001Good evening and welcome to the Garfield Heights City School District special board meeting work session. Tonight is October 13, 2025. I call the meeting to order. >> Can I get roll call, please? >> Yes. Uh, Miss Cox, >> yes. >> Mrs. Daniels, >> yes. >> Miss Thomas, yes. >> Miss Morrison, >> here. >> Dr. King, >> here. All right. Could I get a motion to adopt the agenda as presented? Some move. >> Second. >> That was moved by Miss Thomas and second by um seconded by Mrs. Daniels. Could I get roll is there any discussion? Could I give roll call, please? >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mrs. Daniels? >> Yes. >> Miss Cox? >> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. >> All right. So, now we'll do the
002tenative um the review of our agenda for next week's meeting. Is there any questions or comments? I did have one thing under 19 two. It um the recommended action is the same as 19.1. So it needs to be >> Oh, gotcha. >> changed. >> Just that the wording needs to be updated. So, make sure that change happens. >> Any other questions for [Music] Madam President, Miss Cox, can we get some uh information on 19.1? >> Yes. Um our band director has been working understanding our issues with uh funding. Um he's been working to to ensure that we are still able to collect some uh instruments. And so he wanted to do a um an instrument drive and this is just permission for him to be able to do that to to get more instruments for
003the school district. >> Any other questions or comments? Mrs. things. Um, anybody have any information they can share about um 17.2 to the gifted policy. Is there any significant changes or it's just highlighting exactly how we're going to be identifying students? Um, we were limited to certain grade levels and we're trying to expand them just a little bit more to ensure that we are identifying not only identifying but we also creating a a process to also serve our students as well who've been uh identified as gifted. This is a this is an amazing and a big deal and a huge milestone for um the district when we're just kind of ensuring that we're serving all students including from the gifted to our students to exceptional needs. So, thank you guys for um putting this work
004into policy so that we can begin to really see it benefit our students in the district. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? >> Hearing none, we'll go into board of education training updates. Any updates on training? >> Madam President, >> Mr. Thomas, Miss Thomas. >> Um, I would like I like that though. Miss Mrs. Zoom. >> Um, I would like to give a training update. Um, Mlette, Heather, and myself attended the Northeast Region fall conference um at the Galaxy Restaurant and Banquet Center in Wadssworth. Um we were able to see a lot of our peer school school board members um get recognized for their service. Um we also saw the new purple star schools as well as a lot of schools that um got renewed. Um we got to see the teacher
005of the year nominees and we also got a legislative update. Um, OSDA is celebrating 70 years of service this year. So, that was really amazing. Um, our legal update came from people in Wagner. And then we also heard from our new CEO, Tom Hollster. >> Anything else that you want to add? I think you did a thorough. >> Yeah, I think she was very thorough. >> Thank you. They want notes. >> All right. Is there any other um board of education training updates? >> All right. So, our next um item is 3.1. Could I get a motion to move away the reading of 3.1 and 3.2? >> So, move. >> Second. Could I get discussion Mr. OPO? >> Yes. Is that time of year? A little bit early unfortunately for you all. All right. Shall
006we begin? Shall we for Dr. Reynolds? >> Um, go ahead and get started. >> Good evening all. Um, instead of doing a November forecast, our state legislature um has changed the way that we do our five-year forecast. So instead of doing it in November and May, it is now going to be um next year it'll be an August forecast and a February forecast. The state of Ohio gave us a one-time extension for this year with the House Bill 96 to put the deadline to October 15th, which means that we can get some important staffing data information in on our um forecast analysis, which when we flip over next year, we will not be able to do that. So, um without any further ado, I'll get right into it then. Um, so if you take any
007slide away from tonight, this is the slide to to really hone in on. And you all have packets of each slide in front of you. So abbreviated forecast. Um, so the way that the state legislature formatted it, instead of being five years, so current year plus four, it is now current year plus three. But the way we're looking at it is 2026 is our current year. And if you notice equal revenue, surplus or deficit, our school district will be running a surplus budget if and only if we uh pass this renewal levy. I think we all need to understand how incredibly important that is given last year we are running a negative $3.5 million deficit in this school district financially. If the levy passes, we are running a surplus this year. meaning we build on
008our cash balance and essentially can buy another year of planning to make sure we can continue to make those educational decisions that affect our students the most without having to make the fiscal decision first. And we'll talk about that in a little bit with Dr. Reynolds. Uh quickly, just a quick overview again, uh projected general fund revenue uh 46.2 million, expenditures 46.1 million. Uh projected gain for the year is $162,915. Assuming our renewal levy passes, assuming issue 48 passes 50 plus1 on November 4th. Expenditure analysis. We usually do revenue first, but revenue is is so different this cycle. Decided to do what we can control the most, which is expenditures. Uh 73% of our general fund expenditures are uh personnel costs, which means they're uh salaries, benefits, um staffing. We are a peoplef facing, you
009know, institution. That is what we're here for. we educate students. 19% come from purchase services. And we'll go into a breakdown on purchase services because that is a little bit higher than, you know, other district averages of 80% personnel, 15% um purchase services and all other expenditures, uh school supplies, curriculum, um replacing roofs, replacing boilers, uh fixing leaks is um 7%. uh utility bills, uh fuel for buses, anything of that is 7% of our of our budget. So, um what have we done as a school district over the past three years, specifically last May, to mitigate our fiscal cliff? Remember, we didn't face the esser fiscal cliff. We're facing a cliff of lost general fund revenue from failure of the renewal levies. Correct? So, what have we done? Um I'll start with the first one.
010We took uh direct reduction in force measures at central office and administrative levels with eight positions. Certified position attrition over the past year and a half has been roughly 50 positions. We are um essentially structurally realigning with the re reality of our school district. We don't have the same number of kids as we had seven 8 n years ago. We have to restructure to make sure we're addressing those concerns. Um our classified staff, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, um food service folks. Um we are we put a hiring freeze on non-essential positions. We need bus drivers. We need aids for special ed students. You'll see those postings go on uh when we need them as and um as they come forth. Um, we have aggressively implemented internal audit procedures for all contracted services um, with aims
011to lower costs. So, I'm going to shout out um, one specific employee of our school district, Mr. James Cassuda, um, as example of this. Mr. Cassuda uh, took time, a lot of time to go through our POTS lines um, and he realized that they're no longer functional for our school district. So, he went through, looked at the contract, worked with Mr. Wayland worked with our department and said, um, we can eliminate this and we can save $80,000 a year. And we're doing that across the board. Um, we have looked at all of the subscriptions, all of the curriculum. We have looked at everything we can do that we would say, is this a want or is this a need for our school district? Because that's where we're at. And finally, um, we have adopted a
012deferred maintenance operational strategy. meaning um instead of a yearly bus uh replacement cycle, we've moved to a 2 to threeyear uh cycle. We've deferred major maintenance projects uh roof replacements, boiler replacements, classroom technology, and furniture upkeep just to conserve cash. We know we're going to run out of cash if things stay the same. So, what do we do? We have to push some of those things forward to make sure we can afford to um be a school district moving forward. A pretty simple expenditure breakout here. You can see 25 last year for both uh salaries on the left, benefits on the right. You can see that in 25 you're a little higher staffed, a little more cost. 26, you can see that drop in personnel cost. We simply um cut positions and restructured and you
013see that stairstepping took a dip down in 26 and continues to stair step uh um forward. Again, benefits. I talk about this every time we do this. the most uncontrollable cost we have as a school district. Our consortium is great. It limits us to taking those high premium increases, but around the state is about a 17 to 20% healthc care premium increase. Our district took a 12 and a half this year. So below the average and again just trying to maintain and not be, you know, strangled by some of those uncontrollable costs. Um, I did this specifically because I want you guys to see where we're spending on our purchase services and supplies breakout. A lot of these are uncontrollable costs. Again, um, purchase services, I'll start there. Tuition and special ed costs, $2.75 million.
014Um, what does that entail? When I I spoke to Mr. Forte um special ed department um a lot of students that come in so we have a declining enrollment problem but we have an increased enrollment of special education students. So other districts, specifically Cleveland Metro, will have students come into our district with fully loaded IEPs, right? So they have all the services. They have one to one. They have specific tuition, different places to go. That is the bulk of our purchase services. And unfortunately, there are not a lot of options. There are maybe two or three providers for a lot of these things. And there's no real market to bring down costs as we go. um utilities and communications 1.5 million. So those are fixed costs we see every year and we're only going to
015see utilities uh increase as the issue with First Energy continues to unfold. Um there's a lot of classified information at the state level that they're not, you know, they're they're hammering folks with fees to upgrade the infrastructure, but really have not been transparent in that. We will see that come on our our books moving forward. uh $500,000 in out of district transportation. That means our students one to curb to curb or out of district mostly uh special ed students, health services, pupil services, $1.2 uh million dollars. Again, we are not just a bring your child to school, learn arithmetic, learn reading. We offer services and provide services that um not others, not as many others do. Um and then uh substitutes. Um, so we have an issue with attendance. We've we've known this. Um, we've
016discussed this with uh both of our unions and understand this. We have budgeted in about a million dollars in substitute cost and contractors is about $800,000 is what we're projecting out um using the data from the first four months of this school year. Finally, legal fees and negotiations. Um, $659,000. negotiations cost money when we're sitting and and spending time doing that. And it is not cheap, but it's a necessary thing uh for our district. And we are a district that as all school districts, we have yearly problems that come up. We are educating students and that's what that is for. Uh but again, less than 1% of our total general fund budget. Remember, $46.1 million in expenditures, 600,000 in legal fees. That's less than a million. That's less than a percent of our expenditures. All
017right, let's talk funding. Um, revenue, 54% comes directly from the state, 31% from local taxes. You saw that that has increased over time, and that's because of our re-evaluation cycle. Um, the state deems us a richer community than we truly are in a sense that our property values have increased, but the state has frozen the inputs for which they calculate our state funding on a per people basis. um local taxes, uh real estate property taxes and public utility property taxes. State government gave another generous tax cut to public utility. Instead of being valued at the full increase um every three in six years, they're only going to update at 25% of the valuation. So, your home is going to be valued at whatever the increase is, but First Energy is going to be valued at
01825% of whatever the increase is going to be, which leads to a loss of collections for the school district. Fair school funding plan, uh, pretty consistent restricted state aid increases with economically disadvantaged calculation in House Bill 96. And then state share of local taxes is that 10 and two and a half% roll back credit. That number is going to significantly decline as we talk about some of the things that our state legislature is implementing. Um currently all other revenue about $6.8 million um that is interest um fees uh the uh payroll taxes we get from the uh city anything county um any transfers that we make in or out would go into that um our revenue story for state aid. So on the left you'll see the analysis of the fair school funding plan which
019is designed to help districts stay off the funding guarantee but also um give a transparent per pupil amount and help districts that need it most i.e. districts like Garfield Heights city schools. As you can see here um it continued to drop and decline as our enrollment declined. All and well but the formula only works as far as the phase in and the inputs are concerned. The inputs are currently frozen at 2022 levels. We are almost in 2026. The federal adjusted gross income in property valuations is updated every year by the Ohio Revised Code. So, what does that mean? Our community is richer and we're not paying as much in expenses in this the eyes of the state. You'll see that it's a decline in in uh state funding for us. on the right is the
020um guaranteed state funding formula. Our district is um we will be on the the um the 2020 base funding guarantee in fiscal year 2028. So that means our enrollment is dropping so fast and this the fair school funding plan is not funding us at a level um adequate enough that we will drop to what we we can get no less in funding from the state than we did in fiscal year 2020. That is school year 2019 2020. Um that is how inadequate the fair school funding plan is. That is how unconstitutional our schools are funded in the state of Ohio. Property taxes. Um again top left is uh blue bar is what we collect. Uh orange is renewal money. You'll see that there's a stark drop off if we uh do not pass issue 48.
021Um you'll see here at the bottom left is our is the floor calculation. We were at the 20 mil floor. So we hit the 20 mil floor. It was a design strategy when the state of Ohio in 1976 passed House Bill 920. We put emergency levies on every 10 years. It was a it was a sound strategy is what the legislature gave us to work with. Um so we'll talk about what that means for current legislation, but we are at the 20 mil floor, meaning every 3 and six years we'll see um inflationary growth on the 20 mil since we cannot go any lower. Um the right slide is property values by tax year. So you'll see uh uh to 24 massive increase. And then again uh we're projecting in 27 not as big of
022an increase but a significant one. The 2024 reappraisal for Garfield Heights was the second highest in the state of Ohio 55%. East Cleveland City Schools beat us by I think 4% total. um our property taxpayers saw that increase and we understand the burden that our property taxpayers pay, but again we only collect 52% of one tax dollar that comes to us when the average school district is between 60 and 70%. So let's talk line item veto 66. On your other packet, you will see uh the the governor vetoed a bunch of provisions in House Bill 96 um specifically around how schools are funded in property tax um revaluation. So, state legislature overrode that veto last week. House Senate overrode uh line item 66, meaning they will not allow any renewal levies on after uh January
0231st of 2026. What does that mean for us? cuz we have a renewal levy up next year that comes off the books. What does that mean? That means that we will have to run an additional tax levy to collect the same amount of money, but the ballot will not say renewal. It will say additional tax. Also, you'll see that there is no homestead and um roll back credit from the state of Ohio. Any levy passed after 2013 is not applicable for that provision. So, if we had to do a full replacement of all of our emergency levies, including issue 48, it would it would equate out to 16.08 mills, which would only collect $8.9 million when we're currently collecting 10.2. The question is, if you want to truly only renew what property taxpayers are paying,
024you will have to give up that two uh 12%. or else it truly is an increase in property taxes. On the right side, the uh $4.4 million renewal levy we have up next year, if you take our valuation and and do the calculation, 6.98 mills is what our community would see on a ballot for an additional tax levy just to collect the same amount of money. we would be giving up $542,000 uh in revenue if we just wanted to renew what property taxpayers are paying. If we wanted to increase that to to fully collect on the full amount, it would be uh roughly 7.01 mills. So again, legislators failure to understand property taxes are hurting districts who desperately need the funding and they don't fully understand the situations that we're all in. Um, pretty powerful
025slide here. Annual change in revenue. Um, we're projecting a negative 1.37% projected annual change in revenue. We are projecting a.16 annual change in expenditures over the life of this forecast. That includes budgeted raises. That includes budgeted healthc care cost increases. That includes inflationary growth. That is the work that uh the board of education is doing to maintain fiscal stability in the school district. Days cash on hand. Dr. King, your favorite slide. Can we make payroll? uh we can make payroll through uh this fiscal year. Uh fiscal year 2027 is going to be a uh one payroll cycle >> and then obviously by 2028 we are in bigger issues than making payroll. State of Ohio will be running their you know um pro programs with us and we'll be in a different scenario than that. uh
026educated enrollment again handinhand with our funding as uh declining enrollment continues to trend we are looking at declining funding until we hit that guarantee but I will tell you this our enrollment numbers from 25 to 26 significantly less than what we saw in 24 to 25 you saw almost a 300 275 student loss in 25 from 24 this we're only looking at 84 student loss which is that is where we need to be need to make sure we are within that 50 student, you know, variance because if we can stabilize our enrollment, we will be able to forecast accurately over over the term of, you know, our years uh for educating our students. And uh daily cost per pupil, um $17 is what it costs to educate our students, to have them in the building,
027to get them to the bus stop um and home at night. $107. uh 70% of that comes from state federal business and 30% comes from property taxpayers. Our final slide, summary and outlook. Um you will see that we have never been a rich district. We have done the most of what we can do. The last time we put new money on the ballot was 2012 and we've been able to sustain since then. Unfortunately, we have a revenue problem and without the revenue, um, we are going to be in a significantly different position than we would be if we had a stabilized revenue stream. You can't stop expenditures from growing over time, right? Inflation's going to be there. Inflation's the silent killer and and you're a people business and it is extremely difficult to attract talent
028when you don't offer competitive uh salaries and benefits. And that is part of the issue that we have here. Um so with that I will take any questions you have. I kind of sped through that >> the slot with revenue. >> Which one? >> Revenue versus expenditures. >> One more. >> Oh >> right. >> Can you uh reiterate what >> Yeah. on that. >> So, um, our historical annual annual revenue changes been less than a percent, you know, since we've all been here sitting at the board. Uh, we're looking at negative revenue growth over the life of this forecast. You can see that even we were beating inflation operating normally at 2.66 historical annual expenditure change. We are essentially not increasing expenditures year-over-year in this for in and what we're doing and projecting and that
029comes from actual projected data, right? Like I use everything we have in our in our budgeting softwares to make sure that we have all the payrolls and everything for this specific presentation. We are sustaining what we can sustain and we're not spending on um we are not spending on lavish and extraordinary items. We are actually we've cut costs to the point where our expenditures are not growing almost at all over the length of the forecast. Is that >> that's it? >> All right. Madam President, Mrs. May I ask why are we losing so much revenue? Like what is the reason for the decline in our revenue over the years? >> So um the state of Ohio is just functionally cutting everything. Um and I mean that truly. So over the life of school funding, obviously
030D roll versus Ohio deemed funding school funding unconstitutional. But some of the things they've done, House Bill 96 eliminated income tax for a large swath of Ohioans. Um they collapsed brackets and it was a $2 billion decision. They eliminated the commercial activity tax um in last decade which was tax coming right to school districts. that way you're taxing the steel mill makes a rolled steel they're taxing on the product commercial activity they eliminated the tangible personal property so if I sell a couch in my house I have to pay tax on it right they essentially took the lottery money and subsidized school funding so say the the school budget from the state was $und00 million and the lottery money is going to be $10 million instead of giving us 110 million they said we're going
031to give you 90 million and give you 10 million in lottery funds. So, you didn't see any increase in in lottery money. Marijuana sales are not going to school. Um, they've cut almost every tax they can. And while they're doing that, they're abating properties. So, class two, meaning our industrial, our commercial businesses get tax breaks. They gave a tax break to public utility. So, they're not paying as much over the life of their reevaluation. So they're shouldering the burden of cost on local taxpayers. And when you have a large value like reevaluation cycle and folks start paying more because they took massive hikes on their property valuations, they're saying, "I don't want to pay anymore." And rightfully so. The state has cut darn near everything. And mind you, they also cut the fair school funding
032for a minute. We're losing 4% of our funding over two years on it >> because they don't update the inputs. And the reason they do that is they say they don't have the money because they cut the income tax. So if you want to see applicable states to this, look at Kansas. Kansas is is going through a a unmitigated disaster with their funding for local governments and schools because they eliminated darn near everything you can fund anything with. And that's essentially the the roadmap for where Ohio is trying to get to. Your question >> so pretty much just taking measures to defund public education. >> Yeah. And we don't even didn't even get into the voucher program, the complete billion dollar subsidization program of the voucher and private schools. Um they are doing everything in
033their power to make it a direct public attack on public education. >> There any other questions for Mr. O? Madam President, Mrs. Daniels, >> Mr. Oko, can you give us more information about the 20 mil floor and where we're at with all that? >> Yes. So, actually, can I do you want me to go right into the legislative update because that's going to be right into that. Yeah. Do we want to take a vote on the assumption, the forecast real quick? >> I'll get right into that. >> So, I believe that was motion by Miss Thomas. Is that correct, Miss Daniels and second by Miss Thomas? Oh, Lord, >> Madame President. Oh, I did have that right. Yeah, I did have one more question. I don't know if it goes into the legislative thing. >>
034Yeah. >> But when we were talking about um our expenditures and the percentages, >> and this may be a question for um Dr. Reynolds, what what are we seeing? Like, have we always spent this much on substitutes? Is it because there's an increased need? I know that um the rates have increased um for the most part. And is there a plan for us to attempt to reduce those costs in any way? Like what is the is are we always this high with these costs? >> So, I'll say historically, we've not been this high. It's been the last couple of years that we've seen a significant increase. Again, we we raise rates because we are the lowest paying uh substitute rates. We raise them to general, you know, peer average, but I would say the attendance
035is is significant. Um it really is. Um when folks call out, we truly it is you you're paying their salary on their sick day and then you're paying for either a sub or you're paying for spot subbing through the contract. So you're double paying and sometimes even triple paying the cost to to cover one person's absence in the building. But I can let Dr. Reynolds cover that while and this is something that we we've noticed uh several a few years ago. We've been working with HR to to really kind of address those things as well. But we're also considering doing some things with providing incentives for teachers who are showing up on a regular basis. Not even just teachers, but just u employees who are showing up on a regular basis. So it is an
036issue that we've identified for the last couple of years. We actually started looking at the numbers and uh luckily we have a human resource department who's will go and check and see what's happening and how we can support staff members who are who are out. However, those numbers are elevated. They are elevated right now. And do those substitute costs include substitutes and spot subbing or just outside vendors? >> That's everyone. That's spot subs and our substitutes as well. Um we currently use >> OSTs >> Ohio substitute teaching services >> and they we started using them because the rates were a little bit lower with them. Um and uh still we we need to do some things on the higher end of things to ensure that our our folks are um showing up to school on
037a regular basis, showing to work on a regular basis. So we've had conversations with them to see what we can do and we are looking at ways to incentivize doing what we're supposed to do >> so that we can reduce that. >> So we reduce that number. Yes. >> Thank you. >> All right. So that was moved by Mrs. Daniels and second by Miss Morrison. Could I get roll call, please? Miss Daniels, >> yes. >> Miss Morrison, >> yes. >> Miss Cox, >> yes. >> Miss Thomas, >> yes. >> Dr. King, >> yes. >> All right, I will keep this as brief as I can for y'all, but um over the past two weeks, um we have seen an unprecedented amount of legislation action from our state house. Mind you, the federal government is busy
038um being on um shut down, but they still have the ability to do more damage and harm to uh public education. But we're going to focus more on the state government. So, um Governor Dwine um I can't believe I'm going to say this to everybody, but he might be the most friendly governor that we will have in in quite some time when it comes to um funding public schools. So, um, historic number of vetos in this past budget, as you can see here, we're not going to go through all of them, but number 66 is school district property tax restrictions, elimination of fixed sum levies. That is the provision where they eliminate our ability to renew our current emergency levies and put an emergency emergency on the ballot as of 1126. If our community passes
039issue 48, it will be grandfathered in. they will see the 12 and a half percent um discount on their uh property tax but anything moving forward uh we cannot have fixed sum levies so no emergency levies there will be continuing operating or additional new tax levies. All right. Uh so what what else does it do? It takes away your ability as a board of education to locally control the way you go and raise funds. It takes away your ability to say we are in a true emergency situation. We need these funds. Garfield Heights isn't an emergency situation. Um we need these funds to to literally be a school district. So um it is eliminating a slew of emergency substitution replacement levies and we will see the um consequence of that next year regardless of if
040we pass issue 48 or not. Um so again I'll I'll quickly say um everyone is losing the 12.5% roll back credit. everybody, any district that has a emergency levy and that is by design. The state of Ohio is trying to cut as much from their budget as possible and this is one way to do it. Um vetoed item 63 which is 40% limit limit on cash balance carryover. Um the item 65 was levies in a 20 mil floor calculation. This was vetoed, but House Bill 129 that just passed in the House yesterday, moving over to Senate tomorrow, is a recalculation of the 20 mil floor, and we'll get there in in just a minute. County Budget Commission vetoed item 55. This one uh is House Bill 335 now, passed the House, moving over to the
041Senate. This one takes away your ability as a board to levy the money that you are collecting in your taxes. the county can say, "You don't need this amount of money. We're taking it >> and you don't have a say." >> Do the taxpayers have a say? >> They do not have a say. >> Uh piggyback exemption um allows county commissioners to vote without board of education input to put another 10 and 2% um roll back credit on top of what property taxpayers are already getting. Um but there is no reimbursement to the school district. Again, no input from the local board of education. Um authority and procedure. This does not apply to us because we are a um executive county, us and Summit County. They Chris Rene is elected and he appoints so it's
042a little bit different. But um there is no local control on your ability to authorize appropriations and certify resources. the county budget will take what they want to take. If they, you know, if they get too many complaints and people are too highly taxed, they will say, "You have $6 million. You don't need this." And they'll take it away in inside millillage. Again, legally, a lot of it's up in the air because this is a lot of these things are written in your high revised code. Um, so what do we do? Um, we adopt a multi-year capital plan to certify how we're spending our money. You'll see that in November. um board adopted cash balance policy. We're working on that and board adopted forecast what you just uh adopted tonight. Those are the things that
043if and when we meaning myself and Dr. Reynolds are called before the county budget commission in Ka County and have to explain to them how we need every dollar to fully fund and meet the expectational needs of our academic program. that is this is the, you know, evidence that we will need to present to them because if we don't have it, they will say, you know, you're you're projecting a $3 million, you know, expenditure here, but you really don't you're not going to do that. But if we have a plan that says, you know, we have all these roofs, we got $2 million in roof replacements that need to happen, and we can show that this is the plan we have, it's it's more defensible in front of the county budget commission. Um, again, uh,
044changes to forecast. We talked about that at the beginning of this. The problem with doing in August and February is that we don't have payroll information in August for the new school year. So, our forecast is going to be wildly off because our teachers are still getting paid from last year, and that's the largest bulk of our forecast uh, expenditure. Um, so fiscal timeline, and you have this all in your in your packet. I'm not going to go through it there, but it changes from November to August and from August uh and from May to February. So, directly following the tax budget we'll approve at the operational organizational meeting. Um I'll skip past that. Uh cyber security um state uh mandated a a strict cyber security requirement and deadline. I will tell you right now,
045Mr. Whan has done a fantastic job at getting us to that point and we're already past some of the requirements we have. We've been operating like this before the budget took place. Taxpayer trilogy, House Bill 420, 421, 422, all introduced in the House. They are effectively looking to defund schools completely. Uh 420, eliminating continuing levies. That means that you would have to put a levy on for a certain number of years that you cannot renew. House Bill 421 allow voters to place measures on ballot to reduce inside millillage. So, uh, we get 4.6 mills from inside millillage. That is Ohio revised code through the county. Essentially, what they're saying is they're going to enact new legislation to allow voters to put ballot initiatives on to lower that inside millillage, even though the county and the
046Ohio Revised Code mandate what it is. Finally, House Bill 422. This would essentially eliminate any new money coming into any school district in Ohio. Um, raise voter approval threshold from from levies above 1 mil. So from one to two mills it's 60%. 66% for over two mills. Right now it's 50 plus one like every normal election is. Um the last time we voted approved a levy was 5149. So if we had that same result with this going in we would be um essentially that point would be moved for us. Again pending in house house ways and means and again with our super majority it's it's gaining significant traction. House Bill 186 20 mil floor cap. Um Dave Thomas, you're going to hear a lot about them. Um so there's a substitute version that made it
047through the House. It's at the Senate. Essentially what it does is 20 mil floor. It will cap inflationary growth to a certain percentage. Right now it's at 3%. What the substitute bill does is the original bill had a a credit for school districts in the funding formula. So if we reval that 10% and we lost 7% the state get a credit for 7%. The substitute bill that made it through the house uh eliminated that and uh retroactively applied it to 20 to tax year 2024. So it would undercut our collections currently. We'd see that immediate effect. Uh we'd pay back the county essentially for overages. Um it's also a legal concern. Um they certify rates. Um they certify it down department of taxation and they it's a legitimate thing. Like we'd be it's possible we'd
048be violating contracts 412 certificates. Everything that we've certified would be up in the air because we're losing a a large percentage of funding right there. And that made it through the house. House Bill 129. Um it says pending through the house. It actually was voted through the house um yesterday morning. um limited inside mill shifting um and renamed emergency levies as fixed sum levies was introduced version substitute version. They removed all of that um introduced language and now what they're saying is they're going to take all of our emergency levies and count that into the floor calculation. So, we're at the 20 mil floor and what they're saying is the additional 30 mills that we levied on emergency terms would be calculated into the 20 mil floor, meaning we don't get the inflationary growth and
049all of our levies would now be subjected to House Bill 920 again. So, we're in the same situation we were in in 2002. Take us back 20 23 years. Um, again, it says pending House Ways and Means. This was voted out and it is pending committee assignment in the Senate. We're hoping for Senate Ways and Means with Senator Lewis Blessing who is uh believe it or not a friend of public education. If it goes to local government that would be unfortunate for all involved. Again um in your packet if you wanted to see look at this um here's how it's calculated out. What's included against the 204? It's not uh current expense is is um emergency levies are not permanent improvement levies are not subjected subjected to house bill 920 and to I'm sorry it
050is but not to the 20 mil floor. Um and then you see here with the House Bill 129 change everything would um kind of flip except for our permanent improvement levies. House Bill 335. Um, this is the most direct attack on U5 that we've seen in quite some time. And I'm shocked that OSBA has not been full like full court press on this. So again, county budget commission. Um, this one is pending in house ways and means. um gives the budget commission in Kaga County or any county the ability to eliminate inside millillage for tax year 2026 meeting January 1st of 2026 without the school board's approval or um you know advice. They're not even going to ask you if you need this. They're just going to take it. >> So again, it's it's stripping
051home rule. It's stripping local authority and decision- making from school boards. And that is that is a slippery slope. Once they do that, they're moving towards consolidation. That is what their their end goal is. Um eliminate home rule and move towards consolidation. Um county budget commissions. Another one. They are just going at county budget um commissions. Um this one is not gaining as much traction, but it's possible it could. This one would give the county budget commission the authority to reduce any millillage on any voter approved levy without the consideration or approval of a school board. So they can say we pass issue 48. They can say you know what you don't need all that money. We're going to lower the millillage for it immediately without asking the school district or the board of education
052for approval. Uh, and then finally, um, a few good ones. A loose blessing, Hershel Craig, bipartisan. Um, tax credit for certain homeowners and renters. Um, this one has not gone anywhere, if you believe it or not. A Democrat is on the, um, bill writing committee for this one. So, it has not gone anywhere, but it's a circuit breaker approach that our school district actually helped model for the legislature in this case and scenario to offer a um, circuit breaker. So as if property taxes increase by a certain percentage, those who make under a certain income or on fixed income would not be subjected to that massive increase. Instead, it would break and you would get a refundable income credit or a direct rebate. Um they set the household income does not exceed $60,000 and would
053offer colas as they go. Um it was referred to the finance committee on January 29th of 2025. essentially it is dead on arrival and um I think that is that it is it for us. So you guys have a a slew of that. Um right now they are in committee tomorrow both sessions um working on all of this. Um but again the things that make sense they're not passing the things that they don't understand they are passing so fast that we can't even get down there to advocate for our school district. That is the legislative update to go with the forecast is kind of understand what's happening with our funding. So I'll take any questions. If not, I will stop talking. >> Any questions for Mr. >> Madam President, Mrs. Although all of this was
054alarming, um, out of what you shared with us today, what is the thing that we should be most paying attention to? Like what is the most detriment to our school district? >> It's a great question and I'll tell you honestly for the school district it is House Bill 33. Um, folks, we got to understand that the way that House Bill 920 worked and the way the legislature kind of messed with property tax in the 70s was going to come back to bite us one way or another. So, we have to to understand that, you know, that's a problem that they were going to have to fix. You know, Rob Peter to pay Paul and now the bill's coming due. 335 again, a direct attack on the school board. um taking stripping away home rule local
055authority your ability to say to levy the funds that you have for this school district giving that to a power of three who are most mostly elected in most in 86 counties but giving that to Chris Ron and the appointed officials of the county who don't know our school district they don't know our kids they don't know the challenges we face and they can essentially take whatever they want and not give it back. >> Um, and there is no consideration or approval from you guys. And that is a slippery slope of home rule. And that is that is the most pressing issue right now is them stripping power away from you five at this table, >> which in turn strips power away from the community because we are the voice and we're the advocates for
056our neighbors and community members. So it just doesn't strip power away from us five. It actually eliminates the voice of the Garfield Heights community as a whole. Correct. >> Yes. I mean remember all the levies that are currently being taxed to our community were voter approved. Right. And for a budget commission to come in and say we don't think you're spending your money correctly. We don't care about your forecast. We don't care about your capital plan. We think you're overt taxing your community. Now they'll do that to us. Will it do if the city of Garfield lights? No, that's the difference. This is only for school districts. >> That's why 335 is so detrimental. We can figure out the inside millillage, the 20 mil floor calculation. That's no biggie. Dr. Reynolds and I with your
057help have been able to stabilize this school district over the three years with everchanging eb and flow of things. But for the community and the board to lose their ability to do their jobs and to represent the communities and schools, that is a serious threat. >> Madame President, Miss Cox, so that means that the community won't have a voice then, >> correct? >> Yeah. Essentially, um, when they strip power, it goes into the elected officials or in this case for our county, it goes into the appointed officials. So the only the only person who has a say is the executive director of the county which would be Chris Roma by way of who's who he's appointing to the commission. >> When you do that they make the decisions for you and they dictate whether you
058need this money or not. My forecast Dr. Reynolds academic plan won't mean a thing to them. >> Any other questions? >> Yes. uh House Bill 422 um where they're raising the voter approval threshold. >> Yes. >> How is that even legal? That means your vote is no longer one. >> Well, it's uh >> there's a lot of legality challenges, but the issue is they want to up the threshold so high where um they know school districts couldn't levy new taxes. That's the that's the thing they Yeah. So, they can do it and they almost did it in the budget bill, but they didn't. You can't just win. You have to win. >> You have to You have to win like a a large majority. >> Yeah. >> Twothirds majority, which is it's unbelievable. >> Any
059other questions for Mr. >> I talk so much. >> Thank you, Mr. Oko, for all of that information. It's a lot to um digest, but thank you very much for your interpretation of what's going on downstate. >> My pleasure. >> All right. So, I will um like to ask for a motion to enter into executive session at 655 to prepare for to prepare for conducting or reviewing collective bargaining strategy by division G4 of section 121.22 22 of the revised code and for conferences with the public body's attorney concerning pending or imminent court action by division G3 of section 121.22 of the revised code. Court action is pending if a suit is been commenced. Court action is imminent if it is on the point of happening or impending. So moved. >> Second. That was moved by
060Miss Cox and second by Miss D Mrs. Daniels. Could I get roll call, please? >> Yes. Miss Cox? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Daniels? >> Yes. >> Miss Morrison? >> Yes. >> Miss Thomas? >> Yes. >> Dr. King? >> Yes. We will enter into executive session and we will not take any action when we uh leave executive session.