001All right. So, uh, tonight is the, uh, 202526 budget hearing presentation. This is, uh, also known as the final budget, uh, hearing. And, uh, the information that's shared as part of this presentation is very similar to the tenative budget presentation which was done in March, um, which has been on the website for a couple months as well. This is going to be a shorter presentation just because that information is already up there. We do have an appendix section at the end of this. So if you're interested, if you haven't gotten the opportunity to review the numbers more closely, you will have the opportunity to do so um in this presentation. But this presentation is really just about four quick things. First is reviewing the budget process and timeline. The second is our key priorities. The
002third is a quick outline of revenues and appropriations. And then the fourth is our tax impact. So in terms of the budget process and timeline, we are now at the last phase of uh creating the 2526 budget. We've gone through basically six months of development starting in November when the budget manual was distributed to budget managers and then a number of collaborative steps which culminated in the March presentation which was the approval of the tenative budget and the submission of the budget to the county office. So when we talk about 2526 obviously we are centering all of our work on our three pillars building relationships creativity and innovation and small town vibes and our core mission which is the uh mission statement for the district which obviously drives uh the pillars and all the rest
003of the work that we do with goal setting. Our district goals this year uh are likely to be our district goals for next year. They're similar to our district goals in the past. Um, obviously with community engagement as the fourth goal that was added. The district goals when we think about the goal setting that we do and the the the way that we allocate funding, our district goals are always at the center of that uh conversation and those discussions are really looking at how can we improve in each of the areas that are outlined. So we use a cyclical uh process um based on our core mission, right? What are the core beliefs that we have? So when we talk about something like uh facilities, right? What are our core beliefs in the area of
004facilities? What is the foundation of our work? What are our non-negotiables? And we think about let's say in facilities a safe and clean uh learning environment um that's suitable for you know all students to be successful. Our desired outcomes are you know we look at the goals what does success look like and what's achievable. We want to have obviously uh rigorous goals but achievable goals. We look at actions in data collection and one of the things we've really focused on this year is always behaviors. So when we think about uh any position or any process, what is it that staff members should be doing uh in order to really get success out of their their role? um and what what behaviors can we identify and then what behaviors can we train for and what behaviors
005can we hold accountable. So uh this is a this has been a really nice addition to our work because folks are doing uh much more focused work really in every part of the organization. Fourth is monitoring and adjusting. So we take sort of formative assessments of the things that we're doing, what's working, what's not, and then we really try to adjust our processes or adjust our our timelines and tracking progress to change course if needed. We then go back and just start the whole thing again. And so this process has been very helpful. You know that we've been working with stutter on some very specific district level goals. We'll be using uh stutter to talk about school level and department level goals much more closely next year. Um and that always behaviors piece of it
006is a really critical aspect. In terms of the key priorities for 2526, these are really the same ideas that were shared as part of the tenative budget process. We have a lot of new resources that are being piloted from K8. Now we will have a uh systematized set of uh programming core resources for ELA. We're looking at new resources for 612 for uh science social studies. uh the resource adoption is not going to take place next year but we will be looking at new resources to support uh a new uh sequence of courses and new uh attributes in terms of the courses uh the learning progressions and what we want to see in instruction in terms of math we've been working on the building thinking classrooms work we'll also continue with the prism's VR work
007the goal of thinking classrooms is to get students out of their seat and engaged and in a dialogue and a conversation about their learning as opposed to sort of sitting passively and and taking in information. Our teachers have been great. Uh they've been really wonderful with this and this is actually work that's happening starting in third grade uh going all the way up to to 12th grade. So really really fantastic engagement work. In terms of staff support, we're looking at uh ways to empower staff members to be able to provide support for their peers. So we're looking for uh creating expert facilitators in Wilson reading uh for fund foundations which is our uh phmic awareness program that is uh in K really K5 K4 um and then also used with multilingual learners. Uh and we
008have a lot of coaching that we've been doing with outside groups up the bar um who's been working on supporting multilingual learners. We've been using Danna Opatoski for ELA implementation and she's going to be working in the middle school and then we've been doing uh support of PLC work throughout the district multi-tered system of supports and then a number of other items. So all of that work will continue. That's really the core that's the good work. Uh in terms of special education, we have a a very strong focus next year on in-class resource. Um, we have applied for three grants, three school-based grants for uh, three-year support in each school for in-class resource um, technical assistance and direct coaching. So, we're we're excited about that. We hope that we get all three grants. We're hope,
009you know, hopeful that at least one of those will come through uh, at a minimum. We're also looking at adding registered behavioral therapists support. These are uh highly trained par profofessionals who have um they are paraprofessionals but they have uh some ABA training and applied behavioral analysis so they can work with students who have more significant needs in the classroom. And then we have core and supplemental uh curriculum updates as well. We are looking at full-time staff members uh about five or six new positions. Uh instructional coaching is something that we posted for this year but we were not really able to find a suitable candidate. We think that putting these postings out in the spring, we're likely to get a much better pool of candidates for for those those positions. We are considering additional
010interventionist positions, but I think that we probably have a the right number at this point, but intervention is going to be an area where we're going to continue to support. We have special education teaching needs. We have additional speech and OT needs. Uh we're looking at bilingual counseling support. We have a as as you all know we have over 60% of our students are Hispanic. We've added a number of uh English as a new language teachers throughout the district. And so from an instructional perspective we're in good shape. We have our community parent involvement specialist who is bilingual. So we have parent support. And the one area that we seem to be missing a little bit or where we could use some more support is direct support for students who are dealing with uh trauma
011and who are dealing with significant needs from the situations that that brought them to this country. Um and really having someone to to speak to. This would be more students in general education um because students with special needs and IEPS have that support built into their program. Students in general education don't necessarily have that. And so we have our uh school wellness uh coordinators, but we don't necessarily have the the all of the support that we could have. So that's really what we're looking at. Otherwise, we'll be maintaining all of the staff that we have uh in terms of sectioning, all of the support staff that we have um and won't won't be making any reductions in any area uh in in those in in staffing. Mr. Pepe So, for the budget hearing, we kind
012of skip all of the little details, but they're all in the appendices. So, if anyone um at home or any of the board members wanted to review any of the details, they are in the presentation that will be posted on the website. Um but this is a uh a summary of our revenues. Um very high level in our general fund. You can see what we had last year or in the current year which is 20 2425 and what we're projecting out for next year and just see overall how we've um our revenues are increasing or decreasing. And so in this case our general fund which is the vast majority of of our work we are increasing by 12.3%. Um some of that has to do with facilities projects that are um part of money that
013comes out of capital reserve. And so that that's not um that's not a de an increase based on tax levy. That's an increase based on all of our revenues including our our withdrawals from reserves and things like that. Special revenue fund, those are our grants that fluctuates every year. Um we're actually pretty lucky to see it increasing this year because this current year was the end of the esser grants in September was September 30th was the final ending date of um ARP which was the third round of esser grants and so there's a decrease from that but we've increased with other revenues we've got an increase in our um preschool education aid a significant increase there we have other grants that we're applying for so um we're pretty happy to see an increase there. Our
014debt service fund is pretty level. This is the funds that we are paying back from prior year bonds. And so this is just the um scheduled increase that was laid out when the bonds were originally sold. And so appropriations. So that was our revenues, the money coming in. This is the money that we're anticipating spending. and just a a sense of where the money is going. And and what we're happy about here is that the administrative and the other are your decreases. And the general ed, special ed, and facilities, which are really important, are all increasing. Now, facilities is a um it's showing a 70% increase that has to do with facilities projects that are coming out of capital reserves. So that's a little misleading to say it's 70% it is a 70% increase but
015um that's why it's we're not raising taxes to pay for that that's coming out of our reserve. Um employee benefits is always going to be increasing that's not only health benefits but other benefits that are paid out to our employees. So, you know, seeing an increase for general ed, uh, and a significant increase for special ed, those are are key to being able to say we are trying to do the best we can to provide the best education we can and keeping our administrative costs and other costs down. Whoops, I went too far. I really went too far. All right, that's it. We're all Okay, appropriations. And this is the slide that everyone's waiting for. my favorite slide because it tells you everything and it tells you nothing. This slide is here just to show
016you that the amount of money we're anticipating bringing in our revenues is exactly equal to the amount of money that we are budgeting to spend. And this is the goal when we sit down to do a budget is to say we've got to figure out how to keep our appropriations within the available revenues. And we have done that yet again. So, yay. And as always um for the public, people need to know how is this impacting me? And so this slide shows you the tax impact. Um using the information I get from the bureau, the average home assessment for this year is $461,000 six or461,64. And so a increase of about $193 for that home if you are the resident who has that exact home. But for everyone else who doesn't have that exact rate,
017if you want to kind of get a nice a sense, for every $100,000 of assessed value, um your taxes would increase about $40, which is listed at the bottom. So, if you had a $500,000 house, you would be 5 time 41, which is a little over 200, $26 would be your increase. And I think Dan, did you want to Thank you, Mr. Pepe. So, this budget represents obviously as as we've discussed, sustained support, continued commitment to supporting all students. Much of the increases over the last three years have been for students who really have shown the highest need and we are committed to ensuring that all of those students feel supported. Um sustained support for the development and improvement of all staff. We have really focused a tremendous amount of our our funding and attention
018and energy on staff development. Um and this is an area where we will continue to invest our staff. Uh really are the the sort of the heart of all of the work that we do for students. Um and when staff are well supported and well trained, we know that that's the thing that will give us better outcomes for our students. Um a commitment to parent and family uh community engagement, right? We're maintaining our CPIS position, our community parent involvement specialist. We also are uh as Mr. Pepe mentioned, we're also uh at universal prek uh levels where about 90% of uh prek seats will be available for next year. That means 90% of eligible or potentially eligible three and four year olds in the community of Denellan will have a an opportunity for free universal prek
019full day. Um and that type of engagement with all the support that comes with it I think is a really phenomenal thing for the the community. Uh and then funding and planning for facilities related needs. We know that uh we our our population continues to grow. We are bursting at the seams um in this building and uh in the high school and we need to create more space. So we were successful in applying for the preschool expansion facilities aid uh grant which uh gave us a little over $3.5 million in funding for the state from the state for a $6 million project. And so th that project is is you know shortly going to be underway and that'll be in the bidding process and we'll talk more about that as we go. Overall, this has
020been a very inclusive project. Uh pro uh the administrative team and uh many folks have been involved in the development of the budget. This does balance the short-term and long-term needs as we've discussed and as I shared at the last um budget presentation. We had a number of adjustments that we were eligible to take. Um we have some adjustments that are that will expire by us not taking them. We are committed to uh trying to keep taxes at around 2% if it means that we can have a healthy budget. Next year we have about $850,000 in uh taxable uh taxable monies that we can uh ask from the community. Um and it will expire if we don't if we don't take those adjustments. But if the district continues to receive increased state funding, then um
021we'll obviously not take advantage of those um unless really ultimately necessary. If we do see a decrease, we have that cushion where we can um raise additional taxes um from, you know, as part of what the state uh determines to be our our local fair share. And then the final budget, obviously we have uh we have maintained all of our existing programs and staff um and will continue to provide additional enhancements. Before we get to questions, I'll just show you that the appendix is here. These are the slides that were in the tenative budget presentation pretty much unchanged. our general fund revenues, our special run special revenue fund revenues, debt service revenues, and then our appropriations slides uh by type, by category, um special revenues and then debt service as well. So those are available
022as well. This presentation is online, Ryan. It will shortly be online. It is online. So or it will shortly be online. So it'll be in the budget section. will also be in the board agenda section. So there are multiple opportunities to review it. The video of this presentation or at least the audio depending on technical uh issues will be posted as well on the website for anyone to take a look at if needed. So with that I am happy to answer any questions uh or take any comments from the board members. Thank you to both of you. Um I'll just add I think that um we should be very proud of the work being done in our district with prek and thank you to you and Miss Drakin and Miss Van Ross for all the
023leadership in that. I think it's something really um that we can really be proud of as a district. um when many districts are struggling with this this opportunity from the state, we really went out there and made it happen. So um you know kind of many of us are here on the board aren't taking advant um sort of as the hallmark of our district and we should we should we should brag about that every chance we can get. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. And I and I'll just take a moment to to thank u you know when I came to the district in 2223 we had a a lot of conversations about applying for preschool expansion and we just didn't have the right um the right uh group of folks to be able
024to do that. When I brought Miss Drapkin into the district, she had experience with preschool expansion in her prior district and she really did take the lead on it. So we're we're extremely extremely thankful for her work. Um and Miss Van Ross has taken over the helm this year as the supervisor of early childhood and she's done a great job. So very very thankful for for both of them. Okay. Well, thank you all. Um I think we have a public comment section on the budget, right? So I'm going to sit down. You're going to come back and then we'll open it up.