001Welcome. Thank you for attending the April 28th, 2025 meeting of the Westerville Schools Board of Education. This evening's agenda will be displayed on the screens in the front of the room. Printed agendas are available on the back or you may find the agenda on your mobile device by connecting to the district's website at www.wcso.org. Click on our district link, select board of education, and follow the board docs link to our current meeting agenda. There will be an opportunity for public comment this meet this evening. There's a signup sheet located on the table in the back of the room. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the board and a timer will be shown on the screen. In this portion of the meeting will be limited to no more than 60 minutes. And with that,
002Miss Marshall, will you please take the call? Mrs. Alman, here. Mr. Heckleman, here. Mrs. Valentine here. Mrs. Meyer here. Mrs. Leian will be late. Yes, she's on her way stuck in traffic, so apologies. All right. Um, will you join us in the pledge of allegiance? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Um and um may I have a motion to allow public comment since this is a special meeting? Second. So moved. Will you take the vote? Yes. Sorry, Mrs. Alman. Yes. Mrs. Valentine? Yes. Mr. Huckle? Yes. Mrs. Meyer? Yes. And I'm going to welcome back Miss um Terara Stockdale. And just a reminder, you have three minutes. Um please uh
003um the board does not discriminate based on the identity or viewpoint of the speaker during our public participation. However, the board president may limit comments that are obscene, abusive, or harassing in an attempt to protect the privacy interests of our students. Um, we just ask that the speakers not identify students by name during their comments and persons having public complaints about district personnel programming or operations will be referred to the process set forth in board policy 9130. And finally, the board reminds speakers their statement should be directed to the board as a whole and not to individual members. Welcome. You have three Yeah. And Mr. Reeves will do time. Thank you. So when your three minutes has elapsed. Thank you, Superintendent Hamburg, uh, President Meyers, respected members of the board. Uh, and also thank you
004for allowing me to speak at a special meeting because I was just looking at the agenda at public comments. Uh, I'm really here just to um, again, thank you for your service. We all know that this is a very critical time for public education. Um, and I wanted to just express that I feel having the support of families that want to be involved and believe in our schools and in our district is very important and my family is one of those families. Um, and I just hope that um, the district and the board, you know, understand that that our family does support this district and education and that we are hoping um, you know, to just feel like our concerns are heard. So, thank you. Um, seeing we have no other public comments, may I
005have a motion to suspend Robert's rules of order? So moved. Second. We take the vote. Miss Marshall. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Mr. Hackleman. Yes. Mrs. Otman. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. And now I'm going to turn it over to Miss Marshall to talk to us about our district finances. Yes. Thank you, President Meyer, and members of the board. So, we are just gonna have an open uh conversation. I'm gonna invite who we have Carrie and Scott coming up here. Um yeah, we I was just going to say ask Carrie and Scott to set up here, but we also have other members of the team that we may tap in as questions come up as well. All the way in the back there, there except for thanks for sitting in the second row. Appreciate. Uh so really, I
006just want this to be a conversation. I did put a presentation together because I thought it would be helpful as we're kind of going through so that um you know when we go back and watch this later on the video we can see the slides and all of those things. Plus I'm sure we will share some tidbits out into the world as uh we're having conversations and then All right. Um, so I'd like to remind people, uh, so they don't forget that the cost of education in Ohio is a shared responsibility between the state and the local community. And, um, what we're talking about today is how the state's viewing that responsibility really. So, uh, when we talk about the budget process, I know you all have seen this before. Um, we have the governor's
007budget. We have the House's budget. And now here's where we are with the Senate. The Senate Education Finance Committee is um starting their hearings tomorrow with invited party testimony tomorrow and uh Wednesday, I believe. And then I think May the 7th and May the 14th, they will have open testimony on the budget. At least that's the rumor currently. And that's always tentative and uh could change. Uh they did already have the meeting notices sent out for today and tomorrow to tomorrow and Wednesday, excuse me. Uh when we talk about the governor's proposal um updating those local wealth calculations, so we our state share was 43% in fiscal year 2021. It's currently 23%. The governor's proposal would drop it down to 11% by the end of the bianium. And the governor's proposal is also still using
008those 2022 cost inputs. Uh so what was the cost to educate a child in a general education classroom in 2022? That's what we're being funded for today. That's what we were being funded for in fiscal year 24. And that's what the governor's proposal would contend continue to fund us um moving forward if that were approved as it was. Uh the governor's proposal also included lots and lots of new requirements for traditional public schools to which we would be subject. Now, the House's proposal, uh, our main concern, well, I say main, we have several concerns, but one of our biggest concerns is that what we're is affectionately known as the clawback. And so, this, uh, would require a county budget commission to claw back a general fund balance for anything over 30% of the preceding year
009expenses. So, uh, we, uh, prepare a tax budget every year and we have it submitted to the county budget commission by January the 15th. Uh, Franklin County currently waves the tax budget hearing requirement and all of that. So, we do what's called an alternative tax budget where we submit that to the county, the uh, the budget commission holds a hearing and then they send us back our amounts and our rates. Um through this process, the uh county budget commission would be required to meet in August. Uh so after our June 30 fiscal year end, review our cash balances and then set rates accordingly beginning for tax year 2025. Uh for us this would mean over $110 million 110.5 million um within the next fiscal what's really the next tax year. I should update that because
010it would be spread over two fiscal years and we'll talk more about that. So, the House's net proposal, uh, you know, it added $20 per pupil in fiscal year 26, scrap the fair school funding formula, um, and then basically just gave every uh, district $20 more per pupil in FY26 and then $30 more per pupil in FY27. That's where that 687,000 goes from. So, that's total new revenue over that 2-year period, which I think it's important to note that um the reason the previous funding was shown to be unconstitutional is because it was that residual funding. So, how much money do we want to spend on education? Let's divide that by the number of kids, which is exactly what they're proposing to do. Whereas, the fair funding formula was actually based on the cost to
011educate and was more in line with what the expectations were from the court. Yeah. So it would appear that we would be headed back towards that residual budgeting piece. So the uh dough decision that was ruled it unconstitutional in 97 and then three more times after that uh before the Supreme Court eventually told the state to stop told to stop bringing it back because it's not constitutional um was due to the over reliance of local property taxes and residual budgeting. And so that's what we're dealing with currently. Uh so the other thing that the house's proposed budget and we I have a whole slide on this uh is we are we could potentially lose uh about $10 million a little over $10 million in roll back for um homeowners uh owner occup occupancy credit and
012roll back for residential property and homeowners. So we'll talk more about that and then that clawback. So, not really an addition to Westerville schools. And this is not just our school district. This is uh pretty much every school district in the state. Oh, sorry. Call have a question really quick. Um, can you talk about in the fair school funding plan? I think we are familiar with it, but just in case anybody is watching, you mentioned that it's based on the cost to actually educate a child. What does that mean? Yeah. So, the fair school funding plan takes into account um all different areas from administration to teachers. It has ratios based on the number of students. It also has categorical add-ons for special education, gifted, career, tech, economically disadvantaged, all of those things. And it
013works into that formula. And then once we have that amount by student uh we say okay what is that local community's responsibility and what is the state's responsibility of that total cost. Um and to look at that the state looks at what is our local property wealth for our uh boundaries our footprint in our district and then what is our resident income. So, anybody that lives within the Westerville school system, they look at the federal census for not the census, but the federal income taxes um and the adjusted gross income for that. So, they continue to update those numbers, that local wealth factor, the property wealth and the income data. Um, but they continue to keep what does it cost at those 2022 amounts. So, those numbers continue to be outdated. So essentially, if you've
014got a student who has additional needs, maybe they are um they have a disability or they're English language learners, costs a little bit more to educate those children. So that's factored into the formula. This new I don't know if you can call it a formula. This new funding model will just be everybody no matter what $20 extra. Okay. Yes. That would not take into account any of the additionals. Okay. Thanks. Do we have any sense of what the price what the price not the right word what the differential is between that plus 687k and what it would have been under fair school funding formula. Uh so it's about $5 million under the fair school funding. So we would have received 5 million versus give or take if they actually if they fully funded it versus
015the 687 that and that's just based on what they have now for the categorical add-ons. The state's also done studies on all of those areas. um you know it it's not in this presentation but in our community presentation we shared about uh we're really focusing on special education and the cost of special education how that's grown. There was a study completed in 2022 um and we're well below where we should be uh based on 2022 what that study said in 2022 and the state hasn't updated anything even with that study. So but even those numbers are outdated now because that was in 2022. So yeah, uh so we failed a levy in November. Everyone here is aware of that. Uh and after that time, we went back to our buildings and departments and we asked
016them to take a look at their current year budgets, see where they could make some reductions uh moving forward. Uh the last year of our forecast is the fiscal year 2029. And so um this was what this is what that our forecast looks like through 29 with the updated projections in March 17th. So looking at what folks could uh reduce in the current year that was about $4.8 million and then also looking forward. So we have like uh technology curriculum um that's a lot of those updates have been delayed in the five-year forecast period to help capture some uh savings in the short term. Um, and then we have over 30 positions that we've reduced going into the next school year. And I want to just be mindful of um, you know, we didn't have
01733 people sitting around doing nothing. Uh, reducing 33 positions in this district means that there are a lot of other folks that are picking up a lot more uh, because we had to make reductions because of that levy failure. And I also want to point out that not only did we fail a levy, but we saw a $4 million reduction in our state funding this year um because of those cost inputs staying the same, but our state share continuing to be calculated and dropping. And so um you know, on the funding formula, we gained over a hundred students in the calculation in fiscal year 25 and we lost $4 million in funding. And we've shared that with our legislators. Uh that's a huge swing uh to any school district. And um you know, as we
018talk about the need for having adequate reserves and cash balances to help weather some of those very significant peaks and valleys that we deal with in state funding and other things that the state does. Um it's important that we are able to plan and capture for that. So this was this was the updated forecast that the board approved in March through 29. And then I added 2030 because as soon as June 30th rolls around, we're going to have 2030. I just want to make sure everybody has a good picture of what that looks like. So the green bar is our revenues and the red bar or not red bar, the red lines. The red line is our re or is our expenses. The green line is our uh revenues and then the blue bar represents
019our unreserved fund balance. And that's the line that we use to certify any long-term contracts or anything like that that we have, any appropriations, measures, all of that. Uh the green line uh looks like it's ticked up in 25 and drops down in 26. That's because as part of the November levy, we also had that bond issue. The board had set aside $30 million in the general fund balance to a capital projects fund to combine with the bond issue. So it would be a no new millillage ask of our community. Um when that ballot issue failed, we rescended that capital projects fund and we moved that 30 million back into the general fund. It appears as a revenue on the projections, but it's not. It's just moving the fund balance. It's not actually revenue. Does
020that make sense? So this is what we would look like with the house's proposed clawback. So, as I mentioned, the clawback would be for tax year 25. So, we would see a half of that clawback, half of that clawback in 26 and the rest of it in 27. And what they're looking at is that red line and they're saying that our this blue uh bar graph here cannot exceed that 30%. And Scott Reeves gave me this great idea to put this dotted line right here about what does 30% represent? So that's that line right there. And so what the states what the house's proposal says is that we cannot exceed that. So that would make a significant gap obviously for our revenues and expenses. And you can see that we would be nearly in a
021negative unreserve situation by fiscal year 27 and well into um a negative uh bal. These are balances. This is not revenues and expenses. This is cash that hasn't been obligated for something else um overall. So this is this is significant. Um and just a note there that that's where the 11 10 million spread over the two years comes from. So what the I think what the thought is is that the tax rates would be reduced for that tax year 25 and then the county would come back and it like jack tax rates back up in tax year 26 uh if our balance fell below that 30 if our uh balance fell below that 30% mark. But if our um balance falls far below that, there's nothing to bring those tax rates up a little bit
022more. If that makes any sense. There's no guarantee that we would remain at that 30% balance. It's just taking it away and not bringing it back. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Uh so I want add one thing. I think it's important to note and Nicole has those two slides side by side which is really nice to see the comparison of how we were using our cash to sustain us across the life of the forecast. Obviously with this change we run out quickly. Important to note one of the things the House included was to reduce from a five-year forecast to a three-year forecast. That does not change what's happening for most districts in the state in years four and five um just by not requiring it to be on a piece of paper. So
023I just want to point that out because I feel like that's a little bit of their answer. the last year of our forecast would be fiscal year 27 if that technically we still have a little bit of cash there. Um but you can see it drastically drops off and so they're wanting to just get rid of the rest of the forecast is is their answer. Thanks for pointing that out. Excuse me. So um when we talk about fallback consequences for specifically for Westerville City Schools, this would require the district to go back to the voters every year with new operating levies. Um so this is my conspiracy theory. Uh as we um in 2013 this so prior to 2013 uh prior to November of 2013 all levies that all voted levies uh the state picked
024up 12 and a half% for homeowners. There was a 10% uh roll back for uh residential and agricultural properties. And then there was a 2 and 12% additional for owner occupancy. So if you lived in your home, you got 12%. That came right off of every tax levy um that the school has. And so the state the homeowner wouldn't pay that, but the state would reimburse the schools for that loss. And that was a way, I think, to help equalize what the state was paying versus what the local property owners are paying. uh the state eliminated that on all new levies passed after November starting November of 2013. It was anything after November of 2013 after uh September of 2013. So beginning November 2013, every single levy got 12 and a half% more expensive for
025homeowners, but schools didn't receive any more funding from those levies. Does that make sense? So my thought is if you're eliminating our cash balance and you're dropping those tax rates and you're forcing all the schools to go out and get new levies every other year, that is the state essentially reducing our reimbursement by nearly $10 million, over $10 million um because we would have to have new levies year over year that would not have those roll back percentages applied to them anymore. That makes sense. Am I like am I being too much of a conspiracy theorist here to like say this? But that's what I think um is some of this because the state continues to talk about the reimbursements. We're reimbursed for the homestead exemption and for the roll back exemption. Uh the the
026state continues to reimburse us for those old levies and they don't reimburse us for anything new. So every time the budget cycle comes up, they talk about how much money they're reimbursing the schools through the homestead exemption and the roll back. And so I think this is another way that they can try to eliminate that reimbursement for schools. Again, putting more money onto the homeowners, more costs onto the homeowners. Uh so we've talked about this the overall the consequences we would be in uh fiscal watch and require state oversight. It would eliminate our ability to meet long long-term obligations and state required certifications. There's no shortage of those. It would require substantial cuts in programs and services for all students likely down to the state and federal minimum requirements. I get asked a lot like
027what does this mean? This means closing buildings. This means increasing class sizes substantially. This means eliminating extracurricular programs. This means not transporting high school students, only transporting uh students if they live two miles uh or more away. Um those are the state what are you doing? Am I too loud? Sorry. Technical. Um but those are the kinds of things that um we talk about when we say state minimums programming and what that would look like. Okay. Is that better? I think so. Pause for a moment. technical difficult is so um we are working on putting together like all the things that we do that aren't aren't requirements essentially um there's lots of stuff that the schools do that we're not technically require um art music PE that's not a requirement um there's lots of different
028things Nicole Is there a PE requirement for high school? For high school, not elementary though, right? Yeah, basically K8, you just have to offer it and it can be offered by classroom teachers, but the um we do have graduation requirements, but once we have enough courses to hit the graduation requirements, we will exceed that with offerings for our kids. Sure. Before you Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. And then I'll ask my question. Sure. Um it would also jeopardize the district's ability to meet payroll obligations throughout the fiscal year. So, we only receive tax settlements twice a year. Uh, so in August and March, um, the majority of our funding comes from our local property taxes. And, uh, so the district had a period of time back in 2011 where it had to move a payroll
029from June to July uh, to cross fiscal years due to cash flow issues. Um, but we do have concerns about if that 30% if that's the balance that we're keeping, then I think we would have trouble. I'd say by like February, January or February, we would be struggling to meet payroll obligations. Um, we spend over $5.6 million just in salaries on one payroll. Um, so it's uh just a significant concern that we would have. Uh and it would also reduce the districts and all Ohio public entities bond ratings with moodies and standard and pores and I I do have a slide on this as well. Uh the other thing is is our oh sorry no just before you move on. So we hear require state oversight but could you talk a little bit about what
030that means for the people so we can fully understand what that would look like in terms of state? that would that would require the district to come up with a plan to address whatever it is that put us in fiscal watch. Um and it would require the state to oversee that plan whether it's acceptable, not acceptable. It would require the state to work with the district um to help make decisions. Fiscal emergency is where you have a a state approved commission that actually overrides the vote of the board. Um, so it would be a stateappointed commission that's for fiscal emergency. Uh, we would be in fiscal emergency the very next year if if we didn't have something take to take care of the um deficits in the fiscal watch here if that makes any sense.
031Who who at the state is the overseeing body? Is it do local government services with the state auditor's office? Okay. So within the state auditors fiscal watch. So with fiscal watch you work with due and and the state auditor's office. Okay. But I think fiscal caution is mostly um due but fiscal watch is okay. State and auditors and then fiscal emergency is the state auditor plus the state appointed commission. Okay. So and I shared with committee I worked um with the auditor's office from 2005 to 2012 with local government services. And that was part of my job was overseeing fiscal watch and emergency projects um during the great recession of 2008 to 2011. Does everybody remember that there were lots of school districts that were in uh fiscal emergency. If you go back just Google
032little Miami schools um they went years without being able to pass a levy. It was a very significant uh thing. London City Schools was in fiscal emergency. I but there was like school districts were criticized for not having adequate reserves to weather economic downturns during downtimes during the uh great recession and so it's just odd that we are here and how I'm just curious how many school districts would this proposed budget put into? um it would it would impact over 80% of the schools in Ohio being overseen by the but I I mean just just with the clawback provision but I think overall it would affect all of us negatively especially when you look at the auditor's office and some of the financial health indicators that they're doing and also the bond ratings. Um because
033while not every school district uh goes out for new operating levies depending on what their situation is um most all schools have bonds outstanding um in some way shape or form. So can the auditor's office handle a workload like that? I I don't know. So I will tell you this next thing that we're talking about here. Um, I sat on a webinar on Thursday and uh, poor Bob Hinkle, who is uh, the uh, chief deputy auditor for the auditor states office, he's retiring this year. Uh, good for him. But he uh, he was asked several times over like, "Hey, did uh, any of the legislators talk to this auditor Faber about like this clawback and and you know what this is going to mean for school districts?" because at the same time the state is
034rolling out this financial health indicators uh for school districts. So this already applies to local governments um and it is there's like 16 different indicators that and this the report's actually linked here if you want to look at it but it um you know looks at various different things to determine whether a school district is financially healthy um overall. And uh one thing that they do look at is changes in fund balance and they have a whole indicator on it and it talks about the larger the reserve the better the entity is able to absorb in the short term the impact of sudden revenue loss or significant increases in operating costs and begin planning financial adjustments. And then the cautionary outlook includes a less than six months of current year revenues um for a fund
035balance. So you they're just not talking to each other. Um and the auditor's office shared that they they did not know that that was something that was going to be proposed and that they are not um should that become law then they would revisit this guidance for um school districts. Um, Miss Marshall, so you know, I've tried to do this before, but I want to try to put this in layman's terms, and you can correct me, right? But my analogy breaks down, which they always do. So, I'm going to say, you know, just going to make up a easy number. Say a household has $50,000 a year income, right? And they know they're they're budgeting, they're planning for five years. They know their income's going to be basically flat. there'll be some modest increases, right?
036Like we have on the inside mills or on additional construction, but basically it's essentially flat and I won't go into all the reasons why, but House Bill 920 and all that. So, you plan out for five years. You know, your expenses are going to go up because inflation, right? Things are not getting cheaper, they're getting more expensive. So, at the beginning, you're like, "Okay, well, I made $50,000 a year. I'm only going to spend 40. I'm going to put the rest in the bank. Right? Because I've projected this out and I know by year five I'm going to need all of that accumulated savings because I'll be essentially deficit spending right at that point. This feels a little like your employer coming in and saying, "Well, hey, I see that you have, you know, more
037money than you need in your bank account, right? You saved more than 30% of of what you spent last year. So, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna not pay you that much, right? You clearly are doing fine. You don't need this money. Um, again, I'm going to reduce what I pay you. That's essentially and again explain where this breaks down but it's essentially like the clawback is we have planned and we have put money in reserve which is like savings and it's money that you know was allocated to our district. We're being plannerly with it and they're essentially saying we're going to take that back because clearly you don't need it. Yeah. So that it's definitely a misnomer that districts don't need it, right? Um I think that you know you have we have 609
038traditional public schools. I'm sure there are 609 different reasons why school districts have cash balances that they have today um and how they intend to use them in the future. Sure. Uh for us, you know, we think about um the loss of tangible personal property taxes years ago. That was in the early uh 2010 2013 time frame. 2011 I think is when they did that. So the state eliminated tangible personal property for businesses and uh eliminated that tax which was a resource which was a revenue source for school districts. And then the state said, "Well, when we eliminate it, we're going to make the districts whole. We'll make the school districts whole and um you know, we'll continue to reimburse districts for that lost revenue." Well, they did that for a period of time and
039then they phased it out. Uh then um we had the state so used to the vouchers for charter schools and private schools used to run through traditional schools. So the state would fund us on average about $3,000 per pupil, but then they would send from our funding the full amount, the 6,000 or the 8,000 or whatever it was, and that came straight out of our local resources. That was not state funding that was going to them. Um, since since the introduction of the fair school funding plan, the state's now funding those directly and it's just reducing the allocation to traditional schools overall, but it's funding them directly. So that's not a pass through anymore. Uh we also had um the ESSER funds. Everybody remembers CO I'm sure. Uh so we saw a three rounds of
040CO dollars essentially that needed to be spent within a finite period of time over a three-year period essentially from 2020 to 23 and then 24 like it was staggered when it needed to be spent. the three different rounds. Our district, instead of adding a lot of new staff and programs, because we knew this was onetime funding, that was over $32 million that our district received to help with COVID and all of those things. Um, we took expenses that are normally paid out of our general operating fund and we moved them into our ESSER funds because it's a federal fund. It's not included in the operating fund. It's accounted for completely separate. It's not in the forecast. We move those expenses into those into that fund until those dollars were used up. And now all of
041those expenses are coming back to our general operating fund. And so if you look at our forecast, it looks like our expenses are growing at an enormous rate. Well, it's not our expenses are growing at an enormous rate. It's because all of those expenses are coming back to the general fund from the federal fund. Governor Dwine's um I think his first year as governor, I really need to look this up because I say this a lot. I think it was 2019. Uh instead of giving districts uh growth for inflationary needs for uh the school funding formula. Uh this was uh 2019. So we didn't have a funding formula. We were on the bridge formula. There was no formula that existed. And I have a whole presentation on this if anybody's interested. But um he introduced
042student wellness and success funds, wraparound dollars to support the whole child that we could spend on pretty much anything to support a child except for academics and regular education, right? Um nurses, uh safety and security, mental health, all of those things. Uh so that also wasn't included in the general fund. that was accounted for in a separate restricted special fund. Um, and that wasn't included in the five-year forecast. Again, uh, because we knew that that was only a two-year funding source, we weren't adding a lot of programs with that. We did support building some of our mental health programs through work sessions with the board and all of those things based on the needs that we had coming from our students. Um, but guess what? That funding was gone in the ne next budget cycle.
043So all of those things came back to the general fund again. And so we continue every two years the state does a budget um and every two years we never know what we're going to get like it fluctuates significantly um every two years. And so to think that schools are going to be able to plan without and especially in the year of I mean I've had legislators ask me well if it's not 30%. What percentage should it be and you know and I share with them like it really depends on the district because we all have unique needs. Not every school district has a permanent improvement levy. Not every school district is subject to House Bill 920. Not every school district some school districts have income taxes. We do not. um like different needs, different
044demographics, like all of the things, right? There's pipeline districts, all of the things. So, I can't answer that question, but what I know is that there is no school district I mean, when we talk about looking at our balance at June 30th and then coming back in August to determine what resources we'll have available when we've already hired staff, kids have already scheduled classes. Like, like you can't pivot at the beginning of a school year. Like, those things are it's already done. You know what I mean? Like that's that's just not an option for schools. And I think it's really irresponsible if anyone expects schools to plan that way. Thanks for walking through that. I mean again you know my analogy is oversimplified but for some people to understand when we talk about clawback is
045that you know this is money that we planned with. It's money that we have in reserve for reasons right um different districts might have different reasons. Um to use the household analogy, different households might have different reasons for saving money, but that's you know it's it's the case that they were look we look out and we have reserves for reasons. Sometimes there are reasons we know like there's going to be inflationary increase and sometimes it's because every two years, right, things change so wildly. So we're trying to kind of level it out a little bit. But in no case is this, you know, yippy yippy Um, we're sitting on a whole bunch of money, right? I mean, we have we have some significant needs in this district. We've shared with legislators. We have hundreds of
046millions of dollars in facilities needs. I think Carrie has some stuff that she can share with us on that. Um, we have technology needs for our district. Um, the the state has yet to fund us for facilities. We're sitting on $25 million in credits that we've yet to be funded for because our turn's not up yet at the state. Were you keep getting pushed back? It keeps getting pushed back. Getting pushed back. Were you going to say something? I was just going to say curricular needs that we've deferred because again, and this is what we tried to talk about when we testified to the the committees down at the state house, we could spend that money many different ways, but we need it to pay the bills because we've seen a reduction in our revenues.
047Yep. So, they're terming this tax relief for the property for the local property owner, right? But essentially, I mean, it's a good talking point, but essentially we're going to have to go back to our local taxpayers and say, "We need more every year. We need more. We know that you're sending a lot of money to the state, but we need you to do more." And so, yeah. So, I have a whole slide on Okay. tax relief. Um, sorry, things here. Just real quick, let's talk about the S&P credit rating agency. So, uh, uh had a uh US local government credit brief that they released in March 28 of 2025 and it talks about the potential for property tax reform. Property taxes are foundational credit strength for Ohio schools given their relative stability as a source
048of revenue in response to the double-digit appraisal increases. State legislators are exploring property tax reform legislation potentially leading to reduced property tax property revenues for school districts which could materially affect our view of school districts institutional framework and revenue and expenditure balance. What does that mean? The when we uh borrow money through bonds when we issue bonds the the voters approve it. Um we had we also had a cops issue uh certificates of participation that was used with current revenues out of our PI funds. Uh we go in front of a rating agency and they assign a rating to that issue and the the reason why school districts and local governments across the state in general favor uh fare pretty well with their ratings is because of our property tax system in Ohio. And I
049shared this in the House Finance Committee. Um there's I mean there is guidance on if you have um you know what your rating might be, how your rating is uh calculated based on a 30% fund balance, below a 30% or above a 30% fund balance. Moody's has some guidance on that and there's a scorecard that they keep for all of the entities that they look at. Um, but overall, the reason our bonds always look favorable to investors is because our property tax system is so reliable in Ohio. Um, and essentially what this is saying and what I told the House Finance Committee, if they start passing laws that significantly reduce voted levies from the will of the people that have voted at the ballot box for these revenues and those levies for their school system.
050If the legislature can do that, then it is going to just upend how credit rating agencies view property taxes in Ohio. And so um and this is essentially what I I appreciated that S&P put this out um in late March. So Nicole, the bottom line for that is it costs us the taxpayer more money to borrow, right? Cost us more. Keep our interest rates low. our interest our interest will go up above based on what we can borrow. Yeah. Because it that that will view who is interested in even even investing in your um bonds that you have based on whatever rating they give you. Uh the other thing I want to have out there just as a resource for folks that are interested is um the Ohio Association of School Business Officials and that
051is an association that I belong to. Uh it's made up of treasures, business managers, uh food service, EMUS, um all of those folks that work in schools across Ohio. Uh put together a cash balances white paper. Um sort of a long document, uh but it has uh lots of information out there about why a lot of schools have cash balances. It was originally authored in 2018. It was updated in 2022. and it talks about best practices and uh different things, different legal requirements and all of that. Also has some sample uh policies for districts that don't have cash balance policies. And we actually use this with our district finance committee uh to develop our local board policy here um if you remember back a little bit ago. And we do have that local board policy
052at 6210.01 01 as like I said developed with the district finance uh committee and it requires 90 days unreserved cash for each year of the five-year forecast period. So that's looking at um what are our total expenditures in terms of days? So if we close the doors today, how many if we not close the doors, if we stopped receiving revenue today, how many days could we keep the doors open? Um and that's 90 days what we look at for that unreserved cash and that's through all five years of the four cash period. If we don't meet that mark, which currently we do not, um that triggers action by the board, superintendent and treasur, um if that benchmark is not met, and that's a lot of the reason why we came back and um had to
053start making reductions immediately after we failed the levy because we were below that 90-day requirement. And then uh budget reserves. So also part of that cash balance uh policy, it's cash balance and reserves is actually the name of the policy. Uh we implemented a budget stabilization account. So this is essentially only reflected on the five-year forecast. We don't account for it separately, but it's um 5% of the preceding year's revenues. And uh it just reduces the unencumbered balance in the fiscal year. It doesn't accumulate year-over-year or anything like that. it's just for that fiscal year um to look at. And then our uh this we do not have this, but this is something I want to talk to the board about. So um under Ohio law 5705.13b, um it's uh known as a terminations benefits
054fund. This is a special fund. So when we call something a special fund, that's where we're restricting the revenue, the resources are restricted for a specific purpose. So, it's accounted for in a separate fund from the general operating fund. And so, uh, some school districts have this, and this is something I think we might want to think about looking at. Uh, we can create this fund to accumulate cash to pay for accumulated leave payouts such as severance or vacation payouts, um, or an irregular irregular pay cycle. So, we are a district that's on 26 pays. So every 10 to 11 years depending on the calendar we have a 27th pay in the fiscal year. We had a 27th pay in our fiscal year 2023 um forecast and so that inflated the forecast in that year
055and then um you know it's since it would have been reduced in the next year but that's not like we sometimes we have to spread out pays over 27 pays instead of 26 to capture that pay cycle in the calendar movement. And so this is not included in the five-year forecast. And um the fund can be rescended if needed at any time. Uh like I mentioned, we in salaries, we have about 5.6 million every pay cycle. Um and then uh for our severance, we paid about 1.2 million out in severance last year. So we're about a million dollars year-over-year in severance payments. Um all of our employee groups have uh severance policies and just a reminder that that there is severance is required under state law. Um also if if we created this fund would
056that allow us to move some money in there and not have it taken back from us? So that would be so I think this would be part of just prudent planning if we are worried about cash flows in the future to be able to meet those obligations that we have. Um this would allow us to set aside some funds essentially if you think about this. So this clawback only in the under the house's proposal would only apply to traditional public schools. Wouldn't apply to private or uh charter schools. it wouldn't apply to counties, cities, villages, townships, just traditional public schools. And so, um, I think the I think it would be helpful as we think about other entities, they have the ability to appropriate things separately and that sort of like ties it up from
057their what's available for their resources. And so, and when you think about our general operating fund, we we're not taking into account, and there's actually a representative, Representative Troy, out the Dayton area that talks about this a lot, and and I don't know that I agree with like starting to look at GAP for the five-year forecast because I feel like that could get complicated super fast. But when we look at that cash balance, that doesn't take into account uh any long-term contracts we've signed, uh you know, our copier leases that we have, our negotiated agreements, um I mean, we have lots of long-term contracts, our technology purchases, like all of those things. If that's not that doesn't that doesn't even take into account our incumbrances. So purchase orders that we have outstanding at June 30th
058that if just a matter of timing those invoices haven't been paid yet but they will be paid in July and August and September well into like right into the next fiscal year. You know what I mean? Um, so thinking about a special fund that it would allow us to sort of account for that we're going to have we have a future liability that we have already and then this would help make sure that we could meet that future liability. Does that make sense? Um, you just said it, but I want to repeat that the 30% what we're calling a clawback that take back does not it would not apply to private schools, nonpublic charter schools, any other government entity. It's only traditional public schools. I just want to underline that they the private schools and
059the non-traditional public schools also got a nice substantial increase in their funding too. Much more than the traditional public schools. Okay. And yet still when you look at the amount of funding for per student, right? like what our schools receive. I don't know if you have the numbers off the top of your head. Um say, you know, um versus what a high school student can get in terms of a voucher, what they're about 8,000. Yeah. So, we receive on average about $3,000 per student. Uh the voucher that choice vouchers are 6,66 $166 for a K8 student and $8,48 for a 912 student. Yep. So significantly higher. Yes. And they're not they would not be subject to the clawback. I realize I'm just underlining things right now. They're not subject to the clawback. They're also not
060subject to a lot of things that Yes. And you know, we're in this space. Just real quick, um I keep hearing that what's a better deal for the taxpayer because our average expenditure for people is a little over $12,000. Um but the state's only funding us for 3,000 of that. So just hold that tight, right? Um but when we talk about the state's funding at Choice 6,000 or 8,400, um we're still providing transportation or making a payment in le of transportation. We're still providing uh some special education services there. those students aren't included in the denominator for our expenditure per pupil. So that is not an applesto apples comparison. Um and nor is it accurate in any way, shape or form. Meaning when you they're not included in the denominator. Meaning when you take what
061we spend and divide it by the number of students, we are not dividing it by we're not including those students who we're spending money on in that right calculation. even though we have substantial costs for those. So, just by law, there was a new requirement with the um John Peterson and autism scholarships within the last year and a half I think that um required us to transport provide transportation because previously we it was part of the law that they like basically give up faith if they do that and um that added like $1.8 million to our annual budget. But those students are not denominator when they talk about what is our expenditure for people and you know and I continue to tell people that tell me that um schools don't have a revenue problem they
062have a spending problem that our only spending problem is that the state continues to put additional requirements on us that aren't funded really quickly Miss Marshall just it's to further underscore right 90% of Ohio students are public educated right so 90% of students in Ohio are being penalized. 90% of students will have a harder time competing for college or competing in the job world because they cho their parents chose public education and we're potentially getting ripped away all of everything down to the bare minimum. That that would appear to be the plan. Just reiterating again. So, a child goes to a private school, they're eligible for a voucher. Voucher, let's say for high school is around the $8,000 mark, like you said. The private school, however, could charge whatever they want. So, they could charge
063$28,000 for a year of tuition. The 8,000 would go towards that and the parents are picking up, you know, $20,000 or whatnot. So those dollars though can be spent however they see fit at that private school. Meanwhile, child goes to private school, requires disability services, speech therapy, transportation, all of that. We pick up the tab on that. So that private school can charge whatever they want, use it however they want, but we still have to provide additional services. Got it. Um, we also enjoy six months out of the year with our state auditor friends that you saw at the last board meeting we had. Um, we were excited to get another clean audit award. Uh, the private schools do not go through those audits. And Miss Marshall, uh, as as was just stated, 90% of
064students attend public school and about 10% private or charter. Um, what is the state budget increase public versus charter uh, percentage-wise or or dollar-wise I see remember was like 222 or so for the totality of of state of of public school and only and 500 was that right and 500 million to charter school so 90% of students are getting 222 million 10% are getting 500 million is that correct yes and to be clear with these private schools. It seems like the state legislature is trying to make public schools into entities that provide subpar education so that people do put their kids in private schools. But there are not enough private schools in Ohio, period, anywhere, to accommodate the 90% that are going to public schools currently. So this is a flawed plan. Um, the other
065thing I'll say is that we obviously educate any student that we are required to educate any student that resides within our school boundaries. Um, we don't we do not have an application process. Obviously, private schools and charter schools are able to have an application process and they can choose to allow or not allow a student in for whatever reason. Um, I think at the end of the day when we think about the legislators, I think that there's a lot of uh good men and women at the state house that support public education on both sides of the aisle. I don't think this is a partisan issue and I think that um, you know, we have to educate them because we have to remember that uh, people are elected to be lawmakers and they have their
066areas of expertise and they have their committees that they serve on. Um, but I think not everybody understands, well, I know not everybody understands how property taxes work or how school funding works in the state of Ohio. So, I think it's our job to engage and educate them. I think it's really helpful when they're hearing from our local community. Um, you know, when they when people show up in numbers, whether it's calling, emailing, showing up, testifying, whatever it is, they take notice of it. and they realize, oh wait, this might not be my area of expertise, but I need to pay attention to this because like my community is like really up in a roar about this. And so I think that that's at the end of the day, I think we all just want
067kids to be educated um for the betterment of society and our future. And I think that the majority of people that when they understand how the system works and what these things look like, um, they support something that's more balanced and makes more sense in terms of who attends schools where and what that looks like. So, um, what we have right now to work with is the House's proposal and so we need to keep engaging our senators. Um, We have spent time with Andy Brener who chairs the finance committee and starting hearings um this week. What did I say? Finance committee. Education committee. Thank you. Chairs the education committee is having hearing starting this week. And so we just need to keep engaging and um it's helpful when constituents do the same. Thank you so
068much for this presentation. I think for me as we're taking all this in because it is a left to take in right something that alarm everyone and certainly alarming me is what the everyday consequences like what that life is going to look like for our kids especially when we get to 26 27 um fiscal years and we see the cash reserves sort of dwindling and then we're neg we're operating negatives obviously I wasn't around at that time but I know that this this district was really impacted when we had to cut our gut our middle school programs and now with the way things are heading we're looking at that K through 12 critical programing being impeded and that will take us years to get back to where uh where we need to be. Um and
069so I guess my question is can you talk a little bit more about that everyday um impact to our kids? I know you shared if you were getting busing before it's not going to um it's not going to look the same right now. Um we won't be able to um provide the programming that we may be offering to students right now especially those vulnerable students. But could you just talk a little bit more about what every day would look like um families. Yeah. I mean, I it would hard to I think I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Reeves because I mean, he lived through Yeah. some of this stuff. You're absolutely right when we talk about uh the middle school programming back in 11 and 12. Um and I think that's where we
070work very much in cooperation treasurer's office to say what's the mark we're trying to get to. Back then it was around 20 million um prior to us passing emergency le in March. But we started to say, okay, what's the least impact to kids? And just kept tearing that in until we hit that mark. Um, we tried to preserve then as much programming as we could for high school. We elevated extracurricular fees significantly. Um, we went from maybe less than $100 to $300 per sport. No cap, no no limits for families. but in able to preserve things like um our AP programming, our international baloria programming, our extracurricular programming um we disproportionately impacted places where we didn't have requirements like middle school and and for those of you who may have lived through that e either
071as a parent um we it reduced so many courses at the middle school level that we had to take a period away. We had period day. We had to go down to seven periods. Not only did we go down to seven periods, we had students taking one, two study halls every single day within that seven periods because we didn't have the coursework and recovering from that took almost a decade to recover from that to have a very robust programming we have now. So, what the everyday experience would be would really be Nicole and her team saying, "Here's the impact and here's the here's the we need to get to whatever that millions of dollars is. And then we kind of start on the periphery of what costs us that impacts minimal students as opposed to
072eliminating a program that that right off the bat that um impacts thousands of of our students. Okay, dozens of our students. How much does that cost? and keep coming into until you start getting to what you have to have, what you're required to have, which is really based more in high school than than any other places. and and um so the experience is less choices, greater cost, which when you look at the economic diversity of our school district all the way from wealthy to economically disadvantaged. Um it disproportionately affects our dis our economically disadvantaged students who uh would not have access to some of that extracurricular program which then in turn the ripple effect is we wouldn't need as much extracurricular programming because we wouldn't have as many students to participate in it. Things that
073may be a luxury um that we don't have to have like um international balora programming. We don't have to have that, but it is a wonderful academic program that our community thrives on. Our in um advanced placement, the the the breadth of our advanced placement courses. When you look at college credit plus, we have over a dozen college credit plus courses taught on campus by our students. That opens the door up to college to hundreds of students that would have never accessed it. When we have neighboring districts that don't offer any in-house and all of their students have to go um outside, well, we we see that as something that um disproportionately impacts kids who can't do that in our district. Things like that that we don't have to have that are only would cut
074programming but potentially save some dollars because we also have to fund um the the college tuition. U we know that the number of kids who would go out to college would reduce greatly. extracurricular programmings, we would look at the cost and and really say it would either greatly reduce in choices or um about the same time that we were in in economically um dire straits, so was Southwestern City who eliminated extra pro programs for an entire year um and saved them several million dollars and it devastated their their community and they really have never they still have never recovered to where they were um prior to doing that. And so looking all of those things, the daily experience of a kid would be um vastly different than the wonderful experiences that that everyone has built
075for them over the last 10 to 15 years. Just think about class sizes too, like um how much differentiated learning our teachers have to do as it is and like what that would look like if instead of 25 to one, we're looking at 30 or 32 or 33 to one. And like I just Yeah, that's difficult. I mean, I was in the classroom for a decade at especially with all of the needs that our students have now. Yes. Yes. And Mr. Maybe the impact on uh the collective things like retention of students and absenteeism and on-time graduation and uh mental health challenges that are going to probably expound by the idea that the kid can no longer do music or theater or art or college credit plus is not an option for someone who thought
076that they had a shot at college. uh the ripple effects go far beyond I think just the idea of eliminating down to core. It's what's going to impact everyone emotionally and mentally. Yes, you are correct. You would also lose a lot of really great staff in the process. Yes. And we did then. Yeah. In 20 2011 we did then. And I I think as adults making decisions, you know, sometimes it's easy to say, it's not easy to say, but it's sometimes we say things like, well, you know, it might go away for a year or two years, and then there's this hope maybe something will come back. But I just want to remind people that for that kid, that's it, right? They got one shot at grades one through K through 12, we'll say, and
077that experience is gone for them forever. So we take that very seriously and that that experience is gone and because you never were exposed to it whether it was music, whether it was a college course, you never return to it. Um, when I was a young lad a little decade or two ago, um, and I'm a Columbus public uh, graduate, Columbus went through significant financial. And when I entered middle school, Columbus eliminated all middle school sports to preserve its high school sports. And there were several of my friends and colleagues who never reentered. And some of them maybe have made decisions a little left of center because they didn't have that positive influence in their life. And so you're absolutely right. That ripple effect isn't temporary. For some, it's permanent. So I think that um
078I appreciate you elaborating more on that. I think that also goes not just to like the child, right, ripple effect, but it also goes to our societal ripple effects, right? You think about unfortunately some peop some kids might find themselves in incarceration and those challenges or even in further poverty. And so the cost benefit, right, just really investing in our public schools could really save us a lot of money in the long run and and really set our students up for great success. It's just really heartbreaking that we're here. So, I think um our job is to try to plan as best we can um with what we have available to us and help educate our legislators. But I do have a few more slides I want to go through. That's okay. So another um
079another thing that we have under law which is 570513C uh the termination benefits fund was B uh is a capital projects fund. So this is what we did with the $30 million that the board set aside. Um we can accumulate resources for the acquisition, construction or improvement of fixed assets including motor vehicles uh not included in the five-year forecast must be obligated to enter into contracts within the 10 years and the fund may be rescended if needed. So uh we had a whole plan uh prior to November. We transferred 30 million to fund the capital projects, create and fund the capital projects fund. Uh when the ballot issue failed, we rescended the fund. That money moved back. Um and so that's where we are now. And Carrie, I don't know if you want to talk
080about we we've had a lot of conversations about um you know, what was on the ballot is sort of just the tip of the iceberg of all of the things that we need for facilities. When we were on the ballot in 2019, we were looking at the first year of a 10y year facilities the first five years of a 10 year facilities master plan and so we looked at that second five years and it was way bigger of a price tag than what we anticipated. So do you want to talk about that? Yeah. Um if everybody remembers the facility master plan was a 10-year plan and it was set to address our buildings that were age 55 or older or as they became 55 or older. And as we finished that first phase of the
081facility master plan, we started looking at the second phase and it initially had um Cherington, Huber Ridge, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, um Blendin, Walnut Springs, and Westerville North in there. They were the horizon of that second phase of the facility master plan. Well, with the inflationary cost of construction postcoid, we're all experiencing these same rates. We realized that ask on our community was going to be really great. So we did a lot of work with um strategic plan committee through board work sessions um our administrator uh meetings as well talking about changing or amending that second cycle the facility master plan just to focus on the four buildings that we knew um were well they were all built constructed opened in the 1960s the original parts of the building so that focus that we actually
082went on the ballot with was Cherington Huber Ridge Blendon and Walnut Springs. So, um, we also recognize that we have other district facility needs, including our theaters and all three of our high schools, um, have some projects that could help, um, expand not only the use to our students and our theater programs, but also general use, um, for choir concert, orchestra concerts, um, meetings. Our community uses our buildings a lot, um, and it's time to give them some attention. So, we've carved out some money for that. our uh marching bands and outdoor facilities as well. Um luckily since the programming had kind of been decimated as part of that levy failure in middle school, you see that come up with your high schools and when you don't focus and put the attention in that programming
083at a young age, it doesn't carry through to the high schools. Um we're seeing that rebound uh with Becca Yanni's work she's done really exposing kids to musical instruments early on. Um, so we're going to need facilities that can help support that interest. Um, we also looked at our preschool here at the early learning center. We know that we currently have four sections of our preschool being held at Point View Elementary School because we've outgrown the facilities downstairs. There was also an opportunity to address some other needs that we have as a function in this district which was our enrollment center location um along with this board training room which we know um especially recently that when you put a lot of people in here um the design of this space can be a little
084complicated to the function of the meeting and just the accessibility of this space as well and the accessibility of the space. This building was a purchased building as it existed. So um we do have an aging elevator in this building and we've run into that um issue over the last couple years. So, we'd carved out all of those along with um more of a want than a need in our athletic facilities and looking at um some outdoor space for them as well that included restrooms um expansions at a couple of our high schools because all three of our high school exterior facilities were very different. So, all of that was part of those initial projects that we talked about. So, some of those were wants as you have conversations and some of those are needs.
085I mean, we have buildings um um that are are exceeding 55 years at this point. Um and it's time to to give them some attention and we don't have the funding to do it. Our team, our facilities team does a really great job of maintaining our buildings in terms of um flooring and lighting and um fixtures as as the needs come up. Um but every year you tack a year on as as homeowners, I think we all know um at some point you have to invest in them. In 2019, a bus cost 88 $85,894 the genet general education bus. Uh resolution passed in November was $140,872 for school bus. Inflation is real or my van cost the actual cost of the purchase of my van themselves has also doubled in cost in that same time
086frame. So, we have we share with the legislators we have hundreds of millions of dollars in facilities needs. Um, you know, nobody is carrying a fund balance because they don't have anything to do with the money. We have lots of things we could do with the money. Um, it's just keeping us being able to meet our contractual obligations and keep the doors open. Right now, um, we already have a deficit year-over-year of over $20 million and the state would be adding to that significantly with this frequency. Yeah, I just I I think it's the difference between recurring costs and one-time expenditures and so we have lots and lots of one-time expenditures to use it for, but we don't have the adequate revenues to cover the recurring costs. So, right, can't emphasize that enough. I think
087we've tried to really tell our legislators that. I'm not sure they're hearing that. Yeah, I don't know if they are hearing that. You know, I I use the example of if you have a savings account, like you wouldn't go out and take a mortgage and pay your mortgage payment based on what you have on your savings. You might take your portion of it and pay a down payment on something, right? But that's a one-time expense. You wouldn't plan to meet your monthly mortgage payment with what you've saved up in your savings. And along this uh 10-year horizon that is for obligated funds, when we transferred that 30 million back, where was that along that timeline? What do you mean? Oh, no. We had just transferred it. Okay. Prior to November, okay, to put it so
088that that way when we messaged um so we got some recent auditor's guidance on uh levies and what kinds of things we could message and things like that. In order for us to message that the board was setting aside $30 million, we had to have the board already have that moved to be able to do that. Thank you. Um, if I had it do over again, I would have waited till after November um, and just have the board pass a resolution saying that they would transfer it in the future. Um, lesson learned. Lesson learned on my part. Uh, so this is what I was talking about earlier. So this is the joint committee on property tax review and reform. And I'm gonna pass down a handout here. Uh this was I don't know how many
089pages this report was. It was kind of long. You guys you already have that. Um I shared this with our finance committee uh the other night. Um they met all of calendar year 2024. Their hearings are actually still on the Ohio channel if anyone's interested in going back and watching it. Uh but there was I mean I was really impressed with the committee uh some of the members on the committee that So, this is House members and Senate members that met together. They had experts come in um not just school officials, but like from all over the state come in and talk about property taxes and really learn about how property taxes work and all of the different uh nuancy things. Um lots of conversations about tax abatements, which I really appreciated when we also
090talk about why we need healthy reserves to be able to weather things. Um, you know, the board of revision clawbacks that we see, uh, the abatements, we we have some abatements that are being approved late at the county, which means we may have already received tax revenue and we shouldn't have because it was exempt and then it gets called back later. Um, that's happening all around the state. And so, um, anyway, I appreciated the engagement of the committee on of this committee. They put a lot of hard work into learning about Ohio's property tax system, how it works, and all of those things. And they came up with uh two and a half pages on of uh recommendations, and nowhere in there is clawing back fund balances over 30% for public school districts. So, um
091they had a whole committee of their uh legislative colleagues that met and discussed this issue. And there was a myriad of recommendations and I think that the state knows we've had um state lawmakers acknowledge that they've done a really good job of screwing the local property taxes system up and that they have a lot of work to do to fix it and so they need to do the work to fix it and not do this whatever this is um with the clawback. That's my opinion. Do we have any idea where the idea for the clawback came from? If it's not from here and it wasn't in the kind of original, it wasn't in the governor's plan. Everyone said it came out of the blue. I don't think anybody really knows. No. So, um, this is
092a heat map from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, a presentation that I saw. Um, and the, uh, orange, this is the change in the state share percentage from 2024 to 2025. And if you're wondering where we are, we're right there. um we lost 7% in our state share from 24 to 25. Uh that that is a significant drop, but you can see most districts except for that little green area up in the top there um saw a decrease in their state share. The state continues to shift education, the cost of education for traditional public schools down to our local property owners. Um, and it's not just in Westerville, they're doing it all across the state. And when we talk about total state funding for traditional public schools, we had a lot of conversations
093about the draw decision. Can anybody guess what the state's share was during the draw decision? Statewide, all schools, anyone? Yep. Yeah. 42%. Does anybody know what it is today? It's 38%. Under the governor's proposal, that would have dropped to 32%. So, we're still a long way where we need to be. It they didn't meet their constitutional responsibility back in 97 when DOT was first um heard settled, I don't know, whatever you call it. Um and you know, we're still below that. So, all right, that's my presentation. Don't forget who your legislators are. These are the state leaders. Um, this guy here we need to spend a lot of time with, I think, over the next few weeks. Uh, Rob McCauley, he's the one that said, uh, he believes that state legislature has done a really
094good job screwing the local property taxes up. He was quoted in was it Fox 8? Where's Was it Fox 8? Yeah, that was in our news and announcements. if you missed that story. We quoted him. So, one one of his school districts actually is on the ballot. Um they're trying to pass a levy in May and then they're transferring to educate their public about how much money they're going to lose because of this um state budget. So, they're they're very much impacted as well. I've been talking to different districts across the state. Sorry, where is Senate District One exactly? What area? So, we know was Van Wart. Um, Finley. Yeah, I've left it on my That little green area on the map. That was And then Hudson's area. Yeah. I don't know. Um, and then
095just their contact information. And then our committees. So, the um education committee, that's what's having hearings now. I think the Senate Finance Committee has already heard from some of the state departments on the appropriations. So, because it's not just education, right? It's everything that the state needs to operate. So, okay. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you all wanted to cover? I know that was a very long conversation. The only thing I would add is um or could you share where on the district website folks can go to learn more on how they can advocate on they can go to our website. Um yeah, if they go to our website there is a button. Huh? Yeah, there's a button on the homepage and I think is the photo. Can you click on
096the photo? The learn more on the photo. I might also add to for our community, right? We um have been doing a lot of educating our legislators and and they've told us that they're hearing a lot from us um and they appreciate that. But I think we also need to not just tag five people in our district, but five people across the state, right? because it's those rural areas that we first saw, if we remember, Speaker Huffman said early on in the year that he really wanted to dismantle public education, but a lot of the rural community started to speak up. We started to see him walk back his some of his words. So, we need to really be reaching out to our, you know, our family, our friends across the state and and asking
097them to step up too and to contact their legislators and to contact their school districts to find out how they're going to be impacted as well. Yeah, I think it's ironic, too, because there's a lot of conversation about closing traditional public schools if they have less than a thousand students in enrollment. That's a lot of schools. Um I know uh just and then continuing to incentivize private and charter schools to open up and there's no that are much smaller than uh yeah it's just bizarre to me. So I think one of one of our goals was just to kind of open up some dialogue around what are some options we have with that cash balance. Um, and again from a standpoint of, you know, there there are different ways to approach that. We have needs
098that we currently just take right out of the general fund. Those needs are there whether that money is in the general fund or if it's in one of these other um statutoily allowed accounts. And so that would be something for the board to start thinking about. We're happy to answer any questions or have any more dialogue around that. I think we'd need to start making some decisions around that. Um, depending on what comes out of the Senate um in the future. So, yeah. So, we just wanted you to start thinking that we wanted to put it on our community's radar that these are some options because, you know, the things that Nicole brought up, those are all needs that we have. Um, a lot of times we just take that right out of the general
099fund. That wouldn't be an option. So, we maybe need to look at a different way of accounting for it. Same same needs that we have, same expenses that we anticipate having, but how do we account for that? So, I have a question on that. So, the budget needs to be signed into law by July 1st. So, if this stays the same or generally the same, do we have time to react to that before I'm guessing it's that it's August time frame you said that we would have to be sitting down with the commissioners or whatever? We'd need to make any decisions before June 30th. Okay. So, Okay. Yeah. So, we will come back with the forecast updated in May. Um, and then maybe in June we might want to consider a work another work session
100to discuss what that might look like. Thanks for the time frame. And Miss Marshall or Miss Hamburg, um are there other uh Ohio Revised Code um language or that maybe we can place other funds into that we don't know about or that weren't brought up tonight that maybe for purposes of, you know, running our school district. I'm sure you would have brought them up if there was, but I'm just Well, so you can transfer funds from your general operating fund to any fund, any other fund. It's um the ability to be able to transfer it back if you should not need it in those other operating in those other funds. So, the ones that I shared with you tonight um those are able to be rescended and moved back if needed in the future. Uh
101but I we could also transfer into like our permanent improvement fund. We have a a permanent improvement levy that collects about $9 million a year. Um it's not enough to meet all the things that the district needs and but that capital fund that you had would be similar purpose, right? It would be a similar purpose really. The two she brought you tonight are our two main areas. So one would be to pay personnel related costs like severance or that extra pay and then the other one would be capital needs. Mhm. And so when you think about um both of their areas really outside of personnel costs, we can buy those things out of the capital money. So um when we talk about computers for students, when we talk about buses and vans, when we talk
102about um new math materials that we need, all those things um because of the life cycle of them, we could purchase out of there. So, I think and and I'll defer to Nicole, but I think not getting too many different accounts, but like what what are a couple key ones that cover the majority of the types of expenses we'll have, I think would help us first of all keep it simpler for our community and for us. Yeah. Thank you. Great question. Um, so it's a ton of information and a lot of this is helping people understand the why, right? Like why does this matter? Why is it relevant to us? Um, if we were to sort of identify, you know, when somebody makes a phone call to a legislator or something, you know, keeping it
103relatively short, maybe two bullet points, right? It feels like um what we're calling the clawback, right? Which is really taking money the district has planned with and you know, essentially taking it away. Um, that seems like one. And then funding the fair school funding plan seems like is that like if we had to sort of say what are the top couple of bullet points if you've got a 15-second message you're going to leave. If I have to leave a 15-second message I'm saying to please keep the fair school funding plan update the cost inputs to reflect inflation stabilize the state share and eliminate the clawback provision. Okay. So most people might get half as many in as you that's what that's my 15 second conversation. Yeah. Thank you. Two points would be fair for Yes.
104Thanks. I think if if they if you just say update the fair school funding plan, they're going to know what you're talking about. Yeah. Because they've gotten enough information from us by what we mean by updating the fair school funding plan. Yep. Okay. Um, and just remember the House's version essentially sets the fair school funding plan aside. Yep. So, keeping the fair school funding plan is also important. Yep. Thanks. Work went into that. Bipartisan work. Yep. Is there anything else that would be helpful for the board as we're in this kind of in between phase that we can be working on to help you as we move forward or any other questions that you have for any of the team? Yeah. I mean, I think in some ways, right, there's just so much information um
105that Excuse me. Part of what I want to do is just make sure it's clear to people, sorry, in their 15 seconds what our highest priorities are. I don't Anybody else have any other questions? I think we'll likely have other questions as things continue to proceed and I think as we start to see the Senate discuss this and where this is heading, we'll want to get information out to our public about the changes and what that means. Um, and for those that may not follow the legislative process as much as some of us do, um, it moves pretty fast and things can change really rapidly. And so, um, a good, you know, I know we'll do our best to keep people updated. Um, but also a good resource might be just to check back every
106once in a while on the the school's website just to see if there's updated information. Pol policy matters Ohio also does a really great job of keeping up real time with this. So if anybody is wanting more of that real-time information about what's happening, I would check out Policy Matters Ohio's website. Yeah, thank you. Okay, thank you all so much um for all that information. You know, a lot of work has gone into educating our community over the past couple of months, too. So, I really appreciate everything that you guys have been doing for our students and our kids. Um, okay. [Music] So, okay. Okay. So, um, board comments, who'd like to go first? Is anybody first? Okay. Uh I want to say thank you to uh everyone's hard work first of all because uh
107this is a lot, right? And it continues to be a lot. So that's I really appreciate all hands on deck and everyone continually keeping the board updated. It's super helpful and by extension our community. Um, I just wanted to say that uh in in this era that we live in, oftentimes it seems like it's I can't do much, right? Like I don't I can't do a lot about the trade war. I can't do a lot about the price of eggs or gasoline or immigration. And I just I really can't. Most of us can't. Uh, and this is one thing that everyone can do locally that's going to make a huge difference for the district and by extension for the state. That one phone call, that one email and convincing a few other people to make
108one phone call and one email that has an impact in a way that, you know, writing your legislator and saying, "Hey, I disagree with immigration policy right now." It this is a lot more tangible and actionable to most people. So, I I just want to encourage you to do that. I also want to mention that uh we're under a really tight deadline. Um, as was mentioned, they're probably the Senate's probably going to move through this in about two weeks. And if these things are still in there in two weeks, we're going to lose a lot of our leverage to get them pulled out before this goes into the different uh committees and into what they call reconciliation. So, your time for action is now. Uh it's not like, oh, I'll just wait till it gets
109close to the governor's desk. It's going to be really difficult. Um but as was mentioned by one of my colleagues, uh keep hitting the governor up. He does have the line item veto. So in the event that some of the stuff still sticks, uh tell him, hey, strike out the fair school funding and strike out the 30% uh or don't strike out, keep fair schools funding and and strike out the 30% because that is sort of our last shot. Um, but uh work quickly if you can because there's not a lot left. And thank you. I'll just also reiterate, thank you Nicole for all of your time putting this together and to the superintendent and to all the administrators who have helped to put all this information together and try to bring it down to
110fifth grade level. for those of us who are not mired in it every single day, this has been very helpful. Um, yeah, and I think like Dwight mentioned, there's so much going on right now that it can be very overwhelming and can be really easy to just want to stick your head in the sand somewhere and hope that it all goes away. But that's not going to help us educate our children. And these small things that we can do, a phone call, an email, telling your friends about it, can really make the difference. It seems like a lot of times the legislators aren't listening. But believe me, they're tallying up the number of phone calls they're getting, the number of emails they're getting, and what they're for. They are keeping tallies on these. So, very
111important. So, thank you to the public for in advance doing their part. I want to echo all of that, but I also want to um thank our state legislators that have been conducting tours alongside Superintendent Angie and um all of our administrators and a few board members here. I mean, having them come take time out of their day to tour and really see what it is that we're talking about is so important. So, join us in thanking them as well. Um at the end of the day, we need their help as well. So, thank you. Um yeah, in addition to that, you know, I think that you're you when you call a legislator, write an email, your personal stories matter, right? Um, here's why this program matters to my family so much and it's so
112important that we keep it for kids like my kid and um or even, you know, this is where I like appeal to our recent grads too, right? you know, what is it that that really impacted you that might be at risk here and how your life has set off on a trajectory that you're proud of because of something that happened in school. So, I again, you know, they're getting uh they get a lot of tallies, but I think um it always helps to personalize the story and let it it just underscores why it matters. Um children are not just numbers. Children are people and the experiences that they have in our schools change their lives and we really mean that when we say that. So please share those stories too and thank you to everybody
113who who makes a call and I think it's really important um to thank the legislators for coming to see our schools, right? because um you know, you don't really know until you sit there and hear kids and they talk about their experience in an apprenticeship program like we talked about just last Friday with with a legislator. So, thanks. So, I'll just echo that. I I do want to underscore what Jen said. It's really um important to share your why because they take that to the floor. They talk to their colleagues. that's really what hits them in the heart. If you want to go one step further, look at why they care about the things that they care about and appeal to that. But that's an extra step, but really just tell your why and make
114the ask. Um, and then I just want to say like we had some really great musicals this past weekend in high school and in middle school and that's our why, right? That's our why. and the awards season coming up. Like we're going to be at award nights, but almost every night we can feel them from here until graduation and then graduation. It is unlike anything to stand up on the stage and to shake a kid's hand and see them graduate. I know I'm so emotional. But anyways, um thank you. Thank you all for making the time in in this special session to do this work. And with that, um, the board will meet in regular session on Monday, May 5th, 2025 at 6 PM at the Early Learning Center, 936 East Wind Drive, Westerville, Ohio
11543081. And with that, may I have a motion to enter into executive session for the purposes of preparing for, conducting, or reviewing negotiations with employees regarding their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment and for the purposes of discussing the employment and compensation of public employees. So moved. Second. Will you take the vote, Miss Marshall? Mrs. Valentine, yes. Mr. Salman, yes. Mr. Heckleman, yes. Mrs. Le. Yes. Mrs. Meyer. Yes. Thank you. Back. And may I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Mrs. Valentine. Yes. Yes, Mrs. Alman. Yes, Mr. Hmer. Yes, Mrs. Yes.