ESASD Regular Board Meeting (June 16)

001of course I'm freezing cold from last month. There's Jason. No, we were waiting for you. Students here I look much older on this side. Can you go to that side? I know. I think someone's sabot. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Roll call. Mr. George Andrews present. Rebecca Bear present. Anatillo here. Mike Trillo here. Jason Gold present. Keith Park present. Debbie Kick present. Wayne Roner here. Rich name is present and I'm present. Thank you. We welcome all of our guests here tonight and just be sure you please have signed in on the paper that's outside in the hallway. An executive

002session was held on May 29th, 2025 for the purpose of discussing personnel and litigation litigation. And an executive session was held this evening before the meeting for the purpose of discussing personnel litigation and negotiations. We need a motion to adopt the agenda for June 16th, 2025 as submitted with the board of education reserving the right to add to the agenda and take further action on any items raised in executive session where immediate action on such items is considered to be in the best interest of the district. I'll move second. Questions? All in favor? I opposed. Motion to approve the minutes of the meeting of May 19th, 2025. So moved. Second. questions. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. All right. Our student board reps are off to college. Don't have them tonight. Very sad. So, now

003we go to our superintendent report. Um, so I typically have a report, but I have decided to yield my time to Mr. Mirbelli um so that we can have a conversation about the budget and the board can spend time discussing that and delivering that before we get to the vote. So, Mr. Premier Belly, thank you for your service to our district and we look forward to your presentation. Thank you very much for having me. U it's good to be back. I I was just here a week ago presenting to the finance committee. We had a very robust discussion uh regarding the status of the budget and um I look forward to sort of walking through this again. Just let me share my screen so everyone can see it. We Okay. Hey, I think we're up

004and running here. Um, we are not. Oh no, we are not up in See, there's a beautiful forest, but it's not raining in that forest. So, yeah, let's go there. Let's do this. My apologies for that. Uh, good evening everyone. My name is Jim Marabelli. I'm from School Business Consultants. uh we've been engaged to come on in and take a have a second set of your of eyes on your budget and finances uh and render an independent opinion on how we think things are going and provide you some recommendations and insight on where we believe you stand financially. Uh but first I just want to talk about a little bit of our process. Doesn't appear it's letting me advance the slide. Okay. Um I want to talk about um our discussion tonight. So our process

005I'm going to walk you through the things that we looked at and t uh and observed uh a little financial overview from maybe 10,000 ft. Uh salaries and benefits. We want to talk about uh PTE 363 charter school uh tuition calculation which was a a fairly major finding we had. uh we want to talk about the current year 2425 forecast, next year's budget and then some recommendations. So I will move through this uh pretty briskly. Please stop me if you have questions along the way. So our discovery process, we came in, we immediately had discussions with district administration and the business office team. We also spoke with some consultants such as those in your health insurance trust and your financial advisors. We reviewed a ton of documentation including collective bing agreements, bond documents, audit reports,

006AFRs, budget, etc. Uh we reviewed also current and historical accounting data which we'll present some of that to you this evening. Um and we also did a detailed review of revenues and expenditures. So let's take a look at a financial and economic overview. First I want I want to show you uh what we call the revenue performance budget. And this is available to you in uh a software called forecast 5. And you have this and we think of forecast 5 sometimes as just a forecasting model to look forward. But there's also a very powerful data data analytics tool. The nice thing about the source of this data is it comes right from the Department of Education, your AFR data, right? So we're looking at audited data, historical audited data here. So not my information, it

007is coming directly from the state. So what we see here is revenue budgeted versus actual. And the takeaway here is you look year-over-year, you can see largely over time, you come in a little bit higher um in revenue than you budgeted. Now, it's usually good news when you come in over budget in revenue because that means that helps your fund balance or to offset some expenses which may have come up during the year that you didn't plan for. However, there are certain times when it it is perhaps a bit of excessive. Um you can see maybe that 8.7% jumps off the page a little bit. That's largely due to COVID funds. Um but 3.63 back in 2019 that's a little more revenue than you would have expected to come in and we can analyze where

008those were. But when um a board is trying to examine where they stand and perhaps they may have doubts on some of the numbers um we look at analyses like these to say how accurate are we budgeting year-over-year? and we can spot trends and and variances. Now, let's look at the expense side of the equation. Now, this has a little bit more distinct trend where we over time tend to budget expenditures higher and then come in fairly significantly under budget. Right? So, 2023 is a great example. Uh coming in 5.04% under budget, which again, good to be under budget. Um I'm not sure when you're making, you know, plans for the future and financial decisions that you want to be that far off every year, right? Um so this there's some example here of um

009I'll use this term carefully, but the the there might be some padding in the budget somewhere um in in some areas. So we sort of targeted our approach to say is there any padding in the current year budget and the 2526 budget and uh also are we a little light in some areas too. So this this analysis sort of ex informed where we were going to look okay if I can just interject. So this slide reinforces what you've said is that we have come to you as a district saying hey these are what our expenditures are going to be. we're going to have a deficit but it was never realized because the expenditures for were less. So this is just like a pctoral graphic to show what you're saying and the history is true. We

010do see that that there was a prediction of a deficit but it was never realized and I guess a relevant point here is there is something that changed uh after this fiscal year being 23 2425 and that is your accounting and budgeting software and your HR suite and a fairly major one and a positive one because as we examined your budgeting practices namely salary and benefits which makes up almost 80% of your budget. We see that your team is putting in the the position the employee their exact salary as called for in the contract and all of these items are coming across from the salary and benefit module which is HR into your budget directly. So there really is not a lot of room for fluff in the major parts of your budget. The same

011thing is happening in the benefit side. Okay. So we gained after seeing this and seeing your processes, we gained a lot of confidence in your 2425 budget and 2526 budget with respect to 80% of it salaries and benefits. So once we established that we were in good shape there, that there weren't extra positions, extra fluff, things of that nature in your 200 object being salary and benefits, we took our search elsewhere to see what else we can find and gain assurance with. So that's good news. We did gain assurance in the biggest part of your budget. Um, but I do want to show another trend before we get into that. What we're looking at here on this uh predominantly pink and orange graph is assessed value by property type. And this shows about a 10-year

012trend in Monroe and Pike counties. And you can see that largely in Pike County, uh values have not appreciated over time. They're they're flat over the last decade. Um, and then on the other side in Monroe County, and most of you are probably aware, uh, we had a reassessment in 2020, and you can see the the pink piece here or light purple. Those are real estate, um, I'm sorry, um, private like uh, residential homes. Okay. And those we have been building. We have seen some increase in value there but that has been significantly offset by commercial properties appealing their taxes and getting reduced drastically. So we have seen your real estate tax base erode over the last few years and it actually is is trending in the wrong direction. Okay. Um and also as we

013probably are aware we haven't had a tax increase to offset any of that over that amount of time. millage rates. Um through some rebalancing of counties, there's a few ups and downs, but largely the rate has been uh unchanged. Uh the the small fluctuations are either due to the reassessment or due to just uh rebalancing between the two counties. revenue trend. You can see largely the revenue um upward trend a slight upward trend over time is driven by um largely state dollars coming in. We haven't seen really if you look at the state revenue in I'm sorry the local revenue in the blue section it was $und00 million in 2015 and we are budgeting $und00 million in 2026. So completely flat local revenue and you can also see in the green section we have expiring

014stimulus funds from CO era. Um in the state we do see an increase there um thanks to the $5 million uh ready to learn block grant that was given to us this year but we can't use it until next year which was a unique twist on the tax equity supplement. Um so largely um the only material increase you'll see in revenue next year is that roughly $5 million and that just so happens to offset the 5 million in ESSER funds which are coming off. Right? So overall we are seeing a year-over-year decrease in revenue that we are budgeting and we did make some revisions to your revenue and we'll tell you about that in just a minute. Um, this is a good way to kind of trend how you spend against other schools in the

015Commonwealth. This is spending per pupil and we eliminate debt service and property acquisition and things of that nature. So, we can take a look at your operation against districts of any size across the Commonwealth, larger than us, smaller than us. Um and you can see that uh the blue line is East Straburg and uh the spend there is 25,671 compared to CIU 20 who spends about $2,500 less per student or 10% less uh 23,153 and the state average is even less at $22,900. So, that's just a a quick and dirty way to say how are we spending relative to other districts? Do those districts have the same student myths that we have? Uh, I can confidently say no, they do not. But if if you're looking, you can pick peer groups in the software in

016the forecast 5. Those are often challenging to define which which goes in the peer groups. But across the Commonwealth, that is that is how you would compare. That's why I say it's a quick and dirty way to That's why I just asked the question if the student mix is similar or is our mix different. Um, so you would have, you know, more poor school districts, more wealthy school districts, you would have, you know, all kinds of mixes, different learner, different learners, different learners. The IU 20 numbers, the 14 districts and we so our neighboring school districts. The state averages all 500 school districts in the state. Yes. It's it's a decent litmus test though just to see where you're performing across the Commonwealth. You shouldn't make too many inferences from this simple chart, but it

017is just a benchmark. I I have a question. Why Why did you pick Colonial IU instead of say Pocono Mountain School District or a large school district like us versus those are all of them all together? Every all the 14 schools within the IU, right? So, so he he chose in our region the IU. Yeah. Why? Why schools in the valley? It's all 14 school districts. The average of the 14. Yeah. Correct. Yes. Not CIU 20. Oh, okay. It's not Okay. It's not No, no, no. That it's a great question. So, it's the 14 districts that comprise of IU. It took all 14 districts. Okay. And Okay. I thought it was just the IU question. Yeah. Absolutely. I I explained that poorly. I appreciate the question. Thank you. Thank you. I should have clarified that.

018Thank you. Um so now I want to take a look at salaries and benefits and um you relevant to the discussion of salaries and benefits is staffing and enrollment. Right? So this chart is another great benchmark as how are you staffing your district as compared to what enrollment trends are happening. And you can see the blue line is your staffing which is up over this 5-year period by 7.3% while enrollment is down 4.8%. So they're trending in different directions which means class sizes are probably getting lower perhaps there are more uh special ed you know classes things like that. Um, but generally you like to see staffing and enrollment trend in the same direction, not diverging like this. So just an observation on district-wide staffing versus enrollment there. And if I can interject, in this

019current year's budget that we are proposing tonight, we will be down nine professional staff and three admin. So we will be down 12 positions compared to this chart. So th this chart will look a little bit different next year in that we are collapsing 12 positions. Is this also hiring as opposed to um like just having these steady amount because we've had so many retirements. You know what I mean? So we've been we've been doing extra this is the number starting from 2019 as your benchmark year and it's just straight number of professional staff and then number of students. Did I explain that right Mr. Mayor? Um yeah, so this this is all positions. So this would encompass, you know, okay, district districtwide in categories, but the professional staff does trend in a very similar

020fashion when we looked at and the beauty of forecast 5 is we can we can strip that out and and make this this graph for professional staff only in like 30 seconds. Hey guys, one more that mistake. I can Okay, sorry. I have a question. This this forecast five you're taking five years. Five years is is pretty much takes us into a bulk of the pandemic when our whole district was not even in a normal situation. Why why do we go back five years in this cluster instead of five years when we were in our heyday or everything else to see a comparison as far as spending and staffing and student? I mean this this drop in enrollment I is a lot because of pandemic a lot of people moved and this happened I've been

021on the I've been on and off the board for 20 years and and it's a fluctuation we saw we saw a spike in 911 then it dropped off we saw saw a spike in in uh you know every time we see a spike it's so all this is trying to do is paint a picture and give you information there's no there's no judgment in any of this right So staffing and enrollment is usually something you look at if you go back 10 years it it becomes almost irrelevant because the trend data and as you said right so as somebody who's lived here my whole life it differs right 911 there was a spike COVID there was a spike it it does not remain consistent our enrollment and it is very very difficult to trend this

022is just the last five years it just happens that there was a global pandemic just just just happens. Point well taken. You know, certainly we can Yeah, I'm not sure how far the software goes back, but certainly that data can be available, but I do think it paints a pretty poignant picture. Uh there's another question I had too. During the pandemic, we um hired several staff members, if I'm not mistaken, for learning loss to recover learning loss and we created several positions because of that. And they were paid for at that time with ESSER funds. I do not know if salaries were paid through I think we tried to avoid too. I I believe that programs, resources were purchased through ESER funds that we did not do personnel. Well, no, but we did hire a

023bunch of paras and all that during that time for learning. So, so absolutely and you've seen that increase and and what I would probably say is that instead of purchasing purchasing curricular programs out of your general fund, you moved that to ESSER. Correct. and and purchased personnel with those funds. Okay. And our review of your Esser budgets and financial reports over time does say yes, they were one-time expenses largely uh which is which is great because you aren't left with as big of a cliff uh as you may otherwise have. Uh also with these trends that I we do see I mean almost every school we work with did bring on more staff with you know during during co so not unusual to see an upward trend. Uh the the the enrollment versus staffing trend

024is perhaps a little more pronounced than than we see in other places but you know just information. Uh now here's the salary and benefit trend uh that we have from your AFR data and the last two columns are budget data. You can see a pretty smooth uptake um uptick over time until we hit the uh 24 to 25 year transition. And we can see that salaries went up $11 million and benefits went up around $8 million over that period. So nearly $20 million in salary and benefits. Uh if you net out the piecers and FICA, you're somewhere around 15 to 16 million increase in expenses yearover-year. Now remember I showed you the revenue graph where that didn't improve at all, right? Your revenue isn't going anywhere. Uh and when we add on, you know, $15

025million in expenditures, net expenditures, um we we need to find a balance and a way to balance that. So, just kind of a preview of coming attractions what we have here. So, this was a a pretty significant investment um in your staff and it it did lead to a pretty significant increase in expenditures overall and we didn't bring in revenue to fund that. Okay. And this is not a judgment call. Yes. And actually if we want to talk about we did look at we did compare salary schedules to others and in the current year and they look very competitive at this point in time. So so we're not saying you did anything wrong with the recent teachers contract. We're just saying there was an increase. Just giving you information. No judgment behind it. Remember assume

026positive intent. Why'd you look at me? I didn't. I'm sorry. I should have I that's really like we're I'm just delivering financial information again from an outside perspective. Um you know have be looking at this from many different angles and at many different districts. So we do have this this large increase in expenses without a commensurate increase of revenue to follow. Okay. Couple quick stats. Uh this is relevant to the teachers. We went from 46 million to 54 million. So that whole increase that I just provided on the last slide was total staff professional staff is listed here. Um and also in addition to that uh $8 million increase or in in that $8 million increase was additional 15 FTEES or 15 more professional staff that were put on year-over-year going into 25. So that

027made the increase more pronounced year-over-year. Um, we took a look at um what that what the raises kind of look like throughout. And uh what we did was we took your salary schedule from the last contract and kind of moved it all the way through. This is one example of what next year's 25 to 26 salary schedule looks like. Um we we like to look at what effective raises are in your salary schedule. We s we calculated them here. Um, and a lot of people their eyes jump to the big numbers on the page, but if you look at step 12, uh, you can see that the people who are on step 12, um, the effective raise is not nearly as great as some of the raises that you see throughout the schedule. Um, that

028being said, we did look at the increase year-over-year. Um, and we can bring that back to you from 24 to 25, which was sort of that um, landmark uh, investment. and we can we can provide you this whole analysis. We'll send you the whole schedule so that everybody can see what percentage um is is built in there and you can know what to expect in future years, what you're going to be budgeting. That is one good thing is with a with a contract that is out a few years, you can plan really down to the dollar with your current staff what the next year will look like. you can start budgeting for next year right now which is which is a great thing. Um, another thing we came across in our discussions uh with your

029team here and with the health insurance trust is that we've been underfunding um a combination of underfunding the health insurance trust and having sort of a catastrophic year. And the catastrophic year in health insurance, you are not alone in this one. Almost every district we talked to is having a bad year largely due to specialty drugs. We didn't get into the weeds with your consultants yet on what's driving the spend, but everywhere we talk, the general trend in healthcare is specialty drugs are driving up uh costs here. Um but the the most concerning thing when we had that conversation um with with your um health insurance trust was there are you need to have four months of reserve cash to participate in the fund and be in compliance with the guidelines. We have fallen below

030that threshold. We're at 3.6 months. So that means we need to catch up. One of the reasons we've fallen behind is we did not pay for the retirees who are in the trust on the benefits uh throughout the full year and they made us aware of that and we did make that payment and yes it was budgeted for we just didn't make the payment throughout the year. So your team made that payment. Uh we are caught up on it now. Um it just we're we're still trending at a rate significantly higher than what we're putting in which has led to a very rapid draw down of your balance to where the point you only have 3.4 months left. Um so that's another concern that came. Now some years you're able in bad years to have

031a like a health insurance holiday we would call it, right? You can back off. Even though you're having a bad year, you kind of back off. Well, you've you've kind of had two bad ones in a row and that has depleted your balance. So, there are no more holidays remaining. So, the number that they gave us for next year, uh, which actually was not as bad of an increase as we had expected is the number you'll have to pay. Like, there's no wiggle room here. There's no there's no, you know, rabbits to pull out of hats with regard to healthcare. We'll have to pay that charter school tuition. So whenever we come into a district, we we do like to check some uh errorprone areas. And one one area is the PTE 363, the form

032that you fill out to pay your charter school tuition. Um for those who don't know, you the the amount you pay to charter schools is based on your own spend, specifically your own prior year budgeted spend. Well, when we came here, we noticed that there was a really extraordinary hike in cost to your charter school. And yes, enrollment was up, but it didn't make sense. So, we looked at the form and we found that we were using 2425 data instead of 2324. And what did we just learn about 2425? Expenses are significantly higher. So, that means what we were paying to the charter schools was 1.5 million too much. Okay. So, what we did was we corrected the form as soon as we found it and we sent it out to PTE and the charter

033schools to look to recover those funds and I don't have any reason to believe that we won't be able to recover them. So, that's 1.5 million in the current year that uh will come back to us. Right? So, what we budgeted in the current year though was $8.75 million. We project that even after the 1.5 million comes back, we'll still spend 9.4. All right. So, we're about 700,000 overbudget even after we bring those funds back in that area. Okay. So, we're talking about budget variances. This is one you don't want to see, right? We underbudgeted. Okay. Then we went to look at next year's budget and what did we have there? Well, there was 9.6 6 million in your preliminary general fund budget. Then we took your current year enrollment and we used next year's

034rates which were already calculated and we very simple uh multiplication we came up with 11 million50,000 is your spend for next year absent some intervention of bringing kids back or uh possibly relief from the legislature on charter school tuition. So without any intervention, we believe this is what your your number will be. The bad news there is it was an upward revision of more than $1.5 million to your budget for next year. Okay, here's the trend over time of what the charter school costs look like. Very, very similar trend to many districts. You know, we see the spike during COVID. we see kids kind of starting to come back and then, you know, they're and then they're back um heading back to the charter schools again. So, seems like it's here to stay. I think

035our our best approach is to to hope and advocate for uh charter school uh tuition relief and uh but you know you can kind of see that trend over time and and we really do believe that will be your spend next year given uh enrollment that is flat you know absent bringing kids back we we do believe that'll be the number all right 2425 projections again so here's what it looks like overall I understand you've you've had a few projections um out of forecast 5 varying you know to be honest with you we didn't even look into those projections we took an independent look we didn't use the same software that was being used uh forecast 5 I believe it was so we took an independent view um we used our own model we extracted

036your data out of your accounting software so we're dealing with actual data um and we made our own sort of infor form decisions based on all the discussions that we had with your team and administration here to come up with okay we are 11 months into this budget. What does the last month look like and what do the acrruals into the summer look like? Now let me put my accounting hat on here and tell you why that became more complicated. Apparently at East Straburg, I guess the the procedure has been not to reverse entries from the prior year audit until the next year is over. What does that mean? So when we close the books and schools, we leave them open for at least 60 days. So we have to collect delinquent taxes. We collect

037EIT. There are subsidies that come in from the federal and state governments. We leave the books open. we identify them and then we make entries in the prior year to put that revenue back where it belongs. Problem here is we're leaving the revenue in the current year too also. Right? So let's say we have a million dollars in earned income tax that comes in after the fact. We'll have a million dollars in 2526 and a million dollar in 232 I'm sorry 2425. It's recorded twice, not reversed. So when you receive your board report every month, and if you look at say your August board report, the first report you got for the year that I saw, the revenue that's there, there's a lot of revenue from the prior year that's still there. So you may

038have looked at this report and thought, well, we're doing all right. Okay. All right. And I will say that's also not super uncommon to see in other districts, but from an accounting perspective, it can be quite misleading, particularly if you have, say, $5 million in stimulus funds sitting there that you think is yours in the current year, which actually belongs to the prior year, and you can't count on that anymore. Okay. So we did have to back out those revenues to come to our opinion on what we think the deficit will be. And a lot of times it you know you can be conservative, you can be aggressive in your forecast and your estimates. We just tried to be accurate. We tried to not be colored by any lines that says we we'd like to

039see the deficit this way or that way. like you can you can skew estimates can always be skewed and we tried to just kind of call it down the middle as we saw it independently and we believe that in the current year you'll come in somewhere around a $12 million deficit. Now I can guarantee you it won't be exactly the number that I have up there because if you put in a large purchase order for technology or a large repair comes up that number will get larger. If we cut off uh you know purchase orders and we don't spend any more in the current year, it could get smaller. Maybe you get a one-time revenue. It's not going to be wrong by millions and millions and millions of dollars, though. So, we think that that's

040right about where you can expect to to end this year. So, um I know you've seen a lot of numbers. I'm just saying this is an independent approach we took and this is our opinion of where we think you'll end up in the current year. So all that I guess extra that we thought we'd have in years previous, did we really not have it or did they actually move it back when they were supposed to? So we looked at the past couple of years. So I I can't I've I've been told it it has been the district practice to not reverse those entries until the next year came around. So my question was so when we were had surplus last year, did we actually have surplus or did we not? Well, we did have surplus,000

04123 24 was basically a break even year. $40,000 loss even pretty much. Or was it? No. So the the audited financial statements say that you lost $40,000 in 2324. This is absent budgeting and accounting technique. Like that was accounted for in the audit. I could tell you that you wouldn't be auditable if you didn't do that. Okay. What I'm saying is your reporting during the year. I mean, I heard the concerns and I'm I'm trying to explain why you may have thought something and I'm here telling you something else. Okay? And what I'm saying is the monthly reports you've received dating back to I verified in August had um revenue that was not reversed. And that would happen everywhere. we just recommend don't publish the report until you reverse the entries which means a lot

042of times our schools we don't give them the report until November right so because it's not useful information if there's say $10 million in revenue there that isn't really belonging to that year so we're just saying hold on don't publish the report it's I mean reporting is good but incorrect reporting I would contend is perhaps not so are you saying We shouldn't be getting monthly variance reports. I mean, that's really what you're saying, right? Because that was captured in in that month of August. We didn't reverse it for the previous year. We think we're carrying it forward, right? Yes. That's what I'm saying. I I would say the rest of your report, the treasur's report, the banking information, the bill list, all of that should be should continue. I'm just saying unless you have some

043mechanism to track those entries in August when your books are still open, July and August is within that 60-day period. I I don't believe we should continue to report revenue that is very likely to not be correct. Right. Would it be a best practice if it was shared to document in that report money from previous school year of $10 million pending going in to close out the books and like put like a little asterct. I guess it's just a reversing entry. Yeah. So here here's the deal though. Like just take earned income tax as an example. Burkheimr will send you or whomever is your collector um will send you the report for July in August. On that report it will show which revenue belongs back in the prior year and which revenue stays in the

044current year. The same will happen for August. So you will not know until second week of September what goes back. So it's not even feasible to reverse those yet. So it would have to be some really creative accounting and uh complex accounting to to come up with this number. So my my suggestion is either there's a disclaimer of some kind on the report uh maybe just call it cash basis report something like that. Um but but if if you represent it as a budget to actual and and you know say there's again that stimulus money is probably the best example I can find. it it probably shouldn't appear there without a disclosure in my opinion. So you're recommending November at the earliest typically that's when it Right. So um some some wait until the audit

045is published which is sometimes closer to December. I you know you don't really like to go six months into the year with without knowing where you're at. Uh so you know something we can talk about and and try to help refine. um just just want good accurate information provided to bo the board that appear that that's my understanding from the feedback I received again I I looked at I I I guess we could receive those reports but not approve them so they won't be board approved subject to audit until like the November board meeting or something like that still give us an understanding of where we are spendwise may not be on the revenue side but at least we know where where the budget has come. Yes, it it's largely on the revenue side. So

046the expense I the payables function in this software reverses them right away. As soon as they're paid, they go back to the prior year. So that's not a concern. Okay. So, you know, we're happy to walk through and and make recommendations on that. It's just something that the board has received and we just and again, this does happen in other places. We just um when we hear folks are concerned about where they are, this this is a place we look. Um so in 2425, here's the sort of reconciling items, so to speak. Uh we received $5.1 million in revenue for ESSER, right? So stimulus funds. The good news is 4.8 of that was one point uh was onetime expenditures, right? So, we planned accordingly. Uh, this would have been even tougher news if we if

047that was all ongoing use of the funds, right? Because we'd have another 5 million tacked on. Um, we did have rental syncing fund payments of $5.2 million. I understand the forms related to your bonds to get reimbursement for your payment weren't filed for a few years and the business manager came in and he had filed those forms and um brought that $5.2 million in. Now, we cannot expect to see that next year or going forward because that's catch-up money. I think it was around 1 one.2 annually is what you get on on that um on those rental syncing fund payments. Uh and then the general obligation note, um we had 5.9 million come in and 5.7 went out. I believe that was on the buses. Uh we did buses there. So, um that was one

048time as well. So, that's on both sides of the income statement, right? So, but all of those are going away. The one that is the reconciling item in your mind for next year is that 5.2 million rental syncing fund, which it's just not going to recur part of your revenue decrease. And that's part of the 9 million revenue, right? That's counted in the revenue side. Yes, it's part of this number here. All three of those revenues are in that number and the two expenses are in that number as well. Okay. So, now on to the 2526 budget. Any other questions on the current year? Okay. So, on to the 2526 budget. Uh we dug into revenues and we did recommend a few adjustments. Real estate transfer tax. Uh we looked at a three to five

049year trend on all of these. what sometimes when when you're looking at COVID data, you you can't really use all of those years. So, you're looking a little bit more at the last two. So, real estate transfer tax we see as trending positively. So, we we moved that estimate up by 354,000. Um interest, even though rates are going down, we saw the estimate for 2.5 million uh next year as a little low. So, we brought that up by $250,000. admissions, we we saw, you know, a consistent trend slightly above where you were. So, $7,500 there. Transportation, we took a look at the what you're getting reimbured this year to try to estimate what you'll get next year. So, we had a good baseline to raise that up by $265,000. the section 1305306. We looked into

050this and that's for I believe it's is it it's like incarcerated or migrant um it's for foster courtappointed um so students who are courtappointed to our district for various reasons. Okay. So what we looked at here is there was $760,000 budgeted for next year also in the current year. Um but in the current year you can see we looked we know what PTE is going to pay you. So where we budgeted 760,000 we we looked at the payment which is coming from PTE and it was just under $10,000. Right. So that informed us that our estimate has been too high for the last couple of years. So we revised that down by $750,000. Have we ever got $760,000? Yes. um about four years ago. About four years ago, if I'm remembering correctly, one time isolated.

051That would be a lot. That's what I'm saying. That's a lot of That's a big amount. We used to 15 years ago have and I forget the name of the program. Johnny Academy. Beacon School. Beacon School. Yes. Academy. I wonder if that's just a absent- minded budget variable over from when we had that school that had however many was that that wasn't the factory it was no I know where it was but we that wasn't we weren't paying for that school we were paying tuition to that no so we had under 1305 we had educational responsibility for those students so that's where that comes from but we would get the reimbursement I Okay, I mean that would make sense why it was so high and then dropped to basically nothing wrong. So we're talking about

052an alternative education school that was within our catchment area youth which closed years ago. School down here too. The school, huh? Pat. Yeah. Right. which post as well. Correct. Okay. So, you know what? Whatever the explanation is, we did have kind of a lag in adjusting our budget expectations on that line item down. So, looking at the actuals in recent years, it was obvious to us we had to bring that number down, which did increase your deficit. Uh the final one though is delinquent property taxes and this was pinged at $10 million for the last couple of years and the $10 million we see where the estimate came from. It was from again COVID when people moved to the area and purchased the homes which had delinquent taxes on them and cleared the debts. That

053money came to you, right? And there was a two-year spike of that happening. But then we saw it immediately drop back off, right? And now it's it's trending at about $7 million. So, when you saw the preliminary budget last month, uh there was a $10 million figure in there, and we're recommending that we reduce that, and we have reduced it in their final budget by $3 million. So, we don't see another way to kind of look at that number. It's it's just the trend. We have to have to adjust to the trend. Okay. So, uh we last meeting we recommended these changes. I'll just review what they were really on the expense side. Health insurance costs um we had to increase them by 577,000. Um that was just based on our conversations with your your

054um with the trust and what they recommended we pay. And then the cyber charter costs we you know we we just disclosed that we recommended the $ 1.45 million increase on the expense side. So overall, I mean, if you can read what I've been talking about, the budget adjustments that we made went in a in a different direction, right? So it made your your deficit a little larger. So your deficit now stands, we at next for next year, $28.3 million. that's with uh no tax increases and you know no other you know revenue supplements and also doesn't have any other cuts or anything in it. That's just you know kind of moving the the numbers in areas where we saw estimates that needed refining in our opinion and you know we took an independent view

055at them and that is the sum of the preliminary budget versus the adjustments that we made to it. You have any questions there? though between two years this year and next year we're talking about $40 million. Yes. If you add the 12 to the 28, it's roughly $40 million. Uh so couple recommendations. We already talked about the reversal of the priority receivables and payables. We'll keep the conversation going as to how we can really improve that reporting and still try to get you information uh timely in those first three months of the year. Um we want to utilize tools available in forecast 5 and data analytics. And what I mean by that is taking it looking at those trends. It's very easy to look at trends and spot them quickly when you're using 10 years

056of historical data particularly five. Um so use that because it it gives you a better big picture look but also keeps you up todate and you can really um also in the CSIU accounting system if we use budgeting prep which we are using and your team's doing an awesome job with that uh it's very easy to look at the prior two years and make quick adjustments and it takes almost no time to get your budget more accurate. So, I actually learned some stuff from your team because they're doing a great job with the software that they've only had for two years now. So, kudos to them on that. Um, we want to continue to integrate and refine the CSIU saling benefit module. It's already very powerful. It's already very accurate, but there's always something you

057can improve and refine there. And what I'm what I'm talking about there is like let's start on 26 27 right away and let's start that process because we have the ability to do so. Um you know we recommend critically evaluating staffing needs districtwide. Um you know Dr. Vitali was already discussing staffing changes that were made in the current year budget. Uh, one thing that came up and we'd have to verify this with the Department of Food and Nutrition was that you're paying for cafeteria monitors who are exclusive to the cafeteria. Cost there is about 600ish,000 give or take uh to the general fund. Okay. you happen to have an operating surplus in the cafeteria fund and you could conceivably charge those expenses to the cafeteria fund where I believe they rightly belong and then you

058can then draw that balance down because I think you're in an excess funds position more than three months of operating expenses and then you can sort of solve a problem by bringing that balance down. Uh it's otherwise hard to spend those funds unless you have a lot of cafeteria upgrades to make. But that's one thing we're recommending and helping you look into and that can shift a cost burden off of the general fund, you know, at least a half million dollars or so. Um and then and then we're recommending considering all options on the real estate tax revenue. Uh we did have the loss revenue from a major tax appeal. Uh I keep forgetting the name of that uh time share Exploria Exploria. Um so that was a very significant hit. Um and then we

059do have you know the increased costs we talked about and the loss of ESR funding. So what could those regular state changes look like? I was asked to quantify that in the finance committee meeting last week. Um, so first I want to just take a look at the state gaming funds allocated to East Straburg. So we had an increase year-over-year from the state of almost a million dollars, $991,000. What does that mean per homestead or farmstead? That's another $97 that absent anything, your uh homeowners or farm owners will pay $97 less annually regardless of what their millages, every house, if they own it and they've applied for $97 or is it based on the value of the home? So, you only have a few homes that are under the threshold of I I think it

060was like maybe 30 homes that were under that six that that threshold. Um, so the answer to your question is yes, it's a fixed $97 except those few homes. Okay. Okay. So, now here's the rate impact analysis on both sides of the equation. So, since we were just talking about the homeowner impact, let's start on the right side. A millage incre rate increase of 0% would lead to $97 less in taxes to, you know, your homeowners. Um 2% would lead to in Monroe County $11.87 less than they're paying right now or in Pike County $27.52 than they're paying right now. A 4% increase would yield a $73 increase in Monroe and $42.33 in Pike. And if you chose to go all the way up to the max 5.6% index, that would be a $140.71 increase

061in Monroe and $9810 in Pike. And what is the impact to the district in revenue? You can see on the left, 0% clearly brings in zero dollars. 2% brings in 1.85 million, 4% 8.71 million, and 5.6% would bring you just under $5.2 million. And your median value the the median comes directly from I apologize I didn't put it on the screen. I think it was like I I'm not going to speak to that. It's it it came off of your county tax report that gave us the median values. I apologize. I I didn't memorize both of those to keep to keep with. And and I'm assuming the median value is assessed, not property value. That's correct. But we don't we're not sure what the median assessed value is. I I can email right after, but

062I I I don't have it with me. It's uh it I can tell you the the Monroe u the larger of the two is on the the RER page of your budget report. It does show there. The the smaller of the two I don't just don't have with me. It's the real estate tax collection report. It does show the media assessed value, but I I can I can uh get that information shortly. Just I just clarification revenues uh projected 2425 revenues you're saying are those revenues are 1995. You're saying our projected revenue in is 185693, which is approximately $14 million difference. But yet, if you look at your trend of 10year revenue, it's pretty much a flatline straight across. Why are we why are we projecting a $14 million change in negative to our projected

063uh revenue when our 10year average that you're saying is our 10ear average is not I mean it is so if I may so this slide here shows you $12 million I'm sorry $11 million coming off the books right esser funding $5.1 million will not have that Next year, general obligation, note 5.9, I'm sorry, 5.9 million. You will not have that next year. Rental syncing fund payment 5.2 million. You will not have 4 million of that roughly next year. That's those are all one-time revenues which will be coming off the books next year which lead to the decrease. That's the Okay. But then what about the projected uh increase in our step increase in our equalization funding that we're projected to get? That's included. It's included. Yes. Not not the stacked. Not the $5 million is

064in your budget, but it'll be stacked the following year. Okay. And and and and the f and the state budget is not in there either. We're not guaranteed a state budget either. Well, the governor's budget is not they they give us a preliminary of what they believe, right? So, so school districts get that and that's what we budget based on. Yes. So, what I would say is what is proposed at the state level is the the largest increase that you stand to receive would be if they stacked another $5 million on your ready tolearn block grant. If they do do that, under the current rules that you have this year, you'll have to defer that $5 million to 2627. So you will only get in this coming year 25 26 the 5 million that you

065received for the current year because they push it out one year. Now if they believe that restriction, I'm not sure that that's what's proposed. Yes, you you would receive an extra five million. I don't think I'm not hearing anybody expecting them relieving that restriction that for the tax equity supplement. So, we planned for the $5 million in tax sub supplement coming in and we hope that in 2627 you'll get an additional five. Certainly, we can use the five additional next year, but it that's not what's currently in this budget. And then just one more clarification on the last page, the the uh revenues and all that other stuff. Again, you're saying 0% the average homeowner in Monro County is going to see negative 97. They're going to get 97%. That's basically they're they're keeping their

066homestead act. They're not getting any money. They're keeping what's given to them through the homestead act. Correct. So I'm saying relative to what? Absent an an increased credit, right? So with the credit. So you're comparing absent the credit and with the credit. So absent the credit, they would have just gotten build what they got build, which is generally what they got what they would have paid last year, but we equalized the millillage. So it's slightly different. So absent the credit, they would have paid $97 more, but with the credit, their tax bill will actually go down by $97 and they otherwise would have paid absent state intervention. So this is for the homestead act for if you don't know the homestead doesn't make any difference, correct? And then and then just to clarification, a 2%

067increase in millage rate, which is a 2% tax increase, is only going to net the school district 1.8 one one point say $9 million. That's that's it. And then a 5% increase is going to net us 5.2 million. That's it. I have another question. Excuse me. How many people are on the Homestead Act? I I I mean percentage uh it's you have to the percentage I don't have but I think there was about six or 7,000body how many how many households was there in the in the district or property because the the homestead these numbers really most of the people in the district don't if you're if you own a home and that's their primary residence and you have a homestead primary residence and you apply for the homestead. Yeah, but you don't for the

068homestead act. They don't get you about 60%, but each year the county sends out letters to the property owners who and say apply if you have not applied. So they give them the opportunity to apply. I I understand and I hope that people take advantage of it if it's money that's going to be given to them. Yeah, I and I understand that. I'm just saying that, but for the whole district, you know, these numbers really don't mean a whole much to most of the people to them. And and the other issue I want to bring up is you're only talking homeowners. You're not talking about commercial property, which we have none. And now if we raise taxes, we're going to have less commercial property because they're not going to come here. They're going to go

069to Mount Pocono. They're going to go to they're going to go to other other other parts of the county. And guess what's going to happen the following year? We're going to lose more revenue. you know, more more businesses are going to request discount rates on their millillage and and we're going to lose more revenue. You bring up a good point. The point is that the development of commercial property is what is going to help the bottom line for all taxpayers. So, as you see some commercial properties moving in, those are things that we need to kind of But not if we increase taxes. Well, I I think if I do a moderate increase, I glance I I did some glanc at commercial properties. Some commercial properties in our county are paying exit. Like I I

070was looking at say the property on um the the old rate property on Fawn Road there 447. $70,000 in property taxes. $70,000 a year in property taxes. I think it I think that was right. I think I think I But now what's going to happen is if we raise enough of 5%. There's an empty property that no one wants to buy because they can't afford it and they're not going to afford it again. I think I think 5% is a uh is an ambitious number. Last month I think I said let's just say 2% because it would help people be prepared. I've told people likely it's 2% personally. That's my personal opinion. But I think if you do something like that and it happens gradually for people, I understand and I'm a taxpayer too and

071my taxpayers, right? Everybody is. But the the bottom line is we are looking at other things within our budget to see what we can do. And there are some surprises that we don't know about, but a small increase would be a prudent thought. And and I mean Keith, you've said it before that the the system is broken. They are asking us to pass a budget before the state passes a budget. Correct. So we are guessing on what the state is going to do. If the state passes the charter school tuition reform like they are saying might. $5.5 million what I quickly estimate that it would save us. It would cut that bill in half, but I don't know if they're going to do that and we're not going to know even by June 30th, which

072is when we have to pass a budget. So, you are being asked to make a decision and pass a budget with limited information and it's it's a null win situation for you. So if you raise taxes and we get a better state budget and we don't have the deficit, you look like you have just levied more taxes on our families than you should. We look like we should reduce it after that. If you don't raise taxes and this all comes to fruition, then our fund balance will be woefully small that we will not be able to do deficit spending for 2627, which means that we're going to have to start to look at programmatic changes and significant cuts or refinance our bonds or refinance our bonds. And and if we have to do that, we

073have to do that. Yeah. But even refinancing the bonds, I don't know if that would cut the budget gap because we're paying what about 17 million on the bonds? 15 million. Yeah. Annually. Yeah. Annual interest. So even if that that it would there would still be a cost to that, right? It it doesn't wipe the 15 million away. Breaks into smaller chunks. Sure. But we're done paying those off in five years. I'd hate to take No, that's that's the problem. It's probably at a higher interest. I I don't believe that to be true. We pulled a report that we got. It's about 60. It's about 15 million a year over the next until 2030 and then after that goes down to 373,000 and then down to that's the last from our financial adviser. can sure

074share that with you. We do. I I thought I thought I heard debtree after debtree. I mean, compared to $16 million. Yeah. Got it. Understood. Understood. I just want to make sure I got these numbers right because um you going to go back to Keith and I just want to point this out. You know, last month we were given our budgetary uh you know, summaries of our options for last month. These numbers that we were presented with last month are significantly different than the numbers you're presenting this this evening. And so, you know, to give you an example, we're looking in the projected for 2526 projected uh revenue of $188 million. Um now we're looking at a projected revenue of 185. So that's three million right there that we're we're already losing in the projected

075of having back at our general fund in the end of next year. The other was the deficit which was believed to be around $23 million and this new deficit comes in cleaner at $28 million. Um and so that that's about another 5 million. So that's $8 million already where we're at. And and the part that bothers me the most is the projected for the what we got last month projected for the 2425 um I'm sorry uh yeah 2425 was 17 million. It was anticipated that it was going to be 7 million. Now we're being told it's going to be anticipated at 12 million. I believe these numbers more so than I believe these numbers here. Um, and and I've been led a skew and I I'm I'm angry and frustrated by that because now we

076have to make a decision that we had this information that we've been going with since we started the budget process that we've been making those decisions based upon the budget process and now at zero hour we're given the real numbers that we need to make this decision and I think it's it's quite frankly it's not on you. It's not I think it's just unfair for us to have made that decision. Um and so I appreciate all the work that was done to give us the give us these numbers that are more realistic to where we're we're going to be. Um and I think it makes the decision that much more difficult, right? But having numbers that make sense every year we we're going to keep we're going to we're going to have $12 million in

077in you know a bunch of us and then we end up oh it came out after reconciliation it was only $5 million but we didn't actually reverse everything so it's only you know three million and so thank you is what I'm saying I really appreciate the I'm not and just my statement to you is I'm not saying you're saying the wrong thing. No, no. Like this I'm speaking out of frustration and of of it all. Okay. I appreciate your your presentation. I'm not I was not not secondguessing your didn't take it that way for a moment. Not even for a moment did I take it that way. And now I it's not lost on me that this this is some difficult news that we're that we're talking about here tonight. Um and again, you know,

078it's information. You we want you to have the best information possible. We're giving you our professional opinion of where we think you're going to end up. You know, again, some things could break your way, some things could go the wrong way, but this based on what we have and what we've learned is is where we think you're at. And I I have to tell you that um Jim and Joe have really done a deep dive in a short amount of time. Um and they they have called me several times. One was right before South's graduation and they they were bringing some of this to me and I literally said, "I just can't take anymore. Just allow me to graduate our kids and enjoy tonight and we'll talk on Monday, please." Um because this is not

079good news. and and we knew that that you're coming with some some trust issues about what the budget has been which we have those trust issues because there have been projected budgets that have never actually been realized. So you shouldn't trust. But I I can tell you that the process that Jim and Joe have gone through with our business office, I mean our business office have been incredible of getting information and the level of detail that they have. Like I have sat down with our business office and gone line item by line item of all 1,200 employees and 2,000 positions in our district. Line by line. They know it. And and Jim, I I think you attested to that before. If I could be a little more specific about what line by line means. No.

080When when Maggie saying line by like a line in your budget could mean an account code, but if you dug into your budget, say special ed tuition, you would see student number, you would see where that is going. You would see where where the placement is and what the estimated cost for the year is. And there would might be a 100 line items in one account code. same like an elementary teacher in a building, you're going to have like 40 teachers sometimes in one line item and that's just for salary. And then you have a similar one for health insurance and your team is putting all that in there and that's where we quickly gained uh confidence in in that chunk of the budget because you just there's not fluff there. There just isn't and

081and we didn't find it and the trends don't show it. Um, so 80% of that budget plus that professional service piece that they're adjusting to trend constantly. You know, I'm getting a call from Matt. Hey, do you mind if we move this by 5,000 because we just found that like this is the level of detail your people are at. Okay. We took a look at some the the bigger estimates that we thought really didn't make sense to us after we got confidence on the detail and we found and we've we've laid them out for you here is you know in our opinion this is where the number should be. So on the 2425 one-time revenue and expenses there are four five well 10 I don't know 10.5 million let's let's say in expense this fiscal

082year that we're not going to see next fiscal year but we're actually adding $12 million in next fiscal year over right so I guess in this fiscal year we have the as funding which is going away and that bus purchase were just going away, right? That's $10.2 million or whatever million dollars are not going to be present in FY26 budget, but there's going to be $214 million in FY256 that we're spending. So that there's a 14 million $12 million increase basically over last year. Is that what you're saying to us? Yes. So, a few of the items, mostly salary benefits is is where that increase is. And you can see that the increase is actually smaller than it should be. You see, we're going from 86 to 88 million. So, there's 2 million. The the

083difference why that's not a bigger percentage is because of those less positions that we're talking about, right? Budgeted for next year. The benefits I think are up by I can't get that here, but it's about that's another couple of million there. That's only two million. Right. Right. So you're you're you're presenting with presenting us with a differential of $2 million basically. Where's the other 10? Yeah. So they the No, no, no. That's I'm just talking about expense, right? So we have health insurance going up. Now, the 500 and some thousand that you saw, well, that's just what we increased it over the increase, right? So, last year versus this year, that's $500,000. So, now I'm at uh about 2,500,000. Mhm. Now, you have a a $1.3 million debt service payment coming on for the buses,

084which we knew. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um let me just pick out charter school increase from 8.7 to 11. That's maybe, right? I mean, that's what we're projecting. Well, I mean, you're asking me to reconcile the years, right? So, there's another um three and a half million, give or take. Three and a quarter. Um so, two Well, yeah. No, if we're project our preliminary budget was 96 and that's 11. So, that's a million and a half, right? Two. Well, but we're we're talking about the 87 budgeted versus the 11.05 budget. asked me to reconcile the the two years, not the two versions. Right. The two versions I've I've reconciled here in in plain, right? So, okay. So, now we're at 7 million. Mhm. Um special ed costs, I can tell you went up pretty comfortably. I

085don't have that right in front of me. didn't call that one out, but there were already increases built into this budget that made sense to being salaries, benefits, uh, services, tuition to not just charter schools, but inflation throughout the budget. What we see Well, the budget was 199 versus the budget was 212 versus 199. That's that's 13, right? No, but that's what I'm doing is I'm looking at this year's projected at 4 212 million versus next year the next year's budgeted at 214. We're losing $10 million like 11 10.5 million due to Essers and that bus procurement, but we're adding another well million which makes $24. saying, "No, no, no. It doesn't make trying to formulate. It's just that." Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to find that reconciliation in there. I mean, it say it

086one more time for me, Rich, because I'm looking at the 2425 expenses, right? You're 242 212. Correct. And then I'm looking at the 2526 at 214. Correct. So, there's a $2 million difference. $2 million increase there. Right. Yes. But we're removing $10 million that we won't see from this year because it's a onetime expense, right? So, we filled that back in with another $10 million worth of stuff, you know, and only two million of that is salary increases. Only a million, a half a million is for the difference in healthare. And so that's $2.5 million out of that 10. Right? So now, where's that other eight come? Where's that other eight coming from now? There's $3 million here, there's $2 million there. I'm wondering, is there a way to tighten the belt in a way

087that kind of cinched that a little bit? And and and we keep saying healthcare where we h we are self-insured. We we we have stop gap insurance. We pay for stop gap insurance for larger claims. You you're you know a normal I'm not saying I hate saying I hate let me correct that. Uh if if I have health insurance, I'm putting personal insurance. I say I might be putting $2,000 a month into my family's health insurance. Every month it's g and then there might be a 20% increase. So I have to put in more. But our health insurance is based on actual claims. So we can't we don't have a crystal ball. Okay. And and the 3.6% if I recall over the years we never we never funded our balance completely. I don't think any

088school district in the history of the trust has funded their balance completely. We I mean years ago our district was funding less fortunate school districts with our contribute because it's a trust. It's it's a pool we're putting into the pool and people are taking from it. So of of course the trust is going to say we need more of your money because they're lacking money to pay their bills. You know, but our experience modification our experiences that are causing it to be hard. Well, then but but there are but but we and we always had the four months paid in there all the time. No, we didn't always have four months. Yeah. We took holidays too. Sometimes we had six months. I'm serious. Let me go through my years ago. All I would say to

089that is I I hear you. The projected gain loss in your health insurance this year, even after we fully fund what they said, is $2.4 million. We signed up to pay 24.6 in contributions. The projected expense for the year is $27 million. So that's $2.4 million behind, right? Okay. So we will have lost in our fund, which is the the result is dropping below that minimum threshold, right? And what what happens is yes, we are self-insured. Yes, we do have stop loss. Um but when you have things in the market like certain specialty drugs, and I'm not speaking specific to your history here, but um there are drugs that are $40,000 a month. And once the stop and law stop-loss insurer learns about it, they do what's called a laser, right? And they say you're

090paying the full bill up until $900,000 or $500,000. So that's 100% your risk. So there are these things in the market. They are becoming more prevalent and you know it is reflected in your spend. I could tell you by hum without insurance 15,000 of them. I I get it. I get it. I I self-insure myself or my medicine. I get it. But there's got to be ways we can fix that as a district in education of our employees to to know their their healthcare. I know I know when you get HIPPA, you can't do things like that, which is another thing you can't do. But give you an example. I just throw it on the table. Years ago, when my wife worked for the district, we were insur I did have insurance through the school

091districts when my wife worked here years ago. And my daughter went to the hospital and the hospital build the insurance for $14,000 for a visit. and and and when I looked at the bill, being the frugal school board member that I was at that point, knowing that we're going to have to pay that, found out it was really miss and it was really about $30,000 more than it should have been. And guess what? The insurance we were going to pay it. And I said, "No, we're not paying that." And the doctor looked at me and said, "Who are you?" And I said, "I'm the," you know, and and sure enough, they readjust the bill, but maybe we need to educate our employees and say, "We need you to help us look at your bills and

092and help us help cuz and and most of our employees are taxpayers, too." That's the other thing. Most of our employees live here and they're going to be burdened with it, too. I just it just pains me with you know with the average resident in our area that already in Eastboro got a 29% increase in their taxes already. So nobody is excited about this decision. It pains every single person on this board. None of us want to say we're raising taxes, we're levying taxes. Nobody wants to do this. Like nobody's super excited about this meeting. So just Keith, you're not alone in it, but it's it's a difficult decision that you have to make as schoolboard members and I just want to make sure you have as much information as possible and you're making an

093informed decision. And one question, one more question. The say four like just say 2% increase. You're saying it's going to be $12 less per the median household. Okay. The homestead household. Okay. I'm just saying the homestead household. Okay. Okay. Let's let's go to the 4% simple. Let's take out of the homestead act. Let's do $73.35 more per household. That's Are we saying we we know that's an accurate number? That's the average. The average medium less people will pay more. It could be less. It could be more could be a lot more certain. It could be a lot more. Yes, we were talking earlier. I commercial will and commercial is going to be a lot more than that. Yes. That's what I look at. That's what I look at. I don't look at I mean I

094I I care about the residents of our community. You know, maybe a couple co you're talking a cup of coffee a day, you know, if you a couple cups of coffee this week less at Duncan to pay for that increase. But how is the 70 to20, you know, thousand, you know, why why is Exploria going to us? Because their tax are high to begin with. They're trying all these resort the resorts, what few resorts we have left are fighting us. And then if and then we lose we lose more business and we lose more revenue. And I agree with all that and uh as a superintendent pointed out this is not an easy decision. I get But one of the things that we have to think about in my mind as a board member why

095I'm here is for the education of our students and for the programs and and this we're responsible to the tax and I of course we are but we have been and we unfortunately as uh Jason pointed out before have been misinformed you know pretty much through the last two years and and prior to that every budget that we have seen has never come in a target. And actually, they were always, let me finish, they were actually always above. And so, we've kind of gotten into the mode of, oh, well, you know, the budget's never right, but we're going to get 8 million when it finishes. And then all of a sudden, last year, you know, we pretty much came even, $40,000, you know, dollars less. And now this year and next year, we're at these

096projections. And granted, there are things that could happen in the state, you know, to, you know, change all of that, but I would rather levy the tax unfortunately, but I would rather levy a tax and then take that back if the money, you know, give refunds, etc., if the money comes in from the state, then to next year be in this seat and say, I have to let teachers go. I have to cut programs for students. Like that's that's the decision that we're ultimately making when we're talking about taxes. Ultimately, you know, we're here for programming. We're here for students. We're here for what we can offer them. And I don't want to be in a position next year saying I have to cut things that are going to hurt students and families as a

097result of that. And that I mean, and ultimately that's the bottom line of what we're looking at when we are discussing budget. Are we going to reports? Shall we move on? Does anyone have any questions? We still have all the back this discussion. Thank you so much. I know Deb. Thank you, man. Thank you. I'm I'm sorry for making a long presentation for you. I appreciate the questions. Okay, we move on to reports and first we start with Monroe MCTI Jason. All right. Uh the MCTI joint operating committee met on Monday, June 22nd, 2025 to discuss finance, curriculum, instruction, uh student activities, personnel items, progress of the conference center, and school safety. Uh Mr. Zazo opened up the meeting by announcing that 95% of the students scored advanced on their not the exams and that

098all students will be graduating with certifications. The JOC approved uh the payment of invoices and investment information. We move to approve the plan service agreement with Johnson Controls, the workers compensation insurance renewal, the life insurance renewal, and the pest control service renewal. We also recommended approving the following school priced lunches for next academic year being $1 for first student breakfast and $1 for first student lunch. Additionally, we also approved the declaration of precision uh machine equipment, the building risk coverage insurance renewal and the US security statement of work operations. Regarding personnel, we accepted the resignation of uh cafeteria monitor and our social studies teacher and also unfortunately accepted the retirement of our executive secretary uh Deborah Schula um who will surely be missed. Several new staff appointments were made, including carpentry instructor, uh automotive technology

099instructor, a school safety and security uh coordinator, a social studies teacher, and an ACE instructor. And finally, we bid farewell to Dr. Conrad as a superintendent of record. The incoming superintendent of record will be Dr. Curry from the Strawburg Area School District. The next MCTI joint meeting will take place on August 4th at 7 p.m. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. Uh the Colonial IU report should be me. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the meeting, so I'll I will have a really long report next month. Great. And next would be uh property facilities, Wayne. Okay, property and facilities meeting met on June 4th. Uh the project updates starting the week of June 9th. Uh number one was JTL flooring replacement with COPE commercial that's scheduled to begin. JM Hill project for the asbestous abatement

100flooring replacement and gym floor repair to begin. Jessica school flooring replacement is scheduled to begin. North Auditorium light upgrades committee was informed that the district has received the order and will be a summer installation. JTL auditorium seating project will start in June and end in mid July. Northwater tower generator will start sometime this summer. Don't hold your breath, Jason. ESC fire sprinkler system has a proposed pre-bid meeting scheduled for June 24th and a July bid opening. Discussion on generator replacements for the Bushka Elementary School, Resca Leman Intermediate School for the 2526 school year. Items requiring action. Motion was made to recommend a notice to proceed for the North Campus uh transportation edition. Motion was made to recommend that Keystone Fire and Security install the boardroom audiovisisual system replacement for $101,460. Motion was made to recommend

101that Integra 1 install the JTL IP phones for $24,46920. A motion was made to recommend that applied video technology install North High School Victorian projector screen for $3,52411. A motion was made to recommend Train Energy doing an energy assessment on our school district properties. Motion was made to recommend payment of CHA invoices for the north campus generator replacement. JTL partial floor replacement and boiler and water heater replacements. Rescue school for the partial floor replacement. JM Hill for partial floor replacement and the East Straburg Elementary fire sprinkler replacement for the design phase. Um, finally, a motion was made to recommend payment to MUN roofing for $26,235 for the north natorium roof repair. Uh, our next meeting will be on July 2nd at 5:30 here and via Zoom. Thank you. Thank you, Wayne. And the education program

102resource Jason, I believe you'll take that one, too. I will do my best to meet a satisfactory level from the uh chairwoman of the department. We'll do our best to follow. I know not this. Um and again, of course, Keith knows this is the most important uh committee. Yeah. Just want to point that out. All right. Uh the education programs and resource committee met on August, excuse me, Thursday, June 5th, 2025. I'm jumping ahead at 5:30. We began by acknowledging the north and south saludiatorans valadictorians. I'll do it again tonight. Uh Imani Quarterman was the north saludiatoran saludiatorans. Uh Teao uh Melissa was the valadictorian and from South Carl Ludwick was the saludiatoran and Mala Parker was the validictorian. Congratulations to them and all of our graduating seniors. Uh the meeting then moved on to

103several important discussions and presentations. First was the uh data warehouse and analytics by Mr. Snyder. He discussed two software options that were uh linkit and frontline. After his presentation which highlighted why linkit was a superior choice for the district, we had a detailed discussion about its integration integration and implementation moving forward. Uh mental health next was uh Miss Jones presented us uh with mental health software for our district. She emphasized the importance of the ongoing need for student mental health support, noting that there have been approximately uh several thousand uh SAP referrals uh in the past few years, which shows a great need for the software. Uh two options that were presented were gaggle and cartwheel. For those of you weren't there, I said chart wheel the first time. Uh with a recommendation for the

104latter, it was clear that after the presentation that cartwheel was the better choice for the district. Uh we then discussed restorative practices with Dr. Pipperado. Uh we were truly fortunate to have in our district someone who was as knowledgeable on restorative practices as Dr. Pipperado was. Uh with over 25 years of experience, uh she will be missed after her retirement. Uh but she has set us on the right path with the software the district will be moving forward with. on curriculum reviews. We had our first look at curriculum readthroughs for mathematics 9 through 12 and there were the leveled classes which were asked for uh the science curriculum for grades 6 through 9 with the updated steel standards and elementary science for grades five or K through five. We also discussed the second look course

105curriculum for world language and course plans approved by the office of curriculum instruction uh for the intermediate school math which was grades six, seven and eight. Uh there were discussions regarding elementary science resources specifically the HMT into science and a very clear clar detailed clear detailed presentation and discussion about the elementary reading resource called 95 group reading resource will aim to fill in the current gaps in the elementary reading with regard to phonics. Uh the EPR committee recommended over 14 different items for consideration to the finance committee that you will all see. Uh those recommendations have made it to this evening's board agenda. And before we adjourned, Dr. uh Alli took a few moments to express her utmost gratitude to Dr. Paparado, presenting her with a small token of the district's appreciation for all of

106her service and cookies. Our next meeting and cupcakes our next meeting will be held on August 7th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Thank you. Thank you once again, Chase. Okay. Uh, finance committee, Rebecca. So, the finance committee met on June 9th, and we heard the same presentation that you guys just heard on our budget, and we two were very takenback by it as well. Um, we have we'll be moving forward. You'll see az Powersports, two Heisen 6 sector 450 UTVs, which are being paid for in full by a grant from St. Luke's. We'll still see point security open gate metal detectors also being paid the majority of it by a grant 248,903 as a grant and 62,000 22 22575 by the district as well as iPads 14 to be used with the metal detectors in the

107amount of 5,62130 in a grant and the district will pay 140533. You're going to see um let's see the audiovisisual system replacement that Mr. Roner mentioned as well as the north site transportation building the bid results for the boardroom audio and visual with Mr. runner also mentioned the JTL iPhones as well that he mentioned the North Auditorium projector screen applied video technology the train energy assessment analysis agreement to do an energy assessment as well as the floor replacements general generator replacements sprinkler replacement and boiler and water replacements as well as the recommendations from the Education Programs and resources committee And those were as followed. To approve the purchase of HMED products for a K through5 science program, recommendations to approve the purchase of Carnegie Learning Products for French. Recommendations to approve the purchase of Wayside

108Publishing for the German program. The recommendation to purchase of Vista products for Spanish. Recommendations to purchase McGra Hill for consumer math. The recommendations to approve the purchase of McGra Hill for business courses. Recommendations to approve P Pearson's products for an additional some other business courses. Recommendations to purchase Sengage products for select business courses. Recommendations to approve the purchase of linkit. Recommendations to approve cartwheel. Recommendations to approve restorative practices software for K through 12. And we're doing package B recommendations to approve 95% group. and our next meeting will be July 14th. Okay. Thank you, Rebecca. Here and via Zoom. Okay. And last but certainly not least, Keith and policy. Sorry, I was unprepared. Uh, tonight we had an exciting policy review committee. We had a guest in the audience. Thank you, Miss Bmouther. appreciate you being

109there. Um, sorry. Um, we uh are we have some items to be put on the uh I'm actually we're asking uh the the board to authorize and direct uh the following items to be put on uh public participate for public review uh during the month of June subsequent review in July's meeting. We're looking at um policy 312, evaluation of superintendent, assistant superintendent, formerly the 312, the superintendent. We're adding the assistant superintendent to that policy. We're uh uh new policy 313 evaluation of employees. And then uh we're asking to repeal policy the old policy 313, policy 313.1, policy 3.3.2, 2 policy 3.3 uh which are all um were all incorporated into that original 3.13 um new policy. Uh we're also asking approval of 316 non-tenured employees, formerly noncertif certificated employees. Uh policy 327, management team. It's

110a description of management team. Uh our management team, it's really you should read it. It's really good. Um 328 compensation plan salaries formally compensation plan. Uh and by doing so, we're repealing 328.1 because that's going to be incorporating the 3 uh 328. Um and I think that's it. Our next meeting will be June Oh, that's tonight. Our next meeting will be July 21st, 4:30 here and looking forward to meeting new and exciting people. Thank you, Keith. Okay. Um, we now have public participation. I do want to add that there will be a second chance when we do make the motion for uh the tax levy uh for public participation, but for now um is there any public participation? Anyone online? None. Okay, seeing none, we'll move on. Any unfinished business? Okay, then we'll move on.

111Uh motion to adopt, amend, or repeal the board policies as listed? Some moved. Second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? A motion to approve the attendance of George Andrews, Rebecca Bayer and Catillo, Mike Catillo, Keith Carut, Debbie Culich, Rich Lameus, and anyone else? Anyone? You might be on it. George. Okay. And George um at the Anyone else? George. Oh, George is on it. George. Maybe I didn't read it. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Okay. So, anyone who's not there, we have everyone. Yes, sir. So, Uh any questions? Oh, any second. Just for the record, we are not staying at the Kaliari. We are driving back and forth. We are saving the taxpayers money by doing that. And you can come to And we are not going in the water. We have We have a second. Do we

112have a second? We have a second. Second. Second. Any questions? And we are not going in the water park. No. No. No desire to go in the water park. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the attendance of Dr. Margaret Fatali at the following conferences. Second. Questions? All in favor? I oppose. Uh motion to approve the following delegates that we need to fill in to attend the 2025 PSP delegate assembly business meeting to be held on Tuesday, October 21st at 2:30 p.m. at Kalahari. And I'm assuming we can send three delegates. I would like to be I I wouldn't mind being that. All right. So, we have Richie Keith. Yeah, it's after it. Right after it. I can go. Okay. Rich, Keith, and Rebecca will be attending as our delegates, right? Uh so I would

113need second. Any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the following curriculum in accordance with the recommendation of the education programs and resource committee. So move second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the settlement agreement between the East Straberry Area School District and the parents of the student with case RSA 20250616A. Second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the tuition agreement between the East Straburg Area School District and the parents of the student with the case TA20250616A. So move. Second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion that the directors of athletics and activities be authorized to approve O and accommodations for student athletes and or full teams representing the school district for PIAA PMEA district regional and state level competitions during the 2526 school year if the site of the event

114is deemed to be a great enough distance to warrant an overnight stay. This is necessary should any student or team qualify to participate at such events between regularly scheduled board meetings. Second questions. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the 2526 student athlete expectations and guidelines, the athletic handbook as presented. So move. Second. Questions. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the agreement to participate in the 2526 Pennsylvania School Board Access Program. So move. Questions? This is just to participate much we're going to get correct. Correct. Okay. Anything else? Okay. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the recommendations to modify expulsion requirement agreed upon expulsion waiver of school board hearing and release agreement for the case listed in substantially the same form as presented at this meeting contingent upon the receipt of any manifestation

115determinations indicating the infractions were not manifestations of a disability where applicable subject to final review by the school district's administration and legal counsel. So move. Second. Second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to authorize the district's participation in the Monroe County Community Partnership for gun safety youth survey. Motion second. Second. Questions? This is the one that we had the presentation on a couple months ago by Dr. Okay. Anything else? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the agreement with Karen Bukowski as presented as assistant superintendent for pupil services of the East Straburg Area School District effective August 18th, 2025 through August 17th, 2030. So second. Any questions? All in favor? I opposed. And Karen is with us today. Karen, welcome. And uh we're very excited to have you joining us. Thank you. Motion to approve

116the agreement with Benjamin Brenamman as presented as director of human resources of the East Straburg Area School District effective July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2030. So moved second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? And Mr. Bamman is there. Congratulations. We look forward to you serving in that role with us. Thank you. Um then we have a motion to approve this um okay motion to approve the settlement agreement for employee 9254 as it presented second questions all in favor opposed motion to approve the following memorandum of understandings they're listed there any second okay any questions All in favor? I opposed. Motion to approve the notice of charges for employee 3612 having concluded that the charges are sufficient to support termination. So moved. Second. Questions? All in favor? I oppose. Um on the next one, just a

117a change on page eight number 20. Uh James Wear is listed as a co-chairperson for English. It should that was a mistake. Should just be chairperson there is he's not co-chair. He will just be chairperson. So with that motion to approve the employment actions listed in accordance with the associated applicable policies, procedures and contractual agreements. Second. Second. Questions? Yeah, I need to abstain on double E page 16. Okay. I have some abstensions too. I'm just finding them. Hold on one sec. I'll pop in real quick. I have an extension on employment section P item number 14. Have them save. I'm abstaining from the girls soccer coach at North as well as the girls assisted varsity softball coach at North. Not sure what number that is, but that's what it is. Okay. Okay. Got it. And

118I'd like to um welcome Ann Morton. Well, we haven't done it yet. Oh, well, she's on here. Oh, we haven't said yes. Okay. So, yes. Sorry. Not yet. All the yeses. Okay. Any other abstensions or questions? Okay. And I believe we had our second right on that. Yeah, we do. Okay. So, then all in favor? Opposed? Keith, welcome. Thank you. Welcome. Nice to have you with us. So, if I could just take 10 seconds and I know we're running late on the meeting. Um, we have an all-star team of administrators and we're just adding three to our team. So, truly, thank you for joining our team. Thank you for joining our family. We are excited to have you and we cannot wait for you to start. Make sure you resign right now so you can

119start as soon as possible. Be not resigning anything. That was not for you. You're not permitted to resign. Thank you. Well, we did approve this. Then come on down. Come on down. We did approve it. Okay. Uh, the next motion will be a roll call. Um charges he gets reimbured for moving the moving moving rate. I buy him lunch. Show it a bus. A lot of super. Is it an a motion to uh accept the 2526 proposed budget selecting something as a tax increase or decrease or another? That first one is just the first is just the adoption and then we will get to the other. Yes. So on so we do not have to do a roll call on the first one. We did one. Okay. All right. Motion to approve the general fund

120budget for the 2526 fiscal year in the amount of 212,34,500 as posted and advertised in accordance with the law and in accordance with the recommendation of the finance committee. The general fund budget includes funds from state and federal governments in addition to the taxes hereafter levied after proper additions and amendments. So move. Second. questions. So, what are we voting on now? We're voting on voting on 200 just just the budget but not the budget. Just All right. So, we'll do a roll call. Sorry. I just have a question. I apologize if I um we haven't listened in the amount of the previous amount that was presented to us at $212,34.50. 12 million or 12 million. Oh my gosh. 214. This needs to be changed. A motion needs to be changed. Uh I'd like to amend

121the motion to read $214 million28,000. Accept that. Second. Let's because it's the budget. Yeah. Be technically precise. Jason move to amend. I believe that seconded that amendment. Let's vote on the amendment then vote on the that's a roll call. Do we need to do roll call on the amendment? Okay. So for the amendment, all in favor? I oppose. Okay. And now a roll call for the actual budget. Debbie Klet. Yes. Richard Layman. Yes. George Andrews. Yes. Rebecca Bear. Yes. And Catillo. Yes. Mike Patrru, yes. Jason Goldstrom, yes. Keith Kut, yes. Wayne Roman, yes. Nine. Okay. Our next motion, whoever makes the motion, will have to include one of the four options that are listed there and you see the listed below. I make a motion that we consider the 2% tax increase for the upcoming

122fiscal year. I second. Okay. questions and discussion. I'm going to start a discussion on I mean we talked about obviously we we don't have to go over again the the pain of of tax increases. However, I just don't think 2% is excuse especially like spitting in the ocean as far as what we have as a deficit. Um I would like to see us lean toward 4%. um that will actually bring in revenue. Um I am so concerned about sitting here next year because we have a lot of ifs from the state. I'm not sure about what your faith in government is right now, but mine is very low. And I don't want us sitting here next year cutting anything for students, cutting teachers, making class sizes ridiculously large. And that all holds above here. if

123we do a 4% which is not going to solve any of our problems either but if we do the four at least we're bringing in more revenue which will have more lasting effects there and then hopefully next year we wouldn't need any tax increase. So that's just my two cent. I I think I reason I went to 2% was that it puts us where we voted last time where we vote for zero with but with the differences in the changes uh we've added more debt and at least this covers the debt. So I'm more for the 2%. But still leaves us at $28 million deficit. 24 24 projected project projected projected understood but projected is that it's what it is it's projected to be 24 million I'm I'm not comfortable with that number I just

124don't know if we're actually going to see that um I I don't Yeah and I don't do you mean that particular deficit that particular deficit Yeah, that's why I said 2%. Are you talking the 2%. Yeah. No, she's talking higher than that. He's talking the 4%. Yeah. I mean, the discussion on the table is a 2%. No, no, no. I mean, I'm I'm I'm looking at this saying maybe we shouldn't raise taxes at all. Like, I'm actually looking in that direction. Yeah, I I think there's a little bit of ambiguity in those numbers there that I I I don't see and I know it's difficult too because as you know we said with the presentation we struggled a lot with this because we've had ambiguity in numbers before and you know this is my sixth

125year on the board and I know Keith you've been on a lot longer than me and so is Wayne and so is Rich and Jason and we've never ever seen exactly the And and a clarification I would like to clarify publicly. Um it's been brought up that a majority of our increases for salaries. Yes, we did increase salaries. Um but that was to uh take us back a few years when we've asked our staff to take a cut in their salary because we were going to have a major deficit and we and we never had and we had a surplus and that was like I think three times we asked them to do that. That's why we increased them in that one time. It wasn't it wasn't just that for because I know that sometimes

126it gets into the press that oh they they raised you know they gave this money. It was to make up for the loss when we had a surplus at the end of the year. And that's what that I still have that and I still feel that way that we will find the money and and and the difference between 0% and 5% is only a couple million dollars people and we are spend a couple million dollars tonight. I think the thing that I look at is that that increase that next year is only two like $2 million. It's we're not looking at millions and millions of dollars, but there's something else in this budget that's just carrying other things with it. And I'm I'm just not as confident that we're going to see that expenditure in

127that in that level. I am concerned about the revenue side of it but I don't you know I'm not theory. So even if we forwarded the 2425 right and repeat this year to next we're in a $12.7 million deficit this right we are going to realize that I I I'm not sure I'm confident that either project we've never realized the full deficit that's the problem. So you don't even you don't believe in any of that. It's not belief. It's just concern that it's not going to be that. And the reason we put that money aside in our in that money aside for a rainy day, this is the rainy day, right? And so I'm expecting that our state legislators going to come through and they're going to get us the step up money that we

128were told that we're and if we get that um additional assistance with the stacking the well the stacking but not only and also the cyber charter that that's going to cover a lot of us. You know, if we show even a 2% increase, what we're saying, it's going to make it difficult for our legislators to go back to the House and the Senate to say, "Hey, yeah, let's let's go get let's give some more." You know, the if we're putting tax increases on top of the money that we're supposed to be getting from the state, they're going to look at it and say, "Well, why are we giving you more money when you're raising taxes?" Right? So, but I think a uh a minor increase, which 2% is when we compare it to those numbers,

129right? It's um for us, we're just being prudent and it might give us that breathing space with all those other things to come in that would help us have that cushion that we've talked about. At least the 2% makes up the difference from what we were told last time 212 million to now we're being told 214 million. So at least Right. And it does it covers that. That covers that. But the 2% is only going to give us what? Less than less than $2 million. $2 million. Less than $2 million. The average household is going to lose the $100 they were hoping for. I know it's only $100, but for some people that's a lot of money considering the fact that most of our municipalities that are not going to get money back from the

130state who could not get they won't I mean are they have raised quite a bit. I mean granted we can't we can't make up the difference in the in the municipalities and the county's increases. I I know that. But I I just think we can do our due diligence and and figure out where to get that money. I'm I'm just looking at when like I had mentioned earlier with the concern about the information that was provided last month with the information that's provided today. Um last month, you know, might we we did vote on 0%. this month I would be leaning more towards splitting their difference at at 2% looking at what was projected to us as information about how much it would cost monthly for a Monroe County resident. Um again as you know

131it affects all of us so we we don't make this decision lightly. Um I do not I was looking over the numbers where we were last year um at this time and we didn't realize the deficit that we had last year. um we're roughly at the same point again this year um with a higher deficit as Rich said it you know I don't know if necessarily we're going to realize that entire deficit as well um I don't know if I'd be willing to say 0% even though I would love to um because even if we don't realize $24 million next year um it significantly decreases our general fund and that is that's a concern to me that Next year, if we're looking at another $20 million or so in deficit, or even $15 million in

132deficit, um, and we'reif sitting at a $15 million, um, general fund, then we'd be in we'd be left with nothing. Um, then I don't want to be in that position next year either. And as far as uh, staffing and enrollment, um, Dr. Vitali probably come up give me a better answer on that. I'm not sure where the numbers come from. Again, this is an issue of information that's presented to us is different than information that is then again presented to us afterwards. Um, but I was looking at that five-year projection that was presented to us on staffing and enrollment. Um, and it says enrollment is down 4.8%. and since 200 since 2019 and I went through all the board docs that are given to us every month um with student population within the district and

133in 2019 we had 7183 that was presented to us um we fluctuated up to 72 7277 um and as of today um administration student population of 7186 so I don't know how we've dropped. Okay. And if you include the Well, no, that's every that's everything. That's everything. So, no, that is included in that. So we if you're looking at just the enrollment report. So the enrollment report that we've been receiving every month. No, we not we changed we changed the enrollment report because you wanted to see because it was a request of the board to see how many students are in ASA. Asaka students in our CIS are labeled in their home buildings. So we double count them. And so how many students are in I have six. So for our enrollment at the end

134of the beginning of June, I have 6311 as our student enrollment. And what did you do? So it's 900 900 students. We double counted. Um let me let me look. No, it's not 900. So we got counted. Those schools too, don't we? Oh, not those are counted. Those are we get the in that you have all the charter schools. Correct. They are not our students. But those are students we still have to pay for. That's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the number of students that we are paying for to be educated. Those students are still our respect. That is not included in this number. In this number is just your actual enrollment of students in your but not the number of students who are actually this enrollment report is different than the one

135you've had in the past in that it includes homeschooled students. We're not paying for non-alled students and then your out of district placements which you do pay for but also the charter school which we pay for which we pay for it. Yes. But that is not in the enrollment but it is in the budget. So the point the point of that chart is to compare student enrollment to in building. No, I understand that. But my point is that by saying we're 4% less or 5% less, we're still paying for those charter school students to go to school. But my question is, so there's two different ways you can run this enrollment count matrix. Until a few months ago, we were only running the students in our building, right? Okay. We changed it. So I'm asking

136you the enrollment count matrix that you're looking at that you gave me 7183. So did it have all of these other schools in it? Well, that would I mean this is before you. How did the previous administration present the numbers to us? The one we have my understanding is it's no it's the previous way which is the 6311. Okay. So to me you're comparing just the students in seats in our district that we're educating just those students was 7183 is what you said. I have it at this year at the end of the school year at 6311. But we still have to budget for those students that are not in our all you Yeah. You're just talking about this chart. I'm not talking about the budget. That's what I'm saying is that when we have

137to make our decision, we have to make a decision on all of the students that we are paying. We are budgeting. I'm not disagreeing. you were just you were asking this chart and I think that we have to make sure that your 718 there's a the difference that we're looking at here is this number is total total number of students in brick and mortar building as opposed to the number of students that we're totally budgeting for. Correct. Two different numbers. Excuse me. So the more accurate number for us that we have at the end of the Well, that's what we're talking. It says to So the accurate number that's exactly what we're talking about. And if you look, it includes all the charter schools that and nonpublic and all the non-pubs and all the home

138educ correct. So that chart is different than what you've received years ago. Oh, we understand. So theoretically, but when he looked up he looked up a number and he gave a number of 7,183 students compared to whatever the end of this is 7,300 students that you're not comparing the 2019 number he gave and this number you're comparing two different numbers. This number is very close to what the number is. What what what my concern is that the number that's being presented here is not the number of students that we are budgeting for. These are the number of students that are brick and mortar. And so when when we look at a decrease in number of students, we have a decrease in number of students because they went to charter school. But the reality of we

139still have to provide an education for them and we still have to budget for them. So that's that's the justification for the budget increasing and the reason why we need to increase the the overall expenditures of the budget. I don't want people to think that we've lost 5% of our student population and our budget has gone up, you know, seven eight n million dollars over the next over the last few years, right? We're still educating all of those students. We haven't lost the student population of four and a half%. They've just gone to cyber charters that we're not counting because our students, but we still have to pay tax. So, so it was just there still are taxpaying students 7,300 students, right? I just want the public to know that we are still educating all

140of those students and that the budget that we are voting on represents all of those and that accommodates those students as well. Right. Any other comments? I just wanted to say one thing. Um Keith brought up uh $100 a household before the 2% tax increase. That's what I was looking at 97. So, I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page. And now that reflecting, I'm not crazy about this language in the agenda itself because you are not you are voting for a 2% millage increase. Correct. That is not a 2% tax increase. Correct. Because by the numbers Jim gave us, a 2% millage increase is a $12 tax cut to the median taxpayer in Monroe and a $28 cut to the median. So I just want to be clear. You're not

141voting to raise the median. So what was the mill rate right here? Monroe and missed that one. Oh, it was on it was in Peters last month. Monroe would go from 31.05 to 31.59. And Pike would go from 126.5 to 128.3. And and as Chris has pointed out, it is a 2% increase on the millage, not a 2% increase on the tax. Right. So in reality it is because 67 pipe would go to 128.71 based on the budgets in front of us, not based on Peterson. So in because if we don't do it, they have the money. Don't take that money back. So if if you look at the actual budgets that Jim and Joe presented what they paid last the millage rate for a 2% increase for Monroe would be 31.67 for Pike County

142would be 128.7. How does the millage rate change if it's a static right now? How did how did one get number thinking it was probably inaccurate and Peter find out my suspicion that you got rebalancing figures from stem. I don't know that but that is why it changes the time of year. So so basically Chris if I'm following a 2% tax increase really if you're on homestead is an $11 decrease from last year if you're if you're on homestead. So if you're well if you're not it's it's if you're not you should be. I mean, you have every opportunity to be. So, if you're a business, you don't get a homestead. Well, I mean, I understand that. I'm talking about our residents. Our residents, if they're not on homestead, they've made that choice. So, a

1432% increase is actually lowering people's payment. Correct. Most of our residents, Mike, most of our residents rent. If you're a renting resident, you don't get any any homestead. I understand that. And and if that homestead, you also get any increase. But on and and then the same building that is a rental, they don't get the homestead either. So really, it's it's an increase, right? But I but my point being here, a 2% increase is not increasing most people's taxes. A 4% increase is increasing it $4 a month. And I still think we're being irresponsible if we don't go to higher than bringing in $1 million based on that. And and I'm just But this is also based on the median. It's median. I understand that. Which means some will pay less and some will pay

144more. I get that. But I just think we're at a point here. You know, there's a reason that all these other municipalities have raised tremendously and 20 something% is because they can no longer operate their prices with the income they and the revenue they were getting because everything is going up. Why do schools have to be different? We can't operate what we're doing because we haven't raised taxes. Our revenues are down. We have to raise revenue or else we're going to have to start cutting back on what we offer our students. And that's as simple as that. And I just think we're not doing it justice. So I would be voting no to a 2% for what that's worth. Oh, then call for the call for the vote. Roll call, please. Debbie Kulick. Yes. George

145Andrews. Yes. Rebecca Bear. Yes. And Catrello. Yes. Mike Couturo. No. Jason Goldstrom. Yes. Youth car. No. Wayne Roner. Yes. Mitch Lamus. No. Z. 63 63 63 Yeah, that's 2/3. So we pause. Yes. Okay, we're good. 2%. All right, let's move on. We need a motion to approve items A and B, but we do need to fill in some numbers in uh in A and B. So just give me a second here to fill in those. Okay. So in A we will be filling in for Monroe 31.6700 mills and for Pike 128.71. That would be an A. Anyone need those repeated? Yes. Say Pike again. Okay. We'll say Pike again. 128.71. And what And what numbers? Where are we getting those numbers from? The budget. The budget. from the budget updated budget. The updated budget the

146updated budget. That's the verified budget from the county. Correct. So if you look in the budget under 2% it's and attorney Brown has verified it and Mr. Mirbelly has sent a text that that is accurate and that millage rates change because they rebalance every year. And I I do want to apologize knowing what you're doing. I do want to apologize. The information that was presented to me, Keith, when I gave to you with the 2% the information presented, I'm sorry. The information was incorrect that was presented to me and the information that Dr. Fel was mentioned is correct. Okay. Thankf course. All right. So, we filled in A and under B, uh, $776.91 under B. Okay. Does anyone uh need anything in A or B before we vote? Repeated. 31.67 and 128.71. You got it.

147Correct. And what was and then 776 uh 91 cents. So now we'll go back. The motion is to approve items A and B with those numbers added in there. We're making a mess of things. Hold on. thing. So, a little i is 31.67. A little a little i. What are we talking about? A little two is 128.7. Okay. So, I think we're gonna hold back. Okay. Let's put a a What about a AA? A A should be well 2% 2% rate 2%. Oh, okay. 2% 2% rate increase. Yes, that's what you just And then we still have the 7769 you want that's what you is Pike Countyy's 2% also? Yeah. Yes. There's his base. Okay. a whole mess. So before we start, we'll do it again. Uh we are the motion to approve items A

148and B. A would be a 2% millage rate increase in Monroe and Pike County. A I would be 31 uh.670 and A2 would be 128.71 and then down in B would be $776.91. So with all that in place, we need a motion. So move second. Any questions? And please feel free what you said. Okay. Offer offer public comment. And now at this point, we also offer any public comment or questions. Anyone in person? Anyone online? Say seeing none, we could go on for the vote. Hold on. potential public comment. Okay, you have three minutes. Uh, no. Perhaps our new employees could tell us five good things about you while we're waiting. Okay, look look look. Percent rate and change. I got it. 2% for Monroe, 7700s of a percent for Pike. Right. Percent change rate.

149Yep. Got it. So, we're just changing a I don't know. Yes. A the first blank is 2%. Second one is 0.77%. I'll say I'm sorry to Patricia for having to do these. Okay. So we are keeping I and double I the same and we have changed in A 2% for Monroe and now 077 is that correct? Yes. Okay. And the B stays the same. Yes. Okay. But the mills you gave us are correct. 3167. The mills have to stay the same. A is what? Yes. A is a 2% for Monroe and a seven point 077. I taught English. I'm sorry. 777, not 07. I apologize, but you take like five or 10 votes a year that actually matter. This is one of them. Yes, we got it. We got this. Every vote matters. Just employed

150disagree. Okay. So, I think we're up to the point of um that we did no one public comment and seriously any questions since we changed that so many times for the board. Okay, then we would need a roll call for this one. Okay, roll call. Yeah. Killig, yes. Jason Goldrand, yes. George Andrews, yes. Rebecca Bear, yes. Ano? Yes. Mike Catrell, no. Keith Ker, no. Wayne Roner. Yes. Rich Lamus. No. 63. Okay. A motion to approve the disabled veterans real property tax exemption as presented in accordance with policy. So second questions. All in favor? Opposed. Motion to approve the depositories for school funds for the 2526 fiscal year as listed with funds invested in accordance with the school laws of Pennsylvania and the East Straburg Area School District Board policy. So move second questions. Yeah. Are

151those the existing general fun voting for? Say that again. Are those the existing general fund accounts that we're voting for? Yes. We're not adding anything or changing anything? No. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? Not. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to award items A through Q in accordance with the recommendations from the Finance, Properties, and Facilities, and Education of Programs, and Resources Committee. Second. I I would I'd like to make a question make a statement of question about B. Uh 101,000. I thought that was like 50,000 a month ago when we talked about it at Property and Finance a couple months ago. Second of all, where in our board packet is the list of items and things that is happening. Um I think you know we're talking about saving money $11,000 for a sound system in

152this room. That is sounding pretty good to me. If we're having issues in running the system, that's a whole different story. It's not just the sound. I understand, but I don't know what we're putting in because we didn't get a we didn't get a bid. We didn't get a listing. How can we prove something if we don't know what we're getting? I I hear you. I hear you. And I'm I'm sorry you're elevated about and and this is this is and this is not like we've been talking about this for three months now. Two two months. So I think with the with the exceptions that we talked about two months ago for this part and and this is just a hund this is $100,000 people. Every hund 10 times a hundred is a million. We're

153talking about finding money. Here is money that we're going to spend. We don't know what we're getting. And my role as a school board member is to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayer and educate our students. Didn't this go through two committees? Yes. So, how come I don't I don't if isn't that purpose of the committees? I one of the committed on the committees then we didn't talk about so this showed up on a committed about a listing all I don't understand that's where all this discussion how did a committee ever recommend something to come here that they knew why I challenge the committee and I'm on one of the committees I would challenge the committee it night and I'll challenge it tonight I would hope that we when we get something here totally that

154it's been discussed fully by the people on the committee but if you're saying that we a committee two committees sent 101,000 and they have no idea what they're sending. That disturbs me because then we have a really bad problem. And you're absolutely right. That's a serious problem on our board. Yeah. It always goes to finance finance, but we we we always ask in finance, did properties and facilities approve this and make their do their due diligence to get it forward? Well, it was a yeah, it was a vote. But the question is the first meeting it was asked and it was said, well, we'll talk about it at next month's meeting and Mr. Barrage will come and talk to us about it. The next meeting came and talked to about it, but we still don't

155know what we're getting. All we were told is that this equipment is, you know, 15 years plus old and it's antiquated and we use this room a lot and we need to have that money. But in in in a in a fiscal crunch and we need to give we need to give programs to the students for 20,000 here, 20,000 there. We need to we need to shave money somewhere, people. And and here is a sound system. You all can hear me out there, correct? I challenge that. So, are you saying that we approve it with the exception of B? Oh, well, I'm not saying that because I think if that's a I mean, you could vote. We could take a thing to pull it out, but then, you know, for that matter, the consumer math

156course, I don't know what's in those books either. Uh there's there's documentation here for that. Every single one. I mean, of all the details of everything. When do we put some trust in the people we have hired in these positions? I get that. We have an AV person. We have an AV person. we pay good money to who said this is what we need. We don't trust that person. We have a technology person that we have a technology person. So that's they're in charge of that. They're coming to us with the recommendation. We're not going to the math chairman and saying, "How do we know big roar was the best book?" It was properly presented for approval. Mike, I don't agree. I No, I I will I will just pop in here real quick. I

157mean, this is the the bid tabulation um for the page. It's just one page. there's another there's another scriptor of what was supposed to be there. Um, so I understand Keith's frustration. We we spent several months going over this. We asked for uh, you know, bid item sheet. When we spent all the money at North doing the auditorium, they gave us a bid item sheet of everything that was going to be done. Um, we did ask for that several times. We did get this. Uh, and so I do understand Keat's frustration with just a price as opposed to what is actually being done. So with the Brian did, but we did, right? And we did discuss it, but I can understand Keith's frustration saying that there's nothing. We also did ask for the she and

158but the committee voted to come on. So why so this should have stopped in the committee? The committee should have said the committee should have said we don't have enough information to pass it on to the board. Well, I'm not I'm not then our committee. Okay. And then let me ask you another question. Let me ask you another question cuz I I clarification. I I don't remember seeing this either until tonight on um on the screen, the projection screen for North High School. Um on page three of six, we're paying $100 for engineering. Where's the engineering going? Who's Who are we paying engineering to? Is that CHC? AVT maybe? No, no. It's for uh it's it's in the AVT uh bid proposal. The quote on page three of six technical services. We're paying10 $11,000 in

159technical services. Uh the third item down is engineering for $96. What is the engineering involved? Is that for CHC? Yeah. I'm sorry. I don't know what CC is. So why are we Do you mean I hope not. It's on page three. Uh it's really page four when you look at the it's the four it's the the fourth if ABT. It's not the first page. It's the third page actually with technical services and that's you know we're allowing we we're paying for expertise and setting it up properly. Engineering for a projector screen that's already there. We're replacing it. We're putting an auditorium right. I'm sorry. We're putting it in an auditorium, right? Yeah. We're replacing the screen that's there with a higher tech screen. I don't think we need an engineer to replace the screen. There's

160another $1,000. Folks, I'm I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to be nitpick. On what basis are you saying we don't need the engineer? How do you know that? How do you know we don't need that engineer to do that? It's absolutely a screen, but it's also it's also a projector, right? So, you have the projector. You have the screen or we're supplying the projector, right? We're not paying for the projector. Yeah. Well, that's fine. Even if we're just But we still have to have somebody set it up so it's properly aligned. It It's set up. But we have an AV department to do that. My My question would be, why are we paying $1,800 for a project manager? To make sure all the pieces work together properly. We, you know, here's here's what

161I'm going to say is like we're buying these services, right? They can hand it to us and they can put they can they can set it down in front of us and we can have our staff put it together, right? But if something's not working, then it's going to be a lot of this. It's going to be like, well, they they didn't provide us the right cable to go there. And then you don't want that. We want somebody to come in, do the work, get it done, protect it. I I get that, Rich. But in defense of my statement, when I brought up the sound system here, I was told that we have a a department that has recommended that and Brian came in and explained everything and explained it, right? Just like we do

162in education, and it got moved on, but he did. But I but I I asked I asked at that meeting to look at a detailed bill. Oh, Pete. Okay. The whole committee brought it in to us. That means I mean that's my point. We have committees that do that's why we don't talk about this stuff at our board meetings general board. Our committees do this and presumably if they're satisfied they bring it on to the board. I don't know. Should we call for the roll? Okay. I'm going to repeat the motion. Motion to award items A through Q in accordance with the recommendations from the finance properties and facilities and education program of resource committee. We've already had a first and second. All in favor? I opposed. I move on. Oh, yeah. It doesn't matter.

163I'll vote no on everything. I'm sorry. I didn't I was going to just No, I'll just vote no on motion. Feel free. Motion to authorize the preparation through train and advertising of a bid for the conversion of the Bushkill Elementary boiler to liquid propane. The purpose of the bid is to explore cost-saving opportunities. So moved. Second. Second. Questions. All in favor? Opposed. Motion to approve quote 23287141 with E+ Technologies for 59,224 uh 14 cents move second questions all in favor I opposed motion to approve the payment of bills and unodudited treasuries report listed in the agenda for the 2425 fiscal year in accordance with section 687 of of the public school code, recent directives from the department of education and interpretations made by the auditor general. So moved. Second. Second. Any questions? All in favor?

164Opposed? I. Motion to approve the payment of the following CHA invoices of applications for payments for services rendered and they're listed below. So moved. Second. Second. Questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the request to close the following student activity funds that are listed. So second question always makes me sad when we close out the class fun 2018. Well 2022 with my son year and I'm like a 2018 is a long time ago. All in favor? I opposed. Motion to approve the following notices to proceed in accordance with the recommendations from the properties and facilities committee and finance committee. So move questions. Do we second it? Second. I'm sorry. Questions? Can Can I ask u what type of This is for the building for the drivers up north? Yes. Is it a separate building?

165We're adding on to the current structure. We're adding a lounge on the right hand side and then we're adding bathrooms and storage on the front. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Not. All in favor? I I opposed. I motion to approve the resolution concerning the school violence protection program grant as presented. So moved. Second. Questions? All in favor? I opposed. Motion to approve the purchase of 14point security incate metal detectors in the amount of $248,93 paid by the school violence prevention program grant and 62,225.75 cents paid by the district contingent upon receipt of the grant. So move second questions. I just wanted to say real quick uh I'm this is an excellent you know uh system that's being put in um non-invasive uh it's something that we you know we definitely

166need especially in this day and time. Uh I will ask I noticed that some districts made uh like students made um videos on how the process works and how it's being incorporated and I know maybe something that Yeah, absolutely. Kids with Yep. So if we're awarded the grants and we're deploy these. Absolutely. That'd be great. Yeah, I love that idea because it's a it's a really simple simple program for them and so I appreciate it. Appreciate everything everybody did to get it. Thank you. Thank you. Will these be will these be used uh at each they will go to each school? 14. We have which will they want one in every building? Two. I'm sorry. Multiple entrances as well. So like the main north campus you have the front entrance and possibly the back entrance

167as well. Are they going to be temporarily set up or they they're permanently set up? No, they're they're mobile. They're mobile. I understand that. So, we're going to just use them on random like like poking them out. We're randomly use them. Yeah. I thought it was So, we have we have four school and then the Yeah. So, six that was six of them. Every elementary school gets one and then every secondary school gets two. Two. Y. And it's in addition to the ones we have. So, we're not getting rid of the ones we have. So it's just going to make that process go faster. Well, it's a whole different technology what we have. So way better. It's way I mean it's not it's not the evolve system, but if we can't afford the evolve system,

168this is the next best system, right? I mean this is $600,000 less than the right system. And that was for 10. Kudos to Chief Mill for finding this and bringing this to us and working with Angela um to try to secure this grant. So thank you. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. and and thank you for always coming up with ways to keep our students safe. That's two mills to look at. Did you did Yeah, we did. Yeah. At Pog Mountain, we we've explored. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none. All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the purchase of 14 Apple iPads for use with the metal detectors in the total amount of $5,621.30 30 cents paid by the school violence protection program grant and $1,45.33 paid by the district contingent upon receipt of grant. Second

169second. Any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Motion to approve the contracts listed for their specific services, rates, and effective dates subject to the review and recommendations of the solicitor and approval of the administration regarding the terms and conditions of any final contract other than price or cost. And you can see there are a couple of pages listed there. So move second. Any questions on anything? Don't we have our own psychiatrist? Maggie, do we have our own psychiatrist? Don't we have our own psychiatrist? No psychologist we contract with. We do not employ a psychiatrist. What? Not right now. I'm sorry. I I thought we at one time uh we contract out for a psychiatrist. We do not have in our professionals contract. We did at one point. Not that I've ever known of in this district.

170Psychologist psychiat. I just had a question too. Not questioning the cost or anything like that, but in other school districts who's had their prom at Penn's Peak, their max capacity, is that going to be enough for our students to all be able to attend because other districts had it there and they had to tell students they could not attend because it reached the max capacity. I'm being told that we have held it at 10 feet before. I want to make sure because other districts in the area have recently had it there and they students were not able to attend because it reached the max capacity. I mean I know South had them years ago and with the same whatever class size we had. I mean I haven't gone down much turn anybody away the drinks

171and can we can we check that contract for the there's a $26 per person drink charge? I saw that too. It's like and it said it said beer soda package. We're not going to be drinking. Our kids aren't going to be drinking beer. Not to be drinking beer. And I don't think soda is worth $26 a student $48 for the meal. And and and then the meal is separate. Want to check that contract a little bit. And then and the other thing I would like to have administration check is the Kalahari contract is calling for one sec one SRO or security officer for every 25 students. If we have 400 students, no. Yeah. And it's $75 per hour for their staff to cover it for us. So a three four hour event is going to

172be another $300 per employ time 25 students. We can't send our own SRO's. It's got to be there. No, they're allowing our own SRO, but we have one per 25. Yeah. I I have a little bit more basic question and Ben's here, so that's helpful. Did the Did the students decide they wanted to go there? Yes. Yeah. They they work with typically they work with the advisor and so on. Okay. So they actively selected Kalahari. Yes. And they know what it's going to cost per student to go. I'm not worried about that. I'm not worried about students where they might have their problems and um where it's going to be located where it's going to be. There's a little bit of movement of where it could be and when it could be but Yes, they

173they want to go and they wanted to go there. They wanted to go and and they're okay with paying that cost in their prom fee because that's coming out of the prom fee. Correct. Are you talking about the $17,000 contract that's coming out of the fee that the students are charged for the prom, correct? Okay. What they raise and then um what they have to pay. So, they're okay with that, right? because they use their their class money too first and okay and then I would just ask if you have questions about these contracts so that I'm not running through it just shoot me an email when the agenda goes out so that I can have an answer for you prior to I'm sorry I had a rough weekend and I didn't get a chance

174to I would have done that but I'm just asking If you have a question and you know it and I and I'm not pulling that out to call call out anybody. I just I just noticed that and I just kind of scared me a little bit. I think that comment was moved at me. 26 hours. How many hours you got for how many hours are they? I mean that's even more than the Coca-Cola contract was going to char. Is that I still have July. Are they serving Pepsi or both? Please serving a treat. A treat. We're going real late. H. Okay. Let's vote. I forgot where we are. Did we do a second? Okay. All in favor? Opposed? A motion to approve the contract with Scranton Printing Company. Printing, not Britain, but printing company for

175the printing of 7,000 copies of the code of student conduct in the amount of $11,900. I'm going to ask you to actually vote this down. I was going to say that we because I would prefer not to print to print a se a section of them maybe a hundred copies a few per building but for us to release this digitally but I wanted you to make this decision. So I do not think we need to print these anymore. We can print them inhouse or get a small selection of them printed. There is no reason to spend $11,900 on this. I agree. Colonial IM and their printing department. Um I don't know if they can handle such a large document but we are in the process of looking at So you're your revised motion would be

176to approve uh printing of 100 copies of that. Yeah. My plan would be to do that in house on our copy for for each building. No, not even for each building. My my request is for you guys all to vote no. vote no and then just allow me to photocopy these and print them or to look at the IU and they can be requested. Yes, absolutely. Request. Yep. There will be a a process. How? And then you'll get a digital signature from the parents on the just like we do now. Okay. Yep. I don't say any other 20 grand for just suggest you do a motion to decline contracts. You don't have to vote no like Okay. to wait. We'd have to change the motion or motion something. Make an amen. Who is the maker

177of the motion? Nobody made the motion. Oh, nobody made the motion. Well, thank you, Dr. Vital made the motion. We have discussion. Would someone like to make a motion and change it while they're making it? I'll make a motion to decline this second questions and please don't ask any. All in favor? I opposed. I thank you. Want to do the same for the next? No, this one we actually motion the contract with Sun Litho, Inc. for the printing of 8,000 copies of the c the calendar. That is like a hot item. When we those used to come in the building, you had to hide them and lock them away or they were taken. Um, in the amount of $4,150 questions, hide them in. All in favor? I opposed. You're in demand. What are Yeah, I

178like my calendar on my I always like I missed the student pictures. It was like a badge of honor as a child if you got into the school calendar. Do you remember? Did you ever make it to the school calendar? You did not. Motion to approve the event admission pricing for the 2526 school year at North and High School Souths for the listed events as presented. questions. All in favor? Opposed? Question. I'm sorry, there was a question. It's cash still, right? No, we have the apps too, correct? They can do better. No, I have a question though because we have the apps. Is it more if you use the app because of the service fee or that because I know last year that was on there. There will be a service charge fee if you

179So, this is the cash price, not the price with the app. That is my understanding. Okay. Um, given that piece of information, we had a 81 vote. Do we want to revote or are we good? I I thought we were trying to get away from using cash at school. As long as people up at North can get onto the internet to use, it will work. But many many times you're on there, it does not work. Yeah. If I say I don't want to try and get rid of them purchase in advance. We can't because there is not capability to use the app because people do not have problem with it. Okay. Or you can't connect to services up at north. If you Verizon you can but if you're AT&T T-Mobile whatever else it doesn't work

180up there. Got but if you try to push the app why would you use it? It's an option. It's an option. Yeah. Uh the enrollment report as listed and then do we have a motion? Please make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor? Well, $700. And