001for e e for Pat Bradford Tim Merrick here Kim Clark here Jana lenen Hannah Mo Moon Philip Sutton Charlene Thompson here Jared Worthington here Stephanie Walker Rob zapple Eric cradle here Amanda kusak here Lisa warts Boer here uh Natalie English here all right John hennet Christopher Riley yep yeah some people sneaking in late okay so we're going to move on and we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance Dr War's going to lead us I pledge allegiance to the flag of the the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and do you want to see any uh we Jared worington is going to lead us in the invocation God we thank you for the opportunity to come together today
002uh we have a Gifts of talent and time and service and we are using them all today to benefit uh those who are going to be the most influential in our future God so we pray that uh this time is an opportunity for us to reflect on uh the great things we've done in the past and looking forward to great opportunities we get to provide to every single one of the students who walk through our door do we pray for them we pray for their well-being and our staff as they continue uh to do things that are necessary that they've been called to do uh which is enriching the lives of our kids we ask this in your name amen [Applause] amen all right um we need approve the agenda someone like to make a
003motion to approve the agend sove and a second second all right we have motion to approve in a second all in favor that vote say hi hi on not in favor say no that passes um not [Music] sure okay so and the minutes the same thing did anybody look at the minutes that has a question on them I felt good about them um I'm approval okay thank you and um so now English on the on the the yes and Dr mer on the second so all in favor say I I and all oppos say no that passes still I'm not sure on the count just yet it's increasing by the moment and we are going to move right into allotment formulas and I know y' all got up this morning you said I need to
004know more about allotment formulas but it's really fascinating he's going to talk real slow and you're doing it are you not yes that's fine Ashley is that good with you yes that's fine before before we get started can I um share just a couple of things that were came up in the last meeting please okay so um in the last me meeting and if you refer back to the minutes just to refresh our memory um there was a question about acronyms and we wanted to make sure we provided that thank you Miss Clark for helping us with those acronyms um and then of course if something comes up that we want to add to this list we'll certainly be glad to do that um so we'll keep a list going to help us out as
005we have these meetings um and then the other thing that came up in our previous meeting um you should have and I'm not sure where it is in your packet but you have a little chart with position information on it it's got two P graphs um the question came up when we were looking at forward facing and non-forward facing positions how many of those were teacher and teacher assistance so as you can see here um 54.5 % are teachers and 12.1 makes up um the teacher assistant number so there you can see the the breakdown of the forward facing position so I wanted to make sure I followed up on those questions from the last meeting before we started thank you thank you Ashley okay we're sort to be working off of two documents so
006if you want to look in your rather extensive packet of materials you'll see one that says State allotments it's uh I guess this is letter not landscape and you see another one that says new Handover County Schools allotment formula so we're going to sort of be switching back and forth between these two and I think it's hopefully a chance for you guys to get a little bit of a sense of the some of the challenges that we're working through together all right so looking at the state one first your state dollar allotments the state gives us our positions in and there's a picture of it up there if you want to see it the state gives us in three three different ways so they do what's called state dollar allotments which means sometimes they just
007say here's a pot of money to do this with and those are things like teacher assistance instructional material non instructional support M those those kind of groupings so if you look behind that the second page is called position allotments and those are positions they give us as a position and this teachers is probably the most the OB most obvious one the state will say you have 1,00 teachers your job is to figure out where they go now obviously for us our local dollars and our federal dollars come in dollar amounts the state comes a lot of it stuff in position a lots so to a to the state a teacher is a teacher is a teacher what Ashley and her department will do is ensure the highest paid teachers we have end up on the
008state ticket because they'll cover a position regardless of the cost we cover more of our beginning teachers things like that through our federal and our and our local dollars because the dollars go further if that makes sense all right and then the third one is something called categorical allotments and those are some things we'll go through together so I just want to highlight a few things that are in this state allotment formula I think are are going to be things you want to be able to process because what we're also going to do is go through some of our information that we're bringing forward to the board is that what we're doing as well correct all right so I want to make sure that you guys so know some of the Nuance to this if
009you look on the first page of state dollar state dollar allotments teacher assistance is the sign a second group down don't worry if that formula makes no sense you need a master's degree in teacher assistant allotment to get it I think the most relevant piece that you want to look at is over to the right where it says the factor used in allocation is $ 46,2 se2 that is what the state says the salary and benefits for a teacher assistant is it's important to know that our average teacher assistant salary is a dollar an hour more than the state's average so when the state thinks they're sending us it's about 160 170 they think they're sending us the equivalent of $170 dollar 170 teacher assistants dollar amount it only covers about 145 for us because
010we pay our teacher assistance more so I want you to realize that that doesn't come out as a one for1 if that makes sense and if you go down you'll see the amount of money they give for other items on the second page is the position allotments and I want to highlight just a couple of them because we've talked about them before as you can see down there the teacher assistant allotments uh teacher allotments excuse me for all the different grade levels but I want to make sure you see one thing in particular grades 10 through 12 and this is something that Hannah had spoken about earlier they'll give us one teacher for every 29 students in a building the only way you have all of your classes at a high school under 30 is
011if every single class every single period at every single school is the same size obviously you know that that's impossible also so every time you have a class of um AP Statistics with 14 kids in it you end up with a class with 35 in it because that balance has to happen Okay so just be aware that that's a specific trigger all of our CTE classes which are a lot of Hands-On activities uh 20 kids in a opening class no more than 6 in a second level class because you don't want 30 kids juggling chainsaws in a construction Department in in a construction class right so you want to keep those numbers small you don't have more than 16 or 18 in a second level class that's doing culinary arts okay so those are some
012of the things you have to realize that those impact on the numbers a little bit the two I want to make sure I I share with you specifically halfway down on the second page is instructional support now I'm sorry but I will bang this drum forever or at least till June 30 of 2028 um instructional support is a bucket that has media coordinator counselor social worker instructional coaching one more time yes pleas media coordinator social worker counselor instructional coach that's what the state considers instructional support now if somebody has their phone handy we're just going to use 25,000 students to make it simpler if someone would take 25,000 students and divide that by 417 and tell me the number 59.95 call that 60 where I'm from okay the state gives us 60 positions for all
013of our schools for all of those things not 60 of each just 60 we have 76 counselors alone we have 30 social workers and we're supposed to only have 25 we have 35 media coordinators and that doesn't even touch the instructional coaches so when you see and when we talk about the impact that we have to go to our local dollars for this is why this alone is why so I said blah let's go ahead and say what if you gave us one of each for 417 instead of just one I thought that won't be that much money for just us it increases our budget by $14 million a year if I had a social worker a media coordinator and a counselor in every school it would cost $14 million more than what they're giving
014us right now I think that's a significant number to be aware of it would cost $14 million sorry not $14 million more because obviously that would be a lot but we also know that a school like Laney we'll go to Laney and I we use Ashley one counselor is enough for you guys right right that's okay so I've showed you sort of the the the pressure point with that if you go a couple steps down assistant principles you'll see again uh Jared since you're my calculator genius here grab 25,000 again and divide that by 98.53 and then divide that by 10.5 you should get 20 24 23 divided by 98.53 and then divide that by 10.5 24.16 okay where I come from and call that 24 that's the number of assistant principles the district gets
01524 and that's a state required position and how many schools do we have 45 yeah does anyone want to take a stab at how many APS we actually have 57 good man you nailed it you're not don't even work with me and you got that 57 which means we're coming to our County Commissioners for more money they pay more of our assistant principles than the state does so those are a couple of pressure points that I want to make sure that when we go to the other sheet are going to come come out and make sense all right you slip to the third page with categorical allotments I'm just going to draw your attention to the bottom which is academically intellectually gifted this is a good one they will give us $1,492 yep Jared go
016ahead and pick up your phone for every 4% of our ADM so we're going to use 25,000 again Jared multiply that by 4% okay multiply that by 1492 Columbus sa the ocean blue that is 1,493 590 now the average teacher salary plus benefits is 80 grandish okay just 80 divide by 80 yep and you're going to get about 18.53% yeah we don't get the value of what some of these things are now we we've been talking to our legislators we know the concerns these are obvious concerns but why I want you to to have those things in your mind a little bit is when we go to our next sheet okay now we're going to go to our landscape sheet okay how many academically gifted teachers do we actually have so you should have two
017landscape sheets so you want to look at the one that's 2024-25 allotment formulas there's a second one that says proposals but we're going to hold off on that one okay so they look exactly the same except for that 2526 thing okay in the proposal and we'll start right out of the gate so if you want to have some funsies go to your second page on this one and your first page on this one and we'll look at assistant principles comparatively speaking and you're going to see what John was just mentioning a minute ago we provide two APS for every one of our middle schools we give four AP P to every one of our traditional high schools and I think both Charlene and Hannah would say that's barely cutting it out and that's barely making
018it doe now when you add up that formula because we have to have some way to take the state's money and parse it out we have to have some Fair way of making sure that happens so this is the formula we use for APS for classroom teachers and you can see it all the way down the Mi down the mix now I will tell you something that that we all believe very strongly that it matters more about the quality skills and efficacy of the teacher than it relies on the number of students in the room Hannah would you think that's a true statement okay so in other words I'd rather have 33 in Hannah's room learning English than three teachers of 15 a piece where I can't be assure of the quality or expertise that
019they're bringing to the table okay so class size is not the only factor to consider when you're looking at how kids learn however there is a number right having 45 in a room is a problem right and I know you don't have 45 please tell me you don't have 45 all right thank goodness I asked a kid the other day he's like I got 47 in my chemistry class I was like No god um but you can see here some of the things that we've had to wrestle with is specifically special ed now if you look at the teacher assistant formula we give two Tas for every three kindergarten classes and one for every two first and second grade classes the reason we don't have third grade in there anymore is I took all 17
020of those Tas that we would have earned and gave them to special ed because they could not find enough special teachers uh Tas with the money we were provided so we are finding now that we're having to sort of cut in some places to get there in others and there's just still not enough so you can look through this all the way through if you like it just basically gives us our road map for how schools get positions another thing you're going to see let's go on the second page two down you're going to or three down you're going to see gifted education teachers that's AIG every traditional element school has one all of our middle schools have one and our high schools share one I will tell you just out of the gate that
021doesn't make 18 makes 30 is okay counselors again 60 total for all those buckets I told you about earlier we've got 67 counselors just alone so these are some of the daily struggles that we have do we think that every school needs a guidance counselor yes but if you go back up to the top of that sheet do I think that every elementary school should have their own art music and PE yep but the state only gives you one of those positions for every 191 kids that you have so none of our elementary schools except our five largest earn all of their positions for enrichment by themselves and if we go back to the AP none of our none of our middle schools gain one all by themselves either so this is where that struggle
022between how do we work with our County Commissioners to share our needs in a way that the County Commissioners don't go this is some of the stuff the state should be doing and there's that balance that we have to figure out where do we find and we try to Advocate with our general assembly with our legislators about the needs for schools as well so I think Ashley that covers it a little bit but I will ask questions and second this is the formula State use this is we know what kids need and we have to do what kids need see now my mic dropped moment now I'll open up for questions before we go to questions can I add some information so the third document you have thank you yes the third document you have
023is the 2526 allotment formula proposals and so please keep in mind that we're still in our own budget work sessions with our board so this isn't necessarily final however the only changes that we're making to the allotment formulas compared to last year is if you go to the third page middle of the page is where we um start listing the formulas for non-personnel type things so instructional supplies and um custodial supplies those type things um the change that we're making if you compare to the current year to and and this document um in the current year we're actually funding $65 per student um for instructional supplies and we are going to change that to $60 per student and for prek instructional supplies in the current year we're funding $130 per student and we're going to
024reduce that to $120 per student so those are the only changes that we currently have proposed for these formulas yes yes um actually so two questions actually one is how that present that represents some savings can you tell us how much and then um secondly um uh are there any expectations that there might be an increase somewhere else in an Ask of the County commission we're still calculating that in one regard but I will tell you that that is just to try to we're trying to find a way that no school has to lose a staff member in any other way and things have become so expensive that this is the only way we can balance um if I recall correctly and I do apologize I don't have that book with me today it was
025around 130,000 I believe um and that funding is going to help um we had a request come in related to athletic equipment we've had so the increases for officials and for um the booking agents related to Athletics have gone up so much that our schools haven't been able to um replace athletic equipment and we're concerned that it could be a safety issue for us and so we're going to use this money to help the schools purchase that those um the athletic equipment we feel like they need um because the other option was if we we felt like if we didn't replace um that equipment that we might really need to look at the offerings for the Athletics and we certainly didn't want them to have to do that I want to also share with you
026this is what life is like when we don't access our fund balance when you don't what access our fund balance this is some of the challenges that we live with because I can't find $120,000 to help with the athletic equipment any other way couple of other points can I address that just real quick yeah please Natalie I had suggested didn't go over well but because I have three people from the business Community here I had suggested that we could find Community Partners that could help us pick up that slack um not in terms of crowdfunding but there have got to be some businesses in the chamber and so are that are that are that are wanting to do more but they just don't know what to do and that would be an area where they
027could help on and it it sounds funny to have a a school supply drive but um you know that's what we're talking about five bucks on um supplies per students and 10 bucks um on them I think many many communities not necessarily the chamber in all of those communities but but encourage businesses to support things like school supplies sometimes it's a drive sometimes it's money and sometimes it's both I think um I think there's some missing infrastructure at the school system for that I think businesses are going to be really uncomfortable writing a check to the school system if there was a a school Foundation there might be more willing to consider writing a check so there's some semantics that would need to be worked out I don't I don't think it's without question and
028again last year what we were able to do because we were careful because we cut out different things and because we looked at saving money we were able to push some money back out to schools in October right now my goal isn't to increase our fund balance exponentially is to put things where they're needed so when we get to next year and we've done all of our reconciling of our books and we're being managing our money carefully found money will get spent back after schools and I'll talk with principles and if that's what they say they need the most then we'll effort that as we can but right now I've got to bring the board a Balan budget and a quick a quick fix would if we're think we're going to put that money towards
029the athletic equipment improvements you know like broken football helmet things we just can't do without then maybe we could find somebody out in the community that wanted to support that athletic equipment Endeavor and then the money could come back into the into the supplies you know it's just it's just a matter of moving across the balance sheet whichever is more palatable to somebody out in the community I I not don't want to speak for my board yet but I think we we would consider the school supplies before we would consider the Athletics so I think that's got to be a different kind of an Ask where's um so I know that some play soccer hand that was one thing boosters certain schools have better resources than others use that certain schools yeah the high school
030levelar the Alum um how does that fit into the mix they just do those PCOS or those booster clubs they have sole discretion on how they invest their money or it booster clubs stay completely separate in school counts for all sorts of reasons but the cost of uh it's a lot of hot dogs to get a a football helmet the football but we're also talking about increases in the cost of coaches uh increase in the cost of officials increases in the cost of of um all the materials and all the equipment plus all the the the cost of the officials and things like that go up every year and we were trying to not increase the cost of the tickets either to get back on that just for example yesterday um Vice Sheriff Barnhart said
031that in her PTO she's one of three one of three and you and I was like well certainly yours has got to you know be full she's like no just there three of us so it's it's a it's problem well my kids are greater was was well the fun events were well attended but yeah doz we did that deliberately okay I didn't mean to labor it but I I just I just wanted to put that eye out there you never know who you're going to talk to tomorrow it might get help Madam chair yes I have a question Mr go ahead are we at that point yes sir you are uh let's go Upstream you're cutting the instruction under the $60 uh $65 per student down to 60 how much does it actually cost are
032teachers paying out of their own pocket as a result of this they already are so yes right teachers I'd like to hear from them that because I know that's a perception I'd like to hear the reality of what this means to the teachers and to the classrooms we try okay just saying and if they are paying out of their pocket or refusing to pay out of their pocket what is it that the children are not receiving when you say instructional materials now instruction and Kim if you want to jump in you certainly caner or Jan or Phil the instructional Supply money is not a pass through that 100% of that turns into money in a teacher's account for their own classroom you also have to account for schoolwide materials as well including things like paper
033and The copier and all those kinds of things as well we try to provide the teachers with every resource that we can workbooks things like that but teachers there's a difference between is this a job or is this a craft right and teachers want their kids to learn and teachers have passions in things that they want to add into their classroom environment and make those things more accessible and better for kids it's an individual teacher thing I could never say you're spending too much money and you're not spending enough but it is a is it real that teachers have to buy stuff out of their own pocket yes but it's also real that I can't get enough staff in a building either and principal jump in please you know each year um we designate an
034amount of money that each individual teacher will be able to spend on instructional supplies uh this past year it was $100 uh it has been a little bit more uh in the past um we try to keep it around that between 100 and 150 something like that that's what they'll spend for the things that they need to run their classroom for a whole year I can tell you that's not going to get it uh in a classroom uh all the uh you know supplies for a lab and a science class um you know those kinds of things they're still going to need some of that and we're going to provide more um you know based on departments and what they they need um but that $100 is to help in many cases keep kids with
035paper keep kids with uh notebooks um you know some of those uh uh things that uh scissors um construction paper those types of things that they're going to need manipula for uh in class um some of those bigger items like lab materials we'll sit down with departments and and uh you know novels and and things like that and and take a look at that um but the the $100 just not going to do it and so when they need it they come to us and they ask for more um but in many cases they they're going to spend out AET make I would I would just also add it's also maintaining and fixing things that are also broken so whiteboards you know we use whiteboards all the time in the classrooms our Math teachers love
036whiteboards they break almost every year we've got to replace whiteboards a whiteboard cost you 150 bucks so it's yes it's also making sure that our media center is current if we're trying to teach non-fictional text and and informational text to children they don't want to read way they want the current information non-information the informational text that's current so our mtac teams media technology committees are tasked with looking at making sure that the books that our kids have access to are also current so part of that too is making sure that we're supplying kids with books in the media center also you're talking your I know Arts is on there too but a lot of times in order to get all the materials for our Arts departments and sometimes our CTE departments it's tapping into that
037instructional fund balance to get all of the materials for our kids in the classroom thank you um Dr mer I'm grateful to have uh so many Educators in the room because I ask these questions all the time and we see in the media that uh Statewide they're saying that the average educator spends about $1,000 of their own money every year now is that hyperbole I'm asking you guys if what do you know no I spend a ton of money my husband does too so in terms of what they're saying about supplies yes I've got supplies I got $150 in August I spent it on construction paper things that I knew that I would need notebooks for my kids but my kids took a check-in the other day I knew that some of them were going
038to eat breakfast so I went out and bought muffins and some drinks and things like that because I knew my kids needed that I provide breakfast for my AP students before as well because they get there real early we have a early morning cray session but those are things I want to do right I want to have pink pom poms hanging from my classroom ceiling so I buy those are there certain things we don't have yes no red Inc is a grammar program that we like it costs $10,000 and Mr little had to say no does that help raise EOC scores yes can I do without it sure but would it be nice yes this year he bought us a cheaper program which is great to actively learn at about $3,000 can I do without
039that sure but are teachers spending their own money yes but it is those extra things that make the classroom special and and welcoming and all of those things which also impacts scores too yeah yeah and and her ability to differentiate so to meet the unique needs of all the kids in the classroom we can't challenge kids unless we have these types of programs so many of the programs that we purchase and use were were able to then Challenge and and progress Monitor and make adjustments based on kids success because we've got these other programs that we're using and one of the points of what we're doing right here is looking down the road because if we've lost between 2 and 3,000 students in the last four years we want to bring all those students back
040and it's those things that you're doing that are going to bring the students back and what you're talking about putting that money back in is the equivalent of only one teacher and one teacher assistant in the entire District like so when you think about Jesus that's a big hit I was floored when you know Ashley and I work together and we found a million dollars that we had cut cost and save what we put out in in October if you remember I drove home going a million dollars you found a million dollars it's going to be hundreds of people it was 18 or 20 maybe it was 20 and I it was such a let down cuz for us sitting at this table for educators a million dollars sounds like a lot of money and
041you'll be amazed that that $5 doesn't go as far as you think that it does MH yeah I felt that way with the um you know we had the consultant come in and the results of that is possibly because it's not like it's found money it's we have to do things to get it but it's the net gain is going to be about $410,000 I'm like you know but it doesn't go very far um I'll just say that I'm sure that you had a specific purpose for why you were doing that change from 65 to 60 um because there is is something else that is a cost that we can't as easily fundraise or ask for Community donations for so you were just making a a a choice for something that we currently offer students
042that would not um impact us not being able to fully have those Athletics um I do appreciate that because that's something I might not be able to recreate myself at every individual school um so you know I I feel like when there are big ticket dollar items um I trust your judgment on needing those dollars somewhere to protect positions or huge expenses um you guys know we always can use more instructional supplies um for me at my school that $5 would be about $2,000 so um right $5 times 400 kids 2000 is that what we're talking about right so just to give you perspective of what that would be from my instructional supplies and we find that it's easier to give a hundred people one paper cut than give one person a 100 paper cuts
043but this is the reality of the of what we have to do every day I know schools have to ration paper you get you get one um ream of paper for The copier and you have to bring your paper with you to the copier it's like bargaining there are back room deals it's like there's a black market paper OT thing in the building but this is the this is the life of an educator so you know one of our goals is to increase student enrollment which will increase that ADM which will spread across the pie that's that's what we've got to do that's our goal right here so I follow up wonderful conversation I suspected exactly what you said you just give detail so thank you why did we cut $5 out of the instructional
044and $10 out of the pre instructional you know it seems like it's because it's somewhat invisible because you're right you kind of plow it all together there but after hearing this that that doesn't seem to be doesn't seem to be right and then to kind of push it towards Athletics and i' say this as you know somebody who played three Sports through my entire High School career and I I've had to play with you know jerseys that were handy Downs Etc so I I have a great fondness for that but it seems to me this is not the right place to do it uh to try and save five bucks per student or 10 bucks per student it's actually doing more harm to the adults who are trying to do the right thing well we're
045also adults trying to do the right thing too but I think some of and and I just used that as an example the Athletics we're also seeing an increase in any number of other things as well that was just a real easy kind of transition it doesn't say that 100% of this money is going to turn into this money but what we're experiencing is cost of increases everywhere and so when we look at the whole budget and of course we have to bring our budget to the board still and if the board says Hey we'd really rather not do this you have to do that then we'll have to find a way to find that $130,000 or whatever it was whether that's through cutting positions whether that's through um you know it's hard because again
046when we talked before 83% of our of our operating expenses are tied up in people so if I have to take a million dollars from somewhere $830,000 of that has to be in people or we don't do things like buy workbooks to increase the instructional programs that we already have purchased or we don't get laptops when a kid breaks theirs I I I'm not saying that we're we're cutting instructional money so we can buy more athletic equipment we're just saying we have a safety need and that's just one example of what we're talking about and in this allotment formula we try very very hard after last summer to not cut staff and the only way to do that is to have to cut something or rely on the state or the County Commissioners or the
047federal government to give us more and I'll say this I'd much rather know that there's a good teacher next door to me than have some more construction paper in my classroom personally yeah and commissioner zappel for me as a board member and Dr Merck too you know we did the capital uh a couple of days ago and way down there on a number three which means we're never going to get to it the number ones we're hoping to get to but the number it's going to come to you the number three there it is this innocuous thing it's um you know the card readers for the cafeteria doors in the schools that sounds like nothing but I can challenge you that I can go in a school that didn't know me at the time I
048can go in the back door and no one checks me so that's a safety concern for me I want that back door to be Fort Knox going into the kitchen because I want the whole school's envelope to be Fort Knox and it's less than $300,000 to do that but I'm not going to ask I I asking for it but I know I'm not going to get it because we got to give this $5 per kid or this $10 you know it's just there's just not enough money it's just not enough money so again long range if we can increase our student numbers we will increase our ADM while we do all this other stuff you know we are doing we really are doing but you know you put a fine Dollar on what we can
049we can get and we're grateful for every nickel we get we're grateful y'all are generous but we just have these needs and we certainly don't want to take the money out of a teacher's pocket it's certainly not what we're trying to do and we're certainly trying to increase things like salaries and local benefit and local supplements and things like that but what we also have is a burden on our Educators that they're doing more jobs than they were doing five years ago because I don't have enough social workers and I don't have enough counselors I don't have any mental health therapists have to come through the county we can't afford them ourselves we have to rely on you folks for things like SRO for safety for all these different things and our teachers are the
050ones picking up the slack and that's hard too and I I think that's what I'm worried about is how far can I push this before everyone just burns out us included principles included because I know that every one of them has done the job of a social worker a counselor or instructional coach in the last 20 minutes he and I wish we had better answers I just I don't have them I think that there could be a an Earnest effort on the part of the school board uh and yourself uh to reach out to the public in a campaign a consistent campaign to say we need to raise your taxes because that's ultimately where the money that you're talking about it's not like the County Commission has a a big pile of money someplace uh
051that they're hoarding it comes from the taxpayer yeah so getting out in front of this and making the emotional appeal that you're saying that everyone around this table say we simply don't have enough money we need you the taxpayer of new han County to bite the bullet and to pay more in your taxes that would be helpful that's one of the reasons to make this process so transparent you know we've done listening sessions we've done listening to us we've talked to families um but it's a you know it's an uphill crime the way it comes out in the public is you I'm sorry we're just going to cut through a bunch of baloney here is that the County Commissioners aren't giving us enough money and that's not the real message I'm just trying to you
052know cut right to it we have you know the same kind of pressures and you know I encourage you to come to one of our budget sessions and talk about you know the things that the pressures that we have on us to spend for amazing amount of things outside of schools the same kind of pressures but the reality is if you you need what you do more money it's got to come from the taxpayer it's the way we're set up here in North Carolina and I know that's going to be a bitter pill and I know that you know it's a difficult thing those words get stuck in your mouth but if we could shift this narrative and it's constantly the five Commissioners or our wonderful staff who is just hoarding money and not giving
053it to it the well-deserved that would be incredibly helpful and you're right these kind of meetings help build that kind of relationship and that kind of partnership truly I think we would have a great success in working with the business Community as well when they saw that we were all pulling on the same rope that's how I think I was trying to be very specific about the needs from the state as well when we started this conversation that can't speak for the state but I I hear you what I mean is that you know a a lot of those problems I'm not saying belong at your doorstep but you know what I what we do have is an inability to have a bake sale enough to to get this across the line by ourselves and
054and to that end you know three or four of us went to Raleigh yesterday to ask for some money we didn't get any jet but we did we did make some asks you know so um we're you know you're not going to hear me say that about you that you're not giving us enough money um I'm I'm also not very interested in going out there saying that we need to raise taxes especially in the re-evaluation year where house prices are going up so much in terms of there it's just not a chance um so here we are we try to make do with what we have and this the group The the whole point of this you know one or the other was to to come out from under the cloud we were under for
055the last couple of years that we exhaust our front balance that we're you know in a rear and all these other things and we've proven that that's not exactly true but we're hoping that you guys start to trust us a little bit more and uh and we can work together and in our way out of this thing where this will come down to and it's coming very rapidly in the next six weeks yes sir is the discussion of pennies yes how many pennies on the tax rate and a number that we should all keep in mind is each penny from your county tax rate equates to $8 million Eric right and there's going to be a great debate and I know many of the people around this table will be pushing very hard very close
056to watching yeah on there and let's keep in mind some of these discussions and you know and if there's a need which is what I'm hearing here A Penny here or a penny there can make a huge difference especially I'm in the city of wilington my taxes have gone twice in the last four years so I'm hyper sensitive to it and um so so Pat when you yall are in Raleigh is it is it just an ask for more money or is it to modernize the allotment or to fund the allotment or change the formula what are you asking for CU Kim thank you for the acronyms the new one you need to add it ADM yeah there's a new one you need to add of is Bluff bottom line up bottom line up front
057what do you what do you need what do you what do you need I know what you want what do you need so if you guys will at some point in time go to our website you can look at our legislative priorities look it's happening right now and we have specific legislative priorities that we're trying to push and look at and if you look down you can see a lot of them in there together but I'll tell you the things that I'm asking for is the allotment formula has not changed in a decade and students have so my first ask is to address the allotment formula concerns the other concerns we're asking for are things like helping with our prek and helping with our exceptional children those are our big ticket items and I the
058argument and I'm speaking for for philli and for Janet and for Kim the argument about who's responsible to pay for the water to put the fire out at my house doesn't help me put the fire out at my house we have significant needs we have significant physical capital needs as well I am working as hard as we can to help improve the relationship with our community with our perception in the community because that's where I think this argument comes from we have to we are the best game in town folks for educating children we have experience beyond anything else our scores reflect that but our perception needs to change and I all I can do is share with you guys the the the extreme need that we have and uh it's going to take collaboration
059but you will never hear me say that you guys aren't helping enough or so so and so isn't helping enough I think the state could help a little but I'm not going to blame you folks because I already know you're leaning in but also I also know that I can look you in the face and know you care about these kids and I'm not certainly not going to apologize to anybody for pushing to make sure our kids have everything they need and I'm trying to make sure I'm showing you enough of our budget to know that I'm not throwing it around or wasting it so about be a lot make point thank you rob for for actually saying we need to get the message out and I think one of the great things about this
060is is County and school will be able to understand together what's actually going on uh it's not just why you need more money and then whether it's asking specifically for higher taxes or whatever the ask is if the schools in the county can come together and ask as one that will make a huge difference in our community is if we have same message so thank you for that on theot yeah go ahead are you having are we having consistent issues across all was it 10 or 12 districts 15 15 11 15 I mean is is White City Schools having the same issue with ap yeah these allotment formuls are across the board I will tell you that we do have a generous allotment from our County Commissioners yes we do I've worked in a district
061where our local supplement was $100 a Christmas and I didn't have any extra anything because there's just not enough anywhere else if you are in a and we concern we're concerned about our needs we are one of the wealthier counties in the state there are there are counties that um Robinson Robinson somebody help me please it's Robinson in North Carolina okay I'm a native Robinson Robinson they are the lowest funded County from their local government they have $777 a kid they don't have $60 a kid in in structural funding but we want to be better than that yeah so um I think some of the significant pressure points you're seeing in this and they've talked about well let's go to a weighted student funding formula which is all well and good but then again you
062have the problem that our educators are high highly skilled and the average cost of an educator here is different than the state's average because our teachers have master's degree we have one of the highest national board ratios of of all the counties in the state so our teachers are of higher quality and value and cost so it cost more to live here than Robin Scot it sure as heck does it sure does it's going to cost even more when we raise taxes yeah just kid and you do the re exactly what I'm talking about yeah you open that door look right through you do the re Val then you know you cut out so many teachers from being able to live here but I but we have to I mean I'm not complaining well actually
063I taught in Robinson County and was an administrator in White City and when I recruited people from UNCW one of the first things I said was you don't want to live in Wilmington it costs a fortune to live there you're a brand new teacher come to White I can help you live here you can still make them to the beach in 45 minutes and we would get kids who were just fresh out of college because they couldn't report Dallas 10 years ago and now I don't know how but I do know that there's uh their supplement from the County Commissioners so from the city council about $900 for student in white and ours starts out at 7 now what we tell them to do is to live in Whiteville and drive here to work yeah
064that's no joke I actually do live in Leland a lot come over here yeah well and that is difficult this is not about I think this is part of changing the perception this is about change this is not us against you folks it just can't and I know that quite frankly it has been before but we are in this together I mean they're your kids too we all want the same things and I'm not asking for the moon but I'm asking to not see that look of EX C in the teacher's eye every day and how do we balance that okay before we leave the uh Raleigh visit um following up on with John was saying what what were the reactions to Lottery did you speak or did was that one of your talking points
065I don't think we spoke about the lottery or the allotments the lottery uh you know the lottery putting it back to where it started at 40% uh going to the schools instead of capping it uh that one thing alone would free up literally hundreds of millions of dollars across our state and that's what you know the what the voters voted on when they across the state was a lottery that would would return 40% to the local school district and after a few years and fantastic amount of money coming in the state legislature chose to cap it at 100 million I or $110 million now and the rest of it goes into the G fund so just going back to the original formula 40% would be yeah just that one thing alone to me I it's
066always stunned and speaking with our local delegation they go oh yeah that's a good idea crickets Ashley do you know how much we get in Lottery funding we get about it it does vary from quarter to quarter but um the first three quarters is usually around 500,000 and then that fourth quarter is usually about about 300 200 300,000 each time mhm but that's probably not 40% no uh well sorry the numbers that I've seen on it would hundreds of millions of more dollars would be flowing in across the state if we went back to that original intent of the lotteries do you know Ashley what the state's fund balance is I cu the number I heard was $7 billion we got 2.1 folks yeah we heard yesterday that you know obviously the state is dumping
067a ton of money in the western part and and rightly so um but that's going to suck up really all the extra money um in the session but this is certainly Worth to ask I'd love to get like five minutes of your time to get a little bit better verse on that and then bad I'll give you six minutes anytime you want I think I'm going to see you next Friday or Friday next anyway soon I can't wait yeah so so back to your Raleigh trip did I've made a few trips and Pat and I bumped into each other up there one time and it was uh it was Community College week and it was um real Tri week do we have a school board week in Raleigh where all the school boards visit Raleigh
068we sort of made our own but uh I don't know we're all 11 15 no of course not no no and most of our lobbying either goes through the School Board Association Association of school administrators ncsaa um so they have lobbyists as well but that's an interesting thought I had thought yeah ask ask him if you could coordinate pick a week we're in the we're in the long session now that you've done this a lot man I job a week man hold on I only been I a't been here a week yet but but pick a week this week wasn't it at some point when you know there all the legislators going to be there and it'll it'll be was amazing to us cuz I I was there Community College weekend you know I saw
069our guy and uh and then I saw groups bringing students with them in their school shirts uh talking about it's a powerful thing to do it is it would be also powerful have 1150 superintendent fun to have and then the speaker you get the speaker and the Senate pend to give you an audience we will ask it's better than me but we'll go that's I think that you need to you that's one of the other things that we talked about yesterday among ourselves is if we can have if we have similar needs to Pender and Brunswick we have a lot more buying power with Three Counties because one of the things we heard is that's not an easy sell because it's because North Carolina's I mean new han county is so wealthy you hear that
070a lot you know the loofy county and there's so many other counties that aren't doing nearly as well as we are so we can't get that ass because you know it has to be something that's you know what I'm saying so well that's why I asked the question the problem consist across all 15 dist be and if all 115 districts take a week just the okay great ideas um where we going from here so I'm going to pick up the pace a little bit um so we'll have maybe a little bit of time at the end and I'm hoping we can get through the agenda um and we can always Circle back at our next meeting as well so as I had spoke to before we are um still in the middle of our own
071budget work sessions we we had a work session earlier this week and our next one is going to be um March the 19th but I wanted to let this group know the things that are being discussed or being proposed to the board once again this could all change but these are the proposals that are coming forth um we are developing our budget with a 3% increase um in salaries and that's based on the Last 5 Years historical data that's our how we're forecasting that out along with a rate a retirement increase from 24.0 4% to 25.4% and a health insurance rate increase of from $8,950 to $8500 and so that's how we're starting the initial budget we are making some assumptions related to state revenue um we are assuming that the state if they do
072Implement a 3% raise and these benefit adjustments that they would fund those and so we we'll just make that assumption while we are building the budget and then also with Federal I know there's been a lot of conversation about Federal and what would happen to School Federal funding um since we don't really have any information as far as what funding would possibly be um um pulled back we're just going to move forward that we're going to receive the same level of federal funding that we receiv received this year of course when we're looking at Satan Federal we are taking into account um our average daily membership adjustments so so as you might recall um State changed their funding model last year Well actually for this year funding in a rear so you know most of
073our state funding comes from our average daily membership and so our second month enrollment was a little bit less this year than it was the year before so this year and I'm just talking K12 enrollment when I'm when I'm talking about the state funding um this this year second month came in at $4,599 um and um this year's funding was based on ADM of 24858 so that's a reduction of about 259 students so we are anticipating that reduction in revenue from the state so those are the things that we're our starting point for building those budgets going into next year and so when we're looking at our local Revenue um and this is where we spend a lot of our time um because this funding as we've talked about before is more flexible than our
074other pots of money um we do know and I believe we talked about this last time um the city of Wilmington is ending the Safelight program which will impact our funding um fines and fores by about 1.4 million and we were looking at the last three years and we just did an average of what that Revenue that was actually received over the last 3 years um so we're taking that into account as we build the local budget um but some we do have some good news as well so we did finally receive um a check from FEMA to reimburse us related to Hurricane Florence for um $467,000 and so we did not budget that this year we're going to hold that money um and use that to help for our budget next year and so
075we'll include that in Revenue as we're building the budget and then um oh just side note we are waiting for one more check we think from FEMA and so we're hoping before the end of the year we'll get that one more check so can you repe the years that we got that money from because I don't think commissioner it I know we just got 2018 money from P yeah Eric when was the last payment that we received at the county from FEMA we're still waiting for our final payment as well thank you so it's all over we join you in the pain here believe me we know a lot about FEMA in their payment what scares us about the low fund balance even though y'all have made a great a great M with us but
076that's what scares us is you know how long take you did get your money from E right front Park here I I I don't know that would be a good question got a small amount do on that one as well oh we're still behind on that one yeah um and then the other good news we have um possibly if our board agrees to this is um ncdot um has offered to purchase about 13.44% acres of land at $1.7 million um it's acreage behind the Johnson prek um and that's related to the railroad expanding the railroad um quel so hopefully um we'll negotiate that and that that'll come through and we'll be able to use that funding as well um for re revenue for next year um this year we're also budgeting some Medicaid reimbursement we
077haven't been budgeting Medicaid reimbursement into our budget we've waited to actually receive it because um that re that reimbursement has been delayed three years um and so it was so slow coming in we didn't feel com able um budgeting that building that into our budget but um last spring there was a change where we no longer have to go through DPI to get that reimbursement and so that's been really good since that change has happened they've caught back up um at the end last spring and at the early part of this fiscal year they've caught back up um and it appears like now we're going to be on track so we are building into next year's budget um 500 ,000 um as Medicaid reimbursement that we can that we're going to be able to use
078and we feel confident with that number we think feel like that's a good estimate and then we are going to ask for a 3% increase from the county um going into next year to help pay for some things that I'm going to talk about in a few minutes um that 3% increase is for our operating the um County appropriation for the operating budget um but also we're asking for a 3% increase for the prek grants um and then in addition to that 3% increase for the prek grants we're going to ask for some flexibility and where we put those classrooms for those County pre classrooms and the reason is and I I know I don't have a lot of time um but when we lost headart um headart allowed us to provide services to three
079and four year olds um when we lost that Grant we lost um some flexibility of providing services to threeyear olds because while we still have NC prek we can only provide service to foury olds and so the only funding that we have now where we can provide service to threey olds are the county um grants and the endowment two classes through the endowment and so what we we run into this year is that we may have uh a four-year-old and we need to um provide service to that four-year-old which means we need to use NC prek money um and that the four-year-old may have a sibling but I can't and so the four-year-old's at Johnson and the three-year-old is at a different location and it's been a hardship for the families and so I don't
080know that that happens an awful lot but it has happened enough where it it it's been a reoccurring theme that's come to my office so I I would like to be able to address that and perhaps move a classroom to Johnson for threey olds just so if we do have siblings that's an option so that's one of the fle just a flexibility thing that we'll ask for from the county um and then um the other things we've talked about raises and benefits and of course we've got some increases for utilities and insurance and of course whenever we have um an increase from the county the charter schools get an increase as well so they'll get their portion um as required by law and we have um also feel like in this budget cycle we need
081to build in um additional funding for EC contracted Services we're having a really hard time Staffing EC positions um there's so much turnover and the kids still need those services and so if we're not able to have um someone on staff that can provide therapy or these special type Services um then we need to be able to contract for those things so that the children are still being served um and we this year we actually use that back pay I'm calling it back pay um I don't know if that's the right word but where the Medicaid was behind on the reimbursement this year we Ed that money to provide those additional contracted services for EC but that that's of course one time money so we're trying to build this into our operating budget so we
082can help support the EC program and then also we're going to be using um some money to support the prek program as well we um have been using title one this year it was about $1.2 million um to support that program and it we use carryover from Title One and we're just not going to have that carryover next year so we're also incorporating those expenses into this budget and then um the last area I wanted to talk about are our budget priorities that came out of the superintendent um budget listening SE um listening tour if we want to call it that um and so that's where the remaining increases that we're asking for from the county are going to support so Chris I don't know if you want to talk through those budget priorities or
083if you want me to talk through those do we we don't have it that here it is actually I think you do cuz I have it I don't the link we can find it at the link wasil yeah it's actually in the agenda it's just we didn't do a separate document it's just in that well I got it it's in the agenda you're special oh sorry sorry I I I feel like I've talked enough but what we are proposing is an increase in our local funding allotment to accommodate for two specific budget priorities that we I feel like have been sort of gained through listening to the staff and the stakeholders one is a concern about safety and the other is to address individual academic and behavioral needs of students both of these quite frankly
084are State unfunded mandates that we are trying to address but honestly the the safety initiative which is the less expensive of the two has two arms to it one is to address some physical safety needs at our traditional high schools and the other is to embed a program called safe and civil schools in all of our buildings to help students and younger students learn how to regulate their behavior so that they never get to a place where they are throwing chairs or what we used to say is that a kid who is in crisis is either run out of or never learned affecting coping that is in Way's experiencing so helping kids learn those and helping adults learn how to not trigger children when they're having an issue or concern has anybody seen The Breakfast
085Club yeah remember you mess with the bull you get the horns Bender okay what you saw was a perfect example of an adult increasing the stress level on a child so of course we don't hire that guy here not going to be hired here but uh my point being that that is that is one of our specific needs is to help kids learn better skills and help teachers be more effective and create some safety and physical uh protections for students at high school and then the other one is is a larger uh ask that's going to put a position back in every school that is going to focus on specific pressure point areas either academic remediation academic extension graduation rate or behavior and I plan on taking that down to the state to show them
086what happens when they do fund something this is the result that we get from Tada um and I want to backtrack on what you said just a minute ago um because Mr zapple you might find this interesting um I took this this with me yesterday I learned earlier this week and you might not think about it I tell people that school isn't like it was when we were in school the students are not the same as we were in school and we have 15 students who require a onetoone RN every single time they're in our schools we have four who require CNAs every time they're in class you know and those don't come cheap and sometimes we have to do contracted Services she was talking about EC contracted Services they don't come cheap it's not
087like we have those people on staff there's significant more Behavior Support going on now than ever before and it's increasing exponentially maybe in quarterly sections throughout the year halfe sections because our population coming in has significantly bigger needs that's why if we go back to prek one of your favorite things if we can solve some things there get it going faster then maybe it won't be so expensive on what we're doing now but we're stuck in it right now and it's just um I've I've gotten some um more on that and I'll be sharing it as I get it but because it's just it's just a vastly different landscape than it was and people don't realize that thank you yes um so I wanted to share information and thank you Eric for providing um it's
088just a handout we won't have time to go through this today but I just wanted to share information the county has had their first um work session uh I believe that was in January was that the 30th I think right um so that information is just out there for informational purposes um we weren't going to go through that today um I did also want to put a plug in for the QR code just if you're interested in addition to the legislative priorities there's also a write up of our current um initiatives and I thought that that um if you're interested um we would love to bring any of these topics back to the group if it's something you'd like to learn more about so if you scroll down you'll see um some some different initiatives
089that we have going on Advanced teaching roles um and if you keep scrolling you'll see some different things so I just wanted to point that out because if this is something that you would like to know more about we'd love to be able to bring groups in to be able to do a presentation for you guys um and then the next thing on the agenda um is I just wanted to share with the group um where we are in our budget timeline in our process so um as I said we're going to have our next board budget work session on March 19th um and we'll finish up um talking through the some of the same things that I went through here today we'll finish those conversations we're also going to try to finish up Capital
090uh might have over the next two meetings finish up Capital um but we are on track we still plan on March 25th to submit the superintendent um proposed budget um at Agenda review on that March 25th date so it won't be a vote for our board it will just we will just be sharing the information to um on that date and then on April 1st is when we would carry the proposed budget to our board for a vote to see um if they approve for us to move forward um with that budget plan and also it would include the request to the county um in that approval and then April 15th we would actually submit that request to the county manager County Commissioners that ask for next year so we're on track um to be
091able to do that and then um as of now March the 27th is the next time we have this committee meeting um and I want to make sure everybody's got that that on their calendar and if if not if we need to look at a different date um I know we planned these way out in advance but that it would still be at 12:30 the same time yeah so that's the 27th yes what is at 12:30 the the 19 um March the 27th March 19th budget Works yep um hold on a second that date um it's at 1 from 1 to three we move that a little bit thank you and I just would you does everyone have this I no everybody has that so this is what the county brought us and it's fascinating
092I've got some questions but it's definitely worth flipping through it's online as well but you guys brought us some really fascinating County information very helpful in what we're doing I think so pull that out of your package and study it um so is it is the 27 good with everyone you see any giant roadblocks Madame chair if I just kind of emphasize or highlight one point in here I know that um I wouldn't say it was a shock but it was certainly Illuminating to us you got of commission uh 40% of our budget in the county is going towards education so $40 out of every $100 of your tax money is going to education we put a lot of emphasis on that there's no other larger budget item in our budget so just wanted to
093point that out and it's interesting to read you know the the difference between what new hter County School skit and the the Community College you know and the the flatline on their increases you know I did take that I mean I did take it with heart you know it's it's there's great information here it really is thank you so um anything else got six or seven minutes I did I have a up for Ashley uh just want to make sure I know there's always this the county funds separate from the state approximately 600 positions including teachers are in there when you say a 3% raise are you is there any of that money coming from the uh state or are are you including all Personnel in there I'm wondering if that we are going to
094get a bill essentially because we you know that 3% will affect all the ones all the the teachers that the County's paying for as well so I don't know if this is answering your question but I'm going to give it a shot so um the 3% increase we're asking for from the county um that's just kind of a separate thing a 3% ask from the county um the when we're looking at um the 3% raise um and we're building that budget it's only our local employees that we're building that budget for we're assuming that if this County I mean I'm sorry the state gives a raise they're going to give us the revenue for that raise yeah so I so I'm I am keeping as I build the budget I am keeping those two things
095separate does that make sense is that asking answering the question uh I'm going to look to the person who's going to advise me on this okay Eric Amanda do that you know where I'm headed at I know I've U pulled on that thread a number of times about not wanting and this has happened in the past of getting you know the message that somehow the state has given a raise and now we as a county to keep the all the teachers being paid the same we have to increase the amount of money that we're putting in does that make sense with what Ashley is saying or are we are there any surprises in there for you I don't believe so I understand what you're saying good thank you yeah thank you for the question and
096then Raleigh that's the leadership is saying they're looking to improve this out I thanks that's the chatter see what the mix paper I well thanks for sharing that CU I had heard that yet that was my estimate I'm I'm kind of excited I was so close in that one page that I had that you didn't have I have copies if you want them I know John and Chris and Natalie will want them and maybe Mr Apple um but we do have them if you want so you don't have to go to the website yes since uh we're on this I there's one area that I don't understand on this could you maybe enlighten me or I don't know what the uh this chart is for public engagement expenses budget comparison yeah um so P County
097sorry is the next the last page 29 had any had questions I didn't know what it was either yes so the county just um B and is utilizing some new technology is called Balancing Act from uh PCO what it does is it allows the resident anyone with the link to go in and rebalance the budget you have access to the revenues you have access to the expenditures you can raise the tax um rate spend more money on the expenditure side you can lower the tax rate and have to go through the act of which of our functions are you going to reduce and you have to submit a balanced budget it will not let you I put this in as just an information for our commissioners of this is what we see when we've had
098only 10 people look at the technology and use the technology we did a very soft launch on the technology uh we really just wanted to get it out there with the already adopted budget knowing that it wasn't going to change but let people get used to it we also held um sessions called Brewing budgets where we went out into the community the Senior Resource Center had coffee and just talked through the budgets and sort of work through this um technology with them this is in no mean a we're going to increase decrease anything just to show when people are using this technology this is what we can then see on the back end to give a little bit more perspective of we have our preferences and our passions what is the community now saying on
099where they would like to see their funds go um we're going to launch a little bit harder in the coming months we'll redo some Brewing budget sessions go back out to the community um and we my team would be happy to come and be in schools as well wherever we can really just fun to do um have let people try their hand and see what it's like because it really does sort of take this practice into a data centered world where you can balance the budget and then we can see um so on this uh left side one it's just the average submission increase and decrease again it was 10 people out of a$ 250,000 I mean 250,000 person in County 10 people um increased and decreased and that is where it fell um on
100the right one I left all of the buttons click so you can not only see the average increase decrease but you can also see sort of the modes clicked how many times someone clicked to increase a revenue or decrease um so that's what it is it is very much informational at this point and we'll keep pushing it out to keep sort of seeing priorities and where they land but you don't let this scare you that it's an interesting thing to play with I was one under 10 and you see all that education there that was probably me but it it was kind of like the the financial literacy we give for the kids you know that that training and you know where it says you know go over here and buy all your hair you
101know your hair salon stuff and now you don't have any money to feed your kids and kids are saying well can I give a kid up for the adoption because I got to have all this stuff for my hair care you know it was kind of like that so I think for an adult it was a fun exercise I had no idea there only be 10 people doing it we've had much more did you selectively Target us for like we want more people downtown uh without jobs hanging around or so we actually uh we I do see a go locator um when people fill this out so I can see what parts of the county are filling it out um so so we can make sure that we're really getting all the way down to
102the beaches and all the way up area um the other part of this I will just tell you about is there is a taxpayer receipt option with it where you can go in and put in your um estimated value of your home and it prints out like a CBS style receipt on what your dollars go to Across the county so what does it go to for the finance office strategy office um what is he and Human Services everything like that awesome so the two link to each other to play off of each other what would be fun is if we said you know talking about raising a penny what's that going to do to my my property taxes how much more am I going to pay every year and uh where would I want that
103to go if I did Amanda can you set us up with a little thing like that next time we'll all get on and do it together would that be [Laughter] fun I'll figure it out I like watching the teenagers do it though you know it that would that if you haven't if you haven't if you want to ride along on one of those we do the financial L see things um a number of times and it's fascinating you know because you know they make the announcement and there's all these different stations and you know the just half the the the bleachers Rush towards the you know getting their hair care products and stuff you know and then the nerdy kids are over here and and and watching them work through the day to get their
104you know get it balanced but seriously I've heard children say well can I give a child up because it's one of the options give a kid up for adoption and it'll save this much on your budget and you know I've got to ditch my husband or it's it's it's hilariously fun but we we are that's not just for money though there other reason for that it's hilariously fun I do need to make you guys awar sry you can't go home is what he's about to tell you we are currently in a in a secure status there's Poli activity in the area so the doors are locked uh you're stuck with us yeah we might as well keep talking because you're not going anywhere it'll just be a few more minutes I'm sure question related to
105but just as have County resident so on page 13 I mean slide 13 where it talks about how we have this you know 6 lowest County taxes is the but yet I feel like we're a pretty wealthy county is that sort of like if you have a lot of businesses and you're bringing a lot of sales tax then maybe you save more here I was just curious how is it that we're 16th lowest is that good to be lowest um bad to be lowest I I totally don't understand I'm just always grateful for all the Privileges of living in new H County and the resources we have but I was just curious um tell me a little bit more about page 13 sure so there's some tradeoff and property values of the higher the property
106values are to raise the same amount of money the tax rate can be lower so there's some sort of you're know County that's got lower property values the tax rates got to be higher to raise the same amount of money as a county that's got higher property tax values which is just the multiplication of the two numbers together that's one of the things that drives it um sales tax the certainly plays A Part um the services that are offered by the various counties can can play a part but I'd say the biggest thing is the um is the property value follow up on that I know some this are the utility counties also they're not are there are there counties on this list that also offer utilities I don't know the answer to that like
107some municipalities have water they help so they can lower your tax rate if they're collecting revenue and you hide it in the utilities what say about um you know we're in an assessment year right every four years we redo our assessments and are there I I see like low medium high questions about what might happen um I'm sure that your costs are going up the very same way our costs are going up um how are how will the change in assessments likely Offset you know your basic inflation you know what is it going to be a boom or a bust well I I think for one thing we're all glad we live in new han County uh and because we make uh strategic choices on what we choose to put into our County our schools
108or County supplemental funding for the schools the fact that we have a sheriff's department Remember by state mandate we're only uh required to have a sheriff and a deputy that's it uh and but we think that our our constituents you know deserve and want more and that's why we have a sheriff's department of approximately 400 plus yeah for Deputy so you got to you know keep all you know all that in mind as well sorry you keep going you had another I can see you had another piece so we're going to we're going to have a new assessment and you're going to bring in a bunch of new money M that I'm sure offsets some of the increased costs that you have S uh uh 21% is the number we use as far as the
109inflation factor from 2021 to now so we're providing you the county is uh the same services that we essentially set the rate at in 2021 yet we've seen 21% increase in our costs between there and now I'm getting the E ey from Amanda uh so I'm sorry am I wildly off there no no no you're not uh I was we set the rate but then we've also cut it plus oh thank thank you at my guy help me for myself yeah we've also cut the rate uh in the past four years twice so we're actually bringing in less money than we were in in 2021 that's slide 12 yeah and yet still providing you the same level of service and on top of which we're seeing more people move in you know over over that
110time right so that's the point of reevaluation is that every four years and we're allowed to go every eight years by St mandate we choose to go for so there's not such a sticker shock you know that happens here uh we try and you know reset essentially and that's what we're seeing uh the numbers that were when this came out were still in play they're now set you'll receive your reassessment in the mail momentarily tomorrow and you can already see it online yeah you can see it online but I think they go out February 28th which is tomorrow uh so and we're seeing on average about 65% increase in property values some of those in the beaches higher some elsewhere were lower but across the board that does not mean your taxes go up by
11165% remember you're taxed on a penny or dollar for every $100 in value but that's the tools that Amanda is referring to are really helpful you go on the uh County website and go to which department Finance Finance um and then there is a section for the 2526 and has the link to all those so the question is the couny uh income from that increased assessment right how know yet Tim we were all having a good day here we were Racing for the bar Mr Barnes locked us in I didn't even bring muffins I apologize well but I mean it begs the question if you if you provide us 40% of your overall budget right 40% of what you take in comes to schools that includes the Community College as well as public schools and
112the charter schools well so would it be safe to assume that whatever the County Income goes up that we would see 40% of that increase as well yeah nice try it was a good try Le said look I like the way you came forward on that almost out of your chair I believe I mean no it's a legitimate please please understand I'm new with this and I don't understand are you looking to make sure that with this tax increase that if I'm a homeowner here that I would not increase my property tax so you're going to reduce taxes by the extent that the property value increased we're going to reduce the tax rate to make sure that no homeowner pays more that would be called Revenue neutral yes but we you know Revenue neutral is
113a fungible term uh because of what I was just saying to Tim here about uh the inflation we we have to make up from where you know the 21 you% you increase in in dollars trust me we feel that too yeah yeah which which equates to about $68 million is what am I am I right so if you reduce the tax rate to keep people at the same rate and you went up 67% in value mhm we're already the 16th lowest out of a 100 any idea where that would put us no because it would depend on other what everybody else did to but they come in in different years right some maybe the next two years I mean I guess is there a number you're trying to hit on this on the greatest hits
114here I mean are you trying to get the lowest 10 of tax bracket are you I mean I think we're trying to maintain the highest quality of life we can uh and using uh the tax dollars while maintaining the highest educational opportunities too right so where's that balance point part of what we are yeah I uh Eric or leis or Amanda could you remind me again that if we went to Pure um Revenue neutral what would that number be in our tax R I don't know if that's been calculated based on the the final number that Alison put out so we don't have that I think you had it with some of these assumptions but um if you assume that we were going to complet replace the $68 million that we needed to run the
115county for the inflation the tax rate would go from with the we made some assumptions in the last budget so slide 14 even want to look at it we've got a revenue new tour rate and the low end of with $68 million 38 cents we get from 45 cents to 38 cents to create $68 million more addal Revenue to sort of reset our Revenue correspond with the expense increase that we've all felt over the last four years right so that M I was saying that we're going to be talking about pennies soon so that you know 38 cents you know per $100 value yeah yeah well 38 cents would put you tied with seven if no one else moved I you know Chris uh it's a superintendent uh I've been called by the way I
116love the buck town is totally cool I knew I was going to see Hannah today I have a Porter's Neck sweatshirt over here too I really warn you to uh don't fall in the Trap of the you know one through 10 there's so many other factors that go into you know the size the property values the amount of sales tax I mean we're we are truly blessed here in New hanare County to have really strong sales tax revenues which have fallen off but have now through I don't know what luck or whatever we are now kind of going to our budget projections but it looked like for a while several months ago that we are going to be in the whole several millions of dollars just use it as one metric so it's really easy
117to kind of look at that and go how do we get to you know number one or the lowest or whatever your metric is if I've fallen into the same trap myself over the years and I've been schooled and beat up and you know pulled aside and said don't do that Rob so I'm just passing on the advice that I have received don't allow yourself to get into that we have I think a really low um tax rate for the services that we provide uh and that includes our school system our public school system that provides opportunity for every student in our County so I just have a technical question you had said earlier commissioner zapple that the tax rate if we looked at one penny it was worth $8 million but on here it
118says one penny currently is $516 million prior to reevaluation I was using the postal this a post reeval yeah and that was an approximate and Eric can you think the proper tax base is going to go 50 billion to 80 billion so when you do the math 50 billion the value one penny is 5 cents and 80 billion is about 8 cents we're also asking you to talk about something that you're not prepared to talk about today so let's go ahead and shift the conversation back I don't want to beat you guys up this is so great that you're asking I did I did want to ask one one interesting thing there's a chart that talks about that and I've lost it now I had it but 2017 it was just way up there what
119happened in 2017 you we gave a uh we increased taxes by 5 cents so that your teachers would all be at One Shining Moment in history the highest paid teachers in new H excuse me North Carolina which we all knew or at least some of us knew that that was totally elusory that uh it would it would not last indeed it did not as and it was it was significant because I still get dirty looks at every superintendent meeting because we steal people from all over yeah and please know that these questions are not because we don't think you are supporting us enough okay I I want to make sure that message is clear because we start of spoke about that earlier this is a challenge for all of us and I'm not certainly saying
120that you guys should be digging in more I just know that I can guarantee you care about the kids the way you do which puts you guys in the hot same Hot Seat we're in I'm checking to see whether you guys can take a run for it or not um 28 was a re so when you see oh that's what brought it out of it that's what reflects that was that was I mean I barely survived 2017 in business but I didn't realize that it was that bunch of of a of a hike there yeah that was a lot didn't need to be by the way but that's you know now you're drifting into my world and uh so okay okay that's in the rearview mirror and uh we are here today but I'm really
121enjoying the fact that I've got you know the top team here kind of back me up this is a wonderful conversation I can't thank you enough you know please anybody who has a question about any of the material you see in here and we have our our next budget meeting is the 6th is that right we say yeah uh all all open to the public and I I believe is FaceTime or I mean you know Facebook what March 7th YouTube you YouTube oh it's on YouTube y great so you can tune it in and watch it is it YouTube live or it is live okay so real time all right if you guys want to go ahead and pack your stuff up I think you guys can start closing I'm going to check on your
122status right you guys can make a run for it I'm sorry guys I dismissed you early I'm sorry yes he doesn't have that Authority oh I know right sit down bar I there's a lot of school groups 77 applications 3.1 million masks and we've been given instruction l f.6 so that may impact some of your after school John that you're absolutely right you struggling I know I'm struggling with that right now because there's a a push within our community we could all use your help that uh people look at this and think oh these are just um you know Silly groups that just you know want a hand out they provide services that um help the school system um Carousel Center those of you are familiar with their work are I believe uh services that
123the county should uh be providing our community we have nonprofits out there that are doing it better and cheaper than we ever could as a county and I think our essential services that are all wrapped up in this kind of bureaucratic term of Outside Agency and non-count funding and uh I would appreciate if you have any questions you can always call me but there's also a list in the applications of all 77 that have applied are available at the county and uh if you have questions about any individual group I can tell you the ones that will float up and that will get funded they won't get funded at what they deserve I'll tell you that right now because we always have downward pressure on it and I really challenge you to find somebody and
124you look into what they do that you think is unnecessary they all feed to the fabric that we all talk about and yeah a bunch of them deal with after school projects or you know early childhood Etc and I'm new on the committee and I know last year that's right nobody got Arts funding and we have symton SYM that's right andt Opera only application how much are asked estimated number citizens serve so that ratio is kind of what I'm looking at CU there's organizations they going to head back nor asking for $5,600 and their program for the schools impacts 5,000 students so it's almost a dollar Forge so it's a fast process we had a wa conversation uh the last two days this week right week we were there like hours um my got yeah
125oh yeah I got it um but yeah so so just pay attention to that yeah John thank you and thank you for stepping up and getting on that committee as well the committee's made up for people from different sector so there's an Arts person there a healthare person a fake person I'm in the business sector and there's supp that's like judicial I think you have a pending application thanks so if no one has anything else a motion to adjourn and a second second meeting is adjourn thank you everyone