Budget, Finance and Growth Committee Meeting August 22, 2025

001Thank you. Want to convene today's uh meeting of the Cincinnati School Board's uh budget, finance, and growth committee meeting uh and a committee, I should say. My name is Eve Bolton and board member. And we're going to go around the room as we always do. And we'll start over there with El Presidente. Man, state and federal programs manager. >> Good morning. Cody Hutchkins, contract analyst. >> Chris Burker, chief operating officer. >> Shauna Murphy, superintendent. >> Brandon Craig, board member. >> Jim Croset, board member. >> Kevin Ashley, director of financial reporting and transparency. Jennifer Wagner, soon to be retired treasurer. >> Michael Gustin, soon to be treasurer. >> Lauren Roberts, chief audit executive, >> recently married. >> And Rob, >> Robert Wilson, uh, technician. And if you'd like to speak during the hearing of the public,

002please click the hand icon. We will ask you your name and school association and invite you in at the end of the meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you, Rob. Uh what we'll do unless anybody has any other needs or whatever, we're going to actually go through the um agenda as it is. Anything to move around on the agenda? If not, we'll do it in the order that it appears. >> Is that good? All right, let's get started. So, first up is Warlock. So, we have two months of reports since we didn't have a July meeting. >> Thank you. >> Um, but we'll kind of go through them pretty quickly. Um, so we'll start with the June reports which are pretty, you know, we've closed June, so these are pretty reflective of that. Um, the annual

003financial annual comprehensive financial report. Um, Plattenburg is working on that, putting that together. It's not due to be filed till the end of November. Just since it said annual financial, I thought I would kind of give an update on that. Um the auditors are starting doing some preliminary invest, you know, not investigations, probably better sampling. >> Um just getting their planning documentation together. Um and they'll probably be on site in a few weeks uh to do some specific cash transaction testing. So, uh, it'll be an ongoing process for the next six months or so. Um, so on the slides, we'll go to slide four, which is the cash and investment section. Um, the pie chart shows general ledger all funds 171 million at that point. Uh, and you'll see how that changes a little bit

004when we get to July. Um, we had 35 million in STAR, 37 million in operating accounts, 19 million in debt, and you'll notice at the end of May, we did pay off the $20 million syncing fund. So, that piece of the pie has gotten a little smaller u as a result of that. Uh, the next slide is general operating account only. Again, we're just kind of using this as a tool to show um how we're trying to maintain that cash account. Um the next slide is cash balances by fund. Uh so we had 59 million um in fund balance for the general fund. Again, the total there is 171 all funds. Um then two slides back is general fund. So this is what we were looking at as far as cash fund balance uh just

005the general fund at the end of the year compared to the last two years >> uh and where our incumbrances were at that point. >> Comment >> and Kevin, how close to that um the forecast was that 59.6 million in cash? >> Um it was it was really close like 99% is what we've talked about. Um, so there was some differences. The Medicaid reimbursement, and talk about this later, the Medicaid reimbursements were delayed by the state. We did get those in August, uh, which was over 3 million that we got. Again, it's a timing issue. Um, sometimes the difference between incumbrances and expenditures, you know, it may be sitting already paid or it may be sitting in incumbrance waiting to be paid. So, but I feel pretty good that it was really close to where

006we had projected. course. >> Uh next slide is three years of history for the general fund cash balance. Again, uh you can see the peaks and valleys. Um and then does that have where we start? Oh, we ended at 59. Yeah. Over on the right side, I got my June and July is kind of coming together. >> Um the next slide is revenue. Um, and you can see that the the expected revenue was 628. We received 630. Again, some of that is timing. So, it's not extra cash. It's just kind of a timing thing. Um, but it it was over 100% of what we had projected. So, that was a good thing. Uh, next slide just shows revenue by month. Again, we always talk about the peaks and valleys with tax advances, etc. Next slide

007is expenditures. Um we ended up really close and Jen has has made this comment but in terms of actual expenditures plus incumbrances which is the third column 644 our working budget which included those carryover incumbrances was 664. Um so for actual you know about 97% of where we expected to be with incumbrance or with expenditures and that does not include the incumbrances. So there's another layer to that. Uh next slide is expenditures by month. Just kind of it gets compressed because of that peak in the repayment of the short-term borrowing that we did uh in FY24. Uh next slide is looking at actual expenditures, incumbrances and the remaining budget. So again, as we you know, the actual expenditures were over 97% of the budget, so there wasn't a whole lot of extra room there, but

008um wanted to highlight that. Uh the next slide I'll let Mike talk about. Next slide is a summary of all the things that u Kevin just talked about. As always, happy that our numbers match. One slide. One more slide, Rob. Thanks. Sorry. Um two things you might see that look a little weird. um is a negative amount in other expenses. What that is is when we charge indirect costs to to the federal grants, we take those charges out of the general fund. So that that's good for us. Um and then the other thing that's new for this month are the advances out. So those are those advances we make from the general fund to other funds to make sure that every fund has a positive cash balance. And because our our state and federal grants

009are on a reimbursement model, a lot of times they're negative because we're waiting on more reimbursement check. >> All right. And then the next section is >> preschool expansion. Um since preschool is not in session in June or July, I only included the you know there are some cash transactions that occur in June as far as salary as far as uh receipts from the county. Um so I included that in both sets of financials. But um again this kind of highlights the the middle column of numbers that we are spending down the um the cash balances there and we usually talk about that. So and then the next section will be state and federal grants. >> Good morning. >> Um I'm going to try and go kind of quickly through June since our fiscal year

010really until September. You know, our goal is to accumulate. So July is really reflective of kind of where we're at right now since we had more of a 15 month this year with the way the grants run. So in June, we did reach 77% overall spend. That's a little bit of a quieter month for AP spending because, you know, >> we end the month early. >> Sorry. And so it's um it didn't increase as much as we normally would see monthto month because the um payment month ends early. Next slide. So again our our goal was um 68% we're at 77%. So we're still well ahead of our target for our overall spending both you know within non-public and public schools. our key activities that month. As usual, we're trying to get all our applications

011in for 26 into the one funding application. Um that ended up not being the final place for our our um applications this year. So, we're kind of redoing that right now back into the CCIP. Next slide. This is just the slide that we always present just as a reminder of what percent of our funds go to the non-public schools. These are our final allocations for the year. So these are the final federal numbers for consolidated and support grants for fiscal year 25. And then lastly is our um grant spending summary. As again as you can see our goal is 68%. There's only a few grants at the end of June that haven't reached that. um title one neglected and title two. Title one had a lot of spending in June because all of their summer

012activities working with families. So we'll see a big uptick in that in July. But overall, you know, we're on target. We've seen increases. Our primary goal has been the grants that either do not have carryover or don't have an extension so that we make sure we don't have lose any funds such as non-competitive SSI and the expanding opportunities. So, we're really putting our efforts into those grants right now to make sure we don't give any money back. >> And can I just add something that um the 8 million that goes to the nonpublic schools, it represents 12% of the total federal grants. That's pretty high. >> I I think that begins to be very much more important especially in a renewal year. Even though this is not about that people have to keep sight of

013much of this money goes elsewhere and that's all I have. >> Thank you. >> I think that's it for June. Yeah. >> Uh we could questions members questions about it other comments uh by administration or anyone else? Sir, >> thank you for these reports. They're great. Very easy to read and >> make sure. >> Yep. So, thank you. >> So, we'll move on to July, >> I guess. So, >> um so let's go to slide four. Give Robert a second to catch up. Also in the packet is the uh fund activity reports that gives all the activity um by individual fund. >> I think that's um really informative for the end of the year if you look at the end of June. Um so we won't go over that but it you can see kind

014of a big picture of all of the funds and all the the layers um that occur during the year. Okay. So on this slide, uh, you'll see our total now for all funds was 303 303 million at the end of July. And that's mainly because the county auditor got on a really good schedule of tax advances this year. And so they made three tax advances in July where sometimes they wouldn't happen till mid August, end of August. Um they're anticipating settlement to come in August, which since we've gotten the advances, we'll we'll just get a net amount, a small net amount once they do that. >> Can you define what a tax advance is so? >> So the tax advances um there is a due date uh when taxes are due. Traditionally, some residents and

015businesses will pay that ahead of time. And there is a provision that allows the treasurer to request and the board always approves this process um to request that any money the county auditor has collected go ahead and be distributed to the district and it helps us with you know cash flow it helps us with interest revenue those kind of things. So um but I'm happy to report that they've been on a really good schedule this cycle and so hopefully that will continue to go forward. um >> is it excuse me does that represent a change um at the auditor's office or >> I think it's just um you know they have some new folks in place in the last couple years and I think it's to be honest there is a provision if a school

016requests an advance and they don't make it within so many days they have to pay them interest and they had that happen with one of the districts and so I think that encouraged them to okay let's just let's just get this out there and be as timely as we can. >> Okay. >> Everyone knows what the schedule is and so >> I think good good auditor. >> They're a good partner in in terms of that. We we appreciate their >> I know they really want to be they've made an effort to to be for sure. >> Yeah. >> So the other thing then in July so we had 131 million in Star Ohio. Point out as I always do this is kind of our high point. um in between now and July or down January

0171st, we're going to have debt payments. We're going to have um you know, all of our payroll cycles and so so it will be easy to chip into that. Um but it is anticipated in the budget. So uh the next slide again the general operating we had about 69 million uh in that account at the end of July. Uh, next slide is cash balances by fund. >> Kevin, can I? >> Sure, please. >> So, just just with the general operating like it you'll never see you should never see it go above about 70 um because of the process we put in place. So, when we when we hit that upper limit that we transfer money to star high interest. >> So, that's something that's being monitored or whatever. >> So, that's a change that we

018made to to try to maximize our interest earnings. >> Thank you. because currently we do get a better return uh in Star Ohio. So um okay the next slide is um fund balances again most of that tax revenue is general fund related we get a little bit for debt service and so that is included there. Um otherwise you know pretty normal report there. The next slide is new for July. Um there is a requirement that if investments are made in commercial paper or banker's acceptance which are specific types of investments um and we do that through red tree our investment group um they manage all that within our investment policy. They they decide you know how to maximize that. Um but there is a pro a small provision in the law that if we have

019any investments in that there's a special report that has to be submitted to o ODW as well as the auditor of state. Uh and so we have that information in your packet. Uh it will be on the treasures report on Monday night and then I'll do the submissions after that. Has to be done by the end of August. >> So that's a required piece. So along with that, we we kind of wanted to uh update the investment or the interest earnings and uh you know, we're happy to report that we we had a really good year last year in terms of about 7 million in the general fund uh versus 4.7 the year before. >> Rates helped us a little bit and then maximizing um those those timing of the investments has has helped us

020there too. >> Yeah, I was going to say you could see a clear trend from the last two years. So last year is when we started doing our cash huddles and moving money back and forth to get it more interest earned. >> And so this year we had a full year of that activity. So you can see while the rates have like you said helped a little, it's because there's we're investing better than prior years >> and managing it better. >> Yeah, being >> great. >> And then also in the packet is just a summary level bank reconciliation. I think that's always good to to put out there. It shows what the balance is in each of our accounts and investment um groups um as well as outstanding checks and all that things. Auditors are

021really interested in bank reconciliation. So something we like to report out on. >> That's this handout that's in your >> and then the next slide is general fund cash balance and incumbrances. Again, as I mentioned, the timing of the advances was better. So, you know, approximately $80 million more this July versus last July. Again, that'll kind of offset next month. Um, and then the next slide is um three-year history of general fund cash balance. And as we've talked about, a little bit of a decrease over the prior years. Um, >> I'm sorry. Keep in mind, um, that a 60-day cash balance would be about 110 million if I believe if I'm correct. >> So, just keep that in mind because we're trying to build our reserves back. >> So, next slide is revenue. Um, our

022revenue projection, the the far right column is 633. Um again we've received 28% because of the the timing of those things but you can see um a little bit of breakdown there. Taxes is about 22 million more state foundation which hasn't fully resolved um with the state budget. Obviously that will um those elements will catch up as we go but just to show you know we are a little bit higher uh at this point and we hope that will continue to be the trend. Uh the next slide shows revenue by month. Again I feel like presenting it in several different ways but um it's there uh if anybody has any questions for it. Then the next slide is expenditures. Uh again, our working budget 652, our current year appropriations 634.7, which is in that right

023column. Um and we're a little bit over where we have been in prior years. Salary mainly breaking out salary and benefits here about 3 million higher uh at this point. >> So the trend that you're seeing on the five 5.6% versus the 7.7% that the 5.6% 6% was the year that I would only allow people to encumber 90 days worth of expenses. So at this time a year there wasn't a full year open encumbrance out there where this year people were putting the full year's encumbrance in because we were able to adopt the budget much much earlier >> Jim >> getting that full year of incumbrance does that enable you to help manage uh cash flow better or not or is that helpful? Well, it helps manage the budget better so that you're not overspending

024and um so but that what once a purchase order is put in place that money gets set aside and reserved for that purchase order, not necessarily cash because that's on the invoice, right? >> So um it just depends on how those invoices flow. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, I think um I think everything was just kind of frozen in that July month um in terms of you know there wasn't any discretionary spending. It was mainly just things that had to be done at that point. So, so those will flatten out as we go on through the year doing the comparisons. Um, next slide, expenditures by month. The biggest difference there is if we have a three pay month versus a two pay month. August is a three pay month. I believe it was a three-pay

025month last year as well. Um, so those are expected to be kind of strange little spaghetti lines across there. Uh next slide is just uh doing an early comparison of you know what the unencumbered or uncommitted and at this point it's about 48 million basically meaning and there are things in there that will be paid that do not require incumbrances for instance um >> tuition those kind of things come through the state foundation we have to record them as an expenditure but we don't have to do a purchase order process for those um but you can see the green is the the primary and that's the remaining budget for salary and benefits. So if nothing else we you know those expenses are pretty much obligated uh for the fiscal year. Uh next slide will be

026statement of cash flows. >> Yeah, all the things Kevin said. Um you can see got quite a quite a nice chunk of property taxes from the tax advances. Um, purchase services are kind of high in July, but I think a lot of that is, you know, year- round contracts, getting those in, getting those paid, you know, ordering materials for the year, start the year off. So, those are expected things. Um, I will say we are at the high mark of our we're at the high mark of our cash for the year and then we'll be we'll chip we'll chip away from here. >> Apparently, expenditure, too. >> Yeah. >> All right. And then m my other slide again, preschool expansion. Um we just have initial estimates for the budget in there. Again, um payments to

027United Way I think will be made maybe in August. >> Well, September. Okay. >> I think last year we did them earlier. The year before they always had a lot of carryover and so delayed. So I wasn't sure exactly the timing of that. Jim, >> the payments the payments to United Way with uh my understanding is has some relationship to enrollment. >> Uh >> no, it's based on the bud their budget and then when they finish the year and they have cash left over from the prior year, they're supposed to return it to us. But instead of returning it, I just don't make the first payment or I make it smaller. >> But so it's we make quarterly payments. You adopted the payment schedule usually in early this first board meeting in September and then

028we the first payment is due by the end of September I believe. >> So is that payment number subject to a year-end surplus? >> Yes. >> That could reduce that. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I think Hector estimated 2 million of unspent cash this year. >> Yeah. I try to think when I'm connecting. Hector and I are connecting sometime soon, but the goal is to get that has to be approved as a contract. So we'll try to get that contract in the treasures report for the ETH so you can see it with the payment schedule. >> Could you give a if you wouldn't mind a quick update on how the tuition assistance will change will be for the upcoming year. >> So with the new master agreement um the first two years were identified monies

029that would go um this year is based on enrollment. So, so you get the $15 million of estimated revenue, you take off, there was a $2 million set aside for administrative costs for each organization, CPS and CPP the and then what's left over gets divided by the number of students and then it gets allocated out on a per pupil basis. So, it's it is Thank you for reminding me about that. That starts this year, >> Jim. >> So, thank you. So, that $7.6 $6 million number there is is just an estimate then >> that's an estimate I included based on >> really prior practice. So that's why I kind of wanted her to explain that so we could >> that makes sense. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Well, um Mike and I will work

030with Hector too. >> And and the way that works is that we budget um the teacher the preschool teacher in the classroom and their expenses for our tuition assistance. It ends up being a journal entry where we recognize how much of their salary goes against towards the levy revenues. >> Does that make sense? >> All right. And then back to the end. >> All right. >> Um before we before we do any other questions about anything so far, I I do want us to have a couple six or seven sentences about preschool. um based upon where we are financially with preschool. Uh it's just sort of a elevator speech. >> Mhm. So um there's a $15 million set aside annually that's from the $48 million levy that's coming up for renewal. Um and if you

031look at I lost it the budget >> 18. >> So um >> thank you. Um, so you can see the estimated budget combined organizations is 18.5 million, which is above the annual 15. There was unspent cash in the early years that we've kept aside. It's part of that $59 million in cash, but it's reserved for preschool. Um, and as we continue to exceed the 15 million year after year, that cash is going to get used up. So, um, it's very important to pass that levy because we are their p their primary source of income. So if that levy doesn't pass, then they've lost their income. >> And then if if I could ask too um on that for you to repeat as well, the fact that we're asking for this amount of money does not

032cover the actual cost moving forward that when we passed it for 15 million, as you just pointed out, what it really is now, >> right? And for us to make it up, we have to take away from K12. And for them, they don't have a way of making this amount of money up, >> right? So two years ago, the budget to combined budget, I think, was like 22 million. And so both organizations have been shaving back to start to live under the 15 million. We we don't have a choice either. Well, you do. You have a choice. You could use more K12 money to support preschool. Um, but I think we've gained some efficiencies in in some of the growth work plan and so that'll help too. Um, and United Ways or CSI preschool promises

033allocating their money out in a different way as well. >> And I noticed last time when Shara presented to and we were as as did I to Catis, she's very serious about removing from the vocabulary expansion. >> Mhm. >> That we no longer are talking about expanding. At least they aren't and probably we aren't expanding seats that this is we don't have the money to expand. We may not have the money to sustain. >> Well, if I'm not mistaken, I think our preschool projection is higher of for enrollment is higher than it's ever been. >> But we have other sources of income to support um that. And um I haven't seen the results, maybe superintendent has of the ECE pilot that through the state foundation the grant. Um so they were helping to pilot to

034fund preschool through the state and I'm wonder I'm hoping that I'm get I'm predicting that it'll be successful and they want to expand it. So that'll help. >> Who will check on that? Uh >> I believe your treasure treasure will. >> Okay, good. I'll make a note. >> Almost treasurer, will you do that? >> I will make a note. >> Thank you very much. I'm keeping my little grocery list over here on my purple page >> because I'm not out of I'm not all together sure if if board staff is even with us today. I think we're both >> This is online with us today. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Good to know. >> All right. >> Are you you're recording this? All right. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Good. >> Yep. >>

035Great. That's helpful. I appreciate it. >> Okay. especially that shout out for the savings in the growth plan, too. >> Okay, so we'll turn it back to the star of the grants world. Uh >> oh, there she is. The start stage and screen right there. >> That's a lot of pressure. Um all right, so just a reminder for grants, we're still continuing to talk about fiscal year 25. We really haven't got any numbers that are that are worth mentioning for 26. So we're still looking at closing out 25 at the end of June. So this is a continuous >> Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. A question. So, you remember when they froze our funds >> and then they told us they were going to extend it from our um FS from September 30 to

036December 30? >> Yes. >> Is that still in play? >> It is still in play. Um it is our goal not to go all the way until December because that will impact when we get our carryover, right? >> But we do have some flexibility for the consolidated grant only. >> Great. Thank you. >> Because the ones that were frozen were part of that. >> Thank you. So, uh, so we did see a little bit of a jump, um, in July up to 81%. Um, probably I would say most of that is from the summer school spending because most of that occurred in June and those salaries were paying out um, into July off of the time sheets and so on. So, um, we are getting up there towards our target of fully spending out our

037grants at 81%. Our target was 74% for um, July. Next slide. Um again you can see that you know even with you know without carryover we're really getting some high numbers of our spend out. The downside of that of course is we are spending into our carryover um as we should to protect it but that always means less carryover for the next year. So we're going to have to um learn to live with the current year allocation. >> But as we build the next budget you're saying that that revenue won't be there. >> Right. because we're used to having large amounts of unspent funds carrying over year to year which really is not you know proper grant management. So as we are spending it out properly you know we're not going to have double allocations

038in in the future years >> and the expectation is that the money is being spent on the children that we have now. >> Absolutely. It's our >> that is the ethic we have to live by. >> It's like accounting 101 the match principle. >> That's exactly right. Yeah. And I and I and it's 100% supposed to be current year expenditures and that's we don't want sweeps. As Jen just um alluded to, um July was kind of a crazy month because um four of our federal funds in the consolidated app and a few others got frozen on 6:30 of 25. They were not released back to us until 87. So, we spent a lot of um time contingency planning during July trying to figure out how to get our year- round contracts in for curriculum items

039and things like that. And so, um it was it's a really um stressful month just trying to guess what was going to happen and if we were going to get those funds back and what would happen. Um we worked on getting, you know, key contracts in. Um, as Jen mentioned again, they did extend the spending period for fiscal year 25 funds until September with normally the spending in 6:30 to allow us, you know, to work within that window. So, we were able to complete most really necessary activities. Um, and then on 87, they did give us notification that the funds would be released um as plans and we got our new numbers. >> so Nan, if you're not going to Oh, go ahead. Is that what we did regarding uh the uh lawsuit? >> Are

040those the funds that we're talking about? >> Yep. That was part of our Yeah. >> Yes. As we said, we're just educators now. We are litigants. >> I think the day after we filed, they released the money. >> That's the way we like it. >> They saw our name >> of Alaska. Everybody take a cruise and go to Alaska because they are our new partners. That's our new cohort or four districts in Alaska. >> Our new best friends up north, right? I have another reason to go to Alaska. That's great. >> I also wanted to say Nan and give your team a shout out. So, one of the other thing in in between all the all the federal funds freezing and that whole craziness, um, state of Ohio also tried to roll out a new

041computer system for the grant applications and management and and and the grants team did a great job working with the administration to get all the data in for that. And then about the same time they unfroze the funds, they came back and said, "Okay, we need to go back to using the old system." And it's it's 100% different. The questions are different, the grids are different, where you put where you all >> Yeah. Everything is different. So So the grants team is basically starting from scratch again to redo all that work to get it all back into the right system. And so I know they spent a lot of time doing un un unplanned busy work in a way to to redoing work they've already done which we all hate that but appreciate your team

042for for all their efforts on that because I know I know it's hard to go back and do something you just did right that's like the worst >> Yeah it's helps a lot. >> I'll pass that on. We appreciate that. >> All right. Um next slide. All right. So, this is just where we're at at the end of um July with again fiscal year 25 spending. Um as before, you can see we're we're mostly at or above target on our consolidated and support grants. You can see with the non-competitive school improvement and EOEC, the ones that um the state really likes to focus on, that we are at 95%. So, we are going to ensure those get spent out since neither of those have carryover year to year. So, we're um we're going to be

043good on those. And then the next slide is a picture into um fiscal year 26. So, this is our final um initial allocations as of 87 when the funds did get released. And so, you can see that we did have a decrease of $3 million from our initial allocations of last year. Now, a lot of that came out of those supplemental groups because many of our schools, you know, came out of the status and lost that funding, but we did have a significant drop in title one. And so, I would just like to note that our title one allocation is basically at the same level as it was in 2020. And so, not only is it, you know, not increased, you know, to match our enrollment during that same time. Um, in 2020 we had

04414 non-participating schools that were not title one eligible. We now have five. So we've added, you know, over a thousand students to eligibility and participation in Title One with a 100% flat allocation from the federal government. So, you know, we really are the the definition of doing more with less because we're spreading the same pie over many more buildings and students. And so it it is, you know, a challenge to continue to offer the same level of services with a flat amount of money when obviously salaries and benefits and everything else are going up at a pretty fast pace. >> This is Thank you, sir. This is probably going to be said at some point, but um our soon to be treasurer, Mike, has already started a work team and I think uh board member

045Craig, that was a direction and suggestion you made. I think they've already at least met once to start thinking about our next budget um ask and including uh what our priorities were going to be um that we'll share with the board sooner this year as opposed to later. I think this is a good example though and thank you uh this is a really good example of of we may not see the the a reduction in the total dollar in the same way but we will see a reduction in how that dollar is spent not because we have you know overspent or anything to that effect but because we have more schools who are qualifying because our students more of our students are now officially in that boat of folks who would qualify for title one

046funding and or at least that we're schools are able to better allocate and better assess that they a need sufficient need to uh qualify for title one dollars. Um, and that means again title one dollars can only be spent as a supplement, not to supplant. Means that schools have to be better about how they allocate, but also how they then spend those dollars because I know that's been the past years we've really focused on as a committee is getting them to spend their dollars fully so we don't have committed dollars to a place where then they can't be committed to somewhere else where it's maybe a need. Um, so maybe if you can just speak just really quickly on kind of the expectations for next year from that grant perspective of how you all will

047be kind of thinking about that as well because I think that's the other part that's somewhat challenging is that folks have kind of expected that this is be your dollar every year. >> Yeah, we we really can't just, you know, put in the same contracts every year, expect to do the exact same things we do yearbyear. And it is hard sometimes for the principles to understand why they're getting less money when they know they have you the same number or more students and the same needs, you know, more needs. And so we have um participated in some training. We presented information on title one allocations and how it works at the principal's leadership to help them really um understand better where the money comes from and and how to hopefully really think about what are

048those measurable outcomes. And I mean the state is focusing on that as well. They're asking for more and more documentation of really thoughtful focused spending on the issues that you're facing. And we really have to expect, you know, some bang for our buck because we we're just going to have to spend smarter and and more efficiently to to really target what our most significant needs are. on this particular chart the the column in highlighted in green >> uh that 40 well really it's the 40 million the next column over which is the public share was is that now that this is sort of finalized and we received the funds was this pretty much the number that was anticipated for the FY26 budget >> very close wasn't it >> yeah so normally we budget at 95%

049But in our minds, we think we're going to get more because you expect it to trend up. So, normally we kind of have a little cushion of what we allow ourselves to budget and what we hope to actually get. So, what happened is this year we ended up with the 95%. Because you can see all the grants, you know, went down small amounts, but you know, even $10,000 on a $275,000 grant um is significant, especially when costs are rising, not um going down. So almost every grant went down a little bit. And also if you'll see the non-public share went up. So now we're up around 15%. >> Of course, >> because some of the grants it's based on um eligible students and some of the grants it's just based on enrollment. And so especially

050in title four, title two, we're seeing a bigger chunk go to the private schools because it's based on their total enrollment, not just you know demographic measurements. So that's another challenge that we have to you know address. Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Um to that point and I think this might be you know helpful for in some ways understand like the the title one non-compete or the non-comp and then also the expanding outreach like the drop in that number as well as the title $1 drop seems to affect us more directly. the areas that tend to be a benefit to uh the non-public portions in some ways did not feel the same pinch of that 95%. So even like when we say 95% we're really talking about >> maybe like 85 us >>

05199% >> to the nonpublic share that I mean is that pretty >> and that that's also accurate as far as carryover um they they gen they get their carryover first so it also um is impactful how carryover is allocated. So the less carryover that we have overall even the smaller share that we get. So that's that's another challenge. >> The the other thing and I think this is just and again not this year but I think for 27 is the potential changes in how they deciding to allocate whether it's the title two and and four supposed combining or whatever they're discussing around and block granting. We we know that the block rating process and at least for Ohio will ultimately mean that districts especially districts like ours will get less out of that revenue because

052it it just invariably is how our revenue from the state comes back on some of these grants. And so I I think that may be the other thing too for us to be thinking about in addition to recognizing we have more schools that are getting resources is that if that total number for certain particular types of uh supplemental resources is either lessened or changed in how it gets uh mixed in for 27 fiscal year. We need to prepare 26 and how we budget and spend to ensure that by the time we get to 27, we're ready and not and that it's not as big of a hit on that particular cycle. >> Okay. Any last questions about grants or anything else that we before we totally move on? I think when we come back to

053talking about building a budget next year, some of that we can kind of build back into the discussion because I think that'll be useful. Yes, sir. Go for it. Tell us what you're telling us. >> All righty. So, for our return on invest in investment section, and I apologize, I have cough drop in. So, um, next slide, Mr. Rob. Today, we'll talk about the overall investment into instruction for FY26. This did come as a a request from the Google forum for different topics that we we wanted to talk about during finance committee. So our first slide here just talks about the overall K12 um direct investments. So this does not include things like APs, principles, operational supports. What I did here was used our AliveR budgeting software system and pulled out everything with the functions

054there at the bottom 1100s, 1200s and 1300s. So those are functions that USS uses to identify our instructional needs. So you have your regular instruction. Um 1 1200's is something like students with disabilities or bilingual type of instruction. And then 1300s with career and tech. Um so you can kind of see the pigraph there. And like I said, those are just based on those are projections and this is general fund only. >> Next slide. Mr. R. >> I find this this data is fascinating. it is >> they're broken up and so it's um I was just going to calculate the 347 million is more than half of our budget >> and that's only like the direct instructions that doesn't include any of like the instructional supports of the social workers or any of that kind

055of >> counselors yeah any of that stuff so it would be interesting to build on this data as we go >> so if I can go back to that slide Rob back one >> so to bring up again we've talked about this many times but as we talks about title three um which was which was a federal grant for our English language learners. If you look at our general fund bilingual instruction amount which is $13.8 million you know and our title three federal money is about is under a million. So, so, so just reiterate, I think we talked this before, how much more money we spend out of our local resources on on some of these things than what the fed the federal government gets. >> Thank you, Michael. >> So, and instead of including

056them in the K to2 as their their own little own little entity here, prek um wanted to do a breakdown of those of all funds. Oh, >> good. >> So, this is not just general fund, this is all funds. Some of these numbers could change as grants come in as you'll see as Nan was just talking about some of our funds are they're working through those. So some of those numbers could change. Um and once again the same logic here using the functions 1280 and 3240 which are direct preschool functions as the auditor of state uses the USS manual to identify. And once again this does not include any principles or any of that or the teach like the um supports that the the direct instruction gets. This is direct instruction. So Jeff, >> um

057the the funding from the levy is 15 million >> and we get about half of that for CPS. >> A little bit less than half. >> A little bit less. So is that money included in the general fund? Is that the 20 part of that 21 million in general fund? So we're spending >> for prek quite a bit beyond what we get funded from the levy. >> That's correct. we started investing in general fund preschool you long before we did the levy. So the $15 million split was just a was to continue to expand beyond that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Just one other point of clarity. Um preschool disability students are included in the state funding formula. So some of the general fund money actually is part of state formula as well. >>

058Right. And they used to code preschool disabilities students with a preschool disability special ed code. But about five or six, eight years ago, maybe they changed it so that every preschool student has to have their normal special ed code. So it's hard to pull them out. But you're right. So um the state funding formula only funds preschool disabilities and K12, not regular ed preschool. So that's our responsibility. So this does represent the total cost of preschool. I mean is the transportation for special needs kids also in this? >> So this is just direct instruction and say how much money we are going to spend. >> This is not total spend on all preschool. This is just d how it was coded as direct instruction. >> Okay. >> Transportation would be included. We don't transport preschool

059kids anymore. I've got I've don't preschool kids that are disabilities. >> Disabilities. Yes. >> Okay. >> There's about 290 of them. I think is >> so I'm just I think it would be very useful on a file card. We can go to the voters and say this is what we are. This is what preschool promises, but this is the preschool budget. This is what preschool is costing us. Rightfully so. That's what we're investing. It's some It just is so confusing for people to see the division of the 48, the 15. Yep. And and that and then they think that's all we spend on preschool. I've had people tell me, "Well, you only spend $7 million on preschool." Oh, really? >> So, I think if just a a flashc card or something, it might I think

060that would be helpful. Brandon. >> Um, I just want to say to to thank because I think one of one of the things that we will have to spend more time about or more time on talking about as we're building this budget is not looking at things in the normal traditional way we we technically were. And the direct instruction part is very helpful for us to also understand because there's a dollar that comes with both the direct instructional staff that are in the that are serving in that purpose >> as well as the other things that may have different directives or different levels that we can do that we have more flexibility some ways on. Um, and so I think one of the things that I wanted to also note, and again I'm kind of

061tying off of uh what soon to be retired treasure whack was saying. Um, in adding the two groups together, you know, we're talking about 300 and like roughly 380 377 million of the budget that is already set aside just for those folks who are in the classroom or somewhat directly connected to the classroom, not even just the school building, right? So like so much of our budget is so focused into those areas and I think one of the things that we can communicate and one of the things we can do a better job of in and doing those kind of boilerploint language is to say you know again straight out the door half of the budget is in those folks who are in the classroom teaching your kids who are focusing your kids. And then

062we can add on to that the other portions of the budget that go towards those folks who are providing the social emotional needs to your students. the the additional language learning thing uh resources for the parents who come in and and and the things that we've been doing as a district to ensure even things like uh Project Connect and these other programs that are really focused on getting a kid to the building, getting a kid through the school day that ensures that the folks that we spend the broke the bulk of our money on have those kids there, have those kids really uh prepared because I think the narrative >> that we saw a couple years ago when we talked about this with Aken for every kid who was at school every day, every single

063one of those students graduated. >> That says the the but that says that the instruction, the folks in the classroom, the folks doing that hard work every day are getting our kids through when they have them there. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And I think that's the part the narrative I think maybe to to clarify in some ways >> preschool is one about we spend a bunch of different ways to spend money to pay for preschool >> for the rest of the district. It's about we're working really hard to make sure every kid gets to every school day, gets through every school day, gets home safe and that because we know that when they do that in our district, they graduate, >> right? And that's that's a it's a really cool narrative to be able to

064say that when we spend that money on instruction that's pres uh producing results. And so I like that kind of idea also because I appreciate kind of that focus and that that's a large part of what we sometimes hear people talk about is like you're not spending money on teachers >> and that's the like narrative that we sometimes hear from folks is that you're spending money on everything else but >> people in the classroom and this is telling us a little bit more of that information to be able to counter some of those uh >> uh assumptions. >> Jim, go ahead. Uh, I think that information is helpful, but it's got to be, in my opinion, to help with the public. It's got to be have some context over a couple of years because I

065think we can demonstrate, you know, how much we're not spending money that doesn't get to the classroom. You know, we're getting more efficient. So, I think not only is this is how much we're spending, but this is how much how more efficient the district is getting, I think is going to be important to give us give that some context. >> We were just sneaking notes back and forth. Um he's going to do a series on money matters with Mike >> um on this kind of stuff which will be help educating the public. >> Does that make sense Mike? >> Yeah. Okay. Thank >> I would also add that there's always been this effort and this dates back to Mrs. Ronin uh where we're making the case that how much money we spend on central office

066versus the schools. Well, now that's not good enough as a breakout or a breakdown, right? >> What you really want to see is how much money are we spend? I think this goes back to something that Kareem has mentioned a couple of years ago even about emphasizing the per school per student kind of expense which you're getting into as well. But I I really like that direct instruction because again when people came and they were worried we were cutting social workers, my god, we have more social workers per capita than probably any district in the state of Ohio, right? >> So, but we have to be able to prove that and not just like one year. And I think with that kind of breakdown too, you're going to see the the benefit again of even

067the growth plan that or whatever savings there are regarding per student, per school, what so yeah, the the better the breakdown because people were always a little suspicious of the the the breakdown of central office versus because they didn't understand how much >> for the schools was happening here. And the better that we can clear that up, the more likely we are maybe not it's going to impact this November, but next November when we're asking for huge amounts of money, uh, whatever format that's going to be, >> right? So, I I envisioned um, and I wish I thought of this. I actually thought about it a couple years ago. I was just never able to get to it, but like a infographic of a of a student and then the different levels of different kinds

068of spend for that student. And then we've been talking for a while about expanding the website to have these kinds of details instead of just the financial reports and the five-year forecasts. Have have it be more >> pretty it's an it's it's a narrative. We don't need the the public is happy with all the specifics but the public needs a narrative and I think that even if it's a visual narrative that would be fine. >> Any other comments? We'll keep moving. >> All righty. Next slide, Mr. Rob. >> Thank you, Paul, for the feedback for that, taking notes on all that. >> All right. So, here what I did was um using the the investment uh budget that we the projected investment budget that we just talked about and coupled with the invest the projected

069enrollment um dividing each one of those sections out by the enrollment that was categorized for those students. So, breaking out all the way from elementary gened all the way to students with disabilities 7 through 12 using those functions, those codes to identify those. Um, and then the way you see it there, the first number listed is the the projected enrollment for that area. And the second number you see there, the dollar sign, is the per per pupil um estimated or projected, I'm sorry. >> All right, next slide, Mr. Rock. And then something um something cool that we talked about, Jen and I talked about and Mike and looking at this was breaking this out by the enrollment of classification. So, when I talk about students with disabilities and the projected enrollment, it doesn't just include

070self-contained units. It also what I did was worked with DSS to go next step further and do the inclusion classrooms as well, so we could break it all out um and get a very good idea of where everything's where everything's at um with our enrollment. And that kind of just gives projected enrollment um the percentages where we were and then just kind of representing that nicely. All right, next slide, Mr. Bob. And then here uh the next two slides are instructional budgets per either school or department. So the first slide here is by department using those same codes that we talked about. So if a department was using in their aliv system function code, 1100 um or 1,200, 1300 those functions we talked about earlier and seeing how much they had set aside for those

071and then dividing it by the overall enrollment. Um so just assuming that the budget for each department would be spread across all overall enrollment um and getting that. So >> when you did the budget the tell me the separation here the charts you got instruction. >> So the first one here is the by department. So direct instruction. So um if any say curriculum for example used any of the 1100 functions to associate saving a budget towards elementary or middle school broke those out whereas you can see department of student services they use the functions like 1,200 for direct instruction. So, it's the same graph as what we talked about earlier, just only by department. >> Uh, what are there any departments missing like the deputy or somebody else here? >> This was all that I

072found out of the outview system. So, as the year starts, if we transfer funds around that to different functions, this could change, but this is how the projected budget was set set up. >> So, you wouldn't expect to see anything from the treasur's office in direct instruction, >> right? But I would for deputy superintendent. >> It's probably like curriculum, >> right? And um >> yeahurriculum. >> Okay. >> And student and student services or something or satellite pro. Okay. >> Department of student services in there. You see they're the biggest spend. What's interesting is the second biggest spend for pupils tuition. >> So it's money that we pay for children to attend >> and uh placed things where we can't serve them. And sometime is it also in sometimes court order? Yes. >> Absolutely. Yes. Correct.

073>> Um so is that making sense to you? Is >> Sure. Sure. I just whoever builds a budget is how they code their spend is what drives this information. >> Got that. I'm just and I'm I'm I just know that deputy's very much responsible for instruction. So I it would it shows up in curriculum and the people that >> her budget is just her secretary maybe travel mileage and office supplies. So >> yeah, I should have specified that it's it's based on the budget unit. So curriculum 025 if I saw it under curriculum that's >> okay thanks good nuance though that's an important okay >> Jim >> just to help my understanding so this is money that really gets spent that really has a direct interface with students correct >> but it's not necessarily school

074specific correct >> got it okay thank you >> so it's an addition to what the schools do yes >> it's a Quick question. Um I think it's worth noting too again that the things that we have uh paid attention to over the last couple years again department of student services is one where we have moved around how some of that is also calculated because I think in past years they were they were placing in different areas and now it's been moved back in student services. So that's one thing that some ways if you look at the historic numbers won't necessarily reflect >> right >> the same way. Um, and that may get us to a point where we have to think about some like conventions on how things are budgeted. >> Um, because I think

075that would be helpful so that we can start having consistent numbers over the years, >> right? And and that's why we quit when we do present the public version of the budget. That's why we quit doing it by budget unit >> because of all the reorganizations that we've had makes it so we started grouping it into sections that typically stay together but >> have moved apart because it does make the history look weird. I think the other one that um you know again it's worth us at some point sometime later in the world as we do our budget be to think about is is where something like for instance career tech >> what part of it is career tech budget versus what part of it might fall under curriculum >> or what part of it

076might fall under student services >> those types of things that maybe that also would be a little less uh understood by the general public as they're as they're looking at when we box these things out. Um because there might be an aspect of something that we purchase for curriculum purposes that go directly towards a career tech program that will lie in a certain budget line but it doesn't look like that based on how people might think about it, right? Because they don't they don't think about budget names or budget categories in the same way we might think about them. So it's a good point. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. So the next slide, Mr. Rob. So, same idea here except for this was broken out into the schools. So, these were funds

077that were directly budgeted to school budget units um and funds that were and then the projected enrollment there as well. >> So, the idea here was to I'm sorry >> these this is not a complete list of our schools. >> No, no, I only did the top 10 here just because yes, thank you for clarif I've seen that sheet. I'm just saying the public is has to anticipate that. >> Good call. Thank you, ma'am. Um, yes. So, same idea here. Taking the investment or the investment budget for instruction and dividing it by the projected enrollment, giving how much um you can see per pupil estimated there. >> Jim, you have a comment. >> I got a couple questions about this. The top two schools um seems to me the Riverview East number just doesn't seem

078seems like there should be something related to Spencer there because there's it's a shared building. It just doesn't feel like maybe that's the perfectly calculated number, but maybe there can be a footnote about that or something. And also on the Bramble School, I think that deserves a footnote, too. Possib possibly startup. Yeah, >> it's a startup, but also we have savings because we don't have to train spend money to train teachers as much. Correct. >> Savings somewhere else. Somewhere else. >> That's where we're going. And we're very very very close. Uh there's an entire team working on that including uh several of our monastery principles. >> But I think >> but that would have been I'm sorry to interrupt but that PD training wouldn't been included in the school budget is in that was in

079HR's budget. >> I I understand but I think it could be a footnote to say here put an asterk by bramble to say look you know it's not all that's the cost but you know there's a there's some savings somewhere else because it's a a lab school. I I just think some of those things that are help would help be helpful. I mean, because those are those are pretty expensive schools are outliers, but there's, >> you know, there's exceptions to why they they're that way. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> And this Riverview East is only the Riverview students. It is not would not be Spencer because that would be a completely different school. Yeah, the footnotes if since we're how we're presenting to the public any data um it's helpful for them to have

080a the frame of reference. >> Just a suggestion. >> Thank you. >> Yes, thank you. >> It's a good reminder. >> And Riverview East actually was one of our most expensive schools to maintain and u glad that it's almost done. I I do want to comment on the um least expensive uh John Gilligan and virtual which is where a lot of work was done this past year. And then I also I love seeing Pleasant Hill, South Aendale, Ethel Taylor, College Hill, all of that a part of of some phase 2 work. Yay. >> Yes. Congratulations, Superintendent. >> Transition Brandon. >> Um, I do want to and I think that I think it's worth noting certain things that are are factors for this year that may not be factors for next year or other things that

081are part of transitioning. I also want to note that there are some schools that even as we are thinking about the schools that we are uh seeing benefits of some of the work we're doing, there are other schools that we still have to figure out solutions for because at the end of the day >> like Evston is number three on the list or number four on the list. Um, and I think this is a long-term issue that we will have to think about or Woodford is again another example of that where we may be having to have a bigger conversation about the feasibility of the school and not again to put people on alarm, but the the re the reality is that we do have changing neighborhoods that are not getting fixed anytime soon by

082the way the city is is designing their plan of habitatting uh our communities, right? So, like if we are not investing in communities to build families into certain parts, the long-term success and the long-term amount of information we're having to put in to to make a building successful is just the additional cost that we pay >> and not the cost of others throughout the city or others who are are partners. Um, I think the only other thing I would also add too is is it would be interesting to see for our high schools versus our elementary and junior in uh middle schools if that if those numbers for our high schools tend to reflect the additional programming that we're doing more so than the additional students. um because it you know Woodward for instance is

083a higher number but there also is a lot of programming specific for Woodward that might be why drive that what drives that number up. So I'm kind of in envisioning like a little preface to the report to say you know these group of programs you know some context that goes with the report so we can work on that >> there there there's I mean I love this conversation because there's a lot of caveat to that like you know the number of specialized units at Woodward and other schools. Correct. >> Just really something to uh dig into the why. >> The why. Exactly. >> Yeah. Right. This is great. I'm I'm loving that the conversations that we're having. It's a change of culture. >> Well, and I'll be a little bit more direct even about one

084part of it is that we can no longer subsidize >> schools that are too small >> y >> or too unsuccessful, whatever that means. And we haven't defined it. We certainly don't depend upon the state to define it for us. We can't sub we we can't we can no longer subsidize those schools. every school is going to have to be able to not only perform uh and and serve our children, but also be cost effective doing it. And >> uh it starts with making sure it's fully enrolled >> because we know it if not fully enrolled, it's too expensive. >> I would like to just piggyback on what you said that you look at the bottom of the report and we're spending $9,600 of general fund money per pupil. This this year's state share is

085at 31% which means we're only getting $2,500 per pupil. >> Absolutely. >> Of base cost. So there is this doesn't include categorical funding, but >> um it the percent is shrinking dramatically from the state. >> And I'm going to continue to be direct and and whenever but also we can't keep having all the public money much of the public money go to unpublic non-public schools. And and that doesn't mean anybody's against a parochial system. It means that we can't have three school systems and pay for them. We can't with the >> What's interesting is on the first day of school, I was assigned to the ed center. So, I was chatting up people that were enrolling >> and I I ran into the a mom on our way out that she had just withdrawn her

086kids and put them in charter schools, but she didn't understand that they weren't part of CPS. >> Oh, yeah. Yes. >> So, um, and that's I don't know, maybe an opportunity for different kind of communication or something. >> M Mr. Crosset mentioned that to me just the other day. I mean, that's part of our messaging. Our messaging. We are in a competitive market. Uh, unfairly competitive, not a level playing field at all. And it's time to uh muscle up because we've got to get that messaging out there because I'm telling you, if those kids are in those charter schools, they're not learning as much as they would be at CPS. It's as simple as that. Yep. Sir, >> I got a question that uh what you said 2500 or less than $3,000 per student. Is

087that number are you calculating that number by also reducing by taking out the dollars that like pay for transportation in non-public schools? So was it really truly less than that because we've got to divert some of our money? >> So I took it from the state foundation report. The base cost is 8101 for us and um our state share is 31.88%. That's how I calculated. So it's actually less than that when you take there's money that comes from the state that we does not go to our students. So it's actually less than that. That am I saying that right? Like for transportation right for example. >> Well we do get reimbursement on transportation on another line that's not part of the base cost. >> Okay. I I see. Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah.

088Really? >> Oh it's like nothing's ever >> we spend we spend what $40 million in transportation. We get um >> 12 12. Yeah. >> And and I'll never say this. >> Never 100% reimbured. >> I'll seldom say this, but in fairness to even the current federal administration and state administration, IDA has never been fully funded. >> So, I mean, it's we've never been dealing with the amount of money we should have been getting for for special needs kids or whatever, ever, ever. And now it's even less. Brandon, >> what? >> That's the education. >> Disabilities. >> Yeah. Um, but I I do think that goes a little bit more to the point of >> disability, >> the allocation of funds that we get from the state is is the idea of what you would educate

089a student without any additional needs. >> Correct. >> And what we have in our district is a number of students who in some form or fashion have some form of an additional need. >> The the state funding formula does do a base cost on which we're talking about they but they do add what they call categoricals. So they do do an extra waiting for students with disabilities, gifted ELLL, >> but like the >> tech >> the needs for like a a child who has some psychological needs who needs the counselor to work with them. The p the child who >> has uh safety needs. So they need to ensure that they have a safe place to be picked up. I mean the things that we are >> dealing with on a regular basis that are

090not even just a disability related issue for a child or the right >> the child who's a multilingual learner. um that the other stuff that our children go through when there's a serious incident that happens and we have to deploy a bunch of resources into a building to ensure that those students have the needs >> to ensure they learn. >> The state doesn't fund that either. So, like those are things as well that when we think about our budget and we're thinking about how much we're spending on per school, per pupil, there are a bunch of categorical costs that we spend as a as a means of getting our students through the day, right? To keep them on track >> and and and in their minds, it's all part of that base cost. Um, but

091it clearly it's not enough. and you know they spent uh two three years working on a uh the c an update to the categorical spend and realized it was going to cost a billion dollars. So they just set it aside. So the student waitings for those categoricals are six years old and so they're just not keeping pace with inflation that we have to pay. >> There is no intent whatsoever from the state to fully fund education uh public education and we just have to we have to cope with it. as best we can. >> We good? >> Yep. >> All right. All right. So, next section, Rob. >> All right. So, our next section here starting to talk about um vendor multi multicontracted vendor. So, these are FY26 contracts. Um and what I did here

092was broke them out by vendor with the total number of contracts that they have currently in the system. Um, and the total dollar amount that those contracts are worth. Um, that dollar amount is not amount paid, but what the contract was entered for. I just want to specify that since we're early on in the year, >> right? >> So, those top 10 vendors there you can kind of see and then there's a full list um a link attached there in the slideshow, but for the board members and superintendent, I did give a print out um and I also have extra printouts if anyone wants to see that here. But that just kind of breaks down what those are, gives the purpose of what those contracts are um and the amounts. >> Well, it starts the

093conversation and the ability to possibly consolidate some of those and negotiate better terms possibility. >> Well, >> and this they shouldn't be so individualized, should they? I mean, shouldn't this would require RFPs in some of these or what? >> It it's something to consider. Yes, >> some of them might, but um you don't just because the same vendors used doesn't mean the same service is being spent and so it's but it it's a reason to start the conversation. >> Yes, >> Miss Leven. >> Yes, I would like to comment on that because I'm looking at some of these top >> and they do have cooperatives next to them >> and we do have actually RFPs. >> So, some of these vendors do have RFPs and cooperatives. >> Okay. And what's a and explain what a

094cooperative is. >> A cooperative is where we can piggyback off of another entity or someone else has already did the RFP and we're able to piggyback off of it um as requested by the Ohio Vice Code. We're able to do that. So, we do have a lot of these vendors that have cooperatives with them or a RFP or bidding has been done. And so, in the cooperative, a bidding has been done. And so then we allow our actual district to use that cooperative throughout a lot of these multiple um requisitions that actually enter into business plus. So we do we do look at that um and we do have looking at this list I'm looking at like an American Sound we have a cooperative for American Sound >> um CBTS I think we have a

095cooperative for them as well. >> Right. We're not trying to say that that's not happening. We're just saying that when we see a lot of m multiple contracts, vendors with have multiple contracts, it's an opportunity to look to see if there's an opportunity to or do it in a different way. >> Absolutely. >> That's all we're trying to say here. >> I totally agree. Um and that's something that my team is also looking into as well to make sure that our contract administrator, Elena Johnson, and she actually looks at that. She looks over those record those contracts and she does look to see whether or not you know these could could be combined. Um no put that on the same contract line so we can see all the costs so it won't be going like

096for the same one particular um department or school. If you're using that same vendor multiple times put an amendment in so we can see that cost and we can make an identification. So yes I totally agree that actual um identification is really needed and good. So Jim, so is a Thank you. is a cooperative mean you've done an RFP and you've got say three vendors does that mean you can choose to use any one of those three vendors? Is that what that means? >> So in some cases uh some cases a cooperative do um they do um award more than one vendor under one cooperative. Yes. And just like when the RFP bidding process when you look at an RFP bidding process and you say for instance the facilities world there's so much going on

097we have so many big properties we may actually award more than one vendor. So yes in cooperative world that's also allowed. So, a lot of times OD or the state will do um their own bidding process, but they'll allow school district take advantage of collaborative then because you get a better price. >> So, you don't have to go and do your own RFP. >> Is it Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Uh then I'm pulling this this uh number out from some uh long list ago. We have like 1,600 different con vendor contracts. No, it's a little high, but >> yeah, I say it's more like 1,200. >> You're in the ball. >> I'm I'm going to stick I'm going to stick by my 1600. >> Still not public in there. We might be close

098to 16 million. >> And then some of them are payments that come through looking at the actual >> but that just seems extraordinary to me. Even though it's this is a huge organization and I'm I'm not I'm not saying that is too many but I just think that that's a hard thing to manage. >> It is. So when you say contracts we also look at um agreements and everything like that. So >> well I think this was actually I think this was a vendor list I saw. >> Yeah. >> It's it's a vendor list and I bet you that somehow and again I'm 74. I'm not going to trust that number totally, but I thought feel pretty good about that number. >> So, you're in the ballpark. >> There's a lot. Okay, good. Good. Good.

099Good. Good. >> I like to be in the >> And you're right. I mean, but we gained efficiencies when we're able to consolidate. It's not only gain efficiencies on purchasing power, but on the back end, it's less contracts that purchasing has to handle. It's less things that we have to budget, >> right? >> Process improve and get um updated or approved by the board. So, um, this is just starting the conversation to look for opportunities. That's all. >> Exactly. >> Cody, >> Brandon, >> just really quick, uh, and yeah, I apologize for helping me out for a second, but um, I think one of the things we talked about it also in part of the contract deals that we're doing and sometimes how we why we have multiple contracts or whatever is because we have

100certain things that are like really specific needs. So I remember back when we did um when we talked about like some of the the contracts we did for some of the groundskeeping services and some of the other things that we were using using tools for something where particular vendor could not provide >> like the mow it was like the mowing services the land in the snow removal that stuff. >> Yeah. Like those sort of things. And I think it is helpful in some ways also to recognize those contracts where you know for instance is that is the best way to bid that out to bid out one large contract and then have four or five different folks in there involved or is the best way to maybe bid out a region or bid out >>

101right >> a smaller portion because we experienced this when I worked in the district with uh the past is that the way the construction bids always were done is you did like one bid for all the plumbing on like five projects. Right. >> And that meant you had one vendor who could charge whoever they wanted to >> and like that presented problems take a lot more with them >> is they would basically you know bring in these subs for all the people who would have normally bid you >> you know at a lower cost >> right >> but unfortunately couldn't do the size of the project. >> It also has a negative impact on the supplier diversity efforts. So you're starting to shut out the smaller womenowned businesses, minority owned businesses that can't handle the

102the the largest of the contract. So you break it down into smaller contracts, you give them more opportunities. >> Um >> and long ago, Jen, that was part of the reasoning. >> Yes, >> we all and rightfully so. >> Yeah. >> So I think it's like about like sometimes it's about right sizing the contract itself of what we're bidding out, right? So you may not need 10 vendors to provide, >> you know, paper in a school, >> right? So maybe you need one or two, >> but maybe what you would do is buy a corridor to have your vendor who does the east, vendor who does the west, your vendor who does the central. And now we're out of having 12 contracts doing paper, but we're not down to one person who says I can

103charge you whatever I want to. >> Exactly. >> Thank you all. Um, and kind of I'm going to piggyback off what Trina said too as well. Um, just for example, Hamilton County, you see the number of contracts there is 11. Five of those might be a data coach that all have the same RFP. Technically, you could look at that as one with the one RFP. And what I did was because I've had had this conversation with Yolando and Trina is on the the tab or on the link there or the printout sheet, you'll see a column that should say RFP number or renewal or something on there. I wanted to make sure to include that just so that we knew if we look through Hamilton County might have 11 contracts, but five of them are

104for data coaches and they have the same RFP just to show that we did our due diligence there. >> And every school does their own contract. >> Well, that's another issue. So, but thank you. >> That's a that's a pro. I think that is a problem, but we'll we'll we'll we'll keep working on it. >> Next slide, Mr. Rob. So, I believe this starts the conversation on item number two, if I'm correct. This um talking about the key performance monthly updates with the Hamilton County and then the ESC non-competitive. >> Yes. And this was at a board requ it was a board request to provide this information. So the the slide you'll see here is Hamilton County um education service center for the past two years of 24 and 25. I will note um that

105these numbers could be updated all the way through the end of fees as some of these contracts are paid through grants um and grants have until September 30th to fully pay out. So um I can update these numbers again, but if there is a contract that's paid through a grant, there's potential that it's still paying out. But I did want to just note here the different services that are provided. Um, and for board members and superintendent, I did get a print out that breaks those two down. FY24, FY25, and then the summary. I have those available if anybody else here would like this, right? >> Yes, ma'am. >> This this has been a a continuing issue in even in public session uh as we've been going through the last couple of years of budget, this

106issue has been raised. And I know the last finance meeting too, the issue with the data coaches was raised as well. So appreciate the extra uh work on that and be board members that'll be very interested in this. >> One of the first things that gets thrown out during the budget cut conversations is cut the data coaches, but they're not general fund. They're grant funded that and they're the competitive grant that Nan was talking about. We have less schools that are participating. So they're just not going to have the funds to do that anymore. But it's it's important to understand the source of the spend when you're making those kinds of decisions. >> Yeah. Like there's like the second line there, non-public contracts, which which we're the fiscal agent, but we don't we don't tell

107them what to do or how to do, right? >> We just move the money. So it's not it's not a decision on our part. >> That would be a savings. >> Again, there are things that we can no longer >> Yeah. >> support, subsidize, or pay for. And you're going to really see it in 27. Brandon keeps reminding us. He was he was reminding us of 27, I believe, in 24. >> That's right. And the board's going to have to do this. >> Okay. Keep going. >> Okay. I think Yeah. Thank you. I think I think Cody's Cody's information has teed up the next two um pieces of conversation. So, thank you Cody for the data. Kind of sets the context. Um, one of the things I want to bring to this committee is um,

108it's a thing called educational service center non-competitive proposals. So, so and we and we've had we've had HCSC asked us to ask us to sign this. There is an application the treasurer can submit um, and and ba and basically what it what it allows you to do is um, contract with educational service center without going through the traditional competitive proposals. Um, and so there's a couple things they have to do. They have to have their services and costs posted on their website. Clearly, they have to be designated as a high-erforming education service center by the Ohio Department of Education and workforce. And they have to have a clean audit. The last audit has to be clean. So, and and most and definitely HCESSE, but most educational service centers will qualify for these things. Um and

109and for the most part I think the I think the concept behind it is that that these educational service centers exist in each county to support the county schools. Uh we we are kind of outlier especially in Hamilton County because of our size. But but if you went if you talk to our peers they use educational service center for a lot of things for PD. I mean a lot of them use them for their daily subs like they they contract their subs through there because they don't have they don't have the resources um to manage it. I I would be interested in knowing how the other seven urban eights use their service centers. >> I would it'll be it'll be a mix. >> I would I would be interested in seeing that because these are

110these were created for the mostly the other 630 school districts. That's too many. But this is I think an unusual situation here. But maybe not among the urban aids. No, I think I think a lot of the things that we do here, EMIS reporting, you know, we have a great EMIS reporting department under Kathy Stalin. A lot of ESC's do a lot of IT work, you know, we we have, you know, we have a great IT department under under Jeremy Galahghue and his team. So, we just we don't do those kind we don't do those services. And >> yeah, so some of those places provide their network services to smaller districts who can't have a technology department. >> Yeah. And when the OSBA convenes, uh the the reality is a third of the people sitting

111in that room are from the service centers. So the state loves these and and uh that's the way it is. >> Brandon, >> just kind of piggybacking on to that thought though is there may be services for instance we are we would need that that would be helpful that comes through one of these ESCs. I'm also just wondering if they are even doing those services at the present moment at all because you know like for instance some some school districts may use their county or their local ESSE because they have been doing and providing the service on a regular basis. If ours is not and that's where they're going to try and get into in order to provide services >> for us. It also seems like we're just asking someone who's not got the qualifications

112to do the work to do work in hopes that they'll get it done better than we are doing it. And I it just it is a little bit of a worrisome thing for me because I know we're having the conversation around data coaches. We're having a conversation around some of the other things that we are using them for that we're at best seeing mixed results if that. Um, I would hate for us to say like we're getting poor results, but because we don't want to lose this money for this for these grants, we want to have them do something different that we'll also get >> mixed results on. Um, so it's not saying we don't do it, but it's almost to figure out what are the services they pro can provide that would be best

113beneficial in our district or the needs that a district might have. Um I think also I mean to your point like for instance IT services would not be one of those maybe right now or like you know I know some districts use uh resources for some of their like school finance school programming like management type stuff. Well that's not really where we would be at either. So like I I just a little bit curious as to what other things does the Hamilton County >> right >> uh what other services they're able to provide or what other services they might also be providing for a district >> right >> around us um that maybe again that might be a more specialty thing that we don't have the resources to do or that they have an expertise

114in. So the danger of having a school district that has decentralized budget management and spending is that you find a lot of grassroots kind of growth on things like this. And that's kind of how Hamilton County grew. Yeah. >> Through different efforts. Um but like we're looking at all the vendors on whether with the consolidated spend or all the grants consolidated, how can we use these to the best efficiency? Those are the kinds of conversations. Yeah, >> Jim. >> Yeah, I I would be curious. Uh, it says to designate it as a high performing uh ESC. It would be interesting to know which of the services they provide are high performing. Maybe they can granulate that a little bit. I And I think to Brandon's point, just to expand on that, do they would they

115even have the capacity to serve us? I we're a big district. And and then the last thought I had was um just a thought, but um maybe we become maybe there's something about us that's so big. Maybe we provide services to to the other some of the other school districts because we've got capacity that the ESC does not have and that could be a revenue source for us. >> Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say that. >> Yeah. >> Okay, great. I'm >> totally in favor of that. >> Sure. I mean, we we might be bigger and better than the ESC in certain areas. I would suspect >> we are bigger and better than anybody because we're big dogs. Brandon, >> it's a good point. >> And so, so just for the sake of

116time, I got got some requests here. So, I will I will do some research and we can come we can bring this topic back >> be great >> at a future time. So, the other side of that, Rob, um is and and this is something I'm hoping hoping for your support on is and and Cody's done a great job with the contract KPI stuff. I won't go through the timeline here, but you know, yeah, this was this was Treasure Wagner and Mr. Hutchkins project they've worked on. We've really ramped up the key performance indicators for contracts from from a few had them to do we how do we make them smart? How do we make them trackable? you know, last year this or this winter at finance committee, you know, you started seeing budget owners

117come in and talk about the performance measures and really have like rich conversations about it. And so we continue to do that, which is great. So, but I have but I have a slightly different issue. And if you go to the next slide, Rob, >> this is Thank you. All right. I have a slightly different. So So there's three invoices here on on the screen or on your slide deck. Two of them are real. One of them was a fishing attempt. So someone sent it in and tried to get us just to pay it. >> Right. And and honestly, there's not much difference in detail between the real ones in the fishing and the one that's a fishing. what what we're going to what we're hoping for your support in is to ask for activity

118measures in our contracts in addition to performance indicators. So so part of this is you know we do a KPI that says we're going to increase students you know ACT performance by 10%. Okay, cool. You know we're an I'm an AC I'm an ACT tutor. Okay. Well, I would also like on their side some activity measures. How many kids are you going to see? How many sessions are you going to do? How many hours are you going to spend? you know, and and I think it's just a matter of tightening up our vendor contracts um to make it makes it easier for us to make sure we're paying people correctly, you know, making sure when we're paying invoices are paid correctly. It's going to help us do that per people analysis for some of these

119things because because we're going to get those those tight people numbers. Um, it's going to help Cody's con Cody's context with KPIs because, you know, if we're saying, hey, we're spending 10 grand to get a 5% increase in something, that's great. But if does it affect five kids or 20 kids, right? We would want to spend a 10 grand the 5% increase for 20 kids versus five. And then finally, um, to Miss Good, you know, part of part of our grant spending is things need to be reasonable and necessary. And so we need a little more data to determine if these costs are reasonable. >> So and just to add on to that that the um the amount of fraud, stolen money is dramatically increasing every year. It's terrifying and every organization is are being

120attacked especially school systems and churches and universities. um the better we can protect ourselves against that kind of fraud um the the the risk it reduces. And so instead of getting an invoice that says we're going to provide instructional services to exchool, it needs to be outlined what those services are so that we can identify areas that better. Does >> that make right? >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. This isn't this isn't this is not a commentary on any vendor we have today. >> Correct. because I I believe all of them are working to their best of their abilities to help our kids. But but it it's about making sure that we have the data to prove that. >> Well, I'm I'm missing the point, I think. >> So, you're you want to change what? >> So,

121>> because what you sound what you're saying is is it sounds like a contract >> with a vendor, >> more details in the contract. >> Yes. instead of just saying instructional services or um >> more details in the invoice >> both sides. So so yeah the contract the invoice would match. So instead of saying instead of saying you know instructional services you know we would want to say you know 20 hours of instructional services per week for 15 weeks. >> That's a reasonable ask. >> So like that one invoice that's on the top right hand side. You know, I know it's a reasonable ask of of of maybe 30 or 40% of what we do, but it isn't necessarily a reasonable ask regarding teaching. I mean, you're not is there no qualitative thing to it?

122It's a quantitative thing. >> True. But if if you're contracting So, if you're contracting with a vendor to do to do that, they're going to be there for a number of hours. That's that's your quantitative. And then your KPI measures are qualitative, right? >> Sort of. >> So, yeah, like >> I'm still I'm sorry. Too many too many years in the classroom. and or different that we're really getting a return on our investment for our true vendors and the work that they say they're going to do both. >> So yes, so so one of the concerns is is for sure and the reason I put the invoice out there is to show the level of detail, right? that that that someone create a fraudulent invoice >> with roughly the same level of detail as legitimate

123invoices. Actually, probably more level of detail. And so and and so my point is >> is just tightening up for our vendors and not not making them change anything they're doing, but just specifying enough information in there that it makes it very clear what we're paying for at what level. Jim, >> for for what it's worth, I mean, coming from my corporate experience, uh what what they're asking for is is SOP, standard operating, that's not an unreasonable ask to have a little more information on >> Well, I mean, if you're making SOAP versus educating children, it the measurements are different, but I I I'm I'm not completely disagreeing. I I'm I'm with the superintendent on this. Don't conflate those two things. If you had a better invoice and better contracts, you could have less opportunity

124for fraud. I understand that. I say I got that connection. But I the return on investment and whatever is is it's it's hard to go. So standard operating >> priority is fraud. Second priority is grant compliance because >> yes, >> May services is not going to pass title one test, right? So um and then the third level would be that we could get some unintended benefits on our return on investment conversation. >> Okay. So that's that's starting to frame it a little bit better for me. >> So how how about how about this example? So one of the return investments is increase it's like increase reading scores by 5%. Which is an awesome thing and and so that's a measure that we can we can look at the test scores and say did you do

125that or not? >> Okay. But what was the population of that? you know that if did I spend $10,000 for a person to work with one kid so one kid's scores went up 10 five% great or did I work with the entire school district or the entire entire school like I went through an entire grade level you see what I'm saying like like you start to get the numbers in to say wow this is really incredible this is good this is incredible change >> so contracts are not just talking about services but you're talking about anticipated results of those services. >> KPI, >> we're making we're going to make people uh we're going to hold people uh accountable for the results, not just the services. >> I think we I think part of the point

126of us doing the KPIs in the first place was to start to figure out what contracts or what organizations we're working with that are actually providing a benefit. >> Thank you very much. Um, and one of the things that we did when we did the last when they did the contract review and they went through every single one of the contracts is they were noticing some groups were saying, "Hey, every year we're going to work with 25 kids, so here's $50,000 you can give to us, right?" And so I think what we've already been asking of them is to do the KPI. I think the struggle is so you do a KPI, you do your contract, the contract says you're going to provide these results at a school or whatever and in your invoice says

127May I did work for you. July I did work for you. >> Yep. And I think and what I'm hearing from you all is is is the idea would be that whatever you put in your contract as part of the agreement that we reach for you to provide services that more detailed out so we can ensure that it meets grant requirements and other things is also reflected in the invoice that you provide when you come to us and say I need to be paid now for the work I've done. Um, and in some ways or at least matching up to work you've done that would warrant to pay based on the contract you signed. >> Uh, because I don't think any one of those folks wrote a contract where in the contract they said I'll

128provide services each month and we said that was cool. Uh but if they come back and say okay May's payment like June's payment, July's payment, there's nothing that we have as a policy from a policy standpoint or from a practice standpoint that says that invoice isn't sufficient. And so I think to maybe like what Mike and uh what Jen were saying is that idea of first level is we got to ensure that what you're asking money for is a legitimate payment. So, we're not paying somebody out who's giving a fraud payment. And best way to do that is to match it up to what services you say you're going to provide as part of the contract and where you are on that. That also helps us in and reviewing yeartoear and renewals and things like

129that where we sit there and say, did they actually provide the services they said they would? Um, but then the next layer down would be ensuring that there is a more consistent grant following and these type of things so it makes it easier for the grants teams and others to do their work. And then that final part is as a result of all of that we will see a growth in in theory we should see a growth in the results that then the board as we review those contracts each year can say this contract was really successful this contract didn't come anywhere near increasing results at this particular school. And I do think that's one of the harder parts on some of our KPIs right now is that we don't we as a board are

130never really having that discussion when we review contracts. We're more or less reviewing dollars. So, we're not reviewing still the the true results of benefits of certain programs outside of what's requested from the administration. So, I think the administration is doing it, but like that's not part of our conversation point sometimes and it's kind of difficult still because there's a lot of departments who are really still trying to learn how to do contract KPIs. Um, but I I I think if if we're asking them to match the data on their invoice to information that is congruent with what would be in their contract, I think that's a reasonable thing to ask them to do on a regular basis. Um, even for the most part, because I think if I saw an invoice that just said,

131you know, evidence-based intervention and you ain't told me what you did, you didn't put anything in there and we know that you're supposed to be providing these services based on the contract. I think that would raise a lot of people's concerns as to what's going on as opposed to like I've seen other invoices where we've had to you had to list out like all right we serviced these 14 days we provided these things over 13 weeks you know whatever um so I think putting some type of consistency standard in place for how invoices should delineate what the services they provided were will help some of our contractors also to get in a better practice of providing information because it's public record. >> I was only going to share um we I think we all want

132to make sure we're getting bang for our buck and what we pay for and I do know that there has been a push to make sure they have the KPIs and I thought that was the level of insurance for making sure we get the outcomes we're expecting. My uh request is maybe go back again to the educational piece of what the treasur's office would be looking for as these contracts are coming in because I think people are writing these up as they're supposed to based on what they know. But if there's something missing or something additional that we're learning now that needs to be addressed, I think people need um just an opportunity to be able to do that. If we base this on what a test result was, by the time invoice comes in,

133I mean, that test is not going to come back out for another three, four months. So, I'm not sure how we would then manage that, but it's worth that conversation >> and that's why this is like the beginning of that conversation. So, we're taking everything to the next level. And so, yes, education is the absolutely next step. >> Yeah. I mean, I mean, that was the thing is we we >> and that's the sentence to start with. this is the start of a conversation. Not necessarily we want some support for this yet, but I I I I just I think it's a great conversation. I It's a natural place to go after the work that you all have been doing, but I I just don't know how who's who's going to decide whether the results

134have been met. Who's in charge of that? It certainly can't be the treasurer's department to tell the rest of the district whether or not something got met. So it has to be the very people that So it's just it's a great place to start this conversation. Anything that will make us more efficient and deliver better service for the best dollar spent, whatever. I'm I'm in favor of that. But let's keep talking about Brandon. >> I was going to say I think there there's two different things though here. And I think one is is the KPI and the results are getting like valid results or are they meeting them? That conversation I think happens separate >> from when I come to hand you my bill from providing work >> and you look at my bill and

135I say >> May did work. >> You're like what did you do? >> And I think that's the part from the treasures office end of it that they're bringing to our attention now as part of this conversation is that we do need to have some standards for when an invoice is submitted that we have information to show what's been done. And I think that's maybe true also for contracts where there's only one off uh because we do have a lot of contracts where it's a one-time purchase or one time uh buy on things and we've held that standard to folks who bring in like you can't just bring in and say I purchase food if you purchase food for an event right like we hold that standard for >> a lot of these others if

136we hold that same standard for a vendor who's providing regular services that might submit an invoice over multiple months That to me seems like a good starting point to the conversation because that at least gets us into a consistency of the expectations. >> You know, I'm just thinking is a time it's a it's a process to me. To me, this is you're talking about a contract being very specific. Invoice is starting to say, well, this was done and we'll decide whether or not to pay. >> No, no, no, no, no. That's not that's not what this conversation is about. >> Okay. the word invoice the I mean >> that's how you get paid though it is how we get paid >> no I mean that's how they get paid like a vendor gets paid by

137submitting an invoice they do >> I I understand that >> and I think what they're saying is that some of these invoices are coming in without any information to show that they even >> all of them are I would assume no >> no not all of them >> I mean a lot a lot of vendors are very specific and they will they'll give you hours they'll give you days they'll give you names so it's but we don't really we don't really have a standard Um and so and and so like there's two conversations like the KPI conversation we've been having for several years and and it's and we've for we've made a lot of progress a lot of progress for sure. >> Um and and and I think we'll continue to make progress on that.

138But but the day-to-day what's your contract say to what your invoice say? you know, you know, do do we have enough information to look at that and understand exactly what's being provided and exactly what we're paying for? >> I'm I'm just saying though, an invoice puts this upstairs. I mean, is this the who's in charge of what? I'm I'm not Is it the person? Help me out here. >> Yeah, I what they're asking for is reasonable. We're going to collect some extra data when we get these invoices. That data may help augment the KPI review, but the primary purpose of that is to prevent fraud. And we'll get a little extra data that might be useful for the >> See, I don't think the primary thing is fraud. >> Absolutely. >> I think it's delivery

139of service. >> No, no, no. This is this is this is >> this is so that we don't pay an invoice that we shouldn't. That's the primary purpose of this. And I think that's a reasonable ask. >> And and I and I that's I understand it's reasonable. I just think that this is a this is huge. >> I mean, we we require this for I'm sorry, superintendent. Let me do the superintendent. >> I'll be real quick, Nan. I don't know if this is possible. This seems simple to me. Um are we able in our process to have our own invoice standard that we give to the people and say this is what we need you to return as your invoice and it has this is what we're looking >> simple. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Absolutely. We

140just Yeah, we I mean I mean we just need like support if we roll this out because we'll get push back from some vendors. >> Well, there you're asking for support again. You're asking the committee to say you're asking us to agree to something right now and support it when you roll it out. This is this isn't the start of a conversation. >> So my suggestion would be to um go back and produce a document that has those standards on it and then bring it back. Okay. >> So, there are there is a list of standards, but he's asking to expand the standards to help prevent fraud. >> And you may want to when you have your internal conversation, just consider other um people in the organization. Um >> always, >> yes, >> we'll go

141and then we'll go over to Nan. Go ahead. >> I was just going to say, I mean, we do require this level of reporting for employees. If an employee has a personnel wreck for extended time, they have to do a time sheet. It has to go through workflow. It has to get approved. So, you know, we put our employees through these hoops to verify they're doing the work they promised to do. So, why wouldn't we put our vendors, you know, at that same expectation of telling us what they did, when they did it, did they do it, were they in the building. So, we're just asking for the same accountability, you know, from our vendors. >> I understand that's quantitative. That's not qualitative. I mean, I can tell you when I went in the building

142and when I left the building, I was there that many hours, that works. But if you're teaching the history of Russian Revolution and whether or not all children got it or not, it's just these are things that we do in this organization that are very difficult to measure. >> But no, it's we're doing the conversation. I'm sorry, Lauren. Go ahead. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Um, I was just going to support the conversation. So, we've issued audit recommendations about this in the past, most specifically around transportation. So, I would just um offer our support from internal audit because what we would look for just from an audit standpoint, especially as Nan alluded to, is can we tie things all through? Does it all make sense? Is it all logical? I think we've observed a lot of

143progress with this concept on our purchase orders. One specific area would be around our PE cards. Not that we used to do this, but for example, a blanket for stuff doesn't really tell us what we're gonna do. Whereas a blanket for or for these specific purchases, now as auditors, we say yes, this makes sense. It allows us to see through the eyes of those who maybe understand and kind of know what they're intending to say, but in fact, when it's documented, it keeps us all in compliance. So happy to support the effort and um I think there's a lot of opportunity of ways to go with it. Great. Jim, >> the in terms of fraud, do is a significant risk area, would it be through the then and now? Would that be where some of

144this risk is high? >> Yes. >> And so, uh, if the risk is high with then and now, I believe I think we've talked about this before. Um, I would be all in favor of tightening the controls on then and now and have some teeth in that that if if someone does a then and now that they they, you know, goes on their performance review or something. Let's let's reduce those. If that's a significant risk area, then let's go after that because I can see where that's where we're going to pay an invoice that nobody's looking at. So there are legitimate reasons to have a then now. You know that for urgent cases, you know, it's parent teacher night and we forgot to order name tags and somebody runs the staples against name tags. That's

145a legitimate then and now, but it's the trend or the amount and the the the habit. So um yeah, I would >> I'll agree with you. >> Whatever you want to do that reduce. So, uh, can we are we starting to close this out? And what do you want? Do you want the committee to say, "Go ahead, do this." You want the committee to say, "Let's continue the conversation." Do you want to involve the internal auditor chief? >> What What is it that you want? I mean, >> I I would like the committee to say go ahead, but but I I I mean, I want to make sure all of your concerns are addressed. >> That's right, Brenda. I only thing I would say is I think if we are producing some type of document

146that might be like either new guidance or a new standard of an invoice or something to that effect then maybe we can bring that back to this committee and then whether or not it needs to be a policy p that's the other thing I don't that's the only thing I also don't I don't think it needs to be one but I would want to make sure that we are not changing something that would then be not reflected in whatever our policies are with regards to how vendors utilize or how we pay vendors. Um because I'm just I'm don't really recall on the top of my head what that policy looks like. Um so that may be something that would go through policy committee also. But I do think if you maybe bring a backet document

147>> okay >> for next month that may reflect either the standards that we would be doing or a sample invoice that folks could utilize to submit when they're as a vendor asking for rep asking for payment. um that might make it a little easier for us to then be able to process and make a a support or >> recommendation. Yes, go ahead. Thank you. >> The purchation when it comes to Oh, sorry. The department does collaboration when it comes to looking at contracts and determining like hours and things like that. So, the physical contract that my contract administrator Yolanda Johnson does, she does she actually works with vendor on that as well. But what happens is when you put it into the business plus system which is our contract module and those p those lines

148go through and the PO go out that might change things right because they might not put it in the correct way. So when the invoice come in it comes in like Mike and I'm saying just made payments. So just collaborating with the treasures office, we do work with AP closely. We can actually look at that, look at training and kind of come up with something to where we require them to put in a certain line item description that will help when it moves over to the PO. >> Okay. >> And the vendor is actually invoicing the the district back that when AP gets it, they actually can bring it up and kind of see that the PO does match the lines. And then we do have those hours and things like that because in our

149um contracts we do specify how many hours they work and things like that but it may not just go on the contract module line which actually takes a big huge play into when the invoice comes in >> and that's business plus or something >> business plus our contract module. So the the actual legal contract might have that detail in it, but when the secretary enters it into the financial system, she might say >> monthly services, right? >> Just to summarize. And so what we're saying is let's expand the purchase order to match the services that are in the contract, >> right? >> And could business plus uh uh accommodate that? >> Yes, >> absolutely. >> Okay. This is just an more of an expansion on getting more efficient, more protection and um more transparency money

150on >> anticipating uh we have at least a few members who on the board will also say we it's already too hard to deal with CPS as a vendor or what have you. And that's a common concept comment I should say. uh we don't want to make it so hard as to people don't want to do business with us or we delay something a payment or whatever that it's there's it's too delayed and they just decide to not do business with us but other board members are going to say well I don't know how how difficult you want to make this but it seems like maybe I'm being subjective here but sounds like can you report back more things having addressed what you heard this month >> next uh and and loop in these folks

151whether it's purchasing or whether it's the audit chief. >> What? Anything else, gentlemen? >> So, Miss Murphy, is there somebody on the on your side of academic side that you would like to participate in this conversation? >> I think Okay, good. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, then we'll have this as part of the uh uh and Mike will make sure this is part of the agenda uh next month and uh Treasurer Wagner will just have to tune in for this exciting because I can guarantee you it's not going to be film at 11. Okay, let's keep going. That was I enjoyed that. That was good. >> All right, so given that we have one minute left on the uh >> No, that's not my fault. Well, it's your fault. Go ahead. >> Do you want

152to like reshuffle like? >> Nope. Let's keep doing it. >> Okay. >> Let's get it all done. Some of this is stuff we delayed from a couple of months ago. Actually, >> I think the next one is um upcoming request for proposals which is Miss >> Leven. >> Is that this? >> The one that's >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. This one, the long one. >> Yes, the long one. But it's kind of hard to see on that. >> It's all right. We've got the We've got sheets. >> Okay. >> And I have new bif focals, so we're in good shape. >> It's hard for me to see. >> Okay. On this actual Google Google sheet, what we did was we identified requisition contracts that went through the system this year that will require us to

153either do or look at a cooperative or a request for proposal bidding opportunity. So our cooperative um is where we would actually look at to make sure the cooperative is still in good standing. Do it go out past the time it says. So some of this cooperative do end. They have dates similar to just like the bidding soft the bidding um RFP does. They have an end date. So we have to make sure that that end date matches what we put in the system. So on this actual um sheet we identify all the RFPs that's possibility that may go through this coming FY27 school year. And it depends on if that actual service will continue, what the actual department will let us know. Um will they do they still want to continue services? um do

154they want to um maybe look at extending the services or things like that? So, we just gave a list of the ones we identified that we know that will need to be looked at this coming school year. And typically the purchasing department will look and work with um the school and departments around the same time they do the budgeting. I think it's maybe in January. So, we can kind of get an outlay of like will you have this service continue next year? We ask those type of questions so they will have a better understanding on what they need to do for us on our side of the house to make sure that we're not doing it at the last minute. And so on here, even though we have a lot of lines on here, if

155you go to row, I think that's M, it would tell you that row M has the cooperative and RFP number. And like, four, five, six, seven, and eight. That was the same RFP. It's just that they actually selected three different vendors for that particular RFP. So collectively we just look at that one RFP and split out those services. And similar to that again if you go down a couple of more lines you'll see that we have another one RFP but three different vendors. It's because that's just one RFP but we still got to look at it in that way. So what we did was we actually pulled out of business plus the RFP number to see collectively how many RFPs how many vendors are are under this one RFP. So that means that we may

156not have to do a RFP for every vendor on this list, but we have to look at the services to decide like are we going to continue these services. That means that we may have to do an RFP for those services depending on what that is. And this is what this telling us just like they did with Hamilton County. We did we put Hamilton County at the bottom um because it's it goes across various departments and various I mean various school buildings and everyone uses them. So we want to make sure that we're going to collectively look at that decide it has an RFP on it. Um but this RFP go across a lot of different stuff. So that's where we are with the RFPs this coming FY27 school year. >> Okay. >> Um so

157these would be anticipating for FY26 or FY27. >> We'll be working through them in FY26 but they're before FY27. Uh Jen, >> this was part of the request from either somebody on the board and or in this committee. They wanted to know what was coming up for renewal. >> Yes. I think uh I think that was a board member. >> Yeah. >> And these are the ones? >> Yes. These are the ones we identified so far because the more you know as we continue throughout the school year, we may add to this list depending on what people put into the system. >> All right. >> But it's a lot of work for a tiny little department. Yeah, >> seriously. >> Brandon, >> I think this is also just another great example of a chance where

158we can on some of these where there's a cooperative >> um where there might be two or three vendors we've been using to think about how we're using those services and whether or not >> yes >> the way we bid it out is the way we want to continue to bid it out because I think you know sometimes in some cases we've had ones where we bid out because at some point in the midst of providing those services we needed more. Yep. >> And in other And so we may have a vendor who's doing less, but they probably could do more at a different rate and these type of things. So I I appreciate you bringing this to our attention because I think that is something for us to be thinking about as we build

159budgets in the future. >> That's a good call out because we've thought about that as well, how we feel like when we do our contracts now, our contract administrator, she looks at it and say, "Okay, we have this particular vendor for this service, but what other services can they provide?" and you know let's have that for you know they can use that our our district can use that right so we're trying to kind of be a little bit just like you mentioned and it helps us be leveraging too when it comes to looking at any other comments questions so we'll be watching these and we'll uh I think I'll try to remember which board member is particularly interested in about the RFPs coming up the other um issue there is I know one of the

160things when we pass on particular contracts conts or excuse me the treasures report. Uh it's like this is the second year of a three-year contract. I think it's it be very helpful to board members to understand that this is second year. We've got three more to go and I think you've been doing more and more of that reporting. I think that's very helpful. >> We color coded it for you. >> I know. >> So, yes. >> I love it. I appreciate it. Uh next item. I think we're to budget planning, I believe. >> Back to the PowerPoint. >> Yeah. So, >> um this is one of your things, too. Go ahead. Uh Mike, >> so yeah, so um thanks to Mr. Craig's assignment to us. >> Appreciate that. Um, superintendent and I put together a

161very preliminary budget planning group. So, want to thank um, M Mr. Bagot, Mr. Burkhart, Mr. Galahue um, for volunteering or being volunttoled on tonight's. >> Sure. >> Yeah. Either way, we're glad they're there. >> It's all right. You're buying them lunch, so go ahead. >> There you go. So, >> he's like, "Wait, >> it's an invoice." I love it. Uh so we did have our first meeting this week which was good just to kind of kind of get together and talk through some stuff. We did a recap um of this year's process and did some kind of brainstorming at a very high level about big picture big picture sort of things needs and such. Um if you go to the next slide Rob >> the recap was that for the budget you just put together.

162>> Yes. >> This year's means really this year's budget. this year's budget. >> Yeah. So, yeah. So, like we're doing we're doing a series of in different groups kind of plus deltas which actually would love and and maybe we'll do this as a survey to ask the board members you know what they what they liked about this year's budget process which may be nothing and what they and what they would like to change for next year. Um but we kind of do the same thing with that group. We're doing our we're doing one internally with the treasures office team. Um just you know you know what what worked well, what didn't work well. So we have a so we have a process place to start. >> Jim >> is it your own judgment but it

163might be interesting to for us to hear the as a board to hear from you guys about how this is going periodically. Would that be fair? >> They want to do it. They can. I mean, I think the the feelings about how the last budget process went um may not need to be something they do on a regular basis, but maybe I mean, we do track pretty often through our meetings the how we're doing along the budget and how things are operating in that that end. So, I think it is good to maybe have a regular reachouts to the rest of the board if they are not tuning in to our wonderful meetings every month. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I definitely if we had more time it'll get kind of your individual feedback of

164what you thought worked well with the process what you thought >> it could do better on the process level. >> It could be the just with this committee mo more so than the whole board that's helping. I do think that budget development does come through this committee rather than the whole board and I would love it's uh that it is not uh in the environment of crisis management which the last two years it's been >> and that's no way to build a budget and and so if we can eliminate the crisis management even though we know we got a crisis from preschool and crisis and federal grants and what have If we can have it so that it's not crisis management >> and it actually is building a budget like that we need to pay

165people or people need a raise and start that way rather than necessarily compare the coming year with the the current year and figure out what we can't do or whatever. I know that's a we have to do part of that, but it'd be really great to actually build it based upon what we would like to do. >> And and some of our conversation >> and not start with wish lists or whatever. >> Yeah, that's exactly some of the conversation is about process versus the numbers like like like the numbers aren't aren't going to be wonderful and great. Like if we had enough money to give everyone everything they wanted, it would be really simple. But but taking aside >> probably wouldn't be because you know what we wouldn't be doing a good job of doing

166it because people would just be spending money and doing stuff. >> True. True. >> So but separating out the process and how and how did how did the process work or how can we do the process better to get to the right decisions >> at the right time. >> That's right. >> So for sure for sure. So, so we'll continue to meet um you know and kind of kind of clarify you know the takeaways and what we're what we're trying to do >> even if you guys brought back the takeaways next month for us and how you want to address those takeaways to even see if the finance committee is like in agreement from our perspective we weren't in the internal but we were watching uh outside so I mean I think that would be

167great >> okay uh a few couple other things just for the budget process So, um, I started compiling a key activities document. Hopefully, you saw that >> to try to put a calendar around the budget. So, so we have some interesting things this year. One of the things is our November forecast is now an October forecast. >> so, so what the good news is, you know, we use a November forecast to set our target. So, that'll we'll be able to set our target a little bit earlier. Um but it also means you know there'll be things there'll be more activities that happen between forecasts that could change our target you know so so sure it's good and bad. Um but we'll try to we'll try to continue to refine that document about the timeline and

168get it to a point we can share it out you know get feedback from from this committee and then get it shared out so everyone knows you know kind of the timeline we're working from. Uh we talked about feedback. The other thing is and you know Treasure Wagner had the Esser Cliff for for how many years do you have that Jen? Four. >> Yeah. >> Four years of Esser Cliff. So So I'm I'm going with the federal funds ridge. So and we've talked about this that you know our federal funds are decreasing. So it's not a cliff. We're not falling off a cliff. Um but but we're coming off the top of a ridge. So so we need to be we need to be cognizant about that. And then my other final caution is the

169time to make structural changes is is soon is very soon. So if we want to, you know, as we as we kind of talk through our team and talk in this committee, you know, the sooner you make structural changes to what we're trying to do, >> help me out with structural, you're talking about which schools to remain open or closed or are you talking about structural process? What are we talking about? >> Which schools remain open and closed would be a huge structural change. Yes. Um staffing formulas >> would would be another huge structural change. >> Um elimination of any sort of services like like if we said >> well now we can afford summer school next year. >> Yeah. Like if we said like if we said we're going to get out of the

170blank business, summer school business now >> because we're not probably we're not going to be able to considering it's grant heavy. >> Like now's the time to start thinking about that. >> Well, that changes your whole instructional year. If you're not going to have summer school, it's going to change what you're doing in October. >> Absolutely. >> I mean, for our children in fairness to them or parents planning, >> could I add to your timeline this coming retreat, board retreat? We have topics for the board retreat and one of the topics if we can move to that. Um, one is this budget and you all helping us with the superintendence efforts. We need to spend a significant portion of that retreat on the budget piece starting Brandon. Well, I was going to say one of

171I mean part of the assignment that was tasked over was also for them to create kind of a uh structure or template to how we talk about the budget. >> Um and I think in part of that is and the reason I wanted to have them do that early >> is because I think they're going to be hard decisions that absolutely we're going to have to make and discuss through and go through that stuff at the October meeting. >> But we need to build the relationship up with our partners. So having the unions at the table ready to start doing um the the budget task force in October as opposed to doing it in March and April. >> That's right. >> Having uh folks be ready to have conversations so we can get our staffing

172sheets done on time. So we know so things that that really also help to understand how the district will operate. And I think that's one of the things I I'm appreciating about the conversation about this federal funds ridge idea >> is that there are things that we are going to have to say to a school. >> Yeah, it sounded nice. It was great and great, but there's not dollars for it this year. Um, and allow them to prepare for that now as opposed to uh way we typically have done it where we have them prepare for it after we do their budgets, after we do all these other conversations. Um, but I do think yes, we need to have that conversation there. We also may need to have a conversation around like what is personnel

173on certain issues that are not uh that are not federally required, state required, you know, some form of legal required. Some of those staffing we can do some things to be creative within the district to uh provide those resources. So having that conversation as part of the October meeting to at least get us started on it, at least get us building that so they can bring us back something more more or quicker on time would would be a great place to start. Well, I would put out a plea to the two members besides myself on finance and to the superintendent and to the treasurer to make it very clear with uh President Moffett that we are anticipating that we will spend a significant portion of the retreat on this budget dialogue that has to take

174place because invariably it starts to get undone or gets to lower priority. We've lived through that again and again. But this is this is institutional and culturally changing. >> Well, you know, it's it's it's important. So, I'll I'll take that to her that we want that and and I'll I'll need support on that because we always have a agenda issue uh for that. Okay. Um, we are running somewhat out of time for sure. Uh, and we want to cover a number of things yet. Um, let's keep going. >> Um, so >> you want to share that with us? >> Yes, I would. Yes. So, and just like to quickly um share my draft goals. Um, go ahead Rob for for the next year. And so you should have the full document available um that has

175a lot a lot more text but I tried to tried to focus on three like buckets. >> Okay. >> Um improve systems reporting and fiscal accountability, increase community outreach and engagement and is just continuing building our team culture and performance. And then I have some items under there. Uh, I think for the sake of time it might be if you want to give me feedback via email or >> that'd be great. >> Is that okay with you, Brandon? Thanks for having >> okay with me. Appreciate it. I' I'd appreciate the extra time to think about it too and us do it individually. I think is quite all right. >> And then we can come back and >> Sure. >> Okay. >> All right. Go quickly through two policy things. So, >> yes, >> policy 6520

176is payroll deductions. Um, it needs a little update. There are some things that aren't listed in the payroll deductions list just that we for whatever reason like when you know we we offered starting of last year to people to be able to take their pay their background check fees as a payroll deduction. Okay. It's not in the policy. So, that needs to be done. >> Um, recovery of payroll overpayments. >> Do you have a draft for that? Is it could is it okay with everybody here that it not come here first and just go directly to policy >> or do you >> So just do that draft and submit it to HO and and to uh Mr. Lindy. >> Thank you. I will do that. And then the next thing that is >> this is

177crazy. >> This is a big one. Yeah. I This is still shocking to me. I mean Lauren Lauren forwarded the email to us and I'm like this is unbelievable. I'm shocked. But the Ohio Ethics Commission ruled that >> unusual name for those people >> that public ent public um officials are now allowed to to use rewards um with with purchases they make. And they have for years banned folks from getting things like airline miles, um hotel points, you know, even to the point where we don't allow people >> football tickets. That That one's still That one's a little different. That's still That's still that good. That That one's still that good. >> Nice try. >> Yeah. Yeah, that was good. Like, wait, no. >> Baseball tickets. >> Even Even to the point where we don't

178allow people to use Kroger Plus cards when they buy stuff because it's a rewards thing. >> And this is >> Now, here we are. >> Yes. This is a complete reversal of of traditional policy. And the Ethics Commission rulings are legally binding. So that's that's the interesting thing about it is if they say it's good, you're good. >> Please. >> I I will say like the way at least is rooted in here though is that you can receive the benefit if you otherwise would have made the same purchase. >> I think that's where we tend to get people in trouble is when folks say, "I'm gonna go buy all of the food for this event at Kroger because I have Kroger plus points benefit from it." >> Yeah. because it's at the best price for

179the district to purchase them. >> So you still you still have to like like you can't you can't go to book say a trip >> and be like oh I'm a Sky Miles member so I'm flying Delta when the American Airlines flight is $200 cheaper. Like you still have to use the lowest cost and best. Yes. It's not it's not a blanket, but but we spend a crazy amount of time in our department and angst telling people, "Oh, you can't use your Ker can't use your Kger plus card. Oh, you you went you booked a hotel and like if it's I think it's one of the major change just automatically enrolls you in the rewards program." Like they don't even ask you just and so then you spend hours on the phone with them trying

180to get those rewards points taken off. >> So, so if Yes, please. Uh just to it's a fine line with the Ohio Ethics Commission. So I still would encourage all employees uh as our responsibility as public officials to be familiar with the law and to uphold the side of the ethics law that says we cannot personally benefit from our public positions. However, as Mike is saying, this really is that secondary side of things where through the course of normal business, you you earn these rewards. It's not punitive any longer. But I still just exercise caution and uh personal benefit from our roles of course. >> Are we able even though this is the ethics commission we have to do kind of what they say obviously and I don't know if there's some kind of policy

181change that we have to have as a result of this that we comes back here and then goes to policy in writing up the administrative guidelines though. Can we, you know, make more strict or make more specific the guidelines as to how we will operate as long as it's in accordance with the what the ethics commission is saying? Are we able to do that, Jen? >> Yes, you can always be stricter. Um, this just all this does is prevent an employee from getting their license taken away because of of that thing, but that doesn't mean the district has to adopt that as a policy. You can if the board doesn't want to support this because of the fear of what we were talking about, you can write in your policy that but if somebody makes

182the mistake and does it anyway, they're just saying ethics won't come after them, >> right? >> Yeah. >> So then will you all uh have Mr. Hoy or somebody uh create a policy and and then also have the superintendent and treasurer folks create the appropriate guidelines? Brandon, >> I might suggest as we take it back to policy as as uh vice president Bolton was talking about. I think that it also might be helpful to distinguish certain things for which we >> recognize and appreciate that like the hotel for instance is a great example. Like you're booking a hotel for you're going to a conference. That's the conference hotel. There is no reason why you should not be able to to enjoy that benefit of the the >> uh frequ the hotel mile or hotel points

183or whatever versus purchases that we make that have multiple places where we would want to ensure that you're still using the cheapest or the most costefficient or being fiscally smart with it. >> Um and in some ways that's this true with travel, right? like air air flights, you also probably shouldn't be, you know, book upgrading the or picking the flight where you can upgrade the easiest versus the flight that might be the most costefficient. So, if you're paying for $800 flight because you want to use delta so you can upgrade your delt with delta that like that's the stuff I think that they would still say >> creates a problematic part there. But, you know, you're simply if you're making that purchase anyway, I don't see why we should penalize folks if we get that.

184finding a way to write for general counsel and policy to kind of work through that part. >> So, let's send it to policy. It doesn't need to come back here. >> Is that okay with you all? >> It's okay. Sure. >> Send it to policy. >> All right. Move it right to them and our express our interest of not necessarily being loosey goosey about it. >> The the one other exception is is there anything where they have a personal interest in the entity for which they would get the benefit might still be a violation of >> ethics. So, Yeah. The other thing I read is you you can't you can't bundle. So So I can't be like, "Oh, we're all flying to somewhere. Hey, put all of it on my credit card and I'll use

185my Sky Miles for all of your tickets." Because now you're you're getting an over oversized amount of rewards for that. So that's a but those are those are procedural things, >> right, Jim? >> This a suggestion I to Brandon's point, maybe there's a way to monitor that or audit that based on a dollar amount. Uh, I don't know, just an idea. >> All right, we have a couple other items and one we want to make sure we get to, which is the closing thoughts, but we also have uh this curious item on the agenda, which is insourcing. Do you have a do you have a initial um start of this conversation with this committee? Sure. Um we do have a PowerPoint very short. Um I also have some documentation here that um goes a little

186bit further than the uh the PowerPoint. So we actually breached this question back in 2022 postco if uh if you remember we had a transportation implosion uh back in 2022 in which we did not have enough buses or drivers to meet the needs of the district whereby I think we had about 2700 students who were not um able to get on yellow bus and so we made some decisions at that point Um so really as we as we look at what the ask is we have about 1,200 students currently we're looking at about 486 uh daily routes within that if you can go to the next slide route >> do that what how many students did you just say >> 12,000 >> 12 there you go >> on on bus >> um so as you

187as as we look at some of the other um things that are unique to Cincinnati uh we have a lot of what I call curbto curb and closer stops. Curb to curb really is dictated by the IEP, but here we have closer stops. And what that closer stops means in most cases, and I'm going to say in most cases, students are coming out of their house and maybe going um down the street a house or two versus in a lot of districts, you're going to the next intersection or you're walking up to a half mile. And so that is a luxury that that we in Cincinnati um think it's important. But this is one of the discussions that we would talk about as we do an insource in insourcing versus outsourcing if we are looking

188to um capitalize on some savings. We have a two two-tiered system. So we have a 740, 8:00, 850 and 910. Um, so those 7 o'clock um, buses drop students off at 7:40, then they start their 8:50 route. The 8:00 buses will drop students off and start their 910 route. Uh, we would need about 300 buses. So right now today, we have 286 buses that are on the road and those are our three vendors, Peterman, UTS, and First Student. Um those are all 72 passenger capacity buses. With that um we would need approximately 10 to 15% overages in case buses break down or there's issues. So we're rounding that up to about 300 buses is what we would need um currently for a insourcing situation. We actually back in 2022 actually put out a bid um

189to purchase buses. That bid came back I think around $135,000 per bus. Um, note that Ohio is one of the most strict um, states in the country in relation to how the buses are painted, what the windshield wipers look like, what are the colors of the stripes on the side, the letters, the top of the bus, the type of windshield that's installed. So, um, Ohio is really, really a tough state to buy buses for. Um, if you were to buy buses today, you're looking at about $150,000 per bus um, times 300 buses. And you'll see that's about 47 million uh, give or take at this point if we were to buy buses for an entire district. Uh, we would also need facilities for those buses. Right now, currently with our three vendors, we have five

190facilities that house the roughly 315 buses that are utilized throughout the district. Um, if we were insourced, I don't know that we would need five, but we would need at least two or three um strategically located throughout the city so that we are not driving all the way across the city um in between routes as well as starting off. We would want a uh hub or a lot on the west side to handle the west side schools. Theoretically, you would want a hub in the central corridor to handle the central schools and one on the east to handle east schools. Um because our district is so uh vast north and south, it might be good to have something um if you have a central north, maybe have a central south as well, so that we're

191not again uh traversing 20 square miles to get from one end to the other >> as Yes. >> Sure. Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you. So, as we look at driver salaries, right now we're looking at the 10 to or I'm sorry, 9 to12 million for driver salaries. Um, that would be salaries and fringe benefits. And that would be just to try to stay competitive with those other markets out there and those other vendors. As you're talking about a CDL, we know that the country is approximately 60 um,000 drivers down every single day with CDLs. So getting CDR drivers will also be um very challenging. Um we've estimated about $4 to $6 million in fuel and maintenance. Um standing up a bus garage with those mechanics and maintenance would be a significant lift um for us.

192Uh licensing, insurance, administration costs were averaging to be about $3 million. that would be really um making sure that our buses are legal, having those um inspections done yearly along with everything that goes into that. So, we're really looking at, you know, a total operating cost per year somewhere between 14 and 21 million. And I know that's a pretty big gap, but depending on how um how we're going to extrapolate whether we're going to start um early and or small and then build into it or if we're actually going to say we want to in insource this within, you know, a shorter period of time. As we look at the third slide, um it's really talking about the the the timing of all this. So the the timing is set up in in four stages

193and those four stages are really there um concurrently although we do realize and and would advocate that we overlap some of those a little bit. So if we were to buy a bus today it would take us anywhere from uh 36 to 48 months to acquire um the entire fleet. Now, a smaller fleet would obviously take less time, but you're looking at an average of about 24 to 24 months for for a pretty quick turnaround to 36 months, which would be average. 48 months would be, if you're really going to um ask a vendor to supply us 300 buses, it's going to take them at least 48 months to to to be able to ramp up for that. Um, we're looking at property acquisition. um would probably be the next longest piece. That would be

194uh 12 to 24 months. I will say that there are other plus vendors that are out right now looking for property in Cincinnati and they have been looking for two years. And so if you consider a uh one acre of land would house roughly 30 to 40 buses, you're looking at a substantial um number of acreage to not only house those buses, but be able to have a garage and a a place for drivers to come in as well. So, you're looking at the infrastructure of not only a garage, but also a place for drivers to come in, grab their keys, um a a break spot, if you will, as well as a training spot for them. So, that becomes a 12 to 24 month of planning and execution. I do also think that that's

195a little aggressive um with looking into and I'm calling it looking into a spot that would be debt uh big enough for us to to handle and then obviously putting all that training and implementation implementation together with finding drivers as well as you know doing some pilots and having those conversations um across the board. So we have some key risk factors involved but from beginning to end if you were to say today we want to insource all of our transportation. Uh it would be looking at about 5 years from now to be actually implemented um in some sort of short or smaller group uh seven years if you're talking about all 300 rats at this point. So, a lot of this data also came from, you know, two years ago and then kind of updated

196um to current um but also take into consideration if we change how we do transportation directly affects each one of these pieces that we would look at. >> This is great. I love it, Jim. >> Yeah. I I don't understand why would we do this? You didn't answer that question at all. Um there there's there's a case study for doing it and there's a case study for not doing it. So I I'll give you some of the pros and some of the cons. Obviously right now we have three vendors that are running our yellow bus out of five lots as well as our our white fleet. So to manage that just to manage the vendors is a big lift. We also don't have a lot of control over what is happening across all of those

197vendors. I I have to leave in five minutes. I'm sorry. >> Do we save money is what I'm curious about. >> So So yes and no. So in the in the long term, yes, we would probably save money. Um we'd have to look at exactly what that looks like from a break even standpoint. You're investing, you know, close to $100 million in year one, which is going to take you, you know, five or six years before you even get to that break even point. The things that you have to consider though um the most expensive like with our teachers is human capital and can you get the human capital um you need to be able to stand up this many routes and that's challenging for every bus vendor not only in Cincinnati but across the

198United States right now. So do do you want the the I'm going to call it the headache and hassle to do that? um which which which is you know the intrinsic part of of the the question and discussion. >> Brandon >> um just really quick two thoughts is one is uh security with regards to the maintenance shops as well as where we' be keeping the buses. Is that included in those operating costs? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. Um, and so we we it's hard to say what size of um bus lot we would need because obviously we have um five right now with our vendors. All of not all of those have a a um mechanic and um location at each one of those. So there's a positive and negative to that. If a

199bus breaks down and you're at, you know, one of the lots that doesn't have it, you now have to tow your bus to the lot that has it. So if we were to have five or four um bus slots, we would want four garages with four sets of mechanics, which you know would extrapolate if we only wanted two. That there would be a big difference there. So that's why the on the um amounts that we've uh put on the sheet here, they they they have a big range because we don't know what we don't know as far as what we want this to look like yet. And I think the other thing is I I do think we would have to have a conversation around how we utilize transportation in the district if we were

200going to take it in house because I don't think we can operate in-house at the level that we do currently realistically. Um because it just is we we can say that we're going to hire all these drivers and it's going to be great and they're going to work and invariably if we don't we're stuck in a position where we have kids who don't have bus service and we are back out to outsourcing to a vendor to provide those same services even though we may have the vehicle itself here. >> Um so I just I would maybe say that we'd also in addition to having that conversation have to have a conversation about our long-term transportation plans. Um because additionally the seventh and eighth grade is the other part I was thinking about which is how

201we provide services for seventh and eighth grade. If we started providing our own service would we be doing that for the non uh non-public schools in essay manner? Right. So like are we are we providing them the same bus service or are we providing them a different vendor to do it as opposed to >> our person >> and and again I think that's all part of that conversation we'd have ultimately have if we decide to make that decision to go forward with this. >> Absolutely. And I think the other question and and discussion that we have to have is we've always thought about transportation as binary. Either you're walking or you're not or you're on yellow bus or you're not or you're on metro or you're not or you're on white fleet or you're not.

202And how do we look at this and say, how could we employ two of those or or multiple ways of getting there? So, do we have a yellow bus take the older students to a transit center and then they get to to school or vice versa? Do we pick them up at a transit center and then take them the the last mile? Always in transportation, the last mile is the most expensive. And so that's typically from school to home is getting from those 67 locations to, you know, the 36,000 uh houses or or um uh housing locations within the city. >> I think that's to me that that what you just discussed the whole binary piece. I think also knowing the all the various parts of transportation, it's my recollection that transporting our special needs

203kids is extraordinarily expensive. Is there a way we can make that less expensive? Is there a way we could do other parts of it less expensive? So maybe a followup to this would be breaking things a bit apart. this is fabulous. But thinking in terms of of what kinds of things could be costefficient or even possible or practical >> to serve the purpose. >> The one issue with our specialized transportation that that we've been wrestling with for a while is that uh over the number of years we have not had the space in our buildings that we needed to for um those those students who need have special needs. And so by default, um if there's not room at a given school, we find the next closest school. Well, once that student is in that

204school, we don't want to disrupt that student or that family. And we end up keeping that student there for if it's if it's a a first grader, we keep them there for six, seven, or eight years, which may not be the easiest or most efficient transportation. So we have a lot of schools where we're transversing three, four, five schools to get a student to a school, but we also don't want to upset the apple cart and say to student, parent and teacher and pair professional, we need to pick you up and move you to a different school. And so there's a lot of discussion that as we have now due to the grud plan some room in some buildings, we can start right sizing those now so that eight years from now we're in a

205much better location than we are currently today. >> So it's big thinking and and Okay, >> thank you so much for that. It'll it'll start to get everybody talking and thinking and and there'll be at least three companies that'll start to be very worried about whether or not we're going to be doing this. Maybe it's good time to talk contract. Okay. Um are we close to the end here? >> The next topic is the building utilization discussion, but >> yeah. Do how do we you go ahead? Should we do that now or should we uh delay? Tell us is there anything >> maybe is that all part of enrollment? >> It's really Chris. >> Are we talking about the plan >> building utilization? Yeah, >> utilization. Do we have anything to report regarding any of

206that part is I'm not sure. >> It might be better to wait till enrollment settles out their current data. So, so I think we had we Jeremy and I had the the short conversation a couple days ago and and we're finding that the projections um versus what our enrollment was I I believe um on the first day of school were were really really surprising not surprisingly but really really close to what we what we had said. So I think Evston came up in an earlier conversation at 250. Evston's currently at 270. Um so so the the ability for us to look at and project where those students were going they actually ended up in those schools um and right sizing those schools um I think from our standpoint early on is is really great. uh

207I will defer you know to wait about a week or two to see where everything settles but from from all the indications and all the discussions I've had with folks um this has been great and all the schools opened on time with all the right furniture from the growth plan in the right places with the right teachers and so I'll defer to the superintendent but but everything that I've seen has been fantastic >> superintendent >> of course I agree with Mr. part, but it is true. You know, we were uh really watching those middle schools and junior highs and they seem all to be coming in above. I'll need to check South Aenddale's numbers, but very very very close. >> Um and so we're super super pleased. >> And uh back on transportation, uh I

208haven't received any emails or calls or people at my door. >> Yay. But I'm not this and I don't usually get those. Other board members do. >> We we've had several um the media has been really great to us leading up to opening day, opening day and beyond. And we've had remarkable transportation stories that have run. um not so much with all the neighboring districts, but I'm super pleased with some of the changes that have been put in place and uh with working with Metro and our yellow bus vendors uh in order to make sure uh I was super pleased. I have to tell you, if you don't know, our internal transportation team had every student routed uh by August 1, and that is extremely helpful. Um, and so we have still hundreds of families

209coming in to enroll. Uh, so that will take a little bit of time. Um, but I'm super pleased with customer care center, transportation, uh, everybody is doing a fabulous job. >> So, anecdotally, on the on the first day of school of 2022, >> um, I I I personally uh was here till I think 1:00 in the morning. I went home. I I slept, I took a shower, and I would think I was back by four o'clock in the morning that day because we were trying to find buses and drivers and still routing I think uh four four or 5,000 students. Um fast forward to this year, I went home at a decent hour. I got a good night's sleep and came in the next morning and quite frankly, my phone did not ring once with

210a transportation issue that morning. and and so kudos to the transportation team for not only routing students uh but the communication that went out and the communication team uh thank you for that and really our partnership with with Metro and uh our vendors really we took a lot of time to make sure that that was cemented in place. I'm not saying that we were perfect this year. We still have a lot of growth to do, but where we were 3 years ago to where we are today, I think is is a 180 degree difference. >> And I know you've been here several years, but I will testify that over a decade, this is very good. >> Over a decade or a dozen years. This is this is remarkable. And uh you know, success has many

211fathers and we know that many people have chimed in to take some credit. We know where the credit is actually to go and we appreciate it. Um, this is pretty remarkable. >> Uh, I think we're there. Final thoughts. >> No, Kevin. >> Sorry. Kevin's on. It's okay. >> Just one thing. Not to be >> Oh, goodness. >> But a scheduling thing. Well, a scheduling thing. So, the forecast, they're calling it a budget and threeyear forecast instead of a four or, you know, that's how they get the three. It's like four, but whatever. >> But it is due on October the 15th. >> So the board meets on October the 12th. Perfect. But the last finance committee before that will be September 19th. So we can have a high level discussion maybe September 19th. >> Put

212it on the agenda, >> but then we wouldn't have time to do a last minute before the board. So I just kind of want to throw that out. >> Oh, no. I'm glad you did. Uh so is the thought uh the high level and then a memo to finance? >> Yeah. >> Is would that would that be okay with you? >> That's fine with me. >> That would be because we do like to give you >> No, we do. And we want you to because people before the board sees it, they'll look and say, "Did you guys see that?" Yeah. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> That's great. Thank you. >> That's all right. All right. We have our last uh uh uh comments from our from our treasurer here. >> Thank you, Miss Bolton. Um

213and I'm going to read it so I won't hopefully won't cry. >> Good. Um as I conclude my 10 years of service as treasur and chief financial officer, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the members of the finance committee. Here I go. All right. >> That's okay. It's been an honor to work as alongside you and stewarding the resources of Cincinnati Public Schools with integrity, transparency, and care. Together, we've navigated both challenges and opportunities with a shared commitment to fiscal responsibility and educational excellence. Your support, your questions, your insights, even your challenges, um, and your unwavering focus on what's best for our students and community have helped guide and strengthen the district's financial foundation. As I step away from my role, I leave you with five parting thoughts to help guide the important

214work ahead. First, continue expanding the return on investment efforts. With shrinking revenues, it's more critical than ever that each investment is measured by its impact on student outcomes. Two, um, support treasure treasure wagers. >> It does go. Don't worry, it was hard to say that for a little while. Treasure Gustin and and uphold upholding strong financial accountability. Clear and responsible stewardship remains the cornerstone of public trust. Third, develop a comprehensive tax policy for future planning. A proactive framework will provide stability and foresight in navigating the district's long-term needs. I'm sharing a recommended strategy for developing this policy which I've passed around. This is we're working Mike and I were working with David Connley. um he's doing this AC across the state with a bunch of districts. So, it's kind of a proposed way to make

215that happen. >> Um and I'll have to pass that baton on to Treasure Gustin. Fourth, continue to the laser-like focus on data integrity and transparency throughout CPS. Um all data drives our business processes from student data, financial data, um employee data. And so I just um implore you to continue that focus on the integrity of that data. And finally, expand the budget process to consider all funds collectively to adopt a consolidated balance budget. Please resist the temptation to use your cash reserve to balance the budget. Um, it has been my privilege to serve alongside you for many years, holding the trust of this community with integrity, transparency, and care. I leave with a sense of pride in the work we've accomplished together and confidence in the continu continued stewardship of CPS's resources. Thank you for

216allowing me to be a part of this journey. Though I may be stepping away from this role, I will always be cheering from Side Public Schools for their continued success. Thank you. >> Thank you. see that's, >> you know, this is so hard cuz after 32 years, I mean, even this morning, I'm like, "Hey, can we can we do this? Can we do that?" Like, I'm still going to be part of that conversation, but um it is it's hard to step away. So, but thank you for your support. >> Thank you for your service. [Laughter] That's right. >> Well, it's been a great meeting. It's actually kind of a bridge meeting in a way and appreciate the agenda that uh that we've had and the conversations that we've had. I also appreciate the fact that

217and this is something I was thinking while we were doing this um even like OSBA when you talk to other board members when they do their finance meetings they do not have 12 people here they don't they have the treasurer and maybe somebody is a guest specialist in something it's so I I think that's to your credit, Jen. Uh, and I think that uh that it's deeply appreciated by the board. So, >> good comments. I will entertain >> motion to >> and I'll