Budget, Finance and Growth Committee Meeting February 20, 2026

001Good morning everyone. Uh welcome to uh the Cincinnati School Board's um uh we call finance committee but really its total title uh is budget finance and growth committee. uh we meet on a monthly basis about this time uh and date uh and we are going to go around and introduce ourselves uh and then we'll get right to the meeting. We have a lot to discuss today. Uh I'm Eve Poulton, a board member and to my right is >> uh good morning everybody. I am Jim Crossit board member. >> Good morning. Michael Gustin, treasure and CFO. >> Uh Liz Martin, assistant treasur controller. Kevin Ashley, director of financial reporting and transparency. >> Emma Mueller, internal audit supervisor. Phyllis Davis, board's administrative assistant. >> Rob Wilson, technician. And if you'd like to speak during the speaking of

002the public part of this session, please click the hand icon. We'll invite you over at the end of the meeting to speak. >> Thank you. And Madam President, >> Emily Bell with Ask Me, Local 232. >> Morning. Karen Imbis, Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, field representative. >> Adam Gner, director of business technology. >> Nan Agood, federal programs manager. >> Thank all here. The superintendent is not in attendance today because she is participating in leadership Cincinnati. Uh, and we're excited for her to be doing that and very excited to be sharing her with the leadership of Cincinnati. Uh we'll begin and we'll get right to the agenda if it's all right. Does anybody have a particular thing regarding timing that they need to be early or out or hard stop? We have lots of wonderful discussion and

003lots of uh information to share. Uh treasure, you want to uh get us started? >> Sure. Sure. We'll start with old business. Um first item on the agenda is a committee work plan. So in your packets um you have an updated version of the work plan. Thank you board members for submitting your feedback. Um couple so we did make a couple of adjustments. Probably the big things to point out um I would like to if it pleases the committee to move the March meeting to the 27th um which is also my birthday. So >> we can plan a party or >> of course. Yes. Um so so we'll put and then also um the >> Davis do remember that as we have to have a birthday party for the treasurer. >> Everybody knows we have

004to keep the treasurer happy. >> Thank you ma'am. Um and then and then the other meeting we talked about is moving the June meeting to the 12th. Um because our regularly scheduled date would would um conflict the Junth holiday. And so I think the idea is to move it earlier, which is good because we have a lot of things to work on in June. And I think we'll do that immediately following the policy committee. >> And does that work for folks? >> Just started just did the introduction. This is member Matt joining us. >> Please excuse me. >> No problem. Um >> the only other thing I would say about the work plan um just just heads up is that um the new five the three-year forecast the budget and three-year forecast um for for

005the second half of this year gets moved to August by law. So that traditionally was in November the November meeting and now it's moved back to the um August meeting. And that's reflected in the new work plan. >> Yes. >> And reflected in the financial transactions requiring board approval as well. >> Great. >> So, >> Mr. Crosset, >> does that move actually benefit the planning to have it that timing or not? Is this doesn't matter? >> Not at all. >> Okay. >> I was ever hopeful. >> I'm sorry. That's my >> Sorry. That is that is my personal opinion, but I >> Okay. >> When is the last board date in June? Do you know a hand >> 22nd? >> So we will be able to maybe present some year end stuff ahead of that

006meeting at finance. >> Just my thought. >> There's always the July meeting that sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't happen. So >> And so our we move the Junth one. >> Yes. To the 12th. >> Okay. And so the 12th would be when this committee would be talking about what Kevin's mentioning. >> Okay. >> Because we have to do year in advances, >> right? >> Um appropriation changes projected out through June 30. So we'll have to do those at the last board meeting. So that give us an it'll still give us an opportunity to do that ahead of the board meeting. >> Okay. Yeah. My my interest is making sure that most of these uh things u take place that are deal with financial aspects uh take place at finance before they go to the board. I

007that works best of the deeper and broader discussion uh and and then move them to the board. keep that in mind and then have the president be aware and as a longtime member of the finance uh committee he's probably is aware um but make sure he knows those hard fast dates not just of our meetings but most particularly when we have to take action on things. Uh members have any other questions as suggestions regarding the work plan? Thanks for submitting a cor suggestions. Now we'll go to uh treasury evaluation. >> Oh yeah, go ahead. I think um one of well one again excuse me for um my tardiness but I think you were um really just kind of speaking on that. So anything that is um obviously discussed um we'll you know preview the information

008in committee but any pertinent information will be shared out to the full board. So maybe a prior um maybe a presentation or so ahead of time so that the full board can be aware of kind of those uh pertinent issues that are coming up. Is that what you were speaking about? >> Yeah. For example, even today it didn't work out this way. Uh but ideally we and we're going to have some dialogue about the capital improvements and the maintenance plan or whatever today. But ideally it would have been some a good discussion about that prior to Monday night's big presentation. Not that it's the same presentation, but that that way the administration has some sort of preview of when some of the questions and the interests >> might be uh and and they can be

009more prepared for their presentations. Yeah. We don't try not to duplicate the presentations, but >> it seems it works best if there's at least three stages to everything. >> Yeah. >> And I and I and we want to be able to do that uh especially at this time with when we're talking in terms of budget and strategic plan. Thanks for the perfect >> clarification. I appreciate it. >> Wanted to make sure I was tracking with you. >> You are tracking with me. >> Okay. The evaluation. Mr. Treasurer, you have introduced this and we've gone through it and we've made some suggestions and you're back with us about what to be doing about it. >> Yes. So I think last last meeting I presented kind of the midyear or kind of midyear up to date. I

010believe um board members were going to kind of do some work on the scoring tool. I think Mr. Crosset was going to going to pull the scoring tool that was used for the superintendent and kind of share that with the committee >> and you guys are going to have some internal committee discussion. >> There you go. Mr. Crosset. Uh yes, the scoring tool is in process. >> Okay. >> I'm not prepared for that for today. >> Okay. >> But uh but I can get that ready fairly quickly and we can do we distribute that before uh the next meeting or how soon do you what's the timing on that? >> Yeah, we have to some point we're going to have to um President Craig President Craig found a kind of a glitch in our policy

011as we we changed the evaluation policy but I don't think it lines up with my contract. So there's some work on that, right? But >> but from from my perspective, I I would, you know, obviously always appreciate feedback and I think this committee is very good at giving feedback um both both kind of written and just and just you know conversational which certainly appreciate. Um I think for me my kind of next big step is is looking at redoing my goals. So, so having having feedback for next meeting and then maybe presenting goals in March because the evaluation timeline is now really like January to December if you think about the the things. So, so look looking at current goals I think some of them carry some of them kind of carry for the year

012some of them >> and some need to >> some of them need to change based on all the things in this world that that are changing. So, my hope would be to bring you some draft goals um in March and then hopefully if you could bring me some kind of consolidated feedback at the same time, I think that would put us in a good spot. >> Mr. Crosset, >> I think the scoring tool generally has to relate to the goals >> and so I could draft a preliminary scoring tool with the existing goals. >> Yeah. >> Would that be helpful? >> That would be helpful. >> Okay. >> That would be helpful. when I would and I would align it as best can with the superintendent. So to meet with Paul McDall about that would

013be great. >> Um for me um I about the the treasur's evaluation. I think one of the things that is interesting and we he and I have had one conversation about this superintendent has I think high stakes results within her evaluation and the treasurer reminded me well I'm not going broke would be one of the high stakes and I and I appreciated that comment but it's there you might have more control over that than than necessarily the superintendent has control as to whether or not the the children are learning. Um, but I think I do like the idea of using the standards in the state of Ohio for a specific purpose and that is the feedback that can occur more. It's easier for board members to have opinions and and um uh expertise uh for

014the superintendent. Uh but so much of your stuff is so technical and and it's terms of language and whatever that the best way we have an opportunity to really influence or share our thoughts about what you're doing is almost through those standards >> and though I so much as best as possible at least providing that commentary part to the evaluation as I know you've included the standards like leadership and financial management and stuff but I that's where we get to really participate a little bit more I think would be helpful. >> Appreciate that. >> Yeah, the um the superintendence um scoring uh tool has a section related to the standard. So we can just mirror that here or or it may even be more prominent here but certainly can would be easy enough to >>

015great >> use it. Yeah, I think it was a um preference I think a previous discussion where kind of having that simulation of like what the superintendent's evaluation um looked like. So yes, obviously there will be some um quantitative you know type of metrics in terms of the goals that you'll um work on but that standards piece also does um help as well as to give us you know give us that room and space for that commentary. So um and again I know from the outset you um ultimately shared your um interest in having it pretty much aligned to what the superintendent's evaluation looks like. >> Great. >> And I think this is thanking policy over the last year and a half getting us on track almost uh and regarding the evaluations and that continues

016to be a discussion regarding general counsel. So this is this is good stuff as best we can do. I will if you if you allow me a minute to >> please. >> Um I think we should we do need to give the board some credit for the evaluation of both the superintendent and the treasurer. And the reason I say this is one of the things that's >> one of the things there exist is this kind of it's kind of like a list serve if you guys remember those from the old days. But there's this daily email chain from OASBO which is the trade group for for school treasures. And and one of the threads I thought funny in the last month was about treasury evaluation tools and and different school districts shared their treasury evaluation

017tools and and the level of difference. I mean a lot of these were were one page one page. What are you doing well? What aren't you doing? I mean ve very simple very >> kind of un unstructured. And I think I think it's a credit to our board um that they've put so much work into these evaluations and and brought them up to a to a high level of professionalism. >> I agree. >> I think he's there. >> I think it's great. I think it's important. Uh it allows us to focus where we're really supposed to be focusing is at level. Um so great. And so I don't know if we want to repeat the month and date time um for Miss Davis as to uh this next month. What would be on the agenda

018for your evaluation? Is that Mr. Crosset reporting back? >> Yes. Okay. And >> on the scoring tool, >> maybe get that distributed to everybody well before the meeting. >> Absolutely. That'd be great. >> Sure. >> So that'll be on for March. And anything else there? Um Mike? Um, I will I will have a draft set of goals for for the calendar year 2026 for you to review. >> Great. So, that'll be March. We'll make sure that gets on the agenda. Super. Any other additions or comments about any of that? All right. Let's move on to our monthly reports if we can. Then we go to our stars star of stage and screen. And um >> today will today will be Kevin Ashley day. So >> Kevin Ashley day. >> He's got them all. >> We

019should do a we should do a resolution. >> We should have had a part a party for today. >> Yes. >> If we bought a cake for Rob, we would have had a party. >> And I won't be here next month, so I'll lord the party. >> All right. So, we'll we'll kind of go quickly on this since I spend a little more time on the forecast. >> Um, but I'm going to start with the overall general ledger total, which at the end of uh January was 92.3 million. Um, kind of looks pretty similar to December except we spent down some cash. Um, and so I'll go on to the next slide and you'll see the general fund was was very low at the end of January. That's our cash flow desert. >> Low spelled

020with like four letters. Low. >> Yes. >> Um so I mean really really that put us in a you know a difficult spot and we were um you know really monitoring that. We had some opportunities we we could have access some cash if we needed to. But um hopefully, you know, not with the current forecast, but hopefully at some point this will be less of an issue going forward. We hope. U >> is there a reason that that happened? >> So, I was going to say a couple things that contributed to that. We did have a three pay month in January. So, we had that extra payroll >> at the end of the month. >> That's about what 13 extra 13 million. >> Yeah. >> Our expenses. So, the timing of that was a little

021bit um we've literally got as much money as we could get in property tax advances from Hamilton County. They put out a schedule. They're better about, you know, being upfront about what the schedule's going to be. >> Oh, good. >> So, we've we've maximized that in terms of getting our requests in, waiting for them to give us the money. actually our advance in January or actually in February. So January we got a little bit of funds that kept us above the 9 million. Um in February now we did get 82 million which was a significant advance based on when the property tax bills were due. So that was all the money they had collected at that point. Uh we are anticipating another advance um we don't really know what that will be uh next week

022late late next week I think. Um, so sigh of relief that we weathered that storm to this point, but it is it is fundamentally a problem that is going to continue as we go forward, either borrowing money, even if it's short-term money, to to make sure that we have enough to to get through that period. Some of you will remember two years ago uh we did a tax anticipation note uh in December to just do a short-term borrowing just so we had the cash on hand and then we paid it back once we got our property taxes in. So >> we avoided that this year but but we we definitely cut it close >> but it is a tool in in the future. >> Y I'm just asking for clarity. So you're saying um kind

023of considering like the borrowing mech mechanism or the tax anticipation note for the month of January because of the um I guess the the money that is going out for those three payroll periods or because the cash balance is low there. I'm just trying to make sure >> Yeah, this it's like we're this is the lowest the cash gets. Um and and it's just because of how property taxes come in. Mhm. >> So, so you know, like again in February, we're we're great now. You know, we have, you know, we got we got $87 billion, but but in but until you get that, you're kind of stuck. So, >> it's just a it's like a short-term borrowing to >> to kind of level out your payment schedule, if that makes sense. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank

024you. >> All right, Mr. Cross. >> Thank you. You said it was a three pay period month. So, are we a 26 pay period organization? >> We are. >> And would there ever be consideration to being a 24? >> I I would love that in so many ways. >> I would I would too. I I agree. But, uh, is that just by contract that that that's probably never going to be able to really be negotiated? >> It is. It is by It is something we would have to negotiate with our unions. >> Yeah. And one thing uh might might be interesting even though we're a 26 pay period organization. Is there a way to uh manage the cash flow on the back end as if it was a 24 so that your cash outlay per

025I don't know just maybe that's too asking Kevin too much just an idea. I mean that's some experience of my own career. We used to do some >> that sort of thing. But >> yeah, >> just a thought. No, no response needed. >> Thank you. >> The other thing I would point out on when we did the borrowing two years ago, we were in a little bit different position in that our long-term investments were really tied up. So instead of doing the tax anticipation note, we could have liquidated some of those items, but we would have taken much more of a hit at that time because of the way things were, the market, the way they were structured. >> This year, we did actually liquidate some of them because our advisors said it won't be

026much of a hit. Actually, it's still a net positive >> to go ahead and and liquidate some of those items >> again going forward. Now, our long-term, it's a mix of investments. It's short and long term, but that portfolio is less than it was two years ago. >> So, so one of the things we will we will do once we get kind of through the full tax settlement is is move some money out of best way to say move some money out of our checking account into into you know high interest savings and into investments to kind of rebalance that. That's that's part part of our cash balance policy is we have a floor and a ceiling. And so as we kind of get too much money too much money in in kind of our

027checking account, you know, we start looking for ways to earn some interest on that. >> The the 24 versus the 26 pay that would require negotiation. >> Certainly. And I know from previous experience um part of the 26 24 is that it's uh it's the amount of of money that we actually pay people that makes it difficult to go to 24. It would be helpful for us but not necessarily helpful for them. Uh perhaps that's part of the issue. >> Um >> Karen looks like she >> Well, I know I keep looking over there. I mean, I'll just comment briefly, >> please. >> Um, >> this was proposed a couple of years ago and the teachers resoundingly um voted it down. Uh, there was a great deal of opposition to it. I think mostly because

028of cash flow issues for teachers and the way things come out of their >> um automatic banking record or bank accounts. Um, so I, you know, obvious it does have to be negotiated. I'm not saying, I mean, >> we always entertain things that the district brings us to negotiate, but um, yeah, couldn't be done unilaterally from our view and I think yours as well. So, thank you. >> AB agreed. >> Cool. >> So, probably no, Mr. Cross, that's moving on. >> The question was the question was, would you like it? Yes. uh ask me here is well does that in in any way impact you all okay >> 26 or 21 >> okay >> that's their folks >> actually I was going to propose a 12 >> you know historically >> may not even be

029funny >> I will say I was say historically we did have people on 12 yeah >> we have done it >> before my time but we definitely had folks on a 12 at one point It's tough. >> All right. >> Okay, let's keep going. >> So, I think as a long-term discussion that it's important to to understand this general fund issue. Um, so anyway, I think that is an important discussion. Um, the next slide is the statement of cash flow relating to just January and then fiscal year to date. If Mike wants to talk on that, >> it's kind of all the stuff we've already talked about. Um, three pay month in January. So you can see salaries and benefits are way up, cash is way down. Luckily, you know, we got a very nice

030advance um in February. So I would just keep going, >> please. >> Uh next slide. This is comparing cash balance for the last the current year in the last two years. Uh I put a note on there for two years ago. At that point, we had the 75 million that we had borrowed. Oh yeah. >> As well as we were getting tax advances. So that's why the balance is kind of artificially high because of those those two factors. Um but even last year we were at 57. Some of that's the timing of the advances uh and the timing of the three pay months or the yeah three pays with the next slide um gives kind of a longer view of cash balance. So you can see those peaks and valleys. Um, again, the green is

031a little off because that's including the $75 million, but otherwise you can see July, August, we hit our high point and then around February, March is our next high point. Uh, next slide is revenues by month or year to date. Again, last three years. The third column is the current year versus what is budgeted or expected to be received for this year. Uh so we're at around 52% through the end of January. Um which pretty much is a little bit less than what we've had the last two years but but basically is not unexpected. Um next slide is expenditures. Uh we're just breaking that down by the blue is salary and benefits. Uh, as you can see, current year is about um $7 million higher. We the three pay months did align last year and

032this year, so that's not a difference. We had August and January both years uh being that extra pay. Sometimes that causes a difference. Um so you can see our expenditures are at about 60% having passed through seven months of the year. Next slide is where we compare the unencumbered uncommitted. Um there's about 28 million. Um as I usually mention, some of that isn't encumbered for things like tuition uh expense that comes through the foundation. We don't have to do a purchase order for those. So that that is sitting there and that will be a commitment. But the difference in that piece, part of that is is the anticipated amount to pull back to cover the cola costs that are coming. >> Yeah, there will be kind of a reallocation um of the of the remaining

033for salaries and benefits versus the unencumbered >> and that's based on the most recent settlement. >> Based on the most recent Yeah. >> All right. And then preschool. Um, nothing really new to report here. We did have from December through January an increase of 30 30 students overall. Uh, with all the holidays in December, probably, you know, it kind of rebounded once we got to the new year. U, but you'll see in comparison to last year, we're still down approximately or a little over approximately 100 kids, I will say. Um, next slide is tuition assistance summary. Um, again this is pretty well tracking as it has been this year. Um, again down a little bit. The next slide is the number of students that benefit from the tuition assistance. There was a slight bump up

034this month. Um, but again with the ECE grant, this being last dollars in all of those things that we talked about before, >> apples and oranges, >> so we won't beat a beat a dead horse there. Uh, next slide is preschool expansion. Um, we did make another United Way payment in January, which is the third line down the middle column of numbers there. The 6.7 is we had an additional payment included there. You can see the year before was only 4.5. So it's just the timing of those payments is the difference there. Tuition assistance calculation is down again based on that last dollar. >> Let me ask a question about that that just that word as we face this budget. Um that word expansion probably can't remain in our vocabulary. Um >> I do recall

035you saying that in a previous meeting. So you know expanded. Yeah, >> because we we didn't ask the voters to expand the amount of money >> and this was the idea when we started this was to expand quality seats and eliminate preschool deserts and what have you, but it's not really a it's no longer an option even if it were a goal. I mean, have we reached that market saturation of of preschool? And I mean, in Hamilton County, a lot of people, as much as everybody likes preschool, there's a whole group of folks that that they'll take responsibility and do that at home >> rather than have a kid, you know, come and be here or whatever. And we never were quite sure how many we would really do. And I think we reached some

036peaks a couple of years ago, but we can't even afford to expand unless we find other sources of income. Is that correct? So when we plan in the budget, we have to anticipate that. That's one of those, I don't know, 150 things we're going to have to build into the budget. And one of them is that preschool's not going to get bigger unless there's other sources or something else gets cut >> or somehow demand changes radically than it is right now. And this is a last dollar in this. Even the money we show doesn't even show you all the money that actually is is being uh contributed towards preschool from a standpoint of last dollar in. >> Yeah. I mean I mean it's important to point out you know we have a lot of kids

037in Head Start kind of title one funded seats. We have a lot of kids in the um state early childhood >> right >> grant. I mean, that's that's just dollar-wise, that's $3 million a year, you know, that funds that funds a lot of seats. And so, and so, yeah, it's it's it's interesting in some regards because a lot of our because, you know, pre because of this last dollar in thing, we we've been pretty consistent in the first dollars in actually expanding. You know, first dollars in have actually expanded from probably two years ago when we got the extra ECE money, >> right? >> And that's and that looks like it's staying consistent. So, >> and and and I think there's a lot I mean I think we should be talking about what the lobbying

038effort ought to be for us. Number one, they ought to be able to count our preschool kids as part of our enrollment. >> We would get money for that. The state doesn't do that. But the other piece is that as there is greater and greater increase of interest statewide about preschool, then we ought to be demanding even more money. So, I mean, that's what I'm saying. another source where we if we can mine the sources that we have that are those first dollars in. Um so just strategically if we can make it preschool um a a target, you know, a a topic for the budget discussion. I think that would be useful as well as a lobbying discussion. Um because we all we better have a lobbying plan because I regardless of who wins the

039November election, whether it's state legislature or whether it's the governorship, we better have a lobby plan ready to go. An an ugly one and a good one if you if you know what I mean because we need to be first in line in Columbus when that happens. We've done that before and it's useful. It's very useful >> thinking back. So, let's make sure the preschool is part of that lobbying effort for us. Since we didn't ask the voters, >> have we uh just a few things that come to mind um as you speak about looking at other um funding sources um to support in the preschool endeavor because we do know that we we do know the the impact and the benefits of uh preschool. And so if if there is a way to expand

040it, you know, obviously we definitely want to do that. So I don't know if there are any other funding sources that we may have not um tapped into and if so, what could those be? But I'm pretty sure that you all probably I know you do your due diligence to make sure that we have uh funding. Yeah, I mean it is a it is a really really complex funding model, but yeah, we we pull federal money, we pull state money, >> we have some families paying tuition, you know, we have the tuition assistance through through the levy. So, there's there's a lot of other things. Um the other thing that we sometimes fail to mention is um our preschool disability students >> transation. They are in they are included and transportation in the state funding

041formula. They're one of the things the state actually funds. So we so we get some so we get some formula dollars for those students as well. >> It's a it's it's yeah it's a very it's it's a pretty wild grid. I mean you can see if you go back a couple slides um the abbreviations in this thing like if you yeah if you go back to that slide >> that's a state footprint there's abbreviations all the abbreviations all the different funding sources. So there's like ECE plus expansion. So that's early childhood grant. There's ECE plus federal. There's these are all these different ways that kids can be funded. there's, you know, all these different options. It just >> I will say I will say Director Brooks and her team do do a great job of

042of working through all that. Um, >> and then just another point um to kind of transition um and I think it aligns with what you said. I re I recall President Craig uh kind of speaking about maybe the focus isn't so much expansion now. like you said, we may have um met that like plateau, but um what it looks like in terms of the supports or the the quality that we put into um our preschool uh model. So, I I'm sure that's a conversation that we can continue to entertain as well. >> Yeah, I think that is important. I think to your point about the importance of it, I'm sure one of the major reasons that we led the the eight urbans in early literacy is our preschool program. And um you could even make

043a knowing how far back that now goes. Those first preschoolers are in the high schools now and and indeed what else did we do well uh the first year that they tested it which was readiness career college and and military. So it's it's it's crucial and people just around the state like can't believe that we have this preschool program and and they we are envied because of it. Jim. >> Yeah. I think uh we've got this strategic plan coming up. I think uh what might be important is to really study as best we can the future demographics. I think we've got we're a little bit of a trough between the baby booms and so it could be that uh you know we have a I think ourou with the preschool promise is now got some

044enrollment basis and so it could be that uh we have to take a good look at what that en future enrollment is going to look like especially in the next few years because the $15 million that's in the levy that just passed will be worth a whole lot less five years from now in terms of real spending. >> So just thought about around that. >> Uh the other thing that concerns me is we get pretty good data on CPS students who uh are arriving in kindergarten in CPS in terms of kindergarten readiness. There is really almost no data on the kids that come from preschool promise. It's not being measured. So, I think that's just something I don't know if it's even measurable, but uh I do think that that's you know, I've had during

045uh my time in the community, you get questions from civic leaders about how how is it going and you can't answer that question, you drive school promise very well. So, >> yeah, I I don't know if I uh quite agree. I think um uh Miss Char uh provides a lot of data um and comes to the board or at least in my time of being present, she's um made um several appearances to the board and provide a wealth of data. Maybe we just need to make sure that we are um having maybe more discussions so that we can talk about how those things align and how um it's all working towards one common goal, right, of making sure that our um you know, little learners in our community have uh access to preschool and the

046impact. I I do think that like one thing I know about her, she provides a wealth of data. Um, so >> I I've been digging into it and I I've been frustrated because the the comparative data is not available. >> Okay. Well, >> so something we can maybe work on. >> Yeah, let's make sure that we work on um bringing the two together and have that conversation. >> I think that would be good. I think uh to uh one of the things that is always has always been of interest from the very beginning was what's the percentage of the preschool promise kids that are in the private providers that then join in kindergarten join CPS and I know that's a percentage I like to kind of watch because you know we think everybody needs to

047be in our in our system. Uh and so I think that might be some good topics to kind of drill into if we can. That'd be great. Okay. Thank you. >> So, next uh state and federal grants. >> Uh oh, >> Miss Hey, good. Uh oh. >> Get ready. All right. So, for the grants in, um January, things are just kind of moving along as expected. We are just right at our target of 40%. Um again, carryover is slowly getting kind of incorporated and spin out. We're starting to see contracts and POS coming in. Our total grants did go up just slightly. We got about 200,000 in new state grants um both targeted towards safety through our security department um and mostly towards equipment. So there is a slight increase there and of course all

048those details are available on that summary that you can download. So we're just moving along. Next slide. All right. Here's the the overall picture. We just hit our target right at 40% in the seventh month of our spend year. Um this month we've been busy trying to wrap up last year meeting with principles to get that last burst of spending you know especially for title one and we're deeply embedded in 27 budget planning staffing planning out of um title one getting the colas incorporated once they passed. So we kind of got one foot in last year and moving on like um everybody else. Um but we are seeing a lot of activity definitely in in spending. All right, next slide, Rob. So, here's where we're at. We're a little bit down um below our goal

049in Title One. We did get a little more carryover than we had originally planned. So, we're meeting with the superintendent and others to spend out that money. So, that's the main reason for that is because our um our total Title One went up a little, which is always good. We've got more money, not less money. Other than that, we're at or above target on on most of our consolidated grants and and finishing out plans for the year. >> Nan, can you talk just two sentences about the reallocation process? I think this is kind of fascinating with the federal with the grants and carry. Yeah. >> As far as what they like awarding the sweeps out. >> Yeah. So, we really have three award periods for the federal grants. And so, when we get our initial

050award normally in in June, this year it was a little later. um they the state only actually kind of awards 85% of what they receive from the feds to kind of you know make sure they don't overallocate and so on. Then when we complete our fees normally at the end of September um that tells us how much carryover we're going to get based on what we spent. But then what they also do in December is they have a sweep period. And so anybody for example that um you know didn't spend 85% of title one they sweep that from all the districts. And so then there's another allocation period that happens in the early spring which normally would be happening right now where they take all those funds that were swept even grants that don't have

051carryover like SSI and they redistribute it again over the schools that are remaining. And so you know there's several kind of um procedures that happen. It happens for us and the non-public schools. And so our numbers are always you know slightly changing as the year goes by. Um, and I think as I pointed out last year, they are looking at things now, starting to look at. If you're a district that's repeatedly getting sweeps and they just give you the money back and you don't spend it and they give it back and you don't spend it, they are starting to penalize those districts. So now they're saying, you know, if if we took your money back in two or more grants, we're not going to reallocate it back to you again and then it's just like

052the same money getting churned over and over. So they are starting to look at those kind of um issues. This year we're not getting as much of that reallocation. What they're actually doing is waiting until um July. So this is the first time they've ever done this is these reallocations are going to come out at the end of the year because of all the delays and we'll have a little bit of time to spend that extra money with our New Year's grants. >> That has to be spent on previous >> um year or >> it'll it'll kind of be like a um sometimes we get an allowance for like a extension on our spending. Okay. So, it'll be like to kind of spend out from July to September on things that didn't get in in

053time and, you know, >> but that wouldn't necessarily uh impact the the the 27 budget. >> So, you're kind of cleaning up from 26 more than having it be part of the equation for 27. >> And it's always a little weird. >> Yeah. I mean, some sometimes it can do like summer sort of stuff, start of the school year stuff. It's kind of it's kind of funny. It's like magic Monday from the state. that you don't anticipate. You don't it's so predict how much >> you can't predict it but it's great to get you know it's great to say oh we have extra money that we can we can use on >> and and until recently we had a problem and I remember this conversation very clearly >> uh almost a year or so ago

054where indeed we were not spending all of our grant money and we were losing out if you will on it and the idea is you want to spend it on the kids for which it's allotted. Uh, and so you want that currency. We applaud that you all have gotten far I mean this team has gotten far more >> adept at that. >> Did you have a your hand up for >> I I just wanted to be sure I understood what you're saying. Basically what I'm hearing is there's more pressure on use it or lose it. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And the and the information is becoming more public again. They're, you know, putting that information out there for the public to see of what's going to um be spent. you know, grants is always slightly different

055from general fund even in our budgeting because we do have that three-month overlap because we have 15 month cycles. So, we're always are slightly still in last year and then moving to the next year and then we also have kind of the two-year award period as as far as what applies to expiring funds and sweeps. So, it's it's really not as as simple or as you know as clear as maybe general fund where we kind of really do it on a year-to-year basis. move back >> uh for clarity the so these uh these funds or these grants are expected b to be spent on the school level right it is is it incumbent upon the I recall from our retreat so when we're talking about the title funds these funds are expected to be spent

056maybe by the principal or the administration right it's not something that you all central office level we uh you all really get So, >> kind of depends. Title One is is built to be a school-based grant. >> Um, the school improvement grants, which we'll talk about in a second, those are also really targeted at the schools. Um, like title two, title four are more central and and they're built they're actually built in a way that you can serve your entire district. You don't have to just, you know, be narrowly serve serving each school. But you know, title one is by far the largest allocation that we get and and it is really it is really intended and budgeted at a school level. So schools should be working with their ILTs with LSDMC's um looking at

057their data, you know, looking at their one plans and really like targeting spend to hit to hit the needs of that school. >> Okay. And so I I'm thinking on on a schoolbased level um what is the process I guess because I think some sometimes obviously schools may try to spend like for instance title one dollars and I know that there's a whole um I guess like application process that they have to go through. How are we educating um you know individuals on the school level whether it's the the administration or the teachers resource coordinator whomever right on h how to appropriately um spend those dollars or what qualifies y right um under these particular grants because I think a lot of people may try to apply and then it gets kicked back to say

058well you you can't you know you don't have access to these funds for whatever reason. So, how are we making sure that those um funds are being spent and being spent on the purposes that they intended for? >> Yeah, great great question. That's kind of what Miss Hay Good's team does. I I will say traditionally, you know, our contact point has been the principal um or the clerical folks at the school. So, a lot of times that's kind of our direct point. So, so you know, they've run most of the questions, most applications through them and they're kind of the conduit. We have worked um to get a more direct reach out. I think I think uh Miss Hagood did what was the not not this LSDMC but the one the fall LSDMC we did

059a whole districtwide LSDMC. She did a whole presentation on title one spending and went through went through a bunch of stuff for the folks there to try to try to get those LSDMC's engaged. I think we did a better job this year with the title one spending guide that we put out as part of the budget process that had we we rearranged it and really tried to get more into menus. I know we meet we meet with a lot of folks. We may have like a I guess it's what every other week with you know but but um the last time last meeting I was in um superintendent was there and we talked about you know working towards these menus of things which I think is a really good concept to say like here's some

060prepackaged things like so so like if you identify a need here are some prepackaged interventions that will be approved that that meet the criterias because sometimes you know the rules rules can be kind of tough >> especially especially the edge cases. trying to give people kind of plugandplay things. So, we're definitely working through that. >> Yeah. We also presented at the principal academy this summer. >> Um we had a really great um turnout in in response to that um as the year started, especially with the new principles that were inheriting budgets. Um we've worked really hard on providing budget resources to the managers and principles where we have just all kinds of documents available of with the kind of things Mike's talking about um to help them. But um I feel like my team has

061really worked hard in the last three years on outreach and communication and you know availability. Um we have a lot of um office hours type things where they can drop in and ask questions. And so we really are are really trying hard to expand the information to not just the principles but the teachers that are making the requests definitely the um trying to get more in touch with ILT making documents available to them but it is definitely a challenge. >> Yeah. I I would also thank our union our union partners. I know I've talked I've talked to more ILT members. Um and definitely definitely Julie, Brad, Karen have we've had we've had more dialogue I think this year than than we've ever had of you know just trying to help people through that. Why isn't

062this allowed? Why did this get denied? Can we do this? So >> yeah, absolutely. I mean I think um the things that you all have been um trying to put in place I think are crucial, really instrumental. I just know that there's a disconnect in times, right? And we obviously we have funds available. We want to make sure that we're able to utilize those funds. So, >> yeah, I can remember uh several years ago, it was a very very hot topic uh among and between the schools uh as to the uh the need and the expenditure and what have you for title one. And then some schools move from uh not being a title one school to becoming a title one school and that transition takes like a couple of years and so wait we

063don't want to wait the extra two the two years before it. So and and the public doesn't understand that the our schools that are title one schools are going to get more funding. the concept or the perception in the public is that the title one schools get less money and in reality in many situations they get more money or at least there's more money available to them. uh but how properly to spend it is another issue and I think you are getting better in the process of it and we know we're spending and not >> uh sending stuff back and I I hate to ever agree with the state but I think the state is right to say if you don't spend it >> or if it becomes a habit then guess what we're not

064sending it back to you. I think that's a I think that's fair and that puts the onus rightfully on us to do that >> and make sure we know how to do >> how to do it. >> Yes, exactly. Other items for grants. >> Um yeah, I just want to also add like the SLT plays a big role in that as well because like Mike, you know, and and Liz meet regularly with them and then they are the conduit to their clusters of schools. So they all you know we also have kind of a chain of communication through them like you know that they can pass on the information and consult and guide you know especially new principles. So they also have a really major role in helping guide those decisions. >> Okay. >> All

065right. Speaking of um all of that >> I think this is kind of a hot topic too. >> Yes. Here we go. >> Yeah we should talk about this. So, um I chose this topic for my like special topic of the month because um the letters did come out finally last week at the end of last week on Friday. >> Let me stop you. Were two months ago there was a list of improvement schools that needed improvement and that list had dwindled or some what was it the one that you talked about a couple of months ago. Is this the same a different set of schools but is that's the same list? >> Right. Right. So I think a month or two ago I talked about those two grants in particular which is the second

066middle school improvement grant fund 536 and the EOEC expanding opportunities grants. And so the those are entitlement grants and the receipt of those grants for schools depends on this identification status. Um and that grant those two grants also um receive a lot of focus and attention from our state support teams um because they do you know boost the abilities of those schools to provide interventions. And so we've been waiting for um the new identification of our schools for next year as we're going into the budget cycle because again they're trying to hire staff, figure out what they're going to do, but we really don't know how much money they're going to have or who's going to have it. And so we're halfway there. Like I said, Friday afternoon, I think about 3:00 the letters started

067coming out. >> Superintendent shared it to the principal. >> Now the downside is they don't know the amount of funding yet. We had um a couple meetings with that team this week and the state does not have that allocation from the federal government yet. So they don't know how much money they're getting. They know how many schools, but they don't know how much money they have to divide it over. The amount of money each school gets depends on the status that's been identified. Traditionally, it's been around like $100,000 um for the supplemental school improvement grant, but we really won't know because again, they've picked the schools without knowing the money. So, if the money's cut in half, obviously the allocation will be cut in half. But I just wanted to provide some background on what

068it really means and how these schools get identified and the different statuses of the schools because it's not really just about getting the money. It's about what that means for the school's choices, the staff they're hiring, and so on. And so, um, again, every three years they're identified and and receive funding and they have that much time to make the improvements that should boost them out of the out of the status. And so there's three categories of um that you can be put into as a school. The one that receives the most support is called comprehensive support and improvement, CSI. And there's also a status within there called CSI MRI, which means more rigorous interventions. And so that means for us, for example, last year we only had four schools that were CSI because they

069all stayed in identified status and they stayed in the most critical status. Now they're kind of up a level that like basically like y'all need to do something. These, you know, these schools have been at this level for now going into their second cohort and you know, we're expecting you to to show us some results um with that money. And so even though it's one status, there's kind of two tiers within that. And so that's based on the report card data. So this is based on 25 report card data. So that's why it takes a while to get the announcement because they wait to get the report cards, they, you know, analyze it and then they identify the schools. So that's basically looking at attendance, graduation rates, and just overall report card status. So we

070have six schools going into next year that are in CSI status. Um, additional targeted support and improvement is one level down from that. Um, it's based on subgroup performance. So, CSI is kind of the overall school performance. You get into ATSI and um, targeted support based on um, the performance of these identified subgroups. So, we have six new schools joining um, or being identified as additional targeted supports. So, they're going to get a little bit less money, usually about 70% of the award amount as the CSI schools. And again, it's the lowest 5% within these different subcategories of students that they believe need additional interventions to be successful. Um, the thing some people kind of don't get is the targeted support and improvement schools. We've got three of those this year going into next year.

071um they're in the lowest 2% um with uh a report card rating of 2.5 or lower. The thing is is that they're identifying those schools for us to offer, you know, additional focus, but they don't get any funding. So even though they've been identified, they're not going to get any extra funding from >> the reality, the funding is really so minimal anyway. I mean, that's the that's what's crazy. I mean, it's a mandate. you will do this, but it you'll do it with this quarter >> in this dime. I mean, and is it my understanding from maybe I read this wrong from the superintendent's uh update that we now have 13 schools identified? >> Um, we have 15 identified, but again, only 12 will get additional funding. >> So, 15 instead, I must >> So,

072we had about I think we had 16 in the previous cycle. We only had four this cycle. All four of those again have moved into um more rigorous interventions and then we have three in the TSI >> because and and we're way too much in the weeds at this point in time, but but looking at this that at least the list that we got from the superintendent, it's quite interesting in that at least the 13 and I must have I must have miscied, but it's it's fascinating because out of all of that that more than half of them we have already addressed. >> Yeah. because uh four of them are now middle schools instead of being elementary schools. >> Uh the high schools we have at both Aken and West High, we have eliminated uh

073the seventh and eighth grades. So uh that should make a major uh emphasis I think a big difference. and and if you look at it, there's a couple of schools like uh Taylor um and uh Douglas where we've added students and the students we've added are coming from schools I think both times where there's been higher achievement in that previous in that other school. >> So it's a and and and part of that I want to make this very clear part of that is not happen stance or oh wow what a coincidence This was superintendent looking at our list of schools and trying to qu uh concentrate and this happened also in ad hoc concentrate on the schools that needed work and needed more kids or less kids or a new vision or what have

074you. So, um, this this is very very important to to be looking at. But I mean, wow, we're already on the with 80% of these schools, we've already done something actually big bigger than strategic. Certainly way bigger than tactical. Um, so I think this is this this will be a good game plan for us. And a couple of those schools I I believe probably don't need to be here anymore, >> too. >> Yeah. If you want to go to the next slide, Rob. Oh >> yes to just just to add that you know so I looking at the schools that are are here um I would def I would say that there there needs to be support in these uh particular schools. So yes there has been um maybe a more strategic approach of maybe

075separating some of the schools out creating the middle schools or the junior high separating them out from the high schools. But I do think that this is highlighting even more the the urgency um and the need that is there. So, um it it really is incumbent upon us that we are making sure that we're as just as strategic with how we're utilizing the additional funds that are going to be um provided to us um um from the state to make sure that we are addressing these um particular areas um to improve. Now, how long it is is it 2 years or 3 years that they have to um come off of the school improvement? >> Um they reidentify on a on a three-year cycle, but you can fall out >> um b on on a

076yearly basis. Um this talks a little bit about the exit >> enough you can right >> to fall that you're not still on the list. >> Well, yeah. Once you're identified, then they'll focus on you and continue to look at you from year to year. And so the list can change from year to year. So especially like the TSI schools, you know, they might fall off by next year if they meet um the status. So like for ATSI schools, if they don't show success within two years, then they'll next move up to C CSI status. Just like we saw with the four schools that are in it right now, they've been in it for several years. Now they've moved up to the CSI more rigorous interventions and so they follow those schools and you know

077they can go up and down or move on or off and it is lagging like you said all of this data is based on how we were designed last year. We haven't seen the new report card to see what is the impact of the middle schools. So you know that'll be really interesting to see what those results show us. Um, but once they've been identified for next year, like there's, you know, they're going to get their money for all of next year because the award doesn't really follow the identification. They're identified in January, but the award happens, you know, in July. So, it's a little bit, you know, offkilter of the timing. >> Just a hypothetical. So if if a school has been on the CSI um identification status for a while, um what what

078is the response then from the state? So if if it has not shown improvement based off of the um federal I mean the state funding that's provided and um you know trying to make sure that um interventions are put in place to address those particular concerns. What is the response from the state in the event that hypothetically we are not reflecting any improvement or growth? >> Can you go to the next slide, Rod, so we can see that? >> I'm moving along. Okay. >> Yeah, that's fine. Um, so this is the slide that has the identified schools. And so like exactly what you're saying, the um four schools at the bottom, um Odell Owens, GDA, Virtual, and Western Hills, those are the ones that had it this year that are now in the more rigorous

079intervention status. >> And I mean, I I feel like from my >> reason why virtual needs to actually no longer be virtual. >> And and it's my opinion that we do need to do something at the district level because now there are going to be new requirements for those four schools. um they can require the principles to participate like in a cohort at the state level for training. Um they're going to have special requirements for their for their um one plan for smart goals to reading and math. Um the state's going to be very involved in seeing like what are we doing to improve those schools? >> Which of the four schools? >> The four at the bottom. Dr. Odell Owens starting >> Gilligan. >> Owens needs to be redesigned. Gilligan has just been redesigned.

080Virtual has no reason for continuing to exist in its way that is functioning now with its graduation rate. It's an embarrassment. And then Western Hills is a is a is a very difficult very difficult uh uh plan. And boy, I think more and more focus needs to be at West High than we're giving it. >> They're also going to be more involved in our fiscal. Like they they can come in and look at our budget. They're going to look at what we're spending money on. Like I do feel like we need a district level, you know, >> and and some of this a lot. We're spending an awful lot of time here and and we have other things that we must do, but this is the kind of topic that should be brought to the

081committee of the whole >> talking in terms of academic instead of where the decimal point is on a particular test. >> This is stuff. This is how each of our schools are succeeding and how they're being perceived and who's going to get more help to do it. >> Just a quick question. You said the money is about 100 100,000 per school. >> That's what we're expecting. This year it was more because of >> So there's a lot of scrutiny but not really necessarily the kind of funding that would help transform the school's situation. Would that be fair to say? >> That's true. But and then in the administration of every grant that we get, every ESSA grant, title four, title two, you know, the criteria speaks to, you know, funneling those funds to our most

082needy students, our most needy schools. So, it really should um be taken into consideration for all at all spending levels that we're supporting those schools in every way that we can. It's not just about title money, title one money. It's not just about this $100,000. >> Like from the state's perspective, they should be our highest priority kind of across the board. >> That's a lot to ask, but that's that's >> easier to say than do. >> And they're looking at the cumulative amount of funds that are coming in to say that there should be >> title four. Yeah. Title two, train their teachers, work with their teachers. >> Um, so >> yeah, I think I think like you said at the beginning of this, Miss Bolt, this is a good example of where finance digs

083into the financial side of a topic, right? Kind of to kind of arm the members of this committee. But but this is now but this school improvement is a bigger conversation that I think really is a is a cow conversation is >> and I think we want to try to suggest that >> I think you guys are forewarned on the financial side. So that's >> right. >> Perfect. Okay. Um, we're going to submit the quarterly spending report as written >> for sake for sake of time and >> I love it >> and energy. And I think the next topic would be the budget and three-year forecast if we're ready to go there. >> I'm ready. >> I just can't say three-year forecast. It's not in my >> Yeah. Like I like I even I looked

084in the work plan. I still wrote >> You can't help it. A it's just it's ingrained in my brain. It cannot go. >> It's like cross country high cross country highway. >> All right. So the PowerPoint will will likely be about the same for the board meeting on >> Sure. >> Monday. We went ahead and posted it. Um just to give preview for everyone. Um just kind of go over just some of the basics to start with and then we can dig into uh the numbers that we've come up with. Um in terms of forecast basics um the new deadline as as we've talked about is the end of February. Um some challenges with that and I think I talk about that in a later slide too is the tax settlement for the first half

085will not be completed prior to us doing this. In the past when we were doing it in May we had all of that statistical data. So so it causes us to be estimating that a little bit more at this point. Uh I think I'll talk about that a little bit more later as well. Uh the forecast period again requires the forecast to be for current year budget FY26 and three additional years. Um you'll notice on there it still includes 30. Um our software allows us to do a 5-year forecast. So we're we're continuing to do we basically 30 is flat just so that um at some point we'll probably take that extra year off. Um, one key point is the forecast only focuses on general fund. So, it doesn't touch uh state and federal grants.

086Uh, those are pulled out. Um, it does reflect some of the debt burden that comes from the general fund. So, we do transfers out from general fund each year uh to cover some of those current debt payments. So, that is reflected in terms of transfers. Um forecasted notes will be submitted to the board on Monday. Uh to meet that deadline uh per tradition, we usually include it in the treasures report. >> Yes, apologies for the 73page treasures report. >> And then once it's approved, I saw my emails. >> There's a process where the EMAs department will upload our forecast u to meet that requirement. Um next slide is new factors since the October forecast. So, it's only been about 4 months, uh, which usually we have like a six-month window, but there's been a lot

087of activity in that 4 months. Um, particularly related to property tax reform measures. Um, and you'll see based on what we were doing in October versus what, um, we're doing now, how we're modeling those changes do have a pretty big impact in terms of taxes. So, some of the key points and um we've talked about these before, but uh House Bill 129 revises the 20 mil floor calculation to include fixed sum levies. So, where we were at the 20 mil floor, which allowed some growth in our tax revenue, now that you include fixed uh rates, we're in the 34 mil range. So, it's going to be a while before we ever would get back to the 20 mil floor. So, that's part of the design of the law. uh is to keep that potential growth

088flat based on value changes. House Bill 186 limits revenue increases associated with the 20 mil floor to inflation measured by 3 years of gross domestic product deflator change. So that's a new provision just to give you an example. Inside millage is set at 4.19 ms. As values increase the amount amount collected on the inside millage would increase because it's just values times rates. However, what this law does is says it cannot be more that growth cannot be more than the gross domestic product deflator change. So the only time that um or where that really comes into play where you have significant value changes is that every threeyear cycle. So, traditionally on a six-year cycle, you have a full reappraisal and then in the middle you have a trienal update. With those historically, inside millage would

089give you a little bit more of a bump. Now, they're saying you calculate the bump and then it'll say, well, wait a minute, inflation has been this over the last three years. It's going to hold that growth down. Uh, so we have a slide and we can talk a little more about that, but just to give you the basis of that, uh, House Bill 335 caps inside millage. I guess I jumped ahead to that one. Um, but both laws kind of do the same thing. They hold down the potential growth uh, in revenue. House Bill 96 was a provision that allowed counties to do a to piggyback on the homestead and roll back. Um, this is different from some of the other provisions in that the taxpayer would receive the benefit of it, but the

090government entities that receive the tax revenue would not be reimbursed for it. With Homestead, we do get reimbursed from the state. this piggyback provision would have been a direct cost to the district, to cities, to libraries, schools >> and that's where we had one of our many victories in dealing with the bullies in Columbus because we have a good team here internally and also we have a an elected group of folks at the county level that are supporting CPS schools and that would be our uh auditor, our um is it the pro prosecutor and uh >> treasure commission >> treasurer commission. >> Yes, >> commissioner Dhouse >> and obviously Commissioner Dhouse and our commissioners uh Commissioner Dhouse and Commissioner Dumas uh very supportive of us and again we are the envy of a number of

091other counties that didn't have that kind of support and lost money. >> So we're appreciative and thankful. So that's certainly one positive um aspect. >> Cool. >> That could have impacted us in >> keep those three people happy though. >> Yes. >> And the commission. >> Keep the commissioners and keep the budget commission happy. >> There you go. >> Because that is a provision that can be revisited. So >> sure. Annually is my understanding >> for that. Um okay, next slide. Go there. Okay, >> thank you. Um, just some other challenges to consider. Uh, I touched on this a minute ago in terms of tax revenue. Um, again, this the first half settlement will not be done till end of March, early April. One reason I I I point that out is because when we

092looked at the fall settlement, our collection rate was down pretty significantly. Uh and it really related to border revision cases, >> um public coming up this month, I believe, isn't it? We're filing. Uh I think I have something to introduce. Yes, we will be there will be a resolution on Monday um to challenge the property tax values of a number of commercial properties where we believe their value too low and so >> Okay, great. >> So, so anyway, I'm just prefacing that with the forecast where we're we're using our best intelligence, our best intel at this point based on collection rates in the past. I think because we did have high value increases, therefore we've had higher number of challenges from commercial businesses challenging at the border revisions as well as some residential. Um so

093the next thing obviously once we get the settlement we'll update you if there's any significant changes at that point. uh commercial industrial property owners again challenging those um public utilities we talked about that so now the interesting thing I looked at one part trying to look at some of the data at the county to see if I could glean what you know what's coming and I looked at one taxpayer commercial property in particular they had a $7 million delinquency which obviously the school gets a large portion of that their current first half was 32 million about a week ago they paid 25 million towards the current. So they're still challenging 7 million of the current half and they didn't pay the delinquency which is another 7 million. So that one commercial property essentially we could

094be getting 14 million or we could be getting zero additional. um there aren't that many of those parcels, but just to give you an example, and that's a pretty significant difference just related to one parcel. So, >> okay. So, the next slide shows um sorry Rob, forgot what I'm doing. Um I have control of the clicker right now. >> You you guys can't both be clickers. You're double then you're double clicking. So, I like this graph >> better than double dipping >> because it kind of gives you a very wide um picture of just real estate, property, taxes, revenue. So, the first five years on this graph are actual data. You can see some little tweaks in there, some little bumps. It was basically due to the 23 reappraisal. So in the other complicated thing

095property taxes are levied on a calendar year collected on a calendar more or less on a calendar year we receive them on a fiscal year. So in 20 from 23 to 24 you can see there was a little bit of a bump and that's because we had six months of higher collection. The next year we had a full year of higher collection. So that little stairst step is typically how that works. Now what you're seeing in 26 there's a slight dip for a couple reasons. One, like I talked about the delinquencies, the collection rate, all of that. But also that year is typically the year that a lot of border revision changes happen. And so going back historically, if you look from 22 to 23, you can see there was a decrease. And that was

096again the effect of the border revision changes. Now going forward talking about the all the property tax reform changes you'll notice there's no significant bump. It's as flat as you can. >> So that's why it's flat is the reform. >> This is property tax reform. This this is act and specifically this this is a change of not being on the 20 mile floor. So, so the the law that passed that moved all of our fixed sum levies to count against the 20 mil floor means that means that our tax revenue is going to be flat like this. The only the only benefit we will only benefit we will get in tax revenue um would be new construction. You get that for a year. New construction or ending or ending CRAAS. I mean that's we're a

097little that's probably a bigger thing for us that will >> it's it's just those tiny little increases. As you can see, there's you can see there's there's there's little increases here and there. Those are the bumps. Um, yeah. The only other way we will get more tax revenue would be to to have a new levy put on. >> Where does reappraisal fit in? Is there a reappraisal year there? >> So, one interesting thing with that, the Ohio Department of Taxation has realigned some of the years. >> Yeah. And so Hamilton County would have had full reappraisal in 29 is now moving to 30. So it's going to be a a four-year gap instead of a three-year gap. >> So our board needs to know that you're looking at the revenue for taxes uh revenue in

0982030 is going to be the same as it was in 2025. >> Yeah. Rough. So there's not a lot of dialogue or debate about whether or not we um >> need more money and probably need major sorts of reorg in order to uh readjust and and I guess make some kinds of cuts too. But I'm sorry I interrupted but I heard something about reappraisal. So we wouldn't get it now until 2030. >> Yes. And it >> and the only the only lift we're going to get in 2030 >> is inside millillage, >> right? >> Up to up to the rate of inflation, >> right? So so we so we don't even get that. But yeah, traditionally you would see and I think I shared this graph at the retreat. You could see kind of the

099stairst step of property taxes went back I think 10 years back in 2016. >> That stairst step is gone now. And that I mean that is the intention of the laws that were passed. I think Mr. Cross said it um it would have happened in calendar year 29 and now it'll happen in calendar year 30. >> So fiscal year 30 we won't see it yet >> till that next year. >> But they realigned some of the bigger counties. Apparently, there were several large counties that all happened the same year and they were worried I guess the legislature ODT was worried about um you know big bumps in 29 for certain counties. So there it was just realigning. >> Big you may not be talking geographic counties. You're talking in uh population counties >> perhaps. Yeah.

100Uh >> yeah, >> I shouldn't speak for them because I don't >> I don't know >> all of the factors that went into it. Jim, >> so if I I if I remember the last chart that went back 10 years, it was about maybe about a 4% per year increase. And just looking at these last five years, it's only maybe only about 3% increase, but that's what we're what we're losing is we typically would get a 3 or 4% increase per year on average that we no longer will get. So, in other words, we're really not going to be keeping up with inflation anymore. >> Not even close. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, the next slide, um, just some other factors I want to highlight is, you know, the $48 million

101tax renewal that was approved in November for a 10-year period. You'll notice if you look at the October forecast, that was still in a renewal category because we didn't know, you know, wasn't approved. So now if you compare that to this year's forecast, it moves up to the real estate um and personal property lines uh because it was renewed um tax increment financing renewal of the agreement with the city of Cincinnati. Um that anticipates an additional $5 million to receive annually. They did make a one-time payment during this fiscal year um to to try to make us whole for this year. That's built in uh as well. fair school funding plan. Um so just wanted to talk a little bit about there are two types of districts. There are formulaf funded formula calculated and driven

102districts and then there are guaranteed districts. The we have in recent time been a formula district. So when we calculate our number of students, run it through the fair school funding, the state funding formula, we get a dollar amount that was higher than what the guarantee is starting next year because of the way our our property wealth has gone up. It it it implies that we have more capacity at the local level. So it drives down our state revenue and we also get less state revenue. The good news, I guess, is that there are guarantees based on 2020 base numbers and 2021 base numbers, certain factors. Some are 20, some are 21. >> Say there's years again, Kevin, just so we're clear. >> 20 and 21 is the the base >> and we're in 26.

103So as the formula be became out of balance, we've talked about these things before, the um the cost base cost inputs were not updated. So they're stuck at 22 values. That hurts us as a in terms of funding. The the property values, the income values for residents were all increased to more current numbers. The effect of that is to also hurt the district's funding amount. So that it's an imbalance. If the funding formula was working properly, everything would kind of move together and you would come up with a calculated number. >> Those base inputs would have been as well, right? If it was working the way it was supposed right. So the effect of this is over starting next year over half of the districts go on the guarantee. So essentially the formula is not

104working the way it's meant to work for over half of the districts in the state. >> That's crazy. >> So the effect of that is our state revenue I guess actually is probably shown a little bit better on the next slide. >> Well, here for lobbying as well, we need to have the fair funding formula uh back and it needs to be updated in current in uh reality. >> Yes. Yes. >> Um so that it works the way it was intended to work. >> Um >> yeah, because we wouldn't have lost that much. I mean, we lost some from the state, but we've lost a lot more by them suspending the fair funding. >> Yeah. I mean, >> millions more. >> So, so this is how it's modeled using the guarantees. >> Okay. >> My

105this is my personal opinion is what if they decide next year they don't want to >> Sure. >> continue the guarantees. I mean, if you if you remember the last budget bill, one of the proposals >> Yep. >> was to was to get rid of those guarantees >> or reduce them by start rolling them back. >> Anybody that's involved with public education that isn't watching this upcoming election very carefully or decides not to vote >> um is making a big mistake. But starting in FY2728 that those bars would go this way >> would go down if the guarantee was not in place. >> The positive is with the guarantee in place we will continue to see very slight growth or holding us afloat. It it changes a little bit based on enrollment. So whatever your

106enrollment was in 20 versus your current enrollment which in our case has actually gone down a little bit. So all of those things go into that calculation. >> Sure. >> So 2021 that was a an appropriate use of the fair funding formula. >> No, that was another nuance that will drop off after this >> a big number. >> So what happened at that time the state did pass through funding. >> Pass through funding. And so we kids that were CPS resident students enrolled in community school, the money would flow in to CPS. Okay. >> And then it would flow back out. >> So that money came in but it essentially went right back out. >> Right. So >> potentially restating 21 to show that effect would be more helpful. >> Yeah. >> So the 24

107is probably >> 24 is a good benchmark. I think that was the last time that the things were aligned. I believe that was that was like the high point of the fair school funding plan if I remember. >> Yeah. And there may have also been >> they had adopted it and it was its maybe first year happening or something. I don't know. Yeah. >> But >> the years all kind of blend together, but that may have included um additional student wellness funds that we had. >> There was a year or two where we received those additional. So, so going out the projected that that assumes the guarantee is in place or not. >> Yes, it does assume that >> the guarantee is current law. So, >> I >> Yeah, but I mean I mean like

108Kevin said, the good news, but for the guarantee this would be a lot worse. >> I mean, you run this without the guarantee. I mean, >> and when the legislature figures that out, they'll eliminate it. >> Yeah. Our unrestricted aid drops the minimum that we get. And if they were using the fair funding formula with those older inputs, our money would be less. >> Well, they are using the older inputs. >> If they were to update the inputs, then our formula calculation would likely be a little bit higher. >> Yeah. The current the current unbalanced formula would continue to drive this graph way down. >> Got it. >> If you if you updated both sides of the formula, I think you would see you would see the graph go the other direction. >> Thank you.

109All right, the next slide is kind of the summary that we usually include here. Um, you'll see the yellow highlights is where we're projecting the end of this year cash balance to be or fund balance to be 39 million. Um, and we talk about this every year. the the board had committed previously to appropriate and budget amounts within the projected revenue. So what the current forecast does is very reliant on that commitment. Um and so that's the expenditures are are really modeled here to fit that level of budget, that level of target. So the next slide, this kind of puts all these things into perspective in terms of local share versus state share. So for FY26, um 68% of the state funding is or actually local and state share together. Um 68% is from local

110sources. So that's taxes, that's TIFF, that's CRA, um all of those things. And then the 31% is the state share as a percentage. You can see, and we've talked about this before, back when um school funding was ruled unconstitutional, um local share was a lot less than 68. So over that period of time, it's continued to shift more of the burden to the local. And you'll see by 30 We're looking at almost 80% of the funding coming from local share, >> from local residents, businesses. You know, >> again, this is this is a this is the perversion of the formula, right? To say that >> if you look out to FY30, they're saying that the base cost to educate a student is 8101, >> which hasn't increased >> over five years. Okay, that's that's a

111fantasy. Um but but but that because the district has so much property wealth that we shouldn't we should pay 80% of that base cost and the state should only pay 2021. >> As I always say, Wyoming uh school district is a wealthy district by state standards and so is Cincinnati public. Okay. >> Right. >> Go figure. Just remind me now that uh the >> the real property tax revenue is about million rounding and and the state is maybe 125. So that that's 4 whatever that 445 million but then in the forecast we're at 600 million. What's the other? So the other items just to remind everybody >> um TIFF CRA Medicaid reimbursement homestead and roll back because there's a separate line for homestead and roll back. >> Okay. >> Um there's restricted funding from the

112state. I don't know if you're picking up. >> So that's that's more real estate taxes and more state funding makes up most of that. >> Yeah. Like the homestead and roll back comes from the state but it's really based on our property taxes. Um, state restricted aid is like, you know, you hear us talk about DPIA. >> Yeah. I don't It might be helpful to have a chart that links the total fund forecast summary to those two previous charts of uh real estate and >> stock just to tie it all in. >> Just is that a fair suggestion? >> I don't mean to. >> Kendra. >> Yeah. Just a general question. you you mentioned that um so the state views us as a wealthy district um based off of property wealth. Is that because of

113like residential properties or commercial properties um kind of like in isolation like one or the other or is it just because of the comp composition of both together? They are viewing that um making the the determination to say that we are a wealthy district. >> I think it's both. It's adding both of those together as well as there's a there's a component of the fork or the uh >> the calculation that includes resident income. >> So that also obviously for all of Cincinnati would be higher than even Wyoming or or other districts like that. >> So there's a comp there's a component for each of those >> any hill maybe. But yeah, there's a component for each of those and as each of those increase and the base costs don't increase, that's where the imbalance

114has come. >> It's kind of the runaway of >> and it's it's really by design because the fair school funding plan has been under attack really the last couple years and and an effort to >> to just do away with that, I would say. Um, next slide is just to give you a perspective of what we're modeling in terms of district educated enrollment. You'll see the first five years are actual. So over that five-year period, um, you know, it's decreased 1,500 over the 5-year period. U, we're basically keeping that flat. We'd like to see growth and and I'm sure there are efforts to to do that, but in terms of modeling, that's what we're doing. in terms of, you know, we looked at before like if we add a 100 students, how much is that

115going to it's it's somewhat minimal in terms of how much extra state funding we would get? >> I will say we forecast conservatively. So So this is not saying that we don't we don't hope for more students. The district's not working for it, but we we like to forecast conservative numbers. >> So the next slide before we get into the real forecast. >> Yeah, let's do it. >> While we're presenting Just to give you some perspective of if we let the train run down the track and we do colas and we so I have my assumptions here. I'm not changing the revenue projections. We're including the cola increases that we know. We're increasing step increases which are going to happen if we don't make any cuts and we let other things just grow ex you

116know minimally. This is where we potentially would end up with a negative cash situation in 20 we'll say 29 since that's the end of our three plus year budget plus three. You know even at that point we'd be $158,000 cash deficit at that point. I mean, that's real dollars. That's um what 25% of our budget, something of that nature. >> 58 million cash deficit. Maybe you should 58,000. >> Sorry. You had a different >> I was going to say that's pretty good. >> I was going to say that's I say that's not too bad. >> We can go home now. That's all it's going to be. >> If that's our worst case, we're >> we can we the very last year would be a hundred million. But I mean, yeah, this is I mean this

117Yeah, this is this is a sobering slide. This is >> we're not there and we're I don't we're not going to go there, but just so just to give some perspective of the things that >> say those several things again that you just said if we continue what? >> So don't get any additional revenue. So we're keeping the same revenue projection. I have it in the list of assumptions there. >> Right. I got um includes the currently approved cola which is um 2% this year which is only a 1% since it's a half year next year an additional 3% because it'll be a total of four that's built in the estimate we have for step increases which is between 1 and a half to 2% that's built in um in terms of no minimal cuts

118I'm saying if we let purchase services really purchase services and supplies is probably the only place you can really make cuts because of salaries and benefits being such a large portion. Um so in this scenario I kind of let purchase services and supplies continue historically where we are now and what we would continue to spend there and we know costs are going to go up. So I mean that's the reality if we don't do anything those categories are going to go up a little bit. Uh and then again minimal growth for inflation and again conservatively not these really are not um wild numbers out there. >> Sure >> they're somewhat realistic. Unfortunately our revenue is not going to keep up with that. >> So the potential outcomes if that were to happen is obviously fiscal

119distress designations by the state and of course fiscal emergency situation. you get into where the state takes over operation of the of the district >> and using that chart we would have to submit a letter to the state what year explaining how we're getting out of the mess is that the end of next year that we'd have to be doing that >> probably probably yes >> so I think that's what we have to really be focused on if it's three years down the road but the state sees something like this then the state requires us to submit a letter, >> at least they used to, and we had to tell them what we were going to do about it, which would mean that to take care of this, we'd have to be listing the kinds

120of major major cuts or changes or what have you. And they don't like it when you just say, "We're going to have a levy." That doesn't count. That that's not one of the tools they let you >> They don't let you levy your way out of it. >> That's right. >> So that I mean, that is that's the near future. >> Yeah. talking to the >> this time next year. >> Yeah. Talking to the treasurer at Toledo who just went through this. It is >> it's awful. >> It is quite an exhaustive exercise because you have to talk any variance over $100,000. You have to be able to to explain in quite a level of detail, which >> $100,000 variance is not is not a lot for a school district of our size. >> And

121and in the fall after the fall forecast, we did get a warning letter about low cash balances. Mhm. >> So, >> yeah, >> that's one of the factors they're going to look at probably again this time as well and say, "Hey, you look like you're headed the wrong direction >> because we we have been our cash balance has continued to decrease." Um, this just puts it in the same format of our summary >> um in terms of, you know, expenditures outpacing revenues just to give you another visual for that. Okay. Okay. So, now we'll go back to what we've projected to be a conservative, but I feel realistic forecast. Um, kind of gives me personal angst as I was going through this because would like to provide a rosier scenario, but you know, Mike and

122I have kind of ran the numbers and with all of the headwinds against us, I I feel that this is a pretty reasonable forecast. Um terms of total revenue this would be for the current year getting us to the end of the year 632 million uh in total revenue. >> This kind of gives what you were asking for Mr. Crosset about >> the percentage of local versus state. >> Right. Thank you. >> Keeping in mind the other also has the tiff and that's sitting in that piece of the circle. Okay. Next slide. Total revenues. Again, this is a fiveyear actual five years into the future. Um 21 had that pass through funding. 24 had the $75 million tax anticipation note. Otherwise, you can see there's just not a ton of >> and the coming year

123has less money than we have this year. >> Yes. Yes. And that's partly because of the border revision changes anticipated bringing the tax revenues back down a little bit. Um, another factor to get into the weeds a little bit. Uh, and and I've talked about this at previous meetings, we Medicaid reimbursement typically runs about 4 million a year. >> Last year it was delayed and so we got it in FY26. We anticipate getting another four million in FY26 if they're on the normal cycle. So, so it'll go from minimal to 8 million this year to only about 4 million next year. So, there's some nuances like that that are built in here. >> The other thing we do have we did have we did budget, you know, a million and a half for sale of

124property in the current year. >> That's a one time it's a onetime lever you can pull, right? >> We'll be doing that. So there's there's several little factors like that that are built into it. Um but you're right that number overall does go down next year. >> Uh next slide is expenditures. >> Go ahead. Sure. >> Yeah. >> So with the number going down next year, what is going to cause the maybe the slight increase in like 28 um and 28 to 30? >> Um >> what kind of change is that projection? Let me look at the actual forecast 28. So, slight increases um in public utilities, slight increases in revenue, slight increases in state revenue. Um again minimal very minimal like a million and a half which out of you know total revenue of

125600 million 6 million is 10%. Correct. No 6 million is 1%. >> 6 million is 1%. Yeah. >> So >> it is a good question as to going up and it's not necessarily you're thinking property tax is going >> local revenue. you're thinking is more state revenue that would be going up >> again. 600,000 for state. Um >> little bump in public utilities, little bump in property taxes, >> couple bumps >> kind of as these board revision cases get dis >> other you know like 300,000 as I looked at those different categories try to focus on those bigger categories of what's in there. Um, okay. Expenditures, you know, as we uh, sorry, I got to flip this one. So, we're looking at, you know, 60 or 76% of our expenditures are salaries and benefits in

126the general fund. Um, so that's why that's such a hard, you know, such a big piece of our budget that is hard to adjust, hard to make changes to. uh rightly so. And then purchase services are all of those contracts um that support our students and so it's hard to make cuts there as well. Um but just kind of to give some perspective of of where those dollars sit in terms of our total budget. >> You know on the circle graph there about expenditures analysis >> it's over the years it's very normal uh to for most districts to have at least that 75%. But I can recall when we had far less than that as part of our budget. Too much. So, so much so now part of that might have been I think people

127argue that it was the transportation >> that we were outsourcing or what have you, which I still didn't understand because it was still our money that we were paying out, but but long story, we didn't have the personnel or whatever. >> But um that didn't used to be quite that big. It was it was actually I think even below 70% in my recollection which was extreme but so I I I don't know if that's and we don't need to figure that out and maybe my memor is wrong but in other districts it's probably 85% or 90% in but the size our size and all this it makes a big difference there's so much overhead and whatever that other people don't have in the smaller districts but >> so my this is a this is an

128incur. This seems a higher percentage than over the last 18 years. >> I would I would agree. Okay. >> Um I think yeah, we are lower than other districts because of transportation. >> You know, that's about that's about $48 million. A good chunk of that would end up being in personnel. Um but the other thing I will say is yeah we are personnel does tend to crowd out the other areas but we al we've also brought inhouse you know just even recently the two the two examples I can think off top of my head one is nursing >> and nursing was a contracted service until you know really last year >> right >> um and then smaller one but the athletic um coordinators athletic directors you know those those folks would have been considered a

129purchase service up until last year >> and and four years ago go. It was a theme in discussion in finance about outsourcing versus insourcing. Um and and uh and I know administration was going to be reviewing it and looking at it as to what made more sense. >> Okay. >> I think based on our earlier discussions too, another thing going back to 21, you would have had $70 million expense sitting in pass through funding, >> right? which would have been purchased services. So if if you did the same pie chart then >> that would have changed the percentage. >> That makes sense. >> So >> transportation is in purchases. >> Yes. >> Mhm. >> Thank you. >> Cool. >> All right. So next slide again is kind of that longer view of expenditures. Um the

130first five years again being actual >> big deal. >> Take out the pass through funding. take out the tax anticipation notes. It's it's again pretty level. The other thing which doesn't have a lot of impact here, but obviously we had ESR dollars, so there were there were some expenses such as transportation and supplies and purchase services that were shifted out of the general fund. >> Yeah. >> So that's another thing that kind of created the the ups and downs in the expenditure chart. Okay. So, next is the forecast summary. Again, us projecting what we would be at the end of this year and then hopefully being able to hold on to that cash. Um, what that would look like going forward. Next slide is estimated calendar days of cash on hand. This is a big

131thing that um is is comes along a lot. Um, if everything were balanced out and equal, we would essentially have about a month's worth of cash >> at any given time in in this case at the end of the year. Um, that's not much of a change from >> right >> from the last uh forecast that we did. >> Ideally, we would love we ideally we should be looking to double or triple that number. >> Yes. Let me ask for I I will say um as we look to borrow money um for either either as part of part of a post2031 bond levy or if we want to do something in a shorter term such such as like a cop's issue like like these sort of things really matter to the rating agencies. days of

132cash on hand, you know, having a positive cash balance, you know, having a having a significant cash balance. These are the things they look at when they when they price your debt, when they rate you. >> Um, and and you know, it's like it's it's like real life. You know, if you're going to borrow money, you know, the people who have the best interest rates, the best credit save a lot in interest over the course of a loan. And it will be the same thing for us. We've we've done a really good job of our credit rating year over year, but but part of it is being able to hold a cash balance >> and having flat budget after flat budget. >> Um we wanted to ask the question about holding that cash balance and

133we talked about um having to free spending, right? Um, but so that may be possible for a year, but as we're like projecting out like what are we how do we maintain this hold on this cash balance or that reserve? >> Yes. Yes. So, Miss Bolton, do you want to do you want to ask the question you asked me after Cal? >> It was a good question. >> Did you answer it the same way? >> Are we tracking? >> Yeah, you guys are in the same page. >> Which is We're tracking. >> We're tracking. I'm telling you, >> you're tracking. Yes. >> Telling you. Um, did I ask like when will we be broke? >> You did. You did. >> Yeah. See, it was a much more direct way. >> Just be real. And Mike's

134answer now in public is >> my answer is we will not be broke so long as the board can make the tough decisions to keep expenditures down to revenue. Um, and these are tough decisions. The board has been, it's been tough, but the board has done a done a good job the last couple years of making tough decisions. Um, obviously every year they get tougher, right? Right. I mean I mean I think some of this was in the cola conversation. You know, you talk about, you know, it's an increased expenditures, but but the downside of it is you're going to start hemorrhaging employees, good employees, right, because of the market. Um and so and so yeah, the the real answer probably is we need new revenue. The short-term answer is we the board has to

135continue to be able to make tough decisions. >> And I I'm okay with it. I appreciate that answer. I think uh one thing that will be helpful to the board is um doing you know to the best of your ability trying to provide us with what those tough decisions will look like ahead of time so that we actually have time right to begin to navigate through those things. Um, we do know that it's hard and and we don't want to cut anything, but we do need to be able to have like full scope of what those um tough decisions entail and what will be the ramifications uh positively or negatively to help us uh you know be guided in those decisions. >> Yeah, I mean that's that's a great at some point we'll hopefully we'll

136have time to come back to the budget conversation today, but that is a that's a great point for that. >> Okay. So, I think that's all I have. >> All right, that's enough. You've really >> ruined the weekend, actually, so I want to thank you for that. >> But no, we want we want to talk turkey for sure. If we look now at this next item, and we're going to not do a couple of things because the superintendent had to be away for for leadership Cincinnati, but I do want to um ask um we I think we kind of dealt with some local and statewide trends. Uh Mike, what are your thoughts? What did you want to add there beyond >> some of the t tax reforms? Yes. >> Wanted to talk about other folks

137or >> as Rob flips around the slides. I would actually >> um if Rob if you can flip over to the other slide deck I apologies. Um >> yeah kind of starting on slide 26. >> Okay. So, so a couple of these slides just filler is 26 is our current levies just so you know it's there. Slide 27 is when things expire. Again, I'm just gonna keep putting these in because >> absolutely >> for everyone's and so no so no one has to go back and look these things up. >> That's good. >> I appreciate it. >> Um slide 28 are available options. Again, this is background. Slide 29 is where I wanted to stop and I think to go to your question, Miss Bolton. >> Yes, >> this is what's on the ballot in

138May in basically the triate area. not tri-state area really really in the local tri county kind of area. So Hamilton, Butler, Claremont, Warren, you can see there are these are all school districts and they are all on they're all on the ballot um for May. You can see there are a good number of income school district income taxes >> and the kids may have lost the NCH levy yesterday or day before. >> Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. That that will not help them pass the levies. So, so, so I think I think the big trends are a lot of folks are on the ballot and that is that is by design from Columbus. The design is that we should be their design is we should be asking for money all the time and that we

139shouldn't get increases based on on property valuations. Um, you can see a lot of folks are moving to income tax. I think that is a direct response to to a the commentary on property taxes and then also, you know, the this ballot initiative for the state to repeal property taxes has has kept things at the top of the forefront. I mean, I I unfortunately probably spend too much time on social media, but there's a robust discussion about about property tax. I try not to get into, but I think some some school districts are saying an income tax is a better way to diversify kind of kind of our income, a better way to to not go back to the same taxpayers. But, I mean, a lot of these these are pretty big ask. I mean,

140a lot of these I mean, New Richmond 8 mills, that is a that is a very large increase. Uh, North College Hill 1.25% income tax. That's that's a pretty big ass. Same with Fairfield. So, >> Kevin, >> so um obviously I don't know what direction like we're really considering, but as you spoke about the income tax has been um a topic of discussion um for a number of reasons for a number of districts. What would that potentially look like for us hypothetically if we considered um an income tax levy? >> Yeah. So, so I think the first levy step is this kind of decision of how of how much we need. >> Um and then and that gets convert or how much we're going to ask for and that gets converted into into a millillage,

141right? And then and then what you do is you ask the Ohio Department of Taxation to convert that into a percentage, right? And that would be the percentage of the ask. There's a couple ways to do school district income tax is different than a city income tax in one main way is that it is it is applied to the residents of that school district. So, so a city income tax applies to the people that work in the city and the people who live in the city, right? That school district does not do that. It only applies to the residents of that district. Um, and then from there you have two options. So the one option is what's called the traditional. And so what that looks at is it looks at your state tax return, looks

142at your state adjusted gross income, and you owe a percentage of that as a taxpayer. The other option, and that's why if you see the word earnings on here, >> um the earnings is is a different way of doing tax. It only applies um to to kind of to what you would call earnings. So it doesn't apply to social security, to pension benefits, to investment benefits. It's really like kind of your paycheck earnings. Um that tends to be a kind of more popular thing especially for folks who are facing a a big t big property tax revolt because because part of the messaging is you know your senior citizens who are who are feeling the squeeze you know aren't going to pay this tax as well. >> Now are we able to do two different

143levies simultaneously? You can. I would say most people would advise you not to. >> The the data the data generally a lot of times is if the school puts two levies on at once, they both fail >> or or one passes in a way that's not helpful. I know a lot of times people would do a um people would do like a um facilities levy, like a permanent improvement levy or building levy and an operation levy. And if one pass and the other doesn't, you get some really weird mixes. Like we can build, we got money to build a new school, but we have no money to actually operate it. So, so traditionally, it's not something that people stay away from. But it's not it's not impossible. It's not it's not not illegal or anything.

144>> Okay. Yeah. Just asking for >> um other um slide. >> So, yeah. So that's so that's the round us um impacting us directly um on the November ballot. If you go next slide, Rob, I don't have the clicker. Um you know, I think I think what we've learned is the children's services levy will be on in November. Um so that will be a property tax that will be an increase from where they're currently at as far as what I'm hearing. City of Cincinnati has talked about an earnings tax. I don't have any new information on that. So, it's it's kind of out there. Um, if you hit the next slide, Rob, just to kind of give people an idea. So, filing deadlines. So, this is filing deadlines and collection deadlines. So, so the May

145May 2026 election is is set at this point. We're past that filing deadline. Um, anything for November would need to be filed by August 5th. if you're looking at next year um you know May would be February 3rd of 27, November would be August 4th of 27 and then the other thing is earliest first collections. So so so you can see there um if if you push to if you push to next year the earliest you're going to collect that money is going to be the first half of 2028. So any questions on that? I I don't have a question. I I uh continue to believe that um Mike, something that you've talked about a replacement levy idea where we're going to pass something but we're going to remove something as part of a larger

146plan >> and I in Mount Hely where on city council we did that and and it it does make a difference in percentage wise as to people say oh as long as they believe that you're going to do it. So, it has to kind of be part of the language that they're voting on to hold you to it. But I think offering to do new money, we'd have to be able to say we're going to not do something. >> Um, I I do continue to believe that uh this coming year is rough, but the following year is rougher. And I think if we were to wait so long, uh we we'd be in that rough year of of fiscal 28. I do think this November um is going to be a a big election year

147with education at the center of it, frankly, uh for both the governorship and the legislative and and even congressional uh elections. There's just going to be tremendous um focus on on Hamilton County and greater Cincinnati. So, right now I'm leaning toward I don't know what kind of levy, but timing wise, politically, as I've said before, one of the last times that we did big new money, we did it during the primary season when it was Obama and Clinton fighting each other. and turnout among our constituency, women and African-Americans, was so high that if you wanted to oppose that levy, you didn't have much of a choice of winning, you know, in in opposition because that's very much our constituency as we look. So, I I'm I'm I'm certainly leaning towards needing to think about 26

148for financial reasons, but I also think it'll have to be part of a package because I do think we do have to go ultimately to income tax, but I would associate that income tax request as part of the FMP paying off that mortgage, so to speak, and say, "Hey, we did it. Thank you." and and whatever. I think also this fall people are very well aware that the state's messing with us. And I think that that's that's part of the the message too. If we were to go for November in in um in this year, >> I will say the press coverage about >> about property taxes has gotten seem it seems the people are covering it are starting to pick up on the details. the last articles I've read about school districts, you know,

149there there's always a lot of good background about property tax reform, about the decrease in state aid. So, >> we we've said it so many times now that I think it's finally starting to stick, which is >> Jim. >> Yeah, it's interesting. They've done so much property tax reform, put a lot of effort into that, then why why would you abolish all that after you've done all that work? Maybe I I don't know. Right. I mean, that's another >> thing that pops up in my mind. >> Yeah. I I honestly believe that even if you put it on the ballot about getting rid of property tax, I believe the people of Ohio would not vote to eliminate property tax. I really do. I don't because enough of the independent voters and non-aligned voters understand what

150that actually means if it's not going to be that. But I do think we have to plan on on not being so dependent upon it in the in the near future. >> That makes sense. I know it's been very helpful to Wyoming, was one of the first districts to do that years ago, um >> to not rely >> Yeah. on property tax. And they've made it impossible for us, not to mention they're still funding three different school systems on the same line item. And that's that's so you've got those court things happening about vouchers for Ohio. Uh you've got the reform of property tax taking place. You've you've got the the whole issue of of what this is state funding or not funding and people feeling like the kids are getting short changed. So I

151I think that there's in atmospherically it would be a good time to to go >> um from a political standpoint and a communication standpoint, but the board has to decide. But I think financially I I'm very worried about it that as you point here FY 28, I mean state will be here. They won't be in charge yet, but they'll be telling us in part what to be doing or assessing what we're doing. And we we have to avoid that. >> We we avoided that once during Mrs. Ronan's term. Yeah. >> So, for um for next fiscal year, we have a pretty good feel for what the revenue is going to be and we also now have solid information about the cola. Um, so wouldn't it be reasonable to start to be able to make some

152uh calculations that are projecting where our where because I think we have a policy we have a policy that we abide by that we can't spend more than the revenue >> and so I think it what might be able to start to have a feel for what kind of cuts we're going to have to make because no matter what happens we are not going to get extra money next year. we don't have a levy on the there's nothing happening. So, um you know that that is that's something we could start to look at now, right? I mean, >> absolutely. >> It is. And yes, and I I think it might be helpful to look at that at a in a two-year window as well because u you know, it's what what what cuts we can

153make make now, you know, could have a an impact a year another year out. >> Knowing that we can't talk too much about the budget now, but >> Okay, you're telling me to shut up? >> No. No, not at all. What I do think What I do think is I think that administration ought to bring to us the very declarative way. This is all the money that you have for the budget. It's all it's I mean that's it. Period. which obviously laid the groundwork and have been for a number of months laying that groundwork. Here's the here's that and of that as we've talked before you bring to a finance committee next month uh this is what the money that we have to spend. What is it that we we know there's there aren't any

154cuts to or the things that we uh you know that whatever percentage of that 630 or whatever it is um is going to be and so the finance can take that to the board. So the board isn't sitting there trying to figure out what to do with 6 630 when indeed they only have 250. I mean, I think that we have to focus on that way. And I think people also I'd sure like to see I think everybody would I I I'd get tired of just funding who we already are because who we already are is we can't fund. I mean, just even trying to fund what we do right now, we don't have the money to do that next year, period. So, we can't even fund this year based on We can't fund next

155year. Um, if it's even just the same as this year. >> What do you call that? The It's not the fixed, the obligated. >> Fixed and obligated is what I call it. >> Fixed and obligated. >> But I think we're gonna we're going to change the terms up slightly this year. >> Please do. >> Okay. Um, >> I think I said the same thing in like >> fewer words. >> Many fewer words. >> Maybe that's why you're not the chair. >> Yes, I can say I think you all have said the same thing at one point. >> So, >> we don't have any money. >> All right. So, so if so, if I may, >> you got it. >> If I may, I think I think absolutely the the finance committee has has two big

156charges at this point. One of which one of which I think is to to get us closer to to what an a levy ask would be the when the how much the the when the what the how much, right? You know, I think that's that's definitely something that this committee is is a great spot to to work through those kind of ideas. >> And what what kind of >> Yeah. When Yeah. What type, when, how much? Um so so one of my requests would be you know what what can administration prepare for you to help to help guide that discussion? >> Well, you started it last month with the the trying to figure out the amounts of dollars that we would need to just continue to do what we do. >> Figuring in some additions

157as well. I mean it was a good chart to begin with, good presentation. Uh and and the numbers you said were fluid, but it was at least an early stab at that. Uh because I do think we have to also figure in what capital improvements have to be part of whatever ask. It's obvious that we're not I mean maybe it's not obvious. Uh I know uh um President Craig's been very when he was on finance very vocal about we have to do the maintenance thing before we can do new buildings. But the reality is I I want to know the I want to know the levels of the needs for maintenance >> instead of for you know this kind of generic giant package of stuff we got about now almost five years ago uh when

158that was first proposed. four years ago, I guess. Um, so I think we need to know what kind of capital we're talking about. Like you say, we can ask for operations money and spend it on capital. >> We can also uh increase our our debt uh whether we do cops as there's and but not all of our buildings are available to that. We need to know that. >> Okay. >> Uh what else do we want to know about um what our thoughts are? I think you raised some really good points in terms of helping us create a base. Um I do think uh as we talked about before really looking at what we are spending our money on whether and I know we can't like contract our way out of out of it but you

159know being able to look at those KPIs the ROIs to make sure that we are in fact um getting the results that we're looking for and we're not just spending out money you know kind of arbitrarily. So I think that would be helpful as well. >> Okay. >> Also I think you gota we have to keep in mind our debt rating you know where do we need to be with that needs to be factored in here too in terms of a cash balance. >> Absolutely. >> Whatever else >> and I think I think it's been said but just again I is I think part one of the concepts is get us to 2032. Uh we we we have a great opportunity as Miss Balden said that you know December 31st, 2031 our our um capital

160bond levy is paid off. >> You know it's like paying off your mortgage. It is a it it is a it is a huge accomplishment from this district you know to fully fund that facilities master plan. >> Um and then obviously the the result the the taxes associated with that go away. So, so I think that's that is a great chance to do something new and exciting. Um, so just I and I think what had been said was, you know, how do we get from here to there? And and so I think that that's something that we need to to kind of factor into our building. You are we are you know are we looking at a longterm like kind of like a forever levy or are we looking at how do we get to

1612032 with the idea that we could go back um on the strength of those accomplishments of paying off the facilities master plan >> and and what passed it in those days that you know what are signature pieces of the district. And so we want to make sure all of our facilities are wonderful looking when we pay these off. So I mean that's more of a justification than for me very frankly going to the voters in 30 something um showing that we maintain the facilities and they're still wonderful and they're still good. Um and I think and you pick you figure out which things you might be adding some facilities if need be. I don't I don't say it based upon the need of that school, but I I'd also say it's based upon the which

162uh ward and precinct that school's in because it's important to that you can't have the westiders continuing to think that they're in overcrowded schools. >> Uh and then we go and ask them for a levy and maybe the east side is less. All that has to enter into how we sell this thing. And I do think when we do ask for a levy now, I think we share with the voters what the long-term is like this three-year forecast, but a five-year taxing forecast or what what's the what's our what's the you know the whole picture and try to hold us to it. >> Um I think that's I think that would be very crucial. >> Okay. So, we're going to spend time next month talking and that you bringing some of that stuff in and

163everything else that we'd like kind of Mike to to bring to us that would be just communicate directly to him and Phyllis has got some things to add for the month. Now, we have two real quick things we have to take care of policy uh that you wanted to share with us, Mike, and then also the appropriations piece. Yes, I would like to talk a little about budget, but we'll we can do we can do >> by all No, by all means do that do that thumbnail. We just can't have the big discussion because then it's not here. Go ahead. >> Yeah. So, um update appropriations resolution that's in the um agenda for Monday. It's basically allowing us to spend our title one carryover, our title actually all our federal grants carryover. Um, and then

164we need to appropriate some money and our debt services fund because we're paying off one of our syncing funds this year. >> Again, more debts, paying off more debts. >> And that's the chart that you all submitted like four months ago where the debt was I mean it was looking good. >> We we are looking good. Um, so that's that is all good. So I think unless there are questions, we can can go from there. >> And the revisions resolution is coming forward too, right? The board of revisions. Yes. Okay. It's actually more Mr. Hoying than me, but yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Um >> policies if you just go to the last slide, Rob. >> Quickly is um these are by my priority. Not so can take comments. Um Miss Matt may feel like

165she's back on policy committee. >> Feel like she's back on policy committee. Um I know the the ones that the ones that I'm most interested in the two um one's insurance and le of bond that's my personal personal thing but but it's a more modern way instead of having the treasur bonded the district gets insurance that covers the district and the treasur so probably save us some money in the long term but uh that's that's a whole new policy plus some other procedures um the other one that I think will be big is deposit of public fund with cash collection points so that goes around our our cash collections. Um I think >> what does that entail? >> You know, you know, like all the policies around collecting cash at schools, you know, who's who's

166handling it, making sure it's deposited in the bank account, making sure it's reconciled, all of those things. I >> I can see where that first one that's not that's a no-brainer. Bring it next month. And I think finance will probably say okay to that. But that that that second one that second one that's a big deal. >> It's a big deal. Yeah. It's it's probably a multiple >> been one of the ones to bring it in. >> That's right. >> It may it may take a couple meetings to work through. >> Um I will say this again. Um David Connley who's our financial adviser the district has offered multiple times. If the board's interested in looking at a taxation policy, he's done these for a lot of districts. uh and and and kind of what

167it is, it's it's it's a lot of education for the board about types of taxation, which I think we do a lot of that in this committee. Uh but the idea is that the board at the end of that creates a policy that says things like, you know, our philosophy is we we would do an income tax or a property tax or our philosophy is if our cash balances get to here, that triggers us to start looking at new money or we believe in these things. And so it's something to talk about. I mean he's it would be a significant time commitment but but it is an interesting way to take all of our collect take the collective thinking of the board on taxation put into a policy. >> I I could see where that

168is post strategic plan. >> It it may yeah it may >> rather than pre or during strategic plan perhaps. >> Yeah. And I I I think there's so many moving parts right now that I wouldn't want to set a policy that limits us from not being able to take advantage of whatever opportunities are out there. that that is true as well. It is a it is a moving legislative environment. So >> out there uh the rest of them are pretty the rest of them are actually pretty small. So the only other one that I think >> I could kind the other ones I think are just small rewrites you know payment of claims audit purchase cards all those are those are mostly updates text updates that just need to be done. Um and then the

169final one I think we would we're not in a position yet to do is to establish a fund 35. So fund 35 is used to pay um kind of separation benefits to employees. So so the district would put money in there every year. It sits in there and then as as people retire, they get you know payouts of of sick and vacation leave. It comes out of there. The nice thing is and this is this is probably for sunnier financial times is that you put a set amount in every year. You let it grow and so it basically it gets you out gets you out of the peaks and valley system. So it kind of levels it. Cool. >> Cool. >> Are there any there that you would bring for us to look at next

170month? I mean, next month we're going to is huge. >> So I So what I would think is maybe we'll do some of the small ones. >> Okay. >> That can be that can be just a couple word changes. >> Okay. >> Um to keep momentum going. I think yeah, I think next next month will be very huge as we talk budget and as we talk levy. So, so let's not put a lot of brain power into policies and and then we'll then we'll try further in the year to put some more brain power into policies if that works for >> and what did you want to share with us about uh budget particularly? >> Yeah, Rob, if you hit like slide 35 here, sorry for my little check boxes went away. That's no fun.

171Okay. Sorry. >> Oops. >> Yeah. Uh what I was going to show is the F2 have budget timeline. All the things all the things on here now should have little check boxes next to them which would make it beautiful. But apparently in the rendering of PD >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I'll remember not to use that. But yeah, all these things are resolved which is good. Like these are these are good things. >> So this thing that you're sharing about budget right now is that at least we're on the we're on target timeline. >> Yes. Yes. >> In the process. >> Yes. To to to go to what Mr. Crosset said, you know, now now that we have a revenue now that we have a revenue target and a forecast, >> now that we have

172the colas approved, >> now now the real calculations begin >> and that will be sharing that >> um all those totals and whatever next finance, >> right? Right. I Yeah. The one the one thing that kind of we talked about the timeline. I know we wanted to share things with finance. As I know, President Craig is trying to schedule out meetings and I think my absence my absence my March makes it a little odd because I'm I'm out for that second board meeting. Um but he was looking to have some discussion potentially a vote on on the March 2nd about some part of the budget. Well, the only part of the budget we'd be really able to ask the board to vote on would be those >> Absolutely. >> Uh the um uh >> fixed

173obligated. >> Fixed and obligated. >> Yes. Yes. So, >> and and I guess we should be even before that second March meeting, we would be able that first March meeting >> to be able to say what the total >> is. I could see where you could even do in the first the if depending upon what's presented um next I mean Monday >> uh on cap on um I think it's a it's the maintenance and capital improvement presentation >> uh it seems to you could almost in the first part of March you doing a presentation about the total and what the budget total is >> and then sharing what you think the alloc a list of what the um allocated and fixed and whatever would be and then people vote on it. So they hear it

174first on the 1 of March and vote on it in the 2nd of March. >> Good work. Yeah. Um so I will >> second meeting of March. >> Second meeting March. Yes. I >> what we have kind of the categories are a little different this year but the first category is what we call legal compliance. >> Sure. >> Which is very similar. the these are the legal things that >> however we want to play it out. >> Yes, these are the things I require to run a school district. Um I think what what I will do is send this committee um a set of ideas or ba basically a document to the committee and say let give me some feedback on the format, the layout. >> Sure. >> All those things. So >> well if

175you're going to be absent the second uh meeting of March >> Yes. You're close, aren't you, to having that information that you would be the second meeting of March available the first meeting of March. >> Yes. >> And it would make sense if the if the board had some knowledge that it was coming. So even if on Monday night, it might not be if there's a little update from the treasur. I don't know what you're presenting. Are you not presenting anything this month? >> The forecast is this month. That's it. But that's it. Yeah. >> That forecast >> what we've just done today. >> Yeah. >> So there's at least the introduction to it before the first meeting of March to save that vote without you there, the second meeting of March. >> Yeah. I

176was just going to ask though as it pertains to the second meeting of March. I know that you're saying that uh budget-wise most of it will ultimately be the legal or obligated cost which is pretty much just binding, right? Um but just checking your level of comfortability um in terms of like where we are if we need if we had potential questions like do you feel comfortable with us taking a vote in your absence about certain things pertaining to the budget? I think if we if we give the if we give the list to the board early and have time for for questions. Yes. I I think the things on the legal compliance are very very um uncontroversial. You know, it's like debt payments, it's like water, it's like electric, it's things that are hardwritten

177into OC. >> And so, >> but you would you would be there the first meeting of March. Yes. to answer those kinds of questions. >> Exactly. >> And maybe even be able to vote. >> We could. >> I think that's great. >> Didn't realize we had backto-back meeting weeks, so I looked at the calendar, but I understand between President's Day this month. >> Yeah. >> Spring break next month. It definitely kind of compacts. >> Not a problem. Yeah. >> Compacts the board's calendar. So, >> well, good. >> So, it sounds like it'll be something Yeah. play by ear, right? >> Yeah. And I and I I I like the idea of of sending this committee a document ahead of time, especially for formatting and just like, does this make sense? If you if you read

178this, you know, if you've been in finance committee and it doesn't make sense, then I need to go back and work it, right? Yeah. Exactly. >> And that's that's it would be normal. It was normal for treasurer Wagner to share the the presentations that would be going to the board to the some finance members to say does this make sense or whatever or do you have a better way of looking at this chart or what what don't you understand you know what don't you understand >> so she could change it so that makes sense let's do it and let's and then you talk to uh President Craig about trying to move that vote up not the second week of the second meeting but the first meeting >> yeah because he's got he's got a placeholder

179in there for budget discussions. We talk to them that we feel comfortable. >> Okay. >> If it works out or we might we might feel comfortable. >> We might feel comfortable. >> I might need to see the list. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. I mean I mean definitely the the the feedback from the whole board um specifically you the whole board is we want to see the list. >> Yeah. >> Like we want to see all the things in the list and I understand that. >> And I want you to be there for the questions before the vote. Yes. And I think that's going to that that takes care of most of the concerns. >> And we've actually seen that list even last year, a part of it, not the extensive one, but we tal we've

180talked about this before. >> Yeah. Yeah. We're we're going to go to a level of detail that I think >> that's as much detail and we decided I think a couple of months ago in finance that you can we can avoid the line item if you if we are extremely detailed in in this early run >> and and it can't just be oh electric or something you know it's >> so people have to be confident. Yes, >> sir. >> One last thought that I wanted to share that's somewhat unre related to the specific budget for next year, >> but the idea of I love the idea of putting a plan together to get us to >> and we're in the middle of strategic planning and I think our strategic plan um horizon is only three

181or four years but this 2032 takes us just a little bit beyond that. But I think it should I think we should try to put that 2032 objective in strategic planning while we're doing this if that's >> can be thought about. >> And I think that can come under the guise too of the fact that the board passed that resolution that we wanted both the strategic plan and we wanted the financial piece. So I could see where the strategic plan is a particular length of years but the financial piece is is actually longer. I think that makes sense. And then one thing to follow up here on on the strategic plan if the superintendent had been here but I think you'll be able to answer this as well Mike. U so it's is my understanding

182from the updates I think the board has received that the um strategic plan uh monies uh that people are contributing is uh there has been a selection made bellweather. >> Yes. And what is what is going to be the role of bellweather um so that we understand that role and finance knows about it. >> Yes. Exc. Um so so yeah so Greater Cincinnati Foundation is is funding this. Um the services will be be a donation to the district. Bellweather is it is a national firm. They've got a lot of work. They they are going to be kind of the strategic partner. So they're they're going to be strategic partner. will probably be, you know, helping out definitely the financial stuff at a high level. Um Rice could Rice is also going to be working um

183specifically on the engagement pieces and and some of the local pieces. So, kind of a mix of both, >> but Bellweather is kind of is it going to be as we talked about last finance where it was like they did for the preschool promise. Is it are you opening your books? Are they assessing where we are financially? What what what's going to be their charge? based upon what you all have talked about >> with the foundation or with the um yeah greater Cincinnati Foundation. >> Yeah, I think I think we're getting ready to the district handoff, but I think there there's a couple pieces. There's Yeah. And and part and part of the pieces is is this financial plan, right? Is looking at this looking at this big financial plan that probably is a little

184more encompassing than the four years. And I think that that is a way to even if the whatever the first ask of the public is going to be that going through as I've said any number of times too that the the facilities master plan is the big deal and narrative wise uh the we've got the new era >> narrative-wise we've got the third century somewhere in that span of of time and that does make an impression on people. People have no idea that this district has been here for 200 years. they have no idea. Um, and it's it's I think it's pretty exciting and it comes in the end of the ad hoc effort and a number of leadership changes and all kinds of things we've all been through. This is we're actually in a

185good place, not in a bad place. >> Just as it stands, this isn't so much the financial piece. Um, but as we're talking about the strategic plan, we're still we are still waiting to vote on approving the rice consulting group. Correct. We I don't because we tabled that discussion. >> Yeah. I I don't recall voting on Rice. I think it was with I think it was withdrawn >> two meetings ago and it didn't come back. I don't think the second meeting. Yeah, we discussed it at the well, we discussed the strategic plan. So, we tabled it at >> in between that time. We got a second proposal from the greater SA Foundation and they essentially said they added 100,000. They went from 250 to 350,000 with the 100,000 with the intent of that to go

186to Rice. So, even though we haven't approved it, that's sort of been the the uh that's where I think the proposal is from them. And this so I I think that the inclusion of rice is still uh funded. That make does that make sense to you? >> Yeah, it makes it makes sense. I think uh I think from a full board standpoint or perspective, I think we still need clarity there because a lot of things have been tabled and um from my understanding too, the superintendent was waiting to bring back >> that recommendation. I think that's right. I'm sure if she was here today, she would have a she'd have a more a deeper a fuller update for sure. >> So, >> well, good. Anything else for the good of the order? If not, we'll

187entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you for staying so long. Do I have a motion?