001district to promote um growth um not just academic but social emotional um working really hard to on our collaborative relationships across uh the with the city private and public sectors um and now especially with themies coming online. Um those are beneficial uh for our school district and for the city as a whole. And then of course responsible resource allocation, making sure that we are providing transparent, coherent, and efficient budget process, which we hope uh you'll find that we've done that tonight. Um to the key line in that is equitable distribution of resources to sustain the district's vision and mission. And again, over the last couple of years, um we've had some ups and downs. Um but we're looking to do a one-time reset and get us back on track heading in. So, we will move
002right along here. Not the most friendly clicker here. Okay. Um, you saw this in one of our last finance workshops. Um, some of the numbers have changed a little bit. Um, for those of you who are new, especially two early childhood centers, 13 elementary schools, three middle schools, two high school campuses, two two large high school campuses, and two alternative programs. Our multilingual learner population hovers around 36%. So our economically disadvantaged around 53 and our students with disabilities holding steady at 15. However, some of the the needs of the students that are within that 15% um have have grown. Um our overall enrollment has just very recently dipped down now below uh 11,400. We are at 11,397. So even from the last time that we spoke, our numbers um are going down. We haven't seen
003numbers uh like this since 2016 2017 school year. Okay. You can see the trend line again has dipped down since the last time that we've spoken. Um we peaked around 2023 2024 had some marginal decrease and then a pretty significant drop comparatively uh for comparatively for what we normally see trending in our district. So that number uh of the drop was about 617 students. About 443 of those students are second language learners or MLL students. Um so we're continuing to monitor uh that population, their needs and the patterns for both registration and for students who are um who are leaving the school district. Um our special education numbers again are holding steady. We have about 1,765. and we anticipate a similar number next year um plus or minus a few students. So, some wonderful things
004to celebrate in our school system. Okay, we have had an a tremendous amount of work completed over the last couple of years culminating in our academy campus opening. Very exciting. I think you all witnessed the tremendous efforts that went into that. We're very proud of that. Um, in addition to just the building opening, we're the first wall-to-wall academy in the Northeast. We are getting a lot of accolades and acclaim right now. We're being asked to speak to the work that we've been doing um across our It's very exciting for the staff and those who are involved to be able to share uh the work that's happening um and also to learn more about what others are doing and how they're trying to lift this model as well. So, we're very excited and very proud of
005that. We have over 100 uh industry partners and growing. As a result, our career fair expo continues to grow. Um and all of those um continued opportunities for partnerships. We've grown a teacher residency program here and just over the last year uh it has doubled. So we have a couple of different pipeline streams um to help with some of our workforce needs and to build our own and grow our own educators here um to help with our our recruitment efforts as well there. Um we are very proud that we're the Connecticut State teacher uh of the year. Um home we're homebased as for Brian Bettish. So we are very proud of that and again it's a testament to some of the great work and the the leadership um that surrounds um all of the programming
006that we do here. And we're also very proud of the fact that we are actively increasing our STEM program in K8 um most notably uh very recently in 68 and bolstering those programs as well. So there's a lot to celebrate there. Our schools also very proud of our uh schools of distinction status. So across the state um particularly in alliance districts these are not easy to uh to achieve. We have four schools great plane king street uh primary south street and western Connecticut academy of international studies. And um those staff along across all of our schools have worked very hard. Um but these schools as you as you know and as we presented before have earned a special distinction for the extra efforts uh in those areas in terms of our accountability index growth and
007u proficiency performance on our state accountability um assessments. Our accountability index growth has been uh marked at two and a half% of a of a gain districtwide. That is great considering where we've been and where we're trying to go. So, our efforts are paying off systemwide. We have pockets that are growing at faster rates than others, and we're going to continue to work on those. Chronic absenteeism decrease 9.2% since 2021. We're at 14.3% [snorts] currently, and the state average is at 17.2%. So, we are not just um hovering around the state average, we are crushing the state average right now. And a lot of that has to do with the work that the schools have put in um and coordinated and led by efforts with Kelly. Where is Kelly to my left? Uh Kowanza, her
008team. And then of course uh the work that's happening in the schools to reach out to families and to make those important connections. Our graduation rate uh though not publicly released. So I can't say that this is a fixed number but we are projected to be at uh 83%. So we are up from 77% in 2324. That's a very marked difference. We've been on a kind of a decline going the other way. So, reversing that number and and growing is is great. So, uh we look forward to um exploring that, presenting a little bit more on that when we do the accountability results overview in the curriculum uh meeting coming up uh in the near future. We have over 100 students earning the seal of bi literacy on record. Um u we believe that's about
009closer to 159 once they're done accounting for um how the how it's accounted for through the accountability. Um and we are very proud of the fact that we are expecting 1,390 students to gain an earn industry recognized credential by the end of the year which is fantastic. We want to double triple quadruple that number um each year and and continually grow that out. Um as you know we've had uh made very good use of our implementation and the resource of um adding the science of reading um programming in the form of our artcore curriculum. Over the last three years kindergarten has increased 17% on the end ofear benchmark which is dibbles. Um and from 22 to 23 and through 2425 resulting in our 2425 having 63% of kindergarten that were at or above benchmark which
010is great. And that's going to mean that our base, as our base grows stronger and that rolls through the school system, um we'll we'll we should start to see um those numbers start to affect our our larger accountability index numbers. So, we're very excited about about those efforts. Um some nice little points to uh you know, how are we spending some of our operational money? How are we working with the city? So, we've had some great progress over the last year and a half. Um, DHS West, the Science Room renovation. These are in collaboration with the city and we're very thankful for the partnership. Um, BMS Counseling Center, we've tiled the floor. Uh, Mill Ridge and KSI pod flooring replaced and upgraded. Ellsworth roof replacement from the city. Haztown elevator construction is still underway. The
011stadium lights, auditorium seating, uh, DHS main academy refresh and painting, Penrook floor replacement, AS retaining wall, that's uh, largely on the city side, but these are things that are happening. uh in consultation and collaboration with the city and of course our KSB playground fence. Why are these things important? Because the learning environment and our facilities matter. How kids feel about their school, their grounds, um and how teachers feel about those matter. And so these are really important and it's part of our our work together besides uh the big academic things that we usually focus on. So where are we with our current state of funding? So, for this school year, I just like to do a quick review of where our budget, what our budget looks like this year in terms of what we set
012for this this fiscal year, as well as what we have in our grants and then some of our reserves. So, as you can see, we had a budget this year of 172 million and change and the preponderance of that is in salaries and benefits and you can see and other purchase services. So if you look at the pie chart, that is largely uh how we operate is our main expense are salaries and benefits. So um hold on to that 102 number in your head and the 34 million in benefits because those numbers are going to change a little bit in our proposal and we'll explain why that is. So um our grants versus general funds. So we rely very heavily on grants funding. Um so 25.9% of our of our funding sources to operate um
013with that have core staff in it are are funded through grants. Um so in total between our 172 and our 60 million we have 232 million in operations. So there's quite a bit of money that flows to the district. Um and those all of those are funding sources that create a very complex but robust um way to sustain the district. Of those grant sources, we have 50 million that come from the state directly, 9.3 that come from federal and about 635,000 from other sources. That other source line changes daily. Um, small grants that come in, little awards, one-time funds, competitive grants, and I'll I'll show you some examples of those for a total of 60 million. And of the state amount if you look at the green um the green pie chart of the 60
014million um 50 is state but 39 point 39 a.5 million is alliance which is a significant portion of what we do. So we have a lot of staff in our alliance grant and uh it's part that is how we get our ECS a portion of our ECS that comes directly to us but those are also uh restricted funds meaning we can't just spend on whatever we want we have to make sure that it's in line with the scope of the grant and it goes through an approval process with the state. So um in alliance itself so drilling down a little bit in alliance because Alliance is a key player in our in our finances um of the 39.5 million in Alliance you can see that we have 26.3 million in salaries slated and 7.9 million
015in benefits. Um only about 5.3 million in the grant for next year will be allocated to supplies, professional development um and some other operational items that that we use. Um, so that that is a large significant portion of the grant is salaries and benefits. I just wanted to get a sense of how that grant is used. Um, in terms of our federal grants, you can see the myriad of uh, entitlement grants that we have, title one, title two, three, five, um, idea, title four, and so on. um some of the grants that we were a little concerned about that we mentioned in previous meetings um on the titles of anything that's really uh formula based but also um things that have been uh talked about in the news as possibly being in jeopardy like title
016one, title two, title three. We had heard that title two was going away. We recently got a notice that um that that things were kind of had flatlined and they're not going to be touched next year. So we're continuing to monitor what that looks like. But where we could have some issues is um with our second language learner population dropping and a high needs population dropping and those being a large part of our formulas for titles. Um we could see a dip off in some of the grants next year and we won't really know that until until those grants open back up. But we have accounted for that in this budget and I will I'll get to that in a moment. And again, here's a list of our largest state grants that we have about
01745 million um outside. So, family resource, school readiness, um school readiness is like a is a pass through grant. So, we're the fiduciary, but we don't actually operationalize those staff. Um adults uh state adult ed, bilingual grant, priority school district, interd district magnet, that's the magnet grant that uh supports the our current AIS program. Um and a few other extended school summer school grants. Our other grant category right now currently has some uh they could be private grants, they could be one-time funds, temporary funds, uh you know awards from the state from competitions. Um you can see these are not reliable grants uh by any stretch and they're more often um very very very temporary. That number changes on a monthly basis. Okay. surpluses and reserves. We don't usually talk about this in our normal
018budget workshop. However, I think it's a little bit of an elephant in the room when we talk when we talk about surpluses. So, again, no secret that we have turned up um a few surpluses over the last couple of years um and through a lot of our auditing u learnings um and through better control of what we're doing and getting our handle on the financial aspects of things uh accounting for turnover even our finance department. I I believe Mike is number five in a very short uh time period. Um and uh but we have a great team that's in place right now and thank you Angela for coming, our assistant finance director. Um but there's a lot of folks working very hard to clean up years of of what can only be described as you
019know a little bit of a um backend mess. So we're cleaning up some of those those things. But in the process of that um in the last two years um legislation has allowed us to retain um all superintendents all school boards to retain 2% of any surplus that has that emerges. Um and so for us um sort of the uh you know uh the the blessings if you will um that in this situation is that we do have some reserves set aside um on the board side uh from the last couple of years. So from 2023 to 2024 we've got about 2.8 million 2425 about three and potentially three um at 2% at 2425 but those are unaudited numbers. So we'll monitor those but there is um a healthy reserve uh in the background um
020and that will be important um as we talk about what our ask is and um our margins that we're we're going to be operating from. In addition to the district 2% reserves, we have a very healthy fully maxed out health stop-loss reserve of about $10.4 million. So, we are fully maxed out there, which is great. And why we have to carry that, that's a requirement. So, if we because we are self-insured, so if we should dip down or have a a tough year, that there is a reserve um held that we can go to the city for to have some of those funds released as part of our part of our needs. um we haven't really had to do that and in my recent memory as far as I know um but it is there
021for that purpose uh should we need it. So there is some there is some um some tolerance in in our risk. Some other things important to know uh that is is basically how we have been making improvements and how we approach the budgeting process um moving heading forward. So, um, we've spent a lot of times behind closed doors. We've spent a lot of time working with, um, some other folks outside of our team and in partnership with the city really discussing finances, drilling down in our practices and looking at how procedurally how we, um, how we come and arrive at the numbers and make the decisions that we make. Um, as you know, again, in the surplus, a lot of it was has to do with our salaries and benefits and a few other places
022that we needed some improvement on. But um outside of that, our standing practice every year, historical practice is that we budgeted um a budget to budget. So if we had 102 million in salaries last year, we added 5% to account for most of the the the salaries and we would roll that forward. Um a little less strategic than how we're going to be operating now moving forward, but uh we never really had the margins to play with. So that was always the little bit of a safer route um in how we budgeted and not uncommon in other other school districts. Um we had unfilled and underfilled the vacancies that really became somewhat ongoing, a little bit perpetual um in some cases. Um and but in most cases, we've had a lot of churn in our
023district like everybody else in the last few years. Um we've always used aggressive healthc care benefit projections. So when you get when you're working with actuarials, they give you a range. Here's the number of people that you have. Um here's your high and here's your low. And we've always um aired on the higher side to be safe, which is probably why we've never ever had to use reserves. Um and also we've rolled up department budgets. Um those are being scrutinized a little bit differently. We've had large swings in our finances, huge amounts of esser money, ARPA money, alliance ECS increases very quickly, $9 million. So those things tend to also wreak havoc uh and creating a lot of movement in the system that is a little bit difficult to keep track of. um moving forward,
024we did a lot of work with projection to budget and it was something that um even I had to get a little bit used to. Um no, but this is what you're actually spending, you know, at the end of the day. And so we make projections based on on the actuals as opposed to what what the original what our hopes, right? Actuals versus our hopes. Um and certainly we hope to fill all of our positions every day and every year, but it doesn't always happen. Uh and so there's a little pattern there that we need to start accounting for. Um we are do and with that we're taking a very close analysis of unfilled and underfilled positions and moving towards a more conservative healthcare benefit projection recognizing that not all the staff is here but
025also um projecting down on the more conservative side. um doing work on adjusting those budgets and then calculating and absorbing costs and using grants very strategically in a much more um I think we're calling we're using a scalpel maybe uh instead of a instead of a sledgehammer perhaps. Okay. Um overall uh you will [clears throat] see a very marginal ask um representing 1.75% increase to our our budget to budget. Um the increase is $2.9 million. We would be needing $175 million. That would be our ask to the city for 2026 2027. And I will break that down for you. So overall, we would need about 106 million $106 million in salaries, 27 million in benefits. That number drops significantly. We'll walk you through that. 7 point 4.7 million in professional services about 2 million in
026purchased property about 24 almost 25 million in purchase services 6.3 in supplies 1.6 in enrollment and 839 in dues and fees. So these are the categories that you see in your financials when we have the finance committee meetings. So those are the same buckets and so we're just wanted to make sure you saw where those fell. The drivers within that number are as follows on this on this slide. So contractual increases are 5.4 million and I have a slide for each of these. So we'll go over what constitutes each one of the drivers. Um new positions which is mainly driven by the um the last phase of DHS West and some other incremental positions across the system are about 1.14 title grant absorption. So taking into account for any dip in the grants that we
027might receive where we also have staff. We're taking into account about $500,000. Transportation costs have definitely gone up. We have 2.7 million there. Tuition for special education and other programs. Professional services up 1.5 million. Other across the system which is really incremental um and some adult ed is 321 mil uh 21,000 pardon me. And then all of that is offset by a total benefit reduction of 6.79 million. So that's is a real uh change in how we're managing uh the projection for benefits. Um and we've also taken some um of some of our staff and we are offsetting them and sliding them into grants. We happen to have some room in alliance. There are some strategies that we weren't doing because we couldn't get some of the staffing. So we were able to slide in
028some positions into alliance. Um and also um Alliance was able to absorb its own increases uh for next year. I'll walk you through each each one of these in the preceding slides, but the total of that the wash out is $3 million and that would be our ask to the city to cover that. So looking at contractual increases, you can see that we have um almost all of our contracts up to date. There's been a tremendous amount of work in negotiating those contracts. Those have been very robust conversations around recruitment and retention and we think we've developed a really fair and balanced and measured approach to our contracts across the system. Um we have nurses that are almost ready to be to be finalized hopefully. Um and then our pareducator contract which we feels like
029we just did that one. Um that was an opener. Um but now the the contract um they're ready to demand to bargain again for the actual regular contract um series. So that is also coming up. Um so you can see that we have uh those laid out for you and those are roughly averages across um all of the different positions within those bargaining groups. New positions um are as such. that we have. This is probably one of the the the least um amount of of new positions that we've asked for in in several years even though we're opening still the last phase of the high school. Um so and that is because we do have openings and we will be filling a lot of those first uh and working on that. But um we have
030two sped positions in there. One resource at the high school um one BCBA uh at the high at between the middle school and the high school as well. also districtwide across the system. Um an increase of a halftime position for security, IT and tech. Um that is key cards, scanners, especially this building alone um could probably use its own person for the technology that's here uh and the safety. Um ACE uh needs a slight increase in a section of uh of an elective. So that will be an art. um reach and endeavor reach actually needs another teacher um to help round out some of their graduation needs, make it a little bit easier for scheduling and to provide more uh more academics for the students that are there. So, this is an addition. Um we
031had already I I believe added another social worker ke to that. I keep looking over here for some reason, but >> to the endeavor side this year. Yeah. So they're they're they're quite rounded out at this point, but this is the last the last phase of that to really bring them um to a really good uh functional spot. Um Westside Middle School is short a special area teachers. Those sections are running very high and it's causing issues with their ability to schedule and plan. So a 1.0 FTE special area teacher. Um they also need a little more psych support. That that building was a little light. So point4 psych. At AIS, uh we're looking to add a half-time Spanish teacher. Um the new principal is up and running and raring to go to fulfill the
032theme of international studies. Um and to do that, we've lost some Spanish um some ground over there over the last couple of years. So, we're looking to to bolster that back and to spread that out across the grade levels. Great Plane needs a halftime uh social worker um to add to some of the needs that are at that school. One parah for ESL at Hasttown. they have a growing population there. Um it's possible that with some of the dip in the other numbers that we might have some the ability to move some other staff around. Uh but right now there there is a need. So we're not quite there just yet. DHS Maine um this is the where the bulk of some of the staffing occurs. So DHS Maine will need a business and compai
033teacher and a counselor. And at DHS West, um they'll need this is in the general fund and it's I have another slide for the Lions. Um they'll need an English teacher, a physics teacher, art teacher, and a counselor on the west campus. And these are additional a few additional positions, but we put these in alliance, so they don't actually hit the general fund. And that is an additional counselor. And right now, Kelly and I are discussing whether that's going to be a crisis counselor um or a regular main counselor depending on the case load once the students finish registering between both campuses. Um emerging technology and entrepreneurship academy director and a secretary because we're bringing on the third academy. Um that's part of the opening on that campus. And then one senior maintenance tech. So
034we have a lot of technology on the campus uh and not enough staff to actually help service. Uh and then lastly, districtwide an alliance is an accounts payable coordinator and a school lunch supervisor. Um there's an asterk next to the school supervisor because uh that may end up if the school lunch fund uh our school lunch fund is mainly self- sustaining. Um so we there may be some room to incorporate that FTE in its own account. uh but we'll we'll know that a little bit closer to the end of the year as we see how we run through with the opening of the uh of this campus and how we end our end our year. Okay. Um so in total uh in alliance there'll be 665,334 that includes the benefits. So Alliance will absorb those
035staff and uh the off the general fund books if you will. Okay. Um title grant absorption. Here's the 500,000 though that's a risk assumption based on enrollment and formula for MLS and high needs. Uh and kind of already explained that one, but you can see the the different grants that were that could be affected. Transportation is a biggie. We have uh we're anticipating about eight additional buses with the expansion. Um mostly to because kids will be there'll be more kids going to West. Some of that will double up some of the the overlap with Westside and kids will be coming from different parts of the city. We might need nine buses, we might need seven. So, um we have eight right now projected and we'll make those adjustments at the end of the year. Uh
036there's an extra mini bus or two in there as well um that is needed. Um the big number in there also is our annual STA contract increase. So, we're anticipating um actually we're contracted for about uh 6% over the next couple of years, year-over-year. So, that will continue to go up um pretty steadily. And it's a it's a it's a number for sure. Um we also have increases to daily buses and of course special education transportation needs as well incorporating that 2.7 um tuition we are up on tuition incrementally everybody it's the the paying across the state um special education tuition is up um and likewise so are many of the other programs across the state so we have some incremental we have a few students that go to Chapag we have students that go
037to other magnet schools around the state one student here two students there um We pay tuition and their rates also have gone up. So it's not a lot. The the bulk is really around um special ed and then professional services that account line that number is up one and a half uh million dollars um largely driven by agency staffing. So where there are some less in our salary line next year, there'll be a little more in the agency line. So, we're proactively planning for the fact that we've been struggling to get um DPS bodies in place and have had to use agencies. So, rather than have those um those staff members sit in our salary line and in our benefit line and then have to use agencies while we've already projected for those those a
038portion of those are being removed and added right to right where we know we think we're going to end up um are going to end up being. Um that doesn't mean that we're going to stop actively working towards hiring a lot of staff that we've had issues. Um we've already been very successful. Very recently there's been a lot of contract buyouts and we're getting some of those agency staff to convert over because our contract is just that much better than it was before and we hope to continue on that progress. We won't be perfect next year, but we're gradually start to make that conversion. Um but we're proactively planning for that now so that those aren't those health benefits aren't sitting in our account at the end of the year. Okay. other these are a
039little more incremental. Adult ed uh has an increased ask of 230,000. Uh very important. We've uh needed to increase our cost share. Um there's other surrounding towns that contribute to the adult ed programming and Danbury has the most amount of students in the program and our cost share was not quite where it needed to be from a percentage standpoint. So we've increased that. Um it'll increase again next year. So, we're doing it in kind of two half measures. And then the remaining number delta between 321 and 230 are just incrementals across all systems that add up $1,000, $500 here and there. So, all of those asks are offset by our benefit reduction of 6 million and uh $6.7 million. I'm gonna have I'm gonna turn it over to Mike in a moment. Um there was
040a lot of thought that went into into this in terms of um how we're going to u you know hedge on some of the benefits that we that we've um typically benefited for in the past. So I'll turn it over to Mike. >> Thanks Cara. Um when when we speak about uh benefits I think most of us think about uh health care, dental and vision. And that certainly is a a large part of this. But in our line items, the the uh term benefit really applies to much more. So one of the one of the first accounts that we have inside benefits is social security. Employees that we have that don't uh pay into TRB are subject to social security tax. Um so we do have a a modest increase there. uh and that's to
041reflect the increase the anticipated increase um in salary for for those folks as well as the fact that um on a year-to-ate basis our run rate is a little bit over the budget. So we uh had a modest increase of 115 uh,000 there. Um I'm going to skip over the Sigma Health lines just for now and come back to that because that's the the largest uh portion. um t the teamsters that we pay uh their insurance, their health, their dental, and their medical are paid through the teamsters and then we pay the teamsters. So they're they're not part of our Sigma plan. Uh last year uh we budgeted about $2 million for their health insurance. Uh this year we had our benefits coordinator go through um by headcount um and take into the to account
042the year-over-year increase and apply that. So, budget to budget year-over-year, it's about a $280,000 increase. Um, dental I'll get to when I talk to Sigma and Health. And then, uh, LTD, long-term disability and life, uh, that's actually a small decrease. Um, the contract rates haven't been renegotiated yet, but, um, we expect it to be about $134,000 decrease from last year's budget. The main driver here, what we're looking at is uh Sigma. We utilize Gallagher, who is a a third party consultant to help us uh lies with Sigma and determine what our rates are going to be. They have a a large team of actuaries that pour over our data. They look at the actual year-to date and then they look back historically. They take a weighted average of all of our actual claims and project
043that out onto the the next year. Uh last year um when finance and human resources was doing the budget um we knew that there were a lot of open positions and we were going to put those positions in the budget. So if we were going to put them in the budget it only made sense that we account for their benefits too. The problem with that is when uh in individuals anticipated to be hired in the budget and they don't come. We wind up with a favorable variance not only in the salaries but also in the benefits. uh the benefits number we're using is is somewhere around 29 to 30,000. So you could imagine um all of those open positions that we had last year that we were budgeting for that led to a significant increase.
044Um so this year when they came to us with their original numbers um you know we calculated everything out and we asked them to go back and to be um less less conservative more aggressive with their assumptions. We asked them to take out from their projections any open positions. So, we used the actual number of staff that's currently here um as our base. Um that reduction from the open positions that we budgeted for last year to this year uh led to an overall decrease not only in the actual claims cost that the actuaries accounted, but there is also administrative fees that we pay Sigma for uh how I say the the pleasure of being Sigma. And I think that's largely based on um on headcount. So that number the fixed cost also decreased. Um there's
045another portion of uh the the sig sigma actuarial uh data um and it's you'll see it is usually I call it RX but it's our pharmacy rebate. So Sigma is able to uh contract with variousies to get us rebates um usually comes about about mid year. Last year that rebate was budgeted out at $1.8 8 million. Um, this year when they went back, the number came back at 2.8. So, they're uh they're expecting a large increase in rebate. So, the rebate goes up, which means our cost goes down. Uh, that alone is a million dollar swing budget uh budget to budget year-over-year. Um, and then the last portion when Cara and I went back and and asked Gallagher, um, to be more aggressive with their number, uh, in their actuarial sheet, they give a fluctuation
046margin. Um, they call it about 5%. Um, it's a fudge factor is what it is. Um, [clears throat] excuse me. We asked them to reduce that um one to see what the actual cost would be, but it doesn't look like based upon our surpluses that we've ever needed that fluctuation margin. So, we asked them to reduce that out. Last year's fluctuation margin was about 1.2 to 1.3 million. So, when they take that out year-over-year, we see another decrease. Um all of those uh added up even though we have a small increase for the teamsters and a small increase for social security brings us to the negative 6.79 million. So it's an overall benefits decrease. Um and now now the question is well if you're going to add new positions like you said you were the
0471.18 back to the general fund are you budgeting benefits for them? Yes we are. Um last last year when we budgeted for uh these open positions we used a 35% benefit load which means we take the salary we multiply by 35% and we assume that that is going to be pretty much more or less um the the benefits expense that we're going to experience. This year we were a little bit again more aggressive. We dropped that down to 30. Um and that is reflected in our actuals year after year was looking at our actual cost to salaries year-over-year. it is it is less than than the 35%. So we are budgeting benefits for those open positions but at a lower rate. Um now as you look at the salaries across uh the system they range
048quite widely. So 30% is very different for an administrator that's making say um 90,000 than perhaps a um a par educator. Um, and that is true, but we use it on average. So, it's an average figure and it works out to be pretty close. >> Thank you. Okay, I know it's a lot. Um, getting a little glassy, so we'll keep going here. [laughter] Um okay. So an additional 2.7 million um in savings um that is coming from moving some from the general fund moving some of our vacant openings to grants. And so those will be slid into alliance. We have about 16 positions or so that we're um offloading from the general fund into grants and we're still going to try to fill those positions. However, um if by the time we submit the grant,
049um we have four or five of those positions that are still vacant, um we won't put them in the grant as vacancies, we'll just plan for that those funds to be used differently, more resources, support, supplies, whatever, um in another direction for the year because what happens is once September rolls around, the likelihood of filling certain positions dramatically decreases. And so we'll hold those in obeyance, kind of put them in the parking lot and revisit them, um, again, um, during the, you know, prime hiring season. So, um, we're offloading about 16 positions or so into into that, uh, into the alliance, um, where there's some tolerance in there and there's a variety of positions, um, and they're grant eligible, so we shouldn't have any issue, um, with those. They're strategically picked to support the strategies
050that are already there. um in addition to that, you know, how we've kind of accounted for things. So, um if on a district snapshot in any given day, if we were to look at the number of openings, we could have almost, you know, anywhere between four and $6 million of vacancies um sitting on the books at any given time. Some of those are hard to fill and some of those are just the natural churn of a large district, right? there's a pretty there's an expected percentage in any large organization where at any given time someone resigns it takes time to fill and there and there's always a certain number that sits on the books. So, uh we're going to take advantage of the fact that that is just true that we will always have some
051number um on the books that we're looking to fill. Um we're going to take 2.75 as I mentioned and move them into grants. We've um being proactive in agency out 1.7 million. Uh most of those are in Kelly's um Kelly's bucket. That is the reality based not accounting for the benefits in that in that case and then taking another vacant um group of about a million um and leaving them in general fund but then work to aggressively fill those um and kind of strategize around those those positions. So it leaves still leaves some uh positions and some dollars back off the books. Um but pretty similar to maybe how the airlines um overbook a little bit knowing that not everybody shows up. Um that's pretty much the strategy and the thought process. So at any
052given time of the vacancies if we account for at least seven or 10% of those not being being filled at any given time um you know there's a savings that we get back in the district. Um that's kind of offbook if you will. Um and we hope to improve that. You know there's been a lot of work. Um we've taking on uh residency programs and doing working on build our owns. Um we've had uh we've hired someone uh directly in charge of working on recruitment and retention to help build capacity there. Um because we've grown um in a lot of you know in a lot of ways um in some places you know we've outgrown our ability to to sustain and and especially with the economy and the market the way that it is. Uh
053we're not the only district struggling to fill, but that just means we have to step up our recruitment efforts a little bit more aggressively to keep up. Um so we have some savings there. Um as a budget overview, when you put it all together, looking at FY26 to 27, uh we laid it out in sort of chart style so you can see how those numbers play up against one another. Um so the original, which is this year, is 172. The request next year is 175. The difference is the 2.9 um for about 1.75. It's really 1.74 with a lot of numbers after that, but we've rounded it up to 175. Okay. And just as a comparison to surrounding towns, we always superintendents like to check in with one another on what the asks are. Um
054and these are the published asks from our area superintendent. As you can see, we're dramatically lower than um our area counterparts. Um, but we also have some some budget resetting to do. So, that's what that is reflective of. It's not that we don't have needs, it's just that we we definitely have some uh areas to reset. We've done that through this budget. And um we're hoping that um you know, we're full sail ahead with with our strategies, our missions, and our vision. Um and this is mostly there's a lot of one-time reset in here. Um but for this year um we'll take the take the win on a a smaller ask but that also satisfies the needs of the district. Um and lastly there are assumptions in the budget right that the enrollment stays the
055same. So we go into this it's it's we start building these budgets in maybe December after sitting with schools and um analyzing our trends and our needs. Um and we know that um things change between now and June. Um, so the budget assumes that enrollment and uh the students that we have remain stable as is. The health profile of this of the people that currently work here remains the same. Um, our labor market trends continue to to be the way that they are right now. Uh, and that any emergencies that we have that encounter across the system can be handled within our own budget. So, for example, if we get a leak and Rich Jalbert's able to repair it with his current budget, that's great. Maybe un unanticipated. um if we have a cyber security
056attack uh god forbid or uh something very significant you know that's a that's definitely a gamecher. Um special education tuition is always an in you know always has a level of volatility. A couple of students can uh change a a budget over by a million dollars um without a district placement. So, those are things that can swing budgets. Um, and any state or federal changes that come down the line, um, provided that, you know, the outside of the 500,000 that we're taking into account and trying to be proactive about, if anything beyond that, we of course would affect our our budget. Um, we are, you know, I I believe I'm calling this a razor's edge budget um heading into the year, but with some of the reserves that we had, I think we can afford
057to um to test uh to test our budget strategy here a little bit um be responsible and at the same time take care of the needs of this of the school system. Um, and just as a final note, um, you know, this was a, you know, $3 million ask is we haven't, I can't remember the last time we've had a low ask of that nature. Um, but heading into next year, you know, Alliance is flatfunded. We had some tolerance in the grant this year. So, Alliance was able to absorb its own increases this year. We've, and we have been, Alliance has been moving up every year and as part of the acceleration catchup. um next year, you know, unless there's some legislation, unless they uh put a inflation factor, cost of living factor in there,
058um any increase in alliance, you know, at 39.5 million, add 5% to that, that amount needs to be handled by the general fund. So, right off the bat, and then of course, you know, at 175, the district has uh increases of let's just say a flat 5% um heading for 2728. um you know those are double digit numbers when you combine all of those things together. So um you know something definitely to keep our eye on to discuss over the next couple of you know budget cycles here but um for right now our our ask is 175 um at 1.75% to the city. >> Thank you. Cara >> questions. Anybody have questions? Anybody? >> Go ahead, Kate. >> I'm not sure my question. First of all, thank you very much for the presentation. Um, and
059I just wanted to really um appreciate uh the slide that talks about our grants versus our general fund and breaks down what we actually have as a a working budget for our district because it's not just the general fund. It's also this 25% that uh folks work very hard to bring in those grants to our to our district and to make sure that we're we're um taking advantage of every opportunity we can. So um I just wanted to appreciate that slide. Um I guess my question is more about what's happening at the state level right now. the in addition to the flat funding for the ECS that the governor has proposed, there are some significant cuts to education, areas of education. Um, and you know, I I think part of it is thinking about the
060money that they had set aside for potential federal cuts that may happen. It doesn't look like that money is going to go towards education. So, I appreciated the thoughtfulness of setting aside that 500,000 as like sort of a little uh cushion for us, but let's let's talk about a worst case scenario. Um, you're talking about $9 million roughly in federal grants. Realistically, if like we lost title two, which I think is the largest of the the grants, >> would we be looking at borrowing against the reserve money that that's there or are we looking at cuts in in our operations? Yeah, it's a great question. Um, thank you. So, so title two was the one that we heard most loudly about that that was definitely going away and all of that. So last year heading
061into this year, we had two staff members, staff developers. Um it's a largely a grant that houses uh money for professional development. And so you can put staff in there that provide professional development, right? Um I moved those two staff members out. It's about $400 something thousand dollars uh of a grant. I moved those staff members out last year um and put them into alliance anticipating that that this coming year that that would go away. um just to start to balance the books and make sure we can account for everybody. Um so we would lose a a 400,000 in professional development monies. Um but it's not staff per se. Um and we would u you know we still have some money in alliance that we've utilized for that and some of our department budgets do
062handle some of that. So it would be a loss for sure. That one would not us I would say. um the way that the that that grant is we do have hedge in there at the 500,000 is for to help sub offset some of that the the my greater concern is really even if the federal government didn't touch the grants if our enrollment continues to you know to dip in the way that it is um anything that's formula based formula funded um it goes number of students um and then extra formula waiting for second language learners high need students um and so on um special education high need students incorporate it's multi- language learners, free and reduced, and special education. Any one of those can um um put you in the bucket of high needs.
063And uh with that particular subgroup going down the way that it is, we could see some of the the waiting in the formula change and we get less dollars. Um and and you would say, well, if you have less kids, less dollars, then it's a wash, right? And the answer really is is no. It's it's like saying if you've got a um you know one waitress in a restaurant serving a hundred you know 100 customers and you lose 25 customers yes you you still have to serve the rest of the restaurant. That's kind of where we're at. We have a lot of students to still serve. And so incrementally across the district across you know 12 grade levels uh we're losing students but it's not quite enough to um you know start reducing the number
064of services and teachers that we have. It just makes the class size more tolerable at this point. So, you still have to deliver those service. You still need the money for that. So, that's my that's my, you know, concern. Um, but I have my eye on it. We did just get a letter um from the state that that title one and and the title grants would be held harmless next year. Um, I that just came out and I'm I need to look into that and you know, who sent it and is this does this mean it's for sure? This is you know, I'd like to see a little bit more information on it, but I did hear that re most recently. Um, so we're, you know, like again, we'll continue to hedge. I didn't feel
065comfortable enough to pull that out of the budget when that letter came, um, just recently. So, we'll, we'll continue to monitor it. But, you know, if we lost all of Title One, that would be devastating and we'd be talking about a reserve dip and then a real strategy restructure for the following year. Pedal one is big. You've got about $4 million in there. You've got staffing and supplies um for kids where they need it most. >> Yep. >> Any other questions? >> Sean, >> number one, thank you very much for the hard work and the effort. Obviously, you guys care and and you're here till 600 7 o'clock at night. Um so people sometimes think, oh, they make a lot of money. you divided it by the hours you work, it would not be a
066lot amount hours per money. That being said, uh I'm a taxpayer. I'm happy that we're saving $6 million because of vacant positions. How do we balance that versus the educational need? Are we are kids being, you know, undertaught or class size is bigger because of that? What's what's the effect of that $6 million vacancy? >> Right. So, um right now there's really not a change to class size right now. And again, if our enrollment um our class size, you know, K8 and we could certainly do a an enrollment number evening um and kind of go over those as well because it's probably, you know, would be beneficial. But, um across like K5, for instance, um and in some of our our earlier grades, our numbers are are really good. And if they but if our
067numbers continue to go down, we might be able to collapse a class or two. So, I would say right now, I'm not worried about the class size effect. Now, if we didn't get the three million and I have all of those staff in there at the at the high school and the high school definitely has larger class sizes um in some special areas which where we've had to supplement. So, if we didn't get some of the funding that we needed, those those class sizes, I would say 612 would be more vulnerable at at getting bigger. But elementary, I think we feel pretty good right now about the elementary numbers. Um, I too want to thank you for all of the work going into the report. >> Do you see this as a conservative ask? >>
068Yes. >> I I would I would say I would use the word responsible. [cough and clears throat] >> And so I guess, you know, I'm I'm thinking, you know, It's great that we've streamlined and um really trying to be efficient and um so realistically is this remember our our last budget it was like keep the lights on >> budget is this enough to cover the needs of our students >> so Anita you're what you're wrestling wrestling with is the same thing that I've wrestled with. Last year, you heard me come out and say I want I need 45 kindergarten pairs. I was out there way out there on that, you know, multi-million dollar ask for the supports. The reality though, and we're living I I have to straddle the what I want to see happen,
069what we all would might want to see happen with the reality of being able to find 45 paras. We can't find how many did you have to agents your agency next year? at least >> at least 40 that we cannot fill now. So, the reality of me adding another um 45 to that mix when we cannot hire ones now means that we'd end up agency out the agencies. While we're thankful to be getting people in, there's it's not ideal. Um there's a lot of training that goes involved that goes out the door the minute the agency person changes. Um, so, so everything in my being, could I add $20 million to this budget? Absolutely. We could all all have our places. Um, but we have to we have to build up our staffing um a
070little bit more reliably than the pattern that that we've experienced to date. In addition to that, I don't feel comfortable continuing to go to the city to ask for numbers that were turning up in surpluses at the end of the year. We have to get a handle on this. Um, and this is a responsible reset uh approach to getting there. We have a couple of budget cycles to get through um to to test these assumptions that we've placed into the budget. Um, you know, I hope and pray that we land on the dime at the end of the year. we might need to tap the reserves. Not something I would want to do, but it is there, which is why I'm a little more comfortable hedging closer than we've had to hedge before. Um, but
071in the meantime, finish negotiating the rest of these couple of contracts. Let the word get out that we've put together some nice contracts. We worked really hard on those. Um, they look better than they've ever looked before uh in years, right? They're really competitive. We've really brought people up. the market shot up on us and we just trying to keep up with it. Um but we did that in this last round. Um, we still have some work to do on the Paris and that's something that, you know, we're going to have to that's going to be an ask in the next in the next cycle to to get to a place so that I can if I need to put 30 paras in we, you know, maybe we put in 10 every year over the
072next couple of years, but right now if I I can put them in there and you can the city can give us the money for those. I can't get them and I'm I'll turn up surplus at the end of the year again. And so it's those are the things that we've wrestled with here as a group and me especially is that there are supports. We can't find school psychologists. We struggle finding we struggle finding really key critical positions that you know you know cause our the rest of our staff to be a little bit stretched thin or agency out for support. Um but we're slowly like I'm hopeful in this la how many in the last couple of months how many have you brought converted over Kelly from agency to about >> weed about 20
073district hires since the start of the year in special another employees in the process right now we started my hope is to get that will hires and I challenged the special ed team to get to 40 by the end of the year. So we are not I am not I am so thankful for the agency employees because the education needs of our students um but long term we want people that we can recruit and we can keep on working. So there's this contract has allowed us slow. I think we thought it'd be a flood, but it's been a slow and steady trickle. Um, but we are also seeing on the other side and I'm super appreciating for supporting it. We have seen a retention like I've never seen in that room. And so that's really
074>> So it's starting. It's not, you know, not the floodgates we were hoping for as Kelly mentioned. So um so you know we're proactively hedging that through the agency again this year again so that we're not having those salaries sit in salary line the benefit line and then while we're hiring agencies to hit the another line so they're they're end up sitting in three different lines and we're only using one of them. >> Anybody else questions? Glattus, >> superintendent, and your team, thank you for a beautiful document that's readable, colorful, and all my years been on the board. It um I should not use this type of language, but the document keeps getting goodter and goodter and [laughter] clearer. >> So, I appreciate that. the whole team that works on on that >> thing that
075I really want to ask and it might show up somewhere in this document. Is there any type of figure that's connected to this building that will show up when we put the budget together and get down to city hall with the politicians screwing through everything trying to look for something to talk about? Is there anything associated with this building of course that will show up in this bill this budget? >> Well, in this particular budget, the ask the increase is on transportation. So, as a result of um the the final phase of this opening, um there's an increase in transportation, there's an increase in support staff, and there's an increase in academic staff um and some administration. And did I say operational already? Operational staff. So there. So yes, so there's a a a page
076that's chock full of positions related specifically to this building in addition to some uh incremental um other areas in the budget that are reflective of the fact that this building is still in its final phase. >> Okay. Okay. And my last question is um and I think over the last year I kept hearing we are moving position and we're putting putting people in the right position. So, is that going to be clear up or or is that a continuous situation with us as a school district to keep moving people and assigning them to their right title or >> Oh, in the budget. Yes. Um, so it's a great question. So, we've done a tremendous amount of cleanup. I think we are this is the the cleanest it's ever been um right now but every day
077you know because the volatility you know when you have grant money that's in one space um you know there's a location associated with that there's a funding associated with a person uh we're now using uh what are called control codes so that now uh when something goes vacant the control code really dictates where that position is and and how much it's was funded for. Um, so we're using that as part of the some of the the options that are in our our Tyler and I vision system. Um, so it kind of anchors the position so we don't lose track of it. Um, in in addition to that, um, assigning the correct locations, a lot of uh, movement in the system in the last year um, and the movement of staff, it's hard to keep track
078of. So the control code does very much help with that. Um, but right now this it's really the cleanest that it's ever been. And we've even decided as we do the grants um and we move people into the grants and between general fund um in the grants, we're going to be embedding the the control codes in there as well so that it's clear to everybody because um you know there's certain people that work out of grants. They're a little different than some other folks. So um it's just kind of the common language, the Rosetta if you will that sits between all groups. Um, so when if the person changes, the position still is is anchored in the system. It's easier to keep track of. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Um, this is not
079the last night to ask questions. So, um, take your packets home, look over it over the weekend, read through it. Uh, Monday night we will have a Zoom >> another opportunity >> and and and if you have questions over the weekend, email them to me so we can get the answers, you know, Mike can look into them and get the answers for you on Monday night so we're not having to, you know, prolong the answers for you. So, um, you know, look through it. Any questions, just email them to me, whatever the questions they are, and we'll get them over to Mike. And then Monday night we'll meet again and we'll go through all the other questions before we get to the meeting on Tuesday where we will be voting on the budget. Okay. Good.
080Good plan. All right. I want to thank Cara, your entire team. I I know the work that the long nights um that you guys have put into really dissecting this budget. It's it's this is probably my four years on the board. I I this is the most in-depth that I've actually had, you know, explain to me about just everything that's in this budget. Um it's very clear and um I appreciate all that work. I think even for us new members and the members that have been here, it's just important for us to understand it because at the end, you know, we're the ones that have to, you know, put our stamp on it. So, I appreciate all of you. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. >> Thanks. >> There's nothing else.
081Uh motion to adjurnn. Second. We're journed. Thank you.