001surprised. All right. Let's see. Well, that's the rate. Oh yeah. Okay. Thank you and good evening everyone. We're going to call the this evening's finance committee meeting to order and we will start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Okay. Thank you everyone for being here. Um, we'll start off with an approval of minutes from the March 11th, 2025 finance committee meeting. Do I have a motion and a second? Second. Motion by Mr. Fusco, seconded by Mr. McBain. All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to items recommended for work session or action meeting. We'll start with the audit service RFP update. Yes. The
002uh the um back before I started, Mr. Rocky had solicited seven firms um to perform the to do our audit to respond to the RFP for the audit. Three firms replied or responded. Uh there were interviews conducted um with those three. Uh I was not involved. The your new CFO was involved since she'll be here when they they do it. And after after review and you see the bid summary was pretty close with two of them. They're recommending that the you continue with ZA. I'm not even going to pronounce that first name. Just call them ZA Associates. They were they were here before. The cost cost was an option. There was some there was also a an an additional cost that uh the BT Barbecue Thornton mentioned as part of their proposal. Then they weren't
003able to ascertain what it was. So given that ZA was lower anyway, but just a little bit that extra. So that's that one. If there's any questions on that, I'd be glad to answer. Um, any comments or questions? Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to move this item forward? So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Rash, seconded by Mrs. Stole. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Update on the Chromebook and desktop bid award. Okay. The on on Monday, that was yesterday, um we opened bids for the the Chromebooks and and um desktops and and Google licenses and and the such. Um so, they're currently analyzing those bids right now. You have the the sheets um attached there. Have not completed the due diligence portion of it. We anticipate
004we will have that completed in the next day or two. So, we'll be able to update that should you choose to put it on the board agenda for for for then. We're uh it looks like the Bloom with two use company will probably get most of it if not all of it. We're now looking at uh the one that is just a little bit different and not quite the specification that uh they they bid a substitute that that's what we're looking at right now. So So because the bids are are still being reviewed, the motion is to go ahead and move it forward to our next meeting. But at that meeting, can we just have a summary of where everything landed? Absolutely. Will will be for sure. And well, I'm assuming that the the um
005the bid summaries that you have will be updated and shared with us in advance. Absolutely. By doing this, this enables us to get all of the the equipment into our hands before this year is out. So, the tech department has a chance to image them and get them ready and put them out in the school so they're able to use them from day one. Okay, go. Yeah, go right ahead. Um, yeah, go now is fine. Thank you for asking. I have one question or request when that um when this is summarized and included in this spreadsheet. Could we also hear back be to be refreshed about what was included in the um IT budget for Chromebooks because I know that I know that we had that presentation on that budget. I think it would be
006helpful just to see what's budgeted versus what the actual bids are. Okay. Giving please. Thanks. Okay. Any other comments or questions? Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to move this forward to our next meeting? Second. Motion by Mrs. McMerry, seconded by Mr. McBain. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Budget transfers. The budget transfers for March are $231,000. $231,257. uh they're uh routine in nature and just used to adjust our spending during the year so that we can make sure that proper codes are being charged. Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to move this place? Okay. Motion by Mrs. Stole, second by second Mrs. Mc Merry. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Umformational items. Any updates from our student reps?
007No. You don't want to share an update on prom? No. Could I ask more guiding questions? Was prom fun? Honestly, the answer is yes. The answer is yes. No. Go ahead. No, not honestly. It was amazing. Good, good, good. Thank Thank you, Sh. [Laughter] Okay. Um, I'm going to hand it back over to you for the presentation. Looking forward to this. Okay. Me, too. Um, so it I told Joanna before this meeting, this will be the 41st budget I've presented as a business manager. Um, so some of you were probably very young when I did my first budget. Uh, but uh, so I'm I'm excited to to do it. It's uh, it's great. And actually, this budget was probably the easiest one because Mr. Shroy had it 99 and 44% completed till I till I
008got here. So, uh, tonight we're going to review go. I told Joanna I wouldn't hit her to to make it advance that I would just subtly say something like advance it now. No. Okay. We're going to we're going to review the budget, go over potential tax impacts and and start to get direction from from the board on on where you might want us to go with the tax increase. I did change the quote Steve had from last year. I my my quote's a little older than his. So, uh, you know, Ben Franklin, he's always quoted. So, let's talk a little bit about this. We're talking about the preliminary budget now. And I told Dr. Bower, I told Joanna before this meeting when I kind of liken my preliminary budget, it's like the prom. So, the
009preliminary budget is like a prom date. You kind of want to go with the person. Maybe you you you don't have to really like them. You're not going to marry them. Maybe unless you're Dr. Bower, then you do marry your prom date. But, um, it's something that, you know, you're going to work our way through until June and then then you'll have to to decide that this is what you want to live with for at least next year. So, the budget for for this current year is a little over 322 million. Uh, the first draft of the budget for for next year is $348,670,000. So that's as you see in the right column there, it's a uh um is that the right slide? Is there a slide before that? Yeah, that one. $18 million deficit
010between revenues and expenditures. We have 330 million in revenues, 348 in expenditures. Hold that thought for a second. Uh that's an 8.1% increase. It's a little bit inflated because you have $10 million in there to take out of your fund balance that we have to budget in in general fund expenditures so you can move it over to your capital project fund to help with that high school project. So 8.13% increase. Um going to the next slide now. You okay? So really, it's about an $8 million if you take out the $10 million that you're transferring over. It's about an $8,600,000 uh increase from uh this current year to next year. And and uh so it's really about a 5% increase. So let me uh while you're doing that, Mr. Linderman, I just want to reiterate
011for the board that so when we passed the parameters resolution, we discussed as a board to use $10 million from the fund balance towards the high school project, which a couple years ago was not the plan. A couple years ago, we talked about borrowing 20 or $30 million to kick off the project. Uh because we've been so fiscally responsible and of course because we've had some grant monies over the years due to COVID and such things. Um, we had $10 million that we are allocating. That $10 million must be reflected in this budget for next year. So, what you're hearing from Mr. Linderman is the the budget appears to be inflated because of a decision we made about taking 10 million out of our fund balance towards the project. Just want to make that can
012I say something? I just want to make it even simpler for people to understand a very important point. We are spending our own savings on the project at least in part right because we hear that a lot from the community borrow borrow borrow there is a significant portion of phase one that's being paid for by our reserves which in a family terms is a savings account right so that is happening I just want to be clear everything else aside that that is something that the district is doing so this slide here that 338 that you heard from Mr. Mr. Linderman, that does not include the 10 million. So this 5% that you're seeing in the preliminary budget is more reflective the previous slide with the 8% included the 10 million. So yeah, and this this
013would more reflect what we'll call the operating budget. The 10 million's going to a capital and you're you're correct and the better part of phase one is, you know, almost half of it's being funded by by your savings. uh and you were given credit for that by Moody's by emphasizing your double A1 rating. They how you you continue to to be kind of very fiscally prudent. So the next slide just kind of highlights some of the at a high level the uh the expenditure increase drivers. Salaries are up a little over 4% and that's in line with all your contracts that you have right there. It's about $6.7 million. um benefit increases is up a little more than you've had in the past. You're you're driven primarily by some pretty high increases in your um
014medical insurance for uh employees. Uh 14.8% and a 10.8% increase in your prescriptions. Uh, and that even counts that we're using about threequarters of a million dollars out of your self insurance um, uh, reserve to kind of make that a little bit more uh, palatable or it would be closer to 17%. So, um, that's where a big chunk of the money is. We're we are not the highest increase by far in the county as far as uh, medical increases, but we're pretty pretty high up there. So, uh, then the, uh, the charter school, you're you're actually kind of stagnant in your growth or your enrollment at charter school. It might even be down a little bit, but the in but the the, um, charter school, uh, tuition rate went from in 2324, you were paying
015$15,600 for a regular ed student to go to charter school. Now it's $17,800 for each regular ed kid student. And last year you were paying $39,200 for a special ed student and this year it's $43,900. So even with stagnation or you're down a couple students that fluctuates dayto day, but I call it stagnant, but you're down a little bit. Uh you're you're you have an increase. Uh doesn't look like as big of an increase as you've had in the past, but it's it's still an increase. And again, they there's still a lot of talk about cyber at least cyber u some kind of cyber relief at the legislative level. I will just encourage you don't hold your breath. I've been saying that for probably the last 21 budgets I've done. Uh there's always been something
016that they're going to change something and it never happens. So be great if it did, but So I have a question regarding utilities and utility cost. Is that I'm almost there. Oh, okay. Sorry. I'll zip it again. Um the tuition reimbursement, you contractually you you added some additional tuition reimbursement to the support staff contract and that's what's reflected in that. And IU transportation is up. That's the we contract with them for the special needs students to go kind of a lot of those are kind of singleton shots here and there to to uh specialized schools. Uh utilities is is is up as you can see. Um uh 725,000 of that is um electric and about 100,000 of that is natural gas. So now sorry I was talking about something else. You caught me. That's okay.
017So, the question is regarding the um the the contracts for utilities. Um is that anticipated to go up? Are they long-term contracts, short-term contracts? Well, we're we're actually getting ready to to to um get our pricing for contract through Provident Energy. I actually heard a presentation from them on uh Friday and it pricing is going up overall. Um so they they try to monitor that market and and get us the best deal. I use them when I was at Great Valley. We used them too. They did a pretty good job. A lot of times they were able to come in lower than before. We're just in a market right now where it seems like things are going up a little faster than uh than they're going down. Do we do a spot market ever? Well,
018that's they they monitor the spot market and they monitor they're they're they're with the they nyx market and um I can get you more information on that. Yeah, I'm just Well, again, because it is um a big driver and you know it's not much we control in terms of cost um and we're always trying to cut costs regarding that and lower energy use. just wanted to know um just a bit more about how what we're doing in order to try and keep those costs down. It be a great information session for you. We could probably even get some of the provident people to come in and explain to you. It's wouldn't doesn't take doesn't take much if you want. I mean I All right, we'll talk. Yes. Thanks so much. I don't want to take
019up more time. Thank you. Okay, so that's that's a big chunk of all the expenditures. You see the expenditure is up 26 million. I I won't I you know we talked about the $10 million already. So $22 million of that is explained. Now the revenue drivers um we have about we have a natural growth or kind of growth in our tax base of uh with real estate and interim taxes about a million dollars. Um we do have a little growth in our earned income tax uh not as much as you had last year but but we're projecting it to be a little bit higher. investment revenue. We're going to budget a million and a half more and and we still should be okay. We're I'll talk about this when when I talk about the uh
020projections in the reports that are down uh below this probably the last year you're going to be able to increase your investment revenue budget unless interest rates go ary again the the wrong way. Our our guess is they're going to continue to slope down a little bit. So, um, a lot better than you were doing five or six years ago when your total investment budget was probably under a million dollars because you were getting 0.001% something like that. So, our subsidies, basic ed and um, special ed, um, we took the PASBO recommendations and not the governor's budget. He's a little more aggressive this year in that. So if if it does turn out to be better, then you will just realize that next year like you're doing this year from last year's. We we had
021a little bit of an increase in that. And the the social security and retirement revenue is up. Um, and that's just up because your salaries go are up and and you know that your social security or your your retirement you you get a chunk of that from the state back even though you're paying 34% in retirement. Half of that comes back to you. You're paying 7.65 for social security. Half of that comes back to you from the from the uh from the state in a revenue. And that's why we have to record it as revenue. This is a history of your and a projection of your act one index. So you can see it's kind of hard to see. Probably should have taken a couple of those old years off, but we're at 4% for
022the act one index this year. Last year you were at 5.3. The next couple years it's projected the next year is projected to stay about the same and then it's going to looks like it's going to go down. Um so that kind of restricts what you're going to be able to do in the future. uh your fund balance. Um again, we said you have pretty healthy fund balance. Now, this this is at the end of last year, so 10 million of that committed to capital project. That'll go down a little bit this year pending our results of our operation for this year, which we think are going to be positive. So, uh that's good. We we did our unassigned fund balance is the one that kind of people focus on. That's uh I will tell
023you that Moody's does recommend 8% or or at least one month's uh uh expenditures. So you have 7%. Close enough. And the next, this is just a chart showing you you did uh at the end of last year, you you were able to increase your total fund balance and most of that went toward capital project uh designation. So, while I don't know what you're going to do in the future, you you you may have the opportunity to do something similar to what you're doing this year on the next phase of the project. And then percentage- wise, the next one is just a percentage of the of the fund balance uh through the those years. So now the the kind of the chart. Okay. Can I ask a a clarifying question that's going to take us
024back a couple of slides? Sorry, I didn't. Uh so to the fund balance breakdown I just wanted to clarify the 10 million therefore is coming specifically out of the 49. Right. Okay. And so once we do that and we go down to 65 then the unassigned it gets closer to the Moody's right. Well the unassigned fund balance is that that is your your unassigned fund balance is is a percentage of your budget for this year. Oh, of the budget. So that's a percentage of the $322 million budget. Right. That's So next year to be 8% you're going to have to be 8% of 348 million. Got it. Got it. Got it. Or 3% of 8 or 8% of 338 million. Yeah. So uh and again, you'll still have a good amount in capital projects. you
025do increase that self-funded assignment for self-funded insurance kind of yearly as as your your cost increase in health care. You got to keep a little bit larger uh amount in there for your kind of your safety net so to speak. So that and I'm not talking about that going up millions. That probably go up a hundred thousand or so maybe next year. But uh so Got it. Thank you. Todd told me I only had till 6:30, so you got four minutes in the No, he said you'll be done by seven. I said, "Oh, yeah, plenty of time." Uh, so here's your tax scenario. So um I mean the good news is you're you're well within the act one index um total to you know to balance the budget as it stands right now with no
026further additions or subtractions. And you really haven't talked about um um staffing too much. You have a presentation on that in uh May. So, but we'll do that. Um you really only need about a 3.8% increase as you can see because if you went to 4% you'd be over a little bit, but we are kind of strongly recommending you consider going to the 4% for for um a couple reasons. kind of in lie of the fact that you are embarked on a a 200 some million dollar high school project which I will tell you is desperately needed and you know you don't want to defer it anymore because every time you defer maintenance you are just adding cost um you know something you know a dollar today it's probably $2 tomorrow. So, um, the more
027you defer, the the more it's going to cost you. And you really you really owe it to your community to make sure your facilities are the best things, one of the best things around. It's it's kind of the center for most of your community stuff, especially your high school. I drove past it today. It's like I don't even know how they I don't think a kid could walk to that Waw Wa from your high school. Couldn't even get out of the building to that WAWA in a half an hour because your campus is just so big and nice. But uh so so and I would have been envious to have a Wawwa near our our high school. Our high school you went went across the street and you were at a corn field and somewhere
028you know just not a lot of had to drive. Um and and my son got caught doing that a couple times. So but that was 20ome years ago. He won't never know. So, and you so um you're going to need to you have a long-term borrowing um plan. Um and by going it's just a little bit uh 210 of a percent, it's not a lot, a little bit would actually help you mitigate it. When I say like a 264,000 next year is actually worth 528,000 the year after because it because you you have the the millillage in place. you would save the money because you would be instead of having you go back to the original slide where you kind of had a deficit budget the past two years, you would have a positive budget
029and just make sure you earmark it toward like okay here's a couple hundreds of a mill or tenth of a mill that we can put toward the next borrowing. So instead of that just just a recommendation from from uh some people that have done a couple budgets. So uh u so um you are still like the fifth lowest in the county in millillage. Not that that matters. I mean I you know I used to say this on at Great Valley we were always second. It kind of killed me because u and we weren't second to TE. Everybody thought we were second to TE. We were second to Westchester, which which was bad. Westchester had earned income tax. We didn't. So we always used to say we were actually the lowest, but we were always second,
030but we still were the whole the whole time. And you have 20 districts. Is that in Montgomery County? 22. 22. Fifth place out of 22 is pretty darn good considering the ones that are above you. I mean, they have some pretty big anchor corporate and stuff that uh you know, you got Merc, but uh I'm not sure what else is is that big. So, um next slide, the budget timeline. You did adopt this in October that you won't exceed act one. So, you can't go above 4% no matter what you wanted to do. Period. Um again your your your prom budget is due on May 15th your preliminary budget. Um and then um you will have you know and that can be this budget that can be some segment of this budget but it doesn't
031matter what matters really is the June 18th budget is what is what your final budget is that you have to live with. So, uh, so the next steps for you are decisions on staffing requests. Dr. Barrow will be bringing that to you next month, I I believe, right? Because when Mia does her presentation, um, retirements, we continue to monitor them. They are kind of up to date as far as everything that's in the budget right now. So, unless you got a slew of something new happening from here on out, uh, that that really won't do too much to it. we will need direction from you on, you know, what what the what you want your tax rate to be, what you're comfortable with, what you're not comfortable with. Um, and we will continue to refine
032and update the data as possible. And uh, you know, you know, hopefully the the final budget will be what you want. It'll be Tara will be here then, but I hopefully I'll have the I'll pass the baton off and you won't see me from around the corner and she'll run it home for you. That's great. Thank you so much. And um thank you so much to our um directors too for their um department budgets that are all feeding into this and so this is all part of a process that gets us to this preliminary budget. So, and this overview tonight um any comments or questions for Mr. Linderman or for Dr. Bower or items for discussion? Wow. Okay. Okay. Very good. We'll move on to um are we mailing the tax bills tomorrow then? No.
033No. We're not going to move that fast. Um Okay. We'll move on to the financial reports. Um Okay. I'm going to go through these kind of fast. The first one I'll take a little bit of time on. The rest of them are just kind of updates on on things. So, you did budget a deficit this year of 185,000 and we already know we're we're getting an extra million too from the state for basic and special ed uh subsidy. So, through eight months uh and through eight months we're we're a little $3.6 million ahead of our investment revenue. Earned income tax is about 800,000 higher. Uh transfer tax is the only budget I'm not comfortable on. It's one of your smaller budgets, but uh your housing sales until the interest rate kind of stabilizes or goes
034down a little bit, it's kind of been a little bit rough for for the transfer tax monies that you're getting, but we'll we'll see. Again, I I always preface it by that. Um so, we're currently projecting a um uh a positive net variance for the for the fiscal year of about $12 million. So, uh, with 8.9 million coming from revenues and about 3.6 coming from unspent expenditures. So, that's kind of where you stand right right now. I pause. Any questions on that? I'm just curious about the IU transportation, why that's increasing. I have to get you some more data on that, but there's there's a uh I probably should have asked before. That's that's okay. Uh the general fund financial reports, we're pretty much in line with about where we were last year on on
035on spending. And uh we're actually a little bit ahead on spending. Not much. 58.1% versus 56.8. and revenues are are are about in line. They're they're they're kind of dimminimous as far as the difference in numbers. Uh earned income. Can I just fly through them all and you can ask me questions on any of them or do you want to do them one at a time? Yeah. Okay. Earned income tax. Again, you have the the report there with the history. Um so we're we're we're in pretty good shape with that. The transfer tax, uh kind of seeing the tapering of sales. I said that already. So, uh we'll continue the again investment revenue is really on a good track for this year, but we are we are kind of decreasing monthly because the interest rates
036are about a percentage point lower than they were last year. This time we were closer to five and a quarter, five and a half for a lot of our investments. This year it's four and a quarter, four and a half. You can you see the investment uh u report there. So, school nutrition, I will just tell you, you have a great uh food service program, uh they they do well. Uh if you're opening a restaurant or something somewhere, you ought to hire them because they'll make you money. They they have a great thing. They they they do have a problem. They have to start spending some of their money, and there is a plan for that, upgrading their equipment, things like that. So, uh, the the short-term capital project forecast the, you know, you did
037approve a transfer from the capital reserve, 6.1 million that was done in September. Your current ALO unallocated balance is 9 a.5 million right now. So, you're in pretty good shape with that budget reserve, it's not changed at all since last month. There will be some changes coming up. We're going to have to there's going to be a transfer for the IU busing for this year that wasn't budgeted too. Uh uh that we're going to have to use some of the budget transfer for for 2425. Haven't finalized that because that doesn't get charged to us until the June 1st subsidy. It comes out of our subsidy and then you have the right to no log for for you. Thank you so much. Any questions on the financial reports? Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Linderman. Um,
038we'll move on to public comment. Um, and I'll go ahead and read the statement. Individuals attending this meeting and intending to speak to the committee should be aware that they are being recorded. In order to meet the requirements of of Pennsylvania sunshine law, it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the committee during the meeting. To asssure compliance with this requirement, it is essential that those planning to address the committee state their name and their municipality. As a reminder, the public comment portion of the meeting is designed for residents and taxpayers of the district to provide comment and feedback on matters being discussed at tonight's meeting or matters that may come before the finance committee. It is not designed for debate or discussion with members of the committee. When appropriate,
039committee members may choose to respond to public comments that have been made or request that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting. Members of the audience are asked to limit their questions and comments to three minutes. And this is in board reference uh reference to board policy 903. Anyone wishing to make public comment this evening? Good evening. Hello. Um, copsa, uh, town medicine township resident and, uh, township supervisor. Um, I just wanted to say I I do not like the way, um, children are usually talked about with respect to development and, um, the district's finances. Um, I'm a a North Pen grad. I took statistics and calculus at the high school and I'm very particular with the way um numbers are presented. Um, I I hear a lot about,
040you know, how many kids are going to be said to the school district um with new development, but that question seems to be missing. How many kids are becoming uh adults? Um, I have my North Pen uh ID with me. Um, grade 12 uh 2010 2011, which is uh scaring me a little bit how far away that is in in time. Um, I still live in the house that I graduated high school with. Um, there are no kids in in my household. Uh, when you're looking at new children, you also have to look at how many children are exiting the district. And um uh as far as like a calculus concept, the the rate of change for the number of school a children is negative for both uh existing households and uh new households. And
041I have um an insurance background and this like demographic analysis is uh very much in in my wheelhouse. Um, but when we're looking at the district, we also have to look at um where the facilities are located and a lot of your facilities are in Tal Manson Township or right outside of Talmenson Township's borders. And um it it does seem like there's less of a problem with Talmenson specifically um than uh a lot of uh the public would would seem to say. And um I'm thinking of of General Nash specifically, that's where I went to elementary school. That is a portion of the township we haven't seen much development, but a lot of our undeveloped lots are in um Nash's catchment or just outside of Nach's catchment. And I I think the school district does
042have the flexibility to to deal with uh whatever might happen there. Um and yeah I I my graduating class was 146 I think and um I think my brother's graduate class was the record and that was um 2005 or close to record. I know the enrollment was highest um 2006 or 2007 um and we just had flat enrollment for the last 25 years pretty much. So, um, and that's in spite of the overall population going up and you still have to pay for buildings. There's some minimum amount of staffing. Uh, there's an argument that taxes would get worse without development. And I I just want to keep that in mind. Um, on the township end, I love love all development. Um, I can lower taxes that way, but um, I know it's a little more
043complicated for the school district. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. say um and I think you did remind us that as we were leading into the planning of the high school renovation, we did do um an enrollment analysis and I think that you know I think keeping that at the forefront and and keeping that you maybe updating it um is something that we do need to keep um our mind on. So thank you for bringing that up. Good evening, Mr. Lineer. Uh Jason Ler Lansdale. Um I had a couple of questions that I came here with and then I during the presentation it a couple more occurred to me um regarding the budget kind of a generic one. Does the utility um expense increase include LPG for the buses or is that handled separately? I don't
044know if you that can be answered now just looking at the data that's that cost is going to be going up quite a bit. Uh and I know you guys do a good contractual uh future looking um budgeting with that but didn't know if that that included that. Uh second thing is is you mentioned the healthcare insurance going up. I thought the healthcare clinic was the whole point of it was to mitigate any health insurance increases. And if that's not working, stole shakes head. No, that's exactly what the purpose was. It was to mitigate the cost of insurance. That's what Sharaki said from the get-go is to mitigate those costs by not having people utilize insurance instead using the healthcare center. And if it's not working, why are we still doing this? Um, then other
045questions regarding cyberchart and there's been a lot of online conversation about this. There was a post uh by one of the board members saying that uh virtual Northpen virtual academy costs 6,000. Uh the North Pen for just traditional brick and mortar student is about 22,000. So that that saves you uh $16,000 roughly. But if you go to Cyberch Charter, it cost $18,000. So that's only a $4,000 savings. But I was told that's not correct. I want to know why it is that if they attend us the North Pen Academy, you save money, but if they go to charter, they you don't save money. And is it an inflection point where if there's just not enough kids going to either one, it's really not a savings, it's just an additional cost. meaning you have I don't
046know how many kids going to North the virtual academy but if you don't have enough going there it's actually just an additional cost versus mitigating the the outlay of 22,000 per year do you understand my question I mean that that's pretty logical and and if it is an addition to the 22,000 so then the virtual academy is actually $28,000 right so somehow there there's got to be more discussion about what the actual cost is and what the actual savings Because the way I look at it is if if you had a thousand students get up and go to cyber charter, right? That would cost that would that would save the district roughly $4 million because of the delta, meaning it charge cost 22,000 for them to go to brick and mortar. It cost 18,000 for
047for him to go to uh cyber charter. So that would be $4,000 a student times a th000 would be $4 million. If that's right not right, correct me on what I'm thinking. Thank you, Mr. Lineer. Dr. Bower, would you like to respond? Yeah, I think I can respond to both. I think the one will require a little more research on my end. Um, but the in response to the health care rates, uh, please keep in mind the healthcare center is exclusively for primary care. that is exclusively for someone going to just get a a physical, they have a cold, they don't feel well, it's primary care rather than going to uh your regular primary care provider uh or to urgent care or the ER because you don't have a primary care provider. So looking at
048health care rates uh because we are self-insured, if you have instances of high claimments in a given year, that can really impact your health insurance expenditure significantly. So, let's say you have uh we have roughly 2,000 employees to use a round figure and you have several people who have cancer. Um obviously the costs for those individuals are significantly more. So when you see an increase of 14% 17% in healthcare rates and Mr. Linderman said um that North Penn is not at the top of that list, not even close I believe was his quote. Um it that is the total package the total cost for healthcare. It is not primary care. when you break out doctor's visits, primary care, uh prescriptions that are covered at the healthcare center, that's when you can do the analysis on
049the savings or not. Um the last year's savings was $1.1 million as a result of the healthcare clinic. That was last year. I do not obviously have that analysis on this year, but we'll be happy to provide that when we conclude the fiscal year. Um regarding the cyber charter expenses, I think I understand the question. Um the real the real rub, of course we want our students to stay in the school district. And of course we want the cost of students and families who choose to leave to go to a cyber charter to be reasonable. And it has become more reasonable, but it is still not where public school districts would like it. The real challenge is uh the cost for students, special education students. It's a flat fee regardless of their disability. So, let's
050say a student has a speech impediment and they have an IEP for speech. We get we may provide services for that student, but a student with a more significant need um they cost the exact same amount. So, a student with a speech uh IEP who needs services for speech, those costs might be way less than a student with multiple disabilities and multiple services, but we get charged the exact same amount. Did you say $43,000? $43,000 regardless of it's just a flat fee for a special education student who goes to a cyber charter school. So, and then when you're talking about the per pupil expenditure, that is not your all-in cost. That's how much it costs to educate the child. But there's a lot of overhead in a school district, heating and cooling, buildings, energy costs,
051all these other things that we pay for, purchasing of vehicles, maintenance, all these things that are not included in your per pupil expenditure. So while you might say, okay, well, if the per pupil expenditure is $22,000 in district, but a cyber charter is $16,000 or I think Mr. Laneir, the figure he used was saving $6,000, that's not our all-in cost to run the operation of the school district. So even though that per pupil cost might be less, we still have those other costs that are not diminished by losing a student, if that makes sense. Um, so I did my best on that. I'm not the expert. Uh but I can certainly do some more research. But anyway, the real issue with the funding for charter schools is that flat fee for special education. We of
052course would like if we think we can educate a child virtually for roughly $6,000 a student, we would like that number, the 15,000 and the 6,000 to be closer. Um but it has improved and we're hoping that our local legislators continue to lobby for that to come down. So there you go. Thank you. I appreciate the the context and the depth and the completeness of your response. Um so moving on the items that we have that we will be mo moving forward to our next um work session or action meeting are the audit services RFP, the update for Chromebook and desktop bid award and the budget transfers. Our next finance committee meeting will be held. We have a meeting on April 22nd. That is our special meeting where we will hear budget more detailed budget
053presentations. Um, and that is where we will get into that granular detail that gets rolled up into this budget. Um, so super helpful in in being able to get those details. And then the next finance committee is on May 6. Both of those meetings are at 6:00 p.m. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Okay, great. Thank you all so much. Meeting is adjourned and I think we'll take a few minute recess while we transition. We have 10 minutes. Oh, we have 10 minutes. We'll take the 10 minutes. Okay. Thank you.