FCSD Board of Education Meeting 4/22/25 @ 6PM (At the Ed Center on 4th Street)

001Good evening and thank you for joining us this evening. We are I would like to call this meeting to order. Can I have somebody approve agenda item? Approve the agenda 102. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed abstaining. Passes 600. For those of you at home this evening and you would like to reach out to the board of ed, you can reach us at our email [email protected] ric.org. In the event of e an emergency this evening and we have to evacuate the building, we can go out the back door. We can head out Mr. Pino's doors to the side. Move away from the building as far as possible. Would you please join me for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to

002the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Public forum this evening, we have one community member who would like to speak with us, Frank Castilia. Feel free to jump right up to the podium. Welcome. Could you hold the clock for a second? Please don't start the clock for this thing does work, doesn't it? Yeah. I I just The reason I'm asking her to hold the clock is is I had to correct myself on comments I made last night about the number of admin administrators in Australia. It is 15 from what I could see. I wanted to make sure. See, I do correct myself when I Thank you. Thank you. When I when I quote myself wrong, I I correct myself. Appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, now

003you can start the clock if you like there. Okay. Uh I'm here to talk about the budget. You know, I know we talked about last night, but last night it was everybody was talking back and forth, but I wanted specifics tonight, and that's why I came tonight to speak on the budget. Uh first, I'd like to know how many board members are from the education field. Are you all from the education field except for Tim? And I know Tim Tim didn't you know but the rest of you all from the education field correct not all of us some of us I am we are to do this only three only three of you are from the education you've only been in you haven't been in education before military education okay America or education no I'm

004talking about I'm talking about being a teacher being I taught in the military okay right okay the reason I asked there there's reasons I asked that but anyways Before I get cut off, I'm going to let you know that I have requested an audit by the attorney general's office, state attorney general's office, uh because there was rumors of uh items being missed, misplaced or or missing. And I myself have also contacted the controllers's office for an audit of uh mis it's not the misuse because everything's approved by the board but I I think it's uh wasn't used properly and I'm asking them to look into it and the reason I'm doing that is because I think it was three years ago two years ago I asked and brought to the attention of the that we

005were wasting $40,000 by going all the way out to Golden Sun to get gas. All of the, you know, school district uh vehicles were getting gas out there and you would be losing $40,000 over the course of the year. And when I was leaving that meeting that night, one board member said to me, "Frank, do you realize that $40,000 is only is less than 1% of our budget?" And I'm sorry, but uh $40,000 is a lot of money to a lot of people in this city. And it also means it could buy some supplies for teachers. It could buy some uniforms. It could buy stuff. And you know 40,000 when they that kind of was made it really irked me. Now we're talking about even further back I brought to the attention of the board

006they were paying pump price at the gas stations when we were getting gas and I was kind of belittled by saying no we're not. No we're not. And I was put in my place that we weren't paying price and I knew we were. And then again, yes, you got a refund from, you know, I knew my time was going to run out, but I'm just letting you know that, you know, you guys have have squandered money. I said, $93,000 in revenue that you lost from taking this building back over again. $93,000,000 is a lot of money, even to me. Okay? So, just keep that in mind when you're talking about it. The admin raises, I'd say you cut those. They're not unless you got a contract, you know, through a negotiating team. But I would

007say your admin raises all of them. They've got to save some money somewhere. And again, whatever you say, that would buy supplies that would keep people occupied. Okay. Thank you very much. I I knew you were going to cut me and that's why I wanted to make sure I got in about the attorney general and the uh controller's office. Thank you very much. And um Mr. Pino, you will reach out to Frank again. Um Kate, you have information you're going to reach out to Frank about. Frank, some of these questions have been answered for you in the past, correct? Uh the not the $40,000. I mean know you didn't the statement was it's less than you know and the reason being Oh I didn't say that. No I know but the reason don't put me

008on the back. The reason no I just just a yes or no these questions were addressed with you before. Yes or no? [Music] Yes. Okay. and I will make sure that the team readresses those questions with you. It's still a lot. Thank you, Frank. All right. I need someone to approve action 1.06, the regular meeting minutes from April 8th. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstaining. Passes 600. President's report this evening. Take a look. We have quite a few um dates coming up. Our Bosey's budget um approve meeting will be um April 29th. We have to make sure there's a paper in here as well with the candidates that are running for our city Boseies. So, make sure you read over their uh biographies. That will be do being done on April

00929th. Uh, April 30th, the scan the school board candidate nomination petitions are to be dropped in by 5:00 pm and the next morning at 9, the candidates names will be drawn in order for the ballot. Uh, voting registrations available at the ed center. Uh, public budget forum on May 8th that is both virtual and in person that will be here in this room. Um, Brian and Kate, correct? You both will be doing that. Okay. Uh and on the 13th we have our regular board meeting and we will also be doing our board evaluations, the start of that process. Some policy and safety committee meetings coming up. Uh in May 20th is our annual budget board election from 9 to 9. We have two voting sites here in the city. We have one on the west

010side, one on the east side. The west side is at the memorial. The east side is down at city hall. If there is any questions or concerns, if you want to know where you're voting and you're not sure, just call the superintendent's office and Mrs. Trude will get that information for you. Um, so we do have that. Uh, also after after the budget vote, the next day we will ratify the budget. So, please come out and vote for our budget. We'll be going over that a little more later in the um in the meeting. Um, Mr. Dr. D. Jorum, you had a few things that you wanted to bring up about the advocacy for this meeting. Yes. I uh I forwarded the uh you are you talking about the uh uh Yep. the resolutions? Yes.

011NISPA sent out resolutions and I wanted to make sure that everybody got a copy. So, I emailed that. um they will be sending out another survey based on what their of their resolutions that are in your kit. You'll then vote on those and then if I'm still the delegate for the business meeting, then I'll take our vote to the uh to the delegate to the business meeting. Okay. So, if you did not get the email from NISSBA itself, Mr. Djour did send that out. Uh, I think it was last Thursday you sent it. So, if if you didn't get the resolution kit email and you want it again, please just let Nick know and he will make sure to forward that on to you again. So, read through those and let us know what you

012think. And what's that for then? Uh, NISPA's uh position statements uh they bring to the legislature. Okay. The state they agree with or oppose. We vote on that and then I take it to the business meeting. And we already voted on these ones, right? We did this past year. So, this will go for next falls. Okay. So, are we going through that process then again? Right now? Yeah. Okay. That's then I got to make sure I get that cuz I don't have that yet. I don't think. All right. Um I wanted to do an update on our super search. As you know, Mr. Paulino will be leaving us in July. Um the board has been diligently searching for our next superintendent attendant. Uh we have done a closed search. We have interviewed several candidates. Um

013we are pleased to share that we are in the final stages of securing an agreement with our next superintendent. Um while this is not an official announcement, it's kind of a little soft announcement um that we are hoping will be more final at the beginning of May when we come to um our next meeting. Hopefully, we'll have a resolution then. But we just want to kind of keep you informed that we are moving forward with this process. We're super excited about the future of our district's leadership um and where we're headed in the future. And we want to thank you the community for your support and for your patience as we uh finalize the details in the next couple of weeks. But uh I am pleased to announce that our candidate is here with us

014today. Uh Mr. Doug Lawrence. He is going to be joining us very soon. Um so everybody please welcome Mr. Lawrence. Um it's great that you can be with us tonight. We're super excited that you came. Thank you very much. Um, my pleasure to to be here. It's been a a great process. I want to first thank the board of education for entrusting me with this position and and Mr. Colbino for putting this district in a great spot for me me to hopefully take over and continue to lead the way. So, um, I I know through this process, it's been outstanding to learn more and more about this community and this school district. Um, I can't wait to to hop in and and hit the ground running. Um, I'll be patient. I know we have a

015little bit longer till till potentially July, but um very much looking forward to working with our administrators, uh staff and and community to to support our students. So, thank you very much. Thank you so much. I I I think that we're headed in a in a great direction and um Mr. Pino is definitely here for any questions and like he helps us along the way and we can't wait to uh bring you on board. So, thank you for joining us. Thank you. All right. Um, also I'm super appreciative of everybody who attended the budget forums, whether you came in person or you were in the virtual. Um, that was great for our team to get uh um feedback from the community to be able to answer questions and um I know that it was great

016to sit back and uh and and see what the community had to say. So, so I I definitely appreciate everybody who or sending emails. And Kate, I was going to ask you, is that email still available if community members still have Yep. Um, at the end of the budget presentation, I'll put it up on the screen again and read it for everyone. If you continue to have questions, certainly send them send them ahead. Awesome. Thank you so much. Don't forget to come out and vote with us on May 20th. Yeah. So, with that, if we have no further questions from my colleagues, I'm going to pass it over to Superintendent Palina for the president's or for the superintendent's report. Thank you. Congratulations, Mr. Florence again. Looking forward to working with you and helping you any

017way I can. So, first item on on this evening superintendent report. It's hard to believe we're in our second meeting here in April. And one of the the key points is we're talking about programming for next year. We're going to start off with our new social studies courses. Um, Mrs. Hendendrickson. All right. Thank you. I'd like to welcome and introduce Nate Paso, our social studies department chair at the high school. He's going to give an overview of the courses that the social science department would like to offer next year. Do you want to first? Uh, thank you, Rene. Um, yes. So, one of the moves we'd like to do to help our students be more successful is go from AP to our dual enrollment courses. So, we have basically contacted Q Community College and OC

018to see if we could do this because our AP results are they're going down. They're about 50% of what they used to be um in terms of success in the last like 5 years. And I don't know what you guys know about this, but the students have to pass the test in May. It's if you don't pass the test, you don't get the credit. you could know the standards very very well and just have a bad day and not get the credit. Dual enrollment is much more in the hands of the teacher. It's how well they do in the course over the course of the year. And um we have much better results. This has been done with AP calculus and stats I believe already. Um the difficult part is getting approved and CCC has

019already approved two teachers to be able to do this. So we want to do this next year for AP World. So instead of taking AP World, which is 10th grade, the students would take Western civilization in the spring and then they would take world civilization, I'm sorry, in the fall and then uh world civilization in the spring. So it'll be six credits. Right now, Western Civ is already an elective, but it's for seniors. So that would get pulled down to the sophomore year. So we only need to approve world which you see up here history 112 world civilization. The great thing about all these classes all these courses is they're also gened requirements. So when students pass them they get the half credit at the high school they get three credits at the college but

020they also get general education requirement credits. So when students go to any sunni school actually any school they have to take general education courses. So even if they're majoring in, you know, accounting, they still have to take a course in English and in social studies and and so forth. They have to do 10 of them. So these courses are all part of that Sunni list. Another good thing about dual enrollment is the students are already enrolled in college. Um, the colleges are, at least from my experience, I've talked to our counselors about this, they're much more likely to approve transfer credit than AP credit. Some schools aren't even accepting threes anymore. It's on a score of one to five. So, most schools you need to score, most colleges, a student needs to score a four.

021Some won't even accept that. On the other hand, if you're already enrolled in Sunni CCC or OCC, that just transfers over. So, um, we're hoping that helps our students more. We're hoping it it's it saves them money. It saves them time. The AP test is also expensive for our kids. I think it was $91, I think, per student. Um, and then low social economic, I think it was $56. CCC, OCC is free. So, we'd like to do the same thing. Oh, before I move on, the AP course, we actually pulled the students. 90% said they wanted to do this. And I think that's kind of obvious. They'd rather get their credits in class than have to pass a test. We'd like to do that this year coming up. And then with US history, we'd like

022to do the same thing. We currently already offer um 19th century American history as a senior elective and all we would have to add is America in the 20 and 21st century. So those two courses would be fall spring just like the world um course and that would be American history for our juniors. So, if you look on the right of that table, any student that's doing all of this, you know, possibly could get 15 credits and all of them would be general education requirements. Now, AP economics is tricky. We're trying to do this with AP economics. We have no teachers that are approved by CCC. CCC is very tough. They want your teachers to have a master's degree in the content or at least nine credits in the content. None of our teachers have

023nine credits in college economics. Um, we have two that have many credits in history but not in economics. So, we're currently working with OCC. They have different qualifications. Hopefully, maybe they can approve modern economic issues, which would be the same OC, CCC. Either way, it's all Sunni. So, we're we're hoping that would happen as well. Um, and so as you can see, currently it's AP World. A student next year that would be planning to take AP World in the fall, we'll do history 102, Western Civilization 2, and then History 112, World Civilization 2. And just so you know, the way history is broken up in college, there's really really three kinds of history. There's American history, and then there's um European history, and then there's world history. And you can you can You can major

024in each one of those. So the junior year is all American history and it's pretty much the founding up to the present day. And that's why 104 and 105 cover that 19th century and then 21st and uh sorry 20th and 21st century history. At the end of both of these courses, students will still take the regency exam. That is not tied to their college credit though. Their college credit is granted by how they do in the course in the four marking periods, not on the regions exam. that that's completely separate. Any questions? Um, you said that the the the cost for the AP is our students paying for that or are we? Okay. So, our students are paying for that particular course. Okay. And then um I have to ask because we're in budget season

025um we're using our staff to do these courses. So there will not be an added expense because we're working with the college and you said that that was free for the kids. So yes, we're using our staff. Okay. All right. So there's no test that um students have to pass to get the three credit hours for CCC. You notice this the coolest thing in my opinion about this is when you get approved for AP AP they they approve the test and the content. Students have to get through the test to get the credit. CCC approves the teacher and the teacher has the liberty and the the flexibility to you know work with students and and recover things with students. It's much better. So um no there is no there will be tests in the class

026right for sure I mean it's a causal course but no they do not have to pass an exit test where you know all their eggs are in one basket there's none of that so whatever the teacher feels was appropriate for that class you have like a final or something at the end of the so the same syllabus that if you were taking this course at CCC as a post-graduate student you're taking it as a first year high or college student they would take this course for example we filed that syllab There is communication between CCC and our high school teachers. We're have a mentor and we we basically they tell us what book we should use. They also communicate the curriculum. Um we have to submit our syllabi to them. Yes. And so it's just

027the same grading scale. 65 you pass you get the three credit hours. Yes. Yes. And what is it just for? So, if a a student wanted to take Western Civ 2 as a 12th grader, is that would that be possible? Is there uh is there flexibility to do something like that's the curriculum we're going to be in next year? Okay. Because like I mentioned, the two courses you guys see with the asterisks, they already offer them and they're kind of a they're for seniors. Seniors like taking them. So, the current juniors, we will have a section for them next year. So we will have western civ and 19th century. We're planning for a fall spring just one class. I think the numbers for western s are 20 maybe maybe 28 kids and 19th century might

028be about 20 kids. So we're going to do that next year and possibly the following year for the current sophomores who are not in it. Where it goes from there I think we just have to look at demand to see what happens because there are kids that could be a sophomore and they're not ready to take a college course at that level. But we're flexible in that area. If you're not ready and there's room, you could a student could still take that class. Do you know what I mean? You mean they can be in the same room as like a sophomore? There's nothing that says they can't. Okay. Yeah. So, we we wouldn't shouldn't have a problem with enrollment then because you have like the flexibility to have a ninth grader taking modern economics if

029they're ready. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I don't I don't know your content area, but do you know what I do you know? I see what you're saying. We have the opposite problem in social stud. We're back to the field. You're packed. Okay. Just wonder I economics stats, statistics. I'd like to see that up there. You take good. Any other questions? I think it sounds like a great opportunity to be quite honest to to get I mean three college credit hours with your high school teacher and have that have that you you have connections anyway with your students because you're there from 9th to 12th. So I I just feel like it's it's a good way to get it's more it gives more opportunity for our students more it's three per

030semester right? Yes. Yes. cuz that's what I did with my English class. The same concept, you know, CC English and I got ended up with six credits I was able to take in and they covered my English requirements for my freshman year. Mhm. Yeah. It's it's you after the year you get six credits. It's great. Yeah. And from a personal perspective, I've taught both of these. I've taught AP economics for 21 years now. And it is heartbreaking seeing kids that worked very hard just get that too because they had a bad day and that happens all the time and kids that score in the 80s and 90s and um that will not happen the duel won't happen. So can can I and maybe you said this at the beginning but um have we noticed a

031significant decline in our our numbers? I can send you the actual numbers. We looked at all this beforehand. Um, yes, I could say ballpark. Um, for AP World, they're all about the same. AP, AP World, AP US, and AP economics, we roughly have 25 to 30 students. We're going back precoid, probably 2018, 19, all the way through. 25 to 30 students passing the test, three or above. That's not saying 25 or 30 actually got credit. Some schools wouldn't accept that. Now we're down to around 10 to 15 per year actually passing the test. So, and we're still around that 25 30 kids trying to get in the class. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yeah. No, I I think this is going to be a wonderful opportunity. Thank you for for bringing it to us. I think

032what it also does is it adds to our our opportunities for kids. We offer, you know, over close to six or just over 60 college courses now with our early college high schools and the opportunities. So, this is very much in alignment with our kids. And when you talk to some of our kids that are freshman um entering colleges, they're walking in some of them as um first year sophomores, second half of the year sophomores uh last year. So, we have great opportunities for our kids here in Tulton. I think this adds to more opportunities for our kids and allows more flexibility as they approach you know all of the Sunni schools obviously take it but also the privates as well uh take these credits um upon review. So it adds to our arsenal of

033opportunities for our kids here in Fulton um that I think give us an advantage over many of the districts in the region as far as the numbers um for our kids. So especially having those kids on the fence like you were saying you know you're right there and you think you're going to do well on the test. First of all, being in a socioeconomic, we're disadvantaged, so you have to pay for it. Then you're almost there, you don't quite make it. If you're on the fence on whether or not to continue with college, you might not go, you know, but with this option, I mean, it's a no, it's a no-brainer. You're going to get the college credit. You're going to make sure that they get the college credit. You have that connection. So, I

034think it's a great opportunity for our students. I think there's less intimidation, too, right? Some kids see AP tests. Yeah, I don't like tests. They stay away and if they are seeing success, I just got three credit hours in a college course. That might give them the extra push to continue on to college. Right. So, yes, thank you for doing all the work behind it. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Jul. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Next item this evening. Just want to bring attention to we're doing a little bit early because our next board meeting is actually after teacher appreciation week gets started. But May 5th to May 9th uh 2025 is teacher appreciation week. This evening you have a proclamation which is in the form of a resolution that you will

035be voting on. I'd like to read it and enter into the record. Uh proclamation declaring May 5th to 9th 2025 is teacher appreciation week in the Fulton City School District. Whereas teachers mold future citizens through guidance and education. And whereas teachers encounter students of widely differing backgrounds. And whereas our country's future depends upon providing quality education to all students. And whereas teachers spend countless hours preparing lessons, evaluating progress, counseling, and coaching students, and performing community service. And whereas our community recognizes and supports its teachers in educating the children of this community. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Fulton City School District Board of Education proclaims May 5th through 9th, 2025 to be teacher appreciation week. And be it further resolved that the Fulton City School District Board of Education strongly encourages all members of

036our community to join with it in personally expressing appreciation to our teachers for their dedication and devotion to their work. I just want to extend um and they should get it each and every day a great appreciation for the efforts of our our staff and our teachers on behalf of our students. I think they work very hard. They think out of the box and they're there for our kids each and every day and I will be eternally heartfelt I extend a heartfelt thank you for all of their efforts and I hope um we celebrate their work each and every day. But there's a special week May 5th through 9th. So, thank you. And now our financial report for March, Mrs. Hooper. Sure. So, before we get into the budget, I do have just a quick

037update for the March financials. Um again the familiar slides that we show at the second meeting of each month uh comparing our budget numbers from the previous year to the current year looking at the revenue and then the expenditures and you know where we stood at this time last year compared to where we are currently. Again you'll see the percentages are very similar. We did um receive some additional state aid payments in March. So, um, the last couple of months, I know I've been saying that the revenue percentage and the expenditure percentage were a little closer than I'd like, but now we see some distance with, uh, realizing 79% of our revenue, and we've, um, spent about 67% of our what we expect to spend of our overall budget. So, that's a little more comfortable

038than we've seen the past couple of months. In terms of the revenue breakdown as of uh comparing February to March um in terms of the local share which um mainly uh tax revenue um and some other revenue in addition we've we've realized most of that you know our second tax collection period has just concluded. Our state revenue is up over 45.4 million um at 71%. you know, we expect um the rest of that to come in throughout the spring. And then we have begun to receive more of our expected federal revenue in the form of our Medicaid reimbursements. That was frozen for a while. So, that's good news as well, bringing the total that we've received so far to 69.9 million as of the end of March. In terms of the expenditure breakdown um again

039you know thing spending about as we would expect I think I draw attention each month to our um you know where we're spending in terms of benefits that's a little that's a higher percentage than I would like to see that's spending quickly and as we know that's where um I feel we're we're going to in a area of concern as we as we near the end of fiscal year. It makes it nicer. Huh? Is that better? Yeah. I apologize. We can see it now. Okay. Uh the budget projections as of the end of March and again this is as of the end of March um only. This isn't projecting through the end of the fiscal year. again with that employee benefits line highlighted because that is in the negative um in terms of what our

040financial systems and cap is projecting where we will be at this point in the year through the end of March it's projecting us to be in the negative and then as I've done for the last couple of months just breaking out that employee benefit line to show you the area of concern of course being health insurance that's the the big area where we're projecting rejecting an over expenditure, making that whole employee benefits um portion of the budget um over budget for for the fiscal year and it's it's holding steady at about the same level as it as it was in January, February. So, but just to to update and show our continued monitoring of that budget line and that area of concern as we continue to move forward towards the end of the fiscal year

041questions about the March financials. Why are some numbers in parentheses and some parts? The parentheses mean um they're uh we they're over spent at the so we we're we're overspending in the areas with the parenthesis, right? And I put the the red for the health insurance just to draw more attention to it. The other areas I will do budget transfers at some point between now and the end of the year. like the teachers retirement. I'll do a transfer between employers employees retirement teachers retirement because I can cover between those two numbers. I just have not I didn't do it for this meeting. But the health insurance is too large of a number to do that within that line or those lines. Is this a normal thing where we usually overspend in these areas or is

042this I would say the two the line at the towards the top the teachers retirement line isn't as abnormal because that can be covered with a budget transfer. The health insurance line is not normal and that's what we're working so hard to avoid next year. What about the workers comp? Um again it's not great. We didn't expect to overspend that line, but it's a line that could be covered with a transfer and vision insurance like they're pretty. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Again, those are lines that if you can cover it with a budget transfer, again, it's not ideal, but those are things that you can work with. I I guess maybe maybe I didn't say it right. It's Are those are those numbers usually what we see? Do we usually overspend in those areas? Not always,

043sometimes. And you again, you learn from it and next year, you know, we'll look at that and I budgeted more because you don't want to overspend in any lines, right? So, thank you. All right. And the presentation you've all been waiting for. So this is the tenative budget presentation for 2526. It's very similar to the presentation that we um discussed at the last board meeting, but I think it's important to go through again uh just to review everything um answer any additional questions and for anyone in the community who's watching and who may have questions after listening to the presentation again this evening. So again, um, just to remind everyone of our vision, mission, and our dragon values again that we've all been keeping in mind as we've progressed through the budget process this year,

044as well as our our circle here with our learning, wellness, and life pathways for our students at the center of everything that we do. This slide um we included as some of the the priorities and really sources of pride that we kept in mind as we were discussing the budget and the items and the again the priorities that we kept in mind as we were thinking about next year's budget and what we wanted to make sure we were able to continue to deliver. And just as we've we've spoken to different community members and you know we have had some questions come forward. It does sound like there's some information out there that um you know there are potential cuts to programming such as art, music, sports, languages and that's just not true. All of those

045programs are funded by the 2526 budget. And you know that's where we we want to make sure that we reiterate that our academic programs and our opportun opportunities for students will continue to be delivered in the budget. Now where things become tricky is if the budget doesn't pass and then some of the extracurricular opportunities not academic programs but the extracurricular opportunities would have to be looked at again and perhaps reduced. But we wanted to make sure that again we reviewed um our priorities and the things that our budget would continue to deliver. Again, student safety being right at the top along with our academic programs, our multi-tered system of supports for both academics and behavior, behavioral and emotional supports for our students, academic intervention and supports, supports for our special needs or our special education

046needs, continued opportunities for college level courses, which we just heard more about a few minutes ago, extracurricular opportunities, our community schools programs, summer professional development opportunities and professional learning teams for staff. A review of some of the factors influ influencing the 202526 budget or challenges to the 2526 budget. Again, we've talked a lot about escalating health care costs. You know, we're talking about that in this current budget with the slides that we just discussed and the questions that Mrs. as main was asking also the cost of operating um and the example that I use in this presentation is gas and electric. I think that it's an example that a lot of people can relate to whether it's in a a school, a business, or even in a home. I think everybody's felt the price of

047gas and electric bill increase. And then contractual increases are a factor in every budget in terms of um contractual raises and and um funding our staff. So, this graph we've reviewed in a few different meetings now and it shows a 10-year trend of our our health care costs starting back in 2015 16 and it shows really for several years our costs remaining relatively stable and flat and then beginning in 2223 to 2324 we start to see the sharp increase we've been experiencing and then Over the last 3 years, we've experienced an overall increase of around 55%. Which is you, you know, really devastating to a budget. The cost of operating would be example of gas and electric. It really began to increase significantly in 2425. both gas and electric increase. You can see electric um

048is the most significant increase um from 2324 to 2425 and we expect another increase in 2526 which is a major factor in our in the capital portion of our budget. It it falls under the operations and maintenance portion of the budget. So certainly that has to be considered. Um, and you know, school districts aren't immune to increased costs, you know, in utilities such as this. And really, this is one example, but anytime we have to rebid a contract, um, you know, you you kind of figure that the cost of doing business is increasing. So, we recently had to rebid trash and recycling and and that contract increased. So, anytime something has to be rebid or renegotiated, you um run the risk of it increasing in your budget. Then, contractual increases. When beginning the projections for

049the upcoming year's bud budget or rolling over the budget, contractual raises are one of the first increases to consider. In the 2425 budget, salaries accounted for almost 46% of your overall budget. Then when you couple that with the benefits, uh it's over 70% of the budget. In 2526, each bargaining unit receives either a percentage increase or dollar amount increase between 3 and 4%. So certainly that's those are increases that you have to factor in initially when you're projecting your budget number. All right. And then the 2526 tentative budget. A couple of notes to begin. Again, when you do the initial rollover, you just kind of project this is what we think the spending could be before you think of any ways of reducing or cutting back on expenses. And our initial rollover budget was just

050over 99 million on the expenditure side, representing a 12.2% increase. And we knew that was far too high when we when we rolled over the budget. So immediately we be we began thinking about ways we could reduce spending. Um before even talking about reducing positions, you know, where where can we cut back um any type of spending, we looked we carefully analyzed all of the different areas, whether it's supplies and materials, equipment, Bose services, other contractual services, and ultimately looking at benefits, salaries, and positions. And through the reductions uh we were able to bring the expenditure side into balance with the revenue to reach the budget number of 94 million 197,840 which is an increase of 6.45% from 202425 and it does represent a $5.1 million reduction from the initial rollover budget. Then this slide,

051and I do apologize for the glare. I know it makes it hard to see. Um, this represents a 10-year study of our tax levy. Just to give some context of the tax levy and what Fulton has done over the last decade in terms of increasing taxes. So, the average increase over 10 years has been 1.2% 2%. Whereas if you we don't have the average up there, but the average tax cap, you know, it's oscillated, but the average has been um around 2.35%. So, um there have been years where we've gone to the cap, but there have been many years where we have not. there have been a couple of 0%s in there and I think the board has really um carefully considered each year you know what's important to the community and you know tried

052to to be fair and what type of increase um they feel they can ask the community to to consider. So in blue at the very bottom is what we're proposing this year and it is highlighted in blue because it certainly has not been voter approved yet. Our tax cap this year is 2.15% and we're proposing a 1.9% increase to the tax levy. In dollars, that's 431,390. We like to include this slide um although it's an estimate because it we're basing it on the information we have. um we don't get next year's uh tax rates sent to us until sometime in the summer. So, we're using last year's tax rates. But, uh this gives the estimated impact to a household of what a 1.9% tax increase uh could be depending on um each household's assessed value.

053So the the estimated increase for a home assessed at $100,000 would be approximately $34.58. For a home assessed at $200,000, it would be $83.98. And for a home assessed at $300,000, it would be $133.38. And again, those are Can I ask a question that I'm hearing from the community? So, when when you bring up this slide and it says $100,000 house, $34.58 per year increase. Is that per month? Is that per year? So, when I get my tax bill and it's $11. Um, it's now going to go up to 35.58 per year. Do you know what I mean? Right. Is that Is that So, it's per year. It's not per month. Like I'm not paying another $34 per month. It's like per year. It's per year, right? Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. And

054this slide is the projected revenue for 2526. And on the left, it shows percentages. Um, state aid making up the majority of our revenue at 68.9% which is expected. Um the pro, excuse me, proposed tax levy would be 24.4%. And the proposed tax levy is 23.1 million. And then the slice of the pie that's slightly larger this year is other. Uh the reason for that being um we have proposed the use of uh some of the district's reserve funds 3.85 85 million. Meaning um we're proposing the use of our available retirement reserve funds, our employees reserve, employees retirement reserve and teachers retirement reserve mainly as well as a small amount from our reserve um for employee benefits and acred liabilities. And that the purpose of that is to help uh balance the budget and close

055the gap between the revenue and expenditure side. Then before showing the expenditure side of the budget, um this slide just defines uh the three components of the three-part budget. The program components um be regular school, special education, special schools meaning summer programs and occupational education, student services, extracurricular activities, transportation, employee benefits associated with that component and interf transfer to special programs. Uh that means that's the district share of the extended school year program for special education. Uh the capital component includes operation maintenance of the plant or the facility. Our debt service which is the way we pay back our debt from capital improvement projects. Employee benefits associated with that component of the budget and an inter fund transfer to capital. That would be if we had planned on doing a capital outlay project. Those are

056$100,000 capital projects. We are not proposing a capital outlay project this for the upcoming budget. So you won't see an interfund transfer to capital, but if we were, that's where that would be found. And the administrative portion of the budget includes the board of education. Um the board of education section, a large portion includes um a Bosey's charge, which helps pay for the budget vote in the election. And um central administration is the superintendent. School supervision and curriculum supervision is our principles, directors, executive directors. Finance is the business office. Personnel is human resources. Bosey's administrative services, that's a charge uh from Boseies. And that actually makes up about 25% of that budget component and employee benefits associated with that budget component as well. All right. And then this shows the dollar amount as well as

057percentages of the three-part budget. Uh the program component is what we want to see being the largest component of the budget and it is at 75.7%, the capital component at 14.7% and the administrative component at 9.6%. And those are similar percentages to what we have in the current year budget as well. This slide breaks down the expenditures just a little bit differently in terms of expense category. I apologize again, that is another bad glare. Um the expense categories that are listed are salaries, equipment, contractual, materials and supplies, Bose services, debt service, employee benefits, inner fund transfers, and then the total at the bottom. Um, one line that I know has stood out to everyone from the beginning of our discussion is our debt service line that decreased by 1.8 8 million. That was due to

058some of our debts falling off from a capital project. Um it seems odd to say, especially in a difficult budget year, but you want your debt to remain kind of stable. You don't want it to go up or down very much. Um and talking with our fiscal adviserss, our debt will go back up again to a similar level that it that we see it at this year because your debt is also tied directly to your building aid. So, you want it to remain fairly stable. So, next year we'll see it rise back up to the level it's at this year, which is actually a good thing. Are there any questions on the different expense categories? Yes, if you can see them. Go ahead. Well, that was one of my first questions. Do we have any

059money in the budget to buy some shades? Probably not. That's the first question. Another thing is I could buy some sunglasses maybe. Well, I don't want it to go in a capital project to where we, you know, spend, you know, $5,000 to put in some shades when we could just go to Lowe's and have custodial put them up. Um, when was the last time we did an energy audit on all our buildings? It's a good question. I I would have to ask um that would be a question for because pre 1972 most things weren't insulated. Then when the energy crisis came that's when people started putting insulation in their homes. A lot of homes today you go to a house built in 1950 you might see newspaper in the walls as insulation. And we really

060only have what three schools that date after 72. Valy Graanby in the junior high and there are wings on other buildings that were later right. And what percentage of our lights have been converted over to LED? It's almost 100%. That was part of the EPC project that was completed uh like about a year ago. I still think we have too many lights on. I mean, if they took the roof off at the high school, planes could land with so many lights. I mean, it's like a landing strip down the hallway. Well, you can't bend over to pick up the dollar and miss the nickels and dimes. And what did we do? Let's see. 19 20. No, 2021 is when our health costs started going up up every year. What did we do to start counteracting

061that once we saw that it was starting to be a pattern? I think in 2021 if you look at that graph and again this precedes me by quite a bit. Even if you look at 2023, that's where we reached the level we were at in 1920. So I say 2023 is when we started to go up and we didn't come back down again, right? You know what I mean? So since 2324, then we went up again and we're continuing to go up again. I mean, we're looking into different options, whether it's within our current healthcare program, whether it's different options that are out there. Anything we can do, um, you know, much of it has to be negotiated because it's within contracts, but any cost savings that are out there, we're looking into, right? Um,

062you know, I think one thing that was described to me by a couple of different people, um, is that when CO stopped, insurance companies themselves went back to the negotiating tables with hospitals and providers. And I think that that's kind of what's hitting people in the face. I mean, it's not just Fton. I think um I think that's part of what we're feeling. Well, everything, home insurance, car insurance, they all But no, I mean, we're looking into, like I said, any option within our current program, as well as if there are other things out there that aren't our current program that could save us money. Well, we need to correct or do something soon or else I know next year's I know budget could be even worse. You're right. So we are and right we're

063presently working with the bargaining units looking at cost data is within the current policy which is a self-insured policy. We're also um exploring other options with the bargaining units comparing the current policies with possible other policies and looking at those cost savings associated with that. We also had an opportunity to work with a free consultant um through small cities association of which we were associated and we met with them over the break and they had run some of our numbers and they brought a very different lens uh to things as well which allows us to to really look at some different types of things that we should be exploring. So, I think we've got a number of irons in the fire and the idea is that that any of those strategies um could help us

064save dollars on next year's and I think you know this isn't we budgeted a lot more for healthcare next year too. You know, we're not right. We were not going to allow it to be overspent another year. But again, that's why our budget number is where it is. We have to find a way to flatten it. Yeah. you can't we can't continue to have that type of bread and I think some of the strategies that we're looking at hopefully in the next month couple of months we'll be able to to really get some good lenses on the comparisons and provide that information so we have those discussions with our bargaining units and hopefully we can find ways to flatten that that uh the way that graph is going. We need to flatten that out like

065it was before. Mhm. And just another some other points, community points that we're hearing throughout the community just so we can clear it up. We're trying to control the controllables, right? So if we look at the salaries and we see the increase, that's that's sort of out of our control because that's contractual. So nobody's getting any crazy raises that weren't predicted were under contract and those that increase is not controllable. That is contractual. So when we look at salaries and the contractual that that 845,000 that's not controllable. Um what are what about the Boseies services? Is that controllable or is that contractual? So what does that entail? anything that we purchased through Boseies. So, and we did we looked at Boseies and we looked at you know it's sort of a a give and take

066because anything you purchase through Boseies you do receive aid. Yes. The next year. So, but it is money upfront. Mhm. So, and we did reduce several Boseies purchases thinking, you know, if we're looking at reducing positions, would we rather give up some of the Bose services and not reduce as many positions? And we did do some of that because um that would that increase would have been probably higher when we rolled over the budget at the $99 million mark. But we just don't see that in this because it's very clear that we're we're not increasing equipment that's controllable. We're not increasing materials and supplies that's controllable. Just so that there's been a lot of community, you know, concern about, you know, salary raises and and things of that nature, but that's out of our control.

067Right. And some of the things you would see in the contractual line too, that's where the that gas and electric would be for example or um some of our special education related services we contract for. So those are things we have to have within the budget. Um BOSIE services again some of our special education programming is in there. Those are high ticket Boseies items and that number was higher than than the 950,000. So we did decrease in that area as well. Okay. Thank you. This table just shows over the last five years what our overall percentage increase to the the total budget number has been from 2122 forward. And then of course this year the proposed budget increase is a 6.45% increase. And somebody asked a good question at the community forum and I think

068it it's worth clarifying. They said, "So wait a minute. Does that mean that our taxes are increasing 6.45%." And no, it doesn't. So the budget is increasing 6.45%. The proposed tax levy increase is 1.9%. And then um the next couple of slides summarize again the the reduction in positions that we did make as part of the budget process. And um these are the same slides we reviewed a couple of weeks ago. But then again just for reminders or people who may not have um had access to this presentation before. So the total positions reduced um or was 59. Much of this was accomplished through retirements and resignations. So so far to this point we've had 16 retirements, 13 resignations, and 15 fair dismissals. Um some of some specially certified positions will still have to be

069replaced. So, for example, chemistry or physics, that's a special certification. Not everybody has it. So, if a chemistry or physics teacher retires at the high school, you would have to hire for that position. Um, we don't necessarily have someone else there that possesses that certification. In terms of actual layoffs, um, we have at this time four instructional staff, 15 non-instructional staff. This is subject to change. based on future resations. And I would mark I would say that as of tomorrow, it will be three instructions. But I do know of a resignation coming in that it's going to reduce um that four to three. And again, we would typically find out about these probably the middle to end of next month because as schools and districts go through the interview process, um staff would wait until

070they are board approved just like we would counsel our staff to do the same and then they would hand us their resignation. So given that it is still mid to late April, um my guess is not only we bring back all of those instructional positions, but we'll probably have to hire for more. And that's just the typical 3% um 3% retention rate or 97% retention rate. We lose roughly 3% of our teachers every year. So we're hopeful that anybody who is on that list instructionally will be coming back. And quite often, how how do you fall within the non-instructional? There's quite a turnover in some of those areas as well. Instructure is a little different because with the non-instructural, a lot of that was really led by um annual reviews and projections for special education

071students next year. I mean, typically you want to provide students with education in least restrictive environment, meaning that you want to ease off some of those restrictive um interventions as they get older. So, a lot of students who had one to ones, we were able to place them with two to ones, which reduces staff. And a lot of the students as they become eighth graders, ninth graders, tth graders, you really want to pull that intervention back completely to allow them independence to continue to grow and be ready to graduate into the workforce. So what you're looking at with the non-instructional staff was less of a need for onetoone aids and we don't have a position. We really were reducing by 15, but in truth, I believe it was 27 um that we reduced. So, we're

072actually keeping 12 to redistribute throughout the district for more student support um and help within buildings with with student needs. So, a lot of the all of the non-instructional reductions were really based on a lack of need as opposed to a necessity to reduce that position. Does that make sense? Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. And should you have more resignations or retirements in that specific area, you too would have the opportunity to call these folks back. Same process by seniority. Everybody received a letter. It was numbered. We keep track of the numbers and as soon as the jobs become open, we call them back in order of their seniority. Um, obviously from 15 all the way up from one all the way down to 15. I mean, thank you. Yep. The next slide kind

073of summarizes the 59 positions that were reduced. Um, we had a couple of questions asking if we could add numbers to these um different categories. Uh, these numbers don't represent layoffs, but total reductions. Many are retirements, resignations or fair dismissals and are subject to change. But these are all the different categories where the reductions took place. So uh it ranges from administration to clerical uh the multi-tered system of supports coordinator, special area teachers, interventionists, secondary teachers, special education, instructional coaches, student support services, teaching assistants, aids and monitors, custodial anything? No, I don't. Again, again, it's just important to note that these are not layoffs. These are reductions that we made through attrition and working with our bargaining units as well as our administrators as to where we can make these layoffs without really impacting what

074we can provide for kids each and every day. And I think that's important that you keep referencing more because it's not programs, it's reductions that we made due to a person maybe not meeting in a certain area anymore. But when it comes to those programs, people care about, people talk about, we made sure to keep it student centered so that we are keeping all those things and providing the same, you know, services we always provide. We're just able to do it in this way. looking at what we could do it with the people we have and we work with again our our FTA, our awners association as well as our administrative association as to what positions we build back first, what they feel is most important that we bring back if we have the ability

075to do so um as as we stabilize the budget. So really it's been a collaborative effort looking into what's best for kids, working with different stakeholders and trying to come up with a plan that can help balance the budget but really have a minimum impact on the academic supports and programming we can provide for students. Just a couple of slides regarding a contingency budget. It's not a scenario we want to find ourselves in, but I think it's important to share the facts on what could or would happen if the budget does not pass. In that event, the district has some options. Can put the same budget out for a revote. You can put a revised budget out for a revote or the district could go directly to a contingency budget without a revote. Uh, a

076contingency budget does have certain requirements. There's no permitted tax levy increase. Uh the percentage of the administrative portion of the budget to the administrative portion plus the program portion cannot exceed the lower of the prior year or the last defeated budget, whichever one is lower. Uh for us that would be an 11.28%. You must remove or reduce non-contingent expenses. The biggest example of that is equipment purchases. And then we must also reduce other contingent expenses such as further reductions to materials, supplies, and contractual expenses. Uh just adjusting some of the numbers. If we did take out um the tax levy increase, the overall budget number would be 93,766,450. really the three-part budget, the um percentages stay roughly the same. Program is still 75.7%, capital 14.8%, administrative 9.5%. Then, um a breakdown, and again, this is

077a draft um but taking out some further expenses. Basically, again, we're taking out the the increase in the tax levy, which is $431,390. Um, you're able to reduce a little bit in several of the different expense categories. Salaries, um, again, equipment is a must. You have to reduce those expenses, some contractual and materials and supplies, um, to reduce the budget by the required amount. it becomes much more difficult when you're reducing that last um 400 and some thousand. You know, you're really kind of nickel and dimming and it it's it's tough. Um these are reductions that that could be made to meet the requirements. It does meet the requirement of the admin to the admin plus program percentage. you know, if we if we did go to a contingency budget, the team would certainly need

078to gain further input from the board to ensure that everyone's comfortable with the reductions in each category in terms of the specifics. So, as I said, this would be more of a draft, but [Music] how much would it cost the community if we had to run a second vote? Yeah. Um, that's you read my mind, Tim. It's actually at the bottom of this next slide. The additional cost of a revote is right around $20,000. Um, and then additionally in this slide, what types of things are reduced in the contingency budget? As I said, the reduction of equipment expenses, funds to pay for extracurricular advisors, supplies, and contractual expenses associated with extracurricular activities, funds for field trip expenses, some salaries and miscellaneous salary expenses. for example, substitute pay for clerical funds for meetings outside of school

079hours, etc. Some funding for modified athletics, additional reductions in supplies, and additional reductions in contractual expenses. Also, uh community using buildings, community using buildings, you're right, that's also has to be um stopped. So, the contingency budget leaves us little room for anything extra. So when people, you know, ask about a project or an opportunity, unfortunately, the answer has to be very often no because we simply would not have the extra funding. So you know, my sincere hope is that we did not have to move in this direction. But I think it's important to share the facts of, you know, what what the steps are should should that occur. I appreciate you bringing that um to attention because that's quite often I'm not sure about the rest of my colleagues, but that is what I've been

080hearing a lot this week about people just saying they're going to vote no for whatever their reasons are and everybody's reasons are valid, but they don't know necessarily what a contingency is. Even to say contingency, people didn't even know that that was a thing. So for you to put some of these things and we still as a district are trying very very hard to make sure nothing comes away from that academic in the classroom student. So these are things that people might not have thought about. Um that $20,000 that would be a huge hit for us to have to possibly do that again. But as you said there were three roles. We may not end up going to that revote and it might be directly to a contingency, right? Um, people's voices count. I know

081a lot of people don't realize that by not coming out to vote, these types of things can happen. I mean, this is taking away from our kids, and we don't want to take away from our kids, period. The whole program is our kids. you know, the academics, the safety and academics the most important, but these are what keep our kids coming back to school so that we don't have the absenteeism problems and that, you know, that's helping them with an release and an outlet um from their day. So, um everybody in the community, your vote is super super important important. Your voices count. Um I think that we've heard it too that that uh there are people who may not own homes who think that they cannot vote. Correct. What is the cuto off date

082for somebody who may not or have we hit that date? The cuto off date if someone is not registered to vote but they live here May 6th. May 6. Is that what you said? So there is the opportunity for people who may not have that register. They're not registered to vote to still get on call into our superintendent's office. They will help you get that set up. But everybody's vote is so important when it comes to the budget. That's just my little You're right. public opinion, private opinion. And I think it's just important that the community knows that if we end up having to go to the contingency, I mean, we don't have a choice to go outside of those areas, the flexibility, the ability to do some of those things, we kind of don't

083have the control at that point cuz that's where the state steps in and says this is what you're going to do. And I just feel like again, we've really tried to not impact the students, our kids in that way. And so I think that's the important get out to vote, make sure we can keep these things, the things that, you know, people in our community are proud of. You know, those are the things that go after because they're not quote required things. But as Brenda says, you know, these are the things that our kids come back for. These are the things that keep kids in the seats. These are the things that prevent our absenteeism from going lower. You know, that's what we're fighting for when we're trying to pass this budget is to make

084sure we don't end up in those situations. Okay. The if we had to go to contingency, this bottom number here on your next slide, I probably getting ahead. Uh would save what? 300 or 4,000 uh $431,390. And we got to figure in the 20,000 it's going to cost. So, we're looking at saving uh $411,390. Yeah. What impact is that on the on you had the slide of what was going to cost each household that 100,200 and300,000. All right. At a $300,000 home, what am I saving by reducing it by $411,000? I don't need an answer right now. You may not. I'm talking it's going to cost me134 $134 a year in my taxes and by reducing it by $411,000 uh I'm going to save six bucks. Yeah. You know in my tax levy I you

085know it's the contingency is it's it's a waste really. I mean we're it's going to cost us to do a contingency. So what are we saving? I mean you know what what is an individual saving on his taxes? I can I can work that out for you. Thank you. Maybe at the next meeting. I I It won't take me that long. No, I just I'm sitting here not for me but for the public, you know, for the public. What's the What difference is that $411,000 going to be? Essentially, what does it cost me to say no? Right? Because that could be the deciding factor between somebody coming out or not coming out to vote too if they think that, well, it's not really going to save me that much, so what's the point? Right? So

086maybe in our next budget forum, we say at the current budget, if it passes, it's going to cost you 34 $34 per 100,000. Uh if you go to a contingency, it's going to cost you $30 per thousand. So, you know, wouldn't what did they just wouldn't they not pay an increase in taxes? So, it would cost about $11 a month for a $300,000 house or $150, right? because they wouldn't be paying that $133 extra a year. Divide that by 12. Yeah. But Nick is saying that you also incur a $20,000 if we go back. The difference would be in the difference the taxes would stay the same as they are this year. There just would be an increase. So the increase is $134. To your point, it' be like $11 a month for a $300

087household at the at the at the 94 million. If if we're in contingency, maybe there is no tax increase, the taxes wouldn't go down. They would stay the same as they are this year. They just wouldn't go up, right? So $135 a year, which is what 11 bucks a month, 12 bucks a month. That's for the 300. We can slide for that in the final presentation down the to your point, not very much. Right. Right. Couple soling to save, you know, a couple of dollars. Control over what's best for our kids to save, right? anywhere from 4 to 12. Thank you. Said so eloquently. Uh the last slide or last couple slides just a review of our timeline. We do have one more budget or budget meeting board meeting um next Tuesday. The 29th or

088the 29th? No. Well, we have a city budget vote on the 29th. city vote on the and then we have 13th. Yep. And then we have the 8th we have the public budget and Yep. And the 13th regular meeting and then the budget vote on the 20th. One of the things that I was was thinking um was that we may want to add and we'll talk as a team. We'll add another budget forum. I just think we've had an opportunity. We probably should put that back out there again as people are really thinking about the contingencies and and other pieces. I think the other thing I would add is that um we want everybody to be informed voter and we want to make sure reach out to us. We gave a an there's an email

089address that goes directly to uh Miss Hooper with respect to SCSD-Budget.org. There's also um the obviously you can watch the live streams, the PowerPoint and I apologize for the sun coming in. We don't normally have that much sunshine. We had sunshine tonight. Um those slides are all on the budget website as well as the board docs. So you'll find this presentation will be on there tomorrow and every presentation we've done around the board or the budget is on that website for the Fulton City School District. Um so there's a number of places reach out to us call us again. We want to we want to hear from you. Um we met with one of the schools yesterday uh in a sitebased meeting and actually one of the adjustments we made to a slides and I

090came out of that meeting. Um, and so again, we are listening and sometimes people may see other solutions or strategies that we may not be seeing. So I think every conversation we have, every interaction allows us to put another lens on the budget and think about things and make sure that we're maximizing what we're trying to accomplish here for our kids. Yeah, I was going to say that. I mean, as we've been going through the budget forums, people have been giving you guys what the are their solutions, which I like that you said you added another slide because of that. So, um, there are people out there who have things to bring to us that maybe we haven't thought before of and I know you guys have been going over everything over and over again

091and it's been um, a long process for you and you bring it back to us, but our community members having those extra ideas I think is wonderful. Their voices are important and I think it's wonderful. I think they also it also helps us, you know, point out where we need to clarify more. Yeah. you know, where the questions are, where the misunderstandings may be or where the ideas lie as well. I think that's a great point. And Kate, I'm sorry to let you know, I do not make $500,000 a year as a board member. Yeah, that is. Yes, I forgot to mention that part. That was one of the misconceptions. I just wanted to let you know there's nothing in the budget where the board makes any money. I I was kind of insulted. I

092saw that online and I said, you know what? Sorry. I didn't see that, Tim. But I Yeah. No, but I think that's what's helpful. I mean, sometimes I think there's misinformation that gets out there and when it's brought to our attention, we give the accurate information. Um, you know, because we want people again to have accurate information. May not and I think that's really important um that we do that. So, and you guys are always just an email or a phone call away. Like again, you can always reach us at our clerk email address. Um if we the board don't have the answer, we will get it to the proper people to get that information out. But I know that uh Superintendent Palino always is available. Um he will talk to you on the phone

093or through email or in person. He's always answering your question. Kate's been really good about answering the budget community portions of the question. So the district is they we try to be very transparent. do want you guys to be informed and to know what's going on in in this budget process. So, please continue to call and ask or send emails because you guys are working in it every day and you have the answers for our community and I appreciate all that you guys have done thus far in this budget process. I know it's been a tough one and I and I appreciate all the work that you guys have done. So, thank you. All right, that conclusion of the superintendent report. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, we're going to move on to our financial

094accept um section 4.01 to accept the financials. Can I get somebody to move it? Move it. Second. Tim and Tim, is there any discussion? I'd like a little bit of an overview. So, Paula, could you give us a little clarity on uh what some of these uh financial reports are, please? Yes. So each month you are provided the reports that are both the revenue and the budget status reports. Um these basically are more detailed to what Kate has already provided for you in her presentation. So what you get are three different funds. The general fund, the cafeteria fund, and the special aid fund. And the special aid is where all our grants are housed. Um so you get the reports for these monthly that is again revenue and expense. The other items that you receive

095are the extra classrooms that are uh at the junior high and at the high school level. And then the uh third report that you get is the treasurer's report which is our cash reconciliation for the end of the month. Um so you can see across those lines you can see what our cash balance is. It also lists our inner fund transfer. So when we receive money and we transfer it to say capital or to special aid to pay those expenses that are within those funds. If there's a specific question I can address that but that's kind of the broadest overview of those reports. Paula, you send us these in our emails. These are under the warrant or are you only sending those to the audit committee? No, I think what you're talking about, Brenda, is

096the audit committee receives the warrants. Yes. Before the warrants go to the full board. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure that Miss Fell wasn't missing anything. She missed. Is that clarify? Yeah. All right. Um, all those in favor? I I opposed abstaining. Passes 500. Action 4.02 to accept donation from the Fulton Lions Club. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed abstaining. Passes 500. Action 4.03 accept the donation from Fulton Savings Bank. Tim and Nick. Was that Nick? Yes. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed abstaining. Passes 500. I want to thank both the Lions Club and the Fulton Savings Bank for their generous donation. Thank you very much. Action 5.01, the resolution of appreciation for teachers for our um declaration from May 5th to the 9th which is appreciation

097week for our teachers. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I opposed abstaining. Passes 500. I want to thank all of our um faculty for the work that they do. We see you. We see the the great strides you go through to uh work with our kids and and bring great things to them. So, thank you for reading that uh declaration for us, Mr. Pino. And thank you to all of our staff for the wonderful things you do with our students. Our next uh agenda item is a roll call. This will be to approve the 2526 tenative budget. So, first I need somebody to move that. Move it. Second. So Nick and Timrandle. All right. I am a yes. Mr. Connor, yes. Mr. Kandle, yes. Mr. Dalorm, yes. And Mrs. Prague, yes. That will move.

098500. It passes. Action 5.03, adopt the 2025 2026 property tax report card. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I opposed abstaining. Passes 500. Action 5.04 to approve the sponsorship of continuing education for adult education programs. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Passes 500. Action 5.05 approve committee on special education. Move. All those in favor? I did I did I get a second? I didn't hear. Okay. All right. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstaining. Passes 500. All right. So, for the policies, it was our first read. We had quite a few that we needed to read through. Was there any discussion on any of those policies or from anyone on our policy committee you want to add? I'll just throw it in there. We had some other policies, too. A

099lot of these were just the bread and butter, making sure that we have them up to date. Some of them hadn't been updated or looked at since before I was born. So, we figured it was about time to look at some of those or, you know, that was when they were originally put in. So, we wanted to make sure we were updated on language and those things. Some of the policies overlap. So that's why some of them we're going to look at it again during next meeting which we're having another one in May and just kind of look and say do we need this in one policy two versus four so it's all clear so people understand if they go in and look at the policy they can understand what's expected of them. So that's

100our update on policy. Thank you Tim I appreciate that. Okay for our personnel would my colleagues be interested in batching 7.01 to 7.09. I first want to state that uh we did have one change that I forgot to ask you about at the beginning. Mr. Caldino, do you want the uh 7.08 just it had indicated um an appointment for spring sports. Actually, we have girls wrestling in the winter. So, it's a winter sports appointment. So, it's for next year's uh wrestling season. Okay. So, that is 7.08 just for clarification. So, would somebody be interested in batching 7.01 to 7.09? 09 move it. That's Tim and Tim. I'll second. Yeah, whatever. Okay. All those in favor? I opposedaining. Passes 500. All right. Board forum this evening. Mr. Crannle, would you like to start us off? Oh,

101sure. Uh, I want to thank Kate for everything she spoke about tonight. I want to thank Mr. Priscilla for an update on that and hopefully we I don't know with us approving the budget tonight. That's just a tenative. If we were found, if we found savings or could look into something else and we saw that that would change, right? We just, you know what I mean? We just approved it. That the what you approved was the number. If we underspend that budget, there's no problem. That's our maximum budget for next year. So the idea is if we underspend that budget by a million dollars, that's a good thing. 2 million. I mean, that's the number. That's the target number for the budget that you can't go over. That's the group. We do not want to

102go over it. So if the state gave us more money, like we could do different things with it, but we can't go over or spend more than we, right? That's kind of what I improve the spending. We got Kate. She's got a plan. Anything else you'd like to add? And that's it. M. Well, I'd like to say again, thank you, Kate. You make an intimidating subject less intimidating. Sorry. And I want to say thank you again to the administrative team because I know how hard you guys work and I was one that I never understood it. So I'm really kind of glad I'm here and I watch how hard everyone works and everyone tries to keep the budget in control and without the loss of anything for the kids and and I love that. I

103want to say welcome Mr. Florence. And I want to say I'm glad you brought up to the community about getting out there and voting because, you know, a lot of people do take the attitude, no, I'm not going to vote. It probably just pass. And I believe that a lot of people who look at it and they don't understand it, they might go out and just say, no, no, no. And we want people to understand it. And please contact anyone to get the accurate information because there is so much inaccurate information out there. If it's on Facebook, people still take the idea. It's it's it's true. It must be true. And I wish they get away from that and go with facts. Thank you, Mr. Dorm. Yes. Um I just want to thank Mr. Priscilla.

104Uh, feso I don't want anybody to think it's Billy. Anyway, what a great opportunity for be able to offer 63. Did you say Brian? 63. Presently 63. This would increase that. Wow. Uh, opportunities the opportunity to earn college credits. Uh, Mrs. Hooper, always a great presentation when you talk numbers. Um, looking forward to that that number, that adjustment. I I think if people could could look at the the difference between our budget and the contingency and what a small number that's going to be over a year added, you know, to our or what they think we're going to save. I think that'd be great. Um again, welcome to Mr. Lawrence. Uh, and uh, if there's parents out there who haven't voted and you've got kids in this district, please, please, please, our numbers are small

105if I remember right. I mean, I I look at those annually and it's around 700. About 700. And how many kids do we have? Approximately 3,000. A little over 3,000, which equates to how many families? I think we said about We have approximately 1,800 families. 1,800 families. We should be getting at least 1,800 votes out there. Unless these are all young families under 17, you know, they can't vote. Um, but anyway, that that's that's about it for me. Just thanks everybody for presentations and um looking forward to that budget passing. Can I kind of jump in here? I'd also like to say um for Mr. Fulo, I was one of those kids that I couldn't take a test to save my life. I could get straight A's through the whole course, but it came to

106a test. I bombed. I took geometry, this going back a long time, three times to pass that regions. I was getting A's in the class, but I couldn't pass the regions. So, so I'm I'm I'm pretty happy about that. Yeah, the college credits alone right there is wonderful for our kids. Our kids going in, some of our kids go in and they're at a sophomore level by the time they come out of Fton. I hear it every year. uh proud parents who whose kids are moving in and they're not really freshman in college, they're sophomores. So, you know, thank you guys for providing so many opportunities for for students. Mr. Connor, you know, I always end up in this position where I'm like the last couple, you know, I I always want to just, you

107know, continue the thank yous to everybody, you know, whether it be the donations, whether it's the people in our district working hard. I know I ended up in a couple of the schools and areas the other day and just you know hearing everybody you know running around and you know positive voices you know some sometimes you walk into scenarios and you're thinking uh I don't know if this is the best place but hearing the positivity people going around people going through their day you know getting there between the bells and hearing that and thinking oh my goodness it's going to be awful getting through but still getting through and it's okay you know all those little things add up to making a successful day and making a successful environment for our students. So, I'm glad

108to see that and I'm thankful for all the teachers and people putting effort in our district to make that a possibility because it's not like that everywhere. I really want to say, you know, I'm glad what we were able to put forward for the budget. When I hear about places where we're one of the few places in the county, let alone if you keep going out, that offer strings as an option for music. when I hear about some of the opportunities we offer for college credits, some of our internships, those different things, those things that separate us, not only in the county, but across the state where other people are looking us and saying, "How do we do that?" And I'm glad we're able to keep those things and make sure those things keep going.

109And I want the parents out there to continue pushing forward. You know, whether it be safety, whether it be certain academics, whatever it is, tell us what you want. Tell us what's important to you. And we want to make sure we keep that in the budget like we've tried to do this time just because we want to make sure that our education that we're providing to our students, your kids in the community reflects the values and things that you want. And we want to make sure that we're providing the opportunities will not only allow them to be successful in school cuz you know what, Brit, you had a B+ in economics when you were in high school. How about I can go out, I have a job, and I can pay and I can afford

110to have a family and do those things. Those are the things we're trying to set up in the Fulton City School District that you not only succeed in high school but you go on to succeed in life. And I think the way we're positioning things, your work, Mr. Pulo, everything trying to go over to how can we set up our kids to be successful not only in school but in life, I want to keep that going forward and I hope to continue that as I run for the board for another term, three more years to hopefully continue this positive trend of preparing our kids to go out in the world and be successful. Thank you. And I really don't know how to follow up behind Mr. Connor. So, um I'm going to definitely say ditto

111to what my colleagues have said. Um I do want to say I I mean you've already had two April champions and I mean they have been wonderful to watch. If if you haven't had the opportunity to watch um you know Mr. Kapani go around and and and joke on the wonderful things our um community is doing and um I I feel like you could you know have your own TV show like you you just do such a great job out there and those kids love when you tell them that you know they're going to cheer loudly for who walks in the door and like they erupt in a beautiful noise yes and I I can't wait for who our anonymous third person is because have we done that? I I know I've seen we've done

112it. We know it will be out Friday. is Tracy Waldron and Ran. Okay. So, very well. Who hopefully isn't watching. Well, no. She apparently knows. Oh, you've already you already. So, so we had Mel Thomas and Carol Lavoy and now that would be Tracy. Tracy Wolves. So, I cannot wait to watch uh just wonderful opportunities to even just thank our staff for the wonderful things that they do. We have a lot of great things going on here in Fton and I am I am so proud to be part of it. Um, we will move on to a second public forum if anybody would like to join us at the podium. Come on back up, Frank. I'll start that please. Okay. Uh, the percentage of raises for the admins, what what percent are they receiving a

113raise? You said that the other, you know, people are getting three to five for collective the admins that are part of a collective bargaining contract are getting 4%. Okay. So, how many how much is the admin raises? What's the total of those? I would have to look that. Okay. All right. And what takes me took me back real quick was the fact that well, if we got to do a second vote, it's going to cost us $20,000 and that's a big hit to the taxpayers. But you didn't say anything about the $93,000 you're losing in revenue because you took this away from Bosis. Okay. And you didn't say anything about the $40,000 that I brought up that you were losing by sending the people out to Manto. But $20,000 to have the people have a

114second chance to vote on a budget that you guys have got to bring. You know, you guys don't have to bring another budget forward to them. You don't. I know that. You can say, "Well, we're not going to. We're just going to go to a contingency." But, you know, you guys aren't going to be very, you know, pleasantly welcomed in the community if you don't come back and say, "We're going to reduce it. We're not going to, you know, lay people off. We're going to rehire people, and the rates not going to go up, but this is what we're going to do, and the people will vote for it." But I I said it last night, and I'll say it again tonight, and I've said it on Facebook. I'm voting no on this budget. Why?

115because there's too much fat in there and there's too much misspending of money and really $20,000 is going to be a big hit and I don't $93,000 a year is what you're going to lose revenue from Boseis but $20,000 to give the people a second chance to vote that's a big hit. I'm sorry. You know, it's it's amazing what happens. And I I'm not surprised, but you know, you guys and it's not the percentage of money that you're putting in, okay? And it's going to be a low amount if we, you know, you're only going to save. It's going to go to $11 is all we're going to say. It's not that. It's the point that the people have a right to vote. And if they don't like something, they're going to tell you, but

116you put fear into them saying, "Well, we're going to cut their programs. we're going to cut this, we're going to cut that because if we go to the contingency, this is what's going to happen. And that's what they're afraid of. Last night, I mean, Jeff brought up the point said, "Well, we're going to have to go to a contingency." But I'm glad that you brought up the point that we have to go to a second vote before we go to a contingency budget. Okay. Now, you guys know we don't vote we don't vote on the f city budget. We don't vote on the county budget. I vote on the county budget and I vote no every time because there's too much fat in there given to the admit admit, not the rank and file. And

117that's what the people are, you know, they need somebody that's going to stand up and say there's too much fat. Cut the fat. All right, your time. Don't cut the rest of it. Thank you very much. Have a great night, everybody. We will be moving into a brief executive session. And can I have somebody move moving into the executive session? Tim, can I have somebody second that second? Second. All those in favor? I opposedaining. Passes 500. Thank you for joining us this evening. Please come out and vote your [Music] All right. Somebody move action 9.01. Adjournment. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Abstaining. Passes 500. Thank you so much for joining us this evening.