001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll start with roll call Gordon Bob Dillard. Jeff Lane, Rodney Stuff here, Nathan Mcclind here, Mary Shing, Carol, Dallas, Jim Jordan, here you have a bill item number two, public communications. we have anything that was emailed in or anything like that. We have a series of questions that um we've embedded in the presentation. Okay. We've embedded the answer of the agenda. We have to approve the agenda. The agenda second and everybody who in favor say I oppose say n. Motion carries. And on to agenda item number four, questions and answer document presented by Tom Prior. Okay. Sorry. So, we've received a series of questions and so
002we've sort of just gone through and embedded them the answers to the questions into the presentation and we'll we'll start off with a couple um larger themes and then we'll move more into specifics and kind of go into the pages that the questions refer to. Um, just a reminder for tonight, um, we'll be reviewing the proposed budget, ensuring that it's balanced and aligned with district goals. Um, we're here to receive input from the community, and the budget committee approves the budget appropriations and approves the tax rate and recommend the budget for the school board for final adoption. Um, the budget committee does not set or approve staffing levels, the number of teachers, aids, custodians, etc., or manage specific day-to-day operations. Um, staffing levels and I and I wanted to address staffing a little bit more
003clearly tonight because I believe there were some questions last time and um, and I wasn't I didn't have my mind kind of wrapped around how to answer those best. So, it may have sounded like I wasn't answering them, which may have been somewhat true. Um, because I wanted to put some thought into it. Um, truth be told, too, it was it was kind of Bl's fault. Um, she doesn't know this, but um, she had this little bag that said, "I think there's kittens inside." Or maybe there's kittens. So, I looked at that and I just my mind started wandering and I pictured all of you with kittens and you were all very cute and and I just couldn't think about how to answer that question. So, I'm gonna answer it right now. So, um but
004we we do talk about staffing constantly um in the district. Um we look at enrollment projections, class size targets, available funding, and and how positions relate to our goals. Um as a reminder, sort of the the major theme here is the general fund overview where we're having a beginning fund balance of what's estimated at 8 million. Now, of course, this is constantly changing. So, we're we're estimating that right now at million, but at the end of next school year, we're estimating it to be at 4.2 million if we maintain current staffing levels, which we built into the budget. That uses our reserves completely. Um, takes us down to 3.7 million at the end of next year. So, the budget is seeking the appropriation authority, but it that doesn't mean it's a promise to have that
005much staff. It just means we built in that ability within within the budget. Um, it's a estimated ending fund balance of the general fund itself is 9%. It is the 7% and I'll address that here in a minute with board policy. Um, so if if we were to staff at current levels, use our reserves, get through the end of next school year, we would take our ending fund balance down to 4.2, which is the board required ending fund balance. But then the next year, we don't we wouldn't have that ending fund balance anymore. In fact, we would burn right through that 4.2 million. So that's where we have to have a plan to address that. and um and and essentially try to avoid this up and down that we see here um where we're trying
006to to compensate for let's save money and then let's use it all. Let's save money, let's use it all. And really the pattern that we've been in with that is a result of prior to co we were building up a good reserve and we were a little bit overstaffed. COVID hit, a lot of extra money came in and so we overstaffed even more then to use the funding to try to address student learning loss and we didn't actually adjust the ratios after that. You would see some positions not get filled as student enrollment was declining but it was still the enrollment was declining, staffing was declining at the same rate but we weren't adjusting the ratio so it wasn't sustainable. So we find ourselves in this position where we continue to save and then use
007it. Save and then use it. So we're we do want to be in a situation where we're not doing that every year. So we have positions that we plan. There's one of those kittens. Um we that we plan See, I'm losing my train again. I put it there. I knew it was coming. Um so we want to plan for financial flexibility. It's a method of cons you of some conservative planning and it's strategic savings. We we do this deliberately and strategically. It's a common practice to build your budget when you're projecting forward. It's just not a guarantee that we're going to fill all those positions because we know like I just showed you that if we do fill them, we're going to be in a situation that's not stable financially. So we take our staffing
008levels, we look at our enrollment and we try to create um we we look at a a ratio that is acceptable and then we won't fill positions in order to bring the ratio back to a level that is sustainable. um over the past few years and we just showed this in negotiations um you know the staffing for certified staff to students has been right around 22 to1 which is really low um it's it's wonderful it's just not sustainable practice that's not realistic it's not like that across the state um and um and it's like that it was like that across the board K12 and and so I'm sure some classes have larger sizes others had really really small numbers and so we have to get those numbers into a more realistic situation. So we build
009the budget, we left the positions in there. It provides us with the flexibility if something were to happen with enrollment uh mid year. Even if we don't fill the positions, then we have the ability to fill them without coming back to the board and seeking additional appropriation authority to do so. At one point when we were building this, we thought the lowincome housing at Banger was going to be built and we thought they were going to be putting students in there um in spring. And now, you know, we're learning that that's a little bit further down the road. But if 70 kids or 100 kids showed up in spring, this would give us the ability to then hire somebody mid year. um budgeting to also use the reserves creates the ability like we had this
010year where we're projecting a certain enrollment at the beginning of the year, but if it comes in a little bit low like it did this year in October, we're not having to cut positions in October. We already have the staff on board. We don't want to do that to our people. We don't want to do that to our community. So if we hire somebody and we start the year with them, we also want to be in a financial position that even if the staffing comes in lower, we're not cutting those positions in October. And you do see that in many school districts across the nation. Um it was it that was h that was the situation that I was in in California every year. You know, they were they were cutting positions in October. They
011were cramming kids together in classrooms, creating combination classes, and we're we're really working hard to avoid those types of situations. So when we say that we're budgeting at current staffing levels, it's not a promise to keep those levels and we're going to do everything necessary to not have to do reductions in force. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't look at a program and say we don't need x amount of teachers in this program. So we might have to reduce that program a little bit just because it's not realistic to keep it at a certain size. But in general, um, what our belief is as a district is that we we want to address these types of situations through attrition. Natural attrition, not cuts is really the goal because again, we want to take care of
012the people that work for us and we want to take care of the community. So that's kind of why we budgeted a certain way without the intention of filling all those spots. when we do address things and and and we are aware of of many positions where people have already resigned and we know that the staffing level um situations in certain positions won't be filled. We want to have those discussions with our union leadership before we come out and announce what those positions are specifically in a public setting. So we do have meeting planned with our union leadership around those positions and we have a plan to start talking to certain staff members that might be affected. Um again looking at avoiding reductions in force as much as possible more through natural attrition. So that's
013kind of the little spiel there and that is our plan and that was one of the questions. What is our plan to not have to use the reserves in the future and that is our plan. we will underspend. We are planning to just underspend this budget, save the money so that the ending fund balance is not 4.2 at in June so that we can try to get it back up around that eight again. So, we have that ending fund balance we need to then maybe shift a little bit of funds towards the programs at that point that we see um we still need to address maybe to address some strategic planning goals or maybe to address some building needs, some you know some maintenance needs, things like that that right now we we haven't built
014into the budget. Any questions about that? the the fund balance is that ending fund balance in the general fund that I was just just referencing. And um this is our board policy. This came from a board resolution that dates back to I believe about 2011 and it was a practice before that too. So it's something that we in 23 we put into policy to reflect the resolution. So that way our auditors were looking for it every year anyways. They were putting it in the audit. They were looking for this ending fund balance. And really what it is is it's down here consequent the paragraph there starts consequently. It's saying that we will have 5% set aside of all adopted revenue. So you're taking into account all your different funds, 5% of all that revenue and
015that's what sitting in the general fund. That's what our ending fund balance is. plus an additional 2% of the general fund adopted revenues that are also in there. So that's where the 7% comes from because it's all in general fund. It looks like it's 9%. Because the general fund is smaller than all funds. Is there a maximum like about 8 million in your target? You know, you wouldn't want to save more than that because you know at a certain level we don't want to hold too much money back from our classrooms and our students. 8 million is about your target on that. Um 8 million would get us back to the place where we're at now. Um so if we can get into that position, we're no longer then then we're actually addressing staffing needs
016just purely based on ratios essentially in the need instead of trying to kind of chase the set balance. Um here at the bottom of this um s the GFOA, Government Finance Officers Association recommends 5 to 15%. Um Oregon School Board Business Officials recommends 3 to 8%. Um typically the the smaller your district, the larger your ending fund balance. The larger your district, the smaller your ending f fund balance. And that and that it kind of explains that concept there. um the smaller governments have the the essentially the the diversification of the revenues and expenditures um result in lower degrees of volatility when you're a larger district because you have so many more funds addressing it. We wouldn't want to like you just said that perfectly. We don't want to withhold so much that we're not
017giving the resources back to the students as a public entity. We we should be giving those resources back to students. There's a kind of a sweet spot if you will and in North Ben and I are working through this and this seems to be kind of that sweet spot. I mean, if we were pushing $10 million, it would feel like we're needed to put more back in the $8 million point considering that we have a board obligated 4.2 gives us the flexibility to work with. So, we can make sure stay above the 4.2 or above the five and two without feeling like every We're just hanging out five and two at 4.2 this year. Next year it might be 4.1 or something like that. Then we're living on the edge. We're living on the edge.
018And so that means that without any headroom or any flexibility, if we do have an economic downturn, state of Oregon said we're not we're going to spend by 10%. Then we immediately have to go to staff. Okay. We immediately have furlow or so living in that 4.2 two range is um is is risky business. And so we want it to be high enough that we feel like we can we have some headroom, a little bit of grace, but we don't want so high that that we're not doing what we're here to do. And if the and the the the 2% here of the general fund revenues um it um that is sort of an economic stabilization fund. So if the state school fund changes throughout the year of by more if the revenue comes in
019at more than 1% the amount we budgeted because the states lowered it, then that's what that extra 2% is for too. We can tap into that if we need to. But then again, that creates a situation the following year we're trying to make back up for it. That's where, like Vince is saying, um, having that ability to have a little bit more than the requirement is a safe place to be. It's a great question. I talked a little bit about the PBAN, the the program budgeting and accounting manual. I have a copy here if anybody's um interested. And it's got all the coding. Um, and it's really designed that that's that's where you kind of get these function and object level all these codes from and they really it's a creates our chart of chart
020of accounts um that that's accepted it's used across Oregon. Um, it aligns with generally accepted accounting principles. Um, we use that for forecasting, managing school resources. It's a way of tracking our funds and of course planning planning appropriately for them. So I just wanted to reference that manual. It does get updates occasionally too. Um so sometimes like we say you know this might have been in this one category and now it's in this other and so that's why you're seeing it zeroed out here and we're moving it to this other one. I mean this we're trying to keep the codes we're using the charter accounts we're using up to date with the PBAN 2. So it does change and fluctuate a little bit which is why sometimes you see those changes happening. And this we
021talked a little bit about last time. Um these were all the pages that had changes because of the addition of the Oregon Seismic Grant. Um primarily they were percentage changes on on different charts and whatnot. But um if you were interested in tracking those um we can make sure you have a copy of this too because remember the published document initially didn't have that Oregon self grant in and then we put that grant in because we found out at the last minute it was coming. Forecast 5 um was a question that was asked. Forecast 5 is a software that we use. Um it's a forecasting tool. It helps us look at historical expenditures. Um it it's used for monthly financial reporting to the board. Um we use it to project out into the future um
022given different assumptions um that we can put into it different and different budget scenarios. Um we use it constantly. It's not the the results of that we don't feel is fair to put into this budget document just because it the budget changes so drastically so quickly. But it's a it's a tool that is um it's very very helpful when we're trying to when we're at um a new bienium is coming up and we're trying to figure out how to plan for different scenarios from the state legislature. You know, is it going to be 11.1, 11.2, 11.3? We can create that model and change that number to see how that affects our budget and how it affects it this year and the next. We can change it to reflect different amounts uh dollar amounts in salaries
023and benefits. So if we have to adjust um staffing levels, what will that effect on our ending fund balance be two three years down the road? So we do look at that. We use it in negotiations when we're talking about different colas or um or adding in different types of um you know benefits, things that people are asking for. So we can see exactly what the effect is before we go and make that agreement that we're going to do this. Um when we negotiated this year, we knew what the outcome would be and we on the ending fund balance if if we went forward and we were able to communicate that clearly in the negotiations. this is that dollar amount we will have to adjust for in the next year's budget so that everybody's clear
024and um having that tool is is invaluable in doing that and and of course you can plug I mean you can take your the amount you've spent on an electric bill and just put in a percentage increase so you can see how those just all those types of changes affect your your budgeting moving into the future. So that's that's super helpful in trying to identify what types of savings are needed to kind of get that ending fund balance where we need it and where we want it to be. So now we're going to kind of just jump into some different pages. Um some some great questions came out um of the uh committee members and public and so um one of them a few here on page 17 of your budget document. One of them
025had to do with the uh FTE staffing increase of administrators. So, we're looking at the little chart here in the bottom lefthand corner that shows administrators from 13.5 to 14. And when we planned the 2425 budget, what we had at that point, the the specific position we're talking about here is we had in the district office a half-time administrator that was supporting special education. And we recognized the need to provide more supports to our schools. So, we were able to take that halftime administrator, add some grant funding, make them a full-time administrator, 13.5 to the 14, and put that resource back in a school rather than having the halftime administrator in the district office. So, that's why that increased. And that um specifically is the um full-time assistant principal at Hillrest. So, that both of
026our elementary schools had a full-time assistant principal rather than trying to go back and forth, which just isn't effective. Um, so that's specifically what that was. And then we backfilled the what we were doing in the district office with the person who did not have instead of that being a 1.0 FP chain as a FTP chain. So, and we'll and and that and there is another question that kind of came up about that I think later. Um, but yeah, to go through it. The next one was on that same chart. uh athletic activity FTE and you see it says 4.85 to 6.25 and that is it's not an actual increase in positions. However, it looks exactly like it's an increase in positions. What was happening in 2425 is we switched basically to an index rate
027for the employees. So what it is is before the you we might have just averaged the coaches like and said all coaches are 0.1. Is that a good number? 0.1 just as an average. But in reality if you go to the pay scale you would see that um you know it could actually be in one column 0.6 to 1.5. instead of that 1.0. So the index factor takes into account exactly where our current coaches are. And then we average the opens vacancies where last month. So maybe if we went to a pay scale, can we jump into um the certified agreement? You can I can I just go here? Yeah, you have to stop. Okay. I did just and then you'll have to share it. more based on spent in each position probably. I don't
028know if this helps, Tim, but what I struggle with is that to me is full-time equivalencies based on $280. So, it's a simple math, right? I just didn't understand what you were talking about in terms of that map. So, oh, well, all the if we just took if we just said there were 10 there were 10 positions and we said they were all on average uh 0.1. So your then your FTE here would be one, but that was based on an average. But in reality, if we had 10 coaches and their extra duty salary, so that's what that that's where the one the 0.1 comes from. It's the e average of extra duty salary. So we're saying that and based on the pay scale um like a like a band director's extra duty salary at
029step one is 0.14 overunction of fulltime equivalency because a band director is a full-time employee a stipen it's a stipen it's a it's a not a full equivalency and it's and switch and the and the index concept is like 0.14 for of a 1.0. And so we when we when we switch to the index factor, it's showing exactly where the current coaches are on the stipens of the of the FTE equivalent. So like a a band director could go from 0.14 to 28, right? So they're all they're all at this level, right? On the index. Yes. So each employee is a 1.0 if they're full time, right? And so if they're 0.25 as a band director, then their regular job can only be a 75 in terms of f because I I may be able
030to help a little bit. So when we're talking about our extra duty contracts, those are exact on top of. So what we're in a big picture sense, we're trying to take every single extra duty contract, every coach, every every leader of of the band, the band director actually gets an extra duty contract because there hours that we pay them for. So now we're trying to create that equivalency in all of our contracts and those estimating because of the number of programs that we're paying for considered. So yeah, I mean it's probably of the average or of the base pay. Um yeah, so it and then the the index factor too it's like so like a band director starts off on step one of.14. So they're 14% over the 1.0, but the uh middle school head
031basketball is 6% 06. So it's it's more accurately reflecting the time they're spending above their contract. Got it. So we switch essentially we were switching to a method that's more accurately reflecting the position and the time spent which 100% looks like an increase um because of that shift in sort of philosophy. I guess you casted that to the prior year. Would that look pretty similar? probably because because we didn't I didn't I didn't use that index last year in and well yeah and then the next question so in the negotiations we added a couple extra to this so they're built in here too like um they would be exactly the same as last year without us because that's what they did because that's what I y you took the current staffing current staffing was exactly
032the same budget as last year so would with and then we added these in on top of it. So a national honor society and OBO were added to the extra duty salary schedule. So yeah, and that's a good point. Building the budget based on current staffing, it would be exact plus these two new positions. But whoever asked that question was a great thing. There's no way. There was really no way without writing a page into the budget document to explain that change. So glad it was asked. Did I answer the question? Did we get to good spot? Okay, so that was the that was one of the hard ones. PERS PERS rates, PERS increases. Uh also on page 17, it talks about that. There was a question specific to what are the PERS increases. So
033on page 17 it says what they are up in the top leftand corner. Uh district 2527 uh tier 1 two rate increases of approximately 2.94%. And the um offer increased by about 2.6%. And then the bond is that on the same Oh, PERS UIL bond is increased for the amount and I think that might be in another question too because the the PERS UIL bond increase for the amount we need to pay the annual payment. We're getting towards the end of the bond. So the payment is increasing slightly every year as we get closer to the end of the bond. It's a bond used that was purchased years ago by 2007 2005 five to help offset rising purse costs. Um it is and this has been I' I've heard it referred to as like the
034[Music] one form of like gambling. public money can do like they can invest in this type of bond to try to offset and when the gamble is will you make the money back to really offset the PERS rate or not or will you lose money on the investment we've made money on investment so you're actually purchasing a bond you're purchasing a bond and then paying it back the bond is not paying you money you're paying well in this case and then it pays you over time exactly exactly yeah so one of the things we're looking at now statewide is whether or not it's um and we we've asked we've jumped into a pool of other districts with McMillan to see if that if it's a good time to do that again or not. Um and
035there is there is a there's a risk if if it's not the right time. Um some of the districts that came in like two years after us, they didn't realize the say the the profit that we did because as soon as they bought into it, the market crashed. um like immediately. So it affected them in a negative way. Couple three years. Three years. Does it create a big gap in funding? You know, when that ends and we stop getting money from it, it pays down the PERS rate right now. Um PERS rates already going up. Um we do have a per I mean we have been putting savings into a side account. So we're hoping that we can continue to do that. um to help offset those costs. Um it's something that we've been we've
036been knowing it's coming. We've been talking about it for the past couple years and we knew PERS rates were going up anyways. So it's always it's a constant worry that it'll shoot up and we won't you know so we always want to make sure we have that money set aside and we're planning ahead for that so it doesn't just hit us one year. Page 42, there was a specific question. So, what what somebody had noticed that they went in last year's budget book. So, we're going page 42. We're in other fund resources looking at line 200. And the line a line item you don't see here is 294. 294 is rolled into 200. We had it previously also broken out so you could see it separate. 294 was a long-term care and treatment um program
037and it was paid for through a grant through OD. Long-term care and treatment, if you're familiar with the district, it was a program called Chyros and it was a day treatment program. Um most recently it was only at North Bay. Before that, it was North Bay and Northbend Middle School. And so that that long-term care and treatment program went away. So had we broken it out in this you this is 294. That's what it would look like. You would see 2223 you would have seen the budget of 572,000 23 24 500,000 and again these are in last year's and then 24 2560. We no longer have the long-term care and treatment. the program's not in the district anymore. So it what was there historically is rolled into the 200s in 2223 that 4.2 million includes
038that 572,000 23 24 includes that 500,000. So that's why that that that addresses specifically that that particular question. Uh line same page line 212 49 sorry not same page switching to page 49. Now already getting into various attendant services 212. So on page 49 under 10,00 instruction that right underneath the gray bar you see 2000 support services and then 2112 attendant services and um I believe here the question was around the fact that we're reducing the money going into the attendant services in the proposed budget. However, you do see in the strategic plan that is a goal of the district. So that is picked up elsewhere in a grant. Um and and specifically it's picked up on page 93 um under function 212. The same function just in um your grants. So we've actually increased
039it by to 23,000 there. So that offset that. So the attendant services were not were not reduced necessarily in the they were reduced in the general fund but they weren't reduced overall. What did you say was increased to from page 93? Page 93. It the grant increase too. It increased 23,000 from the previous year. Yeah. Okay. Also on page 49, we have a series of them here on page 49. Um 2130 health services. This was a position that was also in the district office and they were supporting. So again it says support services. So it's not direct service to the student. It's supporting health services in the district office. and that was a person that also shared a couple other codes and they were kind of positioned at the front of the district office. They
040were a greeter. They worked for different departments supporting them and we felt that that was a resource better sent back to a school. So we reduced it here to put a resource back in a school rather than have the resource in the district office which is why you see that decrease there was an opening. Yeah. So I mean that and the question is do we not fill the opening and if you couldn't tell it was John's opening. Well, the and and we asked ourselves that do we not fill it? You know, is he going to be okay without it? And maybe. But you know what? We also have this resource in the district office which we feel it would be better focused on the school, better use utilizing the school to keep that service focused
041on the kids. If we have to make the cut, let's let's try or the reduction. Let's try to focus that reduction back to the school rather than have it in the district office. 49. Let's see. 2130. Uh, next page is also page 49. That's 2321. Oh, I jumped ahead. I think there was one on this question, wasn't it? Oh, maybe not. Maybe not. 2321 was a question on and that is the office of the superintendent and that is essentially essentially you're looking at payroll increases. Um when this was we had previously we had had interim and then we're shifting to not interim this school year and moving into next year. So, you're seeing it, what you're seeing is a series of uh payroll increases happening there and a little bit more money set aside for
042professional development um should we need it, supplies, travel, etc. And the office of the superintendent, it's it's not just one person. Um there's a part of me is in there. Um there's a part of um there Michelle's in there. So it you're not looking at like a 68,000 payroll increase of one person. And it wouldn't just be payroll too. I mean it's guess it would be benefits just a question. We're on page 49. I'm sorry I did not submit it but the 2161 special ed that it that went from the 311 36 to nothing. Is that just put somewhere different? Right below. Right below it. 21 2190. Never mind. Shifted. I knew that. I even have an arrow there. And then 24.95 on that same page. Um again, also you're also looking at a at
043the shift to the index model for the athletics. um again so the budget more accurately reflects what's happening um currently. We also have payroll increases which contribute to that. Okay. And then and then this was discussed last time. So um Lorray spent some time putting this together. um we had talked about well it'd be kind of fun to look at what the participation rates are. So here you're seeing the participation rates for the fall sports um overtime based on enrollments b the percentage is based on enrollment. So that's good. Um, so we I mean I obviously very interesting the cost increases also in athletics includes things like travel, paying for the referees, game fees, the coach, the referees and the game fees. I mean those are climbing every year too just like everything else. travel
044expenses have gotten to be more referee are set at the OSAA level. They're not set at our level. So, we have to just adjust to whatever happens and they went through um a process about three or four years ago. They took a very hard look at their referee rates and their recruitment and trying to increase the number of people doing that. increased the rates for referees, fires, other officials like that quite a bit that time. Yeah, just a question. I know you have your data that goes back to 2122 on percent of participation in the sports. If you go back precoid, there was the one year where there were those actually no scores. But were the participation rates generally higher, lower, or roughly the same? I'm just curious about potential impact. I didn't include them
045because there was so many on the page, but um it was not that great of a change, but in some sports you see decline, some sports you see up. So before co so material no not based on enrollment of students at the beginning of the year my curiosity big jump I assume that's just the addition of girls wrestling I don't know exact that came in 23 24 well and then the percentage drop back down a little bit too um you know there's I mean there's multiple factors um Do you remember what year? I think Gary coached wrestling one year too. That's been a while. Wow. Okay. Yeah, we had Jeff in there and then we switched two years ago. Looking at those, I was glad this question came up and that we put this together
046because this is a a fascinating chart to follow and I think that that we can tell a lot about the athletic programs themselves. um what's happening in the programs, you know, is it maybe is maybe we can identify areas to support our coaches better or to support, you know, um reaching out to students to try to participate in sports better, too, but overall not significant. Some of them more than others. And then here's your spring sports. So again, it's it's one of these areas, you know, I think most of us would probably say overall, I mean, athletics has an ability to raise money, you know, and they can raise a significant amount of money. Our student body account is is is healthy. Um, it's it's an area that doesn't get funded heavily, you know, by
047like the general fund, things like that. But it's there they're opportunities we also don't want to take away from the students because there's we want to have you know there's something for everybody out there. We want to try to tap into many as many of those interests as we can because um these are the types of things that keep kids interested, keep them engaged, keep them in school program. So sort of charge and what I see there are schools I've had conversations schools where every one of those would be downward and the postcoid involvement has sometimes difficult with that and so the fact that you know percentage bases we're saying consistency is really it's a healthy well the black football yeah those are added um as emerging sports um and so we'll kind of see
048where those go they did yeah they're doing fantastic Dan is tonight. Page 50. Um [Music] 2524. Some of these questions we answered last time, too. We're just kind of reviewing um payroll services. So, you saw a large increase in payroll services. There's unemployment in there. there. Safe increases, safe as our workman's compensation insurance, payroll fees for paid family medical leave insurance. So, that's one of those newer things that we've have been kind of figuring out as we go. Um, and payroll stuff and cola as well. The unemployment is the one where we're we're you know, we there's no there's no consistent trend. It's so new that we're just trying to tuck some ability to fund that at a higher rate than it was in case more people claim unemployment during the summer than we than
049we expect. We know it'll be higher than last year because more people will know about it and some people have already successfully done it. So then they start talking and then somebody else will do it. That that's the new unemployment. If you're not familiar, like a classified employee, teachers can't take it, but a classified employee, if they take a job with us, that's a 10-month position. So, they know it's a 10-month position. It's not employed over the summer. They're now able to claim unemployment over the summer. And so then we as a district are paying for that out of out of the district funds. So, we now have to budget for that. classes. It only applies to classifi. It wouldn't Yeah, it wouldn't it wouldn't offset it. We really wouldn't have anything for him to
050do um over the summer. I mean um it wouldn't it then it would cost us more than it costs to budget this way. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I mean, if it was a if it was a a wash, you know, then it would be like, let's just keep them all and have some sort of daycare running over the summer or something like that or, you know, little program going. But, uh, page 50, line 2660, technology services, you do see a increase there of about 93,000. Um, a lot of these things [Music] too. 2660 regular payroll wages, benefits increases, tech, hardware, software increases. We're trying to again just because it's budgeted doesn't mean that it will be spent is the goal. Um, we're in a review right now of all of our technology. um looking at what
051we can try to um kind of pull off the plate um if we're not using a program. We're looking at usage reports. What are the outcomes? Um we've realized, you know, we've had a lot of software programs throughout the years that they're built into the budget. It doesn't mean we're going to keep them. That we recognize, well, if we have two programs that essentially do the same thing, we've got half of the people using this one, a small percentage using this one. you don't really know which one's effective, which one's and and yet you're paying for two. So rather than to continue that process, let's narrow it down to one, find out though, find out if this is helpful and and helping students achieve better. And if it's not, then make a switch to something
052else rather than paying for two and not having any consistency in usage. So we're we're going through a process like that right now. I've already identified a few things we want to um uh take off of this as a as a item we would actually pay for. Um so you you're also seeing based on you know we we look at where we're at currently this year where we're going we have some things that we might also add. Um, so again, we're trying to take away, but we're also looking at, do we need to invest in a new analytics um, uh, program that's like sort of a a dashboard where we can see different data on it. And if we do invest in that, well, then there's a onboarding cost. You know, now you're paying the
053software PE fee, but you also have a year one onboarding cost that might be 12,000 on top of that. So, we're kind of weighing those investments, but we have to include them in here in case we make them. So, um, we're looking at a a multi-tered system, a support software add-on. We're looking at an analytics software add-on. Um, we're looking at trying to add, um, a point of sales system um, for like games. Um, one of the big things we've noticed is, you know, you go to a game and, you know, we want to be able to have your card, you know, and tap and and pay and or use your credit card or if you pay cash, get a receipt on the spot and have that feed into our, um, accounting system a little
054bit cleaner. So, um, those are some of the technology software areas we we're also trying to improve on. So, that's why you see those increases there. combination of various things, payroll benefits, some hardware increases, software increases, page 50, um 2360 3360 that is the addition. So um the question was earlier you saw that homeless liaison in one area was zeroed out here in neglected student you see 50,000 added. That's the same position. It's being added into the general fund. It was in a grant fund to make sure we can still maintain that contract with Kuz Bay and um retain those services for our our homeless population, which unfortunately continues to grow. 53 54 There were some questions about the medical insurance when you get into the medical and it's well you're looking at page 53
055then 54 um item 240 241 all the way through your 240s on the other page page 54. So 242 43 44 all the way to 249. you kind of kind of lump these together as a whole rather than trying to look at them individually because people haven't chosen medical um dental or vision options. We don't know exactly how many people will be opting out every year. You can kind of make some guesses, but people do change those choices year to year. So, um some of that stuff fluctuates in here. if you see one area, you know, going down like on on 241, you see it go down $252,000, but then on 247 you see it go up 149. Um, so it just kind of trying to reflect where we're seeing the spending right now, but
056actually looking at it as a lump is a little bit cleaner than looking at them industry. Yeah. Um just out of curiosity for the GHP the group is it just the district or is it actual a consortium of districts that gather to get the discounted rate uh or uh OEB OEB Oregon Educator Benefits Board. It's a it's a large Okay. So yeah. Yeah. So would you say the we're looking with this grouping of benefits is kind of a current snapshot of what you're seeing from them. You have people enrolled in right now and we're just saying, "Hey, we're just going to stay like that." Yeah. Taxable fringe benefits was on 299. that was in medical in medical. That's a that's another part of that 252 that was reduced there. It was and again that's following
057that PBAM. It was life insurance cost over 50,000 but we just moved that expense down into here to better reflect the chart of accounts in the state. page 55. Uh line 385, management services, there was a question on that. Uh 2425 budget had $50,000 in there and 2526 proposed budget is 12,500 that tied directly to our strategic planning process. So, we had budgeted last year to pay for strategic planning because we knew we would want to use a consultant um that bring in a service to help lead us through that process so we could get better community engagement in and a more robust process. So, that's been done. So, we've decreased that significantly. Will the 12,500 then be part of the implementation? It's part of the it can be used for the implementation. We also
058have um elsewhere built in a little bit money to continue our partnership with the performance fact so that we can help um drive our leadership team towards those goals that the community agreed on as district goals and kind of help keep our leadership team focused on those two because um the last thing we want is for that just to be sitting on a shelf somewhere. That is our fiveyear strategic plan. We want to keep keep our focus on Yeah. And that gives us the ability there to have a little bit of flexibility. A three 470 computer hardware other purchase services. We're going to I think we come back to that later. Um 389 is other purchase services. There was a question about that and I think we wrapped that into another slide. Uh 470 is
059computer software. So this goes back to a computer software question. This is specifically so we're at an object level. Before we were looking at a function level that included many things. Now we're just breaking it down even further. Um GIS software. So again um overall software programs. We have instructional software in there used in all the grade levels throughout the schools. There's special education software in there. There's program for maintenance for technology. There's um then the stuff we're planning on looking at some analytics, some multi-tered system support software and potentially um uh in in the the point of sale system. We're looking at too. And again, we're reviewing those. Um we've already identified quite a few dollars we can actually save there. without taking away from um student students other purchase services. So here's page
06055. Well, that is 389. Okay. So that is used for outside services like um here you would see like the RSRO paid out of the general fund. We've added an additional SRO pay partially and paid out of grant funds. Um, which next school year too, looking at our future projections, we know that that grant that pays for it this year is at the end of a two-year grant next year. So, we'll want to build it back into the general fund the following year. So, that's another one of those ways we use that forecasting tool so that we can also plan ahead for that, too. um referees, building budgets. Um for outside services, there's legal fees, the new McKenna Vento as the homeless liaison um maintenance um services that we're purchasing local stronger connections. Typically there
061I mean we could and if we get the opportunity we will. We were invited as a larger group of districts to apply and we applied and were selected a smaller group got selected. So typically the pattern has been if you had it then they kind of pass it on to somebody else. Um but we would certainly try if we have the opportunity. Highly competitive. Yeah, it is highly competitive and it's and it's a nice it's a really nice um resource we have right now. In fact, um if you're not doing anything Saturday, we have a fun day planned over at the high school. Um you can come down and see some of where that grant money is going. Our partnership with Wayfinder. So we've invited families to come in in the morning that families can
062come with their secondary students and participate in some fun activities around future career readiness um self uh self-awareness skills um some social emotional learning skills and we've structured it like um sort of like a little day camp type thing like where we'll have a keen we'll have like a sort of a keynote where the parents will be with their children and then they'll and they'll do some fun activities then they'll break up there'll be an activity for just the students and then another activity happening simultaneously with the parents so they can kind of learn some of the same skills but at different levels and then come back together and then do some more fun activities and then we have a lunch planned in the middle of that for that morning group that will blend into
063the afternoon group which for the primary students and the parents. So, and if you have children of all ages, you're welcome to stay for the whole day. Either way, everybody's welcome to stay for lunch. And, um, we have through the grant, um, some limited edition Northbend Wayfinder t-shirts that we'll be handing out. Um, that was a surprise. So, hopefully we don't have hundreds of people watching this, but they won't be surprised, but or we might get more people to participate. So, but you're all welcome to stop by, come by, have lunch at least um and if you're if or participate with the activities and that was something we're really excited to bring on. Um line 480. So, computer hardware again here you're looking at um $55,000 of this was moved for the tech hardware lease
064from another object from 630. So, that's why that increased there. I'm better aligning to the PBAN budgeting codes. The question on the previous one on the other purchase services. Yeah. Hey, why is there guidance on that? Because it's like I mean I would think things like maintenance contracts would fall under maintenance or if there was legal fees, there would be some sort of professional fees. You could have some insight into I think that's my problem with that. We're at the Well, we're at the object level. Yeah. So that that's hitting all your functions. So we could say function maintenance maintenance. So we could say 4,000's 389, but you're now we also have 1,000 is 389, 2,000's 389. So you're seeing it as a as a whole. Oh, you're already under the ice. So any at
065any fund and function level, you're going to see your 300 levels in your objects and your 300 services. So 389, but it's still could something under a 389 be under 322 purchase service um depending on the purchase service is p other purchase services things that don't fall into the other categories exactly so that's just they don't fit neatly into those other categories and so that's why they use that often well I just it's just cleaner I think when you're using the ones with actual names. I think it's just easier to understand what other and I see that growing and that's why it doesn't it doesn't fit in those. So it's so it isn't as clean and that's that's we're kind of we're getting into the weeds a little bit just because we're at that really
066growing because you're Mckin Vento 50,000 right there. Yeah. Adding adding the McKenna Vento. So that's a contract that's the contract with Kuz Bay. So they didn't fit really on any of those other lines. Basically the guy that says essentially that guy. Uh, page 59, R [Music] 3199. This is the reimbursement for the high cost disability. Yeah. Was under 3101 in the past. Now we're moving it back into 31.99 to follow fe. So that's why you're seeing it now in 2526. It did come back. It was in there earlier. 2324. That was actuals. Yeah. Then based on the actuals after audit, it was put into that. So now we're just going to go ahead and budget for that reimbursement for high cost disability in that category rather than moving it in there later after actual suit.
06759 again. Um any fund balance for 2324 was 8.3. So this one we talked about before. Um what we So again, last year in the spring we were predicting an ending fund balance for right now at 6.6. We know now that it's higher 2425. We actually came in at 8.3 rather than the 6.6. So, we realized a significant amount of cha savings coming into this school year, which was our goal when we adopted the budget last year. Just like you're hearing us say this year, we have the appropriation. It doesn't mean we're going to spend it. Um, a big factor interest income. Yeah, we and that was a question I think Rodney asked last time. Are we in, you know, there's the government local government investment pool, so there's interest income coming in. So there's
068a large chunk of money in that that that came in that was higher than we than we knew at the time. So lots of costsaving factors, interest income that contributed to that large increase. Page 70 goes back into page 70 was the homeless liaison I believe disappearing but they didn't disappear. You saw that going to the other section. Can I just ask a question for your for next year? Do you recall what you guys budgeted for? What what was the interest rate? Well, in interest funds, we don't can't depend on them. So, you can see through history like 2324 on that one page was 700 something thousand, but we budgeted only 225,000 because you don't know what the market's going to do. But our interest rates are about 4.6 to 5. So, we're budgeting. We
069budget we're we're always budgeting lower with the hope that it comes in higher 72. Um kind of getting into the special revenue fund summary. So, seven just I think the question here was sort of overall the lifespan of grants. This question had to do with lifespan of grants. They they could run anywhere typically one to three years. Um you'll see um unappropriated ending fund balance in the special revenues is separate from the ending fund balance we talked about earlier that we would use. This is really made up of hers reserve is a large chunk of it. Um, we have our tech reserve, our athletics reserve, textbook replacement. So, these are funds earmarked for future years for replacement cycles. So, that's where we talked about having to kind of save as you go. So, if you
070know, we get hit with an ELA adop English language arts adoption for textbooks in in two or three years that costs $600,000, we're not trying to budget for it all in one year. We have a small reserve we put into it every year. so that we can have that savings built up. Same with the computer replacement fund because the students have the one-on-one replacement, so there's a replacement cycle. Um, we're just tucking money away so that we can make sure that we have that money for those replacements as we go. Yep. just out of curiosity. The the textbook fun having my son hanging out with John on occasion. I know that future administrator a lot of his teachers are moving it seems to be moving away from textbooks and into software. So, does that textbook
071fun towards the software or was that under the other line item that was the software? It's a great question. Most of the textbooks include an online component. So, the textbook may exist whether or not if it's a core subject area, whether or not the teacher is using primarily the textbook or primarily to the the software kind of depends on their teaching style. Um but this the online textbooks are part of the textbook purchase process. Yeah, you're right. Everything kind of a shifting more that direction. We are typically spending when we buy textbooks, we buy the hard book as well as buying the software and all the ancillary options, the licenses for the software for a period of time. We are not at a place yet, although it's probably coming in the next 10 years where
072we'll shift the majority of our textbook purchases will be electronic. What we do see is that when that happens, our textbook purchase prices will likely increase because online only versions are less expensive. They're not actually increasing the product. So, but at this point in time, we're still buying a printed textbook that comes with the software option. And then um using the um Oregon Department of Education textbook replacement cycle, we then look at what previous costs for each of the one of those textbook adoptions cost us and what we're seeing other districts pay for those. And then building out I believe we built maybe like 10 years into into the future when we built that textbook replacement cycle. Same with the tech reserve for student laptops. And then one of the future questions, there's like a
073athletic van reserve in there, maintenance van reserve in there, too. I was just going to say, do you see some like even in the core subjects where there's not one book per student? Like maybe like just a set of books that they keep in the room. Because I'm trying to remember I think when my kids were in middle school like they didn't even take the book home. They left it in this. So I'm wondering if they like share the same book per different periods but they have a book of the newer adoptions if it's a core subject we would we would have a book per per student. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um some of the some of sort of the the off core subject areas they they it's not uncommon for them to have one set
074of books they share depending on depending on the subject. Is there data that shows that that technology especially at the inner level is impacting students positively? You know, like if you have the option of teaching it out of book or with technology. Um, you know, I know that everybody's moving there and you said that in a few years it'll maybe just be all online. Are we sure that that's, you know, is that we have data that shows that that's impacting our students positively? Because I know for a lot of people, you know, there's a ton of concerns about our children, especially at the elementary level, in technology. And, you know, a lot of are going home, spending their time on technology, and then they're going to school, spending their time on technology. Right. Right. It
075kind of feels like it's peeling away from, you know, the function of I mean, we're all sitting here right now and everybody's got paper. Yeah. We're not going to train to do that. It kind of worries. Yeah. I mean understand that technology is important, you know, we need it, but you know, just balancing. We're so old school. It is very seeing all these kids. You know, I have a six and an 8-year-old and uh they can use the technology in an incredible way, but they are driven forward, you know, and we all want them to be outside playing and doing other things, but it's kind of tough to rip them away from that sometimes and it's at school, you know, entirely. I think the the concern you bring up is very valid and with the
076shift more towards technology and especially after COVID when we were forced into that world it was like everything was like well it's all technology let's keep going all technology and now we're starting to see some of those repercussions even in the classroom with students handwriting and things like that. So now you're starting to see teachers shift back to more paper pencil type activities. In fact, we're investing in software, but um they'll be doing stuff on paper like programs called handwriting without tears and things like that um to try to get those skills back. And I think what you're bringing up is a super valid point for parents to understand that when we go through a textbook adoption cycle, we want community input and we want parent input. We send out the information. These are the
077types of things we have that we're that we're looking at. come look at the materials and see what so what's available because that that decision then goes to the board to adopt those materials and um your voice as a parent is certainly important throughout that process. Well, I would say like, you know, my daughter and son now both do a mirror and, you know, when it's working, it's fantastic. You know, they really love it and I would say benefit greatly from it. But then there's the technical side as well. And then the um computers aging and are they charged? All the different little things. Um sometimes the speakers and the microphones. my son has, you know, speech impediment and he's had issues speaking into it and, you know, if it was in person with a
078human, they probably would have picked up the same that computer is not doing that. And, you know, it leads to some dissatisfaction and probably not sure engaging as well as I would never, and I'm sure you would agree, I would I would never look at one of those programs as a replacement for a teacher. And I would never look at it as something I would expect a teacher to say I'm not gonna read with this child because air is doing it. You know, I mean, I that would be completely against there's a couple of things to remember when you're talking about the textbooks as kids go from kindergarten through 12th grade. Um, at the primary level, we don't have a social studies textbook, okay? But we don't have we don't kids down and say, "Turn
079to page 14. We're going to read this page." What we have that's that's in paper form at the younger levels is typically some kind of a consumable product that is going to include some workbooks, some lessons and things like that that the kid would go through or things teacher doing work with. So the concept of having a second grader they're reading a social studies textbook read chapter 14 do the questions at the end section kind of thing is is not their experience you mentioned the mirror mirror has a very specific purpose and that is high dosage tutoring that is AI based high dosage tutoring where every kid in the classroom can be reading and get feedback all at the same time. Whereas in and most of us when we were in school, if we had
080that kind of time with the teacher, I would have my three or four minutes and then they would send me down and Julie would be next. And so we would have to go one at a time where software like that had a specific purpose for looking at tutoring. So, and then obviously as you get older then you start getting into the US history textbooks and your math textbooks and so on and so forth and it becomes a little more what we remember school being like. So even within the context of our textbook purchases, our curriculum purchases, sometimes we say textbook, our curriculum purchases, um the good thing, the good news is for us is with Tim's leadership over the course of the last several years, rather than having the tech crisis, oh, we have enough
081money to buy next year's textbooks. Oh man, what are we going to do? We're going to have to we're gonna have to try to figure this out. We can only buy half this year, half the next year. We can, you know, we're not playing that game because we're setting aside set aside making sure the budget budget so that we're not every single I got a lot of one-on-one time with my teacher in elementary school, too. I was kind of like Rodney's son. The teacher just dragged my desk right next to hers. Pretty much a yearly thing. I think they really liked me. Page 91 future rate reserve. that is our so that is this was an account created to um basically if we didn't have the bond um these are sometimes called your per side
082accounts. So, um, we've just kind of been when when available making a transfer into this account to plan for future increases. Um, that that's just money we I mean that's employee money is essentially what it is for for benefits. Student activities on page 96 projected revenue 650. This is so our uh 1990 miscellaneous local revenues. This these are your student activity funds. um 23 24 you see our actuals after audit was 604,000 um adopted budget for this year was 650 so we're proposing 700 just showing just an anticipated increase it it allows us to plan for that increase in revenues um like I said that the activity fund is is healthy um page Page 104 vehicles. That was a specific question. Yes, that is also part of those reserve accounts. Um, and in the budget
083[Music] 254500 line, you see $188,000 budget there. This is and and I'm I'm frequently reminding people just because you see it in the budget doesn't mean you can go buy $180,000 worth of cars. Like this is gives us the ability to buy those vehicles if we need to replace a vehicle this year. So there's athletics in this and there's maintenance in this. So we could replace a vehicle in our fleet if we needed to. if it doesn't happen, it just stays in there as part of your ending fund balance. And then we could have it, like I said, this is money set aside for that replacement cycle. Um, couple years ago, like we couldn't even find a van for maintenance anywhere and so we just ended up rebuilding an engine and a transmission. We had
084somebody then when we finally found a van, we had them drive it here from Washington. So, but it is it is there if we need it. So, we are trying to keep up on our vehicle fleet, make sure we have good working equipment. Page [Music] 113 4150. So page 113 under in the 4,000s there um facilities acquisition construction 4150 building acquisition um we went from a budgeted 430 to a proposed budget of 1 million. This is um middle school project and we and we have a project list built out. There's always typically more in this than we than we know we're going to actually accomplish in a year, but we did put us a bunch of projects in here. Um things like the middle school roofing, um this year we we tried to plan for
085a section of it and we couldn't even find somebody to come out and quote that section. Um boiler replacements at two schools, energy projects, a kitchen roof, um various projects like that. We had a last minute, which we know is going to come in the summer, a lighting project that'll take place at North Bay that when we started this year, we didn't think we didn't know we were going to do it. But then when we started to dig into the lights, we realized that all of the electronics in the ballast needed to be replaced because they're kind of they're shorting out is what was happening. So that became a big project that we had to add in here um to make sure that that's those were all functioning safely. boiler replacements. We've been trying to
086like slowly pick pickle at throughout the years. So, we budget for more than we're actually probably going to accomplish, but we want to make sure that we can accomplish them as well. Yeah. like the column is the one where the multi-purpose cafeteria role dances um something out there and it was cold and it's very so if you're marking for one place I would strongly suggest and that's coming from a guy that's from northern Innesota that is used to the cold was only in that building for three hours. So we do find like especially at certain times of the year because those are the the boilers are run on timers. I I do. Um yeah. No, and that's a good point and and and we we especially certain times of year we run into this because
087they're on timers and so they um they kick off. They kick on. It takes hours to heat. I mean, how many hours is it got to turn on to heat your building? Yeah. It'll turn off at 2 o'clock like Friday and Saturday it's ice cold. Yeah, it was. So, and and a lot of it and the old control mechanisms, you know, we're trying to replace those. In fact, we just got approval through an energy project to help reimburse the cost of some controls, replacements, which also help solve some of those types of problems, too. Um, but I 100% agree with you. We need to get some upgraded um boilers in some of those buildings and better control systems, which you go through the energy trust of Oregon. We got a large I think last year
088about 100,000. So, it was it was Yeah. Yeah. That's great. replacement thing. Are we putting money into a fund to actually do the project or are we because I feel like I've seen the boiler replacement for all four years. You you probably have. Yeah. Yeah. And there's different there's different there's different boilers in all the buildings. So I think you know maybe was it two years ago year and a half ago we saw the Hillrest ones get replaced. Okay. And then and there's two in each building. There's two in each building. That makes sense. And there's some ant. Yeah. Middle school. Yeah. So, so it's not that we replace them because they don't function anymore. Look at the square footage of the building. How how it stacks and so forth and try to make sure
089that comes out of necessarily feels like a constant 10 years. We got we've got things here, you know, like um in the middle school, we've slowly been going through the building every summer a room by room and kind of getting some of the aspest flooring flooring out in little segments. So that there's a little there's always some money set aside for that. Again, the middle school um needs roofing in in several areas. Um this this project here is the middle school and North Bay boiler replacement. So the middle school, I think it'll accept steam boilers and then we're going to and so we'll have a a more costefficient boiler in the middle school that that Northbay doesn't accept, but North Bay needs a backup boiler. So we'll take the functioning one from middle school and
090put it over there and get an upgraded control system to run it. So um Mark Copel, if you know him, um he's our MacGyver kind of keeps everything pieced together and running. Not last year. coming in my second budget have been in a number of school districts and the projects that we're talking about in the manner of course we have budgeted for just do when we have a list and we accomplish them without crisis cause crisis in other school districts they think about a boiler replacement um like we might think about buying a new house like it's feels that big when you're reach a lot of smaller districts and and so the fact that we do this with our budget have these things in place and we and get them done changes our experience in
091our district from a vast number of districts around the state. So, I really appreciate the work that they've done, the patterns that have been put in place over the years. And that was um I think one of the questions from the board was when we didn't get a bond. I mean, can we maintain these buildings? We I believe we can and I believe we can continue to budget responsibly for it as long as we're also budgeting responsibly in other areas of our budget, including staffing. Page 123. This was another um another tough question here. um state. So on page 123, you're looking at the state school fund grant print out that talks about on the left side local revenue and it has property taxes 6.8 million and then it goes down to a sum of
092local revenue which is 7.2 million. And if you for example looked on page 59, you would see that that number doesn't ne doesn't match. And and the answer is no, it's not going to match. Um on this state printout, they include things that are local revenues that actually aren't in our budget. They're they're more intermediate state sources. So just in the end, they don't match back and forth 100%. jump back to page. That was a good thing to for someone to notice and ask about, but that it's not going to match 100%. So in the on page 59 under state sources you see state sources but above that in 2000 intermediate sources. Well that on the printout from the state they include the common school fund which fits or the county school fund which fits
093into intermediate source but here they're including it as a local revenue. It's not in fact a local revenue. So that's why there's a little bit difference there. There's a few examples of why that changes operating contingencies. How I think the question might have been how how do we use them if we needed to? That was board action. Yeah. Like over overarching how do we get into those? How do we access them if needed to? it would be only by board action. Um we don't use the funds um because they're utilized for the next year's beginning thin balance. There's a question about the special education cap. Um so right now in the legislature there had been talk about special education cap being increased. And what we're referring to is if a student counts as a special
094education student, there's additional funding that comes with them up to 11% of your total enrollment. So if your special education population was 15% of your population, you're only getting the additional funding for 11% of them. So you're not getting enough necessarily. the state was talking about increasing that special education cap to try to become more of an average in line with the state special education population that's identified so districts could get a little bit more money. Um right now um the the what we had been hearing was it was going to increase but now based on the local um economic forecast and I sent that to the uh summary of that to the board members just the other day. Now we wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't increase. We could we we might just see
095that stay the same. We will be we'll just be happy if the um 11 um 11.4 4 million a billion states the the fund for the state school fund. What is our percentage of students? We're right around 15 16%. Yeah. So that cap was set years ago, the 11% cap. And and there, you know, and there was some justification for it because it they didn't they didn't want to create an incentive to identify students as special education. like if there wasn't a ceiling then you could have seen maybe um somebody taking advantage of that um inappropriately so but by identifying more students as special education they could have then got more money for the district. So they set the cap at the time based on the average identification rate but it was so long ago
096it's not it's not matching the current um identification rates for districts. So all the districts are struggling with not um having necessarily enough funding because we know that the resources that might be needed to um help a special identifi a special education student ident um achieve success might be higher than a student who's non-stead. Yeah. Is that just is that count just an IEP count or 504 count or how do we get to that 15% something students? Yes. Yeah. All right. Um we're going to take a five minute break here. Okay. We're about halfway through. I'm just kidding. Uh, one of the questions had to do with did we rem did we reduce benefits? No, we did not. Um, subtract any of the benefits. Um, if you see a decrease to employee benefits on any
097of the line items, it would just be a it would have have been due to attrition or not refilling a position. Um but we did um subtracted no yes added. So that's part of the negotiation process. Cola question budget was built on current staffing levels. The cola increase. So we in the cola increase is the is about the 5% um as we're budgeting. The question was what did you build into your budget? um we built in about a 5% with some additional um associated costs that might come out of a negotiations because there's always other things that get added on to a contract that have costs above a cola. So that's how we kind of built that um out with that assumption. Then then going back to the purchase services um there was a question
098about vendors. We we pulled a report and we have about 420 vendors listed um that that we've used or paid throughout the year for various purchases. Um if if it comes to procurement guidelines, we always follow state and federal um law procurement guidelines. um when it comes to certain thresholds, if that means, you know, finding a certain number of bids or or going out to an RFP if necessary, um definitely always following those processes. Before you move on, can I ask you a quick question on operating contingencies on page 50 under item 6110 operating million. Is this budget being adopted with that amount being appropriated to spend under this board action or is it is it an unappropriated amount meaning it's it can't be spent? Do you want me to answer that? Go ahead. It
099currently it's under operating contingency. So is budgeted by board action. You'd have to go to the board to actually use that. Unappropriated means you cannot even touch it if something went haywire. It's appropriated, but it's only by board action. They could actually touch it. We have not touched it. That was that first first line there only be used by board action. Appropriated then there wouldn't be there for board action. Correct. Unappropriated. Unappropriated. Correct. Additional questions. Yeah, I actually do. I mean, I know this would probably fall under the capital movements. I know for years they've been talking about some ADA compliance, specifically Hillrest and an elevator. Is that something that's still going on or that we're putting money aside to fund or are we bury it in that way. Well, it's not it's not in
100the budget. I wouldn't say that we're burying it. If if if it became a necessity, we would address it. Um it's not currently something that that's required that we need. Um so, it's not something that we're building into the budget to add. Um that would be a significant cost to add that to Hillrest. Yeah, that has been you talked about off and on. Um, and we we know that there's a series of things. Um, we went through a civil rights review this year that we're we're talking about doing at the high school to address some ADA issues and those will take a few years to accomplish. on things like replacing round door knobs with little levers. One touch um you know to make it easier for people to to open those doors or and the
101something like that surprisingly is I mean you don't think about it but I mean carries $60,000 price tag you know to replace all those doorork knobs. Um they're they're not cheap. Um creating some different covered areas for transitions. Um, couple doorways I think need to be widened in a couple bathrooms. You just and some minor things like adding a rail here and there or putting some, you know, something soft on the pipes underneath things, things that maintenance that maybe had not noticed. But so there are 88 compliance projects in place around the district. Elevator is not currently one of them. So that is the end of the questions we received. Um unless um the committee has more believe we public com any other comment questions. So, is there a motion to approve the budget? Go
102ahead. I'll make a motion that the budget committee of North 10 School District number 13 approve the proposed budget for the year 2025 to 2026 in the sum of 68,632,56. and that the budget committee further approves the property taxes to be levied for North End School District number 13 as follows. 4.1626 per 1,000 assessed value per tax second. All right, everybody in favor of that motion say I. I. Everybody opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. At this point, I'd like to thank Tim and Vince and the whole team here. You guys did a very nice job presenting all the information and also to the board members and the public members who were on tour as well. Um, we appreciate your guys' time and your service to your the community and our children. And at this
103point, I would like to adjourn the meeting. Thank you.