001All right, good morning everybody. We are here for the budget workshop. We had our last night and we are here so that we can have a discussion about where to move forward with the budget so that we can have a board meeting on Monday to adopt a budget. This is a board budget workshop. So it is for is a meeting for the board that I've heard from the public. There's no public discussion today. We did get lots of feedback last night which we will talk about today. So the goals for today's workshop we are going to do for we will review uh two key survey questions. We did an end to survey last night and there were about 10 questions on it. There were two questions that are very specific. One of you on where
002those that attended are relationship to the tax prior school and then at that point we'll turn it over discussion on budget. Um so just to quickly deep committee forum I I'll I'll give a start in really well. We had a scratch presentation and we us talk and you guys answer a lot of questions for people and show how informed you are about aspects of it. Um and then the moderators that we have the host is just absolutely amazing the discussions and bring to point for the discussions. Um so and then we got lots of great feedback people learned and said oh I didn't know that or I have changed my mind about this and so that you know that's good. companies. We did we did our we did our work and put out his information.
003What were your guys? It was it was a positive discussion. A lot of back and forth free flow was contentious as some of our other I think we were able to kind of explain where we were. I'm happy that we had participation anyone feedback. I mean right now we need some feedback in the news for this pressing issue which is the budget and what is going to be firewall before Monday. But moving forward, we can use all this information. First, I'd like to thank supporting us. I think the the community appreciate you guys being there. So, thank you very much. Hopefully, have back here. >> But I I know just from talking to, you know, certain individuals uh last night, they thought the forum was great and you know, people recommend prior to next year's
004uh budget and works out. We have another forum like that, general information. Hopefully the budget that we put out to be approved. Thank you again everybody that's watching and Kmart. Appreciate I appreciate it that there were a lot of people there from that have multiple viewpoints. We had parents, young kids, parents, graduates. Had a graduate here, a recent graduate, current college graduate now, but current college student that graduated from here to um we had senior citizens that have no ties to district whatsoever come in. And I even saw some young individuals that you could say in their California that I had never seen before. And I don't their parents. It really was an engaging good conversation on the topic and and it I think one of the things we was that it is very clear
005that everybody cares tremendously about the kids and so about these schools and that whatever the disagreements are or it's all comes from a place of wanting to pass and we can as we move forward for it and we as a collective can do a more conscious job getting things pulled down pushed out to the public and having okay so like I said we did do a survey um at the end of the evening related to things we covered last night and there were two questions that will help again as Mike just said are very specific to the budget and deciding a budget right now for two weeks ago. So the question two asks which of the following best reflex your perspective. I support a revised budget with some reductions and a moderate tax increase. I
006support maintaining programs and services evening taxes increase further. I prefer deeper reductions to minimize tax increases. I support a contingent budget, no tax increase and deep reductions and we're unsure. I need more information. So it was split pretty much the majority and adopted supporting revised budget with some reduction tax increase and then 12 people said they support maintaining programs to keep taxes in Greece. Um, and I know we did talk about that last night at tables and we had talked about that about that for a little while. I think the difference is we had those people in the room with us able to talk to them. How do we how could we get that message out to people that I I don't know that the great thing to take out of it is no one
007is so with that need everyone to go out and vote and this way it passes if it doesn't pass we have to continue we need to get to where we're at and it's we which is positive to see that we have support which is um looking at this as it's like you said Saturday shows that people care about maintaining programs and services. Um, with that I don't think we can go out with our watching that we just told you. I think it's too much of a risk. Um, it's great that people I just don't think it would be a risky proposition to go after that again because if it fails, we have to go from contingency. Um it's a it's a lesson learned here uh on our end I think about getting messaging out uh
008even though the information is accessible and everything was discussed in public forums obviously the message didn't get out and budget failures show us that so we need to do better job of outreach moving forward Um, but again, there's a lot of misinformation out on the internet and I I just implore people to ask more questions of why you're seeing the sources where it's coming from. >> Um, the other question that we asked a lot of discussion last night was about firework. So, I pulled the responses to that question as well and they offerings were whether to include the project in the operating budget or pursue a separate half of the project go and again very clear people had done um which is good and I agree we agree originally But again, I might just see
009it was voted down, but I think it majority of the people that spilled out the survey were okay with a little bit of a higher, but I think somewhere in between and then include the fire alarm satisfied everybody out there. Hopefully everybody that was there last night, like Mike said, informed their friends of what took place and encourage them to go out and vote and vote yes, whatever we come up with. >> Um, so at this point, I just wanted to share this slide once again. and it's the comparison of the original budget, the budget that we initially proposed on Tuesday. Uh then the two budgets that you guys asked us to come back with in addition to that initial proposal and then the intended budget. Um so just to remind everybody, the original budget
010we went out with was 4.87%. We discussed we proposed it at 2.98% trying to keep it under 3%. For the taxpayers then you guys asked us for 425 to either less on revenues or to put the fire back in. So those are the options that we had last night and that were those were all discussed last night at night by members. Um, so at this point I'm open up for your discussion and direction on moving forward and what what would you like us to proceed with the plan for Monday satisfied was It's the best at all. And again that's a lesson learning they really start question and everything said it's it's probably have some forms maybe twice a week and definitely a month or a little earlier before the budget goes out. So any misconceptions
011we can maybe form and then it doesn't spread like wildfire cuz honestly this quarter went off guard we didn't see this coming um and it happened and now because it happens. Unfortunately, it's a hard lesson to learn. Um, we don't want it to happen again. And I understand also there's a lot of other concerns that were mentioned recently and we're going to get to that. Those are all things that we're going to discuss and listen to the feedback that we have. It's just right now the pressing matter is rolling out this budget because of the tight timeline. So while many people might still have questions say well they're not answer not answering this that or the other thing we're aware of the other issues um we're hopefully going to have more of session on tuition
012rates on uh discussion obviously the class section wasn't an issue that's something that We're always considered, by the way, we've been talking about this for a long time. This isn't something, you know. Um, this is something that is constantly discussed. So, I just wanted to put that to bed that people think that we're ignoring those issues. They're not ignored. They're very discuss. It's uh there's a form though when we discuss it. We cannot have a forum where we publicly discuss people, places, and things. There's laws against that. So, we're aware and we will uh you know, we'll have more answers for you. Email the board questions. We'll get an answer and we will see the we will see the email and we consider all the information. >> I think that's what's key here is that
013>> you guys absolutely take all feedback in making a decision. what people may not realize is and sometimes you guys have more information about additional things that other people may not have and there some of those things could be shared publicly and some of those things can't be shared public >> but you absolutely make your decisions with the input from everybody it may not be the decision someone likes or any student wants but as a board I have to say I've been very impressed with you take all opinions into consideration agree read everything that's sent to you. You listen to the public comments and you then and the confidential information that's shared related to decisions and and fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer. You have a lot of weight on your shoulders as board members and
014in our special interest groups vying for attention and money and programs and things like that. It's your job to represent everybody and so you guys did an excellent job on that and I'm sure that you consider a public workshop understanding that because you know we're elected to represent the community that's small Um, you're always looking for someone else. It's that's how it works. We're there for we're there as trust trusty as a trusty discussion. We are giving it more often to give feedback to address and there's a reason why there's no direct response if you have the question. There's a reason for it. Like I said, educate the public a little more to that understand first. I mean, you know, like Mike said prior, you know, we do post when when we have the the
015public budget workshops, but uh and I think Aaron said it before, I think we need to somehow get that information out to the people in the community, you know, and and to get more people engaged and obviously the budget workshop is a little different because we, you know, you're there just to listen as a community member discusses the the ideas that we have, but at the forum just said that's where we can gather your feedback before we close the budget out to the community to make sure and uh you know just to touch on you know something Mike said obviously we do read all the emails and um you know we we do respond that we've received them I just don't want the community think that we're going to respond with answers to all those
016emails um answers will be provided whether it's in a presentation or maybe if it's a simple email question, we can answer that via email. Um, but you know, not all answers are going to be all emails are going to be responded via email. >> I just want to make sure everybody's aware that >> it's considered everything everything that's mentioned is considered when we discuss issues based on something. >> No, I just want to reiterate that just to make sure you know when somebody sends an email, they're not expecting the response to an email. Also, some there are some things that are board level questions, but there's other things that are teacher level questions or principal level questions or assistant superintendent or business official level questions or superintendent level questions. And if and people are skipping
017all those steps and coming straight to you, maybe sometimes the need is to be, have you spoken to this person yet? Right? Have you asked this question? Because we can answer a lot of those questions informally that come along way. It doesn't need to be a big formal board presentation. If someone just wants to know, hey, can you pay for the fire alarm out of Title One funds? No, we can't. Title One funds do this. That that can be a two second phone call conversation or email to the business official um or to the superintendent. It doesn't necessarily be important conversation. So I encourage people if you have questions related to our schools, our programs, our staff, the district itself, ask us directly if you're not. But to bring us back to this discussion, um,
018regarding this, I I hope a majority of the people that filled out the the surveys, um, it seems like they were in favor of a small tax levy increase over.9%. And including the firearm and and I hope that people that might have been against that also fill this survey out didn't just not submit the survey. Um because obviously we want to go out with a budget that will be approved uh by the community. You know, like I stated last night, um the board is is here to support the community. Um the students of the district, the staff of the district. Uh we want to, you know, continue supporting everybody here and and we want to make this a long-term solution, not just for next year, but moving forward and years down the road. So, um,
019just please make sure you talk to your neighbors, get them out and and have them include the the budget that is going to be right. That's a big move forward. That's the what you just the language for the vote for that in terms of the numbers put out. We'll work next week on the newsletter as well as communicating out to staff and community about the made as part of this process internal and external. Start as soon as we can. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.