001swag and a moment of silence. >> 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 and justice for all. Please be seated. >> Recommend approving tonight's agenda as submitted. >> Second. >> First, Mr. Nichols. Second, Mrs. Isler. Roll call vote. Mr. Nichols. >> Mrs. Isler. [snorts] >> Miss Ralph, >> approved. >> And Mrs. Pew, >> approved. >> So approved. recommend [snorts] the approval of the minutes of the board of education regular meeting of January 14th, 2026. >> First, Mrs. Pew, I believe. >> Second, was it Mr. Nichols? >> Roll call vote. Mr. Pew, [snorts] >> Mr. Nichols, >> approved. >> Mrs. Isler, >> approved. >> And Miss Rout. >> So, approved. Recognition of guest. We have none
002this evening. >> Except all of you, of course. Uh, communications and announcements. Uh, public participation. I have Miss Donna Reed. >> Anybody else? >> No, you're the only one, hun. >> You might as well sign up for the board while you're at it. >> You might as well sign up for the board. >> You got two weeks and two days. [laughter] >> Yes. and stay with the microphone. >> Yes, you were very hard to hear last week. >> And I could not see. >> Oh, >> well, take a deep breath. Take your time. >> It's a valid question. >> What's a valid question? Did you drive? >> Okay. Uh, Miss Reed, I know you've heard this, but I've got to read this to you again. Okay. Each person wishing to address the board will be
003afforded the floor once during each public discussion period. At the beginning of your presentation, please identify yourself and the process or purpose of your presentation. Presentations [snorts] are limited to three minutes. Speakers shall not bequest any or all remaining time to another speaker. Persons wishing to speak for a longer period must arrange for a place on the board's agenda. Persons wishing to be placed on the agenda shall inform the superintendent of that desire in writing and the topic no later than three full working days prior to the day of the regular meeting of the board, which is normally the third Wednesday of each month. Members of the public are expected to conduct themselves responsibly and with due respect in an effort to maintain a high standard of conduct. The board president will have authority to
004terminate the remarks of any individual who does not adhere to the above roles, persons appearing before the board are reminded that although requests may be directed to the board, action and answers to questions must be deferred pending board consideration. And as when you begin the first word, Mrs. Bizler will she set the timer. >> Okay. So, I'm going to ask some questions of you on my three minutes, but I would appreciate if you answered on your time. >> Um, there's already another referendum planned. What changes do you plan to make over the last referendum that would have raised our school taxes by almost $25,000? I did research and it cost in excess of $10,000 out of local funds each time a referendum vote is called. Why should the citizens and taxpayers believe that our voting
005and wishes will be carried out? After the second referendum vote of 2012, the public voted against the new sports stadium and then it was built anyway. And the North Law School was not fit as a school building and would have to be demolished, but it is a school building now. Many of the top 18 to 20 teachers and administrators that live in other school districts are paying much less in other school districts for their convenience and having choicing their kids too large. The,00 citizens that voted against the referendum did not do it to hurt the students. We have been criticized for being hateful, selfish, and stingy. But we the people remember the deception of the 2012 referendum, the increase in school taxes in 2023, the 10% from the reassessment, and now you're asking for almost
00625% more. Why hasn't the local portion of the cost of the new admin new elementary school been paid off yet? I see that there's still 357,320 left to pay. Where where are the excess reverse reserve funds of it was 3,983,000 almost 400,000. It's now down to 3.6 6 million. Where are those funds being held? Are these funds earning any interest? Why can't the district come up with more money to fund the classroom supply so that teachers don't have to spend their own money? You need to have a citizens advisory board of taxpayers, business owners, and people much smarter than me. >> Miss Reed could >> ask questions and um give advice. Let me see. Miss Reed, your the three minutes are up. >> But if Mrs. Reed, if you will send me the questions in
007an email or if you have most of them asked, I can go back and watch the video and I will be in touch with you with the answers of those questions. >> Okay. >> Oh, I understand. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh Dr. Mayor Moore, superintendent remarks. Good evening everybody. >> Last Monday night, February 9th, we held our first operating referendum, current expense referendum in over 40 years and the town of Warl spoke and we accept the outcome. I sincerely thank those who participated in the referendum process like Mrs. Reed and were respectful in doing so. [snorts] Respectful dialogue still matters. It really does. I wish there had been more conversations that were face to face instead of conversations being on Facebook. I can tell you that because when a community has tough decisions to
008make, it's better served when we sit across the table from each other eye to eye and talk it through. I think we all would agree with that. Our commitment to real dialogue and active listening will continue. I want to thank our staff who stepped up and and filmed video promotions for the referendum. You guys are my heroes. You stepped into a void that hadn't been stepped in in 40 years and you did your thing and your love for tomorrow was on full display and it's not something I'm soon going to forget. So to all of you watching and all of you that are here, thank you soever much for standing in the gap for our kids and our staff. I'd also like to shine a light on and recognize personally our chief financial officer, Mrs.
009Laura Horsey. She was there with me at every speaking engagement, not all board nights. She was there and she answered questions, with patience, with clarity, and with wisdom. Uh that is typical of Laura, if you know her. She carried herself with class through the entire process. And I'm deeply grateful for her steady leadership and partnership. Laura, thank you so very much and happy birthday. >> While the result was not what we hoped for, our commitment to students, staff, and this community does not change. We will continue to lead responsibly, listen carefully, and move forward together. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, we're skipping over uh the board participation reports, uh the monthly financial report, Miss Horsey. And I do want to say some of you, you may already know this, but we received um or
010Laura did receive back the um audit. Now, it's from 2023. And I asked that same question because it [snorts] was posted 2023. And I thought, where's 24? Where's 25? Well, it has nothing to do with law school district. The state is behind a little bit, but we Yes. Two years. to take it up with the state. >> Um, but I want to commend Laura and all those that work with her and but bottom line is if something's wrong, it's going to come back on Laura, right? [laughter] And out of 19 school districts, we were one of three that had no um >> findings, >> right? No findings. And I will share Yes. Yes. And I will share because I looked at some other school districts and one that we also pay tax dollars on um
011had a finding that was also a finding from and it wasn't changed into 2023. So two years [snorts] of findings and nobody says a word about that, right? >> You know, but I I do want to share that because that is also our our money that's going toward that school district. When did you get this report? I was just reading. >> The auditor's report. They just issued it last week >> after our after our referendum was held. They the email was dated on Thursday, I believe. >> Because that's the date as of that's the as of report date. So, it was June 30th of 2023. and we just got >> and because the auditor's office is behind on their reports. Now, I'll add to that too that just today I received the draft report for
012FY24 and again we had no findings. >> Oh yeah. >> Awesome. [applause] >> Back to back. >> So now when is 2025 going to be [laughter] here? This time next year. >> Well, they want to schedule the exit for next week and really and our entrance for FY25. So, so they'll get started on that. >> 2024s needs to be posted too. >> So, when 24 gets finalized by the auditor's office, then it'll be issued officially, but I just got the draft report today. >> And I really don't think, and I don't know a whole lot about it, but I know enough about it that there are so many, you know, your numbers, your 9200, blah blah blah, where money comes out of. This is not like keeping a regular checkbook. This is, you know, I
013mean, it takes a lot of work. Um, taking the money out, I call it pots out of different pots, putting it, you know, and all into this pot. And that's phenomenal job. Phenomenal. Thank you. [applause] >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Good [snorts] evening. Um, so we'll get started on just our accomplishments from last month. We we turned in the financial position report as of uh December 31st 25. Um the academic excellence report and the quarterly bond bill report. We held our citizens budget oversight committee meeting on February 2nd where we discussed uh the referendum and our final budget that I have presented u here tonight as well. Um the midyear unit count was completed as of February 2nd. We have 2,497 students. We had a net loss of two. Um, all that means is that
014if we had gained any students, we would have been able to get a little bit more money. So, the state sets aside a million dollars that if the if a district has an increase in enrollment that they would get a share of that million dollars. Um, so since we lost two students, we won't get any additional funds from that. Um, our referendum of course was held on February 9th and it did not pass. Um, so we will continue our efforts to, you know, try to control things as best we can. Um, our FY26 final budget is in your packets tonight uh, for approval. Um, just to go over some highlights of that. Um, I have a projected deficit of $875,000. That is due to having very few vacancies this year. um our positions have remained
015filled um rather than in prior years we had a lot of kind of turnover and you know it takes several weeks to get that position filled back in again after someone leaves but we actually have managed to um keep our employees pretty good. So I think that's that's a good thing. Um it doesn't help us financially too much but it's still a good thing for um our programs and our students. Um, in addition, the tuition that we pay to special schools such as Howard Tianis, Cesus Consortium, those types of things, um, that has increased this year about $100,000. So, just something to be aware of. This is the reserve and local funds projection based off of the final budget of um, with a deficit of $875,000. So, that basically brings us back down to where
016we were in 2022. Um, that was when I I started here. Um, I thought I'd go over the governor's recommended budget, just some highlights how it pertains to uh education. Um, this is again a draft from the governor's office. So, it is pending approval all the way up through um June 30th. So they'll have several changes I'm sure. Um so so far they're uh recommending an increase in the base salary amount for code section 1305 which is the state teacher salary table. Um this is a 2% plus $1875 uh increase. So the base salary will become $39,370 and that's recommended by the public education compensation committee. This is uh year three of their recommended increases to increase teacher salary. >> The OEC rate is going to increase from 33.39% to 33.72%. That's primarily due to
017an increase in pension costs and they are proposing the elimination of the following appropriations. And these are important unit count that million dollars that I was just talking about. We are still going to be required to do the midyear unit count, but there will be no funding attached to [laughter] it. [snorts] >> So, you'll have to do the work, [clears throat] but uh we won't be receiving anything for that. Um the athletic trainer block grant is some money that we have been receiving the last couple of years. They were I think originally intending on transitioning that over to a unit for an athletic trainer. Um, however, they are going to eliminate the funding for that. Um, and they did not mention anything about providing a unit for it either. So, it looks like that will
018be going away. Not saying that we would be getting rid of our athletic training. We just need to find a different way to uh fund that position. And also the substitute reimbursement fund which [snorts] uh is used for teachers who use paid parental leave. Um, so when a teacher goes out for 12 weeks on paid parental leave, we have um substitutes and of course um so this the state was helping out with the substitute cost and that is going away. So now we will have to pick that up locally if that's passed. So I just wanted to give some awareness as to how the state budget issues are transitioning some things onto the local taxpayers. This is a snapshot of our reserve and local fund um by month. So you can see we took a
019little bit of a a dip this past month. Um of course with an $875,000 projected deficit, I would guess that that's going to uh go below that black line here pretty soon. And that's all I have for tonight. Anyone have any questions? tuition. Um, is that because of more students or is that because they price >> both? Um, so over the past few years the the prices have gone up, the actual cost per student has gone up. Um, but we've also had an increase in students as well. Um, we haven't received our bill from the school for the deaf yet, which is up in Christina. Um but we are anticipating having two students for that and that's $50,000 per student. Um Howard Tianis charges $25,000 per student and Susets Consortium and Cape um they charge
020$50,000 per student per year. >> So I'm not holding you to this but what is the total off the top of your head that we're paying out to other schools like the death our Tiana consortium? What? And there's probably somewhere else too about like off the top of your head, what's what's the amount that we're we're paying out roundabout. >> Maybe I should have emailed that to you. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> I mean, you figure if there's a couple, there's a hundred thousand right there. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> I don't have that. [cough and clears throat] It's in It's detailed in your um in your final budget report. So I can I can show it to you. >> Okay. And then the other question I have this is where and I saw this a
021lot when the referendum was going on. You know we have over 3 million but explain like how isn't it like two months of payroll. >> So we have to uh hold our first three months of payroll. We're supposed to be able to have our first three months of the year for payroll. Like so July, August, September. we need to have available. So, and then we can also have additional funds available to hold us through October. Um, so we're supposed to have one [snorts] month's local salary available at all times just because that's going to, you know, we we'll have revenue coming in from the county, >> right? >> Um, per month, but it fluctuates so much. Um, >> but when it's but when it starts at the beginning of the year, we've got to have
022three months in there. That's like a law written by law. Correct. >> Yes. Yes. >> Roundabout. What amount is that? >> Uh, I don't know that off the top of my head. >> I remember one time we talked about this. But see, this is the thing. I remember the time when we didn't even have that. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Thank you, Laura. >> Thank you. >> Okay. We have no unfinished business now. New business school choice recommend approval of school choice as a group. >> First, Mrs. Pew. Second, >> Mrs. Isler, roll call vote. Mrs. Pew, >> approve. >> Mrs. Isler, >> approve. >> Mr. Nichols, >> approve. >> And Miss Ralph, >> approve. >> So approved. Recommend approval of school choice as submitted. Financial. >> Okay, Mr. Nichols. Yeah. Do I have a second?
023>> All right, Mrs. Roll call vote. Mrs. Mr. Mr. Nichols >> approved. >> Mrs. Isler >> approved. >> Miss Ralph >> approved. >> And Mrs. Pew >> approved. >> So approved. I'm going to jump back. Monthly financial report. The FY26 final budget. Recommend [snorts] the approval of the FY final budget as submitted. >> So moved. >> First, Mrs. Ller. >> Second. Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mrs. Ller. >> Approved. >> Mrs. Pew. >> Mr. Nichols. >> Approve. >> And Miss Rout >> approved. >> So approved. Okay. Fundraisers recommend approval of fundraisers as a group. >> First, Mr. Nichols. >> Second, Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mr. Nichols, >> approve. >> Mrs. Pew, >> approve. >> Mrs. Ller, >> approve. >> And Miss Ralph, >> approve. >> So approved. Recommend approval of fundraiser as submitted. >>
024So move. >> First, Mrs. Ller. >> Second, Mr. Nichols. Roll call vote. Mrs. Ller, >> approve. >> Mr. Nichols, >> approve. >> Miss Ralph, >> approve. >> And Mrs. approved. >> So approved. We have no rentals professional trips. Recommend approval of professional trips as a group. >> First, Mr. Nichols. >> Second, Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mr. Nichols. >> Approved. >> Mrs. Pew. >> Mrs. Isler. >> Approve. >> And Miss Ralph. >> Approved. >> So approved. Recommend approval of professional trips as submitted. >> So move. >> First, Mrs. Isler. Second, I believe Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mrs. Isler >> approved. >> Mrs. [snorts] Pew approved. >> Mr. Nichols >> approved. >> And Miss Ralph >> approved. >> So approved. Uh PSAT date March the 11th, 2026. For freshmen, request asynchronous instruction for 10th, 11th,
025and 12th grade students for March the 11th, 2026. >> Request. Okay, I already said that. Do I have a first? >> So move. >> First, Mrs. Isler. >> Second. Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mrs. Isler >> approved. >> Mrs. Pew >> approved. >> Mr. Nichols >> approve. >> And Miss Ralph >> approved. >> So approved. There's no items for presentation as far as policy. Uh, executive session. Recommend to approve the personnel report with recommendations as discussed in executive session as listed in attachment A. That's professional staff. So move. >> First, Mrs. Ller. >> Second, Mr. Nichols. Roll call vote. Mrs. Ller >> approved. >> Mr. Nichols >> approved. >> Mrs. Pew >> approved. >> And Miss Ralph >> approved. >> So approved. >> Personnel [snorts] attachment [clears throat] B. Cafeteria recommend to approve the personnel
026report with recommendations as discussed in executive session as listed. Attachment B. >> So move. >> First, Mrs. Isler. [snorts] >> Second. Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mrs. Isler >> approved. >> Mrs. Pew. >> Mr. Nichols. >> Approved. >> And Miss Rouse. >> So approved. Attachment C. Coaches recommend to approve the personnel report with recommendations as discussed in executive session as listed in attachment C. >> Move. >> First, Mr. Nichols. >> Second, Mrs. Pew. Roll call vote. Mr. Nichols, >> approve. >> Mrs. Pew, >> Miss Zizzler, >> approve. >> And Miss Rout, >> approve. >> So, approve. Regular board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March the 18th, 2026 at 700 p.m. right here in the Laurel Middle School High School Cafe. Do I have a motion we [snorts] adjourn? Some move. First, Mrs. Ller. Second, Mr.
027Nichols. Roll call vote. Mrs. Ller, >> approve. >> Mr. Nichols, >> approve. >> Mrs. Pew, >> and Miss Ralph, >> approve. >> And we so approve. We adjourn at 7:24 p.m.