001All right. Welcome to our special meeting first January 29th. I would like to get a motion to approve the agenda for this evening. >> [clears throat] >> Adam. A second. Jim. All in favor? I. I. Any abstentions? Any opposed? Motion carried. I will then take a motion to accept an agreement between the Victor Central School District and an employee executed on January 16th, 2026. Elizabeth. A second. Adam. All in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. I'll then take a motion to adjourn our special meeting of January 29th, 2026. Elizabeth. Oh, give it to Carol. I'll second. All right. All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. All right. That was a quick meeting. We will now turn it over to Dr. Terranova and Christine for our first budget workshop of
002the year. Thanks, Mrs. Kostaki. And before I turn it over to Ms. Griffin, I just want to go over the first couple slides. This is a presentation on We're going to start as we always do with the goals of the budget. I'm going to speak very briefly about the current landscape and budgetary strategy. And then Christine's going to talk about the building budgets, the preliminary New York State Aid, and our budget calendar review. As we always show this, which is important, these are our goals. Maintaining a comprehensive education, trying to be as strategic as possible with our spending and maximizing our revenues through maximizing every dollar spent, but also trying to generate as much aid as possible in future years. Keeping our reserves stabilized, and of course being as transparent as possible. >> [cough] >>
003So, let's talk [clears throat] just for a couple minutes about the current financial landscape. So, to do that, I have to talk for just maybe a minute at the max about our history, which many people know, especially sitting at this table. So, for years and years we were a district, and I say years and years back to the '80s and '90s and into the 2000s, all the way up to 2021 that was significantly understaffed. A main reason for that was a significant enrollment increase between the '90s and early 2000s. Now, in the last 10 to 12 years, as you know, we've had stable enrollment, but that hasn't put a dent into our staffing needs where we were significantly understaffed then. Thanks to the leadership of the Board of Education and the community, two things happened
004in 2020. The community exceeded the tax cap, and between 2021 and 2024 we were finally funded what we would call appropriately through state aid because they gave us the money eventually in 2024 that we were supposed to get, at least for 1 year. Because of that, we ended up having some significant staff increases between 2021 and 2024, which basically right-sized our staff to a much greater degree, a more effective degree than ever before. That led to some excellent academic and other achievements. It includes significantly increasing our special ed graduation rate over the last two to three years, significant increases in kids participating and taking advanced placement courses, as well as their performance on those courses or on those exams. Significant increases in grades 3 through 8 assessment results. A much, much bigger increase in kids
005being able to take dual credit and college level courses, as well as workplace learning and work study and internships. Significant, actually a complete rehaul of our security infrastructure, as well as cleaning infrastructure. And in addition to that, we were able The community Thanks to the leadership of the board, we were able to pass a $99 million capital project with a 73% approval rate in October of '24, mainly due to being able to put enough money in our capital reserve. So, that's our history. Now, the challenge right now is balancing those recent and necessary staffing increases with a long-term fiscal sustainability of our district. What does that mean? So, if we just take this year's budget and roll it over to next year, no increase in staffing, no increase in equipment or supplies, but taking into
006account some of the major increases in health care costs and utility costs and other costs, we end up with about a expense increase of between 5 and 6% while looking at conservatively a revenue increase of 3 to 4%. That leaves a gap, a gap of somewhere between 1.1 and 3.3 million dollars. That again assumes no increases in positions and frozen spending on equipment and supplies. In addition to that, we needed to appropriate $3.6 million from the '24-'25 budget to use as revenue for this year's budget, which also creates a hole of $3.6 million moving forward. So, we got the $1.1 to $3.3 million gap, but we also have the gap that we're trying to fill through appropriating fund balance. So, what do we need to do? We need to bridge this gap while protecting student
007programs and existing staff. Here's the great news. We firmly believe, thanks to Christine's leadership, the board's leadership, and the work that we're going to be doing over the next few months, that we can do this without any reductions in student programming for next year, without any layoffs to staff, and maintaining the class size parameters that are listed on this slide. For kindergarten through second grade, that's 18 through 20 students. Grades 3 through 6, 21 to 23 students in a class. 7 through 12, our target is below 25. There are some classes such as single advanced placement courses in the high school and an occasional course of the junior high that's a singleton that might have to be greater than that, but we really like to keep classes in the lower to mid-20s at the highest.
008That's the short-term goal, and we're going to talk over the next few months, 2 months really, of how we're going to do that through trying to expand our revenues and save on expenses. Long-term, it's about advocacy and what I believe is innovation. Advocacy, the sports done an amazing job, over 10 meetings with legislators and state officials to try to take the state aid situation, which again is uncertain, and give us the appropriate state aid necessary to support our expenses and our appropriate levels of staff. In addition to that, so we're going to have more meetings with them over the next 2 months. In addition to that, the community partner idea that this board really created and came up with and charged us to do has come to fruition. As you all know, we have five
009ideas that we're going to move forward with in subcommittees over the next 3 to 4 months to try to look at outside-the-box ideas to increase revenue besides taxes and state aid, as well as save on expenses. So, we're going to really attempt to move from short-term to long-term fiscal health. I wanted to just give that quick update so everyone has the context of what we're facing and moving through this for this year's budgetary process. And I'll turn it over to Christine to get into the specifics of the building budgets. So, we're going to take a look at the other non-personnel costs. So, it contractual items, equipment, and supplies across our buildings. As we go through these slides, you're going to see a um a a noticeable trend trend of belt-tightening. The district leadership was given
010a goal. As you saw in the previous slides about no increase in supplies, materials, and contractual and equipment codes, given that projected budget gap that we've identified in our initial rollover budget. So, the building leadership really took a deep dive into their expenditure lines, looked at historical trends, and multi-year averages in their expenditures, and came up with some some savings, which I commend them for for the work that they did on that. I know it was some took some effort on their part, so. At the early childhood center, we projected 2.9% reduction in their expenditures, going from 113 thousand down to about 109, 110 thousand dollars. At the primary school, you see a 7.8% decrease at the the primary school level. I think there was some more gaps in some of their historical trends versus
011what was actually budgeted for their buildings. So, um they found some opportunities there in their contractual lines in particular, and also in their supplies. So, they are going from 110 down to about 102 for a 7.8% decrease. At our intermediate school, there's about a 2%. It's a little lower percentage decrease, but their trends historical trends to budget were pretty close, and it actually is one of the lowest per pupil spending [clears throat] amongst all of our buildings so they really didn't have a lot of opportunity for cuts in in those lines. So we worked through every single line in that and couldn't find a lot more than what we did. Just for people at home listening or if they reference this can can you speak to what equipment like what would categorize like what would
012fall under the equipment category or contractual cuz I think people know the supplies piece but those two contractual specifically like just a bit of an explanation. >> contractual could be something like um uh dues or um if you're going to membership for Nisma or something like that might show up for that particular building. So Nisma's Nisma is the New York State schools music >> music association. So those types of things will come into your contractual line at the building level. Things like utilities don't because those are in the operations budget that we did last month. Um so those those lines aren't that big but say for example at the high school might be a little bit bigger just because we have graduation and that's a contractual expense. So professional services um registrations for maybe a
013conference um um something like that. Um if they go to um on a um Field trips are in that line as well. Okay. Okay? Thank you. Unless they book it through BOCES and that's a another presentation. Okay and and equipment would be something like um musical instruments at that at that particular building. Some would be an example of that or maybe at the high school maybe something for tech classrooms that would fall under that category. So if there's like a new course proposal and they need materials it would fall under equipment. Or supplies. >> It really it really depends on what it is. So we'll do the that might fall under the office of instruction it really depends on if it's a district-wide type roll out if it covers multiple buildings. This is really more
014building specific. >> Thank you. Yep. Um at the junior high we saw a little more of a savings there. Oh I'm back. Did I go the wrong way? Just to correct the math yeah it's 125 instead of just so people know that it is a decrease not an increase the bottom total is just a typo. Oh we'll have to we'll have to take a look at that. We'll fix we'll fix that before we put it in. They're they're yep. Um at the junior high that went down $10,000 again a lot of looking at the trends and and saw that there was some opportunities there to decrease. At the senior high school we had a 3.6% decrease. Here's one where I show you you mentioned the contractual codes that's a little bit bigger as you'll see
015from the other buildings. There's there's just things that happen that go on at the high school level for contractual stuff. Um uh kids going to um more academic outside co-curricular type activities that that drive those numbers. So overall um you know with the work done by the leadership team at the buildings they were able to decrease 4.8% on the building equipment contractual and supplies codes overall. Christine how how are these uh on teachers you know for instance I know over the years teachers spend out of their own pockets for you know materials for their classrooms so I'm concerned about that. So the instructional allocations amongst the teachers within those codes they did not change those those each one had a little bit of cushion above and beyond what was allocated to some of those teachers
016individually so it's not impacting the teachers individually. We did make some changes in our library codes just based on the reductions in our state aid on our over the years that has occurred in our materials aid but that doesn't mean that we won't be able to support those things for with additional with a budget transfer like we would have historically done in the past. The the great thing about right-sizing the equipment contractual and supplies codes is those are the codes that people can put POs on in the software. So if someone sees they have 10,000 in a line they might spend 10,000 in a line we want to make sure that it's they're spending what they need and not just spending to spend down their lines. Does that make sense? So but the the teacher
017allocations have have not been touched. There were actually some areas that we had to increase that weren't reflected from last year. So we did incorporate some increases and there were other decreases. Some of the things on the supply codes in the contractual were not at the the teacher level they were at the administrative budget codes or the building level budget codes so they have like at the the smaller at the younger grades the building most of their building supply budget is in one code. So they might have 50,000 in a line and then they allocate it to the teachers their allocation to the teachers might end up being 30 because they'll allow for increases like they leave a cushion to allow for increases later on. So it's not directly impacting the the allocation that was
018given to those teachers. Yeah Christine >> That's a great question. I had a similar question. Just thinking about you know I always hear teachers complaining about supplies not complain but they need supplies or they're buying it themselves and were able to communicate the mission like hey this this is coming but we're doing this because you were more important than you know was that able to cuz I can just it comes down to a budget like hey can you tighten up supplies for next year like to a teacher that's just like oh my gosh seriously you know? I don't know if that was or did it not hit the teachers it stayed with the principals. No it definitely the the principals definitely communicated with their teachers around this and >> [clears throat] >> Christine communicated that
019with the leadership staff and then I communicated really those first three slides have been communicated with our staff already which includes the fact that we're looking at no increases net total of supplies and equipment and no increases net of staffing and why and [clears throat] but the good news is preserving programs not reducing teachers not cutting teachers and not changing our class size parameters which are the three big you know rocks that we need to stay focused on so for example on what was it Monday I sent a message to the staff explaining that and Christine did so with the leadership staff as well and then actually tomorrow we're going to send the same message not as specific but generally to the community in my community message. So everyone should know the situation we're in
020and what we're trying to do. And would there be a shift like from one building to another for example the sixth grade cohort is larger than other elementary cohorts and they moved to the junior high school next year so that's also taken into account as Brian Gee looks at the junior high budget for some of these items knowing that he's receiving more students. So the overall allocation per building is not done on a per pupil basis on a per pupil count. I did do some reallocation of our library budget based on a per pupil count but within the library overall the group as a whole they can transfer between each one of the lines. We can always do a budget transfer between buildings later on. So on an overall basis um that you know so
021and also on our like I said our our spending per pupil I actually did look back a couple of years it's old to it's it's it's from 2024, which is the what I had access to quickly to kind of take a look at it to see where everyone was trending. And they're all not too far off from each other in the low 100 like what it ranges from like 123 to 196 at the high school level is 196 cuz there seems to be more on travel and and trips and things like that, but their per pupil allocation is not that different. Thank you. Karen, would you like to join us? >> [laughter] >> Karen squared. >> [clears throat and laughter] >> Just quickly. Just quickly to to your point Tim around the the teacher allocations,
022there also is to a much greater emphasis on some of the provisioning around curricular resources to support all of our classrooms. So when we think about K6 humanities instruction right now, we're provisioning through the office of instruction curricular materials, classroom tax, workbooks, intervention resources. That's coming through a centralized location and not up to teachers to provision for the book clubs in their classroom or for those kinds of things. We're trying to do it in a more centralized way. So that's also part of the ways that we're looking at expenditures and supporting the teachers in that way too. So they don't have to be on their own island to get some of those materials and the things that they are purchasing for their classrooms can really meet the needs of the kids at hand from year
023to year. Thank you. Thanks, Karen. Overall though the that that these dollar values if you look at compared to the overall budget from 25 26 at 711 represents. Of course I don't have the full numbers for 26 27. So I'm I'm looking at the 25 26, but overall it's about 0.6 of our budget. So it's not a big portion of our budget. So a lot of our cushion really is in our um health we budget a cushion in our health insurance lines and our staffing lines to make sure that we have opportunities to if someone comes to us with something during the course of the year. So with a request to be able to accommodate them. So um I don't think we've had a had a situation unless I'm not aware of where we haven't
024been able to accommodate. Um looking ahead and kind of looking at the other side of the budget. Last week the governor released the her budget numbers and looking at the for for Victor, our budget increase for from this year's state aid output reports. That is what comes out in December based so that first column it's different than what we put in our budget last year. These are what we actually are anticipated to receive during the 25 26 school year. They're the December state aid output reports numbers that are based on our reporting of final expenditures from the prior year. So if you notice like your building aid, your BOCES aid, your transportation aid, those are all expense based aids. So those aren't pinned down in the spring time when the budget numbers come out, they
025get pinned down in December. So if you notice those lines for for example BOCES aid went up significantly from what um they're they're that went up from the prior year, but it also went up from the um for next year because of what we are projecting to be spending during the 25 26 school year on that line. So um we actually and you're going to see on the next slide I'll give you some numbers, but we are actually going to be about $611,000 higher than we originally budgeted for 25 26 for our state aid. So that's great news. The 26 27 governor's numbers are only going up though from what we actually are getting this year 1.26%. You notice there's some big increases. There's some smaller increases. And we've had a couple of little reductions,
026but overall we have about $516,000 coming in from an increase in state aid. Again, this is very early in the governor's in the budget season. There's a lot of opportunities for that to change over the next several months and we all know April 1st is the due date, but we may or may not have those that information at that point in time either. And as you can see obviously the foundation aid is the big one. So there's good news and bad news. The good good news is this year the governor gave us in her initial run a 1% increase. Last year she didn't give us any increase. The bad news is we really need a 3 to 4% increase, which is why between now and whenever that budget is finally approved by the legislators, we
027have to do some significant advocacy to get that number up and really support what we've talked about, which is adjusting the foundation aid to support more special ed accurate numbers and other areas that we can focus on. Christine, you said that the number can change. Is it possible it could decrease between now and April? That is possible. Okay. It is possible. I don't normally see that. Typically you will see an increase because I think she kind of starts low and the others go high and they meet somewhere in the middle. It again Dr. Sharon Hover mentioned it's really good news that she started with a 1% base because last year she said nope, if you don't we won't take money away from you, but we're not going to give you any more. So last year
028it was a 0% increase if you were on save harmless. So this year she's starting at 1%, which is good news I think. I'm hoping it's good news. So >> [snorts] >> as I pointed out in the last slide, the 25 26 state aid is coming in $611,000 greater than budgeted. Fantastic news. The building amount for 26 27 is um uh the building aid amount is unlikely to change due to our current capital project cuz some of that expenses won't get finalized and those debt service payments don't happen until after the 20 627 school year. We're still working through some of the timelines of the financing based on when we find figure out um filing the final expenditure reports, but as you remember when you you know, we're looking at doing the capital project, your
029debt service payments minus your building aid equals your local share that had that tax impact that was talked about during that time. The again, I also mentioned about the expense based aid. So those estimates for BOCES and transportation is really based on the 20 526 projected expenditures in those categories. That's subject to change obviously as we get to in the spring time and we finalize those numbers. We support we report them in the fall. December they tell us the aid that we're going to get based on that. So looking ahead our work we have several things ahead of us. We have several meetings um two in in February, two in March and again in April when we review the final budget and adopt it. >> [snorts] >> The budget hearing is on May 5th and
030our voter registration is on May 12th and the vote will be on May 19th. At this time if there's any questions anybody wants to dive into anything deeper, I welcome any questions. I have one more. Back to the preliminary state aid. Um what falls under other state aid? So under other that is our excess cost aid what's driving that down predominantly is our excess cost aid for the high cost students. So basically anything above and beyond a basic local share for those types of students that are that are high cost that have a lot of additional services necessary. So based on reported numbers of students like anticipated to be in those programs. Again, these are projections for next year. So it's hard to project who's going to be in those programs at this point in
031time. And what the cost of those programs are. I think what's really driving that down is is more that they are anticipating a growth in our local share based on um some other driving factors that that put us in a in a hold harmless or save harmless situation in our foundation aid is um the wealth ratios in our community based on the growth in the community and the assessed property the assessment of the property values. Also income that gets reported when you file your taxes and you put the the school district code, they collect all that data and it factors into determine wealth in the district. Those things are combined into a ratio that drives the calculations for some of these numbers. So our the biggest portion of that reduction is a reduction in our
032excess cost aid, but other things that go into that aid are instructional material aid is in that number. Some small stuff, but the bulk of that 1.6 is the excess cost aid. Is there is there federal aid for things such as the special needs students that can help with this? So the federal money is accounted for in the special aid fund and not accounted for in the general fund budget. So we already max out our 611 and 619 grants at this point in time unless there's a growth in those two numbers there's no way to transition more costs over to those if we're already maxing them out. So there won't be anything additional to cover that but um We do see an increase in our UPK numbers next year which we're going to be looking
033at that to see if there's an opportunity for that to help support our general fund budget a little bit as well. I know there's been a little bit of a local share on our UPK but it's very minimal at this point in time so that's a project that Karen Fenter and I will be taking a look at to see how that works for us. You're welcome. I just want to say thank you to the to you and the leadership team the principals for really doing that deep dive like I like the looking at what is accurate instead of guessing you know it's like even at home when I'm budgeting you know it's like well what did you spend last year for real and just but still leaving enough cushion because you know I don't want
034to get back to the days where we ran out of masking tape in May so no kids artwork school it goes up on the walls so So I like that you're keeping a little bit of cushion just keeping in mind you know we like to have some of those reserves for next year's budget so we won't have as many and just keeping that in the back of mind but this is the smaller portion of the budget so it won't shouldn't impact but I appreciate that there was a lot of work in looking at what do we really spend and I appreciate that. >> They did a great job it was great conversations I think it was eye opening looking at some of the historical trends and and seeing that gap and it made them realize
035well maybe there is an opportunity here so that was great I we will be sending out a memo to to staff we do a cut off at for our purchase order so that we can do some final costs that last year because of how when I started that memo went out a little bit later than normal and the people kind of panicked we're going to send that out now so they know that March 31st please get your POS on so that we know what you plan to spend for the rest of the fiscal year so we know what we have left to help with with filling the gap in our budget if there if there remains one so It is like that was an eye opener for me that like they had to decide by
036March what they're going to do next year so it's like you're Well we're actually having these we and and I'm actually a little my opinion some of the conversations I had in January were a little later than I would normally do it's just we've had a lot of upheaval in our office but we um We had a lot of these conversations we could you know we're talking in January now about what these teachers the allocations might be for the next years it is hard it is hard you know they people think when they get their their spreadsheets in the spring time about what their allocations are for their budget lines and how to allocate that amongst the the the teachers in their building they get that in May or June after the budget's open and
037we say okay we're going to start putting on our Amazon POS and we're going to put everything in the software now for you to be able to order for the next school year and they think that's budgeting well budgeting's done by then budgeting's done by May so this year we took those same spreadsheets and we started with those so our purchasing assistant Susie has been a wonderful at taking those spreadsheets and putting them in a format so that we can actually start from a budgetary perspective on it so it's decided up front what those allocations are and not being reactive later on saying here's what your total is now go ahead and allocate it. We're taking those from what we did last year using it as a base to build the budget instead and that's
038where we identified some of the cushions too. Yeah so that was great so thank you for doing that. Welcome. Christine with our total buildings budget I think it's 512 for the 2526 school year budgeted was 711 is it ever typical that there is leftover funds in this account and if so what happens to those monies? >> So we look at the overall budget so at the end of the year if if you had $10,000 in a line you spent $9,000 those funds go into the the bottom of the bottom of the bucket on that right hand column of that appropriation status report that everyone sees that is what we put into our fund balance so it's it at the end of the year when we look at what do we have left over how much
039did you appropriate for next year that little extra money that we were able to put into a reserve that's where all of that goes in so it helps to you know helps us be able to save for future projects and and and build our reserves which you know I know we talked about at one of the last meetings about what our reserve situation is as a district not just our capital reserves and total reserves but also what are our non capital reserves and where we are in relation to not just other districts but what is what is our comfort level as as a district so we're one of the lower ones around so for a district our size so that's something that we definitely need to be addressing for future years to make sure that
040we're we're stable. So if there was like seven grand left over in contractual for high school that doesn't necessarily roll over into the contractual for the 2627 budget. >> not. Okay just for clarity thank you. >> Right and if they're if they have an outstanding PO at the end of the year so say for example graduation comes along and we've put on the PO for the graduation ceremony whatever that might be say it's $10,000 to rent whatever we're doing. If we haven't received the bill by the by the end of that year we actually can roll that we roll that over so if there's something that is purchased that there's a that an order has been placed and it's not received by June 30th we do roll those POS forward but there's certain criteria that
041decides whether did we receive the goods and it becomes payable or did we not receive the goods and it becomes a carryover PO so that would be the only time that it would become a carryover PO I'm not a big fan of carryover POS because it muddies the next year's budget and I think it confuses that that report so say the next year and it can artificially inflate so if they had 10,000 they spent seven they've got three left and if they had just kept an open PO and they carried it forward to the next year next year their budget would they'd see 10,000 to start 3,000 in the adjustment column and then they they think they have 13,000 and that 3,000 maybe does get spent and they spend 13,000 they think that show that
042skews their historical trends so it makes it look like they spent 13,000 in that one year when really they didn't so that's why we looked at three year trends thank you you're welcome. One thank you two so our reserves are low comparative and I just would like to point out that they're pretty much non-existent previous years ago so I mean I know there was a gen genuine concerted effort by this board and the boards before to actually build the reserves and create the other reserve accounts. When there are funds left over to Mrs. Mitchell's point of that goes into fund balance are there any specific line items that are restricted as to far as what they can go to specifically? No. >> As far as a reserve? So we have kind of the district has
043free reign as far as what reserve or bucket to put that in? Right. >> Okay. Right bottom line if you have a 100 you have a 109 million dollar budget if you know and if our goal is to have 5% left let me let me round it down to make it easier math if if we have a 100 million dollar budget and we spend 95 million dollars and we have 5 million left it's all an overall bucket the only thing that restricts where it goes for the next year as if your budget goes up 110 million dollars you can that there's a 4% set aside that every district has because and you need that part of that is a cash flow situation because you don't have funds coming in in July and August and a
044lot of September of the tax bills not you know coming tax bills that money comes in usually later in September you have payroll in September a big big bump in your payroll so that 4% comes right off the top but it's it's the increment cuz you've already set aside 4% of the 100 million next year you'll be setting side 4% of 110 million so it's of the subsequent year budget you can set aside 4%. And I think it's important to note that we did have significant reserves a year ago but the board and we made the the strategic decision to put almost all of it in our capital reserve which is why 28 million went towards that now that 28 million is gone because we spent [snorts] it which is actually what we're supposed to
045do at least according to the comptroller so now the tricky piece is trying to replenish those reserves in this tight financial situation. And and then the last question and I don't know if it's beneficial to us or not but during the course of the current year are we doing some sort of gating with the expenditures to kind of help project of when those influx of spending those influxes of spending are going to occur in the following year so as we're budgeting we know that in November there's a real heavy emphasis on some contractual stuff. There's supplies kind of wane in pick your month. To position us as far as where we're going to be in a cash flow standpoint heading into reserves. So, usually when you get that time at that point in these the
046school year you've received your levy. Mhm. Which is for us about not quite 60% of our our our budget. So, we're fine as far as a cash flow perspective. Um and then our state aid starts flowing in December and January. So, that it's it is strategically um spaced out that way. So, we're okay there. Um it's not about cash. We actually have money in reserves um in a savings account. Um we are looking at at looking at different investment options for that that might lock those funds up, but right now that is somewhat liq- it's held in a liquid asset. So, in a worst case scenario from a cash flow perspective we have the cash available to us. Um although categorically it's it's defined as you know, reserve cash or or we have that 4%
047sitting uh sitting in our cash accounts as well. So, um as far as I I hope that answered your question as far as setting aside. We really don't set aside currently to say that, but it's that 4% sitting there. You've got as far you've got cash coming in for your taxes in the fall and then it shifts to more of the state aid money coming in. Yes, it does answer that. Not I wasn't asking about are we setting aside? I meant from a gating lack of a better term standpoint of knowing historical what's the trend of January? What's the trend of February? Where we know based on what we have as far as liquidity where is it going to be a little tighter? Right. >> calendar year so that I want to be certain that
048the district, you specifically and Dr. Ternova and everybody feels comfortable that there's not a sit- they're like, "Oh, April. Okay, it's going to be it's going to be lean in April and we know that." Is there a way that you are consistently comfortable with the liquidity of the district? So, so our treasurer does a cash flow um statement every month. So, she's looking at our cash flow. Um and we will pull in from the 4% if we need to, but we haven't had to because of the way the cash flow works in the fall. Um we are looking >> we do that without penalty? Yes. Okay. Yep. And the other um piece of that is um cuz that 4% is is is really kind of unrestricted. It's unappropriated fund balance. It's it's for us to
049use. The um other piece of this one of the things that we're looking at is a company that um a lot of the um Monroe County school districts are using which is called CashVest which will do an analysis for us. It comes with a cost, but they have a guarantee that you don't get charged unless they feel that they they can show that they can at least meet or exceed that um a return on your investment. So, if they look at it and say, "If you invested in this this and this at this time." and they will meet with us monthly and talk about based on our historical uh cash needs um they'll try and say, "It looks like this next month you're going to need this much money." because I'll I'll use the example
050in July and August we don't have as big payroll, but in September we do. So, we might be able to lock up some funds in July and August, but then we want to make sure we have that available for us. So, they'll look at those things for us uh which is which is a a great tool, but it's uh we'll see if they can meet their fees or beat their fees on the investment and that interest. So, but we do also um on the other side of it on the expense side we do projections. So, I start about December taking the current year budget looking at what I think we're going to spend in the lines based on historical trends, based on what I know, based on conversations with the department leaders um of of
051lines you know, a lot of the bigger ticket ones like health insurance and salaries are kind of set so those are easier uh in my office to to look at. Um so, we do on the expense side watch that too. So, we have some guardrails in place. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Just for clarity's sake um slide five, no reductions to student programming. Is that academic programming only or does that include like the overall student programming? You mind putting up uh Sorry. Thank you. You want to go back? To slide Yeah. Uh so, what was I'm sorry, Elizabeth. What was the question? The student programming if you could just expand on like what that means. Is it strictly academic programming like during the school day or would it be co-curriculars? Like I
052know we have boosters Our goal our goal is to have no reductions at any program. Any programming? That's related to kids. So, yes, that does include extracurriculars after school. school, things like that. Thanks. Anything else? Thank you, Christine, as always. It's a fun start to the year, isn't it? Uh and as a reminder as since we talked a lot about advocacy tonight, February 7th is the legislative breakfast. Um I was with uh the other board presidents and there was a specific request from Monroe County school boards to please, if you have not registered, do it at least 5 days in advance. The deadline is technically tomorrow. I know. They wanted at least 5 days. Technically try to get in tomorrow. Uh everyone is very excited that Bella and Aiden will be joining us at this
053year's breakfast. Um they actually said that they had the most attendees sign up and registered for this than they've seen in the last several years. That's great. So. Let's get ready for advocacy. Uh all right. We are all set then on the budget status and we'll move into our informal board goals review.