0015:30 right on the head. Uh the first uh thing is uh everybody's present. Julian, David, and Lori >> here. Here, here. >> Okay. >> Uh we got the guideline for public comment. Uh does anyone want to initially speak at our public content comment? >> My husband would like to, but he is about to late. Oh, >> well, are you ready to wait till the end of the meeting then? >> Y >> very good. >> I'd be happy to Well, actually, I'm not on the committee, but I would say that you should then move to delay the public comment portion to the end of the meeting. >> Okay. >> You heard what he said, and that's what we'll do. >> I think you have to get the >> I have to get the >> I move
002to delay public comment to the end of the meeting. >> Okay. Very good. Everybody in favor? >> I I >> Very good. All right. Now we're going to go to uh the fiscal transparenc transparency dashboard. >> Yes. So I have been working on um I've been working with a company that's called clear.gov and what they do is they provide financial they call them transparency modules that can be linked to our website and they do it for all different government entities not just school districts. Multiple school districts in Wisconsin do use it. The example that I've linked in here is Wawaossa. So, I don't know if anyone had a chance to look at it, but if um if you click on that link, it takes you right to this portion of that school district's website. And
003then you can see that it's an interactive module. So, it has a lot of information in it. It has students, um it has the number of staff in each category. There are um different tabs that you can click on. So there's like the home page, then you can click on the overall funding and that shows um what their total budget is. You can look at it by fund. They have the years all the way back to 2020 in here. So there's multiple years of data. Um then you can kind of dig in further, look at expenditures, look at revenues. Again, you can look at the the uh number of employees by category and see what those trend lines are. There's the average teacher salary. There's a lot of information on here. And so I know
004we kind of talked about putting more more especially financial information on the website and this definitely does that and more. And then what we do is the district would be like feeding this information to this company. So we can give a couple years back so people can get some history and we have like the trend line graphs in there and then like for this year once you approve the budget I would send that information to them and they would load it in here. Um and then if we wanted to like midpoint in the year we could update it to actuals. Definitely once we have the audit and the actuals are done, we would we would update all of that and then start a new year. So I guess I just put on here I wanted
005you to see it. I wanted to get any feedback that anybody had. Um I think maybe like going into a potential referendum especially would be nice to be able to point people to this. Like some people want less information, some people want more. For those people that want more, they really could go and dig in and find a lot through this. >> Well, I think it's great. I think it's great that it's graphically presented. First of all, I love that they have the option for more detail. So, um, and that it's very readily findable on their website. Um, I do think it needs to be where you don't have to dig for it. So, >> um, just out of curiosity because I can see why you would need a third party because this is going
006to be like an app that gets added on the back end of the website. Right. >> Right. >> So, what does that kind of thing cost us? So, the annual cost for this is going to be $8,000. So, it is it's not >> not cheap. >> It's not cheap. It's not at a cost. I did reach out like we use a different company to do the forecasting and I asked them if they're working toward doing anything like this because I know more school districts want it and they're just not there yet. They can't do it. This is a company I think they're based out of Arizona. Um, and this is just what they do and they do some other pieces too that I'm not looking to add on because I do that stuff myself already.
007But this particular piece, like I definitely don't have the skills to do this level or make it look this nice. We could put reports on the website, but it's just it's harder to read, I guess. >> Great. >> I I like a tool like this. I think it's that's a great step. Um especially giving u historical information. I think that's great. Uh I just um I'd imagine it comes with a cost too, right? any price list. >> Yeah. So, the annual subscription is $8,000. >> And that would include all updates as we needed them periodically, mid year, whatever, if something was rolling through that we needed. >> Yes. So, according to him, pretty much as often as I want to feed them information, they'll update it. It there is a onetime startup fee, too. And
008I can't off the top of my head, I'm not remembering what it is. I I think it's like $3,000. So, it'll take about between two and four months to get it completely going and up on the website is what they say. Now, Stacy and I met today. We think we probably can do it faster than that because, you know, we want to get it done well in advance of um the election date. >> For sure. >> As long as they have the capacity to facilitate that perhaps. >> I think the company will go pretty much as fast as we want to go. >> Okay. Like as hard as it would be for me to create this, I think for them it's they already have it created. We just have to send them all the information.
009>> Wow. I appreciate I appreciate your optimism. >> Yeah, I'm pretty I am pretty optimistic about like the setup part. I think that you know we have to get the tech set up. We have to make sure the website works, the button works. Um there is work to do for sure, but I don't think it will really take four months. >> Well, they even have the download of the financials on here. Yeah, I mean this is this is pretty impressive actually and and I think it does increase our transparency significantly. >> Yeah. >> And and and easily understood graphic representation as well as more if you want. >> I know $11,000 10 to $11,000 sounds like a lot and it is a lot. I'm not downplaying that. But I think for what we get from
010it, it may well be worth it. to um have something of this caliber. Have you found anything that you thought was comparable that was cheaper? >> No. And I did look and the other thing is I did talk to the rep too like can we do a clip count because let's say we do this for a year and 10 people look at it. Well, we don't want to do it the following year. >> Um I guess that's how I was. >> Great. >> Um on the back end, how how does that look? For instance, um you have a number that's represented on on the um the site here and let's say a constituent calls up and asks uh what what does that number comprise of? Are you able to see that and try to break
011give them a better breakdown of that particular >> do you mean like if they were looking at a specific expense line or something like that? >> Yeah. Or Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, I can always dig into it further myself if somebody had specific questions. Um, if like if somebody wanted to know, for instance, what we pay for insurance or something like that. Yes, I >> Yeah, but there's more macro numbers, you know, like for instance, uh, let's just say there's there's something that's a little bit more obscure. Revenue for local sources. Okay, I can pull that up that report up to try to give people how that number was derived. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I don't I don't think it would ever go to that level here necessarily, but yes, if somebody
012wanted to know specifically, I can definitely pull that. >> Well, and interesting, Craig, if you hit the more detail on this, like I'm under the am I on was it purchase services? What's it? I think so. Yeah. Um it shows the uh contracted maintenance and repair gas or heat electricity water sewage sewage and there's a lot of information already out there that is a drill down on the individual items. >> You ready to put it to a vote? >> I mean I'm just going to add bravo. Thank you. I think that this will really help with people understanding the budget if we do decide to go to referendum. So, I appreciate your efforts to find somebody to work with. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And I'll give you updates and we will like
013once we get moving, I will definitely try and get it get it going as fast as we can. >> What do you think, Carl? >> I'm all for it. Let's go to a vote here, David. Yes, >> Lori. >> Yes, >> Julian. >> Yes. >> All right. Politarian. Parliamentarian. Uh, what's my next move to get it on the agenda? >> I don't think we have to put it as a resolution since it doesn't No, >> just go ahead and do it >> because because it doesn't hit the threshold, >> right? >> We don't want that. We don't want to hear that word. because we're going to get to that work. >> Okay. So, yes, good work. Appreciate what you did. And we'll go ahead and do it. >> All right. Next item. What do we
014got here? Let's get off of here. >> You're gonna have to excuse me. I'm pretty slow at this. Are we having issues with connectity or is that just >> I can't >> right now Wi-Fi um seems also worked. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Our next item is the budget and referendum planning. >> I don't have a lot to update this month. I know we had our meeting last month to talk or last week, not last month, last week to talk more about the survey, which is um we're well underway with getting that finalized and ready. I know we meet with school perceptions again next week. We've got some quotes now on what it would cost to mail out. So, we just need to finalize a few things like that. I know there was still some question
015about wording. So, once all that stuff is done, it will be ready to go. And so far we're following the timeline and we're still on time. >> Any questions on that? >> Okay, then we will go to uh 2526 preliminary preliminary budget. >> Yeah, that's our big topic for tonight. Um >> next month, October is the month that the school district has to do its um annual budget hearing. And so in advance of that we look at the preliminary budget and right now we have um most everything ready to go for the budget. So I say that like expenditures, department budgets, building budgets, those things are all ready to go, but there are other things that we'll talk about tonight that we have to wait until October to know for sure. So I've made a
016presentation in here. Um first slide we're talking about the revenue limit which we talk about a lot at this committee. Um the revenue limit is where the vast majority of the revenue for the school district comes from. So it's made up of a combination of state equalization aid and property taxes, local property taxes. And so I do this revenue limit worksheet um every year and that tells us exactly how much we're allowed to raise for revenue. And then this graphic gives a good kind of a good description of what that means. So the revenue limit is the cup. You cannot make the cup any bigger. That's the cup you get. And if the state aid changes, the property tax changes, too. And it's just an inverse relationship. So if state aid goes down, property taxes
017go up and vice versa. But there's no changing the overall amount that you're allowed to raise unless you were to pass the referendum. So, I put up the two years here as a comparison for the total property tax levy. Um, the general fund levy is looking like it's going to go up a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit. Um, the referendum debt service is going to go down quite a bit and that will represent the last payment for that debt. So, once we levy this time, that debt is paid off. Non-referendum debt service, that's set by the debt schedule. So, it went up a little bit. that's probably just due to interest or um maybe we're paying a little more principal. And then our community services fund. I'm proposing loving a little
018bit more out of that fund this year because we've been running at a deficit for about three years. That fund has its own balance, but I'm trying not to let that get too low. So, as it stands right now, this would be a decrease of the overall tax levy of 14%. And the reason that's important is because I know we talk a lot about mill rates. Mill rates have been going down, but the overall property tax levy has stayed very consistent for years here. It's been right around 20 million for a long time. So even if the mill rate goes down, a lot of people's taxes probably stayed the same. Sometimes it even increases depending on what their property values are. But if this levy really does go down like this, people will see their
019taxes go down unless their individual property went up. The equalization aid amount, we got an estimate for what that will be in July. We won't know the final number until October. Right now, it's almost the same as it was last year. There's very little change. Um, the only thing I will say for sure is that this general fund levy will change between now and October. It's just a matter of how much it will change. I still anticipate that the total tax levy will be down quite a bit and that the mill rate will also be decreasing. >> Sarah, could you explain to us what the community service fund is? Yeah, that's um so it's called fund 80 and that is a fund that is outside of the revenue limits. It's not counted in there and
020what we use it for in this district is to pay for the pool mostly and then a couple of other little things. So anything where you have community involvement like people are allowed to use the pool, you can charge it to the community services. >> Thank you. >> And I'll pull up the revenue limit worksheet just so we can take a quick look at it. Um, I circled a few things on here because there are things that will for sure change between now and the October budget hearing. >> So, so I I just wanted to make sure we reiterate the fact that when when the district pays off debt, the need to levy those dollars has disappeared. >> And the the uh what did you say? the the levy the the mill rate drops as
021a result of that. >> Yes. >> And that's beyond our control. I mean, paying off debt, we have to do and we have no control. We can't just say we're going to levy at this old mill rate because we have a budget deficit. We we're forced to adjust that mill rate that's beyond control. because we paid off debt. We don't have a need to levy for that expense any longer. >> You're exactly right. And so anything anything that you put in that fund 39 line on the tax levy can only be used to pay debt and then you really can't carry a balance in there. So any kind of balance we have will go toward this final debt payment and then that that should that account should be to zero. Um the first circle I
022did here is the membership number. So that's the resident student membership FTE. We'll get that number after this week. It'll take a little bit to get that finalized, but the third Friday count is this Friday. So those numbers will change between now and then. Right now it's a projection. The second circled number is the total um property values of the district. And this represents this number right here is the first the estimate that we got and that is a 9% increase over last year. So it might change a little bit. I don't think it's going to change a whole lot between now and October. I think it's certified on the 15th. If we scroll to the next page, I circled um these two boxes right here represent the um private school vouchers and the special
023education vouchers. We know that we were at the CAT for 2042. the cap goes up 1% for 2526 and then the voucher amounts themselves went up. So I'm anticipating that these numbers are going to go up but we won't know until those students are counted too. Um but that will impact the general tax levy. So can you project when you project that particular number would you because we have we've seen year after year um a cap at that would you normally project a cap then for the following year or does that is that what's reflected here right now? >> So there's a a 1% increase for this this year we're in right now and then the year following the cap goes off. So that year will be really hard to predict. Oh, >> in this
024next year it's still challenging because the amounts are different at different levels. So like K through 8 gets one amount, 9 through 12 gets one amount and special education gets one amount. So I've tried to predict in the past but it's really tough to do. >> So you're saying in from the 2020 so 2027 2028 budget cycle >> 26 27 budget cycle the it's 10% I believe that it was 10% now it's I believe the caps are gone and I did ask and double check on that and yes that's the way it stands right accurate they're gone as of next year right now it's at 10%. >> Yeah. >> So that could jump up. >> Who knows? Okay. >> It's hard to say. I know that there are waiting lists at some of the schools.
025So it is hard to say how much that will change. >> Okay. >> So that number does directly impact the tax levy. And then I circle the general or the equalization aid amount too because that will be finalized October 15th. And then this bottom box, I didn't circle it, but this is how the tax um the total tax levy is broken out. And the top three boxes are part of the revenue limit. Nope, I'm wrong. The non-referendum debt is not referendum approve. Nope, I am so sorry. I had that the wrong way. I was right the first time. The top three boxes are inside the revenue limit. The bottom four boxes are outside of the revenue limit. And then we get our total tax levy down here with the projected mill rate beneath. Any questions
026about that? Oh, yeah. I'm tonight. I'm just trying to make sure we clarify things and and uh so when it comes to uh the vouchers, the state the uh the Wisconsin parental choice pro uh program as well as the uh special needs scholarship program that is a function of the state and we have no control over that. uh input into this equation because they tell us how much is levied and they're going to withhold from the state aid portion from funding to the school, but we have to calculate it because we have to correctly figure out our budget according to this worksheet. >> That's exactly right. And so when we look later, it it's added in here and then we pay it as a payment, right? >> And so it is a part of the
027tax levy. It's a part of the general operating tax levy. It's a part of the mill rate. And in some ways that the reason I pointed out is not to point out vouchers like that's neither here nor there. But it is to point out that what looks like we get 15 million. It's 15 million minus 3.3US $885,000 that we actually have for operation. And again, we have absolutely no control over that process. >> That's correct. >> That's a function of the state. >> So basically, it's passed through. >> Yeah. Pretty much >> goes from the state to the vouchers or or special aid. >> Yeah. They take it from the district's equalization aid portion. They add it back into the tax levy portion >> and then we pay it as like an actual it's it's
028like a payment at the end of the year. You have to write a check for it. But yes, that's a good point. Uh where was it? Yes. Okay. So then next slide, I broke out the different revenue amounts just so we can see what the overall makeup is. So property taxes and equalization aid is by far the most revenue that we get. Um equalization aid is determined by the property values divided by how many member students we have. And so then you get like property value per member and we are kind of a highly aided district. We get a lot of aid and then the rest is broken out here. We get some federal grants, state grants, the per pupil categorical aid, our open enrollment in we get payments for some various other state aid
029like library aid, transportation aid, what we get for student admissions and student fees. In this upcoming year, we have a one-time revenue for the TID closing, which is $1.2 million, and then some interest investment. So, um, help me understand this. Um, we, um, we get more aid because we have lower property values. Is that correct? >> That's right. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Per per student. >> Just want to verify that. And that's state and that's state aid. >> Yes, that's what they call the equalization aid that comes out of the revenue limit. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So for com this year compared to last year it's looking like we're going to have a little bit less revenue overall about a 2% change. Um that's largely due to declining enrollment changing the
030revenue limit and making that go down. Do we know um what factors are are in that declining enrollment number? How many are uh kids that choiced out of the district? How many are um kids in the voucher program? Do we know any of that? >> I don't know right now. So the student count is on Friday. >> So we can learn more after that. But I can tell you just like in a straightforward way that if you look at the graduating classes and the classes moving up, the classes moving up get a little bit smaller every year. So that's part of it right there. >> Yeah, I just overall they're the numbers are going down. >> Yeah. I just wanted to see how much of that was um was that we were losing students to
031choice which anecdotally we're losing a lot of students to choice which we shouldn't be doing. We should do better with that, but we need to have numbers to really understand what that is. You can't do it anecdotally and expect to >> Yeah. >> have an intelligent conversation. >> If I may, um, do can I can I help clarify that a little bit? Um, so does does the state disagregate between the special needs scholarship program money and the uh uh the Wisconsin parental choice program? >> The you mean open enrollment in the vouchers? >> Like do they give us like a disagregated amount for each of those? >> So it's interesting the voucher amount is harder to find. So you can find it, but often like after the fact and you can see like how many
032vouchers were given to which schools. It doesn't even necessarily say which district it came from though because like if you look at the total for the schools in Watertown, they're they're getting vouchers from surrounding districts. So they must have students that come from other districts, too. >> Fair point. >> It's really tough to drill down on that information. The open enrollment is completely different. Like I can go into Opal it's called and I can see every kid that's open and rolled in and open and rolled out and then at the end of the school year they literally say like down to the day that kids are here or not what we owe and what we will get. And so it's like an in-n-out at the end of the year. And and just as a kind
033of an observation on that, and we've talked about that before this before in this committee, but um yes, the the uh voucher program plays in that to some degree, but over 80% of the schools across school districts across our state are in a declining enrollment situation. And a lot of it is we just have a a population decrease and the number of children being born every year is just getting smaller and smaller. >> Right. Right. So, and I mentioned I'll mention this now because I think it's significant. Colleges in this state and around the country are have that are longstanding have closed because they can't they can't fill their freshman year. So, um we aren't we aren't we are not an anomaly and we I don't think we are in an anomaly in any sense
034around Wisconsin related to the choice program. And I'm glad you pointed that out, Sarah, because um I I I am very aware that there are children involved with the choice program choosing private schools here who are not in our district. >> There's no restriction on that under the Wisconsin program. There is under Milwaukee and precine, but not under ours. >> I I would like to see those numbers though. How many kids traced out of the district to another public school district? >> Yeah. And I could show you for 2425. We won't know for 2526 until the end of the school year. >> 2020 2425 would be a good place to start. >> Yeah, we can definitely >> just want to make sure we're clear on on what you're going to probably receive because you're probably
035not going to see the um Wisconsin parental choice um numbers, >> the the voucher, >> correct? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, I want to be able to see the um the open enrollment numbers because >> at very least it's a good lit test for how well are we doing compared to our peers, public school peers >> um as opposed to comparative >> compared to private school which are >> you might have different reasons for going to a private school but why you know why is some why is somebody choiced out of Watertown to go to another district. That would be the first piece of the puzzle that would be helpful. >> Okay. I asked that. I asked that a while ago and I was told that we would get that number and I thought it
036was in something but I haven't gotten it yet. So, do we have it? >> We have it for last year like last year. Yes. And you can see we can even see where they went. >> Could we see the last like five years? Do you have that? I will have to because I don't know how far it goes. I'll look. >> Okay. >> It's all It's all at the will of DPI, but I'll see >> whatever you can do. >> Yes. >> I got a question, Sarah. >> DPI has that number. Then >> yes, they they're the ones who track it and they're the ones then who at the end of the year say like what we get and what we owe. >> I got a question in reference to all other sources in the
037revenue. You got a,320,000 this year compared to 86,9480 on audited and audited it was 128,6992 and 2324. >> Can you can you show >> right here? >> Oh, that's the TID. >> And that'll probably get recoded that I just put it there for the moment because Oh, I see. Okay. So, that's $1.2 million for um the TID closure that we're anticipating receiving this. >> All right. Very good. Um okay so the next slide then we we've talked a lot at this committee about making reductions. We had made a commitment to reducing $1.5 million in three years. Um for this 202526 budget we did reduce $1.2 million. The way that we did those reductions were we did not fill seven and a half FTEES. Um that was because of retirements and resignations. And then we eliminated
038two FTEEs. So, two positions were non-renewed and then we did reduce the district maintenance budget by $185,000. And there are some other various like small reductions that were made along the way, but this is basically what made up that $1.2 million >> and FTE is >> fulltime equivalent. >> Thank you. >> Um, full time equivalent. I'm sorry. That could be Could that be AIDS? probably not right. >> It could be, but in this case, it wasn't. >> Okay. >> Um not as a part of the overall budget reduction. >> Oh, good. I can answer that question. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> This next slide, I made this this pie chart and I know that on the right hand side there's a zillion things listed. So, this these are all of the spending objects that
039we have. So that's the three digit number in the woofer code. So it's what are supplies, what are purchase services. It's all broken out here. And I I put them all in here just to show how many small things make up a bigger thing. Um I only the only labels that popped up were things that were at least 1%. So if it doesn't have a label, that means it's less than 1% of the total budget. So, by far our biggest expense is employee wages and benefits. The fund 27 transfer is also big and it is pretty much made up of another one of these pies. So, it's employee wages, benefits, supplies, um, contracted services, transportation. >> What's Wisconsin interd district? >> The Wisconsin interd district is the open enrollment out. So, that's the payment that
040we make. >> We've got our vouchers. So, those are the big pieces of the puzzle really. One, two, three, four, five. Um, five things make up the majority of it. The rest of these things are all 2% or less. >> And what's fund 27? >> Um, fund 27 is the special education fund. >> And so spe the special education fund has its own set of books and it has to balance to zero at the end of the year. So, we get federal aid called IDEIDA into into fund 27 and then we also get state reimbursement which did go up this year which was good. Other than that, it's pretty much entirely made up of a transfer out of the general fund. And you can see that's it's a big number. Those costs we we can
041work to control, but a lot of that is not like a lot of it is driven by um what is required for the students. um all these other things are 2% or less and then everything that doesn't even have a label is less than 1%. And then if we look at last year's total fund 10 expenditures like the actual expenditures which were a little bit under budget compared with what we're projecting for this year there's about a 2% increase. So, if we made a reduction, why do we have an increase? Um, this budget does include a wage increase based on the CPI number. That's not settled yet, but that is included. We know that our health insurance um premiums are going to go up 8.78%. So, that's in here. Transportation costs increased by 4%. The
042open enrollment and the school choice numbers went up. We don't know exactly how much that will impact, but I did um put that in as an estimate. And then because our property values keep going up, our liability insurance keeps going up every year. >> And then like we just were talking about special education costs have increased due to the same things, the same reasons, and also just because student needs have been getting more. There were no increases given to any building or department budgets for this school year. Darren, just a question on open enrollment. When we pay, and I'm just going to remind everybody on this that open enrollment is not new. It's been around for a long time. To the best of my knowledge, 20 years ago when I was on the board, we
043were still on the wrong end of it. We still are on the wrong end of it. We have more students leaving the district than coming into the district. up on a on a payment basis. When when we get build by DPI, are we paying like the per average per pupil cost to the in to the district that the student is leaving here and going to or is that some other formulaic thing that they've come up with that is mindboggling. >> It's another formulaic thing and I actually wrote those numbers up because I thought maybe somebody would ask that today. Um, for 202526, for a regular ed student, we get or pay $10,12 and for a special education student, we get or pay $14,454. >> Is that standard across all the districts in the state then?
044>> Yes. It doesn't matter what district they come from or go to. >> Interesting. Okay. Thank you. And so then this slide I put in just to give us a comparison of the two years overall. Again, the mill rate will change, but I still do anticipate it going down from last year, which last year was our historic low mill rate. So we'll hit that again. The overall tax levy I do think will decrease. Fund 10 revenue probably will go down a little. Fund 10 expenditures are projected to go up a little. Right now we have a projected deficit of $4.6 $6 million which would give us an ending fund balance of 19.6 million which compared with these expenditures is 34%. And we're kind we're trying to stay at 20%. And then so what's going to
045change between this budget and the final budget that you will see next month? Um the equalized property values will get certified sometime in October. Those equalization aid amounts will get certified on October 15th. Our third Friday student count happens this week and we'll have that done before this budget which will give us our own student numbers plus the voucher numbers. And then um yeah, so that's the last bullet. So these all these factors will change that final property tax levy amount and mill rate. So I'm sure that they will change I guess is what I'm getting at. Any questions about any of them? >> Go ahead, Greg. >> So, clear up some confusion about some stuff as the uh >> official the paid business official of the school district. Uh how much of what kind
046of investment of time would you say? um current pres managing the present budget and planning for future budget represents would you say thousands of hours? >> I don't I really don't even know. I'm not sure. I mean there's certain times a year right like right now it takes a lot of time right it does take a lot of time and also in the spring when we're working on department budgets it takes a lot of time too >> but you would say that it takes a pretty strong investment of time >> yes >> it happens behind the scenes because we don't talk about it in a meeting on a regular basis doesn't mean we're not working on a budget >> that is true and I did share a budget calendar a long time ago and maybe
047I should be putting that in the agenda just so we see it every month because really we're working on the budget every month of every year. It's either the one we're in, it's the one we just finished for the audit, or it's like the next one coming, right? That's why I always have to stop and think about what year I'm talking about. >> Sure. >> Um but you're right, like there is some kind of budget working happening all year. >> Yeah. And we're some people might um jump to the conclusion that because there's a a budget deficit that tomorrow the lights are going to go off. >> No, >> we're planning for that. >> And we do have a fund balance. We're depleting that fund balance. The need for a referendum is to make sure
048that we maintain a healthy fund balance so that we do not run the risk of having to pay uh to borrow money for daily operations. >> Yes, I agree. >> Okay. And that 19 million is the fund balance, right? >> That's right. Yes, that's the projected ending fund balance. >> Question. I can't like having a healthy fund balance has so many implications. It it it affects the district's credit rating. Um last year we saw a million and a half dollars in interest on investments. That's because we had the cash flow to actually invest some money. If we don't, I mean, we would not be getting any kind of interest money. Um there are a lot of different repercussions that come from letting the fund balance go too low. So, I guess that's that's why we're
049planning ahead. That's why we're thinking, but we are not in that position right now. Just to reiterate what you said. >> How many years do you think we got? >> It depends on what kind of deficits we're running. If we keep in the $4 million range, it doesn't take very long. Like when we look at the projections, we would be in >> four goes in 25 years. >> Well, and it might, but I might increase each. >> Exactly. Exactly. But we know every increase in increments >> and we've been running a deficit for the past three years. Correct. >> This year would be the third year. Yes. >> So that it's a $4 million deficit each year. >> Last year we ended up with two and a half because we came in under budget and
050we did get that extra interest invest or uh interest revenue which helped. The year before it was about three and a half million. >> Okay. So it's been increasing every year. It's fair to say. It's fair to say that it it likely will like unless you reduce something it's almost certainly going to go up and next year we know what the state budget gives us so it's much easier to predict like we know we know what to expect on the revenue side. >> Good. Thank you. >> Um the rest of the documents in here that are loaded are the um well the draft budget is the the DPI required published budget. So next next month this will get finalized and then it will be published um as part of the requirement by the state and
051this breaks it all out by fund and then by function. So a little bit different than the pie chart that we looked at and then we have um two different a projected revenue budget and then the proposed expenditure budget and these are more along the lines of what the variance report shows every month. So, it has the revenue broken out a little bit more and you can really see like what each one is projected to be. I highlighted the ones that are still not for sure. And then if we look at the expenditure budget, it's it's a lot like what the variance report shows. So, it's breaking out all the expenditures by object. >> It was interesting that I noted this today earlier, the services area. That's that's where one one of your biggest expenditures
052has changed, right? It has to do with insurance and things like that. >> Um, yes, you're right. And then the open enrollment. Yes, it it does. It has to do with our insurance going up. We look at technology costs have been on pupil, transportation goes up. >> So, yeah, the open enrollment deficit has has been steadily increasing for the last three years. >> Yeah. And part of that is part of that could be the student numbers, but part of it is just that the open enrollment amounts go up every year. >> Okay. So, we don't really know. >> I mean, I can find I can find out for sure the specific numbers. I think last year I had a graph that was in the budget hearing presentation that showed enrollment by open enrollment, open enrollment
053out, which I could do again. thing about that services area too applies is the number is not going to go down. It's going to keep increasing. >> Yeah, I think that you're right about that. Utilities are in there. Utility costs go up every year. >> That I think that's the hard thing to communicate maybe is there are things that are within the control of the district, but there's a lot of things that are not >> and that's Yeah, that's control. That's what I have for this preliminary budget. Are there any other questions? >> Just the document that says um projected revenue that the one I'm looking at. No, it's not proposed expenditures. I don't know. I lost it. So, just never mind. Can't find the document. So, it's okay. I will um present this at
054the board meeting next month or next week. Next month, next week and then next month will be the final budget. >> Okay. Now we go to the monthly reports. >> Um yeah, I don't have a whole lot to say other than the variance report is updated. It's showing the information for this year. Now, I know we looked a couple times at the final um variance reports for last year, but this now is showing uh the 202526 information and spending. Um so, we're well on our way here into a new school year. So far, everything is tracking pretty close to where we were at this time last year percentage wise. Well, on slide number one, I had 18 bullets on there, but me and Sarah talked before the meeting, and she explained all 18 except for
055two, and that she's going to get back to me. And that was in reference to the CISA and to the uh uh water walker insurance or yeah insurance for 8,481 and she will get back to me on that what those two items are for. I took everything out of the checks that were written and all the amounts that were over $5,000 and most of those are contracted for or were absolutely necessary just to be sure that we will anything over $5,000 will be questioned in the future. >> That is that is prudent. Yeah, >> I appreciate you taking the time to do that, Carl. That's a lot of work. Thank you. >> But, uh, as we go through all this, all these expenditures, has anybody got any questions? I know there was what what you
056have about five slides on the expenditures. We had the uh Amazon and we had the bank one. >> Amazon. I was wondering about that. >> Okay. Is that any place where we can reduce some of that because that's a pretty good number there. >> Yeah, I think what has happened over time like we used to use a lot of different companies to buy a lot of different things, you know, especially in schools was like Nasco and school specialty and it was these specialized companies and it's just kind of slowly progressed. People use Amazon for almost everything. So when you look through here and see what people have bought, I mean it's across the spectrum. It's all kinds of things for all different departments and buildings. And so I can tell you like at at at
057a high level for the Amazon purchases, the way it works is that the buildings have credit cards. If someone a staff member, administrative assistant, teacher, whoever it is, they want to make a purchase, they're going to run that through their building office and the principal is the one who's approving those purchases. And then it does come to the business office and we approve it here, too. But there is an approval process. These do come through almost all of this comes through building budgets. There is mixed in here some fund 21 spending which is like fundraiser funds and stuff like that. Um it's not from the general fund. But I I guess what I would say is it is a lot. And I'm not trying to downplay that it's not a lot of money in total.
058It is all coming from building budgets. It's not like additional spending or extra spending. >> If you look at it real close, David, you'll find out it's nothing but nickel and diamond. >> Yeah, I know. That used to be the case. >> Yes. Well, yes. I I completely agree. >> That you go to Amazon because it's cheaper than other places, >> right? >> Well, yeah. And you have you have if you have the Prime, then then you save on shipping. >> And and I think what you're saying is these are building budgets that these are expenditures coming out of building budgets. >> That's right. Or department budgets. So like up at the top is always business services. So >> see that order >> and you'll see a lot of it is for business services too.
059Not a lot of it but some of it is for business services. >> Yeah. And I imagine each each uh each principal has their own budget and they can't go not supposed to go beyond that. >> That's exactly right. Yes. like they should not be overspending and they get budget reports every Monday so they can see where where they're at and they should be looking at those Amazon purchases as they come through and know where they're coming from and um I was just meeting with somebody the other day like make sure that there's money in the account that they want to use. Um so yes, there are there are checks on that for sure. I think that's what we're mostly concerned about is that there are checks on this that and it sounds like there
060are I appreciate the fact that you shared that it's building building budgets that are being impacted. So um and and it would make sense to me that that would be the most efficient way for a a teacher to get something that or building off you know Douglas office. >> Yeah. And to get it in a timely manner. >> Right. Yeah. >> As long as you stay in budget too. >> Yeah. You stay in budget. Right. >> Right. So, looking at the non Skyward vendors, um you have an expense here for almost $15,000 for the Marriott Marquee Chicago. Is that a a symposium for teachers or what was that? >> That was one of the questions that Carl had and I will have to look to know for sure. I the only large group that I
061know that have that's been to a conference lately was for AVID, but I don't know 100% for sure if that's the what that is for, but I can find out. I know they I know that they worked at Minneapolis this year. So they I think they were in Chicago. >> I'll I'll look and find out. >> I I probably concur with Craig because there's a charge on there for 325 for AVID 2025 Chicago. I assume that's probably maybe like a ticket an entry or something. >> There was a big group of people that went. I know that. So >> yeah, 15,000. And uh for the record, the teachers that that do go to that conference um are doing so with outside of their contract. They're they're going they're unpaid to to the AVID Avid conference.
062>> What is AVID? >> Well, what is the conference all about? >> It's basically some best practices for teaching strategies in the classroom. there. I won't be able to do that explanation justice. You're going to want to try and follow up with the administration staff. >> And who would I talk to in the administration about that? >> Um Jenny or Jared? >> Yeah, >> Jenny could tell you when I could. >> I've heard of that, but I kind of know what it is, but I don't want to try to give a definition because I might be not quite right. But I've heard of that. It probably is what you're talking about. >> Yeah. Well, if it enhances our knowledge in reference to the teaching, I guess we have no bombs about it. But if it's
063a little vacation, I have a problem. >> I don't look at Chicago as a vacation. >> Well, neither do I personally. Further I can stay away from it, better I feel. >> All right. Have we got any more, Sarah, on that? >> Um, not on that, unless anyone had any other questions. Well, we're going to be monitoring this pretty close. I also saw that there was a lot of uh expenditures for what I figure is meals. So, I would imagine that has to go along with people going to conferences or stuff like that. And that's a followup on the meals are paid for. >> I don't know exactly which which you're talking about, but I'm guessing so. if it's a restaurant or >> most of them were restaurants. Yeah, they >> probably So, >> one
064of them was in town. It was Bismar's but it was only 80 bucks. So, but that's 80 bucks. And I don't want to get start nickel and diamond with questions that I would like to look into, but I think we should pay probably start paying closer attention to these meals and motel and hotels etc. I don't know how you people feel about it. Well, I I know that when we went on our trip for the um board education, we went to the very cheapest places you could get. So, the you know, like the the cheap burger places, those were our meals. They weren't expensive. >> I know. I saw them. >> Yeah. >> But those get more expensive all the time, too. >> Well, it was We went to the absolute cheapest place you could
065go. >> Yeah. So, I I don't know if anyone else is paying attention to their meals, but we certainly were. >> Yeah. >> And we do get receipts for all of that, just so you know. I mean, any kind of expenditures like that, we do track. We have backup for every credit card. Um, all of that is kept. So, we do keep eyes on that and we always ask for itemized receipts. >> So, so just a couple questions, but the first one is unrelated to that. Do if if somebody's going on a trip like that to a conference or something, is there a predium allowed allowed for food? >> We haven't had one in this district and we've kind of gone back and forth on that because it's kind of like a two-edged thing. Like
066most people generally are conservative in what they spend and but if you say you can spend $30 for dinner, some people will spend $30. I always kind of like go back and forth on if that's a good idea or not. But I know I know like the DPI does that like they can only stay in certain places. >> Okay. And my second question is um we're three weeks into the school year and I think what I'm hearing you say as you look at overall for the current budget, there's not anything in there that surprises you. >> No. >> Okay. >> Definitely not. >> So we're tracking where you would expect us to track without a a major hiccup. >> Yes. Yes. So far we are on track and I will say like in the last
067three years the total budget has been under budget like we've come in under budget three years in a >> not 22 you didn't >> we had a deficit but the total budget was >> oh it was okay >> that's good management I mean >> at some point you gota if you budgeted here and you land your actual expenditures are less then there's something that went in there that meant somebody was managing things carefully or there were unexpected situations where >> we had fewer people we needed to pay or >> Okay. Does that cover that item? What's next here? What do we got? All right, future agenda planning. >> Um, for October, what I have so far will be the final budget and then the proposed tax levy. And then we have scheduled to review the
068purchasing policy also next month. >> That's all I know of right now. We may have some other things that pop up. >> Well, you do have the public comment that you move to the end. >> Pardon? You do have public comment which you moved to the end so the gentleman could speak. >> Oh, okay. Let's go to public comment. >> Yeah. >> I don't really have anything pertinent to the finance, but for you Carl, you last night had said republic. >> Can you finish what Ben Franklin said September 18, 1778 or 1787, excuse me? So, when we have public comment during a committee meeting, it has to be on topic for the specific committee and it is a one-way communication. It's not a um back and forth conversation between board members and the public when
069it comes to those public input sessions. >> We're not allowed by Wisconsin state law >> if you can keep it. >> Yes, I understand that. >> That's the statement. >> Right. Yeah. Right. I understand that. >> That's all I have. >> Okay. Very good. >> Uh, okay. Future agenda planning. >> Yes. >> Anything else? >> Those were the only two items that I know right now. >> Okay. Anybody else got anything? >> No. What about you, Carl? >> Okay. Action items. Anybody with any action items? >> Um I think that the only action item was potentially looking into the um the students that chose to move out of the district. >> Open enrollment. >> Yeah, open enrollment was the only action item from the meeting, I believe. >> Anybody else remember? um chasing down the
070the expenditures that Carl mentioned. >> Yes. Yes. I think there's three now. >> The only action item future action item I have is >> and me and Sarah have talked about this but and she is in disagreement but uh I would like to drop it from 20,000 down to 5,000. >> So can we discuss that? Well, that's going to be discussed next month. >> That will be our next month's topic. And so I want you all >> hopefully to uh think about it deeply. >> Oh, been doing been doing it. So, apparently we're not allowed to get to discuss it. >> No. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, we'll just we'll put that off and we'll definitely talk about that uh in October. >> Most definitely. Thank you, Carl. Is there anything else that anybody has?
071Are we ready to dismiss and go forward? >> Yeah, that's a good place to go. >> All right, this meeting is adjourned. >> 6:27. Thank you.