001I now call this special meeting of the extra county board of education to order. Roll call, please. Jan Craig. Here. Sherry Dean. Here. Susan King. Here. William Parker. Present. Roy Wager. Present. I'm here. Tim Dorico. Present. April Sonic. Present. >> Sarah Wills. Present. Elaine Pugh. Present. Madam President. Laura Campbell Ford. If [clears throat] you would please rise for the pledge of allegiance. The flag is in the back left corner. Mr. Parker, will you lead us this evening? I pledge allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty [clears throat] and justice for all. You have been provided with an agenda. Are there any additions or adjustments to the agenda? No, ma'am, as presented. I would entertain a motion
002to accept the agenda for this special meeting as presented. So moved. Mr. Parker. Second. Mr. Wager. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. >> [clears throat] >> This is an informational meeting regarding the budget considerations. It's actually in our what we call a formal hearing for our budget for FY 27. Before Sarah shares anything with you, I would just like to say thank you to everybody at the central office and particularly Sarah because this is has taken a lot of work. It's There's been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears through this because we really were trying our best um to get expenses what we knew what was coming up for the FY 27 down as low as we could. We started back in October, believe it or not, looking at
003things and we did work with the state as well and they have looked over this and I wish we could say that we didn't have to dip back into carryover to make this balance but we did our very best and and and we did reduce and you know we just have to continue to watch it our finances as we move forward in FY 27. So I know Sarah has some things that she provided and would like to go ahead and share and let you take it away. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I provided all the board members with like a handout but some different um yes, sheets that kind of explain the budget a little bit little different ways to look at things. Um so in your packet on sheet A this is our projected um
004budget for fiscal year 27. This is includes fund 11 and fund 61. We don't have one exclusive You got you you it was emailed to you. >> It was in the regular packet. Yeah. Oh, I thought you meant it's just now you have one. Okay. I got you. Yeah, there should have been like a pretty little thing on the front of it and like bunch of them. >> [laughter] >> Before you get to that though. That's right. Yeah. I saw [laughter] that. Yeah. Um so sheet A in that packet um like I said is the estimated expenditures and revenues for fiscal year 27. Um in fund 11 um where our estimated revenues are going to be about 38.7 million dollars for next year. Um majority of that of course is our state sources from state
005aid. Um and then the other remainder most of it will be our local sources which is basically our some of our property taxes. Um estimated expenditures um instruction of course is our biggest one with about 22 million and then our next two biggest ones are our facilities and transportation which both are around like 4 million. Um Our fund 61, um this is basically made up of like our title funding, special ed, um child nutrition. Um that will come to about $6.8 million. Um then a majority of that will be um in instruction and of course our food services or child nutrition. Um on the next page on B, um is just current or fund 13. Um and that is just a comparison from 26 to 27, so you can see the increases and decreases. Um
006and it breaks out the estimated revenues a little bit more. Um so as you can see our property taxes um went up a little bit, like $91,000. Um other local sources, um we increased that by 100,000. Um which the majority of that is um interest or miscellaneous revenue that we get in during the year. Um and that increase of that 100,000 is due to or getting an increase in interest, so we bumped up that budget to better um account for that for next year. Um state sources, you can see our state aid um and other unrestricted state aid went down this year. Um which is due to a decrease in enrollment, so we're getting less state aid. Um federal sources increased about 200,000. Um that's our Medicaid. Um so based on historical data, um I
007increased that for this year to make that more accurate. And then like um Mrs. Miller was saying, we tried to um not use as much carryover this year as we have been to balance that. We were trying to hit zero, but we're we're unable to get there, but um we did decrease that by 830,000 dollars for this year. So we're only going to use 1. um next year instead of the 2.1 million. Um And then, of course, then it has a breakdown of the expenditures, the increases and decreases based off of our increase in revenue. Um then, the next page is a pie chart um which [cough] is basically helps show what the majority of our expenses are, which of course 58% is going to be for instruction. Um and our other two big ones
008are facilities and transportation. Uh facilities with 10% and student revenue with another 11% of our overall budget. Then, the next page um item C is fund 61, and that's the same thing. I comparison between 26 and 27, um so you can kind of see where we're increasing or decreasing um in revenue, which of course most of it is a decrease. Um And that one for the our federal sources, it's decreasing by like 135,000 um to a total of 5. about 5.4 million. Um that is mainly for like our Title One, some special ed, and our child nutrition. Um We did not have the special ed numbers for this year whenever we completed the budget yet. Um so, we always use the actual amount that we got for fiscal year 26 to use that for 27
009until we get those updated numbers. Um but title, we had received that those new allocations for this year. Excuse me. What what's uh special revenue fund 61? What's that referred to? 61? This fund 61? Yeah, that's kind of anything that's like restricted that like so if any grants that you get or like our so your title all your title funds, your special ed, your um child nutrition. Cuz I think back on in the um handout, I kind of explained a little bit um about that. So, it's like a fund used um to account for legally restricted purposes such as your state and federal grants. Um and yeah, projects to be included in that is all federal and state grants that we receive um and any local projects that are restricted by another agency. Okay, thanks.
010Mhm. So, on that sheet you can see from fiscal year '26 to '27, um we are estimating a decrease in revenues of like 264,000. Um and the majority of that, the decrease um in your expenses is going to be for your support services um for your students and instructional staff. And then the next page is another pie chart, and that's just of the fund 61, like how much of like the show the breakdown of expenditures for that. Um so, the biggest part of that is going to be child nutrition, which is 43%. Um instruction is 35, and then the next biggest one is instructional staff of 14%. Okay, I'm sorry. What's transfers on that pie chart? Um that is like transfers from fund 11 to fund 61 for like the indirect costs. Um the next
011page on D, um this is kind of taking the '26 budget that we had on the very first page on page A and comparing it to '27. So, all those changes in the right-hand columns are the increases and mainly mostly decreases of money that we're receiving. So, you can kind of see the differences um in that of what we're decreasing. Um as you can see, state sources um are decreasing by 1.6 million for the year. So, that's the our biggest hit for the year. Um and like we said before, we tried to decrease our carryover that we're using. So, we decrease that by 830,000. Um So, in turn, you have that decrease in revenue. So, then you have to decrease your expenses. Um the majority of the that decrease um is in our instruction as
012well as some of the other bigger ones are like school admin um and some of our debt services decreased um because we had that big Apple lease that will be paid off the end of this year. So, I'm going to have um one Apple for next year. The next page on E um this is fund 11 again, but just kind of a different way to look at it. Um so, it breaks out the revenues a little bit different. Um so, you can kind of see your final state aid then taking out some of the other funds that we have to um move into fund like 61. Um and then at the bottom, I've put the expenditures so you can see the majority of our expenditures is payroll. Um so, 80% of our expenditures in fund
01311 is payroll related and that only leaves us 20% to kind of deal with for everything else, for the maintenance and facilities and transportation and everything else we need to run the system. Um then the next page is just basically a pie chart of that to show that 80% of our um expenditures are payroll and salary related in fund of 11. Next page on page F, I gave you kind of a breakdown of the state aid formula, all the different steps that they have and how much money we received and the comparison from 26 to 27. Um so you can see down at the bottom that we had a decrease in the state aid uh 771,000 approximately. And then I tried to give you on the next page like a graph from fiscal year 20
014to 27, the amount of state aid that we've got or received, so then you can see how um that's starting to decline and um and then on the next page is our enrollment history. So, a lot of the state aid is based off of enrollment, so you can see enrollments going down, so our state aid in turn will then keep decreasing if enrollment keeps decreasing. Um then I also gave you a 5-year comparison of the local tax comparisons. Um so you can see last year we had went we had decreased revenue from taxes at like 240,000, but this year we're increasing a little bit by like 91,000. So, not a whole lot, but better than definitely better than going down. Um and and some of the salary [clears throat] and staffing info included in the
015budget, um the legislature did pass a pay raise um for next year. So, professional will get 1,560 a year and service personnel will get $870 a year. Um so, that is figured into the budget. Um also, PEIA premium is going to increase 3%. Um and I'm sure as you all are aware, we did have to make several personnel changes in you know, in anticipation of all these decreases in state aid. Um some of the non-salary info, um again, that's talking about the Apple lease. Um we'll have one current uh uh lease for next year for the high school that we entered into this fiscal year. Um and that annual payment is around 147,000. Um 26 of that will come out of fund 11 and the the remainder will come out of the tools for schools
016grant that we normally get. Um and the extension office and the public library were doing the same contributions that we did in years past. Um then on the next page it kind of like we were talking about a little bit before um about the special revenue and what all that consists of. And then the next page I kind of gave you a breakdown. So if you're wondering on fund 61 like what makes up the local sources, the state sources, um federal, and then the transfers in. Um so that kind of gives you a breakdown of those expenditures as well. So you can kind of see how much we're getting um for title for special ed. Um and if we did not have the current numbers for next year, I put um the fiscal year 26
017amount cuz that's the amount we're using. We're not we don't have the current info at this time. Um and then I also provided you just a count the calendar for next year. Um and then the account code structure um to kind of give you a little explanation of there's like eight different sections of our account code and what each code means and that to you know, help make that budget. Um excuse me, can I ask a quick question? I'm sorry. I meant I didn't want to interrupt you before, but the tools for schools, is that a grant that we apply for every year? And have we been approved for it for next year? Um we usually get that every year. Um it's through an application in GPS. So we'll get how much funding we get
018and then um our director of technology has to go in and say how we're going to use those funds every year. I mean, is that something Have we Have we applied for it already? It has to be applied It It has a different due date. Um most of them have to be in by June 30, but Tools for Schools runs a little bit later than that. But he already He already knows what he's going to put enter in there. So he's just waiting to see the final figures. So there's not any way we are not going to get that. No. We've got Well, we've gotten it as long as I've been here. Every year. It might It decreases a little bit every year like um but it's normally around like 120,000. That's I think what
019it was for this year. On your chart of accounts, how far do you carry out your budget when you budget uh in the accounting? If I remember right, we do not budget all the way out to seven or eight. Right, yeah. Seven and eight we usually don't use or [clears throat] six the cost center is um it was mainly for like COVID money or some of our title four now we have to code to like the cost centers. Um I know all of our salary information is budgeted out to the location. Okay. Um some of our other expenses this year I tried to if I knew like where the location was going to be, I tried to budget a little bit better this year and make that more fine-tuned um cuz I know before I
020we would leave off the location on some of the things like if we knew we're going to spend an amount here, but we didn't know where the locations were yet. Um so some of that still occurred, but I did try to pinpoint and like get it to the locations a little bit better for next year. Okay. Okay. And I think that's pretty much it. And the last page is um they kind of gave a new format this year whenever we go to publish this in the paper and kind of combined it all on the one page. Um so it does have the the general current expense fund is the fund 11. Um, the special revenue fund is the fund 61. Sarah, may I ask a question off of page F? Yes. Um, it's where we've
021added for for FY23, we started adding for charter schools. And that number has changed um, a good bit for next year. Can you explain what that money is for and why we've changed that much? >> Um, I think that is to help like the any of the kids that are enrolled in the charter schools that are starting to come about, then um, they get some of our state aid funding for those kids that are coming from our school district. >> ed students, etc. No? I don't know about the special ed part. It's just charter but I think it's just charter school like whoever's enrolled in that charter school that's from our county. Okay. So that of course more people are enrolling in those charter schools, so that number is increasing because they're so they're taking
022money basically away from >> Taking more of our money away from so we That's what I'm getting at with that too, but to the charter schools. But there's $116,000 [clears throat] is a pretty significant increase. Last year we had a late purchase order for I think it was special ed related. Approximately $2 million that sort of blew up our SBA grant. Have we double checked that we don't have that type of encumbrance coming forward? Yeah, yeah, yes. So the personnel moves that were made um, that will help alleviate a large sum of having to do any of those services. Okay. Um, I was asked the other day if I would approve a contract for an additional um, person and I said, "No, not at this time." I said, until we see the whites of their
023eyes, I said, "I'm not going to have anybody enter into a contract that's going to cost us additional funding at this point when they won't actually receive the services until next year." So, we're hopeful that as things stand right now, we've moved people into and they're certified to be in those special ed positions. You know, it is worthy because I look the other day when we wrote the legislature, we said, you know, we don't get funding for occupational therapy or physical therapy. So, you know, that those are but we have to have them if the services are required. So, you know, it it's Yeah, as you well know, cuz you used to do budgets, it's a tug-of-war. So, we're hope we're hopeful that you know, what we've done is is is going to to stay
024like it is right now. >> [clears throat] >> You know, and and I mean, I will just say again, not having an excess levy does does impact our abilities to do and [cough] support a lot of the things that we'd like to be able to support. Um you know, I I hear from the community all the time why they don't feel comfortable in passing one. Um and while I understand that, um you know, I'm leaving so I feel like I have to say this. Um we're hurting kids if we're not going to pass an excess levy in the long run. That's who hurts. Um the people and what happened in the past, we're never going to change that. So, we really need to think about moving forward and and what are we going to do
025and how are we going to do that? Because this community really does believe in in education and making sure that that our kids are receiving a quality education and the folks, even the ones who are sitting in the room and those who are not here, and those that will be honored this evening will tell you that that it it is their life life work life's work and we as a community and and I will always say we because I feel that Buchanan has become my home again, just like it was when I was a little kid and came over here all the time. But we have to think about the kids first and foremost and and I understand budgets are strained. I have a husband sitting at home thinking oh my god she's going to
026retire and our budget is going to be terrible but it's not. It's not but you know when you think about pennies on a dollar and and what it can do for our students it it's really important that that we figure out a way to to really get a quality access levy together and work on on getting that passed because that will that will really assist in in helping this system continue to move forward. So I I just had to add that to this discussion because I I know people here they they believe in what we're doing and they're seeing the improvements that we're making and it doesn't happen overnight and and people have they bought into this and and our folks in our schools are working hard and and I just need people in the
027community to understand that that we need your support. We need your support. We're fighting the good fight every day and if whatever you can do to help us we really would appreciate that help. Do you have any additional information? That's it for me unless somebody else has anything. >> [laughter] >> Is there a motion? Any questions? There are no other questions or no other presentation I will accept a motion for adjournment. So moved. This is me. Second. Second. Mr. Parker. We are officially adjourned at 5:53.