001So, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this Berkeley County Board of Education budget workshop this Thursday, May 8th, 2025. I call this meeting to order. I declare a quorum as present and the media has been notified. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Made the motion. Second. Second. There's a motion by Mr. Ramsey, a second by Miss Davenport to approve the motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. All in favor, please respond by saying I. I. I. Opposed? Nay. So, um, on my attendance, I have district one, I have Mr. Ramsey present. I have district four, Miss Littleton present. District five, Miss Davenport present. Wford present. Atlarge, Miss Coats, present. Is there any other board members who are currently present that I have not accounted for? Miss Bradley
002just came on. Wonderful. I have district seven, Miss Bradley, um, present. So, one, two, three, four, five, six, six. We have, um, a quorum. So, the only agenda item is the 2025, 2026 budget discussion. I'm going to hand it over to Miss Marcy Abrahamson. Thank you. And I'm going to share my screen so that you can see the PowerPoint. So, as Marcy's getting started, this is the first um part of the budget process. We start with a budget workshop. Um lots of things at this point in time are tentative. There will be um multiple times to give input. This will go through the finance committee. Um we'll also have a public hearing um in addition to um two two readings. I'm pretty sure two readings. Um and the process will conclude sometime around the end
003of June. Um where we'll be trying to coincide with the state passing a budget because a good portion of our budget is from the state. So, um that's where we are in the process. So, um this is the time to share your information and ideas about things that would be um your priorities um as Marcy is going through the plan from the district. Is everyone able to see the um front slide? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Okay, perfect. Um so um like Chair Wford um explained, this is our first budget workshop. Um we're just going to kind of go through the numbers um as they appear to be right now. Um we are still waiting on numbers from the Senate budget. We um have we know that the Senate passed a budget that was slightly different
004than the House budget. Um and we typically get the breakdown of those numbers by district. Um last year I received them on May 7th. I have not received them this year. And then the um House finalized the budget actually um today, but they have to reconcile the the items that are different between the House and the Senate. So um we probably won't have the final House numbers until the first week of June, but um but we should have a good idea of where our numbers are going to lay. So, just to go over um kind of what we went over Monday night, what our 2425 approved budget of 475 million. Um we amended that budget on Monday night um because our revenues were coming in a little shorter than we thought after the property assessment
005um estimates were done. Um we came in short on property taxes, but we came in higher in other areas. Um, plus we had the 5.1 million that we designated from um fund balance for the sped um incentives that we paid out throughout 20 um 425 with that last payment going out in May. So our budget, our revised budget is 475.1 million. Um and again we haven't completed our expenditures. we may we may still come in where we don't have to hit fund balance at all or we may um not have to hit it as with that 5.1 million. I do want to mention um that we are our our new audited fund balance as of um December 1st is 145 million. When we deduct this 5.1 million, that puts us at 139. And then we
006have 45 million that we've designated or assigned for um capital projects in the event that our um penny sales tax projects that the penny was underperforming. So, the board made the decision last year to go ahead and assign a portion of fund balance to cover those expenses. But to get to the meat of tonight's presentation, um our budget projections for this year, um as you see, our revenue, our local property tax revenue is not going up as much as we had hoped. It's not quite as much as what we had originally projected last year. Um we still expect some growth. Um but all in all, when everything is totaled out, we're going to have about $485.5 million. I do want to mention if you look here at these two lines, these are the two main
007revenue sources, the general fund and the EIA that we receive from the state. And as you can see, those numbers went down and we're going to talk more about that in in this presentation. So every year while the um budget is being negotiated, there are state mandates that put a financial burden on agencies and sometimes they're funded and sometimes they are not funded. I receive um financial impact questions um frequently from January till this time of year. Um sometimes they and I resp I respond to um everyone so that they are aware of what financial impact this these mandates will cause. Um proviso 1.3 was to increase each cell of the teacher salary schedule by $1,500 and remove the bachelor's plus 18 column. Um that set the new state minimum teacher salary to 48,500 for
008next fiscal year. Um, fortunately, this will not have an impact on us because of the fact that we already pay above the minimum. Um, and we'll again talk about how, but it will impact us some because the the formula that the state uses, they use an average salary to reimburse us. And so, um, we'll I have a slide that's going to show you the difference between what the state minimum salary is versus state average salary is versus our average salary. Um, using the same criteria, there is a 4.6% increase in pea benefits. Um and then the another big one is um if you remember um we had the paid parental leave that was unfunded and then now this year they are increasing the paid parental leave days from 6 weeks to 12 weeks for maternal
009parental leave and um from two weeks to four weeks for paternal parental leave. Um, so that is going to increase that expense for us. The state a may I ask a question? This might be Mickey Mouse, but parental is that mom and dad or just mom? Yes. maternal um mother or who gives birth gets um 12 weeks and the father um formerly got or um partner or whoever the adopted um it's for adoption everything um formerly got two weeks and now they'll get four weeks. And the important thing to for us is if it's a teacher and they're or somebody that's not a 245day employee, um if they have their child during their normal time off, they're that doesn't count towards their paid parental leave. They're still entitled to that time when they're due to
010come back to work. Like over the summer, for example, correct? So, if they have the baby over the summer, when they we come back in August, they can potentially um start their paid parental leave, even if they're paid all year. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So, they wouldn't come back till like November. Correct. Thank you, Marcy. Is there a time frame after the birth that they have to take it? I mean, they can't wait. Can they wait till the baby's six months old and then take it or they I think they have a year. I'll have to double check that so don't please don't quote me on that. But um but they do have some time after the baby's born. So like if the mother wanted to take off first and stay home for the 12
011weeks, then the father could take off his four weeks and they don't have to they don't have to run concurrently. And I think they I think they can do it up until the baby is a certain age and but it's like within the first year, but I'll have to go back and check that um that language to to make sure I give you the right information. So um our biggest um and you've probably heard the emails that I've sent and the information that I've shared about um some of the pain points with the state aid to classroom formula. Um when this formula was um found when we ca when the state came up with this formula theoretically it was supposed to be a ratio of the state funding 75% of public education and then 25%
012um of a locally funded share. Um now the locally funded share is determined by the district's um index of taxpaying ability which has always been a component. Um the ITA is expressed as a percentage of the reflecting the assessed value of taxable property within the district excluding owner occupied property and then it's calculated annually by the department of revenue. Um, it can also change throughout the year as assessed pro assessed value of property in the county as a proportion of the total value of property in the states and of course ours changed um with our reassessment but and and it's also changing because we're in a high growth area. So the bottom line is if the ITA increases, the amount of state revenue decreases, which kind of goes back to what I showed you on
013that first slide about the two um primary accounts from the state that have decreased. Um our tax paying ability, like I said, increased um by 0.00851 and our funding decreased by 3.8 million. um our 45day ADM which is used in the in the formula um increased by 575 students but again the main component is this index of taxpaying ability went up so our funding went down and I've given you a snapshot of our historical um our historical tax index of taxpaying ability and also just note that like The index year is actually the tax year from two years ago. So our index of taxpaying ability for 2026 will be for tax year 2024. Um I've provided what we would like the one thing what from the state mandate is they collapsed um as you know
014previously they had a bachelor's a bachelor's plus 18 the masters mast's plus 30 and doctorate um categories on the pay scale the state last year they talked about collapsing it to just three which would have been bachelor 's masters and doctorate. Um, that was going to create a big hardship. So, they didn't make any changes to that piece last year, but this year they are collapsing the bachelor's plus 18 and the bachelors, which means for us, we had to roll everybody that was paid at the bachelor's on the bachelor's pay scale into the bachelor's plus 18 and make that our new base salary. Um so this is basically what that looks like plus adding the 2500 per cell to um each category. So you'll see what the current year salary is what that will look
015like for FY2526 and then our projected of what we would like to do in 2627 if the budget will allow. Um we shared a ask a question. Is our starting salary right now? Um for the bachelor's plus 18 um right now a first year teacher salary because this now this was the former bachelor's plus 18. But so that's that's not the FY2425 pay scale there. No, ma'am. But I'll make a corrected version for the um May 19th um budget workshop to include what the current bachelor's um salary scale is. I I should have done that and I apologize, but but our first year teacher salary right now is 52,450. This is a firstear teacher at a bachelor's plus 18 on the current salary. So basically teacher pay um is also part of that formula. The
016state minimum teacher salary that they use in the formula is they take their the state minimum salary schedule and they go to master's their master's degree plus 12 years of experience and they add the fringe benefits and that is the amount that they use for the um state aid to classrooms formula. um Berkeley County School District. If we took our masters plus 12 years of experience plus fringe, it's we're at 96,9972 whereas the state is at 77,879. So basically you can the difference in that is going to have to be make made up at the local level. Um, and you can see with our first our proposed first year teacher salary for next year plus fringe, we're going to be at 75,19753. So, the state allocation barely covers even a first year teacher salary. um
017this year because we have um very little wiggle room. We're not asking for a lot of new positions, but we you did approve for those 33 classroom pair professionals and the five itinerate secretaries on Monday night. So, we have built those positions into the budget. And then we will also need to appoint two principles um for the two new schools that'll be opening in August 2026. And then about halfway through the year, they'll need to have a secretary or bookkeeper to help them with the purchasing and all of that to get those schools opened. So, we are incorporating those salaries into the budget as well. Marcy, when do we expect to have to hire those principles? Um, there's been discussion. I don't know that anything firmly in place. Um, Dr. Would you like to answer
018that? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. So, our goal um would be to have them in place um this fall. Uh but they will not necessarily come on board until um we want to identify the principal but not to come on board until January. So, our pay for them would be start in January. It would start in the fall. Start. So it would start depending on if they're inhouse or not. So yes, it start July. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. So just a quick recap of our overall assumptions, the state mandates and other considerations that we're um we want to factor into this year's budget is our overall revenue is going to increase by 3.19%. that is less than what we've seen in prior years and it's primarily because um we did get a
019little bit of a cut from the state but we also um had that the reassessment is not performing as well as we thought. So we that's not the local revenue is not increasing as strongly as we had as we have seen in the previous years. Um there is no increase to the current millage rate of 141.9 um for the budget that we're building here. And then we're going to provide our annual step increase for all of our eligible employees which is a standard for um Berkeley. Um our PEA increase for health insurance um went up 4.6% um which was a state mandate that we can't um negotiate. And then also the paid parental leave per house bill 3645 is also having a um budget impact for us. Um again administration would like to go ahead
020and mirror what the state is doing and collapse the bachelors into the bachelor's plus 18 for the um to create the new teacher salary schedule and then increase each cell thereafter by $2500. And this would put the potential first year teacher salary for 2526 at $56,770, which is an increase of 4,320 over the current salary of 52,450. Do we know or what the current starting pay is for our neighboring counties today? Just out of, it's okay. I can look it up on my phone. 4 Charleston announced that they are going to their their first year starting teacher salary for 2526 is going to be um close to 64,000. Um however the teachers come in at that salary and they do not their salary does not change for the first five years. I recall that like
021they catch up within the first five pretty quickly. Okay. Thank you. I'll be quiet. Okay. And also to understand the um go ahead. Go ahead Marcy. What's the PIA percentage of percentage of total salaries of employees participating? What's the 4.6 a percentage of the actual what the employers are the employer portion that we're actually paying? So okay. So it's so it's 4.6 of the total is it increasing 4.6 or is it 4.6 six of the total salaries. I'll have to go back and read that language to make sure I answer you correctly. Um cuz I thought it was around 20 isn't there French around 21 26 somewhere in that range. Well, retirement alone is um 24.81%. But health insurance varies because it depends on what the employee elected. So it's it's the employer portion is
022increasing 4.6% based on the employees election of their health insuranceances. Thanks. Um, again, we're increasing those days of paid parental leave per House Bill 3645, which we're estimating is going to be about a million dollar impact to our budget. Um, when we initiated this program, um, it had about a $1.9 million impact to our budget. Um we are basing this on um the usage for the last for basically this current year which is not over yet and then last year. So um if we have a baby boom that could definitely change. Um our supplies and services for schools and departments we have decreased that budget slightly for this year um to get us at 64 $65.2 2 million and um those cuts will be for supplies and services that are not instructional related. Our teacher
023salary schedule um to collapse that bachelors into the bachelor's plus 18 and increase each cell by $2,500 and add no additional years of experience. So our our salary schedule go to 31 years. Last year, we had hoped to add at least two years this year, but um we're just not going to be able to do that this year. So, we'll look to do that next year. But um that's going to cost us $8.7 million. And then to do a 2% COLA for all other salary schedules and again, no additional years of experience, that's going to cost us about $2.3 million. those new positions that we talked about for sped. Um that's about $1.9 million. And again, when we talk about salaries, this is um it we're calculating the salary change and the change that in
024benefits because it will increase our FICA and health our our FICA and retirement obligations. And then health insurance is based on whatever the employee chooses to particip plan the employee chooses to participate in. But um and then we have the two school principles at um $319.4,000. And we did we based that on um a salary schedule, a principal salary schedule where they had at least 10 years of experience and for the full year. And again, that salary and benefits. And then the two bookkeepers for a half a year, again, salary and benefits is right at 77,000. So that adds another 2.3 million to our budget. [Music] Um and then so our projected revenues that from the first screen um with the house budget is and that's the new house budget that passed this week. We're
025estimating it to be $485.5 million. And then our projected expenses for 2526, we've um we've got those at $485.5 million. Again, to get the salaries where we wanted and add those um new positions, we decided to cut some of our supply and services budget that um that we typically don't spend all of that money anyway. So, we we feel good about make being able to make those cuts there. And again, we are going to protect anything that um that's academic related. So that brings us to a balanced budget. Our we will have another workshop on May 19th. I'm hoping I will have um at least the Senate numbers back by then so we can at least see where those came in. And then um like I said, those are usually very very close to what
026the final numbers are from the state. So, um, if we can get those numbers in and they're right at that 485 million that we've projected, then we should be fine. Um, on June 2nd, if all goes well, on the 19th, we'll have our first reading of our budget. On June 16th, we'll have the public hearing and the second reading. And then, um, we will reserve June 30th as an alternate date for the public hearing and the second reading in case there are any delays from the state. Um, but I don't anticipate that this year. Last year we were kind of ran right up to the end, but this year I don't anticipate that happening. So, is there any discussion? I'd like Go ahead, Michael. Just real quickly, I want to put um put it out
027there just to begin discussions. um future ready program which is something that Berkeley County School District, uh Berkeley County Economic Development, Trident Tech and currently MercedesBenz and looking at other industries throughout the low country which is has this pilot program was a five-week program that we were successful with with some students from Hannah and Goose Creek and uh tomorrow we do a tour of Mercedes-Benz and try to get those kids in the loop. for getting gainful good employment when they graduate. And um it's something that Sonia with the CTE program and and Berkeley County Economic Development and Trident has been working on for some time. The pilot program was very successful. It is our hope to humbly ask that we uh look at some transportation component in this year's budget to try to grow that
028program to hopefully to 100 to 125 students perhaps. And um it's not a large amount but the difference in the lives of these students would be uh tremendous. Um it would be a gigantic win for our CTE program. Also, Charleston School District is looking to they're sending a hundred kids over to Trident Tech from Stall this year. I don't want to take up a lot of time or um as far as uh grandstand on this video, but I did want to go ahead and and put that out there and offline or or anytime I'm willing to have discussions as far as to uh provide the merits of of how this program would would help our students and and what the goals and objectives are. Sonia, the head of the CTE program is my understanding through
029the direction of Superintendent Dixon is engaged in conversations to try to get a general estimate or number because the things that are hurting kids not being more active in career technical education programs in my opinion is is the ability to find instructors and then the ability to provide transportation. And so I think this is a great opportunity for Berkeley County School District and I hope as everyone finds out more information about this. This is something we can support moving forward. Again, we don't have a number today, but I wanted to put that out there that that is something I will be humbly asking the uh board and the school district to consider to be included in this year's budget. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Um, kind of along the lines of transportation, um, I I
030think transportation continues to be a challenge for our schools, um, for our athletic programs, for our, you know, field trips, field trips, so many things. Um, fine arts, fine arts. I mean, there's so many reasons why we need to travel. And it is, it is a challenge for us to travel. I very clearly say I do not understand all the rules that the state puts on us to use their buses. Um but a relook or a revamp in supplies or allocations related to um transportation for all the things um I think is very important. We talked about security the other night. I think um security for events is also an important allocation that where the school district I don't want to have unfunded mandates on schools. So I don't want to mandate a school have
031some certain number of security officers or whatever and then there's no money in their budget to pay for the things that we have required. Schools work really hard at raising a lot of money. I mean communities really best they they shoulder a lot of burden of supporting their kids and some communities do a much better job than other communities and the communities that that don't do as good a job it can it can um it's hurtful so exactly what Sally said those are some priorities to me other priorities um and I do want to note um lace Lacy that Joe Baker joined so I want to um have his attendance recorded as well. Um rural schools, the size of the school, the number of students. I think especially for like athletics, um you know, even
032if it's a small school, if you're serving 90 kids in a wrestling program, then I want there to be compensation that that like lines up with that. If you're serving 150 kids in a club or 200 kids in chorus, um I know those are like big pie in the sky things. I don't know if we can s solve all of that in this budget um round. And I know we've done a lot of work with our stipens and and looking at that. Um but as that matures, we've certainly gotten feedback about the employees that go above and beyond and really engage a lot of kids. Um and then in my mind, if we scrape up any extra dollars, um they should all go to special ed. um reducing class sizes or having more adults in
033the room, having more adults available, having more adults available just for half of the day so the teachers can take breaks. Um because those kids, especially self-contained, they're with those kids all day long. Um and secretaries or admin support to type all the things that we are required to type. So, um, those are some of the most important things to me. And I know we're on video, so it's kind of hard. So, Mr. Ramsay's kind of given his, um, information. I have, um, Mr. Baker would be district three. I don't know, Joe, if you have any priorities that you want to share at this time. um or anyone, Miss Littleton, Miss Davenport, Miss Bradley, Miss Coats, anybody wants to unmute and um share some of their priorities or concerns with the with the staff. Dr.
034Dixon, go ahead. Sorry. No, please. I'll wait. Dr. Dixon, did we not plan on um adding floaters or second um teachers to the schools that are doing the UVA um projects? I will I will look into that and see. I'll check. Okay. But my otherwise I making some of these classes smaller to me would be a priority. um having 30 34 kids in a a reading in a ELA class or in a math class seems um really high. Got it. Thank you, Miss Davenport. I think Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure Miss Littleton was done. Thank you. Um I basically want to mirror what Miss Wford and Miss Littleton said. Um specifically around transportation. Um we have kids um just for a scenario that go into the KBY High School band
035program that um attend Sangry Middle and Carolyn Lewis and have no way to get there. Um and of course that doesn't include um other programs that Chair Wford mentioned and also teachers that have kids to get that go to other schools that need to have a way to get to their kids. Um, I've received a lot of feedback from the community that having transportation to where we don't have the ability to walk from KBY Middle to Kambeay High, but we still feed those schools and offer those programs that I agree we need to find a way to get the kids there because we're offering it to them. Um, so transportation is definitely um important to me just as well as security, class sizes, and dedicating resources to special ed where we have the dollars to
036do so. Thank you. As for rural school, Cross Timberland and some of the o smaller schools, um I too echo the sentiment of transportation. Um because as Miss Wford already said, we're a great distance out. So therefore, transportation for us is a major thing. On the other side of that, security is also um important. So Dr. Dixon, maybe you can tell me, have we applied for some of those grants that are available for security, safety, and security through the state? Yes, ma'am. And that's how um we receive the weapon screeners that we have now. We we do currently have um grants from the state for security. Okay. Are we going to continue that? Are we going to look forward to another session of filing those forms? If there when the state opens those back up,
037we will continue to apply. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. And of course, our bus drivers. Hopefully, the salary um increases and the new schedule will allow for additional bus drivers to help with the transportation issues um for all our children, whether it's athletics, whether it's academics, but making sure they are able to participate in those things. I got the flyer from CTE about the future ready program. So again, transportation is an issue for us on this end of the county to get our children to those programs. So I'm going to offer again transportation and security and safety. Did our did our lowering the um millillage last year affect was that part of why we have a lower income this year? So, we were required by law to um do a roll back because it was
038a reassessment year. Um we spent a lot of time with the C and Marcy, I'm answering your question, but like we spent a lot of time with the county to try to get the number right. Um I think we missed a little bit. Um, but I mean Marcy showed the form on Monday, which was the form from the county, not to throw anybody under the bus, but the form from from the county where they told us the value of a mill. So, um, people's taxes went up because most things were reassessed higher. Um, so they didn't really get a a roll back or a or property tax cut. It's just a way to um keep property taxes reasonable in a reassessment year. Marcy, is there did I miss some? Did I miss anything? Oh, you
039did a great job. Um, thank you. But yes, that number directly feeds into to our dollar amount. So for me, the the one thing I just want to emphasize as we go through the budget is these are all I mean, everyone's saying the same thing and no one's saying anything different. These are three areas that need more help than they got in the last budget clearly. Um I would I would want to know if we're do we have enough space to reduce class sizes? If we had enough teachers, could we do that? And that's a longer question down the road. But it may not, you know, there are districts that don't have enough classrooms to do four-year-old kindergarten. I don't know if we have empty classrooms that we could break a 32 student class out
040and create a third one if we have the physical space. So, I'd like to see something along those lines of what does our physical space look like in terms of why we have the class sizes we have versus is it number of staff. Um, the only other thing I would emphasize is these programs have have to the future ready program which I happen to think we're going to get some good results from, but we need to see those results. Who got certificates? Who got certifications that got them hired? You know, these things need to show the return on investment in terms of student achievement. The same for some of the things we're currently funding, you know, the UVA pro um concept. So, if we're funding pilot programs or if we're funding these initiatives, we need
041to see student achievement data directly from those schools that receive that funding so we can see whether to continue it. That may be a place that we continue. It may be a place where we find more money for something else. But when we spend that money on these uh achievement initiatives or these um professional development initiatives, I want to see corresponding improvements in the student achievement and student growth. Unfortunately, with some of them, we're not going to see it for a couple years in terms of, you know, because it's just starting the program. Anybody else have anything that they want to bring to the forefront for the staff as we go through this first iteration? Um, I would say uh I know I guess budgets seem like they've passed the House and the Senate. Um,
042but I think everyone on this call needs to re reach out to the local delegation and communicate the impact of um of the budget process and in Colombia on Berkeley County School District as we're continuing to grow and um add 575 students and that has um such a small impact on our funding from the state. Um, I guess if I'm going to throw one last thing out there, and Dr. Dixon has heard me say this before, um, our food is federally funded. Um, it comes with a lot of strings. Uh, it frustrates me a lot because I feel like, um, it ties our hands to offer kids, um, options for for, um, eating breakfast and lunch. Um, so anything that we can do to increase our ability to provide excellent meals and um, in my
043perfect world, we've moved far away from all federal funding. Know that's not not possible. Um, but child nutrition is something that also um is important and as I have a growing kid um and I pack lots of food every day um because he can't he couldn't get through the line at his high school to um get food if he had to. And so there's some kids that's their only option. So, I don't know if there are requests from child nutrition for additional staff or different approaches um or being able to, you know, have carts and break up the way we do high school meals. Um but I know that is also a pain point. It is not a um it's not like a topic we talk about a lot, but it is something that matters
044to our kids and to our staff um to be able to to get food and get through the line and get the things that they need during the day. So um I would say that's there's lots of things. We could talk about all the things, but um I do get quite a bit of feedback on our lines and our cafeteria, our ability to to have food move quickly, um be able to get everybody fed. May I interject one thing that I I wanted to note during the presentation that I neglected to note. Um when you talked about reaching out to the dele delegation um just for your information I have um calculated our local revenue is paying 54% of that $485.5 million budget. Um the state is funding 45% of that and then there's about
0451% that's coming from federal and other revenue sources. So, I think that's very important and showcases the fact that the state aid classroom, the current funding formula is putting more of the burden on the local taxes than um than the state is and especially if you're in a high growth area. So, I just wanted to make sure I shared that information as well. Thank you. Um, if I can add one thing. Um, and I don't know if this is the appropriate time to do this, but I think we need to look at Dr. Dixon's salary. Understood. That can also be a consideration. I will um add that action item to executive session um for the upcoming meeting um and we can have that discussion there. and then uh bring our results back out to the
046budget process. I will say that I will not be at the meeting. Um I will be calling in. Yes, m I got you. Uh, Miss Wford, the last thing just to follow up with everyone that we've been taking notes on like improvements, budget considerations, and so administration will be working to um do that. And we are um going to be working safety, security, um, child nutrition, those other areas that impact our system so we can continue to provide the best service to our students. Can I ask one question? What I haven't heard anywhere in this discussion is the um summer reading camps for third grade retention which has become mandatory and expanded. Um is that wrapped into the current budget and happening before June 30 or Yes. So there's there's no third grade retention camps
047after June 30th. Correct. They're all for this year and then next year they'll take place before June 30th. So, it'll be wrapped into the budget, the current one. I'd love to get some analysis on that. How many students um were mandated into that program, how many were exempted because of parent requests, but it gives us a true indicator of whether our children are reading on the third grade level or not and the cost associated with that. Um, is there that same cost built into the next budget, Marcy? Yes. Okay, I do have one other question. I'm sorry. I know that we're um at 5:16, so I'll be quick. If there are um potential capital things that aren't listed in the penny project, is this the time to speak about those or is that not the
048time? So, um this process is for the operating budget. That's right. Thank you. I was Thank you. Yeah. No, you're good. So generally we do this process it takes about two months and then we immediately in July we'll start working on capital and the capital um bonds happen in September. So in the July August time frame we'll work through capital requests. Okay. But if you have something specific that somebody if somebody needs something now um you can reach out to Dr. in but it it's not as intense of a process as this but it's it's still like scheduled out process. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I knew when. Thank you, Chair Wford. Yeah, I will um just um follow up with that. Um I have did have an initial call with our um
049financial advisors and our bond attorney this week and we are on target to do our um presentation our initial presentation and to do the do not exceed amount in at the board meetings in June and then in July we'll bring the detailed um budgets for the new money portion of the the bond um the general obligation bonds to the board. Um, but June, you'll vote for the do not exceed budget, do not exceed amount that we'll use to start creating those documents to do the bond sale in September. Awesome. That feels like a month and a half early. Yay. Yay, y'all. That's good. Um, thank you everybody. I know um our intention was to do this on Monday, but we had lots going on on Monday and some recognitions. So, thank you to everyone for
050joining virtually today. I appreciate it. Um hearing no other um questions or conversation, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Make the motion. Second. There's a motion by Mr. Ramsey, a second by Miss Littleton to adjurnn. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. All in favor, please respond by saying I. I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. The eyes have it. 70. We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. You. Bye everyone.