001The time is now 5:32. Good evening and welcome to the October 15, 2025 operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting. I am Zakiyia going committee chair and district 8 board member. It brings me great pleasure to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight. For those unable to observe now, this meeting is being recorded and will be available for later viewing on our PGCPS YouTube channel. Miss Connley, please call the role. >> Miss Gowens MC, >> present. >> Miss Brown, >> here. >> I'm sorry if I get your last name incorrect. Miss Ajake, >> present. >> Okay. >> Aai. Thank you. Dr. Ander, >> present. Miss Walker and Dr. Jackson. All right. And one, two, three, four. We have four board members present. >> Thank you so much, Miss D. >> With a quorum present, the operations,
002budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting will come to order. Um, if there are no objections, the committee shall adopt the October 15, 2025 meeting agenda. Seeing none, if there are no corrections, the June 18th, 2025 meeting minutes shall be approved as distributed. Actually, give me one second. We're not approving June. We are approving September. I have to remake that potion. Give me a moment. And of course, now it won't load. Um, does one of our board staff members have the date for our last meeting? Page is not reloading for me. >> September 17th. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Coleman. So, if there are no corrections, the September 17th, 2025 meeting minutes shall be approved as distributed. Seeing none, uh we will move on to public comment. Uh we received no public comments for this
003meeting, either live or written. And so with that, we will turn it over to our Department of Capital Programs summer project review. And so the chair recognizes Dr. Coleman, our chief operations for the DCP summer project review. >> Thank you, uh, board committee chair Goins McCants, members of the board, and community stakeholders. Uh, at this time, I'm going to turn the presentation over to our Department of Capital Programs team headed by Director Shayla Jackson to provide an update about our summer projects completed this past year. There you go. Can you hear me? And can you see it? >> Yes, ma'am. We're good to go on both. >> Okay, great. Good evening, committee chairs, mccans, and board members. We are happy to quickly go over some construction updates with you. Um, since I have not personally
004managed a project in 10 years with PGCPS and I don't want to embarrass myself if the questions get too specific, I have invited two of our senior project managers. The first one is Mr. Joseph How. I think he's been with us now 10 years. Um, he's delivered some major wins for us. So, he'll go over the major projects. And Mr. Ricardo Garcia, I think, is about half that time with 5 years, but he is a heavy hitter and a professional obstacle mover. So, he'll be covering our summer projects. >> Um, okay, I'll get started. Um, Cool Spring, Adelfi Replacement Facility. Uh, the target delivery date is 2029. Uh, High Point High School replacement facility, that target delivery date is 2031. Uh, New Northern Adelfi Area High School, that target delivery date is 2033. Uh, any
005questions on next slide? Okay. Uh, Sutland High School, currently we're 49% complete. Um, the pictures reflect the recent U site activities. Uh phase one, the comprehensive area of the high school is slated for delivery in January 2026 with the auditorium April 2026. Uh phase 2 CVPA, that delivery is scheduled for Septe September of 2028 and the phase 3 athletic complex, that delivery is scheduled for August of 2027. uh William Schmidt outdoor educational center that is also currently in construction that is roughly excuse me that is scheduled uh for that's right now 29% complete uh the 10 the occupancy is scheduled for August of 2026 uh Williamward Middle School that is also uh the new school is done but we in the process of demo and some other items the field uh major parking lot and
006so forth so that construction is 85% complete. However, uh phase 1 was completed in August of 2024, phase 2 was completed in May of 2025, and phases three and four were completed uh summer of 2026. I'll take over from here like thank you Shayla for the introduction real quick. Thank you and and for to the board or for having us. This is my first time meeting some of you and I'm really really excited. Uh we had a fun summer about 55 projects in construction we had over the summer. About I would say 95% of these projects are finished with the exception some some athletics improvements that that they're currently ongoing. So we have 28 systemic replacement upgrades, a eight building repair projects, five co-corrections, abatement, ADA updates, erh we have kitchen renovations. Uh we have
007a three playgrounds, five athletic improvement and three new schools and modernizations. We uh we hit the target. Uh there were some hiccups that we were able to manage and solved and by the end of the summer uh as all of the construction summer project has been they're either occupy they're ongoing and no no issues were reported. So it was overall a fun summer. Any questions? Thank you so much for that presentation. Um I already see one board member has her hand up so we will jump right in. Uh board member Walker. >> Hi there. Thank you for the presentation. Um I have two questions. The first is I just wanted to reconfirm that the monies for these projects are guaranteed. I guess what I'm looking for is with the um just money at a shortage
008right now, do we have any risk by way of funding? That's the first question. And then the second piece is should we be also seeing the updates for um the Brandywine Area Academy on this type of presentation or is that different? Thanks. >> Yeah, thank you board member Walker. So, I'm going answer the second one first because it's easier for me. Um, since that is a P3 project, um, those updates usually come from OIPD. Uh, we do try on our website to make sure it's linked so the public doesn't have to know who's doing a project to get an update. So, if you go to the major projects, it is there um, and it's easily accessed. For the first question, no, we we can't say uh that we have guaranteed funding um if some of
009the worst case scenarios happen either um to our budgets or to availability of bond um sales, we we could be in jeopardy um especially on the outyear projects. Right now, what's forecasted for FY27 CIP is a little above what we expected. So, in the immediate future, these projects are in as good a shape, I think, as anyone in our state um is experiencing, but it is something we're we're concerned about. >> Thank you all so much. Board members, do we have any additional questions? Okay, seeing none, thank you all so much. And we will move on to our next item for uh Dr. Coleman again, this time our transportation update. >> Thank you again, board member. Our transportation team is continuing to implement our multi-year transportation improvement action plan. A key focus of this improvement
010effort is improving our ability to communicate in real time with parents and stakeholders. To that end, this evening, director KA Baldwin will provide an update focused on our transition from the Stopfinder parent app to Chipmunk and also the larger transition from the Transfinder routing platform into bus planner. Uh, director Baldwin. >> Thank you, Dr. Coleman. Um, do I need to share my screen or will someone post a presentation? >> I believe we only have the PDF. So you may have to share your screen. >> Okay. Director, do you want me to pull it up so you can focus on Okay, you have it. >> Yeah, >> I have it. Mhm. Thank you, sir. >> Um, good evening, Chair Goins Mechanz, and members of the committee. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to share the update
011um about our chipmunk roll out. Tonight we're going to share updates um dealing with our operational progress, the challenges and solutions, the student and community impact as well as our community resources. Where we are right now, uh we've been able to implement a strategic phased roll out um that has been successful for us um has allowed us to ensure quality and address issues in real time. Um to date we've implemented eight of the 12 bus lots and we are ahead of schedule by one full week. Uh we have our final four bus lots that will deploy the week of October 20th ensuring 100% implementation um by the end of October. Um we've not had any major disruptions during this implementation. So things are working. um teams are learning how to use the software and we
012are seeing those results. The operational progress side, we started the implementation of the chipmunk app uh with the transition to our bus planner software September 2nd and we are planning to be finished by October 24th with 100% of um our lots utilizing the bus planner software. And here are just the um who's involved in this training. Um our routing teams, the bus lot office teams and drivers, our transportation supervisors, as well as our dispatch and our phonemate teams. Um and for our parents right now, the impact we have 3,839 of 4,57 students uh being transported and tracking within the Chipmunk app. some of our challenges and solutions uh that we faced and we've been able to solve. Uh we've had some indirect obstacles uh but we're here to do what we um have said we
013were going to do. The implementation time frame challenges have been a little hard u but we've been able to push through and meet um and exceed our goals. The phased approach prioritizes our vulnerable students and that's been well that we've been able to ensure um successful communication has been able to shared with our families in question and within uh our bus routes and our drivers of taking on the new expectation of utilizing the software and their impact um has been very helpful as well. But transitioning to a new routing system and GPS system um involves a lot of work. It's a lot of moving parts daily and it's an ongoing um continuous improvement cycle where we are doing daily staff trainings. We are conducting little huddles just to evaluate um each day's progress and trying
014to identify hurdles that we can fix in time that we have our major roll out with our comprehensive teams. The student and community impact uh what we did to try to lessen the blow. Uh we did do the before school demo where we invited um our board members, some of our executive cabinet. We invited some of the parents from our parent advisory groups to ride the bus um and do a live demonstration um on the bus and on the app where we can um we would drive the bus route and follow the path of the bus um on the app on the phone and that proved to be a very successful event. Uh we had a lot of good questions. Uh it posed some um small risk that were noted by the parents that rode
015the bus that we've been able to adjust in the roll out. Um so that we've kind of solved those issues. But it turned out to be a very good productive sessions. We did that in the Laurel area and we also did it in the friendly high school area. Um, and we've gotten um good feedback um on on this information and on the Chipmunk app in general. As a result, we've been able to build a communication plan that we think is pretty strong. Uh we have a portal on the web page and on that web page has all the Chipmunk information um including a video on how to operate the Chipmunk app in terms of how to download and what to look for. We have a user manual that you can download. So, if parents want
016to be able to put some hands on it and see it and work through uh that's available. We have our timeline um that's on that web on the web as well as in terms of the dates of when we'll roll the um all of the routes out. And what I like new is that we have a chatbot available just for the Chipmunk app. And so if parents are comfortable with that type of technology, it operates very similar to a chat GPT, they can just use it and type in any functions u related to the app and it will give them solutions. Um they've loaded the tutorial, the handbook and everything associated with the app that is good knowledge for our parents. So uh we we feel like we have a strong communication plan. We just
017need to continue to get parents pointed in the right direction um to the resources here. And finally, where we are, uh we're working um to put out a phase one family survey. We are interested to know how our families feel about the use of the app currently with uh the the sped buses that we are operating. Uh phase two roll out will begin with our comprehensive routes. We will be publishing a new rollout timeline on our web page pretty soon. Uh the next phase with the comprehensive side, we're going to reduce the timeline and try to roll all the lots out in three distinct phases. Uh which will be three distinct times. And right now I'm pleased to tell you that we are looking to have everyone in um before we go home on Christmas
018break. And so that's a tall task and we're up to the challenge to meeting that. Um we're continuing to focus on the software and integration and accuracy. So that means the constant followth through between the bus planner team, our transportation team and our drivers to really pinpoint those um cracks that we see in the system and how do we fix them um and keep running. And so um those are the our next steps. And at this time, I will open it up for any questions um that you may have. >> Thank you so much, Director Baldwin. Board members, do we have any questions? >> Okay. Okay. So, I don't see any hands. So, I will start with mine. I think the main one that I have in terms of this timeline and I'm really excited
019about is having everyone on the platform by the time we get to uh winter break. I also see final four lots deployed by October 20th. So, and you said that there were some a phase roll out and all that kind of stuff. Could you speak a little bit more to that? like what are we what are we specifically asking our parents to do and then I see the communication resource and all that things for all of those for us to support. So what are we asking parents to do and at what time? So right now the last four rollouts um of bus lots will occur. So these are our special needs runs um these are our letters. So we will have our Goddard Forestville, our Bladensburg and our John Hansen bus lot roll out on
020um October 20th. we will send an email kind of like a pre um pre-informational email to those parents to say be on the lookout. If you've not already downloaded the Chipmunk app, please do so. In that message, there's a link for them to visit the their their Play Store, Apple Play Store or Google Play Store to download the app and includes instructions on um on downloading and accessing. And so we will then send them a a follow-up message 24 hours before we actually go live for parents to say get ready on this day we're live and we start. So just for for those parents just to download the app and ready to go. And is that the part that's phased or what is the >> if I could just if I could just add so
021the challenge that our families that we've placed them in is that most of our families are in stopfinder to start the school year but we are transitioning into chipmunk on a phased roll out by lot by um types of routes. So, beginning November and through the end of December, we're now going to be moving our comprehensive families all into the Chipmunk app. And so, we need families to really pay attention to when they're migrating, their trips are migrating out of Stopfinder and into Chipmunk, downloading the app and being ready to utilize that tool. Absolutely. So with that, can we just make sure that we as board members have the information so that we're helping you all when parents ask us and all of that. I can already gotten some questions, but I can only imagine
022if a parent misses an email and just how much that can be. >> Absolutely. >> Please let us know how we can support as board members. >> Absolutely. definitely share some information with you um to put to share with your constituents. Yes. >> Thank you board members. Do we have any additional questions before we move on? >> Okay. Thank you so much Dr. Coleman and uh Director Baldwin. >> Thank you. Thank you. Before we move on to the next part of our agenda, I just want to make take this time to make sure that we introduce to the public our new board financial analyst, Ms. Connley. You've already heard her take the role in all of those things, but I want to make sure that we are formally introducing her to our public in this
023meeting since this is her first meeting with us. Miss Connley, would you like to say hi so people can see you or connect? Your name is not on on the screen. >> Sorry. Yes. Hi everyone. My name is Kristen Connley. Yes, I am new to uh PGCPS board of education. Um I am glad to be here and to meet all of you. Um yes, this is my first meeting, my first committee meeting, but yes, nice to meet you all. Thank you so much, Miss Connley, and thank you so much everyone for um indulging us in that little bit of privilege to meet uh one of the staff members that supports this committee. Um and so at this point, we'll move on to our enterprise resource planning procurement process. And the chair recognizes Chief Howell uh
024for the ERP procurement process presentation. >> Thank you. Um, I'm actually going to hand it over to our wonderful chief of technology who will uh talk about the new enterprise resource planning tool that we are looking to uh upgrade to um hopefully in the next fiscal year. So to uh walk us through the whole process and the timeline, I will turn it over to Dr. Zuckermanman. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, hi everyone. Nice to see you tonight. Um, Miss Connley, welcome. Thanks for all your help today. It was great working with you. Uh, so I'm just going to do a very brief presentation just to level set around where we are. Um, and then board members feel free to ask questions. So I will, um, guess I need to share my screen. Let me
025first do that. [Music] All right. So hopefully everyone can see it. Good. Okay. Um, so our enterprise resource planning modernization initiative, ERP for short, that's fancy, uh, IT language for a new business information system. In our situation, it's going to be a new Oracle system. Um, uh, ERPs are complex, massive, uh, business information systems that manage everything from payroll to purchasing to budget to benefits to human capital, uh, HR information systems. And so, this is not a small project. Um, it's a multi-year uh, multi-million dollar project. And um our current system uh is 23 years old about 23 years old. Um we started using Oracle. We were the first school district in the region to use Oracle and our last upgrade was in 2021 and um those are we've done little upgrades along the way
026to maintain support uh security updates. The current version we're in uh is reaching its end of useful life, meaning that um it's going to uh we're going to run out of um support in this version. Oracle is migrating every customer over to their cloud version. Uh originally that support was going to be endated in 2031, which is why we started this project when we did. um they've they've actually extended that uh by a few years um at the request of customers to give people more time uh to move to the cloud version. Uh but we feel like we need to do it now anyway because um we're just seeing performance issues. When you have a a technology tool that's aging, you start to you just see uh performance issues, just lag time um which we've
027all experienced. So it's it's time to upgrade. Um there's three pillars to our system as I I mentioned we've got human capital management and payroll in one um financials uh which is submitting requisitions I expense uh purchasing accounting uh and then pillar three is budget and so as I mentioned we were one of the first to to move to um Oracle in the area we're truly in the vanguard uh of this uh of this technology and now we're we're we're lagging behind behind in terms of we are one of the the last districts to make the move to the cloud. Um and moving to the cloud will help us with productivity, efficiency, effectiveness just be a much faster and higher performing system. So where are we in the process? Uh we released an RFP to
028uh help implement this transition in July. Uh we realized after about six weeks of fielding questions and having vendor um panels that the RFP was a little too broad and we needed to narrow it to clarify for the implementers that we are transitioning from the version of Oracle we're on to the cloud version and that will help shape who um will uh apply to be uh our impletor. a project of this size, we we nobody does it on their own. You hire um an impletor uh that's got experience in doing this uh major upgrade. Um and so we needed to narrow the the scope of our RFP and repost it, which our target date was today. And uh I'm pleased to say we actually we we did get it posted out on the street uh
029as recently as just within the last hour or two. Um and so we will uh go through the vendor selection process over the next 6 to 8 weeks. Ideally we will have a vendor selected and we can kick the project off in earnest uh in January or February. So we're a little few months behind where we want to be um just in terms of the selection of the vendor, the consultant who will help us do this project. And um if all goes according to plan, these are just general time frames here. Again, this is a multi-year project. Um, so we're looking at about a uh we need to adjust this time frame a little bit by a few. So the start instead of September, well the start would be September of 26 would be when
030we start migrating data over. We would take January of 26th up to September of 26 for pillar one to uh do our requirement setting um our our um uh work with our subject matter experts across the system our process design work and then begin the data migration process um and testing and that all together is about 18 months. We think we can do that concurrently with finance and procurement and then later in the project in the middle of 27 we would start introducing the budget piece of this. These are all just highlevel um frames uh of the time we'd have to once we get our implement we'll really narrow down the time frame um but uh we're generally looking at uh a January launch date uh if all goes according to plan January February and
031then probably 3 to four years after that when the entire project is done. Um, and with that, I will stop sharing and open it up for questions or comments and see um if I can answer them. >> Thank you, Dr. Zuckerman. Uh, board members, do we have any questions? >> Okay, seeing no hands, I will ask mine. Can you walk us through a little bit as to I guess number one why the implementation timeline is so long and then why the stagger cuz 2028 especially for a system that we were told is in dire need of improvement seems like a long time. >> Yeah, there's a huge amount of risk involved in transitioning to a new ERP system. um any school district that has gone through in any organization um there's a significant amount of
032testing of the data integration. So that's the key piece. So number one, it takes a long time to write the processes and the workflows that we want. So we have an opportunity, it's like building a house, right? Where we have the opportunity to design it the way we want it. Um and so part of this is the design phase. How do we want the workflow to go from one department to another? Which approver versus that approver? So, there's a lot of design that we lay out on paper. Then we set it up in the system and then we have to test it. And um so there's just an incredible amount of risk associated with it. Uh to put it in perspective, the student information system uh we did from school max to synergy, we did
033it in 10 months. most districts it's an 18month to 24-month process. We were really up against the clock. Um, and we pressed the vendor and we worked hard to get it in 10 months. Um, and that's the fastest they've ever done. So, it's it's is the the reason is for just the data testing. You don't want to get the data transfer wrong, especially when we're talking about payroll. Um, then there's just the scope of it. It's so massive and it touches so many different parts of the organization. there's only so much bandwidth that a consultant or an organization has to do each pillar thoughtfully um at one time. And so that's why typically these are three to five year projects um for every organization, especially one of our size. Um and so it's really just
034in the the testing and making sure that everything is right uh so that everyone gets paid when we go live um the first time. Thank you so much, Dr. Zuckermanman. Um, Vice Chair Brown. >> Yes, thank you so much for the presentation. I think my only question and I guess this if you can kind of give clarity as far as how was the implementation process like picked? How was how did we know okay HR was going to go first then budget was going to go last? like where did that idea was there a criteria that we followed like they HR really needs it we what was it exactly that you all um how you all prioritized it >> right so um first I just want to clarify that this is just an estimated timetable and
035when we get the impletor who does Oracle cloud implementation when we hire that when we select that vendor um and they get on site and they look under the hood and talk to all of our our different departments and our teams, they may actually come back and tell us, you know, we think you should do budget first. They they may so typically typically you start with payroll and the human capital data because everything sort of that's the nerve center of the system and then everything builds off of that. So you typically start with that because that's the the critical data that feeds everywhere else. It feeds to benefits, it feeds so bud budget is a little bit different. It's a bit more of a standalone. Um and so uh budget is usually what you do
036last. It's quite frankly the easiest one um to do because it's more of a standalone module. So um but there you it's there's no you could do it the other way around and we will wait to engage with our implementer um around that. Uh but based on just what our experience in the past, what we've seen from other school districts, this is the typical path forward. >> Thank you. Board members, do we have any additional questions? Okay, seeing none, I do have one additional question and I know that this is for Dr. Zuckerman or Chief Howell. So, or if it's a combination of the two. So, what is the contingency plan? Because I know in our last work session we talked a lot about blueprint the implications for our budget. So how is it that
037we are going to not just get through this budget season but also next year's budget season anticipating the regulatory requirements of blueprint to go into further effect between now and when we will have possibly have this system fully up and running. >> Yeah, we're we're going to continue doing what we currently do. Um we're not in So we're not in dire shape. we'd be in dire shape if we were out of support for Oracle. And so that that would be dire shape. Um but we have to backmap from when that support is going to end. And so if it was going to end in 2031, we didn't want to go right up to 2031 by moving to to the cloud. Um so given that it could be a 3 to 5 year uh implementation timeline,
038it makes sense to start in 2526. with respect to blueprint. Um I you know what I can say is I just want to put in perspective. I spent seven years in Montgomery County public schools. I left Prince Georgees and went there in 2013. And when I went there in 2013, um there were paper time sheets. It was paper purchasing processes. And Montgomery County just flipped the switch this past summer on their Oracle Cloud payroll in 2025. So, they started their Oracle project in 2021 because I left in 2020 to come back. And so, um, lots of school districts are still in a paperbased process or transitioning. And that doesn't it makes things more complicated for blueprint. It makes things more complicated for reporting, but it's not impossible. And so, um, our system is solid. The
039performance is beginning to lag for sure. Um so um it we can be more efficient uh but it just means it creates inefficiencies in things like blueprint in in all it just it's just more inefficient. So this is going to help us become more efficient but it's not a showstopper for us in terms of doing our work. Um and uh so it's just part of the evolution of technology and modernization. >> Yeah and I'll just add to that. Academy knowing where we are with the early phase of implementation for blueprint we know that it's the work that we have started will have to continue within the existing system that we have right now and so the team has been working closely our two teams the budget accounting and IT teams have been working very closely
040together to work towards changes that we're going to be making now within our existing Oracle system to support some of the requirements for blueprint so as Dr. Zuckermanman said the work is going to continue. It will be painful. Um it will not be the most efficient, but we're going to do what we need to do in order to um be in compliance with what we have to do prior to getting to a new system. >> Thank you so much. I have some concerns and I'll follow up with you directly only because of my understanding of how dire the situation we had was, but I sincerely appreciate both of you all explaining that we will still be able to continue even if we don't have that new system up and running ASAP. Um, if there are
041no further questions from my colleagues, we will move on to the budget calendar update with Chief How. >> Good afternoon again. Um, so I am going to turn it over to Director Siobhan Smith who will give us an overview, more of a broad overview of kind of our focus for the next couple of months and some of the challenges that we'll have as we are beginning to plan for fiscal year 2027. >> Good evening. As Chief Pal mentioned, my name is Siobhan Smith, director of budget and management services, and I'm just going to kind of walk you through very quickly um share my screen. Okay. Can everybody see my screen? I apologize. I can't really see you guys. So, >> yeah, I can't tell. Okay, >> thank you. So, last month we kind of walked
042through a high level timeline. Um, and so this month we just wanted to kind of walk you through um some of the key engagements and some of some of the challenges that we're seeing um just to frame where we think we're going to be regarding fiscal year 27. Um now please keep in mind this is very very early. We have we do not yet have final enrollment counts. We don't I mean there's a lot of assumptions. Um but I just wanted to give you um or frame for you the fiscal reality that we're seeing as of today. Okay. So with that being said, our initial projections based again on very high level assumptions are showing that our costs or expenditures are increasing um over 6 and a half% from 26 to 27. Um which is
043rapidly outpacing the projected revenue growth of less than 5%. We're anticipating on or around maybe 4.5% revenue growth. Um, and the reason for this outpacing um is due to relatively flat enrollment. We've talked about this before. Um, the good thing is that we're not seeing negative enrollment trends enough to cause alarm, but we're also not seeing huge upswings. Um, that would generate a lot more revenue. Um, in addition, as as we we've talked about also before, Blueprint has prescribed per pupil amounts um by statute or program um funding program. Um and though those per pupil amounts are increasing, some are increasing, they're not increasing significantly. So, we're talking about minimal increasing of per pupil amounts for each blueprint statute. Um but yet what we are seeing a significant increase is salaries. Um we made massive
044investments into the employees of Prince George's County Public Schools um due to negotiated agreements and so our people cost our salary costs have gone up quite a bit that we have to once again sustain and it's going to go up even more in fiscal year 27. And then of course there's continued uncertainty around federal funded program but that's going to be a dark cloud over our heads for a while where we just don't know for sure what's going to happen with our federally funded programs. We also don't and because of that there's always going to be a loom of what may have to shift over to our general fund versus what is currently funding by our federal grants. Um, so with that being said, again, just a just a framing, we do not anticipate new
045investments for FY27. And what I mean by that is there's not new monies to do new things with. Instead, it will be a realignment. We will reallocate our funds based off of key priorities. Dr. Joseph has outlined um some key priorities for us. Um and so as we are looking to do something different um in fiscal year 27, it will have to be based off of reallocated dollars. How we're going to find those cost savings, it will have to be through um recommended strategic reductions or what I call divestments. and whether it's an underperforming program. Um we have been the district um really has to start looking at our programs and really figuring out if there is a significant enough return on investment um versus the initial investment that we're making. Um long-term vacancies, unfortunately,
046we do have some hard to fill vacancies. And so those vacant positions that remain vacant that we just can't seem to fill, I think we need to face reality and go ahead and uh reduce those positions um instead of carrying those cost in our budgets. Um and then also just monitoring some underspending. There's trends where we seem to consistently underspend in certain areas. Okay. Well, we can start instead of carrying that under spending over and over and over in our base budget, let's realign um and reallocate based again off of high priorities. Um, and then the last thing that I just want to mention, we kind of talked about it a little bit last month, but I want to we definitely want to have a high level of stakeholder engagement, which means that we want
047engagement and touch points with key stakeholders across the district, across our communities, early and often throughout the budget process, particularly throughout the months of November, December, um, to align around our budget priorities and considerations. Um it is really really important for us to ensure that one the board has a a key understanding of what's in the budget, what changes we're making. Um especially when it comes to alignment with strategic priorities. Um, but it's also important to make sure that our communities understand what's going on, particularly when it comes to blueprint, which is very difficult to just comprehend when people are just talking to you. So, we got to make sure that we're getting not just messaging out, but information out um in a way that is understandable by everybody. Um, so I mean, that's our
048call to action. That's our challenge. Um, but we definitely want to make sure um, and specifically through this committee, I think it's really important. Um, and then figure out how we can engage the full board as well. Um, and so definitely seek your feedback. Um, any suggestions you may have, recommendations you may have on the best way to do that. Um, but I just want to make sure that you are aware that that is our goal. um and that there will be invitations coming out for for um board members to join and participate in certain things. Um the timing of it, how we're going to do it, it's not fully clear. Um but we definitely want to make sure that there's engagement. So, with that being said, I'll stop and take any questions you may
049have. >> Thank you so much, uh Chief How and Director Smith. Vice Chair Brown. >> Yes. Thank you so much, Chair Coins McK. Um, thank you so much for the presentation. I did have a quick question for Director Smith. You did mention the positions that were hard to fill. Um, can you kind of elaborate on that? Is it like what positions are these? Why haven't they been filled? Is there something we need to implement when it comes to making changes on how we recruit for HR? Like I'm I'm trying to understand exactly why those positions were hard. That's the first one. The second one is um I guess with let's say hypothetically speaking, we eliminate those positions, does that put money back into the budget for us to be able to allocate it somewhere else?
050>> Yes. So, thank you so much for that question, Vice Chair Brown. And I think that's part of the research and the discovery that we really need to do. Um, and of course, when I say we, it cannot just be the budget office in the vacuum. It really needs to engage all of our offices, our chiefs, our directors to really understand why we continue to carry certain positions. Um I'm I don't know yet like which positions we really need to do a deep dive to see okay well how many positions have just remained vacant over the past three years um that we've had to do without and what has been those hardships so that we can develop recommendations that we can bring forth to both the administration and the board um for better understanding. Um
051but yes, if we are able to reduce positions, that does allow us to have it does free up funding that we can then reallocate without having to use salary laps that we can fully allocate elsewhere. Um depending on what those priorities need to be. Um so I just think that that work really needs to happen. Um especially in a physically constrained time that we are facing right now. Yeah, and just to add to that, I mean, when it comes to when you think about our overall budget, our people cost our position costs, that is the largest portion of our budget. And so, it's always a part of our process every single year and throughout the year to constantly re-evaluate the position, the positions that we have, and repprioritize and to ensure that what the critical
052roles that we need to have are the ones that we're focusing on. Um we have made some very intentional decisions over the last couple of years um as you're aware where we have had hiring freezes or we've had a hiring pause. Um and in some cases those delays have been really painful but in other cases it also has given us some opportunity to re-evaluate the positions that we planned for that we didn't fill for that reason um but whether or not there's another way to possibly accomplish the work in a different capacity. So, it's just the ongoing process of re-evaluating re-evaluating our position costs um as we're planning to prepare for the coming year. >> Thank you. >> Um board members, do we have any additional questions? Seeing no hands, I will try to keep
053my question brief and shorten it as much as possible. in the I guess gap between our projected overage of the budget and how much we're thinking we are going to get. I know you identified some ways. What else I guess in terms of support from us do we need to kind of narrow that gap or is that something that is just like a part of the ongoing process of figuring out how that will work out? Well, I think an important part of this process for us um you know, as a district is just the alignment around our priorities. The priorities then help to drive the resource allocation decisions. And so I know we're going through a process now of you know, receiving the community survey, the input of that. Um uh Dr. Joseph has had
054several listening sessions since the beginning of the fiscal year in person, virtual, hearing a lot of feedback from the community in that forum as well. Um, I know board members also have have have had the opportunity to engage with administration as well around priorities. So, it's just really pulling all of that information together and having alignment around the focus areas and the priorities and then that will help frame and guide our decisions around resource allocations and reallocations to ensure that we stay within a balanced budget because we obviously can't do everything but it should be aligned with our priorities. >> Thank you. so much. Um, seeing no further questions, um, the chair would like to invite members of the public, as uh, Chief House said, to provide feedback on our school year, our next school
055year 2027 budget priority survey. Um, it is open, it is running. Your input is clearly um incredibly important and valuable to helping us shape our budget decisions and making sure that it reflects the needs and priorities of our community. Uh if you would like to participate in this survey, we've got a QR code on the screen. You can also find the link on our board of education web page. Our next virtual operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting will be on November 13th, 2025. Please continue to check our Prince George's County Board of Education website for information and updates as they occur. Uh, thank you all so much for being in attendance tonight and answering all of our questions. Uh, to our viewers, thank you for watching and there being no further business. The time
056is now 6:25 p.m. and the October 15, 2025 operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting is adjourned.