001Hi, good evening. We have a little bit of a late start due to some technical difficulties, but we're all here and I'd like to welcome you all to the budget meeting and I was told I get to use the gavel. And I'd like to call the budget meeting to order and read the mission statement. Motivating and preparing all students to reach their greatest potential is our mission statement. Um, I'd like to welcome the people in the audience and uh people who are watching on Zoom. And right now we're going to do the pledge of allegiance and I'm going to ask Chair Lacouture to do the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. To the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
002all. And now we'll have the uh roll call. And make sure, by the way, that you speak into your mic and push the button so that especially people on Zoom can hear you. Chair Lacouture. Present. Vice Chair Miltenberger. Present. Director Paulette. Present. Director Cole. Director Haberly. Present. Director Postgate. Director Pimlot. >> Present. Budget Committee members. Budget Chair Lisa Walter Sedlacek. Present. Budget Vice Chair Katie Sneden. Present. Budget member Lindsey Phillips. Present. Budget member Nora Kent. Present. Budget member Ivy Meadow. Present. Budget member Sue Jones. Present. Budget member Alex Ferguson. Thank you everyone for being here. Now we will have I don't sure if we have any public comments. We have one public comment. And there is a 3-minute time clock. So please um I think it's facing you. No, it's facing us. It's facing us.
003Yeah. So Amy Polito? Yes, hello. Thank you. Hi. Hi. >> Go ahead. You have 3 minutes. >> Okay, thank you. So I'm surprised there's not more people to comment today. Um thank you for seeing me and taking your taking the time to see me. Um so I'll just start with you've got it. My name is Amy Polito. I am the current one general education aid for Sayville Middle School for all three grades. Um once upon a time I heard that there was one for each grade and someday maybe that will be possible again. Um so I just uh wanted to bring to light as you make all your decisions for the budget and um have all of your knowledge behind you in doing so um that we're kind of already operating at uh bare minimum
004with as far as aids go. While someone last meeting spoke very well for the support of aids in all the schools, I just wanted to make a point of um letting you know how it's operating here. So currently um like I said, I'm the one general education aid and then we have the one PASS room, which is the Positive Academic Support Services and In-School Suspension, that uh Ms. Freda takes care of. She's right here. Um and I am not in any way trying to advocate for myself to keep my position, because while I do love it, I absolutely love it here. I know my senior already dictates that dictates that I may need to flex, and I'm perfectly happy with that. I just I'm hoping that you guys have the possibility of keeping those positions
005open for someone just for the support of the students and the teachers that really rely on that support all day long. Um just to give you some data, the PASS room has seen 2,693 students visits by students this year so far. Some are in there all day for in-school suspension, and some are just requiring a 10- to 15-minute brain break for those with a bit of a behavioral support plan. Um some are just needing a place to focus and catch up on work that they've been absent from, take a test um that they can't stay in class to do. And the aide room that I am in, while I'm not in classrooms, which is usually where I am, is at times, upon request by teachers, full to capacity with 10 students, myself, and then overflowing
006into the hallway tables as they could do catch-up work or um whatever they need to be doing, testing, etc., so that the class can continue forward. Um daily I support two to eight students per class per period, equaling 16 to 64 students a day by catching them from falling behind, six to 10 teachers uh a day from disrupting behaviors and the inability to be in more than one place at once. Um and then the remaining 160 plus students in those classrooms so that they can keep learning at their continuous flow. How [snorts] are we doing on time? Oh, okay. I'll make it quick. So, overall it's a positive ripple effect. There's a lot of catching and returning of students all day long happening that, um, quite simply if we're not there, we don't have a
007place for them to go. Um, the office staff, uh, I think would be quite overwhelmed quite quickly. Um, and then that does not Those numbers do not reflect the safety of supervision. If there are not enough staff members to supervise during breakfast and lunch in what we call the Thunderdome, um, with all the hungry growing kids, um, then we just don't have enough safety supervision happening. Um, sorry for my ums. I'm a nervous public speaker. So, I think that's pretty much covered it all. I just wanted you to be aware of where we're at. I know you have a lot of hard decisions to make and we thoroughly appreciate your support. Having us, uh, having you stand behind us and guide us with your expertise, um, is really appreciated and we I wish you a
008lot of strength and courage as you make those decisions and thank you for your time. Thank you very much for taking the time for public comment. So, at this time there are no more public comments and we will close public comment. And now we're going to go into the budget discussion. And, um, this will be from CC and, uh, Andy. Yes. Did you want to start, Andy, with the updates? I'll start with the updates on the budget that when they received the information today. Yes, we've been meeting with administrators, teachers groups, classified employee groups. And again, we started with a general reduction list across the board. And we told the again building administrators, you know, again kind of what their fraction was and they needed to put on the table. And as of Monday, we
009have some tentative agreements for some other salary reductions. Looking at what you have on this large kind of multi-colored spreadsheet. Again, it starts with the elementary school. And again, you can and there's no soft side that tells you why that is there or what's necessary or why it's necessary. It's either an enrollment adjustment. Redirection of enrollment. Or there's been a like a limited participation or some other enrollment function there. Again, a lot of what was put on the list by building administrators was simply extra duty assignments. Again, things outside of the normal teaching day. These are some of our kind of staff leadership positions. Club organizations. Other kind of semi-administrative tasks that teachers do during the day. Also included in that, we have three teachers that were teaching a full day without a prep period
010as part of that. Um And that really increases their full-time equivalent by 0.17 or 17% of their teaching schedule per day. And Again, so you've got the straight list here as you as you go down and what the current estimated cost is for all of those positions. That is salary and benefits. Um for certified positions, uh our benefit factor is about 40%. Uh because the classified staff have the same general benefit package as the certified, um but they make less, their their benefit function is a bit higher. Um and it's it's closer to like 90%. It's not that they're getting a super huge different package, it's just that again, if it cost $10,000 against a teacher that makes 75,000, it still cost us 10,000 against an employee that makes 30,000, right? So, the the percentage
011function is just a little different. Um and so you've got all the positions. There are things that are split between buildings that are grouped together. And then there was a couple of from other public comment, there was things that we were able to do um in holding some positions with some general reduction. Uh those are listed as well. Um and I think what is probably the m- Again, you have all the specific positions listed there is when you get to the third page, um w- what has come back and we have a tentative agreement with um the certified group is um a 10% general reduction in athletic salaries at middle and high school. Uh that generates about $43,000 in savings. Um with that and knowing what some of the comment was, all programs were preserved
012at the 10% reduced rate. Yes. So again, so we held onto golf at the high school, the clay target team, and the second coach for middle school cross and track and field. Again, we held out with the third coaches or the second assistant for soccer, baseball, and softball because they just don't have the numbers to support three coaches right now. And the teachers also floated a very interesting idea and we worked the numbers on this. We're also battling not battling, but we're working through the governor's new directive of her instructional hours executive order. The question came as could we take furlough time during non-instructional time? The answer to that is yes. So, looking at the school year, we've got about 35 36 Fridays across the year. Typically, we're out for professional development on those days
013unless it's already a grading day. And so, the teachers suggested, well, on 20 of those days, we just leave at 2:30 and call it furlough Friday. So, for the roughly 85 staff that would be present next year, 20 days at an hour and a half per day would save [snorts] about $202,000. That's roughly a 2% salary cut for all certified staff. They'll be taking that back to membership for final ratification later. The classified group works typically, the general and aids work 7 hours per day. And they're on a staggered shift. Some are an 8:00 to 3:30, some are 7:30 to 3:00 depending on what we need for coverage. But and they're evaluating what furlough Friday looks for them. Again, in essence for them, it's 20 days, but because they work a a shorter day, it
014would be roughly a half hour per day. Um and that would it's right around $30,000 in overall savings. So, um what we've cobbled together here is um $2.61 million of general reductions. Um at a minimum, we need 2.4. Um so, there is some flexibility for the board to look at um specific positions. But again, I would caution again, like if you if you add back to the limit, some of that will have to be cut next year. Right? And so, uh it any add backs would have to be very strategic or come along with some other reduction to pair them. So, that is the finalized list that has been submitted to the board and they'll be reviewing that um upon the next board meeting and throughout they usually will have that give that information on
015where they're looking as far as um the cuts would appear. Um yes, and Andy's right. The minimum is 2.4. Um the budget you received received the minimum of 2.4 in reductions already. Um where it's exactly at, it just depends. It can be shifted between that, but it the the amount of allocations have included those reductions already. So, um but exactly where those landed, you're they're not going to find out until the board finalizes it and then we can adjust this according to a position within the budget itself, as long as it remains the same. Um there was an update that happened over the last um week or two. Um usually some extra funding comes in and um we need to actually update the budget itself. Um we were unaware that we were going to receive
016the award for summer learning, which we did. Um currently um we received it for Andy, was that 20 years >> 313,000 dollars each year for the next 3 years. So, we were really happy about that. We were afraid that we weren't going to have summer learning. So, this is a great continuation of um uh education and literacy and and um some summer time for um credit recovery for the high school. So, we're really glad to see that happen. So, you received um updated sheets on the actual budget totals. Um so, the only fund that this affects is fund 100, which is our general operation fund, which is summer school comes out of there. And um you're going to see a new total. Um we get a portion of it between now and June um for
017expenses that we will have in June between May and June, which is usually supplies and then of course staffing and prep time. So, um and then we will what we calculated will run us from July 1 to June 30th of 2027. So, you're going to see an increase of approximately 265,000 um at the um in instruction uh for summer school. And so, those totals have been updated. So, your the new allocation for the entire budget is now the um if you go to your orange pages is um 28,254,989. So, that that incorporates summer school and any updates we needed to do um as we um received some questions from the budget committee. So. So, you're going to see the summarized versions of those um um also between the balancing of the general fund revenue, which
018usually comes in um as a restricted fund cuz it's only being spent on specific items like summer school. And um then you'll also see um the increase in an instruction in the summary as well to balance the budget. And then that is all of the updates that we've had since the last meeting. I know you've all had some questions back and forth and you received the answers um in the uh summaries from Debbie in the recent days. And um so I think that's that's everything that we have on the updates unless uh you want to >> Debbie, do you want to put up the questions summary list just in case people have any question? Can you just pull up the email for it that it was in the last one? Is that possible? The second
019one cuz the second one has I think both of them together. Okay. I have a quick question while we're waiting for that. Um if what happens if we budget reductions of 2.6 and there is um does that carry over go into the reserve fund? Yes, it would. It would be again starting to build back the reserve and it would be less that needs to be addressed next year and the year after next. What are the odds that we cut 2.6 and then you know, we win the lottery and >> [laughter] >> I'm really being serious. I mean I is there a world in which we cut 2.6 and then we find out next year that maybe we didn't need to have cut that 200 that extra from 2.4 to 2.6 and magically I don't know
020how. Statistically, it's a possibility. But it's a but it's a slim. But it but it's slim and it cuz >> [clears throat] >> again, like we're not the only district in this boat. I understand. >> And [clears throat] like it would take it would really take intervention at the state level to address what's happening across the state. Um cuz again, there is there's a couple of kind of functional pieces that happen here at the same time. While we have declining enrollment, we also have increasing expenses, but we have we have funding for expenses that we never touch and never control. >> Right. And Oregon is unique in that fact that we directly address a state pool for retirement and a state pool for insurance. Right. Where that's usually held outside of the general budget and
021it's and it's administered at the state level. And so roughly a third of our funding never reaches us because it's it's it goes back to the state by what they call intercept. >> Intercept. >> Before the payment leaves, they take what is a what they think is going to be owed for certain functions and it goes out. Um and I can't tell you that the Senate would come together uh to do anything immediately right now. There'll there will probably some per student rate credit revaluation over the summer. We don't know how much that will be. It won't be $200,000. Um cuz it wasn't that much last time. Um and I it it's a it it is hard to speculate with all the variables there. Um Is it fair to say though that $200,000 of this
022doesn't have to be cut this year? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Again, it our our minimum commitment for being part of the statewide pool was to show 50% of the perceived deficit to be cut now. Right. So that's why 2.4 is on the table. The reason I asked that and chair if I'm out am I okay to okay. So I have a list of questions I can hold some of them but one of my questions is looking at extra duty. Correct. So you have this on two pages. You've got your tag coordinator web builders club maybe the club advisors I shouldn't touch on but you have tag and you have web and you have O Bob and then you've got page you have podcast and then you have another tag at a different school. So my question
023is >> [snorts] >> Do those programs go away completely with the extra duty being gone? Not all of them. Most of the tag administration will fall back to Lisa and I. Okay. Um But O Bob goes away? O Bob goes away and O Bob O Bob would normally be going away because the participation numbers were very low. And and I can I interject what is O Bob? Sorry. Orion Battle of the Books. Thank you. Okay. Podcasting goes away? It goes away unless it gets wrapped into a class or or falls like the high school during pride time. Okay. Now when you look at the other ones here you've got the builders club you have interact you have GSA and you have key club. Historically you have to have a staff member to sponsor a club.
024>> Correct. Yes. And that's presumably what these are. Yes. So those programs also go away without a staff to sponsor them or a staff is sponsoring them. They will they will go away without a staff to sponsor them or somebody from the parent organization like Rotary or Kiwanis comes in to And that would be allowed. That would be allowed. Yes. >> Okay. Um the reason I asked these things and highlight specifically extra duty and and talk about and I know we're not into the this time frame yet of advocating necessarily but if we don't have to cut $200,000 this year, I know how much our staff rely on extra duty contracts to make ends meet, which is a sad state of affairs, but is the honest-to-god truth. So, that's why I asked if those programs
025would be completely gone. I mean, when you look at the numbers, um they're pretty small. $1,700 a year. I mean So, yeah, that was my question. Um I have some other questions while I have the floor. Band, is that a complete elimination of the band program? It isn't. We're consolidating and reconfiguring it as music. There'll be some instrumental and some vocal music. But, there's the current population 6 through 12 is under 100. Right. We can't afford two full-time staff. And that's what you have now. That's what we have now. >> And you you would go to one full-time staff. >> yes. And they would encompass music. Yes. But, it still would not be at the elementary school. It would just be middle and high. Correct. >> Thank you. Um ba ba ba ba ba Oh
026my gosh, that might be all my questions. Okay, so again, you want us to look at non-curriculum lead extra duty. I I just want to I just want to say it out loud. I mean, um I there's the I don't want to cut anything. And I don't want to advocate for one thing over another, and I'm not necessarily even doing that, but I wanted to know if the the elimination of those programs, which it sounds like it does. So, that's something to note, and uh yeah. I'm not necessarily saying let's prioritize that >> looking at student-sponsored club activities There are 15. uh that I think meet the criteria that we're talking about. Um And again, what I The first thing I would do is again, go back to the teachers association and ask them for
027the same kind of consideration that they made for athletics for extra duty to reduce the stipend to see again, can it fly at 90%? >> Okay. >> All right. I mean, that's a Yeah, that's that's a fair I just Yeah, it it I know what those extra duty um paychecks do. And you know, you're cutting team leads, that's another little bump for people. Um I when I look at things that we might be able to save, I just think, you know, I know I know that's going to put a crunch. Okay. Yeah, no, we can definitely look at that again. I I have I have talked to a lot of parents that >> were concerned last year when we lost a district TAG coordinator. And now it looks like we're all we're also looking at
028cutting the extra duty of the TAG and um I know there are some parents that, you know, think that TAG is very important for the Obviously, everybody thinks it is, but I think that there will be some very vocal people if we completely eliminate TAG. No, that that's fine. Again, it's a It is a concern because even with what we did this year in having building site coordinators, Lisa and I picked up a lot of extra tasks to make sure that those extra events and things happened. Could you >> Alex had No. I'm kidding. Oh, we'll take that as a no. You may come to regret that. Uh Chair, please let me know if I'm you want to interrupt me partway through cuz I also have a slight list. I really quickly did want to
029say I do appreciate the sacrifices that everyone is >> talk into the microphone a little more? Yes. I do really appreciate the sacrifices that everyone's making. It seems like it's been a team effort for across all the classified and everyone to come together to see what they can all do and that's I just noticed it and wanted to say thanks. I also wanted to say thanks to Andy CC and the rest of the admin team. My experience with public budgeting is pretty limited. Uh and I know you're in a no-win position. No one is going to be happy with this, but I feel like looking at it overall and objectively, this is an incredible balance of everything. So, I guess I just wanted to publicly say this looks really good from just a numbers and
030facilitation perspective. Um one of the questions that we or letters that we received um was from Alyssa Cargill asking about uh how much it would cost to keep the um current uh way that supplies work at the school where the parents contribute the $25 um and then I'm assuming the school picks up. Like, what's the What are we looking at to keep that as it is currently? As far as how it currently works is that we're able to um purchase through the district the uh supplies in bulk and then that portion that is able to be collected from the um parents, then that goes towards any additional amounts of supplies that might occur during the year. That stays with the school itself. So, that stays with part of the um um the ASB or the
031student body account for the general fund in their accounts. So, they will be able to purchase supplies directly or reimburse teachers if they purchase a supply. So, that's where the that collects as far as that. Um I don't have the actual figure of the collection. Um I hate to estimate on something I I didn't review, but I can get that for you for sure. >> Okay. So, again, with Ms. Cargo's letter, again, like we buy in bulk and we can buy much cheaper, right? Again, and she kind of estimated again, if she went out as a parent just bought stuff for her kids, it would be like 90 bucks. >> Yeah. And again, we can do it for 25. Like, roughly that part of the budget is about $13,000 cuz we do that primarily for
032elementary. And so, 500 kids, 25 a head, that's kind of how we estimate it. Um I can tell you that we don't always collect from all 500 for all 500 kids. That's Um we try to give parents as much grace as possible, but we want to make sure kids have what they need during the day. Um So, again, I I don't know what the the solution there's no good solution in this, you're right, but going back to the point where then everybody has to go out and then really kind of duplicate work 500 times for 500 kids. Uh again, that [clears throat] supply part is still in the budget. We just may have to lean a little harder on the collection end to break that even cuz I I can tell you we're not breaking
033even on that. So, you're not proposing to cut it. We're not proposing to cut it. No, it wasn't it was an option that was suggested, but as far as feasibility, we didn't we didn't implement that in there. There might be slight cuts to materials. Everybody had to share a cut including the elementary. Um so, you will see a reduction in supplies overall. It wasn't to say that we were supporting um um having the parents provide. Um it'll just be like probably, you know, that's why we treat that extra $20 or $25 as a supplement >> Gotcha. >> to it. We don't anticipate ever breaking even Okay. on that situation. >> that makes total sense. And I guess that flows into the next part was you know, we had talked about previously and even today some
034opportunities for some of the clubs or groups or sponsorships from the community and community stepping in. I know it'd be difficult maybe, but would the district have like a priority list of what those things would be that they could float to those groups? So that way it would be a little at this point it feels very like everyone knows the school's in need of stuff, but I don't think like it's difficult to channel support towards just a general the but if there were specific initiatives that I think people could sponsor for certain dollar amounts that could be floated, I think that may just help. So similar to this, if we needed $10,000 for elementary school supplies, I think being able to facilitate and put that out would be useful. Yeah, well again, we can kind
035of reorganize some of the list that way. Again, it's like here here here are related items that you could donate to that are student supplies or student club groups. Yeah, we can do that. >> To me that's just creating extra work for you guys to have to figure out, you know, what you haven't been able to buy enough of. I think the easiest way to go about that, and this is just my opinion, is to say donate a lump of cash to that fund >> Yeah. and then we can put it in and do whatever bulk purchase needs to happen. Yeah, for sure. Nora Yeah, I I totally agree to don't, you know, this is a a community that loves to to, you know, have charitable fundraisers and this would be an easy ask probably.
036It's really and I'm really so pleased to hear that no, we're not we're not going to cut this. I'm a retired adult adult and basic Sorry, adult basic and special and secondary ed teacher and um our department, even though it was college, we supplied we supplied things for people because most of them many of them couldn't afford it and it definitely created a feeling of equity. You know, that everybody on the first day gets a gets a you know, a paper and the and the pencils and everything and I think that is really important in a public school setting. So, thank you. Uh it sounds like the school supplies are safe, but I I I I will just add that I think this is a great I think that I'm going to echo these people
037that this is a great opportunity for a fundraiser and particularly because it's $25 chunks, which are very digestible and if um if the you know, if we were to make a flyer that's like donate $25 sponsor an elementary kids school supplies for the year. I think that there would be people would respond to that. Yeah, Alex about I can't remember how many years ago I remember one year um Rotary helped the football team buy a helmet because it was something we needed to get and they came to you know, there's definitely a way for the community to have specific things and that would be going forward it'd be great. >> Yeah, I do anything to not have to buy a hundred chocolate bars. So. Well, and I but I think the other thing too is
038that it's going to save 500 parents from going to three different stores or going to Amazon and again like I don't know what your times work with, but again probably easier just to again pay 25 bucks and just have everything available. 100% and to have the classroom equity is huge. Uh my other couple um So, if I'm looking at the uh production options sheet that we got um where the it's the third middle school item, the educational aid. Is that what the commenter was discussing earlier? >> Yes. So it notes one FTE off to the side and I maybe missed this. Is that just one true FTE or is it two half-time FTEs adding up to >> one true FTE. Okay. Yeah. And the only one FTE. Correct. Even absolute worst case, would there be
039an option to reduce it by half? Or for any of these in general, not a specific. So if if I've got one FTE in all of these, but you know, there's maybe enough of a need that could be articulated, if we could at least do a half-time, would that be something beneficial to explore? >> be. Again, the the only question that come it is it's probably easier to do this with classified positions than certified positions. The the question comes up is who's going to work for a half-time? Yeah. Right. That and for again, like a lot for a lot of our staff that are are retired and this is a second kind of career or something to keep them busy, that works. But again, it'd be hard I can't it'd be hard for some people
040to do a half-time job with Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Yeah. >> Yeah. Again, we can look at that. Yeah. I want to speak to this issue cuz I'm also looking at kinder aide and it's the note is two aids for three home rooms. And I'm going to acknowledge my bias first before I start talking. Um, my daughter's starting kinder next year. But also, I have worked that job, the kinder aide job, and it is exhausting. And it is uh every 15 minutes you're getting the kids back in line. And um boy, I I I have concerns about a kinder room without an aide. That seems really scary to me personally. Um, and I wonder if we could maybe split that with the middle school at least a little bit so we can have like
041maybe we could combine those positions into one. They'd work one day at each building and maybe that could ease up something or maybe that's overly complicated. I think you're really asking for a special person who's got I mean there these are special people anyway. But you've got pretty um pretty specific skill sets that you know going from one building to another especially from a kinder position to you know something else completely different. Um you it doesn't it's not really feasible. I don't I doesn't seem My last thing just to echo Katie from earlier like I wish we didn't have to do any of these cuts either and if we could save any of these things I'd very happily do it. My one concern is operating without a contingency and what happens in the middle of
042the year if something happens. Um never how I want to complete a budget is without a contingency. Um estimates are estimates as soon as this is passed this will change as legislation changes funding changes like we said we didn't know about summer school that it was going to actually be accepted. There were several districts unfortunately that were not accepted. Um so it's it's kind of like um we have to rebuild. Um to cut 4.2 million today would be extremely difficult and that would be like blood letting basically. Um there wouldn't be any question of where we needed to be if we had to do that um to submit it back. Um so this is our first run at a recovery our very first year. We are currently finalizing um, we're not finalizing but we're currently
043working on the closure of the tax anticipation loan so we can get to July um, and start the year. Um, and bridge over until we have to repay and then we'll have to reassess and as legislature brings down more funding or as the state interprets grants and changes we have to be able to flux with that. We try to build that into the budget the way it is. But it for me to pull out another you know, let's say I put in 500,000 as contingency that's more cuts that need to happen on the other end. So I gave a little bit of a give unfortunately. If there were something structural that needed to be um, addressed and it was an emergency as far as you know, something to do with facilities or something. We do
044have our construction excise tax that sits there for those purposes on in construction itself. So if there was something that was severely damaged that we needed to use and the board felt they wanted to to do that. Yeah, if we had a failure within the physical plant again, remodel reconstruction again, it's we yeah, we could do the roof. Yes, we could do that. We that we could cover because we could cover it through construction excise tax. And that's our only option with construction excise tax. That is not a plan. Going to tell you right now. None of this is a plan. It it's a start of something and we will slowly build. This is going to be something like I had said in the original portion of last spring when we were coming through to
045the deficit. This is going to be an analyzed monthly thing. It's not something we can just run with. It I can't anticipate that there won't be additional cuts. I can't tell you that at all. And so as we go through our expenses and as we start the year we'll do a rerun and double check everything before we move into the year. Um so I'm I'm telling you yes, I would love to build it in. But at this point I can't. No, and like I said at the outset, like I definitely don't envy either of your positions on this. >> I look for when I look at any budget, including my household budget, is like what's the contingency plan, where's the savings? And that And that And that's important, so I appreciate that. That's exactly what
046the budget looks like. >> a If there's a physical plant failure and it's less than $900,000, we can take that out of construction excise tax. If we had something that's catastrophic over a million, we're looking at restructuring the general budget to cover that. Um to me, so I think we've addressed some, if not all all of the uh input that we've received from letters and public comment. I know we we talked about the middle school aid. Uh we talked about the supplies. Um and I'll echo uh Mr. Ferguson about this uh this cut to coaching. Um and just I want to thank the staff sacrifice on that. And um to me, what that means is that, unfortunately, the the we're asking the adults to do more for do the same or more for less money,
047but it preserves the experience for the children or for the students that they get that all of the programs are held intact. And I think that speaks to um the Dr. Stringer's uh comment. Uh we also got a letter about SEL. Um that was early on in the process from Ms. Ackerman. Yes. Um can you speak to that? Right. Well, again, I think Ms. Ackerman's letter had to do as much with maintaining two behavioral support rooms at the elementary school, and neither one of those positions are on the budget on the reduction list, right? >> Great. Great. So, that's also okay. Cool. If I may, um and please know some of these things I do know the answer to, but um you know, you it's a public meeting and some people don't know the answers
048and um there's a level of marketing that goes with this. So, um I have a couple questions. Um I wanted just you I would like to hear you reiterate the furlough Fridays when you're talking about a reduction in time leaving a little bit early. Did you say the idea was brought to you by the teachers? Yes, it was. >> Thank you. Uh I think that is worth noting and is really special. Um I want to talk about, you know, the your summer money that you're talking about coming in for summer school. That goes hand in hand with extra duty money. those are things that again are helping our teachers um stay here and make ends meet. They do all of those extra things including coaching um so that they can continue to pay the bills.
049Um I want I do have some questions at the top about the uh elementary school positions. So, when you say charter redirect, it doesn't mean that that teacher is going to the charter school. It means that there's a reduction in class sizes because of the charter school and you're eliminating a position. Is that correct? >> That is correct. Thank you. So, you're proposing one kindergarten teacher, one first grade teacher, one second grade teacher, one third grade teacher. Correct. Um can you tell me how many teachers that leaves and can you tell me the proposed or estimated class size you're looking at? So, at kindergarten, we are currently this would this would bring us to three. Would bring us to three teachers. >> Yeah, with class sizes at roughly 22. Thank you. Uh first grade Mhm.
050uh three teachers at roughly 22. Okay. Now, third grade would be three teachers at about 24. What about second? Now, that That's why I'm coming back to second. >> Got it. Okay, second grade would be again at about 3 by 24. But uh principal would like to backfill that with the math intervention teacher to have four second grade classrooms to bring that down to about 19. >> Mhm. And that's because you have a lot of behaviors or special circumstances in that >> Yes, we have we have some kids that have some academic and social needs. Right. Again, having at that grade level, I think having 24 in a classroom is not necessarily manageable. 19 is a much more feasible number. Great. Um and and again, like we every five or six years, there is a
051group that needs extra support for whatever reason and they kind of track through the system and we see that and we try to make that happen along the way. Again, we just graduated a class that we tracked somebody with them from first grade. One FTE went with them from building to building to building. >> Mhm. across the board. Um math intervention, that's within the elementary school. That's not coming from a resource room. >> That is correct. That is a a regular gen ed teacher that was taking on you know, four to eight kids every, you know, on a rotational basis during the day. Okay. So, that is a loss of that program. Yes, it is. Thank you. Um when you go back up to kinder aides, two aides for three rooms, you're proposing to cut
052one. Right now, there are there's one in all three rooms. One would be >> are Yes, there are currently three aides With four teachers. Right. And we would scale back and go two aides with three teachers at first and second. I mean kindergarten and first. Kindergarten and first. Essentially you have the same level of service there that you have now. Yes. Okay. Um okay. That's great. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Um so we're consolidating music um and that has to do with well obviously budget but also um participation. Yes. And last year we had elementary music and then this current school year we don't have elementary music and we're not planning to add back elementary music right now. Um I you know I just say that I I don't see that helping the
053problem of low participation in in a music going forward. Um obviously the money's not here the money's not here but uh [snorts] I would I would love to see elementary music back um as soon as we have the money for it um and now and a person. Um cuz yeah I mean I I think if if the kids aren't learning to read music and interacting with instruments that now in elementary then when they get to band and and and choir in middle school and high school they're going to be starting with flat feet as far as picking up instruments so. Do the teachers do include music in their classroom instruction at some To the to the best of their ability some do um if they have a musical background. I I There's there's another part
054that's kind of in interplay here is that like because of other unfunded state mandates, like we have three PE teachers at the elementary school. Right? We could still meet that demand um differently if we did not have that mandate. And then one of those FTE could be allocated to something else. Every time that there we're pinned in against a mandate to provide a service, it's locking up FTE typically for one specific purpose. Um and so again, we could again do something different if the law was different. That's kind of where we're stuck with some of these mandates. Um we talk about them being unfunded not because they're bad but because there isn't specific dedicated funding to bring that out beyond what we were currently doing. So, like when we added that in, it was a
055restructuring of what we were doing. Um I don't want to make more work for anyone, but would it be possible to get a list of things that the state mandates but then doesn't fund just as a means to show the community like, "Hey, we are required to do this by the state and they did not provide us any resources for it, which is why we have to pull from these other things." Again, I don't want to make more work. I just think maybe it's a useful information. Nothing crazy. Yeah. Nothing crazy. this way again, we added um graduation requirements to high school. No additional funding was created for the extra um requirement for personal finance or civics, right? So, there's an FTE there. Um the the one area where there isn't really additional mandates is
056is kind of middle school. Um and again, unfortunately, middle school was one of those areas where um cuz we're developing kids at the elementary and they're graduating at the high school and then for years all middle schools including ours were kind of uh left to the wind so to speak. And so like we've built back that now to the point where kids actually have a like a full day with it again some elective I mean they've gotten art they have limited amount of music they've got some wood shop they've got some PE um where for a while there we were we were teaching um one one one teacher had in essence two classes and we were doing humanities. We weren't doing a class of language arts and a class of social studies we were doing
057humanities cuz that's what the budget allowed and when that happened our language arts scores tanked. Right? Cuz we did not we were in essence cutting our time in half. We were doing language arts cuz we were doing so many combined initiatives. All right? And then when the budget recovered and we were able to actually go go back to somebody doing social studies somebody doing language arts. And and I think this kind of comes to more of a philosophical point. Again, it doesn't matter what district a child attends they should have the ability to have a teacher for language arts for social studies for music right? You Yeah, but because we fund on a per pupil basis when that number is redistributed instead of having a person that just teaches this class and an elective we
058have somebody that's teaching two or three different core areas plus an elective. And that's where again you see so much turnover in districts our size and smaller. Um because again our our budgets are rounding error for some other budgets. And you just have this we're not funding by need per district we're funding on this equal model and equal doesn't always mean the same thing if you can't if you don't have the economy of scale to capitalize on. That's that's where again we're in that area where again as soon as it comes down and we say 10 kids are lost 10 kids is a teacher and that means whatever they were doing gets picked up by somebody else if we're going to maintain the same opportunities for kids. Andy Yes. On at the high school level
059I see science teacher CT business ELA and then math teacher 0.5 reduced from one. Could you explain a little bit behind a little bit more behind that? I mean we're eliminating those positions. So we're right now we've got we've got one teacher that's working back after retirement and looking at our class sizes in math they're going to work back as a retiree at half time. Okay. And then we're looking at some schedule considerations. We know that we have one more FTE at the high school that needs to be eliminated to make the budget and looking at where we are in terms of scheduling needs and kind of distribution. We don't know if that person right now is a language arts person like a business CTE person or a science person. I don't think the schedule
060works without a science person. And so we're working through the schedule to see what it looks like if it is if we consolidate like business technology and then info technology and how's it look like if we reassign some language arts. Okay. Thank you. So I'll be honest with you we would have we'll have an answer for that by next week. >> Okay. Thank you. And then one more question. Are we what are the state mandates for a registered nurse and our current registered nurse are they working full-time? Our current registered nurse is working full-time. We do There is no mandate for a nurse. Um uh we we had a nurse for years. We lost it in budget cuts in the early 2000s. Um we have so many students that have so many complex medical needs.
061Um that's why we brought back the nurse. Um and our nurse also does a lot of our delegation training for staff. And uh and uh Mr. Jerman is also um on our safety committee, and he also does quite a bit of our um uh I just lost my word again of our emergency prep response. Do we save any money with his trainings? Yeah, we do, cuz it's again, we're not bringing a nurse outside to train. Um to again for diabetic maintenance, allergy maintenance, all these other things that we're actually mandated to do. Um and uh we we we're talking a bit before the meeting about insurance. Um and of the many things that we get some level of credit for is having a nurse. Um I would I'd have to see what happened to our
062rates if we just dropped the nurse, and then all of a sudden it becomes we have what we call it we use a health designee or health delegate in the office, which is basically one of our secretaries who has some advanced training. Um who steps in to take care of students that have medication during the day or other emergency needs. So, we're not mandated to have a nurse, but we're mandated to do a lot of stuff that a nurse knows how to do. Correct. Yes. Um Yeah, our nurse should be doing those things. And again, asking a secretary who again has gone through some advanced training to do that while they're also dealing with the phones and lunch and kids coming in and out and who's supposed to be in lunch detention and all these
063other things. It's um Again, we have I cannot tell you that the absolute number of kids that are coming in every day around lunch for medication needs. It's larger than you would imagine. Um my thought was do we need a full-time registered nurse? My my opinion right here at the table is yes, simply because of the volume and the oversight at all three buildings plus the emergency prep piece. Um again, you know, Mr. Jerman is also kind of they're our liaison with um you know, emergency services for Western Wayne Ambulance. Um he works with the um city and county police when we talk about emergency drills. Um again, he's filled a lot of As Lisa and I have picked up other tasks within special education and TAG, he's picked up those areas that fit within
064his scope as a nurse for emergency medical management. Right. Okay. Do we have any more questions or discussions? Yeah. You know, I'm sorry. It's okay. >> Problem child. Um >> [clears throat] >> math intervention, first page, middle school. Is that the loss of one staff person? Is that Yes, it is. Okay. Um again, I it it was on the list because it is not a core subject area. >> I understand. Um yeah, that's that's why it was put on the list. >> No problem. Um I just wanted to circle back to like some back of the napkin math. I didn't put in all of the extra duties, but I I do think, you know, I kind of started off light in my first um round here, but I would say after adding some of those
065up and coming to it like about $40,000, um that I think, you know, between that and maybe the um the educational aid, the one educational aid that we only have at the middle school that we would be losing, um which is listed at 47, so you're still under 100 of that extra 200 that I'm proposing we have and um I just think if we can make people's lives a little bit easier even for a year, um that we sh I feel compelled to Okay. No, and we can look at see how it looks with again reconfiguring that and then looking and see if we can't get some relief on the extra duty stipends. I I'll I'll and I'll double down on this too cuz this is a lot of kids that are going to be
066losing their clubs if we cut all of these and I think that that's going to be a pretty big impact. Yeah. And some of this is maybe people's favorite part of the day, so I think that that would be a worthy thing to consider. I agree. Okay. Is there a call to action that we can do to ask the state to take over PERS? I mean, I I know that we can all write letters and I know we can all call our legislators, but I'm really serious. I brought this up once as a school board member a few years ago. I I would love to see if there was a way that we could do something together that would maybe have a louder voice, um and just I think it's a I think it's a
067board level and a community level campaign. >> Okay. And I and I think you're absolutely on the right track cuz there's there's two pieces to this. >> Right. The first is again, like there's been a lot of discussion recently about instructional days and instructional time. Like >> Right. average student or you go 165 days, we're at 170. States around us are 175 to 180. Like instead of, again, having a state mandate come to us where there's now 197 districts coming up with 197 solutions to the same problem, which is going to be and we looked at this in 2019 was Right. >> expand your school year. Exactly. We just can't add 2 weeks to the school year and say your salary stays the same. >> Exactly. A statewide salary schedule includes retirement and insurance. That
068is also the trigger to increase instructional days across the year. It has to come as a package and it comes from the state level. Yes. >> Cuz again, that's how Washington got to where they are. That's how Washington managed to It became a statewide pay schedule that allowed them to expand their year. Okay. Well, hopefully this radicalizes some folks to maybe we can all get together and Yes. Otherwise, you're going to have 197 districts again doing what they're doing now. >> Right. With coming up with well, what's your solution to purse? What's your solution to insurance? What's your solution to your payroll woes? Right. >> Thank you. So, are there any more comments? So, um what we're thinking maybe if what I'm hearing everybody say is that we'd like the um the staff to go
069back and come back with a new budget proposal that includes the um We're going to We're going to modify the reduction list. >> Right. Yes. >> Yeah, it will modify the reduction list. It will not change the budget. The budget already includes at least the 2. 2 million in order to balance. But um and as far as like which gets cut or change that will come up with the board and then we'll we'll act upon that as the board gives their information. But it was good questioning so everybody knows like what's on the list and how it affects the schools and so I you know I appreciate the committee in in reviewing that with us today. I would say the only moment of levity I can share in this is that when I was middle
070school principal I'm the one who coined the phrase on Fridays it's Thunderdome lunch. How does the committee feel about that? Does that sound like a good plan and then we'll reconvene. There's the next budget meeting is What? It's Wednesday the 13th. Next Wednesday the 13th and we can look at it again and if we're comfortable we possibly could come up with a proposal for the board to look at but that's where we kind of head. Is that okay with everyone? Okay. Yes. Yeah, we can I think this is a fairly simple ask about extra duty stipends for clubs and other student activities. Yeah. So with no further comment I will um adjourn the meeting. Yes, the next meeting will be at 6:30. >> Yeah, 6:30. Our board has a regular work session from 6:00 to
0716:30 with their hiring consultant and then we'll pick up with budget from there. Yes, they'll be here. Until we're done. Yeah.