Budget, Finance and Growth Committee Meeting October 17, 2025

001Well, but do identify yourselves when you do speak since we're not doing the intro. So, want to welcome everyone that is uh viewing uh our Cincinnati School Board Budget, Finance, Growth Committee. Uh today, we meet monthly and we have a full house because it finance is at the heart of everything. So, we're here and uh I'm Eve Bolton and the two committee members are >> Brandon Craig, board member, >> Jim Crosset, board member, >> our treasurer, >> Michael Gustin, treasurer and chief financial officer, >> and superintendent. >> Good day, Shauna Murphy. >> Thank you very much. And everybody welcome there and also welcome here. And we're going to go through this agenda with all our wonderful experts. Mr. Treasur, will you introduce our first efforts? >> Yes. So our first topic will be under old

002business. Um it's a follow up on gifts, donation, crowdfunding, and financial reporting. So going to be joined with by um chief audit executive Havcas um and assistant legal counsel Stephanie Scott, Assistant General Counsel. So Rob, if you would go in the slide deck to slide 51, sir. >> And this is a this is a follow-up from our discussion at last month's budget finance. And so and so there were some questions about about how donations are are kind of accounted for, how they're recognized, those sort of those sort of things. So I want to want to thank my peers for a lot of research. Um especially chief a executive. She put a lot of time into researching this and and so just wanted to go through really high level. Okay, Rob, if you can go back

003about There we go. Okay. So through the beauty of AI, we've got lots of we've got we've got lots of images now. So this is fun. So first first scenario to talk about is is a simple cash donation. So if you're if you're a person who wants to give a cash donation to the district for for any purpose, um you you'll give that money to CPS to get to the schoolhouse. It's going to end up in probably one of two funds. So, so if you give a donation to a school to be used at the discretion of the principal, that goes into what's called the principal fund. That is our fund 18. And it can be used at the discretion of the principal. If you give money for a very specific purpose, um that's going

004to go into our fund 19, which is we call it other other local grants. And and the district will do our our absolute best to to honor the wishes of that purpose. So, so if I want to give $100 to to to Roll Hill, so the principal can do at her discretion, she can go do whatever. If I instead wanted to give a hund $100 to buy, you know, I don't know, rewards for the kids who who pass their third grade reading proficiency, then that would money would go to that. It's pretty simple. Um, it comes in as revenue on our books. So it says the revenue into one of those funds and then as the money is spent it shows as expense in our books. Could you go to the next slide Rob is

005um if you want to give if you want to give items. So in this case you want to give school supplies or you want to buy items um um you buy you buy those we have an acceptance pro procedure and policy that involves a board accepting it. If you look in the treasures report on any any given board meeting, you'll see there is a there's a section specifically for donations. And so that's where the board officially accepts those donations. Um, obviously, you know, things are looked at to make sure they fit with what we're doing here, especially technology, as Mr. Galahue can attest to. Um, and if it's if it's something that is an asset, it's tagged as an asset and then it's tracked as an asset, and those things become property of the district.

006But there's no there's no recognition as far as revenue expense on the books, but they're kind of they're recognized as as inind or asset donations. And then the third slide is if you add in a non-school organization. So so if in a non-school organization could be a PTO, could be a friends of group, could be any of those things. If if you give that organization money, then they are going to because they're separate from the district using their their rules, guidelines, policies, bylaws, decide what to do to that. They could buy do they could buy goods and those goods could get donated to the district or or they could make a monetary donation and at that point it's going to follow the same two flows at the beginning. So So next slide kind of sums

007that up. Uh, one thing we did change when we redid the gifts donations bequest policy last year, uh, we just we just put a threshold for recognizing gifts in the Treasury report of $250 that aligns with IRS reporting rules. So, it puts us together there. Um, and I think that kind of summarizes all of those things, which might be a good spot to stop and see if there any questions so far. >> Okay, very good. Does anyone up here or members have any questions about what's been presented? Um I I I do there there are a matter of fact just recently uh there sometimes there's a I won't call it a dispute but a a discussion uh between the LSDMC and a principle >> regarding uh fund 18 versus fund 19 as you point out.

008uh some things that get raised at the school level uh that um uh the LSDMC people might think needs to be more broadly interpreted or has a specific purpose but it the principal takes it to that >> in that case what what's the what's the uh uh administrative guidelines or ideas for handling such discussion >> I' I've been involved in a couple of those disputes over the course. Um, >> there's some that are out there that brewing. >> Yes. Yes. I I strongly advise the parties to to come to a come to a workable solution >> because >> strongly, you know, I mean, I think I think the relationship between a principal, their their LSDMC is is a huge thing that really makes the schoolhouse run well. And when when all three of those groups

009are on the same page, you you just get you just get such better outcomes because of the efficiency when when they're all rowing in the same direction. You know, it takes a lot of unnecessary issues out of So, so I always try to get people to work it out without involving any of us. Generally, I will I will send them back to the superintendent side of the house. I don't feel that the treasur really should get involved in in those in those sort of things. We try to stay try to stay focused on on the money and those sort of things. Superintendent might want to add. >> Thank you, Treasurer. So I I have had um times where this has come up and I always ask to go back to the meeting notes whether it

010is you know the LSDMC a parent organization who may be fundraising on behalf of the school and at the onset of the decision to raise funds or received on what did the meeting notes say we were going to do and what was the purpose going to be and generally speaking that kind of clears things up. >> Mr. Right. >> I was just going to say I think this also is another reason and again I think we talk about this a little bit more in audit committee versus necessarily here but um for having some greater whether it's skill training or checks and balances when it comes to how funds are received >> and and like how dollars are being uh brought in uh to schools because I think at that school level there have been a

011lot of worlds where folks treated the school as their own like I run this kingdom right this is my space and everything that comes to me, I do it with it as I please. And that's not how the rules are set up. And so I can see in a situation where you may have someone who intended to donate at the school level in a certain manner that it's not clear from what we would have records of at Central of what like all those details were because it didn't flow up the same way or didn't get communicated the same way. and just make sure all those procedures are done correctly and that those processes are operated and in part because we don't have a treasurer at every school, right? So, they may not always know the

012the odds and ends and rules when a individual teacher or individual assistant principal or principal is uh the person that's like the point of contact to receiving those funds. >> Yes, sir. Mr. Crosset. >> Yeah. I'm just curious um when there is a dispute, wouldn't uh getting clarity from the donor be pretty helpful or is that not part of allowed to be part of the process? If if the donor makes their wishes known, you know, you know, that that that is kind that is kind of the first guiding star for sure. There there are times where sometimes the don the donor donations are kind of kind of vague in a way. They could say, "Hey, we want to we want to donate money to benefit the kids." Well, you and I could have totally different

013ideas of what we could purchase to benefit the kids, you know, and and those they would both and we could get, you know, really opposed on those things. We could really dig into those things even though both of them would benefit the kids. So, it's always great. Yeah, >> that's good information and helpful. I'm just wondering if might be uh too difficult, but it might be interesting to have um uh a record of some of these things so you could identify some best practices to help with some guidelines. Just a thought. >> We we do have we do keep record of donations. If there are if the donations are made there there's a donations form. So if you donate money very specifically for something, it will be recorded there. Um for any of these accounts

014we also require a budget plan is created every year. So that's another document that we have as a superintendent said you know there are there are meetings you know especially at the school at the school house you know minutes should be kept for those so you can go back and see you know who was present who said what all all of those things I mean I mean the one thing I've learned at CPS is CPS is a collaborative district and and it's and anytime you think you're going to steamroll something through you will you will most likely not be successful. I mean, I've seen I've seen just personally, not for this conversation, personally, folks in our finance office who came from other other school districts where where what the treasur's office did was rule and

015law and they basically would say jump and people would say how high. That that is not a CPS culture thing. Um and and those people for the most part were not as successful as they could have been until they learned that level of collaboration. And I think that could be said for for almost everyone in administration. >> Thank you. >> We do not every school every one of our schools does have somebody that is functioning as the school treasurer. Correct. >> I would say book I would say bookkeeper is a more accurate term. But yes, there is someone who's functioning to do the bookkeeper. Yeah. Um, so does that person is that person the person that should be I don't want to make this a kind of a have a whole bunch of people involved,

016but they would have it would seem to me they'd have a responsibility also to know what was meant for that donation or that contribution. They they they do a lot of things in that area like like they have responsibility to make sure cash or checks are dropped off that that money is properly recorded, accounted for and deposited. You know, they they have responsibility when we go to buy something to make sure a requisition uses the right fund, the right account. They generally have responsibility to run reports of all these various funds and and make sure that that the money's in the right spot, make sure it's being spent, you know, to help assist um the principal and the school leadership team with those kind of duties. And then obviously we have our accountants um here

017in central office who who back them up and and are always available for questions or assistance as needed. >> Okay. You know, some people have issues that they can they can make this be a district issue by seeking some help >> for sure >> from the district level instead of u trying to figure it out at the school level. >> Mr. Craig, >> I was just going to just add the one other thing and I think we've talked about this in past years um is is part of the other thing that comes with the confusion of donations that someone may make a donation is something like I want to donate to Miss Smith's third grade class. So when Miss Smith is no longer teaching the third grade class, we aren't exactly going back and doing

018a whole like, so do you want to go to her fourth grade class now that she's teaching fourth grade or and it can't go to her directly. And so I do think there's a there's probably some of those things where someone may make a a donation of whatever dollars or resources or whatever the case may be. And it's maybe difficult to track based on the nature of what they were donating for may have changed or like teacher changes schools. Does those dollars track with the teacher? Do they stay at the school? Um those type of things. And I think that's the other part. It might be worthwhile for us to I think we we started with some of that discussion a couple years ago, but I think it might be worthwhile at some point if

019we're seeing a pattern of it to recircle back to make sure we have some some hands on some of those things because I think to your point, I think that is actually rarely do we have a donor who says specifically like I want to donate to this one really big thing. It's usually like I want to donate towards the group of kids. I want to donate towards this effort. I want to donate so that they have the resources at a school for something. Um it's rarely the same like give only $100 to this program and $3 for new reads for clarinets like >> that type of deal. And so I think that's the other part that might be worthwhile for us to think about if we if we're looking at any potential financial policy aspects

020of it or financial training aspects of it. is just making sure that we're clear about what happens when >> situation changes. >> So if if you remember when we did the crowdfunding policy, we we put some language in about about those sort of situations because those are the time where because it's done as a campaign, you are donating to Miss Smith's third grade class, you know, because Miss Smith wants, you know, to replenish your classroom library. So you're very specific to those things. And so we did put some language in about, you know, we're administratively feasible, you know, we will try to follow, but but also if you if you donate something that we have to mount into a wall or mount into the ceiling, >> you know, it might not be administratively feasible to

021move that if Mrs. Smith moves down, you know, two doors. Well, but to follow up on that, this lends to the discussion that when we receive a donation or a contribution, we should spend it on the kids and the person and in the time that it was given because that is a problem here. And it actually makes getting more contributions and donations harder if people cannot see that people that it was spent on what it was supposed to in a timely manner. I mean that's we've talked a lot about those >> dormant funds or whatever that start to collect but I I that has to be part of whatever we decide if we had to augment any policy or anything. >> Agree. >> Anything else on this? We have our chief. >> Yes. I think

022this I think we're ready for our chief's part. >> Okay. >> I'll let I'll let her go for the next couple slides. I mean you did the research. >> Oh gosh no. Too much credit. So, uh, in partnership with our general counsel's office, treasur's office, and myself, we took this opportunity to further delineate between funds that are raised because I think it's common for us to kind of lump them all together. But in fact, due to board policy and Ohio revised codes, they are different based on the form and fashion in which they are collected. So to begin uh you'll see on the slide here the Ohio Revised Code breaks out clearly. Student activity funds which are those that are raised by students, our staff, school resources go into raising them and those are in

023fact public dollars. The alternative though is uh our NSOS are non-school organizations and those are independent and from the district separate entities. So we actually have two board policies. is we'll cover one in just a few slides, but it is 9212, which is over NSOS, and then a board policy over student activity funds, which is 6610, which we've linked in this fact sheet that you have in your folders as well as on board docs. So, moving on, I think uh these tables do a a better job summarizing uh than I could even do verbally. And again they are available in your folders as I acknowledge the uh the small size of the text there. Uh so essentially it really asks us uh in in what situation are funds student activity funds and therefore CPS public

024dollars and in what situations are those funds external independent funds that then would enter the district perhaps as a donation via the process that treasure Gustin just covered. So I think the biggest differentiator is like I mentioned if you're using students or staff those are student activity funds. The gray area as I was thinking through this is when can staff take the form of an NSO? When are they no longer serving uh as a CPS representative? And so that really seemed for my research to be a very small small window of an employee acting as a member of uh the public as a general citizen. But I did some examples on the next page and I think one that highlights that. So the very bottom you can glance through all these scenarios. Happy to answer

025any questions. But this one here is a football coach holds a fundraising event to benefit a team after school hours. 36 years in Wyoming. I know it's always the football guys. >> Yes. And and so in my mind initially I'm thinking if it's after school hours, you know, are they just acting as an individual citizen? And quite frankly, they're not. They are serving in their capacity representing their team and their school. So those would be student activity funds that must be deposited with Cincinnati public schools. So again, these are not the origin of this requirement is not a CPS decision. It's it's Ohio revised code and then fully adopted via board policy. Um, but I think as we think through future partnerships with our NSOs, helping draw this line uh as to where the funds

026should live and be depositive will be helpful in creating clear guidance. So, more than happy to dive into any of these scenarios or to talk through in greater detail, but I think this can be a tool um that we can share with other folks. And I I I'm looking over to our general c assistant general counsel too if she has anything she would like to add. >> Thank you. I was just going to add I think this chart really does do a very good job of, you know, mapping out different scenarios. Um but but also a good distinction that uh staff and the public should keep in mind is also how students participate um in these activities because students are prohibited from raising funds for things that outside of a school purpose. And so again,

027that's a good way for people to kind of make that delineation especially if they're integrating students um into the fundraising. It should be something that's done within the school walls and for the school purpose. So, I know sometimes that can be great, but that really is the delineation when it comes to students participating. >> Mr. Craig, >> yeah, I I just want to say I think it's really helpful to see the scenarios because I think sometimes we look at a policy and then we try to figure out what that policy means because the policy is written in language that's not meant to tell you what it means. >> Um, >> writes up all wonderful uh I do this at UC all the time. I I will say I think one of the things that might

028be helpful as we go forward with this though too because explaining some of those uniqueness moments to some of these scenarios like you know the football coach who says we have a student who needs x y and z. I'm going to do some private fundraising to make sure this student gets the football cle they need this year not thinking about it as a uh as an activity that would fall within anything that would the school would be responsible for. Right. And I I know we have folks who do that from the genuiness of their hearts. I've been at buildings where they've been talking about I was at a building one day where they were trying to do funds to raise to support a family where the child had had passed away and and and these

029type of things. >> And it's almost better to tell them to let someone else do it that's not CPS so that it does not become an issue. Right? So if someone outside says, "I want to raise dollars to buy a kid cleat." That's them, right? Like some parent sits down and says two or three parents get together, say, "I want to raise funds to buy a kid's cleats." Then they donate the cleats and it's fine. But if a coach does the exact same thing, it's a different process. And so I think that's almost the other thing is sometimes getting us out of and I think that was one of the things we talked about even with crowd sourcing is the GoFundMes get us in trouble. But the if a family has a GoFundMe for something

030that they need and we say, "Hey, if you all happen to want to, you know, this is a family put this out there, you welcome to take a look at it." yada yada yada. It's a very different thing. And I I think that's helpful for some of these scenarios because it really does put it back into the picture of it's not always what you're doing, but it's how it's done. >> And if I may, I think it's a great time to bring full circle to the crowdfunding policy. And now that CPS is fully endorsed, donors choose, that is a phenomenal route for our coaches, our our teachers, our staff, uh, to follow that process and to get the materials, the supplies, the assets they need. And that really does allow us to accept those as

031a district. And it, um, kind of helps with all of the consolidation of all of those various places those were taking place previously. So, I think I'm very pleased to see how all of these pieces really are coming together very nicely. >> Okay. Any other comments? I have a I have a question. How does now the uh uh arrival of a foundation impact on all of the policies that we've just discussed? because I know there's there's been money certainly raised um uh that has done because the superintendent's been uh you know involved with other organizations. Well, how does how do we have to adjust what we're doing? How do we be a how are we able to delineate or is this take care of that? And my other question, there was recently on Facebook, this

032is about four weeks ago, one of our teachers was raising money in a kind of a gofund and people were a little bit alarmed with the use of Facebook particularly to do it, but I understand why they would do it. And then it was actual money and this is where you can send the money and it it appeared to be kind of alarming to rightfully so some of the folks on Facebook. So those are my two things about foundation and also how do we ask on that go fun to me. >> So I I think you know part of part of the thing of the foundation is and definitely you know sharing kind of sharing this discussion with them and I I started that I gave them a heads up we're going to be talking

033about this but we'll we'll share with them. I mean I mean you know Ohio our policy is based pretty much directly on Ohio revised code and so and so we just have to make sure you know we're all kind of cognizant of that. I think some of their marketing materials we might want them to change a couple words like like like one of their pillars they talk about the student activity funds >> which I think like I and and I think like like that that that's a good description of it but it's also a technical term that that someone from an audit perspective would look at and say oh that's clearly not something it's clearly not in their in their baywick where they're having there is an outside organization getting outside donations we just need

034to maybe what check the kind of the terminology they're using so that we're clear on these things. Um for your second question, so we're we're finally happily I'm happy to announce we're finally at the point to start really implementing um the crowdfunding policy that was passed. So So you'll you'll see we're we're kind of ramping that up. It's it's last slide, slide 59. job. Um we we are aligned if donors choose as our official um platform and thank you Superintendent Murphy for for filling out the forms and getting that aligned. It makes our tracking really easy. Um you said what Lauren? How much do we get? About two $2 million so far and stuff. >> To date in all the years of support that we've had through donors choose kind of informally we have $2.2

035million. And the other wonderful aspect from a control and an auditor perspective is that all of those funds that folks donate actually come to us in the form of items goods. So that is a very controlled way for donors to know that what they intend to be purchased is in fact purchased and delivered to our schools. So it's a in my opinion as an auditor a pretty secure and controlled method as well. >> Yes. And they give us they send us monthly reports. Um so we will be kind of moving everyone to donors to uses our platform. Uh we also we kind of have an approval form set up for for teachers who want to use it. You make sure that the principal is aware. Um make sure other people in the district are awareness.

036I know like I think like technology and facilities have have have some you know want just kind of want to know what's being requested to make sure you know that we're not requesting things that won't work at CPS and we can kind of better guide that. So that's rolling out between now and December. >> Yeah. I remember when they came to present it. This was maybe was it three years or so ago the donors I can't remember. They they actually came and it was a way to actually do what we you're saying which is really great. And that should almost be do that or don't do anything. >> Yeah. They they are the only they're the only preferred >> vendor at this time. Now that might change you know you know you know these things

037change all the time >> and so there might be a new new group that comes out but at current time they are the only preferred >> platform for us and so we'll be trying to get everyone onto that and so and the nice thing is there's kind of a there's a CPS landing page so if you if you're like if you're interested in in a specific school you can search by school but if you're just interested in what the district has out there you can also search by CPS and see all campaigns across our district, >> which is kind of nice. >> Sure. >> Um to Vice President Bolton's first question. So would kid future John remember new title here that would be considered an NSO, right? like as as their funding's come in >>

038and I think that's one of the things also I think this is going to be a little bit of the interesting balance and challenge with how we manage that relationship because there is the potential for them to be at events or at activities in which folks could then be able to donate >> that we wouldn't that I guess we don't we want to make sure there's a separation in a lot of ways to ensure that folks are not thinking they're donating to CPS PS at a CPS event when in fact it may be going to kid future and and I think or like being very clear about those separate lines, right? Because I think you can still use UC you can still use our facilities to as an NSO, >> right? It's just that we

039have to make sure that what is being communicated to folks outside of the district who are folks who are working with the district, this is a separate entity who's collecting X, Y, and Z. Is that like a fair assessment? >> Yes. I mean, I think the the branding and the new kid future name helps that to some extent because because it's clearly it's clear. You can make it make it very you can make it easier to make it clear it's a different entity. >> And then I guess to that point like maybe a second question on that is that we have some especially so in our sporting events and other activities where we have groups who will come in to volunteer or to serve in certain capacities to provide stuff to the district. right? Like

040whether it's providing food vendors or these type of things that you know a portion of it may go to uh us or may use space and and allow us to collect a certain portion for different things. And so I guess the other thing is how does that how will that be communicated clearly to delineate between things that are uh a student activity fund type activity or versus a um ASO I will say in in practice it's and and like just thinking about going to football games not just at CPS but across many places you know usually the boosters run the concession session stand and usually the boosters or the band does a split the pot now do they really do they all you know it's kind of just a known thing and I think I

041think we could talk about you know better identifying those things but but you know it's it's kind it's kind of the way the world works wouldn't you agree superintendent >> I was only going to add to that this question pretty much came up during your board retreat and that whole delineation I do think needs to be mapped out. I've seen uh alumni groups, I'll say unofficial alumni groups have fundraisers. Um who knows where those dollars go. Um so and having this foundation just kind of heightens the need to have that conversation. >> Yeah. >> And and I just want to add to my question. I think part of my thought around this also is that we have so many of these activities where like if you're at, you know, you're at the TA football game,

042you're at the withro football game, you may not know who those groups are because that's what you're thinking about, right? Like you're you're thinking, I'm at this game and just making sure that they're very clear about where those funds go and who those groups are to participating as you do everywhere, right? Like any group will do that. And I think we've done a pretty good job of it, but I think adding in Kid Future and adding some of the other things we're doing, just making sure that all of those folks are very clear. This is the Kid Futures is hosting the blah blah blah blah blah. Um, as opposed to like this is the CPS, split the pot >> and money is donated specifically or given, if you will, it's not donated, but given or

043shared or whatever with CPS for a specific CPS purpose. that's not necessarily been raised by the foundation or anything. That's so do we do we keep those separate or do they I mean obviously we're going to >> I don't know how you all have to worry about that but thank you >> I mean yeah I mean go ahead >> the chief has something to add >> I was just going to add one additional thing so as I look through kid future service offerings where they had that table where they they are a vendor and then these student activity services and then their primary focus on the pillars of kid future as I kind of piece uh apart so to speak the student activity services I I think the area where they can provide a lot

044of benefit and support to our community are offering those account management services for our PTOs, for our boosters, for things like that. For other NSOs, I think there's a lot of value to that. However, unfortunately, due to the law, they're not able to so kindly provide those to us because those funds must be student activity funds must be deposited with the district. So, I think in our partnership with them, we can kind of hopefully direct them to where they uh can legally and and so kindly provide those services to help in our donations, but also respecting the um restrictions that unfortunately we kind of have to to deliver >> and that is critical because that has been the continuing problem uh besides who's a vendor and who's a fun and right. Okay. You had a

045comment, >> Mike. Did I step on your line? >> I did. I forgot. I it must not have been that important. >> There you go. Well, or or the or the chief said it >> or the chief covered it perfectly. How about that? >> Right. That's the way. Um >> yes, I was just going to add one more comment too in in talking about you know making those clear delineations. It's also the onus is also on those organizations as well to also effectively communicate. So, if they're raising funds on behalf of a specific CPS purpose, it should be clearly, you know, it should be clearly communicated to the potential donor. And I'm assuming if they're also coming into our buildings and our events, that's something that they would still need to get permission from either

046the district through the principal or depending on, you know, what type of event it is. So, again, it's like everybody should be aware this entity is going to be here for this purpose and it should be clear on the onset or and if we haven't been doing a good job of that, I guess maybe doing a better job, but Sometimes that has been very loosey goosey to use our facilities and then raise something. But I know there's very strong policy about using our uh logo or using anything that is sanctioned as ours. But I don't know if we're strict about some of the other things uh that we probably need to be strict more more strict about especially with the arrival now of the foundation. Um any last thoughts? Yes, chief. Just one final point

047with build uh our building and facilities usage with the more robust rental process that Mr. Birkhard is overseeing with our facilities team. I think this further strengthens the fact that when NSOs want to use our buildings, they won't be up and running unless they've completed a form and they have all of that pre-work. So, I think it gives us this environment with all these improvements a lot more structures. So, I just think all of these pieces really are coming together nicely. >> I would agree. I would agree. Any any comment about that? All right. >> I do remember that our schools are the center of the community and we wanted a lot of forms to be filled out, but we also want it to be >> possible for the community to use our schools. >>

048Yes. >> Especially as we approach some other requests we're about to make, I'm sure along the way. Is there any policy change, any guideline change? Is there any purpose or reason for any additional postings of any of this that we've discussed or professional development? What moving forward? What would be the next steps? Is there any reason for clarification or sharing of information? Superintendent >> general counsel has shared this uh during the most recent principal meeting, but because it's new, ongoing reminders or clarification um will be important and followup from this meeting will continue with the principles and um our ads as well. >> Great. Thank you. Anybody else? >> And and frankly all the extracurricular people. >> Okay. Next. Um, yeah, I think for the for the sake of our of our large group here,

049>> yes, >> we should we should go to KPI updates and I will turn it over to Mr. Cody if that's >> okay. >> That's acceptable to the chair. >> Yes. >> Good morning. Thank you once again for being here. My name is Cody Hutchkins. I'm the contract analyst here at the district. Rob, if you would like to go to slide 33, please. So, while he's doing that, today we're starting the um first of few rounds of reviewing our KPI measures for our over $200,000 contracts. I am joined today by a few special guests that were wonderfully um happy to be here and work very collaboratively >> to to join. This is the hopping place to be today. >> Increasingly so. >> Yes, ma'am. >> That's good news though, right? Getting good >> always >>

050pull into finance. >> So, next slide, Mr. Rob. Just a quick uh review of the purpose of why we're doing this. We really just want to make sure that we're measuring these outcomes so that the the outcomes that our students and our staff are getting are the best possible. Um we also want to make sure that we're we're cultivating and adopting that that culture of performance accountability not just by us but also by our vendors. And then really you want to make sure that everything we do already aligns with district goals. We want to make sure that the vendors are performing the same same um rules and regulations that we are. And then at the end of the year, we use a lot of these decisions with KPIs and continuing contracts and a lot of

051the information discussed today for making datadriven decisions. And then finally, um I know our chief audit would love this comment, but mitigation of risk associated with servicing out services. Um we know if we do it in-house, we kind of have a very close eye on everything going on, but just this is another level to making sure that we're mitigating the risk of servicing out. Next slide, please. So, our first guest today, um, Rob, if you want to click on that link there, would be Mr. Galahghue with ITM. Um, and I will pass it on to him. >> All right. Well, I guess I'll win the carnival plushy for the morning. >> Get to go first. Get the get the big money out the way. >> There you go. >> But I think might even just

052be a a surplus of having the most contracts at a single thing. >> But before that, >> uh, I did try to get us a little bit more direction. I I put at your seats this morning a supplemental sheet. Um it says ITM and assessment contract review. I apologize that wasn't available in advance, but frankly it came from I was making my notes this morning and I was like, you know, it might just be easier to give them this as a reference. So makes it a little bit easier for us to talk through cuz while we have 25 contracts on the list, they really break down into four categories because a lot of them come into one combination to make a service. It's all the pieces and parts that build that up. Uh, also for

053us, you won't see, you know, not in every case is a KPI and a service level agreement necessarily the same thing, but for most of our contracts, especially the ones we're looking at today, they really are kind of synonymous. You're not going to see a lot of academic KPIs where, you know, frankly, we know that giving a third grader a computer, just putting it in their hands doesn't increase the number of third graders who pass the third grade reading guarantee. That's the platform by which we provide access to the tools um for intervention, differentiation, engagement at the direction of a teacher that then enables them to build that scaffolding to help a student get a better outcome. So, it's it's like the foundational layer. So, it's a little different. So, most of ours do come

054in the form of those SLAs's. Um, and most of those are going to be in one of two ways. Either it's a binary. So, for most equipment, you know, if we buy 30 display boards, did you give us 30 display boards? Yes. Great. We've met the SLA and or it's going to come in terms of service levels that are baked into the contract. So, when we submit a ticket, did you respond within 4 hours? Did you resolve it within 48 hours? Did you do whatever we are setting as a criteria and most every one of these services has portals or monitoring that we manage that's built in so we can see so for uptime right the network has to be up 99% of the time when the when any part of it goes down we're

055alerted we track that to the second and the minute so that we can add that up over the course of the year and and we reconcile it each month to say we have a 99% uptime expectation this is how many minutes we were available this is how many we weren't does it hit it or not? And if not, all of our contracts that we're looking at today minus maybe one has remuneration built into it. So if we don't hit those service level agreements, then we get money back. >> So the first category is what we what I call the foundational. These are the the network, the wireless access points and system, our phones, the desk phones, the voice system, uh copy print, and our cyber security. So those really kind of come together to form

056our network layer. There are five of the contracts in total there for 6.6 million. All of those are cases where the SLA is baked in for uptime. That's the 99% that we're looking for. Um, one thing I would note about that one is the voice is the voice services for our phone uh is actually being replaced this year. So, we went through the bidding process over the summer. We ended it in September. Um, so we will be having a new phone provider. It is still sort of through similar partners but in a different platform. So we'll be >> how the superintendent feels about that. >> Yeah. So this will be a >> from her phone. >> This Yeah. This will be a massive change um for the district this school year that we are looking

057to complete by June 30th. Uh you'll see a lot more information coming over the the next couple months as we've been working with the the people we awarded the bid to uh in terms of what the kickoff implementation and process will look like and scheduling. But our intent is to make this as seamless and minimal impact to our customers as possible. You know on the back end it's a big change. On the front end you look down one day you have a phone the next day you look down it looks like it's a different phone but basically your functionality should stay the same. You know that's really our goal of the transition. the >> Mr. Crosset just curious on the the uh on the this voice system >> new system coming in were you able

058to assess the utilization of the system versus how many folks are using their cell phones? We did in fact the the different license model that we're we're moving towards is moving away from an on premise system which is what we have today where we have everything basically inhouse on in the building in our networks that we manage the number of licenses the number of phones the number of DIDs or phone numbers we have and we pay for all of that. We're moving towards basically a phone as a service model with a cloud-based provider. So that we as issue a license for a specific person who needs it to use. And it doesn't matter whether you're using the phone on the desk or if you're using a soft phone on your laptop or if you're using

059it through a third party service on your cell phone that could be personal or district. It's always going to only use that one license that's dedicated to you. So we can actually base it and manage it on individual level and not just on the device level that we have today. >> Great. Okay, >> go ahead. >> The second bucket uh are our device fleet. So, this would be inclusive of not just our laptops and computers, but also our AV uh the display boards, the sound systems, the classroom technology that's in our in our buildings, as well as our CPS staff cell phones. Um the contracts kind of go across a variety of different layers for that including the procurement and lease payments of the devices, the warehousing, transportation, setup and configuration, delivery and deployment, brake

060fix, and user support. So all of that bundles up into our device fleet. That's how we manage all the devices we have across the district. That's 14 total contracts with a $8.8 million total cost. Um, I do want to point out just one kind of caveat that that is much lower this year than you would have seen in the past or you'll see going in the future. As a reminder, during the fin the budgeting cycle for this last year, we deferred a number of lease payments to get us where we needed to be. So, that number typically that you would see would be closer to around 16 million, not the 8 um 8 that we have here today. And again, the SLAs's for that are kind of mixed. That's it's partially binary is did we

061get the equipment we paid for? Yes or no. And then it's based on the SLAs's that when we have a service that we issue a ticket for, are they responsive in the timelans that we've set for them to be able to respond uh and resolve issues. The third category are the core applications. These are the things that are fundamental to CPS like our SIS, our student data system, which is now focus that we moved to um our LMS or learning management system which is Canvas. the gaggle which does our student um monitoring for basically online interactions through Google to alert us of any you know threats of self harm, harm to others or behavioral issues as well as our database management. We have a number of databases that have to back in all the systems

062that provides the monitoring, alerting and management of some resources basically to monitor and manage those databases that we have to have to have everything else work. Uh those are four contracts at 1.2 2 million all of which have the SLA baked into the contract when we do again have the remunerations if there's any kind of failure to meet those SLAs's the last category uh is is just one contract is the benchmark assessment that's I ready so the way that we do the the the contract for it's a little different a portion of that is for the testing platform that's the part that manages out of the testing department and assessment but instead of having to have nine different contracts we include some of the curricular tools in that contract. We don't manage those. We don't

063evaluate those within the department. We are only looking at the assessment, but this amount represents the entire contract if that makes sense. >> Um, so again, SLA's baked in. A lot of that is also what we manage is if we're paying for, you know, 13,000 students to be able to test, we go in and assign the students to be able to do it and suddenly it says, "Ah, you can only test 10,000." We would obviously have a problem with them. So, as long as we have the license we're entitled to, we're in pretty good shape for meeting what they're required. Um, then the last one is one extra uh contract that's 1.2 million. It's actually a duplicate PO. And where that came from was when we were doing the voice the voice bids to switch

064over the systems. I said that didn't happen until September. Didn't get finished. So, we initially had to enter the PO for the current services that we have, but we since renegotiated with them that we're only going to be paying and using it for 6 months for the implementation and then going to a monthby-month um invoicing and billing against that service while we're making the transition. So, that way we have a lot more flexibility as to when we finish the project. And then the remainder of those funds are rededicated to the new system. So, we're still at the 1.2 2 million in total for the year is what we'll have. But it's no longer going to be just to the current system. It's going to be split between the current and the new in parallel. So

065that we ended up having to cancel that PO and issue the separate POS which are included in the 14 above. So that 1.2 there is actually a duplicate amount. >> Question. Um so kind of two questions and I'll try to be uh quick with both of these but the first is really around I think with KPIs for specifically your area um which where most of them will not be attached to like a specific grade result or specific academic results. Um are we using the KPIs and doing assessments when the contracts come back up for either renewal or rebid or that type of deal? Yeah. >> Um and then I think the second question is really around kind of how are we particularly both the KPI but then also maybe the usage of certain technology maybe

066the other aspect of how do we track that that not necessarily connect it to the to the contract but tells us whether or not the contract is necessary going forward. So >> we do actually do both of those. So for the most part in our case and when I say that we can have remunerations if they fail to meet our SLAs's I will tell you that happens very very rarely because ultimately when we're looking at a contract year-over-year if they were to fail to meet those SLAs's then they're not going to be the provider going forward. I mean it's very rare that you would get more than once on those that were going to then continue to use your service um without some serious discussion or changes. Most of these contracts are all going to

067be, for lack of a better term, indefinitely repeating. But the vendor and the amounts will change based on over basically a yearby-year evaluation of did the service meet the requirements that we have? Is it what we need? And it's based on, you know, for especially the leasing, the number of devices each year that we need to roll over in our fiveyear life cycle. So if we're doing 6,000 this year, then that line goes up a little bit for the various services. If we're only doing 3,000, it'll be a smaller amount, but there always will be those services needed as long as we have those fleet of devices. And then in terms of usage, we do monitor virtually everything for usage. Um, in fact, we were just looking yesterday, um, probably a little too much information.

068We were just looking at our take-home usage across high schools in the last couple of days to see, you know, based on after school usage of the devices. And I challenge the team to come back and look and get some reporting on what are they actually doing so that we can have some of that as we go forward into our next budget conversations. >> And I think that's important also because you know there's there's the aspect of to your point we're going to still use technology in certain ways. I think it's also helpful for us to know whether or not those things are being used in the way that they were intended to be used. And if they're not, either is that a directive that we give out to whether it's staff, students, parents, whatever,

069what have you, or is that a decision as to say maybe this just isn't the thing that we need to utilize to get the benefit we were looking for. So, I appreciate uh you guys tracking that information. >> Okay. >> All righty. Thank you, Mr. Golughue. >> Yep. >> All right. So, the next section we're going to switch over to is facilities. So, I have my my friend here, Mr. Mr. Tyrone Walton um and Mr. Chris Burkart here to back up and support him, but I'll hand it over to Mr. Tyrone here. >> Yes. So, uh we're starting out with um our our supply vendor janitorial. Um first of all, I want to say that uh we enter into a three-year contract uh with the Valley with two one-year renewals and um that renewal, this

070is the last year of the renewal. And uh what we've done um just to kind of give you guys a little backdrop um in working with Mr. Bernard is that we decided that we wanted to streamline uh our vendors uh in terms of what they are providing in terms of green products. So what we did was we uh sat down with the the vendors to talk about how can we get one product green product dispensing line for all of our schools. So when you look at this um spreadsheet here, it has uh Valley and Sunset and then we also have Alpro. What we did is we negotiated where they could provide one brand of products for all of our schools. At the time in 2021, I think the concerns was just that we didn't want

071to put all our eggs in one basket because we didn't at the time they didn't feel comfortable having one vendor service all the schools. But at least now moving forward, we can provide a RFP with one brand of green cleaning products. That was our goal. So, um I will say that that was that was a goal that we wanted to do is just to get all the schools streamlined with one product of green products. Uh as far as the KPIs concerned, we uh we definitely are hitting our marks with the KPIs. We typically look at on time delivery. We look at the the the service uh quality of the product and things of that nature. If you look at uh the evidence of that, we've we've processed 88 invoices uh with our first vendor and

072265 invoices with our second vendor. And um I think we're just at a point now where moving forward uh when we put it out for bid this spring, we'll be able to hopefully get better pricing because we got um we streamlined our products. You want to add anything to that, Mr. far. >> No. Uh I mean, >> thank you. M multiple years ago, we um every every segment of school was using a different product and and as uh custodians and building engineers went from one school to the next, they had to learn a whole new system of cleaning products, how to use them, what the dilution rates were. And so this streamlines the entire district. So as folks move from school to school um it's it's much more clear that how we use the products

073when we use the products and what products we use for what specific level of cleaning. Also Mr. Tyrone said we are uh looking at green products and as those counterparts become available and are at the same cost we are moving to those green products. So we're not doing it just because we want them to be green. They have to work. um obviously when you have 67 buildings that that we're operating out of um making sure that those products um work just as good as their counterparts and so there's a lot of areas of uh being green and sustainability that I don't think technolog is here yet um as we look at for example um our vehicles and having um trucks that are electric and having those um meet the same standards as as for regular

074combustion engines. We're not there yet, but in in relation to chemicals, yes, we are. There are the technologies there and we found counterparts that that meet those needs. >> And uh we also uh measure those >> sid just want to reiterate that we do measure our contractors, our vendors when it comes to uh their service quality levels by using a scorecard and uh we make sure we track that. So when we do put it out for bid, we have something to reference the next time it goes out for RFP. >> Good point. >> I >> just the two thoughts. One is I know we we we did this last year. Part of the thought process at that point also was capacity >> because there was a question mark of whether or not the vendors themselves

075could provide enough of the >> supplies to and that was a thing we were tracking. So it sounds like >> they're at they have the ability to provide the capacity and we're feeling good about that. >> Absolutely. Um, I think this is also something as we talk about things that the district does and and something we can highlight in some ways. So maybe that's something that we might task marketing communication around is just >> that idea of the ways that we are green, the ways that we have sustainability built into how we operate as a district. um is a is a very positive thing that we can talk to folks about to highlight especially as we look at future things to build uh investment in is that we are doing things in that next century

076version of of what a school district should do >> and so being sustainable and and using cleaner products that make the building safer for kids >> is is a great way to do that. I I would follow up with that just that uh the whole green piece is is very important uh for that narrative for the next century and and that we do have a long history whether it's the facilities master plan or whether it's this incredible network that we have with the green folks that are so important to us even in our career tech and what have you. But I do think that's the narrative um that should be presented to this uh almost the thing that you presented to the green umbrella network folks about the district continuing its history of of being

077green and what that all entails because I think the board would like to hear that report. Mr. Crosset, >> I think it's your strategic plan that you talked about developing. Yeah. Mhm. >> I think that'd be very much and then that will be part of the larger strategic plan >> and and even something I can remember member Moroski being very very determined not about the green thing as much as about the food that we were serving our kids. >> It was at a much greater cost >> but it was much more locally driven. It was much healthier food. It was more the farm to the table when we were doing that with his leadership four years ago before it became quite so we want to we lead we don't follow. So go ahead. >> Oh

078and then uh the other one on here outside the the supplies that we get through the our vendors is our PNC um um vendor that we use uh which is a pass through uh district pass through cost. I just want to make sure I mention that since it's on the list. >> Thank you, sir. >> Okay. Other than that, that that concludes my my presentation. >> Exactly. >> Still still basking in the glow of the dedication of the darling Kine >> uh wellness center as I recall. >> Still basking in that. A matter of fact, came up twice in in two different community council meetings. I went to >> did it. Did it. So, congratulations. was ahead, >> sir. >> Uh, yeah. So, I'm a member of Cody's um small but mighty team in relation

079to KPIs. We are a small but mighty group. Um, and we we've really looked at making sure that some of those either pass through services or some of those utility type uh items that do have a large cost that yes, we want to make sure we're holding those accountable, but there is only one Cincinnati Waterworks. There's only one Duke. >> And don't say a word against them. >> They got us. My father was superintendent of Waterworks when it was number one in the world. >> They got us >> and we appreciate that. >> But we we've specifically removed a lot of those from the KPIs um that you might have seen previously. So the report is significantly smaller because we've removed those. I just wanted to call that out. >> Mr. Craig, >> I just

080one other thing that came to mind and I know uh had discussions I think with Mr. record about this before, but like ways that we can also incorporate our students into learning about >> and understanding how to use green products, how to do some of these things because I think that's another way >> potentially we could uh again not a KPI for the the contract >> contract, >> but it is a benefit to the services because I think we've done that a little bit with culinary of how teaching kids how to pick food and think about food in a different way. But again, I think this is another area where a skill set build might teach a kid something they take home with them and use in their own lives in a way to be

081like healthier in their own space and cleaner in their own space. >> That also could be something that again our community learning center model opens up opportunities for us to share that stuff with parents >> as well. And so like that that's another area where I I I distinctly remember at some point >> like PNG used to do something similar with some of their products where they would provide those products to the parents and you could learn how to like >> how you're supposed to use the Tide Stick, right? Like how you're supposed to use some of their products correctly. >> And then test it out to see how that works and that benefits and that kind of deal. And so I think that's something our students might enjoy as well. >> Okay. Okay. And

082certainly monitoring energy use is always something that can be done and that's an important career path for kids >> in an interest besides not just the the you know uh no waste down the road so to speak but also actually being able to monitor energy use. I know they do that in a number of the Northern Kentucky schools and it literally yeah it literally is a career path and you get >> you get the points that you need to advance on some of that. So that then we have the technology to do it. >> I think we do need to save on energy from that standpoint. >> Okay. >> Other uh >> All right. >> Go ahead, sir. >> Well, thank you, Mr. Walton. I appreciate it. >> And thank you, Mr. Burkheart. So, our

083next section, we're going to move on to transportation. And our wonderful Miss Pam Williams has come here to join us. And >> so, we'll welcome her. >> Transportation, >> the big one. So also Mr. Birkhart again here to support her. So >> all right, good morning everyone. I'm Pam Williams, the director of transportation. >> We welcome you. Mr. Craig is references. This is uh >> very important. >> Absolutely. We're so proud of him. >> Thank you. Thank you. So um wanted to discuss our KPIs in transportation and we focus on our yellow bus metro multi- vendor and our fuel um vendors and one of our important measurements for our yellow bus is um the number of vehicles, the miles that is traveled, the students we transport and the safety and our ontime performance. And as

084of today with our on-time performance, we're at 92.8 um% with our school start on time. And then we're um sorry, we're at 98.9% with reporting um GPS on all our yellow bus vehicles. And the our next KPI with Metro, we basically um our KPIs is focused on the number of Metro cards that are issued out um to the population that is eligible for that service. And with our multi- vendor, this is where we call them the white fleet vendor and this is where they are transporting our project connect, our kisser students and our ESSA students and they are the more transient students that can come from other districts um that we are required to provide that service. And so um we look at the vendor is the ability to transport those students. are they able

085to um meet those um criterias that the district required us to um provide for those students? And with our fuel is we our um KPIs is based on the delivery cost, the market weights and our fuel types. So that is based on our yellow bus vendors that um based on the vehicles they're using. It could be diesel, regular gas. um we are ex about to explore with the electric bus here in in a minute. So that's um another um different avenue that we'll be venturing into. >> Well, this can't get much better than 99 something or other after what we've all lived through. Sir, go ahead. >> Yes, if I could and and I think um Miss Williams has done a great job, but she's buried the lead on this. Uh, back in 2022, in

086August of 22, our on-time rate was 34.6%. >> Yep. Yep. >> So, so we've gone from 34.6% to 92.8. Now, we we're not going to rest on our laurels at 92.8 because that still means 7% on any given day of students are not getting to school on time. But, we've made great strides and the transportation team has made um great strides working with our event. Exactly. we should celebrate it. Our our our uh our yellow bus vendors um at at times get a little annoyed by as many times as we call them and hold meetings, but it goes to show that, you know, if you're diligent and you're you're pressing uh vendors to to be partners and to be successful, this can happen. >> Sure. Real quick, I just wanted if Pam could talk a

087little bit about the um the systems you guys use to track everything because I think it's pretty cool. There's some di there's some pictures all the way to the right there, Rob. Um it just kind of shows the evidence of how how much work is being put in to track these KPIs and take this stuff seriously. Um and just kudos to our transportation team by all that evidence that they're able to provide and um Pam's team's great to work with. So just want to say thank you. >> Oh, you're welcome. So, one of the reports that we use is a Cognas um daily arrival AM and PM report and we get that daily to show us how the vendors are meeting our expectations and it provides us the percentage of those two categories I um

088stated this school on time performance and our GPS arrival time. So um the GPS arrival time is very important because we use our onscreen system to be able to track buses where um you know if we get a call from a principal um they're looking for a bus we are able to get that live information to that principal um immediately. So that those things are very important. Also um we utilize our um I can't even look I can try to see it but the other systems um that we use is our versat system is our routing and software system that we utilize. We pull a lot of that information as well like the mileage piece. We utilize that system for the mileage. So those are main our main systems we're using to track um how

089our vendors are doing. >> Mr. Crosset. >> Yeah. This is mostly focused on yellow bus and not metro. >> Yes. Metro provides their own ontime performance to us. While while we don't have specific KPIs for Metro, um anecdotally, whenever we get any complaints with Metro, we're actually on the phone with Metro at least once or twice a week. And that goes to both load capacity and how many students are on the buses and if they're too crowded as well as frequency of buses. So, as we bring those to Metro's attention, they've been wonderful partners in helping us um alleviate some of those stressors. and where they need to, they've added, you know, a frequency or we've talked about other routes that students can take to get to school on buses that maybe aren't as crowded

090but still end up start and end up in the same location. >> Thank you. Um, may I ask Miss Williams to talk just briefly about the process for young people securing their bus passes? that seems to be a topic of concern uh and the the from start to uh finish like and then the timeline. >> Okay, thank you. No problem. So um if a student did not I'm going use this year for example um Metro runs a report um a past report where they are pulling information from their fair box. So if we have passes issued to students and they have no record of that student ever using that pass then we mark that record of in our system to say that that student never used that pass. So that following year we do not

091create a pass because of the cost factor. So, um, the other piece of it is we notify, um, our athletics and schools like here's your list of kids that previously never used a pass. So, if you're, this student is in need of a pass, then they will have to follow the process, which is filling out a transportation inquiry form to request that Metro Pass so that we can then get that pass within 5 to seven days. and then have it delivered by our CPS carrier to that school. Um, if a student is brand new, they are enrolled in the school and I would say it's a 24-hour turnaround for that student to populate in our transportation system. And then we pull a export weekly and it happens on Thursday and that export is um sent

092to Metro and Metro then create those passes for those students whether it's a black pass where it's a straight pass a blue pass where it's a transfer or the red is the extracurricular pass. So then that those passes are created delivered to us by the carrier CPS carrier and then we match up those passes based on that list that was exported to Metro and we u make sure that we received every pass and then we send that list and keep a copy for ourselves and then that list and passes goes to those schools. >> Mr. Crosset. >> Yeah. Um question um the number one u item that comes up as a cause for chronic absenteeism is transportation. I think that comes from Miss House department and also uh you know the information I've gotten from

093the school social workers in charge of absenteeism. Is there any way for the you guys have tremendous way of collecting data? Is there any way to correlate that with students that have are in this chronic absenteeism? Uh just to maybe see if there's any value in in that or or maybe you're doing that already. I I don't know. So, excuse me. In so many cases, um we don't have actual daily wrership for our yellow bus uh routes. We do have times where we will take attendance on bus routes, but it's not a daily occurrence where we do that. What we do track every day is each bus and whether it's on time or not on time. Actually, as we were talking um earlier, the reports that that Miss Williams alluded to earlier popped up. They

094come in at 10:30 every morning. So, at 10:30, everyone races their computer to see which buses or what are on time percentage rate. Again, 92.8 again today. Um and then we look at those. We also get a separate report which tells you over the past weeks which um buses have been habitually late. So we know when there's an accident on the the the roadway or the or the freeway um that that is kind of a oneoff. But if we start to see a pattern, those are calls weekly that we have with um the bus vendors and we can look back to to the minute and second what time those buses get to those campuses because we have a geo fence that the GPS pings off of within um every stop as well as when the

095bus leaves the lot in the morning when it gets to the school and when it returns in the uh either late morning or early evening. >> Mr. Cross. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I was really thinking more about the high school students in Metro where you can track the use of an individual card and I I believe those are the schools where we have uh the school social workers who focus on absenteeism. I thought that might be a place for data correlation. I don't know. Well, I just just a suggestion. You don't have to defend anything. I just an idea. >> Mr. across it. I wonder um about Metro because they have a very regimented schedule with the city. Um I'm sure that they probably have a record of when their buses have mishaps and

096they would be running late. My thought and my wonder about high school is the kid may have to get on a little bit earlier of a bus if they're being late because of Metro. I just wonder. >> But for Metro, we do have daily uh runs or we know what uh what students are on the bus be because of the smart passes or what do we know on a given at any given time about our metro riders? >> Yeah, we we can get reporting on the number of students uh for example um or how many times a student has used their card. We can get that tap. We don't get daily reporting that these students use this bus at this time. Um I don't know if their system is that sophisticated. Um we don't we

097haven't asked for that data in the in the past. We've asked for data in relation to um how many times has that student used that pass because we we look at those low levels. So if a student's only used their pass five times or 10 times over the course of the year, we're paying a lot of money for that pass. We want students to use it. So, we really want to dig in. Why is that student only using it 5 days out of 170? >> And and we'd like them to use it to come and go school. >> Correct. >> So, that that's why we're paying for it. Right. >> But on that on that issue of the pass, the board actually said in one of the budget cuts along the way, we wanted you

098to if we don't want to pay for passes that aren't being used. Well, we said that. So, so that was good that that was that was implemented. But on a daily basis, we do have wrership uh as to how many of our kids are riding Metro. Uh it'd be interesting to know if there are reasons why some buses are delayed or late or something some other reason. I think that would be helpful. I do want to say I was in two different community council meetings the last two weeks and at both places the same police officer uh reported that there have been no incidents of to report necessarily at either the Oakley Transit Center or the North Side Transit Center and she didn't know the first time she didn't know I was sitting there. >>

099Don't don't talk about it. I'm kidding. I'm just joking. I'm going to talk a lot about but but I understand but I think that's that's important. I think there's been a huge improvement even in this year >> from from last year and that's partly in the administration certainly at at Metro as well as the work that you all are doing and and the collaborative effort where this has been working through our kids' behaviors. Um Mr. Craig Ch. >> Yeah. Um just two quick thoughts on I think one um one of the differences in some ways with Metro versus the yellow bus is that we have multiple routes at times and so the understanding when students get there to superintendent's point may also have a a part on when they decided to catch the bus either

100coming to school or leaving school. And so I do think maybe one of the things we can think about or look at is if there are patterns of when uh especially after school more so than before school of when students are using those passes. >> So like a time frame. Um I say that because I know a lot of folks especially in some of our communities have complained about you know our students being presents there going later into the day and students when I met with a couple students they talked about when they could use their pass and I think the motivating factor for us to make the time frame like have a cut off was to get them on a bus after school >> and traveling. And so for some of the students who

101were maybe going a little bit further in their travels, their concern was like, okay, if I get on the bus at 4 or 4:15 and my pass turns off at 5, >> like am I able to get home kind of deal. Um, so I think that it would be helpful for us to see a little bit of just the times when in the afternoons, early evenings when folks are moving on. It's just another one of those kind of things to not necessarily know exactly when students get on the bus, but maybe even just looking at either a time frame or a heat like a heat map of when students are more or less using the bus pass uh in the evenings. Um then the other thought that that I think is just really helpful in

102getting kind of a again I think about some of these KPIs are great for us to understand how beneficial it's been doing, but it's also helpful for us to think about how we're going to use it in the future. And I think it would be a really great uh example to look at the on-time percentage and especially for our yellow buses. >> Are there certain parts of the routes or certain specific routes in certain areas of the city that are more on time than others or that are struggling more than others? And that may also drive some of the decision- making we as a board would make as to is this makes sense to maybe rethink how we um map school you know map some of the opportunities to the students or are we seeing

103a reason why like for instance you got a yellow bus is going a long distance on one particular route is that telling us that we need to kind of think about why that is more so than think about what's the best way to quicken that route because I think the results might probably give us a different focal point Right. It's just another thing for us to think about in some ways um as we really think about how do we map students to the right schools? How do we give opportunities in those schools? If there's a particular route that's just taking a kid, you know, a 45minute yellow bus ride is a very different than a 45minute metro bus ride. And if that's the case, why is that student going 45 minutes on a yellow bus

104if they're passing other schools or other things like that that might be uh worthwhile? So I think that the to me that second part is also using the KPIs to also then look at what are the opportunities for us as a district to ensure that our students and our parents more so probably than the students know the opportunities within their district or within their area, the things that might be closer to them, the resources that might be there to ensure that they're not picking a school because of what they heard 15 years ago about the school as opposed to what's actually happening at the school building today. the the the public issues are the delay of the metro passes that I do hear but again it's anecdotal I so I don't know the other piece

105is the end of a school day getting the high school kids out of the bis the the neighborhood business districts >> this is very very negative in Clifton it's negative in Bond Hill it's it's negative in a number of places and and uh I I mean, it's that heat map might be interesting. We know who's not getting on the bus and going home right away instead of we know uh who's hanging around. And it's it's it's been very disruptive for sure. And I I think it everybody's got a full court press about the government square and all that kind of stuff. That's not >> my big concern. Mine is the neighborhood business districts and also the delay in the passes. This is my middle name was transportation for 10 years on this board and I

106can't tell you how glad I am that T is now not part of my three letter initials. I appreciate it. Uh continuing >> actually that concludes the uh KPI review for this this meeting. Um I want to thank all the volunteers that showed up today and their collaborative efforts but I also want to thank their working teams because uh many times I work with their working teams on getting a lot of this data and I just want to say that their all their teams do a wonderful job and they are being led very well. So thank you. >> Thank you and thanks for coming everybody. >> Good job. >> Thank you. >> And you do get to go if you want. >> All right. How cute. You're here another six, seven hours. >> We're just

107getting started. >> Is that still old business or what? We'll keep going. >> All right. What are we uh are we ready to um appreciate? >> Is there anybody else pressed uh for time mic? >> Not that I know of. I think we're I think the rest of us are here for the long haul. >> Okay. Uh, chairman, can you wait for a second? >> Um, >> I I would say Cody has one other thing he forgot to talk about. >> Oh, do I want to go right into that? >> I mean, I mean, I think it's a quick discussion, but I think it's really neat if you want to. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Just want to go to slide 38, Rob. >> And so, while he's pulling that up, just to give a little

108basis of what we're getting ready to look at. Um, I know in this finance committee we've talked for a num numerous amount of times on looking at school budgets on a per pupil basis and looking at the actual school budget, all the things that go into it, all the funds and breaking things out. Um, so what the process that I've started here is using our budget software and breaking out every school individually based on their budget unit first. And what that means is that that is the money that the school technically owns at that time. That's not like a central office giving it to them or central office putting in a contract for them. that school is in charge of those funds and managing those funds. So that's what the budget unit is. That's the

109second column next to enrollment or the third column next to enrollment, I'm sorry. After that, we then looked at um the central office budget in schools. And what that means is if curriculum put in a couple um instructional contracts for many schools to have supplies or things like that, things that are districtwide given out to the schools um but that are identified to that specific school. So then the third step um you're going to have all the all other district costs. So treasur's office um a lot of ITM leases or things like that, transportation costs. So the next step for that was to take all of those costs and what I did was equally disperse them out. I took all of the enrollment, the total enrollment at the period of September, at the end of

110September. Um I believe that total number if you wanted to click on that sheet Rob is like 34 and some change but around 34 35,000 and divided all the other costs by that number and then equitably placed it based on the number of enrollment at each school. So if transport or if all the other costs were 10 million divided it out then you multiply by the enrollment at that school and that is the technical portion that we're going to be breaking out. >> Oh I did not make it public. Great. My apologies. I will make that public after this meeting. Um my apologies. But um so then the next step what we're going to do or what I'm going to do is take those all other costs and meet with the individual departments uh department

111heads and break those costs out. So for example, transportation was a good example. Um get with Mr. Birkhart and his team and see what those actual transportation costs that they have budgeted at transportation's budget unit for Aken for AMI for AWL and break that out and do that all over the board until that all other district cost column is eliminated and it's into categories um so then we can kind of see what the school budget is what the central office budget is given to the schools and then take a step further and see what transportation spending on a what facilities is spending on a things like that. So, >> so I think really we're getting down to a true cost per school. You know, dividing say utilities equally among the buildings isn't isn't really a

112true cost, >> right? >> It's not. We we know some are more expensive than others. Same with transportation, same with, you know, devices, curriculum, those sort of things. So, so the goal of this exercise and I think a lot of board members have asked for this over over the course of of time is to is to develop a true per school cost that that that eliminates as many things as possible that we have to just allocate like treasures office. We probably just have to allocate us. Internal audit probably just has to be allocated. But but a lot of the other things we have better numbers and so Cody's going to work on that, you know, every month to try to build out a a true cost per school. >> Craig, >> yeah, I think I

113appreciate you doing the hard work on this, Cody. And and I think one of the things for um me with this is that I think we have a lot of things that we're not necessarily attributing uh or thinking about when we think about a school budget that is not necessarily under the control of the school. So I think in some ways it's maybe it's better to think of it as what are the dollars associated to a school versus necessarily the school's budget. U because the school only manages a certain portion of that and then there are other dollars we're not actually giving to them to manage. We're just saying what we spend on the operation of or the facilitation of a school um a school building. Um but I think the other thing that that

114comes to mind in some ways is is there are certain schools where we do things because of the need of the students at that particular school. And I'm also just wondering if how much of like for instance there are things that we attribute to central office budget that's really specifically because the students at that school need those particular services versus another school doesn't. >> And so how much of that will we might see in some of the breakdown you do? So, you know, I kind of wait to see what happens with that. But I think that might be the other thing we we look at is >> we might have a really high transportation cost for a particular school because we have a lot of students who have disabilities or special needs or >> we

115have a large percentage of the school students who are uh Project Connect students who are going to a particular school >> versus another school that doesn't have those same things. >> Um those costs aren't something we would be like hey >> but it'd be something we could see and be able to explain away. >> Absolutely. >> Mr. Crosset. >> Yeah. I was just curious, are you are you setting this up in the u I guess the general ledger and the ledger so that going forward it's fairly automatic to collect this information going in the future terms of maybe account classifications or allocation uh methods that could be automated. I'm I was just curious if as you're doing as you're building this can it be fairly easy to create it on a monthly basis? That's a

116tough question to answer. Some of the it can be pretty quick and easy. >> Finally, I asked a tough question. >> You saw my my eyes spinning, right? I was like, how do I answer? Um, there are processes that can be done really. I don't think it can be automated. I'm just going to be honest. I based on the amount of data and information that goes into it, I don't know that it can be automated. The initial budget piece can be in my opinion. Um, you can pull that out based on function. pull that out based on budget unit. Those kind of things can be pretty quick and automated. Going f further as I work with each ind individual department. What we can look into is see if there are things that we can automate

117together at that we can implement at the beginning of the budget session or um seasons and say hey here's how we're going to start looking at the true cost of schools going forward when we do our budget in all of you is there a way we can identify this to say hey this is how much Aken's getting this is how much somebody's getting those are things we can look into but transparently on the top of my head I don't know that it can be automated very quickly >> so you could it it sounds like you from process standpoint, it might be better to export data into a spreadsheet and then you can add formulas and that sort of thing. >> Correct. >> Got it. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. >> I do like

118and I'm sorry I had to step out, but I do like the idea of the per student uh I mean per school cost for transportation. That was my original Rosetta Stone >> of understanding and it it really impacts a lot of the decisions that we make and I like it. you've got and this goes back to 2023 the the transportation cost per per schools uh and as well as I know last year you all were able or this past year were able to produce the per per school cost for energy >> uh and and I think all that is very very important and it might also help the back of the report card too however they figure all that stuff out because that's still on the financial the financial page of our report card is

119not going to help us pass something next year. >> Uh and that has to get improved with the budget and how we classify things. Um then they compare us to the state. But yeah, I I it it's important for us to know what the costs are. and and to that quest 5 years ago and I I I I say this and I remember that this was true but it's still unbelievable to me but the transportation of our special needs kids and also the other special requirements regarding transportation was costing as much as all of the yellow bus service was uh and and because of the nature of it. It's so expensive and and um and whether that's and some of those kids needed more than we could even provide, but a lot of people might

120have been receiving services that probably weren't quite needed uh regarding some IEPs and whatever. We have to figure out ways to to best serve as well as best save. So, this is great. I love it. >> Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. Okay. >> Shall we do financial reports? >> Oh lord. I did that just for you. Like >> Kevin and I walked in together and I I almost teased him then like, "Oh, I'm going to have to listen to these report." Yes. Yes. >> Star star of the show right here. Go for it. >> One of these months I get to go first. >> Forget it. Then everybody has to sit through my which they usually do. So >> that's you know actually that would be beneficial that we'll do that next next

121month. Let everybody sit here through this and see what's going on month. >> No they usually do have to do that. So it's fine. It's all good. It's a Friday so >> you're good. You're good. >> The Bengals game kind of. >> Did that take care of you? >> Yeah. I'm a little foggy. >> Superintendent. I don't know. We're lucky you're both here. Yes, thank goodness. And we can celebrate all weekend, you know, because we don't have to play. >> And we'll have to go for >> All right. Um, so I'm going to skip back to slide number four and kind of talk about the overview things as we go through. Um, so this is general ledger all funds. The total uh at the end of the month was 212.3 million. Uh you can see

122basically the orange is Star Ohio, the blue is our all of our US bank operating accounts. So about 50/50 in terms of more liquid items versus longer term investments. Uh next slide. Again, the the takeaway from this slide is that we are maximizing our investments in Star Ohio while kind of letting our general operating account, we're monitoring it closely every week or two to make sure that we have money to cover payroll and and those kind of things. Um, but you can see the blue is the the more current. So, we're trying to keep as much money as we can in Star Ohio as long as we can. Uh next slide takes that general ledger total the 212 million and shows how it's allocated on our financials in terms of the general fund at 109

123million uh debt service all the things uh syncing funds and reserved in there for 73 million and then you can see the other items grants you know at this point we're waiting on some reimbursements from the state so that's why we have low or negative balances there. Um, next couple slides will be general fund cash balance. Um, slide eight. So, this uh if you looked at last month's pretty much similar >> looking back over the the three-year period, uh, our balances are obviously down. Uh, so it's not anything unexpected. It's it's what we are seeing in our current environment. Um the next slide is general fund three-year cash balance history for the general fund. Um so as you can see the the peaks are when we get the tax revenue primarily and then uh you'll

124see we're going to be deleting that or using up those funds as we get to January and then we should be able to get tax advances in January. We do have debt payments coming up. Those will come out of the debt fund though primarily because we've already transferred what's needed for that. Next slide is uh three-year revenues by source. Um you can see revenues are a little down um in the third column versus the second column. So we've got about 36% of our revenue so far. Um I mentioned on there the timing of the homestead and roll back. There's all every year there's going to be some timing issue, but um last year we got that in September. This year we didn't get it till October. So since our cut off was September 30th, there's

125uh some timing difference there. That's the main main difference. Uh next slide is that revenue by month like I just mentioned the peaks and valleys there. Um the next slide is the expenditures by type. Um so you can see our expenditures continue to grow each year. Um and so one of the big things I noticed in looking at expenditures um with timing with transportation uh we have had a pretty significant uh extra amount of payment this year through September. Um, so I don't know how much of that is carryover expenses, paying items on time and all of those things. >> Could I could I ask about that? I mean, we usually close the year and there's millions of dollars that have not been paid regarding our transportation vendors. Are we watching that be corrected? Is

126that part of Are we more current? Who's watching to make sure that the payment to the vendors is current? rather than to catch up with the end of the year. >> So, we did do we did do some contracts >> the beginning of this year to pay off stuff from prior year and those were separate contracts. >> That's been true for years. >> Yes. Trying to get a good reset. So, that's why we did them as separate contracts so we could say this is last year's, this is current year's to try to get a better idea of current year. Um, the other thing that we're doing and I you you probably saw the email I sent about the treasury report. There are some new transportation contracts in >> we really worked with with director Williams

127and Mr. Birkhart um to kind of change how we code those contracts and and it's one of those things where a lot of times on an individual contract you have different lines and what we would find at the end of the year we would have one line that almost no spending another line was completely spent out and and so we decided to do more of a proportional arrangement for the year and then we'll we'll we can clean it up at the end of the year but but it allows those contracts to be spent easier to keep us to keep us up to date like what would happen is you would get an invoice, you know, you would have enough say general general student money on the contract left, but you had used up all of

128your charter school money. So then we'd have to go and try to find, you know, add additional funds to the contract for the charter schools. So we're hoping we're hoping this change kind of equalizes that spending, keeps us from getting behind the vendors because I know, you know, and historically we've had those issues where I've gotten behind the vendors and >> and had to scramble. So, so, so we're going forward with this new plan. We're monitoring it. Um, you know, we have one of our one of our best accountants for this kind of stuff meets with them on a monthly basis. You know, they they're one of the folks that we, you know, most place most groups we review every quarter. They're one of the groups is on a monthly review. >> You know, we

129go in monthly, look at everything, look at where they're at, make sure we have lots of touch points because >> there really won't be any extra money toward the end of this year to fix something that This year is going to be tight. >> Yes. >> Go ahead, K. >> Sure. Um the next slide again is expenditures by month and what makes that move is whether we have a three pay month, two pay month. Uh is really the biggest differences there. >> Does anyone have a particular affinity for this slide? >> This one is one I we've discussed getting dropping. >> Okay. because it's it's really tells you it's really is there a two slide month or a two pay mom or a threepay mom that's >> I I think maybe like a once a

130once or twice a year type of deal. >> Yes. >> And the only reason I say that though is there may be times where what we have seen over a period of time is that like >> there would be something that happens one month for whatever real weird reason. >> Um so I but I don't think we need to see it monthly. Like I think >> maybe maybe we'll put this on a quarter. >> Okay with that too. No, >> I do love my graphs and charts though, but >> it's just this graph. >> You can drop this one if you want. >> This graph doesn't really >> do it less frequently. >> It doesn't vary all that much. So, >> we'll look at it as we um as we put together next. >> You

131tell us when we need to see it. >> Awesome. Uh next slide is again just tracking the unencumbered budget. So, again, things that aren't encumbered. um just identifying what that is. Uh again, there and we've said this before, there are things that um don't have to go through the encumbering process. For instance, tuition expenses that are paid through state foundation, we just record those as direct payments. So, so some of that it's never going to be zero, but what we like to see is the trend moving towards getting all of those encumbered. Um, so that we're not at the end of the year, you know, and with surprises, I guess I would say. So, compared to last year, um, at this point it was 44 million. This year it's 33 million. Um, so I think

132we're a little ahead. And as we've said over the years, depending on if it's temporary appropriation and how long to when we get the permanent, that can affect that percentage as well. Um, next slide. This slide. >> Yes. So, we are in the portion of the year where we where we burn through cash. Um, I will say as as Kevin mentioned, we did get the homestead roll back. So, that'll that'll help our that'll help our cash. It's what about 14 million? >> Mhm. I remember >> between general and debt services. So that's nice. Um couple negatives on there just to explain because people always like why are there negatives? Uh when we do the property tax settlement, so we get advances. Advances always get put into general property tax. That's where they get recorded. And

133then when the settlement comes, we move some to tangible property. We move some to some other lines. So that's that's why there's a negative in general property taxes. It just means the settlement came in and we had to put money in the tangible personal property line. So because advances are kind of an estimate. So here's an estimate what you get. Settlement tells you where to put it. The other negative is under capital outlays which is kind of a good thing. So grants team did grants team was able to charge some expenses to the Perkins grant for career tech. >> You know to make sure make sure we're spend federal funds and not spend some general funds. So So that's I will call that >> spend them while we have them. spend them while we have

134I'll call that a good negative. So >> that's that's a good negative. >> All right. >> I I think uh I think this is a great chart. Cash flow chart. It's really good. Really important. So that's a Thank you. Are technically are we cash basis accounting until the end of the year? >> Technically we are cash basis accounting and and then we do our and then we do our annual report and it's a curl. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. Our business plus system has some functionality that you can do liabilities and um but officially state level we are cash basis until until we do the annual report. >> Um so the next few slides are preschool. Um this one just shows all funding sources. um since I just had the first two months of

135the year, I compared it to the first two months of last year and you can see from August to September, you know, we pick up about 250 um students in terms of as that enrollment grows. >> So that trend continues. Um, we've talked a lot about the EC grant seats and um, they still have those additional seats, but so some of the funding pots are are moving a little bit this year, >> but we'll continue to monitor that. >> Um, the next slide is the number of students uh, receiving tuition assistance and the calculation for that. >> Um, which the tuition assistance is tied back to the levy dollars. Um >> the you know the number of students that somehow u um being out and about talking about the the uh renewal if the the

136numbers of students regarding uh receiving assistance we if if you guys would just have like a paragraph to put together. I mean the chart works great. It's if you can make that would help the talking points because that does get asked how many kids are getting subsidy. And >> so that would probably be something good to work with Miss Brooks. Um >> that'd be great. Yeah. Whatever >> cuz cuz we kind of see it from the flyover level, >> right? For next week for next week because there's a lot of having to go and sell the the levy next week too. >> Okay. >> But that's one a few questions that's been asked, Mr. Frey. >> Um, so I think one of the things we have talked about with the grants and other things that

137are ways to pay is that question mark of like where we are with the total number of students served by uh preschool programming. And so I you know it's maybe more of a superintendent question actually, but are we at capacity at our facilities? Because I think that's the other thing that sometimes we have to be able to say um is even if our number like to date is lower that may be also in part because our ability to service may have changed based on other things but but I guess I'm wanting to make sure that we're at capacity or at least near capacity. >> I believe we still have some space available in certain locations. So definitely if you know families who are interested in enrolling their three or fouryear-old, we would love to have

138that conversation. I think that'd be something else that would be helpful to um maybe have uh like some of those places where we see opportunities to still enroll for additional students. >> Um whether it's some way of communicating that or those things u for us. I say that also in part because I know that Kevin has done a great job of trying to remind us each time that like yes the number is different but there's a reason the number is different but there's also some underlying things that might be about like this location just has always been under right or this location's had capacity this other location is well over capacity and how do you know how do we balance some of those things out also to make sure that the total number gets at

139least closer every year to being kind of a consistent you know, monthto monthth we or reflecting back on the past year that we're not having some dramatic drop because that's the other part of to some of the conversations we've had around the levy is that this idea that we've expanded out preschool opportunities and then I worry sometimes that if we say at preschool numbers drop 150 students, is that reflective of the grants? Is that reflective of just not as many parents knowing about a particular publication or is this reflective of something else? some of the some of the best numbers on preschool. I think one of the things that Shara says is the percentage of the kids that would be eligible percentage of them from the pool that are actually in preschool whether it's us

140or or the private providers is pretty impressive from a standpoint of of um you know where it started and also uh considering how few preschool opportunities there are outside of what we're doing. Uh the the other piece is that it it became obvious when we made some cuts when we kind of uh had to consolidate some of our preschool sites to save some money because of staffing and and that was that's come up once at least in the last week and a half too that you actually weren't you cutting and we know we were consolidating we're serving the same number of students but for financial reasons we had to not necessarily do what we've been doing which is trying to have one at you know a site a class at every site and what have

141you. So >> people follow this they follow it and this hopefully will >> and Miss Bolton one reason for that at one point we talked about opening a preschool monastery classroom at Vine but then decide to pull back on that. So there's a variety of reasons why >> you're right that you can almost see the streams of of conversation or to your point threads >> of uh conversations. Go ahead. >> Great. Um the last slide in that section um well no there's two more slides shows the number again with the tuition assistance only >> uh and all the things we just talked about. And then the next slide shows the initial budget versus the year-to-ate actual. So there was um the first United Way payment, which is typically a quarterly payment. There's a payment schedule

142I believe was just recently approved or soon I think it was recently approved >> um that breaks that down. Um but we anticipate about 9.4 4 million um being provided to United Way which is directly out of the levy the levy dollars including carryover. Uh and then that's it for that section. You want to go ahead and do this or wait for this? >> You can do that if you want. So this is my section. The quarterly spending report is the next item. >> Um so there's a a letter sized paper in there with green highlight on it. I like green highlight for money. >> Money. That's all right. That's good. That's branding. That's branding. >> This is expenditure. So, you know, I really like green for revenue, but anyway. Um, so this takes general

143fund and rolls up all the um bud units and it looks at it by just object level. So, for instance, the first line is regular certificated salary. Um the budget the working budget is 260 million. Um through the quarter we'd spent approximately 70 million which is about um 27%. So we're 25% through the year we've spent 27%. So just to give you an idea of how those c the calculation shows up there. when you get into the other categories like purchase services, it already includes encumbrances. Um, so that percentage is going to be a little bit different. >> Yeah, because we now we've encumbered 20% uh and we've spent 25%. Um, and then there's the far column on the right. There's there's about four lines that I added a notation. You know, termination benefits um

144are up at this point. So, that's an item that probably have to make an adjustment in the budget. Um, the other ones are are really just we keep a contingency there for salary savings. So, that shows up as a negative on the budget. Um, but overall again for the for all of the lines, the spending was at about 26.8% um at the end of September. Is that a a lot this early or that's normal? I >> I think that's pretty normal. Um certainly we we wouldn't have had hourly salaries, you know, in August, July, August. Um and then the same thing will happen in June where some of those hourly employees won't be paid. So, so it's all if you're just looking at salaries, that's kind of going to be a moving target in in

145that sense. Um, and again like with transportation, some of it is just timing, but I think comparison to where we were last year, I think that's pretty well on track. So, >> okay. >> So, we try to do this on a quarterly basis. Um, so since that was mine, I wanted to go ahead and cover that. >> That's great. >> And then you post that on the website as part of our part of our reports on the website. >> Yes, we will do that. I think our next is uh state and federal. Huh? Feds. >> Feds. Feds. I love it. Feds. >> All right. I'm Nan Hen. Good. I'm the state and federal programs manager here to talk about state and federal grants. Um as quickly as I can. Next slide. All right. So, we're

146going to um kind of wrap up last year and then finally present some data on this year. So, it's kind of look a little bit repetitive, but we're kind of in our transition period. >> Goodbye. >> So, um this is kind of our almost final wrap-up for fiscal year 25 um because of the extension on the consolidated related to the um political issues. These are not actually our final final numbers because we did have an extra we're going to try to have that finished by the end of this month, but we did get an extension on the major consolidated grants, but this should be pretty close to the final numbers. We've just been paying out some final POS during October. Okay. >> And so I did want to point out, you know, it looks like

147we're kind of flat just from 83% to 83%. One reason for that is because these numbers always reflect actual spending in encumbrances. And so during this last couple months, we've been trying to close out POS, figure out what still needs to be paid and what doesn't. So even though we're still wrapping up our final spend, we're also um closing out POS that have been showing up as incumbrances all year that have kind of little remaining balances. And so that's why it kind of looks flat. I did add the total just so you can kind of have a a tracking to see overall where we're at. So our total allocations for all of our grants were 72 million and at 9:30 we were at 60 million just to kind of you know the percentages don't really

148put it in a full perspective. So um the difference is primarily things that'll go to carryover and that we're still paying out. All right the next slide. So this is just kind of um where we ended up with fiscal year 25 funds. Um, our target is always set at 85%, that kind of reflects the Title One carryover limit of 15%, but we apply it to all of our grants and we're we're very close to that. Um, I think we'll probably end the year right about 83% because we don't have that much that we're still paying out, just a few lingering things. So during September, we were mostly working with principles on getting title one budgets in place for the year because of of the delays again and and fi and finishing the reports that were

149due that did not have an extension. >> And then our final payout, we were able to um I think do a really good job on avoiding sweeps this year. We basically >> Excellent. >> had no sweeps for the first time in in years. Um we had like in total of all the FRS we submitted it was $710.86 just you know random fringes and stuff. We had a little bit um only in the adult education um fund grant the Aspire grant because basically that one's kind of a challenge. It's mostly salaries. It's 85% salaries and benefits and really the enrollment is unpredictable because we just don't know how many you know parents are going to get involved in that program. So, we did have a little bit of a sweep in that, but less than last

150year. And again, that one's a little bit harder to kind of control. >> That's that's great news. >> So, we I mean, kudos to everybody that was involved. Every every department basically contributed that. >> It was just it was alarming a couple of years ago when we had to say yes, we've been under spending our >> grant dollars. that was that that was not a good >> moment in finance when that would had to be said. >> So, you know, we might have one just final final slide, but basically we're going to put fiscal year 25 to rest um for for us and because we're already into fiscal year 27. I don't I don't want to be in three years. >> So, this is um our first spending slide. Next slide. um for um this

151year's federal and state grants. Um we're off to a little bit of a slow start again because of all the delays with applications getting approved and funds getting released. So we are a little bit below last year. We ended up continuing to spend some fiscal year 25 money rather than diving into 26 money. So that's why we're a little bit lower. We did add the target line just to make it a little bit, you know, more visual of what what our target is. One thing to note is now we've dropped off, you know, 20 22 23. So this slide now is kind of presenting the results of of the current grant team. So now we're kind of in a position of trying to beat our own performance um in into our own error and and

152we might take a look at even our target line and see if it's still appropriate. >> You dropped on the 22 23 did you say? >> Yeah. And so that was um now we're moving, you know, we're doing on a three-year basis kind of and so, you know, we might want to look at our own goals and see if we want to increase those, you know, or or change our our targets. >> Good. >> So, um anyways, we're off to a little bit of a slow start, but they're definitely spending. >> Next slide. >> So, our goal is only 17%. So, even with those delays, we are on target with with spending. Um, schools are definitely, you know, out there getting their contracts in. Uh, we had a lot of summer spending, especially at the

153district level on curriculum and things like that that were kind of high dollar spending. Any questions so far? All right, the next slide. Again, this is just by our major consolidated grants where we're at on spending. Um, I mean, I think we're we're really off to a good start. Again, considering the delays, there's always a lot of concern with um SSI and expanding opportunities. You know, we're always getting letters about that, but I think we've got a solid plan in place this year to make sure those funds are spent efficiently. And that's pretty much it. the next slide. One thing I'm going to try to do this year um tentatively if if you guys like the idea is kind of focus each month on kind of a new one area of spending or one particular

154grant just to get you know the education and information out there. Um and kind of just focus in on a on one particular thing. And so this month I chose the non-competitive supplemental school support grant, the SSI grant, fund 536. It goes by a lot of different monikers. Um there's a lot of interest right now in the monies the schools get and how they're spending it, especially going into the fiscal year 27 budget and trying to project and and plan. And so I just wanted to focus for a minute on that particular grant. Um we also get a lot of, you know, attention on that at the state level. And so a couple things I want to point out about the um supplemental support grant. It is awarded directly to schools um including the amounts

155that the school gets. It's not like regular title one where we get a lump sum and we decide how much each school gets. The state gives a specific amount to to the schools that are selected each year. So that's notable. Um it's based on the school being identified as having an area of improvement. It is an entitlement grant sort of but um the state decides you know if we're entitled to it and they do that based on the report cards and their targets which basically focus on bottom 5% of performance graduation rates absentee rates and then they can also identify a specific subgroup which might be like MLL or students with disabilities and so kind of one thing that I want to dispel is kind of the idea in spending that it's not just an

156extent ion of title one and we can spend it all any way we want. Um the state is very clear like we're giving you this money because we've identified that your graduation rate is below 67% and we want you to try to fix that with this money. And so it's not just you know again like oh we've got a bunch of money let's let's go spend it. It's it's supposed to be very targeted towards the reason we received those funds. And this this group at the state level is very involved in you know monitoring that and and so it it involves you know more specific planning than basic title one. Um the next slide. And so this particular year, these are the four um priorities that ODO identified. And if if you look through those

157um you know, literacy, ELA and mathematics, safe and supportive environments and workforce readiness. These these four targets at the state level, you know, fall right into line with our one plan goals. I mean, they basically read almost like our one plan goals that we've identified ourselves to focus on in the schools. So the state is very much in alignment, you know, with the same kind of priorities that we've already identified as well in our one plan. And again, these are what they consider priorities for student success for these funds. And then lastly, um um like I think Ed suggested that we provide this information. Um there seems to be, you know, a lot of kind of confusion or misunderstanding in the schools of why do I get this money or why don't I get the

158money? am I going to get it? Am I not going to get it? Um and how much am I going to get each year? So, this is just um like a six-year history of these funds um coming to the schools because we do depend on them to reach our goals. And we've seen that they do have a major impact on schools improving the report card status and you know leaving identified targets. And a couple interesting things is as you can see like there's not a fixed amount like you're identified and you get this amount. What the state kind of does is they have a certain amount of money, they set their categorical, you know, targets of how you're going to be identified, and then, you know, they divide it out. So, they don't really know

159until they figure out how many schools fit within, you know, under 67% graduation how much you're going to get each year. So, it can vary widely. So, like this year, we only have four schools still getting it. they ended up getting 250 59,000 per school because so many states your schools have dropped out. Last year when we had 14 schools or 15 schools receiving it at the highest level they received $149,000 per school. So the amount can vary significantly from year to year which makes it difficult to budget because we can't just say like if you're CTSI you're going to get $100,000 and we can make a plan. And you really don't know until the state distributes it over the entire >> If I could interrupt on that, this is what we mentioned at the

160retreat, correct? >> Yeah. This is this is the number of schools that have achieved out of this program. So, you know, going from going from 32 to 15 to four. >> Well, that's No, that's cool. No. and and I is there a list of the schools that were >> um I can I can share that list with you. So this year it's kind of interesting. It's it's really kind of our not really alternative schools but this year it's GDA virtual um Owens and West High. So it it is schools and and they mainly are identified based on graduation rate and absenteeism this year are the targets and you can probably kind of understand why those schools would have some issues with those particular targets you know because of the uniqueness of of some of those

161schools and their student body. Um but yeah, you can see, you know, over the years and and the reason there's a change even between like 14 to 23, it doesn't mean between 22 and 23, that doesn't mean all of our schools got worse. Every couple of years, every 3 years, they determine a new set of criteria. They reidentify schools. So it might be between 22 and 23 um without doing research. maybe you know in 22 it was a graduation rate below 65% and then the next time it was a graduation rate below 45%. So they changed their criteria in each budget planning cycle and so you can see in this last three-year cycle um we did have you know vast improvement from 32 to 15 to 4 and now there's a new cycle starting. So

162that does indicate that we're using these funds for the right reasons that we're focusing on the things that we should be focusing on in trying to fix those problems. And so now there's a new cycle starting in January. We'll have new criteria, new schools identified, and new dollar amounts. And and we really don't have any way to predict that right now because they're still trying to come up with their own priorities and metrics. And when does that happen that they >> they said we will they're working on it now and we're hoping to know the schools towards the end of January, but we have really no idea, you know, which schools or what the dollar amount's going to be because it again it depends on where they set their bars, what they set as their

163target um priorities for performance. So, it's it's just I kind of just wanted to really explain why it's such a kind of complicated grant and um just you know >> well presented correctly. This is a great marketing tool frankly. >> And that's that's the end of my presentation. Any questions? >> Um so I want to thank you for pro providing this information uh specifically with this grant because I know it's been a source of conversation with the board. M >> um and I think it is worthwhile to also for us maybe to highlight it at a future board meeting uh the the three-year cycles there because I think that's the other part that we probably have not done the greatest part about discussing >> one more thing >> um is that you may go through

164threeear cycle where you suddenly look like you're doing so much better based on the numbers feeling great about it and then the next cycle comes in >> and it may be a reason to do it and maybe you know we want the benefit of the dollars in some ways but we also It makes it it has a I don't want to say a stigma, but it has a kind of connotation to the to receiving the funds >> that it's hard to explain to the public like yeah we we we actually did great >> and they changed the criteria because we did so great >> right or or we did great other folks were not and so they had to change criteria that's why even fewer u but the I guess maybe the question for us

165is a longer longer term path with this specific fund three of those four schools are likely to be the schools who are going to always have a challenge with getting graduation numbers up to a point or getting these other measurables up to a point where they're going to meet and follow the same path as some of our other other schools, but we may see them grow. Is there any way to track how we compare to what the standard is for those remaining schools, right? Right. So like if for instance if we come in next year and they create a new system and it's still around the same basis so we only have those four are we able to track kind of growth at those four or opportunities in those four to try and push them

166closer to getting off of the list I guess is is maybe >> I mean yeah the state uses you know basically report card measures in addition to some other things there is the lag so I think I had noted you know like this year's awards were based on the 24 report card so there is also a lag between the data they're using just like title one allocations because they have to get the data and then work with it. So there is, you know, a little bit of a lag that even like last year they might have come up, but they were identified based on 24 report cards, but certainly I believe those are metrics. Sean, you could speak to that, but they're all metrics that we we >> Yes, I was only going to share,

167for example, I know West Tides is because of graduation. So because of that lagging, yes, we can get an idea of that. The others is because of performance. And so we can even compare them to where we are. what was our lowest PI per school as a bar to see how we can get there. I I just think it would be really helpful in some ways of if the criteria changed and we suddenly now had 10 schools or 12 schools >> being able to explain both if the criteria changed and that the schools actually been improving >> and based on it's important >> one I'm sorry Nan >> I just want to add like just to be clear because that's that's probably going to happen because this state support team is very active. It's a

168new state support team that's really focused on this grant and these metrics and we fully anticipate for next year and so everybody doesn't overreact that there's going to be more schools and less money per school. They've already told us that because basically across the state schools have dropped out and that's why each of these schools got such a large amount of money because everybody's you know spending their money towards these targets. So, um I fully, you know, anticipate without knowing which schools that we're going to see a much larger number of schools, which are much lower, um amount per school. And then I would just like to add that I forgot to mention the EOEC funds, expanding opportunities for each child funds, follow the same allocation process. Even though they have different targets, they are

169the same identified schools in the same award process and the same team. Um but we use them differently. So, I think these are a little more of interest. Sorry to interrupt you. there was board interest in knowing more about this uh the retreat kind of rushed but we I think there was interest any other questions comments is that it >> Oh yes we have two CRA agreements submitted as written how about that >> how close are we to signing anything with the city since we're currently boxing with them. >> There is a meeting scheduled. I know legal council Hoy has a meeting set up. I don't it's in the next two weeks. I don't recall the exact date. It's hard enough to remember where I need to be today, but but but I know there

170is a meeting and he believes this will be >> the last or the second to last meeting on that and we think we're close. >> Okay. family. >> Um I think the next thing on the agenda is actually the um >> foundation financial reports. >> So um you have it in your packet. I don't have I don't think there might be a slide not a slide for it, but I think it's up there. Um >> scam likely's calling me. Um so we did ask >> Wait, was that the monthly fund activities thing that is that the thing? Is that the chart that has the working budget on it? >> No, that's just that just something we submit every month and >> Okay. >> Generally, don't don't dwell on it unless there are questions. >> Nope.

171>> Okay. >> So, next, like I said, next item is review the foundation financial reports. So, that's this document. >> Um, so Kid Future was as part as part of theou um they're supposed to submit to us financial reports quarterly. this was their first first crack at it. Um had some conversations with with their financial team. We'll probably add add some detail going forward. The thing to note, one, this is just kind of the kid future foundation part of their business. So if we go back to thinking about their business model, the three lines, this is just the kid future line. That was the first that one confused me as well when I first looked at it. Um but but it makes a lot of sense. I mean the high level is they have a

172they're in a positive they're they're at a positive financial position through the first quarter. So expenditures are a little under where they would be. Um revenue was a little under but they had some they had some revenue they recognized in a prior fiscal year that really counts for it. So all in all I didn't have any questions. I am going to ask I think I think a couple things that I I believe that the board would be interested in. So, not to speak not to speak for the board, but just kind of knowing is um >> you are our emissary. I am the superintendent. >> Yes. Not to speak for the board. I know um the program dispersements line under expenses. I asked for for some narrative of what that is because I think I

173think people would be Yes. >> interested in seeing where money is going and like, you know, especially the stories behind that, the narrative behind that. Hey, they're using money for this this great thing for our kids. Um, and then I asked for the admin expenses to be broken down one category, >> okay? >> So that they match our highle categories and that's that's that's how we did the budget when we worked with the budget at the beginning of this year for them. So just getting those two things back. I would anticipate next quarter the reports will look like that and we should be good. And next >> next is the um deep dive from the retreat. So slide 30 actually I guess 39 Rob is where we're at. So um I don't I don't know

174chief chief a executive habricost if you want to if you want to go first. I think the first item the first item from the retreat would be our evaluations. >> Let me let me just preface all of that. I asked I asked these two folks as a followup to the retreat and the dialogue that occurred there is my understanding from that dialogue at the retreat that they talked about the evaluations. We briefly talked about the evaluations and I think we left it with the fact that it would be going to policy but that uh as I recall what Ben suggested to that they come to us first and we send recommendations and so that's what we're doing because we want to expedite both of these >> uh as as quickly as we can and we

175are also very trusting of both of these people to be much more demanding on themselves than we probably can be uh which is why they're who they are and why we have them. Um so that's the that's my reasoning. >> So I would I would defer to Mrs. Herc. >> Thank you. So mine is just slide number 49 and I summarized uh the slides that I shared with the board at the retreat on Saturday and my takeaway in understanding from the board conversation is that we were comfortable with the current arrangement of the audit committee performing the evaluation. However, I think we can be a bit more formal and intentional in bringing a resolution forth to the board to approve uh at the July time frame my goals and we could even layer in the

176audit plan and then via resolution formally adopting the the midyear and annual evaluations. Um my understanding of our current board policy that there would be no amendments needed or changes needed um at this time. So more than happy and open to consider any other suggestions you all have though. >> Sounds good. >> We love it. >> Unfortunately, I will not be that quick. >> And unfortunately, we knew that would be the case. >> All right. So, um we use some slides from from Saturday, but just for the public. >> Sure. So evaluation of the treasur um is built into OC um 3313 and then board policy 1330 um corresponds to that and that establishes the the March 1 deadline. If you go to the next slide you know as we've discussed March 1st doesn't really

177correspond with any activities that a treasurer would be responsible for. >> Of course >> um and so I just threw some dates out there. I added a few actually from from the retreat. You know, July would tell you how I did with the budget process. September would give have you data of how I did with closing the fire p file prior fiscal year. October would would give you data on how well, you know, Miss Hey, goods team and I work together on state and federal grants. Um November, you know, if we're talking about, you know, levies and and getting new money. January is a a probably a really good one um in that you know the audit is done at that point or at least we know the results. We don't always have them published

178at that point. The ACFR is done. Also the payroll and tax year is closed. So so those are all those are all things. Um other considerations try not to overlap with the superintendent evaluations because I think doing both of them at the same time will monopolize all of your executive session time. you know and other time. Um, >> it might not be a bad idea actually. Just talk about those two or >> talk about together. Just do them together. Yeah. Just alter alternating or >> saves us from talking about other things. >> That that is true. Um, >> no, you're right. >> Wanted to provide a midterm opportunity. Uh, wanted to make sure you had data for the for the quantitative part. Um, and the other thing that's that's a that's is of something for

179me is, you know, as all of my reports do their goals, we try to ladder. So, so it's important that the treasurer has goals that people can ladder to. So, you know, if I have a goal about the newsletter, for example, and getting the final newsletter out, that's something that Cody and Kevin might take as their goals for their evaluations because they're going to be directly working in that work. So, all that to say, I I don't have a great date. Um, January is probably the best date, but it creates other issues. So, one of the issues for personally for me is like I'm going to have a short period and a long period. No matter how we do this, if we change the date off of March, there's going to be a short and

180a long. I don't want to miss an evaluation period. >> No. So, >> we're not doing that again. >> So, we need So, we need to think through that. So I would ask the board I would ask the committee you and kind of your feedback on what is based on based on this discussion what is a good natural natural date for an evaluation. >> Mr. Crosset, Mr. Craig, they're our experts. Go ahead. >> I think the January date is looks very appealing to me. And if you want to have a midyear review opportunity, I think it could be July with the budget. Uh so those that's about six months apart. Okay. I think that would work well. That would be my view of what you've presented. Thank you. >> Reaction to that before we go

181to Mr. Craig. >> No, I I like that. I appreciate that. From from one from a CFO to a CFO. >> There you go. >> The only thing I would think about is maybe doing completed by the end of January. And the only reason I say that is that we would technically not have your the uh annual um audit report until some point in that month of January. And I think that is that's going to be part of the criteria of things that you're going to have to do each year. We would be measuring that you did it the last year if we started the beginning. Um but I think that's not dissimilar from what we kind of did what the superintendent was saying that the we know the numbers come out early October, late

182September. So we would by no later than this date in that month. So I think the 31st is you know by no longer than no later than the 31st of January we would have done a review. The only thing I would say for this year also in that line too is that maybe what we then would do is evaluate what you've done to get yourself prepared in the transition more so than we would do evaluating >> 10% kind of thing or >> Yeah. Like, but I think realistically saying like what we're going to evaluate this year is did you have you done the stuff to get yourself prepared in your transition and taken over the certain roles and that type of deal as opposed to necessarily measurable outcomes that we would do for the next

183years. Um, and I and the only reason I say that is because I don't know that we'll have a measurable outcome that we're supposed to like a quantitative measurable outcome that we would do for you in three months on the job, >> right? Yeah, I I mean I' I thought I've thought probably this first one is is going to be kind of perspective. You'll have to you have to look at look at what I've done to this point and and like you said kind of project like like like is he on track you you know if from where from where you sit here is he on track to hit to hit the hit these goals? I do think and again I think I think January and then I think maybe late late August early or

184I'm sorry early August late July makes sense for doing the midterm because that would have been right after we would have closed um the budget in that process. So like I mean I think that type deal but doing it in early August is more likely because the board doesn't meet much >> in July. So >> that first meeting in August might make sense to do it then because that's actually probably more likely when we will have a meeting and especially if the budget uh if the budget and finance committee is supposed to provide some input in that as well. >> I thought you were going to say if the budget takes too long. >> No no if we're supposed to make a decision on it and we don't meet >> so little money. This is

185going to be a pretty quick thing I >> but like if we're supposed to make a decision on it and we don't meet >> Yes. >> or something happens. >> Right. That's that's practical. >> That that is very practical. >> You might want to be the six month six month, but practically speaking, it's going to be it's going to be early August. >> Yeah. I would try to avoid the one meeting months. So avoid July and avoid December because >> Okay. >> So what are recommendations? Uh you shall we um >> January 31st and the first meeting in August. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think well yeah I think uh maybe August so that the so this committee can meet first. >> Sure. >> But I think we could do we could have that

186>> the mid for the 31st. Yes. For the midterm we could say that you submit your midterm information to us no later than the end of July, late July 31st. So that then the board by that so the committee would view it and then the board can view it by the end of August. >> Sure. And I would imagine what you're thinking is that this committee would do some preliminary review before the board. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> And that's going back to the old tradition that that all works it way through finance and and the concept that obviously where the work is done is where the evaluation should occur. The same with the audit piece. >> Uh and that makes sense. I I I do think we missed something. not that I still think

187we missed something regarding the superintendent's evaluation when because it worked so well that student achievement had a lot to do with it in a much greater de depth than well I can't count this last meeting when we were doing decimal points and goals but we it there's something valuable to have the smaller group kind of help out a little bit um are we u going to recommend as a committee send this over to policy with the things that you all have suggested. Can you write what has been determined both of you and it has the approval of the committee? >> I want to add I also I know you haven't covered the slide but I wanted just to say it that I thought the mapping the same scoring uh expectations to what the superintendent scoring

188expectations were >> were good for you for worked for me as well. So, >> okay. Yes, for the sake of simplicity for everyone who has to do the scoring. Yes, >> I think it makes sense and I think that's good. And I don't know it doesn't necessarily work for you, but it does work for the other two. I think that makes sense. And then also um uh that's all we have to do about what you have except is there any it wasn't for you. Is there any policy rewrite regarding the treasur? Because there's there's three or four policies specific to the treasurer. >> Uh and it appears uh in the same area where the superintendence is. So I would just think we might want to review that or you review it to see if there's

189any rewrite that is required there. >> Yes. 1330. Yes. >> Says the annual valuation no later than March 1st >> based on the nonrenewal. Um if you look if you look at how the superintendence is written >> I I think a very similar change because it says it's still keeps the non-renewal date for law and then the next paragraph talks about the actual >> so the actual the actual process and dates. So you might want to also add that to your particular uh >> Y >> handoff and we'll make sure that uh Miss Davis has for the policy committee meeting that the evaluation uh treasurer and uh chief audit person the chief uh is on their agenda so that this can get done yet. Oh well immediately. >> Yes. be good. I also in your

190packet and we don't have to take time with this, but I did >> another revision of my goals to make them make them smarter with some more >> some some more some more deadlines and timelines. Um, they are not aligned to the new evaluation period. They're not I mean I mean they're kind of natural goals of when things need to happen, but would appreciate feedback and that can be that can be individualized. >> Okay. doesn't have to be here. >> The budget one is a line. >> Yeah. I I mean un the bud the bud budget is the budget the budget target is what the budget target is. So >> now the superintendent has what I call high stakes goals. Mhm. >> Uh is there anything in here that um puts you under the same

191kind of pressure >> of of performance that the superintendent uh is is is held to? >> I mean, the budget's a fairly high stakes goal, obviously, you know, and and building a revenue plan that matches strategic plan is a high stakes goal that has has a hard deadline. >> Some of the other ones aren't as high stakes. I will say that. >> I think those are good. And so you might want to be have some specificity to the the one or two that are actually high stakes. >> I think they already be mid year. >> That's okay. That's who that >> Well, they must have had some money cuz I'm going to two different things with their names on it now. [Music] >> That could have been. >> Does anybody else have any more things

192on our agenda? >> If I could take two minutes of the time. Um, go one more slide. So I I wanted to get follow up on the budget conversation and and if you think about the budget and Rob kind of pushed through it, but the budget really is process plus data equals your budget, right? You you establish the process, you put the data in, you get out of budget. Hopefully most people are happy with what comes out. So if you go to the next slide, so just I would like you again, you can do this, you can do this in writing or we can do it now. I'd like each of you to complete this sentence. get get some feedback. >> You probably should have done this as a what do they call it? A

193breaker or something? >> Ice breaker. Yeah, Ice that would have been a good one. >> I'm happy to give you one now, but I would probably give you a better one if later date. >> I like that question. >> Uh, but I think, you know, from my perspective, the budget process will be successful will be a success if it is completed on time and on budget. put it on top. >> So creative. >> Wow. >> Told you it'd be more creative. >> Yeah. Again, there's always a chance to follow. What does that mean? >> That's always has been a challenge. We shouldn't discount. >> I mean I mean I'm right there with you. Yes. >> My my answer to that would be um I don't know if word spoken correctly, but it's successive. maximizes the

194resources for student outcomes based on return some ROI return on investment analysis. >> Cool. >> All right. I'll give a a slight caveat. It's my answer of on on budget and or on time and on budget and is reflective of our values as a district. >> So, I think that's the one thing that we >> Yeah. I didn't say on time and on budget is Brandon. You guys are ling to it. >> Yeah. >> Mine would be uh the uh budget process will be a success if it continues to facilitate district growth. >> All great answers. >> We are so smart. This is like the a pretty good group. It takes a long time to have these meetings, bud, >> but we're pretty good. >> I just I appreciate these value statements because it's, you

195know, it's important to get >> more. Don't worry. >> Yeah, we get finance committee. >> We get a lot of feedback, you know, and so as we design processes or tools, just want to keep keep coming back to those statements. I think they're very good, but it helps ground the people's work as we get into numbers and spreadsheets and which column do you fill out and all that stuff. Coming back to to the value statements about the process is important. >> Any other uh items for the order here? I do want to say on the budget process, I think that the finance committee of throughout the process has to be very well informed and to build that into more of what we do. Um, so that you, it's like we said at the end of

196last year, you want the finance committee to be pretty united about where they are. So then you only need to find that one other vote at least to keep moving forward. The other piece is that again I will say as I said before and I say this in the presence of uh the president over there too that uh the um we have to resolve I think um where we are regarding um our employees uh salary and benefits much earlier than the spring because we know that that has to be part of where we are because if we're going to have only the same amount of money according to the projection uh for the 3 years or whatever then that has to be determined very early because that's going to be only second too fixed and

197state minimums will be whatever it is we resolve with our employees after that then we can do a lot of figuring things out but we can't wait that can't be the end of the budget process process when we're figuring out salaries and benefits. That's going to have to be at least in my humble opinion as an old teachers union person and that has to be the the first thing we try to decide >> and and we have to do it obviously in collaboration and and through negotiations. >> Yes, we have a we have a reopener coming coming up next month to >> That's right. to have that conversation. >> Have to be and it we it can't take long. Are we uh ready to adjourn? >> Yes. >> Motion and second. If anybody says no,