001This conference will now be recorded. Okay, >> I'll call the meeting to order. I'm Mike Ziggler, chair. And if we go around the room, Dart Mcno, >> Bill Gibbs, vice chair. >> Tommy Sassy, trustee. >> Frank Cam, trustee. Alex Rivas, trustee. >> Jay Failen, trustee. >> Tessa Hopper, trustee. >> Stephan Stra, superintendent. Okay. People in the room, Mike or No. H, >> sure. Pretty small crowd. Jackie St. Business Manager. >> Roberto Martell, uh, consultant. >> Amy Chris, Ranger Review. Alth that's everyone like >> okay just with that um public comment I'm guessing there's no public comment today >> does not look like it >> not uh action item A 2425 trustee annual approval high school and elementary >> Mr. chair. >> Yeah, >> Martell, that is one of the technology things we had go wrong.
002We were unable to get that completed and I would gladly bring it back at a future date to go over with you. We have a few errors we need to correct in order to get it submitted. It doesn't change the cash balances or the budgets or anything. It's just a mix and match among various accounts within those various funds. My my apologies for that. >> Would you would you mind explaining just what the trustes annual or financial is CFS? >> That's like your balance sheet and income statement for the last fiscal year. Um and you have a dozen or better funds and each one is a selfbalancing business if you want to call it that. And uh you know as you probably heard they're for specific purposes in the educational process. General fund is your
003overall fund that does most your operations. You have the retirement fund that pays for the employer contributions for social security and that there and um the one we're having trouble with is the miscellaneous programs fund. Miscellaneous is a bad name uh because that's where all the grants go in and you have to account for each grant in minutia uh revenues and expenditures and we we've got a mix and match going on wrong that we know we know the grand total but to get it to come out match the grant documents is it'll happen it's just not tonight. >> Okay. >> Anything else you want to know? I can talk forever. You know that. >> Yeah. No, I just I just wanted to make sure everyone I mean there's even bringing it to you guys, there's
004nothing that you guys can change. It's really just numbers that have happened. It's different than the budget where you know you guys could make suggestions on the budget um you know and different things after he presents it. But um it will need to go to you guys to look at for sure. But it's not something that um you know is going to need to change. She just has to get it right. This was, if you remember, this is why it's always difficult this time of year with uh not only technology, but when the window opens, but then also um just the timeline between things. We knew this was going to be a a rush to try to get this meeting to happen, but every year it's like this. My internet was slow over the weekend
005and I could not get into accounting system or anything. So that's why I'm behind. >> Okay. All right. Uh yeah, I guess no more questions on A. If not, we can move to action item B. 256 budget approval high school and elementary. >> Do you want me to go start on that? >> Yeah, you want to. Okay, perfect. I have handed out a budget report. Uh it's elementary and high school in the same report. I I'd like to go over in as much detail as the board wants. I'll try to just do the highlights and then if you have specific questions at any time, I'll I'll gladly talk about them. Um, first one is on and there's a nice summary sheet on the front which is tells pretty much everything you need to know about
006a fund and we'll look some of the details in the in the back. Uh, but your general fund has got a 7 million $12,000 adopted budget. you can set aside up to 10% of that amount which would be $700,000 and change as an operating reserve and that's just to cover bills between tax collection times. Uh you do didn't have enough cash available so the maximum we could do is 148,000 and it's virtually the amount of cash left in that fund at year end. Um actually we reappropriated $61.65 because I like round numbers it would have been 14806165. uh column G, other revenue. And if you um flip back to the next page and it talks about the other revenue. Well, on that page are the other revenues. Uh like the first one you'll see about
007two inches down from the first line is direct state aid. That's the money that goes from the local taxpayers in that large education uh millage that goes to the state and then the state sends it back to the schools as as needed based on the formula. There's a quality educator payment that is based on your certified staff 523,000. There's at risk student that's a formula based on your kids >> and the quality educator payment is what the stars act was that doubled but allowed for the the raises for teachers and so forth. So just to highlight that >> average student for all American heritage special education state share of that data for achievement. Those are all just pots that over time the legislature has deemed necessary to to put in here for funding education and
008they all have a a purpose like we have to account for the Indian ed for all. we have to account that we get 26,000 we have to spend 26,000 for that purpose otherwise they reduce the amount we get the following year. Um then the bottom l line there guaranteed tax base that's a like a subsidy on your mail value. try to equalize me values across the state and because your male value is lower than say in the western part of the state you get a a subsidy to help the taxpayers comes through the state. So all of those revenues we just discussed there are from the state. Um, then the next section is just maybe local monies that might come in that we collect that you you see that $12,000 there is other revenue from
009other other revenue from local sources. That's like miscellaneous. I discourage people from using that very often because whatever you call this year's miscellaneous goes into next year's budget automatically. And if you put a bunch of stuff in there that is better accounted for elsewhere, what'll happen is this number here, this 12,000 reduces your levy because it's money that can come in to not need more taxes. And so if you put a huge number in there, your levy goes down. But you're not going to get miscellaneous is is little stuff. If you put $100,000 in there, you're not going to get $100,000 in miscellaneous. So, I really discourage, you know, it's just library book fines and small things, but not I have a one place that got a had a flood in their gym and they
010put their insurance recovery miscellaneous, you know, $100,000. They're not going to get flooded every year. So again, don't use it. Um down at the very the bottom, the last number, the 30,12751, that's the tuition that uh been build out for kids that are will be build out for the kids that are attending from other districts that live else in a different district and they want to come. So that's a new thing this year. They they put that in. and they got it all figured that the other districts should give your taxpayers relief and that's how how this is done because that 30,000 helps reduce the levies. It used to be that it was up to the districts um to either charge tuition or not so forth and now there's um a lot of paperwork that
011goes back and forth between districts. >> That's all I have on the general fund. Am I if I'm too wordy or something, you just cut me off here. Um the next one is transportation. Um >> so you go back to the first page. >> Yeah. And >> easier to look at that right away. And then >> keep yourself on the page. Just turn the the page that we just left. >> Um >> back to page two. >> Yeah, it's I didn't number the pages, but it does say transportation at the top. And um they have a thing called on schedule which is where you have to pick your routes side of the buses and and those type of things. And there's again state works everything off a formula. And they say okay based on the
012information you gave us you have 102,000 that's the the third big number down on schedule for the transportation. So that money is partially paid for by the county and partially paid for by the state based on a a an approved route. So they they want the miles, they want the bus size, and there's a dollar amount for each of those. Um the um you'll see down there unreserved fund balance appropriate 412,000. It's my understanding you had a rough year last year that your bus supervisor had to do a lot of driving because there was vacancies and that. So there's a lot of unspent money from the last year's budget because of his salary. He drives, he does whatever he needs to do. So it's not all related to that. And I think we had to
013shorten some routes and some things. So unspent budget money comes to the next year to help relieve the tax burden. can't it doesn't go anywhere else. It's it's required to to bring forward to relieve taxes. Um when we we won't go so slow through the high school side because it's the same discussion. The bus reserve fund the past couple years I've been helping with we have not been levying in that fund. Um there's enough money in there to buy a couple buses and unless you know there's a need to start planning for that, we won't you know add to that pot because it's um again it's what I always used to use to keep my levies level from year to year. I would go up and down to my bus reserve fund because if I
014had enough money to buy a couple buses I just I didn't stockpile anymore. That's my philosophy. I kind of pass it on here. Oh, sorry about that. Um, and here's the schedule of all your buses after that. Um, the next page is tuition fund. Um, that has two purposes at this point. is used. There's a permissive uh area of it to pay for one-on-one aids for special needs students. So, they're paid out of that. And then if your school has kids going to another district, you pay the tuition to the other school out of this money. And you may have students who are incarcerated and you end up paying for their educational costs wherever they're at. That's what that uh money is used for. And the next page is retirement fund. that is the employer
015match the social security Medicare teachers retirement public employee retirement and unemployment. So those are employer required matches and they're paid for out of this fund and um the funding for that comes through a countywide levy. It's not a local levy. is is levy countywide uh technology fund. You have a small voted levy in that fund. It's third number from the bottom is $20,000. Uh the state gives you a little bit of money there various pots there. 4600. So whatever money was left over at the end of last year plus these two revenue sources is what develops this budget for technology for you know the school. So um this one in particular I mean when you talk about technology and what has happened in the last five years I mean co allowed for us to kind
016of get into the 21st century a little bit with technology because of the money that was um given to us but it's ongoing right so technology doesn't last forever. So, this I don't know when we this went out to the voters. Um, but it's $20,000 in the elementary or $10,000 in the high school. So, our district gets $30,000 for technology is what it is. It's been grandfathered in. Now, they have I think the most the longest you can go with asking for a levy is 10 years, I believe. um now and um but so the district is always able to go out to the community to raise some of these um funds. Um this would be a a voted levy that was took place and it's grandfathered in and so we will always get this
017$20,000 unless we go out uh to the voters. But if you think of $20,000 in the scheme of what we're doing, I mean $20,000 just think of a laptop um is, you know, a good laptop that needs to be used around $2,000 to $2,500 to to kind of do some of the things that we needed to do. And so we're looking at 10 laptops, >> right? And in the elementary, this is just the elementary district. So you think of how many teachers you have, how many pair professionals you have, how many other staff that is needed. It really does not go very well. Um, I'm going to use Bob's memory here in Foresight. I think you said that theirs was >> 50,000 each district. >> 50,000 district. So, you know, Foresight is over double what
018we have, which makes more sense for their size of district. For ours, this is not. Um, but the problem is, and the reason why we've never gone for anything like this is because if you go and you don't get it, then you lose it. plus all the other stuff that we've been, >> you know, we have been asking for a lot as well because that's what happens when um in the situation that we're at. And so um just some context behind that that will be this will be something that will have to be addressed at some point. I mean really it'd be nice if this was addressed a long time ago, but we're going to get to the point where technology is starting to be a huge chunk of um things and we've been looking
019for, you know, grants and different things like that. There used to be a state surplus uh program at the state that their old equipment and so we capitalized on that. So that was really helpful um that no longer exists and so that happened I don't know two or three years ago and so we've been kind of struggling um and so we've now moved to um because to laptops and being more mobile um and getting away from the desktops because we were getting theirs and that that helped the district quite a bit. But there's things like that that's just um been tough and there's always going to be a need for technology that's not going to it's not going to ever stop. So this will be something that will have to be addressed. There might be
020a time where I'm coming saying hey we need to do something. I don't know what it is but we might have to go to our voters. The downside is you know if they say no we no longer even get the 20,000. Um and then no longer will you be able to just vote something in for forever like happened with this one. So, >> thank you. >> Okay, the the next fund, the last one is the building reserve fund. I'm sure you aware of various discussions on that. Um, you have a voted levy of 400,000 for that. You just passed a couple years ago. And then you have this uh permissive levy you can do for these excessive unplanned for costs you incurred lately. not anybody's fault because they do happen. And so, uh, halfway down
021the page, you see $106,000. If I lose anybody, I get going too fast. If I lose anybody, just holler at me, too, please.$ 106,000. That's state money that they will give you towards your permissive for I think what this elementary so that Washington Middle School sewer project >> Lincoln. So, Lincoln Modells, um, if you remember, you know, getting the loans for that, we had the $ 1.5 million loans split into two loans, but, you know, came to be $ 1.5 million. One of the loans we use this permissive levy to do that. And one thing to note, and Bob was just kind of getting at this, I'm just going to really try to hit this home, is um, if you look at, sorry Bob, probably taking some of your thunder, but at district tax levy
022down, you see the 426,500. Everyone see that towards the bottom? So 400,000 is the vote voted the voted levy that we had um that I think we have this is we'll have three more years this one and then two more. There was a fiveyear voted levy that that happened. The 26,500 part of that is is the permissive levy part of the permissive levy. So you would take that number plus the 106 above and you get what? 1325 is is where you're at. So 1325 is what we're getting for permissive but out of that the state is paying 106 of it. So by doing that the state's paying for a lot I mean the payment of a lot of that loan right now um which is huge and that's when we did this last year the
023year before um you know that was being said and there was a increase in what the state pays versus us and so it's actually even more so um cited to the state which is good and that just happened this last legislative session. I don't know exactly what that is. I was talking to Bob earlier about that. But but that's a really good thing for us and our taxpayers here in Glendive is you know yes it's a permissive levy but they're only seeing the 26,500 instead of the full 132,500. >> I'm going to reclaim some of my fun. Okay. Um uh if you add the bottom to continue continue that the 26,000 um when you go into the state's budgeting program you play with that number and you put in 30,000 it gives you a different
024number than the 106 and you go back and forth and back and forth until you get the biggest amount of state money for the smallest amount of local tax dollars. And that's what I do is I go in back and forth and I write down the things and say, "Okay, here, here, went over here." Nope. Got to land here. And that's to your advantage. You know, you work it to more state money and less local money. >> My taxes. >> That's I'm tight. Okay. Um the next page I includes a copy of your certified tax evaluation just for information. Um the tax valuations that these budgets are based on that require taxes is 14,720,485. And when people talk about a mill, a mill is 1,000th of a dollar. So if you take that 14,720, put
025the decimal point right there, one mill then generates 14,720.485. So that's, you know, just tidbit of information for you to to know. But, uh, so when you talk about every meal that's in this package generates $14,720 in taxes. So, um, and something I do like to do when I do these is I like to say look at this and look at last year's to give you a a feeling for what has happened in your in your tax picture. Last year for the elementary district, you had a total of 206.67 mills. This year, you have 199.36 mills. So, it actually dropped 7.31. I just think that's a a good thing to know if people, you know, asking what's going on with the taxes and stuff, you say, "Well, we actually were able to drop them >>
026this year." I mean, >> it doesn't matter what community you're in. Schools are going to be a huge part of local property taxes. That's just um it's just what it is. But to be able to go down, that's something that um our business managers over the years for me doing this, they always try to do exactly what Bob said, try to minimize the burden on the taxpayers um to get what we need. Um and they do a really good job of this. And so going down 7.31 in elementary is a pretty pretty good thing. So, >> okay. Um the next section is the high school. Um [Music] start off with the with the good news is um 3.32 drop in mills for the high school this coming year. So you add the two together and
027it's 10 and a half million with your taxpayers less less taxes. So and that's just how the numbers work out, but you try to make sure they're advantageous. You know, we all pay taxes, so we like to watch what we're what we're getting into here. U the general fund levy is 3.69 69530 million 639530,000. The general fund levies are formulas. You don't get to really choose on those. It's based on the number of kids you have. Um that quality educator money, based on your certified staff, you know, there's it's all formula. And once you get it in there, there's you don't have much choice. You just have to fit your needs in that amount of money. And that's tough to be able to do that. >> Yeah. And for some people, um, you they call
028amb. So see amb it's annual number belonging. And that's that's really your your how many students you have. And over the years, um, we get our enrollment numbers. In October, we'll have our first count date. And usually Jamie or someone from the paper is asking me, "Hey, what do you know think about the numbers?" And for the last I don't know how many years I've said, well, yeah, it looks like it's going down, but the trend line's pretty flat. Last year was the first year I was like, the trend line's starting to it's going down. There's um there is something to this now. You can actually see it in the data um that we are, you know, dropping enrollments, no different than the state. The state is dropping as well. I think unfortunately I think
029we're going to see this decline. Um but but that is there and so we've had for the last eight years and me being superintendent even before that we've had pretty much the same budget when you look at it from year to year there hasn't been a whole lot of changes. Um usually what ends up happening is our any kind of inflationary increase even with a drop in enrollment we go down in budget authority but what ends up happening is this inflationary increase kind of helps us out and it's been kind of just somewhat staying level. will go up a couple thousand dollars. And some people are like, "Oh, it's a couple thousand dollars or even $20,000." But when you're looking at the size of a budget for us, $20,000 when you're looking at millions of
030dollars is not I mean, it's good. We love that, but um it's it's not as much as we would like to have. This year is going to be the first time you're going to see a a real big in it's going to look like our budget increase. Um and that's a lot of that is because of the the 3% inflation rate increase that was passed but then also the um stars act with um with your quality educator payment and you know what you guys you know decided to do with raises and stuff was to you know put that into raises I guess which is a good thing but it will look like we increase quite a bit but all of that was you know that's not going to there's not going to be any money
031to do other things so we're still going to be in the same boat. Um, it's good for our our staff. It's just for trying to purchase things and different expenditures like that, we are um probably a little bit worse off, but still overall it was a good thing to to be able to do. >> Yeah. And we found out in Foresight that their their uh enrollment is less than half when I started there. when I started there quite some time ago, you find out that you lose kids, but that doesn't mean that you don't still have to eat the same size of building. You don't need kind of the same level of staffing and that and you have to have some pretty drastic drops in enrollment before you can make significant change. We actually end
032up closing a building when our enrollment got really slow, really small. So, it was a tough decision. a lot of community input on that. But okay. Um, do you want me to go over anything on the revenues on the high school general fund? Because it's pretty much the same discussion as in the elementary side. So, if you don't have questions, if you go the one thing I do want to talk about real quickly since I hit on it was the technology like we talked about 10,000. So, so that one's there very similar to the other one. And then if you go to um the building reserve second to left page fun. >> Oh, I thought you were just going to Sorry. >> No, I'm like I want to hit these. >> I know what's important.
033>> I misunderstood. >> Oh, but the general funds there any I don't know any questions. Same thing with the transportation fund. You have a $400,000 budget. It's got on schedule. It's obviously a smaller budget and a smaller on schedule because the number of riders is smaller. Um the bus reserve um is the same discussion. You have that money plus the elementary money to buy a couple of buses should you need them. And then the tuition fund, that fund is um when I first got here, it was had plenty of money in it, more than you needed. So there's has not been a budget in that, you know, an increase in that fund for the last four years, I think. Uh, and again, it's used to pay for one-on-one aids for needing, you know, especially children
034in the high school. >> And if you have any of your high school students attending another high school in another district, you would pay their tuition. [Music] Then, um, retirement fund again is the employer contributions. um adult education fund that's uh some people have some schools have a very active one you do not um there is and I'm not sure the mechanism there's a possibility to levy for that uh if you do at some point in the future want to have a couple meals in there for it's basically community education not not GED type program it's for if you want to offer pottery classes or woodworking classes or things like that. We had one of those in foresight and we budgeted for fees to offset the costs and left it up to the managerial staff
035to make sure that they weren't scheduling really expensive classes that didn't generate any fees. So, they can be popular. It depends on the school. You have a college here though, so that's a another plus. So in the technology fund, you only get 10,000 in that voted levy. Um flexibility fund did want to point you do get a little bit of transport transformational learning from the state $31,000. It's like other things it appears to be. >> Yeah. So um we used to get so it's that 31,000 is advanced opportunity money and right below it is transformational learning money that we used to get. They the programs are very much tied together but they are different. Um we were we had transformational learning you could only be along in it with for four years. We were one
036of the first districts that got it. I think there was like three or maybe four districts that was able to get it right away. And so we've already progressed through that and that was helpful with doing some different things. But advanced opportunities is something that a couple legislative sessions ago they did and really it's about trying to further kids into trades and so forth. So um 75% of that money I think 75% right now of the money so that 31,000 the district doesn't get it. It goes to parents and students in a different way. So we can offset fees, we can offset different things. So a lot of the class it was it's probably the hardest money to spend because just how you have to think differently. And so it was really difficult for us
037right away to try to figure out how to to spend that money because of how much money had to go directly to students, parents. Um not in the form of like checks or anything like that. we would have to figure out, okay, um something that the school district would normally pay for that we would have parents pay for um for these CTE classes, we could have them. So, so like uh one example that I know very well is like the art advanced art students, they will get they get their own um being part of that, they have to buy their own toolbox and equipment for that. But Advanced Opportunities Money is able to purchase that. Um, and so there's different field trips that they go on that typically wouldn't be a normal school thing. Um,
038>> certifications that we've gotten our kids and we've gotten >> and then we can re reimburse them and >> Yep. And then um, like for the teachers then to get trained in that so that they can be the person giving it instead of us paying somebody outside of our district. And that other 25% may go towards the teachers or like chaperones or it's helped pay for some of our trips for our students who will get um like honors band and honors choir stuff to go to out to Washington. We use it. We've used it for that as well. And then in our um in our this year in our metals um our welding and metals, we have purchased some stuff for our advanced welding kits as well. So, it's pretty cool and they can use
039it then as long as they can use it. It goes towards them being able to leave school and use it outside of school to advance their opportunity for work then then we've been able to do that. We've done stuff with HOSA like gotten them scrubbed so that when they go up to the hospital and work at CNAs they >> it's a pretty it's a pretty cool program. Um and one that you'll see it will come like the application comes every December. Um, I'm pretty sure it's a December board meeting that we have the board approve it. Um, it's every year thing that has happened since we started doing it probably four years ago or so. U, it's pretty simple application and then we get this money and then we have to spend it and they
040there's a we have to account for it and stuff, but so there's definitely that piece of it, but uh, yeah, it's a pretty neat program a lot of kids have been benefiting off of. So, >> okay. Um the next item in line is the the debt service fund which is to pay back the the bond that's helping finance the high school renovation. The the total co budget for that is $7815 $781,500. That is just like any other loan. It's somewhat advertised over the life. They try to keep the Prisma interest payments level from year to year so that there aren't big swings in that. And this year um that actually went down three and a3 mills from last year. So you know together the high school's gone down seven mills and I think the elementary
041went down. So about 14 mills have gone down in total. So um the last Last one I have is the building reserve and again we have that state money that helps with the catastrophic repairs that you know happen from time to time and that's only 59,790. Okay. You know, again, you take what they give and you mess with the numbers to to maximize that. And that $59,790 is only costing your taxpayers, not even one bill 97 bill. So, it is a it's worth the three or four minutes it takes trying to figure it out. >> Absolutely. That one that one is new, >> right? >> Yeah, it's new. And that's because of the two loans that we got for the sewer project. So that's the that's one of the ways we're paying one of the
042loans is through that. I'm just going to call attention to this again. When you look at that, there's 59,790. That's state money. Um so the state is paying for some of this loan, right? And then the other $20,000 with the $420,000 down there is what um our current taxpayers, which is exactly what Bob was saying. Um so and then the last page is the tax evaluation for the high school district. Uh 20,00 20,712,58 which means that one meal generates 20,712. That's on all taxable property and it's basically real estate, some personal property. The legislature keeps changing what is taxable personal property for businesses and um large motor vehicles, the big trucks and stuff, smaller ones are all done for the county level, but this is the big the fleet trucks and stuff. That's all I
043really have for you. Any questions? I thought I guess uh I have just one question I suppose on the Johnson Elementary general fund reserve. reserve. I see that 2.1% that we're car that uh for the reserve next year. Is that is that trending any direction or is that just kind of a sense of a we operate on a formula and that's just kind of what's left over? Uh I know in the future that'd be something we'd want definitely more of. So it's trending up. >> Okay. >> In elementary. So last year it was 46%. Is that a year above? >> Right. Yeah. So So last year we were at 4.6%. This year we're at 2.11. >> Okay. >> Um but I do think that that number fluctuates based on what happens that year. The hard
044part that we've been, you know, up against is just like, you know, you set your budget, but then unexpected things happen. And that's what's been happening lately to us. So, not only in facilities but other items as well. >> Well, that that that number is a direct reflection of >> what you dealt with through the year. >> Yeah. I understand you have limited control over it. It's just, you know, I like looking at trends and that we know in the future we would like that higher for various reasons. And uh >> it's trending. Yeah, we we wanted to trend up. Right now, we just have I mean, we could go back to the year before, but I think um to to look at that trend, but I think you're going to see this um and
045it'll be harder to um see a trend line. So, but I do hope that I mean the hope is to get it up to the 10%. I mean, we want >> the way I remember it's kind of been working its way down and kind of >> Well, when the cost of everything goes up like that coming in, >> you know, 35 to 40% higher than what we expected. I mean, there's not a whole lot. You don't have control over that. You got to, >> you know, you have x amount of money and after you're done. >> I'm relieved to see that cover of what you have. It's good. >> Yeah, it it was nice to know we had some, you know, our what's interesting is our elementary is doing a little bit better than our
046high school um right now and uh in in terms of different things and so that's something we'll be looking at as well as to you know how do what what shifted it's been usually the opposite. It's usually been our elementary's been in a tougher spot than our high school. So um you know so that that will be something we'll be looking at this year as well to see what has shifted um on that aspect of it. So question two with technology is it okay to move on? Okay. So, since co being 5 years ago now, so half a decade um and dealing with the technology aid or I see the the levy here of $10,000, have you noticed um since co whether technology is trending up as far as expenses again or is it flattened
047out? I assume CO was a pretty expensive >> year with that. >> Yeah, it was. I mean, we went to one one one overnight. Um, so the Chromebook expenses were pretty big. Um, being able to out I mean right away it was also outfitting people to be able to I mean we really had to try to figure out if remote happened again, how do we do this? You know um so but you're asking about price. Um you know I think Chromebooks wise those have been pretty steady. I think the last time we came to the board for that u purchase it was a lot better than I thought it would be at that time. Um, we haven't looked at it since then, but we will be coming up on that pretty soon. Again, I think
048the laptops is probably the biggest issue that we have because laptops are trending up in price. Um, if you've ever went laptop shopping and stuff, and a lot of that's just because of newer and better technologies that are being put in there. Um, and the hard part with that is if you stay with the same type of technology you put in there with RAM and and so forth. Um, that's great, but everything else is you have to use so much more with technology now. It's kind of like when a lot of websites started going to HTML 5, which was the new thing, and you know, more app-like and how they do things and interact. It was great and it was more seamless, but more people are using video, more people are using it. it just
049takes a lot more RAM and a lot more CPU. So, um I think it's going to continue to trend up if you you know one to me I would say cell phones if you look at cell phones and what's happened with those. I mean you never 10 years ago you never would have thought you would pay $1,200 for cell phones. you know, a lot of that was just because of the cell phone companies were um letting you, oh, if you, you know, re-up your contract, you'll get this phone for like a hundred bucks or whatever, even free or whatever. And so, some of it's a money thing as well, but it's the same concept of these phones are getting so good. I mean, this this phone that I have here is I mean, I would
050say pretty easily um 10 times the laptop that I had in college, you know, just in technology. It's probably even more so than that even. But um safe to say I'm pretty safe to say I think 10 times. I mean, these things are pretty powerful. You know, computers need to do more than cell phones. So, I think you're going to still see it trend up just because of keeping up with everything else. Then you start adding in uh AI in there and what that's going to help with technology increasing and everyone needing to get that in order to keep up. It's that it is a concern of mine. That's why I've talked about it a couple times. Um it's been a concern of mine for a while now is what's going to happen? Um how
051are we going to do this? How are we going to keep providing devices for students? And that's that's a topic that's going to be coming up in the next couple years that we're going to have to figure out. What does that look like? >> Oh, that's why I was asking. Can you tell? It's kind of a a point of importance right here. Um, and with that, when you have a damaged Chromebook >> or something like that that's broken and it is not paid for by a parent or anybody reimbursing all that back to the school, what happens there? >> Yeah. So, um, so with one of the things with this new contract that we got for the new Chromebooks, we had the the best, um, maintenance plan that you could. So, we haven't had to
052pass this on to parents a lot. If the kid damages it, um, very specifically, you know, where it was on purpose, then we definitely will be um, having fees and stuff for that. But um but we try to take away that even uh with most most things. And so um you know I'm trying to I'm trying to get back to what your question was. Um what was it again? I lost >> the cost. >> Yeah. Where does the cost come from? Yeah. Yeah. So so if that So we we've already the board already paid for that cost and that contract that we did. So when that device goes out and comes back that's all paid for shipping and everything. So, right now it's um it's already been paid for, but in a couple years when
053this contract runs out, we will that will there'll be a 100% district and that is a problem. And we know that it's coming and we're going to have to figure out what that looks like. And typically, they usually come in a fouryear cycle um for laptops or even Chromebooks. Um we're we're so there's something that's called um um grants. The only thing that's top popping my head was the technology thing uh called uh why am I drawing blank? Anyways, it's a >> it's not e-waste. E-waste is when they come around. Uh anyways, it's um it's a tech it's a federal technology program. So, we thank you. Whoever said that, thank you. There's too many e but is something that is very it's probably the most it seems the most regulated to me and really difficult.
054So, we actually pay someone to run that for us. Every school district does because of how complex it is. And we have there's so many requirements that we have to do. And so, one of those is you have you have a a cycle with um computer programs to keep up. And so, four years is what it is. So, even after four years, the Chromebooks still work, but we're required to um start obsoleting them. And that becomes a pain point as well. So there's just all these different things that we have to do which also drive up the cost but we wouldn't schools wouldn't be able to make it without um the rate just because of they do provide money for us to do it. So we would get you know the federal government would pay
055x amount of money on uh a contract or whatever if it falls under e rate stuff. So it's it's pretty complex but some of that also people don't understand is we are regulated by that and so sometimes we're like oh why can't we use it for longer? why can't we do this? Well, we have to do what they're saying otherwise we don't get that money. Um, and so the person that we go through, we're just like, well, you know, hey, what do we need to do? And they just basically say, you need to do this and this and that's what we do because we we would not make it if we didn't have a raise money, a lot of stuff from this. >> And with that, uh, you're thinking in the next few years, it's
056going to be something that needs to be addressed pretty promptly. It will be >> because of the well the advancement with technology and with our students that's a necessity to be able to advance their education. >> Correct. And it's hard >> it's hard to predict right now. So even like computer labs, what is that going to look like? We've had computer labs for so long. Um are those going to be something that's going to eventually go away or not? There's still things that we still need some of the computer labs for. So we are still trying um we have been able to use our Chromebooks for a lot more things now and so that's been good but there's still this you know and then you start looking this is where it gets complex right so
057Google took over a lot basically took over the public school space um and they really started making it free to everyone to use their Google uh platform and a lot of schools jumped on board with that well I mean how many of you use Google in your professions uh not many um it's is getting more prominent now. So you have businesses that are Microsoft businesses and so when kids come out they they know the Google side of it but they don't know the Microsoft and so there's this big discrepancy between the knowledge base of what kids are and so then you so school districts have to pay for Microsoft stuff so that we can actually um teach them so that they have some idea of what that is and if you follow the news at
058all and I don't know where it's at. I haven't um looked at it, but you know, Montana was trying to become a the tech h a tech hub. And you know, a lot of that is also based off of, you know, who's going to win this thing with Microsoft and Google and what does that look like? And so there's really big um shift as to what should we be doing in schools, but like I've had conversations with people about this. It's going to be hard for schools if Microsoft makes you purchase. I mean now Google you have to pay for it too to get some of the stuff but it's just going to be really interesting with how all these things go and I think AI is just going to everything that we've been preparing
059for I really think it's going to flip everything and so it's going to be it's even harder to predict what's going to happen now um just because there might be you know AI might actually get someone to build something that's way more efficient and cheaper and whatever and all of a sudden that Chromebooks might be a thing of the past in like a year I mean we just don't know So that that was one nice thing about when we went for this contract for four years. We knew that, you know, we don't know if by then if Chromebooks are even going to be a thing at that point. And so we're always going to be having to face that as to what is I I think you're just going to see used to be like
060technology would double every seven years and now I think we're going to be looking at a year. >> Wow. >> You know, it's going to get it's going to go really fast. be used for >> I don't know if I answer your question. >> I appreciate it. >> I'll make the motion to approve the uh budget report. I'll >> second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? >> If not, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. End of the meeting. So >> hold on. So just trustes annual like what what what's the plan for that? What's what's your thoughts? >> Maybe your September meeting >> September meeting bring it. >> Yeah. So that'll it'll go to the county superintendent and so forth and you guys then he'll bring
061it to the September and he'll go over that for you guys. >> If you want that's fine too. Sounds great. >> All right. Thanks everybody. Um, thank you.