001let uh Rebecca you ready yeah it's called the uh budget meeting January 7th uh budget committee meeting to order call roll call all board members and uh administrative staff are here we need approval of the agenda motion to approve second all in favor I public comments I haven't seen any public comments nobody's got public comments so we move right on into planning St so we're going to start with 2526 budget planning alie's going to talk us through the sure so just a reminder of where we are in the planning process we are talking about the preliminary budget planning process document today and then we will also be showing that to the admin cabinet after this meeting today also um and then coming up next Monday at the regular board meeting um the full board will
002be approving the Open Enrollment capacity for next year okay so high level budget planning um these are the same assumptions we showed you guys last month but just a reminder of what we're using for Revenue assumptions we're still we're still using the 325 student um we have an estimate of 32% for special education categorical Aid um we're using the fiveyear average for student enrollment that shows the growth of 16 students we have interest earnings going down by $100,000 we kept act 12 personal property tax revenues in there that was new this year and we kept it in there for next year and then we also have the November 2024 operational referendum there as well um for expenditure assumptions we have 4.6% increase for CPI and then also the compensation systems being fully funded we also
003have the classified staff referendum um increase included in there we have 5% for health insurance 5% for utilities and transportation we added the middle schooling for 2627 since it will be opening in September and then we also added $70,000 um increase to District property insurance to reflect the increases we've been seen um we talked a little bit about about this some of the issues that came up in June and then continue to be issues that need to be addressed are termination benefits post employment benefits health insurance changes or increases that happen um maintenance expenditures and then our contingency and also our fund balance so in this document it starts out with Section planning um however I think to understand section planning for next year we really need to talk about where the budget projections are
004first so the section planning is still in draft form but I'm going to skip through that and talk a little bit about some of the big picture numbers for next year so overall the deficit for 2526 without any of the issues that I mentioned before that would need to be addressed we're looking at a deficit of just over 140,000 which is a manageable amount and we could address that deficit um we did put in here this deficit could be addressed by a reduction of two FTE which we'll talk about in the section planning um but that's just one of the options there are other ways we could address that we also bring up that any new budget request would need to be connected to budget reallocation options or we would have to find a funding
005source that relates to the budgetary request um any additional deficit for 25 26 for the highlighted items we keep referring to highlighted items because on this page we have those five items in yellow um so any of those those highlighted items are 1 m754 and just for a little bit of perspective every 5% increase that we see in state special education categorical Aid because they're talking about significant increases in the next state budget for that would equate to $550,000 in additional revenue for us which means that we would have to transfer less from fun 10 to fund 27 to cover the transfer any increases in state funding we are saying should be directed towards those highlighted budget items not towards any new items and then regardless of any new state funding those five budget issue
006items should be addressed for 2526 to avoid any more reductions in the fund fund balance um we also talked about budgetary policies and practices should be considered for 25 26 and changing some of those um examples include that we um could change how we look at building and Department carryover practices just for a little bit of History um before we gave the carryover to the buildings and departments um Steve me and that if there was ever issues like if legal was over and there was extra money inide the high school budget but that money could have been moved to cover the overage legals so there was just money movement like that that isn't possible anymore because money that is given to the high school or the middle school or any department is just kept by
007them and they can carry that over from year to year um we also talked about the allocation of discretionary grants an example of this would be there's a social worker grant that we get um from the state and right now it currently goes to Student Services instead of just going to the district so they get to keep all of that money um we also talked about the fund balance policy and addressing um some of the verbage in there to be more aligned with what we're actually doing and then we also talked about funding districtwide maintenance from referendum funds this is a practice change but it could only be done temp thought we have those refs one you know I guess question one of the things that we've talked about in the past is uh grants
008things like that you know getting a grant writer service or something like that are there grants out there that we might be missing you know is that something that we should we should VI I think when we go to conferences and present I would say that we do a very good job of capturing a lot of dollars that are available um that isn't to say that there's something out there that we don't capture those dollars but I think compared to a lot of other districts in the state we do a really good job of capturing all the dollars that are aailable to us just a couple followup points from what Ali was mentioning U the very bottom bullet point we're not asking for a decision on that today but it's more things for you as
009board members to be just thinking through um obviously for board members that have been on the board for a long time you remember we didn't used to have building and Department carryover balances um and what Alli me is a perfect example of the challenges that we Face balancing our budget so this year's legal uh expense is going to go way over the budget years ago that didn't cause me concern because I knew as an example the high school was going to unpend by 20,000 or the middle school was going to unpend by 10 or whatever was going on that allowed us to reallocate those funds to cover those legal our contingency budgets only 100,000 we've already used the majority of that on the contracted nurse that we shared with you last month so contingency is
010not enough so we just don't have the flexibility to pull funds from anywhere else uh from Ali and my perspective now in reality could we do it absolutely like if the board as an example said we're going to re-evaluate building department carryover balances and if you need 30 grand for legal reallocate it I could go to the cabinet meeting today after this meeting and say I'm pulling $30,000 from all the buildings 5,000 a piece because our legal budget's over it it would be that simple but that's contrary to what we're currently doing another example Ali covered allocation of disc discretionary grants we receive a CTE Grant from the state that's in the $75,000 range most districts deposit that as a general fund Revenue use that to help pay for the investment and the instructors in
011those programs we turn that back over to the high school and they're allowed to use that for additional investment in CTE whether it's equipment software training whatever it might be it's a nice position to be in but the reality of it is most districts aren't able to do that and we're now approaching that level where we have to re-evaluate expenditures like that the highlighted items that we refer to a few times um just to you know talk about the importance of them I want to talk about post-employment benefits because that's the one with the biggest number so keep in mind we received very positive news about post-employment benefits last month in our newest Actuarial study our Actuarial study the liability dropped by seven figures so it was a significant Improvement in the liability with that
012being said the board had for many years pre-funded post employment benefits and we were able to use those funds to pay current years's obl ations that will no longer be possible after 2425 and we will need a solution for post employment benefits a solution could range from the board saying we don't have any concern with fund balance going down that's one solution where you just say as a board we're going to pull this out of fund 10 fund balance and it is what it is all the way over to the other side where you as a board say I would like to see a reallocation of 600,000 to find these funds or somewhere in the middle which Ally described on the next Slide the state budget very very likely will end up including an investment
013in special education there's a lot of momentum for that um and whenever there's an investment in special ed it really means that the fund 10 transfers decreased one plan could be to make sure that any additional funding that comes in from the state is not spent on new items it's parted to take care of existing obligations that's another example ultimately in the end we're going to need to know where the budget committee is at on something like that we don't need to know that today but we will need to know whether your perspec itive on something like post employment is you know on one end don't worry about it we'll take it out of fund 10 fund balance if we need to on the other end uh start finding a way to come up with
014600,000 now to more in the middle of let's keep monitoring the state budget let's see what happens let's see what the uh reaction is to special education Aid because remember when we say up above the deficit is 140,000 we are just simply stating the facts that we know them today which is the $325 per student that the governor signed into veto for 400 years State special education waight the way it is today we've not added anything new but what we are saying and that's likely going to be the message that we share with the admin team this morning is we're really no longer in a position position to be able to fund new priorities out of new dollars we're just not in that position right now new priorities will have to be funded out of
015reallocation for existing priorities and we're going to talk about that this morning under the context of of a safety position and we'll show an example of the type of things we need to do moving forward but I think as a board the things that you want to reflect on here are the practices that we have in place and whether or not you would consider supporting changes or whether you want to see us continue to do what we're doing the items that we have highlighted in yellow are you comfortable monitoring the state budget process and saying we believe there's going to be more funds coming from the state and our in intention is to put them towards the item in yellow items in yellow uh is one option uh but in general we need this committee
016to start uh thinking through these topics so that as we move into the spring we have an approach that we're planning to take and I think the challenge when you're entering a state budget year is it's not like we can say that there's a a path that makes more sense than the other it's just whatever you're comfortable with uh but I think at a minimum given the fact that our fund balance percentage has declined I think at a minimum we need to look at practice changes when it comes to how we budget I personally don't think we can continue having let's say a budget like legal going over by 40 and 50,000 and yet having all of our buildings and departments just continue to carry over over hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars at
017some point that just doesn't make sense that as a district we're going further and further down in fund balance uh while buildings are able to do things that quite frankly don't have the same priority as the district needing to meet legal obligations um things like the CTE Grant um as much as I can tell you the folks at the high school will not be supportive of this I think we have to start looking at things like that and saying those funds need to be put into the general fund for district obligations as opposed to being just additional sources of funds that can be invested in those programs those have been nice to do things in the past but I don't feel we're in that situation anymore well I really appreciate the recommendations you push forward
018for discussion I I agree with you I think uh we we have to leave those Stone unturn and the perac I think we need to look at um if there is some movement excuse me special what certainly I think we need to look at that I'm I'm a little more concerned after hearing Robin boss last night uh on the news speaking about what he intends on doing with the U uh money that uh uh is everyone's been waiting for it it doesn't look like a high percentage at all is going to go anywhere but to tax relief uh so we'll see what happens uh but I don't think we should get our hopes up on that one um I do have two questions uh for other that would be some of those stones one uh
019in terms of our um return from the federal government for our uh solar systems and what have you at both the intermediate and the Heritage what's the earliest we might expect some sort of Grant return from them and then two um It's seems that when we've had money available from Savings in our constructions of of Heritage 100% of that has gone into a maintenance projects which again H have their Merit but can we reallocate a portion of those if there are future with the Middle School towards building up some of these because it appears to me these are operational expenses um is there that Latitude with that as a consideration as well yeah so for your two questions the first one Ali has been working through the process with the IRS um we do expect
020that the first Return of the grant will probably take place within six to nine months um she's working through the process of getting all of the registrations completed working with Wily our partners on this and so yes I would expect Mark either late in the 2425 budget cycle or early in the 2526 budget I thought there will likely be a deposit north of 500,000 coming um from the first round of this process um so that is definitely moving forward um the second part of it is yes um we have been talking about reducing significant iFly the amount of Maintenance projects requests we put in front of the facility committee um there are a few larger ones out there that we're still evaluating uh as far as bringing them forward but in general we are looking
021at the summer of 25 that is a greatly reduced number of maintenance projects so we can continue to monitor things like what happens with the state budget what happens with those funds that were that Grant fund that we're expecting to get back um it's probably time on the maintenance end to slow it down uh we accelerated it specifically because we wanted to maximize the interest earnings from the IRS um so we had a goal of keeping every dollar we could get and so therefore we were on an accelerated path to be able to utilize the $6.5 million we brought so far in interest that was all well intentioned we're past that now so we believe it's time to pull back a little bit on the maintenance projects and see what happens this spring with the
022variety of factors so yes um that is an important thing for us to take a look at because fun 49 absolutely has intersections with fund 10 because fund 49 our referendum approved fund has the illegal authority to fund all District Maintenance capital projects equipment like technology Etc across the district and so that potential exists while those funds remain so yes definitely for those two things um and ultimately in the end we wanted to start with kind of the big picture to then have Ally talk a little bit about what's again some the difficult decisions that we need the board to start weighing in on one of them we're meeting with a couple principles this after our cabinet meeting this morning about the numbers the numbers again not student needs I'm just saying the numbers on
023k6 are trending away from 15 sections and back to 14 and with 14 sections that means five of prair five of Heritage forign our read we been historically at 15 in a lot of those grades but our kindergarten class sizes they're just they're not big enough to support 15 sections so with that being said and done Allie's going to show you there's a couple of grades where pivoting from 15 to 14 still keeps the board within your class siiz policy but will that be supported by all of course not right any reduction in sections is going to have have individuals who are not supportive of that understandably um it's not the only option we have to start closing deficits but we're calling that to your attention because open enrollment has to be approved next Monday
024so I think we'll have Ali Just scroll to show you where those um changes could be made so we support doing here and I think uh one of the things that uh the rationale that we had to carry over budget is to have plans in place to buy things that aren't to me la budgets I don't think the money has been used that way so I support a change in allocation uh and give you the flexibility to uh fund these other other requirements okay so this page shows the projections for 25 26 um in kindergarten there would be no change in first grade there would be um minus one section at Heritage in second grade um there would be minus one section at Prairie and it would move over to Heritage from second grade um
025and then no change in third grade no change change in fourth grade um but then the other change would have been in sixth grade which originally had 15 sections and would go down to 14 sections so would that be through attrition or would that actually result in a leg so right now Mark we're would not be not we've not received notice that staff are leaving that would support these changes but there are you know timing wise it wouldn't it's not unexpected that we don't know um staff hav until March to notify SL retirement they ultimately have until June to notify us what resignation without penalty but we would uh the position we would have to be in is if we don't get the retirement numbers to support this change we would likely we would have
026to begin a nonrenewal process um in April at the very latest in May to make sure we were staed appropriately we went this thank you and the thing that Ali and I just want to call your attention to we don't is there a possibility be handed through have yeah I would say yeah I mean we would we typically uh you we have 360 approximate teachers you know we see somewhere between five and 10% retirements annually so it would anticipated that that we would have enough teachers retire that would not require us to do any non-rs but you know there that's an evid of flow right and there's many other factors outside of our control that determine when someone retires but we certainly have enough individual age eligible and service eligible that could retire if they
027wanted to um they just haven't let us know yet which is not again uncommon yeah a couple of things just for the three of you to be thinking about going into Monday because we don't need any action on this first of all Ally and I have set up a meeting today where the principles of these two schools have the opportunity to speak with Dr Brown Amy Johnson Etc to talk through their concerns or thoughts regarding sections for next year we we need to give them the opportunity to to talk that through Dr Brown needs an opportunity to understand their perspective to suggest whether or not this is the right course of action Ally and I are not suggesting this is or isn't the right course of action we're just trying to set up the discussion
028saying alignment of 14 sections stays within the board policy so we're just doing the math and saying hey we are pivoting back to 14 sections here based on our student enrollment but there may be specific situations that principles want to share with Dr Brown that may cause her to want to recommend something else there are other options to get to 140,000 if we need to there's plenty of other options so I don't want to throw that out that this is the option this is just something we've identified as needing discussion secondly if you as a board would say there's no way we're going to Pivot to 14 sections in these couple of areas then the open enrollment information next Monday should reflect that because we want to have the most accurate information on the Open
029Enrollment decision as we can because we can't go back the state law says once the board makes the decision on open Orit in January it's done so like hypothetically if all seven board members said no we don't support any reduction in in sections for grades K through six that's totally fine then Ally and I just need to make sure we've got the right numbers in front of you on Monday uh which is why we want Dr Brown to weigh in on this you know and have that discussion today so that she can let us know her thoughts about the sections either way I can share with you we are clearly heading towards 14 sections K through six the numbers just don't support anything more than that and we're going to as time goes on have
030the four sections at our bedom five at Heritage and five at Prairie that's just the way the numbers are laying out uh the concern I have is that I don't know if it last year but it was certainly within the last two years we did look at we actually added Staffing at the I think grade one level to make sure that the uh section numbers not the section numbers but the students within the section the class size uh was more Equitable in all three buildings and I would my concern if we go forward with this is that those numbers are going to hit the ceiling versus the ideal and I I'd be uncomfortable with that that's the result of of of the section shortening yeah then to your point mark when you look at sixth
031grade um it's already halfway there so if you go to 14 sections in sixth grade you're sitting halfway in between the board Optimum which is 23 and the board maximum which is 25 you'd be right in the middle now keep in mind these projections assume the standard enrollment growth that we see every year because we do see more students joining us between fifth and sixth grade that's factored in but that's why this ultimately is an important decision to weigh in on because we would be going into the fall knowing we're in sixth grade sitting in between those two numbers in between the optimum and the maximum however it does fall within board policy Within the maximums if you were to choose 14 but I think ultimately as a board and that's why Dr Brown wants
032to weigh in on this we just want to make sure that we're being super clear that like there are other paths if as a board you say I'm uncomfortable with 14 sections in sixth grade we put it at 15 we changed the open enrollment for Monday to 15 and then we plan accordingly well that's the other thing your open enrollement numbers I mean I I'm clearly we the Open Enrollment provides a significant amount of income to the district does uh but if we lower the numbers are then are you lowering the open enrollment so that we don't hit the maximum versus the ideal yeah and so what Mark is saying is when I talk about changing the sections if we change the sections to 14 that changes the Open Enrollment capacity if you have and
033so there'd be fewer students that would be able to join us if you go with 15 sections then that opens up capacity for open enan students and so in the end the two are directly connected and the one thing we just want to make sure we don't do is let's say plan on 14 and sixth grade but then in February change our mind and say no we really want 15 sections in sixth grade because it's then too late to be able to a family that potentially has a sixth grader that wants to join us it's too late at that point so that's why we want to have that decision today with Dr Brown and the principles and then next Monday at the board meeting the other thing too you know I know there's significant income
034that comes with open enrollment but I think as talk to people in Community you know there you know what I've heard in the past is you know this this is for you know kids should should invests yeah and so open enrollment you're right jack that's that's come up throughout my entire career here there's been a lot of feedback from the community on the topic of open enrollment and when that comes up what I always share with community members is that the school board's policy on open enrollment would best be described as very conservative and what I mean by that is we won't allow open en rollment unless we're below the board optimal class size not the maximum and there's a huge difference there so like as an example in K1 and two the optimum is
03520 the max is 22 so even though the board would allow up to 22 kids in a first grade classroom for open enrollment reasons we have to be less than 20 so even though there actually are seats available on the class siiz policy the Open Enrollment policy says no there's not spots available if we're sitting at like 20 or 20.2 so I would say the board has reacted in the past to the community stating there's concerns with opening up over enrollment too wide by having what I would describe as a conservative policy on class size yet familyfriendly because we do allow families that are wanaki residents that leave to stay and number two we do allow families to stay together so we do have a familyfriendly open enrollment policy with a conservative view on class
036size if that makes sense so moving on to open enrollment we do have the 14 sections in there for these estimates so in the numbers that we highlighted this is where there are spaces available um you can either choose to just go with one side um you could do a hybrid of um the December 24 open enrollment versus the fiveyear average model and then um whatever is decided to be approved at the board on Monday so we have regular add on here and then we also have another attachment for special education and Mark asked a really good question in his email to us um just for a little bit of information there are 20 special ed open enrollment uh openings but in order for a special ed student to be able to come here there
037has to be a special ed opening in their grade level and then also a regular education opening um in their grade level so that is how special education students are accepted as we mentioned on the previous discussion today we're going to be having a administrative discussion around um sixth grade prair sections but then the other one we just want to make sure you have on your radar we're also working with the middle school on 7eventh and eth grade so definitely interesting situation with middle school with the numbers um we have 16 sections of Middle School teachers in 8th grade right now and 14 sections in seventh grade but the enrollment as far as the the size of the student by switches next year and so the middle school is having discussions right now about whether
038they flipflop the 14 and the 16 sections so Ally and I have been talking with Middle School administration about that um they wanted some more time to really work with staff to talk that through uh because the implications are that either two teachers need to switch grades you know learn the new curriculum and set up the schedule differently or the class sizes for the students will be impacted so one or the other has to happen for next year and so uh the administration at the middle school wants a little bit a little bit more time so you can see on here um Ally and I switched it to 16 and 14 which is a better balance of the class sign but the middle school does want to have their discussion with their staff about you
039know looking to see if that's the best approach to take or not we may be coming back with a a different look at the middle school on Monday so they're still working through that we just want you to know that middle school is working through some things as well as sixth grade that we talked about and then as well as the sections in Prairie and our goal is to be able to clarify this before the board pack it goes out on Thursday so a Monday we'll hear what the administration would prefer uh the 84 number or the five year the 24 number or the um fiveyear average because it looks like there's about 32 students difference between the two I guess one of the uh challenges and if you look at numbers it appears that
040are uh before it's uh like and uh we put 31 students in and and where it picks up is uh thing we we put 30 you know almost 50 students in came for what does that do that bubble that involves that yeah and the one thing to Al which you call that because once you can just do one sides one of the things to keep in mind with open enrollment approvals is the DPI requires school boards to approve open enrollment based on your policy so as long as you approve open enrollment by your policy and this document is available to the public a parent cannot appeal your decision success they would not be able to successful however like if the board were to say we're going to change first grade you can see one scenario
041was 20 openings one was said 15 or 18 or 16 if the board was going to say we're only going to approve two openings in first grade a parent absolutely could challenge that and would win because both the 20 and the 16 are calcul ated off the 20 in board policy optimal the board's discretion in this is you can use enrollment planning to determine where you think it's going to go and as an example in first grade it might make sense to say we're going to plan for what's happened in the last five years and we're not going to have 20 spots we're going to have 16 as an example Our intention would be to go through this and put it out to you on Thursday High highlighting where we would recommend this to go
042based on the discussions at the Middle School sixth grade and at Prairie so that hopefully you can have more of a complete look at this in your board packet for Monday night you need you don't need to this so next yeah so 2425 so the current fiscal year that we're in we have some challenges that we need to talk through with this committee uh we want to have a plan to address our challenges in 2425 before we get to next summer and there's a variety of different approaches we could take but to just kind of give some background on the scope of the challenges we have I'm going to just share something that Ally and I shared with Mark yesterday in an email so on Friday I was at the school Finance puzzle uh preparation
043for the school board convention and the director of the DPI School Financial Services was there and she stated that the DPI is now calculating that state special education categorical Aid is going to drop all the way down to 29% for 2425 the state budget was 33.3% so when we go back and look because what we shared with you Mark was the snippet from when the state budget was approved uh the state budget estimated 33.3% was going to be the reimbursement level for special ed what we're working on for the school Finance puzzle is helping everyone understand the difference between the term some certain and some sufficient what some sufficient means is that the state would fund something sufficiently enough to get to 33.3% unfortunately the state budget currently doesn't work that way for special ed
044it's a some certain dollar so the state determined we're going to spend X on special ed and then all the district's claims are sitting over here the district's claims then get divided by X to create a 29% estimate that the DPI has the problem with that is all districts saw the 33.3% coming from the state budget what nobody could predict in any one District No One district has the ability to see Statewide special ed claims to know until the DPI does that on their end say all the claims for last year is X so we know right now we have between a 350 and $450,000 issue with special education categorical Aid in 2425 now a peer of ours is a data person and has grabbed all the data from the entire State he believes it's
045going to be 30% not 29% so whether you believe the 30% is correct or the 29% is correct we either have a $350,000 issue or a $450,000 issue we know that today to be true so we're about half halfway through our budget for 2425 and like we talked about with 2526 there are a range of options for how we deal with this you know the range on one end can be a board reacting to say that's unfortunate we're going to make sure our legislators are aware of this some certain some sufficient we're going to advocate for special ed aid but if we're short at the end of the year it's going to mean an impact on the fund 10 fund balance and unfortunately there's not a way to avoid that a lot of districts in
046the state are going to be there there's the other end which is the far right the board could say Administration we would like to start seeing you put together right now A midyear budget reduction plan you need to come up with Savings in the 300 to $450,000 range between fund 10 and 27 like right now you need to start going through your budget items and you need to start putting in as an example budget freezes on things there's a lot of things Ally and I could do but we would need direction from the board to say go ahead and do that other options that are available to us that won't quite be as you know viewed by others as Extreme as like budget cuts mid year would be looking at fund 49 as an opportunity
047for us to reallocate expenses so fund 49 is the fund where we have done incredibly well with things like interest earnings project savings that fund is doing incredibly well the legal resolution for fund 49 allows Ally and I today if approved by the board to start allocating expenses towards it and I'll give you a good example we'll just talk about the special ed dollar lo as a budget committee you could today tell Ali and I make up for the loss in state special at categorical Aid by transferring equipment purchases from the technology budget to fund 49 that simple move solves that problem and so when you look at I'll get right to you in a minute Jack when you look at the motion that we put out there we're putting that out there to start
048the dialogue on where this committee and the board wants to go we don't want to wait until March or April and have the committee say as an example start reducing expenditures and we have two or three months left of the year but one option is a motion to establish a fund 10 goal for the end of the year so even though I just said we're going to be short 3 to 400,000 for special ed if this committee says we want to see fund 10 and the year at zero we don't want to see a negative - 350-450 whatever we want to see it at zero we authorize Administration to allocate expenses across the accounting funds to meet that goal the first thing Ali and I start doing is looking at technology expenditures and maintenance expenditures
049and other referendum eligible expenses and we move them to fund 49 into your point mark then we pull back on maintenance project right so that is an opportunity that we have across accounting funds that most school districts don't have have most school districts don't have a fund 49 that was able to have the kind of Interest earnings that we've had or project savings that we've had so while the fund 27 special and categorical Aid is a challenge for us and every other District in the state that budgeted anything above anything close to what we thought the state was going to fund we have an option that a lot of other districts don't have but ultimately as a budget committee the question that I think the rest of the board is going to rely on this
050group to decide is should we establish an end of the year goal does this committee want to see us at zero is this committee okay if we go 450,000 negative is this committee okay if it's 750 negative or does this committee have a goal of it being plus 100 ,000 or plus 150,000 and then say to Ally and I you need to do you need to allocate expenditures to get this done it also could be a combination of that this committee could say we're going to put a spending freeze on building purchase orders as of March 1st this year we used to do that years ago so we're going to have the strategy of combining allocating expenses across the count funds with grabbing back funds that have previously been budgeted to building our expenditures there's
051a wide range of options for us to proceed we just don't want to wait until March or April to make that decision U but there's no question when you hear information like the state special ed categorical Aid is potentially going to be less than 30% that creates a challenge that we have to address in one way or another so just for clarity state so the expectation from the DPI if nothing changes from the legislature is that they're going to fund the same amount of money last year as in the past but it's going to cover 5% 4% less of the actual cost unless the state legislators right were to decide this spring uh when we approved the state budget we did not intend for State categoric blade to drop all the way down to 29%
052we're sitting on A5 billion raing day fund we're going to spend an extra half a half a billion on special ed to get it back to where we wanted it to be sure that's a possibility I think it's unlikely yeah I guess one of the other questions I got uh is you go through these scenarios right you can move all of our operation and Equipment into uh fun 49 problem is that's a one time fix it is and uh this is uh it it seems like there special ed is kicked around when put off right and there's never shity on what do we going to get right um and there's a lot of tricks that we in how they allocate those dollars so I guess uh you know one of the options could we look
053at uh our special ed budget and start raining that in while we move some of the inment into what fun because if we do it all this year we're just going to have a bigger deficit next year because uh this fund the fund 49 is going to go away we got to spend it in a specific time yeah and so to your point Jack what I would say is it's not limited to special ed we could look still look at options right now for both fund 10 and 27 so as an example we talked about under 25 26 planning and Beyond there is a state CTE grant that we always give to the High School to spend on additional programming for CTE we can change that practice at any time and so that's somewhere in
054the 75 to 80,000 we absolutely could come forward if this committee wanted to see a range of options to address our shortfall in 2425 we can do that it would include both fun 10 and 27 to take a look at all of those options to see where we can close that Gap because we'd have to look at both um but ultimately in the end I I I understand what you're saying Jack it is a one or two time Type move to move expenditures from One Fund to another that's why Ally and I have those items highlighted in yellow in 25 26 planning because we're we continue to go back to we've got to have a long term solution we have to have a long-term solution for health insurance changes for termination benefits for post employment
055benefits for our maintenance expenditures we have to have a long-term contingency we have to have a long-term solution so we're absolutely on the same page that a long-term solution has to be created ideally in our 2526 planning process in 20 425 I'm going to speak administratively I think we should have a goal of zero I I do not think we should go negative again in fun 10 I think we should put strategies in place to get there um Ally and I are the ones able to work at this using a variety of options to get there but ultimately in the end abs guidance from like the budget committee we're not sure where to go with this right so here what say I mean I support this I like make the motion to go with zero
056uh but I also want you guys then to go forward and come up with strategies that will address these issues so is that a motion that I guess that's a motion I'll second to go to met zero um in terms of the commentary to add I do like um combined approach I don't like the idea of the very very short of stop Gap methodology of saying okay we're not cutting any more POS for equipment or it just you're in a different way you're picking a can down the RO still need it at some point so yeah combination but do you need more Direction within that space I do not feel that we do I feel like we have an end of the year goal and you just wanted the goal first authorize us to begin
057the process of allocating expenditures accordingly and looking at budgetary savings that provides Ali and I with that direction to proceed U the one thing I think as board members though that it's just important to know about this that I think all board members would want to be aware of this next Monday night there absolutely will be items that will not be well-received you know that we're going to bring forward in order to begin addressing this not only in 2425 but in 2526 and the fact that other districts have previously adopted those type of practices doesn't make it easy to make that change here right because when we've done something a certain way unwinding that is very difficult to do but with that being said and done we still need to go through that process and
058do it well I agree and you know you brought up just a bunch of things but one that's stood out is the the freeze um um after March 1st I mean that's something we haven't heard in a long time I I remember that as a from the Dark Ages when I was here and so my expectation that you guys are going to come up with what we need to do whether it's going to be well received or not but it's a fiscal responsibility that we have to the district but it's also going to benefit our employees because we're not going to be able to continue to to compensate them in a way that's they're going to want if we have this F go challenge in front of us so whatever we can do to continue
059moving forward and support our staff retain our staff but we're going to have to do some fiscal tightening and and we needed to do that for us yeah I'm glad you mentioned that Mark because the one thing that we want to make sure when Ally and I are out communicating what we're doing is the communication has to start with all of the things that are going very well so as an example the community supported and it's included in these plans getting all of our classified staff to the average Daye County wage we are not pulling back for that so that is a part of what's in these plans the community supported compensation increases to keep all staff at a competitive wage with CPI increases that's included in the plan what we're talking about here is
060solidifying our finances in other areas that truly need the work with the overall big picture understanding uh our staff are going to be in a great place in the next two years of this budget cycle because they're going to receive competitive wage increases with what's happening in D County so what's on the table for us to discuss is things like accounting practice changes things like building and Department carryover balances things like allocation of discretionary grants things like budgets that have the potential to be frozen for the rest of the year that's what's going to be on the table not the overarching what I would say positive that's coming out of the community referendum from November but that being said and done we do need to get the rest of our finances in order I guess
061the other thing that I challenge is uh what are the duplicate uh Services programs that were uh out you know and can we can we bear those down and I I guess you know and I brought this up in the past is we get the invasion Set uh we get uh you know MIT lab and then we get that project Le that and uh it costs us a lot of money to keep these people certified in Project from way uh you know is there another way that we can handle that without uh having you know and that's just one example I'm sure if you looked at you know our uh our programs there might be other things where you know we're we're spending you know money where you know we can enhance a program versus
062having you know dupli programs yeah we definitely have to look wide and deep and I think as we get into the next agenda item uh we're going to give you an example of the type of things that as an administrative team we're going to need to start doing um but before I open up that attachment and get into that I guess I'd ask if you're in if you're comfortable with a motion or something like this to on the table do you have the motion Rebecca it's first second all in favor hi hi okay thank you so yeah what we're gonna do first before we talk about the priority of looking at a a position to coordinate safety I wanted talk you through uh what Ali and I actually prepared to go over with our admin
063cabinet today which Ally and I were actually working on this prior to Dr Brown reaching out and discussing this topic with board members we were picking this because we knew Dr Brown had an interest in enhancing our safety offerings as a district so we were using this as an example the rest of the team and what we were sharing what we were planning to share today was if a priority presents itself and what's going to be really really important for our administrative team as a whole to understand is we can't as a group Retreat from identifying new priorities if that's the case we're never going to change anything right we're just going to keep doing what we're doing every single year and never bring forward any priorities because we're going to say we can't do
064anything different financially what our group has to learn how to do is identify new priorities that become more important than old priorities and we're going to walk you through an example here for the district safety director and what we're going to share with the c marting is old priorities were there for a reason and it will hurt a little bit to change and eliminate an old priority to fund a new one but this example is something every member of our admin team can do so let me give you an example to pay for a 50% District safety director Ally and I have gone through and we've identified what are some changes that we could make to reallocate money to fund this and I want to talk about each of them because Mark asked us a
065little bit more about like what do these things mean so we have a district Business Insurance Consultant we've worked with this person for over 20 years she does things like help us with prop liability insurance renewals selection of proper Insurance levels management of insurance claims bidding out uh Insurance processes but it's a service that's optional many districts don't utilize this type of service they handle it themselves or handle it with working with their local agent so there's there's Great Value in having someone like this available to us but I want to be clear it's optional the next item we are one of I would say a very small number of districts remaining in the state that purchase a student accident insurance policy and what that is is it's basically a health insurance policy that steps
066in to support families for any gaps in their personal health insurance so what I mean by that is if a student falls at the playground and breaks their arm and that family has a $250 deductible on their personal health insurance plan our policy steps in and pays them for that $250 most districts have long eliminated that policy what are the implications of that the implications of eliminating that policy are more legal claims and potentially more lawsuits because right now when a parent calls me and let's say they're they're very upset about a situation that happened at a school their student was injured and they have a $500 bill on their end when I can tell them right now no problem I'll take care of that for you it immediately causes the concern most of the
067concern to go away if instead my answer to them is I'm sorry that's on you as a parent the the next step for many parents is going to be to contact legal councel and that's what happens all across the state we've kept this student accident insurance policy because it does help mitigate other claims now that being said and done I don't know if someone's going to issue a claim against us for a broken arm on a playground I do know we don't need this insurance it's optional so the next item down this is a new before we go how many how many co you know per year do we do we get there yeah five to 10 about five to 10 claims primarily Elementary School accidents that occur outside is the majority of it and
068most of those are 250 to 500s in that range I mean if someone happens to have like a HSA account with a $1,000 deductible we would pick up the first thousand so it all depend this is supplemental to someone's personal Family Health Insurance it fills in the Gap basically so yeah there's probably between five to 10 in any given year U but I I'm putting it on the board is saying like these are the kind of things we have to decide you know if a safety director is a new priority there's old priorities that we can remove U the Handover research database that's new this year um this is a program that the curriculum Department and Dr brow is accessing um Ally and I agreed to cover it initially out of the business office budget
069but what we're saying here is this program either needs to be cancelled or the curriculum department has to reallocate within their budget to pick it up this is not a business related cost and so we're basically saying the business office is is not going to fund this if the curriculum department wants it the curriculum department is going to have to re prioritize their budget to pay for it but we're removing it from ours the last one we have a district Consulting budget that we can remove like 25,000 from it so what does that mean so in the example we gave Mark uh Mark roers our long range planning consultant has come in in front of the board every other year to present a very comprehensive look at Community growth plans that's an expensive process we
070can shift to doing that every three years or every four years there are other things that we do in the Consulting area that we can put on different Cycles we can change some of the things that we we're doing to to lengthen it out in between the times that we review things or cut back on what we're doing and so I would call this a discretionary budget that could in very easily be changed to fund a district safety director the point of this exercise is to say each of those expenditures identified has a purpose but is that purpose more important than the new priority of a district safety director and what we're going to challenge our admin cabinet with today as a thought process because I think this is super important for us as an
071organization if we determine that hypothetically one of our buildings needs additional reading support next year what it's going to take is our admin team doing this it's going to take our admin team saying the priority of an additional reading interventionist is more important than and I'm just going to throw out an example classroom budgets of $800 per classroom these are things that our organization has not looked at for over years we have not looked at the way that we all allocate building and Department budgets and there absolutely are the resources there to address new priorities but our team is going to have to be willing to say I'm willing to change an old priority in order to fund a new priority and the reality of it is if someone were to ask me well why
072are we in this situation today as opposed to 10 years ago when we can add new things out of new money and it's it's fairly simple our enrollment growth has flattened we used to when you know 10 years ago 15 years ago I would plan budgets for 50 new students to come and 150 new students came when I did the student count in September there we had many many many years where the enr enrollment growth exceeded 100 students per school year we're now to the point where as you've seen before we're in a pattern 325 or 350 seniors graduating 275 if we're lucky kindergarteners coming in we're short 75 kids every single year now our grow thankfully makes that up and we end up reporting a student count that's up five students or students but
073the revenue limit system rewards districts with enrollment increases and we were one of those districts for a long time it's just not happening anymore and there has to be I would say an acknowledgment of the reality that for us to accomplish new priorities old priorities are going to have to change so that being said done I know Dr Brown wanted to talk about the role for a few minutes I know she's talked to most board members about this so I'm going to turn it over to her I I had a conversation with all board members individually um except for one um just wanted to continue to um engage Us in the discussion around um petitioning 4.5 um safety coordinator um numerous conversations with um Steve and both John Kramer um around how this position um
074has historically shown up um correct me St if I say anything that's in but I understand that there was a time where there was a sole person who was responsible for safety across the district I think one of the things to consider um in the current climate around safety is I think we all could agree or can agree that we're navigating a very different climate as it relates to safety um in schools and so um there was a person who was a dedicated um and committed safety person um here in W Community how many years ago so at one point the Middle School principal owned safety as I would almost call it a personal Passion of the individual and took on this big of a topic as uh a part of her respons abilities and
075so that individual retired and as a result of that individual retiring and it just so happened our director facilities retired the same year uh for no other reason than there just happened to be two retirements and the new Middle School principal wasn't going to be assigned the safety role it was then added on to the director of facilities role not that it was like predetermined that made a lot of sense it was just between the two retirements one person who had a passion for this left us another one who wasn't doing this left us and it was put on to the one of the new people that came in so so thank you for that so with that and again engaging in numerous conversations with Steve and John around I really you know have had
076an opportunity to observe and understand if there's a need for this position um after having conversations and in light of the current climate that we're navigating in schools I think it's important for us um right what you see on the position description here is a 50% pos position um and as we continue so today we start um engaging in what I'm calling safety rhs with all of the billing principle it will be see myself uh John cranmer the Cole his Administrative Assistant the principles and APS necessary but to understand what they have uh what they feel they need and what is a priority for them in the in the safety space so we can so we're doing our own assessment if you will internally and I think um some of the information that we've already
077learned without having done these safety rounds U puts us in a position where we really need to think about a dedicated person in the safety space um here in the position description we see 50% um FTE and as we learn more and as um Steve and I have continued to engage in discussions we could potentially be looking at a range between a 0.5 position uh 75 or a fulltime just depending on um your approval number one but number two understanding who's out there in this space um in terms of experts in the area navigating schools um and being able to help us look at um some of the things things that I would suggest that perhaps we're unable to see in our spaces on campus um because we're here every day um in addition to
078um the the heart me if you will of of safety components in our district there's um grants to be submitted so we have a math Grant we have a connection with the Department of doj there are trainings that are um an integral part of this work uh and ultimately what we want to do is make sure we're in a in the best place um in terms of leveling up if you will right having a dedicated person to to looking at um safety here in our school in addition to that um this is for another conversation but also it says Safety and Security um but an additional conversation will ensue with us as a team around security itself um in terms of evenings um our evening events that happen in in some of our building um
079and seeing what that may bring for us um moving forward so um I know my conversation with Jack we've talked a couple times about um is this a wany employee or I'm potentially looking at this as a contracted position um for us here here in the school district so after six months of being here I'm confident in being able to say there's a need for us um in this space and we would um answer any questions that you may have but would look to move forward hopefully um to have someone help us navigate SP safy safety real Mark you have a question um no more of a comment um I I know this is been something you've been looking at for a period of time I had an opportunity to talk with you several months
080ago uh and this is one of the things that you brought the concern about the amount of work that uh John has on top of this piece and so having a dedicated uh coordinator of Safety and Security makes sense to me um I when I spoke to you about this one of my preferences would be that if we're going to look at expanding that role I would like us to consider expanding it by adding a a half time uh please slay us on we only have one correct and um and talking with uh my son-in-law who was a police L on in Michigan in a smaller District he was shocked that given the size of our school this is what we have and to me that would be a a logical step going forward to
081if you're if you're looking at going to a full-time position at some point sharing funding with with the village on this and and adding security Staffing that might be able to address some of the nighttime issues you're talking about as well uh so I I am very supportive of the halftime position but if you're going to go forward I I that needs to be some serious consideration from my perspective yes uh you know my my position uh you know on this uh is uh if if you contract the service out you know you get uh contractor that has a broader look at what's what are the trends in other schools and so forth and I think uh you you could potentially get a Rob boss you know uh save your time you know B basically
082what the SC or this person's going to do is put your safety plan together and make sure that you're execut safety right that's some other in addition to it's more than just the safety plan it's you know walking our campus as well helping us see some of our blind spots being a part of the safety team we meet um twice a month um as a larger group safety team group but we also have a small group um safety team where it's just speed myself and John um to meet um so it's it's bigger than the safety plan there some additional pieces um in terms of execution as it relates to um to the safety plan in addition to some other um activities that we have that we engage in as far as safety is concerned
083and so while it's the daytime saf as I mentioned a little earlier it's also the extracurricular activities um in the evening that we should be mindful mindful love so what do this get set for this person Set uh you know where where is his office going be our initial thoughts are central office here or there's a lot of paper work involved um in this role right and so it would be a combination of being housed here but certainly being out um in the field observing some things as well one thing we have plenty of space and available if if if it's tight here to move to Middle School you mle SCH I think one thing to keep in mind that Brian and I have talked about from like the HR perspective is um retirees so
084in law enforcement you're able to retire from the wrs at 50 as opposed to Public School Employees it's 55 at the earliest there there is a very real possibility that a WS pensioner so someone who's drawing a pension from a previous role would have an interest in looking at a job like this an individual like that has a limit to what they would be able to do for hours and still be able to draw their pension we don't know who will step forward if we put something like this out there to just see who might be available in this type of a role one of the advantages of looking at let's say something in the 50 to 60% range would be to potentially match up with someone a professional who spent their career in this
085area who was able to retire and and still looking for something to engage in that's one thing you keep in mind um so there there may be different types of candidates out there looking to this role uh We've also Brian is very aware of like how districts have partnered together as an example the Middleton district and Monona Grove District this current fiscal year partner together to share a former law enforcement individual from Wan in our lives in our community is shared between those two districts that's an approach that sometimes districts have taken and so one of the advant ages of having Brian proceed with a posting is that you as a board can then see what comes back as options right because we really don't know what's going to come back as options I mean
086there could be the perfect person could come back and say I want to be a 1.0 and Brian may happen to know there's another District in Dan County looking for a partner the perfect person could come forward who's looking for a 0. five role to supplement their current retirement status the advantage of letting Brian proceed with this on the market is giving him the opportunity to see who might be out there and what opportunities might exist you know so one option could be for the board to approve the posting but want to see let's say before the February board meeting what Brian was able to pull together um so there's different approaches you can take to this but ultimately in the end uh we know that there is very likely talented people out there who
087would be interested in doing this it's just hard to predict would that come from someone who's currently retired so they have a limited ability to work 1.0 would it come from either something Brian or Dr Brown learns about from another District that wants to participate uh it's too early to tell but the advantage of putting it out there is you would start to find out what those options might look like and share with you um in my previous District we um Dr you point Jack um we did contract um with a um security compan company in that space and so I'm for is reaching out to them now for me just to see you know where they're um what they would be able to offer um and engage as it relates to to our school
088district so there are a couple options there I think what's important is to to move in that direction because we do know there's need there any other questions I would move to Bri to go to the market to see what's available second all in favor hi hi so we do have one other matter that we just need a few minutes on um thank you so the data Wrangler system uh as you all are quite familiar with the discussions we've had on this topic uh we were uh offered the opportunity to to participate in a 3month trial for this service um we did get it up and running by October 1st since then there's been some new information that's come forward regarding data regler the first one is we have already received a $10,000 check from
089Wisconsin Public Power which wany utilities is part of so w Utilities participates in wppi which participates in a Statewide program called Wisconsin focus on energy U we were awarded $10,000 for participating in the data Wrangler program so we actually have that money we've deposited it we've actually received more grant money so far than we've paid for data Wrangler secondly we've learned about something even more important than the $10,000 payment is there is a brand new program issued by Wisconsin focus on energy that is going to provide reimbursements back to public entities for your reduction in energy usage so it's a verified energy usage redu program so we did include the information in there uh it's a program that has a calculation that identifies how much each district will be paid back by the end of
0902025 there's zero question uh at this point that between the energy bill savings themselves and the 10,000 we've deposited and the program that Ali I are 95% done applying for there will be more sign ific anly more savings than the actual cost of data Wrangler um we didn't know about the $10,000 program when we first brought this to you we didn't know about the verified Savings Program when we first brought this to you data Wrangler has been working with Public Utilities across the state of Wisconsin to encourage Public Utilities to partner with public schools for this effort and to help fund it which is what you're seeing with the $10,000 payment and the verified Savings Program uh so Ally and I have filled out the application for the verified Savings Program but we are not
091going to submit it until we know your your thoughts on this uh it has to be done by January 15 so we have a few days still but between that program the actual savings itself and Rebecca could you open up that image for just a moment if you can just make it yeah it's perfect so what you're seeing on the screen right now is the account numbers for the electrical bills for each of our facilities that are participating uh in the data Wrangler program so just ignore the district office the November 1st through November 30th savings so remember the program just started October 1st and for the first month all we were doing was gathering data so you have to turn it on to gather the data for the first 30 days um so we
092immediately made changes between November 1st and November 30th on what we were learning which reduced the utility bills by $2,513 and remember the product cost 2500 after two months worth of data 25 per year or 25 per month Y and for the second month so now that once we had two months worth of data we now were able to identify $575 worth of savings the important thing to note about the savings is that they proceed forward once you identify them so a perf example of this is data Wrangler was able to identify that our HVAC system so our air conditioning units were not uh mechanically turned off by November 1st by physically turning them off by November 1st meaning not allowing them to turn on and there are times in early November where air conditioning
093units will kick on depending on temperature humidity everything that's going on but we physically turn them off it changes the demand charges for the next 12 months on your bill um so that's just one example of one of the things that the data system found when taking a look at it so when you look at the utility savings for December 1st to December 30th the electrical bills themselves will be down $5,700 in that one month and there'll be a $2500 charge from data Wrangler so if you look at it from like a business perspective you would see in December the district is coming out ahead by having access to that data by over you know $3,000 what we just previously told you about is a bonus on top of that so what's going to happen
094is wppi is going to look at our actual bills and compare them them to the year before so they're going to take January of 25 where now that we have this program up and running our hope is we're going to save $5,700 or more in January they're going to take our January bills from the year before and they're going to incentivize the difference with a rebate back to the district for participating in this program so we will receive of course the savings on our electrical bill but then secondarily at the end of 25 we're going to see wppi supporting that effort with a grant payment back to the district so it's brand new um there's a calculation that they've got in there that shows examples of the savings and how they're going to refund districts
095back for participating we don't know what it's going to be but we know we will participate in it at a minimum it's very clear after the trial that the the savings from the program itself will exceed the cost and then you can just add the bonus of the Grant on top of it uh so we're really excited about the way this has gone uh we're excited about the fact that the board approved a three-month trial to see what this was capable of doing U I think it's important for you as board members to know um I went into every meeting with data Wrangler here in the message that to our board it is incredibly critical to make sure that we administratively in the district follow through on what these recommendations are that we don't want
096to just pay for a service to have somebody come in and give us a report and we just file it so at every meeting I've come into I've been pushing everyone whether it's our facilities department whether it's North American mechan uh who we contract with for hbac or whether it's working with our buildings for the way that we have our settings going for breaks and everything I've been walking into these meetings and saying action out of this meeting has to happen that's without question it has to happen because these savings have to happen for us to justify the trial in this investment so I want you all to know we've been taking this um as a priority we've been going into the meetings looking for this to happen and we would continue to look for
097it to happen uh but we just happen to have incredible timing with the $10,000 check we got and now this new incentive program that those two things in and of themselves are are likely going to fund data Wrangler light alone savings it was same Trent on our part I think to go forward for the year uh get their impact on what we can do in the spring and the summer and the fall similarly I'm still skeptical long term how much more we can enhance after a year with them but I given uh the savings we've had uh that that the cost will be covered and we will have savings on top of that I I would very much support going forward for for a year contract I would actually support that as well you know
098I think plat is you'll only be able to identify off the air conditioning identify something else that do the Grant in anyway shape or form require a threeyear contract um so the grant does not but they rangler does so Ally and I went through that with them um the offer that they would have for us and what they offer for other districts uh is a three-year option with a fixed fee so the fee would not change beyond the 2500 for the next three years they do not offer a oneyear only option uh the one thing that causes me to feel very very comfortable about this approach is the fact that we are committed as an administrative team to making this work we are committed to seeking any and all grants that become available right we
099didn't know about either of these two and we've pursued both the 10,000 and the other one we will pursue it if you approve this it is very very likely that other grant opportunities will present themselves over this period of time and to me this is a commitment to energy management at a level we've not been able to do before uh but it's a two-way commitment because data Wrangler has to commit the resources and the time and the Personnel to be able to tackle this the way that they need to we have to provide the commitment on our end so it's it's a question for us as to whether or not we're willing to engage in a three agreement on this um I feel like data Wrangler has given us numerous examples to Ali and I
100of districts that they've been in for more than one year that they continue to find savings and the other thing that I want to throw into this mix because I think it's critically important what we're talking about here is their base plan by engaging with data Wrangler on their three-year program I would absolutely expect that in about two to three months you're going to have Ally and I coming back to you and asking you to consider the fund 80 program which has even more significant budgetary implications than anything we're talking about right now I believe the fund 80 component is critical for us to put in place for our longterm finances the fund 80 part basically what that for the first time ever allows a district to do and it's been approved by the DPI
101is to say on a Saturday we brought in a for-profit group that caused us us to fire up that gym at 8:00 a and they were there till 5:00 p.m. they have the ability with the fund 80 component to say wany schools that cost you $500 today in your fund head your educational fund they have the ability to give us that data to say you should be charging that and all these other things to fund 80 now the board may not want to pass that on as user fees the board may want to look at that as a levy increase or the board may want to do a balance of the two but we can't get to the fund 880 part if we don't do the base part and so as Ally and I take
102a look at this we envision the base program for three years being step one in what we really want to accomplish with our utilities uh because the dollar amount for the fund 80 component is going to be somewhere between 50 and 100,000 just that part alone of being able to take a look at that and we've seen that from other districts and the use that they have in their community and we're no different we have extensive Community use at nights and weekends that without this product we can't identify it I think it was like 20% of their bill and is external use I make motion to second in favor um I do want to establish though like regular checkings to make sure that it keeps it with people re reacting to the data um and
103we'll come back to good fund 8 at that point you're paying higher rate for the service and so you're paying service to give you data that doesn't actually have a return out of investment from the standpoint of saving the district money it's to move from one bucket so you're spending to have the ability to move from one bucket to another um the data is still I mean the agreement was that we still own that data I don't know if there's another way we can get that data um or if it has to be through a third party in order to get what ultimately you want to have the ability that you if there's a way that we can collect our own data to do that I don't know what that is right so yeah yeah
104no absolutely we appreciate the dialogue and uh we will continue to bring information forward so you can see how this is performing and Ally and I are going to look to work with data Wrangler on real life examples of other districts that have implemented the funding so you can see the actual numbers with what they're able to do but as an example there's appropriate expenditures in fund 10 that we know we need to come up with dollars for but yet we know inside fund 10 we're paying for weekend activ acties in our buildings that have nothing to do with fun so whether we could create a way to figure this out ourselves or whether we would use this product we know there's additional steps with this data that would be very helpful to us as
105we look at our long-term financial planning I'm thinking you know you're hooking this up so that then you can capture that data you know and segregate between what you do on weekends evenings versus what you do day I would suspect that that would be very difficult for us to do without this to capture yeah and I think the key behind it is ultimately in the end the DPI is very protective of the use of fund 80 for districts and asks Auditors to look at everything that the district is doing in fund 0 because it's outside of the revenue limit for formula so the fact that data Wrangler was able to get the DPI written approval to approve this was a big deal it doesn't mean it's the only way that it could be done but
106it's just one of those things we want to explore because you don't want to do something like this unless you know that it passes dpi's accounting requirements or otherwise you just completely wasted your time I think the other thing too to your point you get the coming in now you can set your fees according you know because energy is not going down to show us that it's you're you're five% that and to your what just to add on to what you're saying Jack is four profit groups are pivoting towards schools who we not doing this because they're moving to places where they can use the gym at a very low cost for their organization and what is being seen across the state is when boards have the data and then say well you're going to
107pay the utility bill if you're going to use our gym all day on Saturday they're then going to a district that isn't doing this is what's happening is saying well Wan key is going to charge us $500 for a whole weekend tournament to use the gym and turn the lights and heat and everything we're actually going to go 20 minutes to the north to a district not doing that and we're going to use their gym and everyone that's going to participate just going to drive a little bit further well and if they do it it's not a financial L to us either right yeah so just interesting things happening in this right more more people as all right thank you all for your time today second okay all approved I I that moct Jack don't
108forget to come back tomorrow morning