001Okay. Uh we are all here. So we'll start the meeting with the pledge of allegiance. All right. Great. Uh we do not have any comments I believe that have been mailed in and we have a light audience this this morning. Um and we will then proceed directly to our study session. Uh and the first part of it is budget planning for 2627. And I think Chris is going to take it away with some slides. >> Shocked that the audience isn't packed to talk about budget. [laughter] >> All right. Um Kevin and I will tag team a little bit, but I'm normally going to talk the most on this stuff. So, we've been busy. It's been a a busy spring so far with budget discussions. We're still out in buildings um talking I've been at staff
002meetings this past week talking to uh staff about our enrollment and staffing projections and just giving them an overview and oversight of what we have going on with our declining enrollment and the challenges that go along with that. And it's been I've received a lot of really good questions and people actually overall they understand and so they're appreciative of the district's approach to satisfy our reductions through attrition and um so we're happy about that. All right, let's dive in. Okay. So, this slide basically just gives you an overview of the kind of the key areas that we're going to focus on through this uh slide deck, but please feel free to ask questions throughout. Um, we'll be happy to answer those. Hit it a little harder. All right. [clears throat] So, the legislative and federal
003funding update. Um, I don't know if you haven't been following along with the legislative session, we're waiting for the final budget to come out. Um, we have the, uh, MSOC projection where we're looking to receive a slight increase in funding, but with our declining enrollment, that will probably net to a a reduction with 109 less students. But if we were remaining around the same level, we would get about 150,000 more, which is really nothing in comparison to almost a $70 million budget. IPD uh looks like it's going to go through at 2.6. Um that's the old way of saying cola cost of living increases. Um as you know, we're only funded for the IPD on the average that they they fund us on for basic ed and state funded programs. We do not get any
004additional funds for federal funds or anybody that's funded out of the levy. Obviously, we don't have that. So, it makes it challenging for the school district because every time they pass through an IPD increase, our salary gap grows because we're only funded so much and our actual salaries are higher like all other school districts. Levy equalization allocation. At this point, it doesn't look like we're going to have any impact uh to the school district in the 2627 school year. There's still some issues that the legislature has to address here in the next couple of years with the levy cliff in 20128, but for next year, no impact. TTK, that's transitional kindergarten. Um we will have minimal impact. there's going to be a pretty significant cut in TK um this year, but for the biggest hit
005will be districts that have multiple classrooms of TK. We have one classroom and so our projected hit will be minimal. I we'll still be able to run uh one classroom and we'll be fine here in CILA, but it is going to be a pretty significant cut across the district to a lot of programs where they have multiple classrooms, even a few in the valley as well. bus depreciation. So, they're looking at extending the bus depreciation schedule from up to extending it to 15 years for all buses. Right now, our little buses are on an 8-year depreciation schedule and our large ones are on a 10-year. So, what that does obviously is it spreads the money out. We don't get it as quickly as we get now on the depreciation schedule and therefore will slow bus
006replacement which is unfortunate because you know you get a lot of a lot of miles on buses and it's nice to keep up that replacement cycle. We purchase a bus every year um using depreciation funds. So, >> all right. So, these are the today is the last day of session and so we should see the final results of the compromise between the two. Uh we believe that that's been been being worked on behind the doors anyway and it's just a matter of presenting it to the public. Um, we know that there's been a lot of attention to the millionaires tax, but although we look at that, the things that we really look at is what is going to impact our school district. And we looked at the things that continued throughout the session that were
007determined to be potential cuts of significant natures to K12. So the first one uh is the material supplies and operating cost is really a very very small amount of money. There was some hope and there were some bills presented that that would that would increase to offset some of the issues with regards to substitute cost insurance costs uh utilities but that didn't happen. And so what what that is what that additional 150 is kind of like a ma a little bit of maintenance money plus and I don't make maintenance and to fix things I mean maintenance just to keep keep funding the IPD that is not a surprise that was in what we when they projected what the IPD was going to be year you know a couple years ago even that we it was
008right there so that's really not surprise the ones that we followed the most because they got the most attention and we wanted to make sure that the impact wasn't going to be significant on us were those three below there with more importantly LEA. Um why is that an impact and kind of not an impact? In the last session of 2025 there was language to increase LEA funding and what they did in this session is they suspended that increase. So we were on road to get additional LEA funds for next year. Now that is not going to happen. So, in a way, it is a cut that we had planned on receiving, but we're not going to receive that. They suspended it. Basically, what makes that problematic is that for those districts that have the capability
009to raise their levy to a very significant amount of rate of like 250, whatever that may be, uh, perh,000 of assessed valuation, LEA doesn't really play into them. They don't in some districts don't even get LEA because they're so property rich. So what they did is they allowed allowed districts to be able to raise their levy that could raise their levy, but then the districts that get LEA because they can't raise their levy that far, they just flatfunded them. So that puts us in a difficult situation is we are not one of those districts that has a levy even close to 250. Our levy is what 163 >> 163. and uh to raise the levy to 250 uh a it wouldn't pass and b the taxes would be very very very difficult for people to
010accept. [snorts] So that's one we've been watching. And the other part of that Chris just mentioned is that the the legislature is really going to be forced to do something in the next session or we're going to fall or we're going to get into what's called a LEA cliff where funding is going to that we would get for LEA is going to be drastically cut maybe eliminated >> if the cliff if nothing's done which by dumping will be done CILA would lose $2 million in one year. >> Yeah. >> So they have to address it. And just a reminder with LEA, LEA is funding to to provide if you pass your levy. So since we passed our levy a number of years ago, we've continued to get LEA on top of the amount that our
011local patrons are supporting. When we go back out for a levy in February of 27, it'll be the same situation. We pass the levy, we get LEA. We don't pass the levy, we don't get the local dollars or get the LEA dollars. So, it's like a double whammy for us. And then the bus depreciation. You wouldn't think that's a big deal, but for people in the transportation that are responsible for making sure buses are operating the way that they should be, extending that schedule is big deal. Our buses put a lot of mileage on them. Yeah, they're built for it. The engines are made for it, but it if this actually stays in place, now many of us, Chris and I, won't be in our positions. And more than likely you may not either when
012we get to down the year down the ways a little bit. Uh we're what I what I think is we're going to have to spend a lot more maintenance related cost to keep them running. So that's a little bit of why we have been watching the legislative updates. We've also been watching uh in times where there's no funding. You may have heard me say this before. The legislature spends a lot of time on new policy, new rules implemented against school district. We didn't see a lot of that. There was this tremendous p push across uh and a lot of it done by Republican legislators that uh legislative members like don't no more no more unfunded mandates, no policies, nothing. Let's just keep it the way that it is. And so we I have reached out
013uh to some of those legislators and with great appreciation for saying, "Hey, thank you very much." Um but there are others that a lot of those bills that were put in place that would have had an impact on us just by the language that was in them. uh they died they died early in the sessions and didn't even move forward. >> Yeah. Yep. Good clarifications. Um all right. And then finally on this slide with federal funding good news is that we're going to stay pretty level with our federal funding. I mean the the bad news which is the bad news every year every time they pass through an IB IPD we don't get any additional funding to cover uh those increases in salary. A lot of our federal funds pay for just people. So and
014also inflation. So there's not there's not much change in our federal allocation. So the good news is we're not seeing big cuts with federal funds. There we go. All right. So we've talked about our budget challenges. Just kind of framing this to get us to to a point to explain how we got here. Um, obviously our expenditures are rising at a higher rate than our revenues. I mean, that's been a problem. Inflation's been a problem with our utilities, insurance, um, and a lot of of our MOCs that are causing, um, issues. U, we have, uh, funding gaps obviously with compensation. That's really the biggest issue is with the funding gaps. And it's not just teachers. People say, "Oh, the teachers," but teachers are one category. every classification in the district, we don't receive the funding
015that we need to pay for compensation. And we do salary comparisons every year. Um, we're competitive with the other districts. We're not sitting at the top of the scale. We're like right in that over the midway point normally, right in the um like second uh not under average, but a little bit over average. So, we don't think that we're in a bad position that way. But what the legislaturator's done in not funding sufficiently as an example for teachers, not funding based on experience and education and just using an average for every teacher, it's created a real problem with, you know, being able to to fund and to afford our contracts. Um, we're getting into a point where I they've got to do something about that. And I know they're getting the the funding group back
016together and they have some more work to do um at the state level to figure out what our next steps are with that. But something's got to happen there. We need to go back to a average uh staff mix um in funding salaries for uh teachers for sure to get us to a point where we're actually getting the funding for where the teachers fall on the salary schedule. Okay. Uh so obviously gaps in MSOC with inflation sub costs is just an exorbitant amount of money for for districts to fund certificated subs as well as the other substitutes in the district with very little funding in it. We went over that slide um when I talked about the the budget earlier. Special education continues to be underfunded. Um, I don't know any school districts that really
017operate in the black in special ed. CILA did for a while. We we we didn't ever pull full indirects on the program, but we were pulling indirects on the program. Now we're not. Um, and we're not alone there. A lot of districts are in the same boat because we have to provide it um, you know, all the services that we need to provide under the IEP umbrella and so it makes it difficult. And then transportation's underfunded as well. So they talk about addressing these things and they have made strides in special ed to some degree, but there's still a lot of work to do there. Declining enrollment, we've talked about that. That's the position we're in and that makes it more difficult for us. >> All right, see if this works quicker. I might want
018to invest in >> Chris, real quick. Approximately how much do we spend per uh per year on subs? >> On subs? Um, >> is it 1.8 >> 1.8 million. >> Yeah. 1 >> We're only open 9 months. So, $200,000 a month in subs. >> Four days. Four days are fun. >> Four days is what the >> for certifi certificated employees. Four days are funded by the state, but state law requires for like sick leave 12 days. So, there's a right there. And then we negotiate a contract for personal leave days and bereavement and all those other things. So yeah, and we do have employees that take every bit of leave every year. And we have employees that are on the other end of the spectrum that take no leave per year >> for sick leave
019over then there's a cap when you retire to and then then annually you can't accumulate over like for teachers can't accumulate over 180 days one for four days on sickly if they had teachers don't have vacation but the year-round employees that have vacation, they get paid out on vacation, but there's limits on carryover for that. Annual leave, there's personal annual leave, there's limits on carryover. So, you never really get yourself into a position where you have this huge liability for anybody because you can't can't build it up. [clears throat] All right. So, just a little bit more detail on the budget challenges and unknowns. So, our salary gaps, we talked about that with no changes and there's nothing in this session either. No changes to the funding formulas um for salaries. A funding allocation for
020MSOC doesn't match inflation. We talked about that. Um very small increase in MSOC um in this session. Declining enrollment drives less staffing driving reductions. So, and that's the position we're in with our categorical programs uh federal and state programs. we've needed to our our updated uh overage and staffing is around 12.8 FTEES in the teaching side of things. So, we're working on that and actually we're making progress through attrition. We we're we're going to be able to um come close to making the cuts that we need to make there through attrition insufficient funding special ed and transportation and then also with substitute costs unknowns. We do have a teacher bargain this year. We haven't started bargaining. That's typical. The unions typically wait until after session's over, budget comes out and they see the district's financial
021position and then they normally start bargaining. So, we'll probably start I'm guessing in the April May time frame. Um, we also have obviously this is all subject to change based on the final budget. We'll it's this is pretty accurate though we think where we're going to land as far as the final budget, but we'll see. You never know. There's surprises off and on so things could change. our enrollment is staying pretty steady. So I think you know right now we're sitting as you saw in my last update we're sitting 20 FTE over projection. So that that's a good thing. So we're not in a negative position there. 20 over projection is a perfect place to be at year end. We'll probably be a little lower than that but probably not much now. We don't have
022much time left in this school year. All right. Just as a reminder, um, as far as our roadmap on a multi-year reduction process, we talked, um, with the board back in August of 23, uh, we were, Kevin and I were directed at that time to work on starting to bring our revenues in line or expenditures in line with revenues. Uh we discussed a multi-year approach based on the uh fiscal stability of the district and where our cash reserve was at at that particular point in time which you can see there 11.7 million which was 18.71% and as a reminder the minimum fund balance policy by the board's 8%. So, at that time, we believed that we could take a multi-year approach in the reduction process and bring get to a point where we bring uh
023our budget, our expenditures and revenues in line and have a balanced budget moving forward. So, we're not there uh with a balanced budget yet. We actually grew our fund balance by 488,000 in 2324. We were in a deficit position last year. We we planned for a $1.3 million hit to the fund balance. Um last year we ended up 1.1 million. This year we uh budgeted a $1.2 million deficit. I'll get to a slide of where we're at midyear on that, but we'll be less than 1.2 million deficit this year. Um that would if we were 1.2 million deficit, we would end with around a 9.4 million fund balance, which is 13.65%, which is still a healthy fund balance. Um we are uh predicting that we will we will have a deficit again for 2627. We
024would like to see that deficit be around 800,000 or less. Um that's our goal. We're working towards that. We've um working on our staffing reductions, but we're also working on other reductions. We'll talk here in a few slides on kind of themes around where our reductions are landing right now. Um, but that's that's where we really the conversation that's taken place to date on how we're going to get to the point where we can move forward with a balanced budget. >> Yeah. So, our we've heard one of our Chris and ours goals is we don't want to talk when we talk about the the deficit. We don't want to talk in millions anymore. We want to talk in hundred thousands. And so mill it just sounds better. It feels better. It sounds better. Uh yeah,
025we have a healthy bud healthy fund balance, but it it it does make sense to continue to to press the district as a whole to better align our revenues and expenditures and not and not not be so concerned about what the future could bring or could not bring. We have to continue that work to get that gap closer uh together. And we do feel like um we are going to have a target that's going to be in that 800,000 or even less range. So that's a pretty significant amount when 84% of our costs are associated with our employees. It's it is tough to to do that without reducing employees. So that if everything where we are at this point in the year continues to hold forward. Chris mentioned that although we did budget for a
0261.2 2 million deficit. Uh everything that she'll share with you is pointing that that's not going to be the case, which is good news for the big picture. [snorts] Larry, for you, you may be wondering, well, what happened in 2324 where we had budgeted for $2.3 million loss, but all of a sudden we're 488 in the black. Well, we had we had some enrollment increases during that year that we didn't project that covered a lot of that. And we implemented a lot of uh >> savings cuts that had not been done before. And we put some not policy in place, but some some savings rules in place that um that started to eliminate a lot of the the lowhanging fruit per in per se, which had a great impact on being able to um to
027actually put that in the black. So, two factors. We had increased kids coming, so we got the funding for that and then some measures to save mid year. >> How long between when you had the unanticipated enrollment, [clears throat] how long between that and you got the funds for those students? Is there a a period where it's like all of a sudden, wow, this flows our budget off. When do we get the money to compensate? Yeah, we um we're funded on year-end average enrollment, but what we do what the way that state funds us is for the first um through December for the first quarter, we get uh funded based on our projected numbers. And then in January, we get our all the aortionment and and allocations get updated based on our actual enrollment and
028based on the actual number of sped students on IEPs that we're serving and AL enrollment. So then the aortionments updated for those additional um students if in whatever category and then [clears throat] through the remainder of the year the aortionment gets adjusted so that we get the higher allocation through the rest of the year. >> So what so your first part of your year you're you're getting what you budgeted for what you presented to the state and the state approved no matter how many kids you have you're only going to get what you presented as your budget. But in in January you get caught up. they start to catch you up based on what you actually are serving, which is also part of the spending. when we when we when we saw our enrollment higher
029than we didn't just go out and hire a bunch more people knowing that we were going to get funding eventually in January. We held off and held tight on some of those and didn't go out and spend seeing that we're going to get additional enrollment knowing that we were going to need those additional kids to offset some some funding issues later in the year and it did work out. >> So Oh, go ahead, Larry. >> No, I just said thank you. >> Yeah. So, it's always good news. You you districts need to plan for um in January, you're going to have good news, right? You're serving more kids than what you've projected in the different areas. Where you get where districts get into trouble is you project high and then now your numbers are dropped
030in January and now all of a sudden your allocations are going down and you're going to be in trouble because you've you've over projected in those areas. for CILA right now like I said we're sitting just under 20 FTE above projection which is ideal place because you don't want to be 80 over projection because what happens is yes you get additional funds but the class sizes and many other factors come up during the year with a projection way over um or actual being way over projection. So you want to be right around the 20 to 30 um if you're going to be under projection you want it to be very little. So in January you want good news like special ed. We are receiving additional funding in special ed. We are serving more students than
031we projected. Same with basic ed. Same with CTE. Now CTE is a little bit tough because we we get it's basic funding that you that moves to CTE. When you have um enrollments in CTE, you do get an enhanced amount of money. So there is additional money coming in. AL we are serving quite a few more FTE than what we projected. So we are getting more money in AL. We're not adding expenditures to that other than we do have our greenways contract that provides the education for the students that are in AL program. So that cost goes up a little bit but in the end we we can um utilize that funding in the basic education bucket. >> And AL think about um virtual learning. >> Yeah. that that's really what AL is is significant
032virtual learning whether that child is completely virtual with their entire education or it's a combination they're in virtual for half the day they're in person for the other half the day um we do get for AL students uh we have to budget for them just like all the other different types of students that we have and we underbudgeted on this one and when and we are serving more AL students and I I think that speaks to the opportunities that we've implemented to expand our AL programs to encourage more students to not go to other AL programs. So, for example, if we didn't if we didn't have an AL offering, students can go anywhere and get an AL offering and many school districts offer an AL opportunity and they'd be happy to take those students in.
033Um but once we've now established ours and also have open doors, which is that re-engagement for dropout students, those two uh programmatic improvements have been able to keep our students instead of having them go someplace else. >> Okay. Um our themes. So we broke our our budget reductions down into three categories um using themes. So first one being people. Um, as a reminder, as Kevin mentioned, our budget is 84% people. Um, so obviously most I don't know any districts that are under 80% people. I the ideal position is they say is to be between 80 and 82% people. Um, we'll probably be there here over the next couple years, but um, we're at 84 right now. We obviously we're making reductions through attrition due to the declining enrollment. Um, we've we're also making additional reductions.
034Uh, looking at every position as somebody leaves, like mine was an example, looking to restructure or uh reassign or what have you to be able to uh recognize reductions that way too. Um, examples of how the reductions are made being made through attrition. For instance, we have a retirement at the high school in math. Um we're we are posting that position through the district. We do have uh not very many a couple people that are endorsed and certified to teach math at the high school. Our hope is we can um have somebody be reassigned and then make a reduction in the end. So we're looking at that domino effect. So posting a position in the district, hopefully getting somebody from another building to put in for it or encouraging them to put in because we
035need to make reductions in that building. they move over and then we're able to recognize a reduction. And so we're working on those shifts right now. The post the inbuilding opportunity emails are going out to staff to let them know what's available in the building getting the internal shifts in the building done and then moving to if they once they get to that final domino then posting it to the whole district and hoping that we can get um some transfers and things. We do have the ability to do to make involuntary transfers by the teachers contract. we have up to two per year. If we need more than that, we can work with the union leadership on that. So, we we are we like to see voluntary moves first and then if we can't see
036a voluntary move, then we look at what's left. So, um we do have some openings in the elementary level based on resignations and retirements. So what we'll do is do that internal shifting in the applicable elementary school and then eventually we'll have to either have somebody do a voluntary transfer to another building to get them a position so that we can make the cuts where they need to be made um or we'll use an involuntary transfer to do that. I'm gonna ask something. >> Yeah, I I'll add that um you may you may hear [snorts] or see uh evidence of open positions, but they're open internally. And and so we're trying to move and adjust and move people around to fill open positions instead of going out uh to the public and advertising positions uh
037which would not which would not create an elimination of a position. we need to eliminate we need to reduce the amount of staff we have because of a reduction of the number of students. So part of the responsibility we have is through our collective bargaining agreement which is with each of the groups but we're talking about certified is that we have to notify the people within the building first to see if they want to move into a position they're qualified for and then once we do that then we move it out to the entire district and then most of that is going to stop because we're not going to go out and and look for that other people outside the district, but I want to make sure that there will be positions that are so-called
038unicorn or difficult to find and that we're going to have to go out and seek uh the employment of others outside of the district in order to fill them. That's a possibility with some positions. Most more than likely those would be positions at the high school where they're singleton ones or they're spe specific ones or they're ones that are really hard to fill and we just don't have people with those certificates or endorsements within us. So you may see that those would probably be more likely as we get into uh April, later April. Um we also have some deadlines we have by the collective uh bargaining agreement and with state law and and May 15th is a key date uh with people um of notification responsibilities and then June 1st is that another key date
039that we have to make June one we have assignment >> we have to provide them what their assignment is for the following year. So, we do have key dates that we don't want to we want to make sure we abide by the contract and not put ourselves in a grievance uh situation. But right now, we have opened up a few positions to try to see what the interest is within the buildings and within the district to potentially maybe fill those internally. And then we'll just continue with that. Some positions they won't get advertised out because we know we're going to not be filling those. So you probably Yeah. PE PE at the high school. We had a resignation, a retirement of PE teacher at the high school. That one's not going anywhere. It was able
040to be filled within just by moving people around, which the principal has the authority to be able to do that. Uh elementary positions through retirement. Um they may get some interest internally by people wanting to switch grade levels, but they're not going any farther than that. So >> for an example that at John Campbell, we recently had a resignation and we have somebody that's asking to for a second year leave of absence. So neither one of those positions will be filled. One's a first grade, one's a second grade. We need to reduce in that building. So those won't be filled. Um obviously the person on leave has a right to come back to a like position. So we would need to take a look at that next year to see what's available for that employee
041to come back if they decide to come back. oftentimes um after two years of leave they they decide to resign but they could come back too. They do come back at times. So yeah, so every puzzle it's a big puzzle right now and principles are doing a good job figuring out what those where they want to be. Like they they know where the cuts need to take place. So as the moves happen, they're working that puzzle to get to the point where they can actually make the reduction where they need to make the reduction. So, and those conversations that we're having with them on an ongoing basis help um example when I met with the staffs recently about the overages like even that John Campbell I talked about that process where they have people that
042have resigned those positions may not be filled. Amanda the principal is in charge of determining ultimately how many uh first grade sections do we need, how many second grade and the other positions that are there. What what is her philosophy on that? But she knows the endgame. she's x amount of FTE over and she needs to to realize okay where are the reductions going to take place. >> So some other ones that you that we we talk we spend a lot of time talking about teachers that as we should they they are at the heart of what we're responsible to be doing but we also have other employees that I think it's important for you to know is we just don't focus on on the certificated or instruct instructional side of the house. We have
043two custodial positions open. All right. We have had two custodians resign or retire during the course of the year. At this point in time, we've made no decision on rehiring them. We are subbing them out for the remainder of the year, and we'll make a decision later in the year, depending on how things work out. If we decide to replace those custodians, more than likely, I I feel pretty confident that at least one of those will be eliminated. All right. And but it may be two depending on how things go. It may be none. It just we'll see how it goes. But as of right now, we are not uh replacing those positions and we're just in the waiting game with a lot of a lot of the positions like that. We've had um um
044>> oh yeah, two secretarial positions and that we know they're going to be continuing to fulfill their contracts for the remainder of this year, but we've given no indication that we'll be placing those automatically going into next year. And again, we'll wait and see. uh the principles have some say in those as well, but ultimately it'll be my decision as to regards if we're going to open those positions up uh to see if uh we have others that would fill those internally um or um to be able to hire from the outside. So, we're holding on a lot of things as well. Most of those are the classified uh pair of educators. Unless those pair of educators are tied and the need of a student, maybe like a one-on-one student with a disability. We know
045that student's going to be with us. We need to fill that position right away. Uh because we know that need's going to be here not only for the remainder of this year, but for next year. We will more than likely fill those positions. But anything else, >> we sub out. We sub for the remainder of the year and then we'll wait and determine if we if we need to fill them or not fill them >> and filling them. We're our goal is to fill all of those internally. So shifting around to make the reductions nutrition program our cooks and those folks we are reducing their through also through attrition. um that program money does have to stay within the program, but we're looking at a um a declining participation to some degree in nutrition and
046we want to make sure our budget stays uh fiscally sound because they're in the black. So, yeah. So, every classification, every position that comes open, we're looking at it. There's nobody that's um that's just that's uh untouchable, I should say. [laughter] Yeah. Or no position that's untouchable. And every year something surprises us. It usually usually happens later in the year, but every year I've been here, we've had an administrator go uh for other opportunities. And we can we can really put Chris in that type of position. And we've already made those decisions in regards to replacing her position, which I think you all realize does come with some cost savings by the way we're restructuring that. But if a building level administrator were to go, it would probably be a good opportunity for us to
047look how we would re restructure and and potentially eliminate administrative position across the district as well. Just just so you know, all those things are thinking we're thinking about and each week brings a new set of circumstances that we navigate through. Uh if you would have asked Chris and I a month ago, we were really worried that we weren't seeing the attrition uh that we had hoped for. And uh just over the last couple weeks, we've see an increase in those who have submitted uh resignations and retirements. I also want to make sure that we are not gutting the district. All right? The programs that we have in place, the programs that have been built, we are not eliminating people um that is going to lead to the elimination of programs. So some some probably
048there are those that would jump right to that that because you're eliminating the people in programs uh say for example uh we if we had a dual language teacher who decided to retire or resign uh that we wouldn't we're not eliminating programs where the programs themselves whether it be dual language whether it be transitional kindergarten whether it be um uh something that's secondary or CTE or a programsp specific type of coursework. We're not eliminating those. We're going to keep the hole on that which which does make it a little bit more challenging because you're now not looking at the people, but you're looking at the people and what they have the ability to do. What's their what's their training? What's their background? What's their certificate? What's their experience? uh moving a high school teacher into
049a kindergarten classroom probably not the best move to do and vice versa. So I do want you to see as you see and hear about some of the reductions and cuts that we are making please know that uh we are keeping the programs in place and Chris is going to talk about some of those now. >> Yeah. So, we've got a pretty extensive list um on our budget redu draft budget reduction tracker around program type things. So, like for instance in special ed there's a link program that's available uh through ESD 105 that we certain um special needs students it's a good fit for them. They need the extensive support in an isolated uh classroom. So we have one student there this year, one, right? Um it the cost is about 60,000 a year and
050so next year we're predicted to not have any students here to to go to that program. So that'll be a savings for us in special ed. We're looking at different possibilities with reconfiguration of special ed and where students are served. Um we're looking for reductions there, but nothing's been decided for sure. So we're still in conversation with those things. Um we're eliminating the communities and schools contract which is two individuals that work in the schools, one that works between um Lince and John Campbell and one that's uh at CIS that supports our kids in a variety of ways. Um kind of quasi not counseling but just a lot of different um really good we have two awesome folks from communities and schools but um in the end Kevin made the decision to do you want
051to speak to that? Yeah, communities and schools basically um it's uh it's in a way kind of like social workers or counselors coming into your schools. They're not our employees though. Their focus is on whatever we want them to focus on. We've done a lot of uh our focus has been uh at those buildings of of kind of being the the the support for parents and so both of them are bilingual which is very helpful. Um, but in this sit in this communities and schools program, it the the model is that we're going to help you get the program going, but eventually you're going to take it over. All right? And so we were paying 71,000, which is a good cost for two full-time FTEEs that are not our employees, but the next step, if
052we were to continue that, that $71,000 would have increased significantly. And there was an opportunity for us to get out of the contract at this time. And we felt like we could not put dollars towards programs like this when we're having to eliminate our own employees, per se, or reduce our own employees, but we're going to support a non-emp employee. So, it yeah, it'll have an impact on it, but um it's not anything that we can't it's not something the district had, you know, before I came here. Uh it was a great opportunity for us during its time and unfortunately it's going to be one we're not going to be able to keep at this time just because of the rising cost. If it would have stayed at 71,000 or been reduced a little bit,
053that's a different story, but the the plan was a stairstep approach that was going up. >> All right. Reduction of professional development. Um we have made reductions to professional development over the last few years. Um, we are prioritizing the key PD that we need to continue to have like right now with math standards and working with our teachers around the new math standards that have come out. ELA um is coming out soon, right? ELA priorities, those are coming out and so we'll need to do PD on that. There is some other levels of PD that need to happen um that TNL, our teaching and learning department have talked about. So, we will be able to carve out some funding for that PD. Um, the ELA standards, math standards, those are obviously a priority, but there's
054also some level of PD that's that's needed, but we're keeping that minimum to a minimum. We're trying to to function with what we have in supporting our staffing needs and program needs, but PD is one that we're where we've reduced the amount of money that we've put towards that. And when you think about PD professional development training for our we always I we tend to think about that for our teachers. It's really not just our teachers. It's all of our employees have some type of professional development that's been in the past sponsored by the district that that is not going to be completely eliminated but it it has seen significant reductions over the last few years. >> And again keeping a priority to what needs to happen. Right now we're migrating to an upgraded accounting
055system. So, we did have to send uh six of our employees over to the conference in Tacoma this last uh Monday, t Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and we'll have to do another send another group of building um folks next year. So, and that that's professional development that we need to do based on decisions that we're making in the district regarding our use of different systems and that kind of thing. >> Well, that one's really not one that we get a choice on. It was we have to do it. we have to upgrade to the the new >> student data system, financial system. It's just the the one that's been in place is going to not be available anymore. >> Going to be supported. So, >> we didn't have a choice. >> All right. Uh suspension of
056curriculum adoptions. We've we haven't um really adopted any new materials in the last probably four years. The last adoption that we had was a was a minor one and that was the the yeah STI since time in memorial but other than that the last adoption it's my understanding was nine years ago major adoption major curricular adoption was nine years ago and so >> we've suspended those. That does not mean we're not buying students curriculum. It does not mean that we're buying the supplementals or the ones that need to be purchased every year. We're still buying curriculum. We're just not doing a substantial uh full adoption of a new curriculum. Uh there is uh some it's not concern but the changing of the standards or the upgrading updating of the standards for both ELA and math
057may force us to see does our curriculum still align with the standards. Uh I think the math is more of an more in alignment. Uh but as we dig in to what the ELA standards may bring, we may find that our curriculum is too old. I it sounds strange when it's only 9 years old, but I we're fearful that we may need to look at our um ELA curriculum and make some changes there. >> Cooperative agreements. ESD, you want to talk about that? >> I will. So I I the part of the part of the responsibility of ESD is to provide is to provide in a cooperative purchasing model services that you wouldn't normally provide just as a loan district. And so small districts and districts of our size go into cooperative agreements where districts
058pull their dollars together in order to buy a a a service uh or a piece of somebody to do the work. So like uh the best one is like the autism cooperative where they have a special a person that's highly trained professional in autism that works out of the ESD and then goes and serves the districts that are part of the cooperative. We are trying to eliminate or reduce our cooperative agreements with ESD by figure by determining what do we have the capacity to do within our district where we don't need to go to them and provide service. uh some we will continue to have to go to them. Uh but ones that two uh two examples so with Jeff leaving to the ESD last year, Jeff Cochran and bringing in a new CTE person
059to oversee that, we had some cooperative agreements to support Sarah in her first year. She's already surpassed everything that we expected her to know about CTE. So we will not need that level of support from ESD to support Sarah as we get into next year. And so this gave us the opportunity not only for the CTE contracts, but every cooperative agreement we have with ESD 105 uh to determine do we really still need it or do we need it at the same level that we've had in the past? >> Okay. Um the building budgets, we've cut the building budgets by 25% for the last four years. Well, we'll continue with that reduction. They're able to function and without that. So, we're going to continue with that. So, that's not an additional reduction this year. It'll
060be stay steady, but just to point it out that building budgets are getting reduced again. Um the student supply budget, we had that in place. Um, we allocated additional funds for student supplies during COVID because we quit. We didn't ask families to bring in supplies during that time. We've eliminated the extra funds. We do have parents, we give a short list for parents to bring supplies in and building budgets are supporting the teacher supplies and that type of thing. >> Yeah. And that was also an area that we found when we made the decision to not allocate those dollars. It was um it was one that there was an interest from nonprofits to to provide as well as our faith-based partners decided that was an area that they felt would be a good way to
061provide. And then we have donors that are anonymous and private that just >> drop off 60 backpacks full of school supplies and then we're able to get those out to the most needy kids. >> All right, athletics and activities. We're still in conversations with Becky, our athletic director, and Colton at the high school um around this budget, but one thing that we have made a decision on is to freeze the budgets at current levels. So, suspend capital purchases and those like for instance the track mats that we purchased um the other uh couple years ago and the what was the other one that we did? Yeah, the jump the yeah the high jump pits long jump or not long jump pole vault and um we are now you have to remember part of the athletics
062and activities budgets come from the ASB. So we can't cut ASB and use that money in the operation fund. So we are looking at everything that's funded through the levy for athletics and that's what we're focusing on trying to keep those levels uh the same and not increasing those. Now, a good thing, but a costly thing has been our teams have done wonderful the last couple years. So, our transportation budget has been exceeded the the budget that we've adopted, but that's I mean a good thing. We want our teams to do well and it is going to cost more to for the transportation they've all made postseason and so on and so forth. So, but we'll continue to work on the athletic budget. >> Yeah. and don't uh we still have responsibilities like for football,
063we have to make sure that the all the football helmets are all approved and so they still get reconditioned on the schedule. We're not going to put students in in un unsafe type of uh equipment. We still have that. We still have the, you know, if we have baseball, we got to purchase baseballs. Uh if we have uh tennis, we have to have tennis balls. We have to have all those things in order to operate those. And so by freezing budgets, uh, we're just keeping the funding level at the same, which is, uh, which is what Beck Becky has advised us to do. But that doesn't mean we're going to go out and and purchase things that are going to add to that. What what we've also tried to do is say, "Hey, let's we
064just because you're getting your budget frozen. Um, and you may want to increase revenue by u going out and fundraising. You know, fundra purpose, but don't just fund raise to fundraise because you think you need more money in your account. If you really believe there's an equipment need or a need for your team, then yeah, by all means, like you would normally do, fund raise. But just because the district is going through a budget reduction process, we don't want you going out and banging the doors of the community to to say we need more money in our ex budget for whatever program that may be. >> All right, last couple things on the slide. We um we talked about the reconiguration of director duties and responsibilities, route reconfiguration and times for efficiencies. Uh, we actually
065I jumped ahead on Did you do that for me? Anyway, let's go back to programs. I was still I had still a couple last things on this slide. We're getting rid of this. Jennifer, why isn't working? Oops, there we go. Now, okay. Okay, last couple things on this slide. So, um, with the reduction of guest teacher training, that's our substitute teacher training. We always, um, have a couple of those a year to bring in more emergency subs. And right now, our sublist is sufficient. So, we've decided, uh, we haven't held one. We normally hold one in the fall and the spring. We're not going to hold one because our our sublist is good. And it does cost money because we pay people to come in and get the training with us. Um, and new employee
066trainings. we're we're limiting what we're doing there as well. Um, and then also just continuing to limit travel without students. So, if it's a travel that we need to send somebody uh to that's that doesn't have students, we do it, but we we review every single one of them before we authorize. So, we are we want to keep the student experience. So, we're going to continue to authorize travel with students. All right. Get back to this slide. Operations. Okay. So the operations is our last uh bucket our theme and we're looking at uh MSOCS this material supplies and operating costs and staffing under the operational umbrella. So facilities and maintenance one of the things that we've talked about as a poss possible reconfiguration of lint and with the ELC building. This entire campus is the
067Robert Lince campus but we do have a preschool building and a kindergarten building. We're looking at a potential reconfiguration of that, potentially moving preschool to the kinder building. We haven't made final decisions on that. We wanted to throw that out for questions for the school board. It would mean um closing down this building and and actually uh being able to reap the benefit of the utility costs, insurance costs, um custodial uh nut possibly nutritional staffing. And so there's a lot of different buckets of savings if we do that. We have the space in the kindergarten building for the preschool classrooms. We have the sufficient play area with Viking zones and the playground. There's a lot of pros to it, but we are still asking ourselves the questions, okay, what's the downfall if we if if
068Kevin ultimately makes that decision. But this is one where we are talking about a building um potential potential closure. So, we wanted to bring it to the board for input. >> Yeah. And I did share this one out as an idea that came about early. Um, and we wouldn't even be considering it, but if you were to walk or if you've walked through through the kindergarten building, the kindergarten portion of that, there is a significant number of empty classrooms. And uh, based on the number of students that we have in our preschool program, we could easily fit that number of students uh into one building on that campus and use it as a cost savings. my um I I think in the short term, yeah, it could be a really good idea. Uh it brings
069all the kids into one area. They're all like aged. It brings all the staff into one area. And you'd be surprised even though they're on the same campus and they're within what 50 yards of each other, they still in many cases a lot of the employees view them as two separate programs and not one. So it would help in that regard. My fear is it a is it a substantial enough cost savings to make those moves? One, that's what rolls around in my head. And two, what if next year we have a big kindergarten class or even this year? Uh so we've not made any decisions on this because we're not at a place where we can get a decent understanding of our number of new kindergarteners. And we go through an enrollment um process
070where we start to get kindergarteners who families who are starting to make application for kindergarten for next year. And at some point we'll be able to compare the data in regards to enrollment this year compared at the same time in previous years to really hopefully get an idea um of how many kids we're going to going to serve. the movement of it. I there's not a significant amount of movement. You're probably talking about there's already desks. There's already the the normal classroom furniture, cabinets, all those type of things you would need, teacher desk, student desk, all that. It's really about the supplies and materials that would be moved from the current preschool classrooms into the kinder classrooms. So it's it's not a significant move where it's going to take, you know, weeks, day. It probably
071is going to take maybe half a week, couple days to be able to do it. So, but I I there are positives associated with the potential cost savings. There's also positives associated with bringing the groups together. Uh but there is my concern is is it worthy of doing it? uh for I don't a savings that I it's not going to be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars or put it that way. Um and would we do it one year and then all of a sudden we have to revert back and move everything back the next year. So th those what roll around in my head and that's really if I'm starting to have those conversations with myself and cabinet then that's really what made me say hey there's an idea. What do you guys
072think from the board? closing schools is is normally things that do come to the board and if you follow what's going on across our state, they come to the board and the board gets to make the decisions about closing schools. The superintendent makes the recommendations and then the board ultimately does that. We're not closing a school. We're simply moving a a group of students from one part of the campus to another. But I still think it's worthy to get your input. >> I've got an idea. Maybe this if the savings or anticipated savings aren't significant enough to sway your decision. If we made that decision to move the preschool students over to kindergarten campus, are there thoughts of what we could do with that building? Not just leave it mothballled, but can the district sell
073that building? Can we use it for something else that would drive revenue in some way? Um, it's a school building, so it's not like you can just go in there and turn it into a restaurant or something. Um, but something along those lines. I mean, I thinking outside the box if you know, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings. What if the district entertains selling that piece of property? Yeah. And those are the things that roll around in my head too because we could have a we could go back and and have a class of 300 and some kindergarteners and then that would create the capacity at the kindergarten building and then you don't have any place to put your preschoolers. So those are like okay we make this move and then
074what happens if this happens then we're in trouble. But I've also thought of okay what could that building be used for internally within the district? We don't h we wouldn't I wouldn't see a use for it for for a programmatic uh uh type of increase or a new program. Um it would have to it would more than likely have to come from outside whether that be a child care center or something that would be like a school that may be of interest to somebody. >> We had an AL for instance on this sort of campus at one point but that's been moved in portables up to the high school area I think. Well, and we're using an external provider for the teaching of our online it let that would be a possibility if we decided
075to take our online program back within the district and hire the own our own teachers to serve the students and that kind of thing. And I mean that could be a potential use, but we have two portables back here that or a portable >> portable. Yeah. >> Do we have a rough number? Not one that I would hold you to on savings. I would say that um it's with the custodial um we're over 100,000 but probably under >> just for that building. >> Yeah. >> It would, you know, you wouldn't you wouldn't shutter it. You'd still have to have electrical to it. Yeah. >> Uh so the systems work, you'd still have to have water to it. All those utilities would still have to go, but the use of it and would not be there.
076There's savings in that, but the real savings is the the the the people part of it, the people who work in there, moving them. The we have food service provide we have food service staff who work in the preschool building and we have food service staff who work in uh the kindergarten building. So the one would be eliminated and those people would be either moved into the kindergarten building or moved to other buildings. custodial staff. You wouldn't have to have the daily custodial needs there. Um there could be other related staffing. Uh probably some pareducators uh could be combined to support the school instead of two different campuses on different schedules. So, >> and I had the same thought that Joe brought up. Are we allowed to lease out that space? Like if we were
077to have I I mean I don't know how many rooms are in there, but if you had music teachers who wanted to come in and lease rooms or you know uh people who do homeschooling like a cooperative um also the police station. >> Yeah, we have uh that's in [laughter] >> that's that that would be >> it's not a bad idea. >> Not a bad idea. That would get some community interest. Um so uh we do our sorry guys our fee schedules within board policy would cover those type of things but and then if it was for like the whole building and some entity coming in that we would uh there would be need to be some negotiation be done we probably in turn involve our attorney in in process of that and then ultimately
078it come to the board for your approval of that or not but yeah those are possibilities you know I this is one that we have not gone out and done a lot of communicating on. It's been an idea. We've proposed it as an idea. It is it does have a time frame to it. Um but it wouldn't it wouldn't change this school year. So it's not like if we made a decision we're automatically start moving kids over right now. It's a summertime move. But we do think that for the people that are involved in that and for the district as a whole that if we decided to do that, it does the decision needs to be made sometime more than likely in late April, May, June, somewhere around there. >> And then just related to
079that, we have a lot of clubs that use the gyms in particular. Um are our fee schedules enough to cover so we're not losing money on letting those spaces be used? I we're I think um we're not losing on those. We're getting uh we actually charge when they have tournaments and they have a gate and that type of thing. Now CILA Parks, we have a reciprocal so they get a practice in our facilities, but we have custodians on staff and so they don't have to we're not bringing people in. When we bring custodians in on the weekend for tournaments and we're charging the groups >> and those groups are generally responsible. they're not going in and really using up the, you know, causing damage to the buildings or the equipment or anything. >> If there's
080any damage or extra um dirt dirt and garbage and that kind of thing, then they get talked to and tell that our folks tell them, "Hey, you got to leave this in the condition it was in when you used when you got here." Um, and we've had some of those over the years, but I haven't heard any issues lately. We um I think we're very fortunate in that the people that use those facilities are are we kind of made a philosophy in this district long ago I'm sure that the facilities are are used to support the community and the and the students and we don't very often uh allow others from other locations to come in that may not have the same kind of belief about taking care of your stuff. Um, and so I
081I we I've been pleasantly surprised people take care of it. Well, we do have some we do have I'll just mention it. Chris Harris is excellent about spending the time going in asssuring that things are taken care of the right way. uh our custodial staff has a pretty high level of um of need to have the facilities left in a way that's not going to create more work for them uh to other than what they normally have to do. So the expectations been pretty high and I I would have to say that it it is unusual for somebody to not follow that but it does it happen absolutely. Um, not to put a knock on any group, but little guy wrestling, little kid wrestling because of the amount of people, sheer amount of people, uh,
082the whole family, the extended family, though that's it's a it's a family gathering that comes into those places. And uh if we have uh facilities that may not be as clean as what we would hope they would be, it's because of just the sheer number of the people that come into those, whether it's a practice or a tournament. Uh it's those are hard to to deal with. But again, it's our students and so we want to provide that opportunity for them. >> Any other thoughts on the preschool building? >> Now that you've heard it, what what our ideas are? I I this would be one if we wanted to continue. I'm going to eventually have to make a recommendation to you. But if you have thoughts on it and you have a position on it,
083please this would be one to give me a call. We can put it on the agenda in the future and get have more discussion on it. I think we'll I think what Chris and I need to do is get a really clear understanding of what what isn't a a good approximate cost savings. >> Got that. This became I'll go back a little bit. This became of interest when we were not at the area of attrition that we are now and that we were really starting to think outside the box of where some other cost savings could come from. So, it may not hold the same level of priority that it did uh a few weeks ago, but we'll still see because there are some benefits potentially to it. >> All right. Okay. Um, other things
084under the facilities, just the one other thing, suspension of capital purchases. So, we're not buying uh vehicles or any major equipment items at this point. We put a hold on those. With transportation, we've been working with Joe on looking at uh reconfiguration of routes. Um, also of his position as a director. um he's made recommendations to us on the safety side of things that we can get into later when we bring the draft uh reduction plan to you. Um on-site fueling and dyed diesel. We are bringing tanks on site. We're going to fuel our buses on site. Uh we're saving about 45 cents a gallon by doing that. We'll also save some time. We paid drivers time to fuel and wash their bus. So they go uh over to SX to fuel or the co-ops
085to fuel and they won't have to do that now. They can fuel on site. So there's some definitely savings there. Um route reconfiguration. I talked about that. We're looking at at first we looked into maybe going back to a two-tier routing system and getting rid of the third tier. We added a third tier to support this campus here because of the um because it's a separate campus and it wasn't part of the other elementaryaries. It helped us save on time that kids were on buses and the efficiency of pickup. Um, we started with an analysis of that and there was a lot of cons that we came across when we were looking at it. Um, and we weren't sure that we were even going to be able to go to a two-tiered system in an
086efficient way and we didn't know if we had enough drivers to to accommodate it. So right now our focus is on um condensing or bringing this the this campus the Robert Linds campus to an earlier start time anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes earlier. So instead of starting school at 9:25 or yeah 9:25 they would start at 8:55 if it was a 30 minute and then they're out 30 minutes sooner. One of the challenges with that is we do have a couple buses that are way that are going way out off uh on the second tier and then having to get back to the third tier on time. Um we're dealing with that, trying to figure out, okay, how can we accommodate that so we don't have kids and staff standing there for 30 minutes
087waiting after all the other kids are gone. So that those are things we're focusing on with transportation. Um, and also with uh staff that work in the office, either driver trainer, PBIS, that kind of thing, that we're making sure and an assistant mechanic, um, part-time mechanic, we're making sure that all those folks are having regular routes morning and afternoon to save the labor costs in the in the office and need to get additional drivers. So >> we also realized through this that um as as the idea of the third tier and why it was implemented and what it's done um and some of the the the positives associated with the third tier, there are positives, but some of the challenges with the third tier and the impact it has on families, especially who have children
088who go to Robert Lintz, uh if they're working families, they not only have to find child care before school, but after school as well, because if you're starting school at 9:00 or 9:25, most working families are already at work by that time. So, child care is needed in the morning. It's also needed in the afternoon, not as as long, but it is still needed. And that's a challenge on families. So, our goal going in was to go to a two-tier reconfiguration of transportation, but what we found out it was it was not going to produce cost savings. It was probably going to be be more uh restrictive and probably le lose to uh more costs >> um because we'd have to probably hire more bus drivers, which are which are very difficult to find in
089the first place. But what we did find out through this is the need to look at that schedule at Robert Lintz and try to close the gap down so they can actually start earlier in the day and get out earlier. And we we think there's some possibilities there. We haven't got into the details of it, but we've in a way directed Joe, the transportation director, that this is our interest and this is where we want to see some uh adjustments in the routing and the times. So, our hope is that by the time we get through all this, you will see the evidence of uh an earlier start time in the morning at Robert Lintz and an earlier dismissal time as well. >> The length of the day will still be the same. Yeah, >>
090the time the instructional time of the day will be the same. It'll just be the start and end times. >> Um working on reduction in overtime and extra hours through all this modification. So, we'll be continuing on that. Um and then we're almost Okay. And for technology, we've um we're we're looking at all of our licenses that we have, our tech licenses and contracts and looking how we can either eliminate or modify change to make something or basically recognize savings in the end like Qualrix would be a good example. We eliminated Qualrixs of $50,000 a year and went with a can't remember the name of the program right now. Um saving $30,000 a year. I mean, there's just we're looking at all of our licenses and seeing how we can save um >> and or
091eliminate. Some of them we've decided they're not needed anymore. Um they're they were implemented at a time where there was a need and that need's no longer there. and and Greg says times have changed, technologies ch changed, and now we we don't need that or we do need a different version of that. So, it's that has been a good thing that's made us go through and really take a look at what we have in place. >> Also, we've suspended our device replacement schedule. We are in talks with some of just the absolute needs. Um, we have iPads on our Lint campus that we use for I Ready um that are now not going to be supported next year. So, we do have some purchasing that we need to do, but it's not substantial. We for
092all of our um device replacement uh for Chromebooks and that type of thing, we're we've been holding because we did purchase a lot during the CO times because we had the additional funding to do that. >> And there is a nationwide trend which we are which I personally am in agreement with as well as a lot of uh the the principles and our staff is reducing screen time. Uh we want we want to see a reduction of screen time. Um at the middle school, I'll give you good evidence. They've gone away from one. They're going away from one to one. >> Uh kids aren't taking their um Chromebooks home anymore >> starting next year with the eighth graders. Uh we've already done that for sixth and seventh graders. Uh eighth graders will be next year
093that will be back to carts and used uh you know uh not as much as they are. And I was in classrooms yesterday. uh I saw students using Chromebooks but for a very a shorter period of time and I saw in some classrooms no evidence of use of Chromebooks at all. So I do think that there is starting to see uh a trend um that the Chromebook is a tool but it should not be the only tool and the educational experience should not all be on a device of some sort. So, I do think we're seeing a trend back with that that will help in in uh technology for sure. >> All right. Uh we talked about nutrition um and public relations communication. So, we're looking at all the the printing that we do, whether
094it be our our calendars and all the other uh just the brochures and things that we get printed. We're going to start doing a lot of that in-house. We're going to cut our calendar purchase in half. We want to keep it is a popular thing. A lot of families, they start calling in July. When are the calendars going to be out? But we do have a supply left. So, we're literally going to cut our order in half. And we're going to cut back on the number of pages that we send out in our ed reports. Eventually, we'll probably go to uh two ed reports a year instead of three. We want to have that communication to families. We want to be able, especially with the levy coming, that we continue um communication, good communication with
095families. So, we won't make those cuts right away. Uh but we are going to definitely save some money on the printing costs. All right. So, timeline, um where we're at. So, we're in March here at the study session. We have our in the business meeting for March 26th, we'll have our annual resolution. Larry, for your benefit, we bring a reduction in force resolution to the board every year by contract. It's required for our certified and classified contracts to have board approval if we were to reduce through a riff process. We're not planning to riff. But every year we have the board adopt it because if something late happens that we need to actually riff like in in some earlier years when I was here, we riff like an hour off certain para positions. and say
096they're seven hour pairs. We rifted them to six hours. Um, and that was something that we had to do late, but we've never actually, knock on wood, had to go to a full-blown riff in any with any group, but we do have the board authorize the resolution every year just as a matter of practice. Um, April will bring uh the to the board a draft uh budget reduction plan to see to show you where we're at with the different um areas of reduction that we're looking at. Uh we'll have the final legislative update probably won't change much from what we gave you today. And then we have some other resolution or yeah resolutions for the personnel supervisory and non-supervisory basically getting the board's approval to issue contracts to those um groups and May coming back
097with hopefully a final draft of our budget reduction plan and then the annual employment contracts or like cabinet level contracts and uh I think those are the main ones we bring to the board. So we'll bring those in May and then June of course will be here before we know it and we will be presenting the draft budget to the board at the end of June and re uh recommending adoption of the budget. Reminding you all that we do if at all possible we need an adoption of our budget in June because our migration happens the second week of to our new system. the cumul cumulative the upgraded system from Skyward that happens the second week of July and it has to be in the old system so that's why we'll have more conversation about
098budget in May April May and June so that we're there's won't be any surprises for you in June >> right so you've been budgeted to death this year and I and that's on purpose okay we want to make sure you know what's going on but still there are so many different levels of information here we just gave gave you. This is not We were We wanted to be a little bit more detailed and show you some actual areas and the impacts. Uh we and so we've gone a little bit more detailed, but if you want more detail, just figure out a time to get on the phone with Chris or I or come and visit with us and we can take you down and show you uh you know, get down to the the people
099what what grade level it is, what they have to do based on their enrollment. We can show you, you know, what it would what would look like if we had to reduce two custodians, all those things. We we deal we are in those details every day and we'd be happy to share with you each of those details if you really want an interest in in what you saw here, taking the next level uh of detail. So, more than happy to do that with you, but totally up to you. >> And the budget reduction plan's going to have more detail as well. Um, we kind of wanted to just uh limit it to the themes at this point with a little detail in it to give you an idea of what we're looking at. [clears throat]
100>> And Mr. Peters, based on time, I don't think we'll need to do with the experience. I'll send the questions out. Um, and uh, if you want to respond, that'd be fine. No, I think that was we just added that on just because I was wondering if we were going to have time, but we don't, which is fine. >> All right. So, thank you very much. Thank you Chris and Kevin for that um thorough and detailed uh budget presentation. The for me the big points are no prediction of any reduction in force for the next school year but cuts that will be felt across the district in in some large ways and some small and as much as possible uh distant from the classroom. Um so those are those are our priorities. It does it
101does occur to me though as we're looking at those things are going to be reduced or changed or eliminated. Those those are things that are helpful to our school district. Those are things that that are helpful to our students and our staff. And hopefully the state will uh between now and the next um the end of the next session that they have um will be will be there for school districts across the state. and hopefully uh our [clears throat] local community will continue to support us through the levy so that we can get that levy equalization funds as well. Thank you very much for that. Um so uh we did have on the agenda um student experience and I have some notes about student experience and I hope you do as well. Um but we
102will uh forward that uh feedback to Kevin uh so that he can factor that into this new part of the um Viking promise this this um umbrella of student experience um so that uh it's not an abstraction to us so that it's something that we feel we've had input into and is measurable and um actionable uh by our our district. um up. Oh, we're going away from one to one computers. That's fantastic news. Yeah, I just I'm so I'm so so happy about going away from one to one that there's just lots of research that says that that that screen time, the gamification and so forth. That was a trend is [clears throat] a dopamine hit that that creates dopamine deficits. So, I'm very excited about that. Um, and also, um, maybe we can get
103Shane to come around and and steal more employees so we don't have to have a attrition, uh, issues. [clears throat] We'll just sort of if anybody sees his car around, we'll know. Any other questions or comments before we adjourn? >> I just had a couple of questions about the transportation. Um, going to the fueling up at the the garage. Do we have the tanks there? Are we installing those or >> they're uh they're not installed yet, but uh they'll be installed here, I believe, in the next month. Um I don't know the exact date, but yeah, they're going to be installed on site. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. We we're not installing >> install them. They're by the provider. Yeah. And that's all part of the the agreement, so it's nothing. >> And there's no there's
104no cost to that. We have to pay for the the concrete >> ad >> pad deal which is like $4,800 will be our cost of putting them in. >> Perfect. >> Um and we've run we've worked through our insurance as well to make sure we're not stepping in something there. >> Okay. And about the the bus subs, is that folded into the the sub overall cost as well? >> All subs. All classified subs and certified subs. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yep. I just want to say thank you for all the work you're doing on this. It's I can tell from how you're saying that it hurts because we're talking about people. Um and so I appreciate the way that you're going about it and I also think that transparency is really good because
105it does give people time to think about the future and prepare rather than just being surprised. So thank you for your work. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I think that's it. I occasionally stole a glance down at our student board representatives during this LEA BEA [clears throat] M socks. Oh man, that was rough. So, thank you for grinding it out with us this morning. If there aren't any other uh points to make, um we will uh adjourn the meeting.