001Here. This is Barlett? Here. This is Baumgardner? Here. This is Dixon? Mr. Erb? Here. Mr. Hershberger? Here. Dr. Ketchum? Here. Mr. Sayers? Here. Mr. White? Here. All right. Communication reports, uh, school board secretary, Mrs. Lewis? I don't have anything for this evening. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Lewis. Uh, school board members? All right. Our superintendent, Mr. Warner? All right, everybody, Mrs. Goodenough. All righty. Um, no public comments, so let's get her going. Okay. Is that sorry? This is our first meeting for 2026-2027 budgets. The first thing that we always take a look at is the timeline. Here is our timeline. Um, it's um, established by Act 1 of 2006. That establishes the dates and the rates for our, um, uh, budgets and, uh, our tax our maximum tax increases. So, the first, uh, deadline that
002we had was in January. That was the deadline for us to adopt a resolution saying that we would not raise taxes by the maximum index, which for our district is 4.8% and, um, you know, we were certain that we weren't going to do that. So, we approved that in December at our December regular board meeting. And our next, um, deadline that's coming up is we have to have our proposed, uh, final budget passed by the end of May. That budget has to sit for 30 days prior to being, um, finalized. So, in order for us to meet that requirement, we're going to hold a special voting meeting in May on May 21st. Um, that would be our normal COW. We're going to make that a special voting meeting uh, to pass our proposed final budget.
003And then we have to have our final budget passed by June 30th. So, tentatively, we would be doing that at our June 25th regular board meeting. And this is just a note about budgeting. It is arguably the school board's most important responsibility. It defines the scope of our programs. And, um, the board is the only, um, organization that has the power to local to levy the local taxes to help fund the school's programs in partnership with our state and federal funding. And then the note at the bottom is the budget's not just a collection of numbers, it's an expression of our values. Typically, if you look at your checkbook, what you spend your money on is is what you care about and that's certainly no exception with the, um, school district's budget. So, our our
004challenge is that we face every year are that we are sitting here like in April, we have to make, um, decisions um, that are going to affect the next almost 18 months. Um, this budget that we're talking about tonight will uh, be in place through June 30th of 2027. So, we need to make decisions that are going to impact a lot of people, um, for, you know, a long a long longer period of time. And there are still some very, uh, important key factors that we don't have, um, we don't have information about. So, uh, there's a lot of assumptions that we need to make. There's a lot of unknowns. Um, so, we have decisions to make and, um, you know, we don't have a lot of information to back up some of the decisions
005that we are required to make within our time frame. This is the budget balancing map that we have, um, for the district. We start with our opening fund balance. Um, we'll go over that in just a minute what our fund balance is, but the district has a uh, healthy fund balance. We start with that opening balance. We add in our estimated revenues. We that gives us our available funds that we have for the upcoming year. We subtract our anticipated expenditures and that equals our ending fund balance. And that that has to be greater than zero or we're in trouble. And I did include some information for our newer board members just to give you a little bit of, uh, information about how the district's, um, financials work. So, the district has five separate funds. The
006general fund is what we're going to be talking about tonight. That is our largest operating fund. Um, we also have a capital projects fund that we can use to make purchases of, um, fixed assets. The district's, asset capitalization threshold is set by policy. Ours is $5,000. So, if we have something that we want to buy that costs, um, an individual item that the price exceeds $5,000, we can use the capital projects fund to make that purchase. So, it can be like 10 computers valued at $500 each. It has to be an individual item that the individual price exceeds $5,000. We also have a debt service fund. We have a food service fund that is not included in tonight's discussion. It's a food service is a separate budget, um, and that's is prepared separately, um, and
007we typically present that to the board in, um, July for the upcoming school year. And then we also have a fiduciary funds, um, and those are accounts that the district just has a fiduciary responsibility over and, um, in our district, we have a scholarship fund and we have student activity funds that fall under that [music] category. So, all of these funds are included in the financial statements that, um, our auditors review and that Dan Rogers goes over with you at the end of, um, the audit. So, this shows, um, the breakdown of all of the categories that are included in our school financials. We have three major categories of revenue sources. That would be local, state, and federal. And then our expenditures are broken down into five different categories. Um, those that are listed there,
008you can think of them as, um, departments, really, different departments of our district. And then they're broken Those departments are broken down further by what we call object level and those are really more of a description of the actual expenditure. So, the, um, setup of this, the way we are finances are organized, that's dictated by PDE, Pennsylvania Department of Education. They Each school district's, um, chart of accounts is organized in exactly the same way. And they they do that so that they can compare and contrast, um, you know, districts' financials, um, when everybody files their annual financial reports, they've got all of the data, um, of each district in a similar format. So, concept of fund balance is a governmental accounting term. When we talk about it, we're typically talking about the general fund. And
009it's a measure of net financial assets. It's equity. It's, um, you take the assets, which are things that you own, own. Liabilities are things that you owe. The net between those two is what is our fund balance. We shouldn't think of it as a savings account or rainy day funds, um, but we can use it for one-time investments and conservative budget balancing. Um, and that is typically how we've used our fund balance. Um, at the when we around this time of year, when we're working on our budgets, if we did do come up with a budget shortfall, um, a lot of times we do use our fund balance to balance our budget. And then we just wait to see what happens with our revenue, especially on the state side, we try to hold tight on
010our expenditures and, um, you know, we try to beat our budget every year and, uh, come out ahead. But, uh, typically, we have been using our fund balance to balance budget in, uh, recent years and it's a perfectly acceptable strategy. Um, the state does put limits on our unassigned fund balance. There are two types of fund balances that we have on our balance sheet. There's assigned, which is set aside for a specific purpose, and then there is an unassigned. And the state limits the unassigned fund balance depending on the size of your district, the size of your budget. So, based on our district's size, we are limited to an unassigned fund balance of just 8%. So, um you know, we've had discussions about charter schools having like $600 million fund balances. Um the state actually
011limits the school district to having an 8% unassigned fund balance. So, on $100 million, you know, that would be an $8 million you know, that would be an $8 million unassigned fund balance that we are limited to. And this is uh a history of our fund balance. The um the red is our unassigned, and you can see we we hold it right around 8% what we're allowed to what we're commanded by the state to have. And um but we have grown our unassigned balance um over the years, and you can see I've listed at June 30th the different buckets that we've accumulated some unassigned fund balance um for a total overall fund balance of just under $29 million at June 30th 2025. And this is a feather in our cap. It's um a credit to
012the board for making sound decisions. It's a credit to um Mr. Warner, and also to the the business office, and to all the department heads really for you know, for managing their budgets um really well. Just last year when we had done some uh we did two refinancings in the last fiscal year. And um you know, we don't have a a real robust economy here in Mifflin County. I mean, it's getting better. We're seeing some some um some businesses move in. Uh but you know, certainly we don't have a lot of things that we can brag about, but the one thing that we do have that the um investment bankers like is that we always beat our budget. So, just last year on the second refinancing refinancing that we did, our um S&P rating was
013upgraded from A stable to A positive. So, that you know, that saves us money on interest expense for the long term. So, that was a real win for us. Dr. Peterman, I believe has a question if that's what you Yeah. Yeah, you know, I just wanted to So, I guess maybe maybe I need to do some more. I probably do need to look at this more uh um and and probably come back with some questions. However, um so it sounds like the fund the unassigned fund balance is essentially uh us beating our budget expectations and having more at the end than we than we expected or that we or or or it's it's Is it a And is it a Is it a a fund then that we can then use in the future uh
014if things come up? So, it's it's equity. We're building equity. Okay, so it's like retained earnings. Correct. That's exactly what it is. Okay. All right. Okay, no, I just just wanted to get some clarity on that. So, so when we when we add to the unassigned fund balance, we are increasing our equity. We are We are um um not just breaking even essentially. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Sure. So, right on that topic, uh on the next page, I have the last three full fiscal years just to show you exactly how we have increased our fund balance. So, in 2022-2023, we had a balanced budget um of you know, we were showing a zero in our budget. Uh we actually ended up that year with a surplus of 6.4 million. And then I'm showing
015you uh how we did that. So, um just with the significant variances, it looks like our earned income tax was up by 1.4 million. Our interest expense has consistently um beat our budget because you know, I can't predict what uh what's going to happen with interest uh rates, so I typically budget that very low, and rates have stayed high in the past 3 years. So, you can see each of these 3 years that are on this chart, we beat our budget in interest income. Um and actually we can just look at all 3 years at the same time. If we look at 2023, we we had budgeted uh we had a balanced budget. 2023-2024, 2024-2025, in each of those years, we had but a budgeted deficit. But in each of those years, we came through
016um with a surplus, 4.3 and 7 million in 2024-2025. So, um then I'm just showing you you know, how we did that, all of the different significant uh categories. You know, our budget is almost 9,000 lines long. If we go line by line, it's about 9,000 lines long. But these are the significant areas where we were able to see um you know, where our revenue exceeded our revenue, and where our uh expenses were lower than what we had budgeted. So, we consistently we had gotten more in basic education funding, subsidy from the state than we had anticipated. Special education funding than we had anticipated. Um uh adequacy funding, $2.5 million in 2024-2025. The stadium project, that kind of you know, makes things messy because uh I wasn't able to anticipate the borrowing on that project.
017I didn't know, you know, at what point in time what stage of construction we were going to be at June 30th of any particular year. So, um the over and under on that between years, that did get a little messy. Um but anyway, it looks like we were under budget on salaries then if we look at the expenses. Medical insurance, we always beat our budget on medical insurance because as we've mentioned here at the table, we always budget family coverage for all of our new ads. And if we get a per- somebody a new employee that comes in and that opts out, a lot of times we get new grads, they're 22 years old, they're still on their parents' insurance. So, we might only pay $4,000 opt out for them, and that's a savings of
018like $28,000 a year for us. Question for you. The basic ed funding going from 2022-2023 to 2024, and we're 1.2, 1.7, and down to 600,000. What what contributes to that big of a variance specifically from the state level? Well, so this would only be the difference in um budget. So, this is Yeah. I'd have more information on a basic ed, but this would only be the difference between budget to actual. Okay. Yeah. So, um I In 2022-2023, we were we received 1.2 more than I had budgeted, 1.7 more than I had budgeted, and then 600,000 more than I had budgeted. Okay. So, this slide is just to show you that yes, we do we have budgeted deficits, but we have um come in with uh surplus in each of the 3 years pictured, and in
019uh most of the years uh prior to these, and that's this is how we built our fund balance. So, this is more of the same really. This is just a chart that shows each of the years. This is revenues showing um how our how budget to actual with revenues. Um I think every year when I show this slide, I point out in 2017 was my predecessor. Um she came from that union school district, and they put refinancings in with the general fund, and you're allowed to do that, but that's just not how we typically had done it here in Mifflin County, so that's why it looks like an anomaly. Um you know, it screwed up my chart, but it's fine. >> [laughter] >> She was allowed She was allowed to do that. >> [laughter] >>
020I told her to just clean the data. Just remove Uh 2024, it looks like we did not uh make our revenue, but 2024 we would go back to the prior page, that was because of the stadium project. I had included uh 7.5 million in borrowing, and um we did not borrow that much. The project wasn't to that up to that point where I needed 7.5 million in borrowing at June 30th. So, 2024, it looks like we did not make our revenue, but that's the reason why. 2025 is not on for the picture? So, I just gave you the the numbers. We beat our revenue by just under 3%. Several years ago, I had been to a PASBO conference, and there's a very smart gentleman there who's worked at many, many districts, and now he works
021for PASBO. He's an older gentleman. I believe he's retired from being a business manager, but he's works full-time at PASBO. His name is Dr. Tim Strong. He firmly believes that you should beat your budget by 3%. That should be your goal. 3% on both sides. 3% on revenue and 3% on the expense side. Because, you know, you never, ever want to um come in over budget on expenses or under budget on revenue. He believes your cushion should be 3% on both sides. So, in essence, 6% in total on your budget. That's his uh you know, that's what he believes is your best practice. So, moving on, we on the expense side, this is just to show you the history of how we have um you know, consistently uh our expenses have been less than budgeted
022year after year. This is how we have been able to build our fund balance. This is just for some of our newer members. This is our revenue, all of the revenue categories for the district with the definition of each of those revenue categories. This is every single category that we have, and exactly, you know, what it means. Where we're where we're getting our income. The next slide shows our historical revenues by source. So, you can see the orange is the state revenue, and you can see that it's more than half in all of these years that are shown, starting with 2021. Um more than half of our revenue is coming from state. So, in the current budget year, 2025-2026, that number from the state is 55.7, almost 56% coming from the state. So, I mean,
023that's good. It takes the pressure off of our local taxpayers, but it's also bad, because we don't know how much money we're getting. >> [clears throat] >> And um last year, the state budget was passed on, I believe it was November 12th or the 14th. It was 135 days late. So, here we are. We're trying to make decisions for um you know, for next school year, and but we're getting 56% of our revenue um from a place that doesn't have their their budgets um set yet. So, it makes it very difficult for us um to do what we have to do. But, if we look at our local revenue, um the bulk of our local revenue comes from um real estate taxes. 61% of our local revenue comes from real estate taxes. So, if we
024just take a minute to talk about real estate taxes, um the basis of real estate taxes is millage. And a mill is [clears throat] 1/1000 times the assessed value of property. Um and the gross value of one mill for the district for 2026-2027 is $875,000. That's the gross value of one mill. Because the information that I got from the um courthouse, um the assessed value of all taxable parcels is $875 uh 445,604. 875 million. And we have about 22,300 taxable parcels. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, um we are dictated Act 1 dictates uh the amount by which we are allowed to increase taxes. So, you know, people say, "Oh, my taxes are going to double." Well, no, they're not. That's not That's not allowed. Your taxes are never going to double. Act 1
025dictates um the maximum allowable increase of taxes. So, for this year, throughout the whole state, um the maximum is 3.5%. It's a formula between two indices, one from the state, one from the federal. Um and the average is 3.5% this year. But, for poor districts, if you have an aid ratio greater than um .4, which ours is .6, you'll get to add 75% um and come up with an adjusted ratio. So, for the school district, our maximum that we are allowed to raise taxes, our index, is 4.8%. And I always point out, it makes no sense, right? Um the index is 3.5%, but you're allowed to raise taxes on people less able to pay by a greater amount. So, State College can raise taxes by 3.5%, but Mifflin County is allowed to raise taxes by
0264.8%. It makes no sense, but we don't make the rules. That's just the way that it works. >> Government math. So, our our index is 4.8% this year. This is a chart of our assessed value by property type, and this goes all the way back to 2009. And I just thought it was a really great representation. I mean, it shows you that not a lot has changed. Certainly, you know, we've had a little bump since um 2020. So, some growth, but uh not a lot. The next page, you can it goes into detail by municipality. So, you can actually see the percent change year over year. Um if any of you find that uh interesting. What kind of value is that? How is being removed? It must be or um Depreciation. It's just assessed value.
027That's the change in assessed value. Appeals. And uh appeals. Oh, yeah. So, this is a history of the district's real estate tax millage. So, there's 27 years on here. It only goes back as far as our last reassessment, which was in 1999 um 2000. So, in 27 years, the school district has raised taxes seven times. Our last increase was in the 2019-2020 school year. And in fact, if you look at the three notes A, B, and C, um there have been decreases in our school district property taxes due to the homestead-farmstead credit increasing. So, we have about 20,000 of our um residents take advantage of the homestead-farmstead credit. Um or I'm sorry, it's about 10,000. It's about half of our um taxable parcels um are taking advantage of the homestead-farmstead credit. And that credit has
028gone up by a total of $143 since 2022-23. The total of that credit is now $326.91. So, not only have we not raised taxes, our taxes have actually decreased for the 10,000 taxpayers that are eligible for that homestead-farmstead credit. Um this is just an example of the real estate tax calculation for the current year. So, our maximum tax increase at the 4.8% um rate would be 1.6, we'll call it six mills, would result in an increase of revenue to the district of the 1.376949. Taken over the um 22,000 taxable parcels, it would be about $61.74 per parcel. And then you can just see the math on the, you know, the other scenarios. If the district were to raise taxes by one mill, about $831,000 to the district. And um if we went 1%, it would
029be $287,000 to the district, a little less than $13 per parcel. It's just the calculation. It's just the way the math works. These are just two examples. Um Um Our um reassessment has not been done since 1998. So, that means that that is the market value that is being used for our assessed value. So, if we look at a market value of Yes. Why? Why hasn't anybody revisited that? So, that's up to the county. You You'll have to ask the county commissioners about that one. Yeah. Okay. I just want to be clear about that because that's that's huge. >> There's no law that requires counties to reassess, you know, within a certain time >> Political suicide. It's It's one way to put it, yeah. Basically, what No, I get it. I get it, but how
030So, and here we are in 2026 and no one's reassessed that on a more steady basis and all of a sudden I don't know where this is going to turn out. Somebody has to pull the trigger and reassess and it's like, uh excuse me. Well, if is So, there's two ways that revenue would be would be increased here then from taxes would be one way would be increase the millage and the other way would be that they could just reassess and then automatically it would increase the revenue. Because it would still be at the millage that that we we've been at. Well, no, you're not allowed to We'd have to change the millage because you're not allowed to have a windfall. So, you Well, as I wouldn't call it a win win but I mean
031I understand what you're saying. So, it would it would have to basically adjust so the revenue would remain consistent after a after a reassess assessment. >> Yeah, there are rules specific rules that apply to that process. Okay. >> Yeah. I think your revenue is not allowed to increase more than 10% in any year following a reassessment, but yeah, I mean I'm not even I don't even know the exact rules. Well, it's been almost 30 years, so you know, it's it was So, yeah, it wouldn't be yeah. Okay. But I mean even So, what this example is showing is if we had a in 1999 market value home of $80,000, the assessed value would be 50% of that, $40,000. So, right now that $80,000 home is paying taxes of 1381 school district taxes, 1381 a year.
032And in tax increase to the index for that home would result in a $66 annual increase. If we looked at this home, a $250,000 home in 1998, that would have been a very nice home, a nice property. Half of that, 125. If we look at you know, an increase to the index for that home, it would be $207. >> Yikes. So, even like the new homes that are being built up Route 655, any new construction, the tables that are being used to assess that new construction home are based on values. Because it's based on uniformity. Like your house cannot be taxed at a different rate than my house. Everybody's house has to be taxed at the same level. If the values are going up Yeah. Well, the further we go >> assessment's not The assessment
033is not. No, it's based on the same cuz it's based on the principle of uniformity. Well, I'm not a politician. That's the way it works. We do have a property tax rent rebate program for our older people and also disabled people qualify for this program. And I always just put this in here to make sure that people are aware of it. I think it was probably two or three years ago um the eligibility income was increased and also the rebates were increased, the maximum rebates were increased. So, you only have to to claim 50% of your social security for this program. So, I mean we would have some senior citizens that would qualify and and you can get some of your property tax money back and it's very easy. There's a link on the district
034website under the CFO page to get you to this application. So, then I just have some pages to show you the history. I expect they get a little small, but I wanted to show you as many years as I possibly could on our main you know, sources of revenue. So, here's real estate taxes, the history of our real estate taxes including our 2026 budget, the current year's budget and next and current year proposed I'm yeah, projected. I'm sorry, current year projected. Um the years where you see the drop, that's because of the homestead farmstead increases. Uh so, we have to leave pass that on to our taxpayers and then we get the money from the state. It comes through in the form of an additional state subsidy. This is earned income taxes and you can
035see we have seen a steady increase in earned income taxes. Um that's with, you know, expansions that we've had in some local manufacturing and you know, we have seen uh there have been some businesses move in, so that's been something that's been positive for the district. What What frame is uh uh Um the earned income tax Isn't it 0.85? Does that sound right? The 1.35 but half of that goes to the municipality. >> Yes, so we get the 0.85. That's correct. We get the 0.85 as our piece. Thank you. Yes. So, who sets that? Uh I mean we do. That's the max that we can take it to. It cannot go above that. 0.35 is that maxed by the state? I know the municipalities cannot touch that. They can't go above 0.5. >> above 0.5.
036And I'm pretty sure that the school district's only able to go above the 0.85. >> I don't know that. I don't know that. I can find out. But but the maximum can't be more than 1.35 combined between the municipality The max that's determined by the state. I I believe it's tied into some of the Act 1 index and our maximum amount that we're allowed to raise property taxes. I mean that goes back many, many years when they increased that. And then it in accepting that higher rate as a school district, I believe we're not allowed to raise property taxes above a certain amount in a particular year. I'm sitting here acting like I know all this. I don't. I Like I've I've done some reading, but I'm not an expert on it, so please don't
037quote me, but I'm pretty sure that's how it came about. Okay. Yeah, I can confirm. I can I can find that out. Yeah, I'm not sure. Um this is our real estate transfer taxes and we can see We've talked about this before how after the pandemic, you know, there was just a a lot of transfer, a lot of homes sold, properties exchanged, and then that's kind of leveled off. Um the inventory is kind of a problem here in Mifflin County. I think there are buyers out there, but there really aren't homes for people to buy. That's 1 half of 1%. >> Correct. Yes. But there have been some properties that have sold before significantly. And that's >> 1 half of 1%. That's half of 1%. So, it's taxable, right? >> Mhm. Yeah. That's right. And
038that that again that percentage is we don't set that. That's determined Half goes to the the state. The half goes to the county. >> County. Half is ours and half is the county. Okay. Then we have our delinquent real estate taxes. So, in 2021, um people like when the pandemic hit, people went to the courthouse and they paid off their taxes. People that were making payments on their taxes. Um that's why we saw the big increase in 2021. I guess they just kind of panicked and wanted to get rid of debt and they went in and paid paid their bill. Other than that, um it's been pretty steady. At June 30th of 2025, we had $1.6 million on our balance sheet as delinquent real estate taxes receivable. Um and the the county is our real
039estate tax collector. And then the next page is interest income. So, you can see just as recently as 2022, we had less than $30,000 in real in interest income. And then the things just kind of exploded. The rates went up and we really, really started to make some money on interest income. Now, the rates have gone down and I just saw last night's uh a discussion where they're saying that they're going to cut rates uh once this year. Um but there's just so much uncertainty now with the unrest um in the Middle East but they're saying you know, definitely the rates will be they're expecting at least one rate um in this calendar year. So, I mean it's anybody's guess, but we can see, you know, that that they're on a decline. Were you doing
040the sweeps the whole way? Like how many years back were you doing the sweeps like that? >> probably only 25, I would say. I mean, we did it manually. We did it manually. We would just watch that account and move it manually. >> Okay. Part of that's because of the balance increase as well, right? Yes. Yeah, with the fund balance. And actually, 2020 um 2026, part of the projected decline is because you know, the state budget was delayed. Like we didn't get our funding until December. We were a half year without um state subsidy. So, that was also a problem for 2026. So, this page shows you all of our revenue categories going back to 2020. It's a lot of information, but this is all this is our actual up through uh 2025. And then
041I just wanted to point out like you can see some anomalies. In 2024, looks like we had a big um interim real estate. We don't typically budget those because those are we we never know what those are going to be. It's not a budgeted item. So, when we do get those um those are just extra for us. And then also in 2024, that's we had a huge bump in interest income. And then 2025, the other that was the $2.2 million that we got from the stadium projects uh contribution. Um But if we go to the next page, really I mean, this is you can, you know, look at this at your leisure. But if we go to the totals on the next page, this is really what I wanted what I wanted to point out
042to you. Our local revenue doesn't change a lot. So, here we have that $2 million from the stadium projects. Um you know, it's pretty steady. Our state was not changing a lot, either. We were just plugging right along um up until 2023. This was Governor Wolf's what they called his legacy budget. This was his last year um his last budget and he really uh made a big boost in public education funding. So, that's uh the big bump there. And then this was Governor Shapiro's first year in office and he continued with that um investment in public education. So, that's where we see these big increases. So, if you look from 2020, 41 million 2025, 55 million. I mean, that's significant increase in our funding. Um our 2026 budget uh and then you but you can
043see our the difference between our 2026 budget and our 2026 projected is because, you know, we never know what we're going to get. I didn't budget the two and a half adequacy funding but I found out in November we're going to get it. So, my projected revenue includes the two and a half million dollars in adequacy funding. So, we're we went we went from 54.6 to to 56.2 um in state funding. So, just unprecedented increases in state revenue. Um and then in federal this these years, '21, '22, '23, '24, these were the COVID years. We got almost $30 million in a little less than 30 million in COVID money. Uh we finished it off in 2025. So, um you know, we've just had a few really, really um unprecedented years uh for different reasons of
044uh you know, revenue revenue growth um in state and federal, not so much local but in our state and federal lines. So, if you look to the states, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I just wanted to show you a couple of things. These couple of slides are from PASBO. Um they are very well invested in what's happening at the state. It's the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. Um they uh have a webinar every year right after the governor's um budget proposal, which is in February. And I just took a few of these slides. Um so, they're saying the budget themes for this year uh the one was continuing to invest in adequacy funding. So, that's uh you know, that's something that I took note of. They're saying
045he wants to continue the strides in education investments. Okay, so that's that sounds good. Um the general fund budget, which is where the education is funded, he's proposing 53.26 billion, a 5% or 5.4% increase for '25, '26. He does not include any tax increases. He's [clears throat] proposing new revenue streams and using 4.58 from the rainy day fund. So, that's um similar to what he had proposed last year and I mean, that's what um the other side doesn't agree with. That's kind of where they disagree. So, you know, there's no telling where where this is going to wind up. And then PASBO says it really matter what the governor proposes. [clears throat] And they show us um I mean, it's really not too far off but you can see what he's proposed and what we
046wound up with in each of those years. And um this shows the that the education budget is second to the human services budget in the governor's proposal. So, up until about I think it was probably 2 years ago, education was the first was the highest um line item in the general fund budget at the state and human services has now surpassed education in in that um in that section of the of the state budget. So, these are uh the appropriations from the governor's budget. He's proposing 50 million for BEF. He had proposed 100 million. Um actually, we received 100 million last year this year. Uh 50 million for um special ed. Um uh 14 million for CTCs and that would be 4 million additional subsidy and 10 million for STEM, specifically earmarked for CTCs. Um
047but this is where PASBO cautions, the 50 million um for basic ed subsidy uh you know, is really low. They're saying it's the lowest increase in basic ed subsidy in over 10 years. Because the governor is putting money in adequacy and not putting money in just the regular old basic ed subsidy. So, it's almost like we're creating a new uh adequacy shortfall. Um so PASBO has uh asked asked for advocacy um as telling us to ask our um representatives to increase the proposed subsidy funding to basic ed. They're saying the Basic Ed Funding Commission report recommended 200 million annually to um just the basic ed line. So, here's where we land. We've talked a lot about um revenue. So, >> [snorts] >> uh the 25-26 budget was 96 million. The what we just went over
048it comes up to about 99 million. Um with the you know, the unknowns. We don't know what we're getting from the state as I've mentioned. Uh our expenses, you know, that we've compiled just uh first draft are 100 around 106 million. That leaves us with a $6 million shortfall. The assigned technology uh Mr. Cunningham has purchases that he wants to make in technology similar to the current year. Um and he has assigned to fund balance uh on the balance sheet that he wants he's going to use to uh buy those items. So, similar to the current year that we're in, we're going to take 1 .5 million dollars out of assigned technology. We have security purchases. Likewise, we've got assigned fund balance uh for security. And then if we say that we're going to get
049the adequacy, which we don't know that we're going to get the adequacy, but we've gotten it funded for 2 years. We saw on the governor's proposal that um he's pretty dedicated um to funding it. I mean, there was a lawsuit. If they don't fund it, um you know, the parties are going to re uh file the lawsuit. So, if we say we're getting the two and a half again, then we would be short just under 2 million in this first pass. Um in the current year's budget, we go through that math, we started out short 849. We did get the adequacy in the current year and we also got a a couple of other increases in state funding. So, in the current year, we started out short 849,000. So, in our first pass of expenses,
050this is what payroll looks like. I wanted to talk about payroll because payroll is our largest expense. We have um salaries and wages of 38 million compared to the prior year's budget. In the prior year's budget, uh some of you were here. We added like 15 positions last year and we weren't even sure we were going to be able to fill all of them. So, what we did was instead of adding them in the function and object codes for salary and wages, we added them under budgetary reserve because budgetary reserve is one of the line items that are excluded for the charter fund charter tuition calculation. Because what happens with the charter calculation as it's based on your budget. So, as your budget grows, so does your charter tuition expense. And we had all of
051these positions that it was determined that we needed, but the reality was we didn't even know if we were going to be able to fill them. So, we didn't want to inflate our charter tuition expense um you know, and have to pay more charter tuition based on a number that uh might never even be realistic. So, I budgeted those salaries and benefits under um budgetary reserve. I checked with CASBO to see if that was an allowable strategy and they said that it was. So, that's what we did. So, when we do our comparisons, um I had to add those numbers back in order to get like an apples to apples year over year comparison. So, that's what these two extra line items are here. So, we would have to actually add these two together compared
052to 38 million. It's about 1.4 million dollar increase in salary and wages. Um included in that is the teacher increase that had been negotiated um that's a million dollars of that increase in itself. The benefits, we add those two together. Um a million dollars of that I've um in this pass, I've included a 10% increase in health insurance. Um we checked with um our benefits coordinator and I mean, that was his best guess uh preliminary. Um he's talking with the carrier uh so, we're going to hope that we can do better on that number. We have outs We've done better with our health insurance than any district that I know. I know um I think it was I mean, I [clears throat] know it was Huntington, but I feel like the number that he told
053me was 18% is what their insurance went up last year. I mean, ours was less than three. We've done really really well with our insurance, but um the our broker just had a feeling that uh this year's increase was going to be higher than what we had in recent years. So, I don't know what it's going to be. I put in 10. We're going to hope that it's better than 10, but for this pass, I put in a 10% increase. That's a million dollars. So, um the difference uh in the total payroll 67 and a half to 64 and a half, you know, there's uh 3 million dollars right there. These are the personnel counts. Um and I have a breakdown of of these on the following page, but we have a net add of
054three teaching positions in this first pass. We have two paraprofessionals and we have the one um admin, which would be the East Derry principal. So, a total of six new people um and the comparison here is between the current year and um the budget. Six new adds. And here they are. These are the These are the six new adds. So, um I mean, I know Mr. Jarman is still working with the buildings, Mr. Aaron Mr. Aaron, they're still working with the buildings to determine the needs. They are looking at the enrollments. Um it's still very early. Typically at the April meeting, I don't even have these numbers. But um fortunately, we do. And this is where we are. These are our um Highmark rates uh with the 10% increase. Um and you can see for
055a family with a 10% increase, it's $35,000 a year. So, that um increase amounted to $1,045,000. Other areas in the budget, like I said, our salary and benefits, those are the biggest uh pieces of our budget. Other areas that had um I just looked at over 100,000. Like I said, our budget is like 8,500 lines long. The areas that had more than $100,000 um of an increase when I looked at year over year, our contract drivers uh there was an increase there 5 and 1/2%. Our placement tuition and our charter tuition, there's a little excess here. Like I said, we don't want to run ourselves so close that we risk being over budget in expenses. And we don't know how many children are going to be placed in the 26-27 school year. We know how
056many placements we have now. Um we know how many charter school students we have now. So, we just do our best to um estimate. So, if you know, if there are less, then there'll be savings there. Hopefully, there won't be more. Um the academy tuition uh based on the numbers that we had gotten from the academy based on their um first pass, uh our responsibility was increased by $100,000. And then debt service this looks like it increased more than it actually did. I discovered that I had made a mistake last year in last year, which is this year. We had a principal payment of I had budgeted principal anticipated a principal payment of $515,000 from the um stadium fundraisers, which we received. And I had the revenue, I budgeted the revenue. But I did not
057budget it in the debt service portion. I mean, I don't know how I missed it, but I looked for it everywhere, and I mean, it's just not there. It's just not included in this summer. This summer does not include that extra 515. So, if that 515 was there, uh then this would not look like that big of a swing, but I did not include the 515 in the current year's budget. So, it looks like our debt service is increasing um I mean, it is what it is. The number was not in the current year's, and I put $350,000 is what we're anticipating from the fundraisers in '26-'27. So, 350 is in '26-'27, 515 was not in '25-'26, but we did receive it, and we paid it down um on the debt service. Uh going back
058to the health care slide. >> Mhm. Um which item is the uh staff's uh share of our health insurance >> Premium share. Premium share. Okay. So, the most anybody pays is $100 a month. All right. So, I just did this like just to boil everything down. I hope you find it helpful. I just wrote it back of the envelope. If we just take a look at um you know, just a high level what we know, we have a little bit more revenue um on local side, that's all property taxes, 0.3 just from the assessed value, you know, inching up a little bit. If uh if we get 2 and 1/2 from adequacy, 0.7 as our transportation costs increase, so will our transportation subsidy. >> [clears throat] >> So, we had 3 and 1/2 million in
059revenue increase. Our salaries increased 1.4, our insurance increased a million, our other benefits, that would be like PEACERS um because for every dollar of salaries, we have to pay 33.59% in PEACERS. So, that's all that is, PEACERS and FICA. And then 1.7 other, that was just, you know, these couple of things that I picked out that were running an increase over 100,000. Oops. How much does PEACERS increase if we increase head count like teachers? Well, so it would be 33.59% of each. percent Okay. percent percent annual Yeah. So, our just on those items alone, the expense increased 4.6, so our deficit increased 1.1%. Just based on these few line items. And then just to remind you um like we started out with a 4.7 deficit in the current year, add 1.1, it may not be
060exactly 6.1, but it's, you know, it's close. Uh we can get to 849 for the current year, you add 1.1, you're right where we where we're sitting right now. When uh historically, when have you gotten more firm numbers on the back of increases? Um we actually have a meeting scheduled for May first. Okay, May first. Fingers crossed the meeting will hold, but you more direction up there in the afternoon [clears throat] with a So, there's two increases we can't get [clears throat] away from, it's the teachers contract and medical insurance increase. That's what I'm taking so far. And then the retirement Retirement, yeah. That's, you know, generally that's what we have in our contract. Especially around the water kind of globalizing big picture that's clear. We have a 4% increase in teacher salaries in the
061next 5 years. Over 5 years, 4.09 or something like that. I mean, the contract drivers, that's we're under contract for that. The placements and the transportation, there's nothing we can do about that. Yeah. Melinda, the contract driver, that's the bus contract. >> Yeah. Okay. You know, few personnel Yes. total total total cost for all of that. I do. What are those numbers? Um Let me see if I wrote it down here. I do have a number. Let me see, did I write it down? Well, we're saying 1.4, I mean, it must be We have some decreases, too. I mean, it has to be around 400,000. Because if it increased 1.4, um and the teacher uh increase was about a million. I mean, it has to be about 400,000. 400,000 for the net for six >>
062Well, and we had um >> [snorts] >> Yeah, it would be six. I mean, we've also had retirements. So, like we take out, you know, a high-priced person, and we put in a lower-priced person. But I mean, I can I can get you the number for it specifically the new ads and exactly what I've added in for the new ads. Yeah, I I think the 400 would be would be net um everything. That that would include all the benefits. Mhm. Um retirement Yes. and all that stuff. Yes. And the total family plan insurance Well, yeah, you figured that, but you know what? Sure, but Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I should have put that on that sheet, but I guess I didn't. Uh yes, Ms. Barnwell? I just had a question for the health insurance. Do the
063unionized members and non-unionized members contribute the same amount, or is the contribution rate different between the two? So, the teachers pay just a slightly higher amount, and it's nominal, but they do pay a slightly different amount. And the um central office people pay the same amount as the teachers. Um slightly higher amount than everybody else. Okay, but the only only rates that were locked into are those of the teachers and anybody else that falls under the union. So, we could essentially change the the contribution rate of non-unionized members to help offset some of those costs. I think those that aren't a member of the union still get union protection, if I remember contract correctly. >> Could you please Am I right on that one? Well, I mean, everybody is paying Yeah, I guess everybody is
064paying practically the same amount. Like the there's a subset of the um central office people who are paid for the compensation agreements that are paying the same amount as the teachers. I think you said that in the agreement. Yeah, I got it. I don't have the number for sure. Our cafeteria some of our cafeteria contract, they don't pay quite as much as the teacher contract. >> No, they don't Right, so And they don't make as much money, they don't pay as much for their health care. But but they don't have everybody paying insurance. Everybody pays. Well, do they belong to the union? Right. All right. That's the main question. So, all of the non-union people are covered under compensation agreements. So, like we have um confidential secretaries that pay the same amount as clerical as
065the clerical unions. Because they're lower you know, because of their wage. Okay. What what is the mindset of of offering the union benefits essentially to non-unionized employees? I guess that's what I'm struggling to understand. You're offering it the benefits to the employees, all employees, but not all employees fall underneath a union. >> [clears throat] >> Um, do that make sense? Right, but we're locking ourselves into a higher benefit cost annually by extending union negotiated rates to non-unionized employees. Yeah, everybody's getting the same coverage and everybody's paying basically the same amounts. But I think Mrs. Barletta is trying to figure out why. Is it just the compensation agreements? Like how how do we get to that where, you know, uh uh uh you know, call it, you know, the central office, you you guys aren't union,
066um I don't think, but there's the rates are matching what the union is. I think that's what she's trying to figure out why why that was aligned. Right. >> that right, Mrs. Barletta? That's that's correct. Yeah, I mean, because obviously there is a huge increase year over year with benefits. And while we can't control some of the benefits costs, we do have opportunities in other areas to help offset those increases. I can't remember, was there at one point where a condition of employment as a teacher compulsory union membership? No. Well, I'm saying at one point, not now. I know it's not compulsory now. So, I'm trying to think if that was if that's maybe a contributing factor. Yeah, I think it was just determined that like the executive level people covered by the compensation agreements
067would pay the amount of teachers. Since they were the higher earners, they would pay the higher rates because the teachers were paying the higher rates. >> straight groups. Right. Right now, technology group, the health services secretary, >> [clears throat] >> the accountant, they are That's And so then the the support staff and the um Professional support staff union. The principals. And they did the Act 93 agreements are for 5 years and I can't remember off the top of my head if the assurance Act 93 aligned with the agreement. It is. Correct. It is. I think it does it matches whatever the teachers are. I think this is part of it. Oh, it's the same for sure. >> Yeah, I thought so, but I mean, I haven't read it. >> far as her saying like how
068was it determined, like the higher paid people paid the higher amounts and the the lower paid people paid the lower amounts. Well, right, but there's a difference between a principal's salary and a and a teacher's salary. I mean, so if a principal is paying the same amount as a teacher, that doesn't seem to align in my mind. Yeah, and we we had two tiers of premium share. Yes, and only those two tiers were applied to the compensation agreements. There was not a third tier added at that time. That could be something to revisit once we come back to Act 93 negotiations when they When do they expire? 2030. 2030? Yeah, 5-year agreement. Yeah. So, we can So, that's something that >> year after the teachers, that's how it Yeah, so Mrs. Barletta, if that's something
069that you want to bring up during Act 93 negotiations, um that's something I think administration would at least be willing to entertain. Okay. Um, is there anything else, Mrs. Scott? Um, so that's all I had. I'm looking for direction as to how to proceed. Well, I I have a question. I'm I'm just going to ask. You've been doing this long enough that your gut reaction, you look at the budget, looking at, you know, the projected numbers, do you have a increase in mind you want to recommend, a you know, what what would you recommend to the board based on the data that you have today? Well, we have um one thing that I have recommended several times to the board and it's never been uh you know, a popular idea, is those um homestead farmstead
070increases cuz I understand that nobody likes a tax increase, but you know, nobody really expects a tax decrease. So, each time we've gotten those um uh it's actually today. On April 15th is when the it's the state gaming board, I guess, uh confirms the amounts and they let the uh department know um how much in funds they have to allocate to the homestead farmstead. And then uh Mr. Barletta will actually get a letter. It's um dictated by the um index as well, Act 1 index, by May 1st we'll be notified um what our allocation is going to be. So, when I see that that's going to be increased, you know, 300,000, 500,000, it seems to me >> [clears throat] >> like that would be a good opportunity. Um, we had 500,000 the first year, 486,000
071the second time it happened, 437,000 in the most recent year. Um, you know, like the school districts could use that money. Like we're not allowed to keep it. It belongs to the taxpayers, but to raise our um millage rate by an amount that would be comparable um to that amount of money, to me that would be simple. Because our lowest um you know, the the the property owners that were most concerned about, the ones that would would be most um affected by a tax increase would see no increase at all. Um, it would be a a net zero for them. And um but yet the the districts would get the benefits of um you know, a small increase. So, just in those 3 years, that would have been, you know, like a million three. And
072like I said, the the our most vulnerable uh would not have been impacted. In fact, you know, our taxes have gone down. So, we'll see. We'll see what comes through with homestead farmstead um for 26-27. We should We'll know that by the next budget meeting. Thank you. All right, Mr. Baker, you had asked something about the earned income tax and I did a little research here at the data point. It does look like there are some school districts that have higher than that 0.85. Most municipalities I'm seeing are locked in at that 0.5, but there are I'm looking at one that's saying Pennridge School District has an earned income tax rate of 1%. That's the school district portion of it. So, um there must be some way to raise that. I don't know if we've
073done that in your time here, Millicent, or prior to that Yeah, I think it's time Let's check that. >> to something. Occupation tax. That's what it is. Okay. Like, you know, I know it's still early. We usually don't have numbers. So, that's kind of what it's a little bit different here at the first meeting. For example, >> [clears throat] >> we had I think it was Mr. DeArmitt's presentation where we mentioned they knew that Mrs. McNair has asked to split the position and Mrs. Magnus at the junior high asked to split the position. When I say split a position, it's somebody that may have um the high school I'm sorry, junior high someone is teaching half day or at least some tech ed, some social studies. The what Mrs. Magnus has asked is to split
074that. Um, have one person do full-time tech ed and one person do full-time social studies. So, just so everyone knows, we don't add anything to the to the budget a position like that until we have a discussion. Sit down and and talk uh us this with the board and talk about that. So, that's what I see at the next meeting is talking about that a little bit. Um, now, with that being said, like a paraprofessional, you you could we could be asked asked the budget and October 1st, we could have a high needs students move into the district that needs a one-on-one service. That we cannot anticipate or budget. That's one we have to add after the budget's already been in place. But, you know, right now, I know, you know, some parents are if
075somebody's graduating, that student that needs a paraprofessional we're going to look and worry that that that slot could go somewhere else. Um Mr. DeYoung mentioned the personal financial management requirement is called um financial literacy. That's now a requirement. Um we're going to start doing that at the high school. So, that's going to have the business computer teachers are going to teach that. So, instead of teaching business English, they're going to have to teach um that's going to now be taught in our English department. So, there's some things like that we're looking at. On this sheet right here, um we have one kindergarten class being added at Indian Valley. Um trying to keep the class sizes down. Um You know, we're looking there might be by the next meeting there might be one um elementary teacher
076that we could off use offset that. Um I don't know. You have a bubble. When I say a bubble, um you might have a group of like like it's Strodes, that's the bubble. So, you know, a couple of class sizes that are a little bit higher than normal, so you have to have an extra teacher and sometimes they follow that person. They call that group growth. Well, we're looking at some numbers right now. Um we're seeing that we might have a dip in one of our elementary schools for next year. We're looking at some of that. And the big thing is like Strodes is really good this year. Um you know, people are watching. If you did not register your child for kindergarten yet, please contact the schools because that's the number we're working on.
077Um Strodes is a very high percentage of parents and guardians that that do their um kindergarten registration early. Just like Mrs. Canela, we don't know what we're getting from the state. We're also trying to budget kindergarten levels that we don't know how many kindergarten kids we're going to have. You go to Lewistown Elementary, those um parents um statistically historically have been one of the later ones to enroll their kids for kindergarten. So, you know, you're taking, you know, past previous year's data and trying to get history of what we're going to anticipate, but it's still early with some of these. So, so that does tie in directly to my thought process. For example, when you guys administration went back and looked at the teacher schedules when we had the whole conversation about the music teacher,
078[clears throat] you went back and basically made the schedule more efficient. It sounds like you're looking at that sort of thing now. >> but we we started having that discussion. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm hoping by next >> process. >> in. We're going to find some efficiencies is the And we're not going to you know, $2 [clears throat] million is not something that you know, we're not going to sound it. Yeah. And these are new. I mean, you got So, basically I mean, Jim has said, you know, one of his challenges that we've had that he issued to the administration um as a district, you you don't you want to avoid ever having a furlough. I mean, we did it during the merger. It you you just you you lose good quality people. Um you
079you it just doesn't it's not good for the district overall. But through attrition, you need to truly um every year retirement, [clears throat] we need to sit down um and see do we need that position to be filled. Um and we do have some The nice thing about the teacher's contract is >> [cough and clears throat] >> we have that in the contract where they have to get their incentive. They have to let us know by the Tuesday before the voting meeting in in um February. Now, that being said, we just had a resignation. Because they're not retiring, Mr. Earth. They're [clears throat] leaving. So, that was unexpected. So, you know, there there's things like that that we need to look at. And then like for example, the um Mrs. McNair at the middle school,
080um that math. I think that math is tied in with a computer. Okay. So, >> [clears throat] >> if we say as a board or administration, what can we do to help the middle school raise their test scores? Mrs. McNair came back and said, that's what she believes the instructional leader we need to do is to help is to split that position and and and help over there with that additional position. It's going to help the interventions. Um you know, then we got to come back and say, you know, at the end of the day it's like, all right, the board, the administration and here the board has to come up. You know, if that is going to help for education to get that teacher for Mrs. McNair or because it is increasing, is that
081something we want to discuss? And you just said there was a resignation, which in my mind could zero that whole thing out, right? So, if you need another person >> Yes. >> But if you need another person at the middle school like I'm hearing to help increase those test scores, now it's a give and take that you're going to have to So, I mean, that's the discussions we've been having this week. And then it's a high [clears throat] for the junior high because like, you know, I taught science, so you might be able to, you know, you teach, you know, a bio class, but you're chemistry certified, you also have to pick it up. Or by when you're it's a little bit easier to move around. When you start being land locked like at East
082like at uh let's say East Derry or Strodes, you only have three sections or two of a class, that that's a little bit tougher to So, that's the kind of things that we're going to talk about at the next board but I'm sorry, the next budget meeting, which is the 7th. Um I have a quick question. You go ahead. How many carryovers do you include in the budget for those teachers? Like you you include those in the budget, say five teachers, but we never fill those positions. You you include those year after year, right? Just to make sure you have it included in the budget. >> If they're needed, yes. But we don't fill them. We most of I mean, we said it, right? We we sometimes we just don't aren't able to fill them.
083Nobody applies, for example. Correct. So, that's in the budget. Yes, it's a gamble, throw the dice, whatever you want to say. Do we anticipate those carry carry through or have we included them for the past three or four years? Nobody's applied. Just say We're in a no win situation. >> Okay. We do have a school psychologist. That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head. It's been posted now for over a year. You see what I'm saying? So, you you have the budgeted money for that, but you've never filled them in three years. Just Just yeah, I'd be the one. Now, it's not like 100% budget savings because remember we came with the MOU and it used to be how many was it? Up to 25 days because we still
084have to do the evaluations. Okay. Subcontracted. We are. Yeah. So, then we talked to our the union came back and then our school psychologist go now from 25 extra days up to 30. We still are short. So, now we've had to subcontract with a school psychologist from Pittsburgh come in. He came in. He does some face face some online because we still aren't meeting. Is it a budget savings? Yes. Why aren't we hiring him on? He doesn't want to come here. Why doesn't he want to come here? He didn't apply. I mean, he he has a 1099, it's called. The days out there they're they make more money being an independent contractor. Yes. So, they're super high demand. >> We pay really well. Like you can talk to some of them. We bring them in
085on a daily well. I thought that was speech and language and That is what Yeah. They come in on a set 12 with a contract. I think it's 11 or 12. So, we pay pretty well to start out. We have a very nice benefit package, but you know, I some of them doing the 1099 thing, they make a lot of money. He $125 an hour. But we were out we were out of compliance. Now, We're out of compliance That's why we had to we had to bring that subcontractor on because we only had Oh, right. We had to bring him on. So, that's my next point. How many other places in or or other opportunities, I'll say, do we have where we can bring in a contractor? We don't play pay pieces, we don't pay
086the benefits side of it. We pay yes, the $125 an hour. True. Now, I'll go back to that's a violation of the union. That's why I'm asking. >> Yeah, no, it's it's a good question. So, like um it's an interpreter. Yes. So, we have an interpreter. We post the position every single year. So, we have an agreement with the union. We have to post it x amount of time for the next school year. I can post it right now for the '26-'27. If no one applies at the pay rate that our union has negotiated in, then we go out hire somebody for a subcontract for the year. That person's not our employee. They don't get our benefits, but they're a subcontractor. So, we just it'd be anti-union for us for if we would have said,
087"Okay, we're going to not fill these positions and automatically subcontract them." So, that's in the contract, right? Well, it's like taking work away from the union. You can't do that. But, if we don't fill it, we we have an agreement with the union we can use a contractor. >> I'll use my inner voice to answer that. Do you have similar positions currently? You can't do that. Like you like it's it's tough. I'm going to say the same thing on the maintenance side. I mean, if we would need extra help, we have it in short term. That's to be determined why it's just the answer. And we did have one What again? You're not All right. Yeah, she she was subcontracted for a year, but like what Mrs. Longenecker said, she actually came back then and
088did come here to be an employee then. And that's what saved us money. But, then she she wouldn't be getting retirement when you're a 1099. So, now she would get in here and be getting retirement system for PSSAs. There's a benefit to being an employee, but there's also financially it's Oh, yeah. Uh so, how long I missed that. How long did you say you have to post it under the union contract before you're >> would state like me um sign interpreter sign language. Well, right. But, generally [clears throat] speaking, you said you have to post that position under the union contract before you're allowed to contract out. Yes, we have an agreement with the >> is that time period? A year? No, it ain't long enough for that, is it? Well, for it So, for
089a normal position it's 10 days. It varies by position? That one because it was ongoing. I have to look that It was an MOU that we had approved by the board. Okay. That we would post it X amount of time. I have to look that up. That using as an example, the union knew and we actually we said at our union meeting today with the or professional support meeting and they said, "Hey, that position's still being" Mr. Sauer said, "Yeah, we could not find anybody. Look, you posted this year. Thank you." So, they know we're going to move forward and then the department most likely we had the the interpreter here last year contract service that the young student keep the same interpreter from the agency and be here next year. Well, I guess my
090final comment to this topic would be are any other areas where we can look at doing that? Like you Well, I don't know I off the top of my head I don't know what other openings are out there that are opportunities where you could post them, they don't get filled. Now, if you need that position, contract it out. See what I mean? If we can't fill a position, I would speak to the union. We can't fill there and we need to get something again in the short in the short term, not be a permanent thing. Yes. But, we have budgeted I'm just going to use the five number number five for example, Melinda. I'm not sure how many um of those positions are that you built into the budget. >> Mhm. Just say five for
091example. Um You could take those out. Yes, it's not going to be the $2 million, but if you have opportunities where you can contract them out, certainly you can save some of those positions. >> Well, we would spend more if we contracted the school psychologist all year, we would lose money. Okay. That's why I'm asking. >> No, no, it's Yeah. Okay. No, I like how you think. I mean, we're going [clears throat] to take the devil in the details. So, we need to do Yes. That And if with the school psychologist, that's kind of a a short-term fix so we keep in compliance. Yeah. This can't get all the evaluations done if someone wants to be evaluated for giftedness or a learning disability or someone who's in the district there's X amount of time, 60
092calendar days we have to get Yeah. Okay. 60 school days, I mean, sorry. All right. Do you want to know the roughly how much we spend on those PSSAs a year? Um it's in the $100,000. The total you find the cost for saving money when you get them We have a hard time filling substitutes as it is. Um and they're our service. I mean, and and and you know, they go through it and they'll they'll they look at like Mount Union, Juniata. Like we have a a short-term like Mr. DeFabio might have um someone going out on on a short-term leave. Whatever it was then. Um they'll shoot that out and try to find a short-term sub in and get that certified. Um yeah, they're kind of what districts have gone to. They're more efficient
093than we had it inside or I'm sorry, internal. Um you know, come back. Is it three? Like let's take three building subs for example. You know, before Esther's COVID money, we didn't have building subs. Now, we have building subs. Well, again, they're not teaching positions, but we'll come back to we want to do what's right for education. So, we'll pick on Lewistown Elementary School because they're a K-3 building and they have what's called title services. Okay? So, you have our most needy kids. If they are short substitute there that day, we would bring that substitute that building sub would cover that class or float. If we didn't have that building substitute, which you know, we've had the last five, six years in the budget, then your title teachers that are teaching title reading, remedial reading,
094remedial math, that would be doing small group interventions as this is a class. And I'll pick one sub. So, I need to come in and he's spending more one-on-one time with him. He's having a little bit of problem with his multiplication. So, I come in, I'll take him out, maybe someone else will go out and do some work on that, bring him back in. Mr. Harshbarger is not going to get that special attention if we don't have that building sub because the math intervention teacher or the title math teacher is covering a class in kindergarten because we're short subs. So, and then you have your short subs, you have you know, a a kindergarten class gets divided in half, half go to a third, third third third goes to kindergarten. And that's where it's a
095tough decision. Because we want to do what's right for education and I use the word the word erosion. You you got to balance this. I mean, Pardon me? Erosion. Erosion. Oh, I thought you said something else. I'm sorry. No, I mean, erosion like we don't want to keep pulling and pulling away from [clears throat] our teaching staff that we're going backwards with education. That's what it's a But, we this administrative team has to look if somebody's retiring, we need to replace that person. So, we're going out and getting this year. We want more than I said in May 7th. Okay. Yes, Mrs. Barlow. I just had a question looking at the personnel that is listed as new. Um going back to the PSSA discussions where I believe we were told that there would be additional
096staff requested to help uh hopefully alleviate the the dip in or the decline in PSSA scores and to support a strong testing pool. I'm just curious what positions outside of the Mifflin County Middle School math teacher would be supportive of those PSSAs especially at the junior high level or are there additional personnel that's moving internally that isn't a net change to the head count? Wish we had Mr. Bierman here. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> Can we wait to answer that question, Mrs. Barlow? I I have one Mr. Bierman. Yeah, but but it's easy for me cuz I did ask I asked Mrs. Bierman to explain to me how the math position is going to help with PSSAs and direct instruction of that. So, I did follow I did not have that discussion with Mrs. Magnus
097about the social studies um slash tech ed position that's being split. Um you know, Mr. Bierman would he'll he would know that, you know, for sure, but when we have our prior meetings to get ready for the 7th, um we're going to write that down and make sure we have that for clarification. Okay, yeah. I mean, and and maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that he mentioned that there would be three positions and and again, maybe it's just net moving in between classes and and what teachers are are teaching. Um What's the one? Because we had to add for personal financial literacy. Do you remember that, Mrs. Was that the the English teacher at the high school? Do you remember? Yeah, but that wouldn't have that wouldn't have anything to do with PSSAs because what
098I was referring to is we've seen the the decline in PSSAs at the junior high and my understanding was there would be additional teaching request or teacher request for staffing to offset that and better educate, prepare students for PSSA testing, but that to me is not supported here and I get this is just a very high level. We'll get a more clarifying answer and response for you. We will. Okay. Thank you. Uh is there any other discussion on our first uh budget workshop? I'm glad you guys are thinking about the efficiencies already. I'm glad you're fluid. I don't know how else to describe it. It's so fluid right now. Yeah, I understand, but you're thinking about it. I do. We can't go hindsight's 20/20, but what Mrs. Magnus Mrs. um Longenecker said, if we would
099have been able to do that the last three years, and nice it would be nice for this the nine board members sitting here. Mhm. That's what I'm saying. Let's get out very well, you know, outline that and benefit us. Is there any other discussion? Any other business that the board would like to discuss? All right. This meeting is adjourned. See you tomorrow night. Okay.