001No, I All right. All in favor say I. I. All right. Thank you. At this point, I declare this meeting for Okay. So, we're going to allow Miss Ali include director of finance to go ahead with budget 101 right now to give us the information about budget 101 for year 2627. >> Thank you. Um, I did want to just start by thanking you guys for all being here today, um, and through the spring through the budget process this year. It will be a few meetings between now and the end of May. Um, the budget committee process begins with a couple of preliminary meetings. These are more just 101. Sorry. And for the record, we're going to agree that Franco is here at 5:30 p.m. That's the right one. Okay. Um the first couple budget committee
002meetings are really just preliminary ones. They're tonight and then April 14th. um where we really talk about the ground kind of the ground rules of the budget committee, what our roles and responsibilities are, how we're funded, give that background and information that's going to build that knowledge base to lead up to the proposed budget. May 14th, we'll propose the budget and the budget message to the committee. At that point in time, it will become a public document. And then this committee will have May 21st and May 28th um as discussion meetings to review the budget document, discuss, deliberate, ask for additional um information and ultimately approve the budget. And then on June 9th is scheduled for our board hearing and budget adoption so that we can certify taxes and begin expenditures of the new fiscal
003year. So that's in general the public side of the budget process and the committed re side. So um to go into budget 101 to start tonight um the first part is really about why we're here. Oregon local budget law requires districts and all government entities to hold budget committee meetings and establish standards on how we report our budget document. Um through the budget process, it encourages and requires the district and public entities to um involve citizens and involve the community through this process. And that can be everything from holding public comment in um during our public our public budget committee meetings. It includes public comment during the budget hearing on June 9th. And it encourages citizen input at as being a part of the community and the committee to hear. Um and then we take
004it one additional step and do our community engagement process through that building of the budget side so that we can use that information to guide the development and the proposed budget. It encourages um it requires districts to estimate our revenue, our expenditures and what taxes we need to collect in order to pay our bond obligations. And then ultimately it is a method of controlling public expenditures. So it sets that max appropriation level that we have for spending each year. Um in the end that's what we're looking for is that maximum appropriation uh for spending budget meeting requirements. Um we do have to meet all public meeting law requirements. So this budget committee is comprised of five board members and then five community members appointed by the board. of 10 members total. We do have to
005have at least six members to hold the meeting, to have quorum, and to have any vote. And I did want to just talk a little bit about that. The majority vote of six members is required regardless if we have 10 members at the table or we have six members at the table. So that majority vote of six members is essential in order for us to take action regardless of how many are sitting at the table that day. Does that make sense? >> Okay. Um, the budget document itself does not become a public document until it is released to you in May. Um, up until then, it's a working document. It's an internal document. We're trying to balance the budget, put all the information together. Um, and we're using your feedback and the community's feedback to
006build it. Um, and then public comment. We typically do public comment on May 14th, May 21st, May 28th, and then June 9th. Those will be the nights that we have scheduled for public comment. Uh if anybody wants to talk about the budget itself. And then the last piece is we do have to have the school board adopt the budget and through this full process by June 30th so that we can expend resources in the new fiscal year. So that is our drop dead. a little bit about the roles and responsibilities of the different groups that are involved in the budget process. The budget committee itself, this group is responsible for receiving and reviewing the budget and its message on May 14th, considering public comment and public feedback, discussing and deliberating the budget and the details
007within it, and then ultimately approving a budget at the end of the day. The school board sets district goals and policies. The school board as its own entity sets staff salaries through association contract ratifications and adopts the budget at the end. And then administration, we work on staffing program needs, cost increases. We work on all of the details through the budget building. And then once we propose a budget, we really just serve as an advisory capacity to you. A quick reminder of what the budget committee doesn't do, and this isn't to be negative, but it is, sorry, the wrong word. Um, but it is really to set boundaries a little bit. Um, this committee doesn't set staffing salaries and benefits levels. We don't talk about individual employees or individual um programs. We don't add or
008delete programs as holes or develop policies. These are for procedures and pol systems outside of this role. Um so when we're looking at the district as a whole, we're really looking at our fund uh appropriations um and higher level a budget document. This is a screenshot of the adopted budget from last year or this current fiscal year 2526. It's really a plan. It's how we anticipate approaching the upcoming year based on our strategic plan, our students, our enrollment. Um, and this gives us our guiding framework going into the upcoming year based on estimates. uh it's for July 1st 2026 through June 30th 2027. Uh and ultimately at the end of the day it is setting that maximum appropriation level maximum spending for the district. This is a copy of a resolution from last year, this
009current fiscal year on the outcome of at the end of the day, we are looking at maximum appropriations by major fund and function. And so that's general fund instruction, general fund support services, special revenue or grant funds, instruction, support services. This is our maximum spending limits for next fiscal year. And when we talk about instruction as a major function level, that is everything related to the direct classroom instruction. It's our classroom teacher. It's our instructional aid in the classroom, our EL supports, our special education supports, um that direct classroom support. When we look at the support services bucket, that's everything else. That's administrators, secretaries, facilities and maintenance, counselors, health services, um, SLPs. So, it's all of the other items that aren't directly in the classroom on a day-to-day basis. Any questions on the major appropriations
010and the outcome? What is an SLP? speech language pathologist. Sorry, acronyms. >> Yeah, just to jump in there. I'm glad you asked that question. If there's anything you hear that you want to jump in and ask questions about, please do so. Um, we do have pause points built into today's discussion, uh, but feel free to stop us if we need to clarify. And as you go through the acronyms piece, we do have a PDF attached to the end of this slide deck with borchro acronyms. Um so that's a helpful resource uh as you're going through all the documents at a later date, but definitely let us know if you have questions. Um okay. Now, um budget committee options. Once you have the proposed budget document from administration, you and you're able to deliberate and ask
011questions and gather more feedback and information, there's really four options that we have at the end of the day. You can approve the budget as it's proposed with no changes. You can increase the appropriation amounts if you think the resources that we have estimated and projected are low or you think the state is going to add another billion dollars to education funding this year. >> Um you can increase the appropriation level by increasing it by major function. So we want X dollars to go to instruction, we want X dollars to go to support services because you're under projecting the resources. Then you can decrease the appropriation amount if you think the assumptions around our resources are too great and we need to decrease our expenditures or hold more reserves at the end of the day.
012Then we can decrease the appropriation amount by saying we want to decrease instructional expenditures by X dollars and we want to decrease support services by a certain dollar amount. This is by the major fund level. And then the last option is moving amounts between major functions. This is uh an example is if you think we're spending too much on support services major function and you want to transfer more into instructional services function. The key is it's really going to be be from administration to determine where that reduction is taken. So where within that major support services is taken based on the program needs and the rules and requirements that we have behind us. Um so these are kind of four different options and it can be a combination of them. So expanding on that last
013one, um to add a little bit of clarity, if for example the budget committee directs us to move, let's say a million dollars between support services and instruction, that is something we can do. How we offset that as a result of that movement is a decision that the district will make after the budget is approved. Okay, questions on options. My question would be um a lot of decisions are made as to how much money we get budgeted by people in Salem outside the district. So, we can approve a budget and then all of a sudden the bean counters in Salem say, "Oops, and it's going to be u a 1% 2% 3% cut, whatever, much like what we've faced in the past." What role does the budget committee have on that? We've made all the
014decisions. We've done the work that we do based on the knowledge we have and then all of a sudden this curveball comes in into play. Is there any call to bring the budget committee back and say, and I don't think we have to do it, but would it be politic for the board to bring the budget committee back to say we're all in this together, so let's all have a voice in the decision, realizing that the ultimate decision will come down to the five of us that are elected officials based on a recommendation that might come from the budget committee or from superintendent staff. Any of that make any sense? >> So, you're you're correct. We would just go to the board to ask for appropriation amendment. The to do a reduction in the budget,
015we technically don't have to ask to reduce appropriations. we just naturally do that and we would work and communicate with the board and the budget committee on what this looks like. Um because the budget committee set the maximum appropriation spending for the year. Um if we get additional resources then we would come to the board after we received those additional resources and ask for an increase in that appropriation uh by major fund and function with an explanation of what the process was. And in the past, we have emailed the budget committee and let them know when there's been significant changes. It's been a few years um since there's been changes enough to impact the major appropriation levels um midcycle, but we do that naturally every year. We look through our cash flow and if we
016look at our resources are coming in less than we need to, we monitor and adapt and adjust where necessary as just part of our regular monitoring. um it's when it's large increases or shifts at the state level that have a bigger impact >> and and addressing that um if we assume a worst case scenario. So an example would be if in September we learn that the federal government is not going to actually allocate the resources that we um would expect given the number of students that qualify for poverty services. say um that would be significant for us and that would require some shifts across our organization. If we're facing that level of reduction, we would engage again um in reaching out to our stakeholders, having some conversation about impact um before making wholesale changes. At
017the state level, we anticipate that the state will do their work related to the state deficit that we currently face before we complete our budget development. And once that is complete, um, of course, we don't have a crystal ball, but once that is complete, we can move forward for fiscal year 27 with some level of security. I think years where that is a larger risk point for us is when we have the long session. Um this year it's the short session. So we should know our funding levels by early March. Whereas some years the every other year it could be June 30th before we know what that is. And we are really proposing based on the best estimate we have at the time. So, so you go to the board first and then you call
018back the budget committee and discuss how you going to move between the major allowances or uh just you just do it and then you don't involve the budget committee anyway >> small changes we typically do not ask the budget committee to convene again >> okay >> um if there is as I said a significant change and again I'll go back to the federal uh uncertainty that we faced this year, we had many contingency plans in place because at one point we weren't sure we would receive any federal money. If that in fact happens again for us that's a sizable amount of money. It's about 8% of our overall budget. That would require some engagement with stakeholders because of the impacts across our system. So that is something that we would certainly do. >> Okay. >>
019And at that point the board, the budget committee, others would be involved. >> Were we on target from last year? >> On target with federal funds. >> Is it with everything? >> Yeah. >> We'll go through the cash flow for the general fund a little bit later tonight at the end. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, this is a good stopping point. This is actually one of our discussion points. Um, many of you have been through this process before. Um, now that we've spent a little bit of time looking at what the responsibilities are, the flow of the budget process, the question we want to engage with is based on the responsibilities and that process, what is a successful budget season? What should we strive for as we go through this process? And what we'd
020like to do is take just a couple of minutes, turn to an elbow partner. I quickly looked around and I can see that we are um an elbow partner with at least one other person who has been through this process before. So I if I'm wrong in that, raise your hand. We'll make sure we partner you up with an a veteran. Um but have a conversation around this and then we will call out what we think a successful budget season is going to look like. Okay, two minutes. Ready, set, go. your thoughts. What do you think has been a good thing? >> I appreciate that. Yeah. >> No, I would understand. They have to come up with a budget by the end of their next >> great my experience probably I just believe that I
021also think Exactly. At least everybody. >> All right, time's up. Finish your last sentence, please. Yes. We have some diligent notetakers and your comments will actually be recorded so we can go back and listen to them later. So what do you think a successful budget season looks like? We'll start on the far side here. Well, I I think having I mean I I think that um the staff, you know, they they look at all the needs of our community and um and input from the pres principles and teachers and and then presenting it to the um the committee here that um we go by the professional recommendation and since I've been here since 2011, and um it's it's worked very very well and um and um the committees have always been very thoughtful and asked
022good questions. So I um I just you know I know that Eileen's here but I also know there's that whole team behind you but there's a lot of people putting the input in for this and so it has run very smoothly and I don't expect anything to change except whatever happens with the federal government. I I do want to ask one question is is there a percentage we get from how much percentage do we get from the federal government? >> Last year well this current year roughly 8% of our overall budget is from federal funds. >> Yeah, that's what I thought but I wasn't 100% sure. Did you want to add anything to >> No, you have covered it magnificently. >> Well, thank you. >> Okay. All right. Next group. >> Okay. Um we had
023discussed that the importance of coming out with more education as budget committee members in the following year and continuing to grow and it was so gracious last year I got a lot of new information and a lot of my questions were addressed. So I would say also uh first year members or second year members continuing to learn more and having developing a better budget committee as the years go on. Um, and also being able to when we go out into the public as budget committee members being able to explain what the budget process is or a little bit of the problems or the successes that are facing the district. So being at least some educated members out in the public about what the budget actually is and how it functions and how our schools are
024impacted by it. >> Super. Thank you. Alma >> um we just felt that the budget would be process would be a success if we meet the needs of the district with the student focus in the most efficient effective way. >> Well, sounds like a mission statement. Very interesting. That's very >> Yes. Right. >> Anything else? >> Spend the money wisely. >> Okay. allocate the money correctly. Spend it wisely. >> We strive to. >> Yep. >> And then for us, Maya, do you mind sharing your analogy? Would you like me to share the analogy? That's okay. I can share. >> Um >> I kind of talked about how I see things uh visually. Um and how I kind of see all the different departments as like cups and our budget as water. And I think as
025long as um all the cups are filled um I'm not overflowing, right? because that would be in an ideal world, but with a bit of water so that they're all satisfied. Um, that's what I see a budget season looking like. Um, as well as transparent and we said, um, a budget that kind of meets everybody's needs and meets the community's needs as well. So, we talked about that. >> Love that. Thank you. >> Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this. Again, we are capturing this and we will use it to inform budget 102 when we come back here in a few weeks. Um, we're also going to talk later on about how we're going to continue to engage our communities over the next several weeks and what we learn from you today will inform
026those processes as well. So, with that, I'm going to turn it back to Eileen so we can carry on. >> Great. So next we're going to go in a little deeper into horse school district how we receive our resources how we expend those resources and our ending fund balance and what that means and has looked like over time. Um looking at our resources this is 202425. It's our last final audited financial statements that we've received. This year is currently just a forecast. Um, but last year we received $177.5 million in total resources. This is in addition to our beginning fund balance that rolled forward. So this is new resources. Looking at that 177 million, we have 48% or $85 million in the general fund. The rest is our restricted grants, our nutrition services, our debt
027services, our capital projects and insurance reserve. Our general fund is the only part of that pie that is unrestricted. Everything else that we receive our resources for has to be spent for a specific purpose. Our grants we receive for whatever that grant was written for. Title one, ace, IDA, high school success, SIA. So we fill out grant applications, we have narratives and we have to expend those resources in that way. Nutrition services can only be spent by for nutrition services. Um our debt service is mostly property taxes that we assess in order to pay our um prior bonds and then our capital projects. The reason why it's such a large part of last year's pie is because we sold the second half of our 22 bond sale to generate the resources to finish off the
028rest of the bond capital projects. So next year it won't be such a big part portion. Um but that's kind of how we receive our resources and where they come from. Um, our general fund is where we focus most of our time on through the budget process because that is what we have the most capacity to control and that's what we use for our general operations, our general instruction, our transportation, our facilities maintenance. That's what we have most of our control for. So, we will focus on that the rest of today pretty much. Um, and primarily through our budget process. Um, looking at that general fund, the $85 million comes from a few different places. Our state school fund is the biggest part, 71.5% of our total general fund resources we received last year. Uh
029then we have our state timber, our common school fund, our county school fund, and then property taxes. Property taxes is 20% with the state school fund of 71%. If we look at all of them except for the other bucket, the other resources that 6% everything else is part of our state school fund formula, the equalization formula at the state level and driven by enrollment. So if enrollment goes up, our revenue goes up. If enrollment goes down, our revenue goes down. Our enrollment is specifically tied to our resources. That 6% is the only thing that is not tied to enrollment. Um questions on that. I'll go through the states full fund formula in a couple of slides. >> Well, I I do have a question. Um, I've been reading that they're talking about from the federal
030government about property taxes and the federal government can't really dictate property taxes at the state level, can they? >> No, not at this time. >> But I mean, what I'm hearing is they're saying that we're going to allow seniors over 65 um not pay property tax. And that would be significant for our community because 40% of our community are senior citizens. I know that would be a court case. >> We we would have to investigate that and if it happens we would of course respond and adjust but as of right now that's not part of our calculation. >> Okay. the state school fund since that is a primary driver of how we receive our resources. Um when we the state takes their state resources plus our local resources and combines it together to create the
031state funding formula. Um it's the state resources include general fund which is primarily taxes, lottery resources, the corporate activity tax and marijuana taxes. And then they take all of our local property taxes, our common school fund, our forest revenue, those pieces of the pie from the last slide, and they put them together. And that is then allocated into three primary grant buckets. And so there's the general purpose grant, which is distributed to schools based on enrollment and demographics of that enrollment. the transportation grant, which is a percentage reimbursement based on the school district. Ours is a 70% reimbursement rate. Um, so we get 70% reimbursement of all of our qualifiable transportation costs in the district. Um, qualifiable transportation cost is home to school, special education routes. Unqualifiable transportation cost is athletics. Um so it's educational
032purposes basically and then the last bucket is the high-cost disability and for force growth we get about a 26% reimbursement of qualifiable expenses for high-cost disability. When we look at that general purpose grant that's based on enrollment and demographics, that's the biggest part of the state school fund allocation that we have the most um resources from. And that is driven by the demographics of our students and the average membership over the course of the year. So it's not at a point in time we have 5,000 students, we get funded for 5,000 students. It takes the average of the enrollment over the course of the year. Then we look at the average attendance, sorry, over the course of the year. Um, then modified. Then we look at we get an additional weight for students on an
033IEP. That's capped at 11% of our enrollment. You get an additional half a weight for English language learners. You get an additional weight for pregnant and parent and then you get an additional quarter weight for poverty and foster students. However, there's a two student max. >> Could you uh explain what weights mean? >> Weights. >> Um weights is the accumulation of it. Yeah, >> I can do it. >> Don't fight. The state allocates weights out based on our enrollment and our demographics of enrollment and they take the combination of all of the weights across the state and then use that to distribute the state school fund. So it's an equity formula. Um is that what you're looking for? Yeah, I think just for I mean that was a new concept for me when I came
034overboard to learn about funding and how kids are weighted and what funding is given. >> It's a multiplier and there's limits. >> Okay. So, um we have there there's a term we use in education called intersectionality. And what that means is that we have students who are receiving special education services who qualify um for poverty services because their family maybe lives below the poverty level who are also learning English. And for at least a small number of our students, they may be parents, teen parents. So if you look at all of that, we should be receiving for that one. Let's say that's one student, that would be one, two, 2.5, 3.5, the per pupil allocation from the state for that one student. And the state does that because they recognize that complexity within student requires
035greater resources. But the state also caps us. So for that particular student, even though their complexity is great and they may have significant needs, the state only funds us at 2.0 weight. So there's a cap. It's similar for special education in that the state caps us at 11% for our district. And what that means is we are funded up to 11% of our student population that qualifies for IEP services. Our district actually has a 17% um number of students that qualify for special education services. And then high-cost disability is another cap for us. That 206% of cost is above um the average per pupil allocation. And we typically don't receive full reimbursement for the actual cost of high-cost disability. And to put some um definition around that, high-cost disability includes, for example, um students who
036require nursing services to access their education. Um that would be an example of a cost that exceeds the typical per pupil allocation for not only an average student or a typical student, but even for students that receive special education. And the typical allocation for per pupil just for enrollment approximately in dollars >> I think it's 11,600ish >> somewhere in there. >> And so when districts as they have we've heard this across the state when they are allocated funding for students on with high cost disability but it's capped. Where does the money come out of districts budgets then to cover what's not at at how do districts manage where they all that money? Uh we don't pay for other things. That's the simplest explanation is we we have to cover these costs. Um they're not optional
037for us. So in order to cover these costs, we don't pay for other things. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I think I mean we and we'll get there eventually in the discussion, but that's the conversation I think we're having we have with legislators about where's the gaps in the budget and we start with well first and we are providing these services that the state is not fully funding but that I think for people even in the community to realize that that does mean we are using existing funding to cover what needs to be covered and so I think that's part of this larger discussion when we're educating the community about where that money is going and why we're advocating for changes to those caps. Um, 100% our resources are finite. There's no secret money
038tree. So, we have what we have and we need to cover the costs that students deserve and which their civil rights demand, of course. Um, and we move things around to make sure that we can do that. So when this group hears in the news about the conversation about school funding, I mean these are parts of the conversations that people are starting to I think have and understand that's getting outside of the school district and into the into the news, right, of what is it when they're talking about funding and all these things. So, I think this year in particular, I mean, I'm very appreciative of where we're going with this committee, but all of the things of course that we're hearing, I think are the questions we should bring into this committee as well
039to just give some clarification on what that means and see those articles and suggestions. But, well, I can take it. >> So, if I can echo what Dr. West said about we don't pay for other things. uh my first year as athletic director here in Forest Grove, 1991 92 I think. Um the athletic budget was zero because we were in shortfall for other things. Zero. I did. I got my salary and my administrative assistant got hers and the coaches nothing. There was no money in the budget for equipment. So what happened was that we used the booster club came to the rescue. Um and that was going to be the case for the second year and then the state all of a sudden loosened things up. But that was a situation that got a lot
040of people's attention. Um, and that's where that's where we were in those years. and and director Daneski I think remembers remembers the pain that went across the district because it wasn't just high school varsity athletics, it was JV athletics, it was middle school, all of that stuff. >> Well, I think we also cut buses. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And and that was the first and last time that ever happened in the state. that is >> but it didn't cut all the buses because we still had the obligation for special ed. >> So yeah, there was a there was a because it wasn't surgery, it was coming in with an axe. >> Well, to be clear, we're not at a point now where we're going to bring the athletic budget to zero. Yeah, >> I hope
041not. >> But that's that's an indication of what I was saying what you were saying was >> we got the money from someplace else. >> Exactly. >> You know that covered athletics and activities and to some extent field trips because there were elementary teachers that still felt that field trips were of educational value. I'll shut up. >> I did just confirm it is $11,198 per weight for this current fiscal year. That's really close. So, um yeah, a example of how this works for us in funding. Um the first dark green is enrollment. This is last year's 5,676 students. And when we look at the funding formula for how the state allocates all the weights, we ended up with 5,673 base weights, 713 weights for students on an IEP, 660 weights for EL, and then we
042have our poverty, foster, and pregnant and parenting above that. Um, so overall we had 7,203 total weights that we were funded off of. When we look at that as a whole picture compared to the statewide total weights, it's about 1%. So when we are looking at or the state is having conversations at the legislative level of cutting 1% of the funding or 2% of the funding, we can then do um we can look to see what that is. If it's a billion dollars, we're 1%. So um that is where we sit in relation to the total state. Is there a number that at that shows us um these are the funded weights assuming we have hit the caps? Is there a a visual that shows how much was not able to be funded? I would
043like to see like >> I don't have that but we please calculate it. >> Okay. And it gets back to that piece, especially in communication where we can show here's what we weren't funded to meet and it's essential and >> well, not in a visual, but >> it's okay. I mean, we don't need >> Well, I think Eileen has it at her fingertips. So I feel like it's in the movies where the numbers appear in a little bubble above her head and it's like she puts So the gap would really be the difference between our total IEPs and the 11% cap and the gap is an additional 185 weights if we were fully funded for our students on IEP. >> June. So 185 times 11,000. >> Yes, that's Thank you. It's helpful. >> Um, now
044that's all been about our revenue and how we receive our resources in the general fund and how it's calculated a little bit. Uh, now to talk a little bit about how we expend our resources. This is the last four years of our expenditures by major function. The dark green is instruction. The light green is building instructional supports and the blue is other support services. And so with this I really I tried to take out that support services and break it into two categories. One is instructional related and one is non. Um, so really looking at the counselors, the health assistants, the professional development and professional learning, the things that are directly impacting the buildings and the instruction, the students versus the rest is going to be our transportation and our facilities and maintenance and administration
045and building secretaries and district office just to have that breakout. Um, so you can kind of see how our trend is on that. We had in 2425 about 61% of our budget on instruction and 12% on instructional supports with 27% on other services. when I dove down and looked at 2122 compared to 2425 on why that um has increased by 1% over the last four years and that's really one of the biggest driving factors is our cost of insurance has been going up 12 to 15% a year and so is utilities. Um so that is generally exceeding the cost increases across the district in comparison to how other expenditures have increased. So that was one of the biggest driving factors of that shift by a percent. When we look at the same expenditures for the
046same four years, looking at it a different way is taking all of the expenditures and looking at how it's broken out based on object. And object is the type of expenditures, salaries and benefits, subservices, custodial and grounds. um really looking at that as labor costs versus services or supplies and materials. And um in 2425 we had 49% of our budget in salaries, 27% of our budget in benefits, 2% in sub services. Um historically 2122 and 2223 subservices was embedded in labor and benefits, but we contract that out now. So that's why you'll see it pop up in the last few years. >> The drop in other services and utilities. What what is an example? >> Other services and utilities. It could be um other services could be contracting SLPs one year versus the next where
047um years that we can't hire a speech language pathologist, we contract it out. And so it could be one year in salaries and benefits and another year in contracted services. So that's it's this way is a little bit harder to look at exactly where things are because they do eb and flow on how we utilize our resources between major object but really I mean the goal is to look at most of our budget is in labor and if we add custodial grounds and transportation to it which is heavy labor um just their contracted services not in-house services um it would add on to it. So this is just a one that makes it a little bit harder to look at when we look at comparable districts because every district is so different on whether they
048contract services have them in house subs in house transportation in house or not. And so that's where you'll see a much bigger swing is by major object than by major function. Hey, >> that charter school payment is that the same across other districts too that have Okay, >> different districts have different passrough rates. There's a state minimum requirement. Um, some districts only pass through the minimum. I think ours is a little bit higher than the minimum. I think we're doing like 88% right now pass through. Um, which is higher than the minimum. uh higher than a few of our other local districts that have charters. Um but it is something that we look at with the charter school every couple of years and reassess how much we're expending internally for their operations. Um and look
049at what that pass through rate should be. Okay. The last is our ending fund balance. I did want to spend a moment here. our ending fund balances. It's really the net between our revenue and expenditures. It's what's left at the end of the day. It's for our reserves um moving into the next year and to help cushion any emergencies or things that happen that are unbudgeted. And so, historically, pre- pandemic, we really tried to keep the ending fund balance between 10 and 15%. we were our target was really around that 12% kind of went up and down a little bit um depending on the year and then the pandemic hit and because of all of our additional resources that we got the federal funds the er funds we were really able to utilize those resources
050to the maximum plus schools were shut down so we weren't incurring utilities we weren't incurring the transportation we weren't there was um so our ending fund balance even though we budgeted for those things we weren't incurring those Um so our ending fund balance did grow over that period of time and since then we have been intentionally trying to incrementally bring that down um back down to that 10 to 15%. 202526. I do have an asterk here. It is a little bit lower than where we were planning and where we initially started, but that's because we did a one on one time lumpsum payment to our PERS reserve, which our we didn't have appropriation in our PERS account to be able to do that. So, we're going to build it into this budget cycle and add
051it back to the ending fund balance. So, it's going to have a little low um drop down this year in the percent, but um the PERS reserve account will refund that July 1st. I just need to wait for the appropriation. And for those who u maybe are unfamiliar with PERS, we may get into a little bit more of this as we go through the budget process. PERS is the public employee retirement account. um they have been operating at a return rate that is below the statutory requirement for many years. Because it is a statutory requirement that this state fund returns a specific percent, it is up to every public entity to make up the difference. So we not only pay in what our standard PERS rate would be, but we have the obligation to pay
052additional resources to make up the difference in what the fund is not earning or hasn't been earning over all of these years. And that's one of the reasons why you hear PERS is such a topic of conversation around the state is that every public entity, schools, police departments, fire departments, we are all facing astronomical increases in purge rates. And is it is it is there truth in that the discussion around that is people realizing obviously school districts do not have funding to be able to continue to reimburse the PERS rate on top of their rates and the state is trying to figure out how then are we going to support that PERS but not do it through all these agencies who can't support it. There's regular conversation around what people will label PERS relief. Um
053that hasn't that relief hasn't come in um I'd say a broad solution yet. There are some solutions. Um for example, the side account is one option that we've been able to employ in the past. Um, but as of right now, there's no legislative solution for the gap that all of these public entities have to make up. Does that answer your question? >> Yeah. I mean, was and I'm just trying to remember was the assumption that the governor's increase in the budget for schools last year that that does give schools some flexibility, but it was not specifically directed to be able to support, right? So there's a conversation of that needs to happen over here, but some of what the governor was intending to do is say, "Look, we're giving you more money." >> You're talking
054about the current service level. >> Yeah. Um feel free to jump in the funding. >> Yeah. The So the current um so a couple of things just to get some uh definitions out there, some vocabulary. There's the QEM, the quality education model, which if you've been reading the paper at all for the last 15 years, you've probably bumped into that. When it comes to education funding, that is the aspirational funding goal. That is the um financial allocation that the QEM committee says this would be the ideal amount for school districts. That's not how we'll fund it. How we're funded is based on what is called the CSL. There's another acronym. It stands for current service level. And for many years, that current service level for school districts hadn't changed. It was based on increases in
055costs from more than a decade ago. That created compounding problems over many years. For example, for school districts, the current service level increase for salaries was fixed at about two and a half% increase per year. It's been years since we've seen that kind of salary increase for our educator colleagues and support staff. It's much higher than that. So, that's created that failure to adjust the CSL has created a compounding structural deficit across school districts for many, many years. There was an adjustment done. There was a group that came together during the long session. They made an adjustment. That adjustment was is now baked into statute. So the formula has been updated. It doesn't account for everything. It doesn't account for the full PERS increase. It doesn't account for the increase in benefits or unemployment insurance
056or the full cost of salary increases that we've seen over the years. But it is something. It does get us closer to what we really need. Does that answer your question? Maybe. >> Right. Um, next we're going to talk a little bit about our financial update, our cash forecast for this current fiscal year. And, um, the first set of numbers is the budget for this current fiscal year. And when we look at our budget, our revenue has to equal our expenditures. So the bottom dark green is our beginning fund balance that was budgeted. The light green is our resources. The dark gray is our expenditures and then the light gray is our ending fund balance. And so the first bucket is the budget and then the second budget is our current forecast. We are currently
057forecasting about $9.7 million ending fund balance or 10.2% based on what we know today. And so that is our current forecast in a visual. And then this is the numbers behind it. >> A little more. >> Some people like the visuals, some people like the numbers. Um but really what this is saying is our resources are about 185,000 less than what we had budgeted. And that's primarily because of our forest revenue. Um the first quarter and second quarter forest revenue came in lower than our historical years. lower than what we had projected. So that is a big contributor to that reduction in resources. However, when we're looking at our expenditures, we're about $2.5 million less forecasted expenditures for this current fiscal year. And that's primarily because of vacancy savings, employee turnover. uh the district shifted
058from our paid leave Oregon um from the standard to the state plan. Um and so that created a little bit of savings, but most of it was from just vacancies and we have a couple of positions that are still vacant this year where we budget for our positions to be fully in place all year. Um, so that 23 five million is primarily from vacancy savings and employee turnover for the year. Otherwise, that 10.2% ending fund balance is about 2.7% higher than our ending fund balance projected with the PERS rate adjustment. So when we take the PERS rate, we came to the board a couple of months ago and asked for appropriation increase to utilize our reserves. Um so that budgeted ending fund balance of 7.3 million is adjusted for that first. That's the difference between
059the two graphs is the one is adopted budget and this one is our working budget. Is that okay? Okay, you notice the teacher does all the discussion. Um, so in terms of our ending fund balance, just a couple things to orient you in a very succinct way. The ending fund balance is our savings account. We use it for emergencies. We use it for contingency. It allows us to expend resources before uh revenue is um reviewed um I should say renewed at the start of each fiscal year. So it allows us to continue operations. In other words, we have expenditures in July, but we haven't received money yet and having an ending fund balance allows us to carry forward into the new fiscal year. We do have a board policy that says we must have a
060minimum of 8% as an ending fund balance. For reference, that covers about one month of our expenditures. So 8% keeps the lights on for a month. It allows us to cover payroll for a month. It allows us to mow the lawn for a month, to make sure that we feed kids. All of that is encompassed within that 8%. So that is a pretty tight budget if you think about it for those of us who are savers. Having just one month of savings makes us nervous. >> Um so I I want to call attention to that and that national recommendations range as high as 25% for an ending fund balance. I don't know any school district that has an ending fund balance that high. That would be ideal. Um but 8% is also very tight. So
061there as I mean said previously between 10 12 15% is probably a more comfortable range for us. So quick conversation again with elbow partners based on what you know so far knowing we can't drop below the 8% floor because our policy prohibits us from doing that. What do you think is an appropriate ending fund target for us? what should we be shooting for as we plan for this next budget? Uh so we will take two minutes to have this conversation again with elbow partners and then we'll do a quick report out. 30 seconds. >> The same end >> getting too high. Maybe that might be amount. So how do we get to questioning wondering whether the ending fund balance further back into 2010 always we did some serious tests Um we built it up right
062there. We were still in the case >> and that would give you an opportunity. Okay. So this is not a legislative this is >> that was the 2007 >> or my time but I was >> no special just let y'all If for lack of a better reason I imagine saying >> I think your last sentence please turning it out over to you. All right. So, this time we'll go the other way around. >> We'll start at this end of the horseshoe. Um, based on your conversation, what what is our target? What do you think we should shoot for? >> Looking at the um historical uh fund balance in 20205 and 16 and 17, it looks like the district was making an effort to try to maintain it of the 13 14%. Um I asked um
063director Cloot and she said during the recession it went down to 4%. So, um, it's not like it has always stayed at that level, but my thinking was that it looks pretty consistent there for five years. Maybe that's a good place to that's a good goal. >> Thank you. We didn't know that was a good answer depending on how everything looks. We were hoping 15% I think that's what we s that's helpful. Thank you. >> Um I think we our discussions we were between that 14 and 16% um striving for 16 and having a marginal. >> Thank you. Our last group >> 12 super >> I was thinking 60 >> 16 >> yeah the question is how do you get there I mean you know there's some challenges but how do you you can't do
064it in one year and then the next this next three years are going to be challenging so I guess you try to increment it by 2% or something >> could be um right now these our targets. We have yet to build the budget, but knowing what this group is thinking allows us to get started with that process. So, thank you for that. >> All right, back to you. >> One quick question on that. We briefly talked about it, but on the on the budgeting or planning, when this has happened before, has it been an all or nothing or is it more expected to say, "Okay, we're not getting funding for 20% of my budget. Oh my gosh. or is it a we're getting no money, it burns up in one month versus is there any
065precedent that we've seen before on does it get fully turned on or off or is there >> you're referencing the ending fund balance specifically in utilizing that? >> I'm referencing the the if if we have no funding, we get by for one month if we have eight 8%. >> Yes. >> But that's if we get nothing. >> Correct. So, has there been a precedent before of where we don't receive the funding we're expecting, but usually it's 10% short till 20% and that scenario would be five months. >> I'm going to tee this up and then director Flute can add specificity. I don't know of any instance where the state has completely withheld a state allocation. What I do know is that districts are sometimes caught short because they haven't accurately estimated their ADM um or
066their local revenues. And when that equalization is applied, they find that they're suddenly millions of dollars short. That is one reason why you've seen districts in the news suddenly need to shut down schools in the middle of the year or let staff go. Um would you like to add some specificity to that? >> Yeah, two different pieces to that. I want to talk about the state school fund and the adjustments and then um really we're waiting on the property taxes to come in in November. So the state at times they have always given us the resources in July for our funding. Now they've come back and given us more resources or come back and given us less resources but really that property tax revenue doesn't come till November. Whereas we pay August salaries to licensed
067staff even as one 12th of their salary in August and September and then October and November. And so trying to flex the resources and the cash available on hand until that property tax resources come in. That's really kind of that pinch point. Um and to adjust for any emergencies or shifts or changes in funding levels. Um so that's one piece. And then the other piece that you were aiming towards is the adjustments in the state school fund. We're always navigating three fiscal years with our state school fund formula. We're navigating our current fiscal year where the state is constantly adjusting the estimates based on new updated data. So our EL data comes in, we get new estimates. Our special education data comes in, we get new estimates. Property tax revenue. So we're constantly teacher experience.
068There's so many factors in that that we get multiple updates throughout the year. So, we're always looking at that, looking at the state's calculations and then adjusting it based on what we think it's going to h what's going to happen next time based on what we know. So, there's this current fiscal year that we're navigating. And at the same time, districts are finalizing their audits and they're finalizing their enrollment and their average daily membership over the course of the year. So in the late spring, OD goes and re-reconciles last year. So this is where districts have gotten caught where you estimate local revenue to be a certain amount or you estimate your enrollment to be a certain amount and then you get that May state school fund adjustment. When it's in May, it's already too
069late to make adjustments. So those reserves help offset any surprises that you might come. Um, so yeah, we're always looking at the prior year, current year, and next fiscal year and trying to figure out like if something changes, how is that impacting all three years so we can plan and adapt for it as quick as we can. So yeah, and in 2010 2011, we're in January, we were in the hole and um so we had to cut staff and cut days >> and that was really hard in the middle of the year. Do we know any of the industries in Oregon where it's close to the national 25%. >> Do we know any any state in the United States where it's close to 25%. >> I don't know. >> Not I I don't know. I
070know there are some municipal agencies that get close to that. I don't know of any school districts that get close to that. >> Can I ask one more question? Um, I'd like the conversation, but I did see a few people referring back to this slide. And if you look at this slide, the line with the black dots is our budget, where we budget our ending fund balance each year. The green is where we actually come in at by the end of the current fiscal year because our practice in the district is to budget conservatively and try to be as efficient as possible through the year to save. So then we can take that ending fund balance and rebuild it into the budget process the upcoming year. It helps take the waves in funding and the
071waves in um expenditures and level it out a little bit. So based on that, does it change the discussion from the last question? I kind of a segue. Sorry. I'm going to I'm I am joking in because I did hear some testimony in Salem from people and I've heard this from more than just in this testimony and I remember because I had asked Dr. West about it and it goes back to 25%. People who aren't in the district saying, "Oh, these districts have why are they keeping 10%, why are they keeping 12%. We're in a deficit. We need to be keeping the light, you know, doing these pieces." And I think how you've just explained it here. I mean, I think if if we can find a way to help people understand why we need
072that reserves and that those reserves aren't just there until we feel like all of a sudden they should be spent, like there's an intent for the reserves. But I do remember hearing testimony kind of pushing legislators to say, "Hey, our schools have plenty of money." And the reason is there are schools that have she this one person said there's schools out there that have 25% reserves and I remember calling you uh Dr. West to say are there schools that have 25% reserves. So I think the narrative of how this budget committee approaches this um and how we build in understanding with the community and our and our staff too why that is important. I I'm in full support of someone said and Kate maybe shooting for the 16% and the message should be yeah we
073would love to have 16 that's my personal opinion where we are typically is here instead of having that be down here I I just think telling people why that number is important to keep high because it's the tendency for people to just see it over there and say so there's an education piece with our legislators to understand this isn't about asking schools now to drop their balances to 5% or 4%. This is about telling we we need and so this again there's a lot of editorializing there but I have I do have some strong feelings about that myself. >> I do. Oh wow. >> I do. All right. and others. >> Well, I I think that this is the reason why I keep saying we should go to Salem is because if you say it
074takes, you know, 8% is um one month's working, you know, paying salaries and utilities and that then, you know, it's a whole different ballgame looking at it instead of just saying, okay, they got, you know, 20%, they got 10%, they've got plenty. They don't understand. I mean, and you also have to recognize that majority of the legislators are not educators and haven't been in the school systems and understand how these budgets work, >> you know, and they're the ones that created this budget. And also, the funding for education in Oregon is archaic, >> but I'm not going to tell them that. But it is. >> And in the case, because >> Yeah, I agree. >> Yeah, I guess they do. And in the case of this specific deficit, we also have the education stability fund.
075Um, and that is a fund that has been filled over the years with lottery funds that actually does have a cap. And there is a statutory um requirement that if we draw down those funds, the lottery fills it again. So the state does have access to a potential resource to keep schools stable during this deficit period at the state level. and the statutory mechanism to refill that fund if they choose to utilize it. So I that is one option that the state may exercise as they look to balance their own budget. Um, but for us internally, I think the more education that we can do among ourselves so that we can help others understand the complexities that we're navigating and examples like, do you feel comfortable having less than a month's savings to cover your
076own expenses? Because if as a school district, I have an obligation to pay people. I I couldn't imagine not paying people for a period of time that they work. That's a heavy responsibility. Um I think that's where we can generate some understanding among our colleagues in our community about why having some level of savings matters. >> Thank you guys for the discussion. Um, next up we're going to talk about the budget outlook and challenges looking into this upcoming budget cycle and budget season. Um, just because sorry, horse school district, we are facing about three to four million of deficit spending going into this fiscal year, this calendar um, budget calendar year. Um, our challenges and the reasoning behind this is really four primary driving factors. One is our state funding declining funding compounding effect over
077multiple years that Dr. West talked about a little bit earlier. Um expenditures outpacing revenue, years of declining enrollment and years of increased staffing costs and staffing levels um we've been providing more and more services across the district um than we have historically. And so I'll go into each of these four in the next few slides a little bit more detail. So if we look at where the state is expending its budget, allocating its budget back in 2003 2005 bienium the state allocated about 45% of their budget to K12 education. This bianium it's about 33%. to K12 education. The so the state is allocating less and less of their pie to school districts. Then we have our state legislative session that is going to end on March 9th. We'll have a better insight if our funding
078is going to change this upcoming year. We kind of briefly talked about a little bit of it earlier, but the state is still forecasting deficit of about $500 million to the statewide funding. And so if they do choose to impact K12 education as a part of that, we will receive a loss of our resources going into this budget cycle. And so we are aware of it. We're looking at it um trying to understand what the potential impacts would be. Um, but that's where when we talk about that $3 to $4 million, it's because there's still a lot of unknowns right now at this time in the budget process. But on March 9th, the short session closes. So, we have only a couple of weeks left for the legislature to decide how they're going to balance
079the state budget. We'll know soon. >> The next thing impacting our budget cycle this year is our declining enrollment. Since enrollment is so heavy driven on our revenue for our general fund and in a lot of our grants, um our enrollment is down about 538 students over the last 10 years. We have less kids in the system today than what we did 10 years ago. Uh we're down to 5,554 students projected for this year. This is average daily membership over the year. So it's not enrollment at a point in time. Um there's a lot of factors included in that and our demographic study that we're working on right now is already giving us indication. We're not we don't have it back yet, but they're already giving us indication that we will see uh several years
080in the future continuing to decline in our enrollment. Um, so this isn't below. And then we have our structural deficit spending. This is the same chart from earlier just again provided because our ending fund balance is our savings account. It's one-time resources. So once you build that into the budget, if you utilize long-term expenditures with those resources, something's got to give somewhere. uh we cannot keep spending at the current rates and bringing that down that ending fund balance. So we have the deficit spending and eating into our savings account which is intentional. We've been intentionally doing that the last few years because we had such a high ending fund balance. And then the other one is expenditures outpacing revenue. There's a lot here, but what I really wanted to share is just an example of
081what we mean by expenditures outpacing revenue and how it's not sustainable long term. If we look at our general fund revenue last physical year, it increased by about 4.6% total and that's with declining enrollment. So that's adjusted for a little bit of a loss of enrollment that year. But at the same time, our expenditures are increasing at a significantly greater rate than our revenue. So that year, license salary table increased about 5.25%. Then if a employee moved a step, it's an additional 3%. If an employee moved a column, it's an additional 5%. So columns are over on the educational experience. Steps are years of experience. And so an employee could have moved between 5.25% to 8 10 13% up on the salary table depending on um where where they are. And then we add on
082top of it the increased costs and benefits. So when we look at the total costs of benefits, Oregon paid family medical leave, medical insurance, our PERS retirement costs, those increased by 2.1% of salaries. And so when we add all of these up, our general fund resource is only increasing by 4.6%. We can't sustain it. And then the last part in this section is really comparing our declining enrollment versus our increased services to students and increased services across the district. This chart shows in the blue as 201516 is our base, our ground zero. And looking 10 years to today of 2526, we've lost that 538 students. 538 students across the entire district. Whereas the orange is showing our FTE, which is our full-time equivalent, a 8-hour employee, and our total FTE across the district for the
083same 10 years. So, as we've lost 538 students, we have increased 139 FTE across the district over 10 years. Looking at where that FTE is, we've increased our counseling services. We're down to 250 to1 across the district. We have mental health services. We have health IAS. We have instructional supports in the district. We have more special education IAS across the district. So we have overall more bodies in the district to provide services that are essential but less students. And so this is one of the things that we're navigating going into this year. Um if I look at 201516 to today we had an average district-wide um teacher to student ratio of I think it was 29 to1 and now we're at 25 to1. So we've brought that average number of students per teacher down significantly.
084Um so there are a lot of additional services that we have lower class sizes. Um all really great things, but these are definitely things that we are going to have to have conversations about and navigate through this budget season. Okay. Uh so a quick discussion question here. Um school finance is super complex. We've barely scratched the surface. Um we could spend all night here and all the rest of the week if we really wanted to get into it. Oftent times I am asked by people when I'm out in the community what's going on with school finance 11.4 billion. How could you possibly be out of money as a school system across the state? Um, and I I get it. That's an incredibly large number. So, I find myself in a position where I need to
085quickly help the folks that I'm talking to understand a very complex subject in terms that take less than a minute or two to explain. So the question that we have for you is given what we've shared here tonight, if you were asked by a community member what's going on with the financial position of the district, what what would you tell them? What is the one sentence that you would provide? Call it an elevator speech. What is your elevator speech that you would share with people? Again, we'll take just a couple of minutes, talk to an elbow partner, and we'll um have a round table out and listen to what you share. All right, two minutes. Ready, set, go. something >> or any of the other budget committ when we were doing city stuff to the
086where budget committee members there somebody will come by and that's not happening there >> around everybody particularly not enough >> because there were cities that were >> never approached that. I think the same is that's why we tal somebody do something about getting the biceps arranged. that requires something. >> Okay, finish up your sentence. >> We're gonna start in the middle of the table this time. >> Okay, we just cobbled it together. Our school district budget is 180 million. We can account for every dollar that we spend prioritizing kids. Prioritizing kids based on our strategic plan and we are extremely comfortable or no we're not comfortable. One of the reasons this is one sentence I'm getting there. Our budget is 180 million. We can currently account for every dollar we spend on and it is
087on kids. And the reason we feel very confident about this situation we're in right now is because we have a CFO. And I mean that is an important piece to communicate to the community. But that was something that you said at Jordan the best, right? I mean I'm I'm building it into the explanation because I think the community knowing that we trust and value our CFO who is guiding us essentially and responsible spending. So we can account for the money. We have a key person in place and we're prioritizing kids. >> That's our sense. >> They got you there. I mean, I was kind of got a Yeah. >> All right. Well, we'll go this way around. >> Uh, >> we could say not even in a sentence, in one word, precarious. >> Perfect. All
088right, let's move on. Um well I got we sort of I got down into the weeds. Um school district is receiving has received 12% less in state funding over the 20 years and our and our expenses have increased specific you know specifically after COVID and geared toward mental health special ed and services. And we have a savings account that would let us operate for two months. If we got to 16%. Yeah, for sure. >> Oh, okay. So, one month. Okay. So, maybe one month and one day. >> That's great. Thank you. >> All right. Our last group. >> Okay. I will share. So, I did I I shared that um indications where they have brought it up to my attention, you know, just community members. It's a simple how involved have you been? You know,
089have you looked at the resources? Have you viewed these recorded budget committee meeting? We for those that are Spanish speaking that don't understand that language, we always have Spanish speaking services that doesn't get used. That's money that's there as well. So it's more like here's the link, get involved and you will find those answers if you if you really are looking. >> Yeah, I love that. Now I know what to say to poop. Appreciate. >> You're welcome. >> On social media. >> All right. Excellent. I'm going to pinch it back to Director Coupe to wrap us up. All right. So, I know we are a little behind time. Um, so I will try to go efficiently. Um, the last conversation we have is just to let you know what our steps are for the community
090engagement process during the budget season. This year we are doing um our community engagement in three phases and all three phases are going to one help guide the next phase and help guide the overall budget process throughout this season. The first phase is our digital survey. It was published a week or two ago. Um audience is families, community, secondary students. We have already staff um families, community, yes staff. We've already received it over 400 survey results and um Neil Armstrong will be sending it to advisory next week I believe. So we will close it at the end of next week. That will then help guide our next budget conversation we have here. The data is going to help guide an equity committee meeting that we have tomorrow night. Um and then all of this information
091will be brought back to the next budget budget committee meeting. The second phase is really building engagement. We're going to develop a presentation or slideshow for um engagement for our building administrators to take both their staff and their community to um and hopefully we'll be able to generate some good dialogue and some feedback that's more than a budget form like what do you prioritize? >> And that'll be in-person engagement. And then the last one is phase three, community leaders. Uh Dr. West is hosting a community leaders budget meeting where we can take them through a similar process from the first two and um strategically focus it on specific community leaders rather than just our families, our community and our students and staff. So any questions on these three phases? So you mentioned that this um
092digital survey launched that where do we find that or are we singling it out or is anybody thought it was just for high school and ns okay >> it's on the district website uh it was also in Dr. West superintendent message last week. >> Okay. >> Um there's t tents at the library with QR codes you can scan >> at the force library. >> Correct. Okay. >> So, we're trying to get it out there as much as we can. Um and if you need a link, you guys are more than welcome to fill out the survey, attend the community meetings at a building if you want. Uh each building will have their own community outreach parent meeting. So if you are interested in one, we can definitely let you know when those are to attend.
093Um and please provide provide your feedback and be a participants through these. Between all of these sessions in phase two, um well, if we close phase three, we'll have more than 20 in-person engagements to talk to our communities and provide people opportunity to share with us in person what they're thinking about the budget reductions. um when we are potentially looking at two to3 million dollars. Um if that may not seem like a lot when we're talking about an overall budget number in the hundred millions, but um for us in the general fund around 80 million, but 2 to3 million will have an impact across our system. it will be felt and because of that we want to make sure that we're engaging people and providing us input and feedback on what matters to them. So
094good question on the the surveys that are being taken that was something from survey that I did the or from parent teacher conferences was is there dialogue that'll be going back to the people that filled the surveys out on we received your feedback these are the results and this is either what we're going to do or what we can't do and why based on some of the feedback we received or >> well the survey is not what we're making decisions from. The survey is going to inform the in-person conversation. Once we have those in-person conversations, we will take the survey feedback, which helped us prioritize what matters to people, take the feedback we received from those in-person engagements, and we will use that to inform the building of the budget and potential reductions. All of
095that will be communicated out. So what role do we play? Do we go to those meetings as community leaders? Do we go as cheerleaders? Do we go as I hate using air quotes experts? Um I mean we're we're where the rubber meets the road as far as building a budget or paying a budget. >> Yeah. Our building leaders are scheduling those meetings right now. Once we have the schedule finalized, we'd be happy to share it with this committee if you'd like to participate in any of those. Every meeting will be led by a school leader and a cabinet leader. You are, as I said, welcome to be there and be a part of those conversations, but we didn't feel like we needed to put that responsibility on the shoulders of this team. Those engagements are
096our responsibility. But we can go. Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um there is one extra slide in here. I'm going to skip just for the sake of time. We are over time already and so there was a discussion slide in your handout. We will ask more questions at the next meeting. But uh just to move on, this slide is just some resources. I sent out an email a couple of weeks ago welcoming everybody. These are all links that are in that. There are also links in this PDF that will be online. The budget or the legislative priorities is the one that's been approved by our board. The budget committee handbook is probably the easiest one to read over the rest. I it's up to you how much you want to dive into them. the resources.
097Um, the budget committee handbook is a good overview of Oregon budget law and requirements. Uh, and the last one is the acronyms for the district. And if you notice one missing, please let me know so I can keep adding to it. >> Um, lastly to close us out, it's just open discussion questions. uh did want to provide you guys an opportunity to ask for information next time if there's any information you want to see or data requests or information requests for our budget 102 meeting and then I am open for one-on-one budget meetings if you guys have questions you want to dive deeper please don't hesitate to reach out to me so open discussion comments questions >> or requests for next >> so within our networks um we can start sharing that there's a survey.
098>> Okay. And that um there will be some >> would it help if we send the link so that it would be great and then how how other people can uh attend one of those person meetings >> once we have the schedule finalized. >> Great. Thank you. Any other questions? >> I just wanted to comment the discussion items this this year that was very engaging. So, thank you for putting those in. It's nice to have dialogue replicated. So, >> that's great feedback. Thank you. >> Any other business? We're done with the business. Okay. Being no further business to this meeting will be adjourned at 7:17 on tonight's meeting. Thank you for all coming and then we'll see you on April 14th at 5:30, right? >> Yes, sir. 5:30. >> Thank you all. >> And for
099budget committee, we're going to introduce everyone. A board is going to stay for a 15 minute board discussion. We'll give people just five minutes here. Yeah. So, we'll take five minutes and we'll have the board I connect with you on the phone real quick. February 24th, 2026 Forsboro School Board director's meeting is called to order at 7:20 p.m. We'll start with roll call of board members present. Alma Malazano >> here. >> Resa Franco >> here. >> Randi >> here. Pete Truax >> here. Maya Andrade >> and Christy Cocky is here. I'm looking for approval of tonight's agenda. >> So move. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I posted. >> Okay. All right. And the consent agenda is made up of routine non-controversial items to be voted on under one motion. Are there any items
100within the consent agenda board member or the superintendent wishes to discuss separately? See none. Madam chair, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Discussion. >> All in favor say I. >> Post. All right. And we are going to move on to um finalizing our board advocacy action plan and we do have a slide for that that is coming. Uh we met in our first Zoom publicly noticed meeting with our board which allowed our board time a week week ago to have a conversation about following up of our conversation that we had previous board meeting and I wanted to just highlight tonight before we move on to our next item where we sort of landed with consensus. One of the things we are planning to do between now and and the
101end of the school year is to establish a regular check-in calendar plan with our House and Senate reps. And so, one of the options this board talked about was perhaps inviting um our our rep and senator to join us at that Zoom time meeting. We've talked about other options of having them come to a board meeting and engaging in conversation, but we think we're going to try finding a time where they can join us at that Zoom session, which is a public meeting and would allow for two-way communication and get on a cadence. So, we're having proactive regular conversations, sharing what's going on in our district, and also hearing from them. specifically this spring being able to hear from both Senator Sullman and Rhett Mlan of how the short session went and you know where
102our comments on how that helped us and also hearing from them on what they need from us going forward. The second uh conversation piece that we have talked about is continuing to being very intentional and proactive about strengthening and building upon our already positive relationship with our union leaders. We have new board members to the board. Um when I came on to the board, the union leads at the time, Sarah Ogle and actually Serena Fitz as well, both had reached out and we had had some coffee conversation and just had a time to sit down and just get acquainted. Um it's no secret that this district has a very strong relationship with our union leadership and our leaders and our teachers in that conversation. We've seen that play out especially just recently um in bargaining
103and we continue to highlight that but as a board we want to make sure we're being really intentional on continuing to build that proactively. Again, I'm going to use that word quite a bit tonight. So that is our second item. I think the next steps that we talked about was we're exploring what that looks like with the structure. We want to be really aware of time that our union reps are working. Everybody's working full-time already. And making sure that it is um something that is fits into a schedule, but also something that adds value and getting some feedback from our union leaders as well, what they are feeling like the board can do to improve those relationships continue to help us grow. Uh Director Traxx, did you have a comment about that? Yeah, I hate
104to be cranky and irritable wordsmith, but can we get rid of the word union and use association? >> Yes, of course. because it I need to justify that because that's when I was working with the classified association or with the um that negotiation process. They very much wanted to be referred to as an association and not a union. And I think that's I think that gets away from the mindset or the image that we have had of negotiations. When you go with when you're negotiating with the union, um there's a different flavor than there is when you're negotiating with an association. The outcomes are the same and the objectives of both groups are the same. But I think the communication is a little bit a little bit more gentile for lack of a better word.
105>> Noted. >> Yes. Okay. I'm seeing a thumbs up. I think too um one of the things we we recognized this a couple years ago as well like how do we build into our system and structure ways for that communication to happen? We have a leazison on um the association that comes now and also we built time intentionally into our board agenda to be able to allow space for communication there. But this was just feeling like we wanted to sort of connect personally and make sure that we're hearing directly from everybody and that we're all on the same page and we're Yeah. So I think I've I've said that three times now. Just try to have me say something one time. Uh the third one we are going to shift the focus of the summer
106retreat uh instead of a more of a team builder. We we did reach consensus around diving deeper into using that retreat as more of a way to advance our existing advocacy work. And I think all of these things are interconnected. And the fourth piece there that was mentioned briefly but I think is outside of what the board itself is working on is considering an additional lunch with legislators but doing that regionally maybe with the board chair group that is now meeting each month. So talked about a couple different things in that zoom of ways we could use a summer retreat time but I think there's a couple things to explore what we can do as a board together. it was clear that the board valued that time and then beyond that can we expand and
107continue to build relationships across the region their chair. So that's something we'll explore and bring out to that chair group and see also there's interest with the other boards in continuing to do work around what we did in January with our legislators but the time and energy that went into the planning of that and you know how can we do something on a smaller scale that's maybe has impact. So, those are the four pieces that we sort of built consensus around. I'm going to pause and ask for any additional thoughts that I didn't capture there or comments or adjustments. And Brie, I do know you're up there, so just, you know, chime in if there is something you notice. Well, summer lunch with the legislators. So, you know, summertime's pretty people are on vacation. How
108is that going to work? Well, we we talked like as board chairs, we are all pretty connected with our reps and house and senate reps and by then um we will be kind of after primary but pre >> but still we do need to have some connection you know and making sure we're sharing that information. So you're right Kate is what is the avenue we can use to still be connected. Um, we think we can be creative and find a way that maybe is more informal and a quick lunch and maybe if there's six or seven local legislators that can join us, great. But it continues the conversation. So maybe that's the opportunity for those people running for election after primaries to come and to the maybe maybe to the board chairs and share how
109they're going to advocate for schools. I think that's really important because that's going to determine whether we want a vote for them or not. Getting ahead of me here, but yes, I noted noted that. So, with this um in mind and consensus from the board, what I'd like to suggest is that all my in leadership can take this list and work with Dr. West in kind of putting some things on paper as to what we think this looks like and then bring it back to the board for next steps. Does that seem reasonable? Yeah. And I I would add that I would love to see both of you at those meetings. I would not want another one another board member there because that makes a quorum that makes a public meeting and >> right >>
110we don't want to skirt that issue. So, um, but I think it's absolutely necessary that the leadership be there so that the legislators get a message that it's not one person that's carrying the water. It's it's two people. post that have had conversations in an open setting with other members of the board. So that this is not some wildeyed radical coming in and talking, but this is a cogent adult set of people that are bringing valid concerns to those legislators. >> Yeah, and I hear you there. I think I I want to make sure I was probably talking about two things at the same time that that Alma and I in when we meet in leadership with Dr. West tomorrow, we will then take this list with the blessing of the board and sort of
111get some details down and then bring that back to the board separately. Pete, to your point, um, who and how we meet with legislators in a summer, I think that's a continued conversation that this board can have and, you know, again, we should have together so we make sure we're all very clear on where those conversations are and what they're going to be. So, I appreciate that comment. Um, okay. If there are no further comments on that, I'm gonna move to the second piece of our agenda, which is um which is actually going to be talking tonight about criteria that we believe are important to be an effective legislator in our region. We do have um there's going to be some challengers this primary, I believe, in both the House and Senate races. And part
112of the advocacy work and part of what's developed in our advocacy work has been trying to communicate with legislators, not just ours in our region, but in the state, what we need from them as far as how they do the job. So, as a board in the past, at least since I've been on the board, we have we have approached the idea of considering um endorsing or talking about different pieces of legislation. We've done that publicly in the last couple months with regards to bills on the floor. We have not really defined a process for what that looks like. And I think this conversation today is also going to lead us to um defining what that looks like when we're thinking about potentially down the road considering considering endorsements and actually even considering how we
113talk with our community about people who are running for office and bills that are on the table and you know just trying to figure out what our process is for that. So tonight, um, what I've asked the board to consider and be ready with is to have them bring three or more criteria that you believe are important to be an effective legislator. Either criteria that you've noticed has been important or headed into these very challenging time for schools. What are the criteria that we need from legislators to make sure they're representing our school district, but also that, you know, that we value? And the second um the second question around that was what are the three questions that you might consider asking potential legislative candidates? And um and so what I'd like to do I
114know several of you kind of previewed your you sent your homework in a little bit early. Brieesa especially she wasn't sure if her audio would be working. But I'm going to start with Briea. And what I'd like to do first is just have every board member um we'll start with Briea. Then we'll do Kate, Pete, Maya, and then Alma. Just list your three criteria. And if you want to say a little bit about each rate, if you just want to list the criteria, that's fine. And then we're going to move back through and ask um what are what are the questions that you'd like us to consider. And again, today we're just starting a conversation, so we're not making any bold moves or final decisions, but I think we're just getting things surfaced on the
115table to see where we are with what what we look for. So Brie, I'm going to ask you to start if your audio is working with the criteria that you believe are important for a legislator to have. >> Okay. Hi everyone. I hope everyone can hear me. Um I had some time thinking about this and I think some important criteria or like traits to look for is someone who can communicate clearly and straightforwardly. uh representatives should be able to explain their pol position and policy decisions in plain language so that um their constituents can understand. Um I think another thing I'm looking for is transparency. Um and then I'm also looking for someone who takes the time to generally get to know the community that they're serving. Um this means listening to constituents, understanding the
116challenges that the district faces, um and also remaining accessible outside of election season. Um ideally would want someone who is engaged with our community and would be better equipped to kind of advocate for its needs at the state level. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> I didn't do my own. I'm sorry. We can pass. >> Okay. I'll pass. I'll I'll follow up, but that's fine. >> Sorry, I apologize. >> P. >> Okay. My three questions were one and >> I mean criteria, an effective legislator would possess the ability to offer up wellthoughtout legislation entailing conversations with people he or she represents, colleagues in the House, Senate, and those in other leadership positions throughout the state, both public and private. That's all one criteria. B, those conversations would have to be bipartisan in nature. Our perfect
117legislator would recognize that no one gets the whole of what she or he thinks. And last, our perfect legislator would have to be realistic enough to recognize when bills and laws have to be rectified and corrected and would be willing to play a role in correcting that law, proposed legislation. None of us have all the answers. Okay, Maya. >> Sorry, a lot of I don't like copy anybody. The thing I said was accessibility. I thought that representatives should be um accessible and actively engaged with um their community and the community they represent um even after elections as Lisa had mentioned. And then I really wanted to highlight kind of a commitment to the youth and education um and how they should prioritize education and actively consider the perspectives of young people um when shaping policies.
118I also talked about transparency um and how leaders should be transparent and I guess this also kind of connects to um accountability but how leaders should be transparent about the decisions and accountable to the people that they represent. And then my last one was collaboration. Um, I think nowadays we see that a lot of us disagree with each other more than agree. Um, and so I kind of added that leaders should be able to collaborate across differences and work with people who may not always agree with them. >> So I went ahead and put that the uh representative should uh understand classroom um realities uh very very much understand that overall. Um, one thing that I had here was I haven't really seen a whole lot of representatives um, active listening to to the youth.
119I mean, they are our focus. They are the ones going through the system in the process. I think that there should be a little more uh focus in in discussing with them. Um, I do have that they can disagree respectfully with uh either a legislative or law uh or the higherups and be able to like Pete shared, you know, correct any any of those decisions. Um, and then just be visible to the community and approachable. All right. And mine mine does uh copy a few of those. My three were collaborative capacity. So willing to work collaborative collaboratively but having some kind of experience in doing so. kind of being able to explain where they've done that and how um practicing informed decision making again kind of what you're saying like based on the community they
120serve being around students being in classrooms understanding what's happening but also doing the same at the district level and really understanding what is the work that's happening here to because that is the money that they're allocating and really having being in interested in wanting to know more. Um, and the third one, I haven't heard this mentioned yet, what was around team, working as a team, but it was really us being able to be self-aware and analyzing how they're doing the job. And I was just talking to someone about this yesterday about how often does a legislator step back to see how they're doing the job. Um, and I have questions to go with that one, but you know, when does a legislator reach out to get feedback about how they're doing their job and what
121does that feedback look like and how do they change how they do the job based on that? If we do a lot of taking in information and sharing information, but and that I'm thinking of myself too as a board person, you know, where do we get feedback, honest, critical feedback to help us be better leaders? So that wanting to even get that feedback to me is a quality that I look for. But um Okay. So that's a really comprehensive list. I I >> Oh, Kate, you want to add? Okay. Um I would want to ask legislators, why do you want to be a legislator? And um what is what is your um goal or what is your um interest in being a legislator? uh because if I I you know I I know these people
122become legislators and then they get on committees. Um and the the last one would be is how do you educate yourself? How would you educate yourself about legislation in areas that you're not part of that committee? Um because you know I I don't know for sure but I think it's like eight people on the education committee and you know there's you know and and the set I what we've been watching is they have like one hour on a committee and you know so how does that filter out to the others and so how is that individual going to absorb they can make a very healthy decision. Okay. Um and that kind of leads us into questions. So then the second part of that was what are the question if we were asking questions of legislators
123from a schoolboard perspective um or personal perspective based on your work on this what are the questions that we would want legislators to have and I I'm thinking about if if we did decide as a board to send questions out to potential candidates to be able to just see help them see what we would like to know as a board what what are those questions what would they look like And I think we'll go the same way if that's okay. Besa, do you want to start there? >> Absolutely. Um, I have I think my three primary questions. The first one being, how do you stay connected to the day-to-day concerns of constituents outside of election season? Um, my second question being, what specific issues in our district do you believe is misunderstood at the state
124level and how would you advocate for it? Um, and then my last question being, how do you balance party loyalty with representing the unique needs of this district? And those are kind of my my three questions that I have. >> Okay. Uh, Kate, do you want to wait till >> Marissa did it all? Star double star. So, I sort of took that line is how well do you reach across the aisle? Uh how well do you listen to constituents? And what would be your major concerns about improving Oregon for all of its residents? So, I took the local issue and statewide it if that's a word. Okay. >> Maya more general. The first one is how will you ensure uh that you remain accessible to uh students working with families in the underrepresented communities. Um
125for my commitment to the youth I said uh how we ensure that students voices are included when making decisions that directly impact our schools and future opportunities. And then for transparency I said if a policy decision you support has unintended negative impacts because that's I think that's the reality of our world. um how would you address that accountability? And then for collaboration, my last question was um how do you plan to work with colleagues who might have opposing views in order to pass meaningful legislation? >> Um all right. So what is one specific action you will take to stabilize funding? That was one of mine. Um, what is one policy you support to make housing more affordable while supporting local businesses and job growth because that affects the school too. Um, and then what is
126one example of how you will work across party lines to pass legislation. >> Okay. >> I don't have any. >> Okay. I think K because you can't you gave me a couple. I think um my three were this role requires you to work together with your community to build policy. Who is and should be on your team that you work with to do so? Um what stakeholders would you look to to inform your decision-making process? And how do you currently reflect on how you do the work? How will you get feedback about your areas of strength and opportunities for growth are as a leader and a representative? And then several other the same, you know, reaching or how do we do this work? So, um, that's good. I mean, Kate and nothing to add there.
127>> No, I'm I'm good. >> All right. So, I think I think what that captures I think we can sense there's definitely a few themes there. What I noticed there is there's a kind of a drill down on a couple specifics to our district. And then there's more general about style. How are you going to do the work? And then I think there I mean there's a couple different themes there that there definitely a theme of where do you student voice? How do you hear student voice? And how are you going to be accessible to that? Um are there any final thoughts Katie? How are they going to communicate on a regular basis to school district um school boards? you know, how I mean, you know, like one of the things that we've been seeing
128is that a bill is coming up tomorrow and we're not informed. How are we going to inform school districts and school boards about upcoming um bills in a timely fashion so that they have accurate information? Because I I think the communication piece is the big issue. anything else to add? I mean, I would like to see someone who has actually worked with like a bilingual district, someone that understands kind of that that role, especially for our district, which makes a big difference in how you go about at that level. I would like to see somebody focus on getting stuff out of the silos and getting things glued together. Legislation, proposed legislation on transportation impacts schools, um transportation, uh the economy. If we, and I hate to use this word, but if we continue to hemorrhage
129jobs and businesses, people start moving out of the state of Oregon in even greater numbers than perhaps they are. Um, that has an impact on education. So how do we work together to make this state more education friendly but at the same time make it more economically friendly. Uh if you if we have to find a way to make um the tax structure in the state of Oregon not only work for the individual and work for business but also work for the state. That's a discussion that is has to take place. The siloing is going to kill us. And I'll build on that Pete because I think you're speaking to something there when I'm thinking about silos and we keep coming to legislators saying school schools and we do tend to sometimes forget that there
130I am reminded often that it's there's transportation and by the way there's healthcare workers and there's all the layers that our legislators are dealing with. So maybe some of the questioning too would be what would you suggest for us as schoolboard members to help you do this work? Like what do we need to know to get out of our own silo? And maybe it's paying attention to a transportation committee once in a while or understanding housing better, you know, and letting legislators know that this is a team. We're going to do this as a team and what's our role in this beyond our school silo. So, >> well, I think that goes to a local level is meeting with uh local officials, meeting with Cornelius and and and Forest Grove. Um, I hate to say
131back when, but back when when I was mayor, we had meetings, joint meetings between the two cities in the school district. Um, they didn't happen as often as I wanted them to. Um, and sometimes they were a bit staged, but I was still being able to see recognize the people on the street after those meetings and know who who were the change makers, who were the decision makers uh, in the other the other two bodies. So, I would I would and I will probably push for that kind of communication so that we can all have a public meeting at the same time and hear our concerns and our agreements and our differences because we are finding that we're all grabbing at the same path, the same pot of gold and it's not getting any bigger.
132>> Okay. >> You know, one of the things I see um is that you know with education particularly it's it's a very archaic system and every session it's the same thing. you know and so I wonder is how how do we I would ask someone you know candidates how do you evaluate your effectiveness you know it's just not attending you know town meetings and say okay I've had 70 town meetings I mean it is more of okay I'm listening but then you have to put into practice that you've listened and and you're going to do something effectively. And so how and the second thing to that is and you and I have talked about this Christie is that I think the potential of Washington County and the chairs getting together and then putting information out
133to the other board members and then just keep spreading it is that we could really become a force in helping them help us and and that's really for me the big goal. is to help them. And because I don't think there's I don't think there's um I think people really want to do what's best and what's right, but they're doing the same thing over and over again and it's not effective. And um I really love the idea of we putting together the chairs and talking and and challenging these legislators. You know, town meetings are fine and showing up for ribbon cutting, that's fine. connections, those are fine, but we need to seek action, you know, and and how are you evaluating your effectiveness um in in your decisions on these bills? >> I don't know
134how you do it. >> No. And I think these are probably all the same questions we ask ourselves as a board or are starting to, right? How do we even did any of our advocacy work >> pay off? How do we even know? And and I think the but I think these are the questions to be asking. So I'm going to Briea, is there anything to add from you? >> No. >> Is it from the sky? No. Okay. I think what I think in the interest of time and this has been a really good start that we again we kind of take this Alma and I in leadership with Dr. West and kind of think on it and see if we can synthesize some of it into something that's a little more user friendly, bring
135it back to the board to see what we think is just maybe a template that we begin to use to have discussions and maybe help members of our community know what to look for when they're looking at people's platforms and what questions they could ask and see where we go from there. So, all right. Okay. Thanks everybody. With that I am going to adjourn the meeting