001[Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] down down down down down down down down down. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] I would like to call this meeting of May 9th, 2025 to order. Thank you to our live simultaneous Spanish interpreters for joining us today. We are also live streaming our meeting. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Yes. Here. Miss Kenworthy here. Miss Parker, Miss Reed here, Dr. Varta, please stand and join us this afternoon in the pledge. Is there a motion to approve the May 9th, 2025 meeting agenda? I move to approve today's agenda as presented in board docs. Is there a second from perhaps Michelle? Second. Any discussion? Second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda for today's meeting of May
0029th, 2025 as presented. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate, yes. Miss Kenworthy, yes. Miss Parker. Miss Reed, yes. Dr. Varta, the agenda is approved. For our first order of business, we will be convening into an executive session to confer with the board's attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding the board's legal rights and obligations under an intergovernmental agreement for the Arvvada Aquatic Center. Is there a motion for the board of education to convene in executive session under CRS24-6-42 subsection 4FI to confirm with the board's attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding the board's legal rights and obligations under an intergovernmental agreement for the Arvvada Aquatic Center. I move to convene an executive session under CRS 24-6-42 subsection 4FI to confer with the board's attorney for the purpose of receiving legal
003advice regarding the board's legal the board's legal rights and obligations under an intergovernmental agreement for the Arvvada Aquatic Center. And I'm sorry to interrupt board members just because to ensure we're do under the right section uh and for the record it's 246 4024B. Oh, okay. Okay. Um then I shall remove I move to convene an executive session under CRS24-6-4024B to confer with the board's attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding the board's legal rights and obligations under an intergovernmental agreement for the Arvvada Aquatic Center. Second. Second. It has been moved and seconded that the board of education will convene into executive session. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Yes. Miss Kenworthy. Yes. Miss Parker. Miss Reed. Yes. Dr. Varta. The board will now convene in executive session which is closed to the
004general public. Please end the live stream. The Heat. Heat. N. [Music] down down down down down down down down down down down down down Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Hey. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] down down down down down down down down down [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] behave. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat.
005Heat. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] Down. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Nat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. [Music] Heat. All [Music] right. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Nat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. [Music] down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down.
006Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down [Music] down Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N.
007[Music] Down down down down [Music] down. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. Down down down. [Music] Hello heat. Heat [Music] up Heat. Heat. [Music] down down down down down. [Music] Heat.
008Heat. [Music] Yeah. Heat. [Music] behind me. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] down. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down. [Music] Okay, we are back to our regular meeting. At our May 7th, 2025 meeting, we heard presentations on the following topics. Jeffco Student Leadership Board, District Accountability Committee, Employee Assistance Program, Long-Term Planning Recommendations from the 2024 Boundary Study, specifically the Jefferson Articulation Area, and the board had a 30-minute discussion on topics of interest. The public can watch the recording from the May 7, 2025 meeting to learn more about this content. And you can also visit our board page on the Jeffco public schools website.
009There you'll find a host of information and links to both board docs and our live stream platforms. Now, we will proceed with today's agenda. Due to the fact that our regular meeting will take place on May 29, 2025, we do need to take action on one item today aligned with statutory requirements and we will move into that action item now before we start our study session. So for our first agenda item, it will be to vote on non-renewal of contracts for named probationary staff and to direct the superintendent or her design to deliver written notice of the contract non-renewal as required by statute on or before June 1st, 2025. Is there comment on this? Um, and I don't see President motion. Is there a motion to approve the non-renewal contracts for the named probationary staff?
010Okay. Is there a motion on the non-renewal of the named probationary staff as required by statute? I move to vote on Let's pause for one second. We have a mistake in the script. If you don't mind, just give us one second. President Parker, is there a motion to approve the non-renewal contracts for named probationary staff? I move to approve the nonrenewal contracts for named probationary staff. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Yes. I'm always wondering on these it's what happens to these who am I asking these positions. Um I understand why they're on this list, but I've always wondered so for example the art teacher at North Irvado Middle School. Is this a position that's no longer going to exist at North Irv Middle School? How do how do these relate? Um I believe
011with the position so each position is different. some of the positions are um not being filled because of a budgetary constraint and so um by way of being probationary they were the first person who had to be um released from their position. Um, other positions are um potentially would be refilled with a different posting, but I believe that particular one, that art teacher you're talking about, I think that that was a second art um position. And so um North Arvvada Middle School is not able to continue funding that particular position. And so there's a variety of reasons. Um it could be due to performance management um and not quite um meeting expectations. It could be due to budgetary constraints. You're welcome. If there are no more comments or questions, roll call, please. Miss Harper. It
012has been moved and seconded to approve the non-renewal of named probationary staff. Miss Applegate, yes. Miss Kenworthy, yes. Miss Parker, yes. Miss Reed, yes. Dr. Barta, yes. And that motion passes. Uh, our next agenda item um will allow the board of education and the public to receive and consider the 202526 proposed budget and appropriation. Before I turn this over to the presenters, is there anything you'd like to say, Superintendent Doran? Um, yes. Thank you, President Parker. The board uh will note that yesterday we added an additional document and material here. It is noted as 592025 additional board presentation content. I I wanted to be responsive to the board's discussion on Wednesday evening at your study session related to if once again we're adopting a deficit budget and if in fact our third quarter and fourth
013quarter come in in a way that looks like we actually are going to be spending more fund the fund balance that we've estimated spending in the budget. What's the plan? And so you will see a memo there uh that highlights what that plan would look like. I want I want to note as part of that plan a couple of things. Uh this month you are studying the proposed budget and then next month we'll be studying the the final budget um and considering approval of that budget. There are a couple things that we believe we need from the board. Uh, and a couple of things that we want you to know, we're paying attention to, we want you to pay attention to. And so today, you'll see you're studying or in June, you'll also have another
014study session for the update updates to the proposed budget, which we will take feedback from you today, work on the proposed budget, and bring another version back on June 4th, and you will study that. We also are paying very close attention to our quarterly reports this year and I've been saying this all year u making sure that we are notating whether or not we believe will hit the fund balance usage that we have estimated in our budget and as you know our budget is approximately a billion dollars and GFO guidelines are for districts to come in anywhere between 2 to 5% of their planned budget to their actual expense. We've been coming in on an annual basis on both our revenue projections and our expense projections at about one maybe two% over the last couple
015of years. So we're pretty sure as we continue to watch the quarterlys that we will be spending into our fund balance anywhere from 30 to 45 million call it we think. uh we are paying we we plan to show you the third quarter in June and then we will have the fourth quarter done by September. Those those two quarters are important especially our year-end reports because I believe what we end up using in fund balance will be a very good estimate of what we might need to reduce in our budget for fiscal year 26. And so we have a timeline in this memo that you see here. And in addition to you all paying close attention to quarter 3 and the year- end reports so that we can define what our budget cuts will will
016likely need to look like going into the fiscical year 26 budget design. We also are asking that you identifi that the board identify two board members to work with staff this summer on putting together a engagement process for next fall as well as working to find uh a third party that can help us plan and facilitate for broad-based engagement around budget reductions for fiscal year 26. And I, you know, I want to say we are um working hard to prioritize the funding that we do have toward compensation for our employees and benefits. You're you're all very aware of that and I know you all have been getting a lot of feedback about that. We have as well and our bargaining team understands the interests of our associations in those two areas. We share those interests.
017At the same time, and I've been saying it for three years, we have a runway to get this budget to balance. We are nearing the end of that runway. And I, you know, I keep saying it's coming. It's coming. Well, it it is coming. And this fall, depending upon what the third quarter and fourth quarter look like, we're going to have to engage in a broad-based um community work around where do we reduce. Um, I also propose in this memo that as part of that work, we begin with a set of guidelines, guiding principles, so to speak, for budget reductions. And as an example, one of the most important guiding principles will be to look for reductions as far away from student impact as possible. I know very clearly that there will need to be
018reductions in central services and that will be the first place we look. But I will also say that if it does come to fruition that we have around 40 million in fund balance use this year and additional needs like for special education where we don't have a long-term identified funding for some shortages. It will be um important for us to consider the dollar amount that we're going to need to reduce and it will be important for everyone to know that while we will have a guiding principle around keeping it as far away from student impact as possible, we will not be able to absorb that amount of reductions just in the central services. it will impact schools, which is why we need support from two board members this summer who are identified to help us
019think about that community engagement and making sure that we have broad stakeholder voice in that. And so it seems a little bit like a um cautionary tale way of beginning our proposed budget presentation, but it is what it is and we've been talking about it for several years and so we just need to keep talking about it. So, we're eyes wide open going into what what we present to you in June and ask you to consider adopting for the 25 or 26th school year. Okay, with that, I'm going to hand it over to Miss Copeland and Mr. Sammons. Oh, Mary has a question. I have a question. When you talk about broad community um you know, input and so forth, I know that the um associations have an interest in it. I've heard them express
020it. Um but are you thinking beyond um working with the associations and going into the broader community? I am. I mean I I think we need to work with hopefully our associations want to partner with us in reductions um and I they would be invited to the table to do so. In the past when other districts have done this that I've been a part of there have also been for example built into the process family surveys or sack surveys or the DAC involvement or the FAC involvement and helping guide us what what would a community voice or a parent voice look like in you know just providing some input on where we we um look at reductions. I had a similar question. When Denver and Adams superintendent just proposed cuts, did they have a community
021engagement process? I I'm not intimately familiar with their process knowing Adams 12. Um, historically when I've worked there, there was always broad community input into something like that, at least DAC, I would imagine, but I don't know the answer. Yeah, I I'd like to think more about that and I didn't expect that in this. Um, the other thing is I just this is something I wonder every time this comes up when like when you just said we'd want to engage a third party to help us with this. Where in the budget does the money come from for a third party to come in and help us? I've always wondered when we bring in these It would likely come from a department budget. Um many of our budgets have contracted services outlined or um sometimes departments
022will have staffing in the in the year that is unfilled for example and so there's savings from that unfilled staffing and if you can't staff oftentimes you'll shift it into contracted services to support you with whatever you need to get done without an FTE being hired and so we would likely take it from something else that we have planned um and work that and and the board we we can make a decision not to have a second party facilitator support us with this work. Most large districts that have to go through difficult budget reductions have an outside party to support the the engagement efforts. But that doesn't have to be the way we do it. Well, I'm just asking because this is a specific critique that we get quite often about our budget is the
023wide use of thirdparty facilitators and consultants. So, I just think there's some irony and while trying to cut the budget, we're hiring we would hire outside consultants. So, just pointing that out. And I just have one other thing too. Um, at this moment, do we have any volunteers to work um this summer on this project? Anybody willing to ask, right? Well, it's to find out what we're going to be doing and planning it. So, it's anyone who wants to get in this summer on planning for it. Okay. We got Paula. What's the commitment? What are we talking about? Yes. Okay. Um, we got Paula and I will volunteer too. So that we what I'm committing for to is to meet with the superintendent at least and um Brena I guess and whoever from your um
024cabinet to uh talk about I'm assuming communications. Yes. I mean it's we're going to have a group a cabinet group and others uh expanded cabinet group most likely putting together some ideas and plans. The idea is that we would like the board who will be um receiving something in October probably around what we believe a reduction plan would look like and then passing some sort of re resolution before we then go build budgets because we're going to need to know what we're not building in whether it's department budgets or school budgets. And so the idea is that as we work this summer to put ideas together around how to engage folks in this conversation before we build the plan and bring it to you that we have two board members who we can go to
025and say here's what we're thinking. Can you give us a reaction and some feedback because when we come back in August, we're going to need the whole board to study what we've put together this summer and we'd like to have a couple of board members giving us input before we then bring it back to the whole board in August and then hit go. I mean, we're going to come in August and we're going to need to have some sort of plan based on We don't know exactly how much. That will depend on our end of year reports. Um, we're going to have to have a plan and hit go pretty quickly. President Parker, may I add? Thank you, Director Reed and President Parker for volunteering. I was nervous for a time commitment because Director Kenworthy
026and I are already doing policy. So, I thank you. I was like, I'm interested, but I don't want to overcommit. Um, if if you ever need subs or if you're on vacation, feel free to tap me in if you ever want to. So, put that out there. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. Um, thank you, uh, Paula as well. And we'll let Miss Copeland begin. Thank you, Mr. Sammons, also for being here in your work on this detailed proposed budget. Good afternoon, board of directors. Quick procedural note before we get going. state statute indicates that we need to post public notice within 10 days of proposing the budget. So, I want to um share with you that we will be posting on May 12th um in the Denver Post uh the standard language which is also
027in statute that notices this proposed budget to the public and invites them to provide public comment. Um the public will have two opportunities to provide public comment. the primary one being May 29th during your regular meeting. Why I call that primary is it's still in time um for the board to hear that public comment and provide us direction that informs the um adopted budget we bring forward in June. Um and of course the public is invited to also comment um on June 12th which is the currently scheduled meeting for the board to approve the budget. Um, and finally, procedurally, you're obligated to approve the budget by June 30th. Um, June 12th is not the only day. Um, so if the board so chooses, there are other options as well, but I just wanted to make
028sure you were aware that we are handling the required notice. Um, and Michelle, I believe you signed that. Thank you very much. Um other quick note, there's um at least three people sitting behind me that are part of our budget team. They are sort of cautiously raising their hand. Um I want to recognize them because uh well many reasons. First of all, this budget is really really big. Um it's not something I can know all the way through. It's not something Brian can know all the way through. It really does take a village. Um, and we divide our supports between both schools and departments. Um, and one of my most prouds of late is that in the annual customer satisfaction survey that we administer for operations functions, the budget team um, showed a 9point year-over-year
029increase in overall favorability, which I find to be a testament to some really excellent system and structures that the team has put together. Um I hear consistently strong praise um for um the budget team's support their organization their homegrown tools um which are workaround to Peopleoft so that they can present accurate and timely information to both school principles and department leads um in a user-friendly format. And so I just want to acknowledge that there's quite a bit of operationalizing in this budget um that they handle and they are tremendously thoughtful um in their stewardship of our resources and their customer service to um our budget leads. So thank you all. Here we are. It's May. Okay. Oops. We're going to actually start with a multi-year general fund outlook. Um, that's a different order than we
030sometimes do, but we think it's important to ground in what happens if we adopt this 2526 budget. What happens in the future because the the future is um just as important as the present. Then we'll go back a little bit and do a more detailed review of general fund revenue, general fund expense, capital reserve fund budget, and each of the other funds. It's really important to do a comprehensive look. We spend a lot of time talking about the general fund, but that's not the only um place we budget and expend resources. So, I want to make sure we cover everything. Um, and then finally, we'll have a quick note on fee schedules. So, in advance of showing the multi-year figures, I want to ground in what assumptions does the multi-year forecast share. Um, and we
031try to keep our general assumptions consistent year-over-year for the multi-year so that we're not introducing a new methodology or a new set of assumptions. I would characterize both the revenue and expense assumptions as um middle of the road. They are neither overly aggressive, which means in terms of expense they are not super super rosy and it means in terms excuse me in terms of revenue um nor are they overly um pessimistic which is to say we're not trying to lowball revenue or anything like that. We try to be very very consistent and we try to use assumptions that are publicly available whenever possible. So for example our topline assumption and one of the key assumptions in budget is what is going to happen with inflation and uh we use the office of state planning and
032budget assumptions. They put these out on a regular basis. um the current forecast for this calendar year um CPI which in turn drives 2627 revenue is 3.5%. Right? Did I say that right? Uh oh, is it up there? It'll be on the next slide. There it is. Um and so that's the type of thing that we get from other people. We don't attempt to forecast it oursself. And we use the same assumption for both revenue and expense, which is to say, we're not somehow gaming um any of the multi-year picture by saying, well, we're going to inflate revenue by 3.5, but we're not going to inflate expense by 3.5, right? Um total program revenue does not increase by that 3.5%. That is because our funding count is going to continue to decline no matter what
033year averaging we use because our our actual count is continuing to decline. I would have said three or four years ago when I first started um it was a common thought perception not just in Jeffco but in front range districts that we were experiencing something a little bit unique to the pandemic. And I remember a very early presentation I gave where I said I think these declines are going to level off at some point in the next three to four years. They have not. Um so that initial idea or forecast we had was wrong. Now the trick becomes well when are they going to level off or are they right? It's a very difficult thing to know for sure. But at least in the next two to three years, the the safest assumption is to
034generally con um estimate a consistent pattern, right? And to not imagine that we could somehow explain why they would stop dropping or not, right? Um so I just want to mention that part as well. Um everything in the multi-year reflects both the original HB241448 which is commonly referred to as the new school finance act bill from last session as well as HB21320 which did make certain revisions to the phase in period of 1448. uh we are not assuming that they introduce a new budget stabilization factor although that is very much under um in the rumor mills right there's certainly people out there who think that will happen and like I said actual enrollment is forecasted to decline around 800 students per year I think we mentioned previously in a presentation that we can already see
035that our enrollment is dropping next year because of our enroll data Um the enrolled Jeffco data is actually less rosy than an 800 student drop. Um it does look worse than that right now for next year, but it's per it's we're fine to keep rolling with the 800 students until we get into the fall and see what happens. Um expense compensation increases annually by step and lane plus cola that when combined is equal to CPI. School-based spending is forecasted to decline prop pro proportionate to actual enrollment declines. Meaning the multi-year already bakes in any savings that we have by virtue of our studentbased funding budgeting formula and it has every year that Brian and I have presented it. annual district-wide program investments of approximately five million per year and non-salary inflationary increases of a total
036of 1 million for the entire organization. I want to be clear, we do not assume nor do we operationalize an automatic inflation increase on non- salary. We never have. It's part of the reason that I think the budget we're going to present is perhaps low compared to what we're going to spend. Um, but non-sary inflation increases in the outyear are $1 million total for the entire organization. You already have a question. Director Applegate, I do. Just really quick, can you ground me again in what when we say the district-wide programs, are we talking about the grouping of the budget or are we talking about We're talking about things like special education, transportation, food, nutrition services. Those programs that are delivered on a district-wide basis as opposed to at a school level or through a school
037budget. Capital transfer in the outy years is set to 15.5 million in FY27 and 16 million in FY28. Um those minor incremental increases are an attempt to reflect potential inflation based increases um in that one portion of the budget, but nonetheless um those are the assumptions. A lot of words. This is just a graph again showing um what historic CPI has been. I would I would say no one saw the level of inflation that we experienced coming um but there it was. And then OSPB I always get the words in the wrong order. um the 3.5 and the 3.3% those are those lagging rates where current year calendar year actual inflation becomes next budget years or the following budget years um CPI increase to our per pupil ohb it's right there in front of me
038so please are we are we anticipating that so like this year our funding was pretty flat because we got the increase from the state, but we also had the fun count decline. Exactly. Are we anticipating that our funding will continue to remain fairly flat over the next few years? Oh, here's what we're anticipating our funding will do over the next few years. Um, so to orient us, the green bars or the green arrows at the top are simply making sure we all regground in a shift that we made in our reporting that makes it look like all those hatched bars are much taller than all the purple ones. But the reason they look that way is because we brought about 26 million more in activity into the general fund. So I want to be clear
039the comparison from 24 to 25. So 23 24 to 2425 is a sort of false comparison because of that consolidation. But then the year-over-year subsequent you're it's still apples to apples. We're not doing any additional consolidation. So um the we've already shared a revenue forecast and the revenue forecast in the proposed budget is consistent with what we've said previously. It's 982 million. Um the current year forecast, so actual revenue. So from today, um sitting here in May, what do we think we're going to bring in finally into the general fund? We're estimating we're going to bring in 985. That's a forecast, not a budget. The revised budget had the revenue at 982. So comparing the revised budget to next year's budget estimate is flat. Comparing this year's forecast as of today, which is 5 months
040after we adopted the revised budget, it's a $3 million drop. On the multi-year, um the following years are increasing by between one and 2%. You can see that pretty clearly since the billion dollars is kind of a nice evenish number. Um, a 20 million increase represents roughly 2%. A 10 million increase represents roughly 1%. So those would be the total resources, new resources available per our existing forecast using OSPB's inflation and what's written into law about the school finance act. I want to ground for a second in reserves because I think um understandably I think the the board has asked in the past and wants to understand what resources are available in the future to support the needs of the organization. So it's really important to talk about reserves um to make sure we're all
041using the same terminology and we can understand the best practice guidance available to us. I'm going to start with the difference between restricted reserves and assigned reserves. Restricted reserves are set aides that are enforcable by law or already deploy deployed towards a use such that they are unspendable. That definition comes from it's promulgated by GFOA but it comes from the governmental accounting standards board. I don't make it up. It's the rule we follow in terms of when we're reporting and preparing the act for and preparing the budget. An assigned reserve refers to funds that are set aside for a specific person purpose, but it is a management decision. In the eyes of Gazsby, an assigned reserve is an unrestricted reserve. And that is because it's management or board decision that it has a purpose. It's
042not enforceable by law. It's not decreed. It's not already spent, right? No outside entity can come in and force us to set aside reserves as carry forward for our schools or set aside reserves for a future year budget. We all make that decision. So, it's only assigned by virtue of the decision made by management and the board. Then there's multiple types of assigned reserves. school carry forward, operational reserves, multi-year commitments designated for next fiscal year fund use. Um, we've talked a lot Yes. would you like to ask a question? You can finish your sentence. We've talked a lot about school carry forward in the past and so um, as a reminder, schools, um, may underspend in a year. They can choose to spend that underspend intrayear, meaning they can do something supplemental in the year.
043We see that happen in terms of oftentimes facility investments or supplemental materials or things that are important to them. They can also um carry forward up to 4% of their operating budget as a reserve to spend the following year. Um and we find that schools do pretty consistently under spend and that this reserve balance across the district tends to replenish. There has been a little bit of a decrease over the last couple years and there might be a decrease from this year to next year um district-wide. Brian's nodding his head. He's he's um done a detailed analysis. Um and the reality is schools continue to underspend and carry it forward to the following year. Yes. Um I just wanted to ask a question. It's not on on the slide, but it reminded me. Um we
044also have uh determinations of appropriated funds and um allocated funds. So I understand this for the budget purposes whether it's restricted or not restricted but can you just remind me that once we have a budget what are the steps going through allocation and appropriation? You bet. Um, so the total appropriation lines up pretty closely, although it does not have to line up exactly to budget plus assigned reserves. Generally, that is your total appropriation. The one sort of like there's a moment in time exception around the designated for next fiscal year. So, as of June 30 of this year, we're going to report on the balance sheet whatever it is next year's budget is going to use. However, that exact dollar amount was never part of this year's appropriation. Does that make sense? This year's appropriation
045only was ever your total budgeted expense plus the rest of your assigned reserves, which is to say your total budget was high enough that you needed to use fund balance this year. In that one moment in time for like two weeks in June, there's this assigned reserve for next year, which was never part of this year's appropriation, nor is it intended to be. you were only granting position or excuse me permission to use it next year, not this year, but it shows up on the balance sheet as of June 30 as an assigned reserve. So that's the one moment where an assigned reserve is outside that same year's appropriation. Does that make sense? Otherwise, it's basically all the assigned reserves are appropriated. So that helps. And is there just never a real category of allocated?
046Is that just another word for appropriation? Um, yes. I don't Do we use that word? I'm Is it Department of School? Ah, thank you. Um so internally we talk about allocations to schools and to departments but that is an operational word which is to say an amount of resource has been made available to a budget decision maker to then build their budget with um operational reserves. This year's operational reserves, which are both assigned and appropriated, are 1% or they started out at 1%. Um, as a reminder, this year at the revised budget, we added 7 million to our budgeted expense. That was because we underestimated budgeted expense when we adopted the budget last year. Um and so in our new budget methodology, which was fully new this year, um we did sort of inadvertently lowball
047um our budgeted expense for the current year, right? Remember we did the revised budget, we increased expense. Great. We're all on the same page. Um operational reserves are a way to deal with timing issues. We've said before that, you know, exactly who's going to submit what order when for which thing and when it's going to show up and when we actually book it. We have no idea. It's it's not within the crystal ball that we have. And so we need the ability to not um to be to make sure we can pay those things which come in the door. And so that's what that 1% is really about is sort of timing and a little bit of an allowance for um things that are beyond our control. Utilities, natural disasters, you name it. Um multi-year
048commitments. We have very few multi-year contracts, but the handful of them show up here. Um we already talked about designated for next fiscal year. Finally, that brings us to unassigned reserve. Jeffco board policy EL15 says the recommended budget and there's kind of like a shall in there, but anyway, achieve and maintain a year-end unassigned general fund balance of 4% of annual operating expenditures. I regret that that overlaps the Jeffco logo there, but that's quoting um EL15. So what external guidance exists on adequate reserves? Um GFOA is a primary source for guidance. Um though the credit market's perspective is also worth considering as it influences our borrowing costs. As a best practice, GFOA recommends governments maintain at least 16% unrestricted. So that would exclude our Taber. So for a 1 billion general fund budget, this would
049be 160 million and unrestricted. As a reminder, unrestricted includes assigned and unassigned except for that one moment in time kind of thing for the next year's bit, although that's still technically assigned. Um, plus the 30 millionish in Taber reserves. So the total target of reserves would be 190 million to follow GFOA guidance of a minimum reserve target. rating agencies. Rating agencies determine how our credit um is rated and um I recently met with Moody's um as part of their annual checkup process, although they have not done an annual checkup with us in three years. So, seems like a bit of a misnomer. Um their scorecard for K12, they use the same scorecard across the country. um sees above 25% available. They use the word available. That's GFOA's version of unrestricted. Um that would produce a
050AAA rating. Double A is at least 17.5% available aka unrestricted to 25%. Single A is 10% to 17.5%. B AAA um these are unique things they use to confuse people. It has nothing to do with a sheep. Um is 5 to 10%. So if we were striving for a AAA rating um with Moody's uh we would be targeting 250 million in unrestricted plus our 30 million in restricted for a total target of 280 for a AAA rating. Really quick, thank you for all these interruptions. By the way, what is our current rating with Moody's? Um, we are within the double A range. Uh, we are a double A2. They have different strata within the double A ratings. Um, our issuer rating is double A2. Our issuance rating is double A1. Um, we will have an
051update to that within the next week or so. Um my speculation um is that we are going to receive a negative outlook uh which is in consideration of um this year's budgeted spend of fund balance and next year's budgeted spend of fund balance. Um our credit analyst called me on Tuesday. He had pulled down this presentation. um first of all complimented me on a couple of different graphics in here. That was lovely. Um but secondly said, "Clearly you're planning to spend fund balance next year as well. That makes two years in a row and that's a negative outlook." So you you beat me to the second question. So well done, well perceived. And then um I just want to make sure that my my work world and my volunteer world align a lower negative outlook,
052a negative outlook could impact us in lending and borrowing and interest rates. Yes, it will in well it won't it I shouldn't say it will. Um a negative outlook typically then leads to a downgrade. They sort of move in stepwise progression. Um a downgrade does have a direct impact on our cost of borrowing. So it makes it more expensive um to raise the same amount of money. So here's our multi-year um using all those expens assumptions I just detailed. Blue column is the budget for 2425. Orange column is the forecast for 2425. So those two columns deal with the same year. One is a budget, one is a forecast. Green is the proposed budget for 2526. The two purples are 2627 and 2728. Those are forecasted based on the set of assumptions I shared with
053you. Um unassigned reserves dip to 0 in FY27. The board policy would suggest that we would want to have 40 million approximately in unassigned reserves based on um the level of spending that we're doing as an organization in that year. School carry forward and operating reserves dip to zero in FY28. And furthermore, to avoid a quote unquote negative unassigned reserve, um FY28 assumes that FY29 is going to reduce spending. It doesn't continue that same pattern that I had just articulated in terms of revenue up by inflation, expenses going up by comp increases, quasi matching inflation, etc. It doesn't continue those assumptions. It assumes that we have identified by that point 20 million in cuts. Now, I want to be clear, this multi-year picture is bad and it's not what we want to manage to and
054it's certainly not what Brian and I would propose as a realistic plan for the future. It is what will happen if we don't change what we're doing. And so I think that um it's really important um in my mind we can argue a little bit about plus or minus 2 or 5 million or who thinks what's going to happen with revenue that's taking up airspace when we could be talking about a really salient need to adjust what we're doing and where and how and when are we going to do that which I think is very important to do soon. So, um, we've shown this slide in just about every budget presentation this spring. It's a reminder that to make any significant changes to the budget, it does take a lead time because by the time
055we do our school-based allocations, Director Parker, you're right. That's where we use that word. Um, or departmental, there's very little we can change or adjust without breaking promises to students and families. And I think we know um from other districts that it's pretty rough when you come out with a significant change in February or March that impacts your services and people have already done school choice and they've already signed up for things that maybe they aren't going to get. That's not the kind of way we want to do it. It's not the way we did it when we did school closures, right? we made a decision um in a October November time frame so that we were really clear on what we were going to offer students and families in the choice process and in
056the budgeting process. So uh we are now in April to October where we should be planning and prioritizing if we want to make any significant changes for 2627. Um, each time I've showed this this spring, I have noted that we have no plans to make significant changes for 2526 given this timeline, right? Significant changes really aren't possible on a short lead time. So, Brena, yes, ma'am. But I'm wondering in the slide before, yes, when the last line said if we need to cut 20 millions from expenses by FY29. Yes. But that seems way too late. That's right. That's what I had tried to say as well. Okay. So, so why do you use 29 there? Is that like the worst case scenario? Is that Yes. I was I'm attempting to show what happens in the
057out years if we change nothing. And then I'm also attempting to recommend that we do change something. Okay. It's kind of like when we first started and you showed us the terrible cliff if we didn't change um if we didn't close schools and we Yeah. I mean when we did qu you know adjust structurally our budget by 20 million through that process. Those were real reductions that we didn't we didn't refund those you know what I'm saying like those positions and activities went away. Um, and so that was a that was a significant shift that we did do in response to a multi-year where we could see we can't keep doing what we're doing. Yes. I just want to reiterate that the closure of the schools has allowed us to extend our runway. Right. And
058so now we're just two more years past that three-ish depending upon which phase you look at and it's coming back around. So, I'm sorry. Please. I'm really sorry for continuing. I was writing questions and I'm like, well, we stopped, so I'm going to jump in. So, to Dr. Varda's point, significant changes are difficult for 2526, but will this um work over the summer contemplate potential changes in 2526 or are we really not focusing on 2526 at all? Um we're not we're not focusing on 2526. All of our um the proposed budget actually uh Brian's team has done an extensive analysis and of the rollup of hundreds and hundreds of budgets that have been created by hundreds and hundreds of budget managers across every school and every department. And so at this point those budgets are
059set. People are in the positions. Um planned programs and expenditures are done. That is what's contributing to the analysis on the expenditure side and the numbers that you're seeing in this presentation. Um it will be too late this summer to make adjustments and go backwards from that budget process that we've just gone through. But what we will be able to do is create some process so that when we load SBBS and department budgets in December, Januaryish next year, we need to give direction to our finance team to say what where are we loading and where are the reductions generally speaking going to occur so we don't load those funds. Is there and that makes sense. Then we get ahead of it, right? And people know before we're not cutting people who think they have jobs.
060Exactly. Yeah, I'm with you. Is there a potential um because in past years I'm going to botch all these words so forgive me. um we have not spent sometimes what we thought and I know we've tightened our budget up so we don't have that as much but is there the potential that there's guidance from you the leadership that says hey when you have openings try to you know if we don't have to spend extra don't spend and I say that like in my work world if the budgets are tight we say hey look yes everything's set but if there's extra or more we're making really thoughtful decisions in the real time is will we give guidance in that. I think this is a great I think it's a great question as we think about our
061guiding principles, right? So for us to sit to take a look at where can we make reductions as far away from impact to students as possible is one idea. Another idea might be where do we have some Disney Plus type of reductions that we can say this is something that's not having a big impact and we're just going to say to people don't do it anymore. We can also take a look at and I've done this before where we have um large numbers of vacancies, right? Maybe that model of staffing in that arena of uh of business is not necessarily the most efficient and effective way to operate. And we can say are there different ways to provide that same service without that number of FTE because we're obviously having a hard time staffing it
062anyway. So, can we shift the service model and maybe possibly have some efficiencies and savings? I think that's the kind of conversation we can have in relation to that. Um, you know, we have a situation right now and we've talked about it with food nutrition services. So, we're doing some of what you're talking about where we've said we've done the chef's brigade analysis. We've said we're over budget. We're going to have to do a general fund transfer, but we need to over time um shrink the budget to align to our resources. And that means we've need to be more efficient in our menu offerings, which we think also will help for with with food waste and some of our sustainability efforts. And our staffing model is still such that it was during the pandemic and
063we we know our staffing ratios might be off a bit. So, we're not going to make cuts. Um, but what we want Beth and her team to do is uh realign to different staffing levels through attrition, right? Because we we do have a lot of turnover and that type of um service model. So, that's an example of how we're already doing some of that work uh to try to make sure that we're being more efficient and saving over time. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that. I I think for me, I want to go in not thinking like, hey, we're good for 25 26, right? like we we need to be in a mindset of no, we're we're pulling from a fund balance and we're making decisions because we believe in the work that
064we're doing, but we need to be in the mindset of like every penny matters even in budgets of a billion dollars, right? I think the the biggest lever still available um as of May 10th is um compensation increases. So to your point, every penny matters and um certainly we could argue about it, but avoiding cost increases is is um often a way to kind of make the easiest cut. So that that's what's still on the table as well as to your point being judicious in what we do spend. But again, I want to say as an organization, um, this year's adopted budget, uh, was low and we had to revise at midyear, not because people were being wasteful, but because we underestimated costs um, relating to special education, relating to food and nutrition services, etc.
065Those were not things that we could say, let's not do it. It wasn't optional. So, um I would be surprised if we were able to identify anything material next year that we could save. Uh just a quick reminder on state statute. Um the school district must state our plan to ensure that the use of the beginning fund balance will not lead to an ongoing deficit. So the resolution that adopts the budget needs to state the plan um to ensure this. I've presented this to the board in prior years, not necessarily this most recent year, but in years prior. Um so the next slide repeats some things that we've discussed in previous plans around um adjusting the budget. So the resolution could for example articulate a plan to reduce expenses in future years by adjusting programming
066or optional services, reducing staffing services and contracted expenses, avoiding or limit limiting future cost increases and/or increasing revenue in future years uh through some type of voter authorization. Those are elements of a highlevel plan that could be articulated in the board's resolution. I'm happy to provide sample language from prior years when this type of language has shown up in the resolutions this board has approved. Um I'm also happy to show other districts examples um of language if folks want to understand more what does the plan need to look like. It does not need to look like an attachment of 10 pages of a plan. It needs to articulate what are the core things we're going to do in a meaningful and material way to ensure that the use of fund balance does not lead to
067an ongoing deficit. Great. And so we are to enrollment. Thank you, Miss Copelan. Um, sorry I'm a little bit horsearo, so if you can't hear me, just let me know. I'm gonna go through these uh rest of the slides. So yeah, we're going to start with enrollment and general fund revenue. Okay, so the district membership uh which again represents the actual number of students in our schools is forecasted to be around 6,300 students for 2526 school year. This marks an 8.7% decrease in enrollment since 2021 school year. We anticipate this trend to continue with the decline of approximately 800 students per year over the next three years as smaller grades progress at the high schools. Charter school membership has remained uh fairly constant in recent years and the projections for their enrollment suggest a similar
068trend. Okay. So we have included the district uh managed school metriculation patterns from school years 24 25 and the forecasted 26 to illustrate the declining enrollment of around 800 students. Kinder to second grade averages around 4,400 students. 8th to 9th grade has a net increase of approximately 900 students. This results in roughly 5,300 new memberships from kindergarten to 12th grade. However, students leave the district after 12th grade, leading to a decrease of around 6,100 students. So, this results in a forecasted total enrollment decrease of around 800 students. All right. So, here are the final 25 26 total program enrollment assumptions. We've been showing these over the last few months um that are going to be driving the internal school resource uh school finance resource model. As you can see, there's an 800 student membership decline.
069The actual district FTE is also declining about around 800 students resulting in a funded count of 6 thou 64,800 using the five-year averaging and then 64,300 utilizing a four-year averaging. On the next slide, I'll talk about why I use both. Before you get to the next slide, I am still struggling to um know how many students we have in Jeffco, especially if I give a presentation. So, for instance, I'm looking at the 2425 budget and in here it says there are approximately 78,000 prek12 students. So, when I see this slide, the one well I don't know that one. Um, I see the prek count as 2.4. Um, it just help me understand how we got to 78,000 from what I'm seeing here. So um first of all that includes charter and I do try in
070writing the acter to always say district and charter or all of Jeffco. Those are the words I use when I'm talking about all of Jeffco. And it's always contemporaneous to the year in which it was um printed. And so that's FY24 total membership across district and charter schools across preK to 12. When we get funding from the state though, we include the charter students because they're our students. The formula does. Not a single number on this page or in this presentation includes it. Okay. We pass that funding on. Oh, I know we pass it on, but we put it in our It's in our budget, isn't it? Nope. It's never in the budget. Correct. The budget is stated net of the amount we pass through. That's why we use the district enrollment. We're showing you
071district revenue. based on our share and district enrollment. But the state does pay us for the charter students. Yes. And we pass it through. We pass it through. I I I know we pass it through. I did not know we pass it through before we make a budget. That's correct. We do. Okay. Thanks. And I will jump in on this because Brennan and I have been having this conversation since I got here. And I think it is a conversation that we need to continue to talk about in terms of how we are explaining our budget, the perception of our budget, and how we're building it. In previous districts that I have been a part of doing district level budgeting work, they do not do it this way. Not all districts do it this way. Some
072districts count the charter piece in the budget and show it as a line item transfer out. I will say one of the benefits of doing that is that it shows the district budget being close more closely aligned to what the state uh publishes. That being said, it still wouldn't match completely because we continue to refine our enrollment based on enroll. We continue to refine um the expenditures based on SBBS and department budgets. So it wouldn't align perfectly, but it is a bit of a confusing point in my mind in terms of how we budget and then align to sort of what CDE publishes. So we can we can have this conversation with you guys over time, but I um I I am I've been part of districts that do it differently. Yeah, I think that's
073a big point because especially when we're doing negotiations and there's a perception that Jeffco got X number of million dollars more than we got last year, but then we look at our um budget that we're showing and they say, "Well, you're lying." And Mary, we did explain this at the table this year um at two sessions ago or so and just explain to them how the charter pass through goes through and then we budget the remaining for the district. It's sort of six or one half dozen of the other and it sort of depends on what your preference is. Um but it it is different districts do it differently. I think that again the budget methodology that the board has asked us to put in place is provide you our best estimate of revenue and
074our best estimate of expense. we can switch to a different methodology if you want to assume different revenue or different expense but at the moment in order to do that we do inform our own assumptions by the data we have on hand um we don't have to we could do it different and we could include charters there pros and cons um including charters over the last several years would have made it that much more difficult to articulate what was happening in the district because the district was the only entity losing funded count and so charters were even and so it would have we could have done it. It would have been one more layer of explanation to then unpack down to the districtonly figures which are the figures available to the district to employ people.
075So in some sense it would have made things harder. So it's just a six of one half dozen of another at times. But I'm happy to explore that and I'm happy to create addendums in the future if you want to see the total numbers. We did do it for um one of the bargaining units that uh presentations that Amanda did. Absolutely. It's something we're willing to put together. Thank you. Great questions. Um so I'm going to expend a whole lot more on this on this, but I will say I'm sorry, excuse me. Um the forecasted enrollment that was provided to the state in November reflected a decrease of around 250 students. So this is kind of a the different the differences that we have from the CD worksheet to what we have here today. Um
076the 800 student decrease that Brenn mentioned um in the previous slides, we use the most recent information that we have. So my team tracks the EJ data every week and so we see what's coming in and we've been doing that for the last three years. So every week we then have a forecast out on a weekly basis on what it would be towards the end of the year towards October account. And so these this information we have here today is the most accurate information we have at this very moment. And that's why we always will try to be um provide you with the most accurate information that we have on every presentation. Um and again CDE um always includes the charter schools and we do not include the charter schools in our presentations. Sorry. Um,
077so during the budget update presentation in April, there were some questions about the new school finance formula and how it works. So today, um, we've included a diagram to illustrate how the House Bill 1320, it draft, it still hasn't been signed by the governor yet, um, finance acts phases in the new school finance formula. The phase in period spans seven years and during which both the new and the old formulas will be used concurrently to determine each district's total program funding. The first step is to calculate the total program utilizing the old and new school finance formulas. For 26, the old formula will use a 5-year average, while the new formula will use a 4-year average. Next, we find the difference between the new and the old formulas. This difference is then multiplied by the
078phase in percent, which is going to be 15% for FI26 to get to the phase in additional total program amount. We add this amount to the old formula total program that that to then determine the calculation for the house bill 1320 calculated total program. Finally, we compare the amounts to the prior year total program and use the greater of the two amounts. Right? So this was just making an understanding multiple models multiple ways of looking at it to get to the final amount that we have. Okay. So after running all the models and everything else we have um the overall general fund budget for 2526 projected to be remain um flat compared to the uh 2425 revised budget. Utilizing the enrollment assumptions presented earlier and the and the house bill 1320 total program calculation. The
0792526 total program district share only is forecasted to increase by approximately $1 million. Additionally, we are forecasting increases of 1 million each in state categoricals in the local share of civic ownership taxes. However, these increases are expected to be offset by $3 million decrease in the miscellaneous fees and other revenue primarily due to anticipated decrease in interest revenue. Okay. So, then we're going to go into the general fund expenditures. Okay. So the district adjusted its bud budgeting methodology in 2425 fiscal years to use a budget as an estimate of actual spending rather than the maximum allowable spend. This methodology was again applied for 2526 where the total appro approved appropriation is greater than the total school and department allocations um which in turn is greater than the total budget expenditures. This estimated total spend accounts
080for factors such as estimated vacancies, staff turnovers and underspends. I have a question. Is there a reason why you did 110 to 107 instead of 107 to 110? You know, the numbers you're you're using the highest number dash to a lower number. There there was no rhyme or reason for that. That was just kind of the the order that we had in this. We can reverse those if need be. Okay. So, here's the general fund expenditures by account type. General fund expenses will um are budgeted to decrease by $8 million based on the current expense adjustments and investment assumptions. The district plans to spend five $15,400 per pup in the from the general fund. Um the compensation budget amounts are approximately 84% of the district's general fund budget. Now you have a question. Go ahead
081and keep going. I may come back to this one. Okay. Okay. So, during a budgetary cycle, identifying year-over-year decreases is crucial as they can help offset budgetary investments. The budgetary allocation decreases identified included reducing capital contributions from the general fund, the FI25 one-time stipens, student based budgeting allocation reductions due to declining enrollment, SR3 grant deployment, and the SAPE onetime transfer. On the other hand, the budgetary allocation increases or investments included the FY26 compensation adjustments, investment in the student service or student success and security, continuation of the SR3 program, and some minor inflationary adjustments. Okay, so account and program type um two sides of the same coin. So to help clarify the differences between presenting expenses by account and program type, we have again included this slide that defines each. The account type categorizes an expense
082based on what the expense is, while the program type categorizes the expense based on what program the expense will support. School districts are required by CDE to report budget and actual expenses by both account type and account program. Okay. So, we have already presented the um budget by expense types or by account types. Now, here's the other side of the coin showing the general fund summary by program type. This view presents the same information that you just saw earlier, but just by program. It again shows a decrease of $8 million in FI26 proposed budget. As you can see, the largest program investments are allocated to special education instruction and operation and maintenance programs. This is the new view that we have included this year. Um this is an expenditure by account and program type matrix.
083This this slide provides a matrix of both accounts and programs. Here you can identify how much is budgeted in a particular group by finding the cross-section. Additionally, the program type includes in each rollup and a view a few examples of the expenses within each program are provided above. Illustrated here is approximately 65% of the general fund budget is allocated to total compensation for instruction and support programs. This includes general instruction, instructional support, and special education instruction program types. Okay, so here we have the general fund summary which shows both revenue and expenses by account type. um presenting the budget fund use of $38 million for F2425. The summary table also includes a year-end projection for 2425 where the estimated revenue is to come in slightly higher than budgeted expenses um and also exceeds the Sorry,
084excuse me. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry about that. Um where the estimated revenues come in slightly higher than budgeted as Brena mentioned earlier in the previous slides. Um so this will result in approximately a $39 million use of fund balance. Uh so we're forecasting for 2425. Additionally, we have the 26 uh proposed budget included where revenue of 800 982 million and a expense budget of 1 billion12 million um leading to a budgeted use of fund balance of $29 million. Um I do have a question on the [Music] um services purchase services where there was um a big difference from 73 to 88. Um was there one thing that caused that to go up or is it multiple? I can answer that if you want to. Go for it. Yep. Oh, thank you. I have some water
085here. I appreciate it. Um yes. So a lot of that some of this included is the food expenses. We talked about that in the previous presentation. how um support uh student success is overspending some of their food allocations. And so that's that's one major line there that's included in there. Um also sped uh contracted services are also included in there. So a lot of the identifications that we had in the previous presentation are are in that $88 million in purchase services. Right. But I think we mentioned in our previous presentation that special education was overspending current year budget by about 10 million and most if not all of that is in purchase services and that's because we outsource some of our resources that we need. Got it. Thank you. Yes. Yes. So, um, the placement
086out of district services, uh, an individual students IEP will sometimes put them into a school that's not a Jeffco school. Um, and that shows up as a purchase service. Um, those, uh, costs on a per student basis have almost doubled in about four or five years. Um, it's substantial. Um, and and again, that's a purchase service as well as just contracting for certain types of services to our students with IEPs. that who are served in our schools. Both of those show up as purchase services. But in this in this look, that's purchase services across kind of all areas. Correct. Okay. So that's transportation, that's everything. Yeah. Um the grid on the prior slide might be helpful for you to see service accounts. um you know it's it's breaking out next year's budget as opposed to
087this year's forecast. This year's forecast sums up to 88. Next year's budget sums up to 84. You can see that um our two biggest categories are instruction. So 37 million and instruction and instructional support. Instructional support is typically the category where special education shows up, but those are all service accounts that directly impact instruction and instructional support to students. And then 28 million is operations and maintenance. The largest category there is about $21 million worth of utilities expense which shows up as a purchase service because um utilities are a service. General and school administration includes a number of different purchase services. And then transportation includes approximately two million in budgeted purchase services. And I'm sure you've said this already so forgive me. This assumes what type of increase for staff and educators next year? What
088we're currently uh it does not reflect anything that was put on the table last night. It includes assumptions prior to that. Thank you. Okay. So, I'm going to turn it back over to Brenda to talk through the capital reserve fund. So, this section is especially important because the only reason we are showing a year-over-year decrease in total expense is because we are deferring maintenance on our um facilities and infrastructure. So, some of this um is material we've gone through before, but we wanted to make sure um to be really transparent about about how we're budgeting and estimating and planning for cap regular capital expenditures, capital renewal. Um so on the left you see a formula that looks at annual capital replacement value, looks at replacement values across different categories of capitalization. And so it's buildings,
089its content, its technology, capitalized technology, um, etc. There on the right, you see the the table of, um, our current replacement values. These are things we work on every year to estimate what would happen if a building burned down, how much would it cost to replace um, or it ran its life cycle, how much would it cost to replace? So, um, independent sources recommend that an organization in general spend between 1 and a half and 2 and a.5% on annual capital renewal. Um, 2% is the middle of the range. So, that's the value we've reported here, although there can be reasons to, you know, be elsewhere in the range. That would result in an estimated annual capital expense in today's dollars of 106 million against our portfolio of capital assets. This shows approximately 14 15
090years worth 14 I guess um oh 13 I can't count um of spend and um adjusted to current value and you'll see that over the last six years or so we were averaging much higher spends um somewhere between 170 160 million a year. That was in part because we had deferred maintenance in the prior six years. And so again, when you defer maintenance, the bill does come due. And um on average across this longer time period, um it also approximates about 105 million. So we're triangulating to the same annual estimate of what we should be investing in capital renewal from two different methodologies. And this slide does not include any bond um spending. Of course it does. Yes, that's one of the primary sources. Okay. Okay. Because you didn't say that then. You said it's
091deferred maintenance and so I thought it was not including the bond spending. A big chunk of the bond was deferred maintenance. Oh, okay. So the source is irregardless of the spend. Um and this is a use graph. So when we connected with our uh facilities team about what projects are they aware of that needs to be completed um they do a facility condition assessment annually and look and prioritize projects across all the different categories of investment um across four different priorities. Priority one is critical systems failures. Priority two is code and ADA compliance. Priority three is additions, direct program support, site and field improvements. And priority four is secondary program support, temporary building removal, minor renovations. That'd be things like paint and carpet. Um the facilities team on their horizon, this is not all in
092one year, but on their horizon has identified 500 million in priorities one through four needs in our facilities. Um and uh again, not all of it has to be done next year, of course, but they they have to plan on a multi-year horizon. The capital the strategic capital plan um will further explore the projects in each of these priority categories and determine um you know again what how would this look over multiple years. Uh but for today this is this is the view that our facilities team has on what needs doing in the you know 3 to five year horizon. So, the proposed multi-year that you saw previously assumed again that um we dropped the general fund contribution into capital, but that we continue to spend capital um not to the level of our 14-year
093average or not to the level recommended by benchmarks, but to a $60 million level, which would be deferring 45 million annually. ually or slightly more inflation adjusted um in capital expenditures. Um I have a question. I I understand that money that's in the capital fund can only be used for capital purposes. Uh you couldn't use it for um any compensation or anything like that. Um is there ever a way to get money out of the capital fund um transfer it anywhere other than building I think not legally. Um I want to do it legal. I guess what I'm I'm trying to say is when we talk about the cap transfer every year, um knowing that once it gets in there, that's its purpose and it will be used for that. Um, I'm just thinking ahead
094of possible savings or something of just having cap transfer be broken into smaller pieces during um, a fiscal year so that you don't give the whole 30 million that we used to or 15 million, but you do it as needed and then you save yourself the situation where you've put it out there over there and it can't go anywhere else. Can I jump in? I'm going to jump in. um given the needs versus the means. Um I'm not I think the question assumes that we want to make sure I'm clear on the question. Mary, are you saying that we have so much you feel like we have too much in capital and we need to pull it out and use it for something else? I'm not saying we have too much in there. I'm just
095saying once it's there, we can't pull it out for any reason. So, there's some disaster. Some I I mean, I would say I don't know, Julie, what you would say, but if there's some sort of like policy waiver that the board could contemplate around reallocating capital from an accounting perspective, I'm not sure why the board would do that. It would not be something I would ever recommend the board do. And I I I don't want to do that. I want to not put money in there that we can never get out. Yeah. And if the board wants to have a conversation around reducing it further from 30 to 15 to something lower, I think you can. Yeah. I'm that's good. I just want to know options for the future, things that we can have as
096uh an idea in our in our heads. I just I would be super careful about that. Um having taught in buildings that have severe issues. Um and and I actually I think we had this the same conversation last not last night, the night before with um some folks that were saying, you know, like we don't think you should be putting money in buildings. We think you should be putting in compensation. And that sounds great until you're working in a building with bathrooms that don't work or um you know, sewage systems that don't work. Um, and I have taught in buildings like that. So, I'm I'm just saying you that can look really attractive. Um, like, oh, we can just put that off. We can just put that off. That can end up being really pennywise
097and pound foolish. That's what I worry about. Yeah. And I just know we still have money in there for potential school new schools. And so, it is there for potential schools we may not build or we may not need for a long time. Actually, I that's a really good point of clarification. Um this capital budget that we're talking about now with the um $15 million transfer in next year, which is what's proposed, and the $60 million investment or budget budgeted expenditures for whatever the facilities team thinks needs to be prioritized and then the contracts come to the board, that kind of thing over a certain amount, all that. um that contemplates the two schools not being built. So those funds are then freed up in this budget for the purpose of this multi-year for the
098purpose of investment in capital priorities. And so I want to make that's an important point to make clear because if the board has different direction for us on that issue or this budget, it's important for you all to be able to give us that direction. And then Mary, to your point around, man, this capital transfer every year seems like a big chunk of money that's going into a fund for one-time use that obviously we need and we already don't have enough money for like everything else. And and wouldn't it be great though if we didn't have to make that transfer, right? One of the things I would say is as the board continues to talk about what you've shared as an interest in a 2026 election and ballot measure is that if you had an
099ongoing mil levy override for the purpose of capital investment that could bring these funds in and it was guaranteed year over year over year over year to the tune of say 60 million. then you could take the 30 million that you transfer and repurpose that because you could guarantee it's ongoing and you could repurpose it into things like compensation and programming for students. And so that I think is an answer to get to your point of like can we get out of this cycle of transferring this into an account that then we can't get back out of and all those things. So that's something I think the board can talk about when we begin to discuss your interest in something on the ballot in 2026. Um, and I know President Parker, you've been with me
100at the CAC committees, but I I do think that's a I think Director Reid is 100% right, and I know we also have a board committee with parent and community involvement that's weighing in and I know we could lean on them if we got to a really itchy twitchy point and you know that too because you've been in those with me. I just think on the 60 million that was to go to the new schools, I think we have to be very we have to communicate this somehow. I don't even know if we've announced we're not building two schools until maybe this moment. Um I don't know. I don't recall another public announcement of that. Um I know we've talked a lot about it in our meetings. I'm not sure. But either way, I think
101since that was part of the bond and voters voted to build two new schools, we can choose to do something else with them. But I think we have to have some kind of communications about that to be clear. Understood. Um I believe that one way to do that is to specifically articulate it in the budget resolution. Um, so I it would show up as a whereas whereas uh the original 2018 CIP included a budget of 59.8 million towards the construction of two new schools. Now therefore would be um those funds are no longer planned towards that purpose and instead available for capital renewal and investment for the district in an ongoing way. That that's one way to do it very clearly and publicly. In addition to speaking about it here, we can also add slides
102in our next presentation if you would like, whatever meets the needs of the board. All right, so we are running a little bit behind. Um Brian thinks um uh he can go through the other funds pieces pretty quick. We do think it's important. This is real money and resources that we're deploying across the entire organization. So forgive us. We're going to try and um get through the rest of the content. It will be a little faster. Thank you, Rena. Okay, so um kind of preview of all the slides going forward. Um each of the slide each slide is a different fund. At the very beginning, we try to define the fund the best that we can to kind of give a um an idea of what the fund actually supports. Right? So we have the
103start with the food nutrition services fund. Um this oversees all financial activities related to the school breakfast and lunch programs. Um as we know we have the healthy school meals for all. Um that ensures all students have access to breakfast and lunch at no cost to their families. Okay so as illustrated the overall budget from 25 to 26 projected to decrease by approximately $2 million. The food nutrition service team plans to meet this target through reductions in both central and sightbased kitchen expenses. Um, these adjustments are necessary to more align expenses with projected revenue. Um, FI2425, this fund required a $3 million transfer from the general fund. Um, for the 2526 proposed budget, there's a $4.1 million budgeted transfer from the general fund that is included. All right. So, here we have the employee benefits
104fund, which covers the self-insured medical plan claims for dental vision as well as the new UHC health insurance claims. Um, this fund excludes the Kaiser Health and PAR. Um, this budget is increasing by approximately $8.4 million next year to accommodate the rising insurance costs and potential claims. Just a quick note on this fund. Um, do see the revised budget was at 31.7 and our projected actual for the current year is 35. 35.4. Sorry, my glasses are messed up. Um so this fund has continued the the actual claims costs um have continued to increase substantially and were underestimated at the outset of the current year. Okay. Okay. So, here we have the insurance reserve fund um which has uh which is uh has the authority by state law to allow districts to maintain an uh insurance
105reserve for self-insured purposes and to fund liability worker compensations and property insurance premiums. Um currently for 2526 the insurance reserve fund will remain flat around $15.8 million. Tiny addendum. Um we are still negotiating the final terms of our insurance program which you will vote on on May 29th. Uh we did include some supplemental information. If uh we receive a significant increase to our self-insured reserve on any line of our insurance programs, we will probably need to put more money into this fund to plan for that accordingly. Um I had asked uh on Wednesday if this liability includes um legal liability. Yes. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Okay. So here we have the child care fund which um again after the consolidation fund consolidation it only has SAE in it now. Um so this fund supports only the
106school age enrichment program that provides the before and after school care and a fee for fee for service model. Um 2425 this fund received a transfer of $ 1.5 million in the general fund. Um 2526 SA department took proactive measures to help ensure the general fund transfer would not be needed. Um so in the FY2526 proposed budget will be around $8.4 4 million. Okay. So, we have the campus activity fund which is used to manage revenue collected on behalf of the schools and departments who benefit from the expenditures. Funds are collected from fundraisers, fees, and part activity charges and donations. Sorry. FI2526 proposed budget will be around $23.8 million, a slight increase from 2425 revised budget due to expenses that we see increasing. Central service fund provides the mail services, copier and printing services for
107the district. Um as well as the visual installation, maintenance and repair of school and departments for the audio and visual revenues based on billing to schools and departments based on the services that were provided. Um for 2526 um it's decre the budget's decreasing around $400,000. Okay. Okay. And the last one we have the property management fund which manages all the activities associated with community use and rental of the district buildings, fields and other facilities. And F26 proposed budget aligns with historical budgets and expense trends that we have. And I have a question on this one. Um is this bigger than just um Boys and Girls Club using facilities at a school? Um yes. Okay. This is where our ACES revenue. So where we lease out the entire facility to um the school pro serving autistic
108children. Okay. And so um but it looks like we don't get enough revenue from those leases to cover the costs. We uh the revenue almost exactly matches the expense. These are three columns that represent expense only. This is not the revenue. Got it. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to turn to Brena to finish up with the fee schedules. So as a um important procedural part annually when we present the proposed budget we also present the proposed fees. Um schools and departments set fees for certain types of services. Um as an important note the budget team does not uh most student fees are set at the school level and reflect actual costs for consumable materials or costs for optional experiences that are voluntary in nature. Those are the two different types. Consistent with state statute, central
109office does collect and review proposed school level fees and creates a list of the maximum fee amount by category of expense for the board review and approval. Note that not every school charges each fee and some schools charge fee amounts lower than the maximum based on their actual expenses. So if one school has an art fee of $25, another school might have an art fee of $10. It depends on what they're buying and what the cost of what they're buying is based on their specific program choices and they have choices to make in terms of the program. The board docs item has two attachments concerning fees. New this year is a memo outlining additional fees that are set for specific services in the district. So you will see meal fees, um tuition for prek, and
110SAPE fees all listed in one memo. Hopefully that's helpful to you. As a note, each of those websites um has extensive information about our fees that's available for parents as well as public consumption. Um second, there's a PDF of the maximum fee schedule with the caveat that those are maximum fees. That does not represent the fee amount that every school charges. And again, not every school even charges every fee. Fees are approved via your resolution to adopt the budget. So that June resolution. Now I want to be clear that fees are posted. And the reason that we go ahead and post them before they are officially approved is that parents generally want to know what these things are cost so they can plan for it. That does not mean you can't change them. If there's
111something you see on the fee schedule that you would like us to change, um, generally speaking, uh, such changes hopefully would only go directionally down as opposed to up because we wouldn't necessarily want to increase something. Um, but nonetheless, if you have specific questions about those fees and what actual costs they represent, because again, they're all set to mirror actual costs, um, we're happy to go into those details or get you additional information. Any further questions? I think we asked them all. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Can I see you again? Can I Oh, sorry. And I know we're in a hurry and I can't stay late today. So, um I just been thinking a lot about what we I just want to make sure that this is what the board means when so
112we've said we cannot make any changes to the 2526 school year and I understand why and want to be sensitive to people's jobs. I'm thinking about all the other industries like my I will use myself my own company when we were in a position like this we did layoffs that gave like a month's notice and so what we're saying here is we are choosing not to do say layoffs in the 25 26 school year maybe with the choice to not give raises like I want to make sure we are clear on these are the choices that we're making because I know you've said we can't change the 25 26, but two districts just made reductions in the middle of their school year. And I just think I agree with you 100%. Um, what we tried
113to present as a timeline is considered best practice. And I did try and explain it that way. Um, because of the promises made and I think it's responsive a little bit to some of the feedback we got from parents around SAPE and changes and what kind of notice provisions, but you're absolutely right. you could make a different choice um and it's well within the board's purview and right um to say no, we're not going to authorize this budget. Um you need to make adjustments to reduce spending by X. And you could absolutely do that right now. Well, and I don't know if we need to do that right now, but I just I want to make sure that that's what we're saying as a board. Yeah. And I have a question about that. Um, and
114I haven't reviewed our riff language, but in the past, if you were going to riff people by contract, you had to do it in advance of the next school year. You couldn't do it in the middle of the year. I don't know if that's changed. I just know when I got rifted, um, they had to give me another job because they didn't tell us in time. And so, it went to, uh, a mediator who said, "You didn't follow the contract. you have to give these teachers jobs. So, I don't have the RIFF language right in front of me. I know that they we've been talking about the riff language and I believe this year we've updated with them. So, I'll let Dr. Kim jump in here in a minute, but I want to reiterate something
115Brena just said. If you all want to make a decision and say to us, reduce this to this amount and we will adopt a budget only with this level of deficit projected spend or balance it. um I will follow the direction of the board and work on that. I will also say that while Adams 12 for example made announcements about the reductions in when they actually made the reductions I think it was March they had been working on that uh probably since January late January. So, you know, it takes a minute to make these kinds of difficult decisions and there it's just like Rough's phase one. We had no timeline and so I I put together a plan with the team. We all put it together and said these are the schools. We have no
116more runway left and we cannot have a conversation around do you like this or not. Um, if the board were to make a decision today that we needed to have a balanced budget or a budget less expenditure than what we have here, it will cause us to go back and make some executive decisions without the type of engagement that I believe is contemplated by our district and organizational values. And um there are there are tensions in all this, right? The financial health and well-being of this organization as presented when we discussed for example our Moody's rating, right? That's real. It's likely going to drop. The financial um health and well-being of our employees based on our individual employees, how much salary we can give, how much of the increase in insurance costs they will have
117to assume. That's real. Um and so, so that I don't think there's a right answer. Um, I think it is an important conversation for the board to have and we are willing to uh give you time and space to have that conversation and for the board to give us direction. But one of the things I do know is we need to adopt a budget for this organization by the by June 12th. And so we need direction soon. I also think um you know it does impact though uh negotiations right now because I do think that um people aren't understanding always that some of the compensation decisions that we're making now are going to impact how many riffs come down the road. And you guys know cuz I've said this multiple times that I do not
118want to put us in a position where I'm forcing riffs that we don't have to have. Um so you know but um but just right now in this moment and for this budget I I don't know how the language impacts that even if we were going to do that. Currently the language says for each semester if you were going to make riffs there would have to be extenduating circumstances in the fall and you would have to let JCA know by November 1 or in the spring by April 1 unless there were some extenduating circumstances typically meaning that unanticipated change in revenue that we couldn't make it where those kinds of that type of language is in there but the general standard operating procedure that's in our contract right now says April on and Superintendent Dorland
119was correct in that we are currently negotiating that language right now because they do anticipate the potential for some of this action to have to be taken coming up on our runway. And so there is proposed language on the table right now within the RIFF article to indicate an in an interest in being collaborative and and being able to um be a part of conversations much like superintendent Durland talked about earlier this this afternoon and any any cuts would be implemented for the fall regardless of this what you're just saying. Let's say we had extenduating circumstances. We're not we don't it's not like today you lose your job. We would be talking about the budget for next year which would so those cuts we we'd be giving employees four months notice. Is that that's what
120I'm trying to ask. Most contract start dates are around August 16th. So from decision to approximately August 16th. Now that's not true for principles. Principles start sooner. And of course um we have quite a few year round employees. Yeah. I mean, I would just say we have been taking direction related to board interest over the last several years around investment in our employees, right? And and creating budgets and and making decisions and offers at the bargaining table related to that direction. This proposed budget reflects that direction and it wouldn't be the first time that we as a as a cabinet team pivot quickly. I remember in this I don't know spring late spring of 2022 when the board said we want demographic and enrollment data and program data posted about every elementary school before we
121consider which ones to close. Um, and in a matter of eight weeks, this team came together and came up with a public-f facing dashboard with all of that information. And so, we can pivot quickly. Um, we will always be willing to work hard to meet the board's expectations. And if the board gives us direction to shift into budget reductions right now for the 2526 fiscal year, um it's very different direction than what we have heard from the board prior to today. I just want to say my interest in that is for the same direction of employee supports because I would rather be able to give raises and so I'm I'm uh what I'm saying is that the two choices are really hard. I would rather go towards a direction of reductions to give better employee
122compensation. So for me it's the same value of um supporting our employees. I know that might not that might be hard to understand when we say we're trying to do a force reduction but for me it's so that we can offer better compensation for our employees. So I just want to be clear that my that value I think stays the same. I would really want to hear from our associations on that just because I remember when we went through the great recession um the association sent out a survey to members and said do you want us to reduce your compensation or should we reduce positions? Um ultimately we chose to uh reduce our compensation rather than reduce positions. I can also tell you that that is costing me dearly and will for the rest of
123my life. So, you know, I I would want to hear what our associations have to say about that. Okay. Thank you. Our next agenda item will allow the board of education to hear the superintendent's recommendation on Free Horizon Monastery Schools charter school conversion application. I want to take the opportunity to thank Free Horizon Monastery for the time and effort they put into completing this application and also to members of the DAC subcommittee who reviewed the application. Those materials are available in this agenda item for the public's review. Before I turn it over to the presenters, is there anything you'd like to say, Superintendent Dorman? Thank you, President Parker. Welcome. It's so nice to see you all here. Um, I want to thank our district team, Dr. Adiko um and others who have worked so closely
124with the school team on figuring out what the best approaches to make sure uh that free horizon monator school uh can get what it needs um into the future. I also want to make a public statement that I have had the opportunity to work with board members and leadership at Free Horizon Monastery uh through several um um needs including uh principal selection and I just want to say it's always been a joy to work with you. I always feel like the school has come to the table with a collaborative spirit and an interest in partnership and I want to say thank you for that. So, welcome and I'm looking forward to the board hearing about uh this proposal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Engles. Thank you, Superintendent Dorland. And uh board, we're uh excited to
125be here this afternoon. I'm going to um turn over the presentation to Dr. Adiko. As Superintendent Dorland was saying, um she has been instrumental in working with the uh school to uh develop this next part of the process. So, I want to turn it over to Dr. Adiko. Thank you, Mr. angles. Uh so Free Horizon Montasaur's governing board has submitted an application to the Jeffco board requesting to convert the school which currently operates as a Jeffco option school with innovation status to an independently operated charter school and the superintendent has reviewed the application and prepared this recommendation for your review and consideration. So, a little bit about Free Horizon Montasauri. Uh, the school opened as a charter school in 2002 over at 581 Conference Place in Golden. And in 2018, uh, they converted to a
126Jeffco option school with innovation status and at the same time moved into the facility that was formerly Pleasant View Elementary. Uh the school currently operates under an innovation plan and a separate governance agreement that was signed between Jeffco, the district and the Free Horizon Montasuri board. And uh that governance agreement delegates many of the responsibilities of operating the school to the free horizon mandatory governing board. And that includes determining um faculty and staff salary schedules, managing and evaluating the school leader and uh maintaining the school's preschool license, including setting the preschool tuition rates. The school does not operate under student-based budgeting. Rather, the district allocates 88% of uh the per pupil revenue received directly to the school to the governing board and uh and the governing board manages that budget. In the 2023 24 school
127year, uh the district reached out to the Free Horizon board and notified them of some interest in making some changes to the governance agreement. Uh and through lots and lots of discussion, uh the Free Horizon board then notified the district in June 2024 of their intent to apply for charter status, which was something that uh an option that had been laid out in the governance agreement. And then we wanted to note uh that the application looks different than our standard new school application. We differentiated the application for Free Horizon Monttoauri given its current status as a highly functional operating school uh in the district. And so what we did in the application is we focused on the elements that were specific to charter schools as well as asking the school to reflect on its current
128performance. Oh, and before I go on, I would like to introduce the folks at the table, which is um actually yeah, I'll let you introduce. Yeah. Hi, my name is Donetta Macdonald. I'm the principal at Free Horizon. Um, I've been with the school for 17 years as a teacher, instructional coach, assistant principal, and principal now for three years, a first year interim. And, uh, both of my children have gone to Free Horizon. My daughter and I started there together, and she is now 20, and she's graduating, um, from Red Rocks next week. And this is my um, some members of my board. I'm John Frost U board Jeff uh sorry Free Horizon Monastery board president um I've got two children there and um been president for three years and on their board for six years
129so kind of stepped in just as Free Horizon was becoming a Jeffco option school of innovation having stepped away from its charter status and um here I am on the other side. Hi, thank you for having us. Um, my name is Christy Kibler. I am the current vice president of the Free Horizon board. Um, I was just reelected to another three-year term. Um, and am expecting to step into the president's role, um, as of our June board meeting. Um, but I have two kids at Free Horizon. Um, we've been there for four years now. Um, and we just love love this school. So, thank you. Thank you so much. So, here's the application timeline. The Free Horizon board submitted the application on February 1st. Uh, since then, we've been doing the district application team review,
130which concluded with an applicant capacity interview on April 10th and members of the DAC charter subcommittee were invited to the interview and also asked questions of the applicant at that time. Uh here we are presenting the superintendent's recommendation and then you will vote on the application on May 29th and uh there's also an opportunity for public comment at that time and if the application is approved by the board then the school will open as a free horizon launch charter school in August 2026. Additionally, the DAC also uh conducted their review as granted by statute. Uh the DAC charter subcommittee met on March 31st and then presented their recommendation on uh to the larger DAC on April 15th and uh the DAC has presented uh a majority and dissenting opinions which have been uploaded to board
131docs for your review. So a little bit about the applicant. Uh Free Horizon Montasauri Charter is a Montasauri school uh as shared operating since 2002. They currently serve ECE through 8 and will serve that at full build. Their projected year 1 enrollment is 398 students with an anticipated enrollment growth pattern up to 442 students. And the school will continue to operate in its current facility at Pleasant in the former Pleasant View facility. And here is a map of their enrollment. They grew by 11 students from 2324 to 2425 and anticipate by 2930 being at 442 students. And that's including their early childhood program. So now we'll go to the district review team's findings. Our review team consisted of representatives from the school leadership team, financial services, and an external consultant who specializes in charter school
132authorizing. And our review is uh in three parts. Education program, organizational health, and financial health. So for the educational program, the review team found that the applicant had a clearly defined mission, vision, and core values that they currently operate under at their facility and that these things will continue as they become a charter school or return to being a charter school. Uh we also found that the school maintains its commitment to the Montasuri model, but it also supplements with uh other curricular materials were necessary. And looking at their academic performance historically, they have continuously met or exceeded expectations on the state school performance framework. And we wanted to note that they showed strong middle school math growth in 2024. One area of growth identified by the review team is the low academic performance for students
133eligible for free and reduced lunch. for organizational health. Uh the district application review team found that the school has a strong governing board in place and in the applicant interview and in the application the board was able to describe how it will transition from an option school with innovation status to a charter school including uh demonstrating a clear understanding of their key roles and responsibilities. The school has had stable leadership in recent years. However, they have seen decreased teacher retention over time and they are going planning on addressing this through salary adjustments for the 2526 school year. Uh, currently as an innovation uh school with um with their governance agreement, they set uh their own teacher salaries and and depending on where you are in the steps and lanes, it can be uh lower than
134what Jeffco currently offers district managed schools. And the board recognized that and discussed that in the application and talked about ways that they're working to adjust teacher salaries. And the school also included clear enrollment targets uh and rationale for their enrollment projections. And then finally uh financially uh the school has had strong financial performance over the years. They currently have a significant uh cash balance of approximately $1.4 million. as an innovation school, they uh they have the 4% carry forward kind of limit uh waved for them. So, they've been able to sustain that uh their cash balance. And uh it has been agreed upon with the district that we will transfer that um their carry forward over to the Free Horizon Monatory Charter Board once they open as a charter. and um we found that
135their submitted budget does balance without tapping into their reserves. Uh but there were a few cost assumptions that we would like the school to address. The first is that we have a new charter fee model. Uh the school was directed to budget under our old model because it wasn't finalized at the time of their application submission. But now that our new model is finalized, um there will be some changes there. Uh our financial services team also believes that their budgeted risk management and insurance costs might be underbudgeted com uh especially when comparing what similarly sized Montasuri charters pay for insurance costs. And then uh there were also some questions on the review team if their enrollment growth is feasible growing by 50 students by 2930 given uh the declining enrollment trends across the district. So
136after considering uh that body of evidence, the superintendent has prepared the following recommendation which is that the Jeffco board of education votes to approve the Free Horizon Montasauri charter application with the following three conditions and the conditions address some of the concerns that uh that we just shared in this presentation. The first is uh that the Free Horizon Montasuri board submit a revised budget that meets district expectations including um a contingency budget in case the school isn't able to grow to 442 students that uh the school then gets some um estimates on risk management and insurance coverage costs for a 400 plus uh Montasuri school and uh update their budget accordingly and now that we have uh recently finalized our charter fee model if they could update their budget to reflect that. The second recommended
137uh condition is that the school by October 1st submits their final enroll priorities uh ensuring that all the current students for 2526 have a seat at free horizon mandatory charter in 2627 when they open. And then finally, because much of this recommendation was based on the school's strong historical academic performance, uh just one more condition that if they were to receive a rating other than performance on the 2025 SPF that they would use the UIP submitted in the fall um to uh include a remedy plan to increase achievement in in case that were to happen. And then here are the next steps. Uh you will vote on this application at the May 29th meeting where there will also be opportunity for public comment and then if the application is approved by the Jeffco board, we
138will immediately begin contract review and then also uh because they will be staying in a district facility, we we will also initiate facility use agreement review and then by September we will finalize contract negotiations and the contract will come back to you the Jeffco board for your approval and signatures and And then we'll send the contract to CDE so that the state board of education can approve uh waiverss to state policy and then throughout 2526 that will be free horizon mandatory charters year zero. Um and so that will be some planning on the school side but also on the district side. So for all the current staff who decide to stay at the school and um as Free Horizon Montasuri Charter uh there are some HR implications to that because that means they will be
139moving um from Jeffco as their employer to Free Horizon Montasauri Charter as their employer. So uh we'll have a meeting with their staff to discuss some of the implications and processes such as their benefits, personal leave time, PAR implications and so on. And then in August 2026, Free Horizon Montasauri Charter School will open. Any questions for us or for the Free Horizon folks? Well, thank you guys for coming. Thank you for being here. And I know this is a lot of work that goes into these applications, so we appreciate you going through that process. Um, I just, and maybe this is for Dr. Odico. Um so when we have a year zero the school is still functioning as the option school during that year zero right? Uh yes the school will function under its current
140innovation plan and the governance agreement for 2526 as a Jeffco option school with innovation status. Perfect. And then do we do y'all have any feel for how many of your staff may choose to go into a Jeffco school? Are you anticipating you're going to need to do some hiring prior to the opening as a charter? Well, I believe we're already um if there is a transition that is needed, I believe some of those teachers are already making that decision now, which I fully understand and they were very transparent. But I would like to add um we have already updated our salary scale for the coming school year and based on that, we have already gone to a 96% retention rate for our lead teachers, which is a huge increase from our previous one. um including
141teachers who had left for one year and now they're applying to come back. So um so I believe that transition we've already seen it this year and um our staffing shoot and last year um when we started this charter process. So I think this current retention rate is a better reflection of how it's going to look. That's great. Thank you. Um, I would like to know in 2018 when you made the decision to go from charter to innovation, can you give me from your perspective a little more of your reasons? So, at the time when we were at 581 conference place, I mean, it it met our needs for a long time and it was a lovely location, but we were outgrowing it very quickly. And um, as you know, now that there are district
142offices over there, it it does have a gym. it doesn't have a commercial kitchen. Um we were having to cater in meals and all those types of things and it just wasn't meeting the growth needs of our community anymore. So our then principal at the time um started working with Dr. Glass and having this conversation of his desire to add innovation option to the portfolio for Jeffco and really us needing just a larger space. Our our playground at the time is what is the parking lot there now? It wasn't much different. And it we really like I mean at Pleasant View we have our nice big grass field. We have our gym. We have our commercial kitchen because we you know we want to participate with things that we can provide free breakfast and lunch
143for students. So that was really the draw in what started that whole negotiation. Thank you. And um my experience with Monasuri schools they love their their format and they they love the everything about it. So um are are you anticipating or let me ask this question. So you you didn't go to innovation status because you wanted to change any programming or anything in the instruction. So are you anticipating that when you're successful in getting back into the charter um uh field that you'll have the same programming that you had or still have. You never change that. Yes. That's that's the intent. And just one question for Dr. Adico I guess um if uh the recommendation is to have the conditions um as you mentioned um what is the status if conditions are not met what
144what happens do you want me to take that attorney to the status busted I was answering an email question uh this the status for the uh application review if the conditions aren't met. Oh, well, the conditions are really they are literally a condition procedent to the approval um being valid. So, the charter contract would be void at that time because it's as if the application was denied mean closing the school or keeping it in innovation status. It it could mean a whole host of things including going back and negotiating another strategy or another timeline or another arrangement, but they'd have to come back to you for approval on that. It could mean continuing as an innovation school, although the innovation plan is in need of significant updating, which is one of the reasons we sort
145of wound up here in the first place. So, um it would be a little bit of a back to the drawing board, but they would continue operating in the meantime. Just to add to that a little bit, some of the conditions um like looking at the UIP and all of those types of things. I believe when we transitioned from charter to innovation option, one of the reasons it was a good partnership, we are um we're we follow the rules and we comply and because we think it's best practice. So all those types of things are things that we did as a charter um with assessments, with our UIP, um with our budgeting. So I when I see those um recommendations, I don't see that as a challenge because it's something that we would have done
146before when we were a charter. Uh well, thank you for your collaboration and ongoing communication with district staff. Um, I'm just going to mention here that the the DAC approval for the application had both a majority opinion and a dissenting opinion with about six or seven people signing on to that dissenting opinion. And I'm curious if you have any response to those folks who had raised concerns that there might not be a value ad by having this become a charter um, and that the motivation is purely financial. I just want to see if you have a response to that. Um, yes. So, I I do believe it just from my perspective because I was present at that DAC meeting when the letter was read. Um, I think it's just kind of a mis I think
147it's just a misunderstanding of the intention really. Um, when we look at one of the big differences that made us go ahead and decide to return to charter, it had to do with our preschool program. Um Jeffco really wanted to take our preschool program under their license and our concerns were um if you're acquainted with Monasuri and the pedigogy really having that preschool primary program you'll hear it called children's house and some other schools is like the foundation and um we have to have a lot of different waiverss and things in place to run our preschool program the way that aligns with the model and it was just um too fearful for us to relinquish that license that we might lose our monitory component and really while there were maybe a few other things and
148you guys can chime in as well. I would say that was really the deciding factor. Um and and honestly some of the things that were listed in the dissension letter don't reflect that that really is truly the thing. It's we we weren't trying to turn into some money maker. Thank you. It's an it's a costly model. Um that is why sometimes our salary scales look different because our teachers have to have a classroom assistant um because it is ability based instruction and and that's a bit of the compromise you know is that you are not just the only adult in there running the monastery model right um so it sounds like the charter option gives you more accessibility to a clearer waiver request process especially when it comes to pres preschool your preschool program does
149that sound accurate I think that's reasonable and I think just ensuring that you know um without knowing kind of maybe the district plans for what that would look like if they held our lensure. I think that just felt a little too too risky to us. Okay. Appreciate it. I just want to throw in there I don't know if Dak realizes that and maybe they do. I I wasn't there for their deliberation that there were other reasons too in terms of just the structure that's currently there being that sort of somehow straddling the option school charter school and that that's it was just awkward and it wasn't working well for structurally for the district or for free horizon and the idea was to get a structure that is a little more typical and a little and
150therefore more clear. I I want to follow that up and say I think I described that also at um at the DAC meeting and um do we currently have any other innovation school models operating in Jefferson County? No. Free Horizon Montasuri is the only school with an innovation plan in Jeffco. Okay. So with this move we would be out of the innovation school game and is the innovation school parameters or model one of the reasons why it was unclear. I mean is that help me understand charter versus innovation a little bit. I think this is a very good question. Um, Director Kenworthy, I I have had the opportunity in multiple districts to work closely with district um managed schools, charter schools and go through the process of supporting schools with um becoming innovation, right? Ident
151becoming innovation status. Uh based on that experience, I would say that in Jeffco there is um confusion and misconceptions about what innovation with a capital I through the statute process means. Um and of course like in every district there are um different relationships and perceptions of charter versus district schools. I mean it's just it is what it is. Um and so you know and and I do believe that the innovation model uh can be beneficial in a lot of different circumstances but I also believe that it needs to be uh done with clarity with understanding of purpose and with staff commitment and collaboration to that model and I don't know that Jeffco has had the experience to really an opportunity to really educate stakeholders ers about what the innovation model is intended to do and
152we definitely don't have sort of like we haven't had clear guidance on how you become an innovation school and why you would consider doing that. It's something that um Miss Tolen, myself um Mrs. Doiko, sorry, Dr. Adiko um and others have uh had conversations about uh but we have not been able to really do much with it. there really hasn't been a reason to do much with it, but the innovation model is um I think misunderstood and if there are opportunities for us to lean into it in the future, I think we have some work to do to help people understand what it is and what what it's for. Thanks. I think that is helpful. Um just because I think that this change could seed a conversation about that. Um, and so I wanted to
153just get a little bit of clarity prior to to us seeing the transition occur. Um, I want to thank you for your presence at the DAC meeting. I appreciated having you there. And I also want to just thank the DAC for their thoughtful consideration of an application. Um, and for allowing there to be desending opinions and a majority opinion. I think it honors the voice of the folks who um, showed up to work on that committee. And um anyway, I just think the process went great. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Um the board will now receive an update on the proposed uh 20 2526 board of education advisory committee appointments prior to board vote at its May 29th, 2025 regular meeting. Jeffco public schools board advisory committees are established by the board of
154education to bring together community voices and expert insights on key topics like finance, technology, capital planning, and accountability. These committees are composed of parents, staff, community leaders, and professionals who work together to support the board's decision-making process and ensure our schools serve our community effectively. While we will make appointments on May 29 where there are vacancies, we will continue to appoint members throughout the year which I think was a very good change in our process. Uh this year our committees have been professionally facilitated by staff from the Keystone Policy Center in particular Trace Fast and Renee Fagan. They have worked with our community leaders towards the recommendations we are receiving today. Before I turn it over to the presenters, is there anything you'd like to say? Superintendent Dorland. Yeah, I mean, I know we've had
155Hi, welcome. Thank you, President Parker. Thank you for being here. Thank you uh for the work you do on our committees and thank you to the Keystone Group for the facilitation this year. We have had conversations over the last few meetings and I know a lot of feedback from our stakeholders around contracted services um and professional services. I just would like to highlight that I think Keystone stepping in as facilitators of the board committees has been a positive investment. It has allowed district staff to serve as subject matter experts and less in the navigation of the meeting uh which I greatly appreciate and I think it really has helped our committees um make sure that we're hearing all voices. So thank you for that. In addition, it has added capacity to our team such that
156we are able to improve processes like application to these committees. Um, uh, communication about the application process, getting more people applying and interested, what does it mean to be on these committees? Why do we want you to be on these committees? So, I just want to highlight that I I do believe having you uh all partner with us uh from the Keystone group has been very beneficial and looking forward to the board studying this so that you all can make some decisions about your committee makeup and new members going into next year. Thank you. Thank to the board and thank you to Superintendent Dorland. Um Trace F Keystone Policy Center. Nice to see you all again twice in one week. Lucky me. Um I'm just going to give a couple of things before we get
157going. Uh I have a few points of gratitude that I I want to share out loud. Uh one is is for you all first as the board. Um you know I've worked with a lot of boards in districts and also a lot of uh committees and commissions in the legislature and just a lot of really fun sticky things. Um, and what I really appreciate about y'all in the committee process is that it just feels really clear that this is a value ad for you as a board and that you are positioning these committees. And I know it's been an iterative process of learning something one year and trying to do it better the next year and those sorts of things. But, um, I think these are really valuable committees and I feel like uh, I
158feel that from you all. And so, just as someone who's a a third party in this, I just really appreciate a governing board that's looking to community in this way and uplifting those voices. So, thank you all for continuing to find ways to do that. The second is I want to give a a shout out and gratitude to Superintendent Dorland and to her chief of staff, Lisa, who had the idea to bring in uh uh us as facilitators kind of in service of what Superintendent Dorland just said around finding ways to uplift district as content experts, but also give community the space and the time um and the board to be able to wrestle through some of these things without some of those uh those lanes being uh a little muddied. And um I really
159appreciate that they've given myself and Renie the runway uh to do that with integrity with community members and with our chairs and with our board liaison. I feel a lot of uh a lot of just honest runway to be able to have those meetings and have those conversations and be beholden to community in that and I really appreciate that. So thank you guys for that. And the third is just the members of the community and especially my chair uh my chairs here uh and the folks that that make up these committees uh you know just like you all they're volunteers and uh they really dig in uh I particularly I do the DAC and the TDAC and as you all know the DAC is uh it's it's a big committee and it's a lot right
160and they even keep asking what else what else can we do how can we be helpful and uh you know as a parent to a two and a halfyear-old I hope that my kid uh can be a Jeffco student in in a district where other parents are looking out for the best interest of my kid in the way that I feel like Dak and TDAC and I know the other committees are as well. So just a lot of gratitude and and we've really done I think a bang-up job of getting the right folks on these uh on these committees and so look forward to these new recommendations as well. So with that I'm going to jump into uh kind of our process and then I'm going to hand it over. We're going to switch up
161our order a little bit. Jason's got a jet here so I'm just going to give you a quick overview. Uh, a number of you have seen these materials, so just as a quick reminder of kind of where we are today. Um, there was a huge outreach effort this year and I really appreciate the district's partnership and just getting the word out through their traditional channels and some additional new channels. Um, and so total applications to date and this again I know that the applications continue to be open but we had to cut it off at some point for the purposes of this conversation. Uh we had 32 with DAC, seven with FAC, 11 with TDPAC, and three with capital assets CAC. Um so, uh when we get into FAC, there were some people that said,
162"Hey, I'm open to being on FAC, but I prefer DAC." And so, they actually only ended up reviewing four applicants. So, I just want to name that. So, if you hear a discrepancy in the numbers, it's because someone said, "If I'm on DAC, that's where I want to be." Um so, if they were uh accepted with DAC, then that's where they stayed. Second piece is just a reminder of like what we were keeping in mind criteria-wise as far as how we were selected. And Dan, y'all, I know we'll see you online. Is that correct? No, it's nice to see you. So, thank you. No, no, no apologies. Yeah, that sounds great. Um, you've heard some of this, so we'll catch you right in time. Um so criteria for recruitment effort and recommendations. You know, one
163is just representation around uh Jeffco is an incredibly diverse district and we know that there are families um and and kids that are in a variety of situations and we want to have diversity in those experiences as much as possible and we also know that we're not we are not able to always do that. So that was a first and foremost uh the effort. Second is around the lived experience. So folks that have experience whether it's as past parents, alumni, staff, engaged community members, etc. Of course, first and foremost on the DAC, the big focus is on parents, but we also know that there are a variety of stakeholders for a variety of reasons. And so trying to be in tune with that uh perspective and voice. So we know that there's again a lot
164of sticky sticky topics. We aim for a balance of opinions especially around the top of the committees will be discussion discussing. So really in our applications looking for folks that are understanding of that and recognizing that we're not here to grind a specific axe. We are here to make Jeffco uh better and uh a continuous learning process. So appreciate that in those applicants uh productive approach again respectfully in dialogue willingness to work towards consensus uh were they able to kind of express that in their applications availability. We want folks that show up that say they can be there and then they they can they will show up whether it's online and in person. We also recognize we're trying to differentiate uh people's abilities to be at these meetings. So we have offered different ways for
165them to engage and then alignment um on some of these committees particularly the finance and facilities uh and in in the technology data privacy we need folks that understand what we're talking about uh because really I know that you all are counting on you know community members that have that expertise and so uh we really put a took a a fine what do you call it fine tooth comb a fine tooth comb and looked at that expertise and really thought about that particularly for those three committees. Um so just as a reminder of the timeline and then we're going to get into each of the committees and Jason I'll start with you. The first is that Keystone so this again this is a little bit a different thing and the reason is we wanted to
166elevate kind of the autonomy of the committees themselves. So Keystone came in with that initial review just from a a purely technical aspect of like you know are these people who they say they are? Are they qualified as far as like members or who they say they are etc. Um second is that it then went to the committee and the chairs. Um and so some of our committees are so small that they kind of consolidated the committee review with the district liaison review. Um but first and foremost that the districts felt that or sorry that the uh committees felt like they had the autonomy to really go through those uh with their perspective. Uh and then where appropriate the district liaison review. So I'll give you the example in DAC uh we did follow this
167to a te because uh DAC has a big enough committee that they were able to review those first and foremost with their executive committee. uh the district leazison really served as just an adviser and also I really appreciate the district folks and particularly Greece on uh DAC who was able to really pull all the information for all these people and do some of that digging for us. Um so I know Teresa will give a a shout out there as well. Uh and then here we are today May study session. Really want you all to be able to ask questions. I know you've seen these applications ahead of time and then May 29th we're hopeful that you feel comfortable enough to uh to put it to vote. All right. So with that, we're just going to
168go committee by committee. Jason here with the finance committee has to leave here shortly. So he's going to go first. So why don't we do your quick overview and then questions for that and then we'll go through the rest of the committees. Perfect. Thank you all. Good to see you all again. Um appreciate the time and I would uh concur with the the meetings. You know, I've been a part of the FAC since October, November. Um Renie been running those meetings along with the district of course and it's uh it's been enjoyable, insightful learning um complexities as I've said before, but it's been great to have a a coach uh to get us through the process. So that's been very good. Um in our last meeting we did review with the FAC as you can
169see we had a fairly limited number of applications. Uh so it was a pretty quick review for us all and we have settled in on the three that have been provided to you at this point. I think they uh of the the the applications that we have reviewed they had the right mix of education uh uh work experience time in the market uh and Jeffco concerned parents um you know so I think they're checking a lot of boxes that you that you had stated in your initial uh uh statement there uh and I think that you know from what we can see on paper that these would be good contributors um that have dealt with some complex large enterprise types of business needs uh that I think will translate well within the committee. So, I'll
170open it up for questions. Yeah, I just want to say I I was there at the meeting when you guys were looking over the um applicants or or discussing them. I appreciate um your position on that. I thought we had good applicants and I just have to point out that there was a discussion as to whether an applicant had used AI for their resume or for their cover letter or whatever and I just wanted to put it out there because I think we might be seeing more and more these days of those AI generated applications. But thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone. I'm Renie Fagen with the Keystone Policy Center and uh do facilitate both the FEC and the CAC and that person was not recommended but as for a lot of reasons the the
171uh committee filled sticking with the fact for a second the committee filled the number of seats available and there was just some discussion of having an alternate in case somebody went off during the year. So that was good but thank you for pointing that out uh director Parker chairman. Uh so on the CAC um there were three applications. The committee recommended two. Uh one is uh an electrical engineer that is also a project manager has worked in design and construction uh for 25 years on many public buildings including schools. Um and is a lifelong resident of Jeffco lives in the Arvvada area. And the other is um also a an architect and a project manager who had served on the district's construction management team and now is not of course with the team but working
172uh on a project with another school district in the metro area and uh there was some discussion among the group about um that person serving and the current staff felt uh that would would be good addition. So those are the two that and that person lives in the golden area. So those are the two that have been recommended. So let's pause there just because I want to be able to give Jason any any questions particularly around the finance committee before Okay. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Great. Thanks so much Jason. I'll pause for the capital assets. Any questions there? I'll just say thank you. Um I always appreciate how you run the meetings. we I'm sure like many committees have a tendency to like get off track and so I always appreciate you bringing us
173back um and just don't get the opportunity to say very often. So thank you and thank you for thinking really thoughtfully about how we can add to the expertise in that group. Thank you very much. I have a quick question if I can. Oh yeah. Is that okay? I'm so sorry because here I am online now, but and I think I missed this while I was gone, but um is um if someone if someone was not applied for multiple committees and was not accepted, are all the committees full? Is the FAC full? That's what I missed. I I believe it is at this point. There are seven. There's room for seven. There are currently four and three have been recommended. Yeah. And I'll just I'll just say too because once you all vote, you know,
174then we then we offer those spots. So there is the possibility I know in the case of uh of the additional two that we have kind of backups. And I believe y'all have alternates as well. Um so that in the case that someone doesn't accept one of those spots that we have, you know, we have additional recommen recommendations. Okay. Thank you. Uhhuh. All right. Can we move on to technology, data, privacy? Okay. This is where Mary and I get to shine and hang out together. Um, all right. So, we have three recommendations for TDPAC. Um, really thoughtful dialogue with um Aaron Norton, who's the the chair now for TDPAC, who also serves on DAC. um couldn't be here today, but um really appreciate Erin's efforts here in trying to shore up kind of what is
175TDAC and where are we focused? It's a massive ongoing challenging topic that requires a lot again expertise and so really appreciate her leadership there. Um the three that we have put forward to you all have a variety of experiences and expertise that uh really became clear once we actually started talking out loud and and uh talking out loud with a number of folks also with the district around some of these priority areas that we see shaping up from the technology and data privacy side. Um one I'll just say of the um folks we recommended you'll see has um quite a bit of district experience not in Jeffco but in another district that's actually larger than Jeffco. uh around their technology and is a Jeffco parent though and so they really saw a lot of value
176in that of like the district expertise without being a Jeffco employee um felt really valuable and then the other two just having um some technical expertise that quite frankly is just missing currently on the um on the current TDAC. So, we put out an int intent to return and uh there was one person retiring and another person that said they weren't returning um because they were moving. And then the third person uh said that, hey, listen, you know, I love being on this committee, but if you have someone that's a little bit more relevant with their expertise, totally understand. And so with that, we did see someone that had a little bit more relevant expertise. And so that's why we have the three recommendations. So, any questions with TDAC? I just want to say I
177think TDPAC rocks and um the rest of you should come sometime and listen to him. TDAC rocks. Appreciate that. Thanks, Mary. Any other questions, thoughts? All right, on to the deck. Okay, I have our lovely chair here, Teres uh for the second time this week. So, Theres, really big shout out for making this happen. But I'm gonna hand it over to you to give the kind of overview and um we'll kind of talk through a couple of different ideas we have. So go ahead. Thank you very much. Uh this is this is the part that I really like. I kind of like numbers and statistics and things like that. So right now we're a full deck is 59 members just so everybody's aware. 59 and um I was looking statistically and also per our bylaws
178and this is where some of our discussion can come in. But, you know, we really try to keep it a pretty heavy parentled group. Uh, so right now, how we have this set up per our bylaws, um, 47 of the 59 would be parent members. And a parent is parent or guardian of an active current Jeffcoen enrolled student. So, somebody who's, you know, currently actively enrolled. So, that represents 47 um, of the 59, which is 80%. And then the other uh 12 positions are open to non-parents and or well non-parents that's really only four positions in an atlarge capacity. And then there's the appointee positions. So Jespa, JCA, uh teachers, admin, um and and and that administrators. So there you go. Right. So 47 a PTA, that's an appointee. Yep. So 47 parent members and
17912 being non-parent members. So right now um we received what 32 applications and uh we have 17 that we have moved forward I would say just speaking plainly cleanly right no questions about them. They're a parent. They've got somebody in in the you know school district. We've figured that out. They've a clean application. That's it's easy. We have um but that still leaves us with vacancies. Um right now 12 vacancies and uh we might have two more depending on this discussion. We might have two more that we can forward because I think a discussion came up about um you know we're trying to keep a a being parents in that articulation area. Right? That's clean. It makes sense. It's a parent member representing that particular articulation area. However, you know, we haven't received applicants from
180Lakewood or from um well, I mean, I can look and just tell you from, you know, we have we have vacancies in Dakota Ridge, we have vacancies in Bear Creek, um things like that. So, we have uh because we haven't received enough applicants to do that now. So, that's just kind of talking about that area where we also have we have 12 applicants and I know this was a concern. We have 12 applicants who um are don't have an active student in Jeffco. So they're we would call them non-parents or they're currently employed by Jeffco and you can't have both positions. Even if you're a parent, you can't be employed by Jeffco and be on deck in a parent member position. So that's how this all looks, right? We have certainly enough applicants to fill.
181However, not in the defined ways by our bylaws and sort of by the history of how we're trying to keep this a majority parentled group, fully parentled group. Does that make sense? So, that just the just the clarification I'll add there is so with the clarification from Julie and appreciate that the last meeting around the policy technically stating like in your best effort fill these with articulation areas. Going back, we will likely between now and the 29th have between two and five. There's a couple folks we need to still have that grease research on around who they who they are, but we anticipate between two and five additional recommendations for you all to then fill additional parent spots. it just would not be uh in the desired articulation areas. But um that would be the
182question for you all is does that sound like your preference versus holding those spots open and just hoping that you know throughout the year that's I I like you doing that. Um I guess I'm me uh questioning because some of the schools like I have um uh Chatfield I think had one opening a couple of them anyway. Um, so I'm just wondering if I know some people that I could say, you know, there seems to be an opening, but if there are some that you think you may move in there, I don't want to go get somebody if there's not going to be a spot. Yeah. So, the way that uh and I'll I'll just say just from a process side, the way that that would happen is they would just kind of go almost
183like a they'd be in that parent area, but that we wouldn't assign them to an articulation area. So, that spot technically is still vacant. So what we'll do is we'll just come back to you and say, you know, here's four recommendations for additional parents that don't fit neatly neatly into the articulation areas. That leaves you six vacancies. So if you know you still have a vacancy in your articulation area, please help us fill that. Um but it'll just be le like it just depends on kind of a first come first serve. Does that make sense? So we would it doesn't quite make sense to me. So we would let we would let Sorry. I got you. So we would say, hey, we still have some openings. Mhm. We're going to let a few more parents
184in, which is great because we're getting more community, but we're also holding the vacancies. So, could you end up with more than 59 people or am I Did I miss math? And yeah, not not holding the vacancies. I just to to be clean on this, you're going to have certain amount of vacancies and you can plug those with parents however you see fit. Right. I'm just saying that from an articulation areas perspective and keeping diversity on the DAC, we will just let you know where there is still no representation. And so with the vacancies, but we're going to we're going to send you more recommendations that are just parents that might already have representation in those articulation areas, but the policy does not preclude or exclude additional parents from being on there just because they
185don't fit that particular articulation area. Got it. So let's say you you send us this amazing slate. We rigorously support them, right? And then like August 1st, two amazing Lakewood parents step up and they're like, I'm in. Yep. They could still come in and it wouldn't displace any of the folks that we appointed. Totally. Assuming there's just still general vacancies, which there there likely will be. Okay. There's that assumption though. So, we would have to ensure that we had Sorry, guys. I know I'm belaboring. No, no, no. You're good. I just want to make sure we don't get ourselves in a position because I'm all for if we have people who want to volunteer. I know we need to get people at these meetings because that community voice is so so critical and DAC is
186one of our best avenues to get that. I just want to make sure we don't like bring people in and then have people want to do those vacancies and not be able to put folks in those articulation areas in those vacancies. So, I'll say right now you have 11 vacancies and at max you have five additional people coming to you. So, I don't think you're going to be running into that, but I think when we come back to you throughout the year with any additional recommendations, we will just remind you of where your representation might be lacking and you can make the call then. But between now and the 29th, that's not going to be an issue because there are way more vacancies than there are actual applicants. Well, that makes Can I just add
187Yeah. um that throughout the year then you have people who are who have said yes who will leave. So this is like a snapshot in time and so yeah that will pro totally probably continue to be the case. Yeah, I'd say it's like it's not a perfect process but there's no but because we're working with kind of a moving flexible. Yeah, exactly. But I I don't think you're going to run into that right now just from my just opinion because I think you have enough vacancies and then we'll just update you each time there's any sort of additional to say hey you've got you know your example you've got two Lakewood parents that want to apply. Let's say Lakewood's already full. I'll just let you know that and then you can make the call based
188on your vacancies. May I ask two more questions? Damn it. Um I'm asking two anyway. Um, are there any situations where we had folks that were not that wanted to stay on that were not that did not stay on or did not be recommended to stay on? No. Okay. Um, and then do we have are there specific charter school ARS or are they built into the articulation areas that their charters associated with? there specific um charter school a ars there's three openings and we'll have one vacancy is that on our list because I didn't see that and that's why it is on this it is on the second page of that chart I will say that there's there's I think what you meant to say there's three places there's one vacancy so we have an
189elementary a middle and a high school representation oh are you talking about a ar a I'm looking at this and I don't see them on here. That's why I'm asking. I think you got sent. That's just the one page. No, no, no. I've got three pages, but they're not on here. And that's why I asked the question. So, was page three at the very top? I That's our top category is teachers. Then it should say underneath that school administrators. Yeah. Sorry. I think we're on the same Yeah. I'm also happy to um make sure that we get it might be a version control or a PDF sort of issue. Sometimes when we change things from Word to PDF, it cuts things off. May I ask a May I ask a an related question? Yeah. Can
190I do you mind if I just pause real quick and just we're just going to Yeah. Do you want to just give you want to speak to that though so they voice it over? Okay. No, I just want to be, you know, very very clear. So um for for articulation area representatives, we have um three charter school um AARs. We have one position open. So we we already have two and they have intended to return and then we have one position open for our charter school AAR and then for option schools uh we have two uh positions and we will have um one that we're moving forward and one vacancy. So just to be very clear how we break this up. So I'm thinking in roles right now. So there are uh 17 traditional neighborhood
191schools which have 34 ARS. There are charter schools which have three AAR positions and option schools which have two AAR positions. So could we get the updated version? I think that would solve a lot of confusion. Well, she said absolutely not. Yes, we will send that to you right after this. But does that make sense? you have one vacancy of it feels so much better cuz I just don't have it and I'm going to request that it not that we load it into board docs and make sure that it's showing up the right way because it I can understand if our public is looking at this andor our charter schools um hey Trace I can you all hear me yes now we can go ahead okay real I sent you an email with a specific
192question with names and I don't want to say names. So I think if you see that you'll see one of the um reasons that I know I had a similar question. So just I just want to say I have really specific questions in an email to you that you can see later. Okay, about this particular topic. This addresses all of my concerns though. We just didn't see it in this version. Okay. So Danielle has a question that sounds like you just sent an email. I'll check on that and then Michelle, you feel good. Yeah, we'll make sure that that's sent to you. So, it's all there so you can see. Perfect. Yeah, we just don't have that line. I got you. Can I say one more thing? Sorry, just while I have you all um
193on the on the issue of the vacancies and um I would I'd be really in favor of letting folks fill those. I heard you say like you'll just present it to us. I did have a question of like I think we should be really clear that like if someone from that area is becomes eligible then that person might lose that vacant spot but then I wonder does that mean they can move into another vacant spot. So I just think I don't know what the answer is but I think we have to be uh thoughtful about how we help people understand you know and that they're not just expendable but um you know what what they get the opportunity to do. Yeah, totally, Danielle. And because those spots are no longer like by policy regulated to
194being in one particular AR area there there's no they don't have to move to any spots. That's all on you to just appoint them. So there's no there's no slots there to like move them around. It's just if there are general vacancies or not because the policy no longer requires you to fill in only for those AAR areas. So that to so point is is your concern there I think is is uh wouldn't be an issue because those vacant spots are movable. So there if you're not in that spot you're basically at large right and then so you don't have to be shuffled around if there's enough room to put somebody into a vacancy and still keep all the atlarge people. We just keep them at large. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. Thanks Paula. You said it
195better than I did. So, okay. So, just to be clear though, that means we'll have more than we could have a potent. Okay. So, let me if there's vacancies in the atlarge area. Yes. In the parents. Okay. Let me just be really clear. I I I need to get my head around this. So, we have So, we're going to present to you parents. Um, let's say parents who are not in a particular articulation area, we don't have any openings in the atlarge area. Um, and and extra parents come on, we don't assign them to an articulation area or we do. We don't. I'm hearing if we have a vacancy in an area. So, let's say somebody shows up and they can do liquid because they live there. Then we put them in Lakewood. They are
196not at large. we put them in liquid. Let me let me step in because we've struggled with alignment on this for a couple of years now. The old policy, which I think we changed at least two years ago, um said two from each articulation area. And there was a struggle because the articulation area of Jefferson and the articulation of Coline, you know, for involved parents just differed because of the size of the schools. So, and then we had last year we had a problem where somebody thought we were still doing this two by each area and we had a parent from I think Arvvada, I can't remember who was excluded because Arvvada is full. There is no full. There is no I mean it it just says up to 34 parents seek geographic diversity. And
197so to think about who's in what slot just really isn't what the policy requires. The policy does want us to try to find that broad representation, but that's it. So any tracking of slots should be very informal. Yeah. And and that doesn't make them necessarily at large. We have at large spots too, but they're that's good for the non-parents. For example, these 34 spots are parents or guardians or whatever. You got to say that on the record, Trace, that makes sense. Okay, perfect. Any other questions there? Thanks for sitting in that with us. Yeah, go ahead, Mary. Yeah. Um, I was just thinking, um, when you get back to some of the applicants who were not selected, um, especially the ones who were not parents or not really, um, did they know in advance, was
198that pretty clear as they were applying that there was an emphasis or a a wish to have more parents on the DAC or any of the criteria we used for selection? Was it clear to applicants? Yeah, I believe so. But that's a great question. I think we could we could ask folks as well for feedback and happy to do that. Um I think the district's communications were pretty clear on what the purpose and role was of these ideally, but of course some of that gets lost in translation as we know. So um when we do the followup uh to folks around because you know part of the communication will be about additional opportunities to stay engaged with the district despite not being able to uh put them on one of these committees. We can also
199ask for feedback for this particular process. And I also just want to say what a difference this is from the very first year we were on it. I had no clue, you know, like Yeah. I vote yes on whatever it is. I don't know who it is. I don't know where they're going. It was Yes. So much better. And thank you for not doing the the meet and greet. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was. We were hoping to be more efficient with your time and also up with the voices of our lovely committee folks as well. So, thank you for for working with us on that. This is year one. So, appreciate youall learning with us. I want to also appreciate the transparency and and having access to the applications and seeing who was there and
200who got approved. Um, thank you. We never even with the interviews that we used to do, we we would do those and then not know what happened after the fact and then a slate would be presented to us and we would go, "Okay." Um, so this is this just feels way better. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Any other any other questions here? Nope. All right. Again, appreciate y'all. Thank you. Weekend. All right. And for the last item, the board will discuss the proposed 202526 board of education calendar prior to board vote at its May 29th, 2025 regular meeting. Board members received the draft calendar last month. It's been published in our weekly board update several times for our review. At this time, I'd like to open up the forum to
201board members to share any feedback or questions we have about the proposed calendar. Yeah, I will say um it it's pretty self-explanatory as we know. We try to do the study session on a Wednesday, first Wednesday and the um regular meeting the next Thursday. But sometimes there are things that intervene. Could be a um religious holiday or some other um event. So, those are pretty uh self-explanatory. And then you'll see some of the MRS in there for monitoring reports. We added in study sessions for those so that we wouldn't have ungodly long meetings um and our regular meetings. And um if you have any questions, you can ask Kristen because she was there when we um did this. Um so uh and and as always, if we need to modify it, we've done that in
202the past for different reasons. So, if there are no questions. Yes, Mary, I had just one quick thing. Sure. Sorry, now I'm in a school lobby, so I'm trying to be quiet. Um on the January um schedule, there's three there's the right the study session, the board meeting, and then the the Friday right after the board meeting, I think. Sorry, I'm kind of trying to remember. I just wanted to say that we'll probably even for candidates who are coming onto the board who know there's a first Wednesday and second Thursday meeting, it will probably be a surprise that there's a Friday. So I know sometimes we communicate with candidates about the schedules um that will happen immediately after they might get elected. And so we might want to make sure people understand that there's an
203extra day in January because it's just so soon. Yes. You know. Yep. That's that's good. Right. Thank you. Thanks. All right. So, that brings us to the end of today's agenda. We'll stand adjourned. Our next scheduled meeting of the board is a board meeting scheduled at 3:30 p.m. on May 29th, 2025 at the Ed Center. Have a nice weekend. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down [Music]