001Okay, we're ready? All right. I will call us to order. Hit the stable. Uh, Ms. Branum, did we notify the media? >> We did. Thank you. And I do declare that we have a quorum with six of seven board members present. We will need an approval of the agenda to move forward. I make a motion to approve the agenda. I'll second it. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. I. All right, the agenda is approved. And now we will move on and turn it over to Dr. Harris and Ms. London. All right. So, we are here today to do our general fund budget workshop for the '26-'27 year. We are here today just to talk about general fund. So, I do want to mention that we have
002three three areas I want to focus on today. One is the the state aid to classroom formula. The uh, we are in a reassessment year. Talk about how that's going to affect us. And I want to talk about the uh, the teachers' salary increase that's mandated by the state for the '26-'27 year. So, if it would be okay with everyone, I would like to start uh, looking at the expenditure section. Would that be okay if we started with Yeah. With expenditures before revenues because what we what we're aiming for expenditures is going to kind of guide us to what we're thinking we need to do for our revenues. Sounds good. What page should we look at? >> So, let's see. Let's start on page 12 and 13. So, the first item we want to discuss
003is our um salaries and fringes for employees. Those two items make up about 83% of our budget. So, when we look at salaries for next year, we are looking at doing a $2,000 per cell increase for the teachers. And this is what the state is mandating at this time that we do. So, if we do that, it's going to have an increase of $898,152 just for teachers. So, when you look at that first line of salaries of a million dollars, 56 increase in pay, $898,000 of that is for teachers. And that is state mandated. Are they funding any of that? I know we're going to talk about >> the state 80 classroom will be funding some of that or all of that? Mostly all of that. >> Okay. Okay. $898,152. So, the remaining $158,000 of
004that is for everybody else, our maintenance workers, our support staff, our administrative staff. So, what I what this budget shows is a 2% raise and a step increase for non-teacher employees. When I say non-teachers, I'm not talking about the administrative, I'm talking about the support employees like our maintenance folks, our our clerical folks, our bus aides, um our teacher aides, those folks. This reflects an administrative pay scale with them getting a step increase. No raise, just a step increase. And then we have a few employees that are not on a pay scale, so they they're this reflects a 2% pay pay pay raise for those folks. So, pretty much a a 2% plus step for everybody except administrative and folks that are on aren't on the salary scale. So, with that in mind, when you
005give raises, it affects the retirement. It affects the social security also, so we're going to have some increases in those items. The group health and life insurance, those those uh rates are not going up for next year, but we budgeted an extra 50,000 just for unexpected changes in employee elections. So, any questions on salaries and fringes so far? Okay. So, let's the workmen's comp I'm sorry, the employ unemployment comp is going to uh be about the same. The workmen's comp insurance, we're um we're thinking we're going to we're going to reduce that a little bit because what we're planning to do is currently, the general fund absorbs the cost for all workmen's comp. So, we're thinking that we're going to let the food service fund and some of these other federal funds um also, because
006they pay salaries out of their funds, they're going to absorb some of this workmen's So, that's why that Excuse me, that went down a little bit. Um So, regarding the instructional improvement services and students students services, we're going to continue to use um these the same contract to provided services for special education as we did last year. Um you know, we're we're forced to provide special education services and so we are um we're going to see a little bit of increase crease in that for next year. Between those two items, it'll be about 150,000 for those two. Um we're going to set up $10,000 to implement a document management service for scanning. We'd like to start scanning some of our documents instead of having them stacked up all over the place. We have um we've
007budgeted an into >> it's instead of printing them out and putting in the boxes, you're going to scan I'm not So, our invoices that we get >> Okay. we want to scan that that information so instead of it Miss Lana, would you pull your mic closer to you? >> I'm sorry. Thank you. How about that? Is that okay? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. >> So, that that just will So, there's still going to be a hard copy stored somewhere, but you'll scan and and store. Probably. With with We we probably would shred those after after a certain number of years, but we probably would keep them for a couple number of years, but it's just it's just easier to look for stuff, research stuff. You scan things and I agree. Building catches on fire. So,
008and that's what that's for. So, we have been um talking to a new auditor to do our external financial audit services and their fee has come in at 57.5. So, this is a significant increase over the prior year. Um So, it's 57.5? Yes, sir. We have budgeted the same amount for our cleaning services next year. We use the Bud Group. Um initially, the Bud Group wanted to increase their fees to us by the Consumer Price Index for this year, which I believe is about 2.8. But, our operation uh personnel had discussions with them. They weren't that we aren't real real satisfied with their services and said we would not be paying more. So, we kept that the same. Um we're going to increase a little bit in repairs and maintenance. We got some rising costs
009coming up and that includes with the landscaping services. Item number 13, we have $18,000 budgeted for implementation of a software program that we are required to perform background checks on employees and that's what that number came in for us. Um When you say required, what I know we're required to perform background checks, but what uh is this a new step that is required? >> It's It's we're going to be using Raptor Services. As Renee's not in here, it's Raptor Services and from what I understand, it's not just new employees. It's something that it's a continuous um scan of background checks. >> Okay. All right. current All employees, current and new. Yeah. >> Okay. From what I understand, that's what that's for. Okay. Is this item 345 software? Yeah. Yes, that's it. Mhm. We don't have
010any change in advertising or printing. So, just just curious, because it's just software, um is all that 18K going to this background check software? >> Yes, sir. It's called I believe it's called Raptor. Okay, I would I think it would be helpful to be able to put instead of just software, because that's such a generic term. Mhm. And we let constituents know that this is software used for background check. >> I just used the um the 345 [clears throat] is the state code. Okay, that is software. >> Yeah, and then the description is is That's why I just used it, but I can I can So, it would be, you know, if we had to get some other software, it would be categorized the same too, but I could I could do that. I would
011mention too that Raptor also has a badge like we're talking about with Centegic for alerting. >> And I think Greenville County is using Raptor for their badge, so don't get those two confused. They do a lot of different things besides just [clears throat] just this type of software. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about the professional technical services. So, this includes payments to our school resource officers, which we were hoping maybe we could have a discussion with the city and county and get that reduced a little bit. We think we're paying a bit much for um having to hire them. We have to hire them. We have to have them in our schools. So, we're hoping we can get that down a little bit, but it's also
012includes a decrease for uh Synergy, the inner energy savings contract service provider. That contract's going to be over September 30th. >> [cough] >> We had a discussion about uh the SROs and looking back on the letter of agreements and what those had stated as far as how often we pay and and did did we have the opportunity to pull that? I know we just talked about it last week, so. So, we're keeping our travel budget the same. Um we're going to increase our supplies for next year and I want to make it known that the supplies that are allocated to the schools, we allocated $140,000 to all schools and it's going to be based on the number of students in each school what each each school would be getting. So, $140,000 for all and depending
013on how many students are counted, that's what they'll be getting. Um let's see, our principal payments for the CONCERT fund loan, uh that's going to be about the same. We we did a little bit of adjustment there because we we paid a little more on principal and little less for interest than we had budgeted last year. Uh we're keeping the same amount for tort liability, but we also include a uh $29,000 for student insurance. And then for the membership fees, you'll we increased this $18,000. It's just basically a reclassification. Uh we pay WIPPET, which is the Western Piedmont Education Consortium. $18,000 is the budget for next year. I just reclassified it there because it should be a 640. We had it down in 690. So, that's the that's the large increase for that. Just and
014then the other object account uh was reduced for the Wee Pack and then uh um uh we reduced some of our other objects. Um some of the other items in this other objects for next year. We think we can we can reduce the cost for those. So, any concerns or questions about the expenditures? Wait, we do 319? Legal services. Legal so Oh, yeah, legal services is going to be about the same. We we adjusted it down just a little bit. Okay. I have a question. I said the the uh the energy savings service provider I named them as Synergy. It's Synergistics. Right. >> Sorry about that. Where I came from it was Synergy. Okay. And then the applic- Rapture the the Rapture that's software that's also used for the volunteers. So, not just employees. So,
015they will have yearly checks for volunteers. And they currently Okay. Very good. All right. Any other questions, concerns? All right. So, now let's I would like to go to the revenue section. So, when we look at the first item these are the ad valorem taxes are for our property tax collections. Taxes on real estate, taxes on vehicles. So, I am budgeting a I'm sorry. Page on page four. I'm sorry. Page four. >> So, I'm going I'm going a little bit about reassessment. We are in a reassessment year and we will have to do what's called a rollback millage calculation. So, >> [clears throat] >> I will get to that part next, but for our ab valorem, I am budgeting an increase of a little over a million dollars. Our revenue in lieu of taxes is
016actually based on what we've been collecting so far this year, so that's gone up a lot. Activity fees, interest, and rental of school properties, we're expecting to be that a little bit less for next year. And we're going to keep our Medicaid um this is called an admin claiming. It's called the um school district administrative claiming that we file quarterly. It's to get reimbursed for um for uh uh student billing for medical services and special services. And so, we're keeping those items, the amounts we get from Lexington 56, we're going to keep those the same. And we're going to expect a little bit of increase of 6,000 from our other local revenues. Mean what? 56? What did I say? Lawrence 55? You said Lexington. >> [laughter] >> I I'm still thinking about Lexington with our
017vendors. >> [laughter] >> So, okay. We're expecting a an increase in our vocational rehabilitation reimbursement. >> we'll take anything from anybody. Oh, yeah. Right. And want to send it on. Oh, good. Well, you're going to love what Yeah, you would love what Lexington 55 is getting. So good. Yes. The um the money we're getting from L 56. Right. Has that previous issue been resolved? Okay, this is not equalization. Okay. The answer is no, we have The The answer is no, and yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit. These items for uh that we're getting reimbursed from 56 are for the the usage of the Joe Adair Center, and it's been just a staggering amount. Um the adult add amount, and then the um Lawrence Prep Academy, they pay for one teacher. They reimburse the
018cost for one teacher, but I think they have Is it 13 [music] students they're allowed to have? Do you know? Are you aware? I think it's 13 students that they send there. So, they reimburse us the cost of one teacher. Okay, so now we get into the state the state revenue. Um can I go back and ask some questions about uh the the first few things we've been through here? >> Yes, mhm. There's a couple of things So, did we check with the county on any changes that might be coming or confirm with them that we intend for you to get the same thing this year? Do we have those conversations? >> As far Yes, what would be coming? >> yes, so um I'm going to get in that part a little bit. Um we
019are in a reassessment year. Mhm. And so, that means values are going to go up. So, when you have a reassessment year, you have to do something that's called a rollback millage calculation. And So, the county's doing a reassessment? Right, on all It just went to happen on me. Yes, every 5 years they have to do a reassessment. I'm telling you right now, I had like a 15% increase in my taxes this year. What I paid in January was 15% more than what I've ever paid. Okay. So, I don't understand how they can do another reassessment. Um I'm not sure. So, Yeah, it's crazy. So, it is a calculation and it may that be that right now our millage is set at 167. And what ends up happening is when you have a reassessment, um
020you don't want to get a windfall. You're not permitted to get a windfall over when if something goes up a lot. So, you have to roll back your millage and kind of keep it even and then you can go from there and increase your millage if you need to. We'll talk about that part in a moment because that's the part where we have flexibility in our budget as far as revenue goes. The rest is kind of we're going to get what we're going to get and we don't have very much control over that. And I do have some questions regarding FILOT and some things that are happening in the county. Do you want me to ask those now or do you want or if you're going to address those in a minute, we can keep
021moving and come back to that. >> the FILOT part now. Okay, so those I know that we've got some new developments happening at Is that Hunter Industrial Park? So, I believe some things are going to be taking place there that should positively impact us. So, I don't know if you have gotten wind of that yet or I see. Okay, so I have gotten a little bit wind of that. And from what I am understanding, it's not going to be in effect for the 26-27 year. Okay. Is what I understand. Okay. And also boat taxes. I don't I don't know that that'll be 25 or 26-27 year either. That might be one more year, but that's being reduced. So, what will that do to us as well? >> we don't know that yet because I think
022that's being phased out over a couple years. And so, until I can get the reassessment numbers from the county Mhm. because that's included in the total assessment when I do the rollback calculation. So, I will have to get that number from the county. >> Anything else? Can I Can I ask Can I ask a question? Yes. >> Yeah. Medicaid ask question. Medicaid regular $200,000 or or is that based on reimbursements that we get from Yes. Okay. So, that that actually could increase depending on what type of records we're keeping on Right. This is >> how many people we're seeing and we went through this one time with nurses where we we made a push and Dr. I mean, Mr. Short used to do a really good job of >> Yes. making sure that we got
023all the Medicaid money that was available to us. So, that is something that actually could go up depending on how good a job we're doing Exactly. >> with with letting them know people that we're seeing and coming to the nurse's office. >> and both of you correct me if I'm wrong here, but it it may be that if we have non- contract employees and they're district employees, we can bill Medicaid differently as well. Is that right? And that maybe and that that would increase versus if it was a contract employee. So. That's one that I know that could go up or down. >> Yeah. Okay. And we'll we'll keep it at 200 for now just to be conservative. So, let's talk about the state aid to classroom funding that we're getting. That's including the education
024funding line for the 2026-27 year, we're getting a slight increase of $697,000. Our health insurance has gone down, will be going down $506,000. What happened here is with the health insurance the health insurance part has been rolled up into state aid to classroom formula. So, it's being rolled up into that top line. So, the number that you're seeing, this 93,945 versus the 600,000 for 25 26, this 93 only includes the 27-year money. Whereas before it was kind of the rolling money. So, that number has been rolled up into the state aid to classroom general fund amount of 24,697. These are preliminary numbers, but I think they're going to come in pretty close to this. So, basically, we're not going to get a whole lot of We're not going to get a whole lot of >>
025revenue from the state. We are not. When you take into account that number, the health insurance number the number that we're getting for retiring insurance and then if you go way down to the bottom where it says the other revenue we're getting less. We're getting 326 less. So, all those things added together is only coming up to a $46,000 increase. What does Help me understand the connection here that it's the state's demanding a 2% Right. increase in salaries. Where But, we're not So, the state's not paying for that. So, we are getting 24 million for the state aid to classroom money. It covers It pretty much covers most of our teachers. But, there's not much flexibility for any anything else. Well, my point is that the state is also mandating a pay increase >> Mhm.
026for all teachers. Right. If our revenue from last year is going to be the same as the one coming up. That's correct. >> They're not and the state mandating a pay increase without providing any funding for that pay increase. Right. So, the 24 million but this 24 million it it will pretty much cover just our teacher salaries for the most part. >> With the 2% increase? Mhm. Okay. Well, the $2,000 per salary increase. Yeah. It's 2,000 per pay salary. Yeah, sorry. $2,000. So, so every other line item on here is going to be for all our other expenditures. If you can kind of think of it that way. Okay. And typically the 2% raise for non-certified employees and others in the district, that typically is never covered by the state. That's just always local money
027or district money. And of course, if you get get if you do get more of this from the state just to cover your teachers, is that your discretion how you can use it? So. So, that covers the health insurance. Um most items we're keeping the same. Retiree insurance we're getting 182,000 more. We won't know about property tax relief for tier one and tier two until after the year end is over. So, the tier one money is that um that exemption for every homeowner that it's it's your primary residence that you get from the county and the school districts and for everybody. The homestead exemption is for those that are 65 and over, an exemption for that. So, the state reimburses us for those, too. And then you have that tier three property tax relief. That's
028from Act 388 when uh they implemented that, I believe, around 2006 and when they said that no primary resident can be taxed for School district operations, not debt service, operations. So, that's where we get the reimbursement from the state for that. It used to be dollar for dollar, but it's not dollar for dollar anymore. So, any other questions on the state revenue that we'll be getting? Regarding the federal revenues, um looks like we haven't gotten a state forestry revenue this year and so, we didn't budget it again. And then this 90 $94,000 that we'll be getting, that's our reimbursement for the ROTC teachers. So, that comes from the federal government for that. And then that first line item on the other revenue, that's the EIA fund that gets transferred into our general fund. It's going
029down $326, $1,000. Um does everyone understand the transfer of indirect costs, what that is? So, so we have federal money that's outside of general fund that we use to pay for certain things like Title I and IDEA and ATSI. We can take some of that those expenditures that's used and reimburse the general fund for indirect expenses like utilities and um support employees for filing the federal claims, those kind of things. And we're given an indirect rate, so we [snorts] we can charge the general fund some of that and get some of that back. So, that's what that is. So, any questions on that except and I'll get into the reassessment part of everything. And help me understand, too. So, I know that there are some salaries that are paid for through the Title 1 school.
030Right. That's not in here because No, those are federal funds, and that's outside of the general fund. We can take some of the It's kind of like an administrative cost and charge them X percent and reimburse the general fund for the cost of implementing those programs. So, do we ever get a report of those that funding? We should, yeah. I think we've got We've gotten that in the past. Federal funds? I mean, the total what's I don't know if y'all have ever gotten that. I I mean, you know, if someone asked me, "What's the total cost of running District 55?" I don't I can't answer that question because this only shows them part of it. Right. Right. This is in in our budget, but in our financial statements, when we get those The audit. >>
031Yeah, you can see what was spent. Mhm. Yep, district-wide. 8% overall was somewhere on there. On one of those charts. >> I do think and I do think in the times past we've gotten a a one-pager that shows where or maybe two pages that show all other funds that are coming in and being spent that are outside of this. So. So, any other questions before I'm moving to talking about reassessment? So, let's turn to to page 11. So, this calculation is very very very preliminary, and it's based off of the assessment for the 2025 calendar year because it's it's just what I have at this moment. So, when we do a rollback, a rollback is basically keeping us the same. What would be our millage without having a windfall? So, I've used these assessed values
032from the 2025 calendar year and I'm coming up to 93,178,821. And of course, this does not include any primary residential properties in that. So, when you take the taxes that we levied, and this is very preliminary, and do that as a percentage of our assessed value, we're coming up with a millage rate of 1.52. Again, these are very very preliminary numbers and I do not have any reassessment numbers at this time, but this is just an example of what a rollback millage would look like. So, we would have to drop our millage from 1.67 mills down to 1.52 to kind of keep us even. I also want to point out that when you're doing the rollback millage calculation, it excludes new construction. That's not included in this. It include excludes any um additions to properties.
033That would not be included in your um the assessed value part. So, you'll see a column that ex- that says excludes new growth. We don't take the new growth into consideration. It also includes what's called an assessed transfer of interest. So, if you had a property that you bought for um um $200,000 and then that property was sold for 400. That part the increase in value is also excluded when you're doing your millage calculation. So it's any any new growth, you're not looking at that part of it. You're just looking at what this assessed value is. But I did want to provide this that is an example of what we're going to what we're required to do as far as rolling back the millage. So roll back millage is to keep you from getting a
034huge windfall from keeping your millage the same and these values going up. So where does that leave us? What if we have 152 mills that we have to drop back to? So if you look on page 10, I've given you millage increase allowances for our school district as well as Laurens 56. So the millage increase that you're permitted every year is the CPI, which is the consumer price index for that year, as well as the growth for that school district. Add those two together and that's what your millage increase can be. So because we're with an equalization agreement with Laurens 56, my understanding is we can only increase what they are planning to increase. Is that my understanding? >> That's correct. So that's why I've put both Laurens 56 and 55. So let's look at
035Laurens 56 box. The current year 2020 26-27, Laurens 56 has had negative growth. So they can increase their millage just by CPI. So, being that we have not increased millage either school districts for several years, we can take that 2.6% but we can also go back the three previous years and pick up that millage as well. So, it's a possibility we could have a 7.6 millage increase but we don't need that much. We're not going to need that much, I'm pretty sure. But this is just an example of what we're allowed to do. So, if we had a drop back to 152 mills, we could use these to go back and pick up those that millage increase for those years. Previous years, if we needed to. I don't believe we're going to need to, but
036like I said, the numbers are very preliminary at this moment and I haven't gotten the new reassessment numbers and I don't really know where we are at this point. And what what would give you cause to to hire him? So, one millage one mill, if I'm I'm looking at last year's data, the value of one mill is 81,632 according to last year. 81,000? I'm sorry, 81 What? [laughter] I wish. 81,632. That's the value of one mill. So, if you raise your millage three mills, we could impl So, this is an example raising your millage three mills would give you 244,000 in increase in property tax collections assessments. And and that would mean distributing the payment distributing to all counties. Just this school district. We're talking just this school district. Yes, sir. Just this school district.
037And we have That's That's only 3 It's only 3 mills, right? That that Yes, on 3 mills. So, if you did if you did 6 it would be about 489,000, which is what I'm requesting. But, the value of a mill I can't calculate at the moment because I don't know what our assessed values are at this point in time. But, what I would like for If we look back to page four, I would like for our our ad valorem taxes to come out to a little over 15 million. And I can tell you that we've collected over 14 million, about 14 million five year-to-date. So, you're saying you'd like to see that go up by The millage, yes. The millage go up and I would like to I would I would like to get a
038little over This is what we budgeted, this million dollars, but we've already collected about 14,500. So, that would put us about 600 thousand. So, the budget that you've proposed includes a 6-mill increase. Yes, according to the assessed values that I have at this point in time. Do you have any >> Have you prepared for about 6 hours? I have not. Um Dr. Harris, I know at one point we were discussing um transportation Yes, ma'am. cost and um I We talked about it in one of our uh one of our meetings just about the that hours seemed out of alignment with what we should be doing. Where are we on that now? I know you had mentioned previously that, you know, maybe people were not getting I would say some people were getting overtime, but that
039yet other people were not even getting a normal work week, and so we're paying more and it should have been more balanced. Have we been able to rectify some of those issues? >> hard to eliminate all the overtime that that was being paid because people were getting paid overtime while on the clock, so to speak. Mhm. They're for you're getting paid for a certain number of hours in the morning, a certain number of hours in the afternoon, but duties done other duties done within those hours were somehow ending up on a timesheet and getting paid. So, we're trying we're making our best effort to Mhm. Yeah, just cut that. Okay. Yeah. If somebody's approved to work 4 and 1/2 hours a day and they turn in a timesheet for 7, we're telling them, "You were
040approved for 4 and 1/2 hours." Right. Okay. Are they working the 7 or are they just charging for 7, even though they're not really working it? No, they're working it. Um well, they're not driving that many hours. Um but that was done, my understanding, and I had no part of this, but that was done to get them to a an amount of money that would keep them working and keep them um you know, so they pretty much are earning a salary instead of just time. Okay. It's just they do do it fill out timesheets, but they're they're working more for a salaried amount. Um and that made us more competitive and able to keep cuz we're having real real problems keeping bus drivers. So, then basically, no one took a pay cut. Yes. Yes. Yes.
041Okay. And what have we done for going into the 26-27 school year regarding staff? Have we made any considerations with reductions in staff anywhere? We are eliminating, I know, one position for the synergistic We have an employee that we have on staff to help We're eliminating that position. And we we've only added two. But we From my understanding, a lot of teachers were eliminated in the prior year. Some of the retirees were not returning. So, I have not gone and met with any departments that said they, you know, they're they're wanting more people, but we have not done anything to eliminate any staff. Is that your understanding, Dr. Harris? Well, he went through budget meetings with all the principals. Um I didn't know that there were no cuts. I'm not sure that that's that there
042was not If there were If there were many, it was only I I couldn't say, but it's it would be very very small number. And what do those conversations uh What What do those meetings look like when you're meeting with principals? So, is there a document that the principal fills out and turns in? Yes. And And And what does that look like? What is that information shared with you? >> They bring us the number of students they have in their school, the number of in each classroom, and and the teachers that are in there. We We go through each you know, make sure that you know, we we show you have in this person, this person. They verify, yes, these are the people in my school. No, these are the people not. This person's in
043And so, we go through, we determine how many students they have at this moment in time and what's expected. And so, I think there was only I think there was only one principal so far that's asked that's asked for an is getting a an additional teacher. >> for sure. >> teacher. The conver- The conversation centers around class size. Yeah. >> And And And what we what we should do. And what are our current like what are we using as current class size um I guess the benchmarks. This I I've just recently gotten a call that there's a class at Hickory Tavern, a third grade class with 30 students in it. And so I'm trying to that seems like a lot of third graders and it being a critical grade. So, what numbers are we using?
044And are are all our third grade classrooms 30 students or So, what what are we using to to calculate how many teachers do you need for third grade? >> Right. And and the principals did bring that those documents in. I believe JD has those documents with him. Of what you know, what how many how many students are in in each grade? I guess my point is I'm trying to figure out if 30 students in a classroom or if 30 students in a classroom is an acceptable at one school, why is it acceptable at this school? Why don't we, you know, are our grade groups even in how we have them in in each school? Right. And from my understanding, our HR uh director is working to to shift people and move people as they're needed.
045I don't know where she is. So, okay. Okay. Thanks. That number would be different depending on grade level. Right. Right. But it would make sense that >> in the more in the range of a 22 to 25 would be what would be what we want. Right. Right. >> Um and in that case Yeah. Yeah. So, it could be just the way the numbers worked out in that Or there are certain kind of circumstances that occur during the year that require redistribution. Well, also don't the fact that you're having an assistant in the playing with I don't think in scholar or traditional there is no assistant in there. >> No, it's just certain certain certain grades and certain grades. >> does impact it, but in in traditional classrooms there's no assistants. So this classroom with 30
046and it's a traditional And they can be in the same classroom. I thought you said no. So you're saying that that classroom with less students than that one with an assistant. Uh, I'm just I'm saying that if you had 30 students in a classroom with a teacher and an assistant, that's okay. Like I see that as a reasonable, but if it's just the teacher and 30 students, that seems to way too many. Yeah, and 30 would be an outlier. That that wouldn't be a normal And that wouldn't be a Well, how many is in that class? There was no way to figure that out. I don't I don't know. Um yeah, I don't I don't want to I can share more offline about uh who contacted me, but I'm not going to do it in
047in open session. So, but I So it can be addressed, but um And so I guess going back to to Heather's point, you know, I'm sure in talking with everyone, you know, it you've probably realized obviously we haven't had a tax increase in some years. I mean, this is my eighth year on the board. I've never been a part of a tax increase. Um it does have to coincide with whatever, you know, with what 56 is wanting to do as well. So, I'm not sure if you've had that specific conversation with them to know what they might be thinking or what they are are are putting forward. Um So, it's always a safe place to be in knowing what is our budget going to look like if there's no tax increase. >> Right. Um and
048and does that mean, I mean, based on what we're looking at here, then then that means there's going to have to be some sort of cut somewhere. So, cuz I assume you're not this is just 6% and you're not asking to take anything out of our fund balance. This is 6 mils. Yes. 6 mils, sorry. Yeah. Okay. So, what's our projected student enrollment for uh 26 27? So, I only can give you what it is as of this moment for the 25 26 year. Um So, 25 26, we're at 77.99. That weighted pupil units enrollment is 44.91 for 25 26. And I don't know about I don't know anything about enrollment information. All right, thank you. >> Or That's for um 25 26. This is our That's our weighted pupil pupil units, and then number
049eight page eight is our total enrollment. Hey, Ms. Bond. So, I was wondering if you know the average like student size for each classroom for each class. Like, so our third graders across the district do we average 24 students in a third grade classroom or 22? Um Is that What are the numbers do we utilize in order to determine how many teachers we need? Is that number written down on spreadsheet somewhere? I don't believe that it is. Um and I'm not sure I have the exact answer for you for the question, but I can give you an idea Okay. FTE allotment Mhm. Is that really Mhm. what you're speaking of? Well, we know in our in our primary grades, that would be kindergarten with our K4 um K5 and then K3. Our 4-year-old K4 certified
050classes, the maximum we have is 20 per class. That's for the uh certified classes. For the kindergarten classes, we have the A and P M. We can go as high as 27. We try not to, but in the kindergarten classes, the K5, we will have a paraprofessional so there are usually two adults. Right. And we do our best to try to keep primary the same. I don't know how many marks are in I try to keep it the Um for our first grade classrooms, we try our best to keep the teacher ratio between our student ratio of 20 to 21. Due to the fact that they are really starting their journey into actual reading, so we try to keep those numbers as low as possible. And we try in second grade on up, but that
051does not always happen. So that's kind of the umbrella that we try best to use. So you're saying 20 to that's >> grade. for first grade. And then what for second grade and up? And for second grade and up there's not really a ceiling number for that, but we try. The numbers that have been talked about has been 20 about 22 to 25. Okay. So are are these going to be called uh uh uh tuition teaching Some of them are. Some >> [clears throat] >> a lot of that does work well with some of that but it's coming to have teachers once they are able to write to do that but as far as the the budget is concerned and how we try to balance our teachers as related to the budget the information that
052I am giving is really just the FTE allotment but I do believe it comes from the general fund specifically with those I don't know but the modifiers that you may have for third grade district wide if we have X number of dollars and we know we have X number of students we try to spread that evenly throughout the district of course that doesn't always work out for example this year the class sizes at in some cases were smaller than the ones at Lawrence Elementary it just worked out well and that when we do have situations such as that we may transfer a teacher from one school to another where we have more students and we don't necessarily have additional funds to hire another teacher we'll move a teacher to another school but as far as
053the baseline numbers for FTE allotment I don't have the formula for that but that is what we use we we will go by the amount of money that we have available and do our best to try to hire teachers where we will have lower class sizes Okay last year Okay. All right. Right. Okay. Okay. Right, having 30 kids in a classroom. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. we also try our best to keep class sizes manageable manageable because they understand if we're starting out with this large number of students, it's going to make it very difficult not only for them to meet the standard, but to make any progress. So, when principals come in individually, we do look at their class size. Um we look at their number of teachers and that's how we determine exactly how
054many third grade teachers you will receive. And there have been some cases in this budget and all the factors this where our numbers have grown since those budget reviews and we've had to have conversations to say, "It looks as if we're going to have to add um a multi-age classroom or add a teacher or whatever the case may be." So, we want everybody to know that we do look at that. There's uh the class sizes before we make those decisions. If you look at >> oh, go ahead. >> at the 135-day number and you could tabulate third grade, that would be a 28 and 27 if you divide it pretty evenly, 28 27 two classrooms. If you go to a third >> Page nine. If you go to a third teacher, you're looking at an
05518. Three classes of 18. So, it comes down to a The question is, can we can we go to the larger number with two or do we have to hire another teacher to go to 18? So, it is you know, that's that's the question you have to ask. And and because of the budget, I guess, in the last just like last year, you know, you have to make the hard decision and do what you usually would not want to do. Right. You have that type of number [clears throat] for that. That's the way those numbers shake out. When will we see projected enrollment for the fall? When does that normally When do you So, if we use those projections and historical information based on previous sign-ups for kindergarten what can It sounds like we have
056a projected enrollment for 26-27. Can you share that cuz it's we don't have it on our sheet. So, but we we have a budget and we have you're we're asking for teacher salaries but no one can provide us with a budget of student I mean a number of projected student enrollment for 26-27. [clears throat] >> except for The the the ones coming I think those numbers are still cuz they usually come in late. You'll you'll get a lot added at the very end. I think you probably could get numbers. We could get numbers for you and give them to you. Um Yeah, that would be great. >> Sure. Yeah, except for except for that grade. That would be great. I mean, I'm just curious, are we still trending Right, based on what you've done before.
057Yeah. I'm just trying to cuz we have been trending down for several years. So, I'm just curious to see what we're projecting for the fall. Cuz I don't I mean, I think all of everything that we're talking about is based on student count. So, we've got to have those student counts somewhere. Yeah. Right. Okay. Thank you. And I was thinking that this what we talked about in the principals meetings was, you know, you have this many fourth graders that are going to be moving to fifth grade and the unknown is the kindergartners at this moment. So, we did have those discussions on what they need what they think they're going to need for next year. And moving people around from a fourth grader to third grader because of they're not going to need as many
058fourth grade teachers as they are third grade teachers this Okay. Thank you, Ms. Vine. Thank you. Okay. And in terms of uh consequential years, I know I know third grade is a huge year because it's the it's the year where you you get held back. Okay. All right. But from a consequences standpoint, I think that first and second grade maybe kindergarten, that that that's even more important because if you if you go to third, you're not ready, probably not going to catch up in third. So, I think those numbers would, you know, if you were going to see one, you'd definitely see it maybe a little bit higher in third grade maybe than you would in first and second because those are those are crucial years to get ready Right. for the testing in third.
059Okay. And I sent I sent Jody a text and asked him if he He's He might have something with him that he could send us. Oh, okay. I think so. Okay. You got something else? No. What's the name? Dr. Harris, do you all have anything else to add? Anybody have any more questions? No. I do think that I do think we need to see a number without the millage increase. Um and yeah. I hope I can get the assessed values from the county soon. Okay. Okay. That would be very helpful. >> And so, our plan would be at our May meeting to have additional conversations about this and then in the June meeting approve a budget. That would be our goal. Okay. Do what? Well, I think that we should see it without the millage
060increase and and I mean we can talk about the millage increase here on is it something we would even consider? Is it something that we would consider part like not at all? So, I mean that's something that I mean we can talk about it now or we can talk about it in at the May meeting. So. But, I do think that we need to see options uh in front of us um as we get there because depending on what that is, I mean is that going to mean um a staff cut somewhere. You know, if we say, "Okay, now we're not going to do a a millage increase." So. Right. And one thing I'm curious about is I it seems like we start this pro process Well, and this is in no way a reflection
061of anything that you've done. Please don't take it as that at all cuz I know you have had your nose to the grindstone since you walked in the door. Okay. But, in general in years past, I do think that this process doesn't seem to start soon enough. And it kind of baffles me that we're sitting here now talking about here's our budget, here's what we need to pay the teachers that we have. You know, there's not a projected student count on here right now, but we've approved contracts two, three months ago. So, we're approving contracts before we have any idea of what our budget is going to be for the next year. And those things just are backwards to me. Is there Have you seen it done differently? Is there should can we start earlier?
062Like is I just think that we're out of sequence a little bit and have always thought that and just wait, how do we get ahead of that a little bit to know what we're looking at in numbers before we start approving teacher contracts. >> And so, a part of that is, you know, what's going on at the state house and getting our state aid money and all that. You know, because you don't know what your revenues are going to be. >> But your contracts with your teachers are running out. Because their winter teachers' contracts are done in June. >> I mean, [clears throat] they have to be done May 15th, I think. Yeah. So, so you have to have >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the teachers need to know they have a job in the Sure.
063Sure. And and it seems like the budget's got to That's got to come Yeah, but we have our legislative thing and we seem ahead of that. Mhm. And being able to let us know what the projections are. Right. And that money so, we should We should have some sort of idea that we can work under even even even though we know it's going to shift or hasn't been approved yet by the legislature, at least we're we have something to work you know, work for. And and and look at before we start approving approving contracts. And and I don't want I'm just throwing this out there. I mean at any point in time that we're not getting the funds that we need the last group of individuals in this district that I think need to be
064touched are teachers. Okay? The last group. Um so I mean I'll just put that out there, but I do think that it's important before we start approving contracts and um you know, and we've even approved positions at the DO, you know, so I feel like we're you know, we're hedging a bet, you know? So. And it would be nice to start a little bit earlier. Well, so unfortunately, some of these larger districts are or I should say more wealthy districts that are growing >> Yes. are getting more state money. Right. Okay? With huge tax bases already. And we are because we're we're we're losing students and have been for a long period of time and new funding, we're getting less money. Right. Just because based on I was about to say the growth now is
065a big factor in the amount of money you receive, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. It is just it's 5:12, so if if anybody else have anything or if not, we can call it a day. So. All right. Well, thank you. Um thank you Miss London. Thank you Dr. Harris. Thanks everybody for being here Miss Madden. And um with no further business on our agenda, I will adjourn us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank y'all. My favorite subject to talk about is money. >> Mhm.