001The study session of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 in room 137 of the Edison building. The board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pal, a non- voting exeicio member and assistant school board clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, would you please call the role? At this time, we offer the opportunity to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands and justice for all. Item 2.1 is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Second.
002It's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterchools.org/simly. Our topic tonight, our focus topic is the community budget advisory council conversation. Superintendent Pel. Thank you, Chair Nathan and board members. Um, this is a study session that at least in our current thinking on the part of the executive committee will become an annual event um in which we have an opportunity to review some feedback from our community budget advisory committee. As board members well know, that is a new committee that we formed a couple of years ago and that we have restructured during the current school year. So, also on the agenda tonight is an overview of a proposal for
003a change in the membership and a tweak in the focus of that committee. Um before we get to that to uh recap where we are uh shortly after I got to Rochester and we uh came to grips with the financial challenges that the district faced and cut $21 million over two years um and then successfully passed a referendum after not passing a referendum. We realized that financial issues uh both uh human and financial resources were going to be a critical part of our academic agenda. And then we recognized that there was a need for an opportunity for community input on those issues. And the initial conception of this committee which board members took the lead in creating was that we would ask area organizations that are key strategic partners of Rochester public schools to essentially
004nominate people with financial expertise or interest from their organizations. So from Olmstead County, from the city of Rochester, from Mayo Clinic, from United Way, from Rochester Area Foundation with uh some other members that would be there um as well. And we had certainly valuable contributions in the first two years of the committee's work. And you may of course remember people like Jen Woodford and Jerome Fen uh providing feedback on that. But candidly, the hypothesis that organizations in the community would have people financial expertise who would be able to essentially represent the stakeholder organization and utilize their financial expertise proved to be a very very heavy heavy lift. And so we were finding that while everybody agreed that the financial success of the school district was of paramount importance, getting people to commit to the um
005significant but not overwhelming work that we hoped the committee would do was proving to be a real challenge. And so in talking with the chair and vice chair and then of course with our um finance team, we decided to open up the second wave, it's a two-year term structure of membership on the committee to anybody who was interested in helping us think creatively and incisively about finances in the school district. And we were shocked at the response of people who were very interested. And ultimately we were able to uh welcome to the committee everybody who was willing to commit the time. Uh and in James Okconor we have one member of those folks. So on behalf of uh you know James you and everybody else thank you for being willing to sign up. As James
006and I were just chatting this is a steep learning curve and so the committee is beginning to grapple with some of the issues that the board um grapples with um at every meeting. And so it's our strong hope that um if your board will approve the uh restructuring that we've moved forward with because we really wanted to not postpone this um that a year from now this committee meeting this study session will be an even more robust opportunity to dig into both short and long-term financial issues on the part of the school district. But we wanted to keep this uh meeting here. Board members have received a written overview of the feedback that was from the last meeting. This restructured committee has had two meetings and I'm sure we may hear about that a little
007bit from James or from John or Denise or Andy who've been facilitating the work of the committee uh for our staff. What I wanted to do though before I uh turn it over to um hear a bit um from James and some of his observations on the committee and then we open it up for board member observations and questions. I wanted to share a few of my reactions to the summary written document that board members received which was based on notes that were taken in small groups. And so these are my personal observations on it and I'll be brief but I think the purpose of our conversation tonight is exactly for board members and staff and James to do the same. Um so that we are both asking questions but sharing observations. Um so very
008briefly I was really pleased to see in the um notes uh and I was I should say not at the meeting um that the committee really stressed the importance of long-term financial planning. Um, in fact, next week I will propose a set of five-year financial targets um that will be I will recommend uh the parameters that you direct me and the team to use in developing that uh long-term financial plan through 2030. Um they will be very challenging financial targets based on the recent enrollment projection that uh you saw. So, I really appreciated that the committee is urging us to think not just about the next fiscal year, but about the long-term budget. Um, I do think it's also important, and it's not surprising in a committee that is looking at a almost $400 million,
009$400 million total budget, $300 million general fund, that certain things may be high-profile. Um, but we have to put the high profile in perspective. So, I noted that athletics got some conversation. I think that is deserved. But it's important to note that athletics is about $3.5 million of a $300 million budget. And so while it is high-profile, while it is outside the classroom, things like the number of staff we have, the level of compensation and benefits, the the level of service we provide for things like special education services is the much bigger driver of our financial bottom line. But some of those things that are kind of flash points um because they're so visible um are deserving of conversation but need to be put in those um contexts. Um the committee uh in the summary
010mentioned class size increases. I think it's really important to to reaffirm for board members. Um that we have not changed any of our class size targets and such. There's been no systematic change in class size in Rochester public schools since the second year I was in Rochester when we did raise our class size by one as part of a $14 million reduction that year. Um, now individual class sizes fluctuate as enrollment fluctuates in schools and grade levels, but we have not changed those targets and the commitment in the 2024 referendum was not to change them for the first uh at least the first five years of the 10ear referendum period. I was glad the committee noted the importance of understanding the categorical funding streams that we have in our work. Compensatory aid for low-income kids,
011special education funding for kids with disabilities, multil- language learning funding for kids whose first language is not English. Understanding the intended use of these dollars is a really big deal. And as we've talked about in doing the balanced budget model, the state recently tightened up the allowed uses of compensatory funding. And in the legislative session that just concluded, they have created a task force to come up with the future of compensatory funding. And while everybody is held harmless for one year, that we are not held harmless the year after. And so this is a big big deal for Rochester public schools, understanding what changes might be made and how funding is allocated to support kids who live in low-income families. I was glad to see the committee highlighted the importance of Medicaid reimbursement. This is
012a relatively new process for school districts. It is potentially an invaluable source of support for the holistic support many of our kids need, but it is a complex process that also is labor intensive to be billing correctly. And so it's a really really important thing for the committee to be watching and for us to be rolling up our sleeves around to be sure that we're maximizing those dollars to provide those um services. Um but it's a heavy lift to do that. Well, um I noticed also in the committee notes that there was a a question about the role of education support professionals in determining class sizes. And it's important just to say we don't include an ESP in the class size ratio. Though we do add ESPs to supplement classes where the class size is
013heavy or the challenges are significant, but it is the teacher student ratio that determines our class size ratio. I was really glad to see the committee mention teacher retention. Um teacher retention is a vastly under uh emphasized cost of um uh essentially wasted resources in school systems. When you invest in a new teacher and they move on as many do after the first three years, you lose the investment that you have in their understanding of your curriculum, your processes. Um and so the um job satisfaction and effectiveness of our teachers um over the longer term is a critical financial issue that we need to be looking at. I will say I think we've uh certainly compared to some districts done pretty well with teacher retention, but it certainly exists as you see every board meeting
014and the back of the board book as you look at that. Um I was also excited to see the commit committee mentioned artificial intelligence not just for instruction but for operations. We have just convened our first initial working group to define the issues for AI in Rochester public schools. I have the report but haven't even read it yet and we'll obviously be sharing that with the board. I'm participating in a national superintendent learning network that is funded by a grant with the school of business at University of California Berkeley. And so this is going to be a huge issue for us in thinking through the future and not just of our finances but of our strategic plan. I know in the committee's first meeting they had a robust discussion of enrollment. In fact, I think
015it kind of took over the meeting. You were seeing something that we now all are seeing very clearly. So, I'm really glad that is um a a major issue that is a that is an emphasis. A couple more final things. I really appreciated the committee seeking to connect our strategic initiatives to results, the investments that exist. And there's a pretty robust um body of evidence around costbenefit analysis and education. The trick is often that a lot of your costs seem sunk. 85% of your staff are your existing staff. And so to decide how you assess the value of what a classroom teacher does tied to a test score or a graduation rate is very complex because unlike sometimes in business, we're not allocating new resources toward one very focused example. The the example I've used
016sometimes and some of you may know this history. When the Dayton brothers saw the writing on the wall for Dayton Hudson and the traditional department store, they literally sent one brother off to Florida, gave him a bunch of money and said, "Go invent something to compete with Walmart." And that became Target and they completely walled it off to have uh a very different low in low cost and of course now Dayton Hudson is gone and it's Target Corp. They were able with those private resources to completely resource a new strategy. We of course rarely have that luxury in education because we have the fixed ongoing costs. And so for us to assess the impact of our academic strategy tied to our dollars is a challenging thing because how much of a classroom teacher's time ties
017to our literacy strategy when they're also teaching math and science and other subjects. It's not to say we shouldn't be doing it. I'm glad the committee talked about it. It's critical. Uh two final points. Glad the committee emphasized the importance of fund balance. Uh it's something we need to be using strategically and appropriately. And then finally um that they also want to understand the connection between our school improvement plans and our budgets uh which we need to keep tightening up. So Madam Chair, those are some of my observations on the committee's written report and I don't know Denise if you think that turning it over to James is the the best next step or Kathy if you want to handle it any different way. I want to thank Denise in particular for facilitating the work
018as uh the uh person coordinating this this work and many other efforts about strategic use of resources. Sounds good. All right. Uh my name is James Okconor. Uh I retired a couple years early after 23 years in uh information technology and software engineering at IBM. I have five children, two that have gone up through the RCS system and uh two that are Lincoln in the fall, a second grader and a kindergartner and lastly a two and a halfyear-old and uh really interested in all things finance and the dismal science of economics and have some time. So I'm here to get up to speed on uh uh RBS and budget and revenue and expenses and sign up for CC. That said, uh speak to Dr. Pel talked about a number of the things we've brought up.
019Um and just in my comments to him before the meeting, um you know, I think a lot of it's really working well. We've had really good turnout. We have really good engagement. It can be hard when you don't turn anyone away to channel people in the right direction. So, as you pointed and addressed some of the things we brought up that some of them are are definitely related to finance but aren't that isn't the primary focus. And so, I think if we can find a good way to to get arc some of those issues. The the second meeting went really well. This last one I think we got off in the weeds a little more on class sizes. employment for ESPs, just political things, mental health grants, referendum, perception versus reality, right? And have to
020circle folks back and say, "Hey, we're here to talk about life." Um, I have some other ideas of things you can do to kind of improve engagement, maybe make things uh flow a little better. one would be to we've done a really good doc Denise has done an excellent job of giving us pre-ereading material but we don't necessarily see the slides or the discussion topics that we get there and I think when people see those slides and they see the classroom thing for the you know just kind of if they got that week or two in advance or kind of shape the the meeting I think we could park some of those things a little better. Um other areas for improvement may be to encourage more participation. So, one idea I had was to have
021committee members, if they're willing or nudged or pushed, to go present the budget back to PTSAs or things like that to go back to their schools and kind of close the loop. You know, you've educated us. Let's continue that. Um, because I think there's a lot of confusion. you know, when we got to the revenue one, a lot of us, a light bulb went on that we've hit, you know, peak birth rate and we're going down and all of our revenue is tied to that, right? And so, we're going to have to do a better job of doing more with less and being innovative and AI has come up a number of times and where can we be efficient. I think it'd be good to focus a little more on the budget balance model. I
022still haven't it all the way through the memorandum at the beginning of the year, but but I glanced enough to see that the thing I wanted to mention wasn't in there. And that would be um you know, when you I think it's good to give the principles this control, but you're going to need some kind of feedback loop, a dashboard or a bulletin board where they can share things that are working well for them and thing, you know, things things that aren't um to kind of help each other out as you decentralize that. You know, which principles are really excelling at this task? can they help some of the ones that are struggling? Um, uh, same thing I mentioned, you brought up kind of the five-year plan, and that was actually one of my questions
023to John, so I I highlighted that here. But, you know, can we get more than a year-over-year? Can we get some kind of trend of what the last five years or 10 years have looked like to kind of spot macro problems, not just immediate? And then I think it would be really neat, you know, we're talking about budget and we're approving a budget, but where do we close the loop on the actuals, you know, to have a kind of the third meeting, you know, as we close FY25? How did we do? Were we close? Were we on target? Were we under, you know, just to kind of have some accountability um and to make future budget revisions more precise, right? And then the last one would be just to kind of get people brainstorming ahead
024of the meeting. Um, even with hypotheticals. So if you came and said, you know, referendum has got us covered for five years, but in five years we might have a problem. Start getting the seback committee thinking. Let's prioritize expenses and what what would be good things for with community input to cut first, right? Offload some of the tough decisions and the pain earlier to the committee and get more input that way instead of chalking the whole community in five years with we've got to close these schools, right? So, similar to the sports thing, right? We all have our hot button issues of things we could it's not going to move the budget needle. Um but you know if we prepared folks and we said hey likewise you could you could turn around and in and
025have the same hypothetical in a year where there was a surplus where should we expand our services where can we grow where can we this is Katie Gerard and she is also a member a new member of our advisory committee. Can you share a little bit about her involvement and your thoughts? Sure. Do you want me to go through all these or just highlight them? Okay, good. I want you to start off by just sharing a little bit about your involvement with the district and kind of your motivation for joining that. Sure. So, my name is Katie Gity. I have a daughter who just finished Kellogg and is going into Century and my son is at Jefferson. Um, a couple years ago, I was the PTSA president for Jefferson for two years and was able
026to fund raise enough money in nine months to rebuild the kindergarten playground for the kindergarteners and um, kids that have autism um, with experts to make sure that the playground equipment the needs of the individuals that are using it. Um, and I have been working in association management which is kind of similar I feel like with some of your roles. So um dealing with major budgets getting um people to approve it and then executing it for the year um as well as the objectives. Um I think just the two I think the two biggest things that came out of this for me is um a lot of folks that are moving to the district other districts or other school districts. Why? And then um can we and it's not necessarily our our our committee um
027but it could be if there is budget implications if they can um if we can fix that and then I also think that um the communication piece is I know that we send out quite a lot of information and emails and I love that but it um like I love like the videos that you've been doing um like the snow day one like make it fun make get playful, make um people feel part of the community. Um those are and a lot of folks um um were saying that as well because I think there's like a lot of things that are going on that are really positive like um kids that are doing exceptionally well and you know getting into Harvard and Yale and it's like those are the types of things that we need
028to be shouting like our school system is um the best choice. Um, so I think explaining why and being positive about it and also really being clear and addressing some of the issues that are coming up. Any questions for our members? You raised an interesting point of What I heard was possibility members of this committee budget. You guys probably expected out of course a chief physical officer uh which uh uh you know have present a certain view so I I appreciated hearing that I'm sorry your first name Katie Katie uh student retention I mean so important and it's something we're looking at trying to get a better handle on and um any ideas you might have the community might come up with certainly you should know we will be receptive to and uh it's good
029to realize that um even though you're new members uh we are closely aligned in terms of viewpoint outlook and shared focus. So, thank you and welcome. Thanks as well. What for both of you was the biggest surprise so far? Financial or non-financial just in, you know, in the early meetings you didn't expect. I think for me the biggest surprise was when we covered the various sources of revenue and funding that the referendum dollars were also I assumed they were just assessed based on property value or flat kind of you know like we asked for $10 million per year or whatever we divided that by the properties and you got your assessment right I didn't understand that yet again as our population declines, that source of funding goes down. In fact, I I appreciate that. I
030recently had a meeting with folks who ran obviously separately from the district, but um ran one of the two outreach campaigns and they wanted to come meet with me after the referendum. And it was precisely this point that they were um not understanding. And I thought, wow. Like, you know, obviously when you're trying to communicate a very simple message in the middle of an election, you don't want to go too far down in the weeds. And we never said that it wasn't generated by poor people. But we also didn't like make super clear that the 19.4 million is our projection based on our current enrollment. And so if it went up, it could go up. If it went down, this was a good meeting. It went literally was across the hall. And these folks who
031gave hours and hours and hours and hours to the referendum literally said, "Oh, um, because they assumed it was $19.4 million every year, the gift that keeps on giving it flat." And I said, "Oh, no. It's it's about enrollment as well." So, I don't know that I I would have put that in an FAQ for sure. Like, now knowing what I know, I don't know that I would have had it as like the lead because that was a lot for people to understand. But, yeah, I appreciate that. How about you, Katie? I I agree with that. Um I think the amount of um how it's actually declining, which actually makes sense, like people are having less kids um that that would be kind of a natural, but the fact that so many people are choosing
032to go outside of the Rochester public schools. I I also graduated from John Marshall after going to Catholic schools and I absolutely loved JM. And so in my mind, JM is um was a far superior um high school than Leard. Um and so that that was kind of surprising to me. And I think that for a community as a whole, investing in your education, having the the like the big city have a really good school system is important for everyone. Um, so I think just the enrollment was um like off. I was I was sad to see so many kids go to like Byron or or Steuartville when we have such a good school system here. We as as board members know I keep going madam chair but we did roll out the enrollment study
033that you were actually the first people to see and then we also have since launched a new strategy and identified new leadership for an enrollment initiative that will go into high gear next fall. Um so and what you each said, were there any ideas? I know that you mentioned some things that um so James, you mentioned some things about um encouraging more people to get involved with the in in the um in the CPAC. Um and you also mentioned the communication and because our um funds are directly linked to our pupils. Um, something that I also noticed in there was, you know, the teacher hesitency uh with the parent volunteers. So, I'm just curious and in and just the conversations that you all have had, have you thought of any solutions? Um, because I think
034a lot of the concerns you have are concerns that we've had kind of across the board with a lot of the systems, but um, in working in the community and in your group, um, have you heard any solutions to any of these concerns or something that we maybe haven't looked at or overlooked. I think the communication is key. Um is it because that's going to help change the perception which I think um perception is incorrect of you know people needing to want to leave the district. Um and Denise and I have kind of emailed um a little bit about you know there's probably other cities like I'm thinking like Madison that's a little bit bigger um that probably had is having similar issues. So I think for me personally I would love to like reach
035out to similar size districts to see what um you know what issues that they're having and what solutions are working for them. I mean we don't have to reinvent the wheel. I'm sure this has happened to as cities grow. Um, I think that's a big thing and just having people identify and being proud of having a Rochester public uh school student and you know I don't know about like a bumper sticker but like in communications having like um you know parents being proud um you know like on Facebook you know and and why um they're proud to um have a child in the Rochester public schools and so many people move to this area. I mean, this is why I'm back. Um, is because the school system is so good and it is a great
036place to raise your kids. Um, so I think that type of communication. Um, and then I also think, um, you know, I don't know how often we can or if we're able to pull people that have left. I know sometimes they're asking for their transcripts if there's like a five-point survey. So, if we're seeing like major trends like um middle school doesn't have the athletics that you know a Steuart or Byron does, then that's something that we can address um budget level. Yeah. So those are main thoughts that circling around and I guess just to add to that another uh undertone I'm hearing is like transparency not that information is not available but that people are not getting the correct information right talking about um how people are viewing the referendum um and this is
037common. So again do you have any suggestions for uh how to you know even on the board even some even some of us have misinterpreted information. Do you have any thoughts on how we can maybe uh work with that? Best idea there is going again back to the ambassador idea and turning us into, you know, trained messengers. Again, we're messengers with that caveat. if people come, you know, with sharpened sticks and spears, we really we we're just the messenger. Here's information about the budget, you know, um and we don't want to mislead people. So, there has to be some training, but to to spread the message, right, to get it out to our school communities and our neighborhood communities and and talking about, you know, how the referendum works, this is how revenue works, this
038is how the birth rate, you know, if we can go out there um and and do that as as part of our service to the committee, subcommittee or something, you know, even if you just picked How many people are on the committee, Denise? About 30. 30. even if you trained, you know, six to 10, a third of them, right, and were comfortable with those people doing them and they had the extra time to go to a, you know, two or three schools each, um, to a PTSA meeting or to, you know, answer questions. Um, I think, you know, the very nature of this business is open, but I think you have to dig a little bit to find it. um you know even the meeting minutes and agendas here they're all linked and you can
039go find them but um I think we can do a better job of spreading you know telling people where you can go see these things turning this finance committee and experiment and open source you know here's with an open hand and similar thing when you're looking at other schools that are school districts and cities that are having this problem you know they are also operating in an open environment with their budgets and things, right? So, if we can get committee members to go and look into that research, you know, whole Madison's budget for the next things are, you know, that people in this room may not have all the time to do, but offload some of that. I also think that um we need to explore how parents um I think anything is marketing. They
040might not necessarily care about like what the budget numbers are. Like as long as we're saying like we're budgeting neutral, they're concerned about, you know, violence in the middle school. They're concerned about test scores. Um so addressing those in communications that are digestible for parents. Um, parents are getting, although we're having kids later on, kids, um, like Gen Z has kids in the school district. How are they digesting news? I bet you majority of them get their news on TikTok. Um, so we need to think about how what the message is and then how to communicate it. And it's probably not in a long lengthy email with a like attached PDF or a click to a website. It's like like really digestible like we all are just go go go go go go go. Um
041you know utilizing talking points um you know if that because that's a retention so we're trying to keep people involved. So like there's two issues essentially is retention and then also bringing people back into the district. And I got one more question maybe. Um, but in the in the committee that you have established of 30 people, how would you say and not just the diversity by race, but the diversity of minds, do you feel that you have a good group of people to be able to address different um different perspectives? You know, do do you think that that you're doing well on that end? Because I know you're saying you're not reaching out to people. So, you know, you we don't want to end up with a committee of, you know, you want to have
042the diversity of mind so that we're really getting good feedback. Yeah. I think the consistency is plenty diverse. I don't have the specific numbers, but male, female, different races, different backgrounds. There's a lot of very intelligent people on the committee, which is good. A lot with strong management and finance and backgrounds. And I've disagreed in my head with some of them, which I think is good, which which is good. So, you want to have like a thought, you know, because for me, I'm like just all the money to the teachers and paras. And um, you know, and there are other people that are like nickel and diamond like, oh, do we really need can paras really have unemployment? Do we really want to pay for that? And so I think that's good to kind of
043have a little I mean we weren't clashing but it's just difference of opinions. It's one of the ground rules that Denise speaks to almost every time and that's disagree with ideas not with people. And I think we've done a decent job of that. I think we have to do a little better job of you know hurting cats and reigning people in saying let's park that. We hear you. We wrote this down. Let's move on to these other things we want to cover today. I think one of the impressive um things looking at the summary of your last meeting, one meeting, um was how many of the essential issues you raised that we've been talking about or we're already projecting. So I I feel like not only is that a validation, but it's also showing that
044we're on the right track to continue to engage um this kind of community advisory piece because it's we're just going to boost each other's work. But now that you know a little bit more about what you know and you're both parents, um you've talked a little bit about the amount of information and making it easy to be available and we know not everybody is going to take a deep dive. So as parents of students, what are some of the most important pieces about the district finances that you think parents want to know? If we had to give them the highle highlights from what you've learned so far, what are the that either make you feel more confident in your child's education or things that you want to track to, you know, sort of make sure
045that your your kids or the other kids in your school um are getting what they need. I think just a lot of the high level numbers are really useful digestible. So the $400 million in revenue and the number of principles and the number of board members and the number of teachers and and kind of rolling some of those things up and saying most of our budget is people in this growth any organization, right? They need healthcare and they need all these things, right? I I think just kind of having a a high level I I think the committee level is too detailed to roll out to the the broader public, right? pages and pages of documents but I think it's a question we can pose to the committee or subcommittee itself prioritize give us 10
046things on a on a bullet list and put them out on a slide or a flyer and go back to your right there are a lot of people that aren't budget wonks that are not going to want to hear this message but if we can hit that may have a passing interest and at least often the information I think that's useful in times of crisis where we have to close schools or make hard decisions um teachers or do those kinds again just at the high level this is what we're forecasting and We're doing good for now, but five years from now, think things are going to be a little tight again. Let's prepare folks for that, right? I think class size is huge for um parents. I also like when we were discussing the budget
047when we're budgeting for salaries that it is for the most part a teacher is hired for the school year and we'll fulfill that contract for the end of the year. Um, so I thought, isn't that what you said? Y, so I I I guess I didn't really think about that, but I really like that um, you know, commitment to the people that are um, in your district. Um, I also think that scores um, in terms of testing are something that we need to carefully communicate. I mean, if you're going like, you know, a John Marshall versus a Lurard, well, like all of the John Marshall is like absolutely everyone. So, you're going to have people that are really high and really low and where it's like not it's comparing apples to oranges. You're not doing
048apples to apples. I don't know how you communicate that. Um, so like when people are comparing Rochester to different things, it's not really fair. um it's not a fair comparison. So I think class size, teacher commitment, um like um if there's a retention stat sometimes that's good. Um like for instance, my kids um had some of the same teachers throughout and so that was really neat, something kind of cool to um communicate um you could just uh react to this and not just um our two committee members. Um one of the reasons I think this committee is invaluable and will be over time is that I think we are living in a time of distrust of institutions and leaders visceral. You're almost presumed wrong as a starting point and it's runs really really deep. You
049know, I I was thinking the other day like I my dad's family that he grew up in was super uh conservative Republican. My mom's was uh not super but very liberal like Democrat. They both trusted Walter Kankite to get their deep like that like there was that commonality like if Walter Kankite was telling it to us we really could trust that. I mean, that's so long gone. And so, I think the fact that you're going to be a group of people who aren't getting paid um or didn't run for the school board um who will have this. So, you may even if you disagree profoundly with how we're dealing with class size or um enrollment or fund balance or something, the fact that I would hope because I certainly know it's true that you can
050also say but they're not cooking the books. they're giving you like these are the numbers are the numbers. We've certainly tried to take that approach with our unions. I think it's when one reason why we've really changed the relationship with a lot of our unions. Like we can debate the priorities, but we're not hiding money under the table that we're not, you know, sharing with you. That's been a complete paradigm shift for some of our negotiations. Like really, we're not um and so now we can have a robust discussion about the priorities, but it's there. And so I just think that's one of the things that And it's not saying the committee necessarily will be and necessarily as your work gets deeper endorsing everything we're recommending, but that you've seen the numbers and that I
051think that your point James too about that we really should make sure that you get the after action review of the budget too so that you're seeing I I think it would be nice to have a a a dashboard or something like you have a test score dashboard or school improvement dashboard have a finance dashboard. Absolutely. But, you know, just to have the I mean, these committee minutes are out there on the website now, but if you had a similar thing that was all financial, I think that would help your principles and people in the balance budget model too, as they're looking outside, how many clean audits in a row have we had super? We we are at five in a row. Um and uh we um we don't though do very much to make
052that s those clean audits very uh to your point about the videos and snow days and stuff. We haven't done much to make our audit videos funny and short. Um so say this John did one video where I already looked like a hostage that was oh I can't remember. But anyway, um, yeah, it we can keep working on those kinds of things. Yeah, make it a snappy 60C. Yeah, it was an early cartoons. Well, the cartoons were for the referendum. Those were those were a little better. But I mean, the point about where did our audit really you end up? I mean, literally in a $400 million organization, they found not a single find. Not one. Absolutely. And like we we we we need to find ways to message that because I remember my first
053year when the auditor um said that it's quite extraordinary to see an external audit an organization of this size and we didn't find a single control problem. We didn't find a single reporting problem. Um which again is how we how we maintain our books. We still have to make good decisions but the money is not being uh poorly managed in that sense of accounting. Yeah, a couple things. Um, the committee um expressed some concern that we're projecting financial challenges now. Um, and I think the tension becomes, oh, you're having challenges now versus if you don't tell us, you know, so while we're trying to tell them what's coming up down the road, they don't want to hear that. Maybe some don't want to hear that versus you know telling them now or having a big
054surprise. So just an observation on that. The question that I had though was um did you have any discussion about federal and state mandates some of which are unfunded or underfunded? I mean we talked about one of the titles going away and we talked about federal grants and difficulties in this political climate. We also talked about state allocations and not keeping up with inflation at length which I think was useful right the curves you know kind of diverge on this is where things would be if the state so we made assumptions like hopeful assumptions I think for the most part state and federal funding somewhat even from last year or maybe And this funding's complex. I mean, that's one of the other things I didn't miss. I mean, I knew an organization of this size,
055you know, big budget, a lot of people. I didn't understand all the different buckets and the requirements. You know, we can't steal extra money we made on lunch this month and go give a teacher a bonus. We don't have that flexibility to, you know, we have a dozen, two dozen different buckets, you know, It's almost like separate budgets, right? And we're just kind of rolling this all up. Yeah. I think we're used to as a society now um when you were talking about the news, it reminded me of we're used to like customizing like absolutely everything in our life, like where our apps are, what phone we have. And I think parents sometimes um if like one thing goes wrong, they're like how like like jump ship or move something or move somewhere else. So
056they feel like they don't have control. Um so I think addressing that um like with overcommunication and control that they have in their own schools I think will be able to tell them that five years there's a problem in four years there's a problem. You keep telling them there's a problem. Yeah. And to restate, I I don't think it was that the committee felt like there was a concern about the um upcoming challenges being communicated. I think it was just coming as a surprise even to our members that you know so quickly after the referendum passing unfortunately still with our declining enrollment. So, I I think our members appreciated that that that message was being shared and it was being shared now, even though we knew that some people would still say, "Well, we already
057gave you all this money." Um, so and James, you mentioned something um as part of your discussion about an ambassador role. Um, but also the idea that are future um reductions or additional money coming down the road that SBAC or a similar group of community members could do some advanced thinking. It could help prioritize where to where to cut things. I think that would be useful, right? If you Well, that was going to be my question because in the past we have had community budget reduction committees where we've given them intensive sets of information um page by page and I I'm sort of want to hear from you as members of the community, as volunteers, not paid. Um, how how do you think people would feel? It's an important role. It's it's a tough job.
058How do you what do you get the sense of people being willing to take on that kind of deep advisory piece, especially when you're talking about cuts? Everyone wants to talk about options, but what about cuts? Well, I know that we had to um take some out of reserves to have a budget. Um so we didn't have to go through that exercise. Um open to going through. I think it's a valuable exercise because it allows the diverse community to prioritize where they think, right? You know, we all have to make decisions like this in our I'm looking in the last two weeks with auto and home insurance policies going through the roof, right? 22% auto, 46 home, 36 combined. And I'm just like, this is crazy. They need to selfinsure. So, um, I I think
059you can pass some of that maybe not to the entire community, but to the people that are knowledgeable and have ideas on and and similar in the balance budget model. I would hope that you get some of that feedback also from your principles, right? That hey, this is your allocation this year, but five years from now, it's going to be this. What smart innovative things are you starting to do that we can share with other people, right? And crafting that message in a like I don't know how you do it like in a positive way because we're trying to have people attention and recruit people and then also be like we're cutting this thing. So it's like conflicting messages. I I was thinking of the ambassador type role as more of a if the committee
060ever got too big such to the point that if it went from 30 to 60, you know, so many committee members that we have to turn people away, you up the requirements a little bit as far as contributions, whether it's submitting things in advance before the meeting or taking notes or summarizing or putting the doc, you know, having secretary or subcommittee that wrote up the results on the website upload some of the clerical tasks from more timely. Um I think people are willing to contribute. I think it's tricky four times a year where you just come in and you read a couple things and you have this meeting and you have to put a little more preparation and thought into everything don't really get a lot on classroom sizes and unemployment. I'm just kind of
061both planting a seed for you and for board members the way in the um you've just had a few meetings since we kind of expand kind of expanded the membership of the committee and so we're still uh thinking through the process. One way to do it, which I certainly we should do, is to be updating you on the budget as it's developed and then to the point we've made a couple times tonight, letting you know how it went, both in the board's approval and in the audit. The other thing that we haven't really done much of, but I think could be very helpful, is sometimes we face very significant specific problems around development of the budget. And I could see us also presenting some of those problems to the committee for informed feedback as we
062go forward. And I'll just sort of take the risk of naming one, but I want to be super clear. This is not um this is just a conversational study session point and it's one that should not be confused with backtracking on any of the commitments in our referendum. So we have said that for at least the first five years of the 10ear referendum, we won't close schools. We won't make major We won't eliminate major cuts in programs. We won't raise class sizes. I'm confident we can do that in order to get it passed. We also said we were going to spend specific amounts on about 25 specific programs. And we did that because after the referendum failed in 2023, one of the sources of feedback we got was, well, I know it was for technology,
063but I didn't know exactly what my money was going to go for. And so if you look in the budget book this year, we've almost without exception allocated exactly the dollars we said we wouldn't referendum. There are a couple instances though in which for instance a change in state or federal funding meant we had other funding for that purpose. So we're still meeting the expectation but it's not all coming literally from referendum dollars. And so that's the kind of thing that I would love to talk through like with the committee and say when we when we say that how do we first of all what do you think of that if we're still meeting the school counselor number um but it's not necessarily coming by referendum dollars or um another one of those how should
064we think about that problem of keeping faith with the community but also reflecting the fact that uh the context is changing around us every single year and it will for the 10 years of the referendum. That'd be the kind of thing that I think we could come and really say how should we think about, you know, that problem? What are the guard rails that we should be concerned about? Because I would find that valuable and we would describe it in more precision, you know, that I have now. Um because another way to think about keeping faith with that referendum is that less than the specific programs that are in each of the categories about accelerating student learning struggling students. We had these you could al you could keep faith with each category as opposed to
065the specific programs within it and would the committee say yep that's still keeping faith with you're investing in our our our kids who are the Harvard and Yale kids and the kids who need more support and things like that. Those would be really interesting and I haven't looking at Denise I haven't thought about we encounter them all the time and I haven't thought about saying hey let's take that to CBAC let's actually pose that problem we don't want to seem like we're sort of stage managing the stuff that the committee wants to look at but th these are very real time it's actually how we hit the reset button this year on our student school board instead of kind of saying what do you all think should happen we said okay we're going to do
066a cell phone ban what do you think about that and how should it or we have an attendance crisis, what should we do about attendance? And it actually has really been very useful because going in and asking high school students like what should we do was generating like a zillion different not very phones all the time. Yeah. Right. So then we've said, well, we're not going to get rid of it, but how should we do it? You know, and so it's been a very it's been a pretty good shift with that this year. And um I'd have to look back to see like how you worded it. So, um, so I was the executive director for an airline entertainment airline passenger experience association. And so when we did kind of like an annual report like
067that of, you know, here's what we're going to set out to do, like I guess like you're intentionally vague on the specifics. So, I'm assuming I would have we'd have to look at before the meeting, you know, kind of what was said um, and how to address like one specific thing or or all of them. Um I I personally as a parent, I don't know about you, I mean if you're meeting all of like the big buckets and especially with declining enrollment, I mean that's a pretty big feat. I think it also depends on, you know, meeting the broad requirements. What are you going to do with the excess money? Can you invest it? Can you pay down some debt? You know, those are ideas you could put. But that do we top up the
068rainy day fun? So, as we're drawing down on it, you know, those kind of I'm assuming or you get a new grant for something, you know, things can change and all of a sudden you get a grant that flows into the same thing the referendum is, you know, we manage our household budgets the same way, right? If we allocate something to this and some other source of income comes along, we'll figure out how to move that somewhere else. Yeah, that's a super helpful thought because you could say it's it's all still staying in the referendum bucket, but you can shift among the priorities that the voters endorsed. So, we're not actually using it for fun. I'm just thinking in real time, but we are going to we are going to reallocate as student needs change,
069as laws change within the referendum priorities. So, we're not shifting that. We're meeting those, but we're not also, you know, frozen in time. If it was easier to get a grant for something that you had covered in the referendum and to slide that, I'd be all for moving that money somewhere else. That's just one example that then to not do the grant because we already had it covered. So, uh, I'm curious, having served on advisory committees in the past, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to to say this, so I I suppose simply saying it is the best way. Um, how do you feel regarding the fact that While you are uh encouraged to raise questions to uh recommend options or solutions, uh realizing that the questions you raise, the options you
070provide or the solutions that are well thought out and you may be least may be spot on in terms of from where you sit and the facts or information you're provided. How do you feel regarding the fact that when all is said and done, you're not actually making the decision. You're simply offering sharing insight, input. I know how I have to manage that and I didn't ador that fully. I had an expectation that I thought we said was going to be implemented. But I'm I'm curious. I don't want to project where I was, but I'm just curious. I don't think I've had those same issues. I don't know if Denise articulated kind of the ground rules and I didn't have the expectation that any of the ideas would implemented. So, in some ways, it's kind
071of freeing because we can come and we can think of all these wild crazy ideas. I I think we need to do a better job of attributing those to individuals and then allowing people to kind of upvote or you know say that's a really good idea you know let's prioritize these you know in this list you know if we went through there in the committee itself rank some of those so we could up the most important ones yeah kind of like what you do at like a strategic planning meeting is like everybody has like 10 you know monopoly dollars and then there's the cups and everybody can And then that's those are the main priorities. Um but I I would agree um that Denise did a really good job um of you know setting the
072expectations even though we're kind of not like moving around but just the enrollment thing I think kind of like threw us. So, we kind of um I think we all kind of knew and I just have to say too that um it actually made me feel like more confident in the education system here working with Denise and working with these two gentlemen because I mean we're really lucky that we have so like such dedicated smart people like working behind the scenes. So, and Just to piggy back off of um what director Barlo said, do you feel that there's a good feedback loop? A good So when you give information, do you I think someone said one of you said earlier that you know you would like better feedback from the feedback pretty much that you're
073that you're giving. So um because we don't want to I guess my concern with any committee when we create these things with good intentions is we don't want this to end up being a checkbox. So yeah, we ran it by them and we're still you know our thing over here. So do you feel that um that that that full circle communication is good or is there there somewhere that's lacking there? Because I did hear you say that um you would like the better feedback and you you know maybe need more information so you can know you know how well you are doing in the information that you all are providing or do you feel a little ghosted? I definitely don't feel ghosted because I'm here the feedback from you right now. Whether that scales to
074the other 28 people on the committee, we'll have we'll have to see. Um, as far as how many people watch the study sessions or what we also get a really good recap um after the meetings um and then encouraged to um write Denise if there's something else that comes up. So, circle back to that. I think the hard part is that it's quarterly. Um, and so although it's hard to ask volunteers to come in more often, I think that might be helpful because then we might be able to instead of like provide feedback like actually kind of tackle some of the issues if if that is something that's asked of us. I think that there's a space there for committee work too. So, and maybe depending on, you know, your interest level or time availability,
075some members might choose to participate in committees and others might want to stick with the quarterly meetings. But, so I think that might be a way to differentiate um involvement. It just regularity of that communication as well. Director. Um, so I'm one of the school board members that's assigned to the committee along with Director Cook. I really apologize for meeting the last missing the last meeting because of scheduling conflict. But that's the one of the challenges about quarterly meetings too is miss you miss. Um I guess my question for the two of you is there anything that as schoolboard members we can do to assist either in you the back and forth between the board or the work that you envision the committee doing? There's different information we can if you took an idea up
076and it was well received and you know proposed for implementation. And I think bringing that back to the next meeting would be, you know, just kind of a pat on the back, but you know, some kind of acknowledgement that just to kind of make that more two ways, right? You know, so we're giving you the ideas here. We give you them quarterly, but if in your other meetings something came up and Jane said we should have a finance dashboard. A finance dashboard. I see that. Okay, cool. And also just to um give even different direction or more focused direction um from the school board just so like we're not rehashing all of this again. That's kind of the danger too and that's I think maybe formalize the commitment maybe go from two to three years
077like I was proposing before we started recording you know kind of a year to get up to speed a year to really contribute and then a year to kind of bring that some of the next Even if you take the 30 and you, you know, be 10 10 thing like that and kind of cascade it through otherwise you are going to feel like all over again as you have this meeting annually, right? Um, and we should also bring some of this back to the committee too. Speaking of commitment, right now it's quarterly Do you get the sense that it's the kind of committee that needs to move to every two months, maybe more times a year? I think quarterly is good with a little more time to prepare. if we had kind of the slides
078for the hot button issues and some of the breakout discussion questions in advance and kind of hold some of those things back agenda think the cadence is right as long as there's I think subcommittees like we were talking about that are working on specific issues I think like I they could they could meet more freely yeah they could meet more frequently I think there's several people incl myself that would love to deep dive into what other you know districts are doing um you know better communication models um in terms of budget and just overall like excellence within the school and I would add to that too it seems like in my attendance of the meetings and participation it seems like that committee structure is a natural flow from the size of the group and the
079structure I know that you that a lot of the information you've been provided has been really focused on the budgets. Um although you did bring up the committee did bring up a number of um word I want to look for interactions between budget decisions and programming decisions. So like Does the skip school continuous improvement plan relate to budget decisions and you know how does some I think there's a perception um Katie talked about perceptions in the community that we make decisions here school board makes decisions superintendent makes decisions sort of independent of anything else but I think the more you get into the budget you learn how much our decisions are bounded by those buckets by those uh restrictions on how we can use the money. Um do you think that's an important u understanding
080for the committee to come to is the interaction between concrete programs or things people see in the schools and how it's related to the minations of making the budget sausage. So like for example, like the curriculum, right? That be one. I think that's really interesting. I think that would be interesting to see, especially I mean how um that could also be a marketing point of um really taking data and really utilizing it um to enhance the curriculum for each grade level. Um and also I think there's a couple policies as well um For instance, like uh if a seventh grader doesn't have like their homework done, but they can turn it in until the end of the semester and still have it graded at full. Um so there's like things like that that I think
081and like the cell phone or busing a lot of people especially um grade school like that's that affects people too getting kids um to school at 7:45 in the morning. Um, so I think I agree with you. I think that'd be really interesting because all of those things have budget implications, showing more connections between those, maybe make it a little bit more concrete for people to understand. Yeah. Yeah. And I think when we looked at the budget, I mean, there's just so many things that are just you have like there there isn't I feel like a lot of wiggle room like it's salaries, it's building maintenance, it's like there's only like a certain fraction where you can kind of play with it or like manipulate it a little bit. I would say you know these
082questions here were all from the last meeting. There are there are meeting minutes from the one before where we talked about kind of revenue and ideas for growth and there you know probably just as many equally good ideas that came out of that from expanding early more sites moving north times marketing. This one was budget focused, but there were many good ideas about um should I touch briefly on the changes you want to make statement or is that something you planning to do? I can do that conversationally. That would be great. Okay. So, I I think you you all board members have and it's available on assembly. Um we the prop changes we propose and we know that this is a board committee. So that ultimately want to just get if you have any reactions
083to this now and we will put this onto the board agenda. Um should the chair so agree um that we want to uh revoke the requirement that this decisions shall be made by consensus which I think was in there out of good intentions. But um as we get into tougher issues I think it would be still useful if we can tell the board the committee voted for X. Um, but it wasn't consensus. So, we would shift that requirement. And then, most importantly, we would shift, as I explained at the outset of this meeting, our structure from being representatives of essentially the big organizations in our community to people who are uh interested, connected to RPS, and willing to serve. Um, that we would have uh we we do propose uh striking the requirement for two
084high school students. That wouldn't preclude them. it would not have it be a requirement. Uh I think as our youth empowerment work goes forward though we'll be having a lot of discussions about youth voice. Um you know and it's something that will and suise think a lot about um this was not something we were able to meet the first two years of the committee um just for high school kids to come to something like this. Um I think that as we get into the next strategic plan youth youth for high school will I'm predicting be a strong theme. I don't think being part of a finance committee is the best uh place to be seeking that youth voice. Again, if someone wanted to serve, absolutely uh we could do it. It's just changing the requirement.
085Um we would add requirements of representatives of Rochester Principles Association and the Rochester Education Association, our teachers and principles unions. Um and we would tweak the name that was uh on the it's the community budget advisory committee as opposed to the finance budget advisory committee. So any um reactions uh to those just again in a study session just for feedback we will um work with the chair and vice chair to put this on a future agenda. But we don't want to be so far off the board's charge in the membership of this committee as we currently are having talked it through uh with chair and vice chair. We wanted to see what kind of interest we got. It's been fantastic. So, we'd like to formalize this uh approach and then uh probably early in the
086fall put it into the process. I guess one of the questions for our finance team, our superintendent as well as um our CBAC members is how important is it that we designate and make the timing of a meeting specifically aligned to you're seeing the draft of the budget and we're one of the reports we're receiving from you is your feedback on next year's budget before we take our vote in June. I I think that um I'm glad that you mentioned the strategic plan because really that's what we should be executing against. So I think we should probably do maybe a deeper d I know that we did a little bit on what the strategic when is what is the next strategic plan starting the development this summer. Okay. Next fall will be the high gear
087public. So I think learning a lot about that um and what the priorities are um will be key in determining where we have recommendations because we are to serve that strategic plan. I think you do want to have the CE committee see the budget. That wouldn't have as much impact for us to follow up feedback after the fact. Although you could carry all the way forward to the next 28. Yeah, I think the timing is somewhat important there. I realize it since there's a ton of work all together. So um getting that all line up on the right boundary may not do but two times in four months year is July one. I I would agree. I think it's important even if uh and let's just say it, we should all be enjoying this year
088because this is the year with no cuts. Um it's because of the referendum, because of good stewardship of the budget, because the legislature has basically come in kind of where we needed them to. But were this uh like a colleague I talked to no Henipin cutting 20 million this week, you know, it would be a different, you know, situation. So I think it's important to have this meeting on the calendar and should the committee want to talk about something that is not the budget and say, "Yep, we think the budget's fine. We really are. We're we're focused on enrollment or your insurance plan or your fund that actually I think would still guarantee input." The other place that we've shared it every year the committee uh has been in place but I don't know that
089we were quite as um uh much in dialogue with the committee as we could be which is the development of the budget parameters we bring to the board at the start of the budget process. So, every year since I've been here, we've had the board pass parameters that are basically our marching orders for the development of the budget. And then John and Andy show how we met those parameters, assuming we met parameters, which we have. I think having CBACK have a real discussion of what do you think those parameters should be at the start of the budget process is another good source of input. And so then when we bring the parameters which we've usually done in January when we bring them to the board we can say we could say you know we've shared
090this with the committee budget budget committee they were particularly concerned about this that one they said not so much I mean we could they added this I think the parameters is another good place for that feedback because we really do take those seriously go back to that as our north star during the budget process and I think we could time the meetings to to have us help think that through. Just thanks. I think one of the questions that the committee asked was why what was the board interested in when when we agreed or decided to to do this advisory committee? And um I think as you know the superintendent mentioning that we've had five clean audits and I think the board expresses its confidence in how we um have evolved this budget process. And I
091will tell you over the years that I have been a school board watcher and a school board member, we have definitely evolved the transparency and the the um intentional steps of how we let the community know that the pieces of the budget are coming together. I think the B the balance budget model is the latest step in that evolution. Um but that communication piece that you mentioned um simply having a group of people who are willing to invest the time in uh getting educated and informed at a level that you wouldn't do ordinarily. Um, and then getting your feedback of how we need to help you understand it better, um, communicate it better, talk about it, um, so that it's better understood by your group is going to help us, um, better communicate it to
092the broader community, and accomplish not just the strategic plan goals we have now, but the the tackle the issues that, you know, we've laid on the table and and we know face us. But it does feel good to have 32 more people out there on our team um intentionally working on this. Um so we do appreciate it. Please take that back to the committee and we look forward to hearing from you again. My pleasure. Enjoyed it. Thank you. Our next item, other business, our ABCD update is available in um assembly um for our future meetings. Um our upcoming meeting agenda items. June 17th, we have uh retirey recognition monitoring will be the introduction of the long-term budget strategy for the first time. We have a second prep for action on our policy committee recommendations for
093May. And our action item is action on the 202526 budget proposal. The next meeting is a regular meeting on July 15th. We'll have a monitoring item on the discipline and attendance data review and initiatives update for the 202425 school year, a prep for action item on the long-term budget strategy, and then the first prep for action of the long-term facilities maintenance plan approval and facility utilization update along with a close session on labor negotiations. Are there any agenda items board members would like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda? hearing none. You heard we have meet regular meetings on June 17th, July 15th, and July 22nd and then we have a regular meeting on August 5th. But note ahead of time that that is going to be a meeting from 4 to 6
094p.m. so that we can accommodate the national night out celebrations. And hearing no other business, this meeting is adjourned at 6:52 p.m.