001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Welcome to the Board of Education's April 23rd, 2026 called meeting. Please stand as we observe a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Mr. Wright. Attention. Pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Wright. Just a reminder that our May work session will be held on Monday, May 4th, followed by the regular session on Thursday, May 7th, both at the normal start time of 5:00 p.m. in this boardroom. Also, as I mentioned at our April regular session, a policy review meeting is scheduled for Friday, May 15th at 10:00 a.m., also in this boardroom. So, do we have any requested changes
002to the agenda? We have So, we have a motion by Ms. Henderson, a second by Mr. Triplett. Discussion? No discussion? Ms. Pike? Discussion. When we start are we going to do announcements? On the Well, yeah. Uh well, Ms. Courtney has to read it first. Sorry. This is just the agenda. All right. Sorry. [snorts] There's only one thing on the agenda, so that threw me off. >> [laughter] >> Um All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. Okay. Do you have to read it first? Okay. Public forum, Mr. Sorry. I'm a little discombobulated. Thank you, Madam Chair. We've got one public forum speaker that's signed up, Cadence Collins. Cadence, if you would just state your name and county of residence, you'll have 3 minutes. Hi, Cadence Collins, Knox County. Madam Chair, members of the
003board, I didn't plan on speaking today, but I wanted to on behalf of educators who have spoken to me about their concerns and who could not be here. I'm very lucky to have a flexible schedule that allows me to attend special called meetings, but so many people can't. And I was able to attend last week's meeting, the community budget meeting, and I learned a lot, and I'm so grateful for everyone who answered our questions. Um However, I'm very disappointed that nowhere in the very comprehensive budget presentation was there a mention of the cutting of 57 teachers and 27 support staff. The cuts to central office were addressed and covered as necessary to invest in the classroom and in teachers' raises. And I understand it's never popular to cut staff or teachers, but neglecting to address
004the cuts at the community meeting when feedback and community engagement and opportunity for questions were available, it feels intentional. And I understand these educators uh largely have been moved to other schools and aren't out of a job, uh but I just wish there was more transparency around the decisions. And I have a few questions. Uh when was the decision made to cut 57 teachers and 27 staff? And when was the board notified? And if this decision was made weeks in advance, why only announce these cuts the day before the board votes on the budget and not at the community budget meeting? I was born and raised here and attended Knox County schools, and my 2-year-old daughter will attend KCS schools in a few years' time. And I bring these concerns around transparency in good faith
005because I love Knox County schools, and teachers, families, and staff deserve transparency and to be a part of the conversation. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Cadence. Madam Chair, that concludes public forum. Thank you, Ms. Courtney. Item six, approve the fiscal year 2027 general purpose budget at the major category level for $717,685,000. A motion by Ms. Morgan, a second by Ms. Fontenot Ridley. Discussion? Ms. Pike? Now I'm ready. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um well, per usual, this is a lot of information and a lot of things go to go through. Um and we've gotten some little bit of extra information just in data. Um so, as far as maybe where I want to start, um I think it's in the technology spending. And kind of going through that with looking at kind of over the
006years of what how we've been spending on technology, personnel, um and all of that. And I've been talking with Ms. Lautner about it, and I wonder if um she couldn't maybe restate some of the things that we had talked about. From my questions. I'm so sorry. And if it's something specific, please let me know if I need to be specific. Ms. Pike, Madam Chair, members of the board, I think I can start with just a summary, and will you let me know if I've addressed um what what it is you would like for me to address. And so, I would say that the conversation today really began around um you know, what does technology spending look like at the district? Is there a single line item in the budget for technology spending? And that um
007is both an easy answer and a difficult answer. Uh the easy answer is no, there's not one single line item in the budget for technology spending, um but that it is present throughout the budget because so much of what we do is technologically driven. Um there's, you know, hardware purchasing um and investments reflected throughout both the general purpose budget um and in the capital improvement plan uh prior years uh as well as this year in kind of that security and technology line item in the capital improvement plan. You have software really distributed throughout the totality of the budget. Uh one of the conversations we had was really around demystifying the belief that our one-to-one technology purchasing is the lion's share of where we spend on technology as a district. If you think about where we're
008spending our dollars um as they are attached to technology, a lot of that honestly takes place in the curriculum and instruction space. So much of our curriculum is software these days. And so thinking about that spending kind of compared to what it might have been 15, 20, 30 years ago, you may have had bigger textbook budgets, you may have had bigger consumable budgets that are now taken up in that technology space so that we can move a little more efficiently and also differentiate materials a little bit better to meet students' needs in that instructional capacity. Beyond that, you'll just have a lot of software purchasing for day-to-day usage whether that's administrative or kind of back-end business business suite technology. So it's not a clear-cut answer when you're looking at where does technology spending live within
009the district. If you're also including personnel costs related to just technology spending in general and we're looking at the FY27 proposal across all of the budgets on the screen and there are three of them. I think we're looking at close to 12 million, but again, that's across all of those various spaces, hardware, software, personnel, and three budgets. So I don't know if that helps or if that was the specific answer that we were looking for, but I think that was kind of the the high-level summary. Yeah. Yes. I just have one more question question kind of in going through this. And so of that what looks like is proposed for fiscal year 27, the 12 million 770,330 dollars I think if I'm seeing this correctly. Of that the realistically the percentage of that or the
010chunk of that that would be um if we were to not be one-to-one. How much do we know a ballpark of what that would shrink to? So that is another complicated and also a little bit easy. So the easy answer there I would say is this year I'm going to look at that side of the table to make sure I get the number right. I think there's 1. 1.3 million in that replacement cycle cost for one-to-one as well as staff devices, but double-checking make sure is that correct? Okay, good. Um >> [clears throat] >> So that's reflected in this year's budget. That being said, at this point those devices are on replacement cycle. So it would be inaccurate to say that that accounts for a replacement cycle for the totality of the district. That is
011this year's replacement cycle if that makes sense. So that's maybe like 10%? A very small fraction of the 12 million for sure. Yes. >> Cool. And then it looks like from the breakdown that the board got, if I'm reading this correctly, of that 12 million 700,000 and something, it's 80,000 that would be kind of like curriculum software under the information technology. Is that correct? Under that instructional technology, yes. So this year about 80,000 in the instructional space. That's not to say that there's not you know hardware considerations that are also contributing to that. You have to have the hardware to access the software, but if you partition it out in that way, 80,000 for the curriculum and instruction elements. And um then in talking about in terms of having like paper materials in going in
012that stuff, the in the cost, we we can't really see then from here like what that would be or how that's changed either. How that's changed might be a research project that we could engage in. And I think it would be an interesting one. We'd have to go pretty far back to look like purely analog what that would look like. If you do look at fund balance designations in like FY25 for instance, you've got a code there that says you know this includes devices, but also software equipment and some interactive classroom panels. And so there's a $6 6.7 million dollar line item there that I would say would be largely used for instructional purely instructional purposes. And so that's really where we'd have to start parsing out how much of that is software that students
013are on, how much of that is the hardware that's accessing the software, whether that's the active panel or the student devices, and what it would take to go purely analog. How does that stack up then against replacement cycles for more heavily used textbooks and all of the consumables then in the classroom. So do you going forward what Yes. I apologize. This was a part of the conversation earlier that had slipped my mind. This is something we talked about at the community budget meeting and I think it was a very good conversation, good questions that were asked. One of the things we shared at the community budget meeting is that technology has been a curiosity for us as well. So this year for the first time in the community budget survey, we got fairly granular in
014some of the questions that we asked. We asked specifically about just desired usage both in the family side and then also the staff side for those one-to-one devices looking at that more to grade band by grade band level as opposed to just a whole district expenditure. It's a curiosity for us and it's one that we know we're going to be digging into as we think about the budget moving forward. It's a it's a knot. So when you start you know pulling one strand others follow and so that's probably going to be a year's long kind of research project that we plan on engaging in, but we're looking forward to learning more about just kind of what that footprint looks like, what's right, and how to make sure that we're still putting the right equipment you
015know in the hands of our employees and our kiddos to meet the needs of the classroom and the you know workforce that they will one day be inheriting while also being good stewards of our dollars. I think that's my questions for technology, but then moving over to the the one that's enrollment and looking at that. This is something I had asked for because I feel like a lot of times we we hear about the graduating class and the kindergarten class and this and that. Sometimes I know like some of my schools they feel really packed and then some years they don't feel as packed. So it was really great to see kind of this from to 25-26 kind of enrollment and look at kind of the kindergarten class and then look at the fifth to
016sixth grade class and then also 11 and 12 and then 12 in comparison to kindergarten that realistically we are graduating more than our kindergarten class. Um so that is really interesting and then also kind of watching that fall off from fifth to sixth grade that's kind of happening a little bit. Um but I think maybe this this might be for Jennifer as far as like can you explain a little bit like when you're looking at enrollment and how staffing ratios goes? Sure. Madam Chair, Ms. Blake. Yes. So our staffing ratios our staffing allocation formulas from last year to this year have not changed. So the decrease in teachers or positions school-based positions total are as a result of a decrease in enrollment. So if less students are in a building or if students are shifting
017to a different building, then we're going to we're going to align our resources to where those students are. So that is the cause of the decrease in positions is a decrease in student enrollment. So it's the same same allocation formulas last year to this year and even the year before last as well. Okay. And so you know hearing about those the decrease in teachers, what is the plan for reassigning them or offering them other positions? >> Sure. So we are committed to keeping all of our teachers that are impacted by that reduction in positions on team KCS should they choose to stay and so far I believe that all of them are. So we are going to place those impacted teachers, but not all of the position reductions will impact a person necessarily. Some of
018those can be absorbed through natural attrition. So natural moves in any given year, resignations, retirements. But for the people that are impacted by those position reductions, we are committed to keeping them on the team. It might just be in a different place next year. Okay. That makes sense. And then adding on to that, I know for my schools I'm I'm assuming we're all somewhat elementary school heavy since they all kind of consolidate from there, but I hear a lot about um ratios and the amount of IEPs and kind of other student supports. Is that ever anything that we take into consideration? So for the teaching positions classroom teacher allocation specifically, we do have like I won't say yes to IEPs specifically, but we do have the at-risk factor that could increase the richness of a
019staffing in a school based on student demographics. So, yes, there are student populations taken into account in our staffing formula. And then also are you mentioned IEPs, so our special education services our personnel are allocated outside of that staffing formula. Okay. So, there is like when a when a school gets an allocation of X amount of teachers, they aren't expected to then also create sped teaching positions out of that as well. Okay. Dr. Rightsell, did you want to speak to that? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could just piggyback Here we go. All right. I guess not. And if I can piggyback on on what Ms. Himmelfarb said too about enrollment. If if you have your book, page 11 does a good job of showing this. And it does lay out on page 11
020that there are 57 positions that are being reduced. So, you know, we've we've tried to be as transparent as possible about that. I just want to explain too as as you look at that chart, this is something that we've done the last 4 years that I think wasn't historic for what we do in Knox County. I think that maybe is where some of the confusion cuz I think some media folks have reported the 57 as well. If you look at that red line on page 11, you see that there were a lot of hold harmless just keep staff at schools probably since 2020. Staffing ratios are set up and maintained for the last 4 years. So, when enrollment drops unless and we've been had a lot of conversation with County Commission to answer this question
021over the last 10 years. You know, your enrollment is going down, but you still have more workers and more workers like that doesn't make sense to us. So, they're not wrong. And so, part of this is you stay true to the staffing ratios. If you're 1 to 20 in a classroom, it's just the only variable is how many kids are in the school. And then you adjust back to those ratios. So, you stay 1 to 20 in a classroom every year. That doesn't change. The kids to to teacher stay the same. The difference is if you left it in there and your enrollment dropped, you might have 1 to 18, 1 to 17, 1 to 16. Like that's hard to afford over time. So, all we've done the last 4 years is trued that up
022every year. And and what we were seeing in the budget prior to this, there were a lot of held harmless. And again, if you're looking on that on page 11, you see the the staffing line continues to grow while the enrollment of students goes down. So, in order to stay fiscally we will always need more people. We're never going to argue that we don't. But the the true part of that is when you you know, have a budget with a 2.5% revenue growth, which is not huge, you end up having to go, how do we maintain what we do in classrooms? And that's what we've done for the last 4 years. We haven't changed those ratios. So, if you were 1 to 20 4 years ago, your school is still at 1 to 20. And
023I think that's the thing sometimes that's hard to understand when you talk about ratios. The reason we have seen some teacher positions positions was a good way to say that too, not people drop off is because we have seen this reduction in enrollment. And for us to be fiscally responsible, we have to adjust with it. And so, we have done a great job of saying the people who might be displaced from those positions will get other positions. They don't you know, we don't say sorry, you know, go sell insurance, right? You're still going to be a teacher for us. It just goes into vacant seats that are there. So, our ratios haven't changed even though our teacher number has dropped, but that's because our student number is dropping. And I just want to add this
024too. That is common across the state of Tennessee. Our surrounding districts I meet with those superintendents monthly. That's been the topic of conversation. Anderson County, Blount County, Oak Ridge City. All like everyone is seeing the same thing right now. It's it's a it's a population dynamics. It's not people fleeing Knox County. I mean, we're doing really well as far as outcomes for kids right now. So, I just want to clarify that too. It's not Unfortunately, I think some of the stories have been short that have been told publicly. And they're just they're showing a reduction in teachers like we balanced the budget on reducing teachers. We did not balance the budget reducing teachers. There's actually increases for salaries. The ratios are the same in every classroom as they were 4 years ago. I've been here
025for 26 years. I've never seen us keep the ratio the same for 4 years. Usually when we had a deficit, we cranked that ratio up and that's how we make up our millions of dollars. We haven't done that for 4 years. We've been committed to protecting the classroom and keeping those ratios the same. So, I just want to clarify that. Your question was a great question. But we've been asked some of those questions publicly as well. So, I just want to clarify. Thank you. Two more questions. I'll try to keep them short. Um my next question and I don't know if this is for Ms. Ms. Himmelfarb or Dr. Brown. Um but within this budget, is there what is the picture of how we are serving intellectually gifted students and identifying them as well as
026other student supports? Is there anything s- to talk about there? Uh thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Blake, that's probably me because that falls under the Department of Special Education. Um so, you recall in our our reorganization last year where we moved a lot of things around, there were some changes in some title funding. We actually for the first time ever designated four positions this year for intellectually gifted coaches. You know, there was some shift and we are now through instructional coherence working on some of the advancing academics formally IG or formally excuse me, formally GT in Dr. Wilson's world. So, they're they're handling that part of it now. But when it gets to the point where a child is screened and and has been given all the supports and we do it evaluation and they
027test for intellectual giftedness, then that would come into our world and we have dedicated four people this year and that will continue for next year. We did not increase that. Dr. Carr is prepared however to make some shifts if as that need arises. But I know we do have a lot of people that we're looking to evaluate. I think last year we started the year with like 60 new evaluations. Now, obviously not all of those qualify. But when they do, we will make sure that they have the services that they need through their IEP and we will have the people there to support schools. We also Dr. Wilson may want to add to this. We were looking at some there's some certifications that we've worked and Ms. Himmelfarb and our talent acquisition team is working
028on getting people in each elementary school to become IG certified. So, there's some I won't pretend to know all the licensure that that is Ms. Himmelfarb's world. And and Dr. Wilson may want to speak to that as well. Will there be any incentives for those classroom teachers? That would be Ms. Himmelfarb's question. >> Okay. Well, I I would I would say a a surface level incentive is that you know, you're you're adding an endorsement which makes you more marketable as a as an instructor and that's not at at no cost to you in terms of that. So, I think at a at a low level we could say that's an incentive for for those that are interested in doing it. To Dr. Brown's point, that has been a partnership between academic special ed and the
029human resources, the talent team. We've had 16 sped teachers who have taken advantage of taking that additional practice and we provide some study materials, things like that for them to to do that. Taken and passed that practice and then we've got if you're a gen ed teacher, you can add the certification for gifted and then also that brings a special ed endorsement with that. That requires some course work. We've had 19 teachers this year that have finished that. We've got 29 in process right now. And with with plans again, that's not really general purpose dollar funded. That's some grant funding and title dollars that we're using for that. But with the plan and and the the talent team is continuing to recruit more folks to to ensure that we've got some representation and expanded capacity
030for that at our at all of our campuses. Okay. Cool. And then my last question is just around um the increase in teachers' pay. Madam Chair, Ms. Blake, yes. I will take that one. So, that that is an exciting one. The certified scale is receiving a 2.5% increase and the general scale is receiving a 2% increase. And all eligible employees will also advance a step. So, this is a little different from last year. Every single employee in the district is receiving a percentage increase regardless of which scale they are on. Mr. Triplett. Thank you. Um I've got six questions. I'll just go through the book. That's it. Appreciate the budget. I just wanted to let you know I'm not going to ask you a hundred and I won't be here long. So, appreciate the investment
031teachers, all that good good. Just had some some questions about So, on page 11 we talk about student enrollment. I know appreciate Dr. Rightsell your explanation of some of that. One of the things I wanted to know, when does the declining enrollment and I know it's a thousand students over a broad district. So, it's not like this massive reduction. But at some point when that affects income with the formula, at what point, you know, when I look at here here's how I look at it sort of the optics of it. We say we're going to keep dollars where they matter most. So, we you know, students reduced, but we reduced staff, but overall budget went up. And I know some of that went to teacher pay. So, that I mean, a good chunk of that
032went to teacher pay. But what at what point does that affect our ability to I mean, to keep increasing our budget? Madam Chair, Mr. Triplett, I'll start and then Ms. Himmelfarb, you can clean it up after that. Um so, there's no doubt that it has an impact on it. I think you'll see this budget 17 million in in in new dollars. But the the investment that we're making into salaries is 22 million, all right? So, I would say yeah, there's an impact right there. That only the 22 million dollar investment is only because the folks around the table made the cuts in their in their district departments to make that happen. So, so we cut to get to that level so we can continue to pay and try to keep ourselves at market value. So,
033I would tell you that anytime, you know, we we have student enrollment down, that's all part of that TSSA formula that we get, uh and that is a reduction to the revenue that we would have in previous years. Uh but unfortunately, uh a that reduction doesn't reduce our cost of things like in Dr. Adams' department where, you know, we're building things and we're paying for gas and that stuff. It doesn't reduce our commitment to try to keep the market value to keep our teachers and our staff that we do have here. So, we have to continue the only way you can do that is be tighter and tighter on your overall budget. But I would tell I my I would say Ms. Morgan, you can add to that. It impacts us right now anytime we
034see that, you know, roughly 1,500 kids in 4 years, uh that that's that's a significant impact. I'm good with that answer. I mean, if you have more to add, feel free. Um Page 17, one of the challenges I and I spoke to Dr. Asbury before, but is on the timeline of the budget. Uh to to review a $717 million budget in 6 days for us. I know you start in the fall, and I know you guys talk about it all year, but to review this in 6 days and be prepared to vote on it is pretty tough. Um before our individual budget meetings, we don't get anything. So, it's really that meeting is not really a position for us to ask questions because I don't have enough information up front to think through it. I
035don't really have time to even think through it until after, and then I don't get the full budget until like 6 days before we vote. So, I know that that timeline is tough. Like I I know you're not just sitting on the budget going, "We're going to wait. We're going to wait." I mean, I I understand all that. I understand you got county folks that are figuring out I I understand there's a whole whole piece to that. So, it's not really a question, but just a challenge that if we can get something before we come into that that individual budget meeting, just so we can think through what you're going to present and ask questions, and then maybe you answer them when you speak, but maybe you don't, but I've had time to think through
036it and ask questions. And the earlier we can get this, the earlier that I can ask questions not in this meeting, but via via email. And so, um that all those things are helpful. That's all I've got there. Page uh 22, one of one of the things I noticed on the on the contracted services, do we have a regular cadence of renegotiating all of our con- I mean, every time they come up, do we renegotiate? Do we just automatically up re-up our contracted services? I mean, that's a obviously a large chunk of the budget, not that we don't need that chunk of the budget, but uh all important stuff. Do we have a regular cadence where we say, "All right, let's revisit this. Do we really need this?" Is that a Thank you, Ms. Triplett.
037Madam Chair, I'll jump in again. Feel free to to clean up. So, all of those um you know, 5 years is the max that we can do on any of those contractor contracted services. So, they are required to be rebid each time, uh and it goes through the same procurement process as we're buying gravel, if we're buying textbooks. Um it comes down to, you know, RFP process and and and typically, our procurement accounting, which we go through county procurement, we don't procure on our own, uh cost is a big portion of that overall. So, uh yeah, they are though. They're they're limited to every 5 years where they have to be rebid. >> get a full rebid every I agree. It's not like we've already approved and re-approve them. Correct. There's a there's a limit
038uh to the number you can Some are annual re-approvals, but no not more than 5 years. And Gary, if I'm off, I think that's right, but >> [clears throat] >> Thank you, Dr. Asbury. I didn't think I was going to have to speak at this meeting, but uh but But yes, you you are you're absolutely correct. Now, I mean, there are some some rare exceptions to that as far as land deals and things like that, but but for what I believe you're talking about, Mr. Triplett, is you know, the the services, you know, across the district of various types, uh yes, it is I mean, we try to write that into every contract that it's that it's a maximum of 5 years, and it's it's usually renewed each year so that at least somebody on
039staff is looking at it. Okay, good. Page 22, one of the things you talked about was the staff devices. You mentioned that's a a cadence of re- of of doing, but it's a tremendous increase this year over other years. And I don't know that I fully understood why that is. Is that a reoccurring expense or one-time expense? I don't know who. Madam Chair, Mr. Triplett, I'll let um Dr. Adams talk about the replacement cycle. Um the reason that you're seeing an increase this year though is because for the past several years, we have funded those devices outside of the general purpose budget. So, either through fund balance or previously through those ESSER dollars. So, this is the first time in a couple of years that you're seeing it being included back in the GP budget.
040>> we expect that budget to be pretty much the same going forward. Because we have to continue to do that, correct? Correct. All right. And then the next question is on page 28. As I look at the division budgets, operation is the largest percentage. I know it's still, you know, not an outrageous increase, but I know we had a million dollars in transportation budget. That's another There's another six there, give or take. Where does the rest of that that land? Madam Chair, thank you, Mr. Triplett. So, if you look at operations as a whole, if you look at the IT, there was an increase cost in every one of our departments. We also increased the IT team by about three. The I Learn team from academics moved over to IT, so that's personnel as well.
041It does also capture the 2% raise across the board for operations, and again, operations is the largest the division in the district or one of the largest. And then the last but not least with something that would jump out at you, uh we deferred um the replacement cycle for our box trucks for several years, uh just because it had a significant budgetary impact. And so, uh those that cycle is due. All right, so we have to replace those box trucks box trucks, so that hit us in this cycle as well. On top of that, we do have the one-to-one uh initiative where uh we've that was an additional add we added to the IT budget as well. Okay, good. Thank you. And then last question, page 31, there's a whole bunch of lines there about
042uh preschool funding. We don't get um state dollars for preschool funding. Is that correct? I don't know who I asked that question to. Uh so, we do get state dollars, but it is a it's through a grant program. Um so, it does not pay I think when we talked in individual individual budget meetings, we talked about that the the students we serve, about 1,800 of those through our pre-K programs, um are not part of our ADMs. We think of like TSSA allocation that we get from the state, that's not included in that. So, we do receive a grant. There is a a match portion for that grant, and uh one of the one of the things we talked about in the community budget meeting was an increase of about $700,000 to our local portion to
043really to true up uh added expense over time that we've been paying larger and larger amounts to to to do the work that we're doing, and uh just to be more transparent about that and it not be like an unbudgeted hit to the budget, but actually budgeting the money for it. Is this a a larger increase than the normal? I mean, it's a When you look I'm looking at the pre-K program, line A45 on page 31, Yep. you have 69.3 That's a pretty That's what that that chunk is to sort of true that up. >> It is. Mhm. Okay. All right. And so, all the all the those dollars just kind of come out of general per- I mean, we don't get TSSA dollars, so we just we we choose to allocate dollars to to
044expand that program. Got you. Okay. Well, um appreciate the budget, appreciate the work. That's all the questions I have. Interested to see where we go with county budgets over the next few years and see how how long we can continue to increase, but appreciate it. That's all I got. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? So, and just just to clarify, we have to have this budget submitted to county commission by May 1st. Is that right? Okay. All right. So, we have a motion by Ms. Morgan and a second by Ms. Lautner Rutledge to approve. All in favor, say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item seven, approve the fiscal year 2027 capital budget for 82 million 11,000 dollars. A motion by Ms. Henderson and a second by Mr. Triplett. Discussion? Ms. Blake. Thank you. Um [snorts]
045Maybe it's Garfield. It's your turn. >> [laughter] >> Um could you just I know that we went through this a couple months ago, but could you just talk me through the path of um a project getting onto the capital plan? Madam Chair, thank you, Ms. Blake. So, basically, what we look at is we look at balancing the budget within a 5-year cycle. We work very closely with Knox County government. We will look at what is allocated for each fiscal year as well. We look at it on a annual basis. However, there is a window of 5 years where the budget has to be balanced. So, when we look at anything added to the capital plan, we look at out years. Now, there's a caveat. Uh if there was a natural disaster, that would be a
046time where we would look at possibly pushing projects out. Or and Ms. Lautner touched on this when we talk about how when we look at rezoning, if there was ever a situation where um growth for whatever reason, there was a significant impact to a certain community, we would go through the process, and we would look at available um spaces in schools that are in close proximity. We'd look at rezoning if that's a possibility. If that was not a possibility, uh we'd look at doing an addition to said school. And if that wasn't a possibility, we would look at uh adding possibly a a new construction build, which would be added to the capital plan. Now, with all that being said, uh right now, we currently have three projects on the capital plan, and so that
047would technically be in the out years. And so, if you think about how those projects work, there's a year for the construction I mean, for the design, and there's approximately 2 years for the construction, and then in between all of those years, there's board approval and county commission approval, which takes several months. So, basically, that is the process when we look at adding any anything to the capital plan. Okay. Thank you. That was very clear. Yes. Um and just in adding on to that uh question. So, like if I'm looking at my district and the nine schools that I have and some of them are a little bit older, most of them have learning cottages. And um if what does it look like, you know, what type of significant impact in population growth would would
048cause a shift to happen to where it was like looked at more quickly? So, we've been working very closely with Ms. Lautner and her strategy team and that that has been [clears throat] a collaborative effort to look at all of our schools and the capacity. That is something that we are are coming to an to an end as far as uh uh uh finality of what programmatic capacity looks like. And so, basically, once we get a realistic picture of what those schools look like in the brick and mortar, we also look like look at what is accounted for within the portables. And so, it's really a a school-by-school basis, but it's also we look at um the surrounding schools to see if they can absorb any students if if if we want to go the
049route of um moving away from portables. I will say that we have not made any investment in portables unless there was a natural or a fire, uh which you're well aware of. Uh and so, in cases like that, we would add a portable. Uh our maintenance they have done a really great job of maintaining our portables and making the necessary renovations. So, when you think about homes that have been around since the 1920s, they treat a portable the same. They'll replace the roof. They'll replace the floors. They'll replace the sidings. So, they treat it like a brick and mortar, uh but again, that's not a permanent solution. Uh and so, eventually, we will get to the point to where we have a better understanding on how we move forward and we add um different projects.
050Uh but but to that point, if you look at what we've done with Mill Creek and what we're going to continue to do with Farragut and we're going to continue to do with um the the K-8 school and what we're going to do with the South Knox solution. In every one of those scenarios, we look at rezoning. So, that in itself will um assist with with growth in in each one of those areas. So, typically, it's rezoning first. That is correct. Okay. And then so, I guess like to talk a little bit about my situation. Like let's talk about District 4. Um um that I I feel like I I don't think that there's space at any of my schools. Um there we might be like right at a sweet spot at one of them,
051but for the most part, they all have portables or maybe they're like good with having portables, but definitely some things that I've heard from some teachers are that sometimes it's, you know, when they go to work, it's dark and sometimes when they leave work, it's dark and kind of that like feeling uncomfortable or if it's raining sideways and just the temperature and just kind of the little things. And so, that's definitely something I'm concerned about is that I don't know that there's any way to rezone that would help the the schools in my district because there aren't the growth has been just slowly sustaining pretty pretty consistently across the district. If anything, we're bleeding over into yours. >> [laughter] >> All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Pike, I want to add one thing to
052what Dr. Adams said and and maybe address part of your question, too. So, I would say one one other factor that's a huge part of the capital and and I'm glad we get to talk about this cuz this doesn't come up every month. Um is that I was talking to someone from Georgia the other day and they said, "Well, why doesn't your board just raise uh more money for capital?" I was like, "That's not how it works in Tennessee." So, I think a lot of people honestly don't understand that about our board that our board can't levy taxes or any other funding revenue in order to bring in dollars for that capital. So, uh and this is not a knock on the county. We work we we're part of the county's debt service. And so,
053that is the other limiting factor as Dr. Adams talked about 5 years out, you know, we are we are set with caps from the county. You know, they're also building libraries and and health department and and infrastructure. All those things go into that same uh if you think about a mortgage, it's it's they sell bonds to get those damn things to happen. So, uh there's a limit to what they can do and still have their tax I mean, their their credit rating where it is. So, every year we have to work with the county to kind of go, "What is our what's our threshold for this year for 5 years out?" So, when you see a 5-year capital plan, you're looking at what our caps are for that amount of time. That's why anything we
054go above that has to come out of different revenue. So, you all have times approved 3 million out of fund balance plus you know, the selling of the of the bonds by the county to fund that. So, we can't just say that's why we have to be very frugal and very thoughtful about what we put on that capital plan. We can't just add. That's why rezoning is the cheapest option if we have seats, especially with a declining enrollment. Um and so, with what Dr. Adams has talked about, great work to build a capacity um for each one of our schools, it now opens up the possibility for us to look at with declining enrollments, might we have to shift zones as a better financial uh plan in the in the future as opposed to additions
055are built. So, to to your point, if your, you know, immediate district may not have the space, there may be spaces to the east or west or north or south that may have that. So, at least we can bring those to the board now that we have a a functional capacity for every school to go, "This could be a a fiscally responsible option we could afford." Again, we always want new. I get that, too. I want a new car, not a used car. But there is there is those limitations to what this body can spend those dollars on because you guys are restricted based on the the the debt from the county. So, uh I just want to make sure that's out there, too. We don't think about that a lot and we'll get a
056lot of questions from the public like, "Why do Why don't you all just take out more debt?" We can't. Like we're locked into the county's debt when it comes to that. So, just want to clarify that. And I just wanted to add one other thing. We've not seen an anomaly. In other words, we look at projected capacity and we we see that coming. And and so, we've been pretty consistent, at least in my tenure over the last 4 years, but I've seen it over the last 5 years and it's been pretty consistent on what those projected numbers are. So, we are prepared for that and we do uh explore uh where we need to look at growth patterns in certain areas. So, is there is there ever a scenario where there is an area that's
057maybe only slowly growing, not at a detriment to anything, but they have portables, it's becoming more dense, but there's not anything to kick it over? Is it just maintaining those portables or is there a future plan to eventually do make some other moves? Uh I'll let Cory tackle this. I will say this, what we've realized with the new construction as we're moving forward and the the most recent rezoning, I I think we'll level set across the district once we start with the new construction. I think we'll be in a much better place to really get a good understanding of how we minimize the use of portables or or or go a different direction, but I'll let Cory tackle. I know her team they've done a great job of doing a study on that. So, I'll
058kick that to Cory. Uh yeah, Ms. Pike, Madam Chair, members of the board, this has been a really interesting project um for both our team and Dr. Adams' team in looking at how you can sustainably plan for growth um in a county that is experiencing a downturn in enrollment, but also seeing surges of growth in some concentrated areas. I would say District 4 um you know, is one of them, right? And so, what do you do in a county that is experiencing both phenomena? Um and so, really, you have to start at being able to identify where available seats exist. Um you know, the Powell community uh project really gave us an opportunity to look creatively and intentionally about the resources that we have at our disposal. I think we're very fortunate as a district
059that Dr. Adams and his division have been as intentional as they have been in our maintenance cycles. Um the fact that we have a comprehensive facilities assessment. You asked earlier, you know, how does a project make it onto the capital improvement plan? We're talking about new builds, but I think it's also worth noting, too, those facilities upgrades that Dr. Adams and his team carry on the capital improvement plan. A lot of that is addressing maintenance so that we can get as much life out of our facilities as possible and it's very data-driven. And so, this is a bit of a, you know, both-and in that we have to love what we have and then we also have to use what we have very very strategically. So, the project Dr. Adams is talking about has been
060us looking at how we can get an accurate picture of programmatic capacity and really that means it's one thing to have a building, it's another to teach kids in that building, right? Um and so, that we know uh using facilities has changed over the years. We have more special education students that um you know, require additional learning spaces. We are using more differentiated learning spaces in the building and we want to be using more differentiated learning spaces in the building. And so, before we look at a growth plan, we have to make sure we know how many students that building cannot just hold, but can educate. And so, that's been the project that we've been working on is finding a solid programmatic capacity number for every single school. That's step one. We will have that
061project finished by the end of this school year. What that will then allow us to do is stack that number up against real enrollment at the school to identify available seats. Once we know what that available seat count is, a lot of things become possible. And so, it may be that when we have concentrated growth in a community, you also have an adjacent community that is experiencing a downturn in enrollment. And so when we think about the fact that 57 teaching positions, right, had to move or that net loss of 57 teaching positions across the district, we know we also had net gains in certain spaces too. If we have schools that are losing positions but have available seats, we might be able to move students to seats as well. And so there could be
062some stabilizing factors just across the district that we could exercise once we have a real picture of how many available seats we have school by school by school. And so it has been a very protracted project and it's taken a lot of people and a lot of brains to sit around multiple tables for multiple hours across multiple months to make sure that we get it right because we are talking about a very different solution to growth. And for a long long time, the solution to growth has been build and we've reached a point in which that's not a viable solution anymore. So we've got to love what we have, we've got to use what we have and so that's what we're working toward. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other discussion? Okay, so we have
063a motion by Ms. Henderson and a second by Mr. Triplett. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item eight, to approve the fiscal year 2027 school nutrition fund budget at the major category level for $33,943,000. Motion by Ms. Henderson, second by Mr. Triplett. Discussion? Ms. Morgan. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to point out something that I think all families will be most interested in or one of the top items of interest in the budget. Dr. Adams, can you confirm that we are not raising the price of lunch or breakfast for any of our families this year? Is that correct? Madam Chair, Ms. Morgan. Yes. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. It's always exciting when we don't have to pay more as parents. Ms. Faulkner-Ridley. >> [snorts] >> I just have a question
064that I've had since I started teaching. How much of this budget um would it cost for adults in the building, staff, teachers, everybody, administration, to not have to pay for lunch? Madam Chair, Ms. Morgan, I will say this uh and I can go to So our student meals and and adult meals and when you look at ala carte sales, the total of that is is roughly $5.5 million. That is a significant amount of the budget that we need to make school school nutrition whole. If we weren't able to sustain that budget, it would have to come from the district. We would have to we'd have to pay in to school nutrition with our GP funds. So that's the total budget. I don't know what percentage of that would be staff. I could ask Brett to
065work on those numbers and and get you a solid number on that. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ms. Faulkner-Ridley. If I could just I think this is what I just heard you say but I just want to make sure it's what like these are federal dollars, we can't use these for staff. So I think what you're saying is if we were going to as a district decide to pay for staff meals, that would have to be out of the general purpose budget, not out of this budget, right? Okay. I thought that I thought that's what I heard you say and I was like, okay, that sounds right. Thanks. All right, so we have a motion by Ms. Henderson, a second by Mr. Triplett. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, so moving
066on to board forum. We'll start with our student rep. Madam Chair, um not much for me. I think a lot of the students are getting ready to hit that last bump of testing and then be done with the year. Um I would like to say that the um student representative selection committee is planning to do their interviews for next year's student rep very soon and so we are very excited to meet my successor, I guess. But other than that, just hoping for a strong finish to the year for all of our students. Thank you, Dr. Butler. Ms. Templeton. Ms. Faulkner-Ridley. Um I just want to congratulate all of the elementary school students, athletes who competed competed in the elite meet last week. It was exciting. I actually got to be a lane judge and I've
067never done that before. So now I can do that. So um if you ever have a chance to go to those meets, the regional meets or the elite meet, it's a lot of fun. It's very exciting. People just cheering everywhere and it was fun to kind of talk to the students or the athletes who were running. They were so nervous. And it was it was so cute. And they did great. Ms. Byte. Thank you. I can't believe we're at our budget meeting and at the basically the end of the school year. Graduations are happening soon. I'm so excited to go to some of those and see all of our students that are going out into the world. Super cool. But I also really look forward to what Knox County Schools is doing to serve intellectually
068gifted students, twice exceptional students and kind of all of our student supports across the board. Um thank you. Ms. Morgan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Asbury and your team here, everybody who's worked so hard on this budget. I know budget time can be uh make us all feel a little anxious. I don't know. And it is super hard to figure out how we're going to make all this work. So thank you guys for doing this and answering. I know I I kept them for I think it probably felt like 4 hours, it's probably closer to 2 and 1/2 or 3 when I had my budget meeting and so thank you for addressing my questions and everybody else's and the work on this and we look forward to making these dollars count next year.
069Ms. Henderson. Mr. Triplett. Mr. Wright. All right. And I will just piggyback off what Ms. Faulkner-Ridley said. I did get to go to the regional track meet and those those are a lot of fun and the kids do get so excited. So thank you for our staff and everyone that works those as well. So with that, we are adjourned.