July 24, 2025 Selah School Board Meeting

001All right, it's uh 4:30, so I'll call the M meeting to order. And stand if you're able for the flag salute. me. Sorry, out of practice a little bit here, everyone. Uh, our uh FCCLA uh group um traveled to the national um event uh in Orlando, Florida. And so what I have here is from one of the adviserss and in this case it is Maggie Joe Eussin a teacher at the high school and also the adviser for FCCLA with a little bit of report back on how they did there. Uh CILA FCCLA had has returned home with fantastic leadership development experiences, networking opportunities and a host of awards. Our 14 members who traveled to sunny Orlando, Florida, Florida, participated in various star events, skill demonstrations, and challenge tests. We are particularly proud of two members

002who were recognized for their commitment to national programs. Sophia Terrell and Gigi Gamash were honored as Career Connection National Program Runners Up, receiving a $500 award. Uh, next uh is a young man that we've spoke about a lot over the past uh year. Parker Casey had the unique opportunity to sign his letter his his intent to say yes to FC FCS during the signing ceremony and was later celebrated as one of the top five national members of the year finalist and received a $1,000 prize. Unfortunately, Parker was not the top, but still a huge uh shout out to Parker. And moreover, uh, a former CILA CTE and FCS teacher Kathy Hendris was awarded the National Lifetime Achievement Award. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. >> Uh, and then she listed all the students, and I'm just going

003to go through a couple of them. Uh, Olivia Eisman, level four apparel, fashion design, and construction, national champion in the challenge test area. Skill de demonstration. Uh Claire Richards, we know Claire, level three impromptu speaking, national champion. That would make sense based on what we see of her as well. Uh star events, Sarah Richards, level one chapter in review display gold national champion award. And Parker Casey, level three say yes to FCS gold n champion. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It seems like every student that went uh received some type of national recognition whether it be a silver or brown bronze. Um so obviously our students are not with us and and Maggie Joe not with us tonight but I'm hoping that uh maybe during the August meeting that they come

004and and share their experiences and give a little bit more information in regards to how they did there. Now obviously I think you can see that uh they did very very well. So, congrats to our students and to our adviserss and uh to Kathy as uh being recognized in National Lifetime Achievement Award. That's my first one. And the second one is not on the agenda, but I think that most of you know that Jennifer, who has been with you and me for the last three years, this will be her last board meeting tonight. So, Jennifer, thank you very much for all that you have done for the board and for the district as a whole. I think you now realize uh from over the last few months that how how much you mean to everybody

005uh personally to all of you, to all of us, to our community, to the school staff, and most importantly to our parents and students. So, thank you very much again. And with the transition happening in now, I would like to welcome Jennifer Riplinger. Governor, the exchange of Jennifer, they've been going through the transition of that for the last few weeks and that will continue uh up until August 1st. So, welcome Jennifer. Glad you're here, Jennifer. We wish you the best and thank you for all you've done. >> Great. Thank you very much. And uh yes, Jennifer, we you will be greatly missed and you are greatly appreciated by the board and the district for sure. So, thank you very much. Uh we'll move on now to Are there any other things we need to do?

006District highlights. All right. Number three is suggested comments from the audience. We have no written comments that have been submitted. And I think I saw Chris check. There's nobody who signed up to comment. Uh we'll move on to item four, which are I'm I'm right. Am I okay with that? I'm just making sure everybody's good. Okay. Uh item four are the meeting minutes. uh the approval of the regular meeting minutes from June 26, 2025. I'll move that we approve the regular meeting minutes. Is there a second? >> I'll second that. >> Any questions or comments? All those in favor of approving the regular meeting minutes signify with an I. >> I opposed with a nay and abstensions. All right, the meeting minutes pass from June 26, 2025. The consent agenda has a few items on

007it. Um we will look at all of the items as a group at the end of kind of reviewing them and then um a vote on approving the consent agenda as a unit as a block. Uh the first item is the human resources action sheet. Um Chris, do you want to mention anything on that sheet? >> Um sure. I know Kevin just spoke to Jennifer and Jennifer. Um they're both on the HR action tonight. Um, we also have I just wanted to mention Julie Rust, teacher from the middle school. She is retiring. We're we're going to miss her. She's done so much for so many students and we really appreciate all that she's done. Um, and then also I wanted to highlight we do have a new administrator listed um, replacing Mark Galloway and his

008name's Brian Buer and he's on on with us as of July 1. So he's he's already diving in. He's been in the building most days this month just catching up with people and learning the ropes in the building and he's just going to we believe he'll do a tremendous job for us. Anything you want to add on that, Kevin? >> Planning on having um having him join us for introductions at the August board meeting, but obviously if you get an opportunity to do so earlier, please do so. Uh but he should be here for the August meeting. >> Great. Thank you very much. My uh son was fortunate to have Julie as an English teacher before she started doing CTE and life prep stuff and she is just an outstanding educator and we absolutely wish

009her well and thank her for her service to our district for sure. >> Definitely. >> All right. Uh the next item on the uh consent agenda is payroll goods and services uh July 2025. And Chris, is there anything in there that you want to draw our attention to? Um just one more uh point on 70 construction. As a reminder, that is the um contractor that did the work for us over at John Campbell for the refrigerator freezer unit, which is being paid for out of our nutrition funds. Um so they just did a tremendous job, on time, on budget. Everything was just smooth as ever. So we were very impressed with um working with 70. That's the first time uh I've been involved in in a partnership. I know Kevin's worked with them in the

010past. >> Yeah, I've worked with them on multiple projects in Small World. Um, they were a family when I was at Zilla. Uh, they were a family and now Matt who owns M70 Construction, the contractor did that, was a Small World, a student of mine many, many years ago as a principal there. So, uh, the 70 family um, has had uh, generational construction uh, companies and now Matt has stepped in and not surprisingly done a fantastic job. Excellent. >> All right. Um item D on the consent agenda is a second reading and adoption for uh uh 5010 non-discrimination affirmative action. This is a revision to uh current policy and uh 3210 non-discrimination policy. Uh both of those are revisions to current policies. I think the 3210 deals more with students and 5010 deals more with

011employees if I remember that correctly. All right. Uh, and then there's a first reading for the um student discipline policy um 3241. Kevin, could you maybe explain how we uh what's different about this one? And >> yeah, so um >> looking at it now, >> I'm I shared with you and there are some links to uh some documents that I attached from different entities about how we got here and and really what's different. And the first part is that why are we doing this now? Um and the OSPI undertook some uh updates to student discipline rules and they were finally adopted on June 10th and uh OSPI has responsibility for student discipline rules and because of that they had when they when they decided to that there was a need to consider some changes they

012have a certain process that they have to go through and it's very lengthy and and it like we have in our board meetings there's opportunities for public input, public comment and it it takes a while for for them to gather all that and they um do it in person as well like they travel across the state and get different regions and invite people to come in and speak to it along with obviously taking written comment or other uh types of comment to get to a place where they want to do this. But uh the key changes for that um really are a lot of definitions were changed in that which means they were re which is a revision. it uh it spoke about uh some they they found that the previous discipline rules kind of

013provided some challenging circumstances with regards to how teachers in classrooms are are supposed to be uh working through the discipline laws. Uh they were not clear. Um and it it led to some some challenges and problems that uh we've faced that I've been involved in in regards to what responsibilities our teachers have in regards to meeting the law which is part of our policy and how they address student discipline issues. Uh so the clarity hopefully will uh help again. Um and then they clarified some terms that I think are going to be important as well. So from the daytoday things when you think about student discipline there is not a whole lot of significant changes. They haven't go through and changed the the the actual deaf if you say suspension what that means. They didn't

014change that but they changed some wording that I think would is going to be important for our administrative staff and our teaching staff to know as we go through the new rules. The second part that you'll see there, you'll see the WASDA uh description of that. And then Stevens Clay is uh a school attorney firm out of Spokane uh well respected, not our attorneys, but uh but but are very well known and they took uh ons to give some more information in regards to what the changes would be. So it gives you three different perspective there. OSPI and why they did it. WA was because they had responsibility to to uh revise the policy and procedure and then from a legal uh perspective as well. So I'll give you the next month to relook at

015all of that. If you want more information, I can share that with you as well. But if you have any more questions, let me know. I know that it seems strange that we're going through first reading, then actually school would have been started with regards to this before it's adopted. Please know these emergency rules have been have been happening and we've been under their guidance uh ever since the last school year. So having them go through your process of adopting into policy is not going to put the district in a bad situation because school would have already started. >> Great. Thank you, Kevin. Um I I'm I was just glancing through it and we'll have time maybe to talk more about it at our next meeting. But uh item two on page two says allow

016the exercise of professional judgment skill sets. Uh which I think is something that comes up you know discipline in the classroom and trusting the teachers to be able to handle some of that. It looks like some of this is revised with that in mind I guess I would say. Uh, any other comments or questions about that particular first reading policy update? Okay. Um, I move that we approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Thank you. Any comments or questions on the consent agenda? >> Okay. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify with an I. I. >> All those opposed with a nay. and abstensions. Okay, now we move on to uh the uh public hearing uh budget public hearing. So, do I need to hit the

017gavl or anything or I can just say the public hearing is open, right? >> If you feel better, you can fun uh so for uh 202526, we uh the school district and the school board holds a public um hearing on the budget. Uh so, we'll open that public hearing. We'll hear first from Chris with some slides and a budget overview. If at any time during that presentation, board members want to uh ask questions or or try and get clarification or follow up with something that's been presented, that would be great to do that. We could stop you kind of if we needed to. >> Oh, definitely. >> Mid slide, right? Um and then following that, there's a period of public comment. So, I'm glad to see that there are people here today. Uh they may

018choose to comment um after that on the budget. And then finally, there is um the resolution that we will either vote to adopt or not to adopt or to table, I think would be our options there. Okay, Chris, I think we're ready for >> Okay. All right, let's dive in. Um, what I'd like to do first is just do a quick refresh on conversations we've had over the last oh two to three years about budget and the just the more difficult times that a lot of school districts are having making ends meet for a variety of reasons which we're going to talk about through the presentation. But if you'll remember back in 2223 we had a a conversation and we talked about a three-year plan, a budget analysis plan. Um, we felt that we needed

019to looking at our four-year forecast. We needed to be uh uh really diligent about looking at all of our programs, the way we're funded, our staffing levels, and such and really uh take a look uh because we had an opportunity because our we're fiscally sound. We're we're in a good pos financial position as a district and we have been for years. In fact, I brought a handout if anybody wants to have it. over the last 25 years, our level of fund balance and where we we've been and and we feel proud about that. There's a lot of people that ensure that we stay fiscally sound. But times are tougher. We have how many eight or nine districts on uh financial watch uh by the state because they're in desperate times with their their money. So

020anyway, the conversation that we had was we were going to engage into a three-year budget analysis project starting in the 2324 school year for 2425. And at the end of 2324, our ending fund balance was was 11.7 million, which is 18 over 18% of our expenditures. Our board policy is 8%. So, we felt like we were in a good position to say, let's take the next three years, use some of our fund balance to help us soften the blow over the next three years, and then be at a point where we can move forward and be fiscally sound. So, we did that. Um, and again, August of 24, we were at 11.7 million. At 8%, we would only need to be at 5 million. So, we we were $6.7 million more than what the board

021policy requires. So that's why we thought we were in a position where we could use some of the fund balance to get us through. So 2425 we projected a hit to our fund balance of 1.3 million. We also made cuts to the tune of I think 1.5 million. It looks like we're going to end the year right around 10.5 uh million which will be about a $1.2 million hit to our fund balance. And that's what we projected for 2526. You'll see in this budget proposal that we're looking at a $1.2 million hit to the fund balance. Um, and again, we planned for using some of the cash reserve to soften the blow. And probably we'll have another year in 2627 to kind of bring us to that level where we can be sustainable and hopefully

022moving forward have balanced budgets. again, we're, you know, we we need to make reductions and we know that and this next year we're going to be in a budget reduction process again. So, the goal moving forward is to have balanced budgets. Um, the levy is up in 2027. We need to take a hard look at what's all being funded by the levy and and what dollar amount and look at projections moving forward for levy dollars because as you know the levy and levy equalization funding make up 12% of our revenues. So it's a big chunk of our budget. So we'll need to be looking at that along with all the staffing program reviews. Um we're 83% people right now. We were 81% last year and that when you have a almost $70 million budget that's

023doesn't leave a lot left after compensation. So it's important for us to look at our staffing levels as well. So um I just wanted to kind of frame that uh moving into the presentation. The other piece I wanted to just quickly talk about um is the timeline that we followed this last leading up to the presentation tonight. Just a quick reminder, December 24 was the time uh that we projected the enrollment and staffing. Kevin and I met, went over it in detail along with Stephanie, brought it back to cabinet and rolled it out to principles immediately in January. Early January, we said we got to start looking at staffing plans. And so our goal was to really hone in on the staffing levels by building. And we started those those that process in January. We

024also um so we we had our round one staffing collaboration with principles. February moved into round two staffing collaboration. They had their homework in between the meetings and then we would come back and refine refine refine. We moved into um February and we provided the enrollment and staffing projections to the board. Turning around in March, our first regularly scheduled staff meetings. um that information is required to be presented to certificated staff by contract. That was done. Um and we provided uh in February also uh is when I allocate out the the projected allocations for state and federal programs to our budget directors and they begin formulating their budgets. uh March we again had another round with principles and uh also we gave the material supplies and operating costs allocations to building in buildings in March

025and so on and so forth. Legislative session ended in April. We required uh budgets to be uh submitted to our office in early early May. Uh we wanted them end of April but it worked out early May. We got all the ASB, the building budget, uh budgets and also the or the building budgets and also the uh program budgets. So then we could keep moving with the um the building of the budget. So that's kind of the uh timeline. Tonight we're presenting the budget. We gave you a brief budget update on June 12th at a budget study session. We we went through some of the components of the budget. Tonight we're presenting the budget. I'm presenting the budget and I'm asking for your approval after the hearing closes. Um, I want to answer all your

026questions and then you have an opportunity to adopt the budget tonight or you can make a decision to table it and ask for us to uh do additional work and we can come back in August. But the budget has to be adopted in August. It's due to OSPI uh by the end of August. So that's kind of setting the stage. Did I miss anything, Kevin? >> Okay. Um the other thing I guess I would mention quickly is in the budget res the board policy for the minimum fund balance it's bro the 8% is broken down into three components 2% is the emergency fund amount 3% is budget contingency and 3% for cash flow. So, we've been diligent about keeping our fund balance levels above 10 uh 8%. In fact, when I if I hand this

027out, you'll see we're well above the 8% for years. My 25 years here, we've been above with the exception of three years where we went 6.7 7.9 7.5 which was before the policy was adopted early in 2000s. Okay. So, I just want to make sure that everybody understood the component of the reserve, the different components, and that there is a component in there for districts to use for as a budget contingency fund. And many, many, many districts are having to dip into their budget contingency fund. So, um, we're thankful that we're not. So, that's, uh, we're still way above the 8%. So, that's kind of setting the stage. So, I'll jump in unless anybody has any questions about anything. I talked about. All right. Oh, I got to do this. Okay, we'll go right in

028here. I'm going to look at my screen, too, because my eyes don't always go that far. So, I'm going to jump through the first few slides just as a reminder. We always um like to have slides in the the intro of this presentation and the year-end presentation because it's important to remind folks that a budget uh is a financial plan that is driven by our mission, our vision, our core priorities, most importantly the Viking promise. Um, and so you can see those slides, but I'm not going to actually spend a ton of time on them because I have lots of slides and I want to get to the meat of the presentation, but please feel free to to ask any questions about these items as well. Okay, so this being the most important our Viking

029the Viking promise is our goal is to meet the needs of the whole child by creating an equity centered and engaging in personalized learning experience in an emotionally and physically safe environment for each child in CILA. We talk about this all the time. Everything we talk about implementing, we're all always going back to this lens and making sure that the things that we offer that we structure them so that we meet the Viking promise. Okay, so let's get down to slide number very quickly on this to give you the 2425 student demographic information. We like to show this every year. You can see we're pretty much um equal on male and female students. Um and like we have been for years, our Hispanic and white populations are the highest in the district, but we do

030have other students in the district with other nationalities. Okay, a budget. I just want to re revisit this. This is an annual financial plan. So basically when we put this together, it's a plan. Things happen that are out of our control and things are within our control also happened. But um when we set the budget for instance we had a couple of years where we budgeted or the budget that was adopted showed a deficit but we actually ended up to the good with our fund balance. A good example is 2223 I believe it was. We budgeted for a deficit 1.1 deficit and we actually ended up 93 students over projection which produced 930,000 more dollars than we had planned to spend because it was additional enrollment. So pretty soon that year we only we actually

031grew our fund balance by 100,000. So there are years that show that we had a year that we budgeted had a budget with a $2.2 $2 million deficit um recently and that one we was the year that 23 24 when we engaged in all of our budget work and we Kevin made decisions at his level to say no travel unless you're traveling with kids. Um we are going to cut back on our spending for supplies for all the different areas. Some positions that we had open we didn't fill. So there was several things that we did during that year that helped us um so we w we didn't end up 2.2 to against fund balance. So, it's those are there's a lot of factors that go into it every year, but um the end results

032what you look at with the the fund balance where it lands at the end of the year. Uh budget priorities. Um these are pretty typical. Um they've evolved a little bit over the years. Um obviously student safety is the single most important thing that we want to ensure in the district. So the things that we put in place, we always want to make sure that that we achieve that. Uh we want the allocation of resources. I talked about that following our our priorities. Uh meeting the basic needs of the whole child. We talked about that with the Viking promise. U provide an equitable distribution of resources that recognize the diverse needs of all students. Those are conversations we have all the time so that we meet the needs of all of our students, not just

033some of our students. uh providing a a personalized learning experience and emotionally physically safe environment as I mentioned meet legal compliance and educational standards maintain fiscal responsibility and stability over time which I feel very strongly about my 25 years here I feel that we've done a great job with that as a district many people involved in that and uh ensure the impact to students is at the core of all financial decisions as we look at these budget reduction um budget reductions that need to be made. And in our review throughout that process and as we've done with the other years, we look at that. What's the impact to kids? Do we need to make a different decision because of the impact to kids? And so we want to keep that at the core. And also

034we want to make sure that we include a reasonable level of capacity for the unforeseen. Every budget has capacity in it. We budget for capacity on the revenue and expenditure side because we don't know what grants special grants and different things that are going to come through. So we budget capacity on that and we budget additional capacity on the expenditure side because for the unforeseen we're trying to avoid also a budget extension at some point. Uh but as we've had to scale back on these budgets to get them down to the most as close as we can that extra capacity on the the expenditure side's been is is limited now. But so that's how that works. Okay. So if you see this slide gives you a snapshot of all five funds. Remember we have five

035funds. Our main operating fund is our general fund. That is where we do all of our business. ASB is our associated student body fund. Uh we won't go into detail really on that. If you have questions, you can ask. Debt service fund. That fund exists just to pay to service our debt. Our debt being our our bonds that built schools. So we have debt and that that fund we budget principal and interest payments and we get uh taxes coming in on that for re on the revenue side. But it's pretty straightforward. Capital projects. Um we do have a capital projects fund. As you can see, we have the the donation from Wilbur Rep in there. We used to make annual uh distributions from the general fund into capital projects for the unforeseen. And when we

036had older facilities, that was really important because we spend about a million dollars a year on different upgrades and things that we needed to HVAC and all of that in our older facilities. We do want to get back to a point where we feel like we can start contributing to that capital projects fund annually again even if it's a smaller dollar amount because we need to plan for the unforeseen and have dollars in there for that. Right now that funds being this year and you'll see is we have two projects the field turf project and the CTE edition. We'll talk about that in a bit. Um transportation vehicle that fund exists to replace buses. The revenue coming in is your interest earnings and the depreciation on our current buses. So, we get allocations uh for

037our current buses that we buy and those revenues go right back into this fund and we buy additional buses. We have not had to contribute to this fund for quite some time. I think we've only contributed one year. I think we had to put in 70,000 from the general fund to to make it so we had enough money to buy however many buses we bought that year. That's been a long time ago. Now the depreciation covers our we buy one to two buses every year. So we keep our fleet ups which is good. Any questions on that and we'll get into the detail of the the general fund here. All right. So the budget highlights for the general fund. So um you can see that we've in our re Oh oops. Sorry. Got to remember

038to do that. Okay. So um we have about a million dollars more in revenue for 2526 on the budget side of things 1.6% increase our expenditures were 1.4% increase from prior year so 950,000 so the net projected with the entire budget projected uh deficit is a 1.2 2 million. Uh projected cash reserve at the end of the year is 9.3 million which is 13.5% and again our board policy requires 8%. Uh certified staffing um from 2425 to 2526. We did uh reduce a net of two teaching positions but we actually increase slightly on our classified positions. And some of that we'll go over a slide that kind of highlights where the staffing changes are. Enrollment projection is a decrease of 83 FTE. We lost about 54 FTE over the course from uh 24 324 to

0392425 which is about 1.5% and uh we're looking moving forward as we project out I move I projected from the cohort out to 2829 we're looking at about a 1.5 to 1.7% decline in enrollment every year. So we need to plan for that. That's something that that's as I mentioned before that's the single most important thing that we do is that projection and staffing to it. So um we'll we're our projection uh next year is 83 it's actually 80 FTE lower than the year before. Okay. So this slide here um is I know it's difficult to see. So basically this slide what it uh provides is on the left half is the certificated FTE from 2425 to 2526 by program and on the right is the classified FTE. So the yellow highlights are kind of

040the ones I was going to um talk about tonight. The first being on the certificated side we dropped 3.5 basically FTE on theert side. So, one of the things that we worked really hard um on with principles is once we gave them their allocations, their staffing allocations based on enrollment projections, reality set in for them and they we said, "Okay, you're seeing this many students less next year probably. So, you're going to need to cut x amount of staff." So the net on that on the basic ed side of things we reduce by three and a half on the staying on the certified side for a second under 79 that's levy we actually increased by 2.1 in the end our exercise that we went through with principles netted down to a point where we had

0412.1 FTE left that we couldn't balance on the basic ed side. So we we funded it on the levy side and basically that's teaching staff. It also includes the 0.2 we pay for the safety director Joe Costcart and um so it it's 2.1. So next year or as we refine this over the next year looking at our budget reductions our goal will be to have zero f zero searchs funded by the levy. Okay. On the classified side of things, you can see that we reduced on the basic ed by 2.5. That's about five paras just to put it in perspective. Um teaching side a 1.0 is a full-time teacher. But on the classified side, a 0.548 is a full-time or not a full-time but a school year parent. So 2.5 we reduct reduced in the

042uh basic ed. 21 special ed we increased by 2.5. So basically we reduced it on the basic ed side but we needed to to increase on the special ed side. We've um throughout the year we get new students coming into the district with IEPs some of them requiring a one-on-one parah or other services. So in the end we're going to take a hard look at those as well but it's it makes it more difficult. We don't oftentimes don't have a choice. So we'll be looking at that program as well. Um 69 which is ECAP. um there's a slight increase just 1.76 so say three paras a little over three paras um increase and that's all based on funding for ECAP so all of those are funded by the program money and moving from a certificated

043model with ECAP to a classified model so we don't have actual certified teachers in our ECAP preschool program we actually have lead teachers that have a degree and and so they're on the classified side of things. They don't make the same level of salary or compensation that a teacher does. And they've just done a tremendous job. It it was a great move for us. And most districts don't have an ECAP program with certificated teachers, just so you know. The the programs around us are all with classified as well. And then finally on the levy here on this classified side of things, we did see an increase of 2.5 FTE or five um paras. Again, um this is an area that we're going to look at closely over the next year. Uh again, it's tough. Some

044of our buildings, I'll just use CIS as an example. It's it's got a lot of exits. It's got a lot it's a complex building that's laid out a lot differently than our other schools and it takes more people to supervise. Bus pickup, bus drop off, um supervision on the playground, supervision inside the building. So, it's something that we're going to need to work on with with Sarah, but it's it's on our radar for sure. Anything you want to add on that, Kevin? Okay. Um, these next few slides we don't really need to spend a lot of time on unless you want to. Uh, changes in staffing. It just gives you a snapshot over the last five years, what our staffing numbers look like in FTE for certified on the left, classified on the right. Um,

045you can see the slight decline in searchs there. over the last three years and it's been a little bit of an incline on classified. Again, we're going to look at that closer this year. Changes in staffing costs. You can see pretty much, you know, you're we'll talk about the gap that the state the way state funds us with with salaries on average versus actual and our our staffing with IPD um in implicit what is it? Price deflator. Um that's like the old cola that comes through and then um so you can see there on retire on benefits our retirement the retirement rates went down >> sorry on retirement um or benefits you can see retirement rates went down. So from 2425 to 2526 um you can see almost a little bit of a decrease although

046the the medical benefit cost to the district went up a little bit the retirement rates went down so it's a little bit it offsets itself pretty much. Okay so any questions on that before I dive into this slide on reasons for uh projected 1.2 million in deficit. Okay. So, with this kind of one of the things that we've talked about before um is the inflationary price deflator. So, that's the IPD which used to be COLA. So, that rolls through to all your state programs, most state programs, basic ed funded for sure, and then some of the state programs. So, we get an allocation for that. We don't get any allocation or increase in the way that we're funded for salaries in any of our federal programs. And as you know, we have a lot of

047staff funded in federal programs. And same with the levy. We have staff right now funded by the levy. We don't get additional funding for for the to pay for the IPD. And when they pass through the IPD, the expectation is it gets passed through to all staff, which it's a given. You you need to pass it through to all staff, not just the staff that are funded by the programs getting the increase on. So that's part of the problem is we don't get that that and and the way that the state funds us now is they fund us on average. So for teachers they fund an average teacher. We used to get funding based on where a teacher landed on the salary schedule for education and experience. We would get funded for that. Now for

048instance for 2526 the state is funding us $80,000 per teacher. Well, our average teacher cost because we have a senior staff is $95,000 a teacher. So that's $15,000 a teacher that we have to cover because the state doesn't provide the funding. That's this is a big legislative needs to be and it is a legislative priority to figure out a better way. Maybe they go back to this mixed factor funding that they used to give us, but now with this average districts like us with the senior staff, we lose big time. and our salaries and and the same problem exists with our classified and our administrative funding for salaries. Um we we do comparisons with other districts every time we bargain and we're competitive. We are not number one. We're not the last in line. We're

049in the middle of the pack. Sometimes in the top three or four districts, maybe five, but we're competitive. But we because we want to get highquality people to come work for us. But the problem is we're not funded appropriately. This it's probably the biggest in my opinion it's the biggest issue the state has with funding. The second thing and the second large and these are both huge things is the inflation for material supplies and operating costs and we don't get funded for the cost and the biggest two examples are insurance and utilities and on a slide later I have broken out in the last three years our utility costs have increased by $468,000 45% % is what we've increased in in utilities insurance has gone up 244,000 over the last three years which is 55,000

050or 55%. I mean, think about those increase. We don't get funded for those increases. And that's just two examples. Supplies and everything else. The district doesn't keep up with the funding for MSOcks, special ed being another one. Special ed funding. Yes, they made it. They made improvements this last session. They try to every session, but it's not it's not enough. I mean, we our our projected overage for this next school year is a million dollars. Um, that's a lot. our district. >> That's just for our district. So, yes, we did apply for safety net funding. I think we're going to get 30,000, but we did. This is the first year really in 2425 that we' spent enough to get safety net. So hopefully we definitely Betty's done a great job with this and we have

051other students that are higher cost students that we can submit next year. So, we will get some of that back and this is we just need to look at this. But this is a shortage of funding. The state does not provide us adequate funding. Transportation program is another one that we don't get full funding for. And part of it is the funding side and part of it is our structure with our transportation model that we're using right now which we're revisiting. We use a third three tier approach which we had we added a third tier when we built the kindergarten building. So, we need to go back to the and and this next year we're going to consolidate routes on that third tier and then the year after we need to take a look at

052potentially whether we want to keep the third tier. That's will be a final decision by Kevin. But we need to look at it. The problem with going back to two is we may need more drivers and we don't have a lot of drivers. The other thing is the other main issue with two tiers is we had kids on buses for a long time. 45 minutes to an hour plus on the bus because the tier took longer. And if we take away the third tier, that's going to be another building and kids that need to be delivered. So, we're doing we're going to do a full analysis of that this year just to see where we're at. And we know parents there's mixed feelings out there. A lot of parents don't like the third tier because

053they go to work at seven and they have to drop their student off at 9. So, um anyway, we'll take a look at that and with some other things with transportation we'll look at as well. Enrollment projection. Again, 80 80ft FTE drives 800,000 less in funding. That's part of you. You think about the $1.2 million deficit that you're looking at in this budget proposal. $800,000 is what we're getting less because of our student enrollment. Now, we did make some staffing adjustments, but that is a big a big component. Um the next slide shows you uh gives you an analysis of the last five years of our enrollment. You can see that we you know we we did actually increase out of COVID and we got to where we recovered fully and now we're in this

054slight decline. We have these smaller classes moving through the system. Our kindergarten classes are smaller every year. So then you get the smaller classes moving through our system and therefore our total enrollment is declining by about like I said and one and a half% to one and 1.8% per year is what we're looking at on enrollment. And this just gives you a summary of the enrollment projection for next year. You can see that uh Kinder we dropped our projection to to 225. It was at 236. Um we're not quite there on enrollments yet, but August is always a big month. Uh we have 24 less students at John Campbell that we're projecting, 47 less at CIS, 48 less at the middle school, and uh actually seven to the positive at the high school. So, as

055a district, um, when you get our other items, our AL and such, we're looking at 80 less from 2425 is what the projection is. >> So, this is the place where certain school districts make decisions and they roll the dice and the dice turns up okay or the dice doesn't turn up okay. We we could have rolled the dice. It's not in the best interest of the district. It's not the responsibility that Chris and I share to put the district in those situations, but there are some that do. We could have rolled the dice and said, "Ah, we'll probably we'll probably not lose ADFTE and then we worry day in and day out the first part of the school year to the whites of the eyes of the students show up and do we have

056students that leave us?" you know that that is not a good feeling to be to be concerned about who shows up and who leaves. So the better more fiscally responsible plan is what you see here is that we budget for 80 80 less. Now if 80 less if those 80 less don't show then our budget is in a good position. If they do show and we do have 80 more students than what we budgeted for, then that's puts the district in a good fiscally responsible position as well. Again, we use 80 because that's our projection of what we do based on the data analysis of it. And you've heard Chris refer to the analysis that she does with regards to enrollment projections. Now if you go below 80 and we don't and there's more than

05780 students that don't show then that becomes concerning for us. Obviously we didn't budget enough of a reduction. The on the other end say that we have 120 more students than we budgeted for. That becomes problematic as well. not from a fiscal standpoint, but from a service standpoint that might require the district to hire additional staff to cover the needs of the students of those 120 extra students. Uh specifically, if a large number of those students are at a specific grade level or have a specific need, it could put the district in a bind to hire. But again, that's a that in most cases is an okay problem to have, especially in the environment that we're in. We used to worry about being able to find uh quality teachers at a short period of time.

058That that is not an issue that we would face because of of of the vast number of districts who have decided to reduce and not hire. So that will play out. We regardless of where we budgeted for, it is a interesting time for us as we check enrollment through the first number of weeks of the school year to to see where we where we land according to what we budgeted for. But if people were to ask board and in the in the audience, why would the district budget for 80 students less? Well, it's fiscally responsible and we don't feel like we want to roll a dice and gamble with the the the fiscal uh best interest of the district. >> And the other part of it is it's not a number that we pick out

059of the air. We actually use a cohort survival statistical method and we run it on a straight method and a weighted looking at weighted is looking at the most recent four years heavily waiting the most current year. But we look at that and what it is is it's a survival rate from one grade to the next. And those factors drive the future projection. And so that's kind of that's the starting point and then we massage the numbers a little bit. But we do use a mathematically sound practice in in projecting enrollment that's been pretty accurate. Okay. Um moving to the next slide gives you the revenue and expenditure history. So our blue is the revenues, yellow uh is expenditures. So you can kind of see how the years back to 1920 line out on revenues

060and expenditures. And again, that's a little bit skewed with COVID dollars, but it actually gives you an idea of what it looks like um for the last five years. >> And Chris, just for clarity, the you see the steady line going up. That's almost entirely what could be MOC, but a lot of it is increase in salary. It's in yeah over 80% people. So it's going to go up for that. >> All right. A closer look at revenues and expenditures. Uh just summary wise. So the net increases um from 2425 to 2526. You can see that the breakdown of the additional million dollars on the revenue side and additional 952,000 on the expenditure side. Um the local uh piece is the local taxes uh to taxpayers. Um those are increasing based on the the ballot

061measure that went out and everybody uh voted. So that has a stepped up amount in it. um state uh general you can see is that's your uh aortionment dollars and your excess costs for sped the amount of basic ed dollars that funnel into sped and so on and so forth. So you'll see there based on a lower enrollment projection we're not looking at an increase there. Special is your other programs like state special ed lap uh learning assistance program your transitional bilingual and such. Uh so we're seeing an increase of 400 there and the majority we are getting more funding in special ed. Um federal specific is your federal programs title one which we'll get to a slide on that. We're not sure about 400,000 of our federal dollars um haven't been released yet. Um

062on so that's the main things on the revenue side. The expenditure side your salaries 1.3 million. Our salaries are going up. benefits are um going down slightly based on what I talked about and classified salaries going up. Those are the IPD uh increases um negotiations and such. And then our supplies are going down. You can see we pretty much stripped uh a lot of the MOCS out of the budget to try to get it down to the $1.2 million projected deficit. Um there's no uh capital outlay in the budget. There's very little travel budget. There's um supplies as you can see are are cut back. So we're we're going with the skeleton budget this next year. >> How do we come down 29,000 on travel? Because weren't we already pretty skeleton last? >> We were,

063but we still have travel costs associated with traveling with students to competitions and things, the state competitions and that kind of stuff. So we still do have some travel, but it's not um the employee travel is minimal without students. Okay. Um, let's go to I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these next few slides. It just shows the percentages of the how our budget breaks down in in dollars. So, I was going to kind of skip over those unless you have questions. Um, so these are all pie charts to how our budget breaks down. This is a good one. Shows you in the purple there. That's salary and benefit costs 80 84%. Uh uh so that's that's the majority as we talked about on that. Okay. So I wanted to Kevin and

064I talked and we wanted to make sure and give the board and the community um tonight just kind of a snapshot reminder of when our next levy is and what leads up to that levy vote in February 2027. Um so you can see there October 26 uh is we have a bud board but board study session on levy planning. Um so that'll come up next year in October. November we provide a levy recommendation to the board based on and a lot of the information that'll be discussed at the the planning session. We come back to the board in November. make a recommendation and then in December we bring a board resolution uh a resolution to the board about to approve officially approve the levy and then you the board has an option to select between

065February, April and is it August the other the other time that people can run leveies. February is the most successful month to run them. So most districts run them in February. So, um, you can see above that in the white that for 2526, our levy funding is almost 5.6 million and levy equalization is almost 2.5. So, a little over $8 million and that makes up 12% of our revenues as I mentioned earlier. >> And for those of you who don't know in the crowd about the levy equalization, levy equalization is is state funds that help support property poor school districts. Um, and so 2.4 million comes with that. It only comes to us if we pass the levy. So we if we don't pass the levy, then you don't get any levy equalization. It's really

066that's it. So it's it's for some school districts that have a double levy failure, they're losing their local dollars, but they're also losing the state addition for being a property poor school district. So now we may not think of ourselves as a property poor school district but just take a vision of our uh of our school district and maybe take a look at what the uh the industry and infrastructure of a uh school of the Belleview school district >> and you see a difference in what is there and the amount of tax base that's generated between those two. And by the way, Belleview is in a uh one of those eight districts that we mentioned earlier that is in very difficult financial problems even with all of the economic growth that is going on there.

067>> One more thing on that, your levy equalization, our levy equalization allocation, property poor districts comes from the state levy tax that's on your tax bill. Um so that gets funneled back to property poor districts. Also, with the levy, it's important to know that a lot of almost every other dollar that we've talked about tonight, um, has, let's say, red tape, strings attached, only can be used in certain ways. The levy dollars and the levy equalization dollars are the dollars that have the most flexibility. Obviously, they're the ones that the the community approves for certain things they believe in, that they want to see our students h have opportunities to to be a part of. um they include a lot of the things that uh that we may think that are a part of basic

068education, but they're truly not. And it's almost expectations that communities have with regards to their schools, but aren't funded. And because the paramount duty of the state is for basic education, certain things that we see as basic education or that we see are basic, the state doesn't have that same definition. the the most easiest one is uh student activities which include athletics activities and all that stuff. That's that's what we assume to be a part of our basic education but the state doesn't view that as basic education. So in order to have those opportunities for our students the levy is the funding s source along with LEA that supports what we see as a basic education in our community. I can go on about levy and levy equalization for a long long time. We're not

069going to tonight. I think it's important to know though that it is 12% of the entire budget and it is the the the more flexible dollars, the most amount of flexible dollars that we have to make decisions on what our students should receive. >> In other words, the salary gap that we talk about with what we're funded versus what we pay, a lot of that's funded. How's the levy? Can you say again that the LEA funding don't pass? >> We don't get it. >> You're still paying it. That's a >> Exactly. And that's a really good point. Thank you. It is. We still all taxpayers still pay state levy tax, but if we fail our levy, we don't get any levy equalization funds. So that would be unfortunate. >> Thank you, sir. And again, that

070the why we put this in here is that um previous to the last election, it was common traditional practice that in the school district, it was the levy was every two years. The last time we ran a levy, we ran what's called a four-year levy. And so we've over those years kind of like we've kind of lost track a little bit about, oh, when's the next levy going to be? Because we had four years. So this slide is to clear up any miscommunication about when the next levy is. Uh actually Chris and I had the same realization one day like because we were thinking we were going to plan to start doing the levy stuff like last spring and into the summer and then we were going to run the election in February of 26.

071Well, we both were relieved that we don't aren't going to go through all that until February of 27. But still that's to get it and before you know it, it will it will be here in front of us. All right. Um, next slide is a required slide by the state. Um, we need we show what our allocation is for MSOCS from the state and then what our budgeted expenditures are. So, you can see there that our revenue is 4.8 million in MSOC allocation and our actual budgeted MSOC uh expenditures are 5.5. So we spend 738,000 for 2526 and normally it's more than that but we again we we scraped everything out of the budget. So um so this shows that we're compliant. If we were positive then we would have to explain how we were

072spending those additional dollars on uh student benefited learning activities and such. No, it's been in it's in every year. Yeah. or the last at least five years. All right, four-year forecast. So, with all that said, the other requirement uh by the state is to put together a four-year forecast, which we've always forecasted out, but now it needs to be part of the budget, which it has been now for a few years. Um, so the financial forecast was a little more difficult this year when we're talking about federal dollars and really where we might see increases in even state revenues and with a declining enrollment and such for local and then uh salary and benefits. So we some of the increases uh vary. Normally we went with the 3% on the state side which or on

073the revenue side other than federal but now we've mixed it up a little bit. So, we'll show you how that pencils out. Um, this slide shows you the revenues broken down and the expenditures. Um, you can take a look at that, but this is really the slide we need to focus on. So, this gives you 2425 where we think we're going to land. Um, again, our beginning fund balance in uh September 24 was 11.6 million, almost 11.7. We're projecting to be around 10.5, which is we budgeted a $ 1.3 million deficit budget last year and was adopted by the board. So, we're going to be pretty close to what we we thought um when we had when you all adopted the budget. So, that at 10.5 million, that's 15.5%. So, as our policy requires eight

074um in 2526, we're looking at an ending fund balance 9.3, which is 13.5%. Um and uh this is without making any um cuts at all. >> Yeah. The most important part about this slide is that we do nothing. >> We don't do a thing. We just keep operating the way that we're currently operating, spending at the way we're currently spending. Believe we're going to get about the same amount of revenue and we just don't do anything fiscally irresponsible. Not something that Chris or the board we know would would want to have happen. But if we just let it go and hope that somebody's going to bail us out, this is the result after four years. >> And that says at the top assuming no reduction. So that's this analysis. So you can see there we're

075in the red 2829. We can't go there. And even in 2728 we're at 3.91%. Which is way below the parameters. So this is without any cuts. As Kevin mentioned, the next slide shows just the the fund balance history with that four-year projection coming up um showing in the red in 20 uh 829 at the end of 29. Um so if you look at the next slide that just gives it in a bar chart uh line going straight down because it's not a good practice to not balance. And then the next one talks about assuming cumulative reductions. So we put in here a million and a half in reductions per year um accumulating to 2829. You can see that uh for 2526 um again 13.5% ending fund balance projected 2627 if we uh cut 1.5 million

076then we're looking at dropping to 11.5% as a projected ending fund balance of 6.6 6 million 2728 um again adding another 1.5 million in cuts we would be down to the 8% we'd hit our reserve in at the end of 28 27 28 and then we would go below in 2829 so we need to uh definitely have a solid plan as we move through this next year looking at everything again and all programs staffing levels and everything to get to where we need to And again, this shows you a history on the fund balance. I wanted to point out a couple things on this. So, in 2019, reminder, that was when the McCclary decision came out and districts got a lot of money that a lot of it went to compensation. In that year, the

077state took away the staff mix factor and the way that they fund us for teachers or slightly after that year. It was right around that time. So that's when uh districts got now they started to get funded based on average. The next five years there you can see our COVID and we had an influx of dollars uh that came into the district over that five-year period for different things. We used it for summer school. We used it for other afterchool programs for kids. We had device replacement. I there was tons of things that the COVID money that could be used for and we used it to benefit kids, but we also used it to our benefit. Some of it backfilled expenditures that we paid for in other ways before because they didn't it was federal

078funding, but they didn't have supplant requirements on it. So like summer school we paid for out of our our COVID relief money. Um we if we hired or if we funded any staffing out of our COVID dollars, it was a plan to move them out of it out of COVID funding within a year and so that we didn't have ongoing staffing costs um tied to that because that's what got a lot of school districts into trouble. They funded a lot of additional staff and then at the end of COVID they were stuck with the staff and they didn't cut them and then they ended up having to find a way to to pay it and normally they just went into their fund balance to pay it. We CILA I think our district as a whole

079did a really good job. The administration and and um everyone involved uh was very conscientious about how those funds were used and we it benefited us. You can see there in the purple um in 20 uh 2020 through uh 2024 our fund balance percentage 22% 21 19 18. So we stayed fiscally sound with that that that additional funding. So um we feel good about that. I just wanted to point that out so everybody knew that that's why those years are highlighted there. Okay. So with this scenario with cuts, you can see the line um still slightly uh trending down on our ending fund balance but not as drastic as leaving uh it without any reductions. Okay, any questions on that? Okay, budget ongoing budget challenges. We've talked about some of these things. Um expenditures are

080rising at a higher rate than revenues. We know that inflation um by the ended and and this just reiterates what we just talked about on the previous slides with uh the four-year forecast uh board policy. So we based on this and looking at where we're at right now, we're recommending that we not or that you not increase the percentage that's the minimum fund balance policy. we would recommend that we leave it at 8% now because there's too many uh unknowns things that we can't predict and so that would be our recommendation. Obviously the board gets to make the final decision on that but we wanted to have that in the presentation. Okay. So the next in yellow there you can see funding level for basic education compensation lower than actual averages. We talked about that.

081M socks. We talked about that uncertainty of federal funding. Um for those of you that don't know, we we received um Trump actually put a a hold on federal funding in some programs and we should find out in the next 20 days or so if the funding is going to be released. For CILA, it equates to about $400,000. And this slide right here gives it to you. And I'll go back to that other slide right here. Title one migrant funds is 180,000 for CILA. Title 2 part A is 115,000. And then you can see there's 60 for title three, 60 for title four and the dual language 50,000. So actually with dual language, um we're right about 465,000 if those get cut. Um and most of these funds are used for staff. And a reminder,

082we've already issued contracts to our staff. So, we don't have an option to now lay off teachers. They all have signed contracts. So, we will know before school starts, I think, whether those funds are going to be released. >> Yeah. And it doesn't look good. Um, I'll just be blunt with you. The I'm work I'm counting on not having these dollars. Um there are things going on uh that Congress is going to take take some action that allows uh this to happen. It is it is unprecedented at least in my time as uh as a superintendent uh that funds that have already been allocated or you can you plan to receive and then you don't get them. So there it happens every year that we don't we don't get certain things but at least we

083know ahead of time that it's going to not happen. and then we don't issue contracts or we don't make agreements with people or we don't spend in a certain way. This one is different is that is the timing of when we're finding out that we're not going to be receiving it. And so we've already made decisions and placed people in employment with asurances that they're going to be be, you know, in those positions. Now, there are some school districts that are in the millions and millions and millions of dollars and they would go bankrupt basically if uh they didn't take severe actions with regards to employees andor other contracts that they would have. Um but again, I I am twofold worried about this. One, the timing of it. Two, I do believe that it's going

084to take place. Three, I believe this is just the beginning of it. And four, the biggest worry is that we may lose all the dollars, but the requirements that we continue to provide, the services that each of these are there are still in place and still mandated by the federal government. So, it's one thing to to lose the funding and then also, okay, we don't need to do that anymore. All right, that that would make sense that we're not going to provide the funding to you. In turn, we're not going to require you to do the things that have have been in statute. What we're worried about and what we're hearing is that the funding is going to go away, but the expectation of still doing all the things associated with meeting the needs of

085migrant students as well as the other dual language and the other title programs are still going to be in statute, still going to be required, still going to be audited, and still going to force school districts to use other dollars and resources in order to meet those demands. or these that that is concerning. But when you talk about parts other parts of the title programs, we're not talking about $465,000 or 50 or $60,000 here or there. We're talking about significant amounts of money uh that would really press the district uh and all districts uh to make some some decisions they've haven't had to make before. I.e. This goes back to what what what part of the real reason why Chris and I feel really uh uh our recommendation is to to wait and see what

086happens with regards to adjusting any of the board uh funding balance percentile. I I think if you would have asked us two months ago, three months ago, I we would be more than happy to entertain that uh and get all the information you would need to make that decision to increase if you chose to. Uh but right now with the uncertainty uh of what's going on at the federal level, we we don't think that's the best interest of the district. Ultimately, that's your decision to do that. Uh things may change. We also have heard that there are programs within federal funds that we don't we don't receive as a district, but other districts do receive. You may have seen some uh programs called 21st century afterchool programs that districts um were receiving funds and they

087were at risk as well. And then just as of the last week, they've released those. So, we don't we don't know exactly what's going to happen. Like Chris said, 20 days, but from what we're hearing, these are pretty set that uh that we're probably not going to receive these funds. And the bigger fear is what's next. >> Just to connect the dots, Kevin, if we didn't receive these funds or they weren't released and the the lawsuits that are being proposed or or that have been forwarded against the administration are unsuccessful, that would come from our reserve funds essentially, right? Okay. All right. Thank you. >> In addition to what we've the 1.2 >> and we and and again, we would start the preparation as like okay, we can't we can't do this again. and we

088can't we may have to take on the responsibilities, but that's just going to go to somebody else and uh we're going to have to reduce, you know, $465,000 someplace else. >> Great. Thank you. >> Going back a slide to the legislative priorities. Um this kind of reiterates pretty much everything I've talked about throughout the presentation um as far as priorities go. And so we're hopeful that um we'll get some action on these. All right. >> Question. So the reserve account is broken into three buckets, correct? So the 1.2 million shortage that we will be paying with out of general fund, will that come equally out of each of those buckets or do you have to figure that out out? Well, the fortunate thing is we're over the 8%. But if we got down to 8%,

089I was trying to say, okay, this is how much it is made up of that. But now we're over the 8% well over it. So, we're able to kind of soften the blow >> to that 8%. And we have to be very >> Yeah. >> shown how which account or which portion of the bucket we're taking out. >> Yeah. We just have to be really careful. I I speaking for myself, I would not recommend that we go below 8%. we figure out a way to stay above 8 to 10%. >> I mean, it's just not a comfortable place to be. I I've never had to deal with it because it was a long time ago where we had slightly lower than eight. We had a lot less money back then and the budgets were a

090lot lower, but man, I hear the horror stories from some of the three, they're at five, they're Yeah, for sure. >> And we've got districts around us. I mean, we I also have a handout if anyone's interested when we're done about where we fall in comparison to the other ESD 105 districts up and down the valley, and we're the second for districts our size within the enrollment that we have. We're second highest. Watau runs uh they're they're sitting at like 25%. I think they're way higher than anybody else, but yeah, they're 25%. We're 18.71. This was as of 2324. I don't have the updated one, but we uh and all pretty much all these districts put money annually into the capital projects fund, but we sit really really well when you look at these other

091districts. You've got districts like Yakama at the end of that year was 4.73%. And the size of their district, not to name a district, but you know, we have a lot of challenges around us with other districts. So, we're fortunate >> over the last couple several years now. That's been our one of our focuses is even though like for this year we'll be 1.2 over budget that is a decision that we're making because the flip side of having too much money is is that irresponsible as well >> and it's allowed us to kind of take these steps at the levels that we're taking it at >> without having to push the panic button. We feel we felt we were too far over that 8%. That's why we're taking >> Jamie makes a good point of

092being you can be fiscally irresponsible going both ways. Yeah. >> Of having too much money in your savings and not using it for its purp its intended purpose which is to provide education and services to students. So there are districts and when we get audited um there are districts that I'm sure the auditor has said what is going on here? you are you are hoarding this money away. What's the purpose of it? What are you use going to use it for? Do you have a a plan for the future? We are we are not there. Uh you know Wapto I don't know the the story behind them but that may you know what what causes them to be at that percentage. So it also um you know the money is taxpayer money. the taxpayer money,

093you know, the money is there because taxpayers have, you know, are are paying those taxes to provide public education to students. You should be using it for that that purpose, but also responsible enough to have enough money set aside for the things that are going to challenge you in the times of that like we're in right now. >> All right. Um, so the next three years, uh, we'll be talking and this this project will'll jump into this in October, probably as early as October to start breaking down the the buckets again and how we're going to analyze those buckets and we'll have leads, people that are in charge of the different areas. But we just bottom line, we need to look at everything again. We need to look at funding and spending in every program

094and everything we do and see where we can we can save. We just we it was a process uh that the process that we're going through every year really um now but we we're going to have to find some additional cuts and it it will involve people unfortunately positions which for years we've been able to resolve and satisfy reductions through attrition and that's been wonderful. We since I've been here, we haven't had a formal riff. Um, knock on wood. Never had to institute a riff with staffing. So, that's that's nice. Um, but I will say we have about 30 retirements and resignations this year between classified and certified and we typically have 60. So, we're like half. So, people are staying put, too. All right. Very quickly, I know um we spending a lot of

095time here. debt service fund. This gives you an overview of what the outstanding um amounts are on our bonds and when they pay off. So, you can see there we have almost $56 million in debt with our our bonds. One pays off our 22 bonds pay off in 2036 and our 18 bonds pay off in 2042. So, you can see that there. Um the CAT projects fund, as I mentioned, we have two main projects. Uh the one that's will be taking the front seat this current school year 2526 is our artificial turf project. We'll be doing uh beginning stages and we already are a little bit involved in the well we are doing the design process for the CTE edition as well. So the construction and such on that one will be in the 2627

096school year. Um so those are our main two projects and CAP projects this year. Um, and again, that gives you the list of the other miscellaneous things that are happening and additional capacity that we've built into that. >> Chris, I got I I just have a quick question on that project. >> Um, I know we trust the contractors, but what recourse do we have? Because I've heard some horror stories about fields being put in and having drainage problems shortly after they're put in and stuff like that. So, what recourse do we have if the contractor comes in and say we get three or four years out and start having problems? >> They're required to provide us their insurance um when they get if they get awarded the bid. Um we've also have a a time

097frame that we can go back um and go against the contractor to replace things or change things based on um how things are working. We've done that on our schools. Things that haven't worked out, we've gone back to the contractor and they've fixed them. But yeah, there's uh all the specs and everything that that's involved in the contract will protect us on those things. Um Kevin, >> and also the thing you do in the in is you do your homework and you find out who those contractors were and who their subcontractors were and you use your leverage to not have them. You can't deny them the ability to bid, but if you have reason to believe that their work would create a situation like they've had in the past, you can bypass them and go

098to the next lowest bidder, per se. There are RCWs in that. That's probably our best leverage in order to not have situations happen of other school districts who um for whatever reason. It's usually what happens under the the field, all the drainage systems and all that. That's really where the the problems have laid. And so we've we've encouraged our current architect uh to uh enhance uh specific uh staff that uh are have professional experience with specifically in that the drainage system, the material that's used. Um whereas some other architects may not take the go to this much detail on what goes on underneath the ground. So we we are worried about that. We made that very clear right at the beginning. We don't want to be one of those districts who has this beautiful field

099and then two years later it's collapsing inside of itself. So best thing we can do is is make sure that uh the biders know our expectation and then we study them and to make sure that they weren't one of those ones who installed something that was faulty. >> Product themselves. There's three different companies that we're looking at for the product and then they each list schools or even bigger than schools, colleges and I think one of them >> was professional >> field. Yeah. >> And then so probably contractor be qualified to put in their product but then it does go to bid and then you kind of are liable and the lowest bidder fights >> lowest responsible bidder. >> Yes. Yes. The other thing that we've done in order to protect ourselves, which is really

100protecting the whole project, the the contractor, the architect, the client, us, our community, is to do a lot of uh testing beforehand. So, a lot of the testing of the soils, the testing of the water table. Um, a lot of that testing is required to be done, but we try to we've said that we know that's a low point, and so we better do some additional testing. many most a lot of that's already been done uh by professional testing. I don't know was it PSLA or somebody like PLSA that's came in and done those and then all that all that information is generated and provided to the architect and engineers. So that that will be helpful as well. >> Good question. Okay, we're getting to the end of the presentation. This um slide summarizes the

101fee schedules that are in the back of your notebooks. Uh we um are not increasing our certified sub rates this year. 190 sits really very competitive in the valley for sub rates. So we are remaining at the same amount. Um the other ones you can see there we've got very little change from prior years. So those are in the the notebooks as well. Um we also have our citizens guide and Stephanie has just done a tremendous job with this document. She's the one that created it. She's updated it again for us. And Kevin and I have reviewed it in detail. This gives a really if you want to learn more about the budget, it puts it in layman's terms. It's a really good document to to open up and and read and and put it

102on your nightstand. Sarah likes to do that. Um, just kidding. And uh so so keep this at the forefront. Also, uh just put a plug in on our business services web page. on our website. We have tons of financial information. We have all of our budgets for the last five years. We have our year-end reports. We have this presentation will be posted uh by Monday at the latest. And there's just lots of really good information on there. So, if you're interested, you can always go out to the website and if you can't find something, please give me a call. I can show you where it's at. And for those of you who like uh would be have a an interest level of going through a presentation like this one-on-one or you have specific questions about

103a specific fund or the whole school finance situation in the state of Washington and all that. Um please know that Chris enjoys doing that. She likes to sit down with with community members and take them through that process. Uh Stephanie is very good at as well. Uh we could have the whole team there if that's of interest. So please know that that's always open. If it's not you, but you hear people in your in your uh everyday life that have questions or concerns, don't hesitate to to email us or have them get a hold of us and we can attempt and more often than not answer the question. That may not change their perspective of thing, but at least that question has been answered. So don't hesitate to do that as well. Okay, lastly, one

104point that's coming to mind that I didn't make on fund balance reminder, when you budget, when we budget, when you adopt a budget, there's a projected sometimes a projected deficit like this. There's a lot of factors that can change that. We've had prior years where there was a deficit budget adopted and we didn't end up in a deficit position. It's just really key to remind people about that because sometimes misinformation's communicated out there and then people get the wrong idea. So that I just wanted to make that point one more time. Um, and that's it. So if anyone has any questions, any additional questions, we can answer those. >> Kevin, is there any or Chris, is there any are we trying outreach to increase enrollment? Is there are we doing anything different to try and

105make sure that students know that when they qualify for kindergarten? And >> we we've done a lot of outreach. And I'll say I say we I I haven't done it, but I Inreina, principal at the Lince building and and Lee, assistant principal there, ECAP director. They've done a ton. They've handed out flyers at the grocery store. They put out lots of communication to families. There still we're still repeating some of that communication out to families in the community to let them know, hey, we're open. We have an online registration system that was implemented three years ago and people can just go online and apply and to have their student attend here. So, um, lots of really good things are happening, especially at the real young ages. Um the new student online enrollment process that we

106have in place now for families to use the electronic online version has been uh really a good thing for parents. They want to you know people are want to be online more than filling out papers. So it's been that's been a great thing too. >> Yeah. And so we we do communicate that our district is open and and and at this time it's all grade levels. All right. But uh and and when I mean open that is from non-residents. Uh say you live in Nachis but you may live out in the wenas and you just happen to be in Nachi school district but you'd rather come to CILA and we those scenarios take place and there's a process you go through in order to to make the request. It's called a choice transfer process. These

107two behind me are very familiar with that. Um and and it it it it gives the district the ability to bring in students that would want to come here for for their education, but it also uh gives us the opportunity to take a look too. And so we are not bringing in students who may have a laundry list of disciplinary issues or if they're at the high school age and they're not progressing towards meeting graduation requirements. uh we can we can deny them. So we have the ability to accept and or deny students uh who make the request to come to our schools. The other thing we've done, and this is the time frame that uh parents who are making the intent to homeschool their child, and we do have a a a pretty uh

108consistent number of homeschool families that go through the process of filling out the intent to homeschool. and and every opportunity we get to explain to them the opportunities for their child here. That doesn't take away from their homeschool experience because we're not going to get into into that. But what we can do is if they ask the question about is there anything that I can do to supplement my child's homeschool experience then that gives us the opportunity to to explain to them yes your child has all the all the opportunities that you want to provide to them that you're maybe not able to provide through your homeschool experience and that may be simply one class period uh of a course that they're not able to teach at home. It may be the involvement of them

109in some of the extracurricular activities that we have available. Um, usually those come in upper, you know, the the fine arts type areas or the athletics, but it does give us the opportunity. And now with our more robust uh virtual learning platform, that in itself has has piqu the interests of some homeschool families. Now, when a homeschool family decides to take advantage of one of those, then we can claim the FTE. Usually, it's a small p percentage of that FTE, but it does allow us to combine the homeschool experience with a public school experience, the amount of time that we are providing the services to them, we can claim that through um through our enrollment process. So, we're trying to promote that a little bit more as well. >> That's great. Thank you. Uh other

110questions or comments from the board and uh there's also a period of public comment as well. >> So So that's the greenways program. That was a question I had. So we get an FTE if we have someone in that program online versus that's online through Greenways versus homeschool. Homeschool is different. Yeah. >> For certain parents that's what they're looking for. I mean know the homeschool, there's not homeschool police out there policing everything, but for those parents who want to do it do what the law says, you know, they they need to be a certificated teacher or be connected with a certificated program for their child, Greenways provides that opportunity for them. >> Any other comments or questions from the board? Any public comment? >> Thank you. >> Can I have Oh, sorry. Thanks. We can

111put you up here. >> Okay. Where? Wherever you >> anytime. I had a question. The next slide had the answer to it. >> Awesome. >> So, I if we could go to slide that says general fund impact of fund balance >> on the for your forecast or below. >> Yeah. So, you just had it there. Right there. So yeah, the the forecast I'm looking out several years, right? We see the $1.5 million reductions per year. So I applied that I did some quick math, so I I could be off here. So I applied 85% which is typically what we're paying for salaries, right? And and so that was 1.275. I divided that by the number that you threw out for a teacher like 80,000 a year. >> Well, we're 95. >> 95. >> Yeah. >>

112So, I mean that's like 16 teachers. That's a big number. >> And and so my question is how does that compare to our declining enrollment? It seems like we're having to cut more teachers and our than our student enrollment is declining. How does that compare with what we've gone to the building admins this year and asked them to cut and it was actually they came back with an increase of 4 point 4 4.75%. That's my question. Thank you. >> Yeah. No, that's a really good question. Um so just looking at last year 23 24 to 2425 we lost 53 or 54 students. So that's $540,000. So if you think about that um we haven't actually put together an analysis with okay just teachers because we we're cutting more than just teachers. There's a lot of

113other components in the budget that we can look at. There's of course classified staffing and then the AMS socks and such and look at creative ways to reallocate resources to cover but um so yeah that would be so you're talking five teachers enrollment so enrollment loss would be like five teachers and what you're talking about be so it' be more more of a cut than than what we would need for enrollment. Yeah, we're going to have to cut below the baseline. So when I say the baseline, I mean what the number of staff that the the FTE that's driven by the enrollment projection by building um the way that the allocation model that the state uses, we're going to probably have to go below cut to a lower FTE than what they're driving because they

114drive an FTE but we're only funded 80,000 a teacher and we're paying 95. So, we're probably going to have to cut below that allocation and probably on the other categories as well. So, but that's a really good question. I'm going to look at that closer now. >> Well, and I would think another issue is going to be is talk about 30 retirements this year. >> Yeah. >> And average is about 60 >> between classified and certified. >> So, >> and resignations. >> Our MSOC cost is probably comparable to everybody else's groceries and insurance cost. people are having to work longer, but we've never had to riff anybody. We prepare to do it, >> but facing some of these in the future, we may have to look at that because I think people are going to

115work for that extra three, four, five years with what costs are, what their personal costs are. Yeah. >> And it's going to then also make our staff more mature, you know, more older, more highly paid, you know, whatever the case is, and we're going to face some of those issues. So, those are things that are probably a little bit of variables. kind of shooting off the hip, but more variables than we faced prior to this, I would guess. >> Yes, definitely. >> Well, and that's assuming that there isn't additional revenue that the state comes up with, right? Which is what people are hoping happens. And I that what Rick just brought up and what uh Jamie was saying was a question I had and maybe we've already kind of answered it. Part of it is

116we don't know. That's a big thing, right? But the other part of it is that through attrition it's possible that we keep those numbers without having to riff people that we hit the one point. It's possible. It's not a for sure thing if we're looking at that. Oh geez, this is a train wreck of riffs coming. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And remember, if we reduce staff, if we have to go out and reduce staff outside of attrition, it goes based on contract. It goes by seniority. So, we'd have to go to the bottom of the seniority list and riff up and then call back like our SK psychologists and people that we we can't we have to pull back and then go higher on the list on the riff >> kind of jobs

117that are costing 65,000 and not that 95 105,000. >> Well, psychologists, yeah, they're paid on the teacher salaries. Um, yeah. Other questions? This is the biggest crowd we've ever had for a financial budget presentation. So, I really feel >> I have a warm heart right now. People care. >> All right. Uh I will uh make a motion that we approve resolution 2025-11, the adoption of the 202526 budget. Is there a second? >> Second it. >> Okay. Any comments, additional comments or questions for uh Chris or Kevin? I I close the hearing after the vote. Okay. All right. So, we will close the hearing. I'll make a motion uh that we adopt the resolution. Is there a second? Great. Any other comments or questions? >> Just a quick question. So, in regards to that $400,000 that

118we're looking at, we need to put that somewhere in the budget or we okay with just having it in the presentation? That would be my only question. >> Well, I'm fine having it just in the presentation because I I mean, we know we have to account for it if it doesn't come through. So, I'm fine with it just being in the presentation. >> All right. All those in favor of adopting the resolution and the uh 202526 budget signify with an I. >> I. >> All those opposed with a nay and abstensions. All right. Uh that is it. So the budget public uh hearing on the budget is closed and the resolution passes. Uh and uh I'll extend my thanks Chris and Kevin uh Chris and Stephanie especially for the work that you've done on this.

119um that the presentations after you've been on the board for a while, the numbers start to make sense. I don't know if that's uh if that's me or uh your your skills, but um we really really appreciate the footing that we're on as a district and the forward thinking that we're doing as a district. Um it's not all great news and we appreciate you telling us the news whether it's good or bad uh uh transparently and our district's done a great job of that. >> Well, thank you. I I appreciate, you know, Kevin comes in with 20 years now, 21 years of superintendent experience, and I'll tell you what, it's nice to have him to talk about all this stuff. He's engaged, and it it means a lot to me um to have a superintendent

120that's really engaged and in the know um versus us trying to work out on an island by ourselves. So, thank you to him, too. Well, and that that that experience on both of your behalfs makes me ask another question, I guess, which is are we talking to our legislators that represent us or the leg as as I know WASDA does and I know WASA does, I know the uh the WA does, are are we able to reach out to our local legislators and impress on them how important this is? Um part of my practice every year is to uh invite engage uh um them uh when they're in se when they're out of session uh ask if they'd like to get together and I can talk about whatever that they want to know about and

121that gives me the opening to to share some things that are concerning to us. Um that's locally. During the session, I work with their um their staff because they're they're really tough to get a hold of um unless you plan out um and and take the trip there. So, I I communicate with their staff a lot. They're very good at passing on massive messages with regards to whatever it is that um that we're discussing. Uh it it goes in waves. Sometimes the communication is ongoing back and forth all the time. Sometimes I won't hear anything for, you know, months at a time, but there is that. And then as a region, uh, ESD has a, um, uh, a lobbyist that lobbies on the behalf of all the school districts in ESD. And, and that person,

122uh, Melissa Gonowski, is very, very well respected on the hill, uh, among both, uh, um, both Democrats and Republicans and the governor's office. So, we're we're we're in good shape there. I I wish that there was more interaction um uh with regards to our local legislature, but I'm not going to press them. I always feel it's important to reach out and try to to get them, but that's not Sometimes it happens a lot, sometimes it doesn't. >> Great. Thank you. All right. We don't have any student board representatives with us. We're hoping to uh start thinking about new board representatives. The junior year uh cycle, I guess, is coming up. We have that to look forward to. We have now uh item eight on the agenda, the associate superintendent for district operations report. Guess what,

123Chris? >> I'll make it quick. Um okay, so this is our financial report uh as of June 25. So we're almost there. 10 months down, two to go. July. We'll have July's report next next month. We get the county treasures report on the 10th. So, we're always a month behind on these meetings. But you can see there that we're 83.34% through the school year. We've received 76.8% of our budgeted revenues. Part of that is we were shorted by OSPI on our June aortionment intentionally. Um they made that up in the portionment that we just got for July. So, we'll catch up there. um as well. And then on the expenditure side of things, we've spent 80% of our budgeted appropriations. So, we're we're really in good shape with that compared to um where we're at

124in the school year. So, uh we're still on target for where we think we're going to be landing at around 10.5 million at the end of the year. So, >> great. Thank you very much, Chris. Any questions for Chris on the financial status update? Move on to item nine, the superintendent report. >> Excuse me. Three, just event date things. Just a reminder more so just for the public. Next board meeting, there is not a study session uh within the August uh month. So the next time the board will gather will be on 8:28. Uh that's a Thursday, same place, same time. Uh two other things. Uh most importantly, our uh first day of school for the 2526 school year is Monday uh August 25th. Uh that is traditionally the week that students are in session

125Monday through Thursday and then enjoy a 4-day weekend and then come back on the on the following Tuesday. Uh also of interest maybe for the board and the public, uh we we traditionally do a all employee welcome back gathering at the middle school. It's the one opportunity that all of our employees, regardless of what position they hold with the school district, all are all in one place at one time a year. And that is on the 19th of August at 9:00 in the morning. And that is it for my report that on. Thank you very much, Kevin. Uh board communications. Is there any board communications this evening? We got a quiet one for this uh this evening. Uh there are a few things to sign as they're coming through. Oh, this is the budget one

126and there's a folder there and make sure you get that signed up. There's no executive session needed for this evening. So, uh we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you for coming.