001All right, we'll call this meeting to order. Uh, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. All right. First up is approval of the agenda. >> Second. >> Been moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Motion carries. Uh, first up is well, the only thing up is the 2526 budget discussion. So, let me set the tone. >> So, Deliss has been working on this, I will say, tirelessly for a long time. Um, one of the things that I want everyone to remember tonight is she's going to set the tone about where we're at if we didn't do any changes. Okay? And so tonight, what our goal is when she's done with the presentation, our goal is to stop at like 5:50, 5:55, so we have a stretch break before we
002start a regular board meeting, is explaining where we think the cuts need to come from, where the things are that we're moving forward. And so, and I'm taking notes as well as that being recorded. Have you turned on the recording? Need to turn on the recording. Um uh so that um we want to make sure we catch every capture all of the thinking. Okay. So Delisa will have the floor for most of the day the evening. Deanna and I may add in as it goes on, but that's kind of where we're at. Does that make sense? Okay. So um and prepare. This is not the funnest meeting we probably are ever going to have. I work going to die. We're using DNS. >> Okay. Okay. Uh Blake, can you please pull up the spreadsheet that
003I sent you earlier? Perfect. Then if you could go to the cover page tab and make it bigger so everybody can Okay. So, we uh I'm just going to start with with the basics um of of really where we're at. Uh I've been working with the ESC um a lot on this and they they were going to pop on for the study session. Maybe they'll pop on for the regular meeting. Um, but this is where we're at. If we You're fine. If we do not change where we're at right now, um, we will end the 2526 school year with a negative fund balance of $628,000. Um that includes and the costs include I mean all of our riffs that we did theou language for the pea. However, we still have um bargaining groups that bargained
004for a lot more. Um our PSC the increase for salaries are is $300,000 alone even with the people that we cut. Um and so there are some important notes that we'll go over. Um, I have my ideas on on what I propose cutting to get us back to where we're supposed to be. Um, or at a more comfortable place, but at the end of the day, it's not, you know, my decision. Um, so the first thing that I want to start with is our estimated starting fund balance. My personal opinion is we are going to be about $300,000 greater than this. However, I'm not going to overpromise and underdel. I would rather budget conservatively and have us come out better in the long run than the opposite. Um, I did that last year, too. I
005budgeted that we were going to end at a 1.2 million fund balance, and we actually ended at a 2.1. Um, but for the sake of moneywise, fiscally wise, um, and to really show where we're at, I'm using the more conservative fund balance of 675,000. Um, as you can see, our salaries are our biggest our biggest portion of our budget. Um, they accumulate to almost 37 million when our total budget is 465. Um, it's a lot. Uh, Viva alone is almost a million dollar. So, we're spending $85,000 a year on Viva for our employees. Um, it's just that is just unheard of in any district at all. Um and that is due to our CBAs and bargaining um and not ableing to do regressive bargaining for a lot of that. Um every single person in our
006district gets VIA. Some groups get more than others. Um but we don't have a single employee that does not get VIA. So that is that's a big thing. Um if you Blake, can you go to the next tab, the notes tab, please? and scroll to the top and make it bigger. Yes, please. Thank you. Um, so you all have a copy of this Excel sheet. I have separate tabs for each bargaining group. Um, the one that the one that we're presenting has no names. If you would like the ones with the names from the system, I would be more than happy to send that to you. Um but from the mishaps that we had last year, I thought it would be smarter just to delete them all together. Um so the the first thing that
007I want to talk about it is our salaries. Um our salaries are high. Um everybody got an increase this year whether it was just IPD or IPD plus depending on what their bargaining group agreed to. Um the the big thing on salaries which we we budgeted for a certain amount but not enough um are our subs, our overtime and our exit. We spent a million dollars in subs this year. A million dollars. Um half a million for certified and half a million for classified. um this you know I I sent Kim and Diana and Kevin a report a subre report this morning for the year and other than what's in their contract and what they're bargain for so sick vacation personal um our sped staff get some paperwork days that are bargained for we have
008an insane amount of absences that are using codes they shouldn't be um one of them being district initiated so we have a lot of staff Um, and I haven't had a chance to look through all the members. Um, but Diana brought up a couple that she knows wouldn't ever have a district initiated day and used it consistently. Um, so when we talk about our front line and it needing to be cleaned up, um, that's a big a huge part of it. We had 622 full day absences for district initiated and professional development. Um, and so those that is one area that we really really have to look into and clean up. Uh, Dian and I talked about turning those off completely and only allowing people with prior approval that are on administrative leave to use
009those kinds of leave and then professional development scheduling that to where you don't need a sub because we're paying the sub cost and we're paying the um the payroll cost also the regular base salary cost. So, we're doubling up on a lot. Uh, for coaches, we have some coaches that are on our staff um that are full-time employees. So, we pay for their sub when they're gone. We pay for their regular salary and then we pay for their coaching stipen at all at the same time. Um, so that is another area that we have to look at. Now, that is a small area in the subw world, but it's still it still makes a difference, you know, cash flow-wise. So, that's something that we have to look at. Um, a lot of the subtime is
010um, people being gone on comp time. So, we'll get into that when we talk about overtime. Um, a lot of our classified employees get overtime or comp time, it's in their contract. And if you accumulate comp time, you have to use that comp time. And when you're a secretary or a custodian or a food service person and you're using comp time, you have to get a sub. So, we were paying salaries and sub costs on top of that. Um, extra and overtime for our classified staff. We spent $400,000 this last year on overtime. Um, extra time, overtime. Um, >> will you define the difference for them, the difference? >> So, we have we have staff members that are eight hours a day. Um, some of them are 2.5, some of them are five, some of
011them are seven. We have very few that are 2.5. That's like our food service workers, but that is anything above and beyond contracted time. Extra time is. And then overtime is when we get to our full-time staff who will go over eight hours per day. That's overtime rate. It's time and a half. Um I would just say for but for example, some of that is is approved time. So like today, we're implementing our panorama program. We had staff here training on that. We're paying their extra time at a grant. So there will be some extra time that is authorized that that teachers have. But Elise, I think there our bigger problem is when people do the time without either approval. >> And that was a huge thing this year is, you know, we put a
012cap on it. We put a a freeze on overtime and we were getting staffed still turning in 30 plus hours of overtime and LNI rules. We can't just not pay them. um we they would grieve, they would sue, we we have to pay them. Um and so it it really is a top- down thing. Um trying to and you know and Kim has made the effort with the unions of hey no overtime next year unless I approve it. And we've gotten a ton of push back, a ton of push back. Um but the fact of the matter is is we can't we cannot afford it. And regardless of the work that needs to be done, I I know that all this overtime isn't being utilized as it should. Um, you have a set job. If
013you don't get your job done in those set hours, your admin needs to help or you need to come back in the morning and and finish your job or prioritize what you're doing. Um, we have, you know, we have departments that were overstaffed, you know, that we have rift. Um, but the reality is a lot of our departments are underst staffed. You know, my department is underst staffed. Diana's department is underst staffed. Um, our nursing staff is underst staffed. Um, and so there's a, you know, the work is still there and we're losing people. Um, however, I think that there are things that can be done to mitigate that. Um, that $400,000 does not include comp time. it does not include comp time. So there's no real way to calculate comp time um because they
014they can take it off and then by the end of August if it's not used they cash out. So I really don't even have I won't have an exact number for comp time cash outs until August payroll has beened. Um, but that hurts us also. And that goes back to the sub costs when we have people taking comp time that need a sub. Um, and then the fourth item for extra time is extra certified time. So our certified staff, they get their base salary, they get 56.5 hours of enrichment, and then they they have stipens for separate things. So, some of them have stipens for extra days. Some of them have uh sped stipens, club stipens, and that that is a tab on here, too. Um, however, this time that is being turned in and
015being paid is above and beyond what they're contracted for, and that's $260,000 worth. Um, so if they're doing interviews, if they're doing like a thinking maps training, if uh I Dan could probably shed some more light on that. Um, and that doesn't mean that some of aren't some of them aren't grants. So, some of them are reimbursible, but this is just the total dollar. So, we don't at this point we're bringing to you what it is, but some of it is reimburseable, but I'm just sharing with you I um so so the the total cost for all of that is $1.6 million extra this year. So, um and that leads me into my next piece of the budgeted salaries. We budgeted $37.2 million for salaries and that is straight from the system. So that includes
016their supplementals, their whole base salary, their benefits, everything. Um we are forecasted by the end of August to be at $38.5 million in salaries. It's a lot. That's that 1.6, right? >> It's it's a lot. So just trying to get make sure you see that the 1.6 six plus 375 people. Um it's a lot. It is a lot. Um and our, you know, even with the cuts that we had this year and the umus from the pea, we're still forecasted at $37 million for salaries. That's a lot. Um, you know, and some cost savings that that we've had that have helped a little bit, but that we are going to be responsible for next fiscal year is the enrichment hours. Um, you know, PA has anou where they gave up a bunch of enrichment hours.
017They went from 56.5 to 22 hours each. Um, and that's a $400,000 cost savings that we're going to be responsible for next year. It's only a one-year. Um, let's just So, when we're saying next year, she's talking the 2627 because we're already Okay. I just want to make sure. Yeah. Next year meaning following after this budget. >> Yep. 2627. >> Um, so that is helping us this year, but we have to plan for that next year. Um, we can't expect them to to do that again, and I doubt that they will. Um, it's it's a big cost. um we are saving approximately 22,000 for the admin days that were forfeited, but again it's a one-year. We're going to be responsible for that next year and salaries are going to continue to increase. So that number
018will go up. Um another thing that I want to point out is our our revenue projections are down a million and a half dollars. Um this is due to enrollment. um all of enrollments um or title money is being cut significantly. Um it's a big hit for us. >> And this is not necessarily the information that I put out to the public about the some of the um title monies and the migrant monies that we got some of that back. This is what we didn't get back plus our reduction in some of Diana's other programs. So if anybody's listening, I want to make sure. >> Yep. It does not include any of the proposed cuts for 26 27 for for migrant and title. Um and so um our expense projections are down from this year
019but it doesn't really matter when our when we don't have a fun balance, right? Um and so so there we have work to do as a team. We have work to do on to decide what else we need to cut. Um, my next thing that I want to talk about is is my opinion. Um, I'm not the one who's making this final decision. Um, but from a fiscal standpoint, the the places where I believe that we can make cuts to make up the difference um is sub costs. So, I would like to see that those costs cut in half. Um, for classified and certified. Um, it's the half a million dollar savings. Um, and that means, you know, doing the work of going through frontline. Um, taking out the abs the absence reasons that aren't
020there. Um, doing the work within Frontline for coding to make and making sure that the hours are correct. um making sure that um leave is accurate. If you don't have leave, you shouldn't be putting it in. It should be leave without pay. Um but we're having an issue with Frontline and Skyward connecting. Um and so that's that's a huge issue there. Um I want to cut um cut overtime for classified $340,000. Um that leaves us 60 grand to work with for the year for for classified staff for overtime and extra time. We've set the president already no overtime with all of our directors, our administrators. Um and that means picking up the slack uh where where we have to pick up the slack at and is helping with the payroll team at the end are
021helping me with payroll. um we're all doing things that are not >> we had a conversation with with a particular director and said um you know there was a question on how do I handle blank because of you know some different things and we just said I guess you're going to learn how to do that I I mean I don't mean it that flippant or that short but there is no money so the answer is no so we still have to do the work so we all pitch in and do the work. >> Yeah. Yes, we've had a lot of those tough conversations. >> Um, the other option we've talked to people about is flex time. If there is something that every I'm going to use bordon. If there's some back to school night, then
022you're going to rotate your staff and you're going to have two and please understand, I'm just giving the examples. You're going to have two people who come in in the morning at the normal time and then two are going to save and work the evening, right? instead of all four work normal hours and two but work overtime. Does that make sense? We're going to we're going to require flex time. Um the next piece is the extra cost for cert for certified. I would also like to cut that $200,000 leaving them with 60 60 grand. Um and I did that to be fair for classified and certified. I don't think one's more important than the other and I don't want to give one a bigger budget than the other. I understand that work needs to be
023done. There are things that we we don't plan for. Um but I think we can be more fiscally responsible in that way. Um and and cut those costs. Uh the next one's travel. It's really not that big because we did cut a lot of travel this year, but we still are spending $150,000 in travel. This does not include registration. This is just travel. Um, and so a lot of this is grants. Um, but I mean we're not getting any of our LFSI grants this year and a lot of travel was used for that. Um, I understand that some travel is needed um, for particular things, but we've also already said the president no travel at all for this coming year regardless of whether it's grant funded or not. Um, so I would like to cut
024that. Um, $100,000 leaving us with 50,000 in the budget for for travel stuff. Um, my next propose I have some principal friends in the crowd and they probably want to kill me. Um, is is our building budgets. Um, we we um we have a budget about 335,000 that we allocate to the buildings based on their FTE. Um, and we allow them to use this money for whatever they see fit. It's their money based on their FTE. If they want to buy paper, if they want to get a new sign, if they, you know, that it's completely up to them in a perfect world, I would love to do that. I would love nothing more than to give my buildings their allocations and let them have free rain. We just don't have the cash for it.
025We just don't. Um, and so my proposed cut my proposed cuts is $185,000 leaving with each each building about 30,000. Um, we've had discussions about supply ordering and having it come through our office. Uh, Ma Mapton doesn't even allow them to buy paper at all. Um, she says, "Nope, you're going to take a picture of of what you need with your phone, take it home." Um, and we really need to cut back on supplies, which is my next proposed cut. Um, and I think another thing is is, and we all know like we all we all love a certain sticky note, we all love a certain pen, we all have our our favorite paper that we order and that we buy. Um, and it's just something that we're going to have to go without. We
026We really just are. Um, we spent $1.4 4 million on just supplies this year for the whole district. And that's just one code of supplies. Um it does not include it like tech stuff. It's just that doesn't and I want to make sure we're talking. This is not power. This is not you know, right? This is I hate to say this, but this is stuck. >> Stuck. >> Yep. Stuck. >> Yep. >> It's And and don't get me wrong, it it might be a chair. It might be a desk. It So when I say stuff, I mean it's things you can hold on to. Okay? So it's doesn't mean we spent $1.4 million on paper or pens, but it's anything that's tangible that you can hold on to. >> It's not it's not cleaning supplies
027and filters and things like that. It's just school supplies basically. >> It's basically supplies. We have different like it uses a different code for um for their supplies, right? Their IT hardware and stuff like that. um we use a different code for ink um and all of that. So these are it's truly just supplies. So for example, our transportation department wanted new mailboxes. That would be a supply. Do they need new mailboxes? No. But it would make their lives easier. So they bought new mailboxes. That's a supply. Um we spent $1.4 million. Um we have to cut that. So, my proposed cut is cutting $750,000 of that, leaving with us still with I feel like a healthy budget of $650,000 for the year for the district. Um, and this is so we we've been they've
028been ordering stuff for this next year. I' we've been approving all the POS and getting everything. So, this really truly is everything that we paid up to this point. Um, so with my proposed cuts, it would it would be a savings about $2 million. >> I have a question about >> No, no. So, it it's all it's all under the all under the 5610 code. So, my my proposal would be to give the buildings the $30,000 each and then having them order their supplies through us. So, all of their paper, all of their pens, all of their bindings, um, all of that stuff so we can track it and that we can really say yes or no. Um, >> so an example, she used this, I'm sorry, she used the example of a sign. So
029the district if a building says we really need this sign for blank that would be out of their $30,000. We're trying to do centralized paper buying centralized pens. Does that make sense? Lined paper things like that. >> Yes. Correct. Like for example, I mean if if you've been to the district office and and where our mailboxes is, there's a million pieces of color paper and nobody knows where they came from or how long we've had them and we don't use them. Um, so it's it's purchases like that that put us in the hole. Um, you know, we we're going in and approving every PO, but I can't see in the PO whether Joe Schmo is ordering 70 tool pens or, you know, big pens and paper and, you know, A, B, and C. You shouldn't
030be spending $5 on that. I get it. I love tool pens, but I'm going to buy that myself with my own money. Um, I wouldn't expect the district to pay for it. Um, The other thing that I know is I know teachers um if our teachers really went into their classrooms and looked at what they already have like we've done a lot of every year you get so much amount of money as a teacher to purchase things and there are certainly things they need to restock or that they just like a teacher might use. Um like honestly mechanical pencil sharpeners are an example because they burn out. They don't last forever. Uh some people will buy if their math teacher might buy three, you know, pencil sharpeners because when one goes out, they throw it,
031put the new one in. So, um but the reality is there's probably a ton of supplies in drawers and cupboards. Um if you remember uh co there was a picture in the newspaper remember there was a complete shortage of of disinfecting wipes and we found something like I don't know hundreds of containers of disinfecting wipes which parents had bought because kids were supposed to bring a certain number of containers every year and teachers were just stocking them in their cupboards and so I can tell you Kleenexes probably at one point maybe not now because we've now moved to like a central purchasing for the Kleenexes but there's there's Stop. Definitely stop. Right. >> Yeah. >> No. And and that's a great idea. Um, you know, instead of giving them the full allocation, just giving them
03230,000 upfront for their supplies and everything. Um, and I ju I also just want to say, you know, these these are not permanent, right? We we need to be able to sacrifice for a couple of years to get us to a financially comfortable place, but we can get back to providing a full allocation for the building budget. So, we can get back to um travel. I I mean, I haven't I wasn't able to go to a small conference this year. None of us were. uh none of my staff have. Um and then there's professional developments happening all year that we're in desperate need of. Um but we're just not doing it. Um and so that is that is just one thing that I I do want to say is that these are temporary to get
033us to a better place financially. We have to make these sacrifices to get there. >> And that goes with the right sizing. >> Correct. And one of the things that we're talking about and I know there's people listening and and probably have many questions and please understand I'm I'm not saying we will I'm saying options okay we have something's going to have to give right um I hate to use the word regressive bargaining but somewhere along the line I'm including myself in this by the way right something has to give we have to rightsize based on the number of students we do have and the salaries that we have and I believe I don't know if it was Jason or Brian who brought up the mccleary was the start of this and this idea that
034our levy dollars make up the difference what the state doesn't give but then we're just going back to our community and asking for more. We've got to figure out a way to um I don't know if you I'm going to sidestep here and I'm not going to take too much time, but I want I want you to think about something in your household. I don't know if you've taken your whole family out to dinner lately. I'm just we're chuckling. Everybody's kind of rolling their eyes and looking. It's a killer. So, this is not just Proer School District. This is your household budget. My dad and I live alone at the house, right? Two old people who don't eat very much and it's two bags of groceries and it's $200, right? So, I want to understand
035this is just not foster school district. This is a societal this is a thing that we're all having to fix and we have to be in it together. So I want everybody to understand that um if the IPD inflationary price determiner is 2.9 and the staff the state gives us 2.9 in our aortionment but that's only for 3/4ers of our employees then we have to take the 2.9 and divide it between everybody and now everybody gets 1.8 8 or whatever the mathematical number would be because I mean next year I don't know what we're going to do without in the 26 27 budget without our potential loss of migrant and all the title point that I've said I don't know what that's going to do to our system the operational functions of our system. So
036tonight I told you it wasn't going to be a very fun meeting. We have to figure out where to cut $2 million in our budget. And these are our proposals. The lease Indiana is in line. This is our proposal. We would like um tonight something that says, "Yeah, I think you're on the right track." No, you're not. Because at our next week's study session, we would like to be able to show you here's where the a little more finite maybe finite. This is what it looks like. I wanted to ask a question about cutting costs for subs, overtime, extra time, comp time. And just correct me if I heard you wrong, but it sounds like a lot of this happens like it happens and then you find out about it and have to pay for
037it. So like what controls can you put into place to prevent it? You know, you can set a lower budget, but if you're, you know, getting build and then you have to pay it, you're going to blow your budget. So like what controls can you put into place this from >> happen? That's all of us can probably chime in on this. This is turning off all absence reasons other than sick or personal. and then you would have to go to someone else for so I'm just going to use an example. Um you are the track coach and you need to leave at 2:00 because the bus is leaving at 2. So you need a sub for the last hour of school. You would have to come to whoever has authorization to put in the request
038for the sub instead of you putting it in and say district directed time or athletics, right? it would have to be put in by somebody because then we would say yes, you're correct. You've got to and then the person who puts it in is held accountable for the reason and that there's budget money for it. >> Does that make sense? So that's our check and balance. So we So right now there's 10 reasons and some codes, but we're going to have to cut it down to whatever your contract says for your personal. So you have sick or vacation or personal and that's it. And somebody else is going to have to monitor so that the overtime meets the codes. And another thing that we found out this year too um since I was doing peril
039for a few months is that you know we cut out all roving last year. Um there were still buildings using robing subs and we had three mystery paras we had three mystery pairs that we had no idea who they were um because they were they were picking up jobs under a roving sub coat. Um and so we was like where who is this person? Who are they covering for? Um so that's that's another piece of it. Um is really tightening that down. Um having any over extra time get preapproved by Kim first and she has set the president with the unions. They've gotten push back on it. Um but if she's not approving it then there was there's no way that we wouldn't know about it, right? Um, we've we've had those tough conversations with
040our directors and our departments that do a lot of overtime. Um, but it's it's going to it's a team effort and from the top down of really tightening it up. So, so Dee sent me that report today and I went through like every line um looking at it and there there was a handful that were like probably of I don't know how many there were but there was a lot that probably 5% of them are actually PDI approved. There was PD that um was approved by a previous director or arranged by a previous director but I don't think it was being coded properly. So it's probably being also paid the wrong way. So, if I am a fifth grade dual teacher, that's if we pay them with basic ed money. But if I'm going to
041go do a uh dual language professional development, that sub should be charged to bilingual and then some of that is not happening. Um there's there is a lot of out like you'll if you saw the report there's a ton of CTE teachers out like some 22 days now that's paid by CTE their code of CTE is paid by CTE and they have certain things like they might go to national conference or they're gone for the fair like those things are going to happen so you're going to have people out and there is going to be sub costs but the reality is if the sub cost is not coming out of the right place it comes out of basic ed if they're a basic ed person if they're paid for with LP and it's not coded
042properly. That's going to come out of lap. If they're paid for out of special ed, I know there was probably special ed teachers that had paperwork days, well, that would be coded as sped. So, that would be okay if they took a day off and it was coded to sped, but there was also teachers in sped that took that did professional development with their PEA professional development and technically that subox should not have come out of sped and it did. So because things you you can go in if I'm sick I can go in and put sick. If I need a personal day I can go in and put a personal. If I need vacation I can put a vacation but people are putting using the district kind of the district initiated as a blank
043check. So we have testing we have to do. I saw in there there was nine days where someone got a district initiated sub to do testing. Nobody asked permission for that but it's something that's been done in the past. So they just probably did it because we've done it in the past. So those things just have to be like we're not doing this anymore. You got to figure it out how to do it with what you've got. >> That's what I was wondering. Does someone review these time sheets for >> Well, no, it's not a time sheet. So, if I go into front line and say I'm going to be out input district initiated then um and I wouldn't do that because I don't have to get a sub but if I went in and
044did that because of the way that's coded right now in our system that's why she's saying we have to pull that that can't be there anymore. There was a purpose for it at one time because there might be a district initiated. I tell Kim Casey she needs to go to the training because it's for public records and we have to know how to do them and I said she has to go. She's going to go. It's district initiated. We can still have district initiated, but there has to be a code tied to it that they have to have. And it can't be like I could put in because I'm the boss. I can put in hers code. She can't do it herself. Secretary can't do it. >> Is this something that like we we currently
045can't flip the switch on this? >> No, we can't. >> We're flipping it. >> Yeah, we can and we will. >> Just so you know, >> the report sent me today. I've never seen I've never seen that before. >> Okay. >> So, we're digging into things that we really like there, guys. There's a million things going on. There's a million moving pieces every day in a school district, especially when school is going on. So, some of these things like the lease is when like, oh, look at this report where we have can dig into things like let's look at these sub costs. What's going on here? So that we can find those places where there's a hole in the dyke that needs to be pulled. >> I mean I mean this sounds like something that
046should have been done a long time ago. >> I don't disagree. >> We're agreeing 100% and I and I'm going to be as transparent. You know me, I just tell it the way it is. When you have the money, you don't notice, right? You when when your cash flow in your house is, you don't have to watch what the bank balance is. You pull up and you fill up with gas and there's money in there. And it really doesn't matter if it was $40 or $62 until you don't have $62 in the check, right? And so I'm using that as an example because we don't have the $62 in the checking account and we're looking for every single penny and this is where we're finding the pennies. >> What I'm what I'm saying is I
047think 90 998% of the absences that I saw there were probably valid. There's probably valid reason, but they're not being coded properly. There's too much freedom that has to change. And even if we've been able to do it in the past, we can't do it anymore. I don't know if you can tell, we're a little tense. This is pretty problematic. >> We're a little tense these days. >> We still like each other, but it's a little grouchy in our office. A lot of tears. Um just um so that that is that's basically it. That this is where we're at. Um I've included the tabs on the bottom for each of you to review and look at and I be more than happy to send you the ones with names on them so it's easier to
048kind of gauge what you're looking at. It's kind of hard when all you see is a pay code and a type of position um to really see with I mean each union the different stipens that we're responsible for uh that they've negotiated to um you know even another thing is is coaches we our our coaching costs are huge and we cut we did a bunch ofus with the with the bargaining units um we got rid of combos. We have coaches volunteering. Um, but our our coaching cost alone is half college. This does not include the athletic piece of travel and uniforms and and everything to keep athletics going. This is just purely salaries. Not include officials. It doesn't include anything. Um, I mean, we have 80, we spent $80,000 this year in post pay, which
049is great because our teams are doing great, but it's not great for us financially when our levy dollars are paying for athletics. Um, and so even, you know, even with the cuts of coaches are, it's going to cost us $520,000 levy. It's all athletics. And don't get me wrong, we passed the levy by a good percentage and that was they knew that. So I don't think that's um not known to the community. Does that make sense? However, we might need some of those levy dollars to function for reading, writing, and arithmetic. >> Yeah. get our people paid. >> Can you use volunteer subs if they're certified? >> Um, I think that potentially we could have a labor issue, but there's certainly things we can use volunteers for. Um, so I was looking when I was
050looking through that sub report today, um, there was some there was a field trip where lot lots of kids went on the trip and some kids were still left behind and there were subs and I was thinking like when we considered whether we could do this event again, I was I had no idea that that they got that they had put in subs under district initiated. I don't know why they needed to do that. There was no reason. You could have just you could have got lots of parent volunteers. We have hundreds of parent volunteers on our list. Now, getting them sometimes in to do those things, but lots of parents get will take a day off to do a one-day fun trip with their kids on a on a field trip. So there's just
051things that we that are costing us money that just we just have to change our practices and find ways to do it that don't cost us money or cost us a lot less than what's costing us now because our labor costs we we are dealing with some the impacts of some collective bargaining things that have happened in the past that were not the responsibility of anybody's but they are there. So, we have to deal with them. And that being said, I we have a lot of people that are worth lots of money and they deserve, you know, pay for all of the work that they do. But we we pay a ton of extra money and a ton of extra time and we have uh collective bargaining things in our collective bargaining agreements that we
052have to imp that impact us that we have to deal with and we have to pay. we don't have a choice. So, um, COVID kind of hid some of that because of the er money. So, some of that, you know, going over and going over like there was a way to absorb some of that impact, but that's like far gone. I think had we not had the esser money and the co money, this would have happened five or six years ago. I agree with that that it would have happened sooner because the ESER funds coming in, but remember when McClur happened, the state also cut our levies in half. Um, if you go back and look at our levies previously, there were a lot more than a $150 per thousand. And when the state cut
053that $1.50 and then they they created a permanent tax of $1.50 that went to back to the state >> instead of coming here. So, a as we currently sit at least with your proposed cuts, like to make this stuff happen, what what do you guys need? I I'm just going back to I mean on the agenda for tonight, there's a frontline time and attendance being proposed, but like what do you guys need to make make this happen? I guess >> uh just direction from you on on what you all would like me to do moving forward. Um, if you agree with my proposed cuts, if you have proposed cuts of your own, if you want to think about it and get back to me, um, you know, I will do whatever you guys need me
054to do. Um, this is just the really the black and white, the icky picture of of where we're at. Um, and I'm going to ask you with in guidance and reason to accept her proposed cuts as a superintendent. Are they feasible? Like, do you feel like the district can operate within those budgeted? >> Absolutely. They're they're absolutely feasible. Um, I think there's going to be a lot of people that aren't very happy Um, but I'm used to that at this point. Um, uh, but we we all have to sacrifice really. It's going to be a struggle, right? It's going to be a struggle where we're already having to pick up pieces of of people's work. Um, but it it's needed. It really truly is needed. You know, unless we have a chunk of people we
055can cut that I don't know about, then a question. So, if we cut if we do all these cuts and we're successful, does that bring our total budget down to 44 million? >> Yeah. So, it would it would bring the budget down and then it would bring our estimated fund balance up to about 1.5 pending. Remember, she keeps me in check and I'm saying 1.8 because she's really good with money and she's going to get end the year better. Um, you know, I I I don't I don't know. Um, I've actually gotten a few emails from our VIBA consultant. Um, and they think we're we're out of an RCW by offering more Viva to other groups than others. Um, that we're actually violating the WAC. So that's something that we need to look into to
056see if that's what we're doing, but it's been brought to my attention by our viewer of um Gallagher Rich um recently that um it's going on in other districts as well. So that's something that we need to look at. And then obviously if we are in violation of something, we would have to bring that back. So an example of what she's saying is the RCW there's some if you look into the language what you would have to do is you would have to take that 10 the 700 $700,000 and that money then would have to be equally divided up amongst all members if we're in violation of that and this is not something we're going to know tomorrow or the next day. um or you would have to start at your lowest and then renegotiate
057all of that moving forward. >> Basically says that just because they're in a different classification that we can't pay that others. Um so we need to talk to our legal team about it and do some to see if we are violation. And like she said, there's I don't know too many districts that that offer VIBA that don't do that. >> So, this is not an action item, but we do need guidance. >> Have another quick question. Um, look at I think it's the F 195. Is that right? Um, under the ASB fund for this year, >> you have a we have basically an increase of about 190,000 for athletics in that versus what we budgeted for last year. >> Oh, so so all of those budgets I get from the school. So, um, we had
058we had one group of I can't remember what sport it was, but they were proposing to, um, fund raise a bunch of money and then a bunch of donations. And so I get the budgets from the ASB budgets from the high school. They give me their proposed what they're going to fund raise and what they're going to spend. I believe it was resting. I believe it was resting. I'll have to go back and look at my stuff, but the that all of that info is from what the schools give me. So, if they are proposing they're going to fund raise $100,000 and spend that, then that's what we we budget for. And there's also another one on there that was was expecting to get a big donation. So, they were doing a car wash. Uh
059I think it was wrestling. I'll have to go back and look, but it was it was quite big. Well, the car wash is like 25. We had like multiple a big donation from somebody. Yeah. Do I think they're going to raise that money? Probably not. But that's what they're budgeting for and what the kids signed off and that that that will get tweaked. Um, so I have I have a list of of things uh that the ESD sent me just number-wise like um making sure that things are are equal. So those will get tweaked a little bit, but all of the funds besides general fun. Well, I I guess that you know, my opinion, um, you know, we need to cut enough and and I think your recommendations are I think that's it is what
060it is, right? I mean, we're I don't I don't think we we can't even approve a budget that goes into a negative fund balance because we wouldn't have money to finish the budget, right? Um, >> they would take over >> and and we would be Yeah, I would. I mean, that's really the the crux of it. So, um I you know, I'm fully on board with cutting anything and everything um that needs to be cut. Um you know, one of one of the things um you know that we need to get back to kind of the basics of education, right? That's what we're here for. That's what this that's what this business is is educating our kids. Uh but we can't do it if we're bankrupt. So, um I I I'm good with it. Agreed.
061Agreed. >> The only other thing I do want to share is we are working with WASBO, which is the ASB organization that not Wasp, sorry. Well, the ASB to see what a building could choose to do if the students chose to do it out of their ASB budgets because our ASB budgets are quite healthy. Um, I'll just give you an example. It's simple and the community loves it. Um, basic education probably could not fund Princess Theater and our things, but the ASB, the kids could say, "We want to we fundraised. We did the chocolate sales at Heights. We want to do Princess Theater and they can do it out of their ASB men." Does that make sense? So, we can we can do be creative if those are things the student want to do and
062the students want to vote on. Does that kind of give an example? >> I think Apple probably knows our ASB funds are so big that they don't they don't ever use it. They don't fully utilize the paint that they raise, you know, for the projects that they're doing. So, we're approaching our time, but they need to start using that money before we ever utilize basic. >> Well, and we, you know, Kim and I will talk about this more, but we'll we did push on that a lot this year. So we'll we actually will are going to do a budget extension for ASB for the 2425. So we'll do that. We we'll have to advertise it for two weeks. So it'll do probably the 28th the 10 minute. Um and they didn't spend that much over
063but we put a big capacity in there for spending and they did they did fund raise and spend it. We've been pushing and pushing and pushing for them to spend. Um, but at the same time, these still have a huge balance in there. Um, and they'll have a bigger balance because one thing that we're doing this next year is getting rid of impressed funds. So, each of the buildings basically have a revolving checkbook account um that they can use to to pay for stuff. Um, WBO and the auditors have strongly suggested that we cut all of them. um they're just too much risk and so they'll get all of the cash that's in their interest account into their ASB general accounts and they can use that as they mentioned the princess but you know there's
064a lot of things like that that we like to bring enrichment activities to our students and I hope that we can figure out some way that even if the district can't fund it or we can't find grants to fund these things where we can allow the community to contribute support to them and they want keep it going. >> Yeah. >> I mean, I would hate to just say, "Sorry, we can't afford it." And we're not willing to accept that. >> I guess that's why I brought I guess that's why I brought that one up. If there's a will, there's a way. We just have to use those options. >> Maybe I'll I'll add one more to that. I mean, I think, you know, if we look at Princess Theater or any of the choir band,
065any of those other enrichment opportunities, you know, if we're going to say we're not going to fund them out of basic education, then I think we should, you know, no, nobody's going to like to hear this, but I think sports should be, you know, some somewhat self-funded. Um, you know, because if we're going to cut all those opportunities, but not share the pain with the rest of them, um, then I think we're doing all of our students disservice. So >> yeah, I've had a lot of parents actually ask me about like why aren't we moving to a pay to play type model because you know budget cuts and we want people to have athletics. You know people should pony up if they can. >> Yeah. >> All right. So as we wrap up and get
066ready for our next meeting because this will have to be adjourned. I'm hearing that we're going to move forward with very drastic budget cuts as prop as somewhat what proposed this evening for our meeting next Wednesday. >> Yep. Yep. >> All right. Um so future study sessions uh we'll have another study session on the budget um August 20th uh right here in the boardroom at 5:00 pm if needed uh which I think it will be. Um and then regular board meeting of course right after this plus the 27th at 6 p.m. to include budget approval uh potentially this meeting's adjourned.