001Okay, welcome to this evening's Augusta School Department workshop here in the CATC cafeteria. It is Wednesday, April 30th, 2025 and we got started a tiny bit late. It is 6:38. That's the call to order. And we're here to talk about the budget update. And before we get started, you want me to just give a review of what happened? That would be great. So, those of you who did not watch the city council meeting where they were deciding what needed to be cut, prior to going into the meeting, we had um Mike had gotten the information that the insuranceances for the teachers had come in at a significantly lower percentage than what we had budgeted. We had bud budgeted that at 13% Mike 15 15% and actually it came in at um a little over three
0023.1 and so and if you're want saying why was that such a big difference why did we miss that estimate is because traditionally the Augusta school department it's from the pool from MSMA or Blue Cross or whoever's running the insurance pool everybody who's in the pool they look at how much insurance your organization uses within a year and your increase is based on your usage of the insurance and Augusta has traditionally run pretty high in what we use for insurance having a uh an experienced faculty that we sometimes run into that. So, we had anticipated since we've been on the high end, we would continue to be on the high end. But for some reason, and I don't know if it's the year prior, I don't know what year they used to determine it, but
003there was a significant decrease in the amount of insurance used which reflected the lower rate. So, that we went in and we had let the city council know ahead of time that we would have a potential savings. A rough estimate at that point was 300,000. 3. Well, I said 350. 350. Yes. What? Whatever. So, whatever we had, we went to the city council and they knowing that we hoping that we still could keep it and start to build our fund balance. But living in La La Land, that was just hope on our part. So, the city council was well aware of the 350 and they also said that if we pushed you on that estimate, is there a chance that that estimate could be higher? and Mike agreed that it could be closer to 400
004plus. So they urged us said can we live with the 400 and we said yes and that you can save from insurance and we made it clear to the city council that it's not an automatic that that's the school board's decision on where the 400,000 comes from in the budget. So we did not make that commitment. It seemed like an obvious to us. Maybe not. Maybe you guys feel differently about that. That's the reason for this meeting is to decide where that 400,000 and I'll let you anything you wanted to add to that. Well, no, Mr. Superintendent. Thank you. But just from a there were others at that meeting or others that watched it. Anybody wants to pipe in or give any more just to kind of let you everybody understand where we're at as
005far as the city council has asked us to reduce the overall budget by 400,000 and I agreed and that we could do it from a from the insurance amounts that I could do that comfortably without cutting positions deeper positions and they seemed overall majority of them I think all of them agreed that that was their preference for us to not and and to add to that their goal what what did we go in with no cuts what was the increase to taxpayers do you remember that first number that they were working with is it six you mean the increase on our budget no the increase onto taxpayers increase on the whole budget no we had two and a half seven% increase on the taxpayers that wasn't just ours that was the overall 98 98 Yeah,
006they got it down to two. Two and a half. We got it down to two and some fun balance to help us. Correct. They they threw in some fun balance to help which we really did appreciate. They cut the same amount from No, they actually cut more because they wanted us to cut they wanted to 17 165,000 that left their fund balance at 8.33 which is in their charter to be within 5% to 8.33%. That's what Barry brought their fund balance down to. So that was a standard that a number of them wanted to stay at. Um they really I felt they were supportive to not want to cut more positions. Um and they really left it like Jared and I to say we're if you cut the extra 50 Mike we'll go back with
007my board and determine where we do that. And he went back and found anotherund um 25 orund together. we had to come up with 165. So he had to go find 115 and we had to find 50. And they and they were very generous because they originally went in there and we kind of split the difference that they needed. And they made several good points about why the city was in a better position to throw in a little more than the schools, which we appreciated. So we only had to throw in the 50 and they threw in the difference to get to get to the two 2.5% which was really appreciated. We appreciate they're recognizing the difference that it's not equal, you know, when we come to the table in in what they have available
008and and the flexibility that they have in their budget, which is more flexibility than we have in ours. So, we really appreciated that recognition and we appreciated the support that we did get from the city council. Charlie, will we have a fund balance? We did we did leave some fund balance which was about 227,000. We had 454,000 We split that in half. So we've kept 227ish unassigned and we've used 227 which I'm which that would be a recommendation I would make going forward. So we always have enough to fund the next year. So as far as what you use for fund balance. So that's our fourth third agenda item Mike's going to talk about next year. I'm sure there's going to be, you know, keeping the keeping things tight next year too, but we'll talk
009about that in a minute. Jonathan. Yes. Thank you. Uh, not only do I want to thank the city council and and Jared uh, city manager, but I also want to thank the city. A lot of, uh, during public comment, there was a lot of strong support for the work that the school does and they were really supportive of our budget and the work that everybody does. So, that was really beautiful to watch. It was it was nice. So, it was exciting to see that. So, with that said, how are you guys feeling about pulling all that money from the insurance overage? any anybody who disagrees with that. Well, I have that to present for you. Go right ahead. If you want me to go through that. So, what I handed after you did all that
010work? Yeah. Thank you. I spent quite a few hours with some members of the business office. What you had to do to figure it out? Well, you you what we had to do is is figure out how much a percent was worth to be able to get down to an exact amount. So, we pulled we what I what I've done is I pulled the 400,000 evenly out of like 150 lines of data. We had to go into every place in the budget where there were health benefits in a budget. So you'd go to say the middle school go any middle school, you'd have to go through every line where we budgeted for health benefits and then reduced that by the those dollar figures. So I worked to do that and you'll notice um so what
011that what you have in front of you is the most up to date. What it did to your budget is it brought you from 6.5% down to five. So we did drop a percent in uh expenses which was good. Um you'll notice regular instruction um is down 288,000. That's from really that represents your reduction in the Huzzy staff, the reduction in the um gifted talented position at the high school. Um, if you keep going down to special education, you'll see that is up to 33% of the 2.1 million. The the the vast majority of that is um on district placement. Okay. And there were a few other things that that from changing in staff and we did have to increase the a few staff members from edtech twos to threes. Um and the administration and
012special ed majority of that is reducing the um assistance bed director, excuse me, spe special education assistant director CTE. Um Nick cut a position out of there. um reduced one of the nurse positions at the tech center and co-curricular that did there was some healthy increases with teacher negotiations in the world of stipens the next year that's represented in extra co-curricular you look down below into student staff student and staff support is down 80,000 um we we had a senior guidance counselor we aggregated the salary all the way down to a mid person. That's why you're seeing less in guidance. Uh instructional technology, that's a reduction the cut we made to Caitlyn's laptops, staff laptops. Um if you keep going down through library services, that's a reduction of that edtech at the high school. System
013admin, that is the the school board, your legal fees. myself, the assistant superintendent, business office, all fall within that category. Um, school administration, that's your school principal's offices. Transportation's up, that's been the same number since we renegotiated a contract for a student and maintenance and operations is up some, but that's mostly in utilities. Um, we did take John was up, remember, we cut 106,000 in John's projects for that year. So that that really has bare minimum stuff in John's plus utilities debt service is down slightly. So I what I what I did with the bottom and the yellow is I I I'm probably going to try to keep using that year after year because hopefully if we take this bite out of special education this year, we won't have to do that again next year.
014That's that is like my crossing my fingers to not have not have to increase if we have to increase special ed by that amount next year, we're in trouble. I mean, something's wrong with the world if we have to do that. So hopefully that will get that fixed going forward. So if you take a peek at the bottom and you said, well, if we didn't increase out of district placement cost, we'd only be up 700,000. And if you if special education at all, so the cost of special education this year, if that if that didn't increase at all on July 1st, so the cost for this year, if they remained the same for next year, we would be operating at $14,000 less next year than we are this year. It's a good it's a good
015budget from an expense side in my humble opinion. So what's the converse of that? It's not staying the same. It's increasing 2,112,457. That's what That's what special education's increasing. Correct. No. No. She needs the overhaul budget, right, Katie? No. Oh, special education. Special education is increasing. 2.1. Yeah. Two 2.1 million. Okay. So, y last year we were going to overspend or this year we were going to overspend by 1.6. And this year we filled the 1.6 six whole plus we're increasing by 2.1. Correct. So the if you think of it you separate it out this year we are back we're not spending money in certain areas to backfill that budget this year next year. So pretend we get that to zero by July 30. get our expenses to and revenue to zero at July 30,
016June 30 next year. Um, in this budget, we've taken into account. So, last fall when I said we're like folks, it looks like we're 1.6 million in the hole. We're in trouble. This 1.2 million accounts for that the next year. Can I just pause you right there for one second because it was one of my questions I was going to ask tonight because I wasn't sure because I'm just trying to remember everything. What was the catalyst that made you go, "Folks, we're going to overspend by 1.6." When we early on in the fall, the business manager came to us and said we had some projections. I started asking her to encumber positions, meaning spend out all the money for me in September so I can see where we're going to be. and there were lines
017that were drastically going to be over and out of district placement was the was the number one category and is the number one problem. Um, and again that was part of it after we went back through and looked at the last year's budget and I can't remember I think it was Kim Willard somebody in the office came and said did you see we started going down line by line when I started becoming business manager and I started going line by line and I realized we had only it only and nobody caught it just let you know like none of us caught it including me I wasn't looking at it much last year but um nobody caught the fact that we had budgeted at $313,000 when Shelby asked for $800 and something. But I think that
018was um explained as because we were anticipating because we did vote to earmark 500,000 in a reserve in a reserve but we didn't have it. So I guess another question going back to that is why didn't we have that at the end of the year before? Because it was spent in this year's budget. Because it was spent in this year's budget. So, we had that money earmarked and I, you know, I didn't know that then. Now that I know our numbers better now, right, knowing what I know now, um, you'd like to earmark, but we can't, right? And in fact, if we have any kind of a fund balance next year, I mean, I'll I don't mind in in the administrative team, and I know I'm on the air, anybody can watch this, but we
019are likely going to have to tighten our belts again next year, people. I just want you to know that. I mean, I've done this I've been doing this long enough to tell you that if you want a sustainable budget that the citizens of Augusta are going to approve, that's reasonable. I know some of you don't like it when I act logical and reasonable of costs, but we've got to u make the debits and credits match a little bit. We can't go forward with six, seven, eight, 10% budgets and and survive. So I I think a we're going to have to look at probably tightening our belts. I don't want to predict now what that means yet like out loud. I don't know, but probably have to do that. And we at the same time we're
020going to be looking for revenue streams, which is why we're working on a scholars program and being able to keep we we don't I don't want to send more and more students out of district. So then the question to my special ed director, assistant superintendent is how do we create a program here, train people here? What do we need here to be able to um keep those kids in house? Have a program internally so that we don't have to send as many out of district to help with that. And then ultimately when we get really good at that, can we bring a kid in from Richmond or Winter or Morana Cookook and start making a little bit of a revenue on that model. So that those are the things we are definitely looking at and
021I hope within a year or so we're able to implement. That was going to be my question. Is it realistic to think that we might be able to have that in place next year? Not not for 26, but for the next year when we're talking about budget, will we be able to say we're not going to have these kids out of placement? Can you talk about it realistic? So, for the specific spelling to communicate program that the Department of Education is sponsoring for us, um we're currently working on a contract that should be done hopefully next week. Um and that would include um 15 staff members getting training beginning this summer. So we'll have a kickoff this summer and this will include staff from Augusta, Richmond, SACO and St. George potentially. Um and so the
022DOE will be paying for this training. Um these staff members originally we wanted to have a separate site to have kind of a little petri dish and really take data and analyze and showcase what we're able to achieve. However, now they're able to fund the training for 15 people. So, we'll have a kickoff this summer. Training will happen dur during the school year, but during that time, people have to start working with students immediately. Um, so they will be able to work with students in our current programming. Um, and then that would be open to branching out. They they will do an internship here in Augusta um in the spring of next school year. So, it is all on track to get that kicked off this summer and started. However, the world's a little, you
023know, testy. We're we're working on the contract and everything is full force now, but and so from so if we train and we pilot the program in spring, we could be for the next fiscal year, we hypothetically could have a program here at least at least in turn at least we will have it happening for our students that are currently in house and then um depending upon how that makes the atmosphere better and students are thriving and I could see potentially trying to bring back students and then growing that potentially with spacing so we're probably a year or two out from it from G from making money and and the other thing or even bringing kids back from out of district it it all depends on you know capacity there's a lot of variables right
024right and I I think before I don't want to overro I always I don't want to overpromise and underd deliver I think this is what we're working on with the even if We can't bring back kids who are already programming outside. If it saves us from sending more kids out, that's a savings. So, and that's I'd like to be I will believe me when that happens. I will be, you know, the first one to say, "Hey, guess what we did? We kept three kids in house this year that we otherwise would have sent out." And I think that those will be important pieces of data to be sharing publicly as time goes on. Right. I think that thing that the city council wanted to hear. I'm glad we were able to mention that to them.
025Just listening. We're raising hands. I'm sorry about that. I thought I was So, Susan, wait. I just wanted to clarify something. It's fine. So, is it fair to say in special ed world that it's difficult to reduce services to some student who's got an out out of district placement to bring them back? How often does that realistically happen? At this moment in time, not very often. Um, and I'm not going to say on television why I feel that way. Um, but the programming the kids are not they're not making the progress that is promised in the out of district placements is clear. Okay. So, but but do you think with the right program available that may be something that people would go for? Absolutely. Okay. Susan, I saw your hand first. All right. Are there
026any contiguous districts who are also thinking of creating an in-house program for students that we might take advantage of? Um, we are collaborating with some districts as Dr. Watton said on this okay on this project. And so it could be, you know, it's always the economy of scale that if they train someone in Winthrop and they've got one or two folks trained and that's all they need, they may not need to send anybody here. But down the road certainly we could become if we get good at this. We could be a site where we take a student or two and you know you and and it's a saving. It's a win-win because we would charge them less than they're paying for an out of district placement, but then we would win because we'd have some
027revenue. It's a triple win because it actually helps kids too. And it actually works. Actually helps kids, too. The triple, Katie. So, we just want to make sure that we're all talking about the same thing because I'm I missed a couple of curriculum meetings and I haven't gotten to watch them back. So, when you're talking about selling to communicate, that's what you were originally planning on a $500,000 opate scholarship. Nothing to do with that. Nope. That grant actually and they were supposed to tell us April 15th. I was waiting. I never got an email. So, I immediately emailed them and said, "There must be something lost in the mail cuz I haven't received your grant award." And they said, "We actually postponed it to May, I think 28th or something like May something." What is
028that money for? That is for the alternative education program. So currently we're at the teen center and using our staff. This would pay for um three years of full-time teachers at the teen center. So we weren't talking about the same thing. Okay. So which is still very hopeful because that you were talking about something offsite. You were good. That is yes. So originally we were working with the DOE and met with Pender and we wanted to do an offsite because the re real it's better to do it in the school. It's better for the kids to do it in the school. It's better for them to be you know around people and um for the whole school to presume confidence in all their kids and have high expectations and um however uh because of funding
029um we're able to train teachers now. So, we wanted to have a petri dish just to showcase and be able to uh not to just showcase but to show the progress and really track data and have basically a research study so we could spread it throughout the state. So, the spelling to communicate would be offsite or the adult alternate ed would be offsite. Alt ed is offsite. Alt ed is at the teen center plan to change that at this time. Spelling to communicate would be in our schools. Would be in schools. Now, I guess the I'm hoping it's the last one. And I really think it's the last one. Um, out of district placement was explained to city councilors. Some of the reason why a reason why some of those kids are out of our
030district is because they're dangerous. So, how does spelling to communicate make a student less dangerous or is it completely separate? No, definitely involved. So um from the research that I did in my dissertation and what I've learned is failing to communicate gives students um and adults um a method to communicate. So it reduces their frustration. Uh behaviors reduce drastically um and they are able to be taught at a age appropriate level. Um so they're feeling better about things because people are not treating them like infants and toddlers when they're you know teenagers. Um, so there's a a great amount of um evidence that this would reduce behaviors, so students may not be as violent. And it's not providing them with communication devices that they might already be entitled to through state funding like section 28
031or whatnot. It's not this is a it's a different type of alternative communication device. Okay. That currently is not being offered anymore. And how would that be funded? That would be funded. The training would be funded through the DOE and then it's just staff implementing it. How would the devices letter boards or how would that be? It would be funded through um well it is going to be funded at first through the DOE because they do have funding for supplies for this but then it would be funded through the school but it's very very low to minimal costs. Like when I think of the devices my son has had over the years one cost $10,000, one was I think more than that. The letter board is $8. So like it's not, you know, you could
032make it yourself. It's just nice real hard laminated. Thank you, April. So I want to go back to cost. Um, one of the things that's been kind of rattling around in my head when we look at how do we cut funds responsibly, have we ever looked at validating um, children's addresses? Like are we with the nomadic with with the nomadic nature of some of our kids, you know, are kids using addresses or PO boxes that they're not really residing at to still attend these programs because they may not be available in where the parents live um like using grandma's address or boyfriend's address. So what what we do is we take people at face value unless there's something really like we you know it 90% of the time when people are bringing us in mail
033and things with their address on it, license, proof of residency, that's what we go with. Um, if we get if we're skeptical of something or something in the application process seems erroneous, we could have a police officer do a well check and and maybe verify an address or two. And we've done that. Um, outside of that, we don't we don't have a special mechanism we use to verify every address other than what I've just described. Um, piece of mail, driver's licenses, etc. um that and in statute that's what we you know registration paperwork is valid from residency it's a valid piece of residence validate your residence so that that's as far as we go with that um yeah I don't know if that I don't I don't even know what we could or should do
034beyond that to verify addresses I'm not sure what other school districts do beyond that to be honest Just a thought or a question. I mean, if we're trying to save money, are there kids that should be serviced in other districts? Well, I know parents are not living here and they've not asked for an exemption. Yeah, I I can tell you that there are snafoos, maybe that's not the right term, but uh questions or questions about residency that bubble up to my office. Sometimes true with tuition students, etc. Another two superintendent will go sort of go back and forth until we can verify one way or another where people are. So there there is a validation process from that perspective. We don't just let anything willy-nilly go. And I know special education also there's a layer
035there that Shel's pretty in tune to when a child comes in with service needs and she knows they're going to be uh going to a place that might be costly that she's double triple checking on those. So it it is happening but we don't have a computer, we don't have a microchip or you know we you know it's not to that level. Uh yeah. What's child find? That's nothing. Child find is special education. Yeah. So that's what we're talking about is special education student. Please raise your hand. Please what's child fine? Can I ask Mrs. Sus? I'd like to hear what you were going to say. Susan. Well, child find is a requirement in the special education regulations that a school district let the community know that it has services for special education children and
036the ways to um access that. So not a not a program of actually it's actually coordination look duty that we have an assessment CDS it be there might be a newspaper or it might be on the website our website if you have special education children please notify the school we have a piece of our registration packet that identifies that and I was just going to add that it's required by federal law who take title one funds you have to coordinate this special services prek and kindergarten we have a home language there's like 15 beginning of the year pieces of information that home language survey child find that we have to put in our registration packets so to to get back to this budget Um we what I did is I went through every line where
037there's um health insurance and I reduced the 400,000 out of the budget. That brings the bottom line to $40,260,892 for an in total increase of $2,98,55% increase. Are there questions on expenses? Just to mention a piece of two pieces of legislation that you might want to be aware of. One is that there is I don't know the LDS on that, but I know there is one LD talking about increasing fund balance back up to nine. That's in the in the talks. The other thing that you need to know about is the people's veto. Uh if you're not familiar with what the what the people's veto is is that main law does allow a petition to be circled circ circled not circulated I thank you Susan circulated so that um it would take 67 signatures to
038put a freeze on the current budget that was passed in Maine until that can go to a referendum vote in November which act and what it does is it freezes the budget shuts it down. What do you call it? Work stoppage. What is it? But you know, it would be a government shutdown. A government shutdown from the time that they the signatures don't even have to be verified once this once the petition is received with 67 signatures. 67,000 67,000 67,000 gets a halt. Everything comes to a halt. Budgets are frozen. That includes the state budget. Money for schools is frozen. So, um, it's in the talks that that may be circulated. So, if you, if you're in favor of doing that and shutting down the government until there can be a referendum vote on that,
039that's what that will be about. So, just to let you know that that may be out there as well. Those are the two pieces of information that I thought that might be pertinent to us, Susan. And that could be from July through November. Yes. That shut down mechanism. And we're also to to that point, we're keeping an eye on the federal uh and I've been meaning to send this to you. So MSMA sent me a piece of information. I'm not sure if you as the board got got the information recently, but it was basically that as of right now, as of right now, they're saying their belief structure is two things. One, it's around the Title N conversation and money and federal dollars. in that u because we had Christina I don't know if we
040were both on that meeting I'm sorry to put you on the spot but we had a meeting with tender m the DOE a couple of weeks ago just before break and the conversation was about MSED70 and MSED70 is up in Holton and they were the school one school district that voted to not only um return their Title 9 policies to the 2020 rules, but they made those policies adhere to the Trump executive order. So, it removed sexual orientation and gender identity from those policies so that MSD70 um would be following the executive order and not the main human rights act. So I one of us asked the questions. Maybe I asked the question. I can't remember asked the question. So that must mean they're safe, right? That must mean MS because I've seen it all
041over the news. And by the way, I watch both conservative news and uh whatever both sides of the aisle news and uh because what I've seen in headlines is MS87 is safe. And what we found out was not, you know, either either we're all safe or none of us are safe because the way the the main department of education is the fiscal agent for the US Department of Education's money. So if we decided we were going to be, you know, we we wanted to do the same thing as MSD70 and and and create policy that abides by the Trump executive order. It doesn't mean we're going to get federal money. And if we stay as is, it doesn't mean we're going to get money because it's all going to come down to the main department
042of education in the court cases between our governor and the president. Now, I'm not trying I'm not trying to be political with this, so please just don't take it that way. But I wanted to clearly explain because I didn't know. I thought, well, do we need to redo our policies again? adhered specifically to an executive order that would then make us in line with safe the MSAD70 and then we'd be safe and according to Department of Education and MSMA the answer was no that we don't need to do that we would stay as is and the interpretation currently is that we should be following the main human rights act and of course what you're hearing at the state level is that by following the main human rights act we are following federal title So, I'm
043not going to make I don't know. I'm not going to that's not for our discussion. Uh because that's going to be filed in the courts. It's not for us to it's it's actually the same the same fight we've been seeing at our board meetings. It's really not anything we can decide. So, a what I want you to hear from me is a it's not our fight. B, uh, we can't do anything any we can't change our what we've done to date is what our attorneys MSMA and DOE are saying you should have done, which is revert to the 20 20 rules and leave it alone and and stand behind it. So that's where we're at with that. And then the second piece of that was title nine and those title six title six and title
044six. Thank you very much. Very good. And title six was the um in uh there were forms for us to sign to acknowledge that we were um uh abiding by title six and I did sign it as a superintendent. What's what's title six? Title six was racial minority language minority. Yeah. Thank you. So, um I did sign it thinking that I had to. So, then when I talked with our attorneys, there was no harm, no foul. It was, you know, they were um you can sign it. But again, what was this? What did it say? What did you sign? It was a it was an agreement, an acknowledgement, an assurance that we're following title six and our which I do every year in August. there's a main school approvals report that I have to do
045with DOE that verifies and assures that we're following all of these things anyway. So, it was kind of like a doover and it came from the US Department of Education and again without trying to get political in this space, I'm saying um people could choose to sign it or not sign it. The Department of Education said we didn't have to. Um, again, because they're the entity where everything flows through. So, I just I wanted to let you know that's and I don't need to send you the email. I will, but I don't that's that's what that update was from MSMA. So, I I got into all that to tell you I'm not sure where we're going to be with federal money. Um, I'm operating with like taking a deep breath and believing we're going to
046have federal funds because that's what I'm being told from from the state level. That's what I'm being told. So, that's how we'll operate. In the event that that's cut back or we lose that federal money, um, we we have upwards of 30 plus positions in this district that are federally funded. So, I just want you to know what and and and we have money through September. That was the other thing is the the federal current federal money, the allocations that we have been promised by Congress that we're currently operating under, we have through September. The new budget, the new budget from the president and Congress will be voted on and that determination of that federal money begins after September. So just I I think it's going to be important for us to stay tuned between
047now and July for us now and September to be paying attention to this. Susan, just a clarification. Did you say 70 is Holton? Holton Hodgegen, I think. No, no, it's a little one. It's a little update. I stand corrected. Thank small small district. There's 25 school areas. I also had a question like it seems like I remember and I'm guessing that this still has to happen that when we have um these warrant numbers, if we're going to go over like we are in special ed, there has to be a fund transfer from another account. Will we be getting it? And it couldn't be over a certain percentage% from any one account. Will we be getting that maybe in our next finance meeting? You won't be getting it. You won't be getting it till it's audited
048because when the auditors come in, that's when they say, "Here's where your year end is." So, it happens June 30. We we do the books, reconcile the books, right? The auditors look at those in July. Usually, it's August. But don't we decide how you're going to what accounts are going to go from to cover another? Yeah, but usually recommend it to the auditors. They they'll tell us you've got you can move this amount because it's under 5%. This is what we recommend you move in 186,000 to here. You should move 204,000 from here. That'll come from the office and it won't be until at least August. Okay. Okay. Thanks. You're welcome. Yeah. I ju I really mad chair I just want I can cover the revenues but I unless you think we should do something
049different I'll just tell you I don't think it makes sense to anyone is taking the 400,000 out of the insurance increases I'm I'm glad we moved it up to 15% this year and the reason just to extend what Murphy said earlier I want you to think like why did Mike superinflate that because last year we budgeted 10% for insurance and it came in at 11.7. So when I originally was doing the budget, I told Carla, please put in 15%. So we know if we have another 11.7 12% increase, we're covered. Okay. So it's kind of good news this year because we have a place where we can do this. And and would it be fair to say that we're anticipating that when we start the school year with a new budget that things are still
050going to be tight and we're still going to be watching things because you know every penny counts and anything we can do to build up that fund balance which is really a lot lower than it should be that that's something a consideration 100%. 100%. So if there are no questions madam chair I'll move on to the um revenues and the delt. So, um, couple of things. The lo I want to just I'll just set get you right to the changes. If you look at local additional local additional at the $4,78,360, that number is down from 5.1. That's where you'll see a reduction in the 400,000. Okay. So, local additional contributions down by the 400,000. That number's down. And then and then obviously the total education is down by 400,000. Otherwise, none of the other numbers
051have changed on. Okay. Questions? See none. Oops. [Music] Go ahead. I don't know what my question is though because I What's your concern? Maybe we can turn it into one for you. How does this reflect the fact that this Did you not? I'm just kidding. How does this reflect the fact that the city's plugging a hole for us? Like where's that reflected? Not this is this is just our budget. Okay. But to your point, and I've worked very hard with Mr. Mills, and I have to give the gentleman a huge amount of credit, but because I think he felt like I think a couple things happened on the city side, and I and this is important to say is not only did they not add to their budget because of us, I think he had
052some ideas and things he wanted to do, and he didn't add positions this year because of us and our situation. as well as they moved two two more million dollars of fund dollars. Now they had it to use. I'm thankful for that. Um but he was able to move that over really to cover our gap. So if you think about where we're at and you look at the jump, I think you're on to something if you if I could just editorialize for a second. If you look at local additional last year, our current year is at 2.1 million. Everybody sees sees that number and we're almost doubling that or more than doubling that. Right? That is tells me even in spite of the increase with state aid that we're up we're up 2.5 million to
053the locals. Now it the majority of that is because we we used too much fund balance in the past. Okay, that's the, you know, you've heard the cliff before. That's what got us here. So, I I don't anticipate that. The only way we would see that kind of an increase ever again to the locals in that category is if we had a huge decrease in state subsidy. You have a huge decrease in state subsidy, then you have to fund the total cost of education. So even if even if you're at $40 million this year and $40 million this year, if state subsidy decreases to fund that $40 million, it's got to come from somewhere. So you're always looking at two things. You're always looking at state subsidy, the total cost of education, how much is
054the expense side of the budget going up because those two factors drive how much the local, right? So then you're doing this dance between how much you need if if you have a huge decrease in state subsidy and I that's happened to me in other districts. Then you have to if you don't have the fund balance to help you. So let let's just if everybody stays with me for a second. This is exciting stuff. If you if you're in a district and you have a million dollars less in state subsidy and you've been using 500,000 year after year in fund balance, what I would do is I'd say, "Oh, I'm down a million dollars in state subsidy. I've probably increased my budget by a million now. I'm up 2 million over here to taxpayers." The
055only way to fix that is to go to my fund balance for a year or two and say, "Do I have a little fund balance? Do I have two or three million over here that I could maybe use slide 500,000 over from fund balance?" And then make a cut or two because then I can find the million dollar reduction in state subsidy by using those two factors instead of saying, "Oh, I got to cut a million bucks next year because state subsidy is down millions." That's why I would have some fund balance here. it helps cushion these kinds of blows and we didn't I mean it was the opposite this year because it was fund balance that created the problem. We overused fund balance in the past. So I'm always going to be looking two
056and three years out and the other thing I'm thinking about is what's state valuation going to do? I just had this conversation with a with another superintendent recently here in Augusta and I said what do you think's going to happen when Augusta revalues the homes? Anybody know what that means? It drives the valuation of Augusta up, which is a huge part of the funding formula. And if the values of Augusta go up, the state says, "Oh, Augusta doesn't need as much money. They can they their homes are valued so much more, so they've got more money, so they don't need as much state subsidy and state subsidy goes down." So that's that's something to consider as they when they're going to revalue Augusta in the next few years. The second factor is student enrollment. And
057if we're projecting, you just sat through a PowerPoint with uh the building committee. If we're looking at a downturn, a decrease in student enrollment, that's another negative factor on money. So you have to look at those things over two or three years and say, do we need to tighten our belt or are we growing in student population that we need to add a teacher? That's happened to me before. But more times than not, if you have less kids and your valuations go up, that is not that's a double negative that you that impacts our subsidy state subsidy in a negative way. So we're going to need to be thinking about that over the next couple years. April. So, will we be um looking at well just kind of tracking the schools that decide to close
058like the St. John's of the world? I think you know St. John's gets a lot of kids and if you're talking about increasing enrollment, you know, if they can't afford to float their bills, what's going to happen? And are we going to see that trend in other Christian schools, private schools that are trying to stay afloat? So, do we track those as well to see who's coming? I I haven't been tracking those, but that's a good question. Do we do we know if we have kids in private schools and where they are life? Um, is that a list we keep? No, I don't know. We don't if All we know is if a child is enrolled in our school or homeschooled, that's all we track. If there's an Augusta resident that's going to St. Dom's
059or the charter school that's 1.6 six miles away. If that's happening, we don't we don't have a record of that. I mean, I don't know if Caitlyn can look up and I don't think so because it's student data and it's their privacy about that. So, they're not our students. So, we don't have the right to see it. I mean, you can look up on I'm sorry. You can look up on the state um dashboard of but private schools I don't think are listed. Yeah. Special purpose. Yeah, I would have to look at that because I know in NEO we can look at a list of I know I can look at superintendent agreements in so on in NEO at the state website I can find out how many kids of ours are from Bassboro or
060China or Chelsea like that I can get but I'm not sure if I can do it the other way around. No, I don't think so. So that and then the last thing in this uh getting back to budget here is adult edaded I will tell you in full transparency that I had reduced Kayla's budget down by um so the same amounts percentage wise that I cut out of the general uh budget I went and cut out a kis and it saved us like 7,000 $7,300. $00. But then when I went back to Jared, he he said, "Don't do that because that's going to screw up all of his numbers by the 7,300." He means we would have cut four 400,000 uh 400,000 $47,331. Thank you. And he said, "Don't do that because you said 400.
061That's all. I bet the paperwork, so put that back in." So Kayla's budget didn't change is what I'm trying to tell you. Um, in full transparency, we could have saved 7,000, but I talked with city manager and he said leave the alone. So, I think it, and again, it's smaller amount of money that I don't think is worth the headache. So, no change in adult debt. The other changes reduces the net with all of us is it reduces the 400,000 out of health insurance uh to our budget without any position. So that's my recommendation to you folks and if you would approve that tonight and I can't you can't take action but if I just nod a general thumbs up because then I need to make your warrants for next week for your board meeting
062excuse me in two weeks where you'll approve the warrants for cost center based on these numbers at the board meeting. I did want to follow up on on Katie's question a little bit. So, but Katie's question of so if the if the city council was willing to throw in $2 million, right, where would taxpayers see that? Because it's not in our budget, the $2 million. The city put it on their side. So, when you go to look at and the number on my tax bill that I look at the percentage of this bill that is school and the percentage of this bill is is the city, would that mean that they're you you won't see it. It's the city percentage would change that. It's not going to it's because what you see what you get
063taxed on expense amount. So if if the city the city costs $43 million and the schools cost $40 million that's what your tax bill will represent, which is a great point that you brought up. So, if you follow that logic and we put in $7 million in Augusta in fund balance out of the savings account, that tells you, ready, nobody likes to say this, but I'm going to say it because I'm an honest guy. That means the costs of doing business, excuse me, the cost of doing business in Augusta, cost of the city services, the cost of education is $7 million more than what the taxpayers are paying for it. And that's why I I I want to get us in our our side of the budget to where we're not using that level of
064fund balance ever again. you know, a million dollars or under is where we ought to be or what and and if one year you have whatever whatever you know, you get a windfall of COVID money again, hypothetically, god forbid, if we did and we don't spend a lot of chunk of money, then you got to have a plan in subsequent years to spend down fund balance. But hopefully we keep it within a reason, you know, well, the the law is 5% next year right now. So, so we we should be for us that's about $2 million. We we should have an unassigned fund balance carrying year after year around to unassigned. Okay, Charlie. So, we've been okay by the city council and we've come to agreement with them. Then the whole thing goes to the
065the public for them to vote on. Right now, only the school because there's a quirky law that came into effect. I think it came into effect when they did consolidation. I think that's when they threw that out there. It's called the um budget validation referendum where just the school budgets have to be validated at at the polling place. But what people don't know, and we've never really promoted this, is every three years there's also a vote that says, "Do you want to keep doing this?" and you can vote no, which means then we don't have to do it anymore. It's on the ballot this year. Is it on the ballot this year? Is it? It's on the sample that's online. So if that were this is it, you guys vote no more doing that. So
066if you if you if we didn't have that, then we'd be done at city council, right? And when is that election? June. June 10th. It's usually a special election in June. Second Tuesday in June. [Music] So, but remember, you need to get people up to vote on the budget validation referendum because it can be voted down. If they vote down the budget validation referendum, then the law says we're back we're back at the drawing table, but you don't know. Sometimes they've had the argument in districts, well, did they vote it down because it wasn't high enough or because it was too high? I think we would have an indication of what that might be here. However, we're back at the table. If we get to July 1st, and we don't have a new budget. We
067go with this year's current budget until we get a budget. We start that over again. So, it's important for people to get out and to vote in favor of the budget validation referendum. So, tell your neighbors, tell your friends. Katie, you blew my mind. So, I want to come back to that in a minute. But since you brought it up, what h what are we going to do if the citizens stand up and show up and vote this down? What are we going to do? We come back to the table and make some cuts. We're back to the process. Then it has to be another val budget validation referendum. Do we hold up the city and we have to go back to them? No, it's just us. Just us. We're just cutting. And then how
068often does it go back out till we get one? Like but is it not till November? No, we'd have to pay to create a new pay for the city clerks to be there. We have to have we would have to pay to hold another election in a designated month because it does happen out in the world in the state even have to follow the same timelines that you do for the the budget validation referendum has to be within a certain time. So then when you get another approved set of warrants is another set of time and then they've gone places have gone three and four times. four to like eight times one one year. Four. Yeah. Hopefully we don't hopefully we don't. I'm holding my brain in my head because what you just said about
069taking $7 million out of fund balance, right? Means that the cost of education would be $7 million more than what it is. And you've said that before. You said that was at the school. No, I know. I know. Oh, it's okay. Calm down, guys. I'm not going anywhere. Calm down. Okay. Um, so what I'm concerning myself with because my brain needs to figure it out is the 2.563 million that the city is using of their fund balance. Is that right? Or adding to their fund mail. They're taking from their fund balance. Taking they're taking that amount from their fund balance and they're getting us that they're not doing anything to us. They they they use 2 million more of their fund balance. There's no effect on us. It has effects on the taxpayer. It's to
070help the taxpayer. The the 2.5 million that you're seeing here is the amount of local additional that we're having to raise. Okay. on our side of the ledger. What Jared did is bought that down with fund balance, right? Which is on the city. On the city side, on the city side, not right. So I guess that's what I'm trying to reconcile is previously we would argue against ourselves to not use our own fund balance on recurring costs like staff. So, how confident are we, and maybe this is my question, how confident are we that next year we don't have an automatic $2 million that's going to need to be funded? Okay. The tax base is increasing to cover this budget. So, so, so next year we're going to get 40,26,892 no matter what. That's our
071baseline next year. Well, that well our base our total budget is that amount, right? And so that's the starting place next year. And so in the back of my mind, what I'm thinking about is yes, that amount of money that the city is using a fund balance really to help us with our budget to lower the total cost of Augusta, right, of the increase. They're buying that down. It's their fund balance. I'm going to disagree with you for a minute only because the city's not helping us out. The city's helping the taxpayers out, right? Our budget is our budget. What they put in for fund balance helps the taxpayers. We shouldn't look at them as putting money for us. It helps the taxpayers not be angry at us for it. Does that's that. But it's
072not an intent to they're not throwing money at the school budget. No, I I I understand what you're saying. And I'm also saying the net increase to the locals, that's the school responsibility has increased by 2.5 million. And so we have to which is double what we asked them for in local additional last year. So I think we have to think about that when we're creating a budget next year. Like we certainly won't be able to have any increases. We won't be able to have any increase. We're not going to be able to add because we're already have to fill the Sorry, I didn't raise my hand. We're only have to fill the 270 something,000 in our current fund balance, right? We're using fund balance. We're using that. So, we're going to use the amount
073that we have in fund balance this year for next year. We're going to be back to zero unless we unless we bring unless we end up bringing in some more this next year, which I hope in revenues because right revenues and then not expending is everything we say we're going to expend, right? That's how this book super tight. So we probably will positions. You might save some in positions, right? It's tight. I mean, it is tight. So, this is probably going to be a three-year process. I just think I think that we're I'm going to be paying attention to state subsidy. I'm going to be paying attention to federal funds. And we just I just like right now here we are 12 months before next budget season or seven or eight months before October and
074November when I'll be thinking about this again. And I'm going into it not adding and probably um looking at ways that we can uh tighten our belt on more round because we've got to get the total cost of education to a place that the increases are um almost predicted year after year and we will be able to get there. But um we've got to kind of stabilize what we're doing. And part again part of the big chunk is getting our the need to pay for special education getting that up to where we need it next year. That's going to be a big fix. So taking I keep saying taking a bite out of that apple will be a big deal. So the and really down the road how to mitigate that will be finding revenue
075sources or not spending as much money on the bleeding ulcer side of our budget. If we know that, if that's predictable, then that's why we need to be looking at places to increase revenue and not sp not sending as many kids out in the future. So, that's something we're specifically intentionally working on. And and we've done a few little tweaks like some of those edtech 3es that we have now that we can build main care with that we couldn't before and moving things from what were a local entitlement position that you couldn't build for and switching that into a regular position. you know, there there were some tweaks made in this budget besides just that we seem to forget the 12 positions that we cut this year. So that's page three, right? Yeah. And so
076so adult ed and page three have not changed. And that that concludes what I'm presenting. I'll let you folks have questions. We're all right here. We're live on camera. We can see you. Nope, I can't say it. We can say that we've concluded the negotiation. Okay, so I don't know what we could say. We have concluded negotiating with the teachers and we did the we did the uh interest based negotiating and they said this is the first time that they can ever remember that they'll possibly as long as both sides ratify it um that they can ever remember ending the school year with a contract for the next year. That's nice. So, it's good news. That's good news. So, that's good news. And yes, if if both sides ratify, that's a big condition. And another
077good news, if we're sharing good news that we did find out um today or yesterday, that we're receiving $75,000 for summer school programming that will include grade six. I remember that was one of the first meetings. We didn't include them last year. So, kindergarten through grade six summer programming grant funded. Just a positive. You said positive. Yeah, we love to we love to end that way. So, we've got a general do we have a general um thumbs up for me to go ahead and uh get the warrants together for your board meeting. Yes. Thank you very much. And with that, oh, sorry, I do have a random a random question that I don't know the answer to, so I want to ask it. And then I have one thing that's pseudo budget related that you
078might want to talk about. I guess it'll be up to you. So, why don't we review the school nutrition budget as part of this process? That's a great question. I don't I don't know why we historically have it in my prior district. Um, did you was it you did? Yeah, it was separate like it all did. It had its own separate Yeah. I mean, we could certainly section, but we did we I mean, my three years here, I don't remember that. There's no I don't remember it ever. No. Um, it's it's maybe because it used to be self-funded when it was before it was all paid. I think it is. We certainly could ask her to present at a finance committee or something. I think this absolutely we could do that. Yeah. So, this is
079budget related. Um, but I and I think it's giving you an opportunity to explain something and I'm not attacking you, so don't feel that way. But I did have a handful of constituents that reached out to say, "Weren't you guys just at city council the other night? You're saying you don't have any money? How come your superintendent and your board chair are pictured in a in on vacation blah blah blah blah blah." So, I know what the answer is because I referred them to the agenda where the slip was and how it was funded and blah blah blah, but I just didn't know if you all wanted to Yeah. speak to it. You know what? I'm glad you brought it up actually. And I I'll just say that 26 years in public education. Um, and
080I I don't make it a habit of traveling out of state as your superintendent. I might do it every handful of years. I may do it more next year because of what I saw at Ron Clark. Um, one of the things I promised you all is that we're going to be innovative. We're going to streamline things. is we look to get rid of anything old that's not working and and find new things that do work well. Um we saw I saw 200 students in inner city Atlanta more engaged in in two days in school than I've ever seen in my 26 years in public education. And so the there's a recipe. It's like when you make the cake that you really like eating and and there's there's a recipe to get to make the good
081cake. And so when you see those things and then workshop those with the instructors and Ron Clark himself. Uh and there's a movie about it in case you ever want to Google it and watch it on YouTube or Netflix. Um Ron Clark Academy. Ron Clark's the teacher. And being able to do those things means an investment occasionally. And so I'm excited with some of the positive things that I saw at that school. And I I plan to work with staff and and administrators to try to do make those tweaks to get our kids as engaged and enthusiastic about learning as I witnessed there with my own eyes. Now, that being said, um it was free for your superintendent to go uh outside of my airline and the hotel. And um it was free for Dr.
082Borsaw to go who's taken three years in a row she's taken teams down from Gilbert and this is the important part uh response to your question. This is important. Um every dollar that was spent down there was federal money that had to be spent on professional development. So just you get quite if you get those same questions because I understand the optics on it. just like what you know board chair the superintendent are we weren't on vacation but we in fact I slept three hours in an airport on a cement floor which was not fun that's a different part of the story but um so that's what that money was used for was federal money that couldn't be used for anything other than PD um they they've Christina Warsaw has asked me two years in
083a row to go I finally gave in and went this year so that's my response to that question title three funds It was tier three money for title one tier threeier. Yeah. So part of federal the flagship federal statute of ESDA is there's 10003 which is specifically every state has to develop accountability measures to understand the lowest performing schools or the schools that have the most the highest rates of certain subgroups not meeting math and reading scores and potentially attendance. Chronic absenteeism is why a lot of schools have now been identified postcoid in the state of Maine. We have a state accountability system that has to get approved by the US uh DOE and part of that accountability system is that those schools identified as lowest performing or most in need of improvement receive extra
084dollars to facilitate professional development and school improvement coaches with to work with those schools in order to improve those student outcomes. So it's a particular like it's like title one is its own money and this is a set aside of that funding for those schools identified by a state's accountability model. Yeah. So the tier three money that Christina Borsa has to use had to be used on professional development spec specifically in the pro because of her experiences at L Clark. It's kind of like when you go see this you can't help but say I want to take more people to this so they can see it with their own eyes. So that's what she's used that PD money on for her school for three years in a row. We use central office people because special
085ed director I director of IT myself Dr. Watton and Martha Wam went and we use title one federal title one money for that for that was earmarked for PD for that purpose. And I just want to add that if you've noticed Gilbert school scores when we have those presentations at the curriculum meetings, you'll notice the difference in their scores in the past couple of years. In fact, I think that she's done so well that she's getting kicked off title three. I mean, tier three. I I don't I I just told where it I might I might know more information than I can share, but I and I do know that Lincoln exited also a couple years ago and I may have seen something I shouldn't share now, but yes, this this funding looks like it's
086improving scores at Gilbert and the work that's going down at Gilbert is improving scores. And if you're wondering why the board chair needed to go, I thought there would be some valuable points from a a board members on a point of view to share with you on why it's important to us to support this kind of new. And it's and what's funny, it's really not new. Some of the stuff they do is old. Like teachers dress like teachers. Like kids get detention on Friday afternoon. And if you're in detention, you sit at a table with nothing to do, no reading, no nothing. And they said that nipping the little stuff at the bottom stops all the big stuff. So some of it's not new. It's come back around or is around or being implemented or
087whatever. That I thought that was interesting. Susan. Well, just to make clear, tier three is the children who need assistance the most. Correct. It's schools identified. It's school funding. The RTI tier one is the kids who just need a little of something. Tier two, tier three are the kids who are slightly different ways, but yes, apologize. No, but but but in a sense, yes, what the model does is it quantifies and understands the schools that have the most need for gains and they can be identified in a multitude of factors. one. It might just be one factor sometimes that they're identified and there's three levels. Yes, there's CSI, APSI, and TSI. Lots of acronyms in education, but all that is to say is like schools can start sort of, you know, towards they might be
088at the bottom and then they've got extra funding and then they might find themselves in an elevated status. They don't get extra funding, but they might get support from the DOE in a different way and then they can go into the um the last like best tier, right? Or which is where like you're just not going to get any support. You don't need it, but you're still identified. So there's a whole accountability model and and one of the other things that I want to stress is if you go on the website, it's a pretty pretty glittery school. It's pretty fancy. They've got a lot of corporate money. They made it clear that none of this fancy is what makes a difference in their in their teaching and what goes on in their classroom. If they
089had none of it, they could still do the same things that they're doing now. They just happen to have access to corporate money to put the glitz and glamour. But that wasn't what it was about. And they have done that in the past in inner city schools. Yeah. Right. Question. What can we get corporate money? Pardon? Can we get corporate? They have CocaCola. Yeah. What are we going to do to compete money? That's the head. It's a great No, but there to your to your point like the um Sonic. Oh, no. Yeah, they um their CEO went to Ron Clark a few years ago and he their company now sends teams. So, we're going to maybe see if we can get on that application list to send in. So, so uh that'll open this fall.
090Anyway, so yeah, we we hope to be able to find some money that's supposed to be used for PD and really maximize sending groups from our other elementary schools and the administrators, maybe occasionally a board member who wants to be able to see this because I think it's transformative when you can come home and do you know one or two or 3% of the ideas in your own work in your own work, your own space, your own classroom. Another idea is all parents have to donate 40 hours a year at the school. It's you think it would be like fluffy and all this like new age stuff, but it's really strict. It's actually we said it's like Harry Potter with the military like if they were combo. Yeah. I couldn't believe how it was very
091April. Do you think this training will uh influence how we write policies in the future? I mean, I think when you say teachers dressed like teachers, that's that's a pretty that's a pretty um conservative thing to put out there in the land of um public education. No, in the land of what? Anything anything goes sometimes, right? I I'm I'm personally a fan of it, but I'm not getting I'm not going there today. Yeah. Charlie, do you have a question? We're still on. What's the name of the school again? Ron Clark Academy. Ron Clark. Yeah. Are we all set with the budget? We're done and we adjourned. Okay. Okay. shirt. A diamond