001Finance meeting for this is March 18th uh so we all have a copy of the agenda and the attachment I'll turn it over to John right away yeah thank you Rich um good evening everyone um so as you've seen in the last U couple months our report has uh been transforming uh into something uh with a lot more numbers a lot um different and more comprehensive look at things um we think it's it's in a place where we're very useful for the next couple months but I'm going to let um Mike Weaver walk us through it uh he's the primary architect along with u chairperson janelli so Mike and uh Ken Wallace is with us he could uh put it up on the screen I think if if you'd like Mr janelli yes sure uh
002yeah there's H the 13 page PDF I guess you can open that if not I can share my screen how's that can everyone see that I'm good yeah okay I have it on one screen and I have the camera on the other so I'm not uh I'm not looking away I'm just looking at the report so um as John mentioned this month we uh included a month to date report I'm going to get to in a minute uh it doesn't replace anything it's just in addition to uh and this really gives you uh a month-to-month view um so you can see any uh abnormalities which um this month is a good month to do it because there there actually our are some this is what the report looks like um I've included the account number
003all the way to the left uh so for those of you who don't know um if you see an account number in these reports and it begins with one2 uh that just signifying that those numbers are coming from the the general fund and not the grants fund the grants number would be 2099 so here we have starting in uh July through the current month February all the way to the right uh month by uh month by month with uh totals and the third column you'll which is right here is a 24 annual budget this month we completed the month uh with uh 13 million we'll call it 137 uh of expense for a total of 80 milon 802 for the year you'll see the first two columns have about one uh 1.0 and 3.1 million
004those are the July and August numbers so most of our expense which is salaries and benefits are are not loaded in there there if you look at the average of the rest of the months uh we're averaging somewhere between 125 and 127 um million dollar per month so this particular month the uh 136 we'll call it is is in line but slightly higher than the previous month um and as I had mentioned before this report allows us to see some outliers and I'm just going to highlight them really quick and give you an explanation of of what they are so uh right here if everyone could see there is uh Pupil Transportation and Transportation uh special education those numbers uh 1.3 and 1.0 respectively you'll see they weren't in the previous month uh and that
005is because uh of timing so we pay the bills as they come in uh for uh for transportation and in a similar manner um down below and we'll see a little bit later uh timing is also an issue when it comes to uh utilities for us so uh last month we were missing this uh $2.3 million of expense it's here in this month and that's what's driving the month over Monon variance um but when all is said and done we're still very close to that 12.7 million average Michael if I could ask could you could you SC kindly scroll back up to that Transportation special ed sure so basically we should be running about 650,000 on a monthly basis um for for a special it in particular I'm not sure there's there's many numbers that
006are in that that get charge of that particular account um I can provide a breakout uh if you want I did before I think um Mr Janell you and I went through that um it's it's about um for for the year for special education is just under $6 million for the year okay but so you mentioned that that one point 1.3 that falls into February is because just based on timing that is so that would be inclusive January as well as February's billing correct yes so why would why would December be also 1.3 it's it's it's a matter of uh when the bills come in so um the 1.3 that you're talking about this right here could be referring to previous month so you'll see August this is September and October where there was obviously
007um buses running but there was no expense um so we we rely as best we can for uh sta who is running the the uh public uh Pupil Transportation to get us the bills in a timely manner um but we pay them when they come in so again we're basically running a month behind then within billing as far as student at student uh special ed transportation and on average we're in the area of you know again 600,000 sure 600k all right thank you you know BR comment on here the this particular screen really piix the way they pay their bills on a cash basis when you look at the year or date you know what's not paid or what is is sort of in the pipeline to be paid is in the encumbrance column so
008that's why over here you have some distortions it just you know I asked them to put the monthly on so it does pick up some some blurbs that you could explain but it's more for referential treatments the whole picture is when you get to the year datee which includes the actual expenditure plus the obligations we had done a f and if you would be kind enough to go to slide two so if I remember if I remember correctly the encumbrance from January was about 256 so we basically lost 200k or 200k in addition was expensed against the encumbered balance is that correct yeah okay and you picked up the thing to note is with the additional appropriation as noted on the bottom that came in from the the the city um further request for the
009Cyber and the the uh Mike if you would go to the the other the screen which shows the summary of The Cyber and the special Le cost it sort of reinstates uh that balance Richard to about 652 yeah the additional Appropriations here I have uh and they tie out on the other sheets as well but 62274 is the the exact number um additionally yeah if you go to the next B it you'll see it here the the budget is the 150 and then a 602 the additional appro appropriation and if you go to the extreme right you'll see the the the two numbers the 52 and the 602 so you're right Richard without that incum without that additional appropriation that was requested from the the the city um we be in a tyght position put
010it my um we're also going to bleed into that 602 pretty quick too you're right yeah I'm not saying it's a Rosy picture but you know it's a lot better looking at 602 than it is at 52 right but that that that that additional appropriation is it tied directly to technology or could it be used as far as general funding operating expenses this is all co-mingled in other words the other expenses that you got the 602 for has already been you know you're mixing everything in in into sort of a mixture so the 602 is just replacing dollars that we have either expended or or approved for um so it it it it's more of this a onetoone relationship I guess to answer the question that is what we went to City Hall for saying
011that we had you know extra cost this year because of these mandates so the this particular money replaces what the extra cost that we anticipated either spent had spent or have encumbered to spend so that it keeps us somewhat whole but it is a problem it is a onetime expenditure so again creates a problem for us the next year to where we get the money from joh if you want to go down to the some of these year date numbers and if anybody has any questions on any of these expenses um there I noticed in the sheets that you sent you had uh highlighted certain expenses that offset each other with large positives and large negatives and Rich if I could just jump in here for a second um you do see a new column
012the month-to DAT actual uh that's a a change from previous reports think it's helpful uh yes Rich the um the natural gas electric um the year-to-date balance that you're referring to uh is right here um and again we did have uh between natural gas and uh electric there was another timing issue where we did not receive uh the invoices for prior months that we did this um this month and we we paid them current I I apologize scroll back Michael my my fault stop slop slow slow slow slow natural gas is the $129,000 favorable and $678,000 favorable I I I mean wow it doesn't the the numbers kind of don't make sense to me and I apologize but if if we if we spent aund within natural gas if we spent 182k in February our
013year-to date has only been three 85 so we've only received one other bill for another 182,000 um natural gas and uh electric are two I guess you'd say unique uh accounts in that natural gas uh expense is uh it's it's not linear um it's kind of cyclical with the weather so that would be reflective of our heating um and electric would would be um a similar situation um where you'd see typically higher electric in in the summer months for cooling um so yes so so far we did have you're correct uh lower um than expected natural gas expense right and it's it's been a uh a warmer than usual winter that's one of the reasons um also prices have come down since we put these budgets together now 14 months ago and you might recall
014when we um adopted the budget for next year uh several of those utility lines we we dropped we're budgeting less uh next year because of the price decreases very good thank you um and here again we see the additional appropriation of the 62,000 down below U the the grand totals and just to point out what they what they were being spent on the 202,000 under equipment General was for uh the information technology that related to the July breach um that is including um the both the deductible and some additional hardware and software we had to buy and then uh the the three numbers above it the 140 the 244 and the 16 um those numbers that we asked for were um in relation to the uh new special uh education mandate the 202 2000 has
015been expensed so those actual expenses are in the year-to date actual whereas the special education some of them are in the year-to date actual some of them we haven't realized yet and they're they're still uh in the encumberance lines again when I look at these numbers I I look at that bottom number is in sort of a forecast as to you know like you were pointing out Richard you know here we are 650 whatever it is 652 and we've got five more months left you know to to uh to go um plus some unknown stuff that we'll talk about later so that that becomes a very relevant number you know the other stuff the mix and between the variances is how good your budgeting is versus you know basically where you're coming in with the
016actual expenses um okay before we got that appropriation not the appropriation before we got that extra 600,000 I was really concerned there's no way that you know we'd be going back to the city for for more money right away would be 50 some OD thousand that we had um that we had left and the reason it has to be explained this way with the 150 versus the 602 because there was a period of time a year or two ago when you take the difference of one year over the other if you don't separate it like that you combine it it gives a misle a misleading um difference in the years the power budget is $150 million and so any increase next year we get over that would be over with 150 not 150 uh, 600,000
017again we're trying to refine I've asked John and Mike to refine the statement Nar narrative that goes into explaining some of the details explaining that a lot of the the mul figures are based on a cash so we have a better feel for the the workings of the numbers uh so that it has a little bit more meaning to us once we're looking at it and and talking about so kind of in closing or in summary if I could ask is is this correct so we've got 53 in the general budget or operating budget right we basically have 400k any additional appropriation because that 202 for equipment General has already been has already been invoiced in paid so in effect we've got $453,000 is basically a surplus to survive for four months or five months
018is that correct no why would you take four not six the 202's already been paid so we're just getting reimburse for that that the fact that it was paid it it sort of put us in the negative so all they doing is giving us back that money so we created the negative we just reinstated in that negative okay so actually better position in February then yeah yeah yeah very much so as I said without that appropriation um things would be more difficult than what they look to be okay all right the last pages I have in here um these have been there traditionally uh traditionally the way we've reported them I believe last month uh I began to this will be the second month to just sort these grants by the total budget so having
019the larger ones show first um there's about two pages of them and then a summary down again on the bottom um 58 of the 58 million in the budget column uh there's uh 9 .54 remaining as a favorable variance some of these uh grants are are annual and will expire but there are other ones you'll see even some of the ones we have listed here have c o which is a carryover so some of these variances are carryover variances from year to year ask you on the grants on the budget number you have for budget is that what the grant is is eligible for or is it based on a cash receipt that you received so far for the grant it it's the first one rich that's the award the award okay and then are
020all of these grants um susceptible to being renewed is there I guess I'm getting at are there any grants in here that are just for one year and go away the next year it I don't mean if go away if you don't apply for it but are they just eligible for one year rich I could I could answer that a little bit this is a mix I'm looking at it there there's a mix of um yearly grants you know grants that we apply for every year and then there's a mix in there of uh competitive grants meaning they're not guaranteed you have to apply for them every year and it's it's based on it's competitive funding Grant so um this the list here doesn't NE necessarily delineate which ones those are like for example we
021get our alliance District funding every year that's pretty much guaranteed the the amount not so much but the fact that we'll get it so long as we you know complete all the paper and the Grant application every year that gets done um S 2 is going away Title One is any anything that says title in front of it is an entitlement Grant so that's coming from the federal government and that's based on our poverty rate um there's a couple in here like I believe the immigrant Grant is a is a competitive grant that austo goms applies for every single year luckily we've been getting that every year if that goes away and you know there's some staff members in there but most of this is are entitlement grants and that grants that are generally reliable
022but there there is it's interspersed with grants that are competitive um that that are not necessarily reliable from year to year would it be of any value to asate those those brands that we call competitive Brands because that some point if he wants to have an idea as to what is you know we may or may not have the next year on a competitive basis sure yeah we could definitely categorize them it's super helpful to look at it that way um just real quick the one in the middle ARA right to read that's kind of a one-time Grant so that's going away wasn't necessarily competitive well that one was was competitive but yeah we can definitely categorize those for easier um analysis okay all right thank you and again just for everybody's purpose all of
023the expenditures against this do not reflect anything in the operating budget that we previously looked at this is a separate accounting and separate charges right John yes uh I'm wondering Rich if this might be the time to U talk about our strategy uh for getting to June 30th that involves both these grants we're looking at and the relative ly low budget balance we saw in in the uh general fund this be a time to bring it up do you think yeah yeah okay so um what we've what we're in the process of doing is so far there are there are five action steps that we we're taking we've taken or are in the process of taking and uh you know remember we had asked the city to release $3 million from our reserves um and
024that's still pending um in in the meantime we've tried to um look anywhere we can to find uh Al alternative sources of money including some of these grants I'll describe in a second as well as some um operating decisions that um our our um new interim superintendent has led us uh to so let let me just describe them um and if you go up uh Mike if you could just go up to the top the grant page for a minute you'll see that very second Grant that's that's the sr3 that's the um the the fiscal cliff you you can see what we had this year $10 million um we were using uh but there's one there's 1.8 million that uh is unencumbered and when we looked closer at that what we found was those were
025um approvals we asked for for various Supply items primarily uh PPE uh you know personal protective equipment uh but also some school supplies and things like that that three years ago we thought we would need all of it but as as um the pandemic went on uh we did not so last week uh we submitted an amendment to the uh State Ed Department that would take uh that would use that 1.8 million to help uh I'll use the term balance our budget this year we asked that the state if we could use 1.4 million uh for salaries uh that are in the general fund budget right now and another $380,000 for uh copy and printers uh you've heard a lot about that uh the last couple months it was a item we had hoped to
026get financed in our capital budget and did not uh but we desperately need them but you could um for this um conversation we think we uh found 1.4 million that we can apply towards that $3 million ask we made of the the city councils so that ask now comes down right underneath that you'll see um I'm sorry um the title one uh FY 24 that actually represents a carryover amount from the previous year and uh on our own um authorities we could uh take teachers who would otherwise qualify as I'll call them Title One teachers meaning they work in Title One schools uh doing the things that's allowable in the Grant and we've made an adjustment this month to put te take teachers out of the budget and put them into the grant so the
027second of our action steps is we found about $480,000 in that title two Grant so between the two uh those first two action steps uh 1.8 almost 1.9 million uh I'll say it this way to apply to that $3 million ask that uh is pending and we had told the city the ad hoc last time we met uh we were going to uh try these steps um hoping they'd work um but this was part of our discussion with them um the third action step we see you wouldn't see on the page here um carara uh um put in what I'll call an an early closeout of our program and and school expenditures uh we asked um all of our principles program people um to put in their orders for the rest of the year um
028even though it's March uh things that would happen in June we want said we want you to um ask for now or forever hold your piece and uh so spending here in the school district for all intenses purposes uh has stopped I'll call that a austerity measure uh that we're taking to um again help with the um the ask um we we've also um implemented uh what we'd call a soft freeze on on hiring we're we're not um hiring any new positions unless they're absolutely essential maybe replacements for for Key Personnel or things like that um so we call that also a soft freeze uh but that um that should generate hopefully some balances uh by the end of the year we're not not sure how much that's the the third action step uh the
029fourth action step is um in process and we're doing the same thing we did in the first one where instead of the sr3 grant we're going to look at our alliance grant that was the very first one up on the page I I don't know Mike if you want to just uh go back to that you'll see U an un the top of the grants right um you'll see a a a bigger unencumbered balance uh right now but it's it's March you could see uh more than $2 million there uh we're going to ask the uh state if we can amend that Grant um we think there's some things uh we can do without and uh pick up what we think could be uh another million dollars out of that Grant uh if that's successful
030uh those four strategies should give us the $3 million uh that we originally asked uh for the reserve um but the the caution is um it's still only March we have probably another third of the school year to go through and and things happen as you as you go along so what we'd like to do is if if things get a little when things get a little closer to uh April May and June uh if it looks like um they're more negatives and positives then uh reactivate our request for the reserve draw down on a call it only on an as needed basis at that point we'd be saying to the city um we've done everything else we can uh these are real expenses that we need not money we take and use for something
031else uh but that would be a a Last Choice so I think with those um five strategies um we should be okay and them uh right now I think the first four uh should get us to the finish line and what what point do you get a definitive answer um yeah so um we when we amended the um the eser grant earlier in the year uh we got an answer within a couple of days I look today we have not um it it's hard to say I I know they're very bu busy up up there at the state Ed Department um what they did not give us sometimes when they look at it they send back questions or they refer it back to you to do some more analysis or work work they have not
032done that they have not um said anything about it so I I think that's encouraging I I think it's just a matter of maybe they haven't gotten to it yet all right any other questions on the financial uh what um what happens if we don't get it think well I think I'd also think at that point we'd reactivate the reserve draw down requests that we have okay thank you I think the next item was yeah got it the audit there's been so much conversation and controversy on this AIT and I asked John to finally bring us up to date because it's kind of hard to understand what the newspapers are saying and everybody's pointing a finger at somebody else so I ask John to give us an understanding as to where we are that is
033bard of Ed where we stand in terms of our obligations toward the city for the audit for 620 for 22 and for 23 um they'll explain this schedule what it means right um but before we look at that page and that that's a page from the uh auditor uh dashboard uh that we look at and it keeps track of how things are coming along but um and and some of you have heard this before but I think it's important the uh a a city or a Town's audit firm is hired gauged is the official word um to complete three tasks uh the first task is a very thin report called the single audit um it's a report's been around for at least 40 years and it it lists it provides two lists in it one
034is a list of all the federal money uh that has come up to the city um and it's not just uh education uh there'll be money from the uh Department of Agriculture U Homeland Security um the U let me just give you a couple of these the uh US Treasury has programs uh they're they're pretty extensive and uh a lot of them here they are I'm sorry um the department of of Homeland Security Department of Health and Human Services Department of Education uh The Institute of Museum and Library Services even and so on so that's one of the two lists and then the second list is a list of uh state grants that originate with State money um such as Alliance and some of those things as well as the state aid that comes um
035either for you know from the casinos or for ECS and things like that but it's just it's two list um they put together it it's it was done U many months ago um the second thing that they do is um every school district Public School District in Conneticut at the end of August has to uh prepare a report on the year just finished um it's called the EFS report and what we do is we combine uh what we've spent from the budget with what we've spent from Grants with what the city has done for us maybe some other things and we uh we show the state when you combine those what we really spent on everything in our case it's um close to $200 million 150 in the budget and maybe 40 in the grants
036or 50 something like that that report has to be audited and sent to the state Ed Department by December of the year uh that's just completed now uh RSM the city's Auditors haven't hasn't even started the 2023 audit so we again this year hired um separate auditor just to do that report so that it would get to the state a department on time they use it for statistics it doesn't carry any state aid but it's a a mandate that you have to do so that second report uh is done the third thing is the um the city's annual report um sometimes it's called the audit but it's their annual report and what happens is it it's put together by the city finance department and then the Auditors come and check it and and there are
037parts of it that uh we feed into the city finance department um I won't go into all the compl ities but that's that's the report that uh these days is called the audit um that's being done now when you look at what's on the screen there as I said that's the dashboard uh we can go in and look at that any time and when you print it out like I did uh the headings at the top don't print so I had to write those in but you can see there's four rows uh the first two rows are for us board ofed field workor and board ofed planning uh the next two rows are the city's uh field work and planning and there different columns um outstanding uh means that you still have not submitted anything
038in response to what the Auditors have looked for and they'll they'll send their requests um electronically we'll get an email to go in here and see what they're looking for so you can see under outstanding there's nothing uh for us to submit um we're talking this afternoon it's at least the fourth time uh that we've had a couple zeros there um we think it might be more than that but it's um this I did I yesterday or the day before and you could see we've submitted everything um once you uh submitted it's called Uh fulfilled and um you can see some numbers there now the actual request could be multiple I I think um we're up to is it number 108 Mike if I'm not mistaken it's well over than that yeah um the city's
039up over 200 um excuse me just the sake of time I think the point is this dashboard covers the period of 22 is that correct that's right you're end and looking at the column for the board of AD the two buckets here you're saying the outstanding there's nothing outstanding for the two categories that field work or audit request made correct right they've returned one thing uh we were told I'll say in a minute that the who we were told by but that's really a city item that was on our list so we we don't think there's anything we should be doing um at this point and is it safe to say that based on this dashboard and there's nothing outstanding and the item that's returned and and deemed late is is up for conversation for
040you to clarify is that correct right it's the same item same item yeah okay so rich my apologies for interrupting I see Teresa has her hand up y right uh my question is uh and this I heard from the city uh couple things they're waiting from the board of ed for their documents to be finished is that correct well according to this Teresa I mean I'm not going to answer for John but that's why if he's got this dashboard and says it's as of the last couple of days then there's nothing else except this one item that I suspect that he's in conversation with them to clarify so whatever you've heard you know I I don't know what you've heard and I go back to saying it's a rumor and that's why I asked John
041to put this out to us so that we have something factual on it as opposed to dealing with rumors no but I mean I'm sorry if I wasn't clear that their documents are predicated on information they need to get from us I could say this every time uh they ask us for something we we promptly give it to them that's the city I'm talking about the city to complete their documents like somebody they threw out the the the term trial balances are our trial balances all up to date and all that stuff we've we've given them uh dozens of trial balances versions um going back uh at least a year uh they may say to us oh uh we want to show something differently make this journal entry what what's going on is um when
042when you put together a financial report you put it together two ways one's uh one way is called a budget basis and the other way is called a gap basis generally accepted accounting principles we deal in the world of the budget basis and all other Town departments do you saw that tonight in the report we show you what we've gotten what we spent what's left over if there's something at the end of the year it goes back to them when the Auditors come in they uh they show results that way but they also recast everything and it's really for the for investors in our bonds and Wall Street types and they take our statements and they put them on uh in a cruel basis where if you had a bill that was for June but
043you didn't pay it until July they're they're not going to show that as an expense of June whereas uh we do we just show it as something that hasn't been paid and it's in the process of recasting everything that went on during a year into a into a more of a a corporate balance sheet and income statement that they ask us for information and we give it back as as quickly as we can um that that's that's the issue so Teresa it you know I don't know you know basically I don't pay attention to you know what I've heard if if it's not in the source and I'm not in John's position but with all the stuff that's that's going on this as he called it as the dashboard as far as I can see
044there's only one item that he asked to clarify and that's this top item and and regardless of what you heard you know he says this is updated as of a couple of days ago so um uh I was talking with somebody in the finance department and I'm not gonna say names and this is finance department is not running the audit get the public accounting firm who runs the audit and I I can honestly say at this late stage of a game usually trial balances is the very first thing on the first day that they ask you for so they wouldn't be waiting this late but I think that's John's you know determination to to find out what this one item is and clarify but as far as I can see what they furnish on this
045dashboard which is a status you know we've got a clean bill of health and and uh just to get you know we got enough problems rather than go back and forth to you know well something's wrong for it to last this long it was supposed to end in November and it's still ongoing I'm I'm not I'm not disputing that you know I have no idea the the reasons for it I'm just looking for as of today March 18th what's the status of what the Board of Ed 622 owes the public accounting firm and according to this what's published by them is is one item and John says it's in dispute or he's going to find out so why it took so long is beyond me I I couldn't begin to answer the question but to
046their point to the board of Ed's Point John's point he took the initiative and was proactive on the 23 audit to get some of that work done and apparently last year or whatever they hired a public accounting firm to audit the other segment of of the the uh the information that was necessary so at least they wouldn't be behind when they're furnishing the 623 information but again this is the 622 right John it is and what the uh what the city has done uh you might have read about it it might be three weeks now uh they've hired a second uh public accounting firm a company called Clifton Larson Allen uh they are the the largest Municipal accounting firm in Connecticut they they have uh 58 uh cities and towns that they audit compared to
047RSM has eight uh but when you have 58 of the 169 one out of every three uh towns uses Clifton Larsson formerly a bloom Shiro and what they've uh they're doing is they've stepped in to be the project manager and they'll um we'll meet with them along with City officials uh once a week uh we have a meeting Tuesday mornings and they'll direct uh uh anybody into what should happen next to get to the Finish Line um they're the people we asked to explain this uh returned item we said tell us what it is we don't understand it um we thought they said it involves the city's books um but we we've asked for help there um so they they're moving things they uh really were have been a catalyst uh to spark this thing
048and and to move it along um but it's uh it's very different when you have two competitors working on the same project any other questions on this then the next item is for discussion purposes we've had several discussions um on Kelly Services and I just wanted for conversation purposes to look at the information provided it has nothing to do with finances or the financial cost we could get into that the later date it's just a eyeopener as to the number of positions that are being fill uh I I think that was very important to start with and proms the question to to me as to why how does this relate to perhaps preco times um as well as knowing what's coming down to Pike in a couple of weeks relative to our Appropriations how how
049do we put some controls on here so if you go to that schedule exp yeah um Ken Ken Wallace do you want to put that uh PDF up we sent around late in the afternoon did you get an email from me uh about 3:30 today had an attachment okay that's it yes please right great uh so this was a a page from a report uh Kelly Services they come in um we meet with them very pretty regularly this was a comparison they did um six months um through or through January and uh that's what we I think we want to talk about rich right where it shows uh last year and this year um shows uh positions that they've filled um vacancies I should say they filled vacancies that were unfilled um a fill rate
050um for last year for this year and then uh the top part of the page they uh break out some different categories uh the administrative is not administrators those are folks that work uh in administration one shape or other and then the bottom orange bar is a month-to-month uh comparison where you see the filled unfilled uh and the fill rates and then a little bar over to the right the black page they're pointing out they filled 16.8% uh the rate has gone up and the uh more assignments have been filled 20062 than a year earlier to me what was important when I learned of this service in addition to the cost which we haven't got into I was just trying to figure out what they they really what they do uh and what positions they
051they hire for and then this is what joh was able to come up with it's hard for me to interpret what these numbers mean I I see for the prior year 13,000 positions I don't know if that's a normal situation or it's it's abnormal I'd like to compare it to preco also when you have 10,000 out of the 13,000 positions um that are in the category of teachers you know I would ask why there so many positions that have to be fill for substitute for for teachers um and when you compare it to the Year date that they have currently and it just goes through January um you're looking at 3000 so far um so it it's a lot of Physicians that may have reasons for it and there's a cost involvement here which again
052we'll deal with at a later time it's one of the things I had requested initially um report but I think I sure but it's and that's why I asked Kim to to be on on the call tonight so she could explain you know whether this is normal abnormal and equally as important as what can we do looking ahead being being proactive to next year uh if we're paying if not if we're paying for this you know we have to figure out how we're going to pay for this um what is this what are some of the thought processes that we could do cap certain things here um so Kim that's why you know you okay so I guess let me take a step back because this is actually just one page of a it was
053probably a 30 page year-over-year summary report that Kelly Ed presented to us so let me see if I can provide a little context around this because I think it is hard to understand just from this one page so um if you took a look back uh pre pandemic um we had maybe about 100 less teachers than we have now we were filling um substitutes at a rate of that was about the national average in terms of um sick days and that kind of things for our teachers and did not have a lot of um par absences and the ones we did we didn't have a subpool for so in other words if we had par professionals that were out often those positions just left were left uncovered um pre pandemic what we saw post pandemic
054was a dramatically different picture where we had a lot of difficulty finding substitutes to fill the role um there just were not a lot of people out in the work space that were interested in filling that role and so we cobbled together not all that successfully a pool of Subs that was probably about 50 or so that worked consistently um we need with a with a population our size particularly of teachers we need about 225 subs or 250 Subs in the pool who are available to work to take sick absences or something to be um at a level between 80 and 90% filled at any given time and and to quantify that on a busy day that would have been about 125 teachers out um when we hit a pool that was decimated post pandemic
055we faced some real challenges with trying to build that pool up we also had a lot we were coming out of a period of time where there were a lot of absences across all positions there were people that were working remotely who had illnesses um and so we were clawing our way back what we needed to do was we needed to elicit help with um not only bolstering our pool but getting a pool of people that actually would work and one of the suggestions was to use a company like Kelly because they had a Workforce that was going into buildings it was going Office Buildings it was going into office settings it was also going into schools in the Kelly Ed component and they had access to a lot of people who wanted to sub
056across this geographic area it could include Brewster it could include um parts of West of Eastern New York it included parts of um northern Lichfield County and around our area extending out to New New Town um we negotiated with Kad they agreed to come in and and what they do is they essentially take over our subprocess so they purchase for us our platform so they pay Frontline platform folks for the program the asop program so they pay the cost of that they pay the subs and they also pay the payroll tax that goes along with those subs so anything that gets paid to the government they cover unemployment and they cover workers comp um they cover all of those Insurance pieces and they also offer to their substitutes a very basic rudimentary insurance policy health
057insurance policy so for a premium that was about 30% um they assumed all of those costs what we saw is it took them as it did most of our competitors um it took them about six to eight months to get a pool back up and running that was working during that time so this is about 18 months ago it was a very very difficult time to be a teacher in this District people would be out sick and there was no sub coverage um colleagues were asked to cover other people's classes students didn't have supervision and morale in addition to the the poor morale that was being created by the covid problem there was also a real crisis within the buildings of teachers not feeling that they could get a day when they were sick and
058not feeling like someone was going to take care of their class while they were out sick rates were not really any more than they were pre pandemic um they returned to a basic level that still hovers just under the national average for sick outs and our pool of teachers was slightly larger now some other things happened during this period of time to drive up cost one is that the minimum wage went up twice so now minimum wage is $16 um and also we had a tremendous number of par educator vacancies back in the day pre pandemic I think we had 14 or 15 Paras Subs we couldn't cover much at all now what you can see this list is there are um quite a few Paras subs and we are covering as many as 2,000
059um par sub vacancies in a year so that means a par educator who gets sick and goes out now has someone who can substitute cover the other thing we saw is that the fill rates started to go up so if you compared 2223 to 2324 The Fill rates that were hovering at just about half are now shooting back up to where we saw them pre pandemic 72 we've got some buildings that are in the high 80% so we were able to restore that level of filling vacancies to pre pandemic it was slightly higher because we had slightly more teachers um but you can see if you add together or if you look at that total column in the middle of the screen at the bottom there where it says total 11,076 for 2223 for this
060same period of time as now 11,000 356 that means that we did about 300 more vacancies this year than we did last year in the big SCH scheme of things it's a rounding error it's not a lot of people it's not a lot of spots so we're doing about the same minimum wage is going up a little bit um the other thing that we did is that this year we made a pretty dramatic commitment to professional development a lot of it was centering around our core our teachers needed some time excuse from their classes to do the professional development so we built into grant funds enough money to do that extra substituting so that we could get our teachers out get them this training and it didn't hit the general fund so with that said
061I think we're probably actually running better this year than we were last year in terms of how many vacancies that are dedicated to really true sick personal days that those kinds of pieces because we've got the sub numbers built in here for um professional development and what Kelly does is when they bill us they send us an itemized bill so we can see how many special ad Subs we used we could see how many professional development Subs we used um so all said we are running about where we were last year um I I think the the increases that we're seeing in the budget are in part and partial because of these small adjustments that are being made over time um and so to deal with Richard your question about what do we do in
062a crisis well there's there's two choices next year the way that I see it um one is that we provide less sub coverage so one of the things we could do is we could say you know G building X you are only going to get 100 slots for this year and when that 100th slot is gone there's no more sub coverage for you that will restore us to the level of morale we saw before we were able to get the fill rights back up um and and not to be underestimated these are these are teachers who are stretched thinly already and now are worried about whether they can be out sick for a day because of sub coverage so that's one option um and that's probably the best option is to shut it off the
063second option is do we save anything by bringing in this sub back in house again and we took a really close look at those metrics and um when you put back in the cost of buying the asop service we would need two full-time staff members with benefits to run it um right now Kelly gives us a team so they have one full-time liaison and then they have a staff of recruiters and a staff of on boarders and a manager who meets with us um every other week and we look at metrics um so we would have to bring that operation back in house and we would have to also assume liability for unemployment insurance workers comp insurance um if we you know wanted to try to stay competitive with some kind of rudimentary benefit plan
064or not um so when we start to look at those costs the margin for Kelly Ed in particular is very low um and I think it would be it would be a net probably a net neutral to bring it back in um it would require us to staff up to be able to run it again so that's kind of the overview um as I said we look my team and I look with Kelly Ed every other Wednesday we look at metrics we look at building specific Subs we look at spikes and outliers um we look at Trends and and we're about on track the other the last piece and then I'll stop talking the last piece that's really significant here is this um we put a focus in year one on elementary schools and we
065were able to drive up the fill rate in elementary schools and drive down the absenteeism this year it was um some middle schools but mostly the high school for the last several years at the high school um in order to provide coverage when a school when a teacher was out at the high school if we did not have a full day sub at $140 a day we had to use period coverage and period coverage means $35 a period paid to my colleague who's now going to take my one period class for that day so it would not be unusual to string together period coverage from the existing faculty and to spend $240 $270 a day on sub coverage because there was not a oneperson Kelly Ed person to go in for $140 $ a day
066when I looked at it um we were spending about $250,000 a year in Period coverage up at the high school I looked at numbers up to today and right now we are running on Trend to $39,000 so we are filling at the rate we're filling here but we have exponentially driven down the cost of period coverage at the high school again that's a credit to Kelly Ed having available Subs being able to put in the day Subs to cut the costs and being able to coordinate with the high school to make sure that the absences are covered in the least expensive way possible um so for all of those reasons I think that um I don't think that that put casting aside Kelly Ed is I think that's Pennywise and pound foolish I don't think
067it's going to save us any money it may actually cost us money to staff up to cover it but if we're concerned about the numbers of vacancies and just not being able to cover them in a course of a year I think our only recourse is going to be to set a cap and that's going to have some real ramifications for morale but to be honest with the kinds of talk Cuts we're talking about I think we're going to have a lot of issues like that thanks Kim one question in terms of capping if you go that route what impact does it have on a student what is where do they go what do they do so I would think certainly at the high school that means they're going into a big gym or a
068big Auditorium for study Hall um where we only have you know one or two subs that can watch A large group of kids um at the elementary level it means that we aren't going to have substitutes that can provide um prep time coverage for teachers that are out so kids that ordinarily um might be at art or music if we have a vacancy there that is uncovered the teachers who have those kids during the day aren't going to be able to get their prep time so there are contractual cost to that and we may end up because by by contract were prohibited from merging classes together even in an emergency you know putting 50 kids in one class obviously is not an option so those students might be in the media center sitting with a
069par educator we won't be able to provide any coverage just to to watch those children um because we aren't going to have enough staff to do it this is quite complicated since I've been on the board this is brand new to me because I think this was enacted during the last two years and so I just wanted some background I said when I looked at the numbers I have to me it looked like a lot but it it's has a lot of implications and I think it's it's a good starting point for the conversation for us to to have a little bit more of an understanding under our Bel before we go into it a little bit further so sure I was just G to say the other way you can look at these numbers
070too is if you figure um if you look at that column so the total number 11,000 356 slots that were that are total slots that were available if you figure we have about a thousand teachers that's 10 absences a and and the numbers are a little bit off because it's not including the the Paras but let's say it's eight or nine absences for a teacher in a year well those teachers have 14 15 sick days and three personal days a year that gives you some sense that you've got teachers particularly who are running under the national average of sick time you've got teach is coming in um and and so it's really when you think of the volume or the size of our district it's not an exorbitant amount of of coverage right okay and
071that's why I had ask you to be here because you know the numbers don't mean anything unless you have an understanding too and it it is complex when you say know as you described with all of the covering six of one and a half dozen the other you're going to be paying for it some way right so it's that that's also a factor do anybody else have any questions on this issue I can't see it but Kate do you see anybody else having a hand up um I don't see anybody Rich okay that being the case I think Rich Holly did you have a something no no no no questions here thank you okay so I think that complet the agenda there are no other questions I'll ask for a motion to adjourn make a
072motion to adjourn I'll second all in favor I I thank you Richard thank you