Audit Committee Meeting April 23, 2025

001Thank you. Good evening everyone and welcome to the April 23rd uh meeting of the Cincinnati Public Schools audit committee. Um we've got a nice agenda today. So we'll go ahead and jump right in. Um I'd like to welcome our newest members uh to the audit committee. So, we have been going through the recruiting and vetting process and very happy to have three new members with us tonight for their first meeting. So, I think thought what we could do first um is just kind of go around the room and very briefly introduce ourselves uh to everyone, not just the three new folks. That way kind of get some perspective on who all these new faces are. Um and so we'll go ahead and just start. Phyllis, if you want to start down there and go all

002the way around the horn. to our board members and I welcome the new members here. So if you need anything, I'm here to help you. I'm Justin Blowman. I'm the internal audit intern. It's very nice to meet you. Um Emma Fer, internal audit supervisor. Hello, Isaac K, internal audit supervisor. Good afternoon. Lauren Roberts, chief audit executive. Thank you. Rick Janette Addie Carson, new audit member. Thank you for the warm welcome. John Young, also a new audit committee member. Thank you everybody. Hi everyone. Laura Dola Vera, also a new audit committee member. Kevin Hoffman, audit committee member. I don't know about two years now. Uh Liz Gatridge, audit committee member. Uh Dan Hold House, audit committee chair. Paul Kitz Miller, audit committee member. Brandon Craig, uh board member. Jim Crosset, board member. Shauna Murphy, superintendent. Dan

003Ho, general counsel. Kevin Ashley, director financial reporting in the treasur's office. All right, great. So, you'll get to know all these folks. Um, most of these folks are all at most of our meetings, so you'll get to know who everyone is over time. Um, uh, just a couple other housekeeping items. We are going to be planning at a future date a more formal orientation process for the new members. Um, and we're going to open that up to current members as well to just go over some things that are are critical to to what we do, including school finance, which isn't um which is a a complex uh complex topic. Um, we could also go through some of the history of what the audit committee has done over the years. So Lauren and I will work

004together um to come up with with that content to bring you all all into the fold and so that you it's a lot of information right out of the gate and so uh we want you to be able to absorb as much as you can but we acknowledge that it does take time to understand what all is going on. So welcome. Um, one other housekeeping item just so I don't forget to say this later, but we will be uh asking to go into executive session um to discuss a couple matters later in the meeting. Um, so just to kind of preface executive session um that is when our we go uh we we go out of the public setting uh into a private meeting. And so when we do that, it's for uh particular reasons

005usually to discuss employment of a public official uh or to discuss any sort of security matters. And so when we do that, just a reminder to everyone that when we are in executive session that anything that's discussed in that session must remain private amongst the folks that are in that room. So just a reminder so don't forget to to say that later when we we do that. So, uh, moving on into the agenda, uh, it's hard to believe, but this is our last meeting of the fiscal year. Uh, we won't be meeting again until July. And typically, right around, uh, this time of year, we are working with Lauren as as her and her team are working through the the audit plan for the year. Um, and then we are already setting our sights towards

006what we're trying to do for the next fiscal year. And so part of that is our goals that we've established for the committee. So in our packets are um the fiscal year 2025 audit committee goals. Uh and I'm going to go through these uh very briefly. Um we didn't set these goals until August last year. Uh so it's kind of like a short year the way our meetings all fell. Uh and some of these are still relevant. So, um, goal number one was to support and advise the board of education and district in the treasurer search. Um, so we we were involved in that. Um, and a new treasurer was selected. And so that was that was nice to be invited to uh be a part of that um interview process and that search. So

007we did, you know, we were involved and we did achieve goal number one. Um however, goal number two and three are are still kind of open um as there are things that will bleed into next fiscal year that are relevant. So support and advise board of education on areas of need including levy decisions, Senate Bill 308, fiscal 2026 budget and uh CRA agreement with city of Cincinnati. So, um, we have not, uh, been involved in any of those items, uh, as of yet, um, but are very interested, I think, in still doing so, um, into the 2026 fiscal year, as well as, uh, goal number three was to increase exposure to the full board of education um, to help understand what it is that internal audit does, what the audit committee does, and how we

008can help continue to benefit the district. So, uh, we wanted to take just a minute to just recap these, um, have a brief discussion if we need to, but also, um, prime this group to say now that we are, uh, our next meeting will be in July, we will most likely want to finalize our goals for fiscal year 2026. um at that July meeting. So now is a great time to say, is there anything else that's out there that we want to talk about now? Uh with respect to these goals, do we want to simply roll them into next year? Um uh or are there things that the board uh members here or the administration that are here that would like us to consider adding to this? Uh, and if you don't have anything that

009we want to talk about today, we can certainly um take this take that away and come back to our July meeting and have a more robust discussion. So, I'll open it up to the floor at this time if anyone has any thoughts or comments or questions. Okay. Thank you. Just want to emphasize I think uh one of the goals is the FY26 budget. So I still think there's an opportunity for the audit committee and the audit team to help us assess risks that might be coming out of that budget to the risk to the operation, risks to our academic outcomes. I agree with Mr. Crosset and uh the board. We are the board is still having conversations about the direction for the levy and so continued support there would be deeply appreciated. Welcome new members.

010It's great to have you. That's fantastic. Also today I want to recognize Phyllis. It's administrative professionals day. So Phyllis does a great job. So we're very grateful for all the work she's for all of us. Uh I have one item to add. So for audit committee and board members, it's an executive session document, but in my self-evaluation on page two and three, we've listed out all of the public presentations that were done around internal audit this year. So I think that kind of helps support goal three of the audit committee and certainly we can continue to expand that potentially to audit committee members uh if they're interested in participating in those presentations next year. But just wanted to mention that because I think that was kind of a our efforts to support that goal as

011well. And Dan, I think the goal three was one that we talked about also about getting the both the profile up, but then also being able to show kind of the what's the added value that's been gained. And I think that's something that maybe for next year is the slight change is is not just about bringing a bigger profile, but now starting to talk about the things that are wins that come out of the uh audit process and our audit team, but also the number of both internal and external audits that we do every year. Um gives us in a better position so we're not losing funds on certain things and we're not losing dollar amounts. And so it's a typical opportunity to discuss the wins. Um this is especially true because we are very

012unique in the sense of having such committee in the state of Ohio with uh with regard to school districts because a lot of others don't have as extensive a setup as we do to the to the new members also to kind to I want to emphasize what Brandon just said but I think it's important that um you guys know we've had clean audit opinions for like the last 25 years or so and that's you know a wonderful track record that we want to maintain, but it's also something we can use to heighten our profile as well. Thank Thank you. You know, Jim, I never I I never shy away from reminding everybody in here that that how how often we are audited as a district internally and externally. And it's not just our external audit

013that's routinely clean. It's all of the other um sorry our external financial audit. It's all of the other organizations and entities that want to come in and audit us for whether it's for grants or for other funding that is routinely audit. General question just for for goal two where you you did reference levy decisions and SP 308 that haven't progressed necessarily. Is that due to those projects not being at a mature level that can be brought to this group or is there something that can be done here to be invested further? Sure. Um with regards to the levy, yeah, the board and and uh administration are working through kind of what are our options and so at some point we we will come to the table with something and then it becomes about a an

014idea of how we message and how we communicate out what those decisions are. Ultimately the decision will be made by the board as to what we want to pursue and seek. I think the hope was with that one was that the audit committee could also start to identify a voice that's not within the district. so much of us spend our time on such connected district stuff that the the audit committees always be able to bring that outside perspective to some of those discussions and some of the concerns that might be in the community. Um, some of the Senate bill stuff I will quite honestly say there's so many things that are happening with regards to legislation that we it may not necessarily be the best use of time to to continue to pursue kind of

015how do we I think that becomes more of an administration uh task um with how we respond to the several now because it's not just Senate Bill 308. It's now revamped version of Senate Bill 1 that's supposed to be coming through. It's you know so many different ones that are listed in there that we we talk about on a regular basis. Um, but I think yes, they they just have not come, you know, they're not ripe for discussion yet based on kind of where we are as a as a board and administration. But, uh, I think it will be very helpful to get still the perspective once we've kind of made that decision and and in theory we will make that decision within the next month or so. So, by time we come back in

016July, there may be something that's right for us to have more conversation around. And I think that uh the members of the committee, I'm speaking for everyone, would probably entertain additional meetings if we had to based on timing. Um if the board were to say we got it installed on a on a non-rine and scheduled basis. Okay. any any other thoughts or questions or items to discuss? Okay. Um we will work to uh write up goals for 2026 to bring to our July meeting to to further discuss and then uh approve those uh at that July meeting. Uh, next item of discussion is a financial discussion. Um, however, I think Eve was going to do this, but she is not here. So, uh, Brandon, would you sure to do that? Uh, just to kind of

017walk folks through where we kind of are right now. We are in the midst of uh, process to do our budget. So, for the last couple meetings, we've really been kind of walking through um our budgetary process. We we what we did this year is kind of go back to the basics and say we're going to start at zero and build up our base level like the things we have to pay, the things we don't have an option to pay or not pay and then try to build upon that. And so, we were kind of in that process of that. Um, within the financial report, you also see there are some things that are going to be somewhat tricky in us figuring out what our total number will be based on what the states does

018as far as legislation on their budget. So, that's another aspect of this that we are still waiting on. State budget never usually closes until it closes. So, uh, but I think right now we are looking at the what the what the governor proposed was using the funding formula but not fully funding it. Um, but still brought some modest changes that were of some benefits. What the house proposed was essentially a flat amount with slight increase. Um there are concerns with that in large part because a flat amount can always get changed and cut and adjusted as opposed to a funding formula. Um but so that's where that is. It's now at the Senate who will make their decisions ultimately and decide how they wanted to put together a funding package. Um but that will be

019a large that will have a effect on what our total budget looks like. But we're we're operating I think it's what 624 for the general fund um as our goal as to what we have to kind of stay under because it's expected revenue. Um the other again there was a couple other things that are worth noting and that is there are several pieces of legislation that are coming in that are talking about how levies work and and specifically how our tax levies um could be potentially impacted. One of them is bill that's now moved on to I think it's to the house now from the senate but it looked at changing if you had more than 30% left over of carryover to decrease uh your ability your um millillage rates so that you do not

020long you no longer carry that 30% over. It's not an issue for our district in a lot of ways because again, we spend money and we only take in enough to kind of keep us going. So, we don't have a huge amount, but other places have used that as a way to also do repairs and infrastructure investments. And so, that's something they have to think about. There's a couple other major ones to be paying attention to. One is the 20 mil floor. And so, there's uh legislation out there to change to lower the 20 mil floor. to mill floor essentially says for all of our uh fixed rate levies um as they go as housing prices go up and all these other things the millage rates actually decrease on what they were valued at. So

021they don't really pull in more money in some extreme, you know, uh, extent. And so what ends up happening is your effective mill rate drops so low at some point that you are now below the 20 mil floor. And so they allow for you to be brought back up to the 20 mil floor um for revenue from tax revenue. What can what two legislations are out there. One is uh to lower the 20 mil floor and then one is to change what counts as part of that calculation for the 20 mil floor. Both of them would be terrible for our district. Um and especially the one uh so we have fixed rate levies and we have fixed sum levies or fixed sum levies or emergency levies is what they're called. Don't factor into that. There's

022legislation to include those into. So that would basically take about I think it's like 12 to 15 million out of our revenue we receive. So I mean again as it has an effect on on things we're going to receive. Um so those are all things that are happening in the kind of those are the last things we've talked about the last couple rounds. Um the only thing I think also worth noting is that we have been doing a really good job of uh utilizing some of the uh skills that the staff in the treasur's office has been gaining through uh some of the economic trainings and some of the other different trainings. And so now we are really being able to calculate um what are the uh cost benefit analysis like right what are the

023return on investment of using those what are some of our key performance indicators and how are we performing along those lines and so uh we talked this last uh budget committee about career tech and the opportunities to grow and opportunities work within that and how we seeing measurable results. We also learned that the state seems to think that career tech should be about also preparing them to actually go into the careers now. So, uh we are hoping that that means that that they will invest in it. I don't think we have any signs yet that that is the case, but we at least know that that's something of priority to them. And so, that's something we're focused on as well. So, we're doing a lot and there's a lot of stuff going on in this

024financial world. So, leave it kind of there. Jimmy, you have anything to add? You can Yeah. um on the um the 20 mile floor is kind of a a euphemism. It really what it does is it caps how much local money we can receive. So not only is there the state money which is about 2/3 one-third local and state money in a broad perspective. And so not only is the state money either flat or maybe possibly decreasing, but they're also putting a cap on us on how much local money we can receive. So it's it's pretty pretty challenging environment for us uh financially. Um the uh there is a I think uh Brandon talked about the 30% carryover of your cash funds cap. Uh there is a workaround for that that we can move it

025out of the general fund to like a building fund or something but we're not even close to we're like at 11% so it's not going to be an issue for us anytime soon. Um but those are and then I think career tech is an interesting area. Um, we are starting to ramp up some career tech programs more. I think they'll be coming in the next year or two with automotive and cosmetology. And we we're doing a major restructuring within the district in that we are taking I think out of five high schools, we're taking the uh it's they're just going to be 912 instead of 712. That's a big adjustment. We're full more fully utilizing the space in our elementary schools and repurposing that space for middle schools and and junior high schools. And what

026that all of those schools are going to have a career tech exposure at that at that grade level. And it's much easier for a student at grade eight to kind of decide maybe what career tech path they want to make rather than grade six. So there's some advantages that and and plus I think you can talk maybe a little bit about the focus on why it's important to focus on seventh and eighth better than I can. Thank you board member crosses. So we did do that for several different reasons. One families were asking us for it. to our research shows that the social emotional needs of that middle-aged child are very different from the elementary age child when we had K to8 buildings and very different from 16 17 18 year old children being in

027a 712 building. So we decided they need their space. So for social emotional reasons if they don't have that social emotional baggage then they can focus more in classrooms and then academic outcomes should improve as well. So super excited about that. All of the seventh and eighth grade will be um scheduled into some type of career tech pathway or foundation. And the goal is that they would um ladder up to the high schools following the same pathway. That won't be gospel because kids will change their mind. But the goal with the corridor system that we've created is to keep uh kids traveling prek all the way to 12th grade in the same area of town. Okay, any questions for board members before we get into the next topic which I also had you down for

028somewhere board members will take this topic up as well. Yes. Could we provide just a highle overview around the fiscal 26 budgeting process? And the reason I ask is in my presentation, I might talk about next steps for engaging. So I know our administration, our superintendent and treasurer and assistant treasure have been leading a lot of great work. And Miss Murphy, not to put you on the spot, but perhaps we could just share a tidbit to set the scene as we get into that later. A tidbit. So we shared with the board uh the desire to move in one of three directions in building our budget this year. And one would be to take an even percentage away from budget units and schools across the board. Two to take that gap and spread it out

029only uh among budget units within central office. And the third would be to um just kind of take a look across the board at what as uh board member Craig said are critical needs. You have to have this according to Ohio law. You have to have this according to our collective bargaining agreement that we have with unions and it is critical and then build from there. Um, so there are certain things. For example, let's just be transparent. The law doesn't say we have to have an audit uh person, an internal auditor, but we're going to have an internal auditor. So, we're working through a very difficult, challenging process, but it's good because it helps to educate all of us about all streams of work. So, where we are at this point is we uh reignited

030our budget task force that we had last May. interesting timing and that was to finalize and finish out fiscical year 25 budget. The task force includes members of the senior leadership team as well as all of our union presidents. We had that first meeting on Tuesday. We have our board members don't know this yet. We have split up um into um smaller groups um looking at things. This is like five or six different um topics. And since I haven't shared with them, I won't go that far. But uh pretty much the same types of concepts um breaking down so that we can really look at you know our contracts and what kind of edits can we truly make to our contracts for example. have we really um taken care of long-term substitute teachers and just

031a variety of things for us to take a look at that uh we'll come back rather quickly next Tuesday um and hear out from one another and make that uh make those adjustments to the financial planning. If you have any questions I'm happy to try to answer. I'll throw one other thought onto that and and again the purpose of why we picked the third option was that we did not think it made sense that everyone has like the same because they have different needs and different aspects but we also recognized that central office has taken the brunt of all the cuts for the last few years and we cannot cut central office alone like everybody has to have some stake in how we operate and so it's been important for us to go through and

032look and see where we have certain things we just can't give up like can't not pay utilities, you can't not pay um for your for certain particular staff members based on contracts and that kind of stuff. And so we wanted to really get us back to rethinking a lot of that um in light of also the fact that we've had so many things come back into the budget like our crossing guards, like we're bringing back athletic directors, like we're doing a few other things that we just have to be, you know, smart about how we do it. So, are you saying ABC will no longer be responsible for ads when you say you're bringing them back? Yes. So, that is a wonderful thing to hear. So we we'd actually been paying a contract fee to

033ABC for the athletic directors and when we did the financial analysis having athletic directors inhouse versus going through ABC was about a wash. Our benefits are richer but we don't pay an administrative fee to ABC anymore. The really good news that's coming out of this is that um hasn't been announced. Well, it's been it's been approved in the board meetings. ABC is reinventing themselves. Activities beyond the classroom is a 501c3. It's going to become the C public Cincinnati public school foundation. And so they have uh are changed their focus. They're going to focus a lot more on fundraising and less on the programming work that they do. For example, the ads will come back inhouse to the district. So that's that's very exciting. It's it's it's going to be more benefits for more schools. It'll

034especially it won't conflict with any of the school foundations like Walnut Hills Foundation um or Kilgore has a foundation or Wro or Witro yet with or withro but uh it's going to be focused more on fundraising through corporations and large national grant making organizations and it will I think it the it should continue to provide equity for all the schools especially the schools that don't have their own foundation and uh so we're very excited about that opportunity and uh and I think you know to Brandon's point your point having the ads back just makes it a whole lot less complicated and easier to manage and we've got Josh Harden we've got a great manager in that area so okay um in the interest of time uh thank you for all that information uh I think

035we'd like to move on to the next uh topic, which I actually neglected to realize that I also wrote Dan Boy's name down for this next one, too. So, uh Dan, do you do you want to take on the next agenda item? Sure. Yes. Oh, boy. I'd welcome any uh uh support from our board and superintendent as well. Uh, I think I I I won't speak for board member Bolton, but I think uh she wanted to add the topic to the agenda to ensure that if audit members had any questions um about kind of what's coming out of the administration, uh CPS's kind of position on it, um glad to answer that. uh there have been a number of US Department of Education um releases uh since January 1 uh that have related to sort

036of DEI programs, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. uh the first came out on February 14th um and took a pretty strong position that DEI programs uh in in the administration's view could violate federal law uh could violate title six which relates to race discrimination and um educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance um and and relied heavily for their interpretation on a case that um Harvard had. uh you may be familiar Harvard had an admission plan that um I'm I'm not super familiar with it but had some kind of advantage given to students based on diversity. Um and the Supreme Court uh struck that down. the administration has taken the position that I think that broadly means that any kind of diversity uh initiatives are uh prohibited and and I I think most legal scholars

037think that goes too far in terms of um uh their interpretation. Uh so following this February 14th release uh the administration issued a frequently asked questions about two weeks later on March 1 and that calmed things down at least from a K to2 perspective. Um it it seems very clear that the administration is saying that in admissions um you can't give credit uh for race or other protected classifications characteristics K to2 you know you don't get extra points on the Walnut Hills test you don't get extra points on the uh SCPA auditions based on uh we do not have those kind of um you know diversity Those aren't the diversity initiatives that are at CPS or most other K to2 uh programs. And there and in these federal releases, including the March one, there was

038some recognition by the administration that um you know, Black History Month celebrations or um uh African-American history classes, including, by the way, API, which is now an AP class offered um uh in in African-American studies, that those those in and of themselves don't violate federal law, even in the view of administration, the the current administration, so long as they are not treating kids differently based on race or other protected classifications. So that's that's really emphasized in some of the more recent um interpretations that the administration has given that you cannot use a DEI initiative to treat kids differently based on race. And in my view and and in my we don't I I mean we have we have certain programs that are designed to be welcoming to all students but don't treat kids differently. And

039so um that that's sort of where the district stands right now I think with respect to some of what's coming out from the administration and answering the question. Yeah. The only additional clarification I would add is that in the guidance they gave in the FAQs, it actually specifically carved out that studentled uh groups and organizations are not subject to the same standard as a university or as a school-led program or service. So like if a student group as long so long again so long as it's open to anyone who's part of the program can have student groups that are targeted around certain ide certain identity based concepts or ideas or and again that is something that is because it's student based not the university or school or a district can't make it so that you

040only have these groups or that you have to be a part of these group you have to be of a certain identity to be a part of these groups. Absolutely right. So our English as a second language students I think has some preferential benefits or things that we do for them. Are they protected still? So yeah that and and they've been subject to their own kind of concerns since the administration has taken over especially on some of the immigration stuff. Um but yes, ESL um we we still are owe a duty to our English as a second language or multilingual learners. Um they we still do language um plans for those students that are somewhat similar to like what you'd see in an IEP, an individual education plan for a student with disabilities where they're

041getting additional supports because of their need for language acquisition. Um so yeah, we still have small classes for some of those students. None of that is uh impacted by the race stuff. Although again, those students and families and communities have been very concerned separately by some of the immigration stuff that has come out. And and those things are not like none of those programs are limited based on like the nation of your nation of origin or where you're coming from or what you look like. So you could have a student born here and you know can look as non international as possible but if they English is their second language and that's their household they've been raised they'll still get the same resources and so well to that to that point I I I mean

042you should know immigration is not something that the district uh uses or could use uh for admission purposes. So immigration is essentially irrelevant to public schools. And that's been the case for 50 years based not on what a president says or Congress says, but what the Supreme Court said the Constitution uh stands for with respect. So um we have continued to enroll students regardless of immigration status. We don't ask about it. We don't even have records of it. It's an irrelevant kind of factor when you're enrolling in public schools. Not just here, everywhere. In the uh finance committee meeting from last week, um there was uh in the discussion around the DEI policies and grant funding, there was reference to a letter that was being signed or not signed, I think, by Dayton and Columbus.

043I didn't really understand what that was about. Can anyone Yeah. So there is and anyone can interrupt me here. Okay. So, there was a letter that uh was released at the beginning of this month um that the uh administration demanded that every district in the country sign. Um since that time, there have been about 15 states, New York and Colorado and I think Utah and Republican and Democrat states actually that have said, "We're not even sending this to our school districts. They're not going to sign it." it the the letter is um it describes in short kind of what I just explained to you the administration's view of um what title six and the kind you know what what their view of DEI programs and it says DEI programs cannot be used to treat kids

044differently than race which we don't uh but there's still a lot of concern I think from folks about whether or not to sign this letter which is why Columbus's board uh I think publicly did not sign it. Dayton's did not sign and at this point our district has not signed. Um our view not being that we are in violation of the law. We we are following the law. We'll continue to follow the law. Uh but our board has not signed that letter at this point. We'll see. There's also a lawsuit in New Hampshire that is challenging whether or not districts have to sign this at all. So, it's possible this could all be a moot point in a couple of days, but at this point, um, our district has not signed the letter either. I

045think it's also important to note on that that the work of the district that we've been doing for years now, that we've been a leader on in the state will is continuing to be done, that we will continue to make sure that all of our students feel welcomed at our in our district and are taken care of and cared for and educated. And that's the point of a school district is you take everybody who comes to your door. I think there's no clear example of that than how we service the students who were coming in from the Don Academy where we open the doors on a weekend on the drop of a dime to make sure every student that lives in the Cincinnati public school district has a place they can go to get education

046and getting an education is not just about what you learn academically in class, but it's about making sure that you feel you're valued, that you are cared for, that we do make sure that every student is wanted and feels sense of belonging in our district. You don't create that by simply targeting students based on some protected class. You do that by making sure that every student knows that if they're struggling with something, they need something that there's places you can ask for help that we can work with you on different things. And so I think that's one of the things that uh superintendent's been working really hard on. I mean, even our our our uh model of the district, our tag for the district is we're here for kids. And so yeah, it's simple. It's

047really just that simple. When the dawn situation happened, I pick up the phone, I call a few staff members, and they say, "We'll be there." Because for me, it's a civil right. It's really simple. It was not even a hard think about it, mill it over. No, those kids had nowhere to go in two days. And so, they're about 210 uh students who have enrolled. We have their records. We have anything that we may need. They are in a variety of our schools including our digital and GDA program. Many of them are uh seniors not all. And uh what we have done in addition to that I'm proud to share too is we are paying a few of our school social workers extended time to make sure they have a smooth transition and that that

048these last few weeks of school are great uh for them. Any uh questions for board members or the administration? John, I guess just one follow up on that. Um I agree with everything you've said. That sounds amazing. But were have you identified is there a risk of any specific funding um that you were thinking about as a result of signing or not signing that document that the letter Yeah, I mean of course that's a concern. It I I will say it's been a much bigger concern at the postsecary level than it's been so far at K to 12. Um you know certainly uh you know there the administration has taken a very strong view in what they can do with respect to federal funds. The district, as you know, you all know, uh relies heavily

049on federal funds, particularly for our uh funding of programs for students with disabilities, programs for students, uh with language needs. Um uh our title one schools, some of our our most in need schools rely heavily on federal funds. So, we are optimistic, I think, that this won't carry this this funding, you know, withholding of funds won't go to the K to2 level. Um but it's certain Your question I think was was it on the board's mind? I think certainly it was whether or not that that would those funds would be impacted. That's fair. Good answer. All right. You know, even even when our MLL students um were facing the threat uh with all the immigration commentary coming out, they looked to us and wanted us to make a statement. And much of that was my

050initial thought was I don't want to because I don't want to draw attention to it. And I really felt that way and I didn't want to make it a media story because the media was asking for a story. Um but in a meeting that I had just with students across our district, um they cried. They cried. And while we're saying this is a safe place for you to be, I need them to really be certain that this is a safe place for them to be. I don't know what the consequence could be. I don't know. But um what I do know is we have a responsibility to 35,000 kids. Yeah, thank you. Okay, thank you everyone for the update and comments. Um, uh, Lauren, do you want to and your team want to take over

051and go over the dashboard and Absolutely. And I I do think we have a little wiggle room with our executive session. I don't know that we have 25 minutes so we are good probably for a few but all right wonderful so we will jump right into our audit committee dashboard I'm going to highlight just a few things because in our future slides we will conclude our fiscal 25 plan so quick items to highlight we will cover first our external audits which is our next chart here hopefully you all have had the opportunity to review the dashboard and I will thank you in advance for all the time you invested in reading our reports and all of that in advance for today. Our April meetings, if all goes well and we work really, really, really hard

052and the stars align, mean we conclude our fiscal plan for the year and that happened today. So, we're really, really, really excited and really proud of that work. Um, so again, external audits are listed, they're in progress. We will share updates with you as those conclude. And then we're just going to fly right on down, Rob, if you don't mind, to the status of past recommendations. and there um we shared with you in the email that we were going to dig in a little bit deeper today. So Isaac Carer, internal audit supervisor will lead us through this conversation. Thank you. So all of the graphics um that Rob is uh scrolling through show our internal audit recommendations that we track after we issue our audit reports. And so all of the graphics have been um

053been used throughout the entire year. And so if you would scroll to the bottom, please just up a little up to the next graphic. Here we go. So this is the new graphic that Lauren had mentioned in her um email that she had sent out. So, at the last audit committee meeting, we went through a an escalation plan to kind of formalize how we um present to you all past recommendations that aren't quite being implemented or addressed um as quickly as they say they would be. And so, I have created a a drill down. Um, so if you click on this graphic, it will take you to a another report. Hopefully. Oh, I wonder if it'll have them log in. Yeah, hopefully you all are able to see it. I may have to adjust the

054um Oh, sorry. Okay. I may be able to adjust it to be viewer access. Okay. When I say I, I mean she, our smart sheet guru. Um, but essentially the report gives you more detail as to the most recent uh update that they provide. So you can see exactly what they told us, possibly giving insight into um why things are taking a little longer than normal, if they're um running into any roadblocks. Um, I will say that the estimated implementation date that they use is established at the beginning of the tracking of the recommendation. So, sometimes they just didn't plan accordingly and it's taken them a little longer than they had anticipated. So each of the time frames, the 0 to 60, 60 to 120, the 120 plus was um an attempt to kind of

055correlate with the number of times we present to you all. So the 0 to 60 day time frame would essentially be the first time you all see it. The next one would be like the second time that it's on your radar. And then the 120 plus would be um the third or more time that you all have kind of seen it. And so within the escalation plan, it does ask that um audit committee let us know if we want any of management to come back and present. But if they weren't able to um review those specific recommendations, um we can probably readjust and make sure that everything is set up correctly come July. I might hop into So, we did print two copies and we just gave them to our chair and our vice chair.

056We were running low on printing funds. I apologize. Um, in hindsight, they would have been very helpful. But, um, essentially the the key on those, and I I have it in front of ourselves here. We can pass them around if that would be helpful. Um, we have a few from benefits. We have a few from the treasures office. I'll go ahead and pass this. And this is the plan that goes with it. Um, so our our chairs, you know, we could still turn it over to you all if you have indications and have have had the opportunity to review if there are things um, you might want to share with the committee and entertain inviting those folks to our July meeting. I think this is an opportunity too to give some background on Yeah. what

057we've done in the past. Yeah. Um you know historically we would we would have the the team would do complete the audit. We would um be reported um we would be given the report uh and then we would call whoever was was involved from a leadership team perspective in to our next meeting and make them report on progress towards um either fixing the recommendations uh putting things in place etc. As you could tell from the dashboard uh certain ones have lingered for for periods of time. Um, you know, benefits has been one that was audited in 2020. Um, we were told things were fixed and in better shape and then we it was reodited in 2023 only to find um more issues and um and then there have been changes of administration getting people up

058to speed. It's been really just a challenge to get some closure uh on the benefit side for a number of these recommendations. Um so that's kind of the very brief history that we have with the the benefits audits that have been done in the past. Uh there are some other ones that go back to fiscal years uh which is a which is a payment card audit from 2018. There's also audits back to 2020. So, um, my thought here was, uh, I've appreciated the dashboard. It's been a great new addition, newer edition. Um, definitely appreciate the days past due and beginning to hold people accountable to their responses. And now is the time for us to say based on all of this um we can be selective in how we choose to invite people to come

059back to the to our meetings to to give an update publicly of what we would like to hear um for their updates. And I would invite the the board members here because we are an advisory group of community members. So we have no true power in saying what anyone must must not do. Um but we do have a great opportunity here with information in front of us to say board members uh you know we we're here to help and obviously there are recommendations here that we would like to see closed and it would be uh our we would have an interest in having um either the benefits team or um I guess it depends on how much time we have Lauren for our July meeting but um at least one group uh to come back

060in July and and if we need subsequent meetings to have other groups come back. Um, this would be a great time to start doing this now that we have this tracking and now that we have this uh, you know, past due action steps. Uh, so it's a nice, um, new iteration of of what we're doing with the dashboard and with the past recommendations. Um, so board members, uh, do you have any thoughts on u these past past recommendations? I know the benefits thing. We're kind of dusting that one off. That's uh something that we want to Yeah, I think I think it's a really good area to focus on and bring Yes, I I agree. So, I would um I know there was a meeting we had and I believe the young lady was like

061head of HR job has been eliminated. I think is no longer here, had some promising um recommendations that she was working towards, even looking at outsourcing some things that made me feel comfortable that we were going to move in the right direction and it seems that that has uh you know the progress on that probably has not happened. So, I don't have any confidence that bringing them in that we're going to see anything different. Uh because my confidence was in that young lady who came in and promised us that she was going to make changes and we didn't we haven't heard anything since then and and we haven't and I I believe her job was eliminated. Am I correct? No. Is she still here? Okay. So that's who I would like to hear from if

062I'm going to hear from anyone before we bring in and look at things that I don't know we're going to get further movement on. Yeah, I mean I think there is value in certainly bringing in to uh cover where they currently sit and kind of an update. I think to the one of the points that we've made with regards to how we're thinking about audits lately though is that there were things within the benefits team that quite honestly they just weren't audit to bowl and so some of the recommendations and some of the things that they were just never going to be able to do until they had a system in place. So they had things that were mechanically in place and to maybe to Carol's point like that that was stuff they've been supposed

063to be working on. So maybe if there's an update on where they stand on those things that make it more likely that they will be able to get to those recommendations, I think that's a very valid thing to come forward and and present on. I don't want them to come in and present some glossy picture of that everything's great and wonderful and perfect. Um which is kind of what it felt like in the past years, right? And that was not, you know, whether anecdotally true or actually true um in that same sense. But I do think it's helpful to get a um point of of clarity on that. One of the things we did talk about last year with regards to the budget finance or the budget finance and growth committee was having a couple

064of those areas that were like really targeted areas that had been a problem folks that had multiple years of recommendations there to come before the the budget finance and growth committee. we we kind of struggled to get that to be any measurable difference from when they would come the first time to when they would come back. And so I do think that's the other part to it is it would be valuable as long as there's something to report on. Um if there's nothing if they come back to tell us they're still working on it and it sounds kind of a short presentation and maybe not as useful, but I don't know where where they sit on some of those. Yeah, I might be able to provide a bit of insight. So, uh, fortunately our our

065interim HR director, uh, Julia Andio, that may be the person you were referring to. She was the last one who, I believe, spoke to the group. We have been meeting with her, especially in anticipation of these questions. So, I will honor the line of not speaking for people. However, knowing what we know through those conversations, there have been some strategic changes and developments that I think would be helpful for the committee to hear and then perhaps give some additional directions and feedback on. So, I'm objective, non-biased, but as a point of insight, think it would be helpful for them to come July. I will also say they were asking when they can come back. So, I said let's defer to the audit committee um and wait for their invitation and and follow this process. But

066um you know I think hopefully they can watch this recording back, get some insight into what you all want to hear. Um but from our conversations with them, there are some notable strategic changes. I I have a couple of quick questions. I'm not I You always are concerned about ones that are past due, but we have some that are three, four, five years old that are not due yet. I'm as concerned with things that are 5 years old that are not due yet as I am something that is listed as past due. Because in my opinion, if you had 5 years to complete something and you haven't done it, what was the date that we were putting as when you were going to be done? So, I'll answer quickly. Maybe an idea would be a

067drill down on that recommendations by year report as well. That might be interesting. So we can click on the 2018 and see what that is. But I'll turn it to Isaac because he has more. So I'm here. I'm sorry. Oh, I was just going to say so you could see a little additional detail, but Isaac might know that more offh hand as well. I was looking and like I said, I I circled I don't know four, five reports from 20 from 20, 2019 and 2020 that have not due as well as past. Correct. Um I would be just as concerned as to not do it for those as I would be the past do. Yeah. And we just recently um kind of started using this new methodology of the implementation date. And so they were

068able to provide us a date um this year related to those. But moving forward the um the establishing that implementation date will be at the end of the audit rather than um four years after um when internal audit changes how they track things. Um so moving forward that is but that's definitely one of the big concerns that we had as well. Um and I think moving forward we'll be able to kind of iron out some of those those issues. Um, but I think we can also provide a drill down so you can see exactly what the recommendation is for those older ones. Um, because they also provide some pretty good insight as to where those stand today and kind of why they've taken so long. Um, like the one from 2018, the Pecard one, um,

069they're going through an RFP system right now to completely change kind of how they're approaching the um, payment card system. And so um that would quickly kind of give you some insight if that was available as well. in the color around we didn't really have the dates that all helps but it it still adding dates starts to put pressure on people start and then you start asking okay you know like these 24s if you have things in a year or two from now that are not complete from the 24 audits you start to really concern because you would have been asking for that at that point right so like it it makes sense Why there might be some in the olders where hey we just really set the date you know 18 months ago. Uh

070so it's not as old but yeah certainly great feedback. Yeah. So that's that's the that's the latest iteration of this whole process is to establish the dates and then we're able to hold people accountable. Whereas, if you rewind, Lauren, to when you first started, we did a Lauren issued a report by herself and then it went in a folder. Uh, no, everyone read it. Oh, I didn't have this though. So, yeah. And I can um I can include this screenshot as well moving forward. That's kind of a an offline version of the um uh the the drill down so that we have that as well. Um this is what we had printed out for a couple of us. Apologies on that. Well, I'm excited to hear that benefits is excited to come back to talk

071to us because the last time I think we well one of them they weren't always great conversations. So, um I'm I'm excited to maybe put put the benefits stuff in the review. Um so, if we could ask them to come back to the July Miss Murphy and I will coordinate with uh Miss Indicles. Great. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks for the feedback on this process. I think it's been a learning process for all of us and it's a balance of accountability and then being reasonable anytime you're trying a new process and we give our management teams a lot of credit to choose a date is really hard especially among you heard a few factors that are changing there's always things that are changing and impacting uh the work that has to be prioritized so

072I think it's a balance and I think keeping the accountability aspects is great as well all right very good so we will hop into um so let's see we at 5:32. Let's set a goal to be done by 5:45. We'll try our best here to leave 15 minutes for executive session. We could always push to 550. We'll we'll do our best. Um so I don't want to rush through the work though because this really is a summation of all this year's work. So um we'll start here with the agenda. You'll see the items we'll cover um today on the next slide. Um, so I will hand it I won't waste time covering the agenda. Hand it right off to Emma Mueller, our internal audit supervisor to cover our network security follow-up audit. Yeah. So, if

073you guys remember at the beginning of last year for planning, we were approved to kind of do more of our IT work. We split that up into two projects this year. One being the business plus audit earlier um this year and now the network security follow-up audit. Uh as a little background for the new members, there was a network security assessment done in 2020 by a third party um and they had recommendations to our ITM team to implement um I think it was 16 or so objectives. Um, so what we did this year is wait for them to complete the majority of them from the status the status of past recommendation follow-up tracker. All were complete except for two and they had given us reasons why those weren't complete. So what we would do next

074time is go back in and do a test of design. Um, similar to what we did for this audit. So that's just a little background on why we selected it. Um, and we can go to the next slide. So our overall object objective for this was to assess the effectiveness of how management closed out those recommendations. Um and I won't go into each and every single one of them but you can see the subobjectives broken out and then within each of those subject objectives there were additional objectives we needed to look at. Um I think the 2020 assessment is on the dashboard if you guys looked through it um beforehand. It's veryformational and it goes into a lot of detail. Uh same with our audit report. I think it's around 21 pages. So you'll be

075able to get a better picture um with everything that we performed, the key takeaways, and then if we had a management recommendation, which we did not have many, um you will be able to read those within the report as well. So we um went ahead and referenced NIST a lot. It's the National um Institute of Standards and Technology. It's what most organizations use for their cyber security maturity. Um, and it's just to follow to protect their um, overall data and network systems. Um, ITM did a really great job um, following all the NIST guidance that was recommended within the 2020 assessment. So what we did was research every single time it was referenced and then we crosswalked every single process, procedure and policy that they had in place. So it took a lot of research

076hours. Um ITM was great to work with. They had everything well organized. It made my job a lot easier. Uh especially this being the last big project I do before I go on maternity leave. So that was very helpful. Kudos to Jeremy and his team. Um and then if we go to the key takeaways slide, you can see that they did and were able to um close out their prior recommendations. We were able to validate that they strengthen their overall security framework and then it gave us a baseline for our future audits. Um with that, what is it look like? It's something we're probably going to be or Isaac and Lauren will be discussing with you over the summer. um how we want to implement more of our cyber security work with ITM if that's

077doing test of effectiveness within each of these um 14 areas. That's something that we can look into. I think it would be helpful to give us more context over our IT environment. um or if there's something else that we can look at going further further in using all of this NIST guidance that we kind of built upon uh with this cyber security audit. I think that would be something we can do as well. So, I don't want to take up a lot of time and I probably rushed through that, but I know Jeremy's online. I don't know if he had anything additional he wanted to add. Um if so, more than welcome. Hey, no. Um good afternoon everybody. I mean I really I think um we're really happy with the the progress we've made since

078we started the journey 5 years ago. Um but that really wouldn't be my main focus. I mean we had some pretty minor recommendations this time. But really what I would want to add would just be uh it's been you know a a great journey working together with the internal audit team. I think over the five years like I since we started this the maturity of both of our teams has really aided us in in being able to get to where we are for you know our security platform and as they've developed processes and we developed processes you know it's been a kind of a tandem um collaboration to get us where we are. So I just would would thank them for all the the collaboration and good work. It's the only thing I would really

079add. Thanks Jeremy. Um, and then I know we wanted to leave questions if you had any till the end. Is that still Yeah, if in the interest of time if you have questions if you could jot them down and then we can knock out all of the questions over all of the items at the end if that's okay. Okay, wonderful. And then I will hand it off to Lauren for our summary of work sections which are new this year. Great. Well, thank you. So, as you may recall, our fiscal 2025 internal audit plan uh carefully outlined what our audit deliverables would be. What we found over kind of reflection of past work is that we don't necessarily we hadn't necessarily historically closed the loop with you all to say what work was accomplished via some

080of our projects that don't result in an audit report. So, think our advisory, our risk analysis, and our internal audit development. So, I do believe the document, the summary of work, is supposed to serve as a bit of a memo on each of those projects, communicating to you all our focus, the impact it had, and the key takeaways. So, I won't spend the time to reiterate that today, but for the members of the public, the the large crowds that are watching, um, we will cover a couple items so they're aware of the work that was completed. So advisory project reminder that is a management-led initiative where internal audit is so kindly welcomed into the teamwork to serve as an objective consultant not reporting via an audit report at the conclusion of the work. So one

081of those items that I want to highlight is the KPI initiative and ROI. This has been a big topic with our audit committee conversations. How do we measure the impact of internal audit? So via partnerships with um Cody Hutchkins in the treasures office who helps our our measurement of KPI and ROI across the district. He's helped us turn those practices on to our team. So this is a whole topic in and of itself and we would love to uh have a future conversation where this can be a full presentation perhaps at the October meeting could be a good timing. Also allow us to kind of kick the tires on that, put it in practice and bring back additional work for you all. Um so moving ahead onto the other areas, our risk analysis piece. Uh

082this is really something that we have worked hard in developing a foundation for our methodology. I know we've had a lot of conversation about auditability what risk lies within the district. A key role of internal audit is that we as an organization don't have a risk management or compliance group. Of course we have our legal counsel but that's a little different compliance uh perspective. So our work has been around the organizational risk matrix as well as with Emma's specialty on the IT side d diving deeper into those IT systems and our IT system inventories. So again in the interest of time and because it's so beautifully aligned we will use this foundational work that was uh created this year as we progress from tomorrow when we get into our planning to when we present to

083you in July. So I think it would make more sense for us to share a more robust presentation at our July meeting. But this work sets us up for success. And then finally, internal audit development. Uh made a lot of progress on our internal audit manual and coming up with a process to be ready and fully compliant with standards. What we've learned is it's going to be a process, but it's one that we have to start working towards. And now we have a system. So as we go through a process, we are documenting it and we have a level of um tracking for all of this work. And then finally, internal audit team development. We interviewed, we recruited, we uh searched high and low and found the best, most highly qualified intern to add to

084our team. So we are incredibly grateful for the addition of Justin this year. Uh we've had great gains in our development. Isaac passed his CPA. Uh we have Emma pursuing her masters in cyber security and I fortunately was able to pass my CIA certification this year as well. So um I think all of that is critical as we try to advance the department and the work that we can do to support the district. So I know I'm a quick talker and so if I feel like I'm rushing I know I'm quick. So thanks for bearing with me. Um so we'll move uh on to and Emma I want you to take the time you need on the continuous monitoring um results. Um so we did two continuous monitoring uh projects this year. One was the

085procurement card and the other was the security badging which we'll do in executive session. Uh I'll leave procurement card very short and street sweet. We've been doing this ever since I started in 2021 I think at this point. So our overall objective is to strengthen ongoing monitoring of PECARD usage by identifying risks, policy violations um and any inefficiencies through continuous auditing procedures. We found this time there were no um issues during our audit. So kudos to management for their strong oversight over that area. Uh the caveat to that is they went to a business plus PECARD module in January. So the entire process has changed. Uh what we have not done yet is collaborate with management to figure out what our tested design and test of effectiveness will be. That could potentially be a project

086for 2026. Um if audit, audit committee, the board and management all agree for something like that. Um and it will be mostly uh system related. So it would be an interesting one to do if we wanted to expand on any IT related audits. But other than that, we were very happy with the results. management was very happy with the results and kudos. Thanks. So, we'll just wrap everything up. Put a nice bow on on the work of the year. So, the next slide is extracted from our audit committee dashboard. I just think it's really great to highlight. It is all green. We've been waiting for this day. We're so happy. Um there were 543 tasks just behind the audit projects, not including all the other non- audit work. Um, so I think it just really

087speaks to the volume of work that a really small and robust team can accomplish and really great to have this team behind us. Um, so now what we see um or what I traverse say what we don't have time to discuss in great detail all of this. I did put together an appendix on slides 18 through 24 which analyzes our budget verse actual audit hours. I think this is really insightful because now we have systems to track our time and it's not about where do we you know every day where do we spend our time but big picture we can see we are spending almost 76% of our time on the actual audit projects which I think is tremendous. Um so again I I said I wouldn't go into it but I I do welcome

088you to review and I think it helps us to be better and more efficient planners as we decide how much work the team can take on each year in our plan. So we'll move on to the key takeaways of the year on to slide 16. So I again I won't read all this to you but I think there are a couple key takeaways from the work that was performed throughout the fiscal year. The internal audit team has now developed systems and processes to fully utilize the team which maximizes our output and our impact. And I think that's huge. we've been investing a lot of time and effort building building systems building our processes and we're starting to see that return um on all of those things being built and then finally I think we've really

089strengthened our audit committee our board and our management uh collaboration and engagement and incorporating feedback we've received via those uh different groups and stakeholders and really has helped launch us to that next level. So I think this was a a great year. We we approved the audit plan in August and we are finishing it in April. So I think that's a big testament to the work and uh it allows us to set up nicely for fiscal 26 which takes me to the next slide. So as we look ahead and I appreciate the conversation that we had around fiscal 26 budget and some of the the uncertainties and all of those aspects. Um so we don't want to waste any time planning. So the biggest driver as we think of risk and what will drive our

090audit plan for this upcoming year quite frankly is the budget. We have a lot of uh budgetary restrictions. The target uh really is about tens of millions 30 to 50 million less than our estimated uh spot at this point. So I think that's a really let that sink in in our scope of what kind of cuts we're talking especially because this isn't the first go of cuts. So I think uh audit will play an important role in helping and aiding management around the risk considerations. So there are opportunities for internal audit to analyze different iterations of the budget not to make decisions but to help inform our management teams and our leadership board and audit committee around some of the trades. So when we make a cut, what kind of gap or control weakness could

091arise and do we have a a a plan to address that? And then also designing projects with that in mind. Selecting projects that are not perhaps as much based on efficiencies and improvements but more about filling gaps and ensuring that we can continue operations at a high level. And then again of course going back to the critical operations that will be the focus. So where that brings me uh full circle is back to audit committee engagement and board engagement. So I think there could be opportunities between now and July perhaps. Our goal is of course to bring an audit plan to you all at our July meeting. Um but with the budget being perhaps a big driver of this, we may need to follow kind of in lock step with the planning and the budget

092budget process. Uh there would be an opportunity to engage our audit committee through a subcommittee or subgroups where we could have further conversations around perhaps internal audit has taken the budget iterations. We've done our work on risk assessment. we perhaps share that with you all to see your feedback that could be provided um perhaps at a board level or to a senior leadership level. So um I don't think we have enough certainty on exact timing today to to make that exact request, but perhaps in the coming weeks or months we can reach out to you all and just wanted to gauge your interest and also kind of put a bug in your ear that that could be coming. Very good. So that concludes our our presentation. We're happy to answer questions. Uh thank you for

093bearing with us. We did go through a lot rather quickly. Um but yeah, happy to answer questions. I just one thought on the um PECARD procurement. Also, I think there's one other clarification is that we also as a board made a policy change with regard to how we use uh for travel purposes. And so one of the problems that we always did see was that folks would have to bring back receipts to verify, you know, they what they were spending on and that kind of deal. And so we've allowed for a uh pdeium that would allow a little bit of less of that. So you may see a little bit less also the use of PECard for things like how you buy food as you travel, which will also help clarif keep some of those

094things clear. I'll go real quick. I'm I'm curious on the network security followup. A lot of this is heavy um DNI focus on establishing processes and identifying controls. Is there an expectation that whether it's in FY26 or beyond that um those areas would be subject to effectiveness testing? Yeah. So, we would have initial discussions with management before we put that in our plan, but that is something that I know we've talked about just to get an initial idea of what a tested effectiveness would be in that area. I know initially in their um security assessment, they did a lot of penetration testing. Um so, that could be something that we do, but um we would just need to make sure that it's ready for us to go in and do that. Any other questions? Thanks,

095Lauren, for getting us back on track. It's 550. My fast talking comes in handy sometimes. All right. Well, Dan skipped out before he could help me through this executive session, but I think I've done it enough where I think I can get it right. So um we now want to move into an executive session. So um I am asking for a motion uh to enter executive session so that we may discuss security matters and the employment of a public employee or official executive session to discuss security matters and employment of a public employee. Second. I second. Second. Um, okay. Laura, can you do a roll? Absolutely. Dan Hold House, yes. Clarice Warner, yes. Rick, Janette, yes. Laura, yes. Liz, yes. Seth Kevin, yes. Paul, yes. Carol, yes. John, yes. Uh, Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset,

096yes. Thank you. Great. So we'll go into executive session and we will uh we will dismiss from executive session.