001Ethical go city school district board of education facilities and finance committee work session. So first on the agenda well it's called a comment. Before we get there let me say Miss Yurwood is joining us zoom or some kind of remote. Let's get her on. >> Hello Karen. Can you hear us? >> Yes, I can. Hello. >> You can't hear. >> Can't hear Karen. Okay. Karen can maybe nod her head up and she can hear us. Okay, so Miss Yearwood is on board and I know Mr. Fox said he'd come extremely late but we can go ahead and get started. Dr. CR, right? So up front up is item 2.1 public comment. I did see about one meeting on the signing sheet. No. >> Oh, that's just to sign in to come in. Nobody signed up
002to speak. >> No one sign up to speak. Okay. Uh All right. Well public comment. Uh and no committee response. Uh I'm going to defer well on Karen. So I think we can approve the minutes. That's we have we have to so I had no problem with the minutes. Karen, you want to nod your head if you're okay with them? >> Yes, they are okay. >> Do we know why we're not getting heard from the speakers? probably computer. Karen, >> go ahead and try and say something. >> I agree with the minutes. Okay, try it out. >> I agree with the minutes. that so I think since Karen can hear us maybe um do you want to talk us through the ination of counts why they work on this and we'll come back Back to
003minutes. >> Karen wrote that she agreed with minutes. >> Okay. Karen agreed with minutes. So the minutes are done. So now we move to item five, consideration accounts. >> Um I need to grab it. Take one second. >> Was 4.1 was the capital. >> Oh. Oh, you know what? Actually, I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm >> using That's actually okay. Sorry. Um >> yeah, let's do 41. uh capital project construction update. That's >> yeah, >> I was just trying to find something that wasn't too >> Sure. >> But if if Karen's good, we can we can go ahead as planned. So, let's do that. Yeah. >> So, uh I have a I have a brief PowerPoint uh mainly just some photos of the active uh construction that we have. Uh and for those in the room
004and online that are joining again, I'm Travis Randall. with campus construction management group and we're uh managing the active construction projects that are ongoing throughout the district and the updates that I have for this evening are primarily uh here at the high school for this for the uh STEM improvements. And so I'll go ahead and begin. I got a couple of slides here just with some photos. Uh this first photo is uh exterior uh STEM additions. This is the auto shop and kind of open stem area. Uh exterior kind of bricks complete. You could see uh there's there's u the aluminum kind of storefront window system is uh still temp there's still a temporary construction in that in those openings. Uh the roof is on uh the sopet below the roof uh still remains incomplete
005uh but is you know scheduled to be completed uh prior to turnover this uh the end of June. Uh the second photo is just a representative of some of the interior aluminum uh uh kind of curtain wall framing with with glazing. It's this the glazing that we've installed is a electrochromatic glass. It uh is switchable so it glazes over so that for privacy and then uh you can turn it on and it uh goes clear so you can see through it. Also, uh here's from inside of the open stem shop with the high the high ceiling. just uh kind of some case work that's uh getting installed in that space. Next photo is uh a corridor that's leading into the STEM area. Uh student lockers getting installed there. A lot of these photos, um, you'll
006see what we consider kind of finishes kind of the the broad construction is is, um, getting so that it's built out. We're starting to install uh, finish type work. This next photo is of inside one of the uh computer classrooms. And you can see there's some case work on the wall and also um countertop kind of student workstations. And this photo is uh some uh display cases that are uh installed in the corridor leading up to the stem area. Again, a lot of still work in progress as we uh are continuing on the construction. I think this is the last kind of photo that I have. This one is from with inside the physics uh classroom. Uh just kind of showing a a fume hood uh where you know science curriculum would take place. And
007that you can also see on the walls we have uh some of the safety devices for safety glasses, fire blanket, whatnot. uh as the as the uh installations get closer closer excuse me to completion and that that's really any is there any questions about the active construction what they have going on or really any of the phases of construction we've been doing at here at questions thank you or two. >> All right. I am Katie Hart, public information specialist. Um, and I'm going to give just an overview of um, communications with capital project on what we've done and what we have coming up. Um, so we've been meeting with Tetrate Tech in campus construction for a couple months now. Um, and we had the postcards mailed out um, in February and we've hosted um, three
008of the community conversations so far. Um, and we have three more uh, coming up. The next one is tomorrow at G. Um, and we've been working on developing newsletter. Um, and that we've had a few drafts go back and forth. Um, Eric shared um a group with all board members uh for feedback as well. And so the goal will be um to send that to next week um and then hopefully hit mailboxes second week in April. Um, so we've also been working on developing talking points for all building leaders. Um, and building lobby screen slides. Um, so people can see that when they come in. Um, we'll have a QR code to to the website. Um, a bunch of information on our website. Um, we'll also be included in all the upcoming insiders. Um, we've
009started rolling out social media. Um, and we're meeting with OAM tomorrow. >> Okay. Okay. So, just to to repeat and clarify for my colleagues, you should all have drafts in your inbox. There's a comment feature in the Google Drive and put your comments on and we'll go over all those tomorrow. Of course, everyone's welcome tomorrow morning at OAM as well. But we're sort of hoping to wrap this up at least the newsletter uh tomorrow or at least be be close to done on that. Uh let me just take a minute and and say thank you to uh Campus Construction and Tet um and the comm team, Dr. Briman, Dr. Lesi. There's been a lot of work gone into this effort and we're really I think in my opinion uh making a an important and large
010effort to get as much information to the public as early as possible. So we've done three of the six information sessions very um detailed newsletter very detailed um website that we've got video clips from financial experts to explain a lot of things. Um to my mind this is a very comprehensive public outreach program and I just want to thank everyone at the table please. Um, yes. Can you hear me? >> One second. Karen Parker's gonna try and make Back to call. I can call that. I can call that you need room for mine. If you could turn it on over here. I'm gonna pulling it up on my phone. >> She is going into the stream, >> but I turn on, but then I just get a recurring echo with mics in the room. >>
011Okay. >> So, should we mute her? >> I I can mute the room, but I have to be over there. >> I'll do whatever. >> Darren, can you try to call? >> All right. Can you hear me? unmute here. Okay. >> Ready. >> Go ahead. Go ahead, J. >> Okay. Um, can you hear me now? Okay. All right. Um, so this one pager that's in board docs is different from the four pager that you sent Garrick earlier today. Um, is this the one that Katie stated is going out, the one pager, or is it the newsletter, the four pager? And my next question since I I'm I'm able to talk right now is um we have another community conversation coming up on the 23rd at the admin building. Would we consider doing a hybrid one
012that it and it depends on how is the turnout of the community conversation yesterday because since it's during lunchtime maybe give people an option to um join remotely. >> Thank you for that suggestion Karen and uh when meeting with the PTA council this morning they asked for that as well a virtual opportunity. I haven't shared that with you yet, but uh yeah, so some kind of opportunity to do something virtual in addition to what we're doing um in person is something we're going to talk through and uh there's a session tomorrow, correct? Yes. >> Um just want to make sure everybody knows about that and that's in person at G. >> But we'll get the information out about the uh hybrid or option. pager is the one that's going to be mailed. >> Um, and
013the one pager is what we've had at all of the community conversations. >> We're we're happy to talk a little bit about how they've been going if you want us to. Okay. So, so we've had three meetings so far. uh one at the admin building, one at the Dani Fire Hall and or two at the admin building, sorry. And um you we've had somewhat lower turnout, but we've had some positive comments. Uh one of one of the positive comments that we received was that um this is the first capital project that they've seen that is very spec uh specific on priority items, very uh focused on things that might be an instructional interruption. Um we had some positive comments about the roofs. Um and then we did get some feedback. Some of the feedback was
014uh in the first meeting we you know they we got some feedback about adding more pictures which we did for later presentations. We had some questions about the roof and then we had some questions about project funds which uh Dr. Lacy uh answered uh very well. Um, Chris, are some things that I'm leaving out from positives or feedback that we've received? >> Folks always want to know the tax impact. So, we'll talk about that part of what uh Dr. Lisi addressed. Um, but yeah, uh, they've been they've been relatively straightforward, um, reasonable questions and we're excited to have, uh, you know, some folks that are interested, um, in a good way. Thanks, other comments about those. >> So there's no like negative comments or concerns or >> I mean it depends how you define negative.
015That's right. Like I mean we've had some questions we had some questions yesterday about uh Lakes source cooling, right? and if Cornell was supporting us uh around Lake Source cooling. And then we we spoke I spoke about how um uh Cornell did want to expand the Lake Source cooling project, but the DEEC uh stopped the expansion of the project. So I mean I think that was one comment where they had questions about if Cornell could support uh this work. Other negatives um were around uh we had a negative comment about uh some of the science classrooms. We showed the cabinets. Um they just wanted to see more pictures. They didn't get a good scope of what it looked like. So we we took the feedback and we added more pictures. Um uh we had some
016comments about the science classroom. Um I don't know if they used it wasn't extravagant but they thought there was one person who thought it was unnecessary but we talked about how or I talked about how um students don't have access to gas and gas is needed in a lot of the it's needed in some of the instruction as well as it's not usable and it's the original cabinetry from 1972 and it's just not functional and we wanted to bring it in line with the rest of our science classrooms uh in the district. What? Any other? >> No, it's pretty good. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Oh, thanks again to all you. This this is a complicated issue and I think what we're doing really is in the taxpayers's best interest and it's in the district's best
017interest, but there are a lot of moving parts and there's a lot to explain to people. Uh, a lot of folks just see the, you know, the number and it seems like a lot. So I think this work is really important uh protecting assets get the information out the >> one of the things Oh go ahead. Sorry. >> No, no, no. I I I just made one comment in in the draft. I just put it in. But I was just wondering, I think one thing that might be helpful is to sort of explain maybe a little bit more how regardless of the number of dollars that we borrow, it's going to have like a net zero impact on the budget because we're always going to be, you know, paying things back and um you know,
018not not necessarily adding to that. Um, so anyway, I just I just made one rewrite to one sentence that might be helpful or something to add, >> but I feel like that might be the point just to your point when people say like, "Oh my god, $43.9 million." It's like, okay, yes, but you know, it isn't going to make it that we have to collect more taxes because we do this every year and we're just going to kind of replicate what we're doing. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yes. And no, though, right? I mean, if if we borrow an extra 20 million, we're paying interest on that and we're paying like so it it does impact it, but I I know that we're trying to be at that 7%. >> Right. >> But I just want
019to be mindful of like how we worry that because it it it does actually impact it, right? We're just trying to maintain it, right, Dom? Is that >> We're trying to maintain it. Yeah. I I mean, stability in terms of our debt is is critically important. So, that's why we've set that 7% limit within the budget. >> Yeah. >> Obviously, that's a snapshot time. fluctuate a little bit because of the interest and so on. But um to your point, yes and no. >> So we I think our goal is to to stay at that 7% because the more that less the more that can impact our bond rates that stay. Well, and you're right in the sense of if we if we just stop borrowing if we if we did no more projects ever again,
020then the debt go down and the budget would go down, >> right? >> So, it's I mean, this is a point a nuanced point that we've gone over a few times. So, superficially, >> if we didn't borrow be careful, we're not being borrowing the money. We're just requesting permission to borrow the money. If we didn't borrow the money, there would be less debt and then less debt servicing. But I think the important thing to understand is that the maintenance doesn't go away, >> right? the the leaky roofs remain and then we save money, if you will, on the debt servicing, but we lose money in the sense that the assets that the public has entrusted us to look after are going to decline in value because they're not being maintained. So, I I you know,
021it's it's hard to know what's exactly the the the best language, but I I don't think it's in taxpayers's interest for us to not maintain buildings. Um, so >> let's put a placeholder here for our budget conversation next where we talk about revenue um because we're generating revenue when we borrow as well and that's a key point. Um, it does impact our tax cap. It is a revenue generation for us that we have counted on for decades. So we'll bring that up in our next conversation. But if not borrowing, yes, this does impact us in a lot of other ways. >> Yes. Yeah, it is super nuanced. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's the state rebate which is important. There's our credit rating which is so maybe I'm getting ahead of oursel. We'll save this for later.
022But there's a lot of moving parts. I would just say also it's it's the 7% is is is our target. >> Yes. >> It's not a limit. The limit I believe is like 10 or something that we could have a higher debt service. We think 7% is where we want to be. So I just want to be clear about that. It's not a limit. It's target. I I don't want to belabor this but I think this is an important point too while Chris is here because he's the gentleman that works out our costs in terms of construction right just in terms of inflationary increases as it relates to construction cost increase about 6% this year on average right our bond interest is lower than that so if we delay maintenance for three years you can
023look at that compounded interest rather than taking on the project now and using those capital funds and also benefiting from the Okay. So theoretically, right, but from an interest standpoint alone, that's not accurate. So I should at least >> I'll add also that it was sort of broached that you could spend less on debt service. Presumably, you would be doing less work on your buildings and presumably you would be um needing to do that work like at some point so you can do it in the future at a higher cost. Um, also when you're if you need to increase your expenditures for capital project work, there's a um capital exclusion that Don could talk more about those formulas, but the state basically incentivizes a consistent level of expenditure. So it may feel good when you're
024spending less, but when you have to sort of catch up um that affects your your um uh your tax le that the um that is not usually palatable. So keeping it steady is um supported by the way uh New York State uh finance it. No test say not to get too far ahead, but we do have Ben from fiscal adviserss. I don't know where we are on that, but we've been playing around with some uh uh clips from an independent expert kind of talking through some of the more nuanced issues of the finances. I don't know if we're going to go forward with that or not, but that's something we're at least considering. >> I just had one other question. Do we know I mean that's just as we're talking about this is making me
025think about it. Um because it is a good argument to be made that you know a lot of this is for improvement and we have to make the improvement at some point so we may as well do it now as opposed to later. I guess not 100% of the capital project is make, you know, fixing things that are crumbling. Some things are just, you know, glossing up things that we would like. I guess I was just kind of wondering what percentage if if we like as a talking point, how much of what we're requesting as far as this limit goes is for just maintenance and repair, you know, versus like a little bit of bells and whistles that we want to because like I'm looking at the list, right? Like replacing roofing, obviously we have
026to replace roofing. That's not that's no fun. That's just maintenance. Um, so I'm just curious if we were going to, you know, if we were going to respond to somebody where they say, "Well, you know, you could borrow less, then it might lower the budget." >> How many uh items are in the bells and whistles category? You don't have a lot. >> Well, that kind of depends on what you consider. Is functioning case work with drawer fronts a bell and a whistle? you know, there there are um yeah, >> I I don't you know, I think there's different priorities for sure, but it's fire alarms so that we don't have instructional opt in the past, it's been defined as additions. We've added gyms, we added uh wellness centers, we've done things where we've added square
027footage. This is not this is the first time we have not had a project where we're adding square footage. So this I would frame as this is uh maintenance, deferred maintenance. I would even use that term and as we refer to this and no such thing as a build this time. >> I mean I would I would if for folks said that I would gently push back. I really don't see think there are any bells and whistles say >> or the playground renovation and somebody could say that's that's I mean it needs to be done. >> Failing I mean some of our pictures it's it's there's failing playground material. So BJM PTA has come to us times you know PTAs have come to us to let us know uh that their playground equipment is failing
028and when we expect inspected sure enough that's the case. So, we want to make sure that we have the right equipment uh for um all our playgrounds. And actually, there's not much in this. I think uh how much is in this capital project for putting nets? >> Yeah, fairly minimal. So, so I think uh and it's just to prioritize. Wait, what is the answer? That's what I was saying. I think it's one point how much 1.9 >> one and a half million. >> One and a half. >> 1.5. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> But it's to look at it's not for one playground. to look at multiple playgrounds and different failing equipment. Yeah. >> No, it's okay. Okay. >> Cross my So, let's roll it. >> Karen, no. No. No. >> So, let's let's
029give let's turn to Karen. Karen. I I must confess I I cringe at saying words like bells and whistles and glossy things because what this capital project is doing is not doing any bells and whistles whatsoever. And even um thank you Dan for bringing up some feedback from um prior community conversations and where an individual had stated about the science room. Oh, is it really needed? And and what kind of material are you getting and so forth. And this these are students we're talking about where we we know that they'll have buns and burners on and so forth. So, we have to get the appropriate material. Um so, a lot of the capital project at this time around is is maintenance and continued maintenance for the longevity of these buildings, our our assets. Um, so
030I would encourage us all to not I'm not saying that everyone in the community has to agree, but for people to come out and see what's happening at these community conversations, the FAQ pages and so forth to address whatever concerns because um yeah, thanks >> like for children in who are disabled so we can we can provide access for them for bathrooms. Um the geothermal which is a larger ticket item, we had a we had to pivot because of uh some some issues with Cornell not being able to expand the lake source cooling and we you know we know there's some benefit to this. Um so I I don't I don't know what would be on this list which would be glossy or which would have bells and whistles. So maybe I suggest that we
031move on and just put a pin on this and uh let's follow Dr. Brown's suggestion. We come back to the um financial discussion. We can dive in a little bit more. I could I mean this is a little tricky because we're talking about the public relations uh effort around the financial issue. So it's you know the two issues are related. Let's save it till uh the financial section. >> Uh so thank you. >> Thanks. And uh that brings us to consideration of accounts. Oh, >> just in case. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Consideration of accounts. Hello everybody. Um, we have the normal stuff. Do you have anything specific about the treasures report? >> Not really. It's um just interest um earnings are still thankfully around the same. They haven't really dropped as much. Last month
032it was around 3.7 and this month um our investments were like at 3.6. So we're still kind of staying staying level. Thank God. Um, we have uh the food service P&L report which is I don't really need to speak too much about that. It kind of speaks for itself as far as the food service um information is there for you. And if there are any questions, I know Jen's here and always willing to help support some of those questions, but there are some things on the consideration of accounts that are um um out of the ordinary the annual things. So, we do have some surplus equipment that we're um going to be disposing of. Most of that is uh c uh I have it right here. Hold on one second. Some refrigerators and uh metal
033cabinets, rusty, old, broken that we're just going to be disposing of from the food service area. Um we have a few non-budget revenue. We received $1,000 from Charities Aid Foundation America for some cyber grants for um believe it is that Bel Sherman and we received over 15 just shy of $16,000 from IPI for a number of grants um teacher grants um so we've is always so lovely um so supportive of them and we thank them very much. Um then we come to the two things the things that we only see annually so I always have to explain it. We are uh we have the ability to build schools for health and welfare that's for medical social workers speech type services um that we provide students that um attend private schools within our district. So we
034provide those services to the private schools. They provide those services at the private schools to students who are attending from other districts and under New York State SEDD law we can bill for um charges on those services. So we come up with a per pupil cost and then we bill out to those schools. So that amount is in the tune ofund just shy of $180,000 that we'll be billing to several other schools. And what I did was I just attached the summary sheet because it would have been a lot to attach if I was attaching all of the agreements. Um those would be go to the board and those are signed by the superintendent and the board president once they are approved. Um but that is an annual thing we do. Then on the flip
035side, we have students that attend private schools in other districts. To date, we have received two horse heads in Ommyra billing us for the health and welfare services that they provide to our students in those private schools in those districts. We will be getting more. Um I know we typically get one from Dryen, so that will be coming. Um and I'm not sure if there's any other public schools, maybe a Pebble Hill Manlas um will get one for there. Um so those will be coming but this is usually when we do the bulk of them the ones that we actually bill out and then the ones um coming back to us. And then finally on the consideration is the annual approval of participation in the DCMO Boseies cooperative purchasing. Um and that is for just
036general supplies and for uh food service purchases in 2627 but they need it in place now going forward into the new year. So that is it for the considerations. Is there any questions any >> how many kids you say are for worsen I don't have that right here for heads we have four students that attend hopefully they've mentioned it here what district they are attending or what private school St. Mary's and Twin Tiers Christian Academy one at St. Mary's in three twin tears and then at Elmyra that one. It's the wrong one. I thought I was organized. Okay. Uh Elmyra, it is two, four, six students that's heading over. It's a little harder for Karen uh to speak. Uh usually she's the one who uh is so gracious and and uh rather um always remember
037is to be thankful to uh our external donors who uh have been and continue to be very generous. So I say thank you to them. uh IPI uh I mean how many districts could be so fortunate to have such a steadfast partner? So thank them. >> Absolutely. >> I got >> Well, I didn't mention the transfers, but that's typical. Nothing out of the ordinary. Sorry about that. >> Okay. Um then can we move on to item six? >> All right. Very good. >> So we have 61 is budget expenditures. 62 capital reserve referendum. And I'm going to ask Dr. Ley lead our discussion. >> We'll do. Thank you so much. Uh I think it was our last uh facilities and finance committee meeting we talked about the way that we would be sharing uh the
038budget this year with the public and there's a slight change to that. We're still going to obviously maintain the website and all of our presentations and the general information will still be on there. We're using a new application though that we thought would be a very concise way of sharing the budget process and the information the way that it sort of tells the story of how we how we approach it. Uh we find it to be very transparent. Uh provides great deal more information than we typically have done. So, uh, we're going to show you that this evening and after, we believe after the next board meeting, the link for this will then be online, so folks can actually view it themselves. Um, it is a highly interactive application as well, so you'll be able
039to dig in a little bit further than you might otherwise be able to do. So, it's referred to as the budget book. You may hear us use that term as we move along. So, I I'll kind of walk you through some of the ancillary pieces of this kind of cover and so on. Our mission and vision of course important to what we do. All of our schools, board of education, your bios are here, edits, please let us know. And oh, before I go any further, I do want to thank our PR and communications team for helping us put this together. They put a great deal of work into this as well as Emily Sh who has spent countless hours involved in what you're about to see. So, shout out to to those folks who uh
040our organization. So, all of our basic district-wide information is here folks to see. Uh, our budget vote timeline is here as well and the propositions for this year's vote. Uh, at the very bottom and we were talking about the capital project. You'll find a link here to the information. Obviously, there's a great deal more available and that link will take folks there to see it and to to to see what the capital project's all about, including the financing financing aspects as well. So we'll get into the financials. This is just an overview of the past uh four three years plus the projected year of 2027. It's kind of it's the revenue overview. It shows our actual revenues uh whatever surpluses we've had in each of those years. Uh the revenue that we budgeted for and
041anticipated uh and what our expected actuals and budget figures would be moving forward. And since I'll be talking about those in any of these two, if you're online, if you mouse over them, it gives you a great deal of more information. So over the graphics, revenue summary. I know we did talk about this. I think it's the last board meeting about the anticipated budget and but I can go over this briefly. Again, there are no substantial changes here. Everything sort of looks the same as what we talked about previously. Uh and I will say that what we based this on uh the at least tax base was the 4.18 tax cap. Obviously that can change based on the discussion board. We use that as our basis for the revenues. That's the figures we have. So
042so the the levy the anticipated levy at 4.18 is 119,840,000 and change and that represents about 67 and a.5% of the overall budget. Again, all projected at this point. Uh the the next largest chunk of that would be the state aid that we receive and that's about 42 million 41.9999. The next largest would be our uh reserves and fund balance use that we typically use year to year. That's about 8.5 million. And then other revenue that we receive is uh just over 7 million 7.3 million. So that's what we anticipate in our revenue for 27 at this point. And again, just to reiterate, at the 4.18% tax cap, that's broken down here a little bit further, and you can see the year-to-year uh increase or decrease in the uh the lines in terms of revenue.
043We've talked about the state aid and foundation and so on. Again, just uh just to clarify, our state aid's gone up uh a little over 3%, which is higher than what we had projected, which is great, always great news. Uh and we would expect that to increase slightly when the finals come up. We don't >> Why did it go up this year? >> It it generally always does go up. I think the year before we saw 12% increase. So this year we saw about 3.8% increase. So generally seeing foundation in terms of foundation go push up a little bit. >> Is there ever a way to forecast it? This keeps 12. >> We're close. We're at 3%. >> Yeah. Yeah. There are some formals we can kind of guess but generally >> let's qualify that
044some years it has gone down. We had gap elimination adjustment. We've had some issues um on Wall Street where state a came in much less than the year before. >> Um there was a reallocation of the formula two years ago that positively impacted us. So that's why we saw the 12%. >> But we want to stay in that 2 to 3% rate. How often do they uh update the formula? >> That was a once in a generation shift. >> Okay. Yeah. >> So it should be more consistent going forward then. >> I would never admit that we >> always thought every five or six years we get some surprise. >> Okay. >> It also depends on what they use as a calculation. So the wealth ratio and we're not sure when they grab that stuff.
045Uh so any questions about the revenue here? I mean we we've talked about the the uh interest we receive our payments on taxes all of the general stated CD and so on and our use of fund balance has stayed pretty fairly steady over the past several years as well. This is generally what we consider our our revenue. And so the budget again at the bottom that we're projecting also hasn't changed since the last time we reported reported or we anticipate the budget to be 177.6 million. Uh and that's an overall increase of 5.09% from the previous year. Questions about revenue or that figure? At this point we're going to talk about expenses here. So, we are obligated to report in terms of a threepart budget. It makes us show larger. Every time we look at
046this, those little graphs get smaller and smaller. So, I don't know why we're make sure no one can see. We wanted to throw show you the threepart budget here. we were hoping to show you graphically. That's not working out so well. But we what's important here is the the the percentage changes from year to year in the three-part budget. So the three-part budget is composed of uh the the program component that that's the largest aspect. That's the instructional component, salaries and so on. Instructional salaries and so on. The capital component had a slight discussion about what makes that up. It's maintaining the district and the infrastructure, our debt service. so on. And the last component is our administrative component. That would be things like the district management, schoolboard expenses, central administration salaries, benefits, public information,
047and so on. Um the percentage of those just for comparative analysis sake, the largest uh in the current year we're in in the program component was 125.99 million and that represented 74.5% 54% 74.54% of the overall budget. The next largest piece there would be the uh capital component which is 24.67 million and the administrative component this current year is 18.35 million which represents 10.86% of the overall budget. We're looking at projected for next year program component is 131.9 million representing 74.28% of the budget. The capital components 26.46 million representing 14.9%. And the administrative component slightly lower than it was in the current year. We're projecting 19.2 million which is 10.82%. The overall budget. So you get slight increase there. What's the funds? I'm sorry. The third line down says just finance. And >> that's all
048the that's all the function codes. That would be the um uh 13 one series of codes. So it would be treasure business office. It would be um basically those are the ones that fall under the finance. Um trying to think of the other it's all business related. So the business functions central administration would be um the two the 1200 codes and then the board of ed would be the one. So it's all the functions and we actually we we had that in there but to make it fit on the slide so maybe we'll try to pull that back in and tweak it a little bit so folks can see what those function codes are because that is all telling. Um, >> no. I I just pause there because I I in years past my perception's
049been that the term administrative is much broader than the public thinks it is. >> Yes, >> indeed. >> That that some things people may not think would be administration fall. That's what I'm >> Absolutely. and we're going to look at it a different way when Dominic goes on and it'll show a little bit better um another way of looking at the budget as well. >> One of the benefits of this way of showing the public is it breaks it down into a number of different ways and we've been asked what do these different things mean and how do they break down. So we start at the very top at the 30,000 foot level with the the budget number itself break down to three-part budget. This is the next level and we'll continue doing that. Two
050years ago, we were asked to look at that administrative item and get a sense of how it compares to other districts and we found that typically it's around 14 or 15% overall for administrative line in our budget and ours is at 10. Is that what I'm hearing? >> Yeah. >> So, that's significantly lower than our peers or when comparing to other small city school districts or any school district have a 10% administrative line. >> It's also the second year in a row we've reduced that. Yeah. But that that's the reason I'm asking is is I think there's a lot more that goes in that 10% than people realize. That's all I'm getting at. >> Oh, absolutely. >> You think it' be beneficial to break it out even further. So that way it's not just those
051three categories and that the administrative was more granular. >> It is. It's here. This is so there's the admin line and that this breaks it down. It shows you what's part of that admin line >> in both years and you can compare those two sides and it will break down even further in the next next slide. So, >> and Todd, this is this is how the state requires us to present the budget is in a three-part Got it. >> Um, budget. So, this is in compliance with what the state and then in further another um way we show it is in a state area. So, that even breaks down a little bit more into five different components of the budget. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> Okay, can you go back? >> Sure. Maybe >>
052one more and then scroll down to the itemize. >> Sure. >> The debt service. So we've got 11 million 536 and then 12,679,000. >> Yeah. No. So glad you brought that up. So let's go back to revenue real quick. Got to associate that with the revenue as well, right? So our building our building agency 3 to 5 million depending on what we submit for completed projects. So if that falls off so will the VA will fall off as well. So if we have let's say we have a project a roof comes up that we didn't anticipate and we're talking I'm going to make this up a $10 million that shows up now that's going to spike that expense would be in for without aid if this drops and then we have to wait for that
053aid to come on which could take years. So that's one of the aspects of this. So again another way of looking at the expenditures breaks it down even further. This one we show by object code for example. This shows that our total the total expenditure for salaries obviously it's a large part of our expenses salaries and salaries and benefits makes up a large part of our overall budget. It's almost 70% of our budget. Uh and breaks it even further into contractual and other obligations. We have again principal and interest on the on the debt and shows that they're broken down into those two uh budget transfers and so on. And then it breaks it down even further so folks can understand what that means in the next uh list here. So you can actually see
054what those are. Emily, do you want to add something here and kind of talk through this a little bit? Um, this is this is just actually um it really is getting to the nitty-gritty, the line by line type without being as as messy as we used to pre present it. It's very difficult to present this information in a clean way. It I'm not saying it used to be messy, but it can get very difficult to read. So, we're hoping that this is a little bit easier to show the differences between um the non-instructional salary and again it's going down and even though it's not showing up on this, it is it is like carving out the electricity, the water, the telephone, the natural gas you're seeing there. Those all fall in with within our facilities
055and oper our operations and maintenance budgets. So I mean, so it is a more detailed look by the category as opposed to showing it in numbers. Okay. So we just figured it would be a lot easier for folks to actually look and say, "Oh, you know, water, what what's happening with the water?" Electricity is a big one because you're going to see a big increase with the electricity. So having it by name instead of having the numbers um is just a little bit easier, more transparent for folks that don't work in the school world to understand what these expenses are. So that's why we we're presenting it this way, right? >> Without getting into detail, I the overall picture of the budget increase can be simplified into a couple things. Inflationary increase is general. We
056face that every year. Uh contractual obligations, we're all aware of that. There increases there. um and just general expenses in terms of energy for example. That's what we're seeing for the overall impact and that's why we're looking at a a little flex. But again, our the balancing act here is trying to figure out how to be more transparent while making things readable, palatable so that they're understandable. In the past, I think what Emily was was explaining was that some of the reports we had previously they have finance codes on them associated with them. Not everyone understands that. So, we wanted to break this down in a way that was easy easy to to understand. These make sense to to most people. And this just shows a year-to-year comparison and percent increase or decrease in each
057of those areas further here. And another way of looking at it, this is by state area and typically report to the state. >> We only pay 220,000 on legal >> only. >> No, that's low. I'm I'm actually shocked that it's that >> that's just the beginning. >> You guys are doing good. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, >> wait. Are we being serious? That is just retainers. That's what I tell you. Yeah. Okay. questions there. Great. I I showed this last time talked about the various tax uh uh levy implications uh with the one to the furthest right lower being the 4.18. That is the actual tax cap and how that would impact us uh at that levy increase. It's about 4.8 million overall. there'd be no impact on our fund balance. Uh we back
058that down to 3.18 if that were the figure and our impact on our fund balance be about 1.1 million. We'd have to use an additional additional fund balance to bridge the gap for our our budget. And if we you know back that down to 2.18, there'd be an increase greater increase about 2.3 million. Uh and last year's increase just to show to do a comparison is 3.76 and we we uh we get to show how we came up with that calculation from the tax too. We share this every year. It's the calculation the state gives us that have to go through and that's how we came up with a 4.18%. So one comment I will make is that the document this application is F is a living document. So it will change as we move
059along the story of budget. Um so we'll be adding information to this as it becomes available. So for example we'll be showing the the tax rate once we have that calculated that'll be part of this this document and application so folks can see that. >> So the sure I understand the tax cap is 4.18 correct uh last year we had 376 correct. Um, so this is obviously a broader board discussion of what we want to ask the public. You know, I know that, you know, Dr. Lee and I have been talking about somewhere in in the high 3s. Um, you know, I'm I don't know what others are thinking. I'm going to ask you know, you um just in light of what's happening in the world and in particular in light of the inflationary pressures
060I think are going to be hitting all of us with oil prices, you know, I think I'm leaning to try to really take a hard look at the budget and and just do everything we can to get taxpayer relief. I think this is a year when getting number down the high threes maybe down to the lower threes every bit we can give back to taxpayers I think now is really important time to do it understood >> sense we've benefited I think from from solid investment strategy in the past and I would hope that our fund balance will continue to at least be maintained so uh these are conservative figures and I certainly agree 100% say, >> well, where are some areas that we could make some changes if we're going to go from 4.18 to
061what Garrick was saying, like 3.18 or three, but this might be use of fund balance. Otherwise, it's cut. So, I think we had a conversation about that the last board meeting that that comes down to FTE essentially. >> We're just increasing our risk. um going into fund balance a little bit more is just a little bit riskier but we've done a great job the last from my perspective the last four or five years to build up fund balances for a day like this where we can be riskier we can dip into it to fund the gap so this has been planned for a few years um and the place we will go will be the fund balance I've talked to colleagues today who are in a similar situation without fund balance and they're looking at
062FTE cuts and programmatic shifts and we're just not doing that or we're not we don't need to and we won't do that we're just going to dip it into our healthy reserve Any other questions? Okay. Um, no. >> Okay. Um, yes. So, this budget booket looks good. Is this the are other districts across the state using this? Have they used it in the past? Um um did they find it to be interactive that community members truly did engage with it? >> We actually used district as a model for this. Uh obviously with any any software, anything of this nature, it's it's trial. It's trial period. But we hope that we'll provide more transparency and an opportunity to interact at a higher level with the budget process. That's certainly our goal. >> I would just add
063Dr. Ley showed me a demonstration of this and I thought it was a great tool and really helps the public understand how their money is being spent. Uh I'd also just as part of our OCM discussion both on the uh uh the capital campaign and same would apply for the budget. Uh I went through a number of school districts in our area and looked at what information they had and in my view this district is really the leader in transparency and then leader of providing information to the public. I I didn't come up with any other districts that are even close to us in terms of you know making information available to the public. So I you know hats off to the comment team for that. I think they're doing well. >> There are a
064couple other um TST component districts that are using the clear gov program now. Um, so I think you're going to see more districts tapping into this program because it is more intuitive and and uh transparent than having all those different types of Excel and and PD all those PDF files that of the past >> but we are very open >> we're also learning in process how to use it. uh any feedback folks might have love to hear. So >> partner >> y >> okay I think that's my cue to ask another question but um just to a point that what Emily had stated about the when Dom introduced this and said more transparency I was wondering okay were we not transparent before but when Emily clarified like with the codes that you could see specific
065numbers expense and revenue number for each line items instead of the codes which was confusing to people. So thank you. Yeah, thank you for venturing out and and choosing this. >> Clear clearly having plain English codes is helpful. Uh I mean I don't think it's ever been an issue of the information but like the FAQs for example, it's it's helping people analyze information. I mean, just dumping a lot of information on people is not the same as sort of anticipating the questions they have and then proactively giving them answers. And I think that's what we're doing well. So, next up, we come to our board, the entire board on Tuesday and present several options. What's the plan? We'll present an option, a budget at 4.18 and a budget at similar to what you're seeing here.
066So, a continuation of this conversation but with some additional highlights. Hopefully, we have the rate information by Tuesday. If we can show folks what the impact is anticipated to be on one's tax bill and the ways we showed that in the past, that may be the new piece we bring next week >> and bigger pie charts >> and bigger charts. >> Maybe >> no problem. Thank you very much. Okay. So, uh thank you Dr. Lesey. Um actually I think Dr. Brown just went through our action items and agenda second covered it. Uh is there anything else? >> I think we mentioned on there the capital reserve proposition. >> I think it was on the agenda. >> Yeah. >> Just just as a heads up that is um so people understand what that is. We we
067approved a capital reserve back in 2022. It supports the uh purchases of our buses and small um small the 100k projects in the district. Um that if we didn't have that those funds, we would end up be borrowing for our buses because we have a certain schedule that we have to maintain. So that reserve is pretty much at its end. And so this is when we go into proposing a new capital reserve to be um developed. And it's just an approval that when funds are available, we put into that reserve and start funding it so we can support the purchase of buses and those 100k projects that we do every year. So I just want to put that out there because we have a lot of things going on. We have the use of the
068reserve, we have the capital, and then we have the capital projects. So, um, we just want to make that very clear what that was because people need to be reminded of it. They only vote on it like every 5 years. So, it's a kind of out there. So, hopefully that clarifies a little. >> How much is in it now? How much should be in it? >> It's pretty much depleted this year when we pull the money for the bus purchases this year. The use of the reserves is depleting that 22 that uh capital reserve 22. So, what we started doing five years ago when we did the 20 22 reserve was um upped it to a $10 million reserve. So we can fund it over five years up to $10 million and then we've got
06910 years to use it, but bus buses have um have increased in cost. So we're going through that a little bit quicker than >> and we're selfunding that. So we're putting two million per year. >> No, we don't we don't know what we put in it every year. we put into the reserve available funds that we might have at the end of the year. Um when we we come in at the end of the year and we have money available through um extra revenue that was brought in or under spending or closing out maybe other reserves, we can always use those types of funds um to put into the reserve. There's no there's no amount that we say we're putting this money in. It all depends on where we land at the end of the
070year. >> Okay. We could we could have a year where we don't put any money to it, but it's establishing that reserve so we have that place to put the money. >> And where's the $10 million? >> It's just uh we used to do $5 million capital reserves. So we bumped it up a couple years ago so we weren't having to come back every couple years, three years because we're this year we're spending $2 million on buses. So that would fund two two a little over two years of uh bus purchases for out of that reserve if we left it at five million. So we bumped it up to 10 million this last time gets you around by the five. >> Yes. Morning to say. >> So I'm going to just uh remind members OACM's
071tomorrow morning on details and capital project stuff. Uh student a comment and then ask Dr. Brown and met board colleagues about that one. >> So the um capital reserve referendum is that one of the propositions that will be on the May 19th vote and I think um in the budget book or somewhere I was looking in board docs but I don't see it that we had a list of several propositions. >> Correct. I believe it's number three, right? The >> number three is the 26. >> Yes, correct. There's four props, there's the budget, there's the use of the reserve to buy buses and and fund the 100k project. There's the um proposition to establish a new capital reserve going forward. And then there's the capital project proposition. It's Karen. Uh, good. >> Okay. Dr. Brown,
072any last comments? >> Uh, my my board colleagues in the room. >> The buses, is is that like typically what we go? Those are the normal buses or those the electric buses? >> No. So, we have Bob's here, too. I think we have close to 90 buses in our fleet right now, >> right? And they have a 10-year lifespan. So, they're on a regular rotation. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> We're not I think mentioned this. It's not guaranteed we're going to have to fund the 10 million, but want to make sure we have enough to cover the allocation. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And the liquid propane the buses. >> All right. That brings to us to agenda item nine journ. Thank you everyone. Thank you.