be. Um because as we've discussed, I think every board member has reiterated that cuts that seemingly may not touch the classrooms do have unintended consequences. And so providing us with that information to understand the cost of this potential

097uh recommendation one way or the other would be important. And then lastly, if I can just on the process part of the OOLT, um I know that there is a timeline for notification to the public and providing of an additional hearing. And so I didn't know if there is discussion because it is a potential recommendation that the administration may bring um when we talk about the budget, is there a discussion about those procedure pieces? Yeah, I mean the board would have to make the have a consensus to make the recommendation to advertise for that >> and I will um add on to what both board member Monday and board member Green said. I think it would be helpful not just for the board and I recognize that ultimately the budgetary decisions would be in the

098hands of the board but certainly the administration would bring us recommendations is what type of recommendations would come absent uh the additional revenue streams it would be important mainly because the common thread that I'm seeing in all of these conversations what I'm hearing from folks in the community what we heard from the budget work group what we discussed as a forward um all the way back in February right when we did our budget workshop um the message the common thread the consistent message was uh don't impact the classrooms don't impact students and so uh I think we as a board need to know what's what what does that path look like right because you can even go all the way back to the strategic plan right with student success being the number one priority um

099Universally, we know and our community has shared that they value the education that's happening in our classrooms and that the investments in our students are making a difference. And what does it require of us as a board and as a community to continue those investments and not impact the students and and making the choices in front of us clear uh for both the board and the community. Um and if if this is if if this might come before the board as a recommendation, um board member Mundy discussed the timeline. I know we do have some time, but um is it advisable and would the board be amendable as um going ahead and scheduling a public hearing with the all the options laid out? Is that something that in terms of the timeline that we would

100need to go ahead and do sooner rather than later? >> So, um to make sure we meet the requirements as the AGA at the AG said, there's a certain day we have to do that by. Um I pretty sure we have to post it by Thursday or Friday of this week to do that. And then we'd have 7 to 10 days after the second hearing is the first time we can I mean 7 to 10 days after the second ad would be the first time that we can do anything about it. Okay. So we that would be our next planning meeting is September 8th. That would be too late, right? Based on the timeline you gave me. >> Yes. >> So it would have to be the week of the first. Is that right? No,

101we would have to do it. Um, I don't want to be wrong, so I'm going to send it to all y'all tomorrow morning, but we looked at it and I do know for us to do it, the um the hearing would have to occur on I think the 4th or 5th of September. >> Okay, cuz here's I don't want it to be construed that any decisions are being made. I want but I we do need to prepare for any contingency. And the worst case scenario is we have an additional meeting that provides an additional avenue to communicate the budget, the circumstances surrounding it and the recommendations before us and the position we are in. >> Could I ask a clarifying question? Um um are you asking that kind of sort of no harm no foul

102if this is one of the directions the board goes in to go ahead and do the posting and all of that? If it's not a recommendation then >> then it's just an additional meeting to communicate. >> But if it is then it's already taken care of. Correct. >> Okay. Does that mean >> Yes. So >> because no decision, my understanding is no decision has to be made at the public hearing. >> No. Right. >> So my staff just sent me the information so I can clarify that right now. Okay. >> Okay. We the first advertisement have to be on August 22nd. The second one on August 29th. Then we'd have 7 to 10 days after the second advertisement to have a hearing. So the first time that could happen would be September the 5th. And

103the only time they got to be September 5th unless you can do it AC over the weekend. and then the vote and her on September the 8th. >> Okay. So, what I mean I'm just what is our what are our thoughts on that? Do we as Super Ligins said framed it a no harm no foul? Do we want to have an additional set an additional meeting date as a just in case? Do we want to wait and send out a a a date survey poll and assess if we have time to meet a second time between now and the planning meeting on the 8th? Warmer Green. >> Um board member Monday was >> Monday. Do you mean set a date related to the tax or just a public hearing date for the budget in general?

104>> How does it have to be posted? >> Sorry, we have to propose it. Um, the way the writing is, we propose it. The hearing will have to occur on September the 5th unless you're going to choose to do it over the weekend to make the September 8th date to make the vote. So the hearing will be when everything is discussed, but the vote has to occur by September 8th. We have 7 to 10 days to actually approve it after the second hearing. I mean the second ad, I'm sorry, >> because it's not a lot of turnout or turnaround from the 5th to the 8th. >> Green, I'm sorry. Um my uh reason for the question is I just wanted to make sure we were providing ample time that the timeline gets handled appropriately if

105and when if this is an option like Dr. Lian said no harm no foul. Um, and so I, you know, I didn't know if the board would be amendable to just creating that space. So if it was something that went to fruition, there would all our eyes would be dotted, our tees would be crossed, and I think our public has definitely um demonstrated and rightfully um appropriate amount of interest in what we're doing with our budget. I'm so grateful. I see so many faces that were in the budget solutions work group and in the community. So thank you all again. I just take that moment. But I think offering an additional opportunity um to discuss what the OOLT tax could be um would be appropriate for our public. >> Do you want to do you

106want to set send out a survey of dates potentially and then go from there or >> when when would you when would we need to know the date? It sounds like we're stuck. >> So, we're stuck to September 5th, right? >> We can't do it earlier than September 5th. Is that correct? >> No. If we follow the guidelines that they laid out for us, the first time we can actually discuss it in here is 7 to 10 days after the second ad. >> Okay. >> And the fifth is the seventh day. >> I'm sorry. >> The fifth is the seventh day. >> Yes. >> Okay. I just wanted to say weigh in. I mean, since you asked, and this won't shock anyone, but I have no interest in setting um a public hearing for a

107tax increase because I have not heard from anyone in the community that supports it, whether no matter what party, no matter what level, no matter I mean the it was dead last for the budget solutions work group, and I have heard nothing but opposition to the the tax increase. And again, I voted against it before. Um, I have seen seen nothing that makes me think this community wants this. So, that's my two cents. >> Bor, >> um, if we set a date without there being a vote, does does there have to be a vote on the resolution before you set the public hearing date? Well, according to the AG, you have to have the hearing >> before the vote. >> I I mean, I echo board member Ferguson. I've not had anybody tell me that

108they're interested in having the tax. I'm never going to not support the community having an opportunity to be able to be be heard. I was going to suggest that we go ahead and have um some type of public forum or hearing for the budget in general before we take a vote once it comes out. Um but um okay, but I I I can't in good faith support it. No one has told me that they support it. And I'm worried for our most vulnerable families and our most vulnerable employees because I know those numbers don't look like a lot. But I've heard from so many people that have told me that they're barely they're barely getting by. So that's one of the reasons why I want to see that budget that does not include this tax

109and what it will look like. Um because to be I'm jumping the shark a little bit, but just to talk about the elephant in the room. I mean, given what we're facing with the contingency, is this truly going to do what it says on there and mean that there's no cuts felt in the classroom because we've already did that. I mean, in the 8 million in reductions that have already been taken, transition week was one of those things that was taken away. And, you know, I got to experience that with my son this year. And families won't get that opportunity next year. So, that's already, you know, it's already happening. And you know given how quickly things are changing um how volatile everything is now I mean I we can't make a guarantee that you

110know the amount of money that we get especially for this upcoming fiscal year is going to do what we need it to do without making some big changes um in the way that we operate and the way that we do things. And I think that's another reason why taking a look at other reductions that can happen and knowing what we're facing when the time comes is particularly important. Um so that's my thoughts. >> Okay. >> And if you we can since board member Monday brought up the contingency I believe that's the next thing on the slide. If you want to move on we can. >> Yes sir. So, um there was two recommendations actually and we put them kind of both into the same slide here, but both a little different. Um one is reduce

111the district plan contingency fund from 6 to 4% of the total general fund budget or take the full 16 million out of the plan contingency fund. So that you can see that is a direct funding impact. Now, one of the things that that is up for um review is bond rating impacted could affect um potential renovations and future construction projects including classrooms and programs. It does preserve um board strategic priorities and high quality services for this year. Um but you know, we still have a challenge of expenses are starting to outpace revenues. So one of the things the would have to happen with the board is the school board would have to vote to reduce the plan contingency fund from fund from 6% to 2%. And initiate a long-term plan to build the plan contingency

112fund back to 6%. So question would be what are the next steps for re rebuilding our contingency fund? >> Chair green. >> Thank you. Um so I'll just start with the main question. So, how did the I'm reading it because I wrote it down. How did the projected contingency or the carry forward balance change in such a short amount of time from when numbers were shared with the budget solution work group this summer and then just last week? And then to follow up, are there systems in place or additional systems to kind of closely monitor both the delay revenue as you explain in the additional costs? >> Yes. So, just a little bit I I can kind of answer it here and then come back. So what happened to the plan contingency? We had budgeted

113uh contingency for unexpected costs or emergencies. The rising inflationary costs increased greater than forecasted. We did have some endofear expenses that came about. Um increased expenses and prek funding. Child nutrition services has been something we're very much um reviewing how to to get out of that um and additional retirement payments. Also a portion of contingent fund has been enacted as designed in order to maintain under un under un underrupted services to schools, students and staff. And one of the things okay so what happened to the fund balance then? So in addition to the plan contingency we also used part of the fund balance and carried forward despite planning and no new spending fixed costs rose faster than revenues. And so in a moment we're going to hear from our colleague um who does our um

114financials for the district in Compass M um Michael George who will come up here and present a little bit about the national trends that are happening. >> Chair Murphy >> more money >> if I could ask another contingency related question before we move on. you may >> um I'm pretty concerned that we've gone into the contingency to the amount that we have and we weren't made aware of that as a board and I watched all of the workg groups. I read through all of the items. I know I wasn't at the last July meeting, but I watched it and none of the conversations that we've had has ever led me to believe that we have gone into the contingency at that amount. So then I went back to board policy because I've looked at that

115as well and I thought well maybe that isn't something that has to happen but board policy when it's talking about borrowing from the reserve or um not borrowing from the reserve. Um I think it's about notifications. Um when you have to enter into the reserve it says that it has to come to the board for approval. Has that happened or is this that moment of that happening? >> Thank you, board member Mundy for that question. Um, first I want to tell Miss Ferguson, I've checked with the staff and they have confirmed that it was $43.6 million. They did respond. You are correct. It was 42. The reason it was being because it was budgeted at 6.5% instead of 6%. And so that's why there was a difference. I just found out that >> well and

116and that goes along with Dr. Monday's question. Let's let him answer Dr. Monday's question. >> Um and thank you for that question. You know, I anticipated that. So, I want to make sure I go through this actually. >> Um before I want to respond, I want to give you some context. As executive director of financial account benefits services, I've honestly re taken over the budget part of this since July 1st. Uh my focus has always been about actuals. they have not been related in trend and estimates that I can provide to you. I presented those actuals to the board as I know them through June or whatever else and I'm very confident what those actuals are every July through May. Uh my hesitation is and my focus was not to make guesses because of when

117we say things right now out there any number that there it comes back on us and say well this is what the number that you said. When I became aware part of the regular process going through year end closes that I report to the board every year if you go back and look at the last slide that I give to you it says very clearly these is the process we go through from right here to verify the numbers are your end. In doing so, I noticed that there was going to be a potential problem and I did tell the budgeting group on July I'm not sure what the date is but the second work group I told them is if you go through I think it's 1 hour and 11 minutes to 1 hour and

11819 minutes I completely told them that there may there's concern here we may not be at that number as as I noticed it. So the minute I knew about the actuals, I reported it just like I was been telling the board when I saw that there's going to be a problem potentially with occupational license tax coming in just like I talked about um related to food service. So the minute I knew I didn't report it the actual process year end we reconciled all the numbers to prepare for the audit and once I knew that I go from there but the numbers that I give you every month from July to May that I've given you already related to July through June I'm sorry because June reflects May reflected everything. So it tells you about the

119expenses that we have, the budget, the expenses that we have, the actual um um orders that the treasury that is signed, all these things are assigned and presented as we go forward. These things were unseen in certain aspects of it. The retirement payouts, for example, KTRS is very minimal. It's in the thousands. It's related to prior period adjustments that can happen year decades ago. KPPPA which is the CRS portion however is very large $2 million as we reconcile that and that's an issue the question becomes how do we address that do we keep dealing with as a liability or we're making an expense so it wipes out every year so as I knew I reported as soon as I had the ability to tell I also told the audit committee when we met in July

120board there and um it's in the minutes related to that also so the minute I knew I told as far as being over the budget that was not my preview, my purpose. Um, it just now came on me July 1st, but I can tell you as soon as I knew about it, I started reporting it to the board. >> Thank you for that. I think there needs to be a procedure in place that when something like that happens, it goes to all five board members um, fairly quickly because we don't have any more wiggle room for this to happen again. And like you said, they were unforeseen. So, and I like I said, things are volatile right now that they >> I totally agree. We we started we leaned into that and we're going to

121put process and procedures in place to address that quarterly. Um looking at it where we stand having conversation directly with superintendent and the deputy superintendent, working with the budget staff accordingly to put things in place that we accurately reflect where we are at that time. I can unequivocally tell you we're going through every line item right now looking at it. Is there any fluff in this budget at all that we can address? how we going to deal with the expenses and the revenue. But there's always going to be unknowns. There's going to be unfunded mandates like Senate Bill, is it 181? Am I saying it correctly? 181. They're not funding that. We got to pay for that. That's not in the millions, but it's it's the type of things that we face. Um when there's

122um floods in Kentucky and insurance changes, policies go away. We have to deal with that and so forth. So, there are things that come unexpectedly. But I can tell you honorably I pledge to you we're looking at all that solid >> former first. >> Thank you. And I'm I'm sorry I don't I think at least the to me the crux of the question was has the contingency already been dipped into has have some of those dollars already been spent was the answer yes or no. As as I stated earlier, board me Ferguson, because I don't want to be stuck with a number that I've told you at this meeting and then it changes, I'm very hesitant to give a number, but I can tell you I will know as early as next middle next week

123and I'll report that to Superintendent Lian. He will share that with you. We go through this process every year related to acruals to year in expenses and revenue. Once I get that number, it will tell me what number we're at, how far we've dipped into contingency, if at all. [Music] And then you mentioned the budget um workg groupoup meeting. I think it was the second meeting on July 15th. Did you say you told the budget work group that the contingency was low or that you were worried that the contingency was low? Is that did I hear you? >> No. question asked from the committee was basically um could they access it and then they said they wanted clarification about the continuous could be you utilized and they asked had it been touched in the last

1245 years I said no as is not but I said therefore we don't know what that number is exist or not and until we know that we cannot necessarily say that this is the best way to solve it take it fully out of contingency >> well I I went back and watched that that exact section that you mentioned and just before that one of the members of the work group I'm not sure who it was, but said the district's sitting on $93 million, which I that must have been taken from two previous years of carry forward. Um, and something about that's you know that the contingency is obviously lowhanging fruit to solve this 16 million projected deficit. Um, and then a couple more questions were asked about contingency and the moderator, Dr. Cleveland said, "It

125sounds like they want to hear about contingency." And then that's when you got up to talk and mentioned that the contingency had not been touched in five years and the money is still there. I mean, I'm wondering >> Oh, I never said the money was still there. >> You said them funds are there. >> No, I said we haven't touched it in five years. I said that money may funds are there. >> Yeah. I never said they would be there that the funds were there. You can play the clip. I know I did not say that. members, please. >> Anyway, my concern is that someone on the budget work group sat there and said, "We have we're sitting the district sitting on $93 million and then when you director of finances or or Dr. Barber

126who is over budget to some degree, no one got up and said the district is not sitting on $93 million." >> I don't I'll be honest, I don't recall that question. And that's that's fair enough, but I just I mean I I watched that and it was a little concerning because I thought why would we continue to let this individual on the committee think that we were sitting on $93 million because I'm pretty sure all of us knew that was not the case. >> Thank you. >> We're more agreement. Thank you. Um so back in May we talked about the FY25 budget is um balanced and healthy. And so fir my first question is would you can still consider that to be a true statement? >> So the statement I make every month is related

127to assets versus liability. The people of the budget work group is here is a thing called a quick ratio. In relation to that our assets versus liability show we were at a good stand at that point. I have not written the financials for um June yet because I want to make sure all acrruels for expenses and revenue. And when I say ac cruise, for those in the audience who may not understand what I'm talking about, any expense that relates to a invoice that's June 30th or earlier has to be moved back. That's an expense. Any revenues such as occupational license tax or some other revenue that came in after June 30th has to be moved back. And the net effect of that goes against our ending fund balance and lets us know where we stand

128related to ending fund balance and contingency. >> Okay. And so then the additional revenue that we may get beyond that point would go into the next budget actually. >> Yes. and the problems for clarification of the OLT if we do not collect it all by next week as I'm hoping we do then the the reason it's an issue for previous year although we get it in the current year is that the audit has to be over with by November so when we get it it's too late to change the financials to reflect it going back if that's when somebody files for it but again I should know what we're expecting that we don't have at this point by the middle of next week >> and I reached out to many industry partners and talked about

129building their budgets and the contingency projected and then actuals and a lot of them shared that at 2% change um they plan for 2 to 5% actually in some spaces and I know we've always budgeted very conservatively with that 6% um request of a hold we've seen very volatile two years with the economy and so are there changes going forward to the budget process um where we can cushion the districts to that volatility and maybe not see as much of a swing um from the projected to the actuals. >> Yeah, I think something that we're studying closer is the variability of the gap of what's happening um with the budget both monthtomonth. But what what we're really looking at is how much money are we actually spending that's going at a higher cost and how

130do we know that percentage of cost that it's going to be. So we're evaluating those terms and figuring out how to include that in better um better figures. >> Have have I know uh Mr. Jackson, you indicated that some of this is attributable to delay tax collections. Have we have other entities um who rely on those types of tax revenues seen similar delays? >> The the best way I can describe that is in your personal taxes. Um you fill out your personal taxes. Let's say you owe a federal and state. You may choose to pay their federal taxes on time by April 15, but choose to pay the state later. So people can choose or companies can choose which bill they want to pay at any time. We have no control over that whatsoever. >>

131And so my understanding is when there's a delay in revenue then that obviously cannot be factored into the carry forward from the previous budget but instead has to be factored into revenue in the current year budget. Is that correct? in this particular case because of November when we find out. Yes. Um but normally like I said by the end of August I know what revenue we're going to see by the end of the the year. >> Do we have a rough estimate of what that might be and does that factor into planning for the next budget? Again, sir, with all due respect, I'm I'm very cognizant of what you're asking, but I hesitant to give you a number, and then that's the number we keep getting pushed against that is not true. So, when I

132give you a number, I want to make sure it's the gospel, and that's the number we're actually facing. [Music] Murphy board Monday. >> Um I do want to say just to make it really clear um I know that we're talking a for our whole budget we're talking a small amount of money but it seems like for us for the next little bit every small bit of money is going to mean a whole lot. Um, and so if there are ever any changes like this, um, if we can find out as quickly as possible, um, and I know we're being told that's what you did and I appreciate that. Um, but also there's in the FAQ there's also another area that talks about just to follow up on my approval process question um that final final

133approval for using contingency funds must come to the board during a public meeting ensuring transparency and accountability and it says use of the contingency fund is not automatic. So I don't know if we've ever had to do that. I know we haven't had to dip into the contingency for a while or what that looks like or if that comes once the actuals are done or I guess I'm wondering like what is the what's the the trigger the alarm to make sure that we don't use the 2% we're going to carry over next year and then we end it in the negative. Well, I think right now as we're planning and developing, there needs to be trigger points along the way and we develop that with an approval process right now. >> So, that wasn't in

134place prior. >> I'm sorry, >> nothing like that was in place prior. >> I think it depends on if you have um an evaluation of what the policy and you're looking at it. unforeseen circumstances take place, you know, and as the budget and we're finding out about it until it's audited, we still don't have the exact figures. And >> Dr. Monday, I can tell you, and so can I'm sure the at least three former board members in here that cover along with me the last 20 years that we have never gotten this close to to even getting below the 6% of the contingency. board member Green. >> Um, Chair Murphy, I think I think to everybody's point, all of these recommendations are valid. Um, and I think they all need to be considered um if

135not in completion in parts. Um, and so I don't want to take away an opportunity or an option um of one of these recommendations. So, back to the discussion about the public hearing, the no harm, no foul. I think it's prudent that we pro this was one of the recommendations and so I don't want to take steps that that takes away one of the recommendations that we did here. Um so I would like to revisit having that as just an option to engage the public. So if it does come presented um from administration as part of the working budget um we have done all of our parts >> and my understanding is if we proceed with a hearing that that does not obligate the board that's proceeding with the hearing is not taking a position

136on the OT. Is that correct? >> That's correct >> because I I think the con consensus is we do need more information. I mean, no one is prepared to take action on obviously the budget or anything like that because we we need to see the full scope of what the recommendations would be. We need to see the full scope of how and I see we have implemented some of these to varying degrees. as we've implemented some of these working group recommendations. But um I would be amendable at the very least to just another opportunity both for the board uh to have a conversation about uh these issues, hopefully have a clearer understanding of where we are with our revenue streams and the anticipated uh delayed revenue that's going to be coming in in the fall.

137Um, and again, a a greater sense of what the administration's recommendations will be once you all see uh and respond to some of these questions we asked tonight and analyze some of the the impacts that they would have on students. So, uh, I'm I'm not I'm not prepared to make any decision obviously tonight or to foreclose any recommendation that's before us. So, I would be amendable to scheduling another hearing as a just in case so that the board has all of its options on the table. But again, I don't I don't have a position one way or the other because I need more information and some more specific answers before we move forward. >> Can I ask one more question about the OOLT? >> You may. >> I'm just curious that because when it was

138voted on before I think you Dr. Monday asked about if there was like a if we could set it as a sun setting period like can we just take it for one year one calendar year or one well it has to be the calendar year and I think that answer was no but um because it would be a source of recurring revenue and compounding I guess um why is that considered why was it considered a short-term solution? I I'm just curious on that. If if I'm looking at this right, I think it was under short term. >> I think short term mentioned things you can do now versus things that we can do in future years. Not that it wouldn't carry over. >> Okay, that makes sense. Uh we traditionally we've you know talked about

139conservative budget practices and that's kind of built in some cushion for us um in years past, right? So that we get when we get to this point it's like well you know we've we've anticipated some of these uncertainties. So what what makes this what what makes the the budget that we're facing now different? Um, and I I know that there's there's volatility and so forth, but what is is there one thing that it can be attributed to? Is it a combination of factors? >> Can we be assured in the estimates in the working budget that whatever led to some of the current uh uncertainties right now can be mitigated or addressed? >> I you know, I think it's a combination of things. I think the board has made some really strategic investments to um prioritize

140the classroom and to provide world-class supports. Literally, we have a world-class education going on. I walked around last week, I was in 22 schools. It was amazing to see what was happening. Even day one, day two, kids learning, teachers getting them excited about their passions. And listen, I've been in a lot of different districts and so the support level support here is second to none. So I think that investment is costly and I think it costs and over time as you build on that you have to prioritize and I think that's where you're at. I think you have to prioritize um you know if revenues are not outpacing um expenditures and costs are on the rise there has to be decisions made. And so this is a tough year because the economy is impacted and

141it is changing and there's evidence and there's markers surrounding that. And so we are influenced by that and we are impacted by that. And it's just like this. Think about your your mortgage. If you got to pay a mortgage and every day you know this is the salary that's coming in. You're like this is my salary. I know I'm going to get it. But all of a sudden you have a catastrophe or something happens. Your car breaks down, groceries prices go up, things going on. Well, guess what? Your planned savings is going to be gone. And that's where we're at. So, we have to we have a pivotal moment that we have to take on as a district. And we have to make decisions about what what is what is the best for our kids

142and our families and how are we going to do it and what is it going to take? >> So, can we please abandon this um theory or policy of we're going to spend this year's money on this year's kids since we seem to have spent every single penny of this year's money on this year's kids? >> Is that a question for And are if there are no further questions on the this particular piece I think is Mr. George. >> Yes. >> Is that the name? >> Mr. George >> because I think I'm I I do have some questions but I want to hear from Mr. George first because he may address some of them. Good evening. Um just by way of introduction uh for you all a reminder and for the audience I'm uh Michael

143George with Compass Municipal Advisors. We u are uh the municipal adviser to the district. And so we work with you all specifically on the building fund side and uh the debt part of your budgets. And so we work with you all in terms of issuing debt, establishing credit ratings uh and working with you on the capital facilities plan and the building plan. And so we uh work not only with you all but other school districts in the state of Kentucky and other school districts across the southeast. And so we've got uh a lot of experience and we see a lot of different financial situations uh and trends uh specifically in this area and how they impact school districts. Uh and so what I've been asked to provide tonight is just kind of what we see

144in terms of a nationwide impact from the revenue side and the expense side of the budget. And so I'll start with the revenue side first. Um you know you all like a lot of um school districts across the country experienced a big increase in revenue right after COVID due to the influx of federal money uh and as we started seeing property values expand. We've seen those revenues start to kind of plateau uh nationwide uh with some of the cooling data with the economy. Uh we also see on the revenue side, we've seen Kentucky school districts and specifically uh trail uh nationwide averages in terms of revenue increases because of the taxing system that we have in Kentucky, a relying on property tax and b being limited to the 4% increase which in many ways has

145not kept up with inflation or the actual increase of housing prices. and slow. From kind of a big picture national perspective, we're starting to see uh slowing revenue growth um in Kentucky and in the country as a whole, specifically the Southeast. Um on the expense side, uh you know, no surprise we're seeing, uh increases both on the capital construction side, which comes out of the building fund, and then obviously on the operation side, uh when it comes to day-to-day expenses, uh as well as wage increases. And so from a big picture perspective, um we like to kind of rely on the credit rating agencies to paint kind of a better picture of uh the the national kind of school district uh economy. And so when we take a big picture step back, uh Moody's uh

146investor service uh recently issued a negative outlook for K through2 schools nationwide. Uh and then again this is attributed to uh the slowing revenue numbers uh as well as the increased cost uh on both the construction side and on the operating side. And so from a big picture perspective, we've seen uh school districts face uh these economic challenges or we're starting to see school district face these economic challenges uh in which uh fund balances um have started to plateau. uh and there's even been projections of draw down on those fund balances. And so uh again, we just wanted to provide you all with what we see in terms of the national impact on the revenue and expense side. Uh I also am happy to answer any questions that you have pertaining to debt, credit ratings,

147uh and anything that kind of falls into that bucket. >> Chair Murphy Green. >> Um I have two. One is about what's happening at the federal level with a bill that was passed this summer and the implications. I think it's important as a body that's charged with making long-term decisions. Um there could be implications of a loss of a substantial amount of funding all through K through 12, which I anticipate that was part of Moody's um reflection in that rating, but can you speak to that and the impact it would have locally and then the bond rating as well? >> Yes. So, you're exactly right. that was referenced in uh the Moody's rating report and um you know it's it's typically framed in kind of the unknown bucket in which school districts don't know exactly

148how much federal funding they're going to get and so not only does the decrease impact uh you all from a credit perspective but the unknowns also make it hard from a budgeting perspective and so uh that absolutely will have an impact obviously on you all and school districts nationwide in terms of the money coming in the door and your ability ility to plan for it. Uh on the rating side, um you know, I think that was a big part of the the national rating outlook was the uncertainty around both state uh and federal revenue. I think with the state being more of the pass through and so that was a big reason for that negative outlook and it's a big reason as to why they are expecting uh decreases in fund small decreases in fund

149balances nationwide. And you indicated that based on your the work you do and your analysis that Kentucky school districts uh tend to lag behind uh on those revenue shortages uh lag behind the rest of the country. Can you speak to that a little bit more? >> Yeah, I think there's a couple things to look at. If you look at first uh fund balances in Kentucky typically are uh less than median averages and then secondarily most Kentucky school districts rely on at least at the local level really only utility taxes and property taxes. And so as you all know you're limited to the 4% increase on the property tax side uh unless you want to go to the voters for a tax that would be subject to recall. And so when you're in a situation of

150six, eight% inflation or six or eight% increases in property assessments, you all are actually only cap, you know, capturing 4% of that. And so you're falling behind that inflationary target. And so being a state that is limited somewhat in your tax revenue, i.e. no ability to levy a sales tax, those types of things, then you are relying on that 4% trigger of your property tax. and h based on the districts you've worked with, how what what's the general response uh to this climate, this adverse economic climate generally? >> Yeah. So, obviously, every school district's different uh in terms of their financial situations. And so the school districts that we're seeing getting squeezed on the funding side or having uh really high expenses, uh we're seeing them having to make uh sacrifices, whether it be cuts,

151whether it be tax increases in order to, you know, preserve the financial health of the district. >> Member Green. >> Uh thank you, Sher Murphy. on the contingency percentage from two from six that we've normally had to two would that change in the number in the working budget for FY26 would that impact our bond rating um locally? >> Yes. Um, if you look at your existing credit rating report, they specifically site uh fund balance. And so if the fund balance is drawn below 6%, I think it's very likely that you will get uh a downgrade on your credit rating with the release of the audit. And so that will impact obviously your cost of capital when you borrow for capital projects. Uh and so that increase in cap cost cost cost of capital uh really

152equates to uh limiting your bonding potential or lowering your bonding potential because you're paying more in interest. Have have you seen similar situated districts go down that particular road or one road or the other? And are there any lessons we can glean from those or is this just a kind of we're all in this together situation? Well, I think from a credit rating perspective, there's two things to look at. There's the kind of immediate impact and then what is the plan to get back up to where you were from a credit perspective. And so, um, I think it's important, you know, obviously you all want to focus on shoring up the budget and making sure that you all are in the best position possible for the next 12 months, 24 months. But I do think

153it's important uh as you all work through these different budget challenges and changes that you think about what is your long-term target from a credit perspective. What is the long-term target for fund balance policy? How is that going to impact my cost of capital? And then how are we going to relay this message to the credit rating agencies so that they feel comfortable assigning you all the appropriate credit rating that helps lower your cost of capital? >> Thank you. Any other questions board members? >> Okay. >> Thank you Murphy. Um so when the we Dr. Monday and myself both asked kind of if the OOLT was not implemented, what would the impacts be um for positions and with the schools, could we also hear what the impacts would be um depending on if the OOLT

154was um used or not um to our bond ratings? >> So, I think at the end of the day, they're just going to look at your fund balance and they're going to look at revenues versus expenditures. And so at the end of the day, if it's new revenue that gets you there or decreases in expenses or some combination of both, they're just going to look at that fund balance number and then they're going to see if there's a sustainable path going forward. >> Thank you. And I think it would be even and that may be a question for staff or administration as we get more questions answered and get more a better understanding of the landscape of the choices facing uh the board and the community is kind of and this if this is something

155you can work with the team Mr. George on is just a rough projection. And I know it's very the these are very difficult numbers to project but running through various scenarios of option A could lead to this, option B could lead to that. That does that make sense? >> Yes. If if if you all have various scenarios and make sure I understand this question correctly. If you all have various financial scenarios that you all want to run by us from a credit perspective, absolutely. We're happy to look at all of them and provide feedback. >> Correct. I think that would be helpful if that's something Super Ligins and Dr. Barber >> Absolutely. >> you all can work with the fiscal agent on. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Just a recap of the budget

156solutions workg group recommendations um in total so you can kind of see everything together. some actions that we did take um this past school year um 10% reduction, eliminated non-essential overtime pay for employees, and strategically use non-general funds when allowable. something we already planned for coming in in the tenative budget. um 8.9 million cut at the district level budget 1 million in reduction in actual positions at John Dric including assistant superintendent chief directors associate directors etc and we did some reduction in contractual extended days we also did a 20 to 30% reduction in all department budgets depending on the department additionally we had some recent actions taken again this past week or I guess Friday. Um reassigning the financial accounting um budget and benefit services departments report directly to superintendent. Implement a mandatory hold on

157filing or filling any district office vacancies. Limit all outofstate or overnight professional learning travel funded by the general fund to essential purposes only. Pause all maintenance projects unless they are directly related to health or safety needs. hire retirees only for substitute teaching roles. And the clarification here is retirees will not be hired in critical shortage status. So for clarification, will we continue to hire retirees and part-time roles following the daily wage threshold guidelines? And I think Jenny's here if you want to give any other context if needed. >> Any questions on that provision board members for Mer? Okay. Um, also providing u monthly public updates to keep the community informed and launch an internal review of current and past financial procedures to ensure best practices. Some additional considerations for you as a school board and

158these are potential future budget solutions. Discontinue staff pay raises for the foreseeable future. potentially reduce staffing allocations above the state ratio, which could be up to 32 million in reductions. Reduce staff through reduction in force, including federally funded positions. Cut school level budgets budgets, which could be reducing section six, giving the minimum 100 per student. It is potential you could also raise property taxes. I'm just given the option out there County above the 4% level, but that varies depending upon the rate in terms of actual what what you can bring in. >> Chair Murphy Green, >> thank you. On the school level budgets, give you said giving the minimum of 100. Can you share what we give per student? Now >> I think it varies, but it's up to 116 max. Yeah. And then uh

159the reduce the staff allocations above the state ratio. Can you just kind of in our discussion of what the state requires versus what we do with discretionary? Can you kind of review that at a very high level what that might mean? Yeah, at a very high level, what that means is that we would reduce the we would go down to probably the state ratios or somewhere in between there and that would actually in um well reduce staff overall, but it would allow for there to shore up some funding, free up some money. >> Would you, and this may be a question you can't answer, and that's okay. Um are there general categories of positions that um we know that this would cut? I'd like to be careful in answering that because I don't want to

160stoke any fear out there. >> Yeah. But Dr. Ligins, you're welcome to share. >> It's above and beyond. >> Yeah. >> All that is required by law which are the basic educational courses. >> Thank you. Was were any of these factors or this list part of the dis the workg groupoup discussion and if so what was the feedback? >> No I think as there were I mean there were some conversations surrounding these areas but I think it was more about attenable to how do we avoid hitting the classroom or avoid hitting um direct services to students. There was some conversations that took place. Um, I don't think anybody talked about raising property taxes though, higher than 4%. >> Chair Murphy >> Monday. >> Um, when we're talking about reducing like staff allocations and I might

161I've mixed up my slides, so I may have like jumped ahead and we may not have seen the 1 million reductions in POS positions at John D. Price. Oh, we did. Okay. I think one of the issues when we're talking about staff reductions is that I don't have a good idea of what those staff reductions are, where they are. I know we have that position list that is literally a crazy amount of pages, a crazy amount of positions that I can't pinpoint who, what, or where they are. So, I just want to like push for if that does come to the board that we actually see a bit more detail. I don't need names, but I do need to know like >> positions where they're located. Are they actually going into the classroom? Maybe even

162how often they are in schools if they are a John D. Price position because I know a lot of people are based here, but they're in their primary role is seeing students in, you know, those those spaces. Um, but just being as detailed as possible because we don't have or I will speak for myself. I don't have that context with what I've been giving as board members so far. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions, board members? >> All right. Oh, go ahead. >> Well, I mean, I don't know if this is a question or a comment or a statement. Um, you know, it seems like you read the headlines and I was thinking about this today because I did an activity uh in class. It's the first of the school year. We're helping

163students, you know, think about history and how to analyze primary sources and so we were talking about context and I Mr. George kind of spoke to this of the the context facing K12 schools um is tumultuous right now and I just did a glance through some of the challenges districts are facing across the country and some of the same frustrations we've heard here we hear in our community we feel as board members Chicago public schools $734 million budget shortfall um cutting they have a spending plan that calls for cutting meal prep staff, crossing guards, janitorial workers, um 161 layoffs, elimination of 200 vacant positions, and then weeks later they announced 1400 other layoffs. Uh Oregon Public Media talked about Portland public schools, $43 million in reduction. Um in Minnesota, they Minneapolis public schools, $75 million

164budget gap. uh Marian County, Florida, $64 million budget deficit. Uh they recommend to address it, increasing class sizes across all grade levels, adjusting school staffing ratios, and releasing its committed fund balance. Columbus City Schools, $50 million. Uh again, it's the same story all across the country. Fairbanks, Alaska, uh $16 million deficit in a relatively small school district. And one of the proposals is to close the gap uh by increasing class sizes and laying off 150 staff. Uh Memphis $150 million in fiscal year 2025, eliminating 675 positions. So it seems like and then here in Kentucky, Jefferson County, I guess imitation is the highest form of flattery because they announced this week they're going to form a budget work group uh similar to what we did to address a hund00 million deficit. Um Newport Independent, but

165Northern Kentucky, $3.9 million. In my own county where I teach, we had to close our early learning center uh because of the budget challenges. And then I got to digging here. We have uh SEK funding that has not kept place pace with inflation. Since 2012, SEK funding is down about 20%. And if SEK had just kept pace with inflation this year, we would have received an extra $27 million in SEK dollars. And SEK has not been fully funded on the transportation side, which cost us an extra about $4 million a year. 2018 entirely ended funding for textbooks, professional learning. State funding for preschool and extended school services, which is one of the reasons we're facing challenges right now is are at 2019 levels. And so I mean when I think about the challenges that we're

166facing I oft also have to think about the context and have we factored the realities facing public schools all across Kentucky and here and all across the country. uh have we factored these challenges into our budget and financial planning and how we navigate that context? >> Yeah, I think I think it's a moment where we're seeing trends exist not just here in Fate County but across the country and we're taking those factor or those things in consideration. um we we recognize it's not just us, but we also know we have to do something about it. And so that is something why we're bringing this to you and why the budget solutions work group brought about some recommendations. But I think it's a it's a pivotal moment and I think we have an opportunity and we

167have to figure out how to navigate it forward. And I agree and I also think it's incumbent on us and it's incumbent on the district. Uh we've got to make we've got to make that clear in and our communications as well. How we communicate with the board, how we communicate with the community um to help folks understand both the context, the stakes, how we've made choices, how we intend to make choices moving forward, um and and what exactly our intentions are as we move forward. And so that's one of the things I appreciate the opportunity to ask questions. Um I I still have some more additional questions. Obviously we asked for some additional information uh this evening um that I would like to see as we navigate this. But I think you know the the

168biggest takeaway for me is we recognize that it's a a pivotal moment for public education everywhere. And so and we have to be cognizant of that in the decisions we make, the steps that we move forward and the way that we communicate those challenges. Uh and look, we heard from UK Federal Credit Union uh union this morning or this that felt like this morning um this evening. Uh the value of community partners, right? Because public schools don't exist in isolation. Uh they exist with the support of our community. And so so we have to be mindful of that as we as we move forward. That's why I appreciate the work of the budget work group hearing those recommendations and um helping them guide our next steps moving forward. >> Absolutely. Thank you. And I'm going

169to turn it back over to Dr. Ligins. >> Chair Murphy, if I could just moment. I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't just point this one piece out, especially with me being a new board member and going through this process for the first time. I think one of the biggest differences I've seen between like our neighbors in Louisville and Newport is that once they saw that they had these budgetary issues and challenges, they had lists of what they were going to do about it immediately. They ripped the band-aid off. This has been a process that we have been going through for quite a bit and it feels like as we go through that process, we get a lot of surprises along the way. Um, you know, the first one being that we

170were even $16 million short with $8 million reductions that had already taken place and then, you know, pop up what we're going to look at passing a tax and then now we've spent a portion of our contingency and it's it is concerning, right? And it's one of the reasons why, you know, I think we have lost some of the community's trust. And it is something we have to work on and do much better than we do now. We have to make sure that all the information is out there and we recognize both pieces of the coin, right? I or both sides of the coin, excuse me. I completely understand what's happening. Inflation, we're feeling it. You know, I feel it at the grocery store. Um, all of those are valid reasons, but also the spending

171that the district has done prior, right? In past years, just in 23 24, we spent $10 million out of the travel fund or out of the general fund for professional development and leave. And all those pieces have implications on what our budget looks like now. And I know the question has come up time and time again. How did we get here? And sometimes when you ask those questions as to why come do we know that we have to meet the $16 million shortfall, why are we still approving trips for travel that aren't required? We have to take those things into consideration. So I appreciate the superintendent and sending his message that he did this week and acknowledging that we're going to have to make some changes and you know using the word a crisis because

172that's exactly what it is. But we also have to move forward and be much more transparent than we've been you know with us as board members um with the community because it's a burden that we're all going to have to feel even our children. >> Thank you. I want to um clarify a couple of things you said Monica and first I'm sorry board member uh Monday. Uh first I wanted to state that it is very uh I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I I think the the press of any great relationship uh is communication and getting better at that. And that is something that we're certainly committed to doing. Um the it's been published and it was unfortunately a typo of an assistant. There was never 11 $10 million spent out of general

173funds. Someone put an extra one in in a place and it or an extra digit, whatever it was, and it extended it. It was not that amount. uh by any stretch of the imagination. I also think it's very important that we as um I can't stress enough the one of the things that we've taken very seriously in this community or in this district I've taken as a superintendent of this community is the feedback I received from this community and when coming in four years ago about what this community wanted to see in its public schools. I sat with many many people and I've shared the story over and over again where it was stated we've been having these same conversations for 20 years and nothing and we come back every few years and we're having

174the same conversations and we want to close the achieve the opportunity gap. We want to uh make sure that you know we have a world-class education. And when you talk about uh some of the the things that are occurring in the district in other districts when they found out uh immediately to start cutting things, it it is despite what has been published, it is we're not going to cut our way out of this without touching campuses. And so that has always been the priority of this board. That has always been the priority of this community based off of the feedback I've received. And um and that would h have to occur. And so in that instance, that was one of the main reasons that that became a final resort for us. As you can see

175on the screen here, we're talking about the achievements that have actually uh been done. you know, and some of much of this is first time in the history of the district being able to make these sorts of achievements. And I I just and we're going to continue to work with whatever direction the district goes in. Um it is my job to make sure that we continue forward trajectory, not touch kids and campuses, uh do that as little as possible. But I I will tell you it is it hasn't these results haven't come because of frivolous spending. They've come because of very intentional investments in what impacts students. There's also this this narrative out there that just because you don't work on a campus that you don't impact campus and student learning. I can assure you

176that a teacher, which is our number one employee group, uh teaches a little bit better knowing that their checks are going to be processed and they're going to be paid on time. We don't have anyone in our payroll office that ever steps foot on a campus, but those are things that truly impact our students. Um and so, and it's a lot of examples like that. And so, um, when we're looking and we're going to, um, look through this and make sure that we bring, um, some suggestions, but it will indeed make absolutely sure that it's we're in the kid business. The mass majority of what we do or everything what we do actually impacts kids. And I often tell people, if you're not impacting kids in one way or the other, if you can't draw

177your line to where student achievement is occurring, you shouldn't be in the organization. Uh and so it is absolutely um is there places we can tighten our belts? Yes, we continue to look at those every single day and we'll continue to look at those. Um and um and possibly more so depending on the direction of the board. But I will tell you that I I don't want the narrative to continue that something is wrong, that this is unique to Faget County, that we are um just wasteful um because that is truly not the case. There's been um things that of course again that we could have communicated a little better about how those came about um why that purchase was made. In fact, in many instances that that purchase was made by many of our

178generous partners. But uh a district in crisis and a district that is being portrayed by many that is and I did not use the word crisis in the context that of this district. It was used in the context of the P12 educational environment nationally. Um by the way, that's just a side note. Um, but a district with these results is not a district in crisis. A district with these results are not a district that is just frivolous and not paying attention to student outcomes. And so I just want to make that very clear. I want to go on record making that very clear because teachers in our classrooms every single day are working their tails off to make sure our kids are getting every opportunity whatever language they speak whatever sort of household they come

179from and to s and to dismiss their achievements and to dis dismiss the work that's happening um I I think is unfortunate and I I think that's happening not not at this table um as I'm not suggesting that at all but that is happening in some circles that is unfortunate and I'll leave it there >> and just to add a little context um I definitely don't think that any of the spending or investments we've made have been frivolous but it has been made clear to us that we've made a lot of investments that we can't sustain and so kind of making those decisions of what is most important and I think that's why bringing a budget to the board without the ol that clearly states what exactly is going to happen is going to add

180to that piece because there are a lot of unknowns and there's so much that we haven't been communicated or when those questions have been asked I can personally say there has been push back there as well and I 100% understand that we can't cut our way out of this but we can't tax our way out of it either because it's not going away this is just what we're experiencing now and this vol this volatile market is going to continue to happen We're going to continue to fill it and making sure that we have all the information to make uh the best decision that we can for our students is what's most important. >> Thank Thank you. >> Any other questions? Board members. >> Okay, Super >> I I Can we bring that back up? Sad.

181I think we may have already done this, but um kind of I' I've heard two different directions that the board would like to go. As far I know, I've heard that we would like to bring a budget back with um without the OOLT. I've heard that we want to have uh a hearing to potentially discuss um the OOLT in case that's an option. Um I've heard that we want to get a list of hypotheticals what would happen. Um I I I think that we just need to paint we need a clearer picture of I any direction. Does that make sense based what the administration recommends? >> Path one, path two, p however many paths. We just I think that what I'm hearing from board members is and I think it would benefit the community of

182just kind having a clear outline of uh options for the board to consider. Is that what I'm hearing from the board? because I I think we I think we have the responsibility the budget work group did the work they've come came to us for these recommendations we have the responsibility to uh weigh and evaluate these recommendations um assess the uh feasibility which is you know that's something that u a task that would fall on the administration to assess if the feasibility of each of these recommendations uh and then come to the board and say here here's what can work here's what can't work also cognizant of the fact that we have a work group and we have a community that has said protect the classroom, protect our investments in students. So based on that, what

183is our path forward? And I I don't I don't know if anyone is prepared to make a commitment to that path this evening. Is that is that consent? Yes. Is that a fair assessment? We just the board needs options. >> Okay. I mean, we've also heard from the work group and the community that they don't want the OOLT to be increased. I mean, wasn't it the very last recommendation on the ranking from the budget work group? I mean, how can we thank them for what they've done? They've come up with these suggestions and then we're just going to disregard that they put it absolutely last. I I don't understand that. >> My understanding is it was among the recommendations. Were there there were there weren't only 10 recommendations considered, were there? Well, did they have

184the option of not considering it? I mean, it was presented to them because it had been presented here and voted on. So, I don't think they would say that they had the option of not considering it. We gave all the uh small working groups in the budget solutions work group an opportunity to um verbalize their recommendations and so those were all the recommendations from the from the word budget work group. >> So it's among the recommendations then? >> Yes sir. >> Okay. >> But they were rankordered. I watched it. So it did come in as the last within the rank of the the all the suggestions. >> M Christian, >> I apologize for my absence. Um Chair Murphy, um feel free at this point to get your stones ready and your pitchforks and whatever else

185you got. Um, I think one thing that's lost in all of this is a very simple question. How are public schools funded? And I don't know of any school board that says, "I can't wait to raise taxes." This is not lobbying for OOLT right this very moment. What this is is a realization and an acknowledgment that school public schools are funded by taxes. It's written in statute. It's what drives the beast. So whatever happens, there's going to be another conversation about taxes. And we need to acknowledge, please acknowledge that unless the entire constitution shifts and you find another way, an alternative method to public education, we're going to continue to have this conversation. So, uh, again, don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not going to say yes or no as far as my

186final vote, but I will say we have to be realistic and we have to understand that if we are going to be a group of people who has everyone's best interest at heart, we can't ignore the option that may be the most unpopular, but it is the one that statutoily we have the right to. So, Bormer Christian, would you and I'm and I understand you had to step away and I understand. Um, so are you amenable did you hear the conversation about the hearing the the the potential of a hearing? So, if if that's considered as a option as a consideration, it would require a hearing to be held on September 5th. um as an opportunity to again I think the fifth would be a good opportunity no matter what happens for us to hear

187the recommendations and that see the picture that that I've asked to be painted for the board and for the community of the various options um and allow additional time and additional space to hear input from the board and from the community. Um, so again, the the message I'm getting is that the consensus is proceeding with a a hearing as a being prepared scenario. Is that correct? Are you comfortable with that? >> Yeah, I would rather there be a hearing and the community get the opportunity to voice them their opinion either way than it not happening at all. So, yeah. I think I already shared my thoughts. Thank you. Well, with four board members saying that let's schedule a hearing as a and so that the board is prepared for any proposal that it's presented with

188um on September 5th and then we can make arrangements for times and so forth among the board. >> Got Is that does that give ample time to come back to the board and the community with the requested information material? >> Yes, we can take care of that. >> Okay. >> Is that does that conclude your superintendent's report? >> That completes my superintendent report. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Ligins. Next on our agenda is time for public comment. Fake County Board of Education policy 01.45 Four five states members of the public may address the board during the period set aside by the board without submitting an item for the agenda. No action shall be taken during this portion of the meeting on issues raised by employees or the public unless deemed an emergency by the

189board. Speakers will not be allowed to make any disparaging or critical remarks about individuals or employees of the district. Instead, those issues are processed through the district's complaint procedures, which afford the individuals to whom comments or complaints are directed the opportunity for response and due process. Furthermore, members of the public are encouraged to model civil and respectful discourse and conduct. This is not intended to be a time for debate or direct engagement with the board. However, the board will take the public's input into consideration this evening to ensure discussion dialogue remain rooted. In facts, uh there may be a portion of this time used to correct or clarify any inaccurate information shared. Um at this time, if I counted correctly, we have 18 uh speakers who have signed up to speak to matters on the

190agenda. Uh, some individuals have indicated they're yielding time and I will try to reflect that when I call folks up to the podium. When I call your name, please step forward to the podium for a comment. Please keep your remarks to three minutes or less. And please note that the maximum yield time is nine minutes. Our first speaker this evening evening is Margaret Roberts. Okay. Uh Frankie Langden would be our next speaker. >> Okay. Well, um there are individuals who have indicated that they are yielding time to Frankie Langden and that would put you over the nine minutes. So is Okay. Thank you. Good evening, Superintendent, FCPS4 staff, and to all in attendance. My name is Frankie Langden, and I chose to speak this evening as an individual and a concerned citizen. I'm advocating alongside

191previous FCPS board members, community partners, parents, and many, many more in support of our students, teachers, staff with the impending deep and brutal cuts that are about to happen to our community through the Faget County Public School System. I would personally like to extend my gratitude to Melissa Bacon, Doug Barnett, Ray Daniels, Amanda Ferguson, Daryl Love, and Stephanie Spires along with many others and being respectful of my previous roles in leadership within the district and my 29 years of employment as partners with this district. As the former FCESPA president in this district, I represented classified hourly and salaried I'm sorry and salaried employees working through professional relationships with our superintendent, FC FCPS board leadership, students, teachers, staff, and our community. I served on the Kentucky Health Insurance Board and continuously worked with state legislative members

192to provide a voice in Frankfurt for public education always advocating for everyone in this process no matter their title. Dr. Dr. Ligins, you along with leadership have been offered over and over again a helping hand through a collective bargaining action implementation from the Kentucky 12 United FET membership to have a constructive seat at the table in the intricacies of the budgeting process for FCPS. In addition, I've also heard that the new FCEA president, to whom I applaud, for voicing those very words aloud in a television interview, is presenting open discussions with the district for collective bargain action agreement as well. Prior to her reign, this association has been promising such a movement to its members for decades. I'm extremely pleased to see that this dual action is being brought forth now more than ever. The

193time is right. The seats are still empty. Please feel them now as we cannot and should not proceed with the same current course of action. They intimately know our students, our teachers, our staff, our community and they're extremely on an extremely personal level. We demand the professionalism moving forward right here and now with an external audit team as internal seems to be quite problematic currently. So, this demands outside partners or perhaps a possible vote of no confidence. I'm really not sure at this point. The situation is much different than what's going on in other school districts. Please do not continue to insult our community's intelligence. You speak of the lack of understanding to the lost trust in our city, but you are the captain. And I do know that above all, you should be responsible

194in receiving direct reports of its financial stability continuously, as have our past partners and leaders. As recently retired staff member of 29 years, this has become a district that I sadly do not recognize anymore. In my tenure, I've worked under many different superintendents and leaders along the way. As of last September, I respectfully left nothing unsaid in an email statement to my leadership team. There's a real disconnect between leaders with power dynamics and those that work under them. We are all here for one reason, and that's the responsibility of nurturing our community's most precious cargo. These babies come to our schools, some with loving homes, some with divided homes, some with no homes, just simply a victim of life's circumstances. As such, with this district of abundant means, we should be choosing to feed all

195of our children, not increasing their lunch prices in order for them to be ready and soaking up every moment of their educational journey, not balancing the budget on their backs. Some much smaller districts choose paths to feed their children. That, my friend, is a bold and noble cause. We are to love, teach, and empower them all. Each and every single one of them to be their very best and prepare them to sort in today's truly difficult world each and every moment. In all my years in working in Fate County Public Schools, we had one superintendent, one director of instruction, and one director of operations. Even with the strategic plan in place prior to Manny Cox's untimely passing, conceivably the director of instruction could hold a superintendent degree as well as a passionate former board chair

196sought to provide this need in case as leader your commitments or health etc may temporarily call you away from your duties. Now there are so many deputy superintendents each with their own staffs and on and on and on. If cuts are to be made, perhaps this is a place where serious discussions may need to begin. It was stated in a channel 27 story by Samantha Valent Valentino, pardon my mis misguided there on an August 14th airing that the FCPS contingency fund had not been touched in the last five audited years. KDE may only require 2% contingency, but how did the 6% just disappear? uh the contingency funds and Dr. Mundy I I applaud you. Uh the fund per your own guidelines is shouldn't be touched unless if it's if it's 6% it shouldn't be touched

197without board knowledge and approval and voted on. So we expect to know fully the accounting of the debacles of late before you ask for more from your constituents. We have to live within our means and so should our school district. uh everybody's you know your funds are going to change no matter with emergencies or what goes on in the country. I mean they change we do know that as all departments are already under your leadership Dr. Lions. Please know that I'm not saying further dollars are not needed moving forward but the accounting and its foundation should be most certainly always transparent and public. True leaders are responsible for their entire team. You do not leave team members behind by exclusion because you choose to close your mind of the process or validate concerns or through

198personal animosity. As the FCPS board, you do not need outside professional training to bring you together. I implore each of you to stand independently in your convictions and not make lightly of decisions that can either build or break what happens to this district moving forward. As the public, we see, we hear, and we watch what each of you say, and what you do. Words without the same dedicated actions are simply not acceptable. If you do not agree, then I ask that you review your job descriptions. The five alarm fires here and now, Dr. Ligins and Mr. Murvy, the ultimate responsibility lies squarely at your feet. Mr. Murvy, over the years, I have personally watched you at live action board meetings, sitting on the opposite sides of the table. where you advocated fiercely for students, teachers,

199and staff. What happened, Dr. Ligins? In our community, our parents believe strongly in public education, and you were paid with benefits that we value because we appreciate the job that our superintendents do. And you're paid like twice what our governor makes. You were given the golden key to our house, and right now it's burning down. As leaders and supporters, it's not your right to demean, document, or dismiss others when you feel someone doesn't belong or fit your desires. As top leaders, it's absolutely your responsibility to find the common threads that move all team members forward, even when it might be personally uncomfortable. There is no I in team. In my former leadership roles, I always stated to my members, it's not about me, it's about the we. Dr. Ligins and Mr. Murphy, as leaders, you

200are at the helm. This is about our students, teachers, staff, and community, and demands your complete attention. You are past the point of no return, even those very concerns that have been brought to your attention time and time again without respectful consideration. True harm is about to happen in this district to many innocent children, teachers, and staff through educational opportunity options, job losses to whom you are directly responsible for on a daily basis. you need to own this and be responsible and accountable or move aside and please let others steer their ship. Um, and then I think we also had a little bit of confusion sitting in the back when we talked about general fund versus contingency fund. It kind of overlapped a little bit. General fund, that's a budget you tenatively make and then

201you have a general, you actually have a a steadfast budget to work from. But we keep talking about contingency. Contingency should have never been touched. It should have been there and available for emergencies. But it appears from the information we received tonight that is not the case. But I thank you kindly for your time and attention to this matter. >> Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Doug Barnett. Is Mr. Barnett still here? Our next speaker this evening is Don Perkins. >> Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Amanda Preston. >> Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Kristen Nelson. >> Mr. Vid is already at nine minutes. So that would uh ex that's the max. So, do you want to still speak or do you want to yield? >> Thank you.

202Uh, our next speaker is Rachel Buuser. >> Good evening. I will keep this short. Um, I just wanted to come up and say how totally disappointing the last six months have been for Faget County stakeholders. We have been met with scandal after scandal and it just keeps getting worse. This contingency situation is, to use your words, it is a crisis. We are in a in a crisis situation and to continue to try and play semantics and try to pretend like the public is not educated enough to understand what is happening is not only completely wrong, it's totally offensive. We see that there are problems. We see that there's overspending. We've been saying it for some time and it's time to be held accountable. It's time to make cuts where we all know we believe they

203need to happen and that's here in this building. Our dollars need to go to our teachers, to our building staff, to our students, and you all are the ones who need to start making some serious sacrifices. So, I implore doc or I appreciate Dr. Mundy and Miss Ferguson for attempting to try to cut through some of the nonsense that keeps being spat at all of us to try and hide what is actually happening. And I I just implore you all to make the right choice. If we need more funding, that's a different situation, but let's make some cuts where we know cuts need to be made. Thanks. Thank you. Our next speaker is Alan Bettnik. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is uh Diane Muskin. >> Our next speaker is Greg Prince. Is Greg still

204here? Okay. Uh, we had two who wed to Miss Langden. So, our next speaker is Jillian Kite. I was going to yield my time to Matthew Vid, but since he already has his nine minutes, I figure I'll say a few things, too. Tonedeaf are the two words that come to my mind. I didn't think coming off of a COVID uh time, which is the last time I was in this building, that I could possibly feel more frustrated being inside this building listening to this. What we can't ignore is the rules. You can't ignore the public notice. You can't ignore the incompetence of those in the most powerful positions. You can't ignore the spending. Here's the advice. Let's take ownership for the missteps. Let's lead with transparency. Let's live by being proactive rather than reactive. Intentional,

205not frivolous. The gym they can't access here in this building. the aviation instructors, the assistant superintendants with excuse after excuse tonight. Here's what I find unfortunate. Who was responsible prior to July 1st? I heard nothing. Who was responsible? All I heard is who is responsible since July 1st. Who was responsible? The constant you hesitate to respond. Let's come with facts to these meetings. We want to know. This is the biggest game of hot potato. Everything was all hunky dory, standing room only at these meetings last year. Where are all those people now? Where are they? Let's look at the history, Tyler. I agree. Let's look at the history. Who has been digging into this budget? Let's look at the history beyond FCPS leadership. This board, you were voted in here and there are three of

206you on this board that constantly vote together, constantly. I actually campaigned against Amanda Ferguson and I am so proud of her asking these questions. Same with Dr. Mundy. They are the only ones asking the important questions. Community engagement is important and I would much rather be putting my three children to bed right now and getting them ready for school and hearing about their day at our family dinner or how their sports practices went than sitting here listening to this. But the time has come. We cannot as a community ignore this anymore. Excuses, excuses, excuses. No facts. hesitation to respond is all that I've heard from the top echelon of leadership and by several of the majority of the board members tonight. The the teachers, the students, the engaged parents, they are world class. What I'm

207seeing tonight, I'm not seeing world class. >> Thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Matthew Vid. You have nine minutes. [Music] Okay. So, let's let's be very very clear about a few things. You you are absolutely in a crisis. 100% no questions about it. You Faget County Public Schools is facing a se severe financial crisis. You you you guys sat here for nearly 30 minutes, probably an hour talking about the contingency fund, what we can do with the contingency fund. Should we vote to reduce the contingency fund from six to four or four to two? Can we use the contingency fund to f to to fill a to fill a budget gap? You you have already spent the fund down to 2%. We wasted so much time talking about what we can do

208with the contingency fund. But these officials, Dr. Ligins and his financial staff, they have already spent the contingency fund down to two to 2%. They they might have spent it down to less than 2%. I will be waiting with baited breath to see what the final the final carry forward balance is because if it's less than $16.7 million, it's it's big big trouble. Big trouble. Do the math. 2% on your on your current budget. You have already spent it and you spent it in violation of b of this board's policy. The board policy says that the contingency fund cannot be touched without board approval. And what Dr. Lian said was that the that the carry forward balance has been estimated to be 15 to$22 million. Three months ago it was estimated to be well it

209was budgeted to be $43.6 6 million, but the carry forward balance was estimated to be $42 million and now it's going to be 15 to 22. You you formed a budget solutions workg group over the summer and on day one their recommendation was to use the contingency one. Day one the recommendation was to use the contingency fund. Nobody in the district, nobody told them, guys, the contingency fund does not exist. We It was never told to anyone on the budget solutions work group. I if if I was a member of the budget solutions work, I I would be furious about the time that I spent that was wasted on that budget solutions work group and then you wasted all of our time talking about the contingency fund and what we can do without it. It

210it doesn't exist. They spent it already and they didn't ask you for your approval. It is a violation of board policy to spend the contingency fund and and if it if it comes in below 167, the next person that's going to be in this room is the the education commissioner from the KDE because it is a state law to be above 2%. And and we and there have been several comments and I'm just I shouldn't even say this because I want to see what number you come back with in the next two weeks. But there's been a lot of confusion about what even what is the definition of the of the contingency fund? 6% of what it is 6% of the total budget of the entire budget. That is in state law 160.470 section 6A

211of the entire budget. So for the past two years in fiscal years 23 and 24 and 24 and 25, this school district has been below 6%. It has been below 6%. I mean, it it is it is just astonishing what has happened because not only not only do we have a $16 million deficit that you wanted to fix with the contingency fund, you you you guys you've already you the original budget you guys proposed in May was a $16 million shortage. The actual shortage was $16 million plus 27. If it goes from 42 to 15, the actual shortage was 16 plus 27. That is after $8.9 million in cuts. And that is after an assumption of a 4% tax rate on property property property tax increases. And and what is so frustrating to me and

212to a lot of people that attend these meetings is is you guys sit here and you just smile and nod. You smile and nod. Whatever whatever happens, whatever whatever the district brings to you, it's just smile and nod. And a lot of times you just you just sound like AI chat bots in your in your responses. And what you what you need to be doing is going through budgets line by line by line by line. I did it. I did it for you. So, let's just let's just look at a few budget facts because I because I I want to put to rest forever and with some finality that this district is in a crisis because of inflation. You guys have outspent inflation by hundreds of millions of dollars. If you look at the expenses

213starting in 2020 and you go each year for the last five years of audited financials and you track those along with inflation, the cumulative effect of what you guys have spent beyond inflation is $198 million from 2020 to 2024. $198 million in in in the in the 2024 budget, the one year the what the the the four years the the five-year inflation number from 20 to 24 the average compound annual growth rate for inflation is 4.93%. There are 85 budget line items in the FCPS budget that exceeded the grow their growth rate from one from 23 to 24. There are 85 line items that exceeded the growth in those line they exceeded 4.93%. 85 of them here. Here are my favorites. You want to hear my favorites? There are five budget funds. General fund, special

214revenue fund, capital outlay fund, food services fund, and um the building fund. Some favorites from the special revenue fund, business support services, supplies and materials from 23 to 24. That one line item went from $2.3 million to $11.2 million. Here's another one from the from the um from the from the special revenue fund, sorry, general fund business support services salaries. One year it went from 13.8 million to 17.7. That's $3.9 million. Here's here is here is the best one. District admin, support, services, supplies, and materials. The year 2000, it was zero dollars. The year 2021, it was 0. 2022, it was $60,000. So 0 to60,000. From 22 to 23, it went to $4.5 million. It gets better. It gets better. From 2023 to 24, it went from $4.5 million to $10.7 million. District admin, support

215services, supplies, and materials. What on earth could that be? I mean, God, you it is it is it is astonishing h how anyone could survive an election after what what has what has what you have done to this district would would just be shocking to me. Um what there's there's two choices. you guys are either incompetent or you are corrupt. It's one of the two. Um or to give you the benefit of the doubt, I would say that you just you just simply lack the wisdom and the discernment to be in the position that you're in. >> Chair Murphy, I'm going to come out of order. >> I get to respond to her. >> No, you're I was the timer up. Was the timer up? I believe Dr. Barber, did you have any comments? >>

216Yeah, I think thank you uh for your question. >> Mr. V, you may have returned to your seat. Um just just just one fact check for sure which is the calculation of the contingency. There's a specific way on how you calculate. You have to do it over general fund one. It's not the entire budget plus I just I just looked it up. Plus nutrition services. >> Our next speaker Our next speaker this evening is Hunter Stout. >> I'll do my best. >> My name is Hunter Stout. I'm the CFO of Keeland, advisory board member for Commerce Lexington, and I was on the budget solutions workg group. Balancing the budget isn't the challenge right now. It's actually fairly easy. And it's not the contingency fund balance. It's the contingency expense of 42 million that needs to

217be dropped by 16 million. And then you have a balanced budget. The challenge is economic uncertainty that district the district faces. It's no different than the economic uncertainty that businesses face right now and districts across the state face. However, businesses cannot raise taxes and other districts across the state cannot raise taxes. They're all addressing this uncertainty through expense reduction. If every other district in the state can do that and businesses can do that, there's no reason why Faget County Schools can't do that. The budget work group has made a lot of progress in three two-hour meetings, but I will stipulate that that we got a thick work group binder of a thousand pages not in advance of those meetings, but when we showed up to those meetings, those meetings would have been a lot more

218productive first had they started in March, uh, and had we gotten that information in advance. But even with that limited time, we've made great progress. We've provided recommendations that won't impact the classroom. And all I ask is that you let the work group continue to do make that progress. There is no need to rush to pass a tax. We have that that is the last solution. In fact, you guys showed it as number 10. It is number 10 by default. We were told to put 10 recommendations up. If we had only needed if we only were required to put nine recommendations up, the OOLT tax would not have made the list. So, it made the list by default. Let's keep that in mind. Dr. Ligins has said he wants to continue the work group. Yet,

219you're calling for a public hearing before the work group gets a chance to even continue doing anything. There's again, there's no need to rush this tax. It should be the last option. We learned tonight that there's $30 million in discretionary spending. It would have been great to know that back when the work group first met. We we didn't even know about that. That probably would have been pretty high on the list of recommendations had we known that advance. Um, we know that SEK funding actually drops as more tax money comes in. Believe we talked about that this morning. So my question is, >> can somebody yield me some time? Uh, my question is >> ask your question and then you >> if we increase the OOLT tax, is that going to drop our seek funding?

220So we're not actually going to get to recognize all of that. It's going to be netted against a drop in seek funding. >> Thank you. >> I'd actually, you know, you guys asked a lot of questions of Dr. Barber and Mr. Jackson here about what happened in that work group. >> Would you like to ask any to the work group themselves directly? >> Your time has expired. If if we extend that opportunity to you, we would want to extend it to all who participate in the work group. I hope you understand that. But I appreciate I appreciate the opportunity. >> Uh what's your name? I have you down for uh matters not on the agenda. So that will be at the end of the meeting. But but at that he is not signed up at

221this time. And I'm I'm I'm sorry, but we are happy to sit down and have a conversation with you if you want to have a meeting. We're happy to do that. >> Thank you. Thank you for your time. Uh, our next speaker this evening is Norma Justice. So, there's a document you can find on the budget solutions committee page on the FCP website called the workg groupoup Q&A. In this they say if not granted the OOLT or other similar new revenue source the consequences for students will be immediate and long lasting. They go on to say that there will be a disproportionate impact on vulnerable students. Students with disabilities will experience delays in services fewer aids and reduced instructional support risking compliance issues and legal liabilities. So rather than commit to curtailing spending for admin

222service uh services and perks, real estate development and purchase or or suspend dues paying professional organizations and only now after extreme scrutiny curtailing non-essential travel, Fate County would seemingly rather harm student outcomes and disproportionately harm our most vulnerable students. But maybe they don't have time to find ways to fix the budget. I mean, there's been scandal after scandal from the previous vote of the LT being deemed illegal by the state AG, three district employees being arrested and charged with various heinous crimes, a lack of resource officers and metal detectors in schools, and now the imminent domain issue, just to name a few. You can't even turn on turn to local high school newspapers to get away from criticism of Fate County as the PLLD lamplighter editor-inchief CIA Venicious's article was titled, "Our leaders are failing

223us." and it opens detailing the infamous February budget planning meeting of our school board. Across the country, other school systems are experiencing budget issues from small to large. And they're coming to the table with proactive and creative solutions, including our superintendent stepping up and declaring their devotion to their students by taking a portion of their salary and donating it back to the budget. Mary Templeton of Wagall County in Washington State went so far as to reduce her salary to $7,200 for the year. So my challenge to you today, Superintendent Ligins, is to set the example, make a pledge, and donate $100,000 of your pay and divert the $25,000 that you get for a wellness coach back into the budget specifically to fund PAR educators, PAR educator positions in schools that have lost paras. help to

224ensure and even in a small way that our most vulnerable students are not casualties of this district and the $16 million deficit. Thank you. Our next speaker is Larry Moore. Thank you for this opportunity. U effective government governance demands transparency, accountability and alignment between plans, budgets and evaluations. using critical business tools for management purposes to helps build trust with the public and drive student achievement. Per KSBA, the board reports to the community as their elected officials. As such, you have a fiduciary responsibility to manage the district resources efficiently. I've noted four critical governance gaps in in Faget County school system. The first one strategic plan does not have a balanced scorecard. It should have a balanced scorecard with goals and objectives and measurable outcomes for key performance indicators and that should be done for each

225of the five years. We're in the fourth year and we've yet to see a balance scorecard. The budget is then constructed without that balance scorecard to follow from the strategic plan. So it doesn't have a balanced scorecard with goals and objectives and key performance indicators with measurable outcomes. And the sup the superintendent evaluation instrument does not have timebased key performance indicators with measurable outcomes. then how that evaluation translates into this compensation change. The board has yet to publish a self-evaluation as for on your governance performance with key performance indicators and that's required by Kentucky School Board Association and National School Board Association and and there have been statements made like oh we've had five successful financial audits. What's like a bank saying we balanced our checkbook the last five years. That's expected in the private

226not for-profit industry. You have a negative financial outcome audit, somebody will be terminated and it be the CFO, finance executives, CEO, but it will happen and it does happen. Seen it happen. You know, I think that the the board needs to adopt these business changes and implement these balance scorecards in a timely manner and put them on your website very quickly so the public can see because when you go back to the June's financial report and you watch that for May, it was all wine and roses. Everything was in balance. everything's up from last year. So, it's a surprise that now we're faced with this. So, I'm confused. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Moore, for your time. >> Also, just to clarify, u question that was raised earlier, the the $30 million referenced in

227the course of the conversation is discretionary staffing allocations, meaning those are staffing allocations that schools receive in addition to their sitebased staffing allocations per district policy. So that $30 million funds sta school school-based staffing positions and so that that's what was referenced earlier. That concludes this portion of our public comment. Um we do have uh we do have six people I believe it is. Yes, six people signed up to speak uh for matters that are not on the agenda uh which we will hear following our action items. Next on our agenda is approval of routine matters. A motion is in order to approve the minutes of the August 4th, 2025 planning meeting of the Faget County Board of Education. Is there a motion to that effect? >> I move we approve the minutes of the

228last meeting. >> Motion by Warmer Green. Is there a second? >> Second by War Monday. All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 5-0. >> Um I'll now entertain a motion to approve our consent items with the exception of J1B which was pulled uh when we adopted the agenda a few hours ago. Uh, is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Motion by Bormer Green. Is there a second? >> Second by Bormer Christian. All in favor of the consent items with the exception say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 5-0. At this time, I'll turn the agenda over to Superintendent Ligan to share more about J1B. >> Thank you, Chair Murphy. On Friday, August 15th, I announced several immediate steps following the determination that the carry forward balance

229could potentially be less than initially estimated. Uh, one of those limits was out of state overnight professional development funded by the general fund, uh, limiting it to mandatory or essential purposes. Uh tonight agenda items do have several requests for out of state overnight professional learning that was submitted several uh weeks ago and um so first I want to note that there are many instances where uh the board approves professional learning requests and the police actually do not attend. So our procedures um do not allow um any expenditures for overnight or out of state travel to occur um professional learning to occur until the board has acted. So, no money have actually been expended um on items on tonight's agenda. Um I consider these items the same as also travel that you've approved previously um that

230has not yet occurred. And so in light of my announcement on Friday regarding um funding restrictions for um out of state and overnight professional learning um our administration will review the items of each agenda um approved previously approved uh that have not yet occurred as well as to see if those are mandatory are essential. So beginning in July should you approve something if they have if it's not occurred then those will be reviewed also to see if they are essential and u many of them very well may not occur. I would like for the board to take action on the professional leaves um this evening as presented with the understanding that no money will be spent um until we have thoroughly reviewed that each of those are essential as well. This approach will help ensure

231that we do not intentionally interrupt any mandatory or critical professional learning opportunities, particulars for teachers or staff whose professional learning dates or registration deadlines may not allow enough time for them to resubmit them should they be determined uh as um mandatory or essential um for future meetings. Of course, uh this process will already have occurred and essential travel will be the only thing you will see on the agenda. So that that is my request. Uh with it happening so quickly on Friday is the reason um we opted to keep it there so that we did not prevent any teacher or staff from attending a professional learning experience that they would need and not have and miss it because we did not have time to bring it back to a future board meeting. >> Thank you.

232Are there any questions board members? >> Yes. >> Board member F. Oh, yeah. Green, whoever wants it can take it. I I heard both of you, but >> do you I'll go just You said um that not all travel that's approved by the board happens and that sometimes it's reviewed afterwards. I mean, how long has that been the case? >> No. Um, just because it's board approved does not mean that it occurs. That's been always the case. Um, approval doesn't mean it's happening. It means that for a variety of reasons, professional learning doesn't occur. That has been board approved. >> Okay. I mean, that's that's just never been clear to me. And I guess that's fine if that's the way that is, but it just feels like every time I've asked about it, it it's

233been said that, oh, this is thoroughly vetted and reviewed before it ever gets to the board. So that >> it is, but still sometimes things happen and they don't occur. >> So you're saying for this instance, it's because of the restrictions that you announced, it's going to be reviewed after. >> Yes. What we're planning to do at this point is because there were you've approved all the way beginning July one on this budget and so some of those shirts may have occurred many of them have not. So we're going to go back and really look at whether they are considered essential um or mandatory as we uh indicated on Friday. And it will be the same for the ones this evening if they are approved. so that that same process can occur. >> Okay. Thank

234you, >> board member Green. Thank you. So, I understand the review back to July 1. Could you when after you guys go through that review, you and your team, Dr. Ligans, would you just be able to share back kind of the what you have found of those that came before you um if there were any that you decided to have a pause on or not? I mean, you don't have to name them specifically, even if just there was an amount. >> Oh, absolutely. I can do that. >> Thank you. Is there would it be uh would it be appropriate in in light of the what you just shared with us in light of the announcement on Friday to for us to um if a motion is made relating to these items to make the motion

235motion with the assumption that that will review and analysis will take place or or like that it's contingent approval is contingent upon that review or announcement. Is that an an option. >> I'm very comfortable with that. Kelly just left, but I think that language will probably be fine. >> Okay. Um if if that works for everybody, then I would say uh I'll entertain a motion or I'll accept a motion to approve the uh professional leave as indicated contingent that it meets the standards outlined by the superintendent. So moved >> motion by board green. Is there a second? >> Second by board member Christian. Is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> No. >> Motion carries 32. And Dr. Ligins. >> Thank you, Chair Murphy. Um,

236we do not have any other action items to bring before you tonight, but we have an important discussion related to the property tax uh for the 2526 school year. This time, I'd like our executive director of financial accounting, budget, and benefits services, Rodney Jackson, to come forward. Thank you, Dr. Ligins. The Department of Revenue, Kentucky Department of Education certified real estate and personal property tax calculation reports on July 29th, 2025 per KRS132.0225 allows 45 days for the districts that are not adopting an above 4% rate to establish a final tax rate. Any district that fails to meet this deadline shall be required to use the compensating tax rate for the year's property tax bills under KRS 16470 provides a process which a local board of education annually adopts tax rates as a result of a

237process question raised by district a few years ago. Katie recently conducted a review of the statutory requirements and a review determined that the statute permits a local board of education to adopt a tax rate of two including 4% without advertising or holding a public hearing. The 2025 tax rate was 80.9 cents per 100 for real estate and 83 cents per 100 personal property and 59.2 cents for 100 motor vehicle. The following option is re recommended to the board for approval lowering the tax rate for the 2026 fiscal year. A rate of 79.8 cents for real estate from 83 cents and 83 cents, excuse me, for personal property and a rate of 59.2 cents for motor vehicles. This option requires and and equates to a decrease of 1.1 cents or $11 in tax for real property

238assessed at $100,000 and no change in tax in the tangible property. There is no proposed change in motor vehicle tax rate of 59.2 cents. The following rates for tax rates per 100 assessment were sent and which may be left for 2025 26. Compensating real estate 76.8 compensating personal property 81.8 will generate 328 million approximately. Subsection rate real estate 90.4 personal property 90.4 generating $384 million. And the 4% rate generates 79.8 personal property 83 83.0 and projected revenue approximately $340.2 million. Projected revenue amounts reflect the 2% expected collection discount. Are there any questions or concerns? >> Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Any questions, board members? former Green. >> Thank you. Can you just um reiterate what and I know you just said it, but just last year's tax rates and then what what you're suggesting they be

239this year for the 4%. >> Yes. >> The following options recommended to the board for approval tax rate for 2026 biscuit 79.8 and 83 cents for personal property and a rate of 59.2 2 cents for motor vehicle. This equates to a decrease of 1.1 cents or $11 in tax for real property assessed at $100,000 and no change for tangible personal property. >> Thank you. >> And this would can we have an overview of the timeline? This would this is presented tonight and then it would be subject to vote by the board at the September 8th meeting. Is that correct? >> That's correct. Is there a requirement for a hearing in between? >> No, it's not. >> Okay. >> Any board me um there's not a requirement, but could if we're having the special call meeting

240on September 5th, could we let people also know that they can talk about this or ask questions? >> We're not required to be. Yes, we can do that. >> Yeah. So you're you're suggesting making it part of the uh meeting notice for the fifth that both that all of these options are being considered essenti or the options we discussed earlier and then the property tax rate recommendation. >> This is like anformational item but in that space. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Just to clarify that these rates are actually going down. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Did you have a question? >> I just wanted to comment that that yes, even though the rate is going down, the actual rate per $100 of assessed value that this will still this will generate tw is it 12.1

241million in additional revenue for the district. >> I think that's correct, but I would like to If I can get to my computer, I can confirm that amount. >> It's 12. Well, where is Yeah. So, from from 328 328 million, if we lowered the rate enough to keep the same amount of revenue, we could lower the rate more, but if we set it at 79.83.1, that I mean 83.0, it's going to generate approximately 12 million more dollars. 12.2 based on a 2% discount. >> 12.2. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Ligins. >> Thank you, Rottney and board members. Under theformational items this evening, uh it includes five REN reports for review, including the personnel changes for August, the school activity funds report, the board approved contracts, the monthly construction report, and the update to

242board procedures at this time. Uh I will turn the meeting back over to you, Chairman Murphy. We do not have a need to go into close session this evening. >> Thank you, Superintendent Liggins. The next portion on our agenda is where members of the public may address the board on any topic of district related concern that is not on the official agenda for the meeting. This is not intended to be a time for debate or direct engagement. Uh we have um six people as indicated signed up to speak. Uh given the lateness of the hour, I'll ask each of them to keep their remarks to two minutes um or less. Our first speaker is Courtney Johnson. Good evening, chair, board members, and superintendent. My name is Courtney Johnson, and I'm a proud parent in Faget

243County Public Schools. I'm here tonight because I believe with all my heart that the success of our children begins with how we treat the people who teach them. Our teachers and staff are not just employees. They are mentors, encouraers, role models, and lifelines for our kids. And right now, they are doing the work while facing overwhelming challenges. A collective bargaining agreement would change that. It would give them a real voice, a seat at the table so they can fight for what they need to stay, to teach, and to thrive. That means a lower turnover so our kids aren't losing beloved teachers every year. Reasonable class sizes so students get the attention they deserve. Better working conditions so teachers can focus their energy on teaching, not surviving. Collaboration instead of conflict so we solve problems together.

244I know there's a budget shortfall, but silencing silencing educators will not fix it. When teachers have a voice, they help find smarter, more sustainable solutions. And when we support them, we are investing directly in our children's futures. This is not just about money. It is about respect. It's about fairness. And it's about building a school system where every child, mine, yours, all of ours, can thrive. Please do the right thing. Move forward with the collective bargaining. Show our teachers and our kids that they matter. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Matthew Vid. What was the name? I'm sorry. >> Yes. >> Okay. That'll be four minutes. Um, so I just just I just want to I just want to recap I just want to recap the last eight or nine

245months in January an agenda item was to renew the renew the superintendent's contract and there were two board members in present and those two board members it was their first meeting is that correct was I think it was your first action meeting first action meeting had a planning meeting and an action meeting in January and and a board member requested that a vote on the extension of the of the contract be delayed because she was brand new. How could she possibly evaluate the performance of the of the superintendent in her first meeting? And Mr. Murphy denied that request. Denied the request. Well, actually, three three board members denied that request because I believe the motion was made and a motion was seconded to deni to to delay that vote. And then on on the vote,

246it was voted down three to two. I think that's how that vote went. Right. So, three members of this board denied a brand new board member the opportunity to evaluate the superintendent before extending his contract. And now it's it's hard to wonder what was all the rush about? What what was the rush about? Um it seems to me that that um people knew that we were careening towards a financial disaster. What what what else could the explanation be? Because if you if you look at if you look at the 2024 to 25 working budget which I have you can you you it doesn't take long to start figuring out something something is not right here. If you just look at some of the figures. So just just as an example, if you look at the

247general fund, the main the biggest fund of the whole budget for the last five years in a row, the general fund has grew at a clip of 6% annually. 6% annually, the general fund has grown. But for the 24 to 25 budget, working budget, it suddenly went to 0% growth. 0% growth. Um instructional salaries the most important line item in the budget. The most important line item in the whole budget. The biggest one in the general fund the whole budget. So for the previous five years teacher salaries were bud increased by six per 6.1%. For the 24 to 25 working budget. What happened? How was it? What what what was projected to have happened the next year? Flat. It was the budget was flat. It was actually negative.02% instructional salaries were projected to fall for

24824 to 25. How could that possibly be the case? We have step increases. You gave them you you gave a 7% raise a couple years prior. How could you possibly not project an increase in the budget for instructional salaries in the general fund? So, so my hypothesis is you guys knew you knew trouble was brewing. You knew trouble was brewing. You asked this board to approve a budget that was impossible to meet. Impossible to meet, but you asked them to vote on it anyway. And then not only did you not then not only did you not cut I mean if you had if you were going to go from 6% growth in instructional salaries to 0% growth, you got to fire some people. you got to cut some people. So, not only did you not

249make the cuts to meet your impossible budget, but you actually spent more than you needed than you than you budgeted yourself because the carryover balance has gone from 42 million to 15 million. So, you asked this board to prove an impossible budget and then you overspend it again. Thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Caitlyn Edwards. I want to take a moment to commend the board for its public commitment to transparency, communication, and trust. Those words are highlighted so beautifully on the district's website and in videos. It's almost inspiring. Almost. Of course, it is a little confusing when the reality doesn't quite match the marketing. For example, and we'll go with this one because it's been done in a closed meeting. Some families have learned of board decisions that change their daily lives

250through rumor, news reports, or watching neighbors property being torn up rather than through the clear, timely, and respectful communication that was promised. Perhaps that is a new form of transparency, though not one that most of us expected. We're told these property takings are minor, routine, and nothing to be alarmed about. And yet, for the people whose yards, fences, and peace of mind are involved, it feels like a major disruption made worse by the lack of direct conversation. If this is what community engagement looks like, one wonders what disengagement would feel like. It is interesting that the board holds itself as an example of eth ethical standards. promising honesty and openness at every turn. That makes it especially striking when those most directly affected are left in the dark until after decisions are already made. Some

251might call that efficiency. Others might call it something else. The homeowners didn't ask to be appeased. They didn't ask to be placated. They asked to be communicated with. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Tom Thomas Stinson. I'm sorry, what was that? >> Thank you. Uh, and our last speaker is Eric Olsen. Hello and good evening or night chair, board members, and superintendent. My name is Eric Olsen and I am also a proud parent in Faget County Public Schools. Um I am here today because I believe that every student deserves a high quality education in a safe and healthy school environment that supports all aspects of learning. Teachers have a great impact on student outcomes and improving conditions for teachers improves conditions for students. A key component to achieve a safe, healthy, and supportive environment

252for all staff and students is allowing teachers and school staff to collectively bargain. When our teachers are supported, our children are supported. A collective bargaining agreement would help reduce turnover of staff, address reasonable class sizes, create better working conditions, enhance student outcomes, and create an avenue where teachers and administrators can solve problems together, not apart. Our educators deserve a meaningful seat at the table because they are the backbone of the entire educational system. Our children's futures will be determined by their educational experience. And as Jim Hightower says, when everybody does better, everybody does better. I'm also here because I have concerns too about the district's budget. A collective bargaining agreement could help be the solution to the deficit. When educators have a voice, decisions get smarter, not more expensive. Thank you for your time. For

253the benefit of all, I encourage you to move forward with collective bargaining. Thank you for your time. Thank you to all of our speakers. I'll entertain a motion to make the agenda dated August 18th, 2025 on which action has been taken at this meeting. A part of the minutes is the copy of the minutes verbatim. Is there a motion to that effect? >> So moved. >> Motion by board Monday. Is there a second? >> Second by Bormer Green. All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries 40. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Um so moved. >> Motion by War Bormer Green. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 4 Z. We stand adjourned. Thank you. [Music]